Winning disguised as losing disguised as winning.

Charlie Sheen. Hot topic in the news right now... hot enough to get autotuned by the same youtuber who brought you the now-classic line, "hide yo' kids, hide yo' wife." With any luck, "I'm not Bi-polar... I'm bi-winning!" will achieve the same cult status.

After being fired from the CBS show "Two and a Half Men," the actor has taken actions for a nationwide comedy tour, on which he will supposedly sit in a chair and talk for the duration of the show. Cool, right? Well, sort of.

Charlie Sheen seems to be able to get away with anything he wants right now. His behavior is so erratic, and so ridiculous, that anything he says is instantly funny, as evidenced by his Funny or Die! video. The man's goal to appear on every major network could happen, if he keeps this up.

The reason Sheen's comedy works so well is in part because the internet's not tired of him yet. It's fresh, creative. He has a series of key phrases, like "winning," "tiger's blood," and "warlock," but throws in random images through lines like "I only have one gear... go" and "I'm on a drug called Charlie Sheen." The audience never knows what's going to come out of his mouth, and with the addition of his "goddesses" at his side, he can keep the attention of viewers more interested in the bawdier side of his humor.

However, his "winning" attitude can only take him so far, because he's limited himself through heavy use of drugs and alcohol. We may laugh at his line, "I was doin' seven gram rocks..." and referencing an armless Mick Jagger (another heavy drug user), but in the end, unless the man seeks professional help, he will never be able to gain the respect of the American public. Don't get me wrong, he's gotten so much publicity in the past few weeks that he's going to make enough money to support himself for a while. However, his public relations are what's going to get him in trouble. PR covers both good and bad, and the details surrounding his being let go by Warner Brothers involve cocaine, alcohol, and a lot of property damage - not how anyone should want to be remembered.


Without the internet, Sheen wouldn't be recognized or celebrated for this sort of anti-humor made popular by sites like anti-joke.com and theonion.com. Even the phrase "win" and "epic win" stem from online games and offshoot sites like failblog.org. This entire episode in his life was made possible by, you guessed it, the internet.

Whether Sheen takes this new popularity in a positive or negative direction, he's got his 15 minutes of fame - and then some.

Born this way, or twisted out of shape?

If you haven’t seen Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” video, you’re missing out. I’m not saying this is the best music video of the year so far, it sure beats out the worst… (Rebecca Black’s Friday, anyone?) If you’ve ever listened to a Gaga album or seen one of her more controversial videos, you’ll recognize a few key elements as you watch - reference to religion, comfort with explicit homosexuality, and the nearly-nude leather-clad body of “The Gaga” herself.

However, this track is more about the fans and their place in society than the music. Nick Knight, director of the video and famous fashion photographer, provides a fresh (albeit sometimes revolting) take on Gaga’s public image (“mother monster”) through the use of birth scenes and idealistic population as metaphor for her ever-growing fan base. Something of a stretch... but come, on, it's Gaga. She treats her fans like family, calling them 'little monsters.' Unlike Rihanna’s S&M Video, which ignores her fan base but instead directly references multiple scenes shot by Avant Garde photographer David LaChapelle, Gaga hires an artiste director and creates an original work of art. whereas Gaga’s entire style is influenced by Madonna and the feminists of the 80s, rather than directly derivative in one instance (though internet critics like myself have found a similarity to Madge’s Express Yourself.)

The lyrics and the images don’t quite match up in this video.

The first, most pressing discontinuity between word and image is between Gaga’s message and her perfectly toned, flab-less body. “‘There’s nothing wrong with loving who you are,’ she said, ‘cause He made you perfect babe.’” Of course the artist is physically perfect, and conveniently fits into the body shape deemed “acceptable” by today’s sex-crazed society. While another chorus leads us to understand the main theme to be tolerance and acceptance of sexual and racial differences, she’s sure as hell not saying it’s okay to be fat or ugly. She missed the mark on that one.

Another disjunction of image and meaning is in the juxtaposition of the Mother Monster character and her awkwardly-worded narration, and the meaning of the song itself. “...But the birth was as the wombs numbered and the mitosis of the future began, it was perceived that this infamous moment in life is not temporal, it is eternal, and thus began the beginning of a new race within the race of humans.” Yeah… okay, Gaga. I believe you. A new race… in space… and we’re supposed to be able to put ourselves in your position and feel like us viewers, too, can be without prejudice? Are you the mother referenced in the first lines of the song? Or are you playing God to up your fame? Either way, I feel belittled (or be-fattened, as it may be.)

Gaga is working constantly to help people feel better about themselves, through her constant work for the formation and support of LGBT groups, as well as less fortunate people like those in Japan’s recent earthquake disaster. However, her video, while presented in a fresh manner, leaves her ultimate message falling flat because of her overly conceptual mixed signals in word and image.

Hi, I'm a Mac. and I'm a PC.

Words you've heard before, I assume. These mac ads are, well, funny! However, they use a biting form of humour that isn't always the nicest to those engineers who have worked tirelessly since the mid-80s and before to create a near-perfect machine that can perform laborious tasks in much less time than it would take by hand. The attitudes taken by each reflect the attitudes of users of each operating system.

I've been using mac products since I was 2 years old. You might say there was no way I even comprehended what a computer was at that age, but hell, if you can read, you can use a computer (and damn straight I was reading at that age!) My mother ran a business in the spare bedroom and I'd imitate her on the second computer, putting my feet up on the desk and leaning back in the executive office chair... Oh, the days.

Since then, I've developed from a kid obsessed with flash internet games and fun filters in photoshop to one who likes to edit, build up, and organize my music and photo libraries with ease. But couldn't I do all that on a PC, too? Most my friends have PCs, and of course the various brands within the realm of PC have distinct traits, but what makes me different from them?

My question is, then, what makes a Mac person? A PC person?

A Mac person is, well, like me. No time to muss or fuss, no planning out of fancy frilly projects ahead of time. Let me jump in and enjoy life when I want to!

A PC person is much more calculating, likes math, and likes to know (and be able to change) every little detail about a project. Much more inclined to mathy things. And sports.

The website hunch.com, which analyzes users' tastes based on a series of simple yet specific questions, ran a study to determine the differences between Mac and PC people. A few conclusions:

• Mac people are more likely to see the existing world in a light of "sameness" and thus express a desire to be perceived as different and unique. This is consistently reflected in their aesthetic choices such as bold colors, "retro" designs, one-of-a-kind clothing, and highly stylized art.
• PC people are more likely to see the world as "different enough already" and appreciate "being in tune with those around them." This is reflected in their more subtle, "mainstream modern" (neither retro nor extremely contemporary) design choices and their practical choices in clothing, footwear, and cars that favor getting the job done rather than making an overt design statement.
• Media choices and preferences vary greatly between the two groups, with Mac people trending toward more independent films, specialized comedians and design-centric magazines, and PC people trending toward more mainstream alternatives as well as sports.
• From a personality perspective, Mac people are more likely to describe themselves as "verbal," "conceptual," and "risk takers," with PC people countering that they are "numbers oriented," "factual," and "steady, hard workers."

Sounds like there's a serious divide here. In fact, I merely mention the mac vs. PC debate on facebook, and within five minutes, my oldest friend responds: "One of those groups consists primarily of drones who don't think for themselves. The other group prefers to buy PCs."

He would say that. He's a PC person!

I hate to say it, but this is a gap which cannot be easily closed. I will fight him on the topic of mac vs. PC until we die, or until he converts to mac. It could just be that we have completely opposite personality types... but I prefer to think of him as a nerd who likes math instead.

By no means am I saying that Mac and PC people can't be friends. It's probably best that there's variety in the world. Who's going to get into a war for Mac supremacy? Okay, I considered the thought for an instant, but I'd rather get into a fiery debate than a war.

When it comes down to it, Mac people and PC people are just that: people. We're all in the same boat, and at the end of the day, the computer will always outsmart the user. Unless the user is Stephen Hawking.... but that's another blog post in itself.