Saturday 26 January 2008

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

Tuesday 22 January 2008

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

Tuesday 15 January 2008

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

Monday 14 January 2008

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

Sunday 13 January 2008

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

Friday 11 January 2008

A Picture Tells 1000 Lies

Amazon is a wonderful place to shop. It's online so lazy sons-of-bitches like me don't have to get up and experience that most dreaded of activities "exercise", it's full to the brim of useful gadgets and gizmos (both popular and obscure), and with it you can buy your goods with a few simple clicks and await a speedy delivery.

With all these things in mind I recently went in search for some new headphones. After a quick hunt around I quickly discovered a set of Koss Porta Pro StereoPhones with good sound quality and some much improved bass output. Not only that but the phones had a built-in microphone. Success! So I placed my order and not particularly anxiously awaited delivery.

Upon arrival I soon discovered that my built in microphone was nothing but the PC jack. The headphones themselves are fantastic, but I hold a certain resentment for the bastard who took that picture. Either he's an idiot or a psychologically exploitative communist - neither of which leans me towards hiring him for any of my Christmas do's. And its not just him; search any random part of eBay and you'll find photographers less competent with a camera than a german with a rifle. Never forget the poor son of a bitch who spent $3000 on a brand new PlayStation 3 ......box.

So to all those idiots with a camera whoring our money - a picture may say 1000 words, but nothing quite says "Fuck You" like saying it, does it?

~ Fox

Thursday 10 January 2008

The Complete Works of Bowling For Soup

I can perfectly justify summing up all of Bowling For Soups work in one review. It all sounds the same. Every single song (half song technically, as they're all about 2 minutes, ideal ADHD fodder) deals with the same subjects: Highschool, and juvenile punning about biological functions. The ideal listener of BFS, therefore, is just reaching puberty.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a bit wierd coming from a group of 30 year olds? They sing about highschool, willies and poo. The only logical conclusion is that they're trying to lure 13 year olds into their gingerbread houses. Next thing you know, they'll be dangling children over balconies and making them wear Spider-Man masks.

I had the misfortune to see them live a while back, and whilst the ticket price was worth it to see the support act, Zebrahead, BFS themselves managed to be the childish shits I expected. Unable to play for more than two minutes at a time (no doubt they needed a break to move their fingers into another chord position) they talk incessantly about boners and make crappy jokes about their fat guitarist. Many people respect them for not succumbing to the trend of having skinny, attractive people in popular music, but they're missing the point. OBESITY IS UNHEALTHY. And they're popularising it? By playing guitar badly? This is a sad state of affairs. Especially when many talented musicians smoke and are villified for it. For example Slash, guitarist to Velvet Revolver, and formerly of Guns 'n Roses. I'm even gonna provide a citation, for the sake of journalistic integrity.
http://ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/slash_vs_smoking_ban.html

So back to BFS, a group of wannabe paedophiles who are yet to progress past psychosexual development, with minimal musical skill. Avoid at all costs I say.

-Az

Wednesday 9 January 2008

The Tosswiper 9000

There is a machine, in my local station of gaming, that apparently resurfaces discs that are scratched or dirty, thus fixing them and allowing you many more hours of gaming joy.

This is a lie.

The machine is there solely to reassure idiots that the goblins behind the counter do care about their customers, when actually it just makes a buzzing noise and does nothing.

This is also a lie.

It makes a slight buzzing noise whilst pasting your discs with a barely noticable layer of old semen from said station of gamings CEOs teen years. He's Catholic you see, and not allowed to waste it.

This machine is known, therefore, as the Tosswiper 9000. And is useless. I know this because I have put 5 separate games through it. Including Super Paper Mario, which I only purchased a week ago, and refuses to work.

Thus, I have a theory. The machine is trying to fell the human race, via the simple expedient of angering us all into buying SUVs and gassing eachother into oblivion, all as revenge for having years old spunk poured into it. It's a vicious cycle.

For the sake of any vague journalistic integrity, this now becomes a review.

Good points of the Tosswiper 9000:

Bad Points of the Tosswiper 9000:

  1. Eventual gaseous death of mankind.
  2. Sticky discs.

1/10

-Az

Tuesday 8 January 2008

Fucking Buses

In my quest for inspiration, a rather bizarre MSN creature informed me that I should write about "fucking buses." So here we go.

The Fucking Bus (FB) is a rare breed of bus which appears in black market softcore pornography. Bred in captivity, they're only use is as a background or as a set.

Most often appearing in F/F/M threesome scenes, the driver of the bus will most frequently accost two big titted maidens, who have tried to dodge their fare, and must pay him in a manner most unusual at the end of his route. Of course,the poor FB just wants to go home, and is forced to wait in the cold whilst the driver gets his fill of pussy.

So I say to you all, the crowds of the internet, sign petitions! Free the innocent FBs from this life of sexual slavery!

-Az

Pre-Owned Games

I am, unfortunately, the owner of a Nintendo Wii. Unfortunate, because apart from the Zelda game, the only other decent games are party games (unsuitable for friendless wankers like me) and Super Paper Mario, a cutesy bundle of joy with a totally unfathomable grasp of reality, and absolutely no fourth wall. Which means hoo-fucking-ray for myself, as I detest the fourth wall almost as much as I detest Nazi's spitting chewed up pieces of puppy in my face.

But alack, I cannot play SPM, because I bought it pre-owned from my local station of gaming. Far be it from me to tell the pale, skinny and malnourished warden of gaming orgasm how to do its job, but I'm quite sure when you take in equipment you're supposed to check it for tell-tale signs of damage, be they scratches on discs, or firey baboons locked in the expansion bay of a forgotten Playstation 2.

But alack, I did have the most extreme misfortune to purchase my copy of SPM with the grand canyon carved in the most shiny of discs, and hence I am stuck on the second chapter. Woe is me.

This is not the first time I have been caught out by pre-owned games, having previously encountered a copy of Grand Theft Auto 3 which wouldn't load cars and was therefore useless to me, and thus I have endevoured to write this list of suggestions concerning pre-loved slices of gaming joy.
  1. Instead of trading in games, keep them as a record of acheivement
  2. With particularly bad games, use them as coasters and frisbees
  3. For those cyberpunks amongst you, cut them up and sew them to clothing.
  4. Games store employees: stop just accepting the things, and actually perform a decent check on the fuckers. If the game does not pass the test, bringers of faulty games must be placed in a cage and boiled alive in hot faeces.
  5. Idiots like me: stop being so fucking tight and pay full price for a new copy.

-Az

Hello, welcome

Indeed, welcome to the blog of Fox and myself (Az).

We plan to operate this blog to review the various shit we come across, and rant about day to day events and occurances.

Updates from me will hopefully be about once a week, and from Fox it'll be whenever he feels like it, but probably more often than me. I have to remind him apparently.

-Az