I don’t like to get too political on here because it always ends in tears, but I guess since I write this site from the whole journalism angle I should give my perspective on those cartoons that are driving the Muslim world apeshit at the moment (they’re here if you haven’t seen them).

I’m really in two minds about it – on one hand I absolutely believe in press freedom and that they should be allowed to print the cartoons without fear of prosecution under draconian “religious hatred” laws of whatever crap they’re pushing; on the other hand they know how volatile these groups are and had to know that printing them would stir things up.

What can’t be forgiven is the reaction of the Muslim groups around the world who call for murder, war, and terrorism over a stupid fucking joke. The irony seems to have escaped them that they’re protesting the association of their religion with terrorism by burning down buildings and calling for the murder of half of Europe, and why don’t we see the same indignation when some idiot blows himself up in the name of his religion? If we did maybe we wouldn’t have jokes to make about Islam.

While newspapers probably shouldn’t have reprinted what aren’t actually particularly funny cartoons to raise controversy, it’s no excuse for the violence over them that we’re now seeing. What, on the other hand, is a funny and insightful cartoon on the subject is this one. I wonder how much hate mail that’ll get me.

I was tempted to write something about this when I saw the original post on Penny Arcade, but since it seems to be on the verge of exploding into another of those great Internet controversies I thought I’d better get my two cents out there now. An article from The Consumerist is suggesting that Nvidia have been hiring people to ingratiate themselves into established online communities to then insert covert marketing messages that will come from a trusted source and therefore be accepted. Even if Nvidia aren’t doing it, it seems that some people definitely are.

Marketing types are known for their insidious thinking (from experience – I’m having to do a PR and Marketing unit for my degree) which makes me suspect that this has been going on for some time and has only recently become well-known. When people so easily block all online advertising and use their TiVo and Sky+ to avoid TV commercials they’re having to go for methods that can’t be avoided – you can’t selectively block forum posts when you don’t know who the advertiser is, after all. It just breeds mistrust, both of the companies that do this stuff and in the form of Thing-style paranoia where even those you least suspect could be corporate plants or evil shapeshifting aliens. Most likely both.

This might be really idealistic of me and never likely to happen, but I wish that marketing would be limited to making good products and creating good word of mouth about them. None of the cynicism of mainstream advertising and an actual incentive to make something great instead of relying on the marketing department to make it work. When I invent FTL travel and create my Star Trek-like socialist utopia marketing people will be the first ones pushed out of the airlock.

On an unrelated note, I’d like to say that I really enjoy Galaxy bars, made from only the smoothest, creamiest chocolate and tasting like chocolate never tasted before.

Just a quick heads-up for any European PGR3 players – Microsoft are running the PGR 100 competition throughout February and March, and the 100 winners will get a sexy black Xbox 360 complete with PGR3 logo on the side. Just think what people would pay for that one.

The first round isn’t exactly reliant on any skill at the game, with the only requirement being that you can download the free PGR 100 Gamer Picture from the Live Marketplace. Eurogamer seem to think that only people with all platinums should be eligible but they might be a little biased there, being superhuman and all.

I’ve written out a monster of a review for the recent special edition DVD treatment of Sin City which can be found here. You may remember that I bought this a while back only to get screwed by the French-Canadians, but my US copy arrived a few days ago and I’ve now watched everything on the discs. It’s a great set if you haven’t bought it already.

Mainly due to the fact that one person in particular can’t talk to me without slipping in the fact that I should enable comments on this blog (you know who you are), but also because I was a bit bored this evening, you can now comment on my posts if the desire takes you. I can’t really go back through every post and turn it back on, but they should be working on the last couple of weeks and all new posts from this point on. Knock yourself out.

I should note that I’m just trying this out, so if I’m not happy with it after a while I might go back to my dictatorial ways where only I get to post.

This is good for a laugh. You may remember a brief trend for editing movies to make trailers that show the movie as a completly different genre like The Shining as a life affirming dramedy or West Side Story as a zombie movie (links to the best ones here).

Anyway, there’s a new one to take a look at named Brokeback To The Future. If you find the idea of Heath Ledger mounting Jake Gyllenhaal repellant just think about Christopher Lloyd getting freaky with Michael J Fox as star-crossed lovers across time. Suddenly sounds more appealing, doesn’t it?