Tom Charman

Thought on Grapefruit’s new name continues apace, for the primary reason that if I’m to have any overlap at all where both urls work, it had better start soon. And I am glad to be able to tell you that we have made progress. The first world in the new name is almost certainly “atypical”. It’s an attractive word partly because it’s rarely used but mostly because it comes with a built-in double entendre.

Now, on to word number two.

• “atypicalreview” — very nice, very relevant, maybe just a shade dull? But probably the frontrunner.
• “atypicalworld” — a bit more abstract, but unfortunately there have been a lot of websites that end in “world” and I’m reluctant to join their ranks.
• “atypicaltime” — more abstract, maybe a bit awkward though.
• “atypicalx” — x’s are cool. Ahem.
• “atypicalshoe” — or any other random short word. If there was something that fitted in and sounded quite funny, it wouldn’t strictly have to be relevant.

Hopefully we’ll have decided on something by the end of the week. If people want to suggest things they’re only too welcome. Watch out for ‘conflated word syndrome’. I only just realised today that this Radiohead website isn’t A Tease Web, it’s At Ease Web.

The title for this entry should be read in a Strong Bad kind of voice.

So, City of Angels is finally over. I shall miss it a lot. It’s been absolutely fantastic, and I can only imagine that the number of white suits I get to wear in future will dive dramatically.

It also fuelled my new interest in noir, alongside modern re-interpretations like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Veronica Mars. Here’s hoping Doctor Who (April 15, by the way) does a noir episode some day.

You should see a lot more content here soon — now that I can’t avoid my lack of job-finding through musicals, Grapefruit will have to take the brunt of it.

Now, the extra-letter-police (also known as Andy and occasionally as Captain Sardonica) can lay off. What a thrilling ceremony. It was at least mercifully short. A quick checklist:

• Number of tickets I had to secrete beneath a nearby wheelie bin so that my folks could pick them up when they arrived late: 2.
• Number of mentions of Joss Whedon: 1.
• Number of bizarrely coincidental seatings next to cute ex-St Leonards students: 1. Oh, that Katharine Sarah Rachel Blaze.
• Number of mentions of Bob Dylan: 1.
• Number of people who slipped over on the way out because they stood on the long trails of my bag straps: 0. But it was close. I didn’t realise why everyone was standing back from me till I got to the end. It may of course have been my breath too.
• Number of people who adjusted my academic robes: 4. You’ve got to look your best.
• Number of DVDs of the night purchased afterwards: 0. I might have considered it if there was a Deputy Chancellor’s Commentary.

The musical, City of Angels, is going brilliantly. Well, pretty good. We’re a little less than two weeks out and everything feels like it’s coming together. Good cast, good atmosphere, and most importantly quite a few of us seem talented too. Especially the orchestra who played with us for the first time last night. Last musical, we didn’t have drums — the difference is painfully obvious.

All this rehearsal is really cutting into my gaming and Battlestar-watching time. I’m only about 30% through Fahrenheit, and my insistence on only playing it at night is causing a slow progression. It’s worth it though — the game is more an interactive movie, and quite moody. Nothing cuts through the atmosphere quite like your mother asking you to do the dishes, and the spookier scenes are enhanced greatly by the slight paranoia that creeps into one’s head when you’re sitting in a dark room with huge windows by yourself at midnight.

It’d be a game worth trying the Alexia treatment with, but I’d feel so derivative. Should I, Andy?

The last Battlestar I watched was Black Market, which I felt was perhaps the most poor episode ever. Obviously, I’ve been spoiled, but having a poorer episode lingering in my mind is eroding my adoration for the show. I’m reliably informed we’re back to awesomeness again very soon. Given that only one episode earlier, it was tremendously awesome, it’s not really even worth complaining. But look, I have.

Jackson and I are in a musical currently, for those that don’t know. Hopefully Shannon has noticed as she’s the director. It plays for four days at the end of the month — I’ll put the actual details and booking information and such up here very soon.

Anyhow, while Jackson is the main character, with a boodle of scenes (actually, not that many, the cast is pretty big), I’m a 1940s crooner who gets eight lines. The point of the story is that we got to rehearse the scenes where I have lines last night, finally, and it was great fun. I’m absolutely spewing that I wasn’t more involved in these things at school. Of course, I doubt I really could have been. Curse my teenage awkwardness!

Meanwhile, Battlestar Galactica still rocks. I’ve just finished watching an awesome trilogy of stories — episodes 210, 211 and 212 — and the show has not disappointed yet. Yes, I’m aware I’ve only reviewed up to 203. I’ll get busy very soon. Aren’t you paying attention? I’m a busy actor!

Finally, I’m trying to think of some more random website names. I’ve decided relevance is not nearly as important as pithalit… pithical… pithiness? Anyhow, random is the order of the day. Just not fruit or vegetables.

This year’s Oscars seem to be getting a bit of flak online. And by “getting a bit of flak”, I mean, every article about them I read is reasonably positive but starts by saying “This year’s Oscars seem to be getting a bit of flak.” People have been complaining that they’re boring. As someone pointed out, they say that every year. If you want more excitement, give Roberto Benigni some more Oscars. I haven’t seen Crash but no one seems happy about that either, not even Google. I can’t guarantee that that link will continue to be amusing.

The Oscars are an awards ceremony. Compared to school speech nights, they’re amazingly entertaining. And everyone’s waaaaay hotter. You’ve just got to keep your finger on the fast-forward button. Don’t watch it live. The only reason to watch it live is if you’re actually there, in which case, why are you even paying attention? Go get Keira Knightley to stop sitting next to Jack Nicholson and pay you some attention. Jon Stewart did a good job too. His humour was a bit nervous, but exactly in his style — which didn’t seem to always go down well with the audience. But then, I didn’t see Charlize Theron smile once, so there’s clearly no pleasing some people.

Anyhow, the purpose of this missive is to point out that the time is golden for a resurgence of that “Witherspoon” joke. It works best in the morning, ideally not when someone has just seen the news. Say “Oooh, did you hear about that girl who won the oscar, she was stabbed to death! I forget her name. Reece…” At some point, the person will say “Witherspoon,” to which you reply “No! With a knife!”

Comedy Gold. Go forth and make people groan and hit you.

Say, is there a cool website name that ends in -scape? No, never mind, let’s talk about something else.

While watching season four of The X-Files — which is quite good so far; the show continually confounds my usual ‘2-3 are the best seasons’ theory. Not that it’s really been awesome yet. It just keeps on keeping on. There’s perhaps been a slow improvement overall after a nadir in the early second season.

Ahem. Sorry, that was just supposed to be an aside. Er, while watching season four, and seeing Mulder flitting about between the various states, it occurred to me why Australians just aren’t as big on science fiction as everyone else on the planet. Americans, Europeans… they’re all used to driving, flying, translocating in any direction and coming across people really quickly. And so, they don’t really get the whole ‘space is really big and empty’ idea. And so, they’re quite happy to accept Star Trek finding a new planet all the time.

Australians understand space. They’re used to driving for over eight hours and finding nothing more interesting than Adelaide. They hear people say we’re light years upon light years from anything else and think, “Oh, right, no point exploring then. We might accidentally arrive in the universe’s Adelaide and we don’t want that.” And then they see Star Trek and wonder: didn’t they get the memo?

Or not. I’m not convinced, but sometimes things just bounce around in your head and you can’t get rid of them. Like the music in this what if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging? video hosted on YouTube.com (well, it was, and might be still at a different URL, but we’ll take this GoogleVideo link instead). Watch, and be similarly cursed. Andy asked me when YouTube.com turned up today and I had to admit I didn’t know. I hate to dash the poor kid’s hopes like that. He looks up to me so. Anyone else know?