Poor Old Uncle Ben

So, the most recent Spiderman flick came out on DVD a while ago. And yes, we're still keeping our policy of saying "Screw you," to the Launceston cinemas, and watching the movies we want to see a bit later on. It's working well for us at this end. Who knows? Maybe the people behind the cinema business in Launceston will get the message, and find a way to make their venue interesting again, some day.

But probably not with movies like the Amazing (Astounding? Astonishing? Unlikely? Silly? Who the hell can remember which adjective they chose, anyway? Not me.) Spiderman.

I'm happy to admit it's a better film than the Raimi version. It's shinier. The FX are better. The main actor (whoever he was; they're all a bit interchangeable these days, aren't they?) was much more interesting than Dopey Maguire. And the lead female role was played by someone (whoever she was; they're all a bit interchangeable these days, aren't they?) with much more life, spark and personality than Kirsten Dunst.

(Dunst. Dunst. Dunst. Dunst. Damn. That's starting to remind me of a comic-book sound-effect, maybe. The sort of thing you might see in a panel where a surgeon throws a bit of unwanted organ-meat over his shoulder into a trash bin. Dunst!)

I liked the villain more too. Willem Dafoe's turn as Psycho Norman Osborne Green Goblin Bad Daddy was a bit too hard on the scenery for me. Yeah, I know. He was playing a comic-book villain. But he was in a movie, right? They're not the same thing, no matter what the fanboyz say. Peter Jackson knows what I'm talking about.

Whatever. The point is that even for my young boys, the movie was largely unfuckingnecessary. We lounged about, giggling over whatever silly elements of the story took our attention. We lampooned Dopey Maguire, and we dissed Dunst, and we did it over the top of the dialogue of the Unbelievable Spiderman and we didn't give a damn.

Because, of course, we knew exactly where the movie was going. At every point. Aside from the usual elements of signposting (oh noes! Peter's dad has been working on a Sekrit Formula!) it was just the same old, same old Indefatigable Spiderman story.

And we got bored.

Thus, when we saw Petey's parents onscreen, the boys and I shouted warnings: "Look out, Pete! Your parents are gonna disappear! You're gonna be an orphan, and you're gonna have to live with your Aunt May and your Uncle Ben! Look out!"

Of course, Petey paid us no heed, and his parents duly shuffled off, as directed.

Then there was Martin Sheen doing his Uncle Ben impression. And let's be fair: it was a good Uncle Ben impression. (They really pulled out the stops casting Aunt May and Uncle Ben, didn't they? I didn't even know the Flying Nun was still making movies!) But there he was, puffing and blowing and pontificating his way through his stand-in parent role, and instead of engendering sympathy, it just made the boys and I shout again: "Great responsibility!" we howled. "Tell him the bit about great power and great responsibility, Uncle Ben!"

Oddly, he ignored us. So we shouted the line for Peter to hear. But Pete ignored us too.

Worse still, when Uncle Ben wandered out into the night to get (what was it? Extra tampax for the Flying Nun? I can't remember) something from the shops, he ignored us again. "Look out, Uncle Ben," we shouted. "You're gonna get killed! Don't go down to the shops! There's a bad man with a gun!"

Peter, too. We called out to him as well: "Look out, Pete! Uncle Ben's gonna get killed by that bad man with a gun! You better stop him, Pete, or you're gonna be orphanised even more, and then you'll be all angsty and have to go around beating up criminals for the rest of your unnaturally prolonged teenagerhood!"

But did he listen? Nope. Not a word. Not a hint.

I am tremendously glad that we didn't bother seeing that one at the cinemas. I'm sure we would have annoyed the shit out of everyone else in the place... but unfortunately, taking the piss out of the tired, sad, predictable developments unfolding inevitably, mechanistically, fatalistically on the screen in front of us was the only way to have fun with the film.

If I was five years old, seeing the Unredeemable Spiderman for the first time, I'd want it to be that version of the movie, yep. But I'm not five. I saw all three of the previous Dopey Maguire versions, and so did the boys. So what if the suits at Sony wanted to hang onto the rights? I don't give a shit. It wasn't worth the effort.

Fuck all this "reboot" shit the studios are doing. There are a million fantastic amateur projects out there on the web. Hollywood is a frustrated dinosaur, screaming and stalking around the landscape trying to masturbate with hands too short to reach its wiener.

That's not what it's about any more.

Guess I won't be back to the cinemas any time soon.

Well, Yes. I've Been Busy.

So. Early in September, we took off on a "holiday". Let me give you just a touch more information there.

The first week of the 'holiday' saw us up in Cairns, in a couple rooms at a very shiny hotel. That's not my kind of holiday, but there was a reason: Natalie was facilitating a sizable medical conference... which left yours truly to be Parent In Charge for most of that week.

It could have been worse, sure. I caught up with old friends. Rented a car, cruised up and down the coast. We took a family day, rode the Kuranda Train to the top of the range, and came back down via the cable-car through the rainforest, all of which was pretty cool. But let's be honest here: I spent a lot of time shepherding three very temperate kids through the tropics, and they weren't too happy about that.

Once the medical conference finished, we spent a few days staying with my dad, up the back of the Atherton Tablelands, near Mareeba. That was pretty good too. I made father do the grampa thing, and take Genghis fishing in the little creek near his house. Father was sceptical, but I know enough about freshwater fishing up in that part of the world to have an edge. And so, armed with a small spool of line, an oversized suicide hook and a big lead sinker, they added a bit of raw chicken, and trundled down to sit on a log overlooking the creek. And sure enough: one very nice perch, which flabbergasted my father, and delighted Genghis beyond all measure. He had it for breakfast the next morning.

It was nice to catch up with the old chap, and my defacto stepmum, but of course, we were guests in their house. And that's not my kind of holiday either. Not complaining, though. It went well. We visited a friend of theirs who keeps reptiles as a hobby; the kids got to handle pythons and shingleback lizards, which was cool. We also took in a bird sanctuary at Kuranda, where excessively friendly parrots settled on us, and perplexed the tourists who couldn't figure out why me, my father, and the two boys were constantly surrounded by birds when other folks couldn't entice them down with bags of bird-treats. (Hint: if you want the birds to come to you, sit still, you idiots. If you scream and jump and flinch every time a bird settles on your shoulder, they rapidly conclude you're a bloody lunatic, and they avoid you afterwards.)

After that, we took the Sunlander train down to Brizneyland. That's about a thirty-six hour trip, covering something like 1800km. We took two sleeping cabins, figuring the kids had never done long-distance train stuff before. It was expensive, and interesting enough to do once. But never again. Small children in a small cabin pretty rapidly become problematic.

In Briz, I had plans to catch up with people... but it all went sideways. We stayed with Roz and Steve, which was pretty cool, but the Briz vista was broken up with a weekend trip across the border (another rented car!) to northern NSW for Natalie's sister's wedding, complete with two nights in some kind of rural retreat thingee.

The wedding was very cool. Nat's sister is a sweetie, and her new husband is a sharp individual. Their wedding vows were hilarious... he promised to get shit down off high shelves and open jars; she promised not to complain if he didn't pick up all his clothing; he promised to stop regarding the outdoors as his enemy; she promised to treat a weekend watching The West Wing with the same appreciation as hiking up a mountainside, etc.

Somehow I got dragooned into helping decorate the big barn where the reception was held. Being me, I promptly went to the local reject shop and spent a hundred bucks on weird shit: little garden gnomes, slightly naked fairies, a rubber chicken, lots of glow-bracelets, supersour lollies, and other peculiarities. I figured if I was going to be pressed into service, then I was going to have some fun while I was at it...

... but it backfired. The glow-bracelets were met with the greatest of delight. The rubber chicken was a centrepiece, eventually having its head bitten off by a drunken reveller and sacrificed on the midnight bonfire. The bride herself took home the plaster meerkat, and nobody noticed that some of the candy was terrifyingly sour. So, all up: an excellent jape for all concerned. Made me happy, and cheered up a bunch of others as well. Best of all, my wife and her stepmum both knew about it in advance, and were more than a little alarmed.

Then we went back to Briz. Stayed with Roz and Steve again, and then made the trip to my sister's place. And frankly, there just wasn't time to chase people down, and I regret that, but as you can see, with us staying on people's couches and attending weddings and stuff, it wasn't really a farking holiday at all.

I should also add the following: since early September, I have written ninety-eight thousand words of fiction. I have written a couple thousand words of very hardcore Byronesque poetry. I have written five thousand words of academic stuff. I have presented a paper on the progress of my MA. I have built a quail enclosure. I have graded twenty-odd ju-jitsu students over a two week period. I have also taken part in the judging of the Conflux writing competition, alongside two other fine writer-types.

This is, of course, on top of the usual routine for this part of the  year.  So yes. You're right. I've not been posting around here.

Did you miss the bit about ninety-eight thousand words of fiction in a little over two months? Go away! Stop hassling me!

Remember, Remember

...better luck next time, mate.

Admittedly, I Don't Really Give A Shit

Have you ever considered the phrases "taking a shit", or "taking a dump"? How did we get around to thinking of faeces as something we 'take'? I mean, seriously... when I go into a toilet, I am definitely not planning on taking shit anywhere. In fact, I intend the opposite. I go to toilets to deliver shit, not take it.

The image is really disturbing. And we know it's disturbing, because we use the term "taking shit" when we speak of being abused by someone. In fact, we hope not to take any shit from anyone.

Nevertheless, we still go to the toilet to take a shit.

I think I'm going to start a campaign to undermine this bizarre bit of English. From now on, whenever anybody tells me they're about to "take a shit" or any variation thereof, I'm going to ask them what they're going to do with it, and where they plan to keep it once they've taken it. I may also ask them to make sure they don't take any of mine...

I Love The Irish. Really.

Enjoy this musical video clip.

Or not. But it sure as hell made me laugh.

USAnian Politics

In theory, there are two men running for the Presidency of the USA this coming November. One is the incumbent, Barack Obama. Say what you will of the man; I don't live there, so I'll offer no opinion.

The other is a man called Mitt Romney. Again, I won't vouchsafe an opinion. But I will put this statement forward:

Mitt Romney has just publicly stated that he thinks passenger airliner windows should be able to roll down, in case of fire.

Don't take my word for it:  Source 1... Second Source.


I put to my two boys, aged 9 and 12, the question of whether or not passenger airliner windows should roll down in case of fire. Unsurprisingly, both boys looked absolutely horrified, and explained immediately that opening the windows of an airliner at operating height would result in horrific decompression. (They actually said "everyone and everything inside would be sucked out the window and there would be no air".)


All right. I know there's no lower limit on the IQ of persons running for public office. But... for the love of sanity, America, don't you think that perhaps there should be?

Games And Social Observations

Well, I've switched gaming styles with the boys. We were playing a sandbox-style adventure, with a broadly constructed world and plotlines generated internally, from the actions of the players. It's my preferred method of running a game: organic, and challenging, because you have to riff off what the players are doing to keep the whole story running neatly.

The problem is that it calls for regular sessions, so character development -- which is really important to the whole sandboxing thing -- can happen smoothly. And it's hard to account for players who have to miss the odd session. You're pretty much obliged to keep them in as NPCs for the session, which is less than satisfying.

But given that I'm short of time, and it's hard to get the group together regularly, I switched over to a new campaign setting yesterday, using a slightly varied form of the Savage Worlds rules.

I tested the waters a few months back by running a Paranoia one-off. The players enjoyed themselves tremendously, and so did I, so I figured we could get away with a more sessional sort of game play: like individual, module-style adventures placed against a developing, complex background. Savage Worlds lends itself to that kind of thing, I find. Combat works pretty quickly, and allows for plenty of improv and cinematic silliness, which kept everyone happy, and if you do a little groundwork beforehand, there's lots of role-playing opportunity.

I'm pretty happy with the new setting. I'm calling it "Imperium", and the players are operating in an alternate history year 1600, out of England. There are two crucial split-points from our world. One lies in the Spanish invasion of Peru and Mexico: the Spaniards got there, and discovered that the Aztecs had a direct link to their terrible, bloodthirsty gods... and around the world, strange and ancient things began to stir.

In Europe a young priest named Martin Luther decided that the moribund and corrupt Catholic Church couldn't deal with the threat of the hideous gods of the New World, and created his own version of the Faith, aimed at keeping to God's word properly. Meanwhile, the Spanish got their arses kicked in Mexico, but are making some headway with Peru -- a mixture of diplomacy and conquest, and even a certain amount of conversion to the renewed Christian faith.

In England, word of the Spanish discoveries caused a degree of fear and disbelief. But the other split-point from our world occurred back in the seventh century, at the Synod of Whitby. In the real world, the Celtic church fell into line with the Roman church, and the centre of Christian religion remained Roman. In the world of Imperium, the Celtic church told the Romans to go and fuck themselves, because they'd been given a secret Gospel which shed a different light on Jesus and the crucifixion. In fact, they believed Jesus had been sent as a peacemaker, to reconcile the Old Gods with new ways, and to preserve the natural order of the world... and so in the England of Imperium, the Christian church (such as it is) worships the King In Green, and they wear a little model of the crown of thorns, rather than the cross which was treacherously used to slaughter the peacemaker.

So, yes -- when word came to England of the Old Gods in South America, Henry VIII decided to revitalise the Church of the King in Green. He gave permission to the elders to pull down the stone monasteries around the country, and grow new tree-churches in their place. (Of course, some of the old stone buildings were kept for the sake of their beauty. But there are trees around them now.)  And when it became clear that the Spaniards were cautiously negotiating with the less fearsome forces in the New World, Henry and the elders of the Green Church went to the ancient sidhe mounds in Ireland and Scotland, and contacted allies of their own...

... so it's 1600. The Spaniards are at war with much of the world. The Roman church is fractured. There are rumours of strange happenings in India, in China, and in dark Africa. There's even talk of giants in the cold Northern lands. The Green Church is helping defend England under Good Queen Bess (did you know there were actually two more Spanish Armadas after the one famously trashed by Drake? Both of them were defeated by "bad weather". True historical fact there.)  but the situation is perilous...

...and so,  Sir Robert Cecil decides to revive an old idea that got shelved when the Queen's infamous spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, died back in 1590. With guidance from Sir Francis Bacon (the prototype of the modern scientist) and Magister John Dee (court astrologer to Elizabeth I, and a famous figure in the history of magic, etc) he sets out to establish a group to deal with... unnatural threats to the Crown. Think of it as an alt-universe "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", or even a kind of "Forsooth! Avengers!" thing, and you've got it.

It went very well. We had six players. One is Bacon's protege, a Weird Science guy. He's got a little piece of "electrum" from the Sidhe, and has used it to build a "lightning gun". He's all about gadgets and nifty stuff. Another is Dee's protege. She's also in the Weird Science category, but her particular schtick is potions. She's got a belt of grenades, another belt of smoke bombs... and a final bandolier of Alkahest bombs. (Alkahest was the alchemical name for the much sought-after "universal solvent". She has it in grenade form. Gotta love that.)

We also got a dour Germanic fighter-knight, a wild-man gamekeeper raised by wolves, a highly skilled Irish thief-girl, and a delusional linguistic genius notorious for being able to talk his way into, or out of, almost anything. It was a great mix, and it played out very well. I gave them a nice set-up: a peace envoy, coming from Spain's Phillip III to talk about ending the war, and a mysterious master assassin known as "The Eagle", come to London to murder the envoy and destroy the hopes of peace. Throw in a malevolently murderous red herring, and some suitably confounding clues, and it all went very well -- culminating in a desperate fight inside Whitehall Palace itself to save Queen Bess from a ravening vampire-assassin.

Both the Lightning Gun and the Alkahest Grenades came into play... but the assassin got close enough that Queen Bess had to take a hand in the matter herself, setting off the twin blunderbusses rigged underneath her gigantic ballgown in order to distract the vampire long enough for the Irregulars (known as Section H) to do their job in appropriately cinematic fashion.

Actually, the Section H thing triggered my own favourite improv line of the session. I just pulled "Section H" out of the blue, and of course, one of the players asked the inevitable: "What does that stand for?"

I was doing Sir Robert Cecil at that moment, so I gave the players my best British Nobleman sneer, and said: "My dear, it stands only for the fact that Sections A through G have already failed, and died."

I think a game master should be allowed to pat himself on the back for moments like that. The look on the players' faces was just lovely...

... meanwhile, there are other things cheering me up as well. Spring weather is dodgy, but warm, which makes Natalie happier. And best of all? Well, it turns out that Hip-Hop and Rap are in deep, deep trouble. I've never liked either of them. I'm not sure if they're separate entities, or just manifestations of the same deeply unmusical hazardous waste, but it doesn't matter: I'll be glad when they're consigned to the trash dumps of history, next to Disco and a host of other equally irritating crap.

So... why do I think Rap/Hop is in trouble? Oh, that's simple. When portly, middle-aged Korean pop-stars can turn out a worldwide pop phenomenon with Korean Rap -- well, it's hard to imagine self-respecting American gangstas staying with a trend that produced Gangnam Style.

And not before time!