Is A New Sun Really Rising?

February 26th 2012. A new sunday newspaper arises. The Sun has decided to fill the void left by 'The News Of The World'. But is it really going to turn over a new leaf?

It is a well known fact that The Sun is created by EXACTLY the same company as The News Of The World. And let us not forget that the News Of The World was forced to close for a VERY good reason...

It all started with a phone hacking scandall. The News Of The World decided that it was somehow ethical to hack the phones of celebritys. This is unsurprisiong, as we all seem to be obsessed with the world of celebrity. However, this then lead on to the Leveson enquiry, which saw the phone hacking scandal go too far. A horrific event which saw the parents of murdered school girl Millie Dowler being strung along by the news of the world. They preyed on the greif of the family, sparking the hope in them that she is still allive by somehow aquiring voicemail messages left for and by her - a cheap stunt in the aim of gaining a bigger profit and inciting interest in a cold case. As if it isnt horrific enough to lose a child, then find out that they are dead, the News Of The World then dragged them back from being at peace and recovering from the greif, finally moving on, and put them through the greif of loosing their child again. An unforgiveable act of selfishness and profiteering in my opinion!

Therefor, it interests me to turn to page 13 of the first issue of the Sun on Sunday, only to find an article by none other than John Sentamu, Archbishop Of York. Now I find this to be wrong on a number of levels. Where do I start...

To start, I find it fundamentally wrong that a newspaper that was previously religiously non-descript is now essentially alienating its readers by subscribing its self to one religion.

Another issue I have is that they are jumping on the proverbial band-wagon. They know they have done wrong, and they know that they need forgiveness, and who better to as than the Archbishop of York. Surely if he can forgive them for their heanous crime, then so can we - they assume that we are passive readers and that we will automatically forgive them for what they did just because a religious man says so...

These are problems I have with seeing this issue befor I even read it. We then go on to read it and there are even more issues.

How cheap is this publicity - I doubt very much that Sentamu actually reads the Sun, or indeed read the News Of The World. Im pretty sure if he did, he would have a different view. He is writing this article not to say that we should read the Sun, but that we should support him. He is clearly attemping to make himself more accessible to all, in his bid to become the first black archbishop, which I have no problem with, I just beleive this is an incredibly cheap way to gain followers.

I also beleive that it is wrong of the Sun to exploit this man to make it seem like you have turned over a new leaf. Clearly, there is going to be more contraversy. Give it a few months, and they will be back to their old ways. Rupert Murdoch will never change and neither will his newspaper.

An Outlet for Hatred? or Just Blind Ignorance?

Its Thursday morning. The boyfriend has left for work 2 hours ago. Because I decided to go to go back to bed, its now 12pm. Im bored. I have nothing to do. so, like many people would, I decided to explore the vast entity that is Youtube. Now, one thing that never fails to amuse me is the laughing of babys. so I first decided to go for an old favourite - 'Serious Baby Pulling A Funny Frown And Laughing'.

I love this video. Then I looked to the recomended list. The following video particularly caught my eye.

Top Ten Funny Baby Videos. That name has gotta mean its hillarious right? And it is. But the one that caught my eye the most was the child who you can see in the begining image for this video. And it just so happens that to the right of the screen, there was a link to the original version. So I clicked on it.

And it was hillarious. Just the look on his cute little face never fails to get me into fits of giggles. Which brings us to the final film in my baby video list. On the left I saw the video 'Worlds Meanest Dad'. I figured it couldnt be that bad, else it wouldnt be on youtube. So I clicked on it.

Isnt it hillarious! Bless the little babies face befor it cries. And then I saw the comments... What a load of pompus, self involved, moany, pathetic and frankly quite rude w*****s. I dont mean to swear, but they really made me angry. I have listed some of the comments below.

"ha that baby is gunna be scarred for life. Good parenting skills right there"

"omg wow so rude i think the baby needs a new mom and dad"

"U asshole!!!!!! The poor little baby almost cried D: you guys are horrible parents"

"Moro reflex, my ass. This adult individual made an overtly frightening gesture in order to derive amusement from his infant son's fear. It takes a real man to find humor in terrorizing a helpless baby. What else do you do for fun, torture animals?"

"you are one very sick and twisted freak .May god have mercy on you and may god watch over your poor now scared baby fuck face"

"Fuck you your not surpose to do that to your child you dumbass that means you don't love him asshole from hell"

"Keep it up dad, you're doing a fucking amazing job at turning your kid into a nervous wreck. This is very close to child abuse in my opinion"

"why would a sicko parent want to scare their own little baby,think you need to visit a doctor,its not a normall response to want to upset a baby,what is normal is the desire to protect our babys,not act like a stupid moron,your child will grow up with issues at the rate your going. go care for your child and dont upset it,last thought WHAT SORT OF MOTHER allows a creep to do trhat to her beautifull baby. STAND UP FOR YOUR CHILD WOMAN ..."

"Why would you do that to your child, you just discovered a baby can be scared? Are you that slow at figuring out a baby is a human just like you and they get scared as well. You knew that scaring the baby would make him cry, so why do it?. You don't deserve to be a parent if you do that to a child just to figure out they aren't robots."

And my personal favourite:

"Whatever your arguments are, I think scaring little babies just to watch their CUTE FACES is just dumb. You are supposed to have him feel secure and safe not make him piss his diaper! That's just being a parent. I have a 2-year daughter and I wouldn't even think of making her cry for any reason. I wish you are scared so much that you will shit your pants. DID YOUR DADDY SCARE YOU? AWWWW.... geez you both are the same.... Nothing worse for a kid than stupid parents."

When I first read the comments, I couldnt quite believe it!!! (Here it is important to note that this video was posted over 2 years ago, and only in the last few days has it gained quite such levels. The previous selection of comments were only made in the last week or so) . When I was searching through the comments, I realised that for confidentiality reasons I shouldnt include the Youtube usernames, but god I wanted too - just to show up these ignorant fools.

And you can tell that these people clearly have nothing to do with their life but sit and watch videos and bitch about them later. Its just another version of the Sachsgate scandal (in that the event haopened, no one really noticed, it went down like any normal prank. Then someone came along on their high horse, made a comment, and all of a sudden half the world seems to have a moral objection to it). Simmilarly here - The video was made and uploaded over two years ago. And while there were comments made when it was uploaded, its only really picked up in the last 9 months, with the most vicious attacks and the highest frequency of views and comments only happening in the last month.

And you can bet that these people dont have kids. And those that do claim to have kids have the sort of uptight upbringing that sees children grow up into rebellious little arses that will do anything to disobey the strict upbringing of their parents. "I have a 2 year daughter and I wouldnt even think of making her cry for any reason". I have news for you then - Your daughter is gonna grow up into a weak loser. I bet you wont let her watch films with guns in when she grows upo, and wont let her watch what she wants on TV, or let her play slightly violent games, or read adult books. Asshole.

Let me tell you somethin. When I was tiny, I was absolutely petrified of horses. So naturally, everytime we went to a farm, my dad and my grandad would hold me up next to it, and mum would take a photo of me next to the horse, crying my eyes out. Simmilarly, when I was a little older, I got attacked my a chicken who tryed to steal my sandwich. From that point on, I was scared of chickens (i got over it shortly after) but what did my parents do - the following christmas they bought me a chicken hand puppet! Its something parents do!

I guess what I am trying to convey is that social media is just another tool for people who want to spout hatred through blind anger and ignorance. Give these people an inch and they will take a mile. It doesnt take a lot to rile up these idiots. Because they will take anything and blow it out of proportion, even though they are misinformed and clearly dont know what they are talking about!

The Lonely Yuliya

I was checking my university emails today, when i found this gem of an email that had been sent to me...


The Email


Charming isnt it...

Now, this leaves you with two states of mind. 1) this poor russian girl so badly wants to find love that she has poured her heart out in a very sweet and meaningful message, or 2) its spam. Being the synic that i am, i automatically assumed that it was spam, and, as i do everytime i suspect something of being spam, I inputed the suggested email address into the great google machine. And it popped up with this blog - http://mattwhatsit.net/2012/02/01/from-russia-with-love/ - I reccomend you view it - the guys response was absolutely hillarious!!! end of story. mystery solved.

But this kinda got me thinking about availability of information. my address is a university email adress, so in theory, should only be public to other members of the university, and those who I have given this email address too. And since I have never given this address out to anyone (thats what my hotmail account is for) it is clearly someone else.

Well, according to seanet (http://www.seanet.com/help/email/spam.shtml#2a) spammers can get hold of your email adress in the following ways:

They run programs that collect e-mail addresses out of Usenet posting headers.

They cull them from subscriber lists (such as AOL's Member Profile list).

They use web-crawling programs that look for e-mail addresses on web pages.

They take them out of online directories.

They buy databases of addresses.

They take them from you without your knowledge when you visit a web site.

They collect member names from online "chat" rooms.

However, as I have said, I do not use this email adress for anything other than emailing lecturers and fellow students. I have used it to send approximately one external email (to a potential employer). There is very little chance of any of these reasons being the case.

So this only leaves a few other ways. I suspect wholey that it was through random address generation. my email adress at the university is fairly short (only 5 letters - not by choice - it was preset by the uni). It has 2 letters 3 numbers -

there are 26 letters in the alphabet and it is a combination of 2 letters - which provides 676 possible combinations of the 2 letters.
There is also 1000 different 3 digits numbers from 000 to 999.
this means that my address could be potentially one in 676000.

And because my address is one allocated by a University, it is easier to guess the address. this is because universities tend to be more systematic with their allocations of addresses, so its more certain that they will be at least partly sucessful, and because its to a university adress, if your gullible, you are more likely to trust its validity.

In conclusion, this made for a very entertaining read - particularly when read in an upperclass accent ;)

BANG!

((((SPOILER ALERT - If you dont want to know what happens, do not read this blog))))

"It's always the same dream. I'm wondering- naked, in this strange maze of hallways, and I feel this creeping sense of impending doom, like something terrible is about to happen. I pass my room mate, my Mom, my best friend Stella. Basically every significant person in my life. And they're all just staring at me like I'm some kind of museum display behind glass. And then I see two people I have never met before- A mysterious, unearthly, beautiful woman, and this read haired girl. And they both seem to be leading me deeper into the corridor. This is when I notice the black door. And I'm not sure why, but some how I know that I've got to find out what's behind it. So I grab hold of the knob, open the door and discover... A dumpster."

I watched the film Kaboom on Sunday, with my boyfriend and his friend. Below is the official HD trailer. The breif synopsis from IMDB read as follows:

Smith's everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor - all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.

With a name like Kaboom, and a synopsis like that, you would expect it to be some random, highschool teen film. But it was actually extremely good! Not only did it have quite a hot cast (Particularly Juno Temple and Thomas Dekker) the story was actually quite interesting. It looked at the way we behave in college (or university as we would call it). In fact, Stella describes it as follows:

"Smith, college is just an intermission between high school and the rest of your life. Four years of having sex, making stupid mistakes, and experiencing stuff. It's a pit stop, not the second coming of the Messiah."

But in fact, you've guessed it, it was. All of a sudden the film goes from being hillariously funny, somewhat truthful and quite sexy, to being somewhat trippy and strange. All of a sudden there is a witch, who can give fantastic orgasms, unlike nothing you will find on earth, and there are men running around in black outfits and animal masks. And magical cookies. Oh... and Incest...

OK, so I probably should expain that last one. Basically (and this is only a brief summary) It turns out Smith's dad, who is supposed to be dead, isnt. Infact, not only is he not dead - he is the leader of a mental cult that sacrafices young girls. He also has several wives in several places, and the mother of the girl Smith has been sleeping with - London - happens to be one of them.

To continue the summary, Smith happens to be the first born boy of this Cult leader, and his 19th birthday starts the end of the world as we know it. On his 19th birthday, it is decreed that he will return to his father, and when he returns, all humans on the face of the earth will be destroyed. With a push of the button, only to be executed by the father, nukes will be launched from every major country on the planet, with the aim of destroying eveything on the surface. Those who are part of the cult will be safe in a mass underground shelter, which will protect them from the blast. Then, when the deed is done, those members will arise, and a new era will begin. And the leader of the people will be Smith.

WHAT A LOAD OF RUBISH!

This raises a number of social, economical and health issues. Not least, if they blow up the entirity of the surface with nukes, there will be no animals to provide meat and clothing, no crops to eat, no shelter to live in. even what has survived would be incredibly irradiated, and therefore, unfit for consuption without the risk of mutation. However, this was not an issue that needed to be looked at. At the end of the film, on tyhe pressing of the launch button, the whole world just exploded...

Thats right. It EXPLODED. i.e. Kaboom. No climax. No saviour. Just a miscalculation that sees the world entirely obliterated. it wasnt even that well executed (in a production and SFX term). It didnt work within the context of the film. infact, it looks like they run out of money with 15 minutes of production left, so found the cheapest way of ending the film. Had the film lasted for another 10 minutes, there would have been planty of time for Smith, his mother and London, along with those opposed to the cult to make it to the shelter before the destruction took place. Maybe they would have talked the leader out of it. Maybe there would have been a touchy feely reunited scene. Maybe the world would have ended even so, but at least the story would have been wrapped up a little better. but no. with no explination, and no lead up, a funny looking man pressed the button. What an abrupt and cheap ending.

The US Crowd?

So recently, my boyfriend got me into watching the IT Crowd. I must admit I am a little bit (OK now  massively) obsessed with it. I cant help it. It appeals to me. Maybe because im a bit of a nerd at heart too.
For those of you who dont know the IT Crowd, it is a british TV show which sees Moss (Richard Ayoade), Roy (O'Dowd), two hopeless IT technicians, and their boss Jen (Katherine Parkinson) as they enter into a number of crazy and hillarious situations, that may be typically faced by nerds, such as meeting women and becoming one of the Countdown elites. The humour is incredibly British, and the behaviours of the character's is also very british. Particularly in britain at the moment, we have a love for nerd culture. In general, this show is a great british comedy.


A comparison between the two teams...
http://annikarei.wordpress.com/2008/11/20/the-it-crowd-back-for-season-3/



So imagine my surprise, possibly even dismay, that America had decided to create an American version (OK i realise that it was created in 2007 I just havnt discovered it until now). If there is one thing I hate is the desire of america to take what is sucessful over here and try to make it their own. They ruined the TV show 'Life on Mars', one of my favourite ever television programmes and a show iconic of British culture in the 1970's, by doing that. So we downloaded the pilot. Maybe it wouldnt have irked me so much if they had been origional and changed the story to suit their audience. But they didnt. Almost every scene was exactly the same (apart from the shortening of a few scenes, presumably to accomodate the smaller attention span of the American brain). And the characters are nowhere near as well matched. Jessica St. Clair, who played Jen was far too sexual and coy, Joel McHale as Roy was far too overplayed and neat, and even Richard Ayode, who reprised his role as Moss, lacked that spark from the english version. It was almost like he had gotten bored of the same scenes and lines with actors who dont belong in their places.

Sometimes, I just wish America would leave british comedy well enough alone.