I'm Selling These Fine Leather Jackets...

Hanginaround

2006-12-19T08:45:00.000+09:00

Just a short post. Spent the day in Salzburg, where I got on a bus and asked someone if it went to the city. She said yes, we got talking, and she took it upon herself to show me through the city for a good part of the afternoon. While we were there, it snowed for the first time since I arrived in Europe. I love it when things just work out like that. I've got a half-written post about Croatia in the works, a report about my Funcom ready to be sent for Ragnar's approval (Don't want to breach the non disclosure agreement), one with a bunch of links, and another in my head about Oslo, so expect at least one new post within a few days. =)

On an unrelated and totally puerile note, I'm ashamed to admit how much this made me laugh. Not too ashamed to share it though!

More here.

Cash Money

2006-12-14T00:54:00.000+09:00

.............I just logged into my online banking, to find that my bank account has more than doubled, and there seems to be absolutely no reason behind it. There has been no money transfered into my account, but for some bizzare reason it looks like some of my Visa payments just...vanished. I can't say that for sure, and I can't see any that were there and now aren't, but that's the only reason I can think of. I definately paid my visa bill so my card had a balance of exactly $0.00, meaning I had no debt, and could spend up to $5000. For some reason, my Visa account now shows that I *somehow* have a significant balance in positive figures (which happens when you overpay the account or pay money onto the card deliberately). My transaction history now seems to say that I overpaid my account significantly, so vanishing payments are the only thing I can thing of. I'll wait till tomorrow to be more certain it isn't a bank error that will be corrected, but for now that means I have the means to extend my stay again, and I'm seriously considering it. I don't understand why everything just keeps falling into place and going smoothly for me on this trip, but I'm certainly not complaining!

Edit:
Immature as it is, I found this hilarious.

Around The Sun

2006-12-12T06:37:00.000+09:00

I've decided to go to Slovakia tomorrow, Hungary on Wednesday, and Salzburg on Thursday. I love the fact that I can just get on a train for a few hours and end up in another country!

I'm working on a post about Croatia, my Funcom visit, Oslo, Norway, another on Vienna, and a post with a few links and stuff on it. Sorry it's taking so long. Think of it like those postcards you send, and they arrive weeks after you get home. It's like that.

Just a little news though: I met someone from Perth on a streetcar the other day, which was fantastic. It was really great to talk about Australian stuff, what it's like to be in Vienna as an Australian, and the differences, and just to meet with someone from back home. Her name is Natalia, and she's on exchange here, studying. We walked through Vienna, mostly the parts we didn't know so we could get totally lost, went to a pub, and finally went back to the student dorms where we sat and watched some Australian TV (Chaser's War, which I have on my iPod), and I was introduced to a group of other exchange students from America, Germany, and other parts of Austria. Talked till 5am, smoked a little pot (I didn't have much, makes me cough too much), and I ended up taking a nap before getting the streetcar home at about 6am.

Awesome.

Update: No longer going to Hungary due to cost, but did get to Slovakia.

In This World

2006-11-28T00:07:00.000+08:00

(Sorry this took so long to come out, it turned out longer than I expected.)

On to Slovenia!

Well, almost. The train was delayed for nearly 2 hours, so Bojan, Anja and I waited at a cafe for a while before going back to the station to see me off. According to the ticket guy, it's not a good idea to sleep on the train, as there are no police and often people's bags get stolen. Five minutes later, I'd managed to arrange it so one bag was under my legs, and the other was well hidden under the seat which could only be reached by opening the door, which one of my feet was touching. Again, my ability to sleep almost anywhere came to my rescue, and it didn't take me long to doze off.

After a reasonable sleep, though frequently interrupted by passport and ticket checks, I arrived in Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia, pronounced something like 'looblana'). There I met Titus (aka CornDude), and had a quick look around Ljubljana. It's a fairly small city, with a number of rivers and parks, making it very pleasant to walk around. After a quick look around, we made our way towards Postojna, a massive cave a fair distance from Ljubljana. Fortunately, the speed limit on highways is 140, and we made it just in time for the guided tour (the only way you're allowed in). It's an incredible place, a bit like Lake Cave and Jewel Cave down below Perth.

Stalagmite

Some of the incredible rock formations

Probably the most fascinating thing in this cave however, was the 'human fish', or 'Olm' (according to wikipedia). It has no eyes, four legs, lungs, gills, is very pale, lives for 3 years without food (up to 10 in extreme cases), and is about 30cm long. They keep a few in an open tank in the cave, but the light made it very difficult to get reasonable photos of them (which is also why there aren't many cave photos here), so here's one I stole from Wikipedia.

'Human Fish'

Leaving Postojna, we headed back through the beautiful Slovenian countryside towards Poljane (Pol-yan-ay), the village where Titus lives. It was getting late, so we went out to the town of Skofjo Loko for a meal of...something. Again, I can't remember what it was called, but it was very good. We then wandered around the town, and up to the castle, and eventually decided to check out noises coming from a community centre.

Titus summed it up best when he walked in, looked around, and mumbled 'what the hell....?'. We'd walked into a room full of grown men and women dressed in Medieval clothing, wielding swords, eating, drinking, and dancing, all lead by a man who looked like Santa in disguise.

These kids saw through the ruse

I had to get a photo with these guys.

Titus is the guy on the right.

The following day, we drove across what looked like almost half of Slovenia on the map, to a national park I can't remember the name of. There were a few things there to see, namely Dante's Cave, Bear Head, and Dante's bridge, none of which Titus had seen, so neither of us knew what to expect. After a walk through a forest, and up a large hill, we found Dante's Caves. According to the tourist information, it's not explorable without proper caving equipment and a guide. I had neither, however I did have a phone with a built-in torch, and a strong desire to explore small dark places. When I say dark, I mean it. About 100 metres in, it was absolutely black without my torch. It was mostly uphill, and there was a trickle of water running down the middle and out the entrance, making it quite slippery going. The fact that it was less than 2 metres wide, and about one metre high so I was almost crawling for a lot of it didn't make it any easier either. I estimate I went about 400 metres in, before I came up against a wall about 2 metres high in a small cavern and I decided to go back for safety. I wanted to try and climb it, but it was slippery and a bit too risky without a backup plan or guide. According to the sign outside, it was about another kilometer further to the end.

Dante's cave

Just some of the amazing scenery

Pressing on through more forest, we found the bear's head. In itself it wasn't that spectacular, but the scenery of the general area was well worth the walk. The bear's head itself is a rock wedged into a crevasse over a river, shaped something like the head of a bear.

Dante's bridge

My attempt at an artistic photo

Heading back to Ljubljana, we walked up an enormous hill to the Ljubljana castle overlooking the city, before heading back towards the train station. A brief detour to a hotel and surrounding area entirely dedicated to alternative art was well worth it, and very interesting to walk through, before I got on the train to leave for Croatia.

The symbol of Ljubljana

Aforementioned art

And again

I'm not entirely sure what these are meant to be, but they were certainly eerie when lit like that

(Next: Croatia!)

Song 2

2006-11-24T18:46:00.000+08:00

WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I don't know how to really write this coherently, so I'll just list it.

I am here in Europe staying with people I met on the internet.

I met these people on a forum dedicated to a PC game called The Longest Journey (TLJ), and later it's sequel, Dreamfall.

The company that made both games is called Funcom, and they are based in Oslo, Norway.

The genius behind the games, the writer and director, is Ragnar Tornquist.

I'm now half-running The Divide, after the unfortunate disaperarance of the former administrator.

As such, I have been in occasional contact with Ragnar to organize several interviews for the site.

I sent Ragnar an email telling him how TLJ had sent me on a tour of Europe to stay with people I met as a result of playing it, and asking if I could possibly get a tour of Funcom's offices. I didn't really expect anything would come from it, but it never hurts to ask.

He said yes.

I'm going to Norway.

That is all.

Beautiful World

2006-11-23T00:43:00.000+08:00

Whew.

I've just arrived back 'home' in Vienna after a 16 hour train ride from Split, Croatia, it's about 5pm and I'm feeling surprisingly good. I've discovered that years of bizarre sleep patterns have enabled me to function quite normally on relatively small doses of pretty uncomfortable sleep. If it wasn't for that ability, I don't think I would have survived this past week. Not to say that I slept badly or uncomfortably while staying with people that is, but in the last week I've spent just under 50 hours in transit, mostly on trains but partially wandering strange cities after midnight while waiting for yet another train. Over the next few days, I'll try and make a post for every place I stayed, in order, so keep an eye out. Do yourself a favour and click the photos for the full-sized ones, it's worth it.

First off, Serbia. I left Vienna at about 10am last Thursday, for a fairly mild introduction to all the travel that was yet to come. For most of the morning, the train was in a dense fog, and I couldn't see much more than 50, maybe 100 metres out of the window. After midday, that cleared to reveal a beautiful countryside dotted with small towns and farms. I have to say, if you're going on a long journey, bring an mp3 player, and load it with a few audiobooks. They're great for starving off boredom, and have the added benefit of allowing you to look out the window while 'reading'. I've been listening to Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, they're very good, as well as being extremely well voiced. But I digress...

Went past this on the train, looked interesting.

Did I mention the sunset?

I was greeted at the train station by Bojan (pronounced a little like 'boy-an' - I think the letter J is pronounced like a Y in Serbian), someone I'd known only as 'Xenon' up until recently. We went back to his house, ate, and I was reassured there wouldn't be any raping =). I wasn't that tired, so I was shown around Belgrade. It's a really interesting city to visit, and if you're ever in the area I definately recommend stopping by for a few days. I was shown around an old fort used in the war which has since been converted into a park, as well as St Mark's Church and St Sava Temple, both very impressive buildings, especially when lit up at night.

St Mark's

Main Doors

St Sava Temple

The next morning we went back to the fort/park for a while, as I'd only seen a small part of it the previous night. After that, and walking along the river that runs through Belgrade (pity it was a foggy day, but it was still a nice area), I was introduced to Bojan's cousin Anja (Ahn-ya), and together we all went to St Mark's again, so I could see it from the inside. Back home for lunch, which consisted of some sausage-like things and something that was a bit like a pie with lots of very thin layers of pastry filled with egg, cheese, and something I couldn't work out how to pronounce, let alone spell. Either way, it was very good (if you're reading this Bojan, help me out =p). Oh, that reminds me - next time you're close to Eastern Europe, look for something called 'Burek' I had it for breakfast, and it's really good. I found out later that it's also really cheap and available from street-vendors all over the place. It looks like a flatish oval-shaped bready thing made of pastry, and it's filled with meat, cheese, or nothing, in a mesh of pastry inside. Sometimes, they also come in the form of a slice of pie.

Part of the Belgrade Fortress

After lunch we got in the car and picked up a friend of Bojan and Anja's - Ivan - and together we drove to New Belgrade, a newer part of the city that consists mostly of ugly identical buildings. There is a nice riverfront however, and we walked up a hill that overlooks the whole city. Unfortunately it was a bit foggy, but a good view nevertheless. I've used my camera to get footage of various areas I've been to, and when I get home (I don't want to mess around with it here) I'll try and put some of it up on YouTube. It was starting to get dark, so we finished up the day walking along the river - strangely, the area looked a lot like parts of the Swan River in Perth - before visiting a place called Pinnochio's (I think - it had paintings of him on the building) for what were quite possibly the most filling pancakes I've ever had. Next time any of you are in Serbia, look out for it =D.

House *on* the river

View from the hill

A typical Serbian streetlamp farm

Bojan & I in front of St Mark's

Thanks Bojan, for showing me around and letting me stay, it was a pleasure. Also thanks to Anja and Ivan for keeping us company and helping with the tourguide duties. =p

Soon: Slovenia

2006-11-19T00:43:00.000+08:00

Brief update:

Been through Belgrade, Serbia. Am now in a small village near Ljubljana, Slovenia, and tomorrow evening I'll leave for Croatia. All is good, I'll make a real post for each country with photos when I get back to Vienna.

A Different City

2006-11-13T18:03:00.000+08:00

As I make plans to leave Vienna for a week and visit Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia (in that order), here's a selection of photos, because I'm too lazy to type a real post. Click on photos to embiggen them, it's worth it.

Google Earth has a long way to go.

Dubai - Not much to say on this one, cool building.

No story, just a street.

The Belvedere Palace. Unfortunately the grounds were being excavated or something, so I wasn't able to see the gardens, but it was still a magnificant place to walk around.

Stephansdom, or St Stephens. Right in the centre of Vienna, and HUGE. This is the left half of the right side, other half is in the next photo. It wouldn't all fit in one shot.

Other half, with giant tower.

Entrance. The actual door is below this, but again, it wouldn't all fit.

Myself, Miri (I'm staying with her), Anna (Miri's good friend), and Thomas (cool Austrian guy I met at the party where this photo was taken)

Miri, Siri and me on a hill overlooking Vienna.

Miri, René (Miri's dad), and their car. It is quite possibly the best car in the world. I can't imagine anyone being able to drive it other than him. The gearstick seemed to be horizontal, and was operated by pulling and twisting it in seemingly random ways, and there was a great air conditioning system. It worked by opening a big hole in the dashboard to let the air in. I could see at least 5 or 6 things that would have made it illegal to drive it in Australia. Zoom into the photo and look closely at the front wheel. It's not falling off, that's just normal. I want one of these cars.

1000 Miles

2006-11-05T22:50:00.000+08:00

I got off the plane in Vienna to a purple blur launching herself at me, which I have to say is probably the most memorable first meeting I've ever had, thanks for that =). I arrived on the first day of snow this year, and met her family, including Siri. Siri is either a small bear or a gigantic dog, it's hard to tell. He's really friendly and seems to like me though, so I'm pretty confident I won't get eaten =P. At least if he tries anything, I'm well prepared from the crocodile wrestling classes we all had in school. He's a bit bigger than a croc, but I think it'd still be effective.

The night I arrived, Miri showed me a spectacular view of Vienna from a hill near the building she lives in, it's a really beautiful city, really enormous. I spent the last few days being shown around and exploring by myself a little, and I love all the old buildings and churches that are everywhere, I could spend ages just exploring all the sidestreets and alleyways. I'll post photos soon.

Still feeling slightly out of place, getting used to everything, but having a great time so far. Hope everything is going well back in Perth, and I'll probably post again in about a week.

Edit: Post now has a real title, Cat still gets her point.

Smile Like You Mean It

2006-11-02T23:01:00.000+08:00

I'm in Dubai, and if this first day is anything to go by, I'm going to have one hell of an awesome holiday. List of things that have gone better than I could have imagined:

1. My luggage was a little over the limit, and it was let through without paying excess fees.

2. The time between my flights was slightly longer than is allowable for luggage to be checked straight through without me having to carry it to the airport, but she did anyway.

3. I asked nicely, and was upgraded to business class free!

4. I arrived in Dubai, and apon ariving (via a surprisingly cheap taxi), I couldn't open my room. A staff member noticed, told me "this room is no good", and upgraded me to a suite worth more than twice what I paid for my room!

5. I just bought a polo shirt for about $4. It's not a fantastic shirt, but it's certainly worth it for $4. Plus, I won't smell like a dead animal tomorrow, what with only having one set of clothes till I arrive.

I spent about 3 hours walking around Dubai. After a while, I decided to try and find that hotel on the peninsula thing, look it up on wiki. I headed in the direction my magical Australian beach-finding powers told me was beachwards, and after 20 minutes or so, discovered my magical Australian beach-finding powers didn't work so well outside of Australia. They did, however, find me a large river which I walked along for quite a while, in the hope it would lead me to the ocean. It didn't. It led me to a REALLY busy road, which by some miracle I managed to get into the middle of. Ten minutes later, I was still in the middle of it. I walked along the middle island-thing, and came across a hole that led down to what appeared to be an underground pedestrian crossing. I managed to climb down into that, and walked back to the hotel, bored. Now I'm out again, I just got a shirt (see above), and stopped into an internet cafe. It's nearly 10pm on a Thursday, and I'm reminded how dead Perth is compared to....oh, pretty much everywhere.

On a side-note, I LOVE time changes. I stayed up till 6 in Perth, got on the plane, slept for 10 hours, and when I woke up it was midday. Thankyou all for the plane letters by the way. =)

I leave for Vienna at 9 tomorrow, meaning I need to be at the airport by 7, meaning I need to catch a bus at 6, meaning I'll have to be up at about 5.45. Awesome. I'm gonna go get dinner, and either go to bed, or sit in my spa for a while. Maybe I'll go to the sauna, then back to my spa. Life is good.

On My Way

2006-11-02T02:33:00.000+08:00

Well, in about 3 hours, I'll be on a plane to do the stupidest, scariest, most exciting, riskiest, adventurous, rape-exposing and most expensive things I've ever done in my life. I leave here at 6am, and catch a plane to Dubai, where I'll arrive around midday and stay overnight. Then, I'll leave again at about 9am, and arrive in Vienna at 9. Once there, I will die from pain and exhaustion (I've got a headache and a sore neck, which is gonna be GREAT on a long plane ride). After (presumably) waking up the next day...well, I haven't *exactly* planned that far ahead. Bit too much forethought for me. I know that in the next month...ish..anywhere up to 3 months...really no idea...I'll be (probably) visiting Croatia and Serbia, and (less probably, but hopefully) also Slovenia. Aside from that, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do there, other than explore Austria (I've got a train ticket that allows me travel anywhere in Austria, Croatia and Slovenia for 8 days in 2 months, non-consecutive) and other nearby countries. Wish me luck, and hope I don't get raped! I'll continue to blog when I can, with photos of my travels. If you post your address here, I'll also try and send you a postcard. Well, that's the doorbell, dad's here to take me to the airport. Bye!

Dare To Be Stupid

2006-10-19T17:21:00.000+08:00

Well, I've now got invitations to Croatia and Slovenia, and I intend to take them, if possible. :D Bets are open, you have the following options. Will I be...

A) Fine
B) Never heard from again
C) Raped
D) Murdered
E) Locked up in a basement to escape ten years later and make a killing on the media circuit

Edit: Scoreboard

Hoju - 7
Rosie - 6
Tim - 5
Cat - 5
Elle - 2

I think this is right, if it's not, let me know.

Make You Feel Better

2006-09-30T21:59:00.000+08:00

This will make you delightfully happy.

Go

2006-09-25T23:27:00.000+08:00

This is really good. Go look.

Don't Ask Me Why

2006-09-23T01:02:00.000+08:00

After posting a message on an online forum I visit asking if anyone living close to Austria wants an Australian on their couch for a few nights, I've recieved an offer to stay in Belgrade, Serbia. I barely know him, and have only really seen him on this forum, not really had much direct involvement with him. Awesome. Look out Belgrade!

Standing On The Outside

2006-09-19T20:49:00.000+08:00

Now that Peter Brock's funeral is over, I think it's probably slightly (but not much) safer to tell this story on my blog. I know I've probably told it to almost everyone who reads it, but what the hell, you can hear it again. As all of you know, (except maybe those outside Australia, if any of you are reading this) Australia recently lost another legend: Peter Brock, possibly the greatest ever Australian motorsport racer. It was indeed a sad loss. In a hilariously ironic twist of fate however (don't hit me), shortly before his untimely death, Brock signed a deal to endorse a new in-car GPS navigation system: Road Angel. Even more ironic than the name, was the procuct's slogans: Simply The Smartest Choice For Safer Driving", and "Now you can get from A to B...Safely". Not only that, but it has voice direction. Who better to tell you how to drive than Peter Brock himself? I would have paid to see the face of the advertising suit who first suggested the idea of having this product endorsed by Peter Brock, that would have been hilarious.

I wonder, if there's some form of heaven, or a "spirit", or whatever else it is people believe in these days, if Peter Brock sees the irony in it. I don't mean any disrespect to Peter Brock by all this, so please don't be all disgusted at me. In fact, I hope that when I die, I die in the same eay he did: doing what I love, and with some element that at least one person finds funny.

When I die, I want people to react with laughter. Saddness too, but I'd hope that there's some aspect to laugh about, too. I don't want anyone to feel bad, or guilty for laughing, as I hope I die in a way that is in some way, funny. Preferably not "what an idiot"-funny, but I'll take what I can get.

That's all for now, but I'll leave you with a question: Was it wrong of me to set the Road Angel on display at work to speak with Peter Brock's voice?

The Unforgettable Fire

2006-09-04T18:47:00.000+08:00

Sad news, isn't it? He was a great man. Sure, we were all embarrased by him from time to time, but he did some fantastic things. It's amazing to think that someone so nigh-invincible, who spent his whole life wrestling deadly animals, was killed by an animal that is normally very docile and placid. I'm no nature expert myself, but I've dived with stingrays many times, and never felt at all threatened. It seems incredible that with all the amazingly dangerous, and boarderline stupid things he's done, that should be his fate. I feel especially sorry for his daughter, he seemed like he was a really good father - aside from the whole nearly-feeding-his-baby-to-a-croc thing. I've always thought that he wasn't putting the baby in any real danger over that anyway. There's a beautiful eulogy for him on Rosie's blog. As it's private, I've posted it below (with permission).

Death of an Icon

There are defining moments in one's life. Birth, first steps, first words, first report card, etc. These are all someone egocentric. Then you have the extrinsic moments, from outside your little microcosm. Political milestones, first people in space, record breaking wins, heartbreaking losses.

The third type of defining moments are those that shake up your consciousness and make you more aware of things. Those moments that happen that you do not believe - where your world falls out from under you. You can't believe it. Maybe if you don't believe it, it won't be true. You aren't always necessarily upset - sometimes you are. I'm talking moments in time that are neither planned nor anticipated, but cataclysmic in some way - be it in emotional trauma, physical trauma, epiphanic realisation of some common truth long since taken for granted. It's when you see the white noise, or to paraphrase Vidya, the white background. When you take the focus outside your inner circle. You look at the people beyond, the reality beyond, and you realise there is more to life (and death) to that with which you are familiar. Things you thought you knew, but never really appreciated until now. The addage, 'Don't know what you got 'til it's gone' never rang truer.

Oddly enough, these instances seem to happen in clusters, like the tipping of some metaphorical seesaw, which seems to hang in the balance for ages, like everything accumulates on it and one day it just tips over and all that pent up everything you knew but never knew just tips over and rushes at you all at once like a bus with you in it's headlights.

Remember when you realised that vegetables actually WERE good for you? Well I do. It took me a while to digest (haha) that all those battles not to eat vegetables had been in vain. An issue too deep, even now, to fully appreciate. It is a wake up, a check that you still know what is going on. That the blood flowing in your veins is not just for fun, but it is there so you can look out and see and feel and hear and know - and all of sudden you are.

Often these events seem trivial to some. More will scoff. 'How does that affect you?' 'What made you even think about that?' or 'You're crazy. I don't care.' And so they are entitled to remain in blissful ignorance of this gargantuan truth you have encountered. It is a bitter pill called reality, and you have just taken that intoxicating swig of Scotch you need for it to go down.

For me, this moment came with the news of Steve Irwin's death. And it is his, and his family's and his friends, and I respect that. The tragedy and uniquity of it is everyone's though. This moment for me was a realisation of mortality. This man, this icon, this establishment, was always immortal. He wrestled crocodiles, wild animals, tamed the hearts of cold critics. He did it crazily, so very stereotypically, but never with a hint of mortality. Always invincible. Nothing about him spoke death, nothing about his wife and their two children, about his broken bones, his open smile, his odd parental antics, or his movies/television shows. Nothing about the way he had a passion for animals spoke death. He was either unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that it followed him at every turn. But it got him. Did he suspect it? Was it really a 'freak accident?' Only two people have died in Australia the way he did. I suppose it's amazing.

Now he has come to face his mortality, mine seems somewhat real as well. Why? I'm not a danger seeker, a wild man, a father of two. But he was all these things and it didn't stop death coming for him. I realise, what stands between me and the great beyond? Not a whole lot. A bit of an education and a bit more of a will to live. Luck? Probably not. My mortality is real because his never was and it got him anyway.

All I can do is sigh and say goodbye. I knew him not, often laughed at him, sometimes with him. Thought he made us look stupid then realised that they all think we're like that anyway so why not live it up. He lived and just lived. He did not live and consider that maybe he wouldn't. I think I look into the face of death, but it's not true. Now...

I'm not so sure.

"I'll fight to the death..." he said.

He did, and I'm glad.

(Steve Irwin 1962-2006)

-Rosie

Simply The Best

2006-09-03T23:37:00.000+08:00

Not that any of you who read this probably care, or will find this slightly interesting, but I'm Excited! (Watch "GDC 2006 Trailer" if interested)

Scoreboard:
Rosie - 5
Tim - 5
Mephistopheles - 7
Cat - 5

Moments In The Woods

2006-08-29T18:10:00.000+08:00

Today's random thoughts and comments:

Well, Pluto's no longer a planet, according to a bunch of scientists in Prague. Personally, I won't miss it all that much. It's not like it was ever a particularly interesting or beautiful planet in the first place. Plus, now Pluto is gone, all those science textbooks that used to include poorly drawn dogs with lame captions under them will have to choose a new planet for a lame joke, as we all know that every section of most school textbooks until about year 9 try and include at least one or more unfunny jokes per section in a feeble attempt to keep kids interested. Maybe they'll be forced to finally recognise the true humour king of the solar system at last. We can only hope.

On another matter, German sucks. There's too many extra letters, and more than a few sounds that a normal human just can't produce without severe pain and mutilation to the tongue and vocal cords. Sorry Miri, Cait, and anyone else who speaks German, but your language is crap. =p

Speaking of German, the reason I'm trying to pick it up (for those of you who might not already know), I've finally booked my flight to Austria. I'll be away for all of November, I'm really looking forward to that. I also plan to fly over to...somewhere else while I'm in Europe and catch up with Tom for a few days, which should be great. At the moment, I don't know exactly where we'll meet, but we were thinking either Spain, Germany or Austria. I'm hoping for Spain right now, as I'm already going to be in Austria, and Spain looks pretty interesting.

As a side-note, I'd just like to point this out. Interesting bit of introspection. I think a lot of us probably ask these sorts of questions of ourselves at times, I know I certainly do. It's interesting to see it in writing. The link is to Cait's blog, in case anyone was wondering.

I apologise for this post not being more interesting, but things are largely uneventful at the moment, and the only things that are eventful are too unpleasant for me to really want to write a blog entry on. Nothing particularly disasterous in the overall scheme of things, but unpleasant enough.

Common People

2006-08-09T23:01:00.000+08:00

Apologies to anyone who might be shocked by a sudden 'flood' of posts, but I just read a really interesting post over on Rosie's blog. I suggest you head over there and have a read, it's about people watching. I do this too, it's a good way to pass the time. Anyway, it's an interesting look at it. I've included it below (with permission) so those of you who might not have access to her blog can read it.

The Mystery Within

Everyday I sit on my bus, with various people, in varying moods, from a variety of differing backgrounds and with many a variant of personality. Apart from the wonder at the fact that I just used to word variety in four forms, I marvel at how little I know about them when they get on, and what you can suss out until they get off.

For example, the guy who pushed in front of me to get on. I'm sure if felt fabulous for him to get his multirider validated first. Perhaps he linked that with his own validation, or something equally as pathetic and needy. Throughout the bus ride, he talked to his 'buddy' next to him and make quick smarmy movements that attempted to involve a third female party in the seat behind. This guy, with his cocky mannerisms, totally unnecessary sunglasses on this 17 degree day, spikey blonde hair and obvious lack of regard for common courteousy somehow made me think. In his little sphere, overlapping into the girl he pushed in front of (me) his friend next to him and the rather awkward looking girl behind him, he managed to control part of the dynamics of the bus ride around him. And that interested me.

You have your fair dose of girls who look remarkably similar (at the moment I refer you to the craze of flat shoes, skinny leg jeans, half-cardigans and polka dots, though it will undoubtedly change within weeks of this post) and who also sound remarkably similar. When they don't look the same, they all look varying shades of different, but necessarily the same different. I know, I know, that doesn't make the greatest of sense and would probably benefit from rephrasing to avoid grammatical confusion, but I (hope) think you know what I mean. The big skirts, the grungy I-like-to-look-like-a-man look, the cutsie shirts with writing, the havainas, multi-coloured hair, the I'm-really-classy-even-though-I'm-only-going-to-uni look, and, my personal favourite, the I-put-no-effort-into-my-appearance look, otherwise known as the 'plain and unremarkable'. To me, it serves as an interesting point by which to examine how exactly fashion is regarded by different parts of the community (ie where they get off) and how this in turn is affected by what they're studying (if I'm lucky enough to see their books).

Then there is the hot guy who catches my bus twice a week and whom I feel no guilt in staring at. You don't make muscles like that for no reason and I hold the opinion that should he know people (me) were admiring his muscles, he would feel validated and may possibly go bench-press some more. Alternatively, he may have been born like that and at hearing such news would bury himself in his room in shame and down four litres of Sara Lee Quadruple Choc Fountain and hire someone to move his legs to avoid using up precious reserves of fat. I don't know. But it does make for pleasant travelling. I sometimes think he likes posing in his statuesque fashion, where he turns his face slightly to the window so that his neck looks all defined, with this serious look on his face and his strong jaw and deep, soulful eyes texturised by the shadow that falls across them...Perhaps I digress, but then again, perhaps not. He doesn't look at anyone or speak to anyone (except the girl he sat next to today...hmmm) but instead appears deep in thought, or perhaps having some sort of out of body experience. Whatever floats his boat, he's fun to look at, from both aesthetically appreciative and intellectual points of view. I think that perhaps I am not the only one who likes to admire his physique. Even if I am, he creates a whole different sphere of his own, him disappearing into thought, me/others/the whole bus surreptitiously trying to look at whilst equally as surreptiously trying to appear as if not looking at and checking to see if anyone has noticed me/us looking.

And there are the drivers. And how much difference they make! On occasion you get the one of four bus drivers not jaded by long hours and abhorrent pay, and when you do, your day is just that much better. They smile, you smile, everyone smiles, and we all feel a bit better about something, whether it be ourselves, that assignment we just got back with the mark we didn't want, or the day we just had that we wish we never had to have. You just feel safer, more respected and like you're not just some dirty uni student who he/she doesn't want to pick up anyway and would much prefer to bypass on the way to the depot. Then, on the other hand, you have the bitter, evil, gratuitously malicious drivers who, heaven forbid, you should ask meekly 'Do you go past Stirling?' will bellow "DOES IT SAY THAT ON THE FRONT OF THE BUS?" and when you reply, 'Well no, but last week when I didn't ask and it didn't say, the bus stopped at ECU and I had to wait for 20 minutes with the entire population of ECU Business School for the next bus', proceeds to snatch your multirider from your hands and scrawl over it in messy, bus driver writing, NOT VALID. No, this exact event hasn't happened, but each section in turn has, and I figure that it is perfectly reasonable to assume that they could happen together. My point is, if you get a driver who is willing to just treat you like a human instead of the consumer you are, you are more inclined to respect them and not ask why exactly it is they are driving buses. No, that isn't nice. But it's what springs to mind when all you feel like saying when they ask you for student ID is 'Would I be lugging around "Criminal Law in Queensland and Western Australia if I wasn't?"'. You pick at the first thing you can to reassure yourself you are better than them, and that, sadly, is usually that they are driving you home. When you get the nice guys, it tends to be that you think that in fact they are living secret lives, that they are actually high-flying corporate types who sneak a day off each week to drive buses because it is their passion to serve people at the grass roots level and also because all that suit wearing gets tiresome after a while. So it's nice to imagine.

Then of course, and this is particularly tailored to UWA bus riding but could also be suited to students of universities that share bus routes with other universities, there are those students from other universities that get on at other stops. I find myself sitting there resenting the fact that they are getting on and taking so damn LONG, when I stop and think 'Hang on, I suppose this is the same for Notre Dame students (who get on at Fremantle) while they're sitting on the bus at our stop, and we take over the bus and it goes 10km/h slower because there are so many damned people on it.' Still, it doesn't totally stop me from wishing I didn't have to sit next to anyone, or willing them to hurry the hell up because I want to get home and watch CBH. No, my desire to keep rushing is not overridden by my conscience, but at least I am aware of my shortcomings, as has been the case and as such my most recent 'buzz phrase'.

Peut-être, you think I am a voyeur, that this bus trip thing is some sort of twisted way of justifying staring at people. Sure, perhaps it is a justification, but it's a social observation. For those of you who turn away in disgust at this because it sounds naughty, either drop out of uni or die, whatever is easiest (dying might be easier if you have fanatical academic parents). But social observation is what keeps me interested, fascinated and intrigued by the world. How it changes, how social dynamics change people and how we influence each other on a regular basis, without ever knowing we did.

xxx

-Rosie

Death of an Interior Decorator

2006-08-09T22:51:00.000+08:00

And top honours in this years' Darwin Awards goes to...this guy!

The White Stuff

2006-08-08T19:53:00.000+08:00

Mind out of the gutter, it's a song name! This really made my week. Amazon.com have now started selling fresh groceries, but the descriptive pages for them take on the exact same format as the pages for other items, such as books, cds and dvds. The end result of this, is that you are able to write customer reviews. A large number of people have taken it apon themselves to write reviews of said groceries, the most reviewed being Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz. The reviews now number over 500, and not a serious one amongst the lot of them. Here's an assortment of my personal favourites.

"This is the worst milk I ever had. The gallon was delivered on time, but I wasn't ready to drink it right away. I finally got a chance to try it a few weeks later, and boy was I in for a shock. It was LUMPY! It tasted horrible too. I was barely able to finish the gallon."

"I washed my car with this product and it really looks great, but it has a terrible smell and everyone thinks I left some cheese in the trunk."

"Unfortunately, after a terrible night's sleep, I have concluded that this product is not suitable for use a a pillow."

"There are no instructions on opening the bottle. I had to throw mine away, the 800-number listed on the bottle unfortunately doesn't offer options on opening the bottle."

"I highly recommend this product. After years of failure putting cows through my Juiceman, Tuscan Whole Milk has come out with a product that not only looks like milk, but actually is milk. I have no idea how they've done it, but surely there is a patent on their brilliant process. The best I could ever hope to get was a pulpy red mess with chips of bone and some fur.

Interestingly enough, the cow milk I made tasted very similar to squirrel milk. Is there a market for that?

Anyone wanna buy a Juiceman Juicer? I don't think I need it anymore."

"Tuscan Whole Milk provides whisper-light lubrication for enhancing the comfort and ease of intimate activity. Developed to mimic natural body fluids, Tuscan Whole Milk not only lubricates, but also acts as a moisturizer for vaginal dryness. Tuscan Whole Milk's long-lasting super-slick formula is pH balanced, water-based, water-soluble and petroleum free. Tuscan Whole Milk will intensify the pleasure and sensitivity for both partners. It is the perfect ingredient for increased sexual fun."

And last of all...

"Tastes fine, but it has a tendency to spray out of the mouth (and occasionally, the nose) when reading the other product reviews written here.
Curiously, this doesn't happen with other products sold by Amazon. "

Read them all here.

Scoreboard:
Rosie - 5
Tim - 5
Mephistopheles - 7
Cat - 4

If I Had Million Dollars

2006-07-20T20:11:00.001+08:00

...I wouldn't be giving it away as a prize for this. However, here are the scores at present. I'll put these at the bottom of my posts whenever there's a change. From now on, if you go back and get the older posts, let me know in a comment in the newest one, or I'll not know about it. The scores thus far are as follows.

R - 5
T - 5
C - 6

Strangers In A Car

2006-07-03T18:02:00.000+08:00

Oh man....this is awesome. Go here.

Awesome response to the competition, I'll tally up the scores soon.

Addle Brains

2006-06-19T23:20:00.000+08:00

Compeition time! Well...not really. As you may or may not have noticed, the titles on all my posts are song titles. I thought it might be fun to have a little competition to see how many you recognise. Comment with the name of artist who performs the song in the post, and every now and then I'll post a scoreboard, if it seems to be taking off. First person to guess correctly wins. Now I KNOW how easy it is to cheat and google the name, but please don't, it's only a fun game, and there's nothing to be won. Oh, and Tony? I know you're almost always first on the scene when I make a new post, and you're also most likely to guess almost all of them, so give the others a bit of a head start, eh? ;)

New Slang

2006-06-19T23:13:00.000+08:00

Go here. Interesting writing and well-written stories and poems await

There Is No Such Place

2006-06-16T05:06:00.000+08:00

Well, it's another of my 5am posts. A long one, in fact. I was experimenting with a bit of creative writing, again, and I came out with something....odd. It's a bit detatched, and one of the main characters is an object, but it was fun to try and derive some sort of character from something that is so completely unremarkable and characterless. The detatched and slightly weird perspective is deliberate. After each of the first three paragraphs, see if you can guess what "it" might be. Oh, and leave a comment :)

I looked at it. It gazed back with an almost palpable sense of apathy. In reflection, I don’t suppose it could have looked back in any other way. It was, after all, completely inanimate. It sat on the verge, completely unexceptional, blending in with the old, dying appliances, the broken furniture, discarded blocks of polystyrene. The unwanted scraps of an improvident society. Nevertheless, it didn’t seem particularly phased by its decrepit colleagues. It just sat, and rested, as was its want.

I felt sorry for it, although I didn’t know why. Despite its apparent indifference to the situation it was facing, I did not want to see it taken away to face an unknown, presumably brief future. I decided something had to be done. Upon attempting to lift it myself, I concluded it was too cumbersome and weighty to be carried. I peered inside, but could see nothing to remove. After a moment’s consideration, I obtained a purchase, and began to drag it into the back yard.

Somewhat to my disappointment, I could not sense any change in its mood whatsoever. I don’t know what I was hoping for; it certainly couldn’t have shaken my hand, given me a hug, or in fact, done anything at all. Just some acknowledgement for my efforts would have been rewarding, however it just sat once more, unwavering in its stolid indifference. Maybe, I thought, maybe it would be better for it to be inside, where it wouldn’t get damp at night. I knew it could not catch cold, but a night in the elements probably would not have done much for its state, either.

I opened the flyscreen door, and dragged it inside and up to my room. It took up a good portion of it, being slightly longer than my bed. I looked at it again. It gave off a slightly different feeling now, though it is difficult to describe exactly how it was different. I sat down next to it, and peered into its depths. As the black spots slowly vanished from my eyes, scattering into nothingness, I realized I could see inside reasonably well. The open end let the light in, and although the sky was overcast, sunlight filtered through the clouds and into my room. I crawled inside. The inside was as unremarkable as the outside, but I liked it. I pulled the open end closed, and sat in my dim, snug space. I like to think it appreciated the company.

There was not a great deal of room inside, but it was cosy, and somehow comforting. Almost like hiding under the bed, in fact. I couldn’t stretch out all the way, but I didn’t mind. I crawled back to the entrance end, reached out, and pulled a pillow from my bed nearby. Closing the door again, I lay on the pillow for comfort, and felt safe and secure. Nothing could get me in here; I was in my own place, safe from harm, safe from the world.

I awoke hours later; cramped, yet comfy. Emerging from my private place, I started to the top of the stairs. I heard yelling. Screaming, fighting. Two voices clashing, warring, tearing, clawing at each other. The sound of a glass being knocked to the floor, sobs, more yelling, loud noises, a smack. I ran, terrified. I ran to it, dived in, and pulled the doors shut. The noises were more muffled now, I could ignore them. I crawled to my secret corner of my secret universe, grabbed my pillow and clung to it tightly.

I waited with it, as it comforted me. It made me feel safe, it told me to be calm. I relaxed my grasp on my pillow and lay down on my back, still hugging the pillow. Nothing could get me in here; I was in my own place, safe from harm, safe from the world.

More notes:

I originally intended for this to be written from an adult's perspective, reflecting back on a childhood memory, but in a strange way, and I never intended to state it directly, or even indirectly. Do you think that worked?

Private Investigations

2006-06-11T22:10:00.000+08:00

Just a quick word of support to all my friends currently starting exams. Good luck, I hope you all do well. Don't stress too much =]

Colourblind

2006-06-09T02:56:00.000+08:00

In keeping with my rapid posting of links, here's something you'll find a lot of fun. It says to stare for 30 seconds, but 15 should do. Check it out.

Eat It

2006-06-09T02:53:00.000+08:00

What a brilliant, yet probably stupid idea! This guy has decided to try and live off "Monkey Chow" for a week, as he's sick of cooking and cleaning. He figures that monkeys are *almost* humans, so therefore monkey food is *almost* human food. What a *brilliant* mind indeed. He's on day 6 now, take a look.

Rodeo Clowns

2006-06-08T16:54:00.001+08:00

If you haven't already, I suggest you check out The Dilbert Blog. It's written by Scott Adams, and frequently has a lot of very amusing, controversial, thought provoking things on it. It's updated very regularly, and should provide for some great reading.

I Will Always Love...Noodles?

2006-05-22T21:24:00.000+08:00

This is probably the funniest thing I've seen all week. Immature, but oh-so-amusing.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Changes

2006-05-22T21:08:00.000+08:00

I just wanted to share with you something that was absolutely charming, amusing, and very clever. I'd say more, but that would ruin it. Click the link, and go to "Changes" (Second animation from the top). The "Divx" link will direct you to a larger file that you can download and keep, the "Flash Video" link is half the size, but you don't download it to your computer. Enjoy it.

Changes

Ever Fallen In Love

2006-05-11T03:46:00.001+08:00

This entry began it’s life as a reply to a post on B's Blog. It then grew to be about 800 words, so it was moved here. If you notice anything addressing her directly, it was left unedited by mistake.

I don't know if I believe in everlasting love, or unchanging love. Scratch that, I don't believe in it. If your feelings for a person never changed, life would be pretty boring. Sure you might be happy, but in my personal opinion, unchanging feelings...aren't. Look at our society. The baby boomers (our parents) are divorcing left, right and centre, the people of our generation are involved in relationships that change, break apart, drift back together, end in tears, and very rarely remain stable. Name me a couple amongst our friends who seem to be a pillar of stability, and I'll tell you how many times one of them has told me they've thought of ending it. Well, I probably won't tell you, but trust me, I can't think of any relationships that I would say are rock solid, with an unchanging, unconditional love. For new couples, only been going out a few months, that starts off different, but every single relationship I've watched over recent times has not been anywhere near what you're describing. That isn't to say there is no hope for love. I know there are relationships that do succeed, and that do stay together. The numbers aren't insignificant either, but for some, there's still plenty of time to sour. The rest...well, maybe it is the kind of everlasting love Bec speaks of in her blog, and maybe not. I'd actually be fascinated to live another 3 or 4 generations to see how relationships and the divorce rate change. I think people of our generation will probably end up being married at least twice on average.

Interestingly, the best example of a happy couple that does seem to have a very strong connection is the elderly generation. Their divorce rate is much lower, and they generally seem to work better as couples. Maybe they're just "better at love" than we are. I think, however, that the reason these older couples seem so much more "in love", is to do with their society as they grew up as young couples. They went through much more hardship together, and, more importantly, society looked down upon divorce. In today's more liberal society, it's almost accepted as the norm, and people do it all the time. As to the effect of this, I can suggest two things. The first, is that elderly couples just couldn't justify a divorce to themselves, with the social connotations, so they just learned to live with it, and knew nothing else. The second suggestion, more likely in my eyes, is that because divorce was looked down upon by society, their only real option when things started to get unpleasant was to sort out their problems, and therefore, their marriage. Through that experience, they became closer together. Keep in mind that it wasn’t always perfect for them either, they would have had their problems too. Their love wasn’t unchanging. You might even say it improved.

Not long ago, in fact, I read a study on the enamoured brain. The study reported on the discovery of a certain type of chemical or hormone in the brain. The level of this element present in the brain of a person who has recently fallen in love is far higher than that of a single person. The interesting thing about the study though, was that after a year or two, the presence of the chemical in that person would be back to the levels it was in a single person. This would suggest that there is a timer on love, and at the very least, love changes.

To sum up, I don’t know about love yet. I don’t yet believe in a love that is everlasting and unchanging. It would take a lot to change my mind on that. Everything changes. We live in a dynamic, evolving society, and it is rare for anything to remain unchanged over time, especially human relationships. Your relationship with your parents has changed dramatically from the first day you were born, your relationship with your friends change, your friends themselves change. You may have thought you’d never lose your best friend from year 4, but you’d get nothing but a cursory “hello” if you bumped into them on the street. In that light, I find it very hard to believe that a romantic relationship could be unchanging. Feel free to bombard me with arguments, please. I’m unusually tired for 3am, and I have a feeling there were some more things I was gonna throw in there as well, but I’ll leave it for now.

-Coming Soon...Waiting For My Real Life To Begin, Part Two

Caring Is Creepy

2006-05-07T03:59:00.000+08:00

Can A Game Make You Cry?

I am a crybaby. I don’t care what you think. Well, that’s simply not true, is it? If I didn’t care what you think, I wouldn’t be setting out to write a piece explaining why the crybaby gets the best deal. I deeply care what you think. In fact, if you don’t like me, I may… sniffle… come on, let’s get on with it.

The above question is obviously a silly one. Answer: Yes. I think anyone who might take the stance that games cannot make you cry is either a sociopath, has never played Angel of Darkness and tried to walk in a straight line, or simply a big, lying coward. Begone, cowards! Today is the day of the ludicrously emotional – we shall triumph and probably get all weepy as we accept our victory.

Most of you may be surprised that a mere game could move a person to tears, and when I have told people of my sniffley ways, I am often met with a confused, disbelieving reaction. I ask you this, however: Has a movie never caused you to shed a tear at the death of a character, or a particularly spectacular triumph? If your answer to this is no, this article is for you. I would like to repeat something a friend of mine recently said: “I think... in today's completely emotionally frozen world, the highest compliment that can be paid to any creator, writer or filmmaker or whatever, is that people cried during your work.”

My argument is this: if a movie, which is a storytelling medium, can move a person to tears, why should a computer game not have that same ability? I believe that being able to burst into tears while playing a game is a great enhancement to the experience, and an admirable attribute in a person. Were you to break down in tears every time you lost a race in Need For Speed, I’d have nothing but the deepest admiration for you. I’d think you were a bit strange, but I’d respect you. Why? You would be connecting with the game, and being transformed by it. An outstanding example of this would be 1998’s classic point-and-click adventure; The Longest Journey. It was an amazing game, marred very slightly by a few unforgettably illogical puzzles, but all the same, a thoroughly engrossing point-and-click adventure game.

The story revolves around one April Ryan, an eighteen year old art student, who recently ran away from a cruel father to Venice, Newport, where she works at a café to support herself through art school. A sassy, sarcastic, appealing character, April provides the perfect window into the story of the twin worlds. Hundreds of years ago, the Earth was divided into two: Science and Magic, Stark and Arcadia. Set in the year 2200, Stark provides a very recognisable, and very realistic version of our world. It is familiar to us, while also being foreign in some ways. In contrast, Arcadia refers back to so many fantasy lands, a world governed by the laws of magic. April discovers, through her dreams, that she has the rare power to ‘shift’ between worlds, and this power controls her destiny. The guardian that watches The Divide between the two worlds has left his throne, and she discovers that she is to be his replacement for the next thousand years.

In a revelation at the climax of the story, (spoiler avoiders for TLJ are advised to stop reading here) April discovers that she is, in fact, not to be the new guardian, and The Balance no longer needs her. As a course of her actions throughout the story, she has become isolated from her friends, and has committed actions that cause her to be wanted by the law. Out of context, it may be hard to understand just how an ending such as this can move someone to tears, so please allow me to explain. When you are playing a computer game, the experience is one of immersion. This sense is arguably heightened further in a game than in any other story telling medium, because of the interactivity of the experience. The player rarely ever believes that they are the character on screen, but in a successful game, you associate with that character, more so than you would in a book or movie. You share emotions with April, and you empathize with her.

The last lines from the game are these: “Well that’s the end of that. Funny. I feel almost.........melancholy. Despite everything that’s happened, I’m actually gonna miss this......this adventure. After all, what am I doing now? Going back to school, acting like nothing has happened, like I’m just a.....a normal person? Well........it’s a long way home. I’ll figure it out before I get there.....wherever ‘there’ is.” She then walks away, into an unknown future. It is emptiness, completion, betrayal, relief and uncertainty. The music swells to a crescendo, April fades away, and the credits roll. I cried. I sat there, reflecting on the experience, and I cried.

I had watched, I had been with April, as she sacrificed everything she knew in order to save the worlds, and barely anyone knew she had done anything at all. In a moment, she had been tossed aside by destiny, her part fulfilled, her usefulness expired. Her life as she knew it was in ruins, she was no longer welcome in her world, a wanted criminal. For the past month of her life, she was important, she had a part to play, there was a purpose to her life, but now...nothing. No aim, no destiny, no direction, nothing. I felt as betrayed by the cruel hand of destiny as she had, felt that emptiness that came with having her life evaporate swallow me. Faced with such an experience, I challenge any of you to remain unaffected by it.

As a general rule, however, the majority of games are not as successful in delivering such profound emotions. Games excel in the visceral. This is why we have so many action games, because guns work from a gameplay perspective. Classical gameplay is about trying something, failing, knowing why you failed, trying again, and eventually feeling, ‘fantastic, I’ve done it!’ There’s no ambiguity about firing a gun and having it hit, or not hit. That’s the visceral. It’s much more obvious.

The undeniable fact that the aforementioned first-person-shooter genre is one of the biggest industry sellers has no doubt prevented deeper exploration of emotions in games, and with games costing millions of dollars to develop and produce, it is of little wonder that developers rarely dare to venture into the unknown, and take risks with stories that don’t revolve solely around killing things. Ahh, for the days of Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, and Day Of The Tentacle, where Mexican folklore, three-headed monkeys, flaming beavers and time-traveling toilets reigned supreme. Hopefully in the future, more and more game developers will put as much care into the stories of their creations, as they do into the different ways of dealing death to those that oppose you. It does appear to be a growing trend, so one can only hope that we will soon have many more games on our shelves that have compelling stories to tell, stories that will cause me, and the rest of my emotionally mature comrades, to shed a tear or two.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, games can make you cry. So, why is that a good thing? I’d like to present the completely unscientific suggestion, with utter conviction, that such profound responses are the emotional equivalent of looking through 3-D glasses. Allowing oneself to buy into a story and fall in love with its characters, despite its appearing on a computer screen, is to submit to the writer’s mercy, and have the game come alive in a transforming way. It’s a giving over of oneself, a humbling step to allow a greater experience.

This means I wish I did cry whenever I died in a first person shooter, or whenever my virtual car collided with a tight corner’s barrier. It would, admittedly, make games like Tomb Raider too harrowing to play, constantly grieving the death of poor Lara, but each and every gaming session would be all the more powerful and important.

Because of my pride in having such loose tear ducts, and my big mouth, I am regularly confronted with the confused and mocking faces of those who learn of my weepy ways. Anyone who mentions The Longest Journey in my presence will hear much talk of how much I love April Ryan, and how important she is to me, how transforming her story has been, and how I cried and cried at the revelation of her adventures. At that point, they look at me, unnerved, perhaps taking a couple of steps backward. Still not seeing sense, I may then go on to tell of the tears I shed for Grim Fandango’s Lola, in one of the most beautiful death scenes I have ever been witness to, game or otherwise. Seeing her die on the top of the lighthouse, and watching her body be consumed by flowers, flowers that spiral off into the night winds, over the sea...

Bewildered faces surround me, quickly replaced by the mocking. But I don’t care! I am a crybaby, and I’m proud! Crybabies of the world, let us stand together, arms around each other’s shoulders, probably rather overwhelmed by the situation and getting a bit sniffly, and see off these mocking fools. Because it is they, those that look down on the emotionally mature, those that condemn us for forming relationships with our characters, who lose out. It is they that watch their games in flat, monotone misery, unable to let go of their pride, their stubbornness, and let the tears flow. They deserve our sympathy, fellow crybabies. Do not hate them. They are the losers, and we are the winners. Shed a tear for them – it’s what we’re best at.

With bony hands I hold my partner,
On soulless feet we cross the floor,
The music stops as if to answer,
An empty knocking at the door,
It seems his skin was sweet as mango,
When last I held him to my breast,
But now we dance this grim fandango,
And will four years before we rest.

-Poem from Grim Fandango

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin...

2006-03-30T01:32:00.000+08:00

Aren't we all?

I've been in two minds as to if I should write this down or not, and you are warned now - if you're easily depressed, now would be a good time to look away. Perhaps it's a result of the things that have been going on in my life recently, but I've been having some interesting, yet depressing thoughts running through my head as of late.

It seems like for most, if not all of our childhood, we look to adults as an entirely different species to us; infallible, strong, mature, independent, and powerful. They are, in a way, the gods of our world, and dictate our lives to a large extent. It's finally beginning to dawn on me that adults are just kids, but bigger. I'm not saying that I've believed adults to be entirely different to us, infallible, and all the other things I've listed above, but I'm sure you know what I mean. These people run the world, effectively. They have all the responsibility on their shoulders, they make the decisions, they're supposed to be together and with it. Most adults give off that impression most of the time too, it's just how they portray themselves.

Watching my parents go through everything recently has highlighted to me, the fact that adults are just kids in disguise, with the same insecurities, pettiness and immaturity that the teenagers and kids have, only better hidden. As we grow older, we develop a shell to protect ourselves, this outer personality to hide away our childlike immaturity and vulnerability from the world, to help us interact and behave in a way that is considered to be more "adult". If you think back to life when you were 6 or 7, and you had an argument with someone, you might un-invite them to your birthday party. Now, at the age of 18, we're far more mature and reasonable about it - after negotiation fails (assuming it takes place at all, and when it does it's just a more manipulative, eloquent and softer version of the screaming match that happens in the playground), we bitch about them behind their backs, we try and avoid them, or stop talking to them. Thinking about it, it's just a more advanced version of the same basic idea. If you watch "adults" go through the same thing, it's essentially the same as what generally happens at our younger age, just a little more reserved and controlled.

I know I've changed a lot mentally over the last 10 years, but I'm still me, and I'm sure you are too. My mind still works in the same way it always has, it's just developed to do the same thing in a more complicated and effective way. This leads me to think in another 10 years when I'm 28, things won't have changed that much inside my head, I'll just be better at being me, my shell will be harder, and I'll be better able to disguise myself as an adult. Can any of you really imagine just growing up to have a so-called adult brain, and adult outlook? I'm sure when we were in year seven, about to move forward into the scary senior school, we just assumed we'd start to think and act in a different way, the way the big kids did. Did you? Well, you did start to act like the big kids, you got girlfriends or boyfriends, you went out late at night, whatever, but do you really feel much different to the way you did before? I doubt it. I'm still just as unsure about everything as I was then, I just act in a way that hides it from everyone else. Now I've come to realize that, I'm starting to see more of the cracks in the projections put up by others, starting to see that everyone else seems to be the same - just children playing as adults, pretending to be all grown up. Teachers, parents, co-workers, almost all of them have cracks that betray their act as just that; an act. Brings to mind the expression "inner child", actually.

Some people, however, start to really believe in their projections, and forget themselves in order to truly become adults. Once a person does this though, they seem to loose themselves in a way, you can feel like you're talking to a shell of a person, someone who's forgotten how to really live. It takes an extreme experience to remind them of their past. The death of someone's mother, for example, is usually able to bring out the child in anyone; the vulnerable, scared child who's been left by themselves in the supermarket, crying out for their mother to find them, tell them everything's going to be alright, hold their hand look after them. Major arguments or fights seem also to bring out childishness in adults, where they'll refuse to talk, cry, scream, ectetera. It shows that although people hide away from other people by acting civilised, a lot of the time that wouldn't be what's going on in their head.

This seems to be more common in women, it's more often you'll see a woman crying and screaming than a man, they're often seen as the more emotionally unstable gender. I would say this is probably because of the way they are raised. Girls are generally treated as more precious than boys, and they form closer ties to their parents than boys do. As they grow and mature, it seems they always remain "daddies little girl", to an extent. I know I'm generalizing, but please bear with me. As you are all aware, the male stereotype is that of the provider, the tougher gender, the defender of the family. This would probably explain why boys are treated a little rougher than girls are, to get them used to hardship and teach them to keep a "stiff upper lip", because "big boys don't cry". I doubt it's a very conscious thing on the part of the parents, it's just an automatic response to society's definition of masculinity. But I digress...

The point I'm really trying to make is, we all seem to be "waiting for our real life to begin", don't we? Think about it, when you were a small child you used to look forward to growing up, everyone would ask, "what are you going to do when you grow up?", you looked forward to becoming a teenager, and eventually an adult. It seems though, that growing up isn't all it's cracked up to be, and I can't speak for all of my friends, but it really doesn't seem like we're transforming into these responsible, mature people we expected to be by now. I'm beginning to doubt there will be a time when our real lives will begin, when it will all start. I'm not deluding myself, I know there's a long way to go - I just don't see things changing a whole lot in the future. It's a scary thought, to know that in ten years the world will be owned by my generation, it's a responsibility most of us won't be ready for, the way we're going, but one we'll have to shoulder nevertheless. It's not all bad though, it's pretty safe to assume our parents, and their parents before them were in the same situation when they "came of age" (for lack of a better phrase), and although they didn't do a brilliant job (you only have to look at the world to see that), they did alright, and we can learn from their mistakes. We'll figure it out eventually, but for now we're just going to have to keep waiting for our real lives to begin, and time will only tell if or when that will happen.

That's about all I've got to say on this topic for now. When you read this, please keep in mind it was written between 3 and 4am, so there's a good chance that all of this won't make any sense, and will be complete crap. Then again, I could be right on the mark. Please comment, let me know your thoughts on all this.

Gone

2006-03-03T13:40:00.000+08:00

I won't be online this weekend, as I'm kicked out of the house for giving my mum a sarcastic response to one of the million questions she asked me about what my dad said on the phone. She does this every time I talk to him or see him, and I got sick of it. I'll be at my dad's without internet, but hopefully I'll be back after the weekend. I should be.

Don't Dream It's Over

2006-03-01T21:00:00.001+08:00

Well, after a long hiatus, I'm finally blogging again. There's been a mixture of things keeping me from posting lately, including work, friends, stress, pure laziness, and my strange inability to write anything that's not scarilly depressing. I'm not sure where that last one's coming from, but anything I've tried to write has come out very strange lately, so I haven't posted it. Since I've last posted, my best friend for the last 7 or 8 years - T. - has moved to S. Since I've known him, he's wrapped me entirely in toilet paper, locked me in a fold-up bed, pulled everything out of my bookshelf many times for laughs, locked me in many various rooms, cupboards, car boots, and so on, hidden countless posessions of mine and laughed as I tried to find them, thrown my shoes and socks into 4 different trees, returning them to separate trees each time I threw one down, stolen my pants while changing for PE in year 5 then locked me out of the classroom, stayed up talking to me till 5am when he needed to be up early because I'd just found out my parents were going to separate, worked with me for many hours to finish projects we'd left to the last minute, made me pass year 11 physics, stopped me from giving up on a lot of things, made me give up on a lot of things I needed to give up on, been there for me, bitched about everything and everyone, fought with me over stupid things, made me mad, apologised, helped me out of a lot of difficult situations without me having to ask, and been my closest friend for almost half my life.

Good luck T. I know you'll do well, and I'll see you whenever I can. I know this isn't the end, and although things will be a little different now with you in S, I'm sure we'll remain best friends.

I'm going to miss you.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

2006-02-03T01:00:00.000+08:00

I started to write something tonight. I don't know what it is, nor what it's about or where it's going, or even if I'll finish it, but I thought I'd post it just to see what people think. I don't know what it's called yet, but for now I'm going to refer to it as "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (yes, like the song). I don't know why, Please let me know what you think of it.

As she lay there by the side of the road, her lungs slowly filling with blood, the young woman watched her executioner stride off into the night. She tore the knife from her breast and tried to stand, only to collapse in a fit of coughing. The killer was either unnecessarily cruel, or perhaps simply inexperienced - he had missed her heart, making her death slow and agonising, slowly drowning her in her own blood.

Bleary-eyed and groggy, Charlie squinted as he slowly opened his eyes. Wearily gazing around the room, he realized he’d fallen asleep on the couch again. He became aware of the blaring static emanating from the television. He must have put his elbow on a button in his sleep. He rose unhurriedly, switching off the TV and rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he did so. Stepping around and over empty pizza boxes and takeout containers, he threw a quick glance around his flat. It was a long time since he’d had visitors, and the apartment showed it. It hadn’t been cleaned for over a month, and the cockroaches were becoming more daring, often coming out by day now. As Charlie walked to the shower, he noticed a small yellow envelope had been pushed under his door.

“Probably just another bill”, he mumbled to himself. He’d look at it later, no use worrying about how he’d scrape together the means to pay yet another one, when he could hardly even afford the rent on this shithole already.

Emerging from the bathroom, Charlie scrounged around his bedroom for a clean pair of underwear and a shirt that didn’t smell like it’d been worn for five days in a row. He settled for yesterday’s underwear – they were only three days old anyway – and an old t-shirt he couldn’t remember wearing for months, found at the bottom of a drawer. Flicking on the TV, Charlie sat down again. He couldn’t think of any reason to leave his apartment, there was nothing out there that interested him right now. He lay back, resting. It was only 10am, and he had nothing planned for the day. He let his mind wander…

Charlie sat up and looked at his watch. It was 2pm. Feeling only marginally less woozy than when he'd first woken up, he pulled himself up and decided to venture outside. There was nothing he wanted to do out there, but it was better than festering in his apartment for the rest of the day. Stepping over the envelope, he sauntered out of his apartment, down the stairs and out into the sunlight.

Four Seasons In One Day

2006-02-01T00:51:00.000+08:00

Feeling better now. Thanks - you know who you are.

My Happiness

2006-01-31T23:21:00.000+08:00

I don't think I've felt this bad in years.

Aural Sex!

2006-01-31T21:47:00.000+08:00

This is the greatest thing on the internet. There really is nothing better than this site.

www.pandora.com

Brass In Pocket

2006-01-28T17:15:00.000+08:00

I have recently discovered a fantastic idea. I just read about the story of a guy who started off with a paperclip, and offered to trade it for the best offer he recieved, and he would drive anywhere in North America to deliver it. He then would trade whatever he got for the best offer he recieved, and so on. Pretty good idea if you ask me, so I'm going to try and start a trade of my own. I will trade a limited edition Coca-Cola mini radio for anything better, anything at all. The radio works, and comes with batteries and headphones, it is still in it's packaging and has never been used. I will go anywhere that is within two hour's bike ride of any train station on the transperth system in order to trade with you, and will trade for absolotely anything, providing it is better than the radio. Please post your offers in the comments section.

Better Off

2006-01-20T22:24:00.000+08:00

Humans suck. No, we really do. Think about it - we used to be far stronger, tougher and better than we are now, the only thing that you could consider is an improvement is our bigger brains and lack of hair. Wouldn't it be great if we could still swing through trees and actually fend for ourselves? We're pretty crap at that, aren't we? We can barely fight anything we would need to kill for food without some kind of weapon, we get cold easily, we need water and food almost daily to live, we're weak...and for what, intelligence? Now that's all very well and good, our brains have helped us do great things, but do we really need all that? I'm not talking about you as you are, of course - I know I'd hate to be without all our modern conveniences, but it doesn't seem like people are any happier than gorillas, for all our technological advances. That's almost a reason to dismiss creationism, isn't it? Why would we be "created" to be so crap? When I say "crap", I mean it like this; If you were just a soul, a being with your personality but didn't have a physical body, and you had to choose between having the body of a human or a gorilla, which would you choose? On the other hand, it's also an argument against natural selection to an extent: sure we have improved our brains and therefore quality of life, survival rates, ect, but why would we gain all that only to lose our physical attributes? Thinking about my earlier comment, our lack of body hair isn't really an improvement either, what with it making us more susceptible to the elements, and it acts as a natural shield against minor cuts and scratches.

Somewhat surprisingly, while we are at an all-time technological high point, the economy has been far worse than it is now, and the quality life is pretty good in the Western world, we don't
seem to be any happier than we used to be. If anything, our mental states are worse than ever - depression and suicide are up, and as a whole we're not doing fantastically in the happiness stakes. People are materialistic, money-driven and depressed, and nothing seems to cure it. The point I'm getting to here, is that even the thing we seem to consider to be the best thing evolution has given us isn't doing us much good.

It seems to me that we were pretty stupid to evolve the way we did, or, if you believe in creationism, then god did a pretty shit job. Personally, I think we're more a case of evolution gone wrong, and in the case of some people, evolution gone horribly, tragically wrong.

Anyway before the comic, just a quick note to say that I'm going to title all my posts with a song title from now on, perhaps a line from a song on occasion.

Here's the comic.

Have You Seen Me Lately?

2006-01-18T22:47:00.001+08:00

So I return from S, and a lazy week following that. Since then, I've seen a lot of movies, and here's what I thought of them:

Fun With Dick & Jane - Don't even bother. Completle crap. 3/10

Narnia - I could not imagine a more faithful adaptation, for what it was, it was perfect. Having read the book several times, seen the stage show and a tv adaptation, I know the story off by heart, so it pleased me to see it recreated so well. The part of the professor was done particularly well, despite it being only a minor role. 7.5/10

Valliant - As far as kids movies go, it's a little below the standard fare, but still passable. Not for adults though, there's not much below the surface. Some noteable cameo roles, such as John Clease are appreciated, but don't drag the film out of mediocrity. 5/10

Broken Flowers - I loved it, but it's certainly not for everyone. It was perhaps the most drawn out and slow moving movie I've ever seen, with a plot that could be summed up from beginning to end in a small paragraph, and in fact they do just that on the fliers you can pick up at the cinemas. However, it's very enjoyable dry humour, there are some great moments and Bill Murray is perfect for the role. It feels a little like Lost In Translation, but a little less heartwarming. - 7/10

Mrs Henderson Presents - Glorious. Judy Dench was brilliant as always, her co-star Bob Hoskins was equally as impressive, and I certainly can't complain about the gratuitous nudity. A story with a real heart, a great cast, and a very fun movie overall - 8/10

Off the subject of movies, and onto books. While on the plane back from S, I completed China Mieville's The Scar. That was thoroughly enjoyable, well-written, and with just the right amount of ambiguity in the ending. I recently started on Tiganna, on a friend's reccomendation, and it's very good so far. It's a little hard to get into at first, as it just throws you right in there unceremoniously, and it took me a while to work everything out, but that works well for it. The style is a little difficult to acclimatise to when reading as well, but agian it grows on you and reading becomes as effortless as it should be. I've got about four things to read at the moment, so it'll take me a while to get through it, but it seems like a good read so far.

I could post more, but I'll leave that for next time. I've got a new comic I'm really enjoying, a couple new games, a rant, several tv series I've just started watching, and probably more. Untill then, have a look at the best laugh I've had this week, and enjoy the following comic.

Update: I'm having trouble uploading the comic, so I'll put it up later. Be sure to check out the entire series at www.abh-comic.com !

Update2: Done!

The Best Movie Of 2005 You Didn't See

2005-12-30T00:03:00.001+08:00

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

I had been wanting to watch this for quite some time, but never really gotten around to it, but I'm glad I finally have. Crash is far and away the best movie that you didn't see this year. It revolves around a huge ensemble of characters, all from differering socio-economic backgrounds, whos lives are loosely linked by chance enounters. They include a black crime duo, a racist white cop and his naieve, inexperienced white partner, a Persian immigrant shopkeeper, a black detective, a high class white couple, a black director and his wife, and several others. At it's heart, it is a criticism of racism, but beyond that it is so much more.

When you have spent time with each of the characters, learned of their situation and grown to understand their motives and empathise with them, it becomes very difficult when two characters come into conflict, as you really don't know who to side with. Shades of gray indeed...

There are two scenes in particular that are extremely difficult to watch. I won't spoil them here, but the first involves a standoff between two men, one who believes the other is to blame for an unfortunate event in his life, and the other is when a woman is trapped in a car accident. Crash has to be one of the most morally confronting movies I have ever seen, and it was pulled off admirably. A truely excellent piece of cinematography, and a must-see.

On another note, I got a call from T. at 4.30am this morning, about 10 minutes after I finished watching Crash and went to bed. We talked till about 5.10, it was good - I particularly enjoy getting late-night phone calls. I've got two more movies to write about, a comic to deliver, anther comic I recently discovered that is hilarious and most reccomended, as well as some musings, but I think the movies can wait till my next post, this one is long enough already. In the meantime, enjoy the comic.

And To All A Good Night...

2005-12-27T04:36:00.000+08:00

Too tired to write a proper post, what with it being 4.36am, but here's the next comic. Also, you've gotta head over to Rosie's blog and read this, it's very good.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T16:03:00.000+08:00

Wishing all of you a merry christmas and all the best for the new year! Most of us have very little idea what to expect now, and we don't really know what will happen, but I guess there's nothing to do but see what happens and hope for the best. It's exciting, scary, melancholy and wonderful all at once, I for one can't wait...

I'm kicking off the ABH (Anywhere But Here) with a strip from early on in the piece, where Chris and The Dude first start out. Click the picture to read it, and feel free to comment.

Of King Kong, Tiny Goats & Comics

2005-12-23T20:06:00.000+08:00

It just occured to me that I wish people would update their blogs more often, so I guess that applies to myself as well. I have decided to endevour to post more often, and although I don't think I'll manage it, it's worth a try.

I hope Scott Adams doesn't mind me quoting him, but on his blog, I read something that touched me somehow. It's a little strange, and I dont' quite get why it touched me, but it did.

Last night I dreamed that someone gave me a tiny goat. It was about the size of a Chihuahua, with fur like a poodle. It purred when I picked it up and held it. And it never needed to eat, poop, or pee. It didn’t bark, bleet, howl or damage the furniture. In short, it was the perfect tiny goat. I believe he loved me, but not in a creepy physical way. Have you ever had dreams where you miss someone after you wake up? I don’t know if I should be happy about the quality time I spent with my tiny goat or unhappy because I won’t get to see him again. I know I miss him.

Strange I know, but somehow that struck a chord with me...
I wish I had things I could write about my life at the moment, but at the moment it's largely very unpleasant, what with the lawyers and the nastiness and the lies, and it's probably best if I don't. If anyone reading this paticularly wants to read about it I can include some of it, but I don't think that's what people would want to read about. Hopefully sometime next year this will all be over.

I saw King Kong the other night, which was very good. I found it a bit too long and drawn-out in parts, it felt like Pete made it long for himself, not for the audience, which was a little disapointing. The dinosaur chase in particular felt too prolonged. Has anyone else noticed that despite all the advances in CG in movies, Jurassic Park remains one of the most visually believable pieces of CG? I think it's because at the time they did it, they didn't know how far they needed to go to make things believable, so they handcrafted everything, and made it extremely realistic to ensure it was good enough. Nowdays the artists are more confident, they have better tools, far more efficient workflows, and much more. All this automation takes a lot of the handcrafted feel away from the visual effects, and that automation of the process detracts from the overall sense of realism. If the modelers, animators and texturers have looked at every polygon in the models, every pixel of the textures, every frame of animation and carefully tuned every postproduction effect to ensure things look real every step of the way, the result will be far more realistic than if the effects team does the basics and allows the computer to join the dots, as seems to be happening more and more lately. Until we reach a stage where the computer's ability to join the dots is refined enough to produce completely realistic effects, we're stuck with something that looks slightly off.

That rant was inspired by the dinosaur chase scene, it just looked too fake to me. The green-screen was also made obvious by the lighting on the actors not matching the background tightly enough. Kong was brilliant though, Serkis was fantastic, and the chemistry between Serkis and Watts was astounding. Ending was a bit prolonged though, up on the Empire State Building (You can tell I wanted to say that but got too lazy to phrase it better).

I could write more, but I'll leave you with these...

From now on, I've decided to bless you all with a (somewhat daily) serial from Anywhere But Here, my personal favourite segments of it, it's basically a "best of" collection, with one comic per day. I hope you enjoy it. I take absolutely no credit for this comic, it is entirely the work of a guy called "Jason", and the comic is normally found here. Before I get into the meat of it, I thought I'd share a particularly touching moment. In another comic, Todd & Penguin, Todd's pregnant wife was in an accident, and then came the following strip...Straight afterwards, in an amazing display of sympathy, Jason posted this comic...

A Long December

2005-12-20T22:48:00.000+08:00

When I started this blog, I decided it wasn't going to be a diary of my life, like many other blogs seem to be, so I hope no-one minds this little diversion, but this is something I feel I have to record somewhere, if only for myself to look back on later. This is quite a personal thing, and it may seem strange to see it posted on a public webpage. I guess it's liberating in a way - to write this in a place where anyone can see, but this is for me, more than anyone.

My parents are getting a divorce. Most of my friends know that my parents are split up for reasons I won't publish here, but they haven't decided to divorce until very recently. Several weeks ago, my mum told me she was intending to divorce my dad, but it was only today that it really began to hit home. I've heard differing stories from each of them, but it seems like my mum started seeing a lawyer last year around July without telling my dad. Today, my dad called up the same firm asking for representation, which they said they couldn't provide as they were already representing my mother. My mum didn't know my dad was going to see a lawyer, and got angry with him, despite having seen one without telling him a number of months ago. Up until recently, my dad wasn't aware of my mum's intentions, and believed there was hope for the relationship, which was quite an awkward position for me to be in, with mum telling me she wanted a divorce, and my dad telling me he was hoping they would be able to fix their marriage.
I guess the event which caused it to become a reality in my world happened today. It may seem inconsequential, however it seemed very meaningful at the time. In my experiences with my parents, I have rarely known them to knowingly give me opposing instructions, and have almost never argued about that in front of me. That changed this evening. Upon coming home from work with mum, dad pulled up almost straight afterwards to pick me up for dinner, however they wanted a few minutes to talk, so I left them. After some time, mum called me downstairs and said I should go, however dad wanted a few more minutes to talk and asked me to leave again. Mum immediately countered by telling him she was finished talked to him, and telling me to go with him. I decided to leave and let them sort it out, but was stopped my mum who insisted I leave with him then and there. That direct contradiction was kinda scary, as it's never happened like that before. I left and watched TV with my brother in the room next to them.

There are a few other things I'd like to write here pertaining to tonight's events, but I think they are best left out of something that can be read publicly at this stage, but I will talk about it in private if anyone wants to know.

I think I wanted to write more, but I can't think at the moment, I might add more to this post later if I think of it, but that's all from me for now.

Just a short post...

2005-12-16T03:51:00.000+08:00

I'm too sleepy to make a propper post, but I saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang today, and it was excellent. I highly reccomend it, and later on I might write a little review.

Just thought I'd give you all a quick dose of humour to brighten your day.

Peek-A-Boo

A couple go for a meal at a Chinese restaurant and order the "Chicken Surprise".

The waiter brings the meal, served in a lidded cast iron pot. Just as the wife is about to serve herself, the lid of the pot rises slightly and she briefly sees two beady little eyes looking around before the lid slams back down.

"Good grief, did you see that?" she asks her husband.

He hasn't, so she asks him to look in the pot. He reaches for it and Again the lid rises, and he sees two little eyes looking around before it slams down.

Rather perturbed, he calls the waiter over, explains what is happening, and demands an explanation.

"Please sir," says the waiter, "what you order?"

The husband replies, "Chicken Surprise."

"Ah ... so sorry," says the waiter, "I bring you Peeking Duck."

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One for the more twisted amongst you...

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Enjoy!

Ben Folds

2005-12-15T12:15:00.001+08:00

I'd just like to say that I have been particularly enjoying Ben Folds recently, and to give a shout of thanks to A. who put me on to him. Thanks!

Shameless Plug

2005-12-12T22:32:00.000+08:00

The technically knowledgable amongst you will know about Firefox, and probably be keen supporters of it. The rest of you who are using Internet Explorer are opening your computer up to millions of hackers, viruses and spyware. For those of you who want to change to Firefox, it's as easy as going to The Firefox Website and downloading it. For those of you who alreday have it, here's a few extracts from an article I read recently that tells you all about useful plugins for Firefox that give it several new and useful capabilities.

DownThemAll is a bulk downloader that allows you to copy everything you want from a website at once. Whether you need to grab handfuls of thumbnails from a picture album or a page full of interesting MP3s, this tiny app gets them all with a single click.

A lot of people swear by Adblock and other advertising-blocking extensions. But none have the versatility and pure, fly-swatting satisfaction of Nuke Anything Enhanced.

The concept behind this add-on is simple: Point at something and right-click (on PC) or cntl-click (on Mac) and select "Remove this object." Whatever piece of the page you clicked on just goes away -- poof!

This is invaluable for trying to get rid of page bits you don't want to print, or for killing a sidebar or annoying navigation toolbar. Sadly, it doesn't work on Flash. But overall, this extension makes vindictive web surfing more satisfying than ever. Great future features would include replacing the "Remove this object" with something like "kill, kill, kill."

Finally, SessionSaver provides the one completely indispensable feature Firefox doesn't come with, and it's on the extension list of every power web user I know. It saves your tabs, so that if you quit your browser, or it crashes, you come back up with the content of your tabs perfectly preserved.

I hope you find those links useful.

To conclude, here's a few quotes I heard recently.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shore

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Blog Title

2005-12-09T02:05:00.000+08:00

I thought I'd explain the title and web address of this blog, seeing as it could look a little strange otherwise.

First off, the web address - http://theshadowministerforjoy.blogspot.com/
The Shadow Minister For Joy is a poem written by cartoonist Michael Leunig. In my personal opinion, the man is a genius. His comics are very poignant and clever, and provide a clever look at many different aspects of life. He's also Australian. The poem, along with several of his other comics, are below, click on them to view full-size.

I love it.

"I'm Selling These Fine Leather Jackets" is a line from something that I absolutely love, and that's a small tribute to it. I'll leave you to find out what.

In case you were wondering about any of that, now you know.

Allow Me To Explain...

2005-12-09T00:19:00.000+08:00

Well, I've got nothing better to do, so I might explain the last post. Anywhere But Here is an online comic about life. It follows "The Dude" (his unofficial name, he isn't addressed by any name in the comic), from the end of high school, through life. It hits home very regularly, and after months of reading about his relationship with a girl called Chris, things just hit another high point. They have broken up several times, and gotten back together, and there was recently a point where it seemed like it was the absolute last straw for both of them, and the whole thing was over. The guy has issues with sex, and whenever it seems like it might happen, he stops it. The other night, the night of that post....well....I'll let you discover it for yourself. Just know that I felt like crying, then cheering, it was just that good. I just really feel for the dude, I think I'm quite a lot like him. Do yourself a favour, have a read. Read from this one onwards, it sets up the story nicely, without being too much to read. The girl whistling is Chris's best friend, that should be all you need to know. Please note that on the latest comic, there are 5 pages, & the links are at the bottom of the page.
http://www.abh-comic.com/d/20051202.html
If you're feeling more ambitious, or want to read more, read from here. The weird creatures are his personal demons. When reading from here, you'll find out the reason for the conflict, as well as getting to know the characters a little better. They just arrived at a party.
http://www.abh-comic.com/d/20051014.html
And if you want to read through from when the relationship started, read from here. Be warned, it's a long read. Totally worth it though.
http://www.abh-comic.com/d/20050121.html

Although these comics deal with serious issues, they are also regularly very funny, so don't dismiss them as a soap opera in comic form. Please post what you think in the comments section.

Anywhere But Here - 4am

2005-12-07T04:06:00.000+08:00

It's 4am, and I have to say...

WOOOOHOOO!!!! ANYWHERE BUT HERE RULES!!!!!

Harry Potter

2005-12-06T22:04:00.000+08:00

Well, as most of you probably know, I like movies. A lot. I happen to be a self-proclaimed movie addict, so I've decided that in this blog, I'll write up mini-reviews of movies, books and games that I watch, read and play. Partially because I like to think about them afterwards, partially so I don't annoy all my friends who don't care when I tell them, and maybe to act as a guide to what's good (in my opinion).

I saw Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire today, and I found it to be a good movie, but somewhat lacking. The director, Mike Newell, had tried to fit what should have been a 3 hour plus movie into about two and a half hours. In some respects he succeeded, but there were many points where he let down the side considerably.

My biggest problem was the lack of a well rounded opening. They awake in Ron's house. Why? No idea. They go for a walk. Why? No idea. They arrive at the quiddich world cup, completely unexpectedly on the part of the audience. Two minutes later, everything has gone to shit, with ABSOLUTELY no explaination of what happened. You didn't know if it was a dream, you didn't know what was going on! That made me somewhat angry. No quidditch match, nothing but destruction from nowhere. If you hadn't read the book, you'd be clueless. Then when it came to the tournament, it was missing a lot. They introduced the concept, put their names, were selected, and went straight into it. There was almost nothing in between. The movie needed much more rounding and padding in that section, maybe a 5 minute section between each one of just school life. Any more would probably have become too much fat, but it needed some.

The entire movie consisted of almost nothing but the tournament, and as a result, suffered greatly. The director needed to weave some more of the subplots into the movie, needed to expand on what he already did, explain things more, cut back on the foreshadowing of Moony's secret, expand the ending to include the parting of the trio, more musings on what's to come, explaination of why the real Moony was being kept alive, just more of the story's meat, basically. The stuff about Hagrid's parents needed to be elaborated on, Cho needed to be either in or out, not inbetween, the attack at the world cup needed to be included (it was only just in there), Ron and Hermione's relationship needed to be in there, rather than the random segments that were in there, there was just so much left to the viewer to fill in based on their reading of the book.

As for the challenges: The maze scene was too long for what it was, but should have had the creatures from the book in it, that would have made the length of that scene justifiable. The dragons were too short, and there should have been excerpts from the other challengers and their dragons, to emphasize the point that Harry's was the hardest. Effects were nice though. The only challenge I was really happy with was the merpeople one. The creature design was excellent, in particular.

Despite my dissatisfaction, I still reccomend this, as it is entertaining enough, it's fun to watch, and generally passable. The scenes with Voldemort at the end were very good, except for the random reaction shots of Harry to remind the audience that he's still there. My intial rating was 6/10, however if you're the sort of person who gets very frustrated over movies being too cut down from the original book, it's closer to 4/10.

Here goes nothing...

2005-12-05T20:20:00.001+08:00

Well, I've decided to create a blog. I don't know where this will go, how it will end, or even if I'll bother updating it, but it could be interesting. I've thought about creating a blog before, and I've tossed up between making it purely a source for humour and entertainment that people might enjoy, or to write one of the more serious life accounts/collected musings that most people seem to write. I think I'll make this into a comfortable mixture of the two, depending on how I feel when I write in it. If you're reading this, I assume you already know me so I won't bother introducing myself. Well that's all from me for the moment, I'll start this off with a few things I recently heard that I found amusing.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Lies to tell to children:
Witches who wear orange hats don't read road signs.

There are no such things as kangaroos, only mice that are very close.

You won't know you don't like it unless you try it