Wishing I could see: David Mamet's November

David Mamet has been writing superbly sharp and smart plays,movies and tv shows for more than 30 years including The Verdict, the Pulitzer prize winning Glengarry Glen Ross (play and movie), Speed the plow, Ronin, State and Main, Wag the Dog and a whole bunch more.

Glengarry Glen Ross has always been a particular favourite for it's astounding timing and use of language (and particularly use of swearing) - there is no wasted talent in the film version of this either, every actor (Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Johnathon Pryce and Alec Baldwin) absolutely owning their scenes.





Anyway - I was going to talk about his new play - November. All I know is what I've read but what I've read looks good.

November takes aspects of the Bush Administration — a love of God, and suspicion of foreign nations and homosexuals — and created a farce in which the president's annual ritual of pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey is compromised by the threat of avian flu and a same-sex wedding in the White House.

This creates energetic and enjoyable comedy. There's also the hint of a large and serious charge underneath: Smith's attempt to remodel the entire Thanksgiving holiday (replacing turkey with another food) can be taken as a metaphor for what Bush's enemies see as a contempt for American history. But Mamet's main satirical point is the form he has chosen: his Bush-era play is a farce with a laughing stock at its heart.

Now sure, making jokes about Bush is like shooting oil in a barrel but given Mamet's extraordinary talents, I still think he'll be able to find 20 new ways of doing it.

Enjoying: Portal machinima

I've mentioned Portal a few times now here (well, it's awesome, what am I supposed to do) so I'll spare you a repeat performance of the gushing about the smart, darkly humourous writing and innovative gameplay - and the great closing song - and just show you this video I found the other day.

It's a tiny bit juvenile at some points but has some funny moments - it's a tale of a day at work for two of the robotic machine gun turrets.

Playing: Mass Attack

Mass Attack is a simple game sitting neatly in the casual games genre - games that anyone can just dip into for a quick 10 minutes of mental refreshment.

It's beautifully simple - you just click (and hold) on the other side of the scales to produce weights (balls) that balance out with those on the other side. As long as you can get them (you get 3 chances) within 3 units of each other (i.e virtually balanced), you can proceed.

Fun.

Winning: a shiny white PSP slim

Not a bad start to the day hey - the local game design school here in The Can' - the Academy of Interactive Entertainment - has an email newsletter that they put out and a few months ago they mentioned that if you go to their website and forward the email to other people (ok, it's like spam but - uh, not) then one lucky person could win a shiny shiny PSP.

And I'll be buttered and burnt on both sides if it wasn't me.

Yay.

It's an upgrade from the original model, sleeker and able to handle the upcoming Skype connectivity that is due to be released soon. Got it hooked up to our broadband testing account as well - so I can sit and my desk and - uh - access - uh - the internets. (Hmm, that's probably less beneficial than I thought :)

Their sponsors even threw in a couple of games, which was nice.

LOLing: Peter Russell Clark blooper swearing

G'day. My memories of Peter Russell Clark are of a slightly dorky, highly cheerful, slightly cheesy bloke who had these 5 minute filler mini-cooking shows on the ABC (the national broadcaster) in the 80s. He also did a range of ads on commercial telly for cheese, most famously including his catchphrase - where's the cheese?

Then he kind of just faded into obscurity - until (for me) yesterday, when I came across this awesome series of blooper clips from those ads and shows that demonstrate what a top bloke (crass, funny and seemingly genuinely decent) he really is.

Be mindful that there is a fair bit of swearing in here. (Click here to view video)



What really demonstrated his top-blokeness was a followup interview he did on JJJ a few days ago, where he's really not at all phased that the clips have made it online and manages to pull out a few more classic lines.