Nobody Sits Much on the Starship Enterprise

Sitting is really, REALLY bad for you. Sitting for more than 6 hours a day has been shown to increase your likelihood of dying in the next 15 years by more than 40%, even if you exercise regularly. Because sitting uses almost NO energy, and because people are sitting down for longer than ever before, for longer periods of time (what with the internet and all), the obesity rate has skyrocketed and rates of heart disease have increased dramatically.

Check out this nifty infographic from http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/sitting-kills/ which it explains it all in easy to understand terms.

I know for myself that my health has deteriorated rapidly since I've been sitting around, not only have I got really fat but I have often felt like I was about to have a heart attack, my posture has become really bad because my back and stomach muscles just can't hold me upright, my spine has become too curved so I've actually lost height and it sometimes feels like I've broken my tailbone from my own weight pressing down on it. There's a constant cramp in my chest and lungs because my shoulders have started to come forward and inward, crushing them. Maybe this is why people seem to die so quickly once they're put into retirement homes? There's bugger all to do in such places but sit around and watch TV.

I've taken up dancing, walking, stretching and so on like I used to, but that's not enough, so I've put my computer up on a tall shelf roughly level with my chest to force me to stand to use it. I think this will have the added bonus of reducing my time using my computer, because it's really tiring. I have a big squishy pillow under my feet as I stand here typing this, because my knees could get very sore with the concrete floor below and my weight pressing down from above.

Because I need to change my overall way of living, I need role-models - to some extent, to live a bit of a fantasy. I've mentioned before how I believe that there's great value in symbolism, so I think I'll remind myself with a post-it that nobody seems to sit down for long on the Starship Enterprise in The Next Generation era - and look at how thin and healthy they all are!!

Skeptic Depression by Grappling Ignorance - video

This is a video a friend linked me to , it's about the potential for depression when you've cast off superstitious beliefs and magical thinking (aka: religion). While at first he sounds a little dismissive, he does actually make some really good points later in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBBWMo8ISe0&feature=colike

Here's the text if you can't watch the video:

Believers and non-believers alike have asked me about the potential depression that comes with a life free of the belief or faith in a purpose granting, paradise promising deity. It's old hat for theists to accuse me of being miserable and depressed due to my life without God, but recently I've also heard from atheists who seem legitimately depressed as a result of their delusion free world view. They've tried to explain to me that they can now understand why the religious people so desperately clutch to illogical, nonsensical, and absurd beliefs. They explain that it makes sense to do so, being that their lives of free thought have exposed to them just how pointless and empty life must be.

In my opinion the meaning of life question is a trite and trivial one- and no, the answer isn't 42. The decision of life's purpose belongs entirely to the individual. The evident understanding that our lives don't have a pre-determined meaning or a guaranteed afterlife waiting for us shouldn't be depressing. I prefer being the lone drafter of my life goals and evaluator of my success. This preference, however does not dictate my position. I didn't decide to take a path of free thought, skepticism and atheism because I like being personally accountable for what I do with my own life. Even if I took the position of those depressed skeptics who consider life meaningless without the illusion of God-given purpose, no level of desire for that perspective could allow me to convince myself of that for which I can see no actual evidence or logical presence of, and if I was genuinely convinced a god exists, no level of desire to the contrary would allow me genuinely disbelieve my own convictions. I might really want to believe that when I wake up tomorrow I'll have a job as Beyonce's personal masseur- but my desires do not inform my actual beliefs.

So, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy the many things life has to offer, even though it also offers plenty of things to be upset about. One of my favorite teachers taught me that nature craves balance. There are emotional valleys and plateaus to suffer through and be enthralled by. We are fortunate enough against all odds to be living beings, to enjoy a sliver of time as a part of this colossal cosmos with an intellect just strong enough to be self-aware, and capable of appreciating the majesty of all existence around us. I consider it a privilege to have the atoms and molecules that make up our physical existence temporarily taking the form of sentient beings with conscious brains.
As living beings with those complex brains, we're able to experience the emotional jolts of terror, love, hope, victory, defeat, and wonder in a way the overwhelmingly vast majority of molecular compositions throughout the known galaxy ever could. In my opinion, the ability to hold those experiences, and the understanding of just how rare and finite they are make this life very special, and I'm humbled and appreciative to partake in it. So no, most other people living their lives don't see eye to eye with me, and I think they'd be better off if they did- and no, life doesn't come with a neat little instruction booklet, or a gift-wrapped objective meaning. But, from my perspective, life is just too short to spend it in depression because of it.

Unblocking

My Depression is NOT a result of a chemical imbalance in my brain. I may have an imbalance, but I firmly believe that if there is one, it is a mere effect. We're social animals, human beings, and physiologically we have certain needs. If those needs aren't met, the body (and brain) suffers. I have been cowed into a state of near-permanent submission because I'm different to those around me, my needs as a social organism have not been met for a long time - most of my life, in fact. My parents and siblings have disowned and belittled me, friends and romantic and sexual partners have criticised and condemned any nonconformity and suppressed me. I have been at the bottom of the pecking order all my life, the dog the others all snarl at. My depression, therefore, is the result of being effectively 'shut-down' by almost everyone around me, and of course my health has suffered as a result. I have not been my authentic self because I learned from the people around me that my authentic self was unacceptable.

I'm an artist at heart - I draw and paint, I write poetry and stories, I love to sing and dance. When I felt ashamed of these things and stopped doing them, THAT is when I developed an unhealthy relationship with food, gained weight, lost muscle, lost my self esteem and became depressed. All that external stuff stopped my brain and glands from functioning as they otherwise would. My task for 2012 then is clear - to recover what I've lost. And I think I can do it now because I no longer NEED anyone as much as I used to, I've learned to validate myself (see my last post). By living authentically again, I will encourage my body to recover from the years of repression and rediscover happiness and the feeling of being whole.

Of course another part of my Depression that I've only just started to understand is that I did this to myself - my Depression is a by-product of the way I have lived my life. But don't think I'm being negative here - because the way I've lived that I'm referring to I would not change for the world. I have sought to empathise with and understand others all my life, I've forgiven and explained away every hurtful word and action directed at me and gained invaluable insights into the way people's minds work, and as a result I've been able to provide greater support and comfort to others in need than many other people do. I'm PROUD of that, if nothing else, THAT'S what I exist for. But I haven't been able to find my own my to release all that hurt and frustration, my art would have been the ideal outlet but I was convinced I did not have those avenues for expression. I've been drowning in the emotions I haven't been able to release.

Do YOU Have A Relationship With Satan?

As I was out for my early morning walk today (in the rain - love that) I had a bit of a revelation.

Christianity has misunderstood ha-Satan (Satan), as it has misunderstood so many things about the Jewish tradition on which it was based*.

Under Christianity, Satan has become something of a boogeyman, a malicious and evil entity in perpetual conflict with God, trying to tempt the unwary into sin and destruction. But that's not what ha-Satan was at all as originally conceived by the ancient Hebrews.

Ha-Satan is a TITLE, not a name, the prefix 'ha' simply being the Jewish 'the', the noun 'Satan' simply meaning 'accuser' or 'adversary'. So it's 'the Accuser', or 'the Adversary', a being that opposes or obstructs but which - crucially - is not necessarily in opposition to God, and which isn't, in fact, even evil as such. The term only crops up twice in the Hebrew bible referring to a supernatural entity (in the first two chapters of Job, and in Zechariah 3:1-2), the rest of the time it refers to human agents standing in opposition to a character or the kingdom of Israel.

In Job, ha-Satan is a member of the divine council, "the sons of God" who are subservient to God. Ha-Satan, in this capacity, is often translated into English as "the prosecutor", a being that is charged by God to report back on all who go against God's decrees. At the beginning of the book, Job is a good person "who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1), and has therefore been rewarded by God. When the divine council meets, God informs ha-Satan about Job's blameless, morally upright character. But ha-Satan counters (between Job 1:9–10 and 2:4–5) that God has given Job everything that a man could want, so of course Job would be loyal to God; if all Job has been given, even his health, were to be taken away from him, however, his faith would collapse. Seeing the logic of this, God proceeds to take everything away from Job - his home, his family, his property, his health - in order to test him. This would seem to imply that ha-Satan is an agent of God's rather than a rival. In Zechariah, 'the Accuser' merely stands at the right hand of God looking upon Joshua and Jerusalem as God himself defends them. The overall impression then, is of a servant of God who acts a bit like a prosecuting attorney. And this, I think, is important.

Thinking about it this morning, I concluded that modern Christianity has in fact robbed people of an important psychological tool. I personally don't believe in supernatural entities - being an apostate and atheist, I think Biblical literalism is fairly childish. But the IDEA of an accuser can be a very helpful thing, perhaps even something crucial to our mental, emotional (and even physical) well-being. I'd like to think that people are all nice, that everyone can get along, that there's no need for aggression or hostility, but we're simply not like that in reality. We NEED enemies, it's hard-wired into us... you've only to look at the nice, decent people on both sides of the political spectrum who habitually demonize those on the other side to see that. But WHY must it be so?

Having an accuser is a bit like having a yard-stick, it allows you to see where you're at, where you're failing, and spurs you on to do better. It's like an externalization of conscience, a concept that the ancient world was largely unfamiliar with. But, more importantly I believe, it's something you have to fight back against - it's no accident that ha-Satan is basically a prosecuting lawyer - imagining a being like that pointing out all your flaws forces you to defend yourself; having your own inner ugliness held up before you in a mirror with no acknowledgement of the good you do pricks at your innate sense of fairness and arouses your indignation, forces you to fight back. In doing so, you assert your own goodness and worth, and convince YOURSELF of your own worthiness, which lifts your self esteem and confidence and makes you happier and ultimately healthier, both mentally and physically**.

Of course, some people have a very low sense of self worth (I'm one, and I seem to know quite a few others, particularly in the more marginal communities of which I am a part***), and such people are not likely to defend themselves against real or imagined accusers. People who have been convinced by others that they're worthless will just agree with their accuser(s), and that is why it's so crucial that we all, everyday, express our sincere gratitude for, appreciation and admiration of those with whom we come into contact, to build up their confidence so that they can defend themselves against the one-sided accusations of their real or imaginary accusers, against their own minds, which are the cruelest adversaries of all.

So I'm going to cultivate an adversarial relationship with an imaginary supernatural entity, because the argument in my head has been pretty one-sided most of my life. Nobody's stood up for me against my attacker (and how could they? He's in my head!), so I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm going to remind myself of the good I have done and point out the good I continue to do, I'm not just going to sit and take it. And I expect I'll be better off for it :)



* Of course, I understand that 'misunderstood' is too simple a description for what has occurred over the 2000 years of Christian tradition, there were a lot of forces at work, personal, priestly and political, seeking to distance Christianity from its origins for a host of reasons.

** Physical health is a good indicator of overall happiness, and in fact laughter, excitement and joy have positive effects on overall physical health.

*** I think the LGBT communities have lost something really important in forgetting the song that used to be our anthem - 'I Am What I Am' by Gloria Gaynor. Whether or not you like the style of music, the song is a powerful assertion of one's individual worthiness and innate goodness, one that very few subsequent songs have emulated. The most recent 'gay anthem', Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way', simply pales in comparison.

Voltron, Sex & Gender... A Thought Experiment.

The new Voltron Force TV show is great... it exists (roughly) within the same continuity as the original series, it simplifies the cast (or more specifically, their uniforms) to make it more obvious which pilot controls which giant robot Lion, slim-lines and individualizes the Lions for a more satisfying aesthetic, and introduces the very cool gimmick of having the Lions each take turns as the torso of the titular Voltron robot. Two of the new characters, cadets Vince and Daniel, are from minority racial groups, Black and Asian respectively, without any sort of fuss being made about the fact, and Vince especially proves himself to be at the heart of the new show and not just the ‘token’ Black (although it would still be nice to see a few more skin tones represented, but it’s a step in the right direction). Pidge is no longer the incredibly annoying character he once was, and in fact he sorta sets my gaydar pinging... I find myself wondering if this will be a Thing in the show (it’d be great if Voltron Force broke that particular new ground). To top it all off, we have environmental awareness entering the narrative, and not in some preachy, over-the-top way, but just as a part of the team’s regular code of practice. It’s a cool, slick and timely production that I’m sure kids are going to love. I sure as hell do.


And yet there’s one thing that still kinda gets my goat. Despite the show’s overall awesomeness, the sex-ratio is still definitely askew. In a regular cast of thirteen, we have only three female characters, and one of these was killed off/turned into a monster-of-the-week in what - the third episode? Leaving us with two girls, Princess Allura and her niece Larmina. New Allura is a HUGE improvement over Original Allura, whereas before the Princess of Planet Arus was your stereotypical pretty princess in pink, insecure, naive and a bit weak (although admittedly, she did take to piloting one of the five Lions after Sven, the original pilot, was injured), now she’s strong, rational, confident, capable of looking after herself and rescuing the boys, the very heart and soul of the team. I think I’m in love with a cartoon character, is what I’m saying. Her niece Larmina is another Strong Female Character, though in an altogether different way, and one that seems calculated to contrast with the weak and fragile depiction of women in the original cartoon. Larmina is physically strong, a much better fighter than the other two cadets, she’s the fiery redhead with the smack-talkin’ and sarcasm... a little less interesting than her aunt, in other words, kinda cliché. She was obviously written in to include the girls in the audience, to say ‘Hey! Girls can be badass too!’



But the fact remains that there are only two major female characters, and with such a paucity of females in the cast each has to be more a statement of female capability and strength than an actual character. It’s also worth noting that both Allura and Larmina are attractive, slim, White girls. Now, if it had been up to me, I’d have dispensed wit the annoying Cadet Daniel completely, or better yet, replaced him with another female character to try and balance those sex-scales a bit more, that would have given us a 4:9 ratio instead of a 3:10, which while better than the original show is still less than ideal.

Now, there are bound to be some of you out there who think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, and others who will have never given this sort of thing a second thought. The problem is, it happens ALL THE TIME... females are marginalised in pop culture, so much so that in any five-man-band in movies and TV, if there’s even a girl on the team at all she will be The Chick - her sex will be her defining characteristic. But why should girls be forced to identify with male role-models? Why should women be excluded from Action/Adventure stories like this? To me, it smells like ‘putting women in their place’ or just good old fashioned sexism - meaning that women and girls just aren’t ‘real’ people. So, as a thought experiment, I decided to reverse the sexes in Voltron Force, just to show what the Voltron universe might look like if men weren’t the ones hogging the limelight. To do this, I’ve taken the Premise and Opening Voice-Over from Voltron Force’s Wikipedia page and the character profiles from the combined Voltron/Voltron Force List of Characters page and changed all the names and personal pronouns. So, without further ado:

Premise

The exact relationship of Voltrix Force to the original 1980s Voltrix series is unspecified, as there are several visual and character inconsistencies (most notably, Prince Adonis having a teenage nephew who has lived "a lifetime on Arus" even though Adonis is unmarried and has no siblings), but the characters are five to seven years older than those in the original series, and the general concept of the original series is mostly accepted as back-story. Continuing the back-story, Princess Lotus was killed when Voltrix destroyed Doom Castle. Voltrix is being celebrated on Earth for the destruction of Queen Zarkis along with her forces (led by Lotus). However, due to the actions of Sky Marshall Warde, a corrupt official in the Galaxy Alliance, the Robot Lionesses go haywire and virtually destroy a city during the festivities. The Lionesses are immediately condemned, stripped of their duty as Defenders of the Universe and separated, with the Black Lioness locked away in Galaxy Alliance HQ and the other Lionesses sealed away on the planet Arus, the home of Prince Adonis. Though officially disbanded, the Voltrix Force secretly act to get the Black Lioness back while gathering three cadets (Danielle, Val, and Adonis’ nephew Lawrence) to train them to become future Force members and Lioness pilots. With the cadets by their side, the reunited Voltrix Force are needed once more not only to combat a resurrected Lotus and a new form of energy from another old enemy of theirs, but also to expose Warde's criminal actions.

Opening

The series intro is narrated by Danielle:

“Evil is back. The Drule Queen Lotus has returned with a dark energy that can destroy the galaxy. Our only hope, the Voltrix Force: a team of five heroic pilots that control five awesome robot Lionesses. When Lotus's Robeasts attack, Lionesses come together to form...Voltrix, Defender of the Universe.”

Characters

Commander Kelly: Commander and leader of the Voltrix Force, who pilots the Black Lioness that forms the bulk and head of Voltrix. Kelly wears a red uniform in the original series, and a black uniform in the new series. Kelly is a quiet individual who spends much of her time pondering her decisions, thinking up new strategies, and simply being a leader. She also has a hobby of reading books and can often be found doing so either in the pilot's lounge, or in her room. She seemingly cherishes Prince Adonis and is thought to be somewhat protective of him; her worst fear is that he would be forced to marry the evil Princess Lotus.

Lois: Second-in-command of Voltrix, who pilots the Red Lioness that forms the right arm of Voltrix. Lois wears a blue uniform in the original series, and a red uniform in the new series. She is a tall woman, both wiry and wily, and is always cracking jokes and teasing others whenever she gets the chance. She is the only one in the group who contests any of Kelly's commands. She is a flirt and a great pilot, though reckless at times.

Penny: Penny is the youngest, smartest, and smallest of the group; she pilots the Green Lioness that forms the left arm of Voltrix, and wears a green uniform. Her home planet Balto was destroyed by nuclear missiles from Queen Zarkis. Penny graduated from the academy at a young age, and her specialty is science. Like the others, she is well-trained in martial arts, and uses her size and agility to her advantage. Penny is not afraid to speak her mind, especially to the villains. Her heart is often in her words.

Svana: Svana, a Norwegian pilot, was the original second-in-command. She piloted the Blue Lioness and wore a black uniform at the very beginning of the original series. In Episode 6, she was badly injured during an attack by the sorcerer Hagar, and was sent away to the planet Ebb for medical treatment. Ebb was attacked and raided by Lotus' forces, and Svana was captured. The prison ship on which she was transferred accidentally crashed on Planet Doom and Svana went into hiding, becoming a hermit within the caves. She eventually encountered Adonis’ cousin from the Planet Pollux, Prince Roman, who had been sent to the slave mines after he rejected Lotus’ advances. During Svana's time on Planet Doom she witnessed Zarkis and Lotus' cruelty to their slaves, which drove her to the point of madness. She recovered thanks to Roman's emotional support and helped him escape Doom. Svana was later reassigned to the Planet Pollux with Roman and his sister Princess Banda. Svana eventually fell in love with Roman, though she was reluctant to pursue her feelings because she felt he was unworthy of him. She was always very quiet and reserved, and spoke only when she had something important to say. Though she may not show it, she is a very emotional person, and her heart is always leading her mind in any decision. Although Svana no longer pilots the Blue Lioness on a regular basis after Episode 6, she continued to be featured as a pilot for the Voltrix Force in the opening credits of the series while Adonis appears in the closing sequence. However, Svana piloted the Blue Lioness into combat on one more occasion, during the second season episode "Who's Flyin' Blue Lioness," and quickly demonstrated that her time away had not diminished her formidable combat piloting skills.

Prince Adonis: Prince Adonis of the planet Arus is the ruler of the Kingdom of Altair, as well as de facto ruler of the entire planet, and is also the object of Lotus’ affections. Son of the late Queen Alfin, Adonis inherited his mother’s authority on her death and is commander in chief and head of state for the planet Arus, and thus Commander Kelly’s superior. However, later he takes over for Svana as the pilot of the Blue Lioness that forms Voltrix's right leg, and defers to Kelly during operational engagements. Adonis wears a pink uniform in the original series, and a blue uniform in the new series. Though a bit naïve, especially with matters of romance, Adonis is a strong-willed person, and is very capable of ruling his planet, though some like Royal Advisor Corrine tend to doubt this ability. He is capable of invoking the dead, particularly his mother, the late Queen Alfin.

Hetty: Hetty is the strong-woman of the group, piloting the Yellow Lioness that forms Voltrix's left leg. She is shown wearing an orange uniform in the original series, and a yellow uniform in the new series. She may look tough and mean, but she has a soft heart, especially when it comes to children and puppies. She is never late for a meal. Though her friends tease her about her appetite, most of Hetty’s bulk is muscle. It is revealed that she eats "'Fruit Loops' (almost) every morning".

Cadets

Danielle: Exclusive to Voltrix Force, she is one of three new cadets for the Voltrix team. She and Val were once cadets for the Galaxy Alliance, but were selected to be cadets for the Voltrix Force due to their piloting skills. She also has a liking for going fast. She’s kind of impulsive, always getting into trouble; though sometimes her antics are beneficial to the success of Voltrix Force. She sometimes gets jealous of Val and Lawrence because of their connections to Voltrix, and tends to feel left out of the group.

Val: Exclusive to Voltrix Force, she is one of three new cadets for the Voltrix team. She and Danielle were once cadets for the Galaxy Alliance, but were selected to be cadets for the Voltrix Force due to their piloting skills. She also has impressive technical skills and appears to have some kind of power that links her to Voltrix. The reason of why Val has it is currently unknown, but recently it has been revealed that the Voltrix Lionesses have programming that enables them to use Val’s power as a "Key" to allow Voltrix to accomplish special functions when the situation calls for it, particularly to make new formations of Voltrix with new powers by reconfiguring with a different Lioness forming the main body while having the Black Lioness form a limb. This explains the true nature of Val’s power, particularly why it tends to act on its own. Val can use her power under her own will, but it takes a lot of concentration and effort.

Lawrence: Exclusive to Voltrix Force, he is one of three new cadets for the Voltron team. He is highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and is Adonis’ nephew. While Adonis is unmarried and an only child, the original Voltrix series twice featured Adonis’ surviving Uncle. It is possible that this man is Lawrence’s father, with 'Uncle' being a title of respect to an elder cousin.


See? Male characters not only dominate pop culture, but they’re much more fleshed out than female characters, on the whole. By switching the sexes, we get a great variety of female characters with different body shapes and sizes, skills, interests and preferences (I’ve NEVER seen a female character on TV or in a movie being individualized to the extent of having a favourite food - have you?) It just goes to show, doesn’t it?

Now you can make fun of the names I chose if you like, I’m not committed to them I was just trying to prove a point, and that point required changing the obviously or implicitly male names to obviously female ones. I tried to keep them as similar as I could, but honestly, sometimes it was hard to think of a substitute. There is no female version of ‘hunk’ that starts with an ‘H’, and ‘Pidge’ isn’t even a real name. On the other hand, ‘Svana’ is, funny enough, an actual Norwegian girl’s name, so I was pleased with that one. And changing ‘Daniel’ to ‘Danielle’ was just obvious. ‘Voltrix’ sounds a bit silly, but I figured the gender of the robot had to change as well, because Voltron is male by default (Incidentally, turning all or even just four of the Voltron Lions into Lionesses makes a lot of sense, because in a pride of real lions, the lionesses not only outnumber the males, but they do the ‘lion’s share’ of the work, too. Just sayin’). I chose to change Allura’s name to ‘Adonis’ because her name emphasizes her attractiveness, she may as well have been called ‘Generic Pretty Princess,’ in fact. If that’s acceptable to do to girls, it should be acceptable to do to guys too, and the name of the mythical Greek character ‘Adonis’ has basically come to mean ‘handsome man’ in contemporary use. As for not changing the characters’ uniform colours... whoever said girls had to wear pink in the first place? Who said guys can’t? When I’ve asked my female friends their favourite colours, none of them have answered pink. Girls’ colour preferences are as varied as boys’. And besides, in this adaptation, where women make up the majority of the cast, colour-coding girls as pink is kind of meaningless. Happily, my lone male pilot ends up in the blue Lioness, so the same basic gender-coding effect is achieved :)



"You can tell I'm a girl because I wear pink tee-hee!"

Boozer's Prayer (by Amelia Hitchcock)

I stole this off my lovely friend Amelia's FB page because I thought it was cute ;)

My version of the lords prayer, for drinking times:

Our Lady of Perpetual Fuck Ups,
Screw ups be thy game,
Thy stupidity stuns,
thou art so dumb,
it shocks, even amazes!
give us this day our dose of despair,
and forgive us our relapses,
as we forgive those who slapses us,
save us from the alluring vial,
And deliver us from cheap vodka,
for thine is the chaos,
the ridicule,
and excuses.
whenever whatever,
the end!

All Good Things (reprise)

Hey guys,

I won't be posting to this blog again in the forseeable future, but I just wanted to say a big thank you for reading and commenting, and for all the fun links. I've enjoyed reading your posts and I'll keep checking your blogs to see how you're doing.

You can follow my more recent activities and thoughts at my new blog http://ahistoryofsexuality.blogspot.com/ - I warn you though, it's full of embarrassing personal stories you may not wish to hear, and has an LGBT/poly/safe sex theme... but if you're interested, I'd love to see you there!

Stay awesome!!

XX

Danny

Teh Intenets, Magical Land ov Mysteries and Wunders....

I'm on a freakin' safari here... ;)

And Now, For Your Viewing Pleasure...

Fuck You, Penguin describes itself as a blog where people "tell cute animals what's what." And with 8,238 followers (so far), it's one of the best and most popular blogs I've come across... it's pretty damn funny.

Here's a selection of some of the quotes from the Orca/Killer Whale page (which you can find here):

"I get it, Whale, you're busy. I've only been on this FUCKING BOAT for three and a half hours waiting for you, and the only thing I've seen so far is my lunch from earlier. It's not like you spend your entire goddamn life in the ocean, so I see why you would only come up for basically a split second. Personally, if someone was going to all this trouble specifically to see me, I would take time out of my BUSY ASS SCHEDULE to at least stop by the boat and make some small talk, maybe have some salmon. But I understand, Whale, places to go, 500 pounds of food to eat. I'll be fine. The real question here, Whale, is will you be fine? Can you really live with yourself? Maybe you need to make a change."


Jennifer said...
Whales have an enlarged ego. Ever since "Free Willy" they think they're the shit. Especially those orca bastards. Fuck orcas. They are so fucking vein. They should spend a day in a sperm whale's shoes and see how it feels to be ugly bastards.


RandyG said...
Whales are selfish manipulative bastards...acting all extinct, like oooooh save me, save me!

Fuck you whale.


The Rougman said...
What sort of self respecting mammal drinks water that fish have shat in?

You ain't all that, Orca. Bite me.


Dunesdreamer said...
Wait a minute...what's that I see in the background? A Japanese tuna boat?

Say good-fucking night, Gracie.


Ryan said...
What I'd like to know is where the fuck this DOLPHIN gets off calling itself a WHALE in the first place. A toothy cetacean does not a whale make. Asshole.


Jaywalker said...
Also, call that a "song"? I don't fucking think so. My ears are bleeding. Who do you think you are, whale? Britney fucking Spears?
I'm not angry. I'm just so damn disappointed.

Ecco Summary from TV Tropes Wiki

Retrieved from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EccoTheDolphin

Ecco The Dolphin

"Man, maybe they should have forgotten the name Ecco and just called the series Jesus Christ There's Sharks And Aliens Everywhere." - Anon.

A Sega video game series about a time-travelling bottlenose dolphin who fights space aliens. His friends include a pteranodon, a telepathic strand of DNA, and flying dolphins from ten million years in the future. Or, if you ask some people, a telepathic crystal and various alternate future dolphins.

The games feature notoriously difficult gameplay, which focuses on solving puzzles with the ever-present Oxygen Meter hanging over the player, and surreal storylines focused on a dolphin's perspective on alien invasions (that don't involve leaving with a thank-you note). Despite the apparent silliness of the premise, the alien (sometimes literally) setting, atmospheric music and minimalist dialogue create a lingering sense of eeriness.

The series was originally for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, and began with Ecco the Dolphin. In this game, Ecco's pod was snatched from the seas by a mysterious storm, so he set out to find them, helping other dolphins along the way.

As the storyline went on, it got progressively more bizarre: first, Ecco went to see a blue whale for advice. The blue whale didn't know much, but sent Ecco to talk to the Asterite, the oldest being in the seas with the appearance of globes arranged on a double-helix. The Asterite, with no explanation, recognised Ecco and told him it could help him, except it was missing a globe and thus not at full power. The solution: travel to Atlantis and go back in time 55 million years to retrieve the wayward sphere. In Atlantis, Ecco discovers that the source of the storm was a species of hiveminded alien who had lost the ability to make their own food and was thus harvesting from Earth's seas every 500 years.

In the end, Ecco saves his pod and destroys the Vortex aliens - or so he thought.
Ecco: The Tides of Time picked up where the original left off. Turns out the Vortex Queen was Not Quite Dead and had followed Ecco to Earth, whereupon she killed the Asterite and began a takeover. On top of that, Ecco's time-travelling in the first game had split the timestream in two. Whoops. The second game, then, followed Ecco's adventures as he sought to save the Asterite (also Not Quite Dead) and the good future of Earth. It ended with Ecco vanishing mysteriously into the "Tides of Time."

Then, save for an Edutainment Game called Ecco Jr. and a few remakes, the series vanished from the face of the Earth for several years.

Its return came in the form of Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future for the Sega Dreamcast, which brought the series to three-dimensions and completely ignored the universe and storyline that came before it. About the only things it had in common with the original series was the protagonist being a dolphin named Ecco, aliens, and time travel. It also introduced a dolphin/human (and /whale) society, where the original games relegated humans to backgrounds in Atlantis and the odd background sunken ship. Fan reaction was mixed.

In Defender, the plot centered around the Foe aliens breaking the timestream by stealing dolphinkind's "most noble traits" - Intelligence, Ambition, Compassion, Wisdom, and Humility - in the past, before they could unite with humans. It was of course Ecco's job to get these traits back, over the course of three different alternate futures: Man's Nightmare, Dolphins' Nightmare, and Domain of the Enemy.

One was a dying world with polluted water, no humans on account of them having gone extinct in their war against the Foe, and stupid-but-still-sapient dolphins who either worshipped men as a benevolent force which had uplifted dolphinkind from being mere animals and eagerly awaited their return or regarded them as a nasty species that had enslaved dolphinkind. It turns out both factions were probably right.

The next reality happened after Ecco sent back Intelligence and Ambition, turning dolphins into a surly bunch of warlords who drove humans from the seas. Arguably the prettiest section of the game, since the dolphins used a lot of organic-looking technology, and since it includes Hanging Waters, aka "Let's See How Many Mythology Gags Can Fit In One Level".

The final alternate reality saw every trait but Humilty restored to dolphins. In this one, the Foe took over and turned Earth into Mordor. And... that's... about it...

All in all, Ecco is a very bizarre, haunting, frustrating, and strangely charming series. Don't expect to see any more of him in either the Genesis or Defender storyline anytime soon.
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This series provides examples of:

• Adaptation Decay or Adaptation Distillation (Your Mileage May Vary) - The comic book adaptation in Sonic The Comic, which preserved the basic plot elements, well depicted the setting and characters, but cut out most of the time travel elements (for example, Ecco retrieves the Asterite's missing pearl from a giant squid and the abyssal plain in the present, not Atlantis).

• Bad Future - Central to the plot of Tides and playable in a few levels. Defender of the Future has three Bad Futures to go through in total during Ecco's quest to restore the timeline to its proper state.

• Bag Of Spilling - You start Tides with the powers the Asterite gave Ecco in the first game, but they are lost when the Asterite is killed. Which of course occurs just before the first real level of the game.

• Bull Fight Boss - The Globe Holder from Tides has elements of this in the second phase, although it's not really a "boss." The great white shark in Defender is a somewhat straighter example.

• Crowning Music Of Awesome - The Sega-CD & PC versions all versions have an epic soundtrack, though the CD/PC ones are for the most part completely different.

• Crystal Spires And Togas - "Atlantis Lost" of Defender.

• Discontinuity - Quite a few fans of the Genesis games hold this attitude about Defender, although the plot has almost nothing to do with the first two games anyway, so take that as you will.

• Dolphins Dolphins Everywhere - And orcas, and whales, and porpoises...

• Doomed Home Bay - Jump really high to trigger the apocalypse!

• Downer Ending - One interpretation of Tides of Time. You spend the Playable Epilogue chasing the Big Bad through Atlantis, trying to beat her to the Time Machine and destroy it before she uses it to mess up the timeline you just spent the whole game fixing. When you get to it, you use it instead. A scrolling title card (set to the rather chilling title theme) tells you the Vortex Queen beat you there and warped into prehistory, you went after her, and you were never heard from again. This Troper was in tears at the ripe young age of seven.

• Escort Mission - Each game (even the edutainment one) has at least one, though in the original they are optional. They're also not too bad as escort missions go; in the Genesis games, your charges are invulnerable, and the Defender one isn't killable. They're arguably not even true escort missions, since you don't have to protect them or even keep them in sight, they just follow you automatically and unerringly.
o Defender had an irritating glitch during the most difficult escort mission (there were several, but only one required any real effort). You were meant to protect a dolphin so he could lead you to a door and open it for you. Sometimes, after going through a short tunnel, he would manage to swim inside a rock on the other side and become stuck. Made irritating by the fact that a Power of Sonar gem would have made him obsolete anyway.

• Everything Is Even Worse With Sharks - Well, naturally. Sharks are some of the tougher enemies, often taking three to five hits to kill. Ecco himself is transformed into a shark several times in the second game, mostly so he can rampage about the level eating everything.
o And for an excuse to choose between getting munched by One Hit Kill sharks, or turn yourself into one and proceed to get attacked by other dolphins.

• Everything Trying To Kill You - Ecco's enemies are fairly reasonable for the most part, but the prehistoric levels of the first game feature Goddamned Trilobites and seahorses who shoot their young at you.

• Floating Continent - In the Good Future. The flying dolphins say they were "born of the great eruptions", whatever that means.

• Flying Seafood Special - At least, if they don't have dolphin-safe tuna millions of years in the future.

• Gainax Ending - The other interpretation of the Tides of Time ending. It is implied the Vortex Queen, upon arriving in prehistory, got stomped by the local wildlife (goddamned trilobites!), and was unable to dominate Earth's ecosystem, instead integrating into it and evolving into stuff we already had. Not weird enough? According to a Word of God interview — god only knows how reliable the source, but it sure sounds cool and it's not like we're going to see another game — Ecco knew this would happen and didn't even bother using the time machine to chase the Queen at all! He used it to go to the time of the Atlanteans, for "specific reasons reserved for the 3rd game."

• Genius Loci - The ocean in the good future, according to the future dolphins.

• Goddamned Crabs/Pufferfish/Trilobites - There are quite a few enemies in the Genesis games that make you see the positive side of driving things to extinction.

• Hailfire Peaks, naturally all with an Under The Sea twist:
o Green Hill Zone - The first level in every game.
o Underground Level - The Undercaves would be the first example.
o Slippy Slidey Ice World - In which Ecco can literally slip and slide around on his belly atop the ice.
o Prehistoria - And how.
o Eternal Engine - Welcome to the Machine

• Heroic Mime - Ecco does use his voice as a general problem-solving tool, but the player's never privy to anything he says beyond "Queek-queek-queek" and "SQUAAARK!!"
o He also chatters when you press the sonar button out of water in Defender.
 Interestingly, one of the scrapped ideas involved being able to see what Ecco's sonar translated to by singing at a mirror (Defender).

• Hive Mind - The aliens in both storylines.
• Horde Of Alien Locusts - Again, the aliens in both storylines.
• Humans Are Bastards - In Defender, when they take over without uniting with the dolphins. Of course, the dolphins from the Dolphins' Nightmare section are some pretty nasty customers as well, so maybe it's more like Unchecked Dominant Species Are Bastards.

• Locked Door - "SEARCH FOR THE KEY-GLYPH"

• The Maze - At least one in each game, some more frustrating than others.

• Make Me Wanna Shout - Ecco's sonar gets various weapons-grade upgrades throughout the games.

• My Own Grampa - Variant: while retrieving the Asterite's globe in Ecco the Dolphin, Ecco encounters some proto-cetaceans and accidentally gives them the idea to take to the seas.

• New Age - Self-explanatory, really.

• Nice Job Breaking It Hero - "You are the Stone that splits the Stream of Time in two."

• Nightmare Fuel -
o The entire game is a claustrophic, haunting experience. It gets worse. Do not let the fact that the protagonist is an adorable dolphin fool you. Seriously. ◊
o Welcome to the Machine. Not only does it feature a pukish green background and some really unnerving music, but it's also pretty long, even for a level with automatic scrolling.
 And thanks to a surely deliberate plant on the password screen, it's easy to be transported to it accidentally with no knowledge of what awaits you there.

• Nintendo Hard - Controller-throwingly so.

• No Ontological Inertia - The Asterite's powerup only works when it's alive.

• Nostalgia Level - Defender includes two hidden sidescrolling levels based on the Genesis games; one is actually called Passage from Genesis. Also, the Hanging Waters levels are one big Mythology Gag reference to the Good Future water tubes from Tides, although that doesn't change the fact that they look awesome.

• Oddball In The Series - Ecco Jr.

• One Hit Kill - So many things do this you wonder why they bothered letting you keep the life meter for the last few levels.

• Paranoia Fuel - So you've just started Tides of Time. You're zooming around one of the first levels, enjoying the better controls, and suddenly you see a terrifying mass of blue chitin that kills you instantly. It was one of the alien enemies in the first game that you never saw till the last level. One the one fin you don't want to go that fast ever again in case more of them are floating around, but on the other...you have to. Eep.

• Pass Through The Rings - Those goddamn teleport levels from Tides. Predictably, some of this in Defender as well, since it's the only 3D game in the series.

• Playable Epilogue - Tides has one three levels long.

• Poison Fish - Seen in Defender; Among the many health-restoring fish there is one specific kind that'll hurt instead of heal you.
o These Poison Fish are the only way to heal you from a slow death due to Jellyfish Poison. If you're poisoned and eat this fish, you won't take damage and your health won't increase, but the poison will be gone.
 They can also be mildly useful after you learn the Song of Fish. Sharks don't want to eat poison fish, so having a little cloud of them following you around makes a nifty living shield. The downside? Fish are slow, so said living shield is only effective when you don't need/want to swim quickly.

• Porting Disaster - The GameGear version of Tides. It is now thought it was based on a prototype of the Genesis/Mega Drive game. The Game Boy Advance port of the original Ecco isn't quite so atrocious, but removed almost the entire soundtrack, replacing it with a 30-second loop heard during the time travel sequences in the original game.

• Scenery Porn - Lovely shots of the ocean, in both the Genesis games and Defender.

• Scrappy Level - Every game has at least one. Inevitable given the general difficulty, really.
o Ecco the Dolphin features Welcome to the Machine: Five minutes of twisting, turning, auto-scrolling Hell. And just to make things even better, if you lose to the final boss you get to go through again!
o Subverted with the Hanging Waters level in Defender of the Future. It has all the makings of a Scrappy Level, but it's generally forgiven because the concept behind it is so awesome and said concept is executed flawlessly.

• The Sky Is An Ocean: The Tides Of Time features flying dolphins, a giant flying jellyfish, and ocean paths in the sky.

• Somewhere A Palaeontologist Is Crying - The prehistoric levels of Ecco the Dolphin include trilobites, pteranodons, and proto-cetaceans cohabiting.

• Space Is An Ocean - Defender seems to make it apparent that both man and dolphin prefer the "space fetus" method of interstellar travel from the end of 2001: A Space Oddyssey.

• Stable Time Loop - Ecco is sent back in time to find the Asterite's lost globe, but ultimately ends up stealing it from it in the past, and thus being the reason the Asterite doesn't have said globe in the first place. The Asterite itself comes to this revelation when you first meet it, but of course, you're not likely to understand a word it's saying at the time.

• Stalking Mission - Defender. There's a deadly version in Tides.

• Surprise Creepy - You wouldn't think a game about a dolphin could possibly be this eerie, would you?

• Sword Of Plot Advancement - The special powers the Asterite gives Ecco in the first and second games, the dolphins' noble traits in Defender.

• That One Boss - Again, given the general difficulty almost all the bosses are well-hated, but the final boss of the first game deserves special mention. She actually isn't all that bad herself, but if you die you have to pick your way through Welcome to the Machine again. Worse, she has a move that will kill you instantly or even freeze the game forever if you have infinitie life.

• They Just Didnt Care - Arguably Defender; the guy who wrote the storyline has never played the Genesis games, and the original creator of the series was not part of production.
o They cared enough to hire David Brin, the writer of the Uplift series, to pen the script for the new game rather than just getting a staff writer to do it. Just because it disregards the story of the first two games doesn't mean it sucks. Then again, he apparently can't tell the difference between the Genesis games and Defender, so he may only have cared about getting a paycheck. The "arguably" above is well-justified, and it's worth noting that gameplay-wise Defender of the Future wasn't half bad.

• Time Travel - In every single game, apart from Ecco Jr.

• Underwater Ruins - Doubles as Scenery Porn.

• Unpleasable Fanbase - On the other flipper, perhaps this is the only "problem" with Defender.

• Womb Level - Defender's final boss.

• Xen Syndrome - Defender gets hit with this bad during Domain of the Enemy.

• Xenofiction - At least, the Genesis games are.