So, after finally getting round to watching "Julie & Julia" a few days ago, coupled with my sudden increase of lactose intolerance (6 hours of indigestion after a mini-muffin? COME ON.), I have rediscovered a passion for cooking that seemed to have been muffled by copious amounts of food coursework that hit me (and Persona 101, presumably) about a third of the way through Year 11.
Tonight, this has started, after a lucky google search, and an amazing whim on my mum's part, with cashew nut brittle. Who knew that melting sugar could be so hard? Why did nobody tell me that in the time it takes to spread the mix out on a baking try to cool, the remaining sugar in the pan will have hardened to a state only comparable to concrete? However, despite the fact it took longer to scrub the solidified sugar out of the pan than it did to make the brittle itself, the finished result looks rather good, if not a little clumpy. But nothing is perfect first time, right? More sugar and better crushed cashews next time I think. Although not making it at 9:30pm again may help somewhat too.
Next, I may dare to venture into the world of cakes, as practically ALL the cookie recipes I've found contain copious amounts of peanut butter or chocolate, the former of which no-one else in my house likes, and the latter I find myself going off of rather quickly.
Wish me luck! I'll be back as soon as I've wiped the cake mix from the kitchen walls.
-Hlctwh93
Friday 23 July 2010
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Landing on Mayfair
I decided to scrap the 'special' 50th post idea, so here's a bog standard one; apologies for not posting for a while
I woke up early this morning for the first time in almost forever, at 7:15. For some people, indeed most my age, this provokes a reaction along the lines of 'WHAT!? Are you INSANE!? 7.15!?', them not dragging their lazy arses out of bed until approximately 4pm unless they absolutely have to (I'm afraid Spanner is somewhat guilty of this). But I haven't been following my own rules recently, I've been sleeping in until the late hour of 9 o clock (unfortunately, this time might also provoke the same reaction).
My one reason for disliking the moment at which, through an odd series of convulsions, I manage to propel my nearly-slumberous body off my mattress, being postponed beyond a time which I deem 'late' (usually about 8.30), is that, particularly during the holidays, I like to feel like I'm making the most of my day. Admittedly, the same has never applied upon returning to school in the past, and it may seem a little back to front, getting tired during the holidays and resting during term time, but that's just how it's always happened for me.
Unfortunately, this morning, my wild flailing succeeded in knocking my phone and iPod off my bedside table and me instantly landing on top of them. Thankfully, nothing was broken - I don't think they do a version of A&E for pocket electronics - and I was okay too, whatever my deluge of groans and grunts may have suggested! I then proceeded to slip over a book that was on the floor, and went downstairs, and opened the kitchen door straight into my mum, scaring us both shitless. Unless I can find a four leaf clover, today's going to be a bad day.
I woke up early this morning for the first time in almost forever, at 7:15. For some people, indeed most my age, this provokes a reaction along the lines of 'WHAT!? Are you INSANE!? 7.15!?', them not dragging their lazy arses out of bed until approximately 4pm unless they absolutely have to (I'm afraid Spanner is somewhat guilty of this). But I haven't been following my own rules recently, I've been sleeping in until the late hour of 9 o clock (unfortunately, this time might also provoke the same reaction).
My one reason for disliking the moment at which, through an odd series of convulsions, I manage to propel my nearly-slumberous body off my mattress, being postponed beyond a time which I deem 'late' (usually about 8.30), is that, particularly during the holidays, I like to feel like I'm making the most of my day. Admittedly, the same has never applied upon returning to school in the past, and it may seem a little back to front, getting tired during the holidays and resting during term time, but that's just how it's always happened for me.
Unfortunately, this morning, my wild flailing succeeded in knocking my phone and iPod off my bedside table and me instantly landing on top of them. Thankfully, nothing was broken - I don't think they do a version of A&E for pocket electronics - and I was okay too, whatever my deluge of groans and grunts may have suggested! I then proceeded to slip over a book that was on the floor, and went downstairs, and opened the kitchen door straight into my mum, scaring us both shitless. Unless I can find a four leaf clover, today's going to be a bad day.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Jamie does... nothing while Persona 101 goes to Portugal and defaces the language?
Ugh, that one took far longer than I expected. Never mind! I always love the chance to hopefully introduce people to new music that I too like. Anyway. I'm going to Portugal in a few weeks - I'm unsure of the exact number, as time seems just to float by in these massive holidays, but I'm the one in the family who's going to be doing the speaking, so I've got to learn Portuguese. Being given a book labelled 'Portuguese In 3 Months' when I had 1 month was slightly disheartening, I have to say, although I've since realised that these '3 months' constituted of doing 3 lessons a month, and I personally only have to get a functional knowledge of the language.
However, I'm still finding it hard. Self-teaching is rarely easy, and this is proving to follow that pattern, the book's pronunciation guide often being profoundly undescriptive. Que sorte! Hopefully those of you who understand that will pick up the sarcasm.
What's more, whilst French and German, the two languages I've had a crack at so far, use their equivalent of 'to have' as a past tense auxiliary verb (avoir and haben respectively), Portuguese uses it as auxiliary for the future tense, which is incredibly confusing and frankly encourages me to learn Esperanto or simply go on holiday to Benidorm every year. Come to think of it, suicide is preferable to either. And I still don't know how to form the past tense.
Furthermore, the language insists on being infuriating by having no less than 13 forms of each verb, as opposed to 9 for French and German and just 6 for English. That's not counting the form that has fallen into lingual disrepair and is now only seen in classical texts. Although, I suppose it could work if I just learnt the 1st person and had a slight knowledge of the second person, short of any complaints along the lines of 'he/she has more x than I do'. And let's face it, complaining whilst abroad is not a good idea, as wary natives will just blather some gibberish that isn't actually part of the language.
Eh, I suppose when I get back I might take the opportunity to actually learn to speak Portuguese. Frankly, the little I plan to learn is enough to get a B at GCSE with comfort (although that just shows what a joke GCSE languages are), but I could further it, as fluency in multiple languages is always a useful asset to have (unless it's Esperanto), and I suppose it's not too much of a struggle.
Hey, enough pondering Portuguese (points for aliteration?). I don't doubt I've bored you with this post, but hey, life gives you shit sometimes. Such as unwanted tubgirl links (don't search it if you don't know, or you'll scratch your eyes out). Sorry for the somewhat downbeat writings, I'm just not in a great mood.
However, I'm still finding it hard. Self-teaching is rarely easy, and this is proving to follow that pattern, the book's pronunciation guide often being profoundly undescriptive. Que sorte! Hopefully those of you who understand that will pick up the sarcasm.
What's more, whilst French and German, the two languages I've had a crack at so far, use their equivalent of 'to have' as a past tense auxiliary verb (avoir and haben respectively), Portuguese uses it as auxiliary for the future tense, which is incredibly confusing and frankly encourages me to learn Esperanto or simply go on holiday to Benidorm every year. Come to think of it, suicide is preferable to either. And I still don't know how to form the past tense.
Furthermore, the language insists on being infuriating by having no less than 13 forms of each verb, as opposed to 9 for French and German and just 6 for English. That's not counting the form that has fallen into lingual disrepair and is now only seen in classical texts. Although, I suppose it could work if I just learnt the 1st person and had a slight knowledge of the second person, short of any complaints along the lines of 'he/she has more x than I do'. And let's face it, complaining whilst abroad is not a good idea, as wary natives will just blather some gibberish that isn't actually part of the language.
Eh, I suppose when I get back I might take the opportunity to actually learn to speak Portuguese. Frankly, the little I plan to learn is enough to get a B at GCSE with comfort (although that just shows what a joke GCSE languages are), but I could further it, as fluency in multiple languages is always a useful asset to have (unless it's Esperanto), and I suppose it's not too much of a struggle.
Hey, enough pondering Portuguese (points for aliteration?). I don't doubt I've bored you with this post, but hey, life gives you shit sometimes. Such as unwanted tubgirl links (don't search it if you don't know, or you'll scratch your eyes out). Sorry for the somewhat downbeat writings, I'm just not in a great mood.
Albums of the year: 2000
I plan to write a few posts tonight, just to partially make up for the lack of a post for over a week now - disgraceful by our standards, but just click the 'Next blog' feature (which is actually essentially a 'random blog' button), and most blogs will either be defunct, or updated once a month at best. Thus our two readers (namely myself and -Spanner, no others apparently) have it fairly nice.
The third of these will be the grand milestone of fifty posts, and I do have something slightly special planned for that, but first, I'd like to introduce a new, musical series I'm starting. 'The 5 club' will be finished, I just cringe every time I read the name, and will probably have two more installments, but this one is going to be going into detail about my absolute favourite albums of the last decade, which has equal chances of seeming incredibly narcissistic as it does of interesting some hovel bound silent reader who won't come forward. At best.
Anyhow, this will be done year by year, and will feature 10 albums in detail, and anything between 0 and 5 honourable mentions that are simply listed as great albums (I should say releases, seeing as I have a fair few splits, demos and EPs across my lists). I should also add that the further one gets towards the culmination of this series in 2009, the better, on average across the 10 or 15, the albums will get, due to my ever-increasing interest in music. And yes, this WHOLE SERIES will sound like I'm fellating the bands in question.
I see no point in hanging around any more, and will duly commence with the year 2000 as soon as my iTunes loads. It helps me to listen to the albums in question as I write about them. Ah yes. We commence!
1. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
Yes, yes, yes, I've always been a fanboy of Terrorizer magazine; but although this was their album of the decade, it isn't mine, it 'merely' obtains this vaunted position as album of the year. Despite the band themselves detesting the term 'stoner doom', this is essentially what this is - a beautiful cut thereof, slow, haunting, yet somehow angry at the same time, with the downtuned goodness of the standard guitarwork. As I'm describing this, indeed with the word 'standard', it all sounds rather average, but this is far more than that. It has a certain je ne sais quoi, that just elevates it above the level of normal stoner doom, and then further (thus ahead of the rest of the Wizard's catalogue) to a piece worthy of greater heights, and thus worthy to anyone with or without a weed stash. Although I've heard it's better with (unthinkable, really!).
2. Children Of Bodom - Follow The Reaper
At a stark contrast to my number one album of the year, this effort from Children Of Bodom is practically mainstream (although far from the most mainstream thing to come in this series). This album is the perfection of their version of power metal with harsh vocals (thus without the melodramatic histrionics, in my opinion), yet still manages to retain all the good parts of the genre - the guitar wankery, the catchy riffs, the speed, the ballads (check out the song 'Every Time I Die'), and altogether catchy songs (Bodom After Midnight, Mask Of Sanity, Taste Of My Scythe, Hate Me!). Although there is filler to a certain extent, that filler is by no means unlistenable, and doesn't really detract from the album as a whole. No matter what claims people make about 'Something Wild', this will always remain my favourite Bodom album.
3. Abyssic Hate - Suicidal Emotions
With this album, Abyssic Hate both created the DSBM genre (depressive suicidal black metal, for the non-kvltists of you), and perfected it, in one stroke of the proverbial blackened brush. Despite the album being riddled with blastbeats, the production is sufficiently necro, and the drumming sufficiently plastic-tubby (another made up adjective, here a positive one!) to give it the feeling of being slow, mid-paced at best. This creation of somehow fast-yet-slow means the album's 4 tracks and 50 minutes fly by, in a decidedly downbeat yet somehow uplifting blur. Oh yes, I forgot to mention the misanthropic feelings. We all get them, it's just more fun to let them out by listening to music. This is, all in all, a good piece of fun.
4. Immolation - Close To A World Below
To me, this isn't even Immolation's best album (that honour going to 1999's 'Failures For Gods', so it is doubly impressive that this album gets a place here. Exhibiting their unique take on the New York style of death metal (yes, non-metal fans, cities have their own sounds in metal), 'Close To A World Below' is everything one could possibly want from Immolation - Ross Dolan's incredible deep death growls coupled with the widdly yet brutal guitar work of Bob Vigna and Thomas Wilkinson, and tripled with the nearly unique blasting drumming of Alex Hernandez.
5. Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer
Any of you who are members of the elusive 'dronehead' species will a) know this album for sure already, and b) probably know Burning Witch's members better as members of... (deep breath) Khanate, Sunn O))), Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine, Asva, Goatsnake, and Atavist. And many, many more. But anyway. This is simply amazing. I can't even begin to describe this musically - it's both too weird for such descriptions, and transcends them anyway. Just listen to it, why don't you?
N.B. There are two pieces of artwork due to the 2008 reissue (below) having better artwork in my opinion.
6. Decapitated - Winds Of Creation
Decapitated, as most death metal fans will agree, are one of the best things to happen to death metal since Cynic and Atheist revolutionized the genre. This, their debut album, is a prime cut of what they do best - blurry technical death metal that's somehow catchy despite being played at an infinite BPM (seemingly). What's more, it includes the best cover of Slayer's 'Mandatory Suicide' ever. Which is certainly quite a feat.
7. Cannibal Corpse - Live Cannibalism
Cannibal Corpse are almost a household name, as close as one will come to it in death metal, and this, their best live album, showcases their classics with a somewhat decent production not heard on the albums, along with 'witty' (read: sick yet hilarious) stage banter ('This one's for all the fucking women out there: FUCKED... WITH A KNIFE!). They're one of those bands who don't really need explaining, just good straight death metal.
8. Cradle Of Filth - Midian
Some metal purists would tell you with vehemence that this was the first bad Cradle album, others would tell you it was the last good one. Black metal purists would put their hands over their ears and say 'blah blah blah I can't hear you, Cradle Of Fags don't exist'. The former and latter are wrong. Cradle Of Filth definitely do exist (although their continued existence is somewhat unfortunate, just like Slayer), and this album, despite being full of songs, rather than an album as a whole, is great fun, whilst retaining the edge that made their symphonic metal have elements of blackness.
9. Lamb Of God - New American Gospel
Shock! Horror! Me, rating a 'redneck' groove metal album! Yes, despite the negative meathead connotations - pits are meant for 'dancing', not actual violence - I like this album very much. It's very close to death metal in parts, and is very headbangable (more imaginary adjectives), thus making it good fun all the time. It's quite raw, which makes it appeal even more, and future albums would show quite a departure from this, better style. Tracks to youtube are 'Pariah', 'O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E.', and of course, the quintessential 'Black Label'.
10. Origin - Origin
More tech-death here; the style was very prevalent in the early half of the decade, proliferated by the emergence of Nile. This is another prime cut from this year - although Origin would perfect their style with 'Antithesis' in 2008, this is also worth listening to; the music is great, and it doesn't suffer from the near drowning of the vocals that later releases would suffer from, although the whole record is damaged by a slightly muddy production. Still, amazing musicianship and songwriting on display here.
Other Good Releases:
11. Brujeria - Brujerizmo
12. Impaled - Medical Waste
The third of these will be the grand milestone of fifty posts, and I do have something slightly special planned for that, but first, I'd like to introduce a new, musical series I'm starting. 'The 5 club' will be finished, I just cringe every time I read the name, and will probably have two more installments, but this one is going to be going into detail about my absolute favourite albums of the last decade, which has equal chances of seeming incredibly narcissistic as it does of interesting some hovel bound silent reader who won't come forward. At best.
Anyhow, this will be done year by year, and will feature 10 albums in detail, and anything between 0 and 5 honourable mentions that are simply listed as great albums (I should say releases, seeing as I have a fair few splits, demos and EPs across my lists). I should also add that the further one gets towards the culmination of this series in 2009, the better, on average across the 10 or 15, the albums will get, due to my ever-increasing interest in music. And yes, this WHOLE SERIES will sound like I'm fellating the bands in question.
I see no point in hanging around any more, and will duly commence with the year 2000 as soon as my iTunes loads. It helps me to listen to the albums in question as I write about them. Ah yes. We commence!
1. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
Yes, yes, yes, I've always been a fanboy of Terrorizer magazine; but although this was their album of the decade, it isn't mine, it 'merely' obtains this vaunted position as album of the year. Despite the band themselves detesting the term 'stoner doom', this is essentially what this is - a beautiful cut thereof, slow, haunting, yet somehow angry at the same time, with the downtuned goodness of the standard guitarwork. As I'm describing this, indeed with the word 'standard', it all sounds rather average, but this is far more than that. It has a certain je ne sais quoi, that just elevates it above the level of normal stoner doom, and then further (thus ahead of the rest of the Wizard's catalogue) to a piece worthy of greater heights, and thus worthy to anyone with or without a weed stash. Although I've heard it's better with (unthinkable, really!).
2. Children Of Bodom - Follow The Reaper
At a stark contrast to my number one album of the year, this effort from Children Of Bodom is practically mainstream (although far from the most mainstream thing to come in this series). This album is the perfection of their version of power metal with harsh vocals (thus without the melodramatic histrionics, in my opinion), yet still manages to retain all the good parts of the genre - the guitar wankery, the catchy riffs, the speed, the ballads (check out the song 'Every Time I Die'), and altogether catchy songs (Bodom After Midnight, Mask Of Sanity, Taste Of My Scythe, Hate Me!). Although there is filler to a certain extent, that filler is by no means unlistenable, and doesn't really detract from the album as a whole. No matter what claims people make about 'Something Wild', this will always remain my favourite Bodom album.
3. Abyssic Hate - Suicidal Emotions
With this album, Abyssic Hate both created the DSBM genre (depressive suicidal black metal, for the non-kvltists of you), and perfected it, in one stroke of the proverbial blackened brush. Despite the album being riddled with blastbeats, the production is sufficiently necro, and the drumming sufficiently plastic-tubby (another made up adjective, here a positive one!) to give it the feeling of being slow, mid-paced at best. This creation of somehow fast-yet-slow means the album's 4 tracks and 50 minutes fly by, in a decidedly downbeat yet somehow uplifting blur. Oh yes, I forgot to mention the misanthropic feelings. We all get them, it's just more fun to let them out by listening to music. This is, all in all, a good piece of fun.
4. Immolation - Close To A World Below
To me, this isn't even Immolation's best album (that honour going to 1999's 'Failures For Gods', so it is doubly impressive that this album gets a place here. Exhibiting their unique take on the New York style of death metal (yes, non-metal fans, cities have their own sounds in metal), 'Close To A World Below' is everything one could possibly want from Immolation - Ross Dolan's incredible deep death growls coupled with the widdly yet brutal guitar work of Bob Vigna and Thomas Wilkinson, and tripled with the nearly unique blasting drumming of Alex Hernandez.
5. Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer
Any of you who are members of the elusive 'dronehead' species will a) know this album for sure already, and b) probably know Burning Witch's members better as members of... (deep breath) Khanate, Sunn O))), Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine, Asva, Goatsnake, and Atavist. And many, many more. But anyway. This is simply amazing. I can't even begin to describe this musically - it's both too weird for such descriptions, and transcends them anyway. Just listen to it, why don't you?
N.B. There are two pieces of artwork due to the 2008 reissue (below) having better artwork in my opinion.
6. Decapitated - Winds Of Creation
Decapitated, as most death metal fans will agree, are one of the best things to happen to death metal since Cynic and Atheist revolutionized the genre. This, their debut album, is a prime cut of what they do best - blurry technical death metal that's somehow catchy despite being played at an infinite BPM (seemingly). What's more, it includes the best cover of Slayer's 'Mandatory Suicide' ever. Which is certainly quite a feat.
7. Cannibal Corpse - Live Cannibalism
Cannibal Corpse are almost a household name, as close as one will come to it in death metal, and this, their best live album, showcases their classics with a somewhat decent production not heard on the albums, along with 'witty' (read: sick yet hilarious) stage banter ('This one's for all the fucking women out there: FUCKED... WITH A KNIFE!). They're one of those bands who don't really need explaining, just good straight death metal.
8. Cradle Of Filth - Midian
Some metal purists would tell you with vehemence that this was the first bad Cradle album, others would tell you it was the last good one. Black metal purists would put their hands over their ears and say 'blah blah blah I can't hear you, Cradle Of Fags don't exist'. The former and latter are wrong. Cradle Of Filth definitely do exist (although their continued existence is somewhat unfortunate, just like Slayer), and this album, despite being full of songs, rather than an album as a whole, is great fun, whilst retaining the edge that made their symphonic metal have elements of blackness.
9. Lamb Of God - New American Gospel
Shock! Horror! Me, rating a 'redneck' groove metal album! Yes, despite the negative meathead connotations - pits are meant for 'dancing', not actual violence - I like this album very much. It's very close to death metal in parts, and is very headbangable (more imaginary adjectives), thus making it good fun all the time. It's quite raw, which makes it appeal even more, and future albums would show quite a departure from this, better style. Tracks to youtube are 'Pariah', 'O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E.', and of course, the quintessential 'Black Label'.
10. Origin - Origin
More tech-death here; the style was very prevalent in the early half of the decade, proliferated by the emergence of Nile. This is another prime cut from this year - although Origin would perfect their style with 'Antithesis' in 2008, this is also worth listening to; the music is great, and it doesn't suffer from the near drowning of the vocals that later releases would suffer from, although the whole record is damaged by a slightly muddy production. Still, amazing musicianship and songwriting on display here.
Other Good Releases:
11. Brujeria - Brujerizmo
12. Impaled - Medical Waste
Friday 2 July 2010
Dextrous hammering of buttons
Nyegh. So I'm stuck without my trusty old Xbox 360 once more, which really helps to pass these days. I won't get into the reasons, but it's more due to confiscation than the somewhat cliche 'red ring of death/darkness/doom/oh shit no moar CoD lolz'. The fact that the red ring, which simply signifies that you're going to have to be without your console for a couple of weeks, is described so extravagantly, is actually quite worrying.
I said way back in my very first post that I did enjoy video games immensely, however, could see that they were often viewed as sad and a bit of a niche interest, so would not be blogging much about them. However, there is something that has occurred to me over the past couple of days, and I thought I'd look into it - the legitimacy of professional gaming as a career path. This is something that has been going on for about 10 years now, to my knowledge anyway, but has only recently begun to become lucrative for the best players, and has begun to break into the mainstream.
There are two main types of professional gaming, which can be split into competition gaming, and video making, which roughly constitutes someone playing a game, making videos of their gameplay, and posting them online for others to view. This becomes a money-earner when combined with advertisements, or when done as part of a company that makes money this way, Machinima being the most obvious one.
However, whilst I will write briefly later about this side of the scene, I'm more interested in the competetive side of the scene, as this, to me, feels more like an arena that is more likely to guarantee a constant, reasonable - if not better - income. Whilst there are many aspiring professional gamers - one only has to look at the high levels of traffic through the Major League Gaming (MLG) and Gamebattles websites to see that, very few actually put in the time and dedication to get there.
But would you want to? Whilst other sports were initially designed as a primal test of ability, videogaming, right back to Atari and Pong, was designed as a pastime, and only really became competitive with the dawn of the first person shooter (henceforth FPS) that people started playing against one another and teaming up to create giant orgies of people with dextrous fingers and tactical brains.
However, this seems to be to be a pointless exercise. Whilst snooker, which similarly requires dexterity of the arms and use of the brain, has the added aesthetic values, and indeed slight innuendos, of putting round, shiny balls into holes, videogaming, particularly in the FPS genre, seems to be largely a projection of fantasy, and sometimes real life, onto a screen, and it could be argued that in this way, all videogames are role playing, an activity that is generally associated with lots of sad nerds gathering in lifeless dungeons and projecting some fantasy and sexual interaction with mythical beasts (OOH bestiality) onto their sad, lonely lives.
It has no higher meaning, no aesthetic value beyond what is instantly in front of the player, and so investing too much time may seem like a sad and pointless exercise. And I agree, if one was to base one's whole life around it, then it would be pointless. However, most players just use it as a pastime, and believe it or not, obliterating hundreds of pixellated men can be incredibly relaxing. I myself game in this way, and in doing so, have clocked up 11 days of playtime on the popular Call Of Duty series alone, merely by using it as a pastime, albeit my main one.
When it becomes more than that though, we have to look at whether the person is being damaged by the videogames. Some who aspire to play professionally spend all day, every day videogaming; indeed, it is not unheard of for people to have 200 days (4800 hours) playtime on a single game. I'm not including actual professionals in this, as many people do jobs that they get nothing out of, and it pays the bills for them, so they are somewhat exempt. Indeed, certain pros have gone to greater heights, for instance, Tsquared, or Tom Taylor, is known to have several sponsorship deals, in addition to prize money.
Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against videogames; indeed, I spend more time on them than most people I know, it's just that they are designed to be a pastime. People who don't play professionally sometimes spend hours 'working' on new strategies, and I don't see how that can possibly be interpreted as fun, rewarding, fulfilling, or indeed constructive. So, while videogames are awesome, they do have to be taken in relative moderation.
I said way back in my very first post that I did enjoy video games immensely, however, could see that they were often viewed as sad and a bit of a niche interest, so would not be blogging much about them. However, there is something that has occurred to me over the past couple of days, and I thought I'd look into it - the legitimacy of professional gaming as a career path. This is something that has been going on for about 10 years now, to my knowledge anyway, but has only recently begun to become lucrative for the best players, and has begun to break into the mainstream.
There are two main types of professional gaming, which can be split into competition gaming, and video making, which roughly constitutes someone playing a game, making videos of their gameplay, and posting them online for others to view. This becomes a money-earner when combined with advertisements, or when done as part of a company that makes money this way, Machinima being the most obvious one.
However, whilst I will write briefly later about this side of the scene, I'm more interested in the competetive side of the scene, as this, to me, feels more like an arena that is more likely to guarantee a constant, reasonable - if not better - income. Whilst there are many aspiring professional gamers - one only has to look at the high levels of traffic through the Major League Gaming (MLG) and Gamebattles websites to see that, very few actually put in the time and dedication to get there.
But would you want to? Whilst other sports were initially designed as a primal test of ability, videogaming, right back to Atari and Pong, was designed as a pastime, and only really became competitive with the dawn of the first person shooter (henceforth FPS) that people started playing against one another and teaming up to create giant orgies of people with dextrous fingers and tactical brains.
However, this seems to be to be a pointless exercise. Whilst snooker, which similarly requires dexterity of the arms and use of the brain, has the added aesthetic values, and indeed slight innuendos, of putting round, shiny balls into holes, videogaming, particularly in the FPS genre, seems to be largely a projection of fantasy, and sometimes real life, onto a screen, and it could be argued that in this way, all videogames are role playing, an activity that is generally associated with lots of sad nerds gathering in lifeless dungeons and projecting some fantasy and sexual interaction with mythical beasts (OOH bestiality) onto their sad, lonely lives.
It has no higher meaning, no aesthetic value beyond what is instantly in front of the player, and so investing too much time may seem like a sad and pointless exercise. And I agree, if one was to base one's whole life around it, then it would be pointless. However, most players just use it as a pastime, and believe it or not, obliterating hundreds of pixellated men can be incredibly relaxing. I myself game in this way, and in doing so, have clocked up 11 days of playtime on the popular Call Of Duty series alone, merely by using it as a pastime, albeit my main one.
When it becomes more than that though, we have to look at whether the person is being damaged by the videogames. Some who aspire to play professionally spend all day, every day videogaming; indeed, it is not unheard of for people to have 200 days (4800 hours) playtime on a single game. I'm not including actual professionals in this, as many people do jobs that they get nothing out of, and it pays the bills for them, so they are somewhat exempt. Indeed, certain pros have gone to greater heights, for instance, Tsquared, or Tom Taylor, is known to have several sponsorship deals, in addition to prize money.
Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against videogames; indeed, I spend more time on them than most people I know, it's just that they are designed to be a pastime. People who don't play professionally sometimes spend hours 'working' on new strategies, and I don't see how that can possibly be interpreted as fun, rewarding, fulfilling, or indeed constructive. So, while videogames are awesome, they do have to be taken in relative moderation.
Thursday 1 July 2010
Hippie ecological ranty ravings
I just realised that I've spent most of my day, if not all, on the PC. Whilst that doesn't particularly bother me initially, given some consideration, it does make me wonder if we rely too much on technology. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of anti-technology pagan, or indeed some apocalypse obssessive, but I do worry sometimes. We all saw the Y2K worries, and indeed the worst case scenario sensationalists, but let's face it, we all new that technology can be upgraded fast enough now to avoid anything like that, especially when it didn't do shit in the end. However, with the advancement of technology, our reliance on it also increases, and one has to worry that it will eventually become everything to us, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who fears we won't be able to sustain it, especially with the imminent end of everything due to the drying up of the world's oil supplies and the subsequent invasion of Saudi Arabia that's currently being taught as part of AQA's GCSE Geography syllabus (okay, so the invasion bit isn't taught, but I am sure as hell that when it happens, AQA will be teaching complete subservience to whoever was in office at the time, and managed to negotiate a pittance of oil from America, the inhabitants of which will be too busy saying 'PUHHH-RAYSE THE LAAAWD' to actually alter their syllabuses (syllabi?)).
Wow, time for a breather. Sorry for the almighty paragraph, I just couldn't find a place to move it on to a new one. So, anyway, despite us all being taught these apocalypse scenarios as God-given fact (although I do agree with them, I feel that both sides of the argument need to be taught), and being told that we will all drown next Thursday, or Tuesday in the case of the Netherlands, people continue to use all the energy the please with a complete and utter disregard for the future. I for one have been guilty of leaving lights on in the past, and dismissing the fact when confronted, claiming it to be not worth my time, I do feel that we need to be slightly more careful. After all, the demise of the oil industry soon has become an inevitable truth, especially with BP chucking tonnes of the stuff into the ocean wantonly, and so along with giving us more time of that 'dirty' power, we get a few more years to look into renewable sources of energy (my idea of sticking hamsters in rape racks and getting a ton of hamster wheels still hasn't been looked at).
Still, maybe we should just give up. It gives the misanthropes something to whine about. After all, it's them, the introspective haters of humanity, who will suffer more than anybody from this. Although I've never heard of a misanthropic ecologist - and they're certainly the ones with the most reason to be (now coupled with public sector workers - cheers George)!
I don't want to address the world as a whole on this matter; after all, I'm awful with being green and preserving energy myself, my one saving grace being that I never litter. Also, what's the voice of one teen going to do? It's not even a matter that I'm overly concerned about, in fact, I might try and get my vegan friend to write an article for the blog based around this topic. He'd be welcome. In fact, I'll ask him now...
Wow, time for a breather. Sorry for the almighty paragraph, I just couldn't find a place to move it on to a new one. So, anyway, despite us all being taught these apocalypse scenarios as God-given fact (although I do agree with them, I feel that both sides of the argument need to be taught), and being told that we will all drown next Thursday, or Tuesday in the case of the Netherlands, people continue to use all the energy the please with a complete and utter disregard for the future. I for one have been guilty of leaving lights on in the past, and dismissing the fact when confronted, claiming it to be not worth my time, I do feel that we need to be slightly more careful. After all, the demise of the oil industry soon has become an inevitable truth, especially with BP chucking tonnes of the stuff into the ocean wantonly, and so along with giving us more time of that 'dirty' power, we get a few more years to look into renewable sources of energy (my idea of sticking hamsters in rape racks and getting a ton of hamster wheels still hasn't been looked at).
Still, maybe we should just give up. It gives the misanthropes something to whine about. After all, it's them, the introspective haters of humanity, who will suffer more than anybody from this. Although I've never heard of a misanthropic ecologist - and they're certainly the ones with the most reason to be (now coupled with public sector workers - cheers George)!
I don't want to address the world as a whole on this matter; after all, I'm awful with being green and preserving energy myself, my one saving grace being that I never litter. Also, what's the voice of one teen going to do? It's not even a matter that I'm overly concerned about, in fact, I might try and get my vegan friend to write an article for the blog based around this topic. He'd be welcome. In fact, I'll ask him now...
Too many tracks make an album a bastard to listen to
2010 is being a seriously exciting year for music for me. Maybe that's partially because I'm paying attention to new releases more than ever this year, but there are several gems to have caught my eye already this year - it usually takes me until at least June of the next year to decide upon a top 10, but I have many candidates already. Granted, there have been some disappointments - Burzum's 'Belus' wasn't quite what I expected, but was still a very good album. Similarly, the Triptykon album, the new project from Thomas Gabriel Fischer (ex-Celtic Frost) wasn't quite as good as Celtic Frost's last album 'Monotheist', but then again, that was my album of the decade. 'Eparistera Daimones' will still be up there come the end of the year.
One trend has been bothering me though. It's that albums nowadays seem to be getting so LONG. Maybe it's just my attention span failing, or maybe it's just that I'm in one of my grindcore phases at the moment, but a lot of albums seem to be failing to hold my attention all the way through, yet I find them brilliant if I listen to them over two sessions. Take the aforementioned Triptykon opus, for instance. Coming in at a hefty 72 minutes, if I try and listen to all of it, I often find myself getting an itchy trigger finger over the 'skip' button come 19 minute closer 'The Prolonging', which thus seems an apt title.
Similarly, another, more underground gem I've enjoyed this year (thanks to -Spanner for finding it for me), Erthyrioblastosis Fetalis' 'Process Of Death' is just over an hour long. This isn't too bad normally, except it's a grindcore album. If one is to look at the classics of grindcore, 'Scum' is 31 minutes, 'Horrified' is 29 minutes, and 'World Downfall' absolutely takes the biscuit at 36 minutes. The fact that 'Process Of Death' is about half an hour longer than these is frankly worrying. Admittedly, they are somewhat underground, and my favourite grindcore release for this year, Raw Noise's 'System Never' (admittedly debatably crust punk rather than grind) clocks in at a far more reasonable 26 minutes. The thing is, that's an EP. Other grindcore releases this year that I've heard are Leng Tch'e's 'Hypomanic', 41 minutes (a bit long), and Atomski Rat's self titled debut EP, which aside from being some of the best crust/grind I've heard in a long time, is a perfect length at 18 minutes for a 19 track EP.
The thing is, while hour long plus albums are certainly acceptable for some genres, for instance funeral doom (Esoteric's recent masterpiece 'The Maniacal Vale' was just over 100 minutes long, and gripping throughout), and other slower genres, and exceptions can be made for truly spectacular albums ('Monotheist' was about 70 minutes long), when you get to underproduced goregrind, an hour is too much to ask for nearly all listeners. So really, this is a plea to musicians: don't cut out the step of cutting down all the material you've got by simply including all of it; it makes for a poorer album. Thankyou.
One trend has been bothering me though. It's that albums nowadays seem to be getting so LONG. Maybe it's just my attention span failing, or maybe it's just that I'm in one of my grindcore phases at the moment, but a lot of albums seem to be failing to hold my attention all the way through, yet I find them brilliant if I listen to them over two sessions. Take the aforementioned Triptykon opus, for instance. Coming in at a hefty 72 minutes, if I try and listen to all of it, I often find myself getting an itchy trigger finger over the 'skip' button come 19 minute closer 'The Prolonging', which thus seems an apt title.
Similarly, another, more underground gem I've enjoyed this year (thanks to -Spanner for finding it for me), Erthyrioblastosis Fetalis' 'Process Of Death' is just over an hour long. This isn't too bad normally, except it's a grindcore album. If one is to look at the classics of grindcore, 'Scum' is 31 minutes, 'Horrified' is 29 minutes, and 'World Downfall' absolutely takes the biscuit at 36 minutes. The fact that 'Process Of Death' is about half an hour longer than these is frankly worrying. Admittedly, they are somewhat underground, and my favourite grindcore release for this year, Raw Noise's 'System Never' (admittedly debatably crust punk rather than grind) clocks in at a far more reasonable 26 minutes. The thing is, that's an EP. Other grindcore releases this year that I've heard are Leng Tch'e's 'Hypomanic', 41 minutes (a bit long), and Atomski Rat's self titled debut EP, which aside from being some of the best crust/grind I've heard in a long time, is a perfect length at 18 minutes for a 19 track EP.
The thing is, while hour long plus albums are certainly acceptable for some genres, for instance funeral doom (Esoteric's recent masterpiece 'The Maniacal Vale' was just over 100 minutes long, and gripping throughout), and other slower genres, and exceptions can be made for truly spectacular albums ('Monotheist' was about 70 minutes long), when you get to underproduced goregrind, an hour is too much to ask for nearly all listeners. So really, this is a plea to musicians: don't cut out the step of cutting down all the material you've got by simply including all of it; it makes for a poorer album. Thankyou.
Wednesday 30 June 2010
Music, lyrics, and how far things can be reasonably taken
Right. Following on from my earlier post 'Music, lyrics and the PMRC', I've done a bit more thinking about what I said, particularly about the political side of things. For a start, I'm going to emphasize that I stand by everything detailed in that post, and still hold those beliefs. But a question that did occur to me is whether censorship is ever truly appropriate. To clarify, in my earlier post, I did not mean that I thought that the lyrics of Green Day should be censored; far from it, I just felt that these are some of the most extreme cases in the mainstream.
However, outside of the mainstream there are some murky things to be found. What I want to explore is whether music should ever be completely censored. The three famous cases of censorship that spring to mind are Cannibal Corpse albums being banned due to the artwork, similarly, The Scorpions' album 'Virgin Killer' being banned due to its artwork (which depicted a naked prepubescent girl) - and even recently the wikipedia page was blocked for a while to all UK IP addresses - and the case in which Earache records were raided by the police for possibly illegal content of some of their records; Digby Pearson has since complained that he never got his Alice Cooper poster back, even though they were found to be not guilty.
However, even these seem practically tame compared to some things which aren't censored due to their limited availability, and I should probably make it clear that I am strongly against censorship in the aforementioned cases. There are two cases in which I feel universal censorship is appropriate. These are the more extreme cases of the pornogrind genre (the name of which probably speaks for itself), and NSBM, which stands for National Socialist Black Metal. I daresay that there are similar cases in other genres, but metal, and metallic music, is my area of so-called expertise, and so these are appropriate case studies for me to look into.
Pornogrind has developed for a few years, and varies from grindcore with innuendo, to the stuff with endless porn samples and frankly disgusting artwork and lyrics. A case of the latter, and a case that I will use to argue for censorship to be introduced to this part of the genre, is XXX Maniak's album 'Harvesting The Cunt Nectar'. This album contains frequent extreme song titles and samples, often referring to paedophilia and its practise, although the artwork is comparatively tame. After reading a review in Terrorizer magazine, I decided to give it a listen, almost as some sort of initiation rite, and was nearly sick at some of the stuff contained; and I have a strong stomach!
At the other end of the should-be-censored spectrum is NSBM. This is something that I am strongly against; anything that encourages prejudice against a race or group should be strongly discouraged in my eyes, and although it is debatable whether it is a suitable topic for an art form (in my eyes, it's reasonably okay if one doesn't actually believe in the politics), anybody who is highjacking art and using it to spread Nazi propaganda in general ought to be shot. That this is now viewed as a legitimate strain of the black metal genre is frankly ridiculous, on two fronts: firstly, the actual belief in the lyrical content itself, which is turning one or two black metal kiddies with malleable minds into anti-Semitic wannabe Nazis; and that they're adding an extra genre classification based on lyrical content? Really?
So, although there is very little music, and indeed all other art forms, that I would encourage censorship of, I think to summarise, all the things which encourage highly illegal activity (the adjective being there as I don't mind 'UGH! LET'S SMOKE SOME DOPE!' lyrics, just find them pathetic), such as Nazism and paedophilia. Of course, there are one or two exceptions - the one that springs to mind is that 'Mein Kampf' and other texts are interesting and useful in a historical context, and thus should not be censored. But the principal as a whole, I think, is sound.
However, outside of the mainstream there are some murky things to be found. What I want to explore is whether music should ever be completely censored. The three famous cases of censorship that spring to mind are Cannibal Corpse albums being banned due to the artwork, similarly, The Scorpions' album 'Virgin Killer' being banned due to its artwork (which depicted a naked prepubescent girl) - and even recently the wikipedia page was blocked for a while to all UK IP addresses - and the case in which Earache records were raided by the police for possibly illegal content of some of their records; Digby Pearson has since complained that he never got his Alice Cooper poster back, even though they were found to be not guilty.
However, even these seem practically tame compared to some things which aren't censored due to their limited availability, and I should probably make it clear that I am strongly against censorship in the aforementioned cases. There are two cases in which I feel universal censorship is appropriate. These are the more extreme cases of the pornogrind genre (the name of which probably speaks for itself), and NSBM, which stands for National Socialist Black Metal. I daresay that there are similar cases in other genres, but metal, and metallic music, is my area of so-called expertise, and so these are appropriate case studies for me to look into.
Pornogrind has developed for a few years, and varies from grindcore with innuendo, to the stuff with endless porn samples and frankly disgusting artwork and lyrics. A case of the latter, and a case that I will use to argue for censorship to be introduced to this part of the genre, is XXX Maniak's album 'Harvesting The Cunt Nectar'. This album contains frequent extreme song titles and samples, often referring to paedophilia and its practise, although the artwork is comparatively tame. After reading a review in Terrorizer magazine, I decided to give it a listen, almost as some sort of initiation rite, and was nearly sick at some of the stuff contained; and I have a strong stomach!
At the other end of the should-be-censored spectrum is NSBM. This is something that I am strongly against; anything that encourages prejudice against a race or group should be strongly discouraged in my eyes, and although it is debatable whether it is a suitable topic for an art form (in my eyes, it's reasonably okay if one doesn't actually believe in the politics), anybody who is highjacking art and using it to spread Nazi propaganda in general ought to be shot. That this is now viewed as a legitimate strain of the black metal genre is frankly ridiculous, on two fronts: firstly, the actual belief in the lyrical content itself, which is turning one or two black metal kiddies with malleable minds into anti-Semitic wannabe Nazis; and that they're adding an extra genre classification based on lyrical content? Really?
So, although there is very little music, and indeed all other art forms, that I would encourage censorship of, I think to summarise, all the things which encourage highly illegal activity (the adjective being there as I don't mind 'UGH! LET'S SMOKE SOME DOPE!' lyrics, just find them pathetic), such as Nazism and paedophilia. Of course, there are one or two exceptions - the one that springs to mind is that 'Mein Kampf' and other texts are interesting and useful in a historical context, and thus should not be censored. But the principal as a whole, I think, is sound.
Friday 25 June 2010
In brief: budget analysis and viewpoints.
Wow, we're coming very quickly towards our 50th post here. That will be the first great milestone of the blog in my eyes. Anyway, I wanted to write about how the Con/Dem (haha, see what I regurgitated there) government has affected the country so far. Admittedly, not much has actually happened, but given the recent publication of the budget, we can now see what changes are going to be brought to the country in the near future.
The most obvious change, and the one that will hit people's pockets in the most obvious way, is the increase of the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20%. Whilst this may seem to be a change which will only be minor (for instance something that is VAT applicable now, which costs £1.00 after VAT, should now cost (£1.00/117.5)*120=£1.02128...). However, when you consider that this added VAT will have to apply at every step of the creation process, and that it will probably be rounded up a bit each time, we can expect to see up to 10% price increases for a 2.5% increase in government income. Yeah, smart. Admittedly, the one plus side is that VAT-exempt items stay VAT exempt.
And who does this hit hardest? Some would say the rich; after all, they're the ones who buy most, and thus stand to lose the most money from this change. But the real answer is those who can ill-afford an extra 10% on their purchases. The people who the rich probably aren't even aware exist, the unfortunate ones who have to scrape what they can just to live in relative poverty.
The one surprise is the increase in capital gains tax to 28% for higher rate taxpayers, whilst basic rate payers have no increase whatsoever. This writer thinks it must be the Liberal influence seeping into the cracks of the sullen exterior of Tory politicians. In fact, due to the ongoing Americanisation of the whole planet, one can almost imagine someone wearing a Union Jack version of one of those American-flag top hats, with wild grey hair and a monocle, and blaming the 'damn Communists' for a lack of a complete autocracy.
The increase in personal tax allowance is almost an irrelevant addition; this extra £1000 will actually equate to only just over £200 in terms of tax saved, and if Osborne really wanted to help out those in dire need of the cuts to be staved off, he would've done better reintroducing the 10p tax band. But that's well and truly buried now; for the next four or five years at least.
The one thing which really smacks of Toryness (always a negative adjective in this blog) is the freezing of higher rate tax for a few years. In my personal opinion, the higher rate should be raised to about 50%, yet also the income level for this tax be raised to about £50,000 to compensate; as the current ~£37,000 is really not a high salary in some areas, particularly London, where the average central salary is about £50,000, and housing and goods are priced accordingly.
The public sector cuts are abominable. As both my parents work in the public sector, I hear plenty of stories about the quality of the work and indeed, the less-than-inflation pay increases. To then go and cut these frankly understaffed already areas is one of the worst ideas since the Algeciras conference. And to try and replace some of the education cuts with so-called 'free schools'? All this will lead to is a general deprecation in the quality of schooling akin to teaching us all Roman ideals.
Again, it is a ridiculous move on the half of the Tories to REDUCE corporation tax. Again, I'll make an analogy to American history. Remember the laissez-faire attitude taken by the Republicans to the giant railroad corporations and trusts in the 1920s? What happened then? If you can't think, I'll give you a clue... just find out what happened in October 1929 and find out the impact on America and the rest of the world.
It's frankly naive to think that the budget deficit can be cut this fast. George Osborne is silly for thinking so. If only Vince Cable had been made Chancellor in this coalition, then we'd be getting somewhere. Of course, the root of the problem dates all the way back to the 2007 recession in America, and the consequent collapse of the Lehman Brothers (who were a massive financial institution); compared to that, the nationalisation of the banks in the UK was a small move. We need to take things slowly. Steady out the economy first, before making any rash moves that provide a continuation of the instant gratification to the banker friends of the Conservative party. Which is JUST what we need.
The most obvious change, and the one that will hit people's pockets in the most obvious way, is the increase of the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20%. Whilst this may seem to be a change which will only be minor (for instance something that is VAT applicable now, which costs £1.00 after VAT, should now cost (£1.00/117.5)*120=£1.02128...). However, when you consider that this added VAT will have to apply at every step of the creation process, and that it will probably be rounded up a bit each time, we can expect to see up to 10% price increases for a 2.5% increase in government income. Yeah, smart. Admittedly, the one plus side is that VAT-exempt items stay VAT exempt.
And who does this hit hardest? Some would say the rich; after all, they're the ones who buy most, and thus stand to lose the most money from this change. But the real answer is those who can ill-afford an extra 10% on their purchases. The people who the rich probably aren't even aware exist, the unfortunate ones who have to scrape what they can just to live in relative poverty.
The one surprise is the increase in capital gains tax to 28% for higher rate taxpayers, whilst basic rate payers have no increase whatsoever. This writer thinks it must be the Liberal influence seeping into the cracks of the sullen exterior of Tory politicians. In fact, due to the ongoing Americanisation of the whole planet, one can almost imagine someone wearing a Union Jack version of one of those American-flag top hats, with wild grey hair and a monocle, and blaming the 'damn Communists' for a lack of a complete autocracy.
The increase in personal tax allowance is almost an irrelevant addition; this extra £1000 will actually equate to only just over £200 in terms of tax saved, and if Osborne really wanted to help out those in dire need of the cuts to be staved off, he would've done better reintroducing the 10p tax band. But that's well and truly buried now; for the next four or five years at least.
The one thing which really smacks of Toryness (always a negative adjective in this blog) is the freezing of higher rate tax for a few years. In my personal opinion, the higher rate should be raised to about 50%, yet also the income level for this tax be raised to about £50,000 to compensate; as the current ~£37,000 is really not a high salary in some areas, particularly London, where the average central salary is about £50,000, and housing and goods are priced accordingly.
The public sector cuts are abominable. As both my parents work in the public sector, I hear plenty of stories about the quality of the work and indeed, the less-than-inflation pay increases. To then go and cut these frankly understaffed already areas is one of the worst ideas since the Algeciras conference. And to try and replace some of the education cuts with so-called 'free schools'? All this will lead to is a general deprecation in the quality of schooling akin to teaching us all Roman ideals.
Again, it is a ridiculous move on the half of the Tories to REDUCE corporation tax. Again, I'll make an analogy to American history. Remember the laissez-faire attitude taken by the Republicans to the giant railroad corporations and trusts in the 1920s? What happened then? If you can't think, I'll give you a clue... just find out what happened in October 1929 and find out the impact on America and the rest of the world.
It's frankly naive to think that the budget deficit can be cut this fast. George Osborne is silly for thinking so. If only Vince Cable had been made Chancellor in this coalition, then we'd be getting somewhere. Of course, the root of the problem dates all the way back to the 2007 recession in America, and the consequent collapse of the Lehman Brothers (who were a massive financial institution); compared to that, the nationalisation of the banks in the UK was a small move. We need to take things slowly. Steady out the economy first, before making any rash moves that provide a continuation of the instant gratification to the banker friends of the Conservative party. Which is JUST what we need.
Thursday 24 June 2010
One cook makes a broth.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... exams are finally over. I expected a sort of climactic feeling, but I have none, just one of calm relief, the sort that you'd expect you'd get lying on your deathbed at the end of an ordeal. I expected to have a feeling of euphoria akin to several hundred simultaneous orgasms, but no. Just this feeling of freedom.
It could just be that it's taking a while for the feeling to settle in; I certainly have to keep pinching myself to remind myself that yes, I am actually free of my shackles, binding me to the feeling that I have to keep grinding, trying to pull these GCSE results out of the bag. I've always been sure that I had the potential, I just wasn't too sure about the willpower. But now I'm quietly confident of decent enough results to continue my Oxbridge aspirations.
Anyway, let's move off the ego-trip. As I now have GLORIOUS freedom, I will be blogging a lot more. Thus I need stuff to blog about. I feel that this can be partially sated by keeping a closer eye on the news, but I would like people to suggest interesting topics for me to cast my ire upon. Or praise, it depends what it is. But probably ire. As you may have guessed, I don't praise much.
I would write briefly about the budget which has just been released, but in all honesty, right now I neither know enough already or can be bothered to do enough research to write a suitable piece on it. So there is one planned, but how close to fruition it is, or indeed whether or not it will actually come into existence is unsure. In the meantime, those of you who are desperate to hear more of my political omniscience, I want to write a small summary of my views on extreme right politics.
Whilst in years gone long by, extreme right politics were the norm, as in the poor continued to be poor, the rich continued to be rich, and anyone different was burned at the stake, but nowadays, thankfully they are something of a minority belief. We haven't really had a bad case of extreme racial prejudice since the demise of the original Nazis in 1945, although we have had other smaller cases, for instance apartheid, the National Front (who, I might add, might have considered rhymes before choosing their name to protect against misnomers) against immigrants in the UK, and America against all who don't follow their 'Christian' conservative values.
However, extreme right wing parties are certainly getting a lot more mainstream press coverage, enough so that a UKIP candidate stood at my school's mock election (although fortunately he only got 3% of the votes), and that the EDL are planning to make a series of demonstrations across the UK that are well-publicised enough for counter-demonstrations to have to be planned. If there was one in York, I'd be going, but hopefully the whole thing will have been crushed to nothing by the time they get to such low population cities.
Let me get this straight, if I haven't already; extreme right political believers are scum. They should not be persecuted based on it, otherwise one becomes as bad as them, but rather exposed to their flaws and absolutely demonised. A great number of them are ill-educated, and thus their malleable minds will instantly jump to anyone who offers a scapegoat to their problems that are often their own fault. Case in point: Germany in 1933 had extreme economic problems, so the public voted the Nazi party in. As this was such an extreme time, even those who would normally have more political nonce felt obliged to vote Nazi based on the 'common enemy' principal.
Along similar lines, this is why I feel that better political education should be enforced in schools. Starting in year 6, or the last year of primary school, children would be taught about politics about once a week, which could replace some of the less useful lessons about. Although it is argued that this education already exists through citizenship lessons, having experienced 3 years of those myself, I can say they're frankly inadequate in terms of politics, albeit quite effective in scaring year 7 kids off sex and alcohol for a year or two.
However, it could be very difficult to get enough teachers to teach this from truly impartial perspectives. Those who have no political views would be useless, as they are generally just dumb by the time they get to their mid 20s if none have yet developed, and those who are keen enough to teach the subject would also have developed strong political views that would be difficult to hide during lessons. I still wonder how a friend of mine's father - who is a professor of politics at Leeds - manages.
Anyway, I sort of derailed from the initial intention of my post, but let's face it, that happens in most posts, and I still managed to put across my point, I feel. Back to my simmering in a half-slumberous position in this spinny computer chair, to those of you that have read my early posts.
It could just be that it's taking a while for the feeling to settle in; I certainly have to keep pinching myself to remind myself that yes, I am actually free of my shackles, binding me to the feeling that I have to keep grinding, trying to pull these GCSE results out of the bag. I've always been sure that I had the potential, I just wasn't too sure about the willpower. But now I'm quietly confident of decent enough results to continue my Oxbridge aspirations.
Anyway, let's move off the ego-trip. As I now have GLORIOUS freedom, I will be blogging a lot more. Thus I need stuff to blog about. I feel that this can be partially sated by keeping a closer eye on the news, but I would like people to suggest interesting topics for me to cast my ire upon. Or praise, it depends what it is. But probably ire. As you may have guessed, I don't praise much.
I would write briefly about the budget which has just been released, but in all honesty, right now I neither know enough already or can be bothered to do enough research to write a suitable piece on it. So there is one planned, but how close to fruition it is, or indeed whether or not it will actually come into existence is unsure. In the meantime, those of you who are desperate to hear more of my political omniscience, I want to write a small summary of my views on extreme right politics.
Whilst in years gone long by, extreme right politics were the norm, as in the poor continued to be poor, the rich continued to be rich, and anyone different was burned at the stake, but nowadays, thankfully they are something of a minority belief. We haven't really had a bad case of extreme racial prejudice since the demise of the original Nazis in 1945, although we have had other smaller cases, for instance apartheid, the National Front (who, I might add, might have considered rhymes before choosing their name to protect against misnomers) against immigrants in the UK, and America against all who don't follow their 'Christian' conservative values.
However, extreme right wing parties are certainly getting a lot more mainstream press coverage, enough so that a UKIP candidate stood at my school's mock election (although fortunately he only got 3% of the votes), and that the EDL are planning to make a series of demonstrations across the UK that are well-publicised enough for counter-demonstrations to have to be planned. If there was one in York, I'd be going, but hopefully the whole thing will have been crushed to nothing by the time they get to such low population cities.
Let me get this straight, if I haven't already; extreme right political believers are scum. They should not be persecuted based on it, otherwise one becomes as bad as them, but rather exposed to their flaws and absolutely demonised. A great number of them are ill-educated, and thus their malleable minds will instantly jump to anyone who offers a scapegoat to their problems that are often their own fault. Case in point: Germany in 1933 had extreme economic problems, so the public voted the Nazi party in. As this was such an extreme time, even those who would normally have more political nonce felt obliged to vote Nazi based on the 'common enemy' principal.
Along similar lines, this is why I feel that better political education should be enforced in schools. Starting in year 6, or the last year of primary school, children would be taught about politics about once a week, which could replace some of the less useful lessons about. Although it is argued that this education already exists through citizenship lessons, having experienced 3 years of those myself, I can say they're frankly inadequate in terms of politics, albeit quite effective in scaring year 7 kids off sex and alcohol for a year or two.
However, it could be very difficult to get enough teachers to teach this from truly impartial perspectives. Those who have no political views would be useless, as they are generally just dumb by the time they get to their mid 20s if none have yet developed, and those who are keen enough to teach the subject would also have developed strong political views that would be difficult to hide during lessons. I still wonder how a friend of mine's father - who is a professor of politics at Leeds - manages.
Anyway, I sort of derailed from the initial intention of my post, but let's face it, that happens in most posts, and I still managed to put across my point, I feel. Back to my simmering in a half-slumberous position in this spinny computer chair, to those of you that have read my early posts.
Tuesday 22 June 2010
OH MOAR TISSUE SELF LOVE BUDGET FOR STEVE JOBS PLS
I am Jesus. Or so Steve Jobs would have you believe, after releasing the iPad, a worthless, functionless piece of shit, already obsolete upon its release by the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nonetheless, it's shiny, it's got a touch screen, and what's more, it has the Apple logo on it, so it will sell millions. As far as I can see, its only real advantages over the aforementioned other Apple products are that it comes with a stylus (whereas the other two were heat sensitive), and that it has a bigger screen.
Apparently, it's supposed to revolutionize the tablet computer, but there's one major flaw with that - that the tablet computer was a vile misconception in the first place. Seriously, if you're going to be carrying the extra weight around with you, then just go for a laptop, you know, something that has a decent sized keyboard, and enough USB stuff etc. so that you can actually use it as a COMPUTER. The clue's in the name.
Also, the prices are ridiculous. 16GB iPad? £429. 16GB iPod Touch? £220. And the key point... the iPod Touch can play MUSIC. Wasn't this the original purpose of the iSuckoffapple series? To play music? How on earth is one supposed to fill even the 16GB model, the smallest one available on the market, if you can't put music on it? Carrying around something that size for apps is akin to carrying around a DS with only demo cartridges available.
You know, I'm starting to consider if Apple isn't a general conspiracy of THE WHOLE WORLD AGAINST ME, causing my logic to cause my brain to explode at how so many people are buying so much retarded shit. No, you don't need the iPhone 3GS, you have an iPhone already, and wasting £500 for such a small upgrade... nope, don't listen to me, just don't come complaining to me about living in a council house.
Persona 101
Apparently, it's supposed to revolutionize the tablet computer, but there's one major flaw with that - that the tablet computer was a vile misconception in the first place. Seriously, if you're going to be carrying the extra weight around with you, then just go for a laptop, you know, something that has a decent sized keyboard, and enough USB stuff etc. so that you can actually use it as a COMPUTER. The clue's in the name.
Also, the prices are ridiculous. 16GB iPad? £429. 16GB iPod Touch? £220. And the key point... the iPod Touch can play MUSIC. Wasn't this the original purpose of the iSuckoffapple series? To play music? How on earth is one supposed to fill even the 16GB model, the smallest one available on the market, if you can't put music on it? Carrying around something that size for apps is akin to carrying around a DS with only demo cartridges available.
You know, I'm starting to consider if Apple isn't a general conspiracy of THE WHOLE WORLD AGAINST ME, causing my logic to cause my brain to explode at how so many people are buying so much retarded shit. No, you don't need the iPhone 3GS, you have an iPhone already, and wasting £500 for such a small upgrade... nope, don't listen to me, just don't come complaining to me about living in a council house.
Persona 101
Monday 21 June 2010
The 5 club: grindcore
Dear me, that title's still annoying me. Anyhow...
Siege Of Hate
Starting off as a death/grind band, especially with the awesome album 'Subversive By Nature', Siege Of Hate have moved somewhat onto a more pure grind oriented sound with last year's album 'Deathmocracy', especially with the stylistic shift of the vocals. This one's off that album - I would have included something off 'Subversive...', but I couldn't find anything on Youtube.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Combining standard grind with electronic elements and one hell of a drum machine courtesy of Scott Hull, I personally feel that the quality of ANb's output has somewhat diminished since the addition of real members lessened the craziness of the music, so here's part of their MCD masterpiece, 'Altered States Of America'.
Last Days Of Humanity
Goregrind sickos Last Days Of Humanity first hit the limelight with debut album 'The Sound Of Rancid Juices Sloshing About Your Coffin', but, such is goregrind, that pretty much all of their music is interchangeable... just somehow they do it better than most other goregrind acts!
Insect Warfare
It was claimed by Earache, as they rereleased it, that 'World Extermination' was the best grindcore album since 'From Enslavement To Obliteration'. Whilst I may not place it that high, it's certainly in amongst the greats, and so here's 'Human Trafficking' off that great album.
Reth
Still relatively unknown, Reth made 2008's 'Precursors To Extinction' available for free legal download not too long ago, and are really an exciting prospect for British grindcore, as they really show that the essence of spazzgrind lives on. Here's 'Shibboleths Of The New Panacea'.
Siege Of Hate
Starting off as a death/grind band, especially with the awesome album 'Subversive By Nature', Siege Of Hate have moved somewhat onto a more pure grind oriented sound with last year's album 'Deathmocracy', especially with the stylistic shift of the vocals. This one's off that album - I would have included something off 'Subversive...', but I couldn't find anything on Youtube.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Combining standard grind with electronic elements and one hell of a drum machine courtesy of Scott Hull, I personally feel that the quality of ANb's output has somewhat diminished since the addition of real members lessened the craziness of the music, so here's part of their MCD masterpiece, 'Altered States Of America'.
Last Days Of Humanity
Goregrind sickos Last Days Of Humanity first hit the limelight with debut album 'The Sound Of Rancid Juices Sloshing About Your Coffin', but, such is goregrind, that pretty much all of their music is interchangeable... just somehow they do it better than most other goregrind acts!
Insect Warfare
It was claimed by Earache, as they rereleased it, that 'World Extermination' was the best grindcore album since 'From Enslavement To Obliteration'. Whilst I may not place it that high, it's certainly in amongst the greats, and so here's 'Human Trafficking' off that great album.
Reth
Still relatively unknown, Reth made 2008's 'Precursors To Extinction' available for free legal download not too long ago, and are really an exciting prospect for British grindcore, as they really show that the essence of spazzgrind lives on. Here's 'Shibboleths Of The New Panacea'.
Slamming the evangelists... or not
I think I'm suffering from acute pinch harmonia. Yes, after a period of not listening to music (due to the slight inconvenience of my eardrum bursting, and thus not being able to hear shit), I'm back to it, and what do I start with? Some third rate metalcore. Oh dear. Anyhow, I now actually feel like the holidays have started, despite having German and Food exams on Wednesday; this is probably because neither of the two really need further revision, I just get the joys of wasting about 4 hours in an exam room. But hey, at least I've learnt... something or other. I just hope I don't get the two mixed up and write recipes in German and go off on a tangential spiel (which is openly encouraged in languages writing exams), showcasing my opinions on religion in Food.
Ah yes, religion. I've been meaning to write about this for some time. The bottom line of my theological beliefs is atheism, but there is a side to me that desperately wants to believe in God, just because it would be one helluva ride. But being a logical man, I just can't believe in a deity. In fact, I had great fun in my secondary school RE classes arguing - and I think with decent arguments, not just argument for argument's sake - against everything we were being taught about the beliefs of various religions. I bet I gave my teacher a hard time!
However, that's not to say that I disrespect religious believers. Admittedly, some subsects (generally those who shove their opinions in your face - evangelists, mormons, Jehovah's witnesses etc.) do REALLY get under my skin, and I certainly don't respect their activities, but in general, I feel that those who can believe are lucky - religion must be such a helpful thing to get through one's life with. To me, it seems like it provides a light at the end of the tunnel for even the most distraught of sufferers - just look at the loyalty to Judaism of the holocaust victims!
What I do hate though, is when religious believers don't follow up on their religion. One of the main lessons of Christianity, for instance, is to treat others as you would have them treat you (Christian Aid is a wonderful charity), but there are so many who simply disregard that, and follow the selfish path in life, and ignore the plight of others. That they can call themselves Christian with a straight face is frankly diabolical - in both senses of the term.
I also respect minority religions, although some of the more 'cult' style ones are frankly ridiculous - Satanism, both anti-theistic and LaVeyan, is no more than a joke, and those who take it seriously should be firmly segregated from normal society, so they can produce their kvlt-kiddy bedroom black metal in peace. Oh dear Zarach, you are one for a good laugh. Other minority religions are fine, so long as they don't encourage inequality.
Well, I feel that I've summed up my views on religion in general pretty well, given how succinct all of this has been. As usual, any questions, or if you want me to explain something in more depth, please post a comment. It would make me feel popular.
Persona 101
Ah yes, religion. I've been meaning to write about this for some time. The bottom line of my theological beliefs is atheism, but there is a side to me that desperately wants to believe in God, just because it would be one helluva ride. But being a logical man, I just can't believe in a deity. In fact, I had great fun in my secondary school RE classes arguing - and I think with decent arguments, not just argument for argument's sake - against everything we were being taught about the beliefs of various religions. I bet I gave my teacher a hard time!
However, that's not to say that I disrespect religious believers. Admittedly, some subsects (generally those who shove their opinions in your face - evangelists, mormons, Jehovah's witnesses etc.) do REALLY get under my skin, and I certainly don't respect their activities, but in general, I feel that those who can believe are lucky - religion must be such a helpful thing to get through one's life with. To me, it seems like it provides a light at the end of the tunnel for even the most distraught of sufferers - just look at the loyalty to Judaism of the holocaust victims!
What I do hate though, is when religious believers don't follow up on their religion. One of the main lessons of Christianity, for instance, is to treat others as you would have them treat you (Christian Aid is a wonderful charity), but there are so many who simply disregard that, and follow the selfish path in life, and ignore the plight of others. That they can call themselves Christian with a straight face is frankly diabolical - in both senses of the term.
I also respect minority religions, although some of the more 'cult' style ones are frankly ridiculous - Satanism, both anti-theistic and LaVeyan, is no more than a joke, and those who take it seriously should be firmly segregated from normal society, so they can produce their kvlt-kiddy bedroom black metal in peace. Oh dear Zarach, you are one for a good laugh. Other minority religions are fine, so long as they don't encourage inequality.
Well, I feel that I've summed up my views on religion in general pretty well, given how succinct all of this has been. As usual, any questions, or if you want me to explain something in more depth, please post a comment. It would make me feel popular.
Persona 101
Saturday 19 June 2010
Lots of crazy Japanese drummers.
Gaaah. Boredom. I've even resorted to watching matches between Ghana and Australia in the World Cup. Yeah, THAT bored. According to Spanner, in my last post I sounded angry, so I can now assure you that this will be one of the tamest, most asinine posts you will ever read. That's right, it's football. I couldn't claim to be particularly knowledgeable about the sport; indeed, my interest certainly tailed off after I found I was no good at it myself, but I still find the time to relax and enjoy watching a bit on the idiot box (haha, surreptious Deal Or No Deal reference there).
But why? Football is comparatively slow for a constant movement sport - it's definitely faster than golf or snooker, or indeed darts, but let's face it, those who take a particulr interest in those certainly passive sports are generally (pick at least three of the four) old/fat/balding/drunk. My grandfather has an excuse - he is indeed old, fat and balding. But football... why? Why not the more vulgar, fast-paced and brutal approach of rugby? For me, it's because I tend to sway away from things that are merely a vulgar display of power (redneck points for the reference), and the rumpy-pumpy attitude of the scrummage causes me to wrinkle my nose.
But then there's the far more melodramatic stylings of racquet sports (not Al Capone), in which one can watch the Williams sisters and many Eastern European players with unpronouncable names scamper across a tarmac surface, that sole noise interrupted by the semi-sexual grunts, undoubtedly to reinforce the point that it's a major trouble hitting that ball, and not at all to get a few extra male fans. Given that my sport of choice is squash, you may be expecting me to promote that, but I can tell you, unless you really get into it, it is about as fun to watch as it is to wake up in the basement of Josef Fritzl.
So what are the other reasons for watching football, aside from its dominance in terms of a fine balance of fun and a reasonable lack of sexual connotations? Well, firstly, although I don't feel this, there's a chance for otherwise respectable men, especially those who support the teams from the nice areas of London, to participate in a slagging match that will very quickly evolve into full blown gang warfare if you're playing Millwall.
And then, of course, there's the feeling of comradeship, which allows all football fans to come together as one and appreciate 'the beautiful game' for all its heights and lows. Who am I kidding? That's never going to happen! In England, as soon as kids hit the age of four (days), their fathers will usually have injected them with the semen of the club that they themselves support, which produces a rash when it comes into contact with any other club's... no, wait, that's a terrible analogy. But you get the point.
So while for me, football may be a chance to relax, and partake in heated debates with the television, for others, it offers the chance to roleplay a thug, or even better, just to continue as they are (especially in Millwall!). Although to some it may seem like a mandatory dose of an unhelpful medicine being forced upon them, and it is unfortunately everywhere at times like this (bloody vuvuzelas), it is ultimately a chance for fans, and casual onlookers like myself, to sit back and simply ignore everything else in the world, rather choosing to scoff at the efforts of proffessionals and claiming to be better one's self. Try that with a mechanic and see where it gets you.
On a departing note, I've dropped three references in here, two quite clearly signposted, although one is clearer than the other, and one in the title. If you can find them all, and tell me what the references are to, then leave a comment, and I'll write a post on the topic of your choosing (within reason). Have fun!
Persona 101
But why? Football is comparatively slow for a constant movement sport - it's definitely faster than golf or snooker, or indeed darts, but let's face it, those who take a particulr interest in those certainly passive sports are generally (pick at least three of the four) old/fat/balding/drunk. My grandfather has an excuse - he is indeed old, fat and balding. But football... why? Why not the more vulgar, fast-paced and brutal approach of rugby? For me, it's because I tend to sway away from things that are merely a vulgar display of power (redneck points for the reference), and the rumpy-pumpy attitude of the scrummage causes me to wrinkle my nose.
But then there's the far more melodramatic stylings of racquet sports (not Al Capone), in which one can watch the Williams sisters and many Eastern European players with unpronouncable names scamper across a tarmac surface, that sole noise interrupted by the semi-sexual grunts, undoubtedly to reinforce the point that it's a major trouble hitting that ball, and not at all to get a few extra male fans. Given that my sport of choice is squash, you may be expecting me to promote that, but I can tell you, unless you really get into it, it is about as fun to watch as it is to wake up in the basement of Josef Fritzl.
So what are the other reasons for watching football, aside from its dominance in terms of a fine balance of fun and a reasonable lack of sexual connotations? Well, firstly, although I don't feel this, there's a chance for otherwise respectable men, especially those who support the teams from the nice areas of London, to participate in a slagging match that will very quickly evolve into full blown gang warfare if you're playing Millwall.
And then, of course, there's the feeling of comradeship, which allows all football fans to come together as one and appreciate 'the beautiful game' for all its heights and lows. Who am I kidding? That's never going to happen! In England, as soon as kids hit the age of four (days), their fathers will usually have injected them with the semen of the club that they themselves support, which produces a rash when it comes into contact with any other club's... no, wait, that's a terrible analogy. But you get the point.
So while for me, football may be a chance to relax, and partake in heated debates with the television, for others, it offers the chance to roleplay a thug, or even better, just to continue as they are (especially in Millwall!). Although to some it may seem like a mandatory dose of an unhelpful medicine being forced upon them, and it is unfortunately everywhere at times like this (bloody vuvuzelas), it is ultimately a chance for fans, and casual onlookers like myself, to sit back and simply ignore everything else in the world, rather choosing to scoff at the efforts of proffessionals and claiming to be better one's self. Try that with a mechanic and see where it gets you.
On a departing note, I've dropped three references in here, two quite clearly signposted, although one is clearer than the other, and one in the title. If you can find them all, and tell me what the references are to, then leave a comment, and I'll write a post on the topic of your choosing (within reason). Have fun!
Persona 101
Friday 18 June 2010
Music, lyrics and the PMRC
Sitting here writing this, I'm listening to some of the most profane music that I could possibly find. It gets me in the mood for this topic. I want to write about the PMRC.
Although this isn't really a relevant topic any more, I want to talk about their legacy. I'm sure anybody who's a fan of Twisted Sister (I'm not personally, I'm just aware of this) is aware of the court case in which Dee Snider testified against the PMRC, and in particular Tipper Gore. The PMRC had placed 'We're Not Gonna Take It' on a list called the 'Filthy 15', which recommended that these songs be banned. It was apparently there for being violent, which, reading over the lyrics now, is not a theme that appears to be present in any way, instead, Gore was probably offended by the anti-establishment themes to be found there. Ironically, a song by Judas Priest (who I have nothing but respect for) called 'Eat Me Alive', with mild sexual connotations, was also included for 'sexual' themes, that, although being present, are minor, and certainly not on par with the antics that she and Al got up to later!
Also, I feel that musical censorship is less important than many other forms of censorship. Aside from the god awful 'Don't Want You Back'/'Fuck You Right Back' stuff that emerged several years ago, mainstream music is never particularly offensive, and at the ages that people usually start hearing less popular stuff, they're usually mature enough to handle the lyrical topics. The two possible exceptions that I can think of are the popularity of Eminem, who is fortunately (for my argument) falling out of popularity, and Green Day, due to the political ideas of the more modern stuff. In addition to that, I feel that they can often be a portal to more politically minded and aggressive music: for instance, once, in my youthful folly, whilst looking through Green Day albums on Amazon, I was presented a link (through the 'Customers who bought this item') to Discharge's album 'Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing'.
Although in this case, most kids will not care too much about the political standpoint on the lyrics, but there will be one or two who take the opportunity to read deeply in the lyrics, and possibly develop predetermined political sentiments based on it - I should know, I was one, Green Day fanboy as I was (I'm nonetheless happy to have these sentiments now, and have taken several opportunities to re-evaluate my politics over the years, so as I feel that I would now feel this way anyway).
Despite this, I still feel that this sort of possible indoctrination of juveniles is morally wrong. Frankly, I couldn't care less about what Green Day's politics are, I just feel that young people should have the chance to develop political views of their own, whether they're the same as mine. I wouldn't mind so much if the lyrics offered reasons why they felt the way they do (and in fact, given the musical direction they've taken over the past ten years, is rather hypocritical), but the fact is that they simply present a mindless 'FUCK THE GOVERNMENT' stand without offering arguments (although in the context of music, there may not be a chance). This is therefore the music that I feel should be censored. I couldn't give a damn about music that promotes violence - someone who has a malleable enough mind to follow that shit will probably feel right at home in jail - nor, indeed, do I particularly mind music that talks overtly about occult or sexual topics, as these are frankly nothing major any more, and the music which goes deeply into these topics, as I said before, is usually unavailable to those who would be immature about it.
However, I know that nothing's going to change, less standards getting more and more relaxed, and that young people will continue to be influenced by the music they listen to; I think I'm personally past that stage (aside from apparel), but I have been in the past. Unless a nouveau Ms. Gore comes along, I think that we can rest safe in the knowledge that the lyrical content of what children listen to will largely be controlled by their parents and the output of the music industry, rather than the state.
Persona 101
Although this isn't really a relevant topic any more, I want to talk about their legacy. I'm sure anybody who's a fan of Twisted Sister (I'm not personally, I'm just aware of this) is aware of the court case in which Dee Snider testified against the PMRC, and in particular Tipper Gore. The PMRC had placed 'We're Not Gonna Take It' on a list called the 'Filthy 15', which recommended that these songs be banned. It was apparently there for being violent, which, reading over the lyrics now, is not a theme that appears to be present in any way, instead, Gore was probably offended by the anti-establishment themes to be found there. Ironically, a song by Judas Priest (who I have nothing but respect for) called 'Eat Me Alive', with mild sexual connotations, was also included for 'sexual' themes, that, although being present, are minor, and certainly not on par with the antics that she and Al got up to later!
Also, I feel that musical censorship is less important than many other forms of censorship. Aside from the god awful 'Don't Want You Back'/'Fuck You Right Back' stuff that emerged several years ago, mainstream music is never particularly offensive, and at the ages that people usually start hearing less popular stuff, they're usually mature enough to handle the lyrical topics. The two possible exceptions that I can think of are the popularity of Eminem, who is fortunately (for my argument) falling out of popularity, and Green Day, due to the political ideas of the more modern stuff. In addition to that, I feel that they can often be a portal to more politically minded and aggressive music: for instance, once, in my youthful folly, whilst looking through Green Day albums on Amazon, I was presented a link (through the 'Customers who bought this item') to Discharge's album 'Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing'.
Although in this case, most kids will not care too much about the political standpoint on the lyrics, but there will be one or two who take the opportunity to read deeply in the lyrics, and possibly develop predetermined political sentiments based on it - I should know, I was one, Green Day fanboy as I was (I'm nonetheless happy to have these sentiments now, and have taken several opportunities to re-evaluate my politics over the years, so as I feel that I would now feel this way anyway).
Despite this, I still feel that this sort of possible indoctrination of juveniles is morally wrong. Frankly, I couldn't care less about what Green Day's politics are, I just feel that young people should have the chance to develop political views of their own, whether they're the same as mine. I wouldn't mind so much if the lyrics offered reasons why they felt the way they do (and in fact, given the musical direction they've taken over the past ten years, is rather hypocritical), but the fact is that they simply present a mindless 'FUCK THE GOVERNMENT' stand without offering arguments (although in the context of music, there may not be a chance). This is therefore the music that I feel should be censored. I couldn't give a damn about music that promotes violence - someone who has a malleable enough mind to follow that shit will probably feel right at home in jail - nor, indeed, do I particularly mind music that talks overtly about occult or sexual topics, as these are frankly nothing major any more, and the music which goes deeply into these topics, as I said before, is usually unavailable to those who would be immature about it.
However, I know that nothing's going to change, less standards getting more and more relaxed, and that young people will continue to be influenced by the music they listen to; I think I'm personally past that stage (aside from apparel), but I have been in the past. Unless a nouveau Ms. Gore comes along, I think that we can rest safe in the knowledge that the lyrical content of what children listen to will largely be controlled by their parents and the output of the music industry, rather than the state.
Persona 101
The 5 club: black metal
I swear, I wince every time I type that name; if I can think of a better one in the future, I'll go back and change them all. Anyway...
Altar Of Plagues
Unfortunately underappreciated by many, Altar Of Plagues are probably one of the best black metal exports from the Republic Of Ireland since... the dawn of time itself. This incredibly atmospheric stuff is some of the best BM Ireland ever has produced, discounting the more doomy leanings of Primordial, and I'd like to offer a sample of this, from their only full length, 'White Tomb'.
Sarcofago
Always undergroud during their existence, Sarcofago were one of the pioneers of the Brazilian black/thrash scene, and, in my opinion, their debut album 'I.N.R.I.' was better than anything Sepultura ever have, or ever will release. This is an excerpt off that pioneering debut album, with hilarious mistranslations, for example 'If you are a false... don't entry'.
Anaal Nathrakh
A UK band from recent times, Anaal Nathrakh create a nihilistic mixture of black metal and grindcore, coupled with misanthropic lyrics that appear to have come from a completely disturbed mind! But it's black metal, so that's not exactly abnormal. This is my favourite song of theirs, coming from 2004 album 'Domine Non Es Dignus'.
Code
Okay, so this band's actual name fucked up my itunes list post, due to there being arrows (<>) around the name. 'Nouveau Gloaming' from 2005 was a fairly standard interpretation of DSBM (for those who aren't in the know, DS stands for Depressive Suicidal), but 2009 effort 'Resplendent Grotesque' is quite literally one of my favourite albums of all time: (the first seven seconds shouldn't be there)
Mutiilation
One of the INCREDIBLY TERRIFYING LLN (Les Legiones Noires), Mutiilation were (having split up in December 2009) predominantly a one man act; however, I feel that EP 'Hail Satanas We Are The Black Legions', from when they were a full band, is probably their best release. This is 'Desecrate Jesus' Name' from said release.
Altar Of Plagues
Unfortunately underappreciated by many, Altar Of Plagues are probably one of the best black metal exports from the Republic Of Ireland since... the dawn of time itself. This incredibly atmospheric stuff is some of the best BM Ireland ever has produced, discounting the more doomy leanings of Primordial, and I'd like to offer a sample of this, from their only full length, 'White Tomb'.
Sarcofago
Always undergroud during their existence, Sarcofago were one of the pioneers of the Brazilian black/thrash scene, and, in my opinion, their debut album 'I.N.R.I.' was better than anything Sepultura ever have, or ever will release. This is an excerpt off that pioneering debut album, with hilarious mistranslations, for example 'If you are a false... don't entry'.
Anaal Nathrakh
A UK band from recent times, Anaal Nathrakh create a nihilistic mixture of black metal and grindcore, coupled with misanthropic lyrics that appear to have come from a completely disturbed mind! But it's black metal, so that's not exactly abnormal. This is my favourite song of theirs, coming from 2004 album 'Domine Non Es Dignus'.
Code
Okay, so this band's actual name fucked up my itunes list post, due to there being arrows (<>) around the name. 'Nouveau Gloaming' from 2005 was a fairly standard interpretation of DSBM (for those who aren't in the know, DS stands for Depressive Suicidal), but 2009 effort 'Resplendent Grotesque' is quite literally one of my favourite albums of all time: (the first seven seconds shouldn't be there)
Mutiilation
One of the INCREDIBLY TERRIFYING LLN (Les Legiones Noires), Mutiilation were (having split up in December 2009) predominantly a one man act; however, I feel that EP 'Hail Satanas We Are The Black Legions', from when they were a full band, is probably their best release. This is 'Desecrate Jesus' Name' from said release.
Thursday 17 June 2010
Anti-Revision Techniques
Because Persona 101 is in the midst of exam revision/illness (even though he managed to post before me, therefore I shall be ripping out his scrotum through his nose later, that should clear out his head, eh?), I thought I should finally get around to posting something like I promised both myself and him back at the beginning of June.
So, today's (rather long) post will be on the topic of body modification. I was hoping it would turn into another two-sided thing, but it seems that Persona 101 knows stuff all about this area, surprise surprise. So this will be one sided, very biased, and hopefully quite fun to read, although I'll only discover that if people comment! *hint hint hint*
Before we start, a little disclaimer - I am in no way a professional. Everything I say here has come from experience, but I seriously recommend consulting a piercing or modification specialist before embarking on anything new. If in doubt, here's a good website to get you started. Be warned, some of the posts are quite extreme, and possibly unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition/those new to the world of modification. Proceed with caution.
I currently have six piercings - two in my left ear, three in my right, and my lip. Hopefully, I'll be adding a nape piercing (a horizontal bar piercing across the back of the neck) to this collection after the end of the exams. I also intend to begin stretching my left lobe piercing again over the summer. At it's largest, it was stretched to 10mm across, but after taking it out, I've had a lot of problems trying to start it up again. With any luck, I should be more successful this time around, as I have around 10 weeks to get it back to the size I want.
On the subject of stretches piercings, they have become much more common over the past year or two. I never fail to be a little saddened when I see indie kids, or even chavs, wandering around with piercings that obviously aren't very happy with their owners. I've spoken to people who have taken a piercing from it's original size, less than 1mm across, up to 5 or 6mm in a few days; this is incredibly stupid as it can tear the skin inside the piercing, leading to infection, and also causing problems when trying to stretch the piercing further as scar tissue has built up around the inside of it. If you're going to stretch a piercing, please, do it slowly! Move up one step at a time, no more than 0.5mm at a time up to 5mm, and no more than 1mm at a time after that, with at least a two week gap between each step, and you should be on the road to a healthy, happy stretch.
I love, no, ADORE my piercings, and feel that they are a part of me now. I instantly gravitate towards someone with a piercing, whether it be something unusual, or just something simple that suits the person's body. In the same breath, I will generally drift away from people who either have badly placed piercings, too many piercings, or those who get a piercing just because it's "cool", like the tragus (the small bump of cartilage that sticks out to protect the entrance of the ear) piercings that have suddenly gotten very popular recently.
Piercing is not the only part of the modification world that I have an interest in; I happen to also love tattoos. Despite this love, I am instantly saddened by people who have names tattooed on various parts of their body, the same going for brands, logos and, worst of all in my opinion, football badges or other team tattoos. These are the kinds of tattoos that make me wonder how the tattooist can have a shred of self respect. It is astonishing how bad some pieces are, whether they have been badly done (much to the misfortune of the recipient), or just generally a bad idea to start with (this is where my hatred of names, logos etc. comes in, along with anything Betty Boop or Playboy related). I'm also generally against full body tattooing, but this is only because I have yet to see a person covered in tattoos that doesn't have at least one that doesn't fit with the rest of the design. However, I do think that a full arm or leg sleeve, or a large back piece can look particularly beautiful if done well.
Sadly, what with the age restrictions for tattooing here being 18 without parental consent, it looks like I have another two years to wait before I can get my first piece. This is most likely a good thing, as it gives me time to plan out the perfect design, something which a minority of people neglect to do, choosing to pick their tattoo from a book in the shop. A tattoo should by no means be a thing that can be simply chosen on the spur of the moment; this design will be part of you forever, so it should be something that has a deep significance to you, at the very least a design you have thought of yourself. Why cover a part of your body in something that doesn't reflect who you are? I think the best way to show how I feel in this area would be to point you in the area of the programmes "LA Ink" and "London Ink", both of which are focused on not only the tattoos themselves, but the stories behind them.
So, as much as I could ramble on with this post forever, moving into the depths of scarification, implants, and other various things, I think that this is a nice introduction for now. I will write another post in this area at some point, but only if someone tells me to!
-Hlctwh93
So, today's (rather long) post will be on the topic of body modification. I was hoping it would turn into another two-sided thing, but it seems that Persona 101 knows stuff all about this area, surprise surprise. So this will be one sided, very biased, and hopefully quite fun to read, although I'll only discover that if people comment! *hint hint hint*
Before we start, a little disclaimer - I am in no way a professional. Everything I say here has come from experience, but I seriously recommend consulting a piercing or modification specialist before embarking on anything new. If in doubt, here's a good website to get you started. Be warned, some of the posts are quite extreme, and possibly unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition/those new to the world of modification. Proceed with caution.
I currently have six piercings - two in my left ear, three in my right, and my lip. Hopefully, I'll be adding a nape piercing (a horizontal bar piercing across the back of the neck) to this collection after the end of the exams. I also intend to begin stretching my left lobe piercing again over the summer. At it's largest, it was stretched to 10mm across, but after taking it out, I've had a lot of problems trying to start it up again. With any luck, I should be more successful this time around, as I have around 10 weeks to get it back to the size I want.
On the subject of stretches piercings, they have become much more common over the past year or two. I never fail to be a little saddened when I see indie kids, or even chavs, wandering around with piercings that obviously aren't very happy with their owners. I've spoken to people who have taken a piercing from it's original size, less than 1mm across, up to 5 or 6mm in a few days; this is incredibly stupid as it can tear the skin inside the piercing, leading to infection, and also causing problems when trying to stretch the piercing further as scar tissue has built up around the inside of it. If you're going to stretch a piercing, please, do it slowly! Move up one step at a time, no more than 0.5mm at a time up to 5mm, and no more than 1mm at a time after that, with at least a two week gap between each step, and you should be on the road to a healthy, happy stretch.
I love, no, ADORE my piercings, and feel that they are a part of me now. I instantly gravitate towards someone with a piercing, whether it be something unusual, or just something simple that suits the person's body. In the same breath, I will generally drift away from people who either have badly placed piercings, too many piercings, or those who get a piercing just because it's "cool", like the tragus (the small bump of cartilage that sticks out to protect the entrance of the ear) piercings that have suddenly gotten very popular recently.
Piercing is not the only part of the modification world that I have an interest in; I happen to also love tattoos. Despite this love, I am instantly saddened by people who have names tattooed on various parts of their body, the same going for brands, logos and, worst of all in my opinion, football badges or other team tattoos. These are the kinds of tattoos that make me wonder how the tattooist can have a shred of self respect. It is astonishing how bad some pieces are, whether they have been badly done (much to the misfortune of the recipient), or just generally a bad idea to start with (this is where my hatred of names, logos etc. comes in, along with anything Betty Boop or Playboy related). I'm also generally against full body tattooing, but this is only because I have yet to see a person covered in tattoos that doesn't have at least one that doesn't fit with the rest of the design. However, I do think that a full arm or leg sleeve, or a large back piece can look particularly beautiful if done well.
Sadly, what with the age restrictions for tattooing here being 18 without parental consent, it looks like I have another two years to wait before I can get my first piece. This is most likely a good thing, as it gives me time to plan out the perfect design, something which a minority of people neglect to do, choosing to pick their tattoo from a book in the shop. A tattoo should by no means be a thing that can be simply chosen on the spur of the moment; this design will be part of you forever, so it should be something that has a deep significance to you, at the very least a design you have thought of yourself. Why cover a part of your body in something that doesn't reflect who you are? I think the best way to show how I feel in this area would be to point you in the area of the programmes "LA Ink" and "London Ink", both of which are focused on not only the tattoos themselves, but the stories behind them.
So, as much as I could ramble on with this post forever, moving into the depths of scarification, implants, and other various things, I think that this is a nice introduction for now. I will write another post in this area at some point, but only if someone tells me to!
-Hlctwh93
Sunday 13 June 2010
Back in various shades of green
Apologies for the lack of a post recently; I've been in a bit of a dilemma. However, I want to write about how things were created. For instance, tea: how did someone come up with an idea as absurd of putting leaves in water hot enough to absorb their flavour? Whilst it may seem like a fairly rudimentary drink compared to the smorgasbord of various cocktails on offer in this day and age, it must have nonetheless appeared revolutionary at the time. It could have been one of these scenarios where the initial creator of the idea was thought of as a bit of a clot at the time, but in the aftermath of their demise, people came to herald them as something of a genius, which is somewhat useless to a dead person, like the pointlessness of posthumously awarding a Nobel Prize.
Anyway, I've come up with a theory. From my experience, many strange ideas will originally be brought up in a comedic manner, and then, in some strange form of experimentation, will be tested by someone or other, for good or for bad (usually bad for the poor sod unfortunate enough to be testing it), and if it appears to be a good idea, then it will fall into common practise. Of course, this discoverer will invariably be some nonentity, and so will get their ideas stolen by some person 'of greater entitlement' - 'Oh I do say Quentin, what a spiffing idea of mine it was to put these leaves in this water! I am EVER so inventive!'
Then again, for each idea that works, there will be many which result in a position of unfortunate hilarity for the tester, which, however much their comrades might appreciate the comedy, will result in them feeling somewhat unfulfilled and indeed, rather silly. One example of this is a 'friend' of mine's idea for a Yorkshire Independence Party, which made him even more of a laughing stock than he already was! What an absolute twat.
Of course, having been almost incapacitated by the dreadful throes of a horrible illness recently, I'm now hoping for a speedy solution to the common cold. Preferably within the next couple of days, as hopefully, beyond that it won't affect my current strifes. I like having an empty feeling inside my head, which admittedly isn't overly hard in Geography lessons (holy shit, Geography exam this afternoon!), rather than this large, solid block feeling that seems to be sufficiently disproportionate to the density of the rest of my body to throw me off balance.
I'll leave you there, as I should really get back to this summary of my Geography revision. I don't doubt I'll be fine, but it helps to steady the nerves, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts. One last thought: damn the two capsules every four hours restriction on intake of paracetamol.
Persona 101
Anyway, I've come up with a theory. From my experience, many strange ideas will originally be brought up in a comedic manner, and then, in some strange form of experimentation, will be tested by someone or other, for good or for bad (usually bad for the poor sod unfortunate enough to be testing it), and if it appears to be a good idea, then it will fall into common practise. Of course, this discoverer will invariably be some nonentity, and so will get their ideas stolen by some person 'of greater entitlement' - 'Oh I do say Quentin, what a spiffing idea of mine it was to put these leaves in this water! I am EVER so inventive!'
Then again, for each idea that works, there will be many which result in a position of unfortunate hilarity for the tester, which, however much their comrades might appreciate the comedy, will result in them feeling somewhat unfulfilled and indeed, rather silly. One example of this is a 'friend' of mine's idea for a Yorkshire Independence Party, which made him even more of a laughing stock than he already was! What an absolute twat.
Of course, having been almost incapacitated by the dreadful throes of a horrible illness recently, I'm now hoping for a speedy solution to the common cold. Preferably within the next couple of days, as hopefully, beyond that it won't affect my current strifes. I like having an empty feeling inside my head, which admittedly isn't overly hard in Geography lessons (holy shit, Geography exam this afternoon!), rather than this large, solid block feeling that seems to be sufficiently disproportionate to the density of the rest of my body to throw me off balance.
I'll leave you there, as I should really get back to this summary of my Geography revision. I don't doubt I'll be fine, but it helps to steady the nerves, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts. One last thought: damn the two capsules every four hours restriction on intake of paracetamol.
Persona 101
Thursday 10 June 2010
Philomathy (the love of maths)
I love maths. No, seriously, I do! Although there are plenty of things that I can think of that I'd rather be doing than doing a GCSE maths paper in a room of bipolar climate, I actually quite enjoyed 'helping' some friends with their revision by dreaming up trigonometry questions that were sufficiently difficult to be of a standard that would never come close to an AQA GCSE paper (needless to say, I am now short of a few friends; their heads exploded. This is a true n'yawwwww moment).
I say this because, lying in front of me, there is a challenging maths problem. It's one of these ones that has an incredibly long answer, so I won't attempt it until I have an hour or so to kill, but I shall eventually venture to do it. I look forward to it. In fact, I recall that as I was doing work experience at my primary school approximately a year ago, there was an incredibly brainy maths genius, who, at the age of 9, enjoyed doing maths. He noticed that I shared his passion, and consequently asked me to set him some maths to do over the summer. So I was hard at work, creating all manner of testing problems, then it occurred to me - he was 9. I feel that standard deviation and trigonometry will have been a little above his capabilities, but I gave him them anyway. I have not heard back from him yet.
So, as it is just 35 minutes until I must depart for my exam, I felt a need to write something about my feelings this morning. Given how absolutely zippadeedooda my exams have gone so far, it's certainly one of confidence. I almost feel on top of the world, but then my logic kicks in and reminds me that that's physically impossible. I feel wonderful, having finished for all eternity both my studies of the English language, and indeed, English literature; I daresay that my vocabulary will expand as I move into the future, and I shall certainly read more books, but I never have to complete the banal process of copying down notes dictated to me ever again. On poetry.
I've enjoyed maths over the past five years at this school; I feel it could've been a little more challenging, but that's just me. I'm looking forward to my continuation of it at college, where I will be taking further maths, which effectively means that I will be doing pure maths, statistics, decision, and mechanics, rather than just two of the four. I could do without the mechanics - I would've chosen to skip further education rather than continuing a full Physics course - but beggars can't be choosers (I can't help but feel that that's not the most appropriate proverb, but my mind escapes me for the moment).
I'll leave you for now by saying that in addition to having far fewer functions, non-scientific calculators are generally less durable; having found a spare scientific calculator on the floor, I decided to conduct a comparative test of durability - in other words, dropping two calculators from a second floor (third floor to Americans) window. The scientific one survived, whilst I had to make an unfortunate grave for the standard one, although if I'd used my usual scientific calculator for this experiment, I would now be taking a geometry exam without a 'Pi' function.
The moral of the story is this: don't drop calculators out of second floor windows.
I say this because, lying in front of me, there is a challenging maths problem. It's one of these ones that has an incredibly long answer, so I won't attempt it until I have an hour or so to kill, but I shall eventually venture to do it. I look forward to it. In fact, I recall that as I was doing work experience at my primary school approximately a year ago, there was an incredibly brainy maths genius, who, at the age of 9, enjoyed doing maths. He noticed that I shared his passion, and consequently asked me to set him some maths to do over the summer. So I was hard at work, creating all manner of testing problems, then it occurred to me - he was 9. I feel that standard deviation and trigonometry will have been a little above his capabilities, but I gave him them anyway. I have not heard back from him yet.
So, as it is just 35 minutes until I must depart for my exam, I felt a need to write something about my feelings this morning. Given how absolutely zippadeedooda my exams have gone so far, it's certainly one of confidence. I almost feel on top of the world, but then my logic kicks in and reminds me that that's physically impossible. I feel wonderful, having finished for all eternity both my studies of the English language, and indeed, English literature; I daresay that my vocabulary will expand as I move into the future, and I shall certainly read more books, but I never have to complete the banal process of copying down notes dictated to me ever again. On poetry.
I've enjoyed maths over the past five years at this school; I feel it could've been a little more challenging, but that's just me. I'm looking forward to my continuation of it at college, where I will be taking further maths, which effectively means that I will be doing pure maths, statistics, decision, and mechanics, rather than just two of the four. I could do without the mechanics - I would've chosen to skip further education rather than continuing a full Physics course - but beggars can't be choosers (I can't help but feel that that's not the most appropriate proverb, but my mind escapes me for the moment).
I'll leave you for now by saying that in addition to having far fewer functions, non-scientific calculators are generally less durable; having found a spare scientific calculator on the floor, I decided to conduct a comparative test of durability - in other words, dropping two calculators from a second floor (third floor to Americans) window. The scientific one survived, whilst I had to make an unfortunate grave for the standard one, although if I'd used my usual scientific calculator for this experiment, I would now be taking a geometry exam without a 'Pi' function.
The moral of the story is this: don't drop calculators out of second floor windows.
Wednesday 9 June 2010
The 5 club: death metal
Apologies for the lame name for these posts. Anyway...
Pestilence
Pestilence are a really under appreciated band; 'Spheres' deviated from the death metal norm, and their new one, whatever it's called, was disappointing, but they released a few absolute gems in the early 90s, including 'Consuming Impulse', which in addition to awesome artwork (ants eating a person's face? HELLS YEAH!), had some of the best death metal of the time, and indeed ever. And song titles really don't get much more brutal than 'Dehydrated'. (XD)
Vulvectomy
With 'Post Abortion Slut Fuck', Vulvectomy released my favourite brutal death metal release of 2010, and I felt it unfair not to share its awesomeness with the rest of the world. Taking the Devourment strain of brutal death, with a few more blastbeats, and awesome song titles (see below), Vulvectomy are absolutely INCREDIBLE. Funny name too.
Cradle Of Filth
This may be a surprise to many, but Cradle warrant their inclusion here with some superb death metal in their demo era, much in the vein of 'Soulside Journey'. Despite apparently selling out now, although I do love the black metal of 'The Principal...' and 'Dusk...', their very early material is worth a place in any death metal aficionado's collection.
Gorguts
This band is one of the tech-death 'should've beens'. 'Obscura' was a fantastic album; there isn't much else I can say... just listen to this.
Immolation
Probably the best known band on this list (for their death metal work anyway), Immolation are still a band everyone should know - nearly all of their work has been nigh on flawless, my personal favourite album of theirs being 'Close To A World Below'; however, this is my favourite song: 'No Jesus, No Beast' off 'Failures For Gods'.
Pestilence
Pestilence are a really under appreciated band; 'Spheres' deviated from the death metal norm, and their new one, whatever it's called, was disappointing, but they released a few absolute gems in the early 90s, including 'Consuming Impulse', which in addition to awesome artwork (ants eating a person's face? HELLS YEAH!), had some of the best death metal of the time, and indeed ever. And song titles really don't get much more brutal than 'Dehydrated'. (XD)
Vulvectomy
With 'Post Abortion Slut Fuck', Vulvectomy released my favourite brutal death metal release of 2010, and I felt it unfair not to share its awesomeness with the rest of the world. Taking the Devourment strain of brutal death, with a few more blastbeats, and awesome song titles (see below), Vulvectomy are absolutely INCREDIBLE. Funny name too.
Cradle Of Filth
This may be a surprise to many, but Cradle warrant their inclusion here with some superb death metal in their demo era, much in the vein of 'Soulside Journey'. Despite apparently selling out now, although I do love the black metal of 'The Principal...' and 'Dusk...', their very early material is worth a place in any death metal aficionado's collection.
Gorguts
This band is one of the tech-death 'should've beens'. 'Obscura' was a fantastic album; there isn't much else I can say... just listen to this.
Immolation
Probably the best known band on this list (for their death metal work anyway), Immolation are still a band everyone should know - nearly all of their work has been nigh on flawless, my personal favourite album of theirs being 'Close To A World Below'; however, this is my favourite song: 'No Jesus, No Beast' off 'Failures For Gods'.
Exams, part 2
I will continue the '5 Club' series with my next post, probably delving into the murky realms of death metal, but for this post, I want to describe how I feel, what happens to me, as I take an exam, especially having taken my History exam - a subject that matters a lot to me, although I'm not continuing it to A Level - today.
Naturally, as I have done on all other days on which I've had a morning exam, I asked my dad to wake me up early to allow myself an hour or so of last minute revision; rather than actually aiding me in my exam directly, this eases the considerable nerves that are apparently omnipresent on the day of an exam, which can't help as I go through the motions of something that is important and stressful enough as it is! This is accompanied by the eating of my breakfast - on a weekend, this may be a pleasurable experience, but on these dull, dreary weekdays, it rather feels like going through the motions, so much so that I don't particularly taste my food - indeed, I don't really know what I had for breakfast this morning through memory, but rather by default, as for the past few weeks I've begun every weekday morning with the now-tedious ritual of sleepily munching my way through a bowl of fruity mini Oatibix.
This morning was actually slightly different, however - something rather exciting happened yesterday, and so I was looking back on it with satisfaction, however, I was also quite happy with the state of my History revision, feeling that I had fully absorbed all of the subject content, as well as lots of extra seemingly useless tidbits that I could just drop in to impress the examiner. In the end, the only extras I managed to fit in were a brief sentence about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a small paragraph about the unification of the German states by Otto von Bismarck after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, and a bit about the emergence of Progressivism in America and its impact on the Treaty of Versailles. Yes, this is me attempting to show off to my audience now.
So, one finally gets to the exam room, and at this stage, all the nerves culminate, come to a climax, and invariably cause me to give an involuntary little spasm, usually in my right arm and left eyelid, which often gets some questioning looks that I have to try my best to ignore! After that, once actually seated (in the correct seat), there is a sort of drifting feeling of comfort, knowing that I've done my best, and that anything else is beyond me. Still, I expect an A*! (And this is that slightly arrogant touch that I've been told comes over in my blogs).
Writing the exam is a real bore. I actually quite like writing about history, compared to, say, the comparative merits of poems about farms by Seamus Heaney and Gillian Clarke, but nonetheless, half an hour in, when it already feels like someone has been attempting to pull your fingers out of their sockets, it truly sinks in why exams are such an ill-spoken of thing. I don't mind the study leave - hell, I'm doing far less work daily on average than I would be at school, and at my own leisure - but coming to exams makes me feel initially sick with nerves, then comfortable, then stricken with incredible knuckle pain (although that may be something to do with my writing technique), then comfortable once more, usually with a slight feeling of excitement about how well I feel I've done.
The discussions of the exams afterwards with friends are always a bit of a highlight. It's nice to have similar answers to several other people, thus feeling like you've got some marks definitely in the bag, and to compare miseries of harder questions with others too. Then, as there's only a few days in which I have two exams - unfortunately tomorrow is one of them - I usually have the whole afternoon to myself, before buckling down to more revision in the evening.
Naturally, as I have done on all other days on which I've had a morning exam, I asked my dad to wake me up early to allow myself an hour or so of last minute revision; rather than actually aiding me in my exam directly, this eases the considerable nerves that are apparently omnipresent on the day of an exam, which can't help as I go through the motions of something that is important and stressful enough as it is! This is accompanied by the eating of my breakfast - on a weekend, this may be a pleasurable experience, but on these dull, dreary weekdays, it rather feels like going through the motions, so much so that I don't particularly taste my food - indeed, I don't really know what I had for breakfast this morning through memory, but rather by default, as for the past few weeks I've begun every weekday morning with the now-tedious ritual of sleepily munching my way through a bowl of fruity mini Oatibix.
This morning was actually slightly different, however - something rather exciting happened yesterday, and so I was looking back on it with satisfaction, however, I was also quite happy with the state of my History revision, feeling that I had fully absorbed all of the subject content, as well as lots of extra seemingly useless tidbits that I could just drop in to impress the examiner. In the end, the only extras I managed to fit in were a brief sentence about the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a small paragraph about the unification of the German states by Otto von Bismarck after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, and a bit about the emergence of Progressivism in America and its impact on the Treaty of Versailles. Yes, this is me attempting to show off to my audience now.
So, one finally gets to the exam room, and at this stage, all the nerves culminate, come to a climax, and invariably cause me to give an involuntary little spasm, usually in my right arm and left eyelid, which often gets some questioning looks that I have to try my best to ignore! After that, once actually seated (in the correct seat), there is a sort of drifting feeling of comfort, knowing that I've done my best, and that anything else is beyond me. Still, I expect an A*! (And this is that slightly arrogant touch that I've been told comes over in my blogs).
Writing the exam is a real bore. I actually quite like writing about history, compared to, say, the comparative merits of poems about farms by Seamus Heaney and Gillian Clarke, but nonetheless, half an hour in, when it already feels like someone has been attempting to pull your fingers out of their sockets, it truly sinks in why exams are such an ill-spoken of thing. I don't mind the study leave - hell, I'm doing far less work daily on average than I would be at school, and at my own leisure - but coming to exams makes me feel initially sick with nerves, then comfortable, then stricken with incredible knuckle pain (although that may be something to do with my writing technique), then comfortable once more, usually with a slight feeling of excitement about how well I feel I've done.
The discussions of the exams afterwards with friends are always a bit of a highlight. It's nice to have similar answers to several other people, thus feeling like you've got some marks definitely in the bag, and to compare miseries of harder questions with others too. Then, as there's only a few days in which I have two exams - unfortunately tomorrow is one of them - I usually have the whole afternoon to myself, before buckling down to more revision in the evening.
Monday 7 June 2010
Morning glory
Exam mornings bring forth mixed emotions. Sure, this morning is the morning of my maths exam, which should be a breeze (maths being my forte), but there are still some undeniable nerves. What if this? What if that? What if I fall off my chair in the middle of the exam, scream some vulgarity very loudly, and thus lose all my marks in the subject? What if some strange force takes over my mind, and causes me to decide to bring a phone into the exam room? What if I get questions wrong?
Of course, aside from the final possibility, which I shall try to keep in moderation, these are all exceedingly unlikely events. As I've had the best part of my life to practise, sitting on chairs without falling off should bring no great difficulty (although will be the hardest part of my ICT short course multiple choice exam), and I'd like to think I have the nonce to leave my phone outside of the annoyingly expansive hall when sitting the paper.
So, in preparation for this maths exam, I've been revising History. Again. Having decided that Gavrilo Princip did indeed murder Franz Ferdinand of his own free will, and that it wasn't, in fact, a great conspiracy with America in an attempt to weaken the general European economy and thus strengthen the American one. For the purpose of the exam, anyhow. I don't doubt that I shall find evidence later in life that Congress were in contact with Princip, and I will consequently write a book on my theory that sells millions and makes me rich rich rich. Or not.
So, listening to some 'funky' music a friend linked me to over Facebook, which is in fact what seems to be a god-awful recreation of a Pokemon tune. Never mind. Slap on some Esoteric and, in the words of the timeless Arby N The Chief 'dun wry arbitur. its k'. Yeah, some phat beats right there.
Of course, aside from the final possibility, which I shall try to keep in moderation, these are all exceedingly unlikely events. As I've had the best part of my life to practise, sitting on chairs without falling off should bring no great difficulty (although will be the hardest part of my ICT short course multiple choice exam), and I'd like to think I have the nonce to leave my phone outside of the annoyingly expansive hall when sitting the paper.
So, in preparation for this maths exam, I've been revising History. Again. Having decided that Gavrilo Princip did indeed murder Franz Ferdinand of his own free will, and that it wasn't, in fact, a great conspiracy with America in an attempt to weaken the general European economy and thus strengthen the American one. For the purpose of the exam, anyhow. I don't doubt that I shall find evidence later in life that Congress were in contact with Princip, and I will consequently write a book on my theory that sells millions and makes me rich rich rich. Or not.
So, listening to some 'funky' music a friend linked me to over Facebook, which is in fact what seems to be a god-awful recreation of a Pokemon tune. Never mind. Slap on some Esoteric and, in the words of the timeless Arby N The Chief 'dun wry arbitur. its k'. Yeah, some phat beats right there.
Weekend in London. Bollocks. Part 1.
This weekend started off with an early start. Around 8 am. Friday. It was mild weather and I spent the first 30 minutes trying to find some goddamned underwear, and about 20 more minutes hunting down my stockings; which were inside the bedside lampshade. Then I proceeded to wake up my father and soon we were in a car on our way from Hornsea (pray you never end up there) to York to catch a 10.50 train. Obviously we were very early. This is actually what we wanted because he is in a wheelchair and those things are a bitch to get around the place. It is a simple push one which renders the seated utterly out of control of where they are going. There isn't even an emergency break. It also means the pusher has a hard time and will no doubt get very fit. I bought myself a breakfast roll from Upper Crust which contained bacon, sausage and egg. Though overpriced I can't help but find them very yummeh. Nothing interesting happened at the station so I shall move onto the train.
We go on the train.
Persona 102 (henceforth TheAngryAsianOne)
Thursday 3 June 2010
The 5 club: hardcore punk
Okay, I thought I'd start a mini-series sort of thing, detailing 5 bands beneath the surface of genres (i.e. out of the 5 major bands) that I believe are worth looking into. Seasoned veterans of the genres will probably know all of these bands, so this is really for people who've only heard the main progenitors of the style and want to look deeper into it. I must stress, however, that these are in no way definitive: they're simply 5 bands that popped into my head, in an arbitrary manner, as noteworthy. And so we begin...
Converge
Closest of my five bands to the metal scene that I'm so much into, Converge really revolutionized the hardcore scene with 2001's 'Jane Doe', before the somewhat lacklustre 'You Fail Me', a return to form with 'No Heroes' in 2006, and a movement towards the mathy scene with last year's Terrorizer Album Of The Year 'Axe To Fall'.
Modern Life Is War
Modern Life truly embody my idea of real emo - the strain on the vocals is audible, and the lyrics deal with personal issues rather than the political norm of hardcore. This song is off their best album in my opinion, 'Witness', and truly shows their general awesomeness.
Trap Them
Oh okay, maybe Trap Them are closer to metal than Converge. Nonetheless, their pedigree is astounding, and their aggression tops it. 2008 album 'Seizures In Barren Praise' is amazing, and this track is a perfect example off it.
Life Long Tragedy
Another one on the melodic hardcore axis, LLT are slightly less well known than MLIW, but make the same sort of heart-wrenching, yet pummeling hardcore. This one's off 'Destined For Anything'.
Discharge
Despite being large progenitors of the whole aptly named 'Discore' scene, surprisingly few people would think of Discharge when hardcore punk is mentioned. They are a fantastic band, and this, off the revolutionary album 'Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing' is a great political rant.
Many thanks go to -Spanner for all the work she's done, getting me embed codes whilst youtube wasn't working for me.
Persona 101
Converge
Closest of my five bands to the metal scene that I'm so much into, Converge really revolutionized the hardcore scene with 2001's 'Jane Doe', before the somewhat lacklustre 'You Fail Me', a return to form with 'No Heroes' in 2006, and a movement towards the mathy scene with last year's Terrorizer Album Of The Year 'Axe To Fall'.
Modern Life Is War
Modern Life truly embody my idea of real emo - the strain on the vocals is audible, and the lyrics deal with personal issues rather than the political norm of hardcore. This song is off their best album in my opinion, 'Witness', and truly shows their general awesomeness.
Trap Them
Oh okay, maybe Trap Them are closer to metal than Converge. Nonetheless, their pedigree is astounding, and their aggression tops it. 2008 album 'Seizures In Barren Praise' is amazing, and this track is a perfect example off it.
Life Long Tragedy
Another one on the melodic hardcore axis, LLT are slightly less well known than MLIW, but make the same sort of heart-wrenching, yet pummeling hardcore. This one's off 'Destined For Anything'.
Discharge
Despite being large progenitors of the whole aptly named 'Discore' scene, surprisingly few people would think of Discharge when hardcore punk is mentioned. They are a fantastic band, and this, off the revolutionary album 'Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing' is a great political rant.
Many thanks go to -Spanner for all the work she's done, getting me embed codes whilst youtube wasn't working for me.
Persona 101
Wednesday 2 June 2010
Feminism - The Female View
So, this is just a try out, if it deems popular then this argument/debate/heated discussion/me castrating Persona 101 for just being plain WRONG, will probably carry on, and if not, then we can try something else, although I do rather like late night conversations, even if they are a little one sided.
Okay, so, seeing as Persona 101 told you all about his political background, I guess I should do the same. It's non-existent. My mum hasn't voted for 12 years at least, and my Dad votes Labour "just so Thatcher doesn't get back in". Yes, that's really what he said.
As much as I think Persona 101 wants me to disagree with him on the equal pay part of his post, I don't at all. Women are hormonal, emotional beings that pop out babies every so often, and because of that, we don't deserve completely equal pay, unless we are working in a very specialised field, have been working for a substantially long period of time, or are doing a job that men are incapable of doing to the same standard, if at all (not that I can think of any now, suggestions in the comments maybe?). However, I do think that the standard of maternity care, including pay and allowed time off, needs to be greatly improved.
The problem with Persona 101's argument is he fails to realise that there are a lot more "house-husbands" around these days, although he does quite rightly mention single mothers. Take, for example, my family. My mum is the bread winner in our house, so when she went on maternity leave shortly before the birth of my younger brother (after working for the best part of eight months of her pregnancy), the only money we had was the rather insubstantial amount coming from the maternity pay. This meant she had to return to work only five or six weeks after giving birth, definitely not an ideal situation for anyone. Thankfully, the fact that my step-father doesn't work means that this wasn't too much of a problem, and we have saved a small fortune on childcare. If her pay had not been threatened to have been cut to some silly level (something like 30% or 40%) after 8 weeks off, then she may have been able to spend more time recuperating, and also spend a little more time with her son.
I feel that I should be arguing against everything Persona 101 is saying, and in fact, I'm a little sad that I'm not, because it must make for pretty boring reading. His views on feminism are completely justified in my eyes. While the equality of men and women in many LEDC's is very varied, with women gaining little to no rights in some countries, women in the majority of the world can count themselves lucky. I certainly do. The simple fact that I'm here, freely writing a post about feminism, and actually being allowed to criticise people's views is a privilege that I hold very dear. Thousands of women suffered to gain us the rights we do deserve, but that shouldn't allow us to abuse those rights and ask for more, simply because we are women. Both men and women need to earn respect before they can expect to be treated equally.
To finish on a lighter note (because I can't be doing with all this seriousness):
Woman 1: Any good comebacks when your boyfriend/husband asks you to "make me a sandwich"?
Woman 2: How about "We ran out of ham, so here's a knuckle sandwich" *Punch*?
Man: Well....you'd better come back with a damn good sandwich.
-Hlctwh93 (A.K.A. -Spanner)
Okay, so, seeing as Persona 101 told you all about his political background, I guess I should do the same. It's non-existent. My mum hasn't voted for 12 years at least, and my Dad votes Labour "just so Thatcher doesn't get back in". Yes, that's really what he said.
As much as I think Persona 101 wants me to disagree with him on the equal pay part of his post, I don't at all. Women are hormonal, emotional beings that pop out babies every so often, and because of that, we don't deserve completely equal pay, unless we are working in a very specialised field, have been working for a substantially long period of time, or are doing a job that men are incapable of doing to the same standard, if at all (not that I can think of any now, suggestions in the comments maybe?). However, I do think that the standard of maternity care, including pay and allowed time off, needs to be greatly improved.
The problem with Persona 101's argument is he fails to realise that there are a lot more "house-husbands" around these days, although he does quite rightly mention single mothers. Take, for example, my family. My mum is the bread winner in our house, so when she went on maternity leave shortly before the birth of my younger brother (after working for the best part of eight months of her pregnancy), the only money we had was the rather insubstantial amount coming from the maternity pay. This meant she had to return to work only five or six weeks after giving birth, definitely not an ideal situation for anyone. Thankfully, the fact that my step-father doesn't work means that this wasn't too much of a problem, and we have saved a small fortune on childcare. If her pay had not been threatened to have been cut to some silly level (something like 30% or 40%) after 8 weeks off, then she may have been able to spend more time recuperating, and also spend a little more time with her son.
I feel that I should be arguing against everything Persona 101 is saying, and in fact, I'm a little sad that I'm not, because it must make for pretty boring reading. His views on feminism are completely justified in my eyes. While the equality of men and women in many LEDC's is very varied, with women gaining little to no rights in some countries, women in the majority of the world can count themselves lucky. I certainly do. The simple fact that I'm here, freely writing a post about feminism, and actually being allowed to criticise people's views is a privilege that I hold very dear. Thousands of women suffered to gain us the rights we do deserve, but that shouldn't allow us to abuse those rights and ask for more, simply because we are women. Both men and women need to earn respect before they can expect to be treated equally.
To finish on a lighter note (because I can't be doing with all this seriousness):
Woman 1: Any good comebacks when your boyfriend/husband asks you to "make me a sandwich"?
Woman 2: How about "We ran out of ham, so here's a knuckle sandwich" *Punch*?
Man: Well....you'd better come back with a damn good sandwich.
-Hlctwh93 (A.K.A. -Spanner)
Feminism - the male perspective.
Time for another serious post. This time, I want to look at feminism. Now having a female member of the team, I'm sure I will be corrected, re-corrected, and castrated if I say anything good ol' -Spanner deems incorrect, but I want to talk about its relevance, and indeed impact, nowadays.
I've grown up in a family with a laid back father politically, and a mother who would be incredibly politically active; marches, demonstrations and all that shizz, if her job as a civil servant (oh the irony) didn't occupy approximately 110% of her waking hours, with cooking, cleaning (although she does that less now we've got a cleaner who comes every other Thursday) occupying the rest, this encompassing everything from her quasi-socialist political outlook to her take on neo-feminism.
Of course, this means I've been 'subtly' indoctrinated with her ideals from the year dot, and I must say it has largely worked - although I believe that sexism as a playful joke is fine, I believe that there is no reason why women should be in any way seen as inferiors, and as I've probably made clear with previous posts, I've come to have quite left-wing politics, although not quite so extreme as said mother (who nonetheless votes Labour as 'none of the REAL left parties have a hope in hell').
However, there have been some areas where I've disagreed with her, and these are that women should get absolutely equal wages, and that feminism is still particularly relevant in today's world. Now, -Spanner, before you respond with a knee-jerk reaction that would be trademark of Persona 102, (who has yet to grace us with her presence - and trust me, she's a brilliant writer), allow me to explain my reasoning.
The thing is, whilst in essence, women and men should have exactly the same rights, INCLUDING the right to equal pay, there is the simple biological difference in that women are the unfortunate half of the human race to have to harbour babies before young'un chooses to finally face the light of day. The point is, whilst it is no fault of women's, it would be unfair on employers to have to offer exactly equal pay all the time, with no guarantee that female workers aren't going to get pregnant (although things are obviously different for those who can't, or choose not to have babies), and then having to offer all of the maternity rights that come with the package (quite reasonably).
I am aware of the existence of certain paternity rights, for instance the right to paternity leave, but these or drastically lower than those of the mother - quite rightly too - and often, if a man chooses to take paternity leave, it is on his own back. For this one reason, I believe it is reasonable to expect men to earn slightly more than women who may become pregnant. In this situation, couples are at an advantage financially to single mums, so I believe benefits in this respect may have to be increased.
Secondly, the relevance of feminism. I think most people today would agree that feminism is not as relevant now as it was during the female liberation movements of the 60s and 70s, and certainly not as relevant as during the early 20th century struggle for suffrage. However, does it have any relevance at all?
The aforementioned mother's feminist views are certainly stuck in the past - I think she feels that she almost missed her opportunity when feminism was at large, and is now attempting to jump onto the bandwagon when the train has long since left the station. However, she does make one or two interesting points; predominantly in the way that many, many more derogatory terms exist - particularly about sexual behaviour - for females than do for men, and that there still seems to be some sort of glass ceiling in place for females, particularly in politics.
Whilst these are two points which certainly need addressing, I worry that these are the only two real points that still exist, and so latter-day feminism is in danger of making a mountain out of a molehill, making a fuss about nothing. It is certainly not warranted for there to be any high-scale demonstrations about these issues, as still exist (admittedly predominantly in America), some violent, and especially whilst far greater problems still exist in the world - the plight of many poorer nations, and MEDCs' tendencies to exploit this, for instance.
To conclude, I feel that whilst there are still one or two things that could be altered with gender politics nowadays, I believe that they are largely minor, and that some of the 'issues' that people are making a large fuss about are irrelevant and unrequired. I'm sure -Spanner, Persona 102 (if she ever shows up) and any members of my audience who are female will have something to comment on this, and once again, I urge you; please do! Just remember, the rule's in the name: anonymity.
Persona 101
I've grown up in a family with a laid back father politically, and a mother who would be incredibly politically active; marches, demonstrations and all that shizz, if her job as a civil servant (oh the irony) didn't occupy approximately 110% of her waking hours, with cooking, cleaning (although she does that less now we've got a cleaner who comes every other Thursday) occupying the rest, this encompassing everything from her quasi-socialist political outlook to her take on neo-feminism.
Of course, this means I've been 'subtly' indoctrinated with her ideals from the year dot, and I must say it has largely worked - although I believe that sexism as a playful joke is fine, I believe that there is no reason why women should be in any way seen as inferiors, and as I've probably made clear with previous posts, I've come to have quite left-wing politics, although not quite so extreme as said mother (who nonetheless votes Labour as 'none of the REAL left parties have a hope in hell').
However, there have been some areas where I've disagreed with her, and these are that women should get absolutely equal wages, and that feminism is still particularly relevant in today's world. Now, -Spanner, before you respond with a knee-jerk reaction that would be trademark of Persona 102, (who has yet to grace us with her presence - and trust me, she's a brilliant writer), allow me to explain my reasoning.
The thing is, whilst in essence, women and men should have exactly the same rights, INCLUDING the right to equal pay, there is the simple biological difference in that women are the unfortunate half of the human race to have to harbour babies before young'un chooses to finally face the light of day. The point is, whilst it is no fault of women's, it would be unfair on employers to have to offer exactly equal pay all the time, with no guarantee that female workers aren't going to get pregnant (although things are obviously different for those who can't, or choose not to have babies), and then having to offer all of the maternity rights that come with the package (quite reasonably).
I am aware of the existence of certain paternity rights, for instance the right to paternity leave, but these or drastically lower than those of the mother - quite rightly too - and often, if a man chooses to take paternity leave, it is on his own back. For this one reason, I believe it is reasonable to expect men to earn slightly more than women who may become pregnant. In this situation, couples are at an advantage financially to single mums, so I believe benefits in this respect may have to be increased.
Secondly, the relevance of feminism. I think most people today would agree that feminism is not as relevant now as it was during the female liberation movements of the 60s and 70s, and certainly not as relevant as during the early 20th century struggle for suffrage. However, does it have any relevance at all?
The aforementioned mother's feminist views are certainly stuck in the past - I think she feels that she almost missed her opportunity when feminism was at large, and is now attempting to jump onto the bandwagon when the train has long since left the station. However, she does make one or two interesting points; predominantly in the way that many, many more derogatory terms exist - particularly about sexual behaviour - for females than do for men, and that there still seems to be some sort of glass ceiling in place for females, particularly in politics.
Whilst these are two points which certainly need addressing, I worry that these are the only two real points that still exist, and so latter-day feminism is in danger of making a mountain out of a molehill, making a fuss about nothing. It is certainly not warranted for there to be any high-scale demonstrations about these issues, as still exist (admittedly predominantly in America), some violent, and especially whilst far greater problems still exist in the world - the plight of many poorer nations, and MEDCs' tendencies to exploit this, for instance.
To conclude, I feel that whilst there are still one or two things that could be altered with gender politics nowadays, I believe that they are largely minor, and that some of the 'issues' that people are making a large fuss about are irrelevant and unrequired. I'm sure -Spanner, Persona 102 (if she ever shows up) and any members of my audience who are female will have something to comment on this, and once again, I urge you; please do! Just remember, the rule's in the name: anonymity.
Persona 101
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