Author: Ian

Posted on

No Thanks

I was recently away at a place and I noticed that they had a clock on the wall. Nothing wrong with that you might think but let’s look at it.

True But Not True
True But Not True

Now, the time was set correctly so it’s not like I was being a classic mathematician about the clock itself. I was more bothered by the insidious message written on the clock face.

Families Are Forever

And other bullshit sayings

On first inspection this phrase doesn’t really seem that bad. It’s one of those classic bullshit sayings that you’ll hear used by people when trying to justify their pathetic view of the world. This saying reinforces the idea that you have to love your family and protect them. This saying reinforces the idea that you make sacrifices for your family. This saying, while true genetically, assuming plenty of creation of more genetic material, is utter bullshit. There’s no truth in thinking that your family is the most important thing to you. You can, actually, choose.

This sort of phrase is like many others we have in society that will reinforce bad ideas that will force people to make choices that are detrimental to their lives. People will listen to this phrase and then spend time and emotional energy trying to engage and keep onside with people who are bad for them. It’s time people recognised that actually there are plenty of assholes out there and some people need to be away from them.

Imagine there’s that person who has that racist uncle. You know the type. That uncle who, when he comes for dinner, you hope the topic doesn’t get around to anything that could be mentioned along with people with a different shade of skin or people who don’t speak your native tongue. That uncle: fuck him. He’s not forever. He’s a piece of shit.

Maybe you’ve got a mum who is a terrible mum. Those people exist. Mums who look after themselves and don’t give a shit about their kids. Mums who will drop everything to do with family and rush off to ensure that their own interests come first. Those mums are assholes and fuck them. Leave them. Be the best person you can.

This isn’t a money thing. This isn’t a class thing. This is a “some people are cunts” thing. We don’t need those people in our lives. If your live would be better and easier and more productive to be away from those people then it is best for you to be apart from those people. It’s OK to leave. You might be genetically linked to your family forever but you don’t have to have anything to do with them.

To those people who think I’m being overly politically correct or would rail against my arguments that you have to look after yourself first I would say that being politically correct is just about being nice. It’s about treating people with respect and being nice to them no matter who they are. If you can’t do any of that then don’t do anything at all. If your family are assholes, then do your best to walk away.

Posted on

It’s Just Like Exercise

I wrote recently about a damn good gig that I went to, Aesthetic Perfection, at the Lounge 666 or whatever it’s called. Because technology is so wonderful and lovely I can now show you a graph of my heart rate throughout that day.

Gig Heart Rate
Gig Heart Rate

There are three main aspects to this graph to chat about. The first is that low bit at the beginning. It’s me asleep. I’d have to compare it to my REM patterns to know what the little blips are in that section. Then, there’s me waking up at the little alarm clock symbol. The running man symbol is where I went for a run and the break in the graph is where I took my watch off for a shower. The low level preceding the first grey man is me driving my car into London for the show. The peak at the first grey man is me walking from where I parked the car to the venue. The next big dip is me eating food and so sitting down. Then, the bouncy bit is me bouncing at the concert.

The second grey man is me walking back to the car from the concert and then my watch thought I had fallen asleep because there’s a “Zzz” symbol. In reality that we me driving home from London and my heartrate stabilised because I wasn’t doing much. You can see that this resting heart rate is still higher than my normal sleeping rate. Finally the small peak just before the end is me walking from where I had to park the car in my village to my house.

This level of detail is pretty cool but I do wonder if it’s worth knowing? All that extra data I have about everything I do but does it change my life? I don’t know.

Posted on

Reign In Blood – Slayer

So, I bought this album quite a while after getting Decade Of Aggression which is possibly the only Slayer album you need. I can imagine how, back in the eighties, this album would’ve scared the shit out of adults. It’s heavy, gross, disgusting and amazing.

  • Angel Of Death – a song about Mengele and the shit he did during the second world war. Look, the whole point of metal is to shock and make you think. This song is gross but amazing at the same time. It doesn’t celebrate gore it brings that knowledge to a wider world. This song creates pacifists.
  • Altar Of Sacrifice – Amazing and heavy.
  • Jesus Saves – that opening riff is heavy as hell.
  • Criminally Insane – more heavy stuff and a great opening.
  • Postmortem – amazing. Such a heavy riff and masterfully blends into the next song.
  • Raining Blood – awesome. Can you see what they did with the title of the album and the name of this song? Clever eh?

If you want to seriously damage all your body then get this album playing at full volume and let it assault you.

Posted on

Aesthetic Perfection – The Lounge, Archway

Took my lovely niece and Smith to see Aesthetic Perfection last night at The Lounge 666 or whatever it’s called near Archway tube in London. Before the show we were just about to go to get food when I checked where the venue was and spotted Daniel Graves on his way out of the venue. I, very politely, asked if he would meet my niece because she loves him. I think I even used the phrase “I don’t mean to impose but would you mind . . . .”, jesus, what a british twat I can be. Anyway, he came over and met my niece and they had a photo taken. She was very happy.

The first band we saw, but second on the bill, was Jadu. Biomechanimal were on first but we missed them. That’s not a bad thing, we’ve seen them before a few times. Jadu are a German band who I quite enjoyed. There were four of them, a female singer and a drummer, guitarist and keyboard person. It was quite slow stuff but perfectly good. I quite enjoyed it. I did note that the sound of the kick drum was pretty good and didn’t over power the rest of the sound. I’m probably going to get a Jadu album, it was good enough for that.

Jadu - Archway
Jadu – Archway

Shortly after that Aesthetic Perfection came on stage and this is now the about 9th time I have seen Joe Letz. This makes him the artist I have seen most. I don’t mind. His on stage persona is brilliant and I enjoy his antics.

Joe Letz banging the fuck out of a drum
Joe Letz banging the fuck out of a drum

Aesthetic Perfection put on an amazing show. It was probably the best I have seen them and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The crowd was nice and pleasant. Even the six foot six female pair allowed those of us shorted than them in front. I spent the whole gig about three rows back from the front, which didn’t even have a barrier.

Daniel Graves and Elliot Berlin
Daniel Graves and Elliot Berlin

The band played for a decent length of time and I have to say I enjoyed it all. There was a moment when Joe Letz tapped Daniel in the penis and it was pretty funny. There’s a good camaraderie between them all. It’s nice to see a theremin being used at a concert, they’ve probably used them before I just didn’t notice it.

Aesthetic Perfection
Aesthetic Perfection

This was a bloody good gig. Probably the best I have seen them and I really enjoyed it. My niece managed to sweet talk one of the roadies and got a Joe Letz drum stick at the end of the gig. This will now go with her stick from a Combichrist gig a few years back. I am a little jealous.

Joe Letz's Knackered Drumstick
Joe Letz’s Knackered Drumstick

Well done AP and I look forward to seeing you again sometime soon.

Posted on

It’s Still A Win

Here’s a win. Me racing my Porsche around Brands Hatch. Started in 5th and ended in first. I was pretty happy. This also means I don’t have the child rapist cabal that is the catholic church as my last communication.

Posted on

Ready For This – Tim Minchin

This is a live album by the Australian musician Tim Minchin. I remember first seeing him on Channel 4 when I thought I was about to watch a stand up show and it turned out to be some guy not wearing shoes and playing music. It was funny and skeptical, I loved it. Tim Minchin is one of those people on the right side of stuff. He’s a science based comedian who speaks the truth about boobs. You definitely need to listen to any of his stuff.

I would recommend this album as it’s a good introduction to his music. The album does contain the song “White Wine In The Sun” which is guaranteed to make me cry. I have bought it as a single but I haven’t played. Minchin releases this song every christmas and the money raised goes to charity. Not only is he a brilliant song writer he is also an actor.

STORM

You need to listen to Minchin’s song called Storm. It might be nine minutes long but it is also brilliant. A discussion of evidence based science, relationships, and dinner etiquette. There’s a YouTube version that I show all my leaving classes in their last lesson. I’m trying to change the world a small bit at a time. Getting people to realise that humans are subject to so many biases. We need to work to overcome those biases and science is the best way to do that.

Cardinal Pell

Tim Minchin has also written a song called Come Home (Cardinal Pell). It’s not on this album but deserves a mention anyway. It concerns the terrible story of child rape in the catholic church and their systematic attempts to cover it up and protect those who are guilty of child sexual abuse. Cardinal Pell had claimed that he was too unwell to fly home to Australia to face criminal charges concerning child abuse. He has since faced trial and he is now in jail after being found guilty.

The systematic covering up and protection of child rapists by the catholic church is a heinous crime for which they deserve to crash into nothingness. I don’t care overly that they are wrong about god. But the whole system has been protecting child rapists for the last very many years and they need to fall. No, I’m not exaggerating. If you want to know why all the churches are closing and there are money worries in the church it’s because of the fucking money they are paying out [quite rightly] to all the victims of paedophiles that they are sheltering.

Just one US state, Pennsylvania, held a grand jury investigation of child abuse by the catholic church. IN THAT ONE STATE they found that 301 priests were sexually abusing 1000 children and were shuffled around in that area to save them being caught. It’s likely still going on and isn’t history. Fuck that organisation.

It’s not just the catholic church. Every organisation that runs has issues with sexual abuse. Every organisation that works with children has issues with child abuse. Those other organisations have done what they can to prevent it. It’s probably impossible to eliminate it but you don’t want to protect those fuckers. You have to have security procedures in place to minimise the risk. The catholic church has ACTIVELY covered up all the abuse. That church needs to die. Don’t ever give them any money.

Addendum

Last night I remembered a thing about this album that I love. It’s hidden within the lyrics to Prejudice, a song about prejudice. It’ll make you laugh, go and listen to it. Do you ever remember that saying your mum used: “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”? It’s a funny saying isn’t it. It’s pretty much telling you it’s OK for anyone to call you names because they don’t hurt. But here’s the rub: words hurt like hell. Tim Minchin updated the saying to a more realistic version:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can break hearts.

Minchin, T
Posted on

Randy Rhoads Tribute (Live) – Ozzy Osbourne

Here’s the thing. There are some bands and singers who are like classic movies or books. Everyone should listen to them / read them / watch them. Yes, some are shit. Yes, it is society telling you watch to appreciate and sometimes you can strongly disagree with society, but maybe you secretly understand why. Why is it that this film / book makes it into the list of greats or must-reads? Also, to be honest, I do think you should accept what you like and what you enjoy without the need to be shamed by society into thinking you are wrong. You are as you are.

Having said that, Ozzy is a national hero and it’s quite a surprise that the guy lasted as long as he has. Given the drugs, bats and alcohol it is unusual for someone to be as old as him. But, you see, we are now trying to understand survivorship bias. Just because Ozzy made it this far there are plenty of drug addicts that didn’t. They are dead. Just because Ozzy did those things doesn’t mean anyone can. Just because Ozzy with his horrific voice made millions and thrilled the fans doesn’t mean anyone can. We remember the hits but not those thousands of misses.

I don’t think this album will make you cry but you will appreciate that these rock stars are just humans and the note inside the album from Randy Rhoads’ wife is really touching. Zakk Wylde joined Ozzy after Randy died and if there’s one thing we now know it’s that you have to spell your name badly to be a rock guitarist. Start with that and then worry about the guitar thing afterwards.

This is like a greatest hits for Ozzy and it’s a great album. Worth playing many times.

Posted on

Long Gearing

I recently finished all of the Gran Turismo Sport races that exist in Campaign mode. It’s taken quite a while but I am done. It was a little sad to finish but now it means that to get my fix I’ll need to start using the online racing mode a bit more. I’ve not enjoyed this in the past as some drivers out there are dicks. However, my recent experiences show that if you pick the longer / harder races you tend to get people who are quite good at racing and it seems to work quite well. I won my second race ever recently and it was a good feeling but I forgot to save the replay and I was gutted about that.

I did however recently complete a race and made a decent run of it to gain about seven places. Only a couple of these were overtakes, the rest was gaining places when other driver ran wide! I was racing in my Porsche which I like but for this race the gearing is set quite low so I only use about four gears and many of the corners are done in low revs, which is good for reducing over steer and makes getting the torque on a little easier.

Yes, that’s my gloriously bright and shiny green Porsche. It probably has an advert for this website on it!

Current Gran Turismo Sport profile
Posted on

Sonic The Hedgehog

Yesterday I took a half term trip out to see Sonic The Hedgehog. I know Sony spent a ton of money [or someone did] to change the look of the creature and I was curious to see what the film ended up like. Sonic The Hedgehog forms a massive part of my history, I played it a lot in 1991/2. I was in my first year at university and Big Jim had just moved into halls. He owned a Megadrive AND a television which seemed impressive, none of the rest of us had such stuff. Jase had a TV and I remember watching Rumpole with him on a tiny screen but everyone else relied on the communal television.

Big Jim never locked his door and he was happy enough for us to play his Megadrive when he wasn’t around. There were quite a few nights when I would get a bottle of wine, a few CDs, and head down across to Jim’s room to finish Sonic The Hedgehog. This was in the days before save-games on consoles and so every game was a fresh start. I can’t remember which level of Sonic it was now, but there was one where you would gain four or five lives every time you did it [100 rings]. This meant that the aim was to die before the end of the level and go back and get more lives. It was the only way to ensure you had enough lives to finish the whole game.

It would normally take about three hours, a few CDs and a bottle of wine to get the game done. It was good fun. It was also the start of my downfall I guess? I bought a Megadrive in my second year of university and that probably had the effect of ruining at least two of the educations being paid for by the state. It’s OK though. I realised my mistakes and have been paying it back to society for the last thirty twenty five years or so. It was worth it and without the Megadrive this site wouldn’t exist in this state.

The weather wasn’t great on the drive to the cinema but I did remember to look at the river to gauge the state of the tide. It was pretty low as all the mud bank was visible. Upon leaving the cinema the tide was lower as a boat that was floating earlier was then resting on the bottom of the river. So I left the cinema pretty much at lowest tide [not checked online].

After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB using a system I developed many years ago. This rating will probably cause some consternation amongst readers of this site, but I don’t care. I then tweet the result and here is that tweet:

You know what? I quite enjoyed this film. Yes, it was a kids’ movie, no, there wasn’t really enough adult humour, but overall it was quite good fun. You could watch any kind of kids/alien/monster film and it would be the same as this. Pretty sure I saw Monster Trucks a while back and it’s exactly the same. Alien thing befriends humans and then solves some puzzle or problem while being chased by the evil government. I think there was the possibility of more “Sonic” specific ideas that could have been placed within the film but I still enjoyed it.

I need to talk for a short while about Dr Robotnik. I wasn’t really aware of who was in the film before I went to see it and after a short while I recognised the facial contractions of Jim Carey being Jim Carey and I thought it was him but at the same time I didn’t recognise him. While watching the credits I had to wait quite some time before Jim Carey’s name came up and I was starting to worry that maybe it wasn’t him. It was. This film has Jim Carey being Jim Carey and it was glorious.

Posted on

Rammstein – Rammstein

I do love Rammstein. I know I didn’t really rave about Mutter but this particular album is great. They really are master craftsmen of new German metal. I have no idea what they are singing and to me that doesn’t really matter. The music does enough for me.

  • DEUTSCHLAND – great opener. Lovely song. [probably about killing or something – I don’t do lyrics at the best of times].
  • Radio – these chaps are the best at writing brilliant melodies along with a special beat that makes you move.
  • ZEIG DICH – I’m not sure how this band do it. They make an up-tempo song that you think is going to roll along and then the bridge hits you in the face.
  • Auslander – This is one of those songs where I start thinking it should be a club track. I can imagine dirty nightclubs with all their dance beats playing and then someone puts this shit on and all of a sudden the whole club becomes metal fans. I think it’s also about immigration – but in a good way.
  • SEX – not sure if this is about the joys or the horrors of sex but it’s a bouncy song with superb riffs. Plus, everyone gets to shout out SEX which is fun.
  • PUPPE – Gosh this song starts out all lovely and gentle and you believe it’s going to be sweet and then BOSH it hits you straight in the face. Brilliant.
  • WAS ICH LIEBE – it’s perfectly good.
  • DIAMANT – Lovely and smooth. Could be about death and murder, I wouldn’t know.
  • WEIT WEG – It’s that little melody at the beginning isn’t it? I know a band are good song writers when they do something I wasn’t expecting but it fits the song and makes you think – wow, I’d never have thought to do that. Maybe my imagination is rubbish but there are only a few bands that surprise me.
  • TATTOO – The melody in the chorus is lovely.
  • HALLOMANN – This song rounds off a lovely album. I don’t think that any Rammstein album has disappointed me.

To tell you how good this album is can be summed up with the fact that their key changes don’t annoy me. I thoroughly enjoy this band. Their music is delightful. The live shows are stunning, full of theatre and sound perfect. I probably couldn’t rave enough about them.

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress