Aleatz Hates Dream Crushers

Misleading title. The real one is supposed to be ‘Aleatz Hates Fad Diets’, but, you know… Dream crushers relates to everybody! And I’m in a very including mood right now (if that is a mood. Let’s see if Facebook thinks so).

Fad diets are a real crime of the modern world. They prey on the stupid and fat (or some who have a bit of both, like myself) and take their money, time and effort and transform it into Lamborghinis and palaces made of crystal… Okay, I made that stuff up, but the rest is true! Take a quick look at this site, which takes a humourous approach to fad diets:

http://www.faddiet.com/

I like the Chocolate Diet. Too bad it doesn’t actually contain that much chocolate.

After a browse at Westfield and seeing how much money can be made through books on fad diets I thought it might be a good idea to invent my own.

Aleatz’s ‘Put Down the Potato Chip or I’ll Shoot!’ Diet

Rules

• You may only eat on days of the week starting with ‘T’ or ‘S’ and ending with ‘Y’. If you proceed to tell me that all the days of the week end with ‘Y’, I’ll proceed to make this diet harder to follow.
• Any food which you can juggle may be eaten, but ONLY if you can eat it whilst juggling.
• Any food with a funny name is off limits. This includes Horlicks, Chili Willy sauce, Spotted Dick or any type of assorted nuts.
• If you can write and perform an original song about a food you may eat as much of it as you want at Christmas. (Just try NOT thinking about Christmas carols!)
• If you have described a type of food as ‘favourite’ online, to friends or in any form of questionnaire or conversation then you may never eat that food again. EVER.
• Exercise isn’t essential, but if you become my slave for a week you’ll be allowed to eat whatever you want. Even some sort of gelatin dish. It’s made from hooves, you know.
• Spam is bad. Both on the net and in a can. Just don’t, people. Just don’t. If you do, you won’t get food for a year. The diet says so!
• Once a month, fill your bath tub with one of the following: Oats, jelly, chocolate, milk, chocolate milk, chocolate milk oats, chocolate-milk-oat-flavoured jelly or canned spaghetti. Swim in the contents, and then reflect on what a pig you are. If you don’t turn bulimic after that, then… man… God knows I tried hard enough.

After six months on the PDTPCOIS diet, buy a pair of pants 14 sizes  bigger than your pants at the time (I guarantee they won’t fit you!) and go up to strangers while wearing them outside your normal pants. They’ll be impressed. Proceed to direct them to this diet.

Man I’m good.

Point is, fad diets just crush people’s dreams. So, I don’t know… Go eat a sandwich or burn down the Health section in Borders. Just do something constructive for a change. Why must I do all the work?

Aleatz Hates Anime Conventions

In keeping to my list with the weekly blog post (as you can see I’m stretching the weeks out a little) I decided to post this one… And in keeping to the ‘hates’ title, I obviously had to take a negative perspective of anime conventions. Obviously I don’t feel they’re overly negative, since I go to them and wouldn’t do so unless I enjoyed them. But yes, there’s much boourns to discuss. Beginning now!

They all sell the same crap. All of them. All Naruto, Death Note, Bleach etc. All wanky, over-priced items which you don’t really need, like plushies, key chains and mouse pads. It gets pretty tiring. Then you get the stalls which don’t take the innovative to reduce their normal retail prices at these annual events (I’m looking at you, EB).

Stalls like Madman have a wide selection, but similar stalls offering good value are scarce. Merchandise stalls, like I mentioned earlier, only offer items from the most popular animes (I suppose that’s not entirely their fault), and most of the items are poor quality for the prices charged.

Then you get the artist aisle, which is usually not too bad. They have their art on display and you wander over for a looksie, but POW! Every now and then you get one who’s trying to push their work onto you. NO I DON’T WANT TO READ YOUR COMIC BOOK! THE COVER DISTURBED ME ENOUGH, ALL RIGHT?! At least the artists making bookmarks with male characters making out on them have the decency to not force-sell you crap!

Sometimes you’ll be lucky and some stand will be giving out freebies. What, Australian Idol for PS2?! Who the hell thought that would sell? “Nevermind guys, just palm it off to walkers by.” A Gears of War necklace? HOW GENEROUS OF YOU EB!

There’s giving stuff out for free, and then there’s monkeys flinging faeces at your hair.

Oh, did I talk about the cosplayers yet? Clearly not. All I can say is, wow. I think they’re supposed to be compensation for the severe lack of real celebrities that we get here in Sydney. Because, seriously, who comes here? I mean, even Neville Longbottom cancelled. IF NEVILLE FREAKING LONGBOTTOM CANCELS, YOU KNOW SOMETHING’S WRONG. “But don’t worry, because we’ve still got Krum!” Oh la-de-da then. Fantastic. Lets all go see Victor Krum will he’s still memorable! Come on kids, you don’t want to miss this!

Jerks.

Aleatz Hates Filler (#3)

So I’m making a list of things I’ll be doing in the holidays. Everyone can’t wait for the holidays, but as soon as they come people start bitching about how they get bored. That’s why I have planned ahead, making a comprehensive list of high priority activities which need doing, as well as some things that are just there because they’re good fun.

• Getting a major hair cut: This one needs to be done, in more ways than one. I need a trim, for a start. But also, I’ve never had ‘short’ hair, so it shall be interesting.
• Writing 15 000 words of my story: I’m up to 23 000, so I want to add an extra 15 000 to it. Sounds like a plan. I’m not sure I’ll get past 10 000, but we’ll see how it goes.
• Bug Lizie to illustrate book cover and write up with blurb: Not really a big deal, but it gives me a chance to poke her with a stick! One of my favourite activities.
• Composer/sequence one new composition on Sibelius.
• Clean room: Oh God, yes. There’s dust settling on my dust collection.
• Read at least one book: I’m aiming for 1984, but if I’m not in the mood to get that one (which could be the case) then I’ll resort to my unread David Gemmell books littering my bookshelf.
• Finish at least one video game: Ones which look promising in this respect are Advance Wars (latest), Fire Emblem (Shadow Dragon, because IS is dyslectic and couldn’t just say ‘DS’), Fire Emblem (Dawn of Radiance), Rune Factory 2 (yeah, I think I might need more than a month), Harvest Moon DS (oh Muffy, how patient for me you have been!), Trauma Centre 2, yadda, yadda, yadda…
• Create banner for SES: Yep. It’s on the friggin’ list!
• Finish SES CD: So is this.
• Make TWEWY set: And this as well.
• Help mum for about a week: I couldn’t get out of this.
• Cook 5 new interesting things.
• Make one new wallpaper.
• Re-install all my programs on my shitty desktop: Fucking virus.
• Sort out uni courses and timetables for semester 2: If I don’t past Stat I will be pissed.
• Visit the gym at least 2 times a week: Hahaha… Not likely!
• Spend quality time with friends: Not on Sims though.
• Practise flute for old people thing at Christmas… Yeah, I don’t even know anymore.
• Send postcards to all my overseas pals: With some rock fragments in the envelopes so they know I care about them as much as rocks (which is not as much as people tend to think).
• Stock up on booze for future ‘cocktail nights’: We shall see if my wallet lets me.
• Go shopping for clothes: I can’t believe this is on a list. Hate shopping. Hate it.

Think this will fill up a month? I hope so. Oh, and:

• Write one blog post a week.

You are all witness to this one!

Aleatz Hates Hats

 

I didn’t hate hats until I came to university and realised how stupid they were. Generally speaking they’re quite practically. After all, who do you trust to keep the sun off your head? You could look like a dork and carry around an inconvenient umbrella OR you could be a kool kat and wear a hat:

Source: http://www.popculturepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/22stre6001.jpg

It seems that everyone in the joint is wearing a Fedora or a Trilby (I didn’t even know the difference until I wrote this thing). I know I lack fashion sense and whether people wear hats or not is nothing really important, but am I the only person who thinks they look stupid? Especially on an overcast day where the clouds are preparing for good drenching, why do you need a hat?

I realised the true craziness of it all when I saw one guy wearing a top hat.

Some argue that a hat is a good way to express yourself and form an identity. My opinion is that if you need a hat to create an identity for yourself then you don’t really deserve an identity. For crying out loud, man! Who wears a damn top hat outside a Victorian fancy dress party?! Are you an amateur magician?! HAS YOUR BUNNY SUFFOCATED YET?!

There’s one more excuse given for hats, something that goes a little like this:

“I wear it because my hair is so messy.”

Right. So you have a hat, but not a brush? Nice to see you earned your place in tertiary education well.

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.