Thursday, October 15, 2009

Micallef = Outstandingness

More of Shaun please:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO5XGnQrlQc

(P.S. Micallef Tonight on the Nine network a few years ago could have been the greatest show in Australian TV history).

"We're gonna have a good time... Like a U2 concert."

If you have seen this, sorry to have bothered you, as you know the brilliance that is Ken Jeong.

If you haven't seen this, I think by the end of it you'll wonder why Mr. Apatow cut it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS97C3_yTiQ

I love how, whilst you can't see it, Katherine Heigl is... What do those crazy kids call it?... ROFL?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Taking shortcuts will come back to haunt you








"Careful! "That's a load-bearing poster".













"Argh! Damit!"

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Guitar Hero and Rock Band: Helping or hurting aspiring axe-men?

This report made my ears prick up when it appeared on gigwise.com (via ultimateguitar.com) in August:

Ex-Rolling Stones guitarist Bill Wyman and Pink Floyd star Nick Mason have attacked computer games like Rock Band for deterring youngsters from picking up real instruments...

Wyman: "
It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument. I think is a pity so I'm not really keen on that kind of stuff."
...

Mason: "
It irritates me having watched my kids do it - if they spent as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they'd be damn good by now."

The last point by Mason really stood out for me. I have a sibling who is taking guitar lessons. He only started about 18 months ago, so like my journey into the world of faster computers (http://ssdarkside.blogspot.com/2009/10/mmmyellow.html) there is still quite a journey to go before he starts copying a Mike McCreedy solo note for note (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSug011CviA from 3.30).

But now Guitar hero has taken his fancy. Should this worry me?
Will the game become top priority? Will his technique on the controller infect the technique he uses on the real thing?

Or,
will this only act to enhance his love of the real thing? Will the quick finger movements asked of him during the solo in "One" improve his dexterity on his Les Paul?

Only time will tell. However I'm pleased to say that insofar there have been no negative signs. He seems to be wanting to pick up the real thing a little bit more now. This gives substance to the counterargument in the aforementioned article provided by
Alex Rigopulas from Harmonix Systems, the company behind Rock Band:

"Most people try to learn an instrument at some point in their lives, and almost all of them quit after a few months or a year or two. This, I think, is because the earliest years of learning an instrument are the least gratifying.

"When people play Rock Band, however, they very quickly get a glimpse of the rewards that lie on the other side of the wall.

"We're constantly hearing from fans who were inspired by Rock Band to start studying a real instrument."

Perhaps my worries are born out of Wyman, Mason and I having learned the guitar in a pre-Guitar Hero/Rock Band era (with Wyman and Mason having gone onto slightly greater things than me.. though time is on my side).

Don't get me wrong- when I have played Guitar Hero or Rock Band it was fun (hard though). But five minutes in, I'd be yearning to go to my room and whip my real guitar out of its case.

I actually did that once whilst my brother played Guitar Hero. He played Metallica's "Sanitarium" on the controller whilst I played it on my acoustic- good wholesome fun. Kinda tricky when we hit the solo as my acoustic does not have a cut-off.





Poor high notes, so lonely up there.













Tuesday, October 6, 2009

She's like an alien staring into my soul















I would still place her well above the Mendoza Diagonal.

A Mendoza Diagonal crash course can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ# from 0.35

So much for learning from your mistakes


The NEW Challenger:

Even more flammable than the first!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Is my shower vulnerable to a Psycho-esque attack?

This from Wikipedia regarding the famous "shower scene" from Psycho:

Leigh (the actress whose character got whacked in the scene) was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open. She never realized until she first watched the film how vulnerable and defenseless one is.

At first this got me chuckling, but then it got me thinking: Is my shower susceptible to a Norman Bates copycat? Have I been washing up with my guard down? If a transvestite serial killer tried to bring about my soapy demise, would I see it coming?

So I did some surveillance:















These shots are taken from the two entries to the bathroom- the left from the bedroom, the right from the hallway. As one can tell, unless the person showering has a disturbing fascination for cream colored walls, hence resulting in their backs being turned for an oddly long time, your typical knife-wielding maniac is going to have difficulty troubling you.

This is further evidenced by this shot:

This is from inside the shower. Awesome, I can shower in peace! Especially so given there is a lock on the left hand entry.

So a Psycho-esque attack seems unlikely. But wait! Whats that on the far right of the shot?









A window!


I'll just have to hope the Norman Bates copycat has not evolved from knives to sniper rifles. Though with that door closed, I'm still of the opinion my shower is an impenetrable fortress.

But wait....













Another window!

Sneaky architect bastards!

The shot is taken from right about where my head would be. This could be problematic. Lets check out the danger from another angle.












Well good luck making that shot.

And that picture is taken with the assistance of the back of my car in stepladder mode.

So basically in order for a sniper to get into this brilliant position, they would most likely need to infiltrate my family first, then be in the area at the same time as I'm having my shower, AND then step on my car, AND NO-ONE TOUCHES MY HOON-MOBILE!

Also, he (or she! I said "or she"! Jeez!) would have to hope I would be relatively still in the shower. This is unlikely, as this is where I work on my Matthew Bellamy-style air guitar.

Nonetheless, given my showers are morning affairs, I'll be watching the milkman rather closely from now on (Mysterious bastard! Who do you think you're fooling, dropping off the milk at our doorstep ninja style? Leaving before we get a glimpse of you... pfft).

All that said, for all those Norman Bates copycats, I'd rate my shower as somewhere between "impossible" to "difficult" for an attack. For snipers, given the infiltration requirement, it would probably fall into the same category.

I would recommend a more guerrilla style attack, something along the lines of the pet Tarantula in Jungle To Jungle (starring Tim Allen and Martin Short) where the sight of a massive arachnid squeezing under the door would cause a massive fall on my part.

("Sneaky Architect Bastards" was taken from Freeman's Mind, check it on YouTube. Its filled to the brim with extreme awesomeness).

Un-jokes are wicked

Yes... yes they are.

Bill Bailey is the best exponent of this underrated branch of comedy: 'Three blokes walk into a pub. 'One of them is a little more stupid than the other two, and the whole scene plays out with a tedious inevitability'.

Here is one I'm happy to say I whipped up myself in my alarming amount of free time: The Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman walk into a bar. As they do they bump into the Welshman. The Welshman says 'I thought you guys said you were busy tonight'. The Englishman says 'er..well', and they all just stood there....
It was awkward.

The last line is inspired by the brilliant narrating work of Ron Howard in Arrested Development.

Blues news foos

Oh please Carlton, please keep this guy. Yep, this guy:

http://player.video.news.com.au/heraldsun/#1273728674

Well, I wouldn't MIND him still being in blue (he does know where the goals are). But some of the despair and outrage at the news he might get the flick is ridiculous. You know the type: "Me n me mates av bin Carlt'n s'porters since we was kids, 'n if Fev get the arse, I'm tellin youse, I'm bloody goin ta rip up me membership".

My bet is its a pretty elaborate stunt by Carlton to scare the Fev camp and no deal will be made.

Mmmyellow

Who knows what this will be used for? All I know is it will be used.. sometimes.

Well, I suppose this will do to start- I've recently doubled my RAM- 256 megabytes 512 megabytes. I guess in layman's terms thats like going from the depths of Hell to the lookout in Hell from which you can see the road out of Hell towards the outskirts of Purgatory... Its a start, but there is still quite a journey to go.