Jumping Ship

There's an interesting discussion in the Pacific Press about the dire state of NS over the past 2.5 years. This is an extract of a mini-essay you can find in my memoirs: The Redundancy of the NationStates Game (February 2005):

I think it was last Tuesday - NS was down again whilst they implemented new code. What struck me was that it really made no difference - the government ran along nicely even though we couldn't actually see our region or our nations.
If NS was terminated tomorrow, would it make a difference?

No, it wouldn't make a difference. The communities that were established because of NS, do not require NS to continue. A lot of long-time NS players are now playing Particracy aswell, and some have even completely jumped ship - and the communities have also moved. Take The Proletariat Coalition for example, my mini-essay described why a group of political similar individuals was about more than just playing NS - think of it as an internet-based subculture pressure group. A dozen or so TPCers, including myself, are now also playing Particracy and I've founded an "party organisation", named The Proletariat Coalition.

The real TPC community is based on its forum, like all other developed NS regions. There's nothing to prevent it branching into Particracy or any other political games. That's where I see the future for NS communities - unless NS2 is ever so spectacular, that we can't afford to concentrate on anything else.

[253]

THINK! SIT! PRAY!

This brings up horrible memories of primary school, singing propaganda songs about the birth-of-some-child-that-half-the-world-did-not-believe-was-the-messiah-but-you-damn-well-better-take-that-back-because-we-have-loads-of-evidence-in-our-heart shit.

Top Of The Pish

Usually I put up with Top of the Pops on this one day of the year, but this year The Simpsons were back to back for about 12 hours over Channel 4 and Sky Onc so there was a reason to ignore it more than ever.

Apparently (damn my straying eyes on the BBC News page) "Westlife" are 'number 1' again (as if that's a sign of popularity). On Tuesday I was in my local record store (they're independent AND they have vinyls :D) and noticed two singles displayed at the counter - "Westlife" and that JCB song by Nizboli* or something like that (Nothing to do with the Russian Nazbols [Nationalist Bolsheviks - ie, Nazis] or is it?).

I'd say the "popularity" of "Westlife" was more to do with its £1.99 price, compared to the other singles at £2.99. As I said, obviously more popular because it's good music - in the way that 'The Sun' (I don't fucking love it) is a good newspaper because it's 10p -_-

And you phillistines still didn't buy Dazzle Ships! Nor did you buy the greatest piece of sonic art this year - Franz Ferdinand's 'Walk Away' - Number fucking 13?

[203]

Hey, I'm Picasso

Pour moi's birthday, I got the remastered version of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's third album from 1981, Architecture & Morality - because my Dad doesn't have that one on vinyl and I'm on the verge of wearing out his library (apart from the Bowie albums, spared by my relentless downloading).

Anyway, I'm getting into the few bits I've heard of their 1983 album Dazzle Ships. If you've heard anything they made after 1984 (thanks to If You Leave which they wrote for the film Pretty in Pink), you'll not realise how un-avant things went.

Fade to Grey

I've just noticed the backlit display on my mini Hi-Fi, which I got for my 11th birthday (12/12/97), has given up after 8 years and 7 days of use. Back in September the tape deck gave up, which means no more listening to that Metallica tape my friend put together back in late-98.

I'd salute Matsui if it was actually Japanese, so instead I'll just give it some quiet recognition. Strangely, my brother got a PlayStation (made in Japan) for his 7th birthday (15/11/97) and it completely failed just before I got a PS2 for my 15th (which started experiencing constant disc errors this Summer).

If I look on the bright side (wait for the irony), it means my room won't be so bright when I leave it on at night. Indeed, in the second half of it's life, since I abandoned TV as my main source of entertainment (about the same time I began dallying with Radio 2) it's barely been off.

This is a sad reflection on what constitutes an important event to me...
Anyway, you're probably wondering what's in the CD player right now (and has been for the past week).

[208]

Descent into Madness

With the US imprisoning people indefinitely, invading a country on falsified evidence, killing imprisoned Iraqis, shooting citizens of New Orleans, flying anyone Middle-Eastern to Romania to be tortured, and now beating to death US nationals in prison; The Axis of Evil now surely includes America, does it not?

For Fuck's Sake

BBC:

There are no records that the US has asked the UK government for permission to use its airports to move CIA suspects, Jack Straw has said.

Really? Why would the US not log these flights with the UK? Obviously because it's a Data Protection issue for the passengers. How thick does the government think people are?

Since when do you quite cheerily ask permission to jet people through UK airspace, to be tortured in various European destinations? Of course it was never going to be fucking recorded.

This is the saddest attempt by the government to get an issue to drop. No-one is going to let this go.

Education and Conflict

When people like McIndoe said that my activities and the GA-Slag were creating conflict and polarisation in the school, they were patently wrong. I did not create this conflict, I was not the cause, I was a symptom of the perpetual disharmony between authority and the authorised.

Turn The Fucking Thing Off

I'm tragically aware of C4's new "reality" TV series only due to The Simpsons and C4 News.

If you didn't know, and how I envy you, some people have signed up to go into space - except, they're not and it's an elaborate trick by the arseholes who took a creative shit and dumped 'Big Brother' on the world - oh, how the masses celebrate our new Orwellian future.

These people are obviously very naïve or they would have figured out the obvious lack of attention to reality paid by this new "reality" series. Therein lies the programme's shameless lack of ethics - these people were selected for their gullibility, and are therefore psychologically unfit for an eventual humiliation on TV - at least 'Big Brother' picked the psychologically strong for media exposure.

I can only hope that with the conclusion of this drivel, one of the contestants sues C4 and associates. Better yet, I hope one of them committees suicide under the strain of the media spotlight. Maybe then I'll tune in to see the legal proceedings against this morally-bankrupt, drivel-peddling industry. That's entertainment!

[192]

Suicide Bonkers

How does a suicide bomber usually act? They usually act inconspicuous.
When does a suicide bomber strike? When potential casualties are numerous.
What sort of triggers do suicide bombers use? The type that explode WHEN YOU LET GO

I have yet to hear of a suicide bomber drawing attention to himself by loudly declaring he has a bomb, having a bomb that requires reaching into his bag to set off, and doing so when the plane had long landed.

In a statement, American Airlines described the shooting as an "isolated incident", adding that none of the other passengers were affected or were ever in danger.

Hey, if you shoot enough people, you're bound to catch a terrorist at some point in time. Those damn Chinese make it difficult by having all those children and raising the world population.

[139]

Patience

Almost there...

Another Obsessive Post Involving Bismarck

Bismarck > Kulturkampf > Pope > List of sexually active popes > mother-in-law > Stereotype > Are You Being Served? > PBS > Barney & Friends > Dinosaur > Springbok > Africa > 3rd Millenium BC > Domestication of the horse > Trojan Horse > Dardanelles > Golden Horn > Venetia > 1866 > Bismarck

Someone help me...

A Voyage Through Wikipedia

An bout of insomnia (from 0230-0430 last night) led me to come up with the following:

Bismarck > Alsace-Lorraine > World War I > Treaty of Brest-Litovsk > Leon Trotsky > Mexico > Zapatista > Subcommandante Marcos > Rage Against the Machine > Evil Empire (album) > Evil Empire > Détente > Sino-Soviet Split > Nixon > Realpolitik > Bismarck

How disconcerting. There was something else I wanted to jott down last night that I thought was rather more important... Why did I remember this?

He Had No Choice

BBC article:

So why is Britain - the world's fourth largest economy, a nuclear pioneer, blessed with wind, wave and tidal potential beyond the normal lot of nations, a once mighty coal producer, provider of innovators to the world, and with a generation's worth of North Sea booty to invest - facing an enormous shortfall in electricity provision while others are not?

Three years ago the government commissioned a report on the impending energy crisis, and the report recommended heavily investing in renewable sources... and now we find ourselves on the cusp of constructing a few more will-end-up-as-radioactive-concrete-monoliths.