Mankind has always feared what it cannot understand...

I guess one of the staples of horror films is that the horror in question comes from an unknowable source.

Examples:

• The afterlife (hell, ghosts) or realms of magic.
  
• Space/other dimensions (Aliens, Event Horizon)
• Complex Science/technology (Frankenstein, One Missed Call, Ring)
  
• The ocean depths (Sphere, Cloverfield)
  
• Somewhere that civilized man does not tread (the American South, Europe, the Outback)
• Within the minds of one's fellow man (psychopaths)
• Within the minds of children (nobody knows wtf they're planning)
• Within the minds of clowns
  
• Creating areas of uncertainty and confusion in what was previously well known and everyday to the viewer .i.e. perversions of normal life (Waking up to find nobody has a face/Scissors suddenly killing people)

The horror genre is in need of a boost, so I've been trying to come up with other areas that are mysterious or confusing or incomprehensible to the common cinema-go-er, from which can spawn horrifying things.

It's not been going very well.

This is all I've got sofar:

• Aging - nobody but old people know what it is like to be old but society as a whole seems pretty scared of it. I'm not sure how a physical representation of the fear of aging would manifest. Maybe just a monster that sucks people's youth. Or a killer old person. Scrap that.
  
• The Future - nobody knows what the future will bring and thus it is often scary. Unfortunately, now that I think on it, fear of the future has already been used in stuff like Final Destination and The Ring, where an unspecified doom is placed upon it's characters.

Now that I really think on it, Shakespeare was doing that stuff with Macbeth. Pipped to the post by 400 years. Darn.

Well that was a productive waste of time. The horror genre is exhausted.

Edit: Sorry, one last idea struck me.

• Homosexuals - the gay community becomes violent and rapey towards straight men?

The gay community is an enigma wrapped up in an conundrum to me.

So is the furry community, but they don't have quite the craving for man flesh.

Pulling an Amelie

I was woken today by my mobile alarm at 8:30, feeling strangely tired, and stumbled bleary eyed out of my flat to my lecture, noting that it was strangely cold and that the campus was strangely deserted.

Putting these three clues together, I came to the conclusion that either:

a) I had coma'd my way through a nuclear winter that had taken the lives of most of the campus.

or

b) I had failed to update my mobile to DST and it was in fact 7:30 in the morning and everyone else was rightly asleep.

It was b. Were it not for my folly, I could still be sleeping.

Shameless Warcraft Post

After renewing my World of Warcraft subscription, I think I'm handling my usage well, by which I mean the Zombie Invasion has now ended so I couldn't really care less.

I probably won't be jumping on the first boat to Northrend, as there's still plenty of stuff that needs doing in Outland. Might just hang around the level 70 bracket in PvP for a few months and kick a massive amount of arse. My Paladin, Rogue, and Warlock are also in need of attention. And I'm thinking of making a sexy Priest.

Maybe when they're all nicely leveled, I'll go have a gander in the icy North. Sooner if the snow effects are something to write home about.

Nothing sets the scene like a good weather effect.

Hahaha

I'm in awe of the film Taken.

You know that thing movies do, where the high-tech Government agency gets a crappy, pixelated image, loads it into a computer, presses a few buttons, and magically derives incredible quality and detail out of what previously was a couple of pixels?

Taken does the same. Except this is on a common photo-printing booth in the street and with a single button labeled 'process'.

Liam Neeson manages to find the face of the man holding the camera phone reflected in a sign in the background. It starts off as a shapeless blur > a few zooms and one press of the 'process' button later and you could photofit him.

Right down to his untrustworthy, European smile.

It also has a rooftop phonecall-triangulation scene, a I'm-cocking-my-gun-which-means-I'm-being-extra-threatening moment, and a bad guy getting hit in the face with steam from a broken pipe.

In the film's defense, when it does come down to just Liam Neeson kicking the crap out of filthy Europeans, it does so extensively.

Things that are great about Mama Mia

The insane male casting:

• Pierce Brosnan - cannot sing.
• Colin Firth - cannot dance.
• Stellan Skarsgard - a grizzled, somewhat-terrifying physical presence in what is otherwise a campy film.
• Dominic Cooper - creepy, creepy, creepy, creepy.

Any scene in which he kisses his fiancé feels like attempted rape.

WoW

I almost feel obliged to return to World of Warcraft just because of the sheer amount of hard work those fellows are putting in to it.

In the recent update they introduced achievements, haircuts (I really need a haircut), zombie hordes, talent trees for pets, harbors. . .

They can't be getting much sleep.

Chocobo breeder

I have a new blog and a new purpose in life.

Chocobo Breeder - A blog dedicated to the making of large, rideable birds.

You know what really grinds my gears?

People who use the phrase 'Sue me' after saying something very mildly controversial.

No wonder everybody is lawsuiting everybody else left, right, and center.

The Moment of Truth

Does anybody remember that game show hosted by Cilla Black from the late 90's where a member of a family had one week to master one skill? And if they mastered and proved it on the show, they got like a car and a holiday and a new house and a Sega Gamegear home entertainment system?

I kindof wish I had those incentives.

I need to learn the names, three and one letter abreviations, polarities, pHs, and structures of all 20 amino acids. By monday.

I feel I should say something to get this noble endeavor officially underway.

'Alright, it's tea-time, chaps!'

That'll do.

Get out of my head

I can't get enough of caramelldansen.

The presence of dancing anime schoolgirls just elevates it to the level of crack cocaine.

I call gay

Their pectorals are touching!

Haha!

GAY!

Fetish of the Week

Female tramps.

I don't know.

They just seem pathetic and miserable in a way that makes them attainable?

I'm not optimistic

Since when did the deck of the USS Enterprise look like something out of Thunderbirds?

Seriously, Kirk looks 15 years old.

Matthew 0 - Inanimate Objects 23,856

There have been two distressing trends in the technology of doors of late.

One is the removal of Push and Pull signs. Lord knows what happened to the useful things. Was everybody given psychic powers? Well I certainly wasn't, and thus when approaching an unmarked door, I now have no idea if it's a Push or Pull. Statistically speaking, it's a 50-50 chance, but 75% of the time I manage to balls it up.

I either slam straight in to it or strain desperately to pull it open.

And a good percentage of the time, the door is in fact locked, causing a humiliating combination of slamming into and straining against.

The second distressing trend in door manufacture is that many are now made entirely of glass, so that people on both sides can see my feux pas.

Morning has broken

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels.

- Wordsworth

Relentless has really raised the bar for energy drinks. Not only do they have short, inspiring segments of poetry on the side of their already aesthetically impressive cans, but they've thought to add fruit juice into their energy drinks.

50% is juice, the other half is the same old chemicals. It's like being hit in the mouth with an electric pineapple. It tastes like crap but kept me awake through genome sciences, so kudos. Didn't sleep last night.

On the subject of genome sciences, had a lecture today on the vast amount of useless DNA just hanging about in the human genome. I think it would make a fine premise for a sci-fi thriller whereby a bunch of scientists find a way to either remove all this useless DNA or somehow activate it. Either way, they create something man was never meant to create.

'That DNA was locked away for a reason.'

It would be similar to the idea that utilizing more than 10% of your brain gives you psychic powers.

It would also be similar to Doom but with a great many things changed.

Anyhow, by body is currently being used as the staging ground for an epic battle between the forces of caffeine and alcohol by-products, so I think I'll get some sleep.

If a place is worth going to, it's worth running to

The gym is back on. Also, I've returned to my habit of running around campus to get from place to place, even if it does make me look like a harried, disorganized tool.

Normally I would keep my physical exploits to myself but they've recently become important because I've settled on a Halloween costume:

I need to look like this.

The Incredible Hulk may be a completely two-dimensional character and his films may be underwhelming but there's no better excuse for wandering around mostly-naked (If there is a better excuse for wandering around mostly-naked, let me know).

Plus it encapsulates both my genius-level, sensitive Scientist side and angry side very well.

Naturally, I will need to bulk up for the role. I've got 23-days in which to do so.

If all goes well, I hope for a laughed with:laughed at ratio of about 1:6.

Moving on

Continuing to run with this week's theme of turning over new leafs, it has come to the point where I can finally forgive Garth Jennings for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shambles, if not forget.

Not sure where this uncharacteristic forgiveness is coming from. Possibly he's grown as a director since. Possibly it's his relationship with Adam and Joe. Probably it's because I'm having to syphon off hatred from other areas of my life to ensure my hatred of Chemistry is well-supplied.

My hatred of Chemistry is bottomless. It can never be quenched.

Non-related note: I can't get the smell of formaldehyde out of my nose/brain.