I am become Death

It's not every day I get to confess to a bunch of imaginary crimes. It's almost every day I get accused of a bunch of imaginary crimes, but I manage to resist the urge to spill forth, crying and begging for forgiveness. Something's being pressing on my mind recently, though, and that is that I've killed a shitload of people. Seriously, more like ten shitloads*. A very hypotheical genocide.

I guess my non-stop assault on the living started when I was about ten, playing a little-known Master System game called Secret Command.

I was never sure what the Secret Command actually was, but it sure did involve killing a lot of people.

Since then, it's been impossible to play almost any computer game without inflicting horrendous amounts of carnage on the enviroment. In Sonic, I slaughtered my way through an army of robots whilst stealing anything reasonably shiny within reach, like a psychotic magpie from a bad neighbourhood trapped in the Terminator 3 universe. I played Jurassic Park, ensuring the past stayed well and truly dead with an arsenal that would have put Rambo to shame. Gradually, I moved on to the harder stuff.

Metal Gear Solid came around, a game dedicated to breaking necks, shooting people in the head and stapping C4 to their backs before kicking them into a pool of motlen lava. In Command and Conquer and all of it's subsequent spin-offs, thousands died under the iron treads of animated battle tanks, were mauled by dogs, electrocuted by glowing Chirstmas Trees or drowned in purging nuclear fire.

Oh god, what have I done?

It's been downhill from there. From Command and Conquer to Cossacks: European Wars. From Metal Gear Solid to Halo, Gears to Operation Flashpoint. Every Modern Warfare ever made. In the cold, depthless voids of space thousands of Federation crewmen died as their ships were torn apart by phase-fire. In Rome Total War, Spartans impaled their way though hundreds of enemies. I stormed the beaches in Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, and killed the Lord of Hell in Tenchu Stealth Assassins. Face to face with a chainsaw, or with the cold caculating click of an 'autoresolve' button, thousands of animated, imaginary people suffered, bled and died at my will.

And before I knew it, I was a monster, launching religious purges across Europe, or hacking prostitutes to death and stacking their heads in a bathtub. I can't stop it anymore, waiting eagerly for my copy of Skyrim so the pointless slaughter can continue. There isn't even a moral anymore. There is no black and white. There isn't even the morally ambigious shade of grey.

There is only the comforting, soothing red.

It's not even a blog, it's a cry for help.

*A cookie for the reference. Well, nothing for the reference but personal satisfaction, which is almost as good.

The Sepp Injustice Model

Recently, Fifa president Sepp Blatter has been making the news for a string of real and imagined offences against just about everyone. In a remarkably spirited assault on humanity in general, Sepp has asked gay fans and players to 'refrain from sexual activities' in Qatar, where being homosexual is illegal. In the same piece, his wider sexual politics are highlighted, including the continued sexualization of female players by suggesting they wear tighter clothes. Thanks Sepp, you really set the world to rights there.

"I am not the Fifa President you are looking for." Blatter's attempts at Jedi mind-tricks proved unsuccessful.

It couldn't really come at a much worse time for Blatter, embroiled as he is in a row about poppies. As you can imagine, this has caused an undue amount of howling from the British public, who generally feel that rules laid down by international bodies only apply to other people. That, and we're only one step away from square bananas. Thanks for nothing, Brussels.

But I wouldn't even be blogging about Sepp Blatter, nor known about his particularly enlightened view on sexual discrimination if I'd not decided to do a piece about him jumping on my last nerve. And so, the Sepp Injustice Model is born.

The Sepp Injustice Model

As the Sepp Injustice Model proves, the more serious the offending racist incident, the more atonement required. I have also formulated a Venn diagram showing the relationship between the Fifa President and scourges on humanity, for those who approve of the scientific method.

 Relationship between Fifa and 'Bad Stuff'

As science has duly proved, Blatter is influenced by at least three particular coloured spheres - Racism, Homophobia and the catch all - Bigotry. Hopefully this will not have an impact on any shady deals he may be wanting to make in the future. Stay tuned for updates on further research for the Sepp Injustice Model, which has drawn a casual link between forgiving someone's drunken homophobic rants and the consumption of Chunky Monkey ice-cream.

Following this article, further research on the Sepp Injustice Model was periodically put on hold following the 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' drowning of a puppy in a bath of acid. To make up for it, the offending party managed to acquire two free tickets for the bereaved to attend workshop for aspiring singer-songwriters. Which wasn't enough to put the sloughing flesh back onto the deceased puppy, but did seem pretty gentlemanly to Sepp.

The Director's Cut

They don’t care anymore. It’s quite obvious that they don’t. Maybe you’ve always known it, gnawing at the back of your mind. The terrible hamster of dark understanding. Loose. In your brain.

By ‘they’, I of course mean everyone. Anyone. The external forces. The powers that be. Specifically, people who make films. Narrow it down, and you’ll find that I mean the people – nay, the parasitic fragments of humanity – that made Underworld: Evolution.

Underworld Evolution: Possibly the worst film ever made.*

Underworld: Evolution Developmental Process

• Take a was-good-but-got-tired-quick genre – in this case, films styled after the Matrix trilogy.
• Using some power tools and an axe, remove the plot, being careful to ensure that you get all the nasty bits of originality that might try and cling to the sides. Leave only black leather, guns, pusedo science and physics defying martial arts.
• Replace all characters with supernatural creatures that firmly believe personality only happens to other people.
• Staple the leaky morass together with Kate Beckinsale in a leather cat suit. Ensure she is practically errupting from it in almost every scene. Fill cracks and plot holes with a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the need for a storyline.
• Profit.

Like a child attempting to catch tadpoles in a plastic shopping back, it starts out on a dubious premise. Everything of value quickly leaks out of the holes that are designed to prevent accidental - or even wilful – asphyxiation. All that is left at the end is a pile of mud and dead mutant fish inside a container that will take a thousand years to completely decompose. The testament of failure will outlive the memory of the idea in the first place. Such is this film.

You could watch it, but I recommend less painful pastimes such as gouging out your own eyes. Seriously, it’s too late for me, but I’d say it would be a preferable way to spend an evening. What you’re missing, more or less, is a typical starry-eyed werewolf/vampire action flick, made worst by Beckinsale’s accent, which is so British it practically hurts everytime she speaks. Which is a lot. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to watch the first Underworld and subsequently not empty the contents of their brain all over the garage wall will remember that the lead character, a male who oozes raw masculine sex like a harpooned seal, was bitten by both a werewolf and a vampire.

Since I can’t remember his name, being that unimportant to the general idea of a script, I’m going to call him Were-pire. Were-pire is still following Kate Beckinsale around like a lovelorn puppy, not fully comprehending what’s happening, which in a way sympathizes with the baffled audience. Kate reckons his double bad luck is actually a blessing, since somehow being venerable to sunlight, garlic, silver, crosses, mistletoe and stakes is balanced by the fact you have shared dietary considerations.

Something happens involving other vampires that kill each other and a big wolf trying to escape being imprisoned in a creepy castle. Were-pire has some existential angst moments, which appears to be his single purpose in the film other than appeasing goth chicks while their boyfriends dribble over Beckinsale. Some other vampires play at being soldiers and mess around with guns that shoot either expensive silver bullets or science defying ultraviolet bullets.

Ultraviolet.

Bullets.

I’m not a hundred percent, but I’m pretty sure the only way that is conceivably possible is if each bullet had a tiny lightbulb and battery inside it. It never explains it. It doesn’t need to.

I don't know either.

Kate gets into a massive fight during which she repeatedly clicks her two guns together like Dorothy’s slippers, and that somehow reloads them really fast and without anything actually going in. This is particularly useful, since Vampires torn apart by werewolves mere seconds earlier turn instantly into howling beastmen, violating traditional mythology by virtue of it being not real, I suppose. Meanwhile, there’s a big ass helicopter and a vampire that also has tentacles that is somehow connected to the Russian aristocracy, which is only strictly relevant for the purposes of medieval flashback filler scenes. He impales an old man with his shoulder mounted penis, mortally-wounding the last surviving immortal and proving conclusively that words like immortal are thrown about too casually.

No, god, I can’t do this anymore.

Just don’t see it. It’s awful.

Although not a particularly recent film, it is endemic of a new approach to making blockbuster movies.  It seems to consist largely of badly rehashed sequels and sitting back cackling on a pile of money. Unfortunately, I’ll keep watching them, and they’ll keep on not caring.

*Possibly the worst film. Unfortunately, I discounted great classics such as Starship Troopers II, and happened to watch the last half hour of Van Helsing, and five agonizing minutes of Barb Wire, after which I blacked-out.

No More Heroes

As befits the occasion, it's a sober one today, I'm afraid.

Like a lot of people, I observed a two minute silence today. Realistically, it's been more like a five hour silence since I've been sat at home alone all day, occassionally punctuated by shouting at the cat or talking to it in gibberish. The path to madness is travelled in tiny increments, and I am happily underway.

Anyway, today marks a day of national mourning, in which we remember the millions of people who have died in the 'defence of the nation'*. Previously, in the stages of my political evolution I've been somewhat skeptical about the role of the military, ranging from ranting about baby killers to extolling the virtues of any working class person who takes up a gun for what they believe in. I'm not entirely sure where I've landed today, but read on, because there is a really convoluted point to this. Today, I observed and reflected up the two minute silence.

Now, some people of certain political persuasions might be aghast at that. I suppose I would be on a different day, but hear me out.

Today, we have a perfect opportunity not to remember sacrifice for the sake of national pride. We do not have to construct a myth around our armed forces and regard them as Olympian gods. We don't have to consider every fallen young person to have died for some grand, high purpose, saving us all from the terror of the world. Today, we don't have to pretend it was all worth it.

I do not have to wear a poppy to show respect to the people I choose to remember. I do not stand silent in front of a flag snapping in the breeze. I don't regard a grey November sky to be part of the grand theatrical drama of Rememberance Day. Rememberance Day is every day, so long as you remember, right?

Today, at 11am, I remembered the International Brigades, who without any motivation beyond their political beliefs, fought and died in Spain against fascism. I remembered the victims of Bhopal, gassed in their sleep by the failings of Union Carbide. My mind skimmed Jean Charles de Menezes. Briefly, I considered the union reps murdered while working for Coca Cola.

At eleven, I remembered people who had given their lives, or people whose lives had been taken, as a result of the world system we live in.

For me, Rememberance Day is not about giving preferencial treatement to soldiers, but taking two minutes out of my day to remember the social, economic, sexual and cultural injustices that continue today. I remind myself that even my lowly place in society is bought with the continued suffering of others. Ironically, Rememberance Day is the time to remind yourself what you're fighting for.

*It might just be war, to be honest. War would be a lot fairer than 'defence of the realm', in a perverse way.

News from the Front

Again, we have another half-baked effort today. I'll do a better one in the morning, I promise.


Important Ruling Against Church Overshadowed by Awesomely Named Judge

It has been ruled that the Catholic Church is now liable for the wrongdoings of priests. Unfortunately, this ruling was made by Mr. Justice MacDuff, which somewhat undermines the gravity of the situation.

"Hey, stop touching that!"

Talking to Your Cat in Gibberish Makes You an Idiot

Scientists have discovered that talking to cats in a made up language is no more comprhensible than English, but does make you look stupid. Academics from the University of Obvious, Penn. have discovered that 90% of lonely people with cats talk to them in a made up language called  'Ooooja-kat?', which has its etymological roots in 'Ooooja-ur-daddy' that is often used on babies.

"It's meaningless," said Dr. Wordsmith. "The cat doesn't understand, and the problem with Ooooja-kat is that it has no set pattern. At least with English you can get repitition, sound and consequence association, allowing the cat to learn certain words. In Ooooja-kat, there are no words. You just make noise at it. It doesn't care."

Further research has suggested that people who communicate to animals and babies in made-up-language are 79% more likely to go feral and live in a storm drain eating fishheads and growling at passing cars.

Talentless Deadbeat Teenager Makes News as World Plunges Screaming into Hell.

Frankie Cocozza has been booted off the X-Factor as the world hurtles towards its inevitable self destrcution. Frankie was removed from the X-Factor for his conduct behind the scenes, which hints at some sort of binge drinking and or drug abuse. Cocozza has apologised to fans, saying "My life during the show has gone out of control and my behaviour off stage has overstepped the rules of the competition... ...I no longer deserve my place in the show, so I am therefore leaving. I would like to thank everyone who has supported me."

Outside the studio, upset fans gathered to pay their respects to the failed singer, who was widely regarded as the best warbling moron out of a sizeable bunch of talentless organ-hoarders. One 'Camp Cocozza' follower remained upbeat, however.

"Frankie has proven that he's desined for greatness by taking up valuable newspaper front page space while people in Syria chow down on bullets in the name of freedom. The very fact he has been deemed more important than the ten thousand stories of human cruelty and suffering that unfold every day is very encouraging."

Scientists have speculated that the psychic-deathscream that will eminate from planet Earth as it goes into complete social, economic and cultural meltdown could tear a hole in reality and reawaken the dead-god Cthulhu from his eons long slumber beneath the sea.

Gone, but still famous enough to displace useful information.

Upsidedown Rhino 'Trips Balls' on Sedative 

The Times recently ran an article on an airlift in Africa that saw a Black Rinhocerous being drugged, hung upside down and carried 1,500 kms to a new rhino sanctuary. I don't think need to highlight why an upside down flying rhino pumped full of drugs is awesome.

Dude, what if the sky was, like, the ground, and the ground was the sky? Dude...