Messages

I'd actually tipped Hilary for the top spot before the campaigning started, and no doubt she'd have got votes purely on the fact that she's female.  People can't help but feel an affinity or a dislike of a certain politician, regardless of what policies they're waving about.

And McCain appealed to loads of people, as he's Republican, he's white, he's ex-military (i think), he's experienced.  The Americans have that whole College voting system thing going on, and a first past the post dealie, too.  The number of actual votes weren't that far apart for most states that I watched, but the system meant that Obama won.  (California for example has 55 college votes, and if 51% of the people vote Obama, he then gets all 55 in the college section.  Too be honest, as far as democracy goes, it's a pretty daft system).

As for the Black/Obama and White/BNP issue. 

Obama's not a Black Panther or anything like that, he's probably the best thing that's happened to America in years, but you can't say that he didn't get votes based on the color of his skin.  A large part of his campaign was getting the minorities to actually bother voting.  It's great that they took part, but if Obama was white, would the campaign have been as effective?

But still, their were minorities that voted for him based on policies and not skin color, because they thought that out of the options of McCain and Obama, Obama would be the most sympathetic to their wants and needs.

The same can be said of the Brits, some people would have thought that the BNP offered the best policies, in regards to how they felt Britain should be represented in the European Parliament.  They're likely sick of Labour, have bad memories of the Tories, and didn't like the other options.  Logically, they then pick the BNP.  If they didn't, wouldn't they just be lumped in with the rest of the people who couldn't be bothered to vote?

Also, Yuffie's mentioned Brighton quite a few times.  It's a lovely place, I saw her there a while back.  And in the weekend I was there, I was also almost involved in a race-related scuffle.  (Some drunk chav moron insulted me, I ignored him, he then insulted a swede and I saw red).  That said, Brighton's still a laid-back, multi-national, multi-racial area, so I'm assuming I just happened upon a rare incident.

The votes for the BNP weren't from Brighton, though.  They were from up north.  I'm currently living in the North East of England, and to be honest, I've not actually seen that many people of ethnic origins.  There's the Chinese takeaway, the Indian takeaway, the Kebab shop, and a guy in a cornershop who I'd guess has an Indian grandparent.  I can't actually remember the last time I saw a black guy.

There was a few mentioned in the area from before I was here, and they weren't exactly nice guys.  I can see they weren't a fair representation of that skin color, but the situations polarised the community against them.   Suppose for example, you take 3 people from a place, and they all share the same traits, it's logical to assume that it's a common trait.  100% so far, so what's to say it's not the norm?  Sure, it could be that you meant the only 3 albino midgets to ever live there, but that's quite an unlikely statistic.  Even if proved false, you're likely to greet each new person with 'Oh, you're taller than I expected'.

The extremes naturally stick in peoples' minds for longer than the average.  It's not great, but if someone's had a bad incident with a person of minority, that incident will be far more prominent in their minds than the rest of the folk they meet.  In multi-racial areas, if there's a bad person it's likely only just one guy in a thousand, up here if there's a bad guy, it's more like one in five.

There's also the fact that the already polarised community will then perpetuate the myth that all the people of his color are bad, and until they're proven otherwise, they'll raise their kids believing it too.  (My friends with racist parents are usually far more racist than those with laid back parents, both here and down south).

So yes, they're likely racist, and they voted BNP, but honestly, it's not entirely their fault.  If no-ones said to them 'hey! that's racism! and it's bad! you're parents were wrong!' can you really blame them for voting that way?  It's all well and good people condemning racism, but are they going to try and educate the racists? Or are they content to sit on their high horses and just pass judgement on them?  Isn't that just hypocrisy and yet more discrimination?

..learned a foreign language to survive here..

That's not always the case.
And where would you suggest the unemployed Brit move to?

Maybe not in Brighton, but there area where my parents live, it's a different story.  There's van loads of immigrants working on the farms for less than minimum wage.  That £8 an hour for picking strawberries is overpaid, and I'd have personally gone for it in an instant.  They're picking cabbages in Lincolnshire for a quarter of that.

Currently, I'm unemployed.  I'm not pleased about it, and I spend most of my time trying to get a job.  Due to past issues, I'm not exactly a great candidate.  I got ill during my A-Levels which meant I couldn't work for 5 or so years*, and then stuck the same cack job for about 5 years, then had nervous breakdown and went into hiding for 2 years.

So now, I'm pushing 30, have almost no experience, and only GCSEs as qualifications.  I don't personally care what the job is, I did one that was over-worked, under-paid and labour intensive for years, and I was the only one who'd be willing to do 18 hour shifts, despite not getting proper overtime wages.  I busted my ass for that company doing 4 peoples work because they couldn't afford more staff, and I got crapped on when the management changed.  So crap jobs don't bother me.

I've applied to cleaning jobs, I've applied to laboring ones, I've applied for pretty much anything that I'd stand a vague chance of getting.  Just because some of the losers on the dole don't want to work a shitty job, doesn't mean that no British person does.  I can't blame the immigrants as readily as some areas, as there's just not as many of them up here in the North East.  There is a 2 bedroom house on my street with 9 foreigners (Poles and Turks, I think) living in, and they're all working though.  I think one of those foreigners is a drug dealer, or so I'm told.

Back in London, though, the crappy section of jobs were mostly either chavs or immigrants, and the chavs didn't work very hard, whilst most of the immigrants would actually try to work hard.  The immigrants I worked with had the problem of not being too great with English, so they'd end up screwing up tasks, and making me redo their work again.  The chavs just did stuff slow, so I'd have to finish their tasks for them.  Either way, it meant more work for me.  By the time I left that job, it was me and two other non-chavvy Brits doing a 12 person shift, whilst 4 other people dicked about and made things harder.  (Even if they bothered working, we were still under-staffed).

I think I may have lost my train of thought here.  I've just got home from signing on again, so I'm rather pissed off.  Apologies for coherence issues.

*(The government said I couldn't work, I couldn't even sign on.  Was on Incapacity Benefit for years, because the doctor's were still running tests, and couldn't bump it to a Disablity Benefit.  Which meant I had to get a new doctor's note each month, which was probably more degrading to me than signing on).

Numbers, to me, in terms of box office takings don't mean a thing about the quality of a film.  They show how much promoting has gone into the release of a movie, and they show how watching a film in a cinema costs more these days.

For example the highest earner of the Indy films, is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is certainly not the best of the series.  Both Austin Powers sequels are apparently better than Gone with the Wind.

As for reviews, Rotten Tomatoes style, they don't show whether any of the reviewers show any bias.  Reviews in general are matters of personal opinion, and a movie that gets panned across the board may turn out to be someone's favorite movie of all time.  By all means, I'm not saying 'don't watch this film', I'm merely saying if The Original Series was your favorite, you stand a higher chance of being disappointed.

I'll freely admit, as a generic Sci-Fi movie, it's got its' merits.  But it's not the Kirk era Trek, and it never will be.  I'd have much preferred they left that series alone, and made something new.  But, Abrams has become somewhat of a cliché nowadays.  It's like he's believing his own hype, and it's affecting his work.

And it's not nolstalgia affecting my memory, though it does make me remember it more fondly.  It's more to do with the feel of a show.  TOS felt fun, whilst TNG felt like I was struggling in physics class, after just failing sociology.

It's the same with Battlestar Galactica, the original was all swash-buckling adventures in space, where the remake was so full of religious subtext and political intrigue, that it was bogged down.  It felt like a relief when it finally ended, yet, it still left me thinking it was missing something.  Same thing goes for the Star Wars trilogies, 4-6 were an adventure, 1-3 became too complicated/contrived trying to explain stuff (why did they feel the need to mention midichlorians?).

Firefly, even though short lived, was relatively recent.  It didn't drag on, it was genuinely fun to watch.  If they spent ages telling me about the science or history or stuff, I'd find it dull.  Andromeda was watchable, if I ignored it's high and mighty attitude regarding quotes, as the majority of the characters were likeable.

If it hadn't been those characters, I'd have probably enjoyed it a lot more.  I just feel like they're ruining a perfectly good show, just to cash in and to save on the writing effort.  People who see the movie first, and then later check TOS, will be disappointed, because TOS isn't a typical Hollywood summer blockbuster kind of show.

I've watched it now, and I can't help but feel somewhat violated by it.

Let's start, by explaining my history with Trek.  I loved the original series, I saw it as re-runs as a kid.  I used to watch it week in and week out.  It was the highlight of my week.  My dad used to watch it with me, too, so maybe that adds to my love of it, as we rarely watched much else together.

I know the plots were hokey, it was the mid-80's, and it all looked dated.  There was a sense of fun about it, though.  It's how I wanted the future to be.  The girls were attractive, and the men were heroes.  There was action and science and garish colors.  It was perfect.

Then, in the late 80's ('88/'89, i think, we got stuff a year or two late on the BBC), along comes a brand new Star Trek show.  I was so excited.  I couldn't wait.  It was a dream come true, as I'd seen the originals a couple of times over.

I sat down and watched the first episode of The Next Generation.  It was downhill from the theme music on the opening credits.  The captain was an old, bald, french pansy.  The chief engineer spoke too fast.  There was a boy genius.  There were no awesome fight scenes, and I learnt nothing about life.

Two or three years later, I started watching TNG again.  The first officer looked better, with a beard.  But other than that, the series still did nothing for me.  It was still all political correctness and techno-babble.  Welsey Crusher still existed.  They'd killed off a main character in Tasha Yar, but she was a rubbish character, so it didn't have much of an impact.  I sat thru the entire series, and I think I enjoyed <5% of the episodes, but that was mostly due to Reg Barclay and/or Q.

Along comes Deep Space 9.  The same techno-babble's there, and there's some inanely dull characters and plots.  But, after a while, it picked up.  They still had the political drama, but it was coupled with some better characterisation and a bit more action.  Odo will always bore me.  The show seemed to fade out with a big build up and a weak ending.

Then there's Voyager.  Dull opener to the series, but soon picked up after.  As they were travelling across the galaxy, they didn't need to get bogged down in dull stories, as after a while, they'd just be too far from that area for it to matter.  On the whole, it was mostly watchable.  The ending was all kinds of suck, though.

After that, it's prequel time.  The actors, writing, effects, and characters were good (except Phlox).  The music was stupid, as was the Temporal War main plot idea.  It's a shame it got cancelled, as this was the first time I'd felt any real affinity for Trek since the days of Kirk.  Sadly, there were too many people raised on TNG, and it failed to captivate people.

As for movies, I like First Contact from the TNG ones, the rest were dire.  Voyage Home was crap, but I enjoyed the other 5 original cast ones.

So, now you know my brief history with Star Trek, let's move onto the new movie!

Chekov's replaced Welsey in the boy genius role, despite not even being in the first season of TOS.  There's plenty of other plot holes, not covered by the 'Alternate Timeline' excuse.  It's like JJ Abrams and his cronies have looked at Star Trek and thought 'we'll take the names, and very basic ideas for characters' and we'll just make the rest of it up as we go.

There's plenty of references to stuff, sure, but it seems to me to be more of an unfunny parody than an homage or a reboot.  They also seemed quite happy to throw something in to the mix, for the sake of making it more lowest common denominator entertainment.  

'People like ninjas, lets give Sulu a katana.. but how do we explain it..  Hm.. Fencing. That'll work.'  Katana's aren't used in fencing, and when he fighting, he wasn't doing much to resemble fencing.  Scotty and the water?  Did they really need to throw in a transporter blooper plot device in?  It all seemed really tacky and contrived to me.

New Spock, Zachary Quinto, didn't do too bad a job, but then, I don't really think he had much to work with in this movie.  It was mostly rehashes of things Nimoy's said before.  They same goes for Bones, who I was pleasantly surprised with.  When it was originally announced, I predicted Gary Sinise to play him, and was shocked when they opted for the 'Guy from Doom', but he did a fine job.  Scotty was an inspired casting, and Sulu was a nice choice.  Uhura and Chekov came up lacking, one was dull and one was annoying.

As for Kirk?  If you took out all the names, I'd have just assumed he wasn't there, and the plot relolved around some random guy who'd lost his red shirt, and somehow made it all the way thru the episode.  The only time I actually liked him, was the scene with the hands, but that was because of the humorous situation, not thru his acting.  It's hard to play someone as iconic as Kirk, and this random guy just wasn't up to the task.  (Bakula in Enterprise is the only one who's come close to being in a similar vein).

All in all, I pretty much hated it.  I've already lost all respect for Abrams due to his show, Lost.  (More time-travel ahoy!).  And Cloverfield was over-hyped and messy.  He over-complicated the idea of original Trek, and threw in the typically unoriginal theme of time-travel, failed to recreate the key character (Kirk IS Star Trek, hence the Pike based pilot being scrapped), and just made a generic Sci-Fi action movie.

It reminded me of the Star Wars prequels too much, and it failed to capture my imagination like the original series did.  This was after I went in un-hyped and expecting the worst.  Usually I'm pleasantly surprised, but on this occassion I feel as if my childhood's being crapped on.

I'd expect all the people who enjoyed it, were the people who preferred TNG, or people who are new to Trek in general.  It's nice that it'll get more people into the show, but it just means that the later incarnations of it will sadden me even more.

EDIT:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage.  Was this really necessary?

A forum discussion is going to have next to zero impact on the next election.  Chances are, most (potential) British voters here, either:

1. Didn't bother voting for various reasons.  (top three reasons, i'd hazard a guess at couldn't be bothered, couldn't decide or didn't know it happened*).
2. Did vote, but didn't vote BNP, as they either agreed with another party's policies, or disagreed with the BNPs'.

It's preaching to the choir and maybe a couple of folk who walked in on practice.  We mostly agree that the BNP's not the best choice.  We might not vote, but we're not in agreement with the evil that some people believe parties like this represent.

At best, if the entire forum became british, and subsequently went out and voted next chance we had, then what? A couple of hundred more votes for a mixture of parties.  If we all lived in the same yorkshire (or east london) area, we'd dent the BNP votes at something like 1%.

Not that big a difference, is it?  Sure, you could do the same routine in a few other forums, but you'd still fail to make any impact on future elections.

I'm not saying having the discussion's pointless, as it MIGHT make someone rethink their opinion.  I don't want you having any allusions that this thread might make the world a better place, though.  Chances are pretty high that it won't.  If you really want to make a difference, you need to aim a heck of a lot higher than us lot.

Yuffie, have you ever actually thought about going into politics?  You're still young enough to get your foot in the door, and you're both intelligent and likeable enough to stand a pretty fair chance in a council/local election.  You seem to care about the issues, and it'd be a shame to waste that sort of passion.  (Saying that, I'm obviously unaware of any possible restrictions you might face, due to nationality).  My point is, you could probably make a difference on a much larger scale than you've thought of, but only IF you're willing to put the effort in.

*(Also, for the record, I'll admit that I didn't realise the voting was happening until the day after.  My fault entirely, partly due to apathy, but also due to my disbelief in the whole system in general.  If I had a chance right now to cast my vote, even by clicking one button online, I wouldn't).


From the BBC site:

A tourist who was caught up in the melee was treated in an ambulance, after suffering an injured leg.

Not only is a pretty small demonstration (dozens of protesters, huge turn-out there), who have the ever-so original idea of throwing eggs, they can't even coordinate themselves as to not hurt passer-bys?  To me they've just managed to make themselves look like amateurish, adolenscent pranksters rather than a proper protest.  I wouldn't be surprised if the placards they were carrying had spelling mistakes.  'No to BPN!' or 'Racesm is BAD'.  I hate to say it, but on this particular occassion, they're the dicks and the BNP are the sensible ones.  If you're going to campaign against something, a modicum of thought and dignity should be present.

But what happens when the immigrants are scroungers, too?

And I'd say Lib Dem's a pretty long shot, and in recent times, they're doing a fine job of making themselves less votable.

I think the final figures were 900,000ish votes for BNP throughout the whole of the UK. That's an awful lot of f*ckwits.

It's 900k that are willing to try and make a change*, though (albeit it a bad one).  Most people affliate themselves with a party, and vote regardless.  If they're Labour they only vote Labour.  They'd rather not vote than vote Tory.  Sometimes they switch from one party to another, but generally, they don't.

I should really vote to abstain (as far as I know, this is possible), as if I don't vote, I've no legal standing to complain about who's in power.  Personally, I dislike the system itself so I choose to avoid it entirely.  If I could afford to emigrate to a better country, I would.  That stems from various reasons, not just lack of trust in the government.

How many people voted Labour, by the way? As they've pretty much ballsed things up over the last two terms.  The country's suffering economically, we were roped into a war we shouldn't have been part of, the NHS still seems incompetent, education doesn't seem all that great, and crime seems worse than ever.  But still, people vote for Labour.  Personally, I'd class a Labour vote as a f*ckwit vote, too.

There's a good thing that'll hopefully come from the BNP getting votes.  With any luck the serious parties will take note of the turn out, realise they're losing voters, and subsequently get their collective sh*t together and start doing stuff to please the people.

*Obama was voted in due to many people wanting to make a change, heck that was his main campaign ideal.  Despite being an unlikely candidate to begin with,  he made people believe their votes counted for something.

As for your work with the disadvantaged folk, Yuffie, it's not surprising they're racist.  They're going to want to blame someone other than themselves.  It's human nature to shift blame, and it's rare that someone's willing to throw their hands up and admit 'I f*cked up'.  People usually have to hit rock bottom before they realise, and quite often they do something stupid before getting that low.

Racism's an easy thing to blame their difficulties on.  It's a pretty generic target, and it's not something personal to them.  But at the same time, it's not just the disadvantaged, it's everyone.  They're brought up with racist comments at home and from their peers, and they're slowly indoctrinated into believing it.

My parents did the same with me, as did some of the people in my school.  But, part of me rebelled against them, and part of me saw thru the bullsh*t.  I can't really believe the racist comments, when my white friends were in the minority.  Maybe you had an easy-going upbringing, or maybe you saw thru the comments, too.  You can't expect most people to do it, though.  People don't change views very often, so if they're brought up racist, they'll stay that way until they have a revelation.  They'll rarely change on their own accord.

Most people just aren't that intelligent.

It's sad, yes. But I can completely understand their mentality. They, for the most part, liked their town, and the Labour councillors were doing a bang up job of ruining things.  Youth clubs, social buildings, other things for the people were all closed down, and had the refugees sleeping in them.  They 'tried' to make it seem better than it was, paying a few of the immigrants to actually spray paint the floor gold.  They got bored, and only did random slabs here and there, and probably clobbered some old biddies with the paint cans.

They also had a big campaign about how they were putting 300+ more bins in the area.  They failed to empty the bins we had, and the new bins were overflowing within days.  There was rubbish everywhere.

The police? The whole area had 1 police car at night, and it's a rough area.  Gangs, stabbings, drug-crimes, the works.

The council's answer? Take in more immigrants, as they were getting money for each one they 'housed'.  When a proper, non-racist party screws things up, where else would people turn to?  They might be shut out by the party they elect, but at least they don't have to watch the town they love go even further down the crapper.

(For the record, I've moved away from there a couple of years ago.  I wouldn't even want to go back to visit, as it's horrible.  Walking to work was a risk of stabbing everyday).

Back when I still lived in london, there were Indians who were voting BNP, too.  Mostly as they were sick of my Borough's efforts to take in as many Kosovan Refugees as possible.

I'm all for immigration, if the people are willing to work, but those Kosovan's were forming gangs, who'd then spend their time drinking, claiming benefits and mugging old ladies.  My town voted in a BNP guy, I think.

I guess some people are willing to ignore the racism issues, if they think they'll get a better life out of it.  The Indian's are also some of the most racist people I know, due to them arguing over religions from the same country.  They've had racism against them in that town for years, and the BNP's racism is like a Diet version to what they're used to.

And no, I didn't vote.  It's not so much apathy, as the fact that all the parties are bad.  I also refuse to acknowledge Gordon Brown as the Prime Minister, as people voted for Tony Blair, not him.  I understand that it's a vote for the party, but if it was solely to do with party and not person, then pretty much every vote in history should be recounted.

Also, Mein Kampf isn't just about hating Jews.  Take out the racism side of the Nazis, and they actually had good policies, rebuilding Germany, giving people jobs, making life better.  If people want to read that from Mein Kampf, then I've no problem with it.

UKIP and BNP may be different, but Robert Kilroy Silk was UKIP, and was in a racism scandal.  So it's fair to say they both have racist problems.

Obama was voted for by African Americans because of his skin color.  Sure, he's probably the best thing that's happened to the country in years, he's an intelligent man, a great orator, and he's compassionate.  But that doesn't mean that people didn't vote for him just because he was black.  Black people can be racist, too.  Racism doesn't just cover the negatives, it also cover people who are pro-race.

Some of the blacks voted for a black guy, just on this occassion they came out in droves.  Whites will inevitably do the same, they vote based on who the person is, and whether they feel a connection.  People voted Labour/Tony Blair, as he made himself out to be a likeable, average guy, and not some posh, rich suit with no personality.

Everyone is to some extent a racist, I include myself in this.  I don't like it about myself, but it's not something I can change.  It's to do with how I was raised, and events in my life.  I personally abhor racism, being on the receiving end of six people attacking me, for having Indian friends.  I took a beating, so they could get away.  That doesn't mean that I don't have Issues with Islam, the French or Kosovans.  And it's naive to think that anyone's not partly racist.

Also, Patriotism is a form of racism.

Find a mirror, and try and recreate that pose, with the hand reaching for the imaginary brim.

I'm not the most supple of people, but it feels like my arm's going to snap when I try to make that pose.

That tells me that either:
1. He's got some kind of deformity, where his arms are the wrong lengths.  Perhaps his mother was on Thalidomide. Or..
2. His arm's in the wrong place for the pose.

I'd suggest you do a skeletal-esque paint-over at some point, to see where the joints should be.  Whilst you're at it, I'd take a closer look at his shoulders in general, as they seem off to me.

Depends on what area/timezone the LARPing involves, but my first thought would be to check Alex Kingston in Moll Flanders, for bodice ripping era whoring.  She was mostly selling herself to noblemen and such.

I'd suggest ebay for cost effectiveness, and see if you can get ex-costume department stuff from theatres and such.

Or haberdasheries if you're willing to make/customise the clothes.

I'm quite happy with Opera.  I doubt I could be faffed with a browser that had loads of addons.

No. He shouldn't.  Disco's lovely as he is.  The shirt makes him look rather dapper.

And if I had kids, I'd totally let him be the cool mad uncle.

Hackney might've improved since I was there, due to the Olympic stuff in the area.  Used to be rough, though.  Gangs, estates, drugs, people getting beat up and the like.  But, still.  Even if it's paved with gold, I've no plans to go there.

Have you looked at STO.wikia.com? As Cryptic's old game City of Heroes uses both paragonwiki.com and cityofheroes.wikia.com (they link to the same pages, hosted by wikia).  They actually moved to wikia a while back, as it was better for them and it's improved since then.

For a start, it'd help if you mentioned where you were actually studying, as London's pretty big and you don't want to end up forking out most of your budget on travel expenses across the town.

In short, though, avoid Catford, Deptford, Hackney and everything East of Whitechapel on the District Line.

Sadly, those are also likely to be the cheaper options.

I thought it was Keira Knightley being hit in the back of the head with a javelin.  Which is a fantasy of mine.  And would be quite final for her, I'd hope.

Oh dear..

Zombie Keira will be my nightmare for the next few months.

When I used to do reviews for games.nu or nugames or whatever they were called, I often reviewed the ones I disliked first, as it was usually more fun poking holes in them than it was actually playing them. 

When I did a stint on Vel's ezine jobbie, I ended up reviewing things I disliked and had the editor whine because I didn't give a game a high a rating as he did.  Comments to me personally, supported my ratings.

So, my advice of sorts, is review everything, good or bad, and don't listen to what other people tell you about the games.  Just be honest, and if you can, poke as much fun at things as possible.  People like humor, and fun-pokery is one of the few lowest common denominator types of humor.

If you can throw in a pun or a nob gag, you're on to a winner.

I sense Eric's sprite dealie paintovering..

I'll *never* get used to those legs.

Frumpy.

Chest's a bit odd.

In fact, I'd suggest you don't go for the straight on view, or the side view (unless walking), and opt for a 3/4 view when the character's standing about, talking or whatnot.

It's much easier to make things look pretty if the viewpoint's changed.  Trust me, I'm hopeless at drawing females to begin with, but slight pose revolve and whizz bang, still pretty hopeless.  Massive improvement, though.