If I don't start being creative again soon then I don't know what I'll do with myself.

"...and then Timothy Dalton fixes everything with his magic wish glove the end."

What a convoluted, maudlin mess of an episode. Bring on the new season, the new Doctor and, most importantly, a whole boatload of new writers.

A few days I thought to myself, entirely without irony, that I didn't like the way that teenagers are always shouting.

Not a great sign.

A Uwe Boll movie that I actually kind of want to see? Hard to imagine, but there it is.



Admittedly the premise of Far Cry is pretty hard to mess up, and I have an enormous amount of affection for the antics of Udo Kier. Plus the whole movie looks so damn eighties in its action sensibilities, which is no bad thing at all.

By which, of course, I mean that it looks like Commando, and all the movies that ripped it off.

This has been an exemplary weekend. A weekend, in fact, worthy of blogging about.

On Friday night Cass, Nicki, Xi, Lachlan and I saw Kid Confucius, a band that I'd not seen or heard before, but thoroughly enjoyed. I don't really have the muso vocabulary to describe their sound properly, but I suppose that something akin to funk-rock would cover it. They were fun, and talented, and there was much dancing. I'd not been to the Oxford Art Factory before, but it was exactly the sort of trendy yet unpretentious and appropriately dank and dark space I like. Not too loud in between bands, either, which is a relief.

Saturday night was Nerd Night. As a last minute addition to Adam, Lachlan and Benny's Xbox LAN I brought my spare controllers and assisted in the slaughter of many zombies and disgraced myself at Rock Band. Four player Left 4 Dead on a projector, it has to be said, is a fine experience, especially when augmented perfectly by beer and pizza.

Today we dragged ourselves out of bed late and stumbled several steps from the front door to the Marrickville Street Festival, where I bought bratwurst and candy and pork buns and the sexiest leather man-bag I could find. I loves it and it smells like leather. As much as I like my Ghost in the Shell bag, it's not always necessary to use something half the size of myself to carry a book and a pen.

And that brings you up to date, with the exception of My Name is Bruce, which was pretty much exactly what I signed on for. By which I mean awesome.

So Sydney gets turned into a bleak Martian wasteland and I sleep through it. Wonderful.

To make matters worse, I had clothes on the line.

The much-neglected Volatile Memory has finally seen an update - Flower - a new short story by yours truly. I'd love for you to check it out and tell me what you think.

Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?



Why yes, Felicia Day, queen of my heart. Yes I do. Thank you for asking.

As a writer, or at least someone who writes, the annoying thing about meeting new people is that you immediately have one less name that you can use for characters.

Of course, most writers have more problems with meeting people than that...

Clearly what the world needs is yet another 'what if the internet was a really annoying serial killer' movies, featuring a lot of people furiously typing nonsense and speaking their IMs aloud, not to mention that one vocoder voice that every Killer Internet Person seems to use.




iKillers? Really? When was the last time that you saw someone use the 'i' prefix without immediately rolling their eyes? If this thing doesn't vanish immediately it's going to be responsible for a lot of strained eye muscles, not to mention exhausted groan muscles, centred mostly around the exasperation regions.

There's something very special about circling a table stuffing promotional materials into satchels for a friend when the group begins to sing a horrendously off key version of the Buffy musical episode. Guided by a few obsessives who know every word (I'm about three quarters of the way there, despite not actually having watched the damn thing for years) we actually made it through every song, including Mustard and Parking Ticket. Only Dawn's song was skipped because, well, that's what she's there for.

That's the thing about nerds. When you go your whole life feeling like you don't fit in, those moments of perfect inclusion are magical.

Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern? I can't really see it myself, to be honest, but then I've been wrong before. Maybe he could pull off the obnoxious, trashy Lantern Guy Gardner if he bulked up and got a bowl cut, but they've got to be leading with Hal Jordan, and in my opinion Reynolds just doesn't look noble enough.

New story!

VISION

I tinkered with this one for a while, but I think that I'm happy with it now. It's part of my ongoing effort to focus on character and internal worlds and, y'know, feelings.

Enjoy!

Sex, as I'm sure you're aware, is used to sell everything. Cars, alcohol...autism awareness?

I have a bed. I have a wooden queen sized bed which I put together myself. I have far fewer injuries than I expected to have sustained by this point. I have a room that smells like pine. I have a manly, frontiersman-like feeling, despite the fact that the only tool employed was an Allen Key.

The modest spoils of Supanova '09. I managed to forget my camera for both days of the con itself, so this will have to suffice.

Not shown: Cassie's back issues and adorable hat, sore feet, the ability to frame and focus a shot at the same time.

Supanova Day One went pretty well, in my semi-informed estimation. It amused me that it was billed as a 'Pop Culture Expo', presumably because 'Bunch of Nerd Shit' wouldn't have looked as good on the posters.

As per usual with these things, the cosplayers were the highlight of the day. I saw an excellent Master Chief, a terrible Batman, a handful of Rorschachs and a bajillion anime characters that I failed to recognise. Pop culture, it seems, is already leaving me behind. I spotted Cloud and Naruto and that was it. The rest were just a wave of giant hair and impossible skirts.

The main plus of the day, as compared to cons that I've been to in the past, was The Lootening. When I was at San Diego I couldn't buy much because I had no job and was about to catch a plane to a city where I didn't have a house, and in Bristol I likewise had no money. Here I was free to spend, and I think that I did pretty well. The major purchase of the day was a boxed set of both series of Ghost in the Shell, as well as the new movie and a heap of extras, though I also love my new Watchmen mug and the Galactica patch which will soon adorn my jacket. Oh, and my Killing Joke Joker. He comes with a camera and garish shirt, but I think that the naked and gutshot Barbara Gordon must be sold separately.

The only actual speaker that we got to see was Dave Gibbons, having arrived too late to see Richard Hatch and not getting in line in time to see Karl Urban. Gibbons was witty, kind and affable, and did his very best with a few utterly execrable questions. He even seemed excited about the Watchmen animated comic, which is one of the greatest exercises in utter redundancy that I've seen in a while.

Tomorrow we take another shot at seeing Mr Urban, and watch the sad little Harry Potter fans cry over Viktor Krum's cancellation. Yes, I know it's not his real name, no I'm not going to bother looking him up. I'm also eyeing off a relatively cheap Darth Vader bust with light-up light sabre, as well as a distinctly-not-cheap-at-all Batman statuette. I don't know. Do I really want to be that guy with more than one Batman statuette? I suspect that I may already be him in spirit. We shall see.

On a totally different, and far less navel-gazing note:

Ten vital citizen-shot videos about the rising protests and violence in Iran surrounding the elections. Challenging, unpleasant, vital viewing. There's one in particular that I don't recommend to the faint of heart, given that it essentially shows a gunshot woman bleeding to death, but it's necessary for anyone with a modicum of interest in the world at large to be aware of what's going on here.

Part of me is fascinated and gladdened to see the rising role of social media in this sort of world event, and part of me is saddened to see the same old story told again.

There have been doings afoot.

First and most importantly, I've finally gotten the internet up and running at my house. I have a shiny sleek modem with pretty blinking lights, and I set it up all on my lonesome. It's exciting having a connection all to myself, with nobody to account to or blame for the usage. I've always shared before, in one scenario or another, and it feels like another step towards become master of my domain.

I've also gone and bought myself a bed. Again, this is not something that I've done before, and something that turned out to be both simpler and more difficult than I anticipated, mostly due to a particularly sleazy South African bed dealer who fancied himself something of a smooth operator. Both of these purchases feel pretty meaningful, concrete and solid events in the hazy rush of days. The bed is big and hard to move, the internet is on a contract. They're bonds, holding me in place, but they're also vital building blocks in this new life of mine. Which one they feel like more varies from moment to moment.

Either way, I'm looking forward to a little more comfort and relaxation in my life, at least my home life. Work is getting more intense and demanding, but that's another whole post. I've only had a small taste of not knowing where I was going to sleep that night, and I don't recommend it. That said, I still don't feel totally comfortable buying manchester.

If you have time to blog, there's not much of interest happening in your life. Conversely if you have lots of interesting and/or important things happening, you don't have time to blog about it. This is the riddle of bloggery, and I'm pretty sure that the solution is to buy more expensive toys with which to do the job.

Anyway.

I have moved. I am no longer the extra party at Cass's place, gracious and wonderful though she was about my rather extended stay. I now have an empty white room with a futon in Marrickville. I can't decide whether it's my clean Kubrick-esque dojo or heroin chic, but either way I need to buy a bed. And a heater. Winter set in quick this year, and it coincided perfectly with my sleeping alone.

What this means, of course, besides a longer commute to work, is that I get to decorate. Well, that's the wrong word for it. Nest? Still wrong. Whatever, I get to let loose with my Ikea nesting instinct and put stuff where I want it to be. This will most likely just end up being a bunch of piles of stuff, but they'll be MY piles of MY stuff, and that's important. Also: an XBox. I've been out of the loop with current generation games for long enough. The great Catching Up of 2009 begins shortly, though I should probably buy a bed first. That would demonstrate some dangerously skewed priorities otherwise. Let me tell you about the time that I bought hosting space when what I actually needed was pants...

The other upshot, of course, is the lack of internet. iinet are in the process of setting me up (employee discount be damned, I'm still not going with Bigpond) but until then I have only what I can steal from Cass, battery issues with my laptop preventing me from any decent attempt at wardriving. So let it be known that for the two weeks or so to come I am Not Dead, merely Disconnected. It may amount to the same thing, but I'm hopeful.