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Other than the Phoenix Jones thing this week is mostly about follow-ups. Which is nice, since because I’m already slightly versed in the things that matter to the internet, writing this post will be a little easier than usual. It’s not particularly hard any given week mind you, I’m open about how poorly informed my opinions are.

Do you know who Phoenix Jones is? He’s that guy.

More importantly; he’s a real life superhero. Kind of. Look, I’m not going to hold your hand on this one ok. Look him up. I’m sick and tired of doing everything for you. Find out who he is and come back to me. Wait, don’t do that, if you do a search for Phoenix Jones right now you’ll totally find out about what I’m going to talk about and just spoil the whole thing for yourself. Then you’ll just be wasting my time. My valuable, precious time.

Phoenix Jones’ real name is Benjamin John Francis Fodor. How do I know that? Well, if you read the title of this column you would see that he was arrested. Part of being arrested usually means being identified by police publicly. Why was he arrested? Well, he says he was breaking up a fight, Seattle police say that he the people who he thought were fighting were just dancing (see the whole video here). You know that kind of dancing that you do with no music in underground parking garages? That kind of dancing. Long story short, the group of people is accusing Jones of pepper spraying them for no reason, cops say that’s assault, now he’s arrested.

As much as I like the idea of masked superheroes in theory, the reality of it is a little creepy. I mean, it’s hard to say based on that video, but if my friends and I were just screwing around and maybe even being a little rough, God knows I would flip out if a masked man sprinted towards us brandishing (and maybe even using) pepper spray. That sort of shit is terrifying.

“Wooo!! Party!! Dance off in the ole’ parking garage, Wooo!!”

“Call 911!!”

*Pepper sprayed*

If you watch the video close enough though, between 15 and 20 seconds it really looks like those kids are fighting, not dancing to no music. Pepper spray might have been a bit much and for sure crosses a line. Jones’ modus operandi is usually to just observe and try to break up fights; shooting people with pepper spray certainly heads into the realm of agitator. At any rate, we’ll see what sort of charges he gets for this. Think the city will rally for his release like in comics? I hope so.

#occupywallstreet continues! This time in Boston! The Occupy “Your City Here” movement is popping up in a bunch of cities and if you haven’t been following it you’re an idiot. As more and more cities get involved with a now international protest against corporate greed, corrupt government tax shelters and numerous other financial tomfoolery that should be illegal but isn’t, more and more arrests are made. In Boston the city is claiming that the arrests were in part for trespassing in areas they shouldn’t have been in and in part for blocking traffic with their protests. Either way, protestors are claiming that the Boston P.D. was pretty brutal in their arrests and treatment of a mostly peaceful demonstration. I gotta say that this whole protest thing is tremendously exciting, especially now that it’s creeping into other cities. I’m excited to see how this is addressed by the various leaders and organizations that are being called into question. So far, the Democrats (in the US anyhow) are trying to spin it in their favour.

For our local (ie: only) readers, the Occupy Montreal protests start this Saturday (October 15^th) in Square- Victoria. Click here for more details. This will go well, it’s not like we have a history of turning large groups of people congregating downtown into riots or anything. We’re just not like that. As always: bring tents. Montreal specific instructions: try not to riot.

One final little follow-up: while scouring the internet for trending searches and the like (as I do), I thought it was hilarious that with Dark Souls out for the whole world to enjoy endure as of last week (except for Dan, who ordered his copy from Amazon and still hasn’t gotten it), the top trending searches in “Gaming” right now  are stuff like: “Dark Souls Walkthrough”, “Dark Souls How To”, “Dark Souls Guide” and so on. Hard game is hard. Derp derp derp.

I’m OUT!

Phoenix Jones image from GQ.com
Occupy Boston image from roarmag.com