Why saying "men are bastards" is akin to racism

It’s a huge irk of mine that whenever a person screws over another person, it’s not because that person is just a twat; it’s because of their gender. If you’re finding a large number of one gender are arseholes, then it’s more likely that you’re picking the wrong people to be around than the whole gender comprises of such flawed characteristics. You wouldn’t do it with race, you wouldn’t say “all black people are dickheads” because one person shouldered you in the street. What makes it acceptable (other than ignorance and double standards)?

Maybe it’s something to draw comfort from, that you don’t make bad choices, just that you have been victim to the nature of the world. But it’s not, let’s face it. We’re at a time when true equality should be starting to shine through, and my idea of true equality is not defining race, gender or sexuality, because that way everything can be viewed from a purely individual standpoint.

My favourite part of the whole "Men are pigs" generalisation is that I am basically being called a pig, my friends who are nice guys and generally caring are being called pigs (despite the person never having met them) and my brothers are too. It's so ignorant when you think about it, it's sexism that completely mirrors racism. Is it a statement that men are so incapable of individuality that they should be bracketed together? Are men all alike? Do we eat the same food, have the same hobbies, show the same (lack of) compassion? Think it through.

And I’m not “one of the good ones” in regards to men. I wouldn’t mind being called a good person, because being a good person is completely different from being “the less murderous member of the Manson family”, which is what “one of the good ones” is pretty much implying.

I am a torrenter and you should be too.

This is a huge topic and I'm really angry right now. And with what right? I'm angry that I can't receive television shows for free. But here is my logic.

I will buy the series I have downloaded on DVD if they are good, I really will, I own Battlestar Galactica on DVD and I'm still going to torrent the series. Why? Because I prefer the file formats. I hate having to sift through and locate a DVD to watch one episode. Call it lazy, but it's not, it's irritation at an obsolete file format. The amount of times I've had a DVD fuck up on me (rented from Blockbuster) it's unreal (about 6 times actually, quite real). But the point is, provided I get the money, I will buy the boxsets of the series I have downloaded, thus the whole "stealing from artists" logic is defeated. Fuck you MPAA I really do hate your shortsighted moneygrabbing ways-

Next: so we're allowed to stream the shows online for free after they've aired (see: 4oD) but the anti-P2P groups problem is that we own them instead of just streaming it? I hate streaming, it's inconsistent and without the internet it's useless, whereas downloading means you can enjoy shows anywhere, anytime. There's a hypocrisy that you can stream any music, but downloading it is punishable by prison time (maximum sentence). If I'm on a laptop, what's the difference between clicking twice to play a song from my downloads and clicking twice to find a song in my favourites? 2 years of assrape. That's what.

Virgin Media recently (very damn recently) blocked Piratebay. While there were a hundred proxies to bypass this within five minutes, (thus making their action pointless) it was a symbolic victory for the People's Republic of MPAA. We've taken a huge leap towards internet censorship, it's e-1984 in the making. Or China. That's right, those evil communists whom were judged so harshly for blocking certain sites are laughing their genitals off at the hypocrisy. And we did it for money too. Well played. Great morals.

Even if Piratebay was stopped more would spring up to fill the P2P void. And seriously, Piratebay is a goddamn legend, they've been through more court battles (and MPAA funded assassination attempts [on the servers, not the staff. Shit, I think I just gave the MPAA an idea]) than your mother has been through penii. That's a word. Or it will be, I'll make it so. Removing one distribution hub does nothing, it's like shifting the crackheads from the den in the east side of the city to the west. They're still in the city, they're still on crack. Nothing changes.

To the MPAA: And what the fuck? How stupid can you be? Are you still grasping for the golden years where people paid £10 a film without a complaint? That time is over, but your ability to make money is not. Why not look at Steam, who sell cheap products because they're downloaded. It would be easy to sell Movies and Series for £1, and get 10x the people buying them, and promoting them (because you can't deny torrenting increases the popularity of a show, which by proxy increases the merchandise sales and advertising sales for the next seasons of shows etc) and actually evolving to the internet world we live in. Offer the films/series in a selectable format (AVI, MKV, MP4) and I'm yours. But nothing you've done makes me want to buy DVDs. In fact it makes me hate you, because you're resorting to heavy-handed tactics. We're 5 years from Anti-P2P deathsquads roving around tracking packets, and 5 years away from V for Vendetta (which inconsequentially I legally own).

Why Katy Perry's "Part of Me" is terrible (the video, at any rate)

It’s not something that really needs to be explained, there are bigger beasts in this world to hunt, but here I am anyway. Part of Me, for those of you who hate Katy Perry, is a song about a woman whose boyfriend cheats on her so she confronts him in his office and decides to join the marines. Before she does that she defiles her body by cutting off her hair and strapping her breasts, apparently as a reaction to being cheated on. Why is she strapping her breasts anyway? This isn’t Boys Don’t cry, she’s joining the Marines based on a poster entitled “The Woman’s Marines”, that’s a pretty big indicator that strapping your breasts is totally redundant. I can handle her strive for independence and a need to seize power and find a confidence in herself… by becoming just like every other soldier around her. Hey, if she’d introduced a knee into her cheating ex’s balls at the beginning it would have been a short song, I get that. But here it is. It’s the constant flashbacks. She’s doing press-ups, pushing herself to be the best that she can be, and she trivialises it by reminding us that her sole motivation is she got cheated on. She can’t act for herself, it’s all about a giant “screw you” to the ex, who probably banged the hell out of that office clerk he was not-so-inconspicuously having relations with… by a huge glass window… presumably in a town his girlfriend lives in. Even at the end, as she goes to mow down some people, she’s still got that “and look at me now” look. Yeah, you showed him. Well done, doesn’t seem petty at all. “Hey, just going to join the Marines. Why? Oh, my mom just told me my room was a mess, I’m livid. I don’t need clothes, just a pair of scissors to mangle my hair and a picture of the family to burn when I’m almost finished training. Cya, Dad.”

My Trip to the Library

Something I rarely experience is my almost obsessive organisation of something. In this case, something is coursework. All of it. So I decide, seeing the messy mismatched folders, that I will take them all out of their respective folders and staple them all ready for placement in larger folders.

One problem.

Some of the pieces of coursework are 60 pages thick. You know what staples 60 pages? Not my goddamn stapler, that’s what. Those staples just crumbled like bitches without even penetrating a page. Picture the scene from Superman with the bullet.

Anyway, I decide – you know what, fuck you, paper, I’m going to win this war. So I set off for the library, at twenty to eleven because the library is open until midnight. No wait, that’s Monday to Thursday, because they are bastards.

Not wanting to waste a journey, I move to the LINC hoping to find the fabled industrial stapler of legend. Unfortunately, Edge Hill have this awkward security system that requires your student card. I have no fucking clue where my student card is. It could be in a storm drain for all I know.

Anyway, I see a girl in there. Just one, and knock on the window loud enough for her to take off her headphones. She soundlessly opens the door, lets me in, I thank her. And then I realise there are no staplers here. The trusting staff of the LINC building have locked them away for the night in case somebody tries to feed them after midnight or gets them wet or some shit.

But here lies the problem: I have just inconvenienced a fellow student, and now I’m obliged to stay for 10 minutes so as to not have wasted her time. Not to worry though, I’ve found a forgotten pendrive, and e-mail the poor owner telling them I am going to smash it with a rock.

Actually, I send them a message promising it to be handed in tomorrow in the library. That’s right, I’m now committed to a journey based on a finding during an obligation to somebody located in a place I would not have frequented had the fucking library bothered to have a Monday-Friday service.

Next time I need a stapler, I’m going to just break in, and steal five. Because fuck you.