Sunrise From Mars by Dale

Click for a larger version. Image courtesy of JPG Magazine.

Starting with last year’s Champions, and although Manchester United failed to win, their start last season was actually pretty abysmal and they still won the title. Newcastle could be facing a tough season ahead and United really should have won.

Chelsea may have won 4-0 but the result was a little misleading. Portsmouth were truly terrible in the Community Shield and look like a different side. Last year, they were very hard-working, and played some excellent football at times. This season they look like a side believing their own hype from last year and simply not trying.

Chelsea will play better football this year. They’ll score goals. Scolari’s teams always do, but their real tests will come at the other end. When you play open football, you rely on pace at the back, as your defence is more exposed to counter-attacks. This is not their strongest suit. Against the better sides this could yet be exposed.

The midfield unit that played against Portsmouth also lacked a quality defensive player (no, Mikel is not quality) and a similar criticism could be levelled at Arsenal. Although he is clearly better than Obi Mikel, Denilson is still unproven and Eboue is just not a natural midfielder (he shouldn’t be on the wing either). Still, West Brom have a couple of decent players, and could well stay up if they play like that all season.

Liverpool were fortunate to come away from the Stadium of Light with a victory, but they won, and on the opening weekend that’s all that matters. They’ll need to perform better if they have real ambitions of winning the title but a win’s a win.

It looks like we’ll have a tight title race in prospect. Bring it on!

Regular readers will have seen that he often plugs the Mystery Topic Challenge, hoping, seemingly in vain, to persuade all of you that don’t already to take part in it. Such pleas looked like they were falling on deaf ears until Stella took part last week. Lo and behold, she not only took part but won, which just goes to show that you never know.

So why not follow her example and take part? You’ve got to be in it to win it.

No, the sorts of thoughts he meant were “good”. Not that kids deserve abuse, but rather it prepares them well for life and toughens them up. He suffered abuse as a kid, many of his friends did too, but all of them are stronger for the hardships. We have learnt that to trust anyone else is always a mistake. Trust is too easily abused. DTA.

Children that are neglected (rather than abused) learn self-reliance, something which is all too rare in our society today. Too many kids today have an entitlement complex. The ones that don’t (often the product of broken homes) will reap the rewards of that. They will prosper immensely from their peers’ inability to fend for themselves.

Is it wrong to contend that childhood abuse can be a (albeit cruel) gift in disguise?

There was a time when dreams were not real. These days they might be real. Dreams are dreamt by the ones that dream. They are real. by Corne Lategan.

Click for a larger image. Image courtesy of Flickr.

So what’s the big deal this time? That they’re being held in a Communist country for the first time since the Cold War ended? Please, China gave up any sort of claim to being a truly Communist country once they got into bed with American Capitalism.

Tibet? Mr President could not give a rat’s arse about Tibet. Screw Tibet. Honestly, let it go already. Tienanmen Square was 18 years ago. Actually if you believe the Chinese the whole thing was all just a figment of our imagination. Besides, that was entertainment of the highest calibre. Mr President misses the days when Communism was evil.

James Bond’s never been the same since Glasnost. Bring back the Commies!

As for Sunday, he was nursing his sensitive stomach. He never has the normal hangover with a headache or the highly sensitive eyes or ears. It’s always the dehydration that hits him, and leaves him with a dodgy tummy. And only when he mixes his drinks.

In the spirit (pun intended) of his drinking shenanigans comes today’s quiz.

Your result for The what kind of drunk are you Test…

Loaded.

You scored 13 drunk points!

Take The what kind of drunk are you Test at HelloQuizzy

He has a question for you. When he goes out to a nice bar, the girls are always dressed in skimpy outfits that leave little to the imagination. He’s not complaining, but these are usually the first girls to complain about being objectified by men. Surely if they dress in this way they not only giving you permission to gawk, but are seeking it?

Why do women dress like that, if not for men to pay attention to them?

When he started Wiki-Wednesday, he liked the idea of a “lighter” post. His content could be rather dry and serious at times and Wednesdays are dour days enough as it is. What good could come of yet more depressing stuff to encounter every Wednesday? Naturally whatever replaced the Wiki-Wednesdays would have to conform to this.

Wiki-Wednesday had actually failed to do so. In the end “random” topics only meant that the content was often dry and dull, and only rarely interesting. So what did this blog lack that could fulfill this criteria? What could be added that be “uplifting”?

The answer was simple. Textual Relations needed visual stimulation.

Every Wednesday there will be a new photograph to raise your spirits.

One Way by Lulabelle.

Click for a larger version. Image courtesy of DeviantArt.

Does this sound familiar? You get a block of time to catch up on things that you need to do, whether it’s household tasks or something for work. Say a weekend which you have already earmarked to do tasks which you didn’t have time for during the week. It starts well, you wake up late (it is the weekend after all), make some coffee or tea.

You sit down in front of your computer. Check your mail. Decide to “pop into” Facebook to check your messages Before you know it, four hours have passed, and all the stuff you’d planned to do can’t be done because it is getting late. There is hardly much time left in the day and you kick yourself for falling into the trap of teh internetz.

We’ve all done it. Well salvation is here. Leechblock is willpower in a bottle*.

*Note, it’s not actually in a bottle because fluids and computers don’t mix.

Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test…

Serious Cat

44% Affectionate, 41% Excitable, 56% Hungry

Take The Which Lolcat Are You? Test at HelloQuizzy

Why, in our “now now now” world, do people seem intent on the “quick fix”? Where did this current trend away from self-reliance come from? These questions arose from the discussion boards of an online game, yet their relevance is far broader than that. These are questions that go to the very heart of our society, the values for which it stands.

This game has a Wiki that acts as a manual. There’s also an FAQ. Yet, despite the fact that the links to both these resources are next to the link for the boards, questions that can be easily answered by consulting them are asked with startling regularity by almost every new player (and worse yet, sometimes even asked by experienced players).

When someone recently got annoyed by this trend, they retorted “RTFM”. The response from the new player was that they were always taught that if they didn’t know something they should ask. Mr President’s retort was that he was always taught that if he didn’t know something he should avail himself of any resources that might enlighten him.

Only when these failed should one ask for help. Is this wrong? Ignorance is not absolved by asking ignorant questions, but informed ones, wouldn’t you agree? Mr President has always used the phrases “Google it” and “Google is your friend” to suggest that if one doesn’t know something, one ought to research it themselves and be self-reliant.

Asking for help off the bat smacks of laziness and a “quick fix” attitude. There are other examples of the trend. Since HTML can be used to do some rather cool things with your gaming profile, people have asked for help. When told to use “view source” (and they do) and told what tags to search for, they complain it’s too hard. Only for someone else to come along and tell them precisely how it’s done, making you seem unhelpful.

How is that helping them? Telling them what to do doesn’t teach them anything.

(This would be a great time for one of those “Give A Man A Fish” quotes)

Have we as a society lost the art of self-reliance? Do we no longer see it as a virtue?

Somehow time flew last night and one minute it was 10pm, the next it was 4am. Though that wasn’t actually why he didn’t post, since he didn’t even remember until close to 4 anyway! Recently his memory has been especially poor. He left some belongings when staying over and left the downstairs light on when going to bed a few nights ago.

Is Mr President finally getting old (at 27)? Is it early-onset Alzheimers? Help!

Based on the recent feedback, though, he had decided to abolish the Wiki-Wednesday altogether and went ahead and deleted all of the scheduled posts. The problem was he forgot he would need to replace the content so he assumed there would be a scheduled post yesterday. Old habits die hard it seems. It shouldn’t occur next week.

Nevermind. It gave you more time to read his wonderful MTC entry. Voting’s open, head to Blog Ninjas’ MTC Blog now to vote for your favourite entry (Mr President’s).

Hiro Gets Game by Mr. President

In Someone Else’s Shoes by Stella

My Day As Al by Andy D

Coming of Age in the Shoes of Another by MooPig

I Am A Woman Damned by Jayne d’Arcy – feel free to appreciate, but I’m not eligible for the favorite vote.

To vote: Go to the MTC Blog

Welcome to another great Mystery Topic Challenge, brought to you by Blog Ninjas. This week’s topic was chosen by Jayne, the originator of the challenge and worthy winner of MTC#13. She’s been unfortunate to not win before as she’s probably the finest writer of our bunch and always produces such fascinating entries to every challenge.

Needless to say her choice of topic was equally inspired. Here it is:

Put Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes

Blogs, for the most part, tend to be personal and egocentric. For this challenge, choose someone, real or imagined, in the news, a world leader, or a bum on the street. Write a post as if you were in their shoes for one day. You can write on any subject you’d like, but it MUST be from someone else’s point of view.

Having spent the best part of the last year completely obsessed with Heroes, since Hiro is his favourite character, Mr President chose to write as him. As a man used to writing under his true identity the idea of pretending to be someone else is alien, but he’ll try.

Today I met a very beautiful girl. Thankfully, this time, she is not already betrothed to a great samurai warrior with the power to spontaneously regenerate who waits 400 years to kill my father just because I kissed his girl first. Man that Takezo is such an Emo.

Anyway, I asked her if she would like to go out with me and she made fun of me. These stupid glasses make me look like a bit silly. At least in the future I had the good sense to get rid of them and make myself look badass. I have no trouble getting women in the future, hell sometimes I even do better than Peter because of his really lame scar.

Not to mention the fact that women dig a man with a big sword.

She’s a cheerleader and they never go out with us geeks. A cheerleader, you’d think I’d have learnt my lesson after traipsing across the world, not to mention time, to save one but nooo, not me! What is it with me and chasing after those damn cheerleaders?

Later on, I overheard her talking and she was telling her friends how she’d wanted to go to a concert but couldn’t, because the tickets had all sold out. That was it! I made a face like I was constipated and went back in time to the day the tickets went on sale.

When I got back with the tickets I paused time and decided to pull up her skirt. Which is exactly what anyone else with the power to stop time would have done. Besides, it’s not like she’d know. At least now you know why I’m smiling like that in the photo above.

I re-started time and showed her my tickets. She was suitably impressed and we’ve got a date this Saturday. Who says Hiro doesn’t have game? I am the man!

JG8D69D

Not only is the MTC fun but it is a way to bring more readers to your blog. Try it!

One of Mr President’s regular readers, Reasonable Robinson, already signed up.

Due to unforeseen circumstances Mr President was unable to post yesterday’s blog. He had planned to regale you with his review of The Dark Knight but he got back from the cinema later than he’d planned (2:00am) and he was too tired to write at that hour. You people got more time to give him feedback anyway (clearly you love the blog!).

Most reviews will tell you about the film. But anyone can do that. Instead he is going to tell you a bit more about the circumstances of seeing the film. Don’t worry, it’s a story that merits telling. Saturday night is always peak time to see a movie, even more so in the week of release (The Dark Knight came out here on the 24th). Knowing this, the cinema had a lot of screenings, including two scheduled for 8pm and one at 9pm.

His companion and he had arrived at a quarter to eight. The plan was if they didn’t get tickets for either of the two 8pm screenings they would surely get tickets for the 9pm one, right? Wrong. Not only did both 8pm screenings sell out but the 9pm one actually sold out first (while he was queuing). So they bought tickets for a 10:30pm screening at 7.59pm; no wonder there were still 298 tickets left out of a maximum 300 seats!

So, having waited for ages for the film to be released, Mr President then had to wait two further hours. If his appetite wasn’t already whetted it was now. Still, at least it was 18+ only (no kids, thank God!) and gave him chance to make room for ice-cream. Sadly it also meant he wasn’t able to get back and blog his awesome review until today.

Before going to see The Dark Knight (TDK hereafter) Mr President re-watched Batman Begins and it reminded him just how good a film it was. Bale’s Batman was better than Keaton’s, though his Wayne was perhaps weaker. The overall feel had been better than Burton’s offerings (as good as they were) and the end set up the sequel perfectly.

Remember at the end of Begins, when Gordon turns to ask Batman “And what about escalation?”. TDK is a film all about the answer to that question, as Batman’s quest to save Gotham escalates into all-out war. Just as the Caped Crusader has the mob on its knees he comes across a man as devoted to chaos as Batman is to order; The Joker.

Let’s get the messy bit out of the way. When Ledger was cast as the Joker, a role that Jack Nicholson had seemingly nailed, Mr President was rather angry. He didn’t believe Ledger could possibly do better with the role than Nicholson had done. Not only did he do just that but he made Nicholson’s Joker look distinctly second-rate. Sorry Jack.

Heath Ledger deserves to win an oscar. Not because he’s dead, but simply because that was the best performance in a comic book movie ever. TDK did not transcend the genre; Ledger’s performance did. He was psychotic, disturbed, funny, malevolent. In other words he was The Joker. He took a larger-than-life character and made it real.

It’s a good thing he was. Perhaps it was a side-effect of just how good Ledger was, but Bale was stale, stilted, and lost what made him such a great Batman in Begins. The support cast saved him, as Caine, Oldman, Freedman and especially Eckhart all did fine jobs and Gyllenhaal was ok without being her usual excellent self. It was a solid cast.

Unfortunately TDK was also too long. When he left Iron Man Mr President felt thrilled, he thought to himself “OMFG, what a good film!” TDK’s ending lacked that punch due to its drawn-out nature. When he woke up this morning, he felt perhaps he’d been too harsh, as it was late and he was tired for the last half hour, but no, his instincts were right.

Not wanting to spoil it for those who have not seen it yet (yeah right!), there was this moment, at around two hours, where the main story arc ended and it was perfectly set up to end this film and leave a cliffhanger for a possible third. Up until this point the script was well-paced and it was easily the best film of the year. Then it happened.

Remember how, at the end of Return Of The King, Peter Jackson undid it all with a poor last thirty minutes that was unnecessary? Nolan did the same to TDK. He decided to tell another story within the same film, and consequently this story arc felt rushed. Unlike ROTK, it wasn’t bad, just deserved a film of its own rather than being “tacked on”.

Overall the film was excellent. The dialogue was witty, sharp and incredibly prophetic, the story woven together very organically and the visuals were breathtaking. The action sequences were as good as any you’ll see. Had it ended at two hours it would have left Iron Man in the dust but as it was, it ranks on a par with it. 4 stars (would’ve been 5)

Fear not, though, for here is today’s post. It’s as if he’s in two places at the same time. Which hopefully won’t cause damage to the spacetime continuum or anything like that.

After the recent slump in reader participation Mr President is concerned that you might all be losing interest in his littler corner of the internet. Despite not being one to bow to public pressure he is a man of the people, and wants you to be happy.

With that in mind he’d like some feedback. What would you like to see more of? What do you like about the blog? Is there anything at all you’d like to see less of?

Senior players need to now stand up and be counted. Players like Strauss, Vaughan, Bell and Pietersen, who all failed at Headingly, must now lead by example. If the selection of Pattinson did hurt England it was in depriving them of two of their leaders. A decision had been made to drop one senior player (Collingwood) for another (Flintoff) but once it was clear they’d be without Sidebottom too, Collingwood should have been retained.

The main rumour seems to be that Broad is to be rested. If it’s actually to rest him, then it’s a good decision but if he’s being dropped it’s madness, as he’s batting better than the top six. Paul Collingwood has to be the man who comes in. Pattinson, must surely make way for Harmison, Hoggard or Simon Jones, an international quality bowler.

Tim Ambrose’s position is a tough one. His glovework is better than Prior’s and that has to be paramount but he is not scoring enough runs right now. With no Broad in the side even if Collingwood were recalled the batting would still look frail, as neither Colly nor Fred nor Ambrose looks in good touch. Could it be time for James Foster to return?

Whatever happens England must improve. And fast. The Proteas look deadly.