Earlier this year, I created a comedy webcomic called Adventures in Stuff.
Check it out: adventuresinstuff.net
Common misconceptions about Landover Baptist Church (LBC)
These are some of the most common misconceptions I see on the web regarding the Landover Baptist Church (LBC). As a True Christian, I find them profoundly infuriating.
“Some users don’t realise that LBC is a work of satire”
False. Everyone is vetted before attaining the rank of True Christian. It’s safe to assume that anyone with more than about a hundred posts is in on the joke.
“LBC is a just a parody of fundamentalist Christianity and right-wing extremism”
False. At least 90% of True Christians are devout anti-theists. We actively hate religion. The aim of LBC is to demonstrate the stupidity of all religion. Many of the best posts lampoon belief in any kind of supernatural deity.
“LBC twists scripture by misquoting, misinterpreting or taking it out of context”
False. In fact, the opposite is true. Many of the views found on LBC are supported by what the Bible actually says. It’s much easier for progressive Christians (usually those who have never even read the Bible) to dismiss LBC as an out-of-context hate machine than to accept what’s actually in their holy book. The Bible is a hateful and intolerant piece of literature. This is a book that advocates the execution of gays, “witches” and disobedient children. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that these Old Testament laws are void. One of the core aims of LBC is to show the Bible as it is rather than through the cuddly rainbow lens of acceptance and peace.
How I decide what football team to support
A football match comes on. Who do you support? I made a flow chart to assist in making the decision.
This flow chart crudely approximately my genuine thought process when a game comes on.
England vs Sweden
In recent years, this has been my favourite fixture in international football. In the last four games between the two sides, there were 16 goals. England’s record from these last four is 2-1-1.
One of the highlights of the fixture is obviously Ibrahimovic. He’s just an incredibly exciting player to watch. He scores goals in ways that nobody else would dream of attempting. Having said that, England haven’t exactly slouched in these games. Both sides have scored wonder goals.
Ibrahimovic bicycle kick (2012 friendly)
Cole volley (2006 World Cup)
Why I boycott Steam
Occasionally, someone will ask me why exactly it is that I boycott Steam. I’ll try my best to explain it here. Put it this way: I don’t think Steam is good news for PC gaming overall.
Fundamentally, I’m opposed to DRM from an ideological perspective. These days, the majority of us have heard the arguments against DRM. You merely have to state your position on the matter and most people will understand the reasons – even if they don’t agree – so I won’t say too much about it.
The theory behind DRM is that if you use a big enough trawler net, you catch lots of edible fish. You also catch plenty of dolphins and other nice sealife but who cares about them, right? DRM is the police force that arrests whomever they want without any reason. Sure, you’ll be let out eventually because, after all, you’re innocent, but your time has been wasted and your patience, tested. The problem is that DRM isn’t even a very effective police force; a lot of the criminals have convenient alibis, with names like RELOADED and TiNYiSO. In practice, software DRM punishes legitimate customers while having really very little effect on pirates.
DRM alone is not a good reason to boycott Steam, however. Almost all modern games, whether acquired through Steam or not, are DRM-encumbered through the nose. What makes buying games on Steam worse than buying them outside is that Steam simultaneously functions as both DRM and an unnecessary vendor lock-in. Say that one day you get tired of shopping on Steam (heaven forbid) and want to take your business elsewhere. Man, have they got you by the balls. Sure, you can just stop buying stuff from Steam but you’re going to need their shitty little client installed for the rest of your fucking life just to play games you’ve already stumped up cash for. Once you’ve made a purchase, you can never truly pack up and leave because you’re always going to have monetary value tied up somewhere you can’t get to it without having the Steam client installed. You can’t transfer your games and you can’t truly leave. Once you’ve bought a game from Steam, you’re locked into a baseline level of involvement with the Steam ecosystem forever (with them trying to encourage you to buy more shit all the while).
Let’s say, instead, that I buy a DRM-free PC game. There’s no perceptible lock-in because I’m probably always going to own a PC and, for the foreseeable future, that PC will probably be capable of virtualising current operating systems so that I can play it for decades to come. Effectively, I’ve purchased a product that I’m free to use in any way I can for as long as I’m able to. Anything less than this is just a rental or right to consume.
With a lock-in, you also have to be concerned about the possibility of the business or service shutting down and taking all your shit with them. This is a pertinent worry for Steam users – especially those who’ve invested sums of money large enough to justify paranoia – considering that access to their games is contingent on the availability of the Steam infrastructure. Valve’s method of keeping the masses docile on the subject is to claim that, in the eventuality of Steam closing down, all users would be given access to their games without the need for Steam. Excuse me for being cynical but you have to wonder whether Valve, sans Steam for leverage and presumably now strapped for cash, would have the clout necessary to make it happen.
I regularly buy games from GOG as a form of voting with my wallet. By virtue of its entire business model, GOG is intrinsically free from all the bullshit that clouds my perception of Steam. With the recent regional pricing fiasco still at the forefront of many users’ minds, it remains to be seen whether GOG is the benevolent saviour of PC gaming that some like to think it is. That doesn’t matter though. I don’t buy games from GOG because I love the people behind it. I want to promote DRM-free as a financially viable alternative business model. Brand loyalty, on the whole, is naive bullshit.
I guess that last point brings me nicely to the subject of Valve fanboys. Let me tell you something: I never managed to finish Half-Life 1 or 2 because they both bored me to tears. Needless to say, I have no sense of loyalty to or affection for Valve as a developer of games (y’know, those things they used to make before Steam put them on easy street). In fact, I’d go one further and say that Valve is the single most overrated developer of all time.
A lot of people like Valve as a developer and that’s cool. To some extent, loyalty to a developer makes sense, because the same group of people working on the IPs you love have a good chance of creating something that you’d want to play. What I don’t understand is allowing a love of Valve, the games developer, to spill over into a love of Valve, the operator of Steam. A proven track record of creating games that many love is insufficient evidence that the same company can wield the power of something like Steam to the unanimous benefit of all parties. When it comes to corporations, you have to be skeptical of their every move. Why should you ever trust an entity whose superceding directive is often contrary to your best interests?
Steam now acts a gatekeeper to the PC gaming market. Its near-monopoly position in the market allows it to do so. The amount of times I’ve heard people say they won’t buy games that aren’t on Steam is hard to believe. Not putting your game on Steam is commercial suicide and it’ll only get worse. This puts Steam in the position of deciding what sells and what doesn’t. If they blacklist a game for any reason (as they recently did with Hatred), it’ll tank. There will never truly be parity of promotion. In an age where some gamers are basing their purchasing decisions on the content Steam shows them, this is bad news. I don’t know much about Greenlight but I’ve read some scathing things from indie developers so I assume Valve aren’t doing a great job of opening Steam up to the indies either. It all comes down to this: can you trust Valve to act as a responsible gatekeeper to the industry? For me, the answer is a resounding “fuck no”.
Let’s briefly talk about yet another problem with Steam: its vehemently anti-consumer policies on refunds and resales. For starters, Steam’s “no resale” rule is actually illegal in the European Union (at least by my reading of EU consumer protection laws, which are pretty clear on the matter) but nobody is calling them out on it. Not giving consumers the ability to resell their games is restrictive at best. Even worse is their policy of not giving refunds under any circumstances. No refunds for products that aren’t guaranteed to work? What the fuck? Honestly, from the outside, Steam’s terms and conditions read like they were written by a company with complete distain for its customers.
What will Valve do once Steam becomes a legitimate monopoly in the PC gaming market? Well, probably not a lot. I’m not saying they’re a fundamentally evil company or an Illuminati conspiracy. Monopolies are rarely good news, no matter how well-intentioned those involved are. Personally, though, I don’t want to wait around to find out what’s going to happen. I’d rather take my pre-emptive leave now.
And, Gabe, if you’re reading, I found this cool new product for you:
How to get all the followers on Soundcloud
1. Be female (or even a guy willing to swap genders for the day).
2. Use a photo of yourself as your profile picture (or just an attractive girl you found on Google).
3. Congrats. You now have 0 uploads and 5 times as many followers as I do.
I’m not bitter.
I got my boss fired once
Sometimes I like telling stupid little stories. I’ve forgotten most of the stuff that has happened to me in my life. Sometimes I randomly remember an event and then, in my efforts to preserve the memory, I write about it.
In my late teens, I was doing voluntary work for the British Heart Foundation (BHF). I was in college at the time so I already had a pretty full schedule (lol jk). Every Saturday, I would do several hours of retail work in my local branch of the BHF charity shop. It was monotonous stuff: putting sizing labels on hangers, steam-cleaning new donations of clothes, working the till, tidying up and restocking. I don’t have particularly fond memories of the job; the best part was the infrequent arrival of a beautiful girl who sometimes worked the same hours as me. Then again, it’s not the kind of work you do for intrinsic fun. I was happy pitching in my little share of community effort.
The only real problem I had was with the manager of the place. Unlike me, he worked there full-time and was paid a reasonable salary for his efforts. He utterly abused the privilege. It was always abundantly clear that his motivation for working there was not altruistic. It was just a job to him. There is nothing inherently wrong with impure intentions but when you’re an intentionally shit employee extracting money from a fucking charity, you need to take a look at yourself.
This guy took three hour lunch breaks. After “lunch”, he would often announce that he was leaving and then not return for hours at a time. He would return clutching bags of personal shopping. He skived off in order to piss away the money he was earning for doing the very job he was skiving off. Worse, he didn’t care what the situation was like when he left. He would happily leave a solitary teenager to run the entire store in his absence, despite none of us having the training to do so properly. It was an unfair amount of responsibility to give to a bunch of unpaid part-time teens. I used to dread it happening to me, which was pretty much every other week. We would get phone calls about all sorts of shit that we were entirely unqualified to deal with. I whine about it but I feel I handled the impromptu promotion to store manager rather well. Nonetheless, it was a situation that should never have been allowed to arise.
Being incompetent is one thing but being incompetent and taking money from a charity to facilitate further incompetence is a pisstake. Incompetent might not even be the right word (though the guy was hardly a stellar manager even when he graced us with his presence); sheer, wilful laziness comes closer to the truth. There are people out there who would’ve relished the opportunity to do the job properly and it seemed right that they got the opportunity.
During my time there, I heard rumblings. Our dear manager had a propensity for groping volunteers in the back room. Given that the manager is unnamed, I see no harm in relaying unsubstantiated claims. For reasons I don’t particularly want to enter into, I believe it was almost certainly true (no, he never tried it with me). He was a strange guy. I had no problem seeing how the rumours could be true even when they were just rumours.
Anyway, we eventually raised the matter with head office. They investigated, made us sign sworn affidavits and then fired the guy. Good riddance.
Fuck yeah, San Marino!
Okay, so they suck at football but I love them. I support them in all their games, even against England. Facing almost certain defeat in every game, it takes persistence, spirit and a solid pair of balls to keep coming out and trying your best.
I’m especially enamoured with their first choice keeper, Aldo Simoncini. Not only does he sometimes impress me with his goalkeeping but his life story and attitude are really inspiring. Read this article about him and tell me you don’t admire his spirit.
Actually, the team and manager are always universally positive in interviews. They’re proud to play for their country despite the overwhelming odds against them. They aren’t naive – they’re very realistic about their chances – but they’re just happy to have the opportunity to play on some of the world’s biggest stages.
When you look at the facts, it’s easy to see why they’re stuck at the bottom of the FIFA rankings. San Marino has a population of about 33,000; nobody expects a Messi or Ronaldo to appear in a pool of that size. In fact, San Marino has a dearth of professional footballers of any level. The team comprises only a couple of players that make a full-time living playing football; the rest of them are part-timers with day jobs ranging from accountant to carpenter.
It’s hard not to admire a bunch of guys holding down full-time jobs and still finding the time, energy and motivation to train and play football at an international level. You just know that they must really love the game. It’s a combination of passion, enthusiasm and relentless optimism that makes the San Marino team the greatest and most lovable underdog in international football.
Needless to say, I’m completely opposed to those who say that San Marino shouldn’t be allowed to compete in qualification for the World Cup and Euro tournaments. I’d present an argument for the position that international football should be open to all nations but that isn’t really what this post is about.
Page 3 “victory”
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read up on it.
Personally, I’ve always found myself agreeing with the campaigners. I haven’t actually heard any of their arguments but I have my own longstanding opinion of Page 3 and I’m sure it’s probably similar to the official party line.
The role of newspapers is to present the news. They are inherently serious because they deal with serious social and political subjects — even The Sun deals with these subjects, albeit horribly. The subtext of Page 3 is that the role of women in these serious matters is simply to look good. To place a naked woman next to serious discussion for the purposes of titillation marginalises and trivialises the role of women in the creation of the news and, concomitantly, the functioning of society. According to The Sun, the primary, newsworthy female contribution to contemporary society is superficial. Page 3 is simply out of context and entirely out of place in a newspaper.
Given that what I described above is – in my humble opinion, at least – the primary problem here, The Sun‘s relatively minor capitulation can’t be considered a victory at all. The newspaper will still use Page 3 to portray attractive women as newsworthy simply for being attractive — the sum total of their contribution to society. In fact, The Sun‘s token effort betrays their complete lack of understanding of the problem. Nobody, I believe, was particularly upset about the nudity itself (and if they were, they should never, ever be allowed on the internet). The focus was always the casual sexism involved in dedicating space in a fucking newspaper to reinforce the message that women are to be valued principally for their appearance and for their ability to provide light relief from the serious business of society.
If I was actively involved in the campaign, I’d probably be hailing it as a victory for morale purposes but it’s not really.
Cars: mode of transport or oppressive product of the patriarchy?
Let me put the MRAs out there at rest by saying straight off that the answer is most definitely the latter. The modern car is the product of over a century of work by almost exclusively male designers and engineers. Is it any surprise that the car was, in fact, subtly designed to promote rape culture?
It is clear to me that the car was intended to be a metaphorical woman. The misogynistic creators of the automobile expected them to be purchased as demure, subservient members of the family. They designed cars to have the same traits they believed an ideal woman should have: loyalty, an undemanding nature and an unfaltering willingness to serve. The chauvinists didn’t stop there though and the truly disturbing part is the way they utilised the car-as-wife metaphor to promote and normalise rape.
This should come with an NSFW tag.
It all starts with the method of refuelling. Petrol pumps are self-evidently phallic objects. I don’t feel like I should have to explain this part so just fucking look at one, okay? You should keep your distance unless you know what you’re doing. Don’t blame me if you end up with petrol in your eye.
The woman (or “car”) has been designed to receive the phallus (or “petrol pump”) in such a manner as to simulate sexual intercourse. The problem is that this intercourse is entirely non-consensual. When was the last time you saw someone ask for their car’s permission before unceremoniously penetrating it? Exactly. You’ve probably never seen that happen and neither have I. All of which just goes to show how bad things have become.
The act of refuelling your car normalises rape. The act of driving it reinforces gender roles. If you’re not already convinced that the metaphor is intentional, allow me to show you a transcript I obtained of a meeting that took place a long time ago between two directors of an unnamed multinational car manufacturer. I’ll use only the first initial of each man (T and A) to protect their privacy (read: I don’t want to die in my sleep).
T: Imagine a place where polygamy is legal.
A: Iraq?
T: No. America! Every family will have two wives: the one with no brain and the car. Each will be subservient to the husband in all matters.
A: Can we find a way to get rape in there somehow?
T: Sure. Refuelling. Look at the phallic shape of our fuel pumps. Every time a man puts the pump into his car, he is performing an act of metaphorical rape! In public!
A: Hahaha.
T: Hahaha.
A: Won’t the women be upset that we have created this thing that will be referred to in the future as rape culture?
T: The testing confirmed our original suspicions. The women never needed to refuel our test cars because they wrecked them almost immediately. We saved a fortune on crash test dummies!
A: What happened? Did they drive the cars up the wall with their nagging?
T: Hahaha.
A: Hahaha.
T: The best part of our plan is that men everywhere will be paying good money to perform this public act of rape. We’re treating women like property! We’re saying “come here and do this sexual assault and then pay for it!” You don’t even pay the woman, you pay the pimp — ahem, pump.
A: Hey, T, how is a woman like a car?
T: She stays quiet and does everything you ask of her?
A: No, I’m telling a joke. The answer is that you have to service her occasionally to ensure she doesn’t stop working.
T: Hahaha.
A: Hahaha.
T: I’m now going to go out and promote this thing that will be referred to in the future as rape culture.
A: Bye, T. I will stay here and oppress female employees.
T: For the patriarchy!
A: The patriarchy!
T: Hahaha.
A: Hahaha.
Pretty damning evidence, I’m sure you’ll agree.
infinityineveryatom 
