Like puzzle pieces from the clay

Last night I watched A Better Tomorrow II, or 英雄本色 2 in Hong Kong. (Wikipedia/IMDb) and it was great.
It tended to be a bit hard to follow – it started with ballroom dancing and beards, grew into police infiltration of crime organisations, flew over to New York for some hilarious “EAT THE FUCKING RICE, GUILAO” (I’m paraphrasing ruthlessly) at gunpoint (in response to a protection racket) and then had some mind-losing.

But don’t worry, it turns into a bloodbath.  Really.  It’s like the Matrix Lobby Scene with more blood and Asians.
So, shotguns are awesome, Asians are awesome, rice is awesome.  Oh, and this is where The Matrix got the Trinity-sliding-down-stairs-shooting sequence.

There’s money-printing, force-feeding, dancing, badly dubbed white people, and Chow Yun Fat.

I think we should all see it.  I liked it a lot, it was great fun.  I wouldn’t say it was my favourite film, or anything near it.
“You no like my rice” is hilarious. There are other funny bits too, naturally.
But it reminds us that one of the few good things to come from the 80s (in addition to Tetris, Rick Astley, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) is action films where cars explode like that.
*clicks fingers illustratively*

The other night we had Burritos.  Eventually, the resident Chinese homestays Matthew and Timber (yes, like ‘wood’) loaded the tortillas with rice.  Tim quite likes drenching everything in tomato sauce.
Anyway, rice.

I was going to blag about other things; being introduced to awesome and shockingly close places by Brendan and the state my bike is in.
Also, moats, lilies, haze and such.

I haven’t been blagging much, actually. I never really feel the urge to – I only do it when it’s just there.
You’ll notice from my growing Blagroll that more and more of my friends are succumbing.

Peace, I’m out (segues are for losers).
Time for sleep.  I love sleep.

Inside my hands these petals browned

So the other day, after seeing the surprisingly excellent WALL·E with Clare, she and I went for yum cha at a Chinese restaurant neither of us had been to before.  She assured me that yum cha was a selection of small dishes, and the internet seems to agree.
Nobody, it seems, told this place, who presented us with an epic amount of food. Food for seven.
It was frightening.
We dealt with a lot of it, and left with the rest in containers.  All is well.

Today, I noticed a discolouration in the sky.  It seemed rather less blue, and rather more a dull lavender than usual, through the clouds.  I consulted Nick who lives a considerable distance to my West Sou’ West, and Kieran who lives a very similar distance directly to my south (oh my, looking at this map, I see we’re equilateral – I don’t think I’m ready for this kind of geometry in my life), and they both agree.
Meanwhile, a friend who is in Melbourne doesn’t.  The light at the time was still white and pure, perhaps a little more yellow…

Cordell says (12:40 PM):

You should be able to see the sky through a large gap in the clouds

Kieran says (12:40 PM):

What, why?

Cordell says (12:40 PM):

Can you do that?
I could swear it’s the wrong colour

Kieran says (12:41 PM):

I get blinded, the sun is in this gap
It looked somewhat grey though

Cordell says (12:41 PM):

HA HA, YOU GOT SUN-ROLLED

Buses in this state are ridiculous.  It took me two and a half hours to get home this evening (three minutes more, to be exact).  153 minutes to travel 16.4km.  To be fair, most of that time was spent waiting.  In real terms, that’s 142 pages of Captain Hornblower’s exciting escapades in South America since yesterday.  And my perception of time is more skewed at a bus stop than anywhere else, and it has been proven to be very good at other times.  I have in the past taken up the habit of walking eleven stops along the line instead of waiting.

Also, Indian cyclists.  Stay out of the bus lane, if you’re reading this.

Will motorists ever stop treating bike lanes like parking lots if they think cyclists don’t themselves respect traffic segregation? I don’t think it will make a difference, motorists aren’t at all observant.

Oh yeah, way to alienate.

Whoever shouts the loudest gets the most attention

I’m faster than a Chihuahua – one decided to chase me as I rode home. It gave up. I was not on a white stallion but a mountain bike, should you be imagining me in a heroic light.

I’m living up my last teenage years, today I met Antho at the library. I returned those books on the Boer War, and took out some on Surrealism.

I’m breaking the habit of putting images at the very end of posts.  Mixing it up.  Because I’m exciting.

This Apple & Kiwi Fruit juice is very good, but is unattractive. It’s opaque and khaki. Like the shirts in the dress uniforms on M*A*S*H, or what you get when you mix all your paint together while washing it down the drain.
When I’m buying a drink, I want to be reminded of American courts martial in the early nineteen-fifties. Surgeons being tried for obscene behaviour make me thirsty, as does Alan Alda. I don’t have to explain why tipping acrylic paints down the drain is appetising.

Do not distress, the long drought of Peach Ice Tea has been remedied.

Today was slightly too warm. The supermarket in Unley has user-operated checkouts now, with a tall guy to watch over them.

Everything is painted woodland grey, except for the trimmings which are a strong green. The floorboards are real, but an unwelcoming dull stain. It’s all modern and clean, but it is neither coloured like a medical research centre or a trendy apartment building.

Bow-ties suit my personality too well for me to wear them. They would take me into the extreme. I should be tempered by my clothing.

I slept well last night.

Whoever brings the night

Refitting the tread on a bicycle wheel is a bastard.  I got another puncture, you see, on the tube of the rear wheel.

Desktop computers should have small batteries.  If it can run for 20 minutes on its own, it can shut down properly when the power cuts out.  We have a dodgy fuse board or something.  I blame the kettle/Chinese.

I heard another mysterious night-time noise.  It sounded like someone tightly hugging a large plastic barrel in either the next room or in the roof.  I’ve heard it in the early morning and late at night, spread over weeks.

You know the sound of someone squeezing an empty plastic bottle? It’s like that, but suitably louder and deeper.

I drink a lot of Peach Ice Tea, it’s wonderful.  I bought 6 Litres the day before yesterday.  There was a man at the supermarket who looked like Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor.  Except that he was about 6′4″, hunched, and had eyebrows considerably paler than his skin.

I think that’s all?

Oh, being a pedestrian is bad.

Trapped in yourself, break out instead

Ok, I thought I’d cover the holidays, before it gets into the distant past.  It was a two week holiday between terms, and a week has already passed since it finished.  I could have blogged four times while it was happening, but it was a holiday, and I do not think that is time best spent blogging.

I took three friends over to Kangaroo Island at the beginning of the holidays, and this time it was not all on fire.  We were therefore able to go to the tourist spots, which we naturally decided to do on the day with the … least friendly weather.  I will be getting the photos of us leaning into the wind, tomorrow.

There is now a video on YouTube of me at Remarkable Rocks, in a corridor type formation, struggling against very strong wind.  You can hear their laughter, as it begins to hail, and I scream in pain.  This is, I think, the third video with me in it.  The first currently has 28,499 views merely because a certain someone uploaded it with a misleading name.

I put on a few kilos, which I have already lost.  All have conceded that both of my parents are excellent cooks.

We played Risk a couple of times, and there was much stomping of Ukraine.  We did this during Rugby matches and late night films.  Oh, we watched some good films, we watched some fun films, we watched an atrocity.

And to put this atrocity in perspective, The Godfather and V for Vendetta are good, Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie go in the “fun” category.  Yes, the 1992 Jim Henson Ninja Turtles film has the best opening sequence ever, involving a teen pizza deliveryman who knows martial arts fighting a large mob of thieves.  Did I mention that he’s asian?  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles intervene, there are giant flowers, a snapping turtle, a wolf, a Samurai who lives in a car yard and Vanilla Ice doing the Ninja Rap.

Anyway, in Turbo, the lion Munchkin wizard creature from the planet with a blue filter was captured by the scantily clad woman who lives in a submarine with mutants, where the Munchkin’s mate and child are being held hostage.  He then reluctantly takes her to an island in a parallel dimension, so she can marry a lava monster (which she begins to have doubts about).  Being the “Queen of Evil” is not quite worth being married to a sentient molten rock formation.

Of course, the Power Rangers must also go to this parallel dimension, which they achieve by somehow getting their Zords (Transformers cars) onto the Ghost Ship.  Yes, a dilapidated wooden ship will take them to another dimension.

Did I mention that the police are stupid, the blue ranger is a child (yes, it’s a film of that season), and the pink ranger has an Australian accent?

Anyway, there are fight scenes, explosions, mecha fight scenes, dodgy cuts, volcanoes erupting and a bald man’s head in a giant tube..  If that doesn’t make sense, the good guys win.

So, that was the fun and bad one.  What about the atrocity I mentioned? I should skip to the far side of the next picture now, if I were you.  It’s more fun that way.

It is called Soul Plane, and stars ‘Snoop Dogg’ as an ex-con who was trained to fly by terrorists.  This is the poorest taste film I have ever seen.

When a man who is not Chris Tucker is stuck to a toilet seat in an aeroplane, and through the window sees his dog being sucked into a turbine, mid-flight, the jury of a civil court awards him one hundred million dollars.  I’m shocked that anyone would misrepresent the court system so.

This sounds like a lot of money, but it is not enough to build ‘Terminal X’ (or ‘Terminal Malcom X’ for long), buy a heavily customised full-size jumbo jet painted in purple livery, and hire a full crew.  A white family is transferred to the maiden flight, and they too are terrible caricatures.  The jet has hydraulics.  And I mean the pointless kind that rice-cars have, along with sub-woofers and furry dice.

I … don’t want to talk about how bad it is, any more.  It has the most juvenile humour I’ve ever come across.

I’m disgusted.  I’m insulted.

I’m ashamed for everyone in it.

It’s the most racist film I’ve ever seen.  The co-pilot is African, and there is a Muslim on the plane.  What is the least tasteful way these characters could be treated?  They did it.  They did it to women, blind people, white people, gays, and every black stereotype yet.  And I hate them all, and they deserve it.  The characters are all repulsive.

We laughed less and less, as we realised that it wasn’t going to get any better. I’m going to give you some links with which to follow this up, as I’m washing my hands of this.

(Link) IMDb User Comments

I am agreeing with the negative ones, naturally.  You can also look it up on Wikipedia if you like, but they are expected to follow the neutrality policies.

This is ruined now.  I don’t feel like blogging about the other awesome things we did, or things that have happened since.  Not how warm my hands are or a strange dream I had.

I may be gone for some time.  I hope this hasn’t spoiled everything.

I’d like to point out that we spent more time watching good movies than bad, and we had fun.  It was 2 in the morning, and this crime against man seemed funny at the time.

Nothing to do with me.

I’m ambivalent to Last.fm’s new look.  Some things are massively improved, but a lot of things are disappointing.  Unlike deviantArt, which looks better than ever – which is just great, for a site I never use.

DDoS, on my 4chan?

Yeah, so.  We’re back at school, and seeing everyone again is great.  Some lessons are dread.

Ooh, we had bonfires, to burn all the wattle that had fallen in the storm.

The title of this post is a lyric.  I’d be a bad person not to tell you that.

Chapter of Obeisance Before Giving Breath to the Inert One in the Presence of the Crescent Shaped Baked Goods

So, one of the things that happened today is that I bought some croissants.  These were from a supermarket bakery, apparently.  Such things have been known to be good, in the past.  Not this time.

Oh, yes.  The croissant is named for its crescent shape.  How very astute of you.  It does, however, have some other characteristics.  Their attempt was slightly too sweet, and very dense.  These are probably better as far as gaining sustenance is concerned, but they weren’t actually nice.  I threw away the one I started, gave another away, and have two left.  We shall see what happens.

I love Lindt Coffee Intense Dark Chocolate, so much.

I had a Modern History exam today.  The sources analysis was easy enough, though the last was “using all of the sources, evaluate the statement that France underwent dramatic change after the war”.  It wasn’t “statement”, it was something that started with p, and is completely interchangeable in this context.

I wrapped that page up with “the sources indicate that France underwent some social changes after World War II, which may be considered dramatic” … I mean, really.  Two of the six sources were about the size of the average family unit growing significantly from 1930 to 1960, the high incidence of unplanned pregnancies, and the changing criteria for choosing a life partner.  The rest did not acknowledge any change or any drama – two exhibited humanist photography (public displays of affection in Paris in 1950, a miner being washed by his wife), and the other defined humanist photography.  Sources analysis was fine in itself.

We had some very heavy rain today, some of which was during my exam, the rest was while I frantically pieced together a significant maths assignment.  I need more sleep, again.  Sure, I had plenty on that five-day weekend.  Five day weekends will never be productive.  Ever.

Also, the computers in the ISEC room are painfully slow – they suffer hardware lag about as bad as my phone.  Also, Excel can’t natively do boxplots.  This is shocking.

Back to the rain.  I am once again pleased that I put a plastic bag over my bicycle seat.  You will find that almost all seats are made of a dense sponge/foam (as found in upholstered seats), and most have some sort of faux leather as a cover.  My seat is like that, except that the synthetic leather is replaced with something very much like a black stocking.  This is completely ineffectual, as far as water resistance is concerned.  I am not going to leave what is quite literally a sponge in the rain, when I know I am going to be sitting on it later in the day.

I see that I was writing a blog here, about an hour ago? This is it, but I was apparently distracted…

I have recently been having ideas in bed, while awaiting sleep – sometimes they are very satisfying.  By this, I mean they seem profound, or excessively pleasant, or both.  I wrote one down the other night, and it may become a ramble here, one day.  I probably won’t tell you which one it is.  I haven’t done anything with the one I wrote down a month ago, if that is any indication.

The goose in the night

See how complex this is? Let’s pretend every reference – especially the obscure ones – is intentional.
Adding to the convolution is the fact that I begin this post with something that happened before the contents of the previous post.  Oh my.

On the subject of the disjointed nature of my posts, I realise that they are just microblogs, arbitrarily grouped by when I write them.  And yes, conversations with me are actually like this, to a degree.  It depends on whether the other participants moderate or amplify the rambling nature of the discussion.  With the people I choose to associate with most, they tend to make it stranger.

So, down to the goose.

On Sunday night, I got three hours of sleep, because of last-minute summative essay writing for Modern History.  I leave the Russian Revolutions to the last moment, just like Lenin.  “Summative” is a word invented by the people responsible for our state’s high school diploma thing.  It means “for assessment”, rather than formative.
There is still no coffee in this house.  I had already had my weekly cup, that morning, but it’s not like it effects me strongly.  So I finished my nutella (I will assume that this is available everywhere in the world), and drank a lot of cordial, which I do not actually like.  I was really peppy the next day, and the assignment was done.  Screw it – Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread, which I keep in my drawer and eat with a spoon.

When I got home, I did what I normally did for a few hours – squandered my time on the internet.  Then I took a “nap” for four hours.  This was followed by a very conveniently much delayed dinner, after which I returned to the internet.  At 2 AM, I decided to sleep.

Yes, I turn my computer at the PSU – because there is a blue LED under the on button which would otherwise stay on all night, keeping me awake.  I must sleep in complete darkness and silence.

Naturally, I could not sleep.  Those missing hours, I do not think I reclaimed.  I guess I did not need them.

Just before 3:00, this rhythmic hissing started.  Of course, I assumed it was a goose outside my window, the type of red-faced white goose that headbangs when angry and sounds like a bicycle pump.  The type my parents have or had, depending on whether they reproduced.  I think they are down to two ducks and five chickens, actually.

The throaty hacking continued, and I would occasionally, from my bed, reach behind the blind to tap on the window to make it shut up.  “STFU, goose”, was the message a tapped.  It later occurred to me that it was a cat coughing up hairballs, because cats are quite common in the city.

The end.  Oh, I bet you were expecting a punch line.  It went away at some point, and I got a few hours of sleep.  It has not returned on any night since, which is something I hope continues.

On unrelated matters, I made $20 earlier today for dicking about in a tricky bastard of a real estate program.  Once I have got my head around how fiddly it is, it will be “data entry” and not a “learning session”.  Property valuers have quite a workload.  The information is confidential, and I am technically not doing it, so there is no tax.

I’m liking the sound of this.  Also, this is really near where I live.

And I am totally getting my kicks from writing self-referential posts.  I’m the Ouroboros of the blagosphere.

Oh, those black men are fighting the system.