John Mortell’s blog

This is rather cruel, but appearently the bear was ok after so its all good

Found this somewhere (not saying where to protect the guilty). While it is kinda wrong, you get the feeling this is what happens at times – which makes it even funnier.

Rebels Immediately Regret Seizing Power In Zambia
December 6, 2006 | Issue 42•49

New leaders reluctantly convene a cabinet meeting.

“After months of combat, the United Deliverance Front has this morning taken command of one of Africa’s most beleaguered nations, installing itself as the supreme ruler over 11 million desperate, ailing, and angry citizens,” UDF leader and new head of state Uwimana Kowrt said. “Dear Jesus, what the hell were we thinking?”

According to Kowry, who claimed that plans to overthrow the ruling administration “made sense at the time,” celebration was cut short Monday morning when the victorious rebels realized that they were now in charge of a country crippled by drought and widespread food shortages.

“For years, we watched our beloved homeland suffer from strife and infirmity, knowing that something drastic had to be done,” UDF second-in-command Ngoube Mtumbe said. “Why we decided that that something was to take over this godforsaken graveyard of a country instead of just getting the fuck out, I’ll never know.”

“We did not sign up for this,” he added. “Seven-hundred-thousand AIDS orphans? Come on!”

Mtumbe, a UDF fighter with over 14 years of demolitions experience and nearly three hours of administrative practice, said that members of the rebellion were so caught up in the bloodthirsty struggle for power that they lost sight of what it would mean to be in power in a country as terrible as Zambia.

“The fact that there wasn’t a single standing railroad bridge, power station, or radio tower for us to destroy should have been a pretty clear sign that Zambia wasn’t exactly the most stable of places,” Mtumbe said. “Our supposed capitol building doesn’t even have a front door, for crying out loud.”

Mtumbe, who was trying to figure out what paperwork was necessary to declare a national state of emergency, said he was still kicking himself for killing countless U.N. peacekeepers well-acquainted with the complicated relief process, and for decapitating the Minister of Transportation, who was “obviously in that position for a reason.”

The mood among UDF soldiers quickly worsened when they realized it was up to them to pick up the pieces after a very recent and destructive uprising.

“And to think we were so proud to catch government forces in [the city of] Harbel by surprise,” UDF General Gahiji Boshoso said. “Those lucky bastards were probably just as relieved as they were shocked that anyone would want to be in charge of such a nightmarish wasteland. Even parts of Nigeria are better than this, and that’s one of the worst countries on earth.”

Added Boshoso: “Would it have killed us to take over Estonia instead—you know, a country with running water?”

Though the group went to the trouble of training an army of largely underage soldiers, purchasing military weapons on the black market, and steeling themselves for atrocities of war, many said they would never have gone through with the final assault had they realized just how dire the situation in Zambia was.

“After losing so many friends and family members, and ruthlessly slitting the throats of more innocent civilians than I can count, I expected my reward to be a little sweeter than this,” said Kowry, who claimed that he wished dealing with the World Bank Food Program was as simple as assassinating former ruling-party loyalists. “None of the blood that covered our streets nor the carnage that choked our cities could have even remotely prepared us for these pathetic annual GDP figures.”

“Frankly, we’re amazed there was even a president to overthrow in the first place,” he added. “All we can hope for now is that another band of utterly naïve rebels comes along to put us out of our misery.”

Just finished the novel of this last night, watched the film yesterday too. The book’s actually slightly better, which is unusual because I’d seen the film first, but even so… It makes more sense narrative-wise because (rather unsuprisingly) it can go into more detail on the world that the charachters inhabit.

Still dosen’t make complete sense as to how Shogo knew that he would be called up to the game again…

They’re both really good anyway, for different reasons and well worth the watch/read.

Anyway, here’s a clip from the movie, any of you that have seen Kill Bill will recognise the girl at the start of the clip…

Another UCC student joins the blogsphere. I actually know Sam through bumping into him around college, though not very well. Very good stuff, makes me a bit ashamed of the rather weak posting I’ve had of late…

Just Watched the fourth season of Blackadder – the last episode ‘goodbyee’ is just fabulous. Personally I think this should be on all History courses.

Haven’t watched the whole of this clip, hope its ok. Enjoy.

… I’m getting old. There’s a Robbie Williams gig on channel 4 at the moment and when I flicked over to it I genuinely thought for a moment that they were showing a porno at 11.30 on Christmas morning….

Here. Some of them, like the west side story one is very good, others are kinda ‘meh’. Worth a look though. The Mel Gibson one is too easy almost but still quite funny. Enjoy.

Thanks to Warren Ellis and his website for showing me this.

Absolute genius, or possibly idiocy. I can happily say that if you are one of those people who watch this seriously you need to be neutred for the sake of general humanity and the genepool of the species….

Given that I’m still not used to the whole being at home and on holidays thing I had to find a way to keep myself occupied.

So I watched NightWatch. I’d seen it when it came out and had brought the DVD but its been over a year since I saw it.

It’s still very good though. If anything, with a year away it’s actually better. Things like who exactly it was that flips over the truck in the trailer (the leader of the Dark), which are not totally clear the first time as your still figuring out who’s who and some of the interactions (like the fact that the leaders of the two groups are the same guys as hundreds of years ago) are easier to follow.

Also, things that bothered me the first time, like the way that the budget is very much spent on certain scenes, which I thought made the rest of the film look kinda cheaper seems to have disappeared. Whether this is the result of the small screen or what I don’t know. Granted, you can still see that there was a lot more money spent on the opening battle than anything else, and the shapeshifting scenes are too few, but the film itself looks more …. consistient, I suppose.

The ending does kinda bug me though, because nothings realy resolved, but when it’s the first proposed film of a trilogy what can you expect?

Anyway, the two-disk edition of it should be available for about 10euro and it comes with two episodes of ‘Broken Saints’ – an anime that, while I haven’t actualy watched it, looks quite interesting. So all in all, a fairly good buy.

Here’s a fairly good video that explains net neutrality quite well i think….