Darren's "blog"

More great music

2009-04-06T17:40:00.000+09:30

Thanks to Mirjana for this one.

Pearl Jam and hip hop

2009-03-28T12:33:00.000+10:30

How to get engaged in four simple steps

2009-03-07T22:33:00.004+10:30

Some footage from Saturday night . . .

2009-03-04T22:40:00.000+10:30

Obviously not filmed by myself . .

NIN: Wish live with Ben & Greg from The Dillinger Escape Plan - Adelaide, 2.28.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Alice In Chains and Nine Inch Nails live

2009-03-01T21:21:00.004+10:30

On the weekend I went to Soundwave. Not a huge festival guy, but I wasn't going to turn down the chance to see a reformed Alice in Chains. The fact that Nine Inch Nails would be there too just sealed it.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of turning up too early. I was sitting round my home around 3.30pm doing nothing, and thought "This is stupid, I may as well just go down to the show". I got there around 4, and spent three hours listening to really crappy heavy metal and punk bands. I got quite bored, and started doing things like lining up to buy an icecream just to kill 15 minutes.

At around 6.30pm I went over to the front of the stage Alice in Chains were going to be playing, and found it mainly desserted, because there were some crappy Canadian punk band playing on the adjacent one. So I waited half an hour, and found myself around ten rows back from the front when Alice in Chains came on.

It was an interesting group of people watching their set - I saw one group of three guys with one wearing a Pearl Jam shirt, the other a Tea Party one, and the third Faith No More. In a sea of tattooed and pierced punk rock kids, there was just a little island of regular thirty-ish guys, who looked like me and my friends.
Alice in Chains came on at about 7pm - the three original, non-dead members, with new singer William DuVall. Who may be the coolest looking rock star ever. Kind of like Shaft fronting a grunge band.

I'd forgotten what a great guitarist Jerry Cantrell is, his lead playing was a lot more complicated than I remember on record. And while they didn't quite nail the exact sound of Layne-era Alice in Chains, it was pretty damn close.

After their set I moved 50 metres to my left and waited for Nine Inch Nails. I was really looking forward to seeing them, but the early start was starting to take its toll on me, and part of me just wanted to go home. Nevertheless, they didn't disappoint. Playing as a four piece, they mainly covered songs from their first few albums. Highlights were "Terrible Lie", "Suck", and their encore performance of "Wish", with half of Dillinger Escape Plan joining them on stage. Amazingly noone got injured during this song.

Overall I was glad I went, although next time I'd stick to the plan and only go for bands I wanted to see.

Underbelly 2

2009-02-25T15:30:00.000+10:30

Last year I refused to watch "Underbelly" while it was on TV. This was mainly based on my experience with Aussie TV dramas, which tend to be really crappy. The few bits I did catch didn't do anything to change my mind. But once it was finished, I was given a DVD with downloaded copies of the episodes, and gave it a shot. I watched the whole thing in a few weeks and actually quite enjoyed it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was based on real events, some of which I vaguely remembered occuring in the nineties, made the difference.

Anyway, I went into this year's "Underbelly 2" expecting more of the same, but was disappointed for the first two weeks. Mainly it was just Matthew Newton (son of Bert/real life domestic abuse convictee) smuggling drugs into the country, having sex with a variety of girls, and occasionally executing a subordinate. Not terribly exciting.

This week's episode was fantastic though. I loved the whole war between Ray-Chuck, and the two brothers who looked like band members from "Almost Famous". Although I didn't really find Sally from Home & Away believable as a grown up, she still looks like she's 20 years old. And it did seem a little strange that Ray-Chuck's guys emptied two machine gun's worth of ammo into a guy in a small bathroom and there weren't any busted tiles.

It was easily the best hour of the series, and it looks like it will continue into next week, with the introduction of Chopper Read. I was seriously considering phasing this out of my rotation but will stay with it a bit longer now.

Destroying the planet one dolphin at a time

2009-02-22T20:35:00.006+10:30

Friday night I picked up my new car (necessitated by my run-in with a certain senior citizen a few weeks back). It's a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and I love it.

Of course, being a huge environmentalist, I don't like the fact that everytime I drive to the local blockbuster somewhere an innocent dolphin, or perhaps baby seal, dies. But on the other hand, I feel like Tony Soprano when I'm behind the wheel of this thing, so it all balances out.

My favourite part is the interior. Leather (heated) seats, wood-look panelling, a ten disc cd stacker . . . it's more comfortable than my lounge room. And I like the fact that I feel safe in it, you get the feeling that elderly and/or Asian drivers would just bounce off.

The downside is that the insurance company would only insure it for $11,000, $1500 less than what I paid for it. Which is crazy because they just paid me $5,000 more than what my last car was actually worth. I guess I'll have to concentrate on avoiding accidents from now on.

Guitar Hero World Tour

2009-02-16T08:10:00.005+10:30

Friday night I had friends over for a BBQ, and movie in the backyard (after the votes were tallied, Fargo was the chosen film).

Before the movie started though Ash brought his new Guitar Hero World Tour game and we played that. Although my playing time was limited, trying to cook a BBQ and be a gracious host and all, everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

Especially Gav, who put his hand up to sing on almost every song, and got into character with the sunnies, and ad libbing little bits like "Hello Adelaide! How y'all doing?" during the song intros.

Anyway it was great fun, and I'm looking forward to doing it again, and perhaps spending a little more time rocking out with At the Drive-In and Tool then.

Weekend recommendations

2009-02-01T12:05:00.003+10:30

Three things that I have experienced this weekend and would recommend to you, my reader (and presumably) friend.

1. Kefi

After hearing rave reviews from a number of people, we got takeaway from Kefi, a greek place on Tapleys Hill Road at Glenelg North last night. I would highly recommend.

To start of with, the serves are huge. I'd been warned of this so we just ordered one lamb souvlaki to share. It came with two skewers of lamb, delicious potatoes, salad, and some garlic-y sauce. I (barely) finished my skewer, Michella finished half of hers, and her dog Noah got the rest.

It tastes delicious too. I'm no major food critic, but this was good stuff.

2. Life on Mars

This month's Rolling Stone came with a dvd of the first episode of this series (apparently it starts on channel ten in February). Normally I'd ditch this kind of thing, but I noticed it starred Harvey Keitel, Christopher from "The Sopranos", Lisa Bonet (the hot girl from the "Cosby Show" who married Lenny Kravitz), and Lester from "The Wire". It was like I cast the show myself.

So I sat down and watched the dvd and thought it was pretty good. Its based on a UK show which I'll never watch, and is about a cop who gets hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973. You presume its part of a coma, but you don't really know. Anyway, he's a cop back then too, so he solves mysteries which may or may not have a bearing on current 2008 events.

I think I'll stick with it for a while, since I'm too lazy to get an aerial installed at my house I'll have to download the episodes.

3. The Free Darko Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

I ordered this off Amazon a week or two ago and it arrived on Friday. To tell you the truth I have no idea what these guys are talking about half the time, but the pictures do look awesome.

Understanding in a Car Crash

2009-01-27T15:47:00.002+10:30

I haven't been involved in a car crash in a long time. About twelve years ago I was driving with Gav as a passenger, and we got rear ended by a 4WD, and that was the last time (for me, not Gav, that set him off on a streak of car accidents for the next twelve months).

That streak came to an end on Saturday though when I collided with an elderly driver with either a poor attention span, a poor understanding of give way signs, or possibly both.

Luckily, neither of us were hurt, although she seemed pretty confused afterwards. Its possible she was like that normally though, I'm sure I will be by the time I reach my 91st birthday.

My car was a total write off, which was actually kind of a plus, since I wasn't all that attached to it. And it was insured for more than its current value.

The insurance company came through pretty well too - they took a look at the car this morning, declared it a write off straight away, and put the money into my account (allegedly) this afternoon.

So now I get to pick out a new car, which will be fun. Stay tuned to see what I come up with.

Quick DVD roundup

2009-01-19T16:37:00.000+10:30

While Gav's breakdancing was the most entertaining thing I saw this weekend, I also caught a few good movies on DVD.

Friday night saw Wall-E, which I rather enjoyed, even though it was a little uneventful. As its an animated feature I presume its aimed at kids, but I wonder how it would hold their attention. The first half hour or so doesn't feature much dialogue, just a few lines of robot talk, and I found my mind drifting a bit. It picks up in the second half though, and the animation was fantastic.

Last night I sat down to the new X-Files movie. I was a big X-Files fan in the nineties, although I guess there weren't a lot of other options on TV back then. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, but it was pretty decent. At one point Michella even said "You know what, this isn't actually a bad movie". They should put that quote on the DVD cover. Of course, that was before all of the limb amputations started. Still, you could do a lot worse than this, and Dana Scully is looking as good as ever.

Cocktail Party

2009-01-18T12:12:00.002+10:30

I could write a whole bunch about the cocktail party I went to last night, but really all you need to know is contained in the following video . . .

Best Seinfeld episode ever

2009-01-11T12:43:00.002+10:30

Watching the Seinfeld DVDs Paul gave me for Christmas, I came across my favourite episode of all time - "The Voice".

It's got it all - a great Kramer plotline with his intern, George openly hated by his colleagues at Playnow and loving it, Elaine backsliding with Puddy, and the best use of music I've ever heard in a sitcom . . .

The Wrestler

2009-01-10T12:40:00.004+10:30

I'm not sure if the movie guys are making better movies, or I'm getting better at picking them, but I'm on a bit of a streak with quality films the last month or so. Last night I saw The Wrestler, which was the best movie I've seen in a while.

Before we got to the cinema though, we stocked up on snacks at the IGA opposite Adelaide Uni on North Terrace. I'd never been there before, but it rules. Possibly because they have all of the international students as their clientelle, they stock a big range of American soft drinks and confectionary, and even Krispy Kreme donuts. I grabbed a Cherry Coke and packet of Allens Party Mix, but felt like I could have really gone crazy with all the good stuff they had.

We saw the movie at Palace, because we're classy like that. Looking at the list of films showing there, the place has definitely changed. It used to be all art house and foreign movies, but now you can see stuff like "Quantam of Solace" there. Possibly it's because they've expanded into the old IMAX theatre, and there's not enough weird stuff out there to show on the number of screens they have now. Really the only difference between there and Marion is they don't show the "Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Marley and Me" type stuff.

If you watch the trailer below you'll get a pretty good idea of what The Wrestler is about. Mickey Rourke plays a washed up wrestler from the eighties who's a failure financially, and in his relationships, but still loved in the wrestling community. He struggles to find peace in the outside world but only gets it when he's in the ring, and surrounded by his fans.

Throughout the movie he strikes up a bit of a relationship with a local stripper (the always lovely, and often these days naked, Marisa Tomei), and tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter.

Apparently the studios wanted Nic Cage to play the main role, which would have been terrible, but the director stuck with Rourke, and he's perfect for the part. He looks like a guy who has spent years abusing his body, and propping it up with all types of drugs. Hopefully someone gives him an award for this, he deserves it.

The way the film is shot is great too. It's so natural that it feels like a documentary at times.

Anyway, I loved this, and highly recommend. And if you don't trust me, like I know some of you don't (I'm sorry Paul, but I really thought 8MM would be good), Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98% rating. And that's from professional movie reviewers, so you make up your own mind . . .

Where in the world is Julius Hodge?

2009-01-08T11:58:00.000+10:30

Last night Paul and I went to the Powerhouse to see Julius Hodge and the Sixers take on Wollongong.

Except that Julius Hodge didn't show up. We knew something was up when we couldn't see a black guy in a Sixers uniform during warmups. A quick count revealed though that there were 12 players in uniform, so Hodge wouldn't be appearing. As of writing this, there's still no explanation for where he was.

It was a great game anyway, close most of the way. It's really weird watching an Adelaide team that isn't just based on shooting threes, between Schenser (25 points) and Ballinger (20 points) we were going inside almost every time. Bruce kind of redeemed himself for me after single-handedly losing the game the last time I saw the Sixers, and Maher had a fantastic streak in the third quarter where he scored 14 points.

Jacob Holmes should never be allowed to shoot, no matter where he shoots from, it looks like it's not going in. And Cooper did that thing where he took a twenty foot jump shot for no other reason presumably than he felt like he deserved it. It did not go in.

Also noteworthy was the fact that they haven't changed the music there since Paul and I had season tickets in the late nineties. And some guy proposed to his girlfriend in a timeout. Classy and romantic. Finally, we won, which is always a plus.

Work

2009-01-05T16:05:00.001+10:30

Today was my first day back in the office after the Christmas break. Actually I should say is, it's still going. It feels like I've been here forever.

Mirjana gave me a daily time wasting calendar for Christmas, and so far today I've already caught up on all the days I missed because I wasn't at work, so had better stuff to do. My favourite one was the page for today, 5 January, which involved finding as many country names as I could in a word jumble thing. I think I got them all.

I also responded to an email we received from two women who were complaining that they had to pay double the amount each for a hotel room than couples have to. I wanted to suggest that they might like travelling together sometime, to cut down on their costs, but I think they mainly prefer writing emails together. Their email address sounded like it came from a cult. I hope the Federal Police don't find my email response when they raid their compound.

I went shoppping at lunch time today. I like to wait until a bit into the sales, when the shops get a bit more desperate to get rid of their old stock. Today it paid off big time, I got a fancy new Sportscraft shirt at Myer marked down from $129 to $44.25. I used a $50 voucher work gave me for ten years of service to pay for it. I'm not sure if I feel good about that or not.

I'm thinking ahead to tonight now. My home time is precious now that I'm back at work, there's only a few hours a night and I don't want to waste them. I think I'll spend them going to the gym, then watching old Sopranos episodes (not a waste at all).

I'm back

2009-01-03T12:19:00.007+10:30

Well, it's been a while, that's for sure. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to keep doing this, but the outcry from all five of my readers convinced me to give it another go.

In broad terms, since my last post I've turned 32, celebrated Christmas, and perhaps my quietest new year ever, taken a few weeks off of work, bought an awesome new guitar (pictured below), and eaten roughly 200 Subway cookies (I can't recommend these highly enough, especially the double choc ones, and the white choc and macadamias).

I've been trying to branch out a bit lately with music (ie not listening to the same Damien Rice cd over and over) and so have been downloading a bunch of stuff then listening to it in my car. Some of it's old music I missed the first time round like Dinosaur Jr, and there's some new stuff like The Gaslight Anthem. I'm loving their new one, The 59 Sound. It sort of sounds like a cross between punk and classic American rock like Sprinsteen and Tom Petty. Actually, a lot like Bruce Springsteeen. Here's an example . . .

I've also been on a bit of a GNR kick, reading Stephen Davis' excellent biography "Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N Roses". Despite the fact that pretty much none of the band members (other than the possible exception of Izzy) come across as being even remotely likable, I really enjoyed the book. It was kind of surprising to read that the best stuff from the Use Your Illusion albums, like Don't Cry, November Rain, and You Could Be Mine, actually dated back to the Appetite for Destruction days. Which means that the band had pretty much ran out of good ideas by about 1988. Having said that, I did buy Chinese Democracy the week it came out, and really like it. Definitely the best thing to come out from the band since the first album.

I've caught a few movies in the last week - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Slumdog Millionaire. While they aren't my favourite type of film (I prefer movies where characters say cool, witty things then shoot people), I liked both of them. Slumdog Millionaire was the better of the two, and I'd recommend that to just about anyone. I'm never going to India though.

Of course Christas was just a week or so ago, and the best gift I got this year was "Call of Duty: World at War" for my PS3. Here's the trailer . . .

I'm loving it so far, the graphics are amazing, the action is always intense, and it feels like you're in a movie. I've tried playing online a bit but I suck really bad at that. Mike/Corey/Ash - you guys need to get this game so we can play online together. Hopefully you're all as bad as I am.

Speaking of generally sucking, my fantasy basketball team should be ashamed of itself this year. I can't blame any one of them in particular, but outside of KG, J Terry and Ben Gordon they've all been a huge disappointment to me. Not much I can do but sit back and hopefully they develop some pride in the next few months.

That's about all I've got for now, hopefully it won't be another two months till my next update.

Back on the bandwagon

2008-11-09T15:49:00.002+10:30

Seeing as how the Sixers had won two in a row, I thought it was time I jumped back on the bandwagon. Took my Dad to the game against Cairns last night, my first regular season game this year.

I had no idea who was on the Taipans these days, so was kind of surprised to see they have two ex-Sixer players - Mee and Cattalini. Cattalini doesn't start though, and Mee went almost the whole game without scoring, so times have changed. Actually, they mentioned at the start of the game that they were integral members of the team in 98 and 99 and it hit me that that's a decade ago, a long time in the past.

Right from the first quarter the Sixers struggled to keep up with Cairns, who were playing a full court press. The Sixers were doing pretty much the opposite defensively, not even picking up players properly in the half court, and giving up some wide open threes. We fell behind my 17 points, and the only Sixer really playing well was Brad Hill, who at least took it to the basket a bit.

In the second quarter things improved and we started to close the gap a little as the team picked up the defense. Tyndale did some nice things, and the big front line of Schenser, Cooper and Ballinger was really good defensively. Where we struggled though was the guard play - Maher was injured again, and although I've heard good things about Aaron Bruce, he was terrible. It wasn't just the fact that he missed every shot he took (including a wide open three that he airballed), he played some pretty bad D leading to open three pointers by the other team, and had some suspect decision making. Maybe he was worn down by the full court D. It reminded me of when I used to watch Spurs games, and whenever Udrih was on the other team would go to a full court press, and poor Beno would turn the ball over. After that I've never had any faith in little Beno as an NBA player, although I guess Ash must have missed those contests.

Anyway, by the end of the third quarter the Sixers had actually put together an eight point lead - 59 - 51. They went completely dry offensively in the first few minutes of the fourth period though, and Cairns closed the cap quickly.

With about thirty seconds left we had the ball, up by one. Bruce dribbled around till the shot clock was almost gone, and jumped in the air to pass. Of course, the ball was stolen, and the Taipans were headed the other way on a fast break. Tyndale came up with a freakish block on what would have been the game winning layup, but the ball went straight back to a Taipan player, who swung it to Mee, who was cutting to the basket. As soon as he laid the ball up I knew it was dropping in, and knew it was going to bounce around the rim just long enough for the buzzer to sound.

It did, and the Cairns guys went crazy as the Sixers stood around looking stunned.

It was a really good game and the guys showed a lot of heart coming back from such a big first half deficit, but I suppose they didn't really deserve to win the way they played.

Not really sure what the problem with the team is, although like I said I think a lot of it is the backcourt. Bruce was absolutely horrible (missing every fg attempt, and five of his six free throws) but we still seem to lack a really great, creative, explosive guard. The front line is really solid, but then you've got Holmes who's a bit of a tweener, Winitana who hasn't showed much after the preseason, Hill who's not really that consistent. Maher would have helped I suppose but he's definitely winding down now.

A few final thoughts . . .

Cattalini is still a bit of a bad tempered jerk. Was more fun when he was on our team though.

I never thought I'd say this, but we miss Ng and his long range shooting. Unfortunately I think he's focussing on his schoolwork this season. Hopefully he can reach some sort of arrangement with his Mum and Dad where he's allowed to play next year, maybe by promising to do his homework before practice or something.

The refs seemed rather bad . . . although that's not meant as a complaint because it was going both ways, Cattalini got mugged on a few of his shots without a foul. But then they were calling some really light fouls on what seemed like pretty clean blocks.

Unfortunately Dad and I were sitting in front of a guy who just talked the whole night, trying to show off his knowledge of basketball and the NBL I imagine. Not fun.

Fight Club

2008-11-04T15:20:00.003+10:30

For the past few months my mate Matt and I have been doing weights at the gym, and watching the Mixed Martial Arts class that runs in the room next door. We'd discussed joining the "Fight Club", as Matt dubbed it, on numerous occasions, but never got round to it. Last week though I ran into one of the instructors while at the gym, got the details, and we turned up last night for our first class.

We joined another ten guys and girls of varying sizes, plus a huge guy called Dave who was the instructor. He mentioned that he'd accepted an offer to fight an-ex WWE wrestler in a MMA event in Florida in five weeks time, so I figured he was not someone to mess with.

We started off with a "warm up session", first of all crawling around on all fours, then on our toes and fingertips. It's kind of hard crawling on your fingertips when you weigh 100 odd kilos. Next we did "pikes", a kind of sit up but harder, followed by pushups (on our knuckles, just for added difficulty). Then we did about twenty squats or so, which weren't heaps easy.

Next up, we put on the gloves, and matched up against a partner. We worked on left-right jab combos to the head, and using the gloves to protect the face. We did a few other types of combos and blocking, then we worked on taking a punch. Which meant one of us held our hands in the air, while the other one punched them in the stomach. This wasn't as bad as it could have been, since we were wearing gloves. Unfortunately for Matt though, he took a bare knuckle punch from the instructor when he decided to show me how it was done. Not having had a lot of experience getting punched in the belly lately, this started to get to me after a while, and I felt like I was going to throw up.

The instructor then decided we would do squats again, so we did 20 or so of these, and I was hurting. Then he said "OK, now we're going to do 100".

You've got to be freaking kidding me.

I knew there was no way I could do that, but I wasn't going to not try. I managed to get most of them, cheating a bit when the instructor turned around to face the other side of the class. At one point, he told me "Don't bend your back, it's going to be sore tomorrow". I thought of responding "All of me is going to be sore", then I remembered that he's willingly fighting this guy next month, and thought better of it.

After that we were given 30 seconds for a drink, then came back with the gloves and worked on some punching kicking combinations. Obviously someone thought we didn't get enough punishment to our midsections earlier, because then we did an exercise where we each got to kick our partner in the ribs ten times.

After this it slowed down a bit, it was more wrestling/grappling type stuff, with the instructor demonstating moves and us copying them. At one point he left to use the bathroom and told us all to do pushups till he got back. Awesome. I got through about thirty, then held the last one until he came back, then started doing them again.

The whole session lasted perhaps an hour and 40 minutes, and left me completely stuffed. He said at the end "I think you'd all agree it was a pretty light session tonight", so I'm a bit worried about what a heavy one will be like. He also told us that there'd be a two week break and we'd be starting again at a new location, because they wanted to "ramp up" our training. Not sure what that means specifically, hopefully it's not related to an increase in stomach punching.

I'm pretty keen to stay at it though, not just in terms of the physical side, but also the mental strength I reckon it will bring. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I think that's a good thing, you've got to stretch yourselves sometimes. Even if it does involve being repeatedly kicked in the ribs.

Movie of the year?

2008-10-29T14:52:00.001+10:30

I'm convinced now it really was Madonna holding Guy Richie back. Apparently they split unofficially about a year ago, which would be when Guy started working on "Rocknrolla", his best film in years.

I saw a preview screening at Palace Nova last night and loved it. I'd rank it as my second favourite of his films, right behind Snatch, which I don't think will ever be topped just because of Brad Pitt's phenomenal performance.

The plot for "Rocknrolla" is exactly the same as the first few Richie films - several groups of criminals are involved in a series of schemes to rip each other off, and all of their storylines come together at the end of the film, typically resulting in a bloody shootout. Walking down Rundle Street after the movie I was saying to my friend Rebecca that I kind of like that all of these films are the same. It's like buying a Pearl Jam album - by now you know almost exactly what you're going to get, just a slight variation on the last record, but it's still great.

Most of the movies I've liked over the last twelve months have tended to be comedies, but this is by far the best movie I've seen that didn't involve Seth Rogen. If you liked "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock . . . " definitely make sure you see this one.

Way better than "Body of Evidence"

2008-10-26T15:26:00.004+10:30

I was standing in the cinema foyer last night, waiting for my friend to arrive, when I realised I wasn't sure why I was there seeing "Body of Lies".

I hadn't seen a trailer, or even really heard what it was about. The only thing I'd seen was this poster, with Leo DiCaprio running somewhere, holding a gun. And I was sold.

The movie was pretty good, a lot better than "Burn After Reading", that's for damn sure.

Leo plays a CIA operative in the Middle East, fighting against the terrorists. Then he comes up with a plan to infiltrate their world by creating a fake terrorist operation, that the real terrorists will be impressed by, and possibly jealous of.

Russell Crowe plays a management type person back in Washington. Like most Australians I don't really care much for Russ, and he didn't do anything to change my mind in this. Vince Collossimo is also in it, as Leo's assistant.

There's a few fantastic scenes, including a great chase through the desert, with bad guys in 4WDs chasing Leo and his partner, and helicopters picking off the bad guys with rockets at the same time. It is a bit long, kind of like American Gangster, so does slow up a bit a few times. Still for what it is it's pretty good, and I don't think too many people would regret going to see it.

Burn After Reading

2008-10-25T10:00:00.002+10:30

Last night I went to the Picadilly Theatre at North Adelaide for the first time in years, and saw "Burn After Reading". It is not a movie I would recommend to you.

To start off with though, it's so weird in that cinema, it's kind of stuck in a timewarp. You're almost surprised they're showing current movies there. It's dead quiet, and I kind of expected the place to shut down permanently sometime during the screening.

I wasn't expecting much from the movie itself, but Mirjana was keen to see it, and I generally like at least 50% of the Cohen brothers' movies. This was completely different to "No Country For Old Men" - it was more along the lines of "Fargo" - a comedy about stupid people, interspersed with sudden acts of violence.

Fargo was funny though, this was not. Brad Pitt was mildy amusing in his portrayal of a male bimbo, and I did like the head CIA guy (played by the Dad from Juno). John Malkovich didn't do anything for me, and Frances McDormand seems to be permanently annoying. I wonder what she's like in real life.

Tonight I'm seeing "Body of Lies", and hoping that's a lot better.

Best use of music . . .

2008-10-24T09:53:00.001+10:30

In a movie or tv show since the "Last Goodbye" scene in "Vanilla Sky"

Rocknrolla

2008-10-23T13:10:00.000+10:30

Guy Ritchie used to be one of my favourite film directors - within a few years he made "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch", one of my top-10 movies of all time. Unfortunately, he went off and married Madonna, and everything went downhill. He made a movie with his new bride which was universally-loathed, and then followed up with a movie that I don't think even got a DVD release here.

He's got a new one coming out now though, and I'm hoping it's a return to his earlier work. He's ditched Madonna which is a good sign, although I guess they were technically married while he was making this, so maybe she jinxed it.

Anyway, I got some tickets to the preview next week and will go along. I'm pumped that the film stars both Ari Gold and Avon Barksdale, that should be cool. I'm not expecting Snatch Part 2, but the early reviews haven't been horrible so it's worth a shot.

Fantasy Draft

2008-10-19T14:48:00.003+10:30

So yesterday we held our fantasy basketball draft. Now that I'm a little older and birthdays and Christmas have lost their appeal a bit, this day is a solid contender for my favourite day of the year.

Unfortunately, we had a few no shows - Corey was looking after a few kids and a sick partner, and Adam was MIA, possibly still somewhere in Europe. There were also some technical MSN Messenger related issues. Still, we got there in the end, and everyone had a good time. Other than Dylan presumably, who endured about 100 jokes about his upcoming gay holiday.

I was pretty prepared for the draft, but things never go as you think they will. The players I was hoping to get in the 7th and 8th rounds went in the 5th and 6th - not sure if my expectations were unrealistic, or guys were just really reaching. I did end up getting a nice surprise when Iverson fell to me with the 12th pick, I wasn't expecting that at all.

It's standard practice that everyone loves their team immediately after the draft. I think it's called "drafterglow". I don't really feel any attachment to a lot of my players though. They weren't guys that I was planning on getting, I just felt like I couldn't pass them up at the spots I took them.

After the draft James and Forcey hung around for pizza and NBA 2K9. James beat us both repeatedly, presumably because he's a member of Generation Y, and they're good at computer games and stuff. I finally beat him in the last game, but it took overtime, and two buzzer beaters to get there (including a ridiculous Derek Fisher three over Greg Oden).

Ahh Asian people . . .

2008-10-17T15:07:00.006+10:30

Good at cooking, bad at driving . . . and spelling.

Scars On Broadway

2008-10-16T09:34:00.002+10:30

Checking out the lineup to Soundwave Festival I noticed a band I hadn't heard of before, Scars on Broadway. Closer inspection revealed they were comprised of two members of System of a Down - the guitarist/singer, and drummer, who formed the group as a side-project from SOAD. I've always been a bit of a fan of theirs, so downloaded the album and was pleasantly surprised.

It doesn't veer all that far from System, with the middle-eastern influences and weird-singing, but it's definitely more alternative-rock based than metal, which I think is a good thing. I don't love the singer's voice, but the tunes do stick in your head, underneath everything they're actually quite poppy. The songs are short too which is nice, no point going on and on when you've made your point.

A few drawbacks - as mentioned, I don't love this guy's voice, and on some of the weaker tracks it gets annoying. Also, some of it is quite coarse. Unnecessarily so.

Nevertheless, this is a pretty good album and hasn't left my car stereo in a week. And the best part is they're playing the Soundwave festival here next February, which I'm planning on attending, so seeing them will be an added bonus.

Here's their single "They Say".

Parental guidance is recommended.

Poker night

2008-10-11T14:22:00.002+10:30

So I rock up to Josh's for poker night last night, and let's just say the standard of play was lacking a little. With no money on the line, some players were playing some ridiculous hands. In fact, I think we had three all ins in the first four hands.

There were nine players in total - Josh, his wife Sally, Narelle and I, as well as Josh's brother Wes and his wife Sascha, a guy I knew from Portside called Ben, old Seaton guy (and current stalker of Michella's housemate Amy) Bin, and another guy called Aaron. All nice people, some of them not so hot at cards though.

Actually Josh and Sally were decent, and Wes played a few good hands. But for the rest, the combination of no idea and no financial incentive meant some crazy hands were played. After seeing guys going all in at the start of the night with hands like Queen - Eight, I held back for a long time. I don't think I won a hand in the first half hour. Eventually though I started to get some decent cards, and knocked a few of the weaker players out. Came down to Narelle, Sally and I, although by this stage I had a pretty big stack, and finished it off quite quickly.

A nice night out, but I wouldn't be missing a game with my regular group for this anytime soon.

Friday afternoon update

2008-10-10T12:16:00.002+10:30

At lunch today I picked up NBA 2k9 for my PS3. I was almost swayed in the store when I saw NBA Live 09 offers a new feature where you can play as one of 24 international teams, meaning I could presumably play as Australia, and re-enact the Olympics, losing to the rest of the world. Then I remembered that for the last few years the NBA Live series has been really bad, and so went with 2K9. I'd be looking forward to firing it up tonight, except . . .

I have a poker game at my friend Josh Poyzer's place. Never played with his crew before, but he's told me they don't play for money. That's a noble idea and all but in my experience it doesn't work. Noone plays seriously if money isn't involved. Still, even if the poker sucks, I've got a six-pack of Coopers Dark Ale and a pack of Lime and Cracked Pepper chips, so I'm sure the night will be at least a moderate success.

For some reason people have been stealing from me lately. To start off with it was my mail - I haven't been receiving my magazine subscriptions since moving house (and yes, I did update my details). Now though it's my breakfast. I bought two Iced Coffees yesterday morning (just $4.50 at my local servo), with the intention of having one then, and saving the second one till today. When I went to our fridge at work this morning though it had disappeared. I don't understand who would steal something like that from their colleague?

Had the family round to dinner last night and cooked butter chicken. Definitely adding this one to my rotation. So simple - just chicken breast, butter, cream, and packet mix. And since most of those things come from nature it must be healthy too. Best part is the taste - not as good as restaurant butter chicken, but better than food court butter chicken.

That Batman movie sure is popular. Got to the movies on Tuesday night and saw the 8.30pm screening had already sold out - at 7pm - and this is months after it was released. Good movie and all, but wouldn't you have seen it by now if you were keen?

Technology

2008-10-09T10:15:00.001+10:30

So last night I went to turn on my laptop, and rather than start up, it came up with some message telling me it was re-installing the operating system. Twenty minutes later, it was ready to go, minus all of the photos/music/additional programs I'd accumulated on my hard drive this year.

Luckily I backed up all my photos to CD a few weeks ago so didn't lose all of them. However, I did lose all of the music I'd ripped to my computer, as well as all of the additional programs that you need these days (itunes, divx player, nero etc). It's pretty frustrating considering the computer is only six months or so old.

Also, even though it says Windows Vista is the operating system, what I see on my screen looks suspiciously like Windows 95. It seems to be working now so I guess I'll leave it and begin the process of downloading all that extra stuff I need, and re-populating my itunes library. I probably should check for spyware, I can't see any other reason that something like this might have happened.

Step Brothers

2008-10-08T15:58:00.001+10:30

Last night I went to Marion to see "Step Brothers" with my friend Mirjana. I knew going in it wasn't going to be the best movie, but thought it would have a few laugh out loud moments.

It did, and was actually funnier than I thought it would be. Like Forcey pointed out in his review, Will Ferrell tries a lot of pretty crazy stuff comedically, and some of it works, and some falls flat. It's all pretty far fetched, throughout the film the two main characters seem to go from being reasonably self-aware to borderline retarded at different times. The movie had some great stuff in it though, my favourite parts were the a cappella family singalong to "Sweet Child O Mine", and the scenes where Ferrell and Reilly went to job interviews together.

Perhaps the funniest thing to happen though was we got to see a couple of kids get kicked out of the cinema by an usher for being under 15. I'd never seen it happen before but it was strangely enjoyable, like watching underage kids get busted for trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes. Some of their friends who must have shown ID to prove they were 15 were allowed to stay, in the spirit of true friendship they did exactly that, remaining for the movie while their younger friends presumably waited outside.

Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in

2008-10-07T13:08:00.002+10:30

I kind of figured I was done with music festivals, but heard about the Soundwave Festival in Adelaide next February and think I'll give it a go.

Nine Inch Nails are headlining, and Alice in Chains are performing too, which will be quite a feat seeing as their singer died like a decade or so ago. Apparently they've got a new guy now though, and the guitarist did a lot of the singing anyway, so should be good.

It's not the kind of thing I can see myself staying at all day - the rest of the bands fall in the hardcore/metal/punk genre, and so I'm guessing I'll get sick of all the emo kids with their full sleeve tattoos, long fringes, and razor-blade scarred limbs. But I don't think I can pass up the chance to see Alice In Chains, one of my favourite bands from the 90s.

Anyone want to join me?

Avocado on a Quarter Pounder???

2008-10-04T13:09:00.002+09:30

I went down to Marion this morning to get a CD player installed in my car at JB Hi-Fi. The guy told me it would take about 45 minutes, so I figured I had two options - shopping or eating. I chose the latter.

Went up to the food court thinking I'd get a donut from Donut King, but those guys have gone crazy with their prices. I settled on Maccas, and told myself it would be a combination breakfast/lunch.

So I'm standing there waiting to order, and I notice that they now offer avocado on their Quarter Pounders. That, to me, is a very strange thing to do. I'm probably biased because I hate avocado, but I don't see how those two things would mix at all.

Thankfully there is some sanity evident in the bigwigs who run McDonalds = they've reduced the cost of the apple pies back to $1, like they were back in the 80s. At that price I figured I couldn't really say no.

Team building day

2008-10-03T15:16:00.001+09:30

So we had our team building day yesterday, and there were no quad bikes to be seen. Nor Go Karts. Instead, we went on a bus trip to Monarto. Awesome.

We got there about 10ish, and had a half hour update, then did a getting to know each other exercise. We went round the room, and everyone said their name, how long they'd been with the organisation, and something they were passionate about. I said "Music", most other people said stuff like "Changing perceptions of South Australia interstate" or "Developing regional communities through tourism."

After this we did the next best thing to quad-biking - we had someone come in and give us a two hour course in "stakeholder management". Once he was done, we had a barbecue lunch, which was actually quite delicious.

After lunch we did the bus tour of the grounds, which would have been better if I hadn't already done it with Michella last year.

Finally, the day concluded with us being split up into groups to each make a 30-second tv ad for Monarto. Or basically do a thirty second play, like you might do on the last night of a camp. Ours wasn't particularly funny, although a few were. Much of the humour seemed to be based on gay-jokes. I'm 95% sure none of the people there were gay.

We got back on the bus around 4pm, and were back in Adelaide just after 5pm. Not a terrible day by any means, but definitely lacking the element of fun I was expecting.

Saving the world

2008-10-01T11:16:00.002+09:30

I had someone come to my door last night collecting for charity. I don't get a lot of visitors, so got a little excited when I heard the knock on the door. Sadly, it was just someone who wanted my money.

She explained that she was collecting for some international wildlife fund, and this year they were collecting for the River Murray too. She asked me if I cared about those things, and even though I don't really, I said I did. It's not that I'm anti-wildlife or the environment - it's just that I think there are more important things to focus on. Like people for example. If someone said to me "We've got a rare polar bear here, and a human, and we're going to kill one of them, which one would you like to save?" I'm taking the human every time. Just common sense really. Let's solve the people problems first, then we'll deal with the animals.

So I tell her to hold on, I'll just go find my wallet. I grab it and realise I've only got twenties, and no way do I care about polar bears that much. So I ask if she has change.

And she tells me that it's not that type of thing, she's not actually collecting money now, just "signing people up". She tells me I fill in this form, and then at the end of the month, I send them all the loose change that I've put aside. I figured that was something I could deal with, I do hate having a bunch of coins in my wallet, so I agree to take the form. Then I notice that there are details for my bank account or credit card details. Turns out, when she said "you give us your loose change", she actually meant "give us your bank account details, so we can siphon money from your account every month."

Of course, that wasn't going to fly, so I politely explained that it didn't really sound like my thing, and wished her a good night.

It was the second time in the last week someone had asked me for money in convoluted, creative manner, and I'm not a fan. I got a phone call from Mumbai a few nights ago where the caller started off by saying that my phone number had been randomly selected and I had won a free mobile phone. Of course they were trying to sell me on a phone plan. Just once I'd like to hear someone ring and say "I'm gonna be totally honest with you, I'm going to try and convince you to change your current telecommunications provider." It's possible I'd still hang up on them, but it would be a more pleasant experience for both of us.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

2008-09-30T14:30:00.003+09:30

The first round of acts for the 2009 Big Day Out were announced today, and it's the worst lineup I've ever seen.

The "headliner" is Neil Young. I actually don't mind a bit of Neil, every decade he seems to write one or two good songs. Would I want to go see him in concert though? No I wouldn't.

Headlining the boiler room is the Prodigy. If this were 1997 it would probably be big news, but I'm pretty sure noone cares about them anymore. I have their CD Fat of the Land up on ebay at the moment, and despite the fact that it features their biggest hits "Firestarter" and "Smack My Bitch Up", it hasn't got a single bid on it yet.

Also in the lineup are The Living End (who I don't care for personally, but I recognise they've got a decent size audience), Arctic Monkeys (who I've only heard once but thought were a poor-man's Strokes) and Sneaky Sound System.

I don't really enjoy the Big Day Out at the best of times - the combination of hot weather, drunk and stoned kids, and bad sound isn't a recipe for success. But sometimes I feel like I don't really have a choice - like last year, when a reformed Rage Against the Machine played. After years of hoping they'd someday get back together, I wasn't going to pass up seeing them because the situation wasn't ideal.

This year I'm not even remotely tempted to go though. I'm wondering what the turnout will be like - if it's anywhere close to years passed it will confirm my suspicions that the majority of people who go couldn't really care less about music, they just go because it's the thing to do.

More discrimination

2008-09-29T21:54:00.002+09:30

So this Thursday we have our "team building" day for work. In what was a very poorly kept secret, we were meant to be going quad-bike riding down on the Fleurieu Peninsula. However, the owner of the business realised after taking our booking that there wouldn't be enough time for our entire group to ride, so he cancelled it.

Now we're looking at going Go Kart racing, another past time which discriminates against solidly built fellows like myself. Since all the cars have the same engine, which isn't that powerful to begin with, the lightest drivers always come out ahead.

The last (and only) time I went was for Ash's bucks night. I can clearly remember the feeling of utter helplessness as I floored the accelerator while watching all his skinny Greek friends fly past me.

I was teamed up with Con Pappas, and we were meant to switch every 20 laps, although he forgot and did like the last 60 on his own. At the time I was kind of pissed, but looking back it was probably for the best, otherwise I would have still been going round that damn track with everyone else done and ready to leave.

I'm hoping that maybe this is all a trick, pretending like we're not going quad bike riding because everyone found out that we were, then surprising us all at the last minute. I don't think our management is that devious though.

Sunday 28 September 2008

2008-09-28T18:33:00.002+09:30

Got up this morning and after 28 years or so decided to give another church a go, and went to Edwardstown Baptist (where Ash and Kerry and their respective spouses now attend). It was quite a good experience, the people seemed nice, and the message was good. Plus it's just down South Road, so convenient to my new location in the inner South West of Adelaide.

After church Ash and Ange had all of us over for a delicious meal of chicken and chips. When Natalia started crying Paul and Kerry left, and Ash and I got down to some PS3. I beat him twice in NBA 2K8, but he kicked my butt badly in Gran Turismo, even giving me my choice of car and driving lower end model himself he destroyed me. Maybe driving's not really my thing.

After lunch I drove down to Marion to buy a new CD player for my car. Mine broke around three years ago, and I never got round to replacing it. I had no idea what to look for other than a detachable face and ipod input, so I just went with the one that was marked down the most. Got a $170 Kenwood one for $89, and even arranged to get it installed next weekend.

When I was younger, stealing car stereos was a popular thing to do. I think I had mine stolen twice, and at least one of those times it was just a tape deck. I hope everyone has moved past that phase, because I don't really want to be cleaning broken glass off my front seat anytime soon.

More Damien Rice brilliance

2008-09-28T15:14:00.002+09:30

An audience made recording of an unreleased song, and it still sends chills down my spine. I have absolutely no idea why Coldplay sell out stadiums and he remains widely unknown . . .

If you don't like this . . .

2008-09-28T14:57:00.001+09:30

Then you don't like music.

A brief history of the twenty-first century

2008-09-27T12:06:00.002+09:30

A short excerpt from Chuck Klosterman's new essay that I liked:

October 2, 2051
In the new age of global remoteness, military strategy becomes murky. Conventional wisdom suggests Australia is the most important region, as it can only be invaded via Indonesia. Others point to South America, since it is vulnerable only to Central American freedom fighters or North African warlords. Everyone agrees that Europe is a waste of time.

Discrimination

2008-09-26T16:26:00.003+09:30

I hate discrimination, of all kinds. Especially when I'm the one who is being discriminated against.

Some of you may know it has long been a dream of mine to go skydiving. Not a dream in the sense that I spend most of my waking hours working towards this occurence, more a "If the opportunity ever presents itself, I think I'd like to do it" kind of thing.

Anyway, one of my friends has decided she's going to go on her birthday this year, and has told me I can tag along if I want. She also mentioned that there would probably be some sort of discount involved if we book together through the Entertainment Book, which goes a long way towards explaining why she's happy for me to crash her birthday celebrations.

So we look up the details on their website, and sure enough, there's a discount offered, but there's also a surcharge for people "over 90kg".

Now I know what you're thinking, but in fact it's true, I am over 90kg. Somewhere around the century mark actually. And I'll concede that yes, I am a little overweight. But why do they have to rub my face in it by charging me more? Do they need to bring an extra parachute for my fat ass? Is it danger money for the poor instructor who has to accompany me to the ground?

Besides, if you ask me, 90kg isn't even really that heavy for a fully grown adult male.

I think I might look around to see if this type of discrimination is industry standard. If it is, I guess I'm just going to have to hit the treadmill.

Bands I want to see live part two

2008-09-25T21:09:00.000+09:30

Placebo . . .

Double Jeopardy

2008-09-25T13:42:00.001+09:30

ebay update

2008-09-25T09:47:00.003+09:30

So, over the last week I've sold 50 items on ebay, bringing in a little more than $400 cash money. I'm about halfway to my target, ie having enough money to buy one of these . . .

It's actually quite an enjoyable process. Putting stuff up isn't a whole lot of fun, but watching the final minutes as the price starts to climb is a strangely hypnotic experience. And it's great sitting at work and getting emails periodically that say "so and so has just sent you $20 though paypal".

I've found that especially on the cheaper items, you make most of your money out of overcharging for shipping. And there's an added bonus, as ebay charges you a fee based on a percentage the selling price, which is exclusive of your shipping costs. The most annoying thing is people who want to come and pick up their purchases. Especially when they have bought a DVD for $1, and want to drive to your house to get it. I think I'm going to specify no pickups from now on. It kind of reminds me of what I hate about garage sales . . . by and large, you don't want to be dealing with the type of people who haggle over a dollar or two.

I'm too old for this . . .

2008-09-24T18:47:00.003+09:30

For the third week in a row I joined Ash's Tuesday basketball pick-up game last night. I thought I was getting used to it, but my body is telling me otherwise today.

It was a pretty good series of games though, and I felt like I won more than I lost. Thankfully the numbers were down a bit, we had 15 last week, which led to games of 5 on 5 on 5, with one team always waiting in defense (so no fast breaks). With a rotating group of 8-10 players last night though we were able to play proper full court games (even though the full court is maybe 2/3 the size of a regular court), which was much better. Especially during the final game where I teamed up with the best point guard there (only known as "Foetus", possibly because of his resemblance to Mike Dunleavy), and got to actually run the break, rather than just jack up long threes.

Quick aside - after reading Basketbawful's "Hacker's Rules" here, one guy stood out last night as perfectly fitting this mould - the gangly, awkward kid, who couldn't shoot, pass, dribble or play defense, but kept saying stuff like "Wow, my fitness has really dropped off in the last week." Right, that's the reason you can't play . . .

We finished a bit after 12, but by the time I got home, and had a shower, it was approaching 1am. I was feeling dehydrated, so I had several glasses of water. I think I fell asleep just after 2am, but because of the water drinking binge, I ended up getting up several times during the night to go to the bathroom. So, not feeling so crash hot today, and wondering if maybe I am getting a little too old for this type of thing.

What Darren's watching

2008-09-24T11:14:00.002+09:30

Last week I got season five of Entourage off Amazon, and I've flown through it. Perhaps it says more about my social life than the show itself, but the thing I love about Entourage is what a lot of people hate - it's lightweight entertainment that doesn't ask for a lot from you.

The last series I watched before this was the final season of The Wire. Absolutely brilliant television, but man does it take a lot out of you. Thankfully there wasn't an ambiguous, Sopranos-esque ending, but in some ways it would have been better. Watching the endings for some of the characters was heartbreaking, especially after you've followed them for years.

Anyway, there's not a lot of this in Entourage. If The Wire is about the consequences of actions - both by individuals and institutions - Entourage is about the complete absence of consequences. Vince and his posse run out of money? No problem, through some crazy turn of events, he'll get a multi-million dollar job offer the next episode.

Season five does show the guys struggling a little bit, with Vince's vanity project Medellin struggling to find a buyer, and everyone crashing at Johnny's new apartment. You never really get the feel that it's permanent though, it's just a small speedhump on their way to an even more lavish lifestyle.

What I did like about season five was there was a lot of Billy Walsh, probably the best character on the show outside of Ari. For some reason he always reminded me of my friend Boris Djuric. Anyway, his constant verbal battles with both E and Ari are a definite highlight of the show. The writing seems to be a little below the standard of the first two seasons, there's not quite as many classic Ari lines in each episode, but there's still enough to make it laugh out loud funny every now and then.

Bands I want to see live part one

2008-09-23T18:26:00.001+09:30

The Gutter Twins . . .

Ultimate fantasy

2008-09-23T15:13:00.001+09:30

Or not. . . Even though our fantasy basketball draft is still a month out, we set the order for it today. I did it via a nice little website which you feed your team manager email addresses into, and it randomly assigns an order, and emails everyone their spot. As it's all automated, there was no way for me to cheat. Which is kind of a shame, because for the second year in a row I got a really crappy pick. It was much better in the days when Ash and I used to rig it each year.*

As soon as I saw the draft order email I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. Number nine. In a ten team league. In that split instant, all my dreams of watching Chris Paul rack up the assists, Kobe scoring 30 plus a night, and Lebron flirting with a triple double every game were dashed.

Instead, I'm left talking myself into certain best-case scenarios, like "Sure (player x) has a history of injuries, but he was fine last year, perhaps he can do it again". Or "Maybe he's been practicing free throws this off-season, instead of knocking up team dancers".

Nevertheless, I'm slowly coming around. I'm definitely at the acceptance stage in the cycle of grief. I've come up with a few ideas, which I won't share here, since 75% of you guys are in my league. Let's just say as long as no more blue-chip players get injured in the next month, I think I'll be OK.

* Just a joke Mike. I can sense your blood pressure rising ten thousand kilometres away.

What Darren's reading

2008-09-23T13:59:00.001+09:30

If I had to list the five greatest books of all time, four would be written by Chuck Klosterman.

There's his brilliant debut "Fargo Rock City", which is both a biography of his teenage years in North Dakota, and a history of eighties metal. There's "Sex, Drug, and Cocoa Puffs", the collection of pop-culture essays for which he's probably best known. You've got "Killing Yourself To Live", which people either love or hate, which is kind of about a cross-country trip visiting sites where rock stars died, but is really about understanding love and death through music. And finally, there's Chuck Klosterman IV, which is just a collection of his previous writings plus a new short story. It's probably the worst thing he's released, although I'm sure he'd recognise that, I think it was mainly just a means of allowing his readers access to some of his earlier work.

I got the new Chuck Klosterman book "Downtown Owl" in the mail yesterday. Following on from the short story in his last book, the new one is entirely fiction. But after reading the first two chapters on the bus this morning, it's obvious that he's again taken parts of his own experience, specifically the knowledge of what it's like growing up in a small semi-rural American community, and written about that.

I haven't read a whole heap in recent years, but I can't wait to get through this one. Detailed review to come soon . . .

City to Bay

2008-09-22T13:22:00.001+09:30

My long distance (well kind-of) running career spanned about eight months - from last year's City to Bay in September to the half marathon I ran in May this year. This second run left me unable to walk properly for about a week, and I vowed I would never willingly run such a distance again.

So I never really considered doing the City to Bay this year. But reading about it in the paper today, I kind of wish I did.

Not for the fitness benefits, or the sense of accomplishment, but because it featured celebrities from my favourite reality show, "The Biggest Loser".

Apparently Cosi (my favourite from last season) ran the whole way, which you'd expect, seeing as he looks pretty fit these days. As did JJ, the annoying truckie from Adelaide. Shannan, the trainer with a heart of gold, also ran it, and in a respectable 48 minutes (although some 18 year old guy who's still in high school did it in 34 minutes, so . . . ).

Some of the contestants didn't fare so well though. Gary (the big fella who was going bald), Nicola (the super-sized Meadow Soprano) and Carrie-Anne (one half of the annoying twin combo) all opted for the 6km route. Which they WALKED. I would expect that from their pre-Biggest Loser selves, but if you've been through the show, and lost all of that weight, you can at least run 6km, if not 12km.

I don't think any of them live in Adelaide, which makes it even worse - they booked tickets, accommodation etc just so they could come to our city for the weekend and walk a measly 6km. What an incredible waste of everyone's time.

I enjoyed this . . .

2008-09-20T19:28:00.001+09:30

Even if Michael Stipe does spend the first minute talking nonsense.

Ebay

2008-09-19T20:36:00.002+09:30

One thing that's become clear to me lately is that I have too much crap. Way too much. Even though I got rid of a whole bunch of stuff when I moved a few months ago, my house is still full of piles of CDs and records I won't re-listen to, DVDs I won't rewatch, and books I won't re-read.

So I decided to throw a whole lot of stuff up on ebay this week. Being my first time I've done this on this level, I think I made a few mistakes. To start off with, I listed some stuff too cheap - 99c is a good starting price for something that there will be a lot of demand on because the bidding will drive the price up. A lot of the stuff only one or two people were interested in though, so DVDs ended up selling for like $1.04.

It's interesting what some stuff goes for though. My previously viewed copy of "The Game" with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn sold for $10.50. Or about ten times the price of some of my other movies.

I took a guess regarding the postage costs. Hopefully I don't find out tomorrow that it's way more than I thought, and I'm actually going to lose money on this little venture.

I'm going to keep going though, next up is a bunch of CDs and perhaps some books. The idea is if I sell enough stuff eventually I'll have enough in my Paypal account to buy something good myself, perhaps a new guitar or something like that. Which I'll probably end up auctioning on ebay again in a few years, as the cycle continues . . .

Best album covers ever

2008-09-18T12:04:00.004+09:30

Tropic Thunder

2008-09-13T10:50:00.002+09:30

After few false starts, last night I saw "Tropic Thunder" with Mirjana at Norwood.

We got there a bit early, so after getting our tickets, popped into Cafe Primo for a bite to eat.

I'm not really a Cafe Primo fan. A while back you'd put up with the annoying ads and average food because at least it was cheap. Now they've put their prices up which is annoying. Because as far as I can tell they haven't improved quality or service anywhere. Anyway didn't really have a choice, since we only had 40 minutes, and they are usually quick at least. I get anxious when I'm waiting for my dinner with a movie start time quickly approaching.

I had what was basically a meatlovers pizza with chicken. It was a little dry. In hindsight, some pineapple would have helped. I also had a 600ml bottle of Coke Zero, which I think costs roughly the same as the 250ml glass bottles, which doesn't make much sense.

So onto the movie . . . it started with a few fake trailers for movies that the actors in the film were in. We then jump straight into the action, with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr all playing actors in a war movie that is "in it's fifth day of production and already a month behind schedule". Desperate to get his actors to embrace their roles, the director decides to dump them all in the middle of the jungle and stage the action around them, so they think they've actually stumbled into a war zone, and then capture it all on hidden cameras.

Of course, after dropping them off, the director steps on an actual land mine (which everyone apart from Downey Jr thinks is a set up), and the group are left on their own. They wander into an area used for heroin production, and Stiller is kidnapped by a local gang. Luckily they are fans of his movie "Simple Jack", a story about a retarded farmboy, and let him live, if he performs the movie live in its entireity each day. His castmates arrive to save him (despite the fact that their guns are just filled with blanks) and although Stiller isn't sure he wants to leave, they end up busting out together.

All in all, not a bad film. It had some flat points, although some good scenes, like the one where Robert Downey Jr explained to Ben that you never win an Oscar going "full retard" . . .

Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Count toothpicks to your cards. Autistic, sure. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, "Being There." Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed...

Tom Cruise was good as the overweight and balding studio head, but to be honest, I think I'd heard this hyped up to much, would have been better if it was a surprise.

All in all not a bad movie, not a classic but worth a look if you want something lighthearted.

Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

2008-09-11T21:25:00.003+09:30

All music is heavily shaped by the time and place in which it's created. "Appetite for Destruction" is a case in point. The first and best Guns n Roses album, it still sounds raw and honest. The "Use Your Illusion" albums? Not so much. The band were rich and famous by the early nineties, and the passion that fueled their debut was gone. Even if they wanted to create Appetite 2.0 they wouldn't have been able.

The Offspring are another example. In 1994 they released "Smash", their only album I've ever liked. Despite the fact that I'm not a huge fan of punk music, I'd rank it in my all-time top 10 albums. Lots of other people agreed, according to Wikipedia it's since sold 14 million copies worldwide. There's not really a bad song on the CD, and in parts, it's actually quite funny. I'm generally not a big fan of humour in music, but the comedy here is subtle, and based on everyday experiences that are easy to relate to. Like frustration bordering on road rage (Bad Habit), or manipulative girlfriends (Self Esteem).

On successive releases the band tried to mine the comedy vein further, but ended up with broader songs like (Pretty Fly) for a White Guy and Original Prankster. Which were popular in their time, but not widely loved anymore.

Even though Smash is still in reasonably high rotation on my ipod, I hadn't listened to a new Offspring album in years. I read a review of their new one "Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace" on the net a few weeks ago though, and was pulled in by promises of a harder sound than previous albums.

I downloaded it, and while it wasn't the hardcore punk album I'd heard it described as, it was an improvement on anything I'd heard from them since the mid-nineties. There's a few too many slow songs (I don't think anyone wants to hear an Offspring ballad) but the fast stuff is really good. It's as melodic as anything on Smash, but they don't get caught up in the novelty side of things.

Here's one of my favourites from the new disc, You're Gonna Go Far, Kid . . .

A pictorial interlude

2008-09-11T15:12:00.003+09:30

Midnight basketball

2008-09-10T11:45:00.001+09:30

Until last night, I hadn't played basketball in months. I was kind of missing it though, so joined Ash and his friends for their 10pm-midnight Tuesday night run at their church court.

I'd played in this game once before, but it always takes a while to get used to. The main thing is that the court is a bit smaller than usual - kind of like the one Will Smith played on in the episode of "Fresh Prince" where he joined the high school basketball team.

This affects the spacing (especially playing 5 on 5), cuts down on the fast breaks (even in a full court game there were only a few, and you needed to execute well to pull them off), and allows guys to shoot threes from close to half court.

I ended up with Ash during the first game, and I liked our chances. Unfortunately the other team had a guy called Tom, a fifty-something American dude, who was by far the best older player I've ever come up against. He spent most of that first game shooting threes from near halfcourt, and didn't miss a single one.

After a few rematches, we switched up the teams, and this time it was Ash, Tom and myself, plus another top player, plus the worst guy in the game. I really felt like this was going to be our chance, but we lost a steady stream of games by one or two points. It made little sense to Ash or I, we felt like we had better positions at three of the five positions (which was important since we were playing man on man) but we just couldn't seem to grab a win.

I started off really badly, missing all my outside shots, but after the first game or two started driving and grabbing boards, and ended up doing ok for myself around the rim. Didn't get to bed until about 12.30 or so, and then had a pretty rubbish night of sleep, so woke today feeling rather average. It was good to get out there and play in something close to a real game again though, I think I'll be a semi-regular from here on out.

A few links

2008-09-09T14:10:00.002+09:30

I loved this article from Esquire, written by a soldier who served his time in Iraq, retired from the army, and received a letter from the Government a few years later telling him he needed to report for active duty in five weeks time.

It starts off in a less than serious fashion . . .

I had no idea that the Army was going to turn into this psychotic ex-girlfriend that you'd need to file a restraining order against because the crazy bitch doesn't get the hint that there's no way we're getting back together again--ever!

But as it progresses it takes on a tragic tone, as it becomes clear that he's suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, and the Army couldn't care less.

I also enjoyed this Seth Rogen interview from GQ. I think he may be my favourite actor - since his first significant role in The 40 Year Old Virgin, he's done three movies - Knocked Up, Superbad, and Pineapple Express, which in my opnion ranged from good to great.

Finally, a website I've come across and enjoyed a lot is "What's Alan Watching", where Alan blogs about his TV viewing.

He only covers US shows, so fans of "Australian Idol" and "The Farmer Wants a Wife" will have to go elsewhere. But his writing on The Wire is fantastic, and provides some really good intelligent analysis of the series.

Free music

2008-09-08T18:33:00.003+09:30

A couple of months ago I came across a blog called Antiquiet, which was hosting 9 leaked songs from the upcoming Guns n Roses album "Chinese Democracy". I ended up going back to this blog quite a bit - the music reviews are well written, and I've been turned onto a few new bands through it. Anyway, the GNR leak was minor news when it happened, but became even bigger a few weeks ago, when the FBI arrested the website's owner at gunpoint at his house at just before 7am, and charged him with copyright violation. The whole thing seems a bit over the top (even the Judge in the case questioned why they didn't just send him a summons for his court appearance) but I guess someone is trying to make a point about stealing music.

The thing is though, it's not a one way street. Sometimes bands steal from us too. The way I see it, Metallica owe me $20 that I wasted on their last album, "St Anger". More, if you consider the time I spent listening to it.

It was therefore with a very clear conscience that I downloaded their new CD, "Death Magnetic" last week (also, Lars is a wanker, which makes the decision even easier). I was curious to see how they recovered from the disaster that was St Anger. And it seems like what they've done is pretended that album never existed. In fact, the CD sounds like a return to their eighties sound, with little to do with the mid-tempo stuff they released last decade. There's 10 songs on a 74 minute CD, so they're back to epic seven and eight minute long songs; with some pretty frenetic drumming and guitar riffs. I read a review online where the author wondered how these forty-something musicians were going to pull this stuff off live night after night, and made a good point. It's funny, these guys have been around 25 years or so now, and this is probably as heavy as anything they've ever done, it's not something you'd really expect.

I'm not a huge Metallica fan, but I will listen to this when I want to hear something fast and heavy.

Another CD I came across in the last week was the new EP from The Gutter Twins, "Adorata". I found it at another music blog, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, which doesn't even bother to offer reviews or editorial - they just post links to downloads of full albums. Seems that's a policy that might land them in trouble one day.

I did feel a twinge of guilt downloading this though. Mainly because I think Mark Lanegan is a genius, and doesn't get the recognition he deserves. If I could give him the money for this directly (and have him look me in the eye and promise not to spend it on heroin) I would. Unfortunately I can't, and I know if I purchase it on itunes I'm mainly giving money to Apple, so I'm keeping my cash.

This EP is a follow up to their full-length album "Saturnalia" which came out earlier this year, and includes six covers and two new songs. I actually had no idea the thing was out until I came across it, which is weird these days, where usually I'll know about a release from my favourite artists weeks, or even months before it comes out. I've been listening to this quite a bit the last week, and an early favourite is their cover of Jose Gonazles' "Down the Line", as well as their original "Spanish Doors".

Finally, I've also been enjoying the new Verve album "Forth". A month or two before it came out I kind of rediscovered Richard Ashcroft's solo album "Alone with Everybody", and this is quite different, much more psychadelic and layered, but still really good.

Great article

2008-09-06T15:13:00.001+09:30

A short interview/feature on Ricky Gervais I came across in Esquire this month . . .

http://www.esquire.com/features/the-screen/ricky-gervais-0908

Taken

2008-09-02T16:40:00.001+09:30

If you like your movies to be plausible, you probably won't really like "Taken". If you're willing to completely suspend disbelief though, it's not too bad.

Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA guy who quit his job to spend more time with his 17 year old daughter, now semi-estranged from him, living with her mother and rich step-dad. Right from the start Liam seems to care just a little bit too much about his daughter - he gate crashes her 17th birthday party, takes a photo of them together, then goes directly to a drug store to get the photo developed and put in an album. Yeah a bit too full on if you ask me.

Anyway, she wants to go to Paris with a friend for a few months, and needs him to sign some paperwork because she's under 18. He doesn't want her to go, because he thinks it's too dangerous, but eventually agrees. Turns out he was right, she gets abducted the first night she's there, and he flies over to track her down before she disappears forever, and get revenge on the guys who took her.

After speaking to some CIA friends, he's told if he doesn't find her in the first 96 hours, he won't find her at all (and she'll be sold as a prostitute). So everything needs to go right for him, and it does, which is where the implausability comes in. He finds the young guy who helped abduct the girls within about an hour of arriving in Paris. He found his daughter's friend after bugging a random pimp, and overhearing him talk about a "construction site" (luckily he picked the right one). Other stretches include Liam outrunning an Audi, Liam defeating six or seven armed guys at once in hand to hand combat (this happens quite a bit), Liam recognising one of his daughter's captors by remembering his voice from a two word telephone conversation etc.

Anyway, somehow he manages to escape corrupt cops, and kill about a hundred gangsters and rescue his daughter, before escaping the country on a commercial flight.

It's shot well, although some of the fight scenes are shot really close up which makes them hard to follow. If you want a really good movie about revenge I'd recommend "Man On Fire" with Denzel, but this isn't too bad, as long as you don't expect too much.

TV . . . generally, it kind of sucks

2008-08-31T17:20:00.004+09:30

I've been in my new place for about three months now, and I haven't bothered to get an aerial installed, and so haven't watched a minute of live television. Every now and then I think I should get it done, and then I realise how bad TV is right now.

Take the other night for instance. I was at my lady friend's house, and we turned on the TV, and found a dancing reality show on one channel, a medical reality show on the other, plus some sort of singing competition that I believe is reasonably popular. If I kept it on there would have been the airport reality show, the cooking reality show, the real estate reality show . . .

I guess most people figured this out a long time ago, but I just realised that pretty much everything on TV is reality programming. And it's mostly dull and repetitive (this week, on Border Patrol, someone tries to smuggle drugs into Australia! How novel!)

I mean, I'm not someone who has really elitist tastes. Last night I hired "Snakes on a Plane" from my DVD shop. But it seems there's an awful lot of crap on these days, and I don't know why everyone puts up with it. I often think the average person is at least as smart as me, sometimes I'm not so sure.

Anyway, a TV show I have enjoyed on DVD the past week was season 2 of Dexter (it's on free to air on Sunday nights, which would ruin my argument, except they are still showing season one, even though season one and two are available to buy/hire. Genius.)

If any of my seven readers haven't come across the show, the basic premise is that Dexter Morgan is a blood splatter expert with the Miami Police Department, who kills serial killers in his spare time. Season two focuses on his efforts to evade detection - the bodies of his victims have surfaced, and his colleagues (including his step sister) form a special FBI-led task force to track the killer. Which means that in addition to his normal killing duties, and his day job, he also has to intervene from time to time to taint evidence and throw his colleagues off his scent.

I thought season one was OK, but season two was definitely a step up. I watched all twelve episodes in six days, which sounds quick but it was two more than it took Murray. Amanda apparently watched season one and two combined in even less time, which is rather impressive. It's definitely a show that pulls you in.

If I had one complaint it would be that they stole one of the characters - Lila - from Fight Club. Skinny pommy chick who's kind of hot but has all sorts of issues, and goes to support group meetings even though she doesn't have an addiction. Yep, sounds like Marla Singer. Also, I didn't really see why she had to be topless in almost every episode, but I guess I'm not a professional TV-directing guy.

Despite the rampant breast baring in season 2, the show isn't as full on as it sounds. A lot of the violence is implied, there's probably not a lot more than an average episode of CSI (admittedly, there's more than you'd find in Columbo Paul). The main thing is that it forces you to identify with, and sympathise with, someone who is a serial killer. If you can get past that (and I'm sure some can't) you'll love it.

Season three starts in the US in a few weeks. I could wait until 2010 or so when it makes it to Australian TV, but most likely I'll download it as it airs.

The following trailer shows Jimmy Smits (my favourite fictional president) joins the cast, so it should be great.

15 years ago . . .

2008-08-25T19:56:00.002+09:30

Dave Grohl actually played some pretty good music.

Go Sixers!

2008-08-21T17:39:00.005+09:30

Last night I went to see the new look Sixers play the Melbourne Tigers in their first practice match of the season (by my count only four players remain from last year - Maher, Cooper, Hill and Ballinger).

We arrived at about 6.30pm for a 7pm tip off. It was so weird going to a Sixers game and only seeing a few hundred people there.

Before the game, they had a worst haircut competition, and this guy won.

We came into the match missing a few key players - new pg Aaron Bruce apparently hasn't arrived yet, neither has our second import.

We've got a new guy I'd never even heard of called Winitana. When I saw his darker skin, I assumed he was our new import, but Michella said "he looks more Maori than black". She was right. He's a NZ'er, which rules because it means he gets to play as an Aussie. Anyway he was our best player on the night. He seemed a bit undersized as a sg/sf (apparently he's listed at about 6 foot 4 1/2) but he was really aggressiv going after rebounds, had a nice three point shot, was aggresive on his drives, and even went for two pretty ridiculous tip dunk attempts.

The other key new guy, Schenser, was pretty good. Kind of like a slightly taller David Cooper who can play OK offense. There was one sequence where a Tiger player tried to lay it up and got blocked by Cooper, the loose ball went to one of his team mates, who tried to dunk and got blocked by both Cooper and Schenser. It's going to be tough scoring against those two inside, and with Ballinger we've got a pretty fearsome front line.

I wasn't completely sold on Holmes. It's nice to have him back and he seemed to play really well for South Melbourne last year, but I'd rank him pretty lower than Ballinger, Maher, Schenser, Winitana, and presumably import number 2, and maybe even Bruce from what I hear. When Jacob Holmes is your sixth or seventh best player though, that's a good sign for your team.

The Sixers did give up a lead in the last few minutes and lost the game, but nothing to worry about there really, Ninnis seemed to be trying out the new guys, Maher and Ballinger sat off most of the end of the game.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this team - on paper they seem pretty stacked, but will have to see how things actually work out when the season starts in a few weeks.

Great lyrics

2008-08-14T12:46:00.002+09:30

I'm really more of a music than a lyrics guy, but I love the lyrics to "One for the cutters" from The Hold Steady's new album "Stay Positive". It's like a Bret Easton Ellis novel in less than five minutes . . .

When there weren’t any parties, she’d park by the quarry, walk into the woods until she came to a clearing where townies would gather and drink until blackout, smoke cigs till they’re sick, pack bowls, and then pass out. Windows wide open to let the hard rock in, theirs was a rage that didn’t need much convincing. The girls gave her glares, but the boys were quite pleasant. To be totally honest, they didn’t seem much different. When there weren’t any parties, sometimes she’d party with townies.

Out on the parkways, after the parties, it was always arousing, when they’d rev up their engines. It’s hard to describe, so she kept it a secret. The girls that she lived with, they knew nothing about it. The night with the fight and the butterfly knife, it was the first night she spent with that one guy she liked. She gave him a ride to some kid’s house in Cleveland. He stayed there for two weeks. The cops finally found him. He didn’t seem that different, except for the blood on his jacket. He didn’t seem that different, except for maybe his haircut. He didn’t seem much different. They didn’t seem that different, up until this one little incident. They didn’t seem much different…

Now, the cops wanna question everyone present. They parade every townie in town through the station, but no one says nothing, and they can’t find the weapon. The girl takes the stand, and she swears she was with him - her father’s lawyers do most of the talking.

She’s sick of the questions, sick of the concept of justice and fairness. Who the hell cares who gets caught in the middle? She smokes and she ponders this riddle: When one townie falls in the forest, can anyone hear it? When one townie falls. . . when one townie falls in the forest, does anyone notice?

One drop of blood, an immaculate kiss . . . Mom, do you know where your girl is? Sophomore accomplice in a turtleneck sweater . . . Dad, do you know where your kids are? Sniffing on crystal in cute little cars, getting nailed against dumpsters, behind townie bars. It’s a cute little town, boutiques and cafes. Her friends all seemed nice, she was getting good grades, but when she came home for Christmas, she just seemed distant and different.

Quick thoughts

2008-08-13T12:59:00.001+09:30

I tried the new double dipped Cherry Ripe last night. Not bad. Not bad at all.

If you like a) laughing and b) watching guys get shot, you'll probably enjoy "Pineapple Express". Not Seth Rogen's best work - in fact it's probably the worst film I've seen him in - but still at least twice as good as "Get Smart", which I saw a few weeks ago. Darryl from the US Office is a particular standout in it. No idea how it ended up with an MA rating though, apart from the fact that the protagonists smoke dope right through the movie, it's surprisingly violent.

I've watched a little bit of the Olympics and am pretty much over it. I lost interest in the opening ceremony about 15 minutes in (although that was before I found out it discovered lip-syncing and fake digitially created fireworks), and have only watched little bits since. The low point was watching women's judo. Remember when you were a kid and you'd grab someone and try and trip them over. Yep, that's an Olympic "sport" now. Can't wait till British Bulldogs makes it in.

Best comment I've read about the Olympics comes from Freakonomics author Stephen D Levitt . . . "I have to believe that when a country with as much at stake in these Olympics as China sets its mind on finding ways to beat the anti-doping rules, they will succeed."

On a positive Olympic note - Stephanie Rice. Wow.

We moved into brand new offices at work this week, and we now have a deluxe coffee machine. I had three lattes yesterday. I feel like Kramer when he won his case against Java World, hopped up on free coffee all the time.

I've been eating the same sandwich at work every day for the last few months. And in no way is that depressing. I start with a Turkish lepinja from the Markets, slice it in half, add Watsonia cheddar cheese, Beerenberg tomato sauce, a few slices of thinly sliced tomato, and a meat of my choice. Lately I've been using slices of smoky beef sausage. I then toast it in our sandwich press, and finally add a handful of wild rocket. I swear I have colleagues ask me almost daily "Did you buy that?" Amazingly, I'm still not even remotely sick of it.

Weekend viewing

2008-08-11T21:48:00.004+09:30

Ever find yourself at the video store with nothing that you want to see, so you talk yourself into something that you know you're not going to love?

That was me on Saturday. I was hoping to get "Semi-Pro" but all copies were out, so I ended up talking myself into "Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story". My rationale being that it starred John C. Reilly, who's underrated as a comedy actor (Boogie Nights, Talladega Nights), and was co-written by Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up).

Unfortunately, the movie was not great. It's kind of a send up of musical bio-pics, and in particular, the Johnny Cash movie "Walk the Line". The style of comedy is rather different to what you'd expect from the guys involved, it's kind of like a "Scary Movie" type thing, with lots of slapstick and sight gags. I didn't enjoy it all that much, although it does improve at the end, and there are some good cameos, like Jonah Hill, Jack Black and Eddie Vedder.

Sunday I went back to the video store (exciting weekend!) and got the movie I originally wanted, Semi Pro. It wasn't too bad, but not especially hilarious. Basically it's the movie "Major League", but remade about a basketball team. Will Ferrell was OK, but I thought Woody Harrelson was kind of wasted. Unless you really love basketball I can't really recommend this.

More youtube fun

2008-08-06T13:19:00.000+09:30

A guy dunking over a car . . .

Some guy on the internet . . .

2008-08-05T10:35:00.001+09:30

Combines Radiohead and Chopin

NBA 2K8

2008-08-03T16:57:00.003+09:30

About a week ago I tried to play NBA 2k8 online against Corey. For some reason, which I'm still to figure out, the process failed, and we couldn't see each other online.

It motivated me to pick up this game again though, and I decided to try a season. I don't know if I've ever finished a season (and I've been playing basketball games since "Bulls vs Blazers" on the Megadrive), but I'm really into this one.

I went with the Bulls as my team. I've never used them a lot in 2K8 before, but they have a pretty good team, especially since the Cavs trade last season. I'm starting Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Nocioni (a really good three point shooter) and Noah (great cleaning up around the basket), which leaves a bench rotation of Drew Gooden, Ty Thomas, Larry Hughes, and Thabo Sefalosha. Not bad at all.

I lost the first game, then reeled of four wins in a row (two of them in overtime). All of the games have been close, except for when I played the Suns, who ran me off the floor. Right now I'm about 10% of the way through the season with a 5-3 record, and feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Will I win the title? Or will I lose all interest in the coming week? Stay tuned to find out.

Melbourne

2008-08-01T11:53:00.003+09:30

Wednesday night I left the cold, bitter, winter weather in Adelaide to travel somewhere even worse . . . Melbourne.

We flew in on Tiger, with some $10 fares that I had picked up a few months ago. We didn't get in until about 10pm though, so by the time we got to our accommodation it was around 11pm.

We stayed at Punt Hill Manhattan in Flinders Lane (pictured below). Wotif described it as industrial chic, which was reasonably accurate, although part of me felt like we'd stumled into a setpiece from Saw.

In the morning we checked out pretty early, and had breakfast at a lovely little restaurant/bar called Terra Rosa, a few doors down. Sitting in front of an open fireplace, I had their breaky sandwich, which was basically a fancier version of the Subway one I have every second day or so.

After breakfast we got the train out to Prahan, and did some shopping in Chapel Street.

I got a new jacket from Industrie, and these awesome sneakers from a sneaker store called Provider.

Michella also managed to get a few things, spending her birthday cash. After we'd finished up on Chapel Street, we caught the train back into town, returned to Terra Rosa for a beer, then back to the airport.

The Tiger terminal at Melbourne airport is really quite a sight. Michella said it looks like a bus terminal. I said a refugee camp. It doesn't resemble a regular airline terminal, that's for sure. For some reason they serve alcohol in there, so the place is full of guys walking around, swigging from bottles of beer. It just looks wrong. Still, they do have Krispy Kreme there so it's not all bad.

We got into Adelaide at about 8pm last night so just a short visit but a good one, would be good to get back later this year and take some time though, and catch up with friends.

Live Through This revisited

2008-07-30T13:05:00.001+09:30

I brought Hole's "Live Through This" into work today for a colleague, and figured while I had the CD here, I may as well rip it to my itunes. I started listening to it and remembered just how great of an album it is.

I don't think it's necessarily underrated, as anyone who likes this kind of music seems to agree that the album is pretty good. From the ragged heaviness of Violet and Rock Star, to the cracked vunerability of Doll Parts, to the urgency of Plump and Gutless, there's a great range of music. It's surprisingly diverse for an album that doesn't differ a whole lot in terms of style, if that makes sense.

It's generally accepted that Kurt wrote most of the album, since it has almost nothing in common with the album that preceded it (the very dissonant "Pretty on the Inside") or the one that came next (the incredibly polished "Celebrity Skin", which was allegedly mainly written by Billy Corgan). I remember a great Dave Grohl quote, when an interviewer asked him which was his favourite Hole album, he replied "Pretty on the Inside, because I know Courtney wrote that one herself" in a not-so-subtle dig towards her. Even if Kurt did write most of the album, I actually think it's better and more consistent than anything Nirvana ever did.

Anyway, these days when we mostly remember Courtney as being certifiably-crazy, it's easy to forget how fantastic this album is.

For those of you who may have forgotten, a reminder . . . .

Violet

Doll Parts

Plump

Tuesday Top 5 - Songs I'm listening to this week

2008-07-29T12:38:00.000+09:30

AFI - Prelude 12/21

The Gutter Twins - All Misery Flowers

Guns n Roses - Better

The Hold Steady - One for the Cutters

Coldplay - Violet Hill

The Dark Whopper

2008-07-29T09:38:00.002+09:30

Yesterday I gave my tick of approval to "The Dark Knight". Today I'm endorsing the affiliated hamburger.

It's basically just a Whopper, except they've replaced the ketchup with smoky barbecue sauce, but it's a worthwhile addition to the Hungry Jacks menu. Come to think of it, pretty much any special burger Hungry Jacks ever bring out is just a regular Whopper, with one or more of the following - barbecue sauce, bacon, or pineapple.

If I was in charge of HJ's, I'd make it so you could have these options right throughout the year. Why can I only get a Western Whopper once every twelve months?

The other thing I would do is target some of the young go-getters that McDonlalds employees and get them to work for me. Without getting too mean, the standard of kids they have working at Hungry Jacks these days is not real high. I swear I stood there for a full minute last night as some short pimply faced kid tried to explain "Four double whoppers, three of them with cheese" to the other kids making burgers out back. Come on guys, it's not that hard.

Band practice . . .

2008-07-28T12:42:00.001+09:30

Was never quite this good with my old band. Perhaps it's because we had to practice in Tim's mum and dad's basement, rather than an abandoned warehouse.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T11:21:00.001+09:30

Friday night I saw "The Dark Night", aka the new Batman movie. It was really good.

Pretty much anything you read about the film talks about Heath Ledger, and how amazing he is in it, and that's spot on, he really did make the film. I'm not really a big Heath Ledger fan, I think the only thing I've liked that he's done was Two Hands. He's tremendous in this, and walks the line between psychotic and hilarious. He's really unrecognizable though, with his altered voice and all the makeup, I never would have picked him unless I was told who it was.

The movie is, of course, over the top, in terms of its stunts and action. It never feels like you're just watching a superhero movie though, because the writing, directing and acting are all so good. With guys like Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and the lovely Maggie Gyllenhaal in supporting roles, there's much more talent than you'd normally find in this genre.

It's funny, I've heard quite a few people say this movie is "better than the first one". Meaning "Batman Begins", which is at least the fifth Batman movie. It's almost as if, given how crap the movies became in the 90s, everyone has decided to agree that they never happened, and the series really began when Christopher Nolan became involved.

Highly recommended.

PS Also saw "Charlie Wilsons War" on Saturday night, and that was average. Not necessarily bad, just not good. Kind of bound to happen when you combine one actor who makes great movies (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) with two who make rather bad movies (Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts).

How hard is it to put the bread on the right side?

2008-07-25T13:36:00.000+09:30

You don't read a lot of reviews of fancy restaurants on this blog. Part of it is because my budget doesn't allow, part of it's because my tastes aren't that particular. Last night though we had a family dinner for my mum and sister's birthdays at Graduates Restaurant at Regency Tafe.

For those of you not aware of the place, it's a training restaurant for hospitality students, who are required to do some practical work as part of their course. The waiting staff are all students, and most of the kitchen staff are, although there is a head chef, who is presumably the only actual graduate of the group.

Anyway, I didn't think that being a waiter was something you needed a lot of training for, although talking to some colleagues today I've been told otherwise. However, these people were, in a word, terrible. I'd give them credit considering perhaps it was their first time, but the head student-waiter gave a little speech halfway through the night saying this was their seventh night, which I found hard to believe.

For example, they put our bread on the wrong side of the plate. A small thing, but something even I knew better than to do, and I have almost no formal training as a waiter. Also, I had to ask twice for Michella and I to be brought bread, as everyone else got theirs on arrival, and we didn't. Then when they brought it they dropped it on the way from the bread basket to my plate. They disappeared between courses, meaning we had to signal them when we were ready to order the next one. And then they forgot to get Dad his coffee he ordered. One mistake you might write off, but they really managed to screw up way more than you should.

The food itself was passable. I definitely ordered the most palatable food on offer - a mushroom risotto with steak strips for entree, pork wrapped in proscuttio for my main, and lemon pudding for desert. As you'd expect, the servings were rather small, but I didn't end up stopping off at Hungry Jacks on the way home, so it obviously did the job. I fared better than poor Ange, who ordered what she thought was chicken, but got a pie-like dish seemingly filled with soup. And then made Ash swap with her.

Poker

2008-07-23T10:32:00.002+09:30

Last night I played poker at the Palais with Ando and Murray. Against a field of around 50, I finished 11th. And I did it with the best cards of my life.

On the first hand I got dealt pocket Aces, doubling up my chips against another player with Ace-King. Over the next two hours or so I got pocket pairs another six times. At one point, the player to my right made a comment about how many pocket pairs I had picked up, and I joked that the next time I got them, I would let him know by holding one of my pockets, and he could keep his chips. I then looked down to find myself with pocket Kings (or Cowboys, for those into the poker lingo), and picked up another few thousand in chips (I did not, as promised, hold my pocket).

After starting with 1,000 in chips, I peaked with 37,000 chips, at which point Murray and Ando assured me I was the chip leader for the tournament. At this point I lost half my chips in a bad beat though, and then the quickly rising blinds kind of necessitated another all in around 15 minutes later which I also lost.

I had a great time, since I got to play about 40-50% of the hands, and do some really agressive betting, but it made me wonder, if I couldn't win with the cards I had, would I ever? I think in those types of situations there really is the element of luck - the rising blinds mean you have to make moves, and even when you're the favourite pre-flop, you need everything to go your way on the all ins to get to a strong point on the final table. I went all-in on my final hand with King-Three for about 13,000 chips, which sounds like a dumb move, except next up I was going to be the big blind, and have to post a blind of 10,000 chips, which would have pretty much put me all in on whatever random hand I got dealt anyway . . .

Brokeback Mountain

2008-07-22T15:38:00.002+09:30

Nope, this isn't a metaphor for describing something gay that happened in my life. Last night I actually sat down and watched Brokeback Mountain.

It's one of those movies I'd been curious about for a while, and so when Michella told me she was going to hire it, I figured it couldn't hurt to pop round to her place and see what all the fuss was about. (My favourite part of this was that she asked for it at her video store, and was directed to the "Gay and Lesbian Section". What? They have their own section now?)

We sit down to watch it, and Michella remarked that she had heard that regardless of gender, it was just a great love story. So I'm thinking, I can appreciate that. I may be a little less of a romantic than some (eg Pretty Woman, to me, was just about some rich jerk and a hooker), but I'm not made of stone.

We start the movie, and Jake and Heath are cowboys of sorts, working together alone on Brokeback Mountain for the summer. Jake is a reasonably animated fella, whereas Heath plays the part of the brooding loner, who just mumbles incoherently every now and then. Obviously Jake was a bit of a fan of this, as one night in their tent, he makes his move. All prejudices aside, what happens next isnt particularly romantic or tender, but hey, each to their own.

After a few weeks of being gay together the summer ends and they go their separate ways. Heath marries Jen from Dawsons Creek and has two children, and Jake marries Agent 99 from Get Smart and has a kid too. Except they can't forget their wonderful summer together on Brokeback Mountain, and so four years on, Jake tracks down Heath and visits him.

Upon arrival, they hug, and then make out for a while, which is unfortunately witnessed by Heath's wife, who is somewhat disturbed. And so, for the next few years, they get together a couple of times a year to go away fishing ie have sex. Unfortunately for Heath, Jen leaves him messages in his fishing tackle box that he never gets because he's all over Jake, which confirms her fears that there's more than angling going on, so she divorces him.

Now that Heath is back on the market, Jake suggests they make things permanent, offering to leave his wife, but Heath isn't interested. He's too scared of repercussions, so he continues to live a double life, dating women, while spending a few weeks a year away in the woods with Jake. Jake, for his part, stays with his wife, but sometimes visits Mexico to employ the services of male prostitutes. It's quite a sweet story really.

Finally after 20 years or so, when one of Heath's letters is returned, he finds that Jake has died. Agent 99 tells Heath he died in an accident, but it's revealed some local kids beat him to death (presumably on account of his being gay).

Now, the movie wasn't particularly boring, so I can't say I hated it. What I can't understand is how people think this is a great love story. To start with, we don't get an insight into any type of meaningful relationship between the two of them, there's just a lot of Heath mumbling (so much so we had to turn the subtitles on). Secondly, with Jake consorting with hookers and all, it didn't seem like there was a lot of committment. Finally, there's all this talk about how they were really meant to be together, but they couldn't because of the era. Which was crap, because they could have, it's just they were too scared and/or lazy to leave their lives as cowboys in redneck central, and be together. I have no idea why this rubs me the wrong way, I couldn't have cared less if they ended up together, I just hated the pathetic excuses they made, and these are the type of things you hear when people discuss the film.

Anyway, I've spent way too much time analyzing this film - in conclusion, if you're a big fan of cowboys or homosexuality check this out, otherwise, perhaps give it a miss.

What I discovered on the weekend

2008-07-21T11:15:00.000+09:30

Nature

Or more specifically, the BBC series "Planet Earth". I borrowed it off of Ribar, and we knocked out six episodes over the weekend. I've never been particularly interested in our planet's untouched areas, but after watching some of the spectacular footage of mountain ranges, waterfalls, deserts, and undewater landscapes, I had the travelling bug pretty bad.

Not only was I entertained, I also managed to learn a few things. Like there are more ugly animals than you think there are. And there are more deadbeat dads in nature than in Salisbury, Elizabeth and Murray Bridge combined.

As someone who doesn't normally like this type of thing, I really recommend it. Especially if you can get it on Bluray, the images are spectacular, so much so that if you're annoyed by the pompous tones of narrator David Attenborough you can tune him out and just enjoy it on an aesthetic level.

I'm not as good at Mortal Kombat as I thought I was

I downloaded Mortal Kombat II on the Playstation store Friday night, and jumped right in with my old favourite Scorpion. Despite the fact that I had his patented harpoon attack in my arsenal, it took me three attempts to get past my first opponent. I never managed to defeat the second. I'm not sure if these little digital men got better at fighting in the last 15 years or I got worse, but I really suck at this game now.

The Hold Steady

I read a review of the band's new album "Stay Positive" and decided to try them out. I spent a good bit of the weekend listening to the album as I drove around and it's growing on me. They kind of sound like a more punk-ish Bruce Springsteen, and also a little like R.E.M. at their most electric. I'm not exactly sure what I like about this - the singer kind of talk-sings, and the band play reasobably straight forward rock and roll, it's not the type of music I'd think I'd be drawn to. Do I think this will be making my top 5 list for 2008? Of course not. Do I plan on keeping it in my immediate rotation though? Absolutely.

Zach de la Rocha has a solo album out. Finally.

I'd been waiting for Zach's solo album for years, so was more than a little pumped to find out that he'd finally put something out. The project is called "One Day as a Lion", and is a collaboration between him and the old drummer for The Mars Volta. Their debut, self titled EP is out later this week, although it's already on the net, and consequently, my ipod.

I think this is one of those pairings that sounds better on paper. The music is basically live drums and distorted bass with Zach rapping over the top, it's not a huge departure from Rage Against the Machine. If anything, it sounds like a sped-up version of "Mic Check" (so Murray should like it, at least).

The thing is, I've waited for this for so long that I think it's passed me by. There was a time when I would have been really pumped to hear this music, but I don't really care that much anymore. And I wonder if I'm the only one?

An idea

2008-07-16T14:17:00.000+09:30

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a fan of lists. In this month's Esquire magazine, there's a good one - 75 things every man should do. It's a list of things they suggest every man should try once, ranging from the general (start something that scares you) to the specific (drink mescal in Mexico). Some of them I've already done (build a fence, learn three or four chords and a song on the guitar), others I probably never will (have a threesome).

There were some good ideas in there though, and I think I'm going to come up with my own list at some point.

One of the things on their list (and probably mine) is live abroad. Which is quite timely because, given the strong Australian dollar, a colleague and I were browsing New York properties on the internet today, and found that it's not as expensive as you'd think. An (admittedly small) apartment in Greenwich Village was going for about $300k, bigger ones out in Brooklyn for less than $200k.

Of course, neither of us have $300k, or even $200k. We realised though that if we only wanted the place for a month a year, we could organise a coop with people from work and buy-in for about $20k each. Plus, the way the Australian dollar is going, in a few months it will be even cheaper . . .

Tuesday Top 5 - Old School Video Games

2008-07-15T13:50:00.002+09:30

1. NBA Hangtime (Nintendo 64) - Based on the old NBA Jam arcade game, this still holds up today. Didn't really reach its peak till we discovered how to give the characters giant animal heads. I was always the psychotic looking clown. Ando used to be awesome at this, so much so that we once hacked into his character and downgraded all his attributes without his knowledge just to make it more of a level playing field. In recent years, Murray and his giant chicken "Cornelius" have become feared by other players.

2. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 (Playstation One) - The first skating game I ever spent a lot of time playing, especially the Hangar Level. You could do ridculous things in this game that defied the laws of physics. One of the first times I can remember have really good music in a game, with music from bands like Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy.

3. Goldeneye (Nintendo 64) - Based on the James Bond movie, I reckon this was one of the first really good 3D shooters. The single player game wasn't all that great, but multiplayer was always fun, especially when you had four people playing at once. Sometimes people would choose to make their character a midget, meaning it was a smaller target, which I kind of thought was cheating.

4. Double Dragon - When we were kids Ash and I used to love this game, I have fond memories of playing it in the kids games room at the holiday resort we used to go to. I remember there were bad guys who looked like Mr T, and women with whips. The solution for dealing with all foes was almost always waiting for them with your back turned, then delivering a well timed backwards elbow. You would do this again, and again, and again, and never get bored.

5. Mortal Kombat (Sega Megadrive) - I was a big Scorpion fan. Loved that harpoon thing he had, although it took so long to recover after sending it that if you didn't hit your target, you left yourself wide open to a counter attack. You can now download this through the Playstation store to play on your PS3, despite the fact that the game is a good 15 years old I'm seriously considering it.

Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello

2008-07-14T15:35:00.003+09:30

Found this video of the Boss and Morello doing Bruce's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" together.

I love the second solo Morello does, at about the 5.45 mark, when he starts making all of his crazy spaceship noises, and Bruce has a kind of "Hey, that's actually pretty cool" smile on his face.

Best of the weekend

2008-07-14T15:12:00.001+09:30

Friday night we went to see Get Smart. I really liked the show when I was a kid, and I'm a pretty big Steve Carrell fan, so went along even though I knew it wasn't going to be brilliant. It was about as good as I thought it would be - a few bright spots, but not something you'd want to watch again.

Saturday morning I went to my new gym with my Dad. I signed up about a week or so ago, and it has two advantages from my old gym - my Dad and my mate from work are both members, so I have someone to go with; and it costs $285 a year (instead of about $800 for Zest).

After the gym I went to Marion with Michella to get her sister a birthday present. I was mad hungry at this point, so had Indian food in the food court (despite the fact that we were having dinner at an Indian restaurant that night). I finished this off with a delightful little vanilla slice from Gloria Jeanes, then went home for a nap. Actually I didn't have a a nap, I just started channeling Paul for a minute there.

For dinner we went to a delightful little place called Urban India. I went there with Mirjana about a year ago, and the waiter talked me into ordering something different to what had planned.

This time I was able to order what I wanted (the butter chicken of course), and I quite enjoyed it, although Michella not so much.

After dinner we went to the Hilton Hotel at Hilton for Rhianna's birthday. We sat in the bar for about two hours, until my head hurt and my throat was raw from screaming. Obviously I'm probably 10 years older than the target market of a place like this, but still, it baffled the mind - the "DJ" kept trying to keep people from sitting around the "dance floor" because "any minute now it's going to fill up." The whole time we were there, we saw two people dancing - a scary looking mother and daugher combo (you had to catch them in the right light to tell which was which). Despite the fact that there was NOBODY DANCING, this guy kept playing horrible, loud dance music, bobbing away in his little DJ-ing booth like he was working at a rave or something. We left at around 10pm to go home and watch the final episode of Underbelly (they all die or go to jail).

Sunday I decided to tackle a little home renovation project - knocking out the built in robe in my TV room. I smashed at it for a while with a crowbar until it collapsed around me, somewhat amazingly, I wasn't hurt. In the afternoon, I went round Peter and Karen's and saw most of the final Pirates of the Carribean movie on Foxtel. It made almost no sense to me, and I think i'm a somewhat educated, film-literate adult. I skipped dinner and just had an awesome apple crumble that Chella made. I think it was the right decision.

Partying like it's 1999

2008-07-07T11:10:00.001+09:30

So on Saturday we went to Hog's Breath Cafe at Glenelg for lunch with Alen and Jess and Paul and Tara. Over for a weekend visit, Paul had picked the venue, which led Alen to remark "What is this, the 1990's?". As it turns out, at Hog's Breath, it always is.

We quicky noticed that their playlist was almost entirely comprised of hits from that decade - Jeremy, November Rain, Loser, You Outta Know, Plush - it was like someone found one of my mixtapes from 1995. The lone exception was Kanye West's "Gold Digger" - I have no idea how that one made the cut. Everything else was alternative rock from the last millenium.

I presume it was intentional, and it was actually kind of cool - it was kind of like a themed 50's nostalgia diner, but updated for the 90's. Especially for a catchup lunch between three guys who became friends in the 90s, it brought back all kinds of memories of shared experiences.

After lunch we went across the road for hot chocolate at Bracegirdles. It was pretty amazing stuff, I'm definitely a convert.

Chinese Democracy

2008-07-06T14:23:00.002+09:30

Thanks to the power of the world wide internet, this week I got the chance to hear nine of the songs from Guns n' Roses' (allegedly) upcoming album "Chinese Democracy". You've kind of got to use the word allegedly, since Axl has been working on the album since 1994, and over the last 14 years has (once again, allegedly) spent $13 million on the process (making it the most expensive album ever recorded). You've got to wonder if it's ever going to see an official release.

Anyway, the nine tracks that now live on my ipod all sound finished. Actually, a little too finished. As is to be expected with an album that's been worked on for more than a decade, the whole thing is extremely overproduced. It sounds rather epic, along the lines of "November Rain", and that's not necessarily a good thing. The best GNR album (and probably the best debut by any band) is "Appetite for Destruction", which is also the rawest thing they ever did. As well as being polished, it's not especially heavy, with the exception of a few songs it's kind of got a pop feel to it.

Still after a week or so, I find myself listening to this a lot, so there must be something to that. I wonder if it's my GNR fandom - whether I would be quite so keen if this was new material from say Sebastian Bach. I don't think so though, I think there's some quality here.

Anyway, if you're curious as to what the new stuff sounds like, here's a clip someone has made for one of the leaked songs, "Madagascar". My favourite part comes at the 4:17 mark, when Axl samples Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in the guitar solo, before going into the final chorus. Although you have to think that since this is the same guy who once wrote and sang the lyrics "Police and niggers, get out of my way", the good Doctor might not have approved . . .

In the paper today . . .

2008-07-03T14:17:00.000+09:30

THE American Family Association has a strict policy to replace the word "gay" with "homosexual" on its news website - but it created a problem with sprinter Tyson Gay.

The association's computers auto-corrected the US sprint star's name to Tyson Homosexual.

Here's an extract of an Associated Press story as it ran on the association's OneNewsNow Christian news website:

Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn't count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind.

Here's what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he's certainly someone to watch in Beijing. . . . "It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."

Tuesday Top 5 - Songs about Sailing

2008-07-01T09:50:00.002+09:30

1. The Gallows - Abandon Ship

2. The Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping up to Boston

3. Placebo - Jackie

4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Ship Song

5. Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell - The Seafarers Song

Quick thoughts

2008-06-30T13:17:00.000+09:30

Saw "I am Legend" on Friday night. Not a bad film, kind of like a less depressing version of "28 Days Later" (obviously the horror movie, not the Sandra Bullock vehicle). Will Smith plays the lone survivor of a viral plague in New York City, and everyone else has turned into zombie/vampire-like creatures who only come out at night. Some great scenes of New York City completely empty, with Smith hunting down deer and lions on the streets.

I finally got my broadband up and working at my new place. After hours on the phone with my ISP, turns out what I needed was a new modem. I got one with a built in wireless router on Saturday and had it up and running in minutes. I'm now ready to take on my fellow PS3/NBA 2k8 owners online (ie that means you, Corey and Mike).

I'm trying to cut down on my magazine subscriptions, especially after finding hundreds of old issues in my shed when I moved. I just resubscribed today to Esquire though. Fantastic writers (including a monthly column from Chuck Klosterman), and costs me less than $2 an issue (and I'm pretty sure it costs them at least that to post it to me from the US).

Music I'm enjoying right now - "Stranger's Almanac" by Whiskeytown, "Sunday at Devil Dirt" by Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, and I'm actually enjoying a few tracks off the new Coldplay CD. Biggest disappointment - the new Aimee Mann album, that's two bad ones in a row for her (and three if you count that terrible Christmas album she did).

Another cool thing about my new house - the service station around the corner sells Farmers Union 600ml Iced Coffees for two for $4.50. I'm sure that's the cheapest I've seen since Corey and I used to carpool to work years ago and ended up buying one each almost every morning.

Pub Poker is the new Social Basketball

2008-06-25T13:25:00.001+09:30

As much as I love playing basketball, there was something about basketball stadiums, particularly on social basketball league nights, that kind of depressed me. The people were always the same, week after week, month after month, year after year. Obviously I was complicit in this too, I played social basketball for close to ten years straight. But I almost always just played once a week, trying to balance the sport with having a life and stuff.

The thing is, I knew (and saw on a number of occasions) that if I were to go to say the Powerhouse on a Monday night, or Wayville on a Wednesday night, or St Clair on a Tuesday night, I'd see the same people from my Thursday Night St Ives league. These guys would play several times a week, even just turning up to the stadium to hang out and watch their friends play if they didn't have a game. I don't know why it made me depressed - people are free to live however they want, and it's not like they were shut-ins. But it did.

Last night I went down to the Palais with Andy and Murray for their poker night. I hadn't been in a couple of months, but noticed a lot of the same people from previous times. And noticed that many of them seemed to have become friends, presumably because they play against each other every week. And not just at the Palais either, as the night went on you'd overhear them swapping stories about games they play at a whole range of venues around the city.

Again, its good that they've found something they love to do, and have made friends (of sorts) with other likeminded people. But as the night went on, and I overheard snippets of conversations, it became obvious that the only thing that anyone there was comfortable talking about was poker. "I totally had him with pocket Tens but then he lucked out with an Ace on the River." "I had that hand two nights ago, but came up against Big Slick."

I started getting the feeling I used to get around basketball stadiums. Like I said, it's great that people can do something they love, and find likeminded people through it. But if the ensuing relationships don't go any deeper than a surface level shared appreciation for a particular pastime, it makes you wonder if its worth it.

OK, rant over, we'll be back to our scheduled reviews of violent movies and rock music shortly.

Tuesday Top 5 - Guitar Hero III songs

2008-06-24T09:13:00.002+09:30

1. Guns n Roses - Welcome to the Jungle - Great song, plus you get to play as Slash.

2. Dragonforce - Through the Fire and the Flames - sounds ridiculously 80's, but great fun to play, and kind of a cool song, so much so that I'm thinking of tracking it down and downloading it.

3. Slayer - Reign in Blood - The metal songs just seem to suit this game better than the rock, due to their complexity I presume.

4. Beastie Boys - Sabotage - Almost as much fun playing on bass as guitar.

5. Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade - Tremendous song, especially the intro section.

Weekend highlights

2008-06-23T10:41:00.001+09:30

Friday night I had Murray and Amanda over for a delicious pasta carbonara, and some hot 2 on 2 Pictionary action. The night ended slightly prematurely when they left so Amanda could throw up. Probably not because of my cooking, but who knows?

Saturday I started watching Underbelly, which I missed on TV, but borrowed the episodes on DVD from Murray. It was OK, it held my attention, although noone's going to ever confuse it with The Sopranos as far as quality goes. It's nice to have another series to work my way through though.

Saturday night I settled down with a blu-ray copy of "300". I guess I liked it, although with fantasy type stuff I usually turn off pretty quickly, and this movie spends a lot of time in that domain. It's weird when you see TV characters in movies, and this one had Diver Dan and Jimmy McNulty, and it just didn't seem quite right.

Sunday afternoon I returned 300, and couldn't resist the urge to grab another movie from my awesome new local video store (all movies $2.95 including blu-ray, and only $2 on Tuesdays) and so picked up "Hostel 2". I have to say that, while I enjoyed this, it may have been a little too violent, even for me. And I don't really remember thinking that about another movie before. Like the first movie, the first half or so is just getting to know the characters, and the second half is full of killing and stuff. Again with the TV actors appearing in a movie - this one featured two of the guys from "Desperate Housewives" as brothers. I'd mention them by name, but that would reveal I've watched enough of that show to be able to do so, so let's just move on.

Sunday night Narelle came round for dinner, and I (or Michella, can't really remember) cooked up a storm with the Chili Con Carne. Narelle came bearing housewarming gifts - some tea towels (which were actually really nice on their own), and a second guitar controller for Guitar Hero (which was immediately the greatest housewarming gift I've ever received, and in my top 5 overall). After tea we spent a few hours playing coop on Guitar Hero, and then played against her, which was much more fun than playing on your own.

Guitar Hero III

2008-06-16T16:49:00.002+09:30

Despite never having played, or seen, the game, I bought Guitar Hero 3 last week. The purchase was almost entirely the result of two unsolicited rave reviews from friends in the last week or two - first Mike then Adam. With my love of guitar, rock music, and video games, I felt like I owed it to myself to give it a try.

After (finally - thanks AAMI!) picking up my replacement PS3 Saturday morning, I spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday playing GH3. Even Michella got in on the action - seems like when they don't involve shooting people in the face with a shotgun, she quite enjoys the video games.

We finished it on the easy setting, making our way through about 40 of the games 70 odd songs. Apparently to unlock the rest we need to go through the coop mode. Its actually really quite good, there's some really good songs in there for you to tackle, from "Cherub Rock" to "Paint it Black" to "One" (the Metallica version, not the U2 one). My favourite though "Welcome to the Jungle", I think I had a stupid grin on my face the whole way through that one.

The easy setting is as described, but I had a quick try at the next level up, and it's really quite hard. I also took a sneak peak at the expert level, which looks impossible. So I don't think I'll be finishing this one any time soon.

Over the weekend we also spent some time playing Grand Theft Auto 4. Michella seemed to enjoy the dating side of this game, she enjoyed taking out "Michelle" and trying to talk her way into her apartment. Which she had very little success with. I thought that was funny, even women have no idea what women want. Myself, I played it cool, didn't call Michelle every few hours, with much better results . . .

Moving

2008-06-13T11:40:00.001+09:30

Not a lot of updates the last week or so as I've been in the process of moving into my new place at Richmond.

The first part of this involved having a garage sale. I'm not so sure I would ever want to do that again. The people who come to these things literally suck the life out of you. I advertised mine as starting at 8.30am, by about 7.15am I had people calling out from the end of my driveway, asking if they could come and take an early look. Thankfully I had locks on my gates to keep the vultures out. When I opened the gates at 8.30am as promised a few of them even grumbled about how long they'd been waiting. Then proceeded to buy nothing, if I remember correctly.

I ended up making a bit over $200, but the process was so tedious and painful. The worst part was when people would pick something up, ask how much it was, I'd say "a dollar" just to get rid of it, and they'd contemplate it for a bit then put it down.

On Monday I did the actual move, with the help of the Crouch family, my family (sans Kerry) and Murray. The move went relatively smoothly, although it made me realise I should really stop buying things. Like right now. I've always been a bit of a hoarder, and so having a shed wasn't really good for me. I found magazines dating back for the last 15 years or so, a whole lot of stuff that I can't remember where it came from (meaning it probably wasn't actually mine), and whole range of half used building supplies . . .

Since both my old and new houses settled on the same day, it was going to be hard to do the changeover, but luckily the new one was vacant for a week before settlement and so the agent gave me the keys to store my property on the site. I took the phrase "store my property" to mean "move in completely", so have been living there since Monday. Also lucky for me, the old tenants left the power and gas on, so I've been using that the last few days. The least they could do really considering the condition they left the place in.

So far I'm enjoying the new location. I seem to be under the flight path, but notice that a little less each day. Being closer to town is great - it took me 14 minutes to get into town and into my carpark this morning, which was fantastic. Looking forward to exploring the new hood now - I tried the local pizza place on Monday night (had an unusual buy not unpleasant bbq beef and pineapple pizza), and can't wait to try the local chinese takeaway which offers meals for $6.

You've got to love call centres

2008-06-02T15:35:00.001+09:30

Today I had to make a few calls regarding my imminent move.

First up, I called Foxtel to query why I had received a bill for $3 since I cancelled my service a month or so ago. I asked the call centre guy what the charge was for. He said that $3 was the cost of sending a bill. I pointed out that the amount owing on my account was $0, so they had billed me $3 to tell me that I didn't owe them anything. He laughed and admitted that it was rather silly, and said he'd cancel the charge. So a small win for me, if you ignore the fact that I spent about 10 minutes on the call (most of it on hold).

Next, I had to call Dodo to talk to someone about moving my internet to my new house. Whenever I call Dodo I feel like I'm talking to retarded people. They really struggle to grasp simple concepts. I had sorted out most of the details, and thought it was odd I hadn't been asked what date I wanted the changeover to go into effect, so I said "Now I need the change to happen on 13 June."

"Oh no" she said, "this takes four days - your current service will cease in four days time and recommence at your new place on 6 June". I explained this wouldn't work for me, as I wouldn't be moving in for another week after that, and she said she would have to talk to her manager. Because it's so complicated and all. She came back and told me I would have to call back next week - four days before I wanted my service transferred. They can't book anything in for the future. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that when I call back next week they're going to tell me the process will take a fortnight . . .

My weekend as Doug Christie

2008-05-27T15:14:00.002+09:30

Friday night I went to the see the Australian Ballet Company's performance "French Connections". It was the first time I'd been to something like that, and not that bad really. Unfortunately, at two and a half hours it was probably a little bit long. There were two drink breaks though. The middle section featured some topless dancing, but it was all male topless-ness, not the good kind.

Saturday night I watched most of "Two Days in Paris". I say most of it, because we didn't get right to the end. I saw the preview in the cinemas and it looked quite good, but it wasn't. It was kind of like every other movie Julie Delpy makes, where she walks around and talks a lot about relationship stuff. Except she doesn't really look all that cute anymore.

In other news, I also sold my house, and bought a new one. More details to come . . .

Eastern Promises

2008-05-21T15:54:00.002+09:30

I love gangster movies. So when I found myself with a night on my own earlier this week, I was pretty pumped to get "Eastern Promises" from my favourite DVD hire shop.

Set in London, the movie is about a more-attractive-than-normal baby nurse (Naomi Watts) who comes across the diary of a young mother who died in front of her during childbirth. Trying to find some family for the baby, she gets the diary translated, and is drawn into the world of the Russian Mafia, and in particular, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen aka the guy from "Lord of the Rings" who's not a hobbit or wizard) and Kiril (Vincent Cassell, aka the bad guy from the Jennifer Aniston classic "Derailed").

Along the way, there's plenty of intrigue, plot twists, and stabbings. Like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" there's some gratuitious male nudity, but it comes in the midst of such a fantastic knife fight i can hardly complain.

It's from the same director as "A History of Violence" and stars the same lead actor so there are obvious similarities there. Thematically too I suppose, they both deal with the effects of violence and whether it's ever really justified.

I watched this almost all the way through, only stopping once to go to the bathroom. As Michella will testify, it's rare that I watch a DVD without stopping it five or six times, so I must have really been interested.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

2008-05-20T14:00:00.000+09:30

I'm starting to suspect that I've become a fan of romantic comedies.

I say that after seeing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" last night, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. For those of you who haven't heard much about it, here's a quick summary of the plot:

Peter breaks up with his girlfriend Sarah, and decides to go to Hawaii to get over his heartbreak. Unfortunately he finds Sarah and her new English boyfriend are also holidaying on the Island, which just adds to his torment. However, he falls for the cute girl who works the reception desk there, and so things are looking up for him. When Sarah realises her new boyfriend is a twit, she breaks up with him and tries to get back together with Peter. But he realises that Hawaii girl is much nicer, and that Sarah was kind of a horrible person, and so he chooses to stay with the new girl, and they presumably live happily ever after.

Anyway, this doesn't sound like the plot of a movie that I'd normally enjoy, but because it's a Judd Apatow film (like Knocked Up, Superbad, or The 40 Year Old Virgin) it's so funny that you don't really realise that you're watching a romantic comedy. Of course, it's a lot dirtier than your average chick flick, and probably a tad more misogynistic as well, but that's the basis of the movie really.

I didn't think this was necessarily as good as the last few movies Judd Apatow has produced, but it was still funnier than just about anything else. A particular highlight was Peter's rock-opera about Dracula, which he sang like "The Count" from Sesame Street. The cameos from Apatow regulars like Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd were great too.

A few small drawbacks . . . the movie is almost two hours, which feels a bit long for this type of thing. Also, if you're like me, you have a quota of how much male nudity you need to see in a film (none thanks), and this movie unfortunately exceeds this limit. Still this is just nitpicking, I thought overall this was really good and would definitely recommend.

Grand Theft Auto IV

2008-05-12T14:19:00.001+09:30

So I spent a fair chunk of time this weekend playing Grand Theft Auto IV. And I have no regrets.

There was a whole lot of hype leading up to the release of this game so it was quite likely I was going to come away disappointed, but it more than lives up to all the advance press.

One of the things you notice straight away is you can't just shoot random people in the street any more. Well, you can if you want, but even the sound of a gun going off attracts cops, and causes all sorts of problems. You can stab people, it's a lot quieter and more inconspicuous, but it's really kind of vicious. Even for a video game that's mainly about killing and other such tomfoolery.

The other thing that's different about this latest installment is that, in addition to the general missions, you're encouraged to spend time just hanging out with the other characters in the game, building relationships with them. Apparently if you spend enough time with them, they come to your assistance with things that help you in the main game (eg your cousin owns a cab company, so spend enough time with him and he offers you an unlimited and free cab service all across the city).

You once again have the option to date various women, so of course, this is something that I immediately pursued. On my first date with Michelle, I got a call from my cousin on the mobile, telling me he was in trouble, and asking me to come quickly. I ignored him. Afterwards I got a second call from him, telling me he was now in hospital, and asking me to come pick him up. I actually felt kind of guilty, although he was rather cool about the whole thing, telling me he would have done the same if he was in my spot. Anyway, so far I've been on a few "dates" with Michelle - ten pin bowling, to play pool, and to a bar (which I had to drive home from drunk, with the screen all blurry and shaking from side to side!). Things are going OK between the two of us, although at one point she told me that while she liked me, I was calling her too often. But then the next time we went out, she invited me upstairs, so . . . women, who knows what they want eh?

Anyway, back to the game - the visuals look awesome, much better than San Andreas on the PS2. The city is apparently a little bit smaller than that game, but it's way more detailed, and there's no wide open areas like the mountains or countryside of San Andreas. The artificial intelligence is improved - in gunfights enemies hide behind cover rather than just standing in the open. I'm pretty sure it's going to take me months to finish this thing, although with the online stuff I could still be playing it well into next year.