Saturday 5 May 2012

I HAVE PLAYED VIDEO GAMES AND DUE TO THIS I AM GOING TO HORRIBLY MURDER SOMEONE.

It's not my fault. I don't actually want to horribly murder anyone in the face. I actually don't like real life violence.

Unfortunately though, Kieth Vaz has pointed out, yet again that playing violent video games turns people like me into killing machines. We don't feel remorse, or pity, or pain, and we will. Not. Stop. EVER. Until you are dead or we have a bottle of Pepsi and some snacks (don't wanna be afk now do we?).

What utter cockery! Call of Duty is a violent game, this is true. It's also rated 18 in the UK, so little kids shouldn't be playing it. If they are, then it's their parent's fault! Kieth doesn't want to listen to that though, oh no, he wants to go all Helen Lovejoy and stand there screaming THINK OF THE CHILDREN! While waving a copy of GTA around. I am 31 years old and have never murdered anyone. The last time I got in a fight was about 20 years ago. I'm usually found in restaurants with my girlfriend on nights out, and up until about a year ago I was a vegetarian. Sadly, according to Kieth This means I am about to go and horribly murder several of you whilst claiming to be a member of popular Jedi Cash machines, the Knights Templar. You think I'm kidding? Here's some games I've played. In some cases obsessively:

Left 4 Dead
Skyrim (which is an incredible game, and the link here sells it a bit short).
Dead Rising 2
Killzone 3

That's a very, very small selection of the games I own, or have owned. When I was in school I used to play Contra, and Doom. Two games which look a bit shonky now, but are nevertheless quite violent. Compare that to the ott violence in dead rising and it might appear shocking, but no more than other media.  I really think that Kieth (please don't click that one, I actually threw up a bit in my mouth when I saw the pictures on the article, what can I say? I'm committed!) has misjudged what constitutes a gamer.

The people I know who play games are like me, mid twenties to early thirties, decent Job and relatively quiet. It's about escapism, nothing more. I can sit and watch the news telling me that I'm going to be horribly murdered in the face by Brevik, or Klebold and Harris, or I can slay dragons and jump off waterfalls and protect villages. I posted a link to skyrim before to emphasise that it's a violent game. What I didn't mention is the fact that throughout the game I have constantly protected innocent people from attack, I have reunited mothers with their children, and even saved an orphanage from a horrible old woman who was beating the kids. Yes, I CAN decapitate people for fun, but I would rather be a hero than some folkchopping bumhole.

The most important thing to remember is that Call of Duty has sold in the millions. That's important because over 3 million people have played this game, but only one has murdered people and blamed it. This means that Kieth is trying to enforce censorship on something that could drive someone to kill. The problem with his logic is that the odds are over 3 million to one. You are more likely to be murdered in a robbery which goes wrong, perpetrated by kids who's parents failed them. Well why did those parents fail? I'm sure it was at least in part due to the over generous welfare state and light prison sentences given out under a Labour government in the last 15 years or so. Of which Keith Vaz was a member. If you put it that way, he is more responsible for at least half of the violent crimes in this country than the makers of CoD are for Brevik.

Sleep well, and don't worry! I'm not going to murder anyone. I'm also aware that for the most part I have spelt Keith wrong. I can't be arsed changing it, it's not like I get paid for this shit.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

WHY YOU SHOULD FUCKING KILL YOURSELF.

You may have noticed the title of this blog. It's quite sharp, isn't it? Well chances are it's not aimed at you. If you're like me then you probably agree with what I'm about to say, and with a little luck you'll join me in slaughtering these vile fucks once we're done.

You may have noticed that some blogs have adverts around them. They're generally quite unintrusive, but they are still there. When you add them to your blog you will earn money if people click them, it's harmless enough but still quite annoying. This is my main issue here:

ADVERTISING.

Bill Hicks once said the following:

"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence.".

This was about 20 years ago. The Internet was in a very primitive form, the only places you would see ads on TV were in somewhat infrequent commercial breaks, and although billboards and junk mail were there, they were a lot less pronounced than they are now.

Remember I mentioned the ads on blogs? You'll notice that there are none here. I could have a million people read this daily, and I would NEVER knowingly allow ads on this page. It's called dignity. This blog costs me nothing to write, and I'm far from a professional. Why in the name of raptor Jesus would I ask you to click on links to some garbage or other in order to line my pockets? You owe me nothing! I do this partly to get things off my chest and partly because I enjoy giving people a guilty chuckle now and again. Not to align myself with the worlds most sickening industry. I have seen some bloggers on twitter begging people to click their ads, shouldn't we be treating this as a public forum to share information and ideas? Not to impersonate a fucking soap character in a one-note joke, and make colloquial humour which NOBODY OUTSIDE OF THE NORTH FUCKING WEST OF ENGLAND WILL UNDERSTAND, LET ALONE FUCKING CARE ABOUT. The only differences between us are a soul, and the fact that I fucking KNOW nobody cares what I think.

The Internet is full of ads, of varying degrees of annoyance. The worst by far are the ones with sound. I was reading an article a while back when some cunt started rapping. Now, we know my thoughts on rap anyway, but really? So you mean to tell me that this nasty little shitblister is hawking his artistically dead cuntsounds on an ad for SPORTSWEAR? Really? Considering most of these fucktards want everybody to believe that they're from the "streets" (as opposed to the roads, or avenues, or even closes? ffs...) while trying to hawk you some overpriced, flimsy footwear exclusively for cunts?

You just get the feeling that they're dead inside. That they tried and tried to get people to listen to their tired, pointless work and then some horrible cunt came up and made them an offer. You're a sellout with nothing to sell. Then one day, you're reading about something and there he is- ramming a cock with a Nike swoosh drawn on it down his fucking gullet- to try and persuade you, YES YOU, WHO JUST WANTED TO READ ABOUT SOMETHING REASONABLY INANE, that this sportswear is the best in the land for hanging round outside tesco. Fuck that! At least working in McDonald's can lead to a decent job. No, you sold out. You bent the fuck over and you took money from the same people you claim to be against. An angry young man who doesn't even know what to be angry about.

The ads you see on TV are vile as well. There are so many that it's hard to fit my utter, seething hatred of them into just a few paragraphs, so I'm going to just go with a couple of examples. The first is for a high street bank, in this ad we have a choir singing walking on sunshine. The choir is made up of people who work for said bank. They're all smiling and singing along! Oh don't they look cheerful! Wow, I sure want to throw money at them! Why? What the fuck has this got to do with anything!!?!? If you want me to invest my money in your bank, why not just make an ad saying "we won't charge you fees for nothing, we'll lend money fairly at a low rate, and outline the terms in a way that you can understand. We will try to answer your phone calls quickly and we will have a branch that opens on a Saturday for a few hours.". In black text on a white background. It cost5s sod all to make and gets your point across. You don't need to spend 500k on a multicultural, inclusive demographic of choral warblers and most of all you'll earn my respect. It's just so FORCED! Am I meant to believe that all of your staff get together on a Friday night for Katrina and the Waves night?  Or that you run a fucking radio station based on horrible puns? WHAT THE FUCK HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT YOU WANT MY MONEY? Be straight with it! Just stop bullshitting us and we'll be waving wads of tenners in front of you within 12 hours of broadcast.

The second example is for some "sell us your phone" company. A bunch of made up people spouting made up comments. One of which is a fat, middle aged man who spouts the word "wonga" like a downs syndrome child trying to impress it's carer. 99.9% of people who saw this advert thought one thing: "cunt". What did the company do? Why they made another ad, with thousands of clones of this fucking spacker up a mountain saying the same word. That's it. They think so little of you, that they only need one word said simultaneously by the same clone to make you use their services. They may as well have just sent you a fucking colouring book and a helmet.

Thirdly, and lastly for TV is the entire industry of "asbo ads". If you've ever sat through daytime TV you'll know the score. Gaudy, brightly coloured shit that is designed to get poor people to gamble online. This is the single worst thing, it's just so completely morally bankrupt that I have a hard time fathoming it. "every body's playing "x company" bingo!". This implies that you need to throw money at them to fit in, in the hopes of maybe winning some cash inbetween your chicken tikka lasagne and your loose women. It's sad, it's horrible and it's unforgivable.

So what do we do about it? Easy. If you are using Internet explorer, then stop. Get Firefox. Once you're using that, download adblock plus  here. If you see any ads after that, just right click on them and block them. No more ads! Easy. As for the tv, you record programmes or watch them online. Just skip the ads. No more, they can't touch you. Fuck 'em!

Do you receive phone calls from telesales scum? Go here. This also works for junk mail. Any company contacting you once you register is breaking the law. Get their name and report them. They will be fined and you will have done us all a favour.

Outside of this there's not much we can do. I could tell you to vandalise any billboards or hoardings you see, but that would be illegal so I won't. What I will say is that this entire industry has made some nasty fuckers very rich, at the expense of your time and money. Why give them a free ride? They are the worst people in the entire world and need to be stopped. How dare they say your life needs to be improved by giving them your money? How dare they make you feel less than anyone else because you don't own their product? Not me, I'm sick of this. I'm ad free, and I'm staying that way.

This has been a long rant, thanks for reading!