Ten things I hate about Commandments

If you're anything like me (and seeing as you're taking the time to read my site, I'm gonna assume you have a passing resemblance), you enjoy the works of Charlton Heston.

Not his newer stuff. The whole NRA thing is a tad overboard, even for such a resolutely overblown character as Heston. But his older catalogue of works... now that's quality.

You doubtless travelled with him to the stars, and encountered a planet filled with apes. You likely pondered the content of Soylent Green (hint: it isn't not people). You likely felt sympathy for his somehow Mexican character in Touch of Evil (worst / most hilarious portrayal of a minority group ever)

But perhaps his finest works was the lengthily-awesome Ten Commandments. Nowhere else in cinema... possibly excluding Heston's equally awesome Ben Hur, is dialogue so stretched, yet delivered with such undeniable aplomb.

Yet Commandments has lamentably fallen out of favour with today's youth. I for one blame the rap music and the condoms. What it needs then, is a new presentation, a re-selling of the old classic. A "Remix to Commandments", if you will.

Fortunately, someone has done just that, to utterly hilarious results. Enjoy:

Audiophiles can finally embrace the laser

I'm a bad music listener. By fanatical Audiophilic standards, I just plain suck.

I've never been into vinyl (though I can somewhat appreciate the "warmer" tones a good record produces), and had a fairly brief obsessive CD buying stage, before I realized music was way easier to download.

As a result, the majority of my music listening comes via compressed sound files - MP3, WMA and the like. While I do have a penchant for good headphones (Koss' "the plug" are fantastic), I've never really seen the point in lossless codecs such as FLAC. 700MB+ for an album of music? Uuh no thanks.

Anyways, in theory, MP3s at a high enough bitrate should be basically indistinguishable from CD quality. A key component of MP3 compression is the removal of ranges of sound the human ear can't phyiscally perceive, and therefore surely cannot miss. But I digress.

For those fanatics out there for whom everything I've just said is total hooey, there is new hope for your gradually deteriorating record collection. I give you: the laser LP turntable!

It's really rather spiffy:

The Laser Turntable employs patented technology that produces phenomenal fidelity while never physically touching the record, thus eliminating the deterioration to the album's surface inflicted by conventional turntables. The laser's precision allows you to pick up audio information that has never been touched or damaged by a needle. This virgin audio information is then reproduced without digitization maintaining true analog sound as close as possible to when the master tape was recorded. The Laser Turntable even allows you to play records that have been severely warped or damaged over years of wear and tear.

Even I, who have no interest whatsoever in LPs, finds that pretty cool. Not enough to justify the $15,000 retail price, but cool nonetheless.

Gunther = hilarious

Every now and then I come accross a video that is pure brilliance, something that everyone should experience for themselves in order to feel truly alive. Just such a video came my way recently via everyone's favourate creepy euro-trash singer, "Günther", a (only moderately) satyrical take on crappy neo-disco-euro-pop.

I originally came accross Günther's fine work in his original "hit", the "Ding-Dong Song", but I honestly believe his newer work eclipses even this landmark.

Featured heavily are gratuitous shots of scantily clad women (and men... look for the pointless and brief male nudity right at the end), absurd background riffs, and just plain hilarious lyrics, such as:

"So come on, take your chance
and do the naked dance
Bananas, Melonas, yeah
hit's hot hot summer love"

and

"It's a no no.
And I like it.
It's a no no.
Teasing me.
It's a no no.
And you like it.
It's a no no.
Come with me"

I mean honestly, how unfunny could it possibly be?
Your interest has been piqued, I know. I'll not torment you any longer, here's the video in question:




Now doubtless an instant fan of his work, here's a little bio of the man himself, via Wiki:

Mats Söderlund (born 1969) is a Swedish musician, club owner, and former model, best known under his stage name Günther (or Günther Levi). After retiring from modeling, he managed clubs in Malmö. In 2004 he started his musical career, performing as the fictional character Günther, singing in a heavy German accent, wearing large black sun glasses and a small moustache.

Söderlund's work is mainly directed at teenagers and often contain a sexual overtone, with obvious references such as "Oh, you touch my Tra-la-la" (contained in his "Ding Dong Song") and "Bananas, melonas" (from his "TuttiFrutti Summerlove").

Most of Günther's single releases have been in a collaboration with a female duo known as "The Sunshine Girls".Günther and The Sunshine Girls took part of "Melodifestivalen", the Swedish competition where it is decided which song Sweden will send to Eurovision Song Contest. He did not even make it past the semi finals, where he ended up at sixth place out of eight.

Scouts gone wrong

As a kid, I personally never much saw the point in boyscouts. Essentially, from my then juvenille perspective (not the cultured, infinately knowing and wise one I currently posess), it seemed a fairly convoluded way of getting fairly lame badges (and then sew them on yourself!)

Silly, but not nessicarily bad.

I do appretiate the basic idea behind their inception and existance however. Teaching young people responsability, teamwork, and lending them means of organization and structure are perfectly good ways to spend one's time. Nevermind the fact that they could likely gain the same attributes from a weekly soccer game.

Since then however, it seems like the scouts have gone downhill. Specifically, they've not so subtly mirrored the US military stance regarding inclusion of gays, that is to say, they're not allowed. The company line, reportedly, is something along the lines of "gay people present lifestyles and family choices that run contrary to scout princibles", or some other nonsense.

This biggoted exclusion is odd enough, but if you look even further into the scouts credoes, they actually have considerably more extreme stances. For example, the same restrictions on gays is applied to, wait for it, athiests. Athiests. Not just that, but anyone of a religion other than Christianity is given a considerable hassle. Evidently acceptance of Christ as your one lord and saviour is critical when it comes to developing your knot-tying skills.

Now, I'm opposed to this kind of needless exclusion, and the perpetuation of the bias that goes along with it, explicit or implicit (could you have guessed that one?), but hey, the scouts are a private club. As a result, they're perfectly within their rights to allow anyone in, and deny anyone else access. They don't, for example, let girls into the BoyScouts. That's just how it goes.

Then I learned something that blew my mind.

In the United States, the BoyScouts are financed, to a considerable degree, by the Federal government. Federal buildings are used by the Scouts at little or no charge. A scout jambouree is held every four years on a military base, costing the government over 3 million dollars. Beyond this, the Federal government directly funds the scouts as a "charity".

What this essentially means is that if you pay taxes in the United States, something most people do if their name isn't Al Capone, you are forced to fund, and implicitly support, the boyscouts, a homophobic, religiously zealous, private club.

My, what an excellent use of public money.

I do realize this has nothing to do with the other content of this site, but it really is possibly the greatest thing ever. If you like puppies, that is. If you don't like puppies, you must vacate my site immediately, and never ever return.

They act so brave but are so terribly afraid!