Actually, by "at" I should say "near". And by "near" I of course mean 2 blocks away. And let's not forget that there is already a mosque closer to ground zero than this proposed one.
This is the biggest non issue ever, and anyone who is offended by it should take a really good look at why they're offended. Mosques are not the international symbol for terrorism. 1.5 billion muslims did not crash the planes into the towers. America should not show intolerance by allowing every other religion to build their worship site in the area except one specific religion, because of something a terrorist group did in the name of it.
And also, am I really insensitive for saying that 9/11 was almost 9 years ago now? People are letting it fuck things up much more than it should have with protests like this.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Friday 20 August 2010
Limits in Comedy
This might be an opinion that's controversial (not that this blog really has the potential to be seen as controversial) but I really don't think there should be any limits to comedy. Too many times I see people say "some things shouldn't be joked about", but I really don't see this as the case. I can't think of anything that simply shouldn't be mentioned in a joke, or where context or something else can't negate the fact that it's distasteful, or something. Sometimes I've just been flat out crushed by something (emotionally, I'm not actually dead) and then soon after, I see a joke about it that makes me laugh a whole lot.
But I think it should be understood that: I'm not arguing that it's impossible for jokes to be in bad taste or unreasonably offensive, not in the slightest. I'm just arguing that I don't think there should ever be a subject matter that is immune from being joked about. I think comedy being censored is one of my least favourite things, is all I'm saying.
In other news, I'm getting minor spam on a particular blog entry from 2008 called "Laughing when you Shouldn't", which is just a link to a video of this guy inappropriately laughing on this show (but it's all staged). I wonder why this is happening on that particular entry; if it's because it comes up in a particular Google search or anything.
Perhaps it is a mystery best left unsolved.
But I think it should be understood that: I'm not arguing that it's impossible for jokes to be in bad taste or unreasonably offensive, not in the slightest. I'm just arguing that I don't think there should ever be a subject matter that is immune from being joked about. I think comedy being censored is one of my least favourite things, is all I'm saying.
In other news, I'm getting minor spam on a particular blog entry from 2008 called "Laughing when you Shouldn't", which is just a link to a video of this guy inappropriately laughing on this show (but it's all staged). I wonder why this is happening on that particular entry; if it's because it comes up in a particular Google search or anything.
Perhaps it is a mystery best left unsolved.
Thursday 19 August 2010
DDDDDDDDD
So I got the best possible grades for both my courses at college (distinctions all round). This makes me rather pleased. However, there's something about Btecs that takes the "fun" out of grades. You pretty much know exactly what you're going to get from a mile a way (that is, if you choose to check what marks you're actually getting and adding them up). And it's not a "try and succeed or fail" policy a lot of the time, it's "try and succeed, or try and fail but keep trying until you get a better grade" though admittedly I didn't retake anything. I'm happy though, I guess. I think it's the fact that I wasn't really stressing over anything (read: at all) that makes lessens the impact of good news, y'know?
I've been opening up quite a lot recently. I let other people read things that I thought I'd never let anyone else read, and it feels really good. And friends have been telling information that seems to come from deep, secret places. I feel closer to them now more than ever. It's as if all barriers have been broken.
I've also been lead to wonder what it is about human nature and keeping secrets that are, if looked at from a distance, really NOT a big deal. I wonder if it's a biological thing or a social construct. I can't think of a biological need for shyness; maybe to just stop one putting off people through annoying behaviours or something? I don't know. Note to research later (by research I mean google), do any animals experience shyness and embarrassment besides humans?
Inception was really great.
I've been opening up quite a lot recently. I let other people read things that I thought I'd never let anyone else read, and it feels really good. And friends have been telling information that seems to come from deep, secret places. I feel closer to them now more than ever. It's as if all barriers have been broken.
I've also been lead to wonder what it is about human nature and keeping secrets that are, if looked at from a distance, really NOT a big deal. I wonder if it's a biological thing or a social construct. I can't think of a biological need for shyness; maybe to just stop one putting off people through annoying behaviours or something? I don't know. Note to research later (by research I mean google), do any animals experience shyness and embarrassment besides humans?
Inception was really great.
Friday 6 August 2010
Galaxy-G-I
This picture, to me, looks like some weird early CGI magical mountain that would've been in a cut scene in one of the PlayStation 1 Final Fantasy games. And yet this is a picture from space! It's funny what computer generated animation has done to my mind. Too often I'll look at an image that is a photo and think in my mind "this looks like CGI". I wonder if that's because graphics are getting closer to reality or because my mind is dumb. Not sure exactly why I say my mind is dumb, rather than just "I'm dumb". I think it's because of the implications, like saying your mind is something rather than yourself implies that you're talking about your subconscious or whatever.
Recently I've been thinking about what the most fulfilling thing is possible to happen in my life. Once I fulfil my dreams I'll just have more dreams to fulfil. I wonder what kind of life style, wealth, situation etc would be the one that makes optimum happiness. Well the answer to that would be in a machine that constantly stimulates the happiness part of my brain, but that's not one I mean, all of you assholes. I always seem to stay on the same level of happiness throughout my life. Actually, that's not true. I was definitely happier when I was 10 years old and all that, and I've actually noticed that my happiness goes in cycles:
September/October I'm usually uncomfortable and generally unhappy, but I get happy and optimistic about something by November, and then by around April I realise that it's not going to happen, and I turn kind of mellow until June, in which I don't really mind anything because I can relax. Sometimes the realisation and mellowing out actually happens much later.
That's pretty much it. I think it's due a lot, in part, to the school cycle. I'm not sure what it's like in the rest of the world (I think school years in Australia start when the year starts, generally), but that's kinda the school start and end cycle over here. But now that I won't be having any kind of education for at least a year, I wonder if my emotional cycle will stay as consistent as it always is. Lol, emotional cycle. My life is one giant period or something.
Sunday 1 August 2010
Films
Hey, I'm still here and all that. Pretty much just been working on my cartoon or lazing around recently. Strangely I haven't really had a desire to play/write music at all as of late. What I have had the desire to do though, is watch some films! Apologies to people at the Projectorheads forums, because I have posted all of these there already. Spoilers beware, you're in for a...few of them:
Horseo (Actual title: Ponyo) (The guy who made Spirited Away, 2008): Very, very adorable movie, and one that I can easily admire for its practices used in making it alone. The predominantly coloured pencil backgrounds instead of the traditional gouache paint created a wonderful child like atmosphere around the whole thing, and I often found myself just focussed. I didn't feel as much of a "this is entirely gorgeous" vibe when watching Spirited Away, and I'm not sure why that is since it was a lot more detailed. Maybe it's the fact that I watched Ponyo on a computer with a very high definition copy, rather than a dvd on a small tv but yeah. The whole sequence with the waves chasing after the car while Ponyo is running on top of them was pretty amazing.
However, I gotta say I didn't like this nearly as much as Spirited Away. It's very adorable and pretty, but definitely overly simple in its premise. That's not necessarily a problem I suppose, it's just that compared to Spirited Away, this felt like a movie targeted directly at children. None of the characters were really very interesting besides Ponyo (though the designs for a lot of them were very good), and some parts I just didn't understand, like... the moon is falling because Ponyo is becoming human? I felt like this is just something to make the movie feel more urgent, like there's some kind of danger (which it failed at, and didn't need to try to do either). And I also wasn't quite sure if the sea was rising a lot because of the magic potion thing or because the moon was out of orbit.
But when watching the movie, it's hard to convince yourself these things matter much. It makes you feel warm inside, it's very pretty, and it's a good film.
8.5/10
The Dad's name Tenebaums (Actual title: The Royal Tenenbaums) (Tom Bown (actual director: Wes Anderson, 2001):
I found this to be a very funny movie. I love how Royal can be so clueless about him saying stuff that is so obviously offensive to people, but yet dead on about other stuff that no one is even aware of (Margot having an affair with Eli). think most of my enjoyment of the film can be chalked up to this character, such as the hilarious scene in which he tells his wife he's dying, then he's not dying, and then that he's dying when he sees how mad she gets. I seem to love characters that aren't really "bad", but that everyone hates for being an asshole. The attempted suicide scene was really great because it used Elliott Smith and he's dead! Also Dudley reminds me of Solomon from Gummo. I'm not sure what else to say about this film, since it's not as fresh in my mind as the others...
But fuck everyone for just not giving a shit when the dog gets killed. The kids don't even shed a tear, and get given a new dog and suddenly everything is 100% fine magical ok. God damn it. They took that dog everywhere with them and they don't give a shit. What bastard kids. I wish the car had killed them, cos then maybe the dog would be upset and prove that it's better than them.
8.5/10
DULLholland doctor (Gordon Cole (actual director: David Lynch), 2001): I enjoyed this. It started to kinda drag on after a while until the last 40 minutes or so, which was very interesting and you could tell it came from an entirely different place than the first 2/3rds of the film. I think the film kinda suffered from being originally filmed as a pilot though, because while I just praised the last part of the film for shaking things up and being interesting, I don't think he would've originally wanted it presented like that, and would have probably taken some time to explain things further. Characters and other elements are involved, make you interested, and then are never brought up again or explained, probably because it was planned to go on a lot longer. I guess I don't exactly like having to look up "theories" on films to make sense of them, but maybe that's just me being a fuckin' moron!
It's made me wanna see even more Lynch though...but I hope me starting with his best work (in the eyes of Liam at least), Twin Peaks, hasn't made everything else seem worse in comparison.
8/10
Horseo (Actual title: Ponyo) (The guy who made Spirited Away, 2008): Very, very adorable movie, and one that I can easily admire for its practices used in making it alone. The predominantly coloured pencil backgrounds instead of the traditional gouache paint created a wonderful child like atmosphere around the whole thing, and I often found myself just focussed. I didn't feel as much of a "this is entirely gorgeous" vibe when watching Spirited Away, and I'm not sure why that is since it was a lot more detailed. Maybe it's the fact that I watched Ponyo on a computer with a very high definition copy, rather than a dvd on a small tv but yeah. The whole sequence with the waves chasing after the car while Ponyo is running on top of them was pretty amazing.
However, I gotta say I didn't like this nearly as much as Spirited Away. It's very adorable and pretty, but definitely overly simple in its premise. That's not necessarily a problem I suppose, it's just that compared to Spirited Away, this felt like a movie targeted directly at children. None of the characters were really very interesting besides Ponyo (though the designs for a lot of them were very good), and some parts I just didn't understand, like... the moon is falling because Ponyo is becoming human? I felt like this is just something to make the movie feel more urgent, like there's some kind of danger (which it failed at, and didn't need to try to do either). And I also wasn't quite sure if the sea was rising a lot because of the magic potion thing or because the moon was out of orbit.
But when watching the movie, it's hard to convince yourself these things matter much. It makes you feel warm inside, it's very pretty, and it's a good film.
8.5/10
The Dad's name Tenebaums (Actual title: The Royal Tenenbaums) (Tom Bown (actual director: Wes Anderson, 2001):
I found this to be a very funny movie. I love how Royal can be so clueless about him saying stuff that is so obviously offensive to people, but yet dead on about other stuff that no one is even aware of (Margot having an affair with Eli). think most of my enjoyment of the film can be chalked up to this character, such as the hilarious scene in which he tells his wife he's dying, then he's not dying, and then that he's dying when he sees how mad she gets. I seem to love characters that aren't really "bad", but that everyone hates for being an asshole. The attempted suicide scene was really great because it used Elliott Smith and he's dead! Also Dudley reminds me of Solomon from Gummo. I'm not sure what else to say about this film, since it's not as fresh in my mind as the others...
But fuck everyone for just not giving a shit when the dog gets killed. The kids don't even shed a tear, and get given a new dog and suddenly everything is 100% fine magical ok. God damn it. They took that dog everywhere with them and they don't give a shit. What bastard kids. I wish the car had killed them, cos then maybe the dog would be upset and prove that it's better than them.
8.5/10
DULLholland doctor (Gordon Cole (actual director: David Lynch), 2001): I enjoyed this. It started to kinda drag on after a while until the last 40 minutes or so, which was very interesting and you could tell it came from an entirely different place than the first 2/3rds of the film. I think the film kinda suffered from being originally filmed as a pilot though, because while I just praised the last part of the film for shaking things up and being interesting, I don't think he would've originally wanted it presented like that, and would have probably taken some time to explain things further. Characters and other elements are involved, make you interested, and then are never brought up again or explained, probably because it was planned to go on a lot longer. I guess I don't exactly like having to look up "theories" on films to make sense of them, but maybe that's just me being a fuckin' moron!
It's made me wanna see even more Lynch though...but I hope me starting with his best work (in the eyes of Liam at least), Twin Peaks, hasn't made everything else seem worse in comparison.
8/10
Lesbian Human Sexers (actual title: Fucking Åmål) (Mad Eye Moodysson, yes this is the best I could do 
(actual director: Lukas Moodysson , 1998 )
First off, I want to say that I'm very amazed at Alexandra Dahlström for a number of reasons. First of all, how she was actually 14 at the time of recording is shocking for how good she is an actress. I found it so weird how I as I am now am 4 years older than when she was in this film. What have I been doing with my life? Secondly: she's really hot! I need to see other films that involve her being legal age so I can remove my creep status while holding the same opinion.
But yeah, this movie was really really great. It's the kind of movie that I wish I could just instantly play to the occasional homophobic bastards I argue with on the internet. I think what really made this effective is how young the 2 girls are. There's an innocence to it; it's not seedy, nothing sexual really happens, which makes its value much stronger and effective. But it's also really hilarious at the same time as its touching. Elin and Agnes walking hand in hand together, after the perfect toilet scene, to then say "we're going to fuck now" or whatever it is. And then the scene with the chocolate milk at the end. I often overtalk things when I like girls too!
Also gotta love it when Elin just says to Markus "You're a fucking idiot". I think this is a very good film for youngish teenagers to see to make sure they don't grow up to be bastards.
9.5/10
(actual director: Lukas Moodysson , 1998 )First off, I want to say that I'm very amazed at Alexandra Dahlström for a number of reasons. First of all, how she was actually 14 at the time of recording is shocking for how good she is an actress. I found it so weird how I as I am now am 4 years older than when she was in this film. What have I been doing with my life? Secondly: she's really hot! I need to see other films that involve her being legal age so I can remove my creep status while holding the same opinion.
But yeah, this movie was really really great. It's the kind of movie that I wish I could just instantly play to the occasional homophobic bastards I argue with on the internet. I think what really made this effective is how young the 2 girls are. There's an innocence to it; it's not seedy, nothing sexual really happens, which makes its value much stronger and effective. But it's also really hilarious at the same time as its touching. Elin and Agnes walking hand in hand together, after the perfect toilet scene, to then say "we're going to fuck now" or whatever it is. And then the scene with the chocolate milk at the end. I often overtalk things when I like girls too!
Also gotta love it when Elin just says to Markus "You're a fucking idiot". I think this is a very good film for youngish teenagers to see to make sure they don't grow up to be bastards.
9.5/10
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