Hic Sunt Dracones

Music rules.
’nuff said.

(I found some more The Living End)

Is what Pen put on my CV. Go her.

In geek news, I just proposed an article for deletion for the first time, and BAM baleeted. None of this “admins should wait five days” crap for NawlinWiki. No sir. So there you go, I’ve gone from using, to making minor grammatical corrections (aha go people who read the stuff I come up with…), to making more significant changes to BOOM head shot – taking them out. Or at least, setting them up, for others to knock down.

I assume after this I start needing bigger and bigger hits. Of Wikis. Yeah? Hopefully wookies will suffice.

Ben, this here Trailers From Hell is for you.

James, this here awesome space walk stuff is for you. Thanks Russia, for like recording that stuff back then and then NOT purging it at some point in the intervening years. That’s some good interneting right there that is. Thanks BoingBoing.

Flying Free in space (in space), indeed.

And now, we go down the rat hole of circular pointless wanderings… more so.

I may have linked one of these videos before. But I’m like that, or rather like this.

So, back in 2001, Daft Punk released a song, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Something I’m pretty sure I missed completely. But no bother, because here comes the Internet + Too Much Time + Handicam and behold, Daft Hands (wait till the lyrics kick in) and you go, cor, blimey. (Arc: is there anything remotely sign languagey involved there? It looks like it to me, but what do I know) Then, time passes and along comes (c/- Harlequin) The “Groovy Dancing Girl“, which while being sped up, is still, on average, cooler than you. And you wonder where we are going? Well, nowhere to flash, but I was looking up said song (on the aforementioned WIKI) and saw that it was now being used by Kanye West and I went to investigate, and found another video, which I didn’t think much of, till it showed up on BoingBoing as “new video with Zach Galifianakis” and unlike Ben, I have no idea WTF that guy is, but (once again (for the renegade master) to Wiki) and the following quotes showed up (which made me laugh):

“That show ‘The Amazing Race’–is that about white people?”
“I would start a revolution, but… I just bought a hammock.”
“I’m working on this new screenplay. It’s called “Schindler’s List 2: Let’s Get This Party Started.”

So yeah! How about that for wasting your time! Oh yes, I’m the master.

Yes, it appears I’m a sugar n00b, and a texture snob.

We have a new flatmate lined up. Finding a flatmate proved more annoying than it should have. I’m glad (and feel superior) that I was brought up to call people when I’m running late / not going to show up. Many potential flatmates failed on this nicety. Those that did show up all seemed nice enough, aside from one who I vetoed. They were no doubt nice enough, but them and me, I don’t think we would have “gelled” erm, “geled”? A couple of people rejected us, nicely enough with decent excuses. I’ve had them all shot. Some discussion ensued and then the winner came out of nowhere, last person shown through, winner on the day, fine effort and went home with, well a room.

Final link whored off BoingBoing, go read about PIRATES.

I need a tshirt with “You suck at the Socratic method.” Well, I don’t need one.

PS. Grats to Mog, he sent me my much demanded comments on his new phone, and all he got was my sober ramblings, and not even in short order.

Hmm, the grammar goes all screwy there. They were his comments on his new phone, but I demanded them (muchly), and he send them to me. I’m going to leave it there. To fester, and itch. And also, gob.

Next real blog embargoed till Mog tells me how his new cellphone is working out for him. Interim post follows:

Fark headline of the day: Large explosion in New York City near Grand Central. Turns out it was a transformer.

Amusement of the day: xkcd.com is a mighty fine comic. It is more geeky than PA. So you might not think it is as fine as I do. You, as usual, are wrong. (Unless you are usually right, then this is just a oncer.) People are awesome, and these people rock.

Movie Recognising of the day: Watched the end of National Treasure last night as I recovered from touch. I recognised Nicholas Cage, Sean Bean AND Jon Voight. Ben, you’d have been proud. Dear lord, a sequel.

Sugar of the day: My friend Claire once looked down her nose at me for putting sugar on Weetbix, she seemed to think they had enough sugar. She (like those pople above) was wrong. They have from what I can tell, 0.5g of sugar per biscuit, which is the equivalent sugar of about 0.000001ml of coke. My standard serve is four biscuits or 2g of sugar. I declare that to be not enough. Sadly today, the sugar bowl dispenser thing was empty. And when I went searching for the sugar I bought when I arrived I discovered I’d somehow bought 1kg of caster sugar. Hmm looking around I found 500g of caster sugar purchased for last week’s carrot cake icing and even more caster sugar found deeper within the cupboard. But no normal sugar. Boo.

Cake of the day: Actually last week, but damn it was tasty. I had cravings for Cream Cheese Icing (CCI), but MCS insisted that I couldn’t just have CCI on its own. I needed some kind of base for it to be on. Or in my mind, simply a vehicle for icing to me delivery. So to the supermarket in search of carrot cake mix. Then cream cheese! Sadly our branch of Coles, is suck. Actually, after further searching it could be that Australia/ans suck. So to the fridgey area I went. Found cottage cheese, found sour cream, found NO cream cheese. Searched. Searched some more. Enlisted the aid of staff (Which I’m never afraid to do), they looked at me, and gave up.

Asked another customer who was in the vicinity.

Prodded general products till I stumbled upon Philadelphia (the movie, or the planet?) and looked at it. It was labelled as a cottage cheese / cream cheese mix. To which I went, and still go, “Dear God! WHY?!” But looked at other variants of Philadelphia and found one that was just cream cheese. Hurrah.

I had always thought Philadelphia was “some sort” of cream cheese, but apparently it is primarily simply a name brand cream cheese, albeit, usually of a “lite” variety. But even if I knew that, it doesn’t explain why it was the ONLY cream cheese in the whole store. There are like fifty vendors of sour cream, assorted cottage cheese purveyors and hundreds of milk, cream, cheese, youghurt type products, but cream cheese has only one.

Well, yeah, that’s what I got.

The packet cake kicked all sorts of arse. It even managed to have the walnuty crunchness in the cake, without messing around with deploying them on the precious icing. MCS made it. I ate it. A team effort.

No we didn’t need another list of “the” seven wonders. And _if_ we did, I’d rather ask the folks at UNESCO World Heritage. Maybe I’m old and kids should get off my lawn.

And boom! The format wars (Bluray v HD-DVD) came to an end. OK, not an end, but this is an important step. Now that people can rush out and buy a player that will play both, all sorts of other forces should kick in, and push one or other as dominant. Maybe they won’t, we can have two, we can cope, but probably one team will give up after awhile and adopt the others format. Next step, computer based burners that can burn either format. Ding ding. I think I initially though HD-DVD was going to win, can’t recall why, but Blockbuster going with Blu-ray on top of the power of the PS3 has gotta move them back into contention. Gogo Betamax!

New Zealand is getting Naked DSL this year. November 9th I’m told. Should be awesome. I’d have it here if I could, this whole paying for local calls after whoring up Kiwishare is really getting me down. I know many people need a telephone in their house, but I’m not one of them. God created cellphones, then Skype, for a reason. (Some kind of limited to calling 111 service strikes me as the obvious solution to the “when power goes out, so does your VOIP” issues) As an aside, Australia’s emergency number is 000, which is fine, except their international prefix is 0011 which strikes me as closer than ideal.

Flatmate Idol (thanks Si) has progressed to the call them and see if they liked us stage.

So, in six hours or so, the first of seven prospective flatmates will be arriving for MCS and I to check out, and presumably be checked out by. I have to get up early, but have been offered pancakes in return, so I’m all up on. Our other flatmate is moving in with her man, who lives ~1.5 hours yonder, near the beach. Which is a bit of a shame, because she is nice enough, never here and generally what I would consider a good flatmate. Even if she thinks talking on venty to computer people is “weird.”

Now, I’ve never been in this “looking for a flatmate” position before. I think Sara found Claire in about 30 seconds, or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. But Glen moved out, and Claire moved in all in short order. Oh, and at some point Sam must have moved out and Lisa moved in, but erm, yeah again, nothing really to do with me. But this time, I’m front and centre. Or at least front, possibly off to one side, MCS and I will no doubt share centre.

So. What to do, what to do.

I’m really rather keen on reenacting the “looking for a flatmate” scene from Shallow Grave. We have a couch, another couch, and a bicycle. I’m not sure there is really enough room to ride around and around inside the lounge, but if I can lose the dining room table it should be sweet. The main problem is I can’t remember many questions. The internet (obviously) hooked me up:

When was the last time you heard these exact words: “You are the sunshine of my life”?

When you get up in the morning, how do you decide what shade of black to wear? (Will only work on Goths)

So tell me, (NAME), just tell me because I’d like to know, what on earth could make you think that we would want to share a flat like this with someone like you? I mean, my first impression, and they’re rarely wrong, is that you have none of the qualities that we normally seek in a prospective flatmate. I’m talking here about things like presence, charisma, style and charm, and I don’t think we’re asking too much, I don’t think we’re being unreasonable. Take David here, for instance: a chartered accountant he may be, but at least he tries hard. The point is I don’t think you’re trying.

I’d like to ask you about your hobbies… Now when you sacrifice a goat and you rip its heart out with your bare hands, do you then summon hellfire? Or do you just send out for a pizza?

And so on. Although I think the riding the bike around and around them was the bit that really amused me. Beyond that, who knows what kind of question you ask prospective flatmates, aside from obvious questions about serial killing, and remembering to let them walk over the entrance without being invited in. That’s obviously critical. The end of Shallow Grave if you care.

I suppose we just talk to the people that show up tomorrow and decide if they appear to suck, or appear to rule, and hope that their appearance is accurate.

Yes Dave, I’ll look out for hot girls, with hot friends. I’ll keep you posted.

The Good: Alan Johnstone the BBC’s man in Palestine was released. I had pretty much given up on him coming out alive. 112 in captivity is a long time, and after the recent HAMAS / Fatah goings on, I thought it was all over for him. But no, he lives to report another day, and that’s good. Will be interesting to see what the BBC does now with a reporter for Palestine, Johnstone’s three year tour is up, and I suspect he won’t want to re-enlist.

The Bad: New Zealand, or at least, Emirates Team New Zealand, failed to regain the cup. Seems like it was described as “losing the cup,” but we already did that, back in Auckland. I was sad then, losing 5-0… That was sad. I didn’t mind losing too much, I would have preferred we won, but losing itself was OK, but losing 5-0? That was a bit sad. So I’m pleased that this time (as challenger) we didn’t go down 5-0. And the races were pretty good usually. I wonder how they were treated in NZ? Australia cared not at all. I get free live F1 here, but no yatching. (Either Firefox’s dictionary or Wordpress’s doesn’t know how to spell yatching) So I didn’t see any coverage at all. Though Rel in WOW would give me updates, and when he went off to bed I listened on a website (we won). NZ sailors as a Herald editorial points out, seem to kick some arse. I like the way Alinghi can do all sorts of random things to the rules and regulations. Apparently we’ll have bigger, “harder to sail” boats. Goodo. This regatta had a bonus for me as one of my relatives was in Valencia for much of last/this year working on some weather tech for Team NZ. He’s a radio frequency guru.

The Ugly Third In My List: The trailer for Interview is up and looks cool, primarily because Steve Buscemi is in it. And he’s awesome. He also directed it, which led me to films what he has directed and feeling jipped. Didn’t we watch Animal Factory based on its claim to be his directorial debut? ’cause it wasn’t.

Erm, so there!?

I admit I’ve never noticed this:

His character in Reservoir Dogs refuses to tip waitresses. He later made a cameo as a waiter in Pulp Fiction .

Tomorrow’s post will involve flatmates (Wanted: One) and Wikipedia (It’s grand)