An extensive list of things I hate.

I often say, when asked of something I don’t like that I “hate” it, and I keep getting told that it “takes a lot of energy to hate”, but that’s simply not true. Hate is just one of many emotions, and they take as much energy to send a miniscule pulse of electrical current via a relatively short, though nonetheless circuitous route through the brain I’m sure. It takes me exactly as much energy to hate things as it does to like them, or indeed to care about them at all.

But here’s the shit I hate.

T-minus ??? and counting

Right, haven’t written in a while so first things first. How are you? Things good? Excellent. Now onto me.

Prologue

It was Thursday morning, around 4am, and it was the end of the world. Very few people were up and out when it happened, and of those who were, there were few they could tell about it.

The people on the east coast who witnessed it saw a blinding ball of light blossom into existence high above the central United States to their west. Those in the west saw the same, but to their east. Before the light had even begun to fade, and almost certainly before anyone who had seen it was able to register it, darkness came. Not in the sky, but on the ground.

The century old electrical infrastructure throughout the US that Edison had pioneered failed catastrophically. Everything modern society had come to rely on, the Internet, cellphones, laptops, ATMs, security cameras, alarms were, in the span of a second, rendered useless.

Those on the roads at this hour in modern vehicles that featured computerized automatic brake systems, or power steering, found themselves unable to do a thing as the microchips in control of their cars died, and with it, the engines. Instantly cars and trucks all over the country were out of control, and those were only some of the first victims.

Many others found themselves in a more terrible fate. At any given time there are tens of thousands of people flying in the skies above the US, and those people found themselves helplessly drawn into the gravity well of the planet they’d called home all their lives as the pilots found themselves completely powerless to stop their unexpected descent.

Patients in hospitals on ventilators and other life-sustaining machinery took their last gasps as the technology developed to sustain lives suddenly found itself unable to sustain its own, and the staff lucky enough to work in hospitals with simple diesel backup generators at least had light with which to helplessly watch their most critical patients die. In hospitals without generators that managed to survive the pulse, staff scrambled about in darkness, aided only by torches and, in desperation candles, trying to help whoever they could.

Only a few seconds had passed, and already the destruction and death was unlike anything ever seen before.

Letters to the Editor make me angry

For several years now, the same dipshit idiots have been arguing in favour of the existence of God in the Letters to the Editor section of the Waikato Times, the local newspaper here. Today, I saw one that literally blew my mind with its idiocy, here it is:

Re: Anti God adverts in Hamilton:

I don’t know how computers are made, therefore the people who made the computers probably don’t exist. I don’t know how iPhones are made, therefore the people who make iPhones probably don’t exist. I don’t know how car engines are made, therefore the people who make car engines probably don’t exist. I don’t know how the world was made, therefore the maker of the world doesn’t exist.

Peter Merz

Hamilton.

Peter, to start with, you are a fucking idiot. I want to state that up front because you need to realise that you are, indeed, one of the most stupid people alive. To follow that up, I do know how computers are made, and can reasonably deduce from the processes that are involved in their construction that the people who made them do indeed exist. I also know at least roughly how the world was made, and that there’s no need for a maker, nor any evidence for one, and as such, that no maker actually exists. Ordinarily the argument from ignorance consists of “I don’t know X, therefore God did it”. I’ve literally never in my life seen it posed as “I don’t know X, therefore God doesn’t exist”, and it’s a stupid argument that no reasonably intelligent atheist will ever make. It’s an argument many theists make, because theists are, by their very nature, incredibly stupid.

 

Words words words

I feel like I’m more tired than I should be, given that it’s only 12:42am, but I was up til around 2am this morning, and got up at 8am this morning. The summer heat at the moment sucks, it makes it almost impossible to sleep comfortably. I’ve a fan in my room that has LEDs that glow too brightly even when off, and the fan makes too much noise for me to sleep through it, but if I have the fan off, the temperature hovers uncomfortably at around 30°C, which is disgusting.

I’ve not written in a while, not things for public consumption anyway, but I now have a bed to sleep in, no job to speak of yet but I’m still working on that.

I don’t even know what to write about now, I’m too tired to ramble coherently for any length of time right now and I’m not even sure if there’s a thought worth typing out in my head, so maybe this post exists simply to say that I’m going to go to bed now. And by that, I mean lie on the floor in the lounge in front of the fan with a towel over my head so I can’t see the light. Goodnight.

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2010’s Top Movies

1. Inception – As a Nolan fanboy from way back, I was looking forward to this movie from the second I saw the first teaser. When I finally did see it, I was thrilled. It was an awesome movie, from the premise to the cinematography to the special effects, as well as the majority of the actors. I, like many others didn’t like the great deal of exposition in the film that it took to explain the plot over and over for viewers but I can understand why it was necessary to an extent. Despite Leo being advertised as the lead, I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy carried the film brilliantly, with Ken Watanabe having some awesome lines and scenes of his own. First movie I’ve seen in a few years that led me to go back and see it on the big screen a second time. 9.5/10
2. The Social Network – I didn’t think much of the idea of this film when I first heard of it, the creation of a website didn’t sound like compelling viewing, but with Fincher directing I figured I might as well see it. Not having read the book “The Accidental Billionaire”, I didn’t really know much about the lawsuits and such, but when I saw it I found it immensely enjoyable to watch. Jesse Eisenberg made a great, vaguely aspergic Mark Zuckerberg, and Trent Reznor’s score fit the film perfectly. 9/10
3. The Town – Ben Affleck is, in my opinion a better director than actor, and I do always enjoy the Boston/Irish-American influenced films he does. I thoroughly enjoyed the many action sequences, and John Hamm played a great, vindictive FBI agent on the trail of a crew of bank robbers, while Jeremy Renner played a great borderline psychotic bank robber in Ben’s crew. 8.5/10.
4. Iron Man 2 – Iron Man is one of two Marvel superheros I like, alongside the Hulk, and I was looking forward to Iron Man 2 from the second I finished watching Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr plays Tony Stark to perfection, and while the movie isn’t exactly cerebral, it’s a great pop-corn flick and it’s one I’ll watch again and again most likely. I’m also looking forward to seeing how well The Avengers is put together, even if they have gotten the eternally lame Mark Ruffalo to play Hulk. 7.75/10
5. Kick-Ass – Loved this movie. Laughed most of the way through it, and Chloe Grace Moretz did extraordinarily well for a girl her age. I always found it curious that there were so many complaints about someone her age using words like “Cunt”, in stark contrast to the lack of complaints about her use of gratuitous violence (Cutting the limbs off of people on more than one occasion). It stuck well to the source material and I’m looking forward to the sequel as well.
6. Restrepo – Only just watched this documentary the other day, about a unit stationed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, once called the most dangerous place on Earth. It’s a harrowing, emotional film and it was quite frankly startling to watch, especially in one scene in particular where the unit, under fire, loses a Sergeant and one soldier is shown crying uncontrollably. I don’t think I’ve ever seen footage of battle from the ground before but that was some of the most raw material I’ve ever seen.
7. Harry Brown – Michael Caine. Awesome.
8. Easy A – Contemporary remake of The Scarlett Letter featuring Emma Stone. It’s pretty funny, and Emma Stone is hot. So it goes on my list, given that there weren’t any other movies that came out this year that I enjoyed enough.

2010’s Top TV

1. Rubicon – Was hooked from the first episode, the slow-burning intensity of the show had me intrigued and at the end of the penultimate episode my jaw hit the floor. That hasn’t happened on a TV show in years.
2. Terriers – Surfer noir crime comedy drama? Works for me. Wasn’t entirely sure where it was going for the first half of the season but by the end it was intense and the arc was resolved nicely, though I’m sad it’s not being renewed.
3. Dexter – I’ve only just managed to catch up on season 5 this past weekend but I’m glad I did. Easily the best season since season 4 with the Trinity Killer, if you ask me. Cannot wait for the finale tonight.
4. Justified – I think Walton Goggins made this show his own with his bible-bashing redneck criminal mastermind. Also Timothy Olyphant was pretty badass too I’m looking forward to season 2.
5. The Walking Dead – When I first heard about this show I went and read the first 66 or so comics, and couldn’t wait for the TV show. The TV show diverged from the comics pretty quickly, but keeping the overall theme the same, that of a human drama with the zombie apocalypse is working well for me. People who bitch about there not being enough zombie action are missing the point and should shut the fuck up.
6. Castle – Hadn’t even heard of this show recently, so I watched all 3 seasons basically back-to-back. Nathan Fillion is hilarious as always, and I enjoyed the few nods to Firefly and so on.
7. Breaking Bad – Awesome, awesome third season (Even if I secretly still haven’t seen “Full Measure”), I can’t wait to see what the fourth season will bring Walt, now that he’s basically cemented his persona as the brutal Heisenberg.
8. No Ordinary Family – Not by any stretch of the imagination a brilliant examination of what ordinary people would do with great powers thrust upon them, but it’s kinda fun nonetheless, so it’s on there.
9. Boardwalk Empire – I’ve only seen the first three episodes but the cinematography is beautiful, the scripts are awesome and the plot is compelling. Doesn’t really compare to other HBO shows like The Wire, Generation Kill and Deadwood though.
10. How I Met Your Mother – Not the best season and the premise is beginning to get a bit tired, if I was those kids and my dad had been telling me a story for what, 5 years now without introducing the main character? I’d be like “Nah”. Still has its moments of hilarity though.

Please give me One Million Dollars

Just kidding, unlike this guy, I’m not so greedy. All I ask for is one dollar, and that you pass on the link to this page to a friend who might give me a dollar, so I can repeat the plea and point out that while that guy is greedy, I am not, and all I want is a dollar.

To the right you should see a big “DONATE” button that you can use to donate to me via paypal, so get to it.

What do I want the money for? To see if people will donate for a start, second, I’m wanting to take a trip the US next year, preferably earlier in the year than later, and current projections require I put away $184.52 per week for the next 5 months in order to save $4000 by roughly the time of my birthday.  That $4000 would cover airfares and allow me roughly $1600 left over which ought to let me live reasonably comfortably on $4000a week, so for one month. I’d like to stay longer and can under the Visa Waiver Program, but would need more money so figured I might as well ask the internet, since the internet’s full of good people.

If people actually wind up contributing, I’ll chuck up a page with one of those high-tech fundraising goal thermometers with contributions so far so people and if people like, a list of people who’ve contributed, so they can see how much more they need to keep sending me. Sound fair?

Stream of consciousness

Let’s see if I can do this whole stream of consciousness thing.

I’m tired. Like, really tired. I get maybe a couple of hours sleep a day if I’m lucky, I certainly don’t get to sleep through the night and the sleeping I do get done is done in a computer chair, albeit a reasonable comfortable one.

The netcafe opens every morning at about 9am, and that’s when I come in. I pay for a week of unlimited use and tend to be on the net all day browsing, looking for flats, looking for jobs, reading the news, keeping informed, all that kind of crap, and chatting in most cases all day to one person in particular. The majority of the sleep I get done occurs in random periods throughout the day usually just for an hour or two at a time, and then I’m here til about 5, sometimes 6am when the place closes. When it closes I tend to fuck off and wander down by the river trying to either clear my mind of everything or focus my thoughts into something coherent. I should probably write while I’m doing that but it never occurs to me because I’m so tired all of the time.

I see all these other homeless people about and apart from the fact that I’ve grown myself a full beard because I’m too lazy to shave, I don’t really look like one of them. I keep my clothes clean at the laundromat and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my clothes get all tattered as fuck and actually look like a decrepit hobo.

So my days consist of upwards of 20 hours sitting in front of a computer, not all of them conscious, and then a couple of hours of aimless wandering.

I really need to get my fucking shit together.

I need to get myself into a place to live, I need to get myself a job, and I need to save up some money, because I want to travel to the US in perhaps april/may next year, there’s a ton of people there who I’m years overdue for meeting and there’s one person in particular I really want to meet, and the longer it takes me to get my shit together the longer it’s all going to take to accomplish, so I need to get to work.

First step I guess is replacing my cellphone. It’s expensive to use the few payphones that still exist, and most flat listings on trademe and such ask for  a text or phone call, and without a phone I’m incapable of doing them. Then there’s the fact that I basically can’t get a job if I’m not contactable, so that’s reason 2 to get a new phone. I have seen a parallel importing/second-hand electronic goods store with a couple of old as shit $40 phones in their window, so that’ll perhaps be a stop next week.

The other issue is getting a new place to live. I basically don’t want to ever have flatmates again, there’s enough cheap 1 bedroom units out there that I can in theory afford while on a benefit, and easily afford with even a minimum wage paying job, but without flatmates, the places are usually let through an agent, who requires references, and apart from work references, I can’t get good living references from anyone, because everyone I’ve ever lived with has been a piece of shit. I swear, til I meet the future Ms. right, there’s nobody I’m going to live with again if I can help it. I just don’t play well with others, at least not when at home.

So basically it goes like this

1. Cellphone
2. Somewhere to live
3. Job
4. Savings
5. America
6. ???
7. Profit!!!

God, I need to sleep. I think I will after this cigarette.