Fight Club isn’t just Men Punching Each Other

This post is somewhat to prove a point to someone who refuses to watch the film, as it apparently lacks plot and is just men punching each other. Although this post breaks Rule one and two of Fight Club, I will continue irregardless.

                Fight Club has greatly impacted on society, especially since the 1999 film adaption. The ‘First Rule of Fight Club’ is constantly referenced in popular culture and is well known, even to those who haven’t read the book or seen the film. The author Chuck Palahniuk is an American-born author and freelance journalist. He was written several books, but Fight Club was the first to be published. His books have a reputation for being disturbing and the first novel he tried to publish, Invisible Monsters, was rejected by publishers on these grounds. Palahniuk says this about Fight Club: “Parts of Fight Club have always been true. It’s less a novel than an anthology of my friend’s lives. I do have insomnia and wander with no sleep for weeks. Angry waiters I know mess with food. They shave their heads. My friend Alice makes soap. My friend Mike cuts single frames of smut into family features. Every guy I know feels let down by his father.” Fight Club is more than a critique of modern day society; it is a mockery of it. Chuck Palahniuk pokes fun at the conventional way of living; the narrator says: “You do the little job you’re trained to do. Pull a lever. Push a button. You don’t understand any of it, and then you just die.”

                Fight Club is about a generation of men raised by women. It is admittedly, a book aimed at men. Not because it’s about violence and hitting each other to solve problems. It’s a book about male issues. Male anxiety is a key theme of the book.  Castration is mentioned several times throughout Fight Club and is even used as a threat towards the Narrator. Palahniuk described the method of castration in detail leaving the male readers wincing in horror and terror. It is difficult to read as Palahniuk leads you to believe Tyler and the Space Monkeys are going to castrate the “Seattle Police Commissioner whatever.” Towards the end of the book, the Space Monkeys are going to castrate the Narrator as per Tyler’s orders should anyone try and prevent Project Mayhem. The group sessions that Joe helps him find comfort among men who have similarly gone through a sense of masculine loss when he attends a testicular cancer group session. Joe finds comfort among them as they have been through a physical emasculation whereas Joe has been through a psychological emasculation. Bob has his testicles removed and is on hormone replacement therapy. His body produced too much oestrogen. This caused Bob to grow more womanly and grow breasts – which the narrator calls ‘bitch tits’. Bob’s wife divorces him and leaves him with nothing. This shows the importance of masculinity and the consequences of losing it. There is phallic symbolism throughout, as Tyler spends his time splicing a single frame of oversized male genitals into kid’s films so the whole family will be treated to a split second of someone’s penis during an animated film. Also, there is phallic symbolism behind Tyler’s plan. In Tyler’s plan, he wants to blow up a skyscraper which is a phallic symbol and bring it crashing down. This is symbolic of the destruction of masculinisation.

Fight Club spawned two academic conferences, a Hollywood film, and documentary movie; an entire issue of an academic journal, a fashion look and even real-life illegal fight clubs. It had an immense impact on society. It challenges society and addresses the struggles of man. It also an incredible read, I enjoyed reading it and I enjoyed watching the film.

It is not just about violence. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Changing Tastes

I recently came to realise that all the things I currently love are things that I used to hate. I’m not sure how this happens but it’s true. Let me give you a few examples:

Pizza. Didn’t like this to I went to Italy.

Bacon. Although my father used to cook the bacon until it looked like the remains of a bonfire so this isn’t the best example.

Star Wars. Yes, I know it’s shameful but I honestly used to hate Star Wars. I mean, I saw the Phantom Menace when it came out, just like the rest of the kids in my generation. I even went to see Attack of the Clones. Although I enjoyed them, my interest in them faded shortly after I realised I hadn’t a clue what was happening. Later, I was forced to watch the original trilogy and didn’t understand these either. It wasn’t until someone bought me Lego Star Wars for Christmas one year, that I actually started to enjoy Star Wars. Now, I love Star Wars.

I suppose that as you grow older, the things you hated suddenly don't seem all that bad and things you used to like suddenly seem a bit shit. This brings a new hope to things I currently hate. Maybe in a few years’ time I’ll be a vegetarian, tofu eater and Lord of the Rings fan. 

Let’s hope not though.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Drinking Games

I recently took a habit to writing my own drinking games. I've written quite a few, and thought I'd share them with my very loyal readers... Well, yes... Anyway, here they are:

Match of the Day

· Every time there is a goal
· Yellow Card
· Red Card (two drinks)
· Slow motion
· If your team is on or mentioned
· Animations


How I Met Your Mother

· Time is displayed
· Future Ted talks
· They rip on Ted
· Barney's catchphrases
· Lily's a dick


Sexcetra Drinking Game

· New Boobs
· Presenters boobs
· Something weird
· Old people involved in sex
· Sex is a happening
· You learn something you might use


Family Guy

· Cutaway
· Peter says something stupid/the giggle
· Brian/Stewie says something pretentiousness or it is made obvious they are baby/dog
· Lois is a bad mother/person
· Rips on Meg
· Sub Character (Evil Monkey, Herbert, News Guy, Patricia Tawanawa)
· Un-named charcters
· Celebrity appearance
· Every time you laugh you drink

American Dad

· Steve mentioned boobs
· Stan is too conservative/anti-liberal/patriotic
· Hayley says something hippy
· Francine is moany
· Roger says something weird
· Claus speaks
· Patrick Stewart speaks
· Every time you Laugh you drink

Doogie Howser Drinking Game

· Every time, Doogie's age comes up
· Every time Vinnie climbs through the window
· Every time Vinnie says something cringeworthy to women
· 2 drinks every time Doogie fails to balance being a Doctor and being a teenager


Tomb Raider (The Games)

· Every time Lara groans
· Every death
· Every time a wild animal randomly appears
· A puzzle is solved
· Every checkpoint


Skyrim

· Every time you kill something or someone
· Two if a dragon appears

· Three if a quest is completed
· Four if "I used to be an adventurer like you"



If I think of any more, I'll be sure to add them here. And that's all I have to say about that.

How To: Bullshit your way through an essay

This picture is completely irrelephant.

It is really simple to bullshit your way through an essay, no matter how long it is.. I'm sure you've been faced with an essay at some point in your life and you're not entirely sure what to write. Or you have to review a book, and the truth is you haven't been arsed to read it. Or you watched the film instead.So, I'm going to give you quite a simple way of getting through it. Follow this nice easy guide to writing a load of crap.

Start with a nice long sentence which essentially just rearranges the words in your title or question and maybe add a tiny bit to it. Then go onto explain what this question means, what the circumstances around it are. This is the point where you should add a bit of totally irrelevant background detail. Basically, find an appropriate wikipedia page, read the top section which summarises everything and paraphrase that. Then add any other information which is kinda relevant but could easily go without being mentioned.

There are a multitude of ways you can then start rolling out your points. I always use this one. There is not one essay I have written in the last three years which didn't have "multitude of ways" somewhere in it. It's just a nice fancy way of saying 'I have lots of stuff to talk about and I know what I'm saying.' and plus multitude is a really posh word that you wouldn't really hear in every day conversation. Make sure you do actually have a point. That much is essential. As long as you have a point though, you can pad it out. Put down your point, and then feel free to explain it in detail. Go into as much detail as you feel necessary. Make sure you're explaining things that are actually quite basic points but you can still kinda get away with saying. This adds to the word count. Sometimes you can be docked marks for not being within 10% of it, so make sure you're getting somewhere in that ball park.

Thus, use a nice connecting word to get to your next point. Moreover, therefore, on the other hand and to be used rarely, however are all good. Then feel free to add your counter point and pad this out too. Your main waffle is going to be when you get to your explanation. Make sure you half repeat yourself. Touch on something but don't go into detail and then later, say it again but this time with a bit more detail. This way, you can avoid repeating yourself while maximising word count. Just get those words down. Get in the zone. Let your fingers touch the keys and let the bullshit spew down your arms through your fingers onto your Microsoft Word document. 

Soon, you may realise that you are one decent sized paragraph away from the right kind of word count. There's where you dish out the irrelevant - yet also quite interesting - point. Make sure it makes contextual sense. I mean, yes, it's irrelevant but if you're writing an essay about the economic situation of Australia in the 1980s, don't start talking about the potassium content of bananas. A good example would be while doing an essay about Stalin's policies, include a paragraph comparing his policies to Hitler's policies. This isn't relevant but neither is it irrelevant. If this point is good,  it will make you look good and clever and then hopefully the marker will be all like, well yes they clearly know they're stuff. When infact you've read your way through two or three wikipedia pages. Do not underestimate the power of wiki. Read lots. Never quote. Paraphrase rarely.

Some people like to write their conclusion at the start. These people are weird. Don't listen to them. Your conclusion should just be a regurgitated version of your introduction plus what you have learned since then. Then add a slice of your own opinion, although obvious you should use the first person to show that these are your views. Then add on some all powerful note, either leaving it on a question or some moral statement. This makes you seem all philosophical and shit and since this is the very last thing your reader will read you want them to leave feeling good about you.

And that is how you bullshit. I've just bullshitted about bullshit. 

And that's all I have to say about that.

Disclaimer: I do not bullshit on my assignments at University and I always make sure to do all my research a week in advance and plan what I am going to say. Promise.

Since when did I act my age anyway?

So currently, it's 07:38 on the 10th of December, 2011. Which means that I am now twenty years old. Well, technically I was born at 2pm exactly GMT (Well, it was 3pm in South Africa, which is an hour ahead) so I'm not EXACTLY twenty yet. But this is my birthday.

For a while now, I've been teasing people who are twenty and taunting that they are 'Halfway to Forty'. Ignoring the inevitable consequence of time and the dragging of days towards December. And then, kinda like a brick wall it hit me that I too will be old. I am no longer a teenager. I am now a certified twenty something. Even while writing this, I am grimacing. How did this happen? When I started this blog, I was sixteen. Now I'm a fully functioning adult living away from home, paying bills and washing my own clothes (when I can be arsed).

It doesn't seem like so long ago that I'd wake up, have breakfast and then spend the majority of my day playing PS1. Crash Bandicoot. Spyro. Monkey Hero (What a game!) It doesn't seem like so long ago that I sat my SATs in Year 6. It doesn't seem like so long ago that I was sat in a random room at Trent being interviewed my Mr Edgar. It doesn't seem like so long ago that I got my GCSE results, or the last day of Trent, or the day I moved into The Bakery in Cardiff.

Time can be cruel, but I don't care. I'm Dan fucking Rowling and even though I am too old to be swearing on a blog on the internet, I don't care. This changes nothing. All this means is that I have been on this Earth long enough to enjoy twenty cycles around the centre of the sun. And what a nice twenty cycles they have been. I have enjoyed them completely. And just because I've hit a milestone, doesn't mean I'm going to radically change. I'm still Dan fucking Rowling.

Apologies in advance for being a douchebag but I'm going to quote Ferris Bueller: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you might miss it.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Miracles

A miracle is mostly defined as an extraordinary event in the physical world which appears to be so great, that it was the creation of divine intervention. You can all probably think of events in your life or someone you know's life, which someone would claim is a miracle.

However, I am an atheist. I don't believe in miracles. I don't understand how theists can believe in miracles either. If God acts every day to help and save us in these miracles, where is he when other stuff happens? Where was God in February 1945 when Dresden was being completely annihilated in the Allied bombings? Where was God when the Atomic bombs were (in my opinion, unnecessarily) dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Where were the miracles when 20,000 people died on the first day of the Somme? For every miracle that happens, there are many anti-miracles. As in, events which appear to be the opposite.

'Miracles' do occur, but they are not a product of divine intervention, they are a product of mathematics. Profesor Littlewood - a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University - theorised that so called miracles happen to an individual on a basis of one a month. Littlewood defines a miracles as a special event happening at a frequency of one in a million. Then assuming that humans experience one event every second (for instance, seeing the computer screen, moving the mouse, reading this blog). He then assumes humans are alert for eight hours in a day. According to this definition of a miracle, you can expect to experience a miraculous event every thirty five days.

End of the day, things happen. Some strange, some not. Whether you explain those events are divine or not is irrelevant, they still happened.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I Think My Life Just Gained Direction

Last week I had a thought, and I think I've pretty much decided what I'm going to do with my life. I was told recently that now I was 19, I'm meant to have some kind of idea to what career I might be doing with my life, so I gave it some serious thought. And as far as I could figure I could do a few things, such as: Radio Presenter,  Something to do with the Police Service (As Official Vocab Guidelines state that Police Force is too aggressive), Teacher, Scuba Diving Instructor or something to do with business.

And then it hit me and I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it before. I think I want to be a lecturer of History. I would start as a lecturer, and then become a Professor when I'd completed the appropriate research etc. If it's good enough for Ted Mosby, it's good enough for me. But, I'd definitely want to be a Professor because I'd want to have a doctorate. I'd have to initially do a Masters in History and then, I'm not sure what else.

But running my own classes, I would really love that. I'm genuinely interested in History and I really like talking about it. I like telling people about it and educating people. By doing this, I could spend some time living in a foreign country, which I've always wanted to do (Wales doesn't count, btw). And this way, hopefully I can become a published Historian as well. And besides, they said you should do something you enjoy and I certainly enjoy History.

So in a few years, I might be Dr Rowling.

And that's all I have to say about that.

30DGC - Day 25

The most sick game you ever played.

I don't know... Who cares? I pick games for their amazing story, believable characters, amazing soundtrack, epic gameplay, multiplayer abilities, innovation, superb graphics and atmosphere it creates. I don't pick a game simply because that game allows you to chainsaw a man in half. But since we're picking, I'm going to saw Super Mario Galaxy because on one of the first levels, you commit genocide. True story. Play the game.

30DGC - Day 24

Your favourite board game.

Wait... You want me to pick a board game? Why would you want me to pick a board game? I thought this was about real games, not silly board games? Siiigh. FINE. I'll play along. I was thinking about going for the very obvious Monopoly, as I used to love that game. It's the epitome of capitalist games. But I decided not to, instead I remembered a better game that I used to play. Mouse Trap. With this machine you start by turning the crank, that rotates the gears, that push the lever, that moves the shoe, that kicks the bucket, that sends the ball down the stairs and into the gutter, that leads to the rod that releases a second ball, that falls through the bathtub and onto the springboard, that catapults the diver into the washtub, that causes the cage to fall and FINALLY, hopefully, capture a mouse. Truly genius game. Used to absolutely love it. Wish I could get my paws on one.

30DGC - Day 23

Game of your childhood.


Digimon World. Obviously, a lot of games are from my childhood but when I look back to my childhood, this one really sticks out. I'm not sure why this one does in particular. I think it's because I put the most effort into it and I really liked it. I spent a long time having no idea what to do. I was thoroughly confused and really bad at the game. Morevoer, I would never listen to anything people had to say as I was always in a rush to go out into the world with my Digimon. Anyway, somehow I stumbled upon the way to play the game and managed to become reasonably good at it. I don't think I ever got near completion, but I did get rather far. Far enough to be proud of myself anyway. I just had a look online, and if I want to play this again, I'm looking at at least £20 used. If I want to buy it new, it will cost me £250. I'm definitely going to buy it at some point though. So worth £20 for the game of my childhood.

30DGC - Day 22

Game that you never finished.


Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Absolutely shameful I know. Many years ago, I got to the final boss and couldn't kill him. I tried a few times and then eventually gave up. When I tried to return to the game, I still couldn't do it. And then I lost the disc and now I can never finish it without repurchasing the game. And it's expensive. So perhaps, this game will be forever go unfinished. Or perhaps in a few years times, I'll get all obsessive, buy it for a ridiculous amount of money and then finish it. If I do, I'll come on here and gloat. I promise.

30DGC - Day 21

Game with your favorite soundtrack.


Final Fantasy X. Beautiful soundtrack and a beautiful story. It came a close second in my favourite RPG. I bought the soundtrack and loved it. It's perhaps the only soundtrack to a game I've ever bought. I might go listen to it now actually...

30DGC - Day 20

Game that was your biggest disappointment.


WET.  Utter rubbish.

30DGC - Day 19

Your favorite Massive Multiplayer Online game.


I was well into this back in the day. I spent an entire summer playing this game when I was 16. It was practically all I would do. I was really really addicted to it. MMORPGs are addictive. Stay clear of them. Except this one. It's amazing.

30DGC - Day 18

Your favorite game based on a book.


I had a look at this. I went on Google and found this. It's a list of all the games that were ever based on books, as you can imagine, there aren't many. And of these very few titles, I have played very few of them. I have briefly played Dante's Inferno. I have played the original text based Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the web. And I played Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers when I was a kid. So I have a choice of three. I refuse to chose. This is a stupid day.