You Would Though: The Matrix

'You Would Though' is going to be a weekly (hopefully) discussion on situations where a judgement, despite being taboo at first, upon reflection, probably would be the right decision to make.



This week we're talking about The Matrix. For those that don't know, The Matrix is a fictional based film about the future, where artificially intelligent machines have dominated the Earth and are growing humans to use as an source of energy. The kicker is, the humans don't know what's happening, because they're all plugged into a virtual reality system that they think is real life. This system is effectively known as, The Matrix.

Our lead protagonist is Neo, who gets freed from The Matrix by Morpheus, the leader of a rogue ship based in the real world.

Here's an abridged script for the film:

Morpheus: All right Neo, here ya'rr, take this blue pill or something, and you'll wake up tomorrow as normal and you won't remember a thing. Take this red pill, and we'll show you real life.

Neo: Red pill please.

(Loads of shots of Neo essentially being savaged by a load of machines before being flushed down a toilet, to wake up inside a space ship)

Neo: So...this is real life eh? What's for breakfast?

Real life guy: Some sloppy shit, every day. You'll learn to love it.

Neo: Why am I wearing a potato sack?

Morpheus: Them's real life clothes innit. We all wear potato sacks in the real world, cos we pretty much don't have any money or anything.

Neo: Wow, I just left a decent job with a slightly above modest salary inside the Matrix that, although artificial, felt pretty good to have.

Morpheus: No it didn't. It didn't feel good at all remember? You really enjoy porridge, and potato sacks, and Carrie Ann Moss, who clearly isn't as fit as most people in the Matrix, but at least she's real.

Neo: Oh ok.

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Do you see what I'm getting at here? The Matrix, right, kicked ass. If you woke up in the real world, you'd be like, what the hell is this shit? Am I seriously going to live in a garage with a bunch of plugs in my arms and face? Can I get cable TV out of this thing in the back of my head? Are any of these sockets on my body good for plugging a razor into?

It's almost like being in the Matrix is miles better than being in the real world. You'd probably rather stay in the Matrix. The thing is...you would though. Come on. You would though, wouldn't you?

Yeah, but you would though, wouldn't you?



Better yet, Cypher had the right idea. He got freed, then decided to give up Morpheus' location so that he could strike a deal with the machines to make him rich and famous. How ace is that? What a legend. I loved that guy. Shame he had his shit ruined by someone in the real world.

The bloody real world. It's just ruining everyone's lives in this film. Everyone hates it except Morpheus, who inexplicably loves hiding out in caves. Weird ass.

If I had it my way, I'd give up Morpheus, become a rock star, have loads of money and babes and just chill out in The Matrix. I'd also be invincible. And invisible when I want to be.

You would though wouldn't you?

Yeah but come on, you would though.

30 Seconds to a load of bollocks...

The one thing that gets me by in my ever-so-mundane job at Tesco is the peace of mind in knowing that, at least in my department, we're allowed to listen to the radio. I cannot begin to describe how destructive my job would be to my general karma if I wasn't allowed to at least pass the time flicking through the various channels and catching the news updates every hour or so.



No doubt everyone has heard of the band "30 Seconds To Mars" by now. Good God, they suck incredible amounts of shite. They once did a 6 month test down at the Dyson Vacuum plant to see why their bagless vacuums just didn't suck as much as 30 Seconds To Mars. Their tests were inconclusive.

Now, despite my objection to this band's music, I have, however, no quarrel with their existence. But imagine for one moment if you will, that I'm stood in a shed in Tesco. It's 6.45am, freezing, and EVERY single radio station is playing 30 Seconds To $£%!ING MARS! Even Century Radio! Century Radio only play Cher and Barry White. What the MARS are they doing, playing 30 Seconds To Mars? I'm 30 Seconds to Pissed Off right now.

What happened to Jared Leto? He used to be 30 Seconds From Cool, and now he's just tired, and wearing eyeliner. Yawn. You might remember some of the awesome films that he was in, particularly 30 Seconds From Fight Club, featuring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, and even more importantly, 30 Seconds To Requiem For A Dream, or Requiem From A Mars as it's more well known as, one of the best films ever made.

Leto! Do more good films and less shite music! Let it happen!



Anyway, the tone is set. I'm 30 Seconds From Bored with this band, and yeah, as you can imagine, they're on at various intervals throughout the rest of the day. It's only when I'm riding my bike home that I think "Thank God, at least in my own house, I'm the master of the entertainment".

So I get in, and turn the TV on. Naturally, it's 'Hilarious Day' in Heaven and my Guardian Angel is poking the shit out of me, because as you've probably already guessed, what's on my TV? 30 SECONDS TO SHITE-ING MARS.

What's this, Leto? My radio isn't enough? Now you're coming into my home, issuing your demands and putting a big muddy footprint on my moderately priced rug???? NO LETO, NO! I don't care if you were in Fight Club. It's on!

I'm 30 Seconds To Suicide.

Films that would be better if they were documentaries

The other night, whilst more than slightly merry (slightly more than more than slightly in fact), we discussed which films would be a trillion times better if they were actually documentaries on UK television. We came up with the following:

THE RUNNING MAN: A BBC documentary focussing on the effects of the introduction of a third, 'blue' man at the traffic lights; a man who enforces the crosser to run across the road rather than walk, to reduce congestion times. He flashes whenever he reckons you can make it across the road, regardless of whether you can or not.

This series will concentrate on the A&E wards at Swansea's Sancta Maria Hospital, as they try and cope with the number of injured runners they get every day.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: A BBC documentary focussing on what it's like to be a Black teenager with an ASBO, living on a council estate in central Liverpool. The camera follows the life of Allister, who moved into the area around the same time as the car fires started.

WHAT LIES BENEATH: A BBC documentary about how to properly insulate the flooring in your house, in order to generate warmth, cut down on energy consumption and ultimately prevail in the battle against the ravaged climate. Presented by Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen in shorts.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: A BBC documentary on the recent ban of country music at Swansea's most popular retirement home, causing an uproar in the senior citizens, as they barricade themselves in the cafeteria in defiance.

GONE WITH THE WIND: A BBC documentary about a hurricane that tore through Swansea in 1905, taking with it not only a large portion of the local housing estates, but 35% of all people living in them at the time. Many of these people have not been seen since, although a large portion of them were found floating around the Welsh coast.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS: A BBC documentary about the run up to Christmas beginning at the start of November. In an economy based on store credit, the programme focusses on the ever declining state of the country's debt and the aftermath of the Christmas season.

The programme takes place in the Woolworths located in Swansea's town centre.

Chog Zoo Updates!

Hey everyone, finally got some good news to share...

Chog Zoo have just completed work on a visual review for Subvert Magazine, based in Manchester. The review was for the new band Mexicolas, who release their debut album 'X' at some point this year. You can catch the review and the images by clicking the image below: (thankyou to Eve who modelled for us)



We're about to start work on some new merchandise for Failsafe, who are to release their second album 'The Truth Is...' later on this year. You can check those guys out here:

FAILSAFE

We're also in discussions with Alex from HiCalorie.com to produce some design work for a range of transfers to go onto iPods and other such electrical media.

In further news, our website is in its very basic form right now. After checking the poll, we went with

CHOG-ZOO.COM

so thanks for voting if you did. Click the image below to check it out:



That's all for now. Thanks guys!

CZ x

I'm addicted to biscuits...

8:00 pm, September 19th, 2029.

Location: The YMCA in Chorley.

There's a room. It's full of downhearted people, many of them wearing vests. In fact, a lot of people in this room have showed up in theie dressing gowns this evening.

The seats are arranged in a circle around the room. There's an extremely official looking woman with a clipboard, and she motions towards a man, chubby, in his early 40's. She's beckoning him to stand before the rest of the group and present himself. He's wearing glasses. His hair, greying around the roots, has receeded to reveal what looks like an over sized forehead. He's dressed in his pyjamas, and there are crumbs around his bottom lip. He stands.

"Hello everyone. My name is Kyle, and I'm an addict. But I haven't had a biscuit for 20 minutes. Except this one that I had in my pocket anyway. I just figured it would be a waste to leave it there".

The audience claps. "Hello Kyle", they chant in unison. The man sits back down. The official woman begins talking about integrity.


THIS IS MY FUTURE.



Okay, so being addicted to biscuits, and I am, isn't as bad as say, being addicted to crack. There's one fatal factor that needs to be taken into consideration though...

I'm a diabetic. Giving a diabetic person biscuits is like giving a dog heroin. It's worse, it's like dogs selling heroin to each other. Biscuits are a diabetic's devil sauce.

In the time it took me to write that last sentence, I managed to mentally eat 7 biscuits. For every starving child in Africa, I've eaten 11 biscuits.

I'm biscuits crazy. I can literally consume more biscuits per second than the entire Asian community of Manchester.

So I've decided to go cold turkey on the biscuit front. I'm literally going to give all my change to passing school children, and barricade myself in my room whenever there are biscuits in the house. In the meantime, I'm going to insist that Tesco stops stocking biscuits completely. I don't think it's an unreasonable request, especially since the alternative would force me to barrel roll through the front window of the store, spinning dragon kick the security guards into oblivion, back flip to the biscuit aisle, take out everyone within a 3 aisle radius, and unwrap each individual biscuit just to smash it against my forehead.



We wouldn't want that now, would we?

Super powers

A frequent conversation amongst my friends is, if you could choose to have one super power, what would it be?

A pretty standard question amongst many groups of 20-something year old males, however, we kick it up a notch. Imagine the scenario...

...The whole world is full of superheroes. Everyone has at least one super power, ranging from flight, to super human strength, to x-ray vision...yadda yadda yadda. In a world where everyone is super, the only way to be truly different would be to have a super power that was...well, for want of a better term, a bit shit.



We then modified the conversation to just: "if you could have a super power, but it had to be a bit shit, what power would it be?"

Why we talk about these things, I have no idea, but here are the results:

Kyle: The Fist Of Redemption.

My power is simple. Picture the scene; I'm in an alleyway, and I've just cornered a bank robber. There's nowhere to go, and he knows it, and he knows I know it, and we both know it. He makes an attempt to get past me, but I manage to get one quick dig into his ribs. His whole life flashes before his eyes. Immediately, he's tired of being a baddie, and he decides to hand himself in.

The fist of redemption is the ability to punch someone once and all of a sudden they want to be a better person. 99% of all people who have been punched by the fist of redemption became missionaries in Cambodia. The other 1% died. Of love.

Andrew: Flight Of The Navigator.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Flight Of The Navigator is an 80's kids film, but in actual fact, the name was stolen from Andrew's super power. The power is simple. Andrew has the ability to fly, up. He can fly at a 90 degree angle striaght up into the air until he can see the landscape all around him. From this vantage point, he can clearly navigate his way out of a jungle or something. This is very useful for when we regularly find ourselves in unchartered parts of Asia, or Manchester.

Gary: Receptors of Sheer Volume.

Gary can hear any sound in the world without going deaf. This has yet to prove useful for anything at all, but hey, isn't that the point of having a shit super power?

The one place I could see this being useful is if the world was being attacked by a gig. A gig that never ended. A gig that never ended, and it was just Amy Winehouse singing Songs Of Praise.

Realising this, Gary gave himself another power. The power to silence everybody within a 100 ft radius just by saying "shh". I can see how this could be much more useful. Especially for librarians.

There were plenty of other powers that we came up with, so feel free to take any of them for yourself:

The ability to smell fear, but only fear. And fear stinks like shit.

The ability to turn invisible, but only when it's dark.

The ability to shoot bullets from your fingertips, but all the bullets are blanks.

Super strength, but only when fighting somebody that's weaker than you in the first place.

The ability to fly, but only at 60mph, with no brakes.

Long distance vision, permanently. You can't see anything but whatever is 1 mile away.