What happened? At the developers' conference? The usual:
1. Pleasantries.
2. Discussion of things about blogs.
3. Decide Roparty will do it, because code is hard.
4. Record conference theme song.
5. Watch kids dancing.
Na but seriously, this blog is pretty much on hold until we emerge, butterfly like, from the sweaty crumb-filled sleeping-bag of development. The sleeping bag is the cocoon. We'll keep you all posted.
Update:
Here's our conference theme-scape:
It's been a long time since a good old fashioned HAB4U LIVEBLOGGING. So here goes:
No smokes, no sheets. The thick humidity of fail beaded upon my evening. My only solace: A torrented copy of an Oliver Stone biopic, which no one seemed to rate too highly, but which is finally about someone I can remember.
10:59: Fuck this thing is two and some more hours long.
11:02: I bet the baseball field thing is a METAPHOR. Also there's no fucking way that's how Frum busted out 'axis of evil'. That's the last time I'll make a real point.
11:08: I bet the homoerotic hazing scene is meant to bookend with the muslimerotic torturing in the WARS. Or maybe it's just about Yale people being losers. He just said he DOESN'T WANT TO DO POLITICS. BUT HE DOES IN THE END!
11:17: They're country western dancing on a bar Coyote Ugly styles. Oliver Stone is a hell of a director.
11:24: Hazing-torture link completed. Cheney-Bush relationship a hilarious caricature. Also Powell sounds fresh, like someone doing a bad old-black-guy impression of some sort. This whole thing is weak as fuck.
11:37: Romance. Laura is a filthy filthy slut. She takes her top off at 48:20. Then Bush becomes religious because he looks at some trees and sunshine. Oh. Actually he's having a heart attack? No it's god. And his new religious friend is like A NEW DAD.
11:58: Is that weird grasshopper person meant to be my buddy Rove? Yeah I guess he kind of looks like a weird grasshopper actually. The Willie Horton thing. Wow. This is just a series of references to shit.
12:22: Actually him running for Texas is pretty sweet. There's even a "learning how to talk to the press from Rove, under a tree" montage... like in Rocky. Oh. That bit is over instantly.
They should have called this movie Things Things Things that Happened But Not Like That Obviously, Because Nothing Has EVER Happened Like That.
Liveblog over. It gets 3/5 bones for trying. But not very hard.
Good cover, shiny writing.
This dog seems kinda cool. Im totally not into faggy dogs like this, but c'mon, wook ad his widdle fwace
This dog is totally giving the viewer the glad eye. Dora you little slut.
I actually know these two dogs personally, good sorts. They remind me of really friendly Christians. Which is weird cos they aren't Christian at all, but you know the vibe I mean, not over bearing, but really self assured and happy inside. The type of person dog that gets a good nights sleep and never wakes up crying.
.
Things that some people think are really awesome but which are not actually awesome at all. Who could possibly care? Irritable dweebs. So here I go:
Pink Floyd's 1979 The Wall. 23 times platinum. Rolling Stone's (lolwho?) 87th Album of all time. Perennial favourite of stoned old men with comfy chairs.
Fundamentally, it's not really what people think it is: People think that a) The Wall is some sort of concept album, or rock opera, and b) that that makes it really out of it. But it really isn't, and that really wouldn't anyway. First the 70s were full of albums with stories and themes and stuff, some of them good, all of them better than The Wall.
Second, what is the Wall's concept or story? There's some stuff from Water's life, some stuff from Barrett's... sort of... (covered better in earlier Floyd albums anyway), something about a Wall or whatever... around someone's... feelings. Well done. And then the spluttering cliche of pop music as facism. I guess. It could be even worse than that. Who cares. Read a fucking book or something.
The single is barely even a song. This is immediately obvious to anyone but me at age 13, and people who wear gumboots to the pub: Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 isn't really much of a song. It's one ridiculously dull riff over history's limpest drum beat. Then some kids sing... about not liking school so much. The solo is ok. But all his solos are ok. Which, when you're talking about rock, is to say that they completely fucking suck.
Most of the other 25 tracks are not really songs either. Seriously, stripped of their overblown context there'd only be like 3 tracks here that you could consider actual worthwhile songs. Adding in a bunch of sound effects, and tweaking a few names in the lyrics so it seems like there might be a story doesn't fix that. Randomly pick a song off the Wall, and tell me why you would ever want to listen to it. The odds are 1:8.6 that you're listening to a pretentious book-end.
Also there's the thing that's wrong with almost all Pink Floyd performances: They are so fucking weak. Not in the general sense "man that's weak". In the more concrete sense of simply having no rock in them. 99% of the time they sound like they're reading charts... like a stroppy band-leader is going to scold them for making mistakes. The drummer actually has zero feel. Somewhere after Obscured By Clouds Gimour's lead playing became a horribly 'adequate' self-parody. And basically they haven't committed a split second of energy, bite, or electricity to tape since Live in Pompeii (which is actually awesome... it's like a whole different band).
MetaPoints: a) I just googled "pink floyd over rated wall" and it seems I'm not the first to point this out. b) Who the fuck cares about whether or not Pink Floyd suck? Hopefully no one. c) And what the fuck is an album even? Yeah. But it's written now.
Coming soon... a review of some movie where it turns out in the end that things weren't what they seemed.
Thousands took to the street in Wellington this Saturday in a terrifying show of force against probably The Economy but also maybe something else. Maybe they just wanted me to stop asking questions about their iPhone. Whatever their motives the thing they did was fairly entertaining, with the fascist recession-encouraging liquor-ban laxly enforced.
Rod in the frame.
These skeletons were not real. But it's pretty much impossible to guess how they did them.
This is what happens when your daughter does four years of modern dance (hons): her eyes start glowing like a fucking Jawa.
Um... That is an actual fish? HaHa.
The end.
I've seen a few Dog-Coms in my time, Beethoven, Snow Dogs, White Fang, and they were all pretty sweet, so, I was stoked when I saw the trailer for Hotel For Dogs last week.
From what I saw, this movie drops all the B.S that often plagues this kind of film, you know, the human subplot filler shit (dad looses job, gets work at animal testing facility) and concentrates on the important shit. Dogs trying to run a Hotel.
I for one would like to book a room at the Hotel for Dogs. The duration of my stay? 86 minutes including trailers. Could one of your staff open a window? It reeks of dog shit in here.
Recommended.
The New Zealand Listener was once (I'm pretty sure...) a fairly readable weekly journal of smart literary criticism and centre-left political analysis. These days it seems to have morphed into a middle-class fret-fest, where contextless crap about mortgages and your kids' high-school curriculum gets mushed up against self-help pieces and sentimental dross about diseases that everyone gets.
This comparison is hampered by my not being able to find covers predating 2003, by which time although the editorship hadn't changed over, the decline was ramping up. Or down I guess. Ramping down.
Anyway here's some 03-ish issues:
We've got New Zealand racial politics, warnings of the now upon us super-recession, some picture of a presumably very hot muslim girl - instantly hard hitting... I guess... because they are all bombs - and a look at the politics of the then-topical prostitution law reforms. Fast forward to now-times:
We've got some shit about how to use cameras. Our wide-ranging economic analysis has morphed into thinly veiled shopping tips. Totally doable muslim girls have become some naval gazing crap about being a little bit tired because of having a job or whatever. And sexual politics - a thing that sometimes matters for some people in a way amenable to productive public discourse - has become just sex - a thing that people do which is pretty much their own business, unless they're twelve or really drunk.
Too long didn't read? The point is that the magazine has gone from outward looking stuff about the world and the public square to myopic shit about you personally. Like how tired and horny you are. The Take5 thing is still awesome though. Here's a prediction of what the magazine will look like in 2011 if current trends continue:
My plan was to rip on this hand-drawn map, pointing out its many cartographic failings and generally wailing on who ever authored it. But after some careful reflection, and a good squint at a professional offering, I've decided that in a world gone mad it takes a really vague map covered in arrows to save your soul.
Note the unwieldy inelegance of google's offering. It's uninvitingly off-yellow highway. It's offensively wiggly sub rivers, which no one has ever cared about. Looking at this I'd have to assume that the whole of Taupo is a post-apocalyptic concrete-flat punctuated with occasional green polygons of fail. And labelling the cemetery just makes me certain that I should have died there.
With this map, a part of me would have.
There's something really disturbing about the whole live-video game genre that I can't put my finger on. More specifically - and sure, be as sarcastic as you want - Night Trap is actually the creepiest fucking THING EVER. And if Lieberman hadn't slapped his ban hand across its face, god surely would have. Here's a review by some guy who, for the first 30 seconds or so, is completely on form:
In the spirit of this post, here is a dinner I made. If you want something similar you'll need some fish. Flour/salt > egg > breadcrumbs >hot butter filled pan, and bam: you're at the top of the food chain.
As it happens I prefer to think of it as a 'food funnel', with me at the bottom. But whatever. The point is you're eating something that lives 500kms out to sea, soaked through with boiling fermented cream. I don't know if they have 'feelings' or not, but I sure hope they have sufficient sentience and intentionality to know how bad I'm owning them.
Anyway if you're being obvious you can throw some lemon on those. I stirred some Gin into the remaining pan butter, added 100g of salt, and used that as a sort of dip. Dinnercast Closed.
If you like smoking in a tiny tiled garden with no plants, and crave all the crapness of being inside someone's half renovated crapshack and none of the stop-the-rain-hitting-you power of actually being indoors, then you you'd love smoking at Christchurch casino. But this isn't about smoking.
If you're anything like me then loosing 8 dollars puts you on tilt for well over 1000000 years. The obvious thing to do at such a point in your evening is to load up on subsidised beer and wander aimlessly through the slot machines searching for an unattended middle aged woman of medium attractiveness to sit next to. Dropping in 8 dollars (so you look like a business man), leaning back awkwardly, and eventually fighting down the staggers long enough to say 'lucky night tonight?' should generally lead to a scenario in which no one really gets off (makes you look like a business man) and a 25 year marriage is destroyed.
But shit don't play like that at Christchurch Casino. I guess 40 is about the age you realise you'd rather definitely loose 80 dollars than have a brief affair with an idiot... In the Christchurch Casino bathrooms.
Other things you should be warned of: a) People who describe poker hands that you weren't even in are fucking dicks b) They let this one down-syndrome guy play $10 a hand blackjack. c) You're not allowed to use an ipod. d) Coffee is free when you're playing stuff. e) The way asian people carry their gambling makes everyone else in the world look like absolute total bitches.
Memoryblog over.
Just a quick observation: somewhere, once, there were awesome things on the television. For instance why not soak up this six part symposium on rock versus metal? Or watch a genuine unexpected battle to the racist death in which that guy who does Fox News gets his nose broken. Or the guy that kicked that fight off pushing Al Sharpton out of his chair? Or finally, this calm reasoned policy debate where no one shouts at all. Note the awesome on-set smoking.
(My god that girl in the beret is an idiot. And a WWF ninja. And a Fox News correspondent. But she did found the Guardian Angels. I think. And then there's this. Actually maybe she's totally awesome.)
Anyway the reality/talk crap we have on now is what those reports of US military insects are, to waking up on the couch and finding that thousands of real insects are in your pants is, to the Morton Downey show. Marinade on that.
9:47 Ok. Now what does this meddling minx do for money? Model shitty trench-coats? Carry cups of coffee around?
9:50 This crying girl COULD explain. But who wants to explain their compulsion to work the streets for free?
9:53 Woah is that the girl from Rosanne? (um, no. what are you talking about dick?)
9:55 POLICEZ! Do you think the ghost took their mum?
9:59 God damn this woman meddles relentlessly
10:01 She also devotes a lot of time to disparaging people's dead parents. Which is hardly a great way to win friends and influence people.
10:02 Mum found. CASE CLOSED. New Mystery Flowers.
10:03 Oh the mum is a ghost maybe. Have I mentioned how completely phoney all this woman's expressions are?
10:04 Woah the ghosts were actually the mum and not the dad. Maybe. But there's still 20 minutes to go.
10:05 This is actually sad and plausible shit. I'd feel ill using it as meat for my sci-fi ghost-banging shlock.
10:05 Oh goddamnit this is some complicated pointless shit. EVERYONE IS EVERYONE ELSES MOM AND THEY ARE ALL GHOSTS! WE GET IT!
10:07 She has the ghost sads. Who'd have thought BOTHERING THE FUCK OUT OF GRIEVING STRANGERS wouldn't bring you happiness?
10:11 All of these ads are horrible, cheap and completely fucking racist.
10:13 Apologies all round. This girl is pretending to like this guy. They kiss. I think she just said "DAFF DAFF" to him. I guess that can't be right. Maybe I should turn it up.
10:14 Now some other ghost is bothering the hell out of all these orphans. Rosanne girl is looking good. Like she got all done up for no reason what so ever.
10:15 HAHA DOORS CAN CLOSE SUDDENLY on their OWN. What about the house and stuff? It's all gone. House haunted. The little boy is getting scared... Rosanne is being sort of a bitch.
10:16 JLH hasn't shown her fake distant face for like ten minutes... and I'm actually starting to miss he- oh there she is. Talking to a ghost. "Is it 'SOMEONE'!?" (instead of 'something': lateral thinking).
10:17 Ads again. This show is so fucking boring. I'm going to just predict the end and log off. I think the SOMEONE who ghost mom is scared of is probably the real life Jennifer Love H. She is afraid the children will be forced to work in her 19th century 'facial mill' where JLH attempts to harvest and emulate the sincerity and expressions of human children.
10:28 Ok so I watched the end... feel disappointed, depressed and patronised. Insert joke along the lines of 'now you know how SHE felt'. Good night.
Yeah so everyone who used to live in my house now doesn't. And although I've only really been on my own for less than a day, I still think it's time to relate my experiences.
First off, I have discovered that inanimate objects can be friends of sorts (pic very related).
Secondly, this place is much less of a shithole now that all the coke-addled kickboxers have gone. (My only example: I am keeping fresh butter on its own little plate. With a lid over it).
Thirdly, playing the House of the Rising Sun over and over while lying on the couch and weeping into a Spray & Wipe soaked tea towel is a pretty cool thing to do.
This post is INFINITY years over due: I've been busy picking out a sweet cardboard box and rag combo for my probable return to the glamourous world of homelessness. Who's to blame? Immigrants. I'll explain later.
The purpose of this post was to review a recent lunch which I was able to cause by leveraging my position as a media thought leader. After dropping a few hundred thousand cyber-hints someone finally made me pancakes. With maple syrup, bacon and banana.
The food was good. Coffee pretty average. Bonus points were awarded for hiding the bacon and banana pieces under a top "lid pancake". Entertainment was supplied by some neighbours' domestic dispute and my own anxious bitch-whimpering over how many thousands of houses I was going to have to evict everyone's mothers from. Overall I'll give it three golden spoons.
Keeping with the theme of movie reviews (although that last one will be hard to top). I watched Indiana Jones the other night: It sucked. Even though the old ones were ridiculous they were still serious business, this movie was like a 9/11 styled jihad attack, but on my childhood. This is probably what George Lucas' storyboard looked like when he presented it to Steven Speilberg WARNING: plot spoiler.
Continuing on with the whole banned VHS theme, we have Mother FakeCrate (1986). The basic story is that it's the future (around now I guess), and there aren't any young people who want to work because they're all really busy "springloading". That's like drugs but it's done with a big spike into the chin and computers. I think it's a little bit like watching DVDs. Anyway at the docks there's no one to load crates on to the boats. So the lady who runs the docks decides to get a team of old men to help. Anyway the old men are lazy and ethnic, and she quickly tires of them and their lame tales of the old country. One of them gets his face buffed off on one of those motorised workshop sharpeners. Another tries to swim to safety and gets sucked into the fan of a hydrofoil (what? it's the future).
This was also called 'The Older You Work' in the US. It's an easy 3/5, but to be honest I don't really care. As long as P-mans disgusting eye awesome eye, what, put it back, I'm not bothered, is no longer the leader is everywhere I look, everywhere, for ever.
