Entro

Upgrade

2004-06-15T21:23:00.000+08:00

Time for you to upgrade,
Fuck's sake, time to load!
Deltron 3030, 'Upgrade (A Brymar College Course)'

I haven't posted here for a while, but after coming back to look at the new Blogger interface and the new web-log sample templates, and reminding myself of the overall superiority of Blogger over LiveJournal, I am tempted to resurrect it. You may see some action in this space in the future.

2003-11-21T09:26:00.000+08:00

She's a Bachelor

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what’s best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes
Cake, 'Short Skirt Long Jacket'

Max finished her exams on Wednesday. Since she's far too smart to go around wondering whether she passed anything (mostly it's just wondering whether she got a higher distinction or the Nobel Prize) she now qualifies for one of those degree things. Although I feel compelled to remind her that I have two of the things, especially as she's talking about getting an MSc in a couple of years. Still, anyone with the will to study units as crazy as that Medical Genetics one deserves a medal, as well as a degree. Too many arbitrary, unconnected facts. Hypocholesterolaemia, chronic myloid leukemia, haemochromatosis, papillary thyroid neoplasias. Primary risk factors include eating icecream, and learning the names of the disorders.

Congratulations babe.

Snivelling Wretch

The Path is the Mask of Love;
Away, away ...
The Flow is the Task above Today
There is no Other Way
(you gotta trust us!)
Captain Beefheart, 'Trust Us'

Came across something I'd held onto for reasons of nostalgia yesterday while engaged in a whirlwind cleanup. I thought I'd reproduce it here for the amusement of all:

LETTER OF APOLOGY FOR YOUR BICYCLE

I have written in to apologise to the inconvenience caused to you during the loss period of your bicycle.

As I was unsure of the law withstanding in Western Australia, I thought that the "finder's keeper's" theory applies here. However, I did try to seek for the bicycle's owner (what is you) by cycling it to University nearly everyday since last July, hoping that I will bump into you one day. I felt now that the method that I had chosen was rather inactive.

Secondly, I will like to apologise for not revealing the truth when confronted by you that day. The main reason was that I was feeling afraid and hence at that moment of time, I was behaving abnormal.

Please be ensure that I am also eager to find the bicycle's owner. In fact, I was wondering everyday when you will see me and stop me. If that happens, I will gladly hand the bike over. Also, I will like to re-emphasize that I found your bicycle by the bushes and not by unlawful methods. If so, why will I have cycled it to University nearly immediately after I have found it?

Thousand apologies for the inconvenience and emotional distress that I have caused all these while and I hope that you could let out a sign of relief now that your bicycle has been recovered.

Sorry for all the inconveniences.

Yours sincerely
---

Surely, no theft would be worth such crawling? I will treasure this letter forever.

Exeunt

I'd like to leave the country,
For a month of Sundays,
Burn the town where I was born!

On Sunday morning I'm flying out of this country on Malaysia Airlines for a month of touring in Cambodia and Vietnam. The last couple of days have largely been occupied with making the final preparations for the trip. Personally, I've always enjoyed it more when other people have done these things for me. I don't like having to think about things like insurance.

I keep saying to myself 'it's going to be the best thing I've ever done' and on some level I'm sure it will be, but at the same time I'm becoming increasingly apprehensive about disasters major (leg blown off, contraction of paralytic wasting disease, taken hostage by terrorist group) and minor (the runs, getting ripped off by a smelly, unpleasant hotelier) that may transpire during the course of the trip. I have this feeling that a transformation into an unpleasant statistic is pending, somehow. But at the same time, I keep thinking 'Piles of human skulls! Best thing ever!' and that is no small comfort. Not only that, but when I get back into town it will be in anticipation of a week or so down south, which will be the perfect unwinder.

Hope you'll all remember my name when I get back. And Chas, email me your phone number in Mt Barker if you want to come and see Return of the King with me and Max while we're in Albany after Christmas. I think it'd be novel. Well, based on, anyway.

Apotheosis

Not really an appropriate word, but a good one at least. The last thing to mention in this disordered heap of events past, present and future is the completion of my own degree. Eventual completion. Handed in my thesis about three weeks ago today. The 12,000 words I had to write in the last week before the due date would probably qualify as the hardest work I've ever done. I punched in considerably over one hundred hours from Monday morning through to Sunday evening, which is a sweatshop workload, but instead of rolling cigarettes to kill Western dogs, I was listening to the same soundbite enhanced forty-nine different ways and then describing the results quantitatively (with bollocksy graphs and tables) and qualitatively (with bollocks in its pure, verbal form). Read like Hemingway in the end, not.

I have also been told unofficially that I got higher distinctions for all my second semester coursework, which I found surprisingly gratifying, almost as if I'd received an overdue renewal of my membership in the winners' circle after a bizarre Australia Post screwup. Although I'd be far from astonished if they miraculously transmuted into ordinary distinctions or credits at the last minute. Or fails. No! It shall not be.

So, off to get a job, snicker.

In other news, good luck to anyone getting baptised in the next couple of days. I hear people are. Don't catch a cold!

2003-10-22T21:54:00.000+08:00

Ostracism

He dresses incorrectly, no one taught him how ...
(Where to go? But he just don't get out enough!)
He dresses incorrectly, no one taught him how ...
(Talk to girls? But he's just too spotty!)
He dresses incorrectly, no one taught him how ...
(Seventeen! He not keen on being like anyone else)
So he just plays on his computer game ...
Blur, 'Jubilee'

Fresh from sidewise criticism of others over indiscriminate searching for web-log material, I arrive to shamelessly peddle my own mish-mash of situational moral philosophy, in relation to an incident today involving Mat Cole and some of the UCC ex-post-freshers. The event: Mat is playing SSB: Melee with assorted ex-post-Fs. Ex-post-Fs decide they want to go all-on-all four-way Jigglypuff combat (imagine the excitement!). Mat demurs. The ex-post-Fs relieve Mat of his controller and give it to Thomas Castiglione after first canvassing the possibility of simply ganging up on him in-game to hasten his elimination. Mat, hurt by this display of disregard, storms out, slamming the door into the UCC-UniSFA corridor and breaking one of its panes of glass.

Thoughts:

Mat is still a giant tool.

As a loser, you shouldn't expect other people to accept you into their social group simply because they themselves are losers, or something only slightly better. Losers themselves are quick to seize every available opportunity to kick downwards.

I know this at least as well as anyone, since I have a serious tendency to kick downwards myself.

Seeing people woefully mistreat someone makes you lose a lot of respect for them - even if you agree with the essentials of their perspective.

The ex-post-Fs are a pretty ignoble bunch.

Chas' efforts to chastise (no pun intended) the ex-post-freshers after the event lacked conviction. Colm's were somewhat hypocritical in light of his own past behaviour towards Mat. Both are in a position where they don't have to interact with Mat in his most annoying form - well, maybe not Chas. As am I, since a couple of years ago I was consistently mean enough to Mat that he realised he had no hope of making friends with me.

If Mat, as he has stated, never returns to UCC, what sort of life will he lead? After all, he has spent the last twelve months in here all day, every day, playing computer games. He has no job, and isn't studying. And now, he probably has no remaining social group (although I think he may be roleplaying with the Gamers' Guild, but then, that may not necessarily constitute a social group).

I wonder what kind of person Mat will be in ten years' time. The thought seriously disturbs me.

Some people have no luck whatsoever, and no real means of making it for themselves. This is why society needs safety nets.

Shrug. Can't say I really care all that much; I don't think people should be obliged to associate with, or tolerate, people they don't get along with at all, and who are basically annoying twits. Courtesy is a reasonable social requirement. Anything more than a minimal level of feigned amiability is asking too much. Besides, Mat may end up faring better when his transformation into a viable social being is no longer anyone's pet project.

EDIT: Mat's back. Apparently he's apologising for his over-reaction as well. I'm almost impressed.

2003-10-17T22:00:00.000+08:00

Accretions of Black Air

Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death.
Flann O'Brien, 'The Third Policeman'

Nearly there now.

They stuck pins in me, to make me sick so I wouldn't get sicker. I got sickish.

2003-09-17T09:28:00.000+08:00

Avast me beauties!

Rumbustious Ramblings

Went to sea, aboard the ship, the Oakley Palomino,
For to sail around the bay and get drunk in the casino!
Oy! Oy oyyyy!
I put my hat upon my head and my clothes around my torso,
Lots of money in my pockets to spend in the casino!
Oy! Oy oyyy! (oy oy oy oy) ...
Bedridden, 'Oakley Palomino'

My pirate name is:

Captain Tom Flint

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

2003-08-20T22:08:00.000+08:00

I am attempting to make this post using w3m, the shiny new text browser I've just started using. I have to say, it's rocking all over Lynx at this point. I mean, it's actually capable of rendering tables and frames. How cool is that? It renders the ASP of my favourite Tekken message board quite faultlessly, and scarily, seems quite happy with Blogger as well. And if you're feeling daring, you can even overlay images on xterms for that 'that's just wrong!' feeling!

Enough praise.

Meat Revisited

And the flesh you so fancifully fry,
Is murder ...
The Smiths, 'Meat is Murder'

Somewhat lazy quote, I'll admit. I'm currently trialling a reversion to the consumption of chicken and red meat. I'm finding it quite tasty. I'd been toying with the idea of either becoming a vegan or stopping vegetarianism altogether for some time, as my position perched on top of the fence was becoming quite irritating. Moving in with Max has decided me to attempt flesh once more. So, to the cynical potential Menz Group members amongst you: am I being emasculated by marching timidly towards my girlfriend's dietary practices, or remasculated by shovelling down a bloody great steak? Talk to me when you see me, and draw your own conclusions.

Max has been screen-printing for the last couple of days. She makes it look so easy I'm feeling almost inspired enough to take on those 'Punish the Empty Triangle' T-shirts that have been mooted for some time.

2003-08-11T15:15:00.000+08:00

I've got a new apartment baby,
And it protects me from the lonely whistling streets ...
Custard, 'Apartment'

For those who didn't know: Max and I moved into an apartment in Claremont on the weekend. The address is 3/28 Shenton Rd, Claremont. I have, for some reason, been keeping this a little hush-hush, so apologies to anyone who feels I've been keeping them out of the loop after finding out by accident because of some loose-lipped gossip. It's not that I don't like you or think you deserve to know things, it's just that I'm a naturally secretive person. I also have a marked tendency to enjoy presenting surprising things to unsuspecting people as faits accomplis. Grovelling to the imagined legions of people emotionally dismembered by being kept in the dark aside, the move has been a grand success, and the place is full of beautiful things that belong to me, to Max, and now, to us both I suppose.

And now, for something completely different.

Religion

I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you ...
Nick Cave, 'Into My Arms'

I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of my personal views regarding faith, religion, spirituality, science and the existence of higher powers. I don't expect I'll get very far, because quite naturally there's an awful lot of ground to cover. I've decided to do this because one of my friends 'found God' (for want of a better term) recently and when I discussed it with her she mentioned that in the process of deciding to become a practising Christian another friend of mine had discussed my religious views with her. Horrified by the notion of my heartfelt cosmological understanding being the subject of approximate scuttlebutt amongst my social circle, I have decided to offer a summary thereof.

Firstly, I don't believe in God. I was never taught to believe in God or any other higher power as a child, and ever since I've had the mental faculties required to pretend to oneself one is making a decision on the existence of God, I have actively chosen not to believe in God. Nothing in my own personal experience has made me want to change this belief. Obviously, I can't prove God doesn't exist, and I'm quite happy to accept the possibility that there could be a higher power (so I suppose in that sense I'm an agnostic) but I really, genuinely feel that there is no God, nor any other, similar being or group of beings.

Secondly, I don't believe in souls. Along with not believing in God (and specifically, I suppose, a Christian God), I also don't believe in an afterlife. Not that the concept of the Christian afterlife really makes any sense if there isn't a God. And, of course, I don't believe in reincarnation. In my ideal world, I think the afterlife would consist of another world similar to this one, with all the concommitant joys and trials. I don't think I would want an eternity in perfect union with God, even if such a thing were possible. Although I know that feeling is utterly senseless.

The word 'soul', as it is commonly used, is quite a useful one. People use it to mean those characteristics they consider most intrinsic to a person: virtues and vices they have in abundance, their outlook, their levels of happiness, funkiness, whatever. Fine. I can take that usage, although I believe these characteristics are expressed as part of a person's mind, and not as part of some other, elusive quantity. But I don't believe in immortal souls.

Thirdly, I think that human beings are (again for want of a better term) machines. That is, a human being is effectively a very complex, but perfectly natural (in the sense that is governed by physical laws that apply to all other things in the same way) mechanism that interacts with the environment about it. This isn't a revolutionary belief, but quite a standard one that dates back at least a couple of centuries. It's also worth noting that imagining a human as a giant clockwork watch is not particularly useful metaphorically speaking. Humans aren't just static machines that always work the same way: humans are constantly changing physical processes. Your 'self', and mine, however it is defined, is in a constant state of flux. Just as a side note, I think the clear and immediate effects that alcohol (and to a greater extent psychotropic drugs) have on one's personality are strong evidence that those things you consider to be 'you' are really just the normal operating conditions of a very complicated mechanism. Those operating conditions can be deliberately changed by external stimuli.

The most complicated part of the human machine is obviously the brain. From an aesthetic viewpoint, I think the human brain is easily amongst the most fascinating and beautiful natural phenomena one can ever have the pleasure of even attempting to comprehend. If I'm reducing the things in my immediate environment to components of a mechanistic worldview, then I suppose I have to describe the 'people' I 'know' as just incredible configurations I can interact with in a moderately consistent, predictable manner.

Anyway, you get the general idea about my beliefs, and also, about my taste. So now, on to how I feel about spirituality and religion.

I think the way people talk about their spiritual experiences is very interesting. Since I don't believe in God, I don't believe that people actually talk to Him or in any way commune with Him, either. I think, somewhat cynically, that the fact that people so often connect their spirituality with 'nature' (whatever that means) and a free, uncluttered environment, or with moments of extreme emotional tension, for good or bad, is evidence that what people call 'spirituality' is just having strong emotions and suddenly noticing that you have them.

Just like most of you, I've experienced moments of almost euphoric personal satisfaction whilst wandering through beautiful forests in contemplation of the wonder of the universe. I've had emotions of love and anger so overpowering it would be easy to explain them as interventions by some higher power. But the key word in that sentence is 'explain'. People make up stories about what causes them to feel the way they do, to give themselves a basis on which to understand the world around them. They aren't likely to make up stories along the lines of 'the combination of fresh air, exertion, sunlight and contemplation of something intellectually stimulating resulted in an increase of my serotonin levels' (note my unscientific lack of comprehension of neurochemistry by the way). This is because, at first sight, they just don't help much. So instead they come up with something roughly along the lines of 'God entered my heart, as he does at all times when I am virtuous and at peace with the world'.

When people start believing each other's artistically concocted stories about how the world works, and using them to acquire a sense of personal safety, to justify all manner of arbitrary personal feelings and base drives, and to get a better grip on the distribution of property and leisure time in their society, that's when you get religion. As you may be able to sense from this introductory sentence, I'm not overwhelmingly positive when it comes to religion. I see religion as a way of explaining away the reality one observes, of stopping oneself from conducting a proper process of inquiry into one's interactions with other people, and of deluding oneself about one's personal worth. There are big differences between different religions, of course, but one thing they have in common is a reliance on completely unprovable assertions about the nature of reality that actively encourage people not to examine the world around them. This is referred to as 'having faith'. I think faith sucks. I'm quite happy for people to axiomatise things about their existence in order to proceed in a constructive manner. But I vehemently dislike the practice of adding to these axioms an extraneous, hierarchical teleology with lots of contradictory ramifications, and then clinging to it to the point of death and murder.

Religion insults and denies the natural wonder of the world around us by explaining it as a creation of God (an explanation which throughout the ages has stood against proper investigation of that world). Religion causes the perpetuation of injustice by duping some people into an acceptance of their straitened personal circumstances, and offering others a vindication of the oppression that it gratifies them to continue. Religion makes a mockery of, and devalues almost utterly, one's personal decision to live according to certain moral precepts by linking this decision to a crude system of punishment/reward, enlightenment/ignorance, fortune/misfortune. By all means, say 'I shall not kill'. But make this decision your own. To my mind, accepting religion is somewhat akin to tying a blindfold around one's head and pleading 'Hold me!' to an unresponsive world.

In conclusion, I'd just like to say that the nature of belief is obviously quite complex and some people who read this will likely point out that in my impassioned ideological ranting I've no doubt indulged in some of the sloppy thought processes I'm so eager to criticise. If you feel this way, take a moment to mentally weed out those parts and search for the core of what I'm trying to communicate. Other readers may well be quite offended by the anti-religious tone of the last few paragraphs. I'm truly sorry for this. Also, I don't think of you any less because you don't agree with my views. I saw this post just as a way of getting across my own point of view. I tend to polemicise when I do this, which tends in turn to create a view train wrecks of logic, emotion, and hyperbole.

2003-07-31T09:16:00.000+08:00

Amusing.

2003-07-05T16:04:00.000+08:00

Review: Hulk

I took very low expectations to Hulk, which I saw with Leighton at Innaloo on Thursday night. After seeing a string of unimpressive action blockbusters (Daredevil, Matrix Reloaded and the acceptable but still ultimately poor X-Men 2), I felt that it was perfectly reasonable to fear that Ang Lee, with all respect to his undoubted directorial ability, would be unable to save a comic-book adaptation from the pitfalls that plague the genre.

I'm an Ang Lee fan. Of the three or four of his films that I'd seen prior to Hulk, the only one that had offended me was the tepid Ice Storm, with its lousy plot and uninteresting characters in search of permafrosted profundity. Whereas, on the other hand, I was a complete sucker for the cinematic beauty and genre-winking understated humour of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. As for Sense and Sensibility, well I'm enough of a man to enjoy the odd happily-ever-after middle-class Austen fantasy now and again.

But could Ang Lee really interest me in a story about a mild-mannered scientist who (in the all-too-easily-explained inexplicable manner of comics) turns into a giant green angry ape when he gets riled? The answer, surprisingly, was yes. Despite the film having been previewed to me in various media as pretentious, overblown crap, I enjoyed it rather a lot.

I was quite happy to indulge the fairytale photography of the Banner backstory, complete with garden gates opening on to bleak deserts, and duelling plush toys, a visually symbolic feast which is later recapitulated with apocalyptic variations and pictures of empty swings in the shifting sands. The film is laced with rather blatant visual references to its character's emotions and psychology (mushroom clouds, closed doors, verdant gardens etc.) but these, along with the 'innovative' scene cuts (constant comic-panel-esque shot cuts, fadeouts and dragalongs), are to be enjoyed as cheesy, reverential trappings of the genre movie, not pedantically reviled.

I haven't seen Chopper (have a rented copy sitting on my coffee table right now, actually) but I've heard Eric Bana was rather good in it. He's far from brilliant in Hulk but does manage to exude likeability in a way that a lot of American actors of the Affleck mould simply can't. He just doesn't look like an arrogant prick, so when the unbelievably sleazy Josh Lucas character wheels and deals his way in, we're quite pleased to see him get his head beaten in by an empowered nerdy guy. Nick Nolte plays Banner's maniac dad as a grizzled trash-collecting perv genius, and some grey-haired yank with a stick up his bum plays the military man who's out to crush his mad scientist dreams forever. Even if Jennifer Connelly just switches into Beautiful Mind mode and mainly just sits there saying mildly assertive things while exposing her ever-so-charmingly bucked teeth, at least she isn't the abysmal Jennifer Garner - at least Connelly can act. So the acting in this movie isn't bad at all. It's a lot better than the competition.

What about the all-important action eye-candy? A leading complaint amongst reviews of this film that I've seen is that it takes too long to get into the action. Well, frankly, I thought all of its aforementioned contemporaries got into the action too fast, too frequently, and in too cluttered a way to hold one's attention. The fight scenes in Hulk, by contrast, are relatively few in number (I think there's only about three or four) and are charmingly goofy rather than trying to win you with 'beautifully choreographed' (read: implausible and overlong) action. I got quite a kick out of seeing the big green guy (who was well-animated in CGI that simply shouldn't be copping the amount of criticism that it is) pick up a twenty foot wide metal door that must have weighed about fifteen fictitious tonnes and throw it like a frisbee through a couple of solid concrete walls. The same goes for all the leaping about and tank-tossing. Much more entertaining than being asked to believe a blind guy in a red leather suit can do flips off the front of speeding motorcycles.

So, Hulk is not a masterpiece, but is strongly plotted for a comic book adaptation (it even waves the wand quite well with its scientific rationalisation for all the crap in it), has interesting characters (I haven't given a decent mention to Nolte and Elliot in the duel of the bad old men) and fun action scenes. It is good. It does drop off a bit towards the end though, in a completely unexplained and incongruous finale that was apparently inserted after studio focus groups weren't happy with the original. But we can imagine that the original Ang Lee - James Schamus monster-movie conception would have been perfect, and put down all the problems to the Hollywood studio machine.

2003-07-04T16:37:00.000+08:00

OK, so I've finally got around to:

entro
Magic Number	12
Job	Most Hated Person - Ever
Personality	Rainy Day
Temperament	Unflappable
Sexual	If I Have To
Likely To Win	A Place On The Bench (For The Reserves)
Me - In A Word	Subtle
Colour
Brought to you by MemeJack

and:

ataxi
Magic Number	13
Job	Politician
Personality	Drifter
Temperament	An Oft-Exploding Volcano
Sexual	If I Have To
Likely To Win	A Nobel Prize
Me - In A Word	Beautiful
Colour
Brought to you by MemeJack

I like both of them, though I'm finding it hard to reconcile my two temperaments ('unflappable' and 'an oft-exploding volcano'). And why is my colour red? How disappointing. Unfortunately, other people's are so massively off the mark I can't give the thing much credence because I'd quite like to think that 'subtle' and 'beautiful' summed me up in a couple of words. Also, it's disappointing to see the meaning of the word 'meme' reduced to 'an internet quiz'. Why must people always go tromping on delicate concepts with their vulgar vocabulary requirements?

2003-07-03T14:22:00.000+08:00

Hiatus Hiatus

Solid poem:

Of course I tried to tell him
but he cranked his head
without an excuse.
I told him the sky chases
the sun
And he smiled and said:
'What's the use.'
I was feeling like a demon
again
So I said: 'But the ocean chases
the fish.'
This time he laughed
and said: 'Suppose the
strawberry were
pushed into a mountain.'
After that I knew the
war was on--
So we fought:
He said: 'The apple-cart like a
broomstick-angel
snaps & splinters
old dutch shoes.'
I said: 'Lightning will strike the old oak
and free the fumes!'
He said: 'Mad street with no name.'
I said: 'Bald killer! Bald killer! Bald killer!'
He said, getting real mad,
'Firestoves! Gas! Couch!'
I said, only smiling,
'I know God would turn back his head
if I sat quietly and thought.'
We ended by melting away,
hating the air!
Gregory Corso, 'Poets Hitchhiking Along the Highway'

Just thought I'd share that with you as I finally found an electronic copy of it.

I have just finished reading: an omnibus of William Hope Hodgson's work, including The House on the Borderland, The Boats of the Glen Carrig, The Night Land, and The Ghost Pirates. Spine-wibbling stuff. Not bad actually, though not quite up the the billing it's given in its blurb.

I have just started reading: Narcissus and Goldmund, by Hermann Hesse. Have no idea, really, what it's about yet.

My exam went reasonably well, and my project mark turned out to be twenty-five percent higher than I thought it would be, which was a nice surprise. Unfortunately I had very low expectations to begin with, so that doesn't mean I got one hundred and five percent or anything.

I have entirely, utterly, and completely finished working for the Child Support Agency. This statement accompanied by muted, soul-crushed celebrations.

On Monday night, I attended the 2003 Nocturnal Ball at Metropolis in town, with Max and a couple of friends. It was a gas. Had to wear a tuxedo, which I don't really enjoy, but at least others appreciated it. On the other hand, I spent a couple of days making a terrific mask for the event: a golden kingfisher mask which made me look like an alien. I shall treasure it always.

I am slightly melancholic about the fact I'm not going to Terracon. I hadn't really thought about it until recently, but it would've been fun to attend. Ah well, I suppose I may be alive and in the vicinity next year, so I can always head down then.

Today is not a good day. He clutches feebly at the hem of his jacket, fingers scrabbling in the damp dirt of the laneway, his right hand passing blindly over the satchel of papers at his side. The cold metal slides between his innards, separating membranes of flesh like buckwheat tofu, causing shivers. This initial chill is followed by a painful, stinging heat that spreads rapidly. The face that stares down on him with a mad look about it is attached to a head that is attached to an arm that is attached to the sword that is running him through. A pity. He would have liked to finish reading that novel at some point.

2003-06-13T18:36:00.000+08:00

Sifting

This is that being
unusually anal read: pukeworthy session to
her
upper skull was aware
that
we were things I get from
a tacky ensemble.
She said be
to get
from a
demonstration on Friday, night On my
repeated escapes in the steps. onto
me. I
will disappoint myself
in a job I subtract another
My linguistic function can pick the shapes
you have at
some point.
The output of an Internet poem generator when applied to my weblog

The above was an average selection. I clicked past the best of them, unfortunately. Such beauty.

My assignments were finished, Max's party was a success, my study for my single exam proceeds well, I finish my work stint at the Child Support Agency in a few days, and they all lived happily ever after. Or something similar.

Hope you are all doing well.

The tarot card I most resemble is apparently the Star. Also, I think China Mieville is cool.

2003-06-02T12:38:00.000+08:00

She Scoots, Therefore She Is

When I fix my bicycle,
Skies will turn to blue,
Riding down your street again,
I will visit you!
Bedridden, 'Bicycle'

In other news, Max won a scooter at the Left Bank last night. This is the most conclusive proof I have ever had that (a) there is a God and (b) he knows how to pick the talent. I only hope she doesn't leave me for it: after all, it will be cooler, shinier, and more reliable than me, and probably won't keep a web-log in which it says stupid things all the time.

2003-06-02T12:17:00.000+08:00

Entombed

I return from the Real World to curl up and die (from exposure) in my self-pitying sarcophagous (coinage, not spelling error) preservative-filled jar of narcissism. I haven't written here for a while so this may be quite a lengthy post.

Aarrgh!
Riding through the night,
Riding through the night ...
Neu!, 'Lebwohl'

The practical circumstances of life aren't so terrible at the moment. I am simply suffering from a lot of uncertainty about my short-, medium- and long-term future. Not an uncommon affliction amongst university students at this time of year (Oh God, I look forward to the day when I can use phrases like that playfully instead of with tragic, hand-draped-languidly-over-forehead melancholy) . Of somewhat greater concern is the way this uncertainty is refracting through my personal relationships.

I still have a lot of psychological problems in the lead-up to the submission of major assignments, but they are resolving themselves into a coping mechanism. I am finally becoming acquainted with the nature of my stress, my avoidance behaviours, and my eventual feverish work stretches and beginning to incorporate them into my planning. The end result is that yes, I did manage to get my twenty minute project practice seminar finished on time, and I delivered it quite well - at least as well as the other students doing so. That was a source of great satisfaction to me.

I saw the two action blockbuster sequels of our times, X2 and The Matrix Reloaded, and disliked them both. I think this signals that somewhere along the line I became an adult. No more needs to be said on that score, though, as I've done enough pseudo-critical ranting in the presence of everyone who's likely to care what I think already.

I have been feeling rather unenthused about other people lately. I mentioned this to Max. 'Isn't that a permanent part of your character?' was her reply. I didn't find that even slightly hurtful, but it is a little inaccurate. Only sometimes, I consider the people I know, the people I consider my friends, the people I think of as idiots and just generally people in the world, and feel that we're all so insignificant. We muddle along with our enmities and our amities intertwining, so bound up in events that we don't even remember from week to week.

When I shuffle off this mortal coil (my linguistic function can never help but misconstrue that metaphor) in another fifty years or so, will there actually be anything of me left behind to care about? It feels (and I realise that twenty-four, whilst old by student standards, is still young by the standards of the world at large) as if most of my dreams are already likely to attenuate unfulfilled, warbling quietly and fitfully into a desperate craving for the vicarious satisfaction that may be available from the children I suppose I will have at some point. I wonder what the poor little tykes will think of their accursed progenitor. Actually, that's quite a happy thought.

As I write, I have two things on my mind. The first and less significant of the two is my real-time distributed computing systems project, which I am going to have to do a lot of work on in the coming week in order to have it prepared for a demonstration on Friday morning. I have been working on it reasonably solidly for the last couple of days already, although during the day yesterday I slacked off unconscionably. I played ZAngband for a couple of hours, attended the UniSFA book-covering, and watched the NSL Grand Final, none of which were things I wanted to do, and only one of which was remotely constructive. But following that I did return to coding Java for my project until 1:00 am. I notice that whenever I actually sit down and write programs, work proceeds pretty quickly, but I don't enjoy it all that much. I'm feeling more relief than pleasure as the various parts of development merge and actually function correctly. Still, if someone is willing to offer me employment writing programs at the end of this year, I can see myself enjoying it more than any job I've previously held. That definitely includes the work I'm doing for the Child Support Agency at the moment.

The second thing I have on my mind is my relationship with Max. I won't pretend that she doesn't read this page, so this bit is already verging on an open letter. I wish I could explain to her how I felt about her without descending into my conventional egocentric ramblings. I have been rather a distant presence in her life lately, due to the time requirements of my work and the mood it's been putting me in a lot of the rest of the time. Every time I subtract another social engagement from my calendar to either work or stress about not working, I feel the rising bile. I have been feeling burdened, guilty and boring, as if I have been watching the aperture of light before my eyes heal over into an ugly, permanent scar. I want to slice through that and bathe myself in warm sunshine. Instead all I do is repeat my mantra, 'six months', whilst secretly fearing that I will disappoint myself again, just as I did before. This time I think things will be different though, but that doesn't stop the black tides rising in the mean time. All this is absurdly melodramatic, but then it's easy to become so when you spend your time huddled over a computer screen into the early hours of the morning, performing tasks that may set the tone for most of the rest of your (potentially so maudlin) lifespan and wondering why.

I love you Loren. I haven't felt this strongly about any other person. Please put up with my introspective gloom a little longer, just because you know that I'm capable of better in other circumstances. I think about you all the time.

2003-04-27T12:10:00.000+08:00

Pain

A simple title, but there it is. This morning I did something to the upper left-hand side of my neck, and I haven't been able to uncrick it since. If I don't maintain a head angle of around thirty-five degrees, I become the victim of vicious stabbing pains. But wait! I don't get back or neck pain. This is completely wrong. And it hurts almost beyond belief.

2003-04-24T00:22:00.000+08:00

Squorons and Scutterbotches

Have just returned from a remarkably squoron-free foray into the southwest. It was riddled with scutterbotches, however. My failure to distill the sound was rendered irrelevant by the absence of sound-production devices. Nothing much else to report. Tomorrow, at eleven o'clock in the morning, I will have given this damn talk. Then, I shall sleep.

You say 'ere long done do does did',
Words which could only be your own,
And then produce the text from whence was ripped ...
(Some dizzy whore, 1804)
The Smiths, 'Cemetry Gates'

I must be going crazy. I have spent the past few minutes meditating on the viability of the use of the phrase 'zero-dollar whore' as an insult.

In my opinion, a belief that the world is not capable of arbitrarily ruining your life is ill-founded. This comment made because someone expressed just such a belief to me recently.

On another tack: although I have a reputation for actively cultivating dislikes, including of people, there are very few people who I detest to the point that I would wage a campaign of aggression against them that crosses social boundaries indiscriminately. On the other hand, people I know who are generally thought to be friendly, pleasant and charming are perfectly capable of pursuing reckless vendettas for very little reason at all. When I decide to make a personal attack on someone, I prefer to spend some time trying to ensure that it will actually work. Rather cold and calculating, I know.

I wonder what these public diaries are really for. Lately I've been noticing a little more soul-baring than usual going on within the pages of those that I read. Why would I want to know the details of the past relationships someone has had, or the vicissitudes of their academic lives, or how often they've done this or that in the past week? It's not like I was particularly interested in this information before the people in question actually started keeping these journals. My only tentative conclusion is that it's the medium itself that creates interest in the content, and that this is why updating becomes such a craving. If you read a web-log often enough, then much like any crappy television show its internal logic starts to become addictive, regardless of its quality. Metaraves of this kind provide no excuse for my desire to feed the manufactured interest of my small readership.

For example, suppose I sit, and turn to writing some of the turgid fiction that is admired by a few of my logging colleagues:

He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience, his features darkly lit by the quiet glow of the screen. To his right sit the worm castings of an ongoing addiction, three empty Coke cans, one partially crushed by absent-minded fidgeting.

Once he had hopes, dreams, vanities and plans - now these have been beaten down by the weight of the years, leaving only a crippled volition towards complaint behind. His belly is distended by a surfeit of potato chips. By the bed sits a wastepaper basket overflowing with used tissues.

He ponders taking up smoking, idly positing the change as part of a wider scheme to upgrade his addictions from the maudlin, quotidian variety to something ever so slightly - so very slightly - more unusual.

The words in the slowly forming document sit end to end like so many dead slugs, extolling the implausible characteristics of the pathetic gothic antihero that sits in as protagonist in so many of his wish-fulfilment fantasies. A man who is just like him - alone, self-hating in the dark, an introverted narcissistic shadow - but at the same time unlike him in every conceivable way.

He scratches himself where his stomach overhangs his stained gym shorts, poking out from beneath the sweat-stained conference freebie T-shirt he wears. Once these shorts accompanied him on fitful visits to the fitness centre, but now they are simply the centrepiece of the wardrobe that corresponds to his inescapably somnolent lifestyle.

A first sentence springs to mind: 'He sits, writing turgid fiction for a tiny audience ...' No, it's gone. He'd like to call it writer's block, but unfortunately that will always be nothing more than an exaggeration.

I'd like to note for the record that my current surroundings, clothing and habits do not resemble those of the subject of the preceding narrative very closely at all. Happily.

2003-04-13T14:43:00.000+08:00

Sisyphean Undertakings

Was getting worried about the whole five-minute project speech thing I have to do in a couple of weeks. That is, before I read the thesis written by the person who researched in my area last year. It's not very good. I am currently wallowing in the comfort of knowing that at least if I suck, I won't be alone.

It seems oddly appropriate that Kalman filters are cooler than Wiener filters. After all, they are Wiener filters. It's also fitting that H-infinity filters are cooler still, involving Hardy spaces as they do.

Q: What do you call the energy drain you get from greater Undead?
A: Spectral subtraction.

Sorry for visiting that on you all. I don't normally tell jokes that don't just require you to be a geek to understand them, but require you to be a different kind of geek to understand the question than you have to be to comprehend the punchline. So sue me.

I left the north again, I travelled south again,
I got confused - I killed a nun, and I can't help the way I feel.
I can't help the way I feel!
(I lost my bag in Newport Pagnell!)
Why is the last mile the hardest mile?
My throat was dry, with the sun in my eyes.
And I realised, I realised ...
I could never, never ever, ever ever go back home again.
The Smiths, 'Is It Really So Strange?'

I bought slippers yesterday, which I'm sure leads to an increase in domesticity. Max was fearfully ill, poor duck, so I stayed in and brought her cups of tea and such last night. On Friday, I went uncostumed (but not unaccoutred) to the J-pop party. Adam and I played drinking go, which proved amusing (for me) and sickening (for him). I'm certainly glad I wasn't the one doing fourteen shots of sake in the space of an hour or so. Sorry, Adam, but these are the vicissitudes of the drinking game experience. Typical recidivist pitfalling from my point of view. I accept your spew with equanimity, even if others find it egregious.

Other people's costumes were funny. Dave Basden's was the best for my money, combining as it did significant effort with cross-dressing. The strobe was lame and then surprisingly fun. The good thing about strobes is that they make it look like you're dancing in time to something even when you're really, really not. Jen and Chas were amusing, as was Stephie's vibrating chicken. Overall, not a bad party, the only downside being I didn't get particularly drunk. This was because all I had to drink was sake (hell, I suppose I'd drink it too if it was society's only socially acceptable alcoholic beverage), and because Adam just didn't do well enough in our go game. Grahame is a comic fool when drunk - and that's all that needs to be reported about his performance for the evening.

I contacted the CSA about a reference for a job I was applying for during the week, and my old team leader asked me if I wanted to work three days a week for them until the end of June. Probably not a bad idea. She also wrote me a very flattering document-drone endorsement for the job I was enquiring about.

Tonight, I will go to the end of the In The Pines RTR fundraiser to see Downsyde and the Panics. Before that, I will do more reading and writing for my thesis.

2003-04-09T19:35:00.000+08:00

Entanglement

The word has a meaning in quantum theory, referring (I believe) to the fact that physically distant particles may have correlated probability functions due to previous proximity. Its use is more mundane here, though. This place isn't highbrow enough for theoretical physics, even if I was capable of disputations on the subject.

Feeling the unfriendly squeeze of my commitments lately, which of course means I'm procrastinating more than ever. Problems will be solved. Problems that can't be solved will be ignored. An axiomatisation of my existence. I'm getting that feeling - the one where increasing pressure points to a likely leap out of some potential well or other.

This web-log entry doesn't look like it will have much emphasis on reportage of historical events. Lucky, wouldn't want you all to be bored stiff. Note: I am not angsting here.

You soothe yourself with the shapes you know,
You tune out, out, out the hypnotic drone,
The perfect hexagon of the honeycomb,
You soothe yourself with the sounds you know.

Should I come outside and run your cars?
Should I run your rockets to the stars?
Could you invent a world for me?
I need to hear a symphony ...
Sleater-Kinney, 'One Beat'

Unpleasant Dream

I had a hideous, unnervingly vivid nightmare recently, which I shall now describe for your reading pleasure.

I found myself at a massive wedding reception. The venue for the reception was a country villa, all decked out in stark white with large, glass windows and many spiral staircases. Outside was a banquet area with a clinically pure swimming pool and a neat Mediterranean garden. The guests were very wealthy, and came uniformly from a number of very wealthy families. The heads of these families were the guests of honour at the reception. Everyone was wearing an awful lot of white, and seemed to glow in the rays of the sun, which was beating down quite hard as I sat at table.

My own position in the hierarchy of those present wasn't completely clear; but I was a minor player at best, seated with the obnoxious elder children of the various families. I have a particular objection to rich, cozened idiots. The wedding feast proceeded more or less as (I imagine) these things do for the de facto aristocracy. Although I note that there was a distinct feeling that nagged at me throughout this part of the dream, which was that the people present were all somehow part of some criminal or evil organisation, for example the Mafia. In fact, the whole sequence was not unlike the wedding scene in The Godfather except with all the guests wearing rather garish white suits.

At some point it became apparent to me that something was very wrong with the family head sitting nearest me. This woman was now wearing a blue, sequined dress with a short jacket over the top of it - a tacky ensemble. She had cheeks that bulged strangely, and a wicked smile. As I gazed at her visage in morbid fascination, I suddenly witnessed part of her face peel away to reveal livid, scaly skin underneath, and the fact that about a quarter of her upper skull was missing, leaving exposed the blood, brains and eyeball underneath. She smiled at me and this horrible sight disappeared, replaced again by her puffed cheeks. I now perceived her head as a shiny blue sphere which was straining fit to explode. Her ordinary exterior appeared stretched over this alien substructure, which had a fixed, rictus grin. I watched as she stretched over to her left and possessively placed a hand on the knee of the young girl sitting next to her.

I had become very conscious of the following facts: the woman was some kind of demon. She was aware that I knew this, and didn't care. No human present other than myself had any idea she was a monster. As I looked around, I saw that most of the other prominent guests, both male and female, were also demons, with their own facial substructures fitting poorly behind human masks - one had a red skull with distended temples and jawbone, another was bright sickly green and rotating slowly in its expressionless housing. All had patches of skin missing in different places, revealing decaying and bleeding bodies beneath.

Shortly the banquet ended and the guests began to disperse into smaller groups in and around the villa. I went into a sunken room with a young man and woman I had been dining with. I should note now that all the younger guests at the reception were extremely physically attractive, in a manifestly conventional way. After a small amount of incidental conversation about university courses and the progress of a tennis tournament, the young man began a matter-of-fact rape of the young woman, forcing her onto a purple double bed which was in the corner of the room. I leapt on him to try and prevent this, and he backhanded me in the face, knocking me down. It was obvious to me, in the dream, that I had no hope of outmatching him physically, so I fled. As I ran out of the door of the room I saw the demon-woman from the banquet surveying the scene behind me approvingly, half her skull missing as before.

It was now dark outside, and the party had become a depraved hell. People were being killed and beaten all over the place under the amused tutelage of the demons. Where previously the guests had been seemingly unaware of the demons amongst them, they were now allied with them.

At this point the dream took on a format which is fairly typical for me. I often have dreams about being chased interminably by people who want to kill or injure me. The difference here was that I normally find these dreams quite exhilarating and pleasant, and triumph continually over my pursuers, but in this nightmare I was genuinely afraid of being caught and killed brutally or sexually assaulted. The demons and the rest of the guests hunted me through the labyrinthine interior layout of the villa, which had now merged into a kind of office building (it looked somewhat like the Alexander Library, or possibly the office building which the protagonist in L'Emploi du Temps gets ejected from) with stainless steel elevators and stairwells. There was an awful lot of blood, my perception of which was possibly influenced by having seen Dog Soldiers a few days earlier. A lot of blood and intestines flowing off flat surfaces onto the floor.

The chase went on forever, and every time I burst into a new room or fled down a corridor I was accosted by one of the smiling demons (in distinguishing between them, I had become reliant upon the colour and shape of their skulls/masks - it was mostly the red-skulled one chasing me by now). In the final part of the dream I was followed relentlessly down flight after flight of stairs while being showered with blood and guts from above, which slipped continually down the steps onto me. Although my pursuer (who was always behind me at this point) was able to use the stairs, I had been reduced to sliding painfully in between the slats of the steps to get down from one flight to another. My repeated escapes in this fashion were made possible by the lubricating effect of the omnipresent waves of blood, although my back was still being viciously lacerated by the metal edges of the steps. I was uncomfortably aware that the stairwell had a finite depth and that once we reached the bottom I would be caught. The only visuals I had of whatever was hunting me was a rotting, clawed arm that swept down over my head constantly, missing me by smaller and smaller margins.

At this point, I woke up.

It was one of the few dreams I've had in my life that has really terrified me. I couldn't get back to sleep for hours afterward. I also found it extremely strange, particularly the vast amount of blood that was involved in the later stages, and the disturbing sexual element. Not only that, but it focussed to some extent on one thing which I've always found very scary - people in positions of authority or trust turning out to be irreducibly evil and malevolent.

There is no Spoon!
'Dog Soldiers'

So much funnier in that film than it was in The Matrix. You'll have to see it to understand why.

2003-03-31T12:34:00.000+08:00

Green Fields

Once, there were green fields, kissed by the sun,
Once, there were valleys where rivers used to run.
Once there were blue skies with white clouds high above,
Once they were part of an everlasting love.
We were the lovers who strolled through green fields ...
Faultline, 'Greenfields'

Not sure sometimes why I bother to update this thing. This isn't going to turn into one of those 'Waah! Noone reads my web-log' posts though.

I've been to a large number of anti-war protests lately. Just thought you all might like to know. Pointless waste of time though.

Scoop my brains, let my heart have action
In its thousand million lots.
In the dumb city dawn I am senseless and drawn to the sun
As the blackbirds, and the toppyknots.
Augie March, 'Heartbeat and Sails'

I think I chose that quote because of its horrible inappropriateness, more than anything else. Do like the song a lot, though.

Things to do: work on project. Build CD rack. Hoover floor of room, which is strewn with the vacant cocoons of plague-caterpillars that dropped from rotting cardboard boxes as I unpacked my books. Write technology trend essay. As you can tell, university and its demands are slightly to impinge a little more deeply on the erstwhile-green pastures of my consciousness.

Had another top weekend. They seem thick on the ground at the moment. The rap-themed party at Adam and Tommo's place wasn't bad (although a bit more advance warning would have been good). Friday night coffee with Max in Leederville wasn't bad either. And last night I successfully tidied up several hundred books of mine, and reorganised all my official documents, archiving them neatly in a new portafile. This gave me the righteously contented thrill that being unusually anal (read: constructive) can sometimes produce. Side note: I returned Curse of the Mistwraith to the UniSFA library today. Now I'm not on committee I don't think I can justify holding it hostage. Not that I really could before. Was glad to see a Mercedes Lackey book being used as a blind-weight in the clubroom though.

The only real downer of the weekend was the noxious All Clubs Forum. What a feckin' waste of time. Firstly there was a one-and-a-half-hour sponsorship borezone from some twink in a suit. Guy had no clue. Thought university clubs would be looking for 6-figure sponsorship deals with mining companies. Couple this with crap delivery (nauseating Powerpoint display with reduced handouts of his crappy slides) and you have a real loser of a seminar. The SOC President admitted afterwards that it had been quite irrelevant and too long. She struck me as a bit of a moron. Following this we had a tour of the Club Resource Room (Maelkann standing there and saying 'This is a computer. So is this.') and a brainstorming (read: pukeworthy) session to try and think of ideas for crap replacements for the unavoidably crap Guild Mini O-Day (that was crap, so it got scrapped). One wonders why they insist on running an event that produces no tangible benefits for almost any club. Desire to seem more important or useful perhaps? Maybe I'm being a little over-negative here. But really, this forum was an incredible waste of time, and in particular had absolutely no bearing on any of the activities of the club I was there to represent, Unigames. I was also so tired during it I was falling asleep in my chair.

Max has bought stunt-pegs for her bike, Bruno. When attached to her front wheel they allow me to dink her with ease. I'll have to acquire similar accoutrements for Sylvie, I think (see if you can pick the literary reference by the way). Love you babe.

2003-03-27T19:42:00.000+08:00

Hangin' around, bangin' around, hangin' around,
Lost and found - hangin' around, bangin' around ...
Me Me Me, 'Hangin' Around'

Sitting in UCC waiting for Max to finish up with her Chemistry Club barbecue, which appears to have evolved into some kind of swankier Chemistry Department piss-up. She said she'd be 'as long as it takes me to finish this glass of wine' about half an hour ago.

2003-03-17T10:58:00.000+08:00

City of Ten Thousand Years

Walking around the city as the light fades
(Is it all, that you remain?)
I’m thinking about each promise that I have ever made
But I know what they will never say,
I know what they will never say,
Century after century they remain ...
Idlewild, 'Century after Century'

I have been having an idea recently. As some people are aware, I like fantasy literature of a fairly specific kind. I don't much like Feist, Eddings, Jordan, Wurts, Hobb etc. I do like Leiber, Vance, Wolfe, Moorcock, Le Guin and Harrison. Anyway, I have this relatively vague and undeveloped thought of running a game that incorporates some of the ideas brought out in my favourite authors, a game with rules based on the existing Ars Magica mechanics.

Some flavour text:

It is Amec Sasleb, the City of Ten Thousand Years, the centre of civilization, learning and life. It is an edifice of the new, built on the old, built on the ancient. From the hill of the Old City the Inner Walls look down upon the Span of Kings, stretching out across the sparkling canals to the New City.

It is a city of people. They are:

the Cypherists, keepers of the lore of the millenial machines that manufacture ceaselessly for the people. Only they know the codes that cause the great machines to function correctly.

the thaumaturges, studying the white arts by day, and the black arts by night. They travel the Spirit World in dreams and reality, and summon chugs and sandestins, the essence creatures of the two planes, to their service in magical rites.

the Visitors, recent arrivals from over the ocean. Silent, dispassionate traders, they emerge at dusk from their Raft Embassy to strike bargains with the mercantile leaders of Sasleb.

the Patriarchs and their army of clergymen, on the one hand praying to a host of gods that no longer respond, on the other clinging to temporal power and always manoeuvring for more.

the nobles of the old houses, full of pride and desperation, who send their sons to the academies to learn the secrets, in the hope of protecting their power.

the Guilders, craftsmen who intend to use their new money to challenge the old order.

the kobolds, servants of humans in every walk of life, midget dog-headed cowards who are no less able than humans but never seem likely to challenge their subjugation by the rest.

Gangs, supporters of different factions, roam the streets. Drunken Guildsmen assault lone nobles in the public squares. People appear and disappear mysteriously. Disputes are solved by duel more often than by law, but the law when applied is either swift and brutal, or slow, and brutal. Assassins, thieves, poisoners and food tasters are rarely out of a job.

Oh well, getting a bit bored with this expository rant. However, I am actually planning on running a game, set in an approximately 18th-century technological era, with all or some of the elements described above. If and when a little more is developed, I'll put out a call for three or four players. Drop me a line if you're interested.

2003-03-16T10:58:00.000+08:00

Unbending

Will you come knocking on my door?
Pull me, pick me up from the floor?
I might need something to get me through it,
Feel it, one time ...
IT ROLLS!
Sleater-Kinney, 'Step Aside'

Am sitting in Rob's study as I update this, waiting for someone else to wake up and notice that I exist, and then possibly offer to give me a lift back to civilisation. Or should that be back to barbarism? Got very drunk again last night, although not as drunk as the previous night at Vicki and Ann's birthday (twin hard-drinking friends of Max's). That was a top party, which involved a lot of Bailey's, Tequila, and liberated cans of beer, and jamming absurd numbers of people into a spa. Last night was more in the relaxing, barbecue with spontaneous pool-dip, sit-around-listening-to-Tarantino-soundtracks vein. Which I really needed to uncrick my battered body after six hours spent crammed into the boot of Max's parents' Pulsar.

I'm not going to be allowed to take the additional unit that I wanted to take in order to be full time this semester, due to a university regulation that disallows studying units that aren't necessary for the completion of one's degree. Hence I will not be full time. Hence I will not be covered by my folks' Medibank Private health insurance policy. Somewhat unnerving, particularly as my teeth have recently started indicating their willingness to consider a trial separation from my gums. Must see a dentist.

I had my first actual project-related meeting with my supervisor yesterday, which was brief but relatively constructive. Given the newfound ultra-streamlined character of my university commitments, I'm hoping to spend a lot of time on my project early in the year. It'd be really nice to get something resembling a two-thirds completed document online by the end of the mid-year break, so I'll start scheduling to try and reach that goal. Bizarre to think of how little I have left to do in order to finish university for once and for all. Almost for as long as I can remember, university has stretched out before me like a cracked, fading but endless yellow brick road. Looks like I'll actually get to meet the wizard soon. Hmm, web-log entry appears to be devolving into lame literary-allusional extended metaphor, in vein of self-inflated moron. Wh-ever.

Anita and Anil got back from Europe a few days ago, laden with fascinating anecdotes about their honeymoon, many of which seem to revolve around the cheapness of contraband over there ($1 cigarettes, $1 pints of Stella Artois, everything costs $1 in this magical paradise). Great to see them again, and it sounds like they had a top time, by and large.

My social life seems full at the moment. Somewhat overfull in many ways. Although I've deeply enjoyed the past couple of nights, I also need to find a bit more downtime. My family have started cracking semi-snide jokes about the fact that I'm never around and disappear for one and two days at a time completely unannounced. Perhaps I could solve that communication problem by getting a mobile. Also, getting drunk is expensive. I've spent about $50 on booze in the last two nights, which is getting a bit out of hand. Next weekend is shaping as another possible big one, with the Massive Attack gig on Saturday night. That should be sweet. Am mildly miffed by my decision to save instead of splashing out on a ticket to Eclectic, which actually had four or five acts I would've really liked to see, including Badly Drawn Boy, Teenage Fanclub, the Avalanches, the Panics, and Machine Translations. That's almost a little music festival to call my own. Perhaps I should've gone.

People have had a number of conversations with me about future employment lately. It's a topic of some concern to many people studying IT, given the exceedingly well-reported and sharp downturn in the corresponding job sector over the last couple of years. Despite this, I don't fear the possibility of a long stretch of unemployment whilst looking for work. I just don't think it will happen to me. Still, I might have to go to Melbourne or somewhere else over east to get a decent job. I've just had the bright idea of trying for summer employment with some Melbourne IT companies at the end of the year. Since most of my extended family lives in Melbourne, acquiring temporary accommodation wouldn't be a problem at all, and if I could get something it might be cooler, and better paid, than what I could expect in Perth. Also, it'd be a nice break from the isolated stagnation that is here. Living in Perth sometimes feels like being trapped dancing with the fairies around the standing stones, never to return from Tyr Na nOg to the world where actions matter. And according to popular myth, Melbourne is the next best place in Australia to live after Perth. Nicer than Sydney, anyway.

I'm going to go and see if I can find Rob and get him to drive me to Claremont now.

2003-03-04T11:10:00.000+08:00

Superficial Changes

You never thought you'd get addicted,
Just be cooler in an obvious way.
I could say, shouldn't you have got a couple piercings
And decided maybe that you were gay.
In a way, I can't help but feel responsible,
I always knew that you were insane,
With your pain ...
Dandy Warhols, 'Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth'

Paranoia brutally put down, I return to eject more flotsam and jetsam into the ether ... this is quite funny, in my opinion. Even if it perhaps takes an approach a little too humouristic for the subject matter. Wh-ever.

I had a senselessly beautiful weekend.

Contemplating taking another unit so that I'll be full time. This would allow me to claim the removal of my wisdom teeth on my parents' private health insurance, should I happen to finally get around to organising that. Have also obtained cool publishing software from Comanski so that I can make Piffle extra-good. I didn't get it ready for O-Day, which made me feel a bit useless yet again. Oh well.

Yesterday, Max and I attempted unsuccessfully to put a blue racing stripe in my hair. What we actually ended up with was more of a drowned-corpse green scar of hair on the side of my head. Given that the whole ordeal took about four hours (when you include messing around buying stuff), you'll understand that I was a tad disappointed. I suppose I can always dye black again if worst comes to worst.

2003-02-27T21:21:00.000+08:00

Paranoid

Fly me to the moon,
And let me play among the stars,
Let me see what spring is like,
On Jupiter and Mars,
In other words ...
Bart Howard, 'Fly Me To The Moon'

I think I'm going insane, and I would like the world to know. I keep on saying things and feeling like I mean them, whilst painfully aware that I sound ridiculous. I hate the ineffable inadequacies of language, and the self-perpetuating diseased zones of my brain. I just hope everyone that matters will ignore me for a while until I sort myself out again. Otherwise, it's been a wonderful day.

2003-02-22T16:47:00.000+08:00

Future Blues

Take the skytrain 'cross this city,
Concrete high rise I feel no pity,
Jesus died and God's gone missing,
Take your skin off it might fit me now,
God is dead and you're so pretty baby ...
Kent, 'Just Like Money'

Had a short-term bout of the future blues lately, which was due partly to apprehensive feelings about the coming academic year and also to an incessant stream of articles in various sections of The Australian about the slump in the IT job market, which most of the pundits are currently predicting will be permanent. A sharp change from the magical fairyland of money and fast cars that was being sold to undergraduates five or so years ago. But definitely anticipated. Anyway, I'm over it, and I'm back to looking forward to a return to study, which I hope will be quite profitable this year.

Baffled from time to time by how much books, and specifically technical books, cost these days. $100 for a mass-produced technical manual of around 500 pages? Surely you jest.

Have nearly configured my 'puter, which is running installs of Windows 98 and Debian, to dialup to Tartarus. However, getting my software modem, which is undoubtedly a cheap piece of crap, to function properly is proving a bit difficult. It connects to Tartarus fine, but then seemingly loses track of the DNS, meaning that it can't find either the UWA proxy server or any remote sites for SSH. Stupid thing. I'll probably ask someone for help with it soon, but it'll be a little embarrassing when it's such an apparently simple issue. I just hope the answer isn't 'You're using what kind of modem? You idiot!' which would be typical of the kind of technical person who knows how to do everything one way, and one way only, and acts as if any other way is the domain of imbecility. Of course, when you're talking about winmodems, it probably is.

One of my biggest pet hates is the nauseous feeling of insignificance that you get when it appears that the person you're talking to thinks that you're a bit thick, or at least not on their mental level. This is completely hypocritical, because of all the people I know, I'm probably one of the most likely to induce this feeling in others, albeit without usually meaning to. Note: contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually think I'm smarter than most people. But having heard my voice on tape I know that most of the time I sound like a self-important prat wanker. I hate this some of the time. I do think I'm better than most people at some common mental tasks (like thinking up words to express an idea, or adding numbers), but in a lot of other areas (like logically organising one's movements to get things done efficiently) I feel very slow.

Now, I've met a few people who were demonstrably light years ahead of me in intelligence. Mathematics geniuses who had mastered areas of knowledge most people couldn't properly comprehend in a lifetime of study before they were twenty - those kinds of people. But I'd never want to be in a situation where when I was having a conversation with a person like that, they acted as if I just couldn't cut it in their league. It's just not how I was brought up. As far as I'm concerned, no one should walk into a conversation with me with the intent of patronising my intellect - and that applies to chit-chat on just about any topic. It's a characteristic of people with a deep specialised knowledge to act as if their interlocutors are morons when discussing their field. This is a faux pas in my opinion. A good example is the IT systems administrator who acts as if his users are idiots because they can't configure Outlook, even when those users are university academics, lawyers, doctors, whatever - people with proven high-level ability in their own fields (although IT guys with such overdeveloped self regard are not particularly, but only somewhat commonplace). It's a misplaced, parochial pride that really irks me.

To be honest, I don't think people act this way to me very often. But I start seething a bit when I detect overtones like that, and it's not long before (in my own paranoiac way) I'm projecting all kinds of disrespect onto every word that's said to me. I sometimes despise my psychology, and then I wish I could have a psychectomy (as it were), and have the unpleasant aspects of my personality removed and replaced with functional elements. That is all for now.

2003-02-10T14:45:00.000+08:00

Review

Saw Bowling for Columbine, a documentary by Mike Moore, on Saturday night. It was very much worth seeing, but I left with mixed feelings about its content. Most of you will be aware (and I'm sure a lot of you will have seen it) that it discusses the causes and consequences of American gun culture at some length. The title refers to the fact that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went bowling hours before the massacre they committed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Moore puts forward a theory that bowling causes violence as a playful satire of the hypotheses commonly plugged by the media regarding the antecedents of the shooting sprees that are becoming more common in the US - hypotheses about TV, film, computer games, gun control, whatever.

The film is both informative and moving (particularly the sequences in which the viewer witnesses the consequences of military actions of the US overseas - topical with the approaching conflict between US and Iraq), and at times, shocking, for example when we are privy to the lunacies of a potential accomplice to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, or the National Rifle Association as represented by its figurehead Charlton Heston. But Mike Moore is such an intense polemicist that by the end of the documentary (which clocks in at over two hours) you're questioning whether or not some of the 'facts' (just how distorted are they?) are even relevant to his case.

I found interviews and other footage shot in Windsor and Detroit, which face each other across a river on the northern border of the US, particularly interesting due to having just seen the Eminem vehicle 8 Mile (quite a fun film) which is set in poverty-stricken areas of Detroit. The documentary footage demonstrated the accuracy of 8 Mile's depiction of Detroit. The contrast of cultures between the US and Canada is very marked in the film, but I thought Moore's presentation accentuated the vicissitudes of one country in comparison to the virtues of the other too heavy-handedly, ignoring any good points in American culture and any bad points in that of Canada.

Definitely a good film despite these flaws though. One finds it hard to disagree with Moore's basic position that the US is unreasonably violent compared to other First World countries (works out at about 20 times as many gun-related homicides per capita per annum as Australia, which is about 3 times again as bad as the UK, for example). I'm convinced that this is due to the easy access Americans have to powerful firearms, and also the legitimacy granted by their media to the use of firearms in self-defence and in defence of one's home. Bowling for Columbine shows you there are a hell of a lot of nutty Americans with guns out there. Scary stuff.

2003-02-10T14:22:00.000+08:00

Summer Wasting

... Summer in winter, winter in springtime,
You hear the birds sing, everything will be fine ...
I've spent this summer wasting, the sky was blue beyond compare,
Say cheerio to books now, the only things I'll read are faces,
I've spent this summer wasting, under a canopy of (stars):
Seven weeks of river walkways,
Seven years of staying up all night ...
Belle and Sebastian, 'Summer Wasting'

My Child Support Agency contract came to a conclusion in a shower of book vouchers, well-wishes, candy packets and corporate lunches last week. Bank account fat and healthy, I skipped onto the pavement, never looking back to an already dimming memory of bureaucratic hell tinged with a slight sadness for the passage of time. Things seem less gruelling through the haze of recollection, but in reality the last couple of weeks were a dull, recurring cauchemar more like Kafka than Proust. However, I am finished.

Having suddenly gained fifty extra hours of free time per week, I'm finding myself at something of a loose end. Bought my little brother a trip computer for his new bicycle when he had his birthday last weekend. Have played a bit of Starfox Adventures, a gratingly cute puzzle game for the GameCube. Have read a couple of books, seen a couple of films, been to a couple of parties, had a couple of trips to the beach. A sort of shuffling routine of different activities. Helped Max move house for the second time in four weeks on Saturday, a process so painless it almost defies belief. The whole business was pretty much complete in about three hours, only two of which involved actual work. Sweet compared to the previous effort. Also, her new house (in Cook St, Nedlands) looks like it will be non-disastrous, which makes me feel good for reasons both generous and selfish.

Just before the move, I crushed two premixed bourbon empties that had been left by the inimical, shifty Matt at Townshend Rd. Couldn't help hoping the laws of magical contagion would indicate he was simultaneously being hit by a bus, the little prick.

I will do 'something constructive' soon. Am planning on heading into Claremont this afternoon to buy blank T-shirts and sheet music. Must also organise a new power supply for my PC pronto, so I can enjoy decent internet access at home. At which point this page will no doubt start being updated much more frequently.

Good days. I am really enjoying life at the moment. More seems to be in its place than at any time in living memory.

2003-02-10T14:08:00.000+08:00

Indeed Death!

Hornblower: ... and we should all be aware of the punishment for ignoring the command of a superior officer. Remind them, Matthews!
Matthews: (gruffly) Death, sir.
Hornblower: Indeed death!

Top show that. Not watching much TV at the moment - I'm forgetting even which days the few shows I like to watch are on. Shows like Six Feet Under and The Cops that I like enough to get annoyed when I miss them. The only thing I'm seeing semi-reliably is Dragonball Z but since it's on at 7 am I'm sometimes not home, or out of bed in time.

Have been tooling about with blogs and such for the last couple of days. Created a livejournal because I'm tired of posting anonymously to people's journals, and also because some people from time to time create friends-only posts that I'd like to read. Added a few links (bands etc.) to my web-log, which is still going to be my primary online outlet, since I have affection for it. Like the whole 'ataxia' concept as an online presence. Cool word, and I do have these irritating hand tremours.

2003-01-07T20:34:00.000+08:00

Post-Christmas and New Year's post.

Christmas - luncheon with extended family, Perth branch. Acquire CD burner, and many books and CDs amongst other gifts. Give away a few nice ones too.

Christmas night - picnic with Max, Point Walter, get given rather amazing blue-and-white mountain bike with front suspension and twenty-one (count 'em) gears. Cue much gawking and goggling, and feeling slightly sick for not being nicer to surprisingly awesome friends. Spend beautiful evening, follow with impromptu midnight rental of Amelie.

Boxing Day - eight and a half hours in car with family on road to Esperance. Read entire Agatha Christie novel aloud between us. Do cryptic crossword. Engage in typical family japes. Arrive in Esperance, discover they've laid in a three-cinema megaplex specifically for my visit, and somehow acquire two cancelled tickets to The Two Towers. Stupidly ignore consequences of seeing this film without Max, and go anyway, to ultimate eternal regret. Think film is 'not bad' (typically my opinion is somewhat deflated compared to run-of-mill viewpoint).

Post-Christmas Interregnum - spent largely on world's most perfect beaches at Cape Le Grand National Park, and playing devilishly competitive games of Balderdash against family. Also devoted considerable time to thrashing my little brother at Worms 2 on my mum's old laptop. Have amazingly relaxing time. This place is enough to make one convert to some religion or other.

New Year's Eve - boring. Spent watching The Player with father and sister. Almost forget to see in midnight.

New Year's Day - ten hours in coach on way back from Esperance. Total boredom (including viewings of Twins (the stupid Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito comedy, and some crappy outdoor Alaskan movie costarring Charlton Heston as a poacher), punctuated only by two-hour conversation with Esperance farmer's wife about the future of her three children.

More to come, perhaps.

2002-12-19T21:55:00.000+08:00

Oiling The Wheels Of The Machinery Of State With My Own Precious Blood

Otherwise known as full time work for the Child Support Agency, doing things that are highly unstimulating for a Level Two public service paycheque.

Frankly Mr Shankly, this position I've held,
It pays my way, but it corrodes my soul,
I want to leave, you will not miss me,
I want to go down in celluloid history!

...

Fame, fame, fatal fame,
It can play hideous tricks on the brain,
But still I'd rather be famous, than righteous or holy,
Any day, any day, any day ...
The Smiths, 'Frankly Mr Shankly'

They hired about twenty people and I was amongst five who were singled out for the slightly more complicated work. Since that time, I've been given special praise a couple of times so I'm probably one of the best couple they hired, and aren't I proud of it. Oh bureaucratic masters, I'll roll over if you'll scratch my tummy! Feed me more heartrending letters from abandoned mothers to process! Worst of all, I'm being infected with the vocabulary of the place. Acronyms. NAPs, S120s, S72As, 101s, 102s, CRNs, TFNs, CSIDs, RDs, are my breakfast, lunch and tea. I no longer do things, I 'action' them. Call me verbed.

The scary thing about it all is, the world actually needs people in my position. Today I arranged for probably around $5000 of child support payments to actually reach their intended destination. I hope this means that some cute kids somewhere get decent Christmas presents. Don't think I have any sense of pride or interest in the work I'm doing. I have interest, it's true I suppose; but it's more of the 'what an interesting disease' variety - a sneering, uncomprehending evil glare at the labyrinthine parameters of my struggles with paperwork and excruciating, complex databases. Every letter that arrives at the place carries with it the strongest sense of dramatic irony. Every 'client' (read penny-pinching father or struggling single mother in most cases) seems to think there's some kind of organised, functioning system behind the facade of press liaison officers and call centre quality of service audits. Must be because all the letters we send out come from the Regional Registrar herself, Glenda Scott. She doesn't actually see any of them, mind. She's signed her very signature over to the public domain, making it the property of every employee of the CSA in Western Australia.

2002-12-19T21:30:00.000+08:00

Category Errors

Colin Zeal knows the value of mass appeal,
He's a pedestrian walker, he's a civil talker,
He's an affable man, with a plausible plan,
Keeps his eye on the news, keeps his future in hand.
And then he -
Looks at his watch, he's on time, yet again!
He's so pleased with himself ...,
Blur, 'Colin Zeal'

Have done a number of web quizes lately. I taste like coffee, bitter but popular in the workplace, or almonds, sweet-scented but laced with cyanide. My hamster-equivalent is the Chinese Dwarf Hamster. I'd star in a romantic film - I respect myself far too much to be in a porno. My soul comes from the ocean. If I were in The Princess Bride, I'd be Westley. If I were a cocktail, I'd be a Tequila Sunrise. That's because my favourite things are games, music and friendship, and I'm gregarious, entertaining and popular. My self esteem is right in the middle, and I'm destined to have sex with Jude Law (there are certainly worse choices).

A while ago, people used to categorise themselves and others to work out their identities. These days, I think, categorisation is intended to mystify and subvert. Every person wants to be weighed down with as many prefixes and suffixes, as many occupations, talents and wacky traits as they can, all in order to disguise from the rest of the world their central, core, inevitable boringness. This is a harsh and unduly negative way of looking at things, I know. It's just sometimes how I feel. And this applies to me, as well. I feel burdened with too many mediocre gifts whilst lacking any that are truly significant. Today.

The title of this web-log has changed again. I got told by someone that the old name was their primary school motto, which gave it a rather banal odour. Not what I intended. I'm not sure I like the new title much, but at least I can be fairly sure that it's not anyone's primary school motto! The bird at the top is a kingfisher - my favourite kind of bird, and I think probably my favourite animal as a result. Look, bad ugly Entro likes cute birds!

2002-12-11T22:07:00.000+08:00

Towards Heaven

Up for air to swim against the tide,
Up toward the sky - it's a blue sky.
U2, 'Indian Summer Sky'

I've returned to spray more fragments of reality across the ether. What to write? So many things have happened to me since my last visit, I don't know where to start. I'll try cast a few shafts of light over my murky existence if time permits.

Have you ever known a song to embed itself in you? There's a particular song circulating in my bloodstream at the moment, making my heart pump and my mind wander. I've had it playing over the static non-stop for the last two days, commandeering my senses in every tranquil moment. Today during my lunch break I walked for twenty minutes just to listen to it three times. When I rest, it's gently moulding me. When I plunge through a wave at the beach, every bubble that passes my ears calls it out to me. It feels beautiful, like flight towards heaven. Maybe it won't last, but it will reverberate for a long while, and there will always be other songs.

2002-12-07T23:08:00.000+08:00

stranger in the field
said he'd take me up the hill to my condo,
told me he would keep it all on the lo lo
but i told him boo i don't really know tho
he got closer to me,
it started getting deep
he had me in a zone
when he started to show me things i never saw before.......

I'm updating tom's blog. this is because he's lazy and i'm drunk. so here we are. welcome to tom's life. it is small and mostly black and white. i haven't really figured out why yet.....i think it needs colour, but i haven't got my teach-yourself-html far enuf yet to figure out how to do that. perhaps i'll just substitute random numbers. well, if you're reading this in puke purple, you'll know that i succeeded. yes people, puke can be purple.

you know, something told me this would be more fun than it actually is.

2002-11-07T22:14:00.000+08:00

Roll On Summer

And it's you and me in the summertime,
We'll be hand in hand down in the park,
With a squeeze and a sigh and a twinkle in your eye,
As the sunshine vanishes with dark ...
The Sundays, 'Summertime'

Updating under duress. This may not be a proper update, be warned. Am currently suffering from pre-exam wishing-I'd-done-better-in-my-continuous-assessment annoyance. There was a day (Oh happy day! Oh glorious day!) when I was a model student. That day is now gone, and may never come again. Either way, I should be OK for all of my exams, I hope, although it'd be a comfort to actually get hold of some of the marks for my final assignments and so on.

Have also been contemplating the possibility of quite a dull summer ahead. Okay, so maybe it won't be that dull, but I still think everyone I know should turn around and invite me to a cool party, or an enjoyable outing, or a quiet night in, or something. Ignore my fearsome reputation, I'm actually 'basically a nice bloke' (note: that is a joke, some of you might get it) when the surface is scratched (so long as you don't draw blood).

Either way, here is a list of things for me to do over summer:

Make flipping great wadges of cash,

Spend at least a tenth of my time in the ocean,

Visit the snow-white beaches of Cape Le Grand National Park (it's already set up! Hurrah!),

Relearn some OpenGL stuff, learn C++ properly, and use the combination to do something that looks pretty (possibly in coalition with Adam),

Finish writing the Great Australian Novel (okay, write the Great Australian Novel - okay, write anything at all),

Piffle! (grins abashedly),

Sort out my final-year project and do lots of useful preliminary work,

Get a tan, or at least a few new freckles, and get fitter by being less slugly,

Acquire some new things that I like (some thoughts: a new bike, a scooter (so I can win that bet with Grubb), a CD burner, new clothes, a car, many, many, many new records and books, a tattoo),

Laze around efficiently (as in get some high-quality lazing done, but not too much of it),

Teach my little brother to ride a bike properly,

Dye my hair blue-black again (this I really just need to go and do),

and last, but not least, spend lots of time with Max, who is fantastic.

Hope you all like my list. Expect another update when exams are over on Monday week, at the very least. It may be fairly quiet until then, though.

2002-10-18T10:33:00.000+08:00

Defiance

Your shoulders are strong,
So come lengthen your stride -
When you're alone,
Oh there is light outside!
Gene, 'The Car That Sped'

Was thinking of posting something like 'bother life, bother the world and everything in it' (possibly using a word more extreme than 'bother' - possibly), but I'm not going to. There is still light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is bleak and long. I hate this time of year, and I hate the way people get at this time of year. But I don't hate the people, all the same. To everyone out there who's suffering in anticipation of academic pain to come, I salute you. Keep your shoulders strong. I'm feeling a bit emotional and cliched today, a bit unstable and vacillating, but still firm of purpose if not firm of act. You may hear from me at some time in the future, but for now try not to get into my path.

2002-10-13T15:53:00.000+08:00

I'll Never Wash My Ears Again

World tour, media whore, please the press in Belgium,
This was your life,
And if it fails to recoup, well maybe,
You just haven't earned it yet, baby!
The Smiths, 'Paint A Vulgar Picture'

Since my last update I have seen Morrissey live, in concert! I rock, as does the world. I'll try to avoid being too fannish, but I sense I'm going to fail miserably. The gig was excellent, the man is real (as an antipodean fan, sometimes a little doubt creeps in), and not only the old hits, but also the new experiments, are even more mindblowing live than they are on the stereo at home. To be honest, I never thought this moment would come. For a moment there (just for a moment, mind) I could have died happily.

Here is a little comment that I wrote about the gig on Morrissey-Solo, which seems remarkably measured all things taken into account:

Drunken Hecklers
Yeah, I was at the front when the show was starting and the drunken hecklers, the main offender amongst whom was a skinheaded ox of about 6'4", burst to the front.

He shoved himself in between myself and my sister saying "out the way, out the way". When I looked askance at him (I was the next tallest person in the surrounding area) he yelled in my ear "I've been waiting fifteen years to see Morrissey in concert, and if anyone tries to stop me getting to the front they're going to get hammered, do you want to get hammered?"

Anyway, this twerp was waving his treetrunk arms into the heads of everyone around him at random and yelling out "Mozza!!" after every song. The head security guy was in negotiations with him to shut up and quiet down for about half the evening. About halfway through the set Morrissey leant over and said "Yes, my man?" to which he replied with a dull stare - "You really have nothing to say ..." chirruped the great man to the satisfaction of all around.

The crowd was fairly subdued at times, sometimes failing even to cheer through to the next song. But hey, this is Perth. I enjoyed the show immensely and was surprised by the good quality of Moz's new material, which I hadn't heard before. He's getting on in years, but he clearly still has what it takes. Makes you wonder what he was like back in the day ...

I did think it would have been better to play a song from Morrissey's solo career as the encore, since Alain and Boz just don't look quite as satisfied playing Smiths tracks ... 'There Is A Light', amazing song that it is, just seemed to fall a little flat next to the majesty of 'Speedway'.

As you may note, I was peculiarly critical in the company of fellow mad fans, but if truth be known I was in veritable ecstasy after the show, drunken hecklers (my God that guy was a tool!) aside. My fluke artist sister got hold of the set list used by the band (my God, the actual set list that Morrissey may or may not have touched!), and I caught a bunch of gladioli thrown by the Mozster into the crowd, although they were ripped out of my hand by some insensitive (or at least momentarily touched) fellow concert-goer.

The music was beautiful, the onstage banter criminally brilliant, and the moment unforgettable. Now, enough fannish raving. But I should just mention that the Panics, Morrissey's support act for the night and a much-hyped local band, were very, very good. They are a sort of Radiohead-influenced guitar-pop group with a thick, harmonious and serene sound. I'll be buying their work at the first opportunity I get. The world needs more bands like these.

Review

I've seen a couple of movies over the last couple of days, Garage Days and Donnie Darko. I'd give the former three out of five for being a humourous, at times touching and certainly remarkably polished but overall a little confused and directionless effort. I'd give the latter five out of five for being a cinematic masterpiece. Donnie Darko was simultaneously exactly my favourite kind of film and nothing like anything I've seen before. It's brilliant, go and see it. I won't give any spoilers because certain people would decapitate me slowly if I did so.

That about covers it for now; I am progressing acceptably well with assignments and so forth, happily. I hope the trend continues until the end of November 2003, when I plan to leave university permanently and go on to live a life of crime, fame, and unutterable wealth.

2002-10-07T09:38:00.000+08:00

Will I Ever Get Over This?

Will I ever get over this?
Having tasted your lips with a kiss,
You can cross me off your list,
Take these cuffs from off my wrists,
And drop your fists.
Brendan Benson, 'Folk Singer'

Love that song at the moment. Ah, I'm a sucker for the jangly guitar-pop. Hang on a second, I'm updating my web-log. That must mean that I have something more important to be doing. But more on that later, gentle reader.

Went to Ordtoberfest on Saturday night. Can't imagine worse weather for a massive outdoor party; well at least not in this city. Thankfully it was moved indoors, so it didn't really matter. The weather did supply a boring baseline topic of conversation for the evening, though. Five hundred people were invited, probably around two hundred in total came, with a maximum of just over a hundred at any given time.

I started the night feeling pretty out of place, and a little insecure. I don't often do parties with hundreds of people of whom I know half a dozen. However, I had a couple of beers and tried some new chemicals, and after that had an excellent time. Max played a half hour set of chick-rock singer-songwriter stuff with her best mate Joh, which was surprisingly good, given I'm not a fan of the genre and Max only started playing drums five months ago (you rock, Max). There were a few other bands - some incredibly mediocre indie band, Darryn's moderately decent vocals-too-low Weezeresque pop group Mister Lee (they did a cover of the Pixies' Where is My Mind? so I had to like them in the end), and a truly excellent gothish band called Civilized. These last guys were top-notch musicians, and although maybe I wouldn't like their music much just to stick on the stereo, it's nice to listen to some really tight live music, especially when the lead singer can sing.

Speaking of live music, three sleeps until the Morrissey concert. So sweet.

Bizarrely enough, there were no less than five people at this party who graduated from the now-defunct Hollywood SHS at the same time as I did. People who I hadn't seen for a very long time, although not the kind of people I was ever very friendly with. I had interesting chats with a few of them, and managed to reestablish that they weren't people I wanted to know very much. Two of them had just bought houses in distant suburbs, and one of them couldn't shut up about her four-years-ago experience as a camp leader in the US. I wonder if she's done anything interesting since? Got some other gossip, which I won't bore you with, about what other people I knew at school are doing. It's a crazy world.

(Just a brief note, also, about Tom's friends. They're a pretty skanky bunch. One of them was talking about a friend of his who stuck a live canary between two slices of bread and ate it. Yeesh, I hope Lisa doesn't read this page. You've got to be worried if you find yourself wearing a leash around your neck for your glass of alcohol and thinking that's a stylish thing to do. I salute them all, but only cautiously.)

Anyway, I danced quite a bit. I had good conversations. I, bizarrely enough, had a guy called Lacho quiz me on my music taste, apparently because he thought I was cool. So it was a great night. I just wish I wasn't still hung over, two days later, and that I didn't have a major assignment due in every week until the end of the semester.
Moving on ...

Idle Hands do the Devil's Work

Oh, the Devil will make work,
For idle hands to do,
I stole, and then I lied,
Just because you asked me to ...
The Smiths, 'What Difference Does it Make?'

I didn't do enough over the mid-semester break. And now I'm in deep, up Ship's creek without a paddle (the original form of that expression, when it was something that had just happened to Captain Cook). The difference is that this time, world, I'm going to win. So back off, and stop grinning.

The thing about people like me is that we'll take any excuse not to work. Grandmother comes over from Victoria, kills a week of work. Girlfriend calls up, kills a day of work. Film on television? Write that night off. Tekken? Scratch one lifetime. It's this trait, above all others, that I must quash if I'm going to survive the coming apocalypse. At this stage, though, angst is not required. Visit me in one month's time, as swotvac commences after a deluge of missed or crappy assignment submissions, and you may find me a changed man.

Wish me luck, everyone. This is the Point of No Return.

Gratitude

Thank you for loving me at my worst ...
The Whitlams, 'Thank You'

Thanks go out to everyone who read my last web-log entry, assumed it meant that I thought they hated me, and confirmed that in fact, they didn't hate me. That wasn't the intent of the post, but all the same it was very gratifying. You can feel free to say that sort of thing any time you like, everyone. After all, I am a paranoid bastard.

2002-09-24T10:37:00.000+08:00

Physical Violence

Unruly boys, who will not grow up must be taken in hand,
Unruly girls who will not settle down, they must be taken in hand -
A crack on the head is what you get for not asking,
And a crack on the head is what you get for asking!
The Smiths, 'Barbarism Begins At Home'

Haven't updated in a while, possibly because I didn't feel like distilling the complexities of my life into specific words (mark that I don't plan to do that now), even though I think that well-chosen words should convey any condition in as accurate a way as it can be observed. I merely mistrust my ability to choose words well sometimes. Anyway, after all that hemming and hawing, here's a little morsel for the starving masses.

Was thinking yesterday about how, in the places that I spend my time, the threat of physical violence generally gains one remarkably little. Acts of violence result in ostracism pure and simple. Having trouble thinking of specific examples of this occurring. Oh, hang on. Here's one: Michael kicking Stephen in the face at Terracon in 1999. Wasn't a popular fellow in the aftermath. This thought about the complete ineffectuality of violence as a means of conflict resolution was prompted by the inordinate number of threats of violence I've heard being made in the past week or so. Around here, if I was in an argument with someone and they threatened me with a beating, I'd actually be quite pleased, I think, unless I thought they were the kind of sociopath that would actually risk social exile just for a chance to whack me in the nose. Although a prolonged argument with me could possibly cause my interlocutor to suffer from temporary sociopathy, since I'm a bit of a prat and annoying to talk to, so perhaps I wouldn't be too happy if I received such a threat. Wow, that last line was a little raw.

Have been feeling a little paranoid about friends and companions of late. A sort of anxiety: that people I know well are happy enough not talking to me, or seeing me, for extended periods of time. That as little as they mind having me around, they would just as easily forget I existed, our friendship withering and closing up like a disused piercing within a matter of hours. This has been resulting in a weird desire to make myself as indispensible to as many people as possible, which is rather difficult when my main social modus operandi is to be a fringe operator, standing on the sidelines making snide remarks.

Anyway, I have enough perspective to realise that all this is probably nonsense, so I've been doing a bit of self-investigation. I think the paranoia goes back to two things.

Firstly, I've acted in a way that may have ruffled a few feathers or hurt a few people's feelings lately, and I fear some minds have become poisoned, or at least partially contaminated, against me (although I haven't really had any evidence to that effect).

Secondly, bizarrely enough, the Guild elections. People have been rabbitting on so much about how it brought them all together, and how it was such an important, character-building experience, and back-slapping and handing out kudos right and left, and so forth, and actually, for me, it's all been rather alienating. Or maybe (entirely possibly) I just feel a bit outclassed by such a titanic display of self-motivation and teamwork. The number of times I've opened my mouth automatically to spit out a strategic, position-defending disparaging remark and bitten my lip for fear of being swamped by the likely retaliation, is quite large. Partly (I can hope) I have been biting my lip because I'm trying to work on being more gracious and less sullen at the moment. At some point in the increasingly distant past I became obsessed with eliminating my character flaws, which are numerous. The obsession itself is a rather major character flaw, of course. Pity the way everything has to spin back, precessing in vicious circles like that.

All this said, I'm rather angst-free most of the time. I've been contemplating the production of another couple of Mr Negative scripts: I have a feeling they might pop out some time fairly soon. They seem to take months to gestate but the period of labour is usually around five minutes. I hope everyone I like still likes me: I've been feeling a little spread thin lately, so I may not have been the vibrant, ebullient person I can be on the good days. Work to do, people to see, places to be, life for the living.

Ah, and I have a ticket for Morrissey's Perth gig in a couple of weeks. So sweet.

2002-09-11T21:25:00.000+08:00

I think very few people bother to read this page anymore. This is because of evil LJ-friends-list induced discrimination. I demand that you all (and this includes all you fatuous occasional LJ users) frequently read my web-log.

Scared myself by sitting down and recreating a sample game of go today, in order to better understand fuseki. I don't think I really achieved much. I wonder when I became the kind of person who would do this, and whether that's the kind of person I actually want to be? Of course, I'm trying to avoid angsting on this page, but although it's character is existential, I don't think this particular cogitation qualifies as angst. Blah, anyway. Should play less Tekken, and less go. Becoming obsessed with such trivial things doesn't endear me to people who have more interesting or pressing concerns. Cue risible tendency to attempt to curb bad habits.

Elizabeth showed Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (I think that's it: translates roughly as Sen and Chihiro's Divine Abduction, apparently, which is a little weird given they're the same person (well possibly not on a metaphysical level)) in the UniSFA clubroom on Monday. It's definitely a winner, a fine and beautiful film which I didn't dislike despite my misplaced reputation for despising 'kids' stuff'. I dislike things which are bad, and like things which are good. It's quite simple, really. I don't feel like entering into a full-blown discussion of the film.

Warring on Terror

Across the field you see the sky ripped open
See the rain through a gaping wound
Pelting the women and children ...
Who run into the arms of America
U2, 'Bullet the Blue Sky'

Slightly corny quote, but I do love that song.

The press is absolutely stuffed with material about the anniversary of the WTC/Pentagon attacks and the potentially-impending 'preemptive' strike by the US on Iraq. So I've decided to note down my ill-informed opinions on the subject.

Predictably for those that know me, I am decidedly against an attack on Iraq. I'm one of those people you see derided in the right-wing columns of The Australian, a 'deluded anti-American'. I'm not actually anti-American, well I don't stand against all individual Americans in any case.

Here is what I consider to be a convincing list of reasons why a war against Iraq should not occur, and why if any such war does occur Australia should resist participating:

Such a war would inevitably involve the loss of the lives of a large number of innocent Iraqi civilians, and also of the lives of many essentially well-meaning Iraqi and US/allied troops. These people don't deserve to die.

The 'regime change' being pushed by the US would achieve nothing for the ordinary people of Iraq. The US is not contemplating a change of the form of the Iraqi government, merely the installation of a new military dictator who it is projected will create fewer problems for US foreign policy makers. One might question the likely validity of such projections, given that the US in the past has supplied direct military aid to both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, whose Al-Q'aida group is the actual instigator of the WTC attacks.

There is no demonstrated link between the Iraqi government and the terrorists who caused the WTC attacks. There are, apparently, links between the Saudi government and Al-Q'aida, but since the Saudi government is more than willing to crawl to the US on the international stage, Saudi Arabia is not under threat of attack. Certainly though there is no justification for commencing an assault on Iraq as revenge for the WTC attacks, and neither was there such justification for the attacks on Afghanistan.

Attacks by a Western alliance on Iraq would certainly fuel the hatred many Islamic fundamentalists feel for the West, and thereby increase the risk of more terrorist attacks in the future. The threat of these attacks can only be mitigated by reducing the number of people with reasons, good or otherwise, for hating the West.

If there is an attack on Iraq, Australia should not participate because there is little evidence that it would be in our own interest to do so. Australia has large agricultural contracts with Iraq that would be cancelled in the event of Australian participation. The conflict would occur in a region that arguably has little geopolitical importance to Australia, and Australian involvement might prejudice our relationship with nearer Islamic neighbours such as Indonesia.

The motivations for the assault should be questioned. There is no evidence showing that Saddam has or is near to having nuclear capability. It is debatable whether it is even possible for the threat of attacks using other forms of weaponry can even be eliminated. Given these premises, there must be other reasons why a strike is being considered. Perhaps an ulterior motive exists in the form of protection for US oil supplies into the future. Australia should not participate in a war conducted for these reasons because it would be immoral. It would also involve a titanic deceit of the American people, who are being led to believe by their leaders that such a war would be set in motion for reasons of national security. One wonders whether CIA analysts, following the WTC attacks, were not simply thinking 'Thousands of civilians dead. How can we turn this into political and economic capital?'.

Australia should not contemplate allying itself with the US simply because of misplaced feelings of gratitude for US involvement in previous conflicts like World War II. The US did not enter World War II in order to protect Australian sovereignty on Australian soil, even if that was one effect of its efforts. I personally feel, and am prepared to claim without total justification, that throughout the twentieth century American foreign policy was motivated only by the power-mongering interests of the American nation. American interventions in governments in the Middle East, Asia, and South America causing the deaths of millions of innocent people largely support this view, in my opinion. The US has not in the past shied away from providing support for regimes of an evil and destructive character, such as that of General Pinochet in Chile.

That's about all I can think of for now. Suffice it to say I feel quite strongly that attacking Iraq without any real provocation, simply to replace the existing military regime with another similar but more pliant one, is not anything approaching a constructive act in relation to the problems facing the Middle East.

2002-09-09T11:39:00.000+08:00

Review

Saw two movies over the weekend: Metropolis and Insomnia.

Metropolis is very impressive. In terms of style and the enormous amount of effort that must have been involved, it's probably the most amazing animated film I've ever seen. Scene after scene had backgrounds which must have taken artists weeks to produce. The animation itself was quite interesting, and seemed to borrow some elements of its style from the comics of the period from which the film takes its aesthetic inspiration, the 20s and 30s. The whole thing was a gorgeous, rococo art-deco masterpiece. Visually, that is. The plotline was average, the dialogue (subtitled from the Japanese) was even somewhat sub-par. But they weren't all that important.

The inspiration for the setting is Fritz Lang's early cinematic breakthrough of the same name. Robots and humans living in a mechanised society with the latter enslaving and subjugating the former. The similarities between this film and Lang's are not that great, however. For starters, the anime has much better special effects. Just kidding. To be honest I don't remember the original Metropolis that well. I saw it quite a while ago and remember finding it boring, which is not that surprising given that it was made practically before the invention of dramatic pacing in cinema (at this point I should duck to avoid the hail of rotting fruit from any film-school purists out there. Seriously though, a lot of old movies are just, well, dull). Anyway, enough to say go out and see it. It's far, far better than most things currently out. Even if you don't usually like being beaten about the head with blatant thematic and philosophical content.

Insomnia, Christopher Nolan's follow-up to the arguably superb (I'd argue it if I was in the mood, but it's certainly very clever, funny, and damned good) Memento, was approximately as disappointing as I was expecting it to be, given the vibes I'd received from people who'd already seen it. It's not a bad film. It has a decent cast (with a surprisingly inoffensive Robin Williams as the villain), a decent plot, polished direction, and whatnot. It's well-crafted. Unfortunately, it's pretty much just a straight-up cop vs. murderer psychothriller.

Al Pacino plays the 'hard-boiled' (euphemism) LA detective who's sent to Alaska partly to help out on a murder case, and partly to escape an internal affairs investigation. He doesn't sleep throughout (hence the film's title, eh) because of the permanent Alaskan summer sunlight. If you want someone to look tired, you should get Al Pacino. I don't think there would have been much makeup required, the man looks as if he hasn't slept in about a thousand years naturally. He was immensely predictable in this role and I found myself wishing they had cast someone else, someone a little less typical. The murder plot was almost irrelevant, which was also annoying. The whole movie seemed to just be an excuse for a few face-offs between Pacino and the sinister Williams in the Alaskan wilderness. Woo.

So, in summation, not bad, but definitely not Memento. Second outing's always the hardest though, just look at M. Night Shyamalan following up The Sixth Sense with the execrable Unbreakable. Go and see Metropolis first.

2002-09-04T09:33:00.000+08:00

The Inexorable March Of Time

Warning: I suspect this post is going to take the form of a long, wheezy whinge.

It's my birthday today. I probably should have told more people that. I swear I was planning on organising something, some minor celebration of my increasing decrepitude. However, I've just come to the end of what I've been describing (to anyone who'll listen) as a 'rather bad week'. In fact, the last week hasn't been particularly unpleasant. My mood has just been incredibly volatile, for various reasons. There are bad things in my life, but they're not that bad, and there are great things, which are occasionally modified in the negative by circumstance. My mood tends to abruptly change (go the split infinitive) when the good stuff grimly turns gloomy, or the bad stuff briefly seems brighter (go the alliteration).

It's my birthday,
Go outside day,
Sit in park day,
What a pathetic day!
Blur, 'Birthday'

Crap song, that. However, it's about a crap thing, so I suppose the overall feeling of crap-crap-crappiness is appropriate. Was left feeling ineffably disappointed by the presents I received from my family. They made me feel like they don't know me. My mother bought me an Ian Rankin 'Rebus' crime novel, when I'm sure she knows I usually dislike crime fiction (she, incidentally, loves Inspector Rebus). My sister bought me Beck's Mutations album. I don't usually like Beck much, and there are many other better things she could have got me had she thought a little harder. She does, however, have another gift for me which is locked in the house she's currently housesitting at - the silly bint left the keys inside when she left yesterday. I hope it's good - of all people I thought I could rely on her to know my taste. My father bought me a collection of fantastic tales from the nineteenth century edited by the great Italo Calvino. Should be a good read, but again it felt like something he would like rather than something I would like. I must adapt myself too much around all these people, because it felt as if the presents I was getting were all just things they would have liked to have themselves. Don't I have an identity of my own, for goodness' sake? Whinge, blah, whinge. Actually, I liked all my gifts. I just had higher hopes when I saw a small pile of wrapped books and CDs.

One good thing I got is a black t-shirt with a print of a geisha wearing headphones located in a skewed position under the left arm. Very hip, I'm wearing it at the moment. Aargh, I'm twenty-four: that's so damned old! Get over it, moron.

Ecch. Throat hurts. Stupid god-damned tonsilitis.

I'm currently sitting in UCC, with a bunch of people who don't know it's my birthday, and one (Nicole) who probably does if she thinks of it. For some reason, I can't bring myself to mention it to them. I think this inhibition stems partly from a desire to avoid embarrassing them. To all my friends - I do like you, I just have no ability to organise social events, particularly ones in my honour. Undoubtedly it's because my tendency to temporarily (or even permanently) despise random people makes me think they also probably despise me half the time.

A bit later on now, and I'm feeling cheerier. Kieron's campaign had an enjoyable session this afternoon. Of late I haven't liked roleplaying much. I find a lot of the storylines quite hackneyed, I don't have any sense of interacting with a credible imaginary world, and to boot my relations with some of the other players often seem a little strained, because I tend to play annoying characters, being, y'know, a naturally annoying person. Things were better today.

Politics

I support the left, but I'm leaning to the right,
I support the left, but I'm leaning, leaning to the right!
Hey now baby, get into my big black car,
I want to just show you, what my politics are!
Cream, 'Politician'

Ecch. Throat hurts.

These days I hate listening to people discussing politics. I went to the Guild General Meeting, at least for a while. It provided many sterling opportunities for cynicism, even during the brief period I was there. Under debate were a number of leftist motions relating to the Guild's political position on world issues. I was going to discuss point by point the way things went ahead, but I'm finding I can't be bothered and can't remember properly anyway. It worries me slightly that most of the people I know are very uninterested in politics, since this country is currently going down the tubes. It worries me even more that the Guild GM was the most meaningful forum at university at which I have seen any of these issues discussed, and it was attended by one hundred people (out of a student population of twelve thousand) and consisted mostly of meaningless procedural crap. The world's going to hell in a handbasket and most people just don't care. I used to think I did, maybe for a while I actually did care. These days I'm just a passive observer though.

Whinge, blah, whinge. Oh well, accentuate the positive. I was so sure I wasn't going to angst tediously on this page. Just shows you.

2002-08-29T10:26:00.000+08:00

Existence

When will you accept your life (the one that you hate)?
Every day, you must say, 'Oh, how do I feel about my shoes?
They make me feel awkward and plain.
How dearly I would love to kick with the fray ...'
Anything is hard to find, when you will not open your eyes,
When will you accept yourself, for Heaven's sake?
The Smiths, 'Accept Yourself'

You're not what you think you could be. You're not what you will be. You can't pretend to be what you are, let alone pretend to yourself that you're only pretending to be what you are. You can only exist. If you believe that you're not as you appear to others, you're wrong. In fact, you are as you are and only pretend to yourself that you're not.

I can't really comment on how I fit into to any of the farcical equations above. I can only say that sometimes I wish my actions would speak louder than my words.

This post was written yesterday at ten o'clock in the morning. My state of mind has changed since then.

2002-08-26T22:27:00.000+08:00

Into the Pit of Hades

Eurydice, Orfeo!
She, by poison has perished!
He, by sorrow was stricken!
Alas, both lifeless.

My updates are becoming more infrequent, it's true - but I defy anyone to tell me this is due to a lack of inspiration. Anyway, I'd be a poor logger indeed if I didn't review my very own Night at the Opera. Actually, it bore very little resemblance to the eponymous Marx Brothers movie (as a side note, that will be the second time this year I've used the word 'eponymous', and it's one of those words that doesn't bear regular usage well at all).

The singing: not bad. Rather good, even. I was a little underwhelmed until the first chorus, but there's something quite impressive about a room scattered to the brim with people in silly-looking peasant outfits breaking into perfect, tuneful song. Of the leads, I've been told the chap playing Orfeo was suboptimal - but I thought he was good, and he certainly came into his own in the second half, belting out 'Give me back my love!' with gusto. The supporting roles were of varying quality - the boatman was amusingly hammy, Hades had all the presence of a cooked carrot, and kudos must surely go to the bearded companion of Orfeo (not the little blond one, but the larger brown-haired fellow) for managing some very realistic tears upon the death of Eurydice.

Was guiltily amused to discover that Rae had been discomfited by the coconut-infused smoke machine of the second half ('That is so you!' I couldn't help thinking). Personally thought the smoke added well to the atmosphere and was a bit of fun. Can't justify the random psychological malfunction that disposes me to blame the person for having the allergy, though. Sorry, Rae: hope you can find the iota of generosity in your heart which will pay for my forgiveness.

The best thing about the production was that all the cast looked like they were having a terrific time doing it. I couldn't help noticing people firing quick grins across the stage during some of the more ludicrous moments. Surely it's enough to recommend this centuries-old piece of art that it can still please in the performance after all this time?

Gripe one: my first thought of the evening was that Orfeo looked rather goofy. Everyone else's first thought, apparently, was that he looked like me. Unsurprisingly, I found this a bit irritating. Gripe two: everyone else was better dressed than I was. When did I become such a poor cousin?

Random

Aaron: Superman by Five for Fighting is an abysmal song. I can't convey how much I dislike it. So trite it is that it makes Noddy look iconoclastic. I hope you don't angst to that song, the very thought makes me want to vomit. Sorry.

Max: stop listening to your desk, it'll break you. Those things are cleverer than you think.

Jen: I'm amazed you still think the random things I say while watching UCC lose are worthy of repetition. But it's quite flattering, no? Take it easy.

Rae: It's all your fault that you're allergic to coconut.

Adam: Half a moku! In your face, loser.

Pam: if every performance of Orfeo goes as well as the one I saw, you'll be the toast of the town. Parents firming on the possibility of attending on Thursday night, so you'll have a crowd of at least two.

Steph and Davy: bit short on updates lately. What's the story?

That'll do for salutes for now. You'll see me again when I have something interesting to say.

Burst into heaven,
Kiss in the cotton clouds,
Arctic sheets and fields of wheat,
I can't stop coming down ...
The Stone Roses, 'Elephant Stone'

2002-08-21T19:26:00.000+08:00

Short update. Am playing way too much Tekken, even through a surprising amount of pain. Am sick of people who suck at everything importuning me with their presences. Am especially sick of such people making personal remarks about me that are both woefully ill-informed and offensive to boot in public places. Currently only barely resisting primal urges to excoriate the aforesaid. These people (well, this person now) are (is) near-universally disliked and otherwise at least despised, and also known to have thin skin. As a result they should avoid offending me. But I am restraining myself admirably at present.

Those of you who don't suck at everything, don't mind me.

On a gentler note, enjoyed playing some basketball this afternoon with friends. Although I was arguably the worst player there. But being a bit taller does give you the edge on a few rebounds.

MTGT: I am alone in displaying good judgement.
Me: (in total disbelief) Must ... add ... to web-log!

2002-08-20T09:27:00.000+08:00

Coffee and TV

So give me coffee and TV, easily,
Seen so much I'm going blind and I'm braindead virtually,
Sociability, is hard enough enough for me,
Take me away from this big bad world and agree to marry me ...
Blur, 'Coffee and TV'

Watched a lot of terrible tube last night. Which has been a very rare occurrence in the recent past. Notes:

SBS is improving its soccer coverage this season. Cause for celebration? Not really, but I will probably continue to attend the ins and outs of the real, rather than the virtual (pokes Hattrick players) game.

Watched (part of) my second episode of 24. Thought process: Hmm, he's a maverick cop... (click!) Yes, Ed, the first line of 'Moby Dick' is 'Call me Ishmael' - I know that from reading Gary Larson (click!) He's bending the rules ... (click!) A diamond is a rhombus, you moron! Oh please, let me go on this show! I'll even split the $125,000 you'd gain from getting this question right with you ... (click!) But it's OK, it's like he has to bend the rules in order to deliver justice ... (click!) Oh ... my ... God! You got that wrong? There is no justice! Hmm, justice ... (click!) Wait, I feel sure I've seen this plotline somewhere before .... what's that girl doing in the trunk of that car? (turns off TV in disgust).

At which point I played guitar for half an hour.

The brat from The Osbournes reminds me of Comanski. The Osbournes reminds me of a steaming cesspool.

They occasionally censor words on The Osbournes. Given that every second word is a loud, uncensored 'Fuck!' (oh, how daring those American TV executives are) (muted apologies to my more sensitive readers, but this is in the 'interests of science' (euphemism)), one wonders what the censored words are. Probably 'Cunt!' or something (again, apologies to sensitive readers. 'Interests of science' (euphemism) and all that).

Des Mangan is a pervert, but I'm OK with that. I'm impressed by how much SBS is willing to let him get away with these days though.

It's ridiculous how many films the Spanish are willing to churn out with titles like Between Your Legs. Plotline: some kind of psychological thriller between people attending a Sex Addicts Anonymous self-help group. I lasted ten minutes before turning it off.

Mass Destruction

I didn't count on
Such mass destruction
When I saw you ...
Ed Kuepper, 'Mass Destruction'

I have pretty much established that I hate praise. However, I also hate criticism. Let's see - perhaps what I really hate is people talking about my personal characteristics in my presence. It's rude. Of course, I make remarks about other people all the time, but you plebs can't expect me to hold back from doing that. Yes, that's you plebs.

Starting to sound like old Edward Estlyn Cummings (ha! I capitalised it, you old affected dead fool). Random Cummings quote (I think from the dedication to one of his collections):

'You and I are not like mostpeople. You and I have less in common with mostpeople than with the squarerootofminusone. Mostpeople are snobs.'

What a fool.

Life's tone can change so rapidly.

I'm gazing out over an inky black plain, its surface as vague as the veil on a silent bride, neither solid nor ephemeral but something in between that hints at both. Multicoloured spears of light strike out of a chasm that extends north and south transverse to the motion of a distorted moon. Hidden power must lie beneath, but my vantage point does not permit investigation. The planks upon which I sit seem to be rotting away in real-time, and the dark waters tempt awfully. I hear the slither of killer eels in the corner of my ear.

And then you're just watching TV again. How drab.

I'm Afraid of Americans

I used the word 'trunk' to denote the boot of a car. Egad, I'm turning into an American.

2002-08-16T11:47:00.000+08:00

This Beautiful World

It's a beautiful world we live in,
It's a beautiful world we share,
Beautiful people everywhere,
The way they show they care!
It's a beautiful world, it's a beautiful world,
For you ... for you ... it's not for me!
Devo, 'Beautiful World'

Have had that song stuck in head of self for the past couple of days. Sarcasm quite biting for some reason. Degree to which people take what self says seriously quite scary of late. When did self become worthy person to seek approval from? It makes self feel like cut-rate Pat Morita. Which is itself utterly, utterly ridiculous, as self is sure you'll agree.

Anyway, anyone out there desperately wondering whether self approves of them should take advice of self and stop caring.

Have just read Maelkann's LiveJournal which was quite angsty. Still waters and all that. Should probably take issue with his incorrect but somewhat flattering perception that of us all, only self can play go. Three losses in last five games self has played are rather poor testament to that. Currently 'chasing' (HNG style) Chris Grubb, who comprehensively outplayed self in our last encounter despite a minimal number of captures on either side. Bizarre to end game with fifty less points of territory without self actually having lost anything significant.

Quite happy with practice of omitting self as subject in entries on page. Humourously clipped delivery results, like telegram out of P.G. Wodehouse novel or whangnot. Why dickens do it? Fun.

Self has made numerous fluttering mental notes to discuss content of Aaron's web-log with eponymous owner. Aforesaid notably brimming with angst of late. Fortunately lazy research indicates to self that non-selves have been doing job to extent. Self finds Rae's 'such a guy!' remark potentially accurate and potentially offensive. Self finds Rae's criticisms of angst in others risibly hypocritical. Self expects spirited defence with amusement.

Self should do 'something constructive' (anti-euphemism) today. ZAngband character of self died yesterday, self suspects it was a sign from nonexistent Gods relating to torpor of nonexistent soul of self. Self in dangerous humourously detached mode at present. Self beginning to suspect mood equals harbinger of metaphoric grisly doom. Ignore self, self is cracked in head.

2002-08-14T09:59:00.000+08:00

Cocktails

The cocktail party organised by Leighton on Nicole (with help from Grubb and Paul) last Saturday was fun, if a little derelict. After a few hours of decreasingly sophisticated conversation and increasingly intoxicated behaviour about half a dozen people there wound up voiding their digestive tracts in various parts of Leighton's house. I am proud to say that I wasn't one of them, but I see no need for me to release their names to the public in any case. Other people have already done that for me!

First to pike was Jen, who seemed to fall asleep on Chas' arm about five minutes after she, Chas, Pam and Oliver walked in dressed up approximately to the eights (it would have been to the nines, guys, but Chas' bowtie ruined your hopes). Last to pike was roughly me, I think. At least, I didn't see anyone else awake when I went to sleep.

Funniest moment of the evening was probably Max throwing her drink on me for no apparent reason. My response was, of course, to throw my drink over her (like I'd back down from a clear-cut opportunity like that). This left her slightly more miffed than me, because (a) she cares more about her appearance than I do (oh, the vanity!) and (b) every item of clothing she was wearing was worth more than everything I was wearing put together. After this Anil walked up and punched me in the stomach because 'that's no way to treat a woman' and then spent most of the rest of the evening apologising to me because he hadn't seen the original drink-throwing incident. I note from Max's blog that he also thought it necessary to convince her that he was 'not a bad man', so I think we can safely say that he didn't get much else done.

Had the obligatory conversation with Anita to convince her that the fact I hadn't seen her for a couple of weeks didn't mean I hated her. I don't hate you, fool, although I doubt you read this page.

Chris Grubb is an amusing drunk. Whether he was amusing enough to compensate for both providing at least half the justification for throwing this party in the first place, and throwing up continually between the hours of one o'clock and three o'clock in the morning, is a matter for God to decide. But swapping shirts with Anita, jogging around the block in an effort to ease his intoxication, and moseying around with a hood over his eyes like some homeboy for half an hour was hilarious enough for me, anyway. Photos revealed in the aftermath that he may have spent some time clinging to Leighton's front drain pipe like a lemur, as well.

I sold my soul to Chris on Monday night for the price of a can of Coke. I may attempt to redeem it at a later date.

Fine Music

Went to a short classical guitar recital at WAPA (at least, that's where I think we were, some architecturally uninspired college of higher learning in Mt Lawley, anyway) with Pam around lunchtime yesterday. The music was beautiful enough. The performer (a chap called Graham Hall who Pam had thought beforehand was her jazz improvisation lecturer) had chosen some pieces which stretched his ability to the limit, and were admittedly pretty tough. There's no way I could ever achieve this guy's level of proficiency, and thus humility allowed me to forgive the few small errors he made. The music itself? The first section was half a dozen Renaissance lute pieces, ending in a saltarello which I used to play in a four part ensemble in year eight, and which this chap played solo. The second section was the best, a sonata by some composer called Manuel Ponce the fourth movement of which was my personal highlight. The third was some gimmicky contemporary piece which had a bit of frankly Tommy Emmanuel-ish guitar-as-percussion-instrument stylings in the middle, to wow the audience. I personally felt this was a bit of a cheap shot. But it would certainly be nice to have the 'chore' of attending compulsory lunchtime concerts every week instead of say, a couple of Databases lectures.

Basketball

The coffee served at Hungry Jack's is dashed unpleasant.

Spectated at the UCC basketball team's first outing last night. As I remarked, sitting on the sidelines, I think it's lovely that all the boys have found an activity where they can all be men together. The rest of the cheer squad comprised the McCutcheon sisters and Max, and these three decided that it'd be fun to write down everything I yelled out during the match. I quote:

Max: I'm so going to put all this in my blog.
Jen: No, because I'm going to put it in my blog!
Pam: I'm putting it in my LJ!

Anyway, I didn't actually say anything funny (except possibly the remark about the shapeliness of Chas' posterior) so I doubt much of it will make it online. After all, I have no sense of humour. But I was flattered that some people incorrectly thought that I did have one.

The match itself was fairly shambolic, with a promising start for the UCCsters let down by repeated turnovers, a marked lack of attacking options when the Comet from Cornwall (that'd be Kieron, folks) wasn't afield, and just overall suckiness. And since basketball isn't a contact sport, when you're behind you can't just start hitting the opposition as I used to when I played indoor soccer (before I wrecked my ankle doing it once too often).

Jen and I had a brief discussion about writing up the UCC team in Hattrick terminology, which went something like this:

Me: You know, I don't think any of them have any stats higher than 'disastrous'. Actually, Kieron might be an 'inadequate' scorer.
Jen: We really need something a bit stronger than 'disastrous' to describe their ability - perhaps 'catastrophic'?
Me: I think 'apocalyptic' would be more appropriate.

At one point during the evening I said some nasty, nasty things to Jen as part of a nasty, nasty joke, which I didn't mean. Anyway, I suspect I may have hurt her feelings slightly, especially since she thought that it was all part of some private joke about her that I had with Pam, which it wasn't. Anyway, Jen, I'm sorry for being such a horrible, evil man. I felt a bit guilty afterwards.

2002-08-08T09:43:00.000+08:00

Notes

I am arriving earlier and earlier to university at the moment, and yet no matter how early I arrive there is always a configuration of the same droogs occupying UCC right at the time I wish to check my mail and browse the now-obligatory web-logs. On cobbler Rob is typically mudding and playing stupid Star Wars fan-songs. On cybium some fresher (usually one of the annoying ones - you probably don't know who you are, but suspect the worst if you're reading this) is playing Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights (or is that with a 'k'?), or Warcraft III. And even nautilus is usually taken by either a whole gaggle of (by default, annoying) freshers playing Airburst (stupid game) or EV Nova (less stupid but more time-intensive). I find the daily repetition of this phenomenon rather (as in very) aggravating.

The angst present in Pam's LiveJournal is apparently mainly due to her feeling a bit flooded by university commitments. Lazy vache.

I am buying tickets to Guatemala (or perhaps Istanbul) after that last note.

Rae has already been sick and been stressed this semester, despite repeated injunctions to the contrary from Elizabeth.

The National IQ Test was a blatant crock, despite the fact I did rather well. Moreover the statistical significance of the results sent to the program organisers must be close to null.

I am not embarking on a life of crime, whatever impressions may have been received from my last update. Not having qualms about committing crimes doesn't mean I don't have qualms about the potential consequences. Ah, morality based on fear. And they said deterrent sentences didn't work (and they were right).

2002-08-06T10:08:00.000+08:00

Criminal Instincts

Well I saw you standing smoking counting stolen change,
Don't someone have the guts to complain?
You said 'Superman, I'm a big fan but let's get something straight,
You don't have the guts to complain!'
Suede, 'Together'

Went on an FAL mini-run yesterday to restock UnISFA's fridge (amongst other things). Shoplifted a Twix. Realised (once again) that I don't seem to have as many qualms about committing crimes as most people. Clearly flogging a loose chocolate bar from a wholesaler doesn't top most league ladders of sin, but I feel sure I'd do much worse things if I only thought I could get away with them.

The existence of massive insurance conglomerates in our society dramatically multiplies the number of crimes that are essentially victimless. Robbing banks, for example. You don't think that taking that money would really hurt anyone, do you? The bank is insured against theft, and has paid an insurance company money that has been carefully balanced against the probability that you (or any other enterprising iconoclast) will attempt to take their satchels of cash. Even supposing a massive (say tenfold) increase in the number of bank robberies, we're at most talking about a slight reduction in the five million dollar performance bonus paid to some corpulent, halfwitted insurance company chief. The only risk is that you'll inadvertently permanently traumatise an innocent bank teller by thrusting the gleaming tip of a Desert Eagle up their left nostril. Sounds fun, eh? And just think, you could be on the plane to Guatemala with your ill-gotten gains within a couple of hours.

2002-08-04T13:44:00.000+08:00

Headaches

Ow. I have an unpleasant headache. Saturday was highly uneventful, mainly because I spent the entirety of yesterday minding my little brother, with both parents in absentia. Near-thanklessly, I might add. This included having a brain-numbing twenty-minute conversation with his Shimbo (some martial art or other) instructor when his class was locked out. Pity me.

I note the previous post gives the impression that I had a rather bad time at the pub on Friday. Well, that'd be quite accurate then. No particular reason though, I just had an off night.

Have fiddled around with a couple of the links on the right. I've added links to Pamela's and Elizabeth's LiveJournals, because otherwise I wouldn't read them.

Am currently reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying which is packed with nuggets of salty Southern wisdom. Have had the obligatory conversation about that damnable plagiarist Graham Swift with sister. Noticed today that Rae has basically stopped updating her blog (how I hate that word) and moved everything over to her LiveJournal. Read ten posts I hadn't seen, concluded that she had been in a changeable mood. Nothing new then (I should probably go about ducking for the next couple of days now). Likewise Pamela's, which I hadn't been reading because (since it wasn't linked from this page) I had forgotten it existed. Quite prolific, Pam.

Contemplating making a list of the people I know with alliterative adjectives included: thinking better of it. Restraint is the better part of inspiration.

2002-08-02T22:29:00.000+08:00

Karaoke

Taking brief respite from Matthias' 21st in UCC. Was finding the atmosphere in the Last Drop a tad irritating, so I left for a breath of fresh air and gravitated here, salmon-like. Damn, it was way too crowded tonight. Too crowded to talk, too crowded to do anything much but sing karaoke or play pool, or dance. I wasn't drunk enough for the third thing, whatever joy might have been gained from the second had been stifled by the presence of overwhelmingly better players on the tables, and the first thing was a no-go because (a) they didn't have the song I wanted to sing (Shivers by the Boys Next Door) and (b) there was a forty-minute queue that by about ten minutes after I arrived had extended to finish the night. Whinge, blah, whinge. I don't understand myself sometimes, but currently I have this feeling that something I was quite looking forward to has fallen totally flat.

I might head down to the waterfront for a while before I go back to the Drop. I'm going to need a couple of hours before I'll be sober enough to drive though. Whinge, blah, whinge.

2002-08-01T09:19:00.000+08:00

This human form, where I was born,
I now repent .... caribou! Caribou!
The Pixies, 'Caribou'

My appellation for Chris Coman, 'Comanski', has gained a certain minor currency. Feel somewhat pleased by this. What I feel is probably one jot of the feeling one has if one ever creates or achieves something so significant it will resonate through the centuries. Since I will (probably - let's not entirely discount the possibility, that would be a little maudlin, and strangely (yes, strangely) I don't feel maudlin) never do this, I'm going to enjoy what little I have.

I'm sick of letting other people let me call the shots. Why do I have to call the shots? It occurs to one (me) occasionally that one doesn't (I didn't) actually have personal characteristics to begin with. Other people just randomly give them (have just randomly given them) to you (me). (You decide whether any of the above also applies to you, gentle reader. I wouldn't want to imply that you were anything like me, I'm sure that'd be quite offensive (possibly to both of us)). Hence those that I have apparently acquired: meanness, cynicism, lack of motivation (this needs a one word encapsulation that's less clunky (and less probably nonexistent) than unmotivatedness (Ecch!)), intelligence (hah! Don't give me some 'top five per cent' nonsense. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was in the top five per cent of anything!), a tendency towards schadenfreude (don't know if I spelt that correctly). In any case, I don't really remember being any of those things before people repeatedly told me that I was. And I don't think that's due to a lack of perspective. After all, I've always had lots of perspective, you get that when you're tall (hah!). Actually, tallness is another personal characteristic that I'm fairly sure I was just given as well. It's disgusting, those other people ('Damn them!' he intones. 'Damn them all!') control the physical world (which exists only as the individual perceives it (it can be argued)) as well.

Have been reading Crime and Punishment with great enjoyment. Can't help but think I'm a little like Raskolnikov (obviously not as good-looking) although it's somewhat unlikely I'd ever kill anyone. Still it's a brilliant study of secrets and guilt. I know certain other people who I think should read it. Points of similarity include the whole unmotivated student bit, the fact that our darling Raskolnikov relies, and hates to rely, on the generosity of a family that would probably be better off without him (OK, maybe that's a little harsh, I don't think even 'I' (what is 'I' anyway ... wow, profound ... not) think that), the whole slight insanity, self-importance, personal conviction of own peculiarity thing. Suffice it to say that I empathise with the fellow anyway.

I've noticed (with some surprise) that there are a lot of people in this world who are more relentlessly negative than I am. My current theory: having incredibly low expectations in every situation makes your life a rollercoaster-ride through a candyland of things being better than you thought they would be. All those people knocking around in a state of constant disappointment that they're not movie stars or space cadets of megarich society or flying on clouds should take a leaf out of my book for a change.

(Since this addition to the Brain of Entro has a plethora of parenthetical remarks, it seems fitting that it should include a parenthetical paragraph. Parentheses could be argued to be a sign of weak-mindedness - a tendency to fail to express what one thinks succinctly and clearly. I'm addicted to them, though, so I'd prefer not to think that. Let's call my indecisiveness a positive rather than a negative. End of post.)

2002-07-22T11:27:00.000+08:00

Stickiness

Out in the sticks, out in the stickiness,
They're driving round in stolen icecream vans,
Out in the sticks, out in the sticky wild-fire,
Your Royal Stickiness, your Highness ...
Suede, 'Where The Pigs Don't Fly'

The concept: stickiness. The context: pop music. I'm braving the ill-mannered incomprehension of the masses to bring this somewhat inscrutable meme to a wider populace. It's hard to explain so I'll work by example initially:

Very sticky: Suede, David Bowie, Echobelly, some early Blur, Menswear, Soft Cell, The Stone Roses debut, some Garbage, etc.

Non-sticky: The Smiths, The Pixies, anything grunge, anything political, anything passionate.

Somewhat sticky: The Dandy Warhols ... eh, getting bored.

None of you would understand anyway. Hope that hurt a few feelings.

Biliousness

I'm chewing ice and grinning,
I'm spewing up and spinning,
It's biliousness-ness,
(ness-ness-ness-ness)
As usual my corner of the kitchen
The Whitlams, 'You Sound Like Louis Burdett'

Every word of kindness tastes like bile,
Deep inside our hearts we knew it all the while
The Triffids, 'Hell Of A Summer'

Ecch. Can't shake the taste of boredom from my lips. I remarked to a friend a few days ago that I was looking forward to the university restart, because I'd realised during the holidays that I'd completely forgotten what I enjoyed doing when I wasn't stressed out, and needed a return to mind-crushing routine. How wrong I was - another ingenious self-deception. Perhaps I should start assuming that everything I tell myself is a lie. Two or three days in (I have no recollection) and I've already skipped one lecture and realised I'm not particularly interested in at least two of my four units. I haven't yet managed to work up enough enthusiasm to buy stationery for heavens' sake. Whinge, blah, whinge, blah, whinge.

I should quit playing Tekken altogether again, I think. This would annoy Aaron, since it would mean he would never have a chance to avenge the thirty-five or so consecutive wins I've got against him again. Frankly I doubt I'm up to the task mentally though. Anyway ...

UCC has become remarkably full of annoying spectators to Warcraft III, GTA3, Morrowind. I feel slightly disgruntled about all this. Whinge, blah, whinge.

Concept

The UniSFA story web-log. This is directed to all my web-logging friends out there. We should start up a soap-operatic blog with multiple owners, who can add a plot-twist or a slice of lame dialogue whenever they feel so inclined. It'd be fun. Tell me what you think of this idea when you see me around. By the way, I don't mean that the plot should be set around Cameron Hall. If it ever happens, let's set it somewhere interesting, please.

2002-07-19T10:51:00.000+08:00

Been a while since my last update. The relative dullness of the last week has been leavened only by the discovery that I passed all my units. I had thought I would feel hollow regardless of whether I passed or failed, but this turned out to be a brilliant piece of self-trickery on my part, a protective mechanism firing to ensure that should I fail, I wouldn't think I was missing much.

Don't put your faith in time, it heals but doesn't change,
And only a fool would take the chance to stay the same.
The Bluetones, 'Bluetonic'

Hmm. Bored. Hence, random rubbish:

He crushes the gold-embossed envelope in one fist, gazing into the dressing table mirror, the other hand running fingers delicately through a short shock of red hair. Its strands are lengthening after a brief period of military precision. The room is tastefully decorated, if a little cluttered. A punching bag hangs, incongruously, from a light fitting.

'Kazama! The moment of truth is coming!'

The reflection he sees obsesses him with its small imperfections. One ear positioned slightly higher than the other. Asymmetries in muscle formation here and there. Hands malformed from one too many sudden impacts. Otherwise intelligent facial expression ruined by Pavlovian pout reflex. He stands and surveys his financial empire - his pathetic zaibatsu.

On the other side of the open plan area two black leather two-seaters face off across a low-slung coffee table upon which are neatly stacked banknotes and coins of varying denominations and origins, next to an ashtray and a powdery credit card. Against the wall the glassy doors of a hi-fi unit reflect the neon street lights outside, projecting inverted, distorted strip club slogans against the white walls. Stacked on the stereo whilly-nilly are Village People and Elvis CDs, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, interspersed with an unending array of crappy romantic pop. A signed and framed photo of James Dean hangs in pride of place by the entrance.

The old man has taken too long. Two years, two empty years savouring the bitter taste of inadequacy - the taste of the class struggle, the taste of national rivalry, the taste of dented pride. And now, maybe, a chance for these wrongs to be redressed. A chance to ram a fistful of pointy hair down the throat of that pristine little boy scout with his super-duper devil-karate lightning-encrusted powers. This time the foot will be in the other mouth.

He turns and drives his fist into the punching bag, sending it swinging crazily. Then stalks to the wardrobe, pulls on spurred boots, chaps and goggles - it's time to ride.

2002-07-11T11:52:00.000+08:00

Smothered References

I've been repeatedly contemplating and then discarding the notion of taking this web-log into depths thus far unplumbed, into a confessional zone that would cause a Baptist to grind his teeth down to white ash. But it doesn't really suit my style. So I think I'll just act bored instead, and go and shed some blood. Or I could follow the lead of certain others, and make a few veiled references.

I need three catalysts. The first is a pure agent, that facilitates everything whilst creating nothing. The second is a caltrop best eaten with honey, that sticking in the craw spurs one to fiery bliss. The third is in everything but is legendarily hard to extract. Sufficient of these three substances can motivate the solutions of my own riddles.

Those are more like suffocated-under-a-pillow references, which in failing to provocatively emphasise the lines of a shadowy profile, do not render the mundane beautiful. They are too opaque, and their lunatic albedo signals, in its few darker territories, the crippling extent of my inhibitions. But such is the nature of my project.

All men have secrets and here is mine, so let it be known,
We've been through hell and high tide I think I can rely on you,
And yet you start to recoil, heavy words are so lightly thrown,
But still I'd leap in front of a flying bullet for you.
The Smiths, 'What Difference Does It Make'

I've been listening to The Smiths quite a bit more lately, which could be the source of many of my problems. Enjoyed the scene in The Doom Generation where the goofy little guy who I wanted to kill throughout (and who did, eventually, get brutally killed by Nazi rapists - hmm) described the demise of a friend who listened to The Smiths too much. Can't say I really enjoyed the film much. When I wasn't yawning, I was either revulsed (by anticlimax rather than by horror) or indeed, at the end, genuinely shocked. A waste of time.

I think I'm regressing. I spent most of yesterday cooped up in my room, alternately playing guitar and reading the manga Hunter X Hunter. Burnt more holes in my fingertips by the end of the day. Enjoyed the manga far too much, given its facile, wish-fulfilment-oriented plotline, substance consisting largely of violent fantasies, and uninspired artwork. Started to think that adult manga fans should admit it's just a way of enjoying children's literature in a semi-respectable cultish manner. Realised that most of said fans probably read Eddings or Jordan with pleasure, and consequently can ex-pect no re-spect from the wider community anyway.

Which brings me to my next topic. Eddings. His entire oeuvre is utter rubbish (and in fact, I had to take legal advice before using the word oeuvre in relation to such a pile of ordure). That's all that needs to be said, really. That some find his works easy to read damns these readers without redeeming the words tainting each banal page. I base this opinion on a one-week consumption of everything he'd written up to 1992, in 1992. I don't think I've read anything by the man since, but his absence has only made my heart grow colder. The fact that he now credits his wife with the co-authorship of his novels goes some way to explain the fact that they're about as interesting as committee meeting minutes. They were written by committee all a-bloody-long (an example, in that last word, of tmesis. I encourage my readers to learn about tmesis, a very Australian practice with a very exotic name). Those people currently reading his work, and praising it with faint condemnation in conversation and writing, should not imagine doing so doesn't reduce them in my estimation.

I wonder if I'd leap in front of a flying bullet to save myself?

2002-07-09T19:45:00.000+08:00

The senses being dulled are mine

And someone falls in love, and someone's beaten up,
And the senses being dulled are mine,
And though I walk home alone, my faith in love is still devout.
The Smiths, 'Rusholme Ruffians'

So. Terracon. It's been and gone, and this will be the update. To be honest, I'm not really sure where to start. Perhaps some statistics:

Average bedtime: 0600 hours.

Average amount of pure ethanol consumed per night: 0.15 L.

Ratio of pointless to significant words I heard used in conversation: 0.73, significantly lower than UniSFAn average

Total time DJing Radio Free Terracon: 11 h

Silliest argument topic: whether it would be good to exchange the development of modern art for the survival of several endangered species

Best go moment: beating Chris Grubb by 10.5 moku in the best game I've ever played

Funniest go moment: watching Chris play himself into atari after five minutes of analysis during a game we played while both completely trashed (he won)

Average number of words comprehended per sentence by people who read from my French poetry anthology on RFT: 2.3

Number of times I said 'Personally, I think that's a little naff': 37

Number of people I despised: 5

Number of people I thought were brilliant: 4

Moment of least dignity: losing to Pam at Crazy Russian, unless I'm forgetting something

Worst Musical Moment: line-ball between remembering the words to Snow's offsider's rap in Informer and actually being amused by 30, 000 Pounds of Bananas

Best Musical Moment: Time and Again by the Bluetones

Number of pikes: 2

Number of times my life was well and truly in someone else's hands: 2

Ratio of bad notes to good notes played on my classical guitar: 0.372

Ratio of people on my list to people not on my list at Terracon: ~ 0.4

Number of disgusting receptacles filled with Iron Stomach leftovers washed: 43

Number of committee members other than me who helped: 0

Number of times I paused to resent this fact: 13

Number of times I quoted the Smiths in conversation: 2

Number of juicy bits of gossip I predicted before they happened: 3

2002-07-03T14:53:00.000+08:00

Pointless Pursuits

Example: sitting in front of a PC for a couple of hours painstakingly compiling favoured tracks from CDs to be burnt onto another CD, then having this process fail abortively about four-fifths of the way through.

Example: hanging a load of laundry on the washing line, then watching as it starts to rain within five minutes, taking the laundry off the line and hanging it out on a rack inside, then watching as it stops raining within five seconds.

Example: updating one's web-log.

Uncle types and their leisure-suit wives,
Helping out amongst the disabled,
From the flats and the maisonettes,
They're reminding us there's things to be done,
But you and me all we want to be is lazy ...
Suede, 'Lazy'

Somehow got myself into a bad mood about halfway through yesterday afternoon. This was around the time I last updated, and it shows through in the final paragraph. Have since had a few gratifyingly anxious messages from people asking whether they're the ones whose mannerisms I find annoying. Amazingly, none of them were. Fortunately, since there was no apparent reason for my bad mood, it faded away within a few hours. Might have been something to do with watching The Killer which is the finest depiction of platonic love between males ever brought to the silver screen, and also charmingly melodramatic in between awesome gunfights, and The Dentist, which, although undeniably complete crap (and definitely very dodgy in places) was a fine recommendation for eliminating everyone in this world who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Probably wouldn't leave behind many of the people I know, but then that might not be any great loss. Dentists have a very high suicide rate it's rumoured. As do anaesthetists. I hypothesise for the sake of my own amusement that their condition derives from some kind of lack of certain nutrients due to excessive hygiene, which would be ironic. I did love watching Corbin Bernsen running around insanely muttering 'decay' like a white-coated Claudius. Maybe people should stop saying 'going postal' and start saying 'going dental'.

2002-07-02T19:10:00.000+08:00

Beat MFoG by half a moku earlier today. Was suitably chuffed, even if it represents one win in a sea of losses against it. The computer AI was on level eight again. Then came into university and beat Adam, who appears to be ignoring the fact that he has a large project deadline on Monday, which is effectively Friday morning due to Terracon. I only beat him by 14.5 moku but I think this was because I am developing a more conservative style to combat MFoG's play, which is much more focused on acquiring influence than starting and winning fights in various parts of the board, which is the usual way UniSFAns play. The point is, I won and I didn't look like losing at any point of the match.

This morning, I finally started drawing together the various strands of the travel insurance claim I have to make due to being robbed whilst on holiday during the summer. It's taken a fair while for the whole saga to play itself out because of some of my stolen items being found by the police in Spain after I had already returned to Australia. This entailed a long, complex and bureaucratic negotiation with the Australian Embassy over there to have them couriered here, and put the claim on hold because it was impossible to find out exactly which things had been recovered. I can tell the claim itself is going involve a lot of aggravating paperwork, since the forms used by my insurance company are designed to thwart all but the most persistent clients, and there are a lot of stupidly complex receipts and other documents that must be interpreted, and a lot of half-forgotten dates and names to be dredged up. I quail at the thought.

When what used to excite you does not,
Liked you've used up your allowance of experience,
Just step sideways from this world, today,
The joker says go the opposite way, today, today.
The Fall, 'Just Step Sideways'

Certain people who I normally like are annoying me at the moment. I won't name any names because I can't tell if this will be transitory or ongoing. The funny thing is, I can't tell if it's because they've changed or I have, or whether my annoyance is situational, circumstantial, or habitual. Suffice it to say that people's mannerisms, which I often hate anyway, are grating even more than usual for some reason. Perhaps I've just been stagnant for too long. Perhaps I've just gotten older, more decrepit, and more intolerant. But it can be difficult to go around with hackles raised half the time.

2002-06-30T13:43:00.000+08:00

Head Half-empty, Heart Half-full

Tell all of my friends, I don't have too many,
Just some raincoated lovers, puny brothers,
Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt,
Every jammy Stressford poet,
Loafing oafs in all night chemists,
Underact, express depression, oh
But Bunny I loved you ...
I was tired again I tried again but
Now my heart is full,
Now my heart is full,
And I just can't explain so I won't even try to.
Morrissey, 'Now My Heart Is Full'

Exams are over. I am hung over and tired, but at ease. A couple of lazy days sprawl invitingly before me. I have plans, but I think a little relaxation is in order first.

The last update I made to this page was actually during my second-last exam - that's commitment. Of course, I didn't know it at the time. Fortunately the university was willing to let me take the exam in the afternoon instead of the morning once I'd informed them of my situation. I'm choosing to regard the incident not as an indication of some kind of deterioration in my ability to organise myself, but rather as a near-certain hiccup in statistical terms once one has been at university as long as I have. The exam itself was surprisingly easy once the bureaucratic details (signing statutory declarations, getting assigned a new exam venue etc.) had been sorted out.

Didn't sleep much on Friday night due to cramming hard for my Saturday exam, and spent the morning sitting in Winthrop Hall furiously ransacking my brain for pseudo-convincing short answers to hard questions, feeling very sick and very fatigued. Came home and somehow beat Many Faces of Go by 80.5 moku on level eight, then proceeded to get whipped by it five times in succession. Strange that.

Went to Dave Thatcher's party to welcome his Scottish visitors last night, despite feeling lousy. I spent about five seconds introducing myself to his guests before leaving them to a grisly fate at the blabbering mouths of certain unnamed crashing bores. Then I went off and got trashed, finishing the night well and truly drunk under a doona on the couch arguing the legitimacy of Aboriginal compensation claims with Tom Pope. Left feeling satisfied that I'd made my point, even if this hadn't been readily apparent during our conversation.

So, I was feeling hungover before I went to the party. Now I have some kind of evil, extended hangover situation happening, having again had little sleep last night. Lucky I've got nothing more strenuous than watching the World Cup Final, playing computer games and watching videos planned for the rest of the day.

Ah, sweet relief.

2002-06-28T10:00:00.000+08:00

Two exams to go. My last ordeal for this semester has begun. If this were the X-Men I'd be feeling my mutant senses kick into gear about now. Embedded Systems later today should be a bad joke, but Information Network Systems, the final boss of my exams, has me slightly worried. I think I should reread Kafka, there are some hard lessons about the structures of this world I still need to have rammed down my throat.

I've noticed that since I started titling the entries on this page there's been a slightly more emphatic theme of negativity. Huskdom, anti-solidarity, very human anger, goaders, democracy is a crock. What a lovely list it is. My theory explaining the gloominess of my titles: a synopsis is a summary of a larger narrative. A title is a synopsis of a synopsis. And since the propaganda disseminated by the institutions of my mind (yes, my mind is institutionalised) tells me that life is an archipelago of tiny atolls of happiness occasionally breaking the surface of an ocean of ancient, poisonous misery, by the time we get to the summary of a summary of existence it's rather hard to see the isles for the black, breaking waves.

It's at times like these it's wise to remember that one hasn't always felt this way, and that one's current condition is subject to sudden changes for the better when nice things happen like one's exams ending. And so I look forward to the me of tomorrow afternoon bearing remarkably little resemblance to the me of this morning, and probably not whining about synopses of synopses of human life looking like pools of black misery. I'm not titling this entry.

I'll conclude with a brief message to Jen, who is off to Vienna tomorrow:

Jen:

The music is weaving
Haunting notes, pizzicato strings
The rhythm is calling
Alone in the night as the daylight brings
A cool empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey sky
It fades to the distance

The image has gone only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna!
Ultravox, 'Vienna'

I doubt you've heard the song (it was released in 1981), but it seemed appropriate. Have fun. You'll be pleased by how much cooler foreign countries are than Australia. And if you meet a really cute Austrian guy who can fight like a Saiyan, I'm sure Chas won't mind if you go astray. I might not make it to the party tonight at all, since studying for my final exam is going to occupy rather a lot of my time.

Tom.
P.S.: Send me a postcard, or at the very least an email.

2002-06-27T19:48:00.000+08:00

Democracy Is A Crock

Go on - prove me wrong.

Originally this was set up to serve society,
Now the roles have been reversed,
They want society to serve the institutions ...
Stereolab, 'Tomorrow Is Already Here'

It's clear that representative democracy is a failed political system. Two parties, each manoeuvring for exactly fifty-one percent of the vote, with polls dominating where policy should, before each election. After each election, a series of stop-gap measures aimed at placating an ignorant, apathetic public whilst following the agendas set by other nations and large corporations. But the problem's worse than that. Oh, yes. Suppose we had a fully participatory democracy. How much would that suck? Would you trust the average Australian to have input on every decision made about the future of our society? I certainly wouldn't. So you advocate elite rule, you say. No, I don't. So you advocate anarchy, you say. No, I don't. So you have no solution, you say. Yes, that's right. Shut up, you say. Democracy may be a crock but it's the only crock we've got. No, I won't. I hate this world.

2002-06-25T09:32:00.000+08:00

Goaders

Get a haircut, and get a real job,
Clean your act up, and don't be a slob,
Why don't you get it together like your big brother Bob?
And get a haircut, and get a real job.
George Thorogood, the eponymous ditty[1]

I've worked out what I need. I need a goader. In Irish mythology, when Cuchullain was battling the forces of Munster at the ford, he had his trusty charioteer Laeg by his side (never really thought about it, but perhaps there's some homoerotic subtext there. Nah ...). Wiping out hundreds of plebs a day will take it out of a fellow, so Cuchullain gave Laeg some rather specific orders. Whenever it seemed as if Cuchullain was beginning to tire, Laeg was to stand on the riverbank and call out the most vicious insults he could imagine at him. Casting aspersions on every aspect of his character, accusing him of weakness, impotence, you name it. In short, goading him, so that he would become angry and thereby more effectual in battle.

Supposing, then, (and this may be a little bit of a stretch) that I can be a hypothetical Cuchullain, and that studying is some hypothetical equivalent of murdering thousands of innocent plebeians sent into battle by a merciless nonexistent devious Irish war queen like Maeve, then what I need is a Laeg. Someone who, while I sit here procrastinating by writing tangential, uninteresting entries in my weblog, will walk in, box my ears and declaim 'Entro! You study like a girl!' or 'Call that studying? I've seen dismembered cockroaches who would make better students of telecommunications than you! And they had friends, and better web-logs, too!', sending me into a fury which would allow me to actually get some work done.

Anyway, applications are welcome: send relevant details together with a couple of sample insults to this email address.

Actually, I think what I need is a copy of myself to compete with. I'm sure we could goad each other quite well, and I'd know it'd be satisfying to beat the snotty git, since it'd always be a close run thing. Such an individual might also be useful for tandem suicide attempts.

[1] This song by George Thorogood is an insult to music. However, it does contain a modicum of salty, unreconstructed good ole boy wisdom.

2002-06-23T19:46:00.000+08:00

Anti-solidarity

I went to a rally in support of the inmates of detention centres around this country yesterday. By the time I left it, I was distinctly disillusioned. The people present seemed a comfortable minority. Comfortable in themselves, because they were there, doing the right thing. Comfortable for Howard who can easily dismiss such people as the 'loony' Left. And comfortable because they were in the minority, perhaps. Admittedly my mindframe was a little negative. But the speakers were uninspiring, by and large even inarticulate, and preoccupied with their own unrelated causes to the detriment of the cause of the day. Saw some old faces there: Phil from the ISO MCing the demonstration, with his usual hip-swaying strident political delivery, and sideways glances at the bimbo running the Refugee Rights Action Network. The bimbo herself, who whilst presumably no lightweight intellectually seems more interested in organising parties than getting anything meaningful done. Spent some time consciously avoiding the ISO people many of whom I know from my earlier flirtations with Marxism. Saw Alex Whisson wearing a red beret and a red scarf and looking like a prat. If he gets his picture on the news it'll probably swing another ten votes Howard's way. In any case, I thought the whole demonstration was crap. I hope something useful does eventually get done for all the unfairly incarcerated people in this country.

I couldn't be bothered going on the march, so I went and browsed a few shops instead. J.G. Ballard's Complete Short Stories and Egan's new book Schild's Ladder have been released, I will have to buy and read them both.

Nothing has to happen somewhere.
Philip Larkin

Larkin said that of Coventry, but you might as well say the same of Perth. Not true, but quite cutting all the same.

2002-06-23T13:59:00.000+08:00

Very Human Anger

Yes, I am blind, but I do see,
Evil people prosper over the likes of you and me ... always,
Little lamb on a hill, run fast if you can,
Good Christians, they wanna kill you,
Although your life has not even begun.
Morrissey, 'Yes, I Am Blind'

I feel like the poor sign-gluer from The Bicycle Thieves. The reason? Some complete and utter bastard stole my bicycle. I hate the human race. I hate having to stoop to narrow-mindedness, mean-mindedness, untrusting paranoia just to get by. I hate having to lock doors, keep track of valuables, haggle with insurance companies, mute advertisements, worry about friends late at night, repair vandalism, and pity streetwalkers. The solution to the problem is clearly to become a destructive, thieving, raping and murdering, corrupt, polluted, heartless, violent pimp. Unfortunately I'm rather underqualified for the position. But I am so very angry and unhappy about this violation of my life. I loved that bike. The name: 'Vector', appealing to my mathematical background. The crossbar: slightly crooked, leading ignorant hicks who thought it was funny to accuse me of riding a ladies' cycle. The colour: shiny red, contrasting with my ordinarily sombre taste. The simple mobility it provided me. Fifty trips to the beach last summer. Two bald tyres and two hundred dollars of repairs this year. If I'd met the person that did this to me at about six o'clock yesterday evening I think I would have set on like a wolf and tried to tear them to pieces, never mind the consequences. Ach!

2002-06-21T20:10:00.000+08:00

Film star, driving a car, propping up the bar, it looks so easy,
Film star, propping up the bar, driving in a car tonight!
What to believe in it's impossible to say, what to believe in?
When they change your name, wash your brain, play the game again (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Suede, 'Film Star'

Saw The Minority Report last night. Was decent. Tom Cruise was average at best but saved by the minimal requirements of his role (or maybe he just made the requirements appear minimal). The plot was brilliant and twisty (or 'maddeningly convoluted' in the words of anti-intellectual, blinkered and moronic West Australian film reviewer Mark Naglazas) and based on an interesting premise. Film lost its tone a couple of times. In science fiction there is often understated humour of the 'people treating weirdness as normal' variety. Crucial to the success of this humour is that it be played perfectly deadpan - that the characters involved give no sign that they realise they're being watched. In several of the efforts this film made at this sort of humour, it was far too obviously knowing. Special effects were predictably excellent (barring the now-ubiquitous slight failure of the CG in certain scenes), prop design was consistent and stylish and made you crave the material wealth of the future (in the form of noiseless, emissionless sleek cars for example). If anything, the failure of the film was in its desire to be decide what it wanted to be: thinkpiece, love story, spiritual journey or action extravaganza. Plus the ending should have been cut off. Anyway, I won't talk further for fear of heading into annoying spoiler territory. Oh, yes, there were a couple of eye-opening (har-har) plot holes.

Currently playing Tekken like there's no tomorrow. Scarily, if there were no tomorrow I might well spend my last hours playing Tekken. Raised a laugh by saying 'I feel like Tekken tonight' yesterday evening. I'm putting down this extended period of ignoring my vow to mental weakness brought on by the exam period. This excuse is feeble at best but remains kindly unquestioned by those around me. Speaking of which, I suppose I should put in a pleasant word or two of gratitude to recognise the various people who said supportive things to me prior to my exam yesterday. I know I'm not always the most demonstrative person, but I do appreciate it.

When cycling into university today, I ran across an old man on the cemetery side of Loch St station. He was wandering around muttering 'Loch Street' in a thick accent which I later discovered to be Arabic. Stopping to see if he was OK, I engaged him in conversation for about ten minutes by which time it was apparent that he had no idea where he was or where he was going. I eventually dragged his surname out of him, went to the nearest service station and found his address in the phonebook, and took him there (it was about a block and a half away). He was utterly humiliated by the experience, I could see, although I was trying to be nice. It must be awful losing your wits to such an extent. In any case, had a strongly samaritan-esque feeling after this random act of humanity. I could get into this whole 'nice' thing if it didn't always have strings attached.

2002-06-20T12:56:00.000+08:00

Huskdom

You are one life older than before, but you can't stop this chill,
Now you're falling in slow motion but the air is still -
If you close your eyes then I will take it (slowly slip away),
Let me close your eyes and I will take it all away ...
Echobelly, 'Dark Therapy'

The last twenty-eight hours or so have been incredibly intense. Nine hours cramming, six hours Tekken, three hours cramming, two hours sleeping, four hours cramming, three hours in my exam, and one hour afterward spiralling around. Truly, I have attained the state of huskdom. The quote is quite apposite, touching as it does on the gulf that exists in my life now that advanced computer architecture has left me. It was a torrid affair, I know I certainly feel at least one lifetime older. At eight o'clock this morning I gave myself no chance. Having left the exam I now think there's a possibility I scraped through by the skin of my gums. I am left hollow, with nothing but conflicting emotions about my present situation. A sense of overwhelming relief that there's even a chance I may have passed, marred by a deep self-interrogative upswell which basically asks 'why do I appear to crave misery?' I could have spent an extra day (out of the six or seven I had available to me) studying and walked out of that exam with no question in my mind that I had passed. I could have actually handed in some of the 30% worth of labs I couldn't be bothered with. I could have used my supposedly functioning brain at any point during this semester, realised I wasn't interested in the subject and withdrawn. Instead I trudged on doggedly through weeks and months of avoidance and procrastination and self-denial, until I reached my current predicament. There is still a very fair chance I will fail. It's enough to make one hate oneself.

As I drove home from university late last night, I was strongly considering driving the car into a tree to see if that would get me a deferred exam. This has certainly been amongst the more tortured braces of days in my life. Now, for better or worse, it's over.

2002-06-18T19:18:00.000+08:00

No more apologies, no more, no more apologi-i-ies,
I'm too tired, I'm so sick and tired,
And I'm feeling very sick and ill today ...
The Smiths, 'What Difference Does It Make?'

I am chattering and overheating with stress at the moment.

In other news: playing Go is definitely not a good way for me to relax. Just beat Chris Gorham by 13.5 moku, but now I am completely rigid and heavy-headed, and I feel like I'm about to snap from tension. Still, a satisfying win in a closely fought match. The stress, of course, may possibly have something to do with the fact that my first and hardest exam is on Thursday morning, less than two days away. I'm feeling reasonably confident about it, but it's still a bit backs-against-the-wallish. I hate these times of year. Oh well, at least I can always take guilty consolation from the fact that some people are in more trouble than I am.

I wonder if listening to Just Like Heaven on repeat for half an hour and then working out the melody on guitar makes one a bit of a sap. I hope not. It's a beautiful song though, definitely my high point from the Cure gig last year and probably my favourite Cure song. A lot of people didn't like that concert, but I enjoyed it immensely. You can't expect people to hop on stage and play a backlog of their greatest hits when they've just written new music they're supposed to be proud of. Anyone who says otherwise is a teenybopper. I should get a ticket to see Gomez when they come to town in a couple of months, it's been too long since I saw a decent band play live.

Apparently 13, 000, 000 or so Australians identified as Christian in the recent national census. I find that a little peculiar.

Various people have convinced me I should go to Terracon. I hope I enjoy myself: I went last year and didn't have fun in particular. Something about the atmosphere in the buildup for this year seems to be boding a little better, but only time will tell.

2002-06-16T22:31:00.000+08:00

Well, I was right about Spain. Even if they didn't manage to crush the Irish like little green ants. But what an ugly shootout! So, through to the final eight so far: Germany, England, Senegal, Spain. Some of the favourites have fallen but others plow on relentlessly. I seriously hope England beat Brazil (who will almost certainly put Belgium out of their misery tomorrow), it'll keep my interest bubbling over if the English stay in the tournament a little longer.

Played Virtua Fighter 4 for the first time before and after England v. Denmark at Leighton's house last night. It was certainly an all-male affair: soccer, violent computer games and fast food. I was both impressed and slightly disappointed by the game. It was more cartoonish than I expected, and seemed very linear, and the moves just didn't look quite as cool as I was expecting. Ah, nothing quite compares to Tekken, it's true. That said, I'm sure the game's apparent lack of depth was largely due to the ignorance of those of us playing. Also, far too much time spent thinking about the qualities of an ideal 3D fighting game has raised my bar a little too high perhaps. Whatever else it is, this game is certainly superior to Super Smash Bros Melee. I don't care how cute the characters are, what I want is proper, intellectually demanding strategy. Leighton and I were the best out of a bad bunch, with me losing little time working up a line of cheese with Aoi and him exploring some of the rortier aspects of Vanessa. Duncan and Oliver brought up a distant rearguard, both exceedingly lacking in style and technique. But truly, we were a host of scrubs. After exams I may see if I can camp at Leighton's for a while and delve a little into the subtler mysteries of VF4.

Speaking of fighting games, I'm a miserable loser. I broke my Tekken vow again, and played eight straight hours of Tekken starting on Friday afternoon. It was a hell of a way to break a drought. This stint rated a mention in Chris Gorham's livejournal, in which he claimed that he was beating me four-ninths of the time. Well, he did win a few. But I'm fairly confident that when it comes to the crunch I still have a significant edge on him. Dave Thackaberry, on the other hand, would certainly be a danger to me in my present weakened condition. I obviously need to go back into hardcore training. Scary that I should be contemplating anything of the kind in the lead-up to exams, but also scarily predictable in its own way. Still, I will re-renew my Tekken vow in an entirely hopeful manner. I really do not want to get back into that avenue of time-wasting just now.

A new episode of Hikaru No Go has just come out. Suffice it to say (since I don't want to spoil it for you, gentle readers) that it doesn't resolve nearly enough. I want - no, I need - a little closure! It's very frustrating to only see one translated chapter of HNG released each week, and only have a plot point resolved about once every ten chapters! Bah. Also, haven't had a decent game of Go itself in ages. My last was against Chris Grubb, and he conceded about halfway through when it became obvious that despite not having made any glaring errors on the small scale he simply hadn't bothered to claim enough territory. Not very satisfying for me since I couldn't work out whether this was due to me playing well or him playing poorly, or indeed just random chance.

In other news: I really should study more. Nothing is out of hand yet, but it's a hard life when you're this talented at using up time.

2002-06-15T17:18:00.000+08:00

Oh, I didn't realise, that you wrote poetry,
I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry ...
The Smiths, 'Frankly Mr Shankly'

The quote doesn't quite fit, but at least it's a funny one.

In any case, I've added a big stack of links to the right-hand side of the log. So now you can all visit some of the sites I visit, and learn all about my uninteresting interests, and heckle me on the Namco Arcade message board and that kind of thing. I'll add new links, and even sections of links, as I think of what should be there. It's a bit of a challenge for me as I don't generally keep bookmarks. Instead I store stupidly long URLs in my head until they rot away, at which point I turn to Google. The music links will also allow the numerous philistines of this world to give themselves a taste of the true black meat.

2002-06-14T11:15:00.000+08:00

I think some guy from The Age had it right when he referred to Johnny 'it's a dye-job' Warren as 'Big Chief Rain-in-the-Face'. What a whiny, self-important, hypercritical instance of the species of sports-commentator he is.

The World Cup continues apace. My favourites, Spain, crushed all opposition in the group phase, recording three wins in each of which they scored three goals. Next they face Ireland, and in my opinion no matter how much dogged spirit there is in the boys from the 'original home of good times' Spain will crush them like the green ants that they might as well be. Olé! England and Italy faltered through in boring drawn matches.

We need a shake and therefore demand more than the cold conclusion of reason
The only impossible thing is to delimit the impossible
The realm of necessity
(To restore the confidence)
(Is) The triumph of human spirit
(Triumph of the will)
Everything remains to be done ...
Stereolab, 'Au Grand Jour'

Good advice for a happy life? Maybe. At this point I'll put in a good word for Tim Powers, one of the better fantasy authors currently gracing the literary stage, if only because his action-packed works aren't just imagination-free servile subcreations of Tolkien. I'm currently reading Dinner at Deviant's Palace which is of the usual quality, and can also recommend On Stranger Tides, Last Call and The Anubis Gates.

In other news: US military doctrine changes. They're now considering launching 'preemptive strikes' against 'rogue nations' who 'support terrorist groups' and 'are building weapons of mass destruction'. What, terrorist groups like the CIA? I'm in danger of being suffocated under the weight of a massive lack of perspective here. It's like Oliver complaining about someone being pedantic or something. Oh, did I forget to mention? These preemptive strikes may involve the use of nuclear weapons. Sounds fair. Meanwhile, our fearless leader John Howard makes speeches about Australia being America's best friend (you know, kinda like a dog is a man's best friend) to a Congress stacked with interns, press figures and office juniors because the real political people can't be bothered. Of course, you can't actually tell this on the news, so it looks like he's speaking to a full hearing, so his strategy of manipulating the media in order to look like a 'statesmanlike' figure is functioning well. Nice to know you're over there fighting hard for our rights, John. It's scary when it becomes impossible to argue against US imperialism because all the old (and true) lines of attack just sound hackneyed. Nothing works! It's disgusting! And so my rant ends.

2002-06-11T15:55:00.000+08:00

I got a letter from the government the other day,
Opened it and read it, it said they were suckers.
They wanted me for their army or whatever,
Picture me giving a damn? I said 'Never!'
Here is a land that never gave a damn,
About a brother like myself, 'cause I ain't never did,
I wasn't with it but just that very minute it occurred to me,
These suckers had authority!
Public Enemy, 'Black Steel'

Mmph. That just about sums it up for me at the moment. I must be rather enervated, I've even been reading online comics today, something I never do. In this case, MegaTokyo. It was quite funny, but I was depressed by how much I envied the central characters their carefree existence. I also broke my Tekken vow, and played a couple of hours of strangely unsatisfying Tekken 3 yesterday. Although most of my old skill was there, I just didn't feel connected. I renewed the vow immediately afterward, so I hope I won't have any more crises and survive on to the release of Tekken 4 without cracking again. Ah, addiction.

In other news: solving other people's emotional problems is a really lame way of procrastinating before exams.

In my life, why do I give valuable time, to people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
The Smiths, 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'

2002-06-08T19:55:00.000+08:00

Two hours!
With four left wing kids
I spent time in Nazi Fortress
Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-11

I did not understand why
I could not accept the fact
that I'd accepted the contract
Much discussion in this institution
Much discussion in boiled beef and carrots
Room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11 ...
The Fall, 'Fortress/Deer Park'

The above provides a chilling reminder of the true nature of studying at university. A nature that becomes apparent only at the pointy end of each semester. In hiatus from tardily finishing my final assessment, I take solace from the fact that this time around I am unlikely to fail anything. Around me others explode, implode, deflate, flutter, flounder, and doggedly persist.

A friend has offered to do a short-film version of my as yet unrealised comic strip script Moments in Negativity, which I'll set up a link to on the sidebar of this page at some point. Sounds like a good idea for the mid-year break. They want me for the leading role, even though I've provided assurances that it's not autobiographical.

The World Cup is drawing more of my attention now that the end of the first round is looming large. My moment of choice is Ireland's achingly late equaliser against Germany. Not the best goal of the tournament to look at (although one of the better ones), it was the best goal so far simply because of its exquisitely appropriate timing and the fact that everyone likes the Irish and dislikes the Germans. The competition has been fascinating with a lot of good matches and unexpected results, the only disappointment being the referees who seem to be disallowing an awful lot of legitimate goals, a phenomenon which has the capacity to make a mockery of the sport.

In other news: I hereby add my name to the lengthy list of people who plan to write novels. This list is much longer than the list of people who actually write novels. However, if you don't form the plan you will never execute it. I have a setting, characters, a skeletal plotline, a few one-liners and set-pieces. Now I need more of the above and a lot of coherent words to go with it all. Time to start using those untapped reserves of self-discipline. Mock me not, for I kid you not. That is the jamb of my gist.

2002-06-04T22:30:00.000+08:00

The silver lips of lilies virginal,
The full deep bosom of the enchanted rose
Please less than flowers glass-hid from frost and snows
For whom an alien heat makes festival.
Theodore Wratislaw, excerpt from 'Hothouse Flowers'

What a dodgy little poem it is. Good though, especially the 'alien heat makes festival' bit, very sinister. Not much in the update today. Lost to Chris Gorham at Go which made him feel good and me feel indifferent, so I suppose it was a positive thing to have done. My early play was bad, my later play not too bad at all really. The result? Eight and a half moku win for Chris. Negates my three-nil thrashing of Oliver earlier in the day.

I note that both Davy-D and Aaron have started posting slavish imitations of my 'Chronicles of the Committi' to their web-logs. It's nice to exert such undue influence over the addled minds of the young, but one wonders whether a pastiche of a pastiche isn't going to be getting a little thin on the ground. In any case, it's of little import.

In other news: I want my road trip. I can't wait for the golden time to come when exams are over, assessment is over, and I can kick back for a few hours to some hypnotic discretionary media, by which I don't mean drugs.

I watched the first seven episodes of Rurouni Kenshin the other day. It wasn't too bad I suppose. I'd seen the dubbed animated movie 'Samurai X' some time last year, and thought it was fairly crap. Although unlike some I had minimal difficulty working out that Kenshin was supposed to be a man. One thing about the episodes of Kenshin that I saw that I thought was a tad problematic was Kenshin's total superiority to almost all of his opponents. When he can just walk into a room containing any number of people and flatten them all without breaking a sweat it takes some of the suspense out of things. Episode seven managed to improve on this by putting in a serious villain. As for the humour? Predictable but cute. I smiled a few times.

People can be so silly on occasion. Even more ludicrous than mistaking Kenshin for a woman is thinking that of Sai from Hikaru No Go. One's explicitly told he is a man when the character is introduced for goodness' sake. Speaking of HNG judging by the latest chapter it looks like Shindo might be about to become a pro at Waya's expense. This'd be a little tragic since Waya is the coolest character in the whole storyline. It'd be better if Isumi-san were to lose out. Meanwhile we all await Ochi's loss at Shindo's hands in the final round of the pro exam. I long for the conquest of that snivelling hypocrite!

2002-06-03T20:07:00.000+08:00

Some see the flesh, before they see the bones,
Some see the bones before, before they see the flesh.
Some never see the flesh at all.
Stereolab, 'Super-Electric'

What does the above mean? I have no clear idea. I suspect it has something to do with the subjectivity of experience. If I had to classify myself into one of the categories mentioned, I would say I was a 'bones-first' kind of guy. What does that mean? I have no clear idea.

Abandoning that meandering introduction to this latest addition to my web-log, we now move to a rather dull synopsis of my weekend.

Friday: stuck around at home, had no intention of going out. Received call from Anil and Anita telling me they had gone to UniSFA karaoke only in the hope of seeing me, and were getting annoyed that I wasn't going to show up. Was deeply touched and rushed out in a jiffy. The evening was ... uneven. I had good conversations with some of my closer friends who were there. I had scant regard, overall, for most of the karaoke performances, and even less for the music selected, although glancing through the list of available songs verified my strongly held suspicion that this wasn't entirely due to the vacuum of taste sucking previously aesthetically attuned individuals into a vortex of vulgarity (must find a way of incorporating more words starting with 'v' into that sentence. Bah. I'll never be as good at alliterating as the Gawain poet).

Eventually, I was coopted for the performance of a couple of David Bowie tunes. The first of these was Rebel Rebel, after which I felt so utterly humiliated that I nearly left on the spot. It was only accidentally forgetting my jacket as I walked out the door that kept me within the cursed environ. My second performance was of Space Oddity, with Anil and Coman as Ground Control and me as Major Tom. I could actually hear myself at some points during the song and realised that maybe I didn't sound quite as bad as I thought. Afterwards several people assured me that I was actually rather decent, but uncharacteristically I couldn't tell whether they were taking the mickey out of me or not. Anil accused me of 'hating praise' and gave me a surprise hug, which Loren found amusing. It was a slightly ... heartwarming ... moment.

The next interesting event of the evening was nearly starting an altercation with the guy Chris (Grubb) and I were playing pool with, when I skilfully misheard 'We're red, right?' as 'You're red, right?' under the blaring tones of whatever slish was on the karaoke machine at the time, and as a result managed to hoodwink the slightly drunk opponent into potting one of our balls. He chested Chris a couple of times before we convinced him that it would be fine to continue if we switched colours. Feisty little fellow. This was after I picked up the white ball and moved it around after being awarded two shots. My mind seemed to absent itself somewhat following the initial karaoke humiliation.

At around this point I got wind that Anita and Tommo were chatting outside in the hope of ending their pathetic conflict. I don't really understand them at all: I don't bear grudges, I just dislike people. Fingers were crossed by all present with an interest in the outcome, but to no avail. Within about a quarter of an hour they'd managed to rekindle the essential irrelevancies of the infamous New Year's dispute and renew their eternal hatred. My personal opinion? They should either give up, or Tommo should work out that the manly thing to do would be to take one on the chin and move on, as Anita is certainly unlikely to do that. The way things are at the moment, they just shouldn't bother.

The scene drawing to a conclusion, I went back to Anil and Anita's with Chris and we hung out and played hearts for a while, which I won (but more notably Chris lost awfully, partly because he was very drunk). I gave Anita some amateur counselling of my usual 'awaken people to the healing power of cynicism' variety, and offered to give Tommo a good solid talking to if she would like. That girl. She always has to turn everything into such a production. It's quite endearing though.

So that was Friday. Saturday: lifted rubble in the morning, procrastinated in the afternoon, went out to James Andrewartha(note: two 'r's, thanks for the sixpack Leighton)'s twentieth birthday party at "". It was the usual scene when I got there, everyone sitting around like stunned mullets in the main living room chatting like the disappointing social failures that they are. So I went and got Phillip's Go set from UniSFA and gave him a game. This was quite a significant moment for me, as I have never beaten Phillip at Go and regard him as probably still the best player knocking around the tri-club area (which makes me, to abuse the style of Jack Womack, 'keen to ex him'). So we played, and I dominated, as far as these things go. I was taking an average of about ten to twenty seconds per move. Phillip was taking about three to four minutes for each move. More than once I took a five minute break during his turn and returned to find he still hadn't played. Eventually I won a semeai (capture race) in one of the corners which would have given me enough territory to secure victory. It was at this point that everything went eggplant-shaped. I was given such an agonising length of time to ponder his possible responses that I lost track of the fact that I needed to properly kill his stones, and made an awful mistake that turned the game in his favour. Which led to an angered (and undignified) concession from me. It would be accurate to say that I was highly disappointed, and this mainly because I had been playing very well up to that point and was set to become official UniSFA Go champion. Have I made too much of the amount of time Phillip takes to play his moves? Probably. He is certainly within his rights to try and read out the play. But after three hours of watching him cogitate, I was flagging. Never mind - his time will come, as it did for all the others. I left the party shortly afterwards, having sung Happy Birthday to James (with the obligatory Lynch howl of 'Tiger! Woo!') at the conclusion and engaged in a bit of harmless byplay at Davy-D's expense with Jen and Rae. It should be mentioned that Rae loses just as many dimensions of her personality when drunk as anyone else. I mention it for the most part because she said on the night that I probably wouldn't. How wrong people can be.

So that was Saturday. Sunday: procrastinated horribly, to the point where I gave myself severe blistering on the fingertips of my left hand from spending four hours relearning the classical guitar. Actually achieved something (aside from a mastery of some of the more difficult pieces in my old year ten repertoire) despite myself, before going around to Leighton's and watching a rather lacklustre soccer match between England and Sweden. Came home, procrastinated, went to bed on a touch of Elric. Sometimes having a soul-sucking sword that randomly kills your best friends seems like quite a simple problem.

2002-05-31T09:02:00.000+08:00

Hatless, I remove my bicycle clips ...
Philip Larkin, 'Church Going'

Something about that line resonates with me. Might be the hatlessness and the bicycle clips, or just the overall tone of awkwardness. Philip Larkin was a librarian from Hull, and my spiritual brother in misanthropy. I genuflect to his memory.

Today, I feel scungy, because I rushed myself out the door without showering. The modern concept of hygiene is more about illusion than actuality. People don't care if you actually wash your hands, provided you leave the bathroom shaking them as if to remove excess water. There is a lot to be said for fastidiousness, nevertheless overdoing it can be ill-advised. There are good reasons why fastidieux is the French word for tedious.

I'm currently hemming and hawing about whether I'll make it to UniSFA Karaoke this evening at the pub. Against it stand my manque d'argent, my ever-increasing workload and my previously noted uncleanliness. For it stands my burgeoning desire for release in the form of total public humiliation of the mutual variety. The balance is delicately poised, but if I don't get enough work done today it will certainly finish in the negative.

If I do go, I'm contemplating a performance of Cream's version of 'Born Under a Bad Sign'. The first verse:

Born under a bad sign, I been down since I began to crawl.
If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all.

Seems apposite at the moment, not that I want to go into that pathetic self-pitying mode that afflicts so many university students at this time of semester. Sadness and struggle is nobler than sadness and stagnation.

2002-05-30T20:34:00.000+08:00

Just played Chris Gorham at Go. I was leading him by a small margin for most of the game, but then he lost his train of thought and went into yose (endgame) without properly containing a massive leak of mine into his territory. This resulted in a fifty or so moku gain for me, leading to a crushing victory. On top again! James comments that I should call this web-log the 'Tom beats Chris' log. I'll think about it.

2002-05-29T22:47:00.000+08:00

Just played Chris Gorham at Go. I eventually won when he conceded ('I have nothing', Hikaru No Go style). However, the match was significantly closer than others I have played recently. After an initial advantage to me, we staked out territory, with him beginning an invasion first. I connected perhaps a little too solidly, giving myself no chance for a small sacrifice to hold him out, and as a result on two separate occasions nearly lost groups of ten to twenty pieces, surviving by an advantage of precisely one liberty in the second case. Having finally finished his chances, his morale was broken and I played through his line destroying a single-eyed group of his whilst his attention faltered. Thus the game ended. I should probably have played a little more conservatively throughout, but all's well that ends well.

2002-05-29T20:28:00.000+08:00

There is no culture is my brag ...
The Fall, 'The Classical'

In the circle of my acquaintance of late there has been much talk about the proliferation of web-logs and phenomena associated with same. Some have opined (even on said web-logs) that this will allow people to be more open about their true feelings. I would like to stand in the negative. This place will never represent the true me. It wouldn't do so even if I were to try. I'm sometimes of the opinion that there isn't a true me at all, and that honesty is just a flawed approach to an unreachable ideal of personal essence.

I've railed about the horror of habit. And I've meant it. Have you (any of you) ever felt yourself moved by forces beyond your control? Forces impelling you to behave or act in a certain way, simply because precedent demands it? I know I have. To submit to such forces is to fail as an individual. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether the passenger, travelling through a horrid environ without control over the vehicle, or the driver, grimly holding to a course despite the protests from the cabin, is closer to the real you. This split is apparent when one attempts to instigate a personal change - a change of habit. Personal change is just a pretence that eventually becomes a reality. Until one's new routines are actually routine, a certain degree of discomfort is inevitable.

In the midst of life we are in death. Aaron's grandmother. Rae's poor cat, Mouse. Nothing drives home the transitory nature of the self better than reaching a terminus. If you're reading this, I implore you to go and use your time for something interesting. Preferably a means of reaching immortality. I'm not one of those types who'd shrink from eternal life.

Flames grow higher, yeah the flames grow higher, erase my name from your lips as we kiss
Higher, yeah, the flames grow higher, now there's one less soul on your fiery list!
The Triffids, 'Hometown Farewell Kiss'

Did I say, in the midst of life we are in death? I meant, in the midst of life we are in Perth. It's a tidy, pretty place, but sometimes it's so anodyne it breaks my heart. At those times I think I'd rather be starving to death in a swamp than walking the seamless bitumen streets of this toy town. I must leave at some point just so that I can come back happily.

2002-05-25T17:28:00.000+08:00

I've returned to pay some attention to this web log (I refuse to use the term 'blog', it produces an uncomfortable onomatopoeic resonance in me) because I noticed that the URL (entro.blogspot.com) had actually started working. The reason for the existence of this page, I've decided, is that I would like there to be a place where my UniSFA rants are archived. If it subsequently develops ancillary reasons for existing, so be it.

2002-05-15T22:13:00.000+08:00

I don't know why I'm doing this. Not knowing why you're doing something too often is a bad indicator of mental state. However, I often have something to say, and now I have somewhere to say it, whether the world likes it or not. Frankly, my dears, I don't ... er ... care.