BenPaddon.co.uk

Dear America,

Thank you for not fucking this up.

Lots of love,
~Ben 

Apparently my blog post (and a comment I’d left on Cadmium2 asking if they planned on citing a source for the rumour) resulted in Cadmium2 taking down their post about Chiwetel Ejiofor potentially playing the 11th Doctor. [Edit: Cadmium2 took down their post, "The Perils of Blogging", where they berate me for questioning their sources, so the preceding link no longer works. That's okay, though - most of it has been included here for reference anyway. So... woo.]

I just moderated a comment from someone who, as far as I can see, hasn’t commented on here before berating me rather sarcastically for not naming any sources and being misleading.

I was sarcastic? Really? I know I have a penchant for sarcasm but I’m pretty sure I was civil-ish. That’s the beauty of putting words up on the Intertron - without subtext, people tend to insert their own.

He (at least I assume it’s a he) goes on:

I typed my reply, which was basically along the lines of “I stressed at least twice that it’s only a rumour and if people are mislead by something clearly labelled as such then they deserve everything they get” but then I stopped typing. I was annoyed by this person who was taking issue with me over something so trivial and was about to start a comments war. But that isn’t what this blog is for. I want it to be fun and friendly and not aggressive or mean-spirited.

Hang on, no. My issue here wasn’t that they were saying, “It’s only a rumour” but rather that it’s a rumour I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else. In fact most of the buzz I’ve seen about the 11th Doctor today has surrounded speculation that Paterson Joseph will be taking over the role for Series Six, which Cadmium2 haven’t reported on at all. So where have these rumours come from?

So I have deleted the offending post (there are other people reporting this rumour and there will be plenty more to come I’m sure) to avoid any further upsets. However I won’t be deleting anything in future. If anyone doesn’t like what I write, go and read something else. I have no problem with people having opinions and debates on here but I won’t have it done in a deliberately provocative tone.

Hang on. No. There were no cries of “Take it down! Take it down, I say!”. Just the brief questioning of the source of the rumour (and, admittedly, a pretty bitter blog post on the subject). Apparently this was enough for the bods at C2 to take the news post down, which brings further dubiosity to the source of the rumour in the first place.

Look, I’m not writing about this to be a dick. I just pointed out some web “journalism” that, in my eyes, was of poor quality. There’s plenty of wonky journalism online (and offline too, if you happen to read any of the Red Tops or the Daily Fail) but this morning I saw a dodgy news post on Cadmium 2 - one of the few podcasts I actually follow - and felt the need to question the source of the rumour. I know that rumours, by their very nature, are unreliable, and rumours surrounding the casting of the incumbent Doctor doubly so. But saying “It’s just a rumour…” doesn’t give you a Get Out Of Fail Free card, especially when the rumour comes from, forgive my bluntness, a relatively small, unheard-of website such as Cadmium2.

In any case, I’m done. I hope we’ve all learnt something today. Especially me.

Some interesting musings on McCain:

• McCain is basically Bush v2.0. The annoying thing is that there are no significant updates or changes from the previous person save for some unnecessary bloating. In that respect, McCain is also Windows ME.
• The above is pretty much a moot point anyway when you consider that, at this stage, a vote for McCain is really a vote for Palin. It’s not that McCain would die of old age, cancer, or some combination of the two during his term. Oh, no. I submit to you that McCain is already dead and has been for at least seven months.
• That’s not strictly speaking a reason to vote for the Republicans. Especially when you consider that Palin seems to be about as consistent as a 1980s Doctor Who serial. You know the one I mean.

Some interesting musings on Obama:

• Obama is charismatic, wears a lot of black suits, and almost everyone I know wants to vote for him but they can’t quite figure out why. It would not be unfair of me, then, to compare Barack Obama to one Mr. Harold Saxon. And, as I’m sure you all know, Harold Saxon turned out to be a sociopathic alien from the future who killed one tenth of the population and went on to rule the Earth in a very sort-of oppressive way.
• It’s worth mentioning that this is because he was The Master. And The Master is incredibly cool.
• So, y’know. Dilemma.

Look, whoever you vote for, do it sensibly, okay? Don’t just pick one issue and base your entire decision on that. If, for example, you choose a candidate because he’s Pro-Life but he has no visible grasp or understanding of the Economy and ultimately sinks the US into more shit than it’s in now, chances are you’re making the wrong decision.

As a Green Card carrying emigrant, I can’t vote. I can pay taxes of course (which I love doing, by the way) but I’m not allowed to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to picking the leader of the country I’ve chosen to live in. so I’m asking you nicely, America:

DON’T FUCK THIS UP.

With ficlets.com seemingly suffering technical woes, I’m unable to actually post what I’ve just written. It was largely inspired by this new story that Andrew shared via Google Reader. I found it difficult not to turn it into some kind of story.

Detective Merope stepped out of the rain into the smoke-filled bar lit by neon signs promoting various brands of beer. He’d never been much of a beer man. Scotch was more his drink. It’d be the death of him one day, if this job didn’t get him first.

Merope saw his man at the bar and hovered towards an empty seat at his side. Time was of the essence.

“Buzz on the street is you know who’s behind the Mallory Road killings,” said the Detective, keeping his gaze fixed on the bar in front. People, he’d found, were intimidated by this.

“Yeah?” said the gaunt man next to him, a beer in his hand and a drunken twinkle in his eye. “I don’t know nuffin.”

“You’re testing my patience and I’m running out of time,” rasped Merope. He pulled his coat back to revel his weapon. “I really don’t wanna have to use this in front of all these nice people.”

“Yer bluffin,” the man smiled. “You gots one shot with that. Two, tops. Then yer dead.”

“You willing to bet your life on that? Because the sweat on your brow says otherwise.”

I’ll post it on Ficlets once they get their act together. I’m considering cross-posting ficlets here from now on as well.

Interesting Sidenote: This is my 100th ficlet. Or it will be, once it appears on the site. In the words of Socrates, “Woo.”

Edit - ficlets.com is now up and running again, so I’ve posted the ficlet there as well.  I’ve had to make some minor tweaks - MSWord originally counted twelve less characters than I’d actually used.

In an attempt to make my blog seem as mundane as possible, I’m now going to talk about my posture.

Those of you who listened to Saturday’s edition of The Program with Kris Straub might recall a very brief discussion about how photogenic I’m not. Kris mentioned that he’s seen photos of me and I always seem to be slouching, which is something I’ve been vaguely aware of now for a long time. I’m 6′ 4″ and a lot of stuff - door handles, bathroom sinks, elevator buttons, etc. - seems to have been positioned lower than I require it to be. Plus I like to keep eye contact with the people I talk to, so if I’m walking and talking to them it’s easier to simply lower myself down so that they’re not looking up my nose. That and it’s less intimidating. Also I’m scared of heights.

However, Kris is right and I need to be less slouchy and more upright and awesome. That’s been my goal this week - stand tall, walk proud (I narrowly avoided the urge to write “Walk Hard”), etc. I’ve been pretty successful save for the fact that since I’ve been keeping myself upright my back has begun to ache and, as I mentioned above, everything seems to be just out of reach. It’s annoying, to be sure, but I imagine it’s something I’ll get used to.

In other news, I had lunch with Dino Andrade on Tuesday. For those of you who don’t know, he is (amongst other things) the voice of Skull on PvP: The Series, and the founder of geek dating site SoulGeek. He’s also a good friend and a top bloke, and I’ve been wanting to work with him for a while now. Fortunately for me he wanted to work with me as well, and he’s decided I would be the perfect guy to produce and co-host Radio SoulGeek, the official SoulGeek podcast. So lunch was mostly us talking about what we want out of our respective futures (there appears to be a fair amount of overlap there, which is nice) and planning the format for the podcast. It’s all looking incredibly promising and I don’t want to give away too much but besides the usual stuff - Geek News, Interviews, music, all of which will be delivered in a unique, fun way - there’s some really cool stuff that I don’t want to go into too much now for fear of ruining the surprise. I can promise you that it’ll be available to everyone (not just SoulGeek members) and, assuming we do it properly, it’s going to be a must-hear podcast. Whee!

There’s also some very cool stuff happening with Jump Leads in the near future but I definitely want to keep that one to myself for now.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for the moment. I have work to do!

I love videogames, and I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t (unless we’re including Jack Thompson, but whether or not he qualifies as a person is another matter entirely). That said, I can’t help but spot glaring problems with the way the games industry works at the moment. I can’t imagine why people haven’t spotted these flaws and corrected them already, so here they are in all their splendour. There’s some unsavory language ahead, mind. You have been warned.

Let the good times roll.

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Am I the only person who saw the headline for this news article and immediately thought up a consolatory response from a loved one?

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Los Angeles tap water has been judged the Tastiest in the World. No it isn’t.

I heard on KROQ this morning that the Westboro Baptist Church, who you’ll recall were planning to protest at Heath ledger’s Funeral, have realised that Heath Ledger is, in fact, Australian. Chances are that his funeral will take place in Australia, and it seems the Church isn’t quite committed enough to its goat-sphincter crazy beliefs to fly all the way to the Land Down Under to protest.

I guess the Church believes that “their” God only hates gay Americans.

BBC News are reporting that a “government agency’s annual awards” have refused to give nods to a modern-day retooling of the old-as-stone children’s story The Three Little Pigs. Why? Well, it could be racist and potentially offend the Muslim community because it features pigs as principle characters.

It really does seem to be that we, as human beings, are very slowly creeping towards a society where no one does anything because there’s a risk it might possibly offend someone at some point somewhere between performing the act and the Apocalypse.

I really am starting to lose all faith in humanity.

You may have heard that Westboro Baptist Church are planning to protest at Heath Ledger’s funeral because he played a gay Cowboy (and now “Coybow” as I had originally typed) in the film Brokeback Mountain. The Church is of the opinion that, and I quote, “God hates fags! & Fag-Enablers!”, and have previously picketed the funerals of people who have died of AIDS. Clearly, the members of this Church have taken the Christian value of “love thy neighbour” to heart.

What a bunch of intolerant, ignorant, idiotic, morose, dimwitted jackanapes. I don’t honestly care which God people choose to believe in - that’s their decision, ultimately - but it’s not their place to decide what “their” God hates. Additionally, as a co-worker has accurately pointed out, God also apparently hates Haters, do shouldn’t the Westboro Baptist Church also picket their own picketing? And then picket that picketing too? Then picket that?

Idiots.