They're Only Bees
May 18th, 2010

4uck 0ff

Little things annoy me. You might have noticed.

Big things annoy me too – like pointless wars and the way there’s not a colony on the Moon built especially for me so I can run around with a mirror, pretending to be Sam Rockwell – but the little things far outweigh the big things by hundreds to one. I hate the way the stapler that sits on my desk doesn’t always work properly and I can’t fathom a reason why. The fact that I have a job where I’m required to sit at a desk and use a stapler also annoys me, but I feel that complaining about it is silly as it pays me enough to sustain a fairly comfortable life. I don’t like that I’m not a successful writer, but as I’ve not quite finished my first book (or pimped it out to any publishers – at all), and my only real body of work consists of these boring tirades, I’m not surprised I don’t have a working relationship with Charlie Brooker and/or Stephen King. Still, I tend not to allow any of those perfectly acceptable, logical reasons to hinder my ire, and I end up filling the internets with words. Though not as often as I feel I probably should. Which is also a gripe of mine.

That last paragraph served to big myself down to a point where you’re expecting me to start shouting about anything, no matter how trivial it might be in the grand scheme of things. I wanted to drop the readers expectations to a level where I could start complaining about the way microbe-sized dust mites are often unfairly short with each other in conversation, and generate only tiny amounts of surprise. Lots of disdain, maybe, but you’d carry on reading anyway if you made it this far.

When aiming my tiny little anger-crossbow, I had planned to puncture holes in the marketing types who seem to believe numbers are a perfectly suitable replacement for letters in words. For example, the upcoming game F3AR (or, FEAR 3 as I’ll call it) is stupid beyond even their usual standards, and not just because it looks ridiculous. The name ‘FEAR’ itself comes from the first letters of ‘First Encounter Assault Recon’, which in itself is a cheap and tacky excuse to give your scary-game-with-guns-in a name that seemed appropriate. For some unknown reason, just calling it Fear couldn’t be justified – so they retarded it up a bit. Now, it’s been ’stylised’ to read First 3ncounter Assault Recon. I understand that the number 3, when typed, looks a little like a drunken, spazzy version of the letter E backwards, but did you really think it through? How do you even say that? I know, I’ll pronounce it as ‘Fear’ thereby making all of their efforts (and therefore my argument) moot and pointless.

I was going to talk about that, and mention the new Alton Towers ride ‘Th13teen’, which is ridiculous. Though I’m not condoning the bastardizing of the English language, there was a time when numbers only replaced letters when they still stayed phonetically acceptable – late became l8…for mutated annoying into 4…by that rule, ‘Th13teen’ should be vocalised as Ththirteenteen. Which makes the speaker come off as brain damaged; the monorail copped-out and just called it ‘Thirteen’, further enhancing my theory that inanimate objects are more sensible than marketing executives.

But I won’t write about that. It’s a ‘thing’ that’s been going on for years, and it will probably be a fad that sadly outlives me. Why anyone feels the need to ‘mix’ things up a bit’ with a language that’s existed perfectly well for centuries, goig through natural progressions and changes, forming the way we speak and communicate today – is beyond me. It feels forced, led by people who have slogans and brand names tattooed clumsily onto their shrivelled little souls.

So what’s the point. I’ll switch my brain off again now and get back to w0rk.

(P.S. – I’ll forgive this fad and embrace it with open arms if anyone can convince Danny Dyer to legally change his name to D4nny Dy3r. That would be very funny indeed).

Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

April 19th, 2010

Buying A Camera From PC World

Buying a camera from PC World is like making love to a hideously ugly woman – really awful right up until your lack of respect for them convinces you to jizz in their eye.

You know, I hate PC World. I hate going, and just generally being inside it’s hollow, metallic walls. Giving that company money feels wrong and disgusting. But I love buying things from there because every attempt I make is cluttered with so much real-world fail it’s like watching a lorry full of Z-List celebrities and bouncy-balls jack-knife and spill it’s load out on to the motorway in a bloody, pulpy, bouncy mess. It’s horrific fun, and though I couldn’t experience it every day without going mental, it’s good to have once in a while. I’m conflicted, like a sex addict who can only find ugly hookers. I’d abandon the place altogether if it’s useless, unknowledgable staff didn’t make the whole process just so darn entertaining.

Last time I set foot in there, I was trying to get my clammy mitts on a new PC. I encountered incredibly bad ‘managers’, store assistants who ran away and a general unwillingness to allow me to buy what I wanted to buy. Couple all of that with a level of incompetence to rival the Scottish Football Team, and you have a customer experience that critics are calling ‘pretty gay’.

Now, a camera is a much smaller purchase than a full PC – only £80 in the end, compared to £800 or whatever – so you’d think it’d be easier to walk in, get it, and walk out again relatively unscathed. But then, it isn’t called Camera World, is it? It’s PC World. Where, presumably, their speciality is selling Personal Computers to people who want them. So, if buying a PC was a fairly major ordeal, buying anything else was only going to turn into a huge clusterfuckery of ‘The Staff Vs My Willingness To Take Their Shit’. The precedent had been set, yet I still didn’t really expect it to be as complicated and time-consuming as it was.

My first mistake, I’ll admit, was a rookie one. I drove there wearing a big black cowboy hat and shiny sunglasses (proof slightly below), but then I took those off before entering the store.

I can’t quite remember why I was wearing those; I was a little hungover, very tired, and things were just happening so quickly. But the point is I removed them before attempting the purchase. This meant I walked in looking reasonably normal, forgettable, and non-crazy. This was a problem because it seems the staff are more than willing to forget a customer and leg it away – even more so when that customer is friendly and personable. If I’d strolled in, rocking a huge cowboy hat and swinging my gigantic balls from side to side like Danny Dyer at a Bollock Swinging Competition, I’m sure I’d have been in, serviced and out quicker than I could say ‘Fackin Ell’ in my best Mockney accent. But no, I was my usual lovely self (shut up) minus the mild delirium I was beginning to experience from being over-tired and a solid mile away from the nearest energy drink.

But anyway – to begin the process I had to enter, walk up to the camera section, pick out one I’d like to view and grab the nearest staff member until they let me have a play with it. In theory.

(Spoiler: I didn’t actually buy the first camera I asked to view…so this might turn into a long read…)

The parts of that plan I could accomplish myself were done with the sort of speed and efficiency that would have pleased a Nazi commander – I was clear and concise in my invasion of the Camera Section, and I knew exactly what I wanted from my occupation of the Rhineland trip to the store. I picked one out – the cheapest – and hailed the nearest person. At the time of my interruption, she was trying to look mildly interested in a rack of printer ink, hiding from any real customer who might wish to bother her. I snuck up on her and quiet, nicely, asked if she could help me out with buying a camera.

Except she was useless to me – the ‘HP’ badge she discreetly wore meant she couldn’t help me with my purchase unless it was a HP product (I thought we, as a culture, were past this sort of needless segregation), but would endeavour to find a member of staff who could. If by ‘endeavour’, I mean ‘run away a bit and eventually send a useless fat man to my aid’, then the previous statement is completely accurate. Yep, she was gone a fair while, and returned only with a meek smile on her face that suggested someone might be along shortly. I forgave her though, because she was a cute lady, and I’m a horribly shallow man.

I wasn’t very happy when Captain Useless toddled over though, and even less happy when I realised he already had a name and so probably wouldn’t adopt my hastily made-up one. He was as eager to help me as a sponge would be eager to clean up a huge pile of shit. I realise I’m the shit in that metaphor, but I don’t care. He acted like I was going to ruin him forever, but tried to hide his obvious contempt behind a thin veil of ‘I Know What I’m Talking About, Me’. Then, in turn, I believe the badly disguised contempt was in turn a veil for how inexplicably bad at his job he was.

“Sure!” he said, when I asked him if I could see the camera in action. I wanted a quick camera, that went from ‘Off’ to ‘Picture Of A Fat Person’ in less than three seconds, so I needed to test it for speed and quick-turn-on-ability. Cap’n Useless then did something that even I realised was a bit off – he simply unscrewed the display model from it’s security tag and handed it to me to play with.

This means the following things:
1. That he assumed I hadn’t already tried to turn it on, or that the security tag was somehow inhibiting it’s performance.
2. That he thought, beyond all comprehension, that the display models on the walls had batteries in. Personally, I think it’d be a great idea, but I can understand why companies don’t want their display cameras in working order. They’d be full of hastily taken snaps of men’s balls in under a day. Regardless, it’s something he should have known and therefore taken into account.
3. – and this might be the most important for some people – the cameras can just be unscrewed and that’s that. No further security measure in place. There was a keypad, meaning a number might need to be punched in, but it wasn’t used on this occasion.

So, to iterate – to steal a camera from the Speke branch of PC World, all you need do is unscrew it and dance past the bored, dumb staff and out of the door. I’m not condoning that, by the way…

Now might be an opportune time to mention that the man serving me was a manager, of sorts. A supervisor, at least. Maybe even a ‘Team Leader’. He was wearing the Pink Shirt Of Power, and wore a bland tie that defined his noble role of Slightly Better Than His Underlings.

Eventually I managed to explain to this King of Men that in order to try it, it needs to be turned on and carrying a battery of some sort. He understood, and toddled off to the cashier’s desk with a retail box of the camera, which was housed in a gigantic plastic lock-box with air-holes and scratches covering it’s insides. Like the boxes were once used to trap angry rats or something. It took him 15 minutes to return, stopping at every possible customer on the way to us, only to declare to each of them that ‘He Was Serving Someone’regardless if they’d acknowledge his existence or not. When he eventually arrived he was beaming – the cumbersome box was gone, and in his chubby fingers were carrying my possible future camera and the lead which would connect it to the plug socket on the wall.

“Hurrah!” I thought. We’ve made it. We’re there. The finish line is in sight. I can leave soon, and go home for a sleep.

“The battery was completely dead, mate” the man announces, still fighting with the alien idea of a ‘plug’ with a ‘wire’ on it. Between him and another girl, they manage to plug it in.

“It’ll need a minute to charge up but then you’ll be able to use it” he says. Okay, that’s fine – we’ve come this far – what’s another minute between ‘mates’, eh? Though it is a little bit odd that it’d work like that, I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.

WRONG! But, to give him a small amount of due, he did realisehis mistake before I had to chirp up. The battery that had been ‘dead, mate’ was still wrapped in it’s little baggy in the box. He noticed and tried to rectify his idiocy without me noticing, which didn’t work out so well for him. Luckily for me, his embarrassment got the better of him and he ran away, leaving me in the care of the girl who’d been unlucky enough to try and help out her useless boss. Sure enough, with the battery in place, it worked. Except it was slow, and I didn’t want it. A good fifteen seconds between turning it on and being able to take a photo. Even a severely obese person would be long gone by then. It just wouldn’t do. We agreed, me and the girl, that I would return to the camera section and ponder my choices, then give her a call if I found another I was interested in.

This took me less than ten seconds, as I’d already had a back-up in mind. (Turns out I bought this one, so if you’re only here to find that out, then you can stop reading now).

In that ten seconds, the girl had managed to relocate herself to the other side of the store where she was cowering behind a Tech-Guys advertisement. I actually had to wander around with the box-within-a-box for a few minutes, following the staff around only for them to run away further like pigeons scarper from beneath your feet. I even considered just walking out of the front door, box in hand – it wasn’t like they took their security seriously, after all, and the only one lightweight enough to catch me might have been the pretty one from earlier – it was almost win-win if you ignore the criminal charges. However, I was just ready to give up and return the box to it’s woeful shelf when Captain Useless reappeared from nowhere, surprisingly stealthy for a fat man in a disgusting shirt – and proffered his help once again. His help, it turned out, was to go and find the girl I’d been chasing for 5 minutes. He was gone for another ten. I did manage to squeeze in a quick technical question about SD Cards, which was answered with a terrifically confident ‘Maybe’ before he scarpered, never to be seen again. Odds are he went off to cry and comfort-eat to make him feel better about having a crappy life.

There was confusion, when the girl eventually turned up again, as she’d never removed a camera from it’s wall-mooring before, and had to be instructed (by me) on how to unscrew something. FYI – It works surprisingly like every other screw in the world – you just turned it until you achieved the required response. This girl was dim, but friendly at least, and willing to go above and beyond in the call of duty. Even if she’d only end up charging head-long into her own defences and blowing them up with a misplaced grenade – though she did display shock at the lack of security, which showed more intelligence than I’d so far experienced. She’d ruin this newly-constructed reputation within seconds, however, by jamming the battery in the wrong way and simply handing it to me, the customer, to fix. Again, I should have bolted, just to see the look on their faces. Instead I diligently stuck around, eager to fix her mess and get her out of trouble. This poor blonde girl was far too timid to survive a yelling-at from a fat man in a pink shirt. Her brain might have melted out of her eye sockets.

At least she didn’t blame it on her being blonde – there is nothing more annoyingthat a woman can say – even “I’m pregnant with your child, and oh by the way my name is…” is better than “oh I was having a blonde moment – hehehe”, when the rest of the world can see your obviously brown roots.

Happily, this story has a heart-warming ending. I managed to remove the battery, replace it as instructed, and the camera is very impressive. Then all of the women in the store whipped off their shirts and we had a giant cum-party. And also the actual price was £20 less than the advertised wall price.

Almost – ALMOST worth the hour it took me to actually buy it.

3 people like this post.
Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

March 9th, 2010

Why I won’t be watching Shutter Island…(Spoiler warning)

Shutter Island.

I was half-excited for this film, an adaptation of a book I’ve never heard of because I am an uncultured swine. Or it’s unreadable, generic pap…one of the two. The film is coming out in a bit of a dry season for good cinema, with nothing on the schedule really catching my eye. ‘The Crazies’ is out could be interesting, but I missed any hype there might have been for that, and a few lacklustre reviews means I’ll probably wait a few months for Lovefilm to drop it at my doorstep. Kevin Smith’s next directorial shot, ‘Cop Out’, is miles off because I happen to live in the UK and Warner Bros hates me. No other films have really jumped on to my radar in a meaningful way. ‘Alison Wonderland’ looks like a ridiculous CGI-ridden mess, and the pairing of Burton and Depp is wearing as thin as a celebrity girlfriend.

Plus the last film I dragged myself to was ‘The Wolfman’, in which Del Toro gives a masterclass of looking thoroughly bored and Hugo Weaving plays a talking moustache. It was so horribly bad I wanted to, ironically, grow fur and maul everyone.

So when I saw Shutter Island was out this week, I was a little bit interested. I made plans to go and see it, checked times, and sat feeling smug that I had an alterative to spending my Friday night eating pizza and throwing Southern Comfort down my throat. My liver did a little dance. I also re-watched the trailer, which I first saw before a screening of ‘Moon’, and it was suitably creepy, building tension days before I would even see the film proper. I was very interested. I love those precious few ghost movies that mess with your head and burrow into your psyche so you jump at every shadow on the way home. I even thought ‘The Sixth Sense’ was good, though it wasn’t exactly a horror film. There are precious few of these films, because even when they start off well, they’re usually ruined by a bloody stupid plot twist towards the end.

Except I will now never bother to watch ‘Shutter Island’, and this pre-emptive review (er…preview?) will tell you why. I’ll try not to swear loads, but can’t promise anything. Also, obviously, spoiler alert.

Yes, I read the story outline on Wikipedia. Couldn’t help it. I effectively ruined the film for myself and I’m so incredibly glad I did, because it would have only made me angry. The ending is the type you joke about over your popcorn during the trailers, pre-film and post-’Dallas’. You’ll be whispering quietly, hazarding guesses at what direction the plot will take, and someone will undoubtedly say “It’s all a dream! DiCaprio will wake up in the shower!” and you’ll all politely laugh at your friends rubbish joke.

Now, it isn’t exactly that, but it’s about on par. Basically, the story decides to eat itself and winds up screaming “It’s all in his head!”, whilst shoving it’s foot firmly down it’s own throat. Faux-psychology wrapped up in a supposedly intriguing plot that makes me want to throw up on whatever bored writer thought ‘Yep, that’ll wrap it up nicely’. It’s a twist designed to shock you, much like “Bruce is dead!” in The Sixth Sense. Except all it really does is kill the rest of the film, making all the scares up to that point entirely redundant. As it’s all in his head, it doesn’t even nearly exist, and only he sees it…so what, exactly, are you being scared of? The notion that some other man’s lack of marbles is giving him a bit of a shiver? Ooo.

If a man approached you in the street, and told you the most harrowing tale you could ever imagine, full of terrifying depravity and laced with supernatural happenings, and somehow managed to convince you it was all entirely real, but then ended by saying something like “and that’s when I woke up!”, would you be pleased? You’d be thrown back into reality, and you’d be pissed off at the crazy man for wasting your time. Dreams are boring when recountered, regardless of the content. Do you really want to give upwards of £7 to a cinema so you can learn that, no matter how expertly it was told, a mental patient had a bit of a nightmare?

Assuming it was a well made flick (which, being Scorsese, it probably is), it’s likely the film doesn’t exactly hint at it before the final reveal, otherwise it’d ruin the movie even more. So it might be entertaining right up until the final scene, but if I’d been sat in the cinema, gripped by every scene up to that point, I’d have been absolutely livid by the pointlessness of the ending. Saying “It’s all in his head” negates any impact the film might have had up to that point, and effectively kills what interest I’d had. Knowing full well it’ll send me into an irate rage, I’m going to give it a miss. They should put a warning on the poster, underneatht the tagline: “Warning: The Ending Is Retarded”. You could have the best sex of your life, but if your partner hops off you before climax, and slaps you in the face, you wouldn’t be ecstatic about it. Well, unless you’re into that. Whatever. Anyway.

It makes me angry simply because they could have mentioned it at the start, and we could have all gone home early. It means every scene that preceeded the big finale was rubbish, pointless, and only the character played by DiCaprio knew any of it was going on. I’d be expecting to see people wandering around with cups of coffee, reading the newspaper whilst he ran around screaming and pointing at figments of his own imagination. Imagine the exact same film from another characters point of view (except, maybe, for any of the ghosts, as they don’t exist at all). Say, one of the doctors in the mental home. There might be a layer of sinister intent to the whole thing, but you’d be watching Leo chase around an innocuous building, probably humming his own dramatic soundtrack.

“It’s time for your meds, Leo. Sit still a second…”

“NO! I can’t! I must avenge my dead wife! Dum dum, dum dum dum dum…do dooooooo dum dum dummmm…”

The reason I hate this sort of ending is because it reeks of laziness – I understand it’s based on a book that probably uses the same tired ending, and I am basing my entire opinion on a Wikipedia plot summary, but still. Why can’t we just have a straight-up ghost story, one that takes all the shocks, scares and psychological trauma of the genre and then doesn’t fuck it up at the end? No trickery, no contrived Scooby-Doo twists where the mask is yanked off, revealing a series of utterly fucking useless events beneath the glossy, latex sheen. I want a horror film that uses ghosts to their full, nerve-shredding potential, without a caveat at the end that drags them back in to the real world with a boring, often obviously-signposted explanation, or into the mind of someone you don’t really care about. Or if you are going to do that, make it interesting. Watching a film that largely takes place inside a man’s head, helping him deal with his problems and come out of it a better man at the end? That’s not scary. That’s a session on a psychologists couch.

And ‘Mirrors’, ‘House On Haunted Hill’, et al don’t count, because they were shit.

I want to be scared without having to wait around to have the film ruined for me.

I think, basically, I just want to sit in a cinema and play Silent Hill 2.

Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

March 5th, 2010

AHAHA except not really.

I hate office humour. I hate it. Loath it. It’s so obnoxiously shit and should be punishable by public beatings or at least a short walk over a floor covered in thumb tacks and up-turned plugs. On fire. In the dark.

It’s disgusting.

The type of ‘joke’ that’s borne from a single, stupid misunderstanding or minor non-event that the wheelie-chair jockeys latch on to and repeat, ad nauseum – all day – until your eyes bleed and your brain begins to starve itself of oxygen, screaming for a way out. It might be a slight trip or a stumble whilst carrying a cup of tea, that magically transforms into OH MY DAYS, DID YOU HEAR WHAT ALF DID EARLIER? HE FELL! FELL! THERE WAS TEA EVERYWHERE! IT WAS A TEA-MAGEDDON! AHAHAHA!. This piss-poor excuse for conversation is then usually repeated to the people who were present, and already know full well the banality of the situation, but still join in the guffawing like retarded hyena’s choking on speedballs. Then some other poor fucker, usually someone like me, will wander past minding their own business, carrying various bits of paper and trying to look busy enough to divert the attention of anyone in charge. And they’ll be stopped, perhaps physically, and the entire bloated saga will be retold, acquiring various bells and whistles along the way. A shitty re-imagining of something that barely happened. It’d be like re-making ‘The Happening’ or something. The hapless office-worker in question will then mutter a polite ‘lol’ or some other appeasing utterance and try to be on their way. Except they won’t be allowed to go.

Oh, no.

They didn’t find it funny enough, did they. So more ‘AHAHA’S will be barked, and the story will be told again at a higher decibel. “YOU WILL FIND THIS FUNNY!” they scream, blind to the fucking obvious fact that THEIR AUDIENCE WILL NOT.

This epic retelling will happen every time someone new happens to walk past, regardless of how many other poor bastards are sat in the vicinity, hearing the same tepid story for the sixteenth time within the hour. Often, the same people will be collared, again, and have it rammed down their throat, again. Occasionally the jabbering twat-tards will recruit another comedy leech, who’ll hook on to the main group and throw in their own AHAHA’s, and repeat it again to the same unfortunate folk who the first lot have already grabbed. It’s like a violently depressing mobious strip. You can’t see where it ends or why the fuck it’s so interesting.

“OHMIGODDIDYOUHEARWHATALFDID?”

“Yes. Yes I did. Off at least six people. I also got the circulated email and the stack of post-it notes you left me.”

“WELLLETMETELLYOUAGAINBECAUSEITISBRILLIANTOHMYGODYOUWILLLAUGH”

And out of mis-guided politeness and an over-all desire to not be fired for lashing out and scraping a co-worker’s tongue out with a biro, before punching holes in it with one of those little machines (forget what they’re called), you sit, and you smile, and you listen again. Acutely aware that you’re stabbing yourself in the thigh with a compass; you can feel the blood dripping down into your socks and you fantasise about being anywhere – anywhere – other than where you are right now. Your brain flits happily to a dream-land, where you’re stuck in a Beirut prison, sucking cocks to avoid a shivving. It’s happier there.

But, I digress. As with most of these shoddily written tirades of abuse, my thinly-veiled anger is actually centred around a real-life incident that has happened, and managed to catch the attention of my ire. Office Humour. I hate it.

An example:

Yesterday, an elastic band was being idly played with by a bored co-worker; thumbed and stretched and twisted around fat, useless fingers when it suddenly decided it’d had enough and it darted off, up into the air and landed innocuously on the ground a few feet away.

That doesn’t sound like award-winning comedy, does it? But that’s where you’d be WRONG. Clearly. You fucking moron. This is Graham Linehan territory, this. It’s destined to go down in history as the single funniest occurrence since Jade Goody kicked the bucket. It’s absolute fucking GOLD. Duh. How did you not realise? Are you stupid or something? Maybe you didn’t hear the exact details, so I’ll repeat it again, louder and a little too close to your face for comfort.

Yesterday! An elastic band was being HILARIOUSLY played with! Thumbed and stretched and twisted around glorious, comedy-imbued fingers! When it suddenly decided it’d had enough! And it darted off, up into the air and landed INCREDIBLY FUNNILY on the ground a few feet away! AHAHAHA.

Ahaha inDEED.

I got back to my depressing little desk and was greeted by the shining, happily spastic faces of all of my co-workers (I am genuinely fucked if any of them ever find this site). They were eager to tell me the news; some literally bursting at the seams.

And they told me the story, each of them.

“Oh” I said, sitting down and flicking my monitor back on. Wrong answer. Incorrect reaction. Error 404: Humour Not Found. I didn’t say “AHAHA!” and run off to tell the cleaner, like they expected any normal person to do.

So they told me again, highlighting each point and bookending it with more hysterical laughter.

Strangely, I didn’t double over in fits of torrential laughter this time either.

The worst part of it is, one co-worker wasn’t in work yesterday. They are in today; so it took less than ten minutes of the working day before I heard the entire story yet again, this time with the added bonus that it almost hit someone. So yesterday’s piece of nothing suddenly becomes the hottest topic today. I’ll be surprised if it isn’t on the company homepage by lunchtime.

The strength of this particular brand of innocuous humour lives and dies on the strength, or weakness, of your imagination. If you can hear the above story and stop your brain immediately leaping to something more interesting (say, a blue pen) then you have a chance of finding it funny. If, however, you prefer your comedy to have any sort of substance or funny bits, you’re destined to remain outcast from their inbred society, living off scraps of genuine humour. Or reading Twitter all day.

For example, something half-funny happened regarding the elastic band incident. During one particularly hellish retelling late yesterday afternoon, one of the less intelligent specimins cried out “HA! THEY SHOULD CALL YOU THE……….”.

Then they stopped, and fear flashed across their eyes as they realised they had absolutely nothing else to say. No ending to the sentence they’d birthed without thinking. A horrid botched-abortion of a line that had no right to exist in the first place.

Five seconds passed and “…..band…..” dripped from their mouth, desperately fighting against itself, not wanting to be heard.

Another lengthy gap of vapid nothingness passed as her audience waited with baited breath. Or, in my case, lurching awkwardness smothered in cringeworthy comedy. Then “…..snapper…..” came out, rounding off the full sentence. Was it an attempt at a nickname? Was she about to say something offensive and had to do a mental u-turn at the last second? Is she just a bit thick? We may never know.

“That was pathetic!” I said, smashing the silence with a hammer. “Why did you even bother talking?”. Mean, maybe, but I’m all about negative reenforcement.

It was priceless, watching her slowly die inside as the words refused to come, culminating in the most pointless line of the whole escapade.

Anyway, rant over. You band-snapper.

Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

February 12th, 2010

Paperchase Can Steal My Shit

After the furore that work-stealing bastards Paperchase caused recently (well, a design studio that Paperchase hired anyway), I thought I’d weigh in a little. A few days late, obviously. I don’t want to appear topical or anything.

The full story has already been covered by the people at BoingBoing (http://boingboing.net/2010/02/11/artist-chases-paperc.html) and probably every other reputable blog already, but essentially they used a design without permission. Then, they refused to acknowledge the artist when questioned about it. To put it bluntly, they were pricks about the whole thing. That was, until Twitter got hold of the story, and ran with it. Now, through the wonder of Twitter, they’ve been forced to issue a weak acknowledgement that’ll probably go absolutely nowhere. Because really, people being angry on Twitter is a bit like people being angry inside their own minds, or screaming into an empty void. Or telling Katie Price.

No one gives a shit.

Although I do agree that the artist in question was well within her rights to kick up a fuss. It’s a blatant, shameless copy of her work. They even made it look worse, by cluttering up the neat little drawing with all kinds of extraneous shit that didn’t need to be there. No one needs butterflies. No one.

To help avoid such a problem in the future, where genuine artists get shafted by a big faceless company (especially one with a sickly, faux-’we’re dead quirky look at our mad bags we’re MAD’ veneer), I’ve drawn some things that are absolutely fine to steal, rip-off or otherwise sodomise at their lesiure.

Really, folks. The below master-works are 100% free. I’m expecting to see them on tote-bags, album covers, rape alarms or the face of an elderly lady within a week.

They might not be the best quality, but fuck you, they’re free.

Larry The Lucky Loo-Roll

Use me on your bum! And be lucky all day long!

The Magic Square of Confused Misery

A really ugly bird, possibly with a disability.

Dinosaurus Rex

Captain Pirate

(Note, the above is bollocks and I will totally sue the living shit out of you if you use it anywhere. Because I can. I saved a man’s life in Nam, now he’s a big hotshot lawyer and he’ll come GUNNING FOR YOUR ASSES. Do you want your asses gunned? I thought not).

Also, because we, as a collective mass of Internet, are hilarious, can we start calling them Papercha$e? With a dollar sign where the ‘S’ should be. Like ‘Micro$oft. Because THAT sure didn’t get old the minute after the first PS3 fanboy spouted it on a games forum. No siree. lololol.

3 people like this post.
Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

January 17th, 2010

Neon-Nazis & Fascist Bastards

Last night I went to a gig. Not your normal gig, properly organised etc, no; this one was in the basement of a bookshop that sells (I think) anti-fascist literature for people without a job and a need to blame it on someone – and people who generally have opinions that, far from being radical and revolutionary – are just a bit wrong. For a sub-section of society that claim to battle back against segregation and wrong-doing, they sure are a secretive bunch. Me being me, with my ‘job’ and ‘education’, I sadly stuck out like a sore thumb. Most other people in the room embraced it half-arsedly and shouted yelps of solidarity at the appropriate moments.

The organisers were keen to point out that the place didn’t have an alcohol license (so it was a bring-your-own-booze kind of affair), nor an entertainment license, making the whole thing a little bit shifty. Which is fine, except one band (whom I’ll be focussing my rage on in a second) decided that these little warnings, asking people not to loiter outside in fear of attracting police attention, meant that there were Nazi’s outside, all waiting to get us. Nazis everywhere. Couldn’t move for all the Nazis.

This band were called The Wasters, a small collection of kids with more opinions than braincells. I get that punk music is usually politically-fuelled and there’s nothing wrong with that until you start to talk absolute shit. “We don’t want a job” they sang (I’m paraphrasing but that was the message), which is just laziness disguised as revolutionary. They probably wouldn’t get a job anyway – you need qualifications for that, not just hollowed-out opinions that you read on a pamphlet taped to the wall in a communist bookshop. (One particularly good poster, last time we were there, announced a meeting of ‘Angry Liverpool Feminists’ – the invite asked you to bring a cake). Their ethos seemed to be “I don’t want to better myself, because that’s what THEY expect me to do. So I’ll just stay at home borrowing £20 off my dad for hair dye”. Every other word was ‘Fucking’, because swearing helps you to sound like you’re really serious about what you have to say. So many good political arguments have been based on the “Yeah…fucking…them bastards innit…ruining…fucking…everything like. Government” method.

In-between songs they insisted on screaming about how “We’re not violent, that’s not what we’re about” then launching straight into songs like ‘Drunken Riots’, unsurprisingly about being drunk and in a riot. This wasn’t even the biggest ‘What The Fuck?’ moment of the night though. That goes to the speech about how cosmetic make-up is evil, and anyone who wears it was a fucking idiot. Not only was most of the female population in the room wearing some form of make-up, the little scrotum who shouted about it had a dyed-blonde mohican. So make-up is Nazi/Fascist scumshite but ‘Brightest Blonde’ by L’Oreal and a tub of Fructis gel is fine? He might want to shove that little brain-fart back in for another few hours – it isn’t quite ready for public consumption yet. They bemoaned the corporate society, but neglected to mention the event was advertised by a Facebook group, and the alcohol being consumed was largely supplied by the Tesco over the road.

The Wasters were also very concerned about the presence of ‘Neo-Nazis upstairs’, though what they meant by that, no one was exactly sure – it still got a big crowd cheer from the drunken mass though. Were the Nazis upstairs? All sat around drinking Nazi-tea? Did they have their own gig going on, with some Rammstein cover band bitching about the ‘Faggy Hippies’ downstairs?

My best guess is ‘Nazis’ was a catch-all term for ‘anyone else who doesn’t agree with me’. So I’m a Nazi. Great. Thanks. You thick cunts.

And their music was shit. They were followed by a band called Chief who were far better but didn’t say anything particularly stupid, so I won’t bother writing much about them.

There was also a mid-band announcement by one of the organisers, asking people to donate money on their way out to the Liverpool Anti-Fascist organisation. I wonder what this organisation would think of all the Tesco bags that littered the floor? I’d have happily given £10 to the cause if I could find 5 people in the room who could give me an accurate summary of ‘Fascist’ and what it actually meant.

5 people like this post.
Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

December 15th, 2009

I know at least one GAME employee that sucks.

Hello person.

Want to read about my experience when trying to foolishly spend money on a game I probably didn’t need? Want me to put an angry spin on it and go completely over the top with my wordery? Well, here you go!

It’s all happened, of course, and I really do think the guy was a bell-end. However, as I was a bit shocked at the time, and because I’m a bit of a shy bastard, I didn’t say anything. Although there was a game left in the pre-owned DS, so WINNAR IS ME.

I did actually send it to them, but I don’t think I’ll get a response, somehow…

from Chris
to customerservices@game.co.uk
date 15 December 2009 20:21
subject Poor Customer Service

Dear Sir/Madam

Sadly, I’m writing with a complaint rather than a compliment. Recently, at your store in the Cheshire Oaks outlet village in the North-West of England, I had a very unpleasant, unprofessional experience with one of your staff. I was buying a pre-owned DS and several Xbox 360 games, one of which was Wolfenstein, priced at £17.98. Except I wasn’t allowed to leave the store with everything I had hoped to buy. An employee of yours, who I assume is paid to enhance sales, offer high-quality customer service and to generally ‘make money’ for the store, wouldn’t allow me to buy Wolfenstein. It was, besides the DS console, the most expensive item I was buying in that transaction

The reason he wouldn’t let me buy this game (which garnered reasonable reviews upon it’s release, as well as a recent article on Kotaku.com naming it one of the better over-looked games of 2009), was because he didn’t like it. In his words; “It’s well bad mate, I’m doing you a favour by not selling you it, mate. I can’t let you walk out of here with it, mate”. Now, I was tempted to ignore him, because I hadn’t asked his opinion and really didn’t want it, and buy it anyway (his use of the phrase “well bad” and over-reliance on the colloquial ‘Mate’ confirmed his idiocy to me, negating any validity his opinion might have carried) but I was quite shocked and taken aback by this, leaving me to mumble a soft “Er, okay then…”, handing over my card and leaving, feeing confused and offended. This isn’t how shops work! Shops sell things! If they didn’t sell things, they wouldn’t be a shop. You may as well close.

Now, I am quite a seasoned gamer, and an intelligent 23-year old man. I know what I like enough to take calculated risks on the games that don’t receive shining reviews. I don’t expect to be judged for my purchases, nor do I expect unwanted outbursts against my taste in games. For all he knew, I could own every single other Xbox 360 game and I could have been buying it as a last resort. Or I might really enjoy terrible games, in the same way you can enjoy a bad movie. It’s possible, also, that I was still bitter about World War 2 and harboured the desire to shoot every digital Nazi in the face, regardless of their supernatural abilities or shoddy game surroundings. I don’t believe for a second that your company makes it’s profits solely from critically acclaimed products like Modern Warfare 2 – No, you make money from things like Abba: Singstar, or Ready Steady Cook on the DS. I’m also very sure you don’t make money from customers by singling them out in a crowded store, in front of a line of 20 people, and questioning their purchases loudly in a stupid voice.

I’m going to make a bold assumption here, based on what I saw that day: When your store clerk rummaged through a few drawers and failed to locate the game in 5 seconds or less, he made the snap judgement to talk me out of buying it, rather than continue to look and risking the possibility of all this crouching/standing resembling exercise. His claims to have ‘rented’ the game when it came out, followed by vague generalised bad-mouthing of the product didn’t exactly leave me with a warm, glowing ‘customer service’ experience. It felt like he went out of his way to NOT serve me, because he was useless. However, you’ll be glad to know that he did run through every forced syllable of the ‘Game Care’ policy with regards to my DS, despite me confirming that yes, someone had already gone over it with me and I had declined it, and also despite me declining it at the end of every sentence that dribbled from his mouth. He was unrelenting. He was the T1000 to GameCare’s John Connor. I hadn’t seen the boy and I didn’t want the GameCare. It’s an offer aimed at the type of person who might take their PSP to the swimming pool with them, cram a Gameboy cart into the front of their Xbox or attach their Wii to a passing train with a grappling hook and dance about in gravy, stomping on copies of Imagine: Petz.

But I digress.

Let’s run through a similar example:
If you were in Burger King (a similar-level job to Game I’d imagine, i.e. – just slightly above McDonalds on the Self-Respect-o-meter) and you order a cheeseburger, would you expect to be served with a cheeseburger, or would you expect the till-jockey to voice their distaste in said cheeseburger and refuse to serve you? I’m assuming, rightly, that you would get a cheeseburger even if the cashier was a raging Vegan. So, just because your trained till-chimp also happened to have formed an opinion, miraculously, on a game he was employed to sell, I wouldn’t expect to be challenged about my decision to purchase it, and refused service.

If I were to be rude or insolent to a member of your staff, I would expect to be ejected from the store. So what happens when one of your staff is rude to me? Admittedly, I should have complained to a store manager at the time, but my shock didn’t actually register until we’d left the shop and my girlfriend remarked that the cashier was ‘a bit of a dick’. Her talent for understatement is one of the things I like about her. I’m shocked at myself that I actually went through with the rest of this transaction, validating the cashiers moronic little bleatings and piling money into your company, thereby inadvertently accepting his ‘advice’. He wasn’t being helpful, because no other alternative was suggested. He wasn’t ’saving me’ from a bad game, because I am not an idiot and I’m fairly sure he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He was rude, annoying, and possibly the worst shop assistant I’ve ever came across. At least most other people in the retail industry have the decency to shut up and not pretend to care. I sadly didn’t catch his name, but maybe ask the guys there to rate Wolfenstein, and then fire the one that says “Well bad”. Out of a cannon. Into a library.

Also, yes I did buy Wolfenstein elsewhere afterwards (and not at Gamestation either, so shove that up your conglomerate) and so far I’ve enjoyed the innovative hubworld the game employs, although I’ve not had much of a chance to play it.

Chris Welsh

————————

I’m pretty childish, huh?

2 people like this post.
Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

November 20th, 2009

The Future. Gimme.

It’s the future now, officially. Well, pretty much. So what the fuck happened?

When I was a kid, I used to think about what sort of stuff we’d have to play with by now. Personal spaceships and hoverboards and the like (I was a kid, what else would you expect). Except none of that has happened yet and we’re still driving around in regular old cars and I still don’t understand how skateboards work, nevermind flying ones that hover slightly off the ground. I fully blame TV for this, and also my tiny little idiot brain, because it isn’t capable or intelligent enough to invent such things. Fuck you, Brain. You thick bastard.

Of course, certain things do ‘feel’ like the future. This very internet ‘feels’ like the future and to a large degree it is. I can’t imagine life without it, and after a few days without it most people my age start climbing the walls or clubbing each other dead like cave-people. I have an iPhone and whilst it isn’t perfect, it looks and feels and acts like the future. Compared to, say, the Nokia Brick I had back in the day, the iPhone is a futuristic space phone from Space that does all sorts of spacey things. We have all sorts of stuff like this, objects that both enhance our lives minimally or in ways we don’t even notice. They fill gaps that didn’t exist 15-20 years ago. Or so I imagine…I don’t ever remember my Mother bemoaning the lack of an internet-enabled device that allowed the owner to speak to people all over the world whilst also watching porn on the toilet. When I get an email pop up I don’t think ‘ooh, that’s fantastic, that this small mix of plastic, metal and circuits is able to do this’, I just think ‘why did I even sign up for this newsletter?’ or ‘what do they want?’.

Where things have sprouted up to fill a gap we weren’t aware of, they haven’t gone far enough yet. My mp3 player doesn’t link to my mood, and play suitable music yet. It doesn’t automatically switch on and play soothing music into my ears whenever I’m stuck getting irate, listening to a thoroughly dull person witter on at me. It could also double as an alarm, for when my heart finally packs in out of laziness, it could detect that happening and react to it, letting people know I’ve just died and I’d like them to do something about it. Or it could play some Motorhead as it notices I’m starting to thump my last few beats, to jolt me back into life with a shot of musical adrenaline.

Death, too, seems far too prevalent in today’s society. Not for the old, infirm or generally under-healthed, but for those times when a promising young person (say, me) just drops dead for no real reason. Doctors should be able to skip back a bit, revive me (or whoever, preferably me) and have another go, atleast trying to figure out what the problem was.

(Please don’t let me die).

It’s the boring things that should have changed, rather then the things we didn’t even know we needed. Things like ironing. It’s dull as shit and everyone hates it…yet we’ve had to do it for years, in some form or another. Yes, the actual ‘ironing’ appliances have improved over the years and become more fancy, but in my mind that’s not enough. In this age where consumers will shell out fairly large amounts of money to save themselves time and effort, why do things like Irons still exist? There must be a better, quicker, lazier way, surely? As a race, have we not evolved past beating our own precious clothing with hot, heavy metal objects to get the creases out? I’m being lazy and pedantic, but I can’t think of a worse way (beside repeated painful sodomy) to waste a few hours than being stood ironing clothes.

Where things have improved, they’ve improved in pointless ways. Sure, dishwashers mean you don’t have to clean each individual dish yourself…but then you have to clean the dishwasher. And actually own a dishwasher. A personal slave is probably more financially viable, and you don’t have to clean those. Or, keen to avoid any accusation of racism (because people get jumpy when you say the ‘S’ word, even though I didn’t mean it that way) how about a Robot Butler? Even though they don’t exist. Why don’t they exist? This is the future, after all. This is the exact type of problem I’m facing.

Everything looks dull still, too. If you see a video clip from say, the 1970’s, the world still largely looks the same now as it did then, aside from the grainy-brown filter that video cameras used back then for some reason. Nowadays, in the future, I’d expect more chrome. Chrome everywhere. Chrome houses, cars, cats, pavements. I want my shiny future world, all slippy and slidey that I have to walk around in wearing shiny future suction shoes. What the f**k, scientists and designers? Where is it?

Whilst I’m on the subject, where the hell are the automatic doors in my house? The ones that go ‘whoosh’ then I walk past. Sentient ones that I can taunt, and argue with when they’re unruly or moody. Ones that will, if I treat them well, open up an escape route through my house in case of a fire whilst simultaneously fighting the flames. They could even rescue my Robot Butler.

Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

October 19th, 2009

Fat People Of The World…Unite! Slowly…

This is a riff on a recent BBC article about the rights of fat people. It basically singled them out as different because they are fat, and also offered some very lax views on attacking people – especially people who didn’t suffer from ‘fat’. So I fixed it up a bit. Enjoy.

(original article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8314125.stm - obviously the bits I added were not endorsed by the BBC or by any of the people ‘quoted’. Even though it should be).

 

Overweight ’should be protected’

Attacking someone for being fat should be a crime, campaigners say. As opposed to just a regular crime. Because fat people are different. “It’s like cheating, where’s the skill? It’s not like they can run away” said Fred Jones, chief campaigner for pro-fat charity ‘Clogged Arteries’.

He neglected to mention exactly what type of person it was okay to attack.

They want so-called “fat-ism” to be made illegal on the same grounds as race, age, hair colour and religious discrimination.

A demonstration is being held in the drive-thru car-park of a McDonald’s restaurant near the offices of the mayor of London asking him to lead the way in making sure employers don’t laugh at the fatties. Literally tonnes of people have turned up to show their support (5 people, 4 tonnes). Others have ordered from Just-Eat.co.uk but send their wishes.

Protesters want the UK to follow San Francisco, the world-renowned comedy-law pioneer, where a law bans “fat-ism” in housing and employment and stops doctors pressing patients to slim down. They say that Doctors unwilling to dig through stone upon stone of unsightly flab in order to perform heart surgery is unacceptable. They did not mention if they have grievences against plastic surgeons, who presumably make a fucking killing off the insecure, lazy fatties.

Sondra Solway, a San Francisco lawyer, said: “The San Francisco ordinance says you may want to mention weight to the patient but if the patient says they do not want to talk about that then you are asked to respect those wishes.”

Size acceptance

In the UK, size is not a protected characteristic under discrimination legislation. This is largely assumed to be the case because it’s a ridiculous notion, and simply enables the fat to get fatter with even less of an impact on their conscience.

The campaigners, who belong to the Size Acceptance Movement (which is also noted for the most ironic use of the word ‘Movement’ since ‘Movement Cemetary’ in southern England), say surveys show 93% of employers would rather employ a thin person than a fat one even if they are equally qualified, because they wouldn’t want to stop telling fat jokes in the workplace.

These findings directly clash with other observations from almost everyone, who confirm that most offices actually contain several large fat people who sit about eating fudge all day, ruining the décor and hopping in the lift to travel one flight of stairs.

Kathryn Szrodecki, who campaigns on behalf of overweight people, said that in the UK fat people were stared at, pointed at, talked about and attacked. She cites the popular baking mascot ‘Pop N Fresh’ as a big part of the problem, with regular people often reenacting the ‘Pop N Fresh’ actions on their large tummys, causing them to giggle and move against their will.

She said: “I have been *om nom nom* discriminated against – I am a YMCA qualified *om nom nom nom* fitness instructor, but I have gone for jobs and been laughed off the premises. Just because I resemble a large truck and carry a large hog roast everywhere I go, I do not think I deserve such *nom* treatment. The small cart I travel around on is environmentally friendly. *Om nom nom* My ‘exer-size’ fitness classes promote healthy living through eating as much as you can get your paws on, and also revolutionary methods of including a Segway into your daily routine”.

Another campaigner, Marsha Coupe, said: “I have been punched, I have had beer thrown in my face, I have had people attack me on the train.

“They say ‘Move out of the way fatty! Well person coming down the aisle!’”

Ms Szrodecki said: “This is a very common event – someone being beaten up should be a crime. “It is not about who you are or what you have done, it is just about the way you look.

“You are allowed to shame us just because of the way we look.”

These remarks come at a time when ‘people, in general, being beaten up’ is coming under scrutiny from police and the government. In fact, it’s almost outlawed in most US States and even some county’s of the UK, regardless of the person attacked. Except Glasgow, where the beating up of the English is encouraged.

Dr Ian Campbell of the charity Weight Concern said he was doubtful that legislation would have any immediate effect on the situation.

He said: “People who are very overweight do experience a lot of prejudice both in their social life and working life and do need some protection.

“We know that genetic and social reasons can lead to this very complex problem. Often, leading a charge to change the legislation is easier than going for a jog.

“For instance, people in inner cities are much more likely to be overweight because of poorer education, poorer housing and poorer job opportunities. This broad generalisation I have offered overlooks almost every imaginable bit of common sense and fact, but enables fat people to have an excuse for the sorry state of their bodies, which is the aim here.

“Not everyone has a free choice about controlling their weight. Except most people”.

As of yet, it is unclear if the fat people have realised that by asking to be treated as a ‘normal’ actually helps to point out their differences.

They don’t want to be attacked for being fat, where as ‘regular’ people would rather not be attacked at all.

One solution, offered by Bolivia’s leading medical mind (who has asked not to be named in such a ridiculous article), suggests organising ‘Moving Meetings’, where these fat people can come to voice their concerns, whilst walking around a park.

Their local MP can get on a bicycle and lead the fatties around laps of the football pitches, whilst taking their views on board and engaging in heated debate.

 

Discuss.

1 person likes this post.
Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

September 30th, 2009

Titanic 2: The Revenge! This time it’s impersonal…

So, today, I happened upon this…
http://www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/
At first glance, it’s a bit of a harmless trip to the scene where the famous Titanic (and most of it’s passengers) met an untimely end at the hands of Mother bastard Nature and one of her giant ice-rocks of death. Sort of like visiting ‘ground zero’ to pay your respects. Except, they’re doing it on a similar sort of luxury cruise ship and almost inviting some sort of vengeful-fate inspired lightning-strikes-twice scenario which results in the deaths of 1000’s. They are, effectively, re-enacting a huge tragedy. You wouldn’t visit the site of the 9/11 attacks by flying a plane into it, would you? For one, it’d be a logistical nightmare, and two, it’d be asking for trouble.
People visit the Auschwitz concentration camps as a tourist attraction, but at least they don’t do it accompanied by a masochistic SS guard with a machine gun. They don’t do it in huge groups, separated into male/female and then get beaten because of their faith. If the organisers of the Titanic trip have any sense of humour, they’ll announce an imminent collision, work every idiot on-board into a frenzy, put the whole thing down to irony and wheel out the brass band. And hide the lifeboats. And drown an effigy of Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, that’ll show all the weirdo’s who think a nice trip to the scene of a cruise liner disaster on a cruise liner is a jolly fucking good idea. Film it, and we can all have a good laugh at their stupid, panicky expense.
The PR spiel on the homepage should read:
“The voyage will then continue to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the final resting place of many who were on board, before sailing on to New York, the Titanic’s ultimate planned destination. MAYBE.” That’d be a laugh. They’re already turning the anniversary of the damn thing into a horrible money-spinning scheme, so why not go the extra mile and do a full re-enactment? Hire in James Cameron to direct from behind the scenes, once he’s finished dicking about with those blue alien things. After all, at least 95% of the over-paid morons on board will only be there because they like the movie; they’ll shit when they find out it was real.
At the very least, they should kneecap any couple (of which there will be many) who stand at the bow, arms outstretched, spouting gibberish.
Anyone who smiles whilst on the ship should be fined £500. There will be no fun had here. You’re on a historical tour of the scene of a tragedy. You wouldn’t giggle in a gas chamber. Wipe that smirk off your face. You prick.
Or something like that.

So, today, I happened upon this…

http://www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/

At first glance, it’s a bit of a harmless trip to the scene where the famous Titanic (and most of it’s passengers) met an untimely end at the hands of Mother bastard Nature and one of her giant ice-rocks of death. Sort of like visiting ‘ground zero’ to pay your respects. Except, they’re doing it on a similar sort of luxury cruise ship and almost inviting some sort of vengeful-fate inspired lightning-strikes-twice scenario which results in the deaths of 1000’s. They are, effectively, re-enacting a huge tragedy. You wouldn’t visit the site of the 9/11 attacks by flying a plane into it, would you? For one, it’d be a logistical nightmare, and two, it’d be asking for trouble.

People visit the Auschwitz concentration camps as a tourist attraction, but at least they don’t do it accompanied by a masochistic SS guard with a machine gun. They don’t do it in huge groups, separated into male/female and then get beaten because of their faith. If the organisers of the Titanic trip have any sense of humour, they’ll announce an imminent collision, work every idiot on-board into a frenzy, put the whole thing down to irony and wheel out the brass band. And hide the lifeboats. And drown an effigy of Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, that’ll show all the weirdo’s who think a nice trip to the scene of a cruise liner disaster on a cruise liner is a jolly fucking good idea. Film it, and we can all have a good laugh at their stupid, panicky expense.

The PR spiel on the homepage should read:

“The voyage will then continue to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the final resting place of many who were on board, before sailing on to New York, the Titanic’s ultimate planned destination. MAYBE.” That’d be a laugh. They’re already turning the anniversary of the damn thing into a horrible money-spinning scheme, so why not go the extra mile and do a full re-enactment? Hire in James Cameron to direct from behind the scenes, once he’s finished dicking about with those blue alien things. After all, at least 95% of the over-paid morons on board will only be there because they like the movie; they’ll shit when they find out it was real.

At the very least, they should kneecap any couple (of which there will be many) who stand at the bow, arms outstretched, spouting gibberish.

Anyone who smiles whilst on the ship should be fined £500. There will be no fun had here. You’re on a historical tour of the scene of a tragedy. You wouldn’t giggle in a gas chamber. Wipe that smirk off your face. You prick.

Or something like that.

Unlike

Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Ping.fm

« Older Entries













Powered by Wordpress using the theme bbv1