Dance Hall Daze

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and they played this song, and I listened to that:


Did you listen to it? Did you? Really?

We start simply with "Take your baby by the hand and make her do a high hand stand " Er... I'm not sure why you would want to make her do that, let alone what exactly a high hand stand is...

"And take your baby by the heel and do the next thing that you feel. " So... just anything that comes to mind, that you feel you should do... while you have her heel in your hand... I'm not sure if that's weird or creepy.

"Take your baby by the hair and pull her close and there there there " Ah, now you are pulling your woman around by her hair. Okay, that's that damn psychotic. And what's damn psychotic is:

"And take your baby by the ears and play upon her darkest fears." What... like "hey, baby, I'm going to kidnap you and take you back to my place where..." actually, fill in the blanks yourself. But why the hell are you doing that? What sick control fantasy are you living out that you need to play on her darkest fears???

But then it just gets surreal. "Take your baby by the wrist and in her mouth an amethyst" Or maybe that's your signature serial killer move? Putting jewels in her face? Certainly it continues in the next line with "And in her eyes two saphires blue ".

Now, this is a fun, up-beat song... but damn those lyrics reveal that being "cool on craze" has a completely different meaning...

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Beauty is Embarrassing

Wayne White puts words in paintings of landscapes. And he created puppets for Pee Wee's Playhouse. Quite the career, and one we find out about in Beauty is Embarrassing.

(I'm nearly tempted to go off on a spiel about 'what is art?', given that he starts with landscape paintings that he gets from thrift stores and then 'defaces' them by putting words on them, which then go on to be new words of art... but a) is it any different from using other found objects to create art? , and b) he's hardly the first to use images created by others.)

Wayne White certainly has covered a lot, and is one of those successful people that managed to change their careers mid way through their lives (he says enviously). I never watched Pee Wee's Playhouse, but I hear it was something that the kids liked? Certainly, Paul Reuben got enough attention over it. And half of this movie is about that time and Wayne's involvement with Hollywood, and that's an interesting look at behind the scenes. The other part of the movie is about his life in which he creates his own art for himself, and is successful at that. (If you want to know what I'm talking about, and can't be bothered to google Wayne White Word Paintings, there you go.)

We also get some talking heads with other people, such as Paul Reuben and Matt Groening (who Wayne's wife worked with), and his friends and family. And we get to see some really large puppets.

It's a lighthearted documentary, which is a nice change from the more typical fare I watch of heavy real world problems.

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Hantel and Gresel

What exactly is the point of the story of Der Hanzel and Der Gretle? Is it a warning to adults that kids will push you into ovens? Is it advice to kids that if adults give you trouble, you should push them into ovens? Or is it that parents will never love you unless you kill old women?

For this movie, the moral is that evil women are clearly evil, and there is no ambiguity about who deserves to be punished. As you probably know, Hansel and Gretel grew up and somehow produced lots of weapons that should in no way exist at the time. Buy, hey, if they are going to be ignoring physics (equal and opposite reaction? sod that!), why stop there? This way being cool can outweight anything else. Which also applies to the witches, who are way powerful and should be running the country under an iron fist by this point! Frankly, the easy test for 'who is a witch' should be 'do they put up any kind of fight?'. And from this we get a lot of women throwing people around... but 'fortunately' we still get to have a 'damsel in distress' with Gretel. ...okay, I haven't mentioned the plot, but you could guess 'fight minor witches, mid movie battle, pause, then ramp up for huge battle at the end' and know exactly what happens.

Jeremy Renner seemed to be trying for a more comic turn, but just comes across as the nice side of bland. Gemma Arterton tries more than her character deserves. Famke Janssen is not trying at all. Which looks to be how most of the production team feels, and I can't say that Mike Elizalde was reaching far for his make up designs.

Within the 'want to be action' design, and short running time, this movie isn't leaving much of a mark.

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It has begun!

Over the past few months, I've been taking a course on programming in Python. To be honest, it's been more remembering how to code rather than learn new things, but I have learnt more about interfacing and events and such.

Which has inspired me to make my own game! And get all the monies!

One thing I looked up was programming for mobile devices... and Python doesn't have a huge track record in this area. But there is one add on that gives everything so that I can deploy to Android and iOS: Kivy.

However, while Kivy is all open source and everything, how to do things in Kivy involves using things differently to standard Python. Just drawing involves some Python code, and Kv code... which is powerful, but can be impenetrable. Yes, there are examples, but they tend to the basic. And the documentation is either basic introduction, or not very detailed procedure specs. I'd like something in-between please.

Which has meant that for a week or more, I couldn't even get a blob on a screen to move. Yeah, I see lots of money in my future... but one post on the kivy groups later, and it's now moving! And, to be honest, with a moving blob that I can control, I've got a lot of the basic mechanics I want down. Now, I've got some more coding for interactions to work in, but then I'm done...

Aside from making it look not crap, having opening and menu screens. And playing sounds.

But I have started, so look out Angry Birds, I'm up next!

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Head to the Bullet

Want a movie that is incredibly generic and just plods along with fists and guns and no thought? Got you covered!

Sly and friend are hit men, but they get double crossed and partner is killed. A cop looks into what happens, and teams up with Sly to get at the men behind it all... and you can guess where it goes from there, because it doesn't go anywhere innovative. People get killed, then they go somewhere else, and more people get killed. Sly is there punching and shooting people and being better than everyone else and... amidst all this action, nothing exciting actually happens.

More interesting is who else is in this movie. Jason Momoa is playing the main bag guy muscle, and he comes across as pretty bad ass. (Haven't seen his Conan yet.) I have a lot of time for Christian Slater, and although he isn't in this a lot, he has the best part in the movie. And there are women in this movie... but expect to see their tits, as they all get naked at some point or another, because that's the sort of movie this is.

It is a passable movie, and won't offend you... but neither is it going to enthral.

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Apparently there's some thing called E3?

I follow on Twitter a few gaming people. And read a gaming website. And there are two events that happen a year that gets all of them riled up... I can't remember the other one, but it's basically a variant of what's happening right now, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nominally for the gaming industry, it's a huge event that drags gamers from across the country to attend. It features numerous booths from many different companies, but the main aspect are the talks by various companies and console makers. The big three, Microsoft (Xbox), Sony (Playstation) and Nintendo (Wii), are generally huge hitters, and in this year's con, Nintendo has stepped aside, Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot, leg, chest and anywhere else it can hit, and Sony is handing them a gun and saying 'we aren't doing that'.

Which is all very well and good, but... I'm not a hardcore gamer. There are dozens (hundreds?) of games I've got, and haven't played any of them. And I don't have a console (okay, I got a PS2, but don't use it), so don't care about the Next Gen. I play on the PC, and use GOG, Steam and Desura for more than my gaming needs (including the indie bundle deals). Which means... I'm looking on at this with bemusement.

Because it doesn't matter aside of the really hard core gamers. Microsoft have solidly declared themselves only for the small fraction of the world that has internet, and is setting up practices that give all problems to the user and all the money to them. And yet... will it hurt them?

Most people don't care. They'll see "shiny new Xbox" and buy. Stereotypical parents will be directed to the new happening, and get it for the kids. Even the hardcore gamers that are turning their noses up at it... a good proportion of them will still get it.

Just like when we get a new Doctor. A small group of people will get all frothed up about it... but then we'll all accept it and move on as if it was always like this.

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Catfish

Documentary? Movie? A bit of both really. Certainly the trailer, I recall, suggested that it took a dark and edgy turn that could easily have been the opening to some kind of torture porn... however...

A guy forms a relationship with someone on the internet (there's your problem!), and he just so happens to be associated with two filmmakers who decided to document this... and that's probably where most of the suspicious arises. He just so happens... and Facebook pages can be faked... and then he goes out to meet her...

And then the movie reveals itself very much to be a documentary. We can already see where this is heading, and it goes there, and the movie just takes its time, just keeping a slow pace, and there you go. While this is no Talhotblond, yeah, I can see that this is a documentary (although the trailer still should be a set up for some bad (of course) killer movie).

Because it is documentary, the end message comes along with a large dollop of "Whelp, there you go." And there we are. No real surprises, no dramatic twists, just muddling along, much like most of real life. (Documentaries can be so disappointing sometimes in that they have to stick to real life.)

I'd heard some things about this, about how this inspired a tv reality show... pity about that.

Maybe a few years ago this was more surprising. Now... we kind of expect it. Which is rather sad commentary on society.

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