| I lost my heart to Starship Troopers |
[Jul. 19th, 2008|11:15 pm] |
Best movie you remembered liking, but forgot you liked as much as you did?
It's weird seeing this again after not seeing it for a few years. I kinda forgot just how much of a satire it is, and at the same time I don't get how anyone ever thought it was actually Paul Verhoeven endorsing Nazism. That's like watching Dr. Strangelove and thinking it's a straight political/war thriller, or reading 1984 and thinking that George Orwell was a Communist. |
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| BRUM |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|09:29 pm] |
I passed my driving test on Tuesday. First attempt.
The hardest part was parallel parking, although when I say 'hardest part' that's really because I went back and forward about five or six times after pulling in initially in an attempt to straighten up the car. The instructor finally looked over at me and said "You know, you can go back and forward all day if you want, but you're already good on this part of the test."
Which made me feel quite stupid, but at least she didn't say 'you can do this all day, but you've already failed', which is what I expected to hear. (I hit the kerb at least twice while jockeying the car around, but since I didn't mount the kerb, I guess that was okay.)
Now I just need to learn how to drive manual transmission cars so I can actually use Mary's car. (I got the basics down in about twenty-five minutes a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't exactly happy enough in my abilities to try the open road.)
Clearly, I need to make an LJ-icon with a car on it. |
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| Turned Out Nice Again |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|10:42 am] |
I realise this might sound odd, but every time I hear the song 'Before He Cheats' by Carrie Underwood, I like to imagine what it would sound like on the ukelele, as covered by George Formby.
It's not often that I have a thought and think that I'm the only person in the world ever to think it, but that's probably one of the best contenders I have.
(For bonus fun, I imagine a re-shot video set in the London blitz, complete with a beat-up old 1930s jalopy that he's terrorising. Complete with a shot of 'GEORGE' carved into the seats. It's from Formby's hereforeto unknown 'vandal' years, which also saw the song 'When I'm Breaking Windows', and a rather darker interpretation of 'Leaning On The Lamppost At The Corner Of My Street'.) |
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| SCARS |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|11:54 pm] |
Scars is getting a second printing.
Scars, for the record, is awesome. It's one of the best comic books Warren Ellis has written, but for some reason resides in an under-the-radar spot of his body of work. It's not the madcap political satire of Transmetropolitan, the hard-edged sci-fi of Lazarus Churchyard, nor the quite frankly batshit-insane bombast of Nextwave.
It's a very simple story about a guy who has the misfortune to be the homicide detective on call the night something unpleasant turns up in a couple of cardboard boxes on the doorstep of a charity shop. It's the case that hits close to home, and the final test of a man who is so terribly trying to do the right thing while tightrope-walking on the edge of his own psychological abyss.
It came out around the same time as his action/horror series Strange Kiss, plus a bundle of smaller Image Comics miniseries that were variously about mechanical battlesuits, cyberpunk hell on Earth, and embittered former spooks trying to fight back against the agency's attempts to jerk the chain once more. Somehow, amid these, Scars got lost. It was a simple story about a guy trying to do his job without losing his mind first. No sci-fi, no monsters, no weird sex or conspiracy theories. Just the story of a man trying to make amends with his own personal demons.
It's bloody amazing. If you like good comics, give it a whirl.
(ALSO: I've been away for the past just-over-a-week celebrating our wedding anniversary in Las Vegas. I employed my mentally-ill skills and ploughed through 440 Livejournal posts, three hundred and fifty e-mails, and four hundred RSS updates, so I'm pretty well up to scratch.) |
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| Daily Mail: UPDATE! |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|10:21 pm] |
Further to my last post, the Daily Mail have edited the news story in question: in addition to adding more details (and vast scaremongering about abortion and how it kills everyone who reads the word let alone has one) they've amended the headline to the much less objectionable
"Mother's heartbreak as A-level student dies two weeks after taking abortion drugs".
The URL from the previous post still (at present) links to the current news article, but remains intact as a URL: the URLs on the Daily Mail's website contain the headline in them. As far as I can tell, that's pretty much the only reference to the old headline they have left. |
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| Daily Mail Watch |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|01:50 pm] |
Okay, it's time to check in with the Daily Mail again. Will the hate-mongers have become responsible, honest, or fair in the past week or two?
Christian teenager died after having abortion to avoid upsetting Muslim boyfriend's family
Daily Mail FAIL!
Silly Daily Mail! Can you not just run an anti-abortion article without dragging religion into it? The religion of the two people involved has NOTHING to do with this (especially since I think both religions are mostly opposed to abortion in cases like this.) Had the situation been reversed, would the headline have screamed 'Muslim teenager died after having abortion to avoid upsetting Christian boyfriend's family?' I think not, Daily Mail!
It doesn't help that with the wording of the headline they're pretty heavily implying that she was pressured into having an abortion by the Muslim family.
I mean, from that more-loaded-than-a-baked-potato headline, you don't really expect to read that the girl's family knew about the abortion beforehand, or, indeed, that her boyfriend was with her just before she died and that the parents of the girl don't have a single bad thing to say about the boyfriend, his family, or Islam.
Epic fail, Daily Mail! Back to headline writing school with you!
(EDIT: the Daily Mail changed the headline in question. See this post for details.) |
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| Were you gonna die alone? |
[Jun. 8th, 2008|10:40 pm] |
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?
STILL one of the best movies ever made. It's got everything: Sergio Leone directing, Ennio Morricone's score, Clint Eastwood being the hero, Lee Van Cleef being the bad guy, Eli Wallach being the badass misfit... some of the most quotable dialogue known to man, and a climactic gunfight that puts your heart in your mouth.
THIS is why Clint outdoes even the fuckin' Duke. |
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| The World Is Ending |
[Jun. 6th, 2008|10:56 pm] |
One of the signs of the end times warned about in Revelations has come to pass: today there was a Fred Basset comic that was actually pretty funny. And I don't mean funny in the way it sometimes is where you can interpret it differently than intended. I mean today's Fred Basset is funny for the joke that the creator actually wrote.
It's especially relevant when you consider it runs in the Daily Mail, who pillory the police almost daily for going after 'soft' targets (usually pensioners doing something that sounds sweet and innocent, like feeding birds or giving toffees to kids) while ignoring the bigger problems of youth violence, knife crime, and illegal immigration.
But moreover: actual, honest-to-bejeezus SATIRE. I can't even tell if he's pandering to the Daily Mail readers and their fear of being arrested for breaking some political correctness-based law, or if he's making fun of them for having said fear.
It's scary and terrible that Fred Basset has been funny. It's not something I'd like to see happen again because it fills me with a deep sense of shame. Hopefully tomorrow's strip will focus on Jock digging up one of Fred's bones. Oh, that Jock! You don't know what he'll do next! |
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| somebody has a case of the... Fridays? |
[May. 30th, 2008|10:28 am] |
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Why aren't the clocks moving? |
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| What's new, Daily Mail? |
[May. 29th, 2008|08:37 am] |
The McCanns face child neglect charges over leaving Madeleine alone the night she was abducted.
FINALLY.
And how do the parents respond to someone pointing out that perhaps leaving a three year old unsupervised might be a bad idea, even if you are 'just fifty yards away' in a restaurant?
"'If there is any suggestion of neglect charges being considered that will be vigorously denied because the legal advice that Kate and Gerry have received both in Portugal and Britain is that legally speaking everything they were doing that week was well within the bounds of responsible parenting.'"
Yes, you read that right, RESPONSIBLE PARENTING. That'll be why she got kidnapped, then. It's kind of like how the responsible way to drive a car is to take a nap while doing 65mph on the motorway. After all, driving while tired is just dangerous!
(I'd also argue accidentally killing your own kid* and then covering it up, disposing of the body and crying about it for the next six months on the news is outside of the bounds of responsible parenting, but what the hell do I know?)
*Allegedly. |
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| Brum brum vroom |
[May. 28th, 2008|11:15 pm] |
I drove today. On the road.
As any of you who drive probably already realise, driving isn't such a huge deal. I mean, the steering's mostly unconscious, and once you're used to how the brakes and accelerator respond, that bit gets palmed off on a non-active part of the consciousness as well.
But today's the first day I drove on the open road, instead of just in the confines of the local county park. So it's a pretty big deal for me, considering that -- as with most important things in life -- I'm doing this at least seven years later than I should have.
Didn't hit anyone. Didn't swerve out of my lane. Stopped at all traffic lights and stop signs. Made all turns accurately. Didn't exceed the speed limit except for that one bit where I did and honestly WTF is a 25 mph zone for anyway? Also didn't panic when the cop was behind me, mostly because I didn't know about the cop until after my boss (who is teaching me how to drive) told me about it, after I'd already turned off from the main road.
I'm pretty good on three-point turns, great at pulling into spaces, not so hot on reversing into spaces, and have yet to attempt parallel parking.
Also, petrol is now four dollars a gallon, more than twice what it was when I first came here a few years ago.
Clearly, this is a good time for me to learn how to drive. Like learning how to snorkel in a drought, play more than three chords in a punk band, or form a logical argument on the internet. |
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| The House of Bad Ideas presents: |
[May. 27th, 2008|01:31 pm] |
Okay, clearly I have too much free brain-time at this job, because I think I may have just come up with what might be the most offensive and least tasteful advert in the history of advertising campaigns.
Either that, or proof I should be writing for SNL.
( The thirty-second ad spot script, behind the cut. )
I think a copy of this will serve as my reservation receipt for a deluxe suite in Hell, won't it? |
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| The praying hemispheres |
[May. 27th, 2008|12:03 pm] |
Some days you feel like Albrecht Durer.
Other days you feel like his brother, but with the two hemispheres of your brain standing in for the praying hands.
But most of the time, you just get stuck on the fact that the whole story of the praying hands is a made-up concoction designed to make people feel like there's decency and charity in the human spirit.
It's like that footsteps poem that's all nice and inspirational until you realise that there's a backstory to it full of bitterness and jealousy and accusations of one former friend stealing it from another and profiting from it.
Also, apropos of nothing: HANG IN THERE, BABY is the precursor to all modern LOLCATS. |
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| Stay classy, Daily Mail |
[May. 27th, 2008|08:48 am] |
Hey, Daily Mail! Since that whole 'EMO IS A DEATH CULT OMG BLACK PARADE' debacle last week, have you calmed down and started being reasonable, responsible journalists?
Ah. Okay. Guess not, then. I live in hope! |
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[May. 26th, 2008|11:42 pm] |
Today was my first day off since Easter Sunday, and I found the whole thing confusing and upsetting.
There was nowhere I had to be! Nothing I had to do! I simply can't exist with that kind of disorder in my life. So I became my own boss for the day.
I woke up late, at the advanced hour of seven AM. Luckily my commute involved sitting in bed and reading Ulysses for an hour, so I wasn't in too bad a shape. Breakfast involved me having to efficiently sift out the bad granola from the good, which is a fancy way of saying I threw away the stale half of the box on top and ate a bowl of the lower half. The coffee I made was pretty bad and I considered firing myself for it, but that seemed a little drastic, plus I was being my own union rep today as well, and I would have had to go bust my own balls if I'd fired myself until I gave myself my job back.
Later on we went out looking for Wii Fit. Sadly my executive reconnaissance mission met with failure. But I put in a special order for it at Circuit City. That made me feel better about my chances of promoting myself, though I had a couple of beers at lunchtime and I'm pretty sure I smelled my own breath when I was coming back into work for the afternoon.
This afternoon involved hard work while I drew the comic. I wasn't happy with some of my slipshod inking. At one point I called myself Rob Liefeld and then dragged myself outside for such an insult. I'd have beaten the crap out of me if I hadn't apologised. Things are said in the heat of the moment that we don't always mean. I made up with myself and cancelled the restraining order paperwork I'd had my secretary, me, start drawing up.
In short, being your own boss is tougher than I thought. I'm not sure how I'll survive away from the rigid structure of a job for a week in Vegas in the middle of June. I'm sure one day I'll leave Mary by the pool on some pretence, and then I'll be found in the hotel room by one of the maids, performing cycle counts on the toiletries and putting the right TPS cover sheets on all the complimentary magazines.
(n.b. I am not actually this crazy.) |
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| Time's Greatest 100 English Language Novels |
[May. 25th, 2008|08:24 pm] |
Via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) joellevand, who got the idea from ashton_blaze...
Time magazine's one hundred best English language novels: the ones I've read are struck through. With commentary where appropriate.
( Here's the list... )
Where's freakin' Ulysses?!? Ah, wait, that'll be why the list is 1923 to the present. Ulysses was published in 1922. Ulysses also wrecks the grade curve.
Incidentally: currently re-reading Ulysses, which has temporarily arrested my three-books-a-week habit made possible by an hour's commute on public transport to and from work five days a week. At this point I'm not even sure I could remember all the things I read since I started working at the state in February. |
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| Daily Mail: comedy geniuses |
[May. 21st, 2008|10:55 pm] |
Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo.
The Daily Mail have, without a doubt, excelled themselves with this one. I don't even know how they could top it. They make Chris Morris's satire look toothless by comparison.
Choice excerpt: "Some time before her death, Hannah's parents, who live in Kent, noticed scarring on the inside of her wrists.
When they questioned her about it, honest and open as ever, she told them she'd inflicted the wounds herself and that it was part of an emo "initiation ceremony".
Only after her death would they discover how she had secretly chatted online to emo followers all over the world, talking about death and of the "black parade" ? a place where emos believe they go after they die."
( Full text under the cut ) |
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| Spam poetry |
[May. 19th, 2008|09:13 pm] |
Perhaps the most beautifully handcrafted spam message I've ever got:
The more you think
The more stars blink
They are young today
But were elder yesterday
Want to live free and become a star
Get a good health and be the best by far
It won't make me visit the site (the poem was followed by a URL) but isn't that nice? I mean, it doesn't make any sense, or scan very well, but it rhymes. And as we all know, poetry that doesn't rhyme reflects a fundamental lack of effort. |
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