What you do know will kill you

This week we'll be taking a lighthearted look at that most serious of matters: Death.

To be more precise, we will take a look at deaths that were self inflicted but not suicides. All the people featured on today's list caused their own demise either through some consequence they themselves set in motion or by not thinking straight.

First up in our macabre cavalcade is Sigurd Eysteinsson, a.k.a. Sigurd the Mighty, 2^nd viking earl of Orkney. I imagine you have to be pretty bad-ass to earn the moniker “the mighty”, especially amongst vikings, who took things like that seriously. Anyhow, in about the year 892, he killed his hated enemy Máel Brigte and took his head as a trophy. Perhaps he was going for an even tougher nickname, we'll never know.

For you see, Sigurd tied Máels head to his saddle and rode off. But he failed to notice that Máels teeth were rubbing against his leg as he rode. This caused a small wound which turned septic and killed Sigurd.

Talk about revenge from beyond the grave...

Next up is Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (1751-1771).

We're not going to go into his life so much as his demise. You see on 12 February 1771, the king decide to dine on lobster, caviar, sauerkraut and kippers. He washed the whole thing down with champagne before ordering dessert. His favorite dessert in fact, semla. These pastries are traditionally served in a bowl of hot milk, and the king scarfed it down, and ordered another, and another, and another, and then ten more! All in all, he crammed down fourteen portions, before keeling over dead.

Sure, it's good to be the king, but come on!

From king to commoner, we leap into the modern age. Here we find David Grundman, an Arizona man in a serious relationship with his shotgun. One day in 1982, he decided to head out into the desert with the above mentioned shotgun to shoot the ever living hell out of some stuff. And by stuff, I mean cacti. Mostly the saguaro cacti native to Arizona. If you can't be bothered following the link, think of a cartoon cactus vaguely shaped like a man. Shooting these cacti is considered vandalism since they take centuries to grow so big.

Anyway, after executing some smaller cacti, David took aim at a really big one, blew it's top off and promptly met his maker, as it fell on him, crushing him to death in it's spiky embrace.

I guess David got nailed in the end...

Finally, I want to present Basil Brown. Basil was a very health conscious man, and you'd not find him choking down fourteen portions of semla. Oh no, Basil was all about carrots. Juiced carrots in fact. But he does have one thing in common with our unfortunate Adolf Frederick: he couldn't stop in time either. In 1974 he drank 10 gallons of carrot juice in 10 days. That's 45 liters, or 4.5 liters a day. Another way to put it would be 10000 times the recommended dose of vitamin A, which quickly killed his liver and then him.

Too much of a good thing, you know?

That's it for this week folks. Remember, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. Or how it does you.

When it's good, it's brilliant

A new week is upon us again, and since it gets so dark so early these days, I thought we could all use a good laugh.
So I dug out three of the funniest commercials I know. Yes, commercials can be both funny and smart when they decide to really put in the effort.

Without further ado, I give you a Korean Tea commercial, and Australian Beer commercial and finally a Mountain Dew commercial with Steven Seagal (some of his best work).



Come to think of it, these are all drinks commercials. Was I thirsty when I decided on these?

Do you know what you're saying?

Everyday, where ever you go, you hear people using idioms. Idioms, or as they're usually known; common sayings permeate our languages. I doubt there is a single language in the world that doesn't have hundreds of sayings in active use.

Some, like Bee's Knees and Cat's Pajamas (both mean “a good thing”) were popular in the 1930's but have since fallen out of use.

However, a great many have survived through the years, sometimes even through centuries – yes hundreds of years – though their meanings can have changed radically.

I thought it'd be fun to look at some common ones.

Saved by the bell. To be saved at the last moment.

This one has dual origins. Some think it comes from the practice of burying people with a string running through the coffin lid and attached to a bell, allowing a person who was mistakenly buried alive to signal for help. The problem is that, although this was practiced during a short period of time, there are no records of anyone actually ringing the bell, and thus being saved.

The other possible origin, comes from boxing. A fighter would be a punch away from going down when the bell rings calling an end to the round, thus allowing him time to recover.

The first version probably stems from the 17^th century while the second comes from the 18^th century.

Fair and square. To deal honestly with someone.

We don't know who came up with this one first, but George Puttenham used this phrase in 1589 in his The arte of English poesie, and Francis Bacon said it in Of Prophecies in 1604. In any case, square was used as the definition of honest, as opposed to being crooked and twisted in your dealings. Related to this is Being straight with someone.

To pass with flying colors. To easily succeed at something.

This hails from the Age of Sail (16th to the mid-19th century), when ships had to rely on flags, or colors to communicate, since no one had been bothered to invent the radio yet. To pass with flying colors meant you were openly declaring your allegiance and intent. Compare it's current usage with a phrase like I sailed through the test, in both cases indicating how easy you found it. So to pass with flying colors has gone from complicated maritime communication to finding things easy.

First rate. The best quality available.

Another legacy from the Age of Sail, this idiom originally meant the heaviest class of ship in the fleet. Ships were classed by rates, and a first rate ship was the biggest and had the most cannons. Today restaurants and hotels can be first rate, service and transportation can be first rate etc.

If you want to learn more, google it. The web is full of site dedicated to idioms and sayings, and remember: it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

World War Zzzzz

During the weekend I decided to watch World War Z. I have read the book, and let me just say the book is as good as the film is bad. Which is to say the book (written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks) is damn good.

The following post is stuffed with SPOILERS, just so you know.

My first reaction when I watched the trailer was one of real disappointment. One of the key features of the book is that the zombies are slow. They even reference the Romero movies (Dawn of the Dead etc.) to give the reader the right image.

In the movie they are fast zombies, a la 28 Days. So what, you ask? So everything, I reply! This changes the entire plot, from the focus to the execution.

In the novel, Gerry collects and correlates survivor stories after WWZ is over. The narrative goes from outbreak to reclamation, and illustrates how it happened, what didn't work and why it didn't, and finally how the earth was slowly an painfully taken back from the shambling hordes.

Every chapter focuses on different people in various parts of the world, from an Indian general to a Japanese otaku. From American families just trying to survive to Russian zealots hunting the dead.

Mr. Brooks also illustrates brilliantly how ineffective modern weapons are against a gargantuan horde of zombies who can't be hurt or demoralized. You have to destroy the brain to kill them, making things like land mines useless. I loved the part where an economic formula is developed to calculate the acceptable cost of killing one zombie, where one bullet per kill is too expensive to make recovery possible.

Now in the movie, Brad Pitt goes on an international run-away-from-zombies tour, only to discover a surprisingly easy solution to the entire problem. Easy but ridiculous. Since they changed the style of zombie, the book no longer works, and you are stuck with a pretty generic movie featuring rage zombies.

Stylistically the film looks great, it truly does, but that's the only good thing I can say about it. Even an actor as good as Brad can't salvage this. All the scenes with his family are wooden and feels unreal, which means that they become annoying rather than gripping. The only reason I didn't want Gerry (Pitt) to die, was because that would have made him the great Martyr, and this film has enough cliches as it is.

Every once in a while, particularly in the beginning, they throw little moral lessons at you, as if to say “Look, we're making statements about humanity here”. The helpful junkie & the uncaring cop, the Israelis and Palestinians living side by side etc etc. This does nothing for the movie what so ever, it only bogs it down with more useless scenes.

Then we come to the dumbest part: the last half hour.

Gerry is in a plane crash on his way to a W.H.O. Center in Wales. Apart from himself, the only survivor is an Israeli soldier who helped him get on the plane in the first place. (A zombie, a hand grenade and explosive decompression took care of all the other passengers).

As Gerry comes to, we see that a bit of metal has been run all the way through his gut. The soldier he's with, had her hand chopped off in Israel, but despite these horrific injuries, both make it to the W.H.O. Center! No shock, no blood loss, no lying down and screaming. Oh no, you see, they're heroes!

Once at the center, Gerry is unconscious for three days and after that, he only expresses mild discomfort when he wakes up. Hours later he's running around bashing in zombie brains with no sign of pain at all. After having his gut impaled? Riiiiight...

Finally the reason he went to Wales in the first place. Gerry-boy has figured out that the undead, and yes, the zombies are undead, not just rabid humans, avoid attacking seriously sick humans! Really? I guess they magically sense this while sprinting around.

So of course he's put in a position where he has to randomly choose a disease and inject himself with it to avoid the zombies. And of course it works, and of course humanity is saved. And no, he didn't choose Ebola by mistake...

End with joyful scene where he is reunited with his boring family. The End, thankfully.

In conclusion, they've taken a well written, thoughtful book and turned it into a boring, generic and pointless action movie.

World War Z could have been a great TV series. It's pretty much already written as one, but no, we get a bland rehash instead.

Technically well made – apart from all the jagged action scenes that are so en vogue these days – but if you're going to watch this, turn off all expectations first. There are many more “What? Really?” scenes that I haven't mentioned, but I'm sure you get the point.

Just read the book instead.

Eldritch Gaming

On the day before yesterday, i.e. Saturday, I grabbed a copy of Eldritch from Steam. At first glance I thought it was a Minecraft clone or at least some kind of spin-off mod. Something like that anyway. The reason is the similar graphics. It has a very blocky 3D style to it's graphics, not unlike the famous mining game.

But Minecraft it is not. What we have is a fun little indie game set in the 1930's Lovecraft-verse that my readers know I'm so fond of.

Eldritch is incidentally created by David Pittman and his brother J. Kyle Pittman. They've previously worked on titles like Borderlands, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Bioshock 2, so we're talking experience here.

Now the object of the game is to collect three souls from three realms in order to avert the familiar “The Stars Are Right” scenario. (At least I think so, the game is not too bogged down by story). In order to do this you have to traverse said realms and either avoid or defeat the squamous denizens that dwell therein.

There's nothing too revolutionary about the game as such, apart from one feature I haven't seen before. If you loot a dead enemy, it'll respawn. If you don't, it stays put as well as dead. This leaves you in the position to judge whether you need the resources badly enough to risk encountering the enemy again later. You are very squishy in Eldritch and you go down fast if an enemy gets the drop on you.

The first realm, The Temple of Dagon, was pretty easy, so I was completely unprepared for how hard the Realm of Nyarlathotep was, and I died pretty fast. When you die, you can resurrect in the Library, where the game starts, but you loose all your gear except for any artifacts you have stored in your chest. Only artifacts can be squirreled away, so I lost my gun, all my ammo, my boots of jumping and my compass. Ah well, back in the saddle and off you go again.

I really like this game. It's suitably tense without being stressful. But that said, expect to swear a lot when you die over and over again... Unless you're a Lady (who don't swear) or a better gamer than I am.

In my opinion well worth the about 10€ it costs on Steam. Check it out.

This is the end

A few nights ago I sat down and enjoyed This is the end, the new movie by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.

I first became aware of this movie from the most natural source there is, it's trailer. This trailer in fact:

Since I'm assuming you just watched that, I don't think I'm in too much danger of spoiling anything, so here goes.

The whole point of the movie is that all actors play themselves in an apocalyptic scenario. Usually I'm a bit leery of that concept, but here it works pretty well.

Now if you were to accuse the creators of this film of tooting their own horns and bragging through out, I couldn't really fault you for it. Nor could I blame you if you complained that it's Christian propaganda, since these accusations are technically a bit true. Can something be a bit true? Eh, just go with it.

These points are valid, but it would be pretty damn unjust to leave it at that, since it's not all This is the end is. Mainly it's a really funny movie. I laughed heartily several times and chuckled even more.

But why are these accusations true? Well the actors keep talking about the stuff they've done previously and it gets a bit much, but what would you expect actors to do at a Hollywood party? Exactly that! So I suppose we'll have to forgive them.

Then there's the religious bit. Maybe a little spoiler, but the trailer does show all the necessary clues. The apocalyptic bit is the Rapture. Now the bible does talk about the Rapture, but the version showed here, and that's so popular especially in the U.S. was invented in the 1830's, and it annoyed me a bit that they couldn't have used another apocalypse. Maybe it's just me.

Either way, this is the route they chose to go down, and the movie as a whole is good enough that I didn't really care too much. At least it wasn't zombies. We've had enough zombies for a while right?

In the end, This is the end is a funny film with good effects and decent acting. If you're looking to just relax and have a good time, check it out.

Anno Primus

Eccentric Spheres was born on 16^th October 2012, which means that this Wednesday is it's first birthday!

To mark this special occasion, I'd like to share a few facts and stats with you, my readers, about you, my readers.

First off, the total page views as of this moment is 1388. Not that many, but I'm happy with each and every one of them.

The post with the single highest page view count apart from the “Welcome to Eccentric Spheres” is the one about Ripper Street, with 59 hits.

Now the blogger stats page is a bit wonky at times, and unfortunately I can't get a proper break down of all the countries that my readers – you – hail from. However the top ten are available, and they read as this;

Finland 664 (no surprise)

United States 271

Germany 111

Russia 95

The UK 64

Netherlands 16

Poland 16

Ukraine 13

Portugal 11

Czech Rep. 7

This adds up to 1268 views which leaves 120 views from other countries I can no longer access, but I seem to remember Australia, Hungary and Saudi Arabia amongst the readers missing from the list.

So a big Thank You to you, the people who inspire me to post week after week all year long! Not a single week have been missed so far, even though I've “cheated” a couple times.

I hope you will all stick around for another year, and perhaps if you feel it's merited, bring new readers to Eccentric Spheres.