The title of this blog may seem confusing, but I've been listening to a song by a band called Arab Strap, called One Four Seven One, so numbers are in my head just now. Anyway the number in question refers to the original number of Pokemon. Yes, that's right, I'm writing about Pokemon. As I sit here with multiple essays to finish and not one of them going at all well, my mind has drifted from this futile exercise to obscure things, one of which has been Pokemon.
I loved Pokemon as a kid. I was the right age when it became known in Britain, and before long I owned a copy of Pokemon Blue on my Gameboy Colour and was hooked on the anime series, though strangely not the trading cards. I dunno, I never saw the point of buying a bunch of paper to swap with other people to get more valuable bits of paper. Bear in mind that in order to get those cards in the first place you traded in the only paper that has any real value at the shop counter. I'd rather have a few Queen Elizabeths and Robert the Bruces on my person than some worthless Charmanders.
Anyway it was radical at the time, going out on a quest catching animals and using them to fight your friends and enemies in an attempt to be the very best. I never complained or scrutinised anything, I just embraced it in all its fun and silliness. Pokemon, as if you didn't remember, was a worldwide phenomenon and I'm glad it's been part of my story.
However, in my recent looking back on it, I've noticed how silly and impractical the concept is. First of all the protaganist, whether that be the video game character or Ash from the TV series, is ten years of age. Aye, imagine if you were mum or dad and your ten year old kid said he wanted to scour the length and breadth of the country by himself throwing balls at shit instead of going to school and getting a basic education, would you permit that? "Aye on you go son, sounds like a great idea. Wear the same clothes day in day out, sleep in forests or in weird peoples houses, provoke wild animals into fighting you while you throw your pet at it and hope it doesn't die. How about go and do your fucking homework!"
The little critters never died either. They just pathetically passed out when the fight got too emotionally taxing for them. In real life, cock fighting is barbaric and bloody, and cockerels don't even have any powers. No way has this never gone too far. There has to be at least one battle where a pokemon took it a little too far, especially when half the time there's fire and electricity involved. But no, they just faint and wait for you to take them to the nurse, the same nurse in fact who always happens to be in the same town you are just in time for you to get your pokemon healed. Perhaps Nurse Joy is actually a bunch of octuplets or so, but funny how this appears to be the same story with Officer Jenny. Does the land in which Pokemon is set have a lot of octuplet families serving in the exact same job as each other, or is there only one nurse and one police officer in the entire country? Both seem ridiculous.
Also, has anyone ever considered the enormous expense of Pokemon training? This isn't even dealt with in the series, and only briefly in the games when it comes to potion and pokeball buying. Imagine having six pets constantly on your person, and over a hundred others back at the professor's house. Imagine buying food for these six pets, who are burning the calories having to fight all the time. The franchise likes us to forget these practicalities, but no way do these creatures not have to eat. And I don't imagine Professor Oak just does it for free because he likes you. Nah, he'll expect a cheque for the hundreds of mouths he has to fed on a daily basis. I can imagine the prize money from entering that massive world championship or whatever may cover the expenses somewhat, but like all sports most people never win. Perhaps of course Pokemon gets government funding. Yeah I think I've cracked it now. Tax payer's fucking money. Its the only way these tossers can happily go about being pokemon trainers without being billionaires.
They have a strange amount of honour these creatures. If you best them in combat and successfully subdue them in a magic ball that happens to be far too small for them, they are your willing servant for life. This is in spite of losing their carefree existence in return for, from their point of view, pointless set piece fighting, as opposed to their formerly primal instinctive fighting. The series tries to get over this by making out that Ash really loves his pokemon and that's why they fight for him. If the PM said to you he loved you before sending you off to fight in some war, would you go willingly? Unlike you though, these creatures are in a great position just to kill their masters. Again, none of them ever do it. Not that their powers seem to do anything other than induce fainting.
I'm sure there's loads more criticisms I can make about Pokemon, but I can't think of them right now and I need to do some work. As harsh as I've been on it though, I will still always have fond memories of Pokemon, as it defined part of what was a happy childhood.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Friday 4 March 2011
Hairstressing
Yes, as the awful pun of the title suggests, today's target is hairdressing. As some of you are aware, and others have probably now figured out, I have had a seriously drastic haircut, going from long flowing Neil Oliveresque locks to a military buzz of sorts, something I haven't had in a few years.
It isn't all bad. I enjoy the ease of styling this haircut affords me, and people have reacted surprisingly positively to it for the most part. In a matter of months it'll probably grow to the length I was originally hoping for when I decided to cut it in the first place.
Basically I went and gave an outline of what I wanted, which was rougly two and a half to three inches off my long hair, and enough to cover my forehead again. In someways the result was close, but it was too thick and the left side was wonky. So, I later went to another place to get some of these faults fixed. It wasn't going to be perfect but I thought it would improve on the look. Unfortunately, it only became worse, to the point at which I felt I couldn't go outside with it, so I decided just to cut it off using my hair clipper/beard trimmer device thingy. I now have an even inch of hair all round to start afresh with. By the end of summer it'll be the length I could have had in half an hour.
My story aside, it's now time to moan about haircuts in general. One thing I've noticed is that they don't interpret inches well. Don't give them inches because that's too complex apparently, they'll ignore that and give you what ever vague idea they have of how short they think you mean. Maybe then, you could try telling them what the shape of it is in your head without being too precise. Big mistake again. You've now given them free reign to do whatever the hell they want with it. I guarantee it will not even resemble anything you had in your head. The final option is of course to give them a picture to work with, say if you want to copy someone's style or go back to one you had before. I'm sad to say I tried this once and it still didn't turn out right.
That said, you can still hope for something quite nice. It's never going to be what you want, but you may surprised at the new style you walk away with, or it may grow on you (pun intended). However there are generally two obstacles which usually trash this notion. The first is when they give you no layers at all, and you end up with a helmet head haircut. Often they'll cut off the required length at the back and sides where its easiest, but not cut the same length off the top. The result is a heavy haircut which always fails to stay in a decent position. The second obstacle is when they do give you layers. Expect from this scenario a hacked up, sticky up, uneven, wispy travesty of a cut. When I said earlier I had two attempts at getting my hair right, you've probably figured out that the first time resulted in hair disaster number one there, and the second attempt resulted in hair disaster number two.
Thus the benefits of buzzing it and starting again become apparent. I'll grow it evenly to the right length, and ask only for the most conservative of trims to keep it at the same length. Hopefully I can then go to the same place again and again and ask for the "usual" once I get to know the barber or hairdresser.
It isn't all bad. I enjoy the ease of styling this haircut affords me, and people have reacted surprisingly positively to it for the most part. In a matter of months it'll probably grow to the length I was originally hoping for when I decided to cut it in the first place.
Basically I went and gave an outline of what I wanted, which was rougly two and a half to three inches off my long hair, and enough to cover my forehead again. In someways the result was close, but it was too thick and the left side was wonky. So, I later went to another place to get some of these faults fixed. It wasn't going to be perfect but I thought it would improve on the look. Unfortunately, it only became worse, to the point at which I felt I couldn't go outside with it, so I decided just to cut it off using my hair clipper/beard trimmer device thingy. I now have an even inch of hair all round to start afresh with. By the end of summer it'll be the length I could have had in half an hour.
My story aside, it's now time to moan about haircuts in general. One thing I've noticed is that they don't interpret inches well. Don't give them inches because that's too complex apparently, they'll ignore that and give you what ever vague idea they have of how short they think you mean. Maybe then, you could try telling them what the shape of it is in your head without being too precise. Big mistake again. You've now given them free reign to do whatever the hell they want with it. I guarantee it will not even resemble anything you had in your head. The final option is of course to give them a picture to work with, say if you want to copy someone's style or go back to one you had before. I'm sad to say I tried this once and it still didn't turn out right.
That said, you can still hope for something quite nice. It's never going to be what you want, but you may surprised at the new style you walk away with, or it may grow on you (pun intended). However there are generally two obstacles which usually trash this notion. The first is when they give you no layers at all, and you end up with a helmet head haircut. Often they'll cut off the required length at the back and sides where its easiest, but not cut the same length off the top. The result is a heavy haircut which always fails to stay in a decent position. The second obstacle is when they do give you layers. Expect from this scenario a hacked up, sticky up, uneven, wispy travesty of a cut. When I said earlier I had two attempts at getting my hair right, you've probably figured out that the first time resulted in hair disaster number one there, and the second attempt resulted in hair disaster number two.
Thus the benefits of buzzing it and starting again become apparent. I'll grow it evenly to the right length, and ask only for the most conservative of trims to keep it at the same length. Hopefully I can then go to the same place again and again and ask for the "usual" once I get to know the barber or hairdresser.
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