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Wednesday 5 December 2012

Polyamarous relations in gaming

There's a game coming out next year called 'The Last of Us', it's an apocalyptic romp that explores the decay of humanistic and moral responsibilities in a society that- Have you seen The Walking Dead?
It's like that.
Definitely like that.
Except a bacterial plague caused by plant spores instead of zombies.
Ok, up to speed? Grand.
It's a 3rd person, action/adventure genre piece by the team that created Uncharted, and it looks good. As in, really, really, really good. As in inane hyperbole good.
Also the last time I compare it to The Walking Dead.

I enjoyed the preview trailer a hell of a lot, as it was the type of movie 'I am legend' should have been, were it not for the fact the CGI budget was apparently $5 and a handful of shiny foil. Beautiful shots of overgrown, vegetation swallowed cities, and an absence of life matched only by a convention celebrating scrotal pain.
Then the Gameplay trailer was released, and I was sold. It looked absolutely terrific. *Cue a twaddling list of gameplay features and words such as 'context sensitive' and 'AI interaction'*
Suffice to say, I would rather like to play this game and experience it...and another addition to this rather lame sentence.
This hype and anticipation leads to a particular quagmire though.
It's for PS3.
I do not have a PS3.
I have never felt the need to get one, be it the ridiculous price tag, the whole 'install games' malarky or the lack of any 'console exclusives' that jump out at me.
I don't want to have to buy a PS3 just to play this game, and I know nobody who has a PS3 for me to leech off.
Apparently the equivalent of 'a kite or an abacus among my social group.
Is there any reason this game has to be a console exclusive? I can understand certain companies being first party, or games tailored for a specific console, but surely we're past the point where we have to marginalize game access, sales, and perpetuate the beleaguering and fucking tedious 'console war'.
Games like Call of Duty and Skyrim are phenomenally successful, in part to being cross platform releases, hoping to be available to as many people as possible. By making a game an 'exclusive', regardless of the positives and good will, you are effectively limiting how many people can experience your product, something most businesses would call 'BAD FOR BUSINESS YO.'

The Terrordome? That's just what we call the corporate retreat. Also *insert monotonous joke about Flava Flave taking 'minutes' at meetings.*





My two favourite games of the year (by many a fathom) are Max Payne 3 and The Walking Dead. Both games have fantastic characters, voice acting and an engaging story (The Walking Dead has my favourite narrative experience in any game I've played, no hyperbole, but that's for another entry.)
Both games are also cross platform and currently contending for numerous 'end of year' awards, whilst also having strong reviews and sales.

Console exclusive games seem a tad archaic, an element of flame wars between Halo and Uncharted, and a crude attempt to steer players towards a console. 
Sony and Microsoft, you can share games, it won't effect sales of your consoles. People will continue to buy them because you're....Sony and Microsoft. Both have huge fanbases and product recognition, and I doubt losing the 'MINE MINE MINE' element bought on by console exclusives will in any way harm sales.



Because why be tarred solely with this shit brush when you can share the mediocrity!



Modern consoles shouldn't try to validate their own existence with console exclusivity, they have enough merit and whimsy wowow zappity dappity to warrant existing in a market that isn't filled with 'YOU CAN'T PLAY THIS. SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT ME NOW' subtle condemnation towards potential buyers.
I want to play The Last Stand. I know a lot of people do. But I very much doubt I'll be able to, regardless of my crudely and abruptly ended reasoning that I've written...just now...up above...see..you didn't imagine it in a nerve pinched fever dream.
I feel like I'm being told off for not buying a certain console, or using one I'm already comfortable with.
Game Developers, stop making exclusives. I implore you in a sub par blog post, something that contains the weight of a zeppelin full of diamonds and boiled sweets.
Except you Nintendo, you're fine. Continue re-hashing your four concepts and ignoring the majority of 18+ year olds who regularly play games and enjoy mature content.
Bleh.

Friday 16 November 2012

The Apple bandwagon pioneered by an unbelievable asshole

Is that a soup Kitchen on Christmas day? Is it a re-enactment of late 1920s Weimar era depression?
No, it's a bunch of human beings queuing for 2 days to buy a new slab of white plastic that will enable them to tell other white slab owners how amazing and revolutionary the extra 2 inches on the slab is and tell non-slab owning folk how amazing and revolutionary the extra 2 inches on the slab is.
People are like the aroma of herbs and spices at KFC....they make me dry heave and then probably vomit.
I have no problem with people buying Ipads or Apple products, we're a capitalist consumer society, by all means do what you want (within reason, we're not Sodom.) People need phones, and as long as people need Phones, people will buy Apple products, fair enough.
Iphones and Ipads are like the Gibson Les Paul; sure I can see the appeal and all the great features, but I'm perfectly content with my Explorer.
You've got an Iphone? I literally couldn't care any less, and if you act the same then we'll get on fine and dandy.

But if you queue for 2 days to buy a piece of technology that does exactly the same things as your previous piece of technology, albeit it with a slightly larger/smaller screen, then I hate everything encoded in your freedom-less DNA.

If you're willing to pay upwards of £500 for something other devices can do for 1/5th the price, but must pledge allegiance to the brand you've apparently sold your soul to in a mp3 exclusive blood oath, then I hate every hair on your head, and every hair growing beneath your pestilent, ignorant skin.

Steve Jobs was not an 'AMAZING GENIUS'.

Steve Jobs was not the Lenin of devices that popularised the phrase 'LOL'.
Steve Jobs was not somebody for whom the clocks stopped turning and the sky darkened with obsidian clouds of grief when he died.

Steve Jobs was an asshole.



My only regret about holding this is that I can't  flip the bird to you all.

Yes death is sad, that's a given, and I never met the man, so I'll hastily add IN MY OPINION. This isn't a zero conditional, like water boiling at 100 degrees or Sammy Hagar being a far superior singer than David Lee Roth. It's merely my opinion that Steve Jobs was an asshole, and if people are going to obsess over his products and hail false cries of superiority to whichever God they choose to worship (even though the Flying Spaghetti monster uses a Motorola Atrix), they need to do some fucking light reading.


Let's start with something easy, right off the bat. Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and immediately cancelled all of their philanthropic activities. According to various friends he believed that expanding Apple would have been more worthwhile and beneficial to people than giving money to charity.


Fair enough, you've not making enough money (even though you are), just resume it at a later date right?

Except he never did, even in the 2000s when the Iphone became the second biggest selling gadget on the planet, just behind the Rubik's cube. Instead, he helped set up 'PROJECT RED' with Bono, which produced red versions of APPLE devices to give the proceeds to charity. Even then, Apple wasn't donating, customers were, regular folks who weren't part of billion dollar enterprises. When none of your profits are going to charity, it's not charity, it's you pointing at a charity and going 'Hey...you guys should give money to this, but only at the incentive of spreading awareness about our products and company name'.
Here's a completely unrelated paste from Wikipedia about Bill Gates, you know AWFUL BILL GATES, GOD HE SURE IS AWFUL.
As of 2007 Bill Gates and Melinda Gates were the second most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity. They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.
WHAT A FUCKING MONSTER. GO BACK TO AUSTRIA HITLER. GO BACK TO THE SEVEN CIRCLES OF EREBUS YOU GRECO-ROMAN BEAST.

The fact is, Jobs sincerely thought that Apple products would 'improve the quality of life'. Because we all know that dialysis machines and cancer research can't compete with the ability to IM somebody a hi def photo of your parted anus.

I was hoping for the ability to store up to 1 million songs....will my life of hell never cease?!

Jobs was the monomaniacal, angry, abusive head of a company seen only in Steven Segal films, or a Chris Brown concert. He apparently fired employees from PIXAR without notice, and when Pamela Kerwin, a pixar employee, politely asked he at least give them two weeks notice, he replied with "Okay, but the notice is retro-active from two weeks ago"



Even this guy would call Steve Jobs a 'massive erection of a human being'

There's having to make cutbacks, and then there's doing it in such a motion of Machiavellian assholery that you appear as nothing more than an utterly repugnant human being. And to do it to PIXAR? Wonderful, delightful, innovative, idea defying PIXAR? He may as well emailed every person who grew up with their movies a JPEG of him teabagging Sully from Monsters Inc.
LESS SHIT LIKE THIS. MORE SCREENS PEOPLE POKE AT.

There's plenty more I could go into, but this blog is really an introduction to articles such as these: http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10?op=1
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/


Steve Jobs was CEO of a billion dollar industry, he was also a monumental prick.
Those two are not related, and the latter is not excusable because of the former.

If you're going to cry salutations of vigor and wonder to a figure in the media, do some research first.
I have a Motorola phone, it texts, calls people, has apps and can play music. It's what a hip young go-getter could ever need.....and me.
For all I know, Motorola could create their products through energy produced by burning slaves who don't assemble covers fast enough. They might have corporate retreats where they harpoon rare birds and then fight with the corpses. They might buy out orphanages and turn them into bookshops that only stock mills and boon erotica.
But that's not relevant, because I don't act like my phone is a slate of intellect and wonder carved by the Olympians.
I occasionally use it to text poorly auto-corrected nonsense and I shut the fuck up whilst doing it.
If you're 'only apple exclusive' and think Steve Jobs was the last remnant of human decency, then you're an asshole.
If you worship an asshole, you're an asshole.

I have no problem with Apple products, or people who use them. I have a problem with a culture so distracted by unnecessary 'convenience' and product recognition, they unwittingly sing the praises of a man who should have known, and acted, better.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

An experiment in writing.

So it's national novel writing month or NANOWRIMO as it has been labelled by people who like acronyms but just can't commit to that ole' one-letter-representing-each-word style (NNWM. Ooh, look at that, I feel like that...famous gay artist. The one who was 'revolutionary' and stuff. He had the paintings of soup...and Marilyn monroe. I've honestly forgotten his name, it'll come to me I hope.)

Anyway, this blog isn't about NNWM, but how I write these blogs. You see, I'm rather haphazard with these. It takes me a couple of days to do one that's about 500 words long merely out of repeating writers block, hatred for everything my hands create like an end of novel Victor Frankenstein spitting regret and insurmountable rage towards a sentence fragment based horror of his own creation. I can't just...sit and hammer something out, I come back to it like a forgetful Dad not fit to look after a child.
That's why I'm writing all of this in a stream of conscious style monologue, no breaks or pauses, merely consecutive typing until I reach what I hope is some tuft of a satisfying conclusion (Unlike LOST, or some other pop culture reference. I mean seriously, more unanswered questions than Alex Reid doing a Year 10 SAT exam about colours.)
It's rather interesting to see this barebones, storyboard esque approach to writing, the only editing being the incorrect spelling of words or minor adjustments to sentence structure such as adding 'ands' or 'the's.'. It's also why there's a 20-ish word tirade about Andy Warhol up there, a man whose name I just remembered after I wrote the word 'tuft', it's also why some metaphors and similes and all that jazz aren't up to my usual standard, because normally I have a skeleton which I'll then edit with something far more eloquent (I immediately regret using that word), witty and of higher quality. For example, I have no Idea if Alex Reid is colourblind, that was merely the first set of refugees that crossed the border from 'Idea dictatorship' into my people's republic of 'funny similies'.
It's not been that hard to just sit and type stuff out, but its' a lot less refined than I'd like (clearly) and it doesn't really have any coherent thread or overall message, but again that's more due to the context than the pace at which I am writing, so I'm just complaining at the wind really, like a bitter old man, being all...bitter and...shit.
See, I'm not deleting words, nor amending them, you're getting everything raw and poorly formed and full of colloquialisms that for some reason I am typing, such as 'like' and whatnot. That's how dedicated I am to the cause. Although I did just delete a comma and replace it with a full stop just now, but that's more to enable you to read this easily (as opposed to that fucking awful sentence preceding this set of brackets, which in itself is tedious to read).

I'm sure if Hemmingway or Sylvia Plath wrote something like this it'd be hailed as a fucking goldmine of the creative process (I don't know if Plath wrote prose actually, so, again, that example may fail as an....example. Christ this is like how I talk to women, jarring, jabbering, and with all the progressive appeal of a sandwich full of thumbtacks, acid and contempt. On a side note, I think I got that thumbtacks reference from an episode of  The Simpsons, I probably did, that'd be something I'd change in the Edit.
Is the Simpsons really relevant anymore? It's flogging a dead horse to say the quality has dipped more severely than a bouncy castle now infested with cockroaches and switchblade wielding gang members, and there's no overall story arc of plot progress with a show like Community or Breaking Bad, so just get rid of it already and let us enjoy the current ratio of good/bad episodes before that margin (more like MARGE-IN, hhur hur) is ruined, and it'll be a dolorous sense of nostalgia when we say "Remember when the Simpsons was enjoyable, and not overwrought, sometimes cringeworthy and often pointless"? I reckon as it stands, I can watch a random episode and 6/10ths of the time, it'll be a stone cold classic (Stone cold? I would never use that idiom, fucking hell. FUCKING HELL I SAY)

Also Family Guy, stop shoving sentimental, sanctimonious and depressing story points into your episodes (Cancer, abortion, rape?) Really? You know, those plot points that ultimately converge at the end of the episode with some made for tv string music in the background and Lois/Brian making a serious heartfelt plea to another character. It is jarring, embarrasing and a horrible juxtaposition to the 5 minutes prior that consisted of jokes insinuating an 80s cartoon character is gay or a character soiled themselves. Nobody wants that, you have nothing to try and prove to yourself. People know WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE. Barn Door, Horse, Bolt.
People watch you for a quick 20 minutes of fast paced humour and idiosyncratic jokes, do not garnish it in preachy subtext or lifetime TV style plot points, it's patronising, pandering, and actually more offensive than any other content in the show itself.
South Park CAN do this, because it can successfully balance both serious and funny without the addition of the former being jarring and taking you out of the episode.
American Dad is clearly superior to Family Guy anyway.

Oh, ain't that Grand, I just wrote about something without stopping, brilliant. I HAVE THE POWER and all that progressive free-form danish Jazz. Even so, I'd edit it ruthlessly like a literature based Bond Villain if it were any other blog entry.

I don't really know how to finish this, which is kind of ironic and something I hoped I wouldn't have to put and now I hate myself and want to punch my larynx with all the vigour and malice of a Celtic woad warrior being offended about his long hair that stands as a symbol to tribal custom.
Hey that's as good a place as any, hope you enjoyed this experiment.
I did.
Kind of.
Maybe.
Maybe Not.
I'm outta here (Aladdin reference.)

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Season 5 Walter White substitutes his old chemistry class


INT. High school chemistry lesson, a room full of students talking among themselves.

A thin man walks into the class room, dressed in black and wearing a Porkpie hat. He walks behind the desk and sits down, slowly and precisely. The class keep talking, ignoring him. He simply stares at them, piercing eyes behind prescription lenses. Eventually the class silence themselves, almost in unison. WALTER WHITE stands up and speaks.


WALT
Hello everybody, I am teaching this class. My name is Mister White. Everybody, say my name.

The class stare at each other, they look confused.

WALT:(Iron confidence)
Say it.

STUDENT:Who are you...?

WALT:I'm the teacher. I'm your substitute for the day. I'm the man who is replacing Mr Silverman for the day.

STUDENT:
Bullshit, Mr Kartel Substitutes for Mr S.

WALT:
Are you sure about that? Now, say my name.

All STUDENTS:
Mr White.

WALT:
You're goddamn right.

'BOWWW...WOWA WOWW...BAAAAAaaaaaa..Bam...ba ba ba bum.'
For your Emmy consideration.



A knock on the door, it opens and a student walks in. He's slightly out of breath and has the immediate impression of being a 'layabout'.

STUDENT
Hey, sorry I'm late.

He goes to sit down.

WALT
(Calmly, almost amused.)
What are you doing?

STUDENT
I'm sitting down for class. I mean, I knocked and apologised.

WALT
Is that what you think of this class? OF ME? 

STUDENT
...What? I was late, my parents had-

WALTI don't want to HEAR about your parents. 

STUDENTI'm sorry, man, I apologized.

WALT
(Condescending rage)
You clearly...don't know who you are talking to, so let me clue you in. You do not just knock on that door and walk into MY CLASSROOM. NEVER. I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS.

Ok, now everybody turn to page 27, we're working on compounds.

Walt is walking around the class as the students work, one of them is sharing a textbook with another student.

WALT
Excuse me...?


STEPHANIE
It's Stephanie, Sir.


WALT(Panicked)
Where...where is your text book Stephanie?

STEPHANIE
(Taken back)
I...I don't have it.

WALT
Where is it? Where is your text book Stephanie?

STEPHANIE
I...-

WALT
WHERE IS YOUR TEXTBOOK STEPHANIE?! WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS THE TEXTBOOK SKLYAR...I MEAN STEPHANIE!!

STEPHANIE
(Verge of tears)
I...I left it at home. I'm so sorry, I forgot it in the rush this morning.

WALT
You...you left it...at home?

Walt cracks up, he begins to laugh before escalating into something resembling a sinister and hysterical cackling. He falls onto the floor, still laughing at the punchline the situation has given him. Fade to black.


WALT
Ok, compounds. We're going to be doing exactly as I say this lesson, because I know you can. And more importantly, you will-


Jesse Pinkman runs into the room.

JESSE
Yo, Mr White! You're needed, 'urgently'.


WALT
Jesse. I am teaching a class. 


JESSE
It's Saul, he needs to speak to you 'in Person', sounded serious.


WALT
Jesus Christ. Fine. Jesse, take over for fifteen minutes.


JESSE
What? You serious?


WALT
I think I've taught you well enough, I have faith in you.


Walt walks out the room.

JESSE
You taught me how to cook Meth! Not teach a damn class!


The students stare at him, dumbfounded.

JESSE
Errr, hey. So....you guys want to learn how to dissolve a body...?


Today we're working in pairs, don't shoot your lab partner in the stomach.


The Bell rings, class is ending. Students walk out.

WALT
Ok, read pages fifty to sixty for homework. Excuse me, could you help me with something?


Walt signals to the student who walked in late.

STUDENT
What?

WALT
Can you dust those erasers for me? Thank you.


Walt walks out. The student begins hitting the two erasers together, after five hits a ball of fire breathes into the classroom. The student walks out, half his face blown off, killing him and the memory of 'Malcolm in the Middle'.

Friday 12 October 2012

(Head)Set me off...

Another gaming blog.
To make up for this expect my next 5 blog entries to be about Czech animator Jan Svankmajer.

I bought Max Payne 3 a month or so ago, great game, I recommend it...bla bla bla.
Anyway, I was on Multiplayer mode when the expected happened, I saw somebody had a headset on. Fair enough, par for the course, he was obviously talking to friends and team members. He was probably also playing with the controller at a inelegant tilt and a guffawish expression that is the bastard child between innate confusion and sexual thrill. Just like HOW EVERYBODY PLAYS EVER.

There's a high probability that the controller is plugged into nothing .
5 minutes went by and it was clear that he wasn't using his headphone to communicate with other players, he just had it on because HE HAS A HEADSET AND IS AWESOME FUCK YOU EVERYBODY. So every so often I'd just hear a crude electronic garbling of 'FUCKING HELL' and 'GOD DAMN IT', like a  bootlegged recording of a member of Daft Punk stubbing their toe. What's the point of communicating to other players if it's going to be nothing but a tirade of anger and rage on par with something the neighbours would report.
He abruptly stopped later on, I've no idea why but I'll pull something out of a hat to explain why...........
'You will find good earnings in a friend'.
Ok, well those are fortune cookie notes in this hat....I'll work on that later.

When he came back it wasn't just him, it was his entire family joining in. In the background arguing. Having muted conversations between overlapping sentences. I could hear everything that was going on in his immediate area, it was disconcerting and a rather uncomfortable breach of somebody's private life. I felt like a member of the Stasi.
I wasn't getting the shrill, vulgar side of the generic (yet prominent) spectrum. I was getting a candid expose into 25 minutes of this persons family life, and the sheer nonchalant bravado with which he failed to care made me uncomfortable...


Headsets aren't compulsory, this isn't a Seal team infiltration mission or a Mcdonalds drive through, wearing them for a game seems somewhat insecure at times. As if you feel indebted to a headset, because you MUST GET YOUR MONEYS WORTH OUT OF IT OR ELSE IT'S A WASTE AND YOU KNOW IT IS. It'd be nice if people thought before they purchased one, a few integral questions would benefit everybody.
() Am I going to use this for games that need it?
()Am I just going to wear it and shout at/belittle other players?
()Am I going to play music/have it too close to the screen so EVERYBODY else gets an irritating fluctuation of jabbering sound.
()Can I string together a cohesive sentence that doesn't need to be built upon the stonework of profanities, racism, and being a sore loser?

For lack of a better adjective, wearing them myself feels rather...awkward. It's laborious to describe, leave me alone OK?! It's a jarring social experience with regards to communicating, it's what I imagine translating for a hostage is like, or calling a phone sex line.
"Stop using the noob tube you fucking retard"

They're a double edged sword. For me personally, I find them rather awkward and less 'socially expansive' than they'd appear to be, muted silence with the occasional forced responses or orders, that may be just like a real combat experience sure, but like a real combat experience, that doesn't exactly strike me as fun on the bun. But at the end of the day I can always just mute everybody, lest I have a gaming experience on par with when Professor X's powers spaz out and he can hear the everybody's thoughts.
So much racism...


Wednesday 26 September 2012

New sitcom, THE LGBT theory

Producer Chuck Lorre, talent behind  Two and a Half Men, Mike & Molly and The Big Bang Theory, has created some of the most accepting, tolerant, and boundary breaking sitcoms of the past decade. Shows not built on outdated stereotypes and characters rife for audience bullying and mockery, NO DAMN WAY.

THIS MAN KNOWS PEOPLE

He's currently working on a new show, about THOSE CRAZY LESBIANS.
Here's a script from the pilot episode.



THE LGBT THEORY
PILOT EPISODE
"Lez be friends"

JO Enters the flat, wearing dungarees and purple lipstick, she looks like Lisbeth Salander and DECRIES THE EXISTENCE OF MEN. She calls for her girlfriend SANDRA.
JO
Sandra, Sandra are you in?
SANDRA
(Off screen)
Oh, I love you Dyke.
JO
WHAAAAAT?
SANDRA
Oh, hey Jo! Sorry I’m in here. I was just watching Mary Poppins! I love Dick Van Dyke.
JO
I’m not a fan of the first part!
SANDRA
I hear that! Also, I’m surprised I found the time to watch it, what with The L Word DVD Boxsets I’ve had on repeat for the past 2 weeks! Good thing the DVD player broke!
JO
Do we need to get it fixed? How about Steve?
SANDRA
A MAN? Are you maaaaaad!
JO
Nope, I managed to put my Dungarees on today!! Well, we could get a new one, and you can pay me back when you get a job! How’s the job search going?
SANDRA
Well, nobody cares for my CV and skills.
JO
That’s because all you put was softball player, not showering and knowledge of pickup trucks!
SANDRA
That’d get me plenty of jobs!
JO
Like what?
SANDRA
Unhygienic truck driver for a softball team...
JO
I’ll go ask Steve for a new one when he gets back from work.
SANDRA
Steve doesn’t have a job, he just makes it up!
JO
He works at the Nail and hair Salon.
SANDRA
Exactly, made up!

Jo sighs and goes to hang her coat up, the cupboard has twenty pairs of dungarees in. Sandra walks round the corner, she's big and fat and wearing doc martens and has no make up and has like shaved hair and stuff. (Check google images later to clarify)

SANDRA
Well, if you're meeting Steve can you ask him for my K.D Lang CD back?
JO
Which one...?
SANDRA
All you can eat
JO
I know that. I mean, which one, you have like fifteen different versions of that album!
SANDRA
I'm SOOOOOOOOO GAAAAY!
JO
Can't you meet him yourself?
SANDRA
Uhhh, no. People might think we're....you know....a couple! It'd be sooooo embarassing.
JO
Hey, you're LES-being ridiculous!

Uproarious studio applause, millions of TV viewers and critical accolades due to the carefully crafted characters and many layers of humour woven throughout the nuanced relationships and intricate examinations of gay people.



So yeah! Hopefully this gets JUST AS MUCH PRAISE and viewing figures as his other shows, I'm sick of the other comedy shows on the air.
SICK OF THEM AND THEIR RESPECT FOR AN AUDIENCE DUE TO COMPLEX CHARACTERS AND REINVIGORATING OLD STEREOTYPES WITH NEW LIFE AND JOKES.

So....I'm going to leave this right here.









Sunday 23 September 2012

Things Mitt Romney can do that aren't as bad as his slandering of half the country

So, I'm not American, but I'm aware of their culture. They have TV shows and Baseball and Werewolves in London.
They also have Presidents, presumably because they needed something to put on their money. The current president is Barrack Obama, and I think he's an exploding nebula of brilliance.
Running against him is Republican Mitt Romney, a cross between a Mormon Action Man and a Just for Men spokesman who'd go to the park even if he didn't have any kids.


Obama brings two flavours of Pringles because he doesn't know which one you prefer.
Obama understands some people don't like hugs, and is totally cool with it if you refuse.
Obama lets you play with the 1st controller when you visit his house.
Obama doesn't pressure you to return that DVD box set you borrowed because he understands it's a lot of episodes to take in and people have other things going on in their life regardless of quality television.
Obama is a goats cheese Pizza.

Mitt Romney offers you a lift and asks for petrol money, even if you live the same way.
Mitt Romney asks questions like 'DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!/DID YOU SEE THAT?' during a movie.
Mitt Romney is a screwdriver in America's kneecaps.
Mitt Romney is a faulty smoke alarm going off while you're having a poo.
Mitt Romney dances in his seat at a cinema whenever a familiar song plays in a movie.
Mitt Romney is a hollowed out scum-puppet full of outdated prejudices, elitist sensibilities and the smile of an alcoholic Geography Teacher burning a cardboard box full of Mr Men books whilst spitting in a jar labelled 'Essence'.

It's a schoolyard fight between that guy who lends his Gameboy to poorer kids and somebody who punches the girls he likes while calling them fat.
Seriously, Obama is beyond cool.



I know pictures of a President playing with Lego or a toy Lightsaber aren't the best at highlighting his policies, but this isn't that sort of blog. Go Google it or read a paper. I'm here for drole stupidity and so forth.

A private recording was recently made available to the media wherein Mitt Romney complained that 47% of the country expect the government to provide food stamps, social security cheques, healthcare, housing etc. You know, those things that Government's are kind of...there for.
It's verbatim to a skeleton complaining that people expect it to stop them from sliding about the floor in a grotesque pile of pink.
Funny Metaphorical Image=Hilarity

Romney has obviously stepped over the line of 'fucking up', to a point where his standing with half the country is on par with a septic intestine leaking onto your dinner, so here's a list of awful things he can do now he's pretty much KIA.


  • Admit to being a fan of the movie The Hottie and The Nottie.
  • Punch a child whilst dressed as Ryu from Street Fighter.
  • Call The diary of Anne Frank 'A load of poorly written emo shit'
  • Refer to 9/11 as 'A mass recycling of bricks'
  • Streak at a school sports day draped in an Aryan Flag.
  • Announce his hatred of The Dark Knight trilogy.
  • State that he judges people based on movie preference.
  • Give food to the homeless only on the basis that they lick his shoes clean.
  • Deny the Holocaust.
  • Then announce he does believe in the Holocaust and 'has never laughed so hard'.
  • Prefer Duplo to Lego
  • Say he does things 'Ironically'.
  • Build a jet in the shape of a leper's penis.
  • Extract his bile and put it in select packets of skittles.
  • Send Farmville requests.
  • Hit on that person you like, even though you like totally told him you like them and he was all 'yeah cool, no problem'.
  • Say "I know you don't like this sort of music, but listen to this song", while you're in a car with him.
  • Text people with 'Call me'.
  • Drive an RV into a scarecrow made of charity money and human excrement.
  • Punch a child while dressed as Chun Li from Street Fighter.
  • Admit he fake tans, and people who don't are 'pale skinned fuckberrys'
  • Announce his run for Presidency in 2016.


Friday 31 August 2012

Fallout New Vegas: Hardcore Mode

Something that could be described as an actual article and not a surreal, pithy sardonic rant about some obscure pop culture?
You betcha.
So last week I decided to see if I could complete Fallout: New Vegas on hardcore mode. A feat described as somewhere between 'irritatingly challenging' and 'nigh on eye gougingly frustrating'.

The thing is, I've never completed the game on any mode. I got bored of it. It frustrated me. It lacked the whimsy and grandiosity of Fallout 3, had far too many laborious backtracking quests, and was at times as broken as a 1918 Russian Economic Policy.
Niche history joke? THAT'S A FIRST.


I'm genuinely not quite sure what prompted this in all honesty. Was it because I wanted to get my £14 worth? Was it because I would appreciate it on such a difficulty and gain a begrudging new found respect for the fame? Was it because it was worth a MOUTH SALIVATING 100 gamerscore, and I am nothing if not some ill controlled gamer-score junkie riddled with lust for overall pointless numbers that somehow represent a monolithic stature of success for lonely miserable chumps?
It was probably because I'm unemployed and no matter what, it'd be far superior than that abysmal drop in quality that was mothership ZETA.
Well done Bethesda, for ruining Aliens, Samurais and the V.A.T.S system. You may as well have given me 4 hours of chipping away at a crusty turd in the shape of a dollar sign.

I estimated it would take me about 60 hours to do this. That's you know...2 seasons of the Mentalist I could catch up on. Yet here I was trying to complete a 6/10 game that I'd gotten bored of on a mode where I didn't have any 'realism' enabled.
 Why was I doing this?
To see if I could.
That’s it. That was s my driving force, not fuelled by enjoyment or any form of interest, just the dolorous, miserable fossil fuel of ‘being able to’. Something akin to a piece of coal shaped like a crying tramp.
“To see if I could” , that’s not a phrase that incites a gamer to play something for 50+ hours. That’s what serial killers reply with when asked why they made a lamp out of skin and fingernails. It’s a phrase that’s more fitting to a sociopath defending his right to furnish his house with items from an IKEA catalogue edited by Clive Barker.

That couch  is soooooo you!



Anyway, long story short, I played it for a week, it was somewhat enjoyable at times, although unfortunately for the game it doesn't so much as 'highlight' the broken gameplay elements as it does douse them in gasoline, strike a match and dance around them.
Here's an example.
()I had to find two items for a scientist fellow. I could only choose ONE at a time to get, because obviously multitasking is for CHUMPS.
()It was a 2 minute journey out of the basement where he resided, and 2 minutes in real time goes arduously slow and boring when you're just moving forward through a sewer.
()I got the item, went back to the basement and did the 2 minute journey back.
()Only THEN did he tell me where the other item was...cue another journey out and me rolling my eyes like a furby plunged into a power socket.

This is irritating in the game on any mode, but on hardcore, add a terrible accuracy mode, getting crippled by the smallest speck of dust flaking off your skin, and having to constantly reload after frustrating death sequences. There's a difference between an 'enjoyable challenge' and burdening a tedious game with more reasons not to play.
So why did I play for a few days? I have no idea. I really don't. It was fun at times, but overall it wasn't enjoyable.
To paraphrase 10cc, it was just a silly phase I was going through. (I also don't like cricket. But that's irrelevant)
I promptly stopped playing it, downloaded the HD remake of Resi 4 and shall never speak of it again.
Good riddance you post apocalyptic red-headed stepchild.


Sunday 26 August 2012

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Guest article: Tara Coffin.

I'm outsourcing my blog for this article. The following is written by my friend Tara, and I highly recommend reading it (...Just with every other post..a huck huck) It's a serious piece, I've written about it before but in a less fluent and elegant way. I normally just throw words on the page like a Pollock piece made of pop culture references and nouns.



“I know I have a good life. That's what's so depressing. I can't help it.” – Stephen Fry


Nowadays, you hear a lot of people talking about depression. It's got a lot more mainstream as a diagnosis, and it's actually possible to admit you have it without people misunderstanding.But that's still a very rare occurrence.I
have clinical depression. No, I'm not feeling a bit glum today. No, I am not a whiny emo teenager, nor do I need to get outside and smile. 
I have clinical fucking depression. It's not like getting a bit sad, or being upset because someone dumped you, or any of that. If you have depression, genuine depression, then you are spending your life walking around with a great big sack of rocks on your head. You can be happy or laugh or enjoy yourself, and like any illness there are always good days and bad days, but that does not change the fact you have an entire boulder balanced precariously up there. When I first started getting counselling, my mother refused to believe there was anything wrong with me because “people with depression can't get angry”. Considering that having a short temper is one of the ten main symptoms, I'm not entirely sure which part of her first class psychology degree she pulled that out of, but prejudices are always there. One of my friends has been diagnosed for years longer than I have; even when she applied for a job no less than a year ago they asked her why she couldn't snap out of it and be happy. These aren't isolated incidents; ask a person with clinical depression how often they get misunderstood and you'll be there all week.

I think one of the biggest problems is that there is no way of definitively separating medically diagnosed depression with the kind that people are talking about when they say they're feeling depressed that day. If we had two separate words in our language for them, I don't think there would be quite so many issues. Half the time, you tell someone you've got depression and they'll go, “Oh, I was depressed over summer, but I got out in the sun and it was fine” because they don't understand that the two are discrete. There are countless self-help websites that people will spout, suggesting things like going for a walk or dancing in your room, and these are great techniques. If you're sad. Not if you have clinical depression. Like I said, it might make me smile and on a good day it sure as hell cheers me up. But it's not a cure in any way or form.
People without depression often fail to understand that it's actually a reason for not being able to do things sometimes. I always try my hardest not to let my depression own me or control me, because I am not my depression. But there are days I have to stay in bed because the simple act of getting up and facing the world is so daunting that it leaves me in tears. Keeping easy to eat food in my bedroom, like apples and bread, becomes essential on bad days. Anything more exhausting than rolling over to spread peanut butter on some dry crackers can floor me. Fortunately, with cognitive behavioural therapy, medication and learning to recognise the signs of a down-spiral, I can mostly avoid these now.
Sometimes, though, I can't. And on those days, forcing a smile, eating a banana or listening to cheery music won't help. In fairness, neither does lying on the bathroom floor in my pyjamas, but I'm going to do that because it's about all I can manage. Just try to bear with me and be supportive, alright? Talk to me if I need it. Don't try to give advice unless you know what you're talking about. And above all, remember I am still a person.



And now for my contribution, a stupid, stupid, stupid picture.

Thursday 9 August 2012

Goosebumps titles


I remember being a child, a whimsical child, and reading Goosebumps by spooky Jewish writer R.L Stine (His stories were spooky, not his Jewishness.)
Most people I knew bought them solely based on whichever cover looked the most interesting, because children are scum.

Here are what the stories would be titled if the cover was a 100% accurate reflection of the content because I have an asinine sense of humour....

Sigh.












Wednesday 18 July 2012

Depressi-On the waterfront (Puns!)

Good day Starks and Baratheons.
Urgh.
Another one right?
I apologise...profusely. But I've had a fortnight that can only be described, as Thomas Jefferson would put it, as 'BLARGHHHH'., so I figure writing it down might help.
Good news and bad news then, let's start with the bad news. Because I am a Michael Haneke movie. If you get that joke then you're probably from my sixth form film studies group. (Nepotism innit)

The bad news is I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a counselor or a therapist to continue my CBT and therapy with. (Yaaaaaay.)
The NHS system near me is a bit naff and it's not as 'readily available' as University was (That said it still took me a year and a half to actually see somebody... although that's probably because A lotta folk be crazy yall')
I decided to do some self CBT at home, just to work out some stuff, although it's not as effective unless you have somebody to talk it out with, and point you in the right direction or give you feedback.
Anyhoo, I wrote down a list of my pros and cons. Now, this wasn't just base assumed stuff, it's all based on evidence and association and past experiences and whatnot.
I had 3 pros and around 16 cons....that was nice.
The cons ranged from "I'm not as good a musician or writer as I'd like to be", to my personal favourite "I'm not somebody who anyone would want to be involved with or close to" (Yaaaaaaay)
I figure if I'm saying all this to a stranger in a chair (Clipboard may or may not be involved), I shouldn't really have a problem telling people who know me right? (Some of you MAY have clipboards)


I had these for pros...

()I can make people laugh with stupid jokes.
()I know a lot about the movie 'Aliens'
()I can grow sideburns...



Potential employers love this stuff.

Because it's based on association, CBT kind of works both ways.
For example, I can put

I can make people laugh and feel good; People have told me this, I've gotten this reaction.


But then, by extension I can follow it up with.

If I can make people laugh and feel good, then why have I been rejected a lot...yadda yadda yadda.

It's not 'feeling sorry for myself, whinge-a-thon' nonsense, it's a proper thing. Google it. Go now. Google it.
But yeah, it sort of works like that, although a lot less crudely than I've made it appear.

So it's a bit of a double edged sword, and I just need to find somebody professional who deals with nutty nutbars like myself to help me out more efficiently, as I've got a lot of stuff that's punching my brain like an angry Gypsy (Traveller).


Christ, this sounds like an X factor audition doesn't it? Sorry if I'm layering it on a bit thick, I'm not trying to be some Lifetime movie about abortion, or one of those books called 'Daddy No!!'. I'd feel odd if I sugar coated stuff or lied, cause lying is for wieners. And I am most certainly not aiming to be a wiener.
I'm fine writing this, I'm just worried that for people reading it'll be like Sophie's Choice or one of those really depressing channel 4 dramas. I'd hope it's not all misery and despair, I don't intend it to be.



After doing this I promptly read comics for 2 hours and listened to the Electric Light Orchestra....just thought that was a necessary add on.

I've also lost a really good friend in the past few months, which is kind of lame.I did  really some stupid things, felt genuinely terrible and guilty, tried to apologise and explain what depression's like for me, but instead they've cut all forms of contact with me and it's genuinely not improving my outlook on myself. The problem is, they genuinely think I'm some crazy pyscho Patrick Bateman mental case....which I'm not...at all. I'm not somebody to worry about. I'm not an 80s slasher movie villain, although if I was I would definitely have my 'holiday' as 'Teacher Education Days', and I'd wear a mask that was a replica of a blackboard. And I'd kill people with Chalk and Rulers and Protractors and....Microsoft Excel...related....explosions.
The logistics aren't important. I'm not a crazy mental case, I'm just somebody whose had some problems coping with this at times, especially before the ole prozac and counselling.
So, yeah unless a third party says 'You know...Pete isn't Captain Crazy of the USS mental case' then I'll have to sort of, cope with it ending on a really crappy note. I mean, I'd like to think I'm not somebody you'd need to worry about or be cautious of right?

Sorry that sounds really quite the unsubtle 'nudge nudge wink wink', and I know some of you will know what and who  I'm talking about, but I'm really just writing this down to vent and get it out there. I'm not trying to weasel or any other verb, just using this blog as a sounding board. (Text wise...although I do yell and whistle at the screen as I write this. OR DO I?! No. No I do not.)

The only similarity we have is our affinity for Huey Lewis and The News.

I kind of feel like writing all this down might be putting people off, as if it sounds like some highschooler going 'Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go and eat some muuuuuuud!!!!'

It'll be lonely this Christmas due to.... cannibalism.



If Mr Metaphor leaves his house every day and is at some point attacked by Ninjas, then after a month of this he's going to think 'You know what...I don't want to leave my house, because I'll get a ninja star in the gullet'. And sure, everybody else gets a ninja star in the thigh every so often, but for Mr Metaphor it's happened constantly, without a break in the routine, or nunchuck-to-the-face free day.
So yeah, if I complain or act 'pessimistic' about something, it's not just me being a dick, it's because I've got plenty of ninja stars embedded in my stupid face.
Sure they'll be one or two days without ninja stars, but there's the other 28 of the month that dominate the ratio. Christ I sound like a patronizing fart don't I? I think I'm owed this, as somebody said I should just do like that song and 'Get knocked down, but get up again, nothing's gonna keep me down'.
Yes.
Somebody said I should cure my depression with ChumbaWumba lyrics....
There was no irony involved.

Some of it is just, doing stuff to get my self esteem back, Rocky 3 style. Things like job interviews or even a job, dates (Although you'd be better off eating dinner opposite a crude straw model with a face painted on, that yelled a pop culture reference every 10 minutes.), new hobbies, learning to drive. Stuff like that...All that jazz.
I'm also trying to find some open mic nights near me to do some stand up, but I'm not getting a lot of good hits or info, which is a bugger.

I get really uncomfortable and depressed when I'm around people talking about relationships or sex or basic social norms. Not in a desperate, crude 'American Pie' I WANT A RELAYSHUNSHIP WAAAA style nonsense. God no, I'm not a 16 year old Girl.
But it just reminds me I'm not a nice hip normal person, I'm somebody who can't even get anybody to want to go to the cinema with him on a date. (Feel free to call me lame and point and mope)
That's like a Sarlaac pit of crap.
And I feel bad, having to mope around people who are just talking about expected social norms.
Again, the problem with writing stuff like this, is that it comes across as a mopey 16 year old writing a diary entry before putting on a Slipknot T shirt and updating a livejournal with how they'd kill themselves.
I kind of hope folks can see it's...not that.
Seriously.
IT ISN'T.
I SWEAR!!


Here is the original VHS of 'Aliens'...just to lighten the mood.

I'm not just pulling this crap out of nowhere, or thinking it apropos of nothing. If I was then I'd say that I can fight a bear with brass knuckles, or that I'm Batman. I've got plenty of evidence and past experiences that, to me, reinforce all this. I'm not all that great or interesting. I'm funny but apart from that I'm just sort of....there. And even being funny isn't enough I've noticed. I am the other guy from Wham in life, I am Joe Pasquale's voice, I am not all that interesting or decent. I'm not somebody people miss or think about unless I'm in the room with them. I'm like a human Quiche....

And that's depression for you, it's a lot more than some 'Linkin Park' 16 year old diary entry nonsense. It really does suck. I used to have a hard time understanding what it entails, and even now I have moments where I think that maybe it's just me, that I'm some 'Y The Last Man' isolated vigilante
In retrospect I think university was about 75% crap.
Sorry that this post was a bit more bleak and down then usual, I genuinely am trying to not be a captain mopey of the Goodship mope on the seven seas of MNEERRRGHHH.
Stay tuned for more posts about music videos and pop culture hilarity.



Here's the good news.
I just had some fig rolls, and they were really nice.
Like...bloody delicious.


Food of the Olympians...

Thursday 5 July 2012

80s music video reviews: Ready For the World

Music videos, aren't they great? (Still open to debate...)
They've been around for a while, but it was the 80s when they harnessed their potential and made their mark on the world, just like cold war fever or telephones the size of a coffin.
I'll be taking you step by step through one of the more notable (In that I saw it the other day) videos of that era, the song 'Love you Down' by the band Ready For The World. An inoffensive archetypal RnB lurrrrve song that's like a Smartie; sure it's Ok enough...but there's hundreds more like it (and according to a year 4 rumour, the red ones give you diarrhea....this is still unconfirmed by the NHS).
It reached number 9 in the US in 1986 and the incredibly prestigious place of 60 on the British charts (A moment of solemn respect and admiration) before disappearing faster than an West End musical about Myra Hindley.



Look down at your feet. You are probably now wearing legwarmers because of this photo.

Let the unnecessary scrutiny begin!


The video begins with a Hitchcock-esque silhouette of a woman in front of a pair of curtains, perhaps the most SEXIEST image known to man? Who knows? If you stare at it too long her proportions and hair resemble an inaccurate rendition of how a woman would look by a blind Austrian making a doll out of a carved beetroot.

Suddenly, apropos of nothing the woman begins to laugh. What at though? We're left to ponder this quagmire of a mystery. Some possible suggestions.
  • A crude limerick about a sexually frustrated sea captain
  • When Del Boy falls through the bar.
  • Insanity, caused by the pale orange blizzard of light that isolates her existence.
  • An old man getting shit on by a formation of seagulls.
Before we have a chance to discover the source of her amusement, we're introduced to the lead singer (Check name later) and SHIT* GETS SEXY YALL.
*Metaphorical. That'd be gross.
The camera then zooms closer to her, will it go into her ear, like an arousing version of David Lynch's Blue Velvet intro?

HERE'S HOPING.





Appearing henceforth into our world, like a cosmic vision from the dark void of funk, we have our lead singer, surrounded by nothingness because he...is all we need (budgetary concerns).
Notice what appears to be a cross between a Jheri curl and a mullet? A Jullet, or a 'Merry Curl' as you would. If a Mullet is 'Business at the front, party at the back', than this is 'party all over the place...seedy, unsettling, substance abusing partying to the sound of a sinister ethereal slap bass solo'.
Needless to say, that hair is the pinnacle of follicle achievement and if you disagree then you need to call up the guiness book of records and demand a place, holding the record for most SEVERELY WRONG  HUMAN BEING on the planet.

And then the chorus kicks in, and a microphone tears through the very fabric of space and wills itself into existence, appearing in front of our lead singer through the magic of love (Not affiliated with 'The Power of Love').

Let me love you down,
Even if it takes all night.

I'm a bit...boggled by this. Can you love somebody down? I know you can love somebody 'up', as in 'I am loved up', but can love go in many directions like a boomerang or racial bias in the BNP?
Maybe this woman is so loved up, perhaps she is so used to fantastic lovers that she feels as if there is no zenith left, nowhere to go. Then this soulful white (not racially) knight appears and whispers 'Hey babe, why don't you take a break, and settle for something a bit more mediocre?'.
SAY YES WOMAN.
SAY YES DAMN YOU.
LET HIM LOVE YOU DOWN.
Downgrade your love like a devolved shanty town of emotion.
Unless he wants to physically throw this woman to the floor with 'love', which kind of sounds like a sexual assault charge...

Also, 'even if it takes all night' warrants a mention for completely missing the intended mark. I love the detached eye rolling attitude that 'even if it takes all night' conveys. It tries to seem seductive and passionate, but has the frustrated lack of denial and single minded anger of a single father trying to inflate a paddling pool to impress his kids.

(Please bear in mind, the last person I dated would that I were cast into a pit of fire, so please take my knowledge on 'love' with a Russian Oil tanker full of salt.)
Back to the verse, and the camera pans around this warehouse showing the only prop in the video...this large illuminated ...rectangle with various sections...
It's just there.
It doesn't do anything, or provide any obvious aesthetic purpose.
I don't even know what it is, it could just be some lazy placement, but I'd like to think it's a sentient lifeform. A malicious and cruel entity that demands Ready For The World perform for it, lest the galactic rectangle render them asunder.
PLAY A SLOW JAM FOR ME. THE RECTANGLE DEMANDS IT. PLAY LEST I CAST YOU INTO THE ICY VOID OF YOUR OWN FEARS.


Also, this line makes me chuckle.
Remember when I drove you home from work?
That's right, because nothing's sexier than CARPOOLING!
I don't like to imagine where those thumbs are going...
The rest of the band then appear, and here we have our bassist, bathed in the same orange light, giving him the appearance of a funky bronze statue. Like an idol outside a Greek Parthenon to the God of Slap Bass.


This guy drums.

That's all I have on that.

And the woman is back. Laughing arbitrarily at something and spraying herself with something (insert your own product placement here.) The room she's in reminds me of the tiled bathroom at a Waterpark I went to in Crete a few years ago. Based on this, I assume there are used bandages by her feet and a spider the size of a tangerine on the wall opposite her.
Like a well dressed interlude, the lead singer interjects once again. Reminding us that he still exists, and will continue to do so for the entire narrative of this music video.
He sings some more innocuously unoffensive lyrics about romance and all that malarkey.
Try and guess the odd one out.
All that really mattered was you're my girlfriend
You know it's got to be so right
Oh baby all night long.
They'll have to identify you with dental records.

(It's not as obvious as you may think)

And then we're back in this woman's bedroom, the camera descending from the rafters like a sexy pigeon.
And she's lying on her bed, presumably for sexy reasons and not food poisoning or gout.
And the bed is where the 'magic happens', as they say. Well, I know my bed is where the magic happens...because magic, doesn't exist. (Zing...?)
Because her bed isn't against a wall it's like she's lying on a table, or a sacrificial alter.
But that's just me.
But no time for sacrifices and blood tributes now, it's guitar solo time!
The guitarist silhouetted by the lead singers face, like a broken memory or a regretful past crime he can't escape from. He also kind of looks like the boss from a Metroid game, the behemoth funk head.
The woman wistfully plays with the curtains, and it's at this point I'm believing she may have dementia or be mentally ill.
That's all she does. Bat at the curtains like a bored cat, enthralled at the movement it creates. It's all she lives for, her lifeblood, her soul.
Curtains.
Curtains.
Curtains.
And we're done, full circle. The song fades out, as the giant hyper-rectangle of tolerance and obedience demands the chorus be repeated forevermore, like a solemn ever repeating SOS to the dark recesses of lonely space..
PLAY FOR ME
MAKE MUSIC FOR ME
READY FOR THE WORLD
LOVE ME DOWN
LOVE IS OBSOLETE
ALL YOU NEED IS HYPER-RECTANGLE
LET THE HYPER-RECTANGLE LOVE YOU DOWN.