They're Only Bees
September 28th, 2009

Read a fucking book

Dear Idiots of Earth:
Please stop doing everything you’re doing, and listen.

I’m about to start complaining directly at you. It’s to do with writing; grammar, spelling, using the correct words etc.

Any user of the internet in general will see, on a daily basis, examples of absolutely terrible writing. Whether or not it’s comments on YouTube, full of misguided aggression and nonsensical insults, or a status update so totally devoid of structure or intelligence that it becomes almost impossible to read, or screaming angry blogs about nothing. (Hello).

A new, common example of idiocy that’s rapidly infecting the likes of Facebook, is people who Write Every Word In A Sentence With A Capital Letter At The Start. Get the fuck off the shift key, you retard. Or, which would be even worse, do these morons use the Caps Lock key each time?

*caps lock*F*caps lock*uck *caps lock*O*capslock*ff.

Either way it’s madness. There isn’t a need for it, and they are only following the example set by others who do the same. I’m sure not even the lowest of the low gossip magazines does this, so where have they picked it up from? Do they not read, at all, not even other peoples updates? If they did this in school, a teacher wouldn’t even read it, and would probably slap you in your stupid face for it. A job application wouldn’t make it past a first glance. How did they survive this long? They should still be repeating high school, over an over again, until they manage to grasp the very absolute basics of writing or their teeth fall out and they die of old age. It’s hard to read, too, because your brain sees each word as the start of a new sentence. By the end of it, you don’t care if the sentence is outlining a cure for cancer, because it’s clearly written by an idiot who is going out of their way to make things irritating for you. Fuck them, and their fool-proof plan for world peace. Luckily, the people who do this typically have nothing worth saying, so skipping their mutterings is safe. You’ll miss nothing.

Another common, yet ’classic’ example of non-thinking stupidity is the whole their/they’re/there or you’re/your mix-up thing. I know some people genuinely don’t care, so it doesn’t matter to them, but I personally got my head around this very simple concept in primary school. By the time I was 12 years old, I don’t remember anyone in my class having a problem with it. I could do it unthinkingly 99% of the time, as could every else around me. So why, when even the most lame education can enable these skills in people, are there still so many fuck ups? It doesn’t take any thought – it should be programmed into your brain, like 2+2=4 or ‘don’t shove your face in a fire’.

They’re in there with their bear. There. If you can’t make sense of that, get the fuck out.

(Also worth noting: swearing is perfectly acceptable and anyone who complains about it is a cunt).

So-called ‘Text language’ is another one: It was almost understandable back in the days when each individual text cost 12p, and the need to say a lot in a limited number of characters gave you an excuse ’2 tlk lk dis’ in an effort to fit more of your pointless babble onto a message – but the internet typically has no such limitations (ignoring Twitter, whose users tend to manage without resorting to idiotic shortening by simply saying less). You can say what you like, and take your sweet time about it. Hell, set up a website and really stretch your fingers. We did. It’s easy. No one will read it, but atleast you don’t have to spend fifteen minutes taking out 90% of the vowels and stripping your words bare before saying something that wasn’t worth saying in the first place.

This is similar, but not quite as bad as intentionally mis-spelling words. ‘Creem’, ‘Myt’, ‘Anooo’, etc. It takes more time to consider the correct spelling and change it than it does to just write ‘Cream’, ‘Might’ and ‘I know’, surely? It’s not like they’re even just speaking phonetically…they’re intentionally r*ping and degrading the words. Leaving a dictionary in a bloody puddle in an alley-way, taking away it’s innocence.

Stupidity/ignorance like this fills me with a murderous rage, and I firmly believe there should be a test everyone should have to pass before they’re allowed on to the internet. It should involve basic spelling and grammar tests, and maybe a lesson on how to formulate an argument so it doesn’t devolve into a pointless back-and-forth about who sucks the most donkey cocks. Anyone who fails should be given restricted access to only the cbeebies website, and encouraged to read a book instead of…whatever the hell it is they do instead. Or at the very least a man should stand behind them, screaming insults down their ears until they start to show a bit of intelligence. Retests can be once every two years and the punishment for failing two on the run is to revoke their membership to the Human race, and keep them in a Zoo where normal, not-stupid people can walk past and hurl complex insults at them, then laugh as the cretins sit with a look of puzzlement on their excrement-smeared face, banging a stick with another stick.

For the rest of their lives.

September 21st, 2009

Motherfucking PC World – The Experience

My first mistake, I fully acknowledge, was buying a PC from PC World. The only chain of computer-based shops with a bigger selection of HDTV’s than wireless cards (The the ratio about 30-1 in favour of the TVs), and around12 member of staff wearing a selection of ugly-coloured slave outfits than they actually need. First off, very few of the display PC’s matched the specs laid out on the price tags, making most of them largely useless to a consumer What you could see was not what you would get. The layout seems designed to confuse, as if forcing you to speak to the largely under trained and indifferent staff to figure out exactly what the hell you’d be getting if you spent the money. Until recently, it had at least a little jumble sale-vibe going for it, as if a rabble of cloying nerd’s had recently been through. They’ve change it now, though – everything is on pristine-white shelves, in boxes, and the nerds are nowhere to be seen. They even have a fucking specialized Apple centre right in the middle of the store, and a sign that says printers are ‘ideal for business people’, with a picture of a tie. It’s gone from a slightly haphazard yet approachable place to a sterile, fuck-you centre for idiots and Mac lovers.

In the end, I settled on a rather sexy, Mick(Nerd)-approved ‘rig’ (sorry). I am happy with it and it does everything. It was either that or build one, and I couldn’t be arsed. PC World didn’t have all the parts anyway, and succumbing to Maplin is like taking a step too far in the other direction. To even get into Maplin you need a hardcore WoW addiction and a propensity to buy stupid disco lights with your VGA cables. The ‘puter I went for is pretty and shiny and hums along in a satisfying manner. The most advanced game I play is Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, so I’ve probably spent way too much for what I need, but I’m stupid like that. However, my decision to spend the money had fuck-all to do with PC World and much more to do with my laziness and lust for shiny gadgets.

The process of actually buying one of their computers gets difficult very quickly. I stopped a man in a dull pink shirt and tie, and informed him politely that I would like to buy one of the computers behind me. I even tried to point in it’s general direction, to indicate that he had an almost definite sale with zero work needed. He said he would send over a member of his ‘team’ to help me, because he was too senior/lazy to help a tattooed young un’ like me. He then went and stood by the door for a minute or so, before waddling off to the printer cartridge section to help someone read the side of a box.

For 5 minutes.

Abandoning the idea of any further help from that useless fuck, I collared a young girl with a very quiet voice and a nervous demeanour. After a short amount of whispering, I persuaded her I wished to exchange money for the product and she agreed that she could facilitate this. She was the most useful part of my experience and for that I love her dearly.

Now, PC World offer many useless offers and add-ons when you buy a new PC with them. I’ll start with the least rubbish: Money off the Student Edition of Microsoft Office – Not bad, if you’re after a copy of Office and have never heard of OpenOffice.org, but ultimately useless as the majority of ‘students’ will be relatively poor and would rather steal the damn thing off the internet rather than spend money on it. Also, OPENOFFICE.ORG. The offer still doesn’t bring it down to an affordable, reasonable price though, when considering you’re just paying for a bit of software to write on or make powerpoints with AND OPENOFFICE.ORG IS FREE. AND WORKS FINE. AND IS FREE. Start charging more around the price of, oh I don’t know…FREE…and I might consider MS Office. Maybe. That might be just a personal thing though.

The second worthless piece of software they had on offer was Norton Anti-Virus. Which no one ever wants; and even if you do, you should never ever pay for.

Lastly, they offered a deal to all new PC-buyers that basically entailed a PC World man coming to your house in a PC World van and setting it all up for you, for less than £30! Bargain! Or not! For £30, a bored minion will turn up at your house, plug your PC in, and turn the power on. Then look at you as if you are stupid, because you are. Everything about this ‘service’ is useless. If you’re genuinely unsure on how to do it (if you’re a layman, elderly, or stupid) just ask a member of your family, or a neighbour. Anything. Under no circumstances give PC World any more of your money to perform a menial task at a greatly inflated price. Again, this is something completely aimed at splitting morons from their money. Any self respecting member of PC World staff should talk you out of it if you’re dumb enough to even enquire. Part of the fun is jamming everything in and making it go. It’s even more fun if you have to crawl around under a desk, swearing. That’s the joy of buying a new PC! Sort of. At least now it’s coupled with the joy of saving yourself £30. There are more things like this, ‘offers’ that will take a stack of money from you in exchange for plugging in a TV, sorting you out with a wireless network or sitting you down and telling you to just fucking kill yourself before you somehow manage to have kids. Ugh.

Back to the process of actually getting the desired piece of equipment out of the shop…The shy girl had gone to get it out of the back for me. Except…she hadn’t. She located the useless disappearing man from earlier and was trying to talk him into doing something. I assume this is protocol, because they don’t trust their lesser members of staff to fetch items from the back or something. He was still taking his time though, and it took another ten minutes just to get it down to the front till where 3 separate members of staff counted through the stack of £20′s I gave them. I got it home fine, and managed to set it up in about 15 minutes, handily saving me that £30 and a handful of dignity.

PC World seem to want to make it as annoying as possible to simply buy a PC. Which is fucked, considering it’s a shop that should really be promoting such behaviour. They seem set-up towards exploiting the members of the public who might not know exactly what they’re looking for. They have ‘Tech Guys’ who helpfully approach each situation with a surly ‘better than you’ attitude, but get flummoxed if you ask them any question more technical than where a USB stick goes. There was a man walking around with cheap shirt on, with ‘Windows Guru’ sewn into the back as a shining example to child labour, whose job surely can’t be more than pointing out where the Help section is on Windows. As an OS, Windows is fairly idiot proof in itself. I really can’t think what else he would have to do, except instil the fear of Gates into customers who think to even understand one of these infernal machines you have to be a ‘guru’.

Well fuck you, PC World. You are shit.

(I realise the hypocrisy of this whole thing, because I still gave them my money…but hopefully one of the board members might one day read this, have an attack of conscious and leave a note for his Secretary detailing how to fix things before diving out of the window of his 12th-floor executive office. Note: Not an actual suggestion)

September 19th, 2009

I don’t understand.

Twitter.

I’ve been using Twitter for a little while now, and I still don’t know what to make of it. On the face of it, it’s a bit useless, but addictive. As a social networking thing, it doesn’t work for me because I’m not that social and the ‘network’ is almost 100% one-sided. I have only 18 followers and I’m not famous enough to have any more. I wouldn’t even know how to whore myself out to get more. I don’t even really want any more.

(@ChrisDWelsh by the way)

I ‘follow’ (which sounds very stalkerish) quite a few people, but most aren’t interesting. There are only a handful of people who actually make it worth your time. Yet I follow more than that because otherwise it would be very boring. To make Twitter worth your time, you have to spam yourself with shit you don’t care about. I follow Hugh Hefner for fucks sake, who gets creepier and creepier with every missive. He can just say something along the lines of ‘I am watching a movie’, and it’s suddenly creepy because you know he’s sat watching it whilst surrounded by identikit ‘bunnies’ who are there out of some misguided attempt to become famous. You know that, after watching the film, this very old man will be fucking the brains out of at least one 18 year old. Or so I assume. It’s creepy, yet I can’t unfollow him for some reason. It’s like a horrific train wreck that I just can’t tear my eyes away from. Maybe I find it all life affirming – proof that just being rich, famous and very lucky with women does not make you any less of a terrifying person when you hit 80.

Occasionally, I update my own Twitter. I send a ‘tweet’ out to the 18 people who follow me, saying something like ‘Oh shit, I forgot I could update this thing…’. I have nothing interesting to say on there, that wouldn’t be put to better use on Facebook where some other bored nerd might pick up on it. The people who follow me on Twitter don’t do so because they give a shit about what I have to say – they do it because they too want to think that it isn’t just a useless way of stalking celebrities that you have almost no interest in stalking. Or because I know them in real life and they’d rather follow me than have to deal with me screaming WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? at them every time I see them in real life.

Which I would.

I know that I’m probably using it wrong, or I’ve missed the point of it, but to me it’s just like an RSS Feed that’s a bit easier to manage, and a little bit more personal. Facebook is where I keep the friends I actually talk to – Twitter is where I keep a list of the people I sort-of like enough to bother following, but will never ever be in a position to know.

Some of them, like I said, are worth following. Peter Serafinowicz almost makes the whole thing worth while on his own. Graham Linehan puts in a hefty amount of time to it and justifies the really-very-small amount of effort that people put into following what he has to say. There are more, but listing them here is pointless. I’m not trying to namedrop. If I was, I’d be writing this in 140 character sentences on Twitter and @’ing everyone.

This is getting a bit long now, which isn’t in the spirit of the piece, so I’ll wrap it up…basically, I like Twitter, use it daily…I just don’t know why. I don’t understand it and feel I never will.

At least until I’m famous and strangers start to follow me just to tell me I’m pretty.

September 13th, 2009

Emotion As Renewable Energy

Much is being made of the way we as a race burn up our finite resources of fuels – oil, coal, Red Bull etc. The world as a whole is being urged to ‘go green’ by mostly-boring political types or deluded celebrities who think they can change the world because they had a starring role in a film or something.

Now, in principal, this is obviously a good idea. ‘Going green’ helps out the planet we live on, probably, and is atleast a bit more interesting than digging big holes in it to mine for stuff we’re just going to waste anyway. The problem is that current renewable energy sources are boring.

Those big, white Windmill things they’re sticking everywhere to harness wind-power look good, but they’re a bit cumbersome and probably take a few years to break-even on the amount of energy wasted to put them up in the first place. (This is said with absolutely no research, so please don’t bother correcting me; save your energy).

Solar panels are fine too, but are expensive and again just a bit of a pain in the arse.

What we need is an easily renewable source that is readily available to be harnessed. Something like, say, human emotions.

Schools and colleges could be powered by the youthful energy of their students, and top it up with the unbridled narcesscism and hatred emanating from the older teachers. Strap a modern-equivalent of a Dynamo to a kid with ADHD and load him with sugar, and use the resultant energy output to run the projectors in the science labs. You know, the ones that throw up huge, detailed diagrams of genitalia and sperm. If there was a way to then capture the stifled laughter of the class and the badly-hidden embarassment of the teacher as she loads up Penis slide (not a euphemism (or a garden toy)) then it could power the lights in the gym for that afternoons PE class, where the kinetic energy of the fat kid’s bouncing flabrolls as he runs about giving himself a hernia and hating every moment of it could be stored and used for something else.

Hospitals could run on the raw fear, pain anxiety that comes naturally to patients. The A&E department would be sorted for renewable energy if it could make use of the adrenaline of the staff and the anger of the drunken fuck-heads who came in at 3am demanding to be seen by a doctor because they’ve punched a lamp-post and shattered their wrist. Or the useless attention-seeking student drones who cracked their head on the kerb trying to do a blatently random cartwheel to impress their vapid little friends. If sources begin to run low on the wards, simply telling a select few of the less stable, resiliant patients that they’ve only got a week to live should generate a decent amount. Not to mention what could be harnessed from the anger/relief they feel when you tell them you were only joking.

Prisons could be powered by the cocktail of rage, remorse and general wrong-headedness that flows from the inmates. Fred West could have powered a whole wing with his stubborn refusal to reveal where those last bodies were buried. The chronic masturbation of violent child molesters upon showing them glimpses of the old BBC test-card might be enough to support Ian Huntley’s alledged luxury flat. Even simpler, install hamster wheels in every cell and force even the fattest inmates to do an hour a day. Kinetic energy is probably easier to create than Emotional when it comes down to it (what with it being an actual ‘thing’, and not something I’ve made up).

The only thing I can’t think of a way to power by human emotion only would be something like a Coldplay concert. I can’t imagine the feelings of 1000′s of bored, apathetic ’fans’ would result in much more than a AAA battery. Although Chris Martin’s ego might help. Infact, on a similar note, the world-wide hatred of Bono could solve all of our problems if we pooled it.

The pointless bickering and bile spat at Youtube’s comments section on even the most inane video could be useful too. If we could somehow gather the collective stupidity from Facebook groups, we’d be set for the next million years. Your fridge could be powered by bad grammar.

If only this wasn’t totally hypothetical and written just to pass some time, involving absolutely impossible concepts, I could really be on to something here. Damn.

August 27th, 2009

You Are Not A Star

Recently, for fun, I’ve been taking offence at everyday sayings that make no sense.

I had a small, impromptu rant the other day about the phrase ‘You’re a star’. I realised that really, I’m not. I didn’t appreciate being likened to a big, burning ball of flame that was located hundreds of light years away from Earth. Were they calling me a loner? A hot loner? How is it a compliment? Looking at it from a purely factual point of view, it’s quite offensive. Due to the way light travels through the empty vacuum of space, they’re probably inferring that I’m actually more than likely dead.

I’d prefer something much more personal – “You’re like my favourite cup”, or something. Something I can relate to. Obviously I wouldn’t like it if the person who said this proceeded to pour tea in me and drink it from a hole in my head, but I can appreciate the sentiments behind it. They like that cup – it’s done them well over the years, as have I. I’m helpful, useful, and familiar. It may even have a witty, likeable phrase on it. The kind of cup that would share in-jokes with you, if it wasn’t just a cup.

That’s a compliment, right there. Until the human race has reached a point where each and every person has their own star, and can travel to it easily to show their admiration, I don’t want to be called a star. It’s too foreign, too ‘spacey’. Too downright bloody offensive.

August 26th, 2009

Reviewing Stuff & Things

Reviewing music is dull. And pointless. And repetitive. And dull, again. Yet I still do it sometimes for www.crowdsurfer.net. (Plug!)

It’s a good site and everything, and the rewards for doing it (free gigs, CD’s) are worth it, but the actual act of writing about music and talking about it from a very one-sided point of view is boring. I can only assume that no one cares what I think. Who am I to judge anyway? I don’t own thousands of CD’s, I’m not an expert on anything, and mostly I don’t really care. If I have to write about a band I don’t like I’m happy to pour on the scorn, regardless of how unfair it might be – just because I don’t like them. To me, that’s more entertaining. I’ve got enough favourite albums to last me a lifetime already, so if I don’t find any more absolute masterpieces I don’t really care. It’s good to find a new album I like, sure – especially when it’s a band I’ve never heard of – and when it happens I’m more than happy to compliment it until I’m blue in the face. Although I have to say this has never happened and I’d be very worried if it did.

I’ve found, from my limited experiences with it, that positive reviews get no comments, but negative ones draw in fanboys like a hooker to fat, useless businessmen. THIS is where things get interesting, this is what bumps up the site’s views. I’m not saying I would purposely set out to review negatively in order to attract these idiots, but it’s fun when it happens and I’m the type of prick who enjoys winding up obsessive music nerds. They’re often so outraged by negative comments directed at their favourite band, that they become unable to form sentences or make points – their words just mash together to form something resembling an insult. Then I go back to them, and childish comedy ensues (at least for me).

I’ve whined about this already, here.

It’s sort of easy to write a few hundred words about an album that is good and deserves the praise. The only real problem is making sure to not go over the top, and also trying to not repeat yourself. Especially with genre-specific albums. I mean, if you get two metal albums who are as good as each other, it’s easy to write the exact same things because they probably apply. But that’s boring – and what I prefer to do is make things a little different for each, even if that means talking absolute bollocks or going for cheap laughs to entertain myself.

Reviewing terrible albums is the most fun part of the whole thing, because if a band make terrible music it’s fun to tear them apart and criticise every little thing they do – on the basis that they probably deserve it, so I don’t feel any remorse. Also, I love complaining. It’s the best thing ever. Putting a CD on, sitting down to write about it, and being greeted by the most abysmal music ever conceived in a garage in Rhyl or something is a real treat. Hands are rubbed together and I whip out my mental thesaurus, searching for new ways to say ‘terrible’. Off I go, and usually I do go way over the top with these. I pick them apart too much, or keep it brief but insulting. It’s my aim to find a band so awful, their entire albumcan be summed up with the word ‘Shitbiscuit’. My other aim is to make bands cry their little socks off which is easier to do with certain genres than others, obviously. But not just the bands themselves – it’s also great to get a fan reaction because 9 times out of 10 they’re be illiterate rant-monkeys with nothing of worth to say. Like me! But less educated.

By far the most difficult bands to write about are the one’s that are just ‘okay’. There is only so many ways to say “meh, s’alright…” and all of them are very boring to read. Most of these bands just aren’t worth talking about, or appeal to only fans of a specific genre, but don’t do anything bad enough to justify a roasting. In a perfect world, the only music in existance would live at the sharp ends of the good/bad spectrum. There would be nothing made in the middle except for radio-friendly pap that no one cares about anyway. I could make a diagram but I can’t be bothered. Imagine it, it isn’t hard.

The main problem with talking about music in this format is that music, to people who care about music, is quite an insular experience. I can write and fill a word count quite happily and say absolutely nothing if I come across a band I care so little about that they as well not exist. However, you can be guaranteed that this will annoy someone somewhere who thinks that the band are made up of pure, ethereal musical genius held together by saggy slabs of meat marauding as band members – as opposed to, say, saggy slabs of meat with an hours worth of guitar lessons under their belt, marauding as a band more popular than themselves. I mean, some people even like Lady Gaga. Some people LOVE Bryan Adams. That can’t be right.

And it’s my pointless, repetitive and dull job to tell you why they’re wrong.

Now please, slag me off for this – it’s like verbal crack to me. It works best if you don’t justify what you’re saying, and just call me a cock.

August 16th, 2009

Someone doesn’t like me…

Recently, I have been the subject of (atleast one person’s) hatred. See, I occasionally do some music reviews for the website www.crowdsurfer.net, and someone took offence to something I said about a band. It isn’t the best review I’ve ever done and I’ll happily admit that, but the album contained very little that actually qualified as music so I believe I was entirely justified in slating it and making fun of it. Sure, there were instruments being played, and something resembling a singer, but that’s it.

They were a ‘tech metal’ band by the name of ‘No Consequence’ (check out their myspace if you like). Now, I’m terrible with genres – I rarely bother to classify a band as a specific ‘type’ of music and I just write about whether I liked it or not. So based on the only ‘tech metal’ band I know of – tech metal is shit. It consists of trite riffs, generic EVERYTHING and some of the most hilarious ‘vocals’ you’ll ever hear. Like a pissed-off cookie monster coming off the back of a gravel-eating binge. It doesn’t help the sound at all, and ruins whatever meager enjoyment that could have been wringed out of the actual music. I just don’t see anything remotely ‘technical’ about it, as the inclusion of that very word implies some sort of skill is involved. Like ‘technical’ drawing is all specific lines, measurements, angles and that sort of thing.

Obviously not every band that falls under ‘tech metal’ is as bad as this. It’s just that I’m not aware of who is included in this little club. I hear Architects also carry this label, and they’re quite good. Or, at the very least, have some skill on show in the music they make.

But anyway…someone took offence to me lambasting the bag o’ shite, and called me out on it. I replied, and tried to hide the fact I was annoyed at him, behind a curtain of childish wit and faux-friendliness. I was also acutely aware I may have been feeding a troll. I think I managed to justify myself, and also pull him up on a few little things from his comment. For example, he used the name of the drummer from Dream Theatre – was I supposed to think it was actually him? Or was that just a screen name? Also, telling a music reviewer to go listen to other bands as a way of pointing out how bad he is is only going to make the music reviewer do just that…(well, apart from Coldplay). Add to that the fact that neither Coldplay nor the White Stripes have appeared anywhere on our site (I think), and he has the makings of a classic idiot.

So I replied, justly.

BUT THEN! I got a second comment. This time, from a man named ‘James’. James was friendlier, and seemed to be trying to diffuse the situation. He said, quite politely, that he disagreed with me, and thought the band was good, and even gave some comparisons. He was so convincing in fact, that I replied in a similarly jovial manner. It was only a few hours later when I decided to check something…and yep, James had the same I.P. address as the first commenter. So the odds are, he was the same person. Or at least had access to the same computer. Which, if it wasn’t the same person, I can only assume the first commenter had someone at gunpoint, forcing them to admit they liked No Consequence. Surely there can’t be two people who genuinely LIKE them in such a small area?

But does this mean I ‘won’, because the guy backed down? In as far as it’s possible to ‘win’ on the internet. Which is isn’t.

Damn.

I could attempt to forgive the guy, even though he was trying to hide behind different names – but he was a prick in the first comment, so sod that. Also, I know I was being a prick too. So we’re both pricks. But I’m not going to ever change my opinion on a band just because someone tells me I’m wrong, and I’m not going to only do reviews of music/genres I like. If I did that, I’d be called out for only praising stuff.

Thinking about it, it’s entirely possible the commenter was a member of the band. I mean, the crowdsurfer review comes up pretty high when you Google the band’s name (as I’m thinking this now might – will I get the same response? Probably couldn’t blame the guy…) and they look like they have the ego to Google themselves (Yes, i’m pretentious enough to use ’Google’ is a verb).

If it was a band member who found it, and you manage to find and read this, here is some advice:
If you don’t like bad reviews, make better music. Take criticism, however childish, on the chin. To me, the vocals on offer were hilarious. Listen to them back. How are they not funny?  At the very least, reply nicely, explaining what the reviewer might have mistaken, or why they’re wrong. Just giving out a bit of pointless abuse doesn’t work. You lose automatically – no one will think you have a point. The same goes for any fans of the band – rather than making them look good, or me look wrong…you’re just making yourself look like a dick.

Me? I am a dick. I don’t need telling. Thanks though.

August 6th, 2009

For Hire: Common-Sense Editor

Dear People-Who-Make-Movies-Or-Stuff-For-TV.

Here I am, offering myself up to you, and not in the way you might think. I propose to create a brand-new job for myself, and you’ll hire me. Oh yes, you will.

Basically, I will be your Common-Sense Editor. You could send me drafts, scripts, even final working prints, and I will attack it with a big red pen and tell you exactly how fucking stupid you are.

You know that cliche bit in a horror movie where the young nubile lead heads UP the stairs in the creepy house, practically wearing a shirt with a diagram of her internal organs on it, so the killer knows exactly where to shove his knife? Well, it’s that sort of thing I’d like to sort out. The bits of the film that have your audience screaming ‘Oh, you fucking idiot! Why would anyone do that? this is ridiculous’.

It isn’t even always based on what a ‘normal’ person would do. Sometimes, it’s just based on what that particular character would do. If, all of a sudden, a peace-loving hippy suddenly picks up a shotgun and spouts a wittily aggressive line, the audience will do little more than groan.

Almost every mainstream movie suffers atleast a small lack of common sense. Directors and script writers use them to move the story along, to set up a big action piece or to put a certain characterin a certain position. But it’s just lazy. With a bit of extra care and thought put into things, it could actually make sense, which would help to immerse the viewer in the film, regardless of how rubbish it is.

It’s like when, to explain away a plot twist or something similar, a film will use liberal amounts of ‘science’. Or say ‘the internet did it’. When was the last time you saw a computer accurately portrayed in a film? Or even the word ‘hack’ used in any way that makes sense? Never. It doesn’t happen. Take, as an example, ‘Iron Man’ – in particular the scene where Gwyneth Paltrow ‘downloads’ the ‘files’ onto a memory stick of some sort. That whole scene is plagued by techno-nonsense. Tony Starck has the most advanced EVERYTHING in the world – even his home security system is sentient – yet his office PC is nads and looks rubbish. A little bit of common sense injected here would make the scene more tense, which is what it’s supposed to be.

Which is where I would come in. This could all be fixed with a little Common Sense Editing. Never again would a previously intelligent character do something so willfully stupid that you hate them from that point on. Never again would a nerdy-looking character tap-tap on a keyboard for 3-4 seconds and announce that, suddenly, he has access to the exact file he’s after. Never again will the plot points be explained away with a large flashing neon saying saying ‘SCIENCE!’.

Bliss. Pure movie-sense bliss.

All I ask for in return is a pat on the back, a ‘thank you’, and several thousand pounds deposited into my bank account on a weekly basis. Are you going to give me this? No, of course you aren’t, so why would you let the characters in your film do something equally dumb?

PS – No, just because the film is ‘sci-fi’, doesn’t mean you can waive any of the above. Don’t be lazy.

July 15th, 2009

The State Of Cinema

The State Of Cinema

Why is it so difficult to make a good film nowadays? Of the many films I’ve paid to watch at the cinema this year, only two stand out as being any good. All of the summer blockbusters (that I caught) were total let-downs. Even the smaller, more niche movies I’ve seen have been terrible.

Here’s why.

I thought Wolverine was going to be the low-light of the year, when I saw it. I fell asleep for around 30 minutes. When I dropped off, he was fighting Sabretooth. Then when I woke up, he was still fighting Sabretooth. I thought I’d only nodded off for a second, but then the film ended. It was like a strange form of time-travel. Also, the less said about Deadpool the better. Not because of Ryan Reynolds – who doesn’t love Ryan Reynolds? – but because he was so badly realised. They murdered Wolverine that day, and Marvel shouldn’t let Jackman anywhere near those sideburns again. Bad Hugh…naughty!

Terminator: Salvation was of a similar standard. IE – boring, overblown and completely needless. Terminator films only need robots fighting humans, and a few explosions, to be half decent. The concept is solid enough. What it doesn’t need is rehashed ‘Classic Lines’ of dialogue, misdirected fan service, and Transformers rip offs. Just robots fighting humans. That’s it. The only person to come out of that wreckage of a film was Anton Yelchin…mainly because he wasn’t as bad as everything else. Heart surgery, from a semi-robot to a human, in the middle of the desert? Unnecessary schmaltz. Terminator doesn’t need it.

Transformers 2: Rise of the Whatever was arguably the biggest let-down of the year. So bad, infact, it has ruined any joy I might have once wrung out of the first instalment of the series. A giant Megazord with giant balls…evil waffle irons…and some of the most hideous product placement this side of an actual advert for a product. Add to this the worst examples of ‘comedy robots’ I can think of, including a bit of a wise-cracking Wall-E and Ghetto-bots from space, and you’ve got yourself a terrible film. No amount of back-flipping robots in slow motion can save it. Which is a pity, because they rely on that heavily. Almost every new robot is introduced with a slow-motion backflip. It’s hard to care after the second one.

The worst comedy of the year has to be Bruno. Except that people will love it. Because people are idiots. There isn’t a single bit of humour to be squeezed out of this film – it’s just one long, unfunny gay joke. Borat was edgy, and challenged peoples preconceptions, ousting America to contain a fair few racists, sexists and generally not nice people. But the difference is it did it with it’s tongue firmly in cheek. It was quite funny, which made the more awkward moments easier to swallow. However much Bruno tries to emulate it, it can’t. Relying too much on heavily-scripted segments to provide humour, any sense of fun it might have had is gone. It’s main joke – Camp Man In Few Clothes – was done a million times better by Chris Pontius a few years ago, in Jackass.

There’s been other terrible films…Last House On The Left, Doghouse, Bolt…but no-one cares about them anyway. I could probably berate Doghouse until I ran out of words, and had to make up new ones.

The only two films I can recall being any good this year, were so unashamedly terrible, they were automatically great. Crank 2, widely panned by critics, was one of the best things I’ve seen. Ever. I challenge anyone to find a more madcap, inventive, original major release this year. It can’t be done. It was a pioneer for stupid films. It made stupid cool, and cool stupid. It made as much sense as raping a bottle of Toilet Duck, and was all the better for it. If you hated it, you’re allergic to fun.

Drag Me To Hell is similar, in that it was so bad…so stupid…it was great again. It rejuvenated the horror genre this year – no other film can match it in terms of jumps, scares, and gross-out moments. It’s pacing was spot on, it had a demonic goat, it was the perfect Sam Raimi film, hindered only by the lack of a Bruce Campbell cameo. But then, the same could be said for any film that Bruce Campbell isn’t in. Alison Lohman played it perfectly, the make-up and effects were b-movie grade gloriousness. Even Justin Long was alright.

So out of all the films I’ve sat through this year…all the popcorn I’ve ate, and Orange 2-for-1′s I’ve used…only two films were actually worth watching.

Oh, and Watchmen was alright too. There’s no point writing more than that about it…the risk of nerd-rage is too great.

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