Pants on fire

It still bewilders me every single time it happens, how those in charge or those wishing to be in charge simply lie to people – to their faces, with the facts easily checkable by anyone – in order to get their way.

I mean, lying on a personal level is sometimes acceptable; sometimes necessary. Lying to a few people? Same again. Lying to more? It might get a bit hazy, unless you’re Batman and you have to lie to them to make them think they’re all going to be perfectly safe when actually you don’t know if they will be.

I’m not Batman. I tend not to lie. I lie sometimes. Everyone does. But I don’t make a thing of it. I make a thing of being honest, or just sidestepping the truth. The latter is see-through, but it is also very easy to do.

But outright lying to an entire country? That’s impressive. That’s moxie. Balls. Idiocy.

I have little to add beyond this. I’ve been paying attention to the US election run-up as always, but I haven’t been paying as close attention as I have in elections past.

But even without looking as close as I have in the past, I can still see it’s insanity on the part of the Republicans. Actual, genuine insanity. I have no idea what these people are doing, and I have even less idea of the sorts of people who would actually vote for them.

We say we’re not that different from the Yanks, but then the crazies come out to play and you realise we are quite very different. We have cunts in charge, but not insane cunts. Just ruthless, terrible, monumental cunts. Liars too, no doubt. But they’re just not as wacky and weird as in Yank politics.

There’s no structured thinking to this blog at all. Meaning I should get into politics (or a joke that’s better).

Opting out of opting in

There’s a certain thing that annoys me far more than it should, but I know I’m not alone in this. It is, of course, things that automatically opt you in to notifications, marketing messages, mailing lists and so on.

Everyone suddenly started getting these messages from Twitter saying “you have 20 tweets waiting for you!” when what it actually meant was ‘nobody cares about you, they’re just doing their usual shit’. It’s a cheap ploy to make you go to the site, and everyone was auto-signed up.

Facebook has done sinister things in a similar way.

Everyone’s a bastard, basically, for automatically signing you up to things or for making you go out of your way to opt out of receiving their pointless shit. No I do not want your daily email I DO NOT WANT IT.

I am quite aware – well aware, you could say – that you can opt out. But I feel you shouldn’t have to. I feel you shouldn’t have to spend precious seconds (or minutes, depending how annoying it is) finding out how to unsubscribe from something, or how to stop getting these daily notifications that mean NOTHING, or saying something is spam when it probably isn’t but shut up they email me every day.

The world should work as opt-in in most circumstances. Louis CK did it on his mailing list – the opt out box was automatically ticked, meaning you actually had to go out of your way to opt in. That might have been an oversight on their part, it might not. But I remember it, and I like it.

Opt-in. Always opt-in.

Apart from organ donations. That should be opt-out. Make it easier for those who are too scared or lazy to sign up.

Yeah, I’m changing the world one day at a time.

Total Recall 2012, the definitive review (7/10)

In Total Recall 2012, a woman approaches Co-Lin Farrell and offers him her ‘services’. Her services include the fact she has three breasts, which she reveals to our favourite star of In Bruges.

It is not explained why she has three bosoms, or if she approaches every single man on the street with her oh-so-tempting offer. She just jumps in, says her piece, shows her pieces, and fucks right off again.

In Total Recall 1989 (or was it 1990 I can’t be arsed checking), a woman turns to Ah-nolt Schwarzenegger at the bar after being recommended to him by the barkeep. She reveals to him her chest, and while the audience is fully aware that mutations have occurred to people on Mars, we see she has three chest orbs.

It is explained why she has three breasticles. It is logical why she approaches Ah-nolt. When Benny says he wishes he had three hands, we laugh at his casual objectification of this working woman.

See, a Paul Verhoeven film is actually more subtle – more subtle – and nuanced than a non-Paul Verhoeven film.

The new Total Recall does not bother trying to make sense. It makes some clumsy attempts at overlong exposition then sort of just gives up and moves on, explaining little else along the way.

Dave, who I saw the film with, asked a series of questions beginning as soon as the credits started rolling. He did not stop asking these questions through the walk out of the cinema, on the way to the bus stop, as we parted ways, or even after we’d split and I was receiving texts from him on the bus.

This shows both that Dave is an irritant, and that Total Recall 2012 has so many stupid fucking holes in it – more than even Prometheus – that it’s making me hate modern, mainstream sci-fi.

Come back Jim Cameron, all is forgiven. And come back Paul Verhoeven, I love you. Oh, and Joss Whedon. And whoever did The Man From Earth. And trashy 50s B-movie sci-fi flicks. And John Carpenter. And anyone else.

I seriously need to write something, because this shit gets made and I can be at least as good as Total Recall 2012. IT DID NOT EXPLAIN THE TRIPLE-TITS.

7/10

Brody (“broken body”)

What doesn’t work properly on your body? I’m sat here wiggling my left ankle and hearing the rather loud clicks it does every single rotation, and wondering: how broken are we all?

I mean, I’m not entirely active, or exciting, or the sort of person who bungee jumps off the biggest things in the world just because they’re there or, even, leaves the house much.

I am boring. I don’t do much. Or move much. Or live much of a life.

But my body is still broken in numerous ways.

So it makes me think: how broken are those that actually do things? I’ve seen the likes of the professionals like Mick Foley or Tony Hawk and their multitude of bodily fuck-ups, but what about normal people?

How many bits of you click? How many joints don’t join? How many knees have you had replaced? How many times do you want to run but can’t because your fucking ankle won’t let you move without it hurting like a bastard?

Just how fucked up are you? Because I’ve never done anything, and I’ve still entirely broken my body.

Pictures over words

Today is a day of hangover and work, so not a day of concentrating heavily on this blog. Fortunately it is also a day of people posting very funny images on Reddit, so I can just post a few of them here because they’ve made me laugh so hard I’ve cried.

WE LANDED ON THE MOON!

I would love to believe in conspiracy theories, but I just can’t bring myself to. Well, most of the time at least. Well, some of the time. Well, with the more overblown ones, at the very least.

Neil Armstrong dying and everyone then talking about the moon landings is obviously why this has come up in my mind, as you seem them come running out from everywhere to shout conspiracy before his corpse is even cooling. And much as I am the kind of person who won’t believe a thing told to me (unless I’m drunk or it’s a pretty girl telling me), I do still believe we, as in humans, landed on the moon.

Just as I don’t believe the September 11 attacks were orchestrated by the US government.

Just as I don’t think Area 51 has a crashed UFO and some alien corpses.

Just as I see most of the X-Files storylines as storylines, and not people overtly admitting to these things being real.

But it’s not because I think those in charge wouldn’t lie to us – they do that all the time, about the stupidest of things. It’s not because I don’t think they want to control information and, as a result, the people. Of course they do. Those in charge want to remain in charge, so they want all the power.

That’s natural. Accepted. They lie, cheat and steal like Eddie Guerrero.

But they’re not good enough for proper conspiracies. They’re too dumb. Too disorganised. Too crap to pull off these things.

If the moon landings were fake, they would have used better-quality footage. They just would. They’d be too dumb to think ‘make it poor quality so it looks authentic’. They’d make sure Armstrong’s first words were actually correct and what he meant to say, not missing an ‘a’. They’d do it at a more palatable time for a world audience, not the wee hours of whatever for whoever – to maximise those who saw it and so those who are impressed by it.

They’d probably put advertising on it too, actually.

But they didn’t. They’re too dumb to fake it. Ditto for all the others.

But the best conspiracy theory on the moon landings? “Well if it was real, why didn’t they go back?”

Sigh. No hope.

Failure and regret in Bournemouth

Of the great many failures I have endured in my life, from the time I was unable to instantly earn billions from a kids book I sent to one small publisher, to the era of my life known as ‘university’, nothing has struck as hard as what has befallen me recently.

I wouldn’t class it as trying, but to entirely write off any pretence of attempt on my part would be to do you all a disservice. It would be to lie, and I do not wish to lie to you: my people. As stated the other day in a pernificious* blog entry, I am more prone to side-stepping the truth than out and out deflecting and replacing it with falsehoods.

There was an element of effort on my part. Sit-down effort. Secondary effort. Passive in the extreme effort. But, I have to admit, effort. To say ‘I tried’ is not too far from the truth, though in my defence it is not actually The Truth.

I let my beard grow for a while without trimming it.

In effect, I tried to grow a proper beard.

I can already hear the laughter from some areas; those who know my aptitude for facial fuzz isn’t exactly Ivy League-standard will surely be in uncontrollable fits of salty, warm tears right now, the glistening orbs lost in a sea of stubble and fur the likes of which I am unlikely to know at any time in the near future – even on the women.

But I had to know. It had been a while. I once shocked myself by being able to grow more than a tribute to a moustache on my upper lip, so I reasoned to try and spread the good times. To share the wealth. To grow the beard.

It has been, not to put too fine a point on it, an abject failure.

But, unlike many other failures that will never wash from my psyche, that will never fail to be brought up by those with an axe to grind, I can rid myself of this failure. While there are some things you cannot wash away, my failure at what one would call ‘a ruddy good beard’ can indeed be washed away, sent swirling down the limescale-encrusted plughole, literally and figuratively, of my life.

tl;dr Going to have a shave in a bit.

*I made this word up to amuse myself**

**I wouldn’t lie to you about that, either

Apologies, I have none

Today I have sat with this blog open since about 6pm, and have not written a thing until now, 1.51am. I have not even tried to think of anything to write. And I am not fussed by this.

I do apologise if you have this blog as a part of your daily dose of stuff, though. I realise I have something of a duty to you to fill your minds with some words or – failing that – a video of something. But what? Well, two videos, because I’m nice and I saw them both today for the first time.

Italian Spider-Man:

The Amazing Bulk:

Hate for the sake of hate

I’m quite a negative person. You might find that hard to believe, but it’s true. No – don’t throw yourself into the pyre just because this revelation has hit you so hard in the pyre gland. I’ve accepted it. I know it. I live it. I am it.

But it doesn’t stop me getting annoyed at two things: being told I’m negative all the time, and others being blindly, unthinkingly negative.

While I highlight the many things I take issue with on a regular basis, there tends to be thought behind what I say and do. I may dismiss someone’s attempt at doing something as pointless and foolhardy, but I will rarely begrudge them trying.

When I am slating something for being the usual things – rubbish, pointless, mind-numbingly vacuous, whatever else – it isn’t because I am consumed with hatred and want all life on earth to end. It’s because I don’t like what I see, and I want to see better.

The anger doesn’t come from nowhere: it is borne from a burning desire to see the world a fairer, superior one to that what it is today. Even down to tiny little things.

I have no idea where I’m going with this, I’ve just found myself increasingly annoyed with the mindless negativity spewed from all angles and I want to highlight the fact that I consider myself separate from it.

I don’t hate just because it’s there. I hate for a reason. I don’t slate just because it’s something I’m not doing. I slate because I’ve found something to slate it for. I don’t instantly resort to bad-mouthing just because it’s the easiest way to react. I instantly resort to bad-mouthing because you’re an insufferable cunt.

But those who know me know me for my jolly personality and happy-go-lucky lifestyle, so that’s all I need to know. I may be lying.

Side-stepping the truth LIKE A BOSS

I’m quite open on this blog. I say things I didn’t expect I would say publicly – in fact, I sometimes almost maybe possibly go a bit deep. It’s madness, frankly.

But I’m still not all-out, and this is something I wish I could train myself to go against. I self-censor. I don’t always say exactly what I think or exactly what I mean.

That’s not to say I lie – far from it, I don’t think I’ve been untruthful once here. Misguided? Sure. Idiotic? Of course. Loud? Definitely. But intentionally false? Nope.

I choose to sidestep more difficult topics, though. I either avoid them completely or talk about them in such vague terms you’d have to actually know what’s going on inside my head to be able to know what the hell I’m on about. Meaning not even I know what I’m on about.

I’m doing it now: not even naming what I’m thinking about when I talk of self-censorship. Just skirting around the edges, hoping people will pick up enough hints to make up their own minds.

It is a universal concept, mind you, with some more diligent about their self-censorship than others. But I don’t want to go in that direction.

I admire those who just be totally, 100%, unapologetically honest. The ones who will talk about anything in great detail – not for the attention, but because it’s telling a story. Those who will be so devastatingly honest about the things you do or don’t do as a human that you are actually met with a wave of relief on reading them: you’re not alone. Others are like you. You thought you were a freak, but there are people in the world who are freaks too. You’re less freakish.

So I’ll try to move towards uncensoring myself. Not for attention, not to embarrass or shock – but just to be honest. Just to be more human.

I’ll try and swiftly fail, that is, as I remember the people who read this blog and so remember I don’t want them finding things out about me. Shitballs.