That's it folks!

Yes, it can finally be stated without deception that the Soccer World Cup is over!

In the finals, two teams competed against one another, and in the end one of them won. No surprises there, since that's the exact turn of events I had predicted all along.

During the match, people kicked the football a large number of times, and the team that won scored the most goals against their opponent.

The incidences of icing and the ball being out of bounds somehow didn't stop the match from ending the way it did.

In other news, the two parties in the american parliament disagree with each other on numerous points.

In contrast to this, the Korean government made an official statement.

Following this news, Sweden announced that it refuses to take sides in the football, calling themselves "Not associated with association fotball", instead relying on the Germans to carry the torch for Europe.

Anarchy!!!

Yes, that's right; I make my triumphant return to bloggification with a post about anarchy.

You see, recently I entered an internet discussion thread about anarchy. It was one where what seemed like an irrational and unreasonable anarchist was banging on about how evil the establishment was and how swell just being completely free from it would be peachy, while being yelled at by a number of justifiably frustrated debaters.

That's what it seemed like, at any rate.

I joined in, with the latter category of people, for those who haven't spent more than three seconds in my presence and sort of just smugly assumed that.

Then, in a moment of clarity, it occurred to me that maybe just hurling insults at the man wasn't exactly the best method for all involved. So, I decided to try another tone. I asked him politely to explain his vision and ideas in real, concrete, terms.

And he did so. At length.

He divulged the ways that it could work in practice, and answered all the questions I had about the things I thought were bonkers. It turns out I had assumed many quite silly things that he didn't agree with at all to begin with.

I still don't agree with him that anarchy works better than what we have now, but I can suddenly see how it COULD work better.

Thusly endowed with knowledge, the thread seemed entirely different to me; it now looked like a polite man, who never used neither profanities nor personal attacks, being hounded by irate attackers who had made up their own minds what his points were and refused blindly to see whether or not they were right.

I could all of a sudden see why people like the new pope so much; even though he doesn't share everyone's opinions, he favours honest and open discussions between disagreeing people, where actual exchanges of knowledge can occur.

Imagine how many conflicts, ones small like on an internet forum, or ones big like wars, could be helped by people actually doing that.

Hmm...I wonder...

Nope, it'll never work!

Pacific Rimjob!

God, I've been waiting to do that joke ever since I heard of the movie.

So, movie review it is!...or, more like a movie rant. Safe to say, I'm not a huge fan. My girlfriend like it, though, so I guess that counts for something. For her, not for me.

Anyway: meh. I think that best sums it up; a resounding "Eh, that wasn't very good.".

Let's start with the good stuff, so we can get that out of the way, seeing as how there isn't much to say there:

It looks nice, and the 3D FX aren't atrocious.

There, that's the good things. Now, for the rest:

The Acting

The acting wasn't spectacular, to say the least. The two main characters were hamming it up all over the place, chewing scenery like they were William Shatner. Heck, the most subtle way they could think of to indicate that there was a romantic connection was for the female lead to make a face like she's having an orgasm every single time she looks at him.

The only good acting performance came from Idris Elba, who seemed to be channeling Benjamin Sisko at times. He was the only one who seemed to know that you didn't need to beat the audience over the head with every single bit of emotion you wanted to show.

Things were slightly improved with the inclusion of Ron Perlman, who seems unable to not make a fantastic performance wherever he goes.

The Premise

Oh boy, here comes the garbage...

See, the point of the movie is that there's this interdimensional portal in the Pacific Ocean, and giant monsters come through it at decreasing intervals. Fine.

However, earth for some reason decides to fix this by building huge fucking mechas called Jägers, which are for some utterly contrived reason hooked up to human brains in order to pilot them.

First problem; why the hell would they build mechas? They are the very worst shape you could possibly have for a war machine. Why, did they think the reason why humans dominate the terran continents is because of our immense physical strength and endurance? Fuck that, humans are stupidly built! You know why we succeed? Because we can make big fucking guns, that's why!

So, are the kaiju (as the monsters are called) somehow impervious to shots from huge plasma cannons or big rockets? No, not at all. In fact, those are the most effective weapons of the Jägers, even more so than the completely useless punches they throw.

In essence, the human body is a terrible design choice. We have limbs that can be damaged or torn off (which they are, in the movie), heads that can be bashed in (which they are, in the movie), joints that can be crippled (which they are, would you know) and walks upright, making it very vulnerable to being tripped (which it gets).

How about a tank? Hmmm? Just a big fucking tank with big fucking guns and thick as hell armour? You wouldn't need silly psychic-pilot-pairs, the kaiju could never topple it, you could fit a shitload more guns on such a platform, and you could add as much armour plating as you'd need, since the damn thing doesn't have to stand up and fucking take a walk!

Or, if I'm not being too bold here, how about a strategic bomber? Throughout the movie, we never see one single reason why bombers and heavy attack fighters couldn't just blow the shit out of it. Sure, there are some establishing shots of it punching out fighters, but those were clearly piloted by pillocks, because fighters are adapted for combat at ranges of several miles, and that's against other fighters which are a million times more agile and certainly much faster than the kaiju. The pilots in those planes clearly thought the very best range for an attack was somewhere around six inches.

Come to think of it, why are the pilots in the heads of the mechas in the first place? That was literally the first thing my girlfriend thought of when we were introduced to the Jägers; why the hell do they need pilots INSIDE the damn thing? Couldn't they just control them remotely, which would somehow give the impression that their technology is at least as advanced as ours, rather than hopelessly out of date?

Add to that, why are the pilots in the HEADS of the mechas? Why there? It's the single worst spot to control it from; it's the most exposed part of the body, kaiju are going to want to claw, bite and smash that bit sticking up from the shoulders, and they actually do that in the movie!

You know how, on modern cars, the driver is always seated on the front of the hood of the car so that any collision from any direction other than straight from the rear is 100% fatal at all times?

No, because that would be fucking stupid!

The Plot

The plot isn't bad. It's not going to take home any Academy Awards for best writing, but it doesn't exactly suck. It's run of the mill.

Things start out in the shitter, what with huge monster mammals attacking cities, but then the humans fight back with huge mechas and everything is wonderful again.

The unusual thing is that all this happens in the prologue. The very first scene after that we get is where it goes down the shitter again, and then it just keeps going further and further down the shitter until the heroes win through a last ditch effort. Of course there's also a council of the world's biggest fucking idiots who try to fuck everyone over through sheer idiocy.

"Hey, Bill, let's scrap the program with mechas that can actually kill the monsters, and funnel all that money into building a huge fucking wall!"
"-Good idea, Steve, but what about when the wall is finished, even if it works exactly as planned? We'll have hundreds of kaiju outside the walls, increasing in number every day, getting bigger and bigger. Are we just going to assume that they'll never be able to get through that wall in any way? Because if they do get through, even in one single place, we'll have exactly no way whatsoever of defending ourselves."
"Shut the fuck up, Bill."

Nothing spectacular, but the story isn't the point of the movie

Essentially, we are treated to a plot that only serves to enable fights with big fucking monsters and heroes who turn into Big Damn Heroes. And I'd say it serves that function pretty well. It's not very clever, and it's not very well done, but it's just a vessel for big scenes with mechas fighting monsters and monsters demolishing shit.

Except one thing at the end. You know the one, where one kaiju uses an EMP and knocks out the most advanced Jäger. At that point, the main protagonist goes "Hey, our old piece of junk still works, because it's not digital, it's NUCLEAR!".

What the fuck, guys?

This is fully equivalent to the infamous "It's the neutrinos! They have...mutated!" line from the movie 2012.

This is not how science works, dickheads.

First of all, whether it's nuclear or not has absolutely dick to do with if it's digital or not. My computer is digital, it uses fucking digital circuitry, yet the energy for it mostly comes from nuclear power plants.

Second of all, it doesn't use digital circuitry? Great, we're entrusting humanity's survival to something controlled with...what, vacuum tubes?

Bullshit, learn some science!

Conclusion

It's "Meh". Not a big fan of this one. The movie is simply too damn stupid.

Two stars.

The console market!

Oh dear, it's happening again!

What, another nuclear holocaust scare? Another plague of mantits mantises?

No, there's a new console generation in the works. Good grief, let the bullshit commence.

Of course, we've got the usual lineup of Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Wii consoles, of which only the latter is actually out as of yet, and already the companies and players have started bugging the everloving dick out of me.

Take the XBox One, or XBone as it's officially known. We don't know much about it, except that Microsoft seem determined to take all the things we either hate about the current SexBox and make them the core selling points.

Hey, do you love always online and have a stable high-speed internet connection wherever you go? If you don't, there is, according to Microsoft, there's this little piece of shit called the Xbox 360. The XBone is for real gamers, who have awesome internet that they use...well, for watching movies, television and chatting with their friends primarily, rather than play games, because those are the features that Microsoft think will attract the most gamers to the system.

At this stage, it's pretty obvious that the XBone represents the ADHD side of the business; Microsoft don't have a single clue what to focus on and just slap random shit on the ExBoner, and can't pay attention to the customers' preferences for half a second.

Meanwhile, people are whining about how the Wii U is essentially just Nintendo's attempt at catching up with the 360 and PS3, while at the same time it's a next generation console.

Oh, of course, because processing power is all that matters.

I can't for the love of me recall even once having played a new AAA title and saying to myself "Damn, this game would be awesome if it didn't look like shit! I can't wait for someone to remake it in the future to look better".

Let me be absolutely clear here; processing power is the very last thing I take into consideration when buying a new console, just under the size of the bar code on the box in terms of importance.

Maybe the games for the Wii U will all be shit, but then it won't be the fault of the hardware being only on par with the PS3.

Gymnazis!

Here's something that really bugs me about going to the gym; the sitter.

Now, what's a "sitter", you might ask.

Well, let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, the gym was invented. In it, there were many machines that one could use for strenuous physical activity to increase degree of fitness.

This guy, however, never heard that story.

He picks a machine, sits down, maybe fiddles abit with his phone, drinks some water.

If you're lucky, he'll actually do one or two sets, then move on to do the same damn thing on another machine.

What the fuck is he at the gym for?! All he's doing is occupying machines that people with an actual interest in working out might wanna use!

Now, don't misunderstand me; I'm not objecting to people taking breaks between sets to relax their muscles. That's a good idea to boot. No, what's bullshit is those people just taking up space while doing fuck all at the gym.

Me, petty? Nonsense!

Fun Facts!

Yup, that's right, I'm gonna do one of these. Thing is, mine won't be bullshit. Whenever people try to quote some fun facts, they really only manage to spout some crap that has no grounding in reality whatsoever.

So, I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to only mention stuff that I've actually checked up on.

Enjoy!

That's an order!

• Coca Cola has for the longest time contained trace amounts of cocaine, but doesn't anymore. Nowadays, it just contains an extract from depleted coca leaves, made by one single factory that is the only one in all of the US that is allowed to process the leaves.

 

• While Coca Cola Zero and Coca Cola Light are not identical in the flavour formula, it is not true that they are distinguished by using different artificial sweeteners. See, the mixing of the actual product and the choice of sweetener differs between markets, because Coca Cola only centrally produces the syrup itself, and various authorized bottlers across the world handle the bottling and mixing. Thusly, the same kind of Coke can have different sweeteners in different areas.

• Elvis Presley was a natural blonde. Yeah, suck on that hard hitting fact!

•  You've probably heard about Emilio Estévez, but what about his brother Carlos or his father Ramón? Or, as they're probably better known, Charlie and Martin Sheen.

• The name of the band KISS has a very dark and vicious origin and meaning; stopping at a red light one day while trying to come up with a name for the band, Paul Stanley suggested "KISS", and Peter Criss and Gene Simmons basically just went "Okay, that works".

• The title for the song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Or LITSWD for short) had fuck all to do with LSD. The Beatles weren't exactly unfamiliar with enjoyable mood enhancers, but nobody seemed to realize what choice words in the title spelled out until after the release. Heck, the drawing that Julian Lennon made of his friend Lucy in the sky with some diamonds (See what happened, there?) is still preserved. Wouldn't it have been less hassle for Lennon to just admit that the title referenced LSD than make a fake drawing and then presumably indoctrinating his son into thinking he made it? Remember, kids; when judging a conspiracy theory, always consider if it's bad shit bonkers compared to the alternative explanation. This one is.

The Dark Knight Falls Flat On His Face!

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back!

Tonight, I'd like to address why I think the Dark Knight trilogy sucks as far as a portrayal of Batman goes.

To start off, I really like all three movies, and I think they are brilliant on so many levels. The problem I have with all three is that the Batman they presented is the wrong...fucking...Batman!

Let's start from the beginning: What is Batman?

He's got no super powers or anything, he just relies on other qualities. He's highly intelligent, he's designed tonnes of very useful gadgets, he's got more or less limitless wealth and he's in extremely good physical shape, he's always Crazy Prepared and a master businessman. The words "World's greatest detective" have frequently been lavished upon him.

Too bad all of it is absolute bullshit in the Dark Knight trilogy.

We'll start with his intelligence. He's dumber than a bag of wet mice. Remember that line from The Dark Knight where he goes "[The Joker] must have friends!", and the gangster goes "Have you seen this guy?!"? Yeah, that's how pretty much everyone would react. Bats is showing signs right there of not being the sharpest bulb in the elevator.

Do you also remember that scene where he uses subtle interrogation methods to try and make a criminal reveal part of his plan through manipulation? No, neither do I, because bats just tries to beat the shit out of them instead. Very intelligent!

Oh, and what about that bit where Batty forgets to turn off his mobile-phone-sonar-thingamajiggy and therefore gets beaten up by the fucking Joker? Are you shitting me? The Joker is many things, but physically intimidating in close combat is not one of them!

But he does in fact have a ton of useful gadgets, though. Can't argue with that one. Oh, wait, he didn't actually design those, he just embezzled funds from Wayne Enterprise for the purpose of designing toys for him. Great going, Bruce!

Come to think of it; beating people up instead of using his brain, going to an associate of his and asking "What've you got for me today?" to receive his toys of the day that will be trashed by the end of it?

For fuck's sake, he's James Bond!

At least he's rich, that's one thing even I can't take away.

And he is in pretty good physical shape. Notice how I said "pretty good", and not 'extremely good'. He's fairly fit, but he can't stand up to Bane in a fight, can he? And this isn't even Bane with venom injected, this is just a rather beefy guy with a funny voice. Are you telling me Buttman can't handle one single guy who's done some pushups?

As for the crazy preparedness? *sigh* Guess how this is gonna go...

Look, there's this part in The Dark Knight that perfectly exemplifies it; Roy Batty here is hanging on to a van at the beginning of the movie, and reveals a thingamabob that he has that can cut through metal. It's a silly, flimsy, bulky piece of shit attached to his glove that does no good whatsoever before he's thrown off of the van. He can't prepare for a bowel movement, let alone fighting crooks.

Or how about that bit in the Dark Knight Rises where he flings a bunch of tiny smoke bombs at Bane and all the evil walls surrounding him? They do absolutely fuck all. Why the hell did he even bring those?! They don't conceal anyone worth a shit, and they sure as hell don't even smart when they hit you, which most didn't even do.

He's at least great at doing business though, right? RIGHT?!

Fuck no.

If nothing else, no matter what Lucius Fox says in the Dark Knight Rises, the secret applied sciences division is not off the books. There is a fucking plot point in the second movie where a chartered accountant figures out Bat-shit-bonkers' identity by looking through the shit that applied sciences has developed.

And there's also the bit where he drives Wayne Enterprise into the ground. See, in the Dark Knight Rises, it's explained that the reason why youth activity centers aren't getting any funding is because that funding is based on a percentage of the profits from Wayne Enterprise, and there aren't any. As in, there are no profits. Fox explains this quite clearly; Wayne Enterprise is in the red. Every single penny is swallowed up by some ill-defined boondoggle to save the world that Brucey hopes will make sure he doesn't have to be Batman anymore, because fuck Gotham, that's why.

But now comes the final nail in the coffin; he's a crap detective as well. What are the characteristics of a great detective? Being able to see the whole picture, being able to pick up on subtle clues, being able to figure out what's really going on beyond any possible smoke screens or the likes thereof.

Yeah, Badman does none of that.

See, there's this bit in The Dark Knight, wherein Bratz knows that there is going to be an attempt on the life of the mayor. So, what does he do? Case the joint, try to find possible venues of attack or particular security risks, like the fucking guys shooting fucking guns ten feet from the fucking mayor?

Nope, he hops into one single apartment building, finds some bound and gagged guards, and immediately goes to fidget with a telescope in the window. Dammit, Stevie Wonder has got a better idea of his surroundings than this guy!

Or what about the part in the Dark Knight Rises where Bane and his folks bust into the Gotham stock exchange and hack into it to sell Wayne's assets with his finger prints (presumably through magic, because I don't know how the hell that would work in real life) while Butty Boy is off hunting down some blokes on motorcycles? Did Bedman think that they broke into the stock exchange and take hostages just to have a fun little chase sequence with three or so witnesses?

Come on, any idiot could have seen that something bigger was up, but Bruce Lack-of-Forsythe here just didn't have a fucking clue what was happening.

And that whole situation is just stupidly out of place for Batman. Had it been the real Batman, he'd have had some kind of anti-identity-theft spray to prevent it. Heck, when he's told, he just does fuck all, even though there are hundreds of witnesses and countless cameras all recording the fact that some guys broke into the stock exchange and ran some kind of hacking thingamafuck there, and then magically Bruce Wayne supposedly makes the worst business decision in his life, and does it electronically with no witnesses and via using finger prints (You know, those things absolutely everyone in the whole fucking world can get a hold of on you, from as little as a photograph off of glass?)?! Do you realize how fucking quickly every single corporate monitoring agency in the whole world would be all over that shit like flies on...well, shit?


What bothers me the most about the Dark Knight Rises in particular, though, is neither of those things. It's the simple fact that Batty Boop doesn't succeed through sheer determination or willpower. No, he succeeds through dumb (with a major emphasis on 'dumb') fucking luck. He's just lucky enough to share a cell with the one guy in that prison-well, or indeed the whole bloody world, who can heal a broken back by punching it very hard once (presumably through the same kind of reality-defying magic that enabled the aforementioned hacking), and is also quite willing to do so to someone who is the enemy of the guy he's hired by. And then Bat an Eyelid is plain told straight out what Bane's weakness is, IE you need to break his mask, so he can defeat him in spite of Bane being far superior in a fight.

I hate it when moviemakers do that. They leave the success of the hero up to sheer luck, instead of any real quality worth mentioning. Isn't Batman supposed to be awesome and badass? Not some moron with a good physician?

Bah, screw that, I'm going to watch the Avengers again!