Riding my High Horse till it drops.

In the background to this post, my Wife is watching "The Sex Education Show vs Pornography."

And its pissing me right the fuck off.

Now, its very difficult to get on your high horse in defense of Porn. Just ask Jacqui Smith. So I'm not going to try. The reason this show is pissing me off is the pure and simple Soapbox anti-sex attitude of the presenter, Anna Richardson.

Now, I'm all for having a frank discussion with teenagers about the fantasy stylings of Porn vs the realities of sexual relationships. However, Ms Richardson seems more concerned with an out and out indictment of anyone who seems to actually want to enoy their sex life.

To Illustrate: at the moment she is going around a high street, seeing how many sexual products she can find. The implication she seems to be making is that it's easy for teenagers to walk in and buy a Cock ring or Lube.

Her exact words:

"Ooh look, a cock ring, in between the Milk and the Crumpets."

...I have to do this.



Now, I've worked retail. Back in my Halcyon Livejournal days, I used to rant extensively about my time working in a One-Stop (a small brand owned by Tescos.)

Now, we weren't high street exactly, but we certainly were a point of contact for people doing their shopping. One of my favourite stories of the place is from when a guy came in to return a pornographic magazine he'd purchased. His big issue was that the free DVD wasn't in the package. He had waited until I, the Male member of staff, was alone on the counter to try and return it. Unfortunately for him, being a lowly customer assistant, I didnt have the authorisation to retake the magazine. I had to call Zoe, the shift manager, to come and do it. Cue embarrassment and giggles.

(on a side not, my wife just pointed out that while Ms Richardson is commenting on how the oversized Penises in porn damages boys self esteem, she just happilly humiliated a boy whose voice hadnt broken in the audience.)

Anyways, the point of the One-stop story is not that porn is freely available and able to be viewed, by anyone on the high street, because it isnt. These days, every single porn mag in any chain shop comes in a sealed plastic silver packet, that hides all the content on the cover except the title.

The same applies to cock rings, lube, and hell, even condoms. These days, its easier for a kid to go to their school nurse to get condoms than it is to get them at the shop. As for toys and sex aids, You have to be over eighteen to buy these products. given the level of security at most supermarkets these days, a fourteen year isnt simply going to go in, pick up a cock ring and walk out again. It simply is not going to happen.

These toys are for consenting adults. Ms Richardson seems to think that people should still have to go into seedy little sex shops in order to get something to liven up their intimate time.

She really goes out of her way to make the Ann Summers chain look seedier than it is. I've been inside an Ann Summers shop. Its actually a pretty nice, Sterile atmosphere. Ms Richardson tries to give the impression that the instant you walk in you Are surrounded by Sex Toys.

Again, this isnt the case. From experience, you have to walk to the back of the shop, to an area enclosed in such a way that any items it contains cannot be seen from the front of the store. Hell, even in "Seedy Sex Shops", the glass at the front is completely Opaque, and covered in warnings about the content contained within. It certainly isnt as simple as Ms Richardson makes it out.

On another note as to why this show annoys me: There is a clear bias over where the shows discussions of sex with the teenagers are going. All of the boys are portrayed as horny little bastards who just want to be pornstars - any time a myth Ms Richardson wants to debunk is shown, its always a boy making the comment. Whenever a talking head of one of the girls has been shown, it is purely to indict the boys of their proverbial crimes. All this to illustrate "How Porn is Damaging our kids!"

The third note is her little campaign against the internet. Yes, the Internet is a hive of porn. It IS ridiculously easy for children to find porn on the internet. Hell, at the age of 14, I ran up a £200 bill by downloading porn Dialers on my laptop.

However, the solution is NOT going to PC World and demanding they have the Internet Filters enabled on their computers from the off. Sorry, like, I'm an adult male - if I buy a new PC, why should I have to prove I'm over 18 in order to view any site I want?

The Solution is NOT going to BT and demanding why they arent preventing the evil Internets from having porn on them.

The Solution is The Parents who are oh-so-shocked by this material pulling their fingers out of their backsides and ACTIVATING the Filters. It should be noted that PC worlds PCs do come installed with parental controls - that the parents have to then set up. BT's Broadband services DOES come with parental controls and password security to prevent your little darlings getting their grubby little mitts on material they shouldn't.

But as Parents, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure they are active. So Mr Dad, hows about you put down Beer number four and go have a chat with little Bobby about the material they might find and about sex in general. Mrs Mum, hows about you drag yourself away from Eastenders or the latest issue of OK magazine and set the goddamn password on the internet to something only YOU know. Activate those parental filters whilst your at it, and make sure that even if your kids are in the internet, you know they can't access this material.

And if you're seriously so worried about internet porn, hows about you make sure your children DONT HAVE UNSUPERVISED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET.

And yes. It simply is possible.

Robin Hood and TNA Impact!

I entered into watching last nights TV with a certain amount of trepidation. The Two major shows I was watching for the evening were Robin Hood and TNA Impact. In the case of Robin Hood, I was worried because at the end of the last series, they killed off Lady Marian out in the Holy land, and to be honest, how can you have Robin without Marian?

Fortunately, in the first episode, this wasnt even a factor. The Anger both Guy of Gisbourne - who had also loved Marian and consequently murdered her for her love of Robin - and Robin feel towards each other spilled over into utter hatred, leading to an Awesome brawl/duel at the start of the episode.

The whole theme of the episode was Robin re-discovering his purpose as Robin Hood - aided by Friar tuck, who apparently knows kung fu.

Hey, works for me. The whole episode pretty much revolved around action. admittedly it had the same old "Merry man/men gets captured, tortured then rescued by Robin" plot, but it was still pretty fucking entertaining, and a good mindless opener to a good, mindless series.

TNA however, still has its share of problems. that said, last nights episode was pretty damn good. Generally, the wrestling tends to be Overbooked on a TNA show, with too much interference and too little quality, however last night worked really well. admittedly, the Suicide/Kiyoshi X-Division Title match was way too short, as you just KNOW these two could go like the clappers if they had the time. The other lower card match was The Beautiful People vs Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed. I'm getting the impression that TNA is trying to turn Kong Face, given that since Gail Kim left they simply dont have that top women's babyface they so desperately need. Taylor Wilde tried, bless her, but in a division full of Generic Blondes, she was just a Generic Blonde with a Title Belt.

The main event, however, which went for about 40 minutes was just Excellent, the cage-match Gauntlet had action from End to end - the only real downside being that there were far too many eliminations that you didnt actually see due to commercial Brakes. My wife felt that Kurt Angle's Dominance in the match was annoying, but to be honest I liked it for the sheer fact it was pushing the story forward that Angle and the Main Event Mafia wanted to Dominate and set up their win for the Lethal Lockdown captaincy. The fact that Jeff Jarret didn't win it set up the ending perfectly, when Samoa Joe - with his new "Kill every motherfucking thing that moves" persona, came down and dropped Kurt with a Muscle Buster for the pin.

All In All, it was an excellent show, and to be honest at the moment I'm far more excited about TNA Lockdown than I am about WWE Wrestlemania 25.

-Bendana

Nothin' But the Rain... (SPOILER WARNING)

Well, Its all over.

I've dipped in and out of Battlestar Galactica for the whole of its four year run, and after the final episode played in the UK last night, Epic is pretty much the only way to describe the series. Even after reading up on the backstory, the fact that the show knew when to bow out on a high says lots about the way it was written.

And it was absolutely fantastic.

Right from the off, the Finale set the pace, interspersing flashbacks with the current events of the show. The Battle of the colony was fantastic in its sheer realism, with the crew of Galactica desperately trying to keep the Cylons from blowing them all to hell.

In a way though, the episode is going to leave me with a lot of bittersweet feelings. To be honest, even though I knew it was written out of the series, I was always after a true Apollo-Starbuck hookup and when Kara dissapeared at the end of the episode it left me sad, but not disatissfied. The mysticism that permeated the series - the sense of the higher power being involved - was one of the things that took the series away from the campiness of the original.

The most heartwrenching moment for me though wasnt any of the character dissapearances or deaths - Even though Roslin's death was fantastically and passionately done, in no small part because of James Edward Olmos's incredibly passionate acting in the scene - The Moment that broke my heart was when Galactica makes its final FTL jump to Earth. when the ships frame bucks and heaves after the jump, it looks like a creature in physical pain, and when Tigh announces that her back is broken, you feel for the ship itself, that carried its crew so far and fought so hard to protect them. When Sam Anders guided the ship into the sun, as the colonial anthem - the original series theme tune - played in the background, it was an absolutely beautiful moment.

In the end, the series bowed out at a perfect time. Rather than push itself too far, like Heroes or Lost, Galactica told its story perfectly from End to End, keeping its momentume without sacrificing its style.

And boy, am I gonna be investing in the complete series DVD set when it comes out. no competition.

-Bendana

caught a bit of TNA Destination X Last night.

Don West is infinitely more entertaining as a heel. Seriously.

In movie news: If you are a certain age, then you will probably have read certain books as a kid. This may have been one of them:

Where the Wild Things Are.

Now, its easy to presume that once again they are going to rape your childhood memories. But that is disregarding one simple fact:

That poster looks motherfucking AWESOME.

Oh, and Iron Man 2 and Green Lantern are set to start filming. Yeah.

Mini-Rant of doom.

1) The Simpsons is currently trying way to hard to be like family guys. random jokes do no fit its style, as illustrated by the st patricks day episode that aired last night.

2) I likes my "Town called Eureka." I does not likes it when sky pre-empts it for "Shane Richie - Make me Irish."

3) Please, Please, God can we get Joey Styles back as the play-by-play man on ECW. Him and Matt striker would be frigging AWESOME.

-Bendana.

Prince of persia, Blood the Last vampire, and Dragonball.

seems I never really use this blog anymore. oh well, time to break the habit, as it were.

I'm at home after a week of work at my new job - yes, in a move that will surprise the three people who read this blog, I've moved away from door to dooring - and although I've acutally been at the job for about six weeks its still taking a little getting used to. basically, I work in the cal centre for the criminal records bureau. to answer the first two questions out of your mouth:

1) no, I cant look up your criminal record. I dont have access to it, and even if I did I'd get sacked for doing it.

2) I cant make the checks go any faster. I work in the frigging call centre.

anyways, the wife (oh yeah... got married two weeks ago as well. probably should have mentioned that...) has been away for the night so I decided to have a wander around the dingy back alleys of the internet. in doing so, I came upon these little gems:

PRINCE OF PERSIA.

Prince of Persia Images

so... yeah. I'm a big fan of the Prince of Persia games - even if I suck at them... but Jake Gyllenhaal? Mr Jake "Whitiest White Boy On the Block" Gyllenhaal?



seriously, I'm even a big fan of JG's work. hell, the guy was one of the very feww redeeming features of "The Day after tomorrow" but seriously, JAKE FUCKING GYLLENHAAL? AS THE PRINCE OF PERSIA? much as I admire the guys acting, he really isnt a dude I picture jumping off of walls with a sword and slashing up sand demons, y'know? Hell, I'd buy Shea LaBouef more than Jake Gyllenhaal.

and to be honest, its another part of an already mildly dodgy trend. There are talented Arabic actors out there. Last time I checked Jake Gyllenhaal wasnt the biggest box office Draw on the planet so precisely why has he been given this role?

A friend of mine recently had a rant on her livejournal about how the live action film of Avatar: The Last Airbender had, despite featuring a character group consisting primarily of asian people, has been casted featuring almost entirely caucasian actors. Prince of Persia seems to be following a similar trend. As I Said, Dodgy.

Blood, The Last Vampire.

The International Trailer

Before I get into any real rants about this one, I fucking LOVE Blood the last vampire. I still have my original edition VHS of the original anime.

However, there is one rather significant issue with making a feature length live action version:

Blood: The last vampire was essentially a showreel for Production I.G.

The whole point of this movie is to show of the animation techniques of the studio. And they think this is a good one to adapt for a US Audience? although that said, at least they're keeping the characters as Japanese.

Not sure how this will go down. there isnt exactly a lot of plot to keep the popcorn munching crowd away, and the potential for pleanty of stylis action as the trailer shows, but we'll see. There is going to have to be a hell of a lot of padding though, since the original is only 48 minutes long.

Moving on...

Dragonball Evolution.

Dragonball Evolution main site and Trailer.

I have to admit, unlike most people, who seem to be having something resembling a universal brainfart over this movie, I'm actually really looking forward to it.

The Reason? I'm not so fucking dumb that I'm going to take fucking DRAGONBALL seriously.

I mean, come on. This is the series where for entire episodes that characters squatted and went "HRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" whilst glowing yellow.

And the fans think that a live action movie could possibly ruin this concept?

you know, I hate to reuse and image, but...



you may be noting that I'm not repeating the previous rant about character-Racial elements simply because no issue of race was ever made in Dragonball as a series. but seriously, this film looks MOTHERFUCKING AWESOME. It has all the elements that ever attracted me to Dragonball are here: Martial arts, fantasy action, scifi action and Energy blasts.

To Butcher a quote, The Had me at "KameHameHa."

So yeah. I'm gonna use this thing a bit more often from now on. theres too many movies I like the look of for me not to.

-Bendana.