I've been reading some of the plays written by Cho Seung-Hui, the VTech gunman. It's pretty bad writing, although I've read worse. The 'pull' factor comes out of the strange dialogue, and the macabre fascination of reading something written by someone who's essentially psychopathic. There are no sights into the dizzying depths of madness, Necronomicon style. Rather, it only shows that Seung-Hui was angry and fixated on his victimhood, particularly by older male figures. There are no deep insights or amazing thoughts that resound within this kind of mental damage. It's just unpleasant and sad.
A couple of notes on the gun control chatter that's arisen following this event:
Firstly, America is so awash in guns, and gun culture is so deeply embedded that removing the Second Amendment or instituting comprehensive gun control isn't really possible.
Secondly, it's absurd that someone so disturbed could have bought a gun. Even with a Second Amendment, Americans should really look into either tightening up gun controls for mentally ill people.
This is pretty much the first and final post I'll do about American gun control issues. I've gotten into the issue before, and I've decided that Americans have the gun control laws that they deserve.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Splashy Horribilis
Well, I went to Splashy Fen. It was an experience that was comprised of massive amounts of both win and fail.
The fail: Well, we headed off in the early afternoon, planning to arrive before dark.
We got lost.
You wouldn't think this is possible, seeing as at least one of the people in the car would have a good idea of where Splashy Fen is. You would think that we'd notice the R617 turn off before Midmar. You'd think that we'd notice before getting to the Mooi River Toll Plaza that we'd gone too far.
In any case, we set off and merrily missed our turn off. Turns out Keeda, who was sitting in the back, saw the turn off, but didn't know that Splashy Fen was in Underberg.
About 40 minutes into the drive we saw rainclouds sweeping across the landscape with veils of rain below them, descending like cascades of black smoke. You get lovely weather like that up in interior KZN.
And Robyn chose this time to mention that her windscreen wipers didn't really work. Well, to be precise, the one on the left didn't work. This was because the clip had come lose, so it twirled around, and rather than the blade cleaning the rain off the screen, the back part described a parabolic arc across the glass, leaving a nicely curved scratch.
We drove on for maybe another 20 minutes with this squeaking trying to kill my sanity.
As it is, we pulled up at the big Shell Ultra City on the other side of the Mooi River Toll Plaza.
Robyn and Keeda went to go and buy energy drinks or bioplus. I went to ask for directions.
Me: Hey, we're looking for the Underberg turnoff.
Petrol Station guy: *Stares*
Me: Um...
Petrol Station guy: Underberg?
Me: Yes.
Petrol Station guy: Uh...the turnoff's before Midmar.
Me: Oh dear.
So, we drove back the 50 kms, spent another R25 going through the toll, and finally got onto the right road after about an hour of time, R50 of toll fees and another R60 or so of petrol.
We finally got to Splashy after dark, and were made much mock of by our companions, who were comfortably ensconced in their chairs, saying uncharitable things about getting lost 50 kms away from home, on a route that had precisely one major turn, which was well signposted.
I set up my tent, with some assistance from friendly neighbours. At this point we had one of the more idiotic conversations I've had in my life. The executive summary: it's dark, this is good enough, there's no need to bother with pegs.
Famous last words.
I wandered off and got merrily drunk. Beer and Klippies and coke.
At some point in this it was raining, but I was concentrating too hard on imbibing alcohol to notice, or associate the massive gusts of wind and downpour with my unpegged tent.
Get back, and discover that my tent has been flattened. It resembles a rather full portapool more than a habitable dwelling. A couple of token pegs have been bent like liquorice sticks. I'm later informed that at one point it nearly blew into the fire, and my companions had been forced to rescue it.
Of course, I'm so inebriated that this was no more than a tiny surprise. Oh well, my tent's flat and full of water, might as well get some sleep.
So I crawled into the wet and flat tent.
Tania saw me doing this and took pity on me. She ushered me to the car and dumped me in the back seat with a box of provitas and some water.
The back seat of a citi golf isn't the best sleeping place, so I got the obligatory sore neck, cold, stiff muscles. I woke up, sober and unimpressed with the day's prospects.
However, a brilliant African sunrise was about to break over the hills, so with any luck my stuff would dry out.
As the sun rose, clouds appeared as if by magic. They neatly tracked the sun in its parabola, so it looked as if it was climbing an extendable ladder. The sunny day was not to be.
I grabbed the tent, and emptied the water out of it, physically pouring it out. I hung my clothes out, more out of hope than out of a real belief that they'd dry.
Day two my chair broke.
Day three I lost my sunglasses. I LIKED those sunglasses. Black plastic, wrap around. As a replacement I had to buy a pair that looked like they were made on a forge by paralytic dwarves that got kicked out of Moria for turning in substandard work. 50 bucks for the horrible ones, hundreds for the ones I lost.
It rained every single day. It was cold, every single day.
Anyway, I woke up on the last day to the news that Robyn had already left, with Keeda and Wesley. After a moment of worry, it was settled that I'd ride back with Evan, in his car.
As we're discussing this we get a telephone call. Robyn's been in a car crash. Some idiot rammed into her car from behind. Everyone's relatively alright, although Wesley got some whiplash. The car was sort of alright to drive, although it was pretty dubious before the incident.
It's agreed that we'll meet Robyn in Underberg, where the accident happened. It takes us ages to get out of Splashy, as usual. Eventually, we got to Underberg. After some discussion and a lot of waiting around, it's decided that Tania will drive Robyn's car. I'll stay in Evan's car, etc.
As Tania's pulling out of the Engen in Robyn's car, someone rams her from behind.
....
Evan sees this and tries to pull over into a side lane. He nearly puts his car into the ditch.
Looking at the tyre tracks afterwards, I see that we were about 3 cms from having to call a tow truck.
Luckily, there's no damage to Robyn's car. A bit of paint comes off Robyn's car, but we don't see anything structural.
Finally we drive off.
We get stopped at roadblocks, but they don't go through the hullaballoo of searching us.
Eventually, we get to Pmb, driving in convoy. Evan nearly drives us into the truck lane at one point (we're lead) but we get to Grey's Hospital to get Wesley's whiplash checked out. Of course, Grey's can't do this, they're a "specialist referral hospital", so at this point we break things up and everyone goes off their separate ways. I get dropped off at home with all my stuff, and stump into the house to discover that a...curious odour is pervading the air.
The power tripped about .3 seconds after I left the house, from the smell that's coming from the fridge and the chest freezer.
I spend the next 40 minutes lifting the rotting corpses of chickens and the like out of the chest freezer. Of course, all the other food is contaminated with bacterial meat juice, so that's mostly a write off.
In other news, Splashy was awesome. Great bands, lots of drinking, nice girls and friendly people. But next time, I'm going to bloody well peg my tent down.
The fail: Well, we headed off in the early afternoon, planning to arrive before dark.
We got lost.
You wouldn't think this is possible, seeing as at least one of the people in the car would have a good idea of where Splashy Fen is. You would think that we'd notice the R617 turn off before Midmar. You'd think that we'd notice before getting to the Mooi River Toll Plaza that we'd gone too far.
In any case, we set off and merrily missed our turn off. Turns out Keeda, who was sitting in the back, saw the turn off, but didn't know that Splashy Fen was in Underberg.
About 40 minutes into the drive we saw rainclouds sweeping across the landscape with veils of rain below them, descending like cascades of black smoke. You get lovely weather like that up in interior KZN.
And Robyn chose this time to mention that her windscreen wipers didn't really work. Well, to be precise, the one on the left didn't work. This was because the clip had come lose, so it twirled around, and rather than the blade cleaning the rain off the screen, the back part described a parabolic arc across the glass, leaving a nicely curved scratch.
We drove on for maybe another 20 minutes with this squeaking trying to kill my sanity.
As it is, we pulled up at the big Shell Ultra City on the other side of the Mooi River Toll Plaza.
Robyn and Keeda went to go and buy energy drinks or bioplus. I went to ask for directions.
Me: Hey, we're looking for the Underberg turnoff.
Petrol Station guy: *Stares*
Me: Um...
Petrol Station guy: Underberg?
Me: Yes.
Petrol Station guy: Uh...the turnoff's before Midmar.
Me: Oh dear.
So, we drove back the 50 kms, spent another R25 going through the toll, and finally got onto the right road after about an hour of time, R50 of toll fees and another R60 or so of petrol.
We finally got to Splashy after dark, and were made much mock of by our companions, who were comfortably ensconced in their chairs, saying uncharitable things about getting lost 50 kms away from home, on a route that had precisely one major turn, which was well signposted.
I set up my tent, with some assistance from friendly neighbours. At this point we had one of the more idiotic conversations I've had in my life. The executive summary: it's dark, this is good enough, there's no need to bother with pegs.
Famous last words.
I wandered off and got merrily drunk. Beer and Klippies and coke.
At some point in this it was raining, but I was concentrating too hard on imbibing alcohol to notice, or associate the massive gusts of wind and downpour with my unpegged tent.
Get back, and discover that my tent has been flattened. It resembles a rather full portapool more than a habitable dwelling. A couple of token pegs have been bent like liquorice sticks. I'm later informed that at one point it nearly blew into the fire, and my companions had been forced to rescue it.
Of course, I'm so inebriated that this was no more than a tiny surprise. Oh well, my tent's flat and full of water, might as well get some sleep.
So I crawled into the wet and flat tent.
Tania saw me doing this and took pity on me. She ushered me to the car and dumped me in the back seat with a box of provitas and some water.
The back seat of a citi golf isn't the best sleeping place, so I got the obligatory sore neck, cold, stiff muscles. I woke up, sober and unimpressed with the day's prospects.
However, a brilliant African sunrise was about to break over the hills, so with any luck my stuff would dry out.
As the sun rose, clouds appeared as if by magic. They neatly tracked the sun in its parabola, so it looked as if it was climbing an extendable ladder. The sunny day was not to be.
I grabbed the tent, and emptied the water out of it, physically pouring it out. I hung my clothes out, more out of hope than out of a real belief that they'd dry.
Day two my chair broke.
Day three I lost my sunglasses. I LIKED those sunglasses. Black plastic, wrap around. As a replacement I had to buy a pair that looked like they were made on a forge by paralytic dwarves that got kicked out of Moria for turning in substandard work. 50 bucks for the horrible ones, hundreds for the ones I lost.
It rained every single day. It was cold, every single day.
Anyway, I woke up on the last day to the news that Robyn had already left, with Keeda and Wesley. After a moment of worry, it was settled that I'd ride back with Evan, in his car.
As we're discussing this we get a telephone call. Robyn's been in a car crash. Some idiot rammed into her car from behind. Everyone's relatively alright, although Wesley got some whiplash. The car was sort of alright to drive, although it was pretty dubious before the incident.
It's agreed that we'll meet Robyn in Underberg, where the accident happened. It takes us ages to get out of Splashy, as usual. Eventually, we got to Underberg. After some discussion and a lot of waiting around, it's decided that Tania will drive Robyn's car. I'll stay in Evan's car, etc.
As Tania's pulling out of the Engen in Robyn's car, someone rams her from behind.
....
Evan sees this and tries to pull over into a side lane. He nearly puts his car into the ditch.
Looking at the tyre tracks afterwards, I see that we were about 3 cms from having to call a tow truck.
Luckily, there's no damage to Robyn's car. A bit of paint comes off Robyn's car, but we don't see anything structural.
Finally we drive off.
We get stopped at roadblocks, but they don't go through the hullaballoo of searching us.
Eventually, we get to Pmb, driving in convoy. Evan nearly drives us into the truck lane at one point (we're lead) but we get to Grey's Hospital to get Wesley's whiplash checked out. Of course, Grey's can't do this, they're a "specialist referral hospital", so at this point we break things up and everyone goes off their separate ways. I get dropped off at home with all my stuff, and stump into the house to discover that a...curious odour is pervading the air.
The power tripped about .3 seconds after I left the house, from the smell that's coming from the fridge and the chest freezer.
I spend the next 40 minutes lifting the rotting corpses of chickens and the like out of the chest freezer. Of course, all the other food is contaminated with bacterial meat juice, so that's mostly a write off.
In other news, Splashy was awesome. Great bands, lots of drinking, nice girls and friendly people. But next time, I'm going to bloody well peg my tent down.
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