Time for something a little more light-hearted:
7 horrible ways the universe can destroy us without warning - on Cracked.com
Well, thank you, cracked.com. I have been noticing a serious lack in Lovecraftian horror in my life, and I sleep to much anyway.
4/13/2011
10 beginner's rules for photographing a live band
Last weekend I was asked to take photographs of a small band festival in a tiny club. It was a strange thing, 15 bands with a 15 minutes set each. As a part of the audience I would have found it exhausting, but it was a good opportunity to shoot a lot of bands on stage in only a short time (insert random Dimebag Darrell joke here) and add a few lessons to my limited experience. I’m only a self taught photographer, and not a very good one, but my own ignorance has never kept me from talking, so here are my 10 beginner's rules for photographing live bands:
1. Use the appropiate tools
Digital single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras of the smaller, simpler kind have become quite affordable. The Nikon D40, for example, is a decent, light-weight SLR camera you can get for the price of 4 - 6 weekends of not getting horribly wasted. And no, your cell phone camera is not sufficient, smartass.
2. Talk to the band before the show
Inform them that you’re going to photograph, especially if they don’t know you yet. Give them the opportunity to be prepared. Chances are they will pose a bit more than usual, although they won’t admit it. They will be less irritated if you try to get close when they already know what you’re up to. And don’t act like a pro if you don’t have that much experience, that’s just fucking embarrassing for everyone.
3. Avoid flash light
Like an iPhone, a small club gig is not the right place for flash. Flash photography is reserved for U2 concerts and press conferences. In a small club, you’ll be very close to the stage, so the flash will kill the colored light show on your photos, making everyone look like a deer caught in the headlights. Instead of using flash, increase the ISO level. Don't mind a little grain on an otherwise great shot.
4. No auto-focus
It will mostly focus on the wrong spots, anyway. If the musicians move abruptly, the auto-focus won’t be able to keep track. Nothing is more frustrating than missing a good picture because the camera won’t trigger. Which leads us to...
5. Don’t spend ages adjusting your camera settings
Seriously, you’ll miss the show. Better a flawed shot at the right moment than a perfectly composed, technically brilliant masterwork that shows absolutely nothing exciting. If you have the time, work out your settings before the show, when the lights are on, and learn how to adapt quickly.
6. Try to capture the experience
The only way to do this is capturing the band in visible motion. Play with the exposure time on your camera. Work out the shutter speed you need to get reasonably sharp pictures of inanimate objects like amps, mic stands etc. while jumping or dancing band members will have a nice, soft motion blur. For the fuck of it, shoot a couple of pictures with long exposure, especially if the light show is good. You never know what might come out of it. Of course this works best if the band is actually moving. That’s why I like shooting punk and hardcore bands - there’s always some fat idiot jumping, beating up the audience or ramming his head into a speaker.
7. Be artistic
The band probably has a shitload of boring pics of them playing together on stage. Why repeat what their moms, girlfriends and parole officers have done hundreds of times before? Do something different. Take them one after another, wait for a wicked pose or a cool light effect which makes them look like the goddamn Green Goblin. Experiment with the depth of field, shoot them slumped over their bass guitar behind an out-of-focus mic stand, or focus on the stand and use the guy behind as a blurry texture. Because that’s the kind of photo that will appear on their Myspace page.
 |
| Avoid this situation at all cost. |
Don’t prance around in front of the stage with your camera from beginning to end. The people came to see the band, not your ugly old mug. Limit yourself to 10 or 15 minutes, either at the start or the end of the set. This rule does not apply if the crowd completely consists of obnoxious assholes, and if you are bigger and stronger than all of them. In that case, annoy the hell out of them fuckers.
9. Send the photos to the band where they belong
This should be a no-brainer, but still - write down their e-mail address and send them the pictures. Even if you just did the job for practice. Even if you think the pictures are not that good, you can still weed out the worst of them beforehand. Young amateur bands carve attention. Most of them interact with only a very small scene, so they’re happy about every new face that appears at their shows. They will be grateful for your work, even it might not be perfect. They will keep you in good memory as that weird guy who showed up, listened to their music and gave them cool photos in return.
10. Do not take money from a band unless you’re actually good
I can't stress this enough, people. Professionals are expensive because they spent years learning how to do their job. Every local music scene knows people who act like they’re crack recording engineers, graphic designers, or photographers, when in reality they have no fucking clue how to do it right. I once made the mistake of recording a band for money because I thought I knew how it was done in theory. Although I didn’t charge much then, I still cringe when I think of the result. Since then I learned a lot about recording, but I still wouldn’t take more from a band than what I need for my own expenses. At least with photography you don't waste the bands time, but if you have to practice with a real band to get better (and you will) then please have the common courtesy to do it for free.
Update: Not that I thought I'd be the first one to address this topic, but there are loads of sites about band photography that go into a little more detail. Check them out if you're interested.
4/08/2011
Overrated
Finding the Beatles “overrated” seems to be some kind of important cultural trend right now. Like angsty vampire movies, brain-melting reality TV shows and Auto-Tune. I’ve read a fierce debate on some website, fueled by teenage hipsters who confused their shitty taste in music with being “controversial”. Because, this one time, on their way to band camp, they had to listen through almost three complete Beatles songs in Daddy’s van before they could ram their fucking Linkin Park CD into the stereo. And they really sucked ass.
By the way, calling Linkin Park “rock music”, now that’s overrating done with style.
By the way, calling Linkin Park “rock music”, now that’s overrating done with style.
4/05/2011
5 things I hate about warm weather
Now that I’m halfway over Emma, time for some good old manly complaining. As I mentioned, springtime is here, weather is getting warmer and I sooner or later I will have to deal with one or more of the following inconveniences.
1. House music blasting out of cars
Occasionally you can also see this in winter - windows open, heating system cranked up to the max, speakers blaring. As soon as it gets warm, this becomes a real pest. Younger folks prefer house music (why, people? It’s 2011), but there will always be the odd 55-year old in a convertible, struck by impotence and midlife crisis, with music that can’t be cool in anyone’s book. Look, nobody is going to envy you for your expensive stereo as long as your car is a rusty pile of scrap metal. And your music sucks hard. See that girl, there? She didn’t smile. She laughed. At you.
2. Lack of pockets
I’ll soon have to start leaving the house without a jacket in the morning. This wouldn’t be half bad if I knew where to put all my stuff. Cell phone, keys, smokes, my collection of useless business cards, intergalactic translator, hunting knife... honestly, if I get attacked by a mutant alligator between April and August, I’m pretty much fucked.
3. Noisy kids
They have to walk everywhere, they never shut the fuck up and they think the world is revolving around them. They don’t work or help their poor mothers in the house, so they have all the time in the world to piss you off. So, if there is some kind of open-air party or festival, they will go there before you can, annoy you at the festival by getting wasted and being unable to hold their liquor, and they will not go home before you’re already in bed. As sure as a bear craps in the woods, they will pass your house on the way home and scream about how fucking magnificient they are. Standing on the balcony all night with a replica gun in your hands doesn’t help, unless you look like Charlton Heston. I tried it.
4. Scantily clad, well built men on the streets
As a modern, cosmopolitan man (yeah right) I am not uncomfortable with male bodies. But they make me look worse in comparison, and that has to fucking stop.
5. Scantily clad, well built girls on the streets
Wait. I actually don’t have a problem with that.
1. House music blasting out of cars
Occasionally you can also see this in winter - windows open, heating system cranked up to the max, speakers blaring. As soon as it gets warm, this becomes a real pest. Younger folks prefer house music (why, people? It’s 2011), but there will always be the odd 55-year old in a convertible, struck by impotence and midlife crisis, with music that can’t be cool in anyone’s book. Look, nobody is going to envy you for your expensive stereo as long as your car is a rusty pile of scrap metal. And your music sucks hard. See that girl, there? She didn’t smile. She laughed. At you.
2. Lack of pockets
I’ll soon have to start leaving the house without a jacket in the morning. This wouldn’t be half bad if I knew where to put all my stuff. Cell phone, keys, smokes, my collection of useless business cards, intergalactic translator, hunting knife... honestly, if I get attacked by a mutant alligator between April and August, I’m pretty much fucked.
 |
| Summertime, bitches. |
They have to walk everywhere, they never shut the fuck up and they think the world is revolving around them. They don’t work or help their poor mothers in the house, so they have all the time in the world to piss you off. So, if there is some kind of open-air party or festival, they will go there before you can, annoy you at the festival by getting wasted and being unable to hold their liquor, and they will not go home before you’re already in bed. As sure as a bear craps in the woods, they will pass your house on the way home and scream about how fucking magnificient they are. Standing on the balcony all night with a replica gun in your hands doesn’t help, unless you look like Charlton Heston. I tried it.
4. Scantily clad, well built men on the streets
As a modern, cosmopolitan man (yeah right) I am not uncomfortable with male bodies. But they make me look worse in comparison, and that has to fucking stop.
5. Scantily clad, well built girls on the streets
Wait. I actually don’t have a problem with that.
4/04/2011
Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster
More than two weeks have passed without anything worth to make fun of, but the last weekend had initially some potential. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, and we managed to spend most of our time outside. I had a couple of hilarious conversations, saw a band I utterly hated (which I sometimes find more entertaining than a good band, because any reason to complain about music is a welcome opportunity) and on sunday me and my girlfriend participated in a pathetic attempt to play soccer as preparation to an upcoming amateur tournament in which we’re probably gonna get raped beyond recognition.
But there’s no such thing as a perfect weekend. This particular weekend, you see, our pet hamster Emma died. My girlfriend is devastated, and I’m not in a particularly cheerful mood either.
To be honest, we had already spent a couple of days in fearful anticipation because Emma was more than two and a half years old - that’s an estimated age of around 112 in human years as far as I understand - and had visibly become weak and lethargic. So when we came home and my girlfriend disappeared into the bathroom, I used the opportunity to quickly check Emma’s cage to prepare for the worst case. As I was standing there, looking down on a motionless ball of fur curled up in a state of never ending sleep, I learned several painful lessons about myself in an instant.
Emma was always my girlfriend’s pet - she insisted on getting a pet, she bought the cage, paid the food and cleaned everything up. It was none of my business. My role included no more than sometimes feeding her, playing with her or laughing at her stupidity. I would admit that I liked her, even ironically call her a “family member”, but never ever “cute”, because there are words in every language on earth which a man just shouldn’t use. Of course I knew that some day in a not so distant future she would eventually die, and we would be a little sad for an hour or two, and you know, fuck it, let’s buy a new one the next day. When I was a kid, it worked. You learned a valuable lesson about life and death and how anything you loved could just be replaced if you just cried loud and long enough.
We’re grown up now, right? We’ve learned much more about death since then. We go to funerals for friends and relatives, and each time we get a little tougher. We can imagine mourning a dog, maybe. Dogs would give their life to you, they will be with you for many years. Dogs have personality, as Jules Winfield said, pigs don’t. I wonder what he would have thought about hamsters. I didn’t expect to develop a lump in my throat over a rodent that was so stupid that it thought of my face and hands as three distinct entities. But the moment I found Emma dead, I knew that Jules Winfield was not the gun-wielding, enlightened philosopher he pretended to be, but a pathetic wannabe gangster talking out of his ass about things he had not the intellectual means to understand. Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster.
The book we bought said that hamsters need a lot of space to run around. It advised us to built a cardboard enclosure with some hiding places for Emma to explore. She quickly got bored there and preferred her cage. She only used her running wheel when she was alone. Sometimes we would come home late at night and as soon as we stepped into the living room, Emma would suddenly stop running and look at us like she wanted to say “What the fuck are you doing here? Night time is for hamsters.” The book also told us that hamsters don’t like to climb. We spend hours watching her pulling off her stunt, climbing across the roof of her cage, grappling from metal bar to metal bar like a fucking ninja. Humans dream of being actors or rock stars, Emma dreamed of being a monkey. We got it on video, in case you don’t believe me. You can’t just walk into a pet shop and replace something like that, except when you’re a kid.
That night, when we walked out to the backyard and buried Emma in a silent, mundane ceremony, I felt guilty because my girlfriend was so open about showing her grief to me, something I was not capable of. But now, as I’m writing this, Emma already stands proudly among the small group of companions, human or animal, for which I have shed tears.
Congratulations Emma, you made me cry, and it feels good. We miss you.
But there’s no such thing as a perfect weekend. This particular weekend, you see, our pet hamster Emma died. My girlfriend is devastated, and I’m not in a particularly cheerful mood either.
To be honest, we had already spent a couple of days in fearful anticipation because Emma was more than two and a half years old - that’s an estimated age of around 112 in human years as far as I understand - and had visibly become weak and lethargic. So when we came home and my girlfriend disappeared into the bathroom, I used the opportunity to quickly check Emma’s cage to prepare for the worst case. As I was standing there, looking down on a motionless ball of fur curled up in a state of never ending sleep, I learned several painful lessons about myself in an instant.
Emma was always my girlfriend’s pet - she insisted on getting a pet, she bought the cage, paid the food and cleaned everything up. It was none of my business. My role included no more than sometimes feeding her, playing with her or laughing at her stupidity. I would admit that I liked her, even ironically call her a “family member”, but never ever “cute”, because there are words in every language on earth which a man just shouldn’t use. Of course I knew that some day in a not so distant future she would eventually die, and we would be a little sad for an hour or two, and you know, fuck it, let’s buy a new one the next day. When I was a kid, it worked. You learned a valuable lesson about life and death and how anything you loved could just be replaced if you just cried loud and long enough.
We’re grown up now, right? We’ve learned much more about death since then. We go to funerals for friends and relatives, and each time we get a little tougher. We can imagine mourning a dog, maybe. Dogs would give their life to you, they will be with you for many years. Dogs have personality, as Jules Winfield said, pigs don’t. I wonder what he would have thought about hamsters. I didn’t expect to develop a lump in my throat over a rodent that was so stupid that it thought of my face and hands as three distinct entities. But the moment I found Emma dead, I knew that Jules Winfield was not the gun-wielding, enlightened philosopher he pretended to be, but a pathetic wannabe gangster talking out of his ass about things he had not the intellectual means to understand. Jules Winfield obviously never had a hamster.
The book we bought said that hamsters need a lot of space to run around. It advised us to built a cardboard enclosure with some hiding places for Emma to explore. She quickly got bored there and preferred her cage. She only used her running wheel when she was alone. Sometimes we would come home late at night and as soon as we stepped into the living room, Emma would suddenly stop running and look at us like she wanted to say “What the fuck are you doing here? Night time is for hamsters.” The book also told us that hamsters don’t like to climb. We spend hours watching her pulling off her stunt, climbing across the roof of her cage, grappling from metal bar to metal bar like a fucking ninja. Humans dream of being actors or rock stars, Emma dreamed of being a monkey. We got it on video, in case you don’t believe me. You can’t just walk into a pet shop and replace something like that, except when you’re a kid.
That night, when we walked out to the backyard and buried Emma in a silent, mundane ceremony, I felt guilty because my girlfriend was so open about showing her grief to me, something I was not capable of. But now, as I’m writing this, Emma already stands proudly among the small group of companions, human or animal, for which I have shed tears.
Congratulations Emma, you made me cry, and it feels good. We miss you.
3/14/2011
The Great Moth War
Whether you’re up against an insect invasion, a zombie apocalypse or the sudden appearance of a dwarf black hole in your kitchen sink, I’m always happy to share my rich experience in dealing with the insanity of daily life with my fellow paranoids, so here you go.
In the last couple of months, we have been fighting a guerilla force of small moths in our kitchen. They sit around on the walls and in cabinets, acting all innocent and harmless while their maggots dump their excrement in your food. Naturally, we wanted to get rid of them.
The hard part was not finding their nests. Search through your food storage for traces. The maggots leave behind a silky, almost invisible substance. Check the flour. If you can pull strings of flour out of the bag, you have guests. Examine the rice. If you keep your rice in a sealed plastic can, don’t feel too safe, because they still find a way in. They like cereal. They seem to ignore dried pasta somehow. Unopened stuff is fine, too. But if you’re easily grossed out, you can just throw everything away. You won’t help starving kids in Africa by keeping it. After your cabinets are empty, look out for cocooned maggots in the corners. These maggots, when you squash, them, they pop audibly.
Still, after throwing away a month’s worth of food, you will still find moths. Our moths annexed the box we keep hamster food in. I found one in the computer room. You have reached the hard part now, painstakingly exterminating all pockets of moth resistance.
The first step to victory is: Know your enemy.
I checked wikipedia to find out about their weaknesses but I learned there's a bazillion different moth species and every single one of them seems to exist for one single reason: to shit all over your food while pointing their little fingers and laughing at you.
I had to identify the species first by examining one of them. Moths do not collect and bury their dead, so there was plenty of material to research on. After several hours of scientific internet studies (most of which consisted of Mothman movie reviews and web forums about conspiracy theories) I had a name to put to the face.
The European grain moth, also known as Nemapogon granella. Say it out loud.
This winged vigilante, this infernal creature of the night is the Ghengis Khan of the arthropod world. Besides having a name right out of a lovecraftian nightmare, it has also conquered most of Europe and somehow Australia. For various reasons (which I made up) it remains unseen in Iceland (too cold / full of fairies), Slovenia (no food to take a dump on) and - wait for it... France.
I’d like to think the reason for avoiding France is: It would be too easy to invade France. Even a moth has its goddamn code of honor.
Alright, I was joking. It’s a popular cliché, but I know some French people, and they do not roll this way. They probably annihilated the grain moth years ago and didn’t bother to tell anyone because it’s nobody else’s business. I’m serious about the fairies, though.
But I digress. I had to think of a strategy. The first battle plan, “Operation Scorched Earth” or “setting the kitchen on fire” was not met with much enthusiasm from my girlfriend. Instead she proposed small, quick, surgical advances into occupied territory and generally just killing the fuckers on sight. Still, this approach turned out to be quite messy.
These six-legged lap dogs of Satan, you see, are tough as nails and very fragile at the same time. Try to squash them on an easy to clean surface like floor tiles and they will just shrug it off and fly away while you clutch your sprained knuckles and sob. On the other hand, when they sit on a white wall, you only have to do so much as look at them hard enough and they will explode in a cloud of moth intestines and malicious glee, leaving a behind a brown smear that will be there as a reminder of your cruelty for fucking ever.
I had to learn to catch them in flight. I spend weeks training how to predict their crazy flight patterns, wait for the right moment, and strike. I had no Mr. Miyagi to help me. I got pretty good at it, though. And then one day I came home from work, prepared for another epic night of slaying moths from dusk ‘til dawn, and I couldn’t find any. They were gone.
By the time I'm writing this, they’re still gone. We join Iceland, Slovenia and France on the list of moth-free areas in Europe.
Either they have left for good or they have abandoned their hit-and-run guerilla tactics, building up their army for a full scale war.
In the last couple of months, we have been fighting a guerilla force of small moths in our kitchen. They sit around on the walls and in cabinets, acting all innocent and harmless while their maggots dump their excrement in your food. Naturally, we wanted to get rid of them.
The hard part was not finding their nests. Search through your food storage for traces. The maggots leave behind a silky, almost invisible substance. Check the flour. If you can pull strings of flour out of the bag, you have guests. Examine the rice. If you keep your rice in a sealed plastic can, don’t feel too safe, because they still find a way in. They like cereal. They seem to ignore dried pasta somehow. Unopened stuff is fine, too. But if you’re easily grossed out, you can just throw everything away. You won’t help starving kids in Africa by keeping it. After your cabinets are empty, look out for cocooned maggots in the corners. These maggots, when you squash, them, they pop audibly.
Still, after throwing away a month’s worth of food, you will still find moths. Our moths annexed the box we keep hamster food in. I found one in the computer room. You have reached the hard part now, painstakingly exterminating all pockets of moth resistance.
The first step to victory is: Know your enemy.
 |
| Picture unrelated. |
I checked wikipedia to find out about their weaknesses but I learned there's a bazillion different moth species and every single one of them seems to exist for one single reason: to shit all over your food while pointing their little fingers and laughing at you.
I had to identify the species first by examining one of them. Moths do not collect and bury their dead, so there was plenty of material to research on. After several hours of scientific internet studies (most of which consisted of Mothman movie reviews and web forums about conspiracy theories) I had a name to put to the face.
The European grain moth, also known as Nemapogon granella. Say it out loud.
This winged vigilante, this infernal creature of the night is the Ghengis Khan of the arthropod world. Besides having a name right out of a lovecraftian nightmare, it has also conquered most of Europe and somehow Australia. For various reasons (which I made up) it remains unseen in Iceland (too cold / full of fairies), Slovenia (no food to take a dump on) and - wait for it... France.
I’d like to think the reason for avoiding France is: It would be too easy to invade France. Even a moth has its goddamn code of honor.
 |
| Bienvenue, notres nouveaux insect overlords. |
Alright, I was joking. It’s a popular cliché, but I know some French people, and they do not roll this way. They probably annihilated the grain moth years ago and didn’t bother to tell anyone because it’s nobody else’s business. I’m serious about the fairies, though.
But I digress. I had to think of a strategy. The first battle plan, “Operation Scorched Earth” or “setting the kitchen on fire” was not met with much enthusiasm from my girlfriend. Instead she proposed small, quick, surgical advances into occupied territory and generally just killing the fuckers on sight. Still, this approach turned out to be quite messy.
These six-legged lap dogs of Satan, you see, are tough as nails and very fragile at the same time. Try to squash them on an easy to clean surface like floor tiles and they will just shrug it off and fly away while you clutch your sprained knuckles and sob. On the other hand, when they sit on a white wall, you only have to do so much as look at them hard enough and they will explode in a cloud of moth intestines and malicious glee, leaving a behind a brown smear that will be there as a reminder of your cruelty for fucking ever.
 |
| Men, prepare for tactical explosion - and don't forget to crap on the rice crispies. |
I had to learn to catch them in flight. I spend weeks training how to predict their crazy flight patterns, wait for the right moment, and strike. I had no Mr. Miyagi to help me. I got pretty good at it, though. And then one day I came home from work, prepared for another epic night of slaying moths from dusk ‘til dawn, and I couldn’t find any. They were gone.
By the time I'm writing this, they’re still gone. We join Iceland, Slovenia and France on the list of moth-free areas in Europe.
Either they have left for good or they have abandoned their hit-and-run guerilla tactics, building up their army for a full scale war.
3/11/2011
Escort Mission
Last weekend, I decided to play some good old Bioshock again. I hadn’t played it for 2 years, completely forgotten about the story, but remembered it as being fun. Perfect replay value for a weekend when you’ve got nothing else to do.
Unfortunately I also forgot the part shortly before the end where you have to escort a Little Sister on your way to the final boss. Even in a great game like this, escort missions can’t be anything but annoying. So, here is a meticulous account of my descent into madness with the second last level of Bioshock.
-----
Brigid Tenenbaum is out of her mind. After I’ve wasted hours helping her and her precious creepy little kids, she has no moral qualms against making fun of me. This “pheromone” I had to collect and spray all over me smells like badger shit. I might as well have dipped my head into a toilet bowl on the way. She is probably laughing her ass off right now. Tenenbaum told me to flush out one of the Little Sisters by smashing my wrench on one of those ventlike metal thingies, and I almost blew my eardrums. Very funny, Brigid. Finally, to add insult to injury, she sent me the dumbest kid she could possibly find.
I’ll get her for that.
Around the corner a dead body is lying on a metal grate.
I already know what’s coming now. The little girl stabs the corpse with her supersized syringe and drains the shit out of it as if there was no tomorrow. I played over ten hours of this game to help these kids getting a normal life and now I find out I have to deal with the Rapture equivalent of a pre-school meth addict.
“Hey can you stop th-”
“Look daddy, he’s dancing!”
“God, that’s gross. I think I.. - JESUS CHRIST, DID YOU JUST DRINK THAT SHIT?”
“Unzip him, Mr. Bubbles!”
“Unzip... WHAT? Could you just for one moment try NOT to scare the living hell out of me?”
“Three too many! Three too many!”
“Listen kid, you’re supposed to open some doors for me and in return, I have your ass covered. Nobody told me I’d have to help a four-year-old support her drug habit to beat this game.”
“Hop hop, Mr. B., no time to waste!”
“You don’t even - hey, are you even listening to me, kid? I personally don’t care if the splicers get you, but if they do, I’ll catch hell from your mommy, and I don’t want that.”
No reaction.
Suddenly all hell breaks loose. Splicers come screaming and running from both directions. I open fire, the stagnant air is thick with bullets. I don’t even think about the kid. This is my ass on the line. I blast away until the metallic clicking of my empty submachine gun is the only sound resonating from the corridor walls. I lift my cramped finger off the trigger. The smoke clears.
Everybody’s dead, Dave.
The Little Sister seems to be dead, too, but her body has disappeared into thin air.
As expected, Tenenbaum chews me out.
“What are you doing? You were supposed to protect her, not kill her!”
“Look honey, this is what happens when you don’t teach a kid priorities. I told her a doz-”
“Quiet! Go back and call another Little Sister. But this time you better take care of her.”
This seems to be more than a minor annoyance to old Brigid, so I swallow the “would you kindly shut up” pun and back down for the moment.
Creepy kids and their nagging mother. Somehow Bioshock is turning into a supermarket checkout lane simulator right now.
I walk back to the beginning of the level to do the old wrench-on-metal-thingy routine.
CLUNG. CLUNG. CLUNG. My ears feel like they’re bleeding. Maybe it’s the atmospheric pressure down here. No wait, it’s the noise. I have to grab the Big Daddy helmet with both hands to keep it from vibrating. Finally a new Little Sister climbs out of the vent and takes off immediately. I follow her, thoroughly scanning the environment.
Mrs. T. still nags me about her damn kids. She has the nerve to act as if she was the protective mother of all mothers. I tell her to shut up, that it’s all her fault and that Rapture is no place to raise a child. Not even a junkie child. Then I switch off the radio until she’s calmed down some.
While we stroll along the corridors, I decide it’s time for a little Daddy-to-Sister talk.
“Kid, you don’t really think I’m your Big Daddy, do you? I mean, I smell like one and I wear this huge helmet, but even a drugged nutcase like you must notice that I have a healthy bone structure. And I understand the basic concept of verbal communication.”
“All your faces are melted.”
“Yeah I know. I’ve seen those posters - this is your brain on drugs and all this stuff - but even then you can’t be that dumb. Also, there is no point in taking care of my appearance if everybody and their mother mistakes me for a fat mindless ogre with an underwater hazmat suit."
“Scabby on my knee.”
“Sure, whatever you say. Hey, aren’t you the same kid that just disappeared in front of me? Because you sure as hell all look the same. I’m starting to think you’re playing some sick game wi-”
The little brat discovers the same already drained corpse we passed before, leaps at it like it was a free Hello Kitty lunchbox and rams her ADAM-needle into the poor dead freak.
I stare at the scene in disbelief. Not again.
“Are you kidding me? He’s dry as a martini. Besides, we don’t have any time for this shit!”
“Don't be a slowpoke Mr. B., angels don't like slowpokes.”
“You will meet some real angels if we DON’T GET MOVING!”
Too late. I can already hear them around the corner. But this time, I’ll be prepared.
I quickly hack two of the automatic turret guns for fire support, like the magnificient bastard I am. As a veteran of Company of Heroes I should be able to lure the splicers into a deadly machine gun crossfire. By now I’m so low on ammo, I need every help I can get, and I can’t see shit with this helmet on. I switch the radio back on for helpful advice, but all i get is a complaining Tenenbaum. Plus, the smell of those Big Daddy pheromones is ungodly.
Wait a second.
I shouldn’t be able to... this game is getting way too immersive.
With a girly scream I let go of the mouse and look around the room, spooked.
Frantically I dig through piles of paper on my desk in hope of finding some leftover food that could be responsible for this sudden shift into the surreal. I even check the usual suspects, my socks.
They're fine.
Just as I am finally ready to accept the fact that I’m gradually, or sense by sense, fading over into a video game world like Jeff Bridges in Tron (only with goddamn splicers), my eyes fix on a coffee mug standing behind the fucking printer.
I pick it up, sniff it and faint for a few seconds.
Instant cappuccino with whipped cream, estimated time of death: 3 weeks ago. What a relief.
But back to the game, there’s a job to do. I’m surprised to see the Little Sister still alive, although I must have been away for at least a minute. She seems to do better without me, which sheds a bad light on my babysitting skills. All the while Tenenbaum is screaming at me for being a useless peace of shit, while the hacked turret guns are joyfully tearing the attacking splicers to shreds. We’re all one happy fucking family and it’s Christmas day.
Little Miss Sunshine dances around in a hailstorm of bullets and shouts “Kill it, Mr. Bubbles! Kill it!”
This kid is hardcore. I name her Nicole, after a girl I once knew as a kid who kicked everyone’s ass on the schoolyard. After I’ve finished off the last splicer and Nicole has finished her ADAM picnic, we continue our little walk in the park.
Again, I try to start a conversation. She completely ignores my questions, incoherently stammering shit about angels, lollipops and toffees.
And then, as I feel my ears still ringing from all that gun fire and wrench-hammering, it dawns on me.
I have just discovered the terrible secret of the Little Sisters.
They’re all deaf as a post.
Damn you, Brigid Tenenbaum. Damn you.
Unfortunately I also forgot the part shortly before the end where you have to escort a Little Sister on your way to the final boss. Even in a great game like this, escort missions can’t be anything but annoying. So, here is a meticulous account of my descent into madness with the second last level of Bioshock.
-----
Brigid Tenenbaum is out of her mind. After I’ve wasted hours helping her and her precious creepy little kids, she has no moral qualms against making fun of me. This “pheromone” I had to collect and spray all over me smells like badger shit. I might as well have dipped my head into a toilet bowl on the way. She is probably laughing her ass off right now. Tenenbaum told me to flush out one of the Little Sisters by smashing my wrench on one of those ventlike metal thingies, and I almost blew my eardrums. Very funny, Brigid. Finally, to add insult to injury, she sent me the dumbest kid she could possibly find.
I’ll get her for that.
Around the corner a dead body is lying on a metal grate.
I already know what’s coming now. The little girl stabs the corpse with her supersized syringe and drains the shit out of it as if there was no tomorrow. I played over ten hours of this game to help these kids getting a normal life and now I find out I have to deal with the Rapture equivalent of a pre-school meth addict.
“Hey can you stop th-”
“Look daddy, he’s dancing!”
“God, that’s gross. I think I.. - JESUS CHRIST, DID YOU JUST DRINK THAT SHIT?”
“Unzip him, Mr. Bubbles!”
“Unzip... WHAT? Could you just for one moment try NOT to scare the living hell out of me?”
“Three too many! Three too many!”
“Listen kid, you’re supposed to open some doors for me and in return, I have your ass covered. Nobody told me I’d have to help a four-year-old support her drug habit to beat this game.”
“Hop hop, Mr. B., no time to waste!”
“You don’t even - hey, are you even listening to me, kid? I personally don’t care if the splicers get you, but if they do, I’ll catch hell from your mommy, and I don’t want that.”
No reaction.
Suddenly all hell breaks loose. Splicers come screaming and running from both directions. I open fire, the stagnant air is thick with bullets. I don’t even think about the kid. This is my ass on the line. I blast away until the metallic clicking of my empty submachine gun is the only sound resonating from the corridor walls. I lift my cramped finger off the trigger. The smoke clears.
Everybody’s dead, Dave.
The Little Sister seems to be dead, too, but her body has disappeared into thin air.
As expected, Tenenbaum chews me out.
“What are you doing? You were supposed to protect her, not kill her!”
“Look honey, this is what happens when you don’t teach a kid priorities. I told her a doz-”
“Quiet! Go back and call another Little Sister. But this time you better take care of her.”
This seems to be more than a minor annoyance to old Brigid, so I swallow the “would you kindly shut up” pun and back down for the moment.
Creepy kids and their nagging mother. Somehow Bioshock is turning into a supermarket checkout lane simulator right now.
I walk back to the beginning of the level to do the old wrench-on-metal-thingy routine.
CLUNG. CLUNG. CLUNG. My ears feel like they’re bleeding. Maybe it’s the atmospheric pressure down here. No wait, it’s the noise. I have to grab the Big Daddy helmet with both hands to keep it from vibrating. Finally a new Little Sister climbs out of the vent and takes off immediately. I follow her, thoroughly scanning the environment.
Mrs. T. still nags me about her damn kids. She has the nerve to act as if she was the protective mother of all mothers. I tell her to shut up, that it’s all her fault and that Rapture is no place to raise a child. Not even a junkie child. Then I switch off the radio until she’s calmed down some.
While we stroll along the corridors, I decide it’s time for a little Daddy-to-Sister talk.
“Kid, you don’t really think I’m your Big Daddy, do you? I mean, I smell like one and I wear this huge helmet, but even a drugged nutcase like you must notice that I have a healthy bone structure. And I understand the basic concept of verbal communication.”
“All your faces are melted.”
“Yeah I know. I’ve seen those posters - this is your brain on drugs and all this stuff - but even then you can’t be that dumb. Also, there is no point in taking care of my appearance if everybody and their mother mistakes me for a fat mindless ogre with an underwater hazmat suit."
“Scabby on my knee.”
“Sure, whatever you say. Hey, aren’t you the same kid that just disappeared in front of me? Because you sure as hell all look the same. I’m starting to think you’re playing some sick game wi-”
The little brat discovers the same already drained corpse we passed before, leaps at it like it was a free Hello Kitty lunchbox and rams her ADAM-needle into the poor dead freak.
I stare at the scene in disbelief. Not again.
“Are you kidding me? He’s dry as a martini. Besides, we don’t have any time for this shit!”
“Don't be a slowpoke Mr. B., angels don't like slowpokes.”
“You will meet some real angels if we DON’T GET MOVING!”
Too late. I can already hear them around the corner. But this time, I’ll be prepared.
I quickly hack two of the automatic turret guns for fire support, like the magnificient bastard I am. As a veteran of Company of Heroes I should be able to lure the splicers into a deadly machine gun crossfire. By now I’m so low on ammo, I need every help I can get, and I can’t see shit with this helmet on. I switch the radio back on for helpful advice, but all i get is a complaining Tenenbaum. Plus, the smell of those Big Daddy pheromones is ungodly.
Wait a second.
I shouldn’t be able to... this game is getting way too immersive.
With a girly scream I let go of the mouse and look around the room, spooked.
Frantically I dig through piles of paper on my desk in hope of finding some leftover food that could be responsible for this sudden shift into the surreal. I even check the usual suspects, my socks.
They're fine.
Just as I am finally ready to accept the fact that I’m gradually, or sense by sense, fading over into a video game world like Jeff Bridges in Tron (only with goddamn splicers), my eyes fix on a coffee mug standing behind the fucking printer.
I pick it up, sniff it and faint for a few seconds.
Instant cappuccino with whipped cream, estimated time of death: 3 weeks ago. What a relief.
But back to the game, there’s a job to do. I’m surprised to see the Little Sister still alive, although I must have been away for at least a minute. She seems to do better without me, which sheds a bad light on my babysitting skills. All the while Tenenbaum is screaming at me for being a useless peace of shit, while the hacked turret guns are joyfully tearing the attacking splicers to shreds. We’re all one happy fucking family and it’s Christmas day.
Little Miss Sunshine dances around in a hailstorm of bullets and shouts “Kill it, Mr. Bubbles! Kill it!”
This kid is hardcore. I name her Nicole, after a girl I once knew as a kid who kicked everyone’s ass on the schoolyard. After I’ve finished off the last splicer and Nicole has finished her ADAM picnic, we continue our little walk in the park.
Again, I try to start a conversation. She completely ignores my questions, incoherently stammering shit about angels, lollipops and toffees.
And then, as I feel my ears still ringing from all that gun fire and wrench-hammering, it dawns on me.
I have just discovered the terrible secret of the Little Sisters.
They’re all deaf as a post.
Damn you, Brigid Tenenbaum. Damn you.
 |
| Warning: If your daughter draws like this, she might possibly be a junkie. |
Dear Internet
Dear Internet,
I'm a bit late.
It's the year 2011, and I'm starting a blog.
It feels like one of those nights you keep getting calls from friends, asking when you will get your ass in gear and come to that awesome party that is going on somewhere.
By the time you arrive it's five in the morning, everyone is wasted out of their minds and all the girls have left ages ago. But you drove all the way across town to get there, so you might as well grab something to drink and make the best of it.
Not that I ever had one of those nights, but I can imagine how it feels.
So yes, I'm late to this party.
But I’m an old-school kind of guy, I still listen to Dinosaur Jr., too, so I think that's okay.
I'm a bit late.
It's the year 2011, and I'm starting a blog.
It feels like one of those nights you keep getting calls from friends, asking when you will get your ass in gear and come to that awesome party that is going on somewhere.
By the time you arrive it's five in the morning, everyone is wasted out of their minds and all the girls have left ages ago. But you drove all the way across town to get there, so you might as well grab something to drink and make the best of it.
Not that I ever had one of those nights, but I can imagine how it feels.
So yes, I'm late to this party.
But I’m an old-school kind of guy, I still listen to Dinosaur Jr., too, so I think that's okay.
Abonnieren
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