Return of the Blue Sock

I was overjoyed to see that Viva had found my missing 'blue Monday' sock. It had been gone a week and seriously threatened to disrupt my morning routine.

I got a set of these black socks last year from the Warehouse - black socks with a difference ! On the heel and toe of each pair is a colour - and written on the 'sole' of each are the days of the working week. What is groovier is that the colours follow the progression of rainbow colours ( albiet in reverse ) :

Monday - Blue
Tuesday - Green
Wednesday - Yellow
Thursday - Orange
Friday - Red

Kinda neat huh ?

After one of the Blue Monday socks vanished ... it didn't feel right wearing the others. My whole dressing routine for the week - cast to the four winds ! It was a bleak time my friend. Bleak !

But - joy ! The lone sock turned up - much like a lost tramper in the Tararua ranges, it had simply stayed where it was until it was found. It was in the dryer - stuck to a weird upward area due to static.

Does this make me slightly OCDish ?

Probably.



In an associated idea - am I the ONLY one who thinks 'Trinny and Susannah' are a pair of heinous bitches in need of a slow crushing via a steam-roller ?

This does not bode well...

So I was leaving work. I packed up my computer, and my briefcase - walked out the office door and locked it.

I noticed then that I was still wearing my whistle ( used to get attention in class - 'The Black Whistle of Certain Doom' is what I've playfully christened it ). I like to leave it on my desk when I go. I'm wondering if I can be bothered unlocking the door and going back in when I remember that I left my lunch box in there ( a plastic old-school style design - neon pink in colour ).

Two items push me over the door-unlock threshold. I zap back inside, get items, lock door, set alarm, lock building, go to car.

It's not until I open the boot that I notice that I'm not in fact holding my lunchbox. I have instead, inexplicably, my stapler ( which is about 1/16 smaller, and blue ).

Something is very wrong here.

Just don't ask me again, okay ?

So I was walking past a meeting the HOD music was having with the itinerant music teachers. They were deep in discussion. They were trying to think up a name for a senior singing group. Something which would encourage them and not put them off the idea of singing.

I heard names like "The Lumberjacks" and some other equally painful ones that my mind has blocked out.

They asked me if I could think of something.

Hell yeah - I could think of something !

"The Totally Heterosexual Senior Crooners" !

They didn't seem to like it much.

Jerks.

Seraph's totally awesome solution for the tagging problem

Institiue a bounty.

Taggers captured by a registered bounty-hunter ( along with evidence of the crime, naturally ) are organ harvested - with 25% of the value of the organ going to the bounty hunter.

First conviction - a kidney.

Second conviction - a lung.

Third conviction - full organ harvest. Heart, lung, kidney, liver, retinas, bone marrow, blood, the freaking lot.

Viola ! The criminal has both paid for their crime, and contributed to society by donating their vital organs to someone who deserves them a hell of a lot more. No need to waste hard earned tax dollars in prison sentences or time-consuming community service.

I bet the problem would be significantly lessened. Sure - my answer for a range of crimes tends to boil down to 'organ harvesting' - but dammitt, those Greys had a damn good idea there when they were hovering aroung Roswell.

( sorry for Totalitarian Seraph voicing his vitriol here - I just watched a documentary on tagging and I am very angry indeed ... )

The Future of Gaming ?

Even if you only have the most casual aquaintances with video gaming - you really do need to check this the hell out. Freaking amazing. I can see one day I shall have to get hold of a Nintendo Wii ...

baby class - part 1

Soooo - last night I went with Viva to the first of our antenatal classes. I was kinda dreading it, but I guess it wasn't that bad. There were some nice people there.

However - there was a bit of a weird thing half way through. We split into man and women groups, and the guy who was talking to us in the guy group kept telling us how we could get involved with the child, but he kept adding the phrase "because you wouldn't hurt the baby".

I'm guessing that the was trying to reassure us that we won't 'break' the kid - but it started sounding like a bit of an accusation after a while, like he wanted to add '...would you?" on the end.

"You won't hurt the baby by giving it a bath ... would you? You wouldn't smother him with a rubber duck or garrote them with the activity hanger ? You wouldn't booby-trap the buggy to shoot the child out like a circus cannon into the ionosphere ??? WOULD YOU ??? YOU FREAKING MONSTER !!!"

Or maybe it was just me ...

Another visitor ...

So this is what I've been doing instead of writing on the blog. It's a little piece for my good pal Bubbajay. Those of you who had a C64 computer should recognise the jumpman and robots from Impossible Mission.

It's called "Stay Awhile ... Stay Forever!" which is what the Prof. Atombender says to you right at the beginning of the game, in what was some damn good voice sound fx for the day !

I considered calling it "Destroy Him, My Robots!" which he also says at various points. Bubbajay suggested "AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh......." and "ZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzz!!!" as well - but I thought they were a bit to hard to paint onto the side of the canvas.

So Bubbajay - there you have it ! Sorry it wasn't done before you left - but art takes time. I'll post it to you or something.

Next art project - Pacman !

Nozing around !

In summation :

- Tibia healing nicely.
- Blood test turned up slightly elevated liver enzyme count. Have to have another blood test. Hopefully nothing to worry about.
- Finished a new video game painting for my main man Bubbajay - will put a pic up soon.
- 'Portal' is a freaking great ( if somewhat short ) video game. Play it if you get the chance.
- Team Fortress 2 is also fun !
- "Knocked Up" wasn't nearly as funny as everyone said. I think I prefer my comedy more surreal / black. So there you go.

And something to make you smile to finish up. A line from one of the junior plays at the end of last years classes :

"The bird fell from the sky like a ball of cake."

Hee hee hee !

Misdiagnosis

“You know, I took your physio’s referral for you from the thirty or so ‘urgent’ cases because it looked like the easiest. From the description I though ‘Oh yes – a standard ACL tear. No problem. I’m going to be using your case for a teaching seminar as an example of things being not always what they appear to be.”

“…Right” I replied. “Is that good ?”

That’s what a specialist sports doctor told me about the state of my knee, after some closer examination.

Last week, my physio told me that what I had most likely done to my knee was torn or snapped my cruciate ligament ( or what I called the cruciatus ligament ) – which was a pretty common sports injury. She then went on to explain what would be done to fix this ( cutting off some other ligament from elsewhere in my body , and then grafting it into my knee ) – and I almost fainted. It rather freaked me out.

So – I got a referral letter sent off to a sports doctor at the Wakefield hospital this week, and warned that it would probably be well into the New Year before I heard back from her.

Two days later I got a call from the hospital asking if I were able to make it into them for an appointment. There had been a miraculous opening. “Hell yes !” I said.

So after a morning of Christmas shopping ( which seemed to be going worryingly painlessly for a change ) and made my way to Newtown and the specialist sports clinic.

After five minutes of jumping around in my underwear, the doctor echoed what my physio had said. “ACL tear most likely, considering the means of injury and the state of your knee. I’ll get you to have some x-rays now, and we’ll get you booked in for a MRI scan as well. That’s really busy – so it won’t be for a couple of weeks. I’ll see you again after that.”

So – downstairs to radiology I went, x-rays were taken ( and am I the only one that thinks hospital x-ray machines are rather sinister things ? ), and I went onto the list for an MRI scan.

Then, home.

No sooner had I sat down to do some painting, then I got a call from the radiology dept.
“Can you have a scan done tomorrow ?”

“Umm – Yeah sure. I thought it was going to be weeks before I was going to get this done?”

“Usually that would be true – but we’re going to be here early tomorrow – and we can fit you in at 7.15 if you can make it. Can you make it at that time?”
“You betcha !”

In I rolled early the next morning, and was inserted into the MRI machine. That was an experience ! Yet again, TV has lied to me. Whenever I’ve seen MRI scans on telly, it’s really quite a futuristic affair. In you glide into the machine – badda-bing, badda-bang – hey presto – results ! “Here’s the probem, you’ve got three gall-bladders !”

It’s not like that at all. It takes AGES – about 28 minutes to get my knee done ( and it started to get difficult to stay still. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic too ! ). It’s also REALLY noisy. They give you a pair of those ear-muff things – and it was still really quite loud. The machine makes a lot of disconcerting clicks, and then launches into a full-on power buzz, which makes various changes in pitch and tone. I’m pretty sure there’s been a few people in the world who have freaked right out in one of those things.

Afterwards, they told me to see the receptionist at the sports clinic and see if the good doctor could see me again today. The MRI had confirmed what the x-rays had hinted at – it wasn’t my ACL at all, but instead I had a fracture.

“You had an MRI scan TODAY ?” said the incredulous receptionist “We only saw you YESTERDAY ! That NEVER happens !”

I felt pretty good about the way things were progressing !

So yeah – I have a fracture. Again. This is now my fifth. Still – I feel a lot better about having a fracture. At least I’m on familiar territory here ! And there’s a 99% chance that that it’ll heal fine. I have to go back in for more x-rays early in the new year, to see if things are healing okay ( the doctor was a bit mystified that I was able to walk reasonably normally, as normally someone in my position would be on crutches – and probed me quite thoroughly to make sure that I just wasn’t pretending not to feel pain. “Doc” I said “I’m not the kind of guy to say something doesn’t hurt when it does ! Just ask my wife !” ).

All in all – I feel pretty lucky. If I hadn’t majorly lucked out in so many areas, I would have spent the summer with a fractured bone and not even known – and in all probability made things worse ( the first thing the doctor told me to stop was the rehab stuff the physio had got me to do – like the lunges, which were really starting to hurt ! ).

But it does mean that I won’t be doing anything strenuous of weight-bearing with my leg at all – which puts a major crimp on my exercise programme. Oh well, it’s more important to heal. No dancing on New-Year ( doctors orders ).

I’m most happy about my other ligaments not being harvested in a patch up mission though. Man – that really sounded pretty bad …

Seraph’s week of encripplement

They tell you a lot of things of tv to try and keep you from falling in the warm blubbery embrace of obesity. They tell you to push play for thirty minutes a day. Be active. Do exercise. That kind of thing. But they NEVER mention the dangers involved. There’s never the disclaimer “WARNING ! Robust physical activity may leave you in a screaming heap of agony and piteous weeping!”. The kind of warning which might have done me some good last Friday playing soccer with some of the guys at work.

I was doing quite well it must be said. The game had been going for around 40 minutes – and I had managed to stay moving the entire time – mostly at something approaching a running speed. No Beckham, but pretty good for me. I had even made a couple of half-decent attempts at goal !

It sure puts a crimp in your game when your right knee decides its going to bend the wrong way though. I’m not really sure how it happened either ( it’s lost in that moment of white pain you get in these times ). Two of us were going for the ball at some speed – we might have got tangled up, I might have slipped … but whatever the cause, I remember hearing a distinct POP, and then I was rolling along the Astroturf in a large degree of pain.

Oww.

So – after VERY CAREFULLY driving myself home with a rapidly swelling knee, I spent the rest of Friday with ice wrapped in a tea-towel clasped to my wounded flesh. Things were still pretty bad the next day – so after being ordered to seek medical help by my sister, I asked Viv to take me to the after-hours doctor in Newtown.

I was given crutches, pain-killers, anti-inflammatory meds and an order to stay home for the week. Luckily the seniors have gone – so there was a good deal less relief to have to write each day.

I should have done more school work ( like the report comments I should have finished by now ), but I tended just to sit around playing video games. I managed to finish Okami ( which is a very cool game ! ).

I saw a physio this morning, and got the all clear to drive again and go back to work. She thought that I might have damaged some cartilage inside my knee. There’s a chance that something may have ‘snapped’, which would require something called ‘key-hole’ surgery to fix ( man – I don’t like the sound of that ! ). I have exercises to do to help fix things up. If I’m lucky – then I should hopefully be alright in another 6 – 8 weeks.

Sigh.

Oh well. I’ve had worse ! At least there’s no bones broken.

In other news – today is the end of ‘Movember’, and I have been supporting the cause with my own effort. Behold ! The glorious ‘Anarchy99’ !

Curse you, NZQA !!!

What IS it about education in this freaking country ? Why must it be administered by a bureaucratic bunch of losers which would make Kafka* spin in his grave ? Get this - the year 10 ( 4th formers for all you old-speaker out there ) have an English exam soon, and it's going to be based pretty heavily on the format of the 1.6 NCEA exam for Y11 ( 5th form ) students.

I know that they have old exam papers on-line, so I go to download a couple of poetry question sections so my students can get a taste of the kind of thing they'll have to answer. Found questions, copied them, no problem.

So then I go to open the on-line resource book for that years exam. This is the one that actually has the literature / text extracts that they're having to answer the question ON. Kinda important to have.

The document is opened, and I was stunned to find that EVERY resource you would need to make any of the questions USEFUL to look at have been removed and replaced with the uniform comment 'This resource has been removed for copyright reasons'.

WHAT !!?!!?!

$#@$#**&^%@$@ !!!!

What kind of bollocks is that ? Since WHEN is rampant publishing of a POEM on-line been a major breech of copy-right law ??

I can imagine the ads now :

"You wouldn't steal a handbag ! You wouldn't steal a car ! YOU WOULDN'T DARE STEAL A POEM !! YOU TWISTED SACK OF INFECTED INTESTINAL WALL ! Downloading POETRY is THEFT ! And poetry theft will be met with swift and terrible justice delivered by CHUCK NORRIS HIMSELF !!!! YOU WILL PAY with BLOOOOOOD !!!"

Yeah - because I heard that the international poetry studios are REALLY hurting because of that whole on-line exam racket. Sylvia Plath is righteously pissed off ... no wait - she's DEAD. Like your freaking MEDIUM !!!

Look, nothing against poetry, but it's HARDLY at the vanguard of the arts. Incan-restoration interpretive dance is more widely regarded ( and NO - you can't claim that 'song lyrics' count as poetry ! ). If I were a poet, I'd be BEGGING to have my poem in a senior English exam - just for the freaking exposure ! Do you realise how many teenagers could be baffled by your obscure metaphors about pioneer NZ women or a sunset ? HEAPS !

So I just photocopied the original exam paper we had in the department files.

Yeah - way to stop me in my poem-piracy tracks, huh? You like that NZQA ? Cos I got more where THAT came from ! Jerks ...


* I have no idea if this reference makes sense. I have never read Kafka. He wrote a story about a castle that was supposed to be some kind of allagory. And he never finished it ... or something. It sounded good though, eh ?

So childish !

Driving to work I noticed that the :

REDUCE
SPEED

sign on the side of the road had been the target of some vandalism. Two of the letters had been covered with spray paint, changing the sign to :

REDUCE
#PEE#

I hated myself for doing it, but I laughed so much I nearly drove square into a church.


Reduce pee ... *snigger*

Revieworama !

The final countdown begins again – only another couple of weeks before the seniors leave for the year to go and ‘study’ for their exams. School becomes a great deal easier after that. Okay – maybe not a great deal ( I’ll still be freaking busy ), but it’ll be better !

Here’s a bit of a review of things I’ve seen / read / played recently –

Perfect Creature

So close ! So very close to being a really good film ! And yet – so over the mountain range studded with land-mine far away. It must be said right at the start – it’s a HELL of a lot better than ‘The Irrefutable Truth About Demons’. Mind you, considering that ‘…Demons’ is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, I’m not sure that’s much of a endorsement.
What the film did REALLY well was in creating a very cool world. Very steam-punk, while still retaining a very NZ feel. Kinda post-colonial mixed with Dickensian London. It worked pretty well. The ‘mythology’ of the world was interesting too. I liked the idea of Vampires not being evil, or even really monstrous. The idea of the ‘Brothers’ being a kind of ‘next-step’ in the evolutionary process was great, but more so was their partnership with humanity. They were ( supposedly ) so much more powerful than humans, but were essentially bound to serve humanity. I loved how the Brothers were objects of religious reverence for many humans, and how there’s a ritual of tithing blood in churches.

All very very cool.

So – what’s the problem ?

For a start, there’s not a HUGE amount of ‘super-human’ ability demonstrated by the Brothers really. Oh sure – they’ve got heightened-senses ( shown though various crash zooms and other fairly unimpressive sfx ), but what else ? Uncanny climbing ability … and that’s about it. Oh – and a weird pointy-finger style of fighting. Now really ! These are Vampires ! Okay – given that they’re a genetic anomaly they’re not going to be turning into mist or flying of in the form of a bat, but surely there could have been something a little more impressive they could have done. I guess there are hints towards super speed and strength … but there was just too little done with it. That was a shame.

The biggest problem for me was the antagonist. They made a seriously BAD error in casting. Rather than looking evil or scary – the ‘bad’ vampire ends up looking … well … retarded. That’s a bad look for your villain no matter how you cut it. I just couldn’t take him seriously. Also – there was an issue for me with this character’s motivation. At the start of the story, the antagonist’s goal simply seems to be ‘kill people and drink their blood’. Fair enough ! He’s a vampire – I can understand that. BUT – as soon as the bad guy gets caught it seems that his motivation arbitrarily changes to ‘infect as many people as possible with my blood-disease’. WHAT ? What the hell brought that on ? Why would that happen ? It didn’t make any sense. It also REALLY bugged me that he was able to escape from the maximum security Brother stronghold. It was a ‘deus ex’ situation where ( supposedly ) very clever people ( Vamp’s guards ) start doing inexplicably stupid things ( letting Vamp out of his security harness when he’s CLEARLY one of the most serious risks to all of society, not getting a Brother to check the security glass after Vamp has repeatidly hurling himself at it … and not putting Vamp BACK in the harness as a punishment, not having a fail-safe lock-down so that bad Vamp can just stroll out back into the middle of the freaking city heart !!! ). It’s really annoying when characters do things that are so stupidly out of character.

Still – there’s certainly some interesting things going on in the film, and it’s worth a DVD rental. Just don’t shell out $15 to see it on the big screen.

C+


Sun-Shine

Argh. ANOTHER film where ( supposedly ) very clever people to some VERY stupid things which bugged the hell out of me.
In a lot of ways it reminded me a lot of ‘Event Horizon’ – just replacing the supernatural elements with more scientifically plausible things. There are some good thrills here and there, but I found things largely pretty predictable.
The music is pretty good – and largely contributes to the atmospheric impact of the film. I wouldn’t mind getting the soundtrack.
Worth a rental if there’s nothing else you want to see, just get ready for some ‘Aw c’mon!’ moments.

C+


Lady in the Water

All the reviews I read about this pretty much panned this film. I got it at the last Video Eze sale for ten bucks. I didn’t get round to seeing it for quite awhile – mainly because I wanted to like it, but all the evidence seemed to be pointing at it being rubbish.

I finally braced myself and slung it in the DVD player last night. And y’know what ? I really liked it ! It was a nice story. It did stretch my suspense-of-disbelief a little bit in places ( the girl / woman living in the flats who JUST HAPPENED to know the stories of the Narfs and the Skrunts ) but there was a reasonable reason present for how this could happen that I was okay to buy into.

Not M. Night’s best – but he hasn’t done anything yet to equal The Sixth Sense in my books ( and that would be because it freaking GENIUS ), but it’s pretty enjoyable modern fairy-tale.

B

The IT Crowd – Season 2

Freaking awesome. Not quite as good as season 1 – but very very funny ( my fav joke was a legendarily hilarious take off of those damn ‘You wouldn’t steal a hand-bag !” copyright ads ). I miss Denham though …

A


The Day of the Triffids

Always meant to read this ages ago – and only just got round to it now. Well worth reading. Some pretty unsettling moments within. I gotta read me some more John Wyndham ! I think “The Kraken Wakes’ or ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ will be next on the list.

B+


Resistance – Fall of Man

A very competent FPS from the guys who brought you ‘Spyro’ and “Ratchet and Clank’. Again – it’s the setting and situation which are so captivating. It’s really an alternate World War 2, by instead of battling the Hun – it’s an ‘alien’ threat which is kicking the crap out of mankind. The Chimera are a scary bunch of dudes – and the cool thing the game does is weave the story of the Chimera uprising ( which is a huge mystery in the game. You don’t really know what the hell the Chimera are or where they come from. Are they Aliens ? Are they a genetic experiment gone wrong ? Are they a race which has co-evolved with us under the earth ? I’m at least ¾ of the way through the game and I still don’t know for sure ! ).
The weapons are cool – and while they’re reasonably futuristic sometimes ( such as the Chimeran Auger – a gun which fires energy bolts which pass through walls and obstacles until they clam into organic matter, or the Bullseye – which has the ability to ‘tag’ an enemy, which allows the conventional fire-power of the gun to home in on the tagged victim unerringly – fecking handy in dealing with smart-ale Chimera hiding behind cover ) , there’s a good mix of conventional thrown in, and the ‘advanced’ weapons fit in well with the WW2 feeling.
The action of the game alternates between frantic battle-front warfare, and tense ‘survival-horror’ tunnel-creeping sections. There’s some nice boss throw-downs and some fun vehicles to drive ( I’m hanging out for another tank-level ! Though the huge Chimeran spider-tank is pretty groovy ! ).
Graphics are great – though I’m sure that with an HD cable and a LCD tv they’d look even better ( duh ! ).
All in all – another winner from Insomnia games studio! Roll on “Ratchet and Clank : Tools of Destruction” is what I say !

A

One day - two parties !

Yesterday was busy busy busy. I had two birthday parties to go to. Two ! Who can live at that speed !! I don't know how those LA socialites do it. And imagine Bruce Wayne ! Having to live THAT life AND be a crime fighter on top of that. Yeesh.

The big focus on attention though ( as it was for most of the previous week - hence no updates ! ) was my costume for the second of the two parties - Clare's 'Space' party. I admit that I was pretty stumped for something original for a few days when I got the invitation. Yeah - I thought of all the standard Star Wars and Star Trek openers ... but I wanted something unique ! Something NO-ONE was going to copy.

It was tricky alright - something that was original, but WASN'T going to cripple me financially either.

Then a week ago today ( almost at the same time too ) - it stuck me.

A crew member of the 'Nostromo' - complete with chest-burster alien !

Genius !

But that DID mean I had to make myself a chest-burster in under a week - as you can't just go out and buy these things ( I looked, trust me ! ).

Cue much paper-mache work !

Oddly enough, one of the hardest parts of the process was finding some of those long thin styled balloons to get the paper-mache on. It was damn near impossible ! Everyone only had the round kinds. Can you believe it ? At about the fourth place I looked at I was getting pretty distressed ( as the whole plan hinged on having one of these balloons - just freaking ONE ! ). Then, JOY ! It had something similar - weird caterpillar shaped balloons. They didn't look much like caterpillars really though - to be honest, they more looked like ... well ... sex toys ( they were kinda ribbed too - very unsettling ).

Despite their unusual 'added value' they worked just fine. The second hurdle was getting the paper-mache tube to dry in time. It was very slow going - even with being bunged in the hot water cupboard. In the end I just wacked int on top of the woodburner. THAT got things sorted !

The painting and gluing was reasonably straight forward.

I did investigate getting some sew-on patches made stating various Wayland-Yutani slogans and such - but that were FAR too expensive to have made. In the end I just printed off some from net pictures and sellotaped them to the pair of overalls I got. That worked reasonably well ( and way cheaper ! ).

People at the party seemed to think it was kinda cool, and I have to say that I was pretty pleased with the final effect.

Jenni's Rock-Star party was a lot of fun - though Viva and I couldn't stay long. It was nice to see people, and I was reminded ( yet again ) of how lucky I am to have such great friends. I really am fortunate to know such a great bunch of cool, interesting and NICE people.

Yay for friends ! And for the absence of parasitic xenomorphs on Earth !

Critical Mass 3 - Vague Origins

Hey gang ! Been a while since my last post I know. Th end of term 3 will do that to you, especially when you're trying to get a year 13 production of "Waiting for Godot" done ! Whew !

I've been having a nice break not doing much. Playing too much "UFO:Enemy Unknown", eating poorly, and working on this comic. I have now discovered the joys of the 'pattern brush' - as evidenced in the exquisite grid pattern in the alien suit blueprint. It's a pretty cool feature !

And I THINK I got all the spelling mistakes out this time !

I also had an especially nice birthday, with many people getting me some very nice gifts - a big thanks to all of you ! But especially to my little sister and her partner who got me and Viv a freaking PlayStation 3 !! So much for any more marking in the holidays !

I've got another episode of Critical Mass drawn - so I'll get to work scanning than and getting it to 'publication' level. I shall also be starting a new video game canvas for my old pal and partner in crime ( although I'm more his misshapen minion to his evil genius really ) BubbaJay. In consultation with him we've come to the conclusion that a C64 inspired image would be best - probably based on "Impossible Mission" - though it might be "Creatures" if I can find a decent set of images of the sprites somewhere.

Did I mention that I take commissions ?

Dial up is for who ?

I'm constantly mishearing things, my brain often re-editing things so they're more scandalous or entertaining.

Case in point - talking with Meredith last night, and we were talking about broadband, and I SWEAR I heard her say :

"Dial-up is for fat people".

There's a t-shirt in that statement.

My brain hurts

Gosh. A weekend of marking Y10 'writing' has just about pushed me over the crumbling cliffs of sanity to the cruel cruel rocks of do-lally-land.

How the hell is it possible to write SO badly ? It really staggers the mind.

I present for you a small case study of the kind of thing I've been subjected to. It is one of the more acute cases, but not unrepresentative.

The task, I thought, was simple enough. Describe a location taken from the text we're studying and describe it as vividly as possible ( in other words - taking care to develop descriptive detail and use figurative imagery ).

I thought it was simple enough anyway.

So - one of the locations was a ball. What did our case study make of it ? Let's see:

Paragraph 1 - " The ball had a nice calm feeling, with darkness covering the strong, heroic building with shades of light casting from place to place from what looked like a mini red torch."

...Say what ? Seriously - what the hell was that ? Mini red torch ? What does that even START to mean !? Owww - my head.

Paragraph 2 - 'The ball was like any other ball in 'Dreamland'.

Huh ? Dreamland ? What the hell is that ?

'Gold surrounding the walls like the gold rush. Carpet formally place like it they were in Buckingham Palace.'

Feck - what IS this ? Pain in head increases in intensity to sharp stabbing pains in the central cortex. Hands start to twitch involuntarily.

'A massive room the size of Wembley Stadium with a light, peaceful shadow casted the whole room like it was saying 'I love lying on the beach!' Small shades of light swissed across the room like the speed of light, to create that party atmosphere."

Sweet jebus - this is worse than torture. I can't confess to anything to make it stop ! Why is shade talking about loving to be on the beach ? THAT party atmosphere ? Kid - I think you've had WAY too much of THAT party atmosphere by the sound of it. Dammit - I think my nose has started bleeding...

Paragraph 3 - ' They see hundreds of people. man and women surrounding the room like small moving bears sidestepping from one to another.'

Argghhh ! Make it stop make it STOP ! I'll do anything ! Sidestepping bears ?
WTF ?!!?! Vision fading...

'Dancing was the only action going on at the ball like you couldn't do anything else, it was like the carpet telling everyone 'to step on me, you must dance formally with your partner, no excuses !' '

*With a scream of tormented anguish Seraph falls into a coma, convulsing violently*

And that wasn't even the end !

And I marked stuff like that ALL weekend !

Sigh. It's like reading subtitles of Hong Kong action films, where the translators don't know English, this sort of crushingly bad gibberish that VAGUELY hints at an intention below the verbal up-chuck.

And YES. I KNOW that there are ethical issues in sharing this with you - but hell, when you consider the cruel and unusual suffering this kid put me through - he freaking owes me this !

The sort of thing Seraph giggles at for days

Hey - you know what a couple of words that are funny together are ?

'Booze shack' !

Hee hee hee !

That's almost as good as 'Pickle Weasel' !

( you can tell the end of term is near, can't you ? )

Critical Mass 2 - That is the Question

A special thank you goes out to my good friend Lucifer Morningstar for his photoshop help with this, which accounts fot the noticable increase in image quality here. Not the REAL Lucifer of course - as far as I KNOW anyway. It WOULD explain a lot if he were though...

This and that from the life of Seraph

- I went to the Wellington City Mission great 2nd hand book sale. Not because of any kind of affiliation to the mission - but because of my love of cheap books ( not knocking the City Mission though - they do good work ! ). They seemed to have a much more streamlined check-out process ( including a '10 books or less' express lane which was a bloody good idea - it certainly saved me time ! ). I spent my time prowling around the fantasy / sci-fi / horror tables and ended up getting a few Stephen King books that I haven't read or read fully :
* Everything's Eventual ( mostly for the Dark Tower story "The Little Sisters of Eluria", but there were a number of stories which I didn't get round to reading when I borrowed Hix's copy )
* Insomnia - For the 'Dark Tower' links !
* Skeleton Crew - I've NEVER read this collection of stories - and I really should, now that 'The Mist' is being made into a feature-film by Frank Darabont !
* Bag of Bones - I would have got this LAST year ... had it not been for the fact that the lines were approaching what seemed to be a light-year in length ! Hix tells me it's good !

- Sauntered into the public library and borrowed a book on photo-shop ( to help, hopefully, with my comic strips ) and a John Wyndham omnibus containing 'Day of the Triffids', 'The Kraken Wakes' and 'The Crysalids'. I've been hankering to read 'Day of the Triffids' - for some reason the idea of killer plants has been playing on my mind. Don't ask - it's my brain and even I don't know.

I gotta say - I'm loving that self-checking-out-books-machine they have in there now ! It's awesome ( even if it had trouble reading the bar-code on the photoshop book and I had to retry it, like, ten times.

- My 'Fungus the Loon' Blood-Bowl figure that I got on Trade-Me arrived today. You gotta love night-goblin fanatics ! They always make me think of my buddy Conrad playing the 'Warhammer' video game on his computer when we were roomies down in Christchurch. On the field of honour his army was ranged against a force of goblins.
"Goblins?!" laughed Conrad, in haughty tones. "They'll be no match for my heavy calvary ! CHARGE !". The mighty steeds tore across the middle of no-man's land - lances dropped to a wave of glinting steel death.
"Hmmmmm... Y'know - you might not want to do that" I said - drawing on my days working at Pendragon Games and my knowledge of the tabletop 'Warhammer'. 'That group there looks like a bunch of Night Goblins - they'll probably have fanatics hidden in their ranks."
"Fanatics ? What are they ?" Conrad asked - his cavalry now scant pixels away from the goblins.
"THOSE are fanatics." I answered - as four massive ball-and-chain swinging goblins flew from the front of the ranks - smashing his cavalry and leaving them in a tattered, bleeding heap of wreckage. "Yeah - they'll do that."

Tee hee. I remember his stunned expression so clearly.

- I saw 'Die-Hard 4.0' this afternoon. It was okay. I should have followed my instincts and waited to till it came out on DVD though - it wasn't as good as the previous three.

- I fixed the shieldy-thingy at the top of our wood-burner pipe. It's harder than it sounds.

- Did three loads of washing ! Which I promptly forgot was on the line when I went off to see the movie and got all damp again. Smeg !

Tomorrow :
- Make pancakes for breakfast ( promised Viv I would )
- Loads of marking ( joy )
- Wash car ( covered in green pollen )
- Spray lawn and re-seed ( so there can be some actial GRASS on the damn thing )