Ultra slow ultra runner; Election loser; Eating contest winner; Doting father; Sometime: Podcaster; Filmmaker; Biz starter.
So it looks like Kungfu Hustle is coming out in general release very shortly (like, tomorrow, I think) you’ll recall that we saw this one at the festival a month or two ago, and really enjoyed it.
You should go see it, it kicks ass. In all kinds of ways.
Oh, we had a quick rematch on the Pictionary, we’re now all tied up in our little pro-league. That’s right, we went from the first round, where we won two of two games, to our return to the field of pencillish battle, where we LOST both games.
Terrible, terrible performance. Misleadingly terrible, I think we were scuppered by our superior play on All Play contests, where we’d beat their asses to the punch, but they, using their naughty skinny skeevy little sneak styles would listen for our awesome guesses, and put them together to win.
This is tantamount to cheating.
Except when we do the same thing, then it’s simply very clever tactics indeed.
In other news, this weeks Stargate Atlantis (season 2 episode 5, for those keeping count) was weird, strange and weird. Cannons can NOT shoot down space ships. You just can’t do it. Anti-aircraft guns, since World War II, have been radar guided, they work in arrays, and they fire huge numbers of rounds per minute, so stick your stupid cannon up your arse next time, ok?
I still like the hardness of Reed, shot through the leg with an arrow? Snap it off and pull it out, what the hell do you care about piffling arrows?
The look of the administrator at the end, though, that was good. I think that actor was too good to waste on a one time bit part.
They need to do some serious work on the makeup of the Wraith, they look like a guy in heavy heavy make-up.
Oh, and that stupid electronic voice modification they do? The same stupid trick they did with the G’ould? They need to not do that either.
On the food front, I’ve been eating too much Chinese food. Last night, while walking George, I went past a place (on Sandringham Rd, across from whatever that little primary school is) with a nice lady who tricked me into ordering a ‘special’ chowmein (but hold the prawns) with crispy noodles, a banana fritter, and half a dozen (surprisingly good) wontons. That was to follow on from the previous nights beef & blackbean sauce, steamed rice, and, errrr, 20 fried dumplings, from the place on Dominion Rd next to Sierra Cafe (not the empty one, the one that’s always full, and has a little $8 sign on the window).
So, if you follow the news much at all, you’ll know by now that a group of scientists in Korea have finally managed to successfully clone a dog, and Afghan hound, from cells from its ear introduced into and egg and implanted into a Labrador. The clone is called Snuppy, and he seems to be a normal healthy 16 week old pup.
Does this squick you out? Not me. I like it. I don’t like the failure rate, not one little bit. That’s a lot of dead dogs they’ve created in order to finally succeed.
But I’m really happy about the whole thing, ‘cos one day, hopefully in ten years or more — George isn’t little enough to have a super long doggie life span, I’ve met dogs of 18 or 20 years, but they’re always tiny little things — my lovely little animal companion is going to die. It’s going to fuck me up. He’s my lovely little friend, you see.
But it’d help for me to be able to go along to my local vet and put in an order for 2x George, Jr, for delivery in 6 months. Please add a small modification to make him less prone to the cancer or heart disease or whatever it was that killed him.
Ten years can be a long time in science. Who says I won’t be able to do this?
Of course, ten years can also be a short time, just look at how many of us have mandroids that do our dishes and fold our laundry, and who reading this flew their little Jetsons Bubble car to work today? No? No.
I’m under no illusions that a clone of George would be the same as George, for one thing, he has seperation anxiety – he was weaned really early, and his nuts snipped off at age about 4 weeks. But it sure would be nice to have the little guy around again, and again, and again. And I think it’d be super awesome to have him twice at once, that way he could play and play and play.
"Ethicists" are already trying to stick their stinking unwanted beaks in, of course, saying they don’t know if it’s moral for dog owners to clone their beloved pooches, but you know what Mrs Ethicist? The choice I’m giving you is not "clone the dog or not clone the dog?" The choice is instead "clone the dog or I’ll hurt you, very very badly."
I don’t know how much I’d pay for this, maybe five thousand dollars. That probably won’t be enough in 10 years, but it probably will be enough in 20 years.
Oh, and plus we’ll all be walking lots in 20 years, so it’ll be a nice world for dogs.
(We’ll be walking due to there being no oil to run our Canyoneros and Ford Explorers, and stuff.)
Oh, other things I did last week, books and movies and, uh, ‘time shifted’ TV…
On Tuesday we decided to kick it to the cheap showing of Mr & Mrs Smith, I actually kind of enjoyed it, but you know… It’s not exactly the highest art ever put on film. For $4, I’m not going to whine and complain.
However, I went to Land of the Dead on Thursday, and that movie definitely wasn’t worth $15. I think Romero is waaaaayyy stale. His zombies just suck by comparison with other recent movies. I mean, look at how scary those fuckers in the Dawn of the Dead remake were, even the lame Rage infected guys in 28 Days Later were better. Stick your ‘intelligent’ zombies up your arse, FAST zombies are terrifying. Also, good makeup makes a hell of a big difference, it’s not the 1980s, so don’t think you can get away with the same lame-ass shitty effects that got by then.
The characters all do stupid bullshit things, soldiers firing on auto from the hip, instead of aiming and squeezing off quick shots… It’s just stupid. It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t give any credit to the audience. The whole structure of the society they’d put together in the walled city was just fucking stupid. And what idiot pulls wheelies when riding a motorcycle around zombies? The whole thing, it just annoyed me. For these people to have survived as long as they did, that would require that they all be smart and hard, and certainly not reckless.
The acting was great, I thought — except for Hopper — I don’t think you can blame the cast for the direction and the material. Romero just sucks. Haaaarrd. How could that skater guy make his character look like a survivor type, if the first thing he does on being dropped off, is to break open a tiny little wooden shack, go inside, put on headphones loud, and look at the floor? What the hell? Who would do that? Block off visibility completely, then deafen yourself. Awesome. So it was a big susprise when he was attacked and turned? A lame-ass non-surprise, actually.
I like zombie movies, and I was super disappointed. Romero is now officially banned from making any more zombie movies.
However, remakes of his old movies are welcome.
Oh, yeah, I also read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I guess it was pretty good. I’ve got a theory about that whole thing at the end, though.
*SPOILERS*
Dumbeldore isn’t really dead, it was a ruse perpetrated by him and Snape, so now no one will be paying any attention to Dumbeldore while he sneaks around, only to popup right at the end of book 7, helping Harry out with Voldemort.
I also read a Bill Bryson book called A Walk in the Woods, again, I guess it’s kind of good. I couldn’t help the feeling that his friend Katz was way funnier than he was, and indeed that Bryson was actually a really mean and nasty sort of a guy, derision and sarcasm dripping from his spittle flecked maw at every opportunity.
So, two books and two movies. Oh, and some Stargate Atlantis.
I just watched season 2 episode 4 yesterday, and it’s… Pretty crap. You remember how in like season 5 of Stargate SG1, they fell back on that lame old saw of swapping peoples personalities between their bodies? Well, this is like one step up from that. I want them to start using Reed in some really brutal and violent encounters though, he has some real potential.
Oooh, there was also some hot boy on boy action when Dr McKay kissed Dr Beckett. By hot, I mean tight lipped and dry. It might have been more startling if there’d been some open mouthed lip grinding, ideally with slippery slithering tongues and stuff, but no.
In other news, and lastly, I haven’t caught a single episode of the new Dr Who since I downloaded that first episode. Another TV series that’d do way better with me on the team. Blackballing bastards.
What a good fun weekend.
Started on Friday night when we hooked up with Wheezy & Karl, went to Turkish Cafe, I made the mistake I seem to make every other visit, which is to order the Karishik, it’s a bloody monster… Two huge piles of chicken & lamb, with rice, salad, and chopped up pita… I reckon I did pretty well, but there was still an awful lot on my plate. So next time I’ll order something more sensible, and the time after that I’ll forget about the gut busting splendour of the karishik and order it again, thinking something like "oooh, I am hungry with a big appetite, maybe it’s not as big as I remember."
Saturday morning, up at the crack of about 10.30, and off to pickup Dylzno & Mellanie, and their chubby little baby Harrison, then away to spend some time at the Food Expo, now I was in two minds about going, I’ve been to quite a few expos in my time, as an exhibitor, as an invited guest of exhibitors, and as a punter, though usually not as a paying punter… And I’ve pretty much never been impressed, the small business expo, for example, if complete rubbish. I don’t understand why anyone exhibits, I’ve been every time since it started, and I’ve never been terribly interested in anything.
Ditto with computer or big-boys-toys’ish shows… I’ve been to shows in Auckland and Sydney, and they’re just not that interesting.
So when it turned out we could only get one comp to the Food Expo, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t bother – after all, who wants to pay for the privilege of being bored & underwhelmed?
Anyway, it’s obvious from this build up that I actually enjoyed it. I liked trying a bunch of different wines, and we even ended up buying some (from Lincoln) and lots of cheeses, which again we ended up buying some of (some really nice imported feta, it’s super smooth and creamy).
Oh, and icecream. And chocolate. I was delighted that Leffe was on tap, disappointed that they had no Brune. I drowned my sorrows in baby octopus stew. And cashews. And really nice liquers from Bella Verde, I tried their limoncello, it was really strong and nice, but outshone by the feijola, which doesn’t seem to be available on the market yet, but which really is lovely. It needs to be mixed with something though, and I’m not sure what, ‘cos like the limoncello, it’s got a seriously strong alcohol flavour.
Oh, I got really tired of all the olive oil, I like to cook with olive oil, but please. Also, it doesn’t all need to be so strong and grassy. Ok, so it’s nice and fresh and artisan made in New Zealand, but so much of it?
One of my favourite stands was actually one of the simplest, the Kiwi Bacon guys were there, and you didn’t just get a little slice, you got a bacon sandwich, awww yeah. You know you want it.
Anyway, we ended up being there for a good 4 hours or so, and it was pretty fun, we dropped our friends off at their house in Mt Eden, and kicked off home, Claire needed a nap (she’d had more wine than me, by far) and I spent my time… doing I don’t remember what, probably wasting time on the internets.
Dinner time, and we went back to their place, I took Dylzno and we hit Bonzo for some fine fish & chips, TV was complete rubbish, so they broke out the Pictionary, we kicked their ass. Two wins to nil. Somehow I kept getting clues which required me to draw boobies. ( o Y o ). Aww yeah.
Sunday and we were both pretty tired, but Claire is never too tired to shoe shop, so we did a bit of that, then took George for a nice walk up the hill, Claire dropped her coffee, and I was mean. We dropped George back to Casa Del Pino. Then headed to Manukau Rd to look for some fabric Claire wants for a project, but ended up trying to find a bakery with a pie I’d be willing to eat, it wasn’t easy, so we ended up going to Burger King, which proved to be an adequate substitution.
For dinner Claire made another one of her (really, really really good) baked vegetable tarts, and some cool little cupcake sized pasties full of a lovely mix of the aforementioned creamy delicious imported feta, and handfulls of fresh spinach, dolloped into the pastry lined cupcake wells with an egg mix, broccoli, mushroom, and tomato. Aww yeah. Then topped off with a rich tomato relish, and accompanied by a leafy green salad with a respectful drizzling of balsamic and some shavings of a nice tart cheese.
Oh, I was mean (only a little bit, by my standards) about the coffee spilling because I’d just had to stand around in the cold, waiting for fifteen minutes, while she went and queued for the aforementioned coffee.
"Labour’s fortunes have dramatically reversed in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey and it now leads National by 6.4 percentage points.
In the same poll last month, Labour trailed National by 3.9 points.
National overtook Labour after the May Budget, but with just over seven weeks to go until the election Labour is back to where it has been for most of the three-year term, in front.
Labour has risen 7.7 points to 43.9 per cent of decided voters and National has fallen 2.6 points to 37.5.
The popularity of Helen Clark as preferred Prime Minister has risen by five points, to 53.8 per cent. National leader Don Brash has also had a rise, by 3.3 points, to 28.3 per cent." — The New Zealand Herald, July 29, 2005.
Crikey, that was a sudden turnabout, wasn’t it. Unfortunately, we all know that things will change again numerous times between now and the morning of the 17th, but all I can say is… Well… I hope the trend is for a centre-left win.
Does anyone really trust any of the right-wing parties? How could you possibly? Don’t you remember the 90s? Ruth Richardson? No? How would you like your mortgage rate to be as high as it was under Rob Muldoon? Remember that guy? He was a right-winger – and a drunk.
The invisible hand of the market will throttle you to death, then neatly slice your kidneys out and sell them to the highest bidder.
Don’t believe the hype when ‘they’ tell you that Labour equates to a soft nanny state, look at the unemployment rate – how is it soft to get people back into work and off the dole? Oh, but it’s so easy on the dole, that’s why it’s so fucking wonderful that National is going to reimplement its already tested – and failed – work for the dole policy, which has been proven to prevent people from being able to get a real damn job. And halts the production of real new jobs. Wonderful, yeah? Awesome? No, wrong headed — and demonstrably so!
Oh yeah, and you know that nuclear free policy that so many of us are so very proud of? Remember "it’ll be gone by lunchtime," .. "Oh, but I don’t remember saying that," perhaps by teatime then, you prick. We can have corned beef and frozen peas, and an American imperialist cock driven up our collective arse.
"The biggest loser in today’s poll is Winston Peters, who has dropped eight points as preferred Prime Minister to 10.3, and his New Zealand First Party, which has fallen 4.7 points to 7.1. " — The New Zealand Herald, July 29, 2005.
Ha ha! They called Winny a big loser!
Now, I must confess to being a bit worried about who Helen will pass the torch to if she manages to drive Labour to another win, it seems unlikely that she’d want to contest a fourth election — again, assuming she wins this one, which is by no means certain — and with the politics game being the way it is, she’d be out of the job in a second if they lose (just like Brash), right?
In other news, today is the last day of the bandwidth month for me, so last night…
So the Film Fesitval finished on Sunday night, and I guess we watched the last movie, otherwise I don’t know why that guy was standing in front of the screen being boring and thanking people for their support before it started…
That last movie, Broken Flowers, with Bill Murray, was probably the best movie we saw, now it’s not like we went to everything, but frankly I’ve got better things to do with my time – a lot of the movies in the festival programme just didn’t look very interesting to me.
It’s the story of Don Johnston (no, Johnston, with a ‘t’), an aging lothario who is surprised one morning — the same morning his girlfriend leaves him, frustrated that he doesn’t want to marry and have kids — with a letter claiming to be from an old flame, telling him that their affair from 20 years earlier produced a son, who has left home to find his father.
Anyway, there is no name on the letter, but his excellent neighbour, who is obviously very keen on mystery novels, gets on the case and sets him up — really — for a journey around all of his girlfriends from around the same time.
It’s hilarious. And cool.
My favourite character aside from Don & Winston, was the lovely young lady in the florists, she was… Lovely?
Funniest, and most naked, would have to be Lolita. She was awesome. Awww yeah.
Third favourite character… Tough, but I’d say it would have to be Don’s tracksuits. You’ll see.
I guess this one is going to be in either wide release, or at least at the Rialto, so I reckon you should go see it.
Now, on Saturday afternoon we also went to the animation showcase ‘Animation Now!’, and it was pretty much the same as it always is, by which I mean there was a bunch of rubbish, but a couple of real gems.
The standouts:
Dialog, from the UK , which is about Mr Scientist who makes a tiny little town full of tiny little people. I didn’t think this was the right presentation for the story though, I think it would have made a good interactice piece.
Insomnia, from Latvia, this one was really really good, I thought. The story of a man getting some milk for his cat, before he sleeps with her, after she, er, turns into his wife. Really nice pacing, super good.
Populi, from USA, completely strange and cool. The animators construct a funny little man in a variety of ways – wood, paintings, welded steel rods, copper, etc, and send him on travels around the place, spinning and rotating and having a great time. You’ve got to see it — and possibly on the big screen — to understand how well this goes.
The very best, in my humble opinion, was:
Little Things, also from the UK, in my head I think of this one as ‘the days’, and it’s just… wait, I’ve used too many booster words already. Just take it from me, Little Things works, it tells a series of stories, ties them all together, and blows everyone up. Very fun.
The one I’m not really going to talk about:
Ryan, from Canada, this one won an Oscar last year, and I downloaded and watched a copy then. Sure it’s good, what do you want me to say?
Right, I’ve been saving up for a week or two, but I don’t really want to write too much right now, so you just get the key points and no jokes.
So many of the characters were awesome, like… The fairy tailor… The loudmouthed (hur hur) chain smoking land lady. The scene where the landlord goes flying out of the window and tumbles spinning to smash into the ground, oh man, I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Just see it.
Booorrring. Especially the entirely unconvincing and childish argument the anarchists are trying to use on Hardenberg. Maybe all anarchists are childish and self-centred, I don’t know, I can’t say I’ve spoken to a hell of a lot of them. Do anarchists even exist?
Oh, of course some moments were great and funny and entertaining, it was just that whole middle 30 minutes or so. Oh boy.
I think Calcifer was one of the top characters, I also liked the sludgy men, and the doggy. (Of course.)
(We’ve tested this one 4 or 5 times now, and it is now and established fact that this is quite simply the BEST movie drink.)
No beer today.
Last night we went to an Auckland Film Festival movie called Touching the Void… It’s about a couple of brit climbers who got into a bit of trouble on a South American mountain in the mid 80’s fantastic story, excellent movie… That Boney M bit was genius.
But.
I don’t think I can face going to any other movies in the festival, as the Civic is simply the most shit movie theatre in the whole city of Auckland.
The seats are dreadful, and ruin the experience for me, when this is combined with the near flat floor, making for roughly zero good positions to sit when watching the movie, and the whole experience is very nearly ruined.
So, I recommend the movie, but if you ever have a choice between seeing a movie in the civic, and seeing it somewhere else, see it somewhere else.
We are… We’re not going to see Fahrenheit 911 atthe festival, we’re instead going to watch it at Rialto (I don’t know why they even have it on at the festival when it’s in general release so soon, probably because that fucker Ant Timpson didn’t get the rights for it and hold it up for years, dirty bastard), the seats at the Rialto are only slightly better, but the experience is massively improved. (For really good seats & theatre design go to St Lukes.)
Accomodation for the weekend has been booked, looks like we’ll be staying in National Park one night and skiing Whakapapa, then toodling over to Ohakune for a couple of nights and skiing at Turoa. Seems like a pretty good balance. Just as long as I get one of those delicious Red Bull & Jagermeister things from Schnapps while I’m in National Park. We’re staying in the place with the climbing wall, so I’ll have to try to convince the girls to give that a go — Claire was into it last time, but I’m not sure if Louise likes to do that sort of thing.
I guess that spoiler ridden TV fanboy rubbish from todays earlier post was pretty inaccessible for most of my readers, so how about I share a recipe with you? Ok.
We live pretty close to Eden Park, it’s just up the road, really… And as there was a Lions vs. Auckland rugby game on there last night we knew that traffic would be completely bloody horrible, so I told Claire that I’d make dinner for her, and head out to the market in the afternoon, so we wouldn’t have to try to travel on the roads in the evening (it can be really unpleasant, even on normal game nights).
So, I made broccoli soup, and it was good.
The Fixin’s
That’ll make a lot of soup, enough for probably 5 or 6 people as a main, so you can make it with one onion, one tater & one head of broccoli very easily.
The Method
Chop the onions, not too small, maybe quarters, do the same to the taters, if you’re using smaller taters don’t chop or only halve them, you don’t want them to fall apart, so don’t make them small.
Strip any remaining leaves from the stalk of the broccoli, and cut off the dry tip, then just chop it all up (quite big) and drop it in a big pot with the other vegies.
Now pour in a couple of cups of chicken stock, or crumble two Oxo cubes over the vegies, then fill the pot with water, this is going to have to be a really (!) big pot, I used my awesome Chasseur 36, and it was really full once the water was in there.
Bring to the boil, and leave it on a nice boil with the lid on for a good hour, stir it every now and then, you should have any problems with sticking, but it’s best to be safe. Take the lid off after about 60 minutes and leave it on the boil, it needs to reduce a fair bit now, and will take at least 30 and probably 45 minutes, it’ll be right down to about half full when it’s time, just make sure there’s still some fluid left, but it’s going to be below the level of the vegies now.
Remove from the heat and allow it to cool for 5 or 10 minutes, you can now either start moving it in batches to a blender — that would be if you’re crazy — or you can whip out your stick blender and cream the whole thing up, add a bit of milk, it should be thick but nice and smooth. Once you’re happy with the consistency, open your wedge of blue cheese and crumble the whole thing into little bits sprinkled throughout the soup, one wedge should be great if you’re making a smaller batch, if I was to make another big one I’d probably use two full wedges, the cheese will melt nicely as you stir it through the still hot soup. Add a bunch of grated cheese as well, I guess we used about a cup and a half or two cups. Season it to taste with salt & pepper.
The Conclusion
As you can see it’s a very simple recipe which is really flexible, it’s also extremely filling and tasty — I couldn’t even finish a single (quite big) bowl, now I don’t know if I’ve told you the story, but I once ate not one but TWO "Diagnosis: Chronic Heart Disease" sandwiches for lunch!
Oh, definitely don’t cut out the blue cheese, unless you like extremely gentle flavours, you’ll really want the delicious tang of the blue cheese.