My Journal Recent
Profile
Calendar
Friends
Memories

Roleplaying
LARPS
Traveller
Mage

Comics
Grimjack

SF&Fantasy
My Work
Lord of the Rings
Reviews

Site Info
The Owner
Links

Munden's Bar->My Journal

My Journal

older entries

It was my birthday yesterday, and it was a wonderful day. The day started by getting up relatively early and eating the strawberries that seraphs_folly had prepared for my breakfast me the previous evening. She'd removed the greenery from almost an entire punnet of strawberries, so I was unable to finish them all for breakfast!

I headed off to work and kept nicely busy, so the day passed quickly with a minimum of stress, and several happy birthday wishes via txt or twitter, and then it was down to Kazu yakitori where seraphs_folly had already started on the lychee chu-hai, and she began to ply me with beer (Asahi).

I was also surprised by a pile of presents on the table, topped off by a beautiful cat-shaped birthday card (I'll post a pic later). Even though she had already given me a birthday present (a watch), and there was another birthday present on the way in the mail (something naughty), and even though busy with her latest house project, my love had gone out of her way to pick up some presents for me to unwrap.

The wrapping paper was also memorable, possibly the richest wrapping paper I've ever received, thick heavy paper, embossed with gold glitter, etc. It was so beautiful I didn't want to damage it, so I very carefully plied it off to reveal...

Well, I was expecting a couple of little things, just to give me something to unwrap, more "stocking fillers" than real presents, as I'd already received, or had ordered, some lovely presents. What I got was presents that were in many ways more impressive than those I already knew about.

My love told me that she'd gone into Comics Compulsion and asked the guy there to show her "the prettiest things he had". She'd sorted thru these and made her choices trying to ensure they weren't things I already had. And so I ended up with the hard-back version of Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell's The Dream Hunters(1) and Absolute Death. I am very spoilt, and I'd say that these were the best presents ever, except I seem to be saying that every time about the things my lady gives me. It's wonderful having someone who knows you well enough to buy surprise presents that one really likes.

We ate and drank our fill, edamame, karraage, miso. In the process I discovered that the Kazu peppered steak is divine. We moved on to Cafe Eis for dessert. I had an ice cream that tasted like biscuits and coffee. From there we weaved a somewhat drunken way to Reading Central, and determined we had to wait a bit to get Gold Lounge seats for 2012 We filled in the time by trying out the iFeel (or some similar name) massage chairs in the lobby. It was a little disconcerting being held by the ankles, pummeled in the back of head, and anally-probed, by an intelligent chair.

The Reading Central Gold Lounge is not a particularly good deal these days, without the free drinks and popcorn, and with the seats being a bit worn and clunky after several years of use, but the seats are still nicer to relax into and we had some of the best ones. Based on the trailers, I now want to see several movies, from Sherlock Holmes (if only for the laughs) to Avatar (Even though it worryingly reminds me of the second Star Wars trilogy, combined with Matrix 2 and Starship Troopers the TV show).

As to 2012, well, as expected it was a big, dumb, special effects movie that was a lot of fun. It had many common Hollywood tropes, from reconciling a divorced couple with kids(it happens all the time in movies, I'm not sure it ever happens in real life) to killing all the people who have sex. But there were very few times that the pace got slow or there was unnecessary padding, the only places where I felt that was where some characters lingered a little long over their good-byes and kisses when there were important reason for them to hurry. I enjoyed several things, like the fact that the lead drove his Russian mafia bosses limo, which was one of those armoured, over-powered things, with bulletproof tires, designed for taking gunfire and for combat evasion, through the initial escape, giving at least some justification as to why the car survived that sequence. And then the Russian pilot found possibly the only aircraft that could have gotten them out of Las Vegas like that, an Antonov AN-124 Ruslan (NATO reporting designation 'Condor'). I also loved Woody Harrelson's character, and you could tell he was enjoying it too! The Yellowstone eruption sequence looked great, regardless of it;s technical accuracy.

There were so many enjoyable little touches, many of which made me LOL, I can't list them all and of course, the spectacle. Overall I think it's well worth watching in a big theatre while tipsy, probably not worth getting on DVD though unless you have a 60" screen and a really good sound system.

Waiting for the Gold Lounge showing meant we didn't get home until almost midnight. When I got home I found I'd received a lovely email from a close friend which really topped off the evening, and then when i remembered to turn on my phone this morning (having turned it off during the movie) I found more birthday txt messages.

And just a few moments ago, my love informed me that she had also purchased tickets to Neil Gaiman's talk next year for she & I.

A really great day that made me feel very loved and special.

Just finishing this at work while waiting to head of to BBC, followed by TNC.

All I need now is a day of relaxing at home to remove the shrink-wrap and really appreciate my presents!!

1. Not to be confused with Neil Gaiman & and Yoshitako Amano's The Sandman : The Dream Hunters. This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/458460.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Last night a group of us, organized by tyellas, went to see Terry Gilliams's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. It was a lovely little story, notable for being Heath Ledger's actual last film, and unlike Dark Knight which he actually finished, this one he didn't and the film was instead completed by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all playing Ledger's role, which works perfectly because of the film itself.

Seeing as the latter are some of my favourite pieces of male eye-candy it was an especially enjoyable film from that point of view. You could see, in some of the scenes, the same brilliance that made The Joker the star of Dark Knight, and with Depp playing the same role, you could see many similarities between Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow & Ledger's equally piratical Tony. Depp, of course, tried not to be Captain Jack, so we had Ledger being Captain Jack, and Depp not being captain Jack, with both playing the same role. Colin Farrel and Jude Law were equally adept at being Tony, so much so that while it was easy to pick which scenes were definitely played by Ledger, and which were definitely played by Depp, it was not quite so easy, at least to me, to pick those played by Law & Farrel.

Chistopher Plummer played the title role adequately, but often reminded me of Dumbledore, or even Gandalf, it seemed he even wore Dumbledore's robes at points through the film. Tom Waits was perfect as a rather friendly Devil who was more interested in the game than winning, whose character was perhaps summed up by one line : "Damn! I think I've won!"

But the title of this post is "Ruined" and that is because I am now completely in lust with Lily Cole, who played both Parnassus' wife (in flashback) and daughter Valentina. Not only is she a perfect pale-skinned redhead, with a fae-like Audrey Kawasaki look to her, but she's smart, with five A-levels, and a first class from Kings College Cambridge, environmentally and socially aware, working with anti-mining groups, and writing the foreword for Tansin Blanchard's Green is the new Black. Gilliam made full use of her physicality throughout the film, drifting her mermaid-like through some of the imaginary scenes, posing her in a Lady Godiva manner during one sequence, enhancing her other-wordly facial look in other, and, in the aftermath of the one sex scene just having her breathing heavily in a mauve bra.

I shall now forever be doomed to live a life of unrequited lust, unless I, like Parnassus, can also make a deal with the Devil for Ms. Cole's attention.

This morning I woke drained and migrainy, maybe there is a succubus or vampire at work in the neighbourhood?

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/458044.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

After having watched the latest Dollhouse last night, I just wanted to record something which I noticed when watching the thirteenth episode, Epitaph One.

Almost everyone is aware that the basic premise for Dollhouse is taken from Gerry Anderson's Century 21 super-marionation series Joe 90 with appropriate updates to create an edgier and more modern story.

However Epitaph One owes a lot more to Frederick Pohl's 1964 novel A Plague of Pythons (also called Demon in the Skull). Though most blurbs for that novel imply some form of alien or demonic intelligence is responsible for people, including the lead character, being taken over by other intelligences and doing horrible things, which is what some of the characters in the novel think because the general public has no idea what's causing it, the final explanation is much closer to the situation in Epitaph One.

I'm not claiming that this is where Joss Whedon got the idea, but for fans of Epitaph One it might be interesting to see a similar concept rendered in a novel.

This entry was originally posted at http://mundens.dreamwidth.org/457875.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Mind fed on science fictional poetry read by the Voyager's authors, body fed on half-price Chow - edamame, Angus beef satay, Thai fish cakes, and banana leaf-wrapped fried chicken, watered down by Asahi, I cuddled up with seraphs_folly in a haze of of over-fedness.

This, unsurprisingly, led to dreams.

( Plane Crash )

( Pokemon Evolution )

This afternoon the valley of Pinehaven Road was bright, sunny and beautiful



( Read More {cut for images) )

Your result for The Demon Test...
( Read more... )

Your result for Are You Pansexual?...

( Read more... )

It's a dull rainy Saturday, with time spent at craft fairs eating cake with lovely ladies and just generally relaxing, and I don't think I can be bothered doing anything useful.

This last week we finished our marathon watching of Battlestar Galactica. While it is a great series, and they do lots of great stuff throughout it, just like many Japanese anime it has very poorly constructed end. ( It's probably too late for most people but I'll spoiler-cut it in case )

Anyway, just felt I had to get that out of my system.

Have just finished reading this interview with Dr. Phillip Zimbaldo, the organizer of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. It made me think. As most of you know, I have a strong interest in both BDSM and LARP, and while the Stanford Prison Experiment was psychological research, it ended up being very much about both live role-playing and BDSM, though I don't think the psychologists have really followed through on those links. Of course, I haven't done a survey of the literature so I may be completely wrong about that. In fact, the LARPers amongst us would look at the Stanford Experiment and be horrified at the lack of understanding of role-playing safety displayed by those arranging the experiment.

( Another rant on morality )

Hmm, a Saturday afternoon rant. Haven't had one of those in a while, been too busy working. I blame Gaius Baltar.

Sorry people am not feeling up to coming into town to discuss LARPS, even though Father's Day family stuff doesn't happen till later. It's a lovely day but my head is stuffed and my eyes ache, and while I can type, read, and sit here, I think the wee burst of cleaning I did this morning has drained me completely. However. I will be keen on being involved in, and possibly even running, a LARP or three.

However, while trying to recover myself after some cleaning I looked out the window and saw the following and decided it needed to be recorded.
( Wodd Pigeions in magnolia )

The concept of The Curse of the Yellow Sign ( by John Wick) looks like it would make a good little LARP. In fact with John' suggestions for staging and the like, it's almost a LARP as written.

Almost makes me want to run it at Fright Night.

This is a little late, but I've been slack. The primary reason for putting this up is to share some pics with my sons, but others may be interested.

The following two sets of photos were both taken on the day we celebrated Eleonore's birthday this year. The first set depicts a uniquely decorated set of cup-cakes that wasup_bro and friend put together. They're pretty impressive, I especially like the cat (Tommy), the Pac-Man, and the Poke-ball!

( Cakes! )

The second set is from the dinner that panda_pitt organized at Scopa.

( Scopa )

No Right Turn recently said this :

Christchurch International Airport Protection Bill (Clayton Cosgrove): this bill is a response to noise concerns about Christchurch International Airport by local residents. It would "resolve" those concerns by stomping all over them. The bill would ensure that no provision of the RMA could be used to limit the operation of Christchurch airport on the basis of aircraft noise, and require the Christchurch City Council to issue a new District Plan prohibiting "noise sensitive activities" (meaning residential development, schools, hospitals, or pretty much anything involving people living) within a moving boundary which will expand as the airport gets louder. From the maps on the Christchurch City Council's CityPlan site some of this area is already occupied by residential housing (see maps 30 and 31); no compensation would be payable for any loss resulting from this.

This is an awful bill. Its so awful, National might even vote for it. The only thing stopping them is that the victims are in Gerry Brownlee's electorate

I have to disagree.  What No Right Turn is obviously unaware of is that the people who are complaining about the airport noise moved into the area long after the airport was already in operation, and have since being trying to use the RMA for purposes that it was not intended for, i.e. : for improving their own land values at great  expense to the general public.

It's not about Christchurch airport getting louder, I suspect that bit is in there just so that there is something to that can be removed from the bill, a sacrificial clause, as it were, because aircraft technology is not producing louder aircraft.

What it's about is residential areas expanding and encroachng on the airport's pre-existing exclusion zone, and then home-owners and land developers, who are fully aware of the noise and presence of the airport when they purchased or built there, or when they started subdividing the land around the airport, retro-actively trying to shut-down the airport to improve their own property values. Those residential areas on the map were all created and developed many years after the airport was built and went into operation

We had exactly the same issue with RNZAF Wigram. The air force base had been there since 1911, yet we had people living in houses built next to it in the 1980's phoning up and complaining about the noise!  Luckily being a military operation we could politely tell them to fuck off, bluntly saying if you don't like the noise, why the fuck did you build there?

Why should the greedy home-owners and land developers be allowed to force the Christchurch Airport to close or relocate, lining their pockets because they bought cheap unwanted land (because it was close to an airport)  which would suddenly become worth a lot more if the airport was closed down, at great expense to the community at large?

That's what Clayton Cosgrove is trying to prevent with his bill.

Tui Ad  "Two girls kissing is technically the same as two boys kissing -  yeah, right! "

Not up to the usual standard , I don't see what the "yeah, right" is all about this time?  It is the same, at least in the sense that both are two people of the same sex kissing. What's the problem? Are the Tui ad writers homophobes??

Also saw a "Royal Wolf" container. I want one to live in. Or to store certain things in.

We left a class of school kids standing on the platform this morning, because their teachers had bought "economy" tickets, and they had to wait until after nine to use them.  

The oracle offered up an interesting juxtaposition of songs this morning. First there was Garbage's Supervixen which ends with the repeated lines :

He has a lovely voice. Makes me go all squishy inside.

Of course, this was followed by The Doors doing The End and Bon Jovi's Wanted : Dead or Alive, so I'm hoping the oracle isn't really trying to tell me something.

@jnicholson linked to this BBC article about the intelligence of corvids, and I found this interesting MIT article on interface technology somewhere and on Wired. this morning there was this interesting article about Feds potentially being caught by RFID sniffers at DefCon. It goes on to point out the massive security risk created by using RFID ID's and passports.

Now to waste more company time by going and getting a coffee. They're going to regret stopping supplying reasonable coffee. But then it seems HP's CEO Mark Hurd is actively trying to destroy the company and cause it to lose it's market position. I'm just glad I live in New Zealand where they can't force you to take 30% pay cuts just so that Hurd can get his $23 million bonus. But this publicity means no client will really trust that an HP/EDS team can deliver a project, because they'll know most of their good people will have already left.

I suspect Mark Hurd's days are numbered. Given the number of employees HP/EDS has, and how pissed off they are about him, the chances that one of them is driven enough to put a bullet in his head is quite high. Anyone who did so would definitely be cheered throughout the world as the saviour of the company. Isn't it about time that the workers of the world embrace assasination as a salary negotiating tool? It seems a reasonable response to multi-million dollar bonuses to me.

This morning, though dull and rainy, and the train was a late & slow one, I didn't mind, because the musical oracle served me up a treat. 

It began with David Bowie's Queen Bitch, which musically reminded me of The Killers Mr. Brightside , especially this bit 

Followed by Bush's Chemicals Between Us. Listening to the song I imagined it as an anime soundtrack. All those anime where people float in tanks of chemicals, and those that care for them touch the outside of the tank. The song also starts with the line "the power of children can amaze", and in so many anime are kids pressed into service. And as they sang "I'll try not to complain, I know that's a pisser, baby" I was reminded of all those anime heroes who are annoyingly whiny as well. Feel free to AMV it if you have the time.

This was followed by Sisters of Mercy doing Temple of Love. I've already raved about how that sounds like a soundtrack from a modern urban fantasy or techno-thriller, and that I can see the black attack helicopter in my mind as Andrew sings  "the black sky thunder sweeping
underground and over water ", so I won't say any more.

From there it switched to Annie Lennox doing a gospel version of Train In Vain. It's just a great little song, though you probably won't remember the title, I didn't. The chorus though : 
 
Next as we swept down the edge of the bay, and squalls chased each other across the blue steel water, the oracle served up New Model Army's Green & Grey. "The time I think most clearly, the time I drift away, is on the bus ride that meanders up theses valleys of green & grey". Replace that bus with a train, and that's me.

Then as I needed to get up and leave the train I was assisted by the beat of Minuit's Roomful of Cute  : "I fogot to mention you are beautiful" Finally as the tails of my leather trench swung in time to it's beat, I got Fiona Apple's Window . Words to live by (*grin*) :

So I had to break the window
It just had to be
Better that I break the window
Than him or her or me

Also, the young train guard acted like he'd been taking lessons from pookah guard

The dinosaurs are back. I don't know what it is about the concept of Jurrassic Park and dinosaurs, but they keep appearing in my dreams. 

This time the park was in a coastal area, similar in feel to Queen Elizabeth II Park, just south of Raumati.

@SallyMclennan had decided to land her space-ship house there. She had chosen a spot based on the map, and kept insisting that was the spot for her, even though I had been to the place before and kept telling her that if she landed the house there, the rear section would be at a forty-five degree angle. This wasn't such a big deal as the gravity compensators could easly over-ride a mere 1G and make it feel like it was flat, but it would be a continual, unnecessary power-drain, and the engineer in me detested the idea.

After we had landed there was much exploring of dunes and seasides, until after scaling the side of a waterfall we came across the area we would later discover was the dinosaur park. It was not sign-posted and was merely difficult to get into, not impossible, requiring us to do a high wire act across the lake behind the waterfall, though while doing this I had deja-vu, and felt that it would not be safe but all those  who've watched Fringe know what deja-vu is, so we ignored that. 

There followed some discovery of dinosaurs and the by-now-mandatory hiding from T-Rex by staying still. If it turns out when we do re-create T-Rex, that Jurrassic Park and it's advisors were wrong, and T-Rex can see pretty well, then there's going to be a lot of people standing still and letting themselves get eaten.

While hiding in this manner, we observed that the dinosaur park had multiple levels,and we watched as the T-Rex made use of the elevator between them. It had difficulty using it's stumpy forearms, and had to sort of push it;s head against the wall sideways to be able to push the buttons.accurately. But it was smart. At one point we waited for it to go into the elevator before we made a break for a door, but the T-Rex was waiting for just such an event and poked it's head back out of the elevator seeing us running for the door.

It leapt  between us and the door and we were doomed! Until suddenly we were rescued by a cute girl who flew out of the sky and interposed herself between us and the T-Rex. This seemed suicidal, until she announced herself as Battle Angel Alita, (though in my dream she looked more like Chise from SHE:The Ultimate Weapon). The cyborg, of course, wiped the floor with the poor T-Rex, whom one could almost feel sorry for as something that bite-sized turned out to be impossible to bite, and we escaped.

Later, we defended ourselves from, and herded, some velociraptors by each holding bed-spreads printed with a life size Battle Angel Alita in front of us. Also, at one point I got involved in hand-to-hand combat with another T-Rex and managed to escape it in a Jackie Chan-style sequence in which I managed to handcuff it somehow. Who said dreams have to make sense?

I had a later, more involved dream about politics & investigations, but I remembered more details about the anime dinosaur one.

I can actually see sun outside...

Via  elfs Your result for The Supervillain Archetype Test...

The Megalomaniac

Ambitious, Intelligent, Calculating

Take The Supervillain Archetype Test at HelloQuizzy

Via @Danjite & BlogHer, in finally severing all ties with the Southern Baptist church, Jimmy Carter says :

It's a shame it still needs to be said, but at least someone with a little clout is saying it.

This cogent description of the problem with the Department of Internal Affairs censorship of New Zealand's internet feed

This article about Jack Vance and the Totality of his verbosity.

Styling your garage

"We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,”

I was woken this morning by a cat bashing open my bedroom door. The creature did, however, have enough sense of self preservation not to come anywhere near me after entering the room and meowing at me. It is now sitting smugly by my right shoulder, after having demanded biscuits. No, I am not one who serves my cat masters gladly.

Having been forced out of bed way too early I found a baby weta on the kitchen bench. This was a baby weta, so it wasn't scary. I went to get my camera to capture it, but by the time I came back it was gone. That's a little scary. Ninja baby wetas infest my kitchen! Sounds like a Frank Zappa song title.

I did find tt most endearing that the cat also insisted on cuddles prior to biscuits. The forms must be followed. The cat gives you grins and snuggles and purrs and rubs, and then you give it biscuits. The cat is most put out if you just give it biscuits and can't be bothered accepting payment.

Speaking of payment @trentreznor has added the following to his great post about how to make it as a media star in the current climate :

Heh! Meet the Singularity folks..

Just after reading that I noticed this exchange between @warrenellis and some followers, which starts at the end of a long twitter rant about how there are no good large capacity portable miuisc players on the market now becaue they're all trying to look like the iPod Touch. Remember this is Twitter, so start reading from the bottom :



I had a succesful CD ripping session last night, reaccquainting myself with Billy Joel and his early SciFi-ness, such as Miami 2017 (lyrics).




That's one of the songs that makes me wish I could play piano. This was written before SciFi was cool, before Star Wars. The original has a synthesizer at the start, evoking air raid sirens. It seems to have taken on a whole new meaning to a lot of USAians since 9/11, the financial crash, and the drug cartels in Mexico. Just look at a few of the "related videos" on it's YouTube page. I hope Joel survives long enough to play it in 2017!

OK, must now hoover, and do other chores.

A brief round up of tabs I'm closing and stuff

So Serenity Adventures won Best Role-playing Supplement at Origins.

Kumi pointed me at Vex who do some interesting men's clothing

I've been doing chores all mornning, but that means the kitchen is clean and tidy and most fo the things are done.

Friday I worked at home due to the huge train fail. I spent the day writing image manipulation software in Javascript. Or should I say, finding examples of how to do varous differnt things on the web and trying to generalize them  and join them together into a single package that does everything my customers require, and works on multiple images on a single page  (which no single package out there already seems to do.) I now know more about differences in Javascript engines than I ever wanted to know. 

Now to get washed & dressed & down to the bakery for some nice bread and baked things. 

older entries