Sorry but I’m about to go very political and existential on your asses so buckle up!
I dunno if you heard, but Greenpeace did a pretty fancy job of taking a swing at Shell during their biggest PR event of the year, the Belgian Grand Prix. If you missed it, here’s the clip.
Also I recently saw the SG1 episode “Fallout” in which a planet with 3 major powers who never can agree on anything is about to blow up. The entire planet, yet they can’t get along even in the face of imminent wipeout. I also remember when the Kyoto Protocol was up for voting the US president said that they couldn’t agree with it because “it would hinder their economic growth”. And a few weeks ago, Vattenfall (the biggest producer of energy in Sweden) went on TV and answered the question “don’t you have a responsibility to invest more in greener energy sources?” with “we also have a responsibility to our shareholders to make a profit”.
Here’s a thought. You know that pandemic people seems to be convinced is coming, that will be majorly contagious and infectious, will kill people without prejudice and threaten mankind’s existence as the dominant species? Well I’m thinking it’s already here and it’s called “greed”.
I’m all for making a profit. But not at the expense of people’s life or the health of the planet! Ever since the industrial revolution we have poisoned this planet more and more and we can try to blame our parents or grandparents for it, but the difference is they probably didn’t know it was causing the damage it was. Well my generation has been brought up knowing we’re destroying the planet. And when people use the excuse of making money to defend the destruction of the planet I get upset- Because we know the effect our way of life is having yet we seem unable – or even worse, unwilling! – to change.
I wish I could make more of a difference, but I’m content with donating money to Greenpeace and voting for the Swedish environment party!
Playing as much Assassins Creed as I have religion has popped up in my mind. One of the first screens that pops up every time you start the game is a disclaimer saying that the game was made by people of diverse cultures and religions, as to safeguard them from saying “this is not Jews bashing Islam and Christianity”. Because the game is bashing left and right (hell, you even fistfight with Pope Alexander VI!) and that’s why I kinda love it.
Personally I’m an agnostic which is a sophisticated way of saying my mind isn’t made up yet. People might, and have, respond to that by saying something to indicate that’s a bad or cowardly thing. But I don’t think it is. I think it’s a pretty intelligent approach to it. Considering I did that entire confirmation thing in a Christian church when I was a teenager, not to mention the fact that I credit Knut Fisher for me making it out of my teens, you might think I’d be Christian. But no, I prefer to keep an open mind. To think “this book of genesis makes no sense”. So for me being agnostic is more about keeping an open mind and trying to be objective about it all, rather than choosing a side and sticking by it no matter what happens or anyone, including the leader(s) of whatever religion that may be, says or does. It also enables me to see movies like “Dogma” without being offended.
We saw Oblivion the other day. I didn’t know much about the movie more than Tom Cruises was in it, it was sci-fi and post apocalyptic and most of my friends liked it. Even though I’m no fan of Cruise I gave it a shot. And like the last update – I’m happy I did ’cause it was really good! The story was ok but had some holes in it, the acting was good and I always like a short casting list. But one thing I loved was the special effects. Not of the cool explosions kind, but rather the ones you might not see. Like the background when they were at their place in the skies, they had some beautiful shots there. And when I watched that I was thinking “how that hell did they do that?”. ‘Cause normal blue/greenscreen wasn’t it ’cause the reflections on everything was too perfect. As always IMDB holds the answer 🙂
So, good movie, go and see it!
Now for some spoilers. This will give away the big thing in the movie so don’t read unless you really really want to know. Or if you’ve already seen it!
Ready?
Here I go ..
So as I’m watching the first 10 minutes of this I’m trying to make sense of the plot so far and quickly say to my wife – “the scavs are the humans the the tet are the bad aliens”. The big giveaway to this, and I’m assuming this is 100% delibirate is that if mankind was facing extinnction and the Earth was turned to rubbles and we all had to make an exodus to a distant moon … how did we find the resources, time and energy to build their place in the clouds that looks like it was designed by Apple? Complete with luxury pool and everything, that part didn’t make sense. Humans wouldn’t do that. It’d be a minimalistic “this is what you need” approach. So that gave it away for me.
One of the few game series I’ve never given a try has been Assassin’s Creed. Not that I had much against it but it looked like it was another massproduced series of games with little story or thought. Man was I wrong and I’m glad I gave it a shot!
That shot came about when I saw the gameplay trailer for the one comming in November. The animation, the graphics, how they’d gotten the movement rights, the seemless of it, it got me interested. And as part of the Steam Summer Sale I bought the entire series and I’m already done with the first one and halfway through the second one. And yeah, it has good graphics, animations etc. And great atmosphere. And also great story and alot of thought went into it, atleast the second one where they are basically redifining the Bible and creationalism. Ofcourse it’s just a game so take it for what it is, but still, a bold move. And I like it when sci-fi (which I’d call it) meets the Bible. The revelation of the Vorlons in “Babylon 5” was pretty awesome too. As is the Adam and Eve movie-clip in “Assassins Creed II”!
Tonight I’m pulling an all nighter to go through the second one and atleast have a little taste of “Brotherhood”. The only bad thing so far is that it’s hard to find any good points to quit. There’s always 2-3 minutes or longer dialogue when you think you’re gonna quit.
Now I’m just slacking! Vacation and everything and not a single update?
Well surprisingly enough, now that I’m on vacation I have the least amount of time to care about this place. You see I have a wife that get’s worked up everytime I sit in front of the computer so I don’t have much opportunity to post things here from home. Yeah, you could call me whipped and you wouldn’t be wrong.
But now I’m back at work so now I have time to post things here. And I have time on the train to get through the rest of SG1 as well and all of that other stuff that I don’t have time to watch at home. And unfortunately F1 is on summer break, and besides, the Ferraris aren’t doing too well this year. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Most of my vacation was spent at home with my family. We tried to do things, we went to Gröna Lund and Skansen but in the end it just costs more than we can afford right now, especially since we bought new phones and we spent alot more money in Crete than we thought we would. “Don’t do the crime …” eh? But this week my parents will take Sam for a few days so we can get a slow weekend. “Slow” as in “celebrating my brothers 30th birtyday this friday”, let’s see how that turns out!
Other than that, I’m chugging along just fine!