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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...