The Goth Club

It should come as no surprise to anyone living in a major urban centre that overcrowding is going to be a massive problem in the future. The very near future if you live in Melbourne. One of the huge issues here is that people in Western countries are simply not willing to give up their “quality of life” (read: massive mansions that are far too large for their actual needs and only serve to live out fantasies put upon most people by 1960s sitcoms, and current Hollywood dramas), and live in places that are actually of a suitable size to their needs. Everyone needs a mansion, but there’s not actually enough land for everyone to have one.

The Cyberpunk genre gives us two solutions to this quandary:

1. Massively unchecked urban sprawl, leading into megacities that span multiple state boundaries, and have impressively large buildings situated in the middle, where all the work is done by an underclass of artificial humanoid life that totally doesn’t resent us like in Appleseed; or
2. Arcology type structures. (more…)

Spread the hate

Cyberpunk is one of those genres that is clearly defined by it’s elements. It’s always got some form of post humanism, some form of technology corrupting society, some form of secret cabal that controls the rest of the world, some form of societal degradation, and always, always there has been a massive shift in the economy to either total collapse, or brink of collapse with everything controlled by the aforementioned secret cabal.

I know that most of these posts on cybperunk have been concentrating on technology that already exists, and me calling out the scoffers who claim bullshit on the tech. Well, what about the societal concepts as well? Having been paying attention to the crap that’s going down both here and abroad lately, it’s beginning to make me seriously think that perhaps Ben Elton, William Gibson and Masamune Shirow were onto something. (more…)

Spread the hate

Wow, even Buddhists are fucked up!

This is an actual donut chain!

Actually, in a way, I think that stands to reason. For a start, almost all of those statuettes that people think are meant to be Buddha… Here’s a fat happy guy with the huge droopy ears. Ok, I dig, he’s found inner happiness by giving up worldly desires. So how’d he get so rotund? Looks like someone still desires sugary treats, if you know what I’m saying.

But I digress… you just want your Sabbath morning cartoons, and I totally understand that. It’s just that this week’s is a Buddhist one… kinda. It’s called Birth, although in the early 90s was released by Harmony Gold as Planet Busters or World of the Talisman, depending which market you were in. It also had a dub that made it entirely suitable for kids, which was kind of not the point.

In the early 00s, ADV re-released it with a different dub, with some of the very fucked up original Japanese dialogue (including the rant by the now homosexual emo teen terracidal robot), but dropped a lot of the religious references… Go figure.

Either way, the clip you’re seeing here is the very last few moments, which are actually radically different from the rest of this pointless, yet entertaining romp, through many of the central tenants of Buddhism… with sexy arses an giant robots that shoot lasers from their face.

Hey, if you think this is disrespectful or something, you should see Legend of the Overfiend… also based on the central tenants of Buddhism… somehow…

Spread the hate

I bet some of you thought I’d abanadoned this… and you were happy about it, too! Weren’t you!? Rejoicing in the streets like Fox News journalists when they heard that Muslims were probably behind the Twin Tower Airplane Takedown!

Well, I’ve abandoned nothing, except my sense of shame, and that was years ago! YEARS!

If you see me doing this, pelase kick me in the teeth

No, I simply had yet another one of my bouts of depression. Actual depression. Not the sad emo kind where I mope about and then feel better by shit talking other people, comparing medications and buying new clothes. The actual kind where you put on a saccharine smile, continue about your mundane life like some sort of automated robot-zombie, and other than forgetting to actually bathe every other day because it just seems like too much effort, no one twigs on to the fact that anything could actually be… y’know… wrong. Besides, if you’re into anime, people just take the non-bathing as par for the course.

And then I remembered to take my Fukitol, and it all went away.

Better lviing through chemistry. Remember it. Live it. Love it. Be sad that Repo The Genetic Opera has been made into a shitty action movie, with just enough changes so that the guy that created it gets nothing, and continue living because not doing so is just as pointless, but has fewer orgasms.

Spread the hate