Not That I Have to Justify Myself or Anything ...

I just think they're aestheticall interesting, okay?! I'm not conceding to jingoistic commercial imperliasm or anything! I just thought it'd be cool to wear them while driving through the US! In fact, if I could get a letterman jacket it'd really round out the whole Ferris Bueller image ...

Wait, did he even wear a letterman jacket?

The point is ... I forget my point ... they're just neat shoes. If they produced a pair of Australian flag ones I'd think those would be pretty neat, too (depending on their design; the Australian flag is incredibly difficult to wrangle into a pleasing form outside of a flag-shape).

Of course, my favourite flag still stands as the Japanese flag, followed quickly by the Jamaican. Might as well throw the Korean one in there somewhere, too.

OCCHHH! I FORGOT THE SCOTTISH FLAG! Talk about your awesome flags!

I'm rambling. I'll stop.

Running Out of Ways to Work 'Projection' Into the Title

Today was my second bio shift, and it went much, much better. I don't know if what was the fact that the boss was away and so there was less pressure or if all the things I learned on the first day had finally sunk in, but things seemed to really click today. I was threading up films with few to no mistakes and doing it in about five minutes per change-over (down from 30 mins to an hour).

I even had enough time to get into a hearty debate with my co-worker/supervisor about the role that film critics have, the nature of subjectivity versus objectivity, and the responsibility filmmakers have in their portrayal of minorities. So essentially I got paid to sit for nearly an hour and fill the projection booth with the sound of my pompous voice. Sweet!

I have purchased tickets to Spider-Man 3 for opening night.

I am very excited.

Things I'm Currently Obsessed with Purchasing;

Being that I've been programmed by society to be a greedy, materialistic pig, I have an in-built desire to procure items. What's more, I have an in-built desire to make lists of the items I wish to procure. Given that I know a lot of you are the same, I figured I'd take the time to make a bit of a wish list. You know, for gits and shiggles.

CBGB T-Shirt

I'm hoping I can get one of these while on the American road trip.

Cowboy Bebop Remixed Box Set

The definitive box set of an absolutely amazing series that I fell in love with just before moving from Brisbane to Melbourne. As a result, many of the show's melancholy themes of isolation and reminiscence have a strong aspect of sense-memory for me.

Converse Shoes: Black Pinstripe and American Flag designs

The idea is to be able to wear the pinstripes in some casually-attired business setting. It's a dream I've had ever since spotting them in the shop. I saw the American flag ones being worn by Spike in seminal Brit teen drama Press Gang and thought it'd be cheesy fun to wear them on the road trip.

New Glasses

These are a bit of an essential item, but the decision lies in going with either rimless or thick-rims.

My original idea was to get rimless, but given my strong facial features (translation: big nose) and the impression that rimless is on the way out, I'm leaning more and more towards thickies. Browsing through an optomotrist's is now essential. Just as I've been wanting to do for the past ten years now, I'd like to get some prescription sunglasses at the same time, but I'm thinking that'll probably be too expensive.

And finally, the big ticket item;

A laptop

Preferrably one that can run goddamn KOTOR. But yeah, it'd be helpful to have one for writing.

Where am I going to get all the money for this stuff? Aren't you just a stick-in-the-mud!

RAAAAGE!

No, this isn't another rant post. Rather, it's just to say I have officially lodged my entry in the 'Programme Rage' competition. Coming up with a playlist of only 20 clips was TOUGH. In the end, I was pretty happy with my selection, and felt it was not only diverse, but that it represented my taste in music pretty well and that it would be a visually interesting night of Australia's best music video show.

I don't hold out much hope of actually winning - I'm sure there's someone out there much funnier and more insightful than me who's put together a list the judges will absolutely cream themselves over - but just the prospect of being able to sit on that couch and make a tit out of myself as I self-consciously scream "Raaaaage!" is quite an alluring one.


Seacrest out.

Project: Projecting

I had my first day in bio the other day (the name for the projection department at work, as the duties they handle extend beyond the projection room to the environmental up-keep of the site as a whole. That means if things like lights, air-conditioning, etc. break, they're the first people you call).

Essentially I spent 8 hours (7 1/2 if you minus my lunch break) threading up film. I get the feeling I didn't do so great. I'm not the most technical person at the best of times, but when it comes hand-in-hand with general first day anxities, I tend to get a bit clumsy. Threading film is very, VERY complicated. There are so many spools to run the film through and so many small things you could do wrong that it gets a bit stressful. In the actual projector itself there are three sprockets that you have to get the film onto, with little teeth that have to be placed just right. You then have to make sure the film is framed correctly, which is difficult as the only way to judge it is by looking at a tiny, tiny picture and seeing if there's barely-visible black lines at the top or bottom. It's intricate stuff, and it's hard to get a feeling for.

I get the feeling it's something that could become second nature to me (just as setting up the sound and lighting equipment when I DJed was) but it's going to be stressful getting to that point, especially seeing as the technical manager is already expressing disappointment in the amount of trouble it's causing me. I think the fact that I was in the beginning stages of a cold didn't help, nor the fact that I'd had less than five hours sleep.

I have my second shift tomorrow, from 10am to 4pm. I'm hoping I'll be given a bit of time and space to get the threading under control (the most stressful part is trying to get it done between sessions, when you have about ten minutes to do it and no idea where to start). That said, the idea of six hours of nothing but more threading, followed by another shift of the exact same thing, is a bit ominous. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

All of that said, I got a call back from a publishing company about a job I applied for and had completely forgotten about doing so. So maybe that'll pan out. Hopefully. Kinda.

And Where Exactly Have You Been, Young Man?

I took my computer in on Monday to get the hard disc space and RAM upgraded (given how sluggishly it was running, and that I had only 800 megs left on my drive, this was the next best thing to buying a new computer). I was given a very reasonable quote ($80 for the drive, $50-$80 for the RAM). I had the vain hope that I'd be able to get it back the next day, but knew that probably wasn't very realistic.

It took until FRIDAY to get back, and when I did it turned out to be a hundred bucks more than quoted because of the job of copying the old drive to the new drive. Given that the old drive is STILL IN THE COMPUTER, I don't see how necessary a service this was, but seeing as it had already been done, I didn't have much choice but to pay the excess and be on my way.

I've noticed a few bugs with it (like if there are too many windows open for Internet Explorer they just stop loading) but over all it's running a lot faster, and the extra space is great.

One of the happy little offshoots of this upgrade was that I'd be able to FINALLY play Knights of the Old Republic. KOTOR is a Star Wars role-playing game that I bought three years ago when it first came out, only to find I didn't have enough RAM to run it. I asked Ben about it last night and it turned out they had it at JB for $13. "Ha ha!" thinks I "Finally, I will be able to design my own Jedi and take him/her on destiny-defining adventures!"

So I went to JB today to get my KOTOR goin' on. The place was packed and I couldn't see Ben working anywhere, so I figured I'd just take a look at the game's section for myself. I found the game, but since the last time I bought it and didn't have the right hardware requirements, they've re-released it and PUSHED UP THE HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS. I finally have enough RAM, but because I don't have a DVD drive I CAN'T RUN THE STUPID THING!!!

I went to other stores to see if they had any CD-Rom versions of it, but all of them only had the new DVD-Rom version. Finally, I stopped in at Dick Smith's. While they only had the DVD-Rom version, they also had a CD-Rom version of the sequel. By this stage I was frustrated and fixated enough that going home empty-handed would have been too much of a defeat. I read the tech specs for the game and they seemed to line up with what I had, which was helpful seeing as there was a great big sign saying how Dick Smith doesn't refund/exchange PC games (probably due to how easy they'd be to copy).

So even though it was $30 (twice what I was expecting to pay) I was determined to get something for all my troubles. I bought the game, got something to eat and came home to install it. I was even coming up with Star Wars-sounding names for all the characters I'd invent.

Loaded. Seem to run fine. Not enough RAM. This, despite the box saying that the requirement was for half the amount of RAM I have. Not the right graphics card. How the hell am I supposed to know what freakin' graphics card I have??

The game is perfectly loaded, and I have enough RAM that I'd probably be able to run the stupid thing, but every time I try to play it it just won't start. I think it's the graphics card.

***EXPLETIVE DELETED!!!***

This is EXACTLY why I don't buy games for my stupid damn computer. If you don't have a PC that's been purchased in the last five minutes, all your hardware is obsolete and you can't freakin' run ANYTHING. You need a goddamn doctorate in IT to know every single aspect of your computer's tech specs in order to walk into a shop and know if you'll be able to run it, and if it turns out you can't you're not even able to return the stupid thing!!!

AAAAAAAARGH!!!

Given that it was thirty bucks, I'm going to hold onto it for when the time comes that I can upgrade my computer (probably another five years at this rate) and then, maybe then, I can finally play the stupid thing ... and find out for myself how it's not as good as the first one.

This never happens with my Playstation, I can tell you that much right now.

"How Many Killings?"

I know you're all just dying to know not only what films I've seen lately, but what I thought of them! I know it. Well, wait no longer!

I went into 300 and pretty much got exactly what I expected from a film based on the work of Frank Miller; a visually slick, technically accomplished film that was down on anyone who's not white, straight, male and muscular.

Positives: The cast was excellent, with Gerard Butler bringing an immense amount of gravitas and empathy to his role of Leonidas the warrior-king. His performance completely sucks you in. But that was the way with all the cast. My only problem would have been with David Wenham's hair. He's a great actor, but the feathered-tip fair-hair he was sporting looked so anachronistic and Anglo-Saxon. It was weird.

The bravado and machismo were very addictive. You couldn't help but feel swept up in a good portion of the action scenes, but even more so whenever the characters were posturing.

It also managed to achieve what Ang Lee attempted in Hulk, by presenting a live-action depiction of comic book frames; instead of Lee's clumsy use of split-screen, director Zac Snyder sped up then slowed down pivotal action sequences, thereby making them a series of sequential still images, replicating comic book storytelling almost perfectly.

Negatives: Well, the film's depiction of race, gender, sexual orientation. My first question would be, in a story about Spartans, why were there no real Greeks?

But mostly it was all just Frank Miller bowing down once more in front of his image of perfect masculinity. A lot of people have excused the film's problems by pointing out that it doesn't skirt over all the Spartan's drawbacks, depicting as it does their practice of throwing imperfect newborns off the side of a cliff. But given that Miller provides justification for that action, and that argument comes tumbling down like a deck of cards. And for all the film's talk about freedom, not once is it mentioned that Spartans kept slaves of their own, who were all forced to fight at the very same battle against the "evil" Persian empire.

This is just the tip of the problems I had with the film, despite I how much I enjoyed it on a visceral level. I suppose at the very least you can see it's good that it's such a provocative film that can inspire a good deal of conversation. I'd much rather see films like that in cinemas - and doing just as well as 300 has been doing - than, say, another bloody Saw movie.

It seems I'm a bit of a Danny Boyle fan. Whenever he's directing, you know you're in for a well-considered piece of film-making. What he seems to enjoy more than anything else is genre-dabbling, running from horror to urban drama to family friendly to this, a high-concept sci-fi thriller. Whenever he gets his hands on a different genre, it's not long before he's looking for a way to shake things up.

There are three things that are really striking about Sunshine. The first is the visuals, but given that it's a Danny Boyle film that's an obvious one. The second is the exploration of sacrifice, dedication, and what we do for the greater good. And the third ... well ... I know I had a third. But it's 2 am and I can't remember. In any case, there's a third.

And it's striking.

A Projectionist Am I!

So despite Sarah and Simon's campaigns against this blog - which are unrelenting and inhumane! - it seems I have developed enough of an audience that I receive churlish demands to update. So update I shall!

It's been a bit of chaotic week, with a number of things having happened. The life of a blogger is a tumultuous one, with ever single daily experience being scanned for blogging viability. By the time you're sitting in front of your computer, however, ready to relate anecdotes from your life ... well ... you really can't be arsed anymore.

To give you a bit of a rundown, however;

-I'm officially a projectionist-in-training. My first shift in the projection room (or "bio" as we call it at work) is Thursday 26th. It's meant to be a 8-4 shift, but the boss said I could come in later if I wanted, just so long as I did the full eight hours. I'm seriously considering making it 10-6, because I likes my sleepings-in.

-I went and talked to the travel agent. The ticket prices seem quite reasonable, especially for a return. After getting a certain amount of information, I bid my farewells and left for home, where I promptly handballed the rest of the organising to my father ... who hasn't responded to my lengthy email. Dad, if you're reading this, hit me back, dude!

-I got sweet compensation off Medicare for a doctor's bill from last year. I just handed it over and the woman gave me thirty bucks, cash in hand! I was seriously considering coughing into a cup and seeing if I could get a tenner. I used the money to buy new PJs - which are very comfy and quite Tae-Bo sexy - before going to test the waters on a new mobile phone. I'm tired of the other kids teasing me over the decade-old red Nokia I still mooch around with. I want MP3-compatible and an inbuilt camera, dammit!

-Oh, and I got a crap load of review copy DVDs from Madman in the mail. Ben and I sat down to watch an episode of Project Greenlight this evening, only to wind up watching the entire first disc. We alternate between seething with jealously, fury, envy and joy. It'll be interesting to watch the film that came from it after watching the series (Solo, starring Colien Friels).

-Tomorrow I'm going to go see about getting some new glasses. I want somethin' stylish! Either big chunky frames or no frames at all! I haven't decided yet.

So that's just a taste of the completely mundane things I've been up to. Hope it satisfies your curiosity. Snappier posts to follow!

Oh, Baby Jesus! Thank You!

So by whinging like a little sissy, I inadvertantly managed to get one of my co-workers to swap shifts with me. That means I don't have to go immediately to sleep so I can get up and go immediately back to work.

THANK YOU, JESUS!

Pretty hectic night at work. We were once again under-staffed, with only one person in each area. That meant that one of the managers gave me a float and made me serve in ticket box for twenty minutes. Craziness. Let's hope tomorrow night is better.

I'm going to see about getting plans going on the US trip tomorrow, I've decided. Thankfully there's a Flight Centre office four or five doors down the street. Hoorah!

Bob-a-Job

My interview with the bookshop was today, and it went well. There's a few other people the manager's interviewing, so I won't find out til half-way through next week. That said, I'm not so sure I want it. It's with a discount bookshop, where all the stock is the stuff that didn't sell at other book shops 5/6 months ago. It's fairly depressing-looking.

I also got offered the chance to interview for a position in the projection room at work, where I'd be trained to run all the equipment and get a pay rise. And I wouldn't have to deal with either bins or customers!!

Given the choice, I'd probably take the projectionist job, but it's not like either of them have actually been offered to me yet. Just have to wait and see, I guess.

Everybody Has a David Brent Moment Now and Then

So I was at work the other day (of course, where else would I be?) and we were getting slammed. It was Tight-Arse Tuesday, and the managers had had the foresight to have me be the only person rostered on to floor when it's school holidays and tickets are only $9. Brilliant, huh?

Thankfully we had a multi-skill person on (someone who goes between areas to help out where needed) so I wasn't totally screwed. I managed podium while the multi-skiller and a manager cleaned the cinemas.


It was in the middle of one particularly hectic session - where we were waiting on two of the bigger cinemas to be cleaned and I was having to manage the giant crowd that was forming - that a woman came up to me. She was saying that people were sitting in her seats, and she demanded someone come and get them to move (for family members in Queensland; all cinemas in Melbourne have allocated seating).


Being that I had to stay on podium, I quickly grabbed the General Manager (who was in the middle of cleaning a cinema and informed him of the situation). He said he'd take care of it. He did that by deferring it to the Location Manager, who was also in the middle of cleaning a cinema. The Location Manager comes up to me and I tell him the situation. He takes care of it by deferring it to me.


So I head down to the cinema and go about getting people to move in the middle of the film. It ended up being that five kids were in the wrong spot. Don't ask me why they couldn't all have worked this out for themselves.


As I'm running back to podium, quite stressed by this stage, someone ducks out of the cinema I was just in. I notice it's one of the guys I work with, who I don't know that well but with whom I have a pretty good back-and-forth. He asks me what the problem was.


"Oh, nothing. Some woman was just being fucking pedantic."


Even as I said it, I knew what was coming.


"Yeah, uh ... that's my Aunty."

He didn't seem to have taken much - if any - offense, but still ... GAH!!

I've got half-an-hour until I need to start getting ready for work. To counter their rostering brilliance from yesterday, the managers have decided to have me close floor tonight (which is supposed to take until midnight, but if it's a repeat of last week will go over-time) before having me turn around and open ticket box tomorrow morning at 9.15. Factoring in travel time, that'll leave me with about SIX-AND-A-HALF HOURS between shifts. How considerate.

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

So in case you hadn't noticed, this past weekend was Easter. Shocker, I know! I pretty much spent it working, because nothing says 'family holiday fun!' like watching a bunch of ripped Spartans tear apart a million Persians while gobbing on popcorn (no, the Spartans don't gob on popcorn ... at least, not that I'm aware of. You'd have to ask Ben about that [don't worry, Ben. I'm just teasing!]).

Sunday night I left work to have dinner with Elise and her family. It was a lot of fun, actually, between the big Italian spread and the rigorous discussion that ranged from the increasing villainy of Iron Man to everyone's preferred Star Trek captain. Not being a Trekkie, I stayed out of that conversation, though I did put in a good word or two for Obi-Wan Kenobi. I love multi-generational, media-savvy [sp?] families.

Being that I'm clueless, I received chocolate from quite a few people for which I had nothing in return. I'm thinking belated treats of some kind is definitely required.

Published Yet?

I've been asked for an update on how things are going with the publisher. As it stands right now, I've given the two copies of the manuscript to Elise, who in turn is going to give them to her uncle, who will in turn give them to the publisher. It'll then take him at least a couple of months to look over it and see whether or not he's interested, as he's working on something else at the moment.

So now we play the waiting game ...

...

...

...

... ah, the waiting game sucks! Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!

Who Will Be The Next Top Model??

I don't know if there's much more to say in support of these, other than I hope I win!!!

This Round To You, Statler & Waldorf!

I caught up with Sarah this evening. She imparted two pieces of information to me, re: blog.

One: Simon is aware of the war I'm waging against him and Sarah and is choosing to ignore it. He's avoiding the blog as a means of protest. My bet is his vanity will only hold out so long before he comes running here to eat up every word I've posted about him, such is the fragility of his pathetic ego. Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Two: Apparently people who weren't registered with Google couldn't post comments. As such, Sarah couldn't leave any hurtful barbs. This has been rectified.

This round may go to you, Sarah and Simon, but you've not won the war!

PEOPLE ARE DISGUSTING PIGS!

[Not a Hardy Boys title]

So I just got home from work after having stayed back half-an-hour because people are disgusting, thoughtless pigs who feel it's beneath them to pick up after themselves after watching a movie. The popcorn boxes and drink cups I can handle, but when someone leaves half a chicken carcass under their seat, that's where I draw the line!

I got home to find the stain on my pants that I thought was from bin juice was actually a pen that had leaked in my pocket. It stained my one good pair of work pants and left a big blue spot on my entire thigh. To top it off, I got into the bathroom to be met by my own stench made up of choc top waffles, frozen coke syrup and wet popcorn (it doesn't sound too bad in description, but it's a pungent aroma in reality).

I'm sore, cranky, and generally over it. I've got an interview with a book shop on Wednesday. Hopefully that'll pan out.

On a side-note, I saw something while driving to work that I thought didn't exist outside of Charlie Brown comics;

A kite in a tree.

A Game Called Chaos!

Being the first Tight-Arse Tuesday of the school holidays, work was intense today. By the time I left at 6, we'd had over twice the amount of patrons we would have for both the day AND night shift. What film drew this mass amount of people to the cinemas, you might ask.

Yes, I'm shocked too.

The good news was I was way too tired to get violently aggravated by all the incessant stupid questions ... although now I guess it was a bit of a catch-22 situation.

Since having posted about it yesterday, I've been ruminating some more on the Route 66 trip. I've come to an important decision.

I want to start the trip wearing a Chicago Cubs cap (as we'll be starting in Chicago);

I will then, somewhere in the mid-point of the journey, switch over to a black cowboy hat, preferrably after having some sort of life-changing hallucination in the middle of the desert (with accompanying Native American, if available);

Not only will this be reminiscent of Billy Crystal in City Slickers, it will also highly symbolise the growth I undergo as part of the journey. And it will look totally bad ass. (Or I'll look like a dumb tourist. Whichever).

Given the amount of thought I've put into this - followed by the actual act of going through with it - I give this entire scheme about a 6 on the fruitiness scale.

Mystery of the Samurai!

... or, more appropriately, "New Job of the Kung-Fu Lawyer!". After I think about five minutes of searching, Elise has a job with Cotton On.

... razzum frazzum ... grumble mumble ...

Oh! I mean 'congratulations!'

Heh heh heh.

High-Speed Showdown!

There's really only one reason I keep looking in on Wild Hogs while I'm at work. Actually, come to think of it, there's two.

The first is that the main characters - a group of middle-aged guys on a roadtrip across America - take a route very close to the one Dad and I will be following when (fingers crossed) we follow Route 66 across the US in a Mustang come September [squeals with girly excitement]. The landscape's incredibly beautiful, and it gets me excited for all the future possibilities.

The second reason is watching with sheer horror the train wreck this movie seems to be. It really does look like Travolta decided to quell all the rumours about his marriage being a sham orchestrated by Scientology officials to cover up his homosexuality by spewing as much homophobic vitriol as he can get away with in a mainstream movie. One critic wrote he wouldn't have been surprised if the filmmakers kept up their gay panic in between scenes by organising group gay-bashings. I tend to agree.

You're gay, Travolta! Follow Anthony Callea's example and just come out all aready! This also goes for you, Tom Cruise, and double for Hugh Jackman! Jodie Foster, take all the time you need. We all know the score.

The Shadow Killers!

Despite having not been to the blog since it first started, Sarah is still insisting it sucks. As she's been quite supportive of both Ben's and Li-Kim's mutual online diaries, I can't help but take this a little personally - especially as she keeps taunting me with Simon's shared jibes, launched from the ether.

As neither of them have actually come here since its inception, this comparison would be completely lost on them;

POW!!!

Trouble Times Two!

Sarah and I went to see Reign Over Me last night at Jam Factory. Because of how tight [name withheld due to legal reasons] cinemas are, it seems I've run out of staff comps, so we had to do the unseemly thing of actually paying for tickets!

It turned out to be as good as I hoped it would, from the small snippets I'd seen at work. Both Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler - yes, Adam Sandler - turn in some great performances. The script's very well-written and the direction has a great deal of thought put behind it.

Before the movie, Sarah wanted to get a burger, so we hit up the Soda Rock Cafe. For those unfamiliar with it, it's a '50s-style diner in the middle of Chapel Street. For whatever reason, I have a real obsession with places like this. I think it has a lot to do with Back to the Future. I ordered a hot fudge sunday (I'd already had dinner) and a vanilla coke. Sarah ordered a hot dog combo that ended up being THE BIGGEST HOT DOG WE'VE EVER SEEN. I think it was a foot long.

I'm not sure what was more shocking; the size of the hot dog, or the fact that Sarah managed to finish it all.

After dinner, we still had a little more time to kill, which we did in the Borders next to the cinema. I didn't think it happened outside Empire Records, but there was a woman listening to sample tracks on headphones in the CD section and completely grooving out. She didn't do this for just a few seconds, though. I passed by there a few times over the span of five or ten minutes and she was still going. She even sang a little bit! It was freaky!

This was all after a day that consisted of getting two copies of my manuscript printed off [over $80!]. I think I'm going to have to insist on this editor guy agreeing to publish my book, just so I can justify the expense of it.

Trouble at Coyote Canyon!

Pree made a suggestion of releasing a Luke action-figure to cash in on his imminent success. I heartily concured.

Tying in with his upcoming McLeod's Daughters role, we've come up with this prototype;

Apparently, we have six months until his episodes air. That gives us just enough time - barring any unforeseen legal issues - to get these babies on the shelves.

Voice chip includes such phrases as;

"I've got a Woody!"

"I want to be an airplane racer!"

"The last time I was photographed I was drunk and half-naked and I thought of you."