Quick thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Hmm . . .

Just checked out the results from last year's half marathon - the winner finished in one hour 17 minutes, and others who beat me included a 75 year old man (one hour 50 minutes), and someone who walked the whole way (one hour 48 minutes).

Still, I'm just glad I finished the thing.

2.11.40

So this morning I ran a half marathon that I impulsively told everyone I was going to do after doing the City to Bay last year.

It went OK, but it's safe to say I wasn't making any more bold predictions after this one.

I did pretty much all of my training on a treadmill, which is obviously a little easier than running on the road. What I didn't really factor in though was that the race wasn't on flat ground - it was along Linear Park, which is pretty much all up and down. The down wasn't so bad (although it was messing with my knees by the end) but the up wasn't fun at all.

I ran with my Dad, who as you can see, came in just behind me. This isn't really accurate though, since he slowed his pace to allow me to keep up, and at one point, stopped off to use some public toilets and just told me "I'll catch up". It took him about five minutes. So I'm guessing without me he probaby would have finished the course half an hour or so quicker.

Anyway, I didn't really have any goals in terms of time, just finishing it was enough for me. I did pretty much match my treadmill speed though, even with the tougher conditions, so I was happy with that.

I can't see myself doing a run like this again. I'm glad I did it, but once was enough . . . it just gets so boring running for that long. I'm thinking my next challenge will be something a little easier on the joints - perhaps completing a video game, something like that. Or perhaps cook a three course meal, I don't think I've ever done that. Sounds more up my alley.

Music from the good old days

Update

It's been a while since I last updated this thing, so I guess all three of my readers are getting a little impatient. Or not, who knows. Anyway, here's what's been going on lately . . .

Movies
I caught two movies over the last weekend - saw Michael Clayton on DVD, and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead on DVD. I didn't love either one. I thought I'd like Michael Clayton, seeing as it had good reviews, was nominated for awards, and starred Seth Gecko. Not sure if I just wasn't in the mood but I found it a little boring, and unnecessarily confusing.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was a little better, but I still didn't love that. It did star the talent and always-watchable Philip Seymour Hoffmann, although it did also feature him prominently in a graphic sex scene. I think there should be some kind of warning for those types of situations. Anyway this was OK, but I didn't really see what all of the fuss was about.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, the decline in movies from the mid-nineties to now. In the last year or so I've seen two movies that I thought were really good - Knocked Up and Superbad. And then a couple more I enjoyed to varying degrees - 30 Days of Night, Smokin Aces, I suppose the Grindhouse movies. A quick search of movies from 1995 though on Wikipedia revealed the following films were released at the midway point of the last decade - The Usual Suspects, Heat, Mallrats, Higher Learning, Casino, Dead Man Walking, Dead Presidents, Desperado, Seven, Get Shorty, Leaving Las Vegas, Strange Days, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, and Twelve Monkeys. What happened?

Fine dining
Sunday lunchtime I took the girl to Cafe Primo (yeah I'm a classy guy). I discovered though that they have abandoned their "9.90 menus" for regular prices. Meaning a simple pasta dish now costs $15, and they have a steak menu which ranges from about $20-28. This is, I think, ridiculous, and reminds me of the time a few months ago when the Vietnamese bakery round the corner from my work started charging white people prices. The best thing about these places were they were cheap, now that they cost the same as everywhere else, you may as well go somewhere nice right?

Grand Theft Auto IV
So the biggest game of the year was released yesterday and I am currently sans Playstation (thanks AAMI!). I toyed with the idea of buying it anyway, figuring my PS3 will be replaced in a few weeks time, and JB had a good opening week price on it. But when I went back today they were all sold out. This thing looks amazing though, I can't wait to get into it.

Running
The last month or two I've been training for a half marathon. Now all of a sudden it's upon me. Well, this Sunday to be exact. I'm not really sure how I'll go - I did my last long run a few days ago on the treadmill and got to 21km (the length of Sunday's run) but that was in optimal conditions. The funny thing is that the run starts at 8am, with the winners presentations starting at 10am. By my calculations, I'll be crossing the finish line around 10.15am, most likely while everyone's attention will be diverted to a podium somewhere.

Two more things that suck

Australia Post

I got a note in my letterbox earlier in the week saying they had tried to deliver a parcel to me but couldn't. I rang the local post office and got them to transfer it into the city, where I could pick it up during business hours. I go in today to pick it up, wondering what exciting package I have waiting for me, and find that it is . . . the new copy of "Rolling Stone" magazine. Since when is that a parcel? And why can't they just leave it in my letterbox, like they do the other 11 months of the year?

Jack Johnson

For some reason he's on the cover of the aforementioned magazine. What year is it again? It was bad enough when people inexplicably liked him and his monotone tunes a few years back, but I thought we'd moved on from that. Obviously not.

Things that suck

The Aviator

A friend whom I respect very much recommended this film. He said it was better than "The Departed" and Scorcese should have won an Oscar for "The Aviator" instead of this. He was way off.

I watched this over the course of two sittings, and found it increasingly boring. Maybe I'm biased against longer movies, although generally Scorcese's movies are long, and I like most of those. Let's just say this was no "Goodfellas". I had no interest in the main character, and all the women in it annoyed me. On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as "There Will Be Blood" so it's got that going for it.

Getting robbed

Last Friday my house got broken into again. For those of you keeping score at home, that's twice in three months. They took my new PS3 and all the games, which was especially annoying as I had mentally prepared myself to unwind on Saturday with a marathon gaming session. Now I get to wait two months for the insurance company to replace my stuff (missing the launch of Grand Theft Auto 4), which should give me time to figure out where I'm going to hide it when I get it.

The Biggest Loser

So Cosi got voted off on Monday, and I realised I couldn't care less about any of the people left (Sam, Gary, Alison and Kirsten). Especially Sam. For some reason that kid annoys me. I tried watching it Tuesday night but turned off after a couple of minutes, if you don't care about the people in that show, it's kind of a waste of time. I don't think I'll be back until the finale, I was to find out what that punk lesbian chick looks like by now.

Kobe jumps over an Aston Martin

Pictionary

Last night Mike and Jess and Ash and Ange came round for pizza and a few drinks, and we ended up breaking out the Pictionary.

For a while there Michella didn't want to play this with me because of my desire to cheat, but now that she's my team mate, she doesn't seem to care so much. Anyway we started strong, and I had a feeling we were going to take out the game, but Mike and Jess staged an improbably comeback, and even Ash and Ange made things interesting.

Ultimately Mike and Jess ended up with the win, proving to be the most in-sync couple in the room.

Afterwards, we took group pictures, in recognition of the fact that it will possibly be another two years before we're all in a room together again, with Mike and Jess living in London and all.

Weekend update

Being young, free, and (relatively) healthy, I spent most of my weekend watching movies and playing video games. Here are some of the highlights . . .

Saturday night I rewatched "Blood Diamond", but on Blu-ray. Since getting the PS3 a couple of weeks ago I'd been wanting to check out the Blu-ray thing, but I found most video stores in my area don't have these. Michella would say it's because I live in the ghetto, and her local video store has a ton because she lives in the eastern suburbs (defined as being east of South Road). Whatever.

Anyway, the quality of picture on the Blu-ray discs is just amazing. So clear and crisp and bright. The scene towards the end of the film where the helicopters bomb the mining field is particularly spectacular. From now on I'm going to try and search out movies on Blu-ray whenever I can, even if it means driving to the other side of town.

Sunday afternoon we saw "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", which Michella suggested I watch because of Leo's performance. Even though I don't normally like these types of films (eg Shine), I have to admit he was pretty convincing in his portrayal of a mentally handicapped kid, especially since he was practically a kid himself at the time. I didn't love the storyline, but I was intrigued by the obese woman who played the mother. After the movie was over I got on the internet and found out she was cast after the producer of the film saw her on Sally Jessy Raphael talking about her weight, and she went on to appear in other movies after this one. Then I found that there were a number of websites dedicated to her, with pics, and one that had the story of her life. You can find it here . . .

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/1787/direction.html

It blew me away that there are pages like this scattered across the internet, often years after they've last been updated. When I told Mirjana about it this morning she suggested they need to have a clean up day for the internet like we have at our office. It sounded like a good idea to me.

Finally, last night I watched about half of "The Aviator", just to continue with the Leo theme for the weekend. It was rather good, but in the end I got tired and had to go to bed. I thought Katherine Hepburn (played by Cate Blanchett) was way too bossy and generally annoying, but Michella said she was awesome and a trailblazer because she wore pants. Or something like that.

When I wasn't watching movies this weekend I spent quality time with "Gran Turismo 5 Prologue" and "NBA 2K8". Both of them look much better since I found out how to adjust the system settings on my PS3 to make it run in HD (shouldn't this be automatic?)

I finished the first group of ten races on GT5P, and started on the first of the next, on a (fictional) race track through the Swiss Alps. It looks stunning, I ended up re-doing the race about ten times even after I'd won it, just to watch the scenery fly past.

In NBA 2k8 I started a playoff series, playing as the Warriors, taking on the Mavericks. I took out game one, so was pretty happy with that, although I was hoping virtual-Dirk would choke, just like in real life. Again this looks amazing running in HD, you really can't put a price on being able to see the minute details in Matt Barnes' neck tattoo.

New purchases

Saturday afternoon I drove down to Harvey Norman at Marion to pick up a few items from my recent insurance claim. I picked up a new home theatre amplifier, and new hard drive/dvd recorder. The third item I had to grab though was a DVD player, and seeing as I already have three of these (and only two TVs in my house), it seemed a little superfluous.

Luckily they let me pick something else from their wide array of electronic goods, and so I chose a copy of the newly released Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, and a new ipod shuffle.

I'm generally not a huge racing games fan, but I've really enjoyed GT5P. I've spent a bit of time on the single player option, and it's pretty cool, competing in a series of increasingly difficult races and time challenges to win money to buy more cars (there are more than 70 different models available, so I could be busy for a while).

Last night for the first time I had the option of playing with a friend so tried out the two player, and found it wasn't quite as good, as there just aren't enough cars on the track - in single player there is between 8 and 16, whereas with two player there are only two cars.



It's only a preview of the upcoming Gran Turismo 5, but with all the cars to choose from, and thirty plus races plus online stuff I think this will keep me busy for a while. And the graphics on it are pretty amazing too.

So onto my second purchase - a new ipod shuffle. This is the second one I've bought, although I'm pretty sure I've lost my original one for good. With the price down to $65 now I couldn't resist picking up another. Already I've found I use it almost exclusively, my old video ipod just sits on my desk at home. It still blows my mind that something so small can contain so many songs, and create such a big noise. Anyway if you don't have one of these already I highly recommend.

Just one month to go . . .

There will be boredom

With Paul back in town, last night we decided to take in a screening of the Academy Award winning "There Will Be Blood" down at Marion.

Paul pre-booked our tickets online, so we could "Jump the Queue". Although, as he pointed out, the fine print on the website suggests that you turn up at least 30 minutes prior to your movie's scheduled time (ie 45 minutes before it actually starts), which makes one consider the benefits of "jumping" the "queue".

None of this really mattered because there were only a few people gathered around the ticket booth, and only two other people in our movie session. Not surprising I suppose for 8.30pm on a Wednesday night.

So . . . on to the movie itself. To begin with, it's probably the worst case of fraudulent advertising in a movie title since "The Neverending Story". True, there was a little blood, but this was brief and sporadic, and mainly at the end of the film. A more accurate title would have been "There will be no dialogue for the first twenty minutes", or "There will be no chance you'll be catching this again on TV or DVD".

The film is about an oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview, who like many tycoons, is a ruthless businessman who screws over a great many people - especially poor people - to build his empire. Him and his son are really the only key characters in the film - with the exception of a crazy preacher guy - and the story follows around 30 years of his life, from his early beginnings (the first twenty minutes are almost silent footage of him working in mines) till the bitter end (when he is a crazed - and yes, bitter - old man living alone in a giant house). If you're thinking "Gee, a three hour long film about a guy mining for oil, with only a few speaking roles, set in the early 1900s - that doesn't sound awesome", well then you would be right. It's not awesome. Not in the slightest. While there were a few parts that held my attention, most of the time I had to work incredibly hard to stay awake.

Daniel Day Lewis won an Academy Award for this performance, and I guess it was good, but I just don't really have that much interest in seeing someone act like a crazed oil tycoon these days, no matter how well they do it. Besides, when it comes down to it, what do these guys know anyway? "Titanic" won 11 Academy Awards, and "Donnie Darko" won none. So yeah, great credibility guys.

In conclusion, if you've got a spare three hours to spare, and are considering watching this movie, I would suggest some of the following experiences might be a better and more enjoyable use of your time.

1) Drive to Murray Bridge, get an ice cream, turn around and come home.
2) Watch an entire week's worth of Home and Away episodes.
3) Pluck all of the hairs from your right arm, one by one. If time allows, do the left as well.

Easter recap

Thursday night

I went to my first AFL game in many years (the last time I went was with Corey and Bec so . . . ), and saw the Power take on Geelong with my Dad and cousin. I have to admit, it wasn't as feral as I thought it would be. Sure, it was probably more feral than any other event outside of a smash up derby, B & S Ball or house party in Salisbury, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I found it pretty hard to follow the action, since 80% of it seemed to take place on the other side of the field. Still it ended up being reasonably close and was exciting enough.

Friday

Went to church in the morning, then enjoyed a great lunch at Fasta Pasta (open all day in celebration of our Lord's crucifixion) with Paul and Tara. I had the chicken pizza, and finished it all off with Mars Bar cheesecake. Just superb. Afterwards Michella and I spent some quality time together on the PS3 playing The Simpsons. At night we had some dinner with Peter and Karen, then hired "Sicko". I figure you can only believe about 50% of anything you see in a Michael Moore movie, but even if that's true, the stuff in this movie is pretty amazing. Some of the footage of broke hospital patients being dumped outside of homeless shelters was particularly disturbing.

Saturday

Planned a little trip down to McLaren Vale to do a "Cheese and Wine Trail". We picked up our picnic basket (really more of a cooler) from a place called "Blessed Cheese" around lunch time, and visited a number of wineries in the region, who provided tastings of wines matched to the cheeses we had. Apart from the fact that the first cheese we had (a goatsmilk from Udder Delights) tasted like feet, it was quite an enjoyable experience. Because I was the sober one I drove home. Dinner was again with Michella's parents, and we finished the night with a DVD screening of "The Simpsons Movie".

Sunday

Was on Sunday School this morning, and ended up playing guitar for the kiddies. Since I hadn't really played in a few years I was a little concerned, but it all turned out OK. Had a family lunch at Mum and Dad's, followed by a game of Pictionary, where Michella and I were totally robbed. And the one time I decided to play without cheating. There's a life lesson for you. At night we played roughly 100 games of Mario Kart, with me coming last in about 99 of them. Awesome.

Monday

Spent some time in the morning getting my house ready for the auction next weekend, and then went to the gym. I ran for half an hour on the treadmill then exited quickly, as I had the overwhelming urge to throw up (I didn't). We went down to Semaphore in the afternoon to see "Vantage Point". I didn't know a whole lot about it heading in but I was pleasantly surprised - it's about the assasination of an American President, but told from six different perspectives. You don't really figure out everything that's going on until the final chapter of the movie. Afterwards we spent some more time battling The Simpsons Game, until I gave myself a headache and had to get an early night. I'm getting old.

And how does this make my life easier?

So I got a letter from my credit card company yesterday.

It read . . .

Dear DARREN

Your new limit: $0.00

Here it is! Your new credit limit. We hope this makes your life a little easier.

If you've got any questions, please give our Customer Care Team a call on 1800 080 000. We're here for you 24 hours a day and would love to help.

Thanks guys, that's great. One more thing I need to clear up now.

Era Vulgaris

I used to hate it when, as an avid fan of a band, I would buy their album the day it was released. Only to find out in a couple of months time it was being re-released with a special bonus disc of extra songs, live material, or sometimes a DVD. So unless I wanted to buy the same album twice, I missed out on all the extra stuff.

No longer though. These days I can download the album from the internet, as soon as it is released, or perhaps even a few months before. Then wait until the inevitable re-release and spend my money on that.

Today I picked up the special "tour edition" of the latest Queens of the Stone Age record, "Era Vulgaris", with a bonus live CD from Amsterdam (I'm guessing these guys spend a bit of time in that city). It's great - nice deluxe double CD packaging, cool artwork - so glad I didn't just buy the regular CD when it first came out like some loser. Anyway I'm rediscovering my love for QOTSA - lately I've been listening to a lot of quieter, more downbeat music, so it's great to hear something a bit noisier and uglier for a change.

The album itself isn't their best, but who knows, it might grow on me. If you're interested check out "Into the Hollow", featuring the always stunning vocals of Mr Mark Lanegan.

Wow

This is a pretty nice block

Pics from Poker Night

Murray McHuber and his famous yard glass

Corey cutting the deck (and possibly doing that thing Worm does in Rounders where he cheats, who knows?)

Ando showing no emotion, all business.

Me and my poker face (this was after we'd run out of money and decided to give strip poker a try)

Big hand between Ando and Muzz

Darren joins the twenty-first century

No, I didn't get a mobile phone (that would be joining the twentieth century). Last night I finally got a Playstation 3.

This was really the one good thing to come out of getting robbed a month or two ago. I used the insurance payout on my stolen PS2, and put in a bit more cash, to upgrade to the PS3.

First of all though I needed games, so took all my old PS2 games to JB Hi-Fi at lunch time to trade them in. I got $118 in credit, which I thought was pretty good considering how dated some of the games were. I mean, who is going to go and buy a five year old second hand copy of NBA Live 03 for their Playstation? Anyway I used the credit to get a copy of "The Simpsons Game" for PS3, as well as a second controller (since I'm still planning on having some human contact, even with my awesome new gaming system).

So with my new game and extra controller in hand, I went to the games shop as specified by my insurance provider to pick up my new console after work last night. It was the same place they sent me the last time my Playstation got stolen a few years ago - a dark, dingy specialist games store on Payneham Road. Of course, this wasn't terribly convenient for me, since I work in the city and live on the other side of town, but I guess it was cheaper for the insurance company. Anyway, I got there a bit after five, and I swear the place hadn't changed in the last few years. The place was overrun with old games - and I'm talking PS1 and Nintendo 64 - which I can't see them ever selling. Especially since they were all still marked with their original prices. I kind of wanted to pick up a copy of "Golden Eye" and say "I'll take it - $49 right?". The whole place was just horribly depressing. After getting the console sorted out, the guy who worked there tried to convince me to outlay for a game, and when I declined he said "No worries, well you know where we are now" like I'd be back. Short of getting this Playstation stolen, I don't see it happening.

So I got it home and fired it all up last night and was rather happy with the whole thing. My first impressions of The Simpsons Game are that it isn't very challenging, which is good, since I'm not particularly skilled as a video games player. It's quite funny too, all of the comments made by the characters. My favourite was a conversation I heard passing Officer Lou and Martin on the street, with Lou complaining about some chocolates that Martin had sold him, and whether almond was an acceptable subsitute for rice in a "Crunch" chocolate bar. I also liked the cut scenes, which were basically like watching an episode of The Simpsons.

Today I went out and got some component video cables so I can use the system in HD, and more importantly, watch Blu-Ray movies on it in full high definition. I'm guessing I won't be leaving the house too much in the next few weeks . . .

You get what you pay for

If you're willing to apply yourself, and have a liberal attitude to copyright laws, you can find just about any kind of music (or movie, or TV show) on the internet for free.

Sometimes though, a band will come out and actually offer their recordings for free through their official website. Last year Radiohead did this with their new album, which surprisingly didn't suck as much as their last few. I think that should somehow be on the promotional material for that record.

This week Trent Reznor followed suit, and released his new recordings for Nine Inch Nails free over the net. Of course, being Trent he didn't limit himself to one album, but released four albums, composed entirely of instrumental music, devoid of track names. Hmm. Doesn't seem like such a great deal anymore.

I was going to download all four albums (hey, it's free, right?), until I realised I may not like it, and should start with just one. It was a good move. I got about half way through the first "album" when I realised it was all boring rubbish. Just a few mechanical noises and bleeps, a bit of distorted guitar, drum loops . . . with vocals they might have been actual songs, but without it's pretty uninspiring stuff.

Now onto something that I have been liking . . .

I picked up the first season of "Dexter" based only on a few good reviews I'd read, and am now three episodes in. The basic idea behind the show is that the protagonist - Dexter - is a forensic expert with the Miami police by day, and a serial killer by night. Except he only kills other serial killers. It's pretty good so far, kind of like a cross between Saw and CSI: Miami (I realise that doesn't sound particularly awesome, but it's not bad).

It airs on Showtime in the States, so there's a bit of violence and language. It doesn't seem to really fit the show though - it's shot like it's on network TV, so it's kind of like watching "Lost" with a whole bunch of "F" words. In "The Wire" or "Sopranos" that stuff fits right in, but on more mainstream fare it would seem out of place, like it does here. Anyway it's holding my attention so far, a few good twists and turns and the guy who plays Dexter is pretty good, so I'll be sticking with it.

Kind of punk but not really

I've come across two albums in the last week I've really liked - "Standing in the Way of Control" by The Gossip, and "Red of Tooth and Claw" by Murder By Death. Both bands are similar in a sense that they kind of get lumped in as punk bands, which is kind of undeserved.

The Gossip, as far as I can tell, are punk because they're fronted by an obese lesbian who claims she never showers, which is pretty punk if you think about it. But listening to the album, aside from the occasional scream, mostly I just hear a combination of Franz Ferdinand, The White Stripes, and a bunch of eighties pop music (on their "Live in Liverpool" record they cover George Michael's "Careless Whisper").

Murder by Death are punk, because they are on a punk record label, and generally tour with bands from that scene. While lyrically they cover some similar ground, musically they're completlely unique. With a mix of guitar, drums, piano and cello, they sound like The National playing a show at Al Swearegen's on a Saturday night in 1876. Most of their songs are set in the old west, but it's a long way from the sanitised version of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne films. I'm guessing these guys are big Cormac McCarthy fans.

I'm really liking both of these CDs, but I know that if you were to ask me in twelve months, it's Murder by Death that will still be in strong rotation on my ipod. The Gossip produce good, disposable tunes, but what Murder by Death do is, without being too pretentious about it, art. "Red of Tooth and Claw" can't quite measure up to their best record "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?" - a concept record about the Devil waging war on a small Mexican town - but there are some tremendous moments, from the Pearl Jam-esque "Ash" to "Fuego", which I think is going to be their first single.

I couldn't find anything on youtube from the new album so here's something from one of their old albums which gives you an idea of what they're like.



And from The Gossip, "Jealous Girls".

How freaking awesome does this look?

I can't wait till 29 April.

Quick update

This morning on my commute into work I sat next to one of the worst smelling men I have ever come across. After a while I started to worry that the smell was attaching itself to my body and clothing, both of which I had gone to the trouble of recently cleaning. I wanted to ask him exactly how you could smell that bad, especially first thing in the morning. Naturally though, I didn't.

Saw the funniest numberplate I've seen in a while on my way home last night. DUBL-07. What type of car was it on you ask? A classic Aston-Martin? No, a Toyota Corolla.

One of my colleagues today told me a story about how Alby Mangels tried to pick her up in a bar when she was 22, then left messages on her phone for the next week, trying to get her to go to Africa with him. Then another colleague added that he also pestered her friends' Mum for a while. I thought this was awesome - I always wondered how he always had a different lady friend with him on all those "World Safari" movies, as it turns out, the key was hitting on every woman in sight until someone said yes.

I'm not racist, but . . .

It would be nice to ring my internet provider and talk to an Australian. In Australia.

I rang Dodo on Friday to complain about what I believed to be overcharging on my account. The girl (presumably based in Mumbai) told me that it was because I had 10gb of downloads a month, only five of those were in peak times, and I would have to use the other five in off peak periods (which would be awesome if my hobbies included surfing the net between the hours of 1am and 9am).

So anyway I told her I didn't believe I had that explained to me when I changed my package, and she said someone would call me back within 48 hours to play me the audio recording of my phone call, presumably with me agreeing to said conditions. It's now Monday and this hasn't happened, but whatever . . .

At this point, I suggested I might like to upgrade my package, to include an extra 10gb of downloads a month (giving me 10gb total in peak periods) for an extra $10.

She said she could help me with this, and after putting me on hold, came back after a while and explained two things.

1) My increase in downloads would occur with my new package starting at the end of March, a month away, and

2) If I wanted to downgrade my package at any point, there would be another fee, of roughly $100.

At this point I told her to cancel the upgrade, leave everything as it is. It seemed like she understood me. She asked me if I was happy with the call, and I said "Not really", to which she said "I understand".

Evidently she did not.

Because I got into work this morning and found an email from Dodo explaining that they were upgrading my account with increased download limits in March.

Now I think Indians are generally pretty smart people. They seem to make fine doctors and engineers. Not so much with the call centre jobs though. I presume it is because of the "English as a second language" thing. All I know is that I feel like I'm talking to a child when I try and explain myself to them. I was saying today that because they work on standard scripted answers, it's like talking to a computer, not a person, if you don't ask the right question, phrased the right way, they don't know how to deal with it. The whole time I was on the phone (including all of the breaks to "go talk with a supervisor") I couldn't help but think if I could talk to an Aussie in an Adelaide call centre I'd have the whole thing sorted in two minutes.

Dreams

I have some weird dreams sometimes. One that I have as a recurring one is being chased, actually more being hunted down. These dreams seem to last several hours, and often end up with me hiding out in a warehouse somewhere. I have no idea what, if anything, that means.

Last night I had one of these dreams, but with a twist - I was getting chased by Lee Harvey Oswald.


This is unusual on a few levels. First of all, Oswald is dead. Also, you wouldn't think he was suited to a chase situation, since he was apprehended like five minutes after the assassination, so probably isn't that good at running. Finally, he's a historical figure - what kind of a nerd dreams about men from history?

Anyway, the dream began innocently enough with Oswald sitting outside of a barber shop, handcuffs around his feet and his wrists. I assume my dream was set in 1963 because for some reason I knew he had just been arrested for shooting JFK. Anyway, I was sitting across from him, generally making fun of him for getting caught so quickly and easily. He took my insults for a while, his head hung low. I looked away, then looked back and noticed he was smiling at me. I looked down and saw he had somehow removed the chains around his feet and hands, and was ready to go.

And thus the chase begun. It felt like he pursued me for several hours, although I suppose in reality it was probably only a minute or two. Once I felt like I couldn't run anymore I managed to call the thing off by waking myself up.

Hopefully this will be a once-off type of thing, because I really hope I don't have to outrun John Wilkes Booth tonight, I just don't have the energy.

My new hero

Weighing in at 9kg, the world's smallest bodybuilder.

Two of my favourite things

Basketball and cupcakes, together at last . . .

Home Improvement

I spent most of the weekend doing handyman work around the house. It was a rather frustrating experience.

For example, in my experience, nothing ever goes right for me (in handyman terms, that is). I had to put a new doorhandle (which I bought three years ago) on a door, and after digging it out from my shed, realised I had lost a key part of it. I spent about half an hour looking around the shed, to no avail, so went to the hardware store. Since they only had one size of this particular part at Mitre 10, I assumed it was a one size fits all kind of thing. I was wrong. I got the part home and realised that I must have non-standard doorknobs, and my new standard part didn't fit. So I had to use my trusty angle grinder to grind it down to the correct size. Half an hour later it was done, and a job that should have taken me an hour to complete (ie one a qualified tradesmen would have finished in 15 minutes) took me an entire morning.


This scenario was repeated several times on Saturday and Sunday. And I realised that being a handyman isn't in my blood. I can usually complete most tasks, but not quickly, and certainly not well.

I can't wait to move . . .

We lost in the finals!

Well, we forfeited anyway. Jess and Wheelie had to woo their women, and Ash had to go to Sydney for work leaving us with four players, and ending our season.

It's unlikely we would have won (see previous post detailing our fantastic win/loss record for 2007/08) but it would have been nice to at least give it a go.

I'm not sure where this leaves us. I suspect our team has played its last game together, I think I'm ready for some time off at least. As you get older everyone starts to go their separate ways with wives, kids, careers and it gets harder and harder to get a full team each week (although having none of those three things, I'm usually pretty reliable).

Now all we're left with is the memories . . . Boris getting suspended for a season and then having to move the team to Port Adelaide to get around this, losing every year to Jarrad until we conviced him to join our team, the season Mike played for us and never learned how to do a lay-up, the Jamie era, Jimbo filling in and trashtalking to Jarrad, and Jarrad responding by kicking our butts, sharing a single jug of complimentary beer and a pizza after each grand final appearance (regardless of whether it was a win or a loss), winning in the finals, then within a year losing 90% of our regular season games . . . ahh, so many memories.

Valentine's Day

Being the romantic guy I am, I chose to celebrate Valentines Day yesterday by spending the night alone and indulging in a mindless action movie, called approproiately enough, "Shoot 'Em Up".



I can't compete with the plot recap posted on wikipedia, so I won't try . . .

The film follows Smith (Clive Owen), a down-and-out squatter with both an extensive military background and a fondness for carrots, who wants nothing more than to be left alone. Smith finds himself embroiled in a complex political conspiracy once he aids a pregnant woman who is being chased by a hitman. He takes the baby and goes on the run with a lactating prostitute (Monica Belluci). The unlikely family is trailed by the intelligent and ruthless Hertz (Paul Giamatti) and his army of thugs. A myriad of elaborate gunfights ensue, between which Smith pieces together the plot. A United States Senator who strongly supported gun control had been breeding babies for bone marrow to cure his cancer; a prominent gun manufacturer contracted Hertz to kill the babies, effectively killing the Senator. In the end, Smith, the prostitute, and the baby survive.

Yep, that's right. "Fondness for carrots", and "lactating prostitute" - not exactly mainstays of your typical action movie. It was good though, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact it was basically a 90 minute long gunfight. I quite liked Clive Owen in this, and even that annoying wine guy from "Sideways" was quite good. If you've got a night to yourself, or your loved one isn't averse to copious amounts of blood, you could do a lot worse than this for a quiet night in.

For sale: One brothel

Found out this week that our neighbourhood brothel (or so I'm told) is for sale. I always wondered what it looked like inside one of these places, and now I know. Although I have to say, just looking at that bathroom makes me feel ill . . .

As Corey pointed out, the key to the previous owners is in the first line of the descriptive text . . . "Unique 2 Storey Residence That Can Be Utilised For Various Purposes. In Need Of Urgent Sale - Vendor Relocating Interstate" . . . Corey said replace "various purposes" for "pimping" and it all makes sense.

I'm really enjoying the latest season of The Biggest Loser. Shannan is undoubtably the highlight, he's what Steve Irwin would have been like if he went into body building instead of crocodile hunting. There are many other characters which grab your interest to though, both good (Cosi from SA) and bad (Racheal the lazy punk lesbian).

I've been listening a lot to the Juno soundtrack lately, and have decided I really like it. Totally different from the stuff I'd normally listen to, most of the songs are pretty folkish and a bit child-like. It's quite good though, and fits in perfectly with the movie (which I also recommend).

Finally, there's a lolly shop in the city that sells Jelly Bellys by the flavour, and I've become quite a fan - I especially recommend the peanut butter ones.

Notes on a Scandal

Caught this on DVD on the weekend. I think it's safe to say that any time you have a movie starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, it probably wasn't my choice. However, I can't lie, I did really enjoy this.


(Spoiler alert)

The plot is as follows . . . Cate plays a new art teacher at an English school, and Judi the older teacher who befriends her. Right from the start Judi seems a little creepy and needy, and as the movie progresses she gets more so. When she finds out Cate is having an affair with one of her 15 year old students, she takes the opportunity to manipulate the situation and separate her from her husband and family, and have her move into her house. Eventually Cate realises Judi is psycho, they have a fights and Cate moves out, and the film ends with Judi chatting up a new woman.

The one thing I found weird was it felt like the movie was building to some act of violence the whole time, but it never happened, it was a little unusual. Although maybe that was all by design. It kind of reminded me of the movie "Match Point", which had a similar sort of feel, but ended with an inexplicable amount of bloodshed, certainly in comparison to what the rest of the movie would have you expect.

Anyway, this was a pretty good film. Definitely kept my attention, although seeing as you pretty much know everything that's going to happen, it may not do the same for you.

We're in the finals!

So this year my basketball team won one game, drew in another, and lost the remaining twelve. Naturally then I was a little surprised to find out today that we're in the finals, starting this week. Not exactly sure how that happened, but I assume it involved a combination of forfeits by the opposition, losses that became wins because the other teams played unregistered players, and teams dropping out.

So we apparently ended up ranked 4th on the ladder, despite the fact that we lost more than 80% of our games.

Our reward is that we get to play the top ranked team this week in the first round, just to prolong our worst season ever a little bit more.

Our chances probably aren't great, even more so since we will be missing two key players, with Wheelie and Jesse having Valentines Day committments. A special Doug Christie jersey is in the post for both of them. You don't see me missing finals games. The fact that my girlfriend is in Queensland this week is irrelevant. Disappointing.

Anyway, I guess we could win, stranger things have happened . . . check back Friday to find out . . .

Shooter

I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, and finally got around to grabbing it Monday night. If you like watching guys get shot with sniper rifles, and people being blown up, I highly recommend.


Mark Wahlberg plays a retired army guy who was left for dead by his Army superiors in an operation gone wrong. He returns to America (alive obviously) and lives a life of solace in a log cabin in the woods. Until some Government guy (played by Danny Glover) visits him one day, and tells him they need him to help them foil an assassination attempt on the President. Except, being the Government, they are all corrupt, and they end up setting him up as an assassin, and the rest of the movie is Marky Mark getting revenge on all the guys who tried to screw with him.

I thought for what it was the movie was really well done, lots of great action scenes, and Wahlberg continues his stretch of awesome movies (Boogie Nights, The Departed, Four Brothers, Three Kings, The Italian Job).

Rating: Somewhere between four stars and two thumbs up.

Big Day Out 2008

Last Friday Muzz and I went to the Big Day Out. For me it was possibly the last time, like any old timer will tell you, music is getting worse, and this is reflected in the lineup. How could I pass up the opportunity to see a reformed Rage Against The Machine though? I couldn't, so I made it to Wayville one last time . . .

We got there around 1pm, and looked for a park in the side streets off Goodwood Road. I knew we'd have to walk a bit, but that wasn't the problem - this year the council had made every single carpark within about a 2km radius of the showgrounds a 2 hour zone. I suppose it's fair, you wouldn't want all the rich people in Goodwood to have strangers parking outside their house for one day in January each year.

We ended up parking a way away at Forrestvile and so were a bit late, and missed the start of Gyroscope's set. They were playing on one of the side stages at 1.30pm and someone must have severely underestimated their popularity, because the place was packed. We eventually got in a position where we could see OK but the sound wasn't the best. And they mainly seemed to play songs from either their really early albums, or their latest album, none of which are as good as the stuff from "Are You Involved"? They were OK, but nothing close to how good they were when we saw them a few months back at Fowlers.

After they finished playing we realised he didn't have anyone we wanted to see for the next six or seven hours, so went to the bar. We had a couple of beers, and laughed at a middle aged security guard who was fighting a losing battle, trying to stop people entering via the exit. I thought he was going to break down in tears at one point. Still, pretty amazing that people don't even listen to security guards these days.

After a while we got a call from Corey, and headed out to the main oval to watch the bands. The Hilltop Hoods were OK, better than I expected, although that might just be in comparison to everyone else. It was pretty funny watching thousands of white people trying to dance like they were black.

We went and got some food, then hung out at a bar some more. After this we headed back to the main arena to try and get in to the D-section up front well in time for Rage.

We got in during the Arcade Fire's set, which was actually a bit of a drag as it meant we had to listen to them play. I counted ten musicians on stage, and yet they still struggled to make something you would describe as "music". Then silverchair were next, and sucked it up real good too. Not only was their music boring, but Daniel Johns just comes across as completely full of himself. He also took the time out to tell us that he wasn't gay, not that anyone actually asked.

Speaking of people who are gay, during Bjork's set Corey started chatting to one of the crowd members, and the guy took the opportunity to try and pick Cors up. He was quite persistent, was good for a laugh, and to distract us from the horrible sounds Bjork was making a few hundred metres away. If you can imagine a musical equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard, that's what it sounded like. It was so bad I actually started to reminisice about silverchair.

So basically that takes us to about 8.45pm, at which point it was officially the worst BDO I'd ever been too. I mean, I knew the lineup was thin going in, but I wasn't ready for it to be this bad.

None of that really mattered when Rage finally took the stage though. From the moment they started with "Testify", they were simply amazing. I think they actually sound better live that on record. You kind of take the sounds that Tom Morello pulls out of a guitar for granted, until you actually see him pull in off live, while stomping across the stage. For four guys they have a huge sound, and it's completely their own - noone else comes close to sounding like they do.

Highlights were Wake Up, Bulls on Parade, Know Your Enemy, Vietnow, and Guerilla Radio. Yep, that's about half their set, they were that good.

They finished at 10.15pm or so, and thanks to the council and their awesome carparking regulations, and music fans who walk about 3km/hour, we got back to the car at 11pm. It was great to see RATM at least once, but I don't think I'll be back to the Big Day Out. Consider me retired.

I still need a PS3

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good

American Gangster - Saw this yesterday at Arndale (the perfect setting for a movie about gangsters). Really enjoyed it, although it took a while to get into, and I don't really think it's necessary for any film to be over two hours long. I don't really like Russel Crowe, but Denzel is great and as always, he's so charming you forgive him the occasional outbursts of violence. However, (spoiler alert), I thought it was a bit ridiculous that in the end his character only served 15 years in prison - even though he did help put away 75% of New York City's DEA for corruption, he did some bad stuff in the film, like shoot guys in the face over monetary disputes. Seems like that would justify a lengthy sentence. Also liked the fact that Stringer from "The Wire" and Saul from "Deadwood" had major roles.

The bad

Getting robbed - For the second time in 2 1/2 years, I got robbed. This time they took all the regular items (home theatre amplifier, playstation) but also upped their game and took my laptop and camera, with all my photos from the last year. Thanks guys! Now I'm looking at how I can sell up and move to a suburb without so many poor people.

The ugly

Trying to entertain myself last Thursday night in a house with no internet and no dvd player. That pretty much cut out all of my traditional entertainment options. After getting robbed I was too annoyed to read, so I just went to bed.

Weekend in Melbourne

Being the spontaneous, seize the day kind of guy that I am, I decided last Monday to take advantage of $10 one way Tiger airfares to Melbourne and go across for the weekend. That's one of the great things about not having kids, or even a vibrant social life - you're pretty much free to come and go as you please. Of course it wasn't really hard to sell Michella on a weekend of eating and shopping in Melbourne, so I had a travel partner lined up in no time.

We got dropped off at the airport just before 7pm on Friday night, by Michella's mum. Which was great, as it meant we got to save valuable money, which Michella could spend on shoes over the next few days. It did feel a little weird though, like we were siblings getting dropped off at summer camp, or something like that.

We found the Tiger check-in desk (it was their second day flying out of Adelaide, so they hadn't got onto anything like signage just yet), and the nice lady behind the counter must have thought we looked like the responsible type, because she gave us exit row seats. The flight attendant on the plane explained our responsibilities, which led to a discussion about whether Michella could lift the 15kg door in case of an emergency. Eventually she admitted that she couldn't, and I suggested she should tell someone and asked to be moved, but she ignored me.

We sat next to a lovely young man who was heading to Cambodia to volunteer at a hospital as part of his medical degree. If I was to pick one thing that was slightly annoying, it would be that he would often listen in on our conversations, then join in if he had something to add. But I'm not the complaining type, so live and let live eh?

We got into Melbourne at about 10pm, and took the Skybus into the centre of Melbourne (kind of a misleading name, as it unfortunately travelled on the road, much like a regular bus). We then grabbed a taxi, and I told the driver (or indeterminable African descent) "The Sebel at Albert Park thanks". He didn't exactly look confident that he knew where that was, but then he didn't say anything about not knowing either. On the way out of the city it became obvious he wasn't sure when he asked me what route he should take. I felt like responding "You picked me up from the airport and are taking me to a hotel - why would you think I'm a local who knows their way around". Anyway after some trial and error we found the place.

Saturday morning we woke up about 9ish. Well Michella did anyway, pictorial evidence would suggest I was a little slow getting out of bed.


We asked downstairs for directions to the Prahan markets, and the concierge replied "Well, it's a little beyond walking distance." We took that as a challenge and set off on foot. On our way there we stopped at a nice little French cafe for breakfast. Michella had fruit and yogurt. I considered my plan of eating healthy over the weekend, decided to change the play on the fly, and went with a bacon and egg sandwich. One of the waitresses at the cafe was French, and had a great accent. I think you can get away with a lot with an accent - I know girls are big fans of the Scottish accent on guys, and the French one on girls is pretty cool. Not so much with guys though.

After breakfast we walked to the Prahan markets. The neighbourhoods we walked through were really nice, although very gay. I'm not sure if it's something in the water, but there seems to be a lot more men who love other men in Melbourne. The markets themselves were pretty nice, quite small compared with the Adelaide Central Market, but smelled a lot better.


I was surprised to find a shop that sells your stuff on ebay - someone must have watched "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and thought "that actually sounds like a decent idea".


Exiting the markets we came out onto Chapel Street. Over the next few hours we entered about 1,453 shoe stores, 1,325 handbag stores, and a few that combined the two.



Also, I had an awesome burger from TGI Friday's, and Michella had Yum Cha from some Asian Tea House (which I shared in - the weekend of healthy eating continues!). Michella bought some shoes, I bought a black polo shirt from Country Road, and we began the long walk back to our hotel.

After showers and a bit of a rest, we took a cab down to Toorak Road for dinner (no more walking for us). We settled on a nice Italian restaurant called "ecco", and had a rather pleasant dinner. Michella had pasta with oxtail, I had what was basically a meatlovers pizza (although as it was a classy joint, the pieces of meat were few and far between). After dinner we walked to the Jam Factory complex on Chapel Street to see "American Gangster" but it was all sold out, so we had coffee in Borders and read magazines we had no intention of buying. We got back to the hotel about 9.30pm, had a drink in the bar and then went to the pool/gym area. There was already another couple in the spa and Michella didn't feel like sharing water with them so she just waited as I lifted weights for a while, then it was bedtime.

Sunday morning we got up a bit later, and went back to our favourite French cafe for breakfast. On the way we passed an incredibly creepy looking gay man (ie he was wearing a very loose fitting pair of underwear, and a leather jacket, and that was pretty much it). Unfortunately he stopped off at our cafe, rambled a bit, ordered a coke, got up and walked around, then finally left. Luckily he never got within a few metres of us, I'm pretty sure we could have caught something just being in his presence.


We walked back to the hotel, and enjoyed their complementary business centre, where I checked my fantasy team's progress, and was pleased to discover they had banded together in my absence and were kicking butt. At about 12.15 Michella's friend Nat and her partner Geoff picked us up and took us to the Docklands for lunch. Since it was only about an hour since we'd finished breakfast I wasn't exactly hungry, but ordered a main serve of calamari anyway. It was good.



After lunch Nat and Geoff took us to a place called "Misty's Diner" - an American-style diner attached to a car wash - for thickshakes.

After arriving and perusing the menu of American style junk food I kind of wished we ate our lunch here. A couple of Asian waitresses came over to take our order, but only one seemed to speak English. Seemed a bit weird, if you're going to hire waitresses in an American style restaurant that can't speak English, shouldn't they at least speak Spanish? After a bit Misty herself came over to talk to us and take us through the menu.

I chose the Reeses Pieces thickshake, which she said came to her one night late in bed (the idea that is). It was indeed a wonderful shake.


Back at the hotel we had a rest then went for a swim in the hotel pool, and sat for a while in the lukewarm spa. We couldn't really be bothered going anywhere for dinner so went downstairs to the hotel bar. I had a pizza which had a "secret bolognese sauce" on it, and was topped with a rocket salad. It was surprisingly tasty.

Monday morning we got a 5.15am wakeup call, which is, in my experience, too early to get a wakeup call. Grabbed a cab outside the hotel, and got dropped off at Spencer Street station. The fare came to $12.40, looking in my wallet I saw I could make that exact amount so paid him without tip. Needless to say, the driver didn't get out to help us with our bags after that. We jumped on the extremely efficient (if a little mis-labeled) Skybus and found ourselves at the airport just after 6.30am.


We checked in, then walked over to the main domestic terminal to get some breakfast. Unfortunately Hungry Jacks at Melbourne Airport don't serve a breakfast menu, so I was faced with a dilemma - go elsewhere or order a Whopper with cheese for breakfast. I don't think I need to tell you which way I went. Although I did wash it down with an orange juice, which was rather breakfast-y I thought.

The flight back was rather uneventful, other than the fact that we didn't have exit row seats this time, and I possibly would have had more space on one of those Africa - America slave ships. Also, there was a minor issue with a tap in the toilets that I couldn't turn off. Got into Adelaide around 9.30am, and got a lift into work with Dad. All in all a good trip, and for $20 return I certainly can't complain.

At the movies with Darren

Last Monday I believe (New Year's Eve) it was, as I recall, ridiculously hot, so the girl and I decided to stay cool and grab a DVD during the day. We settled on "Lucky You", which I thought would have something for both of us - it's a romantic comedy (for Michella) starring Drew Barrymore (for me), and also about poker (me again). Also, Michella picked out some really dodgy movie starring Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser which I knew she wouldn't actually watch. The funniest part was watching her reaction to finding it, plus her reaction to my comments like "Michael Keaton AND Brendan Fraser, that's amazing - how the hell were they both available?!?!"

Anyway, we sat down to watch "Lucky You", and it was a pretty big disappointment. Eric Bana plays a professional poker player who falls for Drew Barrymore, treats her like crap, steals her money to gamble, realises he's made a big mistake, tries to get her back, fails, somehow gets to the final table in the World Series of Poker, realises that winning isn't everything and lets his Dad (a fellow poker player) beat him, and then of course wins Drew back since she's inexplicably travelled back to Vegas to see his big game. So it's not really that surprising or original.

Last Friday night we decided would be a "date" night. Not sure really how this differs from a regular Friday night, other than the fact that I had to spring for a nicer restaurant than normal. Anyway we had dinner at Cafe Eros, which was pretty disappointing. You would think that in a Greek cafe, you could get a yiros or something similar, but there was no such option. I went with the "mixed grill" which was like a regular mixed grill I suppose, but being Greek, much more oily. Michella had some sort of pastry thing and salad. We shared some pita and dips which were pretty good, although that's pretty hard to stuff up. The worst part was we were on a tight schedule - we had a 5.30pm dinner reservation, and 6.40pm movie, and didn't get our mains till 6.30pm. I stress out a lot over stuff like that so was pretty wound up by the time we finally got our food.

The movie we decided to see was "No country for old men". I thought it was brilliant. It's directed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski), and is about a Llewellen Moss (played by Josh Brolin) who comes across $2 million in cash in the middle of the desert, in the midst of what appears to be a drug deal gone bad. Later that night his conscience gets the better of him, and he returns to the scene to take some water to a dying man who was injured in an apparent gunfight, but when he arrives he finds the man is dead, and that the owners of the money have also returned, and give chase. The rest of the film sees a psychopathic killer Anton Chigur on Moss' trail, while the local Sherrif (played by Tommy Lee Jones) tries to keep up with the two of them, and keep Moss safe.

The guy who plays Chigur does a great job - he's one of the creepiest movie characters I've ever seen. Woody Harrelson is also great as a rival hired killer who shows up in the middle part of the film. The best part of this is the direction though - the cinematography and music are tremendous, and create an incredibly tense mood throughout. Because of this, Michella wasn't a huge fan. In fact, I think she may have described it as the worst "date" of her life. Nevertheless, I had fun.

Finally, last night we watched "The Bourne Ultimatum" on DVD. People seem to love these movies but I'm a bit ambivalent. I can see the appeal - exotic locations, spectactular car chases, violence . . . but I just kind of lose interest. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge Matt Damon fan. Who knows. Anyway this was OK, but at the end of the day, I think I'd rather watch a James Bond movie. So if you like Matt Damon and think it's conceivable he could be a lethal killing machine, go see this. Otherwise, don't. It's up to you.

Extras Christmas Special Trailer