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.