You're like the onion in my... dialysis fluid

I was thinking last night, and I've decided that being an atheist is shit. All you do is sit there and not believe in God. And you disappoint your grandparents. They don't say anything, but you just know that the whole not-going-to-church thing is KILLING them.

And of course, there's the Space thing. Without fail, every time I do a physics exam paper (which is never again... whoopee!) I get all freaked out when I reach the question about space. It always reminds me how small and shit this globe is, and the fact that we are just floating in a big motherfucking ball of EMPTY SPACE. Only in the Space section of the physics textbook are the words 'eternity' and 'into the abyss' bandied about willy nilly. All this shit about space FREAKS ME OUT. I spent a good portion of the Physics exam gazing into 'space', slack jawed, considering my pure insignificance in the massive area that is SPACE. Damn you, astronauts. Fucking space.

So it would be nice to know that, you know, there's some huge wise guy with a beard watching me to make sure that gravity doesn't suddenly forget I exist and I float off into the void. Void. That's another word that freaks the shit out of me. VOID. ARGH. I've decided that I need a God to be something BIGGER than space to counteract the big shit thats going on. And also as a pal.This God will spend his (or her, I'm not picky, but to be honest I'm pretty sure that a male god would be so much better) time looking at me and reserving me a place in the afterlife. The good afterlife, none of that shitty Hell stuff.

The third reason for me decided to take up religion again is pikeys. I just want to be sure that I have nothing to fear from pikeys, safe in the knowledge that my God will give any wanker who tries to nick my wallet bowel cancer. Or a lightning bolt hairdo. Is it wrong that I want a God to be my personal bodyguard? Fuck it.

So now I need a religion. Well, there are the main ones - Christianity, Islam, uh, Jewish, Buddhism, and some of those other foreign ones. I'm not even going to BRING UP those shitty mini-religions like Kabbalah and Scientology. Scientology? What the fuck is that? Well, Reverend Ron Hubbard gives us the answer:

"A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology." — L. Ron Hubbard

Yeah, good luck, mate. Scientology. Pahahhaha.

Christianity
The obvious choice, with the big God, and the whole 'he always loves you' thing. Also has an in-built fanclub, and you get to be friends with nice fully balanced fellows like this guy:



But on the other hand, Christianity, for a religion with demons, devils, bringing back from the dead, burning in eternal hellfire, and hideous deaths, is uniquely lame. Can't describe it any better than that. The only cool Christian was Ghandi: FACT. And he's dead now. And Jesus... what's the deal with Jesus? Everyone keeps going on about Jesus returning, as thought it'd be a good thing. Why? All it means is that the calendar would get fucked up. Would the current year go back to being bc again? Or would it stay as ad, despite the lack of Jesus? And what's so good about Jesus anyway. All he'd do would prance about, walking on water like the bigshot he is, telling people to stop being violent. Ooh, like that's gonna work. You suck, Jesus.

Man, I hope Jesus isn't in the room with me right now. After all, he is With Me Always:


Even when I'm playing the french horn. Isn't that nice?

Islam
Hmm. Intriguing. You do get to make women dress up in black robes and grow a natty beard. But this sounds like one of those religions where you have to do loads of stuff. You know, praying and fasting and blowing yourself up and shit. I don't want a religion where a guy with a beard and a hat gets pissed off with me if I don't spend half the time talking to myself and eating sand. So, sorry, but I'll have to pass on the islam.

Jewism
Hmm. Jewishness? Dare I go the way of the jew, like so many of my idols before me? Shall I convert, like Charlotte from Sex and the City? She's pretty stupid, if she can do it, anyone can. I mean, you get to step on wine glasses and stuff. And Henry Hill from Goodfellas was a jew, or at least he married one. And he ended up ratting on all his friends and living his life in a shed somewhere. So if that's what happens to jewish people, I think I'll pass.
Other reasons why I'm not going jew: the jokes, the talking funny, the long meals, the piss-taking from Ogg, the whole holocaust thing, the war, the no-eating delicious pork rule, the circumsision, the deal with the germans, the long black curly hair... I don't think I'm suitable Jew material.
And, as Tom Lehrer said, "Everybody hates the Jews". Don't get made at me, he said it.

Buddhism
Now HERE'S a religion I could embrace. As far as I can tell, to be a buddhist, all you do is shave your hair off, wear a nice orange jumpsuit then hang around some huge ultra-cool temple meditating. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret - meditating is just THINKING ABOUT STUFF. QUIETLY. I can do that any day of the week. Also, buddhism has less of the angryness that pervades so many other religions. And there are no punishments! The worst that can POSSIBLY happen to you is that you get reincarnated as a market dog. That's IT. How groovy is that?
And buddhism is COOL, man. It's a faith that kind of inspiring. And Buddha is a dude. Buddha is the only cool fat guy. Hurrah.

But on the other hand, to be a good buddhist, you're not allowed to be pissed off with anyone or pat people on the head or anything. Damnit... I LIKE being angry with people. People are twats. Apparently to be buddhist you have to be, like, all in tune with nature and stuff. Which means no meat. Nuts to that, burgers are tasty. And I'll be fucked if I'm going to live in the mountain with bears. Also, buddhism is starting to lose its edge nowadays, as any fat woman with an orange tshirt can decide that she's a buddhist and fuck with the religion. And terrorists keep blowing up the statues. Bloody terrorists.

Jedi
Come on, this isn't even a real religion. But I wouldn't mind a religion that gives you the ability to play with huge glowing laser-swords and leap 60 feet in one go.

Hmm.

Wow, so it seems that NONE of the major religions are tailor made to suit my tastes. Damnit. I was about to forget the whole idea of god when I looked at the sky and realised that space is still HUGE. Argh. After hiding from the evil glare of the stars, it HIT ME.

I'll just make up my own religion!

THIS IDEA HAS BEEN FLOATING AROUND IN MY HEAD FOR A WHILE. A religion without the lameness of Christianity, the strictness of Islam, the circumision of Jewishness, and with the meat eating goodness of being an atheist. This would be the religion of the FUTURE, the religion that guarantees that I'm not gonna be screwed when Judgement Day comes along. I have decided to call my religion Piratism. Hmm, or Ninjism. Actually, perhaps not ninjism, I don't like that 'jism' in there. Ok, my religion has no name. No, wait, I just found a latin dictionary. Omniism. Pretty slick. Or even Omniism!. I think the exclamation mark gives it an edge on other, non-puncuatation-affiliated faiths.

The basis of Omniism! is that everybody has their own personal god who just follows them around and protects them from all the evil demons. There are lots of evil demons. Evil demons are cool. This god always takes your side, and when you die, you get to be a god of your own, while your god gets reincarnated as a guy who you then protect. So then you get to fly around, killing demons and protecting your guy. And when your guy dies, you get reincarnated as a person. Pretty slick, eh? You basically get to either spend your time being protected or fighting demons. Did I mention that when you're a God, you get superpowers? Well, you do. You also get a cool suit.
The sweet thing is, the better you protect your guy, the better the existence you get reincarnated into. So if you're really shit and your guy gets eaten by a dog on his second day, you get reincarnated as a leech, and your god only has to protect you against leech demons. And leech demons are shit, they just go really slowly. Ah, I rule.
And the REALLY cool thing is that you can be reincarnated into animals and plants and stuff. AND ALIENS. If you're really good, you get reincarnated into an alien and you get to fly about in a spaceship, killing stuff and setting fire to cows (people who's gods weren't as good as you).
I don't know. But I like the idea that I have some invisible demon-killing ultra-fly superhero following me around. No, wait, the superhero isn't invisible, he lives in The Second Dimension. Yeah, none of this fourth dimension shit, your demon is a creature of 2D. He's just constantly at 90 degrees to you so you never see him. Life was easier back in the days of 2D.

So there you have it - the birth of Omniism!. It's part religion, part video-game, and 100% FUN!.

I think that this post has categorically proved how little I know about any religion... ever. I'm so sorry. Hey, at least I'm not doing RS.

Hey, Arthur!

I like watching children's shows that aren't meant for me. I then like to poke holes in them. I know that this is probably a bit unfair - after all, these shows were designed for people seven years younger than me, but I think of it along the lines of gaining a second opinion. After all, if you had no idea about cars, then a guy fixed the engine of your car, would it be bad if another mechanic had a look at it and pointed out that it was fixed with glue and plasters? No, it wouldn't be. So that's the analogy that I'm using. I think. I don't know. But yes, I have seen a lot of kids' shows in my time. Many have been brilliant. Many have had funny drug references that only I get. But many have been utter undiluted shit. And now I'm writing a post about the crappiest, just because I've finished Resident Evil 4 and I need to write something before I go away today. So here we go:

This post is in honour of Arthur, officially The Lamest Show On TV. Arthur is about the adventures of a young lad called Arthur and all his friends in the perfect american locality of Elwood City. There are no terrorists in Elwood. There is no crime. There are no drugs. In fact, there are no blacks, indians, or foreigners. The worst criminal in town is the school bully, and even she's a bit shit (we know that the bully is bad because she had long hair and wears a denim coat with no sleeves and frayed edges). But this show isn't about the perfect town of Elwood (god bless you, eugenics). This show is about ARTHUR. For those of you who don't know, this is Arthur, with his friend Buster:



Arthur is the gay yellow one. In case you were wondering, Arthur is meant to be an aardvark. Yes, and aardvark. This is what an aardvark actually looks like:



And here's the list of differences between Arthur and a real aardvark:

Arthur is yellow.
Arthur wears clothes.
Arthur has been voiced by four different people. The aardvark has only been voiced by two.
Arthur has fully formed human hands. Thumbs too.
Arthur stands up on two feet.
Arthur doesn't have a massive nose.
Arthur goes to school.
Arthur eats normal people food, as opposed to ants.
Arthur speaks in a squeaky girlish voice as opposed to the manly germaic roars that issue forth from most aardvarks.
Arthur does not sleep in a recently excavated nest. Rather, he sleeps in a bed.
Arthur is best friends with a rabbit.
To all extents and purposes, Arthur does not have a penis.

Arthur is like the most unaardvarky aardvark ever. I mean, he lives in a house. In an american suburb. Basically, Arthur is a human boy, they've just decided to make him and all his friends multicoloured and give them funny ears. That's IT. And he's best friends with a rabbit. Why a rabbit? I don't know. But he has plenty of other friends too, including Binky, who seems to be a potato. Yeack. But, I'm not pedantic. I can forgive a tv show this amount of willfull raping of the laws of biology; after all, everybody in the Simpsons is yellow.

What I can't forgive, however, is the sheer amount of lameness that this show manages to cram into every episode.

Seriously, if you could distill Lame into a liquid, this show would be a LAKE. A lake of lame. Vicars with guitars and beards telling kids that 'God is Groovy' watch this show and proclaim it to be lame, man. This show is lamer than Teletubbies, which manage to win some cool points just through the sheer power of the drug-induced brain that originally thought it up. But Arthur? There's no drug inducement anywhere. Well, I bet there's a reference somewhere, but it's quickly quashed with a valuable life lesson.

Life lessons. I hate life lessons. The only life lesson you really need to learn is that Nobody Cares. Once you've got that off pat, you're set for life. But this show... ARGH. EVERY EPISODE HAS A MORAL. I mean, I don't mind morals in SOME TV shows (well actually I do); like that episode of the Simpsons where Sideshow Bob was about to marry Selma and the moral was 'never stop distrusting people', or that episode of Family Guy was 'don't kill the kids from Dawson's creek'. But I can't forgive a show where every SCENE is either devoted to setting up the moral, or teaching the moral. Seriously, if you were writing a synopsis of every episode of Arthur (and god willing, I'll never have to), you could just copy the words 'and Arthur and the Gang learn a valuable life lesson', and paste them onto the end. It's like the mission of Arthur to cover every hot topic in American culture today so we can be one big PC family.

For example, in one episode, Arthur's friend Buster is sad because his parents are divorced (issue number 1) and his father lives far away, (issue number 2), and Arthur is worried that Buster is going to be sad at the father-son picnic (issue number 3). So Arthur and his friends decide to get Binky a NEW DAD! A HA HA! DOESN'T THAT SOUND A HILARIOUS WAY TO SPEND HALF AN HOUR? IT DOES. AND BOY WAS IT FUNNY.
And, my personal favourite, the episode where potato boy learns that he's allergic to penuts. Now instead of eating lots of nuts and having his head explode in a cool/hilarious way, he prances about for the entire episode whingeing about being allergic, until he realises that there's a way to get around his allergy, by being careful about what he eats, going to the library to look up information about allergies, and not being around people with penuts. Yes, that's it. That's the resolution to this particular episode. Deep, man.

I hate this show much. Watching it is like watching one of those BBC propaganda videos aimed at children, telling you not to play with matches or smoke or talk to strangers.

'This is Johnny. Johnny smokes. NOW JOHNNY HAS LUNG CANCER AND IS GOING TO DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS! MWHWAHHAHA!'

Oddly, I usually enjoy those videos. They make me laugh. Arthur does not. They should remove the shiny 'fun' tag, and just make it an educational show that they force kids in school to watch with a Clockwork Orange style setup. I mean, this show breaks one of the funadmental rules of lameness. It tries to be funny. Mistake. You can't be funny when your main character is dressed in a shirt/sweater combo, massive shoes, and glasses. What sort of kid wears a shirt/sweater combo? And glasses? Not that I have anything against kids with glasses, but they are SO ANNOYING. On the french trip there was this little german kid with glasses and he kept glaring at me. So I had a staring competion with him. AND I WON. Take that, you little cunt. Then I looked round, and Curry was having a staring competition with a baby. And wielding a rock threateningly. Ah, memories.

Oh yeah. Arthur is the kind of show where the main character spends hours singing songs about why reading is really fun, and dancing around the library. So you like reading, do you, Arthur? Well why don't you read a DECENT book, as opposed to the liquid shit you usually read. Read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That will blow your little mind. RINSED.

So, in conclusion, Arthur sucks. The sad thing is, he'll probably get laid before me.

"Hi, I'm Arthur and I'm a big gay loser aardvark who actually acts like a person because the writers are lazy cunts" - actual quote from the series

Things not to do in London tomorrow:

• Dress up in robes and a face mask and run around the streets hollering 'ALLAH!' or 'INFIDELS!' Or a mixture of the two: ALFADELS. Is it me, or do alfadels sound delicious?


• Make jokes about bombs.


• Tell bomb anacdotes, riddles, or ironic musings. Bomb related banter is still alright, however.


• Rent out Rambo 3.


• Rugby tackle people to the floor.


• Tell the fit bus driver that she's 'da bomb!'


• On a crowded train, yell 'HE HAS A GRENADE!' followed by 'BUNDLE!' as people try to leave the station.


• Randomly scatter bags on street corners.


• Fireworks. I bet even sparklers are off limits now.


• Hang around looking shifty.


• Run around screaming.


• Be arabic.

Damnit, those pesky terrorists have totally ruined the fun of going into London. Wankers.

So, lads, London is burning again, eh? So, we've finally joined the USA club of having our buildings razed to the ground. Except for the IRA bombings. And, you know, having the shit bombed out of us, nightly, for the entirity of World War Two. And probably a bit of World War One. And, of course, the Great Fire of London. And Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliment. And I guess that the Plague counts as biological terrorism, right? Damn rats. We're so well known for our buildings not surviving well, we have not one but TWO theme tunes. Do you Americans have any theme tunes? Well, other than the Twin Towers Tango, no.

But other than that, this is the FIRST bit of property destruction/terrorism that London has ever faced. Now, this may sound a bit tetchy, but I'm bored of Americans going on like they're the first country to ever experience buildings falling over. Ever since the theories of 'gravity' and 'combustion' were invented in 1963 by some hippy guy, buildings have been catching fire and falling over. So stop complaining about the Twin Towers, ok, America? I direct this comment mostly at the scores of discussion-board fellas who consider that a country only counts as having taken part in the 'war on terror' if it's first lost a pretty building/mode of transportation some twat with a bomb.

The British response to the entire transport system being blown up and grinding to a halt is entirely different to the American one to some office buildings falling over. On 9/11 (it should be technically 11/9, seeing as the properly be the smallest system of periods of time first, working up - days, months, years... BUT NO... we have to follow the yankee system which MAKES NO SENSE) everybody ran around screaming hysterically, then promptly blew the crap out of some random countries and whinged about it forever. On 7/7 (what the fuck? They're going to need a smoother name than 7/7 if they want to make this thing sound cool. The London Transport Catastrophe. Or THE DAY THE EARTH EXPLODED. Or IT'S RAINING BITS OF BUSES. Sung by a group of chorus girls to the tune of 'It's raining men') everybody got a bit depressed then started queueing to get the boat home. Yes, the boat home.

God, I love Britain. And I especially love our news reportage. Because we're meant to be totally impartial, we're not allowed to state THE FUCKING OBVIOUS.

"Yes, several tube trains and, uh, a bus, have exploded and, uh... at the moment, the hypothesis is that it's a power surge of some sort."

A power surge. Oh man. Not terrorists, no... one of those magic power surges that can take out several trains and an UNLUCKY bus in the space of an hour. And I seriously worship those newsreaders for their ability to take twenty minutes' worth of news, and stretch it out to be a full day's worth of material. The secret? Simple, and in five easy steps you too can be a disaster newsreader:

How to fill up a day's worth of news programming with very little information for Dummies (a reference for the rest of us!)
1: Recap. Allllllways recap. Do so every now and again, just in case somebody has JUST turned on the tv/woken up from a coma. Often, it might be a good idea to recap half way through a sentence. Or even a word.
"And now we go onto our reporter in Picadil- just to recap, the sky is falling and we all are going to die."
2: Flit rapidly between many random newsreaders standing in front of busy streets. Often, it's a good idea to have newsreaders who have no idea what's going on and can't hear what the anchorman is saying. It's also a good idea to cut the reporters off mid-sentence to cut to another reporter.
3: Have interviews with people who happened to be walking past when the incident in question took place. These people should all be unattractive, as to not dirty the viewing pleasure for me, and must all give long rambling statements that make no sense/have very little content.
4: Have long camera shots of nothing in particular. Assure the audience how exciting it all is.
5: Repeat yourself ever five minutes. ALWAYS REPEAT.

And there you go, you're a newsreader.

Also, if you.................. want to be Tony............ Blaire, just look........... sol......... emn, and include an............... irrelevant pause ever...... few............. words. That's all............. you........... nee.................. d.

Ah Tony, King of the Power Pause.

God Bless You, London. Especially tomorrow, when it will probably be a criminal offense to be carrying a suitcase on a train without written permission from, like, fifteen Governmental bodies.