Wednesday 28 November 2007

There were these two guys in a lunatic asylum...


Man, I love being a geek. It's great. OK, there are downsides; school wasn't much fun, for example. Neither is writhing under the blank, pitying stare of a girl who has just learned that you're a grown man who enjoys reading stories about be-tighted, superpowered folk.

'Comics? Like Spider-man and stuff? But aren't they for kids?'
'Well, yeah, some of them, but the genre has changed a lot and there are loads of really clever writers out there who...'

At which point you trail off, realising that she's right. You're a fuckhead, a socially inept man-child, a pube clinging to the toilet bowl of life and, moreover, you were a fool to ever think otherwise. So you leg it, escaping to your room to bury yourself in old back issues of The Flash in the forlorn hope that the whole horrible world will just forget you and go away.

But then something wicked happens, like the release of the first official picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker from the upcoming Batman movie, and suddenly it's all worth it. Stuff like this shouldn't be important but, for some reason, it is. And I love it.

Also, check out his socks.

Sunday 18 November 2007

Quote of the Week

I just want to burrow into his beard and build a little cottage in there. Actually, forget I said that.

Alan Moore, from an interview about the upcoming 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier'.

'Orwell was exactly wrong in a strange way. He thought the world would end with Big Brother watching us, but it ended with us watching Big Brother.'

Good old Alan; he's a freakin' genius. Unfortunately it looks like those of us outside the US won't get to read 'The Black Dossier' due to some very boring and irksome copyright problems. That, my friends, is a gold-plated, sixty foot high, all-singing all-dancing pisser. Interested parties can get the full story here and here. Thank Glykon for the grey market, eh?

Saturday 17 November 2007

This week Pete's eye has been caught by...

....this story about the Singaporean government banning the Xbox game Mass Effect because it features a lesbian kiss between a woman and an alien. Gameheads all over the globe have been up in arms about censorship, civil rights and so forth but I was more concerned about the implications for...
So... do you come here often?

...Captain Kirk. After all, the good captain spent the better part of the sixties cruising around the galaxy looking for - and enjoying a great deal of success with - alien snatch. I'm guessing that Singapore won't be used as a location on that new Star Trek movie they're making, lest Jim's habit of having his dirty way with absolutely any organism, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, finds him landed in chokey.

He's even making me a little bit moist.

But come on; what's an alien girl to do? Although I should probably point out that a) it was the lesbian thing that was the problem, not the alien thing and b) the ban has since been lifted. But this is the internet; since when did facts matter a damn?

And while we're on the subject of forbidden love, this frankly unbelievable story about a man who was caught having sex with a bicycle has had me scratching my head for a couple of days now. The logistics of it are completely beyond me. How? How??? The only creditable theory I've heard is that he was penetrating himself with one of the handlebars, and if that sort of thing is your bag then surely there are easier ways to go about it? If it's a bit of arse action you're looking for then why go to the trouble of booking yourself and your bicycle into a hotel room when they make dildos and vibrators specifically designed for the purpose? So that can't be it. It's a puzzler and no mistake.

There are some slightly worrying implications here, though; the guy was alone in a locked room and only got discovered when the cleaners used a master key and let themselves in. He's now been charged with sexually aggravated breach of the peace and been placed on the sex offenders register; that's right, it is now possible to commit a breach of the peace on your own from inside a locked hotel room. From a civil liberties point of view that's really not a good thing. Piss funny, though... and what a visionary! He looked at a bike and, where a more boring man would have seen a simple method of sustainable transport, instead saw a potential shag and bed partner. Amazing. Let's face it; the bloke is a sexual astronaut.

Finally, some of you may have seen trailers and adverts for a movie called Shrooms; it's your standard teen horror flick with the extra gimmick that all the characters are ripped to the tits on mushys. It is, by all accounts, toss. I saw a poster for it the other day that, as usual, featured a standard review quote, in this case: 'It's like Blair Witch on acid!'

Many people have pointed out that 'it's like... on acid!' is used by lazy journos as a way of saying that something is surreal,wacky, off the wall or whatever. There doesn't seem to be any way of preventing it. But I can't help feeling that in this case just a little bit of extra thought might have made all the difference. Maybe there's another drug that could have been substituted for acid, something more pertinent to the movie, that would have differentiated this particular review from the thousands upon thousands of indentikit write ups that fill magazine space and contribute absolutely nothing to anyone's understanding of, well, anything? Whatever could it be? Hmmmm. It's on the tip of my tongue... give me a minute....

Nearly there...

Thursday 15 November 2007

Whistle down the wind.

It can happen to the best of us.

You've tried everything. You've rubbed it and tickled it. You've picked it and blown it and wiped it. You've shoved stuff up it and pulled stuff out of it until no blockage can possibly remain, but to no avail. You've got one whistling nostril and apparently there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

And it's such a mournful noise; it's like a tiny, one-note bagpiper has taken up residence in your nasal cavity. Well I say: fuck that tiny bagpiper. Next time it happens I'm just going to spray weedkiller up my nose and have done with it.

He thinks I'm bluffing. But I'm really not.

Monday 12 November 2007

Prick of the Week: Tingle

Look at him. Fucking paedo.

If you've never played any of Nintendo's 'Legend of Zelda' series this will all be meaningless to you... not that I've ever let a little thing like a complete lack of interest on the part of the reader put me off. If 'I Hate It Here' were a movie it would be the venerable Spielberg flick 'Duel', where a frightened, innocent man (you) is remorselessly pursued by a shadowy, relentless juggernaut (in this case a juggernaut of pointless waffle concerning video-games, annoying customers and stuff about the West Midlands).

I will not be stopped.

Anyway, Tingle is a minor character in LOZ; he's a middle-aged man in a fairy suit who loiters around Hyrule and attempts to coerce the (10 year old) Link into doing his weird bidding - this usually involves bringing him special items in order to gain his favour, the perv. He's a basically a fantasy world paedophile. There, I've said it; Nintendo can sue me if they want. Tingle likes touching little boys. He's the Hyrulian Gary Glitter, and a very annoying one at that. And OK, I'm ripping into a fictional character from a children's videogame, which probably makes me even more tragic than previously suspected. I get that. But he's the asshole, not me. Still, at least he's not real, eh?

Run, children! Run like the wind!

Mighty fuck!

Sunday 4 November 2007

Pic of the Week.

One of my very favourite pieces of Bristol graffiti, kindly provided by Lisa.

Saturday 3 November 2007

It's here! It's here!


I don't mind admitting, right here on the internet: I've got a bit of a stiffy. Call it a semi.