weblog March 7th, 2006
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.
Posted by Tom Charman to Battlestar Galactica, leonardian players, tv | 9 Comments »
weblog March 7th, 2006
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.
Posted by Tom Charman to film, jon stewart, keira knightley | 2 Comments »
weblog March 1st, 2006
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?
Posted by Tom Charman to ipod, The X-Files, tv | 23 Comments »
weblog February 23rd, 2006
Not that we won’t accept others, but a meeting was held and a short list drawn up. If everyone could nominate their favourites (and add new ones if you insist, oe provide variations on these themes) that’d be awesome. Yes, I’m aware that there’s probably only five people likely to respond. We’re having a poll anyhow. In no particular order (and with a brand new entry which I just thought of):
- Opinion Pirates
opinionpirates.com
- Mild Themes
mildthemes.com
- Rightly Wrong
rightlywrong.com
- Certain Doom
certaindoom.net
- Since You’ll All Die Anyway
sinceyoullalldieanyway.com
- Idle Discourse
idle-discourse.com
- Born Mad
bornmad.com
- Entirely Possible
entirelypossible.com
Posted by Tom Charman to website | 33 Comments »
weblog February 22nd, 2006
Last August, the ABC’s Media Watch highlighted a Today Tonight report on young muslims for editing together a series of interviews dishonestly. Though it was obvious that the vibe of the story had been twisted in that way that Today Tonight does so well, one interview’s cut in particular really irritated me. A bloke named Ahmed was quoted by Today Tonight as saying:
I mean you have all this talk about integration. Why hasn’t the Muslim community assimilated or why doesn’t it integrate into the Australian community as quick as other communities. Well, at the end of the day OK, we will never integrate.
When in fact, he went on to say:
… we will never integrate in the way other communities integrate purely because of the fact that you have to draw the line with what your idea of integration is and what our idea of integration and accepting, you know, accepting the practices of other people.
That’s my emphasis up there by the way. I don’t completely understand the integration issue. I don’t see why anyone cares whether muslims around the country are having a barbecue and watching the cricket. Does an Australian immigrant have further responsibilities past making sure he or she can communicate sensibly with other Australians? Anyhow, the reason I’m highlighting this is because according to Media Watch this week our TV watchdog — the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) — doesn’t think Today Tonight was naughty. This from page four of their report:
The latter part of the quote which was not broadcast did not alter the statement “we will not integrate”.
Really. Hmmm. Interesting. Try chopping a statement like “A bumblebee does not fly in the way that birds do” in half and see how much sense it makes. If the part I highlighted in bold wasn’t there, I could see the ACMA’s position. But it’s there, and it qualifies “We will not integrate” very strongly.
On a basic level, I’m a bit concerned that we can have an organisation like the ACMA and that they can look at Today Tonight on any night and think “Hmm, yes, fair enough.” There needs to be a clause preventing a program from being full of shit put into the Code of Practice. Just think, it could have protected us from Skithouse too.
Posted by Tom Charman to politics, tv | 12 Comments »
weblog February 16th, 2006
Here’s a picture of my desk at work. On the left is our printer that rarely works. To my right is a VoiP phone that remembers it’s mine even when it strays. Irritatingly, to access messages you don’t press the ‘message’ button, oh no, you press ‘6’ and then ‘1’ and then enter your PIN. Duh! My desk also contains sugar and stirring sticks for when people bring me unsugared coffee, in and out trays, and a usually empty biscuit jar. The picture is crummy because it was taken with my new phone’s camera, which is crummy. I don’t mind; I don’t take many pictures.
Things are busy round the grapefruit offices these days. We’re all racking our brains to come up with a new name for the site. The incorrect plural is really getting to me. But it seems almost every word in the english language has been taken, so we’ve either got to make one up or combine a few existing ones. Words implying that the website is inaccurate, wildly irrelevant and generally silly would be favoured. If anyone has any ideas go ahead and post them. Whoever comes up with the best gets to have come up with the best.
I’m giving up on ER, I reckon. This season’s premiere was piss-poor. House is way better. At least some of the doctors on that seem skilled. ER lacks a super-doctor, and has since Green died, really. Carter almost had the stripes but his smug air and irritating grin got in the way. I can’t pin exactly when I lost all respect for him but the part where he screwed up his relationship with the hot hot hot Hospital counsellor might have been it. Or when he screwed up his relationship with Abby. I like Abby but she’s not quite enough to get me to watch.
Posted by Tom Charman to tv, work | 33 Comments »
weblog January 27th, 2006
It’s been a quiet time around the Grapefruit office while everyone’s away on summer break. Or at least, that sounds like a good excuse for the lack of things around here. I have been watching films and television, and playing games — I’ve just been a bit lax writing about them. I’ve only got three episodes of Battlestar: Galactica season one to watch and it’s still awesome. I won’t start reviewing it until I get to season two, though. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was great, too — I’ll probably review it too, at some point. Yes, I’m a little behind.
We got the yellow pages the other day. L-Z is now sleek and black with yellow highlights, an inverted A-K. I reckon A-K must be getting jealous. L-Z looks awesome. Speaking of awesome redesigns, the DS got a whole lot more sexy yesterday (or rather, it will) after the announcement of the DS Lite. A hot Australia Day was made even more annoying when I had to wipe the drool off Andy’s keyboard as he gibbered in the corner.
Finally, X3 seems to be getting a subtitle: ‘The Last Stand’. I don’t like subtitles. I don’t know where to put them on reviews. When X2 came out I saw ‘X-Men United’ bandied around the place but it’s not on the actual film. IMDb calls it a “promotional title”. After the film’s release they’re lost in the mists of time. Besides, what’s the point of doing subtitles when “The Secret of the Ooze” has already been taken? Nothing’s going to top that. X3 is apparently “the conclusion of this trilogy” according to some 20th Century Fox executive. I like how studio bosses are getting artistically involved in movies these days.
Posted by Tom Charman to Battlestar Galactica, film, games, Nintendo DS, prince of persia, tv, x-men | 13 Comments »
weblog January 6th, 2006
Channel Ten is promoting their new US import, Supernatural as coming from “The Director of X-Files“. So, just who is the director of The X-Files, given that the show ran for nine seasons with the usual cycling of directors? Is it writer/creator Chris Carter, who directed a about an episode a season? No. Is it Rob Bowman, the director of numerous episodes as well as the 1998 movie? No — he’s too busy making quality films like Elektra.
So who is it? Well, it could be David Nutter, but it seems that Channel Ten mean be Kim Manners — who has directed boodles of times for The X-Files and twice for Supernatural, and is also co-executive producer on both shows. So it’s “from” him. And not, say, “from” Eric Kripke, the creator and writer of the show. Why not? Why, because then they’d have to say “From the co-creator of Tarzan” and I think we can all see that that’s not so impressive.
Posted by Tom Charman to The X-Files, tv | 3 Comments »
weblog January 5th, 2006
A few random points of TV interest:
- I’ve watched the first two episodes of Battlestar Galactica season one, and they’re awesome. I doubt all the episodes will be this tense — I don’t think I’ve been closer to the edge of my seat since the first season of 24. I’m particularly looking forward to getting to the final five episodes of the season, because there are downloadable commentaries from SciFi.com.
- Speaking of which, there was a downloadable commentary for ‘The Christmas Invasion’ as well, where Russell T. Davies revealed that Doctor Who‘s second season will show us the establishment of ‘Torchwood’. Hopefully, it’ll be an historical episode, just because that would be much cooler. How much cooler would it have been if The X-Files had been set in 1897?
- And while I’m on The X-Files — I’m on a segue-roll here — I’m halfway through season two, and I’ve just seen the two-parter that introduced the shapeshifting alien bounty hunter. Which reminded me just how awesome we all thought face-morphing was in the nineties. We’ve come a long way.
Meanwhile, I’ve spent today wrestling with Word. In a 53 page document, I changed one group of bullets to roman numerals, and went on to find that every other set of bullets in the document had suffered a similar fate, and had to change them all back. Even the ones that were supposed to be roman numerals refused to reset their numbering for different lists, greying out the option to do so. This is tremendously uninteresting, I know, but I’m writing it down as therapy. Just ignore me.
Posted by Tom Charman to Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, The X-Files, tv, windows | 3 Comments »
weblog December 24th, 2005
Everything’s a bit quiet around here at Christmas time. I’m busy, of course, buying presents, and relaxing, and watching The X-Files, and gleefully anticipating Doctor Who‘s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. But I thought I’d just blog about a few random things to keep things ticking over here.
- There’s a bit of a TARDIS invasion going on in the ‘Recent Weblogs’ section. Can no one save us?
- Talkback callers continue to whinge about Christmas not being as Christmassy as it usually is. I haven’t actually noticed anything different, but if there is I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a reaction against the commercialisation of Christmas.
- But then, Southland has been insanely busy all week, so that’s not likely.
- I’m rubbish at watching proper television now. I need to get an EyeTV, or a DVD recorder, or something. I have only the vaguest of awareness of what day it is at the best of times.
- I’m in the next St Leonards Old Collegians Association musical, in the chorus, but I have one scene as a crazy spiritual therapist called Dr Mandril. And I’m supposed to do it in an American accent. If Jess or Sara are reading this they’re probably cringing already.
- Speaking of, where’s the Harry Potter review, Jess? Don’t give me that “I’ve got a full time job and a life and it’s Christmas and I’m busy” excuse. Do you know how often I hear that?
- Finally, Andy and Matt have gone to Perth for the holidays to be with their families. This slightly reduces the number of gaming systems Andy has access to, and it’s my fervent hope that he might write something for Grapefruit again.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Posted by Tom Charman to christmas, leonardian players | 9 Comments »