Resolved

Aaron: It’s reaching the end of the year again. I can’t count how many times I’ve said it but every year passes faster and faster, while the perceived time between events from year to year stretches until time seems like one really warped Inception-esque dream. Last year’s New Year’s Eve was a strange affair, with the ups and downs and drama bookending my first year of University and giving me insight into what the next twelve months of my life would be like. And not in a good way.

I can’t remember whether I’ve written about that night, but the facts are that everybody made a whole heap of bad decisions while dealing with the New Year Void, and it all just turned out like a wierd television soap where a huge amount of ridiculous drama occurs within the space of half an hour of viewing, all to be finished with a foreshadowing of next season’s events. Very meta.

Over the next couple of days I’ll outline a couple of things that happened to me during the year, hopefully begin a couple of lame New Year’s Resolutions which I’ll think about for a while and then not complete and then to cap it all off, just try write more in general. I enjoy writing and don’t see why I can’t make more time to throw up (as in throwing it in an upwards direction, not vomiting) a blog post instead of doing a whole myriad of stupid things.

Not Pictured: Something Relevant

Today I’m just going to write about my music collection; something that has always meant a huge deal to me.

Sidebar: I’m not sure I’ll ever correctly grasp complete understanding of the semicolon. I’m going into my third year of my English/Comms degree, for poop’s sake. The sentence above this sidebar is probably incorrect usage.

I have a fairly large digital music collection, built up from years of illegal downloads, library rentals, friends music collections and some 100+ CDs that I’ve bought with my own hard-earned money (of which I don’t have that much of…hence the illegal downloads). Today I was in a strange mood and thought I’d listen to something I hadn’t ever listened to before, according to my last.fm and my Windows Media Player play count tab. So I went ahead and sorted my music by ‘Amount of Plays per Track’ and was astounded to see that I had a huge amount of music that I’d never even listened to. So as a nice little project for me, I’m going to listen to each and every song that has had zero plays in my WMP. Maybe I’ll learn something about my music collection, maybe I won’t. But it’s going to take a long time, I’ll keep you updated. Also, I may as well do it in alphabetical order, so…SO FAR…

3 Doors Down – Away From The Sun (album) – Okay, pretty formulaic boring rock. A couple good songs, but the bad songs sound very similar to the good songs.

30 Seconds to Mars – Self-titled – Pretty good, not exactly what I’d like to listen to all the time…Pretty samey. Maybe their new album’s good, I should get it at some point.

ABBA – ABBA Gold – Now I’m beginning to doubt myself. This shit is gold, but yeah. I’ve heard it all a million times before, just not on my computer. I’m not even sure why it’s on here.

 

That’s all for today, folks!

Birds of Tokyo

Aaron: A band deciding to release an eponymous album that isn’t their first is making a fairly large statement. Birds of Tokyo decided to use this statement to represent re-invention and rejuvenation for their third album, and it shows. Birds of Tokyo is their most polished and accomplished work yet, and from the first lilts of ‘Plans’ through the orchestral splendour of ‘In The Veins of Death Valley’ and ‘The Gap’ to the piano driven, 7-minute epic finale of ‘If This Ship Sinks’, the amount of work and life placed into each facet of this album is apparent.

Refreshing chord progressions spark in huge choruses in ‘Wild at Heart’ where Kenny’s lyrics really shine; “…Wear our bruises like watermarks… the Life and the Death of the Wild at Heart.” The song builds to a massive bridge and my definite favourite on the album.

The production on the album is subtly brilliant, and has a distinctly different feel from their previous work. Where Universes actually sounds ocean-esque in some places (owing its production nuances to a beach house in Yallingup) Birds of Tokyo‘s layering and balance between the thrumming guitars and Ian Kenny’s soaring vocals has been perfected to an extent not seen in Day One and Universes.

Birds of Tokyo is both pop and respectable music, musically and lyrically challenging.

___________

This was a music review written for the Pelican, the student newspaper/magazine for my university, the University of Western Australia. Enjoy!

Homosexuality vs. The Australian Way of Life

Aaron: We’re a land of hot wind from the desert, black soil from the plains, mountains and valleys and something something rains. Australia is among the most multi-cultural nations on Earth, and it is one of our greatest selling points as a place to live. We accept pizza and pasta, kebabs and felafel, curry and rice as much as we appreciate steak and bread. We’re  growing to accept, learn and teach other cultures and their significance in this nation, and becoming a better whole because of it. Religion barely seperates us, and in general, we accept our acquaintances and colleagues no matter whether they are atheist, Muslim or Christian. The only thing that seperates our fine country into ‘us’ and ‘them’? Gays.

That’s right, gays.

Hello. I’m a straight, white, male living in the most straight, white, male country in the world (citation needed). And the narrow mindedness of the country in which I live makes me sick. To demonstrate this, I’m going to introduce you to Barry.

Barry is 23 years old. Barry is Caucasian. Barry has browny-blond-y hair and green eyes. Barry works as an electrician. (from here on known as a ‘sparky’) Barry left high school in year 12 to go to TAFE and learn his trade. His parents are also Australian, and he likes to tell his colleagues (from here on known as ‘mates’) that his great-great-great-grandad was a convict. Kudos, Barry. Barry is agnostic, as he doesn’t ‘really think about that sort of thing that much’, while his parents go to church. Barry spends his weekends watching the footy, DIY-ing shit and having drinks with mates. Once or twice a year he gets some mates (and posibly ladies) to go to Bali and they sit around there for a week or two before headin’ home.

Barry knows what he likes, and doesn’t make that many changes to the routine he’s been in for the past few years. What does Barry hate? The sporting team that the majority of his fellow supporters also dislike. Why? Because they’re not like him. He doesn’t understand why they choose that team over his, it just doesn’t make sense. It just seems natural to support the team that he does, and why would someone purposefully choose otherwise?

This is mirrored when anyone brings up gay people. Barry sees ‘them’ on television, sometimes at clubs, sometimes in the street, and they wonder ‘Why?’. A majority of people like Barry and older generations won’t voice a problem with the homosexual population of Australia because they wouldn’t usually encounter it. They don’t have to be around people that conform to those practices, so why should they hold judgement? But when they are confronted with this, the reaction is large enough to think that you were shoving a penis (or vagina) down their throat.

Why is the average population so adverse to a lifestyle choice so similar to religion or team membership? Nobody holding a rainbow flag is protesting ‘No Straights’ and beating their children into becoming like them. They want equal rights to others in committed relationships, not complete dominance over the populace of the world. And the justification for the Straights’ barrage of hatred towards innocent people? It’s not natural.

What is natural? For the ‘average Australian’, being straight is natural. Liking beer and sports is natural. Liking a bit of T’n'A is natural. Can anyone say otherwise? The Australian way of life is counteractive to living outside of the box, and this is impressed on each generation from a young age.

If a kid in a primary school class likes playing fantasy cards and computer games instead of playing sports at lunchtime, what do the other kids call him? Nerd, geek, lame? What else fits in there? ‘Gay’. Why has a trait completely unrelated to homosexuality (liking computer games) become synonymous with liking people of the same sex? This desemanticization of the word ‘gay’ is half the problem. I am a user of ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’, but it’s really not my fault! It’s those primary school kids that thought that video games really weren’t as cool as sports (even though I played them too). It’s at the point where the youth of the Western world use it so often that it doesn’t even mean ‘homosexual’ any more, it just means ‘bad’. But when describing something girly or even un-masculine, it becomes ‘gay’ with a different inflection. Gay. Ugh, s/he’s gay. There’s barely a harsher insult that you can give to someone.

Australia is an accepting country. We accept people of other races, creeds and religions. But as soon as you start messing with the Bible-given truth of Man and Woman, it pinches a nerve in the average Australian that not much else does. The problem lies in the children, and the parents of those children. Stop making it acceptable to call people gay as an insult. Stop brainwashing your children with religious bullshit about what’s natural and what’s not. Live your own lives and leave everyone else to live theirs in peace.

____________________

This is about to be submitted as my first article for my University’s magazine, The Pelican. Hope you enjoyed it. You can see Tom’s submission here.

Another Year, Another Day (The New Year Void)

Aaron: It was my birthday yesterday. It’s 1am, Thursday July 15, and I am 19 years old.

On an occasion like this, I’d usually say I don’t feel any different. But I do. I ‘feel’ 19. I feel like I’ve lived another year, and it’s been celebrated with another mediocre day in a whole year of mediocre days. Why we, as a society, choose to make such a big deal out of such banality makes no sense. In practice, it should be a day filled with joy and celebration of another year of living, however many years ago your mother brought you into the world. But really, it never is.

Why? Is it because we make such a big deal out of something arbitrary that nothing good is able to come out of it? In my mind, I call this The New Year Void, as calling it Birthday Syndrome sounds like some wierd medical condition which happens to be contracted and deadly at the end of a 365 day period. The New Year Void occurs when many people choose to make a huge deal out of a day that doesn’t mean anything, and hence the day’s meaninglessness makes the event implode, becomes a massive waste of time and effort and a huge emotional strain on everyone involved.

Today, my birthday was marred by fighting between the people I spend the majority of my time with. Events planned for my birthday became revealed as nothing more than events planned with an ulterior motive. Certain people took offence, certain people didn’t, certain people took offence at others taking offence. I can’t really do anything about that, and I’m not complaining. I just want to point out that’s exactly what happened 7 months ago on New Year’s Eve/Day.

The  New  Year Void in my chest grows every year around July 14. I realise I’m growing away from my family more and more each year, each day. The Birthday only increases my knowledge of this and makes me sad for close relationships that I just can’t seem to maintain any more. I receive cards from relatives I love, but never speak to any more. It makes me sad that my ‘busy’ schedule can’t fit in any time to talk to them, and I don’t know why. I receive less presents, but that’s because I don’t ask for any, because I don’t know what I want. That makes me sad, because I still feel that the people I choose to call my friends should know what to buy me regardless. Other people’s problems expand around emotionally high points within the year, and the actual cause of the emotionally high points gets swept aside in the problems.

As each year passes, I become sad around July 14. I reflect. I realise I don’t know much. I realise I know myself more, but also less and less each year.

Pop!

Aaron: Hey there blog-town. It’s been a while between posts, but this one should be the start of a new flurry of activity. From me, at least.

Tom and six of my other friends went for a skiing holiday to New Zealand for a couple weeks, I stayed in Perth, expecting the weather to be better, but it’s been quite horrendous. After only a week of gallivanting between North and South island, Tom decided to go snowboarding with my good Scottish friend Kevin, and was in a pretty bad accident. He ruptured his spleen and was pretty badly concussed, but is stable and recovering in a hospital near Queenstown.

Where my other friends are staying is a three hour drive to the hospital, but they’ve been to see him a fair amount, and are heading home tomorrow. On doctor’s orders, Tom can’t fly for a couple weeks, so he’s going to be chilling in New Zealand by himself for a little while, but should hopefully get internet as soon as he’s out of hospital, which should be this week sometime. Get well soon buddy

Last.fm is one of my favourite websites, ever. It utilises an application called Audioscrobbler to view the tags of the music you’re listening to in Windows Media Player or iTunes and uploads the data onto your public profile. I’ve kept track of my music listening habits for the past 4 years now, and there is a large amount of raw data available at your fingertips to make graphs, statistics and all sorts of lovely numbers, which I enjoy muchly.

Have a quick glance at my last.fm profile. What do you see? You see my recent listening habits (currently some classic blink-182), my top artists from the past three months (I fell in love with Vampire Weekend recently) and with a few clicks, you can view my top artists from the past six months, year or all time, and the same for top songs. I’m not going to go into the nuances of my favourite artists and their progression over time, but I want to point out one thing in particular about what I listen to.

I listen to a lot of pop-influenced music. The ‘pop’ being melodic vocals, simple choruses and fairly standard song structure, but I don’t like to think that I listen to ‘pop music’. Well, I do listen to ‘pop music’, but what I really hate about that is labels. Labels like ‘pop‘, ‘alternative‘, and ‘emo‘ make me feel kind of ill, because an artist can try their hardest to put their whole being and mind into a song and it’s dismissed with the ‘pop’ label that a catchy melody accompanies.

But what does ‘pop’ mean? Last.fm’s handy-dandy page tells me the term is ‘flexible…usually refers to catchy melody and accessible style’. Has this become a derogatory term for music? A new album can be regarded as ‘too poppy’ and hence not as good as the previous ones. But again, I’ll cover this large and varied topic at some point in the future, as the main reason I came to write this was…

FIGHT!

Of course, unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock (or should I say, pop. a-ha. a-ha.) you should know who Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are. And apparently they’ve been having a bit of a verbal…spat, and have been quite harsh towards each others’ creative efforts. I don’t have any proof of this, you’ll just have to trawl the gossip columns yourselves.

I listen to both of these artists. Not a hell of a lot, but I know each of their music styles and sensibilities, and I have formulated an opinion of sorts. This opinion comes with numbered bullet points.

1. Both are ‘pop’ artists. They show up in the top ‘pop’ tagged artists on last.fm, Lady Gaga at No. 4 and Katy Perry at No. 21. One is quite a bit more popular than the other.

2. They both do ‘pop’ related things that I despise. Katy Perry uses her good looks and vague musical talent to make a crapload of money from people who enjoy listening to…good looking, vague music. Her newest effort ‘California Gurls‘ was just that. She sings about how great California is over a generic techno beat and (in the video, at least) then squirts whipped cream from her breasts. It’s had 13 million views, and it’s really not that great. I liked a few songs on her first album, backed up by the thought that she at least had the brains to say what she was producing was poppy, marketable rubbish. Unfortunately, with a new album of much of the same, that opinion died.

Lady Gaga is an innovator, pushing the boundaries of performance and fashion with every appearance…but still has to bow to the boundaries of ‘pop’ music, and release albums with massive singles as stand-out songs, and then the rest of the tracklist being filler. Her first album, The Fame, was far too long, and could have been condensed into a pop-powerhouse. Her second album could have been (almost was) a bonus disc with the first, but she’s produced a new being altogether, taking the best parts of the first album and condensing them into 8 fairly long songs. That’s more like it. Telephone is one of my favourite pop-songs/hooks of all time.

3. People don’t know how to differentiate ‘good pop’ from ‘bad pop’, they just lump them into the same ‘bad pop’ label. I’ve talked to many people who don’t care for Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, as they are obviously writing for radio. But Lady Gaga isn’t winning any new fans by playing acoustic sets and exclusive re-writes of her old songs, she’s performing for her old fans who love the music that she’s written. You don’t see Katy Perry doing any of that.

I do like them both. I just respect Lady Gaga more. But I suppose respect doesn’t matter too much in the world of pop, sales do.

KICKIN@CHAIRZ

Aaron: I think the titles of my blogs are having less and less to do with what I write. Everything’s pretty snazzy, really. Not much to complain about. I’m sure I can think of something.

Not pictured: Something relevant.

OH YEAH. I’m not making music any more. There was a period of time in my life where I was a member of a band, we wrote songs and played some (very) small shows, but it was an awesome outlet and one of the better things I’ve achieved off my own back. Long story short, I fell out with our guitarist and the other three of us are not the most motivated, so an indefinite hiatus seems to have presented itself. I love writing songs, and miss it every day…but now it just seems there’s not much time to do it. I don’t want to lose those ideas, and I definitely want to play those songs again, but how can I do that?

Not Pictured: Something that isn't some old coins.

Me and my friend Fridge (bass player, also… Fridge is not his real name) see each other quite often, but I go to uni four days a week while he’s working, so there’s not really much natural time for that to happen. When I wrote songs before, I was always

motivated to make an idea, not really finish it, then take it to my band to refine and make into a song. We turned out some quality tunes, which I’ll always be extremely proud of. We don’t have any recordings, but I’d like to think they’re good enough for other people to enjoy. It was always my dream to have people hear those songs and say ‘Wow, that’s actually good’ and listen to it over and over and enjoy it more each time they listened to it. Ten years ago, the dream would be to get that fabulous record deal and hence play shows around the world and let people hear your music that way, but that doesn’t look likely at this point in time (for many reasons).

This blog post was a consolidation effort on my behalf, to put into writing something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Record those songs, and put them somewhere on the internet so they never die and I don’t forget their chord progressions. I’ll post links when I do so.

O HAI

Aaron: Ahh, blog. It’s good to see you. I’ve logged in and out, in and out of you (sensuously) during the holidays and could not find a single motivating topic to write about. And now I’m back at University, and the hard study life of an Arts student (3-4 days a week) is taking its toll. I feel compelled to do anything except read over my first week notes, prepare for tutorials and instead tend my online village Sexytownvillestein on Travian and write a nice, insightful blog post.

I think there’s just something about holidays that make me… content. And more so than the average person, I think. Or at least I’d like to think I’m more content than you. Deal with it. Anyway, now that I’m back at Uni and waiting for my body to adjust to routine yet again, I just feel uneasy, uncontent, unsatisfied with where I am in life.

I’m getting older, I’m almost out of my teens, and I just feel like I’ve barely done anything. I enjoy what I do in my spare time, I really do! But when I’m spending my weekdays travelling on public transport to and fro to a place where I sit and listen to people talk for a few hours everything  just seems so pointless and futile.

I don’t mind feeling like this though, it motivates me to change things around and make decisions I wouldn’t usually. So it’s nice to be feeling motivated(ish), but I also miss being spontaneous and not achieving much

Visual Representation of being Barraged. I am the goblin, not the rock.

I suppose I’d better get over this adjustment period, it’s affecting my Magic skills.

There’s a few things I want to cover when I’m motivated in the week, and hopefully we’ll see another wonderful spike in viewers, which have been surprisingly consistent over the past few weeks.

Also a minor quip here, one of my all-time favourite bands The Fall of Troy have broken up. They’re probably not everybody’s cup of tea (musically, they aren’t anybody’s cup of tea literally) but if you take the time to listen you’ll be exposed to some amazing guitar work and amazing song structure. Their best work, in my opinion, comes on their Ghostship Demos which became the masterpiece which is ‘Phantom on the Horizon’.

‘Nostalgic Mannerisms‘ is part 3 of that album. They’re finishing off their last tour soon, and I’m really disappointed I’ll never get to see them live again (I saw them once before I knew who they were, and they blew my mind).

Thanks for reading, talk soon.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 7

Aaron: It’s been interesting trying to force myself to write a post every day. I’ve learned a lot about what I do under pressure, and what motivates me to do things. In case I haven’t mentioned, I finished an exam on Saturday and I still have another four to go…and I’m the best procrastinator in the world. One of the tools I use to procrastinate is Magic Online, a wonderful interpretation of a great game online.

I play quite a bit of Magic: The Gathering. For those of you not in the know, it’s a fantasy collectable card game with a huge following around the world, with thousands of dollars of prizes and world-wide events being held weekly, and its a hell of a lot of fun. There’s quite a steep learning curve, and its even steeper the further you go into it. As it’s been around since 1993, and has around 10,000 individual unique cards available to play with, it represents depth and innovation in many ways rarely seen in the modern games industry. I’ve really gotten into it in the past few months, and a few new sets and ways to play are being released every year, and it’s definitely one of my favourite hobbies.

There’s this format called Limited Booster Draft which I’m quite enamoured with at the moment. The ‘Limited’ part just means there’s only a limited amount of cards to choose from, and in Booster Draft, these are unopened packs of 15 random cards. On a table of 8 people, each person opens a booster pack and takes a card, then passes the rest of the cards to their left. Keep doing this for each of the 15 cards, and then do the same for another 2 packs. Now, the intense amount of strategy involved in what to keep, what to pass, what to pick, how to build the deck, becomes overwhelming unless you’re really aware of the cards in the format, and guessing what people around you are building as well.

That probably wasn’t the clearest explanation of exactly what it is, but it’s just one of hundreds of ways to play unique and skillful games using the same sets of cards. And it’s my choice for Game of the Year. And because it’s my own awards and that’s the only contender, it’s also the winner.

Well, I’m very tired, and its been a tiring week. Thanks for reading.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 6 (The Black Eyed Peas)

Aaron: I missed my post yesterday. I had an exam, I was doing other things in the afternoon… It’s amazing even in a exercise to motivate myself I give myself excuses on why I couldn’t do the thing I really wanted to do. Anyway…

Today I watched my weekly two minutes of television, and switched the channel to Channel [V] or something similar. Number 5 on the whatever-who-cares chart was The Black Eyed Peas’ Meet Me Halfway, which I’d never heard before. From what I heard, it was more of that radio-oriented, auto-tune laden garbage, but hey, I think, I haven’t listened to the album, so I won’t judge. I try to keep that opinion on things, but then number 4 was also The Black Eyed Peas, with their hit-smash-super-hit-chart-topping-hit I Gotta Feelin(g?). I’d only heard the song in passing at various clubs and things, and thought it was a good club song, and did exactly what it was designed for, singing along and dancing to.

I watched the video the whole way through. And the lyrics…I can’t even…I don’t…

I’m not sure how much I can post here, but if we get sued or taken down then at least this blog is important enough to matter.

I gotta feeling…
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling…
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling… (Woohoo)
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling… (Woohoo)
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

Apparently. Tonight. Is going to be. A good night. I don’t have a problem with a good chorus, and this is an example of a great hook, and it works. It does what it does, and everyone knows every freaking word. A two year old could work them out and sing them back, and that’s exactly what a pop hook is supposed to do. Well done, Black Eyed Peas. Lets go further.

Tonight’s the night
Let’s live it up
I got my money
Let’s spend it up
Go out and smash it
Like Oh My God
Jump off that sofa
Let’s kick it off

I think…I don’t…I… I’m pretty sure lyrics are supposed to have some form of meaning. This is great for a pop song, but how far can it go? This was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. ‘Tonight is the night, lets live it up. I have some money, lets spend it. Lets go out and smash (it?), like, oh, my, god. Jump off the sofa?’ Ugh.

After another couple of verses which both defame Jewish tradition and good grammar everywhere, there’s another hook! Another one? What are you going to treat us to, Will.I.Am?

Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
And do it
And do it
Let’s live it up
And do it
And do it
And do it
Do it, do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it

This was accompanied in the video by gratuitous party scenes, lesbians and Fergie prancing around in next to nothing.

Are they actually trying to single-handedly kill what music is about? In creating a good pop song, with ‘great hooks’, they’ve simultaneously killed all my brain cells and any musical talent they may have had before they released this. After another few lines about doing body shots and singing about days of the week, it comes to the end of the song, which is repeating the freaking hook from the beginning another thirty times.

I don’t actually want to hear this song ever again. It is horrible.

But I am going to. It’s a great club song. Everyone knows the words. I know the words. And with a few drinks in me, I think my rational musical mind will not care, and sing the hell along like everybody else. Well done Black Eyed Peas, even people who hate your music kind of like it too.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 5 (The Da Vinci Wiki)

Aaron: I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code for the first time. Like many other fads and things, like Harry Potter and Panic at the Disco, I got into it far too late to be involved in the craze, and now I can examine the actual impact of the texts.

The Da Vinci Code was a very interesting book. The writing style left a little to be desired, but that’s probably just me being all smug and thinking that I know how books should be written. The plot twists and turns were satisfying and resolved quite nicely, if a little bit fast towards the end.

The worst bit about the novel was the ‘disclaimer’ at the beginning which claims ‘Fact: The Priory of Sion…is a real organisation’. This, among other claims in the introduction, left me feeling a little stupid when reading some chapters and not being able to decipher what was factual and what was not. So, as per usual when I see, read or listen to something new, I jumped on Wikipedia to make sure that somebody had spelt out things that I didn’t understand or completely realise while reading. I know I’m not the only who does that, but wiki-checking after watching a new episode of How I Met Your Mother or watching a movie really helps expand that great vat of general knowledge that I contain in my mind.

The Wikipedia article titled ‘Inaccuracies in The Da Vinci Code’ is wayyyyyy too long. It has seven sections of content, many of which have sub-headings…and they’re all quite ridiculous. Ranging from the regular religious rejection of the book to the fact that a plane mentioned in the book has piston engines as opposed to being a Turboprop, some of the ‘inaccuracies’ are ridiculously pointless, and are part of any fictional construct. You don’t see articles called ‘Inaccuracies in Tomb Raider’ with sub-headings of ‘Pistols Don’t Actually Have Unlimited Bullets Inside of Them’.

Actually, after perusing the Tomb Raider Wikipedia page, there is a sub-heading called ‘Nude Raider’. That’s close enough actually.

I was actually going to use this blog to complain about the ridiculousness of the backlash towards The Da Vinci Code, which is just a standard thriller novel, with its twists and turns that happen to incorporate Jesus. But then halfway through I realised it’s just people on the internet having far too much time on their hands.