The Rest of Your Life (v3.0)

So I read this post recently by Mike Jones over at Digital Basin, and felt the need to respond. I was originally just going to leave a comment on his blogpost, but (as usual) it’s gone a little longer than I’d originally intended, so I’m going to post it here instead

——

Hi Mike – an interesting read indeed.

However, I think you might be over-estimating the power of ‘aspirational’ interface design, and letting your own previously accumulated ‘usage paradigms’ cloud your assesment of Moviestorm’s ease-of-use (and appeal).

For the record, I’m a 30-something ‘hobbyist’ film-maker, part-time musician, and (former) freelance web & graphic designer, now working in a primarily non-creative role at an online advertising agency. I’m not a HARDCORE gamer, and my skills using ‘traditional’ 3D toolsets and/or game engine ‘mods’ are severely limited, meaning all my short-lived stabs at making Machinima in previous years have come to nought.

So I guess I’m in the ideal ‘target demographic’ for a product like Moviestorm (and by your argument, Antics).

In the last few days I’ve tried both Moviestorm (now in ‘stable’ release, but still very much in development) and Antics 3.1. The thing is Mike, the very aspects of Antics’ GUI that you laud are the ones which most turn me off. As you point out, Antics by design has opted very much for a ‘traditional’ 3D application interface. For the ’3D-dyslexic’ user, it recalls the (to us) CLUNKING aesthetics of ‘high-end’ apps like 3DS-Max, Maya, and (to some extent) Poser.

Don’t get me wrong – I realise these are all truly powerful, truly mature applications, and as you said in your article, anyone with a modicum of experience in the aformentioned ‘high-end’ environments will feel right at home with Antics, and be able to create a scene in half an hour like yourself. This is the market segment Antics was originally aimed at (‘pre-viz’ for feature films, allowing guys who would previously have had to use a full-blown app such as one of the above, to simplify their workflow).

That GUI paradigm however, makes Antics a pain, rather than a joy to use, for the rest of us ‘mere mortals’ who don’t have a few years of ‘high-end’ production experience under our belts. If you’re completely new to 3D and Machinima, then you’re learning a new interface regardless. If (like me) you’ve tried the ‘big boy’s applications’ before, and been frustrated by the steep learning curves and highly-specialised paradigms, then another GUI which draws on this legacy of ‘shared 3D misery’ is going to be a turn-off.

Contrast this with Moviestorm. It’s a ‘fresh’ interface in many ways in terms of Machinima authoring (which isn’t a bad thing – for example, part of the reason Flash has become such a ubuquitous tool for rich media creation on the web, is that in it’s earliest incarnations it was such a RADICAL departure from the way web content had previously been authored), whilst at the same time recalling games titles like The Sims 2 & The Movies.

Its ‘power’ and its appeal lies precisely in it’s (apparent) ‘simplicity’. The mistake you’ve made in your article is assuming the ‘hobbyist’ user is going to ‘aspire’ to use a ‘high-end’-like tool. For Pete’s sake why ? We’re not talking about ‘aspirational voting’ or ‘aspirational lifestyle choices’ here Mike, we’re talking about software usability. For an ‘old-hand’ Antics is a breeze, but for a ‘noob’ to the field it’s a nightmare. Less of a nightmare than a pro-level app, but still a nightmare.

I think the REAL problem with your post is you’ve lost sight of the ‘end goal’. Yes, someone like myself or the ‘archetypical hobbyist’ ASPIRES to be a bona-fide ‘professional’ film-maker. Read that again carefully. FILM maker. Not necessarily a professional ‘Machinima maker’. We respect the work that ‘pioneer’ Machinima producers have made, and the EXTREME skills they’ve shown in coaxing convincing performances out of game engines, ‘traditional’ 3D tools, and ‘pre-viz’ products like Antics. However, we don’t necessarily ‘aspire’ to following the same routes they have to making their films – animated, or otherwise. What matters at the end of the day is the final product (the film) – not how many hoops you had to jump through (even though as I said, the guys who’ve done it the ‘hard’ way definitely get all deserved props for it) to make it.

That’s why – at least for me (and I suspect the rest of the steadily growing Moviestorm user-base), Moviestorm have made nothing but the RIGHT choices in their choice of interface paradigm, and overall application design. It’s simple, it’s easy to use, it’s blisteringly fast, it hides a lot of surprisingly advanced features under the hood – and in a few hours work (without even reading the sparse documentation, just doing two tutorials) I was able to conceive, execute and render a short-film concept in 3D complete with dialogue, auto-lipsync, and camera movements from scratch.

Something which, alas, I couldn’t do with Antics – or any other piece of software I’ve tried over the years !

[end rant]

Thanks for listening

Pete

[POST-SCRIPT 21/07/07]: So I just found out today from having more of a read of Mike’s blog, that he’s actually the Head of Technological Arts at the International Film School in Sydney (a film-maker’s ‘college’ offering courses that will set you back $20K a year in tuition fees !) In fairness to Mike, Johnnie Ingram has pointed out the original article was written in a bit of a ‘devil’s advocate’ mood, and Mike DOES champion ‘open-source’ apps like Celt-X over higher-priced proprietory software on occasion. Nonetheless, I think Mike’s giving Moviestorm more of ‘bum rap’ compared to Antics than it deserves

[POST-POST-SCRIPT 22/07/07]: As you’ll see from the edited post-script above (and the comments), Johnny INGRAM left a comment on my blog ! As Paris Hilton would say – that is like SO cool. Seriously … Bloodspell … Strange Company … Moviestorm … Johnny Ingram ! And NO – for once I’m NOT being sarcastic. Thanks Johnny !

So … just read this over @ the SMH – “Between 3pm and 7.30pm today, there will be 92 motorcade movements around the city”.

Yeah … great … as if we Sydney-siders weren’t incovenienced enough already, with a FUCKING 5 KILOMETER STEEL FENCE AROUND THE CBD, crowds of renta-goons and uniformed police hanging around like a bad smell and frisking all and sundry (including the hilarious Steph over at Much Ado‘) as potential terrorists, the daily noise of helicopters & jets overhead, bus route disruptions, road closures, and ‘special clearways’ UP TO 11 KILOMETRES AWAY FROM THE FUCKING APEC SUMMIT SITE !!!

Who was the ABSOLUTE SODDING MORON that pitched for this thing to happen in Sydney anyway ? Was it Iemma, or did this come as an edict from Johnny up on high (given that APEC is after all a FEDERAL summit, not something that the State governments are involved in) ? I don’t see the benefit to NSW (and especially Sydney) myself, sorry.

The IDEAL place to have had this summit, in my oh-so-learned view, would have been Canberra. It’s a federal summit, so have it in the federal capital, right ? No real people live in Canberra (hehe sorry, but it had to be said), it’s the heart of the beaurocracy, so why the hell didn’t they hold it there ? Oh … right … Johnnie wouldn’t have been able to take Dubya to lunch at Bondi Icebergs on the Sunday then.

See, that’s something else that gets my goat. You want to block off the CBD so you can play ‘world politics’ with your mates ? Fine. You want to make it virtually impossible for Sydney-siders & tourists to enjoy famous Sydney areas like the Opera House, The Rocks, Circular Quay etc ? Fine. BUT STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THE SUBURBS, YOU GREEDY BASTARDS !!!

Here’s a little snippet from the ‘Bondi Bulletin’ of the APEC site -

“If you are having guests to your home to watch the ‘Festival of the Winds’, please let them know in advance that they will not be able to park at your home and to consider public transport. You will need to escort your guests to your home and vouch for your guest. Residents will be asked to provide identification.”

I’m sorry, we don’t (yet) live in a police state (or so you would have thought) … why the hell should Bondi Beach residents be forced to sodding ‘escort’ & ‘vouch for’ their guests, and provide resident identification, all so some fat fucking politicians wives + Dubya can have lunch at Bondi Icebergs ?

The other alternative to Canberra, if we had to have this shit in NSW, would have been to hold the APEC summit at some picturesque country location, like the Hunter Valley or Port Stephens. Book out all the hotels in Newcastle, plus all the actual Wine Estate accommodation in Pokolbin for a week, and you’d think you’d be right.

Now my mate G, who’s actually one of the boys in blue (and therefore working this weekend, unlike most of the rest of Sydney), reckons that the reason this had to be held in our town was because with all the delegates, their individual security teams, and various hangers on, the summit will actually have 15,000 attendees. Firstly, to me that sounds like an implausibly huge number.

15 HUNDRED I could easily buy, but 15 THOUSAND ? WTF ? Have we got the entire population of Nauru turning to APEC or something ? People, if we have 15,000 fuckers turning up to go to this thing, then there is something seriously wrong here. GET RID OF THE HANGERS ON, YOU DICKHEADS ! If we had 1,500 instead of 15,000 of the ‘Dubya & Friends’ fucktards to deal with, we could EASILY have fitted them all in to some suitably picturesque (and more importantly, out of the way) regional centre, instead of having to bring the centre of Sydney to a virtual standstill.

Anyhow, things being what they are, *I* am getting the hell out of Sydney this weekend instead, and taking my lovely wifey to the Hunter Valley again. So nyer, nyer, APEC fuckers … while you’re blocking off the centre of my town, and copping (rightly deserved) demonstrations and general angst from the people of Sydney, I’LL be eating cheeses, drinking wine, and shagging in a ‘picturesque regional centre’. To think y’all could have been there instead of us … and then everyone would have been happy !

Just a tip for next time, if you’re reading this Morris

Listening To: Endtroducing : DJ Shadow

Current Horn Factor :

Quote of The Day

ooze take a hot swedish chick from behind, bend over to her ear.
ooze and whisper “i have aids”, then try to keep your penis inside of her.
ooze thats swedish rodeo

What did you guys get up to on the long weekend ? IG and myself moved house. Two words – fucking nightmare !

It should have been easy – we were only moving 5 minutes down the road from Bondi to Woohlarra. True, there was an additional step at the start of the move which involved picking up a small amount of furniture from my self-storage unit in Castle Hill first (near my parents house), but this should have been no hassle for the removalists. I’d used them before, to move from the apartment I’d been sharing with the fat Wiccan chick and her two cats in Artarmon to Bondi. I’d been more than happy with their service on that occassion, which is why I decided to go with them again this time around.

Now, I had to extract the furniture they would be required to pick up from Castle Hill out of the storage unit and get everything else back before they arrived, so I got there two hours earlier to give myself enough time to achieve this task. Therefore I was definitely not impressed when their receptionist rang me a little later to say that the truck would be anywhere between two to two and a half hours late. Sure enough, an hour after the original designated arrival time (and 3 hours after I’d arrived on the scene, for those playing at home) they still hadn’t shown up, so I gave their office a call and got the receptionist to concede to giving me an hours worth of their time at no charge.

Two and a half hours after the truck had been scheduled to arrive (i.e. 4 1/2 hours of my life wasted waiting around at a storage depot) they finally turn up. They take a look at the pile of furniture I’ve managed to drag out of the storage unit. “Is not too much. How many floor at destination ?” they ask me. I’m not entirely sure, having only been to our new place a handfull of times prior to that morning. “Umm, I think it’s 5 flights of stairs” I hazard a guess. “Fifth floor withou a lift ? You fukkin kidding me, right ?” says the driver. “No, there’s no lift. I think it’s the fifth floor, yeah. It’s up the top” I reply. “There an extra charge for that” he tells me. “Ok fair enough. Look, Jack (their receptionist) was telling me I get an hour free since you guys are more than two hours late. I don’t want to pay any extra charge just because you have to walk a few flights of stairs. So how about we forget the free hour and I pay you for all your time, but you waive the ‘extra stairs charge’ ?” I offer. Unfortunately, this is where the situation completely breaks down.

The removalists start bitching about the free hour, even though I’ve just wasted 4 1/2 hours of my freakin’ time waiting for them to show up. They say Jack should never have offerred it, and it doesn’t matter that they’re late. They bitch about the stairs. They get on the phone to their boss and speak in Chinese. Their boss gets on the phone to me and tries to make me feel bad because I didn’t tell them it was going to be five flights of stairs when I made the booking. I point out to him that it’s not my fault, because he didn’t bother to ask me how high it was when I made the booking with him. He says he’ll speak to Jack and hangs up on me. Then he calls them again. They bitch some more.

Then the fucktards come over to me and tell me “so sorry mate, but we no do the job. You get someone else, uh ? Pay extra maybe, but you get someone else. We no do”.

Well sodomise me with a cricket post and call me Warney ! It’s 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, on a long weekend with not one but two football code grandfinals (AFL & NRL) looming … these little lotus-eating Chinese pricks know my chances of finding replacement removalists on such short notice are virtually nil, never mind the expense I would have to foot if I did actually manage to convice someone else to take the job. I just want to plunge red-hot BBQ tongs into the drivers eyeballs until they enter his brain, and dangle his offsider naked and smeared with pig’s blood over a pool of hungry freshwater crocs (true Aussie style torture in keeping with the spirit of the weekend) – but I keep my outward calm and tell them “no, look … that’s fine. Shit happens buddy”. Consumer affairs and the blogosphere will be hearing about this – no point in getting into a blue when I still have to figure out a way to move all our stuff today, and I’ve got maybe 3 hours of daylight left.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I ended up hiring a ute from Kennards and moving all the furniture myself with the help of my mate G and his girlfriend C. Turns out I was wrong about our new building too … there are 6 flights of stairs, but it’s only 3 floors (two flights a floor). Basically, those removalists belong on the Chinese Womens Olympic Swim Team, because they’re big bloody girls !!! If a puny specimen like me (and my mate G, who’s ex-army and built like a brick shithouse … but the point is he was the only one even remotely equipped for shifting furniture) can get everything loaded up on the ute on his own (the first trip) and up those stairs with help (the first and 2 subsequent trips), then the non-effort by A2A Removals is just piss-weak.

Let that be a lesson to you gang, and pass this word around – NEVER EVER USE A2A REMOVALS WHEN YOU’RE MOVING HOUSE – THEY ARE LIKELY TO PISS YOU AROUND, DEMAND MORE MONEY THAN ORIGINALLY AGREED, AND POTENTIALLY LEAVE YOU COMPLETELY HIGH-AND-DRY, MEANING YOU HAVE TO END UP MOVING EVERYTHING YOURSELF.

 And they’re big nancy girls too !

Listening To: Old School Anthems : Various Artists

Current Horn Factor :

Quote of The Day

David Finally. It works. My Palm is working.
schnorks Now you can hold stuff

Looks like it’s a been a while between drinks again at ye olde TROYL bar, my blogfriends. Surprise, surprise eh ?

I haven’t been posting for a variety of reasons. One of these is the fact that the divine IG and I have just been to Europe for 3 weeks – Czech Republic to precise. It was fantastic to get away for a while and catch up with family that I haven’t seen for a few years, as well as introducing them all to the woman I’ll be marrying in another 6 months. You’ll find some photos from our trip at the above blog, including some very tasty shots I took when we did a sight-seeing tour of a brewery. Mmmm … pivo (beer in Czech). Not to mention some shots of me looking even f@*#ing fatter than usual … if there’s ever been a time to start exercising again now is definitely it, before I start giving Laurie Oakes a run for his money as Australias fattest political commentator ! Of course he’s already got one up on me – he actually gets paid to make and break the public careers of our ‘elite’ whilst hiding behind the facade of objective journalism, whereas I merely skirt the periphery of libel law as a ‘hobby’. For me it’s all about the love, y’all …

The other big reason I haven’t been posting is of course due to work committments – that perennial old chestnut. The last three months since Easter have been a real bitch, and the fortnight before we went away even more so, as I dutifully engaged in a flurry of training and documentation activities to try and get everyone (including my immediate supervisor ‘D’) up to speed on the tasks I’d be delegating to them in my stead whilst overseas. No time, energy or much congnitive coherence left to spare after getting home from the salt mine, hence no blog posts. I thought it couldn’t get much worse. Niave little me …

We came back from Prague on Monday morning around 6 a.m and both go straight back to work on the Tuesday – as you do. That’s when I find out that D hadn’t bothered doing the most crucial of the tasks I’d left him; to whit compiling our team and SBU performance & KPI statistics. Normally I collect, compile and report these on a weekly basis, as well as producing monthly, quarterly, annual, and ad-hoc (usually client specific) reports, analyses and summaries for various stakeholders within management and our organisation as a whole. Technically this is all supposed to be a part of D’s job rather than mine in the first place, but I was ‘volunteered’ for it by our division head over a year ago when D was first promoted to the position of our team leader. Nonetheless you’d think he would have made the effort to do it just this month while I was away. Hell … if he was feeling particularly ‘snowed’ he could have always asked the person who used to do these reports before I did (and who still works within our organisation, just in another capacity) to give him a hand.

But no,

D’s left the whole fucking pile of paperwork – all 3 weeks worth, plus the one missed monthly reporting deadline meaning no report has been sent to regional HQ in Hong Kong, sitting on my desk for me to try catch up on when I have time !!!

Great ! Don’t get me wrong – as a person D is a lovely guy, and probably the nicest bloke I work with. I’d go so far as to say he’s up in the top 3 nicest bosses/supervisors I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a few), number two being Taz (a mate of mine from highschool whom I did some call centre work for a few years ago), and the top spot going to a truly awesome man from Shri-Lanka named “Duleep DeLivera” who used to run the Diners Club Business Card call team @ C&R in Parramatta just before the tsunami hit South East Asia back in 2002 (?) and I got out of the call centre industry. I also understand that D has a lot on his plate, given that along with our team he concurrently heads up our small despatch department and still maintains his previous role of in-house trainer for our production/programming team. Nonetheless, the fact that he’s left all this work for me to catch up on now that I’m back really pisses me off, and if I wasn’t so into maintaining a ‘calm facade’ at all times (read “passive-aggressive”), I’d tell him exactly how cheesed off I am !

I’m still quietly fuming, and trying to think of what I’m going to say to our division head to buy myself some time to polish off the steaming pile of paperwork dog-turds which D’s left in my in-tray, when said division head comes over and drops an even smellier brand of horseshit right in my lap. Sit down now boys and girls, and let me give you the ‘gen on the latest travesty in DB’s World ‘O Work (TM) .

Without going into too much detail, our company has been trying to transition from one in-house data processing system to another for quite some time now. We’re about 5 years behind schedule, to be precise. It’s actually become a bit of a running joke, mentioned with self-deprecating sniggers at various meetings over the 3.5 years or so that I’ve been working here. After leaving the company for the first time, I came back and actually worked in our conversion team for six or so months of “staring-at-the-screen-all-day” hell. As you and I both know however, coders have poor personal hygiene, no social skills, play World of Warcraft online, and smell vaguely of corned beef and pickles – so I got myself out of that particular team as fast as I could.

Recently however the ‘running joke’ has come back to bite everyone on the arse, as our senior management along with region, have started to push for the completion of the aforementioned conversion project. Just before I left for Prague, yet another set of deadlines was announced for the coding team – the final, final, FINAL, no more exceptions, no more ‘crying poor resources’ (always a fair call in our permanently understaffed organisation), no getting away from it this time set of deadlines. “You poor bastards” I thought to myself, as I happily jetted off for 3 weeks of drinking beer and catching up with the fam in the sweltering European summer heat.

I get back on the Tuesday and as I’ve already discussed, I find out D hasn’t done any of ‘my’ (his) work as he was supposed to. I’m pondering how to negotiate for enough time to catch up on it with our division head, when she comes over and ambushes me with the following bit of wholly unwelcome news:

I have just been tractor-beamed back to the conversion coding team (albeit temporarily, but given the history of this project who knows how ‘temporary’ that will realistically be), along with various other people who no longer work as coders in our organisation, including one poor sucker who hasn’t coded for more than a decade, and a few people who didn’t work for us at all anymore prior to my holiday, and who’ve been lured back on temp contracts. We’re expected to work 13 hour days, 6 days a week. None of this is optional. Do not pass go. DO NOT FÇ•CKļNG COLLECT $200 !!!

OK, that last bit isn’t entirely accurate. Extra working hours mean overtime rates … but when you’re only earning $19 odd dollars an hour, the extra pay isn’t going to amount to that much (especially when you factor in Australia’s exhorbitant marginal tax rates). Besides, when thinking about these things I always like to keep in mind what my highschool economics teacher used to tell us “never forget to factor in the opportunity cost”. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I’ve been stuck @ work since 08:30 this morning. I could be at the beach, I could be going for a bike-ride to shed some Laurie Oakes, I could be messing around with my keyboards trying to write the next number 1 dance hit that will end up being used in a Heineken commercial, I could be getting drunk with my girl @ home or at the pub, I could be getting hot and steamy with my girl @ home (maybe not at the pub, although a porn career might be one alternative way for us to pay the bills ….zzZZT not!) … I could, in fact, be just about anywhere but fucking (butt fucking ?) here !!!

So jaaaaa … I was already looking into a career change before I went on holiday. Keeping my options open, whilst still trying to exercise some degree of selectivity. I actually had one interview just before we went away for a job which would have involved about a third of the responsibilites I have now (correction had – before the tractor-beam), but paid $68K. Didn’t get it, obviously. Right now though – I’m almost ready to actually ditch selectivity. I was talking to mates the other night, and together with my fiancé they’ve managed to talk me out of going the “night-shift security” route. I did pick up a job application form from my favourite service station on Victoria Road this morning though. I simply can’t stay here any longer. God knows I’ve been talking about leaving for long enough (almost as long as I’ve had this blog, more or less).

This time though I really need to do it. I’ll give it another week or two at most … just enough to see some of those overtime hours flowing into the wedding savings account. Then my friends I really need to tender my two weeks notice. Otherwise, I fear – to paraphrase Cornelius (Edward Norton) from Fightclub – “this buttoned-down psycho will stalk from department to department, armed with an Armalite-15, indiscriminantly mowing down friends and co-workers. It could be someone very close to you … someone you know”. Alright, OK … it wouldn’t be anything that dramatic. It would probably result in the most public dummy spit this company has seen in at least as long as I’ve been working here though, and dummy spits are bad. You need to retain at least semi-cordial relations with former employers for those all-important “reference checks”.

So with that in mind – Lisa, Mel, and anyone else reading this blog who either has a say in the recruitment process at their work, or can influence someone who does – if you know of any openings, please let me know. All serious offers, interview requests and “I know a friend of friend who might be looking for someone”s will be considered !

Peace out.

Listening To: Goodbye Country, Hello Nightclub : Groove Armada

Current Horn Factor :

So I’ve mentioned previously the pressure to look good, now that I’m living in Bondi – Sydney’s epicentre for well tanned, superbly muscled surfer dudes. In a serious bid to start trying to get back in shape, I went and bought myself a new bicycle a few weeks ago. Check it out -

Isn’t is sweeeet ? Shopping around online, I managed to pick up the sexy bit of engineering you see above brand new for less than I paid two or three years ago for a second-hand bike with fůcked up gears and dodgey brakes. To date my riding is going well, and despite not being a morning person I’m actually managing to get up at 6am and go for a ride most mornings. On the weekend I also managed to finally motivate myself to pick up the free-weights again after going for an extended ride, and topped that all off with a bit of session using our flatmates punching bag. Buffness here we come

Now that the weather is getting warmer, IG and I have also been going to the beach most weekends. We had a lovely picnic the other day at Coogee, overlooking the beach and the headland, complete with good wine, an assortment of great cheeses and stellar conversation as usual. “Choice bro” as the Kiwis would say One thing that I’m finding a bit perplexing at the moment though is the thong situation …

Basically, I need a new pair of thongs to wear to the beach. Now for our American readers, I’m not referring to the item of female underwear we here in Australia call a “G-String”. I am of course talking about the quintessential piece of antipodean footwear which I believe you call “sandals”, and the Brits designate “flip-flops”. What I want is a cheap, nasty, generic $2 pair of paper-thin rubber-soled ‘double pluggers’ made in China, Vietnam or an equivelant third-world country which I can pick up at my local thrift store. Surely not too much to ask, is it ?

Last time I purchased a pair of said no-name thongs for the princely sum of $2 was a few years ago in Parramatta. For those unfamiliar with Sydney’s geography, let me tell you Parramatta is an inland suburb in Western Sydney which is nowhere NEAR a frikkin beach nor any similar body of water. Sure … you can go to Parramatta Lakes … but this in the middle of bush reserve where one of my highschool friends once almost stepped on a red-bellied black-snake but for my quick reflexes. Not exactly thong-friendly.

I’m telling you this because I niavely assumed that living in Bondi, finding a similar pair of thongs at my local discount store wouldn’t be a problem. How wrong I was ! Logic of course would tell you that if you can buy cheap, nasty thongs at a cheap, nasty store nowhere near the beach, finding an equivelant pair in an equivelant store in Bondi would be a breeze. Nyet, nyet, nyet ! I’ve been to every bargain and convenience store in the Bondi Junction mall strip, and a fair few down at the beach, along with most of the beach front souvenier stores. Most of them simply don’t have thongs at all … the few that do have hideous patterned ones obviously aimed mostly at the female market and costing at least $6.95

I could of course duck into any of numerous surf-wear shops and pay $15-30 for a pair of suitably branded ‘designer thongs’ … but who in their right mind would do that, except a tourist or a tragic fashion victim ? We’re talking thongs people, not fØcking Manolo Blahnik stillettos …

so why the F#^R&*#$ can’t I find a cheap, ordinary, no-frills pair ‘o thongs within a 20km radius of the sodding beach ?

Tell me that, coz I wanna know ! Gaaaaaaaaah !

Thongs Update: (13/10/05) OK, so I caved and got meself a pair of thongs from Target (our equivelant of Wall-Mart) for $6 a pair. Granted, they might be better than the $2 pair I got last time … the sole is about as thick as my pinkie finger, as opposed to being the thickness of a (jamless) pikelet. But it’s the whole question of principle … I shouldn’t have to pay six dollars for a pair of measly blue and white, basic flip flops. Oh yeah … and the Target I got them from is @ Macquarie Centre, just near my work. Which … surprise, surprise … is nowhere near the fekking beach again !

Listening To: Choose One : 1200 Techniques

Current Horn Factor :

My apologies to anyone who read this post in it’s original (short) form, but I’ve decided it’s better to expand on the reasons for my glee at the most recent BB05 eviction, and to simultaneously tackle a rant that’s been a long time coming in the process. I’ve also edited it again now (as you’ll see from the post above referring to it being taken down temporarily) to take some of the ‘sting’ out … because I realised I was getting a little bit too worked up over some of the later stuff and I don’t want you guys to get the wrong idea ! Anyhoo …

The eviction I’m referring to is of course that of Vesna – the subject of a what was my shortest TROYL post to date earlier in the week, exhorting you to use the power of network-sanctioned democracy to make sure her whiny Macedonian arse was voted off the show. Seems Australia heard my impassioned cry – because come last night, this spoilt princess was indeed booted out of the BB05 house. Sitting rivetted on the couch, waiting for Gretle to open the eviction envelope, I’m sure the entire floor of my apartment block heard my loud whoop of “Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay !” as the erstwhile Kileen uttered the fabulous phrase “It’s time to go … Vesna”

Now before I say anything else, we need to clarify that I have absolutely nothing against Macedonians in general. My dad is currently consulting in Albania, which is next door, and probably will be for another two years. Being a Czech immigrant myself, I have absolutely no problems with Eastern Europeans / Slavic races as a whole. It’s Vesna herself as an individual, rather than as a ‘representative’ of the Macedonian community, that I’ve had major issues with, and that’s why I’m sooooo delighted she is not one of the two remaining BB finalists.

“So what ‘issues’ do you have with the Melbourne hairdresser exactly ?” I hear you ask. A picture, as they say, speaks a thousand words …

This is exactly the kind of face we saw Vesna wearing for probably 80% of the time she was in the house. To say she is a bit of a whinger is perhaps the biggest understatement of the century. I lost count of the number of times watching the daily show that I just wanted to smack her about the head and scream “Shut the hell up Vesna you whining, snotty little biatch !” – and I’m not normally a violent man, nor have I ever hit a woman. However after only a few episodes of watching this chick do nothing but complain and carry on, I became more than thoroughly sick of Vesna and her shit.

I’m not a fan of whingers at the best of times … after too many years spent in the goth scene, I have very little patience left for people who choose to take a consistently negative view of life. Couple this with the fact that at least half of her frequent tantrums were directed at BB himself, and I know if I were in the house with Vesna I probably would have strangeled her within a week. I mean helloooo … if you hated BB so much Ves, why did you agree to go on the show as an ‘intruder’ in the first place ? It’s not like you were like the rest of the housemates who had no idea what was in store for them this season, were you ? You got the watch the first three weeks of the show like the rest of us, so you knew the producers were going to play up the ‘mean BB’ angle this year. Yet you still went into the house … so why the FŲCK couldn’t you just shut your stinking pie-hole ? Or better yet, why didn’t you tell the producers you didn’t want to go on the show after all, and given someone else who auditioned (me, pick me !!!) the chance to go in instead ?

Another source of frustration for Vesna and myself were the household chores, or to be more precise, her attitude to said chores. How anyone who has reached 28 – my age – can have no idea about doing simple things like window washing or toilet-bowl cleaning is completely beyond me !!! Prior to BB did Vesna live in a little Macedonian coccoon, where mum and dad did all of those tedious but necessary things around the house for her, so that our little princess never had to lift a finger ? I guess so, given the way she carried on (and on, and on, and ooooon) when faced with these tasks for the first time in her life on entering the BB house. This alone qualifies her for the title of “Biggest Twat of BB05″, a title jointly shared with Glenn the shearer for all his many (but entirely different) flaws.

I’m not talking about her outburst during the ‘Masters & Slaves’ task about being unable to cope with being “a slave to a man”. I’m talking about the routine upkeep the housemates are required to perform while they live in the BB house. It’s not very arduous housework either. Compared to the way most normal adults live, the BB house is generally a bit of a sty. Nonetheless, maintaining even this very basic state of household cleanliness was a bit too much for Vesna it seems. I’ve got news for you babe. True – most men aren’t going to ask you to be a ‘slave’. However, most decent self-respecting blokes (unless they’re complete pigs themselves) are going to expect you to do your part in keeping the place you live in together clean. Most men don’t want a slave, but most men don’t want a frikkin’ princess either ! It’s little wonder then that Vesna’s ex Ari, the one rumoured to be causing so much friction with her family on the outside, is only 21 years old. Who else but a guy barely out of his teens would be stupid enough to put up with attitude like that ?

I mean honestly, can you imagine waking up next to that sour looking face in the morning ? Jeeeeeesus ! “What’s wrong Vesna honey ?” “I’m feeling frumpy this morning, and I think I broke a nail in my sleep. I need chocolate, you have to buy me some before you go to work.” “I can’t baby, or I’m going to be late …” “God, you’re a bastard Ari. I hate you, I’ve always hated you. I think I had a better time living in the BB house than living with you !” “Ok … ok … I’m sorry, I’ll get your chocolate before I leave.” “Good … and clean the toilet before you go too. I think I had one too many tubs of Haagen Daasz last night, and my shit was really runny.” “Umm … ok. Listen, I might be back a bit later tonight, we have work drinks on. Love you baby …” “Oh … GOD … you think my arse is fat, don’t you ?” “What ?” “You’re cheating on me with some woman from work, and it’s all because you think my arse is fat, isn’t it ?” “But … but … I never …”. Ari you poor, poor schmuck ! I feel soooo sorry for you … if you have any sense at all, you won’t get back together with this girl, and you definitely won’t marry her if you know what’s good for ya !

Speaking of fat arses – yes, I must say the other reason I quickly got sick of watching Vesna was because I couldn’t stand another day of having to see her chunky thighs wobbling about in her pink tracksuit while she grabbed herself another tub of icecream out of the BB fridge ! I already live with an overweight, moody, black-haired, housework-lazy chick, and shall continue to do so for another month until I move in with my fiancé. TV is supposed to provide escapism, not to strain my eyes by adding more unattractive people to my life than I already have to deal with in the real world on a daily basis. If I wanted to watch an overweight woman sitting on a sofa eating icecream, I just have to walk in to my loungeroom. I don’t even need to turn on the TV, because she will already be watching one of the million and one shows she seems to follow, although idiot that I am I still pay half the cable TV bill ! This brings us very neatly then, to the more ‘general’ rant I mentioned earlier – a rant I’ve been hinting at for several months now. A rant that’s been building for almost a lifetime.

You see, gang … if it hasn’t become obvious yet over the course of many posts you’ve read on TROYL by now, I’m going to state something here plainly and for the record which may not win me many friends, but which I firmly believe nonetheless. Basically, over the last decade or so I’ve developed an almost pathological aversion to a certain type of person you see more and more of on the streets, in shopping centres and even in your favourite nightclub, every day ! That’s right guys, I’m talking about freakin’ fatties !

I’m sorry, but I simply don’t like fat people who are under the age of 45, and I don’t see anything wrong with that !!!

It wasn’t always this way – I even dated a fairly chubby girl (who has since ballooned into an elephant) for a year or two back in the misspent days of my late teens. However, the older I get and the more it seems everywhere around me the chubbies multiply, the less I’ve found myself able to block out the natural repulsion and disdain which arises when you see a truly humungous guy or girl walking down the street.

It seems to be a uniquely Anglo-Saxon problem too – we don’t get this happening back home in mainland Europe ! You might see on or two fat locals at most, but either the rest don’t exist, or they have the common sense to stay home and live their lives as shut-ins, instead of parading around Penrith Westfields in tight denim miniskirts and crop tops (girls) or baggy bumsters and Snoop-Dogg singlets (guys), rolls of lilly-white Celtic lard literally hanging over their waistbands. Now back in my younger days I used to believe you were supposed to support people in developing good self esteem and a positive self-image, yadda yadda yadda, and everything good would follow. However, I think I’ve finally realised that’s not doing the trick here.

I think what we need to do is SHAME these people into losing those extra fekking kilos, NOT to praise them !!!

Yes, they probably get teased mercilessly by their peers at school. Join the club … I might not have been fat back when I was a kid but I still got teased mercilessly for other things. However, as a society we’re still telling these people “it’s OK. You’re just sick. We still like you, and you’re a worthwhile person”, which isn’t doing much to solve the problem, is it ? We’re making them feel better about themselves, which means they keep stuffing their fat faces with cheeseburgers and will one day end up breeding, usually with someone of a similar body shape. Invariably the offspring these unfortunate people produce end up even fatter, given they are eating the same lipid-rich, nutritionally-poor diets as their obese parents, and sport isn’t encouraged in these families. All of which means our kids or grandkids are going to end up with a drought of genuinely attractive thin people to have sex with, unless they import them from overseas !

Over here, we have Ray Martin doing ACA stories about women being denied work as promotions models because they are “deemed too chubby”, and taking their side against the modelling agency. If the same thing happened in France or Germany or Czech Republic, the woman would be a laughing stock, and they would feature an interview with her wasp-thin, tanned and perfectly groomed French mother (mmm … MILF ! ;P) saying what a disgrace to her family Claudette is, and begging her to get some help for her obvious weight problem.

Commentator: So what are you saying, Madame Baptiste ?

The Yummie Mummie: (sobbing) My daughter … I love her .. . but she ees a fůcking pig, Jean-Paul. I ‘ave failed as a muzzerr … I am so ashamed (more tears)

She wouldn’t be half-wrong either, would she ? Why do I have this strong antipathy towards fat people ? Part of it is to do with the fact that it’s not just our kids and grandkids who will be experiencing a drought of normally-proportioned people … I actually found the beginnings of it with my own dating experiences in the last two years or so where it seemed like virtually every remotely attractive person was already coupled up, and at least every second blind date I went on turned out to be someone outside the boundaries of the ‘acceptable to shag’ weight-range ! Even more than that though, the thing which really scares me about fat people is that it would be pretty easy for me to become one, if I let myself …

‘Aye – there’s the rub ! I have to work very hard to stay in shape, and thanks to a combination of genes and lifestyle, it’s very easy for me to put weight on (and fairly easy to shift it when I exercise, thankgod) when I let myself slack off, as I have been over the winter months. At the moment I weigh 80.5 kg, which is fucking atrocious when you consider I measure 175cm and have been losing muscle mass to fat during the winter months. Worse yet, this is not too far off the most I’ve ever weighed – 86kg during a very black period living in Melbourne. I think I’d die of shame if I ever got that frikkin bloated again before middle age – hopefully NEVER !

See, I don’t like looking at other fat people, but I positively loathe looking in the mirror or at photos and seeing my familiar face looking back with the onset of chubbiness beginning. Fucking H-A-T-E it !!!! Considering at one point when I was living in Sweden I weighed only 65kg from being vegetarian and riding my pushbike everywhere all day instead of driving … it’s all the more distressing watching my gradual cellular lipid buildup.

Which is why dear readers, you’ll find me enthusiastically joining my sexy fiancé IG (who really doesn’t need it, but who am I to argue) in her ‘detox’ & upcoming ‘get back in shape’ / ‘shake off the winter kilos’ resolve. It’s time to lose that winter flab gang, and head back to the solarium before summer … or Fiji if you’re lucky enough to afford it like IG ;P Who knows … maybe someone out there knows Vesna and can point her in the direction of this weblog, and she can take a leaf out of this book too !

Listening To: Frequencies Will Move Together : Biftek

I’ve got a little bone to pick with programmers today, friends and fans.

Y’see, I’ve been fairly busy at work as usual. On top of that however, I’ve spent a fair bit of time patching software … and it’s starting to give me the shits ! First off there’s WordPress itself – the ‘engine’ which powers this blog. Since moving over from Blogger to WordPress, I’ve already had to upgrade the installation not less than four times in the space of two months !

We started off with version 1.5, moved over to 1.5.1 (which wasn’t strictly neccessary), then 1.5.1.2 (security patch) and today I had to upgrade again over to version 1.5.1.3 (ANOTHER security patch) ! What’s the story, morning glory ? OK, it’s open-source, and therefore free software, but it still irks me a bit that the guys are releasing versions which are ostensibly ‘stable’, only to then have to issue upgrades because security holes have been discovered.

‘Closed source’ doesn’t fare much better I’m afraid. I spent a few hours last night, and most of this morning, cleaning up the HDD on my laptop and re-installing a ‘clean’ copy of Win2K. For those who know me personally, you would be aware I have a bit of a love-hate relationship going on with my lappy. It’s about 3 or 4 years old now, the battery is dead as a dodo meaning it doesn’t actually function as a ‘laptop’ anymore (always has to be plugged in), it doesn’t have enough memory although I’ve already upgraded that 2 times (still only sitting on 256 MB) , and the screen is prone to going through periods of burnout. I’m prone to cursing it as a “piece of shit computer ! Argh !!!” when it doesn’t do what I want, and one day when I have enough money I will discard it with no hesitation for a newer, sexier, faster model. Nonetheless, I’ve still got a soft-spot for it, because I remember the first 6 months after I got it when it actually kicked arse.

One of the other reasons my laptop has been prone to brain-upsets for the last year or so is because I had to grudginly install Win2K in order to run my (finally) legit copies of Director & Studio. So I went out and bought a copy of W2K SP4 … so you’d think this would work, right ? Naaah … this fŨcking O/S has been nothing but trouble from day one, as is always the story with Microsoft operating systems it seems ! As such, I’ve had to periodically re-install a few times now to keep the laptop running and clean up accumulated dross from system registry and other places. Nonetheless, performance has never been perfect, so this time round I thought I’d try something new and actually apply all the patches Microsoft has released for W2K since SP4 came out. You wanna know how many patches I found on the website ? Sixty-smegging-four !

We’re only talking moderate to critical-level patches here too – I didn’t even bother with the low-level ones. Out of those, I actually had to apply about 50 or so to close all the security holes and other nastiness still present in the Win2K code. These included around 4 or 5 KERNEL PATCHES, which is pretty major if you ask me ! Given the nature of the patches, most of them involved reboot cycles after application as well. FØcking hell !!! This is the ‘industry leader’ of the IT sector ? The real irony is Windows 2000 is supposed to be more stable than other MS Operating Systems. I guess this proves once again the old addage – “Treat your programmers like monkeys, and expect to get code that could have been WRITTEN by monkeys !”

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH !!!!!

Listening To: Shattered Grounds : Elegant Machinery

So this post originally started life yesterday as a humorous BB05-inspired ‘Open Letter’ to Gianna, in the style of Baz Hutchinson from Random Rant. I say ‘originally started’, but of course that’s not where it’s ended up – not by a long shot, groovers.

Now for starters, I must admit I’m pretty addicted to this years series of Big Brother. Part of that addiction lies in the fact that I auditioned again this time round, so of course I want to see what the people who beat me to the show get up to. That’s not the main attraction though of course – I sent in an audition tape last year too, but turned off after the debut show. I’m not a ‘die-hard’ BB fan either, so that’s not the reason I’m addicted this year. I never watched the first series at all (and Sarah Marie always shat me), and only got into the second series a little bit. The series that really got me hooked prior to the latest one however was BB03 – Marty, Jess, Jo, Ben, Reggie and the rest … that was the shit ! This year I’m somewhat addicted again, because of some of the personalities in the house, and because of the various ‘twists’ thrown into the show. True, most of these twists are ‘rip-offs’ from last years UK series (apparently) – but do I care ? Nope !

Why am I telling you all this ? It’s to give you some idea of my attitude to the series, and to establish my level of ‘fandom’. Essentially I’d rate myself as a ‘casual’ BB Fan, not a die-hard. As such, this is actually the first year I’ve bothered to ‘seriously’ visit some ‘non-official’ Big Brother fansites to catch up on some of the ‘rumours’ and gossip surrounding the series and housemates. What I’ve found has truly disturbed me, on a number of levels.

My favourite BB Housemate this year (in case you haven’t guessed yet) is … dur dur … ‘Gianna’. In this of course I’m probably disagreeing with most of Australia (and I’ll be surprised if Gianna lasts past this Sundays eviction show), but honestly that doesn’t bother me. Yes … the girl (and the BB editors who select which footage to show us in the first place, and what to post in the online diary on the official site) does a great job of coming across as somewhat self-absorbed at times – checking herself out in the mirrors on a regular basis, trying to make herself the subject of conversations etc.

However, what her legions of internet detractors (and fellow BB05 Housemates … let’s just say I don’t think Gianna and “I look like the bastard OTHER daughter of Bronwyn Bishop” – Angela – will be catching up for drinks after the series) forget is that self-absorbtion is a pre-req for virtually ANY reality show contestant. Just look at her fellow HM ‘Hotdogs’ for example … now THERE’S a man not shy to insert himself in any conversation. Hell … if I’d managed to get onto the show I’m sure I’d be doing the same. The other thing which annoys people about Gianna is that she’s had a tendency to ‘embellish’ some of her achievements while she’s been in the house, to quote her mum.

To those who dislike this ‘embellishment tendency’ I must again say “so fŨckin what ?”. In a house full of big personalities like Hotdogs, Michelle (the champion hurdler) and others, who WOULDN’T feel the urge to ‘talk up’ some of their past to make themselves seem a bit more ‘important’ – especially given the competitive nature of the show. What people seem to forget, is that Giannas only ‘sins’, as far as I can see, is to do what we would all do in her situation. According to her mum, and according to the girl herself, she was picked on pretty badly at school, and speaking from personal experience I can tell you this can lead to ‘overcompensating’ behaviour in later adult life where you desperately try to do anything you can to prove those highschool motherfŨckers were wrong about you. Including and not limited to ‘talking’ up the achievements you have made so far.

Now, as I said earlier – what I’ve found on some of the BB05 fansites, along with various news sites, has disturbed me for various reasons. One of the things which has disturbed is the level of general viciousness with which people who aren’t fans of Gianna have attacked her for a variety of ‘real’ and imagined ‘shortcomings’. These attacks range from the completely moronic (“she reckons she was a champion hurdler” – no you dick, that’s Michelle, or “she’s a slut” – sorry … haven’t seen any evidence of that, and one of the reasons she seems to be on the ‘outer’ with most of the guys in the house is precisely because she says she wants a ‘long term’ relationship) to the methodical-obsessive (“she played sport X at age Y and only achieved a grade of Z, then she moved from A to B, worked with a guy called Bob who says” etc) to the plain irrelevant (“I worked with her at Origin Energy and she was always sucking up to the boss”).

The common thread which seems to tie all these attacks together is the kind of mob-mentality, “lets pick on the person who doesn’t fit in” / “Tall Poppy Syndrome” mindlessness with which anyone who wasn’t very popular at higschool and/or is a high-achiever is only all too familiar. It’s bullshit – it’s the unformed howl of a million fat, suburban plebs who have never done anything with their lives, and never will. It’s a bunch of nerdy, stalker-obsessive internet geeks dragging up personal details about someone (fleetingly) ‘famous’ in the hopes of bringing them down. That perhaps is the thing which REALLY disturbs me, more than anything else.

See, I don’t know about you – but I still think people are entitled to some level of ‘privacy’, even those of us who are (minor) celebrities. Some would argue if you go on a ‘reality show’ you forfeit your right to privacy, but I disagree. More cameras in the house – sure. Personal details of some ‘relevance’ to the show and establishing the ‘character’ of the contestant – I’m all for that. However, there’s a point beyond which I think privacy should still be respected. Tabloid news outlets have been digging, and brought out Gianna’s ex-fiancee, who to his credit, had only nice things to say about her. They made big news of the fact HE happens to be an ex-stripper though. Even that, I guess, is to be expected in our ‘dirt relishing’ society.

It doesn’t stop there however, fans. While it’s regrettable, as I said tabloid news is a pretty standard feature of contemporary society, and the nature of ‘celebrity’. However, the anti-Gianna brigade has taken things to a much more ‘personal’ level than that, and crossed the lines between ‘public’ and ‘private’, robbing Gianna of her basic ‘right to privacy’, at least in my opinion. Her ex-coworkers from Origin Energy have posted pictures of Gianna from their 2003 & 2004 work Christmas parties on the ‘net, and made various derogatory remarks. That’s getting a bit much. Others have posted the full text of her application for last years “Ambassador for Adelaide” competition. Again, I think that’s a bit of a privacy issue. However, it’s even worse than that and in this last shredding of Gianna’s privacy Big Brother himself has actually played a part – inadvertently or otherwise.

The other night in an ‘up late’ show, Gianna was apparently discussing a certain sport with one of the other HM’s. I say ‘apparently’ because I don’t watch the ‘up-late’ shows myself – I got this, surprise surprise, from one of the ‘stalky internet geek’ fansites. The producers bleeped out part of the conversation, but what they failed to bleep out was the name of the sporting outlet associated with the topic of conversation which happens to be on the street in which Gianna lives ! This is a pretty major fŨck-up on Big Brother’s part … I wonder if it was intentional ?

Why is this failure to bleep pretty serious ? Let’s play connect the dots. Using some of the resources mentioned above, it’s a piece of piss to find out which suburb of Adelaide Gianna and her dog Cheeky live in. Next, we hit the website of the sporting chain … the branch in that particular suburb is located on such and such a street. Finally, we jump over to whitepages.com.au, enter Giannas full real name, the street, and the suburb. Hey fŨcking presto – I now have Giannas home address and telephone number !!! So does any fŨcking dickwad with an IQ above 50, and access to the internet. Ditto all their friends they have just texted it to. THIS IS JUST SOOO F*CKING WRONG, ON SO MANY LEVELS !!!

It’s one thing to ‘dig up dirt’ to sell your tabloids, or promote your internet site. In the context of Big Brother and its producers, it’s even ‘fine’ to edit the masses of footage you’ve got coming from the house to build up a certain ‘picture’ and ‘story’ about the Housemates – no matter whether this portrayal is accurate or not. But it’s NOT OK, in my view, to make it possible for any Tom, Dick and Harry with half a brain to actually find out the home address of your contestants. Especially when, in the case of someone like poor Gianna – you are helping to feed the resentment of the aforementioned howling masses through your editing of the show and the online diary.

I’m a nice guy – so I’m not gonna ring Gianna’s number after the show is over, and if I do anything with her address at all, it’s gonna be simply sending a short letter of support. Unfortunately, the world is full of fucktards … not everyone is as nice as I am, and a lot of people are pretty pissed at Gianna for stupid reasons outlined above. By completely invading her privacy and making it possible to obtain her address, some irresponsible people (including the BB05 producers, who contributed to this with their sloppy editing) have potentially placed her at real risk.

That is disturbing, and the reason why this post has ended up a rant instead of a humorous ‘Open Letter’. Peace out, y’all ….

Listening To: What’s The Story (Morning Glory) : Oasis

OK gang, today we’re going to talk about wallets. Actually no … that’s a lie. True; I left my wallet at home – and that’s the segue into todays rant proper. However wallets shall not in fact be the main topic of discussion, save for this brief introductory mention. Now that we’ve got that sorted …

Right, so I forgot my wallet today because I spent last night printing out some wallet-sized shots of my girlfriend on my fancy-schmancey Canon i685 photo printer. After viewing the results, I then proceeded to select several of the fingernail sized prints and put them behind the dodgey plastic photo-window in the aforementioned shrapnel carrier. Is this because I’m a sad bastard who needs photos of a woman in his wallet to prove that yes, I am in fact capable despite my obvious shortcomings, of attracting a member of the opposite sex who is not only possessed of the requisite number of limbs and appropriate configuration of squidgey bits, but is in actual fact more than a bit of a ‘looker’ ? Maybe … but more than likely it’s actually because I genuinly wanted some photos of the lovely IG to look at whenever I need to brighten up my day.

If you haven’t been to my girlfriends blog yet, let me tell you it contains a fair few photos. There’s a good reason for that – as it’s fair to say the esteemed IG is a very photogenic young lass. In the fairly short time we’ve been ‘an item’, I’ve already managed to amass a pretty decent number of pictures of my girlfriend looking mighty fine in a variety of looks ranging from rock-diva to corporate and everything in between. All good – I love photos, especially when they are of sexy young women I happen to be dating. However, now we start getting to the point of today’s rant.

Y’see, until recently I didn’t have any photos of IG and I together. Yes I had a few good shots of her with various dudes and dudettes in pubs and cafes from her recent overseas trip. Ditto a great shot of her from her work Xmas party with Bin (no relation to Laden), the warehouse dude. Ditto various shots of her alone. But none of the two of us, save for a really crappy photo taken with my camera phone one night at Bungalow 8, which didn’t turn out at all thanks to the lack of ambient light and the drunkeness of the mate photographing us. There’s a damn good reason for that too, ladies and gents – a reason echoed by Baz on his blog over at Random Rant last Monday. The reason for this is … basically (and I’m bracing myself for this admission) … much to my own disgust, I am not exactly the world’s most fŨcking photogenic Czechboy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m the sort of fugly bastard whose photo there on the sidebar of this blog you’d print out in order to create a face-mask for frigthening the Jehova’s Witnesses away from your door. Or whose mug you’d stick on the back of a coin to stop kids from swallowing it, for that matter. I know I have my moments, and over the years (usually after one of my frequent several-months-long health kicks) I’ve even managed to fluke some decent photographs. But usually whenever I’m stupid enough to let myself get photographed, to paraphrase Baz I invariably end up “look[ing] like an utter fŨcking mong”. This, dear friends and fans, is the main reason there aren’t too many pictures of yours truly floating around. Interpol, as they say, would be well and truly rooted.

The picture of my girlfriend and I (left) now sitting nestled in the plastic sleeve of my missing wallet is certainly no exception to this hard-and-fast rule of my utter lack of photogeniacy. Examinining this photo taken over dinner at a local restaurant recently while celebrating my 28th birthday, the casual observer will no doubt agree IG looks radiant, and emminently photo-worthy. In contrast, the same casual observer would agree I most closely resemble a photoshop artists rendering of Cromagnon Man in a Marks & Spencers business shirt. To quote Baz again,

I don’t know why … I always try to do the ‘relaxed smile’ thing when I’m getting my photo taken, but I inevitably come out blinking, or playing a tuba or looking like I’m developing Cerebral Palsy before the photographer’s very eyes or something.

I’m not even smiling with my teeth in the above photo (as I often don’t), because I was paranoid about having food stuck to them. Unfortunately, this just makes me look like I’ve got the ‘protruding lower jaw’ thing happening, adding to the neolithic biped impression established earlier, or possibly making me resemble a chimpanzee. This wouldn’t be such an ‘issue’, or worthy of a rant (although hey, I’ve written ‘zine articles about cooking with catfood before, so I’m certainly not averse to scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas when running into writers block) if I could just cut my losses and make a pact with myself to stop letting people take photos of me. If I could just do a Chris Martin from Coldplay on anyone even remotely looking like they were going to brandish a camera near me, as it were.

Unfortunately, as I’ve already said – I really like photos. My parents have literally thousands of snaps taken over the last 50 years or so, and we’ve spent many happy times going through these, sharing remembrences and marvelling at how the world has changed in that time. I’m looking forward to doing the same thing with my kids and my life-partner one day. I really like the idea of having photos of myself and those dear to me, engaged in our day to day, travelling, on special occassions and other adventures. So why, oh why does every second photo of me past the age of 11 have to be the kind which makes me think “oh for fŨck’s sake !” ? Why does the cruel eye of the camera perenially have to shatter my strongly cherished delusion that I could have been bigger than Deiter Brummer, if only I’d bothered to cut my shoulder-length hair the day before my Home & Away audition for the role of ‘Shane’, instead of the day after ?

Why do I niavely look at ‘happy snaps’ featuring myself, expecting to see … well not Brad Pitt (even I’m not that self-deluded), but at least someone from the fŨcking OC looking back at me, and instead find the bastard love-child of Eddie Munster and the fat kid from the ‘Numa Numa Dance’ video returning my insipid stare ?

Answer me that God, answer me that ! ;P

Listening To: Original Pirate Material : The Streets

Looking back over my last post, I was struck by the sense of something which is probably readily apparent to rest of our regular readers, and has been brewing in my sub-conscious for a while, but up till now I’ve refused to acknowledge.

It’s an almost-indefinable sense of something ‘missing’. Of course, on first glance a lot of what’s ‘missing’ from my life these days as opposed to a decade ago is the painful-immediecy of multiple ongoing chemical addictions, and the youthful bravado of concerted intent-to-shock. Being free of those imperatives is certainly something I certainly don’t regret. But if you scratch the surface, I think it’s more than that.

For better or worse, a decade ago you certainly couldn’t accuse yours truly of not ‘living’ in the rawest sense of the term. I firmly believed back then, as I still do now, in ‘sucking the marrow out of life’ to paraphrase The Dead Poets Society. At times lately though, I must admit it feels like DB ain’t living up to that ideal with quiet the same zeal he once used to.

If you’d told me at 17 that I’d end up chained to a desk, doing a job I loathe and which I really think is slowly but surely killing my soul (along with my body … my eyesight is surely getting worse again from staring at the screen all day !), getting drunk on a regular basis for want of anything more intelligent to do, living in Sydney, worrying about mundane things like making my measley paycheque last a whole fornight, not reading, with barely enough time to write and no time at all anymore to write music … well, I would have probably laughed at you and called you more than a few dirty names !

Yet all this, and more, alas has come to pass. The ‘weightiest’ matter on my mind right now is remembering to program the video recorder to tape Desperate Housewives for my flat-mate, and getting enough time to go for a jog after I get home from work before cleaning the inside of the fridge. It would seem as if my day-to-day existence has been all but reduced to the banal, one-dimensional, vacuous travesty-of-a-life I used to so voiceiferrously rail against in my late teens.

Perhaps part of it is that all this is so different from what I expected back then, and from what my life used to be. I used to be the guy who was always pissing off overseas or interstate, living in strange places and sleeping with bizarre, artistic, troubled people for extended periods of time, while my friends were stuck in Sydney, going through a series of short term relationships with normal people whom at the time I perceived for the most part as spectacularly ‘dull’ (sorry guys !).

Now, my two best friends are living in Perth and London respectively, virtually everyone I know is ‘coupled up’ and has been with their partners for what seems like an eternity, and here I am living back in the town I swore I’d left forever 6 years ago, only recently having entered a ‘promising’ relationship after a series of short-term duds and god-awful dates. While she’s neither bizarre nor troubled (thankgod !), my partner is a far more talented musician than I am among other things, and I find myself wondering at times whether I haven’t become the ‘dull’ counter-point to her buoyant vitality.

Essentially what this all points to, I think, is that DB is somewhat overdue for a bit of a change. I’m not talking about following through on the series of SMS’s I sent my mate in the UK towards the end of last year – “give me six months and I’m probably gonna be flatting with you, Taz”.

I’m not talking about leaving the lovely IG either, since she’s turning out to be the sanest choice I’ve made in a long time and the best thing that’s happened to me in sod knows how long. I am talking about making this a “year of Pete” though … not in the original sense we first used that phrase Ms.Mellipop … but getting back some of that ‘sucking the marrow’ spirit I once used to have – minus the more self-destructive aspects.

All of which means (apart from everything else) I’m going to have to change jobs again, and soon …. but hey, it’s about fŨcking time, isn’t it ?