A laff riot.

Behind this link is one of the funniest t-shirts ever and a MASSIVE Harry Potter spoiler. I mean really big.

More coolness

Forgot to mention that Saturday's marathon effort had another result.

David Whitney (the big boss of the Canberra Theatre) stuck his head into the Playhouse between the end of the show and the bump out and saw that the crew were eating some yummy paella. He was impressed that they weren't just smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and when Dave Tongs told him that we'd been doing the food for bump out thing he was even more impressed. He (Mr Whitney) got talking to Bruce Carmichael (who is, if my understanding of the CTC heirarchy is correct, the operations manager of the Theatre) and the upshot of it all is that next time I'm cooking for the gang for before or after a bump out I'm getting paid for the time I spend cooking and completely reimbursed for the ingredients.

Of course, it might be a bit cheeky to charge 'em for 6 hours cooking time if I'm just whacking stuff in a slow cooker, but a couple extra hours for prep time and getting paid back for the ingredients that my whip-arounds don't always cover won't suck. Not to forget that it's just kinda cool to become the unofficial Head Chef for the Canberra Theatre. :)

Pluck you!

So Pluck has changed to version 1.0. This is good. But when I upgraded all my comics and news feeds were flushed and it seems my account vanished with them. Now I've had to start a new Pluck account and I've forgotten the central "we have lotsa comics" site I went to in the first place.

Damn you, Mendoza! Damn you!!!!!

Neologisms

With the help of Callum (all right, I heard him use them and want to get them out there), here are a couple of new words. Use them and be proud.

Co-simpso-dence;(n.) the phenomenon whereby the episode of "The Simpsons" that you quote, discuss with a friend or otherwise pops into your head will be broadcast on television within a week of your thinking about it.

ie;

Euan: Hey, remember how we were talking about Apu the humming bird?

Denis: [makes hummingbird noise]

Euan: That's the one. It was on TV last night.

Denis: Wow. What a co-simpso-dence. [1]

Leftious Indignation;(n.) Similar to righteous indignation, but from a left-wing position. Getting angry at Dubya, Little Johnny and bigots in general would be forms of leftious indignation.


[1] Yes, I know Denis would never say this sentence in a million years.

Adventure! Excitement! Really Wild Things!

Come and play a Java version of Colossal Cave Adventure, the first computer adventure game, and definite step in the Zork evolution.

Best. LEGO. Ever.

Probably. Although this and this are pretty damn cool to.

'Ullo, me ol' china plates.

Not a bad result for someone that ain't actually been in London for almost a decade.


Cheeky Cockney
You're a 78% Londoner!
You done good me old darlin', there's no pullin' the wool over your mince pies!

You scored higher than 76% on londonerness

The Londoner Test written by northlondonboy on Ok Cupid

For the record.

Those of you that read the previous post and felt all sympathetic (as opposed to those of you who read it and laughed at me, fuckers) should made aware of the fact that the poor fuckers who worked on the show, not just the bump out, started at 12:00 on the Saturday, finished at 09:00 on the Sunday and only had two one hour breaks in that time. I may have been awake for 27+ hours, but at least I was only working for 9 of them, not 19. Props to Dave and Sam. Seriously.

At the third stroke, it will be...

Too fucking early! Or is that late? This saturday marked me being awake for the longest continuous stretch in a very long time. Like 27 hours.

It started with getting up (moderately) early to meet Mum, Dad, Cal and some cousins from the US/UK for breakfast in Braddon. Breakfast was great, bordering on spectacular (at Da Cellini, if ye wanna know). Meeting time? 9am. Awake time? 1 1/2 hours and counting. Wakefulness? I had two strong mochas with breaky, so what do you think?

Finished breaky around 10:40 and with a brief sidetrip to give Carmen the stage door keys went for a wander around some shops to look (in vain) for some Star Wars Lego. Current time? Around 13:30. Awake time? A paltry 6 hours. Wakefulness? Humming along nicely, thank you.

After that it was veg at home, prep the ingredients for the paella I'm cooking tonight and snuggle on the couch with Carmen. After we've watched some TV, and Carms watches me play the "Futurama" game on the X Box for a bit, she heads home and I head into the theatre (whereat I will be cooking the aforementioned paella). Current time? Around 19:00. Awake Time? 11 1/2 hours. Wakefulness? Are you kidding? I'm about to cook for a crowd. I'm loving it.

Get to theatre, cook paella for the crew (touring and local). Touring crew included Unky Gra Gra, just by the way. Current time? 23:30. Awake time? 16 hours. Wakefulness? Not too shabby. But now the pain starts.

By pain, I mean bump out. Of a big set. Into two trucks. Which required more than a little fiddling and faffing. Get the trucks loaded, swear at the lightening sky and check our watch. Current time? 07:45. Awake time? 24 1/4 hours. Wakefulness? If you render me unconscious with a sharp blow to the head, I will write you into my will.

Then the tarket laying begins. After all, the gang from Quantum Leap (that's the local dance troupe, not the sci-fi series) will be here at 9 o'clock. When's that? Of, about now. Tarket done (with only on exploding lamp to puncuate the dullness and give us a rush of adrenaline to help us through the morning). Current time? 09:00. Awake time? 26 hours. Wakefulness? There be sausages to eat and beer to drink. I can make it...

Eat said, drink said and stagger toward my car. Nearly fall asleep on the way home, with my nodding off also resulting in nearly joining with a large truck. Turn up stereo. Wind down window. Call Callum on phone (using hands free, of course). Inform him he must talk to me or the little green man on the dashboard will send me to sleep with his magic pixie dust. Callum assures me the little green man isn't real and keeps me awake until I get home. Thank brother, stagger into house and shed clothing. Realise I smell like a wookie with gastro, and look not dissimilar. Head to shower. Take life in own hands to shave (with razor) in shower. Have moment of fear when it seems shower will wake me up. No. Can't. Sleep. Head to bed. Remember I had stripped bed to clean sheets. Go outside in towel to remove dry(est) sheets from washing line. Frost makes feet pleasantly numb. Make minimum bed for comfort. Collapse in bed. Current time? 10:30. Awake Time? 27 1/2 hours. Wakefulness? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So what did you do on your weekend?

Did someone say cha-ching?

Welcome to Gonnadu, population me.

That's right, with the arrival of my tax cheque (all $3K of it), I have finally been able to achieve all those things I was "gonna do" when I got money. I have new pants, new boots and a new jacket. I'm a whole week ahead in rent and bills. I've had some trousers dry cleaned. I've had my new jacket waterproofed. I've bought "Lego: Star Wars" and "GTA: San Andreas" for my XBox. I've finally put the 14 films that've been sitting in my cupboard for more than a year in to be developed.

I've even got enough left to finance moving out in August and pay a year's rego in September.

I gotta say, I'm not hating having a bit of fat in ye old system.

It is done.

The first, complete, total draft of my masters - creative and theory - is finished.
With a combined length of 52324 words, it's the longest single entity I've ever written and it's done. With a whole 16 days to spare for editing and faffing about.

Eep.

Grrrrrr....

Death to Trent.

You know who you are...

David Morgan-Mar

Not only is the creator of Irregular Webcomic a funny bastard with an almost infinite ability to pun, but he's also wicked-smart too. He's a PhD scientist, people! He's even invented a few esoteric programming languages! My favourite is the Petrovich language.

Happy film news...

The Rock is going to be Johnny Bravo in the live action production!

=

Heh heh.

Irregular Webcomic Puns

They just keep coming.

Ain't technology grand...

Some people. Free time. An excess

To think that they weren't joking when they wrote;

"We strongly urge our users to refrain from language or content designed to provoke our alien neighbours."

No posting those "ET is gay" or "Morbo slept with Hillary Clinton" rumours, I guess...

IMDB ping-pong turns up the durndest things

There's another one out there!

Majdi, yours is the one with the Australian accent. :)

Book 30

"Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" by J. K. Rowling

And I gotta say, thank god the red pen came out for this one. Shorter and punchier than the last Potter adventure, this one hits the ground running and keeps it up for most of the time. Harry and the gang are in their 6th year at Hogwarts and all kindsa stuff has been happening. Voldemort's back and there have been deaths and disappearances in the wizarding and muggle world.

We got magic, we got Death Eaters, we got Malfoy being a dick. Really, you should know the formula by now. Like Carms said, I really cannae say too much about this one wihtout spoilers, suffice it so say that even I got a little misty eyed toward the end of the book. I picked a couple of the twists before they came, but there were one or two I didnae see coming. Well, not more than a few pages beforehand. I even spent most of this one not wanting to smack Harry and the gang upside the head for being a stupid tosser. A definite return to form for Ms Rowling, and I'm looking well forward to the next (and I believe final) instalment.

Four assasination attempts out of five.

Book 29

"Phule's Company" by Robert Asprin

This was a slight, easy-reading, fast-moving science fiction yarn. The Phule of the title is a Captain in the Space Legion, a sort of "buy a commission, serve out some trouble back home" amalgam of the Foreign Legion and the household cavalry. He's also massively wealthy, and very unpopular with the brass, so they put him in charge of Omega Company, a sort of garbage dump for all the Legion's worst troops. Of course, he rallies them into an effective, cohesive unit and instils in them a sense of esprit de corps. The story is told as a series of recollections by Phule's batman, covering the first few months of his command of Omega Company.

The writing is, as I said, smooth and funny. Asprin has an almost Pratchett-like gift for understatement, if not Pratchett's ability with language. I can't exactly rave about this book but that doesn't mean it was crap either. It was, a bit like the second M*A*S*H book, a well-written, smoothly executed book, but it wasn't exactly a jump up and down, churn the butter discovery of a new author. I would be interested in grabbing the rest of the books in the series, but I'm sure that there will be other books I'll be after more.

Three mega-rich commanding officers out of five.

The rock star of fantasy fiction

I am, of course, talking about Neil Gaiman and tonight I saw him talk at the ANU. He was eloquent, funny and insightful. We got some Q&A, a small extract from "Anansi Boys" (his new novel, due out in September I think) and some clips from Mirrormask. "Anansi Boys" sounds brilliant, especially read by the author. Definite Gaiman-y goodness there. Might hafta look for preorders. Gaiman can also do a scary-good impersonation of Terry Pratchett, too.

Mirormask looks freakin' awesome! Written by Gaiman, it's directed by Dave McKean, who does all the cover art for the Sandman trades (among other things) and produced in cooperation with Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Tell me that's not the coolest line up in movie history! The visuals look brilliant, exactly like a McKean cover but moving!

After the talking there was book signing, but given that I'd been wrestling with my damn Masters all day (academic rigour sucks arse!!) I didn't have any of my Gaiman books with me. So I got him to sign the title page of my latest Masters draft. Now it has names of potential examiners in Jen Webb's handwriting, some ideas for improving bits and bobs in my handwriting and "Good luck, dream dangerously" and a signature in NEIL GAIMAN'S HANDWRITING!

I was goin to play that calm and blase but, really, it's just too fucking cool!!! :)

Book 28

"M*A*S*H goes to Maine" by Richard Hooker

Similar to the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books, this review runs the risk of being a cut and paste of the first M*A*S*H book. Except without the references to the Korean War. Or the film. But apart from that... anyhoo, back to the review...

Fun and easy to read (like the first) and alternately amusing and touching (like the first), the continued adventures of Hawkeye and the gang were enjoyable, if not actually earth-shaking. While the story of Moose's song was definitely an eye-dampener, as I write this I can't really call to mind any other particularly great sequences. A pleasant read, but not exactly a life-changer, "M*A*S*H goes to Maine" is definitely worth a look, if for no other reason than it'll only take ye about a day or two to read it.

three crazy surgeons out of five

Carms Books

Yes, been a bit of a break. But, I have TWO books to port today so all is well....yeah, I bet none of you have ANY idea what one of these books is do you.... :o)

Book 17 "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" Susanna Clarke

This was looong and a bit slow to start, so took me a lot longer to read than would ordinarily be the case. It's a story about magic returning to England. The idea is that magic used to run rife in the world, especially in England. The main man was a guy called the Raven King - he was a human boy raised by the fairies and became the most powerful magician in existence. When he left England (not died mind, just kind of...left) a lot of the magic left with him. As a result, practical magicians became few and far between and the people forgot about the idea of magic. The book is set in the 1800's, England is at war with France and isn't doing very well. There are a bunch of theoretical magicians around - but all they do is read about magic and think about it....never actually DO anything. Enter Mr Norrell, a stuffy, private, conservative old man who is a practical magician. The only one in England. The first part of the book is all about him, and to be honest, it's a slow start. The character is quite boring and while the author captures his bizarre qualities very well, the book is a bit of a plod in this part. The second part is about Jonathan Strange, another practical magician that pops up and becomes Mr Norrell's student. He's more interesting, and the book starts to pick up a bit when he is introduced. The third part goes into what happens between these two magicians and gets much more interesting. I got through the second part of the book a whole lot quicker than the first half.
The style is interesting - lots of footnotes! Clarke actually writes this book a bit more like a history than a fictional novel. Referencing books written by characters within the book, which is quite clever. Really, it wasn't a bad book, however someone should have gone through it with a red pen and cut about a third of the contents out, if it had been shorter and more concise I reckon it would have been better.

3 wizards out of 5

Book 18 "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" J K Rowling

Wow. I bet everyone is REALLY surprised that this is here the day after teh books release.... Yes yes, I went and picked the book up yesterday morning, went to Nick's place and the two us sat on his couch and read the book all day, joined by Euan playing on his laptop. I got most of the way through before having to stop to go out to dinner for my brother's birthday (inconsiderate to be born on the same day as the Harry release I know)and then when I got home, I finished it off. Bloody brilliant! But, I was alwasy going to say that. I'm not actually going to say much about it, because there are too many people who might shoot me for spoiling stuff, but I will say it was better than the last one (shorter for a start at only 607 pages). It doesn't start in the traditional way at the Durlsey's either, but in the muggle world, which was really quite a cool thing. It's actually a lot funnier than previous too, I was happily chuckling for much of the book. I was also happy to discover that Harry finally stopped whining like a little bitch and he didn't irritate me. It ends well, I cried like there was no tomorrow and then next and last book is going to be AWESOME!

5 potions lessons out of 5.

Thankyou, that is all. :o)
Carms!

Anonymity

How are y'all doing? I have a teensy request. Unless yer actively trying to hide yer identity (given that I'm sure posting on this blog will red flag you in some shady government agency), would people mind signing names on comments? I know that probably makes the anonyous thing redundant, but I'd just like to get a better idea of who's reading my blog.

No drama if'n ye all want to stay anonymous, but if ye don't mind that'd be cool.

Ta.

OMFG1111111

[long, gushy post]

Before Ratti smothers me in my sleep for using l33t-speak, I have to say that I am being ironic. I just wanted to get your attention and express some of my excitement and awe at the film I saw last night. That film? Sin City, people! If you are in any way interested in comic books, graphic novels (not to say they're always two different things, but you have to pander to snobs from time to time) or the craft of movie-making then you must, and I can't stress this enough, MUST GO AND SEE THIS FILM!

Seriously.

It has long been known by my circle of friends that I intend to one day track down Robert Rodriguez and eat his brain. The man is scary-talented. He can write, direct, edit, score and produce. He's even put together some special effects. I swear half the credits on Spy Kids were "Robert Rodriguez". It is true that all of his films haven't exactly been Academy Award materiel (the aforementioned Spy Kids, for example), but they are always fun and injected with an energy and enjoyment factor that directors/editors/writers/producers with ten times his experience in the industry are at a loss to match.

And now we have Sin City.

Based on a graphic novel series of the same name by Frank Miller, who was creditted as a co-director because Rodriguez used the comics essentially as storyboards and followed Miller's vision so closely, the film is made up of three interweaving (if not connected) stories set in Basin "Sin" City. This film is dark, violent, stylised, violent, funny and violent. Really violent. Limbless, still-alive bad guys being eaten by wolves violent. Then again, so are the comics, and with the stylised nature of the film, the violence is shocking but, I feel, not traumatising.

The casting was superb. The male leads in the two stories (and apologies to the feminists out there, because these are primarily male stories, even the ones centred around and featuring some pretty tough and independent females) perform brilliantly. Bruce Willis as Hartigan and Mickey Rourke as Marv are excellent. They manage to pull off the cheesy, noir dialogue effortlessly and are the perfect embodiments of their characters. Clive Owen as Dwight looks the part, but his line delivery is maybe 80-90% on the money. It's definitely there, but just not there enough to stand comfortably beside Willis and Rourke. The female leads are similarly excellent with Carla Gugino sexy and cool as Lucille, Marv's parole officer, Jessica Alba an awesome mix of naivete and strength as Nancy and Rosario Dawson sexy and dangerous as Gail, the leader of the girls in Old Town.

Also worthy of note are the totally creepy Kevin (Elijah Wood)and utterly odious Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) and about a thousand other cameos and bit-parts.

Primarily shot against green screen, Rodriguez squeezes every drop out of the CGI technology he has used. The overall palette of the film is black and white, with splashes - often literally - of colour so a red dress or spray of blood stands out garishly against the monochrome background. The violence, when it comes, is extreme and, usually, deserved. Jackie Boy especially gets quite a collection of serious injuries. Having just read a couple of the trades, I could easily recognise where Rodriguez and Miller had gone shot for panel with the source materiel, and those bits that did differ fitted seemlessly into the overall design. Jeanette Scott's art direction is nothing short of amazing. This is a beautifully ugly film. Oh, and I have to get the soundtrack. Way cool.

Chatted a bit with Tim after the movie and he was a bit disappointed with some of the bits they left out. However, they did shoot all three stories in their entirety, they just couldn't fit it all in the movie, so roll on the DVD release and the director's cut! In case I haven't been clear enough, I loved this movie!

Criticisms? Well, Clive's not-always-convincing delivery (as I said) and some hamming from the supporting ladies and gents (some of the Old Town girls possibly chosen more for eye candy value than acting talent?). Also, the dolly shot of the girls blasting away the goons in the alley really showed how poorly some of them handled their weapons. Surely, with the production values of this film being so high, an extra week or two of instruction in how to handle their firearms wouldn't have been too much to ask for. Similarly, I think a couple of the direct comic-to-screen shots and lines might've done with a little tweakette. Not a lot, and there were only one or two, but there was a little lost in translation here and there.

Anyhoo, that's probably enough from me. Just go out and see the damn film, wouldya!

Four and a half dismembered villains out of five!

[/long, gushy post]

More fun shite

So if this blog was on LJ, I think I'd need to come up with an icon/header pic for fun shite movies. What would it be? Probably Snake Plisken fighting a Dog Soldiers werewolf... but I digress...

Watched SWAT t'other night and I gotta say I enjoyed it. True, it didn't exactly twist and turn beyond my understanding of what film can do and it didn't shake my previous ideas of the medium or the genre but damn if it wasn't a fun flick to just kick back and select brain out.

Another movie remake of an old TV show, we have the obligatory cameos from the original cast, and updating of characters. Surprisingly bloodless for a film with a not insignificant body count, SWAT is the story of Officer Jim Street (Colin Farrell) of the LAPD's elite SWAT (that's Special Weapons And Tactics for the cheap seats) team. Claimed (by the film) as the most highly-trained and -respected law enforcement teams in the world (it's possible that one or two other police fores in the world might have something to say about that). A seige goes poorly and Street and his partner are busted off the active SWAT force. Street stays on - albeit as a humble weapons and equipment officer - and his partner quits the force.

6 months later and the LAPD is getting sick of bad press and so Sgt. "Hondo" (Samuel L. Jackson) is called in to put together a super-team for SWAT. He hand picks 5 people, including Officers Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) and Deacon "Deke" Kay (LL Cool J) and trains them a lot (I was waiting for the montage song from Team America). They end up being responsible for transporting a very special prisoner, an international drug dealer who has offered $100 million to anyone who breaks him out, and so the highjinx ensue.

There really are not great surprises here, but more than a few genuine laughs and some well-executed action sequences. The fact that Sports Night's Josh Charles turns up as a cocky SWAT marksman is kinda funny, too. Michelle Rodriguez is, as you would expect, an image of hotness and Samuel L. is, of course, an image of coolness. Colin's American accent is flawless, but we've come to expect that, and they all handle their firearms with confidence. As a popcorn and spent cartridge case movie, SWAT ranks highly, but if yer looking for an action-thriller to test your brain on, you're probably better off getting The Usual Suspects.

Three smoke grenades out of five.

Trauma Surgery, desert island style...

There may be a spoilerette or two in here...

I want to know when Lost became all about Jack. Last night we had a seriously wounded Boone, a birth-giving Claire and yet the flashbacks were still all about Jack. What's up with that? And I know that many people think Locke has lost some points this week, but my faith in him remains strong. It's not for the villagers to question the shaman.

True, he probably should've told them what actually happened to Boone, but it's not like he could've done anything to help after he'd dumped him on Jack. And, yes, I did laugh muchly when Charlie tried to get up to help the birth and Jin just did the ol' hand on the shoulder, small smile and shake of the head. Verry funny.

Worst... Pun... Ever...

Seriously.

Conflicted

I was watching "At The Movies" on ABC last night and they had a big thing on Sin City. One of their interviewettes was with Robert Rodriguez himself and... I hate to say this... it's shaken me up more than Locke abandoning Boone... he said; "very unique".

Twice.

Now do I hate him or continue my boyish admiration and jealousy and wait for him and Amber Benson to take over the world?

New horizons in nerd-dom.

I found Everything 2.com the other day and it's a lot of fun.

I also created an account and, care of stealing Sam IV's term, created my first node.

Always fucking something...

The spectre that's been hanging over my head for the last two weeks (that of whether or not I can pay my rent for the next two weeks) has no been excorcised, thanks entirely to my wonderfully understanding parents. My final masters seminar is more or less ready, thanks to my day on the couch in my jammies with a laptop, my wonderful brother the storyboard artist and Duncan and Louise for recording some dialogue for me. My masters itself is going pretty well, thanks largely to the last two weeks I've spent in the National Library (see previous worries about bill payment).

And now the screen on my iPaq has fucked out. I played a bit of solitaire on it this morning, it was fine. After playing this solitaire I put my iPaq back in my room and left it there. This evening I pulled it out to play some music on my drive to my folks for dinner and the screen was fucked. Part of it looks like impact damage (not that I've dropped it or sat on it) and part of it looks like (according to Ratti) a loose connection. Of course, it's still totally under warranty, so it shouldn't cost me a cent to fix, but it's still something to weigh on my mind and piss me off.

There's always fuckin' something!

*grumble*

Help a starving PhD candidate.

If you're a blogger, take this quick test.

A small distraction

Just an amusing wee link with some awesome sculpting from a random Portuguese (or maybe Brazilian?) dude.

More fuckers

Shocked. Scared for my family and friends in London (who are all fine, thank god). Wondering who and why. G8? The Olympics? I know that most people don't think the Olympic announcmement had anything to do with it, but I reckon the if I were a chief of security for Paris, New York or Beijing, I'd be looking hard for similar devices.

Tony Blair's response was calm and clear, and George Dubya's "they're resolve is as strong as my resolve" made me angry as hell. Every word out of his mouth was stilted and weak, and you could almost see the "yippee, now I have another dedicated partner in the War On Terrorism[TM]" going through his eyes.

Of course, if they think some bombings will break London's spirit, it's possible they need to read their history a bit better.

And now we get a repeat of the 9/11 coverage, with repetitions of the same two and three minute interviews and the same four or five unconfirmed reports.

And now Alexander Downer is on TV. Boy, that certainly makes me feel safer. Git.

Another boo-boo

[gun rant]

This boo-boo was on SVU on wednesday night (our time). Det. Benson was keeping an eye on a rape victim who was stalking her attacker and met her at a pistol range. The victim/stalker was shooting a .50 Desert Eagle (not the gun I'd recommend for a slight young lady, but there you go). They had a shot of her firing down range (quite well done) and one of the target, and when they showed the shot of the target, I was surprised to see around 14 holes in the target. Then the victim/terrorist - when asked by Det. Benson what she was shooting - said "it's a .50 calibre Desert Eagle with a 14 round clip."

[buzzer sound]

Unfortunately, the .50 cal Deagle only has a 7 round clip, and while an extended mag might be possible to make, when Benson pointed out that 14 round magazines were illegal in New York and the victim/stalker handed hers over, it was obviously a normal, single stack magazine.

Another important thing to realise here is that even if the slight, blonde victim could find the 14 round magazine, it would be around 6 inches+ long, and around an inch thick. How could she possibly hold and fire something with those dimensions with anything approaching comfort and accuracy? I mean, just look at the thing.



It's huge!

[/gun rant]

Uuuuuu-lah!

For those of you who don't know, that was the call of the martian tripods from the Jeff Wayne War Of The Worlds musical. We went to see War Of The Worlds tonight and it was gooood.

Awesome effects, (mostly) naturalistic acting and some genuine creepiness, mainly in the form of Tim Robbin's character. Given the advances in technology, they were quite faithful to the original tone of the story. The martians turned up and just kicked the fuck out of everyone. There was no "America, Fuck Yeah" scene, no sudden upsurge in the humans' ability to fight back, just a slow build of tension and scariness that I really enjoyed. The effects for the heat ray were great, with people just puffing away into ash as their clothes fluttered down around them when they got hit.

Another cool thing is that the machines weren't splashed all over the previews, so when they turned up they were just... cool. And new. And unexpected. They were biomechanical looking and huge and really well done. As were the aliens themselves.

Dakota screamed her young head off with conviction and Cruise managed to portray fraying-sanity, near-hysteria very well. Robbins was, as I said, creepy as fuck and there were some good, again natural, supporting roles from a bunch of people.

Now all I have to worry about is nightmares.

Y'see, when I was a kid, the aforementioned Jeff Wayne musical used to scare the crap out of me. This history of being scared by martians means that while I was watching the movie it is possible that I was getting a mite more freaked than would normally be the case for me in such a film.

Four fighting machines out of five.

Five years!

That's right. Five years, baby! Well, five years as of tomorrow at around 2pm. :)

It's Carmen and I that I'm talking about here, by the by. We started going out on the 4th of July in the year 2000, so I really have no excuse for forgetting the date or how many years we have been going out.

It's five.

And to prove how nauseatingly in sync we are, we both bought each other the same present. You see, I bought Carmen Scrubs Season 1 on friday night. Of course, she had already bought me Scrubs Season 1 a week or so ago. We laughed about it and then I sold the spare copy to Owen and bought Carmen Hellboy.

Today we went out to Poacher's Pantry and had a fantastic lunch and a pleasant, roundabout kind of drive through the Canberra wine district. Just like the last time we went out there for lunch, I took the first left turn off the Barton Highway, rather than the second. Still, after we reached the end of that wrong road, we headed back the right way and got there in time for our booking. Fine wine, yummy food and some smoked garlic to make some pizzas with tomorrow for the "When In Rome" dinner I'm cooking.

An awesome day for which I thank my gorgeous and beloved Carmen. :)

Another game

It's called The Mafia Boss and apparently involves ring kissing. Or something. It's similar to Pimpin' Down Under, but with more things to do for gathering money and troopers. And this one has a referral system too. Check it out.

It's entirely platonic...

... but my man-crush on Locke is getting stronger. I think it's 'cause he made Claire a cradle. Seriously, man, the dude made her a cradle. And I think he already knew it was her birthday before she told him.

He's so cool.