Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category
Librivox
Librivox is an volunteer organisation devoted to putting up various public domain books in audio form. While I know that audio recordings aren’t for everyone, its still quite useful for the like of me who travel a bit and yet can’t always read while doing so. Currently I’m downloading their H.P. Lovecraft collection. Obviously,given that these are recorded by ‘the man on the street’, some of the audio recordings could be of a slightly better quality, but the vast majority of them are pretty cool so take a look…
The Muta Scale of professional wrestling
The Great Muta vs Hiroshi Hase. A match so infamous that it has its own term. Owing to the amount of blood on certain websites you can find bloody matches rated on the ‘Muta scale’. If you don’t believe watch from 15.20 on. And if you don’t think watching that much blood isn’t an awful lot.. well your probably a very sick person.
While I’m posting stuff, here’s an Eddie Guerrero / JBL match that also ranks pretty high on the Muta scale and Muta himself against Jushin Thunder Liger in a pretty entertaining match Read the rest of this entry »
Stephen Colbert at the White House dinner
I remember this video as being one of the first times I was ever exposed to politics in a meaningful sense. While its probably an odd thing to say, this was one of the first times that politics became ‘real’ for me and remains one of the best ‘take-downs’ of the Bush Administration I have seen. What’s impressive (and kind of horrifying) is that a large number of the comments made by Colbert still apply…
‘Grindhouse’ - possibly the best cinema experience?
As I’ve already talked about a bit, I went to see ‘Grindhouse’ last night. Now I know the film didn’t do brilliantly as a double feature, but the only thing that proves is that people are fucking idiots. I cannot remember the last time I was at a movie where the audience burst into applause at various points during the films. Now personally I can’t recommend both films enough, though ‘Planet Terror’ is clearly the better of the two and you really need to watch the whole thing as the single film experience, and preferably in the cinema to get the full value of it. There are a few things that I should mention though:
The ‘Grindhouse’ Fake Movie Trailers
Grindhouse plays in Cork in a week and a half - who’s interested in going to see it? The fake trailers are just class, I really hope the plans to make some into ‘real’ films happens. Especially ‘Werewolf Women of the SS’ - what a title!
Apparently you don’t actually need to be, you know, capable of having sex to commit sexual harassment
This is insane:
Randy Castro was not apprehended until he was six, so who knows how long his reign of sexual terror lasted? Sixteen months ago, a school official in Texas accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment after the boy was observed pressing his face into the breasts of a teacher’s aide when he hugged her before boarding the school bus. Fortunately, the school took decisive action and suspended the sick freak. By the way, is that the first recorded use in the history of the English language of the phrase “accused a four-year-old of sexual harassment”? Well, it won’t be the last: In the state of Maryland last year, 16 kindergartners were suspended for sexual harassment, as were three pre-schoolers.
Man, that’s crazy… I mean, how can you commit sexual harassment if your not in any way, capable of being sexualy aroused. And are at such an age where such a concept doesn’t exist?
Democrat says atheists have no rights in America
This story is unbelievable, here’s part of a transcript of the exchange where Democrat Monique Davis attacked activist Rob Sherman after he dared question a million dollar donation from the state to a Baptist Church:
Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–
Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?
Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—
Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
As is pointed out in the article, imagine if that Democrat had said the same thing to a Muslim or Mormon or even a Scientologist. They’d be hounded out of their seat like there was no tomorrow. Anyway, I suspect I’ll be keeping my Atheist beliefs secret when I go to the states for the summer. If not, hell with responses like that I’ll probably be lynched by somebody….
What record companies say about file-sharing….
… Is really quite irrelevant to reality. But this article on the topic which I found on Steven Grant’s excellent ‘Permanent Damage’ really shows how fucking ridiculous record companies and more importantly, how greedy they are. Talking about H.R. 4279 & SEC. 104. COMPUTATION OF STATUTORY DAMAGES IN COPYRIGHT CASES in the article it is pointed out that:
This provision is one of the most gluttonous in the whole bill. It seeks to expand radically the amount of statutory damages that can be recovered, and in cases where there are zero actual damages. The provision is intended to benefit the record industry but will have terrible consequences for many others; the provision has nothing to do with piracy and counterfeiting; instead it seeks to undo rulings in the 2000 MP3.com litigation, a decidedly non-piracy or counterfeiting case, instead involving the use of digital storage lockers. Under the original MP3.com decision, where a CD had twelve tracks, there was only one award of statutory damages possible. Under the bill, there may be 25: there would be 12 for each track on the sound recording, 1 for the sound recording as a whole, and 12 for each musical composition. Under this approach, for one CD the minimum award for non-innocent infringement must be $18,750 (my emphasis), for a CD that sells in some stores at an inflated price of $18.99 and may be had for much less from amazon.com or iTunes. The maximum amount of $150,000 then becomes three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per CD. Now multiple that times a mere ten albums, and one gets a glimpse at the staggering amount that will be routinely sought, not just in suits filed, but more importantly in thousands for cease and desist letters, where grandmothers and parents are shaken down for the acts of their wayward offspring. These private non-negotiable demands don’t see the light of day, but they have resulted in “settlements” wherein ordinary people have paid abnormal amounts of money rather than be hauled into court and thereby incur costs that will bankrupt them. One only wishes Congress would hold a hearing on this practice.
Even limiting claims to 12 tracks, this equals a minimum award of $9,000 per CD. Is there any doubt that $9,000 per CD will be demanded and described as a metzia sparing parents and grandparents from the far greater expenses of litigation? It is no answer to say, well, we are only talking about those involved in file sharing, they’re bad people who deserve to pay; when was proportionality abandoned as a principle of law? During a death penalty argument in 1981, Justice Rehnquist suggested that the inmate’s repeated appeals had cost the taxpayers too much money. Justice Marshall interrupted, saying, “It would have been cheaper to shoot him right after he was arrested, wouldn’t it?” Imposing the death penalty on a few file sharers might discourage others, but that hardly forms the basis for sound policy, nor do statutory damage penalties that will result in economic death.
While the article talks about American law, given that American law is the default in this topic and that you can be prosecuted through similar mechanisms in many other countries I think it’s well worth a look.
18,750 dollars per album, I mean, bloody hell….
Update:
Re-reading this article there are a few other paragraphs that are just astonishing Read the rest of this entry »
Is Garfield Dead?
Came across this ‘Garfield is dead’ flash movie somewhat randomly today.. its a flash movie that is based off a series of ‘garfield’ strips form 1989… they’re rather dark as the feature Garfield being left alone in the house after everyone has moved away, which one would assume resulted in Garfield starving to death…
Interestingly enough,it’s lead to a group of people believing that given that the strips end with Garfield retreating into his imagination that it implies that all the Garfield strips since about 1990 (when Garfield would have starved to death) are now the result of Garfield’s ghost which is trapped in the house and refuses to realise that he’s dead.
Which is a load of bollocks really, but it’s a cool idea. And the strips are wonderfully dark….
While the strips I’m uploading are in colour, the b&w one’s that the flash movie uses are somewhat better so I’d advise people to take a look at that first…
And while we’re on the subject of depressing comic strips - this is actually worse I think and this is another great example of ‘is that actually real and written by the real author’ style comics where Walt Disney has Mickey Mouse trying to kill himself
UpdateThis site has a lot of the information about the strips as well as a really cool animation that is very similar to the actual strip and its story Read the rest of this entry »