Harrison Bergeron

In English class, we had to read Harrison Bergeron. It was a decent story, but there were many questions about it. One of the students asked about the handicaps rule. "So, if everyone is supposed to be equal, what happens if someone breaks their leg? Does everyone in the world have to wear a leg cast, so that one with the leg broken doesn't feel out of place?" There were many other gaps/things to think about with the story:

2) What do they consider average intelligence? Harrison's mother, Hazel, cries after she watches her son get shot. Then the tv stops working and neither Hazel nor George remember their son dying. Hazel is supposed to have "average intelligence," and by today's standards this means that she couldn't just forget something as big as her son getting shot within a few minutes!

3) What about the authority figures? If everyone is supposed to be equal, why are there authority figures? Or are there authority figures at all? Maybe they just have a bunch of rules set up and everyone is supposed to follow them, and anyone can be a Handicap General. But there is a flaw in this: if anyone can be a Handicap General, that means someone like Harrison could be a Handicap General and shut down the system.

4) Why don't the smart people just write down their thoughts? There oughta be one genius in the story that could come up with this! Instead of just thinking and then losing the thought, why not keep a note pad and write down all thoughts or events. Eventually, they could come up with some way of overthrowing the government.

5) How did this even start? A more complicated question, but to put it simply, how did everyone in the world just agree to these laws? Were they tricked into putting on those ear devices? Or did the Handicap Generals just break into their house and shove them on?

I'll come up with more later. This is fun.

Most Annoying Scooby Doo Game on CartoonNetwork.com

This is seriously one of the most annoying Scooby Doo Games on the Cartoon Network website.

Why it's annoying:

1) I guess I should start with the intro of this game. The Scooby Doo theme song under a pumpkin-headed villain smashing pumpkin heads sloppily onto the heads of the humans of Mystery Inc.
But it's not the complete Scooby Doo theme, it only has "Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you? We got some work to do now," repeated to be annoying. And the pumpkins are not complete pumpkins, since they have a hole to fit half of the Gang's heads, and pumpkin guts didn't spill anywhere.

2) No, you can't just SKIP the intro. There used to be a button that you could click, if my memory serves, that would skip it, but it no longer says which button that would be. There's also a commercial before the game, and you can't skip that either. That's gotta be half a second of your life you could spend doing something productive, like playing a computer game. Since this counts as two un-skip-able things, I'm counting it as reasons 2 and 3.

4) The game has Scrappy Doo. Need I say more?

5) If having Scrappy Doo in the game didn't stop you, this might: Scrappy talks in the game. In his original voice. Saying his catch phrase "Lemme att'm!" Every. Few. Seconds.

6) The goal of the game is to get to the doors with the Gang's pictures (the ones with the pumpkin heads) and avoid the pumpkins Pumpkin-head Guy throws your way. In video-game logic, touching a door counts as getting the pumpkin off a person's head and closing it. The gameplay involves going up and down stairs to get to these doors, and each time one door closes, another opens.

It's not necessarily bad, but get this: SCRAPPY APPEARS IN EVERY OTHER DOOR! Why? To annoy you of course! And since he is Scoob's nephew (which makes you wonder how many more of him are in existence) naturally you have to go to his door. The most annoying part is that he doesn't have a pumpkin head, so you're just closing the door so that

a. He won't try to beat up the pumpkin-head guy.
b. He won't get hit with a pumpkin.
c. Because the sooner you get to the door, the sooner he dissappears and stops saying his catch phrase.

Choose the one that motivates you.

7) If we're at seven reasons already, you can kind of see why this game is annoying. I played this game when I was little, back when Cartoon Network was still cool, Cartoon Cartoon Fridays were still available, and Cartoon Network's website had a completely different format that fit better with the game's setup. This game is actually quite tricky, and as a little kid (3-7 years old I don't remember exactly) I had a hard time getting past level 1, let alone past level 2. As a teen, I have better video-game reflexes and STILL found it tricky to get to level 2, which means the game was challenging and more fun.

What I never found out as a little kid, and almost wish I never did, is that the game only has two levels. That's it. Two. I always thought the game, much like other games, was a million mazes with several levels, that only got harder as you went along. But what can you expect from Scooby Doo?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll find a game that challenges my intellect more. I'll ask Swami Shaggy if I'm going to marry any of the numerous people I know.