V for Vendetta - Discussion page

I've sent you an email Melba.

Sure I can't tempt you Squib?

Heating Up. And other stuff.

The last few days have been getting up around 35°C.

And I've been loving it.

I probably would've been sweating like a stuck pig, back when I was porky; but that's not such a problem anymore. Now it's the cold that gives me trouble (it goes straight through me).

But there's also something about this weather that's making me feel nostalgic. ... or, I dunno; there's something about it that just feels ... right... Like this is how it should be.

So I'm glad winter is a fading memory.

And I'm sad when I think how soon it'll be back.

But who has time to dwell on that? Not when you feel so full of ... life?

I want to turn off the news, put on some music, and dance like I was fifteen.

Or five.

I want to re-read my favourite books, and re-watch my favourite films. I've even had the urge to play some old video games -- some old board games even.

I can't explain it.

...


How's the weather where you are?

---

Speaking of old films, SBS has a few horror movies online (presumably for Halloween), and one of them is the classic 1980s' Aussie killer-croc flick, Dark Age. This is one of those pictures that does everything wrong in all the right ways. A monster that grows and shrinks depending on the scene, cartoon white yobbo bad guys, cartoon black mystic good guys, bland unremarkable hero, ineffective, inconsistently written (almost schizophrenic) love interest, gratuitous 80s' style sex interspersed with gratuitous 80s' style violence, weaselly government type who only cares about Japanese tourists. Check, check, check, and check.

The twist here is that the movie tries to have a message of conservation. The crocodile is a special aboriginal dreaming animal, with human like intelligence, which only attacks for a reason; and the good guys are out to save it from a nasty bunch of hunters, who want to kill it for fun, profit, and revenge. Don't miss the completely inexplicable homage to the end of Mad Max 2, where instead of petrol, the protagonists are racing across the desert with a truck-load of precious crocodile. Amazing.

Best of all, it's all very, very Australian.

Definitely one to check out. If you're into that sort of thing.

*Not representative of what happens in the actual movie*

---

And here's another question for the ethics committee.

A bloke who operates in the building space, who I kind-of-know, and whom I've done work for in the past, has offered to pay me to retouch some photos he wants to use as promotional material for his business. Here's the thing: He's not that good at what he does. While he's a nice enough guy, he's very much a slacko, half-arsed, she'll-be-right type when it comes to his profession. What he's asking me to do is cover up flaws in his past jobs so that he can show something fake to prospective clients.

Now, I know this kind of thing isn't new. People have been doing it since the invention of Photoshop. Hell, I've even done this sort of work before, in the past. The question is, should I be doing it.

*sigh* Life was so much simpler back in the days when I looked out for #1 and didn't give a shit about doing "the right thing".

What say ye?

Weekend again already ...

It feels like I only just got over the last one.

Me and my brother and his family spent the weekend at my other brother's place, having a bit of a family get together.

On Saturday night, I slept on a mattress on the floor while my brother and his missus slept in the guest bed. In the middle of the night, Terra went and jumped in between them. Terra is about 4. Her real name is technically not Terra, but she was nicknamed "Terror" soon after she started crawling and it's become more-or-less her real name. Terra may or may not be on some sort of behaviour spectrum, but she most definitely is babied and spoiled. Also, she's been obsessed with boobs ever since her mother bought her sister a training bra. On Sunday evening, my brother and his missus left their kids and went home, which meant I inherited the guest bed -- and Terra. I think I still have grab marks around my nipples and a footprint on my kidney.

And since Monday was a pupil-free day, and since my brothers are both teachers who are married to teachers, and since my work hours can sometimes be quite flexible, I got to spend Monday babysitting two batches of nieces and nephews.

We spent most of the morning in the lounge room. The kids wavered between playing games on their tablets and watching cartoons on the telly. I'm usually a fan of cartoons, but despite how entranced the kiddies were by the flashy visuals and dramatic music, I'd have to say that these ones were uniformly fairly awful. They all seemed to follow the same basic formula of characters "dueling" against each other in some sort of game/contest/battle involving things that I would guess are sold as collectible toys. Also, the female characters were all pretty generic and rubbish, which got up my nose a bit.

* Melbs, have you ever considered writing a children's adventure story with good female characters? I think the world could use a few more. *

One of the lads was thumb-wrestling a younger cousin. After beating her easily, he chanted "I win, you lose, now you've got a big bruise" and thumped her hard in the arm, reducing her to tears. I stormed over, thumped him in the arm, made him apologise, and gave him an earful of grief. Afterwards, I thought about the discussion we had here recently and wondered what I could have done to handle things better.

Half an hour later, the same lad came over and had a cuddle with me on the lounge. Then he asked if he could have some Coke.
- No, I said.
: Why?
- It's 10 in the morning. Too early for cool-drink.
: Why?
- ... 'cause it makes ya act like a total ratbag and I don't wanna put up with that, okay?
: Auntie Paula and Auntie Lilly lets me have Coke.
- Do I look like Auntie Lilly or Auntie Paula?
: ... No. They've got more hair, and wear makeup, and they're more prettier.
- ... You're gonna be lucky ta get lunch at this rate, mate.

While the kids may have been content to sit on their arses all day, I was not. The first thing I did was get them all in the kitchen making sandwiches. Then we put on our bathers and went down to the seaside. I shouldn't have bothered putting togs on the younger ones. I've already talked about how much the kids in my family like playing in the nude, and within about 15 minutes, Terra had cast her duds aside and was splashing around shouting about her bare boobies. Within 5 minutes of Terra stripping off, half of my mob were running around starkers as well. Then another young lass disrobed and joined in. Her dad quickly grabbed her and put her bathing suit back on. She immediately took it off again. So he put it back on. At this point, it turned into a struggle, and the lass began screaming and thrashing around. The dad gave me a filthy look before hauling her off to their car and driving away.

We ate our sandwiches and the wind picked up. The kids made a game out of watching the seagulls and ibis navigate the turbulence while racing for crusts. At one point, the wind got strong enough that the smaller kids were seeing how far they could lean into it without falling over.

So we abandoned the ocean and made our way to the park. The kids played on the equipment for a little while, and then we kicked a ball around for a bit. Then the kids decided they wanted to play poison ball. After a while, one of the lads, who is quite puny for his age, started getting upset because he couldn't hit anyone; so I decided to get "distracted" and "accidentally" walk into the path of one of the balls he'd thrown. Then, for the rest of the game, the little bastard kept saying shit like, "Ha-ha, Auntie Alex is really terrible. I can't believe how bad she is. Aim for Auntie Alex, she doesn't know how to dodge." I wasn't sure what to say about that one, so I let it slide.

Then we played a game where some people had to stay as still as possible while the rest tried to make them move/laugh/talk by doing and saying silly things. I was unbeatable at that one, until the rules were relaxed to allow tickling, and Terra of course, went straight for the bra.

By that time, the afternoon was getting on, and I decided that since everyone had been relatively good we should all get some ice-cream. Terra wanted a piggy-back, which was fine by me, since as long as she was on my shoulders, I didn't have to worry about her running onto the road, or into someone's legs, or  one of those standing menu boards, or something. The lady at the shop who sold us the ice-cream was probably about 20, and had curvy, pointy, banana-shaped breasts (you know the type). I mention this because Terra decided they were novel enough to comment on. "Arnnie Awix, dat lady's boobies are funny."

Fucking hell. I don't know what they're going to do with that girl.

We went home, had an early BBQ tea, said our goodbyes, and parted company. I like days when I get to spend time with the kids in my family; they're always lively and fun, but they're also exhausting and I'm buggered if I could actually raise a mob of the little mongrels myself. Melba, Squib, and parents everywhere, my hat is off to you.

***

I have decided that in commemoration of Cracker Night, I will be re-reading the fabulous 10 part V For Vendetta comic book miniseries, which I have not looked at in about 20 years. I will not be re-watching the shitty movie. If anyone would like to join me in this venture, let me know and I'll send you a digital copy.

The All Clear

Got my results today. Lump harmless.

Also, VitD and other blood-test results "normal".

Before I went in, I had every intention of asking for a copy of the results, so I could analyse the data myself. All that went out the window the minute I started talking to the doctor.

To be honest, I find it baffling that I've managed to live as long as I have, and still haven't mastered thinking and talking at the same time. It's like conversation is so taxing on my brain that it cuts off the juice to everything else. "Want to have a yarn do you luv? Well you'll just have to do without your memory or critical thinking skills until your done. It's not a bloody power-station in here, ya know."

Needless to say, I am quite disappointed with myself.

But the news is still great. So overall, I'd say I'm way out in front.

Also, my local supermarket looks like a haunted house exploded inside it. I'm not a fan of this country's appropriation of Halloween, but I'm slowly growing to accept that it's probably here to stay. What are you lot doing for "the spooky season"? Part of me wants to get a Guy Fawkes mask and start a bonfire down the local park. Don't they carve turnips where you are Squib?

WEEK OF THE WEEK (... ?)

RANT OF THE WEEK (or "Word Crimes")

As if in response to my previous post, today I'm listening to an American podcast (internet radio) in which a major topic of discussion is dealing with cyber-bullying; and of course that means revisiting the Apple-celebrity-nudes-leak-scandal (aka The Fappening). Okay; fair enough.

Me at the office a month ago. Dressed like Spider-Man, obviously.

What surprised me, was that the consensus opinion amongst the hosts was that stealing* the photos was a sex crime, and that anyone who looked at the photos was complicit in said sex crime. One bloke, who's a fucking university professor, said it was like how people who looked at child porn were complicit in the same sex crime as the person who abused the child.

I trust you'll tell me if I'm wrong on this one, but this whole premise just seems utterly fucked to me.

Firstly, possession of child porn isn't a sex crime. Filming yourself having sex with a child is a sex crime; possessing a copy of that film is a crime of, well, possession. I'm not defending anything here; what I'm saying is that some loathsome cunt who wanks off to horrifying pictures he finds on the internet is committing a completely different type of crime to the loathsome cunt who produced those pictures in the first place. It's like if someone bashes you, and while you're unconscious, some unrelated party steals your handbag. Yes, the thief is still a cunt, but he's not responsible for or complicit in the bashing -- whether you'd like him to be or not.

And let's not forget, nobody was actually abused, sexually or otherwise, in the production of these particular pickies. I'm sure the celebrities involved feel legitimately violated, but that's not a good reason to start arbitrarily expanding the definition of words. Under this new concept, if a pick-pocket lifts your mobile phone and it happens to have some candid photos on it, you may as well just label them a rapist, because it's basically the same as if they'd sexually assaulted you, right?

-- And another thing, cyber-bullying does not count as violence against women. Again, I'm not saying it's a good thing, but violence has a specific meaning that does not include typing nasty shit on a computer; nor should anyone be attempting to broaden the definition to include such things. Just call it what it is instead of playing with words to manipulate people's emotions.* --

... fucking hell; here's why this bugs me so much:

I don't know if it was weeks or months ago now (time just seems like a blur these days), but a little while ago, I heard a clip of British PM David Cameron saying that anyone who watched or shared ISIS beheading videos was complicit in an act of terrorism. ... the fuck?

Actually, I've noticed that in The States too, they seem to have started a process of gradually reclassifying regular crimes as acts of domestic terrorism. I guess once you label someone a terrorist, it's easier to justify killing them without any sort of due process.

And speaking of The US, remember with both the Manning and Snowden leaks, how in America there was debate about whether or not publishing or reporting on the documents was itself an act of treason? With the Manning case in particular, do you remember when Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Attorney General What's-His-Face said that Assange was a criminal, and spoke about revoking his citizenship, when he hadn't even been charged with anything? (Fuck, I lost a lot of respect for Gillard that day)

Words have to have meanings, and those meanings have to fucking well mean something. And just because something grubby happened that involved some pictures of tits, doesn't make it a fucking sex crime. I can understand why politicians try to get away with this type of bullshit, but when whole swathes of the media and supposed "public intellectuals" start arbitrarily broadening definitions to suit themselves, and nobody in the crowd says hold up, what the fuck are you doing? ... well, I don't know where the fuck it leads*, but I can't imagine it's anywhere good. So, um, fuck the lot of 'em. Cunts.

*Maybe the best example of where it leads is how now we all just blithely talk about intellectual property violations as stealing. Why? Because "stealing" sounds so much more egregious than "copying" doesn't it? But that's exactly what it is. You can't actually steal a fucking idea. We have a word that means the exact thing we're talking about, but we've been collectively trained to use a different word that means something else, because it has a stronger negative connotation.

I welcome all comments calling me a fuckwit on this.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK (or "Isn't It All A Little Bit Bullshit?")

I listened to two ABC docos this week. Helen Garner's Monkey Grip, and The Making of Modern Australia Part 1: The Child. While I wouldn't rate either as "must watch", they were both pretty decent. However, as I listened to the first, I kind of became overwhelmed with a sense that skewed the way I listened to the second.

Basically, in the Monkey Grip doco, there's a bunch of older people talking about how the book perfectly captured the lives of a generation of Australians, and younger people talking about how it's this wonderful snapshot of Australian history, etc, etc. What only gets lightly touched on by Noni Hazelhurst towards the end is that it's really a snapshot of a specific group of people living in a specific part of Melbourne. And while I'm sure it reflected the lives of many people across Australia, I'm equally sure it didn't reflect the lives of many many more. So while, yes, for the people of that time and place, it was their whole world, it certainly wasn't the whole world.

At least there's one nude celebrity on the internet that I recognise.

Most people don't leave behind artifacts. They don't write books, or articles, or blogs, or probably anything really. And even of that small group that does, most of it just gets washed away by time. And then we take whatever's left and hold it up as defining examples of an era -- and it's just kind of bullshit, isn't it?
It's the same general problem I have with surveys and certain scientific studies. Isn't it true that you're only ever testing the kinds of people who are willing to participate? That your scope is limited to a subset of people who have a particular behavioural inclination? Of course, we'll never know the degree of the bias, because you literally can't test outside that group; but shouldn't you at least keep that in mind when looking at the results? 

How would you write a book that tells the story of "this generation of Australian"? (I guess you'd probably write something about fucking Facebook and mobile phones.) But look at Australia today, and how broad the culture is, and the variety and nuance and all that sort of crap. Look at the arguments, and differences in ideals, and lifestyles, and how different people living in different circles view things in completely different ways. (Hell, I guess everybody sees things at least a little differently, don't they?). But how much of that gets reflected in literature and media that anyone's going to look at a hundred years hence. Still, no doubt in a hundred years, people will be looking at the books and articles and other bits and pieces that have survived and are considered "historically significant", and they'll mold those tiny remnants into a canonical view of what things were really like, probably while chucking around word like revolution and zeitgeist -- and it'll all be a little bullshit, won't it?

I should say that I'm not in any way criticising works like Monkey Grip; I'm criticising the way they're sometimes presented in a historical context that's broader than what it maybe should be. I guess I'm just bitching about broadness today.

So, how about something on a lighter note?  

MUSIC OF THE WEEK (or "This Week In 1987")

I like to listen to non-lyrical music when I'm doing things that require a degree of concentration; and in more recent years, I've found myself listening to more and more electronic shit. This has in turn led to me listening to more and more non-non-lyrical electronic shit when I'm doing things that don't require so much concentration. 

 One of the acts that I've discovered and taken a shine to is Koobra - a DJ/musician from Helsinki Finland. He first came to my attention when I saw this promo video for a Nokia phone and got curious about the very 80s sounding song they'd used.

Anyway, it looks like he's partnered up with the mysterious "Joanna" again to produce this thing.
Maybe it's just because I've done video production work in the past, but I find this clip fascinating. The description on YouTube credits Pablo Films, which is also based in Helsinki and lists Nokia (formerly Finish) as a client; and there is some overlap with the names credited for the Nokia video.

To be honest, I think I'm mainly just impressed with how cheap it all looks. A camera, a couple of lights, a smoke machine, a fan, a dolly, a building, a paddock, a couple of stock shots, some makeup and a black sheet to drape over the singer and blow around with the fan. And yet it complements the song so beautifully. If it wasn't obviously shot on high-def digital video, this could easily be something plucked directly from the 1980s.

I don't know if the retro thing is big in Finland, but if they filmed this over a weekend for a modest price (as I'd like to imagine they did), then my hat is off to this lot.

What can I say, I appreciate economic and efficient creativity.

WINDOWS OF THE WEEK (or "What the Fuck Happened to 9?")

I don't know if you know this or not, but Microsoft has put out a free work-in-progress version of the upcoming Windows 10. You can read about and join the "Insider Program" here, or just skip all that bullshit and download it here.

While I don't care for Windows in general, It's not something I can really avoid, and I'd say this version is at least not looking too bad. While I definitely would NOT install this demo on my main computer, if you've got some hardware you're not using or know what a virtual machine is, it might be worth checking out. Depending on how they play their cards, this one might end up being the next XP (ie: everywhere for ages); so why not get a handle on it now, ay?

Now with LIVE TILES

Topless

Today, was the first day when it got properly warm. By which I mean over 30. I don't consider it properly warm if it's under 30.

And since I spent the day working from my home computer, I decided to whip my shirt off rather than pull the fan out and waste power.

When I was a youngster, we lived in places where the temperature regularly got over 40, and the nearest neighbours were miles away. Also, Dad had been in the army and had no shame whatsoever, and maybe that set the tone a bit too. Basically, we went naked or mostly-naked a lot.

As a young adult, it wasn't uncommon for people to strip off when they were on the piss. Of course, nobody had phones or fucking Facebook in those days.

If the world has changed, I don't think the family's has much over the years. My brother put up a high fence so he could garden naked. None of my nieces and nephews would think twice about playing naked in front of people, at least until the age of ten or so. About a quarter of the photos in my Mum's albums are of naked kids, which in this day and age, might be worrisome from a legal perspective. But I doubt anyone in the family's even given it a second thought.

I was thinking about all this while I looked out the window and wondered if any of the neighbours could see in. I suppose I should've been concerned about it, but I wasn't really. If anyone could see in, hopefully they weren't filming it on their fucking phone and uploading it to the net.

How was your day/weekend/week? Has it been warm where you are? Do you go topless/nude? What're your thoughts on the subject?

Lucky

The other day when I had my scan done, there was a woman in the waiting room who was built like this. That's a quick, cartoon sketch, but the proportions are not exagerrated at all.

Then a woman in her mid thirties came in, pushing a chair contianing a child about ten years old, who obviously had severe physical and mental disability. The woman's hair was messy and she had huge bags under her eyes. At one point, while they were waiting, the boy yelled out and threw a toy at the woman. In response, she swore under her breath and kicked him in the shin.

It made me think that no matter how the results come back (and there's no reason to think they won't be clear), I've already had a much better run than a lot of people get.

It's a pity I can't think that way more often.