Sunday, November 23, 2008

A random thought

Is there any perversion in the world that's not an art form in Japan?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Total Recall 2070

So for the last couple of days I had to stop watching Life on Mars (Sorry CC, you'll have that eval soon) Season 2 because I've got my grubby hands on some of the biggest jaw-droppers of my somewhat younger years. Total Recall 2070. A 22-episode-long cyberpunk police drama based on Philip K. Dick's works, We Remember it for You Wholesale and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. To all the people that are blissfully unaware, Blade Runner and Total Recall are based on these works.

The setting is, in fact, very much the same. It's the same "High Tech, Low Life" philosophy that's generally behind the Cyberpunk genre, and, considering the references, would seem to take place some twenty years before the events of Blade Runner. The story revolves around two detectives for the Citizen Protection Bueraeu, Hume and Farve and is split between two "parts" of the series - the first one being a loose collection of 11 episodes that acquaint the audience with the setting, build the characters and entertain with some odd criminal cases. The second part, however, is essentially what the series are about - being human. I really can't and shouldn't tell anything else about the plot, however, as anything I would say could be treated as a major spoiler. All I have to say is that I ended up watching the last 11 episodes in a row, which is bloody unusual for me.

And now imagine my surprise when I found all of Total Recall 2070 on the internet. All 22 episodes. In good quality. For free. Legally.

Here it is. Clicky.

P.S: The first few episodes may seem a little generic, but it picks up by a lot after that.
Oh, and do watch them in the correct order - E1A, E1B and onwards. The list is a bit disorganised there, unfortunately. And ignore any registration pleas, they're unnecessary.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Children's TV

Take a look at this video. What do you see? Do you see a rip-off of the Teletubbies? A means to make stupid the upcoming generations? A senseless stream of images that can make a grown-up man crack up and laugh like he were insane? 



No. Not at all. What you see, dear reader, is art. Fine Art. Art so refined and complex that many will confuse it with some manner of a children's programme. Indeed, the use of lush, vivid colours, the explicitly childish themes, the toy-like outlook, all these things may throw the inexperienced viewer off the right track. To a trained eye, however, this performance displays a multitude of various undertones, ranging from delightful pastoral idylly to the darkness of a depraved, twisted mind, the very depth of a post-Freudian soul of Man, torn by conflict between the id and the Ego. This piece of art questions our very existence, the justification for mankind's acts of savagery upon the noble, pure bosom of Mother Earth, and fills the spectators with disgust to their own base nature, dirt, and meaninglessness.

And yet the images also give the viewer hope. Hope for a better future, where perhaps one day, everything shall be revealed and made sense of; a world where the the viewer may one day equal the Author with the power of imagery and presentation, the strength of wit and the clarity of vision. The Author's talent, however, is simply out of their grasp - as they shall hear in the closing narrative, the only spoken lines of the performance. The character merely wanted to clean the red contraption, not ride it.

And therein lies the truth.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

This is stupid

Just earlier today, discussing the news with Furbs, we came to an agreement that it's good that the Finnish media hasn't been focusing much on the personality of the latest school shootist. Just a few hours ago. And then, on my way home, I found out that the shootist's parents will be appearing on the TV today.

How is this not retarded? Please, how?!

Think about this. What do terrorists, psychopaths, mass murderers and unstable shootist kids have in common? Well, it's bloody obvious - they all crave publicity. Publicity! Do I need to spell it by the letter to every moron in the media, in the government, in every branch of this stupid society? By focusing on the personality of the killer, you're not preventing the next attempt. You're not consoling the victims' relatives and friends. You're not even making a good selling point for your pathetic piece of garbage. No. No, no, no. What you're doing is advertising the next attack.

Has none of these idiots been a kid before? A kid that wasn't the heart, soul and focus of their community, group, pack, whatever? A kid that ever had any kind of problems or depressions, or just felt the lack of attention? What do these kids want? These kids want to die - so everyone else around them felt sorry, so very sorry for their deeds, misdeeds and lack of action. And so then some moron goes and shoots a classroom full of kids. And it's advertised all over the goddamned media for months and months, with friends, relatives, acquaintances, random passers-by and members of parliament and government all being so sorry they couldn't prevent it, wondering what went wrong, chewing the same stupid gum for forever...

Don't you see where that leads next?

Idiots.


P.S: Yes, I'm angry.
P.P.S: No, by "you", I don't mean any of my readers. Unfortunately, the people that decide on what the press illuminates don't read this.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The Saw Series?

So what is it that makes the Saw series so popular?

No, let me rephrase. What makes it worth watching? The, erm, plot? Or, uhh, the torture scenes and deathtrap devices? Why is this thing keeping on getting millions every year, despite simply cashing in on blood and guts? Explanations? Ideas? Is it just a valid excuse to go watch someone being torn to shreds?

Note: Haven't actually seen a single film, so, I'm actually being curious. Not that I'm going to watch it anyway! Ha ha!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

In Bruges

So today I watched it and decided to see what the movie critics say about it. And I realised that the movie critics should stick to reviewing Adam Sandler, Transformers and Star Wars cartoon spin-offs, because clearly the idiots can't even understand what a movie with more than three words put in one sentence twice is about.

Click here for stupid.

Comedy, they call it. A comedy thriller. A criminal flick with dark humour. A comedy. Yeah, right.

Thing is, it's not a comedy. At all. In terms of theatric generes, this is tragic comedy - with comedy meaning something that's fairly different from the modern meaning of the term. If the reviewers would have bothered watching more than two trailers and the first and last ten minutes of the film, they might have actually understood that.

The film is great. The presentation, the pacing, the acting, it's all done really, really well. A man's personal hell, as we find out - and his way of trying to deal with it. Of course, humour is involved, humour is in a sense the guy's only way to try to focus on something else, fairly realistically so.

As a brief verdict, I really liked it. A very good psychologic/philosophical drama with spots of dark humour here and there.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Freedom of Speech, 1984-style

I don't even think I need to comment this. If anyone thinks I should, though, leave a note.


BBC News "Losing signal" on an unpleasant question.

Fox News calls commercial break and ends the interview of Osetians.


Well, okay. One comment. Even the CNN has been more neutral than the BBC. Which, all things considered, is amazing.


P.S.: Photographs from Ossetia. Not for faint-hearted, contains images of destruction and injured.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Free Press

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 a week for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for things, and if any of you would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are Jumping-Jacks -- they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"

From the speech of a former Head Editor of New York Times.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Graveyard of Ukrainian Civilization

Today I visited a few amazing places that illustrate what victory of man over machine in the Terminator setting would likely look like. Scrapyards.

Of course, one may be surprised of the dramaticism of the title. After all, scrapyards exist all over the world and it's not really something over-strange. However, there are four or five major ones in just this town alone - a town with a population of 30-ish thousand. A town with no waste processor or the likes to explain the reason behind the large amount of such lovely places. They're actually here for a different reason, namely, for purchasing various metals according to their weight. Essentially, these are places where people sell stolen things, ranging from old frying pans to train rails to graveyard crosses and fences.

On top of these large points, there are dozens of unofficial collector points. While factories, roads, everything deteriorates, people have all these convenient ways to sell off what little remains of the horrible Soviet legacy. Makes one warm and fuzzy inside!

Monday, May 26, 2008

A Chance Meeting

White, formal walls of the asylum. He was pretty sick of them by now. Of course, someone had to guard the poor memory-wiped sick folk from themselves and their delusions. Of course, someone had to guard the research facility and the virus within the labs. It was a hard enough work for the scientists to isolate it to the few victims now housed in the clinic while the virus was still natural. If someone was to steal it and spread it around on purpose, the results could be horrifying. He saw what it did to people - some of them could easily forget how to breathe.

Of course, some actually seemed to recover quite well, and with each passing day, the researchers from the secure wing brought in new samples of potential cure. The cure for memory deterioration itself was, in fact, achieved, the goal now was to restore the destroyed memories of the patients. This was the hard bit, from what he understood.

Today, that girl passed him by again. Smiling at him. Wished him a good day. He wondered about her. Wondered a lot. Who was she? He was sure she didn't know. She didn't even have a name, none that she knew of. Sometimes, they would talk, and she would ask him to pick a name for her. It felt strange. How could she remember the words, but not her name, not who she is? She knew nothing of her past.

She looked angelic.

Yesterday, he tried to read her files. It wasn't something he was likely permitted to do, but he didn't care. He wanted to know more about that girl, and a few nags from the employer wouldn't stop him from it. All he had the time for was just blindly copying the data. At home, he had no reader for it, either, but here, he could try. A bored guard, using one of the computers, who would ever be bothered by it?

He walked up to one of the machines, looking casual - or so he hoped, but inside, he felt tense; he struggled to contain the excitement and the fear. What if she was married? What if she was a lunatic? He was comfortable with her the way she was now. Would he be afterwards? He looked at the screen, hesitant, then opened the file.

To him, most of the text inside was gibberish. What would he know about the abbreviations, prescriptions and other such trash? There was nothing for him, nothing at all for all this trouble. It didn't even have her name. Just the number. Just that. Oh, and...

He blinked. It seems he'd copied her chart. Of course it wouldn't have her history, of course not. But even then, there was something that did catch his eye. A prescription due for just another week from now. A memory implant. He stared at it.

"Harry?", a voice said behind his back. Her voice. He tensed up. It was now or never. Decision time. Yes or no, one or zero. A binary choice with no chance to replay.

He closed the file and slowly, calmly turned to face her, trying to smile. Something was choking at his throat, and he couldn't quite make it stop.

"You remember", he said, "We've talked about outside? The trees, the grass, the flowers, the wind?"

"Of course I do", she replied, chuckling at him, "Since when have you become one of the doctors?"

"That's not what I meant", he muttered, looking confused. Her laugh, pretty as it was, was making him feel stupid - and the damned claw on his throat didn't help his case either.

She tilted her head to the side at his reply. "What then?"

"I meant, would you like to come see it with me? The outside?"

She blinked with surprise, her eyebrows rising involuntarily. "Outside? But we're not allowed to do that!"

"I know", he nodded, "But we're about to change that." He paused, looking at her, hoping she'd understand. And she did.

"Oh"

"Would you like to come with me?"

She looked at him, letting silence fall and the pause to grow. Slowly, a smile touched her lips. Her eyes. He smiled back.

"Of course I would!"

Sunday, May 25, 2008

The Face of Fear!

Angthoron, the Great and Horrifying, as seen today.

A Poem About Incarnation Of Good

For the formerly Soviet comrades:

Добро должно быть с кулаками,
С хвостом и острыми рогами,
С копытами и с бородой.
Колючей шерстию покрыто,
Огнем дыша, бия копытом,
Оно придет и за тобой!

Ты слышишь - вот оно шагает,
С клыков на землю яд стекает,
Хвост гневно хлещет по бокам.
Добро, зловеще завывая,
Рогами тучи задевая,
Все ближе подползает к нам!

Тебе ж, читатель мой капризный,
Hоситель духа гуманизма,
Желаю я Добра - и пусть
При встрече с ним мой стих ты вспомнишь,
И вот тогда глухую полночь
Прорежет жуткий крик: "Hа помощь!"
А дальше - чавканье и хруст...


©перто

Sowwy to the rest. Might translate it later.

Why 4chan?

Can anyone explain this to me? Why 4chan? What makes it appealing? What's the big deal? "the lulz"? I've seen funnier things in Sunday Morning comic strips. Trollgrounds? Suppose that could be something to consider. But doesn't it get old? Anonymity? Now there's a laugh, anonymity in the Internet. If anyone actually cared, nobody could be able to hide their identity. Thing is, nobody cares who the 4chan "activists" and "members" are, though, besides the child-minded adults with too much spare time and too little taste.

"War on Scientology"? Please. That's now how you fight a war. This is the display of helpless gerbils banging their head against a wall. Though I suppose to some, that's entertaining for more than five minutes. No lasting effect can be expected to come out of it, if nothing else, it's actually advertising the Scientology by placing it in the spotlight. Surely the people there should know that Christianity wasn't the object of everyone's love and admiration back in the olden Roman Empire days.

So what is it, then? A place for the helpless to vent their rage? A place for cheap laughs?

Eurovision

Bilan won by attrition! I guess Europe was afraid that he'd be sent to compete again in another two years.

Though to be serious, the song was kinda nice. Furthermore, Greece should've been taken out and Ukraine's 12-point moments should've been shown twice. More yays at the general success of Armenia and the relative success of Azerbaidzhan. Shame that Finland didn't do better, but then again, nobody forced Finland to send Teräsbetoni, for which even the neighbouring countries wouldn't want to give a point or two.

But yes, the song was nice. And the 3-time Olympic champion skating on that small pond of ice was neat. Good thing Bilan won, next time I bet he'd have brought the national hockey team, what with ballet dancers from pianos and stuff.

Even when the thunder and storm begins
I’ll be standing strong like a tree in the wind
Nothing's gonna move this mountain
Or change my direction
I’m falling off that sky and I’m all alone
The courage that’s inside is gonna break my fall
Nothing’s gonna dim my light within

But if I keep going on
It will never be impossible, not today

Cause I’ve got something to believe in
As long as I’m breathing
There is not a limit to what I can dream
Cause I’ve got something to believe in
Mission to keep climbing
Nothing else can stop me if I just believe
And I believe in me

Even when the world tries to pull me down
Tell me that I can, try to turn me around
I wont let them put my fire out, no!

But if I keep going on
It will never be impossible, not today

Cause I’ve got something to believe in
As long as I’m breathing
There is not a limit to what I can dream
Cause I’ve got something to believe in
Mission to keep climbing
Nothing else can stop me if I just believe
And I believe:

I can do it all
Open every door
Turn unthinkable to reality
You’ll see- I can do it all and more!

Believing
As long as I’m breathing
There is not a limit to what I can dream
Cause I’ve got something to believe in
Believing
Mission to keep climbing
Nothing else can stop me if just believe
And I believe in me.

I can't believe I watched Eurovision and wrote an article on it.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Yet more old stuff

Spring '03. Not my best writings, perhaps. And perhaps I posted it here somewhere already, in which case, silly me, but, who cares.


A clear, windy summer day in the wastelands, there’s nothing out of the usual here. Important-looking people in official suits and military attire gathered here at the testing grounds, inspecting the device. The technicians are giving it the last test runs, adjusting this and that, seeing to it that nothing goes wrong this time. Finally satisfied, they all get in their vehicles and drive off to the safety of the bunkers, some distance upwind. In the bunkers, the white suits were doing some final adjustments to their equipment, pushing buttons, adjusting screens, and saying things the visitors didn’t much understand. Finally, it looked like the countdown could, at last, begin.



As the sun goes down, the wind speed picks up and a few people start saying that the test should be postponed a bit, the wind is too strong and might blow the sand to a settlement downwind, perhaps even contaminating it. Others say the wind is just fine and further delay would just cause them to lose time and money. The argument quickly ceases and the countdown begins. Ten minutes to go. The time ticks the seconds away, painfully slow at first, faster and faster as the time of the final test approaches. And finally, it seems as rapid and unstoppable as an avalanche. Three minutes…Two and a half…One…


Far away, in a settlement downwind, a boy asks his mother to let him go chase the wind outside a bit. His mother is reluctant at first – the wind has picked up now, carrying sand and occasional pieces of trash with it – but looking at her son’s eager face, she lets him go. A minute, to lace the shoes – he isn’t too good at it yet, twenty seconds to run down the stairs and out the front door.


Three, two, one… A bright flash on the monitors makes the observers close their eyes for a brief moment, then the earth rumbles and shakes and a distant roar is heard, and the crazy howling of the wind. The lights flicker, the monitors go static. The show’s over, champagne is opened, congratulations everyone, blah, blah…


A minute to get to the open field, and then he runs against the wind, the sand blowing in his face; runs against it with hands open wide.

Summer Night

A small concept sketch I wrote, haven't found any use for it yet.

A warm, cloudless night in the end of summer... Standing in the middle of an open field, waist-deep in the rye, you run your hands through the golden carpet of plants, listening to the quiet song of the night, the air alive with the song of the insects, various birds that are still awake, and a distant nightingale... Gentle warm wind blows softly against your skin, making you shiver lightly, and brings with it a soft, quiet melody, played on a flute in the distance. Curious, you follow the sound, and it grows closer, and closer, then, suddenly, decides to let you approach no further, staying at the same distance from you no matter how long you walk. You keep on following the sound, the gentle melody almost bewitching in its beauty. The night goes on, the quiet melody still carried through the air, but you, you are no longer in this field, nor in this world, the song of the siren forever keeping you as you walk on.