Quote of the Week # 2 - Agent Smith (The Matrix Revolutions)

"Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?"

Grand Theft Auto: Harlow

I've been playing a bit of the Classic PS2 game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas lately and it got me wondering if it's possible to set a Grand Theft Auto game in my home town of Harlow in Essex. For people that don't know Harlow this blog post from website Chavtowns – Britain's worst places to live! should clear up why I've been thinking this is a great place to set the game.

What to say about Harlow…a place that new town planners had taken their primordial scalpel to and butchered leaving characterless housing estates and banal shrines of grey concrete that for some reason were supposed to represent progression, prosperity and modernism. For example Terminus House, a huge monstrosity at the epicentre of the town that both astounds and revolts those confronted with it in turns. Even from the leafy suburbs in Hertfordshire, this ugly mass sits on the horizon like a grey benign tumour. With the exception of Old Harlow, each area of the town blends together to form a tapestry of despair and dereliction complete with its own soulless precinct adorned with newsagents that sell warm beer, stale crisps and cottage cheese in milk cartons. One can choose to enjoy a pint of substandard, emasculated reject lager from the continent that wouldn't intoxicate a minor in the dingy, musty Yates pub. Or perhaps a myriad of special offers for cheap nasty shots or alco-pops in Liquid or Jumpin’ Jacks where getting lucky that night would warrant either Chlamydia, Syphilis or your name on the sex offenders register by the next morning. Or mingle with peers half your age, when you’re 18, in the local Wetherspoons only to be thrown out by a lumbering neanderthal with a speech impediment three hours later because you look to old. Then there is the cuisine, while most people would ideally venture to an Italian restaurant for a Calzone and a bottle of wine, those in Harlow are forced to sit around a KFC bargain bucket. I rapidly learnt that my evenings out would be spent elsewhere.

And the there are its inhabitants, by inhabitants I mean the chavs and chavettes that provide the crime statistics. The kind of chavs that labour under the misapprehension that they are ‘gangsta’ but would shit themselves in South Central Los Angeles or Johannesburg. The kind of chavettes that glow like an amber traffic light with a superking resting precariously on their bottom lip pushing screaming quintuplets around in a buggy as they consider what to steal out of Primark when the sale is on. The attire of these people is comical, single coloured tracksuits, any cap worn by any god awful rapper or slicked rigid hairstyles, designer high top trainers and cheap gold purchased from Argos. The male uniform is fairly similar.

The only decent characteristic that Harlow boasted was its college, of which I attended. It stood as a resilient beacon among the woes of the town and by the time the first term ended all the chavs and chavettes that took mechanics and hair and beauty courses to avoid getting a job had long since dropped out due to drug problems, pregnancy or community service orders. Thus leaving the towns best and brightest desperately craving a decent education with a view to eventually flee. Unfortunately in Harlow one cannot have too much of a good thing, by the time I had left, the college was in freefall thanks to an overzealous and dictatorial principle who forced 120 of 180 of the lecturers out of their jobs, taking all what was honourable about the place with them.

And now, even if a nuclear warhead was detonated over the town or if it was the site of a core reactor meltdown, its landscape and assorted mixture of wanton chavs would remain unchanged.

So with that in mind I've come up with the start of a plot for Grand Theft Auto: Harlow.

"Ed has just come home to Harlow from a summer working abroad to find his family have been kicked out their house in Church Langley and have ended up in Brockles Mead.To make matters worse his dad has been sent to prison for flashing at women on the towns cycle tracks and his mum has been done for Benefit Fraud.Now Ed has to renew the family's honor and bring them back to the top while taking Harlow over bit by bit"

That is as far as I've got for now and I've already had suggestions involving people and places around the town regarding what missions could be in the game.

Maybe this could catch on...

First Official Photo Of Andrew Garfield in His Spider-Man Costume

This picture was posted on the internet last week. It's the first official shot of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.

I'm loving the Ultimate Peter Parker look and the costume looks good. Looks like they will be going for the Web shooters with this reboot and not the organic webs but that is ok. I still can't help but wonder though if it's still too to do this reboot? Although it has been pointed out to me that by the time this movie comes out next year five years would of passed since Spider-Man 3.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE THOUGH!

Iggy pop hams it up for Swiftcover with 'Little Iggy' and a piece of me dies

James Newell Osterberg, Jr you used to be cool. I've seen you in concert twice. I love every piece of music you have ever released. BUT NOW I just cringe when I see these stupid fucking Swiftcover advertisments you insist on doing. GRRRRR!

Quote of the Week #1 - Glenn Quagmire

"Okay, I'll tell you. You are the worst person I know. You constantly hit on your best friend's wife. The man pays for your food and rescued you from certain death, and this is how you repay him? And to add insult to injury, you defecate all over his yard. And you're such a sponge. You pay for nothing. You always say, "Oh, I'll get you later" but "later" never comes. And what really bothers me is you pretend you're this deep guy who loves women for their souls when all you do is date bimbos. Yeah, I date women for their bodies but at least I'm honest about it. I don't buy them a copy of Catcher in the Rye and then lecture them with some seventh grade interpretation of how Holden Caulfield is some profound, intellectual. He wasn't! He was a spoiled brat! And that's why you like him so much—he's you! God, you're pretentious! And you delude yourself by thinking you're some great writer, even though you're terrible! You know, I should have known Cheryl Tiegs didn't write me that note. She would have known there's no "a" in the word "definite." And I think what I hate most about you is your textbook liberal agenda, how we should "legalize pot, man," how big business is crushing the underclass, how homelessness is the biggest tragedy in America. Well, what have you done to help? I work down at the soup kitchen, Brian. Never seen you down there! You wanna help? Grab a ladle! And by the way, driving a Prius doesn't make you Jesus Christ! Oh, wait! You don't believe in Jesus Christ or any religion for that matter, because "religion is for idiots!" Well, who the hell are you to talk down to anyone? You failed college twice, which isn't nearly as bad as your failure as a father! How's that son of yours you never see? But you know what? I could forgive all of that, all of it, if you weren't such a bore! That's the worst of it, Brian. You're just a big, sad, alcoholic bore. (sighs) Well, see ya, Brian! Thanks for the fucking steak!"

This Christmas present is COOL!

Hope you had a great christmas and a happy new year.

Thought I'd share this picture of a fantastic t-shirt I got for christmas from my brother and his missus.



BOW TIES ARE COOL!

And while I'm here have a random picture of me in a fez.



Fezez ARE COOL!