Articles

Chivalry isn’t dead…but maybe it should be?

In Lessons, Life on April 15, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , ,

Whenever I’m sitting down on public transport I always get up to give a woman or an elderly gentleman a seat.

I always hold doors for people to allow them through.

I hold car doors open for women.

I hold seats out for ladies at restaurant (although it’s not like I run into restaurants and then do that for random women that would be weird).

Most of the time I’ll allow a woman to go in front of me at a bar (unless I’ve been standing in a massive queue for 10 minutes).

But over the past few years I’ve noticed a strange disturbing trend and that is that many women just don’t accept a man being chivalrous anymore. They tut, they ignore, they say “no thanks I prefer to stand” when you offer them a seat and, I suppose, it feels kinda weird for me because I was brought up to always do those kind of things.

My mum (who I should point out called me the other day because she read my blog and was all teary about my post on family so I really should say hello *waves*) brought me up to be polite, to be respectful of people, to always ask people how they are and be concerned for people’s welfare. She made me realise that the most important part of being a human was to care for those around you and to treat women with respect.

But these days it’s getting harder and harder to be chivalrous and pleasant. I find more and more people are quick to snap at you and god forbid you hold a door for someone. Yesterday I held a door open for a woman and she said “I can do that myself you know” and gave me a horrible look.

I’m back using public transport these days and have now gotten up from seat to offer it to someone eight times. Only once has someone taken the seat. It’s getting to the point that I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t do it anymore.

So I put it out to the world – do you think that men should stop being chivalrous?

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Articles

Sucker Punch

In Digital, Movies, Video Games on April 10, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

Over the years I have kept a list of the three worst movies I have ever seen, always updated them when I watched something that was bad enough to go into the list and I feel like I should explain them to you.

The third worst movie I have ever seen is called the Cell. It’s an art-wank-fest of a movie starring Jennifer Lopez. I’ll never forget walking out of the cinema feeling stunned that so much money could be injected into something so worthless.

The second worst movie was American Cyborg: Steel Warrior. How do I explain it? Surely the name says it all. I was around 14 when I watched it. Myself and two of my mates Dougie and Tommy headed to the video store to pick up some movies. We all grabbed one and promised to watch each others movies…Dougie picked this one. Dougie I still hate the fact you made me watch this film. An immortal killer robot is trying to kill the only fertile woman on the planet…says it all really!

The worst movie I have ever seen is called Return of The Roller Blade Seven. It’s about a roller blading dude with a sword who fights evil ninjas and punks. Seriously. Can you believe that.Have a watch of the trailer and you will understand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYkEeFUEqe4&feature=related
Today I move all of these movies into the fourth, fifth and sixth slots and offer up Sucker Punch onto the podium for first, second and third spots.

I have never in all of my years of watching movies seen such a waste of money and time thrown on to the screen.

It was a diabolical mess.

A turgid piece of digital scrap.

How the fuckbuckets this movie got approved I will never fucking know. I hope this films dies a death of a thousand cuts in the cinema and that this man never makes another movie again.

Fuck you Zack Snyder.

Your movie has no direction, no pace and a script that feels like it was shat out of an elephant that was suffering from chronic constipation,

No matter how the bad the film I have usually been able to at least sympathise or empathise with one character. Not with this piece of shit. I was sitting in the movie trying to balance my bank account in my head just to stop me from falling asleep.

I don’t know if you know the script so I’ll sum it up quickly:
Girl ends up in an asylum
The entire set changes because she imagines herself in a brothel
Whenever she dances in the brothel she ends up in some CGI war-fest

Imagine Inception meets Killzone 3 meets Chicago meets The Return of the Roller Blade Seven and you may be on your way to understanding it. What is even scary is that people on IMDB are actually rating this film up claiming, and I shit you not, that ‘Think of it as stylized parable about repression, personal will and sacrifice. Because sooner or later after all the negative backlash and reviews blow by those emotional messages will be all that will be left.’

Now the reviewer there is obviously clinically insane because the movie was not about any of those things. It was just about one man who without good source material created a vacuous piece of pure and utter rubbish.

This film is not engaging.

This film is not entertaining.

Please do not spend any money on this film as it will only make him make more movies – AND WE DON’T WANT THAT!!!

And this man is now working on pre-production of the new Superman movie…Hollywood is now dead to me.

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Articles

Video Gaming

In Digital, Life, Video Games on April 4, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

Had a very interesting night tonight on Twitter. I noticed a woman say she had bought her kids Bulletstorm (a really fun but uber-violent First-Person Shooter).

I asked what age her children were and she said 10 and 13 years old. This made me take a step back. I was actually stunned. A 10-year old playing Bulletstorm!! Madness. I have a massive list of games that I wouldn’t let a 10 year old play and that is one of them…there is a blurry line as to what age I would let kids play that game but 10 just seems to be a tad too young.

I’m not judging the mother here. Maybe she believes that her kids are sensible and stable and can handle playing that kind of game. She probably knows them better than anyone and she even said she knows her kids ‘know it’s only a game’ but what happens when they go to school and tell their friends.

Those other kids will want to play it. They will want to get their hands on it. Or they will want to head to their mates house to play it.

And this is where i have the problem I guess. We have ratings for a reason. Many of us in Australia have been fighting for an R18 rating to ensure that certain games are seen by certain audiences. It’s for a reason. Across the globe there are a lot of games that have an 18 rating because the content is deemed unacceptable to 10 year olds in the eyes of most gamers.

I have grown up playing games. I play Pong back in the 70s and I have played every single GTA game. I played Modern Warfare for hours and hours (not Black Ops though that was a bit shit). Hell I even played Leisure Suit Larry when I was 16 and was baffled as to what a profalactic was but I believe that we have rating systems for a reason.

Yes they are a guideline

Yes they are an option.

But if a storeowner sells a 10 year a copy of an 18 game in Britain or an NC-17 game in the US (I think that’s the rating) then they can be fined a damn lot of money because it is illegal.

In Australia there are some people who don’t believe an R18 should be introduced and who are doing their damned best to stop it ever happening.

I could go on but the amazingly talented writer Mark Serrels who writes for Kotaku in Australia says it so much better than I:

R18+: Rationality Is Dead

Ultimately it is the choice of a parent to choose what film their kids watch, what content they see on the internet and what games they play.

I have no doubt the mother I spoke to is a good woman who knows her kids and I hope she sits with them while they play. But for the handful of fantastic mothers and fathers out there there are also a whole bunch who just want their kids out of their hair and will buy them any game just to keep them away…and that’s where the problems arise.

We need games ratings in this country.

We need parents to adhere to the ratings to ensure that those trying to stop the R18 don’t get any more fodder for their battle against us.

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Articles

Family…

In Life on April 3, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

I live on the other side of the world from my parents but manage to speak to them at lest three times a week. I love my parents not only cause they are my parents but because they are two of the best people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing in the world.

They are very different people but both have incredibly strong core values that they passed down to me and my sister.

My mum is a worrier and very emotional. She has been through a lot in her life but like the majority of Glaswegian women she has a fight in her that astounds me. She would stand up to a giant to fight for what is right.

She was a nurse before she retired. She worked in an elderly ward and looking after the sick. She is wonderfully compassionate but didn’t take any crap when at work. How she coped with people dying around her I’ll never know because I don’t believe it is anything I could ever do.

Mum also has a great sense of humour and an infectious laugh. Whenever I picture her I always see her laughing and smiling. I’m a mummy’s boy at heart simply because she helped mould me. She taught me to stand up for what is right, to believe in people and to look after the little guys who have no fight left in them. She would have made an amazing politician. I love talking to her on the phone and hopefully this week she actually buys a computer so I can video call her!

Oh one last thing about my mum she calls Jesus the first socialist. Which I think is pretty damned cool. I’m an atheist but I like the thought of some guy going around 2,000 years ago just trying to make people more equal.

My dad is something else. He’s my humour. My wit. My charisma. He taught me the craft of telling a good story and gave me a huge part of my personality.

I should point out that I have about a tenth of my dad’s charisma. He has so many friends that I lose count. He tells stories that can last for an hour and have everyone in the pub putting their beer aside just to hear the tale.

He’s an engineer to trade. Spent his life fixing trains for British Rail before being made redundant and then worked for a number of different firms including Weir Pumps.

Everytime we would walk through Glasgow people would stop and shout “Bert’ and have a wee blether to him before heading off. His sense of humour is brilliant and terrible at the same time. One of the best jokes he ever told me is this:

“Two zombies eating a clown and one turns to the other and says ‘does he taste funny?'” Brilliant!

He played football (soccer) all his life up until about three years ago (he’s 65 now) and was a superb player. Again I have little of his talent which is a shame.

My parents met when my dad was an apprentice at British Rail and my grandfather met him and introduced him to my mother. They married at 21.

I love them both to bits and couldn’t wish for better people in my life. They have supported every single decision I have ever made and always give me wonderful advice – even though I don’t always take it.

There are other family members that I want to talk about but I’m going to leave that for another blog post…

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Articles

My love of comic books

In Digital, Life, Technology on March 20, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , ,

I’ll never forget the first comic books I ever owned – glorious, rich images of superhero’s battling one another. They mesmerised me from a young age…and now 36 years of my life have gone by and I still read comic books.

I can sit on a bus or a train or a plane and happily pull out a graphic novel and sit and read it and people still stare. They look at you like you are some kind of Peter Pan who hasn’t grown up.

It’s a weird sensation sitting flicking through the latest Superman or Flash comic only for people to stare. I’ve even heard a few tuts in my time and the occasional whispered comment that I’ve picked up on.

But I’ll continue to do so especially with my iPad. Being able to access the Marvel or DC Comic store (although don’t get me started on how useless they are at times) and downloading a new comic still instills the same happiness in me similar to when my mum or dad would bring me some new comics to read.

I used to take a box of comics everywhere I went when I was young. So that I could always be near the stories I loved. I’ll never forget a weekend I spent at my parents friends place near Ayr, on the west coast of Scotland. I took a big box full of Superman, Batman, JLA, Aquaman, Spiderman and lots of 2000AD with Rogue Trooper stores – and when the weekend was over we drove off without them…

When I remembered I begged and pleased with my parents but they said that we had gone too far already on the way home and that their was no point in going back. I miss those comics.

Even living in Australia now I have stacks of comics back home in Scotland. They are in six long boxes in my parents loft and every time I go back to Scotland I sit in the loft with a torch catching up on some the classic storylines.

I also have a number of comics in their graphic novel format here in Australia as well as a number of collections but most of the time I download them these days as it allows me to enjoy them wherever I am. As I mentioned in my post about my iPad – one of the sheer joys of owning one is simply because I can carry my comics and novels with me.

There are a number of writers out there like Grant Morrison and Marc Miller (both Scottish – wooo!!), Geoff Johns, Brian Bolland, Brian Bendis and Alan Moore to name but a few whose stories could easily sit atop best seller lists if they were sold in novel format – yet once we place images onto the stories (as we have since humans could think) people seem to think it’s a childish endeavour.

Such a shame because a great story is always a great story no matter what medium is used to tell it.

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Articles

Like a boss

In Lessons, Life, Work on March 17, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

The other night I had the pleasure of seeing Heston Blumenthal and something he said really piqued my interest.

He said the boss of a workplace should never get angry and lose his temper at his staff. Obviously most chefs you see seem to be rather angry (especially a certain Scottish one) and always seem to be shouting or lambasting their staff however Heston had this to say.

If a staff member is failing at his job then, said Heston, one of three things has gone wrong…

1. There is too much expected of them

2. They haven’t been trained enough in the role

3. They are not right for the role

And all three of those things are the fault of the boss.

This made me think of all of the bosses I have worked with and their attitude towards staff and the way they treat them. Now over my years I have worked with some very unsupportive and very unappreciative bosses and I always think I learned from them how not to treat staff.

1. Shouting at your staff, screaming at them, telling them they are useless etc is not the way to help staff stay productive. All it does is create doubt in their mind which isn’t good at all. You may get a quick boost out of them but ultimately you are messing things up for yourself and the company.

2. Your staff are the single most important aspect of your organisation. You should expect a lot from them but not the world. Give them enough to extend themselves but not too much that they end up in too deep.

3. You should train them up but never organise training sessions over the lunch time of the staff. It’s rude to think they should give up unpaid time to do training when the training is to help them be better at their job.

4. Give praise where praise is due.

5. If someone doesn’t enjoy something but another staff member does whey not switch tasks. People who don’t enjoy doing certain tasks will take twice as long and the job won’t be completed as satisfactory as someone who does enjoy the work.

6. Offer constructive criticism but also help them understand where they have went wrong and how they can avoid it in the future.

7. Friday’s from 4.30pm are beer time. Seriously. Your staff work hard so reward them from that point on to enjoy themselves.

8. Ensure they attend events outside of work to interact with others in their field. Yes they may meet people who may try to steal them but if they are happy and enjoy the work they tend not to leave. Attending these events help them learn from other peers.

9. Just cause you are having a bad day doesn’t mean your staff have to know. All it does is create confusion and fear in the office.

10. Be confident and strong in the office, listen to your staff but don’t bend backwards to please them. Ultimately you are the boss and still need to have the final say.

11. Don’t choose favourites. Again this creates discord in the team.

12. Enjoy yourself. It’s your job too 🙂

9 Comments

Articles

Check your Twitter facts

In Digital, Media, Social Media on March 14, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , ,

You know what? It only takes one minute out of your life to check some facts before you click ‘enter’.
A long time ago in another period of my life I felt like the last bastion of truth and honesty when it came to fighting against the evil curse of the ‘forwarded email’ which contained alleged facts like ‘did you know you eat 8 spiders while you sleep through your lifetime’. Total and utter rubbish.
I spent a small piece of my time linking people to Snopes.com and telling them to check facts before sending useless and pointless emails filling people with untruths.
And now with the advent of social media we have the tweet and retweet. Over the past few days since the terrible tragedy in Japan people have been tweeting about the deaths of Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri and Hello Kitty creator Yuko Yamaguchi in the tsunami. Only they aren’t dead.
Neither is Maria Ozawa. Who is allegedly some adult film actress…
Over the past few months Twitter has been aflame with the alleged deaths of Justin Bieber, Jim Carrey and Charlie Sheen. Hell, a guy on the forum I use made a fake story about Jeff Goldblum as a joke to a friend which went way out of control and had a presenter on the national news talk about the story as if it was true!! Mental
Can we all just stop.
Can we not just retweet every single thing we read on Twitter.
It makes you the equivalent of the idiot who spammed me by email with those idiotic untruths years ago.
Take one minute out of your life and research something before you decide to retweet it.
Take one minute out of your life and research something before you decide to Facebook it.
Take one minute out of your life and research something before you decide to forward it in a goddam email.
C’mon let’s get the truth out there more often.

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Articles

A bad taste in my mouth

In Life on March 12, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , ,

This is a strange rant but allow me to explain where it comes from.
I am a Supertaster. I have more taste buds than your average person and it means there are many things that I cannot eat such as spicy foods, certain vegetables not to mention that I cannot drink wine or whisky (which makes me pretty damned sad being a Scotsman!!) which means it’s a bit of nightmare when I head out for food. Eating out can be a problem when chefs leave certain food off the list of the menu. Nothing worse than finding some beetroot hiding in your burger!
Which brings me to my annoyance at purchasing something recently – An Emma & Tom’s Cherry and Goji berry bar.
Mmm tasty…or so I thought. You see the bar has only 22% dried cherries and 5% dried Goji Berries.
The rest of it was made up of dates (simply disgusting to my taste buds) and raw almonds (ok but not great) and that’s it. Now by my reckoning thats’s 73% of the bar I bought failing to have the ingredients I bought it for.
Now I understand marketing but I’m feeling a tad cheated out of my cherries and my goji berries. But mostly I just can’t stand the taste of dates. They are minging. Totally and utterly minging.
If the bar had said it was a Date and Almond bar then I would have walked away a little bit richer and without such a bad taste in my mouth.

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Articles

Online etiquette

In Digital, Life, Social Media on March 7, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

My mum and dad, who by the way are the best people I know, brought me up to live by a code of rules … no not Dexter-esque type rules! But instead by a code of ethics, a code of living. Be nice to people, treat people with respect, don’t steal physical objects etc.

They also brought me up with a sense of chivalry and with a sense of etiquette.

I treat people the way I want to be treated.

I always ask people how they are. I always hold doors for women (even though some scowl at me for doing so), I hold chairs out for women to sit at the table and I believe in helping people for no reason other than to simply be nice to help them out if they need a hand.

I ask for nothing in return except to know that I have done a good deed (curse my cub scouts training) however what I’m not a fan of is blindly helping someone to win a prize.

I will help someone out with their digital marketing as I specialise in that area. I’ll re-write their press releases. I’ll edit their web copy. I’ll go over to a friend’s house at 7am and help them move their entire home but I don’t really like helping someone I don’t know for nothing more than to enable them to beat others who are trying their best to win it fair and square.

Sorry for the blurb on me but it will explain my annoyance.

Tonight on Twitter I got followed by a person who shall remain nameless – cause I’m not that much of a heartless bastard – and they said:

“Hi Scott, may i ask a favour, 1 digital marketer to another? Please LIKE and RT this link so I can win a trip o/s”

I mean seriously that’s rather rude. I had been following them but they hadn’t been following me and then they follow and ask this. That’s rather rude isn’t it?

And so I reply: “Not sure of the etiquette of following and asking for favours before knowing the person. Bad digital etiquette?”

Now I figured this would be the end of it. I put it to Twitter and everyone said yes…RUDE!

Also it wasn’t over. Oh no. No no no. Not at all. Nup.

“I’m just asking a favour.” he says. “You’ve been following me for a while so I thought u would know a bit about me. If i don’t want to then don’t” – please bear in mind that I follow over 3,000 people and can’t know everything about everyone. I’ll help people out if I have spoken to them and they need a hand and sometimes I’ll reach out if someone tweets something that I can help with but I’m not on Twitter 24/7 and don’t know ALL about the people I follow.

He follows it up with: “Remember the time you were super passionate about something? Did etiquette matter? Nope. Twitter isn’t an English tea party”. – seriously what the fuck?

I still tried to play nice and said back: “Yup I’ve been following you however you just begun following me and asked a favour. Surely that’s impolite?”

He came back once more: “Seems we have different views on what is polite or not. I consider anyone sharing their passion for digital as a positive thing.”

Passion for digital?? He’s trying to win a Ben and Jerry’s trip overseas!!!?? What the hell does that have to do with digital except he reached out to me by DM on Twitter.

I’m not naming you kid but you have a lot to learn about being a digital marketer … and being polite!

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Articles

Chapter IV: A New Hope

In Life on March 4, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

I sit at an impasse.

I feel redundant. I am redundant.

Those words sit heavily on my shoulders. I feel like Atlas. The world around me darkens and my hand shakes ever so slightly as I sign the document that cements the words.

A business decision. Decision made. And like that I’m gone.

But the impasse continues…

I tweet. I blog. I’m the social worker. Not a social worker but the social worker.

The next generation of worker.

My job, my life, everything feels connected to one another. But how do I write about something like this without causing ripples. One affects the other.

I guess today is Day One of something new. New adventure. New beginning…and the hunt for a new job.

It’s funny. On my Twitter account @scottrhodie I have had the term ‘kilt for hire’ as part of my bio for as long as I can remember. I think I had it on my bio from the day I started using Twitter – and earlier this week I use it to create this blog.

Now here I am an actual kilt for hire. Only not literally. Well not unless you dry-clean it after use and look after it and don’t mess up my sporran.

Sorry if this feels like a ramble but my mind is all over the place at the moment. When you are not expecting something like that it kinda smacks you between the eyes and leaves you bewildered.

Hmm, maybe I should do a list?
1) Change information on Linked In

2) Calls out to some contacts

3) Hit the job sites

4) Breakfast

5) Work on some things for the next Digital Citizens event – http://digital-citizens.org/

6) Twiddle thumbs

7) Update CV

8) Work on side-project business plan

9) Raid fridge and eat something bad for me

10) Slide across tiled floors in socks

11) Shower

12) Make my hair into a mohawk and sing “Danke Shoen”

13) Begin the process of cover letters

14) Play with Pedro, my three-legged cat

15) Crank up some Rolling Stones

16) Lunch. Maybe Surry Hills.

17) Book out two hours to go over that old TV script that me and my mate wrote. It’s damn fucked funny.

18) More job hunting

19) Clean apartment

20) Hit the pub, do SHTBOX (Surry Hills Twitter Beer O’Clock Exchange) for those who haven’t heard of it.

21) Drink

22) Drink

23) Drink

24) Water (very important!)

25) Kebab

26) Two panadol, pint of water and a chocolate bar (prevents hangovers)

27) Sleep

28) Wake up in the middle of the night to stop Pedro scratching under the bed

29) Actually wake up

30) Drink some Irn Bru – the greatest soft drink on the planet

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