Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.

Hang on, I bought some new socks. And I went to the zoo. And I saw Ross Noble.

Ok, so I'm a liar. That shouldn't be a surprise by now.

All of that exciting stuff (yes, even the sock buying!) happened on Thursday. Sam was getting her car serviced, so we met in the city really early (about 9:30am - slightly early for me, super early for Sam), and went to the zoo.

Because we there so early, it was pretty cool for the first hour - no screaming school kids. I've been looking through the photos I took (all 318 of them - is that a little excessive?), and there seems to be a theme to some of them - Sam meets a cow, Sam meets a goat, Sam meets a rabbit, Sam meets Steve Irwin. Maybe I'll post a few if I get them uploaded before I finish with this.

( Hey look, photos! )

Then, other stuff happened, most of which I can't recall right now. Ross Noble talked about hilarious, nonsensical things, and then we went home. The End.

Except it's not, because I don't feel like ending there.

Here's a question: is it so strange to buy a David Bowie CD at the same time as a NoFX CD? You'd think I'd be used to the odd looks I get when I buy strange combinations of things, or borrow them from the library, but I still find it weird. So what if I like completely unrelated things? I'd get pretty bored if I always listened to the same sort of music, or read the same sort of books. Plus, I think the ladies at the library are snobby literary types, so they would probably look down on me no matter what I borrow. Well, I don't care. I like having unpredictable reading habits!

More questions!

Is the plural of Mongoose:
a) Mongooses
b) Mongeese?

According to some dictionary, it's both.

What is the collective noun for a group of Lemurs?

Well, this is boring. It's "group". Surely you can come up with something more interesting than that?

Anyway, I love collective nouns. I'm also amused by this:

Venery can refer to the following:

* The practice or sport of hunting game animals, or the wild animals so hunted.
* The practice or pursuit of sexual pleasure, or the indulgence of sexual desire.

See also

* Collective noun – terms of venery (words for groups of animals)
* Sexual intercourse

Words are fun!

Yeah, I have no other reason for posting than that it's my journal's second birthday, but I'm sure I can find plenty to ramble about anyway!

I'm quite enjoying Robot Movie Month. It's very amusing to see samelthecamel falling back into her Bumblebee obsession. :P But as well as Robots, June seems to be the month of Comedies Set In The Past. It's fairly likely that Sam and I will be seeing Land Of The Lost this weekend, and I can't wait until Year One the week after!

All this talking about movies reminds me of something: Last weekend, Sam decided it would be amusing if we saw 52 movies at the cinema this year, since we seem to go just about every weekend. Since we'd missed out on seeing a movie the week before, cos I was doing family stuff, we decided that we had better start making up for the weekends that we had missed, so we saw Terminator Salvation and Star Trek (It was a long weekend, and there's not much you can do in Adelaide on long weekends).

Anyway, I keep lists of lots of things, so the one that I've been keeping of movies that I've seen has finally been useful! I worked out that there have been 23 weekends so far this year, and Sam and I have been to the cinema 21 times. I was sure it was less than that, because it felt like we hardly went in March. (Actually, we went 3 times, it just felt like less because we saw Friday the 13th in the middle of the day on a Friday, instead of our usual Sunday night.)

So, to some people, this may seem a little sad, but I really don't care, because I love movies, and I love seeing movies in the cinema. Plus, winter is the perfect time for frozen coke. Maybe if I remember, I might document our adventures....

I've just found out that a Deluxe Heirloom Edition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is being released! This is very awesome, as I was actually thinking while I was reading it that they should release a hardcover version! It's going to have colour illustrations too. Looky:

Because it's the 20th anniversary of the Hottest 100, Triple J are doing another Hottest 100 of all time.

But you can only vote for 10 songs. This is almost impossible for me to do, because, for anything that I like, I don't have a definite favourite, or even two or three things that I prefer above all others. I like loads of different stuff, and my favourite this week is almost certainly not going to be my favourite next week, or even tomorrow.

Nevertheless, I am trying to come up with some sort of list. I started by making a list of bands that could possibly have songs in my top ten, and without even thinking too hard, I've come up with over 30. If I start looking through all my music, that will expand exponentially. This is gonna be difficult.

Anyway, it's been a few months since I posted the list of books that I've been reading, so:

APRIL
Conjugal Rites - Paul Magrs
The Chronicles Of Blarnia - Michael Gerber
Tintin In America - Herge
Cigars Of The Pharoahs - Herge
Dearly Devoted Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
The Dark Tower: The Drawing Of The Three - Stephen King
The Book Of Lost Things - John Connolly
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Napoleon - Gideon Defoe

6 of those books I read for the first time. It didn't occur to me until I was actually reading Tintin In America that I was rereading it, and that it had broken my record of 7 months of reading new books. Oh well, that's still a very long time for me to go without rereading anything!

MAY
The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands - Stephen King
Doctor Who: The Eyeless - Lance Parkin
Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone: The Romantic Movement, Rock & Roll and The End of Civilisation as We Know It - Craig Schuftan
The Blue Lotus - Herge
Dexter In The Dark - Jeff Lindsay

I didn't read very much last month, I just couldn't motivate myself to do it, even though I was reading some very good books. The Waste Lands took me two weeks to read, and Hey Nietzsche!, I started in April. BTW, I loved Hey Nietzsche!. I reccommend it very highly, but I'm no good at putting things into to words, so this will tell you about it.

Wow, that brings me very neatly back to what I was talking about before, as Craig Schuftan works on Triple J, and you can listen to podcasts of his segments here. Check out the one about My Chemical Romance and Wordsworth - it's very short, but gives you a good idea of what the book is like (but the book is much more detailed). He also made his own top ten list for the Hottest 100 of all time.

Sam tried to talk me into writing about the Dragonball movie, but I don't want to! I want to reminisce about Dragonball Z!

But I will mention that you were wrong about Yamcha. He wasn't the one-eyed dude (who wasn't even one eyed, he was 3-eyed, and called Tien). But I do remember him now! And all sorts of other stuff that I'd forgotten.

Some research has informed me that Dragonball Z premiered on Japanese TV in 1989, and finished in 1996. WTF???? I can't get that into my head, because for me, Dragonball Z was very much my mid-teens: 2001/2002. It just seems so odd that it's that old....

So now I have a question: When we start watching these again, do we start at Dragonball, or Dragonball Z? Looking at this made me realise that we probably saw Dragonball Z right from the start (which makes sense now that I think about it: Sam and I used to watch Pokemon before school, and we were kinda annoyed when it finished and Cheez TV started showing Dragonball Z, but then we got addicted to that.) So, do we go right back to the start?

Whatever we do, I'm really excited about seeing these again. I'd forgotten until last night how much I loved DBZ!

Also reminded me of what geeks we were in high school, with all of our plots to become Saiyans and Jedis....
We had a convulted plan that started with getting philosophy degrees, so that when we went to America, we would become Sorcerers (as proved by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone), then we were going to do a whole lot of other things that I've forgotten about, and eventually become Jedis and/or Saiyans.

Or maybe I haven't forgotten, maybe it was like the Underpants Gnomes plans:
Phase 1: Collect underpants. Phase 2: ............... Phase 3: Profit.

No really, they are. Time said so. Take that, you shiny bastards!

Since it's been a long time since I've had anything to say on the subject (I blame Freddy, Jason and Michael), it's time for a zombie post!

I'm still waiting for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, to be released over here. One source said it was going to be the end of April, which I was slightly bummed about, until I realised "Oh hey, April is half over already!"

Sam, look: Zombie Honeymoon 2! Maybe we should watch the first one some time?

Dead Snow - Norwegian Nazi Zombies!

And Diary of the Dead is finally being released on dvd - I can't even remember how long I've been waiting for this. The world needs more Romero! Speaking of which, he's making a new movie which is supposed to be released later this year.

Why do I spend so much of my time looking forward to things that haven't happened yet? Oh well, anticipation is fun!

Meanwhile, I'll just laugh at the idiots at IMDB who think that they know everything. "If you wear a heap of layers of clothes, the zombies can't bite you!" Yeah, maybe okay for people who live in cold climates, but what about the rest of the world? Also, that thing that occasionally happens called "summer". Plus, if you're running away from zombies, you'll get quite hot in all those layers. And that scarf you're wearing? Quite easy for a zombie to grab hold of and either choke you or drag you back towards them... Not to mention all your other wacky ideas that may work on humans, or in the world as it is now, but no good in the zombie apocalypse.

(Did I mention that I have thought about this far too much? I have plans! Not to the point of stockpiling food and weapons, but I have a few thoughts on what I'll do when the zombies come....)

Cheap shops are a great source of dvds!

I was at one with my mum today, and not only did I see 3 that I already own, I was very tempted by two and ended up buying two 2-dvd sets!

You do have to wade through a lot of crap, like movies made by famous people before they were famous (my dad thinks that just by having (insert name here) in them, they must be good! I'm a bit more discerning. By which I mean, I like different crap to what he does!). But then you find the odd bit of brilliance, like classic 30's horror, dodgy 50's sci-fi, old comedies, or just great-but-not-well-known movies (like Time Bandits).

Today, I bought two Boris Karloff films, and a Fritz Lang set which has Metropolis in it - I've been wanting to see it for ages! There was also a Bela Lugosi set, but it had White Zombie, which I've already got, so I didn't get it.

I thought that I'd gather together all of my cheap dvds and make them todays subject for the photo challenge!

Books read in March:

Something Borrowed - Paul Magrs
On The Edge: My Story - Richard Hammond
Tintin In The Congo - Herge
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - Stephen King
Serenity: The Official Visual Companion - Joss Whedon
The Dresden Files: Welcome To The Jungle - Jim Butcher
Doctor Who: The Story of Martha - Dan Abnett, et al
The Adventures of Tintin Reporter for "Le Petit Vingtieme" In The Land Of The Soviets - Herge
Death of a Transvetite - Ed Wood, Jr
Doctor Who: Beautiful Chaos - Gary Russell

That's 10 books (all of them read for the first time - 7 months!), with 2 non-fiction books and 3 graphic novels.

Total so far this year:
29 books - 6 non-ficion (I think that's some kind of record for this early in the year!)

I read Tintin in the Land of the Soviets a few weeks back, and the thing that struck me most was the huge improvement in the artwork that Herge made between this (his first Tintin story) and Tintin in the Congo (his second).



(Don't you just love his suit!)

I find it really amazing that by the second story, it looks like the same Tintin that I've been reading for years!

Which isn't to say that the more simple art of this story doesn't have its merits. It's not the most complex of plots, mostly about various Russians trying to kill Tintin so that he can't tell the world what's going on there, so they go well together.

( Cut for the benefit of Sam )

Now I'll finally be able to do something I've wanted to do for years: reread the rest of the Tintin books in order! Next up: Tintin In America!
(If you remember the end of Congo, there was an important story for him to cover in Chicago.)

- I cut my hair, and it's all curlified! I like it very much.

- I have some new socks! Some are normal, and some are long and shiny. I think I might wear some of them today. Only problem is, now I need some skirts that are about knee length, so that you can still see the shiny socks. Maybe Kevin will buy me some. I can't spend all of his money on bras!

- Sam and I saw Frenzal Rhomb last night! They were awesomely awesome. And wow, that was the most violent pit I've seen in a long time. Not to say that they haven't been around, I just haven't been able to see them, since they weren't directly in front of me! HQ was really not built for that sort of thing! Stupid nightclub.....

- I really need a shower. Stupid sweaty drink spilling people.

- I'm sure there were other things I had to say.

- I've read Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Now I'm just trying to wrangle my thoughts into some sort of order. Will be rather different to what I wrote about Congo though.

- I'm going to a wedding tomorrow. Maybe I should go look for my shoes. Parents won't be impressed if I can't find them and have to wear my Cons. Or pirate boots.

- There should be more pirate weddings!

- Punk Week only lasts for one week, not one week and one day! Because what is the point of starting it on Wednesday this week when there was no punk then????
(For those who don't know: Punk Week consists of Frenzal Rhomb last night (Thurs), Die Roten Punkte tonight (Fri) and Rise Against next Wednesday.)

- Bugger it. I can't think of anything else to write, so I'll just have to finish on this anti-climax.

Have you ever seen a Japanese astronaut?
I'll tell you why you haven't seen one.
I'll tell you why...

Because you can't do,
A Japanese tea ceremony,
When you're an astronaut.
It's those damn fat gloves.
Fat gloves...

And you can't do,
A Japanese tea ceremony,
When you're in zero grav.
'Cause the tea goes everywhere.
Tea goes everywhere...


Fringe shows seen so far this year: 5.

Tripod were brilliant as always. And maybe one day I will get around to buying their cds!

When I told my parents I was going to see Tripod, my Dad asked "Is that the one where the guy stands on his knob?". o_0

On Sunday, I took my Mum to see Chopper's Fuckin' Bingo for her birthday. She had a lot of fun, even though she didn't get any numbers, and Dad was laughing a little bit too!

It's one thing to watch bad movies. They're over in an hour and a half/two hours, and they're fun to laugh at with friends.

But reading bad books? I must be mad!
(Especially when I can tell that it's bad, because I usually like everything I come across.)

Which isn't to say that I'm not enjoying it, because I am. It's hilarious!

The book in question is Death of a Transvestite by the infamous Edward D. Wood Jr.

Glen, the main character from Wood's film Glen or Glenda, has become a transvestite assassin, and is now on death row. His last request is to be allowed to die in drag, and in exchange he tells his story to the warden.

Really, it makes sense. Because the perfect disguise for an assassin is as a woman, especially when you look as hot as Glenda does.



Bet you wouldn't have known she was a man if I hadn't told you!

Music meme stolen from everybody!

You guys know the rules, no googling, etc ,etc.

(These aren't the first 50, I had to skip a few, because no-one would have got them!)

( Lyrics here )

I started making a family tree at Genes Reunited just over an hour ago, and I may have already found out some cool information! This is awesome!

It seems that my great-great-great grandfather was born on a ship off of the Cape of Good Hope. Which is really cool, because I've been wanting to know for ages when my family came to Australia.

I'm gonna contact some people and see if I can come up with some more info. Whoo!


EDIT: Grrb! That sucks! I can't send messages to other people on there unless I pay for a mebership. Oh well. At least I've found somethng out!

I've just read Tintin in the Congo, and man, it's so hilariously wrong!!!

If you're planning on reading it yourself, don't look any further.

(Although, I'm not sure why I'm warning about spoilers for a comic that was published in 1930.)

Tintin goes to Africa for no particular reason, and everyone (including a young native boy called "Snowball") is very excited to see him. He has various adventures, hires a 'boy' (because it wouldn't be a Tintin story without a young male companion), defeats a crocodile by wedging his rifle in its jaws, uses a spare rifle to kill fifteen antelope, and then comes the hilarious part that longlongwaytogo told me about:

Snowy is kidnapped by an ape. Tintin states: "If I go after him he'll run away, then I'll never catch him. I'll have to trick him...", which he does by shooting another ape, skinning it and wearing the skin (along with his pith helmet). The other ape is so impressed by the hat (and actually knows the word hat) that he swaps it for Snowy. Hoorah, Tintin saves the day.

But that's not the end. The ape takes a liking to Tintin's gun, and offers to swap it for the hat. Tintin refuses and takes his hat back anyway. Then he kicks the ape in the face and warns it that "Next time, I'll get cross."

But my favourite part of the saga is when Tintin and Snowy return to camp:



And I know it's a kids book, but where's all the blood, guts and other innards from the ape he skinned? He pulls it on exactly like it's a monkey suit from a costume shop!

The next day, he accidentally derails a train, patronises its native passengers and makes them all lift the train back onto the tracks, but doesn't actually help himself (at the same time, he yells at one of the natives for not helping!).

Anyway, as you can see, he saves the day (again), everyone is happy that he gets the train moving again (completely forgetting that he was the one who broke it, and not even considering how it will work once he has left with his car....), Tintin is whisked off to the local village.

Various things happen, and Tintin is made chief of the tribe. He is a just ruler, much like King Solomon. He solves an argument about who a straw hat belongs to by cutting it up, so one man gets the crown, and the other gets the brim. Life is good in the small village. He cures illness, and defeats a nearby, warlike tribe with his modern technology (an electro-magnet that he happened to be carrying around for just such an occasion). The other tribe are so impressed, they make him their king.

Then, a random guy who's been annoying Tintin since he left Belgium finally manages to catch him, and he dangles Tintin over a crocdile infested river. Don't worry, he's okay, because a passing missionary saves him!

Meanwhile Snowy has been eaten by a snake, but he's okay too. Yeah, that'll teach you to be a snake!

Our hero then visits the Mission, teaches an arithmetic class to some native boys



(This is the whole lesson. Maybe if he repeats the question a few more times, they'll get the hang of this maths business), defeats an angry leopard with a sponge, and goes on an elephant hunt (after already having a lion hunt and a leopard hunt). The elephant chases him up a tree, so the elephant killing is left up to a curious chimpanzee. (BTW, Tintin does not know the difference between a monkey and an ape. Do some research, reporter-man!)

The guy from before shows up again, dressed as a missionary, knocks Tintin out and leaves him tied up in a boat that's headed for..... Crumbs! A waterfall! A nearby branch saves him, while Snowy goes to fetch the real missionary, who throws a rope across the river to get to Tintin. But the bad guy is on the other side, about to cut the rope! But not yet, he has to give Snowy enough time to swim across the river, against the strong current, and attack! Tintin, now free, follows. There's a fight on the edge of a cliff and they both fall over! Luckily, Tintin lands on the padded backside of a hippopotamus. The other fellow is not so lucky, he's eaten by crocodiles. And we never found out why he was trying to kill Tintin. :(

After all that excitement, Tintin finds what he thinks is a young boy, but is in for a shock:



We find out that Snowy stole a letter from the bad guy before he died, and now we know the truth! He was hired by Al Capone, who was worried that Tintin would stop his monopoly of the diamond industry. The gansters are caught, and there is much rejoicing.

After dressing as a giraffe, Tintin is picked up by some guys in a plane, because there's an urgent story in Chicago that he has to cover. They've been looking for him for a month, because obviously, his newspaper is too poor to hire any other reporters.

All in all, an enjoyable story, but only if you can laugh at how completely politically incorrect and wrong it is!


Death toll:
approximately 15 antelope
1 unidentified ape
1 boa constrictor (although I suspect the second one didn't live much longer, seeing as he was full of holes and had his own tail jammed down his throat)
4 crocodiles
1 elephant (Tintin didn't kill it, but he had no problems with taking its tusks) (I almost called them antlers. I think this lack of sleep is getting to me)
1 evil henchman
1 buffalo
and my brain. This was far too hilarious, in a "What? People used to be able to get away with this?" way.

(while writing this, I had a complete mental blank about how to spell "throat". Turns out, it has an "a" in it. *facepalm*)

I'll be reading Tintin in the Land of the Soviets soon, so maybe I'll have some tales of vodka and furry hats to tell.

So, the Fringe has been on for just over a week, and I've now seen 3 shows (all over this weekend!).

The first one was on Friday night. The Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman. It's set in a parallel steam-punk world, full of Victorian values and British stiff-upper-lip-edness. (And dastardly Frenchman!) It was brilliant and very fun.

Last night, Sunday, there were two shows. The first was the Adelaide University Choral Society (aka schubomb's choir), who were singing songs by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, Queen, etc, etc. Also a few songs from Jesus Christ Superstar.

I explained to longlongwaytogo my complete misinterpretation of that musical when I was about 11/12. I was in my primary school choir, and we were singing I Don't Know How To Love Him and Superstar, and I thought I Don't Know How To Love Him was meant in a religious way.... Yeah, someone wasn't paying attention to the lyrics! And then with Superstar, I felt very uncomfortable singing a song about Jesus. Luckily, I saw the musical a few years ago, so now I understand it!

Also, sorry we had to run out at the end before we could say goodbye, schubomb. We had another show to get to, and we had no idea how long it was going to take to get into the Garden Of Unearthly Delights, seeing as the line on Friday night was rather long....

We were going to Felicity Ward's Ugly As A Child Variety Show, and it was great! I won't say too much about, because Nyree wants to see it.

Ooo, my parents are gone! I'm gonna go watch Buffy!

There's a lot of things I could be putting here, like my Soundwave photos, or talking about how pissed off I am at bastard customers, but I'm going to see Dad's greyhound race in a little while, so I'll just post the list of books I read last month.



FEBRUARY
Lyra's Oxford - Philip Pullman
Book Of The Dead: The Complete History Of Zombie Cinema - Jamie Russell
Nation - Terry Pratchett
Doctor Who: Revenge Of The Judoon - Terrance Dicks
Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay
I Am America (And So Can You!) - Stephen Colbert
Postern Of Fate - Agatha Christie
Never The Bride - Paul Magrs
The Amory Wars: The Second Stage Turbine Blade, Volume 1 - Claudio Sanchez
The Toyminator - Robert Rankin

So, that's 10 books, all of which I read for the first time.

I loved Never The Bride, and I finshed reading the sequel, Something Borrowed, a few days ago. Highly reccommended. Classic books that are true stories in this world: Dracula, Frankenstein, War Of The Worlds and some others that I can't think of at the moment.

I guess most of you know by know that Sam and I went to the Soundwave festival yesterday. We had an awesome day, but we were so buggered by the end of it. It was only 27 degrees C (81F), but it felt so much hotter than it did at the Big Day Out, when it was over 40 degrees. I think it was because we were in the sun all day, and there were no hoses or misting tents (which was probably a good thing. Bonython Park is a dust bowl, so if there were hoses, it would have been very very muddy!)

Bands we saw:

Madina Lake
Goldfinger
Underoath
Anberlin
Hellogoodbye
The Bloodhound Gang
Billy Talent
In Flames
Nine Inch Nails

plus a few others that we only saw a few songs.

I took far too many photos that I like, so I'm gonna post them a few at a time.
(Sam would have even more - she took over 1000 photos!)

These are ones that amused me for various reasons.

( Photos, photos, everywhere. )

If you want to see more, I have some pictures that are actually good. :P

I really want to go to Monroeville. Which is kinda idiotic because the only place I want to go there is the mall, not because it's an especially good mall, but because there were once zombies running around there.....

Yay, back to normal idiocy instead of whining idiocy!

So, I discovered that the Shiny-Toed Man from Halloween 5 will be explained in the next movie. Which is good, cos he confused the hell out of me. Trouble is, it doesn't seem to be on dvd yet. At least, not here..... And I think it will be awhile before Sam and I get to watch the rest of the Freddys, or all those Friday the 13ths she bought, because the Fringe starts next week, and it's hard enough trying to organise a night when we can go see a show, so organising a movie night somewhere in there will be a bit tricky.

But, I've just discovered that it would be possible to see schubomb's choir and Felicity Ward on the same night......

Is it weird that I want a room like this?



You see, I was looking for Firefly pictures about an hour ago, and then I stumbled onto some pictures of a Lego Serenity that this guy had made....

Then I started looking at some other things, including this article about the evolution of lego sorting, where I realised that a few years ago, I made it to Level 11, before getting sick of my cousins messing up my system, so I regressed to Level 3, with certain favourite sets kept in a seperate box.

I know where all of this leading to, I've been there many times......



I'm not sure why, but I have a squid.

Ok Sam, I'll be the pink Beatle! So, if you're the blue one, we just need to find a John and a George.




Damn, now I want to watch Yellow Submarine again. Maybe I should just buy it....