SteamOS - A potential headache and game changer for Microsoft

In their relentless drive to dominate everything in our gaming lives, Valve has recently announced their next big thing; the SteamOS. But to properly discuss it's potential impact on how we use our computers, let's take a trip down memory lane.

I've been building my own computers since college - or high school in American terms for you Yanks that keep wandering over here on my blog - ever since I discovered it was way easier than I thought and way cheaper then buying a whole unit. Computers had a mystique around them that building my own was the first step into breaking it.

Now the operating system you'd have ten plus years ago was a bit of a given. Yes, Linux and Apple existed, but neither were anywhere close to Microsoft's dominance with Windows. Linux remained in the hands of the few that truly got and understood computers, and I felt at the time it was seriously beyond my capabilities. Nowadays I find Linux a lot less intimidating, but that's because if a Linux device starts going wrong I have plenty of web-enabled device to search for a fix. Back then, the computer with Linux on would be the only device you owned that could traverse the internet so if shit happened... well, let's just say it involved a lot of travelling back and forth to your friend's house, or to be specific, your friend's internet connection. Mac's were there, but I only ever saw them used by media professionals, not everyday usage.
(For the record, I acknowledge the existence of iOS and Android but I won't be focusing on them on this article as they're newcomers, and not had a great impact on the desktop market.)

There was also another reason for Window's dominance; video games.

Oh yeah, look at me cater to the Ultima crowd like I have a clue what's going on.

If you wanted your video games on a PC, and I did, then Windows was pretty much the only way to go. Mac's had Warcraft... and that it. Linux had even less than that for the triple-A titles. Windows was the only way forward if you wanted to play, and I've used Windows almost exclusively on home rigs because of this. Between cornering the home video game enthusiast market and the gigantic business market, Windows was, and still is, top dog in the operating system producers.

But Microsoft's hold on that title had not exactly been absolute. They are perfectly able to fuck up along the way. The seemed quite happy to fuck up every other iteration of Windows, from ME, Vista and now 8. And 8 is a whopping fuck up. A real whopping fuck up. Most laptops don't come with touchscreens, let along desktops, which screws over Windows 8 something awful. Every person who I've ever asked about Windows 8 has come back quite clear - don't go near it, it's dog-shit awful, stick with 7. I despised it as I was forced to resort to Google search to help me find basic things like the Control Panel and the fucking option to turn off the fucking laptop. So it's fairly said it's not the most intuitive of OS's...

I get some of the ideas presented. I mean, looking at it for half a second, a unified interface across all platforms seems like a good idea. Of course, the next half a second of thought would of brought up that phones, desktops, tablet and games console not only do vastly different things but have require vastly different input from the user, which just goes to show why you should plan things for a whole damn second. Phones and tablets are primarily used for media consumption and entertainment, with input that's designed around small screens and inaccurate thumbs, where desktops straddle a myriad of tasks from work related spreadsheets, programming, rendering, data crunching and media consumption, with highly accurate and precise mouse manipulation input. There's a slight fucking difference there. Could you imagine trying to use an accounting spreadsheet on your iPhone, or trying to render an 3D animated object on a Galaxy's tiny CPU?

It doesn't help that I don't feel like Microsoft recognize their error, and would rather force it down everyone's throats with the attitude of, hey, we're the top dog. What else you got? All rumours point to more of the bad, more apps, more walled gardens, more 'no Start Menu' crap. And me, who wants my games, would sigh. Triple-A titles don't come to Macs often, even if I could afford their lubricious price tag, and Linux is a non-standardized mess, which is also shunned by the gaming development community - regardless of the irony that most games were likely programmed on a Linux computer.

But now SteamOS is here.

Sort of like the moon from Majora's Mask slamming into Mircosoft's Hyrule.

Oh. Fuck. Yes.

For starters, it's Linux with political muscle behind it. Steam is a massive distributor of games, and if anyone could say to developers 'Here's the OS baseline you're working to - not Ubunto, Red Hat or anything, this,' it's Valve. They're already pushing the porting of video games to Linux before this all went down, and with the Steam Box, they offer home network streaming for any game that isn't compatible. Plus they're already a Triple-A content producer anyway... when they get round to it.

In fact, I highly expect to find many games slowly but surely starting the port to Linux if this takes off. We've just seen Nvidia turn around and start pledging more Linux support from a historically poor stance of Linux support, and I doubt that SteamOS being and Nvidia's turnaround are not somehow related. One of the biggest issues I heard about Linux thus far is the sheer lack of support from companies like Netflix - and considering that SteamOS has already been stated to want to be big on all media, specifically mentioning streaming media, I remain hopeful that a breakthrough in support is around the corner.

As it's Linux based and designed to run on a smaller console, it'll also be mercifully lightweight on your system resources. No more of the whole 'I'm using over 33% of your entire system resources to sit here idling' nonsense, which I've come to resignedly expect from later iterations of Windows.

If they come out and say that they're also going to get some office programs on there as well...

Oh.

Oh boy.

Oh, and it'll be free by the way. Yup. Free.

That's some serious competition to Microsoft right there. While in yesteryear if someone mentioned picking up a new computer you wouldn't ask about what OS they intended to have because it was assumed Windows - in 99% of all cases - today we're looking at a very different market. I hear people express disappointment and dissatisfaction with the latest showing from Microsoft constantly, and I have often heard people with lower experience in computing voice idea of going over to Apple - even with their hefty price, their slimmed down OS experience is becoming quite attractive.

Microsoft's latest offerings have, in a serious understatement, not been good. I trashed Window's 8 enough so we'll pass that mess. We've seen the disaster of the Surface, and now we see the Surface 2, which is exactly the same but with HD. So that will be the next big disaster. And that was after the humiliating climb down and backtracking of the Xbone, which unfortunately for many of their core audience was too little, too late. Whilst Microsoft are unlikely to backtrack again and reintroduce such hated policies, many of their audience has been turned off by the toxicity of the Xbone and become vulnerable to Sony who has been exerting serious effort to woo Microsoft's unhappy possible customers. It's got so bad that Steve Ballmer didn't so much as step down as was pushed.

And here's SteamOS. It'll be free, and it'll be striking at that lucrative gaming market. While it may not have shots to fire at Microsoft's colossal earning ability from the corporate market, it is worth considering that increasing the amount of home users comfortable with using a different OS cannot be good for Microsoft in the long term. If the next generation of employees are happy and able to use a free OS on their work computers, how long will that money hold for Microsoft?

So what's next for Microsoft?

Well, if SteamOS can deliver, I for one won't really care. And coming from a person who's been married to Windows for well over ten years, that's got to be alarming.

Er. Come back tomorrow?

This is awkward. I mean, I recently changed the blurb up there with 'updates Sunday' and everything. Ah. Hmm. Look, I have something, it's nearly written out, quite close to being done, but... I've shit to do tonight. Yeah. Um. Sorry. But it will be done tomorrow! I promise! And I'm actually going to work on tagging posts, improving layout and stuff as well! Really! Honest!

...please come back tomorrow.

For me?

For my numbers?

And what I am going to be talking about tomorrow? Well, here's a hint of the original subject before tangents happened!

Dun dun duuuuunnn!

UKIP and the sound of me laughing

You know, sometimes its nice when the bad guys just go all asshole on you. There's little worse then spending years nursing and feeding a powerful grudge to only find out later that the target for your hate is, in fact, a rather nice person and you've been wrong and petty all along. For this reason I avoid all news or interviews about Ricky Gervais, for I utterly despise him yet I am secretly worried that in real life he's an alright person, so I keep my knowledge of him severely limited to be sure I can continue justifying my hate to myself.

I refuse to Google 'Ricky Gervais charity' in case it turns out he's a prolific donater, the dick.

I note this today because it's always enjoyable when UKIP goes out there way to be pricks.

Oh, Godfry Bloom. Your fall from whatever grace you'd ever mistakenly managed to obtain is delicious. So for those of you not in the know, a Mister Godfrey Bloom, a Member of European Parliament and UKIP politician referred to the women in his company on a panel as 'sluts.' His own UKIP women members that is, in front of a live panel audience.

Now, he's come out and said that he was referring to the older usage of the word 'slut,' meaning dirty, not promiscuous, and that no one present took offence. Weeeelll... look, I'll give you that perhaps the women you were referring to didn't take offense. Maybe they knew you and found it funny, and this is all out of context hilarity. I've called my friends worse. However... you're an MEP buddy, in front of people with recording devices. And you sit on, of all things, the... wait for it... the European Parliament's Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee. Ho boy. That was never going to go down well. And I won't defend you on the older usage of the word thing, because there's plenty of words that are unacceptable to use now that had obscure, non-offensive original meaning - but that doesn't wash nowadays. Explain all you like that you were calling that man an olde reference to being a Nigerian fellow. It won't get you far.

In absolute fairness, the whole 'sluts' thing is really been brought of of hand when you consider he's also just hit a journalist, something I find a lot more interesting. He hit him for the funniest thing as well; upon being question why a UKIP brochure was 'changing the face of politics' but only had white people on the cover, old Godders called the journo a racist and hit him with the brochure. Ah. Wut. That's a fair fucking question, and you can't just sling the word 'racist' in a hope to deflect it. Also you can't hit journalists. Because they're the media. They have this tendency, the media, of telling everyone everything. It's this thing they do. It's almost like it's their whole fucking point of being. You can't trust them to be quiet, for some reason, and isn't that weird? 

He's like Victor Meldrew, only perhaps racist, sexist, more grumpy, and insane.
 So, in fact, nothing like Victor Meldrew. 

Anyway, all this is really is just another thing on olde Godders and his party. We'll add it to the pile, with the Bongo Bongo Land stuff, the anti-feminist remarks and the women in workplace crap. While he's been suspended, we've seen his leader, Nigel Farage have to explain about some pro-fascist leanings in his past. Whee. You know, that pile of problems seems to keep growing, doesn't it? I mean, that first article I linked to that a side column of fuck ups, of hideously offensive things you UKIP people just keeping saying. On the one hand, UKIP strives against political correctness, seeing it not as basic human dignity but as censorship (which really says something about their world view...) but perhaps if they censored their own yaps once in a while they might do better. And censor some of their thoughts too, whilst they're at it.

Hell, what am I saying? Keep saying stupid shit. More rope to hang you with. You know, hanging, the thing you want back. Whee.

The Tories must love UKIP, deep down. They're saying all the thing that many Tories would love to say and do, but don't under that pesky need to be 'electable.' When the equal marriage debate started rolling along, you could see Cameron sweat under the sheer effort it was taking to keep his party member from saying deeply unpleasant stuff, and he didn't manage to contain it all. Then he sees UKIP on the horizon, relieved that no matter what vile filth comes out of one of his back benchers mouth's, within five minutes UKIP will say something far worse and distract the whole issue.

In fact, for a lot of this government's ruling they've been very fortunate about that sort of thing. In the early days, anger was neatly deflected over any policies by chucking a hapless Lib Dem outside to defend it, so the mood turned on the Lib Dem's treachery. Now, we're all used to the Lib Dem's unreliability, and thus it doesn't shield the Tories no more but up sweeps UKIP. Cameron must have a monkey's paw or something, continually raining down disposable shields for him. He must rock as support classes on first person shooters, only as a Tory, I'd expect him to only heal his friends, not anyone who actually needs it.

But still, it's nice to know that once in a while the people you believe are bastards go out their way to go, yes, it's true: we're all bastards.

And they did it without resorting to chemical weapons. Which is nice.

Music videos are currently crap, let me over-explain why

So today I came back from a party where the main source of music was from the television. Now television and me have a strange relationship. For starters, I don't own one, nor do I ever intend to own one. The content on offer here is usually dire. A lot of the worthwhile shows are produced stateside so Netflix covers you there, and what's left is usually up to the BBC who'll put it briefly on iPlayer. For me, watching television feels like a colossal waste of time and whenever I feel like the tug of plonking down money for a noise box... my Twitter feed fills with people complaining about the shite that's on the television right now. So it's a given I don't like the squawk box. Yet sit me down in front of one, and I can't tear my eyes off it. All the sparkly lights pull at me, and I sit, mesmerized but pretty, flashing lights. Basically, I'm still a child entertained by jingling keys.

So today I ended up watching a shit load of music television.

So today I ended up wondering how people tolerate music television. It's utter and complete wank.

For the record, I was watching one of MTV's sub-derivative channels, you know, the channels that actually plays music whereas MTV concentrates on stuff like the Geordie Shore or whatever intelligence numbing drivel they have nowadays. I don't remember which one, because who cares, but I do remember the games I invented watching it.

Mainly, there was the 'Count The Objectified Women Who Are Needlessly In Underwear Or Less, With Bonus Points Awarded For Full Nudity' game. I admit I suck at titles. I termed 'objectified' as obvious sexually suggestive movement, and 'needlessly in underwear' as not fitting in the context or narrative of the song or video. Now some of you may wonder what was the point of this, as it's a music video, duh, there's going to be women in their underwear to stare at... because. However, the reason why I started this game was because I was watching this at mid-day.

I noted twenty-four objectified women who were needlessly in underwear, with two women fully naked. At mid-day. Yup. Whee. That's some quality programming right there.

I actually got me seriously thinking if I ever had kids, I'd ban them from watching music channels. That's not some body image / privileges I'd want theoretical children of mine thinking are normal. That said, I'd tuck my theoretical children of mine into bed every night telling them to avenge me on my enemies, so I may not be the best theoretical parent here.

To top it off, one video, starring Robin Thicke, aka Mr. It's Not Rape If She's Drunk, involved an 'Ass Float.' Unlike before, where I politely requested you not ask me about something awful, I'm eager to talk to you about the Ass Float. Please, please! Let me tell you about the Ass Float.

It was a float, like in a parade, with a lady's ass being the main feature, so obvious title is obvious. (Or in fairness, perhaps a very svelte man's ass, I never saw it from the other side.) To separate it out from the pack, however, each ass check appeared to be able to independently jiggle. And to truly set is apart into regions of What-The-Fuckery... one cheek and connected leg's skin colour was white, the other was black. Ah. Wut.

What amazes me is not the staggering amounts of stupidity that went into this idea, but more so that this amount of staggering stupidity was never questioned at any stage. First, someone had to suggest this idea in a meeting, and punched the idea giver, let alone failing to see any problems with the idea. Then it had to be built, and no one saw a problem with it. Then it had to be incorporated into the video and choreographed, and no one saw any issues with it. And then they had to dump Robin Thicke and his co-stars in front of it, and even they didn't see any potential issues with it, as they pranced in front of the human centipede jiggly ass float.

So that happened. Also there was a video where Will.i.am was walking around carrying a dancing Justin Beiber hologram. Doesn't that count as owning child porn? AND WHY DO ALL WILL.I.AM SONG'S SOUND THE SAME?

'Yep, I just carry this where ever I go. Nothing suspicious about that.'

When the sound got turned down I got see a lot of music videos just as video's, alone in a vacuum with no musical context which in it's own way can be very interesting, especially when you start noticing patterns. For starters, I noticed most videos seemed very similar in what they were projecting - wish fulfillment lifestyles, particularity involving having an exceptional amount of wealth. That and club dancing. One video, for four minutes, was just a single women dancing. So... bored. Occasionally it would throw in a video where the wish fulfillment was for the artist to not only look wealth but look cool also, so usually driving a fast car very fast. Once in a while a singer wanted to look deep and wise, so a lot of close up shots of them looking sad and downwards. The amusing thing is that the videos didn't convey a message of 'I'm cool,' or 'I'm deep and sensitive,' but it was so try-hard it came across as 'I'M TRYING TO BE COOL GUYS, LOOK AT ME' etc... which spun things around so that everyone looks hilariously pathetic.

By the end of a few hours I was begging for the insanity of a Lady Gaga video, just to mix things up. Hell, the new Katy Perry video a least had some sort of story to it, and so was an infinitely better watch.

The only video that actually I strongly remember for good reasons, (I remember plenty of Will.i.am videos purely for how stupidly he was dressed - is he meant to be taken seriously?) was a song I regrettably never got the name for. However, it was off a black man in a hoody... walking. Just walking. And the video was focused on what he sees, and the reactions of everyone around him - the reactions of the white people around him. A women at a cash machine stares in fear. Men stop idle conversations and glare. Old people look away. As the video comes to a close, the black man in the hoody sees something we can't and goes charging off towards it. Here the video gets a little weak, as it appears that he charges down a street filled only with people so carefully holding glasses of water that the merest jolt sends it dramatically hurtling out of their grasp. After the third slow motion cascade of water it starts to get unintentionally hilarious, and it ends with him pulling a woman out the way of some falling bricks.

It struck me as still relevant today the first half of the video, of the judging looks, where I caught myself thinking, 'then don't go out in a raised hoody then,' which is... so fucking wrong. I mean, I go out in a raised hoody all the time, but I'm not treated like a criminal for doing so, and the only difference between me and the man is colour. With the Zimmerman case still fresh it's definitely something we need to continue considering, about the judgements we make of people.

Also because this is getting serious and as a typical man, I'll deflect serious issues with humour, the new Katy Perry song, Roar... I may of been a bit harsh on it. It's... not completely awful? It's certainly catchy. In that it's wormed it's way between my ears and WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE.

So all of you that weren't watching music channels. Carry on. You weren't missing anything.

I know what I'm doing. Kinda.

It's becoming a sort of tradition here for me to start of my stream of consciousness with a declaration that nothing of interest has happened in the past week. For once, it's actually sort of appropriate, as I've been away on holiday in Venice and I've been completely cut off from the internet.

Weirdly enough, this problem seemed to effect only smart phones. Smart phones appeared to be highly confused about the change of country, only allowed emergency calls, refused to attach to any internet (including WiFi) and basically turned itself into low optioned camera. Less advanced phones I observed got a text within a hour of landing, changed there phone time's automatically, and offered a range of service for the duration of your stay. So the stupider phone was smarter. Huh.

Fortunately, I'm not one of those people who would rather have a limb cut off than be cut off from the internet, and my only bother was that I had a couple of photos of pizza and gelato I wanted to rub into people's faces which got delayed.

Of course, I quickly learned that I should never be taken anywhere nice. For starters, me going to Venice is a terrible idea for anyone accompanying me as the entire time was spent talking about Assassin's Creed. I mean, the déjà vu was undeniable; there's a building I scaled, there's a tower I leapt off of, there's a building a ran along the roof of and stabbed three people in the throat in a really bitchin' way. Once, in the middle of the queue to enter St. Mark's Basilica, I scuttled off to the adjacent Doge's Palace to touch the wall. Why? Because in Assassin's Creed 2 that area is a no-go area, and loitering there automatically makes the guards compelled to rearrange your innards using the pointy end of their halberds... and I wanted to go in that no-go area and dance around with no fictional guards stabbing on me. Yeah.

In my defense... Venice hasn't changed much over the last couple of hundred years, and it gets really sodding creepy when the clearly obvious in game climbing facilitators, ie: this window is barred, this edge has deep set blocks, this sticky-out bit of iron, all is actually there in real bloody life. I mean, everyone in Assassin's Creed who wants to climb a big tower stops at the bottom, and looks up, charting out a likely route on those grabby-bits, which are clearly, obviously, unquestionably, a fiction added to enable you to climb you said tower. And then when you go to the real, actual, Venice, and you're at the bottom of a bell tower, and you can see exactly the same thing, with the same grabby bits, there may have been the odd occasion where after staring at a tower with an appraising look on my face I was dragged back for my own safety.

Quite frankly I'm not entirely sure if I'm ever going to able to call myself a adult with a straight face. Fortunately, that's all I'm going to weary you anymore about my holiday.

THERE WAS THIS EVERY TEN FEET.

So when I got back, inexplicably without seriously alienating anyone, I'm completely stuck in catch-the-fuck-up mode.

Syria is still a concern, and I will admit I was surprised I came back to a Syria that hadn't been bombed into a surface more pock marked than the moon. I guess everyone's still um-ing and ah-ing over that. Labour is still doing it's internal argument thing, which is depressing that they've decided the best way forward is to copy what the Tory's are doing in everything now. Katy Perry is topping the charts, and there's a derogatory comment in there somewhere, but not from a person who may or may not have received court orders specifically prohibiting him from attempting to sing. And that's about it.

Oh, and Japan has the 2020 Olympics, so well done them. Just wanted to separate that out from the miserable news there.

So, yes, this week is an admittedly short week. I should professionally care, I'm tired from travelling, and I may of brought a piece of caramel covered nougat the size of my head back with me, and after devouring it all in one sitting, I am reasonably sure I am going to die. I mean, if the agonizing stomach pains don't kill me, the certainly approaching diabetic coma will, so you'll have to forgive me for my less than professional attitude.

Or not. I mean, I'm about to chase that nougat down with a slab of Lindt chocolate the size of my fist.

So any sympathy for me is certainly misplaced, is what I'm getting at.

On Syria and Cyrus. That... rhymes?

Ergh. I did it. I finished Saints Row 4. I can... I can be... a normal human being again. Alright. Moving on.

Even in my video game haze of killing people with dubstep, two stories this week were so damn important that they penetrated my own bubble of creative demented destruction frenzy. Firstly, it was someone getting on their own creative demented destruction frenzy, but sadly doing so in real life.

'I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sounds of my population chocking to death on their own blood.'

So. Syria. Is complicated. The western world drew a line in the sand about just how they could kill their own people, but then Assad merrily danced across it anyway, under the 'Psssh, whatcha gonna do aboot it anyway?' mentality. So now everyone's scrambling to do something about it.

Of course, this is assuming that Assad is responsible for the chemical weapon attack, and not the rebels, as he and Russia is claiming. We and the ol' USA are claiming that we totes have evidence Assad did it, but are being non-specific as of the moment. So far I've only seen stuff that amounts to logical trains of thought that only the regime has the equipment necessary to deploy chemical weapons. I'm writing under the assumption that Assad did it, purely 'cause I don't need to add more confusion to this sorry tale.

And here's where I focus on Britain's peculiarities and not the human suffering in Syria, as Davy boy dragged Parliament back for an emergency vote ASAP because he needed to do so now to be able to jump when the USA said so. Which... didn't work, and the motion was defeated by Labour, Tory rebels and a smattering of Lib Dems. Awkward. Now when you consider the issue as a solely humanitarian one, regardless of the likely actual outcome, the haste to jump in is sort of admirable - trying to get in as soon as possible to save lives, right? Ah. Er. Um.

Well, for starters, it looks like we've got a another round of 'How far can I stick my tongue up America's arse?' something that many British people were hoping had come to an end after Blair left. Yes, we have a special relationship, but it's sort of translating into one partner becoming overwhelming depraved in bed in the hope of keeping the other energized. It's sort of embarrassing for our nation's self-esteem, really.

Secondly, it looks like after Iraq and Libya, we've got to a point where we're a little tired of trying to play being the world's police. Regardless of how things have turned out in Iraq, there's a dominant opinion we fucked up over it, and considering how Libya was going before the news got quiet didn't fill a lot of people with confidence. Afghanistan's being reported on in similar tones. It seems we've finally latched onto the idea of actually getting an idea before leaping into military action, which isn't a bad thing, I guess. We're still committed (kinda) to military action, just got to cross a lot of t's and dot some i's first.

Finally, we see that start of Tory tradition; turning on themselves. It's like having a Dungeons and Dragons group made up of purely Chaotic Evil characters. Sure, they'll get through the first few quests and do well at the beginning, but it'll always end prematurely in a flurry of back stabbings.

There's also the funny nature of the USA turning around to France for help, which had horrified many tabloids. They're taken umbrage at John Kerry's phrase that France is America's oldest ally - which is fucking true, you idiots. America started out fighting us in an Independence War, aided by the French, remember? It's what bankrupted France, that helped them move toward policies that would bring around the French Revolution?

Sigh. I'll be over here, using my history degree to dry my tears.

We could just try begging everyone that we are only going in to save people, no regime change funny business, in an attempt to get China and Russia to stop reflexively vetoing everything regarding Syria that crosses their desk. Of course, we already played that card with Libya, then did the regime change thing anyway, so they understandably don't trust us. Admittedly, we are more likely to be telling the truth this time, because quite frankly, the biggest mess about Syria is the lack of Good Guys versus Bad Guys that we can play off. It's pretty much Bad Guys versus Even Badder Guys.

So. What next? Fuck knows. I want someone to do something, yet I don't want my country to have to hold that ball again. But if no one else has the power, and if no one else will act... argh. It's an absolute mess. Perhaps instead of trying to convince Russia and China to let us run in and attempt to drop sweet exploding democracy at great height, maybe we could tell Russia and China that they can go in themselves and drop sweet exploding democracy at great height. I mean, it's fair, right? We did it last time, it's their turn now. Bombing Johnny Foreigner is fun, you have a go! Everyone wins!

Apart from the the people poisoned by chemical weapons and those accidentally killed by bombs of course.

Hmm.

Let's switch to the happier topic.

So the next most important thing this week was Miley Cyrus twerking on the MTV awards and Jesus Christ wut. Seriously. This? This was the second most important thing this week? This. Sigh.

Syria, Miley Cyrus, it's basically the same moral evil.

So she stripped down to a flesh coloured bikini and twerked a bit, and thrusted suggestively with a foam finger. Now twerking is a new word for me. I just always thought it was called 'ass shaking,' and was something primarily done in the background of crappy rap videos. Turns out it isn't, and is called 'twerking.' Great. We learn something new everyday. Sometimes what we learn is stupid, but there you go. Now when I heard that a young woman had stripped off and was suggestively jiggling parts of herself I just had to go watch.

To check how offended I should be, obviously.

And I was very offended. For starters, it's not very sexy. At all.

That bikini? Look, I don't know what the young hip and happening call a bikini anymore, but I expect, no, I demand, my bikini's to be much more revealing then that.

JESUS CHRIST NO I MEANT ON WOMEN, MORE REVEALING ON WOMEN. My eyes...

Secondly, that twerking thing. It's not very sexy. It doesn't do anything for me. Maybe because I've mentally made the connection of juvenile male rap artists ordering women to do it for them, giving the whole thing a childish, entitled thing, but, blah. Come back when a woman is stretching. Stretching, people. Or the sexy walk thing. You know what I mean.

Thirdly, she is 21 now I think. Yeah. But she's been around for ages on television as a child, and it's super fucking creepy. She's a child actress who's finally a legal adult, and appears to be trying to act an adult by being hyper-sexualised... which is once again, something I'd expect a 14 year old to do. Icky. The person she's twerking up against? His face is stuck as the 'Oh god no, I'm gonna puke' awkwardness throughout.

'Don'tgetabonerdon'tgetabonerdon'tgeta-well, I'm going to hell.'

So in watching, I was overall 'meh,' in terms of what I viewed as utter depravity. In all honesty, the thing that made me more uncomfortable about this event targeting children? The songs' content.

Miley was performing her new single, Can't Stop, which openly refers to taking cocaine and ecstasy. For a party song, it's surprisingly bereft of energy - it's more like the after-after-after-after party, where the only people left are those struggling onwards for just one more hit and hump. It's depressingly, actually. The anthem of people trapped by their addictions, some even self-aware but unable to... stop. Yeah. Totally child appropriate. And don't get me started on Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.

You: What about Blurred Lines?

You motherfucker.

I told you not to get me started on that.

Blurred Lines is one of most rapey songs I have ever heard. It's... urgh. Urgh. Makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. Wanna know some lyrics, actually quoted? Go on. 'I know you want it,' -'you're an animal baby, it's in your nature,' 'just let me liberate you'. Yeaaaaaaah. Those blurred line they're talking about? It's talking about drunk women. You see, it's talking about those blurred lines of consent, get it?

Fuck you.

Fuck you and fuck your fucking creepy, rape-approving song.

There is no blurred lines of fucking consent for fucking. There's consenting to sex, and then there's rape, you shit. No fucking blurred lines. When you're pulling a women into your bedroom as she's too drunk to walk... yeah, she's too drunk to consent, you utter slime. And that's not her fault, either. It's the fault of the dude sticking his dick in a place it wasn't allowed into. Great, just add another thing out there that tell's men that no, that's not rape, it's... just a little blurry, see? Fuck you. Oh, and there's a NSFW for work version of the song, where the models in the previous video are back, but topless, looking very bored. It just goes to prove, when you've got no class, you can still go lower. For your information, it's even less sexy then Miley twerking, because at least Miley seems to be spontaneously doing it herself, and having fun doing so, rather than what comes across as a bunch of tired women accepting a pay increase to stand around with their breasts exposed. And that's what they were singing to children. About drug use and how drunkenness means you can stick your dick in.

So there's where the outrage should of been.

And by that I mean focused on Syria, clearly. It was a women dancing suggestively (and very briefly) on a show that barely caters to children any more. Grow up, and worry futilely about actual crimes against humanity.