The Roman Empire online. Claims to have some 70Mb of material on the US' Italian predecessors.
5:24 PM | link
Canadian man dies of CJD, which authorities insist he must've contracted in the UK. Yeah, cos there's no possibility that mad cow disease could ever exist in any country on Earth other than the UK, is there. Bah. I was in Scotland at the height of the CJD epidemic. I ate meat then, I did so gladly and without fear. Three years later, I'm still here, not much wrong with me that wasn't wrong before that time.
5:18 PM | link
Joe Eszterhas has throat cancer.
Eszterhas says he has trouble forgiving himself for the rampant cigarette use in his films.
"I have been an accomplice to the murders of untold numbers of human beings. I am admitting this only because I have made a deal with God. Spare me, I said, and I will try to stop others from committing the same crimes I did."
I'd be more worried about them making the same films, myself.
Eszterhas says he has stopped smoking and drinking since his cancer was diagnosed, and now walks five miles a day and attends church on Sunday.
"My hands are bloody; so are Hollywood's. My cancer has caused me to attempt to cleanse mine," he writes. "I don't wish my fate upon anyone in Hollywood, but I beg that Hollywood stop imposing it upon millions of others."
Oh get your hand off it, Joe. Is it just me, or is anyone else out there damn sick of people who get pious and holier than thou like this about the evil effects of their substances when they start dying from them? I'm sorry for the guy, I don't wish it on him either, and I have no problems with people repenting of things they've done. But if they enjoyed doing them, as I'm sure Joe did, I wish they'd just admit it and be honest about it.
5:12 PM | link
What would've happened to science had the Earth been entirely cloud-covered? Sounds on the face of it like a lot of abstract academic wank, but actually it's rather interesting.
4:37 PM | link
US wants to take the War On Terror™ to the high seas. Fuck, I don't know why the US doesn't just declare every country on Earth to be a new American state. Actually, I shouldn't say that, it may give them ideas.
4:32 PM | link
The slowly changing face of the CIA spy.
While officials are cheered that the CIA now seems to be a hot place to work, the overwhelming majority of qualified applicants are mid-twenties to early thirties, white, middle-class Americans lacking in languages such as Arabic, Farsi, Dari and Pashtun. They are not, in short, ideal candidates for penetrating the world of Islamic-based terror groups.
Soccer hooliganism back in fashion.
Jason Williams, a reporter who went undercover to find out about hooligans for the programme, said many of those he met and spoke to enjoyed the "buzz" of possible violence.
He told BBC News Online: "One of them likened it to going to war for Queen and country. They get a great deal of satisfaction out of it and see themselves as big men."
I'll bet her Majesty is thrilled by the noble sacrifices her subjects are making.
4:04 PM | link
Australian scientist discovers best way to urinate. Wonder if he knows the best way to take a shit as well.
3:43 PM | link
Looking back at Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, which is enjoying a rerelease here at the moment. Unless I'm mistaken, this is actually also the first time the film's been released in stereo (the original 1974 prints were mono). A fantastic film I'm definitely going to have to go see on the big screen.
3:36 PM | link
Citizen Kane voted best film ever made yet again. What a surprise. Yes, Kane topped the Sight & Sound critics poll for the fifth decade running. Much as I like Kane myself, I do wonder just how many of the critics who are obviously voting it as their best film do so because they honestly love it or because they just see it's had so much acclaim in the past and feel afraid to not vote for it.
3:32 PM | link
CIA wants to "reform" Palestinian security forces. I can see them accepting that without a fight, can't you?
3:26 PM | link
Before I forget, and talking of relations, Bernard Slattery emailed me the other day to advise me of this site:
Random I Am is his son Tim's punk band. Methinks a few sound samples might not go astray, even 30 second mp3 grabs just to hear how the band sounds. But I do love the lyrics page. Visit the site and click on the link and you'll see what I mean. Best of luck to them in all things, for one day they may wind up getting played on Triple J and what happened to Mick Hart on Wednesday night may happen to them too, i.e. they'll play at the Excelsior, they'll meet one of the girls I do my radio show with, and she will show them drawings of penises. Poor bloody Mick Hart, he will rue the day he met us. And yes, there is a story behind that, but I'm not going into it now.
10:55 PM | link
You know, I've had a few search hits for the words "hot buttered death" recently. Those have mystified me a little cos let's be honest, "hot buttered death" is a weird phrase to be going in search of. The person who just came by looking for "hot buttered sex", though, has worse problems, I fear. As for whoever came by seeking "tentacle porn" this morning, you need help too.
10:44 PM | link
Lynn ponders linking policies.
I'm too new to blogging to have made any close friends so it's not exactly the same and this is mostly just theoretical anyway but I can imagine a situation in which I might link to someone because they write some interesting stuff then one day they write something wholeheartedly agreeing with Noam Chomsky or defending Jerry Falwell.
I don't know. I think the answer really is as simple as just dropping them in a situation like that. I have a few who I keep in the Australian section of the blogroll purely for the sake of their being Australian and in the interests of promoting my fellow Antipodeans. I actively disagree with some, particularly Tim Blair, at various points, and there are a couple who I find disagreeable enough not to include at all, even with Oz-boosting considerations taken into account. There are others I have lesser problems with. Most of them I can get along with, and even though Blair often comes over as a kneejerk shithead, I find him witty enough to keep him on board. But I'm not afraid of dropping anyone if they do or say something that offends me enough to make me want to do that (Brendan O'Neill's nearly at strike three with me). I've even dropped sites from the blogroll where I actually agreed with them in political terms cos they were becoming as tiresomely predictable as some of the more conservative sites I see.
So I suppose my linking policy is this.
1) I'm happy to do reciprocal links. If I find you linking to me, I will most likely return the favour at some point.
2) If you write or do something that offends me enough, I will drop you just as happily.
Fortunately it rarely seems to get to the second stage and I get on happily enough with most of the folks on the blogroll over there. It's an interesting blogosphere we've got ourselves into, and I prefer maintaining good relations as far as possible.
10:26 PM | link
Allen Barra on Raymond Chandler. Interesting article with many good points, particularly on Chandler's writing style. I've been on a Chandler kick for a few weeks, as it happens, making my way through the novels, and the writing really is a joy. I recommend all of them except Playback, his last gasp, the work of an old, tired and unhappy man, and oh how it shows. Just get the two Penguin Classics editions of the other books (three in each omnibus) and if you want to read Playback get it separately. I haven't read any of the short stories so don't know how they measure up.
9:58 PM | link
A look at the latest Moon-landing hoax conspiracy thing. Hilarious. The documentary in question airs here in the next few days; the ads say Mitch Pileggi from The X-Files is narrator of the thing. I suppose that was their idea of having someone credible involved...
9:37 PM | link
The debate about how bad literature is these days continues.
Californian Jonathan Aurthur said Myers made him feel better about disliking Proulx.
"Having been assured by the critics that it was a great book, I slogged through 150 pages of The Shipping News before I gave up."
If you need another critic that much to ratify your own taste instead of having the strength to just admit you don't like something without feeling bad about it, then I'm afraid I don't really care much about what you think, mate.
9:30 PM | link
Weight loss by shock treatment. With the voltage being delivered to the stomach, not the head, so my initial vision of people burning off the calories by writhing on a hospital bed like a dying fish was evidently incorrect.
9:23 PM | link
So Hitler died a rich man. Honestly, why is this such a revelation? Whatever else may be said about Hitler, one thing is undeniable: he was the leader of a country. And you just don't take on a job like that without there being money for you to roll around in. It's admittedly not something I've given much thought to in the past, but the claim here that he made the equivalent of $40m just from Mein Kampf royalties doesn't strike me as surprising. I mean, shit, he only had 20 years to make money of the book and it was a prescribed text for the best part of those two decades; I'd be worried if he hadn't made anything from it...
9:03 PM | link
Killers' victims' families not amused at killers being allowed to use the Internet to plead their innocence.
8:54 PM | link
Proof that people like to get into places for free. Except where does the money to run these places come from if people aren't paying admission?
8:43 PM | link
Airport security getting overzealous again. This sort of thing would put me off flying altogether, and I'd like to think Australian airport security would have enough sense to know the line between safety and paranoia, but for some reason I don't. Still, that offer of free flights on September 11 seems to have been a hit.
8:37 PM | link
Six Feet Under forced to use fake corpses. Seems people have problems staying still long enough to look like real dead people. Surely the answer, then, is not to use fake corpses but to kill the actors hired to play the corpses? That should make them a bit more convincing...
8:35 PM | link
President of Turkmenistan wants to rename calendar month after himself. Next: US declares war on Turkmenistan for daring to tamper with the Western calendar and thereby subvert democracy.
8:31 PM | link
Dennis Hopper to play Frank Sinatra. Hmm! I was a bit dubious about the prospects of the film in question, about Sinatra's infamous Australian tour of 1974, but now that Hopper's involved I'm more interested in it. The director's first film is screening here soon, so I'll see that and see how that goes too...
8:23 PM | link
You know, this whole religious community leader charged with sexual assault thing is beginning to get predictable. For a change, here's a politician accused of abuse.
8:19 PM | link
How gay are you? (requires Flash) Apparently I'm 70% heterosexual, which is the way in which Richard Baillie (from whom I nicked this test) preferred to interpret his result.
8:14 PM | link
ALP refusing to support Australian involvement in Iraq conflict. Odd, given they had no problems with sending our blokes to the last Iraq conflict. Then again, Labor were running the country then; the current Labor team seems to me at least to be doing this more to spite Howard and co than because they believe we should be keeping out of it. So while I hesitantly applaud this statement, I'm still dubious about the reasons for it...
7:59 PM | link
The Dokic family are off to England. And England may have them, too.
7:56 PM | link
Under current rules, only a proportion of unemployed people are referred by Centrelink to Job Network providers for specialised help. Under the new system, all job-seekers will be referred, requiring agencies to make major changes to the way they operate, staffing levels, and even the architecture of their offices.
But making the Job Network find jobs for 750,000 people presumes that 750,000 jobs actually exist, surely. Do they?
7:48 PM | link
I don't think Jason Soon likes Karen de Coster very much. Truth be told, I'm a bit wary of people who reckon accountants are "necessary"...
7:40 PM | link
Incidentally, I should say hello to my recent visitors from Saudi Arabia. I feel strangely relieved to know my website is obviously not banned from being viewed in that country.
10:43 PM | link
Lynn's discovered Pink Floyd. Therefore I make the following chronologically ordered recommendations:
1. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn—because you need to know the Barrett-era Floyd.
2. A Saucerful Of Secrets—second album, Syd's swansong.
3. Relics—rather good odds and sods compilation which was actually the first Floyd album I owned myself.
4. Meddle—for "Echoes", one of the few really essential 20 minute-plus rock songs.
5. Dark Side of the Moon—a worn-out cliche now, but still surprisingly fascinating.
6. Wish You Were Here—in which our heroes first discover fame is not all it's cracked up to be.
7. Animals—the forgotten album, actually a career highlight. "Sheep" features the immortal line "Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream", which is a lyric I've always wished I'd written.
8. The Wall—straddling the fine line between concept album and overt rock opera. Features songs of manageable length again.
I'd avoid Atom Heart Mother, maybe try downloading "If" and "Summer of 68" from that album cos they're OK, and also avoid Obscured By Clouds, their weakest moment that I've heard. Leave the two post-Roger Waters albums until last if you must hear them. Haven't heard More, Ummagumma or The Final Cut, so obviously can't comment on them. As for the sundry solo albums, perhaps the less said about those the better. Like solo Beatles, solo Floyd have their individual moments but the real magic was in the group.
Talking of Pink Floyd, contrary to Dave Gilmour's statements last year that he couldn't really be bothered reviving the band, there's rumours they may be touring again with Roger Waters. I can't see that happening, or working if it does, but that's what I'm reading at the Mojo message boards. I can't find any links to the story, and there are none in that thread, but it's interesting anyway...
10:35 PM | link
Interview with Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay. In which I learned the US was actually ready to drop a third bomb after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and that a European target was also initially planned, which is something I'm pretty sure I never knew before, and they were only stopped from using the third one because Japan surrendered before they could do it. An enlightening interview, which ends on what I personally consider to be a mightily sad note.
10:08 PM | link
RIP William Mallow, inventor of clumping cat litter and this charming item:
The U.S. Air Force veteran's latest project was a slippery gel dubbed the Mobility Denial System. Designed to foil attacks on government buildings and control crowds, it can be sprayed on any surface and causes people to slip and fall and prevents vehicles from getting traction.
It could be deployed by the U.S. Marine Corps next year.
Expect a raft of lawsuits from people involved in protests and demonstrations claiming that the police made them look like clowns by making them keep falling down like that.
9:58 PM | link
Stately home advertising for resident hermit. Only in England...
9:50 PM | link
Mac Thomason unveiled some of his recent search requests today. This just about beats any of mine in the past week or two, although frankly this is just disturbing...
9:34 PM | link
University blasted for asking incoming students to read book on Islam. I think there's an issue being lost in all of this: namely, why does the university require all its incoming students to read one book in particular? They've done this for years, and I'm just wondering what the reason for it actually is.
9:27 PM | link
George Kelly wants to know what headphones you use. Hmm. For what it's worth, I don't use them that much. Lately though, when I have been using them, I've been trying the Koss UR20s, which were nice and comfy until the headband proved about as fragile as some of the reviews I've read hinted it was. So I'm back to the old Sony DR-7s I picked up at the Maroubra Cash Converters ages ago: older, bigger and heavier, with a stereo/mono switch, and they don't fit around (instead of just on) my ears like the UR20s did, but blessed with a much longer cable so I can actually sit in the chair rather than on the floor if I want to listen that way.
9:22 PM | link
Grandmother attending grandson's friend's funeral suddenly realises it's actually her grandson in the casket.
8:56 PM | link
Ned Flanders: a role model to Christians everywhere. Eeek. Personally I think the fellow who comments at the end about how sad it is that Ned is the best role model Christians have these days and they can't find any better ones has it about right.
8:54 PM | link
Cape Town police hunt semen thief. Well, I suppose it beats waking up in the bath with a scar on your side near where your kidney used to be.
8:52 PM | link
Lale Mansur: proving that Steve Earle's fears of deportation over his bloody song are pretty much unfounded and silly in comparisong to her problems.
8:36 PM | link
Chicago theatre critics giving Broadway producers and publicists the shits over bad reviews.
This Broadway petulance is offensive to theatergoers everywhere. Plays are launched here not because of the kindness of producers but because--in the opinion of no less an authority than The New York Times--Chicago is by far the best theater venue outside of Broadway. It's a big city, with big-city audiences, a vast pool of acting talent, and many theaters with first-rate crews.
Chicago benefits by these tryouts but so do the producers, who get time to work out kinks. Producers yearning for universal applause would be better off in Los Angeles or Houston, where the fact that the leading lady didn't forget her lines or fall into the orchestra pit is often reason enough to provoke a standing ovation.
Hollywood, where B is beautiful.
The concept of B-movies was a product of cinema’s boom time in the 1950s. Smaller non-studio producers wanted to make a fast buck by tapping into the audience’s primal fears with sensationalist (but cheap) film-making.
Well, partly. The modern concept of B-movies, what we now commonly mean by B-grade, came out of the 1950s. But B-movies, as the opposite halves of A-movies on double bills, were around in the 1930s when the major studios had their B production units (Casablanca started out as just a B film before Humphrey Bogart signed on) and many smaller studios existed purely to produce programmers to go on the other half of the bill with the big picture. It irritates me a little that people forget this is where the term "B movie" actually comes from and historically it actually had nothing to do with quality as such...
8:25 PM | link
Man dozes off on beach, wakes up with barnacle stuck to his penis. As you do. I just wonder how the barnacle actually got on the end of his dick in the first place.
8:12 PM | link
Gunnedah: turning koala shit into souvenirs. Makes a change from the stuffed koala toys you often see in tourist shops, but even so...
8:11 PM | link
Is it just me, or have there actually been quite a few stories of late concering people being found not to be dead after all?
8:09 PM | link
Motorist defends self against parking ticket by claiming the inspector wasn't wearing a hat.
8:09 PM | link
Man won't be prosecuted for putting needles in McDonalds burgers, as long as he admits to doing it. Next: Osama bin Laden admits to masterminding terrorist attacks on New York last year, gets off with a caution.
8:02 PM | link
13 year old boy goes to newsstand, demands porn. Presumably the kid didn't have the Internet at home or something.
8:00 PM | link
Man stops to help driver injured in accident, has his own car stolen by the other person involved in the accident.
7:50 PM | link
Bjorn Staerk declares war on Australia.
Our demands are simple and just: the complete obliteration of the nation of Australia, with the exception of that crocodile fellow on TV. And still they resist, and claim even to want peace! Hypocrisy and spite, that's what it is, and they'll pay for it.
Shit, as far as I'm concerned, you can have Steve Irwin if you want him that badly. I daresay most Australians would be glad to offload the guy. I saw the preview for his movie at the cinema yesterday, and I honestly can't remember the last time I saw anything that looked so bad. It disturbed me almost as much as the promo display thing for Eight Legged Freaks, which I also saw at the cinema yesterday... I was on my way to the toilet to have a pee before seeing the film and without warning, I was like "AAAAAA!!!! THERE'S A FUCKING SPIDER THE SAME SIZE AS ME OVER THERE!!!!!" It took me a few seconds to actually realise what it was, it took me that far aback. And I'm arachnophobic at the best of times, so I nearly had a fit when I saw this six-foot tall monstrosity...
7:38 PM | link
What the hell is Amir Butler's problem with fark.com? The sex? The nudity? The running tally of people executed in Saudi Arabia? Or did Amir just have a humour bypass at the time he decided Afghanistan was better off under the Taliban?
7:31 PM | link
Garry Maddox wonders why Australian filmmakers aren't more interested in Asia.
The list of successful features either set in Asia or telling the stories of immigrants is remarkably thin, especially compared to the creative energy behind migrant stories from Italy, Greece and other parts of Europe.
The number of Asian-Australian feature film-makers hardly seems to go past Clara Law, Pauline Chan and Tony Ayres. After a Vietnam War story in The Odd Angry Shot, there were few features with an Asian setting other than Turtle Beach and Blood Oath until Phil Noyce made The Quiet American recently.
I wonder if the simple fact that European immigrants were coming here longer than Asian immigrants have been has anything to do with it. Anyway, give it time. I reckon we'll be seeing an increasing number of Asian-Australian films in the near future.
7:19 PM | link
elgooG. A different sort of website mirror...
6:47 PM | link
The case against educating illegal immigrants while in detention, and the case for it. From the former piece:
Problems with the partnership aside, the main concern about the tender is its capacity to entrench mandatory detention, a policy now well-documented as having pernicious effects on all who are incarcerated.
This vomitous piece of rubbish is answered in the second piece:
On the first point: the logical extension of this argument is that the provision of any services that improve the conditions of detainees entrenches the policy. If we apply that argument to medical care, we would be demanding that medical practitioners withhold their services.
At least some people seem enlightened enough to realise trying to educate people actually isn't a bad thing.
6:43 PM | link
Oasis really aren't making a good job of it. First one of the Gallaghers nearly blew the entire tour the other day by leaving his passport at home, now this accident thing. Wonder what else can go wrong.
6:23 PM | link
Democrats descend further into farce.
Senator Stott Despoja last night remained defensive of her party, engaged in a messy and public row for more than a month, and said she was pleased with the cohesion of her team, apart from Senator Murray.
"I think we've demonstrated in the last week that we can work as a functional, workable unit," she told the ABC's 7.30 Report last night.
Yes, a functional, workable unit with a leader too piss-poor to bring her subordinates into line. Natasha honestly thinks she's come out of this stronger, which baffles me. She actually challenged Murray to challenge her for the leadership if that was what he wanted; I wish he would, cos surely he could hardly make a worse job of it than she's been doing of late.
6:21 PM | link
Someone just came by looking for this. Sorry I can't provide any. Bizarrely, this is the second time in recent days I've had someone visit the blog looking for samples of Prozac.
6:05 PM | link
I shouldn't laugh at this story, but somehow I can't resist. Of course there are daft stereotypes and misconceptions about goths. There always have been. I see a number of these daft stereotypes at goth clubs. But really, when the mainstream has taken much notice of goths at all in the last 20 years, it's usually been with an element of mockery or fear. I feel sorry for the family of this girl, but good grief, if they really think the bogans of Edinburgh really need this ad for an excuse to do that sort of thing, or that they hadn't been doing it long before this, then they need to think again...
10:46 AM | link
One of the delights of moving the counter onto the blog page recently has been discovering that I actually do have something approximating to a regular readership. Said regular readership has probably noticed this is not exactly a graphics-heavy site. Part of that is because I only have a fairly limited amount of web space and want to keep as much of it free as I can. Plus I don't have a scanner, which limits me from posting my own photographic work. The things I've posted have been manipulations of photos from other sources, and the one photo of me I posted a few weeks ago was sent to me by someone else. Apart from which, I just haven't been taking a lot of photos lately. I put a roll in for development the other day, having forgotten what was on it, and was slightly surprised to see photos from last Xmas on it. That's how few photos I've taken in the past eight months, obviously.
Anyway, one of my TAFE classes today involves us playing with the scanners they have in one of the classrooms, so I took the opportunity of scanning a few shots from that roll. Here's a couple of the more interesting ones.
There was a rather splendid storm on the day I took this shot. I managed to get it just before the clouds burst.
Out in the backyard, my hand holding a leaf burnt black just by the heat in the air. What impressed me in this shot when I saw it printed up was actually the background; just look at all the filth in the air. This was at the height of the bushfire crisis last Xmastime, and it was so hot, the heat in the air was actually scorching some of the leaves on the trees around us. An appalling time.
Me a few weeks ago with my hair all over the shop, having just washed it and not yet brushed it down into place. Mum thought it looked amusing enough in this state to warrant photographic preservation.
10:02 PM | link
PunkRockers.com. Devoted to the glories of 70s/80s punk, primarily from the US but also with some English examples (site's divided into sections for New York, Orange County, LA, San Francisco, Washington DC, Detroit, and, well, England). Stacks of audio and video, full-length mp3s and all of that... shit, look at some of the contents: The Weirdos, The Screamers, X, Black Flag, The Vandals (original lineup thereof), TSOL, Social Distortion, Ramones, Misfits, Dead Boys, Dead Kennedys, The Avengers, Crime, Minor Threat, The Stooges, The Sex Pistols, The Clash... most of the likely suspects. Needless to say I have days of downloading stuff ahead of me.
9:32 PM | link
Public disdain for media returning. Mine never entirely went away, it has to be said...
9:05 PM | link
Norah Vincent wants to know where God is. At least I know he's not behind the sofa, I just checked.
8:54 PM | link
The bones of John The Baptist? If they are, and I'll be damned if I can see how they'd actually be able to prove it one way or the other, they'll screw up the Biblical story cos a skull was found attached to the skeleton...
8:46 PM | link
Man castrates mayor of pissant Texas town... said mayor being a goat. More to the point, the goat is the third goat to be mayor of the town. I honestly have no idea what to make of this one.
8:42 PM | link
Catholic school wants to background check students' parents.
St. Rita Catholic School has adopted a policy requiring parents to undergo background checks, partly in response to revelations of child molestation that have rocked the Roman Catholic church.
"We want to make sure the school environment is as secure as it can be," said Elena Hines, St. Rita's principal.
No word on whether or not the school also plans to background-check its teachers and priests, who I daresay the parents would probably be more worried about than the other parents.
8:31 PM | link
Eric Olsen's excited about getting Glenn Reynolds on board with his BlogCritics project. I suggest giving Glenn the new Steve Earle album to review. Or something French.
8:15 PM | link
Striking a similar blow for airport security. Those two-inch toy guns, you know, they're deadly weapons.
8:11 PM | link
80 year old man now knows not to make rifle jokes to airport security.
Anxiety levels after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are high enough at airports, Cosgrove said, which is why cracks about guns, bombs or terrorism are cause for arrest. The airport's public address system issues regular reminders in both English and Spanish.
"I want to be sure that when people step on that plane they're 100 percent comfortable," Cosgrove said.
Yeah, cos people are really comforted by the sight of an octogenarian man being handcuffed and dragged past them for the horrific crime of sarcasm.
8:04 PM | link
Black American cinema and its problems.
A current complaint among members of the African-American film community is that Hollywood only supports three types of black films: the slapstick comedy, the romantic comedy and the gangsta/'hood thriller.
If a filmmaker attempts anything different, says Eriq La Salle, potential backers argue that they don't know how to market nontraditional black movies.
Yes, but Hollywood doesn't know how to market nontraditional movies by anyone. And while there is an admittedly wider range of what we might call "white" films Hollywood can do, it's still a limited list of genres they like to come back to. I don't know that it's just a problem with black filmmakers...
7:53 PM | link
The rise and rise of digital video: Lou Lumenick is not entirely convinced.
With its grainy pictures and flat color, the low-budget DV is not to be confused with high-end digital cinema such as George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones," which was shot with state-of-the-art, custom-designed high-definition cameras.
It's anyone guess who will want to see "The Chateau," a fish-out-of-water comedy with Paul Rudd set in France. Opening Friday, it's arguably the ugliest-looking movie ever made.
Uglier than Naked? Uglier than I Spit On Your Grave? That'll take some doing.
7:41 PM | link
Greece wants to know why one of their statues is missing. Seems an ancient Greek statue was liberated the other day from the British Museum. This is by far the best part of the article:
"We understand that safe guarding antiquities is never easy," said a Greek government official who handles cultural affairs.
Yes, cos your predecessors did such a good job stopping the English from taking the Elgin Marbles, eh?
7:35 PM | link
Shock horror! Simon Rattle's fiddling us! Anthony Tomassini has the jaw-dropping tale:
The "Gurrelieder" concert came just a week after Sept. 11. Andrea Gruber, the scheduled soprano soloist, withdrew, a representative of EMI's publicity department said, because she did not want to risk air travel. The orchestra was understanding. Many artists put family well-being ahead of professional commitments during that tense period. Another soprano, Elizabeth Whitehouse, saved the day, and the concert was recorded live. Yet for this major release EMI and Sir Simon wanted a stronger, better-known soprano.
Ms. Mattila readily agreed to participate. But instead of flying her to Berlin to record Tove's four songs (some 14 minutes of music) with the Philharmonic, Sir Simon recorded just the orchestra parts at the Philharmonie. Then he flew to London to rehearse with Ms. Mattila, who recorded the soprano parts at the Abbey Road Studios while Sir Simon coordinated her singing with the existing recording of the orchestra parts.
My God, what a crook, touching up a live album in the studio like that. Next thing you know, Tomassini will also be revealing that James Brown allegedly overdubbed extra audience applause on one of his own live albums, that when Kirsten Flagstad couldn't hit the high notes any more in the studio they drafted in Elisabeth Schwarzkopf to sing them for her, and—just to show how long this positively criminal practice has been going on—that Anny Ondra's Czech accent was so impenetrable she had to be dubbed by someone with a microphone off-camera live on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's film Blackmail in 1929. The truth will out!
7:30 PM | link
Italian man beats 1000 contestants to become the Cuckold King of Italy.
It is the first time the contest - which started in the 1930s - has been held for 40 years, reports Il Nuovo website.
It was banned in 1962 after that year's Cuckold King couldn't cope with being laughed at and pulled out a gun. He fired two shots above the audience's head before being arrested.
Welsh police being trained to be nice to each other. Nice police? What a novel idea...
6:48 PM | link
If politicians are so damn important, why do some of them obviously not want to talk to the press?
6:45 PM | link
What the fuck is Andrea Dworkin on?
The second reason for women suicide bombers is to try to rise in the nationalist struggle so that when that struggle is over the status of women will be recognized as deserving of citizenship and equality. In Algeria women fought heroically. All the rules that bind women seemed to change. Women were in the company of men. Women were brave. Women were not hidden. After liberation the women were pushed back down. A similar dynamic took place with Israeli women, needed to fight and to settle the land early on, now distinctly second-class, especially under increasingly influential religious law.
So let's see if I've got this right... women need to become suicide bombers in the Middle East so they'll be taken as seriously as men when the revolution comes. Except, in practice, when it did come, they weren't. Is it just me or is there something contradictory going on in that statement.
The third reason is pride: the deep-seated belief that a young woman can be as brave, as sacrificing, as willing to submit to revolutionary imperatives as men.
Hooray for feminism, then, which has obviously empowered women to be as stupid as men. I've never seen anything particularly bright about dying for causes. Killing for a cause I understand. Killing yourself for one... no. Least of all when, in killing yourself for the cause, you fail to kill anyone else. That's just a waste, then...
6:41 PM | link
Ayyy. First they say too much such can give us skin cancers and kill us. Now they're saying not enough sun can lead to osteoporosis. I don't suppose there's an easily struck happy medium out there at all?
6:32 PM | link
News Corp: we never specifically targeted Souths for exclusion from the NRL. Not much you didn't. I presume this current appeal News Corp is undertaking against the court decision to reinstate Souths to the League is also not specifically targeting Souths either.
6:27 PM | link
President of Taiwan insists Taiwan is not part of another country. Well, that's great, shit potentially happening in the Far East now too...
6:25 PM | link
Mark Latham picks on Tony Abbott's morals.
"Unless you're a saint, politicians shouldn't go telling people how to live their lives," Mr Latham said. "I mean, he talks about commitment . . . would he say that to his own child, the son he gave away?"
Mr Latham, who is twice married, added his own disclaimer: "I'm no saint, so I don't go lecturing people about families and moral issues."
Indeed not, you just use terms like "arselicker" and "crippled". Makes all the difference...
6:19 PM | link
Every reader could add to this list of abstract and/or personalised struggles. Of bipolarities, of warring factions. It's as if human beings, themselves divided right and left in their arms, hands, legs and eyes—not to mention within their brains—are adversarial by instinct, seeking simple divisions; a world of, yes, left vs right. Right vs wrong. It's as if we take comfort in conflict.
Insert slow clap here. Brother Phil has evidently finally realised that humans have hated each other for hundreds and thousands of years. What finally cured me of my lingering belief in the innate possible goodness of humanity was reading Edward Gibbon's history of the Roman Empire and William Shirer's history of the Third Reich in close succession a few years ago. After that I realised we haven't come any great distance really in the last 2000 years, we've just learned how to kill more people more quickly in that time.
It's always seemed to me that Australia should be better off than most nations because we're not divided along elemental lines. We don't have the simple divisions between North and South, not even between black and white. Not in a country where perhaps 3 per cent of the population is black. Not that that prevents people who've never met an Aborigine from being hostile to the indigenous population.
Hey, I'm not hostile to the indigenous population, just that fucking bitch down the road who insists on rioting in the street with her boyfriend at absurd hours of the morning. Anyway, never having met you doesn't seem to stop people not liking you either, Philip...
6:09 PM | link
Interview with Anthony Hopkins. Apparently he's playing a black man in his next film, which should at least confuse those critics who think he's been doing too much fluff lately...
5:49 PM | link
Amanda Vanstone defends excessive welfare penalties.
Family services Minister Amanda Vanstone today defended penalties for those who failed to turn up for social security interviews, saying there were rules which the community expected to be followed.
Which doesn't necessarily make them right, Amanda. $850 for the first offence? Christ, it takes me six weeks to make that with the fucking pittance I get on Austudy. Matt from ABCDIA offers his thoughts.
5:45 PM | link
This post by Robert Musil bugs me a bit:
Nobody seems to think the Turks actually wanted to abolish the death penalty. But they had to abolish the death penalty to be considered for EU membership. Other countries who wish to gain access to the EU are also required to abolish the death penalty.
This is something to keep in mind when one hears the argument that because various countries have abolished the death penalty, the United States should do so, too.
So it's OK for the US to keep the death penalty cos it's not trying to get into the European Union, is it? Way to sidestep the moral question of whether or not there should be such a thing as a death penalty...
10:49 PM | link
The Commonwealth Games closed this morning (our time), and Alan Hamilton is perplexed:
It got weirder. The 800 all wore white jackets and carried pots of paint. At a given signal they frantically sloshed their clothes in red or blue and in two minutes flat became a 50 metre square Union Flag.
Weirder still, a vast white sheet was thrown over the 800 who dabbed at its underside with their loaded paint brushes. Hey presto! A gigantic portrait of the Queen.
Admittedly I didn't watch the closing ceremony, but damn, what is actually weird as such about this? Union Flag = symbol of the UK. Portrait of the Queen = portrait of the Queen. What part of this does Alan Hamilton not understand, or does he really just have as little imagination as this article suggests?
10:19 PM | link
Afghanistan gets first Internet cafe. Just a shame that one hour of use costs the equivalent of a week's wages and the company that set the cafe up were thoughtful enough to install Net Nanny. Of course, they'd probably be the same people who'd snipe at China for censoring the Internet and restricting its citizens' Net access...
4:36 PM | link
NBC Today Show axes negative review of the new Austin Powers film. Evidently they don't want to spoil the good vibe they were getting from the big promotional push they were giving the film. Now if they'd just take an axe to Gene Shalit's stupid moustache...
4:18 PM | link
80% of Hotmail traffic each day is spam. Which should come as no surprise whatsoever to anyone who's ever used Hotmail for anything. Of course, if the cunts didn't sell your email address to spammers in direct contravention of their own sign-up thing where you can opt out of being informed of these "special offers", that figure would probably be rather less.
4:08 PM | link
Jack Chick: the sodomites are coming for your children. You know, if I were Jack Chick's son, I'd turn gay just to spite him. Another great lesson in tolerance and Christian love...
3:59 PM | link
Dubya "distressed" by latest outbreak of Middle East violence.
"There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started. We must not let them," Bush said as he began a daybreak golf game with his father in Kennebunkport, Maine. "For the sake of humanity, for the sake of the Palestinians who suffer, for the sake of the Israelis who are under attack, we must stop the terror."
But obviously not until I've shot a few holes with Dad, eh. Actually maybe that was what was distressing him, the fact that he had to take time out from his game to mouth a predictable platitude...
3:55 PM | link
Weblog genealogy. Unfortunately, though there are entries for parent, sibling and child blogs, there's none for "bastard child". Which is how I view myself; I suppose in the scheme of things; Instapundit inspired me to blog, but in a kind of roundabout way, as kind of a reaction against him. Still, there's no entry for bastard child, so I'll just have to accept Mr Reynolds as my legitimate blogdad...
3:45 PM | link
On gender-neutralising Canada's national anthem. Eh, I don't see the fuss myself. They did that here in the 80s with "Advance Australia Fair" and I don't think anyone objects too strenuously to having to sing "Australians all" instead of "Australia's sons"...
3:18 PM | link
Austria to launch anti-grumbling ad campaign. You can just see those working on me, now, can't you...
3:01 PM | link
Garlic-flavoured ice cream? VOMIT!!!!!
3:00 PM | link
Tony Abbott moans about the shittiness of the world.
IT'S not necessary to study the Bible, just the statistics, to know that as an ideal two parents are better than one. According to figures produced by the Centre for Independent Studies, about 10 per cent of children from intact families have mental health problems compared with about 20 per cent from single-parent or blended families.
And the incidence of child abuse and neglect is about eight to 10 times higher in blended and single-parent families than intact ones.
Yeah, ideal worlds are nice, Tony. What a shame this isn't one.
It's hard to have a serious discussion about social policy without acknowledging the ramifications of family breakdown for delinquency, substance abuse, unemployment, poor mental health, educational setbacks and the low birthrate.
No matter how complex the factors invariably are in each family breakdown and however justifiable any particular divorce may be, it can hardly be denied that widespread rupturing of the bonds of affection and responsibility between individuals does immense damage to society as a whole.
So would you say that the current Israel vs Palestine bullshit is also a result of the collapse of the traditional family?
2:58 PM | link
Nigerian boy gets 6 months for fucking a camel. Nigerian woman faces death for producing child out of wedlock. Draw any conclusions from these articles that you may wish to.
2:48 PM | link
What was I saying the other day about not wanting Australia to get the 2014 World Cup? I didn't even need to wait for Bob Carr to retire or be voted out; John Howard already doesn't seem that interested.
2:26 PM | link
I have even less idea how I came to be listed under this search as well. Nor indeed why the person was looking for it to begin with.
11:42 AM | link
Howard Kurtz on how weblogs keep the media honest. If only they actually did. I've seen plenty of blogs challenge Ann Coulter lately over various of her claims and she still seems to get away with making them. And I take objection to this statement:
Some media critics dismiss bloggers as self-indulgent cranks. That's a mistake.
I am, always have been, and always will be a self-indulgent crank. Stop trying to paint me as something I'm not, you cunt.
4:15 PM | link
Belgium proposes disinterring up to 50,000 dead WW1 soldiers to build motorway, Scottish regiment unimpressed.
4:12 PM | link
Workmen forced to resurface road around parked car when council refuses to have it towed away. The accompanying photo is hilarious.
3:55 PM | link
Bob Carr wants Australia to host the 2014 World Cup. Bob clearly thinks he'll still be in power at that time. Which he may well be, of course, if the Liberals don't offer someone actually challenging to oppose him. Could lead to fun, I suppose, if we do get to host it and then Bob does get booted out and the person who follows him actually doesn't want the World Cup but is stuck with it anyway...
3:41 PM | link
Clark regards himself as a moral filmmaker. "But when I say that to my friends they laugh at me."
Can't imagine why. I was tossing up whether or not to go see Bully, cos I had a feeling I'd wind up having to review it for the show, but managed to find something else to see instead. I saw Kids and walked out of it about halfway through because I thought it was repulsive and vomitous, full of shitty people doing shitty things, without even the benefit of being particularly well-made. Bully looks much the same from what I can tell, so methinks I'll be avoiding it.
3:21 PM | link
Interview with Josh Davis, better known as DJ Shadow. The man likes his records.
3:09 PM | link
I wish I had the answer to this question, for the benefit of whoever visited the blog after searching on that phrase.
1:54 PM | link
Haven't done the Friday Five thing which is common in several other weblogs and journals I've seen, but I thought I'd offer a belated response to this week's model...
1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Three generations of Scottish, after which it diversifies into Irish (Belfast Catholic) and English.
2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit?
Been to Scotland nine times and England (or parts thereof) on four occasions. Ireland is the only one I haven't been to.
3. Which would you least like to visit? Why?
None of them in particular. As for the rest of the world, well, Afghanistan doesn't exactly look like a tourist mecca at the moment.
4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
No. There's a Scottish week held at the end of November here, and we used to go to that when I was a kid (there's a photo of me in a kilt from when I marched in the parade one year), but haven't done that for years. Similarly, we haven't been to the annual highland games at Bundanoon since about 1998.
5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Mum and Dad. You're looking at a first generation Australian here. And that first generation Australian is finally going to go to his bed like he should've done an hour or two ago.
2:29 AM | link
It's late and I should be in bed, but I just want to note I've now actually heard that Steve Earle song "John Walker's Blues" (succeeded in downloading it from WinMX, which reminds me of Napster, which is not a particularly good thing to my mind; still, cranky piece of shit though it is, I'll still take it over Limewire or any of its relatives), which you may remember got the Blogosphere™ in such a tizzy a week or so ago. It's not bad. As song lyrics almost always do, they sound better in performance than they look on the page, though I don't know how much it really needs that bit of Arabic recitation at the end. To be honest, my first reaction was "God he sounds older than I remember", but then the only other Earle song I know is "Copperhead Road", so no wonder if he sounds older than he did a decade and a half ago. Anyway, it's neither particularly bad nor hugely great, I don't think; won't win him any new fans, nor should it get him deported, and as for those commentators who considered it to be some vile act of treachery, just get over yourselves. It's not going to bring the US and/or Western civilisation to its knees, and frankly if you think it is then you need to ease off the paranoia pedal a bit...
2:07 AM | link
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I have various reasons for linking the sites below (a link rarely constitutes a 100% endorsement, of course). I'm usually happy to link to anyone who specifically asks, or anyone who links to me. I reserve the right to remove any link at any time for any reason.
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What the critics have said
"short tempered, rude, sarcastic and generally unable to cope with authority figures"
-Martin Forrester-Reid (former employer)
"formidable"
-Gareth Parker
"outstandingly quirky"
-Jason Soon
"prolific"
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"pithy"
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"excellent"
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"my Australian pal"
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"Who?"
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