Yesterday

Yesterday two big things happened. One for me and one for America.
In America the government shut down due to a powerful and zealous section of the republican party refusing to agree to a budget unless the law (voted on and approved since 2009) dubbed 'obamacare' was repealed and cancelled.
Obviously the democrats did not cave to this demand. Not only is the law already in place, but it is already funded and its funding is not effected by the government shutdown. So from what I can understand from the news and from articles I've read, the Tea party section of the Republicans - in an awesome show of 'if we can't get the party our way nobody gets a party' - did not get their way so they threw a hissy fit and shut the government down.
I am personally at a loss for what can be done here. Dealing with people that refuse to accept facts, work with people that don't agree with them and refuse to govern responsibly is an issue that I don't think we've faced in so long I don't have any frame of reference. There's always been argument and tension between parties, but outright refusing to work with them, refusing to let them work, demonising the people trying to do their jobs, this is something that feels new.

Just so we're clear, it's not just the higher people of the government that suffer here, it's regular people. Due to the shut down more than 2million federal workers will have delayed pay checks, 800,000 of whom probably wont get paid. If the shutdown lasts longer than a few days veterans will likely not get their benefits. There will be no flu shots for anyone, despite it just coming to flu season. Some Food safety services will shut down (inspections, compliance, enforcement, monitoring and all lab research). Nutritional programs for women infants and children will be disrupted. Disability benefits will be interrupted. 200 patients will be turned away each week, regardless of illness (one thing that was highlighted was that it could include children with cancer).

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but how can a country like America remain a super power when it's so polarised and controlled by crazies that they can't even go into work?

In personal news the company I work for, Future Games of London, was yesterday acquired by Ubisoft.
I don't know what this means for us yet, but everything seems really positive, and I imagine that it will remain so right up until the day we miss and update and are all fired.
Who knows?

Shut-It-Down-tube
 - James

P.S. is the American government just re-enacting the West Wing?

Political leaning

So I've been at this whole 'blog' thing for a whole week now without a single unintentional day off - totally meant to take Sunday off. That's more committed to something than I've ever been about anything!

Feel honoured.

Now.

Not even joking Dudes and Dudettes. Feel it.

Good.

We may continue.

"It's a wonderful thing, every two years we drive to a fire station and overthrow the government, and there isn't a policeman in the street."

That was a quote by Will Macavoy from episode three of The Newsroom. It's a fairly accurate testament to the potential power of democracy, it’s just a shame that it rarely lives up to its promise.

The problem with a presidential election or a parliamentary election is that you have to choose between two people that you don't necessarily like. And honestly; I don't.

At the moment we in England have the choice of two people - Liberal Democrats don't count anymore, you can't have your whole campaign be about not raising tuition fees and then join a coalition that triples tuition fees without a fight, it makes you untrustworthy - who are completely out of touch with the reality of living in their country.

The problem with democracy in England at the moment is that there's nobody I want to get into power, but that's not their fault- beyond their inability to grasp what the people want. The problem lies with us for becoming disinterested with the political system. People in England don't aspire to Prime Minister or Ministers of Parliament.

We don't have a range of people from all different walks of life to choose from, we just have a Conservative leader who went to Oxford and studied economics - despite which we find ourselves in a second recession - and a Labour leader who went to oxford and studied economics.

Yes they went on to do different things after university, one became a journalist and then a Labour researcher and then an advisor to prominent Labour members, the other became a conservative researcher and then an adviser to conservative MPs. I mean it's totally different after leaving education, right?

No. Not right. Their careers have been so similar that I see no point in voting for one over the other. Neither have ever lived in the real world, they don't understand what their constituents want, and even when they miraculously say something close to what people have in mind they don't realise and scrap that piece of information as soon as they're office.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want an idiot in the office, I don't want to vote for someone like me, someone I think I can get a drink with. I want to vote for an Oxford educated economist, but I want to vote for one who understands that not everyone has a trust fund they can dip into when we have a poor economy.

I want someone that cares more about fixing the economy than paying off our debt - yes we need to continue to make payments, but I'd rather we make the minimum possible payments until our economy has recovered, do that and people won't care you're taking an extra 1% because they'll be earning an extra 10%.

Plus, on a totally superficial side, Ed Milliband looks like a moron that walked in and nobody realised that he wasn't his brother until it was too late, and David Cameron looks like he's just waiting for the economy to fix itself ("that's how money works right? I wait and daddy gives it to me... right?")

Point is; I want to be political, but they make it bloody hard.Tubage of my favourite politicians

- James

One of Fifty-Two

Monday Morning! Hurrah! I get to be back at work! Wait... what?

Over this weekend I realised - just before retroactively making it clear that I won’t be posting on sundays - that if I just leave it up to the universe to offer me thoughts and opinion I'll have a hard time posting every single day. I realised that I'll need some help - or at least some structure - so I decided to create a number of segments that I could use when I'm stuck.
The first is a weekly piece - inspired by my friend Rixel's blog - called 'Of Fifty-Two' where I get a chance to talk about my fifty two favourite things, most of them quite geeky. Whether its television shows, movies, characters, games, books or even music (if you didn't know that there was geeky music before then google Leetstreet boys or Chameleon Circuit).

So without further ado...

TV Shows
Anything by Aaron Sorkin

The first iteration of Aaron Sorkin's genius on film I saw was Studio Sixty on the sunset strip, a single season show set behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-esq sketch show. if you haven't seen it think 30 Rock, but good. Ok, that's harsh. Think 30 Rock, but less slapstick humour and more wordplay. Less caricatures and more realistic characters.
However it's left wing politics, blatant Bush bashing, anti-media agenda and high production costs- not to mention the crazy long hiatus, lack of publicity and poor scheduling - caused it to be taken off the air after a single series.
I fell in love with the series and the characters after the first episode and still watch it through from start to finish whenever I'm feeling depressed. That said, I'm glad it only lasted a season. It means that it's left as perfect as it can be, there will be no attempts to needlessly lengthen the series with poor plots or pointless characters.
After Studio Sixty I went back to Sorkin's first TV hit, the West Wing. When I first heard about the show it didn't interest me at all. A seven season look into the running of the US Presidential Office. It sounded boring, but I swear to whatever we atheists swear to -Science? - that its funny. It's engaging, it's dramatic and, holy crap it's funny.
I spent two weeks just watching every episode - and I think I'm probably due for another re-watch - Again Aaron Sorkin made me fall in love with an ensemble of amazing characters, some likeable, some not so much.
While the show was a work of complete fiction it gave me some insight into what the US presidency has to deal with when creating new bills. It's not like most people think where he clicks his fingers and it happens, and I think everyone who complains about politics - their president/prime minister in particular -should watch it.
Hell, even if you don't complain; watch it anyway.
Lastly we have the Newsroom, his most recent show, still currently airing. I don't have much to say about it except that I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far.

Seriously; watch it.
YooToobVidyo - this video moved me... how weird.
- James

P.S. I did it, sent copies off to agents!