NO! Leslie Nielsen's dead! Surely you can't be serious, Mr Newsman!
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley"
Today is a sad day :(
Monday, 29 November 2010
Sunday, 28 November 2010
You Can't Stop Me Celebrating Yuletide!
Oh great. It's started already. How I love this.
Yet again the moaning blinkered right wing traditionalists of this country are banging on about banning celebrations of Christmas, replacing it with DIRTY EVIL Muslim festivals that we must all celebrate on pain of death.
Or, in reality, the Daily Mail twisted something Birmingham City Council did in 1997 to meet their own agenda and a bunch of uneducated morons believed it to be true without actually researching what they'd read and to this day we continue to get these people crawling out from under their rocks to rant incoherently about "those bloody foreigners and those PC dogooders ruining everything for everyone"
In 1997, Birmingham decided to hold a huge winter celebration called Winterval, as a way to encourage people into the newly refurbished city centre. It was an attempt to extend the festive season to cover pretty much every festival they possibly could. It started in mid-October with the coming of Diwali and ended in January with the Chinese New Year, and covered Hanukkah, Eid, Ramadan, Bonfire Night, Halloween and lord knows what else in between. At the centre of the whole thing, providing a central backbone, was a whole WEALTH of celebrations connected with a little-known holiday called Christmas. The traditional CHRISTMAS Carol Concert happened, the Frankfurt CHRISTMAS Market lined the streets, and nativity scenes and signs wishing people a MERY CHRISTMAS were everywhere.
And yet apparently the whole thing was designed to ban Christmas from being celebrated because it "offends minorities" *facepalm*
I don't know about you, but a 3-4 month celebration bringing together a whole bunch of festivals and filling a cold winter High Street with light and colour and good food and joy sounds pretty awesome to me. OK, I'm not Christian, but Xmas is still a fantastic time of year, so why not throw in a few more festivals to make it just that little bit more fantastic? After all, the Christians certainly didn't mind founding the holiday on a whole bunch of Pagan traditions from Yuletide (which are the only bits of Xmas I celebrate to be honest), and for some odd reason the site of a Menorah around this time of year doesn't get the right wing's knickers in a twist (in fact, I've seen them crop up on Advent Calendars, which is just weird), so why are Ramadan and Diwali such an issue?
Xmas should be a time of giving, a time of charity and love and peace for all. So why all this fuss about other cultures being allowed to celebrate their festivals? Not particularly peaceful, loving thinking, is it? I say let those of other cultures join in Xmas, and similarly I imagine they'll be more than happy to return the favour with their holidays. It's the very spirit of Xmas in action, coming together and having a huge fucking party for 3 months.
So no, no one is being banned from celebrating Xmas, so don't destroy anyone else's chances to celebrate their holidays this time of year either. If you still have a problem with it, then you sit in your house and be a Scrooge and leave the rest of us to have a great holiday season. Everyone's happy then. Well, except you, but that was your own choice.
As we creep into December, I would like to take the opportunity to say that no matter what you believe, no matter what you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you have a great time. Let's show these short-sighted fools what this time of year is all about!
Yet again the moaning blinkered right wing traditionalists of this country are banging on about banning celebrations of Christmas, replacing it with DIRTY EVIL Muslim festivals that we must all celebrate on pain of death.
Or, in reality, the Daily Mail twisted something Birmingham City Council did in 1997 to meet their own agenda and a bunch of uneducated morons believed it to be true without actually researching what they'd read and to this day we continue to get these people crawling out from under their rocks to rant incoherently about "those bloody foreigners and those PC dogooders ruining everything for everyone"
In 1997, Birmingham decided to hold a huge winter celebration called Winterval, as a way to encourage people into the newly refurbished city centre. It was an attempt to extend the festive season to cover pretty much every festival they possibly could. It started in mid-October with the coming of Diwali and ended in January with the Chinese New Year, and covered Hanukkah, Eid, Ramadan, Bonfire Night, Halloween and lord knows what else in between. At the centre of the whole thing, providing a central backbone, was a whole WEALTH of celebrations connected with a little-known holiday called Christmas. The traditional CHRISTMAS Carol Concert happened, the Frankfurt CHRISTMAS Market lined the streets, and nativity scenes and signs wishing people a MERY CHRISTMAS were everywhere.
And yet apparently the whole thing was designed to ban Christmas from being celebrated because it "offends minorities" *facepalm*
I don't know about you, but a 3-4 month celebration bringing together a whole bunch of festivals and filling a cold winter High Street with light and colour and good food and joy sounds pretty awesome to me. OK, I'm not Christian, but Xmas is still a fantastic time of year, so why not throw in a few more festivals to make it just that little bit more fantastic? After all, the Christians certainly didn't mind founding the holiday on a whole bunch of Pagan traditions from Yuletide (which are the only bits of Xmas I celebrate to be honest), and for some odd reason the site of a Menorah around this time of year doesn't get the right wing's knickers in a twist (in fact, I've seen them crop up on Advent Calendars, which is just weird), so why are Ramadan and Diwali such an issue?
Xmas should be a time of giving, a time of charity and love and peace for all. So why all this fuss about other cultures being allowed to celebrate their festivals? Not particularly peaceful, loving thinking, is it? I say let those of other cultures join in Xmas, and similarly I imagine they'll be more than happy to return the favour with their holidays. It's the very spirit of Xmas in action, coming together and having a huge fucking party for 3 months.
So no, no one is being banned from celebrating Xmas, so don't destroy anyone else's chances to celebrate their holidays this time of year either. If you still have a problem with it, then you sit in your house and be a Scrooge and leave the rest of us to have a great holiday season. Everyone's happy then. Well, except you, but that was your own choice.
As we creep into December, I would like to take the opportunity to say that no matter what you believe, no matter what you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you have a great time. Let's show these short-sighted fools what this time of year is all about!
Monday, 22 November 2010
Disasteriffic!
Today I was stuck driving behind an SVU with the registration "YRP".
(May not be the exact model, this is merely to illustrate my point)
For the entire drive, I was thinking one thing.
Christ, the Gullwings have gone downmarket, haven't they?
For those who don't get what I'm on about, PLAY MOAR FINAL FANTASY X-2!
Yes, I'm sad. Am I sad? I am sad. Sad am I. See, Yoda's sad too. Yes. Sorry, bit of a strange mood. You love it ;)
That's all I have for now. Sorry!
(May not be the exact model, this is merely to illustrate my point)
For the entire drive, I was thinking one thing.
Christ, the Gullwings have gone downmarket, haven't they?
For those who don't get what I'm on about, PLAY MOAR FINAL FANTASY X-2!
Yes, I'm sad. Am I sad? I am sad. Sad am I. See, Yoda's sad too. Yes. Sorry, bit of a strange mood. You love it ;)
That's all I have for now. Sorry!
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Dogger, Rising slowly
Can someone please tell me why iPod menus insist on lagging like crazy? Oh, Apple, you and your silly ideas of style over usefulness! When will you learn? (Having said that, I do love my iPod and wouldn't change it for another mp3 player just...because)
Anyway, thought I'd write another blog into the ether of the interwebs in hopes of entertaining a few passing strangers. I've said this before, but I will say it again. I aim to write in this daily from now on. I mean it, guys! Don't try and stop me!
Today I was reading a new instruction book that I bought. I buy many instruction books about all sorts of topics with the good intentions of saying "THIS will make me awesome! I'll buy this book on car maintenance, become a mechanic and then become filthy stinking rich! YEAH!"
Then I abandon the book and play some video games or watch Lost. By the way, I'm currently watching ALL of Lost, right from the beginning. I've made it to Season 4 but I haven't seen any of Seasons 5 or 6. So if anyone DARES tell me what happens in those seasons, expect to wake up dead tomorrow. Yes, you heard me.
Anyway, yes. Tangents. I buy instruction books and then forget about them shortly afterwards. Recently I bought a book called The Remixer's Bible: Build Better Beats, because I'd like to think I have the capabilities of being a fantastic music producer despite having about as much understanding of music theory as a polar bear understands how to make a cocktail.
In this book, there was a section on sampling and the legal wrangles that occur, namely "sample anything copyrighted and the RIAA will kill your entire family, but if you're British the BPI will just tut at you disapprovingly then call the hounds on you". Not quite in those words, but you get the idea. Amusingly, it mentioned that Chrissie Hynde gave Garbage full permission to her ass once, which naturally will get real person fanfic writers writing Chrissie Hynde x Shirley Manson erotica, but whatever.
The important thing is, it got me thinking about copyright law. No rants, it actually raised an interesting question in my mind.
Is the Shipping Forecast under copyright?
The Shipping Forecast, for those who don't know, is the ultimate chillout broadcast. Basically, BBC Radio 4, at some crazy hour of the morning, broadcast the sound of a very posh man/woman reading out place names in a very soothing rhythm in order to help people get to sleep. Also, apparently it helps sailors not die horribly in a storm or something, but that's not important. The important thing is that it's so soothing and amazing that it's been sampled and referenced by a range of musicians from Blur to Kate Bush to....that other guy. Yeah. His version was the best.
But my point is, if you sampled it, would you have to get permission from Auntie Beeb? Or because it's issued by The Maritime And Coastguard Agency (they're a government department involved in helping sailors not die in a horrible boating accident or something, but that's not important), does this make it publicly-owned? I know that government issuedpropaganda educational material is generally public domain, so why not The Shipping Forecast?
Does anyone know? Seriously, this is important. My life depends on knowing the answer to this. Help me!
In other news, I'm unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo, although in my case it'd be InternaNoWriMo, but that's complicating things. I aim to have the first draft of a novel by 30th November. I shall hopefully report my findings here. Which should be fun.
Anyway, thought I'd write another blog into the ether of the interwebs in hopes of entertaining a few passing strangers. I've said this before, but I will say it again. I aim to write in this daily from now on. I mean it, guys! Don't try and stop me!
Today I was reading a new instruction book that I bought. I buy many instruction books about all sorts of topics with the good intentions of saying "THIS will make me awesome! I'll buy this book on car maintenance, become a mechanic and then become filthy stinking rich! YEAH!"
Then I abandon the book and play some video games or watch Lost. By the way, I'm currently watching ALL of Lost, right from the beginning. I've made it to Season 4 but I haven't seen any of Seasons 5 or 6. So if anyone DARES tell me what happens in those seasons, expect to wake up dead tomorrow. Yes, you heard me.
Anyway, yes. Tangents. I buy instruction books and then forget about them shortly afterwards. Recently I bought a book called The Remixer's Bible: Build Better Beats, because I'd like to think I have the capabilities of being a fantastic music producer despite having about as much understanding of music theory as a polar bear understands how to make a cocktail.
In this book, there was a section on sampling and the legal wrangles that occur, namely "sample anything copyrighted and the RIAA will kill your entire family, but if you're British the BPI will just tut at you disapprovingly then call the hounds on you". Not quite in those words, but you get the idea. Amusingly, it mentioned that Chrissie Hynde gave Garbage full permission to her ass once, which naturally will get real person fanfic writers writing Chrissie Hynde x Shirley Manson erotica, but whatever.
The important thing is, it got me thinking about copyright law. No rants, it actually raised an interesting question in my mind.
Is the Shipping Forecast under copyright?
The Shipping Forecast, for those who don't know, is the ultimate chillout broadcast. Basically, BBC Radio 4, at some crazy hour of the morning, broadcast the sound of a very posh man/woman reading out place names in a very soothing rhythm in order to help people get to sleep. Also, apparently it helps sailors not die horribly in a storm or something, but that's not important. The important thing is that it's so soothing and amazing that it's been sampled and referenced by a range of musicians from Blur to Kate Bush to....that other guy. Yeah. His version was the best.
But my point is, if you sampled it, would you have to get permission from Auntie Beeb? Or because it's issued by The Maritime And Coastguard Agency (they're a government department involved in helping sailors not die in a horrible boating accident or something, but that's not important), does this make it publicly-owned? I know that government issued
Does anyone know? Seriously, this is important. My life depends on knowing the answer to this. Help me!
In other news, I'm unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo, although in my case it'd be InternaNoWriMo, but that's complicating things. I aim to have the first draft of a novel by 30th November. I shall hopefully report my findings here. Which should be fun.
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