I forgot to mention that one of the slightly surreal aspects of the Saterday night party action was the BBC. All of the pubs and clubs had had the game on, which was on ONE, and after it ended nobody bothered to change stations, so awhile later the BEEB came online, and what was on, but the storming of the Georgian parliament.
The revolution was televised. Nice.
Very surreal though, especially without sound. I noticed that while there were people with guns they weren't doing anythinK, and inside parliament itself there were many people just sort of mooching around, and talking to one and other.
Forgot to ever follow this up, We were hard, we went to all the Matrix movies, plus Matrix One on projector, and we were mighty, I don't really have anything to add about this, I liked it, and that is all that really matters. I have heard the criticisms, and agree with some, and really disagree with others, but none of that really matters given that I liked the film, even with those criticisms that I accept. I didn't like it, like I would like the ultimate movie of 100% perfection divine celluliod, but I liked. Buh.
Back to the now...
Ahaha, ah. The comedy, my pick for the best entry on Fark's "Theme: Video game heroes using their powers for evil"
I'm pleased to see that the use of antidepressants by NZ Adults has increased 56 percent in the last five years. Super news. Not to mention the "big increase" in use by people "aged six to 18-year-olds climbed from 14,963 'items dispensed' in 1998 to 24,597 in 2002. An 'item' was generally a one-month supply." Sweet. Can't get enough of those.
Especially troubling is the "specialists say most of the antidepressants taken by 6- to 18-year-olds go to teenagers aged at least 15, which is when there is a sharp increase in the incidence of depression." Yes, well I'm glad we aren't handing these out (so much) to six year olds, but I believe they have a name for depression at around the 15 year mark.
Puberty.
Hmmm chemical imbalance in your brain huh? Damn right there is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It is one of those "things happen in a human life around now" type things. We don't have a name for the change from 20-25, or from 75-80, because generally not a hell of a lot occurs, but the 11-16 period? Oh yes, we know that some shit goes down there. We in a very real sense "grow up" (not necessarily mentally, or emotionally, but physically we do) and yet we are dolling out drugs to people here. Seems dangerous, or atleast something to be considered fully. Yes, people are often messed up at this time, everyone knows this. But it is pretty natural, as any biologist could I'm sure tell you, and to go messing around with it should be taken seriously.
However given that, I can think of at least three girls (I don't know any males (that I'm aware of) ever taking anti depressents) who tried to kill themselves prior to their 17 birthday, so maybe I should shut up. For we are suicide masters in this here Godzone.
Wil Wheaton's blog is great, he recently posted a working section of his upcoming book, dealing with some aspects of one ST convention, and I quote
"Did you get the latest draft of the script?" Jonathan said to Brent.
"Oh my god, they're talking about Nemesis!" My inner fanboy said.
'shut up!" I said, "You're not a fanboy here. You're a peer. Be cool."
Cool. I might be one of the very few people that didn't hate his character in TNG, but I guess I was even younger than he was at the time. Anyway, he seems to be a pretty cool guy now, and I'm looking forward to reading his new book.
Finally, I was just looking at the IMDB trivia for Clerks, and discovered the following:
- The original cut of the film ended with Dante getting shot in a robbery. This was cut out of the release version, but can be seen on the supplementary section of the Laserdisc and DVD.
- The VHS cassette of this film is the most stolen video tape in video stores across the USA.
So, I need me the DVD.
Slightly less finally, Glen paid for the viewing pleasure of Nic, Ben and I, (which was groovy, for we were/are poor) and got out Equilibrium. It was good to see it on DVD, rather than crappy WMV or whatever, and especially good to listen to the directors commentary (it was his first film, which makes him mightier), and we also watched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It must be excellent to be someone like George Clooney who managed to get Drew Barrymore, and Julia Roberts for cheap, and Matt Damon and Bradd Pitt for free, because he is the man, and they are his friends (ugggh Ocean's 12? Well, I'll watch it). And they aren't in the film much (bar of course Drew) anyway, it was a pretty cool film, and Clooney did well as a director, all sorts of cool stuff (like the one take shots, and no sneaky post production tricks).
Also, I totally ripped this title of Nic. He claimed that he would use it as a title for a post, and yeah whatever, he is too slow, repeat too slow. (Tark sucks.)
Posted by luther at November 25, 2003 03:51 PM | TrackBackI have photos. Beware.
Posted by: tark on November 25, 2003 05:26 PMJust wanted to say somethinK.
Looks like the "it doesn't have a K" police have been sleeping. They will be back.
Also, good work on posting about the stupidities of modern life - antidepressants and overpresciption, bad bad bad.
Posted by: mneme on November 25, 2003 10:30 PMI, the biologist (actually, I should say a biologist, cos you know a few, don't you), was saying EXACTLY the same thing to Mickey a couple of days ago! Spooky!
I fully believe that proper chemical imbalances are quite acceptable to treat with drugs. Just like diabetes or high cholesterol, it's just another imbalance we have worked out how to correct.
But puberty, yes, well. You can expect to get depressed. In fact, I'd say the abnormal teenagers (as defined by percentage) would be the ones who get through puberty feeling AOK the whole time. Mind you, they probably also had perfect skin the whole time, were blonde, slim, tall, popular, and had a boyfriend....
While drugs may help to curb the suicide rate, it doesn't really teach youngsters that really, it's not so bad, they aren't responsible for the entirety of world peace and feeding the starving Ethiopians, it's just their hormones, it happens to many kids, and they'll most likely grow out of it. Also that fellow teens, being not mature yet either, can say and do some nasty nasty things to you, but not to take it too seriously cos they haven't yet worked out what acceptable social behaviour is yet, and they will find that most humans (most of them not being teenagers, you see) are much nicer and kinder and more reasonable and reliable.
Giving brain drugs to teens, whose brains are still developing, does seem like a lot of unnecessary medicating in order to save the lives of the comparatively few severely at-risk.
That would be like all of us being on anti-heart-attack pills. I remember when I first met that Prozac-taking crowd - it was almost like you hadn't truly lived unless you had been depressed and taken Prozac for it. Or else it was like a whole bunch of similarly screwed up people had managed to congregate. Spooky, nevertheless.
Ooo, my show is on.
Posted by: madoo on November 26, 2003 07:16 PM