The Wanted: Wanting for Nearly Everything

There are some criteria for having a successful pop band:

1. you can have comically attractive band members or
2. you can have rich substantive lyrics or 
3. you can have a wildly catchy beat 

I'm Glad You Came by The Wanted however, has none of these things.

Attractive Band Members
The first mistake made in this video is that the director clearly went to the guys and said "Ok mates, what we're going to do for this shot has pan to each of you giving the camera your sexiest face. The girls will eat it up."

The second mistake was that the results of this gag reel were put in the first 20 seconds of the video. But lets go through them one by one shall we?

Max George: the buzz shaved one, for his sexy face goes with a face of deep contemplation. It was if some attractive woman had just asked him to add 3 and 5, like he is about to reply in his most seductive voice "Shhh girl, lets not talk about algebra right now."

Nathan Sykes: the bookish one. I would say that for his sexy face he pretends he is a puppy, but that appears to just be what he does all the time. Sure in this picture he is dressed like a gay cabin boy from a 1800's whaler but he is paler than chalk so that must mean he is attractive to British women right? I hope not because his sexy face is filled with as much passion and character as a bus stop.

Siva Kaneswaran: the almost foreign one. The simple fact that he has skin tone has to make you question if he is British or not but with lips thicker than a phone book the question is put to rest. It is only his musty sense of fashion that assures one that he is one of the Queen's men because no one but a Brit would wear such things. His sexy face is top notch, with parted lips staring wistfully into the rising sun. This I am sure is what was going through his mind at the time. Unfortunately if you watch the video is some guy with enormous lips looking like he is choking on his own tongue.

Jay McGuiness: The only band member that is even slightly attractive. He is paler than bleach, tall, with a mop of curly hair. He didn't make himself look like an idiot attempting a sexy face, and by the way he dances is quite obviously British. The scene of him dancing is like watching a toddler that has managed to stand but hasn't quite mastered walking. One gets the feeling that the director took the model he was dancing with aside and said to her "Look, I need you to make the best of it you can. We've done 30 takes already, he still hasn't got it and we're out of time." You also get the feeling the other band mates know he is the only halfway decent looking one and secretly hate him for it. Which is why he is always banished to the edge of the group in any photo.

Tom Parker: The Scarecrow one. The similarities are astonishing, not only does he look like he hasn't eaten in weeks but his eyes are completely flat. When putting on your sexy face you stare off into the distance like you are to burdened with thoughts of this one girl you ardently desire and can't get out of your head, like a beautiful symphony playing in your mind that you heard live and will never hear again. This guy stare off into the distance and you expect to see the look of silent music in his eyes and instead you see--nothing. It is as if there is not even the faintest spark of thought in that grey matter between his ears. Instead of putting on a sexy face he seems to have been impersonating someone in a vegetative state.

Clearly then we have not gone the overwhelmingly attractive band member's route. What about the second category?

Lyrical Content:
I was watching the video and I was a little ways in when the chorus started up and I realized that I could not remember the main verse. When I watched it again I discovered that I could not remember the main verse because there isn't one.

The song is literally the chorus twice repeated.

It's a plan so stupid it might be brilliant! So moronic it just might work! I say might there because I was being kind. Really, no. It's just stupid.

To make matters worse the lyrics they do have are laughable. Trying to dive into them to get some greater meaning is like taking a high dive into some sea foam that washed up on shore, you're just kidding yourself. These lyrics, sound as mature and thoughtful as the scribblings of a middle schooler about his crush.

"I like you a lot
more than I like Friday pizza lunch days."

Thank god no one buys cd's anymore or they'd have to print the lyrics on the inside of the front booklet for everyone to see.

Clearly then they did not get famous by lyrical merit. What about the third category?

A Catchy Beat:
All I have to say here is that while the band is British, whoever put their music together was French. You can tell by the prominent accordion in the song.

Manager: This song needs something...
Composer: Accordion!
Manger: Accordion?
Composer: Accordion!
Manager: errr, are you sure?
Composer: Accordion!
Manager: You're right! How could I have not seen it before? Yes, lets add lots of accordion.

What then could possibly redeem this song to account for this group's popularity?

Well, I have thought long and hard about this and here is what I have come up with: accents.

These guys have British accents. Women love British accents. It is that simple.



You're welcome.

Light Theory

Special relativity says light always travels at the speed of light regardless of relativity.

If I am standing still, and a train passes me going 100km/h I perceive the train as moving at 100km/h.
But if I am in a train going 100km/h with another train running along side also going 100km/h the other train appears to me to be standing still with me. If a third train pulls up on the other side of my train going 110km/h it appears to me that this third train is moving at 10 km/h because relative to me the difference in speed is 10km/h.

Now imagine I am in a train going 5 km/h and the through some mix up there is a train on the same track going to opposite direction at 5km/h. We are going to collide and to me it looks like the other train is moving towards me at 10km/h. 10km/h because the net of our two speeds in opposite directions means we are coming together at 10km/h.

This does not hold true for light though.

If I were moving at 95% the speed of light towards a bright lamp post and I measured the speed of light coming at me from the lamp post, I would find it was still moving at the speed of light, not 195% the speed of light like the net of our two speeds would suggest. Light cannot move any faster or slower than the speed of light.

Here is my theory:
Because light is incapable of changing speed, to conserve energy light must change its frequency relative to the objects velocity.

In other words if I was again moving at 95% the speed of light towards a lamp post, our net speed would be 195% the speed of light. But because light can only go 100% the speed of light it would have to dump this extra 95% of my forward progress into its frequency.  Thus the light from the lamp post wouldn't be visible anymore it would be converted into gamma rays which would melt my face off. Since all light is on the electromagnetic spectrum the light would blueshift into gamma rays

Thus I would only be able to see the lamp post in visible light if it were also emitting radio waves which would shift up to visible light.

What does this say for the objects behind me though? Based on this reasoning if I were heading to the lamp post at 95% the speed of light, away from a large gamma ray gun behind me, looking back I would suddenly perceive the gamma rays as visible light.

The Universe is a beautiful place.

People On Walkways

A mini rant:
On a paved walkway wide enough to allow two cars people need this much room:
A fat person: 1 meter
two friends: 1.25 meters
a couple (long term): 1.25 meters
a couple (newly together): 1.5 meters
a couple (drunk): 2 meters
3+ friends: the entire walkway
An owner walking their dog: the entire walkway + 5 meters

Doesn't matter how wide the walkway a dog owner will bring a leash that long +5 meters so that they can walk on one side of the pavement and their dog can walk off in the woods on the other side. The least hangs out in the middle waiting to trip you or strangle you depending on the height of the dog.

I hate dog owners.

I Swear I Stepped on a Mountain

There once was a mountain, bigger and taller than any other mountain that has ever been or ever will be, and this mountain had a name, he was called Ryan.

Now, Ryan did not start out tall. Indeed, in the beginning he was only as tall as every other mountain, which in mountain terms is to say not very tall. But Ryan hungered to be taller, he hungered in fact to be the tallest of any mountain anywhere. To be so tall that he could reach the very stars in the heavens. 

And so everyday he stretched and he strained in his rocky bed, and everyday he grew just a few centimeters taller. After a while even the other mountains who, like Ryan, wanted to be taller stopped growing, contenting themselves with their new found altitudes.

I am tall enough, they would think. Why grow any farther?

Finally Ryan was the tallest of all the mountains, yet still he kept going.  Gripped by his obsession to pursue ever loftier heights up and up and up he went.  Until at last Ryan stretched so high that his base could no longer support his and with a mighty CRACK!  the stone giant came tumbling and crumbling down to ruin. Boulders the size of sky scrapers ricocheting about like a stampede.

When the dust settled All that was left of Ryan was a single stone no bigger than the size of a fingernail. From there Ryan slipped into depression and spent his days weeping over all that he had lost and dreaming of the time when he was the tallest mountain in the world.  Many an eon did he pass in this way though to him it seemed like the blink of an eye.

One day there happened to be a runner.  This runner had run a couple marathons but now he was reading a whole bunch of stories about how you shouldn't actually wear shoes when you run, you should run barefoot.  Now this runner wasn't very bright, and thought to himself 'Huh, maybe I should try running barefoot.'

And off he went, running barefoot in the streets.  Streets which, while they appeared quite smooth from a distance, and felt smooth when you were wearing shoes, were in reality so coarse as to be only a step above gravel.

Ignoring the pitiful complaints of his poor abused feets, the runner continued until that black and accursed day when his path crossed that of Ryan.

Ryan was stone drunk that day, sprawled face up in the gutter of the inner city Baltimore street. Deciding to take it easy that day since he feet were still getting used to going barefoot the runner decided he would go to the local park and come back.  So he set off never thinking that he was about to have an unpleasant encounter with a mountain.

The run had been going fine until that fateful step, it was a bit cold and wet true, and his feet were giving him their usual complaints, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.  When suddenly he landed on Ryan.

Ryan, awaking with a start from his drunken stupor was caught entirely off guard by the sudden assault of the foot above him.  In his confusion he lashed out.  Pouring all his bitter depression, his bile, burning woe of centuries into the strike he bit deep into the half hardened flesh, giving cry to a tiny shriek as he smote his vengeance.

When the runner got home he knew immediately that something was amiss.  Examining his foot he found the wound, a bruise already forming, looking as if his foot had been struck by some tortured soul.

No mere pebble, nor stick did this he knew.  This is the work of some hidden might which will cause he to walk with a slight limp for at least the next couple of days.

The Vaccine Saga Part II: Bill Gates and his Super Secret Sneaky Agenda to Gleefully Devour Murdered Babies

So it was that when last we left our hero he was sorely beset all round.  Haughtily had he stridden taken the field thinking to glory himself battling in the name of truth and justice, the bright blade of discernment in hand.  But no contest of arms was there to be had.  For his foe met him not with rational argument, but with righteous indignation and smarmy condescension.  Armored thus the keen edge of rational thought could find no chink, and our hero did not stand long before this fell tide.

The brave boy was forced to flee.  Gravely wounded was his pride and some there were that believed it would prove mortal, yet glad were all when he proved master to the injury and this is the tale I shall tell you now.

It irked me for a long time after that my dad had won that argument. Well, not won so much as I let him win. I lacked the evidence to contradict him directly and with my dad as worked up as he was, pounding the theory that Bill Gates was not so secretly pushing vaccine use to euthanize untold millions of people, it was going to take nothing short video evidence to prove to him that this was not in fact the case.

This I did not have, and since discretion is the greater part of valor and good dinner table manners I had to set it aside.  Additionally I am a practical man, and at just that moment it happened that I was a hungry practical man. I decided with little regret that I would rather content my belly than my reason.

Days passed, each day bringing with it the nagging thought that I should look up that video my dad was going on and on about.  The one where Bill Gates admits to crimes against humanity. For one reason or another I did not look it up, lack of time, lethargy, and a pernicious disinterest making the call to look the video up a little fainter each day.

Until I confess, it was all but forgotten.

Call it divine inspiration, call it a lark, call it a prickly sense of justice, one day I awoke to find that I had decided I was going to prove my father wrong and it was going to glut myself on sweet, savory, victory.

TO THE YOUTUBES!

The first part was easy to find.  Just typing in Bill Gates Vaccine the helpful algorithms is already suggesting I complete my search terms with 'Depopulation'.  Those clever conspiracy types with their euphemisms for 'super villainous death monger'.

If you have the time and find a bracing dose of crazy amusing I quite recommend watching some of them. Clearly I had found the very font of journalistic excellence and was about to be provided with first rate balanced coverage of the issue.  Renowned authors TheTrutherGirls, EyezOpenWide2, Seattle4Truth, and ScreamingStoic all weighed in with their videos, keeping company with other videos under such even handed titles as:

Bill Gates EXPOSED! Wants Depopulation Through Vaccines

Bill Gates: Depopulation, Vaccines, & Dead Babies

Bill Gates wants Major Depopulation though vaccines

and just in case you had any doubts

Bill Gates admits that Vaccines are used for DEPOPULATION, Not For Making People Healthy

Clearly, my father is not alone.

I sigh.  It is the drawn out sigh of a long sufferer. Of a man about to engage a task he know will be difficult, who knows he will relish the conquest, when he stands atop the mountain a conqueror, but knows also that the climb will fray his resolve, the kind of sigh full of secret relish.

Weathered of feature and grim of countenance. Our boy hero goes to the fray silent as stalking death. His sword raised he is ready to cut down this ancillary host of the enemy.  The sun above favors him with special beams whose light glimmers and slides about his well polished mental mail of sound judgement. The foes are many and he will not be able to raise his sword arm for weariness by the time night has come, but stalwart of conviction he remains, come what may.

Dreams

I just dreamed that I was running for the republican nomination.  It was against a different field of candidates and we were herded together into some stale little room that looked like it was furnished by a bunch of college stoners on a budget.  We were there to wait for a toad faced tv anchor who was going to ask us some questions for a quick profile and TV interview she was doing (think more something you would see on Face the Nation, than a debate).

It was a pretty loose affair once she started asking questions it was a race for the most outrageous and provocative answer that would get the speaker camera time.  I remember that as it was finally my turn to speak on the issue, and I got ready to deliver my well thought through answer, which I was not so secretly pleased to give as it was going to cut my rivals positions ribbons, I was outshouted by one of the practiced blowhards around me.

After the cameras where capped and the lights were shut off, gathering her bag my eyes met the tv anchor's.  She gave me a shrug as she fastened her coat and left.

Later I went to the Blair house, the Vice President's residence where I tracked water and mud onto the nice hardwood floor.  Sharing a cold deli pickle with a Secret Security coworker we lamented my poor performance in the interview and how I wasn't actually old enough to run for president anyway.

The Vaccine Saga, Part I: Bill Gates and the Beginning

I shall tell you now a tale of adventure and perseverance against impossible odds. Of a brave and righteous boy battling and his malign and exasperating father.

Our tale begins as most such tales do, with my father claiming a truth so outrageous as one could scarcely believe it could be uttered with a straight face. Alone is our hero the boy to give combat in the name of truth and justice, with only wit and grit to gird him against the follies of his villainous father.  Standing solitary with the hosts of his foe arrayed before him the battle is joined with these words:

"Bill Gates, you know head of the Gates Foundation, which has untold amounts of money behind it, has even said he is supporting the use of vaccines around the world for depopulation."

 This is what my father told us all at dinner.  My dad and several others I hadn't met had arranged to meet for dinner at a lovely Lebanese restaurant which was bit pricey but, as I came to learn, had quite delectable food. The conversation was going nicely until someone started my dad on vaccines.

My dad is a pretty calm, steady guy.  6'6" with a deep voice, and meticulously combed hair which is graying at the temples he is not the sort given to chattiness.  My dad is one of those types who when you ask them a question will sit and carefully chew over his response, giving it up only with the greatest reluctance some days time later.  When we play chess he broods on the other side of the board silently playing every possible variation of moves before he moves a piece, a process which will take a mere 10-20 minutes if you rush him.

There is one strategy however which instantly draws my father out of his laconic habits.  That is to touch upon one of his pet conspiracy theories.

My dad despises anything which smacks of Big Brother and gleefully revels in accusations of government misconduct while darkly alleging that such claims are but scratching the surface.  One of his favorite such causes, and truth be told my dad treats these matters less like theories and more like causes on which he must educate all those within earshot, is vaccines.

So when he started in on vaccines I must confess I was only half listening. I had heard this routine before and admittedly I found the flat bread and hummus on the table far more interesting and gratifying.  But the line about Bill Gates caught my attention.

"Wait a minute," I interjected. "Are you trying to tell me that Bill Gates not only said, but said publicly, he wants to use vaccines to kill people?"

That is exactly what he is saying, he replies.  It was caught on tape, he saw the video. If I do the research I can watch the video too, it is astonishing.

I frown into the shallow plate of olive oil and spices as I dip a bit of pita into it, contemplating this claim.

"If you do the research.." and "If you look at the studies..." are two of my dad's favorite rejoinders when challenged.  A brilliant tactic when you think about it since I rarely have occasion to wonder if Bill Gates is promoting global vaccine use in a plot to depopulate the world.  I honestly can't imagine why this wasn't my suspicion from the first but it really hadn't occurred to me.

Knowing that pressing the matter was little likely to avail me I chewed over my bread silently.  I had no evidence to refute him with no matter how outrageous his claim was, so for the present I just had to sit back and let it blow over.

The waitress just then appeared with our meals which, from the look and smell of them, seemed every bit as delicious as the appetizers. I consoled myself with the knowledge that no matter how crazy my dad's beliefs were it wouldn't make my dinner any less sumptuous.

And so our hero, recognizing that he cannot win this day, retreats for the moment for a day where he is sure to win.