Being old and ugly enough to hate on young peoples’ music without shame I would like to nominate Tion Wayne’s IFTK as the worst track of the year.
Call me an old fogey if you lie but in my day looping a La Roux sample and muttering over the top of it while randomly shouting “BLUGH!” would get you laughed off stage, not critical acclaim and a hit single.
But, times change and it’s inevitable that they eventually change so much that you become incapable of understanding them. Or to put it another way…
I used to be with it! Then they changed what ‘it’ was! Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me!
Abe Simpson
So, you may well disagree with, or even be offended by, my opinion, but remember…
Remember when they added Gruffy to the last season of Star Trek Voyager and he was so popular that EVERY sci-fi franchise suddenly included a walrus? That was so weird.
There are a few things I need to get done this evening so I decided to go goblin mode and grab dinner from Red Rooster on the way home. I put my order in, took a seat, and was watching the staff running around trying to deal with the queue in the drive through when three people walked in.
They were a young Asian couple and an older Anglo guy carrying a wine bottle. The couple walked towards the counter but were suddenly blocked by the older guy leaping in front of them with his arms out and a big grin. They tried to step around him, and he leapt in front and blocked them again, and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
My initial impression was that they were friends and he was just goofing around, but when I caught a look at the young guy’s face he looked seriously distressed. I was just about to get to my feet to do something (moaning mentally about how I didn’t need this and just wanted to get my food and go home) when the older guy suddenly backed off and wandered out the door.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but rather than leaving the man stood just outside, yelling wildly into the night. He was – I realised at this point – extremely drunk. He then walked back in and proceeded to forcefully slam his bottle down on the bench right next to me several times – I was amazed it didn’t instantly shatter. The staff looked up at the noise but seemed uncertain about what to do about the situation.
He wandered across to a table, said hello to the Uber Eats guy sitting there waiting for a pickup, and slammed the bottle down again. He then staggered into the corner and took a seat, knocking another chair flying as he did so. His attempts to right it were notably loud and uncoordinated.
My order came up so I grabbed it, said thanks, and went for the door. The guy leapt up and staggered across to intercept me. I gestured for him to go out first in the hopes that he’d stagger out, get distracted and vanish into the night. However he echoed my gesture and burbled out “you first”, so I mentally shrugged and walked out.
I was barely out the door when he came up behind me and tried to snatch the food out of my hand! His state of inebriation however made this attempt – and its immediate follow up attempt – pathetically easy to resist. I snarled “I don’t think so mate!” and swung the bag out of his reach, before starting on my way homewards.
I decided to take the well-lit route around the front of the shops rather than ducking around the back like usual just to be on the safe side. I checked behind me a couple of times, but he wasn’t following me, or if he was he was moving so slowly I easily outpaced him. I wasn’t seriously worried – he was so drunk that if things had gone any further I’m confident that a single shove would have knocked him over.
It has recently come to my attention that filming for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 has concluded and – in what can only be described as an appalling lapse of judgment – director James Gunn has failed to consult me on what retro songs should be used on the soundtrack. It’s inconceivable! What is the man thinking?
In the face of such madness I have no option but to post the songs that should be featured, in the hopes that Mr Gunn comes to his senses. So please enjoy what I am calling the completely unofficial Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Vol 2.5!
1: Run Runaway – Slade
It’s axiomatic that the opening scene of a Guardians film needs a kickass track and what’s more kickass than the rumbling drums and wailing guitars of Slade’s faux-Scottish anthem about fleeing in terror (and – for some reason -chameleons)? Hell, open the film by having the Guardians fleeing in terror from space chameleons, it’ll be downright diagetic! (Note: I may not actually understand what ‘diagetic’ means).
2: Our Man in London – CCS
Not only does this have exactly the kind of swinging big band sound the Guardian soundtracks are famous for, the lyrics talk about rocket ships and space-age heroes. It’s a natural inclusion!
3: Zero – Alastair Riddle
Is there anything more retro-futuristic than synthwave? Yes! The synthpop music of the 80s that synthwave attempts to imitate! And is there any synthpop more synth or more pop than hand crafted New Zealand synthpop? I say no, and offer this unfairly obscure gem by the David Bowie of West Auckland, Alastair Riddell, as proof!
4: Sugar Baby Love – The Rubettes
Every Awesome Mix needs a love song, and what better than this ridiculous bubblegum confection? Half the lyrics are “Bop Shawady, Bop Shawady-wady” and what could be more Guardians than that?
5: Prologue and Twilight – ELO
This would have worked spectacularly well at the start of Avengers: Endgame where Captain Marvel rescues Tony and Nebula, but the Russos unaccountably chose not to consult me. So I’m offering it to Mr Gunn instead. I mean Mr Blue Sky worked great in Volume 2, didn’t it? You can never have too much ELO!
OK, so that’s just five songs, but they’re five awesome songs, perfectly suited for the final installment of the Guardians trilogy. And on top of that I don’t work for free! If Mr Gunn wants to hear the rest of my suggestions (which definitely exist) we’ll have to strike some kind of deal. Have your people call my people James, I’m sure we can work this out!
As the turning of the year speeds us onward into winter the time has come for me to actually make a post. Don’t expect this to be a regular thing mind you, it’s likely only possible because I’ve taken a week off work and hence actually have the time to think.
Anyway, this week someone on Reddit had decided to compile a list of Adeptus Astartes war cries (yes, I’m on about Warhammer again, deal with it) and helpfully posted the same to the 40kLore subreddit. When browsing through this list I noticed something a bit strange – can you spot it?
“Doom ye! Doom ye! Doom ye!”–Doom Warriors
“Skovakarah uhl zarûn!” (“Redden the earth!”)–Emperor’s Spears
“Bringers of war!”—Emperor’s Warbringers
“In too deep, against all odds brothers!”—Genesis Chapter
“”We are the hammer!” or “I am the hammer, I am the right hand of the Emperor, the instrument of His will, the gauntlet about His fist, the tip of His spear, the edge of His sword!”—Grey Knights
“Primarch-Progenitor, to your glory and the glory of Him on Earth!”—Imperial Fists
“The flesh is weak!”—Iron Hands
In case you’re not an ageing Gen-Xer and the title of this post didn’t tip you off, it’s the war cry of the Genesis Chapter, who apparently charge into battle yelling “In too deep, against all odds brother!”. What immediately startled me about this can best be summed up with the inclusion of a couple of videos…
So, we are being asked to believe that the war cry of the Genesis Chapter just happens to be built from the title of a Genesis song, and a former-lead-singer-of-Genesis-Phil-Collins song?
Now, sure, Warhammer 40k is probably the most plagiarism-guilty IP in human history. It’s cobbled together from chunks of Dune, Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, the collected works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Judge Dredd, the generalised evil of Margaret Thatcher and dozens – if not hundreds – of other sources. There’s barely an original idea in the whole thing. But directly quoting prog-rock lyrics seems a little too on the nose even for Games Workshop. So what the hell is going on?
I started digging. The oldest reference I could find to the alleged war cry is on the Genesis Chapter page on the 40k Fandom Wiki – which immediately sounded all kinds of alarm bells.
Warhammer 40,000 has been a thing since 1987, and since then an absolutely titanic amount of background lore has been generated. Organising it all into a Wiki is the obvious management solution, and as a result there are a number of 40k Wikis on the web. The big three though are Lexicanum, 1d4Chan and the 40k Fandom wiki.
Lexicanum is – in my opinion – the most reliable as it insists that all information must be properly sourced. It can be a bit dry and academic though, being very much the “just the facts ma’am” 40k wiki.
Your Spiritual Liege
1d4Chan (when it hasn’t gone offline, which it seems to do regularly) is an obscenity laced carnival of memes that – once you scrape off all the hyperbole – is often surprisingly accurate. It’s also the only of the big three to really include meta-information – that is to say info about the history and community of 40k . If you want to understand the hate directed towards C. S. Goto, or know why Matt Ward is your spiritual liege it’s the place to go. On the downside it’s not updated that much any more, and if not tempered with more reliable sources can easily delude new 40k fans into confusing memes and jokes (usually very dated memes and jokes – like those involving Matt Ward and C. S. Goto…) with actual lore (For instance the Death Korp of Krieg are not suicidal and they do not regard shovels to be their ‘cultural weapon’, and you cannot kill Orks by pointing a gun at them and shouting ‘bang!’).
The 40k Fandom Wiki… well, to be frank, I do not like it. Its moderation and sourcing rules are extremely lax – pretty much anyone can post anything they like there and it’s up to other uses to spot and correct it. Which brings us back to the Genesis Chapter…
On February 8th 2011 – yes, that’s over a decade ago folks! – some wanderer of the digital waste decided to have a bit of fun with the Genesis Chapter Fandom Wiki page and made a series of edits to the info box, which I shall display here as a before and after screenshot…
Sussudio – first charted by Explorator Petrus Gabriellus in 994.M30!
Such wit! Such satire! Actually, to be entirely honest, it’s exactly the kind of joke I’d make, but I certainly wouldn’t go and vandalise a wiki with it!
The joker’s changes were reverted pretty quickly, but whoever did it seemingly lacked the necessary knowledge of Phil Collin’s back catalogue to recognise the war cry as part of the prank, even adding quotes around it to standardise the format. And so it has sat there unchanged for 11 years, spreading through the fan community as the accepted war cry of the Chapter!
I may try to do something about this. Or I may not. All in all I suppose we should just be glad that the Genesis Chapter don’t charge into battle yelling “Billy don’t you lose my number!”
As is my way, I have once again become utterly captivated by a song. This time around it’s Zero by New Zealand’s own Alastair Riddell.
Now, some may say I’m late to the party, the song in question having been released 41 years ago, but I prefer to think of myself as making a deliberately delayed dramatic entrance. In any case I can hardly be blamed for not knowing a song that was only released in a foreign country and which (completely unfairly by the way) utterly failed to make an impact there. In any case it’s making an impact now, on me, and that’s what matters.
It is also my way to – when captured by a song – want to know the words so I can sing along and possibly even dance in an extremely undignified manner. These days this is pretty easy, as the lyrics to every song you could ever want are freely available online. Except it seems those of Zero. In digital terms the song barely seems to exist. This could not be allowed to stand, so I have done my best to transcribe it myself and present it here for the education and edification of the world.
Zero – Alastair Riddell
Zero has a way, she’s often bad, Plays round, I’m always sad, She knows what to do, She’s a royal pilot too, oh,
She stares into my eyes, Should see her lover’s eyes, She’s a light above, A light to guide, A light, What she knows,
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, Well you ought to see the sparkle in her eyes,
Last night I dated Zero, I wanted her to see, That as no one else will do, The one she needs is me,
She laughed and shook her head, So foolish and serene, She looked so beautiful, Her flight suit was in green,
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, Well you ought to see the sparkle in her eyes,
Zero, Zero, No one knows like Zero, She’s got the world in her hands, Zero, What am I going to do? (What am I going to do?)
Commander Zero, Hello Zero, I want you Zero tonight, Won’t you come in on my airwaves? Commander Zero, Hello Zero, A special feeling today, With your, Strange hair and, Strange eyes and, That’s why I love you,
His name is Mal-Mal-Malcador! The greatest Sigillite! No treasure too old, no psyker too bold, Who’s that!? Malcador the Sigillite!
Well hello there! I’m Malcador, the last surviving member of the Ancient Order of the Sigillites. My friends call me ‘Mal’ but you can call me First Lord of Terra and second in command of the Imperium of Man. I make sure the Emperor’s will is done – when the big E says ‘jump’ we don’t even bother asking how high! (If we get it wrong he’ll let us know!) But it’s not all work, work, work in the Emperor’s service, no siree! We know how to have a good time too – isn’t that right Horus?
Mal… M-Mal… al…
Oh don’t mind him! He’s just trying to pronounce the name of one of the Lost Primarchs. Keep at it Horus, you’ll get it one day! Yes, we inhabitants of the Imperial Palace work hard, but we also play hard! As my good friend Constatin Valdor will agree! Get over here Constantin!…
Well, the hell-year of 2021 is over and done with and we can celebrate the start of hell-year 2022. Boo! Hooray! Boo! Hooray! Call me when you’re finished.
I did have big plans to get up super early this morning, get an Uber to the Camfield and enjoy the year’s first sunrise while walking along the river to Mends Street Jetty. But when it got to 1:00am and I still hadn’t fallen asleep I decided “screw it” and turned off my alarm. I’d rather start the year at least somewhat rested rather than try to get by on only three hours, no matter how good it might be get some healthy exercise and set an example to live up to for the next twelve months.
One thing I have done today is get my votes in for the Hottest 100. Rather embarrassingly it turns out that one of my favorite tracks of the year, MØ’s Nights With You, wasn’t in fact a track of the year at all. being released all the way back in 2017, so Cloudy Day by Tones and I got promoted up to my number 10 instead of 11. I also voted for Montaigne’s MBMBaM theme song My Life is Better With You which isn’t on the official list, BUT I DON’T CARE! My track of the year is Ziggy Ramo’s Little Things, and if that makes anyone uncomfortable then (to quote Phil Jupitus) Well fucking good!
Anyway, here’s the full list, alphabetically by artist…
(What? You don’t consider how stupid our calendar is on January 1st each year? What’s wrong with you?)
It is a truth universally acknowledged by all right thinking people that the Gregorian Calendar is a hodge-podge of terrible ideas smothered in a layer of well meaning but equally as bad hacks intended to force it into some semblance of functionality. The majority of the problems stem from the irrational belief of the Ancients that the universe is (or should be) some kind of clockwork mechanism where the movements of the celestial bodies all mesh together into a grand yet simple pattern – as opposed to the reality that they’re big lumps of rock and gas that whiz around doing their own thing with no obligation to match the neat mathematical models we humans prefer.
I make everything worse!
As such, the period of rotation of our planet (a day) does not fit evenly into the rotation of our moon around our planet (a month) and neither the day nor month fit evenly into the rotation of our planet around the sun (a year). Building a calendar on the assumption that they do causes horrible problems and results in said calendar drifting away from reality until people are planting their crops in the middle of winter and starving to death.
(We correct for this kind of thing with tricks like leap days, which is where we save up all the left over bits of days at the end of a solar orbit and then shove them back into the calendar once they add up to a full day. This is actually a pretty good solution, although sticking them at the end of the second month is the kind of thing only a lunatic would consider sensible.)
The mismatch between the solar year (365.2425 days) and lunar month (29.53 days) is responsible for the horrible mess of our calendar months. Four of them are 30 days long, seven of them are 31 days and one is 28 days (or 29 when we need to shove in one of those leap days). This is stupid.
And to add to these problems we went and invented the week – a period of seven days that doesn’t match up with the month or the year. The result is sheer insanity, requiring complex calculations to figure out what day of the week a given date falls on, and making vast sums of money for the calendar printing industry.
Enough! I cry! A new calendar is desperately needed, and I – in my supreme intelligence (not to say arrogance) – am the one to create it!
As such I am pleased to here present the Wyrmworld Calendar!
The Wyrmworld Calendar (WYC) consists of 13 months – the twelve we currently use plus Hektober – each of exactly four weeks long (28 days). The first day of each month – and the first day of each year is a Monday, so you never need to buy a new calendar.
This comes to 364 days, which leaves 1.2425 days over a year. The one full day is Yearsend – a special day inserted between Sunday Hektober 28th and Monday January 1st that isn’t part of any month and doesn’t have a day of the week. The remaining 0.2425 days are saved up as per the current leap year system, and when a leap day is required it’s added as Leapday between Yearsend and January 1st.
So, that takes care of the years, days and weeks, but how do the 13 months of the Wyrmworld Calendar line up with the moon? Well, they don’t. The moon makes everything way too complicated and can go frunk itself. We are human beings, not fish!
The Battle of Thermopylae was (2022+480)-1 years ago!
With the cycle of days figured out we now need to set an epoch. The Gregorian Calendar Epoch – BC/AD or BCE/CE – is just terrible, You have to count backwards for anything interesting in ancient history and then you have to account for there being no year 0. How old would Cato the Elder be if he were still alive today? He was born in 234 BCE so we need to take the current year of 2022 and add 234 and then take away 1, so he’d be 2,255. What year would he have had his 724th birthday? So we take 234 away from 724, but then we need to add 1, so 491 CE? THIS IS CONFUSING!
The sensible answer is to push the epoch back beyond recorded history so all the numbers that matter are in the positive. Cesare Emiliani’s Holocene Calendar does this with the neat trick of setting the epoch to 10,001 BCE, meaning we just add 10,000 to the current CE/AD year. The Wyrmworld Calendar is not afraid to steal good ideas, so we will do the same! So the current year is 12,022 WYC and Cato the Elder was born in 9,767 WYC. Easy!
(The battle of Thermopylae was 9,521 WYC in case you were wondering…)
Finally, exactly when is the new year? We currently celebrate new year at an arbitrary point in the Earth’s orbit and this offends me. The new year should be tied to something meaningful. The logical choice is a solstice or equinox. To minimise confusion we’ll use the (Gregorian) December solstice, and for reasons of convenience reference the Gregorian 2021 solstice of December 21st. The solstice shall mark the last day of the year, with the next day January (WYC) 1st.
So, adding it all together today is Thursday January 11th 12,022 WYC. I expect the world to start using this far superior calendar immediately!
“Your workstation is not equipped with a caffeine holder!”
“Sir, I need you to turn the cogitator off, recite the Third Canticle of the Omnissiah, then it on again.”
“Yes, I know you’ve already done that, but please, humour me and do it again.”
“Are you sure you’re turning off the cogitator and not just the holo-projector, the cogitator should take at least a minute to…”
“Sir, if you continue to use that kind of language I’ll end this call and inform the Inquisition.”
“Thank you. Alright, the cogitator is the large, glowing cylinder covered in purity seals beneath your desk. You should be able to see a brain suspended in the fluid.”
“No… the brain definitely should not have ‘mushrooms’ growing out of it. Are the purity seals intact?”
“Why in the name of the God Emperor did you remove the purity seals?!”
“Sir, that noo-mail was a hacking attempt from the Dark Mechanicum! Didn’t you read the security bulletin!?”
“Alright sir, disconnect the cogitator from the power feed and wait by your workstation. An Ordo Malleus support team will be with you shortly…”
Your friendly neighbourhood Ordo Malleus Support Tech
