No, no, not that Jackson. This one. Peter Jackson was interviewed recently by Paul Fischer about the upcoming Halo film (which he’s producing) and gave some really straightforward replies:

Question: You’re still producing Halo?
Jackson: Yeah.
Question: What attracted you to Halo?
Jackson: I’m a fan of the game.
Question: But video game movies suck.
Jackson: They do.
Question: So what will be different?
Jackson: Hopefully it won’t suck.
Question: But why not direct?
Jackson: I want a break. I want to have the fun but not the hard work. I just want to be part of the creative team but not actually have the pain.

He may have screwed up The Return of the King, but he’s a good apple. I feel reasonably confident that a Halo film with him involved will rock considerably. Mind you, I’ve chosen not to read the (well received) leaked script. Some people out there probably know whether it’ll suck or not. But not me.

Oh, and just a quick mention that there’s an X-Men 3 trailer out. It’s… loud and impressive looking, but there’s not much hint at plot. Ah, it’s useless to try and work things out from trailers sometimes. I’ll just wait patiently.

Bloody sound issues bloody packed cinema bloody quiet bloody broken bloody one stinking free ticket bloody half-way though bloody opening night bloody near-riot bloody stupid bloody.

Every now and then I wander around the interweb looking to see if any Australian phone companies are offering bluetooth mobiles that work with Salling Clicker. This sweet little program allows me to go past the usual address book synchronising etc, and do some nifty stuff like:

• Allow me to use the phone as a remote control for my iMac (i.e. watch a DVD in bed and turn the computer off without getting up — laziness perfected).
• Pause iTunes when I leave the room and restart it when I come back. Actually, I wouldn’t use this so much because it’s always a pressure to remove my phone from its prime sterilization position.
• Change my Adium (chat program) status. Okay, this one’s pretty useless too.
• Remote control of PowerPoint, while showing me the slides on the screen as well — so I can face the audience proudly! Yes, yes, also unlikely to be used.
• Did I mention the remote control business? It can browse my entire iTunes library remotely, and even scan through songs.

Having written those out, it all seems a bit superfluous, doesn’t it? Certainly not worth spending a heap of money on. So it’s lucky that that’s not my plan. Enter the Panasonic X700, for just $1 on Optus’ $25 plan!

There’s drawbacks, of course. Apparently the camera ain’t so good (not really an issue for me) and the battery life isn’t brilliant either (more of an issue). Apparently it’s well behind other phones technologically speaking; but then, it’s way cheaper, so that checks. I’m as yet undecided. Advice?

I linked to Scott Adams’ blog in the Grapefruit notables a little while back. Only a few weeks after launching his blog, he got himself into a spot of controversy with this post on the debate between Evolution and Intelligent Design. A scientist/blogger known as PZ Myers responded with ‘Scott Adams is a Wally’.

And then, of course, it keeps going: I’m really only blogging this to conveniently link to all the steps of the debate. So, in chronological order:

1. Scott responds to general criticism in his comments here, before specifically responding to Myers’ response in this post.
2. Myers responds to the response with an attempt to summarise Adams position.
3. Adams responds with a discussion of who he finds credible, which seems to be his point in all this.
4. Myers explains what his problem with Adams’ original post is.
5. Adams encourages people to tell him why he’s stupid.
6. Myers responds by explaining what he thought Adams was wrong about. And he uses a Calvin and Hobbes picture so he gets bonus points.
7. Someone at Sedition.com spoofs Adams’ original post.
8. The results of Adams’ ‘Why I’m Stupid’ post are posted.

And I think that brings us up to date. If anyone can be bothered reading all, or some, of that: what do you think? I think Adams thinks he’s debunking pathetic excuses for debate. I think Myers thinks he’s stopping a popular thinker from even suggesting there is a debate. I think Adams isn’t quite used to how debates on the internet go. I think Myers is a bit battle-hardened by them.

Unfortunately, it’s famous for having really stupid kids.

Just the other day, the news broke that the Valedictory Dinner had been cancelled by the principal, Dr Hayward. Apparently, about thirty students were involved in trying to put a big banner up on St John of God’s tower next door to the school. I’m not entirely sure how thirty people can be involved in putting one banner up. Were twenty of them standing around cheering people on? Or are we counting those who helped paint the banner as implicated?

What hasn’t been reported as much is that apparently the kids were banned from the traditional walk from the beach to school on Muck Up Day, which seems a bit dumb. If you’ve got students doing something safe and stupid on the traditional being-stupid day, why would you ban it?

And then there’s the matter of the 150 or so students that didn’t put the banner up. Why do they get punished, exactly? It’s not like it’s hard to work out which kids are the dicks and which aren’t. Better for one or two students to get away with something than to punish 150 unfairly. Especially since one of the prime reasons for the Valedictory Dinner is to give the prizes to the clever kids.

But even after this embarassing story, today we get the news that St Leonard’s Year Nines were caught by teachers buying marijuana in Fiji, as reported in the Herald-Sun and The Age. Good move, kids. You watch the news, you know it’s safe. Hayward’s quotes actually sound reasonable in these stories, even if the Herald-Sun did plaster a picture of him grinning alongside theirs. In their initial story, The Age mentioned him defending the staff’s decision not to submit the children to the authorities, though this aspect is not as strong in the story as it stands currently. Presumably because not many people would read that story and think “those fifteen year olds need to feel the full force of the law, hanging’s too good for them.”

(The Age‘s story mentions, presumably as corroborating evidence, that the year nines were “rowdy” on the plane home according to talkback callers. Shit, really? Kids rowdy? On a plane? Let us also take into consideration that talkback callers are amongst the most intolerant, self-important people on the planet.)

So, Hayward is in favour of excessive punishment, except when it might kill the students! Hah! Oh, alright, that’s actually consistent. In any case, this has got to be the worst publicity St Leonard’s has had since it allowed those stinky boys to start attending back in the seventies.

This post was initially to only include my mini-review of Doctor Who‘s mini-episode. But then I thought, let’s give this some mass appeal. This teeny episode has made me even more anxious to get new Who, but let us also mention the need for more Stargate SG-1.

When we reached the mid-season hiatus that we’re currently inhabiting, Stargate was ticking along nicely. Which was a shame, because there were a few hints that it could have reached ‘awesome’ level earlier. These were dashed mostly by the departure of Vala Mal Doran, as played by Claudia Black. Well, there’s good news. In Stargate‘s (American) record-breaking tenth season, Vala’s back!

Oh alright, so we all assumed she would be anyhow. But it’s nice to get confirmation.

Now, onto Who — which you can watch for free online in crummy quality. Three and a half minutes doesn’t make for a very satisfying story. It’s basically just a TARDIS scene immediately after ‘The Parting of the Ways’. But as it’s our first sustained look at David Tennant as Doctor Who, it’s pretty interesting nonetheless. I should point out straight away that Billie Piper is still fantastic, and still manages to ground the craziness of any scene she’s in, and is still cute.

The Doctor’s regeneration goes wonky, naturally, but there’s a minute or two of lucidity where he can reassure Rose that it’s actually him. In my favourite moment, Rose accuses him of being a Slitheen, or some other impersonating monster, and he replies “I am not a Slitheen” with a curious sincere blend of sarcasm. I don’t know how he did it.

The manic bits are amusing, but I much preferred his quiet moments. I especially liked it when he reminded Rose and the audience of the first time he met her, complete with the eerie ‘Bad Wolf’ theme playing in the background. Some have disliked the bit where he tries to get Rose to laugh by reminding her of the time they had to “hop for their lives”. These people have obviously never tried to make a joke and watched it die horribly in front of them. Tennant does it perfectly.

So I’m pretty confident about this new Doctor. I’m sure he’ll be just as good as Eccleston, but I’m hoping they find a way to make him markedly different (in personality or methodology, not in fashion sense). I’d say more but it’s ridiculous to write more than a paragraph per minute. I wouldn’t want to follow this rule in a full episode review. Although it would be a good way to review 24.