I'm Taking Lessons!


For a while now I've been thinking about buying a motorcycle.  I'd have to learn how to ride one first, which isn't hard given the lessons that I have available to me.  All I really need is enough money that is not already allocated for Project Buy A House, freetime that is not annexed by my family, and the will to go through with it.


COOL!  I wanna ride a motorcycle now!  NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7:45? Really?

According to my family, apparently not me.

Romantic Research


As an alleged writer, I am always looking for examples of people expressing themselves about the things that go on in their lives.  This can range from the disturbing to the funny, but, more than anything else, I'm searching for expressions of the truth.  The raw, unspoken, hard to articulate, deep down truth.  I search for this truth so that I can recreate it in my fiction.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED FROM MY PATHETIC CRUSHES


Truth.

Damn!

TWITCH CLAMPS DOWN ON NUDITY AND 'SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE' CLOTHING


Damn!  Just when I was going to launch my streaming series "Hunter Red Plays Video Games In His Underwear".  It would have been a deep introspective series where I talk about the philosophical concept that underlay many of the video games that are released today..... while in my underwear.

How About This Strategy

Meet the man who has met ‘about 500’ women on the subway


It's men like this that utilize and promote strategies that some would call aggressive who make communicating with men a tenuous proposition for women.  It's men like this that make women think that men are always running some kind of game when they talk with women.

How to Ignore a Man Who Is Trying to Pick You Up on the Subway


How about this: Men, stop playing games.  Stop using strategies.  Just stop.  If you want to make a connection with a woman, do so in an honest fashion.  If the woman doesn't want to talk to you, let that be that.  Women shouldn't need strategies to defend themselves against aggressive men.  Aggressive men need to stop being aggressive men.

What Brought You In Today?

What Brought You In Today?
by Hunter Red


As her brother dropped her off for her first day, the building Rinae was going to be working in looked cute to her.  A large gray block adorned with green diamonds in the middle of an exclusively industrial area might not look cute, but the eternal optimist in Rinae always shines through.  Well, nearly always.

Before he left, with the cool spring breeze flowing through his hair, Rinae's brother asked if Rinae needed a ride home.

"No, there's a bus I can catch that'll take me home."

Rinae was right, there was a bus, she had checked that morning.  Rinae's ride left and Rinae went into the cute building to work.  There was some time before her shift started, so Rinae figured she'd check her route home again just to make sure.  She pulled her phone out and started to find the route online.  This took a while to accomplish due to the transit authority's website being old and antiquated, and the cell reception in Rinae's workplace going in and out, more out than in.  Eventually Rinae did confirm that there would be a bus waiting to pick her up and take her home when she got off of work.  All she'd have to do is walk to get to the bus stop.  "A mile and a half isn't that far to walk, right?"  This is what Rinae said to herself as she tapped her toes, clad in the cute shoes she had bought herself the previous day.

Rinae's first day at work wasn't all that eventful.  In fact, it was uneventful.  All Rinae did at work was work and work related activities.  Sure there was dinner, but Rinae didn't bring anything to eat and the selection to be had in the various vending machines wasn't particularly appetizing to her.  Nothing much happened in the world inside where Rinae worked but the world outside where Rinae worked was a different story.  The cool spring breeze that had blown through Rinae's brother's hair had turned into a wind more reminiscent of autumn.  Now the breeze had the kind of chill in it that goes through your skin, runs down your back, and flows through every artery in your body.  Also, there was rain.  Not much, just the kind of spitting rain that chills and annoys more than drenches.  This was the environment Rinae met when she left work, but she faced it with her chin held high and her eyes looking to the setting sun.

At least she would have been facing the setting sun were it actually there.  With the late hour and the height of the mountains, the sun had long since left view.  Now the sky was dark, a darkness that enveloped the landscape that sat underneath it.  The building Rinae works in, once cute and charming, now looked ominous set against the poorly developed industrial area that it sat in.  It is in this environment that Rinae started her walk to the bus stop, the kind of environment parents warn their daughters about.

Rinae started her walk on a long stretch of sidewalk that lined one of the roads near her work.  The moment they hit the pavement, Rinae's shoes and the sidewalk became a walking example of contrasts.   The sidewalk was dirty, broken in parts, had long weeds growing through it, but still functioned well as a walking surface.  Rinae's shoes were stylish, elegant, had a hint of visual flair, but were not in any context comfortable to walk in.  With every step she took on the inelegant sidewalk, Rinae’s elegant shoes were causing her feet to take up a bigger spot in the pain center of her mind.  Rinae didn't like having to walk upon the sidewalk, but liked even less the increasing amount of pain her shoes were causing her.  However, Rinae pressed on, because she knew where her goal was, and her goal laid at the end of that very inelegant sidewalk.

The sidewalk sat between two things that were hostile to pedestrians.  On the one side was the road, a road that cars drove much faster on than the posted speed limit and had no places to stop for a rest, or for anything.  Every car that passed Rinae caused the wind to whip past her, wind that seemingly lowered Rinae’s body temperature half a degree with every chilling blast.  On the other side of the sidewalk was a mix of underdeveloped nothing.  There were large warehouses with equally large parking lots, both of which were mostly emptied long before Rinae’s workday had ended.  These spaces weren’t completely empty, and Rinae didn't like the look of the few vehicles that were left.  There were also open fields filled with weeds, trees, bushes, and other forms of vegetation that had not seen trimming in decades.  All of this vegetation gave potential cover for any number and kind of deviant.  Rinae didn’t know for certain if any of those deviants existed in this area.  Actually she didn’t know the area at all.  The chasm of knowledge, both of the occupants of the cars and of the occupants of the vegetation, that existed in Rinae’s mind was quickly filled with what she thought was possible, and, given the darkness of the area, the warning from her parents, and recent news reports that she had heard, the thoughts that filled the chasm were very dark and very very painful.  Every time the wind blew she thought she heard something, thought she saw something, and feared the possibility of both.  The possibility of the unknown caused Rinae to hobble as quickly as her uncomfortable shoes would allow her to.

Finally, Rinae reached the end of her journey and saw the bus stop, a bus stop adorned with two signs.  One sign told of the routes that served this stop, a sign that looked very similar to all the other ones in this mass transit system.  The other sign told of the routes that were currently being detoured, as well as the reasons why.  One of the routes being detoured, and due to that detour not servicing this particular bus stop, was the bus Rinae was hoping to catch.

“What!  Why didn’t the website tell me of this detour!”

As she continued to curse out the transit system that had fed her wrong information without using actual swear words, Rinae was left with two choices.  One: Wait for another bus, one which may or may not be coming any time soon.  Two: Call her brother to pick her up.  Rinae looked around for information about the other busses, but, much like on the transit authority’s website, good information was non-existent.  Exhausted, Rinae decided to pull out her cell phone and call her brother, hoping that she would be getting cell phone service out in this part of town.  As it turn out, Rinae could not get service on her cell phone.  This was not due to cell reception going in and out, much like it was in the cute building Rinae just started working in.  This was due to it being rather impossible for a cell phone to get service when it lacks the power necessary to do so.  Rinae was stuck, again.  The way she saw it she had two choices, again.  Either wait for a bus that might not be coming, or put herself through torture again, going back the way she came to work and use one of the phones that surely existed therein.  Rinae did not like either of her choices, and the breeze was beginning to whip itself in a way that chilled Rinae from the top of her head to her elegantly aching toes.  Rinae had to make a choice, and the passage of time was not being particularly kind to her.

“So, I summed up all my courage, and walked back the way I came, through the area I feared walking through before, got back to work, charged my phone up a little so I could get my brother’s number, called him, ripped him out of bed, got him down to where I work, and started going home.  As my brother pulled onto the freeway, I made a vow to myself: I was going to go to that car dealership down the road that I always walk past.  I was going to buy a car.”

Sitting across the desk from Rinae was a middle aged woman in a nice business suit.  She didn’t know how exactly to react to the bulk of the story that was just laid upon her, but the saleswoman did know how to react to the last part.

“Miss, that’s all you had to say.”
“What?”
“You want to buy a car today.  That’s all you had to say.”
“Oh.  I’m sorry.”
“Please, don’t be.  You want to buy a car today, and I want to sell you a car today. Now, let’s go out to the lot and see if there’s anything you like.  Once you pick something out, we can go about getting you financing.”


Rinae felt relieved, and was able to enjoy herself for the moment, laughing at having told a stranger her story.  Rinae felt relief right up until the salewoman said the word financing.

This. Must. End.

Gaming is the least welcoming online venue for women

But Pew survey points to social media as the most common venue for online harassment


Last week, someone posted my home address on Twitter and threatened to gang rape me. Two days after I posted about GamerGate. ?

Try, Try Again


I remember watching this when I was a kid.  Mr. Show is one of those comedies where, at certain times, memories of watching that show and the bits that I saw on it come flooding back.  Specifically, I thought of the sketch involving Titannica when I read this story.

MMA Fighter War Machine Attempts Suicide In Prison


Try, try again.

Good Actors, Bad Actors, And GamerGrant

WikiLeaks is winning over Gamergate with a confusing Twitter campaign


I somehow think this isn't going to end anytime soon.  This seems to be continuing to go on regardless of what is said or done.  There are some good actors in this movement, but the good actors are being overwhelmingly overshadowed by the bad actors in this movement.  So why don't the good actors police the bad?  Why don't the people who think this cause is good and just and are doing the correct things to further it use those correct methods to unmask the people who are doing detrimental things to the cause?  It's just an idea.  It's not like I have any sway over this movement or the people that are in it.  I'm just a guy, standing in front of a mob, asking it to love eachother.

Okay, I need to stop having movies on in the background when I write these things.

Stone Cold Madison Bumgarner


Is is so bad that a Madison Bumgarner is imitating Stone Cold Steve Austin?  Sure he's not actually drinking the beer, but that's not the point.  The point is the visual display of it.  If baseball players wanted to get wasted during post-game celebrations, they wouldn't spray the campaign on eacthother.  They would drink it and get drunk on, at times, a nearly weekly basis.

Working

My computer is fucking up, so I need to spend the morning working on it.  So, here's a gif of Jennifer Lopez.

http://i.imgur.com/Q6e6laH.gifv

Ask My Candidate- October 16th, 2014


I just had a nice phone discussion with my state legislator about gun rights and the process that people go through to get a concealed carry permit.  It was great to be able to talk to the person who represent me in the state legislature and get to know how he feels about an issue of importance.  You all should try it.  Go out and contact the people who represent you and get to know them better.  You may be surprised by the result.

Pearls Before Swine- October 13th, 2014









Pearls Before Swine- October 13th, 2014
I like people who agree with me.

Ask My Candidates- Response From Daniel W Thatcher

http://redertainment.blogspot.com/2014/10/ask-my-candidates.html

Ten minutes after sending him the message, I received a response from Daniel W. Thatcher

Today is the 3rd Wednesday of the month, which means the Legislature is in session today. I will be in meetings all day. Would you like me to call you sometime tomorrow?  

Thank you for writing, 

Sen. Daniel W. Thatcher

His response included his phone number, but I didn't know if he wanted that posted so I didn't inlcude it.  Here is my response back:

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.  I am pleasantly surprised by your quick response.  My availability for a phone call is limited by the fact that I work evenings, but if mid-day, preferably before 1 PM, works for you my number is (xxx) xxx-xxxx.  Also, I was looking for a written statement from you about this matter so that I can post it to my blog.

Also, I have posted your quick response to my blog.

Thank you
Hunter Red

I look forward to Senator Thatcher's response as well as hearing back from Clare Collard.

Ask My Candidates

Terror threat against feminist Anita Sarkeesian at USU

Feminist, Gaming Critic Cancels Utah State Speech after Massacre Threat


I find this incident to be disgraceful and personally embarrassing.  It shames me that officials at Utah State University were unable to provide adequate security for this event after a substantial threat was made against it due to my state's laws regulating guns.  But what can I do about it?  Really, what?


The laws that prevented officials at Utah State University from providing what Miss Sarkeesian felt would be adequate security for this even come courtesy of the Utah State Legislature and the politicians who represent the people of Utah.  As election time is fast approaching, there are currently many candidates vying to represent the people of Utah.



In my district, the race is between Clare Collard, pictured above, and Daniel W. Thatcher, also pictured above.  I was able to easily find an email address for both of these candidates, and sent the following email this morning:

Dear (Insert Candidate Name Here),


Yesterday an planned speech at Utah State University was cancelled by controversial Feminist Anita Sarkeesian.  According to a statement by the University, the move was made after Miss Sarkeesian was informed that due to Utah state law persons with concealed firearms permit would still be allowed to carry their firearms into the event.  Due to this, Miss Sarkeesian felt that her safety could not be guaranteed, especially given the substantive threats made in the past against her in the past.

In light of such an event and the inability for University to provide security that the speaker felt was adequate to the situation, do you feel that state laws regulating firearms need to be addressed?  I'd also like to know why you feel this way.

Full disclosure, I plan to make a post to my blog stating that I had sent you this email, as well as posting any response that you send me.  The reason that I am doing this is to show that ordinary citizens can get a response from their local politicians if only those citizens put forth the effort.

Thank you for your time
Hunter Red

I look forward to their responses.

Rethinking My Approach


Lately I've been reading a tumblr called Straight White Boy Texting.  This tumblr consists mostly of screen captures of conversations had between men and women where the men say things that are creepy, sexually aggressive, or otherwise just plain wrong.  Reading through these messages has caused me to rethink the way that I talk to people on the internet, most especially the way I talk to women.  Yesterday I came across something that made me rethink my communications even further.

The Benevolent Stalker


In this post on his personal blog, Richard Brittain, an English quiz show champion, writes about how he once stalked a woman.  He writes about how he pursued her, was rebuffed by her, and kept on pursuing her in ways that some people are calling disturbing.  What struck me about this post is that Richard appears to be in no way coerced into writing this post.  Richard appears to be writing honestly in his own words, and in his honesty he is admitting to doing things that are in no way socially acceptable.  Take for instance this passage:

I wrote love letters to her. I still had her address from the forms that she filled out for University Challenge. I felt a bit guilty using that information, but I wasn’t turning up at her door or anything. I sent a few love letters through the post, rose-themed cards containing poetry and drawings. I also left messages on her phone.

He wrote that.  Richard wrote that himself.  In his post Richard admits to stalking this woman, and also appears to be unappologetic about doing so, which is seen in this passage:

It seems that modern society drools over depictions of this intense, obsessional love, but only when it is mutual. When it comes from just one side, it is suddenly deemed a terrible thing.
When I was listening to The Beatles, I realised that a lot of their early music suited my mood. Much of it is about being utterly obsessed with a particular woman:
“I’ll get you, I’ll get you in the end,
Yes I will, I’ll get you in the end,
Oh yeah, oh yeah,
Well, there’s gonna be a time,
When I’m gonna change your mind,
So you might as well resign yourself to me,
Oh yeah.”
Are the Beatles creepy stalkers? Of course not. How about Sting?
“Every breath you take,
Every move you make,
Every bond you break,
Every step you take,
I’ll be watching you.”
These songs are about obsessional love, which is both natural and beautiful. Benevolent stalking is different to malevolent stalking. The latter is intended to cause harm or induce fear, but the former is purely an expression of affection.
Richard doesn't seem to understand that what he did is wrong, and is even constructing arguments trying to excuse his behavior.  This is what is making me rethink the way that I communicate with people.  Perhaps I am doing something that is egregiously wrong but lack the perspective on myself to recognize it.  There's nothing in particular that stands out to me but something might stand out to someone else.  I want to be a better person but have only tried, up to this point, through what I believe to be thorough and honest introspection.  Another person's perspective may be necessary to ensure that I am not doing something in my personal conduct that is, in the starkest context of the term, wrong.

Differing AP


Occasionally you come across something that you wouldn't see any place else.  Sometimes you come across something that screams to you "This would only happen at home."

‘Meet the Mormons’ 10th at box office with $2.9M, ‘Gone Girl’ No. 1

Yep, that's Salt Lake.  The Salt Lake Tribune.  I wonder how the LDS Church owned Deseret News reported that story.

'Gone Girl' tops box office for second weekend; 'Meet the Mormons' at No. 10


Wait a minute, both of these articles are from the same Associated Press wire story but the headlines are different.  Let's see how the story looks at the source.


Huh.  So the source of the article makes no mention of Meet The Mormons in the headline but both of my local sources who ran the story did.  Also, Meet The Mormons is not not mentioned, except as a part of a list, when the same article was ran by the Portland Press Herald, New York Daily News, Winston-Salem Journal, and Moviefone.  Guess it pays to get multiple sources.