Cranky Lazy Geek

Twilight

2009-04-24T20:18:00.001+10:00

I love this comic

2009-04-03T23:01:00.001+11:00

That is all.

Blogging elsewhere

2009-03-30T21:09:00.002+11:00

Just a quick post to let anyone who actually looks at this site know I'm blogging at fiddlingwhileitburns.wordpress.com. It's an assessment task for my journalism degree, covering terrorism and national security, and I'll be posting at least twice a week over six weeks. In a little while I'll be doing another, separate blog about local news in the Wollongong area, although I can't imagine anyone would be particularly concerned with that one. Anyway, it seems like I'll be posting even less than I have in the past if I'm going to be maintaining multiple blogs at once.

Thanks for reading,

Noodle36

Global recession and the rebirth of violent non-revolution

2009-03-15T20:21:00.005+11:00

I've probably read half a dozen articles in the last few weeks trying to sell the "financial crisis will cause violent revolution" angle, with varying degrees of sympathy to the prospect, but because of my short attention span and generally dismissive attitude I've pretty much pushed them out of my mind.

However, the recent Real IRA attacks have given me pause over that. Although it's very anecdotal, it's a really good anecdote. A settled issue, with previously no popular support for violence, has suddenly resurfaced, in the developed nation that has probably had the most dramatic reversal of fortunes in the global financial crisis. (Well, not technically IN it, but let's not be pedantic.) Combined with a little bit of time spent with the notion of the Depression causing German support for Nazism, and suddenly I'm coming over to the other side.

Certainly the long-suffering socialists are keen on the idea. Tune in to Phillip Adams on Late Night Live anytime you feel like hearing an old pinko gloating.

However, one could argue that this is a revival of an anti-globalisation and subtextually anti-capitalist movement that has been sleeping for a while - which I guess is a contribution we can chalk up to Bush, as it's hard to get angry about the relaxing of tariffs and foreign investment regulations when someone's torturing innocent people because they're easier to catch than terrorists. Ironically Bush has probably done more to threaten capitalism than anyone since Stalin, by fueling a massive debt bubble while undermining the world economy with almost deliberately incompetent wars, and simultaneously inspiring the organisation of vast grassroots networks of leftists. He got them mad, he got them marching and he gave them a pretext.

So maybe we'll see a return to marching in the streets. The protest bunnies have always horrified me with their incoherent, intellectually bankrupt ideas and methods that seem to be a lot more geared towards trying to impress girls than accomplishing any sort of change. Still, in a way I hope for a massive protest movement to erupt. I miss those innocent days when I could be outraged over the terrible violation of civil rights that was riot police breaking up peaceful protests. Well, actually that's a way of covering with irony the sick heaviness of knowing that more people will die to accomplish nothing, but saying it is a bit of a downer, isn't it?

On a peripherally related note, here's another good article by Ross Gittins on the recession.

The best summation of the Bush years

2009-03-11T09:03:00.002+11:00

I missed this one at the time, but here it is now.

Although the tear-jerker line right at the end might be wearing a little thin six weeks on.

Watchmen

2009-03-07T08:35:00.004+11:00

Watchmen is getting reviewed and dissected all over the internet, and that volume of chatter on a topic normally puts me off, because I'm stil under the delusion that I can somehow accomplish something original, but I'm a fan of the graphic novel and having just seen it last night I have some bile to spray. So here tis.

It was, frankly, shocking. The first work to take comics seriously as an art form, and to force non-comics lovers to take them seriously as well, the first graphic novel to have deep fully realised characters with motivations, peccadilloes and multiple dimensions, had been translated as a cheesy tossed off gore-porn spectacular, which to a non-fan must seem like an 80 minute movie crammed into 3 hours. I spent the whole movie wincing at the titters of the audience, wanting to stand up and shout to the cinema at large, "No! You don't understand! The graphic novel isn't like this! It's actually an elegant, eloquent work of art! You can't take this seriously!!"

The acting was shocking, the script clumsy and although many scenes from the comic were faithfully recreated, the lack of vision in realising the live action was enough to have me questioning whether the original was any good at all.

How could the beautiful, graceful, textured graphic novel be transformed into something so goofy and cheesy that punk snotnose fourteen year olds are giggling at it? I wouldn't have liked that movie even if it hadn't apparently deliberately desecrated something I loved in the process of its birth.

Watching this film had the effect of both lionising the original to fans and pushing it out of reach of a lot of people who will now think of Watchmen as cheesy and childish. It made me realise that one of the novel's greatest achievements was its pacing, the way it doles out its exposition and expands its universe in novel and never boring ways. It's something that pops into your mind when you see the approach someone else has taken to telling the story, which largely amounts to having the characters shout it at the camera, in dialogue so well crafted that you know they thought about it for almost as long as it took to say the lines.

Something that was previously regarded as the most significant work in a particular medium is now being mocked by both elites and masses because it was smashed into a medium that everyone knew it didn't fit, for the sake of making a little extra money out of something already wildly profitable. A LOT of people will never read Watchmen because of this abortion. It's an act of vandalism.

Before the film, a lot of people hadn't heard of Watchmen - in fact, just about everyone I mention it to hasn't heard of it, although those of us who like to spend time discussing pop culture might not get that. Now, however, Watchmen is unlikely to be mentioned in my life for a long time without being followed by "Oh, you mean that movie? That was shit!"

Some fans are already looking forward to the director's cut, which they think might be more coherent and less insulting. However, isn't a superior director's cut something normally associated with talented directors, not people the studios like because they'll do whatever they're told without letting any sort of auterial vision or sense that they're anything more than technicians employed by a commercial enterprise? Nothing in Zack Snyder's previous work suggests that he is such a director.

Fuck this movie. Clearly hundreds of hours were spent on the CGI while the acting seems to have been the first take of amateurish actors, poorly directed.

The only suitable punishment for this movie would be for Zack Snyder to be contractually obliged to appear at every comics and sci fi convention in the industralised world for the next year, where he must do Q&A with fans for at least an hour.

Also, the first Watchmen fan to see him at each convention should rush up to him, and scream "FIRST!!" wetly in the face.

Then flick him in the balls.

UPDATE: Worst of all, the movie was an insult to the legacy of this masterwork!

The change we've been waiting for is weak leaders

2009-02-13T14:58:00.000+11:00

Today I’m frustrated by the weakness of leadership of both the Australian Labour Party and the US Democratic Party.
In both the US and Australia, the upper house conservative rump is blocking the stimulus packages of recently elected leaders with strong mandates. This seems to be largely a way of asserting some sort of relevance in the dark days of minority. The Coalition, however, has been at these tricks for nine months, since they decided to block budget legislation in May last year.
This goes strongly against the democratic principle that those who have most recently faced the electorate and won should be allowed their way with their core agenda. Unfortunately, political literacy in both nations is so low that very few people understand exactly how what is being done is wrong.

From here, the ALP has only one course of action left open to it, with two likely results. They must make the rogue Senators stand on their dignity and reject the stimulus package again, so the Prime Minister can pull the trigger on a double dissolution election. Let the Coalition face the electorate over their quibbling against a popular and necessary economic stimulus. Either the Coalition will be forced into a humiliating backdown, or Kevin Rudd will be returned with a more favourable Senate, more likely to recognise and respect the government’s democratic mandate.

The Democrats are in a similar position. They must have the courage to force the Republicans to actually filibuster them, to stand up on C-SPAN and justify themselves 24 hours a day, rather than meekly retiring from the field whenever they don’t have the requisite 60 votes.

In both nations, vital projects are being held back because of a lack of the intestinal fortitude it takes to accomplish anything in leadership. It’s enough to make you want to strike your colours and switch sides.

An Anecdote

2009-02-13T14:55:00.001+11:00

Inspired by Rebecca Traister's story over at Salon, here's a short anecdote.

My brother brought home a dog he had got from someone who couldn't take care of it anymore. It was like a cross between a Scottish terrier and some sort of fighting dog; endearingly fluffy and floppy-eared, but with a heavily muscled chest and legs and those huge jaws, built for pulling down much larger animals. My brother called him Nugget.

He had the most manic, upbeat personality of any dog I've ever come across, bouncing madly up to try and lick hands and faces, puppyishly firing little spurts of urine. To keep him from shooting into the house every time the door was opened, my father put metal bars across the entrance to the porch, but the irrepressible Nugget kept pushing at the bottom bar until he had made a gap to push his broad shoulders through.

Ultimately, however, my parents found themselves living in fear of what he might do. He leapt all over strangers and other dogs alike, and in their constant fear they found themselves unable to tell if it was with affection or ill-intent. Finally they put him down.

I was shocked to hear of it, but ultimately I had been unwilling to take care of him, and no one else was, so what could have been done? Still, I feel a twinge of sadness when I think of that mad little mutt who loved his masters so much he'd push through steel to be a little closer to them.

Gary Kamiya sums up the Bush legacy

2009-01-29T15:23:00.003+11:00

Read this great article.

Please.

On a completely different line of thought, I enrolled in uni today, which is a slightly difficult thing for a 26 year old to do. While an eighteen year old thinks he is the most interesting, compelling and attractive individual in any given room unless given some undeniable evidence otherwise, you only have to be very slightly older to realise that someone whose life experience consists of being born, going to school and graduating is very rarely going to have something to say worth hearing, so spending one's time in a social setting almost entirely reserved for the aforementioned eighteen year olds is a little bit frustrating.

I did learn something very important today, though. Keep your head down and your wits about you on a university campus - performance art can happen any time, to any one.

Australian exceptionalism

2008-12-17T20:51:00.001+11:00

I was thinking about the 2005 Asian tsunami today, and specifically my own brush with it. For our first overseas holiday, my wife and I had planned to go to Phuket, but instead decided on Sabah, in Malaysian Brunei. We were lounging on a beach there on the day that Phuket, Sumatra, southern India and any number of other areas around the Indian Ocean were levelled.

In Australia, we are a proudly agnostic nation, where aggressive atheism is often considered a part of our natural charm. Yet we share a strong faith and that is: bad things don't happen here, not the way they happen elsewhere.

Sure, we're not entirely insulated from reality. We have car crashes, floods, bushfires, drownings and bankruptcies. The very mundanity of those events, however, goes towards the ultimate thrust of our belief. There are no terrorist attacks in Australia. (Not entirely true, but true in effect.) Our soldiers go overseas, rough up the natives and come back largely unmolested. Our economy might labour at times but it rarely goes backwards. Our worst earthquake, in 1989, was the result of mining subsidence and killed about thirteen people.

So we instinctively feel that, here, we are safe, or as safe as one can be in a soft, pink, infinitely breakable body. The obverse of this belief is that once we transgress our national borders, we live under an unfamiliar shadow of danger.

This mindset has its most outstanding example in the Bali bombings. Australians were shocked - shocked! - that anyone would want to carry on their nasty foreign politics in a way that might hurt Australians, let alone in Bali, which because of the number of bogans wandering its beaches had been adopted as an honorary part of Australia. So upset were we that we couldn't help but adopt Indonesia's tragedy as our own, wearing our horror at the death of 88 Australians shamelessly while completely disengaging from the significantly larger number of Indonesians murdered.

It's a big part of the reason the world has started to regard us as louder and more drunken Ugly Americans - this air of bulletproof freedom from consequences, the feeling that anything happening to us is a lark rather than a real event, that the rest of the world is a mere amusement park for the cynical atheists of Australia.

But what is this attitude if not faith?

It's an easy argument to make that this shared belief is a truer and deeper faith than that of the average churchgoer. Separate from societal expectation, and without any real reason to do so, we accept that the world is run in a specific and benevolent way for our own benefit.

It's an odd position for a nation built on genocide to take.

Child protection laws and the ineffable NSW Government

2008-11-25T21:24:00.002+11:00

The NSW government will change the child welfare reporting laws to stop DOCS being crippled by the volume of trivial complaints (here), but will there be any examination of how things reached this juncture? Perhaps policy has been made thoughtlessly in response to headlines and spin rather than with careful consideration and development? Either the current reporting laws should never have been introduced, or the funding and structure should have been put in place right away to ensure they could be implemented successfully. A government that cared even slightly about good policy rather than polls would ensure that its agencies, particularly those of such immediate human importance, were fixed before they fell apart, not after.

Even more irritating for me personally has been the budget debacle. It seems Nathan Rees only goal is to keep the budget in surplus, regardless of any consequences to the state, at a time when any halfway competent government would be posting significant deficits. In a state choked by aging and inadequate infrastructure, caught in the fierce currents of a global economic downturn, after that state has posted surpluses for years consecutively, choosing to throw out spending for the sake of balanacing a one-off budget is baffling.

I refuse to believe that an individual could scale the heights of public administration that Nathan Rees or any of his ministers have without acquiring so basic a level of economic understanding, so that leaves only one explanation for this behaviour, that deficits poll badly and surpluses test well. The irresponsibility astounds me.

The Labor government in NSW has worked this way for over a decade, so it's unlikely to change anytime soon. All that really has changed is that Bob Carr, the man who was actually made it all look good, is gone, and the machine men who use the state government as a machine for milking developers of dodgy campaign contributions have advanced increasingly incompetent front men in attempts to extend their cosy situation. If Barry O'Farrell wisens up and avoids actually appearing in public or allowing any of his MPs to speak to the media before the next election, I might even find myself accidentally voting Liberal in a state election in the next few years.

False premises

2008-11-25T21:19:00.003+11:00

Gary Kamiya has an article on Salon.com that got me agitated about one of my pet peeves, the accepted wisdom amongst progressives that the US (and by extension everyone else) should withdraw from Afghanistan, that somehow this war is morally on par with Iraq. (article here)

While this article and the commenters make some good points, it ignores some important facts about the situation in Afghanistan.

First is the state of Afghanistan before the war. The bombast and propoganda of the right over the last seven years has made it difficult to retain clarity on this issue, but the fact is the Taliban were, between 1996 and 2001, the most brutal and repressive regime on the planet, and that they were allowed to rage through Afghanistan unchecked should shame us all. When Gary Kamiya and apparently almost the entire left advocate abandoning Afghanistan, they advocate leaving over 30 million people in the hands of a system of deliberate evil. At least for the sake of 15 million Afghani women, troops must remain in Afghanistan.

Second is the fact that terrorism does, in fact, offer an existential threat to democracies. There is no more compelling proof of that than the de facto repression of free speech, imprisonment and torture of the innocent sometimes unto death, and disregard for constitutional rights allowed by the electorate in the United States over the last seven years. Because of a single terrorist attack, liberal democracy was dormant if not dead in the nation where it should have been strongest of all.

Or consider the depopulation of half of Israel in July 2006 in response to the Hezbollah rocket attacks, as vast numbers of citizens became refugees. Democracy depends on the calm rationality of the citizenry, and that is exactly what terrorism targets.

Third is the enormous progress that can be made in the internationalisation of the conflict. Anyone with real knowledge of what is going on in Afghanistan knows that great strides have been made as the military of the UAE have engaged. The tribes whose insular, tenacious and warlike nature, and ironclad laws of hospitality, made winning the war impossible for the US alone, are being won over with the help of these valuable allies.

Although saying it induces reflexive cynicism, the international coalition MUST stay in Afghanistan until the government of Afghanistan can defend itself from the mainly foreign extremists who insinuated themselves into the national life.

The most valuable thing Bush and the neoconservatives stole from the thinking left when he politically capitalised on national disaster was not freedom, compassion, or peace, it was clarity of thought. Barack Obama is approaching the situation with neither the concept of American exceptionalism and pre-determined victory that caused the right to bungle the job, nor from the ideologically blinkered corner the left has allowed itself to be pushed into, but instead from the direction of making policy based on reality, needs and results. Now that the shadow of an imperial presidency is contracting, it's time to examine our preconceptions and start to apply knowledge and logic rather than college campus ideological assumptions.

That magnificent beast, the financial media.

2008-10-07T17:57:00.003+11:00

See it wallowing in its own importance. Its audience, which lends it an undeserved air of sobriety and professionalism, is the staid world of the investor, which thrives on detailed analysis, consideration and caution. Yet like all merchants of news the financial media must strive for relevance, so they sow fear and panic. Stocks never subside, they must crash; if they don't quite crash, they may instead collapse. On the way up, they surge or rally, rather than rise, and the two must never be examined together in context - a crash one day and a rally the next is not a correction, it is some sort of Manichean drama, where the mighty totems of the bull and bear do battle and one emerges victorious.

The rush to predict "market meltdowns" on Tuesday was a perfect example, as alarmist headlines were splashed all over television channels, eventually producing the fearsome figure of... a rise of fifty points. The unmentioned but undoubtedly sheepish removal of the "market crisis" from the news banner on the Sky Business Channel around midday was a masterpiece of comedy.

By market close, this was being laid at the door of an interest rate drop, yet the recovery came well before the announcement. In this way the naked emperor clothes himself. Is it any wonder that large parts of the markets are swept up in the narratives and short-sightedness of the moment, speculate rather than invest, when they are constantly steeped in this sensationalism? With great self-seriousness and regard for their own expertise, these talking heads only ever manage to produce truisms and the accepted wisdom of the echo chamber.

Competing in the new media environment

2008-08-26T21:56:00.001+10:00

The job cuts at Fairfax demonstrate that they, like most major old-media corporations, fundamentally fail to understand the new media environment. The consequence of the growth of the internet is the springing up of myriad news sources, with as many agendas, standards and business models.

There is still a place for the venerable broadsheet and the local newspaper, but it is as an arbiter of quality, a centre for debate and a beacon of trust. However, the soulless businessmen who make these decisions have resolved on the route they find most intuitive, that of cost-cutting and vivisection of what should be timeless institutions. What they fail to realise is that anyone can plug an AP line into a
collection of opinion pieces and a thick slathering of celebrity gossip; to survive, print media needs to be more, not less.

The SMH in particular needs to fund real, hard-hitting investigative journalism, and forget about the divas, of both Hollywood and opinion page varieties. Until then if I want the classic feeling of a broadsheet, I'll hold my nose against the smell of right-wing hysteria and read The Australian. At least those Tories aren't trying to shove Paris Hilton down my throat.

Exploring the Inner Geek

2008-08-25T21:45:00.001+10:00

Well, it turned out my article did suck and no one wanted to publish it, so here it is.

In the year 40 000 AD there is only War

I was quite apprehensive leading up to my foray into the world of fantasy gaming. I had previously turned away in cowardice from a basement gaming hall in Melbourne, and it took me a couple of casual stroll-bys to get myself into the Newcastle Games Workshop. On top of my usual crippling social anxiety was the added fear of judgement by nerds – I imagined a room full of tightly knit high school geeks glancing uncomfortably around at the presence of a stranger, or the hateful glare of judgement of a Comic Book Guy. The normal social awkwardness of the nerd can make us ruthless when disturbed in numbers within our natural habitats. Nonetheless it had to be done, so wearing a Penny Arcade T-shirt, and armed with a notepad and a faint stutter, I tramped off to the games store.

In fact the lad running the store was a very friendly guy who looked to be late high school age but was in fact working there full time. I would have reacted to his inclusiveness and friendly patience towards a n00b by angrily revoking his nerd credentials if it were not for the unfortunate facial hair, and encyclopedic knowledge of units, terrain, and armour classes he quickly displayed, and the revelatory “ahhhh!” sound he made when displaying his favourite leaden space marine for my approval. His significant weight problem was also a big tick in the “nerd/expert” column.

The decent-sized store was filled with immaculately painted metal figurines, two decent-sized gaming tabletops elaborately set out with miniatures and plastic fortifications, two smaller tabletops and a round table surrounded by benches for model painting. A heavy metal band whose lead singer was apparently the Cookie Monster thrummed through the background noise.

While a much more Comic Book Guy figure, identified by the shop assistant, Tom, as one of the part-time staff loudly and expertly wrangled some newly pubescent youths through a three-a-side game, Tom sat me down with four squads of the store’s miniatures and gave me a short game while explaining the rules. I commanded two squads of Ultramarines; one helmed by an immaculately painted Sergeant whose involved backstory I immediately forgot. Tom commanded two squads of Tyranids, one of pistol-toting dinosaur-like Gaunts and one of four-armed drooling Genestealers. (Or, to the layman, some aliens.)

On a 2’x2’ green board (full size being 6’x4’) Tom took the first turn, using a tape measure to jump his six inches forward (full turns, move, shoot, then assault, he told me briefly). After rolling his dice for five attacks from his Gaunts, I was in the driver’s seat.

I immediately wanted to wipe out the guys who had been shooting at me, using both squads to attack the Gaunts, but Tom gently informed me that the primary threat was the Genestealers, who would tear my Space Marines apart if they got close. Bowing to his authority, I cautiously edged forward just four inches and turned all the guns of my first squad upon them, under the guidance of Sergeant Whatsisname, and with a roll of three dice and some more complicated stuff for my flamethrower and the Sergeants’ plasma pistol, destroyed four of the five Genestealers. Chuffed by my success, I had my second squad open fire on the Gaunts, destroying three with my rocket launcher and another one with my other marines, leaving an alien from each squad.

Reckless in the presence of defeat, Tom had his remaining miniatures rush forward, their six inches of movement getting them just inches short of my Marines, and fired his only remaining distance weapon, scoring a hit, but deflected by my armour saving roll. At this stage, I think it’s done, I’ve won, but I’ve forgotten about the assault phase, which I now learn allows Tom’s figures to advance a further six inches to engage my marines in hand-to-hand combat. Luckily five-to-one odds translate to a fast victory.

So ended my first game of Warhammer 40 000, a half-hour affair where a series of lucky dice rolls for myself allowed me to beat one of the most experienced players in the Newcastle area with no losses. When I suggested that the scenario was unbalanced for the benefit of new players, Tom denied it, saying that in fact if the Genestealers had managed to engage before being wiped out it could have been one-sided in the other direction. Earlier, Tom had compared Warhammer 40k to chess, but while chess is a game merely of logic and gamesmanship, clearly the dice introduce a big element of luck. The initial experience reminded me of high school days of earnestly exchanging 3.5” disks in the playground, and the players I met brought back strong memories of how my friends had been then, and more unsettlingly, the awkward and out-of-place teenager I had been myself. More unwelcome again was the revelation that one could not even begin to engage in the Games Workshop hobbies without an initial investment of at least $135.

Still, I found myself fascinated, and when Tom handed me an in-store flyer containing a list of upcoming events, I identified two to attend, not quite sure whether I wanted to go so I could write about them or just to be at them. The inner geek was stirring.

Frustration and Maladaptation

The first of the two events I had set out for myself to attend was the Thursday games night, which was also to be a preview night for the fifth edition of the game. When asked about the extreme youth of the crowd in the Games Workshop on my first go-round, Tom had said the veterans played on Thursday. Arriving at 4pm, I found that this was nearly true – while the number of true adults had gone from one to four, they were severely outnumbered by the 20-odd teenagers present. The cookie monster and his band were still supporting, but there was now a pitch of pre-pubescent squeals and trembling post-pubescent hollering adding to the mix. The painting table was packed and I wandered around the store and watched a game being played.

I quickly learnt that my initial enthusiasm was unrealistic. There may indeed have been some compelling gameplay going on; I couldn’t have judged, since I found myself a good ten years too old to listen to death metal while surrounded by screaming teenagers. I hovered, watching the end of a hard-fought game and checking out some models. I also met Tom’s lean and slightly unpleasant off-sider, who said the preview I had come to see wasn’t going to start for half an hour and implied I was old when I mentioned my interest came from playing Milton Bradley’s Space Crusade in primary school. The serried ranks of tiny grizzled warriors on the boards still appealed to something deep inside me, but not enough to keep me around. After three quarters of an hour I faded away, discouraged.

Creativity and Near-Redemption

That could have been the end of it. I had given it a damn good chance, I thought, and had comprehensively proven a developmentally normal 25-year-old could not walk in and start playing with inch-high models for the first time and actually enjoy himself. Warhammer 40k was for a certain moment in some people’s history, the smell of energy drinks, fried chicken, water-based acrylic and escapism combining with the “Metal for the Insecure” soundtrack to create a lot of fun at the time, which could be held together by nostalgia later on, but could never be captured afresh by someone who was never beaten up for their Space Marines.

Still, I wanted to do the thing right, and I decided to show some follow-through by going to the last event I had chalked up for myself. Each Sunday Games Workshops hold introductory sessions, which allow newcomers to come along, play a simple game with one of the staff to get the basics, and be walked through painting a miniature. I didn’t anticipate this painting aspect appealing to me much, as I’ve never been much for visual design – colour schemes, as far as I’ve been interested in them, are a good way of telling when driving through an intersection will cause honking and crashes.

The Games Workshop was much as it had been on the Thursday night, only not as dark and less frenetic. Tom offered me a black-sprayed Space Marine, a palette and some brushes, and set about teaching me miniature painting.

Oddly, I found myself enjoying the experience. As Tom led me through dry-brushing, layering and lots of other miniature-related jargon, I realised that I was doing something which modern life and living room rarely afford – the chance to focus on one thing, to the exclusion of all else, and do a job right rather than fast. I met some of my fellow painters, including an aircraft technician who collected Orcs and a couple of moppets who earnestly informed Tom that he was much nicer than the guy running the military disposals store where they bought their miniatures. An hour later I had a meticulously (for me) painted Space Marine, and my first unalloyed positive experience of Warhammer 40k.

Conclusion

So ended my experiment. The verdict? Well, two positive experiences against one negative would seem to indicate a qualified victory. I was starting to appreciate why it was a hobby and a crowd one could choose to spend big portions of free time with. The 40k’ers are refreshingly unpretentious and forward, nerds without irony.
On the other hand, the barriers to entry are impressive; the significant initial and ongoing monetary cost combined with the very specific culture and, most of all, hundreds upon hundreds of intricately worked rules of which an effective player would have to have a detailed understanding make for some daunting obstacles. It’s hard to call this a deal-breaker though – the barriers of entry to, for example, yachting, are a lot higher, and also involve exposure to yachting toffs, yet that seems pretty popular.

Ultimately, though, for me, being at least ten years older than most of the players was insurmountable. Listening to death metal and screaming pre-pubescent voices while drinking Red Bull in an all-male environment might make a 15 year old feel alive, but at 25 it’s plain unpleasant. The game, or more specifically the Games Workshop, was not for me.

One aspect of the hobby, however, I found taking deeper roots within me. I ordered myself a model painting kit, and have been dedicating a little bit of time to sitting in the breeze and the sun, painting tiny warriors. The singular degree of focus cools my mind when it is fevered by multitasking in a way that is otherwise hard to find.

So all in all, my first venture into nerd gonzo was a positive one. I met some people, got a free Space Marine, had a little fun, and came to a conclusion about what seemed like an open question – should I be in that store, rolling those dice? Well, no, but maybe I should be painting those miniatures.

The Inner Geek

2008-07-07T15:14:00.006+10:00

Well, it’s been ten months since I posted here. I would like to say that it was because I was reveling in the “lazy” part of my moniker, but in fact it’s probably been about the busiest and most diverse ten months of my life. Since September last year I’ve been shuffled sideways when supervisors thought I was at the point of violence, completed an online university course, experienced a spiritual awakening, seen the mosques of Istanbul and the Baha’i Shrines of Haifa, been robbed by sleight of hand and nearly arrested by the Turkish police for same robbery, been hospitalised and nearly died from a kebab gone wrong, flown a jet fighter, nearly fallen out of a helicopter, scored top marks on a university entrance test and become an integral cog in the machinery of governmental waste and corruption. Now, I think I’m ready to come back and write snarkily for the entertainment of myself and the odd exceptionally bored web surfer.

I want this post to act as an entrée to a series I will write wherein I explore my own nerdiness. As a young man growing up in country Australia, I was highly nerdy and eventually had a friendship group of other highly nerdy individuals, but much of the machinery and support structures of nerdery were missing. There was no comic book store, no Games Workshop, no computer club and no film club. Combined with my exceptionally narrow horizons and limited resources (perhaps a dollar a week until I was about fifteen) many lines of interest open to the metropolitan nerd were firmly shut to me. Essentially I managed to be nerdy enough to avoid kissing a girl until I was almost old enough to buy her a drink, but not nerdy enough to retain significant nerd pride as I grew older and the kind of people who hate nerds in high school grew more unemployed and pathetic.

So with this series I will throw myself into a few of those things I think I could have loved if fate had given me the chance. Things like D&D, World of Warcraft, and medieval re-enactment that sing to the more embarrassing parts of my soul.

First up – Warhammer 40 000.

UPDATE:
I completed the piece, but I'm submitting it for publication (despite the sinking feeling that it kind of sucks), so I can't publish it here. Rest assured that if it does suck, and no one wants to publish it, I will put it here, and libel the wise men who knocked it back in an attempt at humour.

Supporting the Troops

2007-09-28T14:15:00.001+10:00

I'm talking about that perpetual righty ploy, particularly in the US, of equating "supporting the troops", that is, supporting the men and women getting shot at, with support of every random hare-brained scheme that is thrown into effect over them.

This has been banging around for a long time, and I always sort of assumed it was about to evaporate, because it's such an obviously wrong and disrespectful argument, but it's still getting heavy use, and more often than not seems to go completely unchallenged. So now, as a member of "the troops", I've decided to make my statement.

To all individuals who consider "support the troops" an argument for any war policy, consider this. The neocons supported the troops by making up a real war for fake reasons, sending 1/3 the troops required because they wanted tax cuts for millionaires, and not giving them body armour or armoured vehicles for the insurgency that resulted. If that's support, you can all go support the terrorists please. There seems to be some difference in the way conservatives support the troops and their political masters, however. Republican politicians rarely seem to wind up with their legs blown off, shitting in a bag for the rest of their lives.

Materialism

2007-09-28T14:11:00.000+10:00

I'm going to write about something personal now, so prepare to squirm.

I never thought I'd be a rat race guy. When you're a teenager and know everything, it's all so obvious that money isn't everything, what you do for a living isn't who you are, money can't buy happiness etc etc. What you can't understand is just how defining and resistance-crushing working every day for your money is.

So I piss my dunkets away on holidays, expensive food and little geeky gadgets. And does it make me happy? Hell no.

I guess I thought I was over the whole existential thing when I hit my 20s, but I was just putting it away for a few years while I got together some money for eating and whatnot. Suddenly the fact that all I really do is earn money and try to get fit seems like a pretty paltry existence.

So am I going to shave my head and join the Hare Krishnas, or go to the Congo as a humanitarian aid worker or some such? Hell no.

Anyway, I just got a NetFlix membership, so that should make me happy.

The Mandela Bushism

2007-09-24T21:34:00.001+10:00

I'm burned about this.

At this stage, everyone in the world who doesn't spend 18 hours a day pushing a wooden plough has been exposed to the latest special Bush gaffe, probably by some horrible radio jerk or other person who depends on the topical humour du jour to amuse halfwits.

The rage I'm feeling about this is twofold. Firstly, the hacks are so very excited about this, but they're only getting any mileage out of it by pulling it out of context. The man says something moronic every day. He was a fratboy and a drunk well into his forties at least. And the best you can pull out of that situation is this crap?

The second thing I'm seeing red spots about is the sinking feeling I now get whenever something like this happens, because I know I'll be assailed with weak-as-piss jokes about it for the next 48 to 72 hours.

It's time to give up the topical humour thing for dead. Jon Stewart is still allowed to do it of course, but otherwise it needs to be a strictly controlled permit system, and it must be conclusively proven any topical humour is based upon original research.

Anyone who has no idea what I'm dribbling about, hopefully this is a clip.

Ahar, success! My scriptkiddy powers are great and you shall kneel before me!

IRONY WATCH
Yes, I have just based a whole post around showing you this clip.

Do not make lame jokes about this, or God will punish you.

First comment!

2007-09-24T20:51:00.001+10:00

I've had my first comment. Now I have to deal with the social fallout, that is, with only one commenter, it's more like a conversation than a website, now isn't it?

Anyway, in the style of Flight of the Conchords, you will now be referred to as The Commenter Base, because The Commenter sounds less impressive.

Californication goes down in a cloud of hackiness

2007-09-15T17:30:00.000+10:00

First of all, three weeks since I posted anything. It's not that it's hard to think of something to post about, it's just really hard to care when you're working 11 hours a day and trying not to plan workplace massacres the rest of the time.

I had such high hopes for Californication. The cable willingness to put whatever on TV is a nice place to start creatively, the willingness to sink some money into a good thing is even better, and then they actually seem to have some writers banging around over there at Showtime, so good for them.

Sadly, today I watched the fifth episode and the thing that had been bothering me the whole time finally starting slapping me and screaming like a strung out meth head. There may be writers working at Showtime, but no one told them about Californication.

It's pretty, and there's lots of boobies, but the dialogue is painful. In fact, it's most definitely the spiritual heir to the Sex and the City crown. It wasn't immediately obvious, because David Duchovny has the ability to deliver this horrific dross with an illusion of talent and edginess, but Madeline Zima plucked the scales from my eyes by delivering this wretched creaking scribbling in an awkward stilted manner that Andie Macdowell would have thought was forced. I can't fool myself anymore.

Any pretence at thinking TV from this show was just a diversion from the sad attempts to tickle the lizard brain. The whole show is basically the masturbatory fantasies of whatever halfwit created it. If I want porn, I can get porn, and at least then you can mute the sound and still follow what's going on. You know a show is shit when it's not matching up to the legacy of a show that couldn't bring out any bigger guns for the season final than revealing the name of a recurring character.

I'm going back to giving Weeds more credit than it deserves.

UPDATE: Weeds has an Olsen guest starring. Showtime can eat shit, it's over. I'm strapping my suicide belt on as we speak, does anyone know their street address?

Selling out

2007-08-24T19:43:00.001+10:00

This topic comes to mind, as I've just applied to put Google AdSense advertisements on this site on the off chance that some accident of fate makes it wildly (or slightly) popular and I can buy an island and get fat.

It's not really a consistent concept. Those of us in the post-modern poseur segments of society love the term, generally as a way of indicating a beloved band or some other form of light entertainment has dumbed itself down to reach a wider audience, or signed up with an evil corporation, or otherwise fallen from a supposedly pure state.

Of course, none of them were ever really pure in the first place. Your favourite band might have been rocking the local pub for $50 each three nights a week, but they wish they had sold a million albums, and face it, would probably do backing tracks for Justin Timberlake if it meant they could avoid being on stage somewhere bottles are going to be thrown at their heads.
Starving artists have trust funds, that is the universal truth. No one gets a studio apartment in New York, insanely expensive cobalt blues and canvases, and all the cafe food they can nibble while trying to stay thin and drawn, which of course means you must be terribly creative, without some filthy lucre.

Some might argue that there are some genuinely pure things out there. John Butler Trio are still independent. Maddox doesn't run banner ads.

But guess what? Those guys are still there for the money. Maddox is selling books now. John Butler Trio make more money as independents than they ever would on a major record label, because they actually get to keep a little bit of money from the CDs they sell.

Basically, I will always hate Offspring and Metallica for their mercenary ways. But I also realise that calling people sellouts is ridiculous, and every time I come home from work without punching my boss the fuck out then setting fire to him in his office, I have also sold out.
So that's what I think. Now you must think it too.

UPDATE:
By selling out, this is not what I mean.

Apple is the evil empire

2007-08-11T16:18:00.000+10:00

Okay, third post and it's time to stir up a nerdy hornet's nest. To all those Macintosh fanboys out there slavishly adoring every colourless overmarketed turd Steve Jobs punches out: Apple is evil.

Yes, they're innovators. In the Macintosh, the iPod and the iPhone they have ingeniously taken other people's inventions, made them into user-friendly killer apps, and crashed into the marketplace changing the entire world of consumer technology. The products that aren't from them are copied from them.

But here's the rub. Each of these products has been deliberately designed to limit their use in critical ways and solely to the benefit of Apple. The tiny software base of the Mac, the Digital Rights Management of the iPod and the locked-down status of the iPhone make these beautiful products of engineering more profitable per unit, but the frustration is crushing to the soul of the true technophile.

Apple has managed to sell a hell of a lot of people on their image as the "alternative", for the funky creative types, but the fact is, they just have good marketers. They shrewdly pick their product placements and are a lot more clever in their advertising campaigns. Aside from that, Apple is as soulless and empty as any other corporation out there. Apple has a lot in common with Steve Jobs' other enterprise, Disney - they attract creative people to make great things, then hollow their creations out from the inside.

The best thing that could happen to the world of consumer technology is the collapse of Apple once and for all, so all that free-floating talent can come out and really play.

How to fix the Global War on Terror

2007-08-11T15:21:00.000+10:00

The turn of the 21st century brought a few surprises, not least of which was the return of 19th century-style “Great Game” politics. All it took was a few scary-crazy neoconservatives floating to the top in the wake of a faux cowboy and a dubious election result, and a thirty-year-old dirty war coming back to bite us, and suddenly we were back in the colonies, fighting the Hun wherever he may be, and once more turning our eyes towards the events of Central Asia. Again, we were going to turn them around with a taste of steel, and the boys were going to be home by Christmas.

Strangely, this return to form has not been welcomed, and has in fact developed rather a backlash. It seems that the news media has betrayed us, and rather than reporting all the gallant victories, holding the square and all that, has rather come down on the side of the natives, dwelling on unpleasantries such as civilian deaths and internecine conflicts. Obviously this view misses the point. How do these people expect us to build an empire?

The whole thing needs an update for the new century. I hope to make you see that, with a few minor changes, this sort of thing could jig in nicely with the more popular sports of today.

The first order of business must of course be allowing the gentry to have a polite flutter on the proceedings. The whole Game is really about unearned wealth, and most of our problems are stemming from keeping that unearned wealth confined to too few individuals. The oil executives and military contractors are doing just fine, but a proper tote will extend things to the labourers, academics, and professionals who are out there marching and dissenting. If there is one thing the history of civilization tells us, it’s that almost any atrocity can be ignored when spiced with gambling, such as child poverty, gladiatorial combat and Las Vegas.

The second measure is already mostly in place. The soldiers – or “competitors” as they will now be known – will be held to a completely unrealistic double standard. We will select for the most aggressive and testosterone driven young men, then decry and castigate them for any aggressive or testosterone-fuelled behaviour. The masses must hate their heroes to love them, and the delicious spectacle of the media railing against them will attract the pious and prurient punters who would otherwise ignore our Game altogether.

Thirdly, we need a really professional competitor. We will need to arm, train and fund the other side, to make sure we always have the right degree of competition to keep seats filled. This idea has already been significantly implemented in the past in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not to a sufficient extent. The other side have not been wearing proper jerseys nor playing by any rules that I can recognize whatsoever. In fact, one could mostly mistake them for mere civilians, angered by our interference in their homeland and culture! The whole thing can rather put the punters off their tea.

Finally, the most important thing is that we all just get behind it. The fate of the world is at stake here, and we’re trying to build an empire that will last forever. You know – like the last one did.

Here I am! Just in time...

2007-08-08T18:55:00.000+10:00

Well, I've finally joined the blogging bandwagon, five years too late to be wildly popular, three years too late to be relevant, and two years after the whole thing started to peak.

Why am I starting a blog? The same reason everyone else does - because I think I'm funny and uniquely interesting, and everyone should pay attention to what I think. So pay attention.

About me - I'm Australian, in the Army and a raving lefty in an organisation that's slightly right-wing of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Otherwise, read my posts. If I make any.

And bookmark this site, because you're going to want to know what I think so you can have the same opinion as me. Seriously.