Say Something...

Good luck getting your hands on a copy of Maelstrom Pulse, if the online catalogue for Good Games is anything to go by.

In other news, hurray for lecturers taking random holidays! Both my design tutor and construction lecturer are away for the week (hopefully not on the same holiday) leaving us with half the break we so sorely needed over Easter. Still have work to do but it's better than nothing. Time to get everything back on track, hope to post later when procrastination time comes around next.

... a source of unexpected humour. In its defence, I suppose it's a math quiz and not a grammatical and spelling challenge.

I could blame Tandy for going to losing Bushrangers' games. I could blame Cameron White's "Six or Bust" batting. I could blame my sister for not bringing me another free piece of food. But nothing will take away the fact that we blew yet another final at the G'. This has all the beginnings of a trend, one that I don't care for at all... I sure hope we don't become the Geelong of cricket finals.

My sister is now a sports journalist in training which in short means she gets to go to the press box and go to press conferences afterwards. That meant I had a fair but undefined amount of time to waste after the cursed innings so I went with Tandy to a HK style cafe restaurant in the city and got what I always got in HK... French toast!
















I only now realise I have developed this strange habit of taking photos of my food whenever I eat out. But how else will I memorialise that egg and ham on instant noodle? I also realise I could easily make that at home for nothing, but you can't go wrong with HK style cuisine... unless the MSG and grease does something awful to you down the line.

In an entirely unrelated note, in my complete and utter boredom/supreme vanity the other day I set up a Twitter account, you can locate it here and via the widget on my front page sidebar. So far only two people I barely know use it, but if this thing takes off like everyone says it will then I might have a reason to use it 2000 times a day. Then you will all know when and what I'm eating...

It's two in the morning and it seems the world is about to fall apart. Everyone is falling victim one by one to an insatiable curse and pretty soon there will be no one left who hasn't done it. For now my resolve is good but I fear it may not last long enough. Resistance may prove to be futile... as no one can resist the urge of Facebook's "25 Random Facts About Me".

So far at least four people I know have done theirs, and it seems to spread quick. Just last week it was on the wall of a friend in Hong Kong. Who knows how long it'll be before it overruns the world? Whether I end up doing one or not may not be an event of my choosing, just remember that loyal readers. Indeed peer pressure is a weapon far more potent than any body snatching alien invasion. People even point at you and scream if you act otherwise.

Ooh, did someone make an obscure "Rebel Yell" reference?



Oh, if you haven't seen "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" go and do yourself a favour. The 1978 version will do just fine. Scared the shit out of me as a kid... does that count as a random fact? It's already happening....

Facebook isn't just for stalking people and reading ads that prey on your status as a single male; it's also good for an all in chorus line, boy band style.

Have so much free time during these long holidays that you would like to be frustrated by crazy flash games? Then try "Gravity Master", a game with one sole goal "to collect all rotating circles with the black ball. You can move the ball by drawing shapes with mouse. Doubleclick on your shape to destroy it." Sounds easy but is anything but.

Solutions can be found on YouTube. They didn't say so but I assumed the assumption that there must be someone with even less to do than someone frustrated by crazy flash games who records on screen footage of the solutions and posting it online. On the upside if you complete the game you unlock a level editor that is pretty fun to mess around with. I'm currently trying to create some sort of pinball type scenario. I really don't have anything else to do...

Ah, the opportunities provided by merely winning a gold medal or two. Underwear deals, TV appearances and a personally branded range of ICBMs. Eamon's really worse off for breaking up with her, going out with an international warmonger has its perks.


And now to offload my latest round of silly photos. Our first stop comes from the home of Japanese cuisine in Melbourne - Chinatown. That's right, even all Asian food tastes the same.


Ginza is a very odd kind of place. Sure, they serve food right in front of you on a giant metal griddle. Sure, there's a lot of showmanship and skill in the way they cook and serve food. I'm not sure if they had to throw it at us though. We all managed to catch it rather well, though this poor guy at the party next to us had a whole lot of rice on the floor around him. Maybe he really hates fried rice.

From Say Something...

You generally notice big changes in a public space, especially those involving giant hot air balloons under the Melbourne Central cone. Typical drunken balloonist behaviour, never looking where they're headed.

While I sit here and do the opposite of homework and assignments, here is a video from one of my favourite sketch shows right now -  'That Mitchell and Webb Look', which finished its run on ABC1 tonight. The premise involves a pair of lazy screenwriters who can't be bothered researching their subject matter and decide to write a sports movie about cricket.

Quotes from this sketch compile just one of the many random catchphrases we use at uni right now. Mystifyingly the previous week has seen us chant the jingle from Wolter's "Steel and Mesh" radio advert, as well as the jingle from the Blind Factory. But of course, nothing really beats the joy of impersonating the stoners from the Pancake Parlour. Mmm... the rhubarb...

But seriously, any organisation that chooses to represent itself via drug addled personalities are alright with me. There's even a pair of Facebook groups dedicated to them. One group happens to love them and the other predictibly doesn't care too much for them. Unfortunately for us radio stoner fans, the hate group currently outnumbers the love group by about 40 or so members. So support a stoner today by joining a stoner appreciation society.


On that note, one more blind rant before I disappear into the night. Why would anyone think that a movie about Facebook would be a good idea? The story of how Mark Zuckerberg founded a new way to waste our waking hours with requests to buy and sell your best friends into slavery, divide us into warring factions of pirates and ninjas (seriously ninjas would win hands down, you would never see or hear them coming, plus pirates smell and don't all look like Johnny Depp. Just a heads up there, girls.) or bombard you with random conversations between people you don't care about on your wall. I can see where this market would lie.

Facebook: The Movie sounds as ridiculous as past rumours about some studio picking up the rights to option Hasbro's IP for potential projects such as Monopoly: The Movie... a high rolling story about one mustashioed man and his quest to rule The Boardwalk and all the "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards. They'd still have to explain how a rounding middle aged man in a top hat could win a beauty contest. Having said that, I wouldn't mind seeing the life and times of those Hungry Hungry Hippos. Is their insatiable appetite born out of an eating disorder derived from low self esteem and a means of escaping from reality? It would really suit Russell Crowe in his pursuit of another Oscar, that's for sure.

Or even worse, Hasbro currently owns Wizards of the Coast which can only mean one thing... Magic: The Gathering: The Movie?

From an exchange over MSN the other night, a game with endless replay value and destined to be fun for all the family:

X: # Vintage tournaments (see Rule 801) have restricted this card since 1999/04/01.
# Legacy tournaments (see Rule 802) have banned this card since 1999/04/01.
# Extended tournaments (see Rule 803) have banned this card since 1999/07/01.
# Standard (Type 2) tournaments (see Rule 804) have banned this card since 1999/04/01.
# Urza Block Constructed tournaments (see Rule 806.6) have banned this card si
X: since 1999/04/01.
Me: lol the obvious candidates r gone
X: orly?
Me: one must've slipped my mind lol
X: common
Me: i know it's full of brokenness
X: its easy!!!!
Me: lol... will?
X: uh
X: no
Me: not yawgmoth's will? hmmm...
X: nope
Me: haha monolith?
X: nope
Me: key?
X: nope
Me: am i even in the right zone?
X: not at all
X: do you want a hint?
X: its a sorcery
Me: hmm
X: it has some moons in the picture
X: and lightning
X: at least i think its lightning
Me: lol
Me: damn i was gonna go for windfall
X: lol
Me: begin again...
X: thats broken
Me: it's all broken
Me: it's saga
X: you get 1 point
X: cause its pretty broken too
Me: hehehe
X: but common
X: theres 1 more sorcery
X: the one that rules them all
Me: tinker?
X: nah
X: another point
Me: lol
X: for another broken card
Me: getting there...
Me: time spiral?
X: correct!
Me: lol
X: here that sound?
X: its the sound of the game snapping in half

*SNAP*

In a completely unrelated incident, Rickrolling took another step to outstaying its welcome (if it hasn't already) when someone synced words from speeches by presidential hopeful Barack Obama with the now famous song. It does get tired real quick but it's kinda fun the first time you watch it.



Why is Ellen DeGeneres always dancing on that show of hers?

Just a quick note to say that semester one is over. Thank freak for that... you know something isn't right when it's 2 in the morning and you don't need sleep and instead feel compelled to work on your project a little more. I had final presentation today, I'll post more on that a little later once I reacquaint myself with the sleeping patterns of a regular person. Strangely that involves me adapting the sleeping patterns of Mike Goldman, who only emerges twice a year to host Big Brother and Meerkat Manor. (I am convinced that the only reason he remains on BB is to prevent him from making any further seasons of Meerkat Manor. Time will tell.)

Tumbling back through the archives as part of my ongoing procrastination quota for the day, I realised that it has been a year (and a day) since I first started this shambolic excuse for a blog. It feels great being the proud parent of an overly wordy, smart alecky, heavily backdated, net leeching blog with the vocabulary of almost 70 posts. Writing each post leads me to pour a bit of myself into each sentence, even if most of them are incoherently written or full of smut. 

In today's Age:

From the people who brought you Bacon Spray and Colostomy Jet Packs, we now present you with the latest in food cross promotional branding! I'd explain it in text, but who can be bothered typing out their own material when you can simply copy and paste chat transcripts? But there's no need to rephrase such brilliance when you have a conversation like this...

Just a quick one for today. I don't normally outsource my brutish college brand of humour but this one really made me laugh. The day you see Say Something written with a Punjabi slant on current events is the day it's all over.

Of course you have to actually know the song for it to make any sense and the MS Office stylings are a bit cheap, but I love a good pie chart gag once in a while. This love is only exceeded by my affinity for Venn diagram jokes.


In other news, Brett Lee managed to snare the Allan Border Medal from the hands of the anti Indian Hayden and Ponting (hey, that wasn't written by me...!) in what my dad might describe as being a "disapponting" year for the two of them ("BOING"... that was definitely not me). In celebration, let us all sing the anthem I was performed many times in the past and will now share with you, the reader.

BRETT LEEEE!!!!
BRETT LEEEE!!!!
Brett Lee was a man
I mean, he was a bowlin' man
Or maybe he was just a bowler
But he was still BRETT LEE!
BRETT LEE!

Bowlinating the countryside
Bowlinating the peasants
Bowlinating all the peoples
In the thatched-roof COTTAGES! THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES!

When the English line-up is in ruin
And bowlination makes them cry in their sleep
Only one guy will remain
My money's on

BRETT LEE!
BRETT LEE!

And the Brett Lee comes in the NIIIIIGHT!

Okay, so I didn't exactly make up a lot of the lyrics. The ones in red are the one I rarely have the memory to perform and so I have not really made anything up for them. Notice how nothing rhymes. The original was not much better, but it is Trogdor after all. Feel free to offer suggestions. The best one will win a prize of some non-description.

So really the song comes down to:

BRETT LEEEE!!!!
BRETT LEEEE!!!!

Bowlinating the countryside
Bowlinating the peasants
Bowlinating all the peoples

And the Brett Lee comes in the NIIIIIGHT!


I for one think it's better off this way.


PS: I was watching "Ice Princess" the other night for some reason. The family was watching that while I was squinting trying to watch Top Gear in the Picture-In-Picture. No dice. Apart from being a Disney production, I was surprised to see it starred The Key from Buffy being best friends with the cheerleader from Heroes whose mother happened to be Kim Cattrall. I sat there in amazement thinking this must have been the first role for Cattrall in a while where the plot didn't involve her trying to have sex with everyone/thing in sight. She was trying to screw Trachtenberg's character over at one point though, does that count?


PPS: I just finished reading the original "I Am Legend" after having to wait two months for it to show up at the library only to have the family dawdle about with it for the first two and a half weeks and forcing it upon me with four days to go before it was due back. It's quite popular right now for obvious reasons but I'm sure most people will be disappointed (or should I say disapponted, "kerching!") to find out the book is nothing like the movie. The movie manages to do a decent job of it, with many of the plots altered slightly to either suit modern times or for various other movie reasons. I would've liked to have seen a movie loyal to the original storyline, but I'm not too fussed I guess. Will Smith does own the role good though the ending was crapola.


Haha, fooled you into thinking this wouldn't take long! Now you've wasted five minutes you're never getting back*!

*Refunds of time will be honoured if possible upon presentation of coupon and depending on how you plan on wasting my time. No talk of how reality TV gets better and better each year please. I will throttle you myself.

Love stupid pointless videos with nonsensical titles? Then click here to try a little something from a documentary that screened on Seven a while back named "The Man Whose Arms Exploded". No, this is not something I've made up in order to make you click that link but a genuine programme with an awesome title. His arms weren't exactly filled with sticks of C4 or anything, he just worked out on steroids a lot.

(In case I've managed to triple post this - the embedded player fucked this site about a fair bit, but not after I failed to put the correct year into the box which sent this post flying back through time. Talk about reliving the past. The link to the video can be found here.)

In terms of backdating posts this one goes back a fair while due to obvious reasons such as my laziness when it comes to blogging. So in order to make this feel more timely, I suggest you party like its the 8th of September, 2007. I'm sure that's why Prince changed the title of his famous song from December 31st, 2000 to the far catchier and rhymable 1999... no cut-through or recall at all.

Yes, times were very different back then. I was still unemployed, and hence the explosion in useless blog posts. The economy was still in good shape (it's true - look at those interest rates), and every other half bit columnist starved for material was writing about Facebook. Ooh, look at me! I'm in my 40s and I'm on my child's friends list! How hurtful and embarrassing for him/her! Watch them squirm uncomfortably in front of their computers as I write friendly hellos on their walls! Watch them squirm some more as you talk about their friends at the dinner table! Break down those intergenerational borders for the sake of a slight chuckle? Sure, count me in! But it sure is fun and entertaining for me, all while filling up my word count for the week too! Is that too many exclamation marks for one paragraph?!

Phew, where was I? It seems all so confusing all of a sudden. Though in all seriousness, Facebook no longer has the grip it once had on me. It's pretty cool for keeping up with friends you might not otherwise be able to keep in touch with, especially those overseas in my case. But once you get over the constant checking of updated statuses and new photos from the 21st you just dragged yourself in from, there isn't as much to do afterwards. For a while the only thing keeping me there was Scrabble, and even then I needed a break from the bad habit of dictionary combing for obscure Welsh spellings that are supposedly used today. I guess I could try and set up a ten step type program to rid you of Facebook addiction by creating a group on Faceb~... oh, nevermind then. It's a bit like trying to cure alcoholism by taking someone to Oktoberfest.

Until next time, try and write about a part of your anatomy that exploded. Obvious answers will not be accepted.

That may be a crude and inappropriate metaphor for what is happening to me at the moment, but I'll try and make it work somehow. Yes audience, this week the goons at Triple M decided to drop a metaphorical anvil onto my plums with the announcement that the brilliant 'Get This' program hosted by Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and panel operator adept Richard Marsland will not be returning in the new year.

The reason given by management is that they want to devote more resources to a new breakfast combination featuring Peter Helliar and Myf Warhurst. While I have no real problem with Myf, I can only imagine what Helliar is being paid to churn out his Bryan Strauchan character every other day on air, given that the joke will run out after the first segment. Plus who wants to listen to a station whose core demographic consists of dentally impaired Collingwood supporters? On second thought it is Triple M after all, which is full of great ideas such as M-One and Barry the record playing monkey, so no real harm done.

While we wait in hope that some other network will pick up the show, for now we have a little over a month to enjoy what is the best show on our airwaves. When that time comes, it will be time for us to say goodbye to talk of dizzy stuff like the lack of quality British imports on the ABC, talk of the film Shortbus and Ed's numerous "I'm Richard" jokes.

Get This has the effect on dwindling my productivity for two hours each workday with entire sketches built around cockney accents (if you love/hate My Chemical Romance click this) and soundbites of John Howard put way out of context. One of my favourites is when Ed gets electrocuted live on air while trying to wield a remote controlled helicopter inside the studio... let that be a public service announcement for the kiddies out there.

Being a show I love to bits, naturally you can assume it'll be too niche and cult for the rest of you unenlightened people out there. Therefore the best I can do is show everyone how excellent Get This is while I belittle you along the way. The best bits of the show are available on the Triple M website and via the podcasts (XML feed here) which may not remain up for too long, so get them while you can.

Ratings are not a problem at all for Get This, as shown by reports like these, so you would hope they wouldn't have too much trouble finding a new home. If all else fails, the guys could try and do what Ricky Gervais has been doing with his podcasts. With the help of sponsors and subscription fees, Gervais has been running a fairly successful podcast and people don't seem to mind paying for them. I don't know how much they cost but I'm sure for each one who pays, there'll be 20 others who will get it off BitTorrent several hours later.

Some might say I lag behind the times when it comes to mindless entertainment, and that is something I refute in the extreme. Sure, I might have started watching crap like 24, Alias and Lost seasons after they debuted, but in my defence there's a lot of crap to watch out there and I can't possibly fit it all into my busy watching schedule.

And anyhow, if I were to sit on my arse all night watching TV where would I find the time to write to my loyal readers? If I wasn't around I'm not sure where you would have to turn for your occasional fix of amateurish idiocy. Someone has to be the bottom of the barrel, and I'm glad to be holding up the upper end of the blogosphere. No need to thank me, all in a day's work really.

In this instance, the other day I managed to hoist myself out of my home long enough to go and watch Transformers at IMAX with Kavi. Sure my laziness meant I had missed the premiere by a good four months, but that won't stop me walking the red carpet (which I had to bring from home). My only prior IMAX experience was some 3Dified presentation about animals in Africa, which was pretty cool though the lions didn't exactly jump out of the screen to devour the guy in the first row (that's what you get for buying cheap seats, death and a really sore neck), so I was expecting Optimus Prime to stand at a near 1:1 scale ratio on screen to deliver some big bad animated violence.

Unfortunately the screen, though big, was not as mind blowing as I had hoped. Sure Prime was gigantic but at the same time all the actors' faces got blown up as well. That meant we had to see Jon Voight's Secretary of Defence character being useless at a scale larger than usual, along with the work of Josh Duchamel when all that time I thought was Mark Walhberg. Now that I know he's not Mark I can like his character slightly more because I can't stand him. I'm not sure where he lost me, it was quite possible it was when he made that awful Planet of the Apes remake. Bad medicine.

The best part was when I saw the original Transformers movie not long afterwards. I'm not sure how I managed to go for so long without actually watching it. I just assumed I was out of the country for most of that time. It happened at a friend's place when I randomly started humming 'The Touch' by Stan Bush off the original soundtrack. Being the infectious tune it is, it wasn't long before everyone in the room was singing along to the three or four lines we collectively (and by that I mean just me) knew. Lucky he had it on his laptop and we watched away. I paid special attention when 'The Touch' came on... they picked the best moments to play it, when Prime makes his big entrance early on and the part near the end where the bad guys get blown to smithereens.

Why do I love that song so? For one reason, the song is a prime example of how rock music used to be in the 80s - big, loud and stadium filling on an epic scale. It takes everything that was bad about that style of music and turns it into something very listenable, if that's a real word. The other reason is that Richard from the soon to be axed 'Get This' (more on that in a later post) sparked my interest in that song with his god awful rendition which can be found here - click on the 'Wall Of Sound Clip'.

But for now, enjoy the awesomeness that is 'The Touch' by Stan Bush. And don't fast forward past the dumb kid acting alongside a man in a plastic Optimus Prime suit, he has the best line I've heard all day.



Until next time, live your day with a song in your heart. Preferably one that goes, "After all is said and done" in notes completely off key. That's how I sing it.

My blogging laziness has been fairly obvious as of late. I'm not sure why, but perhaps I just needed a break from sitting in front of the keyboard typing away when I already do that at work. On some days I can barely stand to sit in front of a computer for more than half an hour before I feel the need to be doing something else. Hopefully this is just a side effect of adjusting to my new job, which is going as well as I hoped it could be. Luck has brought me this far, now the rest is up to me I guess.

A couple of weeks ago I was randomly looking at crap and stumbled upon that awesome clip of Jackie Chan in all that gear from Street Fighter. I'm not completely sure where the inspiration to do such a scene came from, but it's definitely a classic the entire family can enjoy, providing they actually know what Street Fighter is (providing they're not referring to that awful flick with Jean-Claude Van Damme: the poor man's Schwarzenegger, the apprentice to the Stallones out there, but just enough class to outact Steven Seagal's ponytail). I'm not sure if the youths of today can appreciate the majesty of unleashing a 26 hit combo. Well anyway, enjoy the clip, even if it is horribly dubbed in English. I couldn't be arsed finding the Canto version, but oh well. Enjoy.



I can't help but wonder what led Chan into doing so many useless films later on in his career. Of course I am referring to the series of flicks he made in Hollywood. I'm sure collectors will remember the superb aspect ratio of The Tuxedo, or the fine camera work from Rush Hour 3. I haven't seen that one but I can sense the bottom of a barrel being scraped in the background. If only he could bring back the good old days of crazy martial arts stunts. He might be a bit too old for that though. All that jumping.

The most interesting part about this is when even Chan himself claimed the Rush Hour films were a load of junk. Personally I thought the first one was fairly entertaining and managed to be pretty funny (though it was released in 1998 so I assume my taste in movies and sophistication in humour was nowhere near what it is now... cue fart joke here please and supply your own sound effects). I've yet to see the third one so I might have to hold back on my usual harshness for now, but after seeing the second one it never really occurred to me I would be itching to see a third.

In the meantime join me as I take out my cultural outrage by watching and imitating the judges on Idol and rambling on senselessly in a fashion only Darryl Somers could. He may not make any sense at all but he sure knows how to pad a 47 minute program out to five hours, and you can't possibly get bored because he never seems to run out of stupid useless things to say. It's not my fault, you have to amuse yourself somehow when you're forced to watch tripe like that over dinner. Mmm, tripe....