So what the hell am I doing in Nova Scotia, knowing that I’m a sinner? I ought to get me to someplace on the Ring of Fire so God’s smiting hand can actually reach me.

Seriously, WTF.

The user, TamTamPamela, closed her account. So you don’t get the full effect of the ten minutes of rambling effusiveness of how awesome it was that God smashed Japan. The Thunderf00t video will have to suffice, tempered as it is with rationality.

The post So do all sinners live around the ring of fire, or what? appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

Yes, that’s right, not the original 2012, the cheap knockoff Christian propaganda film. Stephanie Zvan and I are about to subject ourselves to this… oeuvre… and I intend to live-blog it as we go. Completely alcohol-free, at that. Heaven help us.

Apparently George W. got here first. The bastard. I swear I didn’t spoil myself on this epic retardery in advance. Well, not much. Aside from the IMDB comments thread, and a tiny snippet of George’s post.

Beginning time: 10:41 AM. Refresh for updates.

10:41: “FAITH FILMS PRESENTS”. Typewriter datelines: “Earth. 2012.” In case you didn’t know what planet this is set on. A helicopter flyover of some river, somewhere. Epic music swells, setting our expectations ever so high!

10:43: “Visual effects by Tiny Juggernaut”. This conjures epic images of a very small person in armor saying “I’M THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH” in a very high-pitched voice.

10:45: Smoke that isn’t there coming from a mountain that isn’t there. Rain made with a sprinkler, doesn’t soak anyone’s shirts.

10:46: Permanent lights in a cave give away that they’re in a tourist trap, not an archaeological dig. Everyone’s shirts are completely dry now

10:47: A gold crucifix? In a Mayan temple!? “HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE?” Because it’s obviously extremely light! Protag picks it up like it’s made of styrofoam!

10:48: ONOES VOLCANO.

10:48: VOLCANO MAKES GROUND EXPLODE. ROCK FALLS ON DUDE. ONOES.

10:49: Exponential increases grow steadily.

10:49: Alignment with a black hole in the centre of the galaxy is slowing the planet’s rotation, despite NASA knowing about alignments and it being impossible. Science is wrong ZOMG

10:50: This film probably not sponsored by Shell, despite appearances. Also, steady cams probably require permits, explaining the shaky shots.

10:51: stalker guy takes pictures of girl, his battery is running low. We somehow get a video feed from it.

10:52: “Nice to meet you, stalker guy. Help me find something. I’m a missionary.” “Okay.”

10:53: “There are no doctors in this whole damn country!” “I know how to apply a band-aid.”

10:53: PACING! We’ve lost ten hours already! Cut to a drawing of a crucifix that gets crumpled because the artiste didn’t like the proportions in front of the Mayan temple.

10:54: Dude worked on by paramedics has THE SAME TATTOO AS CHICK’S DRAWING!!!! PLOT!!!!

10:55: Dying dude is saying The Lord’s Prayer, despite exhortations by the paramedics to try to get him to stop, and move his hands from being clasped in prayer, so they might save his life. He dies. Worst paramedic scene ever.

10:56: 25 hours til doomsday. Typewriter says so.

10:56: Carbon dating of gold (with probably no carbon in it) to 300 AD. THERE’S NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT.

10:57: Christians are scientifically illiterate. Science Guy with blue shirt uploaded AI and downloaded some whosits to get a model of Earth’s rotation CAUSING HURRICANES WHICH ARE RESULTANT OF EARTH’S ROTATION. FFS.

10:59: Anyone have any objection with recommending that the President evacuate the west coast? Nope? Good, let’s go get donuts.

10:59: Science guy is missionary chick’s dad! PLOT! CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! Stop arguing and get out of Mexico because of doomsday!!!

11:00: “I love you and I’ll see you in a couple of days.” “DAD? DAADDDD!?”

11:00: Paramedics learned everything they could about the weird tattooed guy that died.

11:01: Paramedic chick is the atheist-to-be-converted. Same chick that drew the cross for some reason.

11:01: Good people die, ergo no god, says atheist. When someone dies, you can see and feel the life leave them. Can’t you feel it when they’re gone? Yeah, when you look at their pulse or lungs.

11:02: Cross must be reunited with the big temple before the end of the Long Count Calendar. Cross is extremely light. Everyone misunderstands the Long Count calendar, as though it is made up of 13 cycles, rather than having rolled over 13 times.

11:04: Earthquake cracks appear to be drawn onto ground. With MS Paint.

11:04: Vegetarians don’t get poisoned by dead Koi floating in a Mexican river. Just FYI. Volcanoes must be heating up the river and killing all the Koi via bacteria levels. Wonder if this has anything to do with doomsday????

11:05: Every country in the world is reporting to NASA that there are bad things happening. Space shot probably nicked from NASA. Continents not visible on this planet, though. So maybe a bad 3D modeler instead. At least they got atmospheric fuzz.

11:06: News announcers sound like goobers in this alternative world.

11:07: The village is abandoned! But has a strawberry-print tablecloth. The villagers were too sick to move, but apparently all left somewhere. As though bidden by God.

11:08: “I’m helping sick people!” “You have to get out of there as soon as you can! Climate changes whargarbl! Never mind the six billion other people on the planet, you HAVE TO GET OUT OF THERE! Also, your cell reception is incredibly clear from the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula, are you on T-Mobile?”

11:09: Oklahoma is in the mid-west. The things you can learn from movies!

11:10: “Okana… okay. I don’t get your crazy moon language. I sense that someone is sick though.”

11:10: “Miracles and science brought me to you! And also stalking. Who’s gonna take pictures of the End Times?”

11:11: Storm clouds over California don’t reduce the ambient light, but they do harbinger doomsday!!!!!!

11:12: “I don’t believe in the end of days!” “You must!!!!!” “It’s just an earthquake.” TORNADO WARNING OFF THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA!

11:13: Chichen Itza, the actual famous Mayan temple, makes its appearance. Atheist has been drawing pictures of it all her life, apparently. Maybe God’s trying to show her something! And yet she’s still an atheist!! Nostrils flare dramatically.

11:14: More misunderstanding of the long count calendar, plus some Bible quoting, as though the Mayans said it.

11:15: Downtown California has a lot of hay being stirred up by the SUDDEN TORNADO that still isn’t eliminating any of the ambient light. And isn’t moving any tree shadows AT ALL.

11:16: it’s gonna get really cold. Traffic in California is perfectly normal. More ambient light issues, reduced via Photoshop to put a grey sky in the background.

11:17: “Why can’t you feel God wants you to be with him?” “BUT SCIENCE SAVES PEOPLE NOT GOD. Deathbed conversions suck!! Where is God when people die?” What it’ll take to convert this atheist is something that never happens. She’s holding her lack of faith in the face of a lot of evidence to the contrary, which I reiterate, is something that never happens in real life. When there is evidence, atheists accept and internalize it. The problem is generally the lack of evidence.

Short pause for work crap.

Work crap easily deflected, this is now a bathroom / tea break.

11:34: We has tea. Time to dive back in.

11:35: “IF I DON’T LET GO OF THE GOLDEN CRUCIFIX WE’LL ALL DIE” NOOOOOOO

11:35: 15 hours to doomsday. Missionary and stalker walking to Chichen Itza. Didn’t stalker dude have a car?

11:36: a pregnant woman. Odds on her being a virgin? The brown people in this film are all symbolic only.

11:36: Let’s get the pregnant woman some help from somewhere. Even though I only know how to apply a band-aid.

11:37: WE WOULD HAVE ALL DIED IN THAT HOLE TRISH. HIS WAS A NOBLE SACRIFICE.

11:37: “I just don’t know what’s going on any more!” You and me both sister.

11:37: “It’s a myth!” “It’s not a myth! Just like they predicted 2000 years ago.”

11:38: “Are you with me?” “But I’m a doubter! I need to be convinced!” Also, fire ants and pregnant woman vomiting. Nobody is holding her hair from in front of her face. Lovely missionary, that one.

11:39: Temperature is dropping despite the volcano. We shouldn’t be able to see the edges of the cushion used to make the chick look pregnant.

11:39: a scrape to the back makes someone cough and “lose a lot of blood”, enough to make a small red spot on her shirt. No blood flowing though.

11:40: Stalker is a doubter too: “You want to drive across the country to some Mayan temple with a pregnant woman just because some village boy told you so?” This is seriously verbatim.

11:42: Cough cough cough. Touching moment about divorce and fidelity despite them obviously still loving one another because marriage is forever.

11:43: Meanwhile, while you’re being all mooshy, she’s dying from that scrape on her back. She’s forgetting to cough though.

11:44: Light filters through clouds. Must be God. 12 hours to go before he gets with the smiting.

11:44: Atheist starting to ask about believing in God. Mom’s “always believed”. Probably even before anyone told her about him! Complexity == God and design. Fine-tuning argument.

11:45: “I pray to God every day to convert you, daughter. Despite the Bible saying not to pray for others’ salvation, only your own. Oh, and birth is a miracle.” The epidurals must have been really good.

11:46: Something as perfect as a newborn child can only come from God, not a sperm and egg. Babies are created fully-formed in utero by God.

11:47: pregnant Mayan lady knows English suddenly. Broken English. Talking to God and asking why he no love me and make baby.

11:48: We’re going to Chichen Itza because of baby. Music is supposed to set the scene for them going to a Mayan temple, but sounds like an Indian folk song.

11:48: Earthquakes, tornadoes etc. haven’t disrupted any phone service. Payphones still work. Everyone’s fine. Festival flags still up. Payphones are breaking up though! DAD! SARA! TETSUO! KANEDA!

11:50: Mom is asleep and smiling, which makes atheist smile, because she’s not yammering on about God now. Also, Earth still has no continents. And still seems to be rotating just fine.

11:51: God took science guy’s wife, but wasn’t trying to hurt him. Science guy also believes in God. Pilot of biplane apparently knows philosophy!

11:52: Nope, God definitely hates science guy. He’s pissed, even. Ineffectual though, because despite God’s valiant efforts, pilot guy pulls them through. A modicum of acting happens here. You need to find it and watch it, then turn the movie off.

11:53: Cough cough cough. That cut is killing me. Promise me you’ll take the balsa-wood spraypainted crucifix to the temple!

11:54: Pilot is a nihilist. He was only sent by God to get science guy through God’s wrath.

11:55: Mom and atheist’s car runs out of gas. Atheist pops the hood. Mom is gone! ZOMG RAPTURE

11:56: Pilot is gone too! ZOMG RAPTURE

11:57: Atheist asks the sky what’s happening. Then drops to her knees and asks God “dude, wtf? Just send me a sign, coz I’ve been ignoring all those other ones.” Then a car drives up and stops. Selection bias!

11:58: It’s science guy!!! We’re going to Chichen Itza together now! Because we’re supposed to! You also have a Player Character aura!

11:59: Cough cough FRANK YOU HAVE TO LEAVE ME cough cough expire. We’re at Chichen Itza though!

11:59: CPR doesn’t resurrect people from plot development.

12:00: Enya on the radio. Atheist knows about Bible quotes. Thessolonians. Science guy knows it too. Talking about The Rapture. LEFT BEHIND!!!!

12:02: “Your theological babblings sound very reasonable.”

12:02: “Why are you going to Chichen Itza?” “for teh lulz”

12:02: “And I said NO DON’T STOP.” To his daughter. Science guy got from Maryland to New Mexico in a biplane in… how many hours?

12:03: God didn’t like the cloud palette. Lens filter doesn’t eliminate the ambient light inside the car. Giant hail exists outside the car, but inside the car, everything’s perfectly fine. Except for all the swerving. A hail stone destroys the windshield and comes through one reality into the other, killing stalker dude. Meanwhile, the hail storm has mysteriously stopped outside the car again.

12:05: “I’m not dead yet.” “I’ll pray for you!” “Now I’m dead. But I believe too!”

12:05: Sobbing. Pregnant lady in the back seat is totally silent. Gaping chest wounds don’t bleed or anything. Self-cauterizing snowball-inflicted chest wounds! Anything’s possible with Yahweh!

12:07: They just blew their entire CG budget on a Myst puzzle that could have been solved with any square stick of balsa wood.

12:07: Pregnant woman remembers she’s pregnant. They’ll be at Chichen Itza soon though! With dead stalker guy in the passenger seat!

12:08: No continents, but many hurricanes.

12:08: “Square square X” translates to… when doomsday happens, babby is born and chosen messengers of Christ ASSEMBLE.

12:09: “Keep moving, pregnant lady. We’re not at the temple yet.” Screaming with pain = best acting in the movie. And not from the audience.

12:10: Good thing these ladies know where the temple’s entrance is. And where the altar to make babby is.

12:10: “Sara!?” “Dad?!” “TETSUO!” “KANEDA!” Drops the pregnant lady. Thankfully the atheist is there to catch her.

12:11: Not long til pregnant lady gives birth to Christ 2!

12:12: West coast is consumed by… a really badly rendered wave that sort of does a tidal bore thing. London is burning. A mosque falls apart. Earth has continents again though!

12:12: baby is almost born. Earthquake stops. We lose power in America, so everything goes silent in the Yucatan peninsula. I assume the sound stage was on America’s power grid.

12:13: Praying! Silence and piano music! AMEN!!!!

12:14: SCREAM. I can has babby plz?

12:14: Okay God is happy now. Sorry about all that death and destruction. Now the Earth must be spinning very fast, since the sun is back up. Bet everyone believes in God now!

12:15: The end of the great cycle. Nobody knows a damn thing about the Mayan long count. Yet, nobody’s going to believe the Messengers of Christ, because all that was lost was London, a mosque, and the West Coast of the USA. And the storms are all done now. So… what’s the endgame here? Proselytizing by the atheist and theist alike? WHO KNOWS! CREDITS AND PSEUDO-MAYAN NEW-AGE POP ROCK MUSIC! Lyrics are “You’re running through the desert, you’re running towards the sun.” Because that totally happened in the movie.

12:18: I attempt suicide. Stephanie prevents this because she needs someone around who knows what she’s lived through.

From the credits: “To learn more about Faith Films go to www.faithfilms.cc”. Just in case you wanted to learn more about them.

The post Live blogging 2012: Doomsday appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

I felt the same WTF moment when I first learned the Final Fantasy game series was so messed up in being brought across the Pacific. If Angry Video Game Nerd hadn’t already said it all about the stupid sequel naming conventions that video games and movies have made seemingly ad-hoc over the years, there would have been a post about it at here eventually.

The post Took the words right outta my mouth appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

Sarah Palin has taken a job with America’s answer to Pravda, FOX “News”.

The network confirmed that Ms. Palin would appear on the network’s programming on a regular basis as part of a multiyear deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ms. Palin will not have her own regular program, one person with knowledge of the deal said, though she will host a series that will run on the network from time to time.

Because FOX just didn’t have enough journalistic integrity. Seriously. What the fuck?

The post WTF appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

Hi everyone, and welcome to the end of yet another weekend! I’m not feeling all that great — I think I’m starting to finally succumb to that cold I’ve been staving off for almost two weeks now. So, I’m going to phone this one in and throw a few funny links and a Cool Atheist of the Week, then go snuggle into bed and drink some tea, and read Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World. Or maybe I’ll just bring the laptop in and watch some Mythbusters instead, in honour of my pick for this week.

Jamie Hyneman, from The Discovery Channel’s popular show Mythbusters was interviewed by David Federlein, in the #42 episode of Skepticality. Both were attending The Amazing Meeting 4 last year in Vegas:

David: “What brought you to the skeptical movement here?”

Jamie: “I actually before this didn’t really know that much about the skeptics society, and I guess Adam and our producer were a lot more up on it and were more enthusiastic about it, but once I got into it, I became aware that unknowingly, I mean, I’m actually pretty adamant about the whole God thing. And it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with, and so it turned out to be a good thing and I’ve become enthusiastically a part of it.”

On the topic of appeal to authority (as though having lots of famous people “on your side” is such a big deal outside of proving how mainstream an outgroup actually is), check out this bullshit Yahoo Groups question/answer, Can someone name ANY atheist famous for something other than being an atheist? The question was obviously asked by a theist, considering the ridiculous dig at evolution (what’s that got to do with atheism again??), and considering the “best answer” picked wasn’t one of the dozens of comments containing multitudes of atheists and what they’re famous for outside atheism but is instead one with lolspeak, no punctuation, and “no” as the answer.

Speaking of lolspeak, here’s something that’ll make you go WTF (there’s a tenuous segue at best): Klingons for Christ, a rather twisted attempt to make the case that Christianity is the right religion for every good Klingon warrior to embrace. I say twisted because the author pretty much has to perform acrobatics to reconcile the two — the scariest part is that it’s a rather successful amalgamation of the two fiction-based philosophies. As long as you can get past the “thou shalt not kill” thing, which you can do if you use the “murder” translation instead, and define “murder” as any killing that’s done in an honourless manner.

The Wikipedia page for Catholic sexual abuse scandals in Canada is sorely lacking in our latest example. Could someone with a Wikipedia account kindly rectify this?

And finally, ever wanted to prove you can fuck up less than Yahweh supposedly did in the Christian Bible? Here’s your chance. Pro tip: as an omnipotent deity, you can make everything perfect any time you want. Try not to fuck up too badly!

The post RCimT: The usual Sunday godlessness appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

The post “ACHOO!” “dude wtf” appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

Here’s my picks for worst covers, either from songs I knew were covered previously, or ones that workmates suggested when I did an informal survey. Presented without comment — your screams of agony speak more than I ever could. I dare you to play every one of these all the way through.

Vanilla Ice – Satisfaction

Michael Bolton – Dock of the Bay

Laibach – Sympathy for the Devil (seriously, WTF IS THIS!?)

William Shatner – Rocket Man

Sheryl Crow – Sweet Child O’ Mine

And the number one worst cover ever, mentioned by the greatest percentage of my workmates and easily exemplar of why the douchiest band ever should not be allowed to cover anything ever again: Limp Bizkit’s Behind Blue Eyes. The only redeeming factor would have been the Speak-n-Spell, but even it is turned into a virtual douchebag by having to spell L-I-M-P over and over.

WHERE ARE YOUR GODS NOW!?

The post That “best / worst cover songs” meme… pt 2 appeared first on Lousy Canuck.

As I write this post, Megaman’s got a Jewel Satellite shield up and is sitting under two Telly spawn pipes at the end of the Plug Man stage in Megaman 9, harvesting bolts and extra lives.  In the meantime, I’m doing something productive, like writing on my blog.  This is how weekends should truly be spent — doing absolutely nothing of consequence!  And to top it off, I have Monday off for Turkey Day, and expect to be gorging myself on pumpkin pie in short order.

But before I get to Turkey Day, I’ve got two free days that I desire nothing more than to be spent playing video games.  It’s been a bit since I’ve talked about video games, so let’s catch you up on what I’ve done lately.

Borrowed Pickles’ copy of Wii Fit and played around with it for about two weeks, and while it was fun, I certainly couldn’t get myself into a routine playing it.  I’m pretty fit as it stands, though, and the game told me I was pretty much at my ideal BMI, and while I know body mass index is a flawed metric, I could have told you that I’m perfect already.

I also recently beat No More Heroes, as mentioned in a previous post.  The game is absolutely fantastic, and even the grind-ish parts where you have to make money don’t seem all that bad because of just how much fun it can be to run back and forth chopping people in half or killing seven or eight bad guys with one swing.  The plot, on the other hand, is an absolutely ridiculous tangled web where plot developments and twists throughout the game follow a trend of starting at one, then doubling after the fourth stage, then again after the eighth stage, and then again every stage after this.  By the time you hit the “real ending”, you’re not sure if anything that’s happened through the rest of the game was even planned out or not, or if there’s a coherent story flow.  Spoilers after the break…

Big spoilers, highlight to read: Your ex girlfriend is also your half-sister who killed your parents because your dad molested her, and she serves as the last boss of the regular game, having manipulated a con artist named Sylvia into making up the whole “assassin’s guild” deal so you’d train your way to being able to kill her; Sylvia in the meantime convincing people to go out killing each other for absolutely no reason whatsoever, all the while fleecing these supposed assassins for everything they’re worth; and once you get the “real ending” it also turns out that Sylvia is married to Henry who stole your rank 5 kill of Letz Shake, depriving you of a battle in a long, super cool cut scene, and that Henry turns out to be your twin brother (even though you look nothing alike and he speaks with an Irish accent). Get all that?  Good, because I sure as hell didn’t.  I’m amazed I could even type all that, because in the course of this game I’ve probably said “what the fux yo” eight billion times.  I can’t honestly recall ever being as thoroughly dumbfounded, and I’ve watched Lost.

So, after beating NMH, I needed to cleanse the palate with some good old fashioned 8-bit ass-kicking, and purchased Megaman 9 on WiiWare — best ten bucks I’ve spent in a long time, because, for those of you who don’t know, Megaman games make you fight for every inch of ground you get.  There’s a ton of cheap deaths — and I mean a TON.  In playing the game, I’ve commented out loud frequently as to how much like Asshole Mario it’s been.  I’d think I figure out a room, and make an attempt, and the bastard game designers would throw some new complication into the mix that you won’t see coming until after you find yourself thrown into a wall of spikes.  Cheap deaths galore, but that’s what Megaman is, and for that, I have to give these designers credit — not only have they successfully revived the original Megaman series, but they’ve done every 8-bit game justice, and have proven that the game design is every bit as viable as it’s always been.

Now, as much of a hardcore gamer as I am, I had to do something to placate poor Jodi, who has been very good to put up with me trying the same section of a stage eighty times in a row, so I also got Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, which can only be described as SimRPG.  Now, I don’t mean it’s part strategy game — there’s a little strategy, but it’s hardly Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Imagine a cross between SimCity, and a traditional RPG with exploring, treasure-obtaining, stats-building, and equipment-improving, now take out all the fights — since they all happen out in the field between your hired adventurers and the monsters, and you’re just the king and have to stay inside town.  The game itself is surprisingly fun, despite the fact that they took an RPG and removed everything that makes an RPG fun to play.  They’ve supplanted all the actual RPG-type fun with SimCity-type fun, where you have to build the infrastructure, the staging platform on which these adventurers can successfully tackle the world’s dungeons.  It’s surprisingly long, as well — there are four chapters in the game’s plot, and we’ve gotten to Chapter 4 before we’ve cleared even 1/5th of the dungeons.  I’m a bit of a completist, so I’m likely to want to keep playing the game after Jodi’s seen the ending, but I don’t know how long it’s going to continue to hold my interest.  One surprising aspect of the game is that there are a good deal of extras available for downloading after the initial purchase — however, none of them are worth the price tag in my opinion, given the steep price — you’d pay double what you paid for the game to get all the doodads and whatnots that you can purchase separately, and none of them would affect the game in any significant way.

There are a few games on the horizon for the Wii that I’d like to play, including Pirates vs Ninjas Dodgeball (and as if that weren’t badass enough, there are two extra races — Zombies and Robots — and a fifth, unlockable race that is yet to be revealed), Tomb Raider: Underground (trailer) which is looking to be absolutely phenomenal, and a third game that Jodi wants to try but I’m not so sure about, being The Dog Island.  That last one sounds just way too saccharine.  I’m likely to have to leave the room when she’s playing it, I get the feeling.

You folks playing anything interesting lately?  Anything I should be trying?

The post Gaming madness appeared first on Lousy Canuck.