Comical

I'm worried about the in-progress Scott Pilgrim movie. Not a big, angry, comic-book-nerd worry, like some people had for Watchmen. More like a little, quiet, deep-in-the-stomach worry, like the kind you get when you watch someone toss and catch an egg, or try to fix a TV by thumping it, or try to ride a bike for the first time. I've complete faith in Edgar Wright, but I just don't know. I don't know if they'll capture what I love about Scott Pilgrim the Comic in their quest to make the next Juno or whatever. I see stuff on the Oni Press site, or on Bryan Lee O'Malley's blog or Twitter and I get the worry: a little "nyeeeeeaah" feeling, like when you see someone balancing on an edge and you're worried for them.

Gen What?

I was slightly stunned when an ad for a new show called "Talking About My Generation" defined Gen Y as being anyone born between 1980-1995. Wow. See, I'd never considered myself a Gen Y person. Hell, the speaker at our graduation referred to us as "move over, Generation X. Here come the Dot-Com Kids." which was a moniker I kind of liked. But Gen Y? Okay. I guess. Part of what bothers me is the negative stigma associated with Gen Y, especially in the media and in business circles. The idea that Gen Y people are nigh-impossible to motivate, hate hard work, and expect to turn up and get paid as much as possible while putting in the least amount of effort as their birthright. I'm not like that. At least, I don't think I am.

Also, I find that I've been self-censoring lately in a noticeable way. Some might say that's a good thing, judging by how often I'll put my foot in my mouth. I just find it a bit worrying. I've even censored myself three times while writing this blog entry. Sigh.

Lost In Translation

20 Baffling Foreign Movie Posters
Special mention to King Kong choke-slamming a shark.

A Couple Of Videos.

A just plain funny one....



And a funny, but makes you think one...



These both had me laughing down the street.

What I done did on my birthday.

1. Woke up. Drank coffee.

2. Schlepped a heapin' helpin' of parcels (like two huge bags full) to the post office to send off to eBay folks.

3. Sat on the sidewalk outside a cafe stealing their free Wifi and twittering.

4. Meeting not one but TWO people from my team on the street, one of which tried to ask me a "quick question" about work. LALALALALA it's my day off! Ask me Monday!

5. Went off to Harris Farm at Broadway to get supplies for Sunday dinner. Contemplated getting fancy rum at Vintage Cellars.

6. Realised that despite a huge revamp and renovation, Broadway Harris Farm is still (despite wider aisles) full of choke points where people pile up and have to wait.

7. Realised that Swiss Brown mushroomns are expensive. Like 3.99 for 200 grams. Tanja's list said 600 grams, but I thought she must not have meant THOSE mushrooms and got regular ones instead (hint: she did want THOSE mushrooms).

8. Stopped in a Vintage cellars on the way back to get my fancy rum (after having, like a wuss, discussed it with Tanja, who said it was okay). Then noticed that the Monty Python's Holy GrAil (tempered over the fires of burning witches), which usually costs between 7 and 10 dollars per 500 mL bottle, was on sale for $2.50 per bottle. So I grab 6 of those and bring them to the counter, along with a $50 Origine Caribbean rum (I told Tanja how much that was later and she went "Oh, I thought you were going to get on of those 80 or 90 dollar ones." Argh!). The guy behind the counter looks at them and says "Listen, mate. I'll tell you what: if you take the lot, I'll give them to you for $1 per bottle." Me: "How many are there?" Him: "Well, two more in that cooler, and then another 9 over there." "So 17." "Yeah. Do you want them?"

9. I make a rash decision.

10. I struggle out of the shop, holding a box with 8.5 litres of beer, plus the two shopping bags. After 5 steps try to flag a cab. No good, all full. I spot one empty, who makes an incredibly expressive gesture that I should go further down the block. I struggle down, take too long, and he leaves. So I call a taxi. And wait. And wait. It's stinking hot. I have no hat, no sunglasses, and dairy products in the bags. It's stressful. I eventually grab a bus that gets me closer to home, and struggle to the house, having to stop twice to rest.

11. Once inside, a realisation occurs: the beer was in the fridge at the shop. I was only able to fit 9 in the fridge. Short-term solution? I drink one. Longer-term solution? I call Craig and Adrian. Adrian can't make it, but Craig's conversation went like so:
"Hi Craig. Due to a confluence of circumstances, I've ended up with 17 bottles of Monty Python's Holy GrAil for $1 per bottle and I can only fit 9 in my fridge."
Craig: "I'm on my way." *click*

Gotta love friends that'll take booze off your hands.

12. Cleaned up.

13. Once Tanja got home, headed to Bentley Bar for tasting degustation menu with matched wines. Wonders. Delights. Almond gazpacho with caviar, something-something berries and an oyster. Squid-ink kingfish with seared scallop and coconut custard. Sesame dumplings (which tasted like peanut butter made from vegetables. but in a good way) with mint, sweet pea and other things. Smoked, deboned, then rolled quail with perfumed fruit. Roast duck breast with... okay, I don't remember, because of all the wine, but it was rich and lovely. Their version of lemon-lime-and-bitters (butterscotch toffee, whipped lemonade froth, and lime gelato, which all together, looked shockingly like a fried egg). More things. And stuff.

14. Got up to leave an realised, whoops, all that wine had gone to both our heads. Stumbled into a cab and home. Nearly fell asleep on the couch.

And now I'm 27.

There's Noel in Christmas.

Is it me, or is the song "The First Noel" an example of bad song-writing disguised as old-timey language?

A few examples:

[-]"The first "Nowell" the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep."

Firstly, Why repeat the 2nd line by slightly mangling it into the 3rd? You've just started, and you're making callbacks already? Okay, so it was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay. Okay, that I get. They lay in fields. I'll accept that, even though you're changing around the natural grammatical placement of the words to get a rhyme with "the Angel did say". But then to follow in immediately with "In fields where they," in the next line is redundant. You just said that. Even as a little kid I thought it was a typo. Or maybe that was an important thing to get across in the 16th century. Maybe it was a conversation point.
"Hey, you know shepherds?"
"Of course I do."
"They lay in fields."
"No kiddin'?"
"Yep. In fields they lay."
"Imagine that. Wacky guys those shepherds."

Also, When was the last time you looked out at a cold night in Winter and said that it was "So deep"? The SNOW may be deep, the thing the person next to you may be "so deep, man." But the night? Really? Again, it's a cheap rhyme with “sheep”. But is sheep so hard to rhyme?

[-]"They lookèd up and saw a star
Shining in the east, beyond them far;"

Okay, so the shepherds, in these fields, in this really incredibly deep night, they see a star. Apparently, this night-time miracle is shining in the East, “beyond them far.” Do you mean “far beyond them?” Nope. Beyond them far. It seems either Yoda (“Hrrrm, Myrrh, I have brought you.”) or Billy Joel (who's still ordering “tonic-and-gins” whenever he's in a bar) is writing this.

[-]And then the chorus. Everyone knows it. It goes “Noel” a bunch of times, then tells us in Yoda-speak that “born, is the King of Israel”. And then something about how "Hard to see, the Dark Side is". It occurred to me as rather handy that Jesus is to be King of a place that so nicely rhymes with the word for the night of his birth. Had he been King of Saskatchewan, would we be singing about the first Hakeem-Elajuwan? Or the first Nahasapeemapetilan?

Oh, and an added bonus? When researching this post, I saw that there are three old verses often omitted from modern renditions:

“Between an ox-stall and an ass
This Child there truly bornèd was;
For want of clothing they did him lay
All in the manger, among the hay.”

I know why this was left out. Some of us kids had a hard enough time keeping from laughing when a minister uses a word like ”Hosannah” (Oh, Hosannah, oh don't you cry for me, 'cause I'm come from East of Canaan with a banjo on my knee). Hearing about a naked kid next to an ass would have had us rolling in the aisles.

“Then did they know assuredly
Within that house the King did lie;
One entered in then for to see,
And found the Babe in poverty.”

Leaving out the unnecessary “assuredly” (which is now verging on Calvin-and-Hobbes G.R.O.S.S. Motto rhyming), that last line? Finding a babe in poverty? I've seen films that start that way. And not the kind of films that win Oscars: “C'mon, baby. You wanna be a star?” Come to think of it, I've heard jokes that start that way. “You can spend the night, but don't touch my daughter.” Cue banjo-chase music and farmers with pitchforks.

'If we in our time shall do well
We shall be free from death and hell,
For God hath prepared for us all
A resting-place in general.”

A resting place... in general? In general.
“God, we've been good, we're here, where should we stay?”
“Oh, someplace in general. You know, over there.”
“Anywhere specific?”
“No, just somewhere.”

I think if I'd led a good life, abstaining from drinking, dancing, various sins of various fleshes, God would have a room picked out for me. You know, corner suite, not too near the ice machine, good view of the clouds. I was unaware Heaven would have worse seating plans than the Big Day Out festival.

Anyway, clearly I've put too much thought into this. Well, this is what happens when you make me wait for a desk to be delivered all day, and I work in the garden to kill time. Be told.

Watching Men

I’m not going to spoil. Promise. I’m not even going to dissect. The only thing I didn’t like about the film is that they’ve basically given the various heroes superpowers without stating it to be so. They’re meant to be good fighters (even scarily so, in Adrian’s case), but they’re not supposed to be leaping up to the second story or, in one egregious case near the beginning, pressing a huge guy up over their head and throwing them in a way that a wrestler would have difficulty doing. It took me out of the film.

Also, I played the demo Watchmen downloadable game for PS3, which was an okay beat-em-up in the style of Ultimate Alliance, but without the squad aspect. What got me about the game, though, was it had new writing, comic panels, and a narration from the guy who played Rorschach in the movie. Listening to it, I realised something: Sin City is like a whole movie/Comic Book series written/starring characters like this. No wonder I like the Sin City movie less and less each time I watch it.

On a completely unrelated note, I can barely watch the Transformers movie now, despite it looking lovely on an HDTV and played on a PS3. The plot just seems full of holes and meandering, and the stuff with Anthony Anderson and Sam’s parents just grates and then… yeah.

The Altos

Tanja and I started watching the Final Episodes of the Sopranos on DVD last night. It’s been a while since we’ve tuned in both in real-time and in show-time. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been watching the Wire recently, but I’m finding I just don’t like the tone of the Sopranos anymore. You watch an episode waiting for Tony to hurt someone, either physically or emotionally. It’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion. I’ve found that I have little or no emotional involvement with the characters anymore. I find some of the psychological aspects interesting, but that’s all I’m now kind of waiting for the show to end. Maybe it’ll get better. I don’t know.

Birthday thoughts.

I’ve never considered myself hard to buy for, but lately I’ve had two requests for What I Want For My Birthday (both from Mums, oddly enough) and I haven’t had a clue what to say. I’m pretty sorted with movies and TV series, CDs too, and I’ve got 4 newish video games for the PS3 and a bunch of demos, so that’s no good. Books, I’m sorted, apart from back-catalogue Robert Rankin. Comics, I tend to buy myself as I find them. So yeah. Don’t know.

Conversation this morning:

*We’re having Hot Cross Buns with jam for breakfast. Tanja has gotten up before me and made herself one, then cut mine in half, but did not apply jam*
Me: “Hey, you didn’t make MY Hot Cross Bun!
Tanja, from bathroom: “Make it yourself, the jam’s right there.”
Me: *big theatrical sigh* “The honeymoon’s over.”
Tanja: *cackle*
Me: *notices she made his coffee* “I totally retract that last statement. The honeymoon is back on!”

Heh.