Of Pikachus and Men

Just as a pre-emptive warning, if this post seems very incoherent and disjointed, then I'm sorry. I ended up starting this one last week and writing it over four non-consecutive days...don't expect it to make full sense, or have good structure.

IMPORTANT: IF YOU SUFFER BRAIN SHUTDOWN/MALFUNCTION/IMPLOSION WHILST IN THE ACT OF READING/DECIPHERING/SCREAMING AT THIS POST, THE AUTHOR TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Originally I was going to ramble on a bit in this post (the topic is irrelevant) before talking about what appears to be hotly awaited (and possibly controversial, although I doubt that...) topics. But, my sloth has gotten the better of me and I thought I'd just get to the damn point.

I remember in grade 7, when there was a Pokémon craze that spread through the school. Well, not all of it obviously. Perhaps just those of us who were impressionable and taken to the idea of keeping large, vicious animals in tiny balls for our own sadistic pleasures. Yes, what could've been more fun than pitting your monster, who is a 3 metre giant kept in a small hollow sphere with a radius pushing one centimetre, against an equally maltreated monster of some random stranger (or friend, in some cases) in a bloody battle in which the loser merely faints despite being shocked by 10,000 volts of electricity, singed by intense flames (which incidentally are often said to be able to melt solid rock, meaning the minimum temperature would have to be around 600ºC) and then slammed into the ground by 200kg worth of flabby physique? Those must be some tough critters...

Well anyway, underneath this blatant disregard for reality is an ever so subtle brainwashing attempt. I was discussing this with a friend (Jon) the other day, and we came up with some interesting points in regards to this very fact.

As many of you might remember, there was a controversy a while back about all the flashing lights causing seizures in the susceptible. Well, if this isn't an attempt to hypnotising vulnerable children then I don't know what is. Obviously the producers/animators thought they could go under the radar by emitting wavelengths of light to first hypnotise children (into continuing to watch their show, which has the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and over and over and the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and wavelengths of light and over and over and over and over), and also other wavelengths to induce seizures. This would, naturally, draw parents' attentions away from their attempted brainwash to the more visible effect of a spastically convulsing child frothing at the mouth. Clever, but you'll have to do a lot better than that to fool me, Mr Tajiri.

Well, let's have a look at just what this travesty of a show (which I'm ashamed to admit that I once was quite obsessed with, a testament to how young and foolish I was, and also to the pure malevolence of this cartoon) is telling our kids. For one, there is the aforementioned unreality of being able to do things to your foes, which would normally kill hundreds of people, and still have them escape unscathed. Here I will draw on the example of "Team Rocket". They have been charred, electrocuted, blasted with extremely high water pressure, hacked at, pecked, pounded, hounded, squashed, battered and a myriad of other abusive words. "Yes!" says Pokémon, "Defeat your foes in a gory and totally sadistic manner! I command you!"

Well, the gore is not depicted in the show, as it is a children's one after all, but definitely implied...I feel an overwhelming, but (luckily for you, the unsuspecting reader [mmm...brains....]), suppressed, urge to 'flip out' and go on a murderous rampage whenever I watch the show. It must be the writers and their subliminal messages (perhaps there are some superliminal messages to, but I can't think of any as I haven't seen enough of the show to say).

The concluding message? That neither violent movies, other television shows nor video games are to blame for the tendency for a lot of today's youth to become very aggressive and be a general nuisance (especially for their total disregard of their elders...respect me dammit!...). So whose fault is it? Yep, you guessed it, it's Pokémon.


[Still to come...
Reality shows revealed
PLUS! EXCLUSIVE TO WGW: The new looks of Winter (it might not be Winter by the time I post it...meh)
Don't go away!
Yes, stay RIGHT in front of your computer screen until my next post! Which may or may not be in the near future...Don't eat, don't even sleep because you might miss an all important post, which may or may not only stay online for a few hours due to legal reasons (whether they exist or not). If you die during this time, it's your own fault (read my Disclaimer, on the side-bar)]

Logic

Logic. It's great. Easy to learn, hard to master. We all claim logic to prove the validity of our actions. Everyone imposes their own brand of logic to what they do and how they explain various events or ideals that they encounter during their (short) lives. There are also infinite occasions when something seems to "defy logic" (like many of the Darwin awards- see previous post). Something happens that you just can't explain. It's so baffling that we claim this event should never have happened, had logic been followed.

Yet I suspect that there is no such thing as 'illogical'. Nor then, would there be such a thing as "more logical" or "less logical", as this line of gradiation would demand something to be "more illogical" etc. What do I mean by this? Well, it is my (current) view that if you take everything into account, you would, logically, arrive at the same conclusion as, say, those you claim are being illogical. Whether it be psychological factors, physical factors or otherwise (maybe the aliens made them do it), there must be something to drive a person to do a seemingly idiotic thing. This person may realise the error of his/her actions afterwards, but at the time I would think that everything seemed perfectly clear and the decision was relatively easy. The logical conclusion? Illogic (and hence logic) is a fabrication for pompous, supposedly 'educated' asses like myself to prove a point without doing any actual work.

Oh, as just as a clarification I'm not talking about that philosophical or mathematical logic, but rather the species which sometimes may state "that's not the logical thing to do". I hope some of you will put up a good argument to spur this train of thought on. This blog needs some debating life! Won't you let it live? Won't you let it live!

Why have I written about this? I don't know. I probably read it somewhere but can't remember so I'm shamelessly ripping it off and saying it's my own. Also, I really didn't have much to do after a day of claiming to study but actually bludging the day away reading various useless facts on the internet. What did I learn? That Robin Williams was voted "least likely to succeed" by his high school chums and that he does a lot of improvisational dialogue (ad-lib as the website described it) in many of his comic movies (and some others, like "Aladdin"). I also learnt that all-natural products (shampoos, soaps etc.) can be a reasonably tasty alternative to food when you're desperate, or not. What I haven't learnt is what I was supposed to be learning today...things about the brain.

Instead I read useless fact upon useless fact. Like did you know the heaviest brain on record weighed in at a hefty 2.3kg? The average is 1.4kg, so imagine my surprise when I found out Einstein's brain was only 1.23kg! The biggest animal brain is that of the sperm whale, with a whopping 7.8kg brain! That'll feed a poor man for weeks! Compare this to a great white shark, who has a brain coming in at a mighty, awe inspiring 34g. Gee, not so scary now are they?

"Ha, you might have giant sharp teeth and can generate enough jaw pressure to crush a tank but [singing] I'm smart! Much smarter than you! [end singing]"

Even a sheep, considered by many a very stupid animal has a brain of 140g. I suppose this makes that show about the sharks who went around fighting crime (I can't for the life of me remember what it was called...Street Sharks?) VERY far-fetched. Considering they obviously don't possess the cortical capacity to form words, reason or even poop on demand even if they did somehow develop complex vocal cords and the ability to move their mouth into other positions than a giant malicious grin. Besides, where the hell did they get their arms and legs? Not to mention fingers and presumably toes.

It's been brought to my attention that they were actually mutated teenagers, who became half-man half-shark hybrids. Now, to do this one would think shark DNA would have to be carefully spliced onto the inherent genome of each cell on the teenagers' bodies so as not to destroy all their cells but also instantly transform them into a shark with arms, legs, good fine facial muscle control and all that other stuff I've just ranted about. Some scientist. If he wasn't so stark raving mad I would've liked to see him win all the Nobel Prizes. All six of them. At once. A prize in chemistry for discovering a way to spontaneously transform one bunch of composition into another. A prize in physics for the machine that emitted whatever it was to induce this change. It would have to be radioactive, seeing as the show was so obviously a rip off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The prize in physiology (medicine) is obvious, for finding a way to sustain these freaks during and after the "operation". A prize in literature for the book he'd inevitably publish describing his technique, and the subsequent autobiographies detailing his life with the sharks. The ordeals, the drama. A certifiable work of literary genius. And finally the peace prize for not only somehow containing these sharks so that they wouldn't do what sharks do and just bite the crap out of everything in sight, but also converting them to fight evil villains hell bent on taking over the surface world. Even when they'd obviously be more at home in the ocean. Where there wouldn't be other creepy mutant sea-creatures roaming the land (or seabed) hell bent on stopping you. Besides, who gives too shits whether some idiot deformed manta ray called Mantaman crowns himself the King of the Oceans anyway?

[Next time, on Wayland goes Wacko...
The inherent insanity of Street Sharks continued
PLUS! Pokémon: pollution, political or just plain crap?
AND...Reality shows revealed!]

Back, with a vegeance...not to mention a bit of stomach pain and insomnia

I'm finally back on my desktop. What happened to it? It's a long story...plus I'm feeling lazy at this late hour (yes, I've decided to reform my nocturnal ways, despite the title of this post). In any case, my computer was out of commission for over a week!

Oh the pain, oh the pain of it all! What have I done to deserve such suffering? Surely eating stillborn babies would have appeased those eternally angry Gods?

Well, anyway, such is the sadness of my life that I doubt many people even noticed that I was gone. Ah well, I'm a rehabilitated MSN junkie so I must be strong! Luckily for me I had some Chinese martial arts series to watch.

Also, I'm feeling somewhat malevolent right now. I recently bought the game "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic", which is basically a game where you take the role of a Jedi and you can pursue an evil or a good life...and I think I might just enjoy the former. This takes me back to the days when I played "Black & White", where you were a God competing for the people's worship. But alas, no matter how hard I tried I always ended up being evil, with red spikes protuding from my temple and ghastly long and purple fingernails on my hand...how pretty! But who knew that setting people on fire and throwing them around to gain worshippers was considered an evil act? Plus sacrificing children gave me so many points it just wasn't economical to let them live! And so what if I dug up skeletons to sacrifice them to myself! They're no good to the family and I might as well get some use out of them! Some people can be so up tight about things!

Anyway, moment of nostalgia over and I should be off to bed anyway.