Defending the Little Guy

Normally, I would watch news like this, and sympathise with the little guy.  In this case, Iran and Iranians are being forced out of Nuclear aspirations by the rest of the world - while we all use oil like it's going out of fashion.  Although oil has ceased to be fashionable, and keeps getting more difficult to come by (expense is a byword for ease of procurement, in this sense) the Iranians are being told to keep using oil, coal and gas to generate their power.

Let's say, as a bi-product of producing cleaner energy, Iran got hold of some nuclear weapons.  Let's just pretend that's what would happen, for a moment.  Iran loses all sense and bombs america.

What will happen?  Well, now the americans have developed missiles that can travel at mach 5 (this is an old article, but the successful tests have been replicated recently), it won't be long before they wedge a nuke onto it. So the leaders in Iran blow up Manhattan, then the americans destroy the entire middle east.

Maybe that scenario is somewhat drastic.  Let's run the simulation again.

Iranians blow up New York, americans annihilate the middle east.

No, you see, no matter how you play it out, there isn't going to be a microbe alive in Tehran, let alone a person.

Russia and america have all the nukes, so why can't the rest of the world?

Before you start saying something along the lines of, 'oh but Iran is a bad place and they're dictators and whatnot,' let's look around the world.  If you want to punish criminals and criminal behaviour, why don't we place embargoes on every single politician in England, and then work our way to america.  Lock up everyone who makes more than a few millions dollars a year, because there isn't a chance they didn't obtain their wealth legally - then make your way to Europe, where those at the helm of the union are lining their pockets illegally.

When you've enacted that period of cleaning, go find Sepp Blatter.  Put that crook in prison.  Someone, please, do that soon.

Then put Formula one in the hands of someone who doesn't suffer psychotic breaks whenever anyone talks about holding an american F1 round.

Then, when we've cleaned out our own rubbish, let's 'fix,' Africa.  There's a whole continent of dictators and despots hanging around there.

After that, the whole world will be infinitely better, and we can get to work on 'helping,' the middle-east.  There's naivety, then there's claiming we romp around the world murdering civilians in other countries for their own good.

But I digress - this was originally supposed to be about video games.

So the Iranians who play this game complained about it being a game, depicting what is going to happen to them in a few months.

My point would be this: obviously america is a psychopath who has Iran in its sights, so stop playing games and bloody run away.  Especially if you think that battlefield 3 will affect public opinion, because you know, we're all dumbasses here.

I was also asked to write something for a little book the sixth year teachers are making for their kids, as they're moving on into their new schools at the end of this year.

I wrote this, with the expectation that none of them can understand English.  I wrote it in the hope that some of the more curious (and frankly, more intelligent) students will ask what it means, and the teachers or parents can then translate for them.

I hope this year was fun for everyone.  English can be difficult, but it is important.  We don’t learn English to study for tests, we learn English to speak to other people.  If you meet new people, you will learn about yourself, Japan and the world.  I hope you will grow!

I enjoyed this year, and I hope you did too!

Don’t stop smiling!

J Sam J

How To Look Stupid

Normally, this title would be reserved for me.  Whether it's falling off my bike, walking into a post (usually groin first) or saying 'I love you,' instead of 'one pineapple please,' (often in Japanese, but sometimes to a very pretty grocers daughter) I'm fairly confident I could fill a thousand pages with ways to make yourself look stupid.  I do it regularly.

This post is something else entirely.  I read this (warning: it's very long) post by a game creator, who recently wrote this post for a gaming website.  I recommend reading both before continuing, or at least getting as far through them as possible.

I now have a confession to make.  At first, the original article made me rage.  It made me so angry that I had to stop halfway through (I've since finished it, through gritted teeth and much fist waving).  Not because the men were acting stupid, childish or immature, but because the woman involved was being so pathetic that it made my heart rate increase, my blood boil and any other metaphor related to anger.

When you examine the article, far from being a feminist superhero, she is actually a controlling, manipulative wench.  Here is why:  Her flowing tears were nothing to do with 'being objectified.'  She was expecting her boyfriend (whom she deliberately hides as being her boyfriend until the latter stages of the article, for dramatic effect) to jump into the fray to save her dignity/honour.  When he didn't share the same expectations as her, and didn't tell the idiot to shut up, she ran out of the room crying.  As exuberant feminists tend to do, she then examined the various relationships involved, checking to see if they were still worth her while.  If they don't defend my honour, what's the point in friends - that's exactly what she is saying.  Of course everyone is inherently selfish, and relationships of all forms are merely ways to improve ones own standing, physically, mentally or socially, but she expects the rest of the world to carry her views about life; when no one else does, she will cry and huff and puff and make everyone recognise their own mistakes.  Whether they want to be reformed or not, they will damn well accept it.

The continuation on Kotaku is almost incidental - her hyperbole filled rhetoric is not dissimilar to my own; it's based on opinion and skewed world-views, nothing more.  (Aside from her incorrect usage of misogyny (I can kind of understand it, it's sometimes misused even in mainstream media) belying the actual philogyny in her argument.)  Two things strike me - first, philogyny is underlined as being a misspelt word.  This means the powers that be determine hatred of men to be far less important than the hatred of women (the penalty for which is death, no compromises) and the wikipedia article I linked to philogyny is orders of magnitudes shorter than the antonym.  Equality for all!  Especially women.  Orwell is correct in any application of equality involving more than one group.  It will always be the case, I suppose.

Kotaku is a gaming website, written by a couple of interesting people, a couple of average writers, and a couple of morons, (generally changing positions when the mood takes me) but I never feel the need to go home crying when one of the morons starts saying things I don't like.

Instead I write a blog post about it.

Woah, hold your horses there sparky.  She did the same thing!  You are no better than her (directed at me, a strange sentence to write).

Except I didn't project my own insecurities onto my boyfriend in the form of a monumental guilt trip, while mislabeling a group of people in an attempt to tarnish an entire gender.

Also - stop trying to ruin my video games, you dumb bint.  Also - try a sports bra next time.

Thank you for your time.

(Towards the latter stages of this post, the rage became unbearable and I started writing random nonsense.  Couldn't help myself.)

Withdrawal Symptoms

So I've just realised that I've gone a month and a half without playing any computer games.

Not being able to play them is really frustrating, because a back-catalogue of stuff I really want to play is building up, and the longer I spend without the means to play these games, the more I'm going to miss.  Console games are okay, because you can pick them up whenever and wherever, but PC games are harder to play, especially online, past their selling date because fewer people play them, and no one stocks them for long.  PC gaming is in decline for sure, and aside from league of legends, around four games have come out that I can no longer find legitimate outlets for (and the illegitimate outlets won't serve them forever) and I'm gutted!  I've only just realised this because I haven't had time to sit down and do nothing lately.  What with my diseases and illnesses, I've realised that I need to get a computer (which I knew I needed anyway, in the long term) quite quickly, just for my own peace of mind, and for something to do in the interminable nights when I'm not going to the gym, or playing american football, or playing basketball... Oh wait - I don't have any time when I'm not doing something.

Anyway...  I need a computer.

In other news, my cold/man flu is getting  better, and I feel that tomorrow will herald the end of it.  Luckily the gym is closed tomorrow, so I can't do what I normally would, and thrash out the kinks in the gym - and make myself ill the very next day.

An extra day of doing not a lot squared.

Woop.

If I'm not completely cured by Monday I will give up and let the viruses win.

In entirely unrelated news; a friend of mine came up with an acronym for his workplace which is pretty cool (he's a game developer): JSTS - Just Ship That Shit - the wikipedia page will define it as meaning, 'to rush unpolished and underdeveloped software for the purpose of making money.'  Contributions welcome.