kolonelk

Seriously, it's been 5 years and this crap is still here? I would have thought that this little bit of disk space would have been gobbled up long ago so that some 15 year-old Fall Out Boy fan can post about their gnawing despair and how they like better music than their mother (who is, like, a TOTAL bitch).

I wonder if anyone still has a link to me. I wonder if I'll ever come back and find out.

So I've finished my first week of work in my exciting new career. Training was pretty straightforward, the usual orientation, then how to not piss off customers, and finally how to operate cash registers so old they found one buried with a T-Rex skeleton.

Friday is my first actual day of work. I rock up at 9:15 to create a good impression (since starting time is 9:30), only to find that the boss isn't in today. "No worries" I think, "I'll just go find the HR girl that recruited me". That in itself turned out to be an impossibility, as neither of the HR people were in. So I found one of the trainers and explained that a) it was my first day, b) nobody had actually told me who to see today, and c) that there didn't seem to be anyone at all in my section to go ask about it. So we toddle off to Home Office (where the computers and related stuff is), but the dude meant to be in today is nowhere to be found.

Luckily, one of the casual guys is working in another area, so he's roped in to make sure someone is about that knows what the fuck is going on. In the meantime, I help out a few customers without actually knowing where anything is or whether we even have half of what they want in stock. Fortunately they go away (with a few games, so not so bad).

It's around about now that I discover the true horror of this place. NOTHING is organised - the stock room is a shitfight, paperwork is scattered everywhere, and we can't even fill the shelves since for some unknown reason we can't get hold of security tags. As it turns out the supervisor of this section (and music) are both gone, and nobody has any damn clue of what's going on. I've seen worse though, so undaunted I begin the long process of learning about the stuff in the store. Luckily there's fuck all in stock, so it's mainly down to learning system specs of laptops, who our suppliers/maintenance dudes are, crud like that.

By about lunch time I'm getting into the swing of things, but then I notice something else - nowhere to sit. I've spent the last 7 months sitting around on my butt which means standing around all day is a bit of a shock to the system. With any luck that will wear off soon enough, or I might take a shooting stick in with me.

That was pretty much it for the first day, but I'm back again on Tuesday to find out just what happens when we have actual staff about...

For a long time I abandoned this since being at home with the kids all the time I really had fuck all to write about. But fortunately for you, the eager reader, the long barren intermission is coming to an end. Starting next week I've got a BRAND SPANKING NEW JOB which I'm sure will provide many anecdotes to provoke sensations of delight and awe in the nether regions.

But with the good must inevitably come the bad, which for me occurred today while looking for info on the new edition of Paranoia I had been hearing rumours about. For those not in the know, Paranoia is a role-playing game set in a post-apocalyptic future with the remnants of humanity living in giant nuclear bunker complexes - most notably one Alpha Complex. This is run by the Computer, who is your Friend (cue Orwellian overtones here).

Anyhow, there IS a new edition coming, which would set me dancing for joy apart from a tiny issue: it's being done by Mongoose Publishing. Initially I had hoped for big things from MGP (being vaguely acquainted with two of the employees via a usenet group) but so far I am less than enthralled with the product range. Probably in the main because it's based on the D20 system, which I really have no time for (I'll go into why I hate D&D another day).

Anyway, one of the designers has a blog (and has descended into the wanky circle of the "blogosphere" quite easily it seems) and luckily the game won't be D20, which is a MASSIVE selling point for me these days. So we'll wait and see how it looks. All I can really say is it better be priced better than most stuff seems to be these days.

I started listing all my DVDs, thanks to Ric pointing me at DVD Profiler. Of course, I've only done one so far to make sure it works, but soon people all over the world will be able to say "HURR DURR LOOK AT DIS GUY'S STUFF HE GOT PLAN 9 HURR DURR" and other delightful bon mots.

Well, it's been a while. I turned this damn Semagic program off starting automatically since I was trying to free up memory, and consequently totally failed to remember to ever update.

The good news for all you children is that during that time I should have collected a whole bunch of SUPER EXCITING things to tell you all about. The bad news for you goddamn meddling kids is that I didn't, but I have been pretty busy so it's all good for me.

I'm currently speeding through a few paint jobs I have outstanding for people, the undead are looking nice and freshly dug-up, and if I stick to my plan I should have a full 400pts worth of Byzantines ready for DBM.

I picked up a new scanner too, and for the princely sum of $78 I picked up the highly famous and sought after MUSTEK 1220 USB PLUS. What I really should have done was bought something like the Canon with the indirect scanning and other fripperies, but this monstrosity caught me solely for the fact that it requires no power cable - all the power is drawn from the USB port. Now I'm still not sure if this is a good idea or not, but when there are 3 powerboards running in this room anything that doesn't add to that burden is pretty nice.

This scanner could easily double as a boogie board. It's got an A4 scanning surface, but the surrounding unit adds a fair amount to the area it takes up. Add to this the almost 2" height of it, and this thing could be a good way to balance a table with a missing leg (or even be the table). The plastic is that ever-attractive PC beige, which continues to scream 80s at anyone within earshot, and the whole package is neatly boxed in an almost fluorescent green container plastered with awards like "WINNER OF THE LATVIA PC USER GROUP SCANNER OF THE MONTH FOR DECEMBER 1924".

Still, apart from a tendency to scan a little too dark (which can be fixed pretty easily with the brightness slider) it's not bad. It does a fair resolution, it's quiet, and faster than the old parallel piece of shit I used to use. I don't think I'd recommend it very highly though unless like me you are sick of power cables getting in your way - spend the proper cash and pick up a nice slim Canon job.

I'm way behind everyone else on this one, but screw you guys, I hardly ever get out to see films these days. I just got back from seeing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which got a right good bashing by critics - which only goes to reinforce my opinion that the only use a movie critic could ever possibly serve is if he was rendered down for soap.

Anyway, after having my expectations considerably lowered by FEEBLE-MINDED BOTTOM FEEDERS I expected crud, but if you don't treat the movie (hereby referred to as THE MOVIE) it's a pretty enjoyable action film. For a start, it earns major plus points by not having ridiculous wireplay fights or spinny-freezy camera rotating - there's a couple of good tracking shots where Quartermain or Sawyer fire a shot and the camera follows the bullet briefly, but I'm referring to the stop and pan the camera around a scene technique.

Some of the casting is a bit iffy - how Peta Wilson manages to get roles of any kind is totally beyond me, and Moriarty was incredibly bland. Apart from that it was all pretty fine, I liked Dorian Grey but can't remember the name of the guy who played him (go use imdb yourself, I'm lazy). Sean Connery did what he usually does, which is no bad thing. Nemo was interesting but there was way too little time spent on fleshing him out so he just came off as some random Indian with a swish sub.

There's a fair amount of bullshit, like the increible Nemobile that tears through concrete like cardboard, and I'm not 100% sure that a Venetian canal is deep enough for a sub the size of the Nautilus. But it's no worse an offence than you'll find in many comics.

So for action it gets two thumbs up, one thumb wavering for the casting, one and a half thumbs for effects, and no thumb anywhere for the dialog.

I've been sick. This goddamn stomach bug going around means I've seen more the bathroom than any other room this week, AND IT'S NOT FUCKING FUN.

I think I've been to the bog almost as many times as the goddamn Kill Bill trailer has been on tv. YES, I GET THE POINT. GO BACK TO 1994 MR TARANTINO, WE'LL CALL YOU WHEN THE WORD MOTHERFUCKER IS EDGY AGAIN.

Here is an old picture I forgot I had. It's from the cover of a romance book we had in the bookshop, and still gives me no end of amusement:

I made one too:

Stupid gay friendtest

DO IT

[19:04] one time I was going to the gun shop to buy drugs
[19:04] when this guy came up to me and asked if I had accepted Jesus into my life
[19:04] I told him we were sharing a studio flat in Berlin
[19:05] then he punched me and I woke up in a dumpster

It's been a while since I'd bought myself a new DVD, and it was with this express purpose I went shopping on Thursday night. I was tooling around HMV looking at their DVD sale (featuring such quality film as Once Were Warriors and the Cell - and such a bargain at $15. Call me when they're 15c, I might care but don't hold your breath). Despairing of ever finding anything worth buying, my eyes settled on a rack of Jackass DVDs.

Now, I realise how stupid the idea was: idiots hurting themselves for fun and profit. But I liked Jackass. It was reality rv rendered down to its basic form, watching people suffer so you don't have to do it. But alongside the Jackass DVDs was my eventual purchase, the CKY trilogy.

I had seen CKY 1 & 4 already, thanks to the power of the INTERNET, but the CD set had CKY, some strange mix of CKY 2&3, and a documentary. All for only $36, so I thought to myself "Self, why not? We like violence, skating, and profanity. What more is there to life?", and before I could blink I was leaving with a copy.

The packaging leaves a little to be desired. Normally I like to see running times, aspect ratio, region encoding, all neatly displayed somewhere on the back. There was none of this, not even a listing of what actually appeared on the discs. Fortunately the power of the DVD means as long as a disc is chaptered properly it's easier to skip to exactly what you want to see (with the nature of the CKY movies there's stuff you really don't need to see more than once, if at all, like Raab Himself taking a shit while running as fast as he can).

If you have ever watched Jackass you have probably seen snippets from CKY. The trolley riding in carparks, naked guys running about the place, Phil Margera (father of Bam Margera, who made the films) having various pranks played on him. The movies are more of the same, along with some prank calls, various jokes involving poop, and some skating.

The skating is what interested me the most. As a kid I loved skating. Ollies, grinds, fakies, I knew them all. But to my eternal sadness, I sucked. My only entry to the Neighbourhood Skating Hall of Fame was managing a 6" ollie and being able to land it. But, put me in front of a Tony Hawk game and how the tables turn!

I digress.

I'm no judge of really good skating from partly good, but they skating clips are edited well, and the soundtrack really works. Some of it is performed by CKY (the band) the rest mostly metal. It's enough to make me want to dig the old deck out and slide down some railings - fortunately memories of falling over anything and everything still persist to keep me off that damn plywood deathtrap.

There isn't much in the way of bonus material on the CDs unless you count the documentary, which is probably not something you're going to watch all that often. Mostly it's various members of the gang talking about various skits they did in the past, a lot of which aren't in the movies. It's not terribly exciting, but the "How to rob a house" feature is worth waiting through the rest for.

Overall, if you're a fan of stupidity I give it a thumbs up, otherwise save your bucks for something else.