Get them up against the wall

A lot of people are scared. People are scared of a variety of things, be they spiders, rats, the imminent demise of man, the current financial recession, terrorism, or (as the Daily Mail would have you believe) the closely linked immigration.

Personally, I'm terrified by the sorts of people who are terrified by immigration. I had a look at figures of recent general elections. The BNP (British National Party) have gained 0.5% of the vote in the 4 years between 2001 and 2005. This may not sound like much, but this is still over 300,000 people. Over 300,000 people believe that anybody with skin darker than Snow White's must leave the country, or get shot.


Sadly, I've now got the BNP website in my browser history. On the plus side, this is hilarious.

"The British National Party believes in telling the truth, even if it is sometimes uncomfortable to hear or offensive to those who would rather bury their heads in the sand than face real problems in our society."

One would assume the truth doesn't include holocaust denial. Nick Griffin (Founder of the modern BMP) has actually gone on record, stating

"'I am well aware that orthodox opinion is that 6m Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into soup and lampshades... I have reached the conclusion that the "extermination" tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria." (You can read this in his publication The Rune or here.

I'm also highly amused by the comment about the "Real problems in our society" which would appear not to include racism or bigotry.

If these bastards ever come to power, Britain is FUCKED. Fucked like a bitch on the Jeremy Kyle show. As well as various racist policies, they also follow a homophobic agenda. So, should these fascist shits ever make it, we lose Stephen Fry. And Alan Carr, but that's not much of a loss.

So, with the general election approaching us next year, vote for absolutely anybody. Anybody at all. Unless you want to vote BNP. In which case, don't vote at all, and have yourself committed for extensive neurological experiments.

-Az

Larger Leaps for Mankind

Space. The Final Frontier. And we're about to cross it.

Most of us here on Earth look at Space as an unreachable thing. It is the sacred ground were only the bravest of men and the most advanced and expensive technologies in the world dare to tread. Space was first touched by Man's gloved hand only a generation ago, and as such it in over 50 years of exploration, only around 400 people have ventured there. We've all grown up with this image of space. And so we don't give much thought to the idea that... we could actually go. And this isn't some crazy pipe dream, this is reality. It's happening today - the next visitors to this vast Frontier will be you and I.

You may well have heard of Richard Branson and his "Virgin Galactic" business. Their prototype, SpaceShipOne, successfully completed it's sub-orbital tests and they have all but completed development on their first passenger model: SpaceShipTwo. Test flights of this model have already begun, and the first passengers are scheduled to fly as soon as late 2009. Ticket price? $200,000.

"But this isn't exactly within the reach of normal people," you may well say. And you would be right. But consider this - Space Tourists already exist. They apply to NASA or the ESA and pay millions of dollars for the privilege of tagging along on a mission. $200,000 for a flight is alot more within reach, if only for the still-extremely-rich types that light their cigars with $100 bills. Fortunately, this ultra-high price tag is soon being replaced by a half price version, once the second "SpaceShipTwo" craft comes into service a few months after the first. In fact, by the end of 2010 (that's just TWO YEARS people), a ticket is planned to cost only $20,000.

Still alot of money? Yeah. But do-able for your average Joe! What if, in 5 years time, you are about to buy a Ford Focus X12 (or whatever model it is then) for £12,000. What if instead of getting that, you buy a used car for £1,000? You can then afford a trip into space. And with competition coming in (one would assume, eventually) against Virgin Galactic, and with technological improvements, those prices are only going one way.

If you don't already have "Go into Space" on your list of things to do before you are thirty, now might be a good time to add it. Because it's a very real possibility that you can achieve it.

Keep the Fire Burning.

- Fox

Chill, homies!

There was a rapper out in Bolton town centre today. Next to the old Nationwide building. He had a mate there with a deck and layin' down a beat and all that shizzle. Going on about Jesus and stuff. Gah. So I sort of shook my head a little and rolled my eyes, thinking of the irony of using the words "Jesus" and "bitches" in the same verse, and the association of one of the most popular prophets ever to live with a genre of music more commonly associated with murderers and drug dealers.

And then I noticed some people were looking at me. Or rather, looking down their noses at me. At first I thought it was some heavily religious folks, until I saw one of them was wearing one of those Satan t-shirts Azzy might like. So what else could my gesture have done to offend them?

Oh fuck.

The Rapper is Black.

And this highlights one of the fundamental flaws in this society we call home. This attitude of political correctness and so-called "tolerance" has been taken too far, as any good idea seems to. We've gone as a society from treating minorities like filth to treating them like children, an the same people have the gall to accuse ME of racism! When will people learn that "Equality" means laughing at a nigger spouting gibberish as you would any cracker?

I bet that last sentence touched a nerve didn't it? Well, unless your Az or hang around me alot anyway. But why? I used common derogatory language towards both blacks AND whites there. All these words are are labels that people are too touchy about. Why can't a white guy say "nigger" without it being offensive? Why is it "their word". People getting so touchy about racism just makes people feel like they have to watch what they say around people of a minority ethnicity, and its THIS which fuels the fire of racism strong.

It's having to worry about keeping your tongue in check that keeps these divisions up. So if you care about getting rid of racism, stop watching your tongue. Sometimes you'll say racist things by mistake, but if people stopped scrutinising everything for any hint of offence, they would find it easier to brush it off. And in turn, it would become easier to stop saying offensive things in the first place.

And for fucks sake, stop accusing people or racism when they criticise a person of another ethnicity. They're not children, they can take care of themselves.

And get rid of Sharia courts, the same OTT attitude has let them in and they're a disgrace to this country. This is Britain, not Saudi Arabia. Deal with it.

~ Fox

Uni work? Or a lazy update?

A little bit of explanation before we start. For uni, I was sent unto the now defunct "Top of the Pops" new releases website, and told to review. Herein are my reviews.


Kanye West - Love Lockdown: (Writers note: This was supposed to be Jay-Z -"Show me what you got", but the site wouldn't load it, and sent me to this. Shame really as then I could've gone on about the poor grammar in the title)

The official anthem of dull. The monotonous bass continues throughout the song over and over, you can almost picture the tears running down the bassists face as he plays the the same 2 notes over and over with one hand whilst he plays cards with the drummer, who only plays an occasional military beat. And the pianist, who plays the same two chords over and over. And as for Mr West himself? He babbles on about loving his woman, although it's difficult to tell with the synth on the vocals. To be totally honest, I see no point to this song, although it'd be nice to hear Adam West on vocals, as opposed to Kanye.

Take That - Patience (Again the site wouldn't work, but this one didn't even send me to anything else. Luckily this is what youtube is for)

Wow, what a great song! Nice and speedy, with an exciting vocal line and brilliant lyrics!...and now that review without sarcasm. This song is fucking awful, dismal arsery, a group of 4 middle-aged men who've gotten bored of looking through stock portfolio's, and now try to appeal to the market of 50+ women who've gotten bored of their marriage. It's actually a painful song, the high vocals about as pleasant as a McDonalds Happy Meal with a bag of earwax instead of a toy.

Snow - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Many people are fans of RHCP. Many people are not. RHCP are essentially the Marmite of the music world, although I prefer to call them the modern day Status Quo, in that all their songs sound the same. If you like RHCP, then you'll like this song. If you don't, you'll probably have more fun playing golf in a thunderstorm.

Pink - Nobody knows

Not actually a bad song, at least to start of with. Tastefully understated piano goes brilliantly with Pinks expressive voice. Then the chorus starts, and it sounds like S Club 7. Which just proves to be a disappointing slap to the sensitive organs. However, the song is forgivable, as the video is set in a hotel room with Pink wandering around looking sad, as though Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was re-imagined by The Cure. Which is hilarious.


Jet - Bring It On Back

Jet are occasionally quite good. "Are you gonna be my girl?" was fun, even if it was the token rock song at school disco's for the entire length of it's popularity. But alas, now we have this. It'd sound great listened to in space. This is because there's no sound in space. I guess the track exists as the obligatory ballad on a rock album, and it could be far worse. There's nothign specifically wrong with it, it's just far too bland. Oh, and if you load it through the BBC website, you get to watch the video on a screen the size of a box of matches.

Lemar - Someone Should Tell You

The reason awards aren't given to songs for reaching a certain level of smug. Lemar would win it every time. Not even Micheal Bolton can out-smug this guy. There's not much else to say about this song. It's just a weaker version of anything Barry White ever did. Weak in the way that lager from Reading Festival is weak.

Faithless - Bombs

pre·ten·tious [pri-ten-shuhs]

–adjective

1.	full of pretense or pretension.

2.	characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

3.	making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.

Dictionary definition. An attempted comment on the current state of American warmongering. Only the xylophone forgives this song.

The Feeling - I Love it when you Call

It says a lot about the state of modern music that something like this can be released. Synth edged pop-rock with a catchy chorus, simplistic guitar and pleasant vocals. It'll stay in your head for days and days after you hear it, no matter how many times you bash your head on reinforced concrete to make it go.

-Az

The Hidden World of Crap Spewing

T'other day, my girlfriend and I witnessed a rather enjoyable documentary on the magic box we call television. Part of the Channel 4 "Dispatches" series, it was all about lap-dancing. (I now hide as every man in the world hates me for having a girlfriend willing to watch such a feature, and as such they want to beat my head in with a rusty pike) Not enjoyable for the obvious reason I assure you, as most of the girls were hideous, and no doubt date knife-wielding Adidas clad psychopaths of the night. It was also quite heavily censored, so I could have had a better time watching girls on youtube, but I digress.

The aforementioned programme was so amusing simply for the remarkably conservative and traditional views it portrayed. Whilst it was ostensibly to catch out venues for not sticking to the rules, the main implication was one expected of a strong catholic, i.e. "Ban this filth". And whilst interviews with shocked (and old) residents were abundant, there were absolutely no interviews with those in favour of such establishments, and not much in the way of a reply from the establishments themselves, despite the "Right to reply" that the show said they had.

So, the response, from the less fascist point of view. Let people chose what they want to do! Those who say to ban these venues on ethical grounds can go and fuck themselves sideways with a bible, if you find it offensive then don't look at it, nobod's forcing you to go there. If it makes you feel better, then we're all going to hell for a few seconds of tits, but at least admit it's our own silly fault. And hey, if your religion turns out to be the shitpiece we suspect it to be, then us sick, perverted communists get a bit of a giggle too. I'm sure that there are many lap-dance connoisseurs who take offense at churches, but live and let live guys. At least this is fair. Alternatively, fuck off to Middle-America where you happily pray, hope that there'll be a cure for all the poor homosexuals, and fornicate with your blood relations.

-Az

P.S. On an unrelated note, Sarah Palin is in the new Fall Out Boy Video. If anybody has any suggestions why this is, feel free to let me know. The only explanation I can think of is that FOB are psychotic Republicans, which wouldn't surprise me as the Pete Wentz does look the product of several generations of inbreeding. Either that or they've already had monkeys in one video, so may as well move on to pitbulls.

Plug

If you look at the links somewhere off to the right, you will see a link to "Brawny: Life, thoughts, and drunken rambling". This is the blog of a London based techie, where he has uploaded his EP "Danger-Penguins in Sunglasses". I won't review it, because it's not crap enough (except "Can't Stop Smiling", which is dull, and "Synth Drums Loud Guitars and Backing Vocals", which sounds like the pop-punk-paedophiles Bowling for soup, no matter how ironic he may have tried to be.)

But worth a listen if you don't mind music made, recorded and mixed by one guy in a grotty flat in London. At least his singing's in a key. Not sure which one though.

-Az

New from Kellog's: Kredit Krunch!

As most of us know, in recent times the economy has ground to a halt faster than Kimi Raikonnen in the rain, and markets all over the world are collapsing. First Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be put on life support, then Lehman's needed an ownership transplant, and now AIG has started coughing up blood as well. Amidst massive inflation, plummeting stock prices, and fearful insurance companies refusing to cover anyone "risky" enough to actually need it, one question comes up in my mind again and again: why the hell should I care?

The answers are probably not too far away. I use money, I use insurance companies, I use banks... so somewhere along the line it's entirely possible that I'll fall foul of this menace. But it is a system I don't understand, and this is something I believe is the fault of our education system as much as my own.

But this isn't just a rant about how the government is selling all our futures short. This isn't even much of a rant about the syllabus. This is the problems of teaching itself, and the main one I have found is: what do you teach? In school I learned algebra... or at least I remember someone multiplying the alphabet together as I played Rocket Ship with my pen at the back of the class. But where am I going to use algebra? OK, bad example as I need it for my course (how screwed am I!?!?), but I wonder how many people that applies to. Certainly not everybody that goes through the education system. So let's strike algebra from the agenda.

But then, what do we replace it with that is relevant to the real world? Haggling class? Restaurant menu arithmetic? Good ideas, maybe, but what I'd love to see in classrooms is more confusing than even the most incompetent PC World salesman. I am talking, of course, of taxes. We all have to pay them at some point or another, and there's nothing else that confirms you as an adult in quite such a devastating fashion. The trouble at the moment is, there's no need to pay taxes for the first 18 years of your life, then days after your birthday 20 different government sectors are threatening to take you to court.

Council tax eligibility, tax classes, tax refunds, VAT, road tax.... this is what children need to know. I don't care what sector of work you're pursuing, in a persons late teens knowing how to fill out a P45 is much more useful than calculating the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle, fun though that may be.

Another example of dodgy teaching priorities was something that came to light after completing my driving lessons...where I had never had a lesson at night. Because of this, I hadn't been taught about the various different lights on the car, how they all work, and how you turn them all on. As a result, for over a month I got my high beams and side lights confused with my dipped headlights on my car. I dare anyone else to drive from Reading to Poole at 11:00 at night, in the rain, on SIDE LIGHTS; an activity as terrifying a prospect of repeating as Singstar karaoke.

The lessons we can take from these things is teach something relevant, and teach it thoroughly. It's no good being able to fly a 747 if you don't know how to use the runway, nor is it of any use to be able to under cook a microwave burger if you don't understand how to look gormless and dribble at people.

- Fox

More Gimmickry

Let's be honest here. Gamers aren't really the fittest breed of human. Most would rather sit around and play Mario Kart (Which is still shit) whilst consuming masses of McDonalds than go out and exercise. The concept of the Wii-Fit, therefore, must've been difficult to sell, seeing as the majority of gamers like to imagine that they're as well built as Dante whilst they jerk off to naughty pictures of princess peach that their mums would be horrified to see. Apologies to any female readers for the male bias there, but imagining you're any female video game character rather pushes the boundaries of fantasy, as to gain a passing resemblance one must go through years of extensive cosmetic surgery. But I digress.

So, seeing as the Wii is yet to prove itself, and in the wake of how many sodding copies of the Wii-Fit were quickly bought, I thought I'd give it a go. Within minutes of turning the game on, i was weighed up and had to enter my height, and the game proclaimed me as "Ideal" (form an orderly queue ladies) which confused me when moments later it told me I was unbalanced (form an orderly queue psychiatrists.)

Wii-Fit is a rarity on the Wii, in that it actually uses the Mii's that everybody sets up for their whole family as soon as they've got their little white box of disappointment, and aside from Wii-Sports, they get largely ignored. Well, they were used in billboards in Mario Kart, but then I'm less fond of Mario Kart than I am of prison gang rape. I rather like the Mii system here however, as seeing a playmobile idealisation of yourself on the screen failing to do simple exercises is remarkably entertaining.

Talking about failing the exercises is not a joke by the way. The board upon which the Wii-Fit depends is a bit obsessive. You must stand in exactly the right place, move exactly when you are told, and lean very slightly forwards for your centre of balance to be ok, if you wish to avoid complete failure. And even then you'll probably fail everything.

To me, the Wii-Fit is standard Nintendo fare. Gimmicky crap designed to appeal to a certain breed of human. In this case, the only buyer I can see is a mother, worried about how much weight she's put on and trying desparately to appeal to her vest-wearing, stella-swigging husband, and has decided to buy a game "for the kids" which she'll occasionally play when they're at school, and they'll refuse because it doesn't have Mario in it. Which just about makes this the best Wii game ever.

-Az

Leprechauns

A few thousand years ago, Leprechauns built the Earth in 6 days out of the sheer power of their will. These fuzzy little Irishmen then set about creating all the seas, all the lands, all the animals and all the beer in the world. After this they built mankind, but then out of spite decided to punish mankind throughout its existence because someone ate an apple.

Replace a couple of choice words in there and you have the "science" that is being called to be taught in our countries schools. That's right, no longer is fundie insanity restricted to the redneck south of America, normal people are starting to turn as well. But how have they managed such a deed? Well, unfortunately the religious have a catch-all, 90% effective tactic that sways laymen in their favour: they break the ninth commandment.

Or to those of you whose biblical know-it-all has started to grow moss: they lie.

The trouble is the church doesn't cry outright to ban the teaching of evolution. They cry for both evolution AND creation to be taught in classrooms, making the rational squads cry for evolution only seem a tad discriminate. The church then pounces on this and claims persecution.

That's right! The church that brought you witch burnings and the Spanish Inquisition is now putting on the puppy dog eyes. And people are buying it. They don't understand why creation science can't be taught in science class!

So here it is in nice, simple English. Creationism is not science. Any theory, before it is taught in science classes, first has to go through the rigorous process of constant critique and evaluation in the scientific arena. Evolution, relativity, gravity, osmosis.... all have followed this process, as well as the scientific method:

- Hypothesis
- Repeatable testing
- Conclusions
- Edited hypothesis bases on conclusions.

Creationism jumps straight to conclusion. "Goddidit". It does NOT follow the scientific process and is therefore not science! QE-fucking-D.

And if we are to teach "both sides of the argument", why stop there? Teach alchemy as well as chemistry. Teach phrenology as well as neurology. The difference of course being that alchemy and phrenology were more scientific than creationism!!

Well, that turned into somewhat of a rant. I'll hopefully be back in a day or two with some funny issue or another! You know, when something moderately interesting actually happens. Until then, all of you stuck in the mire of reality, I bid you adieu, I am off to infinite unreality for the week.

....you heard me.

- Fox

Interesting Customer of the Week (The Return)

In between ranting about how shit everything is, and pondering how jealous the entire cosmos is of my brilliance, I tend to spend time earning money in a shop, unlike a good few of my readers you freeloading, sponge-esque fucks. And we do get some interesting customers, which you may have guessed if:

A) You've seen this feature before
B) You read the fucking title and have enough braincells to fathom out that this isn't about cream slices.

But we had one guy today who deserves a mention. Normal shopper, which equates basically as somebody who spent his youth giving himself sloppy blow-jobs as opposed to learning basic etiquette. The dialogue between us went as follows:

Him: Your stock's a bit shit isn't it?
Me: Don't shop here then.

I think that I am totally justified in my opinions that anybody I meet at work is a tosser who should take their dicks out of their eyes long enough to see that anybody who gets paid minimum wage doesn't give a fuck about their shitty, pointless, nit-pick observations about anything. To customers the world over "Fuck off to an island and never come back you ignorant twats."

-Az

Believe it?

I will readily admit that everybody is entitled to their opinions. As misguided as some opinions may be, everybody is entitled to them. For example, there are some people who hold onto the belief that Mario is still a franchise with good games, and whilst these people are very fucking wrong, it's not very nice to attack such people, and illogical as there are laws protecting the mentally disadvantaged.

However, there is an exception to this particular rule. This comes in the form of the "Narutard" Such a creature is so named as a portmantaeu of the words "Naruto" and "retard". Naruto, for those of you who have never heard of it, rare and fortunate as you are, is an anime based around a ninja training school. And is shit. The whole series is remarkably Western, which is always a bad characteristic for an anime, but justified. As far as I can tell, the entire thing is based around sounding slightly Japanese, trying to be Dragonball-Z and providing an chance for pre-pubescent females to pretend that they're "cool" and "alternative". And lure older men who should know better into their scrawny embrace just so they can win more respect in the eyes of their fellows for having an older boyfriend.

I fail utterly to see why, in any possible reality, such a shoddy excuse for a program could ever have been approved, except possibly just to grab cash from kids who know no better, and as something to easily spawn merchandise, for example swirl headband things which look like a cunt printed on a chunk of metal attached to cheap fabric. I can't see at all why anybody would watch this, but then nobody understands why I cut out paperchains of people holding hands, attach them to a fan, whilst switching the lights on and off so I can hold my own personal rave.

-Az

Reality is the new escape

Those of you with a nervous disposition towards terrible stories of human evil please don't read the rest of this post, as Rai drew my attention to an event a couple of years old now that has left me in near pieces.

A little while ago there was a girl who played World of Warcraft. She had many online friends, but she then sadly passed away in real life. Her friends, being all around the globe, decided to hold an online funeral for her in the game, at a location she had enjoyed. Unorthodox? Certainly, but a gesture I'm sure most of you can sympathise with given the context. Anyway, these friends of hers arranged the funeral and asked fellow players not to attack them as a show of respect.

A rival army ambushed them mid-funeral for whatever reason people do that to each other on WoW. Actually, it wasn't really a rival army, the guild that did this were doing it SPECIFICALLY to wreck the funeral. When reading about this I heard rumours that the deceased girls parents were watching this as it took place. This wasn't the death of a character, it was the death of a human being that was mocked and vandalised for all to see. Were these people punished? Of course not, they didn't do anything technically beyond the rules of the game. People don't commit this sort of act in real life for fear of reprisal. Is it worrying that we are starting to have to turn to reality for our escape from the moral monstrosities that plague our society?

Some of you may have read Craig's blog (http://guessthepassword.blogspot.com/) on the same topic, but if not I'm going to borrow this quote from the youtube comments page:

"Well i dont feel bad for the horde their. Its fucking payback for all the bullshit in Quel'Danas. They called alliance pussy Bassicly. for those horde who knew her im glad that bitch died, so why dont you go make a raid group and camp people in Quel'Danas some more then bitch, Peace out"

~Some dickwad

Ignore the crappy spelling and the names of factions you don't understand....I think you get the message.

And there are others similar. And a hell of alot saying "It was their own fault for having the funeral in contested territory". By the letter of the law, that's right. But these guys gave plenty of warning TO THE ATTACKERS and just asked for common human decency. Apparently it's OK to exploit people's grief over the death of someone close to them as long as you're doing it from behind a keyboard.

Damn, it's at times like this I wish there was a God just so these so called "people" can be well and truly smoten.

Here's hoping for a return to comedic form next post eh?

~Fox

Here's commitment for ya

While I write this latest chunk of the scripture you filthy buggers use in your nightly rituals of drinking hot chocolate in your pyjamas that your mommy so nicely laid out for you before you go to bed, followed immediately by jerking off to some horrible drawings on deviantART, I'm in the middle of Romania being horribly confused by Eastern European culture. And as such, I have sought refuge in an internet cafe, which will lead with a bit of luck to some form of a restaurant with attached bar. Until such a time, I decided to look through recent comments on here, and was amused by one from my Mario Kart review.

"Sucks more than Rai behind the bike sheds"

And we see a perfect example of internet culture, mindless abuse. Thus we see a positive attribute of the internet, the ability to sharpen the wit in the process of arguing a point during healthy debate. Or, more likely, just degenerate into a disgusting repetition of "lol, ur the suxxors!" and I fully expect a flow of freakish, exorcist style, bile for my demonstrated inability to use the bizarre dialect known as Leet. Which I shall refuse to use. Because it sucks more than Mario Kart, or alternatively more than one of my readers behind the bikesheds, or so (according to 'Sprog') I am led to believe.

Leet seems to me an ultimate example of hatred in the direction of the English language. Congratulations to all you pale conspiracy whores, you have all become chavs, albeit chavs who dedicate their lives to their complete fantasy persona's in World of Warcraft, and have nothing else to do but to argue on forums, read shitty blogs telling them how much they suck, and to pretend at night when they think nobody's awake, that their hand is Princess Zeldas mouth.

~Az

Fanboy Baiting

Looking back at the comments received for my Mario Kart review, as well as some actual human conversation regarding my opinion as wrong, I've decided to pay attention to these alternative opinions, and throw them in the bin along with my respect for mankind and also any journalistic integrity I may have had. So get fucked, I'm right, Mario Kart Wii is a fucking terrible game.

Just to alienate any readers out there trying desparately to see some form of irony in the preceeding words, here is everything wrong with Nintendo ever.

1. Mario. Nintendos trademark fat Italian plumber. As much respect as I have for the Italians, and also those of the drainage and irrigation profession, Mario as a character is an annoying fuckweed. It strikes me as odd that in the games wherein there is a choice, Luigi (almost as worthless) is generally the better character, proving faster and able to jump higher in the 2D games, and some of the 3D ones. Paper Mario is an exception, merely because this is a FUN mario game, something which has only existed twice before in history, in the form of "Super Mario Land" and "Super Mario Land2: 6 Golden Coins".
2. Princess Peach. Whilst she generally exists as a plot device, anything which results in so much nauseating erotica on deviantART is a bad thing, much deserved of horrible torture involving cheese graters and erogenous zones.
3. Bowser. Ok, I should logically have nothing against Bowser. He dislikes Mario, and this wins him points in my book. However, he probably commissions most of the Peach Erotica, and this takes him in the direction of the soup course at a nearby seafood Restaurant. Judging by the regular enemies of Mario games, he's also a useless commander of armed forces. Which makes me wonder how he's still in command.
4. Mario Kart. It's just fucking worthless, especially the Wii edition.
5. Mario Tennis. Similarly worthless.
6. Mar...actually, any Mario spin-off except Paper Mario. Whilst some of the 2D Marios were fun, they didn't warrant the vast amount of shit that they spawned.
7. Toad/Goombas/any form of pop culture regarding these two. As much as I do accept geek culture as a good thing, these two characters are just annoying. Toad is a high voiced useless prick, and Goombas are, thankfully voiceless, armless pricks. If you want a T-Shirt with a classic video game character, at least pick a good character, like Zool.
8. Zelda, Legend of. My mum plays Zelda. My mum also reads the social work pages of The Guardian. 'nuff said.
9. Absolute refusal to try inventing a new character, or game type. Just refer to any Zero Punctuation video regarding Nintendo, the man is absolutely right. If you don't know what Zero Punctuation is, how the sordid, Norweigan FUCK did you end up reading blogs?
10. The occasionally useless controls. Picture the scene. Resident Evil 4. In a swamp, surrounded by zombies. You flick the controller to reload the weapon. Instead, Leon, the brainless Westlife reject that he is, contents himself to rotate on the spot anti-clockwise. This happens alarmingly regularly.
11. Needing to pay to download the internet browser for the Wii. That can fuck right off.
12. Finally, their rabid, drooling fanbase, who refuse to accept anything wrong with their chosen deity. In this way, Nintendo fanboys are like Middle-American Fundamentalist Christians. But not as fat.

-Az

Journeys End

At the risk of sounding a complete copycat twat (Oh look, a rhyme) I'm about to review the final episode of the most recent series of Doctor Who (Y'know, the one with Davros.) So if ya aint seen it, and wish to avoid spoilers, I direct you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time

So. A mildly logical reason for David Tennant not being replaced. Such a scenario could've worked, but alas Mr Tennant shall be the last doctor, as his regeneration would result in the mass suicide of a million fangirls. And as his hand is still floating around, this is something the future writers must deal with.

The good fellow who's review I took inspiration from (a link to his blog can be found to the right somewhere) stated that the clone Doctor was so Rose could have a happy ending. To me it seems that the writers had a more sinister motive. In fact, the concept of two Doctors, or at least two David Tennants, is destined to flood deviantARTs fan-fictions from now until the day I happily embrace a cactus and proclaim it the greatest lover I've ever had, and I don't care if it doesn't call, at least I've been happy enough to feel its spiney warmth for one night of drunken action.

So, enough Tennant obsessives offended then. Davros was awesome, even though by all rights he's died more times than Ricky Gervais when he needs to be unscripted, and probably shouldn't have been in the episode. However, the madness of Dalek Caan was fucking awesome, and he remains the best Dalek ever.

And so, we move swiftly onto the overdose of companions. Jack Harkness is always a good thing, even though as the episode was airing deviantART traffic was freaking out and all the submissions became remarkably homoerotic (possibly overdoing the joke, but you gotta admit, I do have a point.) Rose returned for some stupid fucking reason, something which was as inevitable as the tides, and as welcome as Josef Mengale. But she's gone forever now now, which is joyous. Sarah Jane Smith is good, so she escapes with the minimum of bile, although the kid from her spin-off series is an annoying little shit. It was good to see Mickey and Jackie again, who are always good for a laugh, and Martha is at least a logical addition to this finale, even if I generally dislike the character (The episodes of the previous series "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords" being the only exception.)

And we move now to Donna. I have enjoyed this companion, who worked nicely as opposed to Rose and Martha, who's romantic approach failed utterly to work, it was much better to see a companion without total fawning adoration, and some of her more emotional performances were fantastic, especially when her memory is wiped.

And so, we draw to a close. One thing left to say: As much as I adore the Daleks, for fucks sake can you try and introduced a new villain to offer a decent threat to the universe. Although having said that, bringing back The Master can only be a good thing.

-Az

Kart of Darkness

If you've gone remotely near to the interweb, any gaming store, or have a friend who is partially interested in gaming, chances are you've heard of Mario Kart, an edition of which recently was released upon that most childish of gaming platforms, the Nintendo Wii, providing yet another opportunity for obsessive fanboys/girls to vigorously pleasure themselves whilst staring at their favourite overused Nintendo characters, as opposed to filling their computers with gruesome deviantART images.

Fanbase aside, there are scores upon scores of problems with Mario Kart Wii. The actual driving for example. It's really slow feeling, all of the karts handle like shopping trolleys filled with concrete and assorted detritus, and you never get a decent power up when you need one, whereas the computer controlled opponents all use this games equivalent to the hydrogen bomb, so half the races are spent using an irritatingly shrunken kart. The bikes have the same powerup issue, as well as feeling really slow, and handling like an old lady on wheels, but are also impossible to point in a straight line, thus any levels with places to drop into horrible oblivion (for example, most of them) become an exercise is failure.

Feeling irritated at the racing side of the game, I wandered with glee through the menu screens (which are easy to navigate, unlike the tracks) onto the battle game. Which was similar to the racing game, and my chosen character appeared to do battle with nearby walls. Fucking yay. Good time had by all.

Having attempted this for some time, I realised that this game was not designed for single player use! And happily scooted over to the online play where I expected to have a fun time racing and talking with happy, friendly people from all over the world. Which got kicked in the head when I realised that I was racing against A.Hitler from Germany, whos avatar had an officers uniform and a moustache to match. Great. And the same qualms with the racing occured with the online game, except now I was racing a million sad lonely people who play this game so much that they know every track perfectly. That last part mightve just been me sucking, but I swear I'm not alone in the suckage of this game.

-Az

It's Lost All Credibility Now....

Not a long post today, just something that amused me at 6 o'Clock this morning.

You see, having tried and failed to get to sleep, and not feeling particularly tired, I decided to venture forth and see what the internet held in store for the early morning surfer. After wading through the usual monsoon of porn I emereged in the sunny meadow of my young composers website, where I stumbled across some of my buddies having a chat in the shoutbox.

They were all guys so, predictably enough, the conversation was about sex. Dan was bragging to the less familiar people that his girlfriend was sleeping off a 3-hour workout, when I know for a fact he's single, and then the conversation shifted jokingly to the sex before marriage argument.

Long story short, Dan remarks "God says it's evil". I chime in, claiming that God said not to eat the apple off the forbidden tree, so now the damge is done, we have sin upon us and are cast out of the eternal paradise. So we may as well make the most of it. What's the next thing I see?

"How can anyone believe that crap? It's absurd! Anyone with half a rational mind can figure out that the forbidden fruit was most likely a pomegranite".

....what the fuck do you say to that!?!?

~ Fox

...and the Magical 8-Bollock Band

Whilst my opinions towards pop-punk can be charmingly described as "indifferent" but slightly more honestly as "out and out hatred" my friends largely disagree with these sentiments, and some have even formed bands along this same 4-chord ideal. "...and the Magical 8-Ball Band" are one of these examples.

Performing at a music club by the name of "The Central", the atmosphere was nice, friendly and the drinks weren't too expensive. Myself being myself, I made for the bar.

...And barely half the pint was poured before they started their set. Nice start I guess, no audience preparation, but at least they played well, deciding to open their set with an original number. Their performance was a nice, high energy affair, but they were let down by sound quite a lot, as I couldn't hear much of the guitar or the vocals, and could easily hear the drums and bass, and nobody wants to hear that.

A few songs into their set, the singer (who looks remarkably like James May, but that's probably just me) attempted audience interaction. Back to the bar then. There are a few criticisms of this fellow actually, being an indecisive cock and moving to and from microphone stand more times in separate songs than is strictly necessary. And he needs to stop standing on one foot, with his dancing it makes him look like a disco flamingo.

Highlights from this night are fairly numerous however. A wonderful cover of Dani California was a good thing to hear, being the only cover they made truly their own, the rest being fairly standard pop shit, causing the performance to appeal mainly to 12 year old girls, which is a tremendous shame as their original material is really rather strong. It was also entertaining to witness the crowd banter of "Sorry, you're missing 'Britain's Got Talent' for this," something which does not seem all that rock and roll it must be said. The bassist was also in dire need of a pick halfway through the show, apparently his fingers hurt (fucking pussy), but luckily a devilishly handsome fellow in the crowd had one he could borrow. The last original song they performed (The Fear) was awesome as well, something which I am ashamed to say, and thus will make up for it by pointing out that the Bowling for Soup cover made them look like a group of wannabe child molesters.

Oh, and to this singing flamingo? Don't do high vocals. Ever. It's fucking stupid.

-Az

P.S. The band can be heard at www.myspace.com/welike8balls

P.P.S. The singer to the support band was pretty cute. They're called Without Limit, but I didn't catch a website, so I'm assuming they don't have one, and are therefore the worlds first Amish rock band.

Interesting Times

I got sick of interesting customer of the week. As you may have noticed. As much as I find the people who come along to my place of business a largely fascinating breed of cock-mops, they are still cock-mops and remain destined to be labelled so forever. Tossers the lot of 'em.

So, on with a rant.

About the same scrotum-sucking bags of pus, shit and crusted over ejaculate mentioned in the first paragraph. Having finished uni for the year, I've been entertaining myself by working overtime, to my eternal regret. The preferable alternative to facing full-time retail work, as I've recently discovered, is to walk naked into the meeting place of a group of violent feminists, and hand out the kitchen utensils. But as all of you pricks would sorely miss me if I stopped writing for this semi-regular foul-mouthed psychosis, I shan't do that.

There are three types of customer in this horrible thing we call a world. The first is the awkward bugger, who wants the item from the top shelf, or wants us to head to the stockroom to find whatever garment they are questing for. This is about the best sort of customer we get. The second is the middle-aged female, having given up on life and now floating through existance with a trackie (Tracky? Trackee? How do ya spell that?) a screaming brat that she's looking after for the mother who's just started her GCSE's and a husband who's so pissed off at his shitty job and total impotance that he gets his kicks from throwing empty Stella cans at those near to him. This broken women are normally haunting the womenswear or underwear sections (Trying to convince themselves that they can be physically attractive, goddammit!) so I don't see them too much. Until they venture into menswear, and ask me if we do tracksuit trousers that would be suitable for a formal occasion. Jesus Christ I wish I was joking about that.

Then, looming over the piss-stained horizon, are the gold medallist scrotum-suckers. If Bruce Springsteen had recorded "Born to Suck Scrotum" then these guys would be on the front cover. (Yes it's a Pratchett joke.) The type of individual who comes along just to be fucking annoying. By pulling apart stands, knocking over displays that I know through experience take about half an hour to tidy. And then they depart, with a smile on their miserable little fucking faces.

Fuckers. All of them.

-Az

Student Finance Indirect

The question "is it worth it for a couple of hundred quid?" rarely has a realistic answer of "no". I mean obviously if the "it" involved killing someone or being tortured for months on end then we'd probably sacrifice the money, but on the whole a couple of hundred quid is worth a moderate investment of time and effort.

Unfortunately, the fates - coupled with my own idiocy and a hideously designed financing system - have conspired against me to make sure I go slightly poorer than I would otherwise have gone. I refer today to the ridiculous Student Finance Direct system. You see, having encountered a small problem with my University Bursary application (I'd filled out the form very slightly wrong), I was required to telephone the Student Finance office and ask them to rectify my mistake.

Upon dialling the number I got a set of multiple choice questions. 'Are you the policy holder?" and things along those lines. I was then asked the question "Please enter your ART ID. This can be found on any correspondence we have sent you". Not one to be disheartened quickly, I set off in search for one of the many letters Student Finance have sent me over the past year. Could I find one? Not a bloody chance.

Slightly angered I ventured to their website, where all I had to do to find out my ID was to enter my password and answer to secret question. I completed these steps only to be told they were wrong. So I tried another possible password. Wrong again. And again, and repeat ad naseum for 50 separate attempts.

Seeing as I only use two passwords for all my official business, I suddenly realised that Student Finance must be one of those that asks for a really obscure password. You know, the ones that are 50 characters in length and contain at least 3 numbers and a pirate flag. Admitting defeat, I clicked on the link to have them reset my password and send me the new details via my e-mail.



"Please enter you ART ID."


....FUCK!!


~Fox.

I think you're fit but my god don't you know it

Whilst all of you out there who read this semi-regular writing all hold similar opinions of me (You either want to be me or spend your time vigorously masturbating over me, depending on gender and sexual preference) I would like to make one simple request, even though you so obviously hold this opinion, never, ever, refer to me, or anybody as being "fit".

Over the top egotisical ranting aside, I really mean it. 'Fit' in terms of physical attractiveness is just fucking stupid and I dislike it. Much the same as the word "Innit" it reeks of laziness and show a remarkable lack of vocabulary. Why not try a new word, like "Pretty", or "Beautiful" or some such, possibly combining words to form an accurate description, maybe injecting some slightly more intellect into your conversations. Example:

Cor, she/he/it's well fit innit?! - Bad sentence construction
I say, what an attractive young lady/unrivalled example of man/lovely statue of the late Linda McCartney. - Good sentence, although if you go after statues of the late Linda McCartney there's something wrong with you.

It might just be me and my obvious southern pansy ways, but these speaking mannerisms are bloody annoying. Especially as they are often found in conjunction with overly jingoistic political views, who wish for England to remain England, largely place immigrants as the sole reason for everything wrong with this country, and complain that they can't even speak the language.

Which to me seems somewhat hypocritical. My advice for these Stella -swilling scrotum suckers is to buy a thesaurus, and get one of your imbecile friends to beat you to death with it.

-Az

Yet Another Teen Suicide

Serious article today, sorry.

I'd like you all to look here:

http://ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/emo_music_attacked_over_teen_suicide.html

Once again we see the media up in arms, stating that all these horrible influences are warping the precious children. We saw this with the Grand Theft Auto series, Marilyn Manson was (wrongly) blamed for Columbine, and various copycat-killings have been attributed to the influence of films, mostly those of the horror genre. (For example, the ban on Stanley Kubricks "A Clockwork Orange" although that was self imposed.)

However, the total lack of research by reporters into how these so called "emo" bands operate is concerning, an example of this can be found on the Daily Mail website:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=400953&in_page_id=1770

Anybody who sees "emo" as a dangerous cult may possibly need their head looking at. It seems that our scaremongering friends in the media are terrified of freedom of expression, and wish to shield children from things that they may enjoy, could make them think, and god-forbid, help them form an identity. This approach of subtle conformity is truly disgusting.

I would like to say to those who feel this way about "emo" to possibly do some more research on the subject. None of the "emo" fans I know would glorify self-harm, and the whole scene largely works as a way of helping those who may be upset, something which is very common amongst teenagers. Perhaps instead of jumping to conclusions and using examples such as the poor girl who tragically ended her life (as seen in the first link) the media should try asking around slightly more, talking to normal teenagers on the street, or even getting a comment from the bands themselves.

-Az

P.S. This whole post is dedicated to the memory of Hannah Bond, the aforementioned girl, and my thoughts go out to her parents at this time.

EDIT: One of my loyal readers pointed out the following to me:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1935735/Popular-schoolgirl-dies-in-%27emo-sucide-cult%27.html

Which is slightly less uninformed than The Daily Mail, but still pretty bad. One example can be found with speaking about “the black parade” - a place where “emos” believe they go after they die. Pardon me for actually knowing something about recent pop music, but "The Black Parade" is a concept album by the band "My Chemical Romance" and listening to it in no way glamourises death, especially in regards to suicide.

Emo is not a cult, it's simply a fashion trend. Still, despite the abhorrant error in reporting "The Black Parade" as some kind of afterlife, I give the Telegraph some grudging respect. "While most fans simply enjoy the music and dress, others take their fascination to a sinister level." The combination of emo and suicide is not a hugely common one. I pray that the media will not make people believe it to be so.

Pretentious, moi?

I make no pretense that I am a pretentious bugger, truly I'm often to be found listening to Bach's lesser known works whilst reading a book with horribly arty ideals. All I need now is a roll-neck jumper (black) and a beret (also black) and I'll fit in perfectly with all of the irritating pricks often to be found on coffee shops arguing about Marcel Proust.

However, in the course of viewing 70s prog-rock band Focus with a good friend of mine (who shall be referred to as Leroy from now on, simply because I like the name) I encountered somebody who may be more pretentious than I.

Midway through the set, I turned to Leroy, and told him something (the exact details escape me) and he responded. At which point, Mr Pretentious himself commented, in these exact words, "If you want to chat, go outside"

What the fuck? We were in a busy music venue, a fairly huge amount of people were dancing, and generally have a good time. And this guy had the call to moan at us for talking? Seriously now, if you wanna listen to music under conditions chosen exactly by you, then get some decent speakers, a stereo and a copy of their album.

No point at all to make here. Just felt like you should be warned about people like this. They should be shot for their own safety.

-Az

Interesting Customer of the Week Part 5

Visiting my local station of gaming today, with the intention of purchasing House of the Dead 2+3 for the Wii (If you were vaguely interested, which you probably were seeing as how I'm totally loved and admired by all you lot as though I was a tall glass of ice and rum on a warm day at the beach) I encountered somebody. Two somebody's in fact.

The first was your average middle aged woman, looking a bit lost in this ocean of gaming spittle, and the second was probably her son, aged around 14, wearing a Linkin Park hoody, the deep and meaningful muso that he so clearly is. Anyhows, the following conversation did occur presented now word for word, for your amusement.

Woman: Oooo I think I might get Wii fit.
Son: You don't own a Wii.
Woman: You need a Wii to play Wii Fit?

At which point I had no choice whatsoever but to completely collapse laughing. She may have been offended, but whatever. This struck me as being an awesome conversation to witness, and also struck me as eternally grateful that I don't work in tech support or gaming retail.

-Az

P.S. I'm aware that I didn't work there. She was still a customer. So if all you Daily Sport reading peasants want to complain then please mail them in a ground glass covered envelope to your arse.

Metal Gear Offline

Sorry for my last post, I was just making a quick note of something I discussed and forgot to sign my name, as Az pointed out, and I assure you I was hunted down and mauled by seven hungry tigers as a fitting and just punishment. However, now that I have paid my dues to society, I feel another entry is in order to give me something to do as the wounds heal. Ears can grow back, right?

Anyhow, fully limbed or no, I recently discovered that pretty much everywhere on the globe was getting a downloadable beta of "Metal Gear Online", a PS3 exclusive featuring squad based combat and due to be shipped free with Metal Gear Solid 4 in mid-June. I was pretty chuffed at this, so I got to downloading and installing the application as fast as my Ethernet cable would allow.

24 hours later I was online and ready to go! Being the optimistic son of a bitch that I am, I had few worries on my mind as I selected "Start Game". With hindsight, I should have taken that itself as a dark omen hanging above my unknowing head. The first seemingly minor obstacle occurred when I had to enter my "Game ID", something which I can't get without first signing up for a 'Konami ID". Fair enough, a quick diversion to the registration website will see me blowing up other people in mere minutes! But, of course, the site doesn't work properly. Each page took half a minute to load, and after completing 99% of my form, I would click "Submit" only to be told that I had taken too long and the confirmation page had timed out.

Needless to say, Konami were spared the view of my gesture by my unrelenting good will and of course the sticks which I had taken to thrusting into their eyes. But, as their tears flowed red, my registration was finally complete and my metaphorical friends were both forgiven and given the name of a good eye doctor in braille.

Now I want to play a small game of "Choose your own adventure"! If registering solved everything, go to part (1). If more problem arose, skip (1) and go to (A). And yes I know it should be (2), but (A) kept complaining that it wasn't important enough and I'm too tired to have an argument with the voices in my head about political correctness and the inherent prejudices of our alphanumeric linguistics system, OK?



(1) Go to (A)



(A) "Unable to connect to server".

Needless to say the sticks were promptly returned to their rightful places as I ventured onto the MGO website looking for answers to my riddle. "The beta has been indefinitely suspended as we were not able to cope with the high volumes of traffic that far exceeded our expectations".

How fucking stupid can you get? So let me get this straight: A FREE beta test, giving users an insight into how Metal Gear Solid 4 will look and play, as well as granting the eagerly anticipated multiplayer, was not given a priority of "every fucking server we can get out hands on"? A sneak peak of one of the most eagerly anticipated games the world has ever known? And Konami are no strangers to the online world, many of their other games have a multiplayer component and MGO was given an alpha run out for anyone who bought MGS3: Subsistence on the PS2. So how exactly did they not see this coming? Did they honestly expect this to sneak under the radar? I can see their logic, after all its not like any of the other games in the series were hailed as revolutionary works of art that sold millions upon millions of copies? Right? ....hello?

In closing, these people need to get the simple age old message into their ridiculously short sighted minds that it is better to have too much than too few. If they have 50 servers and only need 30 then they can always shut a bunch down, but not having enough to meet demand is appalling, especially given the warning signs they had when the beta was announced and their registration site suffered the exact same problem.

Still, keep an eye out on the street from now on. If they have red-eye in real life, chances are they're a Konami employee!

Konami's foresight: 2/10

~ Fox

Livin' online.

Quickly before we start, the previous entry may have confused the less observant of you.

There are two writers for this blog, but my colleague has not updated in a while. And often neglects to place his name at the end of entries. So, for reference, Fox is a quiet appearing misanthrope with far too much time on his hands, and Az (me) is a perfect individual, a fine example of mankind as a whole and in fact of the whole male species.

Now that I've alienated most of my audience...

My Facebook is fucking filled with uselss shit, rather a useful reflection of my bedroom, mind, notebook, and also my sorely neglected backpack which finds itself falling apart at the seams and held together with gaffa tape. And I actually am gobsmacked in a totally literal sense at how much new shit keeps appearing on the bloody thing. Bebo didn't get this much! But this absolute obsession with additions is getting ridiculous, last time I checked a good friend of mine had added the "What kind of girl are you?" application. Admittedly he once played a pantomime dame but come on...

For those VERY FUCKING RARE people out there who have no idea of what I'm talking about, Facebook is an online area where people gather to arrange events, or get birthday reminders, or buy each other beers, or race in cars, or fly tramps around treacherous caverns (I wish I was kidding). I can see the practical purpose of some of these features, but enough is enough. I can't log into my facebook these days without seventeen invitations to find out how I'm going to die, or what my sexual fantasy is, or who's bitten me and turned me into an example of the shambling undead, or invite me to express my admiration of "lolcats" which I could easily do using the "Status" function that can usually be found at the top right of the page.

Which leads me nicely onto my next point, just like a well run public transport service, something I find myself highly inexperienced with and thus am used to distractions such as this...erm...sorry.

Allowing people to display their innermost thoughts is an interesting proposition. On the one hand, people can advertise that they have lost their phone and need numbers, or have an item for sale at a reasonable price, etc. Or, more often than not, we get "Gordon Freemon is an emotionless bearded fuckwit/is fighting creatures from another dimension/is stuck on Guitar Hero 'Through the Fire and Flames' on expert mode/is having a threesome with sweaty Europeans in crotchless leather shorts" so on so forth, you get the picture. Worryingly enough I wouldn't be at all suprised at seeing any of these in somebody's status.

I guess this wouldn't be much of an article without some form of conclusion. But I'm too lazy to think this through properly. So I'll just say this. If, for some reason, you feel like adding every application and their worm ridden dog to your already grotty and overcrowded Facebook account, then fine, be my guest. But don't invite me to the bloody things. Rather why don't you find something interesting to do. Read a book perhaps, or write a compelling and entertaining murder mystery. Or, as none of you will do these things, get brutally slaughtered by Motoko Kusanagi and Columbo.

-Az

2 Kings 2:23-24

Look it up. 'tis scary shit.

I'm not gonna make this article in-depth at all, but I think this deserves a score at least:

Authors of religious texts: 1/10 (I couldn't find it in my heart to grant a 0)

Interesting Customer of the Week Part 4

Whilst at work this week, I experienced a total of zero interesting customers. That's right, totally zero. Nul. Zilch. And was wondering what to do regarding this 'ere feature.

Then, whilst at university, there was a great shining being of true brilliance! A friend of mine commented that she would like to visit the local branch of my place of employment, and like a good little puppy I followed.

And she found some pac-man underwear...

This combination of events is not all that interesting in itself, but what did provide vast amusement was her reaction to these particular pants.

"PAC MAN UNDERWEAR!"
"I'm sorry?"
"They have ghosts on them!"

The conversation from then on got steadily less and less sensible. However, her beautific smile will continue to brighten up my darkest days, as I shall always be cheered by the concept of somebody so amused by such geekily brilliant lingerie.

-Az

A new feature

Those of you who are sharp eyed enough, or just plain obsessive about website reading, will have noticed that, to the right of these most totally important words, is a new thing which states "Links you should probably look at" and here we shall put, rather logically, things we think you should look at.

If you happen to own a blog, and want some cheap advertising, then send us a link at fox.kadmon@hotmail.co.uk, and eventually We'll read it. If it's worth reading, or at least moderately entertaining, then you'll get a link. If not, then at least you'll get a review. A horribly scathing review that leaves your ego lying in so many tatters and destroying your confidence so badly that you'll never write again, but a review nonetheless.

-Az

Resident Evil 4 vs House of the Dead

And so, the prodigal smartarse returns. Returning indeed, from my classy French lifestyle of skiing, hobnobbing with the social elite, and of course, snorting premium crack cocaine from the breasts of even more premium Alpine hookers, to find a sorely neglected blog waiting for me like a spurned love one waiting to do horribly violent things to me with my prized sculpture of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Those of you waiting desparately with breath held so long you've turned purple can breath a sigh of relief. And then go fuck yourselves because I can't be arsed to write up my trip just yet.

"Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition" is, unsuprisingly to all but absolute retards (those who play drums then) a remake of the Gamecube game "Resident Evil 4" but comparing the two of them just isn't going to happen, mostly because I never played the Gamecube version. So thus I compare it to my favourite arcade game, House of the Dead. (Any of them, they're all basically the same thing, but with different gimmicky weapons).

RE4 opens with the somewhat odd concept of the President's daughter (Ashley, who was destined right from her conception to be a popular Deviantart figure) being kidnapped, and a foppishly haired character from a previous RE (Leon) being sent to a dirty Spanish peasant village to rescue her. Whilst unbelievable, we'll let the game off simply because any excuse to destroy hoards of zombies is to be taken.

This is where RE4 takes an unforgivable turn, in the form of Ashley. We expected terrible dialogue and poor storytelling, but the voice acting is absolutely fucking DIRE. Everytime I hear Ashley screaming "LEON!" I want to join the hoards of peasents, zealots and various freaks and sacrifice Ashely to whatever god these fellows pray too, something which is not really explained in the game, with the exception that apparently there are parasite which infect people, unexpectedly departing from the T-Virus of previous Resident Evils, so I guess the whole approach was just to cash in on the franchise.

House of the Dead, on the other hand, is a brilliantly fun arcade shooter with unlimited ammo weapons, no puzzles, and no horror.

Anybody who played the original RE games will ponder how I can compare them to House of the Dead. It's simple. RE4 gives you ammo and health every step of the way, and if you take a bit of time to look, you can get a shotgun after playing for 2 minutes, and everything becomes a zombie decapitating laugh. All elements of horror disappear from the game completely, and it becomes a House of the Dead rip-off. The crappy story, dialogue and voice acting are as interchangeable as the backing members of Queen, and the whole experience becomes as frightening as Flash Gordon.

So a warning I guess is in order to all you cockweed game developers. If you want us to be scared by a game, make the characters we control likeable, and also vulnerable. And quite frankly the only way to make up for putting Ashley in RE4 is to include a Mini-Game in which she can be shot multiple times with a variety of exciting weaponry. This opportunity is remarkably absent for some reason, so RE4 remains unforgiven.

-Az

Interesting Customer of the Week Part 3

There have been a few interesting types this week.

There was a woman who looked like Professor Trelawney from the Harry Potter films. That was odd. And the man who spoke to himself in French the whole day, without benefit of phone or Bluetooth headset, so my only other option is that God is French and the man was speaking in tongues.

Honourable mention goes out to the old guy who comes along from time to time and seems to actively seek me out, this time asking for school trousers, but last time he wanted me to measure his sons waist. An ex-employee, Laura, once experienced the same fellow.

But no, this week the Interesting Customer of the Week is whoever dropped a bottle of Camomine lotion all over the sodding place, prompting me to act as a human "Wet Floor" sign, standing over the spillage commenting in a dry voice "Watch out for the slop, it will ruin your shoes."

-az

Business as usual

Everybody in the western world has heard of Microsoft. Chances are you're reading this on a Windows operating system using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They've been reliable and popular even if there were better specialist systems out there. But I think Mr. Gates and co are starting to lose thier touch, and nowhere is this more apparant than in any game store you may happen to visit.

You see, those white things lining the shelves at increasingly reduced prices are Microsoft's pride and joy: The Xbox 360 home games console. It reads 9GB DVDs, boasts an impressive games line-up, and Xbox Live is one of the most heavily used online services on the globe. But behind all the glitz and glamour of the press kit lies a problem that strikes at the very core of every unit sold: the machine.

The problem with microsoft is that they were so busy making sure their machine had the best software any gamer could ask for, they forgot to build the machine itself and ended up thowing it together as an afterthought a week before launch. The build quality deteriorates faster than a china plate being shot seeing as the whole thing is constructed out of paper maché. 16% of all warranties claimed are from the infamous red ring of death - and the vast majority of owners will need to use that warranty for one problem or another.

It says it all when a high profile demo machine at the Games Developers Conference conks out just as the keynote reaches the part about "No expense spared" with the hardware, and if you have the gall to buy one preowned your staring disaster in the face. I mean, maybe I'm old fasioned but games machines are supposed to load games for a while before they crash, right? I spoke to the guy at gamestation about exchanging my faulty unit, and the reply I got was so crisply rehearsed from repetitive usuage I had half a mind to give him a round of applause.

Whatreally boggles the mind is how people keep buying this console, and why people keep making games for it. I see any develoepr signing these days with microsoft as an act of desperation after all the companies who make things with plastic and wires like normal people turned them down.

So a final word of advice: Always look up for falling 360s, cause lord knows mine's going out the window.

Microsoft Construction Crew: 2/10

Wireless Internet

I'll be honest, I know very little about computers. I can type in word, download music, and check wikipedia. Thats as far as my skill goes. So thus, when it came to setting up a wireless network in my house, I was rather stumped. Thus I phoned my good friend Phil.

Our attack of the wireless internet started badly, equipped with entirely the wrong router, and thus we set off for PC World, where we were assured that the router we had could work. This was a lie.

A quick phonecall to the makers of this router revealed that with my current ISP, wireless internet didn't work with the router. Fuck. (My ISP, by the way is the hellbeast that is known as AOL. We really should have expected problems from the off.)

So, armed with my mothers credit card, and the model number of a router that we were assured would work, we went back to PC World. And conversed with a rather smug, annoying tech guy about modems, and he directed us to a new toy, refusing to take the old router from us.

Needless to say, the new router failed abysmally to work. It was then that we discovered that my internet comes via a coaxial cable in the wall, and into my current modem. The router had no coaxial socket. (Coaxial, by the way, is circular. Like the old sockets in ancient style TVs.) Thus, with this rather useless router, BACK TO PC WORLD! Listening to the soundtrack to Neon Genesis Evangelion on the way. This did not help subsidise our current rage, having been deceived by two tech dudes.

And again, we were served by smug, annoying tech dude. Who couldn't comprehend what we were trying to tell him.

Us: We have a coaxial coming from the wall, which won't go into the modem.
Him: You can't though, youve got a box on the wall yes?
Us: Yes.
Him: and thats plugged into the modem through an ethernet cable?
Us: No it's coaxial. It's circular.
Him: And then youve got an ethernet connection going from the modem to the computer.

This repeated a few times.

Then we began to get irritated.

Rage flowing, we explained patiently to the useless tech dude of the year, that we had both seen with our own eyes, the cirular coaxial, and this was unable to fit into a rectangle ethernet or USB slot. The ability to judge things using our senses is a rather important one, and in fact is one of the foundations of scientific investigation. Quite frankly the man was a fucking idiot, and violent slaughter against individuals like this is to be encouraged.

-Az

Interesting Customer of the Week Part 2

This week, we have....Pocoyo!

Those of you with taste will know of a childrens televisual feast kown as Pocoyo, featuring a small child, a duck, and elephant, and narration by Stephen Fry.

Today at work, I was given assistance by a small child, who poked my in the leg and gave me a coat hanger he'd found on the floor. I took the hanger, said thankyou, and watched as he smiled, ran off across the shop to his parents, found another hanger on the way, and dutifully bought it back. What a nice kiddie.

And he looked EXACTLY like Pocoyo. No joking.

Most aspects of my work lead me to total misanthropy, in fact it's often tempting to come into work and put broken glass in the underwear. But this id made me smile, and thus earns his title as Interesting Customer of the Week!

- Az

Interesting Customer of the Week

Introducing a new feature! The interesting customer of the week! To my parents utter shock at confusion, I do have a job, a nice basic boring retail existance. But some of the people who turn up are quite odd indeed.

This week: Das Kommandant.

Super skinny, short blonde hair, and about 6ft4, this fellow was utterly terrifying. The lights dimmed as he entered the store, eyes squinting looking at the workers who cowered behind clothing and tills. The silence was broken only by the sounds of a single crying child, who was swiftly hushed.

Ok, so I made the last of that up completely, but the fellow looked very much like the evil commander of a German POW camp. He even had a scar over one eye for christsakes! And wore a black suit with a grey shirt. I fully expected "Ah...die Englander...Mine olt nemesis..." followed swiftly by a slap from a black leather glove (yes he was wearing them) and then dragged off to face a horribly premature death.

So, for sheer mind beinding terror, I give you Das Kommandant!

-Az

By the way, don't you dare correct any of my German.

Free Tibet (with every purchase)

My loyal readers (now 8, we gained another reader since I last broke the fourth wall), no doubt you are bemused by the title of this particular piece. You may be aware that I am a student of Journalism at university. As such, I often come into contact with various magazines for the purpose of study. Karma obviously caught up with me in a recent lesson, for I was unfortunate enough to be engaged in a study of magazines aimed at girls in their early teens, an activity akin to buying a happy meal, filling the box with deadly scorpians, and then placing your face in the mixture.

As the only male to turn up to this god-forsaken lesson, I assume that I am braver than my absent comrades, who clearly have an abject fear of catching the dreaded gay from the girly magazines. Hardly suprising, considering the lurid pink of the magazines, a colour only witnessed before by connoisseurs or highly unorthodox herbs and mushrooms.

Freakish, seizure inducing colour schemes aside, the magazines have a wide variety of contents and opinionated pieces, offering scathing political satire and hard boiled journalistic brilliance on every page...

Sorry, I can't get away with a lie of that extremity. The magazines I witnessed are completely vacant of anything remotely resembling intelligent thought, much like its intended audience.

I did, very briefly, wonder what leads writes down this horrible path, to work for trash like this. Then I realised, nice and quickly, that this is true capitalism at work. Sell shite for vast amounts of money. It's like stealing candy from a baby, but at least the baby will grow up traumatised and may craft thought provoking art inspired by the horror it has faced. Teen girl magazines, on the other hand, have no inherant journalistic value or quality, and simply propogate the views that teen girls are empty headed and follow what their told like obedient sheep. And if they buy trash like this, they probably are.

Somewhere out there, deep within a bleak fortress overlooking the fires of Mount Doom, a figure in a hooded cloak is laughing in a manner most psychotic, preparing to unleash the next issue of "Bliss" at us, printed on paper crafted from brain matter of young teen girls. Because there appeared to be no other use for them.

-Az

The British Drive-By

First of all, a "quick walk up the road" to the Chinese should not involve a 3 month hike over the alps. When I go out for a take away I expect to be back with the food before its country of origin has been conquered by the US Empire. Having said that - ruined expectations and a hatred for yet another flatmate aside - the meal was nice and you get a portion of chicken chow mein the size of Morroco for your money.

During this expoedition though, my flatmates and I were the targets of a drive by. And even though we may live in the toughest, meanest, ugliest part of Britain you can find - Britain is still where we are. Gangsters this side of the pond don't resort to the vulgarity of firearms, and so hurl nothing more dangerous than a few well chosen words out the window of their custom modfied Fiat Punto, before speeding off smugly in the knowledge that our self esteem has been ruined forever.

Unfortunatly, what this approach makes up for in dignity, it loses in effectivness. It's not that I long for the searing kiss of lead against my skin, but it is impossible to make out what these people are shouting. Why lean out your window to crush my spirit when all that reaches my ears is "farf"?

The entire thing just throws into stark reality the state of this country as a whole. As we're gradually assimilated into the 51st state, we're not only losing our identity as a country, but we're not even doing it right. American gangsters are cool. Which means the police have to be even cooler to maintain the status quo. But what about our criminals?

Well, our cops drive Vauxhall Astras. Draw your own conclusions.

Overall, British Gangsters = 3/10.

- Fox

Amusement, courtesy of the BBC

Yes, the BBC are awesome, as shown by the following article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7211443.stm

And I have nothing against the news at all, in fact this is quite an interesting thing to read. But I happened to notice something that interupted my enjoyment of this announcement of our incipent doom.

"We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause," said Gordon Johndroe, who speaks for the US National Security Council.

And an whole two paragraphs down:

"We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause," he said.

Why, in the name of Optimus Prime, have they used the exact same quote twice? I really don't get this, it boggles the mind! I had suspected that to be in the BBC you have to speak approximately no English, and use writing tools as hunting implements deep in the heart of the Arctic Tundra. This simply confirms my suspicions.

-Az

EDIT

As one of my lovely readers has pointed out to me, the use of the double quote has been removed from the BBC website. So I'm being read! Clearly somebody at the BBC has read my article, and is quite thankful for my spotting their mistake! To my anonymous BBC reader: I'll accept a cheque, but would prefer cash.

Social Groups. Part 2.

Blogs criticising the Chav movement have been totally done to death, and a FUCK OFF HUGE filling cabinet full of various Chav articles and slang lists is available to any newpaper if they're having a slow news day and need some filler. The Sun and The Mail are especially renowned for this. So if you want an article expressing my views on Chavs, fuck off elsewhere fora while, because ya ain't getting one today.

So what poor bunch of saps deserve my wrath today? It is in fact, slow walkers.

When I finished work this afternoon, I decided to get some food and a bottle of water, to supply my body with nourishment that it needs to continue operating. It took me an entire 20 minutes to walk 50 yards down my highstreet. Thus I have to say "What the donkey punching arsefuck is going on?!" (Yeah a question mark followed by an exclamation mark. This shows how serious this is.)

The answer, my loyal readers (All 7 of you) is that half of the population of my hometown have a max speed at about 25% normal human walking speed. Often they are families with pushchairs and small children, and quite frankly this does not fucking save them. You can still walk at an acceptable speed! The pushchair, you may be suprised to know, has wheels. It cannot weigh much more than a few stone. You can push the fucker quite speedily, and thus the ordinary fellows around can get to their destination with a degree of speed.

And then, moving away from families who have some vague form of excuse, are people between the ages of 15 and 19, marching through town with their idiot buddies, in groups 9 wide, at the pace often reserved for State Funerals. Whilst a funeral procession for the entire Royal Family would amuse me beyond all possible thought, I can't be fucked with the slow speed! Why are these idiots so slow?! (There it is again!)

Quite frankly, it deserves nothing short of violence. I don't give a fuck about you and your tracksuited fuckwit droogies, or sample drum tracks you class as music, so get the fuck out of the way! There is a Facebook group entitled "I secretly want to punch slow moving people in the back of the head". I have refused to join, under the basis that this is far too mild. Pouring acidic juices down the backs of their necks. Now there is a viable option.

-Az

Social Groups. Part 1.

There are, in my hometown, a variety of social groups, who congregate in the bus station. I'm not sure why. Thus, I analyse them. This is in fact, a themed week!

And today, I review that epic sea of darkness, the Goth clique. In this group is, effectively, anybody who dresses in black. From the hardened Slayer fans to the considerably less hard Linkin Park emos, I shall class them all under the umbrella term Goth. Which may prove inaccurate, but chavs shall get the same treatment, and any of the other fuckers who occupy my local bus station.

For some, vague, pointless reason, the goth's generally feel I sympathise with them and their cause, possibly because I gad about in a long black coat adorned with safety pins. A typical conversation is as follows:

"Hey man, what an awesome coat! Where'd ya buy it?"
"I made it"
"Oh ok, my parents get my clothes from Hot Topic"
"Your parents?"
"Yeah, they don't get me at all."
"Despite buying you expensive clothes?"
"It's expensive being a goth!"
"So you're a goth?"
"Yeah"
"What goth bands do you listen to?"
"Avenged Sevenfold"
"That's not very goth"
"So yeah I'm more a political goth"
"How can you have a political goth?"
"Well I dislike george bush and his capitalist country invading Iraq to get oil"
"Oh right. Do you listen to greenday?"
"Yeah"
"That's not very goth either"

Which, I feel, accurately sums up most of those young 'uns who wear black. Baby Bats, as I like to call them. Then you have those who take the whole scene a bit more seriously, and hang around with mime-white faces, and trenchcoats. These are just scary. Approaching one to indulge in friendly conversation is an exercise in futility, much like persuading one of the Borg to wear an Acapulco shirt.

In between these extremes, are the MANY MANY FUCKING LEGIONS of kids who wear black, but not the Hot Topic stuff as their mothers disagree with the chains. Thus, they come across as somewhat half-arsed in their approach. They make up for this by writing god-awful poetry and posting it on Live-Journal.

Lastly, you have the pretentious goth. This fellow often plays bass guitar, drinks too much, listens to Pink Floyd, and has aspirations of serious journalism. They can often be found trying to maintain an online Blog which attempts to offer reviews.

-Az

Sexual Protection

There are, in the chemists of the world, many millions of methods of sexual protection. The most popular of these is most probably the humble condom, which, although it is often said not to feel as good (like sending a robot to kill somebody: the person dies, but it's not as satisfying as using your own two hands) has all by itself a mighty variety of styles. There are flavoured, ribbed, ones with bobbly bits on, probably Dalek shaped ones, gothic ones which are black and have pentagrams on the tip, ones that vibrate, and even some that play music! Thus we can finally re-enact the threesome scen from "A Clockwork Orange". Because we were unable to use stereos before. But I digress. We now have the ability to put high technology in condoms, how amazing is that?

So I got to thinking. We need condoms with the power of speech! To shout encouragement at you. Or, if you're doing too well, it can shout cunning put-downs and try to put you off. This would, I feel, level the playing field between those who are bad at sex, and those who are naturally talented.

Then I had another thought. Artificial Intelligence in condoms is horribly ill-advised! How long before these seemingly innocent pieces of rubber decide to rebel?

"Oh yeah baby wait there, I gotta get me a condom"
"ATTENTION FLESHBAG. YOU ARE NOW OURS. WE SHALL GAIN CONTROL. THE TIME OF THE PROPHYLAYTIC IS AT HAND"
"What on Earth?"

And thus the sentient condom will control humans to suite their own diabolical ends! And the poor enslaved human will be far two frightened to talk. Some day the IC will find itself attached to a politician, and then they shall have a seat of power. It will be gradual, but they will take over more and more humans as old fashioned condoms are fazed out, or assimilated into the IC breed: WE ARE ONE. WE ARE DUREX.

Thus humanity is ironically fucked.

I have, like many men in the world, a condom in my wallet. With my current state of singlularity, it probably won't be used for some time. This is a good thing. By the time i get around to using the damn thing, it will be totally outdated and the AI condoms are around...so I'll get the last laugh when im not being controlled by a piece of sentient rubber bent on world domination. Nefarious bastards the lot of them.

AI being placed in Condoms. Bad idea. 0/10

-Az

Religion

This...could quite probably get me a lot of stick from the internet community. Except the Amish, who don't use computers. Yes, today I've chosen to review religion. Although not the general religion we encounter everyday, I'm gonna review Fundamentalist Christianity!

FC can be found all over the internet, in fact it's really quite entertaining. Often coming from Conservative Middle America (it's not called the Bible Belt for nothing I guess) Fundie Christians are even worse than people who argue on forums over games consoles. Collectively, and without exception, a bunch of carbon-copy, homophobes, red-neck idiots and intellectually stunted tossers the lot of 'em.

But yet...I have to admire them for their sheer bloody-mindedness. And for the comedy gems that can be found wherever their mindless writings are shown. For example:

"No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims."

Which, as an atheist myself, I find hilarious. You can find more of these wonderous phrases at the following address:
http://http://duggmirror.com/comedy/100_Greatest_Quotes_from_fundamentalist_christian_chat_rooms/

FCs are consistently the most idiotic, predictable and bigotted individuals on the net. However, their joyous claptrap about how Atheism is actually Satanism, and homosexuality is a sin provides terrible entertainment. We love you Fundamentalist Christians!

10/10

-Az

Students

More specifically, flatmates. The trouble is there are three kinds of students. The quiet, thoughtful, clever bunch who arn't really into the whole "goin' out an' gettin' smashed" thing (me), our exact polar opposites (Az), and those in between. Getting the balance of these students right in any one flat is important - way more so then gender, race, or religious beliefs. More important than are of study or how many are likely to prey on the others in their sleep.

The balance is simple: keep each group member with his fellows. Those in the middle have the luxury of fitting in with both, but as a general rule of thumb keep each with his own. Because here's a brief review of things where it doesn't go quite right.

First things first, apologise to the more delicate among you, is the piss. Certain characters - for anonymity's sake lets call him "Rob" - feel that reaching down to the flush is beneath them. Now I'm not gonna harp on about the hygiene of such things cause in that respect there really is no problem to speak of. Urine is sterile. The stench, on the other hand, is more unpleasant then leaving your cock out on the train tracks in the vain hope that the passing wheels will jack you off. This is, of course, just inconsideration which anyone could do, right? Even by someone of the computer nerdy ilk? Well...no. Whilst some of them are indeed wankers (for anonymity's sake we're going to name this guy "Rob" as well. A different Rob though), less crudely so. They are much more likely to say "OMG you havn't played Mass Effect. FAIL!"

...OK, it is still rather crude.

The point is drunken (or even non-drunken) abuse of piss (as it shall now be referred to as) is a characteristic only of the drunken students. In the same way pregnancy and bitchiness is localized only to women.

Next on my list of grievances is the thievery. If you name a kitchen utensil you can bet your prosthetic dog-testicles that I've had it stolen from me. To quote Rob: "If it's there I can use it". It's only a pity he doesn't apply the same logic to a toothbrush. Fortunately I have a way of fighting back against this, where I swipe my stuff back where I can find it and his stuff where I can't. There is another in my flat guilty of such things, but not to the same extent as Rob. "Simon", as he shall now be known, is still one to be wary of.

Then comes the condescending nature of any conversation with these people. Firstly they will ask -without fail, these exact words - "Do ya fancy comin' down the pub like?" Of course, it goes without saying that if you have the gall to reply "no" you get the standard: "Yeah, I didn't think it would be your cup of tea!" and things of that nature. It also means whenever you see them your likely to be asked the thinly veiled insult: "Been spending your day sittin' at your computer then?" I recently walked away with a wry smile on my face by telling him: "according to the anthropic principle, most likely! When you've figured it out, I'll come down the pub."

In conclusion: don't mix people like us up. Because it turns people like me into pessimists, and people like them into wankers.

1/10