Today I am wearing red and black-striped spandexxy jeans and a Rastafarian hat. I have very little idea why. The hat is old school, I bought it in France years ago, but the jeans are new. I bought them at the Camden Town market, 'wow,' I thought, those look really cool and attention-grabbing, so I bought them, and its only now, once I'm walking around in them, that I remember how rarely it is that I actually enjoy looking attention-grabby. And I could probably also tell you an identical story for almost every other piece of clothing I own. So perhaps the moral of this story is think before you shop? I don't know, feel free to learn that moral if you want, 'cos I almost certainly won't.
I also bought a pair of red Converse All Stars. Just 'cos I felt it was expected of me...
I was watching 'Election' last night, which wasn't lost/stolen by Reuben as I had believed it was, rather, it was at the bottom of a huge DVD pile somewhere in Solihull. So perhaps I owe Rooby McStealtheft an apology, then again, maybe I don't, seeing as he also has my copy of 'Withnail and I' - which his is no doubt mistreating! Probably sexually as well. The other day... he sent me one of the DVD's toes in the post, with a note made out of cut-out magazine letters saying that there were nine more where that came from if I tried anything funny like calling the police... He's a bad egg, that'n.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, 'Election'. Hillary Clinton is just like Reese Witherspoon's character. And that's why I don't like her. I've managed to put my finger on that intangible reason why Clinton rubs me the wrong way. Its because Alexander Payne brainwashed me.
Later on today, I'm going to go to the Iranian Embassy. I wonder whether it'll be nice... I wonder whether they will ask me to make a token offering of earth and water (oh yeah, '300' references, that's where I'm bringing this!).
Best of luck in all your endeavours,
Tom.
EDIT: The Iranian Embassy was nice. Everyone was very well-dressed.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
It is warm.
It is warm. Like, man... so warm. I'm here wearing a shirt and earlier also a jacket and I was thinking all like, 'whoa... so warm, I wish there was some kind of breeze'.
Alas, its probably just going to get hotter from now on. I hate it when its hot, everyone walks around with nothing on and I end up feeling like a fat sack of crap, and then my hair gets all hot and I have to make the heart-breaking decision of whether to cut it. Sometimes I wish it would just stay cold, like, not the level of cold where being outside physically makes you cry with pain, but y'know, coolcold.
AND ANOTHER THING! How about this American election process, eh? It just keeps on going. Like, it just keeps on fucking going. Everytime it looks like its finally going to fucking stop it just keeps on fucking going. And like any event that involves more than one American talking for any length of time, eventually some pretty retarded things get said.
The latest retarding thing is Hillary Clinton and co. trying to label Barack Obama as an 'élitist'. Hillary Clinton, a woman descended from more than one of the people present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, is trying to label Barack Obama, a man who has lived in countries with annual incomes smaller than cost of certain dinner parties Clinton has attended, Barack Obama, a child of a single mother who spent most of his time in the USA living off of food stamps.
Of course, in this context, 'élitist' doesn't mean what any dictionary-owning person would assume it would mean, in this context, 'élitist' means 'smart' - the most dreaded quality for an American politician. Hillary Clinton is basically appealing to anti-Intellectualism, over her campaign she's transitioned from being Ms. Know-It-All Washinton Bigshot, to 'an Average Joe', or rather, to what the contemptuous political élites, (I'm talking about real élites here), believe the Average Joe to be, ignorant and bigoted.
Anti-Intellectualism isn't just stupid and misinformed - its dangerous. When people casually and contemptuously disregard the opinions of people who have spent decades considering a particular issue, and instead chose to 'follow their hearts', then what you are basically seeing is the first throes of a dying civilisation. For instance, Hillary Clinton recently proposed that fuel taxes shouldn't apply during the summer holiday-period, economists everywhere said that that was populist and foolhardy, Clinton then responded that she didn't need to listen to economists - not even on *ahem* ECONOMIC issues!! And then you have parents who believe that they are more qualified to teach their kids science than scientists, to teach them about sex than sexperts, to fly them in aeroplanes than aeroplane pilots...
Okay, the last one is an exaggeration, but you get the idea. When people take offence to being told they are not experts, and instead believe that they are entitled to make important decisions based solely on the flimsiest of pretexts, then things are almost certainly going to go wrong. Now before I'm accused of anti-Americanism, I want to stress that anti-Intellectualism isn't purely an American disease, although it definitely is more pronounced on their side of the Atlantic, possibly because during the 16th-17th Centuries, Europeans fought in defence of reason and rationality against superstitious, irrational and arbitrary governments - whereas Americans fought in defence of superstition and irrationality against 'Enlightened' European governments.
Anti-Intellectualism is in our country too. When people commit themselves to eating organic food because they have no confidence in the ability of the scientists involved in the production of 'non-organic food' (he said oxymoronically) not to inadvertantly poison them, then they are showing contempt towards science, rationality and the whole basis of human civilisation. Does it not occur to these people that a chemical produced in a lab, and subjected to decades of evaluations and tests is less likely to be harmful to a human being than an ingredient plucked straight from nature, (nature, after all, doesn't exist in order to satisfy the nutritional demands of man - if anything, nature exists in order to kill man and assure that his nutrients are absorbed into the soil and gobbled up by those bastard plants).
But the worst thing about anti-Intellectualism is that it denies people oppurtunies. A society that values expertise inspires people to achieve, whereas a society that devalues expertise inspires people to keep their mouths and their minds shut in order to conform. In all societies, there are intellectual disparities, some people are smarter than others, if the smart excel then the less smart may feel inferior, and that's bad, but if the smart are compelled by their societies to dismiss expertise and conform with the anti-Intellectual consensus, then everybody loses out as new technologies, new medical cures and new modes of social organisation remain uninvented.
Alas, its probably just going to get hotter from now on. I hate it when its hot, everyone walks around with nothing on and I end up feeling like a fat sack of crap, and then my hair gets all hot and I have to make the heart-breaking decision of whether to cut it. Sometimes I wish it would just stay cold, like, not the level of cold where being outside physically makes you cry with pain, but y'know, coolcold.
AND ANOTHER THING! How about this American election process, eh? It just keeps on going. Like, it just keeps on fucking going. Everytime it looks like its finally going to fucking stop it just keeps on fucking going. And like any event that involves more than one American talking for any length of time, eventually some pretty retarded things get said.
The latest retarding thing is Hillary Clinton and co. trying to label Barack Obama as an 'élitist'. Hillary Clinton, a woman descended from more than one of the people present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, is trying to label Barack Obama, a man who has lived in countries with annual incomes smaller than cost of certain dinner parties Clinton has attended, Barack Obama, a child of a single mother who spent most of his time in the USA living off of food stamps.
Of course, in this context, 'élitist' doesn't mean what any dictionary-owning person would assume it would mean, in this context, 'élitist' means 'smart' - the most dreaded quality for an American politician. Hillary Clinton is basically appealing to anti-Intellectualism, over her campaign she's transitioned from being Ms. Know-It-All Washinton Bigshot, to 'an Average Joe', or rather, to what the contemptuous political élites, (I'm talking about real élites here), believe the Average Joe to be, ignorant and bigoted.
Anti-Intellectualism isn't just stupid and misinformed - its dangerous. When people casually and contemptuously disregard the opinions of people who have spent decades considering a particular issue, and instead chose to 'follow their hearts', then what you are basically seeing is the first throes of a dying civilisation. For instance, Hillary Clinton recently proposed that fuel taxes shouldn't apply during the summer holiday-period, economists everywhere said that that was populist and foolhardy, Clinton then responded that she didn't need to listen to economists - not even on *ahem* ECONOMIC issues!! And then you have parents who believe that they are more qualified to teach their kids science than scientists, to teach them about sex than sexperts, to fly them in aeroplanes than aeroplane pilots...
Okay, the last one is an exaggeration, but you get the idea. When people take offence to being told they are not experts, and instead believe that they are entitled to make important decisions based solely on the flimsiest of pretexts, then things are almost certainly going to go wrong. Now before I'm accused of anti-Americanism, I want to stress that anti-Intellectualism isn't purely an American disease, although it definitely is more pronounced on their side of the Atlantic, possibly because during the 16th-17th Centuries, Europeans fought in defence of reason and rationality against superstitious, irrational and arbitrary governments - whereas Americans fought in defence of superstition and irrationality against 'Enlightened' European governments.
Anti-Intellectualism is in our country too. When people commit themselves to eating organic food because they have no confidence in the ability of the scientists involved in the production of 'non-organic food' (he said oxymoronically) not to inadvertantly poison them, then they are showing contempt towards science, rationality and the whole basis of human civilisation. Does it not occur to these people that a chemical produced in a lab, and subjected to decades of evaluations and tests is less likely to be harmful to a human being than an ingredient plucked straight from nature, (nature, after all, doesn't exist in order to satisfy the nutritional demands of man - if anything, nature exists in order to kill man and assure that his nutrients are absorbed into the soil and gobbled up by those bastard plants).
But the worst thing about anti-Intellectualism is that it denies people oppurtunies. A society that values expertise inspires people to achieve, whereas a society that devalues expertise inspires people to keep their mouths and their minds shut in order to conform. In all societies, there are intellectual disparities, some people are smarter than others, if the smart excel then the less smart may feel inferior, and that's bad, but if the smart are compelled by their societies to dismiss expertise and conform with the anti-Intellectual consensus, then everybody loses out as new technologies, new medical cures and new modes of social organisation remain uninvented.
Monday, 5 May 2008
Hola Chiquitos Y Chiquitas
Hey. Happy Cinqo de Mayo, the day when Mexican zombies inarticulately attempt to convince us of the miracle of life!
So, you may notice something different about me? A certain je ne sais pas, something both intangible and un-finger-put-on-able. Well, I shall satiate your curiosities, I am cool now.
That's right, totally cool. I entered a caccoon of awkwardness (in the guise of a tattoo parlour), and emerged as a butterfly of awesomeness. So yeah, I now have a tattoo, and its really cool, its a band around the top of my arm, a band made of a dotted scissor line (y'know like, coupons on the back of cereal boxes, and they have the dotted line to tell you where to cut along... yeah, like that).
Getting tattooed was pretty fun, I got to lie down in a well air-conditioned room for like a whole hour. On the other hand, there are rapid and frequent needlings occuring as the tattoomotron has its way with you, but as pain goes, it is thoroughly bareable, (apparently, the place I got tattooed, (the underside of the arm), is one of the most painful places, and even that wasn't so bad, (apart from a few times when the needle hit a nerve and it felt like someone had sliced all the way down the side of my torso with a vinegar-tipped scalpel)). The worst part was sitting in the waiting room, because, like, without knowing what to expect you can work yourself into a state. I tried to distract myself by reading an interview in a magazine with Buck Angel, but that was only semi-successful.
So yeah, I have that now. And I'm really happy with it. (Yay).
In other news, I've now decided that I'm transferring universities. I'm going to leave Lancaster University and restart my second year somewhere else, my second year here has basically been a giant fail - I managed to just about force out a set of below-par essays for my first term, but the second term, I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and write them. I mean, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to academic work, (and you better take that confession while you can, because I very rarely admit that), but this year its been more than that, like, in Sixth Form, I managed to force myself to work by telling myself, 'Tom, you have to work or you'll be kicked out' - but in Lancaster, there is literally nothing I would rather have happen than to be kicked out. I truly hate this place sometimes.
But there are other times when I actually quite like it here, and these times made it difficult to commit to dropping out earlier, (I think I first considered doing so in the second term last year...). But I've really been pushed over the edge this term. Like, one thing, when I leave Lancaster there will be absolutely no-one I will keep in touch with - i.e. I'm wasting my time! If I stay here and drastically try to finish my degree I will just regret it, I'd look back in years to come and think 'what a fucking waste of three years of my life', and I already have quite enough regrets thank you very much.
So a-transferrin' I shall go. Maybe I'll also take a gap year? MAYBE I'LL DO EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING!!!
In local news: I locked myself out of my house the day before last. I popped out to the pub across the road and forgot to take my housekeys. I knocked to get back in, but my housemates weren't there, (they usually leave for days on end, which I generally approve of, because I hate those cunts and wish they were dead), but this time it meant I was homeless.
I tried to, (and got quite close to), breaking into my house. Basically, my row of houses back onto an alleyway thing, but the alleyway is like 7-8ft further down, so all the back gardens end in a wall thats about 4ft tall on the house-end, and 8ft tall on the alleyway end. I managed to get into my back garden by borrowing a trolley from the Spar, propping it on its end against the wall and then climbing it like a ladder. I managed to get into my back garden, but then the back door was locked. Grr!
I spent the night at an acquaintences house. He had some friends over and they were watching Matrix Revolutions, which is a film I always used to defend, but after recently watching it, now think is crap - it does, however, have Michael from Lost in it.
The next day, the housemates still didn't return, and I was starting to smell! Like, even worse than usual. So I had to call out a locksmith. He turned up at the house, slid a plastic thing through the door and it popped straight open. Then I had to give him £55. That put me in a pretty bad mood.
Luckily, I got to watch the new episode of Family Guy, the new, Star Wars themed episode of Family Guy. It was good. There was a bit at the end when Chris was telling Peter that Robot Chicken had already done a Star Wars episode, and then Peter went and completely slated Robot Chicken, it was fourth-wall-breakingly funny.
AND NOW ITS TODAY! I've spent most of today waiting for a bus. Fun times.
So, you may notice something different about me? A certain je ne sais pas, something both intangible and un-finger-put-on-able. Well, I shall satiate your curiosities, I am cool now.
That's right, totally cool. I entered a caccoon of awkwardness (in the guise of a tattoo parlour), and emerged as a butterfly of awesomeness. So yeah, I now have a tattoo, and its really cool, its a band around the top of my arm, a band made of a dotted scissor line (y'know like, coupons on the back of cereal boxes, and they have the dotted line to tell you where to cut along... yeah, like that).
Getting tattooed was pretty fun, I got to lie down in a well air-conditioned room for like a whole hour. On the other hand, there are rapid and frequent needlings occuring as the tattoomotron has its way with you, but as pain goes, it is thoroughly bareable, (apparently, the place I got tattooed, (the underside of the arm), is one of the most painful places, and even that wasn't so bad, (apart from a few times when the needle hit a nerve and it felt like someone had sliced all the way down the side of my torso with a vinegar-tipped scalpel)). The worst part was sitting in the waiting room, because, like, without knowing what to expect you can work yourself into a state. I tried to distract myself by reading an interview in a magazine with Buck Angel, but that was only semi-successful.
So yeah, I have that now. And I'm really happy with it. (Yay).
In other news, I've now decided that I'm transferring universities. I'm going to leave Lancaster University and restart my second year somewhere else, my second year here has basically been a giant fail - I managed to just about force out a set of below-par essays for my first term, but the second term, I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and write them. I mean, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to academic work, (and you better take that confession while you can, because I very rarely admit that), but this year its been more than that, like, in Sixth Form, I managed to force myself to work by telling myself, 'Tom, you have to work or you'll be kicked out' - but in Lancaster, there is literally nothing I would rather have happen than to be kicked out. I truly hate this place sometimes.
But there are other times when I actually quite like it here, and these times made it difficult to commit to dropping out earlier, (I think I first considered doing so in the second term last year...). But I've really been pushed over the edge this term. Like, one thing, when I leave Lancaster there will be absolutely no-one I will keep in touch with - i.e. I'm wasting my time! If I stay here and drastically try to finish my degree I will just regret it, I'd look back in years to come and think 'what a fucking waste of three years of my life', and I already have quite enough regrets thank you very much.
So a-transferrin' I shall go. Maybe I'll also take a gap year? MAYBE I'LL DO EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING!!!
In local news: I locked myself out of my house the day before last. I popped out to the pub across the road and forgot to take my housekeys. I knocked to get back in, but my housemates weren't there, (they usually leave for days on end, which I generally approve of, because I hate those cunts and wish they were dead), but this time it meant I was homeless.
I tried to, (and got quite close to), breaking into my house. Basically, my row of houses back onto an alleyway thing, but the alleyway is like 7-8ft further down, so all the back gardens end in a wall thats about 4ft tall on the house-end, and 8ft tall on the alleyway end. I managed to get into my back garden by borrowing a trolley from the Spar, propping it on its end against the wall and then climbing it like a ladder. I managed to get into my back garden, but then the back door was locked. Grr!
I spent the night at an acquaintences house. He had some friends over and they were watching Matrix Revolutions, which is a film I always used to defend, but after recently watching it, now think is crap - it does, however, have Michael from Lost in it.
The next day, the housemates still didn't return, and I was starting to smell! Like, even worse than usual. So I had to call out a locksmith. He turned up at the house, slid a plastic thing through the door and it popped straight open. Then I had to give him £55. That put me in a pretty bad mood.
Luckily, I got to watch the new episode of Family Guy, the new, Star Wars themed episode of Family Guy. It was good. There was a bit at the end when Chris was telling Peter that Robot Chicken had already done a Star Wars episode, and then Peter went and completely slated Robot Chicken, it was fourth-wall-breakingly funny.
AND NOW ITS TODAY! I've spent most of today waiting for a bus. Fun times.
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
I'm In A Helicopter
I'M IN A HELICOPTER!
Man, I'm writing this on this fancy little portable computer thing, that this helicopter guy has given me to use. I'm supposed to be using it to contact his superiors on the flying fortress, to tell them that he's fulfilled his mission, but that only took about five minutes, so I thought I'd smash out a blog while I was here.
I mean, its not like, he can tell, he's too busy flying the helicopter, and I'll make sure to clear the history afterward.
Hmm... He's beginning to seem a bit suspicious about how long I'm taking sending this message. At least, I think he's a he, its a bit difficult to tell with Reptilians.
Anyway, I really need to wrap this up. Oh, and sorry, this helicopter ride, its kind of an evacuation. By the end of the day the Reptilians will attack, wiping out human hegemony of this world, so most of you guys will probably be sent to the slave camps before you can read this. Oh well.
April Fools!
Man, I'm writing this on this fancy little portable computer thing, that this helicopter guy has given me to use. I'm supposed to be using it to contact his superiors on the flying fortress, to tell them that he's fulfilled his mission, but that only took about five minutes, so I thought I'd smash out a blog while I was here.
I mean, its not like, he can tell, he's too busy flying the helicopter, and I'll make sure to clear the history afterward.
Hmm... He's beginning to seem a bit suspicious about how long I'm taking sending this message. At least, I think he's a he, its a bit difficult to tell with Reptilians.
Anyway, I really need to wrap this up. Oh, and sorry, this helicopter ride, its kind of an evacuation. By the end of the day the Reptilians will attack, wiping out human hegemony of this world, so most of you guys will probably be sent to the slave camps before you can read this. Oh well.
April Fools!
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
A Boring Update
People are asking why I don't update more frequently, in answer to this question, I present: a boring update:
The other day I moved from the smallest bedroom in my house into the biggest bedroom in my house. The big bedroom was previously occupied by Joann Massanaoud, the anally-retentive Parisian with the annoyingly foppish laugh, but now he's moved out (I think I broke his will), and his master bedroom was left vacant.
This probably happened a couple of weeks ago, but I've been reluctant to move in because the door was closed. Now, I hadn't seen Joann for days by this point, but, like Schroedinger, I couldn't be certain that Joann wasn't still in his room without collapsing the quantum probabilities and opening that door - and even though it was really unlikely, I didn't really fancy the odd chance of storming into my housemate's room with all my stuff to find that he's just been sitting on his bed silently and in the dark for the past fortnight. That would have been awkward.
But yeah, I finally moved in yesteryesterday, and its so spacious! I actually have space to traverse. In the small room, I was literally only able to open the door open a crack and then leap onto my bed. On the other hand, all that empty space means that it does get a lot colder, and I haven't been able to pick up any reception for any of the Fours on my TV yet...
Speaking of TV. I was watching 'The Passion' on the Beeb on sunday, and James Nesbitt makes a really good Roman. The character of King Herod was made to be really sympathetic and Jesus was basically just a weirdo - which is a good angle I feel.
Speaking of Jesus, I saw this thing about Jesus within Islam. Basically, Muslims quite highly revere Jesus, acknowledging him as one of their most important prophets, however, they deny that he was God, and that he died in order to absolve all Mankind of sin. Muslims like to say to Christians that they believe in Jesus too, and that they have so much in common and they should be bestest friends... which seems silly to me, because by denying the divinity and the sacrifice of Jesus, they're denying the most important aspects of Christianity. It'd be like gatecrashing an Amnesty International meeting and saying, "Oh yeah! I believe in Human Rights too! Ah yeah, Human Rights, they're great, I love 'em to bits. Except um, I don't believe that the right to not be enslaved or murdered can be included as a Human Right..."
I'm not saying that religions shouldn't be the bestest of friends, (well, I might be, as an antitheist, the principle of divide and conquer comes to mind...), but it seems there are some things about your faith that you should maybe keep quiet if you want to win friends.
Hmm... I don't think this update is sufficiently boring... Errr... Ooh. Last night's Deep Space Nine was really good. It involved time travel and there was a dilemma. Seriously, I think DS9, (as lame-o Trekkies abbreviate it), is the ideal science fiction series, as opposed to the other Star Treks where there'll be a problem for one episode, but then the ship will just fly away from it forever as the credits role, DS9 is set on a space station, a stationary space station, so when there's a problem, it'll still be there next week. As such the series is incredibly non-episodic, instead preferring huge intricate intertwining story arcs that spread across several seasons. Its a joy to watch.
In academic news, I, um... I haven't done any of my essays for this term. I seriously have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me. I mean, I know that nobody enjoys writing essays, but I seem to have a proper psychological block. It sometimes gets to the point where I'll be looking at an empty word document and find myself literally wanting to do anything else. Like, if you asked me whether I'd rather work on an essay for an hour, or be kicked in the bollucks for an hour, I would really have to think about it.
That's not to say I'm not interested. The essay questions I picked are all pretty interesting, and I reckon I could probably produce some quite detailed blog entries on their topics, or talk at length about them... But I just literally can't bring myself to start typing out these essays. Maybe its some kind of psychological crusade of self-destructiveness... I do have a tendency for those.
The other day I moved from the smallest bedroom in my house into the biggest bedroom in my house. The big bedroom was previously occupied by Joann Massanaoud, the anally-retentive Parisian with the annoyingly foppish laugh, but now he's moved out (I think I broke his will), and his master bedroom was left vacant.
This probably happened a couple of weeks ago, but I've been reluctant to move in because the door was closed. Now, I hadn't seen Joann for days by this point, but, like Schroedinger, I couldn't be certain that Joann wasn't still in his room without collapsing the quantum probabilities and opening that door - and even though it was really unlikely, I didn't really fancy the odd chance of storming into my housemate's room with all my stuff to find that he's just been sitting on his bed silently and in the dark for the past fortnight. That would have been awkward.
But yeah, I finally moved in yesteryesterday, and its so spacious! I actually have space to traverse. In the small room, I was literally only able to open the door open a crack and then leap onto my bed. On the other hand, all that empty space means that it does get a lot colder, and I haven't been able to pick up any reception for any of the Fours on my TV yet...
Speaking of TV. I was watching 'The Passion' on the Beeb on sunday, and James Nesbitt makes a really good Roman. The character of King Herod was made to be really sympathetic and Jesus was basically just a weirdo - which is a good angle I feel.
Speaking of Jesus, I saw this thing about Jesus within Islam. Basically, Muslims quite highly revere Jesus, acknowledging him as one of their most important prophets, however, they deny that he was God, and that he died in order to absolve all Mankind of sin. Muslims like to say to Christians that they believe in Jesus too, and that they have so much in common and they should be bestest friends... which seems silly to me, because by denying the divinity and the sacrifice of Jesus, they're denying the most important aspects of Christianity. It'd be like gatecrashing an Amnesty International meeting and saying, "Oh yeah! I believe in Human Rights too! Ah yeah, Human Rights, they're great, I love 'em to bits. Except um, I don't believe that the right to not be enslaved or murdered can be included as a Human Right..."
I'm not saying that religions shouldn't be the bestest of friends, (well, I might be, as an antitheist, the principle of divide and conquer comes to mind...), but it seems there are some things about your faith that you should maybe keep quiet if you want to win friends.
Hmm... I don't think this update is sufficiently boring... Errr... Ooh. Last night's Deep Space Nine was really good. It involved time travel and there was a dilemma. Seriously, I think DS9, (as lame-o Trekkies abbreviate it), is the ideal science fiction series, as opposed to the other Star Treks where there'll be a problem for one episode, but then the ship will just fly away from it forever as the credits role, DS9 is set on a space station, a stationary space station, so when there's a problem, it'll still be there next week. As such the series is incredibly non-episodic, instead preferring huge intricate intertwining story arcs that spread across several seasons. Its a joy to watch.
In academic news, I, um... I haven't done any of my essays for this term. I seriously have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me. I mean, I know that nobody enjoys writing essays, but I seem to have a proper psychological block. It sometimes gets to the point where I'll be looking at an empty word document and find myself literally wanting to do anything else. Like, if you asked me whether I'd rather work on an essay for an hour, or be kicked in the bollucks for an hour, I would really have to think about it.
That's not to say I'm not interested. The essay questions I picked are all pretty interesting, and I reckon I could probably produce some quite detailed blog entries on their topics, or talk at length about them... But I just literally can't bring myself to start typing out these essays. Maybe its some kind of psychological crusade of self-destructiveness... I do have a tendency for those.
Monday, 10 March 2008
A GameCube for the GameSquare
A certain someone tells me that there three things that one needs to take interest in in order to be a real man:
So then I started to drift away. I later got a Nintendo 64, but I never really got completely into it, I only really had three or four games for it...
UNTILL NOW! The other day I bought a GameCube. My friend Chris was visiting Lancaster, and he dragged me into GameStation, (what is it with gamers and KangarooCasing?), he looked around, I worked out stupid ways of saying 'video games', ('fiddero james' was my favourite). On the way out, I say the GameCube in the front window. It was a special edition including a copy of Pokémon Colloseum, and it only cost £24. I frantically tried to think of a reason why I wasn't immediately buying it, but failed, so I went in and bought it up.
The Pokémon franchise is the sole exception to my distaste for video games. I got really into it when it was big and new, (the games, not the cards, trading cards are stupid), and I never fell out of love with it. One of those three or four games I had for my N64 was Pokémon Stadium. But Pokémon alone wasn't enough to keep up-to-date with video gaming. I only ever owned an old fashioned monochrome GameBoy, so when the games stopped being compatible with that I stopped playing them. I downloaded Emulators of the new games and played those for a bit, but you couldn't trade with Emulators, or do any of the other things that needed link cables. BUT NOW! I have my £24 GameCube. So welcome back to Obsessionville, Tom!
Also, I just happened to buy this in the middle of essay-writing season... its almost as if I did that on purpose...
- The Sportball: Uncheck. Its pointless, noone ever makes any witty quips, and it just goes on forever, (figuratively, and literally). The Sportball is lame and I hate it.
- Automocars: Uncheck. In my opinion, driving is a very antisocial activity. People go around in their huge metal phallic symbols excreting tonnes of poisonous gases into the poor defenceless atmosphere. Also, some cars make loud noises. People whose cars make loud noises should be punched in the head untill they stop moving.
- And thirdly, Videro Games: Uncheck... but not as unchecked as everything else... More than the other two things, I can just about see the point of video games, (except games about playing sportball or driving automocars, those are lame), but its still not something I'm really interested in. Maybe its cos I'm not very good at them, but then maybe I'm not very good at them cos I don't play them very often? Also, they're quite expensive... like, a well-stocked video game collection is a several thousand pound investment, accumalatively. And I don't really see that its worth it...
So then I started to drift away. I later got a Nintendo 64, but I never really got completely into it, I only really had three or four games for it...
UNTILL NOW! The other day I bought a GameCube. My friend Chris was visiting Lancaster, and he dragged me into GameStation, (what is it with gamers and KangarooCasing?), he looked around, I worked out stupid ways of saying 'video games', ('fiddero james' was my favourite). On the way out, I say the GameCube in the front window. It was a special edition including a copy of Pokémon Colloseum, and it only cost £24. I frantically tried to think of a reason why I wasn't immediately buying it, but failed, so I went in and bought it up.
The Pokémon franchise is the sole exception to my distaste for video games. I got really into it when it was big and new, (the games, not the cards, trading cards are stupid), and I never fell out of love with it. One of those three or four games I had for my N64 was Pokémon Stadium. But Pokémon alone wasn't enough to keep up-to-date with video gaming. I only ever owned an old fashioned monochrome GameBoy, so when the games stopped being compatible with that I stopped playing them. I downloaded Emulators of the new games and played those for a bit, but you couldn't trade with Emulators, or do any of the other things that needed link cables. BUT NOW! I have my £24 GameCube. So welcome back to Obsessionville, Tom!
Also, I just happened to buy this in the middle of essay-writing season... its almost as if I did that on purpose...
Friday, 7 March 2008
Doomsay
Hey, you know how food prices keep going up? That's pretty lame. Do you know why that happens? Because food is harder to grow these days. 'Cos of Global Warming.
Most of the nations that produced an agricultural surplus 20 years ago, (i.e. produced more tonnage of food that they themselves ate), now... um... don't. In Asia, for instance, China and India were once renown for their rice exports, now, in the entire region, only Thailand produces enough rice to be able to safely flog on the world markets without risking famine within its own borders.
The same goes for all other staple crops in the world. Millenia of selective breeding has made the plants we eat very specified. The problem with biological specification is that it leaves you very open to extinction, especially when your specific environment begins to whither away. Well, maybe thats a bit alarmist, there are countless breeds of staple crops - if a farmer notices his current crop isn't taking too well, he can order in a load of seeds for a different breed that will handle better... But this can only go so far, agricultural difficulties are steadily accumulating.
And hey, that word, 'steadily'... yeah... don't get used to it. Right now Climate Change is steady, but it won't stay that way. There are a certain number of 'tipping points' in the global system, that, once reached, cause huge chain reactions. For instance, the temperature in Antarctica only has to raise by a few more degrees to drastically increase the amount of meltwater dripping off the Antarctic Mountains, this water seeps down through the ice and accumulates between the snow and the land... essentially lubricating the entire ice sheet. Eventually, several million tonnes of ice will simply slip off the land that holds them, and result in a large increase in sea level.
This itself will cause a new chain reaction, a higher sea means higher winds, and higher winds means warmer weather at higher heights, warm weather at high heights, especially in the polar regions, will lubricate more ice sheets and fuck us up even more. So don't expect anything moderate. Ice Sheet Collapse will either not happen, or happen to an insane degree... and the former is not very likely.
So what do people do? They say, 'Uh-oh! We need to do something!', but, because they themselves are not very well informed, and, more importantly, because there is a huge multi-million pound industry dependent on misinforming them, the completely well-meaning urge to 'do something' ends up causing more harm than good.
Case in point: biofuels. Now, there are essentially two issues at stake in much what is jumbled under the 'Green' umbrella. The first is the maintaining of resources, making sure we don't run out of anything crucial, the second is protecting the macro-environment, minimising the output of greenhouse gases, etc... sometimes, these two issues interlap: for instance, recycling certain metals assures that new mines need not be opened, and preserves mineral resources for future generations, whilst simultaneously saving energy, as metal recycling often only requires a simple process of remelting and remoulding, as opposed to a process of heavy-mining, smelting, schmelting, zibbilimelting and all those other clever, yet very carbon-intensive processes, that metalmongers have devised over the centuries: metal recyling preserves resources and saves energy. However, this interlapping is far from common. Biofuels are often believed to be good for the environment: they are not. The chemical reaction taking place within a tank of biofuel is identical to the chemical reaction taking place within a tank of diesel... the benefit of biofuel is that it does not require the burrowing into of oil deposits, its impact on the atmosphere is negligible if not nonexistant.
Furthermore, the production of biofuels relies on huge areas of arable land... we're starting to see this today, in communities where people are starving, farmers chose to rip out their stable crops in order to produce the cash crops needed to made the biofuels. El Jefe himself, Fidel Castro, is a staunch proponent of this view: he says that Western insistance that Developing World farmers turn their attentions to the growing of plants to fill our cars' engines rather than the growing of plants to fill the bellies of the world's poorest people amounts to a campaign of Imperialist genocide... He may have a point.
So, good intentions + oppurtunistic capitalists = a plethora of supposedly 'Green' schemes to free you of your cash without necessarily assisting our species' ability to survive in the slightest.
And that's why environmentalism won't work. Because the principle actors involved in stopping Climate Change have no interest in stopping Climate Change. They have an interest in selling peace-of-mind to people by assuring them that they themselves are helping; supposedly, one would assume, the best way to convince an individual that they are helping would be to actually make them help... but this doesn't take into account how easily tricked human beings are. So people go about recycling their used paper, despite the fact that a) paper biodegrades completely in landfills, b) paper recycling is a mechanical industry, complete with all the conveyer belts and furnaces and all that carbon-burning shebang and c) tree farming is one of the only industries in the world that actually produces more oxygen than CO2.
My personal opinion is that instead of trying to prevent Global Warming, we should prepare for it. Forbid unsensible building on flood planes and deconstruct/dyke up anything under 30ft elevation above sea level, invest more money into greenhouse and hydroponic farming, and other methods that don't rely on the external environment. Because these are concrete aims. If we hire private companies to do these, there are simple and intuitive ways to make sure that they do actually do them, in contrast to the claims that we are given these days, ("We've built an off-shore wind farm that will help the environment!" - Will it? Can you prove it? - "Absolutely not!").
However, opinions like these are considered defeatist amongst mainstream environmentalists... so, yeah, that's why we're fucked.
Most of the nations that produced an agricultural surplus 20 years ago, (i.e. produced more tonnage of food that they themselves ate), now... um... don't. In Asia, for instance, China and India were once renown for their rice exports, now, in the entire region, only Thailand produces enough rice to be able to safely flog on the world markets without risking famine within its own borders.
The same goes for all other staple crops in the world. Millenia of selective breeding has made the plants we eat very specified. The problem with biological specification is that it leaves you very open to extinction, especially when your specific environment begins to whither away. Well, maybe thats a bit alarmist, there are countless breeds of staple crops - if a farmer notices his current crop isn't taking too well, he can order in a load of seeds for a different breed that will handle better... But this can only go so far, agricultural difficulties are steadily accumulating.
And hey, that word, 'steadily'... yeah... don't get used to it. Right now Climate Change is steady, but it won't stay that way. There are a certain number of 'tipping points' in the global system, that, once reached, cause huge chain reactions. For instance, the temperature in Antarctica only has to raise by a few more degrees to drastically increase the amount of meltwater dripping off the Antarctic Mountains, this water seeps down through the ice and accumulates between the snow and the land... essentially lubricating the entire ice sheet. Eventually, several million tonnes of ice will simply slip off the land that holds them, and result in a large increase in sea level.
This itself will cause a new chain reaction, a higher sea means higher winds, and higher winds means warmer weather at higher heights, warm weather at high heights, especially in the polar regions, will lubricate more ice sheets and fuck us up even more. So don't expect anything moderate. Ice Sheet Collapse will either not happen, or happen to an insane degree... and the former is not very likely.
So what do people do? They say, 'Uh-oh! We need to do something!', but, because they themselves are not very well informed, and, more importantly, because there is a huge multi-million pound industry dependent on misinforming them, the completely well-meaning urge to 'do something' ends up causing more harm than good.
Case in point: biofuels. Now, there are essentially two issues at stake in much what is jumbled under the 'Green' umbrella. The first is the maintaining of resources, making sure we don't run out of anything crucial, the second is protecting the macro-environment, minimising the output of greenhouse gases, etc... sometimes, these two issues interlap: for instance, recycling certain metals assures that new mines need not be opened, and preserves mineral resources for future generations, whilst simultaneously saving energy, as metal recycling often only requires a simple process of remelting and remoulding, as opposed to a process of heavy-mining, smelting, schmelting, zibbilimelting and all those other clever, yet very carbon-intensive processes, that metalmongers have devised over the centuries: metal recyling preserves resources and saves energy. However, this interlapping is far from common. Biofuels are often believed to be good for the environment: they are not. The chemical reaction taking place within a tank of biofuel is identical to the chemical reaction taking place within a tank of diesel... the benefit of biofuel is that it does not require the burrowing into of oil deposits, its impact on the atmosphere is negligible if not nonexistant.
Furthermore, the production of biofuels relies on huge areas of arable land... we're starting to see this today, in communities where people are starving, farmers chose to rip out their stable crops in order to produce the cash crops needed to made the biofuels. El Jefe himself, Fidel Castro, is a staunch proponent of this view: he says that Western insistance that Developing World farmers turn their attentions to the growing of plants to fill our cars' engines rather than the growing of plants to fill the bellies of the world's poorest people amounts to a campaign of Imperialist genocide... He may have a point.
So, good intentions + oppurtunistic capitalists = a plethora of supposedly 'Green' schemes to free you of your cash without necessarily assisting our species' ability to survive in the slightest.
And that's why environmentalism won't work. Because the principle actors involved in stopping Climate Change have no interest in stopping Climate Change. They have an interest in selling peace-of-mind to people by assuring them that they themselves are helping; supposedly, one would assume, the best way to convince an individual that they are helping would be to actually make them help... but this doesn't take into account how easily tricked human beings are. So people go about recycling their used paper, despite the fact that a) paper biodegrades completely in landfills, b) paper recycling is a mechanical industry, complete with all the conveyer belts and furnaces and all that carbon-burning shebang and c) tree farming is one of the only industries in the world that actually produces more oxygen than CO2.
My personal opinion is that instead of trying to prevent Global Warming, we should prepare for it. Forbid unsensible building on flood planes and deconstruct/dyke up anything under 30ft elevation above sea level, invest more money into greenhouse and hydroponic farming, and other methods that don't rely on the external environment. Because these are concrete aims. If we hire private companies to do these, there are simple and intuitive ways to make sure that they do actually do them, in contrast to the claims that we are given these days, ("We've built an off-shore wind farm that will help the environment!" - Will it? Can you prove it? - "Absolutely not!").
However, opinions like these are considered defeatist amongst mainstream environmentalists... so, yeah, that's why we're fucked.
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