Porocrom’s Crappaper

I just returned from the Iron Maiden concert here in Athens, soaked in sweat, most of which wasn’t even mine. I shall now recount to thee the details of my aforementioned journey to

THE IRON MAIDEN CONCERT

First of all, I would like to tell you of the terms of the concert, which were written in the back of the ticket. They were these:

• If you take any pictures or videos of the concert, they belong to Iron Maiden.
• Pictures or videos of the concert are not allowed.
• If Iron Maiden takes pictures or videos of you, they belong to Iron Maiden.
• If you step in the concert area, or in a radius of 15 km thereof, or within earshot, you and your firstborn belong to Iron Maiden.

Consequently, the following pictures were not taken at the aforementioned concert. Which is sad, because the exquisite pictures range from “Random people standing at random places” to “Generic lighted stage picture #943”. I decided not to take my digital camera with me, because I paid like, a gazillion bucks for it, and like hell was I going to risk breaking it for you guys.

Also, a few tips before you go to any rock concert:

• Take as little with you as you can, but OMG DON’T OMIT CLOTHING. Unless you are a woman. But not ugly.
• Always keep your t-shirt on. Unless you are a woman. But not with saggy boobs. Guys, WTF was up with removing your shirts, you are sweaty and smelly and filthy and you stink, fucking pigs. Also, when you touch other people without your shirt on, that shit sticks to the other person’s skin and I got half my skin flayed off me in this manner.
• For god’s sake, wear your old shoes.
• Men go in the front, hot women go with me.
• Chicks with big boobs should bounce more.
• That’s it.

So, we went there, and after a lot of waiting and “One two three, one two three, hey hey hey testing”, Dragonforce came on the scene and started singing. Sadly, they were not able to stir up a lot of enthusiasm among the crowd, but that was mostly because they weren’t who we went there to see. They did rock though. After a while, they finished their gig and it was IRON MAIDEN time.

We had to wait a bit more for it to get dark, to MAXIMIZE THE EFFECT. They started with Remember Tomorrow or something like that, which I hadn’t heard of before. Apparently though, everyone else knew it, but they were all virgins anyway. Hell, I didn’t know half the songs, but they were from the first four albums they released and I doubt I had been born back then, so I am excused.

After a few more unknown songs, we started DEMANDING Alexander the Great, the greatest great historical song ever, and Bruce was like “Every time I come to Greece, you ask me to sing that song”. Well duh, genius. Didn’t you learn from the previous 12 times that we were probably going to ask for it again, and that you should probably have practiced it? Anyway, he made a deal with us, we were going to sing a couple of verses and next time they came they would play it themselves. We concurred, and he began singing a cappella:

Alexander the Great,
His name struck fear into hearts of men.
Alexander the Great,
Blar glar glar meeen.

This verifies the theory of the ingrate and the dimwit, who said that they don’t know the lyrics to that song. Damnit. Anyway, better luck with that next time. But seriously, he could have told me to go up on the stage and I would tell him the fucking lyrics, it’s not that hard, everyone knows them.

They played a few more songs, including “The Number of the Beast”, “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “Run to the Hills”. They told us from the beginning that they were going to play songs from their first four albums, but everyone knew this meant “our first four albums and Fear of the Dark”, so naturally we were waiting for it.

Alas, it never came. They played and played and played, but no “Fear of the Dark” in sight. After a while, and when Bruce had introduced the band members, we began chanting “FEAR! OF! THE! DARK!”, but our cries went unanswered. They said their goodbyes and left, and we were all like “OMFG WTF”!

Seriously, I know that you played all those other cool songs which you probably had never played before, since I have all your live albums and they are nowhere to be found, but going to an Iron Maiden concert and not hearing Fear of the Dark is like having sex and the phone ringing when you are about to come. Only instead of sex it’s a concert. And instead of coming it’s Fear of the Dark. And instead of a telephone it is your momma.

I can’t help but feel cheated. It was the first concert I went to, and damnit, I wanted to hear Fear of the Dark. Still though, it was worth every cent (Eurocent, which is like 1.3 dollar cents, so it was worth like 1.3 cents more than your American ones, muhaha). Overall, it was a great show, and we had lots of fun. BUT SERIOUSLY, YOU MADE LIKE $1M TODAY, WOULD IT FUCKING KILL YOU TO PLAY FEAR OF THE DARK? Jeez…

Also, as a side note, there was this hot chick next to me that had this boyfriend, who also looked like a chick, but not that hot. Wtf was up with that couple? I do have reason to hope though, because she spent the largest part of the concert behind me, and I was wearing my Poromenos t-shirt, so all she has to do now is google me and find this site, where she will promptly notice the email address she must use to email me. Hot chick, EMAIL ME HERE: HotChickFromIronMaidenConcert@poromenos.org.

Update: Alas, tonight I was unable to sleep. Bruce Dickinson’s treachery kept echoing in my mind and all I could hear in my head was a voice saying “Revenge! Revenge!”. I pondered long and hard, and I finally came with a foolproof plan that will lead to Iron Maiden’s undoing. It is a plan of utter magnificence and unspeakable horror, the likes of which only a criminal mastermind such as myself could spawn. I will exact my revenge upon Iron Maiden, starting now. You have undoubtedly heard that whenever someone downloads a song, that artist loses millions of dollars. I will, therefore, as of now, download all of Iron Maiden’s albums again and again, costing them trillions of dollars in lost revenues! This will perforce cause the band to disband, as they will be unable to pay all that money. Goodbye, Iron Maiden! Mwahahahahaha!

No, not the Disney one…

I was bored on a Saturday morning, flipping through channels on TV, when I came across what may be the GREATEST B-movie (described by someone on IMDB as a Triple-Z movie) I have ever seen.

HERCULES

Where to start… for those of you who aren’t familiar with the story of Hercules (or Heracles, if you swing that way) you can read it here or just take my word for it, it’s great.

The 1983 treatment of Hercules brings a whole new gravity to the term ‘artistic license’. Starring Lou Ferrigno, a B actor and bodybuilder in his own right, this movie took Greek mythology and science fiction to all new depths of head-scratching. As I present a synopsis of the movie, please be advised that I am not making any of these things up. This is what happens in the movie, unaltered.


Hercules is found in a basket by the river. Perhaps the director was confused between Greek mythology and the Bible (no comments regarding which is more plausible), but apparently he was orphaned by the gods and sent down the river in a basket. Hera sends some snakes to kill him, but little baby Hercules catches them in his hands. Then, for no explained reason I could discern, a grown woman’s hands are seen crushing the serpents.

Hercules is found by some people who like to steal babies. He grows up, and over the years becomes the Incredible Hulk… again, for no reason I can discover. One day while collecting wood in the forest, a bear sneaks up on Hercules’ adopted dad and kills him. Enraged and inflamed with vengeance, Hercules beats the living fuck out of some poor schmo in a bear costume. He then hurls the bear into outer space (which was the style at the time), whereupon it becomes a constellation.

Meanwhile, the evil king Minos summons Daedalus, the god of science. A sidenote for those of you who aren’t mythology buffs, Daedalus was a guy who designed a lot of stuff (including the Labyrinth made famous by Theseus and the Minotaur) and the father of Icarus. Daedalus is NOT a scantily-clad chick with magical science powers. But back to the movie. Daedalus and Minos hatch a plot by which they mean to overthrow the gods, but Hercules is a threat. To stop him from achieving greatness, Daedalus sends a giant metallic moth tinker-toy to kill him. However, it gets bored and kills Hercules’ mom instead.

Hercules, upon finding his mom dead, fights the tinker-toy with a stick. Apparently in those times, wood is a great conductor of electricity. Hercules then lights his house on fire. This is a snippet from the movie.

Some guy: Hercules, why are you lighting your house on fire?
Hercules: I have no house anymore.

Well no SHIT, you just torched it! Like… couldn’t he have just locked the door? I really didn’t understand that part.

So Hercules goes to become a great warrior, and in that way somehow discover who killed his parents. OJ Simpson would use this same strategy millenia later, finding “the real killers” by golfing a lot. He goes to a kingdom and fights a lot of people in an incredibly comical fashion. At the end of the trials, he throws a log into space, destroying the planet between Earth and Mars (apparently there was one before).

Then a lot of stuff happens that is funny, but not THAT funny. Suffice it to say, he ends up getting kidnapped and marooned on the Isle of Circe the sorceress. He kills a metal dragon monster using cosmic rays (seriously, not making this up), some more stuff happens, there’s a magical amulet… some more stuff happens, Hercules and Circe end up in Africa. Circe makes him grow to super-size, whereupon he pushes the continents of Africa and Europe apart.

Some more stuff happens… I would have tried to make a more accurate synopsis but a) it would be WAY longer than this (which is already long as hell) and b) the stupidity of the movie had rendered my brain the approximate consistency of old cottage cheese.

Anyways, Hercules finds a magic chariot, and then instead of using horses to pull it, he uses a rock… you’re not the only one who finds that odd, trust me. Anyways, the rock pulls them through outer space to the island that Minos lives on… an island in space, sure.

Hercules fights a third robot monster. It kills Circe (she was getting irritating anyways, and Hercules is supposed to bang this other chick). Hercules finds out that Minos’ dastardly plan is to use the power of the Phoenix to give him super-strength and stuff. Once again, for those of you who aren’t mythology buffs, the Phoenix isn’t even Greek… it would be roughly the same as if Hercules used King Arthur’s sword to crush the Intergalactic Empire…

So yeah, magic sword fight, crazy sex scene, I had to leave the room. Sadly, most of our movie reviews will end this way, because they stink SO BAD.

But if you’re in the mood for a REALLY good laugh, check out this movie. I don’t think I have laughed this hard at a movie before. The bear scene is the best.

What is wrong with scriptwriters? Why are they so detached from reality? Consider the following oh-so-familiar scenario (in a movie):
Man: Oh my love, I love you, will you marry me, <3?
Woman: Oh yes, I will, my love. I <3 you too, it does not matter that you are piss poor and we cannot even afford cereal decoder rings for our wedding!
Man: Oh yeah, about that… I am actually very very rich. I kinda didn’t mention that.
Woman: Oh my God, you pig! How could you do this to me?!
Man: Nono, I said rich! You know, the opposite of poor! You know, lots of money and stuff
Woman: Oh my God, I hate you. I never want to see you again!
Man: Uh, no, wait!

Seriously, who would act like that? If I were a woman and that happened to me, it would go like this:
Woman (me): Wow shit, I have a vagina. Let me go masturbate, I wonder what that feels like. Oh shit, look at these boobs. I am SO hot. Be right back.
(A few hours later)
Man: Oh my love, marry me.
Woman: Oh well, okay, for some reason I love you, it’s probably the scriptwriters. It doesn’t matter that you’re poor, I’ll marry you.
Man: Oh, that is so great, I am happy. By the way, I’m a millionaire.
Woman: Wow, shit! That’s grand, do you have a swimming pool and stuff?
Man: Yeah, the works!
Woman: Wow, great. I understand that you wanted me to love you for who you are and not your money (I am so hot, by the way) and that’s why you didn’t tell me, and now we can get married and live in luxury forever. Can I order some lesbian hookers please?
Man: Yeah, sure. I actually have more money than I can count, so knock yourself out.
Woman: Great, thanks! <3!
Man: <3!

Also, I was watching that series with Alyssa Milano (nice boobs), the one where they’re all witches, I forget the name, and she didn’t know how to tell her boyfriend that she was a witch. Finally he found out and he freaked out.
He: Oh my God Alyssa, you’re a witch!
Alyssa: Yeah, I know. Sorry!
He: Omgomgomgomg, how could you do this to me, despite your nice boobs! I have a serious problem coping with this, oddly!
Alyssa: But look! I can pull rabbits out of hats!
He: I can never forgive you!
Alyssa: (Cries)
Alyssa: Wow, hey, my boobs ARE nice. I shall play with them a bit.

I mean, what the fuck is wrong with these people. If my girlfriend was a witch, I’d get her to spawn two top models and some sex toys and give me two more dicks or something. These people really should lighten up a bit and have fun. Oh, and another thing that pisses me off, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH PEOPLE AND PHONES? Why does everyone turn retarded when they speak into one? By the way, do you Americans never say bye when you’re on the phone? Conversations on the phone are like this:
Person 1: Meaningless stuff.
Person 2: Response to meaningless stuff.
Person 1: OK, I’ll take care of it.
Person 2: (Hangs up)

Have you never heard of something called etiquette? At least we say bye or something when we’re going to hang up. Is that an American thing, or just in movies? And, to get back to my original point, HOW CAN PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTAND WHEN THE OTHER PERSON HANGS UP?! Consider this:
Person 1: Sorry about sleeping with your sister, honey.
Person 2: (Hangs up)
Person 1: (Hears a deafening continuous tone signifying that the other person has hung up) Hello? HELLO? HELLO OMG PLEASE RESPOND WHERE ARE YOU ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME WHAT HAS HAPPENED OMG PLEASE TALK TO ME oh she hung up.
No shit, genius! That’s why that tone is there, why do they wonder what happened when they can hear the fucking thing? Or do they think that the other person is humming and they’re trying to get them to talk to them? It’s just stupid.
Also, on a somewhat totally unrelated note, why do women sign letters to people that answer that shit as Clueless? That’s so fucking stupid, if you’re clueless you shouldn’t be alive. You should learn the basics about living and then go on to writing letters. Use Has a clue but wants more, for fuck’s sake. It doesn’t even makes sense, and what’s more, it sounds like you’re retarded. Oh wait, how fitting. Forget I said anything.
By the way, women: Say yes to weird sex stuff!

Today was a really sandy day. And I don’t mean sandy in the way you might think, I mean sandy as there was a lot of sand in the air. You couldn’t see the sun, and the entire sky was glowing yellow. All that sand comes from Africa, a strong wind blows, and whee, Crete gets all the damn Sahara sand (it’s true, look at this NASA image). So, I thought, like hell I’m going out there today, fuck that, but then a friend called at about 9 pm and told me if I wanted to go to the movies. I thought, sure, I don’t have anything better to do, and it’s a bit windy, so the sand and all the camels should have floated somewhere else by now, so I went.
We didn’t know what to watch, and the choices were Collateral, the movie with Nicole Kidman and her 10-year-old husband, and the one with Salma Hayek (HOT). We decided to watch Collateral, because it had the shortest title and I was too lazy to pronounce the other ones.
Needless to say, seeing Cruise and the word COLLATERAL in huge letters in the poster, we were expecting an action movie. The movie started out with a taxi driver (the only good taxi driver in LA, it seems) who drove Jada Pinkett Smith (HOT) to her work or whatever. After driving her and getting her phonenumber (smooth), Tom Cruise exits the building and talks to the cab man, who, engrossed in Jada’s card as he was, fails to notice him. Tom seeks another ride, but the dude snaps out of his Nirvana and calls out to Tom saying that he would drive him and that he was just being absent-minded.
As the two characters ride around town, (and with the help of the unparalelled directing of Michael Mann) their stories unravel in a slow yet pleasurable fashion. We discover that Max (the taxi driver) has dreams of starting his own limousine company and that Vincent is a successful yet lonely hired assassin, who is a hollow shell of a man, completely devoid of emotions. On this long night, however, the two characters are about to embark on a journey into the nocturnal LA and into their lives.
Vincent offers Max six hundred dollars to hire him for the night, and Max reluctantly agrees. Vincent goes to his first target’s room and kills him, dropping him on Max’s taxi. Max is shocked at this and attempts to flee, but Vincent holds him hostage and makes him drive him around to the other four targets. During this time, we get an in-depth view of the alienation and hatred in modern cities, as well as learn more about the characters. Vincent, having been raised in an institution and by a drunkard father, has a very cynical view of the world, while Max is the exact opposite (or is he?).
The action scenes in this movie were not your typical Hollywood scenes, with guns blazing left and right, and the plot was not filled with the usual stereotypes. Max (who was black) did not particularly know or like jazz, while Vincent (who was white) was a connoiseur. Vincent takes Max to a jazz club and buys him a drink, also killing the owner while they’re there.
The movie’s pace begins to pick up when they go to a nightclub to get the next target, but the police have been following them. This is the part where Vincent FUCKS EVERYONE’S SHIT UP! He goes into the club, twists the heads of a few policemen, shoots a few more (all of this in a realistic manner), and busts a cap right in the Chinese dude’s head. This part seriously kicks reprehensible amounts of ass. It’s like, awesome. His training is through the roof, he fucks everyone up, he kills like, a lot of clubbers and most of the cops, and saves Max’s life too.
Then there’s the other part where he has to go off that chick that Max met, and Max has to stop that, so he kicks a cop’s ass and runs to catch Vincent. They meet in the building, bullets flying all over the place, they shoot each other in the ass and Vincent gets one in the ear. They run off to a subway where Vincent hops onto the train, James Bond-style and kicks everyone’s ass on there too. The power in the train goes out and Max and Vincent just start to shoot each other right in the face man, but noone hits anything, stupid bastards. The power comes back on but they’re both out of ammo, so they sit to talk about it. Unfortunately, Vincent dies because Max has shot him.
Seriously, this movie was AWESOME. It kicked so much ass, I kicked two old people and a kid IN THE FACE right after we left (OK, it was just a poster of two old people and a kid, but still, I KICKED IT RIGHT IN THE FACE). It’s worth all 7 EUR and then some more for the popcorn and shit. It kicks so much ass, it’s crazy. Tom Cruise is the shit with the gray suit and gray hair and everything, and he TOTALLY FUCKS EVERYONE’S SHIT UP. Jada is always hot, and the taxi dude is nice too. If you’re a lame action-boy you probably shouldn’t watch it, because you won’t be able to get through all the talk (which promotes the characters nicely), so you better just go see Harry Potter or some shit like that instead. For everyone else, GO SEE THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW.
The best thing about the movie is that it’s realistic, not some shit where people are within two meters of each other and shoot uzis and bazookas and flames out of their asses and they don’t even hit anything. Vincent totally rocks, he has an accuracy ratio of 245.87%. He kills people without even using bullets, he is THAT GOOD.
Enough blabbering, this movie rocks. Go watch it.

Dear Hollywood,

I have recently filled my spare time by watching some of your movies. The quality if your product is unsurpassable, and I applaud you for that. However, I would like to raise a few concerns I had with the veracity of many of your films.

Issue #1: Girls at university

I was led to believe by many of your movies that the moment that a woman of the female gender stepped onto a college campus she was overcome with sexual desire and would have intercourse with anything moving. However, I was quite shocked to find that many women at my university do not want to have sex with me. Here is a sample conversation to illustrate my point:

Me: Hello
Girl: Hi
Me: Would you like to have some sex?
Girl: No thank you

As you can see, this exchange went contrary to your frequent portrayal of college girls in movies. I would ask that you either a) write a strongly-worded letter to women everywhere requesting that they fall in line or b) pay for my tuition and board at the University of Western Ontario so that I may meet some college girls who know how to behave.

Issue #2: Exams

Operating under the impression given to me in several films, I refused to study for any of my exams until the very last minute. I had been assured by many films (such as religious film Van Wilder) that, provided I had the requisite amount of pluckiness, I would succeed on all of my finals with flying colours. I had my blood tested and concluded that my pluck level was 30 mg/L, more than 3 times the national average. I also found out I was a pregnant 90 year-old zebra, but this is beside the point.

Much was my surprise when I got my exam results and I had failed nearly every single course. I felt that I had taken the necessary precautions (playing appropriately themed music, flashing back to humorous anecdotes, providing a montage of time passing) to ensure my success, but I did not achieve it, much to my shock and dismay.

Issue #3: The line between ‘cute’ and ‘scary’

I had a romantic interest in a certain female of the opposite sex and, since I had already learned that requesting sex invariably meets with mixed results (e.g. pepper spray), I proceeded to write volumes of gushy poetry about her. ‘Surely’ thought I ‘not ALL things in Hollywood movies are false’. Alas, it was not as I imagined. Upon presenting my book of poetry, penned in blood and other bodily fluids, she did not immediately melt into my arms. Undaunted, I recited a speech containing such gems as “I can’t live without you” “You are the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about before I climax” and the ever popular “I want to be on you”. She responded NOT with “Take me now, you sensitive yet masculine specimen” but words I did not quite understand, like “I don’t even know who you are” and “my dad is a lawyer” and “How did you get into my bedroom?” I need not tell you, I was once again most confused. The police were unsympathetic.


And so I conclude this letter with a simple request. Please make your movies more like life really is, or change life to fit your movies. Also, please make a sequel to the Super Mario Brothers movie, as I felt that it was a genre that deserved much more exploration. Thank you.