A conversation with my wife brought up a subject I have never thought that much about, but upon closer inspection now I have a few thoughts on the subject, Nightmares.
Nightmares are strange things, your brain cooks up such horrifying things in your dreams that you are literally scared, your own head scares you when you are at your most vulnerable. There are 5 times in my life where Nightmares have been so scary that it defies logic itself. One of the 5 is a little different because it was a recurring Nightmare I had in my youth.
But first let me say, I have had a lot of messed up dreams, dreams that at times have provoked me to write short stories describing the events of the dream and sometimes inspired me to create a board game based on the events (true story but I had neither the art skills or the tools to create the game). For instance, I had a dream once about zombies, in the dream the area I used to live in when I was younger was being terrorised by zombies, but I was not scared. I spent a lot of the dream walking around the area, I entered a shop spent a few minutes in there and then walked towards my house. At the top of the car park which was next to my house three zombies had crowded round something sqaure, I walked over and it was an old mattress, I looked down at the mattress and realised it had been burned through and I could see right through it. What was underneath was like a passageway to hell, the ground had been ripped apart and it was like fire all around the walls leading downwards, I looked up at the zombies and they all started singing a section of the song "Cry Little Sister" from The Lost Boys. I woke with a jolt in my house to realise that song was on the radio and it had slipped into my dream.
THAT dream was weird, but it wasn't scary, it didn't freak me out or anything, it was just plain bizzare. But the top 5 worst nightmares I ever had,
First off the top 5 and 4 are linked, they happened one day after another and had a similiar theme. It was when I was unemployed, I had garnered a bad habit of going back to sleep after my wife had gone to work so the first dream I had, my wife had gone to work and I fell asleep. In my dream, I rolled over in bed, looked up, our bed is under the bedroom windown and someone was reaching through the window to grab me. I woke up screaming, the very thought of it brought back cruel flashbacks of another nightmare on this list. The fourth worst was the next day, I stupidly fell asleep again after my wife had gone to work. In my dream I heard the front door open and I saw a silhouette of someone enter the house but I couldn't move. I was frozen in place and I heard the person walk into my house but I couldn't see them, I made out a shape beside the door for a second but they walked away from the bedroom, but again I woke screaming in my bed. This time I was screaming for this person to get out of my house. It was after those two dreams that I took to getting up just after my wife left for work, refusing to sleep anymore, it was like I was being punished for getting any extra sleep.
The third worst nightmare I had is a rather personal one, it happened about a year after my mum and dad split up, I had a dream where I was standing beside the bookkeepers shop in Arden, where I lived. My dad was there and he told me to stay where I was and he walked away, he just kept walking. In the dream I knew he wasn't coming back and I screamed and hollered for him to turn round, just to look at me one more time, to come back, I remember crying that I was sorry and I would be good if he would come back. I woke that morning with tears running down my cheeks, I realised I had been crying in my sleep. It was that morning I finally asked my mum if my dad was ever coming back but she handled it brilliantly, she sat down with me and explained that for both of them to be happy they couldn't live together, and that if I wanted them both to be happy then I would understand. From that moment on I did understand, kind of, it was on reflection in later years I really understood but it took a horrifying nightmare to make it all make sense.
The second worse nightmare I ever had, it is the recurring nightmare that I had for a long time. In the dream I am about four years old, it links in to a memory I have of being that young, my mum has taken us to an aunts house. I wont say which aunt, but I don't like the woman and this dream is part of the reason why. So my mum took me to this aunts house, its before my mum and dad split up because my mum wouldn't go for any other reason, this aunt is my dad's sister. So we stop in, in my dream I am sitting by the window, when suddenly it blows open, my mum has dissapeared, on the window ledge stands a witch, kind of like the witch from the Wizard of Oz but smaller and more grotesque, this witch leans over and and wraps her hands around my throat and begins to throttle the life out of me. I am crying out in fear and look over at my aunt, who is watching impassively, as if what is happening is something that barely begs her attention. I always wake up at that moment. I had this dream for years, always the exact same. The window would blow open, my mum would no longer be sitting beside me and a witch was always standing on the window ledge, like she had just flown in.
But the worst nightmare I have ever had, so bad that it still lingers to this day is stupid to describe but frightened the life out of me at the time. It takes place in my gran's house. She has a small two bedroom flat, the shape of the hallway is important here. If you are in the living room, you walk down the hall past a cupboard and on your left is the bedroom, a foot away and on the right the hallway turns and you have a small passage down to the front door, the toilet to the right just before the front door. But if you continue walking past the main bedroom, and go straight instead of turning right, you come to the second bedroom.So my dream starts with all the family all around talking and joking. My grandad is in a big armchair beside the fire, which is strange because he never sits there. Suddenly without warning, he starts convulsing, then after a few seconds he flops back still in the chair. We are all looking at him as suddenly his face starts to change, his top and bottom jaw start to extend outwards, his left eye pops out the socket and dangles down, the jaws get longer like a crocodile. We all scream as he turns to look at us, and everyone in the room runs out the room and down the hall, I run into the second bedroom instead of out the front door like everyone else and stand against the window, I hear his footsteps as he slowly walks down the hall. Its almost like he pauses at the intersection of the hall and steps into the doorway of the second bedroom. He turns his head toward me, his long jaws covered in saliva, the eye dangling againts his cheek and all I can think is, why did I run in here? I woke up then, not knowing what happens next.
Pretty messed up right? Like I said before, Nightmares are strange things and I find it weird how they kind of mimic your fears in younger life to now. When I was younger, I feared monsters, like the crocodile monster that used to be a loved one, or the witch that wanted to throttle me. Then as my parents split up, the fear of a loved one turning their back on me forever and now in later life, someone invading my home, my personal space is a huge fear I have. (I watch way too many crime shows from the US, a lot of the themes in those shows is home invasion).
My nightmares may be weird, but I have to think, there has got to be worse out there? Right?
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Wednesday 17 June 2009
Shouting for Huey!
Urgh! I feel terrible. No idea why, but I am sitting in work after regurgitating the entire contents of my stomach. Not only that, I have a throbbing pain in my right temple, yet I have to listen to people shout and complain at me on the telephone. All I want is to go home and lie down for a bit, it would do me the world of good. The obstacle in my way is work and asking permission to go home due to illness, I have to speak to my boss and ask permission to go home because I feel so rough.
So as I pondered doing this, the entire idea of asking permission to go home due to sickness struck me as wrong. If you are ill you should go home, simple as that, you shouldn't need to go up to some boss figure and ASK to go home, you should go over, explain your not well and just say you are heading home. Sure people might abuse it, but the fact is we are adults and should be adult about this kind of thing. Its like being back and school and asking to go down to the medical room because you are ill, its childish and makes us feel like we're nervously trying to get away from school for an day of skiving. I think the time has come as adults to pull ourselves up by our boot straps and take this issue to hand, if you are ill you need to go home, if not then you do your work. It would probably be a lot worse if you call in sick for work and were just sitting at home doing nothing.
You know, I am pretty sure if my work involved administration tasks, something mindless I would be able to get through the day no problem, however I have to deal with people, and lets be honest here, the public are assholes, being one of them I can vouch for this. My job is to explain to people that they wont get as much money back on an investment as they first thought and maybe they wont be paying their mortgage back as soon as they had planned. I have to justify it without giving any specific reasons. So if you can imagine that, then you can imagine what people's reaction is to it, they are not best pleased.
Oh well back to the grind, I doubt I will see home early today, unless I throw up over my desk, which is always an idea.
So as I pondered doing this, the entire idea of asking permission to go home due to sickness struck me as wrong. If you are ill you should go home, simple as that, you shouldn't need to go up to some boss figure and ASK to go home, you should go over, explain your not well and just say you are heading home. Sure people might abuse it, but the fact is we are adults and should be adult about this kind of thing. Its like being back and school and asking to go down to the medical room because you are ill, its childish and makes us feel like we're nervously trying to get away from school for an day of skiving. I think the time has come as adults to pull ourselves up by our boot straps and take this issue to hand, if you are ill you need to go home, if not then you do your work. It would probably be a lot worse if you call in sick for work and were just sitting at home doing nothing.
You know, I am pretty sure if my work involved administration tasks, something mindless I would be able to get through the day no problem, however I have to deal with people, and lets be honest here, the public are assholes, being one of them I can vouch for this. My job is to explain to people that they wont get as much money back on an investment as they first thought and maybe they wont be paying their mortgage back as soon as they had planned. I have to justify it without giving any specific reasons. So if you can imagine that, then you can imagine what people's reaction is to it, they are not best pleased.
Oh well back to the grind, I doubt I will see home early today, unless I throw up over my desk, which is always an idea.
Friday 12 June 2009
Are you there God? It's me Robert? What do you mean No?!
Time to talk about something that is a teensy bit controversial, religion or to be more precise, God.
I'll kick off with saying I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell and I think when we shuffle off this mortal coil, that's it, we're dead in the ground, we're worm food, except for me. I am going to have myself cremated and my ashes spread at Disneyworld, and that is just so the people who are scattering the ashes can get a holiday out of it too.
But when it comes to religion, I don't buy it, and I don't persecute others for buying it.
However, I have gotten into arguments about religion from time to time, one such argument was in an office job and one of the girls in the team started talking about confession. She mentioned about confessing her sins to the priest and right away that got my hackles up. So I asked what difference did it make for me to tell a priest the bad things I had done when supposedly God was everywhere so if I did something bad then felt remorse, surely God would believe me? Yes? See what I mean? Personally I think confession is a load of crap, a sin you must confess before marriage is that you had unpure thoughts about a woman, if that was a sin then the entire race of heterosexual males would be burning in hell right now. We're men! Our primary driving force is sex, we're thinking about it all the friggin' time.
We wake up in the morning and our morning buddy is standing proud, our first thought "Man If I didn't have to pee right now I'd do something about this bad boy."
On our way to work, we think a number of things "a little sex would be a good way to start off the day."
In work, "I wish I could get some sex during my lunchbreak, that would cheer me up."
At the end of the day "Hopefully I can get a nut off tonight, that would do me the world of good."
Its constantly there. So if it is a sin to have unpure thoughts then I confess to sinning my heart out 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
Or if you commit a sexual act with a woman you need to confess about that, but how much detail do you go into?
"So father, we were both naked, in the lotus position, she was bouncing up and down on me, and I was getting close to busting a nut and then we shifted positions I could run my finger up and down her.... father? father? what's that fapping sound?"
"Nothing my son, carry on..."
"Uhhh I don't think I should, in fact I think I should go."
"My child, you must keep telling the story or... or you'll burn in hell... yes that'll work, you'll burn in hell."
"Ummm okay father, so like I said... wait there is that fapping sound again."
"Ignore it my child and continue."
It has to happen, a lot of priests are basically told "you can never have sex, ever" and then they have to listen to people confess filthy dirty sexual acts that would make some porns stars blush, of course it is going to cause a reaction and some of the priests are going to give themselves a "deep tissue massage" as they listen to the descrpitions, how do I know this? Because the priests that would do that are men, we are low creatures and we will do stuff like that just because of what we are. Never fear dear reader, the priests are okay because all they need to do is ask God for forgivness and they are golden.
So my argument in work was along similiar lines, I said that if I am truly sorry for something I have done, then God should forgive me, I shouldn't need to speak to some man in a box and tell him everything bad I have done, or in some cocked up religion's idea of what is wrong.
Then came my worst religious argument and it led to me never engaging in an argument about religion ever again, I was working in a Jewellers at the time and the assistant manager was religious but I didn't realise how deeply religious she was. So we got talking about stuff and she mentioned Jesus and I said something about his brothers and sisters, which I had gotten from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. The idea behind it made sense, Jesus was supposed to be the son of God, not the son of Joseph but once Jesus was born it made sense that she was going to have more children, but to Joseph and not to God.
When I said brothers and sisters, the assistant manager freaked out and told me I was wrong and that it was a stupid idea. I shrugged and left it at that, but the concept I had thrown at her must have ate at her and ate at her, so when a regular customer came in, a customer well versed in the Bible and the assistant manager threw my idea at her, this customer nodded and said "yes, it's in the bible." I was shocked, I didn't realise it was there, but more frighteningly is the look on the assistant manager's face, she sat stock still and you could almost hear an audible pop and her idea of Jesus and his family burst in her head. She had a mini-breakdown where she questioned her own faith, she "lost faith" so to speak in Christianity. Her reasoning was sound in a way, she said that if she had been choosen to carry the son of God, she would not have allowed her self to bear any children after that and devoted all her time to her son. Okay fair enough, but her husband was a man with a man's needs and they loved each other so it is only natural that they have another child. But for the course of 8 weeks I watched in horror as this mini-breakdown progressed, the assistant manager became emotional, took to shouting at other stuff with no provovation, and I was taken aside by the shop manager and forbidden from speaking of religion in the shop again. Ultimately she found her faith again, through Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion Of The Christ, so everything worked out for her in the end, but it put an end to me arguing my point about religion, some stones are best left unturned.
But my point ultimately is God. What do you think of when the word God is put forward to you? The first image is a big bloke, white beard, white robe, sitting on a cloud watching the world, right? Probably variations on the theme, God watches over you. Not so much with me, but before I explain what he looked like to me, let me explain my reasoning. See I went to school in a non-denominational school in a housing estate in Glasgow, Scotland. Now a non-denomiational school means we should not be taught religion in school because people of other religions may be taught there and that school was for everyone, right? Wrong! They took that idea and kicked it out the window with Arden Primary School. We had religion shoved down our throats by the head teacher, she was a religious woman and made us sing religious songs in assemblies and had a priest come in and tell us stories, which we thought were fun but pull back those hidden layers and a religious message was hidden underneath, that treacherous bastard! The religious songs I have no problem with, we didn't listen to the words so much as just sing the songs and get really loud at the parts we knew, then mummble the parts we didn't and the stories we were told were fun. Stories about the Mr Men and their wacky adventures, but skewed to a religious angle, or Bible stories but with illustrations shown to us on a projector so we had something to keep our focus and interest. One teacher made us say the lords prayer every day of school for a whole year because she was religious, we thought nothing of it because we were kids, it wasn't until I hit secondary school that I started to question the whole religion thing and was able to say "no I don't think I will believe in God", but in Primary School religion was rammed down our throats, unsuspecting children who knew no better were being brainwashed because some old bat believe people sprouted wings and floated in the sky when you died.
The concept of God was talked about by the priest, I remember hearing him say how God was always watching you wherever you were. (No I didn't fear him watching me on the toilet or in the bath) Right away my small child's brain was working overtime, if someone was always watching us he had to have a massive eye, yes he had one eye! ONE HUGE EYE PEOPLE! So freaking huge that it could see everything and everyone. Then they talked about how he did lots of things at one time, he was managing the world and all it's people, so he needed at least 8 arms. Suddenly the image of God took shape in my mind, God was a giant one eye octopus! It made sense to me damnit! He had to see everything, one eye, he did lots of things at once, 8 arms, put them together in a child's brain: one eyed octopus. Funnily enough, no one else shared this vision of what God looked like. At the time I didn't ask what people thought God looked like, I just assumed everyone was the same, but as I got older and got into conversations with people, and brought up my One Eye Octopus theory, the looks I recieved varied from strange to "when did you escape the nut house?". One of my oldest memories is walking outside of the tenament building I lived in, looking up into the sky and imaging a giant one eyed octopus stretching out over it, so he could watch everythng and do everything he needed to do. Maybe that is what caused my reaction to religion as a whole, maybe the idea of following a being that looked like my vision of God was just to abhorrent to me that I actively rejected religion in later life.
Don't take what I said here as me saying "religion is bad and evil and must be stamped out" (it's a good start though), to do such a thing would lead to a dictatorship and people losing their rights which no one wants. But religion is one of the major reasons for mass bloodshed and senseless destruction in this world. Never has any idea or concept made me so passionate that I want to strap a bomb to myself and blow people up.... well when Sierra cancelled the Babylon 5 Game: Into The Fire, I was pretty close to feeling that, but apart from that, nothing has made me want to blow myself up.
People can worship what they like, it makes no difference to me, just don't push your ideas on me, I'm not interested in any religion.
And to quote Homer Simpson, "If I'm wrong I'll recant on my death bed", God's a forgiving fellow, if he sees I am truly sorry then surely he'll let me in to the mythical heaven.
On a side note: If you are a suicide bomber and are promised so many virgins, say 70, for the afterlife, well the reason you want virgins is so you can "break them in" so to speak. Now the afterlife is forever, so say you take 70 days or so and finally have had sex with all 70 of them, they are no longer virgins, five of them seemed to be fibbing about their virgin status but never mind, so now you just have 70 women there. Do they dissapear and 70 more virgins appear? Or once you've broken them in, that's it? That sounds like a HORRENDOUS idea to me. Do you know how demanding women are for your time? I'm married and I struggle to get in ample time to myself to play games and watch tv shows I like, I couldn't imagine what it would be like for 70 women who want your time. I think the only thing you could do in that situation is kill yourself, but you can't because that is what go you into that mess in the first place, you dumb fuck!
I'll kick off with saying I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell and I think when we shuffle off this mortal coil, that's it, we're dead in the ground, we're worm food, except for me. I am going to have myself cremated and my ashes spread at Disneyworld, and that is just so the people who are scattering the ashes can get a holiday out of it too.
But when it comes to religion, I don't buy it, and I don't persecute others for buying it.
However, I have gotten into arguments about religion from time to time, one such argument was in an office job and one of the girls in the team started talking about confession. She mentioned about confessing her sins to the priest and right away that got my hackles up. So I asked what difference did it make for me to tell a priest the bad things I had done when supposedly God was everywhere so if I did something bad then felt remorse, surely God would believe me? Yes? See what I mean? Personally I think confession is a load of crap, a sin you must confess before marriage is that you had unpure thoughts about a woman, if that was a sin then the entire race of heterosexual males would be burning in hell right now. We're men! Our primary driving force is sex, we're thinking about it all the friggin' time.
We wake up in the morning and our morning buddy is standing proud, our first thought "Man If I didn't have to pee right now I'd do something about this bad boy."
On our way to work, we think a number of things "a little sex would be a good way to start off the day."
In work, "I wish I could get some sex during my lunchbreak, that would cheer me up."
At the end of the day "Hopefully I can get a nut off tonight, that would do me the world of good."
Its constantly there. So if it is a sin to have unpure thoughts then I confess to sinning my heart out 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
Or if you commit a sexual act with a woman you need to confess about that, but how much detail do you go into?
"So father, we were both naked, in the lotus position, she was bouncing up and down on me, and I was getting close to busting a nut and then we shifted positions I could run my finger up and down her.... father? father? what's that fapping sound?"
"Nothing my son, carry on..."
"Uhhh I don't think I should, in fact I think I should go."
"My child, you must keep telling the story or... or you'll burn in hell... yes that'll work, you'll burn in hell."
"Ummm okay father, so like I said... wait there is that fapping sound again."
"Ignore it my child and continue."
It has to happen, a lot of priests are basically told "you can never have sex, ever" and then they have to listen to people confess filthy dirty sexual acts that would make some porns stars blush, of course it is going to cause a reaction and some of the priests are going to give themselves a "deep tissue massage" as they listen to the descrpitions, how do I know this? Because the priests that would do that are men, we are low creatures and we will do stuff like that just because of what we are. Never fear dear reader, the priests are okay because all they need to do is ask God for forgivness and they are golden.
So my argument in work was along similiar lines, I said that if I am truly sorry for something I have done, then God should forgive me, I shouldn't need to speak to some man in a box and tell him everything bad I have done, or in some cocked up religion's idea of what is wrong.
Then came my worst religious argument and it led to me never engaging in an argument about religion ever again, I was working in a Jewellers at the time and the assistant manager was religious but I didn't realise how deeply religious she was. So we got talking about stuff and she mentioned Jesus and I said something about his brothers and sisters, which I had gotten from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. The idea behind it made sense, Jesus was supposed to be the son of God, not the son of Joseph but once Jesus was born it made sense that she was going to have more children, but to Joseph and not to God.
When I said brothers and sisters, the assistant manager freaked out and told me I was wrong and that it was a stupid idea. I shrugged and left it at that, but the concept I had thrown at her must have ate at her and ate at her, so when a regular customer came in, a customer well versed in the Bible and the assistant manager threw my idea at her, this customer nodded and said "yes, it's in the bible." I was shocked, I didn't realise it was there, but more frighteningly is the look on the assistant manager's face, she sat stock still and you could almost hear an audible pop and her idea of Jesus and his family burst in her head. She had a mini-breakdown where she questioned her own faith, she "lost faith" so to speak in Christianity. Her reasoning was sound in a way, she said that if she had been choosen to carry the son of God, she would not have allowed her self to bear any children after that and devoted all her time to her son. Okay fair enough, but her husband was a man with a man's needs and they loved each other so it is only natural that they have another child. But for the course of 8 weeks I watched in horror as this mini-breakdown progressed, the assistant manager became emotional, took to shouting at other stuff with no provovation, and I was taken aside by the shop manager and forbidden from speaking of religion in the shop again. Ultimately she found her faith again, through Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion Of The Christ, so everything worked out for her in the end, but it put an end to me arguing my point about religion, some stones are best left unturned.
But my point ultimately is God. What do you think of when the word God is put forward to you? The first image is a big bloke, white beard, white robe, sitting on a cloud watching the world, right? Probably variations on the theme, God watches over you. Not so much with me, but before I explain what he looked like to me, let me explain my reasoning. See I went to school in a non-denominational school in a housing estate in Glasgow, Scotland. Now a non-denomiational school means we should not be taught religion in school because people of other religions may be taught there and that school was for everyone, right? Wrong! They took that idea and kicked it out the window with Arden Primary School. We had religion shoved down our throats by the head teacher, she was a religious woman and made us sing religious songs in assemblies and had a priest come in and tell us stories, which we thought were fun but pull back those hidden layers and a religious message was hidden underneath, that treacherous bastard! The religious songs I have no problem with, we didn't listen to the words so much as just sing the songs and get really loud at the parts we knew, then mummble the parts we didn't and the stories we were told were fun. Stories about the Mr Men and their wacky adventures, but skewed to a religious angle, or Bible stories but with illustrations shown to us on a projector so we had something to keep our focus and interest. One teacher made us say the lords prayer every day of school for a whole year because she was religious, we thought nothing of it because we were kids, it wasn't until I hit secondary school that I started to question the whole religion thing and was able to say "no I don't think I will believe in God", but in Primary School religion was rammed down our throats, unsuspecting children who knew no better were being brainwashed because some old bat believe people sprouted wings and floated in the sky when you died.
The concept of God was talked about by the priest, I remember hearing him say how God was always watching you wherever you were. (No I didn't fear him watching me on the toilet or in the bath) Right away my small child's brain was working overtime, if someone was always watching us he had to have a massive eye, yes he had one eye! ONE HUGE EYE PEOPLE! So freaking huge that it could see everything and everyone. Then they talked about how he did lots of things at one time, he was managing the world and all it's people, so he needed at least 8 arms. Suddenly the image of God took shape in my mind, God was a giant one eye octopus! It made sense to me damnit! He had to see everything, one eye, he did lots of things at once, 8 arms, put them together in a child's brain: one eyed octopus. Funnily enough, no one else shared this vision of what God looked like. At the time I didn't ask what people thought God looked like, I just assumed everyone was the same, but as I got older and got into conversations with people, and brought up my One Eye Octopus theory, the looks I recieved varied from strange to "when did you escape the nut house?". One of my oldest memories is walking outside of the tenament building I lived in, looking up into the sky and imaging a giant one eyed octopus stretching out over it, so he could watch everythng and do everything he needed to do. Maybe that is what caused my reaction to religion as a whole, maybe the idea of following a being that looked like my vision of God was just to abhorrent to me that I actively rejected religion in later life.
Don't take what I said here as me saying "religion is bad and evil and must be stamped out" (it's a good start though), to do such a thing would lead to a dictatorship and people losing their rights which no one wants. But religion is one of the major reasons for mass bloodshed and senseless destruction in this world. Never has any idea or concept made me so passionate that I want to strap a bomb to myself and blow people up.... well when Sierra cancelled the Babylon 5 Game: Into The Fire, I was pretty close to feeling that, but apart from that, nothing has made me want to blow myself up.
People can worship what they like, it makes no difference to me, just don't push your ideas on me, I'm not interested in any religion.
And to quote Homer Simpson, "If I'm wrong I'll recant on my death bed", God's a forgiving fellow, if he sees I am truly sorry then surely he'll let me in to the mythical heaven.
On a side note: If you are a suicide bomber and are promised so many virgins, say 70, for the afterlife, well the reason you want virgins is so you can "break them in" so to speak. Now the afterlife is forever, so say you take 70 days or so and finally have had sex with all 70 of them, they are no longer virgins, five of them seemed to be fibbing about their virgin status but never mind, so now you just have 70 women there. Do they dissapear and 70 more virgins appear? Or once you've broken them in, that's it? That sounds like a HORRENDOUS idea to me. Do you know how demanding women are for your time? I'm married and I struggle to get in ample time to myself to play games and watch tv shows I like, I couldn't imagine what it would be like for 70 women who want your time. I think the only thing you could do in that situation is kill yourself, but you can't because that is what go you into that mess in the first place, you dumb fuck!
Friday 5 June 2009
The Name Of The Place... Babylon 5
Babylon 5, ah Babylon 5, what a wonderful show it was. I came to Babylon 5 late in the party, seeing it from the fourth season, but I quickly caught up and have seen all the Babylon series, all of the short lived spin-off Crusade and all of the made for TV movies and even the made for DVD collection called Lost Tales. It all started with the pilot, simply called The Gathering.
The Gathering set the stage of Babylon 5, crudely and quite different from how it would actually play out, but it was a taste of things to come. It explained that Babylon 5 was a space station, a combined effort between humans and aliens, set in neutral space where conflicts could be resolved peacefully and prevent a war. We're told that humanity was almost wiped out in a war with the Minbari and that on the very last battle, just when the Minbari where about to take Earth and wipe out the human race forever, they surrendered and no one knows why. The commander of Babylon 5 is Jeffrey Sinclair, a war hero from the Minbari war and he runs the station with a subtle style. The pilot has a lot of problems, the aliens shown in some of it were puppets, the make up was cruder than it would be in the show itself and there are many inconsistencies that don't match up if you watch this movie then watch the show. But the basic plot is this: The Vorlons, the oldest space faring race have finally made contact and agreed to have a presence on the station with one Ambassador, known as Kosh. When he arrives on the station he is attacked and almost assisinated, the blame pinned on Jeffrey Sinclair. This is done by allowing a Telepath to scan Kosh, that Telepath Lyta Alexander becomes a big part of the show much later on. Well the pilot trundles along at a rather slow pace but in doing so really explores the different alien races that will take prominence in the shows main series. We are introduced not only to the Minbari, but to the Narn and Centauri also. Each of which have their own Ambassador in the station, the female Minbari Ambassador Dellen, the male Narn warrior Ambassador G'Kar and the drunken pompous Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari. We are also introduced to the staff of Babylon 5 but after the pilot on Sinclair and security Cheif Michael Garribaldi remain. The plot comes to climax with Sinclair finding out the assassin was in fact a Minbari with a device called a Changeling net that allows people to change their appearance. He posed as Sinclair to have humans removed from Babylon 5. He starts the timer on a bomb to kill himself, but before he does he tells Sinclair "You have a hole in your mind." Once all this is resolved and Ambassador Kosh is better, Sinclair explains to his girlfriend that the Minabari was right, he does have a hole in his mind, he has 24 hours he does not remember. It was during the last battle for Earth against the Minbari, he was in a fighter and his ship had its weapons disabled, so he decides to ram an enemy vessel, he charges the biggest ship he could see and then blacked out. 24 hours later he was found floating in space, his memory of the past 24 hours wiped as was his on board computer.
Season 1 of B5 started with tensions rife between the Alien races, we are introduced to new characers, a new XO Susan Ivanova a brash tough talking military woman who was one of the best strong female characters ever created for TV, a new medical officer Stephen Franklin and a new telepath Talia Winters. We find out that Lyta Alexander went missing after the pilot, she apparently tried to get into Vorlon space, and anyone who tries that is shot down and killed. The previous XO and doctor were shipped back to Earth with no explanation. The first season shows the rising tension between the Narn and the Centauri, the Centauri in the past had conquered the Narns and made them their slaves so the two races had always despised each other. Tensions mount between the 2 races as skirmishes take place, we get some backstory on each character and the appearance of Mr Morden leads to Londo Mollari starting down a dark path. We see the mysterious Shadows turn up fleetingly and then at the end of the first season, Micheal Garribaldi is shot trying to prevent the assisination of the Earth President, Ambassador Delenn enters a cocoon, and the Shadows wipe out an entire Narn base on orders from Mollari. This is the first time we see the Shadows in detail, organic spider-like ships that give off a creepy screeching sound as they fly around. Watching them for the first few times sends a shiver down your spine. As the second season opens, we find Sinclair has been reassigned to the Minbari Homeworld, a new captain in charge, Delenn is now a hyrbid Minbari and human now, Garribaldi survives but barely and tensions rise as the Centauri decide to take action against the Narns and start annexing Narn territory. The second season is when things get interesting, the first season set the scene and the second season shows you the direction the show is going and this is where we learn about the Great War that is coming. A war is going to take place, the Shadows are moving slowly and building their forces and the combinded force of the humans and alien races must band together and fight the Shadows or be destoyed by them.
The second season rolls into the third season as the Narn homeworld is taken over by the Centuari, Earth's president is getting a tight grip on the Earth colonies and trying to set up a dictatorship (orchestrated by the Shadows) and Babylon 5 has to declare independance and fight against Earth forces just to survive. As the third season draws to a close, the war with the Shadows now breaks out into open conflict across the galaxy.
The fourth season is the action packed season that closes off the shadow war, the earth war and some other loose ends.The fifth season opens new avenues and is darker than the preceeding seasons.
I realised I was explaining a bit much so I have cut it down now, but Babylon 5 was a HUGE story, a 5 year arc that had to be cut down to 4 because the writer was told that they might not have a 5th season at all, then at the last minute they were told they had a 5th season. The story in Babylon 5 is where it excelled and it is why it was better than Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. It had believable characters, a huge story where everything was connected and some truly touching moments.
So I am going to list now my favourite things from Babylon 5:
The Evolution of Ambassador G'Kar
G'Kar of the Narns starts off as a war monger, someone bitter at the Centauri, he was child when his world was taken over and now they are free he takes every opportunity to strike at them. Throughout the first 2 seasons he has to watch in horror as Narn space is slowly taken away then the unthinkable happens and his world is attacked by Weapons of Mass Destruction then ultimately conquered by the Centauri. In the first half of Season 3 he trys to find ways to get revenge but with the help of Ambassador Kosh he suffers a revelation and starts to move away from his war monger ways and look into himself for answers. His character begins to speak of peace and ways to get peace for his people, he becomes a spiritual leader for his people, preaching to them of ways to fight the Centauri but without weakening them as a people. G'Kar becomes one of the most interesting characters you will ever encounter in any science fiction show. During the 4th season he is able to get freedom for his people and homeworld, but at a costly price, then through a series of bizzare events strikes up an unlikely friendship with Londo Mollari, Ambassdor the Centuari and the man responsible for the Centuari's resurgance of power. His story is one of pain, joy and finding yourself and is a high point of Babylon 5.
The Shadows
Less is more, the makers of this show know this, because when you fleetingly see the Shadows in seasons 1 and 2 you want to see more. They keep you on tenderhooks, you never get an accurate idea of their size but you know they are powerful. Into the third season we begin to see them more and more and they are still terrifying and we get an idea of their size and slowly we get a look into who and what they are and what they want. The great thing is, you never see too much. Its not like The Borg where you get too much of a glimpse into their world and try to convert them, in the end the Shadows remain the most compelling villains in Science Fiction because we still don't know a lot about them.
The romance between Sherridan and Delenn.
Captain John Sheridan join Babylon 5 in Season 2, nicknamed Starkiller by the Centauri as he is the only man to have destroyed a Centauri warship during the war, their flagship the Blackstar. Despite all this he is not some gun crazy whack job, he was a soldier doing his job. And in his time on B5 he becomes friends with Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, their friendship turns to romance and it slowly, believably builds right up to the end of season 3 and is further cemented in Season 4 which ends with them being married. The story of them is touching, you can tell the characters do care for each other, whilst not relying on the other they are independantly strong but also a force to be reckoned with when they combine.
The Humour
Babylon 5 has its share of humour running through it, characters have funny moments, some of the things that people say as quick quips are funny in the sense that you will smirk about it. But the best example of Babylon 5's humour is in the third season episode in which Londo and G'Kar are trapped in an elevator together after a bomb has gone off. The elevator is unable to move and a fire below them is slowly bring smoke up toward them, if they don't get out they will die. According to Star Trek, the formula would have been that they both work together to get out and become better for the experience. However in this episode G'Kar refuses to help Londo, saying that he gets to watch Londo die and doesn't have to lift a finger to do it. He finds this very funny and starts laughing, Londo starts shouting for help, shouting things like "HELLO" and "CAN ANYONE HERE ME" and G'Kar in hilarious fashion replies in a squeaky voice "HELLO" and "I HEAR YOU" whilst still laughing. Hard to explain here but if you can find that clip on Youtube it will definetly make you laugh. Garribaldi is also a funny character and actually has a quick wit about him. The show has a good mix of humour and drama to it, so whilst not being as dark as Battlestar Galactica and not as lighthearted as The Next Generation tended to be, Babylon 5 strikes a balance that most shows would struggle with.
Sleeping In Light
The final episode of Babylon 5. This is a masterstroke by J Michael Straczynski. Written at the end of Season 4 when they were still unsure of a 5th season, this episode was shown at the end of season 5 and depicts John Sheridan's last days. At the beginning of season 4 John dies, and is brought back to life by the being Lorien who claims to be the first of the living beings in the universe, Lorien says he is only able to give John 20 years and then he will simply stop. This episode picks up with Sheridan realising his time is coming to an end, he gathers his friends together for one last time, sharing a meal and enjoying their company. He watches the sunrise with his wife, Delenn, one last time and then takes a ship and flies to Babylon 5 for one last look around before it is decomissioned. He leaves Babylon 5 for the last time and takes his ship to the sector where the Shadow war ended, there he sees Lorien again and slowly closes his eyes. A voice over tells us his ship was found, sealed with no one aboard. The scene soft fades to the interior of Babylon 5, J Michael Straczynski is dressed in a Babylon 5 jumpsuit walks to a control panel and flicks a switch, we hear Babylon 5 power down and as a lone ship leaves, it docks with an earth vessel. Now comes the most powerful part of the episode, the music swells, one ship from every race is watching as Babylon 5 explodes, torn apart in a controlled explosion and the ships slowly turn and fly away. We hear a voice over say "Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations, there would never be another." The episode ends with showing us other characters from Babylon 5. I admit I was crying like a baby at the end of the show, hell thinking about it now I can feel a lump in my throat. Everything about those last scenes was heartwrenching, the music was perfect, the destruction of the station done in dramatic fashion and the precession of ships watching its last moments, its perfect. If you watched that episode without seeing anything else you might think it was okay, but if you had watched all of the series to that point, guaranteed you would feel tears stinging the edge of your eyes.
There are many more things I could list about Babylon 5 but those are the the main things that I love about the show. During it's 5th season, a number of straight to video movies of Babylon 5 were released, the first of which was called In The Beginning and depicts the Minbari Earth War and it is a dramatic epic tale that is great fun to watch, even if you know what is going to happen it still throws a few surprises at you.
The second straight to DVD movie is called Thirdspace and takes place between the end of the Shadow War and before they start their assualt on Earth. Its all about an artifact found floating in Hyperspace, the artifact starts to control people and when it opens up a strange race of creatures come out ready to take over the galaxy. Its a good action story with no real links to the main story arcs in any way.
The third movie is called River of Souls and is about the race of Soul Hunters and stars Martin Sheen. Its okay, not great, doesn't really serve any purpose.
The fourth movie is called A Call to Arms and is the story that leads into the spin-off series Crusade. The movie is about the Shadow's followers The Drakh, they have decided to get revenge on the people who sent the Shadows away, the humans. They target earth for destruction, the plot barrels towards a showdown between the Humans and the Drakh above planet Earth, however as the Drakh realising they are losing, they unleash a plague upon planet Earth, the population of the planet have 5 years before the virus kills every man, woman and child on Earth. This leads into Crusade.
Crusade was about the new flagship of the human race, the Excalibur, a joint Earth Minbari vessel is sent out to find a cure for the virus. The show lasted for 13 episodes but inteference from the network, demanding more sex and violence be added, soon led to the show being cancelled before it even picked up the pace. What was on offer was really good and the 13th episode was epic, showing the first real battle in the show, petitions were made up to get the show re-instated but it was of no use, Crusade was dead.
No one heard anything for a while until 2002 a pilot for a new Babylon 5 show called The Legend of The Rangers was shown, a 90 minute pilot that was pretty poor to be fair. It had G'Kar in a guest role and introduced a new enemy to the show but poor ratings in america and very little hype led to it being a damp squib, even long term Babylon 5 fans were dissapointed in the show, especially the virtual reality weapon, where the crew member was dropped into a room, then space was created all around her and she punched at targets to fire lasers at them. It was probably a good idea in theory but in execution looked stupid.
Years passed and finally we heard some rummblings about a Babylon 5 movie, a feature length film but that all died quickly due to funding, then later we heard about a straight to DVD production called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. J Michal Straczynski informed fans that this would be a series of DVDs featuring episode long stories filling in the blanks and telling new stories in the Babylon 5 universe, each disc would have 2 "episodes". The first disc came out and did really really well, Warner Bros were impressed with the sales and were interested in another disc, but wanted it at the same budget as before, the first disc being filmed on a really low budget. Straczynski declined not wanting to give fans a sub par experience and there has been no more Babylon 5 dvds released.
As far as Straczynski written B5 is concerned, it's dead. He said he may make a movie of the show if the funding is there, but I wont be holding my breath. Ever since series 5 of Babylon 5 it has been handled terribly by studios and I think the patience of the fans has worn thin. To get your Babylon 5 fix now the best thing to do is get the Babylon 5 books that are out there. Straczynski himself wrote the plot outlines for most of the series of Babylon 5 books out there, so if you can find them, they are definetly worth reading, I recommend The Shadow Within and The Passing of The Technomages Trilogy.
Fans are also keeping Babylon 5 alive on the internet by creating games based on the show. A video game called Into the Fire (which is also the title of the episode that ends the Shadow War) commissioned by Sierra was in production, live action sequences with the actors had been filmed and the game was apparently over 90% done, it would feature you as the main character starting off as a fighter pilot then taking control of larger vessels as you rose in the ranks. The game was cancelled before it could be completed. Fans were in uproar, but it led to nothing. Sierra refused to finish the game so fan made games were the next best thing, 2 notable fan made games are "Babylon 5: I've Found Her" which is a game made completely from scratch by a talented team of programmers who have spent years and years of their time creating this game with you as the pilot of a Starfury, it handles well and has voice overs, tutorials and fan made missions packs are being made all the time. The other fan game is "The Babylon Project" and was originally a mod for Freespace 2 has turned into a game in its own right. Huge in scope and fan support this game has went from a mod to a game with a series of mini fan made expansions. The support for this game is huge and people are always working on missions and patches are regularly released. The games are great fun and I guarantee you will see The Shadows at some point in each game, but I wouldn't recommend trying to take one on in a Starfury.
Babylon 5 died at the worst possible time, when Crusade was cancelled it was a scant eighteen months before shows such as Earth Final Conflict and Andromeda and Farscape all capture people's imagination, each of these shows lasting four seasons or more and none having the drama, humour and ability to tell a coherent linking story as well as Babylon 5 ever did. The frustrating thing about it all is that with Crusade being cancelled, questions were left unanswered and they will never answered. I advise that if you are a science fiction fan, watch Babylon 5, you may find the first season slow going but as soon as you hit season 2 you realise things are going to movie quickly as building up the characters and backstory in season 1 was necessary. You'll be hard pushed to find a science fiction show that had the power and drama to end the way Babylon 5 did and I guarantee nobody cried at the end of The Next Generation but I know of people who cried at Sleeping In Light out of genuine emotion, now that's a show worth watching.
The Gathering set the stage of Babylon 5, crudely and quite different from how it would actually play out, but it was a taste of things to come. It explained that Babylon 5 was a space station, a combined effort between humans and aliens, set in neutral space where conflicts could be resolved peacefully and prevent a war. We're told that humanity was almost wiped out in a war with the Minbari and that on the very last battle, just when the Minbari where about to take Earth and wipe out the human race forever, they surrendered and no one knows why. The commander of Babylon 5 is Jeffrey Sinclair, a war hero from the Minbari war and he runs the station with a subtle style. The pilot has a lot of problems, the aliens shown in some of it were puppets, the make up was cruder than it would be in the show itself and there are many inconsistencies that don't match up if you watch this movie then watch the show. But the basic plot is this: The Vorlons, the oldest space faring race have finally made contact and agreed to have a presence on the station with one Ambassador, known as Kosh. When he arrives on the station he is attacked and almost assisinated, the blame pinned on Jeffrey Sinclair. This is done by allowing a Telepath to scan Kosh, that Telepath Lyta Alexander becomes a big part of the show much later on. Well the pilot trundles along at a rather slow pace but in doing so really explores the different alien races that will take prominence in the shows main series. We are introduced not only to the Minbari, but to the Narn and Centauri also. Each of which have their own Ambassador in the station, the female Minbari Ambassador Dellen, the male Narn warrior Ambassador G'Kar and the drunken pompous Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari. We are also introduced to the staff of Babylon 5 but after the pilot on Sinclair and security Cheif Michael Garribaldi remain. The plot comes to climax with Sinclair finding out the assassin was in fact a Minbari with a device called a Changeling net that allows people to change their appearance. He posed as Sinclair to have humans removed from Babylon 5. He starts the timer on a bomb to kill himself, but before he does he tells Sinclair "You have a hole in your mind." Once all this is resolved and Ambassador Kosh is better, Sinclair explains to his girlfriend that the Minabari was right, he does have a hole in his mind, he has 24 hours he does not remember. It was during the last battle for Earth against the Minbari, he was in a fighter and his ship had its weapons disabled, so he decides to ram an enemy vessel, he charges the biggest ship he could see and then blacked out. 24 hours later he was found floating in space, his memory of the past 24 hours wiped as was his on board computer.
Season 1 of B5 started with tensions rife between the Alien races, we are introduced to new characers, a new XO Susan Ivanova a brash tough talking military woman who was one of the best strong female characters ever created for TV, a new medical officer Stephen Franklin and a new telepath Talia Winters. We find out that Lyta Alexander went missing after the pilot, she apparently tried to get into Vorlon space, and anyone who tries that is shot down and killed. The previous XO and doctor were shipped back to Earth with no explanation. The first season shows the rising tension between the Narn and the Centauri, the Centauri in the past had conquered the Narns and made them their slaves so the two races had always despised each other. Tensions mount between the 2 races as skirmishes take place, we get some backstory on each character and the appearance of Mr Morden leads to Londo Mollari starting down a dark path. We see the mysterious Shadows turn up fleetingly and then at the end of the first season, Micheal Garribaldi is shot trying to prevent the assisination of the Earth President, Ambassador Delenn enters a cocoon, and the Shadows wipe out an entire Narn base on orders from Mollari. This is the first time we see the Shadows in detail, organic spider-like ships that give off a creepy screeching sound as they fly around. Watching them for the first few times sends a shiver down your spine. As the second season opens, we find Sinclair has been reassigned to the Minbari Homeworld, a new captain in charge, Delenn is now a hyrbid Minbari and human now, Garribaldi survives but barely and tensions rise as the Centauri decide to take action against the Narns and start annexing Narn territory. The second season is when things get interesting, the first season set the scene and the second season shows you the direction the show is going and this is where we learn about the Great War that is coming. A war is going to take place, the Shadows are moving slowly and building their forces and the combinded force of the humans and alien races must band together and fight the Shadows or be destoyed by them.
The second season rolls into the third season as the Narn homeworld is taken over by the Centuari, Earth's president is getting a tight grip on the Earth colonies and trying to set up a dictatorship (orchestrated by the Shadows) and Babylon 5 has to declare independance and fight against Earth forces just to survive. As the third season draws to a close, the war with the Shadows now breaks out into open conflict across the galaxy.
The fourth season is the action packed season that closes off the shadow war, the earth war and some other loose ends.The fifth season opens new avenues and is darker than the preceeding seasons.
I realised I was explaining a bit much so I have cut it down now, but Babylon 5 was a HUGE story, a 5 year arc that had to be cut down to 4 because the writer was told that they might not have a 5th season at all, then at the last minute they were told they had a 5th season. The story in Babylon 5 is where it excelled and it is why it was better than Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. It had believable characters, a huge story where everything was connected and some truly touching moments.
So I am going to list now my favourite things from Babylon 5:
The Evolution of Ambassador G'Kar
G'Kar of the Narns starts off as a war monger, someone bitter at the Centauri, he was child when his world was taken over and now they are free he takes every opportunity to strike at them. Throughout the first 2 seasons he has to watch in horror as Narn space is slowly taken away then the unthinkable happens and his world is attacked by Weapons of Mass Destruction then ultimately conquered by the Centauri. In the first half of Season 3 he trys to find ways to get revenge but with the help of Ambassador Kosh he suffers a revelation and starts to move away from his war monger ways and look into himself for answers. His character begins to speak of peace and ways to get peace for his people, he becomes a spiritual leader for his people, preaching to them of ways to fight the Centauri but without weakening them as a people. G'Kar becomes one of the most interesting characters you will ever encounter in any science fiction show. During the 4th season he is able to get freedom for his people and homeworld, but at a costly price, then through a series of bizzare events strikes up an unlikely friendship with Londo Mollari, Ambassdor the Centuari and the man responsible for the Centuari's resurgance of power. His story is one of pain, joy and finding yourself and is a high point of Babylon 5.
The Shadows
Less is more, the makers of this show know this, because when you fleetingly see the Shadows in seasons 1 and 2 you want to see more. They keep you on tenderhooks, you never get an accurate idea of their size but you know they are powerful. Into the third season we begin to see them more and more and they are still terrifying and we get an idea of their size and slowly we get a look into who and what they are and what they want. The great thing is, you never see too much. Its not like The Borg where you get too much of a glimpse into their world and try to convert them, in the end the Shadows remain the most compelling villains in Science Fiction because we still don't know a lot about them.
The romance between Sherridan and Delenn.
Captain John Sheridan join Babylon 5 in Season 2, nicknamed Starkiller by the Centauri as he is the only man to have destroyed a Centauri warship during the war, their flagship the Blackstar. Despite all this he is not some gun crazy whack job, he was a soldier doing his job. And in his time on B5 he becomes friends with Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, their friendship turns to romance and it slowly, believably builds right up to the end of season 3 and is further cemented in Season 4 which ends with them being married. The story of them is touching, you can tell the characters do care for each other, whilst not relying on the other they are independantly strong but also a force to be reckoned with when they combine.
The Humour
Babylon 5 has its share of humour running through it, characters have funny moments, some of the things that people say as quick quips are funny in the sense that you will smirk about it. But the best example of Babylon 5's humour is in the third season episode in which Londo and G'Kar are trapped in an elevator together after a bomb has gone off. The elevator is unable to move and a fire below them is slowly bring smoke up toward them, if they don't get out they will die. According to Star Trek, the formula would have been that they both work together to get out and become better for the experience. However in this episode G'Kar refuses to help Londo, saying that he gets to watch Londo die and doesn't have to lift a finger to do it. He finds this very funny and starts laughing, Londo starts shouting for help, shouting things like "HELLO" and "CAN ANYONE HERE ME" and G'Kar in hilarious fashion replies in a squeaky voice "HELLO" and "I HEAR YOU" whilst still laughing. Hard to explain here but if you can find that clip on Youtube it will definetly make you laugh. Garribaldi is also a funny character and actually has a quick wit about him. The show has a good mix of humour and drama to it, so whilst not being as dark as Battlestar Galactica and not as lighthearted as The Next Generation tended to be, Babylon 5 strikes a balance that most shows would struggle with.
Sleeping In Light
The final episode of Babylon 5. This is a masterstroke by J Michael Straczynski. Written at the end of Season 4 when they were still unsure of a 5th season, this episode was shown at the end of season 5 and depicts John Sheridan's last days. At the beginning of season 4 John dies, and is brought back to life by the being Lorien who claims to be the first of the living beings in the universe, Lorien says he is only able to give John 20 years and then he will simply stop. This episode picks up with Sheridan realising his time is coming to an end, he gathers his friends together for one last time, sharing a meal and enjoying their company. He watches the sunrise with his wife, Delenn, one last time and then takes a ship and flies to Babylon 5 for one last look around before it is decomissioned. He leaves Babylon 5 for the last time and takes his ship to the sector where the Shadow war ended, there he sees Lorien again and slowly closes his eyes. A voice over tells us his ship was found, sealed with no one aboard. The scene soft fades to the interior of Babylon 5, J Michael Straczynski is dressed in a Babylon 5 jumpsuit walks to a control panel and flicks a switch, we hear Babylon 5 power down and as a lone ship leaves, it docks with an earth vessel. Now comes the most powerful part of the episode, the music swells, one ship from every race is watching as Babylon 5 explodes, torn apart in a controlled explosion and the ships slowly turn and fly away. We hear a voice over say "Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations, there would never be another." The episode ends with showing us other characters from Babylon 5. I admit I was crying like a baby at the end of the show, hell thinking about it now I can feel a lump in my throat. Everything about those last scenes was heartwrenching, the music was perfect, the destruction of the station done in dramatic fashion and the precession of ships watching its last moments, its perfect. If you watched that episode without seeing anything else you might think it was okay, but if you had watched all of the series to that point, guaranteed you would feel tears stinging the edge of your eyes.
There are many more things I could list about Babylon 5 but those are the the main things that I love about the show. During it's 5th season, a number of straight to video movies of Babylon 5 were released, the first of which was called In The Beginning and depicts the Minbari Earth War and it is a dramatic epic tale that is great fun to watch, even if you know what is going to happen it still throws a few surprises at you.
The second straight to DVD movie is called Thirdspace and takes place between the end of the Shadow War and before they start their assualt on Earth. Its all about an artifact found floating in Hyperspace, the artifact starts to control people and when it opens up a strange race of creatures come out ready to take over the galaxy. Its a good action story with no real links to the main story arcs in any way.
The third movie is called River of Souls and is about the race of Soul Hunters and stars Martin Sheen. Its okay, not great, doesn't really serve any purpose.
The fourth movie is called A Call to Arms and is the story that leads into the spin-off series Crusade. The movie is about the Shadow's followers The Drakh, they have decided to get revenge on the people who sent the Shadows away, the humans. They target earth for destruction, the plot barrels towards a showdown between the Humans and the Drakh above planet Earth, however as the Drakh realising they are losing, they unleash a plague upon planet Earth, the population of the planet have 5 years before the virus kills every man, woman and child on Earth. This leads into Crusade.
Crusade was about the new flagship of the human race, the Excalibur, a joint Earth Minbari vessel is sent out to find a cure for the virus. The show lasted for 13 episodes but inteference from the network, demanding more sex and violence be added, soon led to the show being cancelled before it even picked up the pace. What was on offer was really good and the 13th episode was epic, showing the first real battle in the show, petitions were made up to get the show re-instated but it was of no use, Crusade was dead.
No one heard anything for a while until 2002 a pilot for a new Babylon 5 show called The Legend of The Rangers was shown, a 90 minute pilot that was pretty poor to be fair. It had G'Kar in a guest role and introduced a new enemy to the show but poor ratings in america and very little hype led to it being a damp squib, even long term Babylon 5 fans were dissapointed in the show, especially the virtual reality weapon, where the crew member was dropped into a room, then space was created all around her and she punched at targets to fire lasers at them. It was probably a good idea in theory but in execution looked stupid.
Years passed and finally we heard some rummblings about a Babylon 5 movie, a feature length film but that all died quickly due to funding, then later we heard about a straight to DVD production called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. J Michal Straczynski informed fans that this would be a series of DVDs featuring episode long stories filling in the blanks and telling new stories in the Babylon 5 universe, each disc would have 2 "episodes". The first disc came out and did really really well, Warner Bros were impressed with the sales and were interested in another disc, but wanted it at the same budget as before, the first disc being filmed on a really low budget. Straczynski declined not wanting to give fans a sub par experience and there has been no more Babylon 5 dvds released.
As far as Straczynski written B5 is concerned, it's dead. He said he may make a movie of the show if the funding is there, but I wont be holding my breath. Ever since series 5 of Babylon 5 it has been handled terribly by studios and I think the patience of the fans has worn thin. To get your Babylon 5 fix now the best thing to do is get the Babylon 5 books that are out there. Straczynski himself wrote the plot outlines for most of the series of Babylon 5 books out there, so if you can find them, they are definetly worth reading, I recommend The Shadow Within and The Passing of The Technomages Trilogy.
Fans are also keeping Babylon 5 alive on the internet by creating games based on the show. A video game called Into the Fire (which is also the title of the episode that ends the Shadow War) commissioned by Sierra was in production, live action sequences with the actors had been filmed and the game was apparently over 90% done, it would feature you as the main character starting off as a fighter pilot then taking control of larger vessels as you rose in the ranks. The game was cancelled before it could be completed. Fans were in uproar, but it led to nothing. Sierra refused to finish the game so fan made games were the next best thing, 2 notable fan made games are "Babylon 5: I've Found Her" which is a game made completely from scratch by a talented team of programmers who have spent years and years of their time creating this game with you as the pilot of a Starfury, it handles well and has voice overs, tutorials and fan made missions packs are being made all the time. The other fan game is "The Babylon Project" and was originally a mod for Freespace 2 has turned into a game in its own right. Huge in scope and fan support this game has went from a mod to a game with a series of mini fan made expansions. The support for this game is huge and people are always working on missions and patches are regularly released. The games are great fun and I guarantee you will see The Shadows at some point in each game, but I wouldn't recommend trying to take one on in a Starfury.
Babylon 5 died at the worst possible time, when Crusade was cancelled it was a scant eighteen months before shows such as Earth Final Conflict and Andromeda and Farscape all capture people's imagination, each of these shows lasting four seasons or more and none having the drama, humour and ability to tell a coherent linking story as well as Babylon 5 ever did. The frustrating thing about it all is that with Crusade being cancelled, questions were left unanswered and they will never answered. I advise that if you are a science fiction fan, watch Babylon 5, you may find the first season slow going but as soon as you hit season 2 you realise things are going to movie quickly as building up the characters and backstory in season 1 was necessary. You'll be hard pushed to find a science fiction show that had the power and drama to end the way Babylon 5 did and I guarantee nobody cried at the end of The Next Generation but I know of people who cried at Sleeping In Light out of genuine emotion, now that's a show worth watching.
Thursday 4 June 2009
Worrysome Animation
I honestly pass no judgement on anyone who uses he internet to look up pornography, because the internet is chock full of it, its hard not to find it just by browsing random topics. If finding deviant acts online and whacking away to it is your only form of release, then go for it, I do not judge.
I like to browse the internet on a whole variety of subjects, and occasionaly I will go onto some sites, normally from word of mouth and other times just from searching. In all honesty it is more out of curiousity rather than for stimulation, I have no need for pornography in my life for sexual release but I go onto the sites just to have a look and sometimes even a laugh. If I had not I would never have heard of the 2 Girls 1 Cup phenomenon that gripped the internet for a brief time. I saw this video, I watched it up to a point and had to turn it down. I wanted to set fire to my pc just on principle but I relented and then spent time watching youtube reactions to 2 Girls 1 Cup.
Also I would never have seen any of the infamous Paris Hilton video, which is actually really funny to watch if you skip ahead through most of the nonsense and watch the night vision scenes as she puts herself in the middle of the frame for a lot of the scenes in it. Making sure she is the centre of the screen and gets the most screen time.
I also had the displeasure of watching another infamous celebrity video during this time, the hideous "1 Night In China" video, which features mannish female wrestler Chyna Joanie Lauer engaging in sex acts with her then-boyfriend Sean "X-Pac" Waltman. Anyone who got turned on watching that movie needs some serious help, but people must have bought it because "Another Night In China" was released, did we really need another night?
But the reason for this post, well its something that is very bothersome to me, I have seen numerous examples of it, but it actually all started with me buying a DVD.
In 2002 I had a DVD player, they had started to come down in price and when in the shop HMV I was browsing the Anime DVDs. There, chopped down in price to £5 was a dvd called "Legend of The Overfiend", and the picture on the front was of a huge monster looming over a city. Also noted on the front of the box was it contained the original Legend Of the Overfiend and the sequel, both on the one disc. Awesome, I like Anime, so I might as well pick it up with it being so cheap. I had never heard of it so I bought it, went home and watched it.
Yeah.....ackward, I had never seen such a thing in my life. The film began with a guy spying on girls changing. Okay so its showing he's a horny teenage, so what? I mean the demon part will come into it soon.
Then we cut to a teen girl being taken into the nurses office by a female teacher, the teacher rips the girls clothes off and then turns into a tentacle monster and performs what the Japanese seem to love, tentacle rape. My eyes, my poor eyes, it was hideous and I don't get what was supposed to be exciting about this whole thing. Well the rest of the movie is actually okay for the most part, a plot about a giant beast that wants to destroy the world and then we discover its because of 2 horny teens, if they do the bag thing then the boy will become the "Overfiend" and destroy the world because he knocked up his girlfriend with the new Messiah. No I am not joking. Remove the explicit sex from the movie and its actually a good plot by Anime standards, but some of the sex scenes were just there for people to whack off to and the fact that the "Overfiend" uses giangantic penises as lasers that destroy the city, well enough said about that the better. The movie ends with the "Overfiend" destroying the world, but the sequel starts off with the world all back to normal, and after watching both movies, I think that the sequel actually fits somewhere in the middle of the first film. But the second film is more of the same, but it involves a nerdy teen boy lopping off his own penis to replace it with a "demon" penis given to him by the devil, again I am not joking. More of the same stuff happens, big demons fight and people die and the world is destroyed.
So yeah I was pretty shocked by the whole affair, but the thing was, it wasn't that bad a movie in all. I am not defending the movie, its abhorrent that you can actually watch it and I advise everyone to stay away from it, because its just a flimsy excuse for animated sex, but at least they put some thought into it. The story of the Overfiend continues through a TV series that was released on VHS in this country. However one episode of the show was never released in Europe or the US because of the sexual acts depicted on the show. I never saw the end of the Overfiend story, but what I saw was fun at points, when it wasn't obsessed with sex, it had some good moments in it, including a post apocalyptic world that is truly horrifying.
What I didn't know is that The Legend Of The Overfiend is a kind of kicking off point to a subculture of porn called Hentai, the depiction of sex in Anime. And that is what this post is about Hentai. A few times I have watched some of this disturbing stuff, it really is just that, disturbing. It makes no sense, the people are no better off at the end of these stories and all that happens is that different girls end up having sex with some truly weird partners. The sex in the animation is truly graphic, to the extreme, more so than Overfiend was because video content over the net cannot be censored by the BBFC, but instead of being arousing the animation is actually more amusing than anything else. Here's an example of how funny this stuff is, the girls on these shows have wacky hair, one girl turns up with bright green hair, so when she is stripped of her clothes, we notice the carpet matches the curtains. So this leaves 2 possibilities folks:
1) Either she was born with bright green hair
or
2) She dyed her pubic hair to match her dye job on top.
Having never seen someone with natural bright green hair, I tend to go with option 2 and considering how batshit crazy the Japanese are, this is probably the most plausable explanation.
There is theme running through the Hentai movies I have seen (movies being about twenty something minutes in length) and that is the women are always embarrased about being.... well women. Men get their cloethes off and remark on how wet their undergarments are or how they look cold because you could tune in tokyo on their nips and the girls always remark that they are embarrased. Then when they actually get down to the squelchy part of it, its REALLY squelchy, the sounds that come from the bodies of these animated characters are certainly not any sounds that come from humans. Do you remember the tubs of slime you used to get as a child, well imagine making a fist and putting it in that tub and then pulling it out again, do that very quickly a few times and that is the sounds coming from the frantic mattress mambo on screen. Now that noise is annoying, but the worst sounds are from the voice actors themselves, the woman moan like they are crying (come on love it may be bad sex, but it can't be that bad) so you get a sex scene that actually sounds like a rape scene. Also the guys who are doing the male voiceovers are no better, they say strange things during sex, maybe its a Japanese thing, but I have never heard anything like some of the things these guys say. I am not going to even type out what they say, track it down for yourself if you really feel you have to.
Speaking of rape (terrible terrible segway), that is a common theme in Hentai, women being forced into brutal sex acts by normally more than one guy at a time, then suddenly horror of horrors, the woman starts to enjoy it. Well done Japan, well done indeed, if this stuff ever becomes mainstream you just set the plight of rape victims back about twenty years. The message you are sending out to people is "don't worry about women that are gang raped, they secretly enjoy it". But not only is rape a big theme, but so is sex with underage girls, not so underage that they are children but old enough to still be wearing a school uniform. The age of the characters are generally never stated but I doubt that the characters are all over the age of 18, its sickeningy perverted to the point that you realise the people that watch this stuff religiously and collect it, need to be monitored. Violence is another huge theme in the Hentai animated world, make sure that women are taken as violently as possible, throw in some blood for good measure and apparently you are onto a winner. Why? Because sex and violence sell apparently. Picture this, and this is a real scene from a Hentai movie, its one of the those things you wish you could unsee, like 2 Girls 1 Cup:
A bank robber, during a bank heist, has taken some women into the women's restroom, he lines 2 of them up over the sinks, he visciously rapes them, then to top things off he forces the end of his shotgun up the rectum of one woman as he rapes the other, then as he reaches his climax he pulls the trigger on the shotgun, giggling to himself as if he did something really funny.
It's horrendous, I watched this entire scene in horror, as the animators went close up on the guy's finger on the trigger I kept thinking "no, no, surely not, they are not that fucked in the head, are they?", I couldn't look away, it was like a car crash, you want to turn your head from the carnage but something locks you entire body into position so you cannot look away.
Its a scene like the one above that shows you Hentai is not a viable form of pornography for stimulation, the people that get off to this stuff obviously have issues.
Another thing that is baffling is the build of the characters in the shows. Have you looked at Japanese women? They are small in stature and generally have a slender shape, they are not exactly busty. However every single chick in Hentai, HUGE knockers, breasts so big that Anna Nicole Smith, if she were still with us, would say "damn those are big knockers". But not only do they have these HUGE, HUGE, HUGE racks, they have the thin waist and flat stomachs as well. These women in Hentai are 100% fantasy and do not exist in real life, so why draw them as such? If your trying to titilate someone, why not draw what a real woman looks like? Wouldn't that be more of a turn on that something you know could never be real? Having never whacked off to animation (does Who Framed Roger Rabbit count?) I am just making a guess, but I think that would be more fufilling for those that smack the one eyed bishop to animated porn.
My forary into watching Hentai also brought to light a strange fetish that exists in Japan and has actually made me rethink my ideas of ever going there. A lot of people in Japan use public transport, trains being the most widely used and the trains get really busy, to the point that there are staff in the stations employed just to push people onto the train and cram as many people as possible into a carriage as possible. Well with everyone crammed together, a big fetish in Japan is random people groping women they don't know. Its a common occurence for a woman to be groped on a train in Japan, the best detterent is to smack the hands away quickly and they wont do it again, but if you ignore it the people doing it take this as an open invitation to keep doing it. I mean, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the people who do that? I have been on a crowded bus before, everyone jammed into together and never once have I thought to myself "man I just need to grab that woman's ass". Why? Because I am a rational human being who knows the difference between right and wrong.... and also because my wife would kill me (just kidding honestly). Groping women on trains is a huge thing in Japan, so much so that I would be scared to go to Japan and take a train, not for me, but for my wife. The idea that this is acceptable, or if not acceptable, tolerated to a point is just plain crazy. The Hentai animation of this craze took it to the extreme but the fact is, it just took something real and expanded on the idea to appeal to the perverts out there who enjoy this stuff.
Here's another thing, people create these animations, it is meticulously animated and put out there. So people spend time drawing these characters (whether it be hand drawn or from a computer screen) and they spend the time making these animations, hours colouring the animations in, matching up the correct hair colours to the different girls and then hours are spent recording dialogue, first japanese and then if its going to other countries, other voice actors record the dialogue all over the world, then the voices are synced up to the animation, then the sound effects are added, then the music is added. After all this the start credits and end credits are added, then it is pressed onto dvd or video, then it is released. To see it online, someone has to rip it from CD, make sure it is encoded into the proper format, upload it to a website, the website administrators generally have to view the file first to make sure its not kiddy porn, then it is released on the website. To view the file you have to click on it, allow it to stream, so your connection better be good. That entire process is for what? So some saddo can pull their pud to animated boobies jiggling on screen?
Well I better wrap this up, but I think the main thing to take away from this is that if you ever stumble upon this Hentai craze or are even the least bit curious, stay away from it. Like I said before, I have no issue with pornography, pornography is fine, go nuts. During puberty pornogrpahy is a godsend, to hell with our eyesight and on with the whacking was the thoughts of a teenager who gets access to porn. But its hard to clasify Hentai as pornography, the dark themes and graphic sex make this more video nasties than porn and you can't say that it is a valid form of entertainment because most of the Hentai movies I saw end up even darker than they started, you feel dirty and sickened as they come to a close. Maybe its for the Japanese so they feel guilt and shame for watching and possibly whacking off during the movies. The fact is, if you want to make Hentai to stimulate people, then just make the animated version of any porn movie out there. A woman calls a plumber, the plumber turns up, sex ensues, people whack off, everyone is happy. Don't throw in stories about demons, rape and women who magically grow penises (oh yes, that happens).
Well that's my rant over, I did this more out of complete disbelief, as I watched an entire episode of one Hentai movie in horror, unable to look away. After watching one, I figured it was a bad movie, so I decided to look up some more and each one as bad as the one before it. Also during all of these movies I might add there was nary a twitch from the undercrackers region, its animated, its not real, if it turns you on then what the hell is wrong with you?
I like to browse the internet on a whole variety of subjects, and occasionaly I will go onto some sites, normally from word of mouth and other times just from searching. In all honesty it is more out of curiousity rather than for stimulation, I have no need for pornography in my life for sexual release but I go onto the sites just to have a look and sometimes even a laugh. If I had not I would never have heard of the 2 Girls 1 Cup phenomenon that gripped the internet for a brief time. I saw this video, I watched it up to a point and had to turn it down. I wanted to set fire to my pc just on principle but I relented and then spent time watching youtube reactions to 2 Girls 1 Cup.
Also I would never have seen any of the infamous Paris Hilton video, which is actually really funny to watch if you skip ahead through most of the nonsense and watch the night vision scenes as she puts herself in the middle of the frame for a lot of the scenes in it. Making sure she is the centre of the screen and gets the most screen time.
I also had the displeasure of watching another infamous celebrity video during this time, the hideous "1 Night In China" video, which features mannish female wrestler Chyna Joanie Lauer engaging in sex acts with her then-boyfriend Sean "X-Pac" Waltman. Anyone who got turned on watching that movie needs some serious help, but people must have bought it because "Another Night In China" was released, did we really need another night?
But the reason for this post, well its something that is very bothersome to me, I have seen numerous examples of it, but it actually all started with me buying a DVD.
In 2002 I had a DVD player, they had started to come down in price and when in the shop HMV I was browsing the Anime DVDs. There, chopped down in price to £5 was a dvd called "Legend of The Overfiend", and the picture on the front was of a huge monster looming over a city. Also noted on the front of the box was it contained the original Legend Of the Overfiend and the sequel, both on the one disc. Awesome, I like Anime, so I might as well pick it up with it being so cheap. I had never heard of it so I bought it, went home and watched it.
Yeah.....ackward, I had never seen such a thing in my life. The film began with a guy spying on girls changing. Okay so its showing he's a horny teenage, so what? I mean the demon part will come into it soon.
Then we cut to a teen girl being taken into the nurses office by a female teacher, the teacher rips the girls clothes off and then turns into a tentacle monster and performs what the Japanese seem to love, tentacle rape. My eyes, my poor eyes, it was hideous and I don't get what was supposed to be exciting about this whole thing. Well the rest of the movie is actually okay for the most part, a plot about a giant beast that wants to destroy the world and then we discover its because of 2 horny teens, if they do the bag thing then the boy will become the "Overfiend" and destroy the world because he knocked up his girlfriend with the new Messiah. No I am not joking. Remove the explicit sex from the movie and its actually a good plot by Anime standards, but some of the sex scenes were just there for people to whack off to and the fact that the "Overfiend" uses giangantic penises as lasers that destroy the city, well enough said about that the better. The movie ends with the "Overfiend" destroying the world, but the sequel starts off with the world all back to normal, and after watching both movies, I think that the sequel actually fits somewhere in the middle of the first film. But the second film is more of the same, but it involves a nerdy teen boy lopping off his own penis to replace it with a "demon" penis given to him by the devil, again I am not joking. More of the same stuff happens, big demons fight and people die and the world is destroyed.
So yeah I was pretty shocked by the whole affair, but the thing was, it wasn't that bad a movie in all. I am not defending the movie, its abhorrent that you can actually watch it and I advise everyone to stay away from it, because its just a flimsy excuse for animated sex, but at least they put some thought into it. The story of the Overfiend continues through a TV series that was released on VHS in this country. However one episode of the show was never released in Europe or the US because of the sexual acts depicted on the show. I never saw the end of the Overfiend story, but what I saw was fun at points, when it wasn't obsessed with sex, it had some good moments in it, including a post apocalyptic world that is truly horrifying.
What I didn't know is that The Legend Of The Overfiend is a kind of kicking off point to a subculture of porn called Hentai, the depiction of sex in Anime. And that is what this post is about Hentai. A few times I have watched some of this disturbing stuff, it really is just that, disturbing. It makes no sense, the people are no better off at the end of these stories and all that happens is that different girls end up having sex with some truly weird partners. The sex in the animation is truly graphic, to the extreme, more so than Overfiend was because video content over the net cannot be censored by the BBFC, but instead of being arousing the animation is actually more amusing than anything else. Here's an example of how funny this stuff is, the girls on these shows have wacky hair, one girl turns up with bright green hair, so when she is stripped of her clothes, we notice the carpet matches the curtains. So this leaves 2 possibilities folks:
1) Either she was born with bright green hair
or
2) She dyed her pubic hair to match her dye job on top.
Having never seen someone with natural bright green hair, I tend to go with option 2 and considering how batshit crazy the Japanese are, this is probably the most plausable explanation.
There is theme running through the Hentai movies I have seen (movies being about twenty something minutes in length) and that is the women are always embarrased about being.... well women. Men get their cloethes off and remark on how wet their undergarments are or how they look cold because you could tune in tokyo on their nips and the girls always remark that they are embarrased. Then when they actually get down to the squelchy part of it, its REALLY squelchy, the sounds that come from the bodies of these animated characters are certainly not any sounds that come from humans. Do you remember the tubs of slime you used to get as a child, well imagine making a fist and putting it in that tub and then pulling it out again, do that very quickly a few times and that is the sounds coming from the frantic mattress mambo on screen. Now that noise is annoying, but the worst sounds are from the voice actors themselves, the woman moan like they are crying (come on love it may be bad sex, but it can't be that bad) so you get a sex scene that actually sounds like a rape scene. Also the guys who are doing the male voiceovers are no better, they say strange things during sex, maybe its a Japanese thing, but I have never heard anything like some of the things these guys say. I am not going to even type out what they say, track it down for yourself if you really feel you have to.
Speaking of rape (terrible terrible segway), that is a common theme in Hentai, women being forced into brutal sex acts by normally more than one guy at a time, then suddenly horror of horrors, the woman starts to enjoy it. Well done Japan, well done indeed, if this stuff ever becomes mainstream you just set the plight of rape victims back about twenty years. The message you are sending out to people is "don't worry about women that are gang raped, they secretly enjoy it". But not only is rape a big theme, but so is sex with underage girls, not so underage that they are children but old enough to still be wearing a school uniform. The age of the characters are generally never stated but I doubt that the characters are all over the age of 18, its sickeningy perverted to the point that you realise the people that watch this stuff religiously and collect it, need to be monitored. Violence is another huge theme in the Hentai animated world, make sure that women are taken as violently as possible, throw in some blood for good measure and apparently you are onto a winner. Why? Because sex and violence sell apparently. Picture this, and this is a real scene from a Hentai movie, its one of the those things you wish you could unsee, like 2 Girls 1 Cup:
A bank robber, during a bank heist, has taken some women into the women's restroom, he lines 2 of them up over the sinks, he visciously rapes them, then to top things off he forces the end of his shotgun up the rectum of one woman as he rapes the other, then as he reaches his climax he pulls the trigger on the shotgun, giggling to himself as if he did something really funny.
It's horrendous, I watched this entire scene in horror, as the animators went close up on the guy's finger on the trigger I kept thinking "no, no, surely not, they are not that fucked in the head, are they?", I couldn't look away, it was like a car crash, you want to turn your head from the carnage but something locks you entire body into position so you cannot look away.
Its a scene like the one above that shows you Hentai is not a viable form of pornography for stimulation, the people that get off to this stuff obviously have issues.
Another thing that is baffling is the build of the characters in the shows. Have you looked at Japanese women? They are small in stature and generally have a slender shape, they are not exactly busty. However every single chick in Hentai, HUGE knockers, breasts so big that Anna Nicole Smith, if she were still with us, would say "damn those are big knockers". But not only do they have these HUGE, HUGE, HUGE racks, they have the thin waist and flat stomachs as well. These women in Hentai are 100% fantasy and do not exist in real life, so why draw them as such? If your trying to titilate someone, why not draw what a real woman looks like? Wouldn't that be more of a turn on that something you know could never be real? Having never whacked off to animation (does Who Framed Roger Rabbit count?) I am just making a guess, but I think that would be more fufilling for those that smack the one eyed bishop to animated porn.
My forary into watching Hentai also brought to light a strange fetish that exists in Japan and has actually made me rethink my ideas of ever going there. A lot of people in Japan use public transport, trains being the most widely used and the trains get really busy, to the point that there are staff in the stations employed just to push people onto the train and cram as many people as possible into a carriage as possible. Well with everyone crammed together, a big fetish in Japan is random people groping women they don't know. Its a common occurence for a woman to be groped on a train in Japan, the best detterent is to smack the hands away quickly and they wont do it again, but if you ignore it the people doing it take this as an open invitation to keep doing it. I mean, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the people who do that? I have been on a crowded bus before, everyone jammed into together and never once have I thought to myself "man I just need to grab that woman's ass". Why? Because I am a rational human being who knows the difference between right and wrong.... and also because my wife would kill me (just kidding honestly). Groping women on trains is a huge thing in Japan, so much so that I would be scared to go to Japan and take a train, not for me, but for my wife. The idea that this is acceptable, or if not acceptable, tolerated to a point is just plain crazy. The Hentai animation of this craze took it to the extreme but the fact is, it just took something real and expanded on the idea to appeal to the perverts out there who enjoy this stuff.
Here's another thing, people create these animations, it is meticulously animated and put out there. So people spend time drawing these characters (whether it be hand drawn or from a computer screen) and they spend the time making these animations, hours colouring the animations in, matching up the correct hair colours to the different girls and then hours are spent recording dialogue, first japanese and then if its going to other countries, other voice actors record the dialogue all over the world, then the voices are synced up to the animation, then the sound effects are added, then the music is added. After all this the start credits and end credits are added, then it is pressed onto dvd or video, then it is released. To see it online, someone has to rip it from CD, make sure it is encoded into the proper format, upload it to a website, the website administrators generally have to view the file first to make sure its not kiddy porn, then it is released on the website. To view the file you have to click on it, allow it to stream, so your connection better be good. That entire process is for what? So some saddo can pull their pud to animated boobies jiggling on screen?
Well I better wrap this up, but I think the main thing to take away from this is that if you ever stumble upon this Hentai craze or are even the least bit curious, stay away from it. Like I said before, I have no issue with pornography, pornography is fine, go nuts. During puberty pornogrpahy is a godsend, to hell with our eyesight and on with the whacking was the thoughts of a teenager who gets access to porn. But its hard to clasify Hentai as pornography, the dark themes and graphic sex make this more video nasties than porn and you can't say that it is a valid form of entertainment because most of the Hentai movies I saw end up even darker than they started, you feel dirty and sickened as they come to a close. Maybe its for the Japanese so they feel guilt and shame for watching and possibly whacking off during the movies. The fact is, if you want to make Hentai to stimulate people, then just make the animated version of any porn movie out there. A woman calls a plumber, the plumber turns up, sex ensues, people whack off, everyone is happy. Don't throw in stories about demons, rape and women who magically grow penises (oh yes, that happens).
Well that's my rant over, I did this more out of complete disbelief, as I watched an entire episode of one Hentai movie in horror, unable to look away. After watching one, I figured it was a bad movie, so I decided to look up some more and each one as bad as the one before it. Also during all of these movies I might add there was nary a twitch from the undercrackers region, its animated, its not real, if it turns you on then what the hell is wrong with you?
Tuesday 2 June 2009
The sun has got his hat on
You know the Sun, the giant ball of fire that our planet revolves around? Yes that big thing in the sky that the lesser intelligent point at in fear, well it's a bastard. A big fiery bastard.
My reason for this? Is it global warming, the fact that the sun is causing the planet to heat up and the polar ice caps to melt and flood the world like the plot of some Roland Emmerich disaster movie? No, the sun isn't a bastard because of that, people are bastards when it comes to global warming.Is it because the sun causes skin cancer? No, again that is due to people being bastards, we have a hole in the ozone layer people, sunbathing for too long is causing to fuck with your skin.
So why is the sun a bastard?Because its stopping me from playing my games.Yes you big orange grinning bastard! You who shines through my living room window with such brightness that if I even attempt to play a game that has some dark corridors, I can't make out the screen never mind what is happening.
Okay so on saturday, for the first day in a long time, the sun was shining and the birds were singing and it was a really really nice day. Gemma and I go for a long walk, first around the shops, grabbing lunch and just a general wander, then we decide to walk to a park which is a good distance away. Its a nice walk and the sun is beating down, sure enough Gemma get's sunburn on her shoulders, back and chest and me, being covered up and all, gets sunburn on the back of my neck. When we returned home, I decided to pop a game into the 360, I've had my excursion of the day and want to chill out buy playing some Fallout 3 for a while. The game loads up and I am out in the wasteland, everything is fine but as soon as I go anywhere that is remotely dark, suddenly I can't see what is happening, and this doesn't help when 2 mirelurks are charging at me with intent to head butt me to death.
So play a game that doesn't have dark stuff in it then, you cry with derision and pity that I choose to play games on such a glorious day. Well you know what, no! I wanted to play Fallout 3 and the sun decided to be a bastard and ruin my fun. And it continues to do so even today, in fact every day that is sunny I will be forced to wait until it is dark (which is normally about 11pm) and then play a game but by then I am too tired and end up going to bed anyway.
So yes, the sun has got his hat on, but his hat reads "I touch children for fun" because he is a bastard!
My reason for this? Is it global warming, the fact that the sun is causing the planet to heat up and the polar ice caps to melt and flood the world like the plot of some Roland Emmerich disaster movie? No, the sun isn't a bastard because of that, people are bastards when it comes to global warming.Is it because the sun causes skin cancer? No, again that is due to people being bastards, we have a hole in the ozone layer people, sunbathing for too long is causing to fuck with your skin.
So why is the sun a bastard?Because its stopping me from playing my games.Yes you big orange grinning bastard! You who shines through my living room window with such brightness that if I even attempt to play a game that has some dark corridors, I can't make out the screen never mind what is happening.
Okay so on saturday, for the first day in a long time, the sun was shining and the birds were singing and it was a really really nice day. Gemma and I go for a long walk, first around the shops, grabbing lunch and just a general wander, then we decide to walk to a park which is a good distance away. Its a nice walk and the sun is beating down, sure enough Gemma get's sunburn on her shoulders, back and chest and me, being covered up and all, gets sunburn on the back of my neck. When we returned home, I decided to pop a game into the 360, I've had my excursion of the day and want to chill out buy playing some Fallout 3 for a while. The game loads up and I am out in the wasteland, everything is fine but as soon as I go anywhere that is remotely dark, suddenly I can't see what is happening, and this doesn't help when 2 mirelurks are charging at me with intent to head butt me to death.
So play a game that doesn't have dark stuff in it then, you cry with derision and pity that I choose to play games on such a glorious day. Well you know what, no! I wanted to play Fallout 3 and the sun decided to be a bastard and ruin my fun. And it continues to do so even today, in fact every day that is sunny I will be forced to wait until it is dark (which is normally about 11pm) and then play a game but by then I am too tired and end up going to bed anyway.
So yes, the sun has got his hat on, but his hat reads "I touch children for fun" because he is a bastard!
Monday 13 April 2009
You're Fired!
Okay so I am writing this on monday night and I go back to work tomorrow after some time off due to illness, and I fully expect to walk into work only to be fired later that same day.Why? Well the answer is simple, I screwed up. Having not dealt with extreme stress for many months, I was pushed to my limit on two calls that came through to me, both from the same person on seperate dates, the woman on the phone just badgered me and goaded me and really pushed all my buttons to the point where on my second call my brain just broke and for the next 5 minutes of the call I made up a bunch of lies just to get her off the phone, if I hadn't done that I would have screamed at her down the phone and said a lot lot worse believe me. Wrapping up the call some sembelence of sanity shone through and I gave myself about 2 weeks leeway, that leeway is up and I think its probably going to show up now what has happened. The timing for all this couldn't be worse but I refuse to be fired, I am going to quit first if I am taken to a room and told that I am being fired I'll cut them off and quit first. If by some miracle I am not fired tomorrow, then I will count myself as lucky and get to work on finding a new job, because I am done with NAG group who I now work for. The company is ridiculous, the manager is laughable in her job because she wants to be friends with the staff and has trouble controlling her own staff. And the fact that pushed me over the edge to where I knew I had to get out of there, on the same day that all the drama happened, the girl who sits behind me was shit faced drunk and still allowed to work her shift, no one said a damn thing.
The two words I am going out of my way not to hear tomorrow: You're Fired!
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