50 Shades Of Utter Bollocks

Oh my...

50 Shades Of Grey is the worst piece of literature ever to even make it to print, let alone break previous sales records.

 I'm absolutely dumbfounded by the fact that something so terrible could be so popular. Or am I? Well, in short, no. I'm not really surprised at all. There have been some equally awful things to come into (and unfortunately linger in) the public consciousness in recent years.

Allow me to name a few and you'll get the idea;
Big Brother
Any of Big Brother's participants/'winners'
X Factor
Britain's Got Talent
Paris Hilton
Perez Hilton
Louis Spence
Katie Price
Amy Childs
Peter Andre
Joey Essex
All other superfluous celebrities
Eastenders

Yeah the list could go on for a good while.

With this in mind, it's little surprise to me at all that a 'novel' that started life as a Twilight fan fiction would become a sensation.

The funny part is it used to be available online to read for free, but of course upon planning publication, it was pulled because the author is too greedy.

It winds me up something chronic; to me, fan fiction is plagiarism in a fancy frock - At the end of the day, no matter how you've dressed it up, you've taken someone else's work, changed some names and words here or there, added some bits and called it your own.

Allow me to share quickly some Amazon reviews that struck a particular chord with me;

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't read the book and plan to, firstly you shouldn't be here - My blog requires an IQ level above that of a mentally handicapped paralympic basketball player. Secondly, it contains elements that are liable to spoil the plot, any 'twists' and could tarnish your view of the reading experience... for the better.

Here goes;

"Oh My, I mean really, Oh my, oh my, oh my... I have in fact, just dragged myself through to the final page of this ludicrous nonsense and found myself almost speechless. Almost...

The main character, Christian Grey, is quite obviously deranged. This does not however, deter Ana, who for some inexplicable reason, has spent so long with her head in a book that she has never looked in a mirror and noticed that she is a "total babe". A "total babe" who also happens to be a 21 year old virgin. No, Ana, in the space of 3 weeks, falls so crazily in love with "Mr Grey" that she manages to bypass the whole deranged thing and instead concentrates all her efforts on deciding whether to let him hit her with stuff. As you do.

As for Mr Grey, obviously, readers can't be allowed to see him as simply a deranged, manipulative psycho so let's give him smouldering good looks, a few zillion quid to throw around and hey, and this is the clincher, the ability to love art and music (y'know, like Nazi's do in the war films). (Note - the bit where he plays the "haunting" piano piece, semi naked, with his eyes closed actually made me laugh so much that I almost wet myself - in a non-orgasmic way). As if that wasn't enough he also has a personal and financial interest in saving the world from famine. Just that old world peace and cancer to sort out and then hey, job's a good `un. I mean really, how did the world ever shamble along without him? So what made this beautiful, charismatic and talented man so brutal? Could it be a traumatic childhood perhaps? Why, yes I think it could...yawn.

So, the 2 beautiful people come together (Oh my, another pun) and the rest of the book is basically about Ana wondering if she should let him hit her with stuff and then letting him hit her with stuff and Mr Grey wondering if he should stop hitting her with stuff but still hitting her with stuff while she whines on about wanting "more" love and less of the hitting stuff and he whines on about how he doesn't know how to give "more" cos he has only ever hit people with stuff.

In between these nonsensical blatherings they have lots of sex. Luckily, virginal Ana also has her "inner Goddess" to guide her on the art of sex play and soon becomes an orgasm machine, chucking them out all over the place in a rampant, fevered haze of lust. So much so that she overlooks Mr Grey's general bastardry and bends over nicely for a few beatings. She is also too enraptured to take much notice his incessant stalking. Oh, and his `feeder' tendencies that, if successful, would have surely added a good 10 stone onto Ana's lovely buttocks which in turn would have incurred the cost of a refurb' to the `red room of pain' when his ceiling shackles needed reinforcing. Luckily he can afford it.

As many other readers have noted, the writing is appallingly poor and, if you removed the sex bits, would resemble a love struck teenager's diary. It's all been said before so I won't dwell on it. I will just say, if you are looking for erotic fiction, look elsewhere, if you are looking for an unintentionally laugh out loud bit of fluff and nonsense then crack open a bottle, put your feet up and prepare to be amused. Personally I would just say that there goes a day of my life that I will never get back. Oh my!"

-- C. E. Wallis

This one is also a classic;

"Read aloud in the pub over a bottle or two, this provided hours of fun as our `heroine' took one look at Christian Grey's gray eyes (yes, really) and his messy hair, and the way his trousers hang "in that way" (what way?) and literally falls flat on her face in front of him. Clearly smitten by her cute innocence, Christian of the grey eyes, sculptured lips, and spicy scent is soon whipping out his little "foil packets", his riding crops and hand-cuffs, and giving our previously-virginal Ana multiple and seemingly instantaneous orgasms, all of which are "shattering".

We particularly enjoyed the way Christian manages most of his sexual exploits either fully-dressed (just a quick unzipping and a coy fiddle with a "foil packet") or with his shirt (always white linen) still on, while Ana bit her lip, and breathed `oh my!' for the umpteenth time."

-- Roman Clodia

And another...

"This is a landmark piece of literature: not just the fastest book ever sold in the UK, but conclusive evidence that you are allowed to steal somebody else's novel, take out the only element that made the original bearable,add a bit of middle-age-fantasy S&M and hit the "replace" key for all names, and inexplicably not get sued for it.

There is nothing good about this book. At least with Twilight it had the excuse of being aimed at teenagers who couldn't be expected to know that a) it had been done before and b) it wasn't very good: this is being purchased by grown up ADULTS, and I'm ashamed to say I'm now one of them. It's not just offensive to erotic novels, it's offensive to men, women, sex, England, America and literature. Which is, if you look at it in a positive light, quite a massive achievement with just a few bits of paper.

In terms of basic writing, it's unbearable. Worse, it tries so hard to drag itself into an intelligent arena by name-dropping - repeatedly - real literature: Austen, Bronte, Hardy, Shakespeare. At one point I literally found myself screaming "GET YOUR DIRTY LITTLE HANDS OFF THOMAS HARDY, JAMES", because frankly crap of this standard has no right whatsoever trying to claw its way out of the literary swamp by quoting sections of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and comparing its protagonist to one of the most fragile, brave, three dimensional heroines ever written.

Ah, Ana Steele. It didn't seem possible that there would ever be a lead female character as boring, constantly tremulous or silly as Bella Swann, but James has done a magnificent job: Ana Steele is even worse. For all of their love of "classic British fiction", both James and Ana seem to be missing the key to their success: classics have real women, with believable and likeable personalities. Not lip-biting, slightly schizophrenic, weak and constantly-orgasmic hussies. Put Ana Steele into any Austen book, and she'd be the one-legged prostitute the other characters try not to step on on their way to parties.
 
Christian Grey is without exception the creepiest male character I've ever read, and I want him out of my imagination RIGHT NOW. Stalking, obsessive, possessive, controlling, humourless men like Grey are not sexy: they're the subject of court cases and restraining orders. This isn't a triumph of representation, by the way: if James was aiming for skin-crawling repulsion, at least she'd be succeeding somewhere. But Christian Grey - despite being a man who gasps nearly as regularly as Ana - is supposed to be an Alpha Male, because apparently strong men don't take "no" for an answer.

I WISH I was offended by the sex scenes. I WISH I could throw it across the room, decide that the world's taste in literature is too horny for me, and simply pat myself on the back for being an uptight prude. But I'm all up for sex in books, as long as it's done well: this is not. It's as bad as a grainy porn film from the 80s, and as old-fashioned.

What makes me sad, really, is knowing that a book like this can make a woman like James rich, and take thousands and thousands of hours from the lives of people all over the world. What makes me even more sad is that I am one of them.

Save your money, save your soul, and - for the love of all things literary - just go buy Tess of the D'Urbervilles."

-- Anonymous

I must add another quick couple to finish off with... (oh god. I just noticed what I wrote).

"I have just done a Masters degree in Publishing where we were taught that in the world today, publishing houses are so desperate for the next best thing that they will literally kill their own mothers to plug a book they think will be a bestsellers. Well written, non-sensational books that provide excellent writing, good characters and a whole heap of imagination and skill are being shoved to the bottom of the pile and stamped 'QUITE NICE, BUT WON'T MAKE ANY MONEY'.
This is obviously what happened here. Someone went 'Oh my! This is a scream! It will revolutionize bedrooms! It will redefine the boundaries of eroticism! It will trounce those saps at Mills and Boon! And more importantly, it'll make us shed loads of cash!'

It is patently clear that the book has never seen an editor - because why would any self-respecting editor let it go? Where would any self-respecting editor even know where to start? Shouldn't someone, at some point, have said, 'Er, look, EL James, we really like what you're doing here and it's all very saucy and a bit rude, tee hee hee, but we've got a bit of an issue with repetition. You see, at the moment, Ana Steele says 'Holy crap' 230,493 times, and says 'Oh my' 1,435,500 times, which we think is a bit much. Great work, an' all, but do you think you could cut a few out?' That obviously never happened. Instead, they shoved it all in, gave the book a snazzy, sleek cover, which is a million times classier than the book itself, yelled 'It's mummy porn!' from the rooftops in the hope it would catch on, and there we have it, a record-breaking bestseller.

Quite aside from the frankly ridiculous sex scenes - no one, and I repeat, no one, has that much fun losing their virginity - I was actually shocked by the writing. Reader, it is so bad. I knew it would be bad, but I didn't know it was that bad. Let me give you an example:
'Sunday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr and Mrs Clayton and John and Patrick - the other two part-timers - and I are besieged by customers'.
I was on the train when I read that sentence. I actually went 'You are joking!' out loud, and looked around wildly for someone with whom to share my outrage. Where was the editor? Where was this editor who was supposed to say 'Sorry, EL James, do you think you can use a different word to 'besieged', as you have used it twice in two sentences and, as we all know, word repetition is a classic sign of terrible writing'??

I'm sorry, reader. But reading this book made me feel stupid. I actually feel that, while my knowledge of sexual exploits may have been vaguely lifted, my reading age has plummeted. If you want some cheap titillation - for that's all it is - then go for it, it'll make you smile, it'll make you raise an eyebrow or two - but if you can get past the God-awful, horrendous, basic, dreadful, atrocious writing style, then you've done better than me. It's a shame - a real shame - that a book of this standard has broken records and made a lot of people a lot of money. What hope is there for the talented writers who don't want to write about genital clamping?" 

-- Anonymous

And one more...

"If you have self respect, do NOT read this book.

When people suggest the book is "pornographic" they are speaking completely literally. I judge myself for having read some of the stuff in it. It is irritatingly plotless, with entirely unrealistic sex scenes.The fact that the book is pornographic wouldn't bother me, if it weren't for the fact that is sounds like sexual encounters as described by an 11-year old. She uses childish phrases like "Down THERE" and "my Sex" (as a noun to mean her genitals) which make the book seem even more creepy than it already is.

In addition to that it is extraordinarily badly written! There are a few phrases that are actually used every single page, without exception. There are frequent spelling and grammar mistakes, and the writer even seems to forget where she has decided to set the book a couple of times.

All of this may deter from the quality of the book, but for me the thing that makes it unbearable, is hearing people describe it as "romance". Seriously?! Although some healthy couples are into BDSM, this is NOT an example of a BDSM relationship. To me, this is a fully abusive relationship. I cannot understand what book people are reading when they suggest Christian Grey is romantic.

I think this book will create immense problems over the next few years, with girls allowing themselves to be abused, as the heroin does in this novel. Its disturbing, unhealthy, abusive, and very badly written. Please do not read this, it is a purchase I regret entirely."

So.

Let's recap.

It's terribly written, it's repetitive, it's not erotic, it's not romantic, the author forgets where the book is set, it's full of grammatical errors, semantic errors, spelling mistakes, makes abuse and abusive relationships seem glamourous and exciting, the 'sex scenes' are punctuated with poor attempts at semi-intelligent literature by name-dropping other famous classic authors as well as emulating their writing style and failing horribly, the plot is practically non-existent, the characters are unbelievable and the reader cannot relate to any of them, the author depicts losing your virginity as being a pleasurable, non-stressful, multiple-orgasmic experience, irrespective of the common consensus, the words 'oh my', 'holy crap', 'inner goddess' and 'my sex' make more unwanted appearances than pubes on a toilet seat... I could go on.

Please. I emplore you. Don't fucking bother.

If you really want to just throw money away for the sake of a flick of the ol' bean, just try doing it with a £5 note -- atleast when it hasn't worked and you've given up trying, you can put the fiver back in your pocket.

 

English: A Language Whats Hard Too Get Right.

I absolutely despair at times.

I really, really do.

I'm English, from England and speak English... Nothing exciting about this, you might think, and you'd be right to think this, but you're wrong. What's quite notable about it is the fact that I can actually speak and write in English like the next poet laureate when compared to a large and (worringly) increasing number of my compatriots, let alone other nations where English is their primary language.

Just a few examples of the things I hate include:

> Incorrect usage of apostrophes.
> Using double negatives to emphasise a singular one, ie. 'I haven't done nothing...'
> Incorrect use of the word 'None' - I'll explain more on this shortly...
> English people pronouncing things in an American way.
> English people spelling things in an American way.
> People commonly writing and speaking using colloquial abbreviations - I'll also explain this in brief shortly...
> People who are incapable of distinguishing between 'too' and 'to'.
> People's inability to correctly use capital letters.
> People's inability to distinguish between 'They're', 'Their', 'There' and others.
> People who write or say 'would OF' as opposed to the correct 'would HAVE'.

So with a list this size of annoying and elementary things that people are getting wrong whilst speaking their own native tongue, something needs to be done, and quick.


Firstly; Apostrophe's.

What the hell is wrong with people? The apostrophe is beautifully simple. It is there to show possession ("It is John's sandwich") or to signify that the word is an amalgamation of two other words, or that there is a letter missing ("They're" -- a combination of "they" and "are"). It's quite simple...

Show Possession: "John has a sandwich. It is John's fucking sandwich."
Signify two words have been put together: "John has a sandwich. It's John's fucking sandwich."

In the second example, the apostrophe is there to show that the 'i' from 'is' is missing where the two words 'it is' have been squashed together.

Please note: I'm fully aware of the fact I put an apostrophe in the subtitle. That was a joke - If you don't get it, or didn't understand it being a joke, this post is definitely for you, so pay attention...



Secondly; Using Double Negatives For Emphasis, But Just Looking Like A Dick.

Another one of those classics. It's a simple one, and oddly, mathematics has relevance...

Remember the simple rule in maths? (And it is 'Maths' by the way, but I'll get onto that later...)
The simple rule in maths about adding negative and positive numbers?
> Adding two positives together makes a positive result.
> Adding two negative numbers together ALSO makes a positive result.

So, when you say "I didn't do nothing";
> The 'Didn't' is a negative
> The 'Nothing' is a negative

Two negatives equal a positive. So it's the same as saying "I did do something", which doesn't help your defense much, really.


Thirdly; Incorrect Use Of The Word 'None'.

Now you're probably thinking 'Hang on...'

'How can you use the word 'none' wrong?'

Well you can, and people very often do. Even newsreaders do, and they are meant to speak what is known as 'the Queen's English'.

'None' is a shortening of the two words 'not' and 'one'. Technically, it should hold an apostrophe to signify that the two word have been squashed together, and a letter or two have gone missing.

So to say "None of them are available", is the same as saying "Not one of them are available", which, if you have a clue or were educated somewhere outside of Essex, you can see is just plain wrong.

The correct use in this situation would of course be "None of them is available", as in "Not one of them is available", which you can see, if you're not an imbecile, just makes a lot more sense.


Fourthly; English People Pronouncing And Spelling Things In An American Way.

I have to clear this up, and it may come as a shock to a lot of you, but we're not American. We're not in America, and there is in fact quite a large gap of water separating us and them, as well as many social and educational differences, although due to me feeling compelled to write this, I find myself disputing the latter.

So, when someone comes into my shop and asks me about wireless routers, it really annoys and disappoints me when they pronounce it as a 'raow-ter'.

It's a fucking router. As in 'root-er'. As in 'I'm looking at a map in order to find a route'.

It's not the only thing. There are many.

'Aluminium' is spelled as you see it written, and pronounced as such. Google, amongst other things, has actually started auto-correcting 'Aluminium' to reflect the American (incorrect) spelling of 'Aluminum'. Just because they're too stupid to be able to pronounce it doesn't mean that you have any excuse to be lazy too. It's our fucking language - set a bloody example.

It also grates me when people say something like 'least worst option' or 'commonest'. There is no such thing as a 'least worst option' - it's either the worst, or it's not. Also, whilst there may be the word 'commonest' in use, it's not really the proper way to say it. 'Most common' is.

Also, you don't 'wait on' something. You might 'wait for' something, but to 'wait on' something implies you're a member of serving staff at a hotel or restaurant.


Also, we don't have 'train stations' in this country. We have 'railway stations'.

And for now, at least, the last example as I promised I would, 'maths'. It's 'maths', not 'math'. Clearly if you believe it's 'math', it's not just your English that's suffering.


Fifthly; Colloquial Abbreviations.

OMG Don't you just hate it when people use colloquial abbreviations in everyday speech lol?

I fucking do. really gets on my tits.

If you want to express disbelief, then do it properly. OMG does not constitute as proper expression.
Also, if you want to laugh out loud, then just fucking laugh, for god's sake. Don't say 'lol'. It defeats the point slightly.

ROFL is another one. The reason for these abbreviations is to save time when typing at a keyboard, as well as expressing yourself by means that would otherwise be devoid of emotional feeling. If I can see your face, and I can hear your voice, then there are at least two methods at your disposal by which you could express yourself. Don't be a lazy dick about it.


Sixthly; 'Too' and 'To'. Is it really to difficult for people too distinguish between?

I find myself bitterly disappointed to be writing this. They are two words, no more than three letters long, with distinctly different meanings and for use in distinctly different circumstances.

'Too' means 'as well'. As in 'in accompaniment'.
'To' means a multitude of things, but mainly used to express a limit of a dimension, whether it be by width, length, depth, weight, distance...

An example on the uses of both;

Too: 'I like cheese. I like it with crackers, too.'
To: 'I like going from A to B' -- In this instance, used to express a limit of distance.

I don't know how people get these mixed up, or do this wrong, but they do, and it's frankly shameful.


Seventh; it's not difficult to use Capital Letters properly.

Another bitter disappointment - This is one of the basics of English.

Capital letters are used at the beginning of 'proper nouns', names or the start of sentences. It's pretty damn simple.

The word 'horse' is the name given to animals of a certain type or species. It is not a proper noun, so remains without a capital at the beginning of it.
The horse's name 'Greg' is capitalised, as it is the name of the horse.

The word 'city' is not capitalised. It's not a proper noun.
The name 'London' is capitalised, as it's the name of the city.

It's not fucking rocket science. It's just a crushing disappointment to even be writing about it.


Eighth: The classic 'They're', 'Their' and 'There'.

This again is elementary.

The differences between 'their', 'they're', 'there', 'were', 'where', 'wear'...

It's quite simple, so pay attention:

There - Specifies a location.
Their - Specifies possession.
They're - Abbreviation of 'they are'.
Where - Also specifies a location.
Wear - To wear something, or the process by which something becomes worn.
Were - Past tense of 'are'.
Than - A word used to link two things that are being compared.
Then - Specifies a point in time.


So, if you are guilty of any of the above, you should be embarrassed. These are all really fucking simple things that any moron can get right if they just engaged their few remaining tuned-in brain cells and actually applied themselves.

This is something that is (or at the very least should be) taught in every school in the country, and it should really be taught across the world; any country that claims to have English as it's primary language should be taught 'English'. The 'English' spoken in America should be just called straight 'American', as their language is resembling ours less and less each day.

English and American are both like a fat man and a thin man in a three-legged-race; with fat American slowly and cumbersomely pulling thin English forwards, but not really in the right direction.

I'm confident that people from America are now going to accuse me of being racist due to me linking America to obesity in one form or another...

... It's just a fucking analogy. If you're unsure what this is, then reading this blog post has definitely been a valuable use of your time.

And Finally: If you paid attention at school, you would HAVE got this right.

Would HAVE.

As in "I would have had enough time..." or "That's the one I would have had..."

The word 'of' means;

1: Expressing a relationship between a section and a whole - 'I want a slice OF cake'
2: Expressing the relationship between a a scale or measure and a value - 'This cake needs a chocolate increase OF 5%'.

I just don't understand how anyone who knows the meaning of words would think that the word 'of' would be appropriate in the given context.

Oh wait! I know! They use it because it's a word that sounds a little like the abbreviated suffix form of 'have', which is of course 've'.

'I WOULD'VE added more chocolate to the cake, if I had had some.' -- Note the word 'would've' - the correct way. And yes, the use of the word 'had' twice sequentially is correct, too*.

'I would OF punched you in the face if we had the chocolate and you didn't add it in...' -- Notice the retarded use of the word 'of' here.

So yes. If you're happy talking shit, then I will come and find you and take a shit in your mouth.

*The word 'had' can be used a maximum of 11 times in a sentence, and it would still make sense;
'John, where Bill had had 'had', had had 'had had'. had had had had a greater impact on the examiner.'

Mac Vs. PC. No Contest.

Right.

I manage a computer store which sells PCs, Macs and all related accessories. I'm fed up with people wittering on like incompetent fools about how damn proud they are of their brilliant new Macs.

"I just bought myself a Macbook. I got really fed up with PCs and viruses, so I went to Mac, because they don't get viruses..."

... Oh don't they? Well if you believe this, then there are a few other things you should know about your beloved Mac.

1. Cost.

Macs come in all shapes an sizes... Well... Some shapes and sizes.

There's the Macbook, Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro... and that's it.

With PCs there are so many different possible combinations of hardware, manufacturer and aesthetics, it's impossible to list them here, but we will doubtless cover that later on...

Let's do a typical comparison. Let's take the top-of-the-tree iMac. It will set you back a pretty hefty £2,969. The specs are as follows:

Intel Quad-Core i7 3.4GHz (2600)

16GB DDR3 RAM

2TB HDD with 256GB Solid State HDD

ATI Radeon 6970 2GB GDDR5 Graphics

An equivalent specification PC, including 27inch screen, keyboard and mouse, is £1,611. A stroke over HALF what you would pay for one of those fashion accessories they call computers.

Not only that, but when you're done, you can put OSX on it, so you have a PC and Mac rolled into one, vastly cheaper package.

It doesn't stop there I'm afraid. Ohh no...

Let's talk briefly about accessories - The MacBook/MacBook Pro are of course laptops, and as such, need a laptop charger.

Generic laptop chargers for PCs are around £15-30 dependant on age and model...

Today, I sold a Macbook charger for £70. Yes, that's significantly more than double the price of one for a laptop. And let's not forget batteries...

Typical laptop batteries range from £40-£60. MacBook batteries are around £100.

One more thing - When you come to order spare parts because your Mac has broken (I know it's difficult for a Mac user to understand the concept), spare parts can be double the price of their equivalent PC counterparts. And it's not like those shiny new Apple components are gold-plated, either...

2. Form/Function

As many in design, and some outside of design will know, form and function are two factors that never match each other in abundance. Things are either functional, and look nice, or look great but don't do much.

For something to be called 'Art', it has to serve no purpose other than to be. Essentially, it has to be completely useless.

Which is why when Mac owners tell me their machines are works of art, I don't correct them.

Here is a graph showing the correlation of form and function in accordance with good and bad design principles;

As you can see, the closer to the top left of the graph a given product is, the worse it is overall. Conversely, the further to the top right it is, the better the product is overall.

Macs sit in the top left pink zone. All form with the function being considered only as an afterthought at ten to five on a Friday afternoon.

Let's start from the top - Booting. Mac users are of this warped perception that their machines boot quicker than their Windows machine used to. There are two reasons for this;

1. The Mac they bought is newer, and an upgrade to the PC they had previously, otherwise it's pointless

2. PC boots into something known as a 'verbose' screen - This is where you can see all the white writing that makes no sense. I like this fact because being an IT engineer, it makes sense to me, and I can see that everything is working as it should. Macs go from blank screen straight to what is known as a 'splash' screen - This is the beige screen with the apple logo on. It will sit here happily while it's loading in much the same way in much the same time frame that a PC does, hiding the verbose screen, giving people the impression that it is booting faster.

It's crafty, I'll give them that...

Once you're in there, it starts going a little wrong.

People say Macs intuitive to use, and they're just not. Perhaps they mean thoroughly annoying and illogical when they say 'intuitive'...

There's a history to this 'change for the sake of change' attitude that Apple has, and it began in 1986 with the creation of the Macintosh Mouse.

It had one button, and like Porsche putting their engines in the boot of their cars, it's a mistake they have stubbornly stuck with, justifying it any way they can.

"Macs are so simple to use, they only need one mouse button" says one of my Apple-enthused friends.

"No, it's just that the people who BUY Macs are so simple, they can only comprehend one button" I respond.

So with a Windows system, when you need to view the options on a particular icon, program or... if you get bored, just use the mouse to right-click whatever it is. On a Mac, you need two hands - one to press and hold the command key, and the other to click the one massive mouse button. Two arms to do the job of one finger? Idiocy.

It (again) doesn't cease there - Some Apple genius decided to take the eject button from the CD drive and incorporate it into the keyboard. At the same time, they did away with CD trays all together and put a slot drive in because both these modifications make the machine look neater and tidier.

Nice work.

Let's put a hypothetical situation into play here...

I'm working away and I think "Hey... I really want some music...", so I grab the nearest Phil Collins CD on my rack and crack it on. Suddenly, My Mac shuts down for reasons I don't know, and there's no Phil Collins.

"Not to worry" I say to myself, "I'll get the CD out and put it onto my old CD walkman - it still has some batteries left so may as well play out this power outage with it." - a perfectly sound proposition (excuse the pun). It's at this point I'd eject the CD normally by pressing the button, but for some reason, the Mac won't boot up again, and pressing the eject button isn't working. Great job, Apple.

On the standard laptop optical drive, there is a small hole which, when poked, will eject the tray, regardless of the power or boot situation - It's purely mechanical and nothing electrical about it, which is fabulous in situations like these... Oh wait.

My Mac CD drive doesn't have a tray... so it doesn't have this switch... so my CD is stuck in there... for as long as it takes to get it to boot.

Thanks, Apple! But there is more, of course...

In order to fix an Apple a lot of the time, you need to repair or reinstall the operating system, or OS, commonly referred to as OSX. This, on a PC, is a relatively simple affair as all that is required is for one to pop a CD into the optical drive and then boot from the CD. Simple.

If the CD drive isn't working or has a CD stuck in it for some reason, then never fear - you can always plug a USB optical drive in and boot from that. All is not lost...

... Macs don't support booting from USB optical drives.

So if you have a Mac with a CD stuck in the drive, and you need to reinstall the OS, you're Fuc...

Moving on.

Because of Apple's relentless concern for aesthetics, there is very limited cooling on most Mac models of any nature - This is because slats and vents look ugly, and fans are noisy. Marry this to the well-known fact that computer components heat up rather a lot, and the two factors get on like Miss America trying to play Soduko.

Rather than thinking before doing and addressing this issue, Apple decided to then bolt a screen to a computer and call it the iMac. Screens, particularly high-power 27inch LCD screens, pump out VAST amounts of heat, and in conjunction with the already piping hot innards of a computer, suddenly reliability suffers.

"But none of the above matters really, because Macs don't GO wrong" you might be thinking...

3. Reliability

Macs go wrong as much as anything else.

Mac owners won't tell you this, or allow themselves to believe it, but they do.

In fact, when they go wrong, it's usually quite serious.

Let's start with the basic ones: The spinning beachball of death.

Yes, Windows users have the blue screen of death, but rather than being outright honest with people and tell them that the computer has had a pretty major problem, the Mac will sit there joyfully displaying the spinning beachball of death, giving you false hope that everything will be ok in just a few moments...

Apple's customer support quotes the following:

"Sometimes when your Mac is hard at work, your pointer may temporarily turn into a colorful spinning disc, which generally indicates that a task is in progress."

Further up the Apple tree (see what I did there?) with their engineers, they quote the following:

"The spinning wait cursor is displayed automatically by the window server when an application cannot handle all of the events it receives. If an application does not respond for about 2 to 4 seconds, the spinning wait cursor appears."

So one of them says it appears when your Mac is working hard, and the other says it appears when you're Mac is not working at all...?

You'd think working for the same company they'd be clear in themselves as to what it means.

Something in Apple's 'spinning beachball of death' troubleshooting page caught my attention...

CAUSE: Insufficient CPU, RAM, or free disk space for your type of work.

SOLUTIONS: If you cannot resolve the problem by adding RAM, freeing up disk-space or buying a new Mac with a more powerful CPU, then run fewer applications concurrently. In particular, quit unnecessary applications when not in use and open fewer applications.

The solution for when your Mac isn't working, is to buy another one.

Yep. You've just spent a grand on your nice shiny Mac, and when things get a little too tough, it's time to shell out another grand for a new one.

When you bear in mind that the computer industry moves on quicker than Liz Taylor, what's the point in putting out such a stupid amount of money for a machine that's going to be obsolete in the next ten minutes?

Something else caught my eye, but first I shall play you a little video:

Now please allow me to consult Apple customer support's question and answer section:

PROBLEM: System has hung/frozen. This may be due to a hung system process.

SOLUTION: Attempt to restart or shut down your Mac.

Great work, Apple. You've just proven one of your oh-so brilliant USP's in one of your cocky, biased advertisements to be a complete load of shit.

Another of their 'Get A Mac' ad campaign videos showed 'PC' with a virus, warning 'Mac' not to come near him at the risk of catching it. 'Mac' claims that there's no danger of that...

Oh how wrong could he be?

Firstly, this is a quote from a Mac website, Macnn.com:

"Most Mac users take security too lightly. In fact, most are quite proud of the fact that they don't run any security at all..."

So even from the offset, the likelihood is high. People are of the opinion that because they have a Mac, they're suddenly shielded from this hideous world of viruses... Not so. If anything, using your lack of anti-virus software as a trophy is even more encouragement for virus-makers to churn something out...

Here's an extract from the following article:

http://www.scmagazineus.com/Trojan-targets-Mac-users/article/58290/?source=PSGL1SCM1001&gclid

"Apple users, your days of worry-free web surfing could be numbered. A Mac internet security and privacy software maker has discovered what is believed to be the first professionally crafted in-the-wild malware targeting the Mac operating system."

The article is dated November 2007. Not exactly breaking news.

So yes. Don't believe those Apple commercials, or you may find yourself in a spot of trouble.

Let's talk about the nitty-gritty shall we? When Macs break down, their spare parts are VERY expensive (as I've mentioned previously), their warranty is practically non-existent, and their free phone support stops after three months.

Yes, that's correct - There is no warranty to speak of... They do something else called AppleCare plan.

AppleCare plan is a three-year customer support program that covers your machine for breakdown and technical assistance.

Sounds nice and reassuring. How much is it?

Well, to take out a CarePlan on a Macbook Pro, it's £203. Yep - that extra three pounds is critical...

That's nearly as much as a whole PC! Just to look after your MacBook Pro that will never break anyway (apparrently). And considering you get that kind of service as standard with a PC within the first year of it's life, it suddenly doesn't seem like such a good deal.

So at this point you probably think "never mind - I'll try and fix it myself". This is not going to happen.

If you went and bought a Macbook Pro UniBody (the ones that boast that they're made of one piece of aluminium), even the most basic procedures suddenly become a complete ball-ache. Verging on the impossible for the amateur engineer.

Also, even if you manage to get somewhere towards doing it, you'll suddenly find a device/part that is attached with a TORX screw, which of course needs a special torx screwdriver, and it's not something you might find in a Christmas cracker, meaning you can't progress any further anyway.

4. Upgrading and Compatibility.

Let's talk about upgrading your Mac...

It's not possible. Cannot be done.

If you bought a Mac of any sort, THAT IS IT until you buy a whole new one. PCs, as I've already mentioned, are infinitely customisable. You can make it mega-fast AND look good, which is one thing Mac users always claim to have regardless of anything else.

"Atleast my computer looks nice..."

... well thanks to customisable cases and accessories, mine can look better.

That's that section out the way, let's move onto compatibility...

Macs are compatible with... very little. Macs don't do games aside 'breakout', they don't do very much in the way of software outside the beret-wearing, scalf-donning, paintbrush chewing sector such as Adobe Première and Photoshop, and to be honest, there's nothing a Mac can do besides make a photo album, load photos into iPhoto to look at photos, photo editing with Photoshop, making a video with iMovie and FinalCut pro, making a more advanced movie with Adobe Première... organising more photos in iLife... erm... listen to and buy music on iTunes... umm...

... I think that's it.

Oh no wait! Thanks to some crumbs falling from the PC dominance table, Macs can run MS Office! YEAH!

So yeah. Not very compatible or fun. Particularly amusing considering the 'Get A Mac' advertisement campaign (see earlier video), where the Mac is meant to be some up-to-date cool casual person, while the PC is supposed to be a boring, stuffy, tight-collared businessman. May I remind you which of the two machines can't run most games. And it gets worse for Mac...

People constantly try and justify to me that Macs are just better at visual, creative things than a PC, such as photoshopping and movie-editing. Unfortunately this is not true...

Let's suppose a new version of Adobe Première hits the shelves, boasting 1080HD editing abilities never seen before (this is hypothetical - I'm aware this is already possible).

Both PC and Mac get a version and are happily working well until...

ADOBE PREMIÈRE 3D!

PC has no problem sorting that out - grabs a new 3D-capable graphics card and off it goes!

Mac has a small problem... It can't upgrade, so you're stuck until you can afford a whole new one...

Can I remind all that there are NO MACS that currently support 3D display technology, so even if you could afford it, there's nothing out there you can actually buy to solve the problem.

So yeah. Anything Mac can do, PC can do. And often, PC does it better.

People constantly claim PCs break and don't work. The people who claim this would never consider for a moment that it's THEM that's the problem - That'd be ridiculous. 

PCs need a tiny bit of intelligence to use and get around. That's all. They're a thinking person's tool;

System Requirements:

1 brain cell or greater.

Commons Sense V2.0 or above

Macs are for point-and-shoot computing. Can't handle more than one mouse button? Perfect. You want to browse the net and you want to do it now? Go on then... off you go... go play... oh no wait there are no games for you...

So yes. The argument will rage on, but for what? I think I've summed it all up here pretty well.

If anyone has anything that I have not considered here, please post it as a comment. I'll try and address it.

In the mean time; iFags - I don't care about how apparently brilliant your new Mac is. I couldn't care less. I can build one exactly the same for half the money. And yes it can run OSX if I wanted. It won't go wrong because I'm not a vegetable, and I am my own warranty service. It can edit movies, and what's more, in about 3 years time, it won't be obsolete - I'll just get new components.

Macs are not great. If anything, people wittering on about them is them trying to highlight and justify making 'the leap', showing they don't follow the rat race, showing their individuality, which is what all iFags do, so they're not really as unique as they thought, are they?

Bin Laden: The End? Or Just The Beginning?

Bin Laden.

The End? Or Just The Beginning?

Bin Laden is dead. Or atleast that's what we're told...

There's no real solid proof the public has access to - All we're relying on is whatever we see on the TV and/or read in the papers... Which (at best) is speculative.

The US announced they won't be releasing any photographs for fear of national security, and while this leaves the door wide open to conspiracy theorists, frankly I don't think it takes a fool to see that they've done the right thing.

The death of Bin Laden - The end? The end of Al-Qaeda, world terrorism, famine, suffering, poverty, and terrible music from Justin Bieber?

No. Not even slightly.

Let's have a little potted bullet-point timeline of events from that fateful day in 2001:


2001:
>> September 11 - the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, United States, killed 2,993 people.
>> September 18 and October 9 - 2001 anthrax attacks kill 5 and infect 17 others by anthrax spores in New York City, New York, Boca Raton, Florida, and Washington D.C. in the United States.
>> October 7 - the War in Afghanistan begins.
>> October 16 - Operation Active Endeavour officially begins.


2002:
>> January 15 - Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines begins as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in the Southern Philippines.
>> February 27 - the Georgia Train and Equip Program begins.
>> October 7 - Operation Enduring Freedom - Horn of Africa begins.


2003:
>> January 3 to April 12 - anti-war groups across the world organized public protests against war with Iraq. About 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests.
>> February 5 - Colin Powell addressed a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council, stating categorically that Saddam Hussein was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.
>> March 20 - the Iraq War begins. President George W. Bush refers to it as "the central front in the War on Terror".


2004:
>> April 24 - The Georgia Train and Equip Program ends, but military assistance to Georgia continued through the Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program.
>> June 18 - The United States government, led by the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division, begins a series of ongoing attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). These attacks sought to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who were thought to have found a safe haven in Pakistan.


2005:
>> July 7 - the 1st London bombings kill 52 people and injure 700 more.


2006:
>> Nothing Notable happens.


2007:
>> February 6 - the Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara begins.


2008-2010:
>> Nothing notable happens.

2011:
>> May 2 - Osama bin Laden is killed in a raid by United States special forces troops on his residence in Pakistan.

These are the headlines - the milestone events in the alledged 'War on Terror'.

Here's more detailed information of attacks and foiled/failed attempts along the way:


Successful:

2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia
2003 Casablanca bombings and 2007 Casablanca bombings in Morocco
2003 Istanbul bombings in Turkey
2004 Moscow metro bombing and 2010 Moscow Metro bombings in Russia
2004 Madrid train bombings in Spain
2004 Moscow metro bombing
2006 Mumbai train bombings in India
2007 Glasgow International Airport attack in the United Kingdom
2007 Algiers bombings in Algeria
2007 Karachi bombing of Benazir Bhutto's motorcade and Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing in Pakistan
2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks in India


The Unsuccessful:

2005 London bombings (partially unsuccessful) and 2007 London car bombs
2006 Toronto terrorism plot
2006 transatlantic aircraft plot involving liquid explosives carried onto commercial airplanes
2007 Fort Dix attack plot
2009 Bronx terrorism plot
2009 New York Subway and United Kingdom Plot
2009 Christmas Bomb Plot
2010 Times Square car bombing attempt
2010 cargo plane bomb plot
2010 Portland car bomb plot

So yeah.

there's a lot to think about.

The war has been pushed to the back of people's minds thanks to what Paris Hilton had for lunch, or Lady Ga Ga wearing a dress made from meat, or some equally trivial, nonsensical story.

Let's just drag it back to the forefront.

Bin Laden was one man who had a strongly held belief. He alone had no major contribution to organised terrorism - it took hundreds of people who shared his vision to actually act upon it, in much the same way that if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to here it, does it make a sound?

The death of one man will not be the end of terrorism, and I dare to venture to say that it'd be far, far from it.

Bin Laden became the figurehead of Al-Qaeda, and died a martyr. His death will only spur on, if not exacerbate efforts from terror organisations such as Al-Qaeda. Only a fool would believe for a moment that everything will now be all rosey, with birds and butterflies, and no Justin Bieber.

Wisely, national security for allied countries has been stepped up, but as we've already seen, these efforts will not be enough. We know already, thanks to the UPS IED incident that it takes one slip-up for hundreds to pay.

I know the above is merely my two cents - an opinion, and at best, a prediction. I do believe however that we should be more aware of terrorist/suspect activity now than ever before.

Also, with free radicals of all ethnicities working with terrorist organisations, whatever their reasons, it's unfair to suspect a particular ethnic group, or people of a certain sect or religion.

I'm not saying 'don't trust anyone and stay in your home with locked windows and doors, curtains drawn incase Justin Bieber comes to napalm you', I'm just saying that we should all be a little more aware, acute... A little more tuned in. Switched on, if you will.

Love is...

Love.

Love is...

Love is... a diminishng concept, slowly and progressively consumed by what people of the modern world believe love is... a quick blowjob and a cup of coffee.

Where's the passion? If only I knew.

Today is Valentine's Day, which for many is a lame, commercialised oppertunity to twist the arm of their partner into doing pretty much anything, on the basis that if they don't do it, they can't love them as much as they say they do.

And boy, do the fat cats cash in on that!

I hate Valentine's Day. Why does there have to be a single day where people declare their love for their partner? For me, every single day is an oppertunity to remind your partner that they are loved, and to be honest, I don't think they should need reminding, as they should always know - There doesn't need to be a day set aside for it. What do people do for the other 364 days of the year?

And of course as I've already mentioned, people get 'Love' and 'Sex' horribly confused a lot.

Women, as far as I know, value love a lot more than men, and men seem to think that sex is what love is. Ergo, men think women want sex a lot - as much as they do themselves.

Poor disillusional people.

Unfortunately for both sides, women don't want the sex as much as men because they want the love, and get annoyed at being treated like a sex object, and men, because they think sex IS love, think that their partner doesn't love them.

On that subject, I'd just like to make a point...

Women get really annoyed when they feel like they're treated as sex objects, but then they're quite happy to parade around in next-to-nothing on a saturday night, and then go topless/completely naked in many top-shelf men's magazines...

Talk about mixed signals!

Guys don't exaclty help themselves - They can't keep their perverted eyes or hands to themselves. Really pisses me off as to how most guys only really want one thing.

Having said that, girls can be just as bad...

All the relationships I've ever been in ended because I wasn't ready to have sex with them, and they grew impatient and went elsewhere. They either ended it first and moved straight onto the next guy, or they cheated on me. I tell you - It knocks your confidence like nothing else. Nothing makes you feel more shit than knowing that the reason you're single is because no one can be bothered to wait for you. No one is prepared to give you the time...

... The thing is that 9 times out of 10, you'll hear about them moaning that the guy they got with was a complete dick, and treated them like shit...

I know someone who is absolutely fabulous - Great girl who deserves the best. She spent the last year or more in a relationship with a guy who basically treated her like a piece of meat - a piece of arm-candy.

We went out a few times without him and she told me on a few occasions that she wasn't happy. We had a chat about why this could be, and in essence he was a complete control freak - He didn't let her see certain people, he went through her phone, he deleted people from her phone book that he didn't like, or objected to her hanging out with, and if she wasn't home before a certain time, he'd kick off and give her a really hard time. I asked her 'Why are you with him? I'm not being funny but you could do so much better than that. You're a great girl with a heart of gold - Why are you wasting your time?', to which she responded 'I just can't be arsed with it. The hassle I'd get would just be too much...'

At this point I thought 'This isn't a relationship - It's emprisonment.'

Since then, after months of misery, she split up with him, and he bombarded her with abusive texts and phonecalls, and even called the police telling them that she did drugs.

Stupid, I know.

BUT...

Unfortunately, a fair number of people in her situation put themselves there by going for 'the bad boy' image, and then wonder why they got treated like a mug.

I'm sorry but if you're going to go for guys like that, then you have to expect to be treated like an accessory. Guys like that simply expect you to garnish the passenger seat of their car. To them, you're like a pair of furry dice. To be seen and not heard...

So I ask again...

Love is...?

Unfortunately, too many people don't know anymore, and it's about time we reminded ourselves, today as much as any other, what it really is about.

The Internet, The World, And How It's All Going Wrong.

The Internet.

 A tool devised for the efficient communication between allied military forces, universities and other such institutions in order to safeguard the nation's future, both in respect of security and education alike...

 Now, it's used to sell people junk they don't need, make friends you don't know, and post things on blogs for no one to read...

 It seems to be a shame that the reason we are where we are is due to the innovation of some and the greed of others... It's the yin and yang that seems to somehow keep the world spinning...

One man invents the telephone, and another man steals the idea and patents it in his own name. Ah - This is a little known fact so please allow me to explain this one briefly...

Antonio Meucci, an italian compatriot of the italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, was an inventor and lived from 1808 to 1889. He was recognised as a revolutionary in the field of telecommunications, and invented a device in 1854, and developed it through to 1857, which was capable of doing just that.

Meucci filed a patent for his device some years later in 1871, but couldn't afford the $10 to renew the patent in 1874. To make matters worse, an American District Telegraph (ADT) laboratory lost some of his prototype models, and Meucci's wife reportedly disposed of others, and Meucci was left with no prototype models and no money to continue to fund what would become one of the greatest discoveries of the modern age.

As Meucci's plans were being assessed for a patent in the offices of Western Union, they fell into the hands of a young Scottish engineer called Alexander Graham Bell, who seized the oppertunity to patent the plans in his own name in 1875 after Meucci failed to find the funds to renew his patent application. Meucci took Bell to court, but unfortunately passed away in 1889 before judgement was given, and so Bell was and has been credited with the invention ever since.

So if anyone says Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, tell them to fuck off. It may lose you a couple of friends, however, so be warned.

So anyway the point is that the greed of many exploits the great efforts of a few. Commercialisation is one of the biggest problems with the world we currently live in. Rather than thinking "How can this discovery/invention benefit the world?", people think "How can this discovery/invention benefit me? Either financially or otherwise?".

Public enemy number one for me at the moment is Facebook.

I hate Facebook. I think it's a sad insight into the way the world presently works.

Some people think you can't be a proper friend until it's become official thanks to Facebook's jurisdiction. People are not said to be in relationships until you've 'made it official on Facebook', people use Facebook as a means to be nosey or spy on people, in order to get their 'gossip fix', people create stupid games and take part in stupid quizzes and then bombard you with requests and notifications for you to join them in their pursuit of ultimate idleness...

I think to be honest it's people's arrogance that causes people to want to be part of the whole 'Facebook' thing. People seem to think that they are important enough for other people to want to know about their every move; from what they ate for breakfast, to what underwear they are wearing today. 'Status' updates are a great example of this. They're like a headline on a really shit tabloid newspaper or gossip magazine.

"<INSERT NAME HERE> has just eaten some cornflakes! Now going for a bath! xx"

Forgive me but who gives a flying fuck?

As I said previousley, it's people's sheer arrogance that causes them to believe that anyone gives a shit about this information.

Facebook recently added the feature to post your present location, so people can track your movements. I cannot see how this information could ever be used for anything constructive or positive. If anything, if you were suddently not to be friends with someone for whatever reason, they can see where you are so they know where you're not (ie. at home), so they can vandalise yor property or even attempt to break in.

The thing that made me sickest... the straw that broke this camel's back... was the fact they made some shit film about the creation of Facebook, 'The Social Network'.

I had an argument recently with a friend who watched the film, and turned to me and said it was good. I immediately responded 'It's not.' they went on to talk about how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (or 'Fuck-a-burger' as I affectionately know him as) started out in the film as being a bit of a dick, but then later on you see his true colours come through and he's actually a really nice guy...

I nearly exploded with rage and vomit.

I said 'Of course he's going to be portrayed as a nice guy - do you think he'd allow them to make a film about him looking like the total dick that he is? It's a film BASED on a true story. The critical word here is BASED. The only thing that is remotely consistent with the truth is the fact it's about a social networking site called 'Facebook' with a few guys who share the same names as some people who were knocking around when Facebook came out of their arses.

It was at this point I shut my Facebook page down. I used to use it to communicate with friends who are too far away to see, which is what the point was initially, but now that objective seems to be lost, and with it is my reason for having one.

Watching that poor excuse for a film is a complete waste of life. Don't waste it sitting on a sofa being spoonfed Hollywood/Fuck-a-burger bullshit. For the sake of your own sanity and in order to preserve an unadulterated view on the world and how it works.

The internet has turned from being the greatest tool, to in some ways becoming our worst enemy. Only once before has man been enslaved by something it has created, and that was to money itself.

Go outside. There's a world out there. It's quite amazing.