Tuesday, August 26, 2003

hey kids,

as part of this years diegesis i'll be up there talking about the programmer role in development. the actual session is Transforming Games – Roles And Stages on day 2

i'll be on stage with mark morrison, so that'll be interesting :)

hurrah.

and i've got 2 towers on DVD, so that's nice :)



hasta la vista, pauline

Sunday, August 24, 2003

The Gender Genie, an algorithm that determines the gender of the author of a given text, reports that my "Thankyou for reccomending Intacto, Feisty" post was a blokey one, and Feisty was in a female mood when she wrote "uh oh, three in a row.", as was Foozwah when he wrote 'Time for one of my infrequent posts".

"The Genie is not a threat to the author's masculinity. According to Koppel and Argamon, the algorithm should predict the gender of the author approximately 80% of the time."
That's the second time you've crashed an alt.religion.kibology party-like-event, or arkple, Harry! Isn't it time you joined? (bumped into H and L at the Astor today, you see.)

Friday, August 22, 2003

should you feel, mr pol and mr harry, that your best efforts come to nought, consider what one learned scholar has to say about an example of your art that tripped lightly across his motherboard recently. The game makes me want to abandon my life and splish shoeless in a stream born of melting winter snow. I cup my hands under the water and am suddenly aware that the mountain, the stream, and myself share certain elements of composition. Are the mountain and the stream aware of this? I lock eyes with a bounding fawn and detect what I believe to be recognition. Love is audible and each life produces a resonance distinguishable from all other lives. . He's talking about a videogame, in particular this one. I felt this way about Grand Theft Auto, but wasn't nearly eloquent enough to say so. My comments on that particular title were reserved to barely audible grunts in recognition of Mrs Noodle-Bob providing me with sustenance as she is wont to do on occasion, thus verifying my belief that I Made The Right Decision in asking her to spend the rest of her life with me. Or indeed the rest of my life with her. Or the rest of our lives together. Regardless You Know What I Mean. Also, she makes fucking fantastic white chocolate muffins. And is a huge spunk. It's all good, really. I think there was a point here, but it may have taken a left turn at Alberquerque. It's four am - what did you expect?

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Madness, but very funny. Pol, explain 118 118 to me...

Monday, August 18, 2003

ooh, I thought you meant three wees as in "wee wee and poo poo". I thought you must have been drinking a helluva lot to need the loo three times in a four line post! And then I read your post again...

Friday, August 15, 2003

Blogging gold - proof that whales fart.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Yep... they're no longer refusing to pay (which was the big problem), and have arranged for us to go round to their house for the cash, and to sign the papers etc over the weekend.

Oh, and I gave some poor itinerant LJ Hooker drone some harsh words today too for trying to give me a brochure.

I Jeremy Paxmanned someone!!! I was terrific!

Sorry, for the "start a conversation in the middle" exclamation... but -
In december Purdey (beautiful weimaraner with pic in menu on left hand side) had puppies. All went to new homes 8 weeks later, and two went to the same home. The first of these two was paid for, and the second was to be paid in instalments. Fair enough, except the people who took them never paid any money. Cutting a long story short, we went to see them a couple of nights ago to either get the dog back, or get the money. They freaked out, and eventually agreed to give us the cash. I phoned them today to arrange to get the money, and they were all shirty, saying we'd broken our agreement (ha!) to go there tonight, etc, and so I stopped playing good cop.

No wonder half my ex boyfriends don't speak to me any more.

Choice exerpts:
"Well you obviously don't wear the trousers, so put me on to Lesley, because I want to talk to the person who does make the decisions."

And the Paxman moment:
"You're going to take this to court?! You do know they're going to ask you 'why haven't you paid for the dog?'"
(weak excuse no.1): "We don't trust Robert to sign the papers"
"Why haven't you paid for the dog?"
(weak excuse no.1 again): "but we don't trust Robert to si--"
"Why haven't you paid for the dog?"
(weak excuse no.2): "but you broke your agreeme--"
"Why haven't you paid for the dog?"
(not even getting sentences out by now): "but you--"
"Why haven't you paid for the dog?"

All this plus a hell of a lot of swearing and The Condescending Voice.

I rule. (And I feel great!)

Monday, August 11, 2003

Uhoh, three in a row.

I have something to say about this article in today's Age. I'm really glad James Hewison thinks it went well, but I don't know anyone who thought that this year was remotely as interesting or competent as the last few years. Sure it's great that Da Kidz are down with the film festival, but does that mean there has to be so much trash fro us to cater to the 18-21 market?

And so I thought about writing to the author of the article in question. And then I saw that it was written by Helen Razer. And I laughed.

Oh my god, a joey deacon page - including one page with the immortal title "Desperately Speaking Deacon". Link via playground law.

For people who didn't grow up in England in the seventies, and who weren't subjected to Blue Peter (which, looking at the website has had the nerve to go "modern" since I last watched it about twenty years ago), Joey Deacon was this old guy with cerebral palsy, who the blue peter team used to visit every week. The idea was to teach kids about people with disabilities, however, all we learned to do was make spaz noises and mock the slower kids in class by calling them 'Joey'. Children can be so cruel.

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Well, the film festival is over for me, and I slept through the last two films, not because they were boring (although they might have been) but I was in bed in preston.. so I'll never know about Las Dos Fridas or Tokyo Express. Oh well. Given things so far, it probably wasn't that good anyway.
I did go see For Openers: The Art of Film Titles which was pretty cool, if a little odd. No commentary, just different film titles from the 50's onwards. And video too so the quality was a bit wobbly. But it was nice to see that people were getting recognition for their work. Some of the notable ones - early James Bond (Dr. No), Pink Panther, Barbarella, Seven, Bullitt plus a few that I liked bit have forgotten...

Friday, August 08, 2003

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

mediocrity rules it would seem. i don't know if it's just me. if i'm so *completely* out of step with what the rest of melbourne thinks. maybe i'm some sort of space alien. maybe i was dropped one too many times as a kid.

BUT WHY IS 'ALL THE REAL GIRLS' GETTING AN EXTRA SCREENING?
WHY DID PEOPLE LIKE 'A COLD SUMMER' LAST NIGHT?
WHY ARE PEOPLE RANTING & RAVING ABOUT 'SWIMMING POOL'?

humph.

here's some more micro reviews:

Resurrection of the little match girl
bonkers korean version of the matrix. funny, but i'm not sure if that was intentional.
Cold Summer
fucking amateur hour. relied on repeated use of women swearing for laughs (which was funny :)) but had zero character arc, no likable characters, and a happy ending that jarred with the rest of the film. badly acted as well.

i think i might go see terminator 3 this weekend to feel better about things!

Thursday, August 07, 2003

A visitor? Oh my goodness, and I wore my pyjamas all day yesterday too.

Harry, I liked Intacto - I can't say that it's my favourite film of all time, but I think it has definitely been one of the highlights for me. It does seem that the festival is deteriorating... or maybe my expectations are too high, fuelled by a nostalgia of ye olde filme festivals past. I'm wondering how the festival organisers came to some of their decisions, and there appears to be several ways to choose a film -
1. Pick something that'll get a major arthouse release anyway, so people can say they saw it first at the festival
2. Let a certain person choose all the Hong Kong/kung fu movies, but make sure he picks ones that have been playing in double bills for at least the past 5 years at Chinatown Cinema, for less than the price of a single MIFF ticket
3. Fact! Everyone likes French films about sex
4. Pick the celluloid equivalent of a 90 minute long non sequitur, because if people don't understand it they'll think you're smart for picking it, when in reality, you don't understand it either. (trust me no one will assume you're a wanker with a penchant for the emperors new clothes.)

In other news, I have perfected a recipe for chocolate orange muffins (badnaughtywicked) and been quite in awe of this image which is a digital recreation of a pic from a magazine ( corresponding how-to here).

OH! and I forgot to tell you - we've had a visitor! Yes, that's right, someone other than us reads this blog. And here I was thinking it was just an ego trip for all of us, but no, evidence arrived in my inbox just yesterday that CWNB not only READS this blog, but actually thinks that we have interesting things to say. And they said I'd never amount to anything.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

ahh, the tao of steve... if only I could remember the list of stuff... wait hang on - the internet will tell me









me and fuzz - we're steves.

more filmic nonsense:

Noi Albinoi
cool icelandic film about an albino kid named noi. slow burner, but funny and interesting.
Ballroom
odd french film about a gay couple living in an abandoned ballroom & one of them going slowly mad...i think :)
Cabin Fever
ok horror film. seen it all before though & done better (evil dead...i'm looking at you!)
House Of Fools
an insane asylum on the border during the russian / chechyan war. strange because it had bryan adams in it...singing...even with that it was good. i like films about mad people :)
Intacto
good idea, well executed. but like a lot of the festival missing *something* to make it brilliant.
Trouble Every Day
first of the french sex / cannibalism films. vincent gallo is SHIT! odd and dull. which is strange considering the subject matter.
Taste Of Cherry
iranian film about a bloke driving around trying to find someone to bury him after hi kills himself. sounds rubbish but is actually really good.
Secret things
BONKERS french film about sex and death and desire. brilliantly melodramatic in the way that only the french can be. lots of sex, lots of pontificating about the war of the sexes, lots of nudity.
Swimming pool
dissapointing self-referential film that reminded me of adaptation, but without any of the intelligence or wit.
In My Skin
second of the french sex / cannibalism films. felt more like an endurance test than a film, especially when the main female character starts eating bits of her own arm...still, for all that...sort of dull.

still got about 8 films to go see, but up until now i feel like the festival has been dull. everything is technically competent, well acted (with the exception of all the real girls), and looks good...but they're mostly just dull stories.

hoh well.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

For those who have 3 minutes to spare (and presumably the time it takes to find a Liberal) you too can defeat the right in 3 minutes.

Sunday, August 03, 2003

hey kids,

click here

Thankyou for reccomending Intacto, Feisty. I skimmed the review/preview I read of it, only having a basic grip of the story before I went in.

Speaking of luck and coincidence ... on Friday night, after seeing Nosferatu with some Kibologists, and running into Harry at the Forum, I was given a media pass to The Grudge by the promoter of a well-known Melbourne cinema showcase Bonus! On Saturday I helped a friend Bi (pronounced beee as in "Oh my god! My dog's being stung to death by a giant BEEE!") move from Carnegie to her new house at Preston. Just as we were finishing, Small Ben called to see if I could help him move some furniture out of his place! Owing, as I still do, a debt to the gods of relocation, I dutifully made my way (with a lift in the hired 3ton removal van) down to Carlton to help extricate him from a mildly painful domestic situation, or as I liked to think of it, "evac from hot LZ!". See Harry? It's all about the bees.

Afterwards, we tried to get a standby ticket: while Ben parked the Toyota, I checked out the box office. Two ex-girlfriends drifted past, one (yes, that's her best side), still encoragingly hostile after our relationship ended, either didn't see me or avoided me; the other was delighted to see me. We offered her the spare Grudge ticket, which she eventually declined, and ended up scalping it to a skanky American thing at Greater Union. Take that, leader of the free world! We scammed you for ten bucks! It was a media ticket! We ended up indulging in some ultraviolence playing Counter-Strike at n2c above Hobby Japan, particularly enjoying the one that looks like this ...



... well, if you've seen it, you'd know what I'm talking about :)

Am proud to report the first instance of 'bullet time' in an arcade game -- Sega's Virtua Cop 3 uses a 'slow time' feature, accessed by a foot pedal, that slows down the proceedings and allows the player to shoot down approaching bullets and pump lead into the bad guys while they're slowed down. A one-way bullet time, really. As played at the little place between Jungry Hack's and Hollywood Karaoke near the corner of Bourke and Russell.



I wondered what it was that caused the two mid-session walkouts in my row during Momento ... but the dude next to me figured they had other sessions to get to. I thought they might have piked due to the marginal cheese/predictability factor in the plot ... anyway ... thanks Mrs Noodle for the tipoff!

And, just for the taste of it, here's Bill, four and a half years ago, chasing the adrenaline dragon in Treasury Gardens. Images from Zem's old skating page, bless him.

before I forget, some fun time wasting type stuff... flyguy, strange melty manand what I can only describe as electric jellyfish.

I forgot to mention Torsion very cool short film that i saw before Noi Albinoi - about a pregnant cow and the sarajevo city choir... (now, that's got you thinking!)

Saturday, August 02, 2003

the film festival is picking up.

and as promised here's my tiny reviews of *everything*

The Grudge
Cool japanese low budget horror. i really liked it, if only to see how scary you can make things just by editing things together well. worth it for the shower scene & the lift scene.
House of 1000 corpses
odd rob zombie horror. bright & slightly unpleasant, but nowhere near scary...just kind of odd, but there's no way it'll get a general release so worth seeing.
Afghan Alphabet
documentary about schools in afghanistan. interesting to see a world where a 12 year old girl won't remove her burka because it's a sin.
And Along came a spider
documentary about a bloke in afghanistan who killed 16 prostitutes. interviews with his family, friends and the families of his victims. creepy because he was proud of what he'd done, and people seemed happy with it. his son proclaimed that he'd like to be like his dad when he grew up.
La vie nouvelle
dull french film, with little dialogue, and no internal structure. it was only when i came out and someone mentioned to me that it was the story of orpheus and eurydice that i made some sense of it.
Sex is comedy
good french comedy about a director trying to film a sex scene. funny for the film insights & dealing with actor problems. :)
Wilbur wants to kill himself
odd & slightly disappointing dark comedy set in glasgow.
Woodenhead
really, really odd new zealand film where they recorded *all* of the audio and then shot the images to match it. when it worked it was brilliant, but where it didn't it was poor. the work of a madman!
Love Liza
conventional story of loss & addiction, made bearable by phillip seymour hoffman!
Spellbound
documentary about the72nd national spelling bee in the states, following 8 kids. strange, funny and occasionally uncomfortable.
Principles of lust
trainspotting meets fight club meets every other 30-something not sure if this is what i want from life type story. set in sheffield. competent, but not mind-blowing
Rage
beautiful french-asian film about star-crossed lovers & illegal thai boxing. slow, but wonderfully shot.
Yesterday
dull korean sci-fi actioner. i fell asleep :(
Man of the year
dark comedy about a guy who dies his hair blonde and then kills someone. one of those stories where every little step is believable, but at the end you look back at where you've come from and are a bit worried :)
Fiction shorts
good. makes a nice change to see some short films that aren't trying to be comedies. only really one weak one about a blind american swimmer getting lost swimming a channel.
All the real girls
WORST FILM OF THE FESTIVAL!!! well so far, but i don't know how they could make it worse. it was as though the writer/director took every story he's ever been told about relationships and, rather than have the actors act them out, he just has them tell them to each other.
Dragon inn
hong kong actioner that it turns out i'd seen before. killer ending though.
The sea
really good character drama about a small fishing village in iceland, the family that runs it, and the children returning home. from the director of reykyavic 101.
May
good. bit light on the gore, and a little slow to get started, but the last 20 minutes are GOLD!.

things have been a bit average this year :( hopefully things will pick up with the remaining films. cabin fever tonight miss noodle.

Friday, August 01, 2003

Yes. The film festival is good. Because I have seen Cabin Fever. Because I now know about David Lynch's website*. And also, because I know not to sit next to Dennis. And I can't say any more than that, cause *someone* hasn't seen it yet!

*Even the type sounds like David Lynch talking (it's in uppercase throughout).