Readers Request - Fandoms, Self Care, Reviewers, and Gods of Egypt, Apparently

Well it's about that time again, folks. Every now and then I do like doing this reader-contribution blog, because you lot are funnier than I am, frankly.

But this time we've had a couple topics that demand a lot more attention, homework and space than others, so if it is an unbalanced read... hey, democracy at work.

Names removed to protect the innocent. Some suggestions trimmed down for sake of brevity.

*coughObligatoryboobiescough* - Thank you. I almost thought we'd have another Readers Request without boobies. You have put a smile on my face, mystery reply-merchant.

Which fandoms have you come across over the years that have left the best/worst impressions? - Problem is that every fandom has good people and bad people, and volume and metrics are fluid. But one of the fandoms I have been simultaneously disgusted and overjoyed with recently is Star Wars. So much of the fandom has showed such grace and welcome for changes and respected the spoiler warnings. And a small amount of it has turned into such loud and obnoxious man-babies... so I guess it is much like the human race.

If you could have have any animal adaptation like melded onto you what would you have? - Axolotl health regeneration. And maybe their little feeler things. They're awesome.

If you watched the trump state of the union address (really don't blame you if you didn't), how much of a train wreck did you find it to be? - I didn't, because the entire administration is a train wreck. And it just keeps ploughing on. Through the hospital. Through the nunnery. Through the school. It just isn't stopping, not for anything. It makes me sad, and angry, and tired, but the only way it all stops is if he ends up out, and if the people running him end up out. I saw a few highlights. You know the thing that really struck me? Him, applauding himself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why even the Zodiac Killer was a better repub candidate.

New A.I sex dolls...So when it's a doll or toy it's not cheating but when you factor in AI and that they can have personalities this will make things tricky. - Oooh so this is kinda one of the topics I love - not the sex doll part specifically but what makes sentience, what divides entities between thinking and simulation of thought, what makes one have a self. To get down to the brass tacks of it, and this is probably a good rule for life - ask your partner/s about it. Talk to them about it. Whatever it is. If you DEFINITELY know that they will try and knock you out for even thinking it? Yeah, put that back in the box, sentient doll or not. The problem comes from attitude. If Person A thinks something is okay and Person B doesn't - and it isn't obviously TOTALLY NOT OKAY, like moralistically - that is something for them to solve. Whether or not we should be programming sex toys that can think and feel, well that is a different matter; but I would say that if a personality has sentience and can think, that it gets the option of if it goes into the DildoMatic 19000 sexdroid or into the observation module of the next ISS shipment. Consent is important. If we're not okay with our sex toy deciding it doesn't want to be a sex toy, we probably shouldn't give it any AI whatsoever.

All the reasons why the Magicians is the best tv show - So I watched the trailer... and... I... am... going to watch a couple of episodes... and withhold judgement until then. The trailer doesn't impress me but I am wary of trailers, they're not made for me. Requesting Reader should be aware, I'm only doing this cos she was insistent and I trust 98% of her judgement.

I put one on your page! - Yes you did! That page of course is https://www.facebook.com/cultureshockwritersblock/ << My Facebook page!

how full of shit people are when they say "oh you just need to do some self care" - People are often full of shit when they lack knowledge on a topic but wade into it anyway. I've been told that my depression / rheumatoid / pulmonary fibrosis would be a lot better if I just did these simple things, all of which are straight out of a BuzzFeed headline. I think the people giving the advice think these things will genuinely help, which is sad, because of course they won't.

As 'the better half' has just been in hospital, how about an 'oldie but goody' and give us your take on what can do to stave off the privatization of the NHS... - What WE can do as people? We protest, we push, we write letters, we protest some more, but ultimately - those responsible and those who will profit from its sell-off can push it through without our say-so, and are even doing so already. What WE need to do is get the bastards out of the halls of power, before they can hand over the keys.

Favourite cake of: You / Your favourite hero / Your favourite villain / Random character of yours - Red velvet cake / Probably coffee & walnut / I can't PICK a favourite villain / Crowbar's favourite cake is plum wine served in a glass and without cake.

The commissioner of the NHL has had his position for 25 years. - Wow. That's either a good or a bad thing. Having done a little research, Gary Bettman looks like the kind of guy who is a semi-villain in a kid's movie about a local ice rink that is being bought up to be turned into a SUPER ARENA that won't have any room for kids to just skate around in. You know? Increased turnover is great, but labour problems and kinda forgetting where the sport came from - hard sell. But hey. It's not like he's the only rich man interfering with sports.

Gin! The cultural re-branding - It's super-popular now, even I've noticed this, and I don't really go out a whole lot. Used to be the thing you drank when you wanted to be super-sad, everyone knew it as Mother's Ruin. Now I see a lot of similarities with the way a proportion of the beer market has changed. Market on its differences, the craft that goes into making it, small makers, different varieties and flavours. It's like a hipster miracle but for a thing that I don't innately hate. (I mean I don't LIKE gin, but that's a taste thing. I don't hate the IDEA of gin.)

The recent super blue blood moon. - It was fucking cool, wasn't it? Looked absolutely great. And yet it was in the few days after that everything seemed stressy and tense. Full Moon Fever and all.

Who are some critics/reviewers whose work you like (and optional why or particular links) - For cinema and film, I am very fond of Every Frame A Painting, Movies With Mikey, Lessons From The Screenplay and Belated Media - mostly because they all speak thoughtful sense, without being weirdly judgemental, which I know sounds weird from a bunch of reviewers and critics. The other reviews I tend to pay attention to are GunPla - which my man at Shoky Reviews covers really tidily - and Transformers, which are very aptly and entertainingly brought into my life by the very metal Thew and the eternally chipper Emgo. You can get a lot worse video game yak than Dunkey, too.

Spice Girls. In general or a thought on their cultural significance - A lot of people liked them a lot. I wasn't one of those people. Ferociously successful, even for a pop group in a time when pop groups were expected to be. Crossed the Atlantic with relative ease. Unabashedly positive pro-girl message, Inspirational for a swathe of society. The upsides certainly overshadow the downside. Which is. Um. Basically the songwriting equivalent of mad libs.

Your take on hunting in a modern day society, considering all forms of hunting. - Practicality. You hunting an animal that is already profligate to survive and resource-gather? For yourself? Sure. You hunting a dangerous creature that needs to be put down for a larger good than its own existence? Sure. You hunting for a trophy? Go eat yourself. You going to kill a fox because you feel like it? Choke on yourself. I'm not against the concept of hunting, but like in every arena, wastefulness and pointlessness for ego stroking and other bullshit irks me. And hunting shit that simply won't recover? Putting animal civilisations to the sword, knowing that they are going extinct? Worst kind of fucking scum.

In light of what happened to me last year, and what [redacted] has been going through last 2 days, crowd funding at it's best. - While I am desperately sad that the world is in a state wherein to support ourselves and achieve things we need to rely on the kindness of others, my heart swells to see that those others step up to the plate. None of us have much, but when we have enough, we share what we have. We want to see people - people like us, who are struggling - do better. We want people to be okay. And if we could actually make society work that way, rather than just us; well, we'd be in a better situation.

Penis envy.. - I don't think penis envy exists. I think a keen awareness of injustice does. And if that injustice was classically associated with those on top having dicks, well, it's obviously the thing those with dicks would think. "Those womenfolk can't possibly just want to be treated as our equals," they would say, waving their glasses of brandy about and gesturing with cigars. "They must be jealous over this naked mole rat looking thing that is attached to our groins. And why WOULDN'T they be? Our penises are so glorious that, in an age wherein we will own hand-held objects that can transmit messages and even - AND EVEN - our likenesses across great distance, we should endeavour to show as MANY women as possible our particular assemblage of flesh! Yes, even the detestable little scrotal blob beneath! All of it! And they shall be SO jealous!"

The importance of nuance and context? - Absolutely critical. Every situation must be viewed in the context it exists, for clarity, for a full understanding of why it happens and what can be done about it. After all, we all exist in the context of the human race. That's something that needs to be considered whenever we make a decision. Another thing to consider is one of my favourite lines from Star Trek Discovery, which neatly covers something I often point out regarding morality and legality not being the same thing. "Universal law is for lackeys - context is for kings."

I would like to see your thoughtful and critical review of Gods of Egypt. (Tell you what, you write it and I’ll write one about everything I would do to fix it and make it better.) - ...I will begin this with a Fuck You for making me do this. That said. What follows is my thoughtful and critical review of Gods of Egypt.

Let it be known for the record that during the watching of this movie I didn't look anything up whatsoever. I think that to do some actual research into the aforementioned Gods of aforementioned Egypt would actually ruin the experience, as it is clearly not meant for anyone with even an amateur beginner's level grasp of Egypt as a historical and mythological entity. 

Right. So. 

Going into this film I expected very little, and yet, was disappointed by how precious little I was actually given. 

To address the very obvious elephant in the room, precisely two non-background people in this film actually looked like they could have been from Egypt. Neither of them were mortal. If we handwave the gods as getting a magic pass and being (mostly) white folks, then surely the mortals should reflect the actual ethnicity of the region, historically. Luckily, nobody who worked on this film has ever read a book, so we didn't have to see any of THAT awful forced diversity. 

On the topic of character, this film has no protagonist. We spend the entire movie hating everyone we are meant to like, or even the people we're meant to be indifferent to. The only person in this film I didn't want to see dead was Anubis. He was just doing his damn job, and kept getting interrupted by these gods who don't know how to behave. They keep talking about the rules of the Underworld, but those rules keep changing, for no apparent reason. Like Superman's strength, they change to suit the plot, moment to moment. 

The plot is as poorly written tripe as you can imagine. I'm fairly sure I read more complicated stories in primary school. Stories with character development. Characters that learn things, and learn not to do things. And if the overarching plot is bad, the actual script is lamentable. Even when delivered competently - which Gerard Butler seems to manage, no real competition mind - it is a sludge of cliche and bungled bullshit. When in the verbal grasp of the film's apparent mortal protagonist? Bek, I think his name was? Awful. Viscerally awful. It made me flinch, let alone cringe. 

But it's a fantasy action film, yes? So it's not meant to have a great story, or even a good script. It's meant to look great, exciting. It's meant to have feats of exceptional bravery and skill. It's meant to have stunning vistas and impressive backdrops with life-or-death struggle in centre stage. 

Whatever world this was set on, it was very, very varied. Full mangrove swamps. A city swathed in a fecundity of trees. A large grassy plain. A mountain with a forty-foot tall rock ring on top of it. An inky darkness with hard-to-see geographic features. Another inky darkness. Another inky darkness. And through it all, stunts and combat that seem to lack the basic understanding of how physics and motion works. 

The gimmick - each of the gods apparently being some kind of transformer that can turn into their classically-envisaged beast-head form - is...wasted. The design of each of them is competent, looking visceral, powerful. So when they go into battle with each other, we get some combat choreography and camera work that actually makes my head hurt. One cut per hit. Snapping from shot to shot, blink and you'll miss it. No sense of impact. No sense of harm done. No sense that this fight means anything at all. 

The message of the movie is that love is super important, and so is not killing your brother and trying to eat the entire world. 

This doesn't answer questions like - why is Set's slavery in making a huge monolith bad, while the slavery needed to build an ENTIRE METROPOLIS with RAISED STREETS FIFTY FEET ACROSS is okay? Why are the women in this film apparently just there to die or suffer for the benefit of the men or the plot? Why is the only black main character a literal Mystical Negro? Why was everyone in this movie aside from Anubis and Bek's poor girlfriend an irredeemable asshole? Why is Set a less believable bad guy than Don John from Much Ado? How do any of the cinematographers sleep at night knowing that at least a dozen shots in this film are basically travesties against the art? Why is Geoffrey Rush Ra? Why is any of this happening? HOW is any of this happening? 

We will never know. 

It still broke even at the box office.

That's it for this time, folks. Thank you for your input. Thank you for reading. And remember:

Don't watch Gods of Egypt.

Legs Twelve

Remember this blog right here, wherein I talked about the pair of ulcers I had on my legs?

Time for an update - and it's good news.

Sheldon (the painful, annoying blemish on my inner right ankle) has been closed and healed for a long while. The leg still bears the scar - it was a savage wound after all. Now, though, the primary discomfort that leg causes me is through the arthritis in the joints.

Lefty, though; Lefty, who I have had since almost 2010 - Lefty has been a constant source of piss-off and pain. Draining. Ugly. Requiring constant wrapping and pressure.

Up until earlier this week.

Lefty isn't an ulcer, now. He's not a wound. Now, he is considered a Previous Wound Site.

This means that, in a couple weeks, my left leg won't need to be bandaged up to the knee; it will have removable compression, the kind that comes off whenever I like.

It is a very, very odd feeling to think that something that has affected me for so long will soon be technically over. It will feel alien, I know, to lay in bed and not feel the sheets cling to compression bandaging. To be able to reach down and touch the back of my calf, without feeling elastic and cotton in the way.

The day I am told that I no longer need that compression, I may just break down in tears.

I can't even tell you how much better this will make my life.

It's all thanks to the NHS. Without them I would be in serious and severe debt or worse - just ignoring the problem until it goes away. I've seen what happens if you ignore a venous ulcer. It spreads. Then you get sepsis and they take off your leg.

I can't thank the medical staff who have treated me enough. First at Garfield Surgery, now sadly closed - then at Tower House Surgery. The many doctors and even more nurses that have helped me not only with Lefty and Sheldon, but also with the various and sundry other conditions I suffer from.

Onwards and upwards, right?

I'll post a picture sooner or later.

Drunk Uncle Doesn't Like Your New Star Wars

I've seen a few legit complaints about The Last Jedi, but I've seen a lot more that are - basically - the same old shit.

You know the shit of which I speak.

They're the reason why I am painfully aware of the term Forced Diversity, a string of syllables that comes packaged with its own brand of irony, which I will delve into in a moment. They're the ones that resent a character not being part of their acceptable list. "Wait, that guy just kissed ANOTHER guy? Why do they have to CROWBAR these (insert slur) into MY (insert name)? Why do they always have to be EVERYWHERE? Why do there have to be WOMEN everywhere? Ugh! (insert name) is RUINED!"

Sooooo okay.

Who amongst my readership has never heard of Eastenders? It's a long-running British soap opera, set in the east end of London. (Fun fact: most soap operas were labelled as such because they were sponsored by soap companies, because of course, daytime serials are mostly going to be watched by the woman of the house who does all the cleaning, right? Seriously, it's fucking everywhere.)

Eastenders has been running since 1985, and it's had over five thousand episodes, showing like five days a week or something. I don't watch it myself, but it was impossible to get away from knowing something about it back when I was a kid. A lot of our parents watched it, older siblings, the works.

Hands up who on my friends list has spent any time in the east end of London.

There weren't a lot of people of colour on Eastenders for as long as I was aware of it. Which, you know, coming from the Isle of Wight as I do - that didn't really seem that out-there to me. If you've ever been there, though - if you've been to most bits of London, in fairness, some more than others - you'd realise just how laughable that notion is.

Current demographics puts the population of London as being about 60% white folks - but if you take a look at distribution, most of them live around the outskirts of the Greater London area, the suburbs and such. So let's be conservative and say that Eastenders should probably have a fifty-fifty split.

It doesn't, obviously. And in the past, there's been kickbacks from the show introducing people of colour as characters. A couple years ago the producer - who has since quit - said that if he had to adhere to "box-ticking ethnic quotas", he'd resign.

Now doesn't that sentiment seem familiar?

Spoilers: Star Trek Discovery has two main characters, both men, in a relationship. I've heard this described as forced, too. Why do there HAVE to be a whole TWO gay/bi men on a starship with a standard crew compliment of about 140? It's the same thinking that led to complaints about Lieutenant Uhura, pressure to make her quit during the original series' first season, until she was talked down by none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr himself.

Herein we get to Forced Diversity.

Society built a wall, brick by brick, starting way back in history. It built a wall, and put everyone different to them on the other side of it. There, they stayed, because on one side of the wall - that was where all the money was, and all the political power. The walls stayed in place, because the people who could most effectively pull it down had no interest in doing so. As Dr King himself said - freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

As the world swings ever closer to the 2020s, more and more, we're starting to see media actually reflect the world we live in. It's work, though. It's hard. Pushing through the walls that were built to keep out everyone that isn't a middle-aged middle-class white cis het male. There's a lot of those walls still standing, obviously - and so any reflection of the actual diversity of the world, even taking steps toward such diversity, HAS to be forced. It has to be forced against mandate, against the preconceived notion that the main character in the movie has to be a white dude.

It has to be forced against the people who decided to make a cut of The Last Jedi without any women on it, because there's no women in space, or something. It has to be forced against people who believe there's just no LGBTQA people anywhere, so they shouldn't be in movies or on TV or in comic books. It has to be forced past the decision-makers who decided that a forthcoming Netflix series based on Journey To The West (a classically Chinese story) only needed a single Asian actor. (Who is playing Sun Wukong for fuck's sake, I mean if any of the actors in a story about the MONKEY GOD can get away with not necessarily being Chinese, it's the MONKEY GOD. It's like the fuckup cherry on top of a fuckup cake.)

A lot of more conservative right-leaning folks like to make the argument that seeing LGBTQA folks or people of colour or anything that isn't them in a piece of media is some kind of values-pushing. Like their lack of acceptance is a position that deserves defending, and that any show of how reality actually works in the face of that position is an attack on them personally. I suppose that leads to the belief that the very existence of a black woman in Star Trek is likewise a personal attack, let alone a gay couple.

Well, feel free to tune yourselves out.

Because this is how the world is, how the world actually is, and the desperate scramble to try and keep it off of our movie screens and comic book pages is just another paroxysm of bigots losing their grip on our lives, an inch at a time.

You feel free to keep making your fan edits, and to keep cutting things out that you don't like. Get creative with it. Apply yourselves! Write a better movie, a better novel, a better show format, that only includes the things YOU want to exist. Go ahead and get it made.

We'll be over here celebrating the release of Black Panther, and ignoring your 47 minute misogyny-cut of Star Wars.

Sell Out With Me

Let me tell you something, dear reader - I am a two-faced hypocrite.

No, I am, and let me tell you why.

If you go back through my blog history you will see a variety of responses to The Way The World Works (tm). You will find that a great many of them lean quite far to the left, and are critical of - amongst other things - corporate hegemony and supremacy.

So...how does a man that likes all this... claim to have a half-decent work ethic?

Isn't the entire idea of a work ethic antithetical to the resistance against the environment which requires a work ethic? Can someone really take pride in being on time and putting in good hours when they regularly speak against the concept that employment as it stands in this day and age is inherently anti-person?

You know, I actually used to struggle with this one. When I was a teenager I couldn't see how someone could work and be against the system that makes work a necessity, because I lacked nuance - or the foresight that I could sit around and yell about business sins all I wanted, I still had to eat, and I probably needed shelter.

Okay so peep this: under the current system, if you're not in the capital class, you work or you die. If you can't work, the state is allegedly meant to help you, though it takes every single opportunity not to. If you can't FIND work, the state is allegedly meant to help you, though it takes every single opportunity not to. If you just don't want to -

Well that's it, you're done. You work or you die.

(I predict that a minority of those who read my blog at this point will take off on the point of some people living on benefits that don't deserve to. Frankly - yawn. Look up some figures about tax avoidance and get back to me.)

So. Given that we have to work - because everything costs money - we are all in the same position. Everyone below a certain level has to put in the hours, and that means that we have to rely on each other in order to succeed.

This is even more important when businesses tighten their belts, as many of them seem to do constantly. Staffing levels slowly slowly slip downwards, the remaining staff left to cope with an increasing workload because they've coped with the other workloads before. Cuts in provision leaving gaps that the individual employees have to fill. The thin end of a wedge, of trying to reduce costs while providing the same service.

Here is where work ethic comes in.

Basically - you can spin it as respect to the business, respect to the image or brand or whatever else. What it is, is respect to the person next to you. Did a Grecian Phalanx learn how to lift his shield properly to honour the city-state he was from? No. He learned the positioning of his shield to defend the dude to his left.

So you turn up on time, and you put in the work, because if you don't, then someone else on your team has to. You make sure your work is decent quality, because otherwise your team suffers. Because that's how we survive. We band together in our groups, and we hang tough, because not doing so will lead to difficulties.

We don't do so blindly. We should know and understand that this isn't the ideal way for a world to work, and we should educate ourselves and others on ways this can change. That is why we aren't doing this (and doing this well) for the logo or the suit. We're doing this for the people to our left and our right, who are earning a wage just like the rest of us are. We show up and we work, and we do so together.

We also owe it to ourselves to know our rights, to know where we go if there is an abuse happening. To know that we are protected if something happens, that we can find that protection and that it isn't withheld from us. And just as hard as we work, just as early as we rock up to the office, we should also work hard to make sure those rights are defended and expanded.

It's not about the business. It's about us, as workers.

Lemme tell you a secret: if the business sees the value in your work, rather than your kowtowing to the flag or repeating the spiel, then it's a step up. It means that you and yours that support and amplify each other are going to get recognised for doing that.

Yes, we know that the surplus value created by our hands props up an entirely different class of people. Yes, we know that changing this is key, that inducing a change in the accumulation of power and wealth is how we as a race survive this phase of our existence.

But until such a time as we can do that - and we do need to be PREPARED to do that, and read up on what it means and how it happens - we stand side by side and we put in the hours.

I can do both.

Cinemoments

Baby Driver is one of the best films I have ever seen, and I will tell you why.

It's not the gunfights that are perfectly set to the beats of the soundtrack - and that soundtrack is, for narrative reasons, very VERY important.

It's not the sheer stylistic brilliance of the thing - every look and every aesthetic slotting neatly into a world that feels just absolutely right.

It's not even the pitch-perfect performances of every single actor involved in the piece, and I can almost always find at least one performance in a film that lets it down, in this case that just didn't happen.

It's the small touches.

The difference between a mediocre film and a good film are in the large swathes - the vision of the director, the production, the performances of the actors, the writing. There's big steps between something generic and forgettable, and something genuinely good. It's rare that a movie can be taken from a mental rating of well-whatever to something that people actually enjoy watching simply by a deft touch of camera work or the use of a particular song.

But the step between a good film and a great film is the little touches, the small stuff. The tiny things that you might not even notice first time round.

For example:

Baby talking to Debora in Baby Driver about songs about a girl called Debora. He mentions there's two, and one of them is by Trex.

"You mean T. Rex?"

"Oh. Yeah."

This guy knows so much of this good old music - his ipods filled with Commodores and Carla Thomas and the Detroit Emeralds and Martha Reeves - but he doesn't know that the band's name is T. Rex? Until you work out why.

Old guy that he looks after is deaf and dumb. Old guy who owns all of these old vinyls, that he obviously grew up around and that informed his musical tastes. And they communicate via sign language, right? So does the guy sign out T dot space R E X?

No. He signs T R E X.

Trex.

It's moments like realising that the graffiti on the walls is the lyrics to the song that Baby is listening to as he walks down the street to buy coffee, which only makes the Harlem Shuffle better.

It's moments like when the action of a character defies a stereotype that you thought they were built into - a moment's consideration for a human being from an otherwise unsympathetic character, someone doing something smart when you thought they would do something dumb. Moments of defying expectations that you realise have been built into your cinematic experience by watching mediocre films.

It's moments wherein you are brought to realise what is going on just at the right time, simply by subtlety - a shot, a turn of phrase, a sound mix, a focus on a single part of the scene. And you realise just before the movie tells you, and thus you get this rush of adrenaline which you are rewarded for immediately by confirming what you suspect.

There's some stuff that I can't talk about for fear of spoiling the film, but suffice to say - Baby Driver will probably surprise you, and will certainly make you feel better for having watched it at all.

It's not alone in possessing this greatness.

Something I adored in Blade Runner 2049 that may well have annoyed other people was the fact that some scenes ran longer than they strictly needed to. It was a slow, languid invitation into the world that is on the screen. It's an exploration, a thing that is happening, rather than a rush through a story.

Arrival. It's not about what you think it is about, and the moment in which you realise that is so rewarding because the entire world just slots into place all over again - like you just realised the jigsaw puzzle is double-sided.

It's the sense of humour in Thor Ragnarok, which is its own weird kookiness that makes a character previously rather stiff and tired into someone a lot more whole and believable, and makes his new friends all the more entrancing to watch and listen to.

It's the moments of irreverence in The Last Jedi. The moments that show you better than anything else who these people are, and that these people aren't necessarily who you assumed they are.

It's the sound in the world around Michael Corleone fading away to a hissing tension as he sits down to dinner with two men that he knows he is about to kill. It's the look on his face as he wonders if he can, debates if he should - and then knows he is going to.

It's the nerve-shredding tension of the shrill beeping of the motion trackers in Aliens, a noise so perfectly pitched that it ramps anxiety with ease.

It's the choice of colourising the girl's red coat in Schindler's List.

Just a thought, anyway.

Exit Stage Left

Well, 2017 eh? What a year that was.

It's been a hell of a time. A lot has happened. Some good, a lot bad, a lot just...tragic.

The political landscape looks much like the field outside of Minas Tirith circa Return Of The King. Geopolitics isn't much different. There's protests in Iran, Russia's doing something but for the life of me I'm not sold on what, North Korea is being North Korea, Europe is getting bored of our shit, and literally everyone is getting bored of Drumpf's shit.

Some good media came out this year. Some bad media too, but let's not dwell.

Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man Homecoming and Blade Runner 2049 just blew me away - I haven't even seen the new Star Wars yet. Also I don't care what anyone says, I enjoyed Alien Covenant. Been some good music out, too - the most recent Gorillaz album in particular, P.O.S' new stuff, the Robots With Rayguns Slow Jams album. The first half of Star Trek Discovery's first season was stellar (pun intended). The new season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000? GENIUS. And signed for another season following. Magnificent. The Expanse, too - can't wait for Season 3 of that.

The people I know went through some times. A lot of it good, a lot of it bad. Lot of marriages, lot of kids, and all power to you folks starting out in your brand new phases of life. I hope it is every bit the happy journey you want it to be. People moving house. People moving up in the world. Doing things they never thought they would get the chance to do. Life got more difficult for a lot of people I know, sometimes in small ways, sometimes bigger. A lot of my mental health people have had hardship this year, me included, and my sympathies and empathy to all of you.

Nine Worlds was great. It usually is but this year in particular was fantastic.  I'm starting to get the hang of it now. 2018 will be even better, I'm sure.

I didn't build enough gunpla. I need to fix that.

What do I intend for 2018?

I don't do resolutions any more. There's no such thing as a new me just waiting for the new year to come along. I just intend on trying to keep myself alive, keeping myself as mentally and physically healthy as possible, keeping up my good work. Write more. Maybe get in some live music. Build more gunpla. Do more things that make me happy. See people more. Don't let my various and sundry health issues get in the way of any of that.

Sounds... well okay it doesn't sound like the hardest thing ever, but you know. It is what it is.

Happy new year, folks. Let's hope that 2018 is less cruel than 2017 was.

Microbial Conflict

So since...actually a few days before the last blog, I have been sick as a dog.

Chest infection, basically - with a few caveats. Like, I've had so many chest infections that they all feel a little different, but this one hit harder than most. Not quite pneumonia. I've had pneumonia. That shit almost killed me. Most chest infections, I get over relatively quickly. This one has put me totally on my ass.

Right before Christmas.

I don't need to do another blog about my feelings about the holiday. It's pretty obvious to anyone.

Frankly there are worse times for this to happen. I'd have had to miss at least two weeks work with this shit. That's not much fun, but right now hours are a little quiet, so I'll take the hacking crud now.

Still, there are better times, too. I want to do things. I want to go see people. I want to be the sociable person people are expected to be round about the bottom half of December. I want to see The Last Jedi for god's sake, and no, I haven't seen it yet, and if you spoil it for me any more than has ALREADY been done, I will do a manslaughter.

Also means that I am glad I did 90% of my Christmas shopping back in November, but cursing myself that the cards and such I left so late. Because I am an imbecile. Nevermind, that is taken care of now.

What this has meant, is that I've had a lot of time to sit around, while my lungs drain in the natural (noisy) way.

I've spent a lot of time on Twitter, expanded my follow list, found some people who actually made me laugh until I was almost sick on multiple occasions, and remembered the bits of me that actually liked just chatting shit about Transformers.

I've tried to write. That's not gone well. I've spent a lot of time turning ideas over in my hands like the dude in L.A. Noire while the stupid fucking music plays in the background and having precious little result (aside from his clueless ass muttering things like "This Doesn't Help Me").

I've read a lot of books. The new James S. A. Corey "Persepolis Rising" (stellar go read it right now), Jeff Vandermeer's "Annihilation" (stellar need to read the two sequels before the movie comes out I need them in my life), and re-reading Richard Morgan's books before Altered Carbon comes out (stellar).

I haven't played a lot of video games. Mostly Stellaris. Anything first-person has been making me super dizzy.

I've listened to a LOT of music.

And I've had a lot of time to consider the state of the world, my place in it, and various other things that generally shouldn't be done while on the natural endorphin crash of being ill as hell.

And I've decided that if I can mentally survive being in that place for a little bit, then honestly I'm gonna be just fine.

I'm not gonna kid you, there's been a few very, very dark hours recently. A lot of barrels that I've seen the bottom of from the inside.

I'm okay though. I'm still here. I'm in one piece. (DA DAAAA DAAAADAAA DADADA actually that's only an injoke you'll get if you've hung out with me and my homies or if you've seen One Piece sorry)

It's just been a little rough, is all.

This would seriously ruin Christmas if I even cared about it. But I know that you folks do, or at least, some of you.

Happy Holidays, internet. Be good to each other, make smart choices, and let's make 2018 better for everyone.