Thursday 21 February 2013

The Analysis of Snow White OR Dwarfs do it with funny red hats


THE ANALYSIS OF SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
OR
SNOW WHITE II – DWARFS DO IT WITH FUNNY RED HATS.

| INTRODUCTION:

Relax, the sense of deja vu is perfectly normal since I have already done an analysis of Snow White.  In fact it was the first one of these that I did and my plan back then was to connect them all by having the running gag of people going off to fight in the Unicorn Wars.  Thankfully I was able to cast such ideas to the wind but this particular story seems to beg for an update.

An update which, if you  hit the jump you can read.

Sunday 10 February 2013

A-Z Challenge 2013



| INTRODUCTION:

So here's the thing. Leaving aside the issue of terrible grammar in that opening sentence I've done a few blog challenges in the past, they're both fun and challenging (1), but the A-Z was my first and remains my favourite. Of course the first time I did it my subjects were just a random selection of alphabetical miscellanea and last time I did it I actually tried to give out useful/less information.

The biggest change in then and now is that then I was stuck in a job that let me have a lot of hours to think about all the various topics and didn't mind if I scribbled them down on the back of official type forms. Whereas now I've left and am currently designated officialus artus studentus (2)

The thing of it is that my previous entries have been large walls of text (3). Admittedly it's often funny text, occasionally has a point and I'm happy to share anything that gets scribbled down in a fit of inspiration/madness/carefully thought out and reasonable discussion (4).

But this time around it's going to be different. This time I've decided that, due to aforementioned studentage, I'll most likely be bogged down in assignments and essays where I must talk about a painting of a daisy and what the play of shadow upon the petals was saying about the working conditions during the industrial revolution. This isn't going to leave me a lot of time to do other traditional student activities – namely going to parties and getting drunk (5).

Anyway the point is that with all the free time I now haven't got I've still decided to do the challenge because of the aforementioned fun and tradition but the big difference this time around is that it's going to be comprised solely of Bands and their Albums.

POST 1: A - D
POST 2: E - H
POST 3: L - Z
 
| BAND LIST:

ASTRAL IMPROV
BARELY APHRODISIA
CHORD OF THE GODHEAD
DRAMA LLAMA
EXTREME RHUBARB
FORCED PROMISE
GYRO INSTITUTE
HEAD POCKET
INTERNET VOLTAGE
JUKEBOX PORNO
KILLER EXORCISM
LET TYRANTS FEAR
MONTHLY VAMPIRE
NAKED INTERN
OPSHOP ZOMBIES
POINTLESS WAR AND THE MINISTERS
Q
RESET ANYTIME
SATANS ARROW
THROUGH TELEVISION
UNFORGIVEN INSPECTOR
VAMPIRE SHAMPOO
WITH WORDS AND MUSIC
XENOMORPHIC PARADOX
YOGURT HORSEFLY
ZINZENZO



There you go, that's the list of bands and to the best of my knowledge they don't exist except on my blog (6).
I don't know exactly what genre's they'll all be although I'd be surprised if Satans Arrow is anything less than very heavy metal.

| NOTES:
  1. A phrasing, incidentally, that accurately sums up my first girlfriend.
  2. We can all be thankful that I'm not taking Latin.
  3. You can skip this next bit it's just me polishing my ego.
  4. But that last one almost never happens
  5. I kid. Art students don't have time for any of that. Not when we're all sitting around drinking tiny espressos and worrying about the price of berets.
  6. But if they do then they can have a free album cover. Woo!

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Grandiose World Changing Theory #4 - Cellphone Alternatives


GRANDIOSE WORLD CHANGING THEORY #4:
CELLPHONE ALTERNATIVES
/INTRODUCTION:
The following sentences are true:
I have a cellphone.
It is crap.
It won't tell me when I have messages or missed calls except when it cuts me off in the middle of a call to tell me that there are messages waiting.
It has an alarm which works, erratically (1).

But I mean you've got to have a cellphone these days because, well just because. Or do you? It might be that there are alternatives to cellphones which have not being looked at in enough depth. Alternatives, I might add, that are not only good for the environment but also good for humanity in general (2).

/OPTION ONE – BIRDS:
Now when I say birds I'm really talking about pigeons and you might think I mean of the homing variety but I'm not. The pigeons I'm talking about are the ones that gather in the city squares and are also known as flying rats.
PRO:
Good at surviving
Know their way around the cities of the world.
CON:
Not exactly the smartest of birds. (3) Or are they? The fact that this bird has managed to survive and thrive in the brutal worlds of nature and also in the concrete jungle strikes me as suspicious. What are they hiding? What's their agenda? Clearly the pigeon can not be trusted.

“But what about other kinds of birds?” I hear you ask through the specialized and expensive software that lurks in the depths of this blog. “There are more kinds than Pigeons you know”
Well I do know and have considered different types of avian but even there we seem to run into problems.

Obviously we can't use anything from the Corvus branch – crows, ravens magpies etc. Not because they've already been proven to be rather high up on the intelligence scale but more because it would mean that everyone would look like Highschool Goths (4) and any messages sent would look like

“When the black inky night spills into the depths of my soul. I look into the face of the monster and say 'what's the point of it all and can you pick up some milk on the way home tonight?' Luv Mum”

Perhaps then, each country should use their national birds as their own message carriers? (5) This too has it's drawbacks as the American Bald Eagle clearly wouldn't deliver messages that it felt weren't patriotic enough which means that any message sent would look like
“America Woo! Man I tell you, I love living in this, the greatest and best country in the world. Any who doesn't like us is gonna have to deal with me! There's a real raging fire in my heart for this great state of ours and there's a real raging fire in this state of ours. Could you come and put it out? Yours in truth, justice and the American way forever”

Our own national bird is the Kiwi. A type of bird that doesn't fly, only comes out at night and might deliver some sort of garbled message in a couple of days if it doesn't find something more interesting to do (6).

As stated above: Our Avian brothers are clearly not the answer.

/OPTION 2 – ROCK:
Rocks are everywhere in this world, they're everywhere in outer space as well which explains why Boybands and that Justin Bieber chick are having such a hard time breaking into the cosmic market. (7).
But how exactly can we use mere rock to pass on messages? Why it's simplicity itself
STEP 1: Locate rock of sufficient size
STEP 2: Write message on rock of sufficient size.
STEP 3: Whilst carrying rock of sufficient size, now loaded with message. Find person with whom you wish to communicate
STEP 4: Throw rock of sufficient size at person with whom you wish to communicate
STEP 5: Await reply.
STEP 6: Ouch
STEP 7: Return to Step 1 until conversation is concluded.

Now if the movies have taught me anything it's that once people stop playing a sport they generally live their lives in an alcoholic haze until they are called upon to coach a ragtag team of underdogs (8) .
But what we have here is an opportunity. Since throwing rocks is the new form of communication the retired baseball pitcher or cricket bowler could easily get a job that allows them to transmit messages across the country for long distance communications.
This ensures that, when they eventually return to the sport that they love so much, this is going to be translated into bowling of bat shattering speeds (9)
For obvious reasons this excludes Australians.

Feburary 1 1981:: Never Forget!

/OPTION 3 - NAMES:All right. From now on everyone gets a different name. There is only one Tom, Tim, Istvaan, Oswold, Micky, Micheal, Mike, etc in the entire world and on the basis that sooner or later everyone knows everyone else (10) all anyone has to do is pass on a message which will eventually get to the right person.
How do they know it's the right person? Because there's only one “Tim” on the planet and someone knows him.(11)

Of course we'll run into problems with this scheme as well since legally changing your name is already a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork and red tape and if you don't move quickly enough then you could be stuck with a name that you don't want or worse, a name that you did want, back when you were thirteen (12)
Another issue is that this effectively makes the messaging system an elaborate and global version of Chinese Whispers which guarantees that when your message reaches “Tim” it's either so very garbled as not to make sense or has been changed entirely,

/NOTES:
  1. and occasionally vomits pea soup while spinning round and shouting “Your mother sews socks in heck!” but to be fair I did download that particular app.
  2. Also for humanity in Specific. A country that, I'll remind you, is nowhere near New Zealand, but shout out to my Specifican brothers! You guys don't get no respect!
  3. I know what you're thinking and no we can't monkey around with their genetic structure. Didn't Charlton Hestons time among those damned dirty apes teach you anything?
  4. The worst kind!
  5. I mean why else would we have them?
  6. Like laundry.
  7. Heartfelt thanks to Pink Floyd and David Bowie. They've guaranteed that at least one aspect of the final frontier will be awesome.
  8. Who may or may not also be depressed/disabled/girls or a gestalt combination of all three
  9. Because that's what India needs. More fast bowlers.
  10. In the same way that Wikipedia insists that everyone knows everything although if that is true then explain Student Loans.
  11. “Oh yeah, he's the one that suggested throwing rocks at eagles. I hate that guy!”
  12. Remember the type of stuff you were into when you were thirteen? Do you really want your taxes done by Conan Thundercat Prime, the invincible hero of the universe?