Disappointed

Last night Muzz and I caught Rob Zombie's remake of "Halloween" at Arndale. I was disappointed.

I was really looking forward to this - Rob Zombie has made two of my favourite horror movies, and so I didn't think he could screw it up. But he did, it just really wasn't that scary.

Maybe it's got something to do with the source material - back in the seventies the original Halloween was probably pretty scary, but these days, a big man wearing a mask and lumbering around killing people isn't that terrifying. In fact, he looked more comedic than scary most of the time. There were hints of his earlier movies, in terms of some of the white-trash characters, especially in the first half of the film. But the second half (when Michael Myers is an adult) was just like any other horror movie remake.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie was the casting - Zombie uses the same actors from movie to movie, so it's kind of fun to pick out all of the regulars, sometimes in quite different roles than they usually play. I also enjoyed the doctor from "Deadwood" as the Sheriff, and Ari's boss from "Entourage" as Dr Loomis.

In short, wait for the DVD, or don't bother.

A few quick reviews

Reign Over Me
Sunday night watched the Don Cheadle/Adam Sandler movie "Reign Over Me". Normally I'd steer pretty clear of Adam Sandler, but this was one of his "serious" movies, and received a good review from Forcey so gave it a go. Basically, Adam Sandler plays a reclusive ex-dentist, who lost his family in the 9/11 plane crashes. One day his old college room mate, played by Don Cheadle, runs into him on the street, and they rekindle their friendship as Cheadle trys to help Sandler deal with post traumatic stress, and face the world again. A pretty good movie, although a little long, and Liv Tyler's role as a psychiatrist is probably the most ridiculous casting since Denise Richards played a nuclear scientist in that Bond movie.

Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Wu-Tan Clan's albums have been getting progressively worse since their debut but I downloaded this one yesterday and have actually been enjoying it quite a bit. Especially the song they do where they sample The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Arrested Development
I borrowed the first season of this off of a colleague and am quite enjoying it. It's not great, or always laugh out loud funny, but it is cleverly written. And for me these days, that's enough.

Temptation

A couple of months ago I got turned onto something called Chester Slice, that they sell at the "Ned Kelly Bakery" around the corner from me.

I'm not really sure why I chose to try it, because it doesn't look all that appetising. It's basically a vanilla slice bottom with icing on top, but instead of custard in the middle there is a type of dark fruit cake. Anyway, it is delicious, and now I'm hooked.

Until now this hasn't posed a huge problem to my waistline because the only place I could get this item was around the corner from my house, limiting my consumption to weekends. But this week I found out that the Price's Bakery in Southern Cross Food Court sells them as well.

This could pose a problem for me, it's kind of like how Robert Downey Jr would feel if they opened up a cocaine shop next door to his house. I've had two this week already, the most recent one being about half an hour ago. And I think I need to set myself some limits here, or all the trips to the gym in the world aren't going to help me. Why is everything that is tasty so bad for me? I don't understand things like that.

Songs I love

I've been getting a lot of questions about the playlist for my upcoming 31st birthday party. I wasn't going to release any of the details, but what the hell . . . if you're in my backyard on the morning of Satruday 8 December, you could probably expect to hear a few of these songs . . .

The Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping up to Boston
I first heard these guys when this song was featured in "The Departed". I haven't taken the time to listen to much of their back catalogue since, but this song is a winner. It's got it all - heavy guitars, banjo, some accordion. Basically it sounds like a bunch of pirates getting together to form a punk rock band. From what I can understand, the lyrics are about climbing the top mast. A great song.



The Gallows - Abandon Ship
Because really, you can't have too many punk rock songs about sailing.



The Killers with Lou Reed - Tranquilize
This is the first song off the new Killers B-sides album. I'm not sure about the rest of the CD yet but I love this song, it might be my pick for song of the year. I love the western sounding intro, it kind of reminds me of the Dandy Warhols during their "13 Tales from Urban Bohemia" era. My colleague reckons it reminds her of Jon Bon Jovi during his "Young Guns" era, but I think she's just trying to piss me off. Bonus marks as well for the backing vocals from the little kids, a la "The Wall". I love that The Killers seem to be mixing in these classic rock influences into their sound, hints of Pink Floyd and Queen as well as the eighties stuff. Partygoers will definitely be hearing this one.



Radiohead - All I Need
I kind of gave up on Radiohead after OK Computer, but this song is fantastic. Really chilled out but still with a driving beat. And like, an actual melody, which they don't seem to care too much about these days.



Ryan Adams - Down In A Hole
I heard he was playing this Alice in Chains cover on his latest tour, and was hoping we'd get it in Adelaide. No such luck, as he played the bare minimum before ending the show rather early. Anyway, he's recorded a studio version of this song and released it on a new ep and it's pretty cool. Quite a bit of Alice In Chains' acoustic stuff has a country-ish feel to it anyway, but the slide guitar is definitely a welcome addition.

Go Sixers!

Saturday night I attended my first Sixers game for the season with a few friends. We've had a pretty terrible season so far, and have now lost Maher, so expectations aren't real high. However, the team has won a few in a row now, and was taking on the second year South Melbourne Dragons, who were one spot below us on the ladder, so I thought we might pull through.


We started pretty well, with new import Adam Balinger doing whatever he wanted offensively. I'm with Forcey on this one, he might be my favourite Sixer ever. He reminds me a bit of Dusty Rychart - a big, fundamentally sound power forward with a nice shot, but a willingness to work hard inside. I wasn't such a huge fan of our other import Mike Chappelle - not sure if I've been scarred by the Willie Farley experience, but I'm not really into import guards who mostly just shoot the ball. And not always well.


Still, the lack of offensive firepower on the team became evident, especially with Maher out - at one point I realised of their 52 points, 27 were from Balinger, 10 from Ng, 10 from Chappelle, and the rest of the team had a combined five.

Anyway, as we went into the fourth quarter up by 20, I started explaining to Michella that if this was the NBA, Balinger would spend much of the final period on the bench, enraging his fantasy owners. Not long after though South began their comeback, eventually cutting a twenty point lead to 1 point. There were a couple of causes - the Dragons played a pretty good trap in the final period, and Davidson had a bit of trouble with it (Maher would have been handy here). Also, Heal and Ingles took over, Ingles in particular hitting two huge step back threes.

It took two made free throws with about 5 seconds remaining from Balinger to seal the deal and give the Sixers a three point win. A great game, and I'm a big Adam Balinger fan now.


A few other random notes:

Nicest jersey I saw - A brand new Boston Celtics Ray Allen
Worst tattoo - The guy who had a tattoo of Ned Kelly on his bicep. You know, the one with the bucket on his head.
Biggest disappointment - The umpiring was horrible, with the Sixers getting tackled a few times in the last quarter. You just knew a Boti Nagy column was coming on Monday.
Worst nickname - The Ninja (Darren Ng) - am I the only one who finds this borderline racist? Why not call him "Fried Rice"?

Postgame

After coffee and cake at Evida's at Henley, we weren't quite ready to call it a night, so went to McDonalds at Fulham for a Big Mac. We talked ourselves into it by remembering that it was McHappy Day, so at least we'd be helping the kids while piling on the kilos. Anyway, the Fulham McDonalds is a hole these days. Not sure if its being remodeled but it was a mess inside. So we grabbed our burgers to go, and noticed that outside there were a whole heap of cars full of young teenage men. Cruising is what they call it. Just driving around, playing music, every now and then yelling at people in other cars. I don't understand the attraction, seems pretty gay to me. But I noticed as we were driving home these people were pretty much everywhere. Mostly driving Commodores and Skylines. It's weird, I don't remember this being a big thing when I was younger. Sure, sometimes, we'd drive down to the Quix to get frozen cokes, but I don't think we ever spent the night just cruising around. Kids these days . . .

Remembering the Spice Girls

So last night I went to tea at Michella's cousin Sharna and her husband Dave's house. After a delicious meal of roast chicken we settled down to a game of "Battle of the Sexes". For those who might not know about the game (like me before last night), it involves teams split by gender being asked general knowledge questions skewed towards the interests of the other sex.

For example, Michella, her sister Rhianna and Sharna got questions about lathes and Rugby Union, while Dave and I got questions about sewing and cosmetics. And the Spice Girls.

We were asked to name all of the Spice Girls, and I took up the challenge . . . and surprisingly I managed to name all five. The names came slowly at first, but as I rattled them off one after the other the impressed gasps turned to laughter. It was an exhilarating and then slightly awkward moment, as I could see the "We're so breaking up after this" look in Michella's eyes.

I actually have no idea at what point I learned the names of the Spice Girls. And obviously it worries me a little that the information is still hanging around in my head. At least I was able to make use of it, if only to amuse my friends.

Inflation

So I stop off at my favourite Vietnamese bakery on the way into work this morning, planning on grabbing one of their sultana muffins.

I request the muffin, count out the $1.40 from my wallet, and the lady responds "That will be $1.95 thanks".

"Huh?"

"$1.95. Prices go up today."

So I stepped back, took a look at the cabinet, and sure enough, prices had gone up. And not the usual amount of 10% or so. Choc donuts - were $1.60, now $2.40. Basically everything had gone up by 50%. It was like someone had told her how much baked goods were currently selling for, and she was unaware as she's spent every day for the past ten years in her little shop from 7am-5.30pm.

The thing she probably doesn't realise is her wares really aren't all that nice. The low price is a key selling point. If she's going to charge the same as everyone else, I may as well go elsewhere. And I probably will.

Gyroscope

So Sunday night I went to see Gyroscope at Fowlers Live, my final concert for 2008.

We (Narelle, Murray and I) arrived at about 8.15pm, and found out it would be another two hours or so before Gyroscope took to the stage. We saw a bit of the first support act, but skipped the second for a trip to the West Terrace Maccas. Murray said he hadn't had tea, so we got some burgers, although I found out the next day he'd actually enjoyed a dinner of fish and chips, but had just forgotten about it. I was shocked to discover that a hot apple pie now costs $2.25. Daylight robbery if you ask me.

We got back to the venue just as the second band were finishing up their set, and waited another half an hour or so as Gyroscope set up. They finally got on at about 10.15pm, and played for about an hour. It was a great show, with most of the hits from their last album, "Are You Involved?"

A few things weren't quite right though . . .

1) It was too loud. My ears were ringing for five minutes after leaving, and I heard Murray's still were the next day. I like loud music as much as the next guy, but if you've got one instrument drowning out everything else it's a waste, I'd rather they turned it down a bit and worked on the mix.

2) It was an all ages show. Kids are more annoying these days than they were 15 years ago. Examples of their behaviour included the guy who was jumping around in the mosh pit, and then coming back to kiss and hug his girlfriend every few minutes, and the two teenage girls next to me who sang the lyrics to each song loudly while staring lovingly at each other. Weird.

3) Sunday nights aren't ideal for a rock concert, when you have a job.

Still, all in all it was a really good concert. The band were a lot tighter than when we saw them at the Uni Bar last year, and they definitely put on a really energetic show. Highlights were "A Slow Dance", "Beware Wolf" and "Snakes and Ladders".

Next up - Big Day Out and Rage Against the Machine.

Rogue Assassin plus Death Proof

I was planning on watching "Rogue Assassin" at the movies. But then I found out I could watch it for free on the internet, and so I just did that.

I reckon there was probably something lost watching it on my laptop, but even still, it wasn't very good. It stars Jason Statham as an FBI agent who is trying to track down "Rogue", played by Jet Li. "Rogue" killed his partner (FBI partner, not the other type) in a flashback at the start of the film, and now Jason wants revenge. There was also a plot about a war between the Triads and the Yakuza in San Francisco, but I couldn't really understand that since they all looked the same to me.

Anyway, you don't watch a movie like this for the plot. The trailer promised lots of shootouts, car chases and kung fu fighting, and it didn't really feel like the movie delivered here.

I like Jason Statham a lot. He was great in "Snatch", and the first "Transporter" film. Most of his other movies have been pretty rubbish though, especially that "Crank" movie, which was just ridiculously bad. Sadly this seems to follow in that tradition. I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't.

I also saw "Death Proof", the Quentin Tarantino-directed half of "Grind House" recently. Again, I wasn't a huge fan. I'm starting to notice a pattern with Tarantino's films. After the masterpiece of "Pulp Fiction", he turned in "Jackie Brown". He followed that with the brilliant "Kill Bill", and now this. It's like he takes every second movie off.

Anyway, this mainly consists of a psychotic stunt car driver (Kurt Russell) chasing down women in his "death proof" car, which he's modified so that he can crash into other cars and still live. It's split into two sections, with each focussing on a different group of girls. Most of the time though is just them talking about girl stuff, and while the dialogue is usually great in his films, it's rather boring in this.

So overall I wouldn't recommend this. Hopefully "Planet Terror" is an improvement, because this was a bit of a let down.

TV on the internet

About a week or so ago I had my internet connection upgraded from 256kps to 1.5mbps. The difference seems about the same as when I went from dial up to broadband. Which means it is much, much faster.

The major benefit of all of this speed means I can now watch internet video without waiting for it to buffer. So I've spent a little more time on youtube, mainly checking out basketball highlight videos. This is great, but there is only so much you can take of watching 3-4 minute clips.

However, I've come across another site which I'm loving - www.watchtvsitcoms.com

Basically it's a youtube type page where you can watch entire TV shows in real time eg you don't need to bother downloading them first. There's a limited number of shows up there, but you've got all your major hits - The Simpsons, Prison Break, 24 etc. There's even a few movies, which is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to watching the remake of "Halloween" some time soon.

I wouldn't be surprised if this gets shut down soon, but until it does I'll be a regular.

Scrabble, basketball, and weathermen

I've started reading a book on the world of competitive Scrabble playing, called "Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis, which I borrowed off Penglis several years ago. It's pretty good so far, although I'm not really learning any special techniques that will help me with my game. It's amazing the difference though between social games and competitive ones - if I'm playing I try to not use words that I couldn't put in sentence. Or at least give a definition for. I can honestly say though that I've never heard of 90% of the words that are used in the professional games described in this book. Words like "fustian", "eloiners", "oxtering" and "filariid".

After my rant about how all music sucks these days, I found something new that I like, an ep from Maynard Keenan's new project Puscifer. It's no Tool, but it's pretty good nevertheless.

If you're looking for quality basketball videos on youtube, check this out. http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=truehoop

This was my personal favourite . . .



Also, Bill Simmons took a break this week from talking about baseball and football on his podcast to talk about the NBA with Charles Barkley. Definitely worth listening to.

I got the first issue in my subscription to "Esquire" this week. I'm really enjoying it so far. There's a few too many ads for $10,000 wristwatches, but it does feature Chuck Klosterman as a regular columnist. And there's a really interesting - and quite lengthy - article on Kobe in this issue. Plus pictures of Charlize Theron. No down side really.

The Kobe story is up online if you want to check it out . . .

http://www.esquire.com/features/the-game/kobebryant1107-2

I got a phone call as I was walking into the office yesterday morning from my old buddy Keith Martin, at the printer with his almanac, checking a few last event dates with me. He asked me when the Barossa Under the Stars and Big Day Out were going to be. I had to fight the urge to say "Are you serious Keith? You don't have your Big Day Out tickets yet? Rage Against the Machine are playing! You can not miss this show!"

Just another reason why I need a PS3

Is music getting worse?

I think it is.

Over the last month or so, I've aquired new albums from the following bands: R.E.M., Jose Gonzales, Eddie Vedder, Thursday, Radiohead, and PJ Harvey.

From these six albums, I think I really like two songs - Jose Gonzales' cover of the Massive Attack song "Teardrop", and the Radiohead song "All I Need". Not a good success rate. And yet if you were to ask me what kind of music I like, names like R.E.M, Pearl Jam and Thursday would probably get bandied around a lot.

I'm not sure if these bands are getting worse, or my taste is changing. If it's the latter though, shouldn't I be liking new and different music? Probably the only new band that I've added to my listening rotation in the last year has been The National. And that's mainly because they sound like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, two artists that I've liked for a while.

So if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them (Paul, I've heard of the Foo Fighters, and Michella . . . the Michael Buble thing is not going to happen. Sorry)

Anyway, while I'm on the topic, here are a few quick thoughts on the above albums, just in case anyone is interested in checking them out.

Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature
This is OK, although not much of a development from his last album, Veneer, which is great background music, and always makes me feel suave and urbane when I listen to it. The best song as I mentioned is the cover. Because he has such a unique style he generally does covers pretty well, his version of Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" is the best I've heard.

Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
This is a soundtrack to some movie, so it kind of gets a pass, because who knows, maybe it works as background music. But overall I just found this a little dull.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
This is probably my favourite Radiohead album since OK Computer, which isn't saying much. They released it via their website, and told their fans they could pay what they wanted. I chose nothing. But given some of the crap they've released the last few years, I kind of feel like they owe me money. What's even funnier than this sliding cost schedule though is they are also releasing a deluxe copy, with all this extra crap, which sells for $80 or something. So they are simultaneously looking after their fans, and trying to completely screw them over. Weird.

PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Instead of playing the guitar, she sticks mainly to the piano on this album. And instead of singing in her normal voice, she sings mainly in an unusual falsetto. Why? I have no idea.

Thursday - Kill The House Lights
This is a collection of live songs, demos and unreleased material. The overall quality seems to be pretty bad - the band broke up earlier this year so I think they just grabbed whatever was still lying around and threw it on here.

R.E.M. - Live
This is a live album from their last world tour (which Alen, Narelle and I took in at the Entertainment Centre a few years ago). I actually quite like their last few albums, so this is OK - the tracklisting includes "Walk Unafraid", "Drive", "I Took Your Name", "Boy in the Well", and of course the hits like "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts". It's just that there's nothing really here to distinguish the songs from the studio recordings - they're not really reworked, and there's not an overabundance of energy. Worst of all, "Country Feedback" is somehow ommitted, which is really inexcusable.

Rogue Assassin

Anyone want to go see this with me?

Book review

I haven't been reading a lot lately. In fact, I've always suspected I like books much more than I like reading, and think my recent dry patch has been evidence of this. Back living at home though means I'm back taking the bus to work every day, and so I feel like I should read something during my daily commute.

A few weeks ago I picked up a book called "Freakonomics" by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. You could tell immediately that it was going to be semi-intellectual, given that both authors used their middle inititials, as smart people often do. Flipping through it though it looked really interesting and accessible, so I committed to reading it.

The main guy behind the book - or the ideas contained in it at least - is Levitt, described as a kind of "rogue economist". Which means that most of the writing doesn't apply to what most people would describe as economics. It's kind of more social science really. He uses data to answer a range of questions, which range from "Why do most drug dealers still live with their Mum?" to "What do real estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?"

It's interesting stuff, and makes you think about the world in a new way. Some of their claims can be a little disturbing - like the chapter in which they argue that more than any other factor, the Roe vs Wade decision which legalised abortion in the US was responsible for the drop in the American crime rate in the 90s - but you can't fault their logic.

If you're interested in this stuff the authors keep a blog on the New York Times website here http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ which is worth a look.

I read it over a few weeks, but it only took me a few sessions - it's really easy to read, funny, and you feel approximately 20% smarter after finishing it. So, yeah, I recommend it.

Big Day Out 2008

Usually I leave Big Day Out tickets to the last minute. I figure that with the capacity of the Showgrounds and the size of Adelaide's population, there's little chance of missing out.

This almost backfired on me last year, when I delayed getting tickets and the first allotment sold out. We only ended up getting tickets because I waited in line the week of the show for a last minute release.

Anyway, my plan was again to hold back a bit this year, and wait till my cashflow situation improved a bit. But when I heard this morning that the BDO website had sold it's allotment of tickets, I figured I'd better get to it. Ten minutes later I was on venuetix, and had secured tickets for Muzz and I.

Part of me is pumped about the show, and part of me isn't. That's because, despite featuring the reformation of one of the greatest bands of all time (Rage Against The Machine), the 2008 Big Day Out lineup is almost entirely rubbish.

Bands in the first announcement include Bjork (whose music sounds like fingernails on a blackboard), Grinspoon (cliched, plaguarised alternative rock), Arcade Fire (overhyped and boring), Hilltop Hoods (rap music from and for bogans), Billy Bragg and Paul Kelly (is this A Day on the Green?), and a bunch of other bands that I don't know or don't care about. Seriously, outside of the headliner, this has to be my least favourite BDO lineup yet.

Hopefully there is some relief in the second announcement - The National are scheduled to do Brisbane and Melbourne pub shows here in January 2008 so I guess they're a possibilty.

I just hope that RATM can hold it together for a few more months, if they break up again before February I'm screwed.

I want a PS3

What's going on

If you're ever at the video store, and everything you want to see is out, and you see there's still a copy of the new Bruce Willis/Halle Berry movie "Pefect Stranger" in stock, and you think "Hey, it can't be that bad", don't pick it up. Trust me, just walk away.

After a long winter hiatus, I've started cleaning up the garden a bit. On the weekend finished the front yard, although the backyard still needs a lot of work. To call it a jungle would be kind of insulting to jungles.

Some team-specific basketball blogs I've been enjoying . . .

http://3shadesofblue.blogspot.com/

http://bucksfans.blogspot.com/

http://www.blogabull.com/

http://shamrockheadband.blogspot.com/

Two weeks out from the start of the season and I'm already checking our fantasy message board constantly during the day. Not a good sign.

Queenstown crime update: In the past week at 122 Spring Street we've had one bin stealing, and two car eggings. Although anecdotal evidence would suggest 2am burnouts on the street outside my bedroom window are down by 25%, so that's encouraging.

I'm loving the return of Entourage to Foxtel, but am lukewarm so far on Prison Break. First episode was great, second not quite as good, and the third is still waiting on my DVR.

Bathroom renovation update

Thanks to Murray Huber, I now have a working toilet in my house. Which means I don't have to pee in the backyard anymore.

A song about Tyson Chandler?!?!

Cool highlights though. And I'm more than a little excited about having him on my fantasy squad this season.