Jackson Kearney

She started cutting the Marshmallows in half again today. A cost cutting measure that will redefine the hospitality industry. An approach that is so beautiful in it’s simplicity that cafe owners everywhere will wonder why they didn’t think of it first.

Such is the way with all great inventions.

Actually I’m sure there must be better ways to make more money. Ones that aren’t embarassing and reflect poorly on us. I mean people know they aren’t getting a whole marshmallow. The severed end dries up and looks mangy. Magnificent spongy balls of confection made virtually inedible.

We never confront her of course. Our main method of communication is forging entries for the suggestion box. Sometimes one of us will make a joke, but we make sure to say it quickly so it is beyond her ability to understand. It’s fair enough — they scream at each other in Chinese all the time.

In any case we’ll have to wait a while before we make use the suggestion box again. I think she was starting to recognise our hand writing.

And in something unrelated — people who fancy themselves as sophisticated really irritate me when they say the word “accessible” (in the context of music or and other art) like it’s some kind of criticism. Get over yourself.

Only the Herald Sun could take something which isn’t actually an issue — the existence of fee paying places in our premier state schools — and use it to peddle what seems to be some kind of racist agenda on their front page.

Because, not for the first time, foreigners are taking things from us. They’ve always taken our jobs, but now they are taking our kid’s spot in a good state school.

I’ve been told from an extremely reliable souce that fee-paying spots aren’t at the expense of free ones, making the whole article pointless — but that isn’t the issue I want to talk about.¹

It’s the Herald Sun’s ridiculous emphasis on the fact most of these places are held be foreigners. This may be true, but it’s also completely irrelevant. Surely the only issue should be that there are fee paying places, not who has decided to buy them. The fact that foreigners have is completely coincidental and barely worth mentioning, let alone in a massive sub heading on the front page of the paper. Although in defence of the journalist who wrote it, they don’t actually get to decide the titles.

In any case, in a society which seems largely xenophobic and always on the search for a scape-goat, it seems wrong and irresponsible of one of our major papers to promote those kinds of attitudes.

People don’t need to be pushed much I find.

1. Although we can go into it if you’d like. ↩

Damn it.

I want to quit playing video games. I really do. At least cut down. But now E3 comes along and reveals so MANY SHINY THINGS! LOOK AT THEM!! I CAN SEE MY REFLECTION!!!

It’s not fair. And Jade Empire is out. Which isn’t fair either. And Andy has ordered heaps of shiny things from Hong Kong which should be getting here soon. Don’t get me started on how distracting that will be.

After seeing everything this week, I would like to officially announce my retirement from gaming in 2008. I have to be around for the next generation. This date of course is subject to change and will come under review in 2007.

Ben Browder apparently has been signed on as a regular cast member for season 9.

I’m not sure how I feel about seeing him play a character other than John — but the fact that Claudia Black is supposedly set to reprise her season 8 role for about five episodes might make it too tempting.

How exciting. The two-minute ‘tutorial’ level which is ommited from the co-op campaign actually has a few very cool minutes of cut-scenes. So it turns out the intro I thought was the intro isn’t. It explains quite a bit of stuff. Never mind. I’ve seen it now.

X-box live is divine. It’s amazingly lag-free and all works quite seamlessly within the game. You can of course arrange to meet with friends, but I’ve just been auto-matching and kicking some arse. I haven’t been coming first because some people (as in all such games) manage to rack up kills at some amazing speed, but I do well enough to hold my head high. If being good at a computer game is something to be proud of.

Maybe it isn’t. Anyway I’m off to play again. I promise if I have something to say about Halo 2 next it will be insightful and you know… interesting. Otherwise I just won’t bring it up.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I have it. 3 years of waiting. I love it. I’ve finished it.

Please let me go and finish it again.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Obviously a gap in understanding is to be expected between us and the previous generation when it comes to technology. What could be interesting is in the details they choose to highlight in their stories.

I’m not going to into the details of the problem — it’s far too banal. Needless to say my new work colleague in her 40’s seem far more interested in telling me about the behaviour of Internet Explorer and how she couldn’t log onto hotmail, than the dialogue box she had got previously regarding missing files and her internet connection.

I blame caches. Certain cache settings give old people the illusion their internet is working.

Anyway the amazing part of this story is that after several minutes of her explaining it, and me asking all sorts of questions, only at the end did she choose to casually mention something about something popping up with the text “Trapdoor virus”, and then innocently ask if it could have anything to do with the problem.

I give up. Surely even our baby-booming friends know that the word “virus” is reasonably pertinent when it comes to the world of computers. Needless to say, if it IS the Trapdoor.338 virus, it’s very bad. Although I get the impression from this description then a lot more would be going wrong. Although it had only happened this morning before she came to work. Anyway I’m not sure, I just thought it amusing she didn’t mention it, you know, first.

I’ve been waiting a long time for today – a day when one of the greatest television series of all times makes a triumphant return. Yes believe it or not the ENTIRE THREE SERIES of Bananaman is being released on DVD in the UK.

I’m so happy. No really. I’m buying it as soon as I can. Screw Halo 2. Those not gripped with ecstasy at hearing this news will be after listening to this.

And yes, the Farscape mini-series will have finished airing in just a few hours, which is also damn exciting. It’s also a perfect example of how fans can make a difference.

So we should waste no time in setting up our savabananaman.com website. If we all work together we can get a fourth season of this brilliant show. I have a plan that involves stealing all the funds raised by the evil stinky savewonderfalls.com .

Who’s with me?

The cartoon is from Fox Trot incidentally. Figure I better source these things.

I came to the realisation a few days ago that I’d actually be clearing more money per week if I worked about 7 hours less. I’m not going to go into the maths — suffice to say it’s about Youth Allowance, how much I’m allowed to earn, and the amount of tax I pay on my job.

My request to work less hours was denied – so rather than work 7 hours a week like I want, I’m working about 15-20 and clearing $50 less per fornight. If you think I’m making this up I don’t blame you, but I assure you it’s completely true. Just keep in mind the key word here is ‘clearing’. I will get money back next years tax return that I wouldn’t otherwise get, so eventually it works out okay (I’m hoping). I just want the money in my hand NOW damn it.

Halo 2 comes out in three weeks not in July 2005. And right now I could use that extra day off because I have heaps of things to do like play Fable and maintain my rank on the OGN Counterstrike server. The life of a gamer is no picnic let me tell you.

But enough whinging. In other news I got off the train at Brighton Beach today and walked into a pole because I was too busy staring at a girl who had got off the next carriage. Seriously I felt like I was in some stupid comedy movie. Luckily she didn’t notice me at all, let alone the fact I fell over. I don’t think we are meant to be together.

This is Andy C’s arm.

This is it now…

An improvement? I’d like to think so. I didn’t think it fair that Sara had certain body parts exaggerated and that Andy just looked weedy. However this marvel of modern art took me about three hours – and believe me that is a conservative estimate. Of course, that includes the time I spent rigging a bone structure that makes it flex in a (vaguely) realistic fashion but all the same – it’s a long time for a silly arm.

The funny part is I probably won’t even be using it because I’m not sure I have the patience to make his entire body consistent, and Matt has correctly pointed out that I’m focusing far too much on the drawing aspect and people would probably prefer if I just pumped out the episodes instead of merely teasing you with an arm.

It is a good arm though. And I rather like drawing I’ve decided, even if I’m not particulary talented at it. But I have my exams in three weeks, and I really should be studying. I might however go and work on our B5 episode guide.

I need to get all my little projects out of the way before Halo 2. I’m excited already.