Visible Monsters: March 02, 2002 - March 20, 2006

Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse. That blog was our last hope. No... There is another [Music: off / Website: off / Lights: on]

Do you know what the chain of command is?

It's the chain I beat you with until you remember I'm in charge... Jamie arrived and, as expected, is very cool. She got back from sightseeing to find Jess, Corran and I knee deep in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. That lead to a long unwieldy discussion about computer games, animated movies and general asskickery. Jamie went to bed thinking she's landed among NERDS. Which of course we're not. It was just bad timing is all. And the fact that Corran and I are now watching the entire run of Firefly, followed by Serenity is just a coincidence. The great thing about Corran is that he always brings something to the conversation. Like how he and Kaylee used to work together back in the day. And the great thing about rewatching a series as rich as Firefly is that there's always something new to get a kick out of. Like I only just realised (maybe because I am slow) that Jayne is Chewie to Mal's Han. Seriously. I'll never be able to watch Star Wars again without fansubbing the Wookie:

Damn Han, that Princess is all lubed up for you. Maybe you could double-team her with the farmboy...

[Music: off]

Joinnnnnn ussssssss...

The lurgy that has sent Jess scrambling for her security blanket and a lagoon of hot herbal tea has been working on my kidneys like a dwarf with a hammer. I was so numb by midday yesterday that I couldn't even crawl away from the horror that was Ben Afleck. Corran has better news - a new place with his name on it. A hefty deposit and a threat of bodily harm at any rate... If it all falls into place we'll be neighbours and can borrow sugar from each other. All that good stuff. Aaron's been over a couple of times - throwing his goddamn Canadian health in our faces. Is there anything sadder than sick British people? He's here now, the pair of them have terraformed the dining table into some kind of Miramax forward listening post. Very interesting to be a fly on the wall. How they work through Jess watching Buffy is beyond me. I'm hoping that we're both going to be better by 10am tomorrow because that's when Jamie gets in from DC. I'll be meeting her off the plane and as we've never met I just told her to look for the guy sweating like a terrorist. Jamie is one of those smart Americans who writes about what's going on in the rest of the world and gets into arguments with the President's security detail because she doesn't cheerlead with the rest of the crowd when the idiot stumbles into a room. Should be fun having her here if we can just shake this damn plague. We'll be able to eat popcorn and watch all those snazzy helicopters pick off those pesky insurgents. Is Peter Jackson directing the war now? I've lost count of how many endings it's had. Kitten update: Sandwich has taken to pulling all the paper from the recycling tub in the kitchen - whatever she's building is complicated and looks messy, but I'm a layman so what do I know? Right know she's making these strange warbling noises to a huge empty cornflakes box that stands monolith like on the floor. She's spent a week playing inside it, but it's new vertical configuration has her pausing for thought... We spent a portion of this morning watching dumb as dirt American documentaries - we had no TV at all for most of last week and it was great - now I'm forming a band called 9/11 WIDOW. You can all be backing vocalists. Oh yeah, Jess got a new job... now she's handed in her notice I'm allowed to speak of it but I guess she'll have more to say about it over on her site. The best bit from my point of view is she only starts at 10am so with a little luck I'll never have to look at 7am ever again. The best bit from her point of view is perhaps the foreign travel and fighting robots and stuff. [Music: The Shatner]

Bah...

I've officially given up on Mondays. Right now I should have been at the Steve Bell/David Lloyd V for Vendetta talk up at the Guardian Newsroom. One signal failure later and I'm back home. Does anything work in this stupid city? Barter Town had a better infrastructure. I had some sickeningly bad news at the weekend - someone I hadn't seen or even thought about in years, but whose influence still pushes me on, died suddenly in his sleep. Now all I can think of are all the times I should have picked the up the phone. Jess is still ill - under a blanket watching Romeo & Juliet. She had some great news, but that gag is still in place. Maybe tomorrow. Our friend Corran had an unscrupulous landlord pull the rug from under him and the roof from over him and is now working out of our spare room. One minute he's hanging with Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, the next he's suffering my cock-jokes over a veggie breakfast. Such is life. I missed a deadline at the end of last week which is something of a first - just too many things piled up. And then I had to apologise to a couple of people which is also very out of character. Maybe I'm growing up. Then again maybe not as this was my favourite:

I'm sorry I suggested you put your mum through a wood chipper

Sorry Mrs Dawson. But hey, it's only 8pm and I have vodka... PS I finally got around to watching The Unit and yeah it's fucking vile. Someone needs to send Mamet a copy of Team America on DVD. [Music: off]

Red mist...

I'm in one of those moods today. Jess finished We Love Katamari last night. I'm not sure how many hours of gameplay that is, but it seemed short. There's still a lot of replay fun to be had and we haven't done much on the two player side of things, but still... Plus after the week I've had, I'd like to DESTROY things in a much more satisfying manner than merely rolling them up. I wonder how long I'll have to wait for this. I watched Daywatch for the second time last night, which helped fill in some of the gaps. Such a good fucking movie. The Yanks are still insisting on calling Nightwatch part one of a trilogy - that coupled with the rumours of an English speaking conclusion make me worry that Fox plans to re-edit Daywatch, lop the ending off and then hire a hack to make a third movie filled with Buffy references.... I guess we'll see. I tried to watch David Mamet's The Unit this morning. Only got as far as the credits. It amuses me to keep calling it David Mamet's The Unit because it's such a far cry from anything you'd normally associate with Mamet. If it had been Grover the Muppet's The Unit I would have stuck with it. But seriously, all that gung ho special ops bullshit while the pretty women folk go shopping and have babies back at home - in the land their Action Man/GI Joe sexy scarred hubbies are protecting by shooting animals in the head - What a bag of shit. Of course, I'll get around to watching it all later and may decide it's the best TV show ever. We'll see. If they wanted realism though that missile would have slammed into the market, killed all those pretty little Afghan kids and blown the heroic idiot's arms and legs off. Then we could have had 40 minutes of his wife getting bored feeding him soup with a tube and leaving to fuck one of the neighbours while he tries to kill himself by swallowing his own macho tongue. It's TV for people who can't accept that Starbuck is a woman. You know based on the five minutes I saw anyway... Oh and I dreamt about zombies last night. I have a better time in this city when I'm unconscious. [Music: Clutch - Pure Rock Fury]

Oh you fucking bastards...

I knew there would be a gap between this week's BSG season two extended finale and season three, but this is a real pisser:

Production on the third season will commence in April in Vancouver, Canada. But the word is that it will not begin airing until October, four months behind the usual schedule. There are mutterings that one reason could be that parent network NBC is considering lifting the critically acclaimed show from the smaller niche channel to NBC proper, as there's a dearth of promising new shows in the pipeline, according to SyFy Portal. NBC has already tried to rebroadcast specific episodes, including an abbreviated version of the pilot, of the show to expectedly low-ratings results. Of course, those were expected because the episodes already aired. But given the mainstream critical acclaim of the series, as well as its tremendous popularity in iTunes downloads (as well as continued illegal downloads), there is some chatter that NBC Universal -- which owns both SciFi Channel and NBC -- could be considering moving the series to NBC.

The fuck? If a show isn't popular enough some bunch of cunts cancel it. If it gets too popular they fuck with it. The sooner this stuff gets released STRAIGHT to DVD the better. Every time I catch a few seconds of advertising on an American sourced torrent I shudder in horror at the thought of all those poor bastards that have to sit through some quality TV with advertising breaking it up every other fucking minute. I caught the 'teaser' at the end of this week's House and the bastards are only putting it back three weeks... and then have the audacity to fill the ad with spoliers. Fuck's sake. Now we have to wait a fucking lifetime for BSG to come back and hope that the attention deficit mainstream American viewers remember what the fuck it is, because if the ratings drop because of fuckwit interference... the same interfering fuckwits will cancel it. Maybe John can adopt me, take me into work on Father & Son day and then I'll be in crushing distance of these morons... [Music: more 'Thrax]

Free for all...

OK, the YouTube thing. I'm pretty good at tracking down obscure TV shows via bittorrent, but YouTube makes a whole bunch of stuff that I hadn't even thought to look for immediately watchable. The worry is that as more copyrighted crap gets loaded up the quicker they'll become Napster and fold. That will leave a lot of holes on a lot of blogs, but more importantly it'll cut off stuff I NEED to watch. It's also annoying to have to watch the damn thing via the website although I do love the easy way you can port the flash videos onto a blog and provide entertaining filler on a slow day or simply share a cool music video with your readers. If only there was an easy way to download and save the content... Well now there is. That should help me shore up a few days worth of fan subbed Japanese television for a rainy day. And Jess gets to keep a hold of Mysterious Cities of Gold. Win/Win. Only a matter of time before someone spoils the fun though, so grab what you can before people who enjoy wearing ties step in... [Music: Anthrax - We've Come For You All]

Framed...

If you see something like this plastered on lamposts up North I am not to blame. It's got to be better than the BNP stickers that crop up in SE1 occasionally though. And it may well explain the extra traffic coming through from gay Scottish websites. Boag told me he'd been plastering my name and URL on takeaway wrappers throughout Glasgow, but I didn't pay it much heed. How much greasy food can one man eat? Then I remembered they live on deep fried pizza and mars bars up that way and I got chills. Moving swiftly on... The YouTube version of Rocked By Rape still seems to be up and got 215 views overnight. You can grab the MP3, the video and a bunch of other cool stuff from here. Today is a s l o w start. Need stronger coffee. It's always a weird start to the day when you see your friends have been busy uploading themselves and/or their significant others onto Flickr either starky naked or in a state of undress. Before the internets people must have had to actually search through bedrooms, while pretending to go to the bathroom during dinner parties, to find this kind of thing. Time to bug out... [Music: Anthrax - The Greater of Two Evils]

Doc's Music Meme...

This was Doc's suggestion:

From your playlist at the moment (ie. whatever's on your iPod, CD changer, HD, etc. and which you have listened to fairly recently), recommend me a song for each of the 10 categories, answering with the artist, song title, album and a brief anecdotal explanation if you feel so inclined. It'll give you a nice insight into how eclectic (or not) your current playlist is and you might even have to use google for a couple of your answers. Post your recommendations as a comment and cross post it to your own journal to receive recommendations from others. There are no right or wrong answers, the only criteria is that these come from your own playlist!

His questions / my answers (and as a bonus I've linked up the MP3s): 1) Impressive - recommend a song which has a high level of musicianship in it, doesn't matter whether it be instrument, vocals or composition. Just something which makes you think "Wow... that guy is good." I Hung My Head by Johnny Cash. That voice. Completely, utterly unfuckable with. I have no idea what Joaquin Phoenix was thinking in Walk the Line. Sure he's pretty good, but as soon as the real voice comes through over the end credits you realise that what you've been listening to is as weak as something that ran down your mother's leg five minutes after you were conceived. This song is just perfect - conveys a story that is so simple yet so stunning that it makes you wonder why people didn't just stop making music the second this track was laid down. 2) Old - recommend a song which is as old as you are or older. Yeah right, because I'd be spoiled for choice finding a good new song. The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (WMA not MP3).

Paul Simon : The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run - I like that sound, it's very soothing to me - and I'd play. In the dark. "Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again". Playboy : Is that where The Sounds Of Silence came from ? Paul Simon : Well, that's the first line. Then it drifts off into some other things. I've always believed that you need a truthful first line to kick you off into a song. You have to say something emotionally true before you can let your imagination wander.

3) Instrumental - recommend something which has no vocal parts. The Prologue to Battlestar Galactica - this signals a giant happy because I know the next 42 minutes are going to be awesome. But it's very short so I'll break the rules and add Happy Land by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis from The Proposition. It's so fucking melancholy it hurts. 4) Unconventional - recommend a track with is something other than the typical "bass/guitar/drums/vocals" lineup. It can be an interesting solo artist, electronic music, an odd two piece, or even orchestral. Rocked by Rape - The Evolution Control committee You can Google the MP3, but I wanted to put up the video. Couldn't find it on YouTube so I upped it myself. Not sure how long it'll stay up, but for now here it is: 5) Embarrassing - recommend a song which you find slightly embarrassing to listen to but really like the track anyway. One Way Or Another by Kristen Bell. Fuck you. It's a Veronica Mars thing. 6) Live - recommend a track by a band you have seen live. Detroit Rock City by KISS. You wanted the best, you GOT the best. This is taken from the Japanese version of Alive II because a) it's better than the regular release and b) Japanese crowds are insane at the best of times, but stick KISS in front of them in 1977 and you have a SHOW. 7) Long - a piece of music which is over 6 minutes in length. Drowning Witch by Frank Zappa - a whopping 12 minutes and 11 seconds and not a single second wasted. Perfect. 8) Sleepy - a track which you can happily fall asleep to. Straight Outta Compton by Nina Gordon - I love loud angry songs turned into beautiful lullabys... 9) Nostalgic - a song which reminds you of when you were younger. Doc - when you get to my age everything is nostalgic. Where Eagles Dare by The Misfits. The only anthem worth living by. No matter how old you get this is the one song that never ages. 10) Shit - recommend a song to be avoided on an otherwise good album! The horrible cover of Stand by Me by The Ducky Boys on Three Chords and the Truth. Just horrible. Even if I was drunk and the band were drunk this would be unacceptable. I won't subject you to it. Instead this is Scars from the same album. NOTE: Any MP3 files hosted on Visible Monsters are posted for evaluation purposes only and removed after seven days. [Music: off]

The Quotable Sidebar...

Still, we all ended up agreeing that, man and woman alike, if we had to be stuck for eternity on a desert island with no man to screw but one, we'd all pick George Clooney.

Assistant Atlas on the Oscars

I may have to fly to New York and kidnap Stephin Merrit's brain and keep it in a jar on my desk.

Ben on someone I have never heard of

We started our Japanese lessons. So far, I can't say much more than "My name is Dan" and "I am not an American"

Dan in and on Tokyo

I'd welcome him with open arms...if you know what I mean! I mean sexually. I was basically trying to say that I want to have sex with him. Why? Because he wasn't in Crash.

Michael Schaub on Macaulay Culkin

Der Norris, der Chuck in einem Beat �em up Flash-Game mit Ragdoll-Physik. Special-Moves: Roundhousekick, Heartripper, Brainstomper!

Soilworker on this

It made no sense.

Sam on Nightwatch

Sweet Christmas. So, so good.

Sean on Nightwatch

A quick glance over some of the most viewed photos involve anywhere from three to ten people with often only one woman among them, which is pretty slutty on everybody�s part.

Jackson on UltraSlut

SY asked out one of my friends, KJ! She obviously said 'no' and, apparently, he nearly cried! I can't help feeling sorry for that guy sometimes.

Laura in her diary when she was 13

I have yet to decide which is cooler: The fact that there's an International Time Capsule Society, or that they compiled a list of the top nine most wanted time capsules that are currently missing.

Jeff on... time capsules

A daughter caught in the act by Daddy! He goes to kill her boyfriend, but things don't quite work out that way . . . ZAK! As if that weren't bad enough, the girl is almost instantly consumed by a fire . . . all except her hand...

Curt on The Severed Hand (with pictures!)

But while I'm ecstatic that Bolivia has elected Morales, Venezuela has elected Chavez and Brazil has elected de Silva, the key word there is 'elected'. While the policies and politics of those governments might be similar to those of Cuba (although far from identical), the point is they have been given a proper mandate from the people. And if they screw up, they can be booted out.

Jess on the date movie we saw over the weekend

At this point the conversation took a hard right-hand turn as Michael Caine walked past me and sat down at the same table as Anjelica Huston. I tried to hear what they were talking about but it soon occurred to me that the chances they'd read my blog were quite slim. So I returned to my food.

Josh on being a dumb motherfucker

A one-hour heating and pressuring process teases out vanillin, the main component of vanilla-bean extract, from the feces.

Anne on vanilla extracted from cow shit

Frances McDormand: Just Hollywood-ugly enough to play blue collar... And should Morgan Freeman really get credit for a voiceover that was added because they thought the movie would confuse Americans?

Jackson again, this time on the Oscars

But when one of these "What does America think about culture" pieces comes on, do I ever see a mid-30's software engineer onscreen bitching about having to download BitTorrents of "The IT Crowd"? Fuck and no.

John on the average American

Anybody who says that �however much I am in favor of the right to freely express one�s opinion, one cannot allow the denial of the Holocaust to hide behind overly generous freedom of expression� ought to take a similarly stringent line with the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And anybody who defends (as I do) that newspaper�s right to publish its scurrilous trash ought similarly to defend David Irving�s right to publish his scurrilous trash.

Shaviro on free speech

once, whilst queueing for chips at work, I heard one student nudge another and furtively whisper: 'See?, I told you.... Wolverine..'

Psychbloke on haircuts

authorities in Palo Alto are warning everyone to be on the lookout for counterfeit $100 bills. They then give a detailed description on how to make one yourself: basically, soak a $5 in bleach and then print a $100 design on top of it.

Rita on making money

From your playlist at the moment (ie. whatever's on your iPod, CD changer, HD, etc. and which you have listened to fairly recently), recommend me a song for each of the 10 categories, answering with the artist, song title, album and a brief anecdotal explanation if you feel so inclined.

Doc creating a new meme

For those interested, leave a comment below, and the two that interest or amuse me the most will receive a banzuke. Given sumo�s traditional nature however, all comments should be made in the form of a haiku, which if nothing else will help give proceedings the air of a real competition � or at least a dodgy fairground tombola.

Lee's latest Sumo giveaway

From behind the camera, I smiled and flapped my hands in what I thought was a gesture conveying happiness and fun in an attempt to get her to do something - anything - other than stand there, stock still and dead silent with a horrified look on her face, clutching a very expensive dildo.

Peggy on the dangers of shooting with sex toys

Our intern from Singapore; Wu Jia Wei, is documenting his stay in Sweden. Newsletter/Sverige #04 has just been released

Jesper puts the boy to work

Or, maybe I'll do what I normally do and head down to Starbucks for a venti mocha and some crumble coffee cake, followed by my normal filching of the NY Times, and then a visit to my sofa to read both the NY and LA papers while watching Arena Football, all in the hopes of not being driven mad by the University of Fucktards which attend and inhabit Parade Magazine.

Tod on the daily grind

Kelly and I have a new place to live. We move in beginning of March. It's a cute place, close to Kelly's work. She promises to walk around naked in it a lot so I'm happy.

Arran is too busy to blog for obvious reasons

Insert "I Don�t Know How To Quit You, George Clooney Batman" Joke Here

Warren uncovers Batman porn

I�ve used all my mad JavaScript skills to create the rollover effect and I seriously hope that I didn�t completely fuck up your browser and/or nuke your motherboard.

Suzanne springs eternal [Music: Misfits - Static Age]

Beat Lobster...

When I read about the new crustacean this morning I was struck by two things. 1. Comparing it to the size of a salad plate is a really bad idea. 2. It's blonde and blind and they didn't think to name it Zatoichi? [Music: Balzac]

The Silence of the Crows...

If you felt a tremor when you came online this morning it was probably the after effects of Johnny setting up his new blog. His last one was directly responsible for the death of Diana, Princess of Wales Hearts (you can see why she rebranded) and at least fifteen new holes in the ozone layer. Now he's had military training I fear for us all. Him off to see The Misfits soon brought back memories of being trapped backstage at the Camden Underworld with these guys: Somewhere in my vast and messy archive I have some video that Jess shot of me interviewing the lead singer. Our translator was German so the resulting to and fro was bizarre to say the least. If I can dig it out I'll put it up here somewhere. There's loads of Balzac up on YouTube, but the quality isn't great. These guys are a LOT of fun and if you get the chance you should really check them out live... [Music: off]

Take On Me...

I meant to post this ages ago, because it tickled me and then I forgot all about it because I suck. Laura playing bass with Aha on Top of the Pops: Laura - remind me to play you the Take on Me scene from Family Guy the next time you come over if you haven't already seen it :) Update: Never mind. Here it is: [Music: off]

Meanwhile in Beijing....

Li Gongjian's adopted four year old daughter was murdered in October 2000. Her killer was found guilty and faced the death sentence, but after other crimes (including property damage) were taken into account he received the more lenient sentence of ten years. Li Gongjian was not pleased at this turn of events and refused to hand the girl's body over for cremation, opting instead to hang onto it himself. A few days ago he tied the corpse to the top of a billboard to protest against the injustice of it all... via Shanghaiist. [Music - Nick Cave]

In God We Hide...

The Final Incredible Truth So many gods to choose from and he picks the one voted most likely to pussy out... [Music: The Ramones]

There goes the weekend...

Jess has been playing this for something like 18 hours straight... [Music: Katamari]

Daywatch...

Just saw the Nightwatch sequel, Daywatch, and I'm more confused than ever. Not about the plot (I just about kept my head above water there. Years of following badly translated Hong Kong films have put me in good stead with very literal Russian subtitles), but with what comes next. If anything. Even before I saw Nightwatch I had heard that Fox had interfered to an extent that the proposed third movie had been pulled. Since the first two films had been shot back to back a lot more extra footage was shot to give the second film a definite conclusion. The film I just saw had just such an ending in that it satisfactorily tied everything up and left little room to take the story further given the conclusion. But prior to me seeing Daywatch I had heard that there was indeed going to be a third movie, partially shot in the States and with a now English speaking cast. I have no idea if that's just interweb rumour at this point... To make matters more complicated the books that the films are based on (that still remain annoyingly untranslated) form a nine volume sequence. Maybe. The first three books form the Nightwatch trilogy, the middle books form the Daywatch trilogy and the final three books are the rather less snappy sounding Twilightwatch. But then where does Finalwatch fit in? And from what I hear, despite the title of the film I just watched, that was actually only the second part of the first trilogy and the real Daywatch remains unfilmed. This leads some viewers to disown the title and simply call it Nightwatch II. Now my head hurts. I need a new Russian friend to tell me what the hell is going on. Someone at Fox will know of course, but all they want you to do is look at the new subtitles and make you forget that they cut thirty minutes out of the damn thing... This is made more annoying because I love these films and don't want them to stop. Ever. [Music: off]

Mirrormask...

Ok, let's get this out of the way first: Dave McKean is prettier: Mirrormask then. Jess loved it. It's a girl's film. I avoided it on the festival circuit last year because nothing about it appealed. It just looked hokey. Gilliam's been here before and done it much better and with an edge. Mirrormask has no balls. The kids may get a kick out of it, but I dare say that this is for diehard Gaiman fans only - the kind that think Terry Pratchett is a genius and collect Nightmare Before Christmas memorabilia. It's a shame because Dave McKean is a top bloke. Very funny, cordial and full of stories. Just a pity the one he chose to being to the screen was such a stinker. That's a little harsh... there's nothing 'wrong' with it except it feels like the kind of thing that you'd see on a Christmas afternoon on BBC circa 1984. Very Box of Delights. Or if you really want to give it a kicking, it's a little like the video for Aha's 'Take on Me', but much too long. And with worse music. I remember watching this kind of thing as a kid and it was always very hohum. Then I saw Time Bandits and the best bit, the very best bit in a film full of spectacle is right at the end when Kevin's parents get killed by a left over piece of David Warner. All the kid gets is a pat on the head from Sean Connery and is then left all alone. He gets exactly what he wanted - freedom from his soul crushing mediocre parents. It's a happy ending because his parents get killed. And that's how you make a kid's movie. Fuck this saving the parent from cancer when you don't even have the bottle to use the big C word in the film. Besides which Stephen King & Peter Straub did it better years ago too. I have one thing to say to everyone who comes out of Mirrormask with a warm glow - RELAPSE. [Music: off]

Hobosexual...

Considering a haircut. Thursday I think. Jess has been thinking about my haircut for at least a month. I know this because every single time we go out the door she reminds me that my hair is mentally ill. I've been putting it off under the delusion that I was a pioneer in crazy creative type hairstyling, until yesterday when I sat down on the tube and the guy next to me had exactly the same hairstyle. Fine, I thought, a fellow traveller... another genius about to wow the world with whatever he's about to pull out of that unwieldy backpack. It was of course a copy of a magazine called TRACTOR. I share a haircut with combine machinery enthusiasts. Agricultural chic, less metrosexual and more hobosexual. The Japanese girl that cuts my hair and is in a constant gloom over how I fail to keep my follicles in check will no doubt have more to say on the subject... My life would be simpler if I just gave in and listened to the pretty girls... [Music: off]

Scar...

Just tidying up some loose ends. Go watch The Proposition. Stephen King's Cell is worth a read, but John Bennett's Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf is much better and has more fingering in it. London is still filled with nightmares. Go look. And when BSG finally comes to the end of season two (only a two-parter left I believe) I want to dedicate some space to an overview of the whole shebang as it's been damn important tv as well as constantly entertaining. I just want to dump a few thoughts here from a few weeks ago before I lose them. If that sounds dull go look at naked people. Spolilers for BSG: S02E15 - if you don't have torrent capabilities look away now and give my regards to the 20th century- here be spoilers. I started this a while back so at least one prediction (the return to Caprica) has come to pass, although I wasn't prepared for the direction that THAT episode would take us. The point is, I guess, that on the surface SCAR was a pretty simple episode - Starbuck bangs heads with what is perhaps her Cylon opposite (in terms of flying at least) and lives to fight another day - but it was completely character driven, whacked a hell of a punch and underlined exactly why Starbuck is BSG while Apollo is still a pussy. The implication that perhaps Scar is the reincarnation of the Raider that Starbuck wounded, killed, climbed inside the guts of and flew back to the fleet was a tremendous idea. Need a better reason for holding a grudge? It's a pity he was smeared across a lump of rock by the end of the episode... we could do with more recurring villainy. The only real cliche was not remembering the dead pilots' faces/names as that gets dragged out in way too many 'war is hell' type movies and TV shows, but the rest of the episode was first rate. That Starbuck now has something to live for was not only endearing as there's only so many times you can excuse her reckless behaviour, it has the subsequent effect of making her take less risks as a pilot. She not only loses her Top Gun status, but also her feeling of being indestructible. Seeing as the theme of BSG so far seems to be 'kick 'em when they're down' I don't see much hope for a happy ending here. They can't lose Starbuck, but her freedom fighting boyfriend's days are numbered for sure. That should bring back an even darker and more troubled Starbuck in season three. Let's raise a glass to misery. The details in that episode were perfect - the shot of Scar leaving his hiding place in the asteroid field, the worn surface of his hide screaming SHARK. That was the best sfx shot of the year. They love the flashback framework in this show and it gets old when centred around Lee (his 'won't someone think of the children... and whores' episode was a low point this year), but having Starbuck's epiphany slowly unfold during that face off was inspired. Each jump increasing the reasons why this may well have been her last flight. The previous episode - Apollo getting his balls back was weak, because Apollo is such an annoying character - my heart goes out to Jamie Bamber as he does a great job, but really does anyone care about him? I'm not overwhelmed by the fact that he shot a gangster in the head. Starbuck would have killed everyone in the room, bitchslapped the whore and warned the kid that her life was already fracked before grabbing a bottle from behind the bar as the camera bobs around behind her arse. During the hostage episode of course she shot him - it does nothing to help Apollo's character develop as he's just a whipping post, but Starbuck has to live with almost killing him. Great stuff. The revelation that the Raiders can resurrect too was nicely done and something I hadn't considered. I love this show mostly because they always outfox me. And Boomer's perfect explanation:

"Makes sense doesn't it? It takes months for you to train a nugget into an effective viper pilot. And then they get killed. And then you lose their experience their knowledge their skill sets. It's gone forever. So if you could bring them back give them a brand new body wouldn't you do it? Death then becomes a learning experience"

And if that wasn't enough we have a 'moment' between Boomer and Starbuck. "You know there are times when I look at you and I forget who you are. All I see is that kid..." She leans forward, "You were like a big sister..." Only to be cut off by the Marines cocking their weapons in her face. Of course this all plays out on a different level during the Caprica episode...

"You remember me don't you? You want my ass so bad you can taste it. Well keep coming because I guaranfrackintee that I will put you down, this time for good."

See, that's how you write action dialogue. Oh yeah - and now they HAVE to go back to Caprica. Should be a hell of a finale... [Music: Loudness]

Yeah yeah yeah wow...

If you couldn't care less about Spidey's new black suit (raised web stitching or not), but still worry that Sam Raimi missed a trick by not having Spidey fight giant robots then you'll want to watch this: That's the full first episode of the 1978 Japanese Spiderman. The costume and powers are familiar, but this guy is more interested in his motorcycle than photography. His 'Uncle Ben' gets killed by an alien toy dinosaur robot thing before he inherits his suit from some old dying warrior in a nearby cave. Still with me? His costume by the way seems to be kept in an ungainly bracelet that when pressed sends the thing shooting across the room before it dangles mysteriously in front of our hero. One quick ZIP and he's all set to kick the living crap out of any nearby duckbeaked ninja. It's not subtitled, but it doesn't really matter. If you think you can't be arsed watching the whole 24 minutes then you'll miss the bit when he's up against the wall and has no option but to call for the help of his handy transforming lion robot. That doubles as a garage for his flying Spidermobile... Oh yeah and the end credits feature a whistling ballad theme tune. [Music: off]

Ahhhh...

So this is why they invented insomnia: Every single episode of The IT Crowd streamed straight into your traitorous eyes. [Music: off]

Got a police problem?

Don't even ask how to complain in Florida. And forget about the ID card problem in the UK. I read today that thanks to a change in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act earlier in the year that the police now are well within their rights to arrest you for anything. Before 2006 you had to have carried out a serious offence to be arrested, but now say you get pulled over for speeding and the police don't like the look of you they can arrest you. All offences are now arrestable. This seems to be an upgrade to the already disgusting Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Once you're in a police station you are automatically fingerprinted, photographed and DNA sampled. All that crap goes into a national database even if you aren't eventually charged. I suspect that it's a little like tagging wildlife... PS Don't roller blade in Dallas either [Music: off]

Marathon runners have nothing on us...

This man has a lot to answer for: We got through the first two seasons of BSG in two days - with the 3 hour 'pilot' mini series thrown in that adds up to a LOT of TV. The schedule didn't allow for much else. We had a quick wander around the Tate Modern and along the Thames, but I see that crap every day and art is just too distracting when you have the ragtag Colonial Fleet on your mind. Of course we spent a lot of time discussing the finer points of Viper deployment, what resurrection meant for both human and Cylon, the subtle ways the new series drops in elements of the old school show and then just twists them off in elegant and sometimes brutal new directions... and we may have obsessed over Starbuck just a tad: Once the marathon was over we kicked back with the likes of Bad Santa (still incredibly funny), The Descent (still incredibly boring) and trying our best not too upset Jess too much. We failed miserably and there's at least one Chinese restaurant that we won't be going back to... The problem with only seeing each other properly every couple of years is that we have a LOT of idiotic conversations to catch up on... bystanders usually get caught up a in a whirlwind of the most offensive drivel and then spat out bloodied and worn. It's not pretty, but we're done for another year or so and it helps recharge my batteries being able to talk to someone who is just impossible to annoy. Speaking of not pretty I'm listening to Geoff Tate trying to keep up with Ronnie James Dio... And it's been ages since I copied a full Bad Signal onto the blog, but this one is just too good not to:

What is that thing in the sky? It's the sun. We haven't seen that since November. There are blinded people all over Southend today. I will never understand why they televise motor racing. It's duller to watch even than golf. A dozen highly-trained charisma-free planks in high-powered darts that handle like vacuum cleaners drawing a best-fitting line through a boring racetrack fifty times and the same three blokes always win. Give me the cross-country rally any day. I remember watching one where the driver was killing his navigator. The suspension had gone, and the driver was bracing himself against the steering wheel over the bumps and ditches and jumps. But the navigator had nothing to brace against. There was an in-car camera with mic, and you could hear the guy screaming every time the car hit the dirt, until he lost the power of speech entirely, and just laid there, jerking. He had to be carried out of the car by medics at the next stop -- because god forbid the driver should pull over or anything. I have a feeling that was the navigator who later died when the driver rolled his car. Bring back Christians vs Lions, that's what I say. That'd be some television. Don't lie to me. You only watch the Winter Olympics to see the skiers wipe out on the downhill slopes. I'd wear that shirt and go to the sports bar. "I'm a Lions fan!" "Me too!" "Have you ever met a Christians fan?" "Only in Oklahoma and South Dakota. But they say God invented lions anyway, so they're kind of torn. Which is funny, really, because that's what happens to the Christians on a Saturday afternoon anyway..." I should be running a TV network. I would crush the opposition. Also, see them driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women. "Les Moonves, what is best in life?" "To crush Jeff Zucker, see him driven before me, and hear the lamentation of his women." Now that'd be a press conference worth attending. Les Moonves in a loincloth, collar and tie, waving a broadsword stained with the blood of failed sitcoms. Standing on a pile of dead ugly middle-aged Italian guys with inexplicably hot wives. Send me all the money now.

You can subscribe to Warren Ellis' Bad Signal right here. [Music: Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime II ]