Missing: a day

Oops - sorry about that. Was a bit sick yesterday and still not feeling super-great.

Regular service will resume shortly.

Changing: my plans for the weekend

(Click on image for full sized view)

Who would have thought that innocently cleaning a lawnmower in your bedroom while smoking a cigarette could possibly be dangerous. They should really put a label on those things.

Enjoying: Grand Theft Awesome Four

Pretty well sums up the experience - although I think I enjoy the game more than this guy does - and I don't cheat.

Loving: Chainsaw Maid

I'm not sure if I will ever understand the Japanese mind if their pop culture is anything to go by.
I'm just happy that it is so consistently, mind-blowingly awesome.

This claymation by a 22 year old college student called takena is one of the most violent ones I have ever seen - but it's funny because it's claymation.

Watching: the dog cloning, Mormon missionary abducting woman story get stranger

In the beginning there was a woman called Bernann McKinney who was the first person to pay to have her dead dog cloned. It was a Pit-Bull named Booger and she paid nearly $50000 (Australian) for the privilege to a lab in Korea, who in turn gave her 5 puppies.

Ok, a little odd but it's a brave new world we live in so I thought, huh - what an odd name for a dog, lets move on.

Being the silly season in the Northern Hemisphere, this story quickly spread and once a few people had seen her picture, the question was soon asked - is this the Joyce Bernann McKinney who in the U.K in 1977 was charged with abducting a 21 year old Mormon missionary and securing him to a bed with mink handcuffs to have sex with him? The same woman who skipped bail with her alledged co-conspirator and left the country posing as a pair of deaf-mute mime artists?

While she initially denied this, before long she fessed up that it was her but claimed to be innocent of the charges, claiming that it was all consensual. (They had apparently been having an affair in the U.S some time beforehand)

Riiiiiight - so you would think perhaps that this was weird enough right?

Almost.

Now stories are emerging, just to ice that oh so fruity fruit cake that in 2004 she may also have instructed a 15 year old boy in Tennessee to burgle a house so that she could raise money to buy a wooden leg for a favourite pet horse.

Really.

All things considered though, this is someone who probably deserves their moment in the media sun - unlike the rich girl fame-whores that we're used to seeing. At least this woman is interesting.

Did I mention she was also Miss Wyoming in her youth?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1042506/A-cloned-dog-Mormon-mink-lined-handcuffs-tantalising-mystery.html

Preparing: Music for Monday

These are some of the tracks I have lined up for the show this afternoon - 4 - 6pm 98.3fm Canberra

1150 Closer To The Boxer.mp3 The Kleptones 24 Hours (Disc 1) 4:55
Anarchy In The UK Sex Pistols Rage - The Songs Most Chosen By Rage Guest Programmers 3:32
Bananas And Blow Ween White Pepper 3:35
Theme From Shaft Isaac Hayes The Best Of Blaxploitation (Disc 1) 4:37
Do Your Thing Isaac Hayes Greatest Hit Singles 3:18
Life On Mars David Bowie Best Of David Bowie 69-74 3:52
I believe in a thing called love The Darkness Permission to land 3:36
She bangs the drums The Stone Roses The Very Best Of 3:50
Descent Into The Maelstrom Radio Birdman The Essential Radio Birdman (74-78) 4:24
England 2 Colombia 0 Kirsty MacColl Tropical Brainstorm 3:46
Bohemian Like You The Dandy Warhols Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia 3:32
Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again [The Angels] Rob Craw Used And Recovered By 4:25
Running One Tykwer/Klimek/Heil Run Lola Run 5:32
Loaded Primal Scream Screamadelica 7:03
You Never Had It The Magic Numbers Those The Brokes 2:58
Fashion Death Trends Frausdots Couture, Couture, Couture 2:51
Bird The Knife The Knife 4:34
This Land Is Your Land Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Naturally 4:31

Blogging: about the blog feedback buttons

It's kind of hackneyed (but so very meta) to blog about your blog (you know that a song-writer is uninspired when you start hearing songs about life in a band on tour) but I thought I'd just mention the new You Say: feedback buttons that will hopefully appear at the bottom of each post now.

If you have a response to a post but can't be bothered putting a full fledged comment together (and face it, we're all busy people here clearly) then you should now just be able to take your pick between funny, interesting or meh but just clicking on the button. (Yes, it is skewed in my favour - that's the power of the media I guess)

So please, let me know what you think (assuming that this has worked) - it's always nice to know you're not just spouting off to the ether. (Or because of it)

LOLWTIMEing: Gymastique Pekin 2008 (Remi Gaillard)

Laughing out loud with tears in my eyes - I came across this video by some French guy (Remi Gaillard) on the Dnosauria blog of a fellow 2XX presenter, Dean.

GYMNASTIQUE PEKIN 2008 (REMI GAILLARD)
by nqtv

Noting: 10 years of the iMac

10 years ago today Apple released the first iMac, the above Bondi Blue model.

An Apple fanboi mate of mine (Yardo) and pretty well the only person I knew that knew about computers at the time, managed to convince me that in my quest for a computer at the time, it was by far the way to go.

Its reasonable-for-the-time specs were - 233MHz processer, 32Mb RAM, 4Gb hard drive and it came with 2 USB slots. I don't remember exactly what I paid for it but it was just after I'd received a whopping tax return and I'm pretty sure it was at least $2700. (This is more than the sum total of the 3 PCs I have bought since then).

As an entry to "new" computing it was a pretty nifty machine - the only other computer I'd had to that point was a third or forth-hand PC that still used those massive 5.25" floppies. It looked nice and was easy to set up and use. Problems were rare - though a blown power supply put it out of commission for a fair while.

Looking back of course, the specs and the cost seem ridiculous and are prime illustrations of how quickly things change in computer hardware. By comparison, the (work) machine that I'm using at the moment has a 2.4GHz processer, 3.25GB of RAM and 930GB of hard drive space. (And 7 USB ports) Not exactly sure what price - it's leased - but easily half at an educated guess.

It amused me (and possibly pained slightly) when I bought a 16GB USB drive online a few months back for $60 to think back to the old iMac and note that on my key-ring I had four times the storage of that expensive old beast.

Hearing: Never gonna give you up

Damn it - now I can't get "Never gonna give you up" out of my head.

Sometimes I really need to think about what I'm posting.

Apologies if you are in a similar situation.

Loving: the Barackroll

The Rickroll is an internet prank meme that has exploded in web pop culture over the last year or so - in essence it involves tricking someone into watching a video clip of Rick Astley's 1987 pop hit "Never gonna give you up" by providing a link that they think is to a completely different video. (It's well worth reading the wikipedia article for a full history of great rickrollings - everything from Scientology protests to major league baseball games to guest presenting punk stars Pennywise on Australia's own Rage.)

The logical progression, given the American election, is of course, the Barackroll.
Someone (quite possible hmatkin) has spent a lot of time scouring the man's speeches and interviews to put a clip together of him "singing" this pop classic.



Here's a side by side comparison

Watching: Republicans and military men on John McCain.

This is a very well put together video about the war-lust of American presidential candidate John McCain and his Republican mates. It doesn't really say anything that we don't already know but, like all advertising, it's important to keep pushing the message.

The stuff from Scott Ritter - chief U.N weapons inspector during the 90s - is particularly chilling.

It makes good use (perhaps slightly overdone) of "Lux Aeterna" by Clint Mansell, the main theme music from Requiem for a Dream, to really heighten the emotion.



In hopier news, Barack Obama will apparently be releasing a third book around September outlining his vision for America, with all proceeds going to charity. It will have the punchy title - Change we can believe in: Barack Obama's plan to renew America's promise.

I read (ok, listened to the audio book) his second book - The Audacity of Hope - and it really shows a keen mind (and not just a keen mind in comparison to Dubya).

Considering: Turkey Shoot vs Shine a light

The funky Arc cinema at the National Film and Sound Archive has a screening this Thursday of Turkey Shoot - a 1982 Australian exploitation classic. It's your standard tale of rich bastards in the future using a private prison isle (Camp Thatcher) as a human hunting range, which of course goes awry. Evidently it's Tarantino's fave Oz film of all time.



I saw it on crappy VHS years ago and remember it as being pretty cool. Considering my love of the sclocky, it would seem no contest right?

The problem is, that this is the same night that the ANU Film Group is screening Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert film Shine a light. As someone who has only really picked up on the Stones in the last few years, this is also something I'd really like to check out. I mean seriously - Mick, Keef and Marty - fuggedabudit



The worst part is that these two screenings will be within a couple of hundred metres of each other.

I'll probably go Turkey Shoot at a guess and wait/hope for a bluray release of Shine a light (which on the balance of things is a little more likely)

Farewelling: Isaac Hayes

Soul legend Isaac Hayes was today found unresponsive near a still running treadmill in his house and pronounced dead an hour later in a Memphis, Tennessee hospital.

A sad day for cool.

Preparing: Monday Sunset - 4 to 6pm on 98.3fm Canberra

Water Pistol Man The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury 5:55
Golden Parachute New Radiant Storm King Winter's Kill 2:38
Loose Lips Kimya Dawson Juno 2:25
The Majesty Of Rock Spinal Tap Rage - More Of The Songs Most Chosen By Rage Guest Programmers (Disc 2) 3:56
One Brother Andrew W. K. Close Calls With Brick Walls 2:26
Boys Wanna Be Her Peaches Impeach My Bush 3:56
Right Of Way TZU Computer Love 4:02
Rendez-Vu Basement Jaxx Big Day Out 00 (Disc 1) 5:47
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps (Live) 5:14
You Each Time Ani DiFranco Educated Guess 4:19
Spook Strain Ed Kuepper Starstruck 2:16
Flame Trees Sarah Blasko Standing On The Outside (The Songs Of Cold Chisel) 5:21
Interiors The Sea And Cake One Bedroom 4:20
The Weeping Song Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds The Abattoir Blues Tour 2004 (Disc 1) 4:39
Breathe Prodigy The Fat of the land 5:35
Tonite Spiderbait Greatest Hits 4:23
Sleep Forever theredsunband Peapod 2:16
Love Makes you Feel Lou Reed Legendary Lou Reed (Disc 1) 3:10
Mobile Home Presidents of the USA Pure Frosting 2:54
Liar Randall Blair And The Wedded Bliss Tattoos And Taillights 4:57
Islands Cat Power The Greatest 1:44
Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah 4:47
Factory_Girl The Rolling Stones Flashpoint 2:48
When you're in love Reno Thinking about the good times 3:25
Black Ice The Devastations Yes, U 5:37
Heart Of Glass Nouvelle Vague Bande À Part 3:35
Mutha'uckas Flight Of The Conchords Flight Of The Conchords 2:27
Secrets The Zutons Tired of Hangin' Around 3:16

LOLing: the child-eating dragon sand sculpture

So impressive and so temporary.

LOLing: Paris Hilton for President

John McCain put out a slam-ad (or should I say yet another slam-ad) recently trying to paint Barack Obama as too much of a celebrity to be a credible president.



It uses a few shots of people like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to imply that, like them, Obama is all fluff and no substance. A stance which didn't go down particularly well with the uber-rich Hilton family, who had just made sizable donations to the McCain campaign before the ad was released.

Somewhat impressively, Paris has responded with her own campaign commercial.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Now a fame-whore does what a fame-whore does and this could well be an attempt to capture the spotlight once more but it was nice to see that she isn't afraid to take the piss out of herself in the process.

I'm not buying "her" energy policy particularly but am happy to give her points for showcasing how ridiculous and desperate the McCain camp seems to be getting.

Finishing up: GTA IV - shooting pigeons

My time playing GTA IV is slowly coming to an end - this time around at least.

I've finished the story, hunted down all the police Most Wanted, done the stunt jumps and stolen all of the necessary cars. All that remains (I think) is that most onerous of Grand Theft Auto tasks, the collection mission.

In this instance, it's to scour the 3 or 4 islands and shoot the 200 cunningly tucked away pigeons. While they do explode in a rather gratifying puff of feathers, this is perhaps the most grindy part of any GTA game. There may well be a plethora on online resources telling you exactly where the "flying rats" are but it's still a drag moving around the map from one to the next - unsure when you get to the next location whether you might have already popped one of the pigeons during the course of the game. (Unlikely for the most part - the stat showed that I'd only shot 18 or so by the end of story mode)

So why bother? Well, being an Xbox 360 game there is an achievement reward at the end of it, which ups the tally on my Gamer Score (essentially an online e-peen competition which shows just how 1337 you are) and it's one more step towards absolutely completing the game 100%.

Why is 100% important? I think ultimately it's about dominating the game - a strange relationship is developed between a player and a game during the course of play - it seduces, entertains, moves, teases and taunts you at various points and sitting on the stats screen is this tiny reminder that you haven't yet done everything possible to beat it (and perhaps also the hundreds of people who worked on the game). Only on reaching that 100% mark, it seems, have you truly won.

So a pigeon hunting I must go.

Fortunately, in the course of searching for an image to illustrate this post, I stumbled across a richer online guide to this task than the one I've been using.

Thanks to the awesome mattdean76 for the hours of effort put into your guide - which can be found at http://faqs.ign.com/articles/872/872599p1.html

Dreading: Death Race

You maniacs - you screwed it up. (Or to put it another way - I'm almost positive you are screwing it up)

Back in the day (1975), schlockmeister extraordinaire Roger Corman brought out an astoundingly awesome piece of exploitation cinema called Death Race 2000. It told the tale of an America run by a vaguely fascistic single party government who keep the population entertained and in line with a violent gladiatorial tv spectacle, the Transcontinental Road Race.

The race features an assortment of heavily weaponised cars and is won based on finishing time (from the East to the West coast of America) as well as number of pedestrians run over. Beyond this, there are pretty well no rules and the racers - macho drivers teamed with hotty navigators - are free to do what they wish to eliminate competitors from the race.



As you often find in more marginalised sci-fi exploitation type films, there are buckets of pointed social commentary, sweetened with a tasty coating of blood and guts and explosions.

But don't take my word for it, check out the trailer. (And yes, that is David - Kung Fu - Carradine and Sylvester Stallone)



Ok, so what's the problem - so far so awesome right?

Well, now I read that there is a remake - well more of a re-imagining - coming out around December this year. At first glance you'd think, ok, Jason (The Transporter) Stratham - brings the action and Ian (Deadwood) McShane - brings the grittiness. And ooh, who's that directing - Paul Anderson - the guy behind Magnolia, Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood - kick arse.

Oh wait - that's Paul Thomas Anderson - the director of Death Race is actually Paul W.S Anderson, director of Mortal Kombat, Alien Vs Predator and Resident Evil. (Actually I didn't hate any of these but alarm bells are already starting to ring.)

Let's let the trailer pick up the Death Race story.



Where to start?

The Death Race is now a private enterprise (so it's not the Government or powers-that-be that are the bad guys behind this) and it's just within the confines of a prison (so "the innocent" are no longer at risk). There's a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit (so he has to race, it's not because he wants to) and I'm not really sure that I can go on - it's just too disappointing.

I can accept that you don't want to make a shot for shot remake of an old film - there's nothing wrong with tweaking it for a modern audience and to make better use of modern technology - but for the love of all that is holy - why completely throw out an edgy story for a bunch of recycled cliches. Prisoners being used in cruel and unusual gladiatorial tv spectacle - check. Evil prison warden - check. Uber-talented innocent hero framed for the murder of his wife to draft him into the sport du jour - check.

Don't even get me started on the use of Guns'n'Roses' Welcome to the jungle as a large part of the trailer soundtrack. Seriously. Do not go there.

Gaaaahhhh.

Oh and one more thing - from the looks of this, the cars are all racing around a track inside the prison - what exactly is the need for navigators?

Who could be behind this? Who hates cult cinema that much?

And then the penny drops - Tom Cruise, of all people, is one of the main producers of this film.

I've been prepared to forgive Tom a lot over the years - all the $cientology guff (ok, most of it), causing Our Nicole to dump him and essentially playing the same character in film after film after film. He has still managed to pull out some impressive work (particularly in the previously mentioned Magnolia) and so I'll let the other stuff slide.

But no more.

Damn you Cruise, damn you to wherever $cientology hell is.

Bastid.

Awwing: The turtle and the strawberry

Gwenturnerjuarez put this pic up on Flickr a few weeks back - what's not to love?