Megatokyo

Around the year 2000, as a younger, much much nerdier man (I'm still pretty nerdy), I used to read a manga webcomic called megatokyo. Being a regulation anime/manga geek with requisite asian girlfriend to boot this comic obviously appealed to my interests, namely self referential anime/geek/internet humor. It was never really that great, mediocre at best in both writing and art, but it was on the internet, and it was free.

In it's early days, Megatokyo had quite a large following, and equally large forums with an active user base on a wide variety of subjects. My hangout was the art and drawing forum. There were many quite talented manga artists on the forum, which I think was the initial appeal and what drew me to them. It was a place where you could post work and get feedback on your work.

While initially thinking by hanging out there I would learn about new drawing techniques I soon realised it was a very rigid community with a strange hero worship of the better artists. The work was a smattering of weird characters with ears, furries and ubelievably bad work done on lined paper by 15 year olds. I think as time went on I realised the majority of them were really nothing outside of the forums, and staying was detrimental to my creative development. Aside from which I felt I had outgrown the whole manga thing anyway. Eventually I saw the place for what it was: a collection of socially awkward geeks who liked to draw anime characters with ears and jack off to each other's art. Another interesting quirk was no nudity was allowed, a reflection of the very conservative, prudish nature of the forums.

Interestingly my best friend at the time (who I can say, still is my best friend) was into screenwriting, and used to post on the writing forums. He had similar complaints, but I think had the good sense to leave a bit earlier and make quite a bit statement as to why he left. I just kind of slipped away into the night.

Every few years or so I check back on the forums and it was quite interesting seeing the current state of the place. Seemingly ruled with an iron fist by moderators locking down all the threads the place is like a ghost town, about 5 threads that you can actually post in. There seem to be about a million rules that govern the forums, with the moderators doing most of the critiques. Kind of sad as back in the day it was a very active forum.

The forum aside the comic is quite tragic. Rumor has it the guys that made it had a disagreement and parted ways, leaving the creation solely to the artist Fred Gallager. Even back in the day, updates were few and far between, with many excuses as to why (got a job to go to etc), but even after doing it full time it was the same sporadic updates. Nowadays apparently he only updates it every month, and the story is so nonsensical and rambling only the most die hard fans remain. The most active part of the site seems to be the merchandise, of which seems to be the primary focus, with a swag of products selling out to a level to rival even Garfield. Obviously the guy needs to make a living, but it seems he doesn't really care about the narrative or the comic anymore, he's just doing the bare minimum to keep it alive long enough to flog off merchandise to make a living.

It's all kind of sad really.

The Grey (spoilers)

Hmm, what can I say about this movie, it had a lot of potential that it fell short of.

It sets out to be a very existential film, dealing primarily with loss and death, from a very male point of view. Liam Neeson's character is a broken loner who has taken a job at an oil field in Alaska shooting wolves, seemingly punching the clock before he dies. Through flashbacks we learn of a woman which for reasons unknown he is no longer with, and see his intense longing for a happier time.

Working in the oil fields the film paints a portrait of fairly rough, dodgy guys working at the oil field.

Anyway to cut a long story short the rag tag crew of oil workers are on a plane back to Anchorage when the plane goes down, killing most of the passengers.

The survivors find themselves in the middle of nowhere, in the freezing cold, with limited food and seemingly no way out. Then wolves show up.

I'm going to be pretty brutal here and sum up what is wrong with this movie. Basically it fucks up the premise by making the wolves into these ridiculous mythical creatures, absurdly large and menacing and sound more like grizzly bears. They are unrelentingly aggressive and blood thirsty. If anything they come across more like Hyenas, aggressive for the sake of it. Obviously some exaggeration is required for dramatic effect but it crosses the line into the ridiculous.

The wolves aside the other stupid aspect of the movie is the characters seemingly have no issues with the basic concepts of survival, e.g. : Staying warm, finding water, sufficient food, fighting off frost bite, etc etc. The characters seem to magically never get hungry, or frostbite, and don't seem to need to drink water.

Otherwise the movie has some interesting ideas. I think if the wolves aspect were played down a little and they focused more on the landscape being the real challenge to their survival, the movie might work.

Otherwise it has a lot of potential that it falls short of.

Buried

I recently watched "Buried", starring Ryan Reynolds, directed by unknown director (at least in the English speaking world) Rodrigo Cortés.

It's quite a good movie, with a very single minded premise that the movie sticks to with gusto. Ryan Reynolds is a Civillian truck driver trapped in a coffin in Iraq, kidnapped with little to no memory of why he was put there or by who.

I think what made it engaging for me is that the main character is a regular guy who tries to do the best he can to get out of a terrifying situation. He does a lot of stupid things while panicking (like calling 911 initially) and there are no grandiose Kill Bill esque methods he uses to get out of the coffin. It's painful to watch at times as there is no respite from seeing him in the coffin,  you watch him in desperation battling people over the phone trying to explain his predicament and his realisation that in the greater scheme of things, he is unimportant and human life does have a price.

There are some obvious flaws with the film, the most obvious being the seemingly infinite amount of gas in his zippo, along with the fact it magically doesn't burn up his oxygen. Another would be the long battery life on the phone, and the statement that he must only be a few feet underground if he is getting reception. You can't help but think the character wouldn't just try to take his chances with the knife in the coffin and attempt to dig his way out, but hey it might be easier said than done. It is a little annoying to watch and perhaps more explanation would be needed like showing that if he tried to dig his way out he would drown in sand.

Overall I highly recommend this movie. It is an unrelenting, flawed masterpiece that never betrays it's concept. Not everyone will "get it" and some people might find it frustrating watching a guy in a coffin for 95 minutes. In the end the acting is top notch and as backhanded as it sounds Ryan Reynolds proves he has the acting chops to carry a movie like this - who knew!

Flight (spoilers ahead)

First of all this was quite an engaging movie and it was nice to see Denzel Washington not sleepwalk through a role as a bodyguard/detective/mercenary/military man etc etc.

I'm a bit confused as to what the overall message was supposed to be. Basically Denzel is this amazing pilot who is also an alcoholic and shorts coke when he has a hangover, yet still succeeds in getting the plane out of a dive by inverting the plane and gliding it to safety.

The film is essentially showing the subsequent investigation and the impact it has on his life, his family hate him but when you look at the facts his life actually isn't that bad.

Cons

- Is an alcoholic

- Ex wife and son hate him

Pros

- Is an amazing pilot

- Makes a pretty good wage

- Has casual sex with attractive young stewardesses

- Gets away with it

The interesting thing is that despite the investigation they botch up his substance test by using outdated equipment, he admits to being drunk off his ass at the time and doing coke. To add fuel to the fire in the final hearing he gets hammered the night before, and the investigators get his friend to bring coke, which they pay for, they both do a few lines then it's off to the hearing, drunk and tweaking with a bloody nose and a bandage on his head.

What I find interesting is that the protagonist basically gets away with everything consequence free if not for his sudden admission of guilt when they basically imply that one of the dead stewardesses was responsible for drinking the vodka that he had before the crash.

Cue the protagonist's regret over drinking, etc etc. Gets to see his son, is sorry for what he did, will never fly again.

I guess my issue with the movie was it does a pretty poor job of showing the negative effects of the main character's drinking/drug taking. The overall message was confusing, to me it seemed to say "being an alcoholic and doing coke is bad and you should stop, but there are no dire consequences and you can still land a malfunctioning plane like a boss".

Lance Armstrong, a prince among men.

So apparently after the general public has watched Lance's Oprah interview, where I'm sure she asked the really hard hitting questions, there is quite a sway in opinion on social media in Lance Armstrong's favour.

When you read about what he is accused of, and the first hand accounts: The bullying, the threats, lawsuits, shady back door blood transfusions and coercing other people to dope as well, there is quite a disconnect between the man he attempts to portray himself as. This is a man who fucked over a lot of people to maintain a ruse for many years with reportedly almost mafioso gusto.

If anything the interview outs him as a sociopath, with no real remorse or shame for his actions. He plays on our emotions and belief that cancer is bad, but Lance beat cancer, and raised money to fight it, therefore he must be good, or something. It would be a bit like if it came out that Bill Gates was a serial killer who murdered his opposition, but that would be ok because he raised and donated so much money to charity. The ends justify the means.

Either way I expected more. Lance was kind of a hero to my family and we are a cycling family that regularly watches the Tour de France. He let us all down, but rather than do the honourable thing and genuinely apologise he seems to think that if he can sway and manipulate public opinion enough, he will ride again.

I think this quote and article sums it up best really

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," Pat McQuaid - UCI President

Whatever happened to my Internets?

It's kind of interesting seeing where the internet has gone in the last 15 years or so. There's been a huge shift in the last 5 years or so to more commercial content, and I think facebook and twitter has kind of killed off blogging a bit, or at least blogging by regular people.

Don't get me wrong blogs still exist, but it seems all we're interested in seeing is content from celebrities and large news networks. The great thing about blogger back in the day was it was a fascinating insight into the everyday lives of regular people, and since most people didn't have the internet let alone knew what a "blog" was there was still some kind of anonymity. People would bare their soul and even though they weren't famous, it was still interesting, the top blogs were usually by regular people.

Now it seems since the demographics of the internet have shifted to include more of society all there seems to be are celebrity gossip blogs, food - oh my god so sick of the endless "foodie" blogs.

Perhaps it's an interesting niche that has now died out, but I think kids growing up with the internet now will never experience an internet that was still somewhat of a wild west, it was a self regulating system, where you would connect with strangers and build real friendships.

Now it's kind of like a giant shopping mall, and the government tries to censor everything, people try to sue over tweets and it's like the collective masses want to round off the edges and put a G rating on everything.

I think the last bastion would be something like 4Chan or Reddit. While there's some awful stuff on 4Chan, it's kind of nice to see a part of the internet that isn't censored, regulated and commercialised.

Triple J

Grandpa Simpson pretty much sums up the people I'm referring to.

It's really interesting going on the facebook wall of Triple J. Never have I seen so much vitriolic bile spouted by a lot of out of touch listeners, like Triple J should speak for them personally, and anything contrary is Triple J being "out of touch" or "lost the plot".

The plot really thickens when you read these long rants about how great Triple J was back in the day, and how Tom and Alex are a "bunch of fuckwits". I honestly think it's just a bunch of ageist nonsense, it's the over 30 contingent, (those on the edge of generation Y and older) taking potshots at Triple J because the world has moved on from the 90s and the 2000s. "Yeah man, Adam and Wil were the best back in the day", yes they were, but we've moved on.