New Nerd Vid

Archie's Getting Hitched

This is sort of old news, but I forgot to blog about it sooner.

It seems that Archie is popping the question?
























Will it be Betty or Veronica who becomes Mrs Andrews?

I hope he picks Betty over Veronica. It's not like I'm a strictly "blondes over brunettes" doofus head or anything. Betty is just waaaaaay nicer to Archie and Veronica is a stuck up cow who would be horrible to live with, even if she is a fox.

I'm sure this is just a stupid hoax to get me to read Archie comics again, but it's totally working. I'm surprised that it hasn't happened sooner. I enjoy Archie comics anyway, so why not get on board and read this Archie "event"?

At least they aren't killing him off or anything.

jej

CELEBRATIONS!

I just finished writing the most boring essay I've ever written in my life. I feel bad for the guy who has to mark it. It is, however, the last assignment of the semester!!!!





I've got exams coming up now, but hey. Exams exshmams. Time to read comics and have fun doing non-uni related things. That is all.

jej

Playing With Toys

I'm trying to win a sweet Loki (or Wolverine) figure, so I posted this video as my entry. Enjoy.



jej

Why is this funny?

I don't know why I'm laughing like a 12 year old right now.



jej

Transformers - Probably still suxors

Okay, so the nerd movie year isn't quite over yet. We still have a lot to look forward too. Then again, maybe we don't.

Early trailers for the new Transformers movie had me a little hopeful. I freaking loathed the first one. I'm kind of over loathing it now and I can just enjoy the insanely sweet visuals and Peter Cullen's cool voice. The new film looked like maybe it had dropped the ridiculouslu convoluted plot of the first film and opted for a huge threat that the Autobots and the human race would have to face.

Then I saw this trailer...which I can't seem to find on youtube for some reason. Anyway, the latest trailer that I saw before Star Trek began with Shia LaBeowulf telling Bumblebee that he couldn't come with him to college. This is shortly followed by Labarf seeing symbols and carrying around some shard or something. He's writing arabic symbols into the dirt or something and they have to go to Egypt. ARGH! WHY!?!?!? Why can't we just have a nice, simple, action movie that stars big huge robots? Is that too much to ask? These overly complicated plots are retarded and they don't make sense. I hate you Micheal Bay.

Even Stan Bush has decided to get fat, cut his hair, and further rape a part of my childhood. I can't embed it so check it out here.

All that bitching being said, I'm totally going to see it.

jej

Moofies - Twilight, Towelhead, Deadly Pledge, Yes man, Best Friend's Girl

Okay, so I've heard about this Twilight business so much that it's impossible to ignore its existence. Teen vampire movie. My teen vampire movie was The Lost Boys so this film had a lot to live up to. I figured I would find the whole thing completely retarded and not understand what the deal was, but it was strangely watchable. I didn't really like it and I never want to see it again, but it didn't piss me off in any ridiculous fashion. Other than the overtly obvious blue tone look of thing the early scenes were actually okay. It wasn't until we learned that the vampires in Twilight don't burn in the sun that I realised I was watching a film aimed squarely at 13 year old girls. The cute boy vampire doesn't burn in the sun. His skin just shines like golden glitter. Vampires all have different super powers now too for some reason. Also, in Twilight reality, breaking into a girl's room and watching her sleep for 2 months before you've even spoken to her is not creepy; it's romantic. So sure, there are things stupidly wrong with this film, but I enjoyed it more than that other phenomenon that's swept the world away: Harry Potter. I don't hate Harry. I just don't get it. It's boring and unoriginal. Anyway, whatever.

Next, Towelhead. Really not sure what to make of this one.



It's written and directed by Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under (which I loved) and writer of American Beauty. This story is again placed in American suburbia, with a strange mix of tragedy and comedy. It's about Jasira, a 13 year old Arab-American girl. She moves to live with her Arabian father in Texas and has a sexual awakening or some shit. While it was interesting to try and figure out what exactly the filmmakers were trying to say, I found some of the sex scenes too much. Not that I'm against in your face cinema, but the fact that the girl was so young and was presented in a strange kind of sexy way was odd. I wasn't sure if they were just trying to make me feel uncomfortable, or if it was just for sexy entertainment's sake. If you like Alan Ball's other work then you should totally check this out, because it totally has his signature black comedy-ness about it, and I laughed outloud at strangely inappropriate times, but I think that's on purpose. In all it's seriousness, some scenarios play out that are strangely funny. I'm still not sure what I think about it, but I'm glad I watched it.

Next up, Deadly Pledge, starring Blaire from Gossip Girl. Woot! You can watch the trailer to the orginal here:



...or just watch the entire new movie on youtube, starting here:





This was garbage, but I watched it all the way through without hitting fast forward and I didn't think I would. It's been released on DVD in Australia through Peacock Films which I sign of unwatchable crapness. Even the trailers before the movie are hard to sit through. This, however, was pretty easy. Maybe I just like horror movies too much. I can sit through predictable boring trash like this pretty easily.

Next up, Yes Man. I remember when I first saw this trailer I got all excited and thought it was a Flight of the Conchords movie. Unfortunately not.



It's pretty likeable though. It's yet another stupid guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back formula. The only difference is that it has a silly 'be positive' message to make it a little different. Also Jim Carrey is kind of funny when he isn't saying "red bull" over and over again, and Zooey Whatserface is hot. This was fun.

This, however, was not:



I don't get offended often, but this one had me switching it off about 40 minutes in. It wasn't the stripper scene, or the plot. It was all just another romantic comedy with a "twist" and that's what I figured I would get. What I didn't expect was the ridiculous sexist turns of phrase that permeated this film. I know that makes me sound like a tight ass, but seriously, I sat through Zack and Miri Make A Porno and I though it was likeable enough. My Best Friend's Girlfriend is degrading to women. Dane Cook continually says things like 'you need to pull the cobwebs off your dick and stick it in something'. Dane Cook's token black friend compares a woman to a bowling ball because he wants to stick two fingers and a thumb into her. I think I was most offended at this because not only were the jokes offensive and degrading; they weren't funny either. Also, I didn't like any of the characters. Admiteddly I turned it off before I got to see Alec Baldwin, so maybe he was this films one saving grace, but even Jason Biggs was a crappy character in this. Also, I'm not really into Kate Hudson, so that didn't help either I guess. It was just a bunch of boring people offending me and not making me laugh, so IN THE BIN!

That's it. I watched Synechdoche, New York on the weekend, but I'm going to see it for a second time tomorrow night so I think I'll write about it after that viewing. Maybe I'll be able to pull some more out of it on another viewing. It was fantastic.

SO... now that's it.

jej

Comics Comics Comics

Just Because

I think this guy and David Lynch have a wierd understanding of dreams. It's all scary but also funny and strangley familiar.



jej

Telly - Mostly garbage of course

I haven't talked telly in a while so I figured it was time to have another little TV rant.

First up, the soapy garbage. Gossip Girl is still heaps of fun to watch. They build up these big huge drama moments every single time. The conclusion of at least every second episode, if not every single one, is ENORMOUS! It's kind of funny watching it with Noelene because she's very 'meh' about the whole thing (which is more than understandable) while I'm jumping up and down on the sofa whilst pulling my hair and yelling at the television. I get into this show waaaaaay too much, which makes it all the more entertaining.

On to something that I like a little less, but still enjoy on a weekly basis, 90210. This show moves through plot points so fast that it's near impossible to get bored. Their idea of resolving a plot point is to have a miniscule conversation about it and then just move on and forget anything even happened. Most of the plot points in this show are not terribly clever to begin with so I'm not complaining. I like it that way.

Recently they started messing with my favourite character on the show, Silver. See if you can pick her in the hideous cast lineup:













Any luck? She's this one here:



A recent plot point had her go all crazy because she has bipolar, and they totally handled that situation well. I'm glad I have very little to do with bipolar or people who deal with this kind of thing on a regular basis because I would probably be pretty pissed at how it was handled. Being me, I didn't care at all and found the whole thing pretty entertaining really.

I also dig the hot, smart English teacher. He's like the future me, except I plan on being a little less smug.

A recent episode saw the reintroduction of Tori Spelling. She was so skinny and caked in make up that it was scary to watch. It was like watching a starving dog or something. It was so sad and gross and scary and I couldn't look away. She used to be thin on the original series, but seriously, you HAVE to see her in the new series. It's pretty scary. She's probably sick of being told that she looks like a crossdresser:



Turning anorexic isn't helping.

Wow, that was all very bitchy and mean wasn't it? Time to get nerdy (and possibly less scary).

Dollhouse ended early. I have the season finale awaiting my viewing tomorrow night, so I may blab about it after then in a more "I've seen the entire series and I think..." way, so I'll keep this brief. What could have been a boring formulaic show that made no sense saved itself by becoming a plot heavy intricate mystery show that made no sense. I hate it, but I can't stop watching. I hope it gets signed on for another season.

Now, to good telly.

ABC telly on Wednesday nights are my favourite thing. Spicks and Specks while sometimes unfunny is a great game show that I like to watch, followed by (at the moment) by The Gruen Transfer, a panel show about advertising:



While not always completely funny or exceptionally clever, I'm glad it's on television because no one else is picking advertising to pieces at the moment on screen and I think it's important that somebody does.

At 10pm we have David and Margaret, who I've been watching reviewing films since a very young age. They're a staple of my week. Even when I go all anti-telly (which rarely happens) I still watch David and Margaret.

The 9.30pm slot is where the ABC have made a multitude of mistakes. For a while we had Catherine Tate (if you know what's good for you DO NOT view the below video:



We also had some garbage Australian show about a documentary film maker that wanted so bad to be clever and witty but opened its first episode with a fart joke. I lasted about 5 minutes.

One show that totally won me over was the recent Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure:



Great idea by a seemingly genuine nice guy. Hard to not love this show. The first ep, while laughing, had me crying a little. It was so nice. Lawrence used to love this kid in primary school and he tracks her down and writes her a song with the help of 80s popstar Tiffany:



Anyway, great show, and it's on DVD now :) Time to see it again soon I think.

Now we have repeats of Moving Wallpaper. I missed it the first time so I'm not complaining. I think it wants really bad to be The Office with a twist. It's a great show, but it's not The Office. It's about a show where they make a soapie called echo beach. The soapie is also screened seperately, like a big in-joke. It's a great idea and I like it, but I don't love it yet.

OH and One. I haven't talked One yet. Thanks to digital telly we've finally got a free to air all sports channel. While I'm not an enormous sport guy, I like cricket, I like basketball, and I like poker. I've been able to watch these three things in abundance thanks to this new channel. It's great. I'd still like to see some skating and some ice hockey. Fingers crossed.

Now that I've shown you all what I do with my time instead of homework I'll crawl away in shame and READ. I'M TOTALLY NOT GOING TO WATCH MORE TELEVISION!

*goes and watches more television...

jej

AOTW - Silversun Pickups, Pivot, Scarface

Here's some stuff I've been getting into recently:

The new Silversun Pickups album Swoon is a pretty easy listen. It hasn't really grabbed me like their last album did, but I guess it's not really a new sound for me anymore. When I first heard them I was all "wow, it's like the smashing pumpkins for the 2000s" or something. Now, I'm like 'meh, this is more of the same with less impact'. Perhaps it will grow on me in time. I'm still listening to it a fair bit anyways. If you haven't checked this band out before then you should do so. It's poppy rock goodness. Here's a track from the new album:



I've also got into Pivot - Oh Soundtrack My Heart. There are no vocals, of which I'm glad. It's all very dramatic and "Ohhhhh" and I'm sure vocals over the top would just be too much. As an instrumental band they're great though. I love the almost cheesy electro sound mixed with the dramatic guitars and drums. It's fantastic. Check it out:



One more. I've been listening to more hip hop recently, thanks to Wire magazine. I've never not liked it, but I only really have a handful of hip hop and rap albums. I really need to listen to more and find some more to like instead of the more than well known Beastie Boys, Public Enemy. Even Dizzee Rascal is pretty well known. I want to find some other awesomeness, so I'm listening to other things. One of those other things is the latest album from Scarface - Emeritus. It's great. Lots of storytelling. It's very cheese filled, but it's cheese that I like. It's all very "gritty" and "tough" but in that slick, "I'm tough but I'm also rich enough to lay some horns and strings on this track" way. Anyway, this is my favourite track:



That's all for now.

jej

Two Nerd Vids for the win

AOTW - Actors who think they're musicians

I bought Scarlett Johansson's album recently. It's a collection of Tom Waits covers. Here's an example of what lies on the album:



Firstly, I love the banjo. The arrangements on these tracks are great. They realise that Johansson doesn't sound like Tom Waits and they've arranged the songs in different ways so that they're more interesting than just straight covers. I kind of like Johansson's voice. She's not an awesome singer, but it's in key and she's into it, so whatever. Here's another track:



If I cared more about music I'd probably be all "Man! She's taking the spotlight away from 'real' singers" but I don't really care. She's a hot actress who likes Tom Waits songs and has cool friends. There's the guitarist from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on here, and David Bowie sings on a couple of tracks. DAVID BOWIE! How neat is that?

The album is pretty easy listening. It doesn't blow me away, but I keep re-listening to it, rather than just putting it away as a curious oddity or something, so that's a plus.

I noticed something the other day about the font used on the cover.



It's that typewriter looing font, with lots of lower case writing. Now check out Toni Collette's attempt at music:



Same font. same over use of lower case. Perhaps it's an unspoken law that all actresses should record music and release it using this font. I can't think of any other recent actresses who've tried to go down this road of music. There's the soapy stars who make pop music, but that's not the same. These chicks definitely have music fans in their sights. Toni Collette also used cool musos on here album, like Glenn Richards from Augie March. That was the clincher for (and the fact that my wife wanted to check it out). If you want me to buy an album then put Glenn Richards on it and I will. We even went to see Toni Collette and the Finish live a while back (and I spell 'quiet' as 'quite' multiple times for some reason.

They were okay, but it wasn't amazing or anything. Here's a track:



It all pretty much meanders along like that.

Anyway, what was the point of all this? Oh yes. Album cover fonts. I need to get a life.

jej

New CLO5Dimly Vid

A new music video by Malcolm and my brother, the geniuses :)



jej

2nd Tuesday Book Club - Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time

April's cool club book was Corey's choice - Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. I found it interesting and simple enough while I was reading it, but I'm nowhere near familiar enough with the concepts used to remember anything I read. Corey also understood it while reading, but then lost it all five minutes later. Guy found it interesting that when scientists couldn't directly observed something they observed something else in order to get their results. John was taken aback by how clearly Hawking sees it all. He breaks it all down and seems to care about sharing this information in a way that us simpletons will understand. Noelene understood most of it, up until the Quantum Gravity stuff. She found the graphs in the book only explained the concepts she already understood, rather than simplifying the things that she didn't have a good grasp on. She also found the writing a bit condescending. Guy saw his occasional references to religion as apologist, sensitive to people's beliefs/prejudices. The rest of us agreed that his references to God were probably more of a not discounted but not concrete belief. This led to a discussion on the effects that disproving would have on religious beliefs. I think if any conclusion came from the discussion it is that disproving creationism will not necessarily effect change in belief because it is not a direct experiential thing, where as much of religious belief probably has to do with experience.

John also read How To Cook Recipes by Christian. He wanted to find out how to be aware of taste and gain the ability to just make nice foodwith any ingredients. He started reading and decided that Christian was a moron, but he'll still try and finish the book. He also read some interviews with Winton Marcellus, a jazz drummer who plays with 'Bad Plus'. His views on what jazz is (or isn't) are controversial and he seems really intelligent in his arguments. John also read the History of Drumming by Mike Clarke of the 'Headhunters' which he said is neat.

Noelene read The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's a novel told from Henry the time traveller's point of view, and then alternate chapters are told from his wife Claire's point of view. Henry has a genetic condition which makes him involuntarily dissassociate with time physically. He goes to many important life events. Half way through reading the book Noelene didn't buy the premise, but she was sucked in by the end and it made her cry. She also read Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach. It's listed as 'historical art fiction'. It seems like an interesting concept for a book but Noelene didn't care about any of the characters, didn't enjoy the way it was written, and didn't care when people died. She said it was a short book, which is a good thing.

Corey read Projections 1.4 which is acompilation of discussions about film. He read about how Scorcese used to have family problems and was on drugs but DeNiro pushed him to keep making films. Jaime Lee Curtis talks about her parents and how awful and scarring Montgomery Cliff was.

Guy brought along This book does not exist. It's a coffe table book of paradoxes. He finds it interesting to look at the limits of our own perception, and how something can be contradictory, but perhaps it is true.

This month I read Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. This is touted as the best book of all time by a whole lot of people. I can see why. It's extremely complex and large in scope, while at the same time being very personal and easy to read. I've never read Rushdie before, but I will again. He can mix philosophy and commentary and humour and poetry all together seamlessly. I also read Introducing Marx. It's one of those comic book style text books that I would be less knowledgable without. Despite being simplified, all the details and concepts are still included in these books. Great stuff. I've been reading some William Blake poetry and prose. One of his stories 'Island in the Moon' seems way ahead of its time, using very post-modern writing techniques. I also read volume one of air, a Vertigo comic series by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Parker. It's about a flight attendant who keeps seeing the same passenger on flights, but he has different names and costumes. It starts of seemingly normal, but slowly we see that under the surface something stranger is going on. She receives a letter from this passenger from Narimar, a region that no longer exists. She takes a plane flight there, and because of he 'powers' and her belief that Narimar exists, she arrives. In the story, if knowledge of a region dissappears then the region basically vanishes. It's people become stuck, unable to leave. It'snot blowing me away or anything, but it's an interesting book and I'm looking forward to volume two.

Next month's pick is from Mister John Brown - A Rage To Live - A biography of Richard Burton.

jej

Moofies and a catch up

Hello internet.

I haven't written any blogs other than my usual comic book video-ery for a long while. This is mainly due to the fact that I am a sloth, and also I went way over my dowload limit pretty quickly last month and my connection switched to turtle speed. Slow and steady.

So what's going on with me at the moment, I don't hear you ask?

Uni semester is almost over. In three weeks time I will have to start studying for the exams that will take place the following week, and then I'm on holidays for a month or so. More comic reading and frivolity will occur until I go back to uni second semester and return to reading large chunks of texts chosen by someone other than me.

I've seen a few films since I last blogged about them, but I forget what some of them were, so I will have to skip anal-y reviewing each and every film I've ever seen on here. I will post about some trash I've seen recently though.

The other night we'd planned to have dinner with a couple of friends, but it didn't happen, so we decided to eat junk and rent some garbage to accompany it.

First off the rank, Mama Mia.



For me, listening to ABBA songs is like listening to roadworks, or a truck driving by. It's not really a pleasant sound, but after you've listened to it for a little while it's incredibly easy to just let it drift into the background and forget that it's even there. I don't have a vehement hate for ABBA, and I'm not a fan, but I knew I wouldn't like this movie. My wife, however, occasionally wants to watch crappy films that are extremely popular so that she knows what the hell everyone is on about when films like this come up in conversation and that kind of thing. This is why we rented The DaVinci Code and other such travesties. No enjoyment can come from watching films like this, but there is a curiosity there that can only be satisfied by actually seeing for yourself what something is actually all about.

SO, the first thing you hear after the title screen of the film is some girls screaming, in that high pitched "Oh My GOOOODDD! I haven't seen you in forever and we're such great friends and I'm so excited about seeing you!!!!" kind of way that you occasionally are forced to hear in a shopping centre or some other public place. People (i.e, some females or extremely feminine males) who scream like this when they meet their friends are the target audience of this ABBA film vortex. Everyone else should just realise this and not rent films that they know aren't for them. After 10 minutes or so my wife said, "turn it off". I was prepared to keep going, but she couldn't hack it. I think I dodged a bullet there. Now I'll just try and erase Meryl Streep's embarrasingly bad singing from my memory so I can watch her in something that's actually good. She can act. I don't know why she would agree to do something like this. I guess the money, and the fun of going to some nice looking island and getting singing lessons would be a big drawcard.

Okay, piece of crap number two - Quarantine.



Did you see Cloverfield? Well the people who made this film certainly did. It's exactly the same kind of set up. Dexter's sister is a news reporter for some television program called "nightwatch". She taping an episode at a fire station, to see what goes on during the night shift. It's all very "we're trying to convince you that this is real" and after a little while I started to get into it a bit. There was all the classic horror set up of building tension in totally ordinary situations that come before the storm of crazy hits. Sexual tension, blah, blah, blah. Then all the little threads that may have been interesting to follow get dropped in exchange for a zombie movie that's pretty much a remake of Demons 2. There's an outbreak in an apartment building that the firemen, and Dexter's sister, go to. They end up being trapped in by big faceless evil government quarantine dudes and everyone dies. Whoopee. There are occasional moments of creepy in the very early stages, but then it all turns into screaming loudly, obscuring our vision, and flicking the lights on and off. The supposed professional news cameraman is also terrible at his job. Tons of unnecessary and annoying zooming in and out at nothing in particular. Movies are dumb.

Last of all, the classic garbage fest of Vantage Point.



The president goes to a European country for some peackeeping meeting or some junk and gets shot because European countries suck at security and you should never leave the U.S.A. ever. That's what I got from this film. I also picked the traitor immediately. Forrest Whitaker does his "I'm such a nice decent guy whose hurting inside" thing, which is cool I guess, Dennis Quad is old and spend the whole film with that "I've just been bitch slapped" look on his face, and Matthew Fox is a total fox. There's the positives. The negatives is that the premise of this film is that we see the same thing from a bunch of different angles, and each time we see a new angle something else is revealed to us. That's not such a terrible device, except this film is far from clever so we figure out what's going on ages before we see it. Also, most of the scenes only go for 5 minutes or so, and then we flash back in super backwards speed and see the same event 500 bloody times! It's fun to watch and talk through, but don't watch this one alone.


We also saw Wolverine which I'll blab about in a video soon, but I will just say that it was totally retarded and simpleand the cgi was toony and crap, but I still totally enjoyed it for what it was. I should care that it was completely nothing like the comic book, but I don't.

That's all really. Thanks for reading :)

jej

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