The dark side of Cartoons. All that yelling and screaming goes to good use.

When I was but a wee teenager I would spend my hours wasting away before the TV, because growing up where I did there was little else besides drinking to do (and I did a lot of that, too) but as anyone growing up in England during the late 90's and early 2000's can agree when I say that a lot of our broadcasting was shite to say the least, and if you were cursed to be stuck with the basic television package, terrestrial TV provided even less. So, torn as I was between BBC's mix of end-of-the-world news and psuedo-drama and ITV's upper-class "laugh at the poor people" news and mind-bogglingly boring period-drama, I found myself ecstatic the day my mum came in and announced we were getting a Sky TV dish installed. Suddenly I was spoilt for choice with 900 channels of equally nothing-of-interest broadcasting (and by 900, I mean somewhere in the vicinity of 150 crap channels, 40 news channels and about 300 Shopping Networks... The rest of that number were missing somewhere in the ethereal realm of dead air).

                I was on the verge of giving up on television entirely (something I have done in the years since) until I discovered the post-watershed options. Now, sad to say, I was not like most teens at that time, and what excited me most about this world of after-the-kiddiwinks-bedtime, censorship-free excitement was not the porn channels, but Cartoon Network. Well, not Cartoon Network itself, but the magical thing it turned into after the last of the Hanna-Barbera bedtime hour (The Flintstones, some Huckleberry Hound, Scooby Doo, good stuff, but still not enough for me) had drawn to its conclusion. Like the mythical werewolf, the man forced to hide his monstrous alter-ego until it tore him inside-out at the coming of a full moon, I discovered that Cartoon Network had its own dark side, and this night-time creature was called "Toonami".

                Toonami was host to a small community of "adult" cartoons, things I would later discover were called "anime" (and, to my further horror, available 24-7 in Japan and specialised channels on American TV). In these cartoons the heroes were free from the shackles of childish stereotypes; they were capable of being both good role models, like their daytime counterparts, but also of being real people, people with problems and attitudes that went further than the rebellious "I'll stay up after my bedtime" punks from daytime cartoons. In this world the good guys drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, swore and even killed people (they never "thwarted" plans, but solved the problems set to them by their antagonists by actually killing them, usually with some form of firearm or giant robot or super power). It was more than my little mind could fathom, and I was hooked.

                day after day I would ignore the large glass box in the living room, disenfranchised by the goody-goody actions of what classed as "my TV" and wait until the clock struck 9 and the trouble-free world of childhood faded into its own little dream world. I would then take up the controls, activate the television, the Sky box, and hit the numbers 6-0-1 (then the number for Cartoon Network, I have no idea what it is these days, and have no interest in finding out) and before me would flash the farewell message of fun-filled, family-friendly cartoons and when that was gone, on would explode Toonami, the dark side of cartoons laid bare for me to consume with my eyes and mind.

                Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Big-O, Tenchi Muyo, Gundam, all of these would be my new friends, and I loved every minute of it, but what captivated me the most was a rather lengthy series in which the sole purpose of the show was to see its protagonists constantly beat the shit out of their enemies, or be beaten in turn if they weren't strong enough. There was screaming, grunting, groaning and lots of death and destruction (perhaps I was too rash with my "not being into porn" thing earlier) and I was fully captivated by it. This thing was something called Dragonball Z. It drew me from the start, with its heavy opening theme, all guitars and shouting, and carried me further when its protagonists shot onscreen in white and yellow bursts of raw power. This was a world where evil could be beyond powerful, where the bad guys didn't try to steal or cheat but destroy whole worlds, or kill countless innocent civilians, and the only people who could protect it were those who trained night and day simply to punch them in the face harder than they could be punched themselves.

                Since those days my tastes have changed somewhat, but at the time Dragonball Z was the highlight of my day. I would tune in every day to watch Goku and his friends face a new foe, train, be beaten, train again and beat the foe in turn, and I loved it. I loved its simple nature: there were no deep storylines that had to be followed, like with Cowboy Bebop or Outlaw Star, there was simply the good guys beating the bad guys, with talk thrown in now and then for them to insult one another. A simple premise for a simple kid, but as I said, my tastes have changed over the years. I still love anime and the insane depths it will trawl to entertain people, but as my mind grew sharper so did my need for deeper stories and characters. This was when I started to better appreciate Toonami's other shows, and even now you can find a few of those previously mentioned titles (and many more besides) on my DVD shelf, but still, there is that part of me that loves Dragonball Z.

                I have recently been re-watching the show, back-to-back, every episode of every season (at the time of writing this I have just begun the fourth season, the Garlic Jr./Trunks/Androids saga) and I have to say, as much as I love it I can see why many others don't. It is repetitive, each season in the same as the last, with the only difference being how much stronger the antagonists are and how much work must go into beating them. Sure, it has its deeper moments, but its convoluted at best. I have developed a game while watching it: try to figure out how long in real time the show is portraying. It's pretty simple, and all in the title really, I just watch the show and try to judge how much of it has occurred in real time and how much in the super-fast fight-speed time that the battles last for. Depending on which season you watch, it can stretch anything from a year per episode to only a few seconds.

                A major case in point is the third season, the Frieza Saga. I found myself many times during that season thinking to myself "seriously, how LONG is this going to take?". The whole thing, which consists of (I believe) 33 episodes chronicles just ONE fight, that between the Z fighters and the destroyer of worlds, Lord Frieza. At the beginning the time frame is somewhat larger: Goku is in the ship's healing tank, and it will take about an hour for him to be restored to full working order, so in the mean time Goku's son Gohan, his friend Krillin and his fellow Saiyan/enemy Prince Vegeta must hold Frieza off long enough for Goku to be tagged back in. So there's a good time frame, one-hour. It is said many times, so one can safely assume that the time between episode 01 of the season (show episode 75) when the fight begins and episode 10, when Goku is revived, constitutes one hour of real-time. Since each episode is roughly 20 minutes long, that's 200 minutes of our time spent watching just 60 minutes of theirs (though, you have to account for time spent showing things happening elsewhere, so think of that as concurrent and you have a system wherein the same minutes can be replayed a couple of times to show what other characters are doing at the same time), evidence enough that they play with time a little, but you can accept that, there's a lot of things going on, a lot of different characters in different places suffering different fates, and you have to get it all in somehow, but it's later in the series that it really starts to mess with your mind.

                Episode 22 of the season (97 overall) has the beaten Frieza unleash a last-ditch effort to end the battle: a direct powerful attack on the planet's core. He explains that his power, depleted through fighting, was not enough to destroy Namek outright, but that it will gradually degrade until it's full destruction in just five minutes (another number that is often reinforced, mind) so we have a new time-limit with which to judge time in the show. Five minutes is not long, so we'd expect it to all be over soon. Going by the show's previous effort at time stretching, I'd give it 2 episodes, with room for concurrent stories. However this passes, and suddenly things are still happening. I won't bore you with details (you've probably already seen it, if not, I've given away a lot of spoilers already) but put simply the fight continues for another NINE episodes. NINE EPISODES. One Hundred and Eighty minutes of our time is spent showing just FIVE minutes of Dragonball time. Now you might say, "oh, it was just an estimation, it's probably more than that" but I'd say "watch it again. Hear the characters, Frieza, Goku and King Kai all say at different points that there are only minutes left, and refer to the previously mentioned five-minute time limit often too". The show REALLY does stretch five minutes into 180, and it's just mind boggling. What's worse (but also good, for the show does know how to make that time work) is that you'd think each episode would be uniquely boring and just contain the same stuff over-and-over again, but somehow it doesn't.

                Somehow the creators of the show have made it so that in each episode something important happens, in tiny little doses, so that overall you get one whole story. I tried to skip through some episodes, cutting through some of the standing and growling moments to get to more story, only to find that at some point in those growly moments they had put in important parts of the story that left me confused after I missed them, forcing me to go back and watch the whole thing. It really is astounding. It's like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are numbered as to where they go, only you have to go to a certain place at a certain time to get the individual pieces from some strange puzzle-man, and if you miss any one of those time slots the puzzle cannot become complete in any logical manner, rendering your time spent useless. It's maddening, astounding, and somehow damned good story telling. It's like the show is rewarding those viewers who are willing to sit through every excruciating second of watching a grown man shouting until his hair turns yellow with an underlying and somehow intriguing story, like some reversed dog trick wherein the dog performs the trick only when you're watching closely and then it gives you a toffee for having seen it.

                Japan, you crazy... But you do tell a damned good yarn!

Happiness is one million good deeds away

Happy... Happy... OK, in light of my last, rather lacklustre, post I'm trying to come up with a brighter topic to discuss this time, and strangely I'm finding this rather difficult... That sounds rather bad on my account, like I'm some constantly moody and dark fellow, but really I'm not like that. All the time... I mean, I like to look at life in both lights - both dark and bright. I like to keep in mind all the dark things in the world while keeping myself warmed by the light of goodness, but neither in a particularly all-in capacity. I guess that's why I've never fully gotten on with morality systems in video games.

                It was an interesting idea - introduce into a game a value of good and evil for your actions and around that alter the various characters and events you interact with according to how many of those actions you perform. These days it's pretty much written that such a system will be involved (largely in RPGs, games with a more fantasy-based storyline. I mean, can you imagine if games like Battlefield or Call of Duty were to implement it? Actually, I want to discuss that later, I think!). Every action you perform has some consequence on the world you exist in. Fallout, Fable, Skyrim, Bioshock and beyond, all these games attempt to measure your actions and have your game altered by them, and frankly, I'm unimpressed...

                For a start, your working with a morality system that is based upon the opinions of the developers of the games. I like to think I'm a well-balanced member of society, though I have been, on occasion, labelled as somewhat "sociopathic" (but don't believe that shit. It's nonsense.), but what I think is a "good" action and what they might think is a "good" action vary significantly. Take Fallout:  the majority of the time you lose morality points based upon anything you might do that can be considered bad, from killing a friendly NPC (who is, of course, only as friendly as your average sociopath, bland, smiling, always willing to accept your help when they need something, but utterly emotionless and entirely unwilling to help you in return, unless your charisma is high enough... fuck that...) to stealing an ashtray from a bar. Stealing an ashtray from a bar? Honestly? That is the act of an evil, domineering, destroyer of worlds? Fallout is set in a 1950's-esque world (actual date is likely closer to the 90's or early 2000's, but with the same attitudes as the 50's) where everyone was be-bopping the streets, cars were the exception, not the rule, and people could smoke freely in the face of a toddler without being looked at twice, and they make you more evil because you stole a sodding ashtray from a bar? I'm not an historian, but I'd wager any amount that in those days the average bar had about 300 reserve ashtrays hidden out back because of the number that would slyly "go missing" from the tables each time some young Bobby-Joe and his cohorts wandered in for a sarsaparilla or a malted milk, and now we're being the labelled as the scum of the earth for that? Bethesda (and whoever it was that coded that little line of 1's and 0's) screwed the pooch there a little, don'cha think? Further to that, what about those occasions when you need ammo or weapons (actually need them to complete some hare-brained young miss's mission to find her lost man who has been kidnapped by a raging hoard of super mutants) and there happens to be a veritable cache hidden in said young miss's living room, if you even dream of pinching a few rounds, she'll schiz on you, probably try to kill you, you'll be hunted by everyone else in the town, and you'll be forever shunned. Afterwards, you'll complete the mission, return to her, hoping to curry good favour having done her good deed, and you'll be rewarded with a bullet to the face, no money or EXP, and continued fear and loathing. Wonderful.

                It's so much easier to be "evil" in a game than it is to be good. I was talking to one person the other day, a huge Skyrim fan (I, myself, have never played it), who was attempting to play through it without committing a single evil act, doing nothing but good deeds and staying as far away from evil as they could, only to find that they were miles behind levels and items wise, showing that the focus of most games is in fact to be evil, or at least be incapable of being truly good. Further to this, I guess, is the player themselves, who rarely takes the wholly good path initially, without having to actively choose to. The games are all actively set to persecute, making it impossible to be a truly morally good gamer.

                I would also like to expound upon the idea of morality systems outside of RPGs. What I would like to see is a morality system built into games like Battlefield or Call of Duty. How would gamers fare if their morality was questioned or graded during their play-throughs of these games? Developers have always aimed at making these games far more "realistic" in their depiction of life and war, so how would we feel playing through a battle-simulation (because that's essentially what these games are) in which we are actively informed that we have committed murder each time an enemy is killed? Each of these games is sold with the idealism that each enemy in the game is evil (regardless of whether or not they explore opposing sides' characters, whether said enemies are a part of a plot to aimlessly wipe out large sections of an innocent populace), that they are only there as a willing tool of some overarching evil, or (in the case of playing as the opposition) either there as a way of infiltrating and subverting the cause of the enemy or are held against their will. The only time enemies in these games seem to show some sort of innocence or repentance is when in the face of overwhelming odds wherein they won't survive. What if these games emphasised the fact that they are only defending themselves? Their homes and their families? What if these games contained scenes where, whenever you kill an enemy, a distraught family comes bursting into the frame to mourn the loss of their father, their brother, their good neighbour? These things don't exist because the morality issue of war games is simply "YOU are the GOOD GUY, these people are the BAD GUYS, they are inherently evil and must die so that you can stop their EVIL cause". Yes, sales would likely drop significantly if they released Call of Duty: Moral Debate wherein you are often rewarded with lists of the lives you have ruined, each enemy dies with a scream of "I WAS ONLY DEFENDING MY FAMILY!" or "THIS IS A WAR YOU STARTED!", but I have to wonder if perhaps some people would maybe wake up and realise that this thing they call "fun" is in fact simply a ruthless killing engine... Don't get me wrong, I've played many of them, and I've experienced enjoyment in picking up some heavy machine gun and ploughing through an endless hoard of screaming Chinamen or Iraqis, but I do often stop to wonder whether I should be enjoying them. And yes, I know, some of you would happily throw back responses of "It's just a game! They don't exist and are programmed simply to be targets to shoot at. They have no families, no lives outside of the three seconds of animation they are given between spawning behind a bush and dying in front of it" but I, for one, would love to play a game where we are given a realistic measurement of the morality of the actions we perform.

               *CONGRATULATIONS! You have unlocked the Pointless Morality Bullshit award, for attempting to guilt-trip people with your words!*

                I love earning trophies...

The week I broke again

So it finally passed: the bigger deadline of the ones I've had to deal with recently, thus ending 3 solid weeks of stress and heavy workloads. Between last-minute philosophy essays, company promotion videos and this latest horror, I've had just about the hardest month of my academic career - and I doubt I'll get much out of it to show for it.

                First came the essay, a 3,500 word thing with an open question (well, it was more an instruction: to create your own question adhering to Film and Philosophy and then answer it with as much depth and understanding as you can). This I only found out about 2 days before it was due in, while I was back home for a couple days for my sister's birthday. It was horrible, discovering I had to do this with less than 48 hours until the deadline, I had been working on another project for the course instead and had no idea that I had sort of mixed the two together without knowing of the existence of the first one. This I got lucky with, insomuch as I was able to cobble together a half-arsed question on a disturbingly wide topic and locked myself in my room to finish it. I broadcasted the whole thing on justin.tv, which, as it turns out, as a godsend. I had 64 people watching me over the course of those 7.5 hours and each one seemed to spur me on, to help me get it done, and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart, whoever you all were.

                I'm still awaiting the grade for this essay, and while I'm not nervous I'm not expecting a high grade for it. If I make a mid-low 2.2 I'll be happy. A 3rd will be acceptable, necessary, even, as punishment for my foolishness. Lower and, well, I'll have to start again. At least I have that option...

                Then came a project totally unrelated to university. I had recently been picked up as a consultant for a management training company. It was my job to help their advertisement manager in creating a series of promo videos to help promote their company, something they had apparently never thought of doing in their last 30 years of business. The business is located in Ross, the man I'm working with in London, and I'm in Bristol. I've never even met the man, and I've been the company a couple of times but I still, at heart, have no idea what happens there. This all made the task of creating a video very difficult. He didn't want it to look like a cheesy and stereotypical advert, no clips of people in charge of teams of bankers, no camo-clad missionaries running through forests and solving puzzles, hell, he didn't even want any speaking. What I managed to build for him over the course of a couple of days was instantly scrapped for containing parts of each of these things. In return, I asked him what the hell he did want and he gave me a script and a selection of pictures taken from Google and said "do this". So I did.

                While it's not the most amazing of things, I find it quite a triumph. I worked on it for three solid days before it was due to be shown this just-passed Monday. It features a quiet heartbeat sound track overlaid on some text with the occasional inspiring or thought-provoking image fading to-and-from shot. Simple stuff. Took a f***ing eternity to edit... But hey, the stuffy exec-types apparently enjoyed it and I was sent an e mail of thanks telling me to re-edit it. If that makes sense to you, please explain it to me...

                Finally came this week's major horror. I knew about the project for a long time, had even been working on it since December, but things never work out just how we want them, do they? With the madness of the last three cramped-up assignments I had lost all will to finish the project and wound up, yet again, mere days away from the deadline with the whole thing to do. After a rush of getting together a script for the machinima I would make, I sent it off to my tutor for a review and began filming. The response took a long while to get back. After confirmation and editing, I spent a harrowing 14 straight hours switching back and forth between filming, scripting and editing, until, when dawn broke and the hour struck 8, I was done. I hadn't slept or ate in days and I was exhausted, but finally I handed the work in and all was done with.

                I later discovered I may not have done the work right, either, despite confirmation. So I'm not holding out for a good grade with that one.

                Today's blog is somewhat short and rather boring and whiny compared to the last few, so I'm sorry about that, but I'm working on a "Whatever comes to mind first" basis, so yeah. Hopefully something better next time... Still, I can say that after the whole event I am feeling reinvigorated and very good, I needed the purge I got from all that heavy burden and lack of sleep, the last few days have been wonderful and heaped in respite. Hopefully this high will last.

                Thanks for reading. And thanks again if you happen to have been one of the people who helped me out on my work. It's unlikely, but I still owe you a big one!

The Omegle Apocalypse

Two days ago my housemate and I were having a quiet evening of films and Fringe while waiting out the inevitability of time, as you do. Since neither of us owns a hard copy of Fringe, we watch these episodes on my laptop connected through the television in our living room, a handy and simple setup that grants me endless hours of entertainment because it means that between each episode he (and anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the room at the time) are held captive to seeing whatever I'm doing on the computer during this time. Usually this just involves showing amusing gifs or images I had found on the internet, YouTube videos that have recently caught my attention or the odd track of music I think will piss them off sufficiently, but on this Saturday my will found me instead ignoring his viewership in favour of me returning to /b/.

                If you don't know what that is, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to inform you how to going about finding it. I'm sure that enough people will be sufficiently angry that I have even mentioned it in this public space, but as a semi-firm believer in the rules I will not go into further detail about it here. I will, however, tell you about an amazing thing we saw on there.

                My eye was passing over posts as it usually does when a small image caught my attention, nothing big, or gaudy, or particularly attractive, just a simple rectangle of white with a few lines of text upon it and a picture down the bottom. The text concerned the chatroom website Omegle. The image was a shotgun. Ordinarily these two things have little-to-no interest for me, I hate Omegle with a passion that can only be measured in the energy expenditure of suns and to me guns are just about the worst human invention since people, but nevertheless I clicked it and before me sprang the full image, in a size I could read. The image explained the rules of a new game, entitle "Omegle: Chat with Zombies", a very simple but ultimately enslaving concept that resulted in the two of us switching between watching and playing for hours.

                The rules are simple: zombies are overrunning Omegle, it is your job, as a /b/rother, to try and survive as long as you can against the hoards. You are given a shotgun with six shells. You begin by asking the question "What is OP?" and the Stranger's response determines the course of your actions. If they reply with anything other than the agreed the response, they are a concerned citizen, unknowing of the apocalypse surrounding them and you may deal with them how you please, usually by informing them of the outbreak, which can lead to some very amusing conversations, an example of which I will post later¹.

                 If they respond with the agreed /b/ answer, which, for those of you who don't know, is "A faggot" (or some such variant, I won't go into the arguments about the homophobic nature of this response, it is something that can only be understood through many hours of exposure to /b/, but for the most part, please don't be offended. It is not used in a derogatory manner in this context) or any deviation on that term then you have found a /b/ro, a fellow survivor of the apocalypse. In this circumstance, both of you reload your weapons back to your original 6 shells. You may briefly discuss your luck in terms of survival², or simply wish each other luck and go about your way, or it may turn out for the worst, if the /b/rother has become a zombie. More on this later.

                The third outcome of the conversation is that the Stranger is a zombie. You will know this if they respond (or post without having read your question) the usual Omegle line "asl". Anyone who asks "asl" is a zombie, regardless of if they have been a citizen to that point of the conversation. It has also been agreed that any references or inquisitions into either of these three categories of your life is an indicator of their being a zombie (i.e. if they identify themselves as a male/female, if they ask "m or f", if they ask where you're from, or any variations to these ends) so even if they have seemed fine, the moment they ask they have been turned and must be eliminated. In this circumstance you fire a shell and kill the zombie. Most people tell the Stranger this, saying "BOOM! Headshot" or "You're a zombie, die" (again, this varies depending on how you play your game, you may say anything to inform the Stranger you have killed them). Once this is done you remove one shell from your remaining shells and leave the conversation. You continue on this way until you either come across a /b/rother, which (as previously stated) allows you to reload back to your original six shells, or, if you have fired all six of your shells, you are killed and become a zombie.

                Once you become a zombie, it becomes your new goal to either die or take out as many /b/rothers as possible. It is now your job to search solely for /b/ros, starting new conversations and waiting for the Stranger to ask "What is OP?".  When you do, you inform them that you have been turned, you may reply with the correct answer, and then either tell them what has happened or ask "asl". It is up to the /b/ro to decide what happens next. Some, true /b/rothers, will not kill you, for the /b/rothership runs deep and it can be hard to do (I have had a few particularly teary interactions with /b/rothers who won't kill me³). The rules are also not entirely clear, but the general consensus is that the surviving /b/rother, if he has not become a zombie already, may reload his shotgun after the encounter and carry on his own journey, knowing what he has done, but better able to survive. If you are killed in the encounter, your play is over and you may stop. You may return as a survivor the next day to begin your journey again.

                So that about covers it. The rules are still evolving, as far as I have seen this is a new game (I had heard about it for the first time only the other day, and have been a regular /b/rother for years) and you can now usually find threads set up about it, detailing people's best or worst encounters, informing newcomers how many are playing and what the odds of survival are. It is a truly spectacular event, and I urge you to take part, or at least check it out. We need to keep the game alive, we need to support our /b/ros.

                It's the apocalypse, only the strong and lucky will survive, and we need to stick together.

Conversation Extracts

¹ Part of an amusing encounter with a concerned citizen

You: What is OP?

Stranger: Game Wise? Over Powered.

You: You game? Then you must be worthy

You: but you have to be careful

You: it's an apocalypse

You: the zombies are everywhere

Stranger: Omfg. :o

You: Yes, get to cover, find a /b/ro, get some ammo

You: or we will all be screwed

Stranger: Lmao xD

You: this is no laughing matter!

Stranger: Neither Is 2012, But People Laugh At That Too. :o

You: Actually, that has been proven incorrect a great many times, so it has officially become one

You: but THIS is SERIOUS

You: ANYONE can become one

Stranger: Answer Me This. If There Was An Apocalypse, There Is No Stopping It So We'd Be Screwed Anyways, Because How Can You Kill The Already Dead? :P

You: Shotguns are the answer

You: every /b/ro has one

You: they are the only thing that works

Stranger: How Do You Know? Hun, Playing A Game With Zombies In It Isn't Going To Work IRL. XD

²Meeting a /b/ro briefly before heading our separate ways

You: What is OP?

Stranger: A FAGGOT

You: Hell yeah /b/rother!

Stranger: fuck yeah i was running outta shells

You: good, Ihave plenty, that was two in a row for me!

Stranger: hopefully i get as lucky as you

You: let us hope

Stranger: happy hunting /b/ro

You: same to you /b/rother

³A conversation wherein I had already been turned and my /b/rother would not kill me

Stranger: What is OP?

You: /b/rother!

You: No, you're... to... asl...

You: kill... me...

Stranger: /b/ro! <3

Stranger: what..

Stranger: oh..

Stranger: Dx

You: please... you were... asl... so close...

Stranger: i can't kill a /b/ro!

You: take... asl... my shells...

Stranger: </3

You: do... go... goo... a...s...l...

Laundering out my mind.

I wear and inordinate amount of shirts... This fact is made funnier by the fact that I only own four. I own four shirts because I own a lot of t-shirts - and I mean a LOT of t-shirts. I love them. Can't get enough of them. T-shirts are a good way of showing off your personality; logos and images of things you like; clever slogans and mildly-amusing riffs on pop-culture show you're aware of the world but don't really care enough to follow it accurately (or you're a mindless drone who has to keep up with the fashion of the times, but won't accept yourself that way and so thinks that shifting it one step to the right, i.e. buying a shirt with the "keep calm and carry on" motif replaced with words such as "now freak out and panic" (or, as in my case, the phrase "The rent is too damn high". Hey, a double-bracketed tangent)), or just the sheer number and variety of them showing you just can't focus on one thing long enough to find it thoroughly amusing, and so must have a new t-shirt for every day of the year so that then next time you wear it you can chuckle gently to yourself in nostalgic glee at that one occasion you did find it funny. Others are just kind of cute.

                Anyway, the point I'm making is that I have reached a sort of laundry-based dilemma. During my mid-teens I went through a particularly soft-core gothic stage (I wore nothing but black all the time, though this only extended as far as jeans, trousers and t-shirts, with the odd black shirt for special occasions) and upon entering my 20's I decided my wardrobe, and indeed my life, needed a bit of brightening up - so I proceeded to purchase a lot of t-shirts. Woot.com has been quite a source of wonder for me over the last three years, and I have contributed to their paychecks no less than 40 time, and I now find myself the proud (and somewhat confusing) owner of quite a wardrobe full of t-shirts, ranging in colours from white to black, actually passing THROUGH the spectrum of colour on its way, and back again.

                Of course, I mention the white tees because I own precisely three of them, and added to my four white shirts (and a handful of white boxer shorts) I find myself with almost - but not quite - enough white clothing to constitute a full load of washing. This annoys me. I don't like the idea of putting on a load of washing when there isn't enough of it to justify the amount of water used in it - I'm not precisely an eco-geek, but given the severity of my last utilities bill I could certainly do with making my life more eco-efficient. Add to this the fact that I won't often wear the white clothing because I have so many other colours that need wearing to justify their purchase, and you find me with a rather long gap between white loads.

                What's more is the shirts. I wear a white shirt over most of my clothing because a) the extra layer keeps me warm in the climate we laughing call "English Weather" and b) the juxtaposition of the white over the colour beneath is pleasing to the eye (and c) because the slight obscuring of the design on the t-shirt beneath causes more people to lift one side up in order to see what lies beneath. If you're going to wear a t-shirt with a funny picture or slogan on it, you'd likely want others to actually wonder what it is). So what I find myself with is a two- or three-week period in which I am wearing the same four shirts for many days at a time while beneath it the pile of whites never quite rises to the point of justifiable washing. What's worse is that I don't wear a white tee and shirt combo, meaning that I have to sort out other shirts to cover them in the mean time (for those of you who ARE actually worried or interested by this fact, I do own a variety of other coloured shirts, JUST for such occasions).

                It's quite a conundrum, one that screams "First World Problems", I know, but an irritating part of daily life all the same.

                And on top of that, the majority of my t-shirts are still black...

Horror Gaming

(This is a post I put up on the Games, Simulation and Media blog for my course, I'm putting it here too since it might be of interest to the two of you that read this...)

Once more the ages-old tradition of Hallowe'en falls upon us and in this day of constant media bombardment we find ourselves confronted with a myriad choice of how to spend our evenings. At our age the prospect of Trick or Treating is somewhat less desirable as it had been during our younger years (though I'm sure I'm not alone in my desire to recapture those days of youth and head out with my treat-bag in hand and terrible handmade costume hiding my true identity, a spring in my step and a hope in my heart that the elderly aren't too concerned with the health of the modern youth and well-stocked up on fruit and sugarless sweets) but we are still open to a whole library of possibilities, a veritable multi-verse of heroes, heroines and monsters at our disposal, for our pleasure and entertainment in the forms of films, books and, of course, games. Which leads me to my question: 

What is your horror game of choice?

Are you an Umbrella Company Insurgent or a survivor of Silent Hill? Do you wish to investigate the strange goings-on of Japanese villages or solve the mysteries of the Scissor Killer? Or is your palate simply satisfied with the hardcore violence of the walking dead found in cities, malls or mining ships?

Present us with a list of your top five horror/hallowe'en games and we'll see how those of us who have no other plans will be screaming away the wee-hours of the horror-night. I shall even supply you with mine.

5.  Resident Evil Series - something I have grown up with since the release of it's first title, though I feel the horror aspect of the recent turnouts of Capcom's most successful franchise have been lackluster, their enjoyment never wanes whether you're facing a hoard of Djini or the unfortunate residents of one of Umbrella's many facilities. From the deserted halls of the Arkley Mountains Mansion to the jungles of Africa and beyond, Resident Evil has managed to span many places since the release of the T-Virus in mountains around Raccoon City and I'm sure it hasn't stopped yet.

4. Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare - An addition to the excellent Western-based adventure game from the company that brought you Grand Theft Auto, Undead Nightmare brings an amazing and surprisingly novel view of the zombie genre by setting it in an age that knows nothing about such things. In addition to protagonist John Marston's uneducated and often hilarious outlook during the apocalypse, UN also presents gamers with a true survival horror challenge, severely limiting ammunition and other helpful items and putting you at risk of not only the walking dead, but also the undead counterparts of RDR's sprawling wildlife and a host of additional mythical beings from the Four Horses of the Apocalypse to El Chupacabra. This has so far been my game of choice over the Hallowe'en weekend and it has presented many, many hours of enjoyment and not a few frights.

3. Parasite Eve - a hugely underrated series that ran in the shadow of Square  Soft's hugely successful Final Fantasy Series (of which I am a huge fan) Parasite Eve is one of those rare concoctions that spans most of the mediums of entertainment. Beginning as a book, Parasite Eve is a Japanese novel from writer Hideaki Sena that tells a tale of our roots in the form of our own Mitochondria given consciousness and power enough to ultimately overrun humanity. A spiritual sequel was presented in a Japanese film a few years after the book's release and eventually continued once more in Square Soft's PSX title of the same name in 1998 (it even spawned two sequels itself that continue the storyline of the game's protagonist in 1999 and 2010) which contained enough shocks and scares that it forever changed the world's view of Square's so-far friendly face.

2. Dead Space - Another recently game from EA, Dead Space sets itself apart from most other survival horrors through its combat system. Set on the supposedly deserted mining ship Ishimura, its dark and foreboding atmosphere, coupled with its host of horrific monsters and edge-of-your-seat scare tactics was taken a step further into the realm of horrifying gameplay when the player first discovers writing on the wall of one room informing them that the only way of defeating these creatures was to remove their limbs. Scarce ammo, unpredictable appearances and precision aiming for the most gruesome killing method makes Dead Space one of the scariest and greatest games released in the last decade in my opinion and its subsequent sequel did nothing to lose this already auspicious position in my top-five.

1. Silent Hill Series - For those of you already familiar with this title I don't need to further my explanation as to its position at the top of my list. Those of us who have braved the world of Silent Hill and come out relatively intact will shudder at the very utterance of that doomed town's name and I'm sure I'm not alone when I awake in the early hours of some mornings after playing them. Silent Hill epitomizes horror gaming, with its spooky locations, its spine-tingling music and its downright disturbing creatures, the stories told of the inhabitants and unfortunate passers-by of this Mid-Western American town will forever hold a special place in my mind: locked away in a box with heavy chains, placed in the corner of a dark room at the back-most part of the must unused areas of my memory.

So please, leave your lists in the comments below so we can see what scares us, and perhaps what draws us to such games.

Bill Gates vs. C'Thulu

The fury that boils within me in the face of WMM's constant failure at publishing my movie is beyond any speakable form B|

My self-restaint as it crashes for a fifth time is truly admirable. My speaking tone is monotonic, my movements slow and careful. If I attempt it once more and it fails on me again, there is a very good chance this restraint will disappear and you'll find me back in the nearest computer store in search of equipment that actually works. [calmface]

Murder might just be the only solution: an unwilling sacrifice at the altar of Microsoft might just be the key to unlocking the torment hidden behind this unbreakable, eternal barrier of so-called technological advancement. Touche, Mr Gates..., I believe you are the spawn of the Dark Lord C'Thulu, or perhaps some other, similar pagan embodiment of madness and despair. Be sure that, should we ever meet in public, I will do all in my power to banish you back to the dark realm from whence you were spawned under the morbid clouds of death and agonised wailing. I hope those who were sacrificed in your honour knew what they were getting the rest of us into, because I'd be happier knowing they are laughing at us in the world beyond and rubbing their hands together with glee at the success of their frustratingly evil plan.

 

These are three posts I put up on my Facebook last night in the face of my attempts to finishing editing a video I had filmed back in May.

 

You see, I had filmed a pretty amusing video to be the third in my series that I have been putting up, but due to technological restraints I was unable to edit it at the time. The video required a moment of interlocking sound that Windows Movie Maker (my software of neccessity, NOT choice... Premiere doesn't work on any of my two laptops and one desktop computer and all the other software I have tried outside of the Adobe range has been even worse) was not capable of, so the video files sat mouldering in my hard drive until I could access better software capable of perfoming the task.

 

Fast forward a few months and suddenly a brainwave hits me (that was pretty obvious, when it came to me) and I discover I CAN perform the neccessary task on WMM and complete the video. An hour of editing later and I play it through and find it every bit as cool as I had hoped it would be (I know, if/when you see it you won't think it so good, but I'm working from a low-standards point of view. Anything slightly technological, like layered sound, is a step in a good direction for the work I have done so far) so I excitedly hit the publish button, choose the file destination and let it go.

 

4% of the way in the whole system crashes.

 

I recover the safely pre-saved file and try again.

 

5% in the system crashes.

 

I recover once more, set it to go.

 

4% and crash.

 

By this point the first two of the three comments have been posted. I have done all I can think of to sort it out, restart, re-edit, copy paste etc... and nothing. The dialogue box says that an update is required. I update. Same thing. So I head online and the service there says to download the latest version, 2011, so I can do it from there. So I do.

 

3 and a half hours of downloading later, the whole thing crashes. No updates are made and it tells me my version of Windows will not allow for the upgrade in software. It suggests I update the software. I try to. It fails. I head onto my other laptop, which does not currently have WMM at all, and attempt to download it there. It is of a new enough version so all should be fine. FOUR hours pass this time and the update completes. Dialogue box appers: an error occurred and not all the programs were installed in the operation.

 

So I restart and take a look. It has updated my system half-heartedly. I now have a program called Live Writer on there that I have no need for and, to further piss into my eyesocket, it has installed the new, terrible version of MSN, thereby ruining my ability to use that software too.

 

The third of  the messages go up now and I give up entirely. I download another, different, un-Windows program to attempt it and discover it is worse the WMM again, so I sit and I ponder. I think, perhaps I can publish the video without the overlapped sound and add it later. I publish the video, sans extra sound, and find it worked. So I draw all the files back and in can no longer match the sound as I need it. I extract sound files, MP3s, video, AVI

 

Wait... No layered sound, no on-clip sound, and it craps out... But it previously published the whole video with sound. I quickly make another video, edit it, and publish it. It comes out perfectly. I look at the published video that has the normal sound but not overlaid sound, then look at the one that won't publish at all.

 

Can the answer really be that simple? Can the software really be so mind-bogglingly idiotic that such a thing could cause it to crash and endure the last few paragraphs of hell? I seriously hope not, but I give it a try, final attempt and all.

 

I replace the audio that I had removed. I unmute all the muted tracks, then lower their volume so they are not audible but still count as unmuted. The I publish.

 

1%. 5%. 10%. 25%. 50%. 100%.

 

I hate you so much Bill Gates...

 

Here is a link to my playlist of the videos so far. They are in the order in which they are meant to be watched (the upload order is different, due to events like what has been described here) so please, check them out if you have 10 minutes spare. They aren't long, nor very good, but when trying to get into the industry one tries to get ones work viewed, and they will get better in time.

 

When I find and murder Bill Gates....

 

(Sorry, another ranting blog, but I have nothing else interesting to say right now. It's all in my videos.)