Photoshop Has Ruined My Generation
Whenever something spectacular is captured on camera, or a particularly dangerous feat is done by a stuntman, the inclination of everyone in our culture is to shout out, “That’s Photoshop!” or “That’s CG!” Granted, when you’re watching Lord of the Rings and Gandalf is having his Battle of the Wits with the fiery creature, chances are that’s probably not real ... In fact, I believe he was talking to a tennis ball when they shot that. Regardless, for situations where the actor actually does his own stunts sans strings, harnesses, or special effects of any kind, I feel bad, like in any Tony Jaw movie. Nobody will believe that they are actually capable of something so amazing. And, come on, for some people that’s the talents that God has gifted them with, and we refuse to even recognize them!
Here’s another thing I’ve found interesting. Photoshop has become a verb, much like Google. Many people neglect to realize that Photoshop is an actual program made by Adobe, not a style of graphic design. I continually hear people saying, “That’s okay, we’ll just Photoshop it out later,” meaning they’ll trim the picture, or adjust the lighting, or maybe use some other photo editing application (i.e. Fireworks, Gimp) to edit something in or out of a picture. “Photoshopping” is just a catch-all term for editing a picture these days.
Here’s another thing people don’t quite realize. Almost every picture you’ve ever seen has been Photoshopped. Sorry to burst your bubble. They’re all airbrushed, manipulated, corrected in some way. Anything in a magazine, anything on a menu, anything on a website, anything on a billboard, any desktop background you have. The issue is, when you see something truly beautiful and you try to capture it digitally, you almost never can. The artist will then go back and manipulate the image using Photoshop or a program like Photoshop to make all the prettiest colors and shadows stand out just the way they wanted them to or remembered them doing when they saw the scene with their eyes.
So when somebody looks at the chalk art on the sidewalks and exclaims, “That’s Photoshopped!” they’re probably right. But not in the way they think. The content of the picture is 100%, but the vivacity had to be added in digitally.
It’s gotten a lot worse as of late now. It seems that even natural phenomenon, fractured light, and optical illusions that truly exist but are hard for your mind to concentrate on are all written off as Photoshopped. There’s no way anything like that could ever really exist in the world, right? It’s a shame, because situations like that where we’re skeptical even begin to diminish the genuine uniqueness of God’s creation and the masterpieces he’s designed for us that are supposed to baffle us.
Still not convinced? Just go to YouTube and watch any video of something spectacular. Scroll down and read the comments. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The guys that did pull ups off a crane without a harness. An fighter jet breaking the sound barrier (not to mention the dispute over what kind of fighter jet that is). This kid doing an awesome job of playing the Hotel California solo. Or this kid’s completely amazing guitar solo that I think he wrote! My generation is just so horribly skeptical, it’s ridiculous.
Now, when I’m watching a movie, I’ll analyze it to death and determine something must be CG just as much as the next guy. I’m not saying it isn’t, because especially in todays digital movies, it probably is. I just think it’s disappointing the extent at which we write off almost everything we see these days as fake. There are truly amazing sculptures and scenes in this world, and even things that don’t relate to art and the visuals, and it seems that Photoshop has ruined my generation by making us skeptical of almost everything we see. It disappoints me. I prefer to give everything the benefit of the doubt.
Is This a Real Ticket?
The day was Sunday.
I make note of the day with significance at the start of our story because I think there should be a certain respect for this day of the week. It is, after all, the modern-day Sabbath, and on this weekly ritual I believe grace should abound. Sadly, The Greene disagrees ... Sort of.
Following a lovely service at Apex Community Church in Dayton, a group of somewhere between fifteen and twenty of us (enough that I didn’t think to count) went decided to go to BD’s Mongolian Barbeque to both celebrate and mourn our last Sunday service together for the semester. That’s right! In just five short days, on Friday, I will be taking my last Final Exam, finalizing the end of my Sophomore year at Cedarville University, and driving back to Iowa for the Summer! But I digress. BD’s.
A fantastic restaurant which I highly recommend. It’s one of those Mongolian-style restaurants where you put all the meat, noodles, and vegetables you want into a heaping bowl, pick three or four sauces and spices to top it off with, and hand it to a guy in a sweet hat to watch him cook it up for you on a massive grill with twenty other people’s meals. Not only is a fun experience, it’s a delicious adventure.
The BD’s we went to was around the Greene Mall, so we parallel parked out front, fed the meter, and went in. I gave Kylee at least six quarters, fifteen minutes each, so we had a good hour and a half on the meter. After having loads of fun joking with our waitress and the host of the hour, we finished our food, paid our bill, and walked back out to the car. There, on the windshield, tucked under the wiper blade, we found this:
Of course, my first reaction after seeing something
under the wiper was annoyance that I had gotten a
ticket while driving Kylee’s car. The second, after I
looked at the ticket, was how much it didn’t look
like a normal ticket.
The car ride back to Cedarville consisted of the five
of us going back and forth as to whether we thought
it was a real ticket or not. Our first conclusion was
that it couldn’t be a real ticket, it was just some
sponsorship type of a thing for this Hannah’s
Treasure Chest. But what if it was a real ticket? Not
paying it could result in a larger fine on Kylee’s
car.
After much debating, another one of us determined
it must be a real ticket because of the IRS
stamp at the bottom. This argument made sense until I
realized that every company, charitable organization,
and otherwise is registered with the IRS, so this
really didn’t mean anything. Again, we were back to
it not being a real ticket.
But there were those words in the first paragraph
“... when you pay this $5.00 ticket ...” which would
heavily imply it was a real ticket. Upon arriving
back at school, Garrett got online and did some
checking into tickets at The Greene. He called me
with the conclusion that it was a real ticket because a portion of
the proceeds from The Greene tickets went to a
charitable organization, which is what this ticket
claimed.
Then I thought of something that I don’t know why I
didn’t think of sooner: this ticket had absolutely no
information on it. It looked like a flyer than they
could easily print hundreds of in a few moments. It
was a standardized piece of card stock. It didn’t
have Kylee’s license number, her name, the time the
ticket was issued; it had nothing
relating to the
incident! If I put $5 into the enveloped and sent it
in, they would have no way of identifying that that
$5 was remittance for the “crime” attached to Kylee’s
license plate. There was no way they could keep us
accountable for paying the ticket or not, so it
couldn’t be a real ticket! After explaining this to
Garrett, he called the mall.
It turns out for all tickets issued at The Greene,
payment is optional. After thinking this over, I’ve
realized how big and silly of a scam this is. They’re
essentially trying to trick you into charitable
giving, which is the antonym of what charitable
giving should be. If I want to Hannah’s Treasure
Chest, I
will do it on my own time. Please don’t try to get money
from me by making me think I’ve committed some sort
of a felony. Please take specific note of this
wording: “a portion of the proceeds ...” Really?
You’re going to give a portion
of $5 to a charity?
On a final note, if you ever receive a ticket and
it’s only $5, be suspicious. I’ve never
gotten a ticket that was that cheap, and that should
have been one of the first signs that it wasn’t a
real ticket. The way The Greene dishonestly tries to
manipulate you into giving to their charity is
laughable and a disgrace for the mall. They’re making
a mockery of charities and the heart and intent that
should be behind the giving. If you want to give me a
ticket for illegally parking, do it. I don’t care
what you do with that money then. But don’t give me a
fake ticket impersonating a real ticket just to get
me to give to your charity. That really doesn’t make
me inclined to ever give to your sneaky charity.
Sorry. I’m not paying that ticket.
Dear Somalian Pirates
We think you are lame. I mean, come on! Nobody kidnaps a U.S. ship, especially not a humanitarian aid ship! Honestly, they were taking food and supplies to starving people in Africa. We figure your logical defense of stealing our ship is faulty for the following reasons:
- You seem to think you have guts. You’re the first people to attack a U.S. Merchant Ship in the last 200 years. You know why? Because everyone else is smarter than you and doesn’t mess with innocent and unarmed U.S. ships. Do you know what our military will do to people like you? You’ve put yourselves in a horrible position.
- The U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists. On any level. And you’re not even terrorists, you’re pirates. We never have negotiated with terrorism, and you’re not going to be the first exception.
- You have crappy negotiation skills, anyway. FBI and Navy guys came onto your boat to try to talk civilized with you, and your response is to offer up the captive for $2 million. Obviously, we refused (see aforementioned negotiation reason), and we left. You then raised your price to $3 million. If we weren’t going to pay $2 million, why would we pay $3 million? Maybe you’re confused. $3 million > $2 million = Less Likely for U.S. to accept.
- Where’s your parrot and eye patch? If you’re really pirates, where’s the peg leg? What’d you do with Long John Silver? Where’s Davy Jones? I have yet to see a news article quoting you saying, “Yarrr” or “Aye, Matey,” and you didn’t even tell our FBI agents to, “Walk the plank.” You don’t even act like real pirates, yet you claim to be some, and you expect us to take you seriously?
- You have clearly hosed off the U.S. Navy. There are, like, two destroyers looking down their gun barrels at you, so I’d put the hostage in a lifeboat and float him back over to his ship if I were you. I mean, the Navy doesn’t mess around, especially not when there are two of them ... And you’re pirates.
- How many of you can there honestly be? You have just ticked off an entire country (the US of A) and I hope you realize where this is going. I mean, maybe you had success with other country’s ships, but it’s not likely that you’re going to get away with this with the previously mentioned Naval Destroyers fixin’ to blow you out of the water. We don’t like to see any loss of life, and we will not submit to your monetary demands, so step away from the hostage.
Best Regards,
Jenna and Alex
Bloggers Extraordinaire
Girls Are the Root of All Evil
Last week, in the midst of projects and exams, I began to get a cold. Since Jessica had previously had a cold, I decided to blame her for passing it on. Her defense was that Faith had given it to her, so Faith was really at fault. Never missing an opportunity to blame Faith for something bad, I informed her of my annoyance with her getting me sick by proxy. Her rebuttal was that she did it because she loved me. What logic! I told her this made no sense.
“Love has nothing to do with me being sick, Faith,” I said
“Sure it does. Love = suffering,” she replied.
“Suffering is listed nowhere on this page.” I sent her a link to the Webster definition of love.
“It’s indirect. Love = patient. Patience = longsuffering.” A horrible reply. Horrible, Faith.
“Oh, come on. If we’re going by that logic, I could prove to you that girls are the root of all evil.”
“That logic is flawed,” Faith attempted to defended herself.
I began to work out the proof for Faith that girls are the root of all evil, and I came upon two startling revelations! The age-old proof that demonstrates how girls are the root of all evil, and I found that I was wrong! Despite my best efforts, I could not find anyway to not credit my sickness-spawning arch-enemy, Faith, for helping me come to this realization. I am forced to give her slight credit and even a partial nod of friendship for giving me a blogging topic and helping me with this proof. But only a slight one. Don’t read into this too much, Faith. This may mean we’re friends, but this doesn’t mean we’re hanging out.
I will now walk through the original proof that states that girls are the root of all evil. First, let us use G represent “Girls,” T represent “Time,” and M represent “Money.” We will use E to represent “Evil.”
Now, let’s allow the assumption that girls, specifically ones that you’re in a relationship with, require time and money. Given this statement, it has traditionally been shown that:
1)
The view has also long been held that time is money, since in order to make money you must use time, and when you waste time you’re losing potential for monetary growth. Given this, we can now show that:
2)
Substituting equation 2 into equation 1, we achieve:
1)
Finally, traditionally, it has been said that money is the root of all evil. We can represent this by the statement:
3)
Substituting equation 3 into equation 1 we, we achieve:
1)
Since we have proved that G = E, we have proved that girls are evil.
However, there are two significant flaws in this proof. First and foremost, the traditionally accepted statement that “money is the root of all evil” is completely wrong. According to 1 Timothy 6:10, “... The love of money is the root of all evil.” Culture casually takes the word “love” out of the equation and misquotes this scripture as “money is the root of all evil,” claiming Christians hate wealth. This means that, from our previous proof, anything valued to be evil should actually be preceded by “the love of.”
Therefore, by the correctly cited proof, girls are not evil, the love of girls is evil.
Slightly less significant, it’s a common misunderstanding that “and” represents multiplication when it really represents addition. If you have five apples and three apples, your total amount of apples if 5 + 3 = 8, not 5 * 3 = 15. Hence, if girls are time and money, this equation should really be presented by:
1)
Following this equation through the proof, we find that:
1)
Therefore, by the proper proof with the proper citing for the root of all evil, the love of girls is two times more evil than anything else.
Consider yourself warned. I’m just thankful for Faith for bringing this common misunderstanding to my attention. Faith, I can no longer love you. I apologize for letting you know in this way. It never would have worked between us anyway ...