Death.

This blog has moved, mostly because blogger is pretty archaic.

Check out my new and improved media/pop culture blog, "Across the Wire" at http://dpernitsky.wordpress.com/.

10 Contradictory Tips for Surviving Your First Year of CreComm

(Editor's Note: This post doesn't follow the format of my usual sports/pop culture commentary. It's aimed at first-year Creative Communications students. Since this blog is linked to the CreComm Blog Network it seems appropriate to post here.)

We're halfway through August, somehow, which means students everywhere are gearing up to get back to class. I'm entering my second (and final) year of Creative Communications at Red River College. CreComm, as it's known, has built up a reputation as being pretty intense. With terms out there like "Auto Fail", "Streeter" and "IPP" it's pretty common for first-year CreComms to come in a little nervous, scared and unsure of themselves.

I learned a lot getting through my first-year of CreComm. If you're a first-year entering the program, you probably have a few questions, and you might be looking for some advice. Like anything in life, I think the key to succeeding in the program is all about balance. So here are ten tips that I can honestly say will help you get the most out of your first year as a #CreComm, even if they might seem counter-intuitive.


1) Don't be intimidated

It's typical to feel like you're in over your head the first few weeks in CreComm. You probably don't know too much about your 74 fellow first-years, and they all seem more talented and cooler and smarter and holy shit that guy has worked for a newspaper before I don't belong here at all where's the door I'm going back to the UofM.

After feeling overwhelmed by your classmates, you realize that all of your instructors are super successful former industry professionals who are constantly reminding you to use the active voice (what?). Your instructors have all done some great things in the industry and you might feel like you have no clue how to relate to them.

Don't be intimidated by everyone surrounding you. Just remember that you're here for a reason. That entrance exam, the take-home assignment, your (potentially terrifying) interview — they were all designed to make sure that the right 75 students entered the program. You deserve to be here. Don't be scared, keep your chin up, and get to work.

2) Don't be cocky

On the flip side of the coin, don't be too full of yourself. So you think you're a good writer? You won't in two weeks after you get a couple of assignments back. Did you do all your university assignments at the last minute? Good luck handing in something late here. Never edit your work, because you do it well enough the first time? Enjoy that auto fail.

Have confidence in yourself, but be humble. Realize that you have a lot to learn, respect the program and the instructors, and you'll be fine.

3) Take help where you can get it

The most valuable resource that you'll have access to during your time in CreComm is the people you're surrounded by. From your instructors, to your peers, to the second-years, to the people brought in for your seminars, there are tons of bright minds around you. Most of them are more than happy to help out. Bounce ideas off people and you'll not only do better on your assignments but you'll develop skills that will help you throughout your whole career.

4) Don't rely on others too much

The people surrounding you are a resource, but that's it. At the end of the day, it's your name attached to that assignment, and it has to be in on-time and perfect (100%, 100% of the time. Industry Standard. You'll hear these terms a lot.). While your peers and instructors are there to help you out, you're the one that has to put in the work to make sure you succeed. Everyone else around you has their own stuff going on, so realize that when push comes to shove, you're responsible for your own work.

5) Look out for your peers

Just like you're going to be looking for help with your fellow students, make sure to return the favour. I don't just mean helping them out with assignments, but also passing along job opportunities for the summer, or passing along good resources that you think might help people out. I probably don't even have to mention this one, as you'll be best friends with your entire section in no time anyway.

6) Look out for yourself first

You know how when you're on an airplane they tell you to put on your oxygen mask before assisting others? The same thing goes for CreComm. Make sure that you've got all of your stuff figured out before helping out others.

Once again, this applies to job opportunities. I didn't end up applying for a summer job that I really wanted because I thought one of my friends and classmates was better suited for it. Not only did I never have a shot at it, but my buddy didn't get it either.

Realize that while you're all friends, in two years when you graduate you're all going to be competing for the same jobs. Get out there and compete for them. Stay friendly, but don't bow down from something you want just because a friend of yours wants it too.

7) Say "Yes" to everything

You're going to be presented with so many opportunities this year. Try as many of them as possible. Even if you think "I'm going to be a print journalist" (and you might learn that you can't just be a print journalist these days pretty quick) go try being on the radio, or shooting some video, or anything else that comes up.

The great thing about first year is that you learn the skills in all four majors. You have to write ads, you have to write news articles, you have to shoot some video, you have to do a SWOT analysis. When opportunities present themselves outside of the classroom to use and develop those skills pounce on them. Maybe you'll do great and meet somebody that will give you a sweet job one day. At the very worst you'll fail miserably and learn from it (which is a lot of what this program is about).

8) Don't overwhelm yourself

While saying yes to everything is great, you simply can't do everything. Make sure you have control of what's on your plate. It's going to get hectic at times, but it's manageable. Don't ever feel obligated to do optional work if you simply can't do it. Make sure to have your priorities straight and get your school work done first. If you've got that handled, then go out there and write extra articles for The Projector, or go cover some Bisons' games and make a little extra money while getting experience.

9) Throw yourself into the program

CreComm will consume you. You'll start seeing the world a little differently (commercials will never be the same). You'll constantly be talking about it to everyone you know (and probably get weird looks or yawns in response).

That's fine. This program demands your full attention, and if you really want to get the most out of it, let it take over your life.

10) Take some "me" time

Despite what you may have heard, you can have a life outside of the program. You can work (I worked 25+ hours a week in first year) have a relationship (my girlfriend is somehow still with me) and a social life (just ask the bartenders at the King's Head if I ever pop by for beers).

That time is crucial for keeping you sane. It's way too easy to burnout if you don't take a step back, have a breath of fresh air and treat yourself to a beer (or six).

Bonus Round: 

11)  Have fun, and don't be a jerk

While you'll spend a lot of your time stressing out this program is one of the most fun things you'll ever do in your life. Enjoy it, savour it, learn from it. Oh, and don't be a jerk. I know you're all probably great people and it goes without saying, but just remember that first impressions are huge, and you're surrounded by people that you'll potentially be working with for the rest of your life. I have nothing to say to contradict either of these points.


So there you have it, first-years. I'm looking forward to meeting you guys, and I hope that this (contradictory) advice can help you out a little bit. If you ever need help or want to chat about the program, don't hesitate to ask a second-year! We're all (mostly) nice people. Feel free to drop me a line on Twitter @DPernitsky if you have any questions.

Second-years (hey, that's us now!), do you have anything to add? Put it down in the comments if you think there's anything I missed.

The 2014 Oshcar Awards - Handing out hardware at Osheaga

I had the chance this past weekend to head on down to Montreal for a few days to check out the Osheaga music festival. Osheaga is a three-day festival held at Parc Jean-Drapeau on the beautiful St. Helen's Island.

The festival has six stages and holds about 40,000 people each day. It's a great place for people watching, drinking, eating, and oh yeah - watching live music. 

On Friday a girl threw up on my girlfriend and me, on Saturday I got into a screaming fit towards a thieving Vodka Red Bull girl and on Sunday I spent over two hours surrounded by a bunch of annoying teenage girls screaming for Lorde. In other words, it was an absolute blast.

I've decided to hand out some hardware. Introducing...

The Oshcar Awards

All Oschar's are handed out based on the subjective opinion of one festival-goer who is extremely biased and only went to see bands he liked or was interested in. I imagine that the recipients will be unbelievably honoured.

The Dave Grohl Award

For "Guy from a popular band who's way better out doing his own thing"

The Oshcar goes to.... Bleachers.

Bleachers (no relation to the title of this blog) is the "side" project of fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff. I hadn't heard much from them other than their current single I Wanna Get Better, but I went to check them out based on the recommendation of my roommate, and because Antonoff is dating Lena Dunham, so he must be interesting if nothing else.

They were the first band we saw at Osheaga, since they played at 1:30 on the Friday. They had a great, upbeat set and I dug most of their originals. Plus, they played a cover of Tom Petty's Don't Come Around Here No More. I'm a sucker for some Tom Petty. 

I don't dislike fun.'s music, but I think Antonoff does a way better job doing his own thing, and I hope he sticks with Bleachers. Moving from the background to the spotlight worked out well enough for Dave Grohl anyway.

The Day Drunk Award

For "Band that was obviously and awesomely hammered before 5pm."

The Oshcar goes to.... July Talk.

July Talk had a huge crowd considering they were playing at one of the smaller stages, probably because they're a Toronto band and Osheaga draws a huge crowd from there (over half of the people I talked to over the weekend were from Toronto). 

These guys (and one girl, Leah Fay, who parties harder than most dudes) were having a blast. Their show started a little after 2pm, and they were already deep into the booze. It worked out really great with their dirty barroom sound, and definitely led to me looking for the beer guy more often than I would've otherwise.

Cheers to you, July Talk.

The "Oh Ya" Award

For "Band that I always seem to forget about."

The Oschcar goes to.... Foster the People

I loved these guys when their first album Torches came out in 2011. If you don't recognize them, you'll definitely remember their catchy single Pumped Up Kicks. What is it with songs about school shootings being so damn catchy?

So when I first saw they were slated to play Friday at Osheaga, I should've been a little more excited. But I hadn't heard anything new from them in three years, since I apparently missed their 2014 release Supermodel. I totally forgot they were playing until I saw them on the schedule before heading to the festival site on Friday.

I'm glad I got the chance to see them, and to get fairly close to enjoy the show. Their techno-rock sound works great at a festival, and their level of energy was super high, which is key to any live performance. They played everything I love off of Torches, and their lead singer had some serious dance moves.

But when I sat down to write this, I had totally forgotten about them again. It was only when I looked at the schedule to see if I was missing anything that I was like "Oh Ya". I don't know what it is with these guys, but even though I'm a fan of their stuff they're somehow forgettable.

The Suzanne Warren Award

For "Craziest Eyes"

The Oshcar goes to.... Childish Gambino

Troy was always so innocent on Community. The perfect blend on naivety and hope.

Childish Gambino is not Troy. I've liked his music for awhile, and I missed out on seeing him live during Lollapalooza in 2012, so I was stoked to get a chance to see him rap during Osheaga. He was absolutely nuts, in every sense of the word. 

He hopped around stage with so much energy at all times. During most of the show he was shirtless and his shorts were about to fall off. He was pretty much just rapping in his boxer briefs.

But that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered were those eyes. If you ever get a chance to see Childish Gambino live, be warned that those eyes will haunt your dreams.

The Black or White Award

For "Guy that everybody either loves or doesn't. There is no middle ground."

The Oshcar goes to.... Skrillex 

There are two types of people in this world. Those who pop molly and those that don't like Skrillex. People were either all-in on the Skrillex show or annoyed that they had to watch part of his set if they showed up early for Outkast. He was on right after Foster the People, and after that show people were either heading away from that stage as quickly as possible or dub-stepping their way to get as close as they could.

For frame of reference, there are two main stages directly beside each other at Osheaga. As one artist is performing, the empty stage beside it is getting prepped for the next act so that there's no gap in between sets. It's really efficient and a great idea, since if you're trying to push your way close to get to a band you want to see that's coming on in an hour, you at least get to listen to another set while you wait.

Near the end of Skrillex's set he tried to get the side of the crowd waiting for Outkast to help him up by jumping up and down at the same time, and NOBODY on that side of the stage was going for it.

As for me? I ain't into it. I can dance to that music for a song or two I guess, but EDM just isn't my thing.

What IS my thing however is pointing out to people that Skrillex was in a super emo band called From First to Last from 2006-2009. Their fist album is called Dear Diary My Teenage Angst has a Body Count. That's simply fantastic. 

Check out this video for the ridiculous "Note to Self". Skrillex (then Sonny Moore) is the lead singer.

That kid became one of the biggest "musicians" in the world. I can't believe it.

Full disclosure, when Dear Diary came out in 2006, right in the middle of my emo phase, I absolutely loved it. Those guys were one of my favourite bands. At least my emo period is pretty much safely in the past. Skrillex's is all over the Internet.

2006 was weird, man.

The Seth Rogen Award

For "Band I'd most like to hang out with"

The Oschcar goes to.... Kongos

Kongos are a South African group currently riding high on the success of their single Come With Me Now. I decided to check them out because that song is fucking awesome, and also because they'd recently played a show in Winnipeg I wasn't able to go to and heard they blew the roof off the place.

While I think their sound would've been better in a small bar than an outdoor stage in the middle of the day, I really enjoyed their set. The songs were great and they just seemed like really awesome dudes.

When deciding whether or not I like an artist, or an actor, or an athelete I always ask myself "Would I have a beer with him/her?" Kongos pass the beer test in flying colours. They have an accordion player with a massive beard, their front man is charming with wicked hair and plays bass, and the other two dudes seem really chill. I wish I would've ran into them at a pub.

The Awe Shucks Award

For "Most successfully faked sincerity"

The Oshcar goes to.... Serena Ryder 

I saw Serena Ryder at Winnipeg Folk Fest 2013 and she was great. After Ingrid Michaelson cancelled her set, my girlfriend and I decided we'd go catch Ryder.

One of the things that stuck out from her set was that it was almost identical to the set she played a year earlier in Winnipeg. Not just the setlist, or generic crowd banter, but the way that she pumped up everyone in the crowd's tires. She kept telling us how great we were and how amazing this festival was using the exact same language as she did at the Folk Festival.

Now I'm not naive enough to believe that this doesn't happen all the time with bands and musicians everywhere, but the thing with Ryder is that even though I'd heard the exact same spiel before, I bought it again! Hook line and sinker. 

The "Did that just happen?" Award

For weirdest thing that happened on stage.

The Oshcar goes to... Kate Nash

I remember listening to Kate Nash back before her 2007 full length debut Made of Bricks came out. It was a nice pop album from a charming british woman that reminded me of a more clean-cut Lily Allen. Like you might be able to tell from that photo I snapped of her playing her bass while crowd surfing, she's changed a bit.

She's transformed herself into a pop-punk musician with a legitimate edge. I wasn't suspecting it at all so it was a nice pleasant surprise to see her and her three-piece all female band actually kick some serious ass.

That wasn't the weirdest part though. The weirdest part was when she asked the crowd if she could "borrow somebody's fucking puffer". 

Apparently she's asthmatic and lost her inhaler. At least three people obliged and Nash was able to keep on going.

Very weird, kinda cool.

The Jackson Award

For "Best family performance."

The Oshcar goes to.... HAIM

HAIM is a rock group made up of three sisters form California. They're currently touring in support of their debut album Days are Gone. I fell in love with them after seeing a live performance of theirs on SNL, and the fact that they were playing was a big reason why I came to Osheaga. They were my most anticipated act and they did not disappoint at all.

Seriously, that's how excited I was before HAIM came on

The sisters have a ridiculous chemistry and their stage presence is phenomenal. Instead of just sticking to playing their songs like so many bands do at festivals they threw in a couple wrinkles, including a maraca/drum solo that got the crowd pumped up and covers of Fleetwood Mac's (who they're often compared to) Oh Well and Beyoncé's (!!!) XO.

They kicked ass, and while I'm totally biased here, it's worth nothing that my girlfriend also said they were one of the best acts she saw during the festival. I'm excited for the future of this band, but also a little apprehensive that their sophomore album could fall short of expectations. Since they're sisters they had a looooooong time to write their first album, and they won't have that luxury this time around.

The Sex and Drugs Award

For "Most pure rock and roll set"

The Oshcar goes to.... Jack White 

Jack White is our last Rock and Roll Star. The man is just pure rock and roll. We have superstars like Beyoncé and Rock stars like U2, and Rock and Roll bands that can sell out arenas like the Black Keys, but the only Rock and Roll Star right now is Jack White.

His work with The White Stripes (most notably Elephant) will always mean that he's a huge draw at festivals like these. But his catalogue is so diverse and strong, from The White Stripes to The Raconteurs and now to his solo records Blunderbuss and Lazaretto. Most artists suffer when they break up from a successful band and start off on their own (there are, of course, exceptions). Jack White has simply gotten better and better, and his stage presence is so goddam rock and roll you forget what decade you're in.

It's no surprise that he's responsible for approximately 99.8% of all vinyl sales in the past decade.

The #Hashtag Award

For Most Instagrammed Set

The Oshcar goes to.... Lorde 

Lorde put on a pretty good show. She sounded good and her dance moves were interesting, at least. She really throws herself into every note of every song, every gyration on stage and she lets the moment consume her.

She also talks way too damn much. She was super nice to the crowd, but she hasn't quite learned how to fake sincerity as well as Serena Ryder. Maybe I was just bitter that she told us she wrote a song about getting old when she was fifteen and a half.

Overall though, I really enjoyed Lorde's performance. I can definitely tell you one thing. This was by far the most Instagrammed set of the festival.

My girlfriend and I were in row 10-15, and in front of us at all times were at least 40 people taking photos and videos with their cellphones. Taking a photo or a quick video is cool. I did it for some of my favourite acts and moments. But get your photo, or your quick video, and get your goddam phone DOWN. It was insane. People were recording entire songs. Are you actually going to watch that?

It's no surprise that Lorde's younger audience would be so ready to whip out their cellphones. I imagine a quick search of #Lorde #Osheaga would bring up plenty of grainy Lorde photos captioned with Twilight quotes.

Here's what I'm going to do when I become a rockstar I would do if I was a rockstar. I'd play my first song and then tell the crowd they have a minute to take photos. I'd pose in a bunch of different positions so it looked like I was putting on a show, and then after that get back to the music. No phones allowed after that point.

That wraps up the 2014 Oschcar's! Did you get a chance to catch any music festivals this summer? What were your favourite moments? Your biggest annoyances? Who do you hope does the festival circuit next year and where are you planning on heading? Let me know in the comments or tweet me @DPernitsky.

Broken CBA Will Lead to Headaches for CFL

Editor's Note: The following was originally posted as a column for Nitsky's Notes on The Projector's website. The original can be found at http://theprojector.ca/stories/view/nitskys-notes3

Labour issues have found themselves in the sports pages with increasing frequency over the past several years. From football to hockey and basketball, it feels as though owners of one league or another are always squabbling with their players. Terms like revenue sharing, salary floor and collective bargaining agreement (CBA) have become just as common as hat trick, shutout or winning streak in every fan’s vocabulary.

The NHL, NFL, and NBA all agreed to new collective bargaining agreements with their respective players’ unions since 2011, ending or avoiding lockouts. While in some cases, deals led to rollbacks of salaries or higher television revenues, in all three major leagues deals led to increased salaries for many players.

In March of 2013, the CFL signed a $40 million per year television contract with TSN through 2018. The deal is more than twice as much as the previous television contract, which paid the league $15 million per year.

With an expiring CBA, the CFL Players’ Association (CFLPA), which has been notoriously inept in the past, saw dollar signs. They promised their players the world. Revenue sharing. A salary floor. More guaranteed money.

Dollar signs are understandable. Professional athletes have a very small window where they can earn a living. Especially in a league like the CFL, where rookies and role players are making as little as $50,000 a year, anything the players’ association can do to help them maximize their earning potential is needed.

The CFLPA eventually ended up caving in negotiations. Revenue sharing, the hill they had promised to die on, never came close to happening. But there’s one issue the CFLPA also conceded that’s being overlooked, one that could prove disastrous in the future. This issue deals with player safety and head injuries.

Sports fans have been beaten over the head with concussion talk for the last several years. Brain trauma, the quiet room and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) are as common as revenue sharing, salary floor and collective bargaining on the sports pages.

The CFLPA had a chance to make a stand for the health of their players with this CBA. The players had asked for independent neurologists — without any allegiance to the team, which, in theory, means they would have no motivation for sending potentially injured players back onto the field. The CFL, inexplicably, refused to bend to this basic request to improve player safety.

When Donald Washington was laying in a crumpled heap on Investors Group Field during the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ preseason opener on June 9, days before the players would vote to ratify a CBA that refused to protect them, I couldn’t help but wonder what the league was thinking.

No revenue sharing, no salary floor, those things all make sense. The CFL and its teams have a hard enough time making money. Business margins are tight, and I don’t blame them for squeezing out every penny they possibly can.

But risking the health of your workforce and your most valuable assets isn’t just bad politics, it’s bad business. As research on CTE and concussions continues to progress, both the CFL and its players union are bound to find they’ve come up with a broken business model.

Unfortunately, that realization might just come at the cost of too many broken players.

Ray Rice and #YesAllWomen

Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in The Projector's online edition on June 9th, 2014 as part of my ongoing 'Nitsky's Notes' series for the student newspaper.

I’ve felt like my Y chromosome has been under attack this past week. If you don’t follow the Internet, or watch any type of news at all, the #YesAllWomen hashtag has been trending in response to #NotAllMen, which hit Twitter as thousands of men felt as though they were being lumped in with a mass murderer from California.

A 22-year-old-man killed Cheng Yuan “James” Hong, George Chen, Weihan “David” Wang, Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, Katherine Breann Cooper and Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus on May 23 before killing himself. This much we know.

Reports say he committed the crime because of his mental illness, because of his hatred of women, because he was a deeply disturbed young man. He was known to follow misogynist websites, and he publicly posted a video displaying his hatred of women and his frustration with being a virgin at 22.

The reports of why the killer chose to go on his rampage led to some men feeling the need to say that #NotAllMen are misogynistic and mistreat women. While this is probably true, it doesn’t really matter. The point has become that #YesAllWomen do experience demeaning behaviour from men.

So when the #YesAllWomen tweets started coming in (I’ll spare quoting the tweets here, articles with tweets are just the worst), I got defensive. While I bit my virtual tongue, inside my head I was thinking, “I don’t do that, that’s not me, I’m not that guy.” It took me a couple of days to realize that this wasn’t about me. This was about #AllWomen and what a lot of men put them through.

In February, Ray Rice beat his then-fiancée, now wife, in an elevator. Ray Rice knocked her unconscious and dragged her on the ground. Ray Rice held a press conference where he said of the incident, “failure is not getting knocked down, it’s not getting up.” Ray Rice’s wife, Janay Rice, apologized for “her role in the incident” at the same press conference. This much we know.

We can assume that this sort of thing might have happened before. We can assume it might happen again. Ray Rice has yet to be punished in any capacity by the NFL, a league that prides itself on “protecting the shield” and handing out harsh discipline to players that hurt its image.

In a world where women feel the need to start an online hashtag to show everyone how poorly they’ve been treated by men, what does it say when a sports idol — in the biggest league in the world — can knock his fiancée unconscious on camera and may not suffer any punishment? What does it say when that same woman apologizes for her role in the incident?

I think it says that it doesn’t matter if #NotAllMen are “like that.” Clearly, enough of them are. So go ahead #YesAllWomen. If you can put up with misogyny, violence, and sexism on a daily basis, my Y chromosome can deal with a hashtag.

A Few Thoughts on the New Godzilla Movie

I had the chance to check out a premiere screening of Godzilla in advance of its wide release Friday. I was pretty excited for this movie, which kicks off the summer blockbuster viewing season for me (I still haven't gotten around to checking out The Amazing Spider-Man 2).

I should lead with the fact that I love Godzilla. Or rather the fact that I love the idea of Godzilla. The Lizard King has one of the best origin stories of all time. His entire creation is a parable for the dangers of humans using nuclear energy for weapons after Hiroshima in 1945.  This always added depth of character to a monster that never speaks and destroys cities that allowed me to simply respect the creation of the character, as well as showing exactly what Godzilla mean to Japanese culture.

The image I have of Godzilla has always been one of a "monster" that wears a grey hat. He's terrible because he tears down cities, but he also fights off other monsters that threaten us as well. This duality kind of represents the good/evil that nuclear energy can provide to humans, and how we have to be responsible with it.

That's always been one of my favourite themes in the Godzilla franchise, and it's one of the reasons I hated the 1998 version so much. Godzilla was the only real monster in that one, trying to have some baby Zillas in New York. It took away from that depth.

(A few spoilers for the 2014 Godzilla from here on out. Although, it's a Godzilla movie, so there's not much to spoil).

This version of the movie did better in that department. The nuclear testing and the dangers of nuclear weapons played a big part in the movie, and Godzilla also got to fight a couple giant bugs. It balanced out the movie and gave it a little bit of weight.

That's a good thing, because this version of Godzilla is lighter, and campier than I was expecting. Every monster movie trope was hit: The father separated from his wife and young son, the lost little asian boy that doesn't say a word, military HALO jumps — they were all in there.

While I wasn't expecting that, I didn't hate it. This movie knows what it is. It's a mega-blockbuster where people are coming to see a giant monster smash up some well known landmarks. It's gonna have some cliches. And that's totally fine.

Godzilla does have some serious action in it. The roar is great. It's phenomenal. The single most important thing about the Godzilla you show on screen is the roar, and this one was spot one. Buildings get smashed, nukes get stolen, helicopters blow up — it's a summer action movie with a high budget, so you'll be fine.

I thought the characters and the main plot that was followed was pretty weak. When (spoiler) Bryan Cranston's character's wife dies seven minutes into the movie, I didn't care. I'd barely gotten to know who these people were, never mind feel anything for them emotionally. The same was true when Cranston himself dies not much later, I just didn't care at all. And I felt nothing about whether or not our main character (whose name I can't even remember now, just to prove my point) would ever find his family.

That's fine, though, because the movie is called Godzilla. It's not about our main characters. It's about the monster, and also about all of human kind.

At one point, our token wise Japanese doctor says "man is often foolish for thinking her can control nature, when it fact it's the other way around", or something of the sorts. Godzilla not only works as a decent parable for nuclear war in a day and age when North Korea is just lurking in the shadows, but also as an image for what we're doing to the planet. The scene at the end of the movie, where all of San Francisco's citizens are seeking their families, is darkly familiar. We see it every few months, after a tsunami in Japan or a hurricane in New Orleans. We're currently destroying our planet because we refuse to believe that we're not in control. And the planet's starting to fight back.

So I went through a few phases with this movie. I was expecting it to be dark, and when it wasn't and I though it was campy, I was disappointed at first. But after watching the credits role and thinking about it for a while, I realized that the movie knows exactly what it is, and it captures that summer-movie fun while still adding a good amount of depth.

Silver's decry marks the beginning, not the end, of Sterling saga

Adam Silver made a name for himself yesterday. The NBA commissioner delivered a Silver-tongued lashing to Los Angeles Clippers owner and noted bigot Donald Sterling, fining him 2.5 million dollars (the maximum allowed under the league's constitution) and banning him for life from any activities related to the Clippers or the NBA.

We rejoiced. Justice had been served. This despicable man had been stripped of one of his prize possessions.

Except he hasn't been — yet.

To truly banish Sterling from the league, the NBA requires 75% of its owners vote to force Sterling to sell the team. While Silver seems confident that he will get the numbers, it seems clear that yesterday was not the triumphant end of an embarrassing moment for the NBA, but the beginning of what could be a long and ugly process to remove Sterling entirely.

The 80-year-old Sterling has apparently declared that the Clippers — who won game 5 of their first-round series with the Golden State Warriors last night to take a 3-2 series lead — are not for sale. While many owners, including the Charlotte Bobcats' Michael Jordan have publicly said that Sterling has no place in their league, Dallas Mavericks owner has called the process of forcing an owner to sell a team a "very, very, very slippery slope."

It's easy to imagine fellow owners wringing their hands nervously. Forcing Sterling to sell against his will sets a precedent, and could end up coming to bite other billionaires' behinds.

I hope you enjoyed yesterday. It was cathartic to see Silver lay down his decry with fire and brimstone and justice. But that was far from the end of what might might turn into a legal battle of biblical proportions, if Sterling decides he doesn't want to sell and 25% of the leagues' owners feel their future may be in jeopardy. Buckle up, because I have a feeling we're just getting started.