Chasing Geese

Small Mercy

2011-03-14T08:50:00.001+11:00

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
-H.P. Lovecraft

A long break, and now some Lovecraft. There is sad news attached to this post - Guillermo Del Toro's (which I spelled right first try, bitches) At the Mountains of Madness was cancelled. I was really looking forwards to that, even if Tom Cruise was sort of attached. But now I guess I'll have to settle for a prequel to The Thing.
In slightly happier news, I received a random comment from a stranger who seemed to enjoy my dead-for-three-months blog. So that was nice, and is completely unrelated to me writing again today. Promise. You might also care to remember I'm a compulsive liar.

I've also discovered that what I put things in writing, I'm far more likely to actually do them. On that note...

COMING SOON: My very delayed thoughts on Alan Wake, and the even-more-delayed final leg of my trip to the US, and some pictures of books that I own. Maybe even some stuff from a short story I'm working on. You know, if I get to the point where 'working on' means 'has written some'.

Chips

2010-12-04T19:21:00.003+11:00

The picture you see here was the closest I got to the Statue of Liberty, and it was taken in Vegas. It sits outside of a casino most creatively and a trifle redundantly called New York New York, along with facsimiles of the Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, and other such things.

I found it fairly funny that even with half a country in between, I still couldn't get away from the Chrysler Building.

Vegas though, Vegas was very much the opposite of New York. In Manhattan, there were people more or less everywhere, and they all seemed in a hurry and unable to walk in a straight line. When the streets across the entire island are in a neat grid, not being able to follow a straight path is a bigger handicap than you'd think. Everyone here was really just meandering around, looking at all the bright lights and feeding slot machines and alcoholism. But anyhow, we were in Vegas for less than half the time we stayed in New York, but I still think we got through a whole lot.

I did mention a while back it was hard to convey the scope of Manhattan, the people and the buildings, but Vegas one upped that. I always had the impression that casinos were big, but these things were BIG. Our rooms were in the MGM Grand, on the 6th floor, and to get to the cafe where we ate breakfast, on the other end of the building, was close to a 10 minute walk. This, I discovered, was a small casino.

The two shopping complexes alone attached to The Venetian and Caesar's Palace were both bigger than the MGM Grand. And the actual shopping mall at the end of the strip. It was very easy to get lost inside these things. I did find the coolest shop inside the Venetian's shops though, Bauman's Rare Books. They had a window display with more first editions than I have actual books. This is made all the more impressive if you know that I have a lot of books.

On the second night we were in Vegas, I saw what was possibly the highlight of the trip for me. We were all agreed in that we wanted to see a show, and one thing led to another so we wound up with Copperfield tickets. The man is now my new hero. In addition to being the devil and summoning cars and motorcycles and ducks with his devil-powers, he was a fantastic entertainer and really just a funny, funny guy. If we were there for another night, I'd've pushed to see his show again. I enjoyed it that much.

I think the biggest point of culture shock came when I realised we'd hit a city that had never heard of RSA or RCG. There were ads put up in the airport proclaiming how much money had been given away on their slot machines, and inviting you to play. Because, apparently, you could already be a winner. I think this registered a little more than the other side of things, because that came after I carried a Margarita slushie the size of my arm through the casino, outside, and into another casino. Where I could buy dirt-cheap refills.

I can see why people like this city.

Leaving New York

2010-12-03T10:32:00.003+11:00

Call it jetlag finally getting the best of me, or maybe just being too consumed with other things, or maybe even you bastards not commenting, but I decided I'd wrap up my tales of exploration and adventure from the comfort of my own couch.

The picture of the olde timey newspaper vending machine you see here wasn't actually taken in NYC. It's from a store at Universal Studios in LA, but I thought it was funny, so you will find it endearing or else, so help me God.

Our last few days in New York went fairly quickly, all things considered. We spent one day split between the Met and the Museum of Natural History, the latter of which was nothing like a certain movie had led me to believe and the former of which was just fantastic. I only wound up seeing about half of the Met, but it was enough. I would award it the title of my favourite place in New York, if it wasn't for the Majestic, the library or Rockefeller Plaza. Yeah, it was a strong shortlist.

We were in town for Thanksgiving, and I had the very great privilege of seeing Spider-Man's ass as he floated by about a block down the road. While the day wasn't quite the let down that New Year's Eve is, it ran a close second. The upside was that if you weren't one of the knuckledraggers watching the parade, you pretty much had the run of Midtown. So after seeing the complete anticlimax provided by Macy's, we went back up to 30 Rock and took some photos.

We also saw Phantom of the Opera that night, which improved the day substantially. It was a really great show, even if it did feel like it was missing a second act, and the Phantom totally had his own rape dungeon.

Speaking of Macy's, the Black Friday sales marked our final day in the city, and ye gods. While things weren't exactly the astronomical bargains we were led to believe, it would seem that several other million people were led to believe the same thing, and converged on 34th and 7th like carrion on a fresh cadaver. It was almost impossible to move in places.

Our flight out had us leave the hotel at about 5.30am, but given that I was crashing at about 6pm and rising at 4am, that wasn't as big an issue as my sleeping patterns. Stay tuned for more All-american fun!

Skyscrapers

2010-11-24T15:55:00.005+11:00

Today I did the tourist thing and rode an open-air bus around town. And two things occur to me as I type this. Firstly: It's near impossible to take a bad photo of this city. Secondly, those beers I just had got me pretty fucking drunk. I'm having trouble locating certain keys and typing is taking longer than I should.

We did buy cheap electronics today, which was good, because it meant I got to spend a whole bunch of the bus ride playing with the new digital SLR camera. It's very pretty, if a little on the huge side.

Luckily enough though, the camera store was on the opposite side of the road to the New York Public Library, which is without a shadow of a doubt the prettiest building I have ever set foot in. It's all marble and engraved ceilings and statues, and surprisingly few books in the interim. Although I still donated, and purchased from the store, because libraries.

The tour took us through most of Midtown, which we'd seen, and down through Greenwich Village, Soho, and the like. You could almost take the steady decline in annual income, but the buildings themselves never lost character. It was kind of crazy seeing things like the original Macy's, which was pretty much three floors that ran about 10m wide, or the fact that the Manhattan Bridge is close to the exact height of the Empire State Building. Like I said, impossible to take a bad photo of this city. Especially because you can see the Chrysler building from pretty much anywhere.

Saw the Flatiron too, which, I am not ashamed to say, made comics much cooler.

But this brings me to the real news of the day. For dinner, I had these strips of steak on garlic bread with Chiplote sauce and melted cheese. Ye gods it was delicious.

Have another photo. I have a ton of them.

Peanuts and Crackerjacks

2010-11-24T13:14:00.005+11:00

I’ve found a stable WiFi connection in the hotel room, so the past series of backdated entries is brought to you courtesy of Yale Library. In fact, there are so many unsecured WiFi connections floating around, I’m pretty sure I now have some kind of testicular supercancer. But because of my patronage of Yale, they best discover a cure for that.

I did get those pancakes, but they weren’t as fantastic and meaty as I’d dreamed, sadly. It was a lovely place right near Grand Central, which led directly to today’s adventure and a phrase I never thought I’d utter in all my days. I miss CityRail.

Dad and I caught the subway out to Yankee Stadium for a behind the scenes tour. It wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but they didn’t exactly make it easy. The signage was kept to a bare minimum, so in the end (and after a near miss with a closing door) we just jumped on a train heading towards the Bronx. Turns out, that once you’re actually on a train they just throw information at you like they’re monkeys armed with feces. There were announcements and displays of each stop, as well as a lit route diagram showing where this train stopped on the line and the direction it was travelling. So we got to Yankee Stadium with a minimum of fuss.

Then we subsequently dropped a ton of cash in the Team Store before the tour.
The stadium itself was just phenomenal. It was colossal, the photos can’t convey the scope of the place. It was huge, and pristine and really just awesome in the truest sense of the word. This was the inner wall of the concourse, before you entered the stadium proper. Yeah, it had two walls.

It really was an experience, seeing the museum and Monument Park, the way that it’s nothing short of modern-day hero worship. But they didn’t do the thing half-arsed. The big display in the middle of the museum was a recreation of the World Series perfect game with a wall of baseballs running from the mound to home plate. The wall was an ongoing project, see, because they want a ball signed by every Yankee. They have about 60% with the 870-odd balls already there.
We did see two things that are quite rare for tour groups. The first was the press box, which was pretty cool. The second was seeing Yankee stadium done up like a Football pitch for a series of college games. They actually tore down the dugouts and put up nets for the game. That was a sight. Not exactly a good one, but it’ll certainly stick with me. It’s apparently a big deal for the city, though. The Notre Dame band – not the team, the 500 strong marching band – got given their own subway train to travel to the game. The tour guide said he’d never before seen that happen with anything in his life.
Then we had lunch, and I had one of the best burgers I have ever eaten. The coffee is all really good too. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do when I head home.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that all the service people are just so nice. Even when you have a free lunch with gratuity included. They just seem so happy. It’s a little off-putting. Our room cleaner even leaves thank you notes after she’s done. With smileys on.

However Far We Travel

2010-11-22T06:10:00.000+11:00

It seems no matter how far you go from home, there will always be those little reminders, be they reliquaries that hang from rearview mirrors in the greater Bankstown area or on the front of hotels where their very presence confuses and delights. Like this:

The hotel, in these close-to-waking hours (seriously, I’m up before six. Again), is very nice. I’m currently sitting in the drawing room under a portrait of Robin Williams in Night at the Museum and listening to remixes of Christmas carols. I’ve had worse mornings.

Yesterday was my first real day exploring the city and it was far, far better than the flight and 1am pizza. Though I shouldn’t really have to say that. The Roosevelt, where we’re staying, is pretty damn centrally located in Midtown, although all these hotels seem to be within one or two blocks of each other anyway, so it’s nothing special.

What is special is the fact that I’m within a 5 minute walk of the Chrysler building, St. Pat’s Cathedral, Time Square, Grand Central, Rockefeller Plaza…

It’s pretty astounding how close together all these things are, to be honest. I guess I’m too accustomed to Sydney’s CBD where anything worth doing is located no closer than 15 minutes from anything else. But New York just looks so much better. The height on these buildings is just phenomenal, they will literally delay the dawn an hour or so in some places. And they’re just so nice to look at. I could probably spend the better part of a week just walking around with a camera and taking pictures of gargoyles and cornices. What else is really hard to wrap my head around is just how easy it is to navigate the city. Avenues and Streets, a near-perfect grid. Just know how to a) count and b) walk.

My favourite thing so far was most definitely the relief over the doors of Rockefeller Center:
It will probably be my wallpaper for some time.

Perhaps even better than Rockefeller was the Lego store there. Yes. Lego store. I had to exercise all my willpower not to load up and walk out, but it was a sight to behold. It was like they took every major landmark that sat outside the store, and recreated it with Lego. I think I might have enjoyed it more if the store itself wasn’t packed with toddlers, which made me feel more like the creepy guy who watches the kids in candy stores, rather than the child himself. But we can’t have it all.

What we can have though, is McDonalds. I partook of the fabled McRib, which was exactly what it sounds like. It was a rib sandwich. I don’t really want to think about how they did it, but it tasted exactly like BBQ pork ribs on a roll. I think, if nothing else, that was the proof that everything is bigger over here. Sure, the skyscrapers dwarf anything Sydney can muster, but ye gods man, the fries came in a packet I could have worn as a hat. And for those of you who know just how big my head actually is…

I did find a bookstore and at a friend’s recommendation, a comic store just two blocks from where we were staying. At the bookstore, I picked up Side Jobs and a leather bound complete Shakespeare. Billy S set me back $20. Trust me to travel 12,000 kilometres and then buy discount books once I arrive. From the comic store, I also picked up something for $20 – a Marvel Premiere #15 (a.k.a. Iron Fist). I was quite happy with that, and chances are I’ll go back there for some Christmas shopping.

We hit Times Square just as it was going dark. All the bright lights and flashy things weren’t really as inspiring as I’d expected, but then I’m neither a toddler nor goldfish. That isn’t to say it wasn’t impressive, but it was more of an idle fascination than anything that struck me with awe. The best way of describing it is that it was the biggest ad break I have ever seen. Everything was moving and selling me things and assaulting the senses with reckless consumerism.

The best thing to look at was probably the American Eagle setup, given that they’d plastered two full walls of the building, a smaller recess in the bottom corner and the tower above it. With screens. The thought of the power consumption was a little sickening, even thought I might a little want one of those screens. Given renovation would probably be necessary, and it’d put me way over my luggage limit, I’ll just keep dreaming of pancakes made of meat. No joke, I did have that dream last night.

And now I want pancakes.

The Necessary Lift

2010-11-21T05:07:00.000+11:00

Here's me, outside our hotel looking all jetlagged.

I have discovered hell, and its name is airline travel. It all started well enough. We left Sydney International in reasonably high spirits, even if we didn’t leave it $800 richer: Our flight was oversold, or so we were informed, and we were offered $800 each to catch a flight departing 6 hours after the one we’d booked. I was all for it, given I’m a greedy and/or cheap bastard, and that amount of money is nothing to sneeze at. Unfortunately, the airline rep was wrong and we had to be connecting at LA, not San Francisco. Or maybe he knew all along as was just a prick like that.

I do have to applaud United Airlines on my flight to San Francisco, given that they managed to provide me with what I can categorically name the absolute worst 12 hours I have ever had. The flight left Sydney at around 4 in the afternoon, so the plan was to have a few hours of settling in, and then grab what shut-eye I could. I wound up getting change from 30 minutes, and I’m pretty sure my right knee has been permanently disfigured by what passed for leg room.

Still, the 747 chased the noonday sun for the better share of a day, which is all nice and quixotic and the like. The plane itself did do one thing well, which was black out the windows and dim the lighting when it should have been night time. Given the seating arrangements though, I’m fairly sure this was just a method of slow torture. “Ahahah, it is night time and you may not sleep.”

Some of you may remember that I’d been planning to video all these musings, but I didn’t for two reasons. In landing at San Francisco International, I looked like a pack of greased baboons had just had their way with me, and I was operating on as little sleep as I knew how. But I pressed on. I pulled out that camera…

…and was promptly told to put it away by airport security. If nothing else, I was sure I was in America. So you get the written word, which far better captures my views on things anyhow. The connecting flight was much, much better – if only for the fact I didn’t need to study yoga to fit in the crevasse between my seat at the one in front. I grabbed some sleep and all but finished one of the two novels I had packed, and found myself feeling much better about life. It’s amazing the difference two hours’ sleep can make.

We were set to land at about 9pm local time at JFK, and the sight of the city outside the plane window almost made the ordeal worth it. At least, it would have if we hadn’t been supremely dicked around and sent to three different terminals looking for our shuttle to the hotel. We found it eventually, then got told we had to call and book one, despite our booking. We were treated to the chauffer stylings of New York, which I much confess were unique. Bankstown be ashamed of yourself, for nothing you do can trump what I saw in that (for some, unknowable reason) 2 hour drive. We were led through a bunch of useless stops, shown how to ignore both red and green lights, and received a demonstation of cutting off someone turning right when we were in the left lane. Bankstown, please don’t take that as a challenge.

It couldn’t all be bad though. We arrived at the Roosevelt Hotel while it was still Saturday, and ravenous, we watched SNL and ordered up some pizzas doing their best impersonation of really big, round things. I’m still a bit too drained to trope. But the pizza was damn good.

Since I had the temerity to scoff at jetlag, it now seems to be taking slow revenge as I type this on the pre-dawn side of 6am. I could have sworn I was tired a half a dozen hours ago, but I guess the fabled sleep-in wasn’t meant to be.

I can see dawn-reddened bricks outside my hotel room window, which means that today is here. New York beckons, and if nothing else, today’s sure to be better than yesterday, which is technically today. Stupid timezones.

I Am The Night

2010-11-15T16:17:00.003+11:00

I have this book. The Batman Handbook. It's a must read for any vigilante billionaire that dreams of wearing a hooded cowl and striking fear in the hearts of the criminal underbelly of whatever city he hails from.

Yeah, it's pretty hilarious. The thing is much of the humour comes from the fact it treads the fine line between serious and parody.

Anyway, something I found funnier than it should have been:

Ten Phobias Batman Doesn't Have:
Agliophobia: Fear of Pain
Batophobia: Fear of heights of being close to high buildings
Cleisiophobia: Fear of being locked in an enclosed space
Dikephobia: Fear of justice
Epistemophobia: Fear of knowledge
Geliophobia: Fear of laughter
Nyctophobia: Fear of the dark or the night
Scelerophobia: Fear of burglars or criminals
Thanatophobia: Fear of death or dying
Venustraphobia: Fear of beautiful women

Yeah.

For Want Of A Nail

2010-11-08T10:54:00.002+11:00

I post too much SMBC. But then, it is hilarious.

Mocktopus

2010-11-07T00:35:00.001+11:00

Yeah, we're fucked.

Honest Intentions

2010-11-06T13:45:00.003+11:00

I was going to blog yesterday, but I realized it was the 5th of November and I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from making terrible Guy Fawkes jokes. So I made one today instead.

In other news, go and play Lucky Tower with your speakers turned up. It's pretty hilarious.

Perhapsaroni

2010-11-03T20:57:00.003+11:00

NaNoWriMo started a few days ago, and for a writing event that people most assuredly spend more time talking about than working on it does have cruel capitalization when you try to type in a hurry. (National Novel Writing Month, just in case you were still wondering. Even though it's not terribly national these days.)

It's the kind of thing I keep thinking I should do, a wondrous work packed with nonsensical portmanteaus and inadequately established punchlines. But since I have about a week of free, non-uni, non-overseas time this month, it'll be given another miss. Maybe next year...

Anyway! Happier things! A poster, and a fantastic quote that undermines what I just said.

History

2010-11-02T09:52:00.003+11:00

Mer.:
Come between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints.

Rom.:
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs, or I'll cry a match.

Mer.:
Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for
thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than,
I am sure, I have in my whole five.

Romeo And Juliet II, iv

Crazy old Bill Shakespeare. Turns out this is the first recorded use of the phrase colloquially. Prior to this, it referred to either wild-goose hunting, or this retarded horseracing variant where one person had to copy the erratic riding style of the leader. I found that funny, given that it's Cup day.

The More You Know.

Loaves and Fishes

2010-10-30T12:22:00.002+11:00

I've been thinking a lot about piracy recently. Not because I want to buy a ship and a boss hat and a parrot, the other kind. It's not entirely my fault; when you're a media student, there really is very little else of relevance to discuss.

Anyway, one of the things you hear in industry campaigns against piracy is the whole
"YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" shtick. Which is a fair cop. I wouldn't steal a car. But, given the chance, I would use my laptop to acquire an exact copy of an existing car for free. That's the problem with digital content, and the problem with this anti-piracy campaign. It's too hard to conflate piracy with theft, because the two are very different things.

The point is this train of thought brought me to an interesting place. Okay, so who do you know that democratized content by using an original to make a great number of easily shared copies for free? That's right. Jesus. Feeding of the Five Thousand, bitches. That shit's in the Bible. So next time someone tries to tell you piracy is wrong, tell them you're just doing the Lord's Work.

It's Always Funny In Sillydelphia

2010-10-27T22:45:00.003+11:00

So I said we'd have a celebratory post. But fuck that shit, I wait long enough and 200 can get done at the same time. So on with bidness as ushe.

You may care to note that I've written quite a bit about the thing that grabs me most is when someone can show that there's something great in this otherwise sucky world. Anyway, I've been watching a whole lot of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia lately. And that note could not be more related.

I've never seen a show before that celebrated misanthropy with such aplomb. I really, really hate everyone on that show. They turn sympathetic supporting characters in to douchebags. They pull shit that leaves me stunned. They wallow in the pits of a hell they have devised for themselves, and I love it so, so much.

It's like Seinfeld if there were more swears, absurdity and overt hatred.

It's awesome.

Bazaar-aar-aar-ar-r-r

2010-10-25T18:08:00.004+11:00

Yes, I'm back after a respite of only two days, to prove I can take time off and then come back swinging. Or is that go down swinging? In either case, I took a weekend off, and even though my post counter reads 150, this is not the 150 entry celebration. Technically that will come next, celebrating the fact 150 posts have been made.

Anyhow, I was directed to one of those browser-based games that only gives you an action every few minutes, and I've been spending a good deal of today watching the countdown clock on my action candle. Echo Bazaar is about a creepy demon version of London, and from what I've seen of it, it's a very cool timewaster. Runs off choose-your-own adventure and RPG elements, and while a whole bunch of other stuff has done it all before, the atmosphere here is very cool.

It uses either your Facebook or Twitter account, and lets you be a dashing gentleman or lady or nondescript squid thingy in an alternate reality Victorian London, and if that doesn't entice you to check it out you really shouldn't be reading this blog.

So you should all check it out.

Alma Mater

2010-10-22T10:38:00.004+11:00

I said I'd grab a pic of that graffiti in the USyd Manning bar some time ago, and here it finally is. Fun fact: taking photos of things in men's rooms is just as awkward as you'd think.

Edit: link to bigger version.

Tiny Fiction

2010-10-21T22:03:00.004+11:00

I wrote a very short story today in the huge stretch of time I had free.

Hit the jump to read, and enjoy.

The Zeitgeist Darlings

I was utterly, impossibly in love with the both of them, and I was certain I could have neither. It was cruel and peculiar by turns, loving so fully as to feel the constant pull in two directions. And if fate did conspire to have one of them pay me the slightest regard, even for the briefest instant, I was just as certain I could make nothing of the opportunity but for the lifelong question of what may have been with the other. It was perhaps this private indictment of fate that spurred on his strange machinations. So it was that one night, one glorious, accursed night, both of them who each held the whole of my heart, noticed me.

In Spite of Ourselves

2010-10-20T00:08:00.004+11:00

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

Lincoln knows his shit. I read this in the course of my inappropriately late-night rumagings, and I really liked it. It's the tail end of the 1862 Annual Message to Congress. Especially the first lines, "We cannot escape history ... we will be remembered in spite of ourselves".

Spruce Goose

2010-10-19T10:49:00.000+11:00

Who would have thought I'd make it a month? Well, if I take it upon myself to answer my own rhetorical questions, not me. But today marks Day 30, and that's actually 31 entries, because I threw up an extra one.

'Threw up' is actually a pretty good way of describing what I do here. That is, when I'm not toblogganing. Although it turns out an entry a day isn't that hard when you don't obsess over every little detail of what you put up, and keep some things that I'd sooner put on Facebook on the backburner.

You hear that Facebook? I'm coming for you.

That was the blog talking, not me. I actually wouldn't mind seeing The Social Network.

Anyhow, I think I'll keep this going for another 5 days, because that'll mean that this streak will take me up to entry #150 (and ye Gods, that's a lot of bilious swill).

Moving on to the thrust of this installment; Blogging is Like..., a Top Ten list.

10. A very controlled kind of throwing up. Like I said. In that the carrots of life are in all of us, and will be brought forth in due course. Watch for chunks.

9. Staying up 'til 2am. You know you really shouldn't, but one way or another you'll hate yourself in the morning.

...Just me then?

8. Riding a toboggan downhill. Except the toboggan is really made of whatever two words you can string together, and the hill is made of lava, and at the bottom is more lava made of spikes. This is the phenomenon I have dubbed toblogganing. Stay on the ride for as long as you can, because there's lava spikes at the bottom, so you're gonna die eventually. And falling off hurts too. There's probably a better metaphor than that. But such metaphors wouldn't have lava spikes in them. Bonus, this one also applies to life and love.

7. Riding a dinosaur. It's awesome, but sad. Because dinosaurs are extinct. Possibly because of being domesticated and ridden in to lava spikes. And even if you manage to ride one, Muldoon is going to get jumped by raptors. HEY. BLOGGING CAN BE LIKE RIDING TWO THINGS.

6. Shooting buffalo. Seriously, what are the chances we'll ever run out of those things?

5. Peeing in the pool. You might feel better for a little while, but then the shame sets in once you remember you've made it that much more unpleasant everyone else.

4. Punching a toddler. It's quite easy once you stop with all that 'empathy' and 'human emotion' and 'dignity' those hippies are always on about. Fun, too.

3. Boxing a toddler. And not cardboard boxing (also funny, but remember to poke air-holes. In the box, not the toddler). The difference here is that it's entertaining as hell, institutionalized, but bad for the people watching too. Like laughing at Hitler jokes. EMBEDDED SIMILE.

2. Getting chased by wolves down a Russian freeway.

Annnnd the number one thing that blogging is like...

1. Well, it's trying to find something that only lives in the corner of your eye, or brain. Keep throwing words at it, and you know that one day, you'll find the right ones to pin that thing down (and maybe get a comment or two. Seriously people, at this point this blog has more entries than comments). Really, I guess you could say blogging is like chasing geese.

The Nerd Front

2010-10-18T17:01:00.006+11:00

A certain of my ex-History teachers wrote a game system for 24 Hour RPG day some time ago, and enlisted the help of a few of us in play testing. The system's called Shakespearead, and the gist of it is that everyone plays characters in an as-yet unwritten Shakespeare play, and then you see it through the resolution.

The main thrust of it is that every character is defined by a score in History, Tragedy, Comedy and Romance, as well as through relationships to other characters. Anyway, you can grab the book for free here, and check out the notes from the playtest session I ran here. And if you're very keen, the previous session that the aforementioned teacher ran.

It's a boatload of fun, but mainly because all the guards have the same cockney accent, and no real names.

Deadhead Sticker on a Cadillac

2010-10-17T15:03:00.002+11:00

The quality of flash games these days amazes me. I got caught up playing this last night. You should go try it now. Smack some zombies for me.

This Jelly

2010-10-16T21:46:00.005+11:00

I came across this today, and found it interesting. It's a Wired article talking mostly about how Grant Morrison is bugfuck crazy, and Warren Ellis is awesome, and how Hollywood ain't ready for their shit.

I'm inclined to agree. For those of you who aren't in the know and couldn't be bothered to read that article, Grant Morrison is currently writing about 80% of the books DC is putting out, and he hasn't been free from the influence of psychedelic drugs since some time in the early 70s. Seriously, the guy is crazy. But, if you want to read a comic about batman being set back in time and turned in to a doomsday device that detonates after he fights his was through lovecraftian gribblies to return to the present day, he's your man.

Warren Ellis on the other hand, pretty much just gets angry about shit and then writes and then awesomes. Yeah, he makes it a verb. Cause that be how he rolls. He's best known for Transmetropolitan, a long-running series in which future-Hunter S. Thompson writes a column called I Hate It Here, and generally fucks things up. He's also the mastermind behind Nextwave and his run on the T-bolts is beyond compare. I'm a little bit in love with him. No homo.

But the POINT, the all illusive point, is that their ideas work when they can get a whole bunch of crazy on a page. They work for comics. But trying to make a movie that captures the spirit of their work isn't exactly conducive to blockbuster takings. Not one that would do it right. I think it comes down to reputation. They can get away with a lot in comics, because they've earned it. But try pitching that shit to a movie studio, and keeping it in check until it hits theatres.

That said, I'd still punch a toddler to get Nextwave on the big screen.

Devilry

2010-10-15T11:12:00.002+11:00

Every so often, something comes along that is pretty much the work of Satan. You have a look at it, and the only apropos response is to step back and ask: "What is this devilry?"

Case in point, the new automated Google. Not only does it autocomplete, IT AUTO SEARCHES. GET OUT OF MY HEAD GOOGLE.

Example #2:

Yet to Come

2010-10-14T22:39:00.006+11:00

Today was another wanky thing (and they seem to be for the remainder of the 30 days; all 'hope and dreams and "what happened to you this week?" wankery), so to round out the month of toblogganing, I'll need to pull out all the stops. Out of my ass, because that's where the magic comes from. Ass magic. Yeah.

Okay, I'll stop now. I will say that our trip to the US of A is all booked in and whatnot, and the current plan involves me, a digital video camera, and jokes made at the expense of the American people as I document my travels. So that should be fun.

As it's late (fah, late. I'll be up for hours yet) I'll just round things off with a quote, because I haven't done that for a while:

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
-Stephen Chbosky

Look at that surname. Like a boss.

Back in the Saddle

2010-10-13T22:47:00.003+11:00

I spend most of last night and some of today eradicating a particularly annoying piece if malware from my computer, and I still found time to make an animated gif.

After what I did to this virus, all I can say is pic related.

edit: Goddammit, it doesn't animate. I really can't be fucked at this stage. I no longer feel like Danzig.

Picking Clean the Bones

2010-10-12T09:00:00.004+11:00

Just when I think it's over, they find a way to set me up for disappointment again. Turns out Rhys Ifans has been cast as VILLAIN in S-M:3D. I shouldn't be too surprised, given the baddies have been pretty much the best part of the Spidey Movies. But with this latest development, it's again getting upgraded to Cautiously Optimistic.

Still speculation as to who he'll be playing, but at this stage I really don't mind. It seems strange to use a previous movie villain, but given this is a reboot, he may well be the next Goblin, which I'm cool with. Even if he does look a bit young to be Normie. People are saying Vulture, but unless it's cantankerous old man Vulture, I don't want to see it. Mainly because the joke DOESN'T WORK IF HE'S A YOUNG DUDE. I could see him as Electro also, or (fingers crossed) Shocker. I love Shocker so much, because he sucks so hard. Which means he won't be a big time movie villain, but I can dream.

Of course, knowing Sony, he could be cast as Carnage. So stay tuned for more rage.

Demographics

2010-10-11T18:42:00.004+11:00

I was looking at my blog's visitation stats today, and I discovered that the third most hits I get are from people running Google searches for 'fuck geese'. I was a little thrown by that, but there's a prime target market to tap if I decide to expand in future.

And since I seem to be doing a whole lot of this lately, a Heavy pic. Today's entry was meant to be a YouTube video, and since I'm lazy, that actually fits in quite well. Because this is something everyone should watch (or rewatch).

In case you haven't guessed yet, I really like Heavy Weapons guy. I find him hilarious, and he's my favourite character in TF2. I wish my new laptop had a graphics card. I haven't played TF2 in ages. Anyway, the point of that video was so you were all up to speed, so I could post this. It is heavy speaking in his mother tongue, with subtitles. Turns out, he can outsmart boolet.

I can't help but think I should do this more often. Just pick a theme and run through that for a week. I can't believe I didn't think of that before. It couldn't possibly backfire.

Setting Generation for Fun and Profit

2010-10-10T12:07:00.003+11:00

Generate a setting using: Roman Empire, Theology, Planetary Weaponry

There was no real secret to the great Caesar’s armies. They had won the planets long before any worldly realms, and after conquest so grand, what hope did mortal men have against those that marched under the banners of the eagle?

The truth was that the generals were priests as much as they were master strategists, each well versed in astronomy and name-magicks. The Romans drew power because the living embodiments of their gods were near, and their empire has lasted a thousand years. For who else could point to the stars, and know their gods were watching? Who else could call down the light of Mars to rob their foes of courage, or the glow of Venus to ensnare hearts and minds of the slaves?

Rockets had been flying from Rome for near a century, sending journeypriests and returning with holy relics, pieces of Jupiter and Venus. Pieces of God.

And the gods are angry...

Hit the jump for the generator table. I was going to make another, but the next three aspects I rolled were 'Egypt', 'Ancient Evil' and 'Zombies'. I decided to reroll, and got 'Earth', 'Ancient Evil' and 'Zombies'. I gave up.

Here's how it works:

You roll 3d20, check first dice on table one, second on table two and third on table three. Here ends the easy part.

Now you write it into a working setting...

Table 1
01. Earth
02. Moon
03. Mars
04. Deep Space
05. Alternative Dimension
06. Japan
07. Medieval Europe
08. Vietnam
09. Underwater
10. Subterranean
11. Greece
12. Egypt
13. Roman Empire
14. Asteroid belt
15. Hell
16. Gobi Desert
17. South Pole
18. Himalaya
19. Australia
20. America

Table 2
01. Time travel
02. Civil War
03. Invasion
04. Hive mind
05. Cataclysm
06. Mecha
07. Superpowers
08. Alien technology
09. Deathworld
10. Ancient evil
11. Mythology
12. Theology
13. Ark
14. Exodus
15. Ghosts
16. Dinosaurs
17. Apocalypsis
18. Enviroment Radioactivity
19. Clones
20. Cyborgs

Table 3
01. Time travel
02. Godlike
03. Mutation
04. Extinction
05. Zombies
06. Robots
07. Robot Zombies
08. Unstoppable army
09. Plague
10. Godsend
11. Furry
12. Emperor
13. Chaos
14. Enemy within
15. Pirates
16. Planetary Weaponry
17. Planet Devourer
18. Death Ray
19. Servoarmor
20. Magic

Gathering Steam

2010-10-09T22:58:00.003+11:00

A spell of self-reflection today revealed two things. One; deadlines are sneaky fuckers. I almost let 24 hours slip without a post going up, but I caught myself at the literal 11th hour. Two; I have long since abandoned the list of things I should be posting. By last check, I should have thrown up something that had to do with a hobby and a talent, and today was meant to be a recipe. So I guess you can see why. Although, I do make a mean bolognese sauce (herbs after tomatoes).

Instead, I'll take out all the actual essay stuff from an essay I've written, and post it up. Because I think the point still stands. Keep in mind, it's still fairly wankfully academic, and it's still very long. Hit the jump to read.

Gathering Steam

I have a friend who once remarked that Steam is a gamer’s wet dream, combining the two things they love most: video games and not going outside. It isn’t the most tasteful assessment of Steam’s resounding success, but the online content distribution system developed by the video game company Valve has certainly caused a stir in the gaming community. Commanding an estimated 70% of the online market share, it is one of the best markers of transformation in consumption in an increasingly digital industry. At home I personally can open Valve’s Steam client on my woefully inadequate laptop, and boot up one of the odd dozen computer games listed in my personal library tab. Of these games, I only bought one from a physical store; the rest came to reside on my hard drive through the wondrous alchemy of a credit card number, the highest speed broadband connection my ISP can muster, and a painful seven hour download. I have, in every sense of the word, bought in to Valve’s digital content distribution system.

The popularity of Steam these days sit in stark relief to its genesis in 2006. It’s no great secret that the digital reformation ushered in with it an age of piracy, and the kneejerk reaction from the industry was to erect walls around their content, safeguarding with the iron fist of Digital Rights Management technology. And, true to form, the reaction of customers was to complain, to find workarounds, to subscribe to piracy. It’s a particular problem in the PC gaming industry, which lacks the intuitive content protection offered console games by way of formatted discs or cartridges. This hasn’t resulted in industry stagnation, though. The flexibility and opportunity offered by high-speed internet allows for games themselves to be sold, include, and in many cases, be based entirely around online content.

And that, in a nutshell, how game publishers have managed to claw back that valuable territory from media pirates, all the while sailing under the banner of convenience and innovation. Valve are far from the only culprits, with ‘digital distribution’ and more infamously ‘downloadable content’ the new favourite words of the day. This new environment of online content and capability is a creative and effective means of publishers policing their content. It’s a novel reaction to the vicious response that traditional Digital Rights Management garnered among the consumer base – the increasing prominence and capability of the online in the video gaming industry has changed the way video games are developed and played, and for better or worse these changes allow game developers to regulate content and control piracy far more effectively than traditional models of DRM.

Creators have been scrambling for assurances of control over their intellectual property and the forerunning response has been DRM. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is the blanket term given to the access control technologies employed in order to regulate the use of copyrighted content. Developers must deal with a consumer base that has the intent and the means to pirate content, and the key issue is that DRM often takes extremely unpopular forms that ultimately contradict purpose, punishing the innocent and encouraging the guilty.

It’s a system of paradoxes. The general unpopularity of DRM lies in its biggest irony. It punishes the innocent through limitations on use, where piracy is encouraged by and breaks free of these same policies. In 2004 an attempt to combat the illegal download of Valve’s hugely anticipated Half-Life 2, the game’s DRM required online authentication of purchase through an early version Steam in order to activate it. It was a bold move against piracy by Valve, but with server bottlenecks and extended downtime on release day, consumers were left out to dry as they couldn’t actually authenticate legitimate purchases. Even with the best intentions, Valve’s reach seemed to exceed their grasp. The rift between producer and consumer grew with the 2008 release of Spore. The pirated torrent downloads of Spore hit record levels in the days after its release, in a community response to a system of DRM that required online authentication and limited the number of machines any one copy of the game could be installed on. The backlash was perhaps an overreaction, but the message regarding DRM was clear. At the beginning of 2010, there was still little sign of the industry relenting. Game developer Ubisoft announced a new kind of DRM – one that ran consistent online checks as the game was played to ensure that it was an authorized copy. Tim Edwards, covering the announcement for PC Gamer magazine, awarded it the delicious portmanteau “DRMageddon”. If you failed to make a check with the Ubisoft servers, you could no longer save progress.

While these are admittedly worst-case scenarios, they do show the practical problems with DRM. These heavy handed and, more importantly, unpopular modes of rights protection are a less attractive option than piracy, and it’s a buyer’s market.

Look at it in terms of flow. It’s not the physicality of a product that matters, it’s the content. Protection of digital content comes down to flow of information. Digitization of content has caused a remarkable change in how information can travel, and we live in a copy-paste culture. Previously, content and packaging were so closely bound as to not make digital distribution an issue. Games came on cartridges, and you bought them from stores. Content came pretty much exclusively in the packaging that was offered by a publisher. DRM operates on the principle that content can be protected, but now that the content comes in a new, easier to access package, to protect it means to regulate how and where consumers can access this content.

If we return for a moment to our examples from earlier, the idea of controlling flow becomes evident. Half-Life 2 forced customers to authenticate purchase, and Valve bottlenecked their own servers by forcing a flow they couldn’t cope with. But the intent behind it was to have every person playing the game prove that they were playing a bought and paid for copy of it. That all access to this content was legitimate, verified by the flow through their servers. Spore, for all its bluster, lost out to the unregulated, independent (and while we play the synonym game, illegal) flow, because its own strictures on access to content were so pervasive. It was pirated so extensively partly as a protest against the heavily restricted flow of access it offered legitimately, partly because of the complete ease of access that piracy offered in comparison. Even Ubisoft’s tremendously dramatic announcement of ongoing authentication checks relies on a constant, simultaneous flow of information from user to server in order to legitimize and grant access to the game’s content. It limits freedom of flow in an attempt to leave only publisher-regulated access standing. It’s really the same reason that the technical limitations of the past served as a deterrent – the technological capabilities at large didn’t accommodate an unregulated flow of information, so digital distribution wasn’t an option for either developers or pirates. It was too difficult, so ease of access demanded that the publishers retained the final word on distribution.

In practice this DRM is a licensing system that allows content providers to control user, but it fails to address the heart of piracy. At best, it forces people who buy the game legitimately to prove that they have bought the game legitimately, and makes piracy more difficult by way of copying the content, but never impossible. It’s because all the traditional modes of DRM tend to be tacked on.

Things like online multiplayer gaming, digital distribution, additional downloadable content (DLC), subscription-based games and cloud saving make legitimate purchasing from publishers a more attractive option, and they are integrated methods of publisher-consumer flow. It justifies their right to distribute content because it becomes a more attractive option to consumers. And this is the way that modern gaming succeeds in meeting customers halfway.

The new technological capabilities may not be labeled as DRM in the strictest sense, but they are developments that serve to control flow, regulate access and encourage consumer legitimacy - which is a fair step for the industry to take. History has taught developers that excessive strictures placed on content won’t serve as the best protection against piracy. It’s not a level playing field if DRM tries to brute-force the protection of content, but the games themselves have changed to make legitimate consumption an integral part of the experience.

Considering this logically, an ingrained method of rights management, rather than an addendum to the content itself, would be a far safer method of content protection. Indeed content protected by DRM is still pirated without a monumental amount of difficulty because the protection can be removed from the content easily - any ideal fully functional and capable DRM system should be so intrinsic as to make removal impossible, rather than technologically difficult. Modern video games and distribution models are trending towards the quintessentially online, and moving towards this goal.

Consider the success of such games as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, which relies on monthly subscription payments and is played exclusively online on Blizzard’s own servers. The flow of users converge on Blizzard’s official servers to experience the content, and pay a monthly fee for the privelige. Contrast this to Ubisoft’s aforementioned call for constant verification. Since Blizzard’s game is entirely online and contained on private servers, control of flow is almost a non-issue and the constant verification of purchase and identity is native to the format. The only way to access the game illegitimately is to play over a pirate server, making it exponentially more difficult to stray from Blizzard’s channels of access. Even games that don’t rely on subscription, but heavily employ online content borrow the same design. You play online, so it’s easier to verify user access. While this too is similar to Ubisoft’s model, the game itself is using an internet connection, rather than demanding one, a subtle difference that makes the verification palatable. The difference is experience of content.

A similar statement could be made about Steam, pioneers in the area. The platform doesn’t just offer online purchasing (even though it does offer games at lower prices than traditional retailers), a convenience in its own right, but built-in authentication tied to user accounts (doing away with the need for traditional DRM authenticators), clients and servers with their games allowing online multiplayer and cloud saving (the ability to save and load progress in a game online, rather than locally), making their online games an experience far more attractive to gamers than the content of the game alone. While not alone in these developments, they’ve certainly been the best in turning these innovations toward protecting content and profits.

Games have changed. With the centrality of the internet in modern culture, a transformation was inevitable. But when harnessing online content so perfectly undermines much of the impetus of piracy, the transformations can’t be taken at face value. Words like innovation and evolution get thrown around a lot, but these new, largely online games package and sell an experience that pirates find it hard to replicate whether through server support, downloadable content or ease of distribution.

Online purchasing of games is on the rise, and the restoration of broadcast channels in distribution has helped to place control of content back with the publishers. There has been a clear shift in the design and marketing of modern video games. While the implementation of online content may not have been an intentional response to the failures of traditional DRM models, they nonetheless serve as a novel method of protecting content by controlling user flow. Whether this is a boon for the industry, or will cause a sink into over reliance on online game mechanics in a bid to totally eliminate piracy is not for this essay to say. All that’s clear is that the change is here. The games these days may be crooked but as the old conman Canada Bill Williams would say, they’re the only games in town.

Switch to Kryptonite

2010-10-08T17:26:00.004+11:00

I had a conversation a while back about Nic Cage. I don't mind the guy. I can forgive what he did to Ghost Rider, and I even like him in a lot of stuff. He was great in Kick Ass, and he gave National Treasure a kind of 'yeah, whatevs' charm that makes the movie watchable. He's a huge comic fan to boot.

But the person I was talking to didn't care for Mister Cage. They thought he was crap, and his presence was the surest way of killing any film. I offered up the following in response: "It's not his fault people keep casting him in awful movies".

I wasn't entirely serious at the time, but he's a nice guy, and he seems to have a passion for what he does. He may not be the best actor, but I get the sense he always does his best anyway. And that's admirable.

The point is today I stumbled across this. My stomach still hurts from laughing.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The Truth Hurts

2010-10-07T13:10:00.006+11:00

Emma Stone's been cast in the Spider-Man reboot. As Gwen Stacy. When I first heard it was Gwen and not MJ in the movie, I was excited. Mainly because there was the possibility of a bridgesnap. I've always liked her more than MJ, Sins Past notwithstanding. But Spider-Man Blue was good, and Gwen's been awesome in Spectacular and Ultimate. Still a shame she didn't come back with One More Day (because that makes NO sense given the context of the retcon).

I did mention earlier that my official stance was Cautiously Optimistic, but I think it's getting downgraded to Fuck You Sony. I know it doesn't seem like much, but poor casting (and the scripting and the directing) really weakened the first three movies to the point that even Simmons and Molina couldn't save them. And Stone, for all she has going for her, will find it hard to pull of Gwen Stacy. Why she isn't in it as MJ I have no idea, but that's Sony for you.

I have faith in Marc Webb, and Andrew Garfield is looking good as Peter... but Sony seems to be phoning a lot of it in, keeping the same logo for a reboot and churning it out in 3D. But hey, S-M:3 made 300 million. So what do I know?

Even the awesomeness of Spideytux cannot calm me. But more to the point...

Bottom of the Order

2010-10-06T21:27:00.001+11:00

Today was another 'whatever your want'. And since I'm tired, check out my new Google Chrome skin. Batter up.

Bumps in the Night

2010-10-05T17:51:00.003+11:00

Day 17: Some kind of artwork. I was planning on drawing something myself, but when I sat down at the computer to scan it in, I discovered that the power button wasn't working and the tower was missing a side panel. It didn't turn on.

So instead, this is Nighthawks. You've probably seen it before. I do like Edward Hopper, especially his couples paintings. I remember a while ago I was talking about Nighthawks, and the thing I really liked about it (and Hopper in general) was the odd contrast of isolation and solidarity, cold fluorescence that always seemed to keep the dark at bay. Turns out Hopper said that the painting had more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness.

I can't imagine why I love it so.

As a bonus, predators in the night:

Chasingfreude

2010-10-04T16:58:00.004+11:00

Today presented a unique challenge. I had to list a 'song that makes me cry (or very nearly)', and you'd think I'd be swimming in options. It seems that the bands I listen to all have some kind of depressing twinge to them, playing off an anthemic ennui that secured them top spots in my most played.

But they don't make me sad. Downer endings make me happy. Songs that should, for all intents and purposes, be sad, make me really, really happy. Like I said, take the bleak world for what it is, and make it beautiful.

There is one song in particular though, that takes the title of MOST DEPRESSING SONG I HAVE EVER HEARD. It's not particularly anthemic, but god damn if there shouldn't be urban legends about people killing themselves after listening to it. So listen to one, and check out this thing that lets you see forever.

A song:

Also, this is entry #16. Who'd've thought I'd make it past halfway?

All My Tears

2010-10-03T17:21:00.002+11:00

Today was a fanfic, so there was really only ever one thing worth posting. This.

I'm not sure what it is about fanfic, but some crimes against the mother tongue should be punishable by death. Or maybe not death, but certainly ridicule and a ban on all procreation.

I do try my best to write, and I am (I think) very critical of myself. I agonize over sentences a lot of the time. I don't bother with things until they reach a certain level of quality (again, I think). So in a way I envy people who can word-vomit on to the internet. And who become internet famous because of it. But in another, more accurate way, I'm glad I expect more of myself. Read a little of that and tell me I'm wrong.

My Immortal is truly the endurance event of bad fanfic, because it reaches a certain point where the hilarity of it is outweighed by the fact it is making you dumber. I just tried to spell that 'dummer'. So there. It's science.

So Much Happier Here

2010-10-02T12:06:00.001+10:00

Today was a non fiction book. Follow that link. That is all.

Pockets

2010-10-01T16:00:00.005+10:00

Today was a fictional book. So instead of writing about how awesome the Dresden Files is, I decided to throw out the opening to a story I'm working on.

It's a little old fashioned in style, but it's fun to write. And in a strange twist that sets it as the complete opposite of most things I write, I know how it ends. But Christ knows how I'll get it there. I've also noticed I really do like titles beginning with the word 'The'. It seems a good place to begin.

And Lepidus means charming and witty. Enjoy.

The Pockets Man

Lepidus was a travelling salesman, yet for a number of years neither he nor cart had moved and he retained little claim to the title. I knew that he was older than the oldest of us by decades, but his lined face and crooked smile sagged like hessian could not hide the defiant youth of his eyes, coloured the liveliest, truest green I have ever seen. It was through Lepidus we all came to know each other, hangers-on and vagabonds and wanderers though we were.

“For there comes a time,” he would tell us all in turn, “when every vagabond or wanderer can stop running, or stop chasing,” and whether it was Lepidus himself or merely the hand of fate that reached down and bade us sit, we all of us felt the call to stay.

It was in this manner that what was once a lone cart became a market, abandoned stalls and wagons bound together with rope, chain and time. I used to carry preserves in an old covered wagon, and sometimes I still dream of the music played on the glass jars by the rickety wheels and unrefined roads. The jars fell silent, and grew dusty, and like the goods each of us stocked when we first arrived, were soon traded or sold or stolen. It was by happy chance our shelves were never empty though, a few people brought us wares that they lacked the means or time to sell themselves. Knowledge of us spread, and we were in many ways saved by it. I had no delusions of our acumen; we owed the little success we had to our novelty. People would come to see our ramshackle enterprise and trade with the travelling salesmen who never moved. I was too grateful for the custom to ponder the irony.

The autumn was still young when the Pockets Man came, and the night was still warm. I had seen his like – or so I thought – before, magicians, hustlers, who were men of two great talents. They would, for a while help people believe, and they would, soon after, help the same folk part with coin. Deaf to the complains of some of the others, Lepidus welcomed him to stay, for all travelers were welcome at the market.

We called him the Pockets Man, though not to his face, for the coat he wore. It was an old trick, he taught us, to keep coins and rings and kerchiefs and the like secreted in the many pockets adorning his coat. The claim was that the coat indeed contained everything, and he would produce these items as asked, as if by sorcery. He may well have been a hustler like the rest of his kind, but he was the worst sort. For I came to learn that he had never once lied.

Involuntary Detox

2010-09-30T13:09:00.004+10:00

My access to boiling water has become limited of late and, as a result, coffee is hard to come by. I'm not quite at the eating-grounds-raw stage, but I can feel the edge. The shakes, for once, have nothing to do with excess consumption of caffeine.

Well, they probably do have to do with my caffeine intake. Just not as directly as usual. Suppose this is what happens when you reach a point when your blood stream is pretty much half coffee.

Anyway, I'm surprised with how long I've managed to keep this month long thing going. I'm around about half way (day 12, by my check), and I've either ignored crappy things on the list or copped out for a few of the entries, but really. For me this is a big step forward. A big, narrow-world-striding, colossal step. Day 12 is another whatever tickles your fancy entry. But I promise, it won't all be me complaining about coffee accessibility and telling you things you could work out for yourself. Unless you're in to that. In which case, stop ready now and be on your merry way. You got what you came for.

Damn, some people are still reading. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? I'M DECAFFEINATED! IT'S NOT A GOOD LOOK FOR ME!

Okay, time to ass pull. I saw Easy A last night. Apart from being a veritable smorgasbord of 'why are people in things', it wasn't terrible. It was almost exactly okay. Not bad, but not particularly fantastic. It was at (very few) times, absolutely hilarious:

SOME GUY: Is there an Olive here?
OLIVE'S MOTHER: There's a whole jar of them in the fridge.

But I feel carefully crafted puns and references to Mark Twain were lost on the audience, who seemed to find two men spooning to be the height of comedy. Even when there were fat kids throwing ice cream cones at cars. For no reason.

Like I said, it did have its moments, but as a whole it just seemed rather confused. Neither the SUPER RELIGIOUS BITCH played by a remarkably puffy Amanda Bynes, or the CHARMING LOVE INTEREST, played by the dude from Gossip Girl, were really in it much, so I didn't exactly care about either of them. Except when they were important, and then I really didn't care. Same with WISE AND COOL TEACHER. HUMOUROUSLY INAPPROPIATE PARENTS, on the other hand, just got annoying. Really annoying. Every scene they were in had jokes that ran about half a minute too long.

Maybe billing the movie as a comedy was a mistake, but not making it one definitely was. It just seemed that with so many plot twists the script got very confused with itself and what it was trying to do.

Best part of the movie is the Quiznos guy's one liner. It really has to be heard to be believed.

But that's just me, overthinking movies made for teenaged girls.

Troll Bait

2010-09-29T22:56:00.002+10:00

A short one today, given I have nothing interesting going on. Sue me, you got a story yesterday. Watch this is the meantime; Norway's answer to D9.

Quotable

2010-09-28T09:48:00.006+10:00

Tangentially related to writing on the train:

"Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It's that easy."
-Neil Gaiman

I went to the place where all the words seem to live this morning. I'd like to live there, or at least visit more regularly.

The Fear Of Large Objects

2010-09-28T08:48:00.007+10:00

I should have been reading on the train on the way in to work this morning. So true to form, I wasn't. I was writing. Which, when it's happening right, is better than coffee. When it's happening right. Which is rarely. Nevertheless, I managed to pump out a full short story in the 30-odd minutes I was on the train. And truer to form, I'm going to type it up and blog at work rather than do anything I should be doing.

Hit the jump to read.

The Fear of Large Objects

They say you only use something like 10% of your brain at any given time. It’s horseshit, but I can see the truth in it, given a particular set of circumstances. See, a fraction of my brain, call it 10%, was rational enough to label it. Megalophobia. The fear of large objects. Circumscribe the preternatural dread that sets in. But only a fraction. For the other 90% the message firing on all cylinders was oh fuck move you fucker oh god oh fuck what the fuck is it move move move oh just please god I just want to live please god fuck. And that little ditty was being replayed like the singer was midway through blowing the DJ.

I’ve always been fine with the astronomical scale of objects in space. I’m not about to wet myself looking up at the moon. It’s irrational. There are, I figure, two main differences that apply. Firstly, the moon doesn’t really move. Well, it moves, but it’s that orbit bullshit. It’s not real. It’s not like it’s an erratic pinball across the night sky. It’s a pattern, there’s slow logic and you can wrap your head around it. It listens to things like gravity, rather than regarding it as mere suggestion. The second reason, and honestly I’m coming to understand that this one is far more compelling, The moon is really fucking far away.

I’m not sure thinking about it helps. Which really comes as a blow, trust me. I made a career out of over thinking. And I know things. I know the square to cubed rule that stops giant ants existing. They breathe through their skin, so once they hit a certain size there isn’t enough skin in the skin-to-gooey-bits ratio to keep them going. I know enough about bone density and musculature to say with reasonable authority that mammals have a sensible upper limit. Christ, at this point I’ll even cop to the 60-foot limit imposed by Pym particles.

This brings me to the next issue. Whenever humanity is faced by something unknowable, reason has been our sword and our shield. Doesn’t need to be much, just enough to trivialize something. Plague carried by rats. Domestic abuse in 30% of homes. Six million dead. Birth defects on the rise. We turn things in to words because words don’t mean shit. Try speaking the Queen’s to a jungle cat, see where that gets you. Shit, try speaking it to a goat farmer or whatever the shit in Nobodycaresistan. Words don’t mean anything, and using them makes us the smartest cookies in the jar. What power does something have if we can attach words to it? Same reason we name hurricanes. It’s the oldest magic, from way back when the Word was with God and the Word was God. Serious, go through the bible and see how often things get names or renamed. Words, man. I’m telling you. That’s the problem with it. Or the third problem with it. All the words you want, libraries full of them, but there’s no naming it. There’s no explaining. Megalophobia. Doesn’t really mean anything, anyway.

As you may have surmised from my carefully measured blasphemy and near-exclusive use of Judeo-Christian profanity, I don’t believe in God. Didn’t. Don’t, won’t, can’t. I lose track. Back- back in the days before I called myself a born-again atheist. There is no God, cut and dry. That was before. Now, after it, I’m thinking agnosticism has a lot to be said for it. Means that if there’s a God, you have no knowledge of him. It. Reason number four. What they never tell you about God is that God is real. God is come, or something like it. Comparison. Simile. Metaphor. I have seen God, seen God with my eyes and brain and soul. Seen God, and I do not know God. And oh God please don’t let me die.

Graffito

2010-09-27T15:11:00.003+10:00

I don't really take pictures. Unless they're the banner for this blog. Or something. I'm just not a very photo-takery person. Even at events, I'm not one to schlep a camera along and go snap-happy. I just don't do it. I prefer to be there, and to remember what I can the next day. Guess I'm the kind of person who'd take the thousand words.

So that little quirk made today hard. Because it was to show a photo I took. Like I said, the topics are getting worse in a hurry. So I could go out and take a photo, but that really isn't my style.

After a brief respite in which I attempted to get my phone's bluetooth to sync up with my laptop (which ultimately ended in my defeat), I will continue to be the cop out. See, the one thing I do go out of my way to photograph is hilarious graffiti.

The problem with this is that it's more often than not in bathrooms, where liberal use of camera phones tends to be frowned upon. I can't help it. There's just some strange compulsion I feel to document people's defacement of public property. Especially when it's hilarious. None of this artistic shit or tagging. One liners and conversation. Where it's at.

Have a random picture for now, and once uni break is over, I promise, you will have graffiti the likes of which you have never seen, unless you use the men's on the bottom floor of Manning Bar.

My Eyes Are Sweaty

2010-09-26T16:54:00.006+10:00

It's no real secret I'm a fan of the bad end. If something decides to go bitter sweet or depressing in the closing minutes, so much the better.

Pretty sure it says something about me that I prefer those soul-crushing endings to anything that winds up all sunshine and roses, but those are the things that resonate. I suppose it's because I hold that the world, for the most part, sucks so when someone agrees, and can show people it sucks in a beautiful way, I can respect that.

And so after a little thinking, I found today's 'picture that makes me sad'.

It's a bit of a cheat, given that it's a cover, but Silver Surfer Requiem is really great. You wouldn't think that any comic about a shiny dude who rode an intergalactic surfboard could ever tug at the heartstrings, but Straczynski finds a way. It's only four issues long, and not part of Marvel's continuity at large (go figure), but very worth the read. If only because it borrows from Romeo and Juliet and makes it readable.

It's probably an issue that only a comic reader would have, but saying that this story arc isn't canonical is a bit of a downer in itself. But then Marvel don't really make the best decisions when it comes to continuity anyhow.

Now people, go go post your favourite downer endings! Keep in mind I won't be held responsible for any bodily harm that comes to you if you follow that link.

A Pretention of Entries

2010-09-25T16:12:00.004+10:00

Today was a picture that makes me happy. And this makes me happy, because collective nouns are so very awesome. Click to make it readable, original here.

Cloudy With A Chance

2010-09-24T00:00:00.001+10:00

Today, I was granted a surprising amount of leeway, and told to blog about 'whatever you fancy'. It's nice of the list to be so understanding. Especially because I've read ahead a little and there's some rubbish on there that will no doubt be pissed off in favour of more interesting things.

So anyway, I played around with Wordle. It's a generator tool that makes tag clouds. For those of you who have faced Web 2.0 with fingers in ears and heads in sand, a tag cloud is an analysis of text that pulls the most frequent words from something and ranks the frequency through size. And if you play with this generator, they get terribly pretty.

The above is from the past 50 posts or so (need to click for legibility's sake), and it goes to show what words I like most. I'm sure it has the potential to be very Freudian, but you know what they say - with that guy it's always one thing or a mother.

And below, I decided to push my laptop's clipboard to the utmost and do the same to the Bible. Not that I'm drawing comparisons.

Other People's Words

2010-09-23T11:49:00.004+10:00

I think a brief entry is in order today, after the loquaciousness I was struck with yesterday. The thingummy for today was my favourite quote. Since I don't really have a favourite quote, and since I've posted a bunch up here before, I will be lazy.

I flicked through my notebook where, among other things, I write down quotes that I like. Like this one:

Sir, I will forgive any and all of your blunders and misdeeds, but I will never forgive you for not knowing how to fly.
-Eliseo Subiela

Must have something against non-pilots. Also, as a bonus, this one from Lord Byron:

The king times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I forsee it.

That got included, because I'd quite taken with the phrase "The King Times", and I'm working it into a short story. Hopefully. And if you're real lucky, it'll get posted before the month is out. If your luck is on par with mine, you'll see it some time before 2020.

In the meanwhile, go and read this. Thanks to Mr. Montuori.

Also, I keep forgetting to say this, but post your favourites of the day in the comments, readership! Forced enthusiasm!

Eggs for Five Cents

2010-09-22T12:23:00.009+10:00

I missed out on it yesterday, and I know how much that disappoints you all. So here goes -

DAWN OF THE FOURTH DAY

Twenty-six Days Remain

Now, the topic for this fine day's festivities was "Your favo(u)rite book". I could write quite extensively on the wondrous piece of fiction immediately to the left. I could wax lyrical about what is both the funniest and saddest thing I have ever read, its bitterness and hopefulness, or put up evidence for one of the most scathing indictments of the 20th Century.

That last bit makes me sad in a way, because I can't help but feel it was a work of its time, and as we creep further and further in to the digital age of the 21st Century, it's getting buried under mountains of ones and zeroes.

That's enough talking about a book I wasn't going to talk about. Firstly, it's enough to say it's my favourite book and there's not much I could tell that you couldn't read for yourself. Go read it. Secondly, that bit about the digital age gives me a neat segue. Thirdly, I'm a wiseass, so my real answer is below.

My favourite books are books. I had the chance to play with an e-reader yesterday. I know, cutting edge chappy like me, only just giving one a go? It was a Sony something or other, anolder generation model. Pretty sure it's the one you can see below. I had to read an unsolicited manuscript at work, and they all got stored on this for convenience. Hit the jump to read an (admittedly lengthy) commentary. Back in form, people.

That was about the sum of it. People didn't want to read through 200, 300 page manuscripts on a computer screen, and printing them at this stage of the operation would be really wasteful. So, they get done up in finest e-ink.

The technology was impressive, I'll give it that. Even for an older model, the contrast in the display was quite good, and I never had trouble with it. That said, I do routinely read in moving cars at night, so take such assessments with a grain of salt.

From what I could tell, there were a good hundred or so titles on here, all easy enough to access through a line of menu buttons on the side. It was easy enough to read it, hitting one of three different buttons to turn the page. Since I was reading something in a .doc format, not a .epub (there is a difference, apparently - in load times, mostly) there was a slight delay when I first turned the page, where the colours would be inverted before it resolved to be a page of text. A little annoying, especially mid sentence, but for the sake of a split second I wouldn't condemn it just yet.

I played around with the zoom function, because that's what I do. I press buttons first and read manuals later. It was cool, and I'm sure handy for a great number of people who need larger type. Or for people sharing a device with different tastes, and so on. Of course, I enlarged it, was treated to another 2 minute-ish document reload, and I found myself with no was to re-ensmallinate the type. So I was turning pages more often, and met with that delightful black screen every time. But again, that was more my fault that the device's. It's not like people would zoom right in and use the larger ty- Wait, never mind.

The big draw is convenience. It was a weighty, pleather cased bastard of a device, very similar to a hardback of a similar size. But as I mentioned, it had a hundred books on it, and it wasn't near full. More like half-empty. Boom tish.

I jest, but it is an appealing thought, carrying a library around with you wherever you go. And for the travel-inclined, more power to you. Gone are the days of airport paperbacks, since all you need is a Kindle, a 3G connection and your friend Amazon.

I do think something like this demands a road-test more intensive than 'reading for a couple of hours in the office', but my gut is something I like to trust. We've been together for so long. See, I may have thousands upon thousands of books stored on it. But they aren't books, and I'd know that. They're the content, and as much as I'd hate to admit it, I judged by the cover. It wasn't any big thing, as I was caught in the flow of reading, you learnt the new pattern and I barely noticed the load screen after a while.

What I did notice was the tactile, the physical. I was always conscious I was holding something made of stainless steel, pressing a button. When I wanted to track back a few pages and see what a character had said at one stage, I had to go page by page. Similarly, part of my reading ritual is that I'll flick through to the end of a chapter, know how long until I can put the book down for a bit - stopping mid chapter is something I consider a cardinal sin. But I'd have to go through page by page, both ways.

The reader wasn't as comfortable to hold as a book. Not by any means, but again, earlier generation means bigger. Which means I should really just be talking about the concept and the programming. It's all at once elegant and clumsy, and falls in to the greatest trap it could engineer for itself. It's trying to be a book and trying to be better than a book. I can't help but feel there was a reason that the printed word seemed to buck the digital trend for so long, and that's because of the experience that books offer up beyond the words themselves.

I came home yesterday with two paperbacks. I can't wait to read them.

Morning Benders

2010-09-21T08:37:00.004+10:00

I find myself at work early, and at this ungodly, pre-10am, pre-caffeine hour I decided to blog. Perhaps this is a mistake, given that all my usual snark has been dulled by that naughty bean we call coffee.

Nevertheless, a promise is a promise. The next thing that the almighty list of stuff would have me talk about is my favourite TV show. The problem is I don't have just one favourite, as such.

Instead, I think I'll take time out of my busy morning to talk about why I love The Inbetweeners. Mainly because my morning isn't that busy, and at this time of day the thought of a new epsiode tonight is really all that's keeping me from going through caffeine withdrawal.

But I digress. Continually. The Inbetweeners. It's vile, offensive sludge and I wouldn't have it any other way. It could be described as a group of high school boys in Britain and their wacky hijinx (good god, look at all those dots in a row), although that would be missing out on all the vuglarity, rapid-fire insults, and creative synonyms for vagina. It is to me what Skins is to people who had interesting adolescent years. Very similar to what growing up was like. But in England. With accents. And possibly less swearing.

You can watch the earlier episodes here, on Youtube. For free. I hate it when people italicize for emphasis. Or at least when they do it unironically.

Speaking of irony and the poorest taste possible, go and check out Hipster Hitler too. Deutschbag.

Everybody Draw Now

2010-09-20T21:11:00.002+10:00

Not one of the 30 posts, but I couldn't resist. Check this out. Now, you see that thing a good 3 feet about their heads? Yeah, that's the point. For those of you too lazy to click a link, I can only thank you for making CG your homepage.

Molly Norris, the woman who organized Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, had a fatwa put on her. For those of you who don't get the first part, watch this.

Comedy Central censored the image of Mohammed in that episode's broadcast. For those of you who don't get the second part:

DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY

2010-09-20T11:37:00.002+10:00

Twenty-eight days remain

The next item on the challenge list was to post my favourite movie. I've already done that so I could just stop here. Kind of a cop out, I know.

But I wouldn't do that to you, imaginary reader. I may go months on end without posting anything, but to cheap out when I do? Never.

Instead, I'll post this - and say that my official stance on the Spider-Man reboot is Cautiously Optimistic.

Then, I will post this, and say Cluedo/Minesweeper hybrids have never had it so good. Just make sure to drop a horrendous pun and shout 'VERILYYYYYYY' when you solve the crime.

Lastly, this. I'm not entirely sure what to think of it, except that my f5 key hates it with a passion.

The Rise and Fall of Chasing Geese

2010-09-19T23:09:00.000+10:00

I have it on good authority that blogging is a broadcats medium. Which has something to do with spelling things incorrectly and wide felines.

It is also, I am told, a broadcast medium. If you stop pumping out that content, folks are gonna stop listening to what you have to say. Or, they would do if they ever started.

Now, I'm well aware that inactivity is one of those things that you can't really make up for. So if you are someone who checks this blog hourly, and weeps when you find that it hasn't been updated, I'm sorry. If you leave me your name and address, I will send you a heartfelt apology and a coupon good for one hug. Try me on that one.

There's also this thing that the folks do over on tumblr, where they post something off of list every day for 30 days. Now, it's much easier than blogging, I'm sure. And, really, I couldn't make it through dinosaur week. But since I love lying to you all so much, I'll give it (or something very nearly like it) a go.

DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY

Twenty-Nine Days remain

I'm meant to post my favourite song. Which is difficult, since most people who read this will know that it's Wonderwall. And everyone who doesn't won't care. So instead, I'll post a song I've been listening to quite a bit lately, even if it is off an album that my sister so lovingly assessed as "Twilight-sounding crap".

The aforementioned conversation with my darling sister also brooked another thing I love in music. Male/Female harmonies. Have a listen, and check back soon. I hope.

What Is An Infinite Jest Anyway?

2010-07-16T10:37:00.002+10:00

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Some kind of really long joke, I'm guessing. I did this a bunch of times, but Davey came up about 80% of the time. So it's science.

And with regard to dinosaur week, I told you all I'd most likely not keep to the plan. So I didn't lie, so much as act like a reverse double anti-liar. Which is almost the truth.

Bangs & Whimpers

2010-06-28T17:32:00.005+10:00

For all of you out there who have some time that needs wasting, go play this. I liked it.

It's a puzzle game of sorts, where you really just clicks things randomly to make more things to click so you can keep clicking. But the quotes you get upon creation are fun, and it's a decent way to spend a half an hour on a slow afternoon. And yes, you can make dinosaurs.

What Time We Have

2010-06-27T17:34:00.003+10:00

Just a quick one, as I find myself betwixt playing Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper and watching the season finale of Doctor Who. It's proving to be a good day.

I'm copping out a little, given that I've already done a Quote of the Week this week, but it's Sunday, which is when I'd like to do them normally.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."

-Albert Einstein

A Man Of My Word

2010-06-26T23:17:00.011+10:00

And you thought I wouldn't make it today, reader. Shame on you. Of course, judging by my traffic of late, you don't exist, and this is all really just a tiny step above talking to myself. In public. But a promise is a promise, even if it's one that I probably won't wind up keeping.

And since it's the eleventh hour, and I really don't have much else to say, I've decided to finally post my award winning story from a few months back. Of course, I've just realized that it's on my other computer. Let's call this intermission.

Since I'm a genius (or lazy, but I really prefer genius), I decided to trawl through my sent emails, and I found a copy. Hit the link at the top to read the story that makes today's image a little more relevant.

The Famous Dead

As dawn crept over the rooftops and flooded the street, the pale morning light touched the heads and the shoulders of the famous dead. They stood single file, the line beginning somewhere over one horizon and ending past the other. There were a few nervous smiles towards the front of the queue because they, most of all, knew. Today was their day.

Gerald Hobbes died twelve years ago and stood, as far as he could tell, in the front half of the line. Although he might not be able to see the front of the line, he couldn’t see the end of it either.

“Nice, early sunrise this year.” There were two suits up ahead checking gold watches and adjusting ties. By the looks of the business shirts and suspenders, Gerald guessed the pair of them had died at least a decade ago.

“This is the year, Mikey. Our year.” Suit number two held up his hand for a high five. Gerald guessed again. Two decades ago.

Everyone except those at the very back of the line felt the same every year when the sun rose. They all shared the same small spark of hope that this year would be their year, their chance. But the anticipation that knotted his stomach was a new beast entirely. Scoff as he did at the Wall Street bluster, Gerald could feel it too. This is the year.

The suits stopped mid sentence and turned to face the front. Could they actually see the stage? Gerald felt the knot tighten. The other whispers flitting through the crowd were silenced as the sound of footsteps on rickety stairs echoed down the street.

The voice that spoke was old, the words rueful and proper. Colours faded in to old photograph sepia and shop signs became peeling gilded titling over thick, dusty windows. Gerald looked at a nearby storefront, now an old general store, proudly proclaiming that it was Est. 1876. As the sad voice washed over him, he couldn’t help but wonder how many years the man had been waiting to tell his story.

The door of the shop opened to a tinkling bell, and Gerald caught sight of the ghostly outline of a woman when the man finished his story and she faded away completely. There was a smattering of applause, the sound of feet on stairs, and the next person began.

Everyone took a step forward and then something wonderful happened. Gerald saw the stage. He’d only seen it once before, unadorned and unassuming, but that was almost at sunset. It wasn’t close by any means, but it was only the second person of the day. As the day progressed and the chatter began to start back up, Gerald started counting. He didn’t get very far.

“Hobbles!” someone shouted. It was Will, the only person in the line Gerald had known when he was alive. “Haven’t seen you about for a few years.”

“Hey man, no cuts.” Thirty-odd safety pins with a face underneath did their best to frown at Will.

“Yeah, because no one’s ever cut the line before,” Will sneered, turning his back on the punk. “C’mon, Hobbles, I got shafted this year. I could actually see where it finished after being right up front last time.”

“Sorry Will, but that’s how it goes. Maybe next year.” Gerald continued to face the front, refusing to make eye contact.

“Seriously? Fine. The no-hopers up the back caught sight of a bar a few speaker’s back, there’s a decent party happening. Let’s-” Will stopped mid sentence, following Gerald’s gaze down to the stage. “You think this is it, don’t you?” He waved a hand dismissively.

“Well then why do you want to cut?”

It took Will a few seconds to recover, but true to form he wound up shaking his head with a sheepish grin. “Okay, so it could happen today. Just let me cut then, no big deal.” Uninvited, he continued to stand next to Gerald and soon Gerald’s forced smile was the only evidence Will hadn’t been there all along.

The day marched on and the stage grew closer and closer, until Gerald could almost reach out and touch it. And now, third in line, Gerald didn’t know quite what to feel.

“It’s really right there.” Will was astounded. “I never thought I’d see it this close, twelve years and it’s right there.”

A little girl, no more than seven, climbed up the steps and told a nonsense story about a talking sunflower and a family of bees.

Will kept talking. “Listen, you aren’t still sore about- about what happened are you? It was twelve years ago.”

Gerald didn’t respond immediately. “Time works a little differently when you only get one day a year, Will.”

The little girl’s story took a twist. Suddenly the family of bees, who, she assured everyone, would love each other forever, all started to die.

“But you know it wasn’t my fault. That truck driver, he swerved. I told you.”

“I remember.” Gerald seemed intently focused on a corner store up ahead that was now called That Place Where Mummy Bought Me My New Shoes.

The little girl bowed her pigtailed head as she finished talking, a vague confusion in her eyes. The next person to speak whispered something in her ear. Then she hopped off the stage and skipped off in the orange afternoon.

And then Will and Gerald found themselves at the head of the queue, with what was left of the day wilting fast. Gerald looked at Will, for the first time in a long time, day or years, seeing past the goofy smile, and knew why Will wanted to find him today.

Gerald took a half a step back, and inclined his head towards the stage. Will looked back with uncertainty.

“Will, please. You go. It’s okay,” Gerald said softly. The crowd behind them was starting to get impatient as the orange sun sank ever lower in the west.

“You’re- you’re sure? But you let me cut-” Will asked.

Gerald nodded and smiled. “I’m not done yet. Go, quickly.”

“I’ll do it fast, you might-“

“It doesn’t work like that and you know it.” Gerald pushed him towards the steps. “Quickly,” he repeated.

Hesitantly, Will climbed the steps and told a story. The streetlights flickered on as he began. In his story there were two friends in a car at night, driving far too fast. And there was a semitrailer, coasting in the opposite direction.

Those listening heard sounds off in the distance: the blaring roar of the truck’s horn and the panicked squealing of tires and the brutal crunch of the inevitable collision.

“I was driving that night,” Will said with his head bowed, the guilt finally excised. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Will climbed down the steps on the far side of the stage and turned to face Gerald before starting his long walk up the street and over the horizon. As the last of the setting sun slipped away, Gerald shared none of the disappointment that the souls behind him felt. As they faded in to the twilight, he just smiled.

Maybe next year.

Hypathetic

2010-06-25T20:35:00.006+10:00

Time was running out on today's entry, and mostly because I was strapped for what to write about. I still am, but I'm writing. And deleting things that you will never see, but also writing. It's entries like this that normally wind up being relegated to the endless purgatory of 'Save as Draft', but a promise is a promise.

The above image is from Dinosaur Comics, a constrained webcomic, that's quite worth checking out if you're in to pictures of dinosaurs that never change and lame joke that you (not so) secretly love. It's also Canadian, like all the best webcomics are.

Speaking of constrained webcomics!

Let's call that an entry, and an homage to the 11th Doctor. Sunday's finale cannot get here soon enough.

On the personal front, I'm currently writing something about Goblins and listening to this over and over.

It's Actually A Dipblogdocus

2010-06-24T14:08:00.003+10:00

When I was little, I wanted to be a paleontologist. It was probably nothing more or less than every little boy's innate fascination with dinosaurs, and it was a career path quickly abandoned when I came to realize how much time would be spent traipsing about in the dirt. Perhaps less characteristic of a young boy.

But, as these things go, I grew up. Not very much, but, as these things go, enough. And here we are today, on Day Three of the week-long blog-a-thon, a.k.a. Dinosaur Week, where I'm going to get all serious on you bitches.

I'm going to tell you a little about Ray Bradbury, a man who I admire and hate for so very many reasons, a great number of which overlap. He's a prolific writer, as the two thousand-page short story collections sitting on my bookshelf will attest. Call the sheer volume of brilliance reason #1. He also has an ongoing fascination with dinosaurs. Reason #2. In the introduction to Volume I, he talks a lot about his childhood.

"I learned that I was right and everyone else was wrong when I was nine. Buck Rogers arrived on the scene that year, and it was instant love. I collected the daily strips, and as madness maddened by them. Friends criticized. Friends made fun. I tore up the Buck Rogers strips. For a month I walked through my fourth-grade classes, stunned and empty. One day, I burst in to tears, wondering what devastation had happened to me. The answer was: Buck Rogers. He was gone, and life simply wasn't worth living. These are not my friends, the ones who got me to tear the strips apart and so tear my own life down the middle; those are my enemies."

He claims it's the child who got to live unrestrained in his head that let him write what he did. I don't doubt that, and I'm in to hurry to grow up - whatever those grey hairs might be saying to the contrary.

You should all go and read The Fog Horn. It's beautiful and tragic, and one of the greatest stories about loneliness that features both a dinosaur and a lighthouse.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to indulge that child within.

AG, SE, IE, NS & GE Are Totally Words

2010-06-23T14:48:00.004+10:00

Day two of my week-long blog-a-thon, and I cheated a little by making today's entry a new layout and header image. But since I make the rules, it's not really cheating. Also, I enjoy playing with the macro setting on the camera. Please don't make jokes about macro settings, tiny penii and masturbation.

That's my job.

I have also discovered one more thing: I will run out of ideas of what to post rather quickly. So this should be an interesting week.

SNAP DECISION: Every picture this week will have something to do with dinosaurs. Because dinosaurs are awesome.

Cheerfully Withdrawn

2010-06-22T20:47:00.007+10:00

Normally, I would take this opportunity to apologize for not having posted for some time. I have decided against doing so, for this is to be a happy time.

I will be posting every day for a week with something new, and I will keep up with most of it (hopefully (probably not (TRIPLE BRACKETS))).

On that note, thing the first! Quote of the week:

My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn.

-Louis Adamic

Loony

2010-03-23T19:08:00.001+11:00

The Swing of Things

2010-03-16T18:37:00.003+11:00

Yeah, I know, I know. It's been ages. So first, some catch up on me, and then my usual.

Some news: I entered a writing competition earlier this year, and yesterday I received word that I'm a finalist. It's only a city deal, but still, something I've written is getting published and has a (albeit small) chance of winning. So I'm happy, and telling people. I can't post it up yet, because of the terms of the contest, but I will soon. It's called The Famous Dead. And to celebrate, I've posted an except to the right that I've had forever, and love, and makes my writing look awful in comparison.

Also, I'm - shock horror - enjoying my internship. Publishing is fun. It's something I can see myself doing. And that scares me a little.

I've heard that the Hugo Awards are in Melbourne this year and I want to go. I think that about covers the personal front.

Other stuff time:
Japanese Bug Fights. Yeah.
Jasper Maskelyne. My new favourite person. He fought the Nazis with stage magic.
This Too Shall Pass. Winner. It's such an awesome music video. Which everyone should have seen by now, but that's how it goes.

Reviews (abridged) time:
Franz Ferdinand Live
Was band-wide, drum-soloingly awesome. They played a great set and it was good to see some AV at a concert. Big Top was a great place to see it. The Philly Jays' drummer was epic.

The Hurt Locker
A decent film that went on about a minute too long. Penultimate scene should have been the last, and it would have gone from 8/10 to 10/10. Interesting to see a war movie done as a slide in to addiction.

Crooked Little Vein
As fucked up as expected, and it lost nothing in the telling. Such a great book, even if it was Transmet as contemporary noir.

I guess that'll do for the time being. Blogging's a very hot bath. I'll need to ease myself back in.

The View By Numbers

2010-01-06T23:26:00.003+11:00

I swear I didn't plan on breaking the drought with another wacky Christian picture. It just worked out that way. Oh Blogger default fonts, I have missed you. My unplanned hiatus really just came down to one thing. And that is I don't really do enough. But last night, in defiance of all expectation and precedent, I did something. I saw The View at the Metro, and what follows is the experience that inspired this entry.

And just so we're all on the same page, the band, not the talkshow.

The View By Numbers
88, 354. Repetitions of "The View! The View! The View is on fire!"
4, 726. Number of tiny drummer jokes inspired by the fun-size drum kit
100. Percentage of the band that was Scottish
99. Percentage of the audience that was Scottish
20. Percentage of the band that looked like Monty
17. Percentage deafness persisitng in left ear
12. Dollars spent on nachos
8. Litres of beer that got dumped on me
6. Songs I actually knew
5. Number of times one guy got pulled out of the crowd by security for crowd surfing
4. Number of people who managed to jump from the barricade on to the stage, do a lap, and leap back in to the crowd before security could catch them. Did I mention Scottish crowds as awesome?
3. Conversations eavesdropped on while on the train home
2. Number of times the dickhead next to me threw his hat on the stage
2. Number of times he got it back
1. Number of times I wanted him to get it back
0. Words spoken by the band I understood

Good times. Movie reviews soon.

Joe Blogs: Noun or Verb?

2009-10-14T13:45:00.009+11:00

I can't have been the first person to think of that joke. Although, it is incredibly lame, so I may well have been the first person to actually admit to thinking of it.

As I type, I'm sitting at uni, deciding whether or not to go get more coffee (which we all know is more about deciding when to go get more coffee) and not really writing some more of Psychopomp & Circumstance for a student reading tomorrow for Creative Writing. For those of you that don't remember, the story's about the two eponymous characters, who write light opera as a form of exorcism.

So before I go any further, or to the coffee shop, an excerpt that I find funny, but is unlikely to see the final cut:

Some startups called Styx had attempted to usurp their body of work, but found themselves relegated to the realm of prog rock after Circumstance wrote a song about their career.

And now, a few more entries to be filed under 'I'm hilarious by association'. Maybe I shouldn't put these directly after my own attempts at humour. Oh well. Historical figures being weird in Hark! A Vagrant! Canadians eliciting depression in A Softer World! Shooting fish in a barrel with Penny Arcade!

That'll do for now.

Now, funny business: Translation party. Move over lemons and MMORPGs, now there's a better use for parties on the internet! Namely, typing in a phrase and having it translated between English and Japanese until it finds a natural equilibrium, and the two translations are the same. Forget just Japanese and back to English once. We demand equilibrium! For instance, the excerpt above becomes:

After his time rock Sutatoappusutikkusu, was demoted Aruhorudingu ended his career in all municipalities.

And, after about 50 iterations, it tells me it's unlikely it will ever reach equilibrium. Domo Arigato, Mr. Translator-Roboto. Okay, another go.

Chasing Geese is a fantastic blog and its writer should be commended.

Becomes:

Must be commended for a great blog writer and geese chasing

See? Far more hilarious. It's also good with song lyrics. Oh, alright. One more then:

Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do

Sound familiar? How about now (edit: I added punctuation to the original):

Today, they're going to fight it to you. So far, a handful of people, people to understand other people

Indeed!

I've also finished reading Crooked Little Vein, so expect a review soon. This has been Chasing Geese, brought to you by the wackiness of the Interwebs and the Japanese.

Poosh Leetel Vein

2009-10-07T21:54:00.005+11:00

I stumbled upon this yesterday. I found it very funny. If you don't, you need to read more comics, because it works on like four different levels. But the main level is he's blind. Also, with all due fanfare, Blogger tells me this is entry 100. Which I was totally unaware of, so go me.

So go me sounds like some kind of asian cuisine.

My copy of Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein arrived fresh from the UK today. I'm one chapter in, and it's already blowing my mind-hole with charges of tightly-packed scatalogical brilliance. It's basically Transmet, but with a P.I. and America and worse. For instance:

“What I am is unlucky,” I snarled. “You know I got an adultery case last year? You know what the husband turned out to be doing at night? He had formed a sex cult that broke into an ostrich farm at midnight three times a week. You know what it’s like, finding eight middle-aged guys having tantric sex with ostriches?”

You want context? Warren Ellis laughs at your pleas for context. Also, he provides valuable insight in to the origins of the Other Constituiton of The United States:

“It is a small, handwritten volume reputedly bound in the skin of the extraterrestrial entity that plagued Benjamin Franklin’s ass over six nights in Paris during his
European travels. Benjamin Franklin wasn’t some nancy-boy novelist who wrote sensitive books about aliens sticking things up his rectum, you know. On the seventh night he got right up and killed the little bastard with one punch.”

This is the first chapter. The first chapter. I can't wait for more. See the aforementioned chapter here, if you dare.

Also, hark this is awesome. See, because hark is in the name of the comic, and it sounds like fark, which is a way of saying a dirty word.

Orange Dawn

2009-09-23T15:21:00.003+10:00

This morning I woke up and the world was orange. And my room was covered with a very fine layer of orange dust, but that's neither here nor there.

The point of this all, dear readers, is that I woke up the wrong side of 6.30 and saw my neighbourhood swallowed in a vibrant, orange cloud. And for a second (but only a second) I was sure the world was ending. And my reaction was "well, isn't that nice".

I blame the story I'm writing, which is more or less that exact plot. Yes. The story, and nothing else.

I Hate It Here

2009-09-17T14:26:00.001+10:00

I’m sitting in my English lecture on dialogue, and not really taking much of it in. Perhaps there’s a lesson in and of that. But anyway, I should be doing other stuff, like listening, which means it’s the perfect time for me to blog instead.

I had an idea for a column which I will probably never write, or already exists, or will be poached and exist very soon so I have something new to complain about. I digress. The idea is a column called Know The Enemy, and I will basically martyr myself upon the altar of taste, watching incredibly bad movies, reading incredibly bad books, listening to incredibly back albums, etc., and then reviewing them. So you don’t have to. Well, that and it’s much, much easier to be mean.

Perhaps it’s just that I’m a glutton for punishment, or maybe I secretly really enjoy these kinds of things. But that’s fool talk. So I might watch a very bad movie this weekend, and if I manage not to gouge out my eyes I’ll write about it. Or maybe I will still gouge out my eyes, but I’ll dictate. Unless I can actually taste how shitty this movie is, then we’re down to some kind of fingertip semaphore. Unless I’ve ripped off my arms in a misguided attempt to beat myself to death with them. Then maybe some kind of stump-person interpretive dance. I’ll sort it out.

Soon = Duke Nukem Forever

2009-09-09T19:37:00.002+10:00

Monsieur Napoleon, Redux

2009-09-08T20:30:00.010+10:00

So I never did get around to re-writing this chapter, and I probably won't for some time. I figured I may as well put it up, because there's still a joke or two in there someone might like, and I did go to the trouble of drawing the damn thing. I might yet re-do it, but it's not looking good.

At least maybe I'll be able to look back on it way back when and cluck my tongue at how full of piss and vinegar I was, way back when.

Enjoy.

Fookin Prawns, Catfood and The Way Things Are

2009-08-19T11:30:00.006+10:00

Consider this an open letter, a declaration. Neill Blomkamp (and you too, Mr. Peter Jackson), I hate you a little. Last week I saw District 9 and I was impressed. I was impressed not just by what they did with a $30m budget, or the action that never transgressed into the superfluous or gratuitous, or, shock of shocks, character development. I was impressed because Neill Blomkamp managed to throw good- no, great- sci-fi up on a movie screen when I’ve been too content to just wade through a kiddie-pool of dystopian schlock.

I suppose it’s my own fault, really. I went in expecting a thinly veiled apartheid parable, and in many ways, that’s what I got. (On a related note, I truly hope apartheid isn’t the new Holocaust in sci-fi.) But it just goes to show you that even the simplest of concepts, when done right, can be phenomenal. (E.g. ‘Cowboys in Space’, ‘We live in a computer simulation’, ‘Aliens think Star Trek is real’, etc). I got two-and-a-bit hours, in which they managed to take me someplace. They made me gag the next time I smelled cat food. They made me cringe during the 'weapons testing'. They made me think about Christopher Johnshon, prawn that he was, and made me feel sorry for Wikus van der Mirwe after thinking he was a prick for the better part of two hours.

What was amazing though, was that a movie set underneath a floating space ship and where half the characters were CGI aliens (Fookin’ prawns, as Wikus would say), story took precedence over visuals. Sure, there may have been one or two self-indulgent panoramas, and maybe there was a pig launcher at one stage, and it's possible those jeeps looked a little like warthogs, but the movie really had heart. It had a Point, capital P.

The thing I hate most about the pair of you, though, is your unabashed bravery. I mean really, who makes a movie where for the first three quarters, you loathe every protagonist you come across? Who else would use real interviews with natives about the immigrant problem as footage? Who leaves things open ended with no promise of a sequel!?

Yes, Neill, I hate you a little. I’d become accustomed to a world where we ask for sci-fi, and we get SyFy. And it’s passable. Watchable, even. But you, damn you, had to make me believe again.

Go see District 9. I give it the prestigious Chasing Geese Seal of Approval.

Some More Things I Believe

2009-08-03T14:20:00.003+10:00

The steady decline of society can be mapped to the lower number of 24 hour Maccas.

Listening to music increases in quality as follows: Computer speakers, Stereo system, while driving at night, pissed out of your mind and singing along with a group.

People are like jumpers, not rubber. Sure, they’ll stretch a fair ways, but they’ll be just that little different when they snap back.

iTunes knows when I’m in a bad mood, and accommodates. Although it’s entirely possible I’m just always in a bad mood, and all my music is bad mood music.

I’m surprised I can type iTunes in to MS Word without some kind of epic system failure.

Ampersands and Octothorpes are underused words & symbols in today’s society.

I couldn’t work out how to fit an Octothorpe in that above sentence.

The inclusion of a strings section can make almost any song listenable. Except Pink. Not her.

I don’t care how often people say Huntsmen can’t hurt you, spiders that big must die.

One’s success in killing bugs can be measured empirically by taking the width/height (whichever is greater) of the resulting splatter.

The entry after this will be the 95th (and most likely an overdue review of HBP). Good god, I can prattle on.

Oh, and I really want to know who's signature that is. I knew who it was when I saved the image, but can't for the life of me remember.

Character Study in B

2009-07-13T19:04:00.007+10:00

From Bec's blog here. The gist: I was given a letter, and now I must pick 5 characters I like starting with that letter. The letter was B. So here we go.

Number One - BOROMIIIIIIR!No surprises here. I do go on about Bozza a whole lot, but I don't think I've ever gone into why. The character is just so awesome His tortured, redemptive arc over Fellowship is really the most engrossing of any member of the fellowship (much better than 'Oh, I don't want to be a king' and 'Gee, this ring is heavy', leastways) and it's just infinitely quoteable. Seriously, go through the epic quotes you remember from FotR. Chances are, they're his.

Number Two - Bigby Wolf
Number two comes from Bill Willingham's Fables. Bigby Wolf is the Big Bad Wolf. And a private investigator. I know, right? He's like Wolverine, except he lacks the power to appear in every comic Marvel publishes to boost sales.

Number Three - Keep your head up, Billy-buddy
I know, kind of a cheat. But his name is Billy. And he's played by NPH, in a Joss Whedon movie, which is a musical about a supervillain. With a downer ending. how could I not love it?

Number Four - Blackadder, going Fourth

Yes, Edmund Blackadder. Not just this one, but every iteration of the man, nay the lineage that is strewn with cowpats of the devil's own satanic herd.

It's so great to see an intelligent character who gets continually screwed over by both circumstance and the stupid people that surround him.

Plus, he's almost as quoteable as Boromir. On the other hand, his quotes can crop up in everyday conversation. Like a twisty turny thing.

Number Five - Master of Cutlery, Forks Speciality

And finally, the Blue Raja. He's a super hero, mother.

No, Not That Year

2009-06-22T17:52:00.005+10:00

I saw Year One yesterday. It was, give or take 2 standard expectancy index units, exactly what I expected. It was a stupid laugh. A little too stupid in some parts, and not quite stupid enough in others.

But hey, it had David Cross in it, and Harlod Ramis wrote it, so that sold me. More importantly, it had David Cross in it as Cain, so there was a whole lot of fantastic blashpemy involved. I daresay it was more enjoyable than The Hangover, all told. I quote Almost Famous (because I haven't in some time): “Give me the Guess Who. They got the courage to be drunken buffoons, which makes them poetic.”

Yes, it was inane and vulgar, but it did it with aplomb. The whole Hangover shtick got a wee bit tired by the end, I felt. While Jack Black isn't exactly the freshest cabbage on the shelf, those 90 minutes he was making sex jokes were fun. It was a little sad though, because they could have done much more with the concept. Like, more than Mel Brooks did.

And really, who'd expect a Jack Black movie to end with an existential crisis of faith that didn't have anything to do with engaging Satan in a rock battle? For the record, I still don't like Michael Cera, and I will put him on The List if he cocks up Scott Pilgrim.

The Things We Do for Blog

2009-06-14T22:39:00.004+10:00

Firstly, I will call your attention to exhibit A, entitled 'The Importance of that Extra G'. Yes, Mr. Montuori called my attention to chasingeese.blogspot.com. I might need to buy some plaid and a rifle and go a' huntin' to compete.

Next, and on a related note (in the sense that 'oh-god-them-squirrels-is-back-fer-blood') we have Squirrels. Back fer blood.

On the Zombie Napoleon front, the second chapter is officially half-drawn, so expect a big (if not complete) posting later in the week. And I'm sure you've all missed our favourite decaying frenchman so.

I saw The Hangover last thursday, and I will say this: it wasn't bad. That's a loaded three-word review, right there. It had a few laughs in it, but nothing really stuck with me as I left the theater. There were much more interesting things to discuss, like Nordic claims on Maori tribal land.

Until next time, keep shinin' on you crazy diamonds.

He Must Be Lonely

2009-05-26T13:56:00.005+10:00

A character sketchy for the still-upcoming-but-now-at-least-its-being-drawn Zombie Napoleon 2. Also, there's a joke in the title! Special prizes for whoever gets it.

The house is still currently in various states of disrepair as renovations are ongoing, but at least now the ceiling and walls don't cry when it rains. No lights in the front room though.

Future plans: Essay planning today (hahahahaha), More website and comiquing on the morrow (in class, no less), Dinner on Saturday (I fancy chinese), and no more classes for the semester in two weeks.

Like Clockwork

2009-05-18T14:44:00.003+10:00

Also, since I'm sitting here listening extremely intently to this media lecture, I'll throw up page Un of Zombie Napoleon Deux. Hooray for new typeset.

Good Advice

2009-05-18T14:27:00.003+10:00

So even though this is likely to spark a huge scandal, I took a photo with my mobile phone in a public bathroom.

Before you alert the fourth estate and get me fired from my tenure at Channel 9, have a look.

Thank you, Old Main Building, for your clear instruction on how to operate those strange porcelain devices.

It's also slightly funnier if you imagine this as a motivational poster with 'Protip' at the top.

Website Stuff

2009-05-04T21:59:00.009+10:00

Things that will eventually be things that get put into the Zombie Napleon website. And since those of you reading this are such fans of mine, so in addition to the banner above, here's some sneak peaks of things that two-thirds of you have already seen:

A couple of buttons (first is standard, the second is the hover state):

And the background tile, which looks quite good with stuff on it.
Finally, a low-qual mockup of the finished product:

Still haven't decided if I'll actually buy webspace. Possibly.

Because Neither Of Us Have Anything Better To Do

2009-05-03T16:52:00.004+10:00

Some links:

Them crazy Chaser boys and their Vatican hijinx. Hijinx is an awesome word. So a blimp, the pope and an arrest. Failed terrorist action? Unauthoirsed tourist attraction? Time will tell.

I guess this is to guys what the original was to the fairer sex. That is to say, not funny.

Nightmare fuel. I will never be able to listen to the Stones in the same way ever again. Yes, it is pictures of Keef.

Academic study in my WoW? It's more likely that you'd think. Also, it's so very wrong. So I might have a final essay in there somewhere.

Finally, this week's Nazi installment. I'm not sure which of these is awesomer: Inglorious Basterds, or this one. Wait, yes I am. The one with time travelling zombies.

I also have a few more costume ideas in the works for a 21st, since space vikings is now out of the picture. And no, t'isn't steampunk Lincoln, as awesome as that'd be.

Bench Warfare FM

2009-04-27T21:43:00.002+10:00

A quick refresher for those of you who don't remember/didn't read. I often engage in what I like to refer to as sitconversations. These are basically actual discussions that through an even application of wit, 'cultural relevance' [via hipster runoff] and presentation, wouldn't seem out of place in a well scripted sitcom.

These discussions also cover a whole range, especially when they're with George. We like our discussions. They're quality. More quality, than say, the majority of current talk radio programming. So, this very special entry is about why we should have a radio show.

As previously stated, our discussion topics are awesome. We could even have a call-in show, and then when people disagree with me/us, we can abuse them. And they'd line up for it, because once we we're done, we'll give them CDs.

Radio music is generally crap. Ours is better. Yeah, our radio station has nothing to do with actual listeners, or advertising, or licensing. Just listen to it bitches.

Bench Warfare.

It'll be a thing.

Uncomfortable Plot Summaries

2009-04-18T17:22:00.006+10:00

CHASING GEESE: Cynical nerd thinks his opinion matters, is funny.

Check these out here. Some real gems in there.

SUPERBAD: Boys plan date-rape, sleep together.
JURASSIC PARK: Theme park’s grand opening pushed back.
KARATE KID: Boy gains acceptance through violence.

And so forth.

The North Polers

2009-04-11T20:55:00.003+10:00

Cross posted and based on the heroes found here. See what happens when you play nice? I put your characters in mildy amusing and wildly stupid situations! Many thanks to Messr Grandeur In Obscurity. I suppose this is another one of those in-fifteen-minute deals.

Grunthor, the half-giant, stamped deep footprints into the asphalt as he thundered down the highway. His Dwarven compatriot, Multen, left a slaggy black tar where his burning feet touched down. They had to make great haste, for they were honour-bound to Go, And Return With Pizza.

“Ho!” boomed Grunthor, skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. He swotted away an SUV as the driver started to honk at the rather mountainous figure blocking the intersection. “Tell me friend Multen, which of the toppings shall adorn your The Pizza?”

“Tonight we feast on venison and suckling pig!” called back Multen, still aflame. A nearby streetlight softened and bent double in the radiated heat. He extended a finger towards the Dominos on the side of the road.

The teenaged minimum-wager staffing the counter really hoped there was a little thing for venison on the picture menu.

Back at the headquarters, deep beneath the North Pole, Chuckles wondered if sending out the two members of the team that were:
a) from the distant past, and
b) fictitious
was a mistake. He was not known for his forward thinking. Nicky, the fourth member of the quartet, wondered if voting to make Chuckles team leader was a bad move.

On the official hero-team rankings, The North Polers came in just below the Mountain Dew Rangers, a bit team from the 80’s, who mainly did mall gigs where they sprayed hired extras with various kinds of soda.

I'd Buy That For 96 Cents

2009-04-11T19:59:00.004+10:00

That's almost a dollar an entry, bitches. No doubt someone who reads this will check theirs, and outclass me by a rather embarrassing amount.

Next time: Heroes, finally. Also, perhaps a report on the Easter Sunday movie marathon I may or may not go to tomorrow. Any other takers?

And These Aren't The Hammer

2009-04-08T19:15:00.004+10:00

So here we are. El entrada numero decocho. Entry number 80. Since number 40 was a big one, I feel that the 80th should be too. I figure by the time I've hit 200, things will even out and I can do it in 50s like a slightly saner person. But then, I prefaced this entry with two zombie faces expressing shock and happiness that I drew on the train this afternoon, so sanity might be aiming a little high at this juncture.

And the happy face... it will haunt my dreams. It terrifies me.

Now, a few links:

Brütal Legend, the game that rocks so hard it turned the mind of the lead developer to diamond, and then carved it into a guitar pick.
We hannae had an SMBC for a while. So let's roll with this one.
Take me out to the ball game. It's baseball season again. The Indians lost. Back to normal, then. For the curious, that's a distance of 18.39 metres they're trying to throw. But not the distance itself, something that distance. No, not something 18.39 metres long, something for 18.39 metres. Well, not for it personally, but... y'know what, fuck it.
He's better. Better than Neil. You know you love his Pink-Floyd-the-Wallness.

I should also really be doing uni work at this point. I still have a proposal to write, after hacking away at the many-headed beast that was my 150%-of-the-word-limit english essay. Let's face it though, blogging is far more important.

If you'll allow me to get sentimental for a second (and, let's face it, you have no way of stopping me. This is MY god damn soap box), thanks for reading guys. It means alot. Here's to another 80, or perhaps a more normal milestone.

And just to round this one off, a snippet of a short story I'm working on, Psychopomp & Circumstance.

Circumstance had been pressing the same key for a full minute.

“You know what I miss?” Here it comes. “The old days.”

“Things change, Circumstance,” replied his partner, Psychopomp. He was the older of the two, but not so much as you’d notice by just looking at them. “You should know that better than most.”

The pair had been sequestered in a hotel room for the better part of a week with nothing to show for their troubles.

“But things were so much better then,” he said, not stopping his metronomic pounding of Middle C.

“Yes,” the other agreed “you couldn’t complain and play a pan flute at the same time back then.” He actually could, just not as effectively.

An Open Letter To The People Of Sydney

2009-04-01T08:48:00.003+11:00

Dear Sydney,

It rained today. Rather heavily. So firstly, I'd like to offer congratulations to those of you with the meteorological foresight to carry umbrellas. Really, nice job. I'm sure you're having a whale of a time nodding your relatively dry heads and tapping your likely drenched foot. Here's to you.

As a reward for your acumen, I'd like to introduce you to a great friend of mine, who I'm sure you'll get along with famously. His name, people of Sydney, is Gravity.

Yes! The very same Gravity that makes the rain come down on dreary grey mornings such as this! Yes, I'm sure you've heard of him. Now, you see, Gravity makes the rain come down, but he doesn't stop there! Oh no, not our boy Gravity! He keeps at it, so even when that rain hits the umbrella you so wonderfully remembered to bring, it keeps on going down.

Onto people's shoes.

Seriously asshats, watch the run off.

Cordially,

Chasing Geese

(P.S. Next entry is number 80! We shall celebrate like vikings returned victorious!)

Noodly Appendages

2009-03-31T17:22:00.005+11:00

So maybe I didn't have an actual reason for starting this post, and just wanted to post this image. Like you'll ever know.

On to business. In a recent turn, it seems that Flying Spaghetti Monsters aren't ridiculous enough. Nor are Twilight fans hilarious or obsessive enough. Because now there's Cullenism.

And just so you know, as Cullenists they believe:

Edward and the rest of the Twilight characters are real
Stephenie Meyer is the (or one of the) best author(s)
The twilight series should be worshiped
If you are good in life, you will be bless with eternity with the Cullens, if you are bad in life, you will be sent to James’ cave

I suppose it's no worse than most major religions, but still. Dante's Inferno couldn't even comprehend the horrors of JAMES' CAVE. (And as an aside, I don't actually get the reference. I might need to throw myself upon the altar of journalistic integrity and find out what it means. I'm sure someone might be kind and explain it though, and save me from killing my brain.)

It was also copied and pasted, so yes, 'you will be bless with eternity'. No, Edward. You are the vampires.

Totes bloggan

2009-03-25T17:22:00.006+11:00

Yes, yes, I know. I haven't blogged in ages. Really though, I doubt anyone who reads this missed my extra special blend of Columbian ground percolated bullshit. I secretly hope you all actually do, but that's a whole different and much sadder story.

Uni has started up again, and that's part of the reason I haven't had a terrible amount to write about. My classes are good, my lecturers entertaining, and my general education requirements easy. All you could ask for really. I do hope some of you saluted at 'General Education', who must be some kind of yardstick-ruler-wielding military commander.

The other reason has been trying to get my Doctor Horrible .flv files onto my iPod, which has occupied roughly equal amounts of time to what I've spent on uni work. Make of that what you will.

The other other white reason is that I've been writing things. Things that include, but are not limited to, a horrorish story, Psychopomp & Circumstance, and Zombie Napoleon #2.

Some things of interest:

Hero Machine, which you should all already know and love and waste oodles of time on that you should spend blogging or uni working. S'matter of fact, all make heroes and email them to me, and then I shall put them up in a future entry with pithy commentary and riveting back stories and we can all vote for the best. Please.
He's a short-sighted devious dwarf on the wrong side of the law. She's a vivacious green-skinned opera singer from out of town. They fight crime! Keep going until you get an unhilarious idea. You'll be at it for hours.
TIME 100 Most Influential People. They may be an enabler of basement-dwelling Aspies, a Korean pop sensation and a failed politican, but damn it if they don't fight crime. Despite contest rigging.
Nice, Ice Baby. And I still say he's not entirely serious.
TVTropes, if you haven't ever been. It's a fantastic and entirely productive way to blow a few hours and all your computer's processing power as your browser struggles to keep hundreds of tabs open.
Lastly, this year's Hugo Nominations. And for the record, I'm actually gonna go on the record as saying Doctor Horrible gets my vote. Stevie Moffat, Hugo winning machine that he is, gave us more of the same (even though 'the same' is pant-wettingly awesome). Whedon and Co., that was Something Special. And it's totally not a Whedon thing. War and Pieces blows Better Days away.

Special Thanks To The French

2009-03-07T16:30:00.004+11:00

No offense. Good job with quiche.

Here's the last two pages, which I'll go and put in to the previous post and give it a different title, like 'The Story So Far And Then The Rest', for linking purposes so you can show all your friends.

I'm pretty sure this is the highest jokes-per-page upload too, so.

This concludes Zombie Napoleon vs The Ghost of the Duke of Wellington. Hope you enjoyed it. I might actually write the sequel.

The Story So Far, And Also The Rest

2009-03-04T20:05:00.010+11:00

I've made a few changes to the art in the earlier pages, a few little re-writes, and a new font. So here's every page so far.
FUN FACT: Wellington's Coat of Arms features two crossed boots.

Edit - 7/3/09: Last two pages upped into here, so I can be all 'Hey, check out this one convenient post!'

The Other Hero Stands THUS

2009-02-27T21:16:00.004+11:00

Two pages, because I love you all. Except for you. You know who you are. And I might re-draw Welly, who may or may not have floral gumboots.

And for those that'll care to note, I've gone back and re-fonted page one (or will, after I post this on my slow-ass interweb).

Page 3:

Page 4:

Zombie Napoleon vs. the Ghost of the Duke Of Wellington

2009-02-27T12:34:00.002+11:00

Ju Suis Napoleon! I thought a speech bubble may have been a bit much, but I may yet add one in.

New Project

2009-02-27T00:27:00.004+11:00

A comic I'm working on, before I get to working on another, more serious comic. Depending on how much I enjoy this one. The title will be revealed on the next page, in true BENDIS GOD DAMN THAT LOOKS COOL style.

Click to enlarge and make it... y'know... readable.
Enjoy!

Also, I dislike the font, so expect an (second, because I used 'curse' twice in the extremely limited first edition run) edit.

And the time for the third edit has come. Regards, Friday Luke.

I Know I Shouldn't, But...

2009-02-24T15:26:00.002+11:00

The next installment of things that annoy me more than they should.

In case you missed it, or didn't watch, they are actually a group called 'The Watchmen'. Uh huh.

Entry the 70th, In Which I Get My Draw On

2009-02-18T14:49:00.002+11:00

This is what Mignola and Immomen do to me.

Things That Get Me More Nerdcited than Watchmen

2009-02-16T19:03:00.004+11:00

Okay, here's the deal. Official warning. Next person to ask me if I'm going to see 'The Watchmen' (sic) gets bitchslapped. So, here's a list of 10 things that get me more nerdcited (that's how nerds get excited, or alteratively, what obsessive-compulsives do on Wikipedia) than the upcoming Watchmen movie.

New episodes of Spectacular Spider-Man
Warren Ellis updating his Twitfeed ('oh shit i seem to be missing a testicle all of a sudden')
Anything written by Neil Gaiman
Stuff Bruce Campbell is in
Any release date I need to wait more than a month for (I'm looking at you, Caped Crusader part 2)
Transformers 2. I hate you for doing that to me, Michael Bay
Kenneth Brannagh's Thor
Steven Moffat's Who
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Being able to walk out of Watchmen saying 'Yeah, it was good, but Mystery Men was better'.

Fred the Troll

2009-02-11T15:03:00.007+11:00

Gather around for story time. I complained I was bored, and so I was told to "Write a story about a troll named Fred who has an acne problem and is a chef on the side." And so I did. In 15 minutes.

There was once a happy troll who was named Fred. Fred the Happy Troll lived under a bridge, which was lovely and dank but also lonely.

This upset Fred, who didn’t get on very well with the other trolls who lived under other, more impressive bridges. You see, Fred the Troll had terrible acne, and the other better-bridge-trolls would make fun of his complexion as they ate billy goats gruff.

“Look at Fred’s pimples!” they would cackle. “He doesn’t have big hairy warts like proper trolls! Let us exclude him from our get-togethers, for he is different and it makes us feel superior!”

Some days, Fred was not a happy troll at all. He was actually downright sad. Whenever the other trolls would mock him (always loud enough for him to hear, with his smaller-than-average troll ears) Fred would cook on a little George Foreman grill he had salvaged. He was a terrible cook, but it cheered him up a great deal.

One Tuesday afternoon, after being subjected to a particularly savage barrage of insults about his lack of back-hair and good posture (“Look at standy-straight no hair! Let us exclude him from our get-togethers, for he is different and it makes us feel superior!” Trolls are hardly the most creative types.) Fred prepared some re-fried garbage drippings, and slowly but surely his bad mood began to fade away.

The smell wafted out from under his bridge in a dreadfully smelling cloud, choking a flock of seagulls as they flew overhead. A great cawing drew the attention of the other trolls who were having a fancy party underneath a nearby rail bridge. Seeing the seagulls sputtering and coughing, the nasty but popular trolls grew hungry as wolves.

The smell (fouler than rotten eggs to a human nose) drifted into the bigger-than-Fred’s nostrils of the other trolls and they found it to be delicious. Hunchbacked and hairy, the trolls left the railway bridge at once, and as one hunch-and-hairy-backed mass, they tracked it to a tiny little stone bridge on the edge of town.

To their great surprise, the smell was Fred the Troll’s cooking! They all begged and pleaded for a taste of whatever sumptuous delights Fred had prepared, for they had followed their noses a long way, and their tums were empty and growling.

This made Fred a happy troll once more. All the other trolls wanted to be his friend now! And so, with a smile from ear to ear, Fred the Very Happy Troll told them all to sod off for being such bastards.

THE END

At Least I Know What The 'P' Stands For

2009-02-04T12:51:00.006+11:00

Infomercials are grand. Who doesn't want the cheese-grater for your foot? Anyway, I just saw one for this. Yes, for the low price of $29.95 p&h (plus $249.95) you too can have a self-contained hydroponics and grow light unit in your very own home.

And an update, BLASTOISE used WATER PULSE!

Rockupied

2009-01-21T17:14:00.005+11:00

After having just (But not really. This is quite old.) watched a top 50 Superbands countdown, and chatting to George about AC/DC, we got somewhat derailed.

See, the latest AC/DC album has no less than 4 tracks with 'rock' in the title. And we decided jointly that this just wasn't enough. There needs to be far more songs with 'rock' in the title. So we started riffing. For about an hour. By putting 'rock' in random song names. Seriously though, who wouldn't want to listen to some of these adrenaline-fuelled, amps-up-to-11, hair-growth-promoting, brain-melting, testosterone-oozing, adrenaline-fuelled... well you get the point.

Some standouts:
God Put A Rock Upon Your Face
Can't Get Rock Satisfaction
Where The White Boys Rock
I Come From The Rock Downunder

...and so forth. Try some for yourself! I'll wait.

In other news, I have updated my Twitter to accept mobile phone related Twitterings, so now I can let the whole internet know what I'm doing even when I'm not in front of a computer. Hahahahahaha. Yeah.

In a completely separate other news, we have a new cat. She is currently sleeping on the pool table. No pictures for you.

Nextly, there is really very little NPH can't do, whether what he can't not do is provide me with blog titles or be Dr. Horrible. Dr. Horrible was fantastic. Joss Whedon is my hero. Dr. Horrible is my villain.

Finally, here's what I've been doing with myself of late:

Oh, one more thing. I saw 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)' the other day... at the start of January... Anyway, my Grandfather was told yesterday. And his reaction, no word of a lie: "Isn't he dead?" Yes, this is the gene-pool from whence I am sprung.

And since I'm a liar, another one more thing. I've been listening to Mitch Hedberg. He's hilarious, and dead.

P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed.

Auld Lang Syne

2009-01-01T09:30:00.006+11:00

Last year, a friend chided me for my new year's message, a careful blend of a 'what's the point?', 'resolutions are not resolute' and a 'why start off with a letdown?' While I'm not entirely swayed from the pessimists' camping ground (and doubt I'll ever truly leave), this new year, I've found a sentiment that helps me to feel much better about things.

Take things for what they are.

Not the most earth-shattering or revelatory of strokes of inspiration, but ringing in the new year by recording your own terrible duet of Teenage Dirtbag (while the original blares out over computer speakers), well, the simple stuff seems a whole lot deeper.

As people wake up to their own morning afters, or even if their 'wasn't worth its' dawned last night, or resolutions are compromised at a new year's picnic, don't make more of things than what they are. Just take things for what they are.

Enjoy the fireworks, even though their not much different from last year (despite the pyrotechnic arms race that you KNOW goes on anyways), and a few drinks in the company of friends and strangers, and promises to yourself that you might not ever intend to keep. Take things for what they are, even if you are a little let down. Take it with the hope next year is better, or that you finally got that night out you wanted.

So, before the reports of new year's eve start flooding in, and I hear about varying levels of success and disappointment, I'll say it again. It was a night out, or in, or alone. Take it for what it was, because sometimes that's enough.

Obligatory Snow-Related Pun

2008-12-17T19:57:00.003+11:00

Riding high on the success of the Top 5 Music Videos in Some Kind of Room, Chasing Geese (aided and abetted by my continuous and dependant watching of the music channels on foxtel) presents to you the Top 5 Music Videos Set in the Snow! Yes, I know just how you should celebrate.

And yes, this is really just one man's war against unoriginal and repetive film clips. Sort of. That's right cliches, have-at-you!

And here they are. And in further defiance of cliches, (and logic) in NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

Number 5 - Isn't that technically a return ticket?

In the year 2005, Hell froze over. And Freddie Mercury rolled over in his grave. Although, you can't really blame them any more than you can Wolfmother for ripping off Zepplin, or JET and Oasis for ripping off the Beatles.

One Way Ticket To Hell (And Back), while not their greatest song does encapsulate the gentle, loving parody of vintage rock that I think plays well. I do like The Darkness though, simply because I'd like to think they don't take themselves too seriously. A healthy level of respect for your source is needed to pull that off, and I think it shows. And if I ever found out they did, it'd pop that fragile optimism so very quickly. They'd be like Jack Black in School of Rock, instead of Jack Black in Tenacious D. Maybe I got that the wrong way around.

Ironically, this is pretty original as far as videos in the snow go but it's number 5. Give them some credit, though. They saved Rock and Roll.

Number 4 - Forget 'Your Boy', where the fuck's your songwriting?

Grand Theft Autumn, from back before they became The Fall Out Boys feat. Pete Wentz. And the acoustic version, linked below, is far, far superior. I maintain that's because Petey-boy isn't involved. Yes, he ruined them. The Darkness should save then in their next video. IT also beats out The Darkness, because I like to imagine the guy hired them to play out the front of that girl's house after he hooked up with her. Because he's creepy like that.

And this song really isn't that great, but I heard it first when I was young and impressionable, and it stuck with me. I like it. Try not to watch that video below, either. Just sort of minimize it when it starts, because Pete Wentz fans are almost as bad as him. Yes, I'm aware I'm scapegoating, but this is my damn soapbox.

Number 3 - Holy shit, it's almost Christmas
Funnily enough, embedding on New Year's Day is disabled. I blame Bono for this, personally. I'd rank it down, but I'd need to backtrack a whole lot. I'm no fancy big-city historian either, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the earliest in-the-snow videos, and the first actual quality song to make the list. It's true, it's true.

Number 2 - No, the original one.

Coming in at number two on the second of my illustrious countdowns is Robert Smith showing all them emo kids how it's done, with Pictures of You. And it's in the snow. And there's palm trees. How awesome is THAT? No wonder he didn't cry.

I'm a big fan of The Cure, for much the same reason I like The Smiths (also the fact they have almost a full discography of depressing love songs, but y'know. Story for another day). They have a whole lot of bands these days citing them as influences.

Possibly this is just to avoid those darn [citation needed] labels, but it's good to hear the influence they had on contemporary music. Not their most well known song, here. But I hope you don't give it a cold shoulder. (Come on, I lasted ages before putting one in). (That's what she said).

Number 1 - What do you call a pun about snow?

Okay, so that was totally just so I could make that joke. But there is snow in the video, at the end, and it is a good song. Even though it's not as good as stuff off Parachutes.

Coldplay needs to stop doing so well in these countdowns.

Finally, a few honourable mentions...
...that shan't be left out in the cold.

Firstly, the "Close But No Snow! Gah!" Award is split between INXS with Never Tear Us Apart, and The Arctic Monkeys, with View From The Afternoon. Because it's very cold in both videos, even if it isn't snowing.

And secondly, we have the "Small Mercies" Award, going to both Snow Patrol and Arctic Monkeys, who haven't gone down the obvious road and done the snow thing yet.

Lastly, the Red Hot Chili Peppers go home with a Dishonourable Mention: the "I Hate You, Even If It's A Little Hypocritical" for having a song called Snow, and not having snow in it.

And the astute among you would care to note that the songs are listed from 5 to 1 (by the by, it's a 1 in 120 chance that NO PARTICULAR ORDER is actually the right order. Because sometimes, the universe works that way).