The outcast's haven

(Clockwise from Left; An icecream of the Earth, mmm... A colloquial sea of red, and a GPS for kids, that can track them to an accuracy of 5m)

(Warning, the following blog post may be offensive to anyone above the age of 27.)
(Appropriate listening whilst reading this post would be 'What I've Done' by Linkin Park)

Generation Y. The Generation with 'Hover Parents' an 'Obesity Epidemic' 'Terrorism' and untold horrors, like 'Kidnapping'. The Generation with high expectations, with obsessive grooming. The Generation born with a disinfected silver spoon in their mouth, with a chain on their wrist. This isn't just a tale about the failures of society, or the damage that it has caused to our children. This is about MY generation.

Well, let's look at our world before I start making racial/stereotypical generalizations full of abrupt idiocy, and whatnot. Firstly, we're living with a generation that's facing the realities, caused by the sins of our fathers. I'm talking about Global Warming, and the scarcity of natural resources. Also, I can include on this list, lets say... Terrorism, and perhaps, the prevalence of media in our society. It's not a pretty future I'm painting right now, and it's perhaps getting worse with each passing day. A recent Financial Crisis, worsening relations between countries, more acts of terrorism... Perhaps, in our world- our generation do have a right to be scared, and after all, we will soon be the leaders of our dying Earth.

This isn't something that'll just disappear in an instant, even if the current generation in power- the Baby Boomers, take immediate, and unwavering action- there'll always be a problem lingering behind. And this will never happen, thanks to our good ol' friend Capitalism, and his friend Greed. I'm no communist, but Capitalism is flawed, flawed in such a way, that it doesn't take the environment, nor sustainability into account. Perhaps we are sending our world to hell because of it, but at least some measures have been put into play to increase stability- such as the Kyoto Protocol, and of course- the Carbon Trading Emissions scheme. There are also more, smaller ventures, such as the movement Greenpeace, and even Sea Shepperd, an anti whaling piracy organization.

But... the problem is, with every environmentalist that is in our world, they are surrounded and flanked by at least four more environmental destroying capitalists (No source, imagined facts or whatever). Will our generation adapt and grow to save our environment? Or will we be the first generation to live in domes, because our atmosphere has deteriorated to that level. Only time will tell... My guess would be that, well- with our generation being almost completely dependent on technology- we would be the ones that really do devastate the world- especially with our cravings for iPods, and computers... etc.

Second problem to deal with today, is well, the upbringing of Generation Z, and the upbringing of our generation, by the Baby Boomers. Trophy kids, ever heard of that term? It's a disease, with almost epidemic proportions, this disease has almost completely infected asian circles, and is starting to spread to Australians, and other races... The notion is simple, make sure that your kids have the ultimate privileges, and educations, then compare them to everyone else's kids. Whoever has the best kid, wins. You know what the saying is though- winning isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing. And of course, parents will certainly want to protect their investments, there's a lot of money in Private Schooling, and even Kindergarten. Here comes the onset of Hover Parenting, or what I like to call 'Clinical Paranoia'. It's true that there are atrocities committed towards Children, but in a lot of kidnapping cases, the perpetrators generally know the kids in person (ie. Babysitters, etc.) This fear is practically unjustified, I mean... some parents will practically buy a GPS system, in order to track their kids movements with each PASSING SECOND... It's insanity, it's madness, and we can't even do anything about it. You do know this is actually a breach of privacy, perhaps even a breach of Human Rights, am I right? We are brought up with paranoia in one hand, and a focus on achieving in the other. And, of course, the iron fist that is wielded by parents, to allow them to have this control...

Generation X, imagine the way that they will parent their children. I've already seen some early examples, an almost exact repeat of the Baby Boomer parenting scheme, except with twice the vigour, and twice as inclusive. I've actually been asked to teach a kid poker at two years of age... Why you might ask? His parents want him to be an economist, and it's to help him learn probabilities. Like seriously, that's not good, trust me... I've seen a world that's being eaten from the inside, by the poisoning of our children, and I can't do anything about it all, one day, we'll all bear the consequences, every last one of us. Can generation A survive parenting by Generation Y? Only time will tell. We are supposedly one of the most indulgent, and anti-social generations, and that's probably true. I wonder if we will buck the trend, and not have these parenting methods, otherwise, who knows what will be the resultant product? Or will we be a generation of change? Enough to warrant starting the alphabet system again?

The media is also one of the biggest reasons our Generation has been portrayed as one of the worst in history. It's wormed it's greedy, ugly hands into every part of our lives, from advertising, to the news that controls the world. Even the economy is based on speculation, based on confidence. It's almost safe to say, that whoever controls the media, controls the world. And well, look at our problems of Anorexia, of Bulimia... Did these problems happen in previous generations? Yes they did, but not on such an epic scale. And whose fault are these problems? Of course, greedy old Baby Boomers. Good on you, the people running Fashion magazines, and whatever, (*Claps hands*). The entire economy is basically controlled by the media- after all, shares are based on confidence. If the media turns against a company, regardless of their response- the companies share price and value will CRASH. Why? Because the smart investors will realise that the public will sell their shares, feeling that it's their moral obligation, or duty to make that company suffer. What else does the media control? It's almost horrifying to think about it really, Social Control is a reality, it's just that our world is too blind to see it. There is no such thing as a Utopia, we live in a Dystopian world, right here, right now.

What will happen at the turn of the century? No-one will be able to predict that. All I can do, is hope that we will leave a world for our children, that isn't doomed, nor a generation that will not be nothing but machines, fooled by the lights and tricks of the media.

Well, on my practically, daily Internet trawls, after eating a burger, and whatnot, I stumbled upon an interesting concept that is a bit like my Asian parents, in that it gives money to the impoverished students (not an insult, I'm one myself), after they accomplish good grades.

So, the idea is that you can sponsor a person, with say, as little as 5 bucks, which is given to them if they accomplish a certain grade in a certain subject. For example, let's say I get an A, then well, the 5 bucks would go towards my school fees, or given to me to buy academic crap with it =) I like the program, because it really does encourage people to study, especially someone like myself. Unfortunately, this program isn't avaliable where I live, so I guess I'll have to make do for now.

Please, let's be generous here, and open our wallets for this, academic, enobling cause, ;P And so, I've decided to track one student, known as Eric P. Martin. Hopefully, he'll get some support, because well... I don't have a credit card, and my Paypal is exhausted.

Email him if you're interested at theblognovice@yahoo.com

And, if you want to read his infinitely better writing, visit his page, at http://theblognovice.com/2008/12/16/gradefund-sponsers-needed/

Thanks for your time people... ;D

With a couple of days to go before Christmas, I got an early Christmas Present for myself, and watched the entire set of episodes of Death Note, all over again. For those who don't know what it's all about, it's the story of a 17 year old student, named Yagami Light that finds a notebook one day. Unfortunately, for the people that have their names written in it, they die of a heart attack, unless specified otherwise. After this discovery, Light decided to purge the world of evil, by purging the world of criminals, and anyone that would oppose him on his killing spree. However, of course, there has to be a few 'moral' people that try to stop his 'eeeeviill' plot. One of these people is the world's best detective, known only as 'L' to the world.

And so, the battle of the minds begins, and of course ends- after the long arm of justice catches up with Light (Sorry for the spoiler, lol...) But, Light made some critical errors, and- if he was a bit more... insidious like me, he'd be an emperor by now, with the entire world sucking his feet. Now how would one go about this? The details are right here below, in an easy to follow, sequential set of steps.

Step 1. Test your weapon

Let's see here, after picking up a notebook that can kill anyone, just by knowing their name, what the hell else would you do, other than to test out it's capabilities? I agree with Light's testing of his weapon, and I'd essentially do what he did, except possibly making the arrangements a little more... inconspicuous. Blah blah, the basics are you need a name and a face to kill, as well as, you can command them to do stuff before they die.


Step 2. Send a message to the authorities, then blame them =)

Well, apart from killing everyone with a heart attack, Light probably should have spaced out the deaths evenly, so that a psychological profile would be unable to deduce that he was a student. But that wasn't a really important point, but I would draw suspicion away from myself, by handing in a page to the authorities, and saying that I found a piece of paper with all of the people that were murdered on it. Of course, it'd be through an anonymous tip-off, and I'd allow a few days to let the authorities investigate with it. During this period, I'd make sure that the deaths were constant- but after a few days, I'd make unusual spikes in deaths, showing that a government agent had possibly stolen a piece of paper, and was using it for his own personal gain. This has the same effect as Light revealing that the killer was a member of the investigative task force, but with a lot less risk =)

Step 3. Blackmail the hell out of everyone that's rich/important

Yep, now my path of being emperor of the world completely changes from Light's path. After all, all's fair in love an war. I'd begin by blackmailing Bill Gates, and ordering him to give at least, 50% of his fortune into a secured, Nigerian bank account, or a dodgy Swiss one. I'd continue, killing the ones that don't pay up, and ordering them to do it anyway, using the death note, before they died. My reasoning behind this, is like any other terrorist organization. I'd need funds to be able to fund a massive arsenal, and weapons- just in case my Death Note failed, or some asses were hiding their names from me.

Secondly, I'd get the political leverage to be able to start a terrorist organization. Firstly, I'd make sure that I'd be able to obtain political asylum for my organization, probably by killing a Prime Minister or something. Then, the new PM would probably fear for his life, and then grant my organization some funds, and other heavy equipment, in order to keep their country stable. Soon, I'd amass a huge amount of firepower, and if my Death Note failed, I'd have Evil Plan #2.

Step 4. Operation Guillotine

Well, now that I have a dedicated Terrorist organization, or really, just an entity to hide myself, and to protect my identity, I'd now hatch an extremely evil plan, to make sure that I'm ruler of the United States at least. In the film 'Eagle Eye' the Super Computer ARIA decided to kill everyone in her puppets line of succession, and so, I'd use the same method. Obviously, I have other methods instead of using high explosives and other crap, and soon, I'd have the right puppet for my job.

Now with my puppet, unfortunately, my Death Note can control people, but only for thirty days before they die. Well, I guess there's a lot of aristocrats around anyway. But with Presidential Power, I'd declare a nuclear war on the European Union, and destroy a massive power bloc. Then, I'd rinse and repeat, with Russia engaging India, and the other states. Down in Australia, or wherever my terrorist organization was based, I'd have massive amounts of scientists and spies working on developing my own nuclear arsenal.

After that, I'd rise from the ashes, and then take over the world, threatening annihilation to anyone that opposes me. I wouldn't really need the Death Note anymore, due to my superior firepower. Also, I'd still be unable to reveal my name, as the manga/anime revealed that there is a chance that other Death Notes exist. Therefore, I'd still have a puppet ruling my Organization, and well... I guess that's it. I'd be ruler of the world, ruling from the shadows.

Step 5. Gloat

Self explanatory, however, the problem is, you can't really gloat in public, just in case someone has eyes that can see your name, or whatever.

And that's it, I hope this guide made World Domination all that easier, especially with a Death Note xD

Mediocre, Terrible, Shallow, Worthless, A waste of my friggin 10 bucks
One and a half Stars out of Five

(Warning. This Review Contains SPOILERS. Period.)
(Warning. This Review is written by a person that has only read the plot on Wikipedia, and watched the movie. Period. )

I suppose that's not a great way to start a review of a film, is it? Unfortunately, the film Twilight abscribes to all of the above statements. Unfortunately, it tried to strike the middle ground between the hardcore fans, and the newcomers to the series, and ended up as complete roadkill. It's a true pity that the film was like that, I was fairly psyched up for it, while walking around 8 Kms to the cinema. However, after sprinting in, and barely getting in on time, I found my group of friends, cracked open my can of pepsi, and then, with my mind still buzzing, the first few scenes played out in front of me.

Let's start with a summary, before I do spoil the entire film. The acting isn't good, I'm serious, actually, not much about this film is good, only the CGI at the end of the film looks any good, seriously, it was like, OMG Kung Fu Hustle! Secondly, the cinematography was alright, I mean, well, the scenery does look quite epic, and awesomeish. However, Edward's sparkly bit (generically written to avoid spoilers) was frankly crap. I mean, lol, I think I can photoshop that. Finally, the detail put into the movie is really shallow, and for a newcomer to the series, I think that it could be seriously expanded upon. Oh yes, did I mention that the acting is crap? I mean, the entire cinema was laughing during some of the more serious parts, that's how bad it was.

(Real Spoiler Warning Now. Period.)
(Warning. This is an unflattering, negative, pissed off review. Period.)

In a gothic, and emo way to start the film, we hear the narrator talking about dying. Awesome. Secondly, on screen, you see a deer getting owned by some crazily fast blur. Also awesome. Unfortunately, this is where all the action dies, until around 30 minutes before the end of the movie, which is expected from a romance/horror film, but unfortunately, the scenes of conflict between the beginning and the epilogue aren't expanded enough to warrant more than a mere mention.

After a lengthy introduction of Bella, the stories heroine, and her new life in a sleepy American town, and a brief appearance of a Korean actor, the romantic tension begins as soon as the Cullen family walks in, or, brace yourselves, 'Vampires' !!! (OMGWTFBBQ). Anyway, for vampires, they look unusually metro, unlike my expectation of a series of Japanese Gothic Lollitas, with a taste for blood. Poor old Edward Cullen looks the most metro, actually looking like he should make an appearance for either

A) Calvin Klein

B) Queerly straight Eye, for the Straight Guy

Or

C) A Contestant on 'Make me a Supermodel'

Alright, now romantic tension builds, as soon as good ol' Bella looks at Edward. Unfortunately for her, she is informed by her friends that simply, he's out of her league. Also, she's nearly hit by a car driven by a friend, but *Shock*, she's saved by the ever reliable Edward, who runs in at a MILLION miles an hour, and stops a moving car with his BARE HANDS! Later at the hospital, the ever emo/metro Edward makes another appearance, and advises that she was hallucinating.

Now, I'll pretty much cut the crap, and say that they grow on each other, a bit, and well, Bella also tries to find out what Edward really is. Then, we have this slightly actiony scene where she's about to get raped, but lo and behold, he shows up, in a Volkswagon no less, driving like a guy from Initial D, and scaring the crap out of the potential rapists. Cool.

From this point on, the whole thing can be summarised in a few sentences. Bella finds out Edward's a vampire, and loves him anyway, Edward and Bella have a bedroom scene (Yea, a 107 year old vampire with a 17 year old girl, lol) Edward's vampire family meet a new set of vampires that desire to kill Bella. And finally, and most importantly, the Cullen family move to protect her from them.

Unfortunately, the only thing that justified my 10 bucks was the awesome fight scene, where Edward pwns another vampire. That was seriously, something friggin awesome, where they beat the living shits out of each other (Falcon... PUNCH!)

Then everything ends happily, and they go to the prom, finally the movie ends, with a small cliffhanger, as the wife of a slain vampire watches both of them dancing.

About now, I'd already finished my can of pepsi, and damn, I was pretty bored during it. Unfortunately, due to it's bad acting, and whatnot, I'd suggest waiting for a DVD release or something, it was that bad. -_-

Well, I guess it's time to review something completely different, rather than bagging the living shits out of another movie. Instead, I'll talk about a band called 'Paramore' today. They're a fairly popular band, with a couple of hits screaming to the top of the music charts. With their association with the 'Twilight' movie, they have become one of America's rising rock stars.

Firstly, they sound distinctly like a power pop/emo rock band, with their vocalist being able to give their band an amazing energy, without screaming like a nutcase. Their sound leans towards an emo/pop band, like Fall Out Boy, or Panic at the Disco, but they have roots in pop as well, which explains their hybrid genre. The key feature about the band is that, like a lot of others, their choruses are filled with energy, and just have a catchy beat, which is easy to accompany when you're playing a drumkit, or jamming with a guitar.

To be honest, I recommend this band to people that like your general emo bands, and perhaps to those that like modern rock. But then again, their sound isn't for everyone, so I suppose it's all about what you look for in a song.

Recommended Listening

Misery Business (Also appears on Guitar Hero World Tour)
Decode
That's what you get
For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic

Ahhh, yes, due to my outcast nature in society, I've never actually read the 'Twilight' series. Unfortunately, even being an outcast, I just can't seem to avoid the mass media exposure that the series is getting, both negative and positive. So, from what I've gleaned, the series is about vampires, and whatnot- except they're more like Superman, with a taste for animal blood. That's fairly disturbing already, kinda because I like my vampires to be your classical bloodsuckers, but considering it's audience, I guess that's fair enough *Sigh*

Well, it was received extremely well by teenage/young adult females, and as a result, there's a film out about it now. I guess it's not really different from a lot of other bestsellers then, right? Not really, the book differs from a lot of vampire novels in a series of succinct means. Firstly, yes- there's actually a good vampire- scratch that, a freaking crowd of friendly vampires... Yes, and then, the talking point of the whole book, a 107 year old vampire loves some 17 year old girl. Is that disturbing? Like, pedophile disturbing? Well, considering he looks like a 17 year old anyway, I guess not -_-.

Right, so apart from being a bestseller, and receiving critical acclaim, it's also been heartily criticized by a crapload of people. Well, actually it's just being criticized by the usual hardcore, elite people, for using too many descriptive words, for having empty characters... etc. etc. But then again, it's been praised for having an awesome world, like something out of Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter. A lot of people have also come up to criticize it about it's morals, and perhaps, just the thing that I mentioned before, a 107 year old vampire has the hots for some random 17 year old.

Anyway, over these holidays, I might even read the series of books, even if it does have some flaws to it. But then again, if I wanted to see some awesome mythological action, the anime
series 'Claymore' does come to mind, hehe. But in the end, that's the end of another random blog from me, back to watching the finale of Code Geass

Around a week ago, I went with my group of classmates to go and watch some more gore porn. About two weeks ago, I followed them to Dying Breed, but more recently, I watched an overhyped, idiotic fusion of I Am Legend/Cloverfield.

Quarantine is a remake of a Spanish film, that didn't see widespread release. It was fairly well recieved by critics, but because it was in Spanish, it didn't see widespread release. Quarantine is an English duplicate of this, but unfortunately, something was lost in the transition.

Quarantine's plot essentially is it's title, where an apartment is quarantined by the United States Government, due to a mysterious disease outbreak. Unfortunately, for the people inside, the government doesn't care about the livelihoods of those inside, and like all monster movies, this is where the action begins.

The camerawork in the film is pretty much like Cloverfield's, with the shaky camera work being the only thing that the viewers can see. This makes the film like an FPS, and like most games, the acting isn't up to scratch as well. Honestly, (Spoiler Warning) when you get your main character to go psycho, and by psycho- I mean like an Ice/Heroin addict, it gets... EXTREMELY annoying, after the 50th cry/scream for help/act of mass hysteria. Also, because we obviously can't see the person wielding the only camera, we really can't tell how well he acted, or perhaps- he did a voiceover a lot later on.

The film isn't that scary as well- it mainly relies on shock, and just old cliches in order to terrify it's audience for an extremely short period of time. In fact, there were laugh out loud points in the film, due to the ridiculously unrealistic usage of CGI, and the mass stupidity of the survivors inside. Perhaps the funniest part of the film when a main character goes on a killing spree, armed with nothing but an axe.

Secondly, the film is incredibly unrealistic, because the survivors, as aforementioned, are about as intelligent as small animals. Also, the government takes a very 'Unamerican' approach, prefering to let the residents rot inside- rather then providing them with a healthy dosage of the Second Amendment.

It's a pity that the film isn't that great after all, but for the maximum horror effect, I'd suggest going to the cinemas and watching the stupidity firsthand.

Final Rating; Two and a Half Stars out of Five

Our world is changing, our technology is changing, even today, the impossible is being achieved- from absolutely nothing. For example, an old example would be that of 'Project Entropia'. Making headlines for having the world's most expensive virtual objects sold, it's interesting how consumer demand can be met, for absolutely nothing. In game, a space station was sold for around $100,000 USD, where the investment was returned in under a year. This is old news essentially, having happened in around 2006

What does this mean for our economy though? Because, simply- people are paying money, for nothing but a bunch of pixels. Perhaps it is the only solution to our world's natural resource crisis. Why? Because, the amount of manufactured goods is devastating the amount of goods left on our planet. With an object that reduces a consumers disposable income, this would theoretically in turn, lessen the amount of manufactured goods that they would buy, thereby reducing their resource footprint. Secondly, there would be no such thing as an equilibrium price, as supply will infinitely outstrip demand, regardless of how many consumers there are. Therefore, the price will consistently stay the same, unless the basic maintenance costs have been exceeded. However, these costs will be negligible, especially if the product reaches mainstream popularity.

Interestingly, this theory of paying for essentially 'nothing' has been existing for quite a long time. Characters of popular MMORPGS have retailed for more than a few thousand dollars, with the only expense of the producers being the transaction fees, and possibly, the subscription fees/opportunity cost that this action would have incurred. Companies have caught onto this, and in China, there are companies set up in order to 'Powerlevel' characters, for lazy players. Powerleveling is essentially, playing one's character on an MMORPG, and subsequently preforming repetitive actions on it, so as to 'level up' or increase the strength, or value of that character. However, due to the costs incurred by paying the people for preforming these repetitive actions, this isn't an actual example of the new Virtual Economy.

The true virtual economies are still developing as this post is being written. Perhaps, this post will be obsolete, the second I push that orange button labeled 'Publish Post'. However, there are two main structures that have been developing under the economical radar of Western nations. One is owned by a Korean corporation, and one is owned by an American company. Firstly, a site know as 'Cyworld' was once touted as being a major competitor in the 'Social Networking' industry. However, the Western version hasn't really taken off- and only holds a minor market share.

Cyworld is a website that allows its users to have a virtual home, which they can decorate, and in turn- show off to their friends. Users pay money, through a Paypal transaction, or through a mobile phone bill- and exchange it for a currency known as 'Acorns'. With this currency, users can decorate their homes with much more exclusive items. Surprisingly enough, the South Korean company was earning around $300,000 dollars from this transaction alone. The figure was obtained was in September, 2005.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/technology/cyworld0727.biz2/index.htm

This is an economy that allows users to purchase items, purely for aesthetic value. A lot of other companies have adopted this idea, especially text MMORPGS, or even forums, in the form of donations to the site. Perhaps, in our world's increasing dependence on the internet, this could be one way to allow 3rd world nations to develop substantial revenue- without exerting much expenditures.

The second structure is that in the form of monthly subscriptions. A prime example of this would be the massively popular 'World of Warcraft' where players have to pay a monthly fee in order to access the game. Because of it's popularity, and the high retention/subscription levels experienced in the game- currently, it is almost untouched by the economic crisis in America. It's parent company has been affected by the economic crisis, but Blizzard itself has proved that a virtual economy can shield a company from the real world- if the correct conditions are met.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/16/blizzard-economic-downturn-wont-hurt-world-of-warcraft/

Retrieved on the 16th of September, 2008

In conclusion, I cannot imagine the way that the Virtual Economy will develop, and evolve in the future, but all I can state truthfully, is that this new economy is only in it's infancy, and perhaps, it will develop into a domineering machine, that will control tomorrows world.