8.2.08

LOLing: The Wicker Man (2006) as a rom-com

Nice mashup job here from JasonSly on YouTube of the trailer for the Hollywood remake of the classic horror film The Wicker Man as a light hearted comedy.

7.2.08

Aspiring: to be used as a disparaging analogy in Parliament



Ok so just when I thought that the naughty party boy (a.k.a Corey Worthington/Delaney) saga was over, his name has popped up once more and made me realise that I have a dream I'd never known of before.

To be used as a clumsy pop-culture analogy in Parliament.

Here's the story from the ABC news website.

Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has compared the Coalition's attitude to inflation to the Victorian teenager Corey Worthington's views on parties.

The comparison came as Mr Tanner announced more than $600 million worth of cuts to programs promised by the Coalition during the election campaign.

Corey Worthington came to national attention in January when he refused to apologise when a party he organised grew out of control. He also became known for distinctive yellow sunglasses.

Mr Tanner says the Coalition has taken an irresponsible attitude to inflation.

"Like teenagers whose party just keeps getting longer and longer and bigger and bigger and ignoring the consequences, they've ignored 20 Reserve Bank warnings on inflation, 10 successive interest rate increases and they just kept partying," he said.

"Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull are still looking at the Australian economy through those big yellow shades."

6.2.08

Watching: Super Tuesday unfold

Yep, more American election stuff - today (yesterday - whatever, it's a timezone/dateline thing) is the day that voters in 24 states around the U.S vote for delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions which choose the candidates for the Presidential elections in November.

The delegates are tied to the existing candidates, so by default it's a vote for who the states want to be the candidate. The Democrats use proportional representation in their voting, so most of the votes are likely to be split down the middle (between Obama and Clinton) but the Republicans tend to have more of a first across the line gets all the goodies process. (Similar to their respective politics I guess)

Voting is still going on and the counting continues - the only news is that the Gomer Pyle looking Republican mo-fo Mike Huckabee has won West Virginia, grabbing 18 delegates. Um, whoo - or should I say, well gollleeeeee.





Updates to come.

There was a pretty interesting story on Hillary on Foreign Correspondent on the ABC last night - even though I have issues with her support for the Iraq war and moralistic objections to video games, I'm feeling better about her now as a Barack alternative. (Particularly in the way she infuriates the conservatives like few others have done before)

5.2.08

LOLing: Buffalax's world music "subtitles"

Shane put me onto some highly amusing YouTube videos that were put together by someone called Buffalax and I've been having a good old chuckle ever since.

It doesn't sound as funny when you describe it, suffice to say that he/she has taken music videos from around the world - Bollywood, Japanese tv, German pop - and added English subtitles of what the songs sound like in English.

This means that you get a string of nonsense lyrics such as "my loony bun is fine benny lava" and "I'd love to see you pee on us tonight".

Enjoy.





4.2.08

Barracking: for Barack



Seven seasons of The West Wing (and a general interest in the world around us) have given me a strong interest in the American political system (imperial masters and all :) and so the current race is a particular treat.

On the Democratic side of the aisle (Bush is a Republican), we have a pearler of a contest between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama to be the candidate for the Presidential election in November. (And given Bush's efforts to root the world over the last 8 years, the likelihood of a Democrat winning is pretty impressive).

As much as I thought Bill Clinton was a living legend, Hillary has impressed me a lot less in her time in the Senate and Barack Obama has consistently offered hope for a truly inspirational shift in power.

He seems smart, sincere, decent and determined to do the right thing, with an awareness of the fact that America (and the world) seriously needs a dramatic new approach to deal with the major problems of our day.

A bunch of musicians and other celebs put this song together recently, taken from the words of a speech Obama gave after the New Hampshire Primary earlier this year. It has choked me up almost every time I've listened to it.



(If you want to see the original, higher quality version, check out www.dipdive.com

I think this song has replaced Still Alive from Portal as my most awesome song of the year at the moment. It's so full of hope it's hard not to get carried away.