Monthly Archives: January 2009

Don’t they know they’re making us twitch???

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Like many people I collect ‘things’.  I collect some things deliberately – like books, DVDs and Magic 8 Balls.  Other things I seem to collect almost inadvertently like bottles of nail polish and drug pens (you know the ones with advertising on them for pharmaceuticals?).  Anyway, when I am collecting something that I intend to keep it makes me all warm and fuzzy when it looks all nice and uniform on my shelves.  Say for example I have been collecting The West Wing on DVD which I have done because it’s one of my favourite shows and I’ve watched them all about three times and I  know I’ll watch it again some day and also…. I just want to own my own copies.  Seasons 1 & 2  originally came out in those chunky cardboard boxsets (half season boxes at that) which I duly purchased.  A year or so later they released Seasons 1 – 4 in those double sized plastic DVD cases which vexed me somewhat because they no longer matched my old cardboard ones.  So I repurchased Seasons 1 & 2 when I bought Seasons 3 & 4 and resold my old cardboard ones on eBay.  No big deal – I’m just a bit anal retentive like that… but whatever.  Then Season 5 was released and it was the same which good … but when the final Seasons 6 & 7 were released they were in single DVD cases and seeing that I had no desire to go and spend the money over again – they no longer make a cohesive aesthetic set on my bookcase…. and this annoys the living crap out of me   🙁

It’s not just The West Wing either – it was The Sopranos too, The Harry Potter DVDs, Bewitched and countless other so called ‘sets’ (which by definition implies that they will be a group or combination of things that are similar in design and/or function) too… lots of them do it for some reason.  And it’s not just limited to DVD collections either –  Books.  ‘They’ – the powers that be (read complete and utter knobs who design and market stuff) do it to books too. 

  

I’ve been reading Jasper Fforde lately – in particular the Thursday Next series. I know, I know it’s so unusual for me to get into a sci-fi/fantasy series given that I’m usually more into classic literature.  But Fforde’s sci-fi novels incorporate lots of references to the classics (Bronte, Gaskell, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Elliot and of course Shakespeare) and there’s lots of clever little literary in-jokes which creates the most marvellous juxtapositions between highbrow literature and lowbrow absurdity that it makes for absolutely ‘hang onto your hat’ hilarious reading.  So far I’ve read ‘The Eyre Affair’, ‘Lost in a Good Book’ and ‘The Well of Lost Plots’ and am about to start reading the fourth novel in the series ‘Something Rotten’.  I have also purchased two of his other novels ‘The Big Over Easy and ‘The Fourth Bear’ which are in a related by different series based around Detective Jack Spratt.  Where was I going with this again….?  Oh yeah.  The damn covers.  I have been looking to purchase the fifth novel in the Thursday Next series which is called ‘First Among Sequels’ and guess what?  They’ve changed the artwork (on the Australian released version of the novel – the UK cover matches nicely) so that it looks NOTHING LIKE THE REST OF THE SERIES!!!   Why???

   
   

Fuckers.  Needless to say I haven’t purchased this new book yet because the cover sets my aesthetic teeth on edge.  I’ve been keeping an eye out for it hoping that it will eventually be released with a similar design to the rest of them but so far my efforts have been twarted and at this rate I’ll likely end up ordering a copy on Amazon.co.uk which will cost me twice the prices 🙁  Soooo not happy with my wash!
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Million Dollar Sticky.

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‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’…  ummm maybe a better question would be ‘Who doesn’t?’  I think the idea of winning a tonne of cash is probably appealing to a vast majority of the world’s population.   The truly independently wealthy aside, I think most of us would probably consider it a life changing event to be handed one (or several) million dollars in one hit…. and gaining the sum by winning a quiz show as compared to earning or inheriting it a rather exciting appeal.  When Millionaire first started in Australia I used to watch it occasionally… it’s always interestng to see how your own knowledge base differs from what the producers may consider ‘general knowledge’. 

For example Mr K would kick ass at news, current events, politics, finance, sports and entertainment… whereas I on the other hand would totally bomb out on the first $1000 question if they were to ask me something like : ‘Who is the captain of the Australian Cricket team?’   This is a perfect example of a question I am totally unabe to even make an educated guess at, because I quite frankly couldn’t give a shit.   I’m more music, literature, history, arts, travel, culture, geography and science.  Mr K just summed it up by saying that he’s ‘the outside 20 pages of the newspaper and i’m the rest of the inside pages’ – which I thought was an interesting way of looking at it. 

Anyway I was just wondering who hasn’t at some point thought about what it would be like to get on one of those game shows and then speculated as to what they’d do if they somehow managed to win a small fortune?  Last night we watched the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘ which I think it may well be the best movie I’ve seen since ‘Juno‘.  The trailer doesn’t really show much of what the film is about but it’s basically the story of two brothers who lose their mother when they are quite young (about 5 and 7) and follows them as they pretty much raise themselves in amongst the depressing landscape of Mumbai’s slums. 

They manage to survive a number of awful poverty related adversities and a young girl, Latika, also becomes intrinsically involved in their story until they become separated.  The main character Jamal, having survived his tragic childhood to be a young man who works as a lowly assistant (tea trolley guy) in an Indian call centre.  In an attempt to find Latika – his lost childhood friend whom he has never forgotten –  he manages to get himself on the Indian version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’.


I won’t spoil the story for anyone as I highly recommend going out to see it if you haven’t already.  It’s been nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars along with a swag of other nominations so it’ll be interesting to see if it gets the nod.  The story was engaging with characters full of depth and emotion and the actors (even the children) were impressive.  I’m not normally one for being overly empathetic with fictional characters in movies but this film had me sucked right in to every dramatic step of their story.  I absolutely loved this film and will definitely be buying it when it’s released on DVD..   so that every time I start to feel that my pain filled life is just shite – I can watch this movie and remember just how wrong I am. 
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I’m a Skunk furry!

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Furries are a wee little subculture I don’t even pretend to understand.  Especially the ones that carry their proclivities into their sexual lives, complete with their own porn and everything!  Getting all dressed up in a full sized fur costume and rubbing up against other fur suited peoples?  The mind boggles… I once saw a video clip of a woman who’d put a strap-on onto a man sized Bugs Bunny and then.. well I think you can guess the rest.

Personally I just don’t see the appeal at all – I honestly just don’t get it.  I don’t find the concept at all attractive or arousing or even amusing.  But I admit that anthropologically speaking I do find it kinda interesting – What motivates these people?  How is it that they’ve come to fancy Furries?  Do they have shared childhood experiences that lead them to Furry lifestyles?  Are they mostly comfortable with their Furriness?  Or are they embarrassed or guilty in their Furry habits?  I don’t know.

We had a Fur and Feathers party here a few years ago which was just a bit of  a lark and done partly because we were getting desperate for fancy dress themes that we hadn’t previously exhausted (SCA people strangely enough have LOTS of themed fancy dress parties).  It was a fun night and I was quite surprised at how many of our friends had never heard of Furry Fandom and never seen any strange arse Furry porn (and no I’m not linking you to porn – Furry or otherwise – from my journal!).  Many of them honestly didn’t even know it was a fetish thing for a select percentage of the community… Rule 34 applies now and for always, people!!!

So I asked a couple of people (males) in idle conversations recently what sort of Furry they’d be IF they were into that sort of thing (which none of them were for the record)… 2 out of three of my respondents said ‘WOLF’ and the remaining person chose a CAT.  Naturally working on the presumption that if I’ve thought of it then it’s probably already out there I went and found a What Kind of Furry Am I quiz?  My result?

You are a Skunk!

Skunks are a bit quieter and more reserved than some of the “popular” species,
But you don’t need all that flair. After all, charm like yours is hard to come by.

Skunk?!?!?  Oh no way!  I totally wanted to be an OTTER… so I can swim around mingling with the other otters and floating about blowing aiir into my fur and eating clams all day. 😛   Then again perhaps I’m being hasty – there’s always Pepe le Pew… and he’s one damn hot skunk!!!  :p

cat otter mouse skunky furry culture

PS: Being a furry Mouse is dead sexy!

They are either negligent, incompetent, politically suspect or a combination of all three.

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After last night’s extreme moment of emo melon-kolly I found myself at Carindale today trying to shake it off with lunch out and bit of shopping… Quelle surprise? Retail therapy? Moi?  Never!  :S

Anyway lunch was lovely, I picked up my usual plethora of prescritption refills from the pharmacy, pottered around the QBD and Angus & Roberston (Is it too much to ask for one decent bookstore in the whole centre?) and went over to BIG W to have a look at iPhone dock alarm clock thingys which I believed were on special.

I had been looking at them just before Christmas for Mr K as his mother was after gift suggestions and the one we found with the clearest quality sound and was still small enough not to overwhelm a normal sized bedside table was a Logitech Pure-Fi Anytime.  I initially saw them in JB HiFi for the rather exhorbitant price of $239.00 as it was one of only about four models available that were compatible with iPhone.  This was the week before Christmas – so about five weeks ago now.  I managed to find it for her cheaper online and she gave one to Mr K for Christmas and all was well with the world.

Anyway I had recently received some cha-ching birthday cash and Mr K was so happy with his wash that I thought I’d maybe get one for my room too.  BIG W did indeed have them on sale – for $147.00!  As I perused the shelves I could see there was about 10 or more iPhone friendly models available now which no doubt was responsible for the rapid price decrease.  I decided that relatively it was a damn good price and grabbed one off the shelf took it to the BIG W Home Entertainment section counter.  It was here that I was possibly ‘served’ (and again I use this term in relation to the customer service staff at this particular institution with no accuracy or perspicacity whatsoever) by the same Pubescent Pimple Faced Geek (they all look the same to me) who may or may not have been partially culpable in my pre-Christmas Zelda and the Twilight Fucking Princess shopping disaster.  

The Pubescent Pimple Faced Geek scans my item which naturally the computer doesn’t read (why am I not surprised) and then he calls his buddy – let’s call him Pre-Pubescent Pimple Faced Geek for ease of identification – to read out the code from the shelf for him to type into the computer.  Pre-Pubescent Pimple Faced Geek reads out a code.  Pubescent Pimple Faced Geek enters the code into the register and the computer spits up my item as a ‘Logitech Pure-Fi Express’ (one model down) with the very attractive price of $97.00.

Hmmm… retail dilemma ensues.  For a very very fleeting moment I consider telling them that they’ve made a mistake.  For a second – not so fleeting moment I consider grabbing two more of them to flog on Ebay!  So okay… ‘dilemma’ was probably overstating the situation somewhat. 

I know the right thing to do was to tell them of their error and pay the correct price… but honestly?  Am I really responsible for their incompetence?
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