The Inner Geek

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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.