Panflute

Been binging on Megadeth on Spotify as of late, but I really miss the touch of a physical product, so I used my remaining bday money to buy half a dozen of their CDs.

This took a turn!

Blackfish (2013)

A documentary on the moral implications of keeping killer whales in captivity. The narrative focuses on the killer whale Tilikum, who was involved in 3 fatal incidents with humans; most famously the killing of his trainer Dawn Brancheau. However, the movie also discusses the practices of marine parks at large – Sea World in particular – ranging from the capturing of wild killer whales to their exploitation of animals for entertainment and the subsequent covering up of incidents between killer whales and trainers – even to other trainers.

At this point it shouldn't be news that there are some serious moral problems with keeping animals in a tank that contains literally 1 millionth of the quantity of water that the same animals would traverse in a single day in the wild. However, what did shock me is the lengths that Sea World went through to cover up incidents, both non-fatal and fatal to their own personnel. Fatal attacks being reported as drownings, or pinned on the mistakes of very experienced trainers. There is also a part in the movie where Sea World sell one of their killer whales to a marine park in Spain, while said park was clearly not designed to house such animals, and many of the trainers had never even been in contact with killer whales before. It just paints a picture of an organization that does everything to maximize its profit at the cost of both animals and humans (one of the killer whales in the Spanish park ended up killing a trainer). This is even outside of the more basic question of whether or not killer whales should be held in captivity to begin with.

One thing that I regret about this movie is that you never get to hear Sea World's side of the story. According to the makers, Sea World repeatedly denied requests to co-operate with the documentary, which, in my view, can only be interpreted as a tacit admission of guilt, as well as a conscious move that would allow them to dismiss Blackfish as propaganda (which is exactly what they ended up doing). Yet with a lot of the people you hear being former Sea World trainers and biologists, there just seems to be very little ground to view Sea World as an organization with an inkling of moral fibre, nor to see the practice of keeping marine mammals for our own entertainment as something that we should cling on to.

Some Kind of Monster (2004)

Having grown up on the music of Metallica and still being very into the band around the time this documentary was released, I'm glad I never ended up seeing it back in the day. Having seen some very cringey clips over the years, I finally mustered the amount of morbid fascination required to watch this movie.

And sweet Jesus, was it ruthless.

The documentary follows Metallica as they're in the process of writing and recording their new album, which would turn out to be the much maligned St. Anger. Only it's clear from the beginning that these people have lost touch with reality and each other and spend more time bickering over absolutely everything in the most childish, passive-aggressive ways possible. This is all against the backdrop of their long-time bass player Jason Newstead having recently quit the band.

In order to 'heal' their band and prevent it from completely falling apart, they have enlisted a therapist called Phil Towle to bring everyone back together. Every segment with Towle is almost surreal to behold, as he embodies just about every stereotype about California lawyers: obnoxiously expensive (40k a month), only talks in meaningless one-liners, and only seems to be there to enrich himself. Every concrete piece of advice he gives seems to be the opposite of what any half-way competent psychotherapist would give you, with the absolute kicker being how defensive he gets when frontman James Hetfield implies that the band wants to part ways with him. He comes across as a grade A huckster and it didn't surprise me to learn after watching this that he isn't even a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist.

The rest of the movie is equally surreal. There is a part where Lars Ulrich tries out a new, botched syncopatic drumming style and utterly failing, after which his bandmates tell him to just do his usual thing (which of course devolves into yet another huge argument). In another segment, former guitarist and now Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine has an emotional talk with Ulrich, talking about how pissed he still is about getting kicked out the band 2 decades after it happened. Then there is Hetfield going into rehab for his alcoholism, coming back months later only to have the exact same arguments with Ulrich. If you showed this to someone who has somehow managed to remain unaware of Metallica thus far, they'd probably think this was a mockumentary in the vein of Spinal Tap.

Still, this documentary does provide some insights into the band that somehow makes you sympathize more with them. In one part, Ulrich lets his father Torben hear a preview of one of the upcoming album's tracks, and the latter straight-up tells his son that, if it were up to him, he'd delete that track from the album. Later, Ulrich confesses that he's always felt a bit estranged from Hetfield, saying the frontman had a bigger bond with Mustaine, with Ulrich being the quiet guy from Europe who didn't really know how to behave in the crazy American metal scene of the early '80s. It goes to show there's more to Ulrich than just being an asshole, and he still just feels an extreme obligation to prove himself. And inbetween you failing to add some flair to your drumming 20 years down the line and your father telling you your new shit sucks, that is a rough spot to be in.

All in all, a truly bizarre film that I still don't quite know what to make of, but while it was entertaining in its own way, I find myself wondering what the band were hoping to achieve by putting this footage out there for everyone to see.

A very entertaining read so far.

^Finally I get to break out my "akzhually that's prehistory" line

I follow F1 now. 

4 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

As exciting as this all is in Europe, I do think we miss a traditionally defensive, frustrating side. Italy seems to have abandoned that completely now and the self-destruction of Mourinho leaves a bit of a void in terms of the spoilers in football.

Juventus still displays it at times, like their away game against Tottenham last season. But yeah, we need another Inter.

On 28/03/2019 at 20:56, nudge said:

Hmmm hard to choose when it comes to albums but I'd say Mutter and Reise, Reise are my most favourite ones... Even harder to chose favourite songs  Mutter, Seemann, Spiel Mit Mir, Du Riechst So Gut, Sonne, Ohne Dich, Stein Um Stein, Feuer und Wasser, Mein Herz Brennt, Moskau, Reise Reise, Engel are probably the ones I like the most...

I'd put Mutter above Reise, Reise. It's a bit louder and nearly every song was good, while Reise, Reise had a couple of stinkers imo.

The earlier albums are great too but a bit harder to get into as they still have the loud industrial sound.

Only do Elder Scrolls Online atm. There is enough content to keep me busy, and I've actually taking a liking to playing with other people, though the social aspect of it can become a bit tedious at times.

Ruh-roh!

Quote

 

Dutch populist vote surge costs PM Rutte senate majority

The governing centre-right coalition in the Netherlands has lost its senate majority after a populist party surged in provincial elections.

The anti-immigration Forum for Democracy won most votes and secured more seats in the upper house than Prime Minister Mark Rutte's party.

The election came two days after a suspected terror attack in Utrecht.

Addressing supporters, party leader Thierry Baudet bitterly criticised Mr Rutte's immigration policies.

"Successive Rutte governments have left our borders wide open, letting in hundreds of thousands of people with cultures completely different to ours," he told the cheering crowd.

Mr Baudet, who was criticised for continuing to campaign after Monday's shooting on a tram, said Dutch people were being "destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us".

Analysts say he may team up with the anti-Islam Freedom Party, led by far-right politician Geert Wilders. Mr Wilders has seen his party's seats decline from nine to five.

With about 98% of the vote counted, Forum for Democracy has become the biggest party with 13 seats. Forum for Democracy had no seats in the current 75-seat upper house.

Mr Rutte will now need the support of other parties beyond his own coalition to pass legislation. The 38 seats previously held by his coalition will now fall to 31.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47648086

I expect Wilders to tap out of national politics within the next 1-2 years.

1 minute ago, Cannabis said:

You sound surprise that EA have done the bare minimum? They're lazy cunts, absolute scavengers.

It seemed like a no-brainer. Then again, the people at EA really do have no brain so nothing shocks me at this point.

Another dumb thing is that the character models they made for the World Cup game didn't get carried over into the base game. So when you play the World Cup, a player like Casemiro looks like himself, while in career mode he's still just given a generic character model. 10/1 says they'll use the same generic model for FIFA19.

what the fuck

16 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Fuck him/them. They think it's unfair they had their citizenship revoked because they went off to join a group of murders, torturers, and rapists that say they're at war with our society. And they've got no remorse for what they've done - there's no rehabilitating these cunts, hopefully the Kurds execute him once they get all the info they can out of him.

He goes on a tangent about how the West is the worst place of all but at the end of the day he still wants his trial to take place in Britain. It's like that with a lot of these guys. Claim to be principled and pure in their ideology but still won't own up to what they did and want an easy way out.

This poses a problem too. Of course we can say 'fuck these guys, let 'em rot', but then they're just a prolonged burden on the country they came to fuck up in the first place. The journalist who conducted that interview also spoke to the guards, who pointed out that they're paying to feed the people who came there to murder them.

What a mess.

14 hours ago, The Rebel CRS said:

Dembélé is immense on this game once he grows to his full potential. Unstoppable.

Yeah, I now deploy him like Robben in his prime: starting on the right wing with a fair amount of freedom so he can either cross, or run into the box and shoot on goal with his left. If the shot is not blocked, the goalkeeper often has no chance.

Picked up my career with Tottenham again. Since I had a lot of options on the midfield I decided to take up Barcelona's offer of like 100 million for Dele Alli and use the money to get Ousmane Dembélé from them and solve my problem on the right attacking wing. I play with 4-3-3 and previously I only had Sissoko or a dysfunctional Harry Kane for that position, which was a real problem as 80% of my attacks go over the flanks. Now with the Dembélé, the goals and assists keep flying in. Also got Virgil van Dijk because HYPE and because Vertonghen is starting to age.

Current starting 11:

-------------------Draxler--------------------Kane--------------------Dembélé---------------------

-----------------------------Son-------------------------------Eriksen------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------Dier--------------------------------------------------------

---------Alaba-------------------Van Dijk---------------Sánchez------------------Aurier--------

-------------------------------------------------Courtois----------------------------------------------------

Oddly enough, Son is the current league top scorer with like 21 goals in 24 EPL matches. Kane is stuck at an abysmal 6.

Interview by journalist Jenan Moussa with ISIS member El Shafee Elsheikh, who is now in Kurdish custody. He's a (former?) British citizen and a member of the infamous 'Beatles' group.

https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/982935563694215168

He seems totally emotionally unaffected by what he did/saw as part of the terrorist group.

In short robots are going to murder us all.

Pretty decent shirt really. I prefer the black and red one though.

I did quite like Halo Reach's campaign. Plenty of memorable environments and I liked the sense of foreboding of knowing it wasn't going to end well. Halo: CE's campaign dragged on for way too long though, and I never finished it in like 3 attempts. 

On 1/22/2018 at 23:39, Dr. Gonzo said:

A friend of mine convinced me to buy Mutant Football League to play with him. Pretty cheap for a very fun game - it's an American football game. But you have 7 players on a side at any given moment in time. You can also beat the shit out of the players after each play - and you can actually kill players on the other side. If you kill enough players, you can win the game by making the other team forfeit. You can use things called "Dirty Tricks" to do things like bribe the referee, take steroids, use shotguns, use bombs, and shit like that.

All in all, it makes for one of the most fun sports games I've ever played. Definitely the best iteration of American football I've ever seen. The commentary is hilarious too.

I bought this game after reading this, and it's really fun. It has the Pick Up And Play aspect of Rocket League.

As I don't know the rules of American football, it took me a few matches to get used to it, but by now I've already completed a season and it's not boring yet. I also love how all the teams have a different feel to them. 

Also, the commentary reminds me of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, which is always a plus.

7 hours ago, nudge said:

Let me guess - Käsespätzle  

By the way, the case that you're implying about, most of them are already released and have left the country haha. Only a few are still in jail, and I think those are the organisers who had previously been told to stop with those events.

Last I heard the Dutch guy was still in custody.

Käsespätzle at the restaurant you're referring to were really greasy. I'd still take them though.  

11 minutes ago, Faithcore said:

I think you are mistaking me for that Dutch guy who once travelled to Cambodia.

I got arrested for attending a sexually explicit party along with some Brits. I'd kill for some shitty German food now.

"A settlement somewhere"