Geeking: it up with the ROFLMAO song

This is geeky on so many levels I don't know where to begin. It's a World of Warcraft based machinima version of the Muppets Manamana song using leetspeak.



(Thanks Len)

Forgetting: to post

Oops, completely slipped my mind today.

Back tomorrow

LOLing: Starts Wars

No idea who did this originally but I found it here

Watching: Inland Empire

I've been a fan of David Lynch ever since I stumbled across a late night screening of The Elephant Man back in the mid 80s and I've followed his career with fascination ever since.

After starting out with the magnificently trippy and disturbing Eraserhead in the mid-70s, Lynch made a series of films with relatively conventional story structures - all peopled by freaks, oddballs and outsiders but nonetheless all fairly recognisable as stories and easy to follow. (Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me).

As he's progressed though, he's returned more to his experimental roots and the stories have gradually become more obtuse and confusing - playing with ideas of time, space and identity and shifting the entire reality of the story as it goes (Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive notably). This worked for me when I realised that it didn't have to be about a direct linear story but could just as well be more like a dream, with a series of sensations and disconnected but always amazing looking and sounding experiences.

It's part freak show, part oil painting and part sound installation for me.

Inland Empire, his most recent film, takes this further than he ever has before. It's nominally the story of a woman with a lead role in a remake of a cursed, unfinished film based on an old Polish legend but it's really much more like the mindblowing weird dream that you'd have after overindulging on some kind of curry pizza.

Characters, locations, everything essentially changes from moment to moment - events recur, reality shifts from something happening to it being a scene in the movie, to being a particularly freaking looking single room set sitcom featuring people in rabbit costumes - it truly is impossible to describe. Suffice to say, it has to be watched as an art video rather than anything else.

Unfortunately, clocking in at around 3 hours, you simply can't be sitting on uncomfortable seats to watch this (as I was) - I remember thinking on about a dozen occasions during the film how much I wished I could be watching it in one of those fancy gold-class cinemas with the recliner chairs and whatnot - which kind of detracts from the experience. As much as I'm a fan, I couldn't really recommend this to anyone who isn't also a fan, lover of tripped out art cinema and possessing a comfy comfy chair.

Watching: American Gangster

Here's a quick blurb:

American Gangster is a 2007 crime film written by Steve Zaillian and directed by Ridley Scott. The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Washington portrays Frank Lucas, a real-life heroin kingpin from Manhattan who smuggled the drug into the country in the coffins of American soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. Crowe portrays Richie Roberts, a detective who brings down Lucas's drug empire.

Here's the trailer:



I really got the sense as I was watching this film that Ridley Scott saw this as an opportunity to make his own The Godfather (with a touch of Goodfellas). Clearly there are a number of differences - it's much more of a cop vs bad guy story than a sprawling crime family thing - but nonetheless, there really was a Godfather vibe to this thing - stylistically at least.

The film uses a lot of the same sombre and dark looks in Godfather, celebrates the whole family thing and even hints during a Thanksgiving sequence at the famous Godfather christening/whacking montage. Music from that culture is used widely (and really effectively, awesome soundtrack of soul, funk and blaxploitation hits including my personal fave "Across 110th St". (This is also a staple of the Scorsese approach)

What the film missed though was depth and this is what puts it into the lower tier of perfectly competent but by-no-means great crime films. The characters are all a little thin - possessing one or two heavily emphasised personal traits (Frank Lucas is smart and capable, Richie Roberts is smart and honest) that you really don't get past. (The fact that Richie Roberts had turned in nearly a million dollars he and a partner had found in a car boot was mentioned at least a dozen times in the story)

It was interesting enough to watch, stylish and cool but ultimately, I didn't really care what happened to any of the characters and Ridley Scott never seemed willing to dwell long enough on any one scene to create any anxiety that something could go wrong.

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe's performances were fine for the characters they were given, I just wish the characters had been more interesting. All in all, a stylish film and an interesting enough story but nothing amazing

Pwning: Forumwarz

Well ok, perhaps pwning isn't entirely accurate, it's more like playing but I'm just getting into the spirit of the thing.

Forumwarz is an online role-playing game (RPG) that is set in the modern world of Internet forums, with all the associated depravity, leet-speak, clannishness, juvenile behaviour, flaming and whatnot.

I've generally veered well away from the RPG genre in the past because for the most part it seems to revolve around the fantasy/wizards&warriors/dungeons&dragons/warcraft world that I've never really gotten into. (I don't mind fantasy movies - particularly the golden age of them in the 80s and of course the LOTR trilogy - but all in all it just seems a little silly.)

Forumwarz however brings the funny to the RPG genre by mercilessly and outrageously skewering pretty well all the elements of online culture.

You can play as one of three types of online archetypes, making use of your various powers in a range of ways. You can be either a Troll (someone who generally just enjoys being an arsehole to people online with provocative/offensive remarks), an Emo (modern day Goths essentially but angrier and more emotional - these guys tend to whine incessently) or a Camwhore (cute girls who make use of their sexuality to get what they want).

I'm a troll. (Incidentally, I played a Troll in my first dramatic role - a kindergarten production of the 3 billygoats gruff - so i think I know a thing or two about being a troll :)

Gameplay involves a series of missions which increase in difficulty and require you to use your powers to kill discussions in web forums. (Or fora if you prefer to be grammatically correct).

As you progress, you accumulate experience, cred, skills and items which allow you take on tougher and more offensive opponents and keep you engaged by regularly ringing the little "rewards" bell in your brain.

Forum battles involve making an initial comment and then seeing how much damage this does to the board and how much damage the response does to you. You don't type the words as such but rather choose from a selection of attacks - as a troll I have the option to bang my head against my keyboard, post offensive ASCII art, post spoilers, make Yo'Mama jokes and now post bad poetry.

As a Troll (I haven't played as the other classes - yet) I have a supply of ego and a supply of douchebaggery that I need to monitor during the battle to survive - fortunately these can be topped up by buying supplies between battles from the online pharmacy drugs-r-fun (happidex and viagrow) and dodgy dealers under the bridge (anything from nutmeg to a keg of malt liquor). You can also buy dodgy home-made steroids from a jock "friend" or get Bruce the Bear to fix your computer when it takes damage.

It's worth noting that a lot of the content in this game goes out of it's way to mirror the ridiculously offensive stuff that you can find if you trawl the web long enough and before you can join the game you have to type in a disclaimer stating that you are not easily offended.

So far I've battled white supremacists, fecalphiliacs, deathmetal headbangers and furries (fetishests who dress up in animal costumes) and it gets out there - but that said, a lot of the dialogue is community generated and very effectively and humourously skewers the comments of the range of online nutbags.

The game also uses a mock instant messaging client, a mock email system and a mock search engine to progress the story, which quickly sees you enmeshed in a weird conspiracy which may or may not be driven by shadowy govt forces set on dispersing evil code to infiltrate web user's computers.

The game has some artificial gameplay limits - you can only attack four forums a day (you can go back and repwn old fora if you wish to increase your experience and cred - which results in random presents from strangers). The limits are designed to encourage donations to the game makers to support the site (these donations buy you cheats) but I like the limits as it means that you don't get stuck in the game for too long.

I highly recommend this game - but you might want to be mindful of who might wander past your computer as you are playing it - forum titles such as Fitness Faggotry, That's a lot of feces, Konservative Kristian Koalition and Headbangers Hellhole... of Death might give people the wrong idea about your normal browsing habits :)

AWWWing: Fatboy Slim The Joker video with kittens

This video was the winner of a competition that Fatboy Slim put together a little while back to make a clip for his remix of the Steve Miller song The Joker.

It's got kittens. In hats. Need I say any more. :)

Looking forward to: Diary of the Dead

Looks like zombie-film icon George A. Romero is on a bit of a roll now, with the fifth installment in the Night of the Living Dead series well on the way.

Diary of the Dead goes back to the events of the first film - originally set in the late 60s but now updated to the modern day through the magic of being a super-awesome film-maker and allowed to do whatever you wish.

It takes the slightly over-used approach of a group of young film-makers with a camcorder documenting the weirdness going on around them - but hey, it's Romero and I'm sure he'll do this story telling mechanic justice and bring something special to it as well.

No idea when it's due out here but it's been out in the U.S for a couple of weeks and has a passable 66% on Metacritic. (But most of the negative reviews that dragged this score down seem to be reacting to Romero's grim view of society than the film itself)

Notable beacon of progressive thought, the Murdoch owned New York Post, has this to say:

Romero's we're-all-doomed-and-maybe-we-deserve-it pessimism is so extreme he would fit right in with a real group of brain-eaters: the French.

Here's the trailer.



There is also a great interview in the AV Club on The Onion website with the great man himself - check it out here.

Celebrating: Canberra Day

Well it's the Canberra Day public holiday today and I'm marking it in fine public service form by sitting on my arse in front of the computer. (What with Canberra being the seat of government in Australia it is also the public service capital)

Happy Canberra day - marking 95 years of being the little city that could. (Or as some friends less kindly put it - the city that never wakes)

Wondering: don't astronauts have enough to put up with.

As awesome as it would be to go into space, I can see that orbit-life would have a number of downsides. You live in a tiny container - somewhat like being in prison, you have to poo in zero gravity and there's a real prospect of some piece of stray spacejunk crashing into your home at any point and rather ruining your day.

Why then would you send up an mp3 player containing 10 songs for them to listen to, chosen by a contest winning 14 year old Norwegian girl. (Not that 14 year old Norwegian girls couldn't choose good songs - just not this one)

Here's the list:

Here Comes The Sun - Beatles
Come Fly With Me - Frank Sinatra
Rocket Man - Elton John
Up Where We Belong - Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
Imagine - John Lennon
Flashdance - What A Feeling - Irene Cara
Walk of Life - Dire Straits
Fly - Celine Dion
Rockin' All Over The World - Status Quo
I Believe I Can Fly - R Kelly

Now I'm going to assume that there are more songs than this on the mp3 player and that the whole song-list competition thing is largely a handy hook to get media attention and spark debate because, admit it, who doesn't like a good top 10 list discussion. (Clearly I do)

That said though, there is no mention anywhere on the European Space Agency website about any other songs at all being included.

So worse case scenario - this is it - the ten songs you have to listen to over and over again while dealing with the aforementioned astronaut deprivations. Memories of my time working as a Santa photographer in a toy department come to mind at this point - looped Disney character sung Christmas carols all day. (Preceded by the like clockwork 8.55am juice-up-the-staff Tina Turner Simply the Best song playing of course)

Sure, individually there are some good songs on the list - but isn't the flying/space thing just a tad overdone. Do these people really need to be reminded that they are up in the sky - we're talking some fairly well educated scientist types here.

And where is Walking on Sunshine and the Bowie classics Space Oddity/Ashes to Ashes?

I guess it could be worse - if you were feeling mean you could have gone with a BadgerBadgerBadger, Crazy Frog and Bananaphone medley.

Admiring: the balloon tank

Click on the images for the full size version - you can check out the whole series at http://www.linkinn.com/_Balloon_Tank_pic

Wondering about: the Sarah Connor Chronicles ARG (Alternate Reality Game)

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) take a cross media approach to game play and attempt to bring the action more into the player's day to day life. Wikipedia says that

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

The form is typified by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, and characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium.

There is a new game in the field apparently, tied in to the Terminator based tv series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It revolves around a revolutionary new type of camera which can photograph events from 1191 days in the future.

This video that I found on Boing Boing sets the scene.



This "rabbit-hole" takes you on to the website for the company which is developing the camera - EniTech Research, where you can find more videos and presumably more ways of playing the game. (I haven't looked into it yet)

Slightly off topic, I've been thinking about other options for "real-world" gaming - having a bit of a fascination with the sport of cyclogaining (a derivative of rogaining), which is kind of like a big bike based treasure hunt.

I was thinking (having been influenced by the mobile-obsession of my friend and colleague Len :) that an addition to this might be to introduce some element of hunting your competitors by setting up a shared Flickr account and having everyone photograph the opposition on mobile phones and uploading these to Flickr. This would give a time-stamp of who got their pix up there first and thus who got the "kill".

Haven't really finished thinking that through yet but I reckon it has promise.

Enjoying: the new will.i.am/Obama video - but also raising an eyebrow

I really enjoyed the first will.i.am tribute song/video/project/whatever about Barack Obama (previously mentioned here) and I'm still finding the man (and the accompanying buzz) enthralling. I've been listening to the audio book version of his book of political views and that's impressed me greatly as well.

So for some reason I'm finding it a little odd that I have a faint nagging twinge about the latest video that will.i.am has put out as part of the campaign.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it still carries a lot of the inspiration and the hope (and it's for Barack man) - it just feels a little too slick, a little too polished and it also sparks a feeling that this is all veering a little close to the cultish for my tastes.



I guess I hope that this whole surge doesn't peak too early and hit some kind of overexposed backlash. The O-ba-ma chanting in the video just doesn't quite sit right either - what would be great would be if Barack came out and played it all down a little, made the point that he's not this guru figure but just a guy with some good ideas.

But given the way the media works and the need to keep the momentum going, I guess that might not be the best strategy.

I definitely got a sense though that the conservative/redneck/Republicans are genuinely scared of the man though from the range of rather offensive comments on the YouTube video digging deep into the staples of fear and misdirection that are the flip side of the Obama approach. (Which fortunately, I think the majority of people are well and truly sick of)

And by the way, if you're taking on board the arguments that the Obama campaign is all flash and no substance, all words and no plans, there is a great analysis/comparison of the Obama/Clinton voting records and legistation supporting/drafting up here on Daily Kos.

Chuckling: at the hapless hippy

Mark Boyle, a former organic food company boss, had a grand plan - to walk from England to India without a cent, relying on the goodwill of the people he came across on his way to keep him fed, sheltered and whatever else he might need. Essentially letting "the universe" provide.

His goal was to demonstrate to the world that we don't need money to live (presumably as long as everyone else that we meet actually does have money and a generous heart).

Mark is part of the freeconomy movement, which is all about sharing and community and bartering and working together and I'm pretty well fine with all of this. You can read up about this on his blog here. I'll happily agree that big business thrives on creating an environment where it's everyone for themselves and we are constantly encouraged to overconsume. Society is generally better served when we work together as a community and this is all good.

At the same time though, I respect that people who choose to work extra hard or who have good productive ideas are entitled to be rewarded for their efforts and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a reasonable level of private property.

Where our Mark's story gets interesting is how far he actually managed to make it.

France. Calais to be precise, just outside the ferry from England.

On arriving in France (with two fellow-travellers) they found that the French weren't that interested in speaking to "back-packing freeloaders" with no knowledge of the language between them.

After a few days starving, he and his pals have packed it in and headed home, copping a little bit of stick from the media in the process.

It's worth taking a look at some of the posts on his blog and it's hard to think too unkindly of him as his heart is clearly in the right place but let's say that he comes across as a little disconnected for day to day reality.

Poor hippy.

Playing: a rather mixed bag of tunes for Monday Sunset

Not entirely sure what's in the water this evening but I think there's something as I've been drawn to this motley batch of tracks to play on the radio tomorrow (or today if you will)

We have a couple of songs about serial killers, some fairly unusual cover versions, a bit of mashup and a closing song that probably isn't entirely appropriate to play before kiddy storytime but which will hopefully prompt some hilarious innocent questions along the lines of "what does - you took my frill necked lizard and put him in a crack - mean?"

And that has to be good for everyone.

Object Ween La Cucaracha 2:37
S.L.H. (Sri Lanka High) (M.I.A. vs. The Ramones) Jay-R Best of Bootie 2005 4:28
Wonderwall Paul Anka Q: Best Of 86/06 3:34
Pissing in the wind Badly Drawn Boy The hour of the bewilderbeast 4:20
'84 Pontiac Dream Boards Of Canada The Campfire Headphase 3:50
The Killing Moon Nouvelle Vague Bande À Part 3:39
Its Worth These Days Airport City Shuffle Death Of Robot 4:01
Mrs. Robinson The Lemonheads The Best Of The Lemonheads 3:45
Waves Superette Topless women talk about their lives 3:19
Utopia Goldfrapp Felt Mountain 4:18
Quick Way To Hell The Fuelers Hot Dang 3:43
Somebody Told Me The Killers Hot Fuss 3:17
Women's realm Belle and Sebastian Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant 4:36
Gun Gil Scott-Heron The Best Of Blaxploitation (Disc 2) 4:02
Read to me B(if)tek Frequencies will move together 4:17
Islands Cat Power The Greatest 1:44
yes We Can Song will i am and friends Obama 08 4:20
Secure Yourself Indigo Girls Indigo Girls 3:37
Blue Orchid The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan 2:38
Pushing Drugs Andrew W. K. Close Calls With Brick Walls 2:41
Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye Super Hits 4:00
You Took My Thing And Put It In Your Place C.W. Stoneking King Hokum 2:51

Pondering: fear and regret

February 29 always brings me a tiny twinge of regret and reflection as it wings around its little four year cycle. It's the birthday of a girl I had a huge crush on in high school - Ferne Kohlman - not a hard date to remember given its infrequent nature (and the fact that it's the day after my dad's birthday as well).

We sat across the aisle from each other at the back of the classroom and I was hooked from the moment my angsty little hormone filled teenage self laid eyes on her in early February at the start of year 7.

Obviously I've moved on to bigger and far better things in the #cough#24years#cough# time since then but as a lesson in how events at that age help shape who you are and what you become, it's still something that pops into my head on the odd occasion.

Valentines Day came around about a week after school started and the night before I spent hours painstakingly making her a valentines card that I planned to secretly slip into the pigeon-hole/shelves that we had just near the classroom door for our books and whatnot.

In green pen I (clumsily) drew this lush fern frond (because her name was Ferne - get it) with hundreds upon hundreds of those tiny fern (uh what are they called - leaves/nodules?) thingys and agonised over the perfect combination of words.

Being a relatively private person, (or perhaps fearful), I didn't sign it, figuring I could gauge the reaction when she read it and take my cue from there.

Come the next day I scurried early to class and eagerly scanned the pigeonholes looking for her name - Fern Coleman. (Which was how I had intricately written it in fronds on the card). Logically, it would have been between the B surnames and the Ds.
But no. I scanned in a panic another dozen times - why wouldn't she have a pigeonhole - it didn't make sense.

I scanned the whole wall of pigeon holes and reached the Ks (for Kohlman) to realise to my young mortification that I had spelled not only her first name wrong but also her surname. I slipped the card in regardless and when it was discovered, proceeded to deny absolutely to all and sundry that I had had anything to do with it. (After all, if I truly loved this girl, how could I possibly not even know her name)

And that was it - for the next four years (until she changed schools at the end of year 10), I pined for her from afar - afraid of I'm still not entirely sure what but nonetheless, ruled by my fears.

The truly stupid thing is that I'm pretty sure that she did actually like me and there were any number of chances to move on but in my strange little mind, I just couldn't and wouldn't act.

I hope now that I'm less proud or fearful or whatever the hell it was that I was doing - possibly a modicum of stubborn self-destructive willfullness in there as well for all I know.

But February 29 will always remind me of the consequences of fear

Enjoying: Star Wars as explained by a 3 year old.

This is all too cute but pretty impressive at the same time - she manages to get the gist of the movie across (not sure how you would go if you'd never seen it of course) and its really interesting to get a sense of the parts of the story that grabbed her attention the most.

She spends a fair bit of time talking about how the sand-people capture r2d2 and c3po (the shiny man) and have a sort of garage sale - except it's with robots.

She steers well clear of the whole Han shot first debate too - got to love the light sabre description as well.

Admiring: Till Nowak's "Salad" (eat your vegies before they eat you)

(Click on the image to view it at full size)

This is a beautiful piece of 3D work that pays tribute to HR Gigers design work for the Alien series of films. There's a fair bit of interesting info on the website about the creation of this image too.

LOLing: Yes we can song parodies

I mentioned back here how impressed I was with the song that Will.I.Am put together paying tribute to Barack Obama which has become a bit of a web sensation.

As with most web things, it hasn't taken long for a couple of piss-takes to arise - one is the kind of video that John McCain (front-running Republican candidate) would put out in response, playing on his statements that the U.S could well be in Iraq a hundred years from now and his poor-taste Beach Boys impression - bomb bomb Iran.



The second is a more generic rich peoples version of the will.i.am song, taking a "no you can't" line.

Sharing: the Meaty Bites diet story

This story just came through the email - gotta love it.

I've got 2 dogs. I bought a large bag of Meaty Bites at Big W and was standing in line at the check-out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Meaty Bites Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 25kgs before I woke in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IV's in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Meaty Bites and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I'd ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned by the food. I told her no, it was because I'd been sitting in the middle of the road licking my **** and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Stupid woman…why else would I buy dog food??

Thanks Flyfinn