I Like To Watch For Bruises

This is hilarious

2006-06-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

I like being a Dad

2006-05-31T04:57:00.000-07:00

Especially cos Felix and Abbie are asleep. Shhhhhhh.

Gamer

2006-04-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't really blogged about it, but I'm a gamer as much as I am anything else. I spend a lot of time playing computer games and pen and paper role playing games. I bought a computer when I was about 8 years old in order to play Elite. With a friend I developed a board game when I was about the same age that we had a lot of local kids playing. Other than a brief period in my teens I've been interested in games for as long as I can remember.

What's been interesting in the last few years is that while PC games have gone through the roof in terms of popularity, role playing games have been obliterated. And when I say obliterated, I really do mean it. This analysis of the pen and paper gaming industry over the last few years discusses how sales fell 45% in 2005. While it predicts that there will always be a gaming industry in some form or another s some one who is hoping to be playing games well into my 80s, not to mention at least having a little play with my kid, I find this all a bit depressing.

Lazy? Me?

2006-03-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

So it's been 3 months. Crazy. In my defence, there's at least two people in my links section that haven't blogged for even longer. And to think my last post was only after a month gap.

I'm now around about 5 weeks from becoming a father. That's quite a full on thing and it's resulted in my brain working in about two modes: serious, life mode and total escapist mode. The blogging thing falls into a third mode - thinking about the outside world. And that's something I haven't had much time for.

That's only sort of true. But I do a lot my thinking about the outside world while at work and I can no longer blog from work. That thinking also tends to be focused on work type matters rather than idle musings and idle musings are mostly what this blog is about.

Anyway, this is the most interesting thing I've read lately. It's all about rational choice and future planning and economic assumptions. Read it and I'm sure you'll find yourself reflecting on your own behaviour.

In other news the new Australian workplace laws come into affect tomorrow. They scare the hell out of me and I'm not sure I trust my new place of employment entirely enough to think that they won't affect me. And part of the whole fatherhood thing is that I start wondering what things I have taken for granted in my life little Peanut will grow up never knowing (eg. minimum wages, unfair dismissal protection and the like).

The other issue is the solution. The Labor Party is looking increasingly unelectable and unworthy of election as well. The Greens have an understanding of economics that differs severely from mine (not that the Labor Party doesn't but I can at least sympathise with where they're coming from a lot of the time). There's still no party that's of the left and not stupid. No surprises there, but it's depressing. Of course, there's no not stupid party of the right either, but that doesn't seem to stop them from winning.

Hopefully it won't be as long again until I post. I suspect it won't be, but the next thing I post will probably be pictures of Peanut so hopefully that won't be too boring for everyone.

Reading: Looking for Jake by China Mieville (very slowly)

Listening to: Anything by The Bug

Drinking: Anything by Emerson's (right this second it's their Pilsner)

Sorry I've been away so long.

2005-12-14T03:02:00.000-08:00

Given that the main point of this blog was to rant about the little things that I found interesting on line, it's suffered since I haven't been able to have much time on line. Buying a house, working full time in one job and having a kid will eat into your spare time like no one's business.

Anyway, check this stuff out:
grime with Pictures: Cool little photo montage over grime (anyone recognise the track?)

My new free MP3 mix that's been rocking the headphones is this one: Heatwave studio mix. Heatwave is a dancehall, hip hop, reggaeton night in London and this mix makes me want to book a ticket tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Hope everyone's all good...

Well, I'm not so sure about the Halmark cards...

2005-11-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

Just a little thing, but this short essay on believing there is no God by Penn Jillette, half of comedy magician duo Penn and Teller, sums up the way I feel on the matter in a simple, positive way.

So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Onward Academic Soldiers

2005-11-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

Those who have been involved at some level with Australian Research Council funding applications over the last few years know the blood, sweat and tears that people at all levels put into this process. Very few applications are successful, and this is fair enough to a degree, as not all the applications are any good and there isn't enough money to go around. But what isn't fair is that some applications are being denied not on their merits as judged by a panel of the peers of the applicants but by political hacks judging on the basis of their ideological biases.

In the Age this week, Professor Stuart Macintyre, Dean of Arts and Professor of History at Melbourne University, as well as (full disclosure) the host of a Labour History reading group I am a regular attendee at, wrote a wonderful piece decrying the political interference of Education Minister Brendan Nelson in the funding process. According to Macintyre

A committee appointed by the minister, meeting in secret and applying mysterious criteria, is vetting academic applications. Those with applications rejected by the committee never find out what was wrong with their application or have an opportunity to argue their case. A minister who intrudes his own political ambitions into the country's research arrangements is unfortunate, but his exercise of power without accountability is unacceptable.

Right-wing columnist Andrew Bolt, who is mentioned in passing in this piece as a sort of mouthpiece for this policy, responded today in a typical fashion. His opening sentence, "PROFESSOR Stuart Macintyre, the former communist" is sort of "When did you stop beating your wife?" line. Bolt goes on to completely disregard the argument that Macintyre put forward, claiming that suggestions that people should be able to know what happened to their grants were "a system under which he and fellow panellists spent public money with little explanation to taxpayers." some how turning the Minister's complete lack of transparency into a situation where things are actually explained.

Once again, Bolt has demonstrated that when you've got no case you should leap head first into smear tactics, not reasoned argument.

mashit up

2005-11-13T17:16:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm aware that most people reading this are friends at this point, meaning that you probably regard most of the music I like as unlistenable crap. It's been my observation that there are no friends of mine who like the same music as me in it's range. I've got friends who like the same hip-hop as me, or a bit of ragga or whatever, but who will then regard the grime and drum and bass I like as pure shit.

But this is my blog, so I thought I'd post about the thing I've been listening for the last few days.

aaron spectre "bastardmix" - I like ragga, I like old style jungle and I like wildly over aggressive breakcore stuff like kid606. The problem is that I tend to find listening to an hour of any of that sort of thing outside of a club a little difficult, especially the breakcore. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this. Aaron Spectre is one of new American jungle producers, like Soundmurderer and DJ C, who I only heard of because of a link to a sample of the remix he did of hardcore band Converge someone posted over at RPG.net.

But I was intrigued by the remix, so I checked out his site and, via a link to an article on pitchfork about "clubbing at home" (which is worth checking out for the other mixes as well), found this live mix.

The trick here is that it combines totally amen break madness with much slower ragga tracks and therefore avoids the slowness that some ragga mixes get into and the unlistenable madness of most of the jungle breakcore stuff that Spectre's contemporaries get into. It's only 50 minutes long, but it's a pretty fun ride I think. And it doesn't sound like a live mix at all.

It's entirely possible that none of this post made much sense to some of you. Download the file and give it a listen and follow the links I've put in here if you want a bit of translation.

peanut

2005-11-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

peanut
Originally uploaded by iliketowatchforbruises.

As promised via email to a number of people, here are the first pictures of Peanut, taken at a day before 12 weeks of development. What a lovely profile!

And, on the internet

2005-11-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

One thing I did find time to write recently was a letter to Russell Brown of the Hard News blog. And he ran an extract from it, which is always a nice thing. For the record, I wasn't one of the people who mentioned La Haine, but I was thinking of it.

Other than me on the internet, there are two things of note that have happened recently in the "blogosphere".

First is the arrival of the SNAP! Publishing blog which is run in part by my friend Sam. It's a news/analysis blog that discusses New Zealand events from an anarchist perspective. Well written and interesting.

The second is the return to the net of the best music blog I've ever read, hands down: WOEBOT. Matt even did me the honour of listing me in his links section. WOEBOT single handedly turned me onto grime, the musical sound of my headphones this year, and Kanye West (who I never would have given a chance without Matt's passionate endorsement) and generally writes the most interesting and well considered pieces of music analysis I've seen. He also runs dissensus which is the best music board I've ever been to as well.

So keep your rss feeds (try sage for firefox if you need a good one)locked to these ones.

Oh yeah ... I'm a gamer.

2005-11-11T15:47:00.000-08:00

The other thing is of course that I haven't been posting because I've been playing computer games. Which is considerably less noble but quite a lot of fun. I've been playing:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - which is unbelievably cool and fun. Talking of which if anyone has any nominations for the best thugged out hip hop track of all time, suggest them in the comments section below.

Civilisation 4 - GTA has been stealing my time, but this is good. I'm still getting used to the changes and so far I think I enjoyed Civ3 more, but this looks damn cool and I like a lot of the innovations.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - I'm not a huge real time strategy person, but I like the setting so this is fun. Even more fun was getting up a few weeks back, chatting to Duncan in London on Skype and then kicking his ass twice in quick succession on this game. I love technology.

I've also got Rome: Total War to be played but these others have been taking up too much time to get into that properly yet.

So does absence make the heart grow fonder?

2005-11-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

It's been too long. But I have excuses.

This would have to be by far and away the most full on year of my life. So far in 2005 I have:

a) Got married.
b) Finished my MA.

But if that wasn't enough I also:

c) got a proper "career" job that pays alright and requires me to dress up everyday.
d) participated in Abbie getting pregnant (there is simply no way to say that which doesn't either come off as crass or blowing my own trumpet)
e) began the process of buying a house.

Those last two things probably mean that next year, while not as high stress as this year, will never not be full on again.

This blog wasn't supposed to be a personal diary but this post might go someway to satisfying the 5-10 of you who come here each day as to why I haven't updated lately. It seems incredibly selfish but I have been entirely inwardly focused over the last few months and the outside world has seemed more distant and difficult with every passing day. In any other year I would have spent time writing about how no one should complain about Winston Peters being New Zealand's foreign minister because that's the risk you take when you vote for a political party and regardless it's an outcome of MMP which is on the whole a fairer and more representative system than what proceeded it, regardless of the fact that it ahs put Peters in government twice now. OR about my few discussions about the appropriateness of NZ style indigenous parliamentary seats in Australia. But instead I've been filling out job applications, reading about mortgages and visiting baby shops.

Sigh.

That said, I probably wouldn't have it any other way. All of these things have been conscious decisions that I am greatly looking forward to. I can't wait to have a child with Abbie, who I am currently overwhelmingly in awe of. I can't wait to not have to put up with scumbag landlords who try to make you feel like they're doing you a favour every time you ask to put up a picture hook. And I can't wait to get away from the grind of three different casual jobs into one job with a sense of direction.

But reconnecting with the world will also be nice and so I think I'll try to do this a bit more often as well.

Ever get the feeling you've been had?

2005-10-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

Clark announces a government with United Future and New Zealand First, but not with the Greens.

The majority of Labour voters should feel at least a little betrayed by this.

Possibly the best thing ever?

2005-10-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Star Wars Origami instructions.

Thanks again to Sam for the link.

I'm still extremely busy, but I'll be trying to post more interesting stuff soon, including analysis, not just links.

Things the Internet is good for, part 3

2005-10-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

Odd translations.

This site runs a piece of text through Babelfish multiple times. It's interesting to see what gibberish you end up with.

For example the following text from the wikipedia entry on the Haymarket Massacre:

The rally began peacefully under a light rain on the evening of May 4. Anarchist leader August Spies spoke to the large crowd while standing in an open wagon on a side street. According to many witnesses Spies said he was not there to incite anyone. Meanwhile a large number of on-duty police officers watched from nearby. The crowd was so calm that Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., who had stopped by to watch, walked home early. Some time later the police ordered the rally to disperse and began marching in formation towards the speakers' wagon. A lit, fused bomb whistled over the heads of onlookers and landed near the police line, killing twelve people including a policeman, Mathias J. Degan (seven other policemen later died from their injuries). The police immediately opened fire on the crowd, injuring dozens. Many of the wounded were afraid to visit hospitals for fear of being arrested. A total of eleven people died.

Ends up as

The meeting began pacafica under a luminous rain the night May of 4. Spessimetri the August of the director/conductor of the Anarchisten that everything with the great mass with the continuation of the interior of the automobile had spoken, this belt road is opened in one. In most of opinion of witnesses, the one that it admits when it will be, considered not little important, excited this. During him it offers of many officials of the oldest policies of the one than Aufaufgabe the extremity observes of. The mass was if peace, of that mayors Charretier Harrison, who were been to MR., of whom close they had arrested it a commentary, to the house soon. If it more later determined the hour asked for to the cone of the meeting of the
writing, in the order zerstreuen and began to enter the disposition for the automobile of or loudspeakers, the collapse which that that in the titles of the spectators was whistled rayent was melted, who were burnings to the end of the cone of the writing and of the program examinacian had done them, and he destroys to twelve people including/understanding an official of the policies, Mathias J Degan
(the other sieve of the officials of the dead policies more later its damages). The cone of the writing has opened immediately fogos in the mass and has hurt dozen. A processing by lots had been a scared of the decree of the incident to visit the hospitals therefore that the fear can be interrupted. A total of an amount of eleven people dies.

After being translated from English into French, German, Italian, Portugese and Spanish, going back to English again after each step.

The first line is almost poetic.

Things the Internet is good for, part 2

2005-10-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

This is a multi-faceted update to this hopefully never ending section.

Thing that the Internet is good for, the first:
Lacanian discussions of Kate Moss - I mock, but this is actually quite interesting.

Thing that the Internet is good for, the second:
Reimagined movie trailers - famous movies with trailers done in the style of a different genre. West Side Story as a zombie flick, (The) Shining as a feel good movie and Titanic as a horror film.

Thing that the Internet is good for, the third:
Endless ways to talk about wanking, without seeming like you're talking about wanking. Sheer genius.

I'd like to write a lot on all of these subjects, but I haven't had time.

2005-10-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Fuck, I've been busy recently.

Anyway, here's some stuff that I wanted to write lots about but unfortunately marking, job hunting and life got in the way. Interesting links none the less and I might try to give more attention to some of these subjects soon!

The London Police, not satisfied with the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and then lying about it, are still harassing people based on their choice of coat.

They handcuff me, hands behind my back, and take my rucksack out of my sight. They explain that this is for my safety, and that they are acting under the authority of the Terrorism Act. I am told that I am being stopped and searched because:
· they found my behaviour suspicious from direct observation and then from watching me on the CCTV system;
· I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates;
· two other men entered the station at about the same time as me;
· I am wearing a jacket "too warm for the season";
· I am carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept my rucksack with me at all times;
· I looked at people coming on the platform;
· I played with my phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket.

I hope those of you in London feel safer now! I mean imagine if he hadn't kept his rucksack with him at all times, but had left it on the platform. Mind the credibility gap!

This is fantastic:

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but I still think it's funny that someone went and did a study about it.

The "punk porn" site Suicide Girls is in some trouble. I'm sort of fascinated by Suicide Girls because I find the debates over porn really interesting and really problematic and also because, if I'm perfectly honest, the girls are kinda hot. Anyway, the most interesting aspect of it really is that, like most porn sites, the images belong to SG in perpetuity. So if you have your image taken by them they can use it forever.

Nice interview with Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman here. I'm probably going to see Serenity again on Tuesday. It's been open since Thursday. Like I say, I've been a bit busy.

Anyway, now I've cleared those links I feel slightly better. Hopefully I'll find the time to post about the Andrew Fraser debacle soon, but given that Red Rag has already done a number on his work, I'm not too worried about it really.

Mahnahmahna

2005-09-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, sweet childhood memories!

Apparently, this song was originally from a documentary about sex in Sweden.

Weird.

Oh my golly gosh - internet Nazis!

2005-09-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

It seems that due to my posts on the subject of Nazis, I am now considered "a collaborator of members from Fightdemback" (you'll need to scroll down a bit). The site that this is on is a neo-nazi blog, with a section dedicated to watching leftists.

Wow. Isn't the internet weird? If two blog posts (which to my embarrasment is about all the anti-racist activism I've done in years) is enough to get any kind of attention, then these guys must have too much time on their hands.

2005-09-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

The New War on Pot

2005-09-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks there's been a lot of talk about the skunk variety of pot in the media here. There was even a thread on dissensus about it. But there's an article in Salon.com that suggests that, in the US at least, the scare over skunk is perhaps a little misleading. From the article:

The campaign also declares that today's pot is more potent than the pot smoked by previous generations, implying heightened risk. Fine sensimilla may seem more prevalent than ditchweed nowadays, but there is debate over whether today's average smoker is puffing on stronger stuff than the average stoner of the 1970s ... since the 1970s the level of high reported by high school seniors who smoked marijuana has remained "flat as a pancake." In other words, even if today's kids are smoking more potent stuff, they don't get higher than their folks did -- like drinking a few whiskey shots rather than multiple mugs of beer, they use less of the good stuff to achieve the same effect.

Interesting reading anyway. Note that you will need to watch an ad to read the article, but it's worth having a look at if you're interested in this sort of thing and the ads tend to be fairly short.

Election ramblings

2005-09-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's hard to tell exactly what has happened in New Zealand over the weekend from here, but as far as I can tell Labour have held pretty firm. Unless this changes when the special votes are counted, then Labour have only lost two seats since last election. In a weird way, the Maori Party seem to have picked up the seats from the Left. They're on 4 now, with Labour, Progressive and Green losing a total of 5. Obviously, I'm not arguing that they directly lost them, but I don't think the left vote has shifted substantially. On the Right National has picked up a lot of votes from NZ First and ACT voters, presumably because they saw a real chance to change the government which they didn't have last time.

The political wrangling which will occur over the next few weeks will inevitably result in a number of people complaining about MMP again, but I still think that if you're going to have representative democracy at least MMP ends up with a parliament which actually represents the way people voted. It's the least imperfect of the options available.

One odd thing about MMP is that we get to see 1st rank parties like National and Labour forced into bed with 2nd rank parties. So we could end up with a National government forced to back down on their promises about Maori due to a Supply and Confidence deal with the Maori Party. While I see that as quite a way from ideal, at least it would limit the terrible backward step that National's policies suggested might happen.

All in all, while I'm pleased that the National Party doesn't look like getting back in, I can't get terribly excited about the extreme free market trade policy of the Labour Party, nor about the general style of politics in New Zealand. Like every election, it could have been worse.

I Can't Knit For Shit

2005-09-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have a whole lot of casual knitters in my life at the moment. And most of them are pretty casual about it. Scarves are the limit for most of them.

And in a way, that's a good thing. Why? Because of this. Knitting can be used for good, but also for evil.

Doesn't he sound serene?

2005-09-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

Nice 20 minute Joss Whedon interview on the ABC website. Includes details on a controversial choice for the future casting of Wonder Woman.

Kanye kick it? Yes he can...

2005-09-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Kanye West's new album Late Registration is out. I loved his last one The College Dropout. It was a record that I never would have been into normally and if I had only listened briefly in a CD store, I still probably wouldn't have gotten into it.

But Matt WOEBOT of the really excellent disenssus music message board wrote some things about it on his old, now retired, blog. Matt wrote what was effectively a love letter to The College Dropout, detailing the use of samples in particular, which really sold me on the album. It was probably the best album of last year, certainly the most important.

So I was excited about Late Registration. And it's pretty good. But I'm not sure that it's the work of genius that The College Dropout was. A lot of the production on it was done by Jon Brion, mostly known for his work on American Indie film soundtracks such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Magnolia.

Presumably as a result of Brion's influence, the record sounds so well produced that its almost scary. But that kind of works as well, especially in contrast to West's slightly lackadaisical MCing style. Certainly it has a different style to Common's album Be, which was largely produced by West alone. There's also a lot in the way of very clean sounding female vocals, which just make this sound so much more produced.

But the real problem, I think, is the prominence of the samples. While the samples were hardly subtle on The College Dropout, at times the samples on Late Registration verge into Moby territory - adding to an original rather than creating a new song with old elements.

That said, it's still brilliant especially songs like 'Gold Digger' and 'Diamonds from Sierra Leone' ( a song which in part inspired me to read my first Ian Flemming novel last week), and these songs are in some ways exactly the songs I'm complaining about above.

All up, it's a great record.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to include this truly amazing link byt he people at the webzine The Mack. It's a list of all the production work that Kanye is credited with organised by artist, with rankings. And people say I'm a time waster! Check it out here.

I'm an uncle, of sorts...

2005-09-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

DSC00067
Originally uploaded by iliketowatchforbruises.

Abbie and her new nephew Oliver yesterday. Congratulations to Sean and Nicky!

How did this happen?

2005-09-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

About three and a half years ago, I lived in New Zealand and was completely uninterested in sport.

This weekend I watched the AFL on Friday night, sent to Federation Square to watch the last Tri-Nations Rugby Union game in a cold public place with a few thousand other people and then went to the second game of the new Australasian A-League soccer.

The key is being in a crowd yelling at people. I've always liked being in a big group yelling at people.

I like the sense of belonging and tribalism too, but mostly, it's the yelling.

And while we're on the subject of Nazis

2005-09-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

According to The Age, the really excellent anti-fascist website Fightdemback has been subjected to a Denial of Service attack. According to the FightDemBack blog that's been set up until the site is back up and running, the DoS now appears to have been the work of a disgruntled New Zealand Nazi by the name of Alex Fogerty of Motueka.

FDB probably need some help, so if you can give them any get in touch here.

Nazi Scum, Your Time Has Come

2005-09-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

Fucking Nazis.

I hate the sight of swastikas and racist paraphernalia. Over here, you hardly ever see it. The World Church of the Creator are now based here since their leader went to jail, and their stickers are sometimes seen around train stations and the like (usually defaced or mostly torn off), but that's about it.

But on Saturday I saw a pile of Nazi skinheads at the Victoria Markets, down to buy bratwurst. It's almost enough to make someone embarrassed of their German heritage.

It makes me insanely angry that these pieces of shit feel comfortable wandering around in the open (although you wonder how freely they'd walk around if they weren't in a large group). But part of me thinks that in almost every way, these are the people who have lost.

While racism is endemic in our society, it's a victory that out right hatred of this sort is now usually hidden behind obsufacating language and ideas about 'culture', rather than the unreconstructed bigotry that these types represent.

The battle against these fuckwits is largely won. That doesn't mean that we should stopping watching and being aware, as the David Dukes of this world will always try to get away from the boots and braces and preach the same filth anyway, but ulitmately their hance to make history has failed.

And not too soon.

So much for civilisation...

2005-09-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

There's nothing funny about Hurricane Katrina really. It's up there as far as disasters go. But it has been mildly interesting to watch the way that so-called civilisation has more or less disappeared. You hear people from time to time exclaiming how different people are culturally. But the way that those unfortunates in New Orleans have descended into total utter fucking chaos over night (any ch@os punx thinking of moving there?) does suggest, to me at least, that if what had happened in Iraq had happened in the USA we'd be seeing suicide bombers and the like in downtown LA.

So much for the Judeo-Christian tradition eh?

Spam is teh suck.

2005-08-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

Crap. I've had to turn on word verification to stop bots from spamming the comments. Ah well. Hope no one minds...

Things the Internet is good for, part 1.

2005-08-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

The internet is good for lots of things. Amongst the many things that it is good for is reading obscure Russian comics about a supernatural Stalin smacking down a supernatural Hitler.

Thanks to Mr. S. Buchanan, Esq. for the link.

Now that I've seen it, I won't be serene till I've seen it again.

2005-08-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

I got to see a preview of Serenity the other day. For those of you who don't know, Serenity is a movie, being released at the end of September. It came out of a short lived sci-fi TV show called Firefly that was cancelled halfway through it's initial season by Fox.

Anyway, Serenity's main claim to fame is that it's directed and written by Joss Whedon. Firefly was Whedon's post-Buffy and Angel show, and it retained a lot of his trademark elements: heavy metaphysics against a somewhat flippant set of characters. It's certainly got a whole lot of Whedon's dialogue style.

Firefly was a really good show that should have been around for longer, particularly because Whedon is much better at endings than at beginnings. The way the show was going suggested that by the end of episode 22 (we only got to episode 14) it was going to be incredible.

Serenity is quite different in some ways, but lives up to all the internet hype around it. It might be the best sci-fi movie I've seen. Ever. It was worth driving for an hour each way to see. And I'm going to go and see it again as soon as I can.

Comedian interviews Drunk

2005-08-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens gets interviewed by Jon Stewart. It's worth watching. I like Jon Stewart. I especially like his interviews, where mostly he tries to present a reasoned, adult discussion with people he strongly disagrees with. It's a really nice breather from the attack style, and it's great to see that he's following through on his criticisms on Crossfire last year.

Hitchens is someone that I feel like I should know more about. His book on Orwell is astoundingly good, but it's the only thing that I've ever read of his. I can also see some of his arguments on Iraq. His characterisation of Iraq as a fascist state doesn't seem to far off the mark to me, and I have a hard time imagining that people shouldn't of gone to war against either the coup in Spain in 1936 or against Hitler or Mussolini. And the fact that the wrong reasons were given for the war doesn't mean that the war shouldn't have been fought per se, anymore than the fact that the US should have got ridden of Hussein after the first Iraq War means that they shouldn't do it now.

But I still think that the Iraq War was a terrible blunder and was carried out with a terrible level of deception, setting terrible precendents.

Anyway, it's interesting to watch.

What you call em? Trainers?

2005-08-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

I love sneakers. Specifically, I have an irrational love of adidas sneakers. I can't help it, those stripes, that trefoil, it just gets me going. Melbourne is pretty damn good as far as these things go. We've got Provider which has some cool stuff (but a wack site), and a whole lump of more mainstream shoe shops which occasionally have good stuff in them. There's even a Melbourne based sneaker zine called Sneaker Freaker. It's not Amsterdam or Tokyo, but we cope.

But even here it can be hard to find good shoes. And for some reason my google-fu has never been up to finding good sneaker sites on line. So imagine my surprise when Simon managed to find what looks like a very decent sneaker site yesterday: www.pickyourshoes.com!

They seem like they're selling overstock of stuff from the US, but a lot of that stuff hasn't made it here that I've seen (for example these extremely cool adidas half shells). It's expensive as hell to buy just one pair (US$40 postage!!!) but that comes down a lot if you're buying several. And it shouldn't be too hard to find other people who want shoes.

It's not solebox, but I'm not the sort of person who an afford solebox either. So this was a good find. If anyone else has anything good, let me know.

So THAT'S the reason I don't live in New Zealand anymore

2005-08-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

The extremely competent and interesting Keith Ng has posted an interview with Simon Power (revealing name), the Senior Whip for the National Party back in good ol' NZ. In it, Simon holds forth on why of his university friends, 7 out of 10 live overseas:

I think a country that's run on a basis of freedom and less involvement by government will attract people home. People of my generation don't like being told what to do all the time. This is the generation that has had to balance student loans with retirement savings, this is the generation that has had to balance higher overseas earnings with lifestyle and family choices in New Zealand. They are capable, bright people, who don't need to be told what to do by Helen Clark and her government.

The rest of the interview was fairly typical "We believe in freedom but, um, only on certain issues that allow us to make Labour look bad. Not on drugs or race or..." National Party rubbish. But I couldn't let this one go unchalleneged. This is simply absurd. I have never met a New Zealander who has ever indicated that interference by the government was anything to do with why they left. The reasons we leave are numerous and varied. We leave to pursue educational opportunities that aren't present at home my reason), to live in larger cities than we do at home (my second reason), to get away from our parents, to see the world, to follow love, to buy cheaper drugs, to have better access to touring bands, to play to larger audiences, to be able to fly to Prague for less money.

As Abbie and I contemplate where our lives will takes us, reasons to return or stay away from New Zealand are a reasonably frequent matter for discussion. My reasons to not return I wouldn't dare speak for Abbie publicly on this) revolve around a number of key issues. While access to the advantages that Melbourne has over Wellington are important (good food, AFL etC) the primary reason is economic. I just can't see any good reason to move to country where wages are lower, unions are weaker, healthcare is more expensive and jobs in the industries I'm interested in are scarcer.

In short Mr. Power, shove it up your ass.

Interesting things

2005-08-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

Anyway, apart from self-absorbed musings, I though I'd also put in a few links that I've found around the place.

A Time of Doubt for Atheists: As an instinctive atheist I find this all a bit weird. Actually, it's a badly named article, as it's not about atheists doubting as much as atheists being under pressure. I know that the US is a more religiously orientated society that either Australia or New Zealand, and so this can't be mapped straight on to our experiences here, but still, it's a bit of a worry. What's good is that I can't imagine being afraid to tell anyone that I'm an atheist. Ever.

Letting go of God: This is mentioned toward the bottom of the above article. It's a commentary about someone (in this case Julia Sweeney) abandoning their childhood religion. It's very American in that it's very self-conscious and also comes from a starting point of religiousness rather than a starting point of scepticism, but it's also very interesting. It's only a half hour of a longer work. Anyway, it's an audio quicktime, it's about a half hour long, and it's fascinating.

Handthrows? Oh, funny. Manchester grime/dubstep act Virus Syndicate have made a video for their track 'Slow Down' (it's not bad as a track) and the video features some funny as fuck hand waving. The problem with not being able to hold a mic, I guess. The link gives some indepth analysis.

2005-08-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to I Like to Watch for Bruises. It's a funny name, I think. The origins of it are that I was sitting on the train a week or so ago and there was a guy across from me who looked like he had been in a fight on the weekend - cut eye, a bit bruised and the like.

For some reason this made me think about my relationship with physicality and "hardness". I like watching boxing and AFL, I enjoy listening to gunman lyrics and toughguy hardcore bands, I like violent films. I've advocated political violence. Basically I've romanticised violence in my mind.

People who meet me are often surprised to discover that I find this sort of thing interesting, particularly boxing. Partly, I suspect that it's admiration for that hardness that I doubt I'm capable of. I've never been in a fight, I'll back down from pretty much anything physical.

This admiration for toughness manifests in strange ways, in addition to the things I listed above. I've had a shaved head for most of my adult life. I have tattoos. And I don't think that there's any doubt that these are attempts, at elast on one level, to make myself feel harder. It's a little bit laughable.

Listening: Logan Sama and Meridian Crew KissFM set from a few days back. Pirate radio grime is so different from mix cd grime or album grime.
Reading: Guns, Germs and Steel