Global Currency?

The world, whether we like it or not, revolves around money. Take a look at the underdeveloped countries and the developed ones. The major difference is usually living conditions, which inevitably circle back to money. So the question arises: “Why not have a single global unit of currency?” I’ve had the thought before but, as humorously as it seems, Stephen Colbert’s show from last Thursday caught my attention. He talked about the US joining the EU, which is quite a bit different than what I’m talking about now. However, it does pose an interesting debate. So that being said, and before I get into my details, I want you all to know that this has been brewing in my mind for only a few hours now. In other words, I’m not an economical or political or any kind of expert. This is just a simple citizen’s perspective and findings on the matter.

So let’s start with the Pros:
First of all, there are roughly 190 different currencies in the world. Simplifying that down to one create far less of a hassle.
There would be no real national currency crisis. Our (the US) economy is in the shitter. There’s no way around that anymore. A Global Currency that is mandated to keep inflation low would boost our economy as well as keep it somewhat stable in the future.

Now the Cons:
If, for some reason, there was an economic slump in one specific country, that country could not use their monetary system to adjust for it.
Also, I’m sure there would be significant protests from some American (any maybe other) citizens that wouldn’t want to trade the dollar, the dollar that they’ve used their entire life, for something new. Another problem would be how it would be governed. How would it work? What would effect these prices?

Obviously there would be some things that would need to be known internationally for this to work, but systems like this have been popping up all over the world in recent years. Most notably is the Euro. But there are other places doing this too. The Caribbean Community (most of the islands in the Caribbean along with some South American countries), the East African Community (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda), West African Monetary Zone (Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, possibly Liberia), and ASEAN +3 (Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, People’s Republic of China, Japan and South Korea) all have a proposed currency. There are even talks of Mexico, the US and Canada to share a similar currency. These would be a great way to get the world started on something that could be an eventual possibility.

So what are your thoughts? I’m sure you’ve thought about it before, and if not, well here you go. If you have any other knowledge on the matter, or just simply want to state your opinion on it, please comment.

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Sources:
Are you ready for a global currency? by David R. Francis (a bit outdated, but the basis for most of my info)
‘Currency’ Wikipedia article
‘United States dollar’ Wikipedia article
‘Euro’ Wikipedia article

Best Ending of a Night Ever?

I would sure say so.

So we’re just chillin’ in my garage at around 2:00 AM as we were playing some ‘games’ in my garage.  We hear some police sirens, and we looked out the window.  One of the guys there says “Is that a high-speed chase?”  And it was.  We look out and see the cop speed by and think “Ah, darn we missed it…” but the guy came back around the block.  We see him speed by my house with the cop right on his ass.  The pickup being chased goes sliding around the corner and comes to a complete stop about a half-block away and the guy gets out and starts running through the block.  We all get out and stand on the sidewalk to watch.  One of the cops came over and asked us if we saw anything, so we told him what we saw and they go looking throughout the block.  We moved over to my neighbor’s porch (who was also watching this all go down).  We saw a girl get taken out of the passenger side of the pickup and put into an ambulance.  One of the cops came over and asked us a few more questions and told us how it all started and some more details (that he probably wasn’t supposed to tell us).  We B.S. with him for a little while and then he gets a call and says that they know where he is.  He then tells us where they found him so we can go over if we want to watch, which we obviously did.  We walked over a few blocks and sat on some benches as the guy gets arrested and put intot the back of the cop car.

Overall, I would say it’s a great ending to a pretty fun night anyway.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno Teaser!

For any of you who are unaware, the new movie from cult master director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, etc.) entitled Zack and Miri Make a Porno staring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks is set to drop sometime this fall.  Being a huge Kevin Smith fan, I’m super excited.  So much so that I stayed up until 2:00 AM just to catch a quick glimpse of what to expect from one of my top five most anticipated films of the year. 

The information of the teaser trailer, which was rumored to surface well over a week ago, was posted on Kevin’s MySpace earlier tonight and said to check back at midnight.  Of course, midnight was going on west coast time, which means I got to wait an extra two hours for it to show up here in rainy ol’ Minnesota.  But you know what?  I found stuff to entertain myself for the two and a half hours between the time I found out until then, and I must say I’m glad.  The teaser is only a minute and fifty seconds long, and includes no footage from the full theatrical release, but it made me even more excited about the full trailer (that’s rumored to be released with Seth Rogen’s other summer flick Pineapple Express).  Here’s the piece of footage I lost hours of sleep waiting for.  Enjoy.

Aged Reviews Section Opens

So this has been bothering me for a while.  I’ve noticed that not all of the movies that I see are brand new, therefore I have been deciding not to review them.  However, recently I decided to start a new category in this blog that will be solely for the purpose of reviewing the films that may have been out for a while.  Now, I’m not going to review the common movies that I watch all the time.  It will be strictly for movies that I have recently discovered that are a bit aged.  Some of these will be the classics that I just never got around to seeing, and some will be the weirdo movies that I like to watch by myself because I have awesome taste.  Either way, I hope you still read them (if you’ve been reading any of them, that is), and I’ll keep pumping them out.

-Cory

Why Can’t We All Just (Musically) Get Along?

Being the insanely large nerd that I have become, it’s exposed me to a lot of really awesome music, as well as some stuff I’m that I don’t find so great.  Over the past, oh, I don’t know, three years, my musical taste has evolved in ways I never would have imagined.  And I love it.  If it wasn’t for the music I listen to, my life would be so much more boring.  I mean, I’m listening to music as I’m writing this, right at this very moment (Autumn’s Monologue by From Autum to Ashes).  I also moved to Minneapolis for school back in October, and being around different people and knowing people in bands has exposed me to even more, sometimes different, music.  And over all of this time, I’ve come to realize that people can be extremely closed-minded when it comes to musical taste.

If you have, or for some ungodly reason want to, read my post The Art of Going to the Movies, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of people that try to influence their tastes on others.  This post is a similiar idea.  I’ve dealt with this in all forms for media entertainement.  From movies and television shows, to music and books.  It’s really the same thing everywhere you look.  People have their own opinions and tastes.  It’s a fairly easy concept to grab, for for some people they just don’t get it.  I love having a diverse taste in music -From Autumn To Ashes to The Matches is a pretty odd transition- and I have that same diverse taste in movies and television as well (not so much books, but I don’t read often).

The source of my research comes from a variety of sources.  One of which is the multitude of insanely stupid internet threads that get cluttered with people bitching and moaning over what “real [insert genre]” is and how people have bad taste in music, and how theirs is so much better.  The other source I want to source is the show I was at last night.  It was a show with a metal headliner, but two hardcore openers.  These two preduce two very different moshing styles.  And, of course, one band was a bit of both so the two styles got mixed and people didn’t react all that well.  I don’t understand why people can’t just let each other do their thing and let it go.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if you like a certain kind of music, and someone around you doesn’t, or vice-versa, just let it go.  It’s stupid to fight over something that’s so highly opinionated.

Thanks for taking the time.  Drop me a comment or something.

-Cory

My Musical Endeavor for You All

As much as I love music, I don’t really ever just sit and listen, and not do much of anything else. Tonight (or this morning really), however, I did. I have the Dream Theater: SCORE – 20th Anniversary Tour DVD laying around and I felt like throwing it in.

The track (chapter, I guess…) I landed on was the epic 42-minute track Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. I’m going to assume 99% of you are not familiar with this work, but if you ever get the urge to sit and listen to a long, amazing work of musical art, I *highly* suggest this. It’s 42 minutes broken up into 6 separate stories, each narrating the story of a person afflicted with a different mental illness. So I say, go somewhere and buy it or, hell, even download it. If you’re ever sitting around, or maybe laying in bed, give it a listen. It’s not only amazing when it comes to musicianship, but the song-writing is deep and outstanding.

Lyrics
Descriptions

Kids Are Americans Too, So Let Us Use Our Fre Will

Ok, if any of you know me, you know that I’m not really a political person. In fact, I usually don’t give a flying feck about politics. But, I did just read Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You!) so I think I’m pretty well knowledgeable now (kidding…).

However, something did get me a little politically riled up today. I was watching The Tonight Show (which is a wonder in it of itself) and Jay had Bill O’Reilly on and he was promoting his book Kids Are Americans Too.  On the show he makes a statement that, when he goes to the mall all he sees is kids on iPods and such and that they don’t care about their country and they don’t give back to the country.

Now I do understand what he’s saying, in downtown Minneapolis you can’t walk 3 steps without seeing someone with earbuds in.  Be it a college student going into Target, or a middle-aged woman jogging down the street, almost everyone is listening to something.  But I don’t agree with him at all about the rest of his statements.  Yeah, now-a-days there are kids who could care less about this country and the way it does what it does, but for the most part people do care, they just don’t flaunt it so much.  I’m sure when Bill was in his late teens he was being approached by some faction of the military and was seriously thinking about joining (he may actually have, I don’t really know).  So, yeah, I can’t say I would ever personally go out and join the military, but I would say that I’m a pretty good Patriot when it comes to general terms.  I just think that there are more ways to be a Patriot then flat out flaunting it all day, everyday.  So if Bill O’Reilly wants to promote the fact that Kids Are Americans Too, let us exercise our First Amendment rights and show how we want to be a patriot in our own ways.

-Cory

New Site/Blog (MySpace/YouTube) Layout!

If you couldn’t already tell, I changed the look of my site and blog (and if you happen to check out my MySpace or my YouTube pages). All of the graphics were made by me. The color was somewhat taken from Astheria.com, the personal portfolio site of a friend of mine Kyle Meyers. I believe that this re-vamp is the sixth in the history of my site (dating back to the cornlordgraphics.tk or whatever days). I’m happy with this one, but we’ll see for how long.

–Cory

The Art of Going to the Movies

First off, I would like to say that this is not a guide to seeing movies. Nor is this based on any really study or research. It is just an observation that I have made over the past few years of going to movies and reading other people’s reviews of them.

The first thing that I have noticed is do not believe every review you read (though this may be dumb to say since I write them on this site). Not all movie reviewers are in the same mind frame that you are when you see movies. I believe that people that get paid to see and critique movies don’t go to them to watch or even enjoy them. They simply go to watch for what’s wrong or to pick out every small flaw of the movie. This could also be said about movies that have received high praise from critics. Movie reviewers, while looking for what is wrong, also look for stuff that nobody ever really cares about in movies. When was the last time you left a movie and said “Wow, I really like how they used the camera angles.” or “The director really made a wise choice with that setting selection.” I don’t think I’ve ever said that.

Along with reading, don’t believe everything that you hear either. Just because one of your friends says that a movie “sucked” doesn’t mean that it was as bad as they say. I could’ve just been a movie genre that they’re not the biggest fans of. It could also be that the person has a completely different taste in certain movies. I’ve noticed this the most when a girl/guy is telling a guy/girl whether a movie is good or not. Different genders tend to have different views on certain movies.
This brings me to my next topic, hype. Even if a movie looks AWESOME! in the trailer doesn’t mean it’s going to be. You can’t go into a movie with the highest of expectations. I know that it can be hard when it comes to some. And sometimes, when there is lots of hype, there is little disappointment. But, most of the time, if you go into a movie with an open-mind you will get a more honest view of the film. For example, a movie that is nominated for Best Film or Movie of the Year doesn’t mean that everyone in the entire world will think so. Or, on the contrary, if a movie is heralded as being a horrible movie by film critics, you may find it to be one of the better movies you’ve ever seen. I figure that if there is a lot of hype for a movie you will either be a.) blown away by how good is its; or b.) completely disappointed.

Basically, what it all comes down to is this: BE YOUR OWN CRITIC! Don’t go to a movie because some middle-aged guy at a newspaper (or because some stupid teenager at his computer *hint hint*) says it’s good, or because it won some prestigious award. Go to movies that you think look good. If you friend thinks a movie looks dumb, but you think that it doesn’t, go anyway. If it ends up to be bad, agree with them. If it ends up that you loved it, don’t feel stupid when you disagree with them.

This may have been a complete waste of your time (and maybe mine…) but I felt like getting it out there. Our culture is filled with glorified crap and overlooked works of genius. Get out there and experience it for yourself. Don’t let some writer, or anyone else for that matter, tell you what you do or do not like.

–Cory

My Downward Spiral into Nerdiness

I’ve come to realize that I spend entirely too much time on the computer. Ive traced back to my early days and I think I’ve found the chain of events that lead to me to the nerd I am today. I mean, back in the day, the only thing I did on the computer was play games like Rodent’s Revenge and Rattler Race and go on MSN Messenger. Today, I’m on the computer every moment of my free time, almost. Now, I’m on forums, I mess with Messenger, I create graphics and I have my own website and blog. What the hell happened!?

Well I’ll tell you.

It all really started with getting the internet and downloading BearShare to download music. Later I was introduced to eBaum’s World and the great invention of Flash animation. So one day, after me and a friend watched A Nice Day to Die 2 and heard a cool song. We watched the credits and found out it was called Spit It Out by Slipknot. So, we did some searching through BearShare and found some songs, and later, videos (as these Slipknot people are a bit strange).

Well, after that I really got into Slipknot and started joining some web forums. I finally decided that I wanted to start my own Slipknot fan board. But where to do it? InvisionFree, that’s where. So I registered the forum and got everything set up but it looked like crap. I needed a skin. Where to do that, now? Well that you’ll find at InvisionFree Skin Zone. So I decided to look into it. After being there for a while, I realized that the graphics being produced were really cool, and I was sick of requesting stuff. I ‘acquired’ Adobe Photoshop and started out making my own stuff. Later, I joined the art community deviantART and started getting more involved in my art. Now I spend most of my time on the computer and about 50%+ of that time I’m in Photoshop making something.

Another side-track from that story is what I do almost 100% of the time that I’m on the computer, and that’s listen to music. I used to be just a mianstream rock kind of guy. Nowadays I’m into a bunch of crazy genres and bands. I have the Skin Zone to thank for this, also. Being at the Skin Zone allowed me to meet a lot of new people, most of which listened to odd music. I wanted to check this stuff out and started looking around the internet. I was introduced to BitTorrent files, and from there to more forums about music. Now, I’m constantly looking for new new bands and new albums to get.

So that’s my story of the last two years. I really haven’t done much of anything with my life since then, and I blame the internet! But at the same time, it’s has definitely opened my eyes to be more artistic and musically-conscience. I would have to say, as horrible as it may sound, the internet has made me a much better person (maybe not personality-wise, I’m still an ass).

Well that’s my random, stupid blog post. If you’ve read this far, wow, get a life.

Cory Angen