Big Week(end)

Spending the weekend with the family, but generally still quite busy, so this will just be a quick update, touching on a few things that have caught my attention recently.

1) Do you reckon the AFL grand final is special enough to get a full day of televised coverage, or is a five hour pre-game show stretching the limits? And yes, the NRL coverage is going to be all day tomorrow, but that's going to include three actual games. Speaking of which, I must admit that I'm looking forward to the women's game most out of anything this weekend. From what I've seen of the season, I really do have to applaud what the league has done. They've televised every match; they've done their best to schedule double-headers, where a men's and women's team from the same club plays at the same ground, back-to-back; they've scheduled the grand finals as a double header; and on top of that, the quality of the games has been really impressive too—even better than the WAFL, in my opinion. And yet, sadly, they still haven't been able to get more than half a dozen spectators to turn up to a match. Here's hoping things go differently tomorrow.

That's not to say that I don't have a few nitpicks. With no North Queensland side, my mob have been forced to barrack for the Broncos, which hasn't exactly sat comfortably. Also, can I point out how silly it is to have a female team called "The Roosters", when a rooster is specifically a male chook. Of course, calling yourself "The Hens" doesn't exactly have the same punch; but then again, I've always questioned the wisdom of naming your team after an animal that is primarily known for being delicious.

2) I'm curious to know what youse all reckon about this business with the board of the ABC. When the news broke, I had quite a strong reaction, but within two days, I'd sort of settled into the mindset of "Oh, it's just corruption as usual. No big deal." I feel like I might be developing an unhealthy level of apathy towards these things.

3) Anyone who thought Trump might have stuck to his rhetoric over deescalation in the middle east, must be feeling bitterly disappointed after his little spiel on Iran to the UN the other day. At this point, I don't even blame the Iranians for wanting a nuke.

4) The other day, I posted about weird clusters of coincidences, where—as Squib put it—it starts to feel like there's a glitch in the matrix. Well, today, I come here, and find the conversation has turned to menstrual issues, and then I update my ASMR feed, and find this video talking about re-usable/environmentally-friendly feminine hygiene products. And no, I've never seen an ASMR video like this ever before. Talk about getting beyond a joke.

But while we're on this topic of periods, has anybody else heard of "free-bleeding"? And is it just me, or is it not the most idiotic new-age hippy bullshit that you've ever heard of? What's next, shitting your pants?

5) What else has been going on? Given the hours I've been putting in lately, there's bound to be all sorts of stuff I've missed.

I've never pulled a post before

But that last one was just dumb.

In case you didn't see it, my cousin is in town. So, I took my nose out of work stuff for a few hours and had a drink with her. She downed about half a bottle of scotch, and I had three drinks that were watered down to the point that you couldn't even taste the alcohol. And after she went to sleep, I came here and babbled nonsense.

I knew I couldn't hold my grog like I used to, but jeez, that's embarrassing.

AWOL

Things have been going crazy with work. Also, I've been having some computer issues at home, which I haven't had time to deal with properly because things have been going crazy with work.

This will continue for at least the next two weeks. In the meantime, feel free to post whatever you want in the comments. It'll give me something to read when I finally get back on track.

One more nail in the coffin

The comic book industry is fucked. Everybody knows it. The only people who buy comics these days are blokes over forty, who are nostalgic for the stuff they used to read in that golden period from the 60s to the early 90s.

"But Alex", I hear you say, "Marvel and DC super-hero shit is everywhere these days". Yeah, it is. People are going to the movies, and watching the TV shows, and buying the merchandise, and showing up to the conventions dressed as their favourite characters—but still—nobody's buying the comics.

There's no real mystery to it. Why would anyone want to pay five quid for a thirty page picture book, when an all-you-can-eat Netflix buffet will only set you back ten bucks a month. Factor in the rise of video games, and it's easy to see why the only people buying the books are rusted-on old farts.

This puts comic book publishers in a bit of a predicament. While desperately trying anything and everything that they think might pull in a younger—or at the very least, more diverse— crowd, they're continuously running the risk of alienating the small and dwindling fan-base they already have.

I've talked before about 2000AD. A British sci-fi anthology comic that's been running for forty years. Recently they released a special edition with an all-female creative team. Well, sort of. It turned out that one of the female artist used a male assistant, whose name was scandalously left out of the main credits, presumably because his inclusion would have put a dampener on the all-girl gimmick. Also, sadly, it turned out that most of the work that appeared in the special was pretty crap. A disappointing result, that was further soured by the fact that the level of quality was well below what many of these women had demonstrated in the past. What this suggests, is that most of them signed up to be part of something they knew would be marketed as a special showcase of female talent, and then put absolutely no effort into their submissions. Leaving anyone who bought the thing, with the impression that female talent within the industry is virtually non-existent.

What interested me were the reactions.

Some people blamed the female contributors for their lazy art and writing. Some people blamed the editors for publishing such lazy work. Some people argued that having a special edition was a bad idea in the first place, and female talent should have just been brought in through the normal process, without making a big song and dance about it. And of course, some people claimed that all the negative feedback was evidence of a deeply rooted culture of sexism and misogyny within the fandom.

*sigh*

I know none of you have any interest in sci-fi comics, but tell me, do you reckon these kinds of gimmicks are a net positive, or do they generally just do more harm than good?

ASMR Annoyance & Headphone Headache

It must be a couple of years now, that I've been using ASMR videos to get to sleep at night. I've even gone so far as to stockpile around a thousand of them on my hard-drive (yes, literally a thousand), in anticipation for the day that YouTube either shuts down or implements some sort of DRM technology that prevents downloading. That's right, I'm the online equivalent of one of those hillbillies who's building a doomsday fortress—a digital prepper, if you will.^♠

^♠ Somebody remind me that I've got to do a post on prepping.

Anyway, I've noticed in the last few months that knowledge of ASMR seems to be seeping into the mainstream. I think around half of the podcasts I listen to, have either mentioned it in passing, or had semi-in-depth discussions on the topic. Unfortunately, everybody seems to be of the opinion that ASMR is something for insecure young adults who are searching for some sorta entertainment safe-space. I have never once heard anyone mention its viability as a sleep aid. Frustrating, considering that virtually every ASMRtist^♣ I follow, talks about this as being the primary application for the material they produce. I wonder how many poor bastards are lying awake out there, having not even given ASMR a shot, because they don't realise that a majority of it is made specifically for people in their predicament.

^♣ Yes, that's seriously what they fuckin' call themselves. I know, I know; I shouldn't be surprised that people think it's a big fuckin' joke. They might as well just call themselves ASMRseholes and be done with it.

Of course, not every ASMR video is for everybody; and you're probably going to have to sift through a lot of shit to find something that works for you. I personally dislike videos where people eat or play video games, and I especially loathe videos where people play video games while eating. I also find videos of people applying makeup unbearably tedious. On the other hand, I'm quite happy to sit and watch someone run their nails over a wooden tabletop for fifteen minutes, until I finally nod off.

Oh, and it'd probably be remiss of me not to mention that there's been a sizeable number of women who've come into ASMR from doing online sex shows, giving rise to a sub-genre known as "ASMRotica". Yep, seriously, that's what it's called. Which means YouTube is now littered with soft-core "tease" videos, some of which are stand-alone productions, and some of which link to accounts on PornHub, or entire PornHub-esque sites featuring nothing but hard-core ASMR videos. So, yeah, that's probably not helping the public image any, either.

But anyway, with that off my chest, it's time I got to the meat of the issue. Headphones. I find that ASMR is only effective when I wear them. I started off using the little earbuds that come packaged with every phone and tablet you buy nowadays. However, if you've ever rolled onto your side with one of those things in your ear, you'll have some idea of how your face feels after sleeping on one for six hours. Also, there were a couple of nights where I woke up with the cord wrapped around my neck. Consequently, I decided to buy some big-arsed over-the-ear bluetooth headphones. For ten bucks. And while they might look like something DJ Barbie would wear, they do work reasonably well … or they did, until the side with the bluetooth receiver started making a high-pitched whine. It's not loud, but it is annoying. Especially since it constantly cuts in and out. eeeee-eee-eeeeeeeeeeee--eee----eeeeeeee-ee-eeeeeeeee and so on and so forth.

I'm thinking I might replace them with a "good" set, but honestly, I don't know dick about headphones; and I don't feel like throwing a hundred plus quid at something that isn't going to last any longer than the ten dollar piece of fluro plastic I've got now. I'm even considering getting a set of SleepPhones, since half the ASMRseholes ASMRtists I listen to are hocking them. I just dunno. There's no way they could be "that" comfortable, and they'd have to be hot as fuck in summer, wouldn't they? Maybe I'm just a tight-arse, but I hate the idea of gambling a hundred and fifty bucks on something that might turn out to be a complete heap of shit.

So—long story short—I thought I'd write this post, and see if anybody had any experience or knowledge when it comes to the subject of wireless headphones. Any input is appreciated.

As a bonus, I thought I might post a couple of my favourite ASMR videos (don't forget to wear your own headphones). They're both "role-plays", meaning that the person in the video acts out a scene, which you—the audience member—is meant to be a part of. The first one is the single most effective video I have in my collection. I've started watching it over a hundred times, but probably only ever seen the ending on a half-dozen occasions. I usually conk out around about the time when she starts counting the shells. Also, there's nothing I can point to about this video and say "this is what I like". This girl's done at least five of these mermaid-themed role-plays, and so far, this is the only one that does anything for me.

This second one is nowhere near as effective as the first, but it is the funniest—and most imaginative—ASMR video I've ever listened to. It starts out as your regular holiday type fare, but very quickly starts to take creative liberties with the Christmas canon. Oh, and the Korean (I think) grammar, is the absolute icing on the cake ("Please take a sit. Oh, you have many snows all over you."). I briefly considered making sub-titles for it, but then I remembered how time-consuming and fiddly sub-titles are to make. Enjoy.