Friday, August 30, 2002

Three in a row people. You're either busy, dead, or trapped in the Eighties.

More proof that Hello Kitty really is the Devil, or Cthulhu, or the Worm, Crom. I understand the young girlies in Japan and other east asian countries are already under a lot of pressure to obtain an unhealthy body image... or something. Diet pills, fad diets and so on; a current Hello Kitty 'psychological test', 'Your weight lost program', is a pretty damning example. My results *grin*:

"(B) You will reach your goal of having perfect figure! Determination level 70%

You have high determination. You are not only aiming at losing weight, you look for a perfect figure. Your mind is filled with the perfect proportion of your own. To achieve that goal, you do your entire utmost in all arenas.

Moreover, you care about balancing Therefore you dislike people treat your diet program a talking point.

When your friends invite you for dinner, you would go and enjoy it. With the burning desire to have the perfect figure, you will then work on your weight-losing program again soon the following day."(sic)



Beers? Anyone? Bill'n'Eve ("Believe"?) have my number if you want to catch up another time ... waah *crickets chirping*

Thursday, August 29, 2002

Hendrix's restored Strat up for auction!

A guitar which legendary musician Jimi Hendrix famously set alight on stage in 1968 is to go under the hammer in London next month.


Bill, I know you want it, so I'm gonna start you off with the first $20.

In other news ... I'm 10,000 days old next Tuesday! BEER EXCUSE FOUND, more news at eleven. If we can find someone with the DOB of 1/12/1947 then we can sellybrate more junk! Huzzah!

find your age in days here.

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

A new career in fashion looms!

My idea for a shirt at errorwear.com has finally materialised and is now selling like a bastard for $USD14.25. I wonder whose bqqbies we'll end up seeing squeezed into the girly version ...

In other ABS news: in last year's Census, 70,000 Australians put 'Jedi' down as their religion. It'll definitely be more than the Scientologists put down, and will probably beat down most of the loonie Christian sects as well; the speakin'-in-tongues Pentecostals, the wash-away-them-sins Baptists, and so on. I put Subgenius, and will probably get in more trouble than the Jedis. Who cares, the World Ends Tomorrow And You May Die! Slack Off! Either tomorrow or Dec 23 2012 ;)

Friday, August 23, 2002

oh this is fun....

....Rock and Roll's 50 Greatest Meltdowns

Thursday, August 22, 2002

New Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures showed the median age for men marrying for the first time rising from 24.4 years in 1981 to 28.7 years in 2001. more

This is freaky. Why? Because on October the 12th of this year when me an feisty tie the knot, I will be 28.72328 years old.

{lovefest}

Sean is a really good writer. Really good. So good that I feel like anything I can say about his blog won't be up to scratch. Sonata for unfinished Yelling

{/lovefest}

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Full colour hillustrations you say, Mr Foozwah? You should get your people to call my people...

And, I'd just like to say, for the record, that I HAVE SEEN GEORGE CLINTON AND THAT MAKES ME COOL (Brixton Academy, Jan 1998). Ok, the last time I was cool was nearly 5 years ago, but that's life.

We interrupt this program for a broadcast from the Mothership

Make my funk the P-Funk


I wants to get funked up


Make my funk the P-Funk


I wants to get funked up


I want the bomb


I want the P-Funk


Don't want my funk stepped on


Make my funk the P-Funk


Before I take it home.

Resume normal transmission

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Oh, I'm having fun here... ever felt like exploring the interconnectedness of things? well, that is the place. All very clever. And check out the link for horatio hornblower, too.

oh wow - so lemme see a quick equation. If GTA3 had x landmass and 40 cars and 10 weapons and no motorbikes - and I racked up 284 hours of gametime (that's right, I've spent almost two weeks inside that game) and GTA - Vice City has 2x landmass and 120 cars and 40 weapons and motorbikes then:


if GTA3 = x(40+10+0) = 284
then x = 5.68.
therefore
GTA(VC) = 2x(120+40+1) = 1828 hours of gametime.
this is equivalent to 45 working weeks - well nigh a full working year. I think I need to go and lie down.

Monday, August 19, 2002

I'm going to do something girly - I'm going to post about shoes.
Realising that I can't get married in a pair of red sneakers or dog-chewed flats, I went shoe shopping on the weekend. I saw something that truly frightened me - pearlised leather stilettoes - and the pattern on the leather was... camouflage motif... oh the horror. You know your army gear is so last season when you realise your mum just spent $600 on a pair of shiny fucking army stilettoes...

this is for you bill!

could somebody else please fucking post?

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

oh wow - Robert Rodruigez on his next film (after Spy Kids 2):

O: It didn't do that well (Ed: Desperado) when it first came out, did it?

RR: No. People sense that it was just a movie way ahead of its time, and if people had kept making those kinds of Latin genre movies, it would be huge business today. But no one ever followed up on that; it just kind of came out, and more people caught on to it later. So I told the studio, "Okay, I'll make one, but it's gotta be epic. And it's gotta be called Once Upon A Time in Mexico. And they said, "Sure." I never thought I'd make the movie. I just thought it was such a hassle to shoot on film, and to go down there again and make a movie in Mexico on film; I just thought, you know, "Life's too short." Then when those HD cameras came around, suddenly all those projects I thought were just impossible felt suddenly doable. Actors' strike was coming up—Yeah, I could write this script in five days, prep in two, we'll shoot in seven weeks!—and that's what we did. It's done now. The studio couldn't believe it; all their movies are over $100 million and still shooting, and they're like, "Man, how'd you do that?" HD, and the system, the process being simplified. It was a 10-year anniversary from when I did Mariachi, so I thought, you know, production designer, DP, I'm going to do all that stuff again. But we had a huge cast—Johnny Depp, and Willem Dafoe, Antonio, Salma, Eva Mendes, Rubén Blades, Mickey Rourke—we had a huge cast for this giant home movie. It looks like a Sergio Leone; it's on widescreen; it looks like we were down there a year shooting. It looks huge! The studio can't believe it. It's this big epic movie about Mexico.


more

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

so i spoke to the immigration lawyer today.

and she said permanent residency is no problem, and even if i lose my job it's really easy to transfer my 4 year work visa to a new employer. and it might even be FREE for them (apart from legal expenses, which i'll cover)

so i've got some things to arrange, and i'll get the ball rolling.

:/

it's really fucking expensive, but what do i care...i'm looking at being here for at least the next 5 years anyway :) unless kate beckinsale turns up in an airship and kidnaps me in order to aid her leather clad lupine fight.

that's unlikely though.

shame :(

Revealed at last!!! The Secret Diaries of the Fellowship

Kate Beckinsale clad in black leather and toting a gun to waste werewolves with???? oh yes

Monday, August 12, 2002

In further Osbourne news, Sharon's been diagnosed with colon cancer. She's undergoing chemo, and apparently doing fairly well. You can send her good wishes here.

And DOUBLE fark - channel ten doesn't even have a facility to email them!!!

FArk!! You know, I'm all for Gritty Aussie Dramas (tm), but do they HAVE to sacrifice The Osbournes until next week?

Friday, August 09, 2002

You know, there's a lot of crap happening in the world today, and sometimes it all gets too much, and I have to go and look at combovers.

This is not a drill
All hands on deck!
Man the mizzen mast
All hands prepare to repel boarders
I'm blogging from a f'n McDonalds.
(not a haiku)

It's the end times, seriously. I'm at the Swanston/Flinders maccas. It's 3:15am. On a f'n internet machine. Do you know where your conscience is?

I can't say the F word or this big screen appears. Let me tell you about M'D's new gimmick. If you type the F word, a big screen saying 'Cyber Sentinel' appears, and unless you type a superuser password, kicks you out of whatever you were doing. Choice! You get a little scratchie card, with a 12 digit crypto thingy. For what it's worth, my number was 6402 7536 6962 and it bought me $2 worth of credit, or 20 minutes worth. $2 would buy me an hour's worth up the road, but that's not the point. I can't indulge my penchant for starchy sticky pig fat there, can I?

Jason Kottke, eat your heart out. Adbusters, forgive me.

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

Of course, this only proves what I've been saying for years (especially while drunk)

Lord of The Rings: hell yeah


and for those of you still wondering, this is why I have a widescreen TV.

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

In other news, the 'One-Ring' has appeared in Japan.

"Ever since the problem started we've been advising customers not to call back these numbers and not to give any response to requests for their bank details or addresses."

Like all the best con tricks, the "wan-giri" or one-ring scam is simple.

The operators make computer-generated mass calls to random mobile numbers, hanging up after one ring and tempting many curious users to call back, at which point they usually get a salacious message and a huge bill.

- via Reuters, obviously

Don't forget Bill that your DOB is a fairly significant part of your ID. Of course we're all friends here, it's just that the internet has eyes you know ... and ears ... and both kinds of genitals ... and was recently run over by a train, would you like to see the outcome?

the US No.1 on #REDACTED# was... Philadelphia Freedom by The Elton John Band
the UK No.1 on #REDACTED# was... Bye Bye Baby by The Bay City Rollers

and the 'life's theme song' nonsense, which, apparently, is whatever was at #1 on your 18th birthday:

in the UK: Young At Heart by The Bluebells
in the US: Informer by Snow

It all depends on your perspective. If you work it out on your 21st, for example,

in the UK: Firestarter by Prodigy
in the US: Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion

Waah! Who do I have to bribe to get a KLF song for the 'life's theme song'? Let's take a moment to remember Peter Tripp who apparently invented the pop chart -- he stayed awake for 200 hours for a charity event ( the march of dimes), went mad from sleep deprivation, lost his wife, became an alcoholic and died early. Vale.

worst film of the festival so far:

interviews with my next girlfriend. a lesbian short film with a locked off camera and a chair, where 7 or 8 lesbian cliches (butch, young cute bisexual, professional still in closet...the list goes on) sit and are interviewed for the role of the filmmakers girlfriend.

complete shit. one fucking joke does not a short film make...especially one so completely fucking obvious and cliched.

if you're going to give money to people to make a short film: MAKE SURE THEY HAVE SOMETHING ORIGINAL TO SAY...i don't mind comedy shorts, or experimental films, but don't just regurgitate cliches.

my worry was that the rest of the audience were laughing....maybe they'd never seen that kind of thing before, or maybe my sense of humour has vacated the premises.

and in other news:

i went to talk to our hr guy about permanent residency yesterday, and he told me it was a good idea, because i was probably going to lose my job.

:/

so i've taken the day off and i'm going to bury myself in the film festival using my 3 bonus doodles, and figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to do now.

in related news, this site tells me that the number one song in the united states on the date of my birth was "You're Sixteen" by Ringo Starr. Anyone who can come up with a lamer birthday song will win a fabulous prize. Answers on the back of a postman.

well - votes are beginning for "worst film of the festival"... my first nomination is Buried by Kathryn Bucher. Amongst the accolades recorded on the film festival site for this picture are "fascinating, subtle and reminiscent of David Lynch". To that I might say that my submission reads as follows "overlong (at 48 minutes), sophomoric, self indulgent and reminiscent of the worst tragedies perpetrated by film students everywhere with too much time, an 8mm camera and no tripod". Filled with meaningless exposition, a fractured (if even present) narrative and acting from the "intense gaze portraying hidden emotion" school, Buried sinks its viewers into a constant state of trying to second guess the filmmaker :"is she going to have another handheld sky shot? will there be more pointless banjo music? is it really possible to mime playing a harmonica THAT badly? Just where the hell is this supposed to be going anyway?".

Constant refreshing distractions were caused by people leaving the cinema in droves. My two reasons for remaining in the theatre throughout this picture were the relative temperature outside and the slight difficulty of extricating myself from the middle of the row.

And don't even ask me about the script.

Kathryn Bucher, you're on The List.

Saturday, August 03, 2002

reposted from www.neilgaiman.com

---

Well, I'm not going to write the essay, not at this time of night after five hours of conference call. But I'll quote from the District Attorney in Texas, in his summing up to the jury who recently sentenced a comic store clerk to prison for six months for selling an undercover cop a rude manga title. (The DA's explaining why the jury should ignore the expert witnesses who came in to explain that the comic in question was adult comics, and art, and deserving of first amendment protection):

"And, again, why are we here? This medium, the medium that this obscenity is placed in is done so in an appealing manner to children. Comic books, and I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids.”

Remember that one. Comics are only for kids. Doesn't matter if the manga title in question was sealed, marked for over 18s, and in the off-limits to kids section of the store in question. Comics are for kids. The DA says so, and the jury believed him.

And yes, we're appealing it. And we've spent at least $40,000 on the case so far (and managed to win the other case they brought at the same time).

So tell your friends who read comics, and who don't. Tell your friends who only read manga. Repost this where people will see it. Link to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund site at http://www.cbldf.org/index.shtml or straight to their commercial site at http://www.cbldf.com (which is the place you can buy cool stuff).

And if you're at Comic Con in San Diego over the next few days, go and find the CBLDF table. They have all sorts of cool stuff there (including, I believe, a load of Frank Miller signed comics). And you can sign up there, and tell them they're doing a good, hard and necessary job. 'Cos they are.

---

Friday, August 02, 2002

I think the most disturbing thing about that last post, was the comment about books written by people with stupid beards, not just men with stupid beards. Mind you, it's nice to know that all those bearded ladies out there know how to code... well, only the ones with big stupid beards, the ones with nice beards are obviously off doing something far more glamorous than writing complicated tomes.

Oh god, it's been a long week. But I'm suitably re-blonked so I guess I'm happy.

hi,

it's been a while, how have you been?

i like what you've done with the place.

um.

here is my film festival update:

suicide club: cool, but odd! and with lots and lots of blood.
fausto 5.0: standard retelling of the faust legend, but with sex & violence. it was set in the future though, so everything was all industrial goth and lit with blue neon...i'm looking forward to the future, because then the flickering lights mean i can have a headache EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. which won't be very long, because the atmosphere will be burning, or there'll be some mutant virus on the list, or everyone will be all drugged up because of the ennui of their existence, or aliens will have enslaved us, or we'll be downloaded into computers...the future's bright, and may well be orange. they're not the only fruit though, or so i've been told. Apples on the other hand, are the only fruit!
japon: slow, very slow. but beautifully shot and possessing the single most awkward sex scene i've ever borne witness to in my entire life. also contained explicit horse sex, and a barn being knocked down.

this weekend i am seeing:

'planet of the cannibals' and 'just a kiss'

oh.

and i think i'm probably going to stay in australia....for those of you who i haven't spoken to yet.

i also hate raymond and would like to punch him until his intestines come out of his nose.

and transformers suck anoos.

and i'm not wearing a kilt.

but i am writing comics.

and don't learn html alex, it's only a short hop to c++ and then you can no longer say you're a web designer, or in new-media; you'll have become a programmer. and you'll have to smell a bit funny, and renounce any social skills you have, and worry about casting and floats and chars, and abstract data types and huge books written by people with stupid beards.

bye.

She's right you know. Miss Shauny has said what everyone's been thinking for quite a while.

"Recently there was alarm raised over the copious amounts of Everybody Loves Raymond screened on Network Ten, the people's network.

This here website has often been dismissed as lacking in real substance and not tackling the big issues. But this is all about to change with my first foray into political action, the Everybody Is Shitted Off By Raymond petition.

I represent a ferocious lobby group that is committed to stopping this senseless saturation. The petition is going strong and currently has one (1)
(Ed note: there are now 32 signatures) signature. Once we've gathered more support, we plan to harass Rove McManus or Bert Newton or any other of Network Ten's galaxy of stars until the madness stops. Please help.

Sign it, people, for God's sake