Extraterrestrial Life
Having seen that the film Signs was on tonight, I got thinking about aliens…
My main concerned thought is that, why would aliens come to our planet wishing to kill us all? That seems to be the scenario of every alien movie… invasion and extermination. But why? What would motivate these creatures to annihilate all life on earth?
To begin with, humans wouldn’t do that! As brutal and terrible as we can be… we, as a people, would not discover sentient life on another planet and immediately think, “I know, let’s kill them all”. That just wouldn’t happen… unless we look forward to a grim future dominated by sadistic psychopaths.
Even if, and this is an extreme situation, even if at some point a new incarnation of Hitler or Chairman Mao were to arise and somehow manage to seize control of the Earth. The world would be a huge facist or communist state run by a ruthless leader who uses any means to keep people in line. Even if this were to happen, say this generation of people discovered intelligent life on another world, and we had the capacity to reach it, I sincerely doubt the first thought Chairman Hitler has is, “I know, let’s kill them all! Why? Because we can!”
There is no motivation for the hypothetical aggressor. Even in a world of extreme regime with strong military influence, the most hostile of people would need a solid reason to wipe out existence for a complete new species. The aggressor would need a reason to be hostile towards our pathetic planet. And if they are flying around in space armed to the teeth, it would suggest that they are already in hostile interaction with someone else (because of course other cognitive species would also have divisions and disagreements with each other). In this case, it is more likely for the extraterrestrial species to try and befriend us, to gain as much support as possible for their conflict.
It seems that logical thinking would be, well… logical! Other intelligent life, if they have got to the stage of distant space travel, then surely their primary objective would be similar to ours (also Star Trek’s), exploring new planets/star systems/galaxies in search of new discoveries and possibly even life. It wouldn’t be wise to engage in conflict with an unknown species for flimsy reasoning (i.e. conquering the universe).
The only reason I could possibly think that a foreign invader would want to wipe us out is to make room so they can inhabit our planet. But of course relating back to the logic, they would need a damn good reason i.e. their species has no other hope of survival. To that I would say fair do’s. Not to being wiped out, but to the concept. If humanity gets desperate in the future, and the only hope of survival is to wipe out an alien race to inhabit their planet so we can live, then I say go for it! Sure it seems morally wrong… but who are we to say that, after all we are a rather brutal, ‘ends justify means’ race.
Off the main topic slightly is the common idea that if we were to be invaded fo’ sho’, we would be vaporised (or something equally futuristic and awesome). Why though? After all, it seems the trend that life forms are all soft and filled with guts, and put enough lead into anything it will keel over into a bloody heap. Especially nowadays with conflicts all over the place, most nations are pretty well armed and ready for war were one to break out. Maybe bullets might not do the trick against ’super armour’ or collossal robots or whatever, but I reckon missles would do a pretty good job at blowing most things to pieces. “Force fields” and “laser shields” seem rather improbable technology, and besides, hellathick metal seems to do the job just as well. But add enough explosives and even the thickest of armour can be blown the hell up.
Man: 1 Alien Scum: 0
Though that’s just wishful thinking. If aliens have good enough technology for intergalactic space travel, the I’m sure their arsenal is pretty devastating.
And now to end with some light hearted humour:
Overall I don’t reckon that aliens would ever attack us without some damn good reason, or at least fair warning. After all, ‘Do unto others as you would have done to yourself’. But then again, aliens won’t have read The Bible, tying in neatly with the idea of logic again.
Song: ‘Senses Fail – Shark Attack’
Lucifer
I’ve had a thought, but first let me briefly explain the premise (to the best of my understanding)…
Alright, so back what when, Lucifer was an angel and like God’s wingman (no pun intended). However, when man was created, God told all the angels in Heaven to bow down to man, cause it was such a great creation or something. Lucifer objects to this, and God punishes him by sending him to Hell and making him The Devil.
Now… firstly I think Lucifer has a right to be a little pissed off, after all angels are much better than pathetic humans. But God being God discounts him and sends him to Hell to collect the souls of the dead. Right, okay, he’s dealt his punishment, Lucifer has gone to Hell etc…
Now… secondly, as an angel it is probably one of your duties to be a nice guy (or girl). Kind, loving, happy. Just generally nice. But as Lucifer is banished to Hell (from being a nice, lovely angel) he becomes totally evil and from then on tortures the souls of the dead for all eternity….
Now, wait a second here! Mr. Nice guy has had a little tiff with the big man and suddenly become completely horrifically evil! It seems rather a large leap. It’s not like he wouldn’t have changed, but to suddenly desire to torture souls forever seems a bit far.
Okay, I take into account that he’s unhappy with the humans and would like them to suffer a bit for them (indirectly) being the reason that he’s now in Hell. But even so… that’s like telling me to bow down to Year 7’s. I’d naturally decline and so (in this example) would be kicked out of Castle and forced to work in MacDonald’s or something (I’ll be honest, it’s not quite the same scenario). Now, I’d feel resent at the Year 7’s for being such twats… but I don’t think I’d be driven to the level where I wanted them all to die so I could torture their immortal souls for eternity… that’s a little much.
So yeah. What’s up with that!?
WordPress/Facebook Collaboration
Turns out I can merge my blog with Facebook notes.
Nice.
Not that I’ve actually been writing here for a while… Might start again, especially now it’s Easter and I’m not going out and doing anything, being generally unsocial as per usual, oh and also because I have to be revising for exams once again.
Any reason not to revise is a good reason! Well…. maybe not ANY reason, for example rape is a bad reason not to revise… I mean sure, it’s probably better than revision (now I’m starting to sound creepy) but it’s also a criminal offence. Also rape would involve me going outside of the house and having contact with other people, horrific though it may be. So no, not any reason to not revise is good… but quite a few.
Blogging for example. Writing a blog that nobody (well… a few people) reads. I say a few people because I keep getting hits apparently. Hmm… It’s likely to be unfortunate Googlers who, when searching certain keywords, hit on the blog, perhaps take a quick look but probably don’t actually bother with it. I’d be very surprised if anybody actually read these. Which begs the question… why write them?
And here we come full circle back to not revising. It is technically full circle… but the circle wasn’t actually as great in metaphorical circumference as implied.
Anyway, it’s nearly quarter past midnight and I should probably get some sleep. Lots of blogging film watching gaming nothing time spent on Facebook not actually doing anything revision to do tomorrow… Though having said that, I often end up doing very little, watching a film, doing a bit more and then giving up completely for the day. Then I notice my folder of work and it strikes me, I actually have important exams next month! I have to revise or I’ll do badly and not get anywhere in life and be miserable and alone… even moreso than right now!!!
These thoughts soon pass as a sense of procrastination fills me with false hope. Though to be fair, I do need to revise (you can stop reading now if you want, I’m basically just thinking out loud… through typing) because there’s just so much to remember, especially for maths. I know I’m fairly good at maths, but there is just literally sooooooo much on this course!! And economics… oh god! Shearing gave us that sheet with possible 18 markers on… there are 21 of them, and that’s only for one unit! I’m definitley dropping economics next year, I don’t want that burden next summer, especially since everything else is already gonna be several times harder.
Chemistry… ugh, have to power through, stay strong! Dislike it immensly, quite crap at it… need it for any science degree at uni. Favourable to physics though I guess. I just want to revise biology all the time (not in a loserific way, like a hobby or something… I mean as opposed to all my other crappy subjects). Uni is gonna be great, just full on biology stuff… stupid biochemistry courses, why are there so many?! Doesn’t matter, I wont go on one of those anyway… human biology, anatomy, that’s the way to go!
I’m gonna leave it on this happy thought and with this fairly relaxing song I’m listening to for the first time.
Song: ‘Counting Crows – Perfect Blue Buildings’
Exaggeration
I hate you!
An example of a common exaggeration. The word hate is used so much that it has lost all true meaning. Besides with your good friends you can issuse a totally devestating insult, but it’s okay because it’s just banter!
But that is not the example I wish to dwell upon. An exaggeration I deeply dislike (but not hate), is when people comment on something as being ’shit’. Now I’m not talking about when people say something tastes like shit, but when people comment on, for example, how a television show is shit.
Not necessarily a whole show, but episodes of a popular series. Cause I guess (not in the literal sense) some shows can actually be shit. No, my example today is a quote from a good (that too is an exaggeration) friend of mine, “That episode of Heroes was shit.”
Now, it’s hard not to be slightly biased when you like something, but I find it hard to believe that episodes of Heroes, a critically acclaimed show, could actually be ’shit’. Okay, for those who don’t like the show to begin with, fair do’s, you wouldn’t like the episodes to begin with, but for someone who watches the show to describe an episode as ’shit’ is just wrong.
I mean, sure episodes can be slow, boring, cliché, dull, unimaginative etc… but as long as characters are doing totally crazy crap with weird and wonderful powers, then it’s hard to have a harsh opinion of it. True, on reflection, the episode in question was quite dull, in fact very few weird and wonderful powers were used… but some episodes have to be like that to contribute to the story, give it depth perhaps.
To move on; when popular shows keep being reissused for more series’ just to squeeze money out of the franchise, the episodes do get dull and the storyline gets weaker. Prison Break for example had an extremely good first series (the one where they actually broke out of prison), but has been declining in quality ever since. That being said, I still could not describe any of the episodes as ’shit’.
Thing is, these shows being described as ’shit’ are the critically acclaimed ones, which begs the question… If all of our greatest shows are shit, what the hell happened?!
It seems, in my opinion, that shows with very little or no underlying storyline end up being the better, more successful ones. House is a great example. Each episode is a new case, sure House may have some problems going on in the background in each episode, but if all you care about is the medical mystery, there’s always a whole bunch of that too! Shows like these are able to keep it fresh, and could always make up some lame excuse as to why the underlying story stops, cause nobody would really care! All you watch House for is the initial premise of the show (well, I do anyway), so I don’t particularly care about what else is happening. Though I must say the competition to find a new team in series 4 was pretty good.
I often find though, that shows I once regarded as mediocre (e.g. Chuck), are much better in comparison to some of the generally better shows that have declined in quality. It’s a simple lighthearted comedy with a different mission in each episode (also with some underlying storyline), but the main good thing about it is consistency! It may be a mediocre show, but it’s consistently mediocre, never getting significantly better, but never getting worse either.
I think (although they tend to be better) that American shows fall down sometimes because of the length of their series’. I mean sure, 24 episodes great! Plenty of time to have a good storyline. But where they fall short is when they don’t know how to fill the episodes and the show ends up watered down so as to stretch the story out for longer. then again, I don’t know which I prefer, long series which sometimes drag on, or short series (i.e. here in the UK) where the episodes are good, but there’re not nearly enough of them! 6 episodes is genuinely pathetic. For a comedy sketch show it can be forgiven sometimes as there’s only a certain amount of funny that can be though up. But for shows like Life On Mars, only 8 episodes in each series?! Come on! It was such a good show as well, I was left hungering for more.
To conclude, I ask you this: are the bad episodes of shows really, truly, genuinely ’shit’? Or are you just exaggerating and being overly opinionated in order to sound like you know what’s what when it comes to critically analysing TV shows?
Think about it.
Song: ‘Over It – Dishonour, Disorder’
‘Tis The Season
Today was the switching on of the Christmas lights in Kenilworth, and I swear it gets that bit more dull every year. This year all we did was walk up and down the town a couple of times, get ripped off with pricey glowsticks and hang around outside Waitrose. Oh, and I stroked an owl… if you know what I mean!
*wink*
…But seriously, that wasn’t a euphamism, I actually did stoke an owl. Two actually! And that was the highlight of my festive misadventures.
It’s the same every year and as you grow older, you just couldn’t care less about it anymore. As a little kid, all the bright lights, loud music and glowy things are brilliant! You buy some crap you don’t need and go on some severely overpriced rides and enjoy the hell out of it. Now, it’s just cold, crowded and miserable. The lights aren’t even very spectacular. Wait, let me reiterate… They aren’t spectacular WHATSOEVER! They’re like bad Christmas Tree lights.
Anyway, I guess it’s starting to feel a bit more Christmassy in some ways. The Coca-Cola advert has sort of made a return! During some adverts they played like a small section of it, and of course cause it’s amazing, I got really worked up! However they’ve only been showing snippets of the advert which sucks… the suspense is killing me! I mean, it’s not even that great an advert, just that it’s on EVERY YEAR, so naturally it rocks!
Christmas itself will be disappointing as usual of course. Coming out of childhood, you have to accept that Christmas will never again be as good as when you were young and got loads of massive plastic presents. Now it’s just another day with extra food and some stuff that you could have bought yourself. Now I may sound like a classic ‘Scrooge’, but after all Christmas really isn’t as good as all the hype suggests it should be.
Now to finish with a fitting pun I should say ‘Bah’… but that’s too clichéd. So…
F*ck It!
Song: ‘Dashboard Confessional – Hands Down’
Hello Mr. President
He did it! Obama won!
I knew he could!
Absolutely brilliant! Hopefully the world will become a better place with him in charge to make better choices and bring change to the world. If he can do something about the economy then that will earn him a great reputation, so I hope he does.
Now, I didn’t see the acceptance speech, but I assume it went something like this:
The crowd eagerly waits for their great new leader, a bodyguard stands below the main stage. Suddenly smoke billows out from the sides and a podium rises up on the stage, a lone silhouetted figure on top. The lights behind him suddenly flash on brightly declaring his name, ‘Obama’. He stands glorious atop the podium, cape billowing, guitar in hand. He breaks into an amazing guitar solo at which the crowd go wild. Cannons fire confetti into the loving fans. When he finishes, he throws the guitar which lands in its case perfectly. He says only two words, ‘Thank You’, before several gunshots ring out. The audience goes silence in horror.
His bodyguard falls to the ground, 4 shots in his chest. Obama flips down to him, holding him as he dies uttering ‘Farewell my friend’. A terrorist comes out from the crowd pointing a rifle at Obama, he laughs and says, ‘Your first day shall also be your last. Any last words, Mr. President?’ Obama turns to face him and says, ‘Tell Allah, fuck you!’ and shoots the terrorist in the face with the guard’s gun. The crowd cheers, but one person screams… the terrorist was strapped with explosives. Obama, quick to react, shoves the terrorist into one of the confetti cannons and dramatically points at the technician who fires the terrorist up into the ceiling space of the large auditorium. He explodes, and the crowd are splattered with bits of terrorist.
Obama then says, ‘Talk about an explosive start!’
Ep1c Win
Hopefully I can catch it on YouTube cause it sounds as if it were awesome!
I think it’s great that Kenya declared today a national holiday because of Obama winning! How great is that!?
Well… the inaugration isn’t until January, so… until then!
Song: ‘Anberlin – Never Take Friendship Personal’
The Mighty Boosh Live
It was brilliant! Absolutely fantastic!
They had said in an interview that it would be difficult to think of material for this second live show, but they really pulled it off! It was a completely different style to the first show, which was stand up and then what was basically a long, live episode that incorporated many characters from the show. To be perfectly honest, I would say the the first show was better because of the style and the general humour.
The humour hasn’t changed much in the Boosh, it’s as good as ever, I just think that the style in which it’s presented has lowered itself to please the modern trends of young people. I don’t want to say they sold out… but I much prefered them when they were little known about. Series 1 + 2 were classics along with the first live show… but it has in someways lost it’s appeal now that everybody loves them.
Things like how they now acknowledge crimping by name, whereas they would always just spontaneously go into one with no explanation whatsoever. The carrying forward of the board of shaman I didn’t like, I think Tony Harrison was only really good for a one-off joke. Though having said that, there was a costume malfunction in the live show for Tony Harrison which was really funny as Noel was improvising loads of great material. I also think the comedy was more abstract and random in the original series’, with references to older celebrities, like Brian Ferry (who, funnily enough, someone came dressed as), and more improvisation, which was obvious as Noel frequently stops himself from laughing.
Anyway, more about the show… They had the official ‘Boosh Band’ with them which was quite good as they did a few songs from the show; Nanageddon, Charlie, Eels and probably a couple more… They had small slots for ‘guests’ to come on which was basically a host of characters from the show, some funny, some not so. Rich Fulcher came on as some random East European comedian which made no sense whatsoever and wasn’t funny whatsoever. The first half ended with the Hitcher doing the eels song with the Boosh Band. Noel came down and walked through the aisles which was awesome, cause we were like 10 feet away from him!
Someone dressed as Old Gregg stood up and hugged him, the he commented something like, ‘I thought you were gonna stab me! Though thinking about that, it would be the perfect crime as there are about 52 people dressed as Old Gregg in here. When the police asked what he looked like, it’d be like “I dunno, he had seaweed for hair”.’ That’s what I love about improvisation, it’s often as good, if not better, than the scripted stuff.
The second half of the show was a ‘play’ done by Howard which gradually goes horribly wrong. They eventually break out into a massive crimp which was pretty good. Then I forget how this comes about, but the Honey Monster walks on stage and they proceed to grab him and eventually blow off his head with a massive Jean Claude Jaquettie hairdryer. I loved how they kept saying hateful remarks about sugar puffs and the honey monster. Then they had Tony Harrison shagging the honey monster’s head saying, ‘Take it! Take it like you take other people’s ideas you plagiaristic wanker!’ That was probably one of the funniest moments of the show.
I don’t know what else I can really say apart from, if you’re going to see it it’s gonna be great (also I’ve probably spoiled it for you), and if you’re not seeing it, make sure to get the DVD when it comes out!
Oh yea… I added Naan Bread as a tag, better mention that real quick. Someone, maybe two people, came dressed as the Naan Bread from the Boosh. It was funny for about 3 seconds… good idea though, obviously worth mentioning.
The Mighty Boosh
Song: ‘Forgve Durden – For A Dreamer, Night’s The Only Time Of Day’
Logging off
I always intend to log off the computer to go and do something else… but of course iTunes is still open so I often finish listening to the song that’s on before loggng off. (This can take some time, especially if I’m listening to a particularly lengthy song, e.g. ‘Pink Floyd – Echoes’ at over 23 minutes long).
However, it’s not as easy as that… if a song I like comes on after the one that has just finished… I feel I want to listen to it. This can go on for a while until a song that I don’t particularly love comes on. This is one of the reasons I keep a balance of great/good/average/not great music on my iTunes. If I listen to too much great music, I get bored of it, cause often they’re my most played.
I was planning on logging off about 10 minutes ago… but then I had to listen to the rest of ‘The Knack – My Sharona’… and then I had to listen to ‘The Favours – Islands’. Then I started writing this… and there’s some very average music on at the moment, however according to ‘Sod’s Law’, as soon as I finish writing a fantastic song will come on preventing me from leaving my computer.
Music’s so damn great… curse it!
Song: ‘American Hi-Fi – Built For Speed’
Oh no way… No f*cking way! That song just finished, and of course it’s now playing a great song… ‘Backyard Babies – Minus Celcius’. Of course these are just my opinions, others might hate this song… lucky you.
Right I’m definitely off now, cause it’s like half way through and I don’t want to have to write any more. I’ll try to remember to say next blog what happened…
Song: ‘Backyard Babies – Minus Celcius’ (Duh!)
Fable 2
I had been waiting for Fable 2 since February, and i finally got it on Friday! (That’s when it was released… it wasn’t a really crap post service).
Anyway, this is not a proper review as I haven’t got very far yet, plus I want to explore all the aspects of the game; good, evil, jobs, buying properties, having a family etc…
Here’s my insight into the game so far though. The gameplay is excellent, the combat is really intuitive and simple. Many people have said that the expressions all feel very simulated and forced, but I think it works quite well. The customisation of appearance through clothes/hair cuts/tattoos is pretty good, I especially like the great number of different clothing items to really tailor your character to what you want them to look like. I haven’t noticed much morphing to do with my alignmnet as of yet, but hopefully as I progress further it will become more obvious.
However, there are a couple of negative points. The biggest of which: loading screens. These really impede the game’s ‘freeroaming’ aspects. Sure, you can travel basically anywhere you can see, but the areas seem much smaller when they’re divided by loading screens. If you want a comparison, they’re like the Assassin’s Creed screens between the major areas, except with AC you have a massive city with great detail to fully explore, so I think Fable 2 could’ve done without them. Though having said this, the areas are very visually pleasing and well designed, atmospheric one might say.
Another negative point is the manouverability through terrain. When you encounter a fence, it’s not as easy as just jumping over it whilst you’re running. No, you have to stop and press (A) to vault over it. This makes the game seem very artificial, especially when there are many walls/fences etc… that you can’t jump over. Even GTA4 allowed you to jump over most any ledge, be it of realistic jumping height. Such a simple aspect makes a game that much better, just because walking round objects is really very awkward. An example of this is where I came to some steps from the side and instead of being able to jump the short distance up to where they were, I had to walk round and start from the bottom.
Anyway, overall, my impression is a positive one. The game has a good mix of combat, storyline and quirky gimmicks. I’ll play some more and see if I can be bothered to do a full review.
Until then.
Song: ‘Amber Pacific – Watching Over Me’
A Happy Birthday Indeed…
This is like a follow up to my earlier post.
I like to have Wikipedia as my home page to keep up to date on news and to find out random interesting facts. It’s also useful to quickly access to search things. I remembered that it also displays interesting facts of things that happened on this day in the past. Lo and behold, I have to get the depressing/tragic/horrific ones.
Here’s some from the main page:
1383 – King Ferdinand I of Portugal died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, resulting in a period of civil war and anarchy.
1934 – Pretty Boy Floyd, an American bank robber and alleged killer who was later romanticized by the media, was gunned down by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents near East Liverpool, Ohio.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced on television that Soviet nuclear weapons had been discovered in Cuba and that he had ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island nation.
And if those weren’t bad enough, here’s some from the full list:
362 – The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch, is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
1844 – The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day (22nd) became known as the Great Disappointment.
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners.
1895 – In Paris an express train overruns a buffer stop and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.
1907 – Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
1910 – Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and was subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
1926 – J. Gordon Whitehead sucker punches magician Harry Houdini in the stomach in Montreal. (Which caused his death).
1941 – French hero of the resistance Guy Môquet is executed by the Germans, along with 29 other hostages as a retaliation for a killed German officer.
1943 – World War II: Kassel: RAF conducts an air raid on the city of 236,000 people, killing 10,000, rendering 150,000 homeless. Second firestorm raid in Germany.
1946 – Forty four British sailors die when two British warships hit mines off the coast of Albania.
1956 – A concrete girder weighing 200 tons kills 48 in Karachi, Pakistan.
1957 – Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1963 – BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashes on October 22 in UK with the loss of all on board.
1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspired the Supermax model of prisons.
Feeling happy?
Thought not.
Here’s the full list. Enjoy!
Song: ‘Atreyu – Doomsday’
