Stating the Obvious

Being the young, optimistic and forward thinking guy that I am, I'd like to thing that we, humans, as a species of uniquely intelligent and civilised beings, have moved on. We have a vast wealth of historic experience and cultural values to draw on. Basically, some things go without saying.

Don't punch a camel in the face. Don't piss into the wind. Don't drink bleach. Don't rape anyone.

Yeah, that last bit. Don't rape anyone.

Now, people don't need to be told not to rape anyone, right? Wrong, apparently we do. And thanks be to god, apparently it works.

"Don't be that guy"

The 'Don't Be That Guy' ad campaign ran in Vancouver in 2011. In just six months, it has been credited with a 10% drop in sexual assaults, stopping a trend that has been on the rise for several years. For anyone too lazy to click on the above link, it's a poster that depicts a young woman in a little black dress passed out on a sofa surrounded by empty bottles of wine. The caption states, "Just because she isn't saying no doesn't means she is saying yes. Sex without consent = sexual assault. Don't Be That Guy."

I'm all in favour, but you know it's endemic of a wider problem in western society. You know that we, as a species, are doomed to a fiery apocalypse if you have to run a marketing campaign to convince people not to molest women. You have to sell people the idea of respecting others. The main impact is delivered by saying, "C'mon guys, don't be like that guy. No one wants to be that guy. He's a rapist". We have a serious, serious problem.

Bill Murray tackles the problem head on.

The main issue* that the billboard is addressing is the notion that silence, hesitation/awkwardness, or emotional/physical coercion is the same as consent. The startling reality is that people take it at face value, and that they need reminding this is not the case, even though realistically only an idiot or someone who has already decided they're getting laid regardless could miss that one.

"You can say stop this at any point. Just take the bag off your head and speak clearly into the microphone."

I don't need to tell you why it's a flawed premise, but I'm going to do anyway.

Why the absence of no does not mean yes.

I'm outside someones house, it's late, and they're passed out drunk on the sofa. I knock, softly, on the door because I'm a red-blooded man and I really want to drive their car. It's parked outside. There's no answer, so I try tapping on the window and calling 'can I borrow your car?'. This can go on and on, I can gently caress the car in a creepy manner, wondering how long it will be before all the lights come on and someone says 'I'm not comfortable with you touching my car like that.' After twenty minutes, a reasonable time I think, I just smash the window and drive off with it. No harm, no foul, right?

Anyone can see that you've just robbed someone. You've taken their stuff, without their consent, and made off with it basically because you wanted to have it. How much more applicable is this scenario when we're not talking about an object? When we're talking about a flesh and blood person, with real feelings and emotions? When you're talking about someones body, arguably their most personal possession? Screw the car. Frankly, it was the best idea I came up with in thirty seconds and I'm already seeing how demeaning it is comparing rape to grand-theft auto.

In any scenario outside of sex or physical intimacy, taking something that isn't yours is considered a dickish move at best*.  When we're talking about consent in sex, well, we shouldn't be talking about it. It's paramount. The idea that you can have any sort of sexual activity without consent and that is fine and acceptable behaviour is just wrong. Even typing it makes me feel like an idiot. Did you know that the sky is blue? Of course it fucking is.

That's the simple eloquence of the 'Don't Be That Guy' campaign, in my mind. If men are expected to behave in a predatory way, and if you think getting touchy with someone is just a bit of fun, or if you think the awkward silence just means she's being coy, you're wrong. You're being a dick. Don't be a dick.

It's both refreshing and terrifying to see that a simple, "Don't do that, you pervert" strategy can work so well. I hope the work that people have put in to changing attitudes and asserting the right of women to be a person and not an object continues. But it's sad that in a vibrant, cosmopolitan, wealthy, first world city like Vancouver, you need to state the obvious. In that respect, it's just another reason to put the gun in your mouth.

*To me. There are a lot of issues, positive and negative around this campaign, although the idea is to be simple and straightforward.  I've left all the really deep stuff to the experts. A more concise list of issues offered by more intelligent women on this website. Which is a good read, even if you weren't planning on raping anyone today.
*Circumstances pending, I suppose. Like stealing a cop car.

January Blues

Readers of this blog will notice there has been a certain lack of activity recently. While it would be possible to put this down to the fact that I have completely engrossed myself in a fantasy world, becoming withdrawn, anti-social, nocturnal and wearing a constant hunted expression, I can assure you that neither Skyrim nor vampires are to blame. The reason for the lack of anything post is, quite honestly, the lack of anything to post about.

Now, I could offer some opinions of Michael Gove and his on-going struggle to shed his human skin and bask in the night-black glow of wilful manevolence. I could explain how I was recently showered with glass and bacon caused by a kitchen-explosion whilst attempting to cook a lasagne - an experiment that resulted in a near-death experience. I could write about the frivalous nature of art and it's scourge on humanity, or why Christmas is simply the most depressing time of the year*.

As you can probably tell, I'm not going to.

Instead, I'm going to have to hold my hand up and say that I've got nothing to write because nothing has happened. I'll retrace my steps to the last post, where I suggested banning January altogether. We just have to admit that it is a worthless month, designed to fill space on a calander and to spare February the embarrassment of having less days than everyone else.

First, there's the climate. The weather is not bad, it is malicious. Wilfully so. It maintains cuttingly cold temperatures but offers nothing much in the way of hard evidence. No snow, no ice, no rampant sabre-cats or howling wolves. And definitely no comfort. Somehow, you don't remember December being this cold, and December is definitely winter because it has Christmas in it, right?

Speaking of Christmas, there's the four-week hangover. Everything is just suddenly fuzzy, confusing and generally worse than it was previously. You're broke and the pay-days are too far apart. You have to go back to work. You've eaten too much rich food and are probably fatter and more sluggish than you were before. All the chocolate is gone, and as the endorphins disappear so does any hope for the future. Any shiny decorations, flashing lights and seasonal cheer evaporate in a matter of days. New Years Resolutions are rendered pointless by the end of the first week, in part due to the fact that you can never live up to your own unrealistic expectations, but also because everything else has been rendered pointless, including optimism.

The glass is not half full. The glass is worthless.

Finally, nothing happens in January. No big celebrations, no holidays. Nothing. It has a crippling and debilitating lack of interest. Event attempting to find something to do is difficult because of the above-mentioned problems. You could venture outside of the house/office, if only to remind yourself that it isn't a prison, but when the cold is stabbing you repeatedly in the face and you realise you've got no money, there isn't a whole lot you can do. You could persevere, I hear that's what stubborn people do to prove a point.

Me, I'll just stay right here and wait until February, a month that at least has the balls-to-the-wall audacity to contain my birthday.*

*The boat may have sailed on that one.
*January also contians some peoples birthdays, but I'm not going to rub it in their face, poor souls.

In the Mind of Madness

The Problem:

You know a conversation is about to go downhill faster than than a fistful of shit when someone with an overbearing sense of their own importance pipes up with "If I were in charge..."

Recent conversations in this vein have yielded an interesting insight. If I were in charge, I'd get rid of all this Health and Safety nonsense. If I was in charge, I'd deport all the foreigners who are stealing our jobs. If I were in charge, I'd halt the moral decline. If I were in charge...

Through these insightful observations, I have come to the conclusion that what we are lacking most is not people who are in charge. Indeed, there are too many people in charge, and by just letting anyone be 'in charge', we run the risk of complete global meltdown because, generally speaking, people are idiots. The biggest problem is that the people who are currently 'in charge' are too agreeable. In that context, they're agreeable in the way that a Pod Person appears agreeable, until they start shrieking in an otherworldly voice and chasing you down endless streets before ramming you into an over sized courgette and stealing your body. The fact is, they are normal. What the world is lacking most is people who are, in no uncertain terms, affably insane.

"If I were in charge, I would make bananas illegal."

The Methodology:
 
Now, most of my day-to-day decisions, especially pertaining to morality and political alignment, are based loosely - and I mean loosely - on rational choice. Basically, I will have an idea. If there is no prevailing mental discourse against said idea, it will be implemented to catastrophic affect. I have found that this is the most satisfying and least confusing way of running my life, but it has left me with a difficult question.

Why, in a world obviously dreamt up in a madman's nightmare, is everyone insisting on acting in a justifiable and sane manner? This collective self-delusion is starting to wear at me, a little bit, especially given the above decision-making apparatus. Even the most disagreeable people can deploy certain arguments to support their stupid and bigoted opinions. Why does Bill Gates, a man who quite possibly defecates money, give to charity? Why does he not live in a giant, hovering pyramid? Why does a lottery winner insist that this will not change their life, and that they will maintain their working-class hero roots by returning to the daily grind at Tesco before retiring, exhausted, to a bed made of solid gold.

Returning to the problem, what we see is a sneering contempt for the needs of say, a bunch of pox ridden foreigners dying someplace somewhere else. But unless you've taken a vow of absolute soul-crushing poverty and dedicate your entire life to ridding global ills, we perpetuate the problem. The only answer, then, is that people obviously pretend to care. This is in direct conflict with our rampant narcissism, overbearing egos, human nature and general survival instinct, which dictate we always must strive to do our best by ourselves, and damn anyone else.

The Solution:

Insanity.

The obvious conclusion is that people, generally, while absconding from ethics, responsibility, and humanity, are taking themselves too seriously. In the high stakes game of 'how full of shit are you', the answer is 'depthlessly full'. I am depthlessly full of shit. The solution is affable insanity - a rejection of enforced social normality and a complete opt-out of any unspoken reponsibility or behaviour that entails. Allow me to explain.

Tomorrow I win the lottery. I can do many, many, things, but I've already decided to build a giant bronze statue to myself and pay two people  - dressed as a radish and a vacuum cleaner respectively - to loudly declare my greatness every half hour. The rationale behind this is 'because I can, and because no one else will'. No one else will built a giant statue of me and zealously scream my name to the uncaring sky. The burden of responsibly falls on me to fulfil this unspoken dream. People will call me insane.

Those same people will pass a beggar on the street and not throw any coins in his direction. They will lie to their friends and loved ones - even justifying it as a lie to forestall argument or spare them emotional distress. The very same people will elect a parliament of clowns based on nothing more than a half-arsed newspaper article and deep-seated ignorance. This will, invariably, have disastrous consequences for someone, somewhere else, but they will not care. In fact, they may even say that you have to be cruel in order to be kind, or make assumptions about other people's motivations for complaining, social circumstance, or adopt the patronising opinion that they know better.

In light of that, there seems to be no reasonable argument why anyone should act in a manner that is anything other than completely and utterly selfish, devoid of compassion and crazier than a sack of cats. What we need is more people who are willing to simply run with an idea purely on the basis that they can do it. If leaders we must have, let them be deliberately incomprehensible, unjustifiable, and wilfully misanthropic. Too many years have passed since we last managed to apply the suffix 'the Mad' to someones name.

Summarised: We already live a mad, nihilistic existence. Like many things, a failure to legalise it has only driven it deeper underground.

So I'll leave you with a list of my personal beliefs of 'if I were in charge'.

If I were in Charge

1. Leading a coalition of other months, February would annex January. Since nothing interesting ever happens in January and no one seems to like it, it seems only fair that January is outlawed, calenders are retroactively changed and the month itself is struck from the annals of history. It's 31 days can be divided between the remaining months, bringing them to about 33 and a half days each, give or take some time, which is irrelevant anyway. Whole days in excess are added to February, which as the new First Month of the Year, and constant underdog, deserves it.
2. Every lunar cycle would be named after a different variant of marmot. If not enough genus of marmot are available, it would fall to the world governments to genetically engineer new species to make up the shortfall.
3. The display of purple would be banned on every day apart from Thursday, in which anyone found not wearing an purple item of clothing would be dragged through Grimbsy by a donkey.
4. Endangered species would be hunted to extinction, so no one could be accused of only doing half a job. Emphasis would be placed on the most dangerous species first, to ensure our continued survival.
5. History would, where possible, be written five years in advance, to allow people adequate time to prepare for it, and if the desire takes them, participate in it.
6. An overhaul of the penal system would see prisoners rehabilitated by forcing them to partake of their crimes for an indefinite period of time and filmed for reality television. While many new, strange and interesting laws can be created in the interim, preliminary suggestions include: 
1. Making murderers kill a required number of squirrels every single day, chasing them to exhaustion and beating them with a mallet. 
2. Making convicted sex offenders repeatedly carry out inappropriate acts on unwilling goats. 
3. Making burglars and shoplifters participate in a daily game of Supermarket Sweep, whereby they must steal a predetermined value of goods within a set time limit.
4. Failure by any participant will result in them being sacrificed to flesh devouring ants.
7. Employing a Walrus to resolve all global non-emergencies that would otherwise require my attention.
8. Compulsory wearing of sunglasses. All the time.
9. Referring to anything before 1987 as 'The Bleak Years'.
10. Challenging nature's dominance by punishing the earth for natural disasters.

Conversing with Dragons

This is a gaming related post. If you don't want to read about it, well, dont. But you didn't need me to tell you that...

All in all, I probably had a good Christmas.

I received a copy of Skyrim, which has finally widowed my long suffering girlfriend and confined her to lingering somewhere just outside my field of vision as I slash through legions of undead vikings with the enthusiasm of a five year-old on crystal meth. Unfortunately, I also had some bad news. Primarily, everyone I have ever known is very likely, if not empirically dead. My homeland has been destroyed by a massive catastrophic event involving a meteor, and any survivors have been enslaved by hideous lizard-folk who took the opportunity to put the boot in, which is not particularly 'peace on earth and goodwill to all'. I also got a Terry Pratchett book, so on balance, it could have been worse.

I am, of course, referring to the events of Skyrim, the latest offering in the Elder Scrolls series. Being more specific, I'm talking about stuff that took place in the book The Infernal City, which are mentioned in Skyrim. Without going into tremendous detail, Skyrim comprehensively dealt with the issue of Morrowind being the best Elder Scrolls game ever by destroying the island of Vvardenfell, killing everyone you ever met, wiping out anywhere you'd ever been, and invading the bits you'd only vaguely heard of. Anyone now wishing to play Morrowind has to deal with the crushing knowledge of everything being inevitably rendered pointless.

So how about Skyrim, eh?

I used to play Morrowind, then I took an arrow to the knee

Recovering from the horrendous soul-crushing disappointment of Oblivion, Skyrim is actually quite a good game. I suppose your standards are pretty low if 'quite a good game' involves any degree of effort on the part of the developers, but hey. There are a few notable good points, and a few terrible issues that range from funny to 'I want to destroy the earth' frustrating.

Plot

The plot of Skyrim follows the usual epic fare of all Bethesda games. After stopping the rise of dead gods in Morrowind, and stemming the flow of daemons into the world in Oblivion, you expected this. So no one needs to worry too much about spoilers when I say the primary goal of Skyrim is to halt a dragon-related Apocalypse from scouring all life from the earth. This becomes immediately apparent in the first five minutes of the game, whereby a dragon turns up and kicks the everliving fuck out of a lot of people, destroys a town, and flies away twirling his evil mustache.

'Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.' Ralph Emerson had obviously never encountered a world-destroying dragon.

'Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.' Ralph Emerson had obviously never encountered a world-destroying dragon.

Graphics

Despite some opinions that Skyrim's graphics aren't as fantastic as they could be, I personally think the game is really well rendered, with beautiful scenery, well thought out landscapes that feel suitably alien*, harking back to the otherworldly feel of Morrowind. The creatures are a vast improvement over earlier fare, looking dangerous, being dangerous, and generally better animated that Morrowind, where you generally felt the monsters had a shared genetic trait of being comprised entirely of boxy bodies and sharp edges. You still suffer from the unfortunate Super Persistent Predators, which will chase you for miles across the countryside to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Gameplay

Skyrim is a vast improvement over Oblivion in almost every respect. The menus are easy to navigate, although getting your head around some new tricks can be quite intimidating. Speaking of new tricks, you can dual wield weapons, smith armour and perform menial tasks to work for a living. Surprising as it sounds, what’s been lacking from these games has the ability to actually go out and get a job. Acrobatics has gone, which makes me happy and sad for the same reason - I can no longer jump over a city. Enhanting is back, although it is still performed at altars, but these are more plentiful than Oblivion. Combat is quick and brutal, with new kill-scenes and improved power attacks and critical hits. I doubt I'd be far from the truth in saying that everything about Skyrim is superior to Oblivion. But then again, that'd be like expressing surprise that light moves faster than a paraplegic sheep.

It isn't without problems, though.

Skyrim, like previous Elder Scrolls games, suffers from the complex nature of 'the Duality of Man', which loosely translates like this. It's a good game to play, but if you're a serious role-player, you're probably going have a problem with it. Like most RPGs, the majority of the game involves making unconnected moral decisions and killing almost anything you encounter inbetween quests like 'collecting mushrooms for nuns' and 'helping old ladies cross the road'. So if you're serious about becoming a questing knight, a learned-scholar or a evil wizard, you're going to have to make do with the fact that you're occasionally forced into playing an unpredictable schizophrenic psychopath whilst attempting to perform both good and evil actions at the same time.

The other jarring thing, apart from the AI - listed below - is the occasional bouts of repetative dialogue that becomes amusing after awhile. There is a montage available on Youtube of numerous city-watch telling me, "I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee". The internet being what it is, this has created a meme involving people getting kneecapped by an opportunistic archer. The other thing of debatable humour is the introduction of Dragon-Shouts, a special power used do various things like super-sprint, stun, and change the weather. 

No, really.

The problem with credibility comes from the fact this ability has never been mentioned before. It just appeared in Skyrim, and everyone takes it at face value. Imagine the surprise when people told me that someone important had been killed by it. In hushed, conspirital tones, a nervous farmer whispered: "He just walked in and shouted the High King to death." He shouted him to death. I'm sorry, it's just too much to take seriously. As the name suggests, Dragon-Shouts are used to fight dragons, mainly. Forget swords, magic, or arrows. A good politics student would be able to tell you the only reliable way to beat a forty-foot fire-breathing monster is to shout at it. When a dragon attacks you, it shouts back, resulting in a bizarre and often fatal slanging match. The whole concept is just surreal.

Everything Is Going To Kill Everyone

If there is one thing that Skyrim suffers from and benefits from in equal measure, it is the radiant AI. In some cases, people will rush to your aid, step out of the way, or otherwise do things - like farming, talking ect - that make the game more enjoyable and more realistic. They will also react to things you do, like telling you to stop running into them deliberately or throw stuff all over the floor.

Sometimes this can spectacularly backfire and generally gives the impression that everyone is permanently on edge. I once accidentally set fire to a chicken belonging to someone nearby. They leapt from their seat and came at me with a knife, causing everyone in ten yards to grab weapons. Less than twenty seconds later, seven people were down, two were fleeing and my companion was enthusiastically tackling three more with a complete disregard for the sanctity of life. Until she was smashed in the head by a comedy-sized mallet, which took her down like a sack of spuds. The final chicken related death-toll was nine, after I put an arrow in someone's eye.

Levelling and Perks

Unlike it's predecessors, Skyrim has condensed skills down into a more managable, if not disappointing, amount of things to do. All contribute towards your overall level, which is a refershing change from other games that involve following a set course and grinding out the same stuff repetitively. They also included Perks, which have been changed from the Bethesda game Fallout 3, thank-god*. They now don't have too obvious effects on the actual game itself, while still being worth doing.

Unfortunately, the levelling system still doesn't appear to work for everyone. At one point, I was jumped by a group of bandits, a perfectly balanced scenario for someone at my level early on in the game. However, they had obviously failed to accomodate for simply how dangerous a horse can be. While I fought for my life against one of them, my faithful steed Percy set about the remainder, killing three men and chasing a fourth one off into the distant forests. The entire situation left me feeling a little big emasculated by my preffered mode of transportation. Now I walk everywhere to ensure Percy doesn't run off and slay any giants or anything.

"Come on you bastards!"

Bugs

The main problem with Skyrim are the number of bugs, which is not really something you want in a game that's been on the cards for five years. My personal favourite involved one that caused my super-wise mentor to utter the line 'So, you have come to me for help in completing the game. Listen carefully, young one, for I will only say this once', before he was unceremoniously catapulted into the sky, disappearing into a thunderstorm that raged miles above the earth, and leaving me completely devoid of advice and unable to progress.

Summary

I'm not far into Skyrim but I'm already enjoying all of the fancy new features, shiny new places and innovative ways to kill people. It has already beaten the amount of time it took for the repetative factor to kick in on Oblivion. It's new, exciting, and with the exception of bugs that can completely ruin your life, it makes for a good game. Fans of the Elder Scrolls series, or RPG's in general should enjoy it. People who don't want to get stabbed for breaking an unspoken social convention by super agressive peasants, do not enjoy wholesale genocide, or are unreasonably afraid of dragons should probably avoid it.

*Compared with Oblivion's setting: Generic Feudalism in Europe

* Fallout 3 was a good game, but the Perks were ridiculous. Unfortunately, I was unable to resist the 'exploding people' Perk that, well, caused people to explode. Which can be fun, but gets tedious quickly, causes problems when trying to distinguish body-parts for the purposes of looting corpses, and upsets your housemate no end. Skyrim removed the ability to chop up dead bodies, though, which means I can no longer hack the limbs off dead hookers. This is probably for the best.