Su and I swung by the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) launch party in NYC yesterday (although she will never admit it).

I immediately regret not bringing my camera for epic nerd moments, which included

• people shouting XBOX!!!!!!!
• people chanting “MODERN WARFARE *clap clap, clapclapclap*”
• people arguing Halo 3 vs. MW2
• a DJ mixing the theme song to “The Price is Right” while encouraging people to buy the game
• people asking what was going on, and me flatly responding “it’s for a video game….yeaaaaaaahh….”
• a Hummer as a raffle price for pre-orders, even though the target demographic most likely can’t drive
• free extra-large T-shirts and a coupon for free Doritoes…no comment
• some creepy dude who thought I was in the marines, and Su was some kind of ninja assassin
• a guy pretending to play the game and equip imaginary weapons while waiting in line (he looked like he was 30 years old)

All in all, it was an…interesting experience. We got a chance to go inside and try the game for ourselves with “Spec-Op” or some kind of 2-player co-op mode.

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I was going to lump this in with my recent post about a similar subject, but when I started looking at videos I decided it deserved its own post.

I was in the gym today and heard a cover of the song “Time After Time,” and I thought “…really? Really.”

First, here’s the original:

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I heard a song on the radio today from a pop punk band. They formed around 2000 and are still around today. They played a song which they just released this year.

I was excited because I think I finally found a radio station that plays new rock.

But wait a minute…it sounds……

…familiar.

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You may have noticed by now my on-going rant about unoriginal ideas. It’s starting to sound like I’m copying myself at this point. Oh the irony.

I’ll keep this one nice and short though. This one is about music, and there’s plenty of things about this on YouTube:

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This is kind of a spin-off of my previous two posts about stories.

I had a brief discussion with Mike about stories. He said one could argue that any story had a “good guy vs. bad guy” situation - even in the news. He gave the example that most news stories have a victim or someone you are rooting for. I agreed with it and the conversation went on with its usual tangents.

I didn’t remember the conversation until recently, when my eyes darted around and saw this headline:

Wow, talk about villain. It was like I could see a bunch of news articles floating in my head:

“The guard donated money to children. Children with diseases.”
“That guy who shot the guard? White supremacist.”
“Neo-Nazi”
“Suicide bomber”
“Speaks german”
“Eats babies”
“Clubbed a seal”
“President of Rosie O’Donnell fan club”
etc

So I went further into news to see if I could dig up anything that sounded like hero-worshiping or villain-demonizing. Here’s just a few:

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Here’s a little something extra for those of you who enjoyed my first post on a similar topic, specifically the “redemption hero.” I mentioned briefly that a lot of ideas borrow from classic literature and mythology; for this post I’m going to expand on that idea with the “journey” story.

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned “The Odyssey,” which is an epic poem about a journey (even the word “odyssey” means journey) and is the most basic of all stories - someone or a group of people have to go somewhere. That’s it. You can’t get simpler than that.

Before we get started, I’d like to zip over to the East. Don’t worry now, I’ll take you back.

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Everyone has noticed by now the flurry of Hollywood remakes and franchise reboots (Indiana Jowned, Last Poop on the Left, X-Men 4, Friday the 430th, ad nauseam….). There’s even talks about rebooting other franchises: Teenage Mutant Ninja Poop, Superpoop, Poop to the Future, etc, etc….

There are no more original ideas.

It goes beyond this. Before movies were franchises. Waaaay back.

Have you ever heard of the expression that all modern stories are basically derived from things like the Odyssey or the Iliad?

It might not be a fair assumption though. The original epics were basically compilations of stories from various people; they began first as oral tradition until people invented writing. The claim that it was written by some dude named Homer is pretty much bullshit.

So let’s cast that idea out. I’d like to broaden it up a little bit and claim that all modern stories are based off of ancient poems (or the more general theory, “anything you’re thinking of, doing, or making, someone has already done it”). I’ll use my favorite story as my example, which I like to call the “redemption hero.” It tends to be a favorite, so it’s not surprising that modern interpretations of it do so well.

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