Watching: BattleStar Galactica

I figured that if I was going to be a single geek on Valentine's Day, I should act like one :)

Possibly the geekiest thing about Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is the fact that the I.T genius just happens to be shagging - either in flashback or imagination - the most attractive woman in the show (far right of pic) and is now working his moves on the second most.(middle of pic) (Actually, for the record, I find the first one a little disturbingly masculine for my tastes but I'm sure fanboys across the 'tubes feel differently).

But seriously, while it's very early days yet, I'm really enjoying this show (and not just for the nerd wish-fulfilment reasons above) - BSG is actually well written sci-fi (sf) with a lot of interesting ideas.

The current trend in American sf towards quite militaristically themed programmes is unfortunate perhaps (a little too rah-rah army) but unavoidable given the leanings of the U.S govt of late (and the so-called "War on Terror").

BSG however has made the most of this with some interesting insights into the ethical issues involved in dealing with possible suicide bombers and enemy-within paranoia. (I'm looking forward to their examination of Abu Ghraib style interrogation).

While I'm yet to see it, from what I've read, as the story progresses the evil robotic Cylons come more and more to represent the US forces in Iraq while the plucky humans act like the insurgents.

Now maybe this is just one skewed view of the development of the story but I've read this in a few places (none of which spring to mind of course or I'd link to them) so I'm prepared to accept this as true.

This is one of the things I really like about the SF genre (and the horror genre as well for that matter) - because they are somewhat marginalised, put into the too-nerdy-to-take-seriously basket, you'll often find that they contain some of pop cultures most incisive social commentary.

I'll keep you posted on my adventures in geekdom.

Imagining : songs with my name

Waiting at the traffic lights this morning on the ride to work, a song fragment popped into my head. I don't know the title (I'm guessing Daniel) but the lyrics were

And it looked like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes

I'm pretty sure this is an Elton John song but the whys and wherefores of why it came to mind are beyond me.

Anyway, it made me think about the number of songs that have people's names in them and whether these songs are somehow special to them. (Or alternately, whether they cringe every time it comes up - imagine Roxanne, for instance).

Personally I've never heard a song with my name - Colin - in it so I don't really know. Interestingly, a quick google tells me that Blur have a song called Colin Zeal but this is the first I've heard of it's existance.

So given this lack of a song about - well - me (ok, more specifically my name but you know you would make it about you as well), I started pondering who might actually sing a song about Colin.

A few tidbits about Colin before we press on - it was last year announced as the twentieth whitest name ever and in my case, came from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books - either The Silver Chair or The Horse and His Boy. (Which I suspect is why I have a slight aversion to the fantasy genre).

Colin is a particularly English name (Scottish as well) so my first thought was Jarvis Cocker/Pulp - given the Blur thing it's nice to see that I wasn't so far off.
Being a Jarvis/Pulp song I would imagine Colin wearing a green vest with diamond patterns on the front, working in a bank and living a life of quiet desparation while dreaming of more. (Of course, that sums up a lot of Pulp songs - bless'em)

This being a bit bleak, I moved on to Australian Crawl and particularly one of my favourite songs of theirs, Errol. (About Errol Flynn).



Hey, if they can write a song about a guy called Errol, how difficult could Colin be?
And the chorus works pretty well too.

"Oh Colin, I would give everything, just to be like him"

Tenacious D might like the comedic value of a name like Colin - I really don't know what they might do with it and for some reason I'm concerned that this would end up being a metal-opera song about a gerbil or something, so possibly better that they don't.

I have to say I'd be pretty happy if Peaches released a Colin song - I really can't imagine how it would go but it would be sexy as all get out, there would be great riffage, a healthy dollop of swearing and my cool factor would easily double overnight.

Eeyewww - I just thought of another band that could conceivably write a Colin song - The Whitlams. Damn them to hell for spoiling my daydreams of being musically immortalised.

Other possibilities - Augie March, Bjork, Cake, Chumbawumba, The Flaming Lips, Franz Ferdinand, Justin Timberlake (just kidding), Lemon Jelly, Machine Translations, Mogwai, Morrissey, Pink Floyd, The Shins, The Stone Roses and Yo La Tengo.

I'd like to be able to add Nick Cave to that list (and possibly Kiss) but that's never going to happen.

Ooh and I just thought of another Col song that I have actually heard - Weddings Parties Anything - The ballad of Peggy and Col.


So what about you? What are your songs or who do you think would write a good song about you/your name?




(Here are the lyrics to Colin Zeal anyway, for what it's worth)

Colin Zeal knows the value of mass appeal
He's a pedestrian walker, he's a civil talker
He's an affable man with a plausible plan
Keeps his eye on the news, keeps his future in hand

And then he...

Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha

While sitting in traffic, Colin thinks in automatic
He's an immaculate dresser, he's your common aggressor
He's a modern retard with a love of bombast
Keeps his eye on the news, doesn't dwells on the past

And then he...

Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha

And then he...

Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
Looks at his watch, he's on time yet again
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha
He's pleased with himself, he's pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha
He's pleased with himself, he's so pleased with himself
He's so pleased with himself, ah ha

He's a modern retard, he's terminal lard
He's an affable man, with a carrotene tan
Because Colin Zeal's ill
Colin Zeal's ill
Colin Zeal's ill)

'Cos Colin Zeal knows

Watching: Auslan videos

For work recently I've been converting some videos made in Auslan (Australian Sign Language).

They are set up like a morning tv talk show, with host and guest doing an interview on a comfy couch in a pastel studio - just with no sound.

At uni, it was drummed into me endlessly by my film teacher (and I thank him for it to this day) that the pictures are only half of the film/video - the soundtrack is equally important but generally is not treated as such.

This is the obvious exception. (That said, I was still surprised at first that there was no sound at all and had to call and check if there was meant to be any - old habits die hard)

It is said that when (hearing) people communicate, they get something like 93% of the meaning of the conversation from non-verbal cues - body language, facial expressions and the like. (Not sure if tone of voice applies here - I guess not). This makes it interesting to watch someone signing, as it's all non-verbal. Does the 93% rule still apply or is there some other equation drawn into the mix?

This isn't one of the videos that I've been working on (not sure about the copyright issues) but it is a good example of the expressiveness that comes into Auslan.



There are the hand gestures but there are also a range of facial expressions.

This next one is kind of interesting as well in that the resolution is a fair bit lower, which raises the question, how detailed are these gestures and how large does the screen need to be to convey the conversation in a video. (A question I'm working on at the moment with our Auslan teacher)(Update: apparently the 320 x 240 is too small, she prefers the 720 x 576)



A few other random thoughts that come to mind:

Do people sign differently when they are drunk, angry/fighting, distracted, have sore hands?

Wouldn't it have been cool if there was a moment in the Buffy episode "Hush" - the one where monsters steal everyone's voices - if there were a couple of deaf people signing to each other going - "what are these people all freaking out about?"

How do you work around the use of voiceover in videos? (Subtitles?)

Am I invading people's privacy by posting these videos? (Well, they put them up on YouTube)

What about "singing" along to music? (Actually, this is one of those questions you ask when you already know the answer - here's a final video where someone is signing a song - it's Savage Garden so I'm guessing it can only be an improvement) (Damn it, it had to be the only Auslan video where they have the sound on it :)

Building: a website

On Friday I finished the shell for the new XXfm (currently known as 2XXfm - more on this in a minute) website - you can check out the whole site here - http://www.users.bigpond.com/colsim

This isn't the first time I've worked on the XXfm website but it's certainly been a different experience to the last one. For one thing, I've learnt a fair slab of CSS this time. (Whoo, welcome to 1998 :) This means that the site is lightweight (ie - small file size meaning that it loads quickly) and that it's easier to change.

I could go off on a big bitch about the way that politics, ego and empire building have made it more difficult to go about implementing the website (which strictly speaking still isn't finished) but frankly that would involve joining the game and I would just as rather not. Besides, I'm sure that some of my actions are probably relatively controversial (in a small community volunteer organisation sense, not in a logical sense) and I could do without the aggravation. So I won't.

Suffice to say that the station has been known as 2XX ever since we switched from the AM band (where all call-signs are 2 letters prefaced by a number indicating the state/territory that you are in). My feeling is that the station identity needs a revamp and that 2xx suggests that we are still an AM station (in attitude at the very least).

Shifting to XXfm seems a logical move. (Technically, the station callsign was changed to 1XXR fm when we go the FM license but XX seems a little stronger, edgier. )

Having been involved in a volunteer community organisation before however where we tried to change the name, I know that this is a highly contentious issue - we went from RAT tv (Richmond Access Television) to YCAT (Yarra Community Access Tv). Yarra TV - my suggestion, died in committee. (I read a quote a while back that

committees are the cul-de-sacs that ideas are lured down and quietly strangled

).

Anyway, my point is that changing the name - and ideally the logo, as this has been around as long as the station - is going to cause ructions. I have full support from station management but there are some there who aren't necessarily on top on things when it comes to dealing with people.

Wow, I guess this has all been building up in me for a while.

Getting back to the website building, I started by investigating as many other community radio stations as possible, getting an idea of the kind of content that they provide and stealing as many good ideas as I could find. This included sections like - how do I get my band on air, announcer and listener profiles and a community discussion board.

To this I've added things that I haven't seen on other sites but that I have come across in the course of general browsing and investigating nifty web tools for work (Flickr badges, interactive Google maps) and added the possibility of user generated content - XXfm promos and custom designed banner ads for the station.

This progressed to whipping up a design in photoshop - all very web 2.0, rounded corners and clean space, simple colour scheme (orange black and white) and from there it was on to actually building the thing.

With a quick stop to work through a Learning CSS book on the way, what you see above is pretty much the culmination. (The rounded corners are yet to come - they're much more fiddly than you would think).

Probably the most challenging part of the building process - after fracking around trying to find a colour combination that has sufficient colour and contrast difference to meet accessibility guidelines - has been ensuring cross browser compatibility.

I was a little surprised here to find that IE7 tended to display things much better than my much preferred Flock and Firefox. Most of the tweaking has been to get things positioned properly in the minority (but superior) browser. (Of course, my buttons display properly now in the Firefox family and are just a bit off in IE but it's all good)

Getting access to the web server will be the next challenge - apparently that presents a security risk. (Sigh).

Takin': her easy

Filling in : Friday Breakfast

Breakfast radio is a different beast in some ways to the drivetime (Sunset) shift. I know that one of the main things I want first up is the weather and some good, energetic get up and about music.

So this is what I tried to bring to Friday Breakfast (7am - 8.30) on XXfm this morning, filling in for (imho) one of XXfm's star DJs (though I know he would hate being called that) Fintan.

As usual, I put the tracks together last night, trying to keep the energy up and made sure to throw in a token Stooges track (Fintan is a bit of a fan and has worked his way through the entire Stooges/Iggy Pop discography a number of times now over the years in this slot). The Stooges track was actually a mashup with Push it by Salt'n'Pepa, so hopefully it went over ok with the Friday brekky listeners.

I suspect my banter/rantings might have been a little more scattered than usual today as well (up til 1.30 watching Bad Boy Bubby) but there didn't seem to be any significant stuff ups, so I'll call it a job well done for now.

Comparing: the book and the movie (Perfume)

I saw Perfume: The story of a murderer last night - with a little trepidation I must add as I've been a fan of the book ever since I read it around five years ago.

In short, it tells the story of Grenouille, born in the aromatic (that's the nice word) world of the Paris fish markets in the 1700s with the greatest sense of smell in the world. His gift (and his complete lack of any body odour) set him apart from others and he spends a lot of time in the world of scents - first identifying and then working out how to reproduce them.

When he finds the most beautiful, most powerful scent of all - that of a beautiful adolescent virgin, he must possess it and this is where things start to go a little pear-shaped.

I won't give much more away about the story as it is a stunningly original story, which in many ways feels like a lost fairytale, but suffice to say in the course of learning and reproducing scents, he learns the perfumer's trade to master the capturing of them. (Scents, not adolescent virgins :)

This is the story (not surprisingly) that both the book and the film told.

Obviously a film and a book are completely different beasts. You experience them in different ways and locations (socially vs on your own, in "their" environment vs yours, at a set time for a proscribed length of time vs whenever you choose and for however long you wish to make the experience last.)

While reading the book you create the sights, sounds, smells and feelings in your head, bringing your prior knowledge and experiences to bear in the re-creation of the world that the author describes. You interact with the story by imagining it.

You also get the insight of the author into the story and the world of the characters - something that can be put across in thick, hard to film paragraphs (even pages) of explanatory text, inner monologues and God-view perspectives of the action. It is often these parts that give you the true heart and soul of the story - the ideas behind it.

On the other hand, a film (particularly this one) is a big, expensive project drawing on the talents and ideas of a horde of people. It takes away your imaginings and presents the vision of the film makers in it's place. This is generally a double edged sword - I must admit that my knowledge of day to day life in 17th century France is rather lessened by not having been there (now or back then) and while the novel does a lot to create a sensation of being there, there are always gaps in the sights and sounds. (The smells and feelings of course are another matter).

Add to this the director's own personal style (Tom Tykwer - Run Lola Run) and the need to tell a story which might take you 5-10+ hours to read into a form suited to the commercial needs of the movie business and there are always going to be changes made.

(This can often work out for the best - in my mind, the film version of Fight Club - directed by David (Seven) Fincher is actually a stronger version of the story than the original novel by Chuck Palahniuk - who incidentally is a freakin' genius).

So obviously, comparing a book with a film is problematic at best. They are different beasts experienced in different ways and designed with different intentions.

Comparison is in many ways as redundant as comparing the performances of actors in
different movies in determining the winner of a best actor award. (I've always subscribed to the theory that these should be used to determine a short list and the actors should then all act the same scene in the same role to decide the winner)

Yet at the heart of both the book and the film is the story and it is in the telling of the story (factoring in all the other differing elements) that we do make a decision about the two.

Ultimately, I was a little disappointed by the film, mainly because it glossed over two of the things that I found the most interesting about the character of Grenouille. The fact that Grenouille has no smell of his own is established right from the start in the book - it sets him up as the outsider in the orphanage and drives his obsession with firstly reproducing and then inventing smells, one of the first that he creates is something for himself (partially made from cat poo) to make himself smell like an average person.

The lack of his own smell is fleetingly mentioned in the film when Grenouille spends time in a remote cave but for something which seems so pivotal to his motivations (in my mind at least), this is the only reference to it. While the cave scenes are infinitely richer in the book, they would be entirely difficult to bring to film so I can understand them being truncated but it really felt like a lost opportunity to tell a great part of the story.

The second half of the film - which follows the book into the slightly more exciting territory of the virgin smell stuff - is more emphasised as this seems to slot more easily into film conventions, particularly that of the thriller.

The ending of the book is one of the great literary endings and I was concerned briefly that the filmmakers were going to cop-out for the sake of keeping the film marketable but to their credit they came through in the end - perhaps with a slightly milder version of events than the book suggests (or perhaps that my twisted mind had invented :)

Being such a massive production (apparently the most expensive film in German history), there is a sense of the commercial imperatives in this film. Given Tom Twyker's work previously, I was expecting something more stylised and edgier (though I do give him full credit for imaginatively visually telling a story that focusses on something that the audience can't ever see) but overall it seemed quite conventional.

It would be very interesting to know what someone who hasn't read the book thinks of this film - as I've mentioned, it's rare that you find a film that matches the depth and intricacy of the book and so you try to account for that when seeing it but it's inevitable that your knowledge of one will shade your experience of the other. (I saw the film of Fight Club before I read the book).

All in all, putting the book aside, this is a pretty good film, a great story, pretty pictures and some interesting ideas. It runs fairly long (147 mins) and has some slow patches but is worth a look. The friend I saw it with was concerned that it might taint her future readings of the book by replacing her imagery but she came out feeling that it was pretty close to the way she had seen it.

(Interesting trivia - the author, Patrick Susskind, resisted requests for the rights to make a film for more than a decade and chronicled his experiences with the people chasing the rights in a satirical film called Rossini. Directors considered for the project included Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman, Ridley Scott and Tim Burton.) (Now the Tim Burton version I would love to have seen)

3.5 cushions.

Here's the trailer

Watching: Cabin Fever

Cabin Fever is one of the great, underrated horror films of the 21st century. It moves the genre on from the navel-gazing 90s by finding a new, horrible kind of monster at the same time as paying respects to longstanding horror conventions.

Directed by Eli Roth, who has since gone on to do Hostel (and Hostel II) and who is now working on the latest Stephen King adaptation Cell, Cabin Fever begins with the classic horror premise of a group of fresh faced college students heading off to a cabin in the woods. After dealing with the somewhat odd locals at a store nearby, things go pearshaped pretty quickly when one of the group stumbles upon a hermit in the woods with a particularly nasty flesh-eating virus, who asks for help.

This is the "monster" that I like so much in this film. A simple, particularly gory and horrifying virus that quickly leads to bloody open sores/wounds and the coughing and spluttering of blood everywhere imaginable. Given the rise of AIDS, Ebola, SARS and bird flu in recent years and the general climate of fear and mistrust in the world, this is truly a 21st century villain.

The reaction of our heroes to this menace is equally interesting - from violent opposition to helping the infected to trying to help them as much as possible, at the risk of infection.

The main characters for the most part aren't that sympathetic - the character I liked the most was easily the biggest dick of all of them but seemed a lot more real than his broad brushstrokes companions.

When they arrive at the cabin, he wanders off with a rifle, prompting this exchange:

Karen: Bert, what the hell is that?
Bert: Huh? Oh, I'm gonna go shoot some squirrels.
Paul: Why would you wanna kill squirrels?
Bert: 'cause they're gay.
Karen: Bert, don't be a fucking retard.
Bert: I'm kidding. I don't care if they're gay or straight, I'll kill 'em either way.

Ultimately, the characters don't matter too much - they're strong enough to carry your interest in the story, believable enough to understand why they do what they do (although there are still moments of "why would they do that?" - which is always easier to think from the comfort of the couch than if you were actually in that situation) and have strong enough dialogue to let you know that you are watching something more than a few notches above your standard young-pretty-people-in-the-woods horror flick.

Throw in wild dogs and scary redneck/hillbillies and you have a cracking tale with enough visceral shocks to make David Cronenberg happy.

Let's not forget also that this is a pretty funny film - there's a line early in the film (at the store) that has a great pay off right at the end.

(And let's not forget Pancakes!!!! :)

Here's the trailer - 4.5 cushions.

Learning: songs

So after trawling the web and iTunes and looking at my current skills realistically, I've settled on the follow songs to learn first up.

Neil Young - Heart of Gold
Tom Petty (as covered by Johnny Cash) - I won't back down
The Cruel Sea - Down Below
The Dandy Warhols - Godless
Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene
Chris Isaak - Blue Spanish Sky

(Where possible, I've put videoclips for these songs - uh - down below)(Ironically except for the actual song, Down Below.)(Oh, and the reason there is a woman practicing pole dancing to the Chris Isaak song is that it was a choice between this video and footage taken with a mobile phone video camera with bad sound. )

Anyway, the main reason I've chosen these particular songs is that they are all fairly straight forward to play - no overly complicated chords or wildly varying chord combinations, simple enough rhythms and several of them will also force me along in learning the F chord. (As well as the F#m).

For those who don't know much about guitar, the F (and F family) are barre chords - chords where you use your index finger to press down on all six strings in one fret, effectively shortening the neck of the guitar. This has the effect of moving the chord down a tone (I think). (Update - Ok, thanks Len, it's actually raising them a semitone or tone)

So if you are playing a standard E chord, you move each note towards you one fret and hold your finger down on the first fret. This is something that I've found far too difficult for the better part of 20 years - more a matter of not persisting than anything - but I've bitten the bullet now and slowly, step by step, seem to be making some progress.

Getting to the point where you fingers just automatically form the position is what I'm aiming for I'd say.

So I had a nice play last night, Godless in particular is great to jam along to (and if you turn the music up loud enough, you actually sound like you're rocking :)

There are also some simple riffs in Heart of Gold and I won't back down that I'm getting the hang of as well.

(I also chose these songs because they suit my voice and I'd like to be able to sing them - but combining singing and playing is a few steps away yet)

Neil Young - Heart of Gold



Tom Petty (via Johnny Cash) - I won't back down



The Cruel Sea - Down Below (Couldn't find a listenable version online)

Dandy Warhols - Godless



Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene



Chris Isaak - Big Blue Spanish Sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY8WHR5QPE4

Preparing : My radio show

For those who came in late - I do a weekly two hour radio show on the local community radio station here in Canberra, 2xxfm. (I'd like to change the name to XXfm but that's another story).

I've been a fan of community radio since before I knew what it even was. I remember times sitting at home in Melbourne in the mid 80's twirling the radio dial and on occasion coming across a faint station playing all these songs that I'd never heard of. It was a couple of years before I realised that these must have been 3RRRfm and 3PBSfm - two of the coolest radio stations anywhere. (This is a measurable fact, by the way)

Community radio to me has always been about the music first and foremost - the talk and other content is great as well but it was (and still is) through community radio that I have been exposed to virtually all the great bands that I know and love today.

(For those reading this from somewhere else, community radio in Australia is non-corporate, independent, non-government, volunteer run radio)

Anyway, my show is in the drive-time slot (4-6pm) and is of a generalist rather than specialist nature. XX aims to play music that people don't generally hear elsewhere (ie overly commercial music) but beyond that, announcers have free reign. (We have to be mindful of the community sector code of practice as well as playing a certain proportion of Australian and Canberra music as well).



We have two cd players on the desk in the studio and generally speaking it's a matter of cueing up a track on one while the other is playing.

Unless, of course, you burn your songs onto one or two cds (I usually need about 1 and a bit) and you just leave them in the machines.

Selection of tunes is the key thing there - being the music junkie that I am, there are usually a few new cds floating around each week so I like to find something interesting on these, even a couple of tracks if they are particularly noticable.

From here, I like to mix it up a little - cool songs from good albums from the last 6 months or so, a few more from the last decade and generally always a few old school alterna-classics from the 70's and 80's.

Iconic English DJ John Peel had a philosophy with his show that he'd play some songs that he knew people would like and some songs that he thought they'd like.

You can see listings of the tracks I've selected on the (rather neglected) Monday Sunset blog.

(by the way, that isn't the official 2XXfm logo at the top of the page, it's just one I've been playing with. The existing logo hasn't changed in the better part of a decade to my knowledge and I think a revamp is in order)

Interviewing: housemates (day 2)

Well, we started well today with a no-show and then the next one was something like 40 mins late. (I think calling someone when you are running late is a pretty simple common courtesy.)

The first was a little older than our other candidates (but sadly I'm still older) and it's her first time out of home in a share place - she's lived with four brothers and in her own flat but didn't seem particularly prepared for share housing.

Part of her problem unfortunately was that she seemed highly conscious of this and so all these things just served to make her more nervous. It's hard to say how to work around this issue but given the quality of other applicants, it didn't help her.

The next (and last) person was a webdesigner from Melbourne, working for a government department with an amusing acronym. (DIC)(DIAC my arse. You were never DIAMA or DIMIAA, where does the sudden use of And come from? You didn't think your acronym through and you just have to wear it I'm afraid)

Very personable guy, seemed easy going and interesting and Eric and I had a great chat with him after Abi thought that he was all talked out and wandered off to the shops. (So consequently she missed the most interesting stuff about him)

This was (just quietly) also the guy who had seemed the most promising during the week and I was thinking that he would have a good shot.

Abi (not surprisingly) thought otherwise - she had particularly bonded with the first girl today - the same girl that was pretty well at the bottom of our shortlist. (well, perhaps before the multimedia girl and the noshow anyway).

After trying to work out the fairest way to assess and balance everyones preferences (scoring out of five outright seemed a little cheap), we eventually decided to rank our choices from one to five, total the numbers and the person with the lowest number wins. (Still perhaps a little odd but it seemed the fairest option).

And our choice:

AusAID girl.

(alright, we have a housemate)

Interviewing: housemates (day 1)

Ok, the email scrutinising/culling process is past, now onto the meeting and the greeting.

We had 4 people pencilled in for today and another who just happened to call at the right time and find a slot - bypassing the first level of filtering. (More on this shortly)

Our first girl (no names, no pack drill - what the hell does that expression mean, by the by) who we shall call ABC girl for obvious reasons turned up pretty well bang on time.

Now those who know me a little will know that I'm something of a media junkie - if I can read it, listen to it, watch it or play it, I'm there. I'm particularly interested in the people and organisations that look at our world and tell us what is going on - most particularly when they try to do it with less of a corporate slant - so public media such as the ABC, community media and the "quality" papers (The Age, SMH etc) score higher points here.

So ABC girl is off to a good start as far as I'm concerned just by virtue of being there. She's part of their cadet programme, so is one of only 7 selected for the year, making her a little special.

Of course, it didn't take too long to figure out that she kind of knew it. (This was mostly my take - my housemate Abi thought she seemed quite down to earth)

Maybe I'll digress for a moment to bring some context to the house.

There's me - 35 year old multimedia guy from Melbourne, there's Eric, 30 year old evolution Ph.D from France and there's Abi, 26(?) year old student from Sydney. (I've asked her half a dozen times now what she is studying - I know that it's Asian studies and something - law? - but I keep forgetting - she's only been here a week, really).

Ok, so back to ABC girl - like everyone today, she's young, hip*, keen to get a house and cluey enough to have made it to interview. :)

(*Whatever the hell that means)

So we do the tour - first one for a while so there are the odd stumbles here and there but ultimately, it's a great house (and we're great housemates) so the place really sells itself. We move on to the kitchen table chat and while she seems interesting, there's a too-cool-for-school Sydney-ness that raises my long dormant Melbourne hackles.

I like the idea of a house where we're all a bit of a unit - not living in each other's pockets necessarily but able to hang out and do things together a bit.

So we get towards the end of her slot and the next girl arrives early.

Next girl (let's call her grad for now) settles in the loungeroom with outgoing housemate Tim in front of the telly to give us a little more time to wrap up with ABC girl.

I don't actually remember which city she has come from - the Sydney/Melbourne thing thus was no issue - as she was entirely charming.

Eminently personable, she's either putting on the charm or is the real deal, just a genuinely nice and interesting person. She speaks a fistful of languages and is going to work for a govt department (AusAID)(which coincidentally I seem to know at least half a dozen people in now) that scores high on the right-on meter.

Third up we have a local girl just about to start work in the press gallery at Parliament as a researcher for one of the aforementioned quality papers. Again, great, personable, interesting and stepping into a world that I find fascinating at a particularly interesting time (leading up to a federal election). Abi makes the point that she doesn't need a place as much as the other girls (she's currently staying with her parents a hop, step and jump away from Parliament House) which I hadn't considered but is quite true.

Lucky (?) last we have a 20 year old multimedia student who's also working for a media production company in town. Another Canberra native, she's nice but really quite young and makes a big show of the fact that she doesn't want to be in a house where she's expected to hang out / do things with the other housemates. (A little bit of a suburban Cheryl as well perhaps).

So we have a nuh-huh and 3 prospects with 3 more to come today. (Actually, the 12.30 hasn't shown up - no phone call either - so I guess it's two).

More to come.

Preferences so far:

Abi - 1.ABC girl, 2.AusAID, 3. Age
Eric - 1. AusAID, 2. ABC girl, 3. Age
Me - 1. AusAID, 2. Age, 3. ABC

More news as it comes to hand.

(Oh and the fourth scheduled girl called and cancelled - nice to see manners alive and well)

Meh'ing: Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction is a well made and clever film about a man who realises that he is the hero in a novel by an author who always kills her heroes off at the end.

Will Ferrell (a favourite comic actor of mine after his work in Zoolander, Starsky & Hutch, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back and Anchorman - and dare I say Elf) plays IRS agent Harold Crick, a taxman.

He is also the main character in the most recent novel by Kay Eiffel, a novelist who for some reason reminded me of Peter Carey. (This could well be because he has a book called the Tax Inspector but I think it was also just the style of writing in general).

Kay Eiffel is played by Emma Thompson, who I think I've fancied ever since I saw her in The Tall Guy with Jeff Goldblum. (This really is a classic rom-com if you haven't seen it)

Dustin Hoffman pops up as a professor of literature, Maggie Gyllenhaal is pretty hot as an activist baker and there is some nice work with the computer graphics which show some of the inner workings of Harold Crick's mind. Musically it's great as well - I'm not that familiar with most of the bands on the soundtrack but plan to check it out at lunchtime if possible. (If you think of the soundtrack to Garden State but with less - well no - The Shins, you're probably getting close).

So why am I meh'ing about this whole thing? (I assume you understand that meh'ing means "It's ok/good but... meh")

On paper it all works really well and I like the concept, the performances all worked, the writing was snappy and it looked great - but it's just not one of those films that sticks with you.

You know you've seen something good when you go out for dinner or coffee afterwards and the conversation is all about the movie. (Even for a little while).

With this though we enjoyed it while it was on (we being me and my two exes), walked out the doors and said how much we enjoyed it (for all the reasons above) and that was it. There didn't seem to be anything more to say.

Perhaps it was because the idea didn't seem all that fresh - you certainly think of Adaptation or The Truman Show with the whole post-modern writing-about-writing thing - and I think also I was expecting it to be a little funnier.

I'm a believer that comic actors can make the best serious actors given the right script and as I mentioned, Will Ferrell has put in some inspired turns in previous films. The prisoner with a dragon fetish in Starsky and Hutch, Ron Burgundy - anchorman and jazz flautist in Anchorman and even his performance in Elf as the 6+ ft adopted elf were inspired. Here perhaps he played things a little straighter than I liked.

There's nothing really wrong with this film and perhaps it deserves a second viewing - it just seemed a little postmodern/clever/quirky-by-numbers. I think I was smiling throughout but never really lol'ed. (and there was certainly no roflmfao'ing)

3 cushions. (out of 5)

(Stranger than Fiction is currently playing at Dendy Canberra Center)

Hunting: a housemate

Looking for a housemate is infinitely better than looking for a house (unless rent is two days overdue and everybody sucks).

Since December I've been living in a great place in Turner with some really nice people - in many ways it takes me back to my better house sharing days in Melbourne in the 90s. Good vibe, nobody is overly uptight (which means that the house is perhaps a little slobby but not unhygenic), we hang out together and have a laugh.

It's also one of those houses that people are in and out of a bit - international students heading home, people moving in with their new lurrves and the latest to move on is Tim, who is heading for Europe.

Which means that for the last week or so we've had some ads up for a new housemate.

Now if you're not in the rental market at the moment, you might not be aware that it's extraordinarily tight - the vacancy rate is around 1% and so rental properties and share houses are at a bit of a premium.

Couple this with the fact that January is a busy busy time in the A.C.T with new students at ANU (in the suburb next to Turner) as well as an influx of graduates taking positions with various government departments and there's even more of a crush on than ever.

Which is why it's a bit of surprise to get emails like this one:

I'd like to see the room to rent today or tomorrow. I am a postgraduate student. My phone number is (04blahblahblah)

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not expecting grovelling or out and out sucking up in these emails but I think if you're in a position where you want people to think you would be cool to live with, you might be just a little friendlier. No "hello", no "how are you", no "cheers", no "hope to hear from you soon", not even a name (other than the one in the header of the email).

Eric made the point that at least he didn't ask for more information about the house and for this he gave him half a point in our out of 5 scoring system. (Giving him a grand total of .5/20). (Panel was myself and Eric, Tim - who is leaving - and Steph, Tim's gf)

Ok, so maybe he was just responding to the tone of the ad I hear you thinking. (Oh yes, I can do that). Well, in the interests of fairness, here are both of the ads. Yes, they are a little brief perhaps but surely not to that extent.

Suburb TURNER
Rent $150.00 per week
Bond $600.00
Ensuite? No
Furnished? No
Heating? Yes
Car Accommodation? Yes
Air Conditioning? No
Built In Wardrobe? Yes
Smoking? No
Available from: 14 Feb 2007
Contact Name Colin
Contact Phone
Contact Email myname@myemailaddress.com
Additional Information Modest room in a large house with study area, to share with 2m & 1f. Looking for someone easygoing and relatively mature (creative would be a bonus). Close to ANU and Civic, quiet street

Modest sized room available in a large house in a quiet street in Turner. Close to Civic, ANU and O'Connor.

We are 2m & 1f and are looking for someone easygoing and reasonably mature. (Creative is a bonus)

We have a study area (of sorts), ADSL2 and a smallish backyard.

Both of these are based on a bit of a template that the respective websites have so there are limitations to how much you can say and I guess we probably should have mentioned unfurnished in one of the ads (this is a big thing with international students) but overall, surely there's enough, right?

Anyway, as I mentioned, to sort through the contacts we've had, we sat down last night over a drink or two and read through the emails, rating them out of 5. (We briefly changed this to a tick/question-mark/cross rating but realised that this was too snaggy).

I'll spare you the details of everyone but might just mention a few of the more eyebrow raising lines as some vague kind of public service. :)

Hi,

I am going to do the Master of Finance at the ANU and have a few months work experience in this area, so I think I qualify for your requirements.

My initial response to this was - ewww, Finance. Tim made the point that it reads more like a job application and we should write back offering a position in our Loans dept. (.5/20)

The next one rang alarm bells as soon as we saw the email address - dsto.defence.gov.au. (Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of perfectly nice people in defence, I just haven't met any yet and the ones I have met and/or shared with have just been a little bit to - well - defensey.). Signing the email with your full work title as well just didn't seem right either. (Points were also lost for slab-text - not breaking eight lines of information up into paragraphs - though this is probably more my issue). (2/20)

Next.

I can also arrange for a friend in Canberra to inspect your place.

Ok, so it would be hard arranging a place from OS (New Zealand) but this email essentially said that the guy would like to move in on the 12th. Nothing about meeting us beforehand - although we could meet his friend and presumably make a decision on that basis. Bub - bowwwwww. (4/20)

(I really hope I'm not working up a mess of bad karma here - I'm not trying to be mean or arrogant, these are just the things that didn't work for us)

The next one is probably something that many people would like, it just didn't quite read right to us.

We are very quiet and clean and tidy and considerate and work and study a lot.

I guess if we call a spade a spade, we are generally considerate and relatively quiet but the rest, um, not so much. Emphasising clean and tidy (yeah, I know it's an expression) probably didn't help either. (10/20)

And then there was the travel agent.

I am a 21 year old Aussie female.

Aussie? Female? Ok, so she's young but after the recent nationalism furore, identifying yourself by race just feels kind of wrong. As for female, well I know that a lot of country people say this instead of girl/woman but in tandem with the other, again, bub-bowwwwww. (2.5/20)

On the other hand, these ones seemed a little more appealing.

moving to Canberra to start a job with AusAID

Ok, so this one wasn't much more personable than the others necessarily but I know a few people at AusAID and they seem like a nice bunch. Unfair perhaps but the fact is, you will bump up against the ideologies of your prospective new housemates and it's nice to live with "fellow travellers". (12.75/20)

This also worked for the next girl, who's about to start work for the ABC.

I'm a tidy non-smoking Latino music-liking coffee and interesting tea-addict, the last place I lived was Newtown in Sydney and I can give you the numbers of ex-housemates if you'd like to run a background check.

It was nice to have a little more detail here - personalising the experience a little more. The Newtown thing worked for the ex-Melbournians (Newtown being as close as we can see to Little Melbourne in Sin City) and while we weren't sure if the background check thing was tongue in cheek or not, it appealed on either level. (15/20)

I'm really into a relaxed, friendly house that's clean (but not over the top), good for studying and relaxing. I play piano when I can, am into music, cooking (would love to have a little herb garden) and going to theatre (and the pub)

Again, it's the extra detail here that makes the person more interesting. While we don't expect massively personalised emails in this process, putting some detail about yourself in your form-letter goes a long way. The fact that this girl is also studying French (Eric is French and I have a smattering and would like to learn more) also helps in this instance. (16/20)

Similar story here -

Anyway, a little about me:

- I'm 32 years old.
- Work in the web field but an not a geek (not in the classic sense anyway)
- Big on photography, music and movies
- Am a writer, when I can get myself motivated
- Struggle to do something about my fitness from time to time

It's personal, addresses the whole "creative is a bonus" part (my personal preference and not an overriding factor but something nice) and we have shared interests. It also included a link to his website, which is really impressive. (17/20)

Ok, so now we get into interviews and seeing who is still looking and so forth.

I'll keep you posted. :)

Keating!: The Musical 2

Ok, just a couple more things - if you've seen the show and would like the soundtrack, you can find it here.

Also, how could I forget a musical number featuring both Anthony Green and Kerry O'Brien? (This was pretty close to my favourite number - a scat tune about the 93 election coverage)

And one more thing, which is a little more poignant. This is one of my favourite Keating speeches - given on the evening of the 1993 election victory, known simply as the "True Believers" speech.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Well, this is the sweetest victory of all. This is a victory for the true believers: the people who, in difficult times, have kept the faith.

And to the Australian people, through hard times, it makes their act of faith all that much greater.

It’ll be a long time before an opposition party tries to divide this country again. It’ll be a long time before somebody tries to put one group of Australians over here and another group over there. The public, the public of Australia, are too decent, too concientious and they’re too interested in their country to wear those sorts of things.

This, I think, has very much been a victory of Australian values, because it was Australian values on the line and the Liberal party wanted to change Australia from the country it’s become: a cooperative, decent, nice place to live where people have regard for one another.

Keating! : The Musical

I'm not normally one for the musical - every time you get to an interesting part of the story some fool or fools jump up and make a big song and dance of everything (sorry) - but Keating! the musical might just have changed my mind.

Billed as

the country soul opera we had to have

Keating! celebrates the political life of the last good Prime Minister we had, Mr Paul J Keating, from his rise to Prime Minister to the 1996 election against John Howard.

You could probably see this show without knowing anything about Australian politics in the 90s and still enjoy the songs and performances but I'm guessing you'd miss the jokes in every other line (it is cram packed with intelligent gags).

Musically (backed by five very talented musicians) the show wanders through a spread of musical genres - country, soul, a tango, the mambo, rock, cabaret and even a hiphop battle between Keating and John Hewson in the 93 election. (If I ruled this country, all elections would now have to be decided in this manner).

The performances were uniformly strong and you got the sense that everyone on stage was having a lot of fun, something which is always pretty infectious. The musical agility of all the performers - but particularly Mike McLeish as Keating - as they quickly switched between styles over and over was particularly impressive. Tony Serio also puts in a highly impressive (scary and depressing) performance as John Howard and the writer/creator of the show Casey Bennetto is truly frightening as the Frankenfurteresque Alexander Downer, singing about what a freak he is.

There is (as far as I can recall) no dialogue at all in this show - everything is told through song. Though I didn't realise it at the time, one of the songs even features a relatively word for word rendition of Paul Keating's renowned (in left circles) Redfern speech about the unjust treatment of Indigenous Australians over the last 200 years.

I won't give away the ending (the show finishes with the 96 election) but I will say that you are left with a nice case of the warm gooeys.

I was lucky enough to chat briefly with Casey Bennetto after the show (very nice bloke) and he told me about the show's opening performance in Sydney, where the man himself, Mr PJ Keating was in the audience and mamboed his way onto the stage to appear in the encore number. The crowd of luminaries that hung around after that show
were all most reluctant to leave at closing time, enjoying the warm glow of a world where a decent, caring and forward looking man was still running the country.

Evidently Keating and Kevin Rudd are the only two federal politicians to have seen the show so far.

The current season of Keating! at the Canberra theatre is sold out but there is a return season towards the end of March - which is also selling quickly.

If you like your politics and love your music, this is a show to see.

(Big big thanks to Sylvie for the ticket)

Lol'ing: Someone's going to hell for this

Thanks Yardo

Pimping : My ride

So as you can see, I have a snazzy new sticker decorating the frame of my bicycle - it's part of the ACTU campaign promoting unionism, which in this time of ridiculous worker-hating, corporate driven IR law changes is a bit of a must.

It replaces my The Corporation sticker, which asked the question - "Is your boss a psychopath?". Great sticker and a particularly great documentary but truth be told it was getting pretty ratty and this sticker is all shiny and new.

Given the limited space available on the frame of the bike (and the need to more or less stick with the bike color scheme of basic black), sticker placement is a bit of a fine art and I guess that in some ways it works as a bit of a moving billboard of my beliefs and interests. There are a couple of community radio stickers on there - XXfm (the station I'm involved with in Canberra) and RRR (one of the two great stations in Melbourne), a TAFE works sticker from a work thing and now this baby.

Anyways, I have two more of these bumper stickers available to the first two people to ask for them. (They're shiiiiiiny :)

Lol'ing: Spiders on drugs video.

I'm not normally one to resend a lot of things that come in email but I thought this was particularly funny.

I'm sure you've seen the pictures of spider webs when the spiders have been given different drugs




Well this is the video.

Attending: Poetry Slam

Ok so strictly speaking this happened on Friday but we've had a long weekend here and it's been nice moving away from the 'puter for a bit. (But it's ok baby, I'll never leave you again :)

Uh - anyways, the ANU Writers (group? kollective? liberation front?) puts on a poetry slam at the Front Cafe in Lyneham on the last Friday of every month - a night of open mic uni student poetry as well as a mixture of local bands.

My housemate's band Snowbug was playing and there's often some fairly decent poetry thrown into the mix (you still get your quota of the other as well but pretentious, overly personal/intellectualised guff read in earnest poet voice is all part of the entertainment really) so it was all a bit of a fait accompli.

The Front Cafe is a nice space, light and open with retro stylings, comfy couches and a gallery space - they also sell drinks now. (Although, they haven't quite gotten around to organising the key ingredients in a Gin & Tonic - uh gin and tonic). It's the kind of place that Canberra needs a lot more of - preferably with a big lush beer garden out the back.

The event itself has a really friendly vibe and is often a bit of a wall to wall crush of people - being a long weekend in Summer before uni is back though this one was a little more spacious which was nice.

I have to confess that I was one of those people that I've known myself to tut-tut about in my less easy-going moments at shows - I didn't make a big effort to catch the poetry this time around as it seemed that half the people I know in Canberra decided to turn up this time around (as well as some new friends) so it was nice to get some quality catching up and chatting time in. (At least I wasn't doing this in the performance room, so it's not like it was really rude).

The Snowbug sets were (obviously) a highlight though, the band appeared as a stripped back 3 piece this time around which suited their sound (offbeat loud keyboard-edged pop-rock) and banged out a range of songs to popular acclaim. This is one of their last shows in their current form - singer Tim Gummersall is UK-bound shortly - so it will be interesting to see where they go from here. (But just quietly, there is an outside chance I'll be hopping on stage in a backing vocals capacity sometime soon - stay tuned for details).

As I said earlier, I didn't hear a lot of the poetry although I did note one girl doing a pretty impressive line in Ani Di Francoesque hiphop delivery that I wish I'd heard a little more of. (My cynical ex thought it had something to do with the fact that she was quite cute but to that I say Tish Posh. )

One of the things I liked best about the night was the sense of being in a little hub of creative energy - in addition to everything that was happening on stage there were pockets of discussion all around, people talking about ideas and projects and teaming up - it was great.

And nary an Australian flag to be seen.