Playing: Songs on the radio - 2007 highlights

This is the selection of tracks I'll be playing today on the show (4-6pm - 2XXfm 98.3 in Canberra). It's a mixture of some of the most interesting stuff I came across in 2007 - not just new releases but also music that I managed to discover and then there are also just a few old faves for good luck.

There are a few tracks from a now perennial fave that comes out around this time of the year - Best of Bootie 2007. (The whole album is freely downloadable from their site here)

Even though it wasn't released as a song in it's own right, I've included what is possibly my favourite song of the year as well - Still Alive from the Xbox game Portal.



Sunrise Lambchop No You C'mon 4:10
Ghettochip Malfunction (Hell Yes) (8Bit Remix) Beck Guerolito 2:39
15 Step Radiohead In Rainbows 3:57
I Heard It Through The Grapevine The Slits Nouvelle Vague Presents New Wave [Disc 2] 3:50
After All David Bowie The Man Who Sold The World 3:55
Stray Dog And The Chocolate Shake Grandaddy Sumday 3:43
Still Alive Portal The Orange Box 2:56
Galvanize The Empire (Chemical Brothers vs. John Williams) Party Ben Best of Bootie 2007 3:32
WHITE STRIPES Icky thump (DJ Zebra whole lotta funk remix) DJ Zebra Best of Bootie 2007 4:08
Sympathy For Teen Spirit (Rolling Stones vs. Queen vs. Nirvana) DJ Moule Best of Bootie 2007 4:56
Falling Nick Cave & Warren Ellis The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2:54
Challengers The New Pornographers Challengers 3:31
Snow Peas Minimum Chips Kitchen Tea Thankyou 3:33
The Shape Is In A Trance Thurston Moore Trees Outside The Academy 4:39
Rosa The Devastations Yes, U 5:10
Frozen World Angie Pepper Born Out Of Time - The Australian Indie Sound 1979-88 3:29
7/29/04 The Day Of David Holmes Ocean's Twelve 3:11
Electric Worm The Beastie Boys The Mix-Up 3:15
Last Nite The Detroit Cobras Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before... (25 Years Of Rough Trade) 2:35
In The Red Love Of Diagrams We Got Communication 3:36
Brazil Xavier Cugat & His Orchestra Ritmo Cubano: Gold Collection (Disc 2) 2:29
Hold on, hold on Neko Case Acoustic 3 2:41

What I first met your Ma Donagh Quigley & Bill Grose Tell her I was 4:01
God's Gonna Cut You Down Johnny Cash American V: A Hundred Highways 2:38
Under the Milky Way The Church El Momento Descuidado 4:51
Whenever Beth Orton Trailer Park 3:54
The Only Way Gotye Like Drawing Blood 4:49
Millay Millay Muyngarnbi Songs from Walking with spirits 3:59
New Day Of The Dead Beasts Of Bourbon Little Animals 5:17
Roscoe Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther 4:49
I Want You Back The Spazzys Various - Stoneage Cameos 3:17
Hoodoo You Love The Drones Various - Stoneage Cameos 2:47
Airport '99 Philippa Nihill A Little Easy 4:00
Girl And The Sea The Presets Beams 4:46
Tesco V Sainsbury's Trans Am Now Hear This! 48 February 2007 2:54
Theme From "Shaft" Isaac Hayes Greatest Hit Singles 3:19
Ladyshave Gus Gus This Is Normal 3:58
Boner Grand National Kicking The National Habit 4:20
In The Year 2525 Visage Nouvelle Vague Presents New Wave [Disc 2] 3:37
Perfectly Ordinary Rastawookie Perfectly Ordinary 4:01
Object Ween La Cucaracha 2:36
You Took My Thing C.W. Stoneking King Hokum 2:50
Pink Moon Nick Drake Pink Moon 2:06

Playing: Team Fortress 2 on Xbox Live

Having done the Portal thing, I was ready to move on to other games in The Orange Box on the weekend and given that I'd (finally) managed to get hooked up on Xbox Live, the online platform for playing Xbox games with nerds from around the world, it seemed like the thing to do was to jump into Team Fortress 2.

(Yes I realise that it was a nice sunny weekend, I was just excited about being able to connect the 360 to my computer and also the web for the first time)

So anyway, TF2 is an online only game which looks a lot like something out of The Incredibles. It consists of 6 locations (or maps) divvied up between a red and blue team of up to 8 people each. There are a few variations on the missions involved - either to capture territory markers by standing on them for long enough or to break into the other team's base and steal a briefcase full of intelligence. (All the while trying to blow nine kinds of crap out of your opposition with your various weapons.)

I had hoped to be able to play the game offline separately first, giving me a chance to wander around the maps and get an idea of where to go. This not being an option, the best bet was generally to just follow the other guys as they hare into the other base - although I did realise later than some of the maps have gigantic flashing arrows in your colour that tell you where to go. (But it's easy to miss the subtle things :)

I'd heard horror stories of people playing Halo 3 having to deal with snotty 13 year olds pouring out unimaginative streams of invective, generally involving the words fag and dick, on Xbox Live, so I was mildly wary of putting on the headset (which allows you to chat to anyone on your team) but all was fine. Given that it was daytime, I think I was mainly left with the older stoners in the U.S playing in the small wee hours, when the bratz are in bed - or maybe this game inspires a higher level of classiness.

What I got instead was mostly the usual chatter you hear in networked games - there's a spy in the base, I need a medic, I've set up a turret/someone take out their turret, etc. There were the occasional exuberant cries of "did you see that - I'm a god" from time to time as well.

Is it overly sad that this reminded me of some research into games in education that looked at the way that players help new players learn and that these kind of online gaming experiences foster the development of collaboration skills?

This is what the game actually looks like.



I had been expecting this kind of online gameplay to absolutely chew through my broadband download allowances but all up I think it only used around 70Mb for a solid 3 or 4 hour session - peanuts really.

Lots of fun - moreso now that I'm getting more familiar with the maps and actually manage to live longer than the time it takes me to walk out the door of our base.

If you're on Xbox Live and feel like a game, just say hi to me - Singo the Dingo.

Enjoying: Dune

I caught a pretty rare screening of David Lynch's 1984 film, Dune last night and really enjoyed it.

Dune was critically trashed at the time it came out after being savagely cut by the producers (including Dino Di Laurentis, famed for his work in the good and schlocky) and is the only film that Lynch is embarrassed to have worked on.

It had something of a chequered history in the leadup to it's making - Ridley Scott was attached to the project for a while and insane (but awesome - check out El Topo) Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky was also working on an epic 16 hour version of the film for a while with Salvador Dali before it all fell into a big heap and they thought David Lynch might be a saner option. (Presumably not having seen Eraserhead :)

There are evidently 3 versions of this film floating about now - the 2h17m theatrical version I saw last night, a 3+ hour version that was put together for tv which includes a bunch of prologue stuff to better explain the complex plot elements (which Lynch hated so much he took his name off the film as director, going with the popular Alan Smithee pseudonym instead) and there is apparently also a 4 hour Lynch preferred cut taken from the work print which reflects the version of the film that Lynch came up with in the first place.

Personally, I don't see what's so complicated about the plot - it's really just a standard 102nd Century space prince becomes messiah on a planet of space freaks that mine a drug called Spice that's made by 400 metre long giant worms. Simple really.

As a Lynch fan, it's always enjoyable seeing actors from the Lynchiverse crop up repeatedly in his work. The late great Jack Nance (Henry from Eraserhead and Pete from Twin Peaks) has a minor role as one of the evil baron's weird sons and Everett McGill (Ed from Twin Peaks)is the leader of the aforementioned space freaks on the drug planet. Of course, the hero/messiah Paul Atreides was played by Kyle (Jeffrey in Blue Velvet, Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks) MacLachlan

There's also a host of other acting (and geekdom) notables including Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap), Patrick Stewart (Capt Picard in ST:TNG), Sean Young (Bladerunner) and the list goes on. Sting even ponces around a little in a highly odd way.

As you're watching the film, you can sometimes see the creative battles between Lynch and the producers playing out - big sudden lurches in storyline that you can still accept if you just let the movie flow over you but which you know must have had scenes and scenes of set up and explanation originally and big sprawling, slightly cheesy Di Laurentine battle scenes versus some classic Lynchian wierdness (which at times took me back to Eraserhead more than any subsequent film has - more in tone than anything.)

Stylistically it's magnificent, pure Lynch all the way. Dealing with a story set so far in the future gives you so much license to do whatever the hell you like and the look and feel of the thing - most of all the massive sets is just out there. The guy doing the introduction before the film mentioned the Steampunk quality of the thing and he was so right. The good family (the House of Atreides) and the Emperor's pad had this particularly end of the 19th century Edwardian feel to them and the technology matched.

There were moments of genuinely weird, scary behaviour - the evil Baron Harkonnen pulling out some young pretty boy's heart plug and drinking the spurting blood with homoerotic overtones was up there, as was Paul Atreides doing the burning hand in the box pain test.

It was pretty interesting seeing a tale told about war in the desert too - jihad was mentioned specifically - I'm sure if you had the time you could make this into a whole, massively prescient parable about the current crises - but really, who does these days? :)

I hadn't seen this film for at least 10 years and I'm really surprised at how much I remembered - which I suspect helped the story to make more sense - but honestly, nothing really seemed that complicated.

I'd love to see the Lynch approved version. This is well worth seeing if you get the chance and don't mind the odd cheesy 80s special effect. (Some of the primitive computer graphics effects come up surprisingly well, all things considered).

Oh and music by Toto - how could I forget that :) (Actually, it was pretty good)

Here's the trailer



and here's a fanboi tribute



Update - I just read that around the time this was being pre-produced, Lynch was offered the gig directing Return of the Jedi - how fracking awesome would that have been.

Watching: No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men, the newy from the Coen Brothers, is appearing on the top of best-of-2007 film lists everywhere at the moment - not that I didn't already want to see it anyway.

It tells the relatively simple story of a man (Josh Brolin) who finds a big bag of money at a drug deal in the Texas desert gone wrong and his attempts to keep it, pursued by all and sundry including awesomely, disturbingly calm and evil killer Javier Bardem and disillusioned old local sheriff Tommy Lee Jones.

The Coens make great use of the Texan environment in telling their story (just as they do with most of their films) and weave a twisting tale that features their usual blend of distinctive dialogue as well as tough people behaving as you might think they actually would in reality. There's a feeling of grim determination to this film and a slightly bleak sense at the end that captures the mood of the best of the film noir genre.

It's a little more violent than the average Coen bros film (but never gratuitously) but at the same time you kind of drift through it a little.

Critically it's been hailed as a return to their Fargo kind of form and I can see the parallels though as I say, this is a tougher film (not to watch, more in the characters in it).

Well worth a look. A good friend lent me another book by the writer of the book that this film is based on, Cormac McCarthy, called The Road. Think I might have to read this one first though.

Playing/Loving: Portal

I went out and treated myself to an Xbox 360 during the week and based on the growing mountains of praise, the first game I bought was the Valve bundle The Orange Box. This includes Half-Life 2, a couple of extra HL2 episodes, Team Fortress 2 and most importantly of all, the game I've been hearing oodles about, Portal.

This is quite simply one of the most brilliant, entertaining and enjoyable games I've ever played. It's not a long game - I got around 8 hours of gaming out of it but every moment is better than the last. It's set in a slightly futuristic lab complex where you are asked by a friendly sounding computer voice to complete a series of puzzles using a portal gun that you use to move between otherwise unreachable areas.
If you complete the tests, there is the promise of cake at the end.

This video should give you the gist of how this works.



The writing of this game is simply superb - your only interaction (as it is) is with the computer voice running the tests and some other robots along the way. There is a bitingly dark and funny edge to the whole experience which grows the further through the tests you get - a very corporate "you're very important to us but this test will probably kill you" kind of thing. The strength of the computer character goes to show how important this is in making a good game.

The puzzles themselves get progressively more mindbending and force you to think about using space and physics in your environment in ways I've never had to before in a game. (Not that you need to be a science nerd or anything).

Most of all, it's just a lot of fun and even the end credits are entertaining, with a specially written song by the computer that sums everything up nicely.

It's not surprising that this game is popping up at the top of best games of 2007 awards all over the shop.

Best of all, I haven't done the bonus levels yet.

Returning: to the Interwebz

After close to a week of no internet (many thanks to the fucktard chunts at Telstra who assured us it would be back within 48 hours - I'm a little blase about it all to be honest but the PC is gropable), I'm down at the folks and back into the blogosphere.

Coming soon - a special insight into my family (take note that the PC thinks I shouldn't be doing this - but I think it's funny and the world has a right to know)

Playing: Skyrates

Skyrates is a web-browser based game that plays out in real-time and is designed to be something that you pop in and out of during the day - somewhat like email checking - rather than immersing yourself in.

It works somewhat how I imagine World of Warcraft works (never played it to be honest, just not that interested in fantasy characters) - with quests, earning money, trade, fights and undertaking missions. It's more single player although there is in game chat and I think (but I'm not sure) that you can fight other players.

You can find out more about the ins and outs of the game in the Flight Manual and there was also a very interesting game design post mortem on the GameCareerGuide.com website.

That's my avatar up the top there - I'd normally go with a cat but for some reason the boar just seemed more appealing this time around. (Maybe because I was born in the year of the Pig)



Here you have my plane - it's early days yet so it's a little primitive but I've been able to whizz around the sky and fight off a fair few thieves so far. The idea of levelling up as a motivator in games like these is kind of interesting - it keeps you engaged, as you are rewarded for your time/work and it also gives you little praise/success hits as you go. Is it just propaganda designed to keep us happily plugging away as little worker elves or is this just a consequence of the system we find ourselves in?

(Personally I'm happy for people to be rewarded for achievement, hard work and good ideas but I would like to see some other models used occasionally in games for success)

The style of the game is quaintly cartoony, a quick trip through the tutorial is enough to get you going and it seems as though the people chatting on the radio are relatively friendly and helpful (though I haven't said hi yet)

The gameplay itself is pretty enjoyable and you can plot out a series of trips (which occur in real time - roughly an hour per flight) and subsequent trades and refuels which can then just run in the background on your web browser.

Hope to see you there :)

Enjoying: arty stuff

Aaron pointed me towards this very cool, ultra stylised video that shows how much visual information (both in advertising and other signage) we are exposed to on a daily basis. He found it on an interesting blog about alternative advertising practices. (They got it from a New York artists collective site - theWooster Collective, which has a wealth of awesomeness on there.)

I really hope there's some kind of CC (Creative Commons) thing going on with it as I'd love to use it for something else (or at least work out how it's done - lots of frame by frame hard work at a guess). I have one problem with it though - there's a point at which the guy enters his PIN at an ATM and now I can't for the life of me remember what mine is. (Hoping that muscle memory comes to the rescue next time I need to take money out :)

LOLing: Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker is a fast-talking, acid witted observer of modern English pop culture, going right back to a hilarious serious of mock tv guide pages he published on a website called tvgohome.com around the turn of the century.

It's certainly crude but hilariously so and with a healthy dollop of insight as well.

You can check out the entire tvgohome archive (be prepared to wile away the odd hour or two there) here

This is just a sample (minus the world-class swearing common to many of them) from the site.



He's since moved on to do a fair bit of very funny and highly edgy work on TV - very little of which has made it here although you can find a fair slab online, including the notorious Brasseye episode about paedophiles called paedogeddon.

His latest effort is called Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe.

If you've ever made snide remarks about the tools appearing on tv - on ads in particular, you might be able to relate.



My choice gag from this was

Ad - Who says you can't lose weight and enjoy yourselves?
Charlie - Bobby Sands? (Bobby Sands was an I.R.A member who died on a famous hungerstrike in a British prison in the 80s)

Reading: JPod by Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland has been revered in parts of the MSM (mainstream media) as a chronicler of the zeitgeist for the last 10 or 15 years, starting back in 1991 with his novel Generation X: Tales for an accelerated culture.

While I always had a certain curiosity about what the man had to say, there was something that slightly riled my born-and-bred Gen X 90s flannelette shirt wearing slacker sensibilities about having my culture dissected and demographised. So I left him and his subsequent works on the shelf.

I noticed his new book JPod the other day though and there was something about the backcover blurb that grabbed my attention - maybe because of my growing interest in game design or maybe I was just in the mood for a bit of zeitgeisty po-mo pop culture.

In brief, it's the story of a bunch of young folk working as game designers in Vancouver - all smart, oh so cool and all with far more interesting lives than you or I. One guy is trying to live the perfectly statistically normal life after growing up on a lesbian hippy commune, another's mum has a major hydroponic grow-op in the basement and on it goes.

Coupland cleverly mixes in some interesting text/graphical snapshots of modern life into the pages (e.g whole page text blocks of the ingredients in a pack of corn chips) as well as getting the characters to mix up the styles a little by having them write eBay postings of how they would sell themselves and saucy letters of seduction to Ronald McDonald.

He even brings himself into the story, which doesn't turn out as wanky as you'd think. It's an entertaining look at modern life that doesn't take itself too seriously and I think I may even go back and dip into the man's earlier works.

Here's an extract, taken from the rather funky book website at http://www.jpod.info/

(Evidently, this book is also in the process of being made into a tv series)

Never Mess with the Subway Diet

"Oh God. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel."

"That asshole."

"Who does he think he is?"

"Come on, guys, focus. We've got a major problem on our hands." The six of us were silent, but for our footsteps. The main corridor's muted plasma TVs blipped out the news and sports, while co-workers in long-sleeved blue and black T-shirts oompah-loompahed in and out of laminate-access doors, elevated walkways, staircases and elevators, their missions inscrutable and squirrelly. It was a rare sunny day. Freakishly articulated sunbeams highlighted specks of mica in the hallway's designer granite. They looked like randomized particle events.

Mark said, "I can't even think about what just happened in there."

John Doe said, "I'd like to do whatever it is people statistically do when confronted by a jolt of large and bad news."

I suggested he ingest five milligrams of Valium and three shots of hard liquor or four glasses of domestic wine.

"Really?"

"Don't ask me, John. Google it."

"And so I shall."

Cowboy had a Jones for cough syrup, while Bree fished through one of her many pink vinyl Japanese handbags for lip gloss—phase one of her well-established pattern of pursuing sexual conquest to silence her inner pain.

The only quiet member of our group of six was Kaitlin, new to our work area as of the day before. She was walking with us mostly because she didn't yet know how to get from the meeting room to our cubicles. We're not sure if Kaitlin is boring or if she's resistant to bonding, but then again none of us have really cranked up our charm.

We passed Warren from the motion capture studio. "Yo! jPodsters! A turtle! All right" He flashed a thumbs-up.

"Thank you, Warren. We can all feel the love in the room." Clearly, via the gift of text messaging, Warren and pretty much everyone in the company now knew of our plight, which is this: during today's marketing meeting we learned we now have to retroactively insert a charismatic cuddly turtle character into our skateboard game, which is already nearly one-third of the way through its production cycle. Yes, you read that correctly, a turtle character—in a skateboard game.

The three-hour meeting had taken place in a two-hundred-seat room nicknamed the air-conditioned rectum. I tried to make the event go faster by pretending to have superpower vision: I could see the carbon dioxide pumping in and out of everyone's nose and mouth—it was purple. It made me think of that urban legend about the chemical they put in swimming pools that reveals when somebody pees. Then I wondered if Leonardo da Vinci had ever inhaled any of the oxygen molecules I was breathing, or if he ever had to sit through a marketing meeting. What would that have been like? "Leo, thanks for your input, but our studies indicate that when they see Lisa smile, they want a sexy, flirty smile, not that grim little slit she has now. Also, I don't know what that closet case Michelangelo is thinking with that naked David guy, but Jesus, clamp a diaper onto him pronto. Next item on the agenda: Perspective—Passing Fad or Opportunity to Win? But first, Katie here is going to tell us about this Friday's Jeans Day, to be followed by a ten-minute muffin break."

But the word "turtle" pulled me out of my reverie, uttered by Fearless Leader—our new head of marketing, Steve. I put up my hand and quite reasonably asked, "Sorry, Steve, did you say a turtle?"

Christine, a senior development director, said, "No need to be sarcastic, Ethan. Steve here took Toblerone chocolate and turned it around inside of two years."

"No," Steve protested. "I appreciate an open dialogue. All I'm really saying is that, at home, my son, Carter, plays SimQuest4 and can't get enough of its turtle character, and if my Carter likes turtle characters, then a turtle character is a winner, and thus, this skateboard game needs a turtle."

John Doe BlackBerried me: I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS

And so the order was issued to make our new turtle character "accessible" and "fun" and the buzzword is so horrible I have to spell it out in ASCII: "{101, 100, 103, 121}"

Watching: Prometeus - the media revolution

This is an interesting video about the possible future of media and experience that I found on Jenny Weight from RMIT's blog. It looks at where communication has come from, where the Internet is taking it and then goes on to hypothesise about how virtual worlds might be able to represent more and more of reality and what this means for our understanding of it.



It also reminds me a little of this movie, though doesn't get quite so detailed in it's examination of the possible evolution of the media in general and how information and knowledge might be managed.

Causing: concern

Well I just learnt a lesson about not taking micro-naps at the radio station console - nothing bad happened but because there's a window that goes out to the hallway, a couple of passing people from the Men's group down the hall were concerned that I'd collapsed or something and quickly roused up the station manager to check on me.

Which is a bummer because it's rather warm and cozy in here and I could really just go for a nap about now. (Still, it's nice that people care about strangers)

Reading: Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most interesting writers around, cramming his books with all manner of ephemera and ideas, making subversive observations about society and weighing up the mainstream by focussing on subcultures. Best known for writing Fight Club, there's also a movie version of another of his novels, Choke, coming up at the Sundance Film Festival soon.

It's hard to tell too much of the story of Rant without giving the whole thing away but let's say that it's an oral history of a man who likes to be bitten by poisonous spiders and rabid animals, who sets up a tooth museum and who joins a bizarre team sport called party crashing which involves people decorating their cars and crashing into each other in night time traffic.

There's time travel, full sensory input media, a weird city system that revolves around a day/night curfew to ensure better use of public facilities (you're either a daytimer or a nighttimer)and Rant's girlfriend, a deformed hooker who clients pay not to have sex with.

It gets a little confusing at the end - I have to admit that as much as I love the man's work, he does seem to have a problem coming to satisfying conclusions. Perhaps this is how he likes it - why should everything be wrapped up with a tidy bow and explained and resolved? Still, when you've enjoyed the first 95% of the story, it sometimes feels a little rushed or something.

Anyways, this book is still well worth a look - I might even go back for another try to see if I can make more sense of the ending second time around. (Don't get me wrong, generally I got it but there's this whole layers on layers thing)

Liking: the new GTA IV trailer

I'm a little curious about how much of this is in-game footage and how much is from animated cutscenes but it looks schmicky anyway. Only 3 more months (give or take) to go. (Guess I'll have to buy something to play it on soonish then :)

You can watch the high quality version at the Rockstar site here. (It takes a little while to load but is worth it)

Enjoying: The Onion AV Club's Coen Brothers primer

I watched The Hudsucker Proxy again the other night - which to my mind is one of the best films ever. (Not that a lot of people agree with me but oh well.) It's one of the lesser-known films by Joel and Ethan Coen (a.k.a The Coen Brothers), who also made Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona and the soon to be released No Country for Old Men.

These guys sit comfortably in my top 3 film-makers of all time with their offbeat humour, brilliant storytelling and ability to take any genre and make it their own. They have an awe inspiring eye for visuals, write golden dialogue and bring out superb performances from the already talented actors they bring in.

The AV Club section of The Onion website put together an extensive primer on their body of work the other day which sums them up far better than I ever could, so if you have any love for film at all, do yourself a honkin big favour and check it out.

I wasn't such a fan of their last two outings - Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers - but everything else they have made is pure gold.

My personal top five:

1. The Hudsucker Proxy (not the trailer but a great sequence)



2. The Big Lebowski



3. Miller's Crossing



4. Fargo



5. Raising Arizona




(Picture CC Rita Molnar)

Freecycling: the futon

I've had a queen-sized futon since the early 90s and it's moved with me across ten houses in that time (Richmond - Abbotsford - Armadale - Richmond - Richmond - Richmond - Braddon - Ainslie - Campbell - Braddon - Turner). There's a bit of history in that bed but now that the PC and I have upgraded it's time to move on. (The futon mattress itself was replaced about a year ago)

Rather than sell it, I stuck it up on Freecycle - a nifty online community/service/whatever that brings together people looking for things and those looking to give them away.

This is their blurb:

The worldwide (!) Freecycle(TM) Network is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is run by a local volunteer moderator (them's good people). Membership is free.

You can check out the website regularly or have updates forwarded to you directly when they are posted - either individually or in digest format.

They generally look something like this:



Anyways, long story short, after two days, it's gone. Someone who needed a bed now has one and I've been able to de-clutter a little.

Well worth checking out.

Updating: exploring tattoos

Just an interesting follow up from yesterday's thoughts about tattoos - there's an article in The Age today about the way big business and advertising are jumping on board.

Once seen as a silent cry of rebellion, tattoos now posess a status so firmly mainstream that advertisers are using them to market everything from tires and shoes to wine and energy drinks. That has its downside, though. The more acceptable tattoos become, the more they lose their edginess - and their value as advertising.

"There is always an element of rebellion or rite of passage with these things," said David Crockett, assistant professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina.

"What makes them interesting is how the marketplace appropriates that rebelliousness and serves that back to you in the form of an energy drink."

It goes on to talk about how Dunlop offered a set of free tires to anyone who got their logo tattooed - and so far 98 people have done just that.

Shane also commented on the post yesterday in his characteristically modest and dryly funny fashion bringing up a range of interesting observations. I haven't seen the guy in Melbourne with the Paul Stanley star tattoo (presumably on his eye) - as a closet Kiss fan I feel as though I've missed out.

Exploring: tattoos

I had an email from a mate the other day wondering about my thoughts on tattoos.

Here's what he had to say.

I reckon you ought to write something about tattoos. As in ‘what the fuck?’ This morning a young woman (early 30s) I know said something about how much she likes tats. I thought my reaction (unspoken) was more interesting than the fact she likes tats. My first thought was ‘I thought you were more sophisticated than that’.

Evidence, I’m sure, of my age, sense of aesthetics, and lack of appreciation of what’s going on with street and other fashion … I really wonder why tats have taken off with such a vengeance right around the world.

How much of it is media driven? Why do some people get on the tattoo train with a sneaky little butterfly on the ankle and others hijack the whole engine with the total body canvas thing? I’m sure somebody has written about all this, but I have to admit it puzzles me.

I wore an earring for about 15 years but then one day I thought it looked less cool and more silly so I took it out. It would be hard to do that with big tats!

Personally speaking, I'm not one in general for adornment - no jewellry, no hair dying, makeup and obviously enough, no tattoos. I don't know why I feel this way in particular - I certainly don't have any problem with the choices anyone else makes in this area for themselves (ok, maybe some aesthetic issues crop up - big hoop earrings for one) - maybe I'm just a body minimalist.

That said, I have considered a tattoo at some points in my life - maybe because all my friends were doing it - but I've never seen a design that I thought summed me up and that I would want to keep for the rest of my life. Conceptually, I imagine it would be some sort of sun design (again, not sure why) in the spirit of the image at the top, probably on my left shoulder.

My take on tatts - and not having one I realise that there are a myriad of reasons for them that I haven't grasped - is that they still have a hint of outsider mystique attached to them. A feeling that whatever else you have to do in your life, however much you have to buckle down and do what you're told, you at least carry a small symbol of rebellion against the norm that helps assert some independence.

(Incidentally, I think not getting one while most of the people I knew did was perhaps some kind of assertion of my own independence/individuality - or maybe I just have commitment issues :)

I don't think that the media have had much to do with this at all - I remember a big emergence of tatts around the grunge period of the early 90's, coming out of punk and that whole "alternative" movement that was eventually co-opted and watered down into something more marketable by the mainstream media but even now when you see tattoos represented in film or tv, they are generally used as shorthand to suggest that the tattooed is more of an outsider.

Different strokes for different folks really - I guess the main issue for me would be the permanance of the thing - I know you can get them removed and all but still... Perhaps some of the tattooed folk out there might like to talk about what they mean to them?

I did come across some interesting pictures while I was searching for the sun image at the top - some which involve creating suntan tattoos





And then there are also pure white tattoos -



(Images linked to from eglobe1.com, likecool.com and dance.net)

Writing: gags for radio

I feel like I'm getting these a little punchier now - possibly overly reliant on puns and some groanworthy punchlines but considering that I write these during the course of the show, based only on the news stories I can access on the restricted internet of the studio computer, they could be worse.

Police had to use capsicum spray on three AFL players from the Kangaroos football team last night after an incident at a Lionel Ritchie concert. Unconfirmed witness reports suggest that the players had been "dancing on the ceiling, all night long".

They are believed to have been taken away in Commodores.

Kevin Rudd was this morning sworn in as Australia's 26th Prime Minister. It hasn't yet been confirmed whether Tony Abbott was the one doing the swearing.

Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Kevin Rudd signed the document this morning in his first act as Prime Minister.

Newly green Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said that the PM hadn't gone far enough and a Liberal government would also ratify the Da Vinci Code and the Bourne Ultimatum.

A British teacher working in Sudan has been sentenced to 15 days jail for naming a teddy-bear Muhammed. New Attorney General Robert McLelland is believed to be looking into similar laws for parents who name their children Madison, Taylor or Britney.

Exploring: my bookcase (part 5)

How to be a man - John Birmingham

Another Birmo book, this time another collection of various anecdotes and useful tips about masculinity - everything from how to behave in a brothel to how to spot a conman, why noone should wear Greek fisherman's caps (unless they are both Greek and a fisherman) and even George Orwell's guide to making the perfect cup of tea.



Dude - Where's my country? - Michael Moore

More pointed, hilarious and insightful commentary from Michael Moore about Bush, the war for oil and all the things that are wrong with the conservative agenda.



World War Z - an oral history of the zombie war - Max Brooks

Max (son of Mel) Brooks follows up The Zombie Survival guide with a brilliant broad vision of a global zombie epidemic and how humanity fights back.


Premiere Pro 1.5 - Studio techniques - Rosenberg

How-to guide for my video editing package of choice (well, given the absence of a Mac for Final Cut Pro and a more specced up PC to run Avid)




The Latham Diaries - Mark Latham

Mark Latham is seen as a bit of a political punchline these days but I remember the possibilities he offered back in early 2004 and still have a bit of respect for his passion and some of his ideas. His diaries offer a highly informative view of the insides of modern politics.



Camping in Victoria - Boiling Billy publications

I did the cubs/scouts/jamboree/dork thing in my youth and carry to this day an enjoyment of camping. This is all the main sites in Victoria and may come in useful over the break if I get adequately organised.



TV Guide - December 16-22, 1989.

As a bit of a media junkie, this seemed like a good souvenir to pick up on my last visit to the U.S back in the late 80s. I'm pretty sure it features the first appearance on TV of The Simpsons.



Lynch on Lynch - edited by Chris Rodley

A collection of interviews covering the entire career of one of my top 3 filmmaking heroes, David Lynch. (the other 2 are the Coen Brothers and probably Tim Burton).
It doesn't make the movies make any more sense but they just don't have to, being the screen dreams that I see them as.



Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

One of the few instances where I think the film is better than the book - it's still awesome but the film just seems a tiny bit tighter. Currently reading Palahniuk's newy - Rant. (so far, so superb)



Don Watson - Death Sentence

Paul Keating's former speechwriter writes a smarty and witty (although sometimes verging on Grumpy-old-menish) attack on the decay of public language and the rise of weasel words.



The Zombie Survival guide - Max Brooks

Very cool book of logical, practical ideas to surviving a zombie outbreak - played with a very straight bat. Top tips - avoid hospitals (this is where these things generally start) and hole up on the second floor of a building after destroying the staircase.