Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Episode 21 Metal Gear Solid pt 1

Episode 21 MGS Disc 1

Metal Gear Solid, audio ripped from the game, this is a playthrough of all the codec conversations, movies etc. Enjoy part I!

Hey, welcome to yet another episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where I play sound clips, and rudely interrupt with semi original thought every now and then.

This episode, I begin the audio from Metal Gear Solid, the best Playstation game ever! I downloaded the audio recently, and fell in love with it, I often listen to the entire conversation type audio from the game while I work. Thank you to Rob, I havnt been able to contact him to thank him. You can find the audio by going to this link, tinyurl.com/mgsaudio , thats a shortcut I just made that links to MGSforums.com, and the page with his audio from MGS 1, and MGS2.

I also have audio from MGS 3 Snake Eater, I downloaded gameplay videos from Youtube and sucked the audio out of them. I have the official Soundtrack to MGS4, I bought the Special Edition, complete with 6 Inch Solid Snake posable action figure, its not a toy!

Solid Snake infiltrates Shadow Moses, a Nuclear Weapon disposal site in Alaska, to save the world from Metal Gear Rex, and the evil bad guys. You can easily find the plot to the game on Wikipedia, I'll just get straight into the sound clips. Theres two boss battles that really matter that you'll hear soon, Psycho Mantis, who can read minds, is invisible, and wears a gas mask, and Sniper Wolf, a sniper who wastes a lot of time, since you have to go way back in the games map to find the PSG1 sniper rifle. Theres also Vulcan Raven, a giant half naked man who you have to fight twice, like Sniper Wolf. And Revolver Ocelot, who becomes the main enemy through the entire Metal Gear Solid games.

I hope you can listen to this long file while you do other things, let your mind wander and imagine this all taking place. Metal Gear Solid would make a kick ass movie, theres been talk of it being in production for a long time, it seems to always be in production, Im not sure if its ever going to be completed. This audio Im going to play would be fine as it is, maybe just touch up the computer animation to make it up to modern standards, but the audio is perfect.

Here go the clips, enjoy!



Hope you enjoyed that, next episode is part 2. I'll mention that I gave into the torture here, I'm playing that path, as you get a better reward at the end of the game Stealth Camo of your own, so you can be invisible! You have a shimmering green outline, that normal enemies cannot see. I hope you enjoy the second part of my MGS Episodes, I had to make two episodes due to my old version of Garageband having a recording limit.







Sources
=======

Metal Gear Solid, by Konami, game audio downloaded from
http://mgsforums.com/topic/7002669/1/ or
http://tinyurl.com/mgsaudio

Episode 20 Metal Gear Solid pt 2

Episode 20 MGS Disc 2

Metal Gear Solid, audio ripped from the game, this is a playthrough of all the codec conversations, movies etc. Enjoy part II!

I'll get straight back to the clips, at the end of Disc One of the game, you have just defeated Sniper Wolf, it then asks you to insert the second disk, theres a joke about this on MGS4, I'll play that now, since its sort of relevent with my podcast having to stretch two episodes dammit.



and back to MGS clips, hope you enjoy the finale.



Amazing game huh?

If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Episode 19 NZ Pork Scandal

Episode 19

NZ Pork Scandal!

Hello, and welcome to another fine episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where I talk about stuff I find interesting and that you wont.

This episode, I'll talk a little about the current NZ Pig Scandal, the media calls it Pork, but I think thats a euphemism, we're talking about Pigs here, not bacon.

Basically, the deal is that NZ Open Rescue, an animal rights group closely linked to SAFE, Save Animals From Exploitation, has broken into another farm, this time a Piggery, a place where pigs are farmed, and the footage taken was shown on mainstream news as a lead story. Part of what makes it worth the media hype is that Mike King, a "world famous in New Zealand", look up that term on wikipedia, comedian went along with the activists, he is in front of the camera for all the footage and talks about what he sees, hes the main character. Mike King was known for SELLING NZ Por, I mean, NZ Pigs on tv, he would go on about how great it was, raised in Gods Own as New Zealand is called. He now says he never knew how the pigs were raised, and has turned on his former employers. I have TONNES of audio clips to play back, I found an awesome way to save online video using Safari, Apple's browser, you can see the "activity" that the browser is undergoing, and when you see a nice big .FLV file, flash video, you can double click it and it saves it to the desktop of your computer. This should work on all sites, so its an easy way to get Youtube Videos too!

Sunday is a current events show, it airs on Sunday night, New Zealand time. It showed awful footage of how New Zealand pigs are treated.
In the footage taken, we see pigs in small cages, cages is the right word, they are thick metal bars, kind of like a sheep truck in design. The pigs are not meant to be able to turn around even, they are that cramped. I cant get over that, how could a cage be so small that the animals cannot even turn? How is that possibly right? The pigs are frothing at the mouth, they are biting bars, they have sores on their bodies from where they have rubbed against the metal bars. One is dead, just lying down dead. They all look terrified and like they have been ill treated for a long time. I think most New Zealanders knew that pigs were raised in small cages like this, but seeing it this graphically has just caused a huge issue, at least for the moment, and I'm quite glad its been brought up so we can fix this awful mess.

There are four main people featured in the clips, Mark Sainsbury the TVNZ presenter, Mike King, the former NZ Pork tv ad guy, Hans Kriek, from SAFE, and the Chairman of the NZ Pork Board, Chris Trengrove. Trengrove is kinda a typical "kiwi bloke mate" looking guy, or any hardened New Zealand man, serious and grumpy looking. His eyes are a lot like Greg Murphy's, they could be related!

Throughout the clips, Trengrove, the NZ Pork guy, pretends to be as shocked as the entire country about how these pigs are treated, he claims its just one or two farms that are like this. Sometimes he makes a stab or two at SAFE, saying they have just picked one farm, that Mike King knew about how some farms were, Mike King says he DEFINITELY did not know anything about it, and Trengrove generally waits until the interviews are over. He looks very uncomfortable.

Mike King is meant to be the good guy, hes the one whos came and unveiled how pigs are in New Zealand. He apologises for pimping pig slaughter, which I thought was pretty nice of him, he seems like a nice guy to me. But, as we hear at the end of the main story, he still eats meat, he still eats pork as pig meat is called, just this magical, organic, free range "Happy Meat". Its gross to me, after all the images we see him cooking up a ham or something, and the reporters eat it with him.

Hans Kriek, the SAFE guy is made to look like a radical animal activist, he seems quite calm and I've impressed with his performance, especially against Chris Trengrove the Pork Board bossman. I only wish he would say " Go Vegan " at the end of his parts, I've emailed him and he said that he mentions it on radio interviews at the moment, but the tv doesnt show it as its not in the current agenda, which is "ew look at this awful footage".


There is actually one other main guy who shows up, Colin Kay, owner of the farm where the footage was taken. Kay is craggy, looks like my Grandfather, hes the ultimate Kiwi Bloke really. Both the farmer side, Colin Kay the farmer, and Pork Board Boss Chris Trengrove look similar, no nonsense rural type New Zealand men. Colin Kay looks a little like Sir Edmund Hillary I guess. He used to be part of the NZ Pork board, hes not just some normal farmer, he used to be a big shot, and now hes known for ill treating his pigs. They werent allowed to have feelings, they got the cane at school, they sat down and shut up. Do you say "shat up"? Sounds gross.

My first big clip, the full Sunday Show piece about New Zealand Pigs, its about 20 minutes long. It makes sense to give you the full audio of the program. Afterwards, theres a few additional clips, from tv coverage of the aftermath, lots to do with Hans from SAFE, Mike King who's now an outraged ex Pork Pimp, Chris Trengrove the NZ Pork main man, and the farmer Colin Kay.




What do you think about that?

The video can be found online, I might try and upload what I saved to Youtube to make it easier to show other people, but it could be taken down if TVNZ dont want it up in other places online.

I noticed someone in the local paper, The Southland Times defending the so called " good indoor piggeries", I dont think they exist, I wrote in asking the woman who used to work at a piggery how she would like being in the pigs place. The next day, I noticed others claiming the "burglars", the activists who entered the piggery didnt steal anything as far as we know, must have upset the pigs somehow, and I wrote in about that too. I said that the activists had a damn hard job ahead of them if they were to have faked everything we saw, if they somehow made the pig cages look that awful, if they made them that scared in the middle of the night without being caught, if they used theatrical makeup to make it look like they had awful scars. That the froth coming from the pigs mouths could have been shaving cream, that SAFE must have trained the pigs to bite the metal bars, and they also must have killed the dead pig. Yeah right, I then said that the simplest explanation that we can come up with is that they just filmed what was happening to the animals inside as they were.

I'll give you a short history of whats happened since the Sunday tv show came out.

Mainstream New Zealand is meant to be outraged, according to the Media. Its mostly been on Channel One News, and the Sunday Program ,both by TVNZ. 3 News, which I normally would have watched until Malcolm in the Middle was put on at the same time on C4, has barely covered the story thats meant to have pissed off everyone in the country.

Recently there was a tiny scandal when it was found a lot of pork sold in New Zealand is actually imported, the Pork boss man Chris Trengrove says its about 45 percent of whats sold here. Even brands that sold themselves as New Zealand, and said Kiwi, or New Zealand all over the packaging, the meat was from overseas. And then this came, footage with Mike King hosting informally about how Pigs are kept. I only hope that people remember this, and its not forgotten in a weeks time. I went to the supermarket today, and looked at the bacon, it seemed like most of the bacon, even that which said NZ Pork, contained local AND IMPORTED INGREDIENTS, so theres two different pigs in the packet? If the imported stuff is cheaper, and may be in the packet of NZ pig, could it be that 1 percent is New Zealand Pig? And the other 99 percent, could that be the cheaper imported meat?

Part of what makes the story so fun for me to watch, is that Hans Kriek , the SAFE spokeman says pretty much the same thing, hes eager to show more examples of pig abuse, he says its mainstream in New Zealand, this is how all farms are. Chris Trengrove, the NZ Pork Guy flubs around for a bit, he never is prepared and cannot really defend himself. Every thing is that he didnt know it was happening, this is one example, and in later clips he briefly mentions that overseas some countries are worse, that NZ is moving away from these practices and soon we wont do it at all. All lies as he squirms in front of the camera.

Mark Sainsbury, the TVNZ host is quite rough with Chris Trengrove, he keeps asking the difficult questions, and doesnt let things go. He doesnt tear him a new one, but he isnt at all soft.

In one episode of this NZ Pork Saga, Chris Trengrove says that he can show the reporters around many GOOD factory farms, that what we have seen is just one bad place, not representative of the whole New Zealand Pork scene. Hans Kriek , from SAFE is great, he invites himself along each time it comes up. But it turns out farmers dont want the nosy reporters at their piggeries, as you'll hear in a clip below, farmers have parked GIANT tractors, the size of a small house in height, in entrance ways to a farm.



For a while, it wasnt even revealed who the farmer was, who owned the farm where the footage was taken. When it was announced, it was a breaking news style clip on One News,




Two more good clips, one with Mike King and the Pork Board head, Chris Trengrove, and the other which I call "scared pig farmers". Its another with Hans Kriek and Trengrove.



and





Notice Chris Trengrove blaming other countries, and imported meat? It really doesnt matter what other countries do, New Zealanders dont want to think of themselves as bad people who abuse animals. Even people who eat meat think of themselves as kind animal lovers.

Well, this episodes nearly over. I hope that this scandal will stick around, it has the potential to make lots of people think about leaving animals alone, not killing them by the millions. Its been mentioned in the clips I played that egg companies have already been through this, that now they have free range and factory farmed eggs labelled differently, and its obvious to tell which is which. If you care about how eggs are produced, and still eat them, you can pay more and get free range eggs. Perhaps this is how pig meat will be sold, caged and uncaged bacon will be sold for example. Frankly, I wish everyone would just leave animals alone, and be Vegan, not eating any animal products, but until everyone is Vegan, then I hope more shocking scandals come out about how animals are kept, so that more people are exposed to the issues, and more people decide to be Vegan. If I say that there are normally one single person each week in New Zealand who decides to be Vegan, one new vegan per week, then perhaps with big scandals like the NZ Pork situation will make hundreds of thousands aware of how pigs are treated, and instead of one new Vegan each week, it could be 10, or even 100, thanks to the mainstream coverage.

I guess in a months time it will be dead and buried, but I've enjoying the coverage for animal rights in mainstream media whilst it lasts. I hope everyone listening will look for themselves to see whats happening to New Zealand animals, thank you to the animal rights groups who provide break in footage, without a group of people breaking into a piggery with Mike King, there wouldnt be this huge coverage of the issue.

Thank you for listening to me.


If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.





Sources
=======
Sunday, a NZ Current Events Show,
Youtube

Monday, May 18, 2009

Episode 18 Circus Protest

Episode 18 Circus Protest, about an elephant being mistreated by a circus in New Zealand, animal rights etc.

Hi, welcome to another episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, where I talk about stuff that interests me, and maybe you'll find interesting as well.

This episode, Im talking about animals in circuses, in particular one elephant kept by the Loritz circus which is traveling around New Zealand, that stopped by Invercargill where I live and that I protested with an animal rights group, SAFE. SAFE stands for Save Animals From Exploitation.

I have a few sound clips, as usual, to play throughout the episode.


The elephant is called Jumbo, after the famous elephant like a hundred years ago, I hate the name and from now on I'll try and call her Mrs elephant, I just prefer it to bloody Jumbo, shes a very pretty animal, not some big fat slob. Jumbo was a famous male elephant about a hundred years ago, the most famous elephant of all. He died when a train crashed into him, some bizarre accident. Jumbo's not a girls name, Mrs Elephant is.

I decided to make this episode after seeing the circus had made a fake website, pretending to be written by the elephant, saying how nice all the circus people treat her, how she likes living with the circus, being made to live in a trailer and get taken all over New Zealand. I'll play a clip of that now.



What a load of bullshit, if you see her, its pretty obvious how upset she is. Mrs Elephant, like most elephants kept by circuses, is known to sway, she rocks side to side. No elephant in the wild has been seen swaying, its what they do when they are incredibly bored. I have sound taken from a video of Mrs Elephant swaying, I'll play that later.

I heard about the circus coming to Invercargill about a week before it arrived, and when I heard about the Elephant coming, I was pissed off, I hate the idea of animals forced to perform, especially when they have to live in a trailer and get moved all around New Zealand. When I were little, I always wished Invercargill would get a zoo, so I could go and see exotic animals every weekend. But, now I've learned more about how animals are treated, and thought about it, and I wish that zoos would just shut down outright. If you want to learn more about how zoos treat animals, watch the movie Earthlings, its all about animal abuses really, it has sections about zoos and circuses, it shows behind the scenes type footage, where the animals are beaten to make them perform, elephants being made to stand on top of each other, and move about in set patterns, when they dont do what the trainers want, they get shocked with a prod, its like a big tazer. In the footage we see, they elephants scream out, and the trainers talk about being strong around the animals. There's subtitles to make it clear what the main trainer is saying, when they dont do what they are meant to, the trainers are told to really beat them, and they will scream. The main trainer says "when you hear that screaming, then you know you've got their attention a little bit." and that they cant beat them on the road, only during the awful training away from the public. Main trainer guy says something like "they're gonna do what I tell them, thats just the way it is".

Other scenes to do with zoos and circuses in Earthlings show other animals like tigers getting hit, I dont get why the large animals that could easily kill people put up with it, someone told me that they are so beaten down, that they just put up with it, they are so used to the misery thats their daily lives, that they dont feel like they can do anything about it. Earthlings also shows what happens when circus animals snap, and rampage through the circus, one video thats very moving to watch is of an elephant, one part has an elephant with people riding on some giant ornate saddle on its back, it starts knocking over ramps and ladders, people in the circus run for their lives from the seating. It could be the same footage, an elephant without anything on its back finds its way out of the circus tent, and runs out into the streets. On the way, some guy tries to shut a chainlink gate on the elephant, it just taps the gate the guy was holding shut and he gets knocked backwards. When the elephants on the street, it just walks around upset and probably very scared, people are yelling and shouting at it, and the police are trying to kill it. They fire bullet after bullet, it doesnt look like anything really hurts it, its just so big and strong that normal bullets that would easily kill people, dont seem to hurt it that much. There are vigilantes shooting at it too, normal people who act like they are saving the world by killing this elephant thats escaped from its abuse, some woman is screaming something like "die you stupid animal" at it. It finally goes down, I dont know how long it took, the footage jumps a bit I think, it stumbles down and crashes against a parked car, setting off car alarms. It kinda flails its head about a bit, you can see blood on its head, before it finally just lies outright.

I would have thought that circuses would HAVE to have a giant tranquilizer gun, able to take an Elephant out very quickly from one single tranq bullet, it just makes sense that they should prepare for the worst, as insurance. Instead, this elephant seems to just do whatever it wants, being so panicked, its just trying to get away from all its problems. Who knows how many people, with how many guns, shooting who knows how many bullets, to finally kill it. It should have been tranquilized, if anything bad happens, the keepers should have been able to knock it out, it would just lie down and go to sleep for an hour. Then it could have been put back into the circus once its calmed down, being realistic, I'd rather the elephant was alive in the circus, with a chance of being set free again, than shot dead in the streets with people yelling at it to just die already.

I'll now play a clip from one of my vegan friends, Lyndsay.


I seem to remember another elephant dying in Invercargill, dammit, cant find any news stories, I hate that not all news stories are easy to find online. It ate poisoned hay, the food had gotten wet, and had bacteria or mould growing in it, the elephant died. The way I remember it, the elephant was buried at the Gala street reserve, where the circuses go, its a large grassy public area.

The circus that brought this latest elephant here, Mrs Elephant as I call her remember, is Loritz circus. Loritz is a fairly new circus, it was formed when a previous circus closed, the Loritz circus people bought many of the things used by the prior circus, including the elephant keeper Tony Ratcliffe and Mrs Elephant. She was to have been sent away to some sanctuary in Australia, the elephant keeper was going over with her for a few months, to settle her in. He even admitted it would be better for her to be with other elephants. But, obviously money talked, and the bullshit walked right off to the bank, as he joined the new circus with her. Technically the new circus owns Mrs Elephant, Tony Ratcliffe just works for them, but hes been with her for decades now, so they are pretty much tied together. I'll play a newstory clip I read before I protested, I found out as much as I could about the circus before I protested. This is a very interesting clip, it talks with Ratcliffe about his life, hes a shady sounding guy. Listen to all the ways the reporter makes fun of him, some are pretty obvious and would have hurt his feelings if he read the published article.





I would have protested by myself about the elephant being kept the way she is, trucked about the country in a metal box really, forced to perform, no other elephants around her, it must be very lonely. But I found out about SAFE, Save Animals From Exploitation, who were arranging nationwide protests, and I joined the Invercargill protests. Very cool, it was awesome to meet other people pissed off about circus animals. I would have just stood over the road from the circus by myself, maybe with a cardboard sign, chanting something like "dont be a smelly runt, set free mrs ele-phunt" and "dont be a dumbo , set free jumbo", dammit, I said the crappy name they call her.

I'd shown up before the SAFE people, wearing a t shirt with Alex, the African Grey parrot on it, the bird that could talk and describe objects in detail. So I guess I looked like an animal rights kinda dude. I walked through the circus tents, and took some photos, including some of the elephant. I got found out by Ratcliffe, the old elephant keeper, he wandered over as I took a photo of the elephant, he said something like "you animal rights", I knew he was onto me, I muttered something like "not right now" or something, and he told me to get the hell out of there. He said if I showed up again, "they'd be trouble". I was pretty freaked out, I was alone in the middle of the circus, just taking photos of the elephant. Lots of scary circus folk looking at me, and I'd read before about how Ratcliffe killed a man with a tent peg. He was inside the elephants pathetic area, a small fenced off bit for her to walk around in.

Above the fence is an electric wire, to stop her from reaching over. Its bullshit, it makes me very sad just thinking about the electric wire, I saw Mrs Elephant snaking her trunk about, it moved like a snake would, I didnt really know they were that flexible, it looked like it could tie itself in a knot, she would reach out to where the wire was, but back off before touching it, I just know she must have been shocked by it before. Elephants trunks are so sensitive, so clever, they touch each other with their trunks, they breathe through it, suck in water, blow it out, they use it like we use our hands. There she was, too afraid to get near people because she would get shocked.

It was kind of weird how she came over to me too, she would go and walk nearer to anyone who was around the fence, I was the only person there at the time. She felt pretty big as she came over, I was a little scared! I just had time to take one photo, before Hitler, I mean Tony Ratcliffe got rid of me. He told me if I showed up again, there'd be trouble. I waited over by the Queens Park fountain for the rest of the SAFE people to show up.

When everyone else arrived, I put on a blue SAFE vest and helped hold banners. We got quite a few cars to honk in support, and one or two abusive people, nothing serious. Some old bastard came out and had a go at one of the SAFE members, he said something like "get out of here" and "get a real job". Um, grampa, I know it must be real hard living off our tax money, but its saturday afternoon, most people dont work saturdays, oh, but I do, I'd just finished work, and was protesting in my own time. Crazy old bastard.

I asked George and Sharon, from Invercargill SAFE to record something for me to use. Im really pleased I got these clips.


Thank you so much for appearing on my podcast.

The circus people took our photos, some creepy looking gypsy-ish woman was hiding behind the circus vehicles, taking photos, probably to stop us from getting entry to a circus performance and causing hell inside. We had some gruff looking circus dudes stare over at us, like they wanted a fight, but the circus people left us alone.

I asked all my friends to drive past and honk their car horns in solidarity, my friends Wiriya and Allison showed up and honked for me which was really cool.

I've got another clip, this is from CTV, a local christchurch tv channel I think, it has an interview with SAFE and the circus.



I've heard the circus downplay SAFE a few times, they've said things like 48,000 people went to the circus in the South Island, and that there were just 48 protesters, which I dont believe for a second, and also that SAFE complains a lot but havnt any real ideas about what to do for the elephant. Loritz circus says that they have asked SAFE directly for what they want done, and that SAFE couldnt come up with a good home for Mrs Elephant. But thats BS, in the clip I played before SAFE mention the sanctuary that the circus itself knows about, as Mrs Elephant was to be sent there, before the new Loritz circus brought her from the circus that shutdown. Loritz Circus know a good place for her, the elephant keeper was really going to send her there apparently, he was quoted in newspapers saying Mrs Elephant would go there, but instead shes stuck living in that crappy trailer, hauled around New Zealand. On the circus site written from the elephants point of view, someone pretending to be the elephant, it says that soon they will accept retirement donations for Mrs Elephant, can you believe that? They want people to give them money to send the elephant away, so she can finally be treated nicely. How do we know they will use the donations for sending her overseas? They dont have a target to reach or anything, its just stealing money off people who want to feel like they've helped the poor animal.


SAFE mentioned that they keep the elephant to make money, from people going to the circus to see her. Well, thats pretty accurate, Loritz circus must be pretty shitty without Mrs Elephant there. Their whole setup, they have a big tent, some little inflatable tents in front of that, one has a dwarf horse in it, that you have to pay two bucks to see the horse, I think theres a spelling mistake that we noticed to do with the dwarf horse sign. Then theres a couple lamas hidden out the back, and Mrs Elephant with her fenced off bit and trailer. The features in this whole circus are some african performers, they sound interesting, they do all the usual circus stuff, and a little girl who spins hula hoops around herself. I mean, good for her, she can do that better than I can, but im not going to a circus to see a little girl spin some hoops around her. The little girl did get a high placing on a New Zealand talent show, but its still not enough to keep me interested for more than a few seconds! Apparently Mrs Elephant doesnt perform anymore, god only knows what they mean by the word perform, but she still gets trotted out into the tent for about 5 minutes each show. It seems like she walks around the ring, and back out. wow! Thats worth all the hours in the trailer, and traveling from city to city! Without the elephant, lamas and dwarf horse, theres just a girl who spins hoops around herself, and some african performers. Sounds pretty lame.

So, I dont really expect the elephant to be sold anytime soon, unless maybe the other star attraction, hula hoop girl, also learns to juggle and ride a unicycle in clown costume, they'd need something else to fill in time.

My friend Elizabeth, from NZ Vegan Podcast was kind enough to provide another clip for my podcast, she also sent in a recording for my Vegetarian/Vegan episode, that I hope you'll listen to.



Thank you very much elizabeth. I also have a clip from Colin Sky, the leader of the VEGANZ yahoo chat group, that provides a way for New Zealand Vegans to stay in touch, we send emails to each other every day.




You can see photos from the Invercargill SAFE protests, we protested two saturdays in a row, on my bebo site. I've made a tiny url page for the link, so you dont have to type such a long URL, you can just go to www. tiny url.com/ jumbo protest, no spaces of course. tiny url . com/ jumbo protest. Easy to remember, or write down. Please make sure you look at my photos, I have one of Mrs Elephant herself, in the bottom right corner you can see the angry elephant keeper, just out of frame, asking me if I were with "animal rights" and then telling me to get the hell out of there, or "there'd be trouble" I would have take lots more photos if I could have.

I've found a few news stories about the Loritz Circus getting in trouble while performing. At many locations, SAFE protesters held up banners, chanted and handed out pamphlets to anyone interesting in seeing how circus animals are treated. These protests were mentioned in many local newspapers. In Dargaville, the circus left a local park muddy and with holes, these had to be fixed before sports could be played. The local council was charging this cost to the circus, and they lost their bond money. In Nelson, the council admitted they had made a mistake allowing an elephant to be kept on public land.


In Dunedin, the circus was not allowed to have Mrs Elephant on council land, it has a policy against exotic animals being made to perform on its property. The circus had set up, and Mrs Elephant was to be moved from Dunedin City Council land. She was kept over at a pub near the circus, can you believe it?, on land near The Kensington pub carpark, until the council found out about this and had her moved again. The Circus pulled strings, and eventually had poor Mrs Elephant kept on the pubs carpark itself, which is privately owned by the pub. In this pubs carpark, this video was shot, you can watch it on youtube, I have the URL in the shownotes, or search "jumbo swaying" on youtube. You cant see the video obviously, but Jumbo is wobbling, or swaying side to side inside the trailer that the circus proudly shows off, it cost 300 thousand bucks you know! Inside, Mrs Elephant is chained by one of her front legs, it looks like one of those plastic covered bike lock chains, it looks like it would be very sore on her leg. A power tool starts up somewhere closely, and we see Jumbo try and look out to see where the scary noise is coming from, she can barely see out of the trailer, the chain around her leg is too short to let her move around very much at all, its probably a metre long chain if that. She can just rest her head against the opening, and move her trunk outside. She looks miserable.




The trailer the elephant is kept in is estimated by SAFE to have about 3 metres by 5 metres of space for poor Mrs Elephant, considering she is about 2 metres high alone, a lot longer than that, and weighs about 4 tonnes, its a tiny amount of space.

Thank you to all the people who submitted audio clips of themselves, thank you as well to those who emailed in what they wanted my artificial voice to read out.

With public pressure on circuses, we can make Mrs Elephants life better, and hopefully, some day soon, she'll be allowed to go to the Australian sanctuary , and live out her life, meet other actual elephants, and maybe even have a family.

Thank you for listening to my podcast episode about the sad life of Jumbo the elephant. I hope you look at the photos I took of the first Invercargill SAFE protest that I participated in, if you go to www.tinyurl.com/jumboprotest, you will find yourself at my bebo page, with some of my photos.

If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.












sources
=======
http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbumBig.jsp?PhotoNbr=1&MemberId=4382932362&PhotoAlbumId=10269345122 MY PHOTOS
(http://tinyurl.com/jumboprotest should work just fine )

http://www.safe.org.nz/Campaigns/Free-Jumbo-Campaign/ SAFE campaign site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub9nvk6ijHs CTV interview with SAFE, circus

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/feature-archive/412043

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNz7Tvf_tO0 jumbo swaying video

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/northland/470539 circus left holes in local park

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Episode 17 Old Kew Hospital

Episode 17

Old Kew Hospital

Hey, welcome to another episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast. This episode Im going to talk a bit about the old Invercargill hospital. Its scary as hell, at least for me, I've added a couple of sound effects I recorded on my iPhone while waiting to escape the horrors that was, Old Kew Hospital! Its not quite the same as being there, but it sets the mood. Hey, isnt this the Vincent Price laugh , from Michael Jackson's song Thriller?

At the moment, I've just came back from the old Invercargill Hospital, its being demolished. This podcast episode is about how creepy that old beaten up building is, parts of it are about a hundred years old. Theres garbage all throughout the inside, puddles of water from leaks, and mould. I get scared of hospitals, because of the death and disease that goes on inside. I dont like blood either. Once I got a personal tour from a family friend who worked at the hospital, she worked in the blood section, well, she closed the door on me inside the giant refrigerator that keeps the blood cool, all around me there were probably hundreds of litres of blood, I was thinking what it would feel like if they burst on me, being in a completely dark fridge, drowning in donated blood.

Its weird as hell seeing it now, it looks the same as it did about five years ago, it just has some really bashed up broken windows, and leaks. Theres still rubbish left from when the hospital was used last, theres still medical equipment like artificial legs new in the boxs still, I could see them in a locked room. Lots of things were kinda stacked up, paintings off walls all stacked up in one corner, but it didnt look like they were getting moved out, basically everything in the hospital was going to be trashed, apart from a few things that some secondhand dealers had bought, I was getting stuff with my dad.

One of the wards I went up to, on the top story, is on a jutting out part, it sticks out into the carpark, its weird, this big multistory brick building, its quite thin, it has enough room for two hospital rooms on each side, not really rooms ,just curtain tracks to close off sections for privacy, with walking space in between.

Anyway, pretty soon it will all be gone. The modern hospital was built in front about 5 years ago, it looks a lot smaller, but its a LOT nicer inside, its very modern, lots of space, you could drive cars about through all the hallways easily. It has lots of windows, and feels clean. In the middle of the main building, theres a sort of stone garden, with stones, and maybe a water feature or something, its just this big huge area in the middle, with windows to look at it through, I dont think you're meant to go through and sit there or anything, its just to make the hospital feel more natural.

I saw some freaky rooms in the old hospital, theres the chapel which is kind of weird, I didnt go in, but its pretty sad that this chapel would have basically been for people to make peace with God, before they died. Im sure they would have done sunday ceremonies or whatever, but its not like a happy place to go to a church, in a hospital, its more like for people who feel they need to while they are very sick, or dying. Across from that was a bathing pool, its for therapy I think, it had a stretcher type board rigged up on a hoist, to put people into the water who wouldnt be able to climb in by themselves or whatever.

It looked weird, all deserted, this old pool for disabled people.

Something I did like, all the stuff to do with Nuclear medicine, the MRI scanners, and chemotherapy I would guess. I dont know if they did chemotherapy here in Invercargill, or if patients had to go to a larger city like Dunedin. I didnt go and investigate, but saw the signs everywhere. Something quite cool, my dad took a bunch of the signs, with permission, they were just going to get thrown out otherwise, so we have all these medical signs, signs pointing where to go for wards etc.

We parked out the back of the hospital to get stuff, just across from the mortuary, where dead bodies are kept chilled. I get freaked out by death, I dont think I could have gone in there, it was closed. I think it might still be used, there was a building next to it with a chimney that was going, it could have been burning medical waste, you know like amputated body parts and blood and who knows what else.

We got some dentist cabinets, where all the poking tools were kept, some still have the instruments in them. There were lots of fancy equipment, all junk now probably, but would have cost alot new, no idea what it was for.

In a main staff cafeteria part, there were Pro meat posters, funny label, pro meat :) Things saying "eat red meat!" from the beef and lamb cartel or whatever you call them, those idiots who represent all the farmers in this country. The meat in the poster looked raw, it was this gross pink red colour. I almost wanted to take the posters like that because they were so gross looking. I hate the Beef and Lamb ads that get played on tv often here, with new zealand female athletes on. I've just bought a parody t shirt from a fellow vegan, it says "meat is murder" on the athletes t shirts, and "beef and lamb, be twice as cruel" at the bottom.

The people who were there representing the hospital, or taking it apart, were pretty cold, they didnt talk to me at all, they would say things to my dad every now and then, we were mostly alone in the scary old buildings, and then people would just jump out of dusty corridors and surprise me. We moved a hundred desks and cabinets down from the third story by ourselves, the other people were just walking around most of the time, I saw some working taking roofing tiles off, they had this lift thing, it was pretty small, just a metal plate really that went up and down diagonally to the ground, with a guy on the roof putting one slate tile at a time onto the lift, and one taking it off and putting it a box it seemed.

One of the people taking a perpetual break said something like 'urrghaltaght harg harg harg!" at me, I said "wha?" to him and he just turned away, dammned if I know what their problem was. I saw them eating meat pies, wanted to say something like "oh, didnt know the mortuary had a crematorium next to it" or something, im used to people making fun of me for not eating meat, before a recent funeral my dad brought up that I didnt eat animal products , to my aunty, whos partners a farmer, they were disgusted really, they laughed at me quite a lot, "whut you naed is a bug steak ergh" and then my dad and the two of them were all hahahahhaha, they thought they were sooooo clever.

Im getting used to bringing it up my veganism when its relevent, I never bring it up around friends as it would be pretty annoying for them I would think, telling them what to do all the time. But, almost every time im in a group of them, it comes up!

So, this was a short episode, just talking about the old invercargill hospital.

Thanks for listening :)


If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.

Episode 16 Post 911 America = Nazi Germany?

Episode 16 Post 911 America = Nazi Germany?

Hi listeners,

Welcome to another episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast.

This is just a quick episode, Adam Curry said a couple interesting things on episode 791 of his Daily Source Code podcast, and I thought I'd repackage them as part of, hell, a full episode of my own podcast. Adam often has crackpot theories about 911 being an inside job, aliens visiting, evil businessmen that control everything, its quite fun to listen to him. But, every now and then, he comes up with something I have to fully admit makes sense in at least some way.

This is one of those times. The first part is a comparison of post 911 America with Nazi Germany, pretty controversial. Basically, Adam is reading an article from a website comparing how Hitler came to power, because people let him take over, they stood by, and did nothing. Many examples are given, and then the situation today in america is compared to this. Its quite interesting, theres been some weird stuff thats happened in america, that can basically be summed up as people having rights taken away. New weapons are being made all the time, supposedly non lethal weapons are being trialled, things using loud sounds, and electric shocks to control people. People are not allowed to take more than so much liquid on planes, ever since some guy tried using liquids to make a bomb. People have to be searched more at hospitals, they have to take their shoes off, ever since one guy had a bomb in his shoes. One weird incident will end up making huge new laws, and new searchs, checks and ultimately restrictions on everyday americans lives.

I dont at all agree that America right now is exactly the same as Germany was when Hitler came to power. But its quite interesting to listen to anyway. I dont know who Americas Hitler character would be, President Obama? Hes had some critics, who say he promised so many great things, like shutting down Gitmo on day one, that just havnt come to pass. The Hitler character could also be Al Gore, people who impose new Green taxes and laws on people. Keep an open mind, and just listen to the facts, the history of what happened before World War II, and whats happening now. Straight after, Adam played a Immortal Technique rap thats quite clever to listen to.

The second clip is a caller talking about 911, and Adam brings up some mysterious laser beam, microwave type weapon that he says blew up one of the World Trade Centre buildings. Pretty nuts, I dont know what to say really.

I highly recommend everyone listening to this podcast listen to Adam on his No Agenda podcast, and also Daily Source Code, these are both easy to find on iTunes.

Dont call me a crackpot just because I find the clips interesting to think about! Just making this episode to help spread the interesting information Adam Curry brought up.

I'll play the clips now.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Episode 15 1970's Horror Films

Episode 15 1970's Horror Films

Deranged, Deliverance, Soylent Green episode

I get that alot.

Hello and welcome to Episode 15 of Jay Wont dart's podcast, 1970's Horror Movies. The movies I'll be mentioning are Deranged, Deliverance and Soylent Green.

This Episode I'll give tiny reviews for some of my DVD movies, all of these movies are of the Horror genre, and from the 1970's, and we all know that old things are scary!

But first, I'll start by telling you about my friends new podcast thats on the way, its going to be totally excellent, lots of informative talk, and interesting opinion, well basically so the deal is that...

Back to me, yip Um, thanks for that Des. Yes, um, well I'll, um, go back to my episode now, yeah.



I have the trailer for each movie, and some sound clips from famous scenes. I should give you a warning now, there will be heaps of spoilers, I always read about movies before I see them, normally the Wikipedia page, to see if its worth seeing or not. But, I know some crazy people who actually enjoy being surprised by movies, weirdos, rather than knowing the ending before you hit play on the dvd, or sit down at the movie theatre. The point of my little movie reviews are to tell you about movies I think you should see, so Im trying to convince you that its worth buying, or renting the DVD. I cant show you fancy fire explosions in slow motion like movie trailers do, so I focus on the plot, Hollywood should try that sometime. However, if you dont want to have Deranged, Deliverance or Soylent Green spoiled before you've seen it, then its time to stop listening to this episode!

You've been warned.

First movie, is Deranged.

I saw part of Deranged years ago, on Sky pay tv. It was the part near the end, with the young woman in the snow. Very messed up.

Heres the Deranged trailer



As always, I hope you search for the video clips that I play, audio only, you really have to watch these for yourself sometime. I've tried to put the links in the shownotes, that show in the lyrics mode of your ipod....I say this every episode huh?

Deranged is based on Ed Gein (geen), one of the most well known killers in history, heres what Wikipedia has to say. Alex, the Mac Voice is gonna mess up his name, its pronounced "geen".



Scary guy huh?

and now the Wikipedia plot for Deranged.



Apparently, the dead bodies in the movie are made from chicken wire, plastic skulls, and painted cotton. The faces are plaster casts from crew members. Also, Mrs Cobb, the elderly mother who dies, the actor who played her was only 14 years older than the actor who played Ezra, her son. I hate the word actress, it sounds demeaning to me, like an actress is a woman trying to be an actor, I dont get why actor cant be for both genders.

Heres a clip from Mrs Cobb, what she thought about women. Throughout the movie, we see clips from what Ezra remembers her telling him.



I'll give Deranged 3 out of 5, its a very enjoyable movie, but theres no really mindblowing scenes, its pretty much just a standard old horror flick. Its a B movie really. I do like a lot of little scenes, but its not a very original movie, and overall I dont think its as good as Silence of the Lambs etc.


Next movie, Deliverance.

Deliverance is a movie about a Canoe trip in the American South gone wrong.

Listen to the trailer for Deliverance,


Deliverance is well known for two scenes in particular, the Banjo Duel, and "Squeal like a Pig". I'll play parts from those scenes very soon, after playing what Wikipedia has to say about the movie.

Heres what Wikipedia has to say about it.


Pretty brutal.

Ok, first I'll play the Banjo Duel, one of the main characters plays his guitar against a local boy, who doesnt seem quite "right", the movie crew looked for someone who looked, well, retarded, Billy Redden, the boy who plays the character is mentally fine, but he doesnt look very normal in the movie. The banjo kids characters called "lonnie". Well, so Lonnie plays his banjo, against a guitar, and wins! See if you recognise the song, its a pop culture moment, its been parodied in the simpsons, family guy and other places.

Heres the clip



At the end, Lonnie the not right looking boy with the banjo turns his head away awkwardly from the main characters. he shows up in a weird way in the later parts of the movie, on a creepy suspension bridge watching the canoe go down the river.

Something interesting, Billy Redden, the guy playing Lonnie the banjo kid, is not actually playing the banjo, hes wearing a weird shirt, with a very good banjo player reaching through from behind Billy, his hands seem to belong to Lonnie.

the other popular scene from Deliverance, is "Squeal like a Pig".

Two of the three main characters come across locals, one main character gets tied up, and the other, well, he gets raped by a scary southern guy. He gets told to "squeal like a pig". also, "hes got a real purty mouf"

At the end of the scene, the third main character saves the other two, by shooting one of them with his bow.



I'll give Deliverance 3 out of 5 again, its not an amazingly good movie, but it does deserve its place in popular culture. 3 out of 5 on the Jordan-ometre for both movies so far, doesnt sound like they deserve a special podcast episode, but they are interesting movies in their own way, just not that amazing to watch, if you ask me. i mean, they have great scenes, classic scenes that you need to see, but the whole movie, as a whole, is not very good compared to awesome movies like Forest Gump.


My last movie, Soylent Green.

This is a fun movie for Vegans to watch, its basically about how screwed up the worlds going to become, from overpopulation to corporations.

In the future, meat, and regular decent food are almost impossible to find, people eat Soylent products, Soylent Red, Yellow, and the latest version, Soylent Green. Thanks to Wikipedia, a jar of Strawberry Jam is said to cost "150 dollars", which isnt really that much really when you think about inflation etc, the movies set in 2022, which sounds far out, but its 2009 now remember :) When the movie came out, in 1973, 150 usd a jar of jam would have sounded expensive, but 150 dollars is not that much money anymore, it is for jam, but not overall a huge sum of money.

The way the recessions hitting america, hyperinflation could come about very easily, some third world countries have ultra high value notes, you pay for things with hundred thousand dollar notes, I think Zimbabwe has a billion dollar note now. So, paying 150 us dollars for jam doesnt sound very expensive, if we have hyper inflation, by our standards, in the year 2022. I guess, in the 70's, a jar of jam would have cost 5.2 cents american money, so 150 dol lars sounds a lot of money.


In the movie they make it seem like only millionaires have food like we eat today, everyone else makes do on these government handout Soylent products. People act like they've never even heard of Jam, and they cant read at all, I dont think it would be that hard for a group of people to save up money for Jam, its essential you know! Its fun to think about though, I mean, the movie made in the 70's, 2022 must have been like a billion years away, well, its just around the corner now, and it seems unlikely that in a few short years, we wont be able to read or afford Jam. I guess we predict stupid stuff too though, the future never gets accurately predicted by anyone.

Heres the trailer for Soylent Green.



Funky noises huh? The future is all about eery sounds. Thunderbirds had those kinda wheep whooop whoooo whoooup noises too.

I like the way the name Soylent Green sounds , I might start calling Soy products, "soylent" something from now on. So, my Soymilk will become Soylent White, being white.

Heres the plot for Soylent Green.



Soylent Green, the food product, has been in modern tv series, in futurama its a common food, even though people know its made from actual people, its just accepted. In The Simpsons its showed up too.


An interesting fact, the guy who plays the old guy in the movie, Edward G Robinson, he died TWELVE days after filming was finished. It was the 101st movie that he'd been in.

Heres a part from the end of the movie, when the main character finds out what Soylent Green is.



To shake things up a bit, I'm going to give Soylent Green FOUR out of 5, because of its interesting message about the future, you know, a few years from now? Some scenes are pretty stupid, like at the food riots, people are broken up by riot police, one of the tools they use are these big dump trucks that "scoop" people up and into the back of them. Well, I think future police wont have special people picker uper truck things, they will use pepper spray, or tazers. Not just some big trucks rigged up with bulldozer bits on the front, a zany movie prop.

All old movies look dated, but these three 1970's horror movies have great scenes, and that makes them worth watching. I hope you do decide to rent, or even buy these great, fantastic, amazing, world changing movies, that I rated as 3's and a 4 out of five.


Thank you for listening to this episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast!


If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.

Have a super happy day, bye.


Sources
========

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deranged

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliverance_(1972_film)



Youtube Videos

Deranged Trailer,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-i-APyMbU

Soylent Green Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVpN312hYgU

Soylent Green Its People
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE

Deliverance Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9R4t_Nwy5E

Deliverance Banjo duel,

Deliverance Squeal like a Pig