Not my impotent rage, if anything I have been less rage-filled in 2009 than any year since approximately 2002. So that's good. But just as "9" is just and upside down "6" so 2009 reverses the fortune of the 60s in a very weak attempt to make something out of the fact that two numbers look like each other upside down.
For "we" are no longer sticking it to "the man" and "the man" has responded by shafting us like good 'uns. From throwing a hissy fit about not scamming a bunch of undeserved dosh off the working stiff to proving that administrative incompetence was ongoing in sensitive situations to the trivial but still ridiculous nickel and diming to death in online games. Right across the spectrum of government and commerce wherever there could be said to be "the man" (not to be confused with Nicolas Cage who was the man for very different reasons on Tuesday) he was sticking it to "us" unashamedly and without consequence.
However the BBC might want to put a positive spin on it the infosphere continues to belt us in the face with a tirade of liberties taken by those in power and it turns out our response is "meh".
Of course Harold MacMillan could continue to tell us that "we've never had it so good" to this day. We might all be poor but in the last recession we the general kind of poverty didn't come with games consoles, the internet and TV on demand. We might have been robbed blind, offended by government incompetence and forced to pay for virtual grenades but there are still plenty more ways to remain distracted and anaesthetised.
Hmmm, starting to sound a bit ranty? Yes, probably.
I'm not ranting, because ranting implies angry and I'm just as apathetic as the rest of you. I know the government are corrupt incompetents and businessmen are greedy sociopaths and that there aint no such thing as a free MMO but I don't care to do anything about it.
Media provides us with any number of enterprising journos from the Mark Thomas school of publicised activism who will stage revealing prank after revealing prank but the media will also tell us, nothing gets done as a result. If people with the public ear, viewing figures in the millions and, in some cases, their own fan clubs can do nothing then why should we?
Exactly.
I could point out what I think Electronic Arts should have done to milk money out of punters in a clever and non-irritating way. I could make any number of suggestions about what needs to change in banking. I could harp on and on about how I would restructure the House of Commons. In the end so could you, everyone reading this has access to browsers, Google and Blogger.
But what we've learned is that a simple plea for Friends, Romans and Countrymen to lend their ears is drowned out in a sea of attention grabbers. Gil Scott-Heron was right, the revolution will not be televised but only because we'll be too busy playing Wii Sports to fit one in.
I was going to pontificate about whether to theme the blog for a bit nominating a "Star" of the week or some such inconsequential nonsense but I've already dripped on for long enough.
Don't be thoroughly depressed, it's nearly the weekend... I shall be relentlessly upbeat tomorrow, I promise.
3 December 2009
2 December 2009
How You Can Tell When Nothing Is Happening...
The front page of the BBC website reserves significant space for Lily Allen's announcement that she's going to stop recording pop singles for a bit.
Is it just me or is she a prime example of unremarkable mediocrity? Not saying that I'm not but really, I don't expect people to care what I'm doing next with my career. I suppose if people didn't think she was, in some way, remarkable the BBC wouldn't put her onto the front page but I can't see it personally.
So I guess I'm asking if I'm missing something. She just seems like some upper middle class bint of no particular note to me. And let's get this straight I'm not asking if everybody else likes her, I don't care about that. I just can't understand why she's famous except that her dad is.
Is it just me or is she a prime example of unremarkable mediocrity? Not saying that I'm not but really, I don't expect people to care what I'm doing next with my career. I suppose if people didn't think she was, in some way, remarkable the BBC wouldn't put her onto the front page but I can't see it personally.
So I guess I'm asking if I'm missing something. She just seems like some upper middle class bint of no particular note to me. And let's get this straight I'm not asking if everybody else likes her, I don't care about that. I just can't understand why she's famous except that her dad is.
1 December 2009
Nicolas Cage Is The Man
I couldn't quite believe the news when I heard that none other than Nicolas Cage was set to switch on the Christmas lights in Bath a few weeks back. I mean... it wasn't anywhere near December, what were they doing switching on Christmas lights?
Seriously, though as this feature on the BBC website testifies Cage rolled up to plunge the plunger spurred on by no more than a handwritten note and a general love of Bath. Ian used to live in Bath and I can tell you it's a jolly nice place, pricey but then that's probably not high on Mr. Cage's list of concerns.
He probably appreciated the peace and quiet he enjoyed while popping out to the shops there as, even in a named appearance, only 8000 people turned out to see his appearance. If 8000 people turned up anywhere to see me I'd think it was quite a lot but if you're Nicolas Cage that must seem like a modest and reasonable amount.
I've long been of the opinion that Mr. Cage, while quite clearly mental, is a marvellous actor. He seems to enjoy that peculiar talent shared by few actors to always pick interesting roles even when they're not that well written. He also manages to emerge from the worst of these movies without the tarnish sticking to him. I hated the remake of Bangkok Dangerous, couldn't stomach Knowing and fell asleep during Windtalkers but still I count Cage's name as a bonus in a film. I am also unashamedly a fan of things other people hated him in like Ghost Rider, Next and National Treasure (both of them).
The fact that he would also turn up to switch on a quiet English city's Christmas lights just cements for me his status as 1) mad as a box of frogs and 2) quite definitely the man. I like to think that Mr. Cage would have pressed ahead with his illuminating engagement even if he had known that Brum nearly fell into a giant chasm in 2012-esque scenes of apocalyptic upheaval after JLS proved more popular than the council had imagined them to be. Sure these are just four UK lads with a couple of cheeky chart successes at the dawn of their career and Nicolas Cage is, well, Nicolas Cage but I would hope that his affection for Bath would have overridden his common sense even in that circumstance.
All we got here in Notts was that boxer chappie, whose name I can't even remember. The fact that Nicolas Cage did the honours in Bath lends me hope that one day we might even aspire to someone good, like Stephen Fry or... no... I can't think of anyone better to switch on my christmas lights than Stephen Fry. In fact, I can think of few people who would be top of my list to be a paragon of excellence in most social situations than Stephen Fry so I shall give up trying.
The only other thing to happen in the last 24 hours of note comes my way again via the BBC website and is a pretty sweet story about a steampunk art exhibit there are moving pictures and image galleries back there so well worth a look.
Personally I am mulling over radio play projects and getting my teeth well and truly stuck into Levercastle proper. So I shall ask, no doubt in vain, who you would like to switch on your Christmas lights... if anyone answers I shall write to Stephen Fry and ask him to come and do ours. As Mrs wants to buy a 99p pre-decorated fake tree it shouldn't take him too long if he's free.
Seriously, though as this feature on the BBC website testifies Cage rolled up to plunge the plunger spurred on by no more than a handwritten note and a general love of Bath. Ian used to live in Bath and I can tell you it's a jolly nice place, pricey but then that's probably not high on Mr. Cage's list of concerns.
He probably appreciated the peace and quiet he enjoyed while popping out to the shops there as, even in a named appearance, only 8000 people turned out to see his appearance. If 8000 people turned up anywhere to see me I'd think it was quite a lot but if you're Nicolas Cage that must seem like a modest and reasonable amount.
I've long been of the opinion that Mr. Cage, while quite clearly mental, is a marvellous actor. He seems to enjoy that peculiar talent shared by few actors to always pick interesting roles even when they're not that well written. He also manages to emerge from the worst of these movies without the tarnish sticking to him. I hated the remake of Bangkok Dangerous, couldn't stomach Knowing and fell asleep during Windtalkers but still I count Cage's name as a bonus in a film. I am also unashamedly a fan of things other people hated him in like Ghost Rider, Next and National Treasure (both of them).
The fact that he would also turn up to switch on a quiet English city's Christmas lights just cements for me his status as 1) mad as a box of frogs and 2) quite definitely the man. I like to think that Mr. Cage would have pressed ahead with his illuminating engagement even if he had known that Brum nearly fell into a giant chasm in 2012-esque scenes of apocalyptic upheaval after JLS proved more popular than the council had imagined them to be. Sure these are just four UK lads with a couple of cheeky chart successes at the dawn of their career and Nicolas Cage is, well, Nicolas Cage but I would hope that his affection for Bath would have overridden his common sense even in that circumstance.
All we got here in Notts was that boxer chappie, whose name I can't even remember. The fact that Nicolas Cage did the honours in Bath lends me hope that one day we might even aspire to someone good, like Stephen Fry or... no... I can't think of anyone better to switch on my christmas lights than Stephen Fry. In fact, I can think of few people who would be top of my list to be a paragon of excellence in most social situations than Stephen Fry so I shall give up trying.
The only other thing to happen in the last 24 hours of note comes my way again via the BBC website and is a pretty sweet story about a steampunk art exhibit there are moving pictures and image galleries back there so well worth a look.
Personally I am mulling over radio play projects and getting my teeth well and truly stuck into Levercastle proper. So I shall ask, no doubt in vain, who you would like to switch on your Christmas lights... if anyone answers I shall write to Stephen Fry and ask him to come and do ours. As Mrs wants to buy a 99p pre-decorated fake tree it shouldn't take him too long if he's free.
30 November 2009
Aaaaaaaand Breathe...
I scraped the 50000 word target. And by scraped I mean I really barely managed it. It's been a busy month. I wanted to get a start on with an RP project called Dreamtime Stories and the episode I wanted to run is one of four between now and February. I didn't want to be cramming it in later so that only left me one option. In amongst that and the regular business of living finding time to squeeze out 50k was no mean feat.
I'm quite happy with the results, however bizarre they might be. The book's a kind of thought experiment I called "Things Everyone Should Know About Computers" and it blends history with opinion and some quasi-autobiographical stuff. In order to qualify it for Nano I changed the name of the narrator. Is this cheating? I don't think this falls outside of the scope of Nano, so I'm sticking with it.
Apart from this the Mrs and I have been spending a lot of time lounging on the sofa gripped, this year, by X Factor. Mrs Monkey is a musical kind of person and she loves to see singers in competition. I have come to be of the opinion that X Factor gets overly abused for being what it is. Nobody's pretending that the show is innovative or that the contestants can do any more than sing songs.
Lot's of people have come away from X Factor moaning that it dominates the music industry (by which they mean the charts) and that it disadvantages "proper" musicians. As the chief commentator on this subject was Calvin Harris author of the deathless pop ditty "I get all the girls" I think that's a bit rich.
Anyhow, that's old news now. It's just that as someone who doesn't really take part in pop music or charts or any of that kind of thing, someone who's more at home with an old Monster Magnet CD and a documentary about Metallica I can't see why people can't see the televised audition that is the X Factor as anything but a good thing. After all the process is kind of definitive. Rather than take a small risk on fifty maybes why not put all the budget behind one person whittled down from a field of twelve finalists? Say what you like about past winners but at least we know they can sing, some of them can even dance.
Contrast that with the days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman in the 80s when the fact Rick Astley could carry a tune was seen as a novelty. "A pop act who can sing! Who'd have thought?"
As you may be aware I work for a ticket agency that sells for most pop music events and one thing I'll tell you about last year's admirable runners up JLS those lads are grafters. The amount of touring and promotion they've done tells me they deserved their crack at success. One memorable performance the promoter wanted news of their next gig at a venue sent out via e-mail while they were busy performing the current date.
Anyhow. That's my X Factor rant over with... inconsequential as the whole thing is. Now it's time to slip on my shoes and head off to work.
I'm quite happy with the results, however bizarre they might be. The book's a kind of thought experiment I called "Things Everyone Should Know About Computers" and it blends history with opinion and some quasi-autobiographical stuff. In order to qualify it for Nano I changed the name of the narrator. Is this cheating? I don't think this falls outside of the scope of Nano, so I'm sticking with it.
Apart from this the Mrs and I have been spending a lot of time lounging on the sofa gripped, this year, by X Factor. Mrs Monkey is a musical kind of person and she loves to see singers in competition. I have come to be of the opinion that X Factor gets overly abused for being what it is. Nobody's pretending that the show is innovative or that the contestants can do any more than sing songs.
Lot's of people have come away from X Factor moaning that it dominates the music industry (by which they mean the charts) and that it disadvantages "proper" musicians. As the chief commentator on this subject was Calvin Harris author of the deathless pop ditty "I get all the girls" I think that's a bit rich.
Anyhow, that's old news now. It's just that as someone who doesn't really take part in pop music or charts or any of that kind of thing, someone who's more at home with an old Monster Magnet CD and a documentary about Metallica I can't see why people can't see the televised audition that is the X Factor as anything but a good thing. After all the process is kind of definitive. Rather than take a small risk on fifty maybes why not put all the budget behind one person whittled down from a field of twelve finalists? Say what you like about past winners but at least we know they can sing, some of them can even dance.
Contrast that with the days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman in the 80s when the fact Rick Astley could carry a tune was seen as a novelty. "A pop act who can sing! Who'd have thought?"
As you may be aware I work for a ticket agency that sells for most pop music events and one thing I'll tell you about last year's admirable runners up JLS those lads are grafters. The amount of touring and promotion they've done tells me they deserved their crack at success. One memorable performance the promoter wanted news of their next gig at a venue sent out via e-mail while they were busy performing the current date.
Anyhow. That's my X Factor rant over with... inconsequential as the whole thing is. Now it's time to slip on my shoes and head off to work.
24 November 2009
Nanowrimo Bites
I've been aware that I'm not here...
But it's November and November means Nanowrimo and Nanowrimo means 50000 words. I'm inching towards the end. It'll be a shame if I fail now as I've officially crossed the line into "so near, yet so far" territory.
This brief note just signals my intention to return soon. I think I'm going to attempt to make this a more bloggy blog. It's come to my attention that if people really want to know what I think about role playing there's a 200-page book available which can brief them on the finer points and a podcast along roughly once every three weeks to expand upon these points further.
So the blog really should say something else again. Maybe pull in a little more traffic by being hip and relevant. Well, by referencing the current pop culture buzzwords anyway.
So, in the spirit of times to come, and until December...
Jedward.
But it's November and November means Nanowrimo and Nanowrimo means 50000 words. I'm inching towards the end. It'll be a shame if I fail now as I've officially crossed the line into "so near, yet so far" territory.
This brief note just signals my intention to return soon. I think I'm going to attempt to make this a more bloggy blog. It's come to my attention that if people really want to know what I think about role playing there's a 200-page book available which can brief them on the finer points and a podcast along roughly once every three weeks to expand upon these points further.
So the blog really should say something else again. Maybe pull in a little more traffic by being hip and relevant. Well, by referencing the current pop culture buzzwords anyway.
So, in the spirit of times to come, and until December...
Jedward.
10 September 2009
Okay so...
It's definitely been a while but I think given that I had a wedding to help organise I can be forgiven. Also I fell victim to the usual August malaise that seems to affect everyone. Having said that we punted out a couple of podcasts and got some RP done even despite this.
It's only the poor old blog that seems to be suffering. I have to say that it hasn't really been a time for profound thought, or indeed even interesting thought. Mostly I've just been getting through stuff and ploughing ahead.
Mrs, myself, the doodler and another friend have all booked and paid for our places at the upcoming games weekend organised by a friend in the wilds of Derbyshire. The experience is unfailingly a complete escape from reality for a few days. I myself have never experienced the specially extended version of the weekend that goes from Wednesday night all the way through to Monday morning but I imagine the sense of reality dislocation is going to be the most intense it's ever been.
The good thing about that is that you come back to real life suffused with the feeling that you have actually experienced a Narnia-esque amount of time in a parallel dimension. The bad thing is that the reality shock sucks really really bad.
Still, the highs of such an experience are way in excess of the lows, so bring it on!
The cat has been to the vets for a little family unplanning and is staggering around the house with stiches in her side and one of those funny collars on. It has to stay there for ten days. It's quite upsetting because we're used to her leaping about the place full of beans and looking, well, like a cat. Now she's trying to be energetic, but also trying to ditch the collar and the stitches appear to have had more of an impact than she'd like to admit.
I'm looking forward to ten days time when she might start, once more, to look more like our cat.
We're having a board game session tonight followed by the Season 2 finale to our Over the Edge campaign on Saturday. So for the next five weeks life looks set to be fairly normal.
I guess I can cope with that.
It's only the poor old blog that seems to be suffering. I have to say that it hasn't really been a time for profound thought, or indeed even interesting thought. Mostly I've just been getting through stuff and ploughing ahead.
Mrs, myself, the doodler and another friend have all booked and paid for our places at the upcoming games weekend organised by a friend in the wilds of Derbyshire. The experience is unfailingly a complete escape from reality for a few days. I myself have never experienced the specially extended version of the weekend that goes from Wednesday night all the way through to Monday morning but I imagine the sense of reality dislocation is going to be the most intense it's ever been.
The good thing about that is that you come back to real life suffused with the feeling that you have actually experienced a Narnia-esque amount of time in a parallel dimension. The bad thing is that the reality shock sucks really really bad.
Still, the highs of such an experience are way in excess of the lows, so bring it on!
The cat has been to the vets for a little family unplanning and is staggering around the house with stiches in her side and one of those funny collars on. It has to stay there for ten days. It's quite upsetting because we're used to her leaping about the place full of beans and looking, well, like a cat. Now she's trying to be energetic, but also trying to ditch the collar and the stitches appear to have had more of an impact than she'd like to admit.
I'm looking forward to ten days time when she might start, once more, to look more like our cat.
We're having a board game session tonight followed by the Season 2 finale to our Over the Edge campaign on Saturday. So for the next five weeks life looks set to be fairly normal.
I guess I can cope with that.
5 August 2009
The Glorious British Summer
Well, after a week off resting it's taken me about two days back in the cut and thrust of every day life to feel like I need another holiday. The silly season is well underway now, dead buses in the morning and a general apathy in just about everyone.
Ironically we have been doing quite a bit of role playing at this time. Polishing off one off play testing, exploring a hack or two. Yup, no slackness here on that front. I'm starting to think that the time to compile all of our endeavours is not long off...
I can't help but notice the insistent rain. I wonder if this will drive people back to their PCs and hopefully help revive the forum.
Ironically we have been doing quite a bit of role playing at this time. Polishing off one off play testing, exploring a hack or two. Yup, no slackness here on that front. I'm starting to think that the time to compile all of our endeavours is not long off...
I can't help but notice the insistent rain. I wonder if this will drive people back to their PCs and hopefully help revive the forum.
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