Category: Life and Associated Annoyances

My Own Personal Superpower!

I can hear things you’ll never hear!

I love the internet.

Thanks to this Boing Boing article I am now aware that it’s not normal to hear the following things…

One’s own heartbeat when at rest
One’s eyes moving in their sockets
The creak of one’s own joints and vertebrae
Ones own footsteps transmitted through one’s skeleton
One’s chewing and digestion
A deafening roaring and ringing noise every time one yawns

…and since I can hear those things it’s almost certain that I have Superior Canal Dehiscence – a deformation of the bones around the ear which allows me to perceive all kinds of interesting body noises that normal people are deaf to. How cool is that!?

Of course I should hardly be surprised at any weirdness going on with my ears – they’re so messed up that it’s a minor miracle I can hear anything at all, let alone the inner workings of my own body. Happily I seem to be mostly free of the rest of the nasty symptoms listed on the Wikipedia page. It’ll be an interesting point to raise with my GP next time I see him though!

Why I Laugh?

I have no truck with the Gregorian Calendar!

I was wondering this morning where my Census form is, and speculating on whether the Government believes that I actually exist.

My coworkers pointed out that the Census is on August 9th.

I maintained my stance of puzzlement over where my Census form is, and wondered how I was to fill it out tonight if they didn’t sent me one.

My coworkers pointed out that today is August 2nd.

Oh, how we laughed!

Worst. Saturday. Ever.

Pointlessness

I had plans for this weekend. Enjoyable plans. I was meant to be heading up to John Forrest National park on Saturday with Ryan and Ali. However, things did not go that way…

I needed to get to the bank. I have to swap some large quantities of cash between my savings account at what I shall call Bank A and my normal, day to day account at Bank B, in order to pay for my trip next year. At the same time I have some heavy strata fees coming up and need to make sure I’ve got the cash free to handle them.

I also had a mysterious package to pick up at the post office. Not my normal, close-by post office, but the one in Inglewood, which is so badly sited that I need to take two buses to get to it. Making things even more fun was the fact that if I didn’t get there ASAP they were going to send it back to wherever it came from.

So, I reluctantly cancelled the trip to the national park, and girded my loins to get it all sorted on Saturday morning.

I got up early and had a nutritious breakfast. I then hopped online to check when the bank opened…

…and discovered that it no longer opens on Saturdays. “BASTARDS!” was my reaction, realising that I wouldn’t be able to get over there again until my next day off over a week away. So I revised my plans to skip the bank and headed out to catch the bus to Morley. Which I did.

The wrong bus.

It wasn’t a huge problem as the bus I got went to Morley anyway, it just took the scenic route and arrived five minutes after the connecting bus I wanted departed, meaning I’d have to sit around for half an hour for the next one. On the upside it did go past a noodle bar near the bus station, which I decided to stop into on my way back for lunch, as I was quite in the mood for noodles.

I waited around and got the next connecting bus, which carried me to Inglewood. I jumped off opposite the post office and walked up to the doors… to discover it wasn’t open on Saturdays.

“SINCE WHEN??” was about the most repeatable thing I said.

Considering my options I decided to walk to my parents’ place a few kms away, beg them to pick up the parcel f0r me on Monday and get the train home. So I began my trek. My trek through the rain, thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to get back to Morley and wouldn’t be able to have those noodles I was thinking of.

About halfway – Glory be! – I stumbled across a noodle shop! Fantastic! I crossed the road and walked up to the door. It was locked. It was locked in complete contradiction with the opening hours posted on it, saying it should have opened an hour beforehand. I swore some more and kept walking. Through the rain.

I was just approaching my parents’ street, when something horrible occurred to me. The item I was trying to pick up was an International Signature Item. Could you get other people to pick up an International Signature Item?

I checked the notification slip. No.

More swearing ensued.

By now I was a broken, beaten man. I gave up on visiting the parents and slouched my way to the railway station. I got the train home and crawled into bed, having spent several hours achieving NOTHING.

Bah!

Dolphins? Pah!

Dolphins are seriously overrated.

Just what is the big deal with dolphins?

Everywhere I turn, everyone seems to love dolphins. See the dolphins! tourism ads proclaim. Meet the dolphins! Swim with the dolphins! Swim with the WILD dolphins! Everyone seems to go completely gaga over the damn things.

Well, here’s the thing. Dolphins are seriously overrated.

I’ve met the dolphins. I’ve met the wild dolphins. And they completely failed to impress me in any way.

For many years Australia’s premiere site for communing with wild dolphins was Monkey Mia right here in WA. There are plenty of other places to see dolphins these days, but that was the first place where wild dolphins started coming into the beach and begging for food. It’s still a major tourist draw, despite being in the middle of nowhere, and we stopped off there to meet the dolphins on a family trip back when I was in high school.

And we did meet the dolphins. Or at least the dolphin, as only one turned up. In the midst of a big crowd of tourists we waded waist deep into the ocean and saw the dolphin. We saw the dolphin, we touched the dolphin, we listened to a lecture about the dolphin courtesy of the ranger minding the dolphin, a few randomly selected folk fed fish to the dolphin, the dolphin bit my brother, then got bored and swam away, and we waded out of the ocean.

That was it. No great revelation. No amazing sense of joy, wonder and communication with another intelligent being – just standing around in cold, salty water prodding at something that could have been a wetsuit full of custard for all the profundity it provided.

We returned to Monkey Mia a few years later with my Aunt who was out from the UK and wanted to meet the dolphins. We sat around on the beach until the dolphins arrived and everyone stampeded down to the water – everyone except me that was, as I was reading a rather good book and couldn’t see the point in putting it down to go and stand in the water, gawking at something rather dull that I’d had my fill of the last time.

Everyone was wildly concerned. Didn’t I want to see the dolphins they asked? Was I alright? Was I feeling ill? Was I – my Aunt asked quietly to spare me any embarrassment – scared of the dolphins? No, I explained. I was fine, I’d just seen the dolphins before and didn’t feel that I needed to see them again.

They all looked at me as if I was dangerously insane, but then the lure of the dolphins proved too much and they scurried down to the water, leaving me to my book, which was far more interesting than any cetacean could ever be.

Now, pinnidpeds – particularly the otariidae – I have time for. They’re smart, playful and entertaining, and you can interact with them without getting wet (well, too wet). They have personalities. But dolphins… dolphins are just dull, and fail to excite me.

Read into that what you will – if that is, you have any time for reading while there are dolphins around.

Casting out Ghosts

Yes, it’s one of those “who would play so-and-so” entries…

Woke up this morning intending to have a shower, shave, put a load of washing on and get into some much needed cleaning of the apartment. All of these aims have been frustrated by the revelation that I have no water.

There’s a lot of banging coming from the apartment next door, so I suspect they’re doing bathroom renovations and have managed to switch off my water along with their own. I’m tempted to head out to the… what do you call the place where all the pipes and taps are? A tap cupboard? That’ll have to do. I’m tempted to head out to the tap cupboard and start messing around in the hopes of restoring my water while leaving theirs off, but I’d probably screw up and spray scalding steam all over the renovators – not that that’s a completely unappealing idea in my current waterless mood.

Anyway, of late I’ve been indulging in my Imperial Guard fetish (oh man, that doesn’t sound good does it :)) by reading my way through Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts series. They’re bloody good reads (often summarised as Sharpe in space) and I’ve caught up all the way to Blood Pact, which I will commence upon as soon as Amazon gets its act together and actually delivers it.

When reading a sprawling novel series with a cast of dozens I generally find it useful to consider who I’d cast if I had an unlimited budget to produce a movie or TV series of it. This helps me keep everyone straight in my head. I’ve done this with some of the Ghosts, and – since this is my blog, I can do what I like with it and I’ve got nothing better to do while waiting for the water to be reconnected – I thought I’d list them here.

(I should note that this list is rather strongly influenced by one that I stumbled across online, lest anyone accuse me of casting decision plagiarism. I’d link to it if I could find it again)

Colonel-Commisar Ibram Gaunt: Daniel Craig. As far as I’m concerned Daniel Craig is Gaunt, which makes the current crop of James Bond films rather odd viewing 🙂

Major Elim Rawne: Eric Bana. I think he could easily pull off the combination of charisma and menace required for Rawne.

Master Sniper Hlaine ‘Mad’ Larkin: Hugh Laurie. Not an obvious choice but I reckon Laurie would make a really impressive Larkin. Everyone thinks of him as House of course, and as far as personality goes you couldn’t get much further apart than the domineering doctor and the mentally vulnerable sniper, but Laurie is such a gifted actor that I think he could do it, and do it well. You’d just need to give him a different accent (which you’d be doing anyway) and haircut so everyone doesn’t think “House!” any time he appears on screen.

Sergeant Agun Soric: Bob Hoskins. Another casting choice that just seems to work for me. Hoskins is Soric.

Chief Scout Sergeant Oan Mkoll: Robert Carlyle. Another from the casting list that I stumbled over. At first I thought it was a ridiculous idea, as Carlyle looks nothing like the Mkoll in my head, but after watching his performance in this week’s episode of Stargate Universe I’ve reversed my opinion. He’d make a great Mkoll.

Eszrah ap Niht: Jason Momoa. Momoa seems to be the go-to-guy for big menacing dudes in sci-fi/fantasy at the moment. I can’t recall if Eszrah is meant to be particularly big, but he’s certainly menacing, which makes him seem big 🙂

Major Gol Kolea: Tahmoh Penikett. He’s probably a bit young to really be (former) family man Gol Kolea, but I reckon he’d do the job.

Ayatani Zweil: John Hurt. If he wasn’t willing to commit to an ongoing role, Hurt would also make a great Lord Militant General Noches Sturm.

Trooper Brinn Milo: Colin Morgan. Get rid of that ridiculous haircut and he’d make a great Milo.

Sanian/Saint Sabbat: Ellen Page. Now that’s a casting completely out of left field I know, but I suspect that if she could handle the role, she’d be fantastic in it. Put her on the audition list and see how she goes.

So that’s where my casting list stands at the moment. Yes, it leaves out a bunch of important characters, but I simply haven’t decided who should play them yet. I know I did have a great idea for Varl, but can’t remember who it was. So, roll on the pilot episode people! Let’s get this underway! ;D

Exploring the Lost City

Cycling and Urbex

OK, I didn’t watc h Eurovision last night, and I’m not going to watch it tonight either – I cycled 30km today and need a good lie down as soon as possible. We all know who won anyway, those unbearable Azerbaijanis. Honestly Europe, what’s wrong with you?

As for cycling 30kms, I caught up with Ryan today and we went out to explore a site near his place that – for lack of a better name – I’m calling the Lost City. It’s pretty amazing – photos will be up as soon as I have the energy. We then moved on to an abandoned airforce base – which is nowhere near as cool as it sounds, although we did find some interesting bits and pieces.

In any case it’s the longest ride I’ve done in ages and I am now suffering for it, with various parts of my body complaining loudly. As soon as Merlin is over I’m taking some paracetemol and going to bed 🙂

I am a Kraken from the Sea!

I heard that was you…

Saw two movies yesterday. Well, one and maybe a third of another.

After about a month’s break due to Fabes’s commitments regarding the Dockers and his son we got back to work on the infamous 40k boards again. They are now all sealed, and one has had the magnets installed (they’re actually looking really good now). As is usually the case whenever we get together to work on a project however we realised halfway through that we’d shot ourselves in the feet – installing the magnets on the boards has to be done sequentially and it takes about 24 hours for the araldite we’re using to fix them to cure. Result – an entire afternoon with nothing to do but watch glue dry.

So we put on the TV instead and mercilessly mocked whatever we came across as we channel surfed. We eventually stumbled onto 1972’s What’s Up Doc? and ended up seeing some quite large chunks of it.

The bits we saw weren’t bad. I mean, they weren’t fantastically amusing, but they were OK for a slow Saturday afternoon. And it’s downright startling to realise that back in the day Barbara Streisand was pretty damn cute.

Anyway, eventually I got home, watched the new episode of Dr Who (my opinion on it is in a holding pattern until part two airs next week), then settled down to watch Juno –  a film that I thought I’d like back when it came out, but never got around to seeing.

As it turns out I was right, it was a lot of fun (for some reason Ellen Page pretending to be a Kraken is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen). And it didn’t feel at all preachy – any movie about teen pregnancy runs the risk of turning into some kind of after school special but to me Juno managed just to be a bunch of stuff that happens without any kind of big moral or message. Good, fun, quirky entertainment with characters that you can care about. And krakens.

In my own life my kitchen is now startlingly clean and organised. This is good because I’ve been fighting a bit of a war with cockroaches for a while and it looks like I’ve broken the back of their offensive. Either that or the roach bombs I’ve put up on the window-sill in preparation for fumigating the entire apartment have scared them off. Today I’m starting on the bathroom, which will be a whole world of fun, but at least won’t take as long as the kitchen did.

(Note to cold climate dwelling foreigners who may be reeling in disgust at my arthropod related revelations. In a sub-tropical climate cockroaches are always present. In cold and temperate zones having roaches may be a sign of complete hygienic depravity, but in these warmer parts of the world it’s not a matter of having no cockroaches, it’s a matter of knowing they’re around but keeping numbers down so you only see them when the weather goes all pre-Cambrian and they think they’re running the planet again and can go roaming with impunity. So having a roach problem doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a ragged-haired, garbage-hoarding, slum dweller, it just means I haven’t done the washing up as often as I should :))

Well, back to it.

Baby, I’m Getting Better

I could leave my room, my cocoon, find the door and walk out to the sun

Well, after a couple of months of extreme stress at work, egg-induced illness over the weekend, the general hurly-burly of Easter and the circadian disruption of getting up insanely early for the ANZAC dawn service yesterday, I’m actually starting to feel human again. By this time tomorrow I might actually be up to doing useful things, rather than creeping around muttering “things, things, yes, we must do things, so many things to do” like Gollum ;D

In the meantime here are a couple of fantastic mini documentaries I’ve been meaning to promote for ages. They’re both about the urban development of London and – no! Wait! Don’t leave! They’re very entertaining! Honest!

If you doubt my recomendation (and if so, what the hell is your problem? ;)) just watch the second one, which is more polished and contains a good deal more surrealism. But honestly, you should watch them both, ideally in order.

Enjoy!

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