January 2007 Archives

here's what happened:

gala told me that i should check out melbournemaniacs on live journal. i had to check out live journal first, but took her advice. if you're old, live journal is an online community. the kids LOL there.

after lurking on LJ for a month i had vaguely figured out what the hell was going on. i decided to write and see if anyone knew of a movie watching club. cause hey; i like movies. i like people. it's a natural fit! i posted to this effect.

turns out, the answer was effectively no. but there were a bunch of people who thought it was a durn good idear. one in particular now wants to start up a film community with me.

i just hope i'm not fifteen years older than everyone else. ha ha. ha. plunk.

whatever though. i'm still hip. i'm still sexy. i haven't broken my hip in a few months. i guess we'll see what happens! perhaps it will be a liberal sprinkling of fairy dust upon my prematurely codger-like persona.

i hope not.

i was born to be a codger.

----

this past week has been painful in a familiar way. i'm now remembering just how much of freelancing is maintaining confidence in the fact that you will get work when you don't actually have any work.

i turned in a first draft of the oil company web stuff a week ago, but have yet to hear back from anyone but the extremely chipper placement company rep. he says "they were mostly positive." the other company i was working for has fallen off the face of the map despite referring to me as "just what the doctor ordered" two weeks ago. i'm hoping they're just busy and have not been eaten by komodo dragons. komodo dragons is a bad way to go.

i also got a lead on this guy who wants me to edit his novel. that would be fine, except he's now sent me two emails saying that he'll "revert to me later."

i really really hope that's some sort of australian slang that i'm just not clear on. if he reverts to me, that means he used to BE me and that means i'm pre-him. so i hope it's slang or something. like "rort." i don't know what the hell a rorting is, but according to the newspaper, this company got one.

a rort sounds like a cross between a snort and a roar. like what you'd get if you stuffed a pig in a bear and positioned them just right so you could kick them both in the nuts with one blow.

a good rorting, that.

----

i started writing something for myself today and then got distracted by thinking about who i could sell it to. that was a mistake.

it's a travel article/essay. about ethiopia. specifically about how we got from Gonder to Axum and how much that blew. and how it turned me into a vampire from venus.

i thought i had written about that here in these magical non-pages, but nope. just checked. you probably were unaware until now that i was a vampire from venus. but it's true!

it's kind of a long story which is why i'm writing the essay. i may even finish it!

it was a mistake to look into where i'd sell it as i discovered that most travel magazines pay a whopping $20 or so for articles.

that's almost enough to live on for a week. in ethiopia.

so i guess i'll just write it for myself and see what becomes of it.

oh yeah. my other crossword puzzle got rejected by the new york times. this one directly by Will Shortz! i'd explain why it got rejected but the reasoning is so severe that you'd just scrunch up your face like joe pesci and make me explain again.

and really, who's got the energy? it wasn't perfect. so it goes.

i believe my cruciverbalizing is over.

i'll try rorting instead.

bartlebee is cookin' up some marinara. for dinner.

i went to get some tomato puree at the local hippie store and had this interaction on the way.

EXT. STREET - DAY

XZ walks to the store past THREE YOUTHS who lounge on the bus bench.

YOUTH 1: Gimme your number.
XZ: Huh?
YOUTH: Gimme your number.
XZ: Right.
YOUTH: Go fuck yourself.
XZ: Go fuck yourself.
YOUTH: Keep walking.
XZ: What if I don't feel like it?
YOUTH: (spits) Keep walking.
XZ: You are insane.

fun, huh? i love kids.

---

my brother lumpo is getting all set to run the urban iditarod in brooklyn. from what he says, it's quite different from the urban iditarod we've both run in san francisco. i'm not really sure what the heck they're thinking about in brooklyn, but it seems from what lump says that people there actually CARE about winning.

i'm not sure why.

also, the course route is a big secret and people try to sabotage the other teams and there is a bunch of smack talk about who is best.

in case you're not clear; they're talking smack about who is best at dressing like an idiot and pushing a shopping trolley across the city while drinking vast amounts of alcohol.

is it just me or does the phrase "too seriously" come into play here?

i mean, isn't the whole point to cause a ruckus and go "hoo boy" and try not to vomit?

i told my brother he should go dressed in a blonde braided wig and tie fake railroad tracks to his back so he could run in front of the race and lie down and go "help me! help me! oh, the villains!"

that would be awesome.

but i guess it's different in brooklyn.

there is no urban iditarod here in melbourne. i may have to look into that. when i have more than seven friends.

---

i've decided to hire my mates ruth and matt to design business cards for me. i'm thinking i want something vaguely aloha-esque; in brown and white. like this shirt which i found on-line.

then, when i have cards, i can hand them out and say things like, "damn glad to meet you."

won't that be fun!

my brother left a message on our voice mail.

he was confused.

"uh," he said, "i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do now because that robot voice lady just told me to press the hash key to leave a message.

my phone does not have a hash key.

i've got numbers and a star and a pound sign, but no hash.

wait. phones in australia come with hash? that's awesome."

---

i did not get the lonely planet job. turns out they hired someone from within the company. instead, i am learning about oil drilling and writing about it.

i hope one day to become the world's top deep core oil driller, and therefore be chosen to fly on a special top-secret space mission to drill into and destroy a rogue asteroid that threatens the earth.

i figure it's the only way i'll get phil collins to write me a song.

---

this friday is australia day. are you celebrating australia day? we are. we have been kindly invited to join our friends matt and ruth at a barbie for snags on a bun.

i'm not particularly certain what the hell that means but i'm hoping it's something to do with sausages.

if instead it turns out to be something about dolls with pulled rectums, you can bet your knickers i'll be escaping indoors to press repeatedly on the hash key.

couldn't hurt.

for those of you who are curious, 43 degrees centigrade is equivalent to 109 degrees fahrenheit.

it was 43 degrees here yesterday.

and i spent the day running in between interviews downtown in a suit.

it sucked.

and i when i say, 'sucked' picture wearing one of those astronaut suit jobbies that's filled with minestrone soup.

mmm... mmm... not so good.

soup is good food. soup is not good attire.

i came home, immediately stripped nekkid and jumped in the shower turned to icy blast. didn't stay in, though. we're having a drought here. a nasty one. the kind of drought where people would spit at you if they a) saw you washing your car and b) could spare any saliva.

hot. that's what it is here. in australia.

i went to three interviews and got a call scheduling a fourth. so far that's resulted in at least two jobs, one already complete. i rewrote some marketing copy for a planned resort in the spa country around here. they seemed pleased. want to talk to me about more work.

the other two interviews were to rewrite the web copy for an oil drilling company. see? i'm saving the world one web page at a time! everyone loves oil drilling!

well, fuck. at least they're aren't PRINTING my writing out. that would kill trees. and at least it's australian oil. not iraqi or central asian what have you.

yeah. i'll be pickier when i can afford to be.

so it looks like i'm going to be a freelance writer once again. lonely planet hasn't called me for an interview, but maybe they're just slow.

yawn.

you know, it's Sylvester Stallone-comeback month.

i have to hand it to the guy, losing all that muscle mass and learning mayan just to play John Rambo once again in this First Blood spin-off:

Apoca-Rambo

good title, right?

it's a standard story; jungle-confident ex-green beret wants to live his life, but brian dennehy and his squad of aztec bruisers push him too far. then, it's lesson time, pal!

unlike first blood or rambo I through IIX, this one does pleasantly surprise with some pretty excellent costumes and sets. it's almost as if they dosed david lynch and had him draw some design sketches while threatening his puppy with a vat of leeches. it looks wild, from the jungle to the city, from the villagers to the high priests.

and hey, honestly? i liked First Blood. it had a Message. a message that deserves to be repeated in Apoca-Rambo and condensed here:

Get Off My Back, Shithead.

the man just won't listen, though. people want to impose their will on the free wheelin' rambo whether he's looking up his army buddies in small town america or hunting up some tapir in small village mesoamerica. push him too far, he pushes back.

in this version i do think they went a bit too far with the "normal life" introduction. it's a bit heavy on the penis jokes. you almost think rambo would be happy to get into some action since his home life seems to consist of nothing more than tricking the fat guy rub into rubbing tiger balm on his nards. ha ha! fat guy! nards!

those kidders!

once the action starts, it doesn't hold back much. it is gory, but i didn't find it excessively so for the story. it's a bloody time, eh? the capture/chase stuff is well done if a bit ricockulous. i know green berets are in good shape, but i think running for 24 hours straight with a hole clean through your kidney is a bit much.

oh, and i'm pretty sure jaguars are slightly faster than rambo. particularly when in trees.

actually, the more i think about it, the more i'm scratching my head. if this aztec kingdom is so massive, how come rambo can get back from the capital to his sleepy village in a day?

whatever. don't think about it. it's an action movie. and not a bad one. certainly more believable than Deja Vu.

and with as powerful a message:

Be Good, and uh, Watch Out for Stuff.

a cold tortilla is as appetizing as raymond burr in a bikini.

it's the sad truth.

mrs. burr often complained about it. nobody likes a burr-kini, she would say.

take a moment to picture it. would you like a burr-kini? no. no you wouldn't.

we went out for "mexican" food last night at the new place in our neighbourhood. except for the food part, it was pretty awesome. their décor is loverly. lots of red and orange and plaster jesuses (jesusi?) and a whole wall full of different tequilas.

we drank some of those tequilas. some margaritas. some negra modelos.

we should have thought twice about the food, though, when we saw on the menu that the fajitas came with "friholes." i mean, sure, it's embarrassing if you pronounce frijoles (the actual spanish word for beans) as "fridge o'lays." perhaps they were trying to spare their clientèle that humiliation? but, i must enquire, isn't it also embarrassing to mispronounce frijoles as "free holes?"

it is. i tried it.

"i would like my fadgitas with free holes, please."

they told me no more teckwheela and took away my last rolling R.

in short, our local mexican joint gets an A for ambiance and a D for food. my enchilada was sweet. bartlebee's fajitas were bland and dry. i was tempted to go back in the kitchen and explain the concept of spice, to describe the imperative of lime, to heat the fucking tortillas...

but instead we just drank more. i mean, hell, we're in australia. how many mexicans make it out here to cook?

and i suppose i should be thankful that there's somewhere i can stumble to that sells cold cerveza.

'cause i can make la comida myself.

today, i'd like to discuss the mind-boggling, serpentine, heart-grabbing mysteries of life.

and why it's pathetic that a film called The Illusionist dealt with none of them.

ha ha.

see? i made a mean joke! i'm funny and mean!

i remember a few months ago watching the shorts (it's australian for trailers, mate) for The Prestige and The Illusionist at about the same time. thinking; ooh! competing movies about old-skool magicians dabbling in devilry! snap!

both looked spooky and weird and had good casts. i watched The Prestige a while ago and blogged about it. i blogged because it made me think and while i did have some serious criticisms of the plot, it was definitely worth watching. stylistically interesting, creative, and more full of spook than the cafeteria at langley. i criticised that because it was so close to being astoundingly great that i regretted the missed opportunity. (and because i enjoy complaining.) i am blogging about The Illusionist to save you money.

'because it blew.

this is one of those films that i knew was going to be bad before the opening credits were finished rolling. there were two hints. first, the sepia-tinted flickering-picture type introduction was tired. it made me tired. i actually checked to see how long the film was while the credits ran. then, i noticed something disenheartening: a name i did not recognise listed as writer and director. a guy named neil burger.

sure. i'm not so hip on the movie people any more. there are new folks oozing talent. big breaks happen less often than i'd like, even. but someone unheard of name combined with a title sequence that had me checking clocks? bad news, pee wee.

in any case, i watched the whole thing. why? i'm a masochist i guess.

in my whole life i've walked out of two films. one was Revenge of the Nerds and that is because i went with my parents and they made us leave after the twenty-eleventh set of breasts were bobbled before my youthful gaze. the second was Speechless with Michael Keaton and Geena Davis. i went with a date, actually the woman who T.A.ed my very last university class. we walked out -- and i'm not exaggerating -- before the opening credits were finished.

it went like this. we got up, walked out to the ticket booth and said;

us: we'd like our money back. this movie sucks.
guy: i know. here. sorry.

so i watched all of The Illusionist. it hurt. it hurts to watch good actors act themselves in little tiny circles. edward norton is a good actor. paul giamatti is a good actor. but... it was one of those films where everything that happened was utterly predictable. each scene accompanied by your internal monologue going, "well of course."

it reminded me of Mulholland Falls, a film during which i said out loud, "oh. this is the scene where he eats spaghetti and then gets shot," as he was served spaghetti and then got shot.

The Illusionist is a non-mysterious mystery. at the end, when the paul giamatti character figures out exactly how he's been manipulated through a series of events that have dramatically altered the history of austria? he's delighted and amused.

at least one of us was.

they should have put that on the movie poster:

Delightful and amusing! So labyrinthine and mysterious I'm still puzzling over it!

-Paul Giamatti as Chief Inspector Uhl (scripted)

the good news is that watching this film made me really appreciate directorial skill. telling the story isn't enough. you have to do so with style and subtlety.

----

in other less-critical news, we're continuing our conquest of australia one piece of slightly not-right furniture at a time. we're having trouble with this whole ebay thing. we've figured out how to win auctions (bid at the last minute) but we haven't figured out how to win auctions for things we should have bid on in the first place.

so that kind of is making me irritable. you can tell, huh?

in good news anne and alex finally got their stuff together to escape kansas shitty for chicago. go team! i am putting together a package of australian treats like witchetty grubs for them to celebrate. in other other good news, i fixed my wife's water-infused laptop (whew!) and have bought more popcorn.

life is no good without popcorn.

my father-in-law sent me a DVD in the mail. just a surprise gift! it's called Wholephin and it's made by the McSweeny's guys.

i've only watched some of it, but some if it is good. like Sour Death Balls. that's good. some of it is wanky. like Home, James and Don't Spare the Horses.

on the whole i find it works like this:

%wanky = #credits / appearances by charlie sheen or bruce campbell

it's a simple formula and one that, perhaps, needs some fine tuning.

for example, children of men was quite satisfying and good and not really wanky at all, yet there were a bunch of credits and only a little bit of charlie sheen (he was one of the burning cow corpses). so maybe i need to add something to the formula?

W = (C / M) x (CG / CS) x PC

W = how much Wanky
C = number of Credits
P = number of credits you can skip without Missing anything
CG = number of CG characters who might be jar jar binks
CS = screen time Charlie Sheen gets to pretend he is a serious actor
PC = number of Phil Collins songs involved

i think that's tighter. so, for example, in children of men there were quite a few credits but if you stopped watching once they started (even the TITLE didn't run until the end of the film!) you missed nothing. there were no phil collins songs, one CG baby with minimal screen time (i think) and just that brief shot of charlie sheen as the burning cow resulting in:

2% = (422 / 421 ) x (1 / 1) x 0

basically, the film ends, it says "Children of Men" so you need to stay that long to find out if you walked into the right movie, but then, it's good to go. not very wanky at all.

and what do we learn from this?

that i should not attempt math.

or science.

and that really, i'm sure your mother is very proud that you're the post-production accountant but if she doesn't know already, she's probably not going to find out by reading the credits.

because they're wanky.

in other news, i think ze frank is hilarious.

there's good news and there's bad news.

good news: i upgraded my photo software and it's much betterer. now every album is a slideshow! see? i was smart for not just dumping it all on flickr. i haven't quite tweaked it all to satisfaction, but it works. check it out. it's easier to use and everything.

bad news: all those individual links to slideshows in old posts are now broke. i can live with that.

mom has been bugging me to post some pictures. so hah! i will! so there!

who cares if they're just a bunch of random nonsense? they still make an amusing little slideshow.

if you're at all curious about what these people we're hanging out with look like and how many different names for god you can fit on one license plate, you should enjoy it.

there are also pictures of creepy babies, so if your baby is ugly this might make you feel better.

i felt pretty good about my application.

made this connection, he talked me up to the head of the department i would work in. rewrote my resume. crafted a cover letter. rerewrote recrafted. rererewrote. uncrafted.

sent it in.

two minutes later, the HR rep sends a blanket email instructing me to apply via their online form.

i do so.

but somehow stuffing all my carefully crafted details into the robot's mouth didn't feel as good. now, i'm not an individual. i'm robot food.

munch munch munch. compute compute. does my column A quotient render a factor Z mean average equal to or greater than hypothetical applicant X? munch munch munch. p'tooey.

is this really the best way to screen prospective employees? as spreadsheet data?

i think not.

am i too excited?

maybe. maybe i am.

there is a new restaurant around the corner from our house -- just opened new years day -- and it is called...

mi corazon.

this means "my heart" in spanish. a language they speak in mexico.

can you get tomatillos here? jabaneros? whatever: they have cold Negro Modelo and a vast collection of tequilas.

will they have frijoles negros? dunno. will they make up salsa verde? perhaps if i ask. will it be better than taco bell?

better fuckin' hope so.

it's a new year. there is mexican food around the corner. perhaps it is even mexxxican food? too exxxciting for the chilluns?

also, it is approximately twelve billion degrees out today.

eat your heart out northern hemisphere!