Andy Cocker

There are many shows on right now in the Melbourne Fringe Festival so it can be difficult to choose which one to see.  To solve your dilemma, I recommend you see The Diary of Alexander Flemming because it has my girlfriend in it.  There, problem fixed.

Have you ever felt that the house you’re moving into has more history than you’ve been told? Often it’s just squeaky floorboards, faulty plumbing, or a room full of dismembered hands. But sometimes… just sometimes… your paranoia is right on the money.

The Diary of Alexander Fleming, is the story of an everyday guy in a supernatural setting. Tim needs a place to stay… badly. But the only place available is with a creepy landlord who smiles way too much. Against his better judgement Tim takes the room, but soon starts to suspect he’s not the only being residing in it. Can Tim solve the mystery without forfeiting his bond? Will he live to see the sunrise? The only way to know is to see the Diary of Alexander Flemming while you still can!

Circus Catharsis have successfully produced two other narrative circus shows The Frog Prince in 2005 which received the La Mama emerging script writers’ award and Evermind in 2006 which received the Circus Oz development award.

Dates 8th – 12th of October 2008 Venue: The Northcote town hall studio 1 Time: 8.30pm Tickets: $18 full, $15 concession, $10 groups of 5 or more Bookings: call the mellbourne fringe on 03 9660 9666 or visit www.melbournefringe.com.au

In today’s hectic world, some things just don’t get the attention they deserve — like meat.  So I present to you five meat related products for you enjoyment:

1. The Hot Beef Sundae. I didn’t even realise that this existed — to have lived all my life without eating some golden mashed potatoes covered with a generous portion of roasted and seasoned to perfection top round beef, then aged cheddar cheese, more golden mashed potatoes smothered with special beef gravy, more aged cheese, a slice of buttered toast and a cherry tomato on top.  To make matters worse, there’s more than one in existence, which I haven’t eaten. This Hot Beef Sundae has a bowl full of hand-mashed, home-style potatoes surrounded by a slow-roasted, fork-tender roast beef topped with savoury beef gravy, a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese and finished with a sweet, red tomato on top. Mmmmmm.

2. If you are looking for a present for the man who has everything, why not give him a marble floor made from salami? It is both practical and delicious. Caution may attract zombies in the event of an apocalypse, and keep it away from dogs and toddlers.

3. I don’t think meat gets enough public awareness these days. Why not support the cause with a I Love Meat Wristband? Meat needs your support. There’s lots you can do to help the cause — when’s the last time you told a cow how delicious it is?

4. This is one for the kiddies — if they fall over and get a boo-boo, patch them up with one of these bacon bandaids. It even comes with a free toy. What could take their mind off the pain more than their favourite meat?

5. In more Bacon News, Wendy’s Baconator isn’t very good for you.  Also, it looks better in the ads.  I think there’s room in the market for a proper bacon burger. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to design my bacon burger.  If you’d like to enter the Name Andrew’s Bacon Burger Contest, please leave your suggestions in the comments.  You might win a free bacon burger! Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of the prize to non-Australian addresses.

I’m one step closer to a blog about the top 5 comedy news shows.  Positions one and two are taken by The Daily Show and The Colbert Report obviously, but now I’ve found number three.  Infomania is a show on cable in the US.  It’s not quite as good as The Daily Show but it does some very funny segments, particularly Sarah Haskins in Target Women, and Internet Porn and You

With rising petrol prices, many people are looking towards smaller cars, hybrid cars or electric cars to cut costs and ease the burden on the environment.  I say it’s too late.  These are the vehicles you’ll need for the future:

1. When the ice caps have melted, your neighbourhood might be permanently flooded, so you’re going to need an amphibious car.  This car can do 160km/h on land and 50km/h on water.  It’s currently available for about $200,000. Also check out this amphibious quad bike for your semi-submerged country estate.

2. Should we be looking at a Waterworld scenario then unless you can grow gills, you’ll need one of these. The only downside is that it will be quite difficult to repopulate the planet in the back seat of this vehicle.

3. I wanted to recommend a flying car in this list but unfortunately none currently exist in any commercial form. The closest is Moller’s M400.  It’s a sad indictment on the state of modern society that we don’t yet have flying cars.

4. On the other hand, if you’re living in the mountains, you’ll need something nimble to evade the hordes of refugees.  While only a concept at the moment, I like the look of the Yamaha Tesseract. Just be careful though, because it might be a Decepticon in disguise.

5. And finally, if the apocalypse does come, you’ll need one of these. This multipurpose truck can safely carry survivors/fuel/food/cure past the zombies/bikers/mutants/apemen. A must for every home.

Like condoms during the Olympics, Nintendo’s console is in great demand. This seems to be because the console is the cheapest of the current generation, rather than anything spectacular about the console. I was going to use this blog to complain about the Wii, specifically its name, the amount of shovelware on the console and waggle being the new button mashing, but I’ve decided to be more positive, so here are five things the Wii should be able to do:

1. Guns. The Wii has a controller that points at the screen. Light guns point at the screen. So why are there no decent games or light guns for the Wii? Part of the trouble is with the Wii remote’s odd design — the buttons are in the wrong place so a new peripheral is needed, but surely if Duck Hunt could be made for the NES, then a decent game can be made for the Wii. Seems like an easy way to sell a lot of games.

2. Swords. The Wii knows where the controller is pointing and how it moves so it could be used as a sword. I don’t mean like in Red Steel where there are three possible moves — I want my character in the game to do exactly as I do with the remote. I want the game to teach me actual sword fighting moves. And I want to use a lightsaber.

3. Autostart. If I want to play a game on my 360, I turn it on. It starts up, starts the game and logs in, all by itself. To play a game on the Wii, I have to press A for the safety warning, point the remote at the screen, press A to select what I want and then press A again to confirm that I didn’t retardedly select the wrong thing. Then I get told not whack anything with the remote and to use the safety grip and the wrist strap. It takes about half an hour just to weigh myself on the Wii Fit. Speaking of interface problems, it’d be nice to be able to use a classic controller on the menu screen, or have the weather and news already loaded with Connect24.

4. Accurate pointing. The Wii lacks a way to callibrate the remote, so there’s no way that the onscreen pointer will be pointing at the place you are pointing at. It’s a laugh to see people new to the Wii expect the Wii to be able to know what they’re actually pointing at.

5. Connectivity. I know after that after Nintendo’s constant fascination with connecting the gamecube and the gameboy, everyone’s sick of the idea, but given that my house is already full of DSs and Wiis and that no extra cables would be needed, it be pretty cool to be able to play games that use both, or send games to the DS that have been downloaded from the Wii, like Nintendo said they would do two years ago.