Good deeds

It's probably just the tiredness talking but if a complete stranger does you a good deed, without being asked, does it take something away from them to give them a reward?

I mean, if someone does something because it's the right thing to do (and perhaps also they get to feel like a good person) and then you give them something for doing it, does it create a hidden subtext that the receiver assumes they did it for gain - even if this isn't the case?

To get a little less abstract, I took $500 out of the ATM at the Canberra mall this afternoon - or rather I asked the ATM for that money and then in the middle of the transaction it flashed up a "Can't issue receipt, do you wish to continue?" message.

I said, yeah, sure, just display the balance on the screen afterwards. Now apparently this is some kind of funky whiz-bang silent ATM because I didn't get the whoosh whoosh whoosh sound of the money being dispensed, just a display on the screen that said account balance $168.

Now I've been juggling money around between accounts in the last few days so I assumed that this was the machine telling me that I didn't have sufficient funds for that withdrawal and to go away. Not entirely sure why I thought this but there was a queue behind me and I figured that I'd just do my shopping on the other card, that I must have transferred this money to instead.

Twenty minutes later, heading away from the counter at JB Hifi, some bloke stops me and asks if I was just using the ATM. I had no idea what I had done so I said yes, waiting for enlightenment. He paused for a while - I guess he was trying to make sure that I was the right guy - and asked me if I had completed my transaction.

Suddenly the penny drops and I realise that I've just left $500 sitting in an ATM and presumably this guy has it. So I tell my story and after a few moments he opens his wallet and starts counting out the cash. (Knowing how much money it was meant to be was a help to me here I'm guessing).

I am feeling so relieved and grateful at this time that I tell him that he can keep 50, figuring that if it wasn't for him that I would be out 500 bucks having 450 is a whole lot better than that.

He asked a few times if I was sure and mentioned that he was just trying to do the right thing. Anyway, he took (and I was happy for him to have it) but now I'm wondering if that might have cheapened the moment for him a little.

Oh well.

How do you defend yourself against a man with two dildoes?

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Borat when it came out so I'm holding more hope out for Sacha Baron Cohen's new film Bruno



I actually get the feeling that this isn't one of those trailers that gives away every good joke in the film (a rare occurrence these days)

We don't want zombies on the lawn

Coming soon from Popcap, the insanely successful developers of casual games like Bejewelled and Peggle, is Plants vs Zombies.

It looks somewhat like a Tower Defense style game, where you add different sorts of cannons and other weapons to a winding path that advancing enemy hordes stream down but who can say for sure.

All I know is that they have a hella catchy promotional music video which is rather cute (and features zombies with butter on their head)

Computer says we're doomed

Terminator over-watcher that I am, I like to keep an eye on our robotic and computational friends for signs of imminent uprising and Judgement day.

The top entries on my feedreader this morning didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

(Click image for full size version)



Two separate instances of robots and computers learning things under their own steam. Riiight.

And by the way, what is going on with the Google ads - are they being written by neo-cons now?
Two stories about President Obama and in the same space, two ads for the National Security Hotline - dob in a terrorist service.

Implying much?

A what-now peeler?

(Kudos to Shane for tweeting this when it first happened and leading the way to the Facebook group dedicated to this moment)

3.6 pages in the red and counting

 

(Image by Aaardvaark )

Got up early this morning and managed to write 3 fairly decent pages. 3 handwritten pages anyway - not really sure how this will translate to typed pages but I'm hoping it's around 1:1.

I've had a few realisations about my writing - I'm better than I was afraid I would be, I can be a somewhat twisted motherfrakker at times and so far I have struggled to write a line of dialogue without a "fucken" in it. (In fairness, pretty well all of these were justified by the action).

Where previously I would write ideas down and almost always pop a question mark after them, when ideas are coming to me now, I'm tossing them in to see where they might lead.

I have only a scant idea as to what the next scene is but I'm on the way and feeling a little buzzed about it.

(Ooh and I just found an image of self-bite wounds on a cockatoo, which may actually be kind of useful)

3.3 pages in the red and counting

It's now been around 11 or 12 years since I completed the first draft of my zombie movie screenplay (working title Boonsville) and I'm thinking that I've now had (way more than) enough time for new ideas to percolate and mature.

Enter Script Frenzy. 

This is a month-long writing activity, brought to you by the people behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which is intended to provide the impetus for people (such as myself) to blow the dust off old ideas (or bring forth new ones) and write one hundred pages of script by the end of the month.

By my calculations, this means 3.33 pages per day.

I did take a look at some of my notebooks yesterday in search of ideas that I've jotted down over the intervening years but didn't quite get to writing anything.

I must admit that I'm rather terrified of this process, particularly the possibility that in spite of the plethora of brilliant ideas I have and the artistic vision, it will come out rather crap,

Just need to keep remembering that this is only a second draft, each draft gets easier and good films often run through 20 or 30 drafts.