James Jay Lee, the hostage taker at Discovery Channel in Silver Springs, MD. has been shot by police.
Show of hands - who didn't see this coming?
...didn't think so.
-F.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A Guy Walks Into a TV Station...
43 year old James Jay Lee waltzed into the Discovery Channel building in Silver Springs, MD. And then he started firing off weapons and taking people hostage. He is also supposedly wearing explosives.
Lee is an environmentalist to the core. His views are radical and extreme. And, he can't have much to live for anymore, since he put himself in trained police crosshairs while wearing a semtex shirt.
He has released his demands online, and they are, without a doubt, the most insane, inane, useless and full-on stupid demands ever made by anybody who ever took someone hostage.
His list of demands sounds somewhat like what I would imagine Wiley Coyote's demands to be if he ever took the Roadrunner hostage.
I will now excerpt a few passages from his list of demands, for your reading pleasure.
1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
And my favorite quote "The humans? The planet does not need humans."
What the hell good does it do to strap on some bang, bring popguns and storm a TV Station and yelling "FIX THINGS!!" to the world? That's not going to help anyone.
If he knew anything about anything, he would know what the response would be - police and federal agents and bomb squads and hostage negotiators and news crews and helicopters circling round in the air. Polluting. Just because he had to put his dumb ass in this situation because he has nothing else in his life, except his cause.
Small-minded people with a cause can be dangerous indeed.
-F.
Lee is an environmentalist to the core. His views are radical and extreme. And, he can't have much to live for anymore, since he put himself in trained police crosshairs while wearing a semtex shirt.
He has released his demands online, and they are, without a doubt, the most insane, inane, useless and full-on stupid demands ever made by anybody who ever took someone hostage.
His list of demands sounds somewhat like what I would imagine Wiley Coyote's demands to be if he ever took the Roadrunner hostage.
I will now excerpt a few passages from his list of demands, for your reading pleasure.
1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
And my favorite quote "The humans? The planet does not need humans."
What the hell good does it do to strap on some bang, bring popguns and storm a TV Station and yelling "FIX THINGS!!" to the world? That's not going to help anyone.
If he knew anything about anything, he would know what the response would be - police and federal agents and bomb squads and hostage negotiators and news crews and helicopters circling round in the air. Polluting. Just because he had to put his dumb ass in this situation because he has nothing else in his life, except his cause.
Small-minded people with a cause can be dangerous indeed.
-F.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A Silence Between Moments
Man. Nothing going on. This is like... abnormally quiet. Even the news have little interesting to comment on. Is this one of those quiet-before-the-storm type moments?
I keep wondering if someone's going to snap and drive through a crowded city street with a combine harvester. Literally paint the town red. Probably not, though. Those things are quite slow. Don't do turns so good, either. Most disgruntled farmers would probably use something that wouldn't make them look silly stuck in the entrance to a tunnel. Live. On CNN.
Also, I'm kind of hoping that me having these thoughts like this is just the morbid thoughts of a wannabe writer. It would be kind of disturbing to find out I'm visualizing these images as some kind of a, I dunno... need?
Alright, so there's ugliness and stupidity in humanity. So much so that I sometimes wonder if I'm a part of the same race I see destroying itself every day. And that sometimes, just sometimes, I kind of wish the stupidity our race is infested with could be wiped off the face of the planet. Possibly with a combine harvester.
Of course, then I realize that that would only add more ugly to an already messed-up species. And that even if people are less intelligent than myself (or the average bear), then that does not necessarily exclude them from humanity.
All you really need is politeness and a large heart. You take those things, and you show them to the rest of us. This is the only requirement.
Humanity. Are you a member?
-F.
I keep wondering if someone's going to snap and drive through a crowded city street with a combine harvester. Literally paint the town red. Probably not, though. Those things are quite slow. Don't do turns so good, either. Most disgruntled farmers would probably use something that wouldn't make them look silly stuck in the entrance to a tunnel. Live. On CNN.
Also, I'm kind of hoping that me having these thoughts like this is just the morbid thoughts of a wannabe writer. It would be kind of disturbing to find out I'm visualizing these images as some kind of a, I dunno... need?
Alright, so there's ugliness and stupidity in humanity. So much so that I sometimes wonder if I'm a part of the same race I see destroying itself every day. And that sometimes, just sometimes, I kind of wish the stupidity our race is infested with could be wiped off the face of the planet. Possibly with a combine harvester.
Of course, then I realize that that would only add more ugly to an already messed-up species. And that even if people are less intelligent than myself (or the average bear), then that does not necessarily exclude them from humanity.
All you really need is politeness and a large heart. You take those things, and you show them to the rest of us. This is the only requirement.
Humanity. Are you a member?
-F.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
You Can't Buy Entertainment Like This
Today's great news story:
"Porn Star On the Run After Samurai Attack."
Apparently, a male porn star in California's San Fernando Valley attacked another porn star with a samurai sword, killing him. He is now on the run. Two more were injured in the attack.
And, get this, none of the men involved were big names within the industry, according to the police.
Yes, you can always trust the police to know who's who in the San Fernando Valley, I guess.
-F.
"Porn Star On the Run After Samurai Attack."
Apparently, a male porn star in California's San Fernando Valley attacked another porn star with a samurai sword, killing him. He is now on the run. Two more were injured in the attack.
And, get this, none of the men involved were big names within the industry, according to the police.
Yes, you can always trust the police to know who's who in the San Fernando Valley, I guess.
-F.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
It's the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch
Derrick Bird, 52, of Rowrah, England, went on a killing spree. Firing away while driving through several towns, including Whitehaven, Egremont, Seascale and Gosforth. At least five are confirmed dead, and 25 wounded.
Alright, nothing too new here. Some guy snaps, shoots a bunch of people, and, of course, finishes off himself somewhere quiet.
The cliché here is the neighbours' reactions: "He was a quiet fellow." and "He kept to himself most of the time." and "He lived alone." and so on and so forth.
So uhh... everybody agrees this is getting to be a cliché, right? Lone guy, lives by himself, keeps to himself, snaps, shoots a bunch of people and then offs himself? Right?
So how come it still surprises ANYONE when some loner who keeps away from people breaks his biscuit? Ted Bundy was a quiet, charming guy who mostly kept to himself, and he killed over two dozen women. And that was ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO!
Hence, I have a prediction. Soon, we will see a newspaper or online news service report another of these assholes who take their pain out on strangers, and some neighbour, mark my words, will say;
"He was sort of a loner, really. Kept to himself most of the time. It was no surprise, really. I mean, seriously, it's the quiet ones you have to watch."
-F.
Alright, nothing too new here. Some guy snaps, shoots a bunch of people, and, of course, finishes off himself somewhere quiet.
The cliché here is the neighbours' reactions: "He was a quiet fellow." and "He kept to himself most of the time." and "He lived alone." and so on and so forth.
So uhh... everybody agrees this is getting to be a cliché, right? Lone guy, lives by himself, keeps to himself, snaps, shoots a bunch of people and then offs himself? Right?
So how come it still surprises ANYONE when some loner who keeps away from people breaks his biscuit? Ted Bundy was a quiet, charming guy who mostly kept to himself, and he killed over two dozen women. And that was ALMOST 40 YEARS AGO!
Hence, I have a prediction. Soon, we will see a newspaper or online news service report another of these assholes who take their pain out on strangers, and some neighbour, mark my words, will say;
"He was sort of a loner, really. Kept to himself most of the time. It was no surprise, really. I mean, seriously, it's the quiet ones you have to watch."
-F.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
A Working Goddamn Ansible!
Humankind is unlocking teleportation, people! We're at 89% fidelity, struggling with getting the ion particles to play ball as well as the photon particles do, and limited to a ten mile range - But we're making progress!
We used to be limited to meters. I sure do loves me the scientificky stuff.
Now, what this means is, we've unlocked instantaneous transmission of information. While this might be relatively uninteresting for use here on Earth, once mankind reaches the stars, and we travel vast distances, keeping in touch will get hard. A simple radio broadcast from Alpha Centauri would take over five years.
Travelling at 25,000 mph (The escape velocity needed to break free of Earth's gravitational pull), it would take us about 114,000 years to get there in a conventional rocketship.
Imagine being able to transmit data in an instant across such distances!
Alright, so maybe we're inventing the interstellar phone before we create the interstellar ship. So what? It'll be a handy thing to have, right?
-F.
We used to be limited to meters. I sure do loves me the scientificky stuff.
Now, what this means is, we've unlocked instantaneous transmission of information. While this might be relatively uninteresting for use here on Earth, once mankind reaches the stars, and we travel vast distances, keeping in touch will get hard. A simple radio broadcast from Alpha Centauri would take over five years.
Travelling at 25,000 mph (The escape velocity needed to break free of Earth's gravitational pull), it would take us about 114,000 years to get there in a conventional rocketship.
Imagine being able to transmit data in an instant across such distances!
Alright, so maybe we're inventing the interstellar phone before we create the interstellar ship. So what? It'll be a handy thing to have, right?
-F.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
What I Want The News To Tell Me Each Morning
Often, I check my regular news sites and such for, well, news. And not as often, not even regularly, but a few times? I get hit in the face with some of the coolest science fiction-sounding stories. By way of a for instance?
"Time Traveler Caught in Museum Photo?"
The story about the picture someone found in a museum in Canada. It's a black and white photograph from the early 1940's, regarding the reopening of the South Fork Bridge after a flood. And in between all the old clothes and trends of trench coats, hats and old fashioned dresses, some guy is wearing sunglasses, a hooded sweater, a t-shirt complete with a stamped image, and holding a compact camera. He looks somewhat out of place. AND TIME.
How can I NOT read this? That's how you write a goddamn heading!
(Although his clothes and even camera is not completely atypical for his time, they were just not stereotypical, is all. However, I leave judgement to his time travelerisms up to everybody else.)
Here's another one for you:
"Sundamaged Zombie Satellite Ravaging Earth's Orbit!"
Apparently, the satellite Galaxy 15 (G-15) got hit by high energy particles from the sun, which caused an anomaly. It is now circling out of it's designated geostationary orbit with it's telecommunications signal-receivers and -amplifiers still firing. If it drifts close enough to other satellites it will "eat" their transmissions, messing up our daily shit in a big way.
I mean, you could risk missing the last 20 minutes of the series finale of 'Lost' or something because this thing is on a rampage. It has ignored over 200,000 commands to get it's act together and shape up, and a series of high-powered signals that were intended to kill it off.
ZombieSat continues it's journey. Woe is television.
And last but not least:
"People All Over The World Dream of This Man"
The man, referred only to as 'This Man', has not yet been identified by name. The case started in a well-known New York psychiatrist's office in early 2006, when a patient drew a detailed sketch of the face of a man who had been appearing in her dreams. This Man had been giving her advice about her personal life. The woman swears to have never met this person, outside her dreams. While not completely unusual, as dreams are very individual and strange, the sketch that lay forgotten on the desk was picked up by another patient a few days later. This patient also recognized This Man as a person appearing in his dreams, giving him advice on his personal life!
The psychiatrist ends up sending copies of the sketch to other psychiatrists, and eventually a website appears on the internet, connecting together people who have dreamed about This Man.
To date, over 2,000 people claim to have dreamed about This Man, in cities all over the world.
He has yet to be identified.
I do not need news to tell me the world is full of evil people and indifferent societies. I'm aware of these facts. They are not news to me.
I need news to keep me interested in the world. I need the strange, and the new, and the weird.
Give me all the strange, new, weird shit you've got to spare.
-F.
"Time Traveler Caught in Museum Photo?"
The story about the picture someone found in a museum in Canada. It's a black and white photograph from the early 1940's, regarding the reopening of the South Fork Bridge after a flood. And in between all the old clothes and trends of trench coats, hats and old fashioned dresses, some guy is wearing sunglasses, a hooded sweater, a t-shirt complete with a stamped image, and holding a compact camera. He looks somewhat out of place. AND TIME.
How can I NOT read this? That's how you write a goddamn heading!
(Although his clothes and even camera is not completely atypical for his time, they were just not stereotypical, is all. However, I leave judgement to his time travelerisms up to everybody else.)
Here's another one for you:
"Sundamaged Zombie Satellite Ravaging Earth's Orbit!"
Apparently, the satellite Galaxy 15 (G-15) got hit by high energy particles from the sun, which caused an anomaly. It is now circling out of it's designated geostationary orbit with it's telecommunications signal-receivers and -amplifiers still firing. If it drifts close enough to other satellites it will "eat" their transmissions, messing up our daily shit in a big way.
I mean, you could risk missing the last 20 minutes of the series finale of 'Lost' or something because this thing is on a rampage. It has ignored over 200,000 commands to get it's act together and shape up, and a series of high-powered signals that were intended to kill it off.
ZombieSat continues it's journey. Woe is television.
And last but not least:
"People All Over The World Dream of This Man"
The man, referred only to as 'This Man', has not yet been identified by name. The case started in a well-known New York psychiatrist's office in early 2006, when a patient drew a detailed sketch of the face of a man who had been appearing in her dreams. This Man had been giving her advice about her personal life. The woman swears to have never met this person, outside her dreams. While not completely unusual, as dreams are very individual and strange, the sketch that lay forgotten on the desk was picked up by another patient a few days later. This patient also recognized This Man as a person appearing in his dreams, giving him advice on his personal life!
The psychiatrist ends up sending copies of the sketch to other psychiatrists, and eventually a website appears on the internet, connecting together people who have dreamed about This Man.
To date, over 2,000 people claim to have dreamed about This Man, in cities all over the world.
He has yet to be identified.
I do not need news to tell me the world is full of evil people and indifferent societies. I'm aware of these facts. They are not news to me.
I need news to keep me interested in the world. I need the strange, and the new, and the weird.
Give me all the strange, new, weird shit you've got to spare.
-F.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Elephant in the Living Room
My generation has many choices of brainrot. There's reality tv in all forms and shapes, like Big Brother, The Robinson Expedition (which might be called Survivor in the states, I dunno what it's called over there), Idol (of many different varieties), This Country's Got Talent, dancing competitions, singing competitions, who can eat the most bull testicles and spider eggs, all culminating in Paradise Hotel, which is tv at it's most base form - putting young, physically attractive people with extremely abrasive personalities in a luxury resort with free access to alcohol, beds and eachother and putting cameras on them, waiting for the money shot.
Oh my how glorious tv has become.
Besides that, there's news, which are always grim and about the bad stuff that happens. There's very rarely a happy news story, so the news are rarely uplifting.
There's documentaries, however these are usually limited to people building bikes, people building cars, people doing tattoo work, people blowing crap up or sharks. Or meercats. Or animal police. Which is more uplifting material, yay.
Then there's the new fad that's come through the last few years - sms tv. Basically some young blonde chick or extremely outwardly homosexual fella who sits in a box in the corner while people's text messages are shown on-screen. Then the person in the box goes on to try and provoke people and have them send in their text message (which costs several dollars a pop) just to earn money for whatever mobile company owns the show. Either that or some ludicrously easy quiz or challenge that people think they have a chance to win, where sending the same right answer several times will earn you a greater chance of winning. I've seen people try to win these things spend so many text messages it would've just been easier to go to the store and BUY their own toaster/mixer/dildo apparatus with built-in bluetooth and a USB port. I've also seen the host of these shows give away the answer just so people will send more text messages before time ostensibly "runs out." Yeah. Right.
Then there's what MTV has degenerated into. Basically, a variation of everything previously mentioned so far in this post, interspersed with the latest Black Eyed Peas tripe to show off a little flesh combined with extremely blatantly banal mediocre bullcrap attempts at "music". I should mention that I don't hate Black Eyed Peas especially, they're just a good example of mediocrity in music.
Finally we come to tv-series and films on tv. While I have nothing at all against series or movies, I very much so have something against commercials. Those 30 second snips of advertising that's found every 15 minutes or so through whatever happens to be on tv. Holy crap, how I hate having my program interrupted.
I say "I HATE COMMERCIALS!!"
Joe Moron goes "Well Fred, how's about yous try to look on the bright side, huh? At least then you can go get a snack, or take a bathroom break, or walk the dog?"
I deftly reply with my intelligent wit "THAT'S WHY GOD INVENTED THE PAUSE BUTTON, YOU ABSOLUTE DUMBASS!!"
....Phew. That felt good!
-F.
Oh my how glorious tv has become.
Besides that, there's news, which are always grim and about the bad stuff that happens. There's very rarely a happy news story, so the news are rarely uplifting.
There's documentaries, however these are usually limited to people building bikes, people building cars, people doing tattoo work, people blowing crap up or sharks. Or meercats. Or animal police. Which is more uplifting material, yay.
Then there's the new fad that's come through the last few years - sms tv. Basically some young blonde chick or extremely outwardly homosexual fella who sits in a box in the corner while people's text messages are shown on-screen. Then the person in the box goes on to try and provoke people and have them send in their text message (which costs several dollars a pop) just to earn money for whatever mobile company owns the show. Either that or some ludicrously easy quiz or challenge that people think they have a chance to win, where sending the same right answer several times will earn you a greater chance of winning. I've seen people try to win these things spend so many text messages it would've just been easier to go to the store and BUY their own toaster/mixer/dildo apparatus with built-in bluetooth and a USB port. I've also seen the host of these shows give away the answer just so people will send more text messages before time ostensibly "runs out." Yeah. Right.
Then there's what MTV has degenerated into. Basically, a variation of everything previously mentioned so far in this post, interspersed with the latest Black Eyed Peas tripe to show off a little flesh combined with extremely blatantly banal mediocre bullcrap attempts at "music". I should mention that I don't hate Black Eyed Peas especially, they're just a good example of mediocrity in music.
Finally we come to tv-series and films on tv. While I have nothing at all against series or movies, I very much so have something against commercials. Those 30 second snips of advertising that's found every 15 minutes or so through whatever happens to be on tv. Holy crap, how I hate having my program interrupted.
I say "I HATE COMMERCIALS!!"
Joe Moron goes "Well Fred, how's about yous try to look on the bright side, huh? At least then you can go get a snack, or take a bathroom break, or walk the dog?"
I deftly reply with my intelligent wit "THAT'S WHY GOD INVENTED THE PAUSE BUTTON, YOU ABSOLUTE DUMBASS!!"
....Phew. That felt good!
-F.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Human Stupidity vs Human Nature. No contest.
It's 2010, people. Ignorance is no longer an excuse for being a moron. And being a moron today and getting killed because of it, should be justified as natural selection. After all, that's all it is.
People are getting killed and injured by animals for stupid reasons lately. While either displaying or killing animals for fun and sport, or just being completely, stupendously moronic.
Earlier this week a matador got gored in the groin by a bull, and subsequently shipped off to the hospital in a coma. Then along comes the story of how a woman dies after a killer whale pulls her under and drowns her. Which only reminds me of that guy in the Beijing Zoo who wanted to hug the panda, which again reminds me of the guy with the lions in the Kiev Zoo...
Now, don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for people who suffer tragedy.
I just have none for people who suffer tragedy through acts of idiocy. And to explain what I mean, well... bullfighting is just pure stupid to begin with. You have no defense that will justify the torture and killing of animals for entertainment.
Second, the killer whale is first and foremost a KILLER WHALE! They're not friendly, cuddly things to train and keep penned up, they're one of natures predators! Secondly, this killer whale in particular has killed before! This is the 3rd death attributed to this whale. If you swim with a two-ton serial killer whale with big teeth and a penchant for drowning people, be aware of the possible consequences.
Third, a guy in Beijing thought drinking beers and jumping in the panda pen was a good idea. A panda bear might look cute, but it's still a BEAR! It's a big, hairy claw-wielding tooth-laden killing machine. It's a dangerous animal. Still, this guy thought giving a panda a hug was the natural thing to do. He got mauled up pretty bad. He even tried to bite back. I might excuse him for being drunk at the time, but his response when asked what inspired him to risk his life was "Nobody told me they bite people." It's... a... bear!
Fourth and last example of human stupidity vs animals, a guy in Kiev who brought a rope to the zoo and proceeded to rappell down into the lions den. Bystanders witnessed later on that he did so to TEST GOD. He apparently believed that God would prevent the lions from harming him, and wished to prove that God existed. I suppose the lions broke his spirit at roughly the same time they broke his neck - lions work fast. God has not commented on the matter, so we can't know if God supports the lions getting a free meal or if God doesn't want to protect morons. Or even if God exists, but that's an entirely different discussion that will probably never be fully answered to anyone's satisfaction.
How can I call this devout man a moron? Because, even for all his devotion to his Lord, it's stated in the bible that you shall not test God. That's Luke, 4:12 if you're curious.
We live in 2010. Ignorance is still no longer an excuse for being a moron. We humans, as a species, should be able to avoid deaths and dismemberment and severe beatings and all manner of injuries based on encounters with animals.
I mean, seriously! When people visiting a national park have to be told NOT to smear honey over their kid's face so they can take pictures of the bears licking it off, maybe it's time to let natural selection take it's course after all.
We're in this together as a species, people. Mother nature doesn't work like Disney tells you. So wake up from the American Dream. Smell that luke-warm coffee. It's not to late to salvage the human race.
All I need you to do... is wake up! And at least have a whiff of java.
-F.
People are getting killed and injured by animals for stupid reasons lately. While either displaying or killing animals for fun and sport, or just being completely, stupendously moronic.
Earlier this week a matador got gored in the groin by a bull, and subsequently shipped off to the hospital in a coma. Then along comes the story of how a woman dies after a killer whale pulls her under and drowns her. Which only reminds me of that guy in the Beijing Zoo who wanted to hug the panda, which again reminds me of the guy with the lions in the Kiev Zoo...
Now, don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for people who suffer tragedy.
I just have none for people who suffer tragedy through acts of idiocy. And to explain what I mean, well... bullfighting is just pure stupid to begin with. You have no defense that will justify the torture and killing of animals for entertainment.
Second, the killer whale is first and foremost a KILLER WHALE! They're not friendly, cuddly things to train and keep penned up, they're one of natures predators! Secondly, this killer whale in particular has killed before! This is the 3rd death attributed to this whale. If you swim with a two-ton serial killer whale with big teeth and a penchant for drowning people, be aware of the possible consequences.
Third, a guy in Beijing thought drinking beers and jumping in the panda pen was a good idea. A panda bear might look cute, but it's still
Fourth and last example of human stupidity vs animals, a guy in Kiev who brought a rope to the zoo and proceeded to rappell down into the lions den. Bystanders witnessed later on that he did so to TEST GOD. He apparently believed that God would prevent the lions from harming him, and wished to prove that God existed. I suppose the lions broke his spirit at roughly the same time they broke his neck - lions work fast. God has not commented on the matter, so we can't know if God supports the lions getting a free meal or if God doesn't want to protect morons. Or even if God exists, but that's an entirely different discussion that will probably never be fully answered to anyone's satisfaction.
How can I call this devout man a moron? Because, even for all his devotion to his Lord, it's stated in the bible that you shall not test God. That's Luke, 4:12 if you're curious.
We live in 2010. Ignorance is still no longer an excuse for being a moron. We humans, as a species, should be able to avoid deaths and dismemberment and severe beatings and all manner of injuries based on encounters with animals.
I mean, seriously! When people visiting a national park have to be told NOT to smear honey over their kid's face so they can take pictures of the bears licking it off, maybe it's time to let natural selection take it's course after all.
We're in this together as a species, people. Mother nature doesn't work like Disney tells you. So wake up from the American Dream. Smell that luke-warm coffee. It's not to late to salvage the human race.
All I need you to do... is wake up! And at least have a whiff of java.
-F.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
There's Even A Saying For These Situations
I remember a few years ago when the spanish complained about norwegians hunting whales, because it was animal cruelty! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
I just read the papers are calling matador Jose Tomas' incident with the bull an "Accident". Well, I guess they can't just go ahead and call it "Payback", either. I mean, seriously. What did they expect to get, when you mess with the bull? You call it "Horn", I'll call it "Poetic Justice".
While I do have sympathy for the people who care about the matador, I have absolutely none for the man himself. What he did was perpetrate a stupid, useless act of cruelty to an animal for sport, and he paid the price. That is all there is to it.
I do not condone any form of cruelty, towards animals or mankind.
I am not a vegetarian. I eat meat.
But I sure as hell don't play with my food.
-F.
I just read the papers are calling matador Jose Tomas' incident with the bull an "Accident". Well, I guess they can't just go ahead and call it "Payback", either. I mean, seriously. What did they expect to get, when you mess with the bull? You call it "Horn", I'll call it "Poetic Justice".
While I do have sympathy for the people who care about the matador, I have absolutely none for the man himself. What he did was perpetrate a stupid, useless act of cruelty to an animal for sport, and he paid the price. That is all there is to it.
I do not condone any form of cruelty, towards animals or mankind.
I am not a vegetarian. I eat meat.
But I sure as hell don't play with my food.
-F.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Job application / Vegetable status
I am hereby making myself available for the position of Lottery Winnings Millionaire. If only so I can avoid being laughably tired due to working silly shifts.
Need sleep now. Brain is hurty and some joker has hung anvils from my eyelids. I am pumping those eyelid muscles. I can wink the shit out of all of you.
Gone to collapse in bed. Entirely for your safety. For I am kind.
-F.
Need sleep now. Brain is hurty and some joker has hung anvils from my eyelids. I am pumping those eyelid muscles. I can wink the shit out of all of you.
Gone to collapse in bed. Entirely for your safety. For I am kind.
-F.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Games and audio
Yeah, I picked up a copy of Just Cause 2 as well. Everybody and their mums and their dogs seems to be heaping praise upon this game. I can see the why's of that; It's got some pretty damned decent gameplay mechanics. It's fun. By going all-out gamecriticky I'd compare it to both GTA and Batman: Arkham Asylum, actually.
However. (And this is one of those howevers that should be in italics, I tell you!)
Every time a cutscene appears I seem to be dropping the controller in favour of covering my ears. The voice acting is all around poor, but whoever did the work for the character Bolo Santosi should be banned from ever working the profession again. Every single line of dialogue delivered had the exact same tone. Words were mangled and mispronounced. I could feel my brain wanting to escape. Literally. It was banging on my palms as I was covering my sensitive and pampered ears, suitcase in hand.
It probably couldn't take the logical flaw of how you can make such a fun game and ruin it with horrible voice actors all around. I mean, somewhere in the system of voice work, the director, the sound checker, the guy who sets up the electronic equipment, whatever! Someone had to hear how bad that was. But apparently, even the people who own the company must've said "Alright, good stuff, good stuff! We're ready for international sales now!"
More likely they didn't even listen to it. I hope that's the case, anyway.
It wasn't always like this. The audio used to be a selling points for games, way back in the day. Let's take a trip back to the late 1980's. Back to the days when the Nintendo Entertainment System and it's 8 bits ruled the land.
If I mention games like Super Mario. Bros, The Legend of Zelda and Megaman, what springs to mind first? The gameplay? The graphics? Or the music?
The answer's probably pretty individual for everybody. For me, though? The music. The NES had some magic going on. I can list games from the 80's and 90's which, if you played them, you will instantly remember the music to.
"Hang on!" I can hear you saying. "What does music have to do with voice casting?"
Shut up! I'm getting to it. Allow me to make the point I want to make the way I want to make it.
So yeah, the 90's rolled in. We have Sonic the Hedgehog finally achieving fame on the Megadrive and giving Mario a run for his money for a few years, and adventure games have their heyday.
Speaking of adventure games, this is the genre which first incorporates voice acting in games. And when I say voice acting, I mean voice acting. This actually happened as far back as 1989, with the release of Access Software's first game in a brilliant series called Mean Streets. It was one of the first games ever to make use of RealSound, and you could hear actual voices through your PC speaker! Magic!
Anyway, onwards with the 90's. Adventure games had a dip into Full Motion Video and actual acting, which saw games like Ripper, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within, the Phantasmagoria series and of course the already mentioned Tex Murphy games. Most notably Under a Killing Moon, which featured James Earl Jones' voice as the Great P.I. In The Sky.
"Using famous actors for parts will of course make the game sound better!" I hear some of you monkeys screaming in the back. There's a fallacy in that statement. They didn't include Jones because he was famous; They included him because HE'S TALENTED.
Which should be a clue for the rest of the industry.
The practice of using well-known actors in games culminated in 2002 with the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This game might be called the True Romance of games for all it's big name celebrities, except that when True Romance was filmed, many of the actors were yet to be famous.
The point I'm making here is that for years, it was a selling point to have either big names and/or talented voices fill up your games.
It's 2010, dammit! So why do I have to listen to the voice of some singlish (singaporean-english to you lot in the back) person who makes my ears want to bleed and my cranial cavity collapse on my brain in an act of mercy? We should be beyond this now!
-F.
PS. As a side-note, my favorite voice actor is Charlie Adler. Most known for his roles as Harold the ghoul in Fallout 1 and 2, Coach Oleander in Psychonauts and Ignus in Planescape: Torment.
He has a massive amount of tv-series work to his credit, including The Smurfs, Sonic the Hedgehog (as Snively, the assistant of Dr. Robotnik), and Tiny Toon Adventures, to mention a few. And he also provided the voice work for Starscream in Michael Bay's Transformers movies.
However. (And this is one of those howevers that should be in italics, I tell you!)
Every time a cutscene appears I seem to be dropping the controller in favour of covering my ears. The voice acting is all around poor, but whoever did the work for the character Bolo Santosi should be banned from ever working the profession again. Every single line of dialogue delivered had the exact same tone. Words were mangled and mispronounced. I could feel my brain wanting to escape. Literally. It was banging on my palms as I was covering my sensitive and pampered ears, suitcase in hand.
It probably couldn't take the logical flaw of how you can make such a fun game and ruin it with horrible voice actors all around. I mean, somewhere in the system of voice work, the director, the sound checker, the guy who sets up the electronic equipment, whatever! Someone had to hear how bad that was. But apparently, even the people who own the company must've said "Alright, good stuff, good stuff! We're ready for international sales now!"
More likely they didn't even listen to it. I hope that's the case, anyway.
It wasn't always like this. The audio used to be a selling points for games, way back in the day. Let's take a trip back to the late 1980's. Back to the days when the Nintendo Entertainment System and it's 8 bits ruled the land.
If I mention games like Super Mario. Bros, The Legend of Zelda and Megaman, what springs to mind first? The gameplay? The graphics? Or the music?
The answer's probably pretty individual for everybody. For me, though? The music. The NES had some magic going on. I can list games from the 80's and 90's which, if you played them, you will instantly remember the music to.
"Hang on!" I can hear you saying. "What does music have to do with voice casting?"
Shut up! I'm getting to it. Allow me to make the point I want to make the way I want to make it.
So yeah, the 90's rolled in. We have Sonic the Hedgehog finally achieving fame on the Megadrive and giving Mario a run for his money for a few years, and adventure games have their heyday.
Speaking of adventure games, this is the genre which first incorporates voice acting in games. And when I say voice acting, I mean voice acting. This actually happened as far back as 1989, with the release of Access Software's first game in a brilliant series called Mean Streets. It was one of the first games ever to make use of RealSound, and you could hear actual voices through your PC speaker! Magic!
Anyway, onwards with the 90's. Adventure games had a dip into Full Motion Video and actual acting, which saw games like Ripper, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within, the Phantasmagoria series and of course the already mentioned Tex Murphy games. Most notably Under a Killing Moon, which featured James Earl Jones' voice as the Great P.I. In The Sky.
"Using famous actors for parts will of course make the game sound better!" I hear some of you monkeys screaming in the back. There's a fallacy in that statement. They didn't include Jones because he was famous; They included him because HE'S TALENTED.
Which should be a clue for the rest of the industry.
The practice of using well-known actors in games culminated in 2002 with the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This game might be called the True Romance of games for all it's big name celebrities, except that when True Romance was filmed, many of the actors were yet to be famous.
The point I'm making here is that for years, it was a selling point to have either big names and/or talented voices fill up your games.
It's 2010, dammit! So why do I have to listen to the voice of some singlish (singaporean-english to you lot in the back) person who makes my ears want to bleed and my cranial cavity collapse on my brain in an act of mercy? We should be beyond this now!
-F.
PS. As a side-note, my favorite voice actor is Charlie Adler. Most known for his roles as Harold the ghoul in Fallout 1 and 2, Coach Oleander in Psychonauts and Ignus in Planescape: Torment.
He has a massive amount of tv-series work to his credit, including The Smurfs, Sonic the Hedgehog (as Snively, the assistant of Dr. Robotnik), and Tiny Toon Adventures, to mention a few. And he also provided the voice work for Starscream in Michael Bay's Transformers movies.
Picking up the pace.
I guess I'd better make good on my threat then. Yawn. I hate nightshift week. Makes me feel like a wet sock that's been flung at a wall and fell behind the sofa and got found by the dog. Or something.
Not good at any rate.
-F.
Not good at any rate.
-F.
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