Friday, February 29, 2008

Friday afternoons

It's a love/hate relationship. The weekend's so close you can reach out and touch it, but it drags on for like, forever. Maybe a beer with the pub lunch isn't helping the monitor headache that feels like it's coming on, too. Of course, it disappears once I look away.

Plus, I'm too busy thinking about the anime I'm going to watch this weekend: start with the final 5 episodes of Death Note (which I should've watched months ago), then hope that Fullmetal Alchemist is, er, ready to watch. Then, catch up on Underbelly - which isn't anime, but anyway, it's a tv series to watch.

Hopefully tonight at the Fringe isn't too awkward, and a certain couple of people do turn up to give me relief from the others that may be.

Beep bloody beep.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Weekend at the moofies

So, I didn't do anything last Friday or Saturday night, apart from watch a few movies that I had been meaning to - and one that I didn't mean to, did anyway, and lost a few brain cells as a reward.

First up, Memento. I paused the film halfway through to close up windows and blinds around the house, grab a drink and have a stretch, and I felt super weird. The scenes are cut in reverse chronological order, and the way Guy Pearce portrays the main character Leonard (and his loss of short term memory ability) made me feel extremely disjointed. I closed up the blinds and suddenly it felt like someone else had done them, and that only half of my brain was active. Awesome. Anyway, the movie kept me on the edge of my seat (metaphorically speaking, I was lying down) right to the end, where you find out how Lenny got himself in his current predicament (considering the scenes are backwards, the logical ending to the film!).

Saturday (after going for a run in the morning), I re-watched American Beauty. I'd forgotten how both awakening and enjoyable this film was, from watching the plastic bag blowing around in the wind with the leaves to Lester working through issues (otherwise known as stuff) to get to a place in his life where he was happy. Considering the amount of unenjoyment of this film that Australian high school students are put through... I dunno. Being a bit older now makes me realise that this'd be a film that you would want maturing teenagers to seriously think about.

Finally, Akira. I've had a few people give me the "it's not as good as everybody says it is", and I agree to a certain extent. The thing that grabbed me was the constant screaming of the characters at each other, which was grating and annoying. Other than that, ground-breaking, yeah, but Neon Genesis: Evangelion had the same feel: the writer just wanted to one-up everybody by showing how smart they were with a slightly incomprehensible story-line.
That and you could see where Dragonball(z?) took it's characters powering up and stuff from. And stuff. Heh.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!

Oh, the pain. So, Labor's in government, everyone's happy (enough), and then... an idiot comes along.

I mean, is he stupid? Are we governed by Family First? Are we actually in China?!

This man somehow thinks that you can't just bypass a filter by a little bit of traffic redirection. Fool. More fool those Victorians, too, who didn't vote below the line.

So... the stats are in. Expected: 1.4 million downloads. Received: 30,000. Call centre receives 20-40 calls, per day. Waste of AU$84 million. What does this imply? Well, to about, lessee... 100 - 100*(30,000/21,000,000) = 99.85% of Australians don't want to have their internet filtered. And I wonder about what the percentage of those using the filter are concerned parents - that is, they probably don't want their internet usage filtered, but rather just their childrens'.

Seriously. I want the proportion of my tax that went to this department back.

For moar, here and here.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Public implosions, chapter 1

Chapter 1 implies there'll be more. I expect there will be. The interviews with the "it wasn't my fault" cretins on the ABC's (Australian, of course) Four Corners post-election doco last night were good for humour, entertainment and pieces of amazement. Downer's assertion that the reason the Liberal Party is not forming government is due to voters simply wanting something new is more proof that he still either has no idea what happened, or in an interview where he made some admissions of a nature you'd think to be confidential to the inner circle of the party he lied.

lol. Lord Dolly Downer. Minchin spent his time trying to give an "I told you so" but with less guts, Hockey "it's not my fault WorkChoices sucked", Abbott "omg Howard's still a legend", and Costello, well. You could see the torture in his eyes, especially when Howard annoited him as his successor at the concession speech. I'm not going to jump into it and say that he was foolish for expecting Howard to step down (which he was) along with a puffed up ego (which he had)... wait, I have jumped into it. Oh well. Like someone commented elsewhere, he should've told Howard to get bollocksed in 1994.

Jeff Kennett was right in his call that the outcome of this won't do any good for the party; it was only good for the Liberal ministers (excluding Pynenuts; he's irrelevant) to try and write history the way they want it written.

More comments on the theatre is at Possums Pollytics and Larvatus Prodeo. For a right-whinger trying to defend(!) the Liberals, look for poster 'hc' at LP. Much lulz.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Movies galore

You know, Batman is a fantastic character. The sheer amount of fail in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin almost destroyed all of that, as Clooney reportedly said. However, Batman Begins was a start on the road back, with The Dark Knight hopefully continuing this. Having a hero that can represent some of the nastier side of humanity, while still trying to save people from themselves is something which any half-decent director/scriptwriter should make the most of.

I was also reading a review of Batman Begins which said that Bale had trouble connecting to the audience as much as Michael Keaton did; bollocks. I actually watched Batman about 6 months ago for the first time; a good description would be awkward and the fight scenes, er, laughable (which apparently is more down to Burton as a non-fight-scene director). The way that Batman Begins hid fight scenes by having Batman take out the crims behind the camera made for a spookier, and more powerful, effect.

About the one redeeming feature of Batman & Robin was Alicia Silverstone being as pretty as she is. Especially in pseudo-leather/body moulded armour. I couldn't really jump out of this paragraph without a mention of the sheer dedication that Christian Bale has shown in his roles in his past few films (and, most likely, all of them); putting on the 50-odd kilos between The Machinist and Batman Begins is pretty damn crazy. Asking for health troubles, he is.

Anyway, this was all brought to mind after someone commenting on the quality of of the Dune miniseries, made in 2000, and the question of why "they" ruin such good material with such crap scripting/acting/effects.

All I can say is fuck knows.

Friday, February 15, 2008

'tis frustrating

Friday afternoons, that is. Mornings shine brightly with that promise of the weekend just within touching distance, such that they are the best time of the (working) week. Afternoons are the most boring, drawn out, painful period any person could experience, as you have your fingers on the weekend, but are unable to bring those fantastically evolved opposable thumbs into play, and grasp...

It could also be the after-effects of football training last night, where I have been finishing up most nights with my calves cramping, probably due to the way I run - and it doesn't seem to matter how much I stretch. I do notice, though, that I don't cramp up in games. Perhaps the socks help. Maybe I should run around with my socks up (I don't wear shinpads at training).

Speaking of which, omg. It was freakin' frustrating last night. Somehow the first team coach decided a couple of guys were worth trying out. Mistake. Big mistake. I played at the back (none of the rest of them were capable) and was continually sold short by a lack of movement off the ball and game-watching. Two of them thought it was a good idea attempting to go forward in a 2v6 situation. It seems like they've never actually played with anyone else - they'd ignore all instructions from the back, wouldn't let anyone know if they had an opposition player up their backside, call "turn" when the player with the ball had no space...
*sighs*

Hopefully the actual contenders for this squad turn up next week. I even gave up drinking during the week for football, and this is what I get! ...to be honest, it was in response to getting completely trashed Friday night, and being too hungover to do my own physical work for the rest of the weekend.

I know whose fault it is. Not mine. Absolutely not mine!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Blogs are terrible things

And they are. I mean, how much time am I a) going to spend thinking about updating this rather than doing any, more meaningful, thing else, and b) going to forget to update it, and somehow feel bad?

I probably won't feel bad. After all, I didn't really feel bad after failing to updated a LiveJournal. lol. LiveJournal. That's all sorts of emo fail, right there.

So, I guess I'm back to trying to work out how you can serialise (but with a 'z') a Hashtable of custom classes/objects, in C#. Lovely.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Post #1, omg.

So I'm here sitting here, apathetically grinding the trivia bot for the first time in months (ok, two), and it asks what soap was originally made of. I, being the tower of integrity and strength that I am, punch 'soap' into wikipedia (no, trivia bots don't deserve integrity).
The first picture I see, I think of Fight Club, and that I should watch that movie again... after I've seen everything else I'd been meaning to see.

Like Three Kings.

I'm sure that was interesting, but the meaning of it escapes me... for now. I'll remember it while jogging, I bet, and forget it by the time I get home.

Meh.

Meanwhile, I'm amused by those making comments on that bastion of journalistic brilliance, news.com.au. Good to see just how educated the public is. It restores my faith in everything.
The particular comments amusing me are those criticising our dear PM, Kevin "Krudd/Dudd/insert childish demeaning name here" Rudd, and that we're saying sorry at all. In fact, those Aborigines should be grateful, grateful i tells ya! That's right! Speechlessness seems to be the best defence to the urge to scream.

And Scientology v everyone else. Much lulz.