WillWybrow.com

I was listening to the radio while I was in the kitchen getting some lunch. Matthew Bannister is sitting in for Jeremy Vine today, and I must say, apart from having a more boring voice, he and some woman he was talking to have just been bad-mouthing Saw the Ride, which I have been on, for all sorts of reasons, number one being that they are stuffy and boring and middle-aged and boring.

It’s a ride that I am liking more and more because of how much publicity there is over it. Saw is an incredibly well-performing franchise for all manner of reasons, and people who aren’t really into it dismiss it as unnecessary gore. I don’t mind that, these people are right; the gore is not necessary to watch, which is why Lionsgate executives aren’t dragging you from your homes and forcing you into the cinemas or DVD shops to pay money for their films. You don’t have to watch it if it isn’t your thing.

But people who are outspoken against it are outspoken for some rather invalid reasons. The point the woman on the radio made was that “people have become so desensitised” to on-screen violence.

Clearly she hasn’t given this very critical thought. So I offer you a chance to do it on her behalf. Tell me why becoming desensitised to violence is bad.

I don’t know if there are any good arguments for this. The only one I can think that people might use is a repackaging of “the media causes children to be violent” — an argument that hasn’t ever stood up to investigation (cf. every fucking complaint about the Grand Theft Auto series, ever).

Being desensitised to violence is probably a good thing. People are more rational when they don’t let their emotional reactions get in the way of thinking. Of course, if we’re witnessing a violent act in real life and we’re concerned for the safety of ourselves or those involved, we have a handy evolutionary asset called fear which gets us to run away from the danger. But obviously fake, on-screen gore isn’t something we really need to be ’sensitive’ to, is it?

Yesterday, I went to this. It was an event for players of NDS Pokémon titles to receive a legendary Shaymin and meet up with fellow players to have some fun.

I won’t go into too much detail, but it’s enough to say that the day filled me with a special kind of happiness and satisfaction that only comes from meeting a slew of new people just because of a single shared interest. It’s the kind of feeling I had to a lesser extent while getting to know the Warwick Atheists. I also experienced something similar when I went to Hemel Hempstead in 2005 for that year’s Click Convention [I am in the group photo linked on that page, that's how I looked in '05], but of course I was too young to really appreciate it like I appreciated yesterday.

Some more things might come of it, too. I won’t say too much now in case nothing comes of it and it all ends up being a massive disappointment, but let’s just say that I got the phone number of some guy.

Sorry I’ve been quiet here recently. Hope everyone is enjoying the Easter holidays and I’ll be back on the internet proper within a week.

If you missed it, here is the page: http://willwybrow.com/moj.html.

I owe a big apology to Keziah, whom I successfully worried with my brtual prank… I am sorry!

The Guardian had quite an entertaining one: announcing the move from print to Twitter as the primary format for the newspaper.

The funniest one I saw this year would have to be ThinkGeek’s newsletter; I remember them actually getting me with one a few years ago and have looked forward to them ever since.

You can either go one way or the other on April Fools’ Day: a plausible prank or a funny joke. Naturally there will be some comedic geniuses who combine the two successfully, and manage to trick people and tickle people in equal proportions, but I was happy with my plausible-sounding prank this year. Some people got it, and some people didn’t; the earlier in the morning it was seen, the less time you’d have had to realise that it was April the First, so it was more believeable.

Maybe see you next year.