/writings/

Official blog and geeky manifesto of The Ruku

Things I’ve learned during my time as Chow Yun-fat

July 16th, 2010 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Entertainment, Humour, Rants
Jul, 16 2010
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There’s something to be said about video game storytelling. Not to jump on the games = art bandwagon (by the way, fuck you Roger Ebert), but an exceptional game can whisk you away and provoke just as much emotion from someone as much as any movie or any book.

Also, higher chances of cleavage of epic proportions

On the other end of the spectrum, you have your mindless shooting games where your main goal is to turn anything not nailed down to a squishy, bullet-absorbing pulp. While fun in their own right, can you honestly consider Macho Dudes With Guns III: Requesting Backup something that would engage you emotionally? No? Okay, what if you were Chow Yun-fat?

Stranglehold is considered the spiritual sequel to the John Woo movie Hard Boiled; A Hong-Kong cop action flick. In Stranglehold, Chow Yun-Fat returns as Detective Tequila for a hard-hitting seven hours of shooting people in the face.

I learned a lot from this game, more than what they taught me at school. So I thought I’d share with you all my experiences:

1) Everything even remotely horizontal has oil all over it

As I ran through the Hong Kong markets; Checking out what’s on sale, trying the local food and shooting people in the face. I noticed that a lot of the benches were rather slick. So much so, that I could slide across one of the stalls with pretty much no effort required.

This wasn’t just for benches, either. It’s like part of the opening ceremonies in these places seem to be “cover fucking everything in KY Jelly”. Even the peaceful joy of sitting at a fountain and taking in the atmosphere was hampered by all the sliding around I had to do. While I didn’t get a chance to sit down and relax, it provided me with a rather decent tactic when it came to shooting people in the face.

2) During a standoff, everyone takes turns (except for you)

So I encountered a few angry locals. It probably didn’t help that I kept shooting them in the face. Occasionally, you will be surrounded by a heap of these guys. But fear not! They’re all very polite and take turns shooting you in the face while you can shoot them in the face to your heart’s content. Just be careful of bullets flying your way! Remember your upper-body Yoga training when you inexplicably lean in ways that would make any normal person break their spine.

3) Everyone is an enemy (who wants to shoot you in the face)

No, seriously. I asked this one guy where the bathroom was and the pulled a gun on me. So far, no sign of the “old granny with a shotgun” comic relief, but give it time, I’m sure.

4) Your thighs are powerful instruments of death

When I was still a nearly-jobless slacker trying to make you laugh about how small my dick was, any time I accidentally smacked my leg into a table I screamed bloody murder. When I was Chow Yun-fat and shooting people in the face, they may as well be made of Balsa-wood. The more sturdy they looked, the easier they broke. It’s as if my thighs were circular saws or something.

5) Explosions solve everything

Michael Bay haters take note! The guy might be onto something here. This one time I was reading a book, right? and these guys were shooting me in the face. So I took aim and shot a barrel nearby which someone conveniently placed there. I never got through so many pages of “American Gods” in a long time.

6) Drug dens are numerous and easy to find

Much like one could easily find their way around by taking note of all the McDonald’s stores in an area, you can easily spot a drug lab by the plumes of black smoke being pumped out from all the drug equipment. Given that apparently raiding a drug lab back home was a big deal, maybe they should have Chow Yun-fat go around and randomly shoot people in the face

7) Rockets emit blue smoke

So this one time I was up in a helicopter shooting people in the face and on the odd occasion, there was this guy with a rocket launcher. Thankfully, disarming him (and the rocket) was easy to find thanks to all the neon blue smoke it was pumping out. It was kinda like “whack a mole”, but instead of a hammer, I had bullets. Lots of bullets.

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Ruku vs Toyota: The Whole Shebang!

July 16th, 2010 Posted in Entertainment, Humour, Misc/Other Posts
Jul, 16 2010
3 Comments »

So I haven’t touched on this in a while, simply because somehow, things got busy and I’ve found better things to do.

It’s okay, I’m as shocked as you are.

If you’re not one of my many adoring fans/friends and family/creepy internet stalkers who are on my Facebook friends list, I’ll fill you in on how I come to have a short scuffle with a motor company.

A while back now, Dave (friend and drinking buddy) sent me a picture over Twitter of a new Toyota vehicle they’re calling the “Rukus”:

At first, I thought “what a fucking stupid name for a car.” Then it clicked. That’s a fucking stupid name for anything. But damnit, That’s my fucking stupid name I’ve been using for all things internet since 2003.

Granted, Toyota was gracious enough to add an “s” on the end to avoid my knickers getting knotted further about the situation. I have a feeling that “Rukus” was meant to be pronounced “Ruckus”. which brings me to two further problems:

1) Whoever does the naming of cars at Toyota sucks at spelling

2) Would you really want to refer to your car as a “ruckus”?

Nevertheless, armed with nothing better to do, I sent off an email to Toyota:

To whom it may concern,

I have noticed recently that you have announced a vehicle you’ve named a “Rukus”. While I’m sure this is unintentional on your part, I have a concern that there will be confuson when it comes to online advertising, as I have been using ‘Ruku’ as my net handle since 2002-onwards.

Not to get all “I was here first”, but seriously, I totally was, and I have witnesses to prove it. So I’m sure you understand the situation here. If a name change isn’t feasible at this point, perhaps I could endorse the Rukus on my youTube channel on behalf of Toyota or something like that?

Thankyou for your time.

Naturally, being a big fancy motor company, you’d think they wouldn’t waste time on someone who clearly has way too much time on their hands. Having a night job does that to you. (in my defence, finished Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect within the same week. JUDGE NOT!)

You thought wrong. A few weeks after my initial email (at a point where I completely forgot about it), I got the following response:

Dear Mr Sheehan,

Thank for your recent email received by the Toyota Customer Experience Centre.

‘RUKUS’ is a registered trade mark owned by Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, and used by Toyota Australia under an exclusive licence. Toyota Australia is comfortable with its rights to use this trade mark in Australia, and we are not infringing any intellectual property rights in doing so.

We also disagree that our use of the trade mark (primarily in relation to motor vehicles and relates products and services), will cause any confusion with your use of ‘Ruku’ in online advertising.

In relation to your request to endorse ‘RUKUS’ on your YouTube website, we do not permit third parties with no association with Toyota to use our trade marks as it undermines the significant investment TMCA and the Dealer network put into promoting and protecting the Toyota brand.

We thank you for your understanding.

Kind Regards,

[Name withheld]
Customer Experience Consultant

Fair call I suppose. I can’t see myself selling cars under the RukuCorp(tm) brand anytime soon, so I guess there won’t be any trouble from my end. Though, I feel rather shafted I apparently can’t plug the vehicle on my YouTube channel. Ripped off much?

Then I got a little concerned. what if something does come up which might infringe their copyright? Sure, let’s face it. I’ve been known as Ruku since 2003 and I have people who can vouch that. But they own the trademark.

I sent the following reply. If we’re going to be sharing online and meatspace together, may as well play nice:

[Name withheld],

Thankyou for your reply. Just had one more question in regards to th ‘Rukus’ trademark. Should I be worried of any backlash from Toyota if I start making money via my use of ‘Ruku’ online? Or is it different enough to not cause any problems? I’m assuming so long as I stick to just being a self-centred angry internet blogger and don’t get into car manufacturing, I’ll be okay, right?

Not long afterwards, I recieve the following:


Dear Luke,

Whilst we appreciate your concern, it is really up to you to ensure you don’t infringe Toyota’s trade mark rights, and regrettably, we are unable give you legal advice regarding this matter.

As a guide though, trade mark owners such as Toyota can prevent third parties from using trade marks that are similar to our registered trade marks, if the third party uses the similar trade mark for similar goods or services.

You can obtain more information on this from IP Australia’s website, please find this information listed below:

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/index.shtml.

In the instance you require any further information, we recommend that you obtain independent legal advice to ensure that you do not infringe.

Once again, thank you for contacting Toyota and giving us the opportunity to respond.

Kind Regards

[Name Withheld]
Customer Experience Consultant

So basically, they have full authority to shitcan me if I even dare using the name “Ruku” for “similar goods or services”.

Um, what? I’ve been calling my car the Rukumobile for months now, and it sure as hell doesn’t look like something that was designed on “Take your kids to work day”.

Seriously...

So basically, we’ve learnt from this that Toyota are just like any corporation: Arseholes. Thankfully. I think I’ll be getting my own back in the near future:

It's okay, Toyota. It's for a movie review site

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Hot for Scott Pilgrim

July 10th, 2010 Posted in Entertainment, Sights and Sounds
Jul, 10 2010
No Comments »

Sorry about the lack of updates, kids. Real life is getting in the way of my internet life at the moment… Not sure if I’m cool with the idea.

Okay so, feast your eyes on this:

I have not been this excited about a movie since “The Dark Knight”. While many awesome movies have come and gone, this is certainly the one on my “must see” list. Seeing as most of you reading this would be on my Facebook list anyways, we’re going, right guys?

In other news, We (as in, me, Craeg and Corine, the core members of my chicken-shit outfit ‘Compound Fiasco Productions’) are moving onto production with Hell is Other People. How well this goes determines how I press on with other things I have brewing in this hairy scalp of mine. More on that later. Much later. For now, head over to the ‘Hell’ website to check out what we’re doing.

The spare time that has been granted to me, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 13. Too early into the game to make a concrete opinion, but there’s as much to like about it as there is to hate about it. So far it’s pretty enjoyable all ’round.

Also, would like to make a small mention to another event that’s happening in August… I’m heading to the Sydney Opera House to see this guy called Kevin Smith, maybe you’ve heard of him?

He directed a bunch of movies once.

Just thought I’d gloat. ;)

Right, I have a party to go to tonight with a mate of mine.. This, of course means I’ll end up playing video games and leave everything in a mad rush to get ready.

Just want to leave you with one last video, namely one of my favourite bits (aside from all of it :P ) from “Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder”

Hope you’re all having a good weekend guys!

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We’re doomed (or “/writings/ is so going on the blacklist for this”)

June 30th, 2010 Posted in Observations, Rants
Jun, 30 2010
3 Comments »

So over the course of 24 hours, we have a new Prime Minister.

Australia, that is. Not the Grand Islands of Rukadia.

I’m still baffled as to how this all came about, despite having it explained to me several times via friends and YouTube videos. Like, the mouthwords make sense, but the brain no worky… Or something like that.

I honestly didn’t think the Westminster Parliamentary System worked like that. Keep in mind it’s been quite a while since I took an active interest in politics, so excuse my ignorance here.

Frankly the actions of the Labor party seemed a bit on the backstabby side, and the way Kevin Rudd (former PM, hereafter known as “Ruddkips”) was given the boot without seemingly even given a chance to do his job properly was something I don’t agree with. As far as the Superprofits tax goes, bring it on. Frankly I can’t argue with knocking these huge corporations down a peg or two.

All the same, seriously, wow. New PM, who is a woman AND a redhead. Shit, if she was a muslim lesbian all the conservative party members’ heads would explode from all the minority-ness.

Pure left-wing evil.

The basics on our new PM are this: Julia Gillard, originally from Wales, moved to Adelaide and currently resides in Melbourne, she’s an unmarried childless Atheist who lives with her partner and -up until recently she was the deputy Prime Minister, and is also Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion.

Considering Ruddkips was a church-going type and the opposition leader is a devout Catholic, something tells me I’m going to like this change in leadership. My main concerns at this point is Gillard bending to the mining corporations’ demands, her views on the internet filter, gay marriage and naturally, wondering if Carrot-Top will be elected as our secretary of defense:

He will fuck your shit up.

For the most part however, given that I don’t have a problem with many of Labor’s policies, there’s a fresh face in the Lodge and that it will take some serious cocksucking from the Liberals for me to even consider voting for them, I hereby welcome our new bloodnut overlord. *starts “four more years” chant*

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A Drawn-Out Toy Story

June 23rd, 2010 Posted in Entertainment, Rants, Sights and Sounds
Jun, 23 2010
No Comments »

So there’s a Toy Story 3 coming out…

Am I the only one who isn’t interested? Haven’t they said all there is to say in Toy Story 1 and 2?

Don’t get me wrong, I like cartoony movies still despite being 25. I intend on seeing ‘Up’ sometime this century… When I have money… Whenever that will be.
At any rate, seriously. What more can they do? They’ve done the “toy gets lost in the great outdoors” routine, and the “let’s introduce a bunch of forgettable characters and a love interest that isn’t Bo-Peep” routine. Aren’t the tales of Woody and Buzz pretty much done? From the sounds of things, Toy Story 3 is just the first one, but Andy is all grown up and ditches all his old toys. Yeesh, Give the kid years of entertainment and you’re out on your arse. That’s gratitude for you.

Perhaps I should just shut up and reserve judgement until I see it…eventually….in a galaxy far far away, but ehh. The idea of reviving a childhood favourite long after the second one had passed on seems like a bad idea to me. Case in point? motherfucking Shrek. We don’t need a Shrek Forever After, even if it was a gritty Sin City-styled reboot.

Though Shrek kicking the shit out of Elijah Wood would be delightful

Seriously Pixar, I know you mean well, but don’t reboot a series that doesn’t need to be made a trilogy. That will only lead onto Toy Story 4, 5, 6 if the film industry overall is anything to go by. Which -knowing how Hollywood loves reboots, Jessie will become a stripper/hired killer who needs to clear her name after being framed for a crime she didn’t commit. It’ll also guest-star Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson as themselves… In toy form…

…And they have lightsabers.

…… On second thought, gimme a week. I have a few phonecalls to make.

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Brainfart (or ‘How Being a Paranoid Whacko Probably Helped Me Interpret Music and TV shows’)

June 23rd, 2010 Posted in Observations, Rants
Jun, 23 2010
No Comments »

Being someone who’s paranoid, insecure and -for a lack of a better term, batshit insane; it’s a tough life, especially when you throw “socially retarded” into the mix.

For those who don’t know me well (if at all), I overthink a lot, always try to read between lines and generally make sure there’s no hidden messages in anything and everything I come across in day to day life.

One might think this apparent distrust of everything makes for a frustrating time when it comes to communication and people in general. Sure, it’s a drag, but it’s also a fucking good thing. Overthinking, while annoying as fuck to all involved, is kinda a good thing. Especially when it comes to personal interpretation of various media.

For an example, let’s use a song. In this case, “Oasis” by Amanda Palmer. You may know it if you bothered to watch /videos/.

Basic gist? it’s a lovely little tune about an Oasis fan being raped at a party, getting knocked up and getting an abortion…

…Yeah, charming I know. Oh, she also gets called a crackwhore.

Now, this could be all there is to it. A little punk-cabaret fluff piece with enough questionable content to piss off Granny. I see it just a little bit differently though, like there’s a second layer beyond Oasis, rape and abortions. Let’s overthink this for a second, shall we?

Throughout the song, Amanda’s character has some pretty horrible shit happen to her. In spite of all this, she manages to send out a letter to (presumably) a band she’s a fan of. The band not only gets the letter, but reads it and sends an autographed photo back. Could it be the interaction with Oasis is more or less a metaphor for… I don’t know, anything good that happens in one’s life during a rough period? Looking at it like this, “Oasis” is a song that generally says “life sucks, but there’s always one or two things that make the bullshit worth it in the end”.

Dunno about you, but I feel rather impressed with myself working that out.

Another example is the South Park episode where Cartman and Kyle contract AIDS, thus sending them on a trek to see Magic Johnson who reveals the cure.
Not being one to just enjoy it for what it is. Part of me feels the message here is -in it’s own foul-mouthed way that with enough funding behind it, a cure for AIDS would become a possibility. Same goes for other life-threatening diseases. “Throw money at it for research”. Sure, it’s South Park, so it’s a long shot that it’s meant to have a moral behind the story (outside of if you play basketball, you have a distrust of banks, or “dear god, if people use that HIV-positive joke in public, they will be savagely beaten”), but thats what I took from it.

. Last time I felt this smart, I worked out that the dial on the toaster is a timer, not a heat setting…

…fuck you, that shit blew my mind okay? Nowadays I make pretty awesome toast AND YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY!

You wish your toast was this awesome.

In fact, I may cook some now and ponder what the fuck all that scat-singing bullshit in the first few minutes of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” is meant to mean.

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Not even Swarley can save this shit

June 19th, 2010 Posted in Entertainment, Rants, Sights and Sounds
Jun, 19 2010
2 Comments »

So I finished making my overly busty Age of Conan character when I logged onto Facebook and saw this:

Really Sony? Really?!

Don’t get me wrong. I love those little blue bastards, even if they were communists. But I don’t want to see “our world” getting smurfed.

If a Smurfs movie has to be done, as someone who is a film enthusiast, pop culture junkie and aspiring director; I want this shit done right. I want the Smurf village, I want Gargamel, I want Johann and that other little dude…

"I want my shirts laundered"

If done right, a Smurfs movie would kick ass and I will be reserving final judgement until I see it. But going by that trailer, I don’t think even Dr. Horrible himself could do any sort of science to save this pile of crap.

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A piece of advice for those who don’t deserve it

March 31st, 2010 Posted in Rants
Mar, 31 2010
1 Comment »

NB: Might do this as a video on my YouTube channel. Will post here for the lazy fucks who can’t be bothered reading or would prefer something more humourous as opposed to callous and snarky.

The complete defeatist attitude in people these days is fucking insane.

There’s a saying I heard many a moon ago that you can’t help those who won’t help themselves…Or something like that. It was about me, so I decided to tune out and play Team Fortress 2 until they were finished bitching me out.

Thing is, the more I encounter people who fit this description, the more I want to throw my hands up and say “fuck it, you’re on your own”. In this entry, this is where I do that. A nice big “fuck off” to people who I can’t be fucked encouraging, helping, or generally being of any service to. Sure, we can still talk, just don’t expect me to play advice columnist because frankly, you won’t help yourself, so what’s the fucking point?. Whether you’re too set in your ways, too stupid, or too proud to take any advice into consideration is beyond my knowledge.

So keep making your excuses, keep saying “it’s too hard”, keep saying “I can’t do anything”. Fuck off already.

The real kicker is this: I am one of you. I am a nearly-25 year old whingy emo douchebag who cries at the end of movies(okay, one. Terminator 2, which was badass, so I feel I’m forgiven by manly men everywhere) who thinks constantly “why do I bother? I’ll never achieve anything I set out to do” and yet, I have achieved most things on my bucket list and set out on doing some more this year.

Me, someone who indulges in “Depresso lattes” almost on a monthly basis is telling you how pathetic, defeatist and fucking annoying you are. Wow, you really must suck.

A depresso latte: Like this, but black and garnished with the tears of emo cuntrags. At least, it's staying black until something darker comes along

Shit, there are some people out there who I was very close to, who -last I checked, all but fucking homeless with pretty much zero income. You know what they did? They weighed up their options, put on their adult pants and fucking got on with it. You’re not about to be trumped by some hobo, are you?

This guy is better than you.

So where do I get off telling you how to do things? I’ll explain via an example: 2009 was a shitty fucking year for all involved in my circle of friends it seems. I went through two relatively messy breakups, lost a friend, my father was diagnosed with major depression and had to stay at a mental ward in Sydney, had one of my relatives pass away and got into a metric fuckton of debt, in order to get out of a metric fuckton of debt. You know what I did? I had my moment, and kept on keeping on. I sat down and -with tears in my eyes and The Cure playing on Windows Media Player, I wrote, thought and reflected.

You know what I realized? In spite of all the shit that was (and sometimes, still is) going on, life isn’t that bad. I’m still (kinda) young and it’s not the end of the world just yet.

If you’re depressed, seek help from a professional. If you’re fat/unhealthy and aren’t too happy about it, go on a diet and/or exercise, if you don’t have a job, find someone who will hire you and lastly, If your life is indeed that shit that it’s “not worth living”, make it into something that is. I could go on giving advice to you shitsmears, but at the end of the day, if you do nothing, you’ll achieve nothing. That’s really all you need to take from this.

Also, don’t assume the “making something from nothing” maxim is something I’m pulling out of my arse. There are various situations where some average schlub managed to become a self-made person.

In saying this, I don’t have all the answers. If I did, I’d be writing this knowing millions of people will view it, not just the three or four who will click the link on Facebook. What you should do is start questioning what you want out of life and go and make it happen. Whinging to a text box on MSN doesn’t do shit, especially to me.

In closing, a message for those who do deserve help? Keep up the good work and keep on keeping on. Don’t take this as a completely selfish “I don’t give a fuck about anyone but myself” stance. I think Bioshock is the closest I’m getting to becoming an Ayn Rand enthusiast…

….At least until I’m loaded enough to build an underwater city.

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Themetastic!

March 29th, 2010 Posted in Misc/Other Posts
Mar, 29 2010
No Comments »

Yeah so… updated the look of /writings/. The plain one I had was… well, plain. Not really good for reading, either.

Starting to like this theme already. Also, threaded comments! huzzah!

Real update whenever I get off Guild Wars or Torchlight. You do realize the next blog will be a review of one of those, right?

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Ruku’s Picks: YouTube Edition

March 19th, 2010 Posted in Computers & Electronics, Misc/Other Posts
Mar, 19 2010
No Comments »

Seeing as I’m totally on my way to being TubeFamous (and because I’m far far too lazy to do a real update), thought I’d suggest a few other YouTubers out there. Some you’ll know, some you might not know, regardless, all are worthy of Ruku’s Seal of Approval:

Shut up, I'm a comedic genius

Michael Buckley/BuckHollywood

Michael’s the host of the ‘What the Buck’ show, which focuses mostly on celeb gossip. He also has two other accounts (BuckNews and Peron75) which he also posts to.

Tessa Violet/MeekaKitty

‘Meekakitty”s channel could be easily described as a bastard child of skits, personal vlogging with a dash of some good old-fashioned randomness and editing trickery.

Nick/Arthur40TwoDent

Found this guy through Angry Aussie. He’s done travel vlogs, personal vlogs, reviews and music videos -Most notably, four very creative videos for the song “Drive” by Johnathan Coulton. Awesome stuff.

Wayne Gladstone/Gladstonew

Yeah, okay. If you know me, you saw this one coming from a mile off. Gladstone is the host of the hugely popular web show ‘Hate by Numbers’, a columnist for various comedy websites and the owner of the website Kafka Lives in Maine. While his channel is mostly HBN-related, there’s a few other gems in there worth watching.

M.A.Ludwig/JudeMaris

JudeMaris mostly dabbles in original music pieces and photo restoration, with the occasional personal blog for variety. Being a photoshop geek myself, I find her photoshop work really interesting. She also has a bunch of stuff over at her other channel, TheBlueOracle

Well, it’s nearing 2:30am and I have to pretend to have a day job tomorrow. So I’ll call it here. Be good, kiddies! Don’t make me come over there!

Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking

Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking is pretty much what it says on the box: A vegan cooking channel, but smattered with the awesomeness of metal. Even Dethklok would be proud of this one.


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