As a regular reader of this blog (and if you’re not, why not!?), you’d probably have noticed that I talk about depression… a lot. It’s kind of De rigueur for being a goth. “Oh, my shrink just prescribed me 50mg of Zoloft.” “That’s nothing! I have to take 250mg of Protheidan and 10mg of phenobarbital… Because I’m like totally depressed!” It’sa conversation that you’ll notice with pretty much any of the <25s sitting on the stairs and generally being a fire hazard by their general presence, as if their Robert smith hair styles weren’t enough already.

And then there’s the fucking trite response that you generally get from people outside of the whole subcultural scene: (more…)

Because there’s one religious group I haven’t made fun of yet with my Saturday morning religious cartoons – Atheists! (more…)

You’ve probably heard about this movie coming out shortly. This movie about Facebook and it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, titled The Social Network.
Only it’s not, because he’d threatened to sue if the movie was actually about particular things he did but haven’t been proved in court, so there’s a character with the same name as him… but different!

Never mind the fact that the movie is going to suck in a similar way that Antitrust* . This film is still going to be a commercial succes, and so will its soundtrack, for the very reason that Facebook itself is a commercial success, never minding the involvement of David Fincher.
*supposedly about Microsoft at the time, but becoming strikingly more like Google with every passing month) did by basically making a fairly non-exciting event and adding drugs and murder (because that happens to computer programmers all the time!

Everyone’s gonna be talking about it, like I am, and then circle jerk off to how amazingly awesome it is. Or how fucking lame. I know I’m now involved in that cicrle jerk right now by writing this article. The irony’s not lost on me. Maybe Alaniss Morisette, but not me. But speaking of msuic that’s out of place!

It turns out Trent Reznor has signed up to do the music.

Fincher’s movies are right up Reznor’s alley. For sure! Fight Club probably would have been way more awesome with an industrial sountrack. But really? REALLY?! Trent, WTF!? It’s a movie about a nerd that fucked over a few of his friends to become a billionaire by fucking over millions more people! Adding bullshit won’t make it better or more interesting. And you’re stamping your name to it!

It’s like Danny Elfman deciding to do the music on a Disney remake of Jack Black’s life about the time he never saved an orphan and fought his case of Lou Gehrig’s disease. It’s a lie and you’re adding more to the lie that the movie is going to be!!!

[Or if Rob Zombie wrote the jingle for a Doritoes ad! - Egofreaky]

Fuck! This is a perfect example of why good musicians need to die young.

I know I normally try to post something about Cyberpunk stuff on a Thursday, but Steampunk is kinda Cybperunk… or at least an offshoot of the literary vein.
So here we go!

Turns out that large scale airships, of the kind we’re always fantasizing about, may actually become a commercial reality within the forseeable future! Or at least they may according to recent chatter surrounding statements by a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, David King.

Now, rigid structure airships for passengers and freight kind of stopped being popular in the later part of the first half of the twentieth century thanks to the Hindenburg killing a few dozen people and exploding in a giant fireball. Filling it with hydrogen, and painting it in a substance that’s known to burn rapidly at temperatures roughly 10% of our sun’s surface may have had something to do with that. Or the way that the US wasted millions of dollars (when that was actually a lot of money) on trying to make flying aircraft carriers like the USS Macon and then staffing it with officers that figured the gas ballast would be similar to that in a submarine.

Those kinds of things tend to put people off a little. Kind of like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island poisoning the well, excusing the pun, of research and development of nuclear power.

Recently, as part of the global effort against man made greenhouse gas emissions, King (who I really need to point out is a professor and a knight of the realm… no, seriously!) suggested that perhaps all air travel that is not time critical be shifted to massive airship transport. This has naturally met with a lot of skepticism at a number of quarters.

One quarter is from the people that (rightfully) point out airships travel at about 100-120km per hour. If a train can get somewhere faster, these are going to be useless for domestic freight and passenger transport, and most people don’t want to spend 3-4 days aboard an aircraft to go overseas. These are all valid points, but totally strawman the point that this is meant to replace air transport for cargo, not passengers.

However, there are a certain breed of passengers that will pay for this, quite happily I might add, especially if it includes shopping and other fun, duty free activities. Of the dozen or so articles I’ve looked into regarding this, not a single one has considered the benefits of this idea from a tourism perspective.

Air cruises!

Airship tourism is growing fast… apparently. (Yeah, I really don’t believe that either…)

Never mind that you’ve instantly got the Steampunks and Retrofuturists that will want to get on board. There will be several every day types that are sick with the ocean going kind of cruise, having been on many before, and will want to try something new. Instead of scuba-diving off the back of the boat, there’d be para sailing or gliding. Bunjee jumping off the back. Rigid wing gliding to the destination point as the airship comes in to land! Amazingly fun times had by all, and provided the proper care is taken, people are no more likely to die from misadventure than they already do on cruise ships. Not to mention that due to the altitude, people won’t need to consume as much alcohol to have those same misadventures!

But considering that people are already using submarines for criminal purposes such as piracy and drug smuggling, I get the feeling it won’t be long until we actually see airpirates raiding these pleasure ships of the sky, like fat flying buffallo. Buffallo covered in ticks that happen to be obnoxiously rich! And no one likes obnoxiously rich parasites! Why, the fat cats riding these blimps that are only slightly larger than their own blimp like arses positively deserve the air piracy that is about to befall them! Air piracy brought to them courtesy of Robert DeNiro in a dress!

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