Science!
If you're studying for an exam or just want to know how the universe works, then I'm your man. I'm here to answer a few simple science questions, be it a physics or biology or chemistry or even a psychology question. Hopefully I can fire up the engine of thought that is your brain.
1. Who created the universe?
It's not really a question of who but what. What created the universe? Was it a big bang? Was it a computer?
Actually it was that first one. The Big Bang. Basically what happened was there was a Big Bang and then suddenly stuff was. Billions of years later our solar system formed and now here you are, reading this blog.
2. What is evolution?
Evolution is a naturally occurring phenomenon, theorized most famously by Charles Darwin. It takes a long time to occur. Take a herd of a buffalo for instance. The herd is only as fast as its slowest member, and should a predator attack the herd, they're all going to want to get the hell out of dodge. Enter evolution. Over millions of years, buffalo have evolved into expert getaway drivers. Now when they spot a carnivore, they can be seen climbing into various fast sports cars and burning some motherfucking rubber.
3. Someone told me the moon affects the tides. Whaaaaaat?
That someone is absolutely right. The moon does affect the tides, using its psychic powers. What most people aren't aware of is that the moon is a sentient being, capable of concealing portions of its face in shadow to look more menacing. That face on the moon is, in fact, a real face, staring right at you with pure loathing. And yes, it is made of cheese.
4. Is time travel possible?
Of course not. Don't be absurd.
5. My boyfriend wants to do it, but I'm on my period. Help plz?
This one isn't really a science question, so I can't help. Sry.
6. What is meant by "splitting the atom"?
Basically what it involves is heating a knife until it glows red. Place the atom on a largish cutting board and carefully cut down the middle. The hardest part is finding an atom.
7. How are stars born?
By picking up a guitar and auditioning for American Idol.
8. How is it that I can think and feel and all that cognitive stuff?
The brain is a very complex organ, possibly the most complex there is. We don't know much about it, which makes sense because our brains are the ones that decide what we know in the first place and for all we know they are hiding dark secrets they don't want us to find out about. What we do get is pychology, which is the study of our mental quirks and such.
9. You didn't answer the question.
No I didn't.
10. Are you a real scientist?
If by scientist you mean Arts student, then yes.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Saturday, 3 November 2012
The hardest part of having a pet
A poet was reading the local newspaper over breakfast one morning when an advertisement caught his eye. The old man who lived over on the top of the hill was going away for the week and needed someone to house sit for him. Thinking he could use the spare cash (because he was a poet) the man decided to answer the ad.
He walked up the hill that same afternoon and knocked three times on the large wooden front door. The old man answered immediately. He was dressed in his pyjamas and looked very happy to see the poet.
"I'm here about the house sitting job", said the poet.
"Thank god," the man exclaimed. "I'm just about to leave - my bags are packed and everything - but I still need a house sitter."
He beckoned the poet inside and closed the heavy door behind him. Then he set about explaining himself. As it turned out, all he needed was someone to make sure his cat stayed fed and to keep his antiques collection safe.
"I'm awfully afraid of being robbed," he said. "Those youths downtown keep trying to make off with all my expensive stuff. But my biggest concern is the cat."
"Why?" asked the poet.
"He's a very special animal," the old man explained. "He must never be allowed outside."
The poet shrugged. "Okay."
The old man grabbed him by the shoulders and gazed deep into his eyes. "Promise me you will not let the cat out!"
The poet suddenly felt uneasy. "Okay," he said. "I won't let the cat out."
The old man became cheerfully once again and his attention turned to the other rules of the house. What could be used and how to use it; what was to be kept clean and what was not to be touched at all. After that the poet helped him put his bags in the back of his car and just before he left he handed him a key.
"Make sure the house stays locked," he said.
That night the poet fed the cat, locked all the doors and sat down next to the old man's antique gramophone with a glass of wine from his cellar. The old man didn't have any modern music in the house so the poet had no choice but to listen to old jazz records. Eventually he went to sleep. He woke up later to the sound of the cat's wailing. When he got up it was scratching at the door and begging to be let out. Remembering what the old man had said he shooed it away and went upstairs to the guest room where he slept soundly for the rest of the night.
The next morning the cat was at the door wailing again. The poet fed it and and this occupied it for a while. But when it was finished it returned to the door and resumed its begging. The poet ignored it and went upstairs to write poems.
When he returned in the evening the cat was still wailing. By now the bottom of the door was covered in scratches and the cat was mewing louder than ever. He had changed its litter tray that morning but it hadn't been used since. Clearly it didn't need to do its business. The poet wondered why it was so desperate.
"You can't go out," he told it. "Stop asking."
The wailing kept him up all through the evening. He covered his ears with the pillow but it didn't seem to help. At this point he was so fed up he considered just letting it go outside to do whatever it wanted to do. But then he remembered the look in the old man's eyes when he said it must not be let out and decided against it.
When he woke up the next morning it was still by the door, screeching at the top of its lungs. The poet, tired and driven almost insane, tried to shoo it away but it wouldn't leave. The door was now badly damaged, and the poet thought at this rate it would probably be able to dig its way out. He put his hand on the knob, wrestling with temptation as the cat looked on impatiently. The old man's deadly serious face came to him again, but he pushed it out of his mind and finally gave in, throwing the door open and watching the cat flee into the daylight.
"I hope you're happy!" he shouted after it. "Don't come back!"
He went to close the door again but a strange, distant noise stopped him and he looked up at the sky. At that moment a solar flare, a hundred times more powerful than any other in history, bombarded the Earth. It burned away the ozone layer in an instant and pummelled the planet's surface with a heat so intense that every living thing was instantly incinerated. Trees and other plant life was reduced to ash as the oceans and seas boiled away. The moon exploded.
And that is why you can't let the old man's cat out.
The end.
He walked up the hill that same afternoon and knocked three times on the large wooden front door. The old man answered immediately. He was dressed in his pyjamas and looked very happy to see the poet.
"I'm here about the house sitting job", said the poet.
"Thank god," the man exclaimed. "I'm just about to leave - my bags are packed and everything - but I still need a house sitter."
He beckoned the poet inside and closed the heavy door behind him. Then he set about explaining himself. As it turned out, all he needed was someone to make sure his cat stayed fed and to keep his antiques collection safe.
"I'm awfully afraid of being robbed," he said. "Those youths downtown keep trying to make off with all my expensive stuff. But my biggest concern is the cat."
"Why?" asked the poet.
"He's a very special animal," the old man explained. "He must never be allowed outside."
The poet shrugged. "Okay."
The old man grabbed him by the shoulders and gazed deep into his eyes. "Promise me you will not let the cat out!"
The poet suddenly felt uneasy. "Okay," he said. "I won't let the cat out."
The old man became cheerfully once again and his attention turned to the other rules of the house. What could be used and how to use it; what was to be kept clean and what was not to be touched at all. After that the poet helped him put his bags in the back of his car and just before he left he handed him a key.
"Make sure the house stays locked," he said.
That night the poet fed the cat, locked all the doors and sat down next to the old man's antique gramophone with a glass of wine from his cellar. The old man didn't have any modern music in the house so the poet had no choice but to listen to old jazz records. Eventually he went to sleep. He woke up later to the sound of the cat's wailing. When he got up it was scratching at the door and begging to be let out. Remembering what the old man had said he shooed it away and went upstairs to the guest room where he slept soundly for the rest of the night.
The next morning the cat was at the door wailing again. The poet fed it and and this occupied it for a while. But when it was finished it returned to the door and resumed its begging. The poet ignored it and went upstairs to write poems.
When he returned in the evening the cat was still wailing. By now the bottom of the door was covered in scratches and the cat was mewing louder than ever. He had changed its litter tray that morning but it hadn't been used since. Clearly it didn't need to do its business. The poet wondered why it was so desperate.
"You can't go out," he told it. "Stop asking."
The wailing kept him up all through the evening. He covered his ears with the pillow but it didn't seem to help. At this point he was so fed up he considered just letting it go outside to do whatever it wanted to do. But then he remembered the look in the old man's eyes when he said it must not be let out and decided against it.
When he woke up the next morning it was still by the door, screeching at the top of its lungs. The poet, tired and driven almost insane, tried to shoo it away but it wouldn't leave. The door was now badly damaged, and the poet thought at this rate it would probably be able to dig its way out. He put his hand on the knob, wrestling with temptation as the cat looked on impatiently. The old man's deadly serious face came to him again, but he pushed it out of his mind and finally gave in, throwing the door open and watching the cat flee into the daylight.
"I hope you're happy!" he shouted after it. "Don't come back!"
He went to close the door again but a strange, distant noise stopped him and he looked up at the sky. At that moment a solar flare, a hundred times more powerful than any other in history, bombarded the Earth. It burned away the ozone layer in an instant and pummelled the planet's surface with a heat so intense that every living thing was instantly incinerated. Trees and other plant life was reduced to ash as the oceans and seas boiled away. The moon exploded.
And that is why you can't let the old man's cat out.
The end.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
The Core
Yesterday it was Halloween. I didn't have any candy so when some kids came to my door I gave them heroin instead. They're dead now.
In the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to talk about disaster movies, because that makes fucking sense. Actually I saw this one movie which is so awful I just have to rant about it. Last night I watched The Core and I nearly died of how bad it was. It was so bad I wanted the ozone layer to disappear and for everyone on the planet to die. That's how bad it was.
The Core is a disaster flick whose scenario is simple enough: the core stops rotating which causes all kinds of natural disasters. So a group of scientists and astronauts pilot some sort of drill-ship into the centre of the Earth to detonate nuclear warheads and hopefully restart the planet's engine. Little do they know that the government secretly has a back-up plan called D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (or some such A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) which, should their quest fail, will kill them and everyone else in the world. How do they know this? Because IT CAUSED THE WHOLE CORE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. More on this later.
The government in this movie is one big colossal fucking moron. They're all Americans, because Americans are always the ones tasked with saving the planet. Since we don't actually find out about the Destiny project until the final act, it seems at first like the problem is a natural phenomenon. When a university lecturer (played by Aaron Eckhart, handsome and young like all teachers in movies) discovers what's going on, they immediately become concerned as all hell and summon him to explain his findings. And I kid you not, he uses FRUIT to explain to the PEOPLE WHO RUN AMERICA how the Earth's core works. They're all sitting there like fucking primary schoolers, with furrowed brows and looks of confusion; "Are you saying the Earth is big delicious nectarine?". Then Aaron borrows some air freshener off a scientist and uses a lighter to explain what the Sun will do to the Earth without its "protective atmospheric electromagnetic layer". When everyone in the room suddenly gasps in astonishment I laughed so hard my face fell off. Do these people seriously need a practical demonstration to understand that the Sun is hot? That would be like if I created a model of a volcano and poured baking soda and vinegar into it and the government was all like "Holy shit! Now we know that volcanoes erupt! Thanks Mr. Expert!" What's even more disturbingly stupid is how Aaron is the only person who figured out the problem. No other scientist on planet Earth was able to look at all the bizarre disasters and think maybe there's an upcoming apocalypse.
That reminds me, the disaster scenes are retarded. In the opening scene a flock of pigeons goes apeshit and starts killing people. In a montage reminiscent of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you see them dive bombing cars, breaking windows and pecking peoples' eyes out. Then all of a sudden they leave for no reason. Half an hour later there's some kind of freak electrical storm, capable of singling out specific landmarks such as the Colosseum and causing them to actually explode by pummelling them with lightning. The last one, however, makes both of these scenes seem like brilliant filmmaking. The Sun melts the Golden Gate bridge, blows out the tyres of hundreds of vehicles and gives one guy a bad case of sunburn. Seriously, the Sun is melting iron and yet someone gets sunburn. What. The. Fuck.
While all this horrifying stuff is happening our team of heroes is busy cracking wise and training. Most of their preparation is actually spent making sure their group contains every cliche character in the book. You've got the handsome hero (Aaron); the hot chick (it's Hilary Swank so it's a bit subjective); the annoying jerk who disagrees with everything (Stanley Tucci); the decoy leader who is actually just there so he can die first and allow the handsome hero to be dramatically thrust into the leadership role (a guy who played the exact same character in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek); the black guy (a black guy) and some other guy who's just there to add another death to the film.
Having wasted 50 minutes doing nothing they finally jump in the black guy's giant laser-shooting drill and begin their journey to the centre of the earth. The whole thing reminds me of another movie. I can't quite remember what it's called. You know that one about the journey to the centre of the Earth? Anyway a couple of not particularly sad deaths later they reach the core and realize their original plan to reignite it, which they spent about two seconds coming up with, will not work. As it turns out, the core is a lot thicker than they had originally estimated. This is what happens when you hire four scientists to save the world instead of - oh I don't know - FUCKING ALL OF THEM. THE PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED TO A CRISP JUST LIKE THE FRUIT AND YOU HIRE A UNIVERSITY LECTURER, TWO REALLY SHIT SCIENTISTS WHO AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WORK IN A FUCKING MCDONALDS AND A BLACK GUY WHO LIVES BY HIMSELF IN THE DESERT TO SAVE IT. FUCKING WHHHAAATTTTTTTTTTT??????
At this point America decides to use Destiny as a backup plan and then it turns out this whole problem was caused by Destiny in the first place. Hey guys, you know how last time we set off this giant laser it broke the planet? How about let's do it again and just maybe everything will be fixed this time.
Okay! What a smart idea!
Aaron enlists the help of a hacker he barely knows to risk a lifetime in prison stalling the Destiny project. This is one of those movie hackers who can move their hands over a keyboard really fast for a minute and suddenly have access to the FBI's most secret shit. He manages to divert all the electricity being used to power Destiny towards some other source and the government doesn't suspect him at all, despite the fact that he's looking around shadily and despite the fact that they specifically hired him to hack into things.
I'm getting really sick of talking about this movie so I'll wrap things up. They find another way to restart the core. There are some really, really terrible CGI explosions, Aaron Eckhart gets half his face burned off and leaves to fight Batman. Hilary Swank becomes a female boxer and dies. The end.
It's an awful movie. Don't watch it.
In the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to talk about disaster movies, because that makes fucking sense. Actually I saw this one movie which is so awful I just have to rant about it. Last night I watched The Core and I nearly died of how bad it was. It was so bad I wanted the ozone layer to disappear and for everyone on the planet to die. That's how bad it was.
The Core is a disaster flick whose scenario is simple enough: the core stops rotating which causes all kinds of natural disasters. So a group of scientists and astronauts pilot some sort of drill-ship into the centre of the Earth to detonate nuclear warheads and hopefully restart the planet's engine. Little do they know that the government secretly has a back-up plan called D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (or some such A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) which, should their quest fail, will kill them and everyone else in the world. How do they know this? Because IT CAUSED THE WHOLE CORE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. More on this later.
The government in this movie is one big colossal fucking moron. They're all Americans, because Americans are always the ones tasked with saving the planet. Since we don't actually find out about the Destiny project until the final act, it seems at first like the problem is a natural phenomenon. When a university lecturer (played by Aaron Eckhart, handsome and young like all teachers in movies) discovers what's going on, they immediately become concerned as all hell and summon him to explain his findings. And I kid you not, he uses FRUIT to explain to the PEOPLE WHO RUN AMERICA how the Earth's core works. They're all sitting there like fucking primary schoolers, with furrowed brows and looks of confusion; "Are you saying the Earth is big delicious nectarine?". Then Aaron borrows some air freshener off a scientist and uses a lighter to explain what the Sun will do to the Earth without its "protective atmospheric electromagnetic layer". When everyone in the room suddenly gasps in astonishment I laughed so hard my face fell off. Do these people seriously need a practical demonstration to understand that the Sun is hot? That would be like if I created a model of a volcano and poured baking soda and vinegar into it and the government was all like "Holy shit! Now we know that volcanoes erupt! Thanks Mr. Expert!" What's even more disturbingly stupid is how Aaron is the only person who figured out the problem. No other scientist on planet Earth was able to look at all the bizarre disasters and think maybe there's an upcoming apocalypse.
That reminds me, the disaster scenes are retarded. In the opening scene a flock of pigeons goes apeshit and starts killing people. In a montage reminiscent of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you see them dive bombing cars, breaking windows and pecking peoples' eyes out. Then all of a sudden they leave for no reason. Half an hour later there's some kind of freak electrical storm, capable of singling out specific landmarks such as the Colosseum and causing them to actually explode by pummelling them with lightning. The last one, however, makes both of these scenes seem like brilliant filmmaking. The Sun melts the Golden Gate bridge, blows out the tyres of hundreds of vehicles and gives one guy a bad case of sunburn. Seriously, the Sun is melting iron and yet someone gets sunburn. What. The. Fuck.
While all this horrifying stuff is happening our team of heroes is busy cracking wise and training. Most of their preparation is actually spent making sure their group contains every cliche character in the book. You've got the handsome hero (Aaron); the hot chick (it's Hilary Swank so it's a bit subjective); the annoying jerk who disagrees with everything (Stanley Tucci); the decoy leader who is actually just there so he can die first and allow the handsome hero to be dramatically thrust into the leadership role (a guy who played the exact same character in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek); the black guy (a black guy) and some other guy who's just there to add another death to the film.
Having wasted 50 minutes doing nothing they finally jump in the black guy's giant laser-shooting drill and begin their journey to the centre of the earth. The whole thing reminds me of another movie. I can't quite remember what it's called. You know that one about the journey to the centre of the Earth? Anyway a couple of not particularly sad deaths later they reach the core and realize their original plan to reignite it, which they spent about two seconds coming up with, will not work. As it turns out, the core is a lot thicker than they had originally estimated. This is what happens when you hire four scientists to save the world instead of - oh I don't know - FUCKING ALL OF THEM. THE PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED TO A CRISP JUST LIKE THE FRUIT AND YOU HIRE A UNIVERSITY LECTURER, TWO REALLY SHIT SCIENTISTS WHO AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WORK IN A FUCKING MCDONALDS AND A BLACK GUY WHO LIVES BY HIMSELF IN THE DESERT TO SAVE IT. FUCKING WHHHAAATTTTTTTTTTT??????
At this point America decides to use Destiny as a backup plan and then it turns out this whole problem was caused by Destiny in the first place. Hey guys, you know how last time we set off this giant laser it broke the planet? How about let's do it again and just maybe everything will be fixed this time.
Okay! What a smart idea!
Aaron enlists the help of a hacker he barely knows to risk a lifetime in prison stalling the Destiny project. This is one of those movie hackers who can move their hands over a keyboard really fast for a minute and suddenly have access to the FBI's most secret shit. He manages to divert all the electricity being used to power Destiny towards some other source and the government doesn't suspect him at all, despite the fact that he's looking around shadily and despite the fact that they specifically hired him to hack into things.
I'm getting really sick of talking about this movie so I'll wrap things up. They find another way to restart the core. There are some really, really terrible CGI explosions, Aaron Eckhart gets half his face burned off and leaves to fight Batman. Hilary Swank becomes a female boxer and dies. The end.
It's an awful movie. Don't watch it.
Monday, 1 October 2012
Fez
I've had an insane day, rushing around from thing to thing, pausing only to question why I've got so much on today. One of these things was an appointment with a careers councillor/psychologist (because I'm looking at how to make the most money in life/am insane). I got there half an hour early, which gave me a chance to swing by my old house. And by my old house I mean I moved out of there like 11 years ago. Nothing is left of it now but the block of land it once sat on. Someone has since knocked it down and built a ridiculously modern looking square thing in its place, which makes sense because it was falling apart even in 1996 when we first moved in. Oh the memories...
Christmases...
After-school ABC kids marathons...
Hey Arthur...
The backyard with that fucking pineapple-shaped tree that would give you a splinter about thirty centimetres long if you so much as brushed it...
Anyway screw that let's talk about Fez!
Fez is the greatest video game I have never played. I would love to, but I'm waiting for it to come out on a different platform since I don't feel like getting Xbox live just for this (I don't play many games). But this is just my kind of thing. You play as that jolly white thing above, whose name is Gomez. He lives in a two-dimensional world pretty much identical to your standard side-scrolling game (Mario etc), only here all that changes when a mysterious cube-god thing gives him a magical fez, allowing him to see an extra dimension in his cute little world. What you now have is an extremely clever mind-fuck of an experience whose gameplay is actually impossible to describe. But I'll give it go anyway.
Basically once Gomez has the fez, the game is still a side-scroller, but now your world is a cube rather than a flat picture with characters waddling from one side to the other. This means you can revolve your world ninety degrees at a time, allowing Gomez to uncover doors which previously would have been hidden. The game also makes use of optical illusions (crazy stairs, thing somehow connected to another thing despite looking like it's in front of that thing etc.). So you can jump from one ledge to another, even if the distance is enormous, just by rotating the world, because doing so will eliminate the distance. You know what, fuck this. Look it up on Youtube.
I've heard this game is full of secrets. What seems like an innocent, child-like, little puzzle game is apparently bursting with subtext and hardcore science fiction. Maybe even a bit of philosophy. I don't really know. But considering how brain-meltingly unusual it is even without scratching below the surface, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
The objective of the game is to find all the missing cubes because....I guess someone lost a bunch of cubes. Doing so involves a lot of puzzle solving. By the time you're done you'll be a vegetable.
Christmases...
After-school ABC kids marathons...
Hey Arthur...
The backyard with that fucking pineapple-shaped tree that would give you a splinter about thirty centimetres long if you so much as brushed it...
Anyway screw that let's talk about Fez!
Fez is the greatest video game I have never played. I would love to, but I'm waiting for it to come out on a different platform since I don't feel like getting Xbox live just for this (I don't play many games). But this is just my kind of thing. You play as that jolly white thing above, whose name is Gomez. He lives in a two-dimensional world pretty much identical to your standard side-scrolling game (Mario etc), only here all that changes when a mysterious cube-god thing gives him a magical fez, allowing him to see an extra dimension in his cute little world. What you now have is an extremely clever mind-fuck of an experience whose gameplay is actually impossible to describe. But I'll give it go anyway.
Basically once Gomez has the fez, the game is still a side-scroller, but now your world is a cube rather than a flat picture with characters waddling from one side to the other. This means you can revolve your world ninety degrees at a time, allowing Gomez to uncover doors which previously would have been hidden. The game also makes use of optical illusions (crazy stairs, thing somehow connected to another thing despite looking like it's in front of that thing etc.). So you can jump from one ledge to another, even if the distance is enormous, just by rotating the world, because doing so will eliminate the distance. You know what, fuck this. Look it up on Youtube.
I've heard this game is full of secrets. What seems like an innocent, child-like, little puzzle game is apparently bursting with subtext and hardcore science fiction. Maybe even a bit of philosophy. I don't really know. But considering how brain-meltingly unusual it is even without scratching below the surface, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
The objective of the game is to find all the missing cubes because....I guess someone lost a bunch of cubes. Doing so involves a lot of puzzle solving. By the time you're done you'll be a vegetable.
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Game of Thrones
I finally got around to the fourth season of Breaking Bad. It's awesome. Unbelievable. And that's all I have to say. I just started Game of Thrones, the HBO fantasy series based on a series of novels by George R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. R. Martin (which I haven't read). This is what I think so far...
The production values for this show are amazing. I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks as much like a film as this. It's truly cinematic. One of the reasons I'm hooked is how beautiful it looks. Even the music is cinematic. To see what I mean you need not look any further than the intro sequence with its catchy score and its sweeping shots across a map of the world, parts of which rise up like cogs in a machine, forming castles and kingdoms and trees etc.
The characters, though not that interesting, are cast well. They seem to have specifically cast people who have played the same kinds of characters in other shows. Lena Headey was a queen in 300 so she's a queen in this. I swear Iain Glen always plays a knight, or someone on horseback. I'm pretty sure he was the English king in Kingdom of Heaven. Here he is also someone on horseback. Sean Bean, too, plays the kind of character you'd expect Sean Bean to play. Like I said, the characters aren't all that interesting. But there are so many of them that statistically speaking there must at least be a couple of interesting people. This is true. There's Sean Bean, his young daughter who has a talent for all things warriorish and manly, that dwarf from Death at a Funeral. There's also the blonde chick whose brother marries her out to a Klingon and who gets naked in pretty much every scene. But that's not the only reason I find her interesting. She's interesting because her arc is interesting.
This brings me to the next point, the story-lines. I've only seen the first two episodes and already there are some great conflicts being explored. The relationships, problems and dramas are so many and so intricate that praise must go to the writers and to George. A. B. C... X. Y. Z. Martin for being able to hold all of this together without it getting top heavy and crumbling apart.
This being a HBO show, it more or less has free reign to have as much swearing and sex as it wants. People drop "fuck" and "cunt" into sentences as casually as "hello" and "goodbye", and have sex like there's no tomorrow. I'm two episodes in and I've seen more tits than the entirety of most other shows. I find this interesting, to say the least. Like I said, I've never read the books, so I don't know how sexual they are. But the show seems to think it needs to be part-porn to stay on the air. But then again, maybe it does. I'm not that familiar with the demographic.
I came into Game of Thrones with no prior knowledge of the series. I'm surprised at how interesting it is. I've never been a fan of fantasy, but this is actually pretty good.
The production values for this show are amazing. I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks as much like a film as this. It's truly cinematic. One of the reasons I'm hooked is how beautiful it looks. Even the music is cinematic. To see what I mean you need not look any further than the intro sequence with its catchy score and its sweeping shots across a map of the world, parts of which rise up like cogs in a machine, forming castles and kingdoms and trees etc.
The characters, though not that interesting, are cast well. They seem to have specifically cast people who have played the same kinds of characters in other shows. Lena Headey was a queen in 300 so she's a queen in this. I swear Iain Glen always plays a knight, or someone on horseback. I'm pretty sure he was the English king in Kingdom of Heaven. Here he is also someone on horseback. Sean Bean, too, plays the kind of character you'd expect Sean Bean to play. Like I said, the characters aren't all that interesting. But there are so many of them that statistically speaking there must at least be a couple of interesting people. This is true. There's Sean Bean, his young daughter who has a talent for all things warriorish and manly, that dwarf from Death at a Funeral. There's also the blonde chick whose brother marries her out to a Klingon and who gets naked in pretty much every scene. But that's not the only reason I find her interesting. She's interesting because her arc is interesting.
This brings me to the next point, the story-lines. I've only seen the first two episodes and already there are some great conflicts being explored. The relationships, problems and dramas are so many and so intricate that praise must go to the writers and to George. A. B. C... X. Y. Z. Martin for being able to hold all of this together without it getting top heavy and crumbling apart.
This being a HBO show, it more or less has free reign to have as much swearing and sex as it wants. People drop "fuck" and "cunt" into sentences as casually as "hello" and "goodbye", and have sex like there's no tomorrow. I'm two episodes in and I've seen more tits than the entirety of most other shows. I find this interesting, to say the least. Like I said, I've never read the books, so I don't know how sexual they are. But the show seems to think it needs to be part-porn to stay on the air. But then again, maybe it does. I'm not that familiar with the demographic.
I came into Game of Thrones with no prior knowledge of the series. I'm surprised at how interesting it is. I've never been a fan of fantasy, but this is actually pretty good.
Sunday, 19 August 2012
It's almost nearly about to be almost nearly Summer
It's the twentieth of August. This means that it's nearly almost nearly the season before summer. It's never been 2012 and this close to summer. Isn't that exciting? In just ten days it will be spring and thus the beginning of almost almost summer. Everyday it will almost get hot. Swimming pools will almost be used. People will be almost ready to get ready to go on holiday. People will almost start thinking about all the parties that are about to happen. As the season drags on and we get even closer to almost summer, it will almost be exam time. The moment they hit we'll all be thinking about how they're almost over and that it's almost time to almost start planning what we're about to do now that it's nearly summer. Then, after all the almosts and nearlys and about tos, it will suddenly be actual summer. We'll realise we've been sitting in the scorching heat for a week, thinking about how it's almost summer. Kind of like a frog in a microwave.
The best part of almost nearly summer is that winter is almost over; the cold nearly almost over. As the temperatures rise we'll realize that we're starting to put on less clothes in the morning. It's a great time of year.
Except if you're a guitarist in which case you have to deal with your instrument getting fucking scoliosis as the weather changes and having to get an allen key to adjust the useless fucking truss rod in the neck of your warped piece of shit just so you can play the higher notes and then accidentally breaking it. So you take the stupid thing to the guitar shop and they charge you god knows how much for it. I don't even want to find out. I usually just twist the fucker as cautiously as possible before restringing the whole thing. The only problem is that my acoustic's strings are held in with pegs that I used to try for hours to take out with my bare hands before I realised I had a little tool for that which could've saved me a lot of time as well the skin on the tips of my fingers. Even after all that the actual task of restringing a guitar is a pain in the backside because the high E string snaps so easily it's an absolute miracle if you can attach one at all.
But after all that is out of the way, summer the is perfect time to sit down with a cold beer and a slice of lime wedged in the neck, basking in Australia's dry climate and refusing to the take its beauty for granted. In a few years we'll probably be living underground to protect ourselves from what I imagine will be similar to the surface of Venus - science seems to insist we're fucked. But that's okay because being utterly vulnerable is part of life.
So before global warming or ozone depletion or solar winds or whatever kills us according to science/the Bible/scientology/the Discovery Channel/Youtube/the homeless guy on the train takes the fun out of warm weather, make sure you enjoy Summer, and this exact moment. Nothing is as precious or brief as this almost nearly Summer/almost no longer Winter joy.
The best part of almost nearly summer is that winter is almost over; the cold nearly almost over. As the temperatures rise we'll realize that we're starting to put on less clothes in the morning. It's a great time of year.
Except if you're a guitarist in which case you have to deal with your instrument getting fucking scoliosis as the weather changes and having to get an allen key to adjust the useless fucking truss rod in the neck of your warped piece of shit just so you can play the higher notes and then accidentally breaking it. So you take the stupid thing to the guitar shop and they charge you god knows how much for it. I don't even want to find out. I usually just twist the fucker as cautiously as possible before restringing the whole thing. The only problem is that my acoustic's strings are held in with pegs that I used to try for hours to take out with my bare hands before I realised I had a little tool for that which could've saved me a lot of time as well the skin on the tips of my fingers. Even after all that the actual task of restringing a guitar is a pain in the backside because the high E string snaps so easily it's an absolute miracle if you can attach one at all.
But after all that is out of the way, summer the is perfect time to sit down with a cold beer and a slice of lime wedged in the neck, basking in Australia's dry climate and refusing to the take its beauty for granted. In a few years we'll probably be living underground to protect ourselves from what I imagine will be similar to the surface of Venus - science seems to insist we're fucked. But that's okay because being utterly vulnerable is part of life.
So before global warming or ozone depletion or solar winds or whatever kills us according to science/the Bible/scientology/the Discovery Channel/Youtube/the homeless guy on the train takes the fun out of warm weather, make sure you enjoy Summer, and this exact moment. Nothing is as precious or brief as this almost nearly Summer/almost no longer Winter joy.
Thursday, 9 August 2012
If the Coen Brothers Made Movies for Children
I would love to see the Coen brothers do a remake of Finding Nemo. Nemo would be caught in a net and his father would go looking for him, just like in the original. But the characters would all have Southern accents. Halfway through the movie Nemo's father and Dory would be unceremoniously eaten by sharks and the rest of the movie would just be people sad because they died. No one would ever find Nemo. The evil little girl with the braces would accidentally kill him and no one would even care. The movie would end with a voiceover by Tommy Lee Jones explaining that a giant oil spill killed off everyone else except for the bad guys, and that world is shit. The kids would love it.
Another movie I'd like to see the Coens remake is the Wizard of Oz. In this version, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Lion don't get what they want because the wizard has been dead all along. Furthermore, it turns out both witches Dorothy killed are good witches and that the other one (played by Jeff Bridges) is actually the evil witch. Right before brutally murdering everyone in Oz, she agrees to send Dorothy home just so she can see that the tornado killed everyone in her neighbourhood. Dorothy turns to Toto and asks "what did we learn?" Toto shrugs and replies "fucked if I know". The movie ends.
Another movie I'd like to see the Coens remake is the Wizard of Oz. In this version, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Lion don't get what they want because the wizard has been dead all along. Furthermore, it turns out both witches Dorothy killed are good witches and that the other one (played by Jeff Bridges) is actually the evil witch. Right before brutally murdering everyone in Oz, she agrees to send Dorothy home just so she can see that the tornado killed everyone in her neighbourhood. Dorothy turns to Toto and asks "what did we learn?" Toto shrugs and replies "fucked if I know". The movie ends.
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Australian Taxation Office
The tax office had my date of birth wrong. They thought I was six months younger than I am, which for some reason meant I had to come all the way into one of their vastly scattered outlets to correct this mistake if they were to process my tax return. I couldn't do it over the phone because that would be too easy: it wouldn't be a proper test of my ability to handle a disorganised bureaucracy without losing my shit. To be honest, I almost did when I couldn't change the "September" in my details to "March" without leaving my house. I felt like screaming at the human/Japanese Tax-bot I was having this frustrating conversation with, but instead I saved it for the five minute intervals during which I was on hold. And when after an eternity of waiting, he told me to make an appointment at one of their shopfronts, I literally ate my phone in disgust.
I was expecting something like that scene from the Matrix where Keanu Reeves gets interrogated by government agents and they put some kind of robot insect in his stomach and his mouth closes up for some reason. Instead it was just a long queue of immigrants waiting to get yelled at because they'd filled out their tax file number application incorrectly. Then there'd be a long argument in Vietnamese or Indonesian. Misunderstandings would ensue. Guns would be drawn etc.
For me, all that was needed was my passport so that they could correct my date of birth. But I wouldn't be surprised if they made another mistake and deleted my entire identity. If that happens I'm taking up a life of crime.
I was expecting something like that scene from the Matrix where Keanu Reeves gets interrogated by government agents and they put some kind of robot insect in his stomach and his mouth closes up for some reason. Instead it was just a long queue of immigrants waiting to get yelled at because they'd filled out their tax file number application incorrectly. Then there'd be a long argument in Vietnamese or Indonesian. Misunderstandings would ensue. Guns would be drawn etc.
For me, all that was needed was my passport so that they could correct my date of birth. But I wouldn't be surprised if they made another mistake and deleted my entire identity. If that happens I'm taking up a life of crime.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
The Dark Knight Rises (but in more detail this time because last time I saw it in a terrible theatre with awful picture quality and sound and I wanted to give this movie a second chance before I got into why I think it's good or bad)
So I saw Batman again and I must admit, now that I've had time to consolidate my thoughts, I really like it. It kicks ass! Christian Bale has never been better. Anne Hathaway turned out to be the perfect choice for Cat Woman. Tom Hardy made a great Bane, and the design for Bane was an interesting, gritty take on what is usually just a juggernaut in a wrestling mask with pipes sticking out of his back. Gary Oldman was great. Michael Caine was great for the ten minutes or so he was around. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt also did a good job of playing the guy who's so obviously Robin it's not even funny.
What I would have loved is some mention of the Joker. I know they wanted to leave him out as a courtesy to Heath Ledger, but I don't see why they had to eliminate any mention of his character. In the end it meant they had to go out of their way to work around his absence. What we do get is a kind of presence through abscence. At the beginning of TDKR, the good guys are still suffering deep psychological problems because of what the Joker did (in short: causing Harvey Dent to be Two-Face and also blowing some stuff up). Because Harvey Dent was like Jesus to the people of Gotham, commissioner Gordon decided to blame his crimes on Batman, who had no choice but to disappear. So at the beginning of this movie, Bruce Wayne is hiding in his mansion with a cane and some classic hermit minge, while Gordon is torn up inside about having to revere the man who tried to kill his family.
Something must be said about the way they write Gordon here. It's such an interesting conflict to explore. Unfortunately we don't get much to time with him because before long he's been worked over by Bane's men and is in hospital for much of the movie. This has come to be something that happens in every Nolan Batman film. Someone, be it the Joker or Bane, will shoot Gordon and he'll disappear for a while, only to suddenly reappear when the opportunity presents itself. In the last movie he was pretending to be a SWAT team member for some weird fucking reason I can't recall. None of this is to say he gets sidelined though. No, the award for shunning a major character entirely from your film goes to Alfred, who is nowhere to be found during the whole Bane taking over Gotham episode and leaves me with the conclusion that he must have been in a coma. That's literally five Alfred-less months of movie time. It's also time he could have spent tracking down Bruce and bringing a rope to help him out of the Earth's asshole.
That brings me to the prison. I loved the whole training montage thing with Bruce bulking up so that he could escape and defeat Bane. But I don't quite buy that this hole in the ground is an inescapable prison. I'm fairly certain the guy from Prisonbreak would have taken one look at that thing and laughed. But without it, we wouldn't have Batman rising from the depths of Siberussiastan or wherever he is, thus giving us a key thematic moment of the movie and also honouring the title.
Catwoman was awesome. They didn't make her a woman who dresses as a cat and hangs out with cats, thank god. Instead they made her a burglar whose goggles give the impression of cat's ears when sitting on top of her head. Nothing about the way they handled her character screams camp, stupid or Halle Berry. It's all done well and in good taste. She also manages to be the one funny character in a film otherwise extremely dark. It's always good to see a male screenwriter pen a good female character. I've always found it rare for us guys to make women appear realistic and engaging on paper. As much as I love Breaking Bad, every single brawd in that show is fucking shocking. The same goes for Lost and about a million other populer shows/films. Even in Nolan's Batman, all we'd ever had until now was Rachel, played by Katie Holmes and Donnie Darko's sister respectively. But she was an awful, whiny damsel-in-distress who gave nothing to the story other than excuses for Bruce to put on the batsuit and jump off buildings (because someone had thrown her off). Now we have Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, who can join Signourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the fairly empty Hollywood female character hall of fame.
However I should probably also point out another problem with this movie. A female problem. Chris Nolan has now given us six reimaginings of famous Batman villains. There's Ledger's Joker, Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul, Cillian Murphy's (somewhat underrated) Scarecrow, Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face and Tom Hardy's Bane - all of whom are awesome. Then there's fucking Marion Cotillard's Talia Al Ghul, who is such a corny ass-pull of a character, and shows up so late in the movie, that I've come to hate her almost as much as how they did Venom in Spiderman 3. She exists just long enough for us to not care about her, and her death scene is one of the most hilarious I've seen in a long time. Speaking of villains, I would have loved to see Cillian Murphy do something during the final battle. He appears earlier in the movie, pretending to be a judge as he sentences civilians to death by...walking on ice. But the best thing about his cameo is the scarecrow-like appearance of his gown. It's almost as if Nolan realized how much people hated The Scarecrow's lack of costume in the previous movies and decided to stuff straw into his shirt for this one. I still would have liked him to put that piece of burlap over his head though. Ra's Al Ghul also pops up briefly despite being dead and delivers some exposition while mentioning that there are "other forms of immortality" before literally fading into nothing like the out-of-place ghostly apparition he is. I was almost expecting him to turn up later as a storm cloud sitting in the sky, maybe chatting with Mufasa.
Come to think of it, the plot of this movie is a lot like the Lion King. No really. Batman is exiled and spends time with a couple of odd balls before working up the strength to return. Meanwhile his enemy has turned his home town into an apocalyptic nightmare. It's not exactly verbatim what the Lion King was about, but it definitely tells the same basic story. But what this movie lack in Elton John music, it makes up for with the epic might of Hans Zimmer. The soundtraack does two things simultaneously and flawlessly: it gears you up for some ass-kicking while also filling you with the emotional weight of each scene. When Bane broke Batman's back and swaggered off with a piece of his broken mask, I wasn't thinking "meh, he'll be fine", I was like "OH MY GOD NOOOOO BATMAN'S DEAD WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!". And when he finally climbed out of that hole I was so inspired by the uplifiting roar of every brass instrument imagineable that I forgot there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to return to Gotham. What with every road in and out of the city either destroyed or blocked by the military.
Seriously, what the fuck is with that? How did Bruce get back into the city? Can someone explain that to me? If you can give me a decent explanation I will give you money. I'm serious, I'm that confused. Was there a secret underground tunnel that only he knew about? Did he teleport? I guess I'll just have to file that one away with the question of what happened after Batman rescued Rachel from The Joker at his penthouse party in the last movie. Remember that? Heath Ledger shows up at his place, threatens his guests and then throws his girlfriend out the window. Batman follows suit and manages to save her. But then it's the next scene and all of that happened last night. So what? Did the Joker just leave? Did Batman decide he'd had enough for the night and wouldn't go upstairs to follow up on the crazy clown breaking shit in his house? What?!
Finally, it seems like I can't finish this post without at least mentioning Bane's voice. As much as I loved Bane's character, particularly his design, I hated his voice. It was like a combination of Darth Vader and Sean Connery, only muffled. A lot of the time I couldn't understand a thing he was saying. I think all those who criticized the Batman voice from the Dark Knight will probably have fun tearing into Bane, because even I was annoyed at this, and I love the Batman voice. I don't care how cheesy it sounds to other people - to me it's the epitomy of awesome.
HOOCCCKKEEYYY PAAAADDDSSSSSS!!!
That is all.
What I would have loved is some mention of the Joker. I know they wanted to leave him out as a courtesy to Heath Ledger, but I don't see why they had to eliminate any mention of his character. In the end it meant they had to go out of their way to work around his absence. What we do get is a kind of presence through abscence. At the beginning of TDKR, the good guys are still suffering deep psychological problems because of what the Joker did (in short: causing Harvey Dent to be Two-Face and also blowing some stuff up). Because Harvey Dent was like Jesus to the people of Gotham, commissioner Gordon decided to blame his crimes on Batman, who had no choice but to disappear. So at the beginning of this movie, Bruce Wayne is hiding in his mansion with a cane and some classic hermit minge, while Gordon is torn up inside about having to revere the man who tried to kill his family.
Something must be said about the way they write Gordon here. It's such an interesting conflict to explore. Unfortunately we don't get much to time with him because before long he's been worked over by Bane's men and is in hospital for much of the movie. This has come to be something that happens in every Nolan Batman film. Someone, be it the Joker or Bane, will shoot Gordon and he'll disappear for a while, only to suddenly reappear when the opportunity presents itself. In the last movie he was pretending to be a SWAT team member for some weird fucking reason I can't recall. None of this is to say he gets sidelined though. No, the award for shunning a major character entirely from your film goes to Alfred, who is nowhere to be found during the whole Bane taking over Gotham episode and leaves me with the conclusion that he must have been in a coma. That's literally five Alfred-less months of movie time. It's also time he could have spent tracking down Bruce and bringing a rope to help him out of the Earth's asshole.
That brings me to the prison. I loved the whole training montage thing with Bruce bulking up so that he could escape and defeat Bane. But I don't quite buy that this hole in the ground is an inescapable prison. I'm fairly certain the guy from Prisonbreak would have taken one look at that thing and laughed. But without it, we wouldn't have Batman rising from the depths of Siberussiastan or wherever he is, thus giving us a key thematic moment of the movie and also honouring the title.
Catwoman was awesome. They didn't make her a woman who dresses as a cat and hangs out with cats, thank god. Instead they made her a burglar whose goggles give the impression of cat's ears when sitting on top of her head. Nothing about the way they handled her character screams camp, stupid or Halle Berry. It's all done well and in good taste. She also manages to be the one funny character in a film otherwise extremely dark. It's always good to see a male screenwriter pen a good female character. I've always found it rare for us guys to make women appear realistic and engaging on paper. As much as I love Breaking Bad, every single brawd in that show is fucking shocking. The same goes for Lost and about a million other populer shows/films. Even in Nolan's Batman, all we'd ever had until now was Rachel, played by Katie Holmes and Donnie Darko's sister respectively. But she was an awful, whiny damsel-in-distress who gave nothing to the story other than excuses for Bruce to put on the batsuit and jump off buildings (because someone had thrown her off). Now we have Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, who can join Signourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in the fairly empty Hollywood female character hall of fame.
However I should probably also point out another problem with this movie. A female problem. Chris Nolan has now given us six reimaginings of famous Batman villains. There's Ledger's Joker, Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul, Cillian Murphy's (somewhat underrated) Scarecrow, Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face and Tom Hardy's Bane - all of whom are awesome. Then there's fucking Marion Cotillard's Talia Al Ghul, who is such a corny ass-pull of a character, and shows up so late in the movie, that I've come to hate her almost as much as how they did Venom in Spiderman 3. She exists just long enough for us to not care about her, and her death scene is one of the most hilarious I've seen in a long time. Speaking of villains, I would have loved to see Cillian Murphy do something during the final battle. He appears earlier in the movie, pretending to be a judge as he sentences civilians to death by...walking on ice. But the best thing about his cameo is the scarecrow-like appearance of his gown. It's almost as if Nolan realized how much people hated The Scarecrow's lack of costume in the previous movies and decided to stuff straw into his shirt for this one. I still would have liked him to put that piece of burlap over his head though. Ra's Al Ghul also pops up briefly despite being dead and delivers some exposition while mentioning that there are "other forms of immortality" before literally fading into nothing like the out-of-place ghostly apparition he is. I was almost expecting him to turn up later as a storm cloud sitting in the sky, maybe chatting with Mufasa.
Come to think of it, the plot of this movie is a lot like the Lion King. No really. Batman is exiled and spends time with a couple of odd balls before working up the strength to return. Meanwhile his enemy has turned his home town into an apocalyptic nightmare. It's not exactly verbatim what the Lion King was about, but it definitely tells the same basic story. But what this movie lack in Elton John music, it makes up for with the epic might of Hans Zimmer. The soundtraack does two things simultaneously and flawlessly: it gears you up for some ass-kicking while also filling you with the emotional weight of each scene. When Bane broke Batman's back and swaggered off with a piece of his broken mask, I wasn't thinking "meh, he'll be fine", I was like "OH MY GOD NOOOOO BATMAN'S DEAD WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!". And when he finally climbed out of that hole I was so inspired by the uplifiting roar of every brass instrument imagineable that I forgot there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to return to Gotham. What with every road in and out of the city either destroyed or blocked by the military.
Seriously, what the fuck is with that? How did Bruce get back into the city? Can someone explain that to me? If you can give me a decent explanation I will give you money. I'm serious, I'm that confused. Was there a secret underground tunnel that only he knew about? Did he teleport? I guess I'll just have to file that one away with the question of what happened after Batman rescued Rachel from The Joker at his penthouse party in the last movie. Remember that? Heath Ledger shows up at his place, threatens his guests and then throws his girlfriend out the window. Batman follows suit and manages to save her. But then it's the next scene and all of that happened last night. So what? Did the Joker just leave? Did Batman decide he'd had enough for the night and wouldn't go upstairs to follow up on the crazy clown breaking shit in his house? What?!
Finally, it seems like I can't finish this post without at least mentioning Bane's voice. As much as I loved Bane's character, particularly his design, I hated his voice. It was like a combination of Darth Vader and Sean Connery, only muffled. A lot of the time I couldn't understand a thing he was saying. I think all those who criticized the Batman voice from the Dark Knight will probably have fun tearing into Bane, because even I was annoyed at this, and I love the Batman voice. I don't care how cheesy it sounds to other people - to me it's the epitomy of awesome.
HOOCCCKKEEYYY PAAAADDDSSSSSS!!!
That is all.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
The Dark Knight Rises
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this movie because I'd rather see it again first. The cinema I saw it in was a reasonably decent one, but for some reason the sound seemed just a little bit off and the picture just ever so slightly blurry or hard to adjust to and it bugged me from start to finish. As for the movie itself, my thoughts are mixed.
(Spoilers)
The good:
(Spoilers)
The good:
- All the performances.
- The soundtrack, of course.
- The dark look and feel from the first two movies is carried over into this one flawlessly.
- The fact that characters like Catwoman and even that little cop dude had something important to do in the movie.
- Bane was different from previous villains and not just a rehash of The Joker or Two-Face etc. Also he was awesome.
- The action scenes were awesome.
- It tries to be smart and thematic while also entertaining.
- Even after post production tampering Bane's voice was still hard to understand in places.
- This movie nearly disregards the Dark Knight and is more a sequel to Batman Begins. In fact, everything Batman achieved in the Dark Knight counts for shit in this one.
- A hole in the ground with no guards or anything so restricting as a ceiling is supposed to be an inescapable prison.
- Using a piece of rope to fix a crippling back injury.
- How the fuck did Bruce get back into Gotham city after escaping the prison?
- Alfred crying in every scene.
- After three epic films, the chief villain and the final and biggest threat of the series is a woman in a gown who to the best of my knowledge technically isn't a villain in the comics anyway.
- Robin? Fuck off Chris O' Donnell.
- Wayne is Batman in this movie for what feels like about ten minutes.
- He gets over his apparent lack of cartilage problem quite easily.
- In the Dark Knight, the Joker wanted to create chaos in Gotham and show everyone what happens to people's morals when you strip away any kind of order. He brought down Harvey Dent, Gotham's "white knight", and tried to do the same to its "dark knight". He also made a shit ton of money and burned it all just to prove a point. In this movie, all Bane and Leonardo De Caprio's dream wife want to do is blow shit up.
Monday, 16 July 2012
The Paranormal and Me
Last week I posted a review of Slenderman's computer game, which had me sitting as far away from the screen as possible with the volume turned way down as I navigated his forest maze of atmospheric horror. One of the reasons the myth is so addictively frightening to everyone since he emerged online is the idea that the more you know about him, the more interested he is in you, So if you're reading about him he's probably watching you, standing quietly behind you right now as you read this sentence.
And so it's time for my ghost story of the day (which I swear is 100% true). Yesterday I was walking home from the gym in the dark and I noticed the Slenderman symbol (a circle with a cross through it) spray-painted on a fence with the words "FOUND YOU" sprayed beneath in eerily large and spiky letters. I won't say it didn't give me a shock. But I also felt exhilarated for several reasons. Clearly other people are interested enough in obscure stuff to risk getting fined in an attempt to freak out other obscure stuff enthusiasts. Also I thought maybe I was experiencing a genuine encounter with the paranormal. I tried to take a picture of this piece of memetic street-art with my phone and found that it didn't show up on the screen - the way vampires don't show up in mirrors or photos or whatever it is they used to do before they just sparkled and moped. So either I hallucinated what was on that fence, or more likely it wasn't there because my phone camera is just a piece of shit that doesn't work in the dark even with a streetlight shining on what I was trying to capture. Or maybe Slenderman is fucking with me. Who knows?
It just goes to show that sometimes things show up where you least expect them to. I don't generally expect some obscure fact I'm blogging about to appear sprayed on a wall near my house, for much the same reason that I'm surprised when two people I know from very different circumstances turn out to have been best friends since childhood. It's so unlikely that it's almost a religious experience. Or fate. Or aliens...
Cue the X Files theme (dadadadadada woooooooo weeeeeee wooooooo weeeeeeee).
And so it's time for my ghost story of the day (which I swear is 100% true). Yesterday I was walking home from the gym in the dark and I noticed the Slenderman symbol (a circle with a cross through it) spray-painted on a fence with the words "FOUND YOU" sprayed beneath in eerily large and spiky letters. I won't say it didn't give me a shock. But I also felt exhilarated for several reasons. Clearly other people are interested enough in obscure stuff to risk getting fined in an attempt to freak out other obscure stuff enthusiasts. Also I thought maybe I was experiencing a genuine encounter with the paranormal. I tried to take a picture of this piece of memetic street-art with my phone and found that it didn't show up on the screen - the way vampires don't show up in mirrors or photos or whatever it is they used to do before they just sparkled and moped. So either I hallucinated what was on that fence, or more likely it wasn't there because my phone camera is just a piece of shit that doesn't work in the dark even with a streetlight shining on what I was trying to capture. Or maybe Slenderman is fucking with me. Who knows?
It just goes to show that sometimes things show up where you least expect them to. I don't generally expect some obscure fact I'm blogging about to appear sprayed on a wall near my house, for much the same reason that I'm surprised when two people I know from very different circumstances turn out to have been best friends since childhood. It's so unlikely that it's almost a religious experience. Or fate. Or aliens...
Cue the X Files theme (dadadadadada woooooooo weeeeeee wooooooo weeeeeeee).
Monday, 9 July 2012
Slender
The onslaught of pop culture continues in this post with my discovery of a computer game I played for about ten seconds before raping the escape button and fleeing in terror. Based on the ever-expanding, ridiculously populer Slenderman mythos, Slender is a game which lets one experience the nightmare of being stalked by the internet's very own version of the boogeyman for themselves.
Slenderman has been characterized over the last couple of years on forums as a tall, human-like creature who appears to wear a suit. His main gimmick is looking creepy and standing ominously in the background of old photographs. But apparently he also eats children. From what I can remember he was invented on a website called Something Awful as part of a competition to create your own urban legend or something like that. Since his conception he has appeared in numerous, Blair Witch style documentary/found footage Youtube series and now he has his own game.
I'm a fan of Slenderman. He's a perfect of example of the kinds of messed-up things that can only exist because of the internet. People show how strange and creative they can be when given the opportunity to express themselves to the world. Take this blog for example; these posts and the pointless crap I address in them are the product of me being given the freedom to say what I want and when I want. If it weren't for the internet there wouldn't be a Slenderman and you wouldn't know what I think of him and there wouldn't be hundreds of videos on Youtube showing roughly human-shaped whales singing pop songs in something vaguely resembling their original key. Slenderman is an extreme example of this liberty, because he came about as a result of countless people adding to his bizarre mythology, and seemingly independant of each other too.
But my God is the game scary!
The player spawns in a forest somewhere with nothing but a torch and I guess a camera, since you can zoom in and out on the scenery and it makes that camera zooming sound when you do. You have no weapons and your torch's battery is slowly running out. Straight away the game establishes just how vulnerable and isolated you are.
Your objective is to locate eight pieces of paper, which sounds easy enough. But they're scattered all over the game and once you find the first one the music immediately changes, signalling Slenderman's arrival somewhere on the map. From that moment on you're only hope is to keep moving and find those pieces of paper before he collects your soul or whatever the fuck it is he does to his victims.
What's so effective about this scenario is that the music continues to become more intense, and your wiry opponent more and more relentless, as you find each sheet. If he is near you the screen will fill with static and in order to survive the encounter you'll have to run. Like I said there are no weapons, so running is the only thing you can do. Often you'll see him lurking in the distance. If you turn the other way, the worst thing you can then do is turn back to see if he's still there, because most of the time he'll have teleported right up you and you'll shit yourself and lose the game simultaneously. This represents one of the cleverer aspects of the game, in that it uses your naturally curious and paranoid state of mind to your disadvantage.
If you're interested in playing this game, make sure you do so during the day and make sure there are other people around. Otherwise you'll turn into a catatonic mess. However you might find comfort in the very indie/primitive look of this game. It looks more like a prototype than a finished game, and if the mythos continues to enjoy popularity, I'm sure someone will release an improved version like they've done with Minecraft and other indie-type games.
Slenderman has been characterized over the last couple of years on forums as a tall, human-like creature who appears to wear a suit. His main gimmick is looking creepy and standing ominously in the background of old photographs. But apparently he also eats children. From what I can remember he was invented on a website called Something Awful as part of a competition to create your own urban legend or something like that. Since his conception he has appeared in numerous, Blair Witch style documentary/found footage Youtube series and now he has his own game.
I'm a fan of Slenderman. He's a perfect of example of the kinds of messed-up things that can only exist because of the internet. People show how strange and creative they can be when given the opportunity to express themselves to the world. Take this blog for example; these posts and the pointless crap I address in them are the product of me being given the freedom to say what I want and when I want. If it weren't for the internet there wouldn't be a Slenderman and you wouldn't know what I think of him and there wouldn't be hundreds of videos on Youtube showing roughly human-shaped whales singing pop songs in something vaguely resembling their original key. Slenderman is an extreme example of this liberty, because he came about as a result of countless people adding to his bizarre mythology, and seemingly independant of each other too.
But my God is the game scary!
The player spawns in a forest somewhere with nothing but a torch and I guess a camera, since you can zoom in and out on the scenery and it makes that camera zooming sound when you do. You have no weapons and your torch's battery is slowly running out. Straight away the game establishes just how vulnerable and isolated you are.
Your objective is to locate eight pieces of paper, which sounds easy enough. But they're scattered all over the game and once you find the first one the music immediately changes, signalling Slenderman's arrival somewhere on the map. From that moment on you're only hope is to keep moving and find those pieces of paper before he collects your soul or whatever the fuck it is he does to his victims.
What's so effective about this scenario is that the music continues to become more intense, and your wiry opponent more and more relentless, as you find each sheet. If he is near you the screen will fill with static and in order to survive the encounter you'll have to run. Like I said there are no weapons, so running is the only thing you can do. Often you'll see him lurking in the distance. If you turn the other way, the worst thing you can then do is turn back to see if he's still there, because most of the time he'll have teleported right up you and you'll shit yourself and lose the game simultaneously. This represents one of the cleverer aspects of the game, in that it uses your naturally curious and paranoid state of mind to your disadvantage.
If you're interested in playing this game, make sure you do so during the day and make sure there are other people around. Otherwise you'll turn into a catatonic mess. However you might find comfort in the very indie/primitive look of this game. It looks more like a prototype than a finished game, and if the mythos continues to enjoy popularity, I'm sure someone will release an improved version like they've done with Minecraft and other indie-type games.
Saturday, 30 June 2012
Adam Sandler
Thank God I remembered to ask my former boss for all the holiday pay I haven't used. This week I found myself with an extra $1000 to spend on being young and wild and free and other cliches I don't actually adhere to. But last night I went out and got so drunk that I was questioning the nature of existence and reality between cascades of vomit until I'd filled a bucket to the brim with a yellowish mixture of whiskey and vodka. The hand that wasn't being used to hold this cauldron of foul potion upright was busy writing a thesis on Plato's allegory of the cave. That's a massive exaggeration, but it's funny how sometimes after a few drinks some of us tend to feel smarter even though, objectively speaking, we may be doing something foolish. Like setting fire to our pants.
It was all because I went with some friends to see Ted. We thought it would be fun to sneak some Jack Daniels in there so we could watch this no doubt riotously entertaining film as we stirred a tiny bit of Jack into Coke. But when we got there it was sold out and we had to see some Adam Sandler shitfest instead. Because of this the alcohol was gone within fifteen minutes and then all we were left with was the movie. From what I can remember, Adam Sandler played a washed-up celebrity, the guy from the Lonely Island was his son and Gossip Girl was his fiance. As usual Sandler was talking in a strange voice and was acting like a man-child. Only this time he wasn't holding a golf club or a magical TV remote. Vanilla Ice was in the movie too and so was the guy from Heroes. Wait, I just remembered that James Caan was in this movie. Why???!!!
Thankfully there isn't much I can remember. It was horrible but there were some genuinely funny moments...I think. But I can also think of a better movie about fathers and sons with James Caan in it. Marlon Brando plays the father and Al Pacino and Caan are his sons. It's a little more serious than this flick and maybe you know which one I'm talking about. It's pretty good. If you like bad movies with Adam Sandler you should definitely check it out. Anyway, Adam Sandler sucks and after the movie was over we set out to cleanse our memories of it for good.
It was all because I went with some friends to see Ted. We thought it would be fun to sneak some Jack Daniels in there so we could watch this no doubt riotously entertaining film as we stirred a tiny bit of Jack into Coke. But when we got there it was sold out and we had to see some Adam Sandler shitfest instead. Because of this the alcohol was gone within fifteen minutes and then all we were left with was the movie. From what I can remember, Adam Sandler played a washed-up celebrity, the guy from the Lonely Island was his son and Gossip Girl was his fiance. As usual Sandler was talking in a strange voice and was acting like a man-child. Only this time he wasn't holding a golf club or a magical TV remote. Vanilla Ice was in the movie too and so was the guy from Heroes. Wait, I just remembered that James Caan was in this movie. Why???!!!
Thankfully there isn't much I can remember. It was horrible but there were some genuinely funny moments...I think. But I can also think of a better movie about fathers and sons with James Caan in it. Marlon Brando plays the father and Al Pacino and Caan are his sons. It's a little more serious than this flick and maybe you know which one I'm talking about. It's pretty good. If you like bad movies with Adam Sandler you should definitely check it out. Anyway, Adam Sandler sucks and after the movie was over we set out to cleanse our memories of it for good.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Taco Money
I just went for a drive and found I was a nervous, sweaty, shaking, pants-wetting wreck. After all this time spent trying to get comfortable behind the wheel so I can pass the fucking test it feels like I've gone back in time to when I was first learning how to drive. The car was a manual and my instructor was an intimidating German who moved to Australia after escaping the wrath of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Not the best first person to share a car with. Maybe it has something to do with that movie I watched last night which had a car accident in it. Ewan McGregor was a pychiatrist. Naomi Watts was his girlfriend. It was fucking horrible. So was the accident.
Because I'm worried this blog will slowly turn into nothing but rants about movies, I've been thinking of starting another one. A film review one. A place where I can say "Hey I just watched X and it sucked hard!" But that would require a degree of effort which probably isn't worth investing since as soon as semester two rolls around I won't often get the chance to watch movies.
In the meantime, having tossed employment aside like a dirty tea towel, I've got all the time in the world. So I have two choices:
The end.
Because I'm worried this blog will slowly turn into nothing but rants about movies, I've been thinking of starting another one. A film review one. A place where I can say "Hey I just watched X and it sucked hard!" But that would require a degree of effort which probably isn't worth investing since as soon as semester two rolls around I won't often get the chance to watch movies.
In the meantime, having tossed employment aside like a dirty tea towel, I've got all the time in the world. So I have two choices:
- Get another job
- Spend all my hard-earned taco money on alcohol and ravage my liver.
The end.
Friday, 22 June 2012
MAN CAT!
Well I've finished up my job as a Mexican. As I rode out on the back of a donkey amid hordes of hat-dancers, flamenco guitarists and people waving maracas, I knew that I had reached the end of a era.
But that's not important now. What is important is the startling problem we face as a human race. Yesterday I was informed that Frankencat watches television. I thought nothing of it, since cats are often attracted to strange lights. But then, during dinner, he started begging for food. I'm aware that this is also typical pet behaviour. My only concern is that he has developed a system for begging, one which involves sitting at one owner's feet for a certain amount of time before moving on to another owner. In other words, he has fallbacks; a Plan B. This is a human concept. Further research has brought me to the conclusion that he is evolving; that he is becoming more and more human. He is becoming some kind of...Cat Man...or.....................................
............................................Man........................................Cat............................
If our pets are taking on our humanly characteristics, then that means we now have competition. The planet may not seem big enough for people to co-exist alongside another intelligent civilisation. But it looks like we're just going to have to share. Our pets are evolving out of domestication and we can't afford to make enemies like Man Cat.
But that's not important now. What is important is the startling problem we face as a human race. Yesterday I was informed that Frankencat watches television. I thought nothing of it, since cats are often attracted to strange lights. But then, during dinner, he started begging for food. I'm aware that this is also typical pet behaviour. My only concern is that he has developed a system for begging, one which involves sitting at one owner's feet for a certain amount of time before moving on to another owner. In other words, he has fallbacks; a Plan B. This is a human concept. Further research has brought me to the conclusion that he is evolving; that he is becoming more and more human. He is becoming some kind of...Cat Man...or.....................................
............................................Man........................................Cat............................
If our pets are taking on our humanly characteristics, then that means we now have competition. The planet may not seem big enough for people to co-exist alongside another intelligent civilisation. But it looks like we're just going to have to share. Our pets are evolving out of domestication and we can't afford to make enemies like Man Cat.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Prisonbreak
Last Friday I went to the casino and they gave me a $5 voucher. So I cashed it in and made a quick $5. They also gave me a membership card and a stress ball. That way, when you're sitting in front of the machines losing your savings, you can squeeze it and it will give you the mental stability you need to keep gambling. All in all it was a good haul, but it has nothing to do with today's topic, which is...
...Prisonbreak. (Another TV show).
((spoiler alert) this (spoiler alert) post contains (spoiler alert) spoilers)
This show is old now, old enough that it's been off the air for like three years. But it's worth talking about because it's pretty good I guess. It's like if the Shawshank Redemption was a TV show, and then when (spoilers) Tim Robbins got out of jail there was a second season which was the TV version of The Fugitive. Throw in The Pelican Brief and you've got Prisonbreak.
The story involves a guy, Michael Schofield, who gets himself deliberately incarcerated, which is badass alone, but then we learn that he got himself imprisoned to break out his brother Lincoln, who is on death row because of a murder he claims he didn't commit. His girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend or whoever the fuck she is) is trying to get him exonerated by digging up evidence which supports these claims. But if this was the premise of the show it would be boring. Instead we get an awesome serial drama about how these guys escape jail.
The greatest part of this premise is how Michael's plan unfolds as the first season progresses. We find out late in the first episode that he has the blueprints for the prison tattooed on his body, which sounds like a painful experience and makes you think his brother better be fucking grateful when they're finally free. Michael also recruits other inmates to help with the plan, like the crazy Russian from Armageddon and some Peurto-Rican guy. It's interesting how they all have their own motivation for escaping. Meanwhile the government is going around killing anyone who knows the truth about Lincoln's case, which leads to wacky shenanigans left, right and centre.
The only real problem I have with this show is that it takes so fucking long for them to escape and the plan is horrendously flawed. Things keep going wrong and it's usually up to a combination of Michael's cunning and luck to save the day. One thing that particularly shits me is that he spends probably half a season mixing stolen chemicals inside toothepaste tubes so that he can melt away a drain underneath the prison infirmary. When he and his fellow would-be escapees finally find themselves in a position to climb up into the infirmary through the drain and I guess escape, it turns out someone put a huge pipe there because they just happened to look at the floor and notice there was no drain anymore.
This makes me wonder why anyone would rely on a plan which requires that none of the medical staff look at the floor. Considering there's that one chick who's Michael's love interest and she spends all her time in there, I would consider this too much of a risk and leave it out of the tattoo. But lets backtrack a bit. Another part of the plan involves the inmates working together on the convict maintanence team. Their job is to fix a shed, but when they guards leave them to it they slowly dig a hole in the floor to slip through to the infirmary on the night of their escape. When the guards come back they put a rug over the hole and put a table on that and act like they've been fixing pipes the whole time.
Firstly, wouldn't the guards be suspicious that weeks have gone by during which no maintenance work has been done whatsoever? The shed still looks like shit. Secondly, they've got a fellow escapee posted outside as a lookout to report back whenever they see a guard approaching. If I was the guard whose job it was to oversee the maintenance convicts, I'd be wondering why the fuck one of them is always standing outside, not doing any work, and why he always hurries back inside whenever I come over.
Possibly the most interesting character on the show is Theodore Bagwell, and here's why:
So that's Prisonbreak. I read on Wikipedia that they escape jail and then get thrown into another one a season or so later. Sounds great.
...Prisonbreak. (Another TV show).
((spoiler alert) this (spoiler alert) post contains (spoiler alert) spoilers)
This show is old now, old enough that it's been off the air for like three years. But it's worth talking about because it's pretty good I guess. It's like if the Shawshank Redemption was a TV show, and then when (spoilers) Tim Robbins got out of jail there was a second season which was the TV version of The Fugitive. Throw in The Pelican Brief and you've got Prisonbreak.
The story involves a guy, Michael Schofield, who gets himself deliberately incarcerated, which is badass alone, but then we learn that he got himself imprisoned to break out his brother Lincoln, who is on death row because of a murder he claims he didn't commit. His girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend or whoever the fuck she is) is trying to get him exonerated by digging up evidence which supports these claims. But if this was the premise of the show it would be boring. Instead we get an awesome serial drama about how these guys escape jail.
The greatest part of this premise is how Michael's plan unfolds as the first season progresses. We find out late in the first episode that he has the blueprints for the prison tattooed on his body, which sounds like a painful experience and makes you think his brother better be fucking grateful when they're finally free. Michael also recruits other inmates to help with the plan, like the crazy Russian from Armageddon and some Peurto-Rican guy. It's interesting how they all have their own motivation for escaping. Meanwhile the government is going around killing anyone who knows the truth about Lincoln's case, which leads to wacky shenanigans left, right and centre.
The only real problem I have with this show is that it takes so fucking long for them to escape and the plan is horrendously flawed. Things keep going wrong and it's usually up to a combination of Michael's cunning and luck to save the day. One thing that particularly shits me is that he spends probably half a season mixing stolen chemicals inside toothepaste tubes so that he can melt away a drain underneath the prison infirmary. When he and his fellow would-be escapees finally find themselves in a position to climb up into the infirmary through the drain and I guess escape, it turns out someone put a huge pipe there because they just happened to look at the floor and notice there was no drain anymore.
This makes me wonder why anyone would rely on a plan which requires that none of the medical staff look at the floor. Considering there's that one chick who's Michael's love interest and she spends all her time in there, I would consider this too much of a risk and leave it out of the tattoo. But lets backtrack a bit. Another part of the plan involves the inmates working together on the convict maintanence team. Their job is to fix a shed, but when they guards leave them to it they slowly dig a hole in the floor to slip through to the infirmary on the night of their escape. When the guards come back they put a rug over the hole and put a table on that and act like they've been fixing pipes the whole time.
Firstly, wouldn't the guards be suspicious that weeks have gone by during which no maintenance work has been done whatsoever? The shed still looks like shit. Secondly, they've got a fellow escapee posted outside as a lookout to report back whenever they see a guard approaching. If I was the guard whose job it was to oversee the maintenance convicts, I'd be wondering why the fuck one of them is always standing outside, not doing any work, and why he always hurries back inside whenever I come over.
Possibly the most interesting character on the show is Theodore Bagwell, and here's why:
- His nickname is T-Bag, which is hilarious.
- He's the only person in the cast which the balls to kill a prisonguard who happens to stumble upon Michael's escape plan. Who cares if the man is young and just married, you gotta do what you gotta do.
- He's a combination of homosexual, pedophile, murderer, rapist, creep, thief, psychotic. Basically, he's every single type of criminal combined.
- He talks like a Disney villain.
So that's Prisonbreak. I read on Wikipedia that they escape jail and then get thrown into another one a season or so later. Sounds great.
Saturday, 16 June 2012
Cyberbully: A Horrifying Viewing Experience
Cyberbullying is the big issue of the 21st century now that everyone owns a means of accessing the Internet, be it a laptop or an Iphone or a router inside your cybernetic brain which allows you to blog telepathically. So of course America made a TV movie about it so that parents could sit their children down and scare them into throwing out every piece of technology they own after the horrific viewing experience that is Cyberbully. This little movie looked so intriguingly bad that i tried to watch it, suffered through 22 minutes, and the rest of it I learnt about by consulting Youtube reviews. Now I have my topic of the day! XD
Originally aired last year (about five years too late considering what the Internet looks like in this movie), Cyberbully is the story of a girl who gets bullied online. She also gets bullied in real life but that problem is soooo last century. This girl has a couple of friends and together they share thought-provoking dialogue about boys and social networking and the class bitch who likes to make fun of them because it's an American high school and someone must fill that role for the school to have any credibility whatsoever. I know this is just a TV propaganda movie, but the dialogue seems to recite the plot for the benefit of the viewers, rather than having the camera do that job by, you know, showing us what's happening. Instead we get:
"Have you heard from your dad?"
"I haven't heard from Dad since he had an affair and left us a couple of months ago."
"That must be why you're in such a vulnerable place right now and therefore more prone to getting upset if someone were to use the Internet to harm your reputation."
"So how about that new social networking site! I sure hope we don't get cyberbullied and then one of us tries to commit suicide which causes our parents to campaign to get the Internet legislated, triggering a debate about whether the Internet should be legislated when its up to the user what they choose to put online!"
"High school sure is hard!"
Yep. High school is hard. One of my many personalities wrote a post about it once. But the thing about high school is that nothing that happens will matter once you graduate. So suck it up and deal with it. This girl has no problem dealing with the real life teasing, it's when things get all cyber that the shit hits the fan.
So her mum (Mom) buys her a laptop for her birthday, which makes no sense because her mum is super strict when it comes to the Internet. She childproofs the home computer, forbids most websites, monitors every single thing her kids do online, all that kind of stuff. She says she bought it so that her daughter can write to her heart's content since she wants to be a journalist. But still, why spend all that money on a laptop? The girl doesn't even use it for that. She sets up an account on some social networking site with a stupid name like FaceSpace or TwitBook. The site seems specifically designed to promote cyberbullying. It has no privacy settings as far as I can tell; no boundaries or the ability to report bad stuff. It also asks you private questions like "what colour underwear are you wearing?" Seriously, what kind of site is this?
As soon as she sets up the account, her brother logs in using her password and updates her status to say "I'm a nasty slut who needs to be spanked" or something as uncomfortably incestuous. All he has to do is guess her password which is easy because it turns out to be the name of their old pet cat. There's an important lesson to be learnt here for all parents and the children they're forcing to watch this drivel. That lesson is: don't have kids; they're awful; check the condom for holes next time.
Naturally everyone starts putting up nasty comments because it's an American high school and kids are awful. The next time she goes to school the class bitch makes fun of her. Suddenly this is more upsetting than before because now it's the Internet's fault. There's another film about the dangers of the web called Megan is Missing. In that, a girl meets a creep online who kidnaps and brutally murders her. There you go, kids - an actual warning about the real dangers of the Internet, because getting tortured to death is much worse than accidentally giving someone who hates you something to tease you about.
This airhead acts like her life is ruined. But I can't tell what's changed. Some other stuff happens to her which sucks. She ends up losing her friends, the boy she likes doesn't want to go to the dance with her because he's a vampire and he's worried he'll lose control of his animalistic urges and drain her blood. Someone shoots up the school, aliens invade Earth and the dead come back to life and start eating everyone's brains - all because of the cyber bullying.
It all culminates in a rather hilarious video posted on TwitFace in which the class bitch pretends to be our airhead protagonist and makes nasty comments about her apparent promiscuity. Unfortunately our airhead protagonist doesn't find it that funny and makes a response video about how she's going to kill herself. Only one person who sees it decides to take it seriously and rushes over to her house just in time to find the girl has failed to off herself because she can't take the cap off her bottle of sleeping pills. That's right, she can't take the cap off. If only the Internet were as idiot-proof as a bottle of sleeping pills. This is the point where everyone who is on the edge of their seat rooting for her to succeed slumps back in dismay. Because unfortunately she survives.
After that she goes to some kind of cyberbullying support group. I like to imagine that while they're talking about how much it sucks to be trolled, someone next door is telling Alcoholics Anonymous about how they got drunk and ran over a child, and how they've had to live to with that guilt ever since. Why can't we see that??? Her mother tries to get the Internet legislated, but a judge or some other kind of law person tells her there's no use because the Internet has a delete button. There you go. Problem solved. We'll just delete the Internet...or hold it hostage in our recycle bin while demanding discounts at online stores. Isn't it amazing how anyone can be a criminal mastermind in today's society?!
In the end, the girl and her friends confront the class bitch and everyone in the cafeteria applauds them as they pour water on her, gazing in silent satisfaction as she melts into a puddle of cyberbully goo. The Internet is then deleted and nailed inside a wooden box which is placed in a large warehouse with the Lost Ark. Countries all over the world are seen celebrating the end of its tyrannical reign.
The movie ends and parents everywhere applaud.
And that's Cyberbully. It's a film designed to be shown in Health class. But I can't tell whether it's a warning about the dangers of putting personal information online or about how stupid people can be.
Originally aired last year (about five years too late considering what the Internet looks like in this movie), Cyberbully is the story of a girl who gets bullied online. She also gets bullied in real life but that problem is soooo last century. This girl has a couple of friends and together they share thought-provoking dialogue about boys and social networking and the class bitch who likes to make fun of them because it's an American high school and someone must fill that role for the school to have any credibility whatsoever. I know this is just a TV propaganda movie, but the dialogue seems to recite the plot for the benefit of the viewers, rather than having the camera do that job by, you know, showing us what's happening. Instead we get:
"Have you heard from your dad?"
"I haven't heard from Dad since he had an affair and left us a couple of months ago."
"That must be why you're in such a vulnerable place right now and therefore more prone to getting upset if someone were to use the Internet to harm your reputation."
"So how about that new social networking site! I sure hope we don't get cyberbullied and then one of us tries to commit suicide which causes our parents to campaign to get the Internet legislated, triggering a debate about whether the Internet should be legislated when its up to the user what they choose to put online!"
"High school sure is hard!"
Yep. High school is hard. One of my many personalities wrote a post about it once. But the thing about high school is that nothing that happens will matter once you graduate. So suck it up and deal with it. This girl has no problem dealing with the real life teasing, it's when things get all cyber that the shit hits the fan.
So her mum (Mom) buys her a laptop for her birthday, which makes no sense because her mum is super strict when it comes to the Internet. She childproofs the home computer, forbids most websites, monitors every single thing her kids do online, all that kind of stuff. She says she bought it so that her daughter can write to her heart's content since she wants to be a journalist. But still, why spend all that money on a laptop? The girl doesn't even use it for that. She sets up an account on some social networking site with a stupid name like FaceSpace or TwitBook. The site seems specifically designed to promote cyberbullying. It has no privacy settings as far as I can tell; no boundaries or the ability to report bad stuff. It also asks you private questions like "what colour underwear are you wearing?" Seriously, what kind of site is this?
As soon as she sets up the account, her brother logs in using her password and updates her status to say "I'm a nasty slut who needs to be spanked" or something as uncomfortably incestuous. All he has to do is guess her password which is easy because it turns out to be the name of their old pet cat. There's an important lesson to be learnt here for all parents and the children they're forcing to watch this drivel. That lesson is: don't have kids; they're awful; check the condom for holes next time.
Naturally everyone starts putting up nasty comments because it's an American high school and kids are awful. The next time she goes to school the class bitch makes fun of her. Suddenly this is more upsetting than before because now it's the Internet's fault. There's another film about the dangers of the web called Megan is Missing. In that, a girl meets a creep online who kidnaps and brutally murders her. There you go, kids - an actual warning about the real dangers of the Internet, because getting tortured to death is much worse than accidentally giving someone who hates you something to tease you about.
This airhead acts like her life is ruined. But I can't tell what's changed. Some other stuff happens to her which sucks. She ends up losing her friends, the boy she likes doesn't want to go to the dance with her because he's a vampire and he's worried he'll lose control of his animalistic urges and drain her blood. Someone shoots up the school, aliens invade Earth and the dead come back to life and start eating everyone's brains - all because of the cyber bullying.
It all culminates in a rather hilarious video posted on TwitFace in which the class bitch pretends to be our airhead protagonist and makes nasty comments about her apparent promiscuity. Unfortunately our airhead protagonist doesn't find it that funny and makes a response video about how she's going to kill herself. Only one person who sees it decides to take it seriously and rushes over to her house just in time to find the girl has failed to off herself because she can't take the cap off her bottle of sleeping pills. That's right, she can't take the cap off. If only the Internet were as idiot-proof as a bottle of sleeping pills. This is the point where everyone who is on the edge of their seat rooting for her to succeed slumps back in dismay. Because unfortunately she survives.
After that she goes to some kind of cyberbullying support group. I like to imagine that while they're talking about how much it sucks to be trolled, someone next door is telling Alcoholics Anonymous about how they got drunk and ran over a child, and how they've had to live to with that guilt ever since. Why can't we see that??? Her mother tries to get the Internet legislated, but a judge or some other kind of law person tells her there's no use because the Internet has a delete button. There you go. Problem solved. We'll just delete the Internet...or hold it hostage in our recycle bin while demanding discounts at online stores. Isn't it amazing how anyone can be a criminal mastermind in today's society?!
In the end, the girl and her friends confront the class bitch and everyone in the cafeteria applauds them as they pour water on her, gazing in silent satisfaction as she melts into a puddle of cyberbully goo. The Internet is then deleted and nailed inside a wooden box which is placed in a large warehouse with the Lost Ark. Countries all over the world are seen celebrating the end of its tyrannical reign.
The movie ends and parents everywhere applaud.
And that's Cyberbully. It's a film designed to be shown in Health class. But I can't tell whether it's a warning about the dangers of putting personal information online or about how stupid people can be.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Winter
There's this movie called Monsoon Wedding which I guess is about a wedding that takes place during monsoon season. Since that did well, Australia should make Drought Wedding, a love story set against a backdrop of bushfire warnings and water restrictions.
To be fair, the drought isn't exactly a season, but Summer is - which is the perfect jumping off point for today's topic: what Winter means to me. For anyone reading this who lives overseas where it's Summer right now, there's nothing quite like an Australian winter with it's fierce blizzards and several feet of snow. The sky is blanketed in thick clouds; the temperature drops like thirty degrees; kangaroos install central heating in their pouches; aborigines skin each other to make coats. It's a cruel and unforgiving time of year. It also brings to mind the following things.
Mid-year exams
There's nothing as thrilling as sitting in the Royal Exhibition Building and trying to draw on all those facts you haven't studied while staring up at paintings on the ceiling almost good enough to have been done by a ninja turtle like the Sistine Chapel. But they don't seem to provide adequate heating. So not only are you under pressure, you're also freezing your nuts off. Yesterday during my Corporate Law exam there was snow falling around my desk as I chiselled away at the rock-solid sheet of ice in which my paper was encased. I could see my breath and my hands were turning blue. A snow plough drove past my desk, clearing a path for the invigilators who were all woolly mammoths (they're the only ones who can keep warm enough to do the job).
Who the f#%k drinks beer anymore?
I don't know about you but I find beer only tastes good in Summer. Once Winter rolls around it's time to get a big bottle of Irish whiskey and pour a little bit into a glass so I can sit down in my comfortable leather chair, wearing a nice warm gown and staring up at a huge portrait of my younger self while thinking about the stock market and what on Earth am I talking about?
Long walks of self-discovery
When it starts to get dark, I like to wrap myself in fur coats, put tennis rackets on my feet and venture out into the icy wasteland that is my suburb come Winter-time. Sometimes you find the frozen remains of lost travellers; poor souls who braved the outdoors and met an ill fate at the hands of a blizzard or the thing that nearly ate Luke Skywalker.
Roasting marshmallows over a warm fire
Sometimes, when I'm out on my soul-searching walk, I'll break into an abandoned shop and steal some marshmallows and a tin of cocoa powder. But sometimes I have to fight the wolves for it and that's how I got these horrific scars on my arms. The best thing about living in a house and not an igloo like my neighbours is that you can have a fire going without worrying about melting a hole in your wall. Then you dress your wolf-bites, make a steaming cup of hot chocolate, roast some marshmallows and wait for the full moon.
Fending off cannibals
During Winter they're all over the place. I'd like to say I'm happy that they're all dead by Summer, but all it does is make room for the huntsmen spiders which are infinitely worse.
The Abominable Snowman
I've met him. He's not that scary. He just NEVER SHUTS UP about Seinfeld.
And that's Winter in a nutshell. It's a great time of year. If you're from overseas then bring the family here for a ski trip, but make sure you pack plenty of emergency-lost-in-the-wilderness rations. Also bring a torch or something because there's no natural light here. The Sun couldn't be further away if it was photobombing pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope.
To be fair, the drought isn't exactly a season, but Summer is - which is the perfect jumping off point for today's topic: what Winter means to me. For anyone reading this who lives overseas where it's Summer right now, there's nothing quite like an Australian winter with it's fierce blizzards and several feet of snow. The sky is blanketed in thick clouds; the temperature drops like thirty degrees; kangaroos install central heating in their pouches; aborigines skin each other to make coats. It's a cruel and unforgiving time of year. It also brings to mind the following things.
Mid-year exams
There's nothing as thrilling as sitting in the Royal Exhibition Building and trying to draw on all those facts you haven't studied while staring up at paintings on the ceiling almost good enough to have been done by a ninja turtle like the Sistine Chapel. But they don't seem to provide adequate heating. So not only are you under pressure, you're also freezing your nuts off. Yesterday during my Corporate Law exam there was snow falling around my desk as I chiselled away at the rock-solid sheet of ice in which my paper was encased. I could see my breath and my hands were turning blue. A snow plough drove past my desk, clearing a path for the invigilators who were all woolly mammoths (they're the only ones who can keep warm enough to do the job).
Who the f#%k drinks beer anymore?
I don't know about you but I find beer only tastes good in Summer. Once Winter rolls around it's time to get a big bottle of Irish whiskey and pour a little bit into a glass so I can sit down in my comfortable leather chair, wearing a nice warm gown and staring up at a huge portrait of my younger self while thinking about the stock market and what on Earth am I talking about?
Long walks of self-discovery
When it starts to get dark, I like to wrap myself in fur coats, put tennis rackets on my feet and venture out into the icy wasteland that is my suburb come Winter-time. Sometimes you find the frozen remains of lost travellers; poor souls who braved the outdoors and met an ill fate at the hands of a blizzard or the thing that nearly ate Luke Skywalker.
Roasting marshmallows over a warm fire
Sometimes, when I'm out on my soul-searching walk, I'll break into an abandoned shop and steal some marshmallows and a tin of cocoa powder. But sometimes I have to fight the wolves for it and that's how I got these horrific scars on my arms. The best thing about living in a house and not an igloo like my neighbours is that you can have a fire going without worrying about melting a hole in your wall. Then you dress your wolf-bites, make a steaming cup of hot chocolate, roast some marshmallows and wait for the full moon.
Fending off cannibals
During Winter they're all over the place. I'd like to say I'm happy that they're all dead by Summer, but all it does is make room for the huntsmen spiders which are infinitely worse.
The Abominable Snowman
I've met him. He's not that scary. He just NEVER SHUTS UP about Seinfeld.
And that's Winter in a nutshell. It's a great time of year. If you're from overseas then bring the family here for a ski trip, but make sure you pack plenty of emergency-lost-in-the-wilderness rations. Also bring a torch or something because there's no natural light here. The Sun couldn't be further away if it was photobombing pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope.
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Huh?
I haven't been here much lately. I've been busy, you know, with exams and stuff. The internet has become the headache tablet I take after clubbing myself around the head with facts about corporate law and Indonesia. In other words all I've been doing is studying and looking up Cracked.com articles. I kind of wish I could leave my body and become one with the internet, sort of like in Tron or the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If that happened I could hack into people's Facebook accounts at will and create Youtube videos with my mind. Today's topic is honey.
Honey is that viscuous, gooey, sweet shit that bees make and sell to humans for a modest profit. We then spread it on our toast and thank God for bees. Bees have hives where they make honey, entertain the queen with stand-up comedy and manage the business, which includes calculating their expenses and making sure they don't go over their budget. That sort of thing. Did you know bees have stingers, which are like knives stuck to their asses that dislodge inside people and then they die while if the person is allergic their face swells up like a balloon and they end up choking on their own tongue which looks like some fat, purple fish trying to squeeze its way out of their expanding mouth. Or like a whale giving birth. Fascinating stuff.
None of this has anything to do with my exams or indeed anything to do with anything. I just thought it was worth bringing up since without bees there would be no honey and without honey there would be no honey-joys, or those muesli bars held together with honey. In fact, the word honey wouldn't exist. So that movie with Jessica Alba dancing would be called something else, like That Movie Where Jessica Alba Dances.
Oh, another thing I should mention, which isn't as important as the bees, but still, is that I quit my job. I've already forgotten that place. But for some reason I keep seeing flashes of sombreros and maracas and I don't know why. Actually I've still got like two or three shifts left, and I can't remember where I work because my brain is fried and I can't even remember what colour the sky is because I've been cooped up in this room for a week. At least I think it's a week. Maybe it's been years and years and when I open the door the world will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland and the only people reading this blog are scattered survivors or our robot/alien/platypus overlords.
Anyway if you liked this post then I'll send you some of my homemade honey. If you hated it I'll cough in an envelope and send that to you and with a bit of luck I have swine flu or meningacoccus and you'll get it. Asshole.
The end.
Honey is that viscuous, gooey, sweet shit that bees make and sell to humans for a modest profit. We then spread it on our toast and thank God for bees. Bees have hives where they make honey, entertain the queen with stand-up comedy and manage the business, which includes calculating their expenses and making sure they don't go over their budget. That sort of thing. Did you know bees have stingers, which are like knives stuck to their asses that dislodge inside people and then they die while if the person is allergic their face swells up like a balloon and they end up choking on their own tongue which looks like some fat, purple fish trying to squeeze its way out of their expanding mouth. Or like a whale giving birth. Fascinating stuff.
None of this has anything to do with my exams or indeed anything to do with anything. I just thought it was worth bringing up since without bees there would be no honey and without honey there would be no honey-joys, or those muesli bars held together with honey. In fact, the word honey wouldn't exist. So that movie with Jessica Alba dancing would be called something else, like That Movie Where Jessica Alba Dances.
Oh, another thing I should mention, which isn't as important as the bees, but still, is that I quit my job. I've already forgotten that place. But for some reason I keep seeing flashes of sombreros and maracas and I don't know why. Actually I've still got like two or three shifts left, and I can't remember where I work because my brain is fried and I can't even remember what colour the sky is because I've been cooped up in this room for a week. At least I think it's a week. Maybe it's been years and years and when I open the door the world will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland and the only people reading this blog are scattered survivors or our robot/alien/platypus overlords.
Anyway if you liked this post then I'll send you some of my homemade honey. If you hated it I'll cough in an envelope and send that to you and with a bit of luck I have swine flu or meningacoccus and you'll get it. Asshole.
The end.
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Moneti$e
I just noticed the "Monetise" button at the end of the Blogger dashboard. If I were to let companies place ads on this blog, which recieves just over half a view each year, I'm sure I could earn a lot of money. Let me just do the calculations.
...well it turns out I could make a fortune. All I have to do is keep blogging and live for ever.
Having Adsense on your blog seems like $elling out to me and I'd imagine the handful of people who enjoy coming here to read whatever it is I talk about on this simple, nineties-style page with its pointless background picture and courier font would be taken aback if it was suddenly covered in ads. It would be like going to your local, down-to-earth, under-the-radar, other-hyphen-words cafe to find it's been turned into a Starbucks. This cute little waste of time would suddenly be a soulless waste time as I scrape the internet for a few cents.
That's right. I'm indie. Like Philosophist!
Philosophist?
Philosophist!
On the weekend I went out and got trashed.
Haha just kidding. I studied and rented Star Wars. It's been at least seven years since I saw the original trilogy. I'd forgotten how much I loved the special effects and that fish guy who says "IT'S A TRAP!" and that illegal immigrant dwarf flying the Millenium Falcon with Lando at the end of Return of the Jedi. Not to mention Joda's laugh; the sand people; Luke whining to his uncle about going to something or another and buying some power converters; C3PO; R2D2; the fat guy who dies first when they attack the Death Star; the Death Star; how awesome Jedis were before they made the prequels; the fact that all you have to do is press three buttons to fire the Death Star laser, which could be a potential catastrophe on Bring Your Kids to Work Day; that one Ewok who steals a bike; Lando's friend that bald guy with the bluetooth thing wrapped around his head; the hilarious sexual tension between Han and Leia.
I never realised how dated these movies are and yet they're somehow timeless.
...well it turns out I could make a fortune. All I have to do is keep blogging and live for ever.
Having Adsense on your blog seems like $elling out to me and I'd imagine the handful of people who enjoy coming here to read whatever it is I talk about on this simple, nineties-style page with its pointless background picture and courier font would be taken aback if it was suddenly covered in ads. It would be like going to your local, down-to-earth, under-the-radar, other-hyphen-words cafe to find it's been turned into a Starbucks. This cute little waste of time would suddenly be a soulless waste time as I scrape the internet for a few cents.
That's right. I'm indie. Like Philosophist!
Philosophist?
Philosophist!
On the weekend I went out and got trashed.
Haha just kidding. I studied and rented Star Wars. It's been at least seven years since I saw the original trilogy. I'd forgotten how much I loved the special effects and that fish guy who says "IT'S A TRAP!" and that illegal immigrant dwarf flying the Millenium Falcon with Lando at the end of Return of the Jedi. Not to mention Joda's laugh; the sand people; Luke whining to his uncle about going to something or another and buying some power converters; C3PO; R2D2; the fat guy who dies first when they attack the Death Star; the Death Star; how awesome Jedis were before they made the prequels; the fact that all you have to do is press three buttons to fire the Death Star laser, which could be a potential catastrophe on Bring Your Kids to Work Day; that one Ewok who steals a bike; Lando's friend that bald guy with the bluetooth thing wrapped around his head; the hilarious sexual tension between Han and Leia.
I never realised how dated these movies are and yet they're somehow timeless.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Breaking Bad (Season Three)
Previously on Breaking Bad... Malcolm in the Middle's Dad had cancer and decided to cook meth. Now he doesn't have cancer but he's still cooking meth.
Still a great show. I'm aware that I'm treading through a minefield of spoilers so I'll be careful. Season Three begins with the aftermath of a plane crash which just happens to take place over Walt's neighbourhood, and which also just so happens to be his fault (by massive, massive extension - but I won't go into the details). While he deals with guilt and the trainwreck that is his marriage - I can't stand his wife by the way, she's a tremendous bitch - Jesse is in rehab and devises a clever but completely amoral way to deal Walt's product independently.
This season gets off to a slow start. Nothing much is happening in the cooking meth department, Walt and his wife are fighting a lot and a Mexican version of those twins from the Matrix Reloaded are out to kill him, but his boss is holding them off because he needs "Heisenberg" alive to cook him that famous blue meth of his. Did I mention Walt's pseudonym is "Heisenberg"? That's what I'm changing my name to when I become a drug-dealer.
I'd say it picked up about halfway through thanks to the storyline surrounding Hank, Walt's DEA brother-in-law, who is desperate to catch the mysterious Heisenberg while dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Regardless of how much of a bad ass, Michael Chiklis impersonating tank this guy is, anyone would be shook-up if they saw Danny Trejo's severed head stuck to the back of a turtle which then proceeded to explode. No idea what I'm talking about? Watch the show. It's insane.
The only thing that bugs me is it ended on one of the greatest cliff-hangers I've ever seen. So now I have to go out and get the fourth season because I'm desperate to find out what happens.
Final verdict: Breaking Bad is awful. Wait - did I say Breaking Bad?
I meant Glee.
Breaking Bad is awesome.
Still a great show. I'm aware that I'm treading through a minefield of spoilers so I'll be careful. Season Three begins with the aftermath of a plane crash which just happens to take place over Walt's neighbourhood, and which also just so happens to be his fault (by massive, massive extension - but I won't go into the details). While he deals with guilt and the trainwreck that is his marriage - I can't stand his wife by the way, she's a tremendous bitch - Jesse is in rehab and devises a clever but completely amoral way to deal Walt's product independently.
This season gets off to a slow start. Nothing much is happening in the cooking meth department, Walt and his wife are fighting a lot and a Mexican version of those twins from the Matrix Reloaded are out to kill him, but his boss is holding them off because he needs "Heisenberg" alive to cook him that famous blue meth of his. Did I mention Walt's pseudonym is "Heisenberg"? That's what I'm changing my name to when I become a drug-dealer.
I'd say it picked up about halfway through thanks to the storyline surrounding Hank, Walt's DEA brother-in-law, who is desperate to catch the mysterious Heisenberg while dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Regardless of how much of a bad ass, Michael Chiklis impersonating tank this guy is, anyone would be shook-up if they saw Danny Trejo's severed head stuck to the back of a turtle which then proceeded to explode. No idea what I'm talking about? Watch the show. It's insane.
The only thing that bugs me is it ended on one of the greatest cliff-hangers I've ever seen. So now I have to go out and get the fourth season because I'm desperate to find out what happens.
Final verdict: Breaking Bad is awful. Wait - did I say Breaking Bad?
I meant Glee.
Breaking Bad is awesome.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Eurovision (Part 2)
Well look at me listening to Linkin Park like some misunderstood teen, dying my hair black and slitting my wrists while thinking about how much I hate my step dad or whatever. I used to love this band. I was like eleven and I was into Linkin Park and Evanescence and Good Charlotte. Wow...
Today's topic is the second half of Eurovision. I never got around to reviewing semi-final 2 because I was busy fuming at the Australian media spoiling the winner. Seriously, you bunch of footy-loving, kangaroo-shooting, billabong camping fuckwits, some of us don't want the winner spoiled so please, next time, DON'T put it all over the TV. I only had to glance in the direction of a screen at my gym to see that Sweden was the winner. Although I'm not surprised, since they were awesome. They had that song that went like "EUUUPPHOORRRIAAA! SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING OF TIME!" And there was a ninja at the end who came on and nearly kicked the gold robes lady in the head. Also it was snowing or some shit. I was sold from the moment they came on stage and I'm not surprised they won by more than fifty points.
As it turned out Russia did extremely well, which is great because those fine dames worked their hips out of joint to entertain us with their song about...what was it about? They were holding a tray of cookies and singing about partying. So maybe they were saying that their baking is so good it makes people dance. Whatever the case, there must have been something nice in those cookies because they were clearly having a wonderful time. The little one waving her arms around was just adorable, like a baby goblin demanding a hug.
Two other memorable acts were Greece and Cyprus. Sure, the music was good and I came for that, but I stayed for the sexiest lead singers their countries had to offer. Makes me want to go to Europe. Ms. Greece had legs like...
like...
...well you know what legs looks like.
As usual Britain got no points. They seem to treat Eurovision like paying a bill or something that needs to be done before a certain date. They just don't put any effort into it and hence they're consistently awful. At least they had an excuse this year. The Olympics are coming up and it just so happens London's been picked. So they're probably busy knocking down council flats and mosques to make way for this tremendous event. In all seriousness I hope it goes swimmingly. On a scale of Munich to Sydney (which is my personal favourite) I hope it's up the Sydney end. Go Brits.
Today's topic is the second half of Eurovision. I never got around to reviewing semi-final 2 because I was busy fuming at the Australian media spoiling the winner. Seriously, you bunch of footy-loving, kangaroo-shooting, billabong camping fuckwits, some of us don't want the winner spoiled so please, next time, DON'T put it all over the TV. I only had to glance in the direction of a screen at my gym to see that Sweden was the winner. Although I'm not surprised, since they were awesome. They had that song that went like "EUUUPPHOORRRIAAA! SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING OF TIME!" And there was a ninja at the end who came on and nearly kicked the gold robes lady in the head. Also it was snowing or some shit. I was sold from the moment they came on stage and I'm not surprised they won by more than fifty points.
As it turned out Russia did extremely well, which is great because those fine dames worked their hips out of joint to entertain us with their song about...what was it about? They were holding a tray of cookies and singing about partying. So maybe they were saying that their baking is so good it makes people dance. Whatever the case, there must have been something nice in those cookies because they were clearly having a wonderful time. The little one waving her arms around was just adorable, like a baby goblin demanding a hug.
Two other memorable acts were Greece and Cyprus. Sure, the music was good and I came for that, but I stayed for the sexiest lead singers their countries had to offer. Makes me want to go to Europe. Ms. Greece had legs like...
like...
...well you know what legs looks like.
As usual Britain got no points. They seem to treat Eurovision like paying a bill or something that needs to be done before a certain date. They just don't put any effort into it and hence they're consistently awful. At least they had an excuse this year. The Olympics are coming up and it just so happens London's been picked. So they're probably busy knocking down council flats and mosques to make way for this tremendous event. In all seriousness I hope it goes swimmingly. On a scale of Munich to Sydney (which is my personal favourite) I hope it's up the Sydney end. Go Brits.
Friday, 25 May 2012
Eurovision (Part 1)
It's that time of year again!
Today's topic is Eurovision. In case you've been living under a rock or have been cyrogenically frozen for centuries, the Eurovision Song Contest is huge music competition and a chance for Europe to demonstrate its diversity through the power of song. It's kind of like if the world wars were fought with music and strange outfits instead of, you know, guns and shit. I tune in every year because you never quite know what you're going to get. It's like they go around lifting rocks and digging under every nook and cranny to find the weirdest musicians that quirky continent has to offer, and usually there will be at least one or two bands that have me shaking my head in wonder and marvelling at how crazy the world can be.
Last night I caught the first semi-final. This year the competition is set in Baku, since Azerbaijan won last year with that song that goes "UH UH UH OH OH UH UH OH" or something like that. I didn't really watch it last year because no one was particularly interesting. But this year I was pulled back into the frontlines of musical hilarity right off the bat, with three performances I think are worth mentioning directly.
Wait, make that four performances. I just remembered another one.
Israel - the girl on the keyboard was clearly pissed. I tip my hat to her for discovering the best way just to get through the night.
Russia - the seven oldest women in Russia sang a song about partying. Even the paramedics standing by the stage were dancing.
Ireland - two twins with ADHD, dressed up like anime characters, dancing like anime characters. Seriously, where do they find these people???
Austria: A rap band called Trackshittaz, which is funny enough. But the absolute best thing about these guys is that they were apparently rapping in Austrian and yet every word sounded kind of like an English swearword, even though it supposedly wasn't.
I also love how Azerbaijan seemed to run out of famous landmarks to advertise between performances after about performance five. I suspected that they'd already covered every square metre of their adorable little nation once they started showing shots of "radio tower". Tonight we can probably expect them to give us beautiful, jaw-dropping footage of "post office" and "John's house" and "car park".
Today's topic is Eurovision. In case you've been living under a rock or have been cyrogenically frozen for centuries, the Eurovision Song Contest is huge music competition and a chance for Europe to demonstrate its diversity through the power of song. It's kind of like if the world wars were fought with music and strange outfits instead of, you know, guns and shit. I tune in every year because you never quite know what you're going to get. It's like they go around lifting rocks and digging under every nook and cranny to find the weirdest musicians that quirky continent has to offer, and usually there will be at least one or two bands that have me shaking my head in wonder and marvelling at how crazy the world can be.
Last night I caught the first semi-final. This year the competition is set in Baku, since Azerbaijan won last year with that song that goes "UH UH UH OH OH UH UH OH" or something like that. I didn't really watch it last year because no one was particularly interesting. But this year I was pulled back into the frontlines of musical hilarity right off the bat, with three performances I think are worth mentioning directly.
Wait, make that four performances. I just remembered another one.
Israel - the girl on the keyboard was clearly pissed. I tip my hat to her for discovering the best way just to get through the night.
Russia - the seven oldest women in Russia sang a song about partying. Even the paramedics standing by the stage were dancing.
Ireland - two twins with ADHD, dressed up like anime characters, dancing like anime characters. Seriously, where do they find these people???
Austria: A rap band called Trackshittaz, which is funny enough. But the absolute best thing about these guys is that they were apparently rapping in Austrian and yet every word sounded kind of like an English swearword, even though it supposedly wasn't.
I also love how Azerbaijan seemed to run out of famous landmarks to advertise between performances after about performance five. I suspected that they'd already covered every square metre of their adorable little nation once they started showing shots of "radio tower". Tonight we can probably expect them to give us beautiful, jaw-dropping footage of "post office" and "John's house" and "car park".
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Script for Performance: The Epic Climax
At last the end has come and gone,
for performance writing 101.
They organised a reading night,
much to everyone's delight.
Everyone, that is, except for me,
I'd have stayed home happily.
But I dragged my lazy arse out of bed,
so that my shitty monologue could be read.
The other students were diverse,
impressing with each awesome verse.
There were plays about romance and some about rape.
A guy was wearing masking tape.
I noticed lots of gimmicks and tricks,
at which point I was shitting bricks.
All I had was an A4 sheet,
Lying underneath my seat.
Eventually they announced my turn,
I felt my cheeks begin to burn.
I clumsily opened my awful script,
and cursed aloud when it nearly ripped.
Afterwards I felt depressed.
The whole thing was a fucking mess.
I'd like to say I kept my pride,
but that part of me also died.
At the end they clapped politely,
I think I might have pissed myself slightly.
I left the stage and sat back down,
..."David" is a proper noun...?
The worst part of the night by far,
was the lack of any kind of bar.
Perhaps my reading might not have stunk,
if I'd been completely drunk.
By the way I should mention that,
if you're wondering what happened to Frankencat,
he got all creative and moved to L.A.
He's currently directing his very own play.
This flow of ideas is starting to pass.
(I pulled that last stanza out of my arse).
I'll post again when there's something to say.
Thank you so much and have a nice day.
for performance writing 101.
They organised a reading night,
much to everyone's delight.
Everyone, that is, except for me,
I'd have stayed home happily.
But I dragged my lazy arse out of bed,
so that my shitty monologue could be read.
The other students were diverse,
impressing with each awesome verse.
There were plays about romance and some about rape.
A guy was wearing masking tape.
I noticed lots of gimmicks and tricks,
at which point I was shitting bricks.
All I had was an A4 sheet,
Lying underneath my seat.
Eventually they announced my turn,
I felt my cheeks begin to burn.
I clumsily opened my awful script,
and cursed aloud when it nearly ripped.
Afterwards I felt depressed.
The whole thing was a fucking mess.
I'd like to say I kept my pride,
but that part of me also died.
At the end they clapped politely,
I think I might have pissed myself slightly.
I left the stage and sat back down,
..."David" is a proper noun...?
The worst part of the night by far,
was the lack of any kind of bar.
Perhaps my reading might not have stunk,
if I'd been completely drunk.
By the way I should mention that,
if you're wondering what happened to Frankencat,
he got all creative and moved to L.A.
He's currently directing his very own play.
This flow of ideas is starting to pass.
(I pulled that last stanza out of my arse).
I'll post again when there's something to say.
Thank you so much and have a nice day.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Niall's Music
Attention Nickleback fans, your fandom is misplaced. Switch to good music today and discover the reason why music exists. But to be fair, although Nickleback sounds like some lizard vomiting into a microphone, it gets much worse. I keep hearing rumours of something called One Direction. They are apparently a group of serial killers whose M.O. is to torture people to death through sound. The only way to survive their reign of terror is to keep the radio switched off and stay away from the internet. Since I don't use a radio and I blog telepathically, I have all bases covered. But if you're reading this from a computer, then I suggest you to finish reading and then throw your computer away. If you do that you might stand a chance. Also, keep away from TV, particularly breakfast shows who like to have awful musicians as guests, the kind of artists who are happy to get up at the crack of dawn to go on TV and have a superficial conversation with Kerri-Anne or Koshawhatshisface.
Don't be afraid to cut yourself off from today's music. I'm trapped somewhere between the 60s and about 2004 and I couldn't be happier. I'll admit "Call Me Maybe" is a genius song, because it bores its way into your brain and literally takes over, manipulating your hands into logging onto the Itunes store and downloading it. But I'm also happy to say it hasn't possessed me yet. I had no idea who One Direction was until I contacted the asylum they escaped from, and I have no idea who Calvin Harris is, or what a Flo Rida is. Is that a new kind of pants? I'm familiar with Nero, but only because they won't stop playing that shit at work. I actually like them, which is a testimony to why my musical taste makes no sense.
Before you label me a music snob, understand that I hate old tunes as well. Queen fucking sucks. It's true. Wait, that doesn't help me at all does it...
But I like a wide range of genres. I don't just listen to metal, or nineties alternative rock, or Daniel Johnston, who falls into the genre Schizophrenic People Who Play Out of Tune Guitars and Sing Like They're Suffering A Stroke. My taste in music is like a guy in a downpour with a big umbrella who's willing to share it with everyone except One Direction...and Justin Beiber...and Nicky Minaj...and Hansen...and...
...well there's only so much umbrella to go around.
Don't be afraid to cut yourself off from today's music. I'm trapped somewhere between the 60s and about 2004 and I couldn't be happier. I'll admit "Call Me Maybe" is a genius song, because it bores its way into your brain and literally takes over, manipulating your hands into logging onto the Itunes store and downloading it. But I'm also happy to say it hasn't possessed me yet. I had no idea who One Direction was until I contacted the asylum they escaped from, and I have no idea who Calvin Harris is, or what a Flo Rida is. Is that a new kind of pants? I'm familiar with Nero, but only because they won't stop playing that shit at work. I actually like them, which is a testimony to why my musical taste makes no sense.
Before you label me a music snob, understand that I hate old tunes as well. Queen fucking sucks. It's true. Wait, that doesn't help me at all does it...
But I like a wide range of genres. I don't just listen to metal, or nineties alternative rock, or Daniel Johnston, who falls into the genre Schizophrenic People Who Play Out of Tune Guitars and Sing Like They're Suffering A Stroke. My taste in music is like a guy in a downpour with a big umbrella who's willing to share it with everyone except One Direction...and Justin Beiber...and Nicky Minaj...and Hansen...and...
...well there's only so much umbrella to go around.
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Another Rage
Let me start by saying that what we need is another original, mindblowing television program. I'm so sick of crime dramas, whether it's a Law and/or Order or NCSI Miami: Criminal Bones Mentalist. Someone needs to approach a major network with something strange and out-there and maybe it will reel me back into watching television. Another thing there seems to be lot of are shows about American high schools. It seems school kids these days spend their time either having sex or singing, which leads me into today's topic - why America is the world's worst fucking place to be educated.
The TV is sugar coating everything, and by that I mean they like to tell their audience how exciting school is, while subtly sweeping under the table things like bullying, bad teaching and whatever other problems there are. And before you say anything, I know this stuff happens here and in other countries besides the USA. I know America has some great schools. I know there probably is a lot of sex and singing and dancing. But after reading about how kids kill themselves because they're targeted by bullies from the first day of school and eventually have had enough, or how the parents try to approach their son/daughter's school about the problem only to be shrugged at and told "shit happens", I'm starting to wonder whether I've stumbled back in time to Sparta or some place where they used to throw babies off cliffs if they were born with defects. Except outside of that terrible movie with Carmen Elektra I'm pretty sure Spartans didn't have the internet, so the example is bad.
But what I'm saying is that even with its weird rules and old-fashioned atmosphere, my school still realised you're not supposed to sit back and let kids tear each other apart because that's how life works. Teachers were required to step in if they saw something horrible going on in the schoolyard. Certain American schools seem to think bullying is a natural part of life. But in life there are things called laws that govern people's behaviour. If I walked into work next week and slammed a co-worker's head repeatedly against the chip station, chances are there would probably be consequences, or at the very least an intervention from the manager, or the shopping centre security staff, or the police.
Children don't have to get away with harming other children because that's just how the world is and far be it for the adults to step in and stop it.
I'm all worked up because I was bored and stumbled on the trailer for that documentary Bully. I was like, what is this? A child committed suicide because of bullying? Has it really come to this or was he just very very sensitive to teasing? So I looked him up and read some news stories about how he hanged himself because he was bullied for years until his parents said he was just a "shell" of his former self, and how the next day the bullies were supposedly walking around school, mocking his death by wearing nooses around their necks while the teachers probably stood by chortling and muttering "boys will be boys..." It just seems a little bit wrong to me.
Anyway I'm writing this novel of a blog post because I'm supposed to be patching up that monologue I talked about a couple of weeks ago so it can be read to a room full of artsy people on Performance Night. But get this - we're not actually being marked on performance, we're being marked on the quality of the written stuff. So really it should be called Reading Night because that's all we'll be doing. What really blows is that there won't be any alcohol. I'm going to have to find a way to do this sober. Oh woe is me. But I can't really complain, can I, because I'm not a bully victim. If you are, take your house/car key (like I was saying before with muggers) and jam it between their eye and its socket. The next step is to use the key as a sort of lever... well you get the idea. Just fuck up his/her day is what I'm saying. But to be fair that's a last resort, to be used if the primary tactic doesn't work. The primary tactic is to make yourself unbullyable. It's hard but some people are just too boring to bully. If you can be one of those people then you might have a chance.
The TV is sugar coating everything, and by that I mean they like to tell their audience how exciting school is, while subtly sweeping under the table things like bullying, bad teaching and whatever other problems there are. And before you say anything, I know this stuff happens here and in other countries besides the USA. I know America has some great schools. I know there probably is a lot of sex and singing and dancing. But after reading about how kids kill themselves because they're targeted by bullies from the first day of school and eventually have had enough, or how the parents try to approach their son/daughter's school about the problem only to be shrugged at and told "shit happens", I'm starting to wonder whether I've stumbled back in time to Sparta or some place where they used to throw babies off cliffs if they were born with defects. Except outside of that terrible movie with Carmen Elektra I'm pretty sure Spartans didn't have the internet, so the example is bad.
But what I'm saying is that even with its weird rules and old-fashioned atmosphere, my school still realised you're not supposed to sit back and let kids tear each other apart because that's how life works. Teachers were required to step in if they saw something horrible going on in the schoolyard. Certain American schools seem to think bullying is a natural part of life. But in life there are things called laws that govern people's behaviour. If I walked into work next week and slammed a co-worker's head repeatedly against the chip station, chances are there would probably be consequences, or at the very least an intervention from the manager, or the shopping centre security staff, or the police.
Children don't have to get away with harming other children because that's just how the world is and far be it for the adults to step in and stop it.
I'm all worked up because I was bored and stumbled on the trailer for that documentary Bully. I was like, what is this? A child committed suicide because of bullying? Has it really come to this or was he just very very sensitive to teasing? So I looked him up and read some news stories about how he hanged himself because he was bullied for years until his parents said he was just a "shell" of his former self, and how the next day the bullies were supposedly walking around school, mocking his death by wearing nooses around their necks while the teachers probably stood by chortling and muttering "boys will be boys..." It just seems a little bit wrong to me.
Anyway I'm writing this novel of a blog post because I'm supposed to be patching up that monologue I talked about a couple of weeks ago so it can be read to a room full of artsy people on Performance Night. But get this - we're not actually being marked on performance, we're being marked on the quality of the written stuff. So really it should be called Reading Night because that's all we'll be doing. What really blows is that there won't be any alcohol. I'm going to have to find a way to do this sober. Oh woe is me. But I can't really complain, can I, because I'm not a bully victim. If you are, take your house/car key (like I was saying before with muggers) and jam it between their eye and its socket. The next step is to use the key as a sort of lever... well you get the idea. Just fuck up his/her day is what I'm saying. But to be fair that's a last resort, to be used if the primary tactic doesn't work. The primary tactic is to make yourself unbullyable. It's hard but some people are just too boring to bully. If you can be one of those people then you might have a chance.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
The Iron Lady (is in my digestive system)
Today in Script for Performance we had a discussion about videogames.
I know, right.
It was more exciting than when Neo was trapped on that speeding bus with Sandra Bullock in the Lakehouse. It was a riveting conversation. We started off talking about how scripts work in games, and by the end of it we were talking about which games have the best graphics, which cheats to use, who had the best kill streak in Call of Duty... Anyway today's post is about Ebay. I've noticed a lot of weird stuff being auctioned off and my favourite has to be someone's air guitar. The seller generously answered questions about what type of guitar it was and everything; whether it could be played left handed, whether it came with air strings. The photo captured the condition of the air guitar in perfect detail. I could tell just by looking at it that it would need a restring before I could start playing it. I'm currently the highest bidder because my air guitar broke after I dropped it.
However I could be in the running to walk away with at least ten grand after selling what I found this morning. I was sitting in my law lecture, bored shitless and devouring popcorn when I noticed one of the pieces was shaped like Margeret Thatcher's head. I'm going to be rich!
I'm just kidding...
...I ate it...
I know, right.
It was more exciting than when Neo was trapped on that speeding bus with Sandra Bullock in the Lakehouse. It was a riveting conversation. We started off talking about how scripts work in games, and by the end of it we were talking about which games have the best graphics, which cheats to use, who had the best kill streak in Call of Duty... Anyway today's post is about Ebay. I've noticed a lot of weird stuff being auctioned off and my favourite has to be someone's air guitar. The seller generously answered questions about what type of guitar it was and everything; whether it could be played left handed, whether it came with air strings. The photo captured the condition of the air guitar in perfect detail. I could tell just by looking at it that it would need a restring before I could start playing it. I'm currently the highest bidder because my air guitar broke after I dropped it.
However I could be in the running to walk away with at least ten grand after selling what I found this morning. I was sitting in my law lecture, bored shitless and devouring popcorn when I noticed one of the pieces was shaped like Margeret Thatcher's head. I'm going to be rich!
I'm just kidding...
...I ate it...
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Totalitarian Utilitarian Theological Philosophistology
Okay, so here's something to share with you. I was watching Cracked videos the other day and I came across their take on what has to be the most rewatchable video on Youtube. It is to me, at least. Here is the original clip.
If there's one thing I hate it's pretentiousness; pretentious people and pretentious intellectualism.This guy thinks he's a philosopher(ist?), but comes across as a wanker. There are two main reasons I can't stop watching this fucking hilarious video. Firstly, it's his accent, and secondly it's the way he describes his band as a "Christian, alternative, progressive band", talking about his music like it will give you spiritual enlightenment. I had a bit of a listen. Not only is it garbage but it's just a metal band. Even if I wanted the kind of experience you think your music can "show" me, I'd be better off getting high and listening to Pink Floyd, or some of the weirder Beatles songs.
What also amazes me is how someone can be such a hipstery wanker without any sense of irony. At first I thought maybe it was a joke, but given how serious Philosophist takes themselves on their MySpace page I think it might be for real, which is quite scary. This guy, who calls himself John Shakespeare as a subtle hint at how much of a talented poet he clearly is, also reminds me a lot of those European long-haired blonde guys from Family Guy. You know, those guys who are like "I wuz going to bong my gerlfreend but she said there wuz nore weehh".
Anyway, I'm going to start my own band. We're a progressive, Satanic, buddhist, deathcore, grindcore, punk, post-jazz dubstep, classical, baroque, African, tribal, drum and bass, trance, alternative, britpop, indie, motown, funk, soul, nintendocore, thrash metal, softrock, neo-folk, pop-grunge, synth-al capella, nursery rhyme, ambient, minimalist, emo, piano rock, electronic-trombone, shoe-gazing, brass ensemble, church choir, children's music, rock n' roll nine-piece boy band.
We'll call ourselves "Monarchs of Leonard", and our first hit single will be called "Your Intercourse is Aflame".
Also we'll be philosophical and wear sunglasses and have a conspicuous cold sore.
And if you're interested in seeing what Cracked has to say about this video, which I would imagine is infinitely more interesting than what I have to say, the video is called "Why Hipster Bands Shouldn't be Allowed to Use Youtube".
The Avengers
The first...I don't know...twenty minutes of this movie shat me, because it felt like they'd hired a teenage boy to write the movie. Robin from How I Met Your Mother was shooting at an invincible alien inside a secret base slowly imploding because of some kind of energy cube. I just didn't give a shit and to be honest I felt like such an old man shuffling in my seat and wondering how movies have become this silly. Also at this point they assume you've seen the five movies (or how ever many there are) which set up this one. So I was like who is this scientist guy, who is this alien with a sceptre? What is this blue cube and why is it such a big deal to the characters? Why is Samuel L. Jackson wearing an eyepatch? What is this secret base for and who are the people working here? What is Robin from How I Met Your Mother doing in this movie? I was very bored.
However.
HOWEVER!!!!!
As soon as the title popped up the movie became awesome. Why? Because Hulk/Captain America/Iron Man/Scarlett Johanssen's hotness, that's why. Also the longhaired guy with the hammer. The screenplay rocks as well. I don't know much about the guy who wrote it, just some unknown called Joss Whedon, no one spectacular. You've probably never heard of him, he doesn't have many popular TV shows or films to his name. But whoever this nobody is he's managed to make a movie full of superheroes where each one gets an equal share of the screen time. No one is underused, no one is overshadowed by anyone else. Everyone plays a big part and everyone gets to be awesome in their own unique way.
One thing I find weird though is the bad guy. He just wasn't evil. I don't care what you say about how much of a villain he is, he just isn't bad enough. He's misguided at best and here's why:
a) He only manages to kill like one person. He tries to kill others but always fails. I get that this is a family friendly kind of movie but this guy seemed almost reluctant to kill people.
b) The only person I can think of who he does manage to kill was in self defence anyway because the guy was pointing some sort of gun at him.
c) He's just too likeable. He has a lot of funny moments and he's often hilariously incompetent at doing evil things. He's cute. If anything.
But overall this movie rocks and the last half and hour or so are pure awesome. This movie also made me like Captain America and Thor. Now I want a hammer and shield like those guys have. Seriously, who needs anything else when you have a goddam hammer!
Finally, I should probably praise Mark Ruffalo on being the best Hulk out of all the people who have so far played the Hulk. He brought a kind of rehearsed serenity to the role of Bruce Bana, which you would expect of someone desperately trying to stop themselves from changing into a giant angry beast. Top performance.
Top movie.
However.
HOWEVER!!!!!
As soon as the title popped up the movie became awesome. Why? Because Hulk/Captain America/Iron Man/Scarlett Johanssen's hotness, that's why. Also the longhaired guy with the hammer. The screenplay rocks as well. I don't know much about the guy who wrote it, just some unknown called Joss Whedon, no one spectacular. You've probably never heard of him, he doesn't have many popular TV shows or films to his name. But whoever this nobody is he's managed to make a movie full of superheroes where each one gets an equal share of the screen time. No one is underused, no one is overshadowed by anyone else. Everyone plays a big part and everyone gets to be awesome in their own unique way.
One thing I find weird though is the bad guy. He just wasn't evil. I don't care what you say about how much of a villain he is, he just isn't bad enough. He's misguided at best and here's why:
a) He only manages to kill like one person. He tries to kill others but always fails. I get that this is a family friendly kind of movie but this guy seemed almost reluctant to kill people.
b) The only person I can think of who he does manage to kill was in self defence anyway because the guy was pointing some sort of gun at him.
c) He's just too likeable. He has a lot of funny moments and he's often hilariously incompetent at doing evil things. He's cute. If anything.
But overall this movie rocks and the last half and hour or so are pure awesome. This movie also made me like Captain America and Thor. Now I want a hammer and shield like those guys have. Seriously, who needs anything else when you have a goddam hammer!
Finally, I should probably praise Mark Ruffalo on being the best Hulk out of all the people who have so far played the Hulk. He brought a kind of rehearsed serenity to the role of Bruce Bana, which you would expect of someone desperately trying to stop themselves from changing into a giant angry beast. Top performance.
Top movie.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Watery Shenanigans
It's fun to be ironically controversial. A good crack about women and feminism, or even just a casual Holocaust joke can be very cathartic (don't worry I never make fun of the Holocaust - everything else gets a mention though). It's always good to remind women that they couldn't always vote in a mock mysognistic way, or ask for a sandwich etc. But it can also be taken the wrong way. The other day at work I had to run out back because every single female in the store got fed up and started throwing corn chips at me. Maybe my sense of humour needs a re-tool.
Anyway, yesterday I went to that science cruise party I mentioned in an earlier post. It was awesome. Drinks were dirt cheap which is actually pretty dangerous, especially considering we were on a body of water with nothing but a waist-high rail to protect us from icy death. But I don't think anyone died. I wanted to reenact the famous scene from Titanic because when you're on a boat it's like "why the hell not!" but someone got in trouble from the Captain for doing that exact thing so I'm glad my friends and I couldn't decide who was going to be Rose and who was going to be Jack. I did manage to shout "iceberg!"every ten minutes just to freak people out. But even when they're drunk, people are still smart enough to realise it's unlikely for there to be chunks of ice sitting in Port Philip Bay.
Next time I go to a fancy dress party I need to dress up as a security guard. I saw a bunch of them cutting through the bar queue to get to the kitchen, or galley, or whatever, and it made me feel very inadequate in my jumbo afro and barely-sticky fake moustache. I actually complimented one of them on his excellent choice of costume, praising his ability to secure quick beverages despite the chaotic scrum of cats, devils, mariachis, pikachus, pirates, Wiggles and dinosaurs. He looked at me like I was an idiot which is fair enough because I am, and thanked me gruffly.
I'm surprised no one got seasick or dangerously hammered or a combination of the two. It should have been raining vomit at that party.
Good times, though. Good times.
Anyway, yesterday I went to that science cruise party I mentioned in an earlier post. It was awesome. Drinks were dirt cheap which is actually pretty dangerous, especially considering we were on a body of water with nothing but a waist-high rail to protect us from icy death. But I don't think anyone died. I wanted to reenact the famous scene from Titanic because when you're on a boat it's like "why the hell not!" but someone got in trouble from the Captain for doing that exact thing so I'm glad my friends and I couldn't decide who was going to be Rose and who was going to be Jack. I did manage to shout "iceberg!"every ten minutes just to freak people out. But even when they're drunk, people are still smart enough to realise it's unlikely for there to be chunks of ice sitting in Port Philip Bay.
Next time I go to a fancy dress party I need to dress up as a security guard. I saw a bunch of them cutting through the bar queue to get to the kitchen, or galley, or whatever, and it made me feel very inadequate in my jumbo afro and barely-sticky fake moustache. I actually complimented one of them on his excellent choice of costume, praising his ability to secure quick beverages despite the chaotic scrum of cats, devils, mariachis, pikachus, pirates, Wiggles and dinosaurs. He looked at me like I was an idiot which is fair enough because I am, and thanked me gruffly.
I'm surprised no one got seasick or dangerously hammered or a combination of the two. It should have been raining vomit at that party.
Good times, though. Good times.
Saturday, 5 May 2012
No Russian
I'm not a huge videogame fan, but the other day I was watching someone play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on Youtube instead of, I dunno, having a life. In the middle of all the explosions and gunfire it cut to a scene of someone filming their wife and daughter having fun in London when a car bomb suddenly blows everyone sky high. Who the hell thought that would be something anyone would want to see? I've heard you can change the settings to cut out "offensive content". But still it's like the people who make these games think no one will play them unless they're controversial. There was another part in another game where you shoot civilians at an airport, but that was more fun because most of it was killing security guards and people with riot shields and you could actually take part, rather than simply watching someone die horrribly. But to all those parents who get all pissed off because their kids are shooting people, don't buy them a game called Modern Warfare with a picture of an armed soldier on the front. Chances are there will be guns in the game and those guns will be fired at people.
Friday, 4 May 2012
Sunshine
Sunshine is that film where the Sun is dying and they send a team of scientists and astronauts to reignite it with a giant bomb. I remember seeing it in the cinema when it first came out and loving it. But it's been a while since I watched the whole thing; some of it was on TV a few months ago and I caught the ending plus a few other scenes here and there but that's it. It's visually stunning and it has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. It was also directed by Danny Boyle, the guy responsible for movies like Trainspotting and 28 Days later. I only bring it up because there are some things about it that still really bug me.
How the flying #$%@ were they able to enter the Sun? How for that matter were they able to even get close to it? Their ship has a heat shield which seems to be made out of some kind of super-reflective material while everything else is just stuck to the back of it. At such a close distance, wouldn't the entire vessel just melt. I get that Earth has spent all of its resources and money building this thing and that if it fails then they'd be shit out of luck, but I don't understand how any amount or combination of Earth's resources would ever be able to take on the Sun when Earth itself supposedly won't stand a chance in a few billion years when the Sun decides to go red giant and swallow us up. Also bear in mind that they explain how this is the second attempt at reigniting the Sun. The first ship disappeared out in the middle of nowhere, which means that everything used for the second mission is just the leftovers from building the first.
What really bugs me though is how after (spoiler alert) the shield disintergrates, the remaining characters enter some kind of freefall into the heart of the Sun inside the bomb which for some reason is still intact. Is it colder inside the Sun or something? And how come when the hull breaks open the physicist guy doesn't die instantly? Also how is he able to like reach out and touch the Sun and why does that fireball stop right in front of him? They were talking about how space and time break down because of the extreme gravity at the centre of the Sun, but he's still moving around and looking awestruck during this strange event and for some reason he isn't even blinded? What the fuck?
Good movie though.
How the flying #$%@ were they able to enter the Sun? How for that matter were they able to even get close to it? Their ship has a heat shield which seems to be made out of some kind of super-reflective material while everything else is just stuck to the back of it. At such a close distance, wouldn't the entire vessel just melt. I get that Earth has spent all of its resources and money building this thing and that if it fails then they'd be shit out of luck, but I don't understand how any amount or combination of Earth's resources would ever be able to take on the Sun when Earth itself supposedly won't stand a chance in a few billion years when the Sun decides to go red giant and swallow us up. Also bear in mind that they explain how this is the second attempt at reigniting the Sun. The first ship disappeared out in the middle of nowhere, which means that everything used for the second mission is just the leftovers from building the first.
What really bugs me though is how after (spoiler alert) the shield disintergrates, the remaining characters enter some kind of freefall into the heart of the Sun inside the bomb which for some reason is still intact. Is it colder inside the Sun or something? And how come when the hull breaks open the physicist guy doesn't die instantly? Also how is he able to like reach out and touch the Sun and why does that fireball stop right in front of him? They were talking about how space and time break down because of the extreme gravity at the centre of the Sun, but he's still moving around and looking awestruck during this strange event and for some reason he isn't even blinded? What the fuck?
Good movie though.
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