We need more strikes!

Yes, I'm definitely meaning it. We need more people going on strike in Germany.

Currently the engine drivers in Germany are preparing for a strike because they think - rightfully, if you want my opinion on it - they don't get enough money for their work. This will be the first real strike for quite a while. The unions have been playing nice for far too long.

Now, I personally don't belong to a union and neither am I a member of a political party. First of all, I don't know the right union for call-centre agents. Second, I don't agree with any of the political parties around enough to become a member. So either I'm going to open my "German Gamer Party" one day or I'm staying out of politics on the whole. It would be better for the other politicians if I did the latter.

Until quite recently I also thought that the unions had become quite useless. For years they haven't done anything but saying "Yes" to whatever the heads of companies wanted to do. "Downsizing" workforce? Yes, we're all for it. Cutting the rights of the employees? Of course, sirs, shall we help you with the wording? And so on. But at least one union has woken up - maybe others will follow.

That would be good, because after working in a call-centre for quite some time, I really see clear about the difficult relationship between the employer and the employee: The employee needs work so he/she can make money to live from. The employer on the other hand needs workforce so he/she can make products or provide services to make money with. Both sides sustain each other, providing something the other one needs.

During the last years one could have gotten the impression that it doesn't work like this at all. It seemed to boil down to something like this: The employee needs work so he/she doesn't have to stay at home and the employer is nice enough to provide it. Giving the employee money was just a nice bonus from the employer, not part of the whole deal of working.

I still hold on to the stupid thought that a person working 40 hours a week (8 hours a day) should be able to live from the money he/she gets for it. Rather naïve, don't you think? I mean, it worked out in the past, but why should it still be true today? To pay your bills, you should have to work in two or even three different jobs - and four hours of sleep a night still are too much, obviously. You should learn to get on with one hour - and only because biologically speaking humans need sleep to stay sane.

And no, I don't expect to get tons of cash for a little bit of easy work. I only want a job I can do and getting paid enough to pay my bills and put a bit to the side so I can afford something special sometimes (like a holiday trip, had the last when I was 15 or so, more than half my life ago).

We made life a bit too easy for the employers for quite a long time, it's time to let them realize again (as the unions did in the past) that they are just one part of the deal. They do have a partner at work and this partner isn't a multi-national consortium of companies. It's the people who work for one company.

So yes, we need more strikes! Now!

Post 250

And so, here we are again: another post with a number.

Actually I'm still a little surprised every time I realize it's time for another post. In other words: I've managed to put another 50 posts online. I don't really count the number of posts I put online during a week or a month. Sometimes I count the number a day, especially after I've been a bit lazy (but see other post for this) and put up a lot of different posts on one day.

Sometimes I still can't believe I've managed to include blogging into my life like that - as I've never managed to keep a diary for myself. But then, I was a teenager and I tried to only write about my own life (which wasn't very interesting then and in many ways isn't very interesting now). Writing about my thoughts instead of writing about my life is a lot more interesting. I don't want a very dangerous or adventurous life - that's not my cup of tea -, but I do have a lot of dangerous and adventurous thoughts. And I like sharing them with more than just my most trusted friends or my family. Blogging gives me the chance to do that.

What can you expect until the next post with a number? More about myself, surely, but most of all more about the original reason for my blog, more about society, politics and the things which piss me off. And maybe you'll get more swearing, too. That depends on the things happening in my world.

If you liked my blog up to this post, stay with me. It's going to continue just as before.

I'm baaaack!

Yes, I know, I've been a bit lazy (or at least, so it seems) lately. Well, in fact I haven't been lazy at all, just working on other stuff than my blog, which - while really being important to me - still is only one of my interests.

I was writing a lot - but a "Harry Potter" fanfiction without Harry Potter (as I've already mentioned before), not posts for my blog (which will soon reach the number 250 ... and we all know what that means, don't we?). The story is working out quite well at the moment - let's just hope I can finish it. But then, I did have a writer's block with "Phoenix Song" (you can find it on "Geschichtenschmiede") and still finished it. Other stories weren't as lucky, though...

And I was reading a lot (although I have mentioned the novels in my last post), too. And then there was the second season of "House" which I went through during three nights and two days (starting on Friday in the late evening and getting through by midnight on Sunday). I loved every single episode. But then, I love the series. And then there was "Big City Adventure San Francisco" which I also finished this weekend (while watching "House" on my computer and working on the story, talk about multitasking).

There's other stuff to come right now. I have a lot to say and I will take the time to write it down now. So expect a week with a lot of different posts about my crusades and so on.

A well-planned weekend

Although I currently have more spare-time at my hands (what with currently being unemployed, but probably not for long), I have had a rather packed weekend.

First of all, there's still two books to read: "The Book of the Dead" by Preston and Child (yet another story with Agent Pendergast, my favourite FBI-agent [yes, even including Fox and Mulder]) and "The Toyminator" by Robert Rankin.

Then I've picked up the second season of "House" on Friday - and even though I've seen three episodes on Friday night and some more on Saturday, there are still a lot to watch (four episodes per DVD, 6 DVDs per season). But I'm sure I'll get through them fast enough - "House" is the only "hospital show" I like watching.

Oh, since Thursday I've also gotten the third "Delaware St. John"-game ... but I'm through already for the first time. It's a good one, nevertheless, answering a few questions, just to produce more of them. And I've got two more games to play while working, a quiz and another 'search game'.

And, of course, I'm still working on becoming a web-master. Oh, and Saturday morning I had a great idea for a new story to write.

So the weekend is getting kind of crowded. But at least I'm doing things I like.

Werewolf Warrior

Well, what would you expect from a Japanese horror-movie called "Werewolf Warrior"? Swordfights? Check. A Werewolf (or more)? Check. Some other monsters of the Japanese folklore? Double check. So about 15 minutes into the movie everything was in place. (Although the main character, said Werewolf Warrior, didn't turn completely then. The only 'werewolf things' seen were fangs and a glowing green eye.)

Now, I would be the last person to call these movies (there's at least two of them) 'high quality'. But, having grown up in a country which considers horror-movies 'trivial' anyway, I can easily live with that. I actually enjoy a well-made "b-movie" more than an expensive one. It's more true to the gruesome stories told in the movies, usually. And by looks, the movies aren't even typical "b-movies". They're quite good.

As the movies were made in Japan, are based mostly on Japanese culture and feature Japanese actors, they are something refreshing different to my usual choice in movies.

I like swordfights, even the gruesome ones. And I like the style in which Asian movies feature those fights - much more elegant and stylish than the European/American variety (at least in the past, the Western movie-makers have learned a lot from Asian movies over time). I like seeing the moves of the hero (including the fatal strikes) in slow-mo. I like the way the fights are choreographed. And I can live with the blood-shed, the cut-off body parts (hands, arms, heads) and other stuff. It's part of the story and it's part of the setting.

The whole movies are extremely well done, too. They are set in the late 18th or early 19th century (judging from the very early machine-gun featured in the first movie - as both have the same hero, they can't be too far apart on the timeline). The looks of the people are authentic (only logical, as the movies are set in a slightly fantasy-tilted reality of Japan's past), the looks of the surrounding are as well. The actors vary from very good-looking (even the major bad guy of the first movie, although he's human - slightly bishounen, if you ask me [I will explain the bishounen, or bishonen, in another post]) to rather ugly. And I like that in a movie, I'm more than tired of those perfect-looking actors you often get in Hollywood movies. The werewolf looks good (well, not as good as E's "Tuesday Treat", naturally - but he could give them a run for their money), seems authentic in both human and werewolf form. There's even a female werewolf - a warrior herself - who turns up for a short scene in the first movie and as an important character in the second one.

So, on the whole, I don't think spending some Euros (as the movies were cheap when I bought them) really was too much.

I really like those movies, the whole way they work visually. The story is quite good as well and so are the effects, the swordfights and the monsters.

Bishounen

As I've promised in the post about "Werewolf Warrior" (which I will put up right after this one, meaning you're probably going to read it first), I will use this post to explain what the word "Bishounen" (can also be written "bishonen") means.

As a translation, the word simply means "pretty boy", but that doesn't tell you a lot, does it?

What it really refers to, is a special type of man you'll meet in manga (and not only those mainly for women) and even in old legends and stories from Japan. The "bishounen" is a man who usually looks slightly (or more) feminine, but isn't necessary behaving like a woman. "A man as pretty as a woman" is a description even given in old tales. It refers to that slightly effeminate type of man, but doesn't mean the person is nice, helpless or friendly. A bishounen can be everything, even nasty, dangerous and outright evil.

In fact, I found the link to the "Black Widower" stories about two youthful vampires on a website dedicated to bishounen - which also featured Angelo, one of the main characters of the "Black Widower" series. Angelo (and his lover Weasel) are anything but nice and helpless - they're predators.

Bishounen are a Japanese speciality ... and it helps to know about them before you watch a Japanese movie (as I did with "Werewolf Warrior"), because in Europe or America we tend to think a "feminine" man has to be weak and a good-looking man has to be good. That's not always the case.

Should I be worried?

I like doing quizzes and other stuff on the net for fun and one of the online-magazines I read regularly quite often does such stuff. Today it was a quiz about the Simpsons (because the movie is out in Germany as well). I scored 100%, more than in the "Harry Potter" quiz I did some time ago (I missed one question, not knowing Mrs. Rowling's middle name).

I've always tended to remember unimportant details, but now, after the results of a large variety of quizzes in which I did quite well, I wonder whether I should be worried about this. Will I, in a couple of years, have reached the maximum capacity of my brain and be unable to remember things from then onwards? Or will my head just explode?

I'm joking, by the way!

P.S.: Expect a post about "Werewolf Warrior" tomorrow - and maybe something about bishounen, too, if I get to it.