Just a Quick One 2

Checking one, two! Is this thing on? ... hehe, sorry.

Well I wasn’t planning making another short post, but most of my day was spent working on my costume for Saturday at Wai-Con and then in the evening helping my friend work on some of his costume pieces. I have however already got two blog posts banked up, but I wanted to keep this ready for this weekend as I’ll be either too busy or too tired to write. I must admit one of them, which I’ll be posting this Saturday at 6, is probably one of my favourite pieces of writing I’ve done and isn’t the usual amount of hackery. I’ll try and me more witty and insightful tomorrow after I done prepping stuff for the weekend.

Just a Quick One 1

Here is ‘Just a quick one’, wherein I’m too tired to type after whatever events of the day mean my brain no work... yeah. I’ve decided to number them because; a) I can keep track of the laziness times I haven’t too much to say, and b) the idea of ‘one 1’ makes me giggle a bit.

Anyway all I really wanted to say is after having a particularly shitty end to yesterday and waking up still feeling particularly awful, just hanging around with some friends (even if it’s something and dreary as an ‘orientation’) is always good to pick your mood, however an unexpected and somewhat trivial sms conversation (to be honest, although to be honest again sometimes it’s best thing ever) with someone you care for can brighten up your entire day.

Later peeps... urgh I hate that word.

Musings on the Rational and Irrational Mind.

So I’ve just got back after a fairly hectic hour or so of driving around in peak hour traffic trying to make a centrelink appointment that was impossible to make. During which time I continued to get progressively angry and bitter at myself, and the multitude of idiots on the road who apparently forget how to drive at 3-4pm but mostly at myself.

Okay so a little back story, last week I was supposed to have an appointment at centrelink, which I honestly thought was the following week and it turned out to be at the exact same time as my Grandad’s funeral, only to find out the next day I put in my early job search b.s. having received advanced notification about it. I called up and after the standard hour wait to incredibly loud music, I made an appointment for today at 3:55pm (because I really couldn’t be bothered going to the one at 11-12ish). Going back a bit further than that, I promised my friend Jon Goon to pick him from the airport when he flew back in home Malaysia landing at 1:30pm today.

Of course only on reflection a couple of days ago (and a confirmation from Jon via a phone call) I stupidly thought, “Hey, I’ve got time to spare, I can do this AND pick up my new hat from Morley”... that’s not entirely true because another part of my brain was going “Fuck I’d better make this work because I can’t let Jon down but I don’t want to bail on two appointments with those asshats, they might stop my payments!”. I suppose if I was the think straight for five seconds, something that seems to be increasingly difficult of late, I probably could have either called in a favour to get Jon a lift or phone centrelink this morning for another appointment... So you can pretty much see the folly of my stupid bone-headed decisions already, I apparently have forgotten “Murphy’s Law”.

So everything was going fine, I leave a little later then I wanted to but even after picking my hat up managed to go to my super secret parking spot near the airport to wait for a msg to say he’s ready for pickup. It gets to 2:30pm (one hour after the scheduled landing) and I’m starting to get slightly antsy when finally I can a message, stating that the plane only just landed after being delayed after turbulence, doing the quick mental math from experience of picking people up from the international airport and figured he’s got 30-60 minutes dealing with luggage and customs. That’s when I start to panic about my appointment. It should have been at that time I called centrelink, except that I knew my phone’s battery wouldn’t last the obligatory 1 hour waiting time to obnoxiously loud music. So I waited around in my free parking spot for another 30 minutes then finally get another message that he’s waiting on one last bag. I wait around for another 5-10 minutes and think “Fuck It” and drive to the airport and park in paid parking, because to my messed up brain thought this would be more efficient way of extracting Jon without having to deal with all the idiots driving up to the ‘pick up area’ and praying he’d arrive in the 15 minutes of free parking. Thankfully he did and managed to book in some pretty good time. It was pretty much all going well... and then the congestion hit Tonkin. It was pretty much at that time I knew I was boned. So feeling a little pissed at myself for being such a stubborn jackass, I took Jon back home (although it was truly great to see him and was so happy to have helped out), helped him with his luggage and decided to try and go home before the rush got too busy.

You’d think it’d end there, oh boy you obviously fail to understand how my brain works sometimes because naturally I’m getting closer to home and I think, “You know what? I think I can get to centrelink before closing!” and by now I think you’re seeing a pattern emerging. I think it was all the imbeciles added to the aggravation and me putting the boot down which seemed to tighten that logical gap between “Fuck I missed my appointment” to “Actually I should go reschedule”. Probably the smartest thing I could have done and managed to get there about 10 minutes before they closed. Why this is smart is because they have a record that I at least got there (albeit 25 minutes late) so it at least looks like I’m making the effort.

Now I’m betting you’re wondering what any of this has to do with the title, then you pretty much weren’t reading closely. Today has been pretty much a clusterfuck of rational and irrational decisions. It wasn’t until after I finished at centrelinnk and had calmed down enough that I realised just how stupid I was today, and how stupefyingly bad some of those decisions could have been. To be completely honest there was a small amount of time I seriously comprehended leaving Jon at the airport to fend for himself (sorry Jon) but rationally prevailed because I stood my ground and fulfilled my promise, and I think a lot more highly of my friends then I do of centrelink and I refuse to let them down without a fight. Okay another tangent (have a drink), but I think you get my meaning. I try and be as much a rational and level headed person I can at most times, but I’m still prone to bouts of irrationality and stupidity especially when plans go astray, which can also lead to anger and depression especially if you’re already in a weakened emotional state. I suppose the lesson to be learned from all this is Keep Calm and Carry On ... wow, did I just go there?

On Writer’s Blocks and Blog Posts...

So this entry is being posted a lot later than I would have liked it too, mostly because as you can tell by the title I’m feeling a little blocked. I had a couple of topics in mind but for the most part I didn’t want to do yet another ranty post, lest I start to gain a reputation for such things. I could imagine it know, “Sure he seems like a nice guy, but have you seen the angry filth that he writes about?” And truth be told I do get like that when I’m passionate about something and I need to get it out.

Wow, I managed to get a paragraph out without thinking about the block again. Okay, I figured this is a good time to explain a couple of things about me and my writing, or the ‘lack’ of it for the most part. For the most part I feel like doing something, but I either don’t feel particularly creative or inspired to do anything, or I’m in a mood when I want to consume instead of creative (sometime Kevin Smith talks about, and I think he’s spot on about). I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts, interviews, or convention panels a lot of late, which I think is partially responsible for me at least feeling talkative. Dammit, okay, I’ll get to the point… in fact that is my point. Sometimes what I really need to do is just finally get off my arse and sit down to write, but when I’m not feeling it I start to get distracted, just as big a problem as not feeling up to writing. I’m currently writing this on a crappy laptop that barely has any battery life it in when unplugged, with just enough processing power to use Word and maybe upload it to the interwebs (in fact I save the word files to my dropbox account and upload it from my main computer because using java on here kills it).

At this moment you are probably going, “Well you talk about a Writer’s Block, but here you are blathering like usual!” And that’s one of the ways I get around it. A smarty, better and probably more handsome author then me who I can’t remember for the life of me one said something along of the lines of ‘just start writing and the words well flow and blah blah blah’… honestly I was starting to write this down and I completely forgot who said it and what they said, but hell it if doesn’t just work sometimes. Sometimes you just don’t want to go for a walk, but you just need to take those first few steps then suddenly you’re half way around the block and have to walk back anyway… I need to start walking again. Sometimes it’s not what you write, but that you are in fact writing. Which neatly brings me to another point I wanted to make today...

You may have noticed a distinct non-linear progression to some of my posts, especially this one, and sadly I’m completely sober as I write these. I pretty much like to write in a ‘stream of thought’ kind of style in my blog post and in my personal journal. Even though I do edit myself on the fly when I notice my terrible spellin and gramma, for the most part I don’t tend to revise and/or change most of my posts. The “J.J. Abrams directing Star Wars post where it totally turned into what I hated about Star Trek XI” post is pretty much a testament to that as I really wanted to talk about what I thought the positive and negative things Abrams might bring to the franchise, but to explain my concerns I needed to reference Star Trek XI and next thing I know I’m a page in, and I even decided to put an entire rant to notations because it was getting too distracting to the point I was trying to make  but wanted to keep it. I suppose ultimately I’m writing these thing for myself more then I’m trying to entertain to a degree, if some cats like it then I’m thrilled, if they don’t then who gives a crap.

I find there is some degree is freedom in writing this way, especially as I sometimes always find essay writing so restrictive, boring and repetitive. Strangely enough I enjoyed helping my friend Jon with one of his essays by helping him to tart it up and extend his word count without altering much of the content. Get me to write like that and you’ll have to drag me to the keyboard. Sometimes the anxiety of doing an essay overloads any ability to write the damn things and I just spend (what feels like) hours looking at a blinking cursor even when I’ve got a whole load of information just waiting to pour out onto the screen. I was also recently trying to write a script for a web series I’m working on (with the aforementioned Jon) and when I finally started writing, it just felt cold and stale. When I finally got into writing a, admittedly long winded, tutorial as part of the show, it just felt flat and uninspired. I know if you sat me down in front of a camera I could tell you all about this stuff and make it interesting, but writing it down just felt like it took all the vibrancy out of it. It’s something I need to work on if I’m ever going to wrap my head around making this show work.

A couple of small things whilst I finish, one thing that came to mind recently is that I don’t want to make these posts longer then a page, this is one of the reasons I stopped writing the Abrams post and quickly tried wrapping it up. This is mostly because I don’t want to bore the reader, especially if I’m somehow managing to write this much on a delay basis… DON’T hold me to that, I just know there will be a post very soon where it will be ‘Meh, don’t have it in me to write today’, although I’m hoping to start writing extra stuff and keep it logged for scheduling like on Saturday (when I knew I wouldn’t be in to write anything all day.. work too huh?), especially as I have a con coming up where I’ll be volunteering at a games centre all weekend. I’m also hoping to not make the posts as late as this one, again aiming for 6pm like my scheduled posts. I suppose it all depends on what’s going on in my life and what I feel like talking about whenever I write something down. Oh and I’ve invented a drinking game for this blog, every time I take a tangent, you take a shot… I’m rating this one as 4 Skulls.

On J.J. Abrams and Star Wars...

I’m sure you’ve all heard the news by now; if not well J.J. Abrams has been tapped to direct Star Wars ‘Episode VII’. Abrams is famously known for his rebooting of the Star Trek franchise, as well as being responsible for things like Lost and Alias, so of course the fandom is all a flutter over the guy controlling the two biggest Sci-Fi properties to coming out of the states. Naturally being both a lifelong Star Wars geek and a Trekkie, some people immediately wanted my take on this, and I feel this is a good idea for a post!

Okay to start with I feel I should clarify my stance on ‘Star Trek’ (by which I mean the Abrams film, just for your FYI if I’m referring to original Trek it’s be TOS), specifically my thoughts and feelings about this film as a big fan of the franchise. For starters let’s just say I liked the film for the most part, but for me it wasn’t something to shout about. If I were to rate it, 10 being ‘Wrath of Khan’/’First Contact’ and 1 being ‘Final Frontier’/’Nemesis’ then it’ll probably be about 5.5-6.5. Overall for me it was a good fun movie, but I’m not entirely sure it was a ‘Trek’ movie. It seemed like they were trying to both reinvent the wheel¹ which was a little grating but I felt they needed to point these things out for plot relevance², which I felt in some cases was redundant.

Another big concern is that they seemed to not know how to be, well, scientific. One of the most important plot devices in the entire movie surrounds this big blob of .. well red, which we find out that when it is ejected into the core of a planet has the capability of turning it into a ‘Black Hole’. Okay, finally wrapped your head around that? Good, because this truly terrifying substance³ is called by the highly technical name of “Transmogrifying Sub-atomic Black Hole Paste”... nah, but you might wish it was because it’s just called “Red Matter”... What. The. Fuck. Okay, I know they wanted to move away from the ‘Technobabble’, but come on that’s just being lazy. And why does this monstrosity exist? J.J. loves the red ball. If *urgh* “Red Matter” returns in ‘Into Darkness’, I’m hanging up my space suit⁴.

Okay I can possibly, maybe, unlikely, forgive all that if it weren’t for the one thing that just bugged me the fucking most... James Tiberius Kirk. Now I wasn’t as big a fan of TOS as I was TNG or DS9, but I know my damn Kirk and he wasn’t it. Okay, I’ll admit off the bat there is only one scene and one moment I believed Chris Pine was Kirk, and that’s right at the very end when he enters the bridge in his captain’s uniform (we’ll get to that later). Throughout the entire movie, Pine has absolutely none of the subtle nuisances or personality that made up Kirk, even a proto-Kirk, which in comparison to the rest of the cast did a superb job in channelling their characters and making them their own. Kirk whining and being a jerk just didn’t sell him to me, and he was the fucking main character next to Spock. When Kirk finally mans up and takes the captains chair, it was a relief but then instead of doing his job he teleports over the Romulan ship for a fist fight... wtf mate! Okay I know a lot has to do with the script and the direction, and I know Pine could be Kirk even if it’s for less than a minute at the end, but taking an entire movie to get there just wasn’t a great move imho. Oh and wtf Starfleet, promoting a washout rookie to Captain??? Okay so he saved Earth, it doesn’t mean you promote Batman to be the fucking President, especially he Batranged the previous President in the face and punched congress in the dick just because he stopped the Joker. That part just felt so wrong, especially I bet most of the crew still think he’s a fucking jerk who doesn’t respect that whole pesky ‘chain of command’ bullshit. It’s like “Okay he IS Thor’s kid and he saved ONE planet, but do I have to salute the prick even though I’ve spent that last 15 years in a uniform and he’s barely out of the academy???”

Wow talk about going on a tangent. So yeah I’m concerned about Star Wars. Not to say I know of anyone who could do it better, although I know a lot that could do it worse. I’m afraid this is just some bullshit stunt-casting to try and drum up news and drama with the whole “STAR TREK DIRECTOR MAKES STAR WARS OMG!!!!11.” I’m also hoping he might take his head out of this ass long enough to not try to put his ‘stamp’ on the franchise and try to make something more in line of a continuation... although I suppose it could be worse, he could include medichlorines. Oh and no ‘lens flares’.

-

1 - Case and point with the usage of the Teleporter and having everyone stand perfectly still for half an hour

2 – Again with the Teleporter and Spock’s mom. Although apparently it is capable of teleporting Kirk whilst falling at terminal velocity for fifteen minutes (and wtf happened to inertia?) but if Spock’s mom moves half an inch its “Signal Lost”... *facepalm*

3 - Which by the way the enemy has got enough to possibly wipe out the entire universe of every single planet EVAR!!! If you haven’t seen it... well spoilers... the thing is bigger than a beach ball and it only takes one eye drop to turn a planet into a black hole. Here’s the even more bugnutty part. In a comic book prequel tie-in, which goes into explaining who Nero (the evil Romulan) has such a hard-on for Spock, the reason this stuff exists is to stop a star from going super nova and wiping out Romulus, the Romulan homeworld (which btw has finally achieved peace and reunification with the Vulcans after the events of TNG and Nemesis). So they build a ship that contains the ‘Red Matter’ (*urgh*),  which is piloted by Spock so he can set up the missile to save Romulus and something goes wrong and blah blah blah. Okay I grok that Spock’s ship is designed to contain the ‘Red Matter’ (*urrrgh*), and that Nero needed the ship to get the matter to finally reveal himself to the Jedi and at least he can get revenge. HOWEVER, if they knew that less than a fucking teaspoon of this shit could turn a planet inside out, why the hell did they equip a ship with what I’m informed is technically known as a metric butt-ton? It’s not like the made the whole inside the fucking ship to begin with? Oh and then because all the geniuses at Starfleet Engineering took a fucking break, they decided to not equip the ship with any defensive capabilities beyond the syringe torpedoes (used to inject the crap into the sun) because it’s not like someone is going to steal a defenceless ship full of a substance that destroy fucking galaxies! No I can’t think of anyone at all like the Borg, the Ferengi, the Cardassians, the Dominion, or the numerous other species Starfleet has managed to piss off throughout the centuries, who would dare try to take the ship and quite possibly try to destroy Vulcan or Earth... but I digress.

4 – Oh and if a droplet of this stuff can turn a planet inside out, then why the fuck didn’t the entire galaxy get turned inside out when the giant beach ball blew up inside the Romulan ship??? FFS!

On Negativity Within The Fan Community

Got into a heated ‘discussion’ over Facebook yesterday over a picture I posted of some negative comments directed towards a ‘larger’ woman who made one of the most kickass TARDIS dresses I’ve ever seen. It truly angers me that in my community there are some about destructive arseholes who tear someone down because they don’t fit their body type. I suppose this is one of the things I find discomforting within myself, that I’m going to be ridiculed because of my weight whenever I put on a costume, that it infuriates me whenever I see it now. I’d like to believe that it was just a handful of insensitive cunts in an ocean of high praise however the internet has sadly robbed me of that delusion. I think it’s true that once you’ve looked into the abyss, you’re forever changed and the internet is nothing but a focal point for such things.

Wil Wheaton writes about this in his book ‘Just a Geek’ where he states, “I will never understand why the Internet seems to take away the basic humanity of most people, and allows-no, enables-them to say things that they’d never say to another person face to face.” I think a part of it has to do with the inherent duality of a person, the nasty side of humanity that thinks the nasty things but doesn’t dare voice them in public for fear of retribution. Maybe it’s the internet, and alcohol, that gives that voice a pedestal to spew such vile hatred and then immediately back it up with “Well I have a right to do so!” or something just as equally cowardly. If we can go through our real life social interactions with strangers without resorting to use vile and nasty statements, why the hell can’t we do that online? Oh that’s right, we don’t withhold these statements in real life, that’s why we have assholes who tell complete strangers that they are ugly and fat and why we have bullies who gang up and pick on their prey. I suppose the internet just allows more assholes a chance to fuck up more peoples lives.

Kinda makes you think trying to clear up the whole mess to be an exercise in supreme futility? Well maybe that is so, but there is a hope. The internet, whilst giving a platform for the negative, allows good people to get together and fight back. It allows people to say “No!” to having to put up with some of the worst attributes man seems to like to hold onto like a social festering appendix. I see the negative attributes of my community and I want to scream and fight back. Part of the reasons why I want to make a documentary analysing the fan community in Perth, and go into detail the positive and negative attributes I think exist within. I think this discussion has taught me that some things are worth standing up for, despite whatever negative feedback you might face. I want to see my community to be the safe haven it should be, free from the haters and the jackals that seem intent in bringing it down from within. Why do I have hope that this could be accomplished? One word, Bronies.

The List

The other night as I was trying to some degree to 'unfuck' my head with some scotch & dry ginger and some cider, I decided I needed set myself some goals for the up coming year. I detest the notion of "New Year's Resolutions" because it seems to have lost it's impact, or at least seems like a cheap way of claiming to do something whilst immediately returning to your old habits. Then there is the business of "Affirmations" which usually take the of "Wishing for something so much you'll write it ten times daily for an entire year and not do any real work in accomplishing any thing"... or at least it's my take on it. No, instead I decided I wanted a to make a list of things I hope to accomplish this year, please take note of the usage of the word 'hope'. Yes it's a cop-out, but also means I won't feel like an absolute failure if I don't manage to check all the boxes, and there is a few. It's also not the point for me, as the idea is something I can steer towards and feel enthusiastic about doing not dwelling on the failure to do so. Yes some it is very much over ambitious, but isn't that the point of setting some goals or have I been suckered by all the weak token 'motivational' pictures idiots people post on Facebook everyday.

I don't feel motivated, and that's the problem. I need some sort of guideline that will help me keep going when times are tough, when I don't know what else to do. Even though there will be times when I'm unable to proceed due to external factors (money being a major one), I feel I have to be focused and at least prevail in what I can accomplish. One of the reasons I'm trying to write more is part of this, getting a lot of this crap that has been bottled up for way too long.

Either way, I'm still working on 'The List' and I'm still deciding on if I want to post it as some sort of public accountancy, which I can update as things occur or progress has been made... you know it just seems to be the way I think. So here it is as, however some things I'm keeping a secret for sake of 'spoilers'. Just as an FYI, my personal goals are mostly long term ways I just want to change things in my life, although it's also dependent on external forces.

The List - 2012/01/25

Personal

- Find someone who makes you happy
- Find something that fulfils you.
- Try to help others as much as you can but not at personal cost.
- Manage the fucking weight a bit better.

Projects
- Complete Season 1 of Prop Perth
- Start Production on Fanalysis
- Costumes
-- Volstagg – Due November
-- Hobbit – Due December
-- Doctor Octopus
-- Real Ghostbusters – Due Oz Comic-Con
-- Ghost Smashers – Due Supanova
-- Big Macintosh – Due Waicon
---- Almost complete, just need to finalise outfit.
-- Eddie – Rocky Horror
-- Eureka Sheriff – Due Oz Comic-Con
---- Need Shirt, Pants, Belt Attachments (Holsters etc), Name Tag
-- [REDACTED]
-- Goliath – Due Supanova
-- [REDACTED]
- Build a TARDIS for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary
- Get the website back up and running
- Fanboy Crossing The Podcast
- Word is the Nerd Blog
---- Started – 2012/01/24

The Blog is Dead... Long Live the Blog!

After recent events in my life which have taken an emotional toll on me, I've decided to start writing again and as such I'm interested in restarting my blog... However due to financial strains I'm unable to pay for my own webhosting any more and with it goes my other blogs/promotional pages. So I decided I might as well use a free blogging service and just bow down to some corporate masters if it means getting some content out.

I'm not one for New Years resolutions but I've been thinking hard about these last few months and I need to turn a few things around in my life that seemed to have absolutely wrong. I spent the last year trying to the right thing by other people, with little to no reward (I didn't ask in the majority of cases unless I needed money for fuel and the like) and I exhausted myself physically, financially, and most importantly, emotionally. I lost a lot of my drive and creativity, and being so exhausted I lost of energy to do the things I enjoyed doing. I started out that year being very pro-active and having a yearning to work on long overdue projects, but as the months went by external forces got in the way and I've been putting my own things off more and more to tend to other peoples needs more and more.

I don't want to say that I had an epiphany after my Grandad's death, but I'm using this event to spur my life into a direction at least away from the iceberg that has seemed to be looming for quite some time. Last year I did a lot for other people, this year I need to do something for myself.. however I feel a need to do something for others, or at least get cracking on the projects that I had intended to do that would allow me to do such things. More details to come.

I've decided to make a pledge right here and now, I WANT to do daily content on this blog and I want to make a promise to do so. I suppose what I'm asking for now is at least someone to check back occasionally, make my feel like this is actually worth while and not some foolish exercise that will be lost in the ether. Damn it that feels sucky, but I've had problems with feeling ignored after pouring so much of myself into such endeavors.