Aleatz Hates GIS

Okay. This isn’t really important at all. Lizie made the request for more blogging action, and I’m just making it happen. That said, GIS is a bitch. What is GIS? Glad you asked. It stands for ‘Geographical Information Systems’, or alternatively ‘God’s Insufferable Shit’. Think I’m being a tad melodramatic? I don’t.

GIS, in summary, is sitting at a computer and imputing data in order to make maps. This wouldn’t be so bad if the data itself wasn’t so unidentifiable. It’s also helped by the fact that if you screw up there’s no way of knowing you’ve screwed up… So you continue following the steps, then BAM! You have a bunch of red crosses staring you in the face going ‘You are a moron because you screwed up something you did 2 hours ago and now you have to do 2 hours of work all over again! HAHAHA!’

But there’s more.

The oversized step-by-step course book given to you is riddled with typos and errors, just making it easier for you to give a file the wrong name and then wonder why you can’t find it 3 weeks later.

Finally you produce your pretty map of Sydney depicting population density, and then all of a sudden the program crashes because the computer it’s on just wasn’t built to hold so much excrement. You sit their crying, wondering why you didn’t save earlier. But then you remember that saving would have made all your stupid mistakes from earlier permanent!

People not taking this course wouldn’t really understand it. A girl in my class arrived an hour early for today’s 3 hour prac so she was positive she could leave on time. In the end something screwed up, even though she’d been following the instructions perfectly. Even the teacher couldn’t solve it.

SO. Four hours to produce nothing but anger and a red cross… She must know what it’s like to be Jewish! [Cue Chaser-style, half of audience laugh, other half sigh]

Only kidding. I don’t know how long it took the Jews.

Aleatz Hates Blatant Advertising

I probably shouldn’t be writing this, as I have 3 assignments which are due next week. That said, I’ve been doing one of them all day, and with Last.FM on as I listen to music I couldn’t help but look at the artist ‘bio’ for 3OH!3 when ‘Don’t Trust Me’ came on.

Straight off the streets of Ballerado, 3OH!3 comes outta the gate with high-class rhymes, low-brow beats and more party than the Bolshevik revolution.
You don’t get more gangsta than Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte – two natives of Boulder, Colorado, the nation’s capital of hippies, hempwear and Hummers. Ever since they first connected over a mutual man-crush on Buck 65 in a University of Colorado physics class, 3OH!3 has been packing clubs and liberating libidos with their trademark blend of dirty synths and even dirtier come-ons.
Their live shows – spiked with spastic, synchronized dance moves – whip capacity crowds into a gang-sign-throwing, finger-licking frenzy. While keeping their tongues buried deep in their cheeks, Foreman and Motte drop sucker-punch vocals over hard-edged beats that are absolutely no joke.
On their Photo Finish Records debut, these homeboys crumble their crackers into a saucy stew of hip-hop hardness, electro eroticism and 80s pop pabulum. Imagine JJ Fad getting down with Justice, or DMX getting all Depeche Mode on your ass, and you might have a clue of the kind of sonic blasphemy 3OH!3’s bringing.
Recorded with noted producer Matt Squire - with extra booty juice ladled on by bassmaster Benny Blanco (Spank Rock, Bangers & Cash) on a few tracks - the boys’ latest slab of bacon comes on like a heart attack – cool and tingly at first, then a little frightening, and ending with a knockdown, drag-out bang. That might sound dangerous – and it is.
Foreman says, “It’s a lot like a math problem,” and we couldn’t agree more. Assuming that your arithmetic homework involves head-rattling wordplay, skronky electronic experimentation and bowel-loosening beats.
“They’re so banging, they’ll blow any sound system,” brags the boastful MC Foreman of the new tracks. Part of the banging is thanks to the unholy alliance between 3OH!3 and Squire, better known for his work with folks like Boys Like Girls and Panic at the Disco. Whoever said oil and water don’t mix never tasted a good vinaigrette. Describing the zesty mélange that came out of the collaboration, Foreman is never at a loss for a simile. “It’s like renting a movie with three different people at Blockbuster.”
Lest you think the 3OH!3’s rough edges will be smoothed out by the slick sliders of a platinum producer, rest assured that the Boulder boys are keeping it realer than Roswell.
“We want to capture some of that rawness from when we were recording in the shower.”
So if you’re ready for a bumping throw down at the hoedown, let 3OH!3 get the party started.

I’ve never read something so stupid in my life. I don’t think it’s possible for more emotional jargon to be shoved into this biography. Instead of doing something most artists on Last.FM which is having the name of the members, year and location of formation and the basic stuff in simple English, some arse (probably their manager) decides to put up a shitastic description littered with words like ‘outta’ and ‘gangsta’. ‘Bowel-loosening beats’, huh? Does that mean it’s shit?

Hawthorne Heights has a similar crappy bio too, however theirs isn’t such a blatant form of advertising. However, the fact that someone wrote 'Hawthorne Heights became the face of a whole new generation of music fans’ still scares me a little.

Aleatz Hates Shitty Anime Devices

If I see another ‘serious’ male character push his glasses back with his index finger while making some serious remark, I swear I will burn down an orphanage.

There’s so many great plots and artwork out there… But then some fucktard thinks it’s a great idea to do the same thing EVERYONE ELSE DOES and make their character wear glasses and be constantly pushing them back up their nose!

NO. YOU ARE RUINING YOUR OWN WORK. STOP DOING IT.

It’s almost as annoying as 99% of the anime intros which suck balls because they go for 90 seconds and have every character standing on a hilltop with the wind blowing through their friggin’ hair while the camera keeps moving like it’s attached to a hand-glider.

I think my favourite anime intro was probably Soul Eater, even though it sticks to the cliché. The song is so good and the art is so shinny it doesn’t seem to matter.

Endings aren’t usually any better, because it’s always some cutesy, different art style being used for some variety… BUT EVERY ARTIST DOES IT. (See Black Cat, FMA: Brotherhood, yadda yadda yadda…) Then they add some chirpy song to it and they’re a carbon copy of everyone else’s ending.

Oh, did I mention official art? I personally would enjoy seeing more beautifully rendered scenes from the anime/manga then all of the characters posing in various outfits OVER and OVER and OVER AGAIN. It’s good for a half a book, gentlemen! But then it just gets old.

Ok. I’m done with the rant. Now time to burn down an orphanage.

Aleatz Hates Easter

Serious question: What does chocolate have to do with Jesus?

After exploring the origins of the modern Easter I discovered that the answer was quite simple: Not a shitload.

It’s just another example of how the Christian religion got low on ideas and decided to take something from the Pagans… A lot like Christmas! (…Because we all know shepherds don’t camp in the fields in the middle of friggin’ winter.)

So now I’m struggling to figure out who I should thank for the origins of Darrell Lea’s Nougat Egg/Christmas Pudding (they’re the same thing, only in a different package at a different time of the year).

That’s it. From now on I’m worshipping Darrell Lea at Easter!