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Ization (formerly Civilization)

“WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit? An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons. On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn’t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.” more

Enhanced vinyl from the 80’s

“…actual [computer] games included in the grooves of records. In 1984, The Thompson Twins released ‘The Thompson Twins Adventure Game’ in both regular vinyl and flexi disc formats” Hail Satan.

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It’s over!

It was fun. As usual, there was an unpleasant surprise. The last time we played (Hallowe’en) the opening bands played over their time and we only got to play half of our set. I think we were officially cut off after 5 songs and then we squeezed 3 more songs on simply because we just would not get off stage.

After that disappointment I was insistent about how our next show should go down: we would start at 10 and we’d finish at midnight. The other band could play before us or after us, I didn’t care – but we would play a full set during the spot on the clock where our fans would actually be in the club. So it was agreed, and in fact we went one further by playing two sets tonight, complete with a costume change and a change of bassists (from Troy to Bob!). Merrick was up in arms when he heard that the other band, GG Dartray was going on after us, and I did feel bad for them because after we finished playing about 90% of the crowd left, but you know what? I think we’ve paid our dues after 11 years and we deserve to have a show go as planned. GG knew what they were getting into I think, and also – they were pretty good! So go and see them the next time they play because that will ease my conscience.

This time around our plan was threatened once again when we found out – once we got to the club, mind you, and not before – that the bands “had to” be playing until 2:30. In theory this meant that we would have to start playing between 11:00 and 11:30 instead of 10. Frankly, I wasn’t interested. If the sound man was willing, I was keen on going on when we wanted to go on. And the sound man was willing. In fact, Adam (sound man) was great. I could provide stories about bad soundmen but I’d have to consult Warren’s memory. But look at me, all digressing.

So we didn’t go on quite on time, but after being constantly asked how soon we’d be going on by various fans, I gathered the troops and asked Adam if we could go on in 10 minutes (this was about 10:20). We wore our Spaceship Zero uniforms for the first set, we had a 20 minute break and changed into our monster costumes, and played another set, including some encore songs that we had not practiced. In fact Warren just got back from Antarctica 2 days prior. All in all, though, I was really happy with the show. The fans came out, old friends and new friends finally saw us play, I sold a whackload of CDs, and we had a lot of sweaty, stupid fun. We played a slow version of Burrow Your Way to My Heart that we had just made up on Tuesday, and we had a little impromptu song about Marlo, and I gave out some D&D miniatures to those who answered the space trivia (the answers to which were Sedna and Kuiper Belt). Oh, and we video taped the show from three different cameras so we’ll have some good stuff for the Thickets DVD.

I don’t know what time GG finished up – but I’m just going to go ahead and say 2:30 and Stewie can contradict me when he gets home.

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Big old Thickets show at the Railway Club tonight.

Miss it at your peril. Everyone will be talking about it when it’s over.

Everyone.

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A little birdie (or was it a shuttlecock?) told me that Bubba Ho-Tep starts playing this weekend at my favourite, comfiest, not-expensivest* cinema, Tinseltown. And..oh my god! The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is also playing there RIGHT NOW! Why aren’t I there? To quote Cinnamon J. Scudworth: Dammit!!!

* For your reference, here are theaters in town In order of most expensive to least expensive, compiled by…me:

THEATER/REGULAR PRICE/TUESDAY NIGHT/MATINEE PRICE

Fifth Avenue/12/7/9 (10 weekend)
Park/12/6.5/9 (9.75 wkd)
Capitol 6/11.25/7.5/7.5 (9 weekend)
Granville 7/11.25/7.5/7.5 (9 weekend)
SW Omnimax/11.25 (double bill/11.25 (double/11.25
CN Imax/11/11/-
Oakridge/11/7/7 (8.5 weekend)
Tinseltown/10.5/11.5(fri-sat/7/7 (6 first show mon-fri)
Varsity/10.5/6/-
Dunbar/8.5/6/7
Vaneast/8/5/3.5
Pacific Cinem/6.5 + membership/6.5 + membership/-
Denman DT/6 (double bill/4 (double bill/-
Ridge/5(double) 7(premiere/5/-
Hollywood/5 (double bill/3.5 (monday/-

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One more reason not to believe what you see on TV

Medicare: GAO Investigates HHS-Produced TV News Segments On Law
The General Accounting Office is investigating the legality of HHS [United States Department of Health and Human Services AKA the White House]-produced videos intended for broadcast on local television news programs in which actors were paid to pose as journalists “praising the benefits of the new Medicare law,” the New York Times reports. The videos, which have been broadcast in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other states, feature people who identify themselves as reporters and were paid to read government-prepared scripts, according to officials at Home Front Communications, which produced the videos. Several of the videos feature President Bush receiving a standing ovation as he signed the bill into law. One segment features an exchange between a pharmacist and a senior; the pharmacist says the new law “helps you better afford your medications,” and the senior says it “sounds like a good idea.” HHS also prepared introductions to the segments for news anchors. GAO officials last month discovered the HHS-produced television news segments while examining the legality of federally funded fliers and advertisements publicizing the Medicare law. While GAO determined the fliers and advertisements were legal despite “notable omissions and other weaknesses,” it is still investigating the prepared television news segments. Critics say the segments might mislead viewers because they conceal their source; federal law prohibits the use of federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes” not authorized by Congress, according to the Times. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said, “These materials are even more disturbing than the Medicaid flier and advertisements. The distribution of these videos is a covert attempt to manipulate the press.” However, HHS spokesperson Kevin Keane, said, “The use of video news releases is a common, routine practice in government and the private sector.” Government agencies have produced such videos “for years” on subjects such as teenage smoking and steroids, but the Medicare materials “wander into more controversial territory,” the Times reports (Pear, New York Times, 3/15).

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This one’s for Yvonnough:

slough (sloo, slou) also slew (sloo)
n.
A depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire.
also slue A stagnant swamp, marsh, bog, or pond, especially as part of a bayou, inlet, or backwater.
A state of deep despair or moral degradation.

WORD……………………..CORRECT PRONUNCIATION….WAY FUNNIER INCORRECT PRONUNCIATION
through/slough………………..throo/sloo……………………..throf/slow(rhymes with plow) : “lets go throf the Drive-Throf”
rough/tough/enough………..ruf/tuf/enuf………………………….roo/tof/enoo : “Enoo is enoo!”
dough……………………………….doh………………………………dof : “mmmm…now with real chunks of cookie dof!”
plough……………………..plow (rhymes with cow)……………ploo
cough/trough………………………trof/kof…………………………koo/pudenda

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Krispy Kreme Kapers

James drove me, Marlo, Janet and Yvonne into Delta today for donuts. I went more for the road trip than because I expected the donuts to be a life-changing experience, and it was a lot of fun. Waiting in line was like waiting in line at a fair or an amusement park except the ride (James’ mad driving) came before and after the actual KK experience. They had a large tent set up and the line was like a who’s who and a what’s that of Delta & Vancouver. There was a young boy in front of me who had the flaming Converse All-Stars just like me, and his father had mismatched colour Converse on too. I had a pretty good time, the one and only drawback was that there was too much loud music drowning out conversation in the backseat. Yvonne brought up Hawaiian doughnuts and none of the rest of us had ever heard of such a thing. She claims that doughnuts with the coloured sprinkles are known as Hawaiian. I brought up the fact that we could have Hawaiian pizza later if we brought along a shaker of said sprinkles. Good times were had making fun of the other people in line, and reminiscing about games we had as kids like Hungry Hungry Hippos, Mister Mouth, Perfection, and Sorry. We watched the donuts travel along little conveyor belts on their exciting journey from conception to consumption, and Janet noted she wanted to go through the glazing machine. I concurred and emphasized with a Homer-like “mmmm…glazed me.” Two of the poor little buggers didn’t get flipped over on the flipper and so were undercooked on one side. They passed through the glazefall (waterfall of glaze) but it was obvious that they’d never get through quality control. I watched one of them get tossed out. It was so sad. He never had a chance. Or, actually I guess he did have a chance – but he blew it.

By the time we got back Marlo had eaten six donuts. We rented On the Waterfront “I coulda been a contender” and that was quite good. I was getting Lee J. Cobb confused with Vic Tayback (who played Alice’s boss on the sitcom Alice) but that is wrong wrong wrong. Cobb played roles in Twelve Angry Men and The Exorcist.

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Because what could be more important?

Today they (Teletoon) aired the first ten episodes of the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoons. That may sound impressive but the episodes are only 5 minutes long, and each episode contains a minute or so of footage from the last episode so you can “catch up.” Pretty annoying, so when I taped them I naturally edited that stuff out (along with the commercials of course). This series is created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the talent behind Samurai Jack, so the style and quality of the animation is beyond reproach. Ugh, what a clumsy cliche beyond reproach has become.

The characters are not voiced by the original actors from the movies (except for Anthony Daniels), but the talent they got does a fair job of imitation. As might be expected from Tartakovsky and from Star Wars, most of the story is battle after battle. They make some interesting choices, not all of which I agree with. Some things happen too easily and quickly: like vehicles exploding and being cut in half by a light saber too small to do the job; in another scenario a dozen eels pushed around a completely massive vehicle. Even though it’s only a sci-fi cartoon, they pushed the boundaries of believability.

There were also gaffs a la forgetting that destroyer droids had force sheild bubbles. They had lancers on speeder bikes which (even though they were piloted by cool-looking IG-88 droids) just seemed silly given the limited use of the lances. And there weren’t enough grenades or little flying robots that deliver huge bombs. That is all.