LebowskiFestivus for the rest of us

Unbelievable!
In November last year, I was fortunate enough to be in New York when LebowskiFest happened to also be passing through.
A great night was had by me and Mrs. rilestar at the Brooklyn Bowl, with a screening of the movie, Moby's band Diamondsnake playing, many, MANY white Russians, and other things besides. We didn't get to bowl, though, so a Note to Self for next time: Register on first arriving.

Assuming there is a next time...
Which brings me to my main point.

There's another LebowskiFest in New York this year, but this time it's a little different:

"In celebration of The Big Lebowski Limited Edition Blu-ray debuting on Aug 16th, join Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and T Bone Burnett for a very special evening celebrating all things Lebowski. The date will also mark the launch of Jeff Bridges' self-titled album."

That's right. This year's New York Lebowskifest has a FULL CAST REUNION.

As I said. Unbelievable.

I'm like the unluckiest guy in the world...assuming all other guys in the world have been to at least one LewbowskiFest at Brooklyn Bowl.

I'm entering a world of pain.

I certainly don't Lovett*

So, Andrew Lovett has walked free on the rape charges brought against him by a distressed yet brave woman who pressed her claims all the way through the court hearing, unlike many women who are, or claim to be, sexually assaulted, but who are unwilling or unable to face the prospect of a drawn-out trial and possibly having to deal with their attacker again.

Part of the reason he got off could be because of the sexist, leading, leering questions asked of the alleged victim by Lovett's barrister, David Grace QC, such as these ones at the committal hearing about the length of her skirt:
"Was it a skirt that went from the waist down to your thighs? ... Did it start at your waist or below your waist? ... Was there any flesh visible between the end of the singlet and the top of the skirt? ... What was the distance between the top of the skirt and the bottom of the skirt?"

Unbelievable, right?

Fortunately, the Law Institute of Victoria got involved, via their spokesman Rob Stary, who said:

"The fact that they might be wearing a miniskirt or low-cut clothing really is not, at one strict level, relevant but if through some process of flirtation or invitation, the person's inviting attention or sexual contact then I suppose it can be relevant."

Wait, what?!?!

Well, at least the general public has a reason for not understanding the law, as displayed by this response in the comments section of the above article by "Bloke" from "Toorak":

"he's been proven to be innocent, so that should be the end of the issue for him. the court was there to try him, not the media or the masses."

Ahh, not exactly.

The rilestar could not let this aggression stand, man. This is the tamer of my submissions to The Age for publication in the same comments section:

"Just because a jury could not find someone guilty beyond all reasonable doubt does not mean they are innocent.
And the questions asked by the barrister in this case are reprehensible. In our society, a woman should be allowed to wear whatever she likes without fear of unwanted or forced sexual encounters. Contrary to what Mr Stary believes, such questions are in NO WAY relevant to the question of whether a rape occurred. Consent is not given by wearing a mini-skirt. If those questions changed the result of the jury's decision, then I would argue that there has been a miscarriage of justice.
I am sorry, on behalf of the male gender, to all of the women who are reading this who have been raped. You shouldn't have to put up with this."

An earlier submission had recommended that David Grace QC should change his first name to "Dis" and then continued to refer to him by his changed name. I also made unflattering - but fair - comparisons between him and Sheikh Al-Hilali. When The Age didn't publish that one I wrote the above comment, but that wasn't published either (except here).

Unlike The Age, I am against censorship. Especially censorship of me.

I'm also against rape (and, yes, especially rape of me), and injustice. It may be that Lovett was innocent, but if the trial allowed cross-examination such as that above, the fact that he got off does not help his protestations at all.

At least he's not with the Saints, anymore. We've got enough problems of our own making without outsiders making more for us...

* Bad opportunity for a pun? His name is "Lovett", and I am a weak man.

Cadel Comedown...or is it?

So, as predicted by this blog (what were the odds?!?), Cadel won the Tour on Sunday - the First Australian to do so. Exclamation Point!
So now the euphoria has died down..wait a minute...the euphoria hasn't died down at all!!
This is still Totally Awesome!!!
Even the New York Times reported his win!
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!! Oui! Oui! Oui!
There were many questions about whether this was the greatest victory by an Australian sportsman ever, and I've gotta say I'm firmly in the "Yes" camp. I've watched pretty much every stage of the Tour for the last five years (barring two weeks last year when I stupidly booked a two-week holiday in Bali in July 2010 - what was I thinking?!?), so I think I was due a Cadel Victory after all that effort I put in.

Greatest moment of the 2011 Tour? Well, there were many. I recall Dave McKenzie saying years ago that every winner of the TDF has really stamped his authority on the race at least on one stage, and Cadel’s win on stage 4 up the Mur-de-Bretagne was clearly a stand-out (especially since he was at the back of the peloton with bike problems and 20km to go, and then he got to the front AND beat Contador BUT Contador claimed the win even though he DIDN'T - all GOLD with a capital G...and O, L and D).
Cadel was clearly a contender from the very beginning, continuously trying to keep himself at the front, and even stealing seconds or placings on such benign stages as stage 3 and 8. But then his efforts in the Alps were what really ended up ensuring he won the Tour.
A guy who really knows what he's talking about also called rilestar had this to say after the monumental stage 18:

"Ummm, @Brian 9:40am, not sure if you've been watching the same tour as me, but Cadel hasn't really been sitting on anyone's wheel...
He's attacked virtually from the beginning - coming second to Phillipe Gilbert on stage 2, winning stage 4, leading the main contenders up to Super Besse on stage 8, as well as the chase of Frank Schleck up to Luz-Ardiden and Andy Scheleck to Plateau de Beille, attacking with Contador and Sanchez on stage 16 into Gap, etc, etc.
In the super-high mountains he doesn't have the same acceleration as the Schlecks and Contador, but you could see last night that he still drove the main contenders in the chase of Andy Schleck, with everyone else sitting on HIS wheel.
I agree entirely with @Si 9:07am - I think his tactic was to watch Contador, mistakenly thinking that Contador and Bjarne Riis had some magical plan to turn things around on the final climb. By the time he realised that he was actually the strongest climber left in the main group, it was almost too late, and he had to do everything himself.
Which highlights the great tactics from Andy and Leopard.
If he can make time back on Andy and Frank tonight (knowing that Frank will probably attack tonight), he's in with a great chance. If he loses time, it may be all over...
Go Cadel!"

In the same comments section, Brett (who must now feel like a goose) stated "As tough as Cadel is , he is never going to win the tour, to win this race you have to attack in the mountians (sic), being a tempo rider and trying to claim the win with a good time trial is never going to cut it." Craig Schwartz rightly gave him a history lesson, reminding him that precisely such tactics helped Miguel Indurain win the Tour 5 times.
So yeah – Cadel didn’t win the Tour on stage 18 (that happened on Stage 20), but he ensured he didn’t lose it. Gimme an AWE, gimme a SOME.
Other highlights of the best Tour evaaa:

• Johnny Hoogerland’s efforts were amazing – after being hit by a car and consequently thrown into a barbed wire fence, he rode on to finish the stage and keep the King of the Mountains jersey, leading to the now classic phrase for anyone complaining about things being a little bit difficult: “Hoogerland the F*ck Up!”
• I don’t know why, but for the first year ever, I think I preferred Paul Sherwen’s commentary over Phil Liggett. That guy sure knows a lot about obscure stuff. Incidentally, I ran into him at Tour Down Under last year and said "Paul Sherwen?!? You're a legend...and you know you are!" (incidentally, I had been drinking up at Willunga a fair bit that day...)
• SBS even played "Mountains" by Biffy Clyro - for mine, the best Tour de France Mountain Song of all time (apart from "Mountain Song" by Jane's Addiction).
• I also discovered the Sag Wagon podcast by Sam Pang, Dave Culbert, and Sophie Smith, and which was a very enjoyable way of re-enjoying each stage the day after. Thanks to them I found a new appreciation for Anthony Tan's microphone technique, and even discovered my own favourite Chateau of the Day (Chateau de Laroque in Toirac).
• A post-Tour highlight was Mia Freedman questioning the importance of the win, and being told in no uncertain terms that it is the most important thing in the world (Dave Culbert tweeted via @Culbert_Report to @miafreedman "Cadel spent y'day not bragging about win in biggest annual sporting event. You spent it bragging about shopping at Sass & Bide").

As for lowlights, quite apart from the ol' standard gripes about Scott Sunderland's T-shirt and Tina Arena's appearance, for mine it was Thomas Voeckler's performance, along with that of his his teammate Pierre Rolland. Or, rather, everyone else going about how great they were. I understand he put in a good effort to get and then keep the yellow jersey, but let's be honest - he only got it because he had raced off on Stage 9 whilst the peleton was being cut to pieces by accidents, including two of his breakaway compatriots being hit by that car. He then held on by riding on everyone else's wheel. In particular, on the infamous Stage 18 where Cadel did his amazing "job of work" (in the immortal words of Paul Sherwen) to make time back on Andy Schleck, Voeckler was the only rider with a teammate in the chasing group, yet both of them sat back (figuratively speaking, it was probably a bit difficult riding in the Alps) and let Cadel do all the hard work. Even though it was only by this effort that Voeckler was able to keep yellow! Then, the following day, Rolland does it again by sticking on Sammy Sanchez's wheel to get up the mountain, then attacking him and Contador at the end to win on Alpe d'Huez.

At least, that's how I saw it.

But enough lowlights! The real highlight obviously came the following day with Cadel's win the following day in the Grenoble time trial, especially when both he and Andy were on the road at the same time, and Cadel's time ticked him over to being in the virtual maillot jaune. Ahhh, much celebration at Fed Square that night with the other 20 people watching it on the big screen...

As we all know, Cadel had come second twice, and was then able to finally win on the Champs d'Elysees. Not too shabby.

Another rider in a similar position was Mark Cavendish, who had also come second in the race for the green jersey twice before, and was then also able to literally win that prize on the Champs d'Elysees, as well as the stage. Chapeau, Missile de Manx!

Sadly, another cyclist who had also come second in the GC twice before was Andy Schleck - he was destined to come second a third time. But he's young - he'll have his chances again! He was also very gracious in defeat. I especially loved his subtle dig at Contador when congratulating Cadel, saying he thought Cadel deserved the win in 2011, though not so much the winner of the year before...
Finally, I'll finish my CADEL IS ACE rant with a comment that actually has some positive advice, as well:

"CADEL Evans will long be remembered for his feat in becoming the first Australian to win the Tour de France. And after a lifetime of hard training and courageous riding with injuries he will rightly be enriched by the flood of sponsorships that follow the yellow jersey like night follows day.
However, Cadel has unwittingly also pointed out a way in which every working Australian can save a million dollars and improve their personal fitness simply by swapping a second car for a bicycle.
Using realistic calculations and assuming a modicum of financial discipline, the million dollar aim or shaving 13 years off your mortgage is not a mere fantasy.
"A lot of people run a second car without a clear idea of what it is costing them -- if you run the numbers you'll find the bomb is costing you a bomb," said Bicycle Victoria chief executive Harry Barber.
"There is so much more people could be doing with that money than burning it up in a vehicle that spends 94 per cent of its life doing nothing."
I have checked Harry's numbers and if anything they are conservative - he has assumed the car is second-hand rather than new and is parked for the bargain basement price of $12 a day, a deal many city workers would grab if only they could find it.
On the other side of the equation, the capital and running costs for the bike are assumed at $1000 a year, which if anything is a little on the high side.
That leaves a net difference of $10,000 a year or $833 a month which is a significant sum in anybody's language.
The magic million dollars arrives if you do away with the second car at the age of 25 and stick with the bike until you retire and grows to an extra $3.58 million if salary sacrificed into superannuation instead.
But even a 45-year-old shedding two wheels and a motor for the commute would save an
impressive $358,000 or an extra $677,490 in superannuation.
If you add in a dose of realism with a mixed commute of public transport for when the weather is nasty, it shows the long term benefits of reducing spending and saving the difference or using it to pay off the mortgage early or pad out the super account.
If only US politicians could see the benefits of cutting spending and debt so clearly."

Hmmm...went a bit Tea Party at the end there, actually, but I'm all for the "On yer bike" sentiment.

Go Cadel.

Yellin' For Cadellin'!!!

I've got a whole bunch of half-drafted posts I need to finish about various issues of high import, such as the carbon tax and religion in schools and Star Wars, but I'm just going to continue ignoring them for a bit and get straight to the most important news ever: Cadel rode the time trial of his life last night, almost winning the stage (only coming second to Tony Martin by 7 seconds), but more importantly - taking almost 3 minutes on Andy Schleck and setting himself up to be the first Australian winner of the Tour de France!!!
Don't get me wrong - I like Andy (and Frank, for that matter - "the Schleck Girls" as my mate Dave calls them) - but he's young and will have plenty of opportunities to win the Tour in future - he can win all of them as far as I'm concerned. But Cadel's got this one. And that's enough for me (and I've been putting in the same time and effort staying up late and watching every stage of the Tour de France for the last five years as Cadel has riding it).
Much like a Saints premiership - I don't need to see years of dominance - I'll be very happy to see just one.
While on that topic, I'm pretty sure that there are only two possible sporting outcomes this year: 1. Cadel loses the Tour de France and the Saints also don't win a premiership, and 2. Cadel wins the Tour de France and the Saints do win the premiership. I can't think of any other possibilities.
So, with a looming Tour de France victory for Cadel tonight, it looks like the Saints will be staging a massive come-from-behind AFL victory in October this year.
That's just maths.
Go Cadel!

This Decade's Comedy

Following up the last post, here is some more excruciating gold, this time thanks to my inside contact at Dave Hill Industries...



Now before you laugh, think about it. Did this kid really intend to sound like this on a video accessible world-wide? Or is this instead part of a liberal conspiracy to make religious nutjobs look bad?

Wait. Did I just blow your politically correct mind?

How about you just check out how the song originally sounded?

I assume...

Has that changed your mind about what is or is not a "nu" thang?

Whether or not it has, I think you've earned yourself some fresh new beats from the Bea Stie Boys:

Last decade's comedy

All right. It appears last night didn't work out the way I'd hoped.

So we all need some laffs. Don't we? We do.

And here are some from last decade.

I still can't believe I never knew about this before this decade:



And there are plenty more where that came from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWCVhGzrAT0&feature=channel. Click that link and then just keep on clicking (did you know that simply clicking the first link makes you 23% more attractive? Facts.)

And for those who like their Gold auto-tuned (I know you've all seen it, I just want it on my permanent record):



Man I love that.

Finally (for now), no discussion/spurious-blog-entry about Last Year's Comedy would be complete without a summary of someone else's ideas about the Top 5 Funniest TV Comedies of 2010. This lists (in ascending order) Louie (CK, that is, not the "draw me a picture" guy), Modern Family, 30 Rock, Community and, of course, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report jointly taking out spurious top spot*: it's like a summary of my perfect night (just add beer).

Enjoy everything, y'all. Even the Saints supporters among you!

*Personally, I would probably put Community at Number 1, but how can I argue with the statement "The Rally was the comedy event of the year"? It had to have been. I was totally there and everything. Next time, Community, send me an invite (or is it just assumed in the name. Oh Em Gee! What have I done!)

Oh, when the Saints (Schoolgirl)...does anything...

I've been avoiding this topic (along with most other Saints-related news lately), but thought it high time I weighed in on the Affair Of The So-Called Saint Kilda Schoolgirl (disclosure: at this point in time the Saints are playing the Blues in a Do-or-Die match).

I've been keeping up with the media coverage as much as possible over the past year, though following her on Twitter has meant that I often got any "news" before the media reported it (if you're interested, her latest account appears to be @KimDuthieWorld, and it looks like she's found "God" - I know she's made some bad decisions but this has got to be her worst...)

One example of the media's Cirque d' Stupé in particular stood out (before the most recent Earth-shattering revelations), when she was interviewed by Kate and Hughesy (who seemed to genuinely have her best interests at heart, whilst trying to get to the bottom of the story) but she came across as a fair ditz, and then she ranted a little a bit about the unfair treatment she received afterwards (including in this blog entry). I support ranting in all its wonderful forms, but really you should understand what you're ranting about first...says Mr Pot in his conversation with Ms Kettle...

Anyhoo. Here's the rilestar's take on the whole sordid saga: I think she's messed up, a confessed liar, manipulative and a bit of a glory-hound, but I also KNOW that she's 17 years old. She's a kid. And although she's caused a fair bit of harm to my beloved football club, I feel sorry for her and hope she can get some help to turn her life around, so that the rest of it is not dominated by all of this sordidity. I know that I wouldn't want to be judged for the rest of my life on what I did as a 17-year old (although my wife can testify that I've improved - take my wife, please, take her (genuinely considered opinion)!!)

This clown was involved in the saga from the beginning, when the Schoolgirl-in-Question (SIQ, for short - sweet acronym) apparently shopped the now infamous nude pics around (#notdickileaks). His primary interest throughout everything should have been the welfare of his clients, but he should also have ensured that no-one was abusing this child. By then having "inappropriate dealings" with her after the matter was apparently all settled, Nixon epically failed on both counts.

I'm totally with my man Nicky Riewoldt on this, who was last week reported to have said that he would would feel "completely let down and would believe the handling of the photo incident had been jeopardised" if they had engaged in a relationship and "if he (Riewoldt) was in a room on his own with Nixon he would punch his lights out".

All in favour of locking Ricky Nixon in a room with Nick Riewoldt say "aye". Motion passed.

In the same report, Sam Gilbert said he would consider a relationship between the Nixon and SIQ to be a "gross breach of trust" (der), while fellow player Nick Dal Santo said he would feel Nixon's ability to look after his interests had been compromised (no shit!)

Just quickly, what the hell was Sam Gilbert thinking when he took nude photos of his teammates, kept them on his computer despite being respectfully asked to delete them, and then showed them to SIQ and obviously gave her access to them so that she could make them available to every person in Australia with an e-mail account and/or an iPhone? If he was thinking anything apart from "this is a terrible idea", he was super-mistaken.

Anyhoo, now that Nixon has been dropped, and the SIQ has found God (Jesus Christ!), I truly hope that, as Ross Lyon intimated last week, the Saints will draw on this to finally turn their season around.

Oh yeah, and that AFL footballers will treat women with respect.

Saints to beat the Blues. C'arn Saints!

Gleesht

I was very pleased to read that David Grohl can't stand Glee.

I tried, really tried, to like this show, by watching an episode directed by Joss Whedon and starring Neil Patrick Harris, no less - surely a Recipe For Gold.
But, unfortunately, everything else included in said Recipe resulted in a Cold Dish of LAME!

If you're not convinced, rather than listen to my spurious cooking metaphors, perhaps you should listen to the Wingman:

Dave Grohl - You Rock.
Jeff Winger - You Rock.
Glee - You Fail to Rock.

rilestar puts it out there

That title couldn't be misconstrued, could it?
Anyhoo, the rilestar has been putting it out there, "it" being his rant. A couple of examples:
In response to the article "Rivers ad campaign 'a deadly deal for women'", regarding a photo used in its latest "Deadly Deals" catalogue featuring "a leggy corpse in fishnets and high heels sprawled under a couch" (and in particular in response to some of the other comments):

"A lot of people (let's not jump to conclusions and call them mysogynists) don't seem to get it, so here's the thing: The issue is not necessarily whether there is a woman or man crushed by that couch. If it were just a picture of any old couch-crushed-corpse, male or female, the ad would just be in poor taste, not necessarily sexist. However, by eroticising the corpse, they are stepping into sexism territory. There is no need to have the corpse wearing sexy fishnet stockings except to eroticise the corpse. Yes: I'm sticking with that phrase, as it's equivalently unpleasant.
What they've ended up doing is having an ad where people get to look at the bottom half of a sexy lady, and they don't need to worry about the top half, or her personality, or anything else about her, because she's dead. Is that how women should be perceived? To use our favourite phrase, should people prefer it when they eroticise the corpse?
Putting a man's legs sticking out, or a woman wearing a long dress or slacks, or a baby's legs, does not have that issue. It's just dumb.
People who don't get this just like to eroticise corpses."

And having a little more "fun", the topic "Tips on tipping: it's a minefield for Aussie travellers" provoked this comment from "JohnT":

"The origin of 'tip' is an acronym: 'to insure promptitude' and you dropped some tin in a box before you were served to get better service. Aussies may be poor tippers but that is because, unlike the appalling workplace laws in the US we actually have insisted that people get paid a fair wage for their work. In the US waiters are paid appallingly or work just for the tips (but do you notice a price differential without a wage overhead? no Sirree Bob). I refuse to feel guilty because in Australia we have decent labour laws and therefore this hospitality scam of having the customer pay extra for the service has never really taken root.
I do tip when in the USA however - at a rate of 15% if the service was great - but 10% if only going through the motions.
I do not tip in Australia as I am fully aware of the fact that these people are paid a fair wage. Also the service from Gen Y is generally either so indifferent as to border on the rude or so familiar (it is Sir and Madam, not "guys") that a tip is not warranted - other than "get a decent haircut, learn some manners and don't say 'like' incessantly when describing the Blackboard Specials. Also, the word Specials does NOT have an apostrophe."

rilestar's response (borrowing liberally from Bill Hicks):

"Hey JohnT. You sound like a lot of fun. I want to hang with you and play Twister.
I'm a Gen-X-er to the max, by the by. Please correct my grammar and punctuation."

That said, his comments regarding tipping in Australia did have some merit.

I also had a more serious comment:

"I only recently found out that it's pretty much expected that you tip a dollar a drink in bars in the US (at least in New York) - this was something like the fourth time we'd been to the States. That said, somewhat sheepishly we started tipping like the Americans do (the bar staff will always ensure you get some dollar bills in your change - once I received $10 change as a $5 note and 5 x $1 notes), and we received great service - long chats with the bar staff, recommendations for things to do or places to go, invites to other places with them, and free drinks! Winning! #tigerblood"

It's now well and truly out there.

MON THE BIFFIN' BIFF!!!

Congrats to my kids' favourite band, the mighty Biffy Clyro, for their win for Best Live Band at the Shockwaves NME 2011 Awards, beating out Muse, whom they supported on their Aussie tour last year (despite the fact the Biff RAWK and Muse BUYTE).
Which reminds me - I recently found this clip of them playing live in front of a select audience from a great Youtube channel - SolidSnake00. Starts with the legendary song 9/15ths.
Get into it:



Just found out their pick for "Godlike Genius" is Bill Hicks, too.
Legends.
PS Where are my manners? This is their youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/biffyclyro.
PPS Might I suggest another live one, say "Living is a Problem because everything dies"? Enjoy:

Allow me to discrimonstrate

I wrote a little while ago that the Brumby Government had started to stink up the place quite a bit, and so it was not much of a surprise that they got booted out.
I also wrote that I didn't exactly have high hopes for Baillieu.
Well, he's only been in power for a few months, but things are already looking very dicey with this Victorian Government.
Exhibit B (this was Exhibit A): Rachel Ball, director of policy and campaigns at the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, recently wrote in "Baillieu promised a fairer Victoria, but it looks like the opposite" that the State Government has stated it will scrap measures in Victoria's Equal Opportunity Act that are designed to actively promote equality, including stripping powers from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and also "expand the ''permanent exceptions'' that give religious groups and entities - including those that provide public services using public money - a free licence to discriminate against de facto couples, gays, lesbians and single mums, among others."
Why do they even need to go there? Aren't there more pressing concerns than allowing men in dresses to discriminate against single mothers on the basis of "a book of stories inscribed by an itinerant Middle Eastern shepherd many millennia ago" (with thanks to The Onion for that quote*).
I think the philosophy of this commenter ("Embe") had a simple eloquence: "I say, take away all tax payer funding from these organisations and then they can discriminate to their intolerant hearts content. If they take our secular money they should follow our secular inclusive rules."
Hear, hear, Mr Embe.
And boo, hiss, Mr Baillieu. My kickboot is getting itchy. I think it wants to connect with your behind region...
* Perhaps I'm being facetious, since the Bible "deals with all kinds of germane topics, from what meats one should not eat due to mankind's lack of refrigeration technology to the pre-Iron Age accounts of territorial disputes affecting a certain area of the Fertile Crescent."

I'd rather be watching TV

The rilestar does heart the teevs, and these are a few of his more public rantings lately.
First, in relation to The Age article "All just a little bit tasteless", which states the bleeding and punning obvious by saying: "Despite both being based around food, The Biggest Loser lacks taste and My Kitchen Rules has no flavour", rilestar said:

"I have never watched a single one of these games shows (calling them "Reality TV" I think is giving them more credibility than they deserve), including Big Brother, Survivor, et al, apart from a few episodes of The Amazing Race, which was actually very entertaining. But otherwise I generally stick to quality scripted dramas and comedies...and dramedies...stuff like Entourage, 30 Rock, Deadwood and Community.
I have no great desire to watch boring people being boring. Leave that to other boring people.
Plus I'm not fat."

Speaking of fat people, another contributor, Tara, said "To anyone overweight who is reading this, may you nourish yourself with love and the food that benefits your body." By which I assume she means "Hey fat people: eat a carrot." Harsh! (her words, not mine)
Another article, "Goodbye Daily Show, we hardly knew you", reports that ABC2 no longer has the rights to broadcast Rant faves The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. The rilestar had been wondering what had happened to them, as they were good back-ups in case the old iQ failed to record either or both for whatever reason, and so also contributed to the discussion (swimming against the tide of "Foxtel sucks, I download everything"):

"It seems I'm one of the few (or the only person?) who signed up to Foxtel just to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (about 5 or 6 years ago). Love 'em both - also flew to Washington last year for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, so paying for Foxtel is not that big a leap. There's lots of good stuff on Foxtel though, like Louie and the latest episodes of Entourage (just a little late), so I'm happy with it (though was wavering a bit last year when TDS and TCR were on ABC2 and the other networks seemed to be getting their acts together on their alternative channels - not wavering any more). Now my bugbear is Channel Go! not showing Community any more - tempted to jump on Channel BitTorrent for the first time ever, just to get my fix of the funniest show not currently on TV..."

And speaking of Community, rilestar also waded into the debate regarding "Where did all the intelligent TV go?", in particular, the many comments along the lines of "All US shows are crap":

"To the US-haters, a lot of my current favourite TV shows are American: Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Louie, Entourage, Modern Family, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and that's just the comedies. Great dramas include Deadwood, Lost, The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad (just to name a few). Not to mention Seinfeld!
Anyone who thinks all American TV is like Two and a Half Men really needs to get out more. By which, I mean, they should stay in more.
But to respond to the point being made by Mike (who also mentioned many of the above shows), I agree that the Australian commercial networks really do seem to think that Australians can't handle quality TV (though maybe their market researchers only interview ignorant people like the US-haters).
Personally, I rely on Foxtel's iQ taping all my faves and watching them at my leisure, supported by iView, etc. I like my TV.
But here's a message for GO!: Start broadcasting Community again! Funniest show not currently on TV."

Yeah. The rilestar's not afraid to re-use the same line, time and time (and time) again*.

PS Continuing the bad news, The White Stripes also announced they were breaking up. The writer in this article talked about the first time he saw them in 2001, and the rilestar responded with an anti-rant:

"I was also blown away by their cover of Jolene the first time I saw them - on the second stage at the Corner Hotel supporting Six Ft Hick (probably 9 or 10 years ago, as well). Much as I like the Hicks, I couldn't believe that this band was supporting them. And obviously the rest of the world (at least, the part that rocks out) went on to love them, too. Vale, White Stripes. Long live the Dead Weather."

Were you at that gig, too**? Let me know!

* A Strangelove song, I think...
* Saying this makes this seem like a professional blog. I realise that the chances of someone both being at that gig AND reading this are infinitesimally small. Actually, just the chances of someone reading this are infinitesimally small...

All Liars are Liars

I hate to say "I hate to say I told you so", but: 'Madden attended meeting over Hotel Windsor sham'
I told you I hate to say I hate to say I told you so.

Better than The Phantom Menace

I don't know if it's because I watched this at least 10 times in a row with my kids on the weekend, or if I'm just playing too much of The Force Unleashed, but this is frickin' golden:

Apparently it's now been played during an event known as the "SuperBowl"*, but I credit @DamonLindelof with giving us the heads-up last week. Thanks, DL**!
* Of course, I know what the SuperBowl is, even if I don't understand it. Is "Third and Down" a thing?
** Based purely on initials, Damon Lindelof is clearly the Bizarro Larry David.

Battlefield Essendon

I read an article yesterday about my old friend Madden the Clown and Roddie Doyle attending the opening of a new Church of Scientology building in Essendon. Apparently, Madden is quoted as saying: ''You have set the standard for the community with your restoration of this building and with your social programs - an example for others to follow''.
He's such a character!
But I loved this quote further down:

"The church was founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who declared that the galactic dictator Xenu dumped millions of corpses in volcanoes on Earth 75 million years ago and blew them up with 17 hydrogen bombs. The souls, or ''thetans'', of the dead were contaminated and in turn contaminated humans, who can be cleansed only by Scientology."

It reminded me of a ranty book review I'd started a while ago after reading the hilarious-for-all-wrong-reasons Battlefield Earth a while ago. I actually read it for scientific purposes - to see whether this Lafayette Ronald Hubbard guy was for real, or more like a misunderstood Sacha Baron Cohen creation, like Borat. Y'know - just saying lots of crazy shit and seeing if anyone picked up that he was joking.
I'd always seen his books around (I had even accepted free entry to the "L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition" in Hollywood once when backpacking and thus very poor), and so when the opportunity arose to borrow Battlefield Earth from the library, I took it.
For those of you who don't know it (a) good on you, and (b) it's about an alien race that enslaves humanity in year 3000, and the fight against them (particularly by the "hero" - Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Yes, that's the name he went with).
I was predictably shocked and stunned by what I read.
At the sheer badness of it.
For one thing, the language he uses is laughable. The bad guys, called "Psychlos", eat “goo-food”, breathe “breathe-gas”, and drink “kerbango”.
Points for imagination: zero.
Another example of extraordinary writing can be found right at the beginning, on page 4, when one of the Psychlos insults another saying ”You’re as crazy as a nebula of crap.”
Can I remind everyone that this was written AFTER Star Wars had come out?
The following paragraph from page 414 was so terrible, I just had to write it down - it's word for word, no typos:

“Chrissie had been spotted by the Scots, and the news earlier rumored to that effect was now confirmed as she went about helping the parson collect wounded Scots on a flatbed that had been gotten running.”

And of course, it contains the propaganda. The following describes a doctor operating on a Psychlo brain:

“MacKendrick saw their reaction. “Nothing new in this. Just electrical impulses approximating brain commands. Some man-scientist did this maybe thirteen hundred years ago and thought he’d found the secret of all thought and made up a cult about it called ‘psychology’. Forgotten now. It wasn’t the secret of thought; it was just the mechanics of bodies. They started with frogs. I’m cataloging this body’s communication channels, that’s all.””

Relevance? Zero.
It even gets some shameless self-congratulatory delusion in there, stating towards the end that after the humans won, one of the characters “wrote a book: The Jonnie Goodboy Tyler I knew, or The Conqueror of Psychlo, Pride of the Scottish Nation. It was not as good as this book, for it was intended for semiliterate people” (page 1049 - yes, that's one THOUSAND and forty nine pages of this!)
In fact, it appears El Ronnie was particularly adept at the self-congratulation. According to his bio (in the book, though I should point out there's a possibility it's not factually correct...or worse) he was "in addition to a writer (with a career spanning more than half a century of intense literary achievement and creative influence), an explorer, ethnologist, mariner and pilot, filmmaker and photographer, philosopher and educator, composer and musician. He broke his first bronc and became the blood brother of a Blackfeet Indian medicine man by age six. In 1927, when he was 16, he traveled to a still remote Asia…"
Ahhhh! I can't do this any more, so I'll just let him finish off, with his preface to the so-called "book":

“To show that science fiction is not science fiction because of a particular kind of plot, this novel contains practically every type of story there is – detective, spy, adventure, western, love, air war, you name it. All except fantasy; there is none of that. The term “science” also includes economics and sociology and medicine where these are related to material things. So they’re in here, too.
“In writing for magazines, the editors (because of magazine format) force one to write to exact lengths. I was always able to do that – it is kind of a knack. But this time I decided not to cut everything out and to just roll her as she rolled, so long as the pace kept up. So I may have wound up writing the biggest sf novel ever in terms of length. The experts – and there are lots of them to do so – can verify whether this is so…
“And as an old pro I assure that it is pure science fiction. No fantasy. Right on the rails of the genre. Science is for people. And so is science fiction.”
“Ready?
“Stand by.
“Blast off!”

And now you want to read it.

Trail blazing trial grazing

A quick mini-rant:
In response to the new Victorian Government's decision to allow cattle back into Alpine National Parks to graze as part of a "scientific trial"*, Libby Rumpff**, of the University of Melbourne's School of Botany, stated:
"The only fact that this trial can discover is that cows eat grass."
That's scientific comedy gold.
* Seems similar to Japanese whaling "scientific trials", which are scientifically determining whether stabbing whales kills them, and whether dead whales are more edible than live whales. The results so far appear inconclusive.
** Notice how I didn't make any scientific comedy gold comments about the word "Rumpff"? That's because I'm a grown-up.

Things I've learned in the past week or so...

(Or how I learned to stop writing long blog posts and just get this stuff out there, short-stuff Twitter-style)

A few things I've learnt this week:

• Alberto Cheatador got nailed (and I got to see Lance many, many times up close and personal at the Tour Down Under -BAM!)
  
• Apparently I'm to blame for Angus and Julia and Stone getting the No.1 spot in the Hottest 100, even though I did not and would not vote for them (my No.1 song of the year was "Tighten Up" by the Black Keys, but I consistently have my thumb off the pulse of what the general public like, as evidenced by my failure to watch a single episode of Masterchef, combined with my constant ability to watch shows that get cancelled or placed at weird times or on weird stations (Community, 30 Rock, even Buffy), plus predicting that no-one liked John Howard or (heaven forbid) that Peter Costello would be better than Howard...and so forth. Come to think of it, my inability to see eye-to-eye with the public-at-large could be why I rant...)
  
• Ricky Gervais is an hilarious atheist
• Douchebaggery
• Privatising our public transport has meant we've paid a billion dollars for worse service (but of course if you read this blog, and the fact you just read that previous sentence indicates you do, you already know that)
• By putting the maintenance of the surplus above climate change reform (and, indeed, common sense, by taxing people a small amount for a lot of grief), Julia Gillard really doesn't know what she's doing there.

That last bullet point of learning is very disappointing. I (and an entire country, besides) have given her a chance, but it's just getting worse. The right-wing crazies were already howling for her blood, but the progressives don't seem too keen on what she's been doing either.
Some bold decisions need to be made - the flooding we've seen this year is likely to become a frequent occurrence (as early as next week apparently, with some cyclones bearing down on a Queensland that must be full to the brim with homosexuals, assuming you're into the whole Wrath Of God thing), and we've already seen other evidence of extreme weather events with not just the bushfires in Victoria, but events all over the world. Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, has some good suggestions in his article "Drowning in a hothouse", mostly to do with acknowledging there's a problem and putting a price on carbon pronto, as well as investing in public transport, phasing out multibillion-dollar subsidies of fossil fuel production and use, and investing in clean energy. Y'know, obvious stuff. Also, I'm no engineer, but I also wonder if there shouldn't be some kind of huge nation-building program undertaken to divert water that would otherwise cause flooding through the Great Dividing Range and into the Murray-Darling river system - #twobirdsonestone. Twitter-style!
Plus the ongoing debacle that is the resource rent tax (or the "Some minerals extraction tax", or "Oil-and-coal-companies-can-you-lend-me-a-fiver-scheme", or whatever it's going to end up as) really sticks in my ... anyone? Anyone? "Craw" - That's right - its sticks in my motherlovin' craw. To add insult to injury about our Government's limp-wristed approach to this issue, an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Peter Christoff, decided to rub our noses in it a bit (with good intentions), telling us that:

"Mesmerised by the short-term benefits of successive mineral booms and shackled to their revenue flows, Australian governments have become both increasingly reluctant and increasingly politically terrified to regulate the pace of exploitation of these resources or to seek their full worth. And because returns to the state have been spent immediately, governments have become addicted to the income stream and unable to slow the exploitation of resources that have no future, such as coal and, eventually, gas, if we are to take climate change seriously.
We have been told over and again that this development path was the only choice for Australia, which doesn't have the public capital base to invest in exploration and exploitation of its non-renewable natural resources.
Strange, then, that a small nation such as Norway - population 5 million - should have had the capacity to do so. Stranger still that Norway could use revenue from its oil and gas windfall to establish a national fund that is now a major investor in economic development both in Norway and overseas, guaranteeing a revenue stream to fund the very robust Norwegian welfare state - its health, transport, public housing, and social security system."

Ahhh, jeez. I'm just gonna go to the Big Day Out and watch the Black Keys, to calm my nerves.

Speaking of which, here's that favourite song of mine from last year:

What's that? The Black Keys have cancelled their Australian tour?
Motherfuck!
All right, I'll just watch Ricky Gervais being funny again: