Lists - Things I Hate

You've gotta be kidding me.
Disclaimer: Lists may or may not be a regular part of my blogging habits.

Before you get worried, I'm not in an overly bad mood. Being in China a little longer than I hoped (2 months instead of just 1), not really seeing any mates and sleeping odd hours haven't entirely drained me of my optimism. Well, they haven't drained me, at least. Though I do wonder what is fuelling my fire at times, and I've come to think it might have a bit to do with hatred.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that hatred is something I indulge in, receive motivation and energy from, and use as a weapon. I think it's perfectly natural. Of course, my hatred is not to be confused with narrow-minded versions of the word: discrimination, blind-hatred or envy. Everything I hate I do so for (what I feel is) a good reason, to lesser or greater extents. Some "hatred" may just be a pet peeve that I know is unfair and thus tend to keep to myself, while more extreme versions are based around something violating my code of ethics or the like.

I never (or try to never) let my hatred reduce me to unwarranted action; rather I prefer to use it to motivate myself. If someone deliberately fouls me in a football match (as some munter did last Saturday), I'd rather dedicate that hatred to driving me to shut him entirely out of the rest of the game, rather than smack him upside the head. Not that that isn't tempting - it's just far less rewarding.

So, without further social commentary, here's a short list of stuff that's been really getting on my nerves lately. You decide why - or by all means, feel free to ask.

Songs that are summed up with the word "anthem" (excluding "national anthems")...well, ie. "Trance Anthems"

Novels that are published with the words "The New York Times #1 Bestseller".

Movies starring singers, who will never be actors.

People who don't call me back

Mugabe

Smelly people who don't know they are smelly

Slow walkers/People who stop and convene in the middle of a walkway

People who lie to my face when the truth does matter

Litter

Unnecessary sequels/new series

The Chinese Government

Facebook applications that want to rank or judge me against my peers

Blunt emails

Racism

Humidity

Bang Bang

Disclaimer: This post may attract hatred from gunslingers.

Charlton Heston Dies At 84

And all I can think is: It's about fucking time.

I wish he'd been shot. By a kid. Or better yet, accidentally shot himself.

A world without Ben Hur is far superior to a world without strict firearm laws.

Incommunicado

Disclaimer: We now interrupt this long period without posting to give you uninterrupted China.

And I was on such a good roll. Regular posting on my blog, 10 hits or more a day (albeit many of the non-regular viewers are finding my blog off Google searches for "how to fire a machine gun"). But then what had to happen? I had to come to China. Of all the places.
China is not Google's friend. Blogger is inaccessible without a proxy server, and good random ones are hard to come by (I tend to find the most success with pretending to be from Argentina). Plus uploading vids in China is near impossible, with virginal bandwidth (is that a bit coarse?). Finally to make matters completely dire, China recently banned youtube for a considerable time, not-so-discreetly in time with the Tibetan protests. Hmmm. Even a proxy wouldn't get through that mess. I refuse to comment. Well, maybe later.

Even had I time to post, we've been absolutely consumed by Pikachu and his cute friends. Again, that's a post for another time, but let me just say that Nintendo, though a very interesting company to work with, can be awfully bureaucratic at times.

Firstly, after such a long time off, I must say gracias and salut to mi amigo David, who unwittingly doubled the hits on my blog over the course of a weekend. As I mentioned in a previous post, David has something of a following in the Spanish blogging world for his insightful and educational comments about life in Japan and the Kansai region. Even if you don't speak Espanol, his blog is good for pics from Japan, and occasionally some videos to boot. No out-of-focus neglected bicycles, however. Don't get your hopes up.
Anyway, David gave me a blogging high-five when he linked me the other day, on a post that was about none of than...my girlfriend. "Eh?" you may well think, and when I say it was a post on White Day, Japan's second half of a two part Valentines they do, that "eh?" may well repeat itself. You're probably making the same face that Americans did when I told them I was staying in Las Vegas with someone who I met "on the internet" (ie. couch-surfing).
It is indeed funny. But I don't mind - he's a good bloke (well, as far as I can tell). Mio modelled for him last year, and he got some pretty good shots actually. You can check them out here (or if that doesn't work, just click his name above and scroll down to 14th Marzo).

David's brief mention that his cute model happened to be my object of affection caused hundreds of Latinos and Spanish to pop over here and check me out. Not many stayed (fair enough, I don't write in Espanol, nor much about Japon), but it was enough to make Spain the country with the most viewers of Machine Gun Salaryman. Ironic huh? Kinda like when somethingawful.com posted a link to a voraphilia site. That many people viewed something they didn't necessarily want to since Meg Ryan's boobs in In The Cut.

In case you were wondering, the top 5 countries viewing my blog are:
1. Spain (by almost double)
2. Japan
3. New Zealand (Kia Ora!)
4. United States
5. Mexico (thanks again, David...)
(there is also someone from Mauritius who stumbled on here. Neat!)

I was going to put up pics of China, but instead I'll wait til another post, seeing as this one is getting lengthy. I'll leave you with the top 10 most played tracks on my iPod, for general pulp interest.

1. Sexual Sportswear (SebastiAn Remix) - Sebastian Tellier
2. Beautiful Burnout - Underworld
3. The Boy Who Ran Away (Riton Extended Dub) - The Mystery Jets
4. I Choose Noise - Hybrid
5. What's Your Damage? (Digitalism Remix) - Test Icicles
6. 14h54 - Danger
7. The Fallen (ruined by Jus†ice) - Franz Ferdinand
8. H.A.L. - SebastiAn
9. 1967 Aww Shit - Steve Aoki & Junkie XL
10. My People - The Presets
...huh. Don't think I could have picked any of those. Would have said this was in there.