October 22nd: The first thing they noticed was that the Gods had left Ray's. Silence blurted out everywhere, all-encompassing in its emptiness. No buzzers, no clangs, no barking orders. Just brutal, deafening, maddening silence. Nothing lasts forever, the more philosopical among them mused. Statistically speaking, it had to happen sometime, somewhere. Were they the lucky ones?

The shock kept them quiet to begin with. Then the implications. Only the conclusions could dismantle the wall of quiet, but those would come later. Conclusions tend to happen that way.

Shock comes in three stages. First there is compensation. Your body (or mind) works overtime to keep functioning normally. Perhaps the Gods are having a meeting? Maybe they're playing a trick on us. Or, the old reliable: am I still asleep? Next, you move into decompensation - your body (mind) has overextended itself to the point it can't continuing functioning in a normal manner. Abducted by aliens, has to be! Wasn't there a coup on TV last night? Revelations 16:14 (better known as Armageddon). Finally we get to the Irreversible Stage, where enough parts cease to function in order to (hopefully) maintain the integrity of the whole. Irreversible and inevitable, but that, also, must wait for later.

Compensation was just beginning as the silence imploded into quiet. Murmurs, mumblings and shuffles poking holes in the great void of sound until it was unrecognisable. Nothing lasts forever.

The Milkman (and his wife's tits)


You (yes, you) absolutely must see this.

The thing I love most in this life (and excuse me if you don't care but, well, write your own sodding blog if it's such a big issue) is contrast, which I think is beautifully demonstrated here.

The serene, playful (although still mildly disturbing) and fanciful entrance steamrolls its way to a grotesque and all-too-real ending that is hard to forget. I know there are many people who would consider this a piece of deliberate shock animation designed only to satisfy us deranged Generation-whatever-the-fuck-letter-they-gave-us-ers' sense of morbid death fascination (bet noone's ever written a sentence like that before). For those who feel this way, I have only pity inside me.

A good friend of mine used to insist on showing me disturbing images from the internet. "We all need to see this kind of thing sometimes," he would prattle away while displaying online video of a small child being decimated by an oncoming train. Well, he was right. Everyone needs to know that the world is a scary, tragic, comical, and uncaring place where good people die horribly and bad people have lots of fun. And the sooner you know this and accept it, the sooner you can start dealing with the world and making the right decisions for the right reasons.

Wow, who'd have thought that a short, horrific cartoon could make such a profound statement about humanity?

As a sidenote, the music that plays during the cartoon is by Aphex Twin and was written long before this cartoon was ever made, thus only adding to the genius of the piece. For those of you who have never heard of Aphex Twin, prepare thyselves for damnation for surely it shall be yours.

The Universe Defined

This may seem harsh. More accurately, this will seem harsh. Unfortunately "harsh" and "truth" are often willing bedmates. You don't generraly hear someone sitting a person down and giving them the "gentle truth" or the "soft, comfortable, boy I'd like to just snuggle up to it and spoon on the couch, truth". No, it's always the "harsh truth". It's part of being cruel to be kind. Don't be tactful to be kind (God forbid) or thoughtful or even apathetic - no be cruel. Anyway, this is the way I feel about existence when I really sit down and think about it. None of it is certainly true, but in all likelihood it is and that's depressing as hell. Anyway here goes.

(1) There's no God, gods, heaven, hell, afterlife period. The only thing that makes people believe any religion is the self-delusion that there's a point to all this. Is there a point for rocks or hydrogen elements? Are they going to have some kind of paradise one day? Fuck no. Same for us I'm afraid - start dealing with it.

(2) There's no love. Chemicals react. All of our behavior, our highs, our lows, our boring bits in the middle, all of it is a chemical reaction. Your parents don't love you - their genes (with the help of a few million years of evolution) have created a being that can survive long enough to pass new genes onwards. Love, affection, loyalty, etc, are all tricks of genes and society working together to keep us fucked from day one onwards.

(3) I hate to have to point this out, but I live in America so it's not as pointless as it seems. There are no fucking advanced intelligent lifeforms just waiting behind a bush for the opportunity to prod your ass for shits and giggles (so to speak)! The government is not harbouring aliens for research! Nobody shot Kennedy (well scratch that last one). Elvis and Tupac are both dead. Astrology, alchemy, voodoo and feng shui are all stupid, stupid, stupid ideas that noone living in the 21st century should do anything more than sneer at. Sushi is disgusting. Would early man have bothered discovering fire if he knew that his descendants would just sit around and eat raw fish regardless?!

(4) Evolution happened. The Big Bang happened. The universe is a big, weird, physical, existential anomaly. There are not turtles all the way down, no other universes next door and there's sure as shit no special place where good people go when they die. And even if there was, there'd be no virgins there (they must be thinking "Oh, so this stinky old man gets to bang away at existence for a century or so, while I'm sitting up here waiting for his wrinkly todger to finally make me a woman. Good deal.").

(5) Dogs rule - they are (on the whole) loyal, fun, affectionate and always happy to see you. Cats are evil - they will betray you in a second, won't do shit if a burglar breaks in, and you know they really hate you deep down in inside.

You know how people say "Life sucks and then you die?" Life doesn't suck - it doesn't do anything. Life is, we are and that's that.

Nonificent - the word the world forgot


Nonificent. Say it a couple of times. Out loud, please. Noone's going to look at you - just say it.

There - beautiful word, isn't it? You may well be shocked to know (and, please - do sit down before you read this next part): "nonificent" is not a word. Nor, most likely, will it ever be a word. Humanity (or hufannity if you're feeling PC) will live out its days lacking a precise antonym for magnificent. It's a tragedy, but one perpetrated not just by the apathy of the general population. More sinister by far are the motives of the most Big Brother-esque of organizations in today's society - Merriam Webster.

As Mr. Orwell would have gleefully (gleelessly is also not a word, as much as it breaks my heart to say) pointed out, newspeak is alive and well in the form of the most innocuous of books: the dictionary. Every year we receive update after update about words that have made it into the glorious English language. But who gets to decide which words go in? You guessed it - a few fat CEOs getting kickbacks every time a newspaper or television show talk about "googling" or "blogging". And where are the notices of the removed words? Tucked away in the farthest corner of the sharpest shredder in town, I'm sure.

In my humble opinion (even phrases aren't safe - can't I have a proud or even boastful opinion?), there should be a word obituary published annually that would allow the public to see what kinds of words the goodly, godly men of Merriam-Webster have decided are just too dang old for us to use any more. Well, gee, thanks Mr. Merriam, Mr. Webster. I'd hate to have to use the gooey thing located centrifically (both centred and terrific - I defy anyone to explain how that's not a word) between by ears to decide which words I can and can't use.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for a little spring-cleaning of words - after all, the word nice should never be allowed to be viewed by children again. I do think, though, that we should all (or at least those of us who give a good goddamn) have a say in which words come and which words go.

Therefore, I scream unpeaceably: Sod Merriam-Webster; the world's most nonificent publication to date.