If I had 10 million dollars ...

a) I would build a house with secret passages and secret rooms. I don't care WHAT Viv says about it - it would be seriously cool !

b) I'd buy a decommissioned missile silo and turn it into an 'evil genius' lair. There would be go-go dancers. Somehow.

c) I'd fill the Karori public swimming pool with jelly. Lime flavor - naturally.

What would you do ?

Downers of 2008

5. PC woes

My PC died early in the year. The hard-drive suffered some kind of aneurism and died, and the road to getting it back was paved with despair. There were so many problems and crap – from the technicion putting the wrong RAM in it to no sound output. Definitely a pain.

4. Missing out on some things.

The arrival of Angelo, wonderful though it is, does mean that a few things have been sacrificed on the alter of parenthood. I missed not being in the 48 hour film comp this year, and more-so my Tuesday night RPG group. Ah well.

3. Making mistakes in the order of units in my senior drama class and the subsequent heart-stopping panic for 8 weeks.

Yeah – the less said the better. It all worked out in the end. Whew

2. Actually producing the school production films.

It was fun and I learned a lot – but it was a pretty merciless grind.

1. Still having problems with my leg.

It’s over a year now and my right leg / knee isn’t yet 100%. The weight-gain from reduced exercise hasn’t been nice either.

The Top 10 of 2008

10. Discovering ‘Death Cab for Cutie’
I just don’t tend to find new music that I actually like – so discovering a whole new BAND that makes some really great music is quite a thing !

9. Discovering ‘Old Man’s War’ by John Scalzi
I tend to discover great books a little more often – and this was a seriously good find ! I had never heard of John Scalzi before, but people were talking about him on the ‘Boing Boing’ site and raving about his first book ‘Old Man’s War’. So I figure, what the heck ?
OutSTANDING story !
A cross between ‘Starship Troopers’ and ‘Cocoon’ – hilarious, sad, action packed and thought provoking. Read it at ONCE ! That’s a order !!!

8. Ran my ‘Resident Evil’ version of “The Mountain Witch” RPG at Kapcon.
Didn’t win any prizes – but the game seemed to go down well !

7. Seeing Bill Bailey live in concert.
My face hurt for hours afterwards !

6. Did a good painting !
‘Alchemy II’ for Dave. I really liked how it turned out.

5. Artwork I did for Hix’s game.
Now he only has to actually produce the product …

4. Acted in a version of “The Four Yorkshiremen” sketch.
At the school variety concert. I was the character that had the last monologue ( was killed by parents who than danced on the grave singing hallelujah ) . Good fun !

3. Renovating the spare room.
Took awhile – but done BEFORE bubba arrived – and it wasn’t half bad into the bargain.

2. Finishing the film productions for school.
Never have I been happier to finish something.

And, at number one, it should come as no surprise …

1.The birth of Angelo.
Which carries with it many wonderful moments of joy !

A late gift

Well - I don't know about you, but I find this whole parenthood thing does muscle in on my blogging time rather significantly.

Here's a late Christmas gift for you.

What? I shouldn't have ? Oh come now ! Nothing is too good for you !

If you're like me - then you like stories read aloud. So then audio books are pretty groovy things ! I discovered in my meanderings though the interwebs a trio of podcast sites which cater to specific forms of short fiction, all three of the genres being particular favorites.

First - science fiction. Escape pod is the one for you. I recommend the Union Dues stories. They are very cool ( if pretty dark ) superhero tales.

Second - horror. Pseudopod is the place to go. This was the first of the sites I found - with Boing Boing recommending "The Sloan Men" - which was pretty cool. I tend to find that the stories on Pseudopod are a little more hit and miss - but there are some really great ones there. I particularly recommend "The Skull-Faced Boy" - which is a great little zombie tale. Go listen to it now.

Third - fantasy. PodCastle awaits ! I've tended to enjoy the stories here slightly more than the others. You definitely should tune into "Cup and Table", which was the first Pod Castle story I heard - and I thought it was one of the best Hold Grail stories I've heard.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have been !

Fictional slang

Okay - serious question.

What would be the slang term that super-powered teens would call those that had the power of flight ? In a , say, post-apocalyptic world ?

Or super-strength ? Speed ? Energy manipulation ?

Best I've come up with is 'zip' for a speedster - but I'm not sure it's something a teen would say.

Typical. I'm surrounded by them everyday, but the way teens think is still freaking alien to me.

Sage Advice

So I'm finished. Finished those bloody films.

Thank the gods ! Thank Krishna ! Thank Allah ! Thank Mohammed ! Thank Buddha ! Thank Hastur ! Thank Ishtar ! Thank every freaking god in the book ! My long and arduous journey is at an end... *sob*

Here is a short list of advice of what to do if you ever plan making a film with teenagers.

1. Don't.
2. See 1. Seriously.
3. Okay - if you're going to do it - DON'T let them write it unless you know damn well they can write okay. And even then - be VERY careful about what you get them to write, lest they hand you three scripts in succession that the special character of your school ( and society in general ) will never let you put on screen. Have a CLEAR word / page limit - and enforce it with ruthless and cruel means ( set fire to their work if it's a single character over the limit would be my advice ).
4. Don't be a control freak about it. Force people to help you. At gunpoint if necessary.
5. Capture your footage as soon as you can. DO NOT lose tapes with valuable footage that took hours to do.
6. While editing - hit that control + S OFTEN. You don't want a sudden system crash to scrub away that sequence you've painstakingly edited over the last two hours.
7. Do NOT work with year 7 students. Not unless you want to have to do even the simplest shot about 13 to 17 times. Do not be fooled by their enthusiasm - they have NO idea what they're doing !
8. Do NOT write down the plans of how you will MURDER that little red-haired bastard who hassled you day in and out about WHEN you were going to start, and how MUCH he wanted to do things - and then a week after shooting when you needed the little punk to actually do something important he quits to play hockey. The legal system will take note of these things quite seriously if found,
9. Steal all the equipment and sell it on trade me before you begin. Use the money to buy to buy limited edition comics or something. Blame the red-haired kid and see if you can get him lynched.
10. Just don't do it ! Okay ? Trust me on this !

Right. Now I'm going to go and hit my head against a wall until I forget all about it...

Dude ! What gives ?

So - no post in over a month. I know what you're thinking :

"Ah Seraph - you slack gitt ! Stop lounging around on your mink chez-lounge, sipping mulled wine and nibbling on raspberry slice and write something to make me giggle !".

How I wish that were true.

In short - I have been receiving a right royal pummeling from both of my jobs ( daddy and teacher ). The production-film for school has been doing a REAL number on me. More later ( when I'm a few steps further away from insanity ).

Thanks to all those who sent / phoned / posted birthday wishes a month ago - it was really nice. Special mention to my ole pal Mark ! Sorry I wasn't home man ! I lost your number somewhere in my labyrinthine domain - gimmie another call some time !

Right - back to the madness. You're regularly scheduled show will return shortly ...

4th Anniversary

So Viva and I have now been married for 4 years ! Wow ! Where did that time go ??

I was in a bit of a dilemma coming into this one though - namely because of the gift. I am trying to go the traditional route with anniversary gifts - and so is Viva. Our first anniversary ( paper ) I got her tickets to something ( a show of some sort - damned if I can remember right now what it was... ), and she got me a book of the 'Indian Ink' play scripts. We both flagged the second anniversary gifts as cotton was too hard. The third anniversary gift ( leather ) was a nice pair of gloves from me ( I know what you're thinking - and the reason I didn't go for THAT idea was that I didn't get her measurements in time. You can't just get that stuff off the shelf y'know ! ). I received a pretty sharp belt ( not round the head either ! Tee hee ... ).

But the 4th anniversary ? Flowers and fruit. Hmmm.

Hard to get something really cool there. I mean - there's the obvious idea I guess, but who wants to be obvious ?

I was quite stumped. And then I had a odd ( and mildly disturbing ) dream. I was a student in this bizarre Tim Buton-esque school. I was in a science class of some sort - and a Goth girl student was having an argument with the crusty old professor about the chemical symbol for silver ( while a hulking, shaggy haired behemoth of a student was lurching around behind us - he had rope nooses instead of hands - which was the mildly disturbing part ).

'Silver!' one would shout - pointing at a symbol on the board.

'SILVER !' the other shouted back - pointing at a different symbol.

On and on it went until I woke up - crying out a strangled 'Silver!' myself !

And then it hit me - a silver charm bracelet ! I had seen these really cool 'Pandora' ones in the window of Pacific Jewelers in Johnsonville. I did some research on line to see if there were any fruit or flower charms, found that there were, and zapped in to get one !

Freaking genius !

Viva really liked it - and it has the bonus for me that I can now get OTHER charms as other gifts !! Everyone is happy !

Thanks strange and mildly disturbing dream !

( Viva got me a selection of fruit based sweets, and a bottle of apple wine - and freaking yummy they are too ! :-) )

Fathers day and Bill Bailey

This entry is mostly to answer Debbie's comment from the last post, seeing as she has been nice enough to be leaving them !

My first father's day was very nice indeed. I spent the lion's share of the day with Angelo - who had got me a lovely framed photograph of himself for a present ( got through his PA I think ). We had visits from friends for lunch - and Grandma and Grand-dad visited later on ( which, yet again, made doing any marking difficult - but screw it ! ).

The Bill Bailey concert / show / gig / whatever was very VERY funny - my face was hurting for a good hour afterwards and I think I damaged my friend's hearing. We had KILLER seats too ! We were three rows from the front, pretty close to the middle.
As is always the case with comedy - I remember very little about the show ! Why the hell is that ? Anyway - some of the funny things I remember him talking about were :

- England's potential opening ceremonies for their olympics, with a giant inflatable Winston Churchill dancing to a drum and bass 'God Save the Queen', and a robotic Queen shooting corgies from her neck
- His deep suspicion of joggers - who always find the bodies...
- A hilarious emo self-hurt song
- The Bucharest flag being two bears fighting over a pineapple ( which, I was sorry to discover, it isn't )
- An argument with various parts of his subconscious ( 'I control you!' 'No ! WE control YOU!!' )
- Satan singing Lionel Richie songs.
- How England's national anthem should be changed to "The Pink Panther"
- NZ's border patrol being obsessed with finding illicit potpourri

Laugh ? I almost died.

It was a nice break for Viva and me too - I think it might have been a little more scary for her to have been away from Angelo - but his aunt looked after him really well !

A great night out, and worth every cent of the ludicrously expensive tickets.

Sister and Babysitting

Here follows a transcript of a conversation between my sister and my father concerning the baby-sitting that she's going to do for us on Friday night so we can go and see Bill Bailey ( yay ! ) :

Dad - So ... I hear that you're going to baby-sit Angelo on Friday night.

Sis - Yup. It'll be fun.

Dad - ... Do you need any help ? I can come down you know - I should probably come down.

Sis - I've got it under control dad.

Dad - But, it's a baby - you haven't baby-sat before, have you ? I think I should come down.

Sis - I've baby-sat LOTS of times. I'll be fine.

Dad - But you might not be ! What if he needs changing ? Can you change him ? Have you even changed a baby before ?

Sis - Yeah. Loads. I'll be fine.

Dad - But ... um ... what if he starts crying ?

Sis - Oh, I'll just shake him until he stops.

Apparently a lot of conversations between my dad and sister end with my dad telling my sister to "Shut up!".

I wonder why.

Seraph's Questionable Take on World Events

Okay okay - so this hardly current in terms of events, but I've been mulling this over in my mind for a week or so and I wanted to get your take on this. Now, I'm hardly the most clued up on on the political scene of Europe or anything - but certain events there made me think of the computer game 'Civilization'.

Stay with me here.

Right - so when you're playing Civilization on easy ( and I hardly ever play on any other difficulty setting. I like to win ) and you're in the mid to end game zone, a peculiar thing often happens. You'll be advancing nicely, science and research are reaping healthy rewards. You've made many impressive monuments. The Church of Seraph-is-a-Groovy-Cat has throngs of worshippers and generally things are, y'know, quite peaceful.

And then you get an ambassador from some back-water nation demanding an audience. You graciously usher him into your palace to hear what he has to say.

"Hey!" he says "You have stuff we want ! Oil and gemstones and lumber and such ! Here is a stupidly unfair trading deal ! Give us heaps of your great stuff for our world-map !".

"But, o-honorable delegate from Retardostan" you patiently explain "We have already mapped the entire world. Whereas you have gone only twenty meters from your coast-line. I think I shall have to decline your offer, with the utmost respect to you and your proud ( if somewhat pig-headed ) people."

"Mwargh !" the ambassador shrieks "You suck ! Your country sucks ! We hate you now ! Give us twenty million euros or there'll be TROUBLE !!!!".

"I have no desire for war ! But I will NOT be giving you ANY Euros. Please leave now - and AS you return to Retardostan, you may wish to note the way the fusion-missile silo's the boys at the lab have knocked together in the last 10 years blend in cunningly with the natural beauty of Seraphi..."

The ambassador leaves, pausing only to hurl abuse at your bodyguards, shout something about 'diplomatic immunity' and 'oppressive yolk' and 'you'll be sorry'.

Later that month the glorious Crimson Legion of the proud nation of Retardostan - resplendent in their shining bronze armour, shaking their flintlock muskets above their visored heads, cross the mountain range separating your country from theirs on their trusty yak mounts. They throw themselves at the city walls of one of your weaker border cities singing their war-song "Death to the enemies of Retardostan - There will never be consequences for our actions !" in the full-throated manner so steeped in their rich military tradition.

The ECM Death-Commandos ( skull and crossed bones division ) on garrison duty there, armed with state of the art pulse-rifles, and aided by a few trusty marauder-class attack helicopters, easily hold off the attack - reducing the entire Glorious Crimson Legion to a finely textured squishy pulp.

Within a day your superior rail system has delivered ten units of stealth-tanks ( plus a few of the atomic powered mechs those boffins down in the labs suddenly got a whole lot of money to finish ) to the front lines.

Within three days you have crushed their pitiful armed forces and their border towns lie in ruin. The barded yak-steeds of the Retardostan army are simply no match for your gigantic robot and tank blitzkrieg.

Town by town, city by city - Retardostan begins to fall.

An emissary is sent to have talks with you.

"Hey you blood-thirsty monster ! You suck ! We hate you ! Even more ! But we're sick of having our arse handed to us by giant atomic robots !"

"Hey ! You freaking started this ! You attacked us ! We had a treaty and non-aggression pact ! What the hell ?" you state.

"But that was when we thought we'd win ! It's not fair that we're losing ! You suck so much for winning ! Bllleeerrrghhh !".

"Very well - I'll give you peace, but you'll hand over these three cities as a sign of good faith."

"WAAAAARRRGHHHHHH ! You unbelievable prick !! That's SO UNFAIR !!!! Gosh - how we HATE you !!"

"Look - it's up to you. Either you give me those cities, or I take over your entire country, you flipping dick-head !" you respond.

"Grumble grumble ... mutter mutter hate you mutter ... grumble alright ..."

"What was that? Did you just agree to have peace ? Did you ?"

"Grumle grumble ... YES .... ( gods we so totally hate you we hate you so much ! We hate you a whole DUMP-TRUCK full of hate ... hate you Seraphi ... think you're so cool with your running water and trousers ... )"

And so you have peace ( until Retardostan inexplicably attacks you again out of the blue and their memory is purged from the history books forever ).

That seems to happen all the time in Civ.

Now - is it JUST me, or did something not too dissimilar to that happen in real life recently ?

Like I said - NO understanding of Eastern Europe political situations. Just putting it out there.

* And big thanks to Jenni for telling me how a bunch of people of the State of Georgia in the US of A were wondering where all the Russian tanks were. I laughed and laughed.

A new low

So, I was running a warm-up exercise with my Y12 drama class this morning - and managed, in an exuberant show of energy, to punch myself right in the eye.

My students thought that was suitably hilarious.

It freaking hurt.

I blame Monday morning.

Things I have learnt about parenting #2

I never could have imagined how joyful a thing it is.

If you've known me for any length of time before becoming a parent, you'd know that I'd never been fond of babies. To be fair - I actively disliked / feared them. They were bewildering things which would decalcify your spine with their screams and expel vile matter on you from any number of orifices ( often simultaneously ! ).

During Viv's pregnancy I had pretty much steeled myself for a long, hard, grueling haul of care afterwards - and when the child was a couple of years old, THEN it would be a happy time.

I really didn't expect to be so attached to Angelo as quickly as I was ( instead of years - it was hours ). I had once ( internally ) scoffed at the talk of 'how amazing' a smile was from a baby. Now I know better.

It is hard at times ( it's awful when he cries and cries and CRIES and you don't know what's wrong or how to make him STOP... ), and certainly it's poor Viva who has to deal with more hard times than I.

But I miss him heaps when I'm at work.

And while, on some level, I am biologically hard-wired to feel this way at an evolutionary level - I really don't care.

I just feel very fortunate to have such a happy, healthy little guy.

*** Normal curmudgeonly transmissions will be restored for next post

Drawless Animation ?

Here's a 4-minute film school vid by Rob Schrab where he talks about drawless animation. It's pretty interesting stuff - mostly using green-screen techniques.

Crooked Teeth !

Don't you just LOVE discovering a cool new song? I was watching this thing about 'Drawless Animation" by Rob Schrab - and he talked about a video he did for a song by the Group 'Death Cab For Cutie' - which is also one of the best names for a band I've heard for awhile too.

I found it on YouTube - and proceeded to watch it about twenty times !



Fantastic stuff - and I SOOO want to make a wee film like this some time !!

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

If I EVER suggest / say / hint / communicate in anyway that doing a film project in a co-curricular way with kids at school is a good idea in future, you have my permission to dunk my head a barrel of piranha fish. HUNGRY piranha fish. Having fist glued a tomato flavored stetson onto me.

Classifying Angelo’s crying

In the last three months I have been learning to interpret the different kinds of crying that Angelo does. Hey – it passes the time when the poor little guy is crying ( far from a pleasant thing – but not as bad as I thought it would be ). Here are some of my findings, in order of severity :

The Houdini Grumble
Largely a thing of the past now. This was a regular when we were swaddling him before we put him to sleep. He didn’t seem to like his hands being restricted, and had an uncanny ability to wriggle out of the tightest of my swaddling ( until I was almost at the point of duct-taping him into a blanket ! ). The Houdini Grumble was the grunting exertion noises he made as he worked his way to freedom.


The Lah
Another one which seems to have largely passed now – though I’m not entirely sure why ! A cry indicating a moderate level of being upset, this was a series of short wails which would sound like he was saying ‘Lah!’. Would be almost cute, if he wasn’t feeling bad !


The Squeaky Lah
A more severe version of the Lah. The extra-loud expelling of the ‘Lah!’ would result in a sharp intake of breath, making a squeaky noise, so the overall effect sounded like ‘Lah ! Squeak ! Lah ! Squeak ! Lah ! Squeak!”. Like the Lah, seems to have gone ( for now – at least ).


The Black Lagoon Special
Angelo is getting pretty beside himself at the point of the BLS. He thrashes around making a lot of snorting / grunting sounds. He does sound a bit like a wee creature from the Black Lagoon ( hence the name – though in all honesty I can’t remember what noises the creature from the Black Lagoon made, if indeed it make sounds at ALL. Maybe


The Banshee
Baby def-con 2. Really just screaming. Not nice at all.


The Machine-gun
You can tell when Angelo is REALLY REALLY upset when you get to the machine-gun stage. This is a weird little stuttering that he does with the cry ( the side-benefit seems to be that it required more breathing power - so the actual noise level diminishes a little ... ), which sounds a bit like an uzi. Just as long as he doensn’t get HOLD of an uzi at these moments – I think we’ll be okay !

Bad Family Art Assignment

My good pal Hix is publishing his RPG 'Bad Family' ( formerly known as 'The Lucky Jones' ) and he asked me if I would help by contributing some art for it. Hey - I'm up for helping out a pal in a artistic way - and seeing as it was the holidays and I would have the necessary time, I was up for the challenge.

Seeing as Matt has put his contributions up ( and a fine collection of images they are too ), I thought I'd do the same.

Hix gave me a number of starter ideas to work from - and this is what I came up with :

1. A little girl being taunted by the tree she's scared of climbing.

I had initially worried that the tree looked a little too evil - but Hix had way more problems with the tree's non-pointing hand ( at first it was wrapped around it's tree-like belly ). Got it sorted in the end though !

2. A grandfather being pursued down the highway by cops, cars and helicopters

I had to change this to a grandmother as Matt had done a grandfather in a hi-tech wheelchair. I like the grandmother better !


3. A drunk mother trying to deliver a lecture to her kids

I went for only the one kid. I thought the sermon on the horrors of soda-pop while wasted out of your head was a nice ironic touch.

I fair degree of work here, but time well spent I think ! Hix liked 'em I think, and I'm looking forward to seeing them in print !

So the Prophecy was true...

You heartless bastards ! You can't do this to me ! I have a child now ! A CHILD !!!

( Now it this post should make a lot more sense ! Thanks to Jenni and my Mum for pointing out that the picture had vanished ! Jeesh ... )

Groan...

I have never been so consistently tired in my life.

I am so behind in everything.

It's report season at school.

I am almost single-handedly running the school film production ( THAT was a great idea ... ).

And yet - when I sit down with my wee boy, bounce him on knee and he smiles / gurgles / laughs - it is all worth it.