Missing Logic: Right At Your Door

More than the “How it should have ended” series on YouTube is the infuriating feeling you get when you’re watching a film that even though it’s well acted, well directed and everyone else is doing their jobs pretty well, the scriptwriter fell asleep on the job? Case in point is the oft-cited way to end Lord of the Rings in five minutes by having the eagles drop Frodo at Mount Doom.

Sushi Cat 2

While mischievously claiming that Armor Games were developing a fictitious Elder Scrolls title might not have been the best idea (simply through how many people believed it!), the April Fool’s prank didn’t stem from any lack of respect for the casual game studio.

On the contrary, I really, really enjoyed Sushi Cat! The blend of Peggle-style gameplay with surreal Japanese humour and great music (for a lo-fi game) really appealed, and luckily they’ve replicated it with the even better Sushi Cat 2.

Charlie Brooker – How TV Ruined Your Life

I only caught this today on YouTube because I basically don’t watch television as it’s so full of poisonous s***. Oh my, this is wonderful!

I was the kid who, when children’s show Why Don’t You said we should “turn off the TV set and do something less boring instead” … did. When the “wear sunscreen” rant came out, I ditched my subscription to Marie Claire. I’ve never looked back. Now when I see an airbrushed picture of a model, I don’t think “I want to look like that,” I think she looks artificial and “wrong”. According to a recent study, nobody finds that falseness attractive anyway, but we’re all running around like headless chickens trying to aspire to impossible standards that won’t make us happy even if we attain them. All the bling, all the cars and trappings of wealth, I don’t look at that stuff and think it’s something that I should have, because I don’t get that all the time from watching television.

The television I did watch growing up included The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In the show, if you worked hard you could aspire to be like Phil, using education and wealth as an agent for social change and to elevate yourself above the dangers of poverty; or you could be like Will, and realise your artistic visions. Either was valid, respected and respectable. The character who was most derided was shallow, vacuous Hilary, who valued wealth and celebrity for its own sake.

Over the past 10 years, it’s this once-ridiculed attitude to which we’ve all been taught to aspire. We’ve created for ourselves a cruel trap that has ensnared every one of us – putting our jobs, homes, health and happiness at risk – for … what?