Particle Physics: Not Just For Nerds
No, I’m kidding. It’s just for nerds. In all seriousness though, shouldn’t the good people at CERN be spending their time more constructively? I mean a music career is all well and good, but I’d really be more comfortable if they concentrated more on trying not to create a black hole and destroy the earth and perhaps even the galaxy, and less on side projects like this:
While the rest of the world was stocking up on their doomsday supplies (because when the world gets sucked into a black hole you’d better make sure you’ve got plenty of batteries and bottled water), the folks responsible for our inevitable demise were busy making their very own rap video. It’s a whole new breed of genius.
In all fairness, I’ve seen worse on Australian Idol. And bonus points for being educational. Extra bonus points for not being educational in a so-that’s-what-would-have-happened-if-I-auditioned sort of way. If you offer your unconditional surrender, it actually becomes quite catchy.
Still, isn’t it a little tacky to release a YouTube rap video about your doomsday device?
Lazy Sunday
For a brief glimpse into my life, I bring you Sunday at My Place.
Today I am spending the day in my dressing gown (or bathrobe, if you prefer) reading my latest acquisition, The Digital Plague. It’s Jeff Somers as he was meant to be read. With no pants.
Spoof Wars
I learned something today. You see, something had been bothering me about Star Wars. Not the original trilogy, although they had their cheesy moments. I mean the recent ones. The unholy trilogy, if you like.
There was just something about them, something not quite right. At first I thought it was the dialogue, especially what went on between Padmé and Anakin. A plausible theory, but it didn’t feel like the whole picture. Then I considered it was perhaps the transformation of Darth Vader from Big Scary MF to wangsting teenager. Let’s face it, that was a horrible thing to do.
Then the Ninja shared the answer with his loyal, long-suffering minions.
Sped up just a little and put to Yakety Sax (the Benny Hill theme song), the battle for Naboo goes from a little awkward and embarrassing to comic genius. Hot on the heels of that little revelation came another. There was nothing wrong with the dialogue or the characters, the fault lies with the directing.
They were meant to be comedies.
Panic Stations
I have been very remiss of late. Writing has taken up a great deal of my time and attention, or, more accurately I suppose, planning to write. I’ve built up quite a backlog of things I intended to post here and the idea of catching up on it all is in the region of overwhelming now.
So I’ve devised a plan. I’m abandoning everything except the book reviews. See how easy that was? Now I only have three things on my list of things to do. Most of what I’d planned was time-sensitive anyway, and the moment has passed. It’s never too late to share a good book.
Also in the spirit of catching up, if a book is second or later in a series it gets what I’m calling a 30 second review unless it requires special attention for some reason. Them’s the breaks.
Anyway, sorry for the protracted silence and hopefully we’ll return to something like a regularly scheduled broadcast in the near future.
Uncharity
Ah, I’m a terrible person. With all of the poverty in the world, all of the people in need of charity and support, do you know what I did today? I went in to the city, to my favourite book store. While I was there, I picked up a moleskine notebook. I also got myself a copy of Fiona McIntosh’s new book (technically not out yet, but who’s counting?), Royal Exile. To ice that little cake, I also put in an order for Jeff Somers’ The Digital Plague, which I’ve wanted since reading The Electric Church.
Just to make sure the universe knew today was a day of wastefulness on my part, I finished all that off by picking up a keyboard for my MacBook so I don’t have to make do without that stealthy-silent Apple-y goodness if I want to use the second screen without twisting my body in directions this human body wasn’t designed to go in. Happy times.
Sorry, third world.
A Message
Tailgaters: What do you suppose requires more driver skill, riding my rear bumper, or maintaining a steady speed of precisely the speed limit, without deviation, despite the suburban tractor threatening to violate me every time I glance in the rear view mirror? Remember that next time you’re thinking you’re clever.
In other news, I have nearly completed stage 1 of my all new planning process. That is all.
The Funny Farm
A recent conversation with my mother devolved into a competition to figure out which of us our pets hated the least. You see, I was fondly reminiscing about our (now deceased) dog. When we first got her, mum put down newspapers around to house-train her. I don’t remember how that was supposed to work (unless you count “too well”) but give me a break, I was 8 at the time.
Mum was sitting on the floor one night, I think after she was satisfied the dog had been properly trained, reading *drumroll* the paper. The dog came along, crouched and did her business. I never forgot that lesson. If you’re going to teach your dog to pee on paper, read at the table.
Anyway, she returned fire by reminding me of the cat. Puss-Puss (yeah, whatever, we had a duck called Quick-Quack too) was a stray. She got caught in one of dad’s traps but mum found her and decided to feed her. As you do. So she stuck around.
Now this cat… My parents’ running theory was that she had been dumped because her former owners didn’t much care for her personality. I actually suspect Satan may have just kicked her out of Hell. She put the ‘evil’ in ‘devil’. It’s a good thing she (eventually) died before her plans could come to fruition. Otherwise we’d be facing hordes of slavering cat-demons all under her command. You think I’m exaggerating, I can sense that from here, but you never had to look her in the eye.
I was sitting, as I did, in my chair by the door when the cat hopped up onto the veranda and looked up at me expectantly. Dangling from her mouth was a very sorry-looking mouse. I stared back at the cat and said something impolite. She tipped her little cat-head to the side and studied me with an almost creepy intensity. We remained like that for quite some time (never let a cat win a staring contest was my motto), then finally she apparently got bored and trotted away.
I got up the next morning and realised my mistake. Sitting in a neat little pile on the passenger seat of my car was the half-digested remains of that same mouse.
Mum thought that was enough to win her an admission from me that the animals hated her the least. Not a chance. Because guess who was the one to clean that mouse up. That’s right. Mum.
If that cat was smart enough to recognise me, understand my derisive comment and identify which car was mine then she was smart enough to know I wouldn’t be doing the cleaning.
That’s right, old woman, those animals hated me the least.
Spoiled For Choice
It’s Brendan’s birthday on Sunday and boy am I peeved. How are those two things related? Well, I’m glad you asked.
I figured I had two options this year. I could either take him somewhere for dinner, or I could get him a present and cook something. Effort-wise on my part option A was the preferable choice. But what point would there be in going out to dinner if we didn’t catch a movie too? So I put my thinking cap on which I normally try not to do because I don’t like to drain the batteries, and came up with The Dark Knight. It’s been out for a while but not that long, grand scheme.
I summoned my electronic helper monkeys and sent them off. Or, you know, I went to the Greater Union website. Because, hey, Gold Class. Comfy seats, no under-18’s, food and booze. That’s a perfect night out for me even without the entertainment. When I got there, my perfectly laid plans crumbled around my ears.
From Wednesday, the only movie I could find listed on that website was that new Star Wars cartoon thing. Man, than looked lame BEFORE it ruined my plans. Now I may have to set George Lucas’s beard on fire. (That is a beard, right, not a Gungan pelt or whatever?)
So very irritated but figuring, fine, we’ll just go to a regular movie theatre and, you know, sneak our own booze in and do you know what I found? The. Same. Goddamn. Problem.
That’s right, as far as I can tell, next weekend is a Star Wars extravaganza here in rainy old Adelaide.
Now I know Star Wars gets a lot of bums in a lot of seats. I get that. Really. But every single cinema? God damn it, now I’m going to have to cook because I am not forking over money for that.
I’m Dumbstruck
Because I have no particular interest in watching the athletes parade into the stadium, as far as I’m concerned I just got done watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony. It is, to tell the truth, the only Olympic event I plan to watch. I’m an equal-opportunity sports non-watcher. It’d hardly be fair to other sports if I was to watching the Olympics and not all the other boring sports.
The first thing I have to say is the commentators for the Australian broadcast were dreadful. Far from enhancing the spectacle, I was left wishing a Chinese security force would enter their booth and shush them. From the derisive comments about the Peking Opera to the bad jokes and I-don’t-get-this-bits I found the commentary track detracted from the broadcast, if anything.
Secondly, Australia needs to get over the 2000 Sydney OOC. Seriously. Not only was it 8 years ago, it was way less cool than what I just saw. That’s the benefit of communist regimes. Say what you like about their tendency towards human rights violations, they know how to pull out all the stops.
In all seriousness though, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Even if they’d just left it at the drummers it still would have been way cooler than the Sydney OOC. All in all, it was well worth setting aside my general dislike of all things related to sport to watch it.
But if Bruce McAveney wakes up one day to find his tongue is on fire, I’m going to need one of you people to alibi me.