Things That Really !&$%2 You Off

After a bumper session on RDR2, I can name another. I'll refrain for spoiler reasons, but if you've finished the game you know exactly who I mean.

Comfy pyjamas are pretty good.  My current comfy warm pyjamas have a busted waistband.  They keep falling off.

Just walk around on your hands so gravity keeps them in place for you

I have no balance.

Poor communication/poor customer service.

My car's fans have stopped working, so demisting and defrosting the car is a bloody pain and visibility is really poor without my fans running during winter. As such, I'd booked a mobile mechanic to come out and have a look at the car to figure out was wrong - if it was an easy fix, it's something I could maybe sort but I needed a diagnostic done on the car first. I was given a two hour window he'd arrive in and all seemed well.

Well, there was no sign of him 15 minutes after this two hour window, so I give the garage a phone.

"Hi, I'd booked a mobile mechanic through a site and your garage picked up the job - just wondering what's happening with that?"

"Oh, did you? Ehhhh, the boss has the password for that site so we've not been able to check the bookings, sorry! Ehhhh what's the problem? I'm about an hour away from you but I can get out soon."

Okay, I'm a bit miffed but at least I'll still get seen today, right?

90 minutes later... time for another phone call.

"Hi, just looking for an update from you guys, where are you?"

"Oh sorry, ehhhh, there was an accident on the motorway, just back at the garage, ehhh I'll be up in 10 minutes. Ehhhh make that 15!"

30 minutes later... another call.

"Ehhhh so look, you're better just taking this into the garage in the morning, no point us coming out when all the parts are in the garage, know what I mean?"

"So, I booked this to my home because visibility is pretty damn poor and I didn't feel safe driving with my fans not working. Why are you now changing what I'd asked for and why are we waiting till tomorrow?"

"Aw it'll be easier! And we're all off home now buddy, you know? Ehhh, you're only half an hour away from us, it'll be fine - we open at 8am, see you then!"

...they won't be seeing me as I'm taking the car into a local garage about a five minute drive away with the weather meant to be a bit warmer tomorrow. Absolute fannies though - a quick phone call earlier in the afternoon would have saved me waiting in all day.

Ah that's genuinely rubbish. Taking your business literally anywhere else seems like a good option.  Sorry sir.

spoilered so that my joy about something else doesn't seem quite so insensitive:

The website - ClickMechanic, for anybody interested - were fine as they kept in touch during the booking process and cancelled my booking in a couple of minutes after I'd decided to ditch the whole process. It's the garage they've partnered with in my area that absolutely cocked everything up.

When you're looking forward to a quality lunch and you find out it's fallen apart in your work bag and broken up into wee bits.

ABSOLUTE FUCKING SHITE

ARGH. What was the quality lunch pre-breakage?

Nothing worse than a spoiled lunch. I had packed some delicious rice cakes with my lunch - salt and vinegar flavour, they're amazing - but I don't think I'd sealed the box properly as they had started to go soft by the time I got to them.

The adverts on Now TV/Movies.

Not only are you already paying a subscription for the service anyway, but the adverts are major spoilers. They're advertising a selection of the Marvel films they have on their movie service, and the advert basically gives you a cliff notes version of the MCU to date. So you know, fuck you if you're using Now Movies for catch up.

Ooft. As if the Internet isn't bad enough at spoilers anyway. Even Netflix episode descriptions seem to long to tell you what's going to happen halfway through.

As for what's angering me right now... eh, the news. The English news is bad enough, but God forbid you take a look at the global stuff.

So I don't have proper home internet here. I've been relying on Konbinis and cafes, and the mobile phone Shen gave me. But a couple of months ago . . . I dropped the phone in McDonalds and properly fucked the screen. Luckily, I've been able to make do by signing into the phone blind and turning on the wifi tethering with the half-inch of screen at the top which works. But then in the past week or two, me and Shen both totally lost the touch with the signing in! I managed to pull one off this afternoon, which is how I'm having this little GNamer sesh.

Now that I have my visa and I've flown Shen here and had a nice week, I am gonna aim to grab a debit card and apply for proper internet. Its about bloody time . . .

This is (one of the ways) how you can tell you're an extrovert, Drunka: an introvert wouldn't have been able to last thing long without reliable Internet. Hope you get it sorted.

Ah, I did think that you'd not been around as much this month, but I'd just assumed you were spending quality time with Shen. I'm about to be very jealous of your Internet speeds, aren't I?

That's definitely a reason as well. Even without hard core internet speeds, I'd be around more if she weren't in town.

Looks like the Liberal Party (basically the Australian Tories) are getting back in. Yaaaaay. I'm so looking forward to another three years of unsustainable tax cuts paid for by less infrastructure projects and social services, I'm so looking forward to our education system going even further into the depths of hell, and I'm really happy that in ten years time this country is going to be in a recession that will be inescapable.

Join the club, Athrun. Join the club. At least you don't have, er, Auxit to deal with.

The last week has made me realise something.  Between the godawful Terminator trailer and the horrific second attempt to adapt the Dark Phoenix saga and with how jaded I am about certain other big name franchises I think I'm just done with big budget hollywood movies.  

I'm tired of the same vapid big-budget spectacles where they take old franchises and remake the original films that, despite having larger budgets than all of us will ever have over our entire lives collectively, have nothing interesting to say, awful stories, awful non-characters, and garbage overly-CGI'd action sequences.  

The encroaching virus of politically correct messages and themes taking precedence over storytelling was definitely what started my apathy, but the lack of any real substance to such productions is what's killed my interest.

Athrun888 wrote:

The encroaching virus of politically correct messages and themes taking precedence...

...nope, I was going to say something, but I don't have the mental wherewithal.  

Instead, I'll say: shoe shopping.  It's bloody tedious for the best of people, but I have funny-shaped feet and finding shoes that are going to fit, and are going to continue fitting when I take them for a walk, is a tedious nightmare.  I ended up buying some jolly expensive shoes that immediately made my feet horrible blistered lumps when I wore them to work. (ts)

You don't have the fortitude and yet you post the bait anyway.    I'll bite.  I'll give an example of exactly what I'm talking about when I say social political messages being put ahead of logical and well-structured story-telling.  

The Last Jedi.  The film has several very good examples, I'll go in to the best one.  Remember how the film was about a slow space chase, with the Empire (sorry I mean the First Order) being unable to close the range between them and the rebels (sorry, I mean resistance) unable to shoot the fleeing ships because of a lack of long range weaponry capable of a high enough power to destroy the shields?  

Enter the Poe arc.  We start the film with his ignoring orders from Leia and following his instincts to continue an attack on the enemy dreadnaught, his reasoning being "these ships are fleet killers, we can't let it get away!"  The attack works, the enemy ship is destroyed at the cost of some (extremely poorly designed) bombers.  

So what do we have for the rest of the film?  Poe is constantly chewed out by his superiors in rank.  The message and arc is clear.  Poe is a hothead that needs to learn patience, and is having problems accepting female authority.  Indeed by the films end the message is clear that had Poe simply trusted his authority figures (which just so happen to be female and constantly putting him down) everything would have worked out (another can of fish I'm not going to open)

The reason this arc does not actually work should by now be obvious.  Had Poe not followed his instincts and disobeyed Leia at the start of the film the First Order would have immediately destroyed their fleet with their still-intact fleet killer of a capital ship.  Tactically speaking Poe made the correct decision.  

The entire arc is a politically motivated mess that fails to hold up to even a shred of logical analysis.  Why I hate it should already be evident, but there is also another reason for it.  The effect these sorts of agendas have often has the opposite effect that the writers are trying to achieve.  Case in point the Poe arc, where everyone besides Poe ends up looking like an incompetent fop that shouldn't be in command.  

I can point to any number of fictional works that do in fact push diversity and female empowerment well.  Some of them are in fact up there with my favourite stories.  However that is for another time and place (a time that will be in a week or two and the place being the book thread). My point is simple. I'm beyond sick and tired of this sort of trashy storytelling that is being used to prop up Hollywoods complete creative bankruptcy.

Fin.

You say 'fortitude', I say 'arsedness to debate The Last Jedi again'.  Potato potahto.  Hollywood needs to learn some diversity and if it has to stumble along the way to do so then that's a temporary price worth paying (I don't think TLJ is a stumble and we'll never convince each other on that point).  There are still good films.



SO SHOE SHOPPING AM I RIGHT?

And guess who's muted again

Shoes aren't that bad.