Dressed to impress

Over the weekend I attended a murder mystery birthday, "Murder at the Juice Joint".
I was called upon to play the character of Mayor Biggs, who was shooting for the Governor's office on the back of shady dealings with mobster Notorious Nick.

To achieve such a subtle blend of power, desperation and a willinginess to do whatever it takes, I enlisted the help of a fake moustache which, according to the packaging, was called "The Scoundrel".
I think I pulled it off.

It's worth noting that, due to the constraints inherent in the timeframe, it was the first party I've attended in years at which I was not wearing a t-shirt bearing the likeness of a Nintendo character.

Despite that, I still managed to look as much like an Italian plumber living in the Mushroom Kingdom as I did a Mayor drinking in a Chicago speakeasy. It's in my genes now people.

The party was a blast, with a crowd of sozzled people in period dress falling in and out of character as the mood took them.

Melodramatic Monday

Photo by phatman

That ... that flash of lightning!





That deafening peel of thunder!





Was that the sound of God striking upon the anvil of creation? The Hammer of Thor striking against the unmoving chest of Superman? Was it the crackle and pop of Madonna's bones moving underneath her deceptively youthful appearance as she rose from her slumber and headed for her unitard closet?





Have we witnessed The birth of a new sun? The shimmering light of the Hadron Collider as it ramps up to devour us all? Was that a firework detonating within the supple eye socket of a foolish child?





Hark! Gentle readers, that cataclysmic event was the slippery birth of another damn Monday.





Anyone remember when the Borg assimilated Captain Picard and the world appeared doomed? That felt like a Monday.





That time Magneto ripped the Adamantium out of Wolverine's body through the pores of his skin, kicking off years of comics in which he was kind of a wuss? That felt like a Monday.





You just know that Anakin decided the Dark side was the bee's knees on a Monday.





And when Jesus was like "I'm hanging on a tree right now 'cause y'all don't wanna get along" - totally Monday.

Hilarity Unleashed

Today I murdered these nice men

and their entire families.

Today I purchased The Force Unleashed on XBox 360.


For those of you who may not make a point of following everything that happens regarding Star Wars and video games and who might not occassionally pretend to be a Jedi, the game puts you in the shoes of an evil Sith.

Basically you have a lightsaber, a suite of force powers, and a mission of 'kill all people and things'.

And hark, it is awesome.

I'll have a crack at a full review upon completion, but I can say after three-odd hours that it is a blast.

Here's some stuff I did today:

I stabbed a Jawa in the face.

I spun a Rodian in the air and, as he grabbed for purchase, electrocuted him.

I threw an exploding barrel into a squadron of Storm Troopers, annihilating them in a storm of fiery destruction. As they fell in a heap, the glass ceiling fell and smashed over their corpses.

I threw countless aliens for, like, a kilometre.

So .... yeah ... I might not be updating over the weekend. No reason, I've just got a lot of important stuff that I have to do. Important stuff.



I wonder if I'll get to stab any Ewoks?

Putting my childhood on screen

Photo by Chorazin

Yesterday I was issued the following challenge:



"Pick one comic and one cartoon that, if you could, you would make into a movie. Assume it would be awesome".


It's a great idea but a damn big assumption. Hollywood certainly isn't shy about mining my beloved childhood chums, and they've proved entirely capable of cranking out turds the size of Galactus.


In fact, some of my more obvious choices have already sloughed off the silver screen on their way to a DVD bargain bin. Daredevil? Blech. Dark Phoenix? Dreck. Batman: Knightfall? Barforamathon.

As a rabid fanboy it's not hard to see the appeal of turning these franchises into films. After all, my love of them springs primarily from their place in my childhood, rather than their inherent value. Same with the films they spawn. Even if it blows, I must view them at least once, handing over $10 even as I curse my comically thick spectacles.

Frankly speaking, some of my favourite cartoons sucked, and I've read a lot of superhero comics that could charitably be refereed to as craptastic.

But, much like Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, my love for them continues on unabated despite their flaws, and the random nature in which a would-be paedophile turned into a weird spaceship.

So what then would I choose? I don't really want to pick something that's already been done a few times, even though I'm still waiting for an awesome Superman film and I've got an idea for a Wolverine movie that would blow at least one mind.

So I'm going to have to run with the Flash. (See what I did there?)

A lot of DC's comic characters are too batshit crazy to transition onto the screen. The Flash though? He's grounded, and his powers translate easily. In all honestly I don't know who you'd have him fighting, as my knowledge of his rogue's gallery extends as far as Captain Boomerang and Captain Cold.

Seriously though, if you're fighting a guy who can run faster than you can see, would you really trust a boomerang as the best tool for the job? Sheesh. Yo-Yo Master laughs at your inadequacy Captain Boomerang!

But I think it could be a really fun film. I'm mainly thinking of all the cool set pieces you could have with him. I wouldn't even need villains per se, just a dude cinematically fighting crime Matrix slowdown style.

As far as a cartoon, I'll cheat a little and pick one derived from something else (surely in the spirit of such a challenge). I'm going with Dungeons and Dragons.

I'd chuck the irritating kids and just use the universe. See, it's always surprised me that no-one's been able to make a good D&D film. After all, D&D is nothing less than a framework to be used for the telling of really awesome stories. Throw in a few creatures and spells recognisable to players and they'll drink it up like a Potion of Awesome +10.

Musings

So I'm flying backwards through the air firing two pistols and, as the plate glass shatters cinematically around me I wonder, what's it all about?

I mean, sure it's fun being the world's most handsome spy - even if my cover identity as a strikingly good looking blogger can sometimes leave me low on carbohydrates - but why go on?

As the blade of my diamond-tipped katana slips through the ribs of another ninja assassin, piercing his heart quietly enough that I can hear his whispered disbelief, I contemplate the world around me, and why we put up with it.

Cannon fire causes the bow of my warship to sway and I think about the world's gentle slide into dissolution.

How can people remain so disinterested in the face of such injustice? Lightning pours from my fingertips and into the eyes of the Great Dragon Xendra'ka'ka, put it fails to excite my soul.

Even the nuclear centre of the sun cannot warm my heart, even as I slingshot around its brilliance to build up enough speed to travel back in time.

How is it that I, somersaulting out of a helicopter with the rescued Mona Lisa in one hand and a semi-automatic crossbow in the other, am unable to evade the sting of apathy, nor the barbed quips of my gorilla-headed pilot?

At this moment an explosion is ripping the parrots from a thousand pirate's shoulders. Knowing they would be meeting to discuss world domination with their cybernetic overlords today, I phased back into the big bang under the cover of a reality storm, identified a molecule that would eventually find itself in a deck hand's moustache and altered it so as to be chemically explosive when exposed to the spores given off by a type of mould found only on the walls of the cave in which he was standing in a short time ago, and is now wallpapering.

I suppose we each much soldier on in our own way. Even as I beat a Martian at chess I know in my heart that, if we all pushed as one, the world would fall into line. But alas, I must continue pushing on my solitary brick and crying out to those behind me. Maybe one day they will join me and we will work as closely together as my anvil-firing autocannon and my enchanted scepter of hammerfire.

Until that day I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, whether they be genetically engineered to walk on the waking dreams of insects or not.

Oh well. Back to the grind.

Armageddon

The photo below was taken at 1.30pm yesterday, about the same time I was absently wondering whether my house was going to collapse on my forehead.

Photo by Gavin Schmidt

So yeah, yesterday was fucked.
Crazy mega wind kicked dust up into the air and deposited it down the back of my pants, and then rain turned the universe to mud. Over here in Broken Hill we're lucky to be surrounded by red dirt. So yesterday the sky kind of looked like that thing Christians are always so smug about where Jesus is going to be all like "you were right, high five".

Backdoor Bragging

I don't want to imply that I'm, say, the smartest man in the universe or anything, but on Sunday I mentioned that 30 Rock demanded to be watched.

So today 30 Rock won a bazillion Emmys. Does this mean that I can see the future? That I am far enough ahead of the pop culture curve to appear omnipotent to the average person?

Well, I wouldn't presume to say anything of the sort ..... but it's probably true nonetheless.

For the record, 30 Rock took out Best Comedy Series, Best Casting for a Comedy and Best Sound Mixing. Alec Baldwin won Best Comedy Actor. Tina Fey won Best Comedy Actor and Best Writing in a Comedy for the Season 2 finale 'Cooter'. It also won Best Guest Actor in a Comedy for Tim Conway.

It's not often I can see an award given that I agree with, so I'm off to recline and bask.



"The crab is getting aroused. Shut it down. Shut it down."

The Barrier Between Worlds

I've had a bit of a checkered past when it comes to underpants.
[I was going to say 'spotty past', but, well, I changed it.]

In a broad sense, I think it's fair to say that most dudes fail to put the proper amount of thought into their underpants. I know that I kept them filed under the heading of "Things that Mother Delivers" for way to long, and after that moved them straight over to "Surely I'll Sort This out Shortly After the Apocalypse".

Girls, I find, give proper thought to undergarments. Maybe it's because they wear twice as many items on the average day, so they demand more brain space. There's also the cultural fixation on women in their underpants. Lingerie is a big deal but is squarely in the "for ladies only" camp. Attempts to dress up the male underpant generally leads to some kind of G-String junk-hugging monstrosity - like a muzzled Pelican. Is there a market for that? I'll admit that I've danced in my underpants, but all I've been trying to elicit was a smirk.

Like many unfortunate young men I spent quite a few years rockin' the silk boxer shorts. The advantage in that was that silk boxers are a pretty easy birthday gift for a dude, allowing you the keep replenishing your supply with a minimum of thought. The downside of having a layer of silk between yourself and the world is pretty obvious when you're hitting puberty on the school bus.

But eventually I realised - with some gentle convincing - that pictures of Marvin the Martian and the phrase "Hot Stuff" no longer needed to be branded on my fanny, and I made the move over to basic cotton. It was a similar experience to buying my first pair of jeans that actually fit. I felt like I was wrapped in cling wrap for a few weeks, but was ultimately happy to have made the transition. Also, cotton is much less likely to smell like Satan. I assume.

I don't know how many times I have to do an entire load of washing for want of a fresh pair of briefs. I just can't bring myself to buy any more. I would buy, like, 14 pairs, but then I know my only encouragement to wash would be erased.

The situation is worsened as my affection for a pair of underpants is linked to its state of disrepair.
Leen bought me a pristine pair of Calvin Klein briefs which I wore a lot because they were a great gift and the novelty of such an important junk smuggler was irresistible. Eventually, they had accidentally been turned a faint pinkish colour and the cotton had ripped away from the elastic at the back. I could not wear them with low-hanging pants as it looked like I was wearing an elastic belt under my clothes. But I loved them and wore them until they were wearable only in my own mind.

Currently my favourite underpants are a pair of Bonds boxer briefy things that are held together only by good intentions. The, uh, undercarriage has ripped its way into oblivion, giving it the form of a ragged miniskirt. I love 'em because they continue to serve their function - keeping my equipment away from my pants - but they also allow for a lot of movement. They're like a stylish, open-plan apartment.

Weekends are for the quick showing of videos

Tina Fey rules. All who are not watching 30 Rock are dumb

Ninja Cat!

Leen found this video and I had to share.

"Ninja Cat gets Closer Without Moving".

This video is awesome.

All who disagree are mistaken.

Illegible?

Hey y'all, rap with me a second,

Is my new blog header entirely illegible? I suspect it may be, but I'm totally in love with that photo, and this place could use a bit of colour, you know?

Cheers.

Other random Friday news!

Today I saw a snake that had been run over. The scales had been sheared away from its midsection, exposing the ropey muscle underneath. Gross. I watched a man step on its head to demonstrate how 'the fangs can still kill you', given the copious amount of venom that leaked out onto the concrete beneath. Never before have I sympathised with a snake.

My goal of assembling a 4E Dungeons and Dragons campaign inches closer towards realisation, as another potentional player steps up to have a character made for them. Will we still count her as a friend by the week's end? Time will tell.

I was recently able to affix a magnetic strip to our kitchen wall for the stylish holding of knives. I accomplished this task entirely without assistance and am full of testosterone-soaked pride! That it took two days is, I feel, entirely beside the point. Gift certificates are welcome.

I've added a thing to the sidebar to show the last five comments that have been left, as I love comments. Nom, nom, etc.

Leen and I continue to plan a roadtrip deep into the heart of Victoria. Colour me excited at the prospect of solitude and awayfromitallitis.

Am watching the Sopranos and it is really, really great. Just when you start to really like the characters BAM, you're reminded that they're criminal jerks. Love it.

I have written a much-too-long complaint to KFC because that's just how I roll. I await a response.

The new David Sedaris book, which I read recently, is totally great.

Leen showed my an interview with R Kelly last night in which he is asked whether he likes teenage girls. His immediate response? 'How young we talking?'' the interview continues, but that's pretty much all I need to know.

I have a case of "busy fingers, lazy brain" today, leading to the post above, which contains nothing but words.

If I could somehow mention eating, biscuits, computers, racists and my butt in this post, it would have more labels than any other.

Oh, awesome.

'Best Blogger' was likely not on the table

Facebook apps = the devil.

What should be a novel way of staying in touch with friends - at a comfortable arm's length no less - is instead awash with banal applications asking me to accept a meaningless gift or shoot someone with a nonexistent bullet.

Take, for example, Compare People.
I signed up for this godforsaken application after someone unwillingly sent me a message asking me to, and now it sends me periodic emails like this:

Your friends have voted on your strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

best father (potential)
person with the best sense of humor
hardest worker

WEAKNESSES:

most outgoing
best dancer

What the hell?
Firstly, it's a touch confronting to discover that my online chums are apparently dissecting my character at a constant and feverish pace.
Secondly, what exactly does it mean?
Awarding me 'hardest worker' suggests that many do not know me as well as they suspect, although I will admit that my potential daditude and chuckle ability are spot on and appreciated.
But the weaknesses? Most outgoing? Best dancer?
Does this mean that I am the worst best dancer? The least most outgoing? Or is my ability to cut the rug in an efficient and groove-laden manner an intrinsic flaw in my character?

Facebook, if you're going to insist on pushing your advice upon me, at least have the decency to provide it in a legible fashion.

50 Things I Love About Comics

By popular request...

Can a request be deemed popular when it originates from one person? Surely it can when a single person makes up over a quarter of readership.

These are not in any order - to rank such a thing would be madness. There is probably 50.



Getting to see Wolverine cut loose once every five years, and using that to fuel my love of the character during the dull, over-exposed interim.

Transmetroplitan - recently [accurately] described online as "basically porn for journalism majors".

Grant Morrison's energetic brain in general.

All-Star Superman: Joy on page! Joy on page!

My childhood status as a 'Marvel zombie', and how it opens up a wealth of unread stories from all other sources.

The smell of a new graphic novel. Really get your nose up into the spine and you'll know what I mean. Bliss.

All-Star Batman, and how it trumped repeated use of the word "goddamm" with a 'printing error' that described Black Canary as a "cunt".

Highschool conversations about how Wolverine could be properly killed.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman = masterpiece. Collected the trades out-of-order over a few years and read them as I went. Sitting down at the end and re-reading it all from start to finish inspired a feeling I can sadly never repeat.

Finding a great comic run, now completed, that I've never read. Reading the whole thing in a weekend.

The rare occasion in which I find someone to talk to about something I've just read and am entirely jazzed about.

The Spiderman Clone Saga. Sure, it's dross that lasted for ever and ever and ever and ever, but it occurred when I was a kid actually collecting monthly comics. I loved it's massively overcomplicated bulk with all my heart.

The movie Spiderman 2. Loved the first one, but the three-dimensionality of the fights in the sequel captured the character's abilities in spectacular fashion.

Alan Moore's Miracleman. Read it while quite drunk. Spent weeks picking up bits of my mind.

Nextwave.

The Dark Knight, and the general 'comic book films can be taken seriously and be awesome' vibe that it represents.

Watchmen. Every list needs Watchmen. It really is that good. I've got the graphic novel and the Absolute edition. The Absolute is a sight to behold, but reading from it inspires shooting neck pain.

The Comic Geek Speak podcast + community. Vicarious comic talk ftw!

The Iron Man film. Funtacular!

Tracking online discussion of the generally negative portrayal of women in comics, and seeing the male readership fail to see the issue time and time again.

The Age of Apocalypse. Man, I ate that up.

Realising that the 'comics crash of the '90s', regarded by all as the medium's darkest days, was the exact period in which I was reading and loving everything. Nowhere to go but up!

Any time a hero becomes a vampire - I've seen this happen to Wolverine, Batman and Storm. All good.

Internally rationalising breaks in continuity. I love making all this stuff fit with leaps of logic that make sense to only me.

Alternate versions of comic book characters, particularly Spiderman 2099 and the Kal-El Batman.

Casanova. A comic that is unabashedly a comic but also transcends what is traditionally achieved in a comic. Also? Sentences like that.

I must admit that I enjoy the escapism of superhero comics, especially the 'hero plucked out of obscurity' type of thing.

Any comic that can make me go 'no way!' in my brain. For example; The Authority.

Blankets: The only comic to make me cry.

When a writer and artist really figure it out and work together in concert, rather than producing an illustrated novel.

Lettering that is wacky and evocative, yet not impossible to read. See Arkham Asylum for an example that skirts close to illegibility, yet I feel pulls it off.

Mulling over Alan Moore's work for weeks after having read it. Some of it can be a bit of an unenergetic slog, but it pays dividends.

Seeing comic storylines hit the mainstream headlines, such as when Cap died or when Spidey unmasked. Such an odd experience.

Witnessing the bizarre hoops comics can jump through to restore the status quo after any change.

I really like it when mutants have a single, clearly-defined power that they can leverage to achieve a number of things. Wolverine cheats because he's got a few abilities, but Magneto? "Mastery of magnetism", and he does all sorts of stuff.

Spiderman's frankly terrible catalogue of villains. Vulture, Shocker, Paste Pot Pete. Fitting for the character.

As cheesy as they are, I love What-if comics in which everybody dies.

I rarely get to visit comic shops. When I do I love browsing for hours to find the perfect trade to lay my $30 on.

Imaginative takes on the unique point of view characters have. I loved that X-Factor issue in which Quicksilver laments his super speed, and how it leads him to view the rest of the world as moving painfully slow.

Animal Man. The metafictional elements were inspired, but I totally dug on his having a family, and his decision to wear a jacket over his costume because, well, I think we all would if we were in a spandex suit.

John Romita Jr's artwork. As a kid I found it kind of blocky and simplistic, but these days I kind of think it's the perfect comic book artwork.

The Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and X-Men: Legends video games, as well as that old school X-Men scrolling four-player beat 'em up game you used to find in arcades. Just give me the characters I love and a legion of asshats to punch and I'm golden.

Batman's rogues gallery. Best villains in comics. Hush, which reeks of "I want to get all these baddies up in here", works because of this.

Holding spirited debates about what superpower would be the best to have [It's telepathy/telekinesis].

Multiple Man sending his duplicates out to see the world for him.

The first 30 or so issues of Invincible.

The Joker when he is written how I like - as a cruel psychopath who is terrifying to all around, but laughing all the while.

They way that someone can ask an innocent question about why a character is doing something, and responding with "well, that depends on which continuity you adhere to, and we really need to start back in 1984."

Reading about how things could've been, eg: Wolverine was to be an evolved wolverine, Peter Parker would've been a clone.

Any time someone is punched through a building.

Doodle climax!

Aaand that's it for the doodles for now. Hope you enjoyed A Week of Doodling, which in true comic book fashion, expanded out extreme-style past the requisite seven days.

Penultimate Doodle

True Story: Sterilised operating environment not pictured.

Website is now broken.

A true story. Rage not pictured.

Doodle Cat

As I continue with a week's worth of doodles, my juvenile obsession with the word doodle begins to come forth. Doodle.

Is there Wifi on the moon?

I'd give my left arm for the ability to draw

Doodle II: Return of the Scribbling

An honest look at myself

And now, a week of random, poorly-drawn sketches.

The bird that broke my brain

When I was in high school, I walked past a poster advertising a talk on evolution.

I can't remember who was giving the talk, but he was a visitor, and the poster made it clear that he was a religious man, and the talk would be about explaining why evolution was bullshit.

Now, when called to fill out a form, I'll always put "Anglican" in the box asking for my religious beliefs. I attended Anglican services each Sunday until my mid-teens when I was confirmed. I then promptly became one of those people who goes to church only on Easter and Christmas and pretends to ignore the whispers of the other parishioners. Today, I don't go at all.
I still put Anglican on the forms though, because "I believe in something, but I don't know what it is and I think the man-made mechanisms of religion often make dumb moves" doesn't fit in the little boxes they give you, and always sounds like a cop-out. I should just put "hippy".

But when I saw that poster, I immediately wanted to see this man talk. I was a nerdy, sci-fi driven teenager, and was fascinated by how stuff worked. I believed wholeheartedly in evolution but was intrigued as to what this man's argument could be against it. I had not yet grasped the concept of faith and so approached everything like a science problem. I needed answers.

So one day I sacrificed my lunch break - an island of free-time held in the same high regard as my Nintendo 64 - to see this man speak. Unsurprisingly I was the only skeptic, as few children had given up their 40 minutes of running in a circle to hear about evolution being bullocks unless they were already on the same team as the speaker.

But I pointed my giant curiosity ears at this guy and was promptly fascinated.
The part of his argument that I recall goes like this, nomenclature may vary:

The Humming Bird, and why it proves that evolution is lame:

This bird eats the gummy stuff out of the backs of flowers, and that's it. It does this by hovering in place and using its long, skinny beak to suck it out.
It needs three interconnected systems to do this: It's wings beat fast enough to allow it to hover, it's spouty-nose-straw gets back into the flower and its digestive system is specialised to turn the gunk into mega-wing-power.

So, with all of these systems needed to survive in this way, how did it evolve? If evolution happens with one tiny change every bazillion years, and only when necessary - the antithesis of Madonna's career - how did it end up like this?

Why would it evolve super-hover-wings if it was still eating cheeseburgers off the ground like all the other birds? If it had thrown away a beak and replaced it with a goop straw first, would it not die, as it did not yet have a stomach to process goop and could not hover to get it? Why would it's stomach evolve to eat goop first if it would need the other systems to find it in the first place?

With that in mind, it makes much more sense to believe that some force had said "I demand Goop-Eating Hover Bird" and it had sprung forth fully-formed from the rib of some other, lamer bird. The name was later changed for PR purposes, just like the "Grind-Toof Cloppy Dog", or horse.

This example blew my mind. This man, pre-empting Intelligent Design by a decade, had delivered exactly what my comic-soaked brain had needed. Religion, but with hokey pseudo-science answers!

I was energised. All I believed was suddenly thrown into question. Maybe this all made sense after all! And so, riding the crest of the wave of inclusion, I shot up my hand and told him of a pet theory of my own.

God - Presumably smarter than the average dude.

Here's roughly what I said. Keep in mind I was probably 15:

"So, God made everything and everyone, yeah? And we've got Jesus and stuff and other people have Muslim God and Buddha and stuff, and everyone fights about who has the real God. But, if God made everyone, couldn't it be that he made everyone different? Wouldn't all our differences be part of the plan? So, having made everyone like that, couldn't God have appeared to everyone, but in a form that he knew would most appeal to that group of people? So couldn't it all be the same God, and we all just see him differently? Wouldn't God treat everyone the same?"

To me, it made sense. Surely our differences are intentionally instilled by God, as he made everything and is all mysterious and stuff. If this was true, we could all hold hands for, like, ever and ever.

He mulled what I had said for about .013 of a second and replied:

"No. Our God is real. Everyone else is going to Hell."

Thoughts of the two of us debating the finer points of religious theory over a bottle of fine port evaporated.

As did much of my interest in organised religion, which I came to view much like a party full of stoners - it can be kind of fun, but you go home early because you can't get a good conversation happening.

Fa-shwoom ba-woom

I'm just going to go ahead and say it - from September 17, my life as I know it will end. The guy I was will be gone, and a demon will have set up shop in my house. This demon will want to do nothing all day except waggle his thumbs, twitch as salted chunks slide down his gullet and make the lightsaber noise with his mouth.

Golid gold = proof of busy.

Big week.


Full of typing.

Not here though.




How are you guys?