[ Monday, June 16 ]
Ouch, the spiritual and physical PAIN
I spent the weekend with a continually bleeding knee. Really I was lucky to escape some kind of lack of blood related death. Starting Friday, there was much sporty activity. As Tim has already pointed out, our attempt to achieve netball glory fell slightly short, and during the attempt, I, slightly short, fell. This was not so bad in itself except that in the act of falling down I inevitably land on my right knee. As a good deal of the likely-to-induce-falling-down-activity I currently engage in takes place on the evil evil surface that is astroturf, this tends to result in the Astroturf Grazed Knee (TM). Again not so bad, but for the fact with a few falling downs in quick succession (or in swift concussion, as my Grandad used to say) I get the more serious Grazed Graze. As it happens the graze I got last Sunday got grazed again on Wednesday at cricket, and then on Friday, and then on Saturday when I filled in for my cousin's outdoor soccer team, and then on Sunday during my two games of indoor soccer. This means that the original graze is about to develop an exit wound on the back of my leg. The inside of my sport-playing trackpants looks like a grisly medical souvenir from the Crimean War. Consequently when I limped in on Sunday night Mum went into motherly overdrive and insisted upon applying about 3 rolls of tape and one or two mummy's worth of bandages to my leg. I'm sure if it had been useful to to so she would have run out into the garden, selected the appropriate plant, chewed it up for a while and then spat it on to the wound as some kind of poultice. Mothers: good.
Anyway I seem to have managed two and a half afternoons since then doing very little indeed in the air conditioned environs of the Commerce building computer labs, although there was slight excitement for 30 or so seconds yesterday when Chris Martin came in to print something out. OK, so the excitement was minimal, but I'm something of a cricket groupie so these things are important. Also anything that distracts me slightly and no matter how briefly from the fact I'm clearly failing to get any thesis done is very useful. Hence blogging.
So, what to report? Little. As has been noted though, the Chateau's time is near, and it must face the final curtain. We'll go, we'll have some laughs, we'll drink some beer, of this I'm certain. Sinatra aside though, I did promise some pre-emptive nostalgia a while back, and did try and actually write some before it was sucked into the ether. So shall try again, because after all, if at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Anyway the Chateau has been a domicile of some reknown, not at the level of the legendary / infamous Xanadu of course, but not that far off either. Many and varied have been the antics within its hallowed (if poorly joined) halls, and if those walls could talk, what would they say? "For God's sake Ben, stop putting your fist through us, it bloody hurts" might be one thing, but I was thinking more of their potential capacity as witnesses to many events both monumental and trivial. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder 'what the hell?' etc. Taking it upon myself then as, if not actually a wall at the Chateau, then at least someone that has probably spent enough time there to quailfy technically as some kind of permanent architectural feature, I give you a brief tour down memory lane then for some personal highlights:
- Carrying Nic's damn bed up the stairs. Carrying Pete's damn bed up the stairs. Carrying Pete's bed back down the stairs. Carrying everybody else's every damn thing else up and down the stairs. Oh, the hours of fun. How we laughed.
- Mad garage table tennis. My ongoing reign as Drunken Master. Shots of surpassing skill from all parties. 'Dominator'. Adam and Hamish throwing hissy fits, including Ham hurling himself spectacularly into a pile of stuff in the corner and remaining there completely upside down for about 30 minutes. Hitting the ball into the hole in the ceiling from which it never returned. Various and wonderously interesting 'ting' 'pang' 'boink' 'clink' noises that were to be made by the ball hitting numerous strange things in the garage.
- Exotic flat fixture adventures. Superman-ing it down the stairs and rug burning my elbows. 5 people in the inexplicably large cupboard in the middle of the house. Hiding in Nic's wardrobe, emerging to confuse people. Squeezing into the strange cupboard under the stairs in the garage while it was still accessible. Braining myself on the clothes-line at least 3 times. Numerous unfortunate casualties of the stairs that for some reason go through the lounge. Climbing in the second floor bathroom window when no-one was home in the middle of the day, getting halfway through sideways, finding a ruddy great pot plant in the way and trying to shift it with my elbows while my legs waved madly around sticking out of the house for about 5 minutes, and all the time wondering what I would tell the police.
- Much late night Risk / Settlers of Catan / Weighty Strategy Game / pizza and coke action. Unlikely victories almost inevitably decided by one-on-one dice rolls. Failed bids for glory, pitched battles for ultimate control of Papua New Guinea. Middle East, the bitch-slapped country. 'End of Days!' 'Crazy Dog, crazy dog' 'The BISHOP! Dum didda didda didda....' Playing until a time of the morning where absolutely everything is funny. Flying abuse in all directions. Worrying levels of innuendo. I blame Dan.
- Room O' Computers (TM) Quake action a go-go. Much sitting around and wasting of time while pixellated death occurred in the background. Nice one. Numerous discussions and occasionally vehement arguments about nothing in particular on sunny afternoons or in the rainy early hours.
- Druids. Dear God, the horror.
- Stealing a pile of dirt from a seemingly random location. Carrying it through the garage, putting it in the garden. Nic being slightly concerned at the time about being in the same space as both James and a spade. Therein following the period of 'The Great Divide'. Consequent tiptoeing through the tulips.
- And of course, parties. Many parties. The delightful taste of Sunlight lemon dishwashing detergent. The only slightly improved taste of allspice, tequila, kiwifruit (Jessa's fault). Eating a whole lemon. Eating much of a candle (Teena got upset at that one). Huge pile up on the stairs at one point. Conversations in the hallway. The continual missing of various clues to various things. Angry pyjama clad man appearing, "Look, I mow your lawns!", Adam responding, quote: "Hey man, I don't need this aggravation." Many collected reflective hours in the cupboard, thinking about life, the universe, and everything. Bursting out of said cupboard and the look on people's faces. Doing a forward roll and splitting my forehead open on Nic's corkboard, acquiring a scar. Circumstances conspiring to bring death to Adam's guitar. Throwing knives about with wanton abandon. Unexpectedly putting my fist through the wall. 15 people in the kitchen for some reason and no-one in the lounge. Journeys 'home' from town through the park, including the bleeding one (me, not the park). Essentially unjustifiable repeated custom handed to the 24 hour dairy. Singing along to things no-one knows the lyrics to. Many nights on the couch. The going to Wellington party, 100 shots of Icebreaker, throwing up stealthily upstairs, coming back down, antics, drinking, going upstairs, finding Hannah and a bottle of Baileys in Nic's bedroom, drinking that, coming back down, antics, totally trollied and yelling "Someone give me a drink", Warwick and James C. handing me half a glass of whiskey, shooting it, falling over backwards as it came out my nose setting fire to my poor membranes, continued antics, hallway, throwing up on Pete. Oops. Still having a good time, half passed-out on the floor. Next day, second-worst hangover ever. Served me right of course. "Maintaining a sunny disposition despite adverse circumstances."
Thanks, Chateau. Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? I'll miss you (sob). It seems inappropriate for other people to be living in it. Really, if things were to conduct themeselves properly, it should sink into the ground like the House of Usher at the appropriate moment. Still, sic transit gloria mundi and all that, or, as some bloke named John A. Simone, Sr. once said: "If you're in a bad situation, don't worry, it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry, it'll change." Seems highly appropriate about now.
Time for a big blowout on Friday yet, though. Come along folks, and bring your sledgehammer. Or your alcohol. In fact forget the hammer, just bring the alcohol and your willingness for a good last hurrah.
Right then, a short post, but overdue, so there you are. More next time. I am building up a list of useful things to talk about. Don't hold your breath however.
See you all Friday, bar you overseas pikers.
Ben Allan [17:06]
[ Friday, June 6 ]
Ouroboros
The problem with saving up a few handy ideas with the overall plan being to stick them down in a blog of some substance at some point in the near future is that you unfortunately tend to run into people in the course of going about your life in the nearer future, who are going to be the very same ones presumably reading it later on, and then you just tell them anything interesting to might have to expatiate on there and then. Damnit. The advantages of blogging from overseas or actually having people you don't know reading the site are largely lost to me, I suppose. Oh well. Consequently though, I must apologise to anyone who has heard me go on about any of this before, or has already read the accounts of the trip to Rata Peaks and decided another one cannot possibly bring anything new (but I note no-one has as yet mentioned the house we were staying in coming under attack by giant lizards. Strange that, as fending them off took up a good deal of the weekend), or was there and thus doesn't need to know, or is sick by this point in the sentence of the blogging about the act of blogging that I'm doing, God I have to stop before this post turns into Adaptation....read on though and you may as yet find something worthwhile....ah, I can't back that up.
I'll start off by pointing out this rather excellent article on The Matrix Reloaded care of Emma and her web-browsings (nice one, Emma). As you read you can't help but feel 'Hmmm, is this guy reading too much into things, or what?' but then you start to think 'perhaps not', especially in light of the fact that the Matrix series seems pretty obviously a series designed to have some serious layers. One or two things may be a bit over the top perhaps, but I was particularly interested in the possible explanation of the Architect presenting Neo with the two doors out of the mainframe, one going to save Trinity and doom humanity, the other leading to a reset of the Matrix and the seemingly desired goal of the machines - why give him the choice, why not just have a door that leads to what they want? Wishy-washy things about how it had to be Neo's choice etc did not seem very satisfactory, but the idea that the machines actually want Neo to make the choice to effectively wipe out mankind, because they themselves, despite wishing this to happen, could not take this final step due to being compelled to preserve humanity (in at least some form) by the rules of Asimov's Laws of Robotics - now I'm prepared to admit this had not occurred to me. Er, at all. But it sounds like a pretty damn good explanation to me. Interesting theories too about why Neo might have acquired powers in the (possibly) real world. As I say, it might all sound like reading too much into things, but then we have this kind of thing to be found on IMDB in the Matrix Reloaded trivia section:
When Agent Smith pulls up in an Audi at the beginning of the film, his license plate is "IS 5416". In the King James Bible, Isaiah 54:16 says, "Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy."
So it's fair to assume I feel that there's a bit more depth here than is to be found in say, your average Joel Schumacher movie. And even if all the references and layers and pop philosophy add up to nothing much in particular, than at least they made the effort to put them all in there.
IMDB also tells me that the first person offered the role of Neo for the first film was Ewan McGregor. Interesting. He turned it down (obviously), probably imagining a lot of bluescreen stuff that he has already stated he disliked while making Star Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Neo though, that would have been right up there challenging the impossibly hard to beat prominent screen heroes double act of Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Not to be however, but maybe we can hold out some hope that Ewan will become James Bond at some point after Pierce Brosnan retires his Walther, thus perhaps providing a challenger for Mr Ford after all. Bring back Bond with a Scottish accent I say. (Amusingly, the second person offered the part of Neo was apparently Will Smith...even more amusingly, he turned it down to make Wild Wild West. HA! That movie must have the worst money spent to film quality ratio of ALL TIME. Nice move Will.)
However, even if he did, his average would still be higher on this here thingy, as we segway into the AFI top 50 Screen Heroes and Villains list, just announced. James Bond (in Dr No, specifically) came in as the 3rd greatest hero, and Obi-Wan as the 37th, but Indy was the second greatest hero, and Han Solo the 14th. No room for Luke Skywalker, oh dear. Too whiney I suppose. Star Wars did have the most nominations from one movie however, Darth Vader made third-baddest baddy (travesty!), Han Solo and Obi-Wan made the list, and the Skywalker siblings were both nominated. I don't know what these say respectively about the human psyche, but 6 out of the top 10 villains were women, and 10 percent of the top 50 weren't even human: HAL 9000 (13), the Alien from Alien (14), the shark from Jaws (18), the original Terminator (22), and the Martians from War of the Worlds (27). As if to make up it though, 'Man' was the 20th greatest villain of all time in Bambi, despite never actually appearing in the film. Special mention to Big Arnie as well for managing to be the 22nd nastiest villain in Terminator and the 48th greatest hero in Terminator 2. Killer robots: fickle. I was a bit disappointed that John McLane from Die Hard didn't make it onto the final hero's list, but his opposition Hans Gruber was 48th nastiest, and I think we can safely it's all Alan Rickman's fault. Interesting reading though, especially the way that in general 'old school' Hollywood spanks the arse of the modern era. Take that modern Hollywood, your characterisation is ruled bollocks. Few heroes in the last 20 years can hero their way out of a wet paper bag, apparently, and many villains of late would be hard pressed to commandeer even the school sandpit.
Luckily this is another multi-day post, for if I had posted it the other day when I started, I would not have been able to cover the insanity that was last night's Political Science department bus trip. How I, a man who has never taken a Political Science course in his entire life, managed to actually end up on this trip is something of a mystery, much like the answer to why the Dolmio advertising family was mysteriously replaced overnight by puppets that look like them, but I think we can guess though I was in the right place at the right time, or possibly the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyway some 15 dollars later it was off into the night accompanied only by Dan, Nic and Tim and their thesis supervisor. Oh, and a random bunch of Pol Sci students. Yeeeeeees. There followed much driving to places such as the Redwood Tavern, some bar out in Kaiapoi (which I think was also a tavern) back to the Papanui Tavern, and then all the way out to the bloody Islington Tavern. I can honestly say these are 4 places I had never previously been to, and will probably never go to again, (unless we take a return trip to the Islington Tavern to see if we can find Nic's bag). 4 taverns in one night (and I might add there was a disappointing lack of buxom serving wenches that should surely be the prerequisite of any place labelled a 'tavern') and I suppose it was inevitable that things would go downhill. And so begins another story of Ben having too much to drink....wait, NO! Ben didn't have too much to drink. Assuredly, things did indeed go downhill, but the person they went downhill for was one Mr Nicholas Mason. My keen spider senses picked up on the fact that something might be slightly amiss when Nic was to be observed stealthily vomiting near the front of the bus as we passed through some unknown suburb (it was foggy, it was hard to tell where we were at any time. Possibly Kaikoura). From there on in it was bad news for young Nicholas. Luckily, an experienced hand like myself was on hand to lose his bag for him. Following a stop-start taxi ride with possibly the most understanding taxi driver in the history of the world, during which, if Nic was a dog, he would have claimed most of Christchurch as his own personal territory (although dogs use different bodily fluids), I was able to get the lad to bed and have his shoes removed by my lovely assistants. The moral of this story is of course: it wasn't me, nice! Schadenfreude aside though, it's always nice to pay one of my long-suffering friends back in the metaphorical hair-holding back duty / process. What a disturbing concept. Dan and Tim proceded to further revelry, and now Tim may or may not be dead.
In an unrelated matter, why are people named Sara(h) always trying to make me presentable? The poor fools.
Last weekend at Rata Peaks wasn't. In fact not only was this not where we actually were, as Nic pointed out, (instead we were in Mesopotamia. Of course.) but I did not see any peaks with rata on them, although Sarah assured me they were in fact there. Rather than taking the traditional approach of heading into the back country and getting some exercise tramping around mountains and things, we elected instead for the option of heading into the back country and eating non-stop for 3 days. Brief attempts were made to prise ourselves away from the dinner table: I climbed a tree and a hill with Dan in that order, and a river crossing expedition met with great success right up until the last hurdle, progress having been quickened when certain people decided they could afford to get their shoes wet. Thanks to Charles who rescued me from the quicksand my left leg disappeared into on the way back, it looked solid enough at the time. Curse you tricksy tricksy mother nature. We also took a look at Mesopotamia School, closed for 3 years but looking, akin to some kind of educational Marie Celeste, as if the kids were at lunch hour and about to arrive back at any minute for afternoon lessons - art on the walls, desk and chairs in place, those funky counting rods and school journals neatly shelved, fridge and microwave still in the staffroom. Spooky. But depsite these token efforts we unerringly ended up back at the big old house, featuring the Wall of Animal Death (TM) photoboard, consuming great mounds of tasty commestibles and pursuing trivia into the small hours of the morning, and then out the other side until they became quite large hours again. The only downside of the entire trip was a communication breakdown that lead to our supplies of Coke being completely insufficient, the true horror of the situation being summed up by the following gobsmackingly naive statement from Sarah: "Can't you drink vanilla Coke? What's wrong with diet Coke?" (of which we had a 2 litre bottle each...WHY, WHY for the love of GOD, WHY). Asking 'what's wrong with diet Coke?' is of course similar to saying 'Why do people dislike Hitler so much anyway?' So after 2 proper Coke-less days it was a good time to leave, especially after we had run out of food, and Dan was eyeing up the stuffed dear heads on the wall as potential venison stir fry material. And the giant lizards were going to return soon, and in greater numbers.
The car ride back was a big discussion about movies, in which I nearly had the snot beaten out of me for revealing that on my movie list (coming soon to an internet near you, hopefully), based purely on my own subjective opinion of it's entertainment, I had given The Phantom Menace 4 out of 5 stars. I'm not going through my whole argument again, but here's something I thought was interesting I meant to post awhile ago. With Scott Kurtz of PVP fame sort of being a sort of spokesman for geeks, I was interested to see what he had thought of Episode 2, knowing that like many, many people he was really unhappy with Episode 1. So I looked up his news archives at about the right date and found this:
I do want to share with you a little ephiphany I had last week, as three of my friends and I were arguing vehemetly about whether or not PHANTOM MENACE was a good movie.
I'm tired of talking about Star Wars. I'm exhausted. The debates, the arguments, the speculating, the spoilers, all of it. Somwhere between RETURN OF THE JEDI, and THE PHANTOM MENACE, I stopped loving Star Wars and started loving "being a star wars fan."
Somewhere between the late 80's and now, it became more important to talk about the movies, speculate and philosophize about the mythos, than to just like the movies themselves. Somewhere along the line, I stopped loving STAR WARS and just started loving being a geek about Star Wars.
I was one of those people who felt hurt by THE PHANTOM MENACE. I was one of those guys screaming about how Lucas "raped my childhood." I'm one of those guys who has spent the last three years debating the issue with all my other geek friends.
Last night, sitting in that theatre, waiting for five hours to see a movie, I think I finally came to my senses. PHANTOM MENACE didn't destroy Star Wars. PHANTOM MENACE made me realize how silly I am for putting such an intense importance on a series of movies. MENACE didn't make me hate Star Wars, It made me hate being a Star Wars Fanatic.
Luckily, George Lucas gives us fanatics everything that we want in CLONES. Absent are any mention midichlorians or virgin births. All the cheesy lines are delivered by the droid we grew up with rather than a new CGI created character.
It really feels as if this time around, Lucas had at least one person holding him back and reminding him not to do anything that might upset us zombies.
So my non-review of CLONES is a message to all you fellow fanatics out there. Take it or leave it, I really feel it's the truth.
If you don't like ATTACK OF THE CLONES, you have no one to blame but yourself. George Lucas didn't ruin Star Wars for us. I think we ruined it for him.
Hmmmm, interesting.
And that's all I have to say about that. Now I have to post this before it becomes totally irrelevant (even more so). If anyone needs to hear the story of my little brother Josh being slapped in the head by the SAS they can ask me.
Over and out.
Ben Allan [05:15]
