The Pursuit of Happiness

By now you're maybe expecting a real update, which this is not. But in just a few minutes, if you do exactly as I say, chances are good you will have wet yourself laughing. Because I've just read the most hysterical thing I've seen in as long as I can remember, and then I naturally got the urgent desire to share it with you lot. And thus, this post happened.

Who would have guessed that one of the funniest comics ever could be found under the hood of one of the crappiest? And all it took was to rip the main character out of it! Amazing. And so I give you: Garfield Minus Garfield, which made me cry of laughter. Cry, I say! Click the link and enjoy.

I knew the internet was good for something.

Tits of Terror

Recently I saw this movie called "the Wicker Man". If any of you are thinking "oh yeah man, that's a classic, the greatest soft porn/cult thriller musical ever" and so on and so forth, let me just nip that in the bud right now: I'm talking about the Nick Cage version, m'kay? You know, the one that's so horribly awful that killing yourself (slowly, with a piece of papyrus) seems like a more pleasurable alternative? Right, now we're on the same page.

So, now that we've established that we're talking about a pretty rottensome moving picture, the question still remains: Why am I blogging about it? There's a million movies out there bad enough to warrant suicide, and it probably takes more time and effort writing a post like this than "the Wicker Man" took from idea to finished product. So, why I am spending my, and your, valuable time on this? The answer is simple: Because it pissed me the fuck off.

Now, I'm as chauvinistic as the next male, and this movie still managed to offend me on these simple grounds: It's pure misogynist drivel from start to finish. My oh my, Billy-Bob, that's a big word, you might think. But basically, I'm offended by the movies latent (well, maybe "obvious" would be a more fitting word) view of women-folk. As some of you may know, women is a race of creatures closely related to people. This movie, however, treats them as suckling at the teets of Satan herself, or even worse, whipping out said teets for themselves to suckle (the observant reader will deduct that I'm actually claiming the movie depicts women sucking their own tits while feeding small children dismembered phalloses (phalli?), which is not as far off the mark as one might expect).

There are many ways in which one gets this impression. The most prominent is the peculiar way the island which the protagonist (Nick the Dick) visits is run by women. By women! The disgrace! There must be something foul afoot! Don't worry, there sure is. All the men are lame ducks (or limp dicks, whatever you prefer), and all the women are mysterious and scary. Their leaders are strong in that feminine, cowardly way; they are master manipulators. But when push comes to show, they are physically inferior to, and easily beaten up by, the mighty man. I'm not kidding you here, Mr. Penis gracefully kicks the asses of several women for no apparent reason (in one stand-out scene he walks up to his daughter, who's tied to a tree, and punches a woman standing next to her in the face. He does this despite the fact that he's a police officer with a badge and a gun, and the woman makes no threatening gestures aside from, possibly, secretly considering menstruating on his leg. If memory serves, which I have a hard time actually believing myself, he is also, in said scene, dressed as a bear).

There is, however, one woman who's not a murdering psycho on this island. She is Nickys ex-wife, and is quite the independent lady, more than capable of looking after herself and her daughter..
KIDDING! She's scared, a pussy (quite literally) who needs the MAN before she's able to do anything, let alone going to the toilet or step across a tiny puddle. Only she's not, really. She's just fucking with him. And his daughter, as well. They're ALL fucking with him. Just like all women constantly fuck with all men. You know they can't be trusted. Luckily we're strong enough to give them bleeding bitches a good old thrashing! In fact, I say all of us manly men go out RIGHT NOW, and TAKE IT TO THE STREETS! CAN YOU DIG IT?

...

..sorry about that, I got a bit carried away. Anyway, to recap:

The message of the movie is this: Women are all worshippers of some strange, old alien-god, devouring and feeding on masculine energy, and they despise all healthy values like physical strength, logic, and fetishist porn. In fact, one day, when artificial insemination of men becomes possible, we should just wipe them all out. Meanwhile, if we can't imprison them, at least we can continue to oppress them. And let's just pray they never get any real power.

'Cause then we'll all burn.

Six Degrees of Speculation

I generally don't follow the news. This is not only because I'm some spoiled youth wallowing in my own decadence, but mostly because I think it's badly plotted, the characters are cardboard cut-outs, and there's way too little nudity. Besides, every time I turn the fucking thing on, whatever's there pisses me way the fuck off almost instantly.
Example: The Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen case. Wait, make that: The latest Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen case (there was one earlier, causing her to have to step down from some important job or other. No biggie, really, and absotively, posilutely no connection to this one whatsoever. Seriously. It's not like there's a lot of politicians and media types in this country who dislikes her strongly, or anything. That's crazy talk!). Of course, this is a local case, for local people, so I should probably explain some things first, before diving dick-first into the hay ball of insanity that is: The Media Circus. Here all week!

Here we go: Miss Manuela, who is the minister of children and family (no fucking way am I gonna bother finding the correct English phrases for these people. I may not have a life, but I have movies to watch and commercials to shout at) in Norway hired this lawyer-woman, Ida Hjort-Kraby for the position of children's rights watchdog. Big mistake! Turns out they know each other already! Who'd've thunk it? Women! Lawyers! Knowing each other! In a country wherein lives a massive 5 million! Call the papers! Wait, they did! And so the joke ends and reality begins.

Moving on: Some reports started to surface, the point here being that Manuela was supposed to be close and personal with this beast-woman, thereby making herself inhabile in all hiring matters and whatnot. Anyway, politicians and media alike descended on this rotting carcass of a pointless case like investigative carrion-eaters. The next few days (that is last few days, by the way), Norwegian papers were flooded with headliners like this: "WERE AT THE SAME PARTY IN 1998", "USES THE SAME PLUMBER", "ATTENDS NEIGHBORING MUFF-DIVING CLUBS" and so on. I kid you (almost) not! They had all sorts of charts and shit, reading them was like watching a snake trying to give directions while slowly going insane.

Time for the conclusion: The women know each other, and they have for 20 years or so. They may be friends, but they're certainly not muff-diving together (and we all know that's what true friends are for). Manuela might've known the law-rider as a capable one, maybe even as a pleasant individual, or maybe not. Who cares. Society has been contact-driven for millennia, and so far it's worked out well enough. I mean, maybe we have some clubs of, oh, say, politicians, artists, baby seal washers and what have you, but it's not exactly Eastern Europe, is it? Actually, when I think about it, this is hardly news at all - people in power hiring acquaintances for equally high-powered jobs? Haha, silly, silly media, whatever were you thinking?

Wait a second. You don't think..? No, that's impossible.. isn't it? It couldn't be.. could it?

The reason this case has made such a hot fuzz, there's absolutely no chance it's because they're women, is it? And that Manuela is coloured, and from a country that is not, and never will be, Norway?

...

..no, of course not. That's crazy talk.

Fear is the Fun-Filler

I tell you, people are afraid of everything. Just the other day, I was talking to a colleague when the conversation turned to VHS players, and I offered the insightful bit of trivia that a friend of mine reputedly owns wall-to-wall of horror films in this jurassic-era video format. Why I said this I have no idea, but it's my general impression that everyone enjoys spouting useless bits of information, constantly, and so I guess I do, too. Anyway, no matter why I said it, I certainly did not expect a reaction like the one she had: She was surprised that someone would watch that many horror films, and wondered if he still is right in the head. She actually seemed to believe that watching lots and lots of video nasties would automatically turn one into a babbling psychotic child-molester or something. I had to assure her that, not only is he still somewhat sane, he is also probably the most likable person I know. This may say something about my circle of friends, but that's beside the point. I also felt it would be wise to inform her that I, myself, probably saw more R-rated movies when I was 12 than I've done since I turned 18. Since I presently work as a middle-school teacher this information should probably not have been disclosed, but what can you do?

I can understand the worry that young children might (allow me to stress the maybe here) be influenced by watching violent movies, or playing violent games, or listening to classical music. But if people start to assume that naughty art automatically makes naughty people, we, and by "we" I mean society in general, have got ourselves a serious problem. Debating what effect violent imagery could have on someones mind, be it a child or just some simpleton like yourself, is justifiable. But slandering isn't. If you can't think twice about something before you make up your mind, then you don't deserve the right to. If you want to live in fear, go live underneath a rollercoaster. Stop worrying about things you aren't qualified to worry about, because if you do, you make your whole culture seem like it's fostering idiots. And you don't want that, do you? We sure don't.

Do you have an Ironic Erection yet? Because mine is massive. After all, why do we watch horror films? Well, aside from getting our sadistic, misogynistic kicks, I mean? To be frightened. And if you've become too hardened and can't get your scares anymore, at least you can console yourself with the fact that the way you choose to spend your (hopefully deserved) spare time induces nightmares in middle-aged housewives all over the world.

Yeah, I thought you'd like that.

Youtube Interlude

This is just plain weird. At first I thought it was supposed to be ironic, and then I realised it simply needs more cowbell..

..okay, so when you're done with that link, you need to see this.

Enough.

Standing on the edge, gazing back at tomorrow

I finally did it. I gave in to the mob. I buckled under the immense pressure I was put under, by thousands of people, mostly worshippers, from all over the world, and..

..well, okay, so there wasn't that much pressure. All right, I admit it, it wash more of a.. gentle push. Yes well, fine, so it was a barely noticeable nudge, but still, it did the job, didn't it? It got me eating out of the dying carcass of that most horrible of time-wasting beasts, the social networking site. More specifically, I now have a facebook profile. And no, I'm not going to link to it, because there's hardly a point, is there? It's not like there's anything remotely interesting to see there. Not like all these other profiles I've now discovered: These sprawling, bling-laden, novel-sized monoliths of social desperation.. no wonder all my friends've been so distant over the last year. Seriously, some of these profiles read like P. Diddys to-do list, or a teenagers autobiography or something. It's so full of pointlessness it makes my heart despair just thinking about it. Is this what we have become? When the human race finally goes down for good, it's not going to be because of melting polar caps or nuclear annihilation, it'll be because of Facebook and World of Fucking Warcraft. Some alien race or evolved monkey will find our fossilized remains, just as we're taking yet another personality test or nudging (and by all that is holy, what kind of moronic concept is that? I would make some kind of joke out of it, but i really don't feel like it's necessary) some fancy fuck we haven't met or even tried to make contact with for years. Do you really want to be discovered like that? Frozen forever, in the process of finding out what kind of shoe you are or how many people likes the same dodgy sexual positions as you?

Obviously, the answer is yes. If not, none of us would be here, after all. We would be outside, being creative, doing something worthwhile, trying to make the world a slightly better place while desperately ignoring the futility of our efforts. When we died, it would be with a smile on our lips, not a smug one or a giant grin, but a smile of contentment, of reserved happiness. Instead we're going out with our hands on our dicks and cigarettes on our lips. I write this and make no contribution to the mental well-being of the world, none whatsoever. You read this and you prove that you're just slaking your thirst for mindless entertainment, and you're too damn lazy to find some of quality. Maybe you should do yourself a favor, go read things like this. It might (and allow me to stress the might here, since it's obviously too early to say for sure) expand your mind a bit, make you see life from a different, maybe even dizzying, angle. It's worth keeping an eye on, for sure.

But, you know, don't mind me. I'm just bitter because I'll probably end up with less than 10 friends (roughly 1% as much as the average social networking site user, according to studies I just made up), three nudges and no pointless profile-bling. And as we all know, if you fail at social networking, u f@il @ l1f3.

Everybody, sell your body to the man

I've recently been through that horrible, horrible process of trying to land a job. Again. And it seems that every time I try it, the whole thing finds a new, innovative way to suck.

A short disposition may be in order: I sent my application, got called in to an interview, screwed it up a bit by being too nervous, and didn't really expect to get the job. And I didn't. But the thing that really hit a nerve was the way of the rebuff: I was told I "didn't manage to sell myself" to their satisfaction. OK, time out. What?

I was supposed to sell myself?

Call me old fashioned, call me naive, but I actually thought the point of an interview was for the prospective employer to gain some insight into the personality of the prospective employee, in order to decide whether he or she would be right for the job in question. But apparently, the people responsible for hiring new people have all been given the title of "Executive Pimp". When did this happen?

I'll be the first to admit that it's obviously easier holding a dick-sucking contest (possibly replacing the actual dicks with similarly shaped household objects) and letting the winner get the position, than to actually figure out if the person is who (s)he says (s)he is, but it still seems kinda cheap to me. So I decided to give it a go myself. After careful consideration, I chose to not send the following in response to the rude rejection, but I see no reason not to share it with you lot. So, here's me, selling myself:

Dear sirs and sirettes,
you have chosen to turn down my application for [the position]. This is a mistake. You say you've found two persons whom you believe will fit your team. You are wrong. Let me enlighten you as to why:

The truth is, one of the persons you're about to hire has no work ethics. They will rip open a deck of cards as soon as you're not looking. Surely, you must have noticed, during their "interview", their eyes darting nervously from side to side, looking desperately for the exit in case you should happen to see through their lies. And what lies! Did you know, dear sirs and sirettes, that the persons you have chosen to hire is widely known for their furniture-chewing habits? I, on the other hand, have never chewed on a single piece of furniture in my life. Not even a table!

So, dear sirs and sirettes, perhaps you should reconsider your decision. After all, would you rather hire an infamous furniture-chewer? Or a man widely regarded by friends, family, and even far-flung relatives as the most efficient worker who has ever lived, and who has never chewed anything that nature did not create specifically for chewing? The answer should, by now, be obvious.

Awaiting your shameful apologies with graceful mercy,
Mr. the Sleeper.

The Birth of a Nation

This post was, as the title implies, supposed to be about my newly founded country over at NationStates. "Watch a fledgling, innocent country grow wise and prosper!", I was going to write. "Be there at the beginning, at the dawn of a new era of political wisdom and wise awesomeness!"

Right.

Since this was well over three weeks ago, and the proud Principality of Moronoobia (excuse the lame name, but all the good ones were taken) has grown a lot since then, this post is now about something slightly different: My 3-weeks-old country over at NationStates. Anyway, I invite those of you who care to follow its development, even if it's no longer as funky fresh as it once was. You see, this political simulator (or whatever the hell you want to call it) gives one the option to run a country any way one likes, so you can be a crazy, evil dictator, like Bush, or a fair and groovy leader, like Saddam.

In a surprising twist, I'm not going to run Moronoobia into the ground in the most hilariously sick and rotten way available (although it's certainly tempting). In fact, I am pretty much trying to make the perfect country (according to the almighty Me, of course), which, obviously, is kinda hard. NationStates politics, like real world politics, is made in such a way that any wise decision comes with some sort of backside. The unintentional consequences (again, much like the real world) makes the whole game/simulator/thingy that much more fun, but they can still be annoying when you're an evil old bastard with a shriveled heart trying to make Utopia, like me.

So now that's over with, my next move would be trying to make today's youth (which would be you, probably) to give it a go themselves. Go on, don't be shy, make your own country today! Tomorrow, you can wreck it and piss on the pieces!

Now, if only there was a simulator where you could control an actual, real-world country.. or maybe I could apply as a presidential candidate, using Moronoobia for my CV?

Poem to the People

A sudden burst of inspiration compelled me to write a short poem. Here it is:

Fear is the mindkiller
If you just stop and face it
If you turn and embrace it
Then
you
will
get
eaten

It might be called "Fear is the painkiller" or it might be called nothing at all, FYI. You're probably wondering about why I chose to split that last sentence the way I did. A stroke of genius, you say? The truth is, it was simply a way to make a rather bad punchline seem more poem-y. But now, some news (for those who still care): I have not forgotten about this blog the way its readers have. In fact, I have a pretty damn large post about Bioshock lying silently in wait on my hard drive. I tried to post it before, but Blogger and MS Word are not on particularly friendly terms, it would seem, and I hadn't really the stamina to reformat the bastard. But it's on the way, rest assured. This is probably the last time I'm going to promise Big Action Updates, if I don't stand and deliver it's goodbye and goodnight. Now it's make or break, hide the salami time for Angry-La!

Back to what's really important here: My poem. Neat, isn't it? Discuss.

Strange news from another hospital

They didn't find what they were looking for. On the plus side, this means I'm not allergic to beer, which is a good thing, because I fucking love beer. But it also means I'm going to have a plastic tube stuck up my ass at some point in the near future. This I'm less enthusiastic about. I guess I'll have to come prepared, and bring a couple of six packs.

Without going into detail about what could possibly be wrong with me (aside from the well-known fact that a have the psyche of an earthworm during a rainstorm), I'll just say that I'm at my wit's end, and just a tiny step away from consulting a giant Finnish witch-doctor with a mustache. I've bought a bag of animal bones from this "alternative shop" down the street, I've slaughtered an unlucky pigeon and poured it's blood over my erect penis (in preparation for the ritual of masturbating to a mental picture of Mother Earth), and for the next week I'm not going to eat anything that's dead. And as some of you may know, it's really hard to eat animals when they're still alive; they keep moving around.

What I learned today, on my way to work

Hospitals exists for one single purpose: To destroy its patients' dignity. It's a lesson in humiliation, dished out by vaguely amused doctors and nurses. Not that I'm complaining about the hospitality (hah!) I was treated with today, it's the procedure itself I had a problem with.

Why? I'll tell you why, you nosy bastards: I had a plastic tube, with a camera and a fucking grappling hook attached to it, stuck down through my throat, all the way into the stomach, for what felt like an hour or so (give or take 50 minutes). In addition, my stomach was inflated and deflated, seemingly at random, and the hook was nibbling my small intestine a number of times. I'm pretty sure humans weren't designed for this sort of treatment, not originally, at least. Ever seen a fish on land? Yeah, that was me. I lay there, wheezing and gurgling because I needed to distract myself from the fact I was getting orally fucked by a piece of plastic.
BTW: I know what you're all wondering, but no, I didn't look at the screen. I didn't have the stomach for it (double hah!).

But then - whey! - procedure over. Oh well, that was horrible, I though, but at least I've done that now. One more uncomfortable experience in the bag, right? It wasn't even reason good enough to write all that about dignity and humiliation at the start of this post, right? Right?

At that point, the doctor (who, we must remember, in case she accidentally reads this thing, was nice, supportive, and seemingly very quick and professional) said the following to me: "And if we don't find what we're looking for, we'll go in the other way."

Asphinctersayswhat?

Let's have a fucking time out here. That is never going to happen. It just isn't.

Sinners, beware!

This is just fucking brilliant, on so many levels.

Word of warning: After playing the intro (which is AWESOME!) my browser decided it'd had enough, and killed itself. Can't really blame it, though. This means, however, that I have no idea what's actually on the site, but I'm sure it's pure fucking gold.

As a bonus, but only for Norwegians (which is truly a shame, since it's great), here's a link to a speech on Christianity held by a famous Norwegian Warrior-Poet in 1933.

What are you waiting for? Exercise your brain-organ, you damn monkeys! Go! Go!

Facebook Knows What You Is Up To

Quick hit: A lot of people have wanted me to get a Facebook account recently. Turns out the Broken Saints guys have experienced the same, and on their blog I just saw this..

Also, how come everybody and their grandmas have got on this thing suddenly? Us skeptics will have the last laugh, methinks.

Coincidentssesss

Something strange: At work the other day (I'm copying job ads from pdf-files and magically putting them on the internet) I overheard one of the salespeople at my department mention a familiar name. It was the name of the folk high school (look people, I have no idea how to translate that properly. It's a kind of one-year, optional playschool we have in Scandinavia, after high school, where we are supposed to evolve as human beings and express ourselves creatively, but most people just end up drinking lots of beer) I went to six years ago, and found this amusing. I didn't think much about it, though, until I was handed this ad, and told to, magically, make it appear on the internet. It turned out to be the very same school, and they were looking for a new principal.

I was dumbstruck. Call me soft if that makes you feel better, but I have fond memories of my time at Skjeberg, and seeing the natural order of things disturbed in such a way makes me a bit uneasy. That Mr. Skjeberg himself is retiring is just plain wrong. I have been patient with this so-called "time" for a while now, but I've had it. It needs to stop. It's bad enough that it's making me slightly older, but now it's starting to mess with things that should not be changed. I fear for the very fabric of reality.

Also, his successor has got some pretty big shoes to fill, so let's hope he has large, smelly feet (actually, the smell just comes naturally with having big feet). And another also: Is it really a coincident that the principals of both my high school and my folk high school (a direct translation that still doesn't sit quite right) has the same first name? I strongly doubt it. Also (again), I am about to read about principalities in Machiavellis The Prince. Make of this what you will. I choose to hide, for the time being.

Were these strange happenings strange enough to justify an entry in this blog? I like to think so. And, well, with me being God and everything, that's pretty much all that matters.

A distict lack of quality

It turns out that Site Meter wasn't down with the upgrading of this blog, and so it stopped tracking visitors. Of course, I didn't realize this, and was making radical plans for getting my visitors back. These plans included, but were not limited to, home-made porn movies sneakily shot through my neighbors window. I finally discovered and fixed the Site Meter problem tho, and the movie's going on YouTube instead. Anyway, since the tracker is working again, I, once more, know everything about you and your sleazy surfing habits. Just so you know.

(Don't you just hate it when some people starts telling you something you already know in a way that makes it sound like he thought of it first? Well, brace yourself, for I am one of those people, and this is one of those times.)

I also wanted to address the lack of updates recently, and put it in a wider perspective. Because it's symptomatic for a lot of people, I think (have you visited The Question Quest or Cogitatums blog lately?); not getting shit done. The way I see it, it comes down to several factors, some more important than others, but all contributing in some way or another. Laziness may seem like a big problem, but in actuality it's powerless when on it's own. Far more important is the way we perceive time as being short in itself, which of course is a bunch of half-digested Big Mac crap. But anyway, this perception, dangerously common in western society nowadays, makes us think that "we do not have time for this shit", that "we have more important things to do", which we, unavoidably, end up not doing. Because we did not take the time for that shit.

But before I get too carried away on the problems with believing one is time's personal bitch, let's get back to the matter at hand. For 'tis was my claim, that laziness is easily overcome unless supported by other, more powerful, factors (or, if you will, Factors of Power). The uncontrollable (but entirely culturally constructed) urge to "make the most of life" (whatever the fuck that means) is but one of these factors. Another, and one I believe to be among the most troublesome, is quality control. Now, this is a complex issue, enough to fill an entire blog post by itself (or possibly even, y'know, maybe a book?), for example; it has way too much to do with self-confidence, but basically it's similar to perfectionism: Thinking you could do better. When applied to blogging, it's as easy as this: The post you're thinking of writing isn't quite funny enough, smart enough or topical enough. Bloggers are probably especially aware of the topicality (probably not a word), since a blog is essentially a public diary, and so has to be updated with the latest whatever, whether it is one's personal doings, world news, or something else entirely.

But of course, quality control isn't a problem for everybody. In fact, a lot of people have too little of it (Norwegian web newspapers, I'm looking at you), but the critical difference between these people and you is that they actually get shit printed. So give yourself a fucking break already. In case you're thinking this applies only to blogging, or even writing in general; it doesn't. Maybe it's easier to spot this problem when expressing oneself creatively, but it does affect everyday issues as well, even if it manifests itself in different ways. Some may have trouble deciding what clothes to put on for a party (or for just leaving the house), some have trouble talking in a group of people because they weigh their words too carefully. But, most importantly, it affects what we do with our time, because we think time is so fucking precious we automatically apply quality control to it.

You may have guessed I have a big bone to pick with time.

But all this has gone on quite long enough. Let's see if there's some sort of conclusion to be found, shall we? The whole thing was supposed to be about not getting shit done. Which, in my humble (and one hundred percent correct) opinion is largely due to our perception of time and our perception of quality. There's another big one, though, that I haven't touched on yet: Distractions. Guilty pleasures. Like TV shows or sex with contraceptives. But these are mainly your instincts kicking in when you become too frustrated to think of all the things you haven't done yet. You could call it escaping from reality, but then you'd be wrong (because the concept of reality is a very, very large and unruly beast, and I simply do not have the psychological stamina to tackle it right now).

Oh, the concluding and stuff. That's what I was supposed to get to now. Well, In a post about not getting stuff done, the perfect conclusion would actually be not getting the conclusion part done. So I'll leave it at that. Discuss.

Sometime soon, however, I'm hoping to write something meaningful about games as art, or art in games. This may or may not happen, but for those who are interested I'll leave a link to an article about Peter Molyneux' hopes for including love in Fable 2. Also, here's a link for Gamasutras coverage of Game Developers Conference 07, which may or may not have some interesting articles for y'all. Sit yourself down to the chairs, enjoy, and make sure to have a chat afterwards.