It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I'm Actually Shitting Myself)

Today I'm going to talk about death, disease, cyborg enslavement and just the Apocalypse in general. Did I mention I was a pessimist? Of course I did, I'm a pessimist, like Rhod Gilbert is Welsh.

So, you may have heard, swine flu has claimed its first victim outside the Americas. And it's in Britain. Nay, it's not just in Britain, it's in Scotland. Nay, it's not just in Scotland, it's in fucking Paisley. And nay (if there's a horse flu I think I have it), it's not just in Paisley, the woman who died did so in the Royal Alexandra Hospital, which is five minutes walk from where I live. The centre of swine flu fatality in "the rest of the world", as most Americans like to call it, and I can see it from my local pub. That's just fantastic.

Of course, people will overreact to this. Someone was bound to die at some point, no, it's not getting more serious... but my holiday to Northern Ireland at the end of July could not come sooner.... although here's me talking of escaping the impending quarantine of Paisley to be with other healthy people, but I must see this from the point of view of the Northern Irish... for all I know, I could carry it from here over there and then they're all fucked too... It'd be like the bit at the end of the credits after a horror film about disease, like 28 Days Later or something, where everything is resolved and then, right at the end, it goes all tits up, the infection survives because some diseased fandan's gone on fucking holiday, and we've got to come back for a sequel where the flu has manifested into a zombie plague. And if this sequel is anything like as horrible as most horror sequels then I may as well just save the general viewing public, as well as the Irish, by killing myself right now and preventing any crimes against metaphoric film sequels, and stopping the spread of swine flu, of course.

But that's just, worst case scenario, of course.

Some things, however, just scream "let's destroy the world!" in big, bold, Comic Sans lettering. While the world is coping with Potential Zombie Flu, a much more breathtakingly sinister operation is taking place, breaking boundaries and making new ground on just how unbelievably ominous you can possibly be. It's a common fact of information that the government have obviously watched Terminator far too much, and while they were (hopefully) drunk one night, decided to give the UK's automated machine system core the rather unfortunate name Skynet. Now, this is ridiculous enough, but just to crap on the world, a Japanese company has topped this.

This company manufactures robotic suits that can "expand and improve physical capability", called the Hydro Assistive Limb. Or HAL for short. That's right, film geeks, like HAL, the evil computer from Kubrick's 2001. Now, this is a bit funny, it's like an in-joke, right, to anyone that knows this. Nothing too bad. And the suit thing is kinda cool, if they develop it a bit it's kinda like Iron Man, isn't it? It's not like the company is the Evil Consortium to Destroy Humanity Through Machinery or anything.

Actually, it may as well be.

The company is called Cyberdyne. Cyberdyne, for fuck sake. It's almost as if they are egging the fucking machines on to destroy humanity as we know it. "Come ahead, if you think you're hard enough," a top scientist will probably say before being decapitated. I know the chances of the world being brought to its knees in such a spectacular way as Terminator are slim, but Jesus H Cox, it's not like they have to tempt fate. A more thorough swatch of the Cyberdyne website reveals some absolute gems... the homepage announces, "We strongly believe that technologies should be designed for the benefits of humankind." and describes the HAL suits as "cyborg-type robots".

If someone made a mock website for the Cyberdyne of the Terminator universe, it wouldn't be this good. So, when the real Cyberdyne release HAL 2.0, which has dispelled the need for a person inside, and is now just the robot with AI, you shall find me in a cupboard, somewhere between weeping, damning the earth to hell and blowing my brains out. Or, alternatively, I could find the Presidential bunker from T3. Hey, the world would need a John Connor...

As an intriguing aside, I've been listening to the Manics all night. I feel this may be affecting my judgement.

Ciao for now, but not forever.

I hope.

Time Flies When You're a Pretentious Pessimist

Now, hasn't this been a busy blog? First post since the end of May, I'm doing well so far...

The first thing to blog about is the fact that it is the 12th of June. The day before the 13th of June, 2009. Now, that has absolutely no relevance to anyone (unless it's your birthday) but my school prom was the 13th of June, 2008. It's been a fucking year since prom, are you kidding me? This isn't helped by my brain, which reminds me of things that I think are quite recent memories, before the dawning realisation that they all occurred seven, eight, nine months ago, even a year, one example being Hallowe'en Cheesy Pop... guess when that was.

And so uni is done as well. Passed first year, or at least, the minimum amount of credits I needed to pass first year. Didn't get Computing, surprisingly enough. Second year Film and TV Studies looks utterly dire, but I am looking forward to Composition in Music. But I've been wrong before. That's the joy of being a serial pessimist, you take the bad as what to be expected, and you take the good as a mildly pleasant surprise. Of course, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.... somebody stop me, I've become corny.

Wrote another short script, this one a bit less depressing than the last one (I hope). No one kills themself in this one, although a good bit of killing does go on... as films about hitmen usually do. This one has an (extremely) underlying theme of trust, and I've yet to think up a name for it that is not boringly plain or disgustingly pretentious. Add in the fact the hitman is called Gabriel, and the obligatory religious reference is thrown out there, and it almost made me cringe. But not quite. And if I'm not cringing my arse off at it, then I'm confident that it's not awful. I hope.

While we're on hope, I've just finished watching Shawshank Redemption for only the second time, the first not actually being too long ago. Which is completely insane, I'm told, best movie ever, etc. But on further comtemplation I think I prefer the Green Mile. The constant embarressment, abuse and eventual mental breakdown of the world's greatest douchebag mouse killer defeats the tale of hope, friendship, and a great big fucking hole in the wall. Either way, Frank Darabont wins.

On the music front, new albums by Elvis Costello, the Manics, and Kasabian all get thumps up from me, as does the She & Him (read: Zooey Deschanel, yum) album from last year. Also listened to PJ Harvey's first two albums, which were quite good in a particularly kind of way (yay), like somewhere between Patti Smith and Nirvana. Green Day album is a still a resounding 'meh'. Finally got round to properly listening to the second Raconteurs album rather than just skipping to Rich Kid Blues, and it is awesome stuff.

And I've been listening to some Alanis for no other reason than she's awesome.

Oh and I fixed the printer. Just throwing that out there. As the McNabb song goes, "something something something, I'm a genius." I do remember the rest of the song but I felt this emphasised the genius matter a bit more. =)

And my Here's What I've Been Listening To and Think You Should Listen To as Well or I'll Make You Pay list has got a bit bigger too. I obviously listen to too much. Never thought of it as a bad thing before, I don't now.

Radiohead - Electioneering
Bowie - Lady Stardust
PJ Harvey - Me-Jane
The Frames - Falling Slowly
Elvis Costello - Sulphur to Sugarcane
Kasabian - Fire
Raconteurs - Consoler of the Lonely
Manics - Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
She & Him - Why Do Let Me Stay Here?
Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know

Ciao for now.