"Watch This Film? You Dizzy, Blud?"

When I heard 'Mickey The Idiot' (Noel Clarke) from Doctor Who wrote the screenplay for his own film, Kidulthood (great name), I wasn't sure what to think. My main thought was 'oh, it's another Brit film showcasing the plight of the poor minority/druggies/idiots (delete as appropriate) '. Sure enough, that's exactly what it was, but it was actually pretty good. Clarke played Sam, the tough young black kid, from the block, who knows the streets and who is also from da ghetto (how many white guy clichés were in that sentence? You decide!).


Adulthood (see what they did there?*) is the story of Sam (Clarke again, reprising his role from Kidulthood) seen from his perspective after his release from prison for a crime committed in the first film. The film would have you believe that he is a changed man and that he doesn't want any trouble.

Unfortunately, where the film falls down is failing to convince you that he should be viewed as a sympathetic protagonist, with the film going almost out of its way to show you that he is in fact a complete douchebag. It's hard not to be prejudiced when the guy murdered someone who was going to be a father. That crossed some sort of primal line. This same child is mostly in one scene when the mother is talking to Sam at the door of her house. The mother calls the child to the door, mostly so Sam can get a look at her and then she dismisses the daughter. Who then goes and sits in a corner where her main duty is to look sad. Seriously, she's a kid. Are they telling us that she didn't have anything better to do in the slightest? Kids like jumping and noise, she could've done either of those things!

One main gripe that I had with this film is that the 'urban' music (I presume it's urban, mainly because I do not want to call it 'black' music) that occasionally pops up is much louder than the rest of the fucking film. I mean, the rest of the film consists of characters quietly slagging off or beating one another, and then CRANK THAT FUNKY MUSIC, YOU THE MOVIE VIEWER, HAVE UNWITTINGLY ENTERED A RAVE!

Like its predecessor, it tries to showcase the life and poverty of teens and young adults in London. The problem is, it succeeded. How is that a problem, you may ask? Because it made me want to bang my head against a brick wall due to the way they portrayed Black London.

And it is Black London, because out of a cast of about ten to twenty, I counted maybe two to three important white characters. There are a couple of Minor Whiteys, such as Nick Briggs (he who Exterminates Doctors...) and Danny Dyer, who helps contribute a "this is definitely London, 'cause I'm a Cockney, guvnor!" feel to things. Like we needed more of that. Thank you, Danny Dyer**.

My overall verdict, in case it wasn't obvious by the tone of the review is: Do not watch this movie. It is not healthy for you by any stretch of the imagination and it makes you despise your fellow man. Kidulthood, while much the same, is at least more tolerable and is just a better movie. If you have to, read the Wikipedia synopsis that I have helpfully linked to below.

Here there be spoilers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adulthood_(film)#Plot

*Don't worry, if you didn't, the film's tagline will leave you in no doubt.
** Never thought I'd say that...

"Jim-Bob, Get 'The Boys'. Time To Blog..."

About five minutes ago, I saw an unintentionally funny news piece that grabbed my attention. I laughed my ass off and came straight here to post a blog about it.

Turns out that racism is still around in Wal-Mart. Some cheeky scamp got into the public address system at one of their stores and – I’m not making this up – asked all the black people in the store to leave. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound funny, but if you read the article linked below, you’ll see that ‘a male voice calmly addressed the customers and asked all the black shoppers to leave’. That’s the funny bit. Rather than being a nutjob who wasn’t restrained properly, the article implies that the guy not only was in full possession of his mental faculties, but that he was calm and collected. I like that image, because in all honesty it was probably a Wal-Mart employee doing it for a joke or dare.

The article didn’t say whether there was a burning cross outside with sheet-wearing figures standing around it, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It also puts into my mind an image of a couple of red-necks toting guns while standing around the PA system and sending Jim-Bob to wait outside for anyone who ventures out of the store.

They are currently looking through the security tapes to see who did it and prevent others doing it in the future. To be honest, their guard would probably be let down again after a while and you’ll probably be reading about a relapse from the same people in about a month or two.

You can read the article of unintentional hilarity here:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35910010/ns/us_news-life/?gt1=43001

I've Heard Of Laying Down Some Pipe, But Jeez...

I came across some very odd stories the other day and immediately thought to blog about them, as they are quite weird.
The first one is ‘Man Marries Pillow’. A man from Korea has married a large huggable pillow with an anime image on it. It is called a dakimakura and you can buy them legally (or so I’m told). I have no idea if it’s legally binding, but for the sake of my faith in humanity it really shouldn’t be. I mean, I’ve heard of lonely people kissing their pillows (sometimes I do it myself) but that’s taking it too far, surely?

The article that I have linked to below does not say whether he intends to have ‘relations’ but to be honest I suspect he already has. Sex before marriage is tolerated now, after all.

Gay marriage is only now starting to become tolerated (and twice I’ve seen Yahoo use the word marriage in air quotes when describing male-on-male marriages; as in “the two men were ‘married’ this morning”)

The next story is a little closer to home (unless you are somehow reading this from the moon). In our fair isle (Southampton, to be exact) a man got his penis trapped in a stainless steel pipe. God knows what he was doing (he apparently ‘did not explain to hospital staff how exactly the pipe got stuck around his penis’).

Doctors at the Southampton Genital General Hospital couldn’t wrench off the pipe and secure his release, as the restricted blood flow caused his penis to become erect. I could be wrong, but I presume that was the general idea behind what he was doing in the first place. Maybe he just wanted to be able to use some porn lines on his womenfolk (such as “Hey, I have a pipe to give you!”)

After the doctors failed to get his pipe out of the pipe, they brought in some firemen who used an angle grinder to cut him free. Yes, you heard that right. An angle grinder. Rather wonderfully, the Metro article concerning this just shows a picture of ‘an angle grinder at work’ so you can get some idea of how he must’ve felt. When Boy and I read the article, we both winced when we read the descriptions.

The best part of the whole story was the firefighter’s statement at the end of the article. Specifically, the words “I’ve only come across this type of thing three or four times in my 17 years as a firefighter. It’s not a daily occurrence.” Well, duh.
Happily(?) the penis was only bruised and swollen, so no lasting damage was done by his idiocy. I’m saying idiocy because it’s incredibly hard to get your penis caught in a steel pipe by accident.

Man Marries Pillow article: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/816601-man-marries-pillow

Man Gets Penis Pipe Extension: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/808171-mans-penis-freed-from-metal-pipe-with-industrial-grinder

"I Will Try...To Blog You..."

Right, just a short post to say that for fans of Coldplay, they are offering a free download of their live album on their website. It has stuff like Fix You, Clocks and Viva La Vida. I am informed that Coldplay are quite good, so any fans may want to grab this.

Link to the site: http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html

Enjoy, chaps and ladies.

How Not To Man Up...

Some time ago, being the scrawny man-child I am, I decided to put on some weight and muscles, so I could ‘level up’ from ‘man-child’ ’scrawny guy’ to ‘MANLY ADONIS!’

I started out with the best of intentions for gaining a hot new bod, but about two to three months in I am seeing no discernible difference. I gained at best a slight muscle mass and definition on my pectorals. Which is still good, but not as good as I could get.

One of the main reasons for my body maintaining a status quo of sorts is sheer laziness, if I’m honest. It is far easier to lie doing stuff on the laptop than to drop and give God twenty.

Plus, in the winter weather it’s too damn cold! That is a big part of it, as who wants to leave their warm bed to go and work out on the cold floor?

To give you an idea of my fitness, I’ll describe how I do things. I do 100 hundred press-ups and 200 sit-ups in a day. I like that number because it’s not too big and I can typically get it out of the way in four sets. Two problems are the coldness and the fact that it is really hard to get motivated when you are seeing no immediate results. It’s nice feeling fit and all, but since my body doesn’t gain much of a belly anyway, it’s really hard to have my body go to pot (so to speak).

I know that there will be somebody who suggests joining a gym, but I don’t have the money for the membership fees (which they’d take from my bank account, surely?) and I’d probably never go. Plus they might strain my weakling body too hard and we all know what a disaster that would be.

I do think that I should shape this attitude up, as my plans for being older include living forever and eating my way to an early grave. I’m so glad that those two things contradict because to be honest I’d probably enjoy them both too much for one lifetime. If I could find some way to do them both  it would truly be a perfect world. My ideal scenario would be to eat all I like, and my (obviously very latent) immortality would ensure that I suffer no consequences.

Due to either a fast metabolism or the fact that I don’t eat very much anymore, I find myself consistently staying around the same weight (11 stone) and looking much the same. Whether this is a side-effect of my immortality has yet to be seen, so for now the lack of workouts aren’t affecting me as much as they might if I was older. Far more likely is that my thinness is a result of my height (6 foot summat) evening out what I eat into a thin form.

Overall, I’m not exactly happy with my scrawny man-child body but to be honest I’ve lost the motivation to do anything about it. Maybe in the summer months (in particular, the pointlessly-wander-around-with-your-shirt-off month known as July) that desire will return.

Highway To The Dubious Legality Zone...

For some reason, my blogs are taking a piracy theme this week. I am an advocate of piracy, I admit that. Not the ’sail the seven seas and rape all the cabin boys’ kind of piracy, the digital ‘you wouldn’t steal a handbag’ kind. But I like to call myself a ‘legal pirate’, no matter how much of an oxymoron that is.

I only torrent stuff that I can’t get legally, as I cannot afford it or can’t find it over here. For example, I really wanted to acquire The Man From Earth on dvd, but I went into HMV (willing to pay the extra £10 that they charged in store) and was told that they couldn’t even order it in. As my parents do not like ordering stuff over the internet, I was screwed. Until I discovered the magic of torrenting! And yes, I realise how much I sound like a spokesperson.
“Torrent now and we guarantee your penis will be marginally longer* overnight!”

I am of the honest persuasion and I think that if I can afford the item and obtain it legally, I will get it that way. If not, I’ll try it before I buy it. For example, I bought Scott Adam’s book God’s Debris after reading a free copy the author put up on his website (links to my thoughts on this book will be at the bottom of the blog), after which I went out and bought the sequel. I also have a load of Project Gutenberg eBooks on my computer, which are free to read because the copyright has expired on them. At some point, I will buy the books in a hard copy, because I like having a physical copy and because I don’t like reading them on the laptop that much. I may end up buying a Kindle or something like that.

I also review some of the stuff that I download, like Family Guy Something “” “” Dark Side and the Robot Chicken Star Wars II special. Both of these will be bought on dvd when I see them cheap enough. Both of these I was unsure about before downloading, so it’s nice to see that I wouldn’t have wasted my money.

I am currently torrenting Adobe Photoshop for my laptop, as I will need it for photography work (editing photographs and such) and it is way too expensive to buy as software for someone with my budget. So I believe I am in the right here.

I do think however, that I am one of a small minority where legality is concerned. Not that I have a lack of faith in humanity or anything (I really don’t!) but I believe that most people couldn’t care less about the people they’re pirating from.

Plus, who among you can say that you haven’t downloaded something illegally at some point? I know I certainly can’t. And this is one of the reasons why the adverts mentioned in yesterday’s blog annoy me, because if I had the money, I would order everything I bought legally.

So that’s my feelings on piracy. I like the way certain authors and bands have embraced the new online media now, with one notable example being that Lars Ulrich, one of the members of Metallica, has illegally downloaded his own album! (link at the bottom)

*Or shorter.

Thoughts on God’s Debris: http://scottv2.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/damn-now-i-need-a-new-unblowupable-mind/

Lars Ulrich downloaded his own album by a file sharing service:http://torrentfreak.com/metallica-frontman-pirates-his-own-album-090305/

Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

"Piracy Is A Crime, But This Message Will Be Lost In The Annoying Advert When It Backfires..."

For many years now, we have been warned of the evils of digital piracy through irritating adverts. “You wouldn’t steal a handbag,” the copyright warnings claim. If I would, I doubt I’d be typing this or watching the fucking adverts in the first place. I’d be in prison being shown what guy-love truly is…

The things that really annoys me about the adverts are that they are on dvds that you have spent your money on. This could be the only dvd you get in about a month or more. And you are subjected to reasons why you shouldn’t pirate and why you should support the industry legally. In other words, exactly what you’re doing! It makes it a little easier to bear if you think of the advert as essentially saying ‘keep up the good work!’. Although that message would be better received if it wasn’t playing horrible music louder than the dvd itself.

The other thing is that they put time and man-hours into meetings and hiring people to make the adverts. These people needed paying, you know. Where’d the money come from? It certainly didn’t come from piracy, I can tell you that much. If I’m right, they’ve got money from previous dvd sales and put it into making adverts to tell people to keep doing exactly what they were doing in the first place! It’s like breaking into somebody else’s house, yelling at them really loudly (“YOU’RE DOING FINE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!”) and departing while telling them to keep on living.

And the other types of anti-piracy advert are no less annoying. Take, for example, the one with the guy with a brander. You know the one, “Don’t let the pirates brand you with their mark.” This one is not as bad, as it’s found at the end of certain dvds rather than the beginning, but it still bears talking about.

The advert says ‘piracy funds organised crime’. That is sort of fair enough, except organised crime doesn’t require a lot of money to keep it going. And they don’t do it through selling hooky dvds. It also claims that ‘piracy funds terrorism’. Okay, fair enough. Wait, WHAT?! You are seriously suggesting that piracy funds terrorism? As in, acts of terror frequently taking the form of mass catastrophes and deliberately perpetrated to terrify?! Show me the statistics that say Bin Laden funded 9/11 by selling illegal copies of Shrek! This blatant attempt to play to post 9/11 paranoia disgusts me!

The overall message (other than ‘piracy is bad’, obviously) is “Don’t let the pirates brand you with their mark.” That would be okay after the terrorism claim, but I’m pretty sure it’s trying to associate branding with digital piracy (ahh, you see? Piracy, like those “Yarrrr!” kind of pirates!). And as far as I can tell, pirates never actually made it a point to brand people. And it wouldn’t be seen as a mark of your support of piracy, it would tell the viewer that you got on the bad side of some pirates.

The advert that is the main focus of this blog post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU&feature=related (incidentally, after the girl cancels the download, she gets her bag and goes somewhere. Where, to get a life? Download rehab?!)

Unfortunately I couldn’t find the ‘branding aids terrorism’ one, so here’s a Futurama parody of the above advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWPfcEOr2Yg&feature=PlayList&p=9452EC2C7AC0D34B&index=7