The World Today

Wow- a shiny new blogging interface. It feels like Christmas came early in an orange colour scheme.

Whilst it's unusual for me to do a geography-based rant, I've been part of a number of conversations recently centering around how depressingly few countries there are which I'd genuinely like to live in. When you start taking current-affairs-following to an almost addiction-like level you begin to realise that the wonderful cultures and interesting people you learned about in widdle baby school are almost certainly corrupt autocracies run by a deranged dictator and his fifty seven illegitimate offspring.

Let's have some examples so you don't mistake this for a bout of xenophobic paranoia.

My sister recently did a school project on India. Here, they at least had the decency to include slums as part of the teaching. Far from being a rich culture of colourful clothes and the Taj Mahal, it might be more accurate to think of it as the land with a wealth-gap the size of the Universe and who's most notable feature is a prominent quantity of diarrhoea.

"Indian culture is rich and diverse and as a result unique in its very own way.

All people are alike and respecting one another is ones duty."

Slumdog Millionaire (despite having a lead character with as much charisma as a bowl of porridge) does a pretty good job of summing this up. Watch that film and tell me you'd really like to live there. YOU personally might have enough money to employ a few of the local plebs and live a comfortable life. Let's just hope you have a gaping void where your conscience would otherwise be.

 

Note the similarities

China would be no good. All the history, scenery and tasty food in the world won't change the fact that you're going to get arrested for so much thinking of the letter 'd' together with 'e', 'm', 'o', 'c', 'r', 'a', 'c' again, and 'y'. [Apparently that also rules out 'car comedy', 'a mercy cod', and 'cry me a doc']

"Chinese people are peaceful, hardworking and easily contented. They respect elders, love children and are patient with their fellows. Chinese in general are reserved and humble. They believe in harmony and never look for confrontation."

South Africa's full of murderers, Brazil is full of kidnappers, France is full of the French, and even the USA is curiously backwards, at least in the southern states. Who'd have guessed there'd still be areas of the developed world where you're frowned upon for reading George Orwell? These are the back waters where the hard-line Republicans will cry murder if you mention the word 'evolution'. Fairness dictates that these anti-science types be deprived of everything produced as a result of the scientific method, reducing them to cave-dwelling homeopaths with large art collections. 

You're cordially invited to a bonfire celebration in New Mexico. Bring warm clothes, marshmallows, and unholy, godless literature like Harry Potter. 

Don't get me wrong I'd love to visit pretty well all these places for a holiday; but there's a big difference between sight seeing for two weeks and having a job and a family somewhere. You're lucky enough (unless my readership extends orders of magnitude further than I could hope for) to live in a country where you can avoid getting electrocuted by the police, live with someone the same sex, read communist literature, moan on the internet about immigration, and post pictures of the Prime Minister with a willy drawn on his head on your favourite image sharing site. 

Next time you feel like moaning about the state of the economy, the government, or how much of a prat your bus driver is; just remember it could be so much worse.

Then moan anyway. If you stick it on a blog, people might even read it.

-Neop

Let's call this a prelude

So here I sit, on this unremarkable Tuesday of utterly dreary weather, watching crap late-night tele and wondering how many people will appreciate the correct use of a contracting apostrophe in the title of this entry.

I've been thinking long and hard about how to follow up my well received posts of late, and feel it's only fair to direct my next series of rants in the direction of that curiously compelling URL which gives us so much pleasure; and annoyance.

YouTube.

Oooooh yes. There are three types of YouTube user.

• Casual. Watches the odd video and doesn't care all that much.
• Moderate. Makes the odd comment and is generally cross with...
• The commentators.

Group 3. A batch of human beings so loathsomely regarded, as to make them the object of hatred and anger for the modern era (unless 4chan users are available. Or a member of New Labour). These are the culprits responsible for filling the comment sections of videos with heaps of baseless facts, opinions, and usually a good deal of expletives to the effect that if you have a different opinion to them, you can throw yourself off a roof.

I have a good deal to say about these utterly reprehensible and socially unavailing little mammals. And all will follow shortly. In the meantime, I leave you with an appetiser from "zero89100". An outspoken Commentator, and recently responsible for singly handedley reaffirming my utter hatred for his species.

For those of you unaware, there is a Blink 182 song called Stockholm Syndrome.

There's also a Muse song of the same name.

I'm not even going to mention which I like better because it is irrelevant (said Seven). The fact is, they are two very different songs. Different styles.

And Yet,

I challenge any of you to find one instance of either song on YouTube where the comments section hasn't devolved into a useless argument on which particular version is better. To the point of death threats, swearing, anger, etc. etc. Anyway, I made the point of voicing to the populace that the comments fitted exactly what I had come to expect from their beloved website.

After a torrent of poorly constructed sentences, I received this as a private message, from our host tonight zero89100:

"20 inch penis?

you know what you nerdy corn toothed bastered check your facts not ten comments, ten replys, your queer end of story, and to come on the video bitchin like you did i didnt know you had a vagina..."

Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to dignify this with a response.

So I haven't. I spammed the guy for a good half an hour. Made a fantastic accompaniment to mediocre tele. And in case of boredom, let's all try and do the same.

This should be a new trend.

Rather than rising to the challenge of utter idiocy on display, lets send message after message to the poor fools on something, totally irrelevant. I don't know... recommend dental floss. Or talk about the weather. ANYTHING except what they expect.

Net result-> You feel happy because you've had a good laugh. The Commentators feel rubbish because they're buried under incomprehensible rubbish.

It's Win-Win for you and society.

Spread the word- take the fight to the YouTubeHatePillocks.

Peace and Videos....

-Neop