Tabula Rasa lj

It's been an odd day for the New York Times website. At the moment it features a large piccie of a platypus top and centre (for Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too), and earlier they had Steampunk fashion.

I don't think there is any particular correspondence between those two subjects, but it did lead me circuitously to this.

a competition.

Anyone in Sydney, or thereabouts, who wants to see a double billing of The Honeymoon Killers and Carrie next week, courtesy of the nice people at The Chauvel, head over to my website. Details are here.

New game gizmo uses mind control

Freaky dude. I am amused that this sort of thing is being brought in as game technology, which is undoubtedly much more commercial than, for example, disabled support services. I can certainly see it heading in that direction soon after. Paranoia may also point out that training a machine to basically read your mind might lead to all sorts of uncomfortable to scary lie-detector-type scenarios.

(Assuming it is not yet another over-hyped and under-researched article, but it looks more or less legit from this end.)

I bought an Xbox 360 recently, my first ever console. Assassin's Creed came as a freebie, and it's a beautiful thing -- how the story goes, we shall have to see. I've also played round with a couple of other game demos, and picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic cheap (having familiarised myself with the backward compatibility list).

One very neat thing is that it streams avi video from my PC. Now, to try and stop Windows Media Centre updating itself halfway through an episode of something...

Actually, I don't have anything particularly interesting say about episode 4.3 of Doctor Who, I just wanted to use that title.

Though it was interesting that ( mild spoiler )

I am currently arguing about computer programming with Oracle, which is always good fun (read, frustrating and painful), and am about to head off for my second lot of major dental work on an ex-tooth.

So here's a cartoon, as found on seancollinsblog:



And a final Rocky Horror anecdote. The play was on at the Star City casino, so it was the first time I've ever seen guards checking patrons on the way out of a performance. There were signs saying that casino patrons could not disguise their appearance, which makes me think this may not have been the right play for this particular venue.

I read 2012 recently, an anthology of near future tales. As various reviews have already said, it's a good book, and to be recommended.

This isn't a review -- I guess I could talk about each of the stories, but not today. I just wanted to make a quick note about one aspect of the book, for conversational purposes.

There is an impassioned introduction from the editors (that would be girliejones and benpayne) about good fiction reflecting and shaping the spirit of its time, offering a warning and a call to action. Along with the highly specific time frame, this seems to impose an additional burden on the contents. Would this really happen by 2012, I asked myself more than once. Would this happen at all? If a story doesn't make me want to sign a petition, has it failed? (Or am I the one who has failed?)

It's a tricky thing, because I agree with the editors on many of the strengths of a good story, and you certainly have to say something in an Introduction. If it was an ideal, then I don't think it was reached, not consistently anyway. If it was a limitation, the stories broke free in all sorts of different directions, which seems a good thing to me.

Two more points about Rocky Horror, while I think of them:

I noticed last night that Rocky, the character, disappears somewhat in the final act. In the movie they get away with it when he grabs Frank and scales the tower, but on stage it seemed lop-sided. Oh well.

This is also an excuse to mention Summer of Secrets again. Not many people know that the director of the RHPS made a movie a year later in Australia, that is something of a thematic follow-up (not to be confused with Shock Treatment). Here is Kyla's review of the movie, for those who like tracking down such things.

I like the Rocky Horror Show. The energy and chaos and liberation, of course, but also the alienation, the dissolution, the death. My favourite character has always been Columbia I think, which no doubt says something about me, without the handy portability of a meme.

Our friend B is in town, and has never seen it on stage, so we went off to the new production last night. It was indeed full of energy and detail (more so than the Jason Donovan version, back in the late 90s), and a great night out. The relentless pace and tendency to shout the dialogue left some of the sense behind -- but after all the dissolution and death we got the chance to do the Time Warp again, and by God we did.

Apparently there was some technical hitch, in that the role of Janet lost not only the listed actress, but both understudies. I can't remember her name, but the woman who stepped in did it perfectly (I'm sure finding someone who knows the lines is not a big problem. The relatively intricate choreography more so). Meanwhile, Rocky was like a big goofy Shane Warne on steroids, which seems scarily appropriate.

Afterwards (in a story ripped from the headlines, as they say), we were witness to a street brawl at our local train station. Some guy was being kicked in the head. I guess it was ANZAC day; don't dream it, be it. Yah.

I have spent the great majority of my life ignore of the rule, but in the last year I've seen references to it all over. I mean the five second rule of dropping food and picking it up again (aka the three second rule, apparently). I am confused. I understand the temptation to save your lunch, but how does that end up formulated into some rule that is obviously bollocks?

The latest issue of The Crumpleton Experiments (gallery, review) is out. Check out the flier including a limited edition figurine of pure evil!

Having waxed lyrical(-ish) about Blood Ties, I should probably point out Eddie Campbell's latest post as a counterpoint. I tend to ignore Eddie's grumpiness, since it's usual about people and works I know little about, but in this case he is complaining about Bernie Wrightson and defending Fredric Wertham (he of The Seduction of the Innocents, and the 1950s anti-comic crusade) which certainly piques the interest.

I'm not going to argue either point (and couldn't with any authority), but I know there are plenty of people I respect who would do so.

What brings me back to Blood Ties -- and the episode '5:55' about things happening over and over again -- is, well, things happening over and over again. This is a plot we've seen before. (Buffy did a nice bit of dialogue about this in their own version.) But it's more coherent than some BT episodes, and as usual the characters are so likable they carry it off. But is it enough? Is it just 'a monster eating and regurgitating itself' as Eddie would have it? Is it simply comfort-food for the attention span, and is that bad?

Understanding most people haven't seen that specific episode or show, what do you reckon?

It always seems a bit pointless to review new Doctor Who, because I want to make the same points over and over. The frenetic pacing and narrative shortcuts don't do much for me. But -- all that implied -- Fires of Pompeii was pretty good, and Donna is working out.

I was of course shocked (shocked!) by the continuity error with Masque of Mandragora, but I shall recover. One day.

It was nice to see the sets of Rome again too -- I assume that was Atia's villa, looking a little more cramped. (Was it wrong to think of Octavian and Octavia, when the son grabbed his sister's hand?)

Meanwhile, we watched 5:55, the inevitable Groundhog Day episode of Blood Ties -- and that was good too.

Comics folk in Melbourne, this will interest you. Bruce Mutard is talking about his new comic The Sacrifice on Wednesday evening.

Set in Melbourne in the shadow of WWII, this graphic novel deals with war, ideals, family and love. With a distinctive cast of characters and strong themes, this book will resonate with a broad audience.

Details are here

Anyone here an expert on finding missing partitions? My D: drive on the Windows (XP) box is suddenly gone. This seems bad (I was defragging at the time).

We saw Prom Night yesterday. Obviously, supplies of fake blood haven't recovered since Sweeney Todd.

In a way, it was nice seeing an attempt at a suspense movie with an emphasis of character over 'torture porn' -- but the characters were so generic and sloppily managed it loses sympathy fast.

I can't say it is worse than the original, if only because it has been so long since I saw it -- and my main memories are of Leslie Nielsen. That was quickly followed by sequels that were basically satire, but I'm not sure that would work these days either.

Lonely Planet rocked by fraud scandal

It's obviously a hard life, being a freelancer.

The photo-comic (aka fotonovel) has never received any love, but is that any excuse for Dark Horse to put the stupidest photo of Darth Vader ever on the front of their new edition?

I have no great interest in seeing the upcoming Punisher movie, having neither read the comic nor seen the previous adaptation. But I'll point you towards this blog entry from the director, which has a fabulous photo and an interesting take on it all.

A short survey has been set up for fans, creators and, no doubt, interested on-lookers of Australia horror and dark fiction. You can even win stuff. Here are all the details, and here's the survey.

In other news, I've given up on my trial of Project Wonderful for ads, and given google adsense a go. It's looking good so far, since that I have made almost a third of my total PW earnings in 24 hours. That's not a fair comparison, since I only put the PW ads on my comic pages, and the google ads are all over the shop -- but having to specify different ads for different sections (as I would like to do) would not make PW worth my time.

So now I have google working out which ads to run, automagically. From my brief scan, it doesn't seem to be doing too bad a job, among some embarrassing examples (apparently there is a new Pamela Anderson movie). My favourite so far accompanies the interview with Will Elliot (author of Pilo Family Circus), advertising a clown for children's parties -- though associating A Clockwork Orange with Classic British Comedy is an interesting interpretation. 'Death Poetry' to go along with Neil Gaiman is nice (the result of clicking on that may be entirely different).

The saddest bit about the PW experience -- where you have to manually approve all advertisers -- is how many blogs I found that were about nothing other than how to make money by blogging. So I better stop now.