Scott Pilgrim Character Sheet

As Day 4 finds me going through my desk drawers and finding random things like coaxial cable, bubbles, a Bart Simpson Pez dispenser, and a large amount of notebooks, we continue!



So you've all heard me talk about Scott Pilgrim. I talk about it a lot. The film and the comic. And how I like it. I like it a lot. I will not reiterate all of this, but I will point out one bit from the film that make me crack up on the 5th viewing:
Computer: "You've got mail!"
Scott: "Dude, this thing claims I have mail!"
Wallace: "It's amazing what they can do with technology."
Scott: "Dude, now I'm reading it!"
Wallace: "..."
*I snicker like a little kid*

It's the delivery that I love: completely without irony on Scott's part.

I don't have a picture of my favourite visual gag from the books, which was Wallace telling Scott that he's not to come home that night, just as he steps off the bus... at their home. Scott splutters in outrage, then our eyes stay on Wallace as the bus drives away with an ever-dwindling-Scott calling out such classics as "You suck, surprising no one!", "I had sexual relations with your mother!" and "Your mother was not that good!" until he's a dot yelling into a dot caption.

EDIT: Thanks to Wikiquote, I have the full dialogue:
YOU SUCK, SURPRISING NO-ONE!!!!
If bad was a boot, you'd fit it!!!!
You're a stupid poo-poo head!
I had sexual relations with your mother!!!
Your mother was not that good in bed!
You, sir, are a wicked soul!
I am rubber, you are glue!
...
..
.

Family Values! Now with costumes!

After watching the "Family Values" episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (season 3), in which several non-traditional couples are features, including one who each had a girlfriend and a boyfriend who lived with them, a foursome essentially, Tanja and I had this conversation (while I was cleaning up after making dinner):

T: I think the only way I'd have another person into our marraige was... wait a second. I could have two of you?
L: Yep. One of me could be rubbing your feet while the other cleaned up the dinner he just cooked.
T: Well, one of you would have to love dusting and making the bed.
L: Well, yes. Otherwise, I'd be stuck doing that.
T: So we could go to someone "Don't care about tits, don't care about cock, just need someone to do the dusting."
L: Tanja, you do realise that what you're describing is essentially... a maid, right? You're saying our marraige needs a maid.
T: Well, a maid... who puts out.
L: Okay, so a maid... who's a slut.
T: Yeah, pretty much.
...
T: He'd have to be a guy of course.
L: Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go changing it up. You said a maid who's a slut, a slutty maid so to speak, and my brain went to one place in particular. I'll thank you not to change it.


Ha!

Gah! I'm all sappy!

After looking through my blog-stalking list, I found the following entries. And thewy made me feel all clucky and broody and sappy and emotionful:

"Zoe" by Neil Gaiman (from his Journal on neilgaiman.com)

"The Owl of Bryant Park" By Kevin "Johnny Johnny" Gamble (from Naked Sponge)

"In My Own Image" by Annika Barranti (from Through The Looking Glass)

And just a cute one, "Eight Months" by Stephanie Whalen (from Four of Two)

Inflatable

Well, as an antidote to the generally negative tone of my last few posts, and in response to some lovely things Dooga said on his blog, here's somethig more positive.

Thanks to the generosity of people I work with, I ended up with a free ticket to Adam Hills' stand-up show at the Enmore theatre. I jumped at the chance, as I ove his work of Spicks & Specks and his DVDs. Well, apart from making me laugh so hard I nearly passed out (literally. I couldn't breathe), he had this classic Dad-Joke to share:
"There was an inflatable boy, who went to an inflatable school, with inflatable freinds and an inflatable principle. One day, he brought a pin to school as a joke. He got into trouble, though, and was brought to the principle's office. The principle said 'You're in big trouble. You've let your school down, you've let your friends down, you've let yourself down and you've let me down!'"

Heh.

Adam used this as a jumping-off point into a discussion with his imaginary son (he was positing what sort of wisdom he could pass on, were he to have a child apart from the definition of optimism being "sitting in a Nissan Micra, where the speedometer goes to 240"). I'll try to remember it as best as I can:

"Well, son, maybe... maybe we're all inflatable. And we have the power to inflate and deflate each other. And if you say something nice to someone, they inflate, like this *stands up straight*, and if you're not nice, they deflate, like this *slouches down*. And if at te end of your life you can figure that if you've inflated more people then you've deflated, then I guess you've had a pretty good life."

He then went on to speak about a friend of his who had died in the past year and how she was a real inflator, and how as her trademark, she always wore bunny ears to the Edinborough Fringe festival. She had died at 31 and the next year, all of her friend had gathered at the Festival to mourn and to celebrate her life, and without arranging it beforehand, they had all brought bunny ears. He said that talking about her was sad, but it was happy too. In the early hours of the morning, weary and heavy hearted, he had walked back to his hotel, head down, feeling very deflated. Then he started noticing that people passing him were smiling, large and openly, and it was only after the fifth person that he realised that he was still wearing the bunny ears from the party. He sat down, and he laughed, and he realised that even 9 months after she had left the earth, she still had the power to inflate him and the people around him.

I thought that was lovely.

If you don’t want my peaches, baby, why’d you shake my tree?

In other words, if the world doesn’t want me to get angry, why does it keep doing STUPID THINGS?!?

So. I emerged from a nightmare of bureaucratic horror this morning (a bureaucrat being defined (by Dictionary.com no less) as “an official who works by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgment”). I’ve been trying to get my passport renewed, which has been made difficult by the following facts:

1. The passport office is only open until 12 on weekdays.
2. It’s a labyrinth of paperwork and authorisations.
3. I’m really lazy so haven’t done the work in the months leading up to the deadline of the 8th of November.

Ok, first there are the forms. I fill them out, and hit the first roadblock. I don’t have a guarantor. A guarantor is classified as a banker, minister or lawyer who has known you personally for two years or more. I refuse to associate with these people, except my mother, who doesn’t count due to having birthed me. So there’s another form to fill out. And get notarised. Now, this morning, I was meant to start at 11 am. I cleared it with Rick to come in later if need be due to all the running around. So. First thing’s first. I’ve got to get my passport photos.

They take the most wretched photo I’ve ever seen. Say it’ll be 30 minutes. So I hang around Newtown waiting. Come back. Instead of giving me the photos in the legally required format of four-square, they’ve cut the photos individually. I say no, I need them together. They say it’ll be another 10 minutes. I wait, grab the pictures, and then go to the courthouse to get the ill-tempered Justices of the Peace there (Justice-of-the-Peaces? Justi of the Peace?) to notarise all the documents (which include a photocopy of my passport, despite the real passport being in the pack, because hey, I refer to the passport in a different sub-section of the paperwork).

I ask them to sign the photos first. She taps a sign. “WE DO NOT NOTARISE PASSPORT APPLICATIONS OR PHOTOS”. Fuck. Well, who does? She says she could print me a list, and then disappears back into the cubicles. I wait. Another guy asks if he can help. I start to explain, but he taps the sign again and says “We don’t sign photos.” “I KNOW! I just need to know who does.”

So he prints me a three-page list of JPs. Just phone numbers. No names. It is at this point I realise that the photos were not stamped on the back with where they were printed and when, making them invalid. I go back to the camera shop. They stamp the photos. With difficulty.

But before I do this, I call Tanja. Saying it’s all a fucking shambles. That I can’t get things notarised. And now I don’t have time to go to the consulate today.

She says I probably should have been better organised.

I reply incredibly rationally to this comment. I’m so calm it’s scary. I deliver a treatise on bureaucratic socialism and economic reform (Ok, no, I ranted and raved and was stupid, but give me a break).

So I come in to work, remembering a throwaway comment made by Rick that the Big Boss is a JP. I see the Boss on the way in. No, he says, I’m not a JP.

At this point I went numb.

So anyway, I’m relating this to Tanja via email that no, Big Boss can’t notarise stuff.

Tanja: "It's just ridiculous, isn't it. Can you call the consulate back and see if they can verify everything for you? I think I saw that on the paperwork that they will do this, but charge an additional $50 for it. Perhaps you can just take everything in and sort it out then and there."

Me: *furiously telephones the consulate in the two minutes left before 12 and finds out that yes, you can do that* “Hey, we can!”

Tanja: “Whosaclevergirlthen!”

Yes, she is.

They're gonna put me in the movies...
They're gonna make a big star outta me....
They've wrote a role for a man that's pissed and angry...
And all I have to do is... act naturally.....

Flattery will get you flattened.

Tanja said nice things about me. And made me blush, damn her.

"He's a pretty great chappy, as you know, very endearing, and gorgeous when he pouts, adorable when he's hunted down a bargain and all pleased with himself (he's a cheapskate, first to admit it), and endearingly painful when you watch a movie with him and he pauses it to explain the backstory of what just went on there based on the comic, the directors cut, what IMDB or whatever said about it, or just to explain why he giggled at that point.

He also cooks a mean Penne Arrabiata, but you'd faint if you saw the kitchen after."

Grumble. Grumble. We're out of potatoes, and these pretzels are making me THIRSTY!

Title!

At the moment I'm procrastinating writing my statement for the Immigration Permanent Residency Visa application tomorrow morno. It's like I have to justify why and how and to what purpose I am inlove/not in love with Tanja. It's hard, damnit.

If we do ok and are done quick, I'm taking The Tanj to see Shaun of the Dead. Again for me, first time for her.

Here's hoping we're seeing dead Brits by tomorrow evening *clink*

Right!

Go and see Shaun Of The Dead. And love it as I do. This I command.

Oh, and also, my girlfriend is lovely. She made a post on the board pimping Insprite. Heh.