geekent’s stuff’n things

31/03/2005

Childstar

Filed under: In Theatre — gkentetc @ 3:05 pm

childstar.jpg

d: Don McKellar
w: Michael Goldbach and Don McKellar

Don McKellar has a pretty fantastic body of work behind him - as an actor in films by Cronenberg and Egoyan, a scriptwriter for Red Violin and 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, a tv series creator on Twitch City and Odd Job Jack, and as a director of Last Night and the lauded short A Word From The Management. I’ve been a fan of McKellar for some time now, and I’ve liked all of the works I’ve seen him in, so Child Star was something that I was looking forward to. It saddens me to say that it’s quite a disappointment.
There are certain things that are quintessential McKellar, a dignity to the picture that a lesser director wouldn’t have understood. In Childstar McKellar plays Rick, a struggling Canadian director whose marriage just dissolved and he lampoons as a limo driver to survive. His current task is chauffeuring child star Taylor Brandon Burns (played by Mark Rendall) and his divorced mother Suzanne (Jennifer Jason Leigh) around Toronto while they’re in town shooting Taylor’s first movie.
Our introduction to Taylor is on the plane as it lands in Toronto. The stewardess asks him to remove his headphones as they land. “Are we crashing?” he asks. “No.” “Then fuck off.” Our first impresson of Taylor as the spoiled brat child star is one the film spends its remaining time trying to shake, by showing us both the system and parentage that made him that way, but also by giving him some softer moments. Unfortunately the film gets too randomly sidetracked by its other characters that Taylor’s redeeming qualities never come off properly.

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30/03/2005

All aboard, show your tickets

Filed under: ent, muse-sick — graigkent @ 3:36 pm

Today I’m not talking about how long it took me to get to sleep or how sick yet lethargic I feel today. Really I’m not.
I picked up my first concert ticket for 2005 this week. Yowza. I’d probably already seen a half dozen shows by this point last year. All part of growing old and getting lazy. I’ve expressed before my apathy towards the live experience, and my many theories on the cause of it (although I don’t believe I mentioned winter hermitage), so I won’t get into it, but what, you may ask, has made me decide to emerge from my urban basement in two week’s time? What can tear my sickness contaminated fingers away from my keyboard and pull me out of my Paragon City superhero fantasyland?
Why, the chance to be handsome of course.
Now, I’ve been told that I’m a nice looking guy, and I’ve come to believe it, somewhat. But I don’t think I’ve got what it takes for the “handsome” compliments to come my way. That’s why I purchased a ticket for the introductory seminar put on by Handsome Boy Modeling School. The school’s founders, Chest Rockwell and Nathaniel Merriweather will let me know if I have what it takes to be a Handsome Boy graduate.
The ticked cost $27 which is a lot less than the $60 for the full enrolment fee, but if Misters Rockwell and Merriweather deem me worthy, I’m all for shelling out the extra dough to earn that moustache of honour.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about, Handsome Boy Modeling School is the duo of uber-producers Dan “The Automator” and Prince Paul (Merriweather and Rockwell, respectively). When they put on the fancy suits, fake moustaches and smoking accessory (pipe or cigar) they become the golobal purveyors of handsome. They also make music. Huge sprawling diverse albums, the latest, “White People” features strange artist combinations including the Marz Volta, Del The Funkee Homosapien, Kid Koala, Franz Ferdinand, Cat Power, Jack Johnson, De La Soul, the RZA, John Oates (yes, of Hall and…) and many, many, many more.
It’s obvious that they’re not going to be able to drag these headlining calibre artists on tour with them, but they said to expect surprises. The Automator brought his troupe, Lovage, to Toronto about three years ago, and it was an amazing experience. Kid Koala, Mike Patton, Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields, and the Automator graced a bachelor pad decorated stage, as they sang their ribald tunes of the lust and the sexy. Automator was garbed in a crush velvet smoking jacket, and Kid Koala in footie pyjamas. Patton wore his bath robe and a hair net, and Charles poured her shapely figure into a shiny silver catsuit. Automator serverd martinis to his crew during the performance, and whip cream was passed around the audience. A severly truncated version of Lady Chatterly’s Lover was projected on screen at the back of the stage. It was a hot, hot night in many respects. (Also of note, Metric opened for Lovage back before they disbanded and then rebanded, back when they were still eletropoppy and not all alt-rocky as they are today).
I’m expecting a completely different show from the Handsome Boy Modeling School crew. It should be more spectacle than concert, involving instead of passive arms crossed head nodding. No place for stiff pretentious sarcastic well -coiffed Buddy Holly glassesed corduroy jacketed ironic-anything hipster kids. They’re going to get you involved and you’re going to join it, or else your unhandsome ass is going to flunk out.
Buck 65 and K-OS are supporting the School on tour throughout the US, but since they’re both headliner’s here, I doubt we’ll be seeing them. The Rondo Brothers, whomever they are, should be giving lessons when Rockwell and Merriweather are on a recess smoke break.

My God, it’s full of stars

This year I’ve started keeping track of my multimedia consumption. I’ve been keeping a monthly entry on one of the sidebar blogs that simply lists all the books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, dvds I’ve rented/bought/borrowed, comics I’ve picked up, cds I’ve purchase etc. I also put the relevant consumption date beside it, and I’ve also implemented a star system as an ease of reference point. “How did I like this? Oh, three stars.”
I’ve been keeping these monthly lists in “draft” mode because, aside from curiousity, I’m not sure why anyone would follow it. It’s mainly for my reference anyway, and not intended to start a public debate. When I was updating it yesterday I accidentally switched its setting to publish, and I guess between when it happened and when I corrected it, a few people had read it, including my best bud Ryan.
Ryan prompted me on my star ranking system asking me to justify my logic behind it, as he maintains his own star ranking system for his Japanese and Mexican wrestling match reviews. He hardlined his ranking system, telling me what each of the five levels of star classification mean to him. I was going to say I hadn’t really thought about the ranking system to that extent, but that would be a lie.
I think Roger Ebert has talked at length about what his four star ranking system means in his Answer Man column. Some excerpts:

I have always awarded stars in a relative, not an absolute way, based to some degree on a movie’s success in doing what it wants to do, and what the audience expects from it. Of course, if you think stars are limited, you ought to try working with thumbs.

Stars are relative, not absolute, and analyzing them represents a waste of valuable time that could be profitably spent watching aquarium fish or memorizing the sayings of Dr. Johnson. I am compelled to award them because of market pressures. I, too, would rather see “The Life Aquatic” again than “The Stepford Wives,” but within the context of the two films, I think “The Life Aquatic” falls further short of what it was trying to do — even though what it does is better than anything in “The Stepford Wives.” I realize my logic is impenetrable. I recommend just reading the reviews and ignoring the stars.

That latter quote is almost verbatim my thoughts. Movies (and anything else) are hard to compare against one another. How does one compare The Beatles’ White Album to Amon Tobin’s Splinter Cell soundtrack. They’re not the same thing. Over at Thor’s Comic Column we’ve replaced stars with Viking heads, but same thing. An issue of Black Panther may be 4/5 vikings good, but is it as good as a 4/5 viking Joe Sacco’s The Fixer? They’re completely different.
The star system is easy access. “Is it good?” For some people something isn’t good unless it’s a 4/4 star product. For others a 3/5 star product is perfectly okay. It’s the lazy man’s accessibility to critique/review. Instead of actually reading about something, you poll a half doze critics (7 out of 10 critics gave this a 3 out of 4 rating … must be all right). In fact that’s what both RottenTomatoes.com and metacritic.com have based their websites off of, statistically aggrigating critical reviews (or reviewing films by math).
To paraphrase Ebert, there’s stuff that’s good, and there’s stuff you like and there’s often a wide difference between them. I really liked Tank Girl but I recognize that it’s not a good movie. Conversely I recognize that Schindler’s List is a great movie but I’d much rather watch Tank Girl than Schindler’s List. I’d give Tank Girl a 2.5/5 ranking whereas Schindler’s List would be a 4.5 or 5/5 ranking. So the ranking is scalable, and tastes are subjective.
Similar to Ebert, my numbers come from the success of what seemed to be the intentions versus what shows up in the end product, but I also will toss in how much I enjoyed something into that.
As you may notice though, most of the Ent.Etc. reviews aren’t ranked, I use a star system only as a crib sheet for myself.
None to 1 1/2 stars = bad, really nothing redeeming about it and you should not only never approach it again, but you should avoid further contact with anyone who did enjoy it
2 or 2 1/2 stars = some redeeming qualities but it’s a painful process getting to them, or you can see the qualities in it that you really want to like but chances are you just can’t bring yourself to liking them
3 or 3 1/2 stars = probably has some supremely geeky element to it that makes you love it despite all its faults… whether you’re a fan of the artist or if it just looks cool, the bad things you can ignore enough to like.
Or, it’s a decent try that doesn’t fully get pulled off as intended. Nothing overtly wrong but not great.
4 stars = means it’s really good, often accessible, solid work by whatever party is involved. It’s not life changing but it is mildly ground breaking/thought provoking. Likely full of charm and/or bright colour and/or pavlovian salivation response to things that tickle the inner geek (things that make you go COOOL)
4 1/2 stars = it’s really damn good, something that will stick in my consciousness for all time as one of my favourite things ever. Sometimes a 4 1/2 star item will be inexplainable, containing elements I enjoy so much I’m blind as to the reason why. These kinds of works often cloud my judgement and make me rabidly defend it even though I may agree with things its detractors say.
5 stars = very rare. Has to be something that’s perfectly executed, or so emotionally overwhelming, or something that is socially groundbreaking… I may not actually like a 5 star item, but a 5 star item will definitely be important and I will tell others that they must check it out for fear of losing their pancreas.
I’m always torn when I review things about whether to include a star system or not. I think pure review is better without the star system but I also love the convenience of the star ranking. Ebert is my idol when it comes to reviews (if only I had 1/8th of his critical skills and good humour) and he works for me both ways. I love reading a good Ebert review, but often I’ll see a 1 1/2 star review and say it’s not worth seeing and not worth reading the review (I trust his judgement that much). It’s a time saver.
So, no answers, just a lot of ’splanations.
Thanks for the topic Ry.

Fillerbunny 3/Arsenic Lullaby tpb

Filed under: Sequential Art — gkentetc @ 1:36 pm

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If’n you’ve been keepin’ up with what’s goin’ on with me over on the main page, you know I’ve been weirdly sick this past week and then some. It seems my illin’ has affected my writing as my review of the two foetus comics Fillerbunny #3 from Slave Labor Graphics and the Arsenic Lullaby trade paperback from AAA Milwuakee Publishing were pretty bad. Not horribly reviewed, just badly constructed, with tonnes of patented geekent run-on sentences, bracketed asides (like this one), and general bad structure.
But the books themselves were good, although I totally didn’t take advantage of the fact that both books utilized aborted foetus (called fetuses without the “o” in the US) as cover marketing. I could have come up with a whole big rant about the satirization of a conservative America and the Republican “right” agenda, but my brain was barely functioning enough to pump out a formulaic review, nevermind something actually clever.
Russell takes on yet another Sin City trade, while Devon tackles the 80-pages-for-a-dollar DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis (Blue Beetle fans like me are going to be crazy for this), and Rob looks at Player Vs. Player in paper form.
Go Read, and you can also preorder the Chud exclusive cover for Zombie Tales #1 with art by Keith Giffen… if you wish not to have your brains devoured

29/03/2005

Drink up, buttercup

Filed under: Food, the body human — graigkent @ 7:15 pm

And so it went again last night. A day full of mild discomfort and the occasional, but purposeful, cough… nothing resembling the coughing fit from Sunday night. But as I lay me down to sleep again last night, I could feel it again, every time I breathed in and the wind rushed past that little patch at the base of my throat and tickled it. Instead of a laugh a massive series of spastic lung convulsions erupted.
I tried different positions, and breathing in the warm air from under the blankets. I tried warm milk and water with a heavy lemon component. I tried drugs but no cough syrup because I wasn’t smart enough to think of it. After an hour of getting in and out of bed to dose myself with liquids (and the occasional pee) Emm said something that mirrored a recently dismissed thought I had:
“Why don’t you take a shot?”
“A shot?”
“Alcohol? It’s like the base ingredient for cough syrup isn’t it?”
So I dusted off a shot glass, filled it with gin and a topper of Triple Sec (hey, might as well have it taste good), said my requisite “I’ll drink to that, bottoms up” (ref. Parliament) and downed the shot.
An instant warming sensation rolled down my tongue and spread around my throat, a soothing tingle which I could feel as it trailed down my gully (my apologies to any recovering alcoholics for these graphic details that no doubt are sending you into rehabilitative fits). It tickled but in a good way, making me cough once again, but it was a much more delightful cough. It felt good, that cough.
Emma said:
“Maybe you should take another…”
And I had already begun pouring. “I’ll drink to that, bottoms up” and it was off to bed.
I did indeed stop coughing… there I waslaying in bed feeling the warming sensation swirling around in my belly, and I was smiling. I was relaxed and really feelin’ good. A pair of shots will do that to you. My relaxation quickly translated into fatigue, as sleep was taking over. But…
But I couldn’t get comfortable.
For twenty minutes I tossed and turned (and got up to pee twice) but nothing seemed to be working. Every position, every angle just seemed awkward. I didn’t think I should care, but logicbrain said “you’ll regret it in the morning if you stay like that”.
And then the coughs started again. They weren’t nearly as bad as before, less vibrato, but they were still bothersome. Emma finally came for sleep and a handful of coughs and a dozen positions later I think I exhausted myself and damned well went to sleep.
They’re really restful sleeps when you kind of pass out like that, but jeez, it’s a hell of a way to get there.

No, not bleach

It has come to my attention that my local convenience store (one of many local convenience stores), White Corner, is no longer carrying Old Dutch potato chips (as seen in Corner Gas).
It’s an outrage.
But it’s not their fault, as it seems there’s not much of a market over here and the store has been taken off the delivery route by the company. My little taste of home, gone.
I think I’m gonna write a letter.
‘Cause I’m old.

28/03/2005

The epic saga of hack vs snort

Filed under: random, the body human, the people that you meet — graigkent @ 2:21 pm

Yes, I’m still sick, and yes, I am at work. Thankfully it’s being none too demanding today with an estimated 1/3 of the population of the globe staying away from work today as well.
I’m trying to keep my couging to a minimum by drinking plenty of warm and cold liquids. Last night it took me nearly three hours to get to sleep thanks to a persistant hacking cough (a slight tickle in my throat every time I breathed in would trigger it). I eventually got to sleep either by hyperventilating and passing out, or exhausting myself and passing out. I’m a little tired today.

It IS a sweet smell, innit Mr. T?

One thing I hate is overpackaging. One thing I deem completely overpackaged is deoderant. And deoderant is one thing I deem completely necessary but don’t really see the alternatives to the overpackaged option.
One thing I also hate is forgetting to deoderize in the morning, and not remembering until I’m at work. I also hate how I begin to sweat the second I realize that I’ve forgotten to deoderize that day. And then I hate how I ever so subtly smell like a taxi cab for the rest of the day… slight wafts emerging from my collar from time to time. It’s especially bad on a day like today where I’m intentionally keeping my body heat in to help combat the gribblies inside me, and I’m drinking lots of warm stuff to raise my temperature.
The sad part is I’ve even bought an extra stick of overpackaging to put in my bag just for such occasions, only I didn’t bring a bag with me today.
I smelly.

snap, crackle, pop

I got on the streetcar this morning with a mug of hot tea and a book in hand. My head had a slight ache and I was making a conscious effort to keep all coughing in. Two years after SARS people are still wary about the couging guy on the streetcar.
My focus was drifting and I knew I wasn’t going to crack the bookcover at all this morning (it was, in fact, a softcover book, so there would be no cracking). My tea was hot, I would have to be careful not to burn my mouth.
Thoughts were forming in my head, and drifting away soon after, nothing was taking hold, my concetration today was shot. I noticed a street sweeper going in the opposite direction, and I also noticed that it wasn’t doing a very good job sweeping anything. As we progressed Eastward I could follow the curbside trail of dirt and garbage that the sweeper left behind. It was almost as if it was placing a Hansel and Gretet-esque trail of crap in order to find it’s way back. It was making the streets look dirtier than anything else.
As we approached Bathurst street, we got stuck behind some traffic, and something curious caught my eye. It was a mid-90’s model, aqua-marine coloured SUV, an oddity to be sure. But inside the vehicle was a woman, which in itself isn’t strange, but she was wearing sunglasses, which even though it wasn’t sunny isn’t exactly wierd either, but she was also in a t-shirt, which even though it’s not *that* warm out still isn’t that weird, but she was drinking coffee, which isn’t weird at all, but she was taking photographs…
Huh?
And not with a digital camera, it was a bulky old school fillum camera with longer range capabilities. This wasn’t not aqua-marinied, SUVed photoblogger. This was a woman portraying some cheesy Private Investigator stereotype. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere as she looked comfortably settled into her seat, and she didn’t seem to be waiting impatiently for anyone.
Was she tailing somebody?
Was she casing a store perhaps?
Is someone cheating on their wife?
Maybe she’s a stalker?
She noticed me staring at her, at least it appeared she noticed me from behind mirrored State Trooper glasses, and she began to fidget with her camera nonchalantly. I wondered if perhaps she was discreetly taking my picture to track me down and kill me later.
My imagination gets a little carried away sometimes.
The streetcar began moving again, but my curiousity remained there. What was she doing?

Ed Wood

Filed under: DeeVee — gkentetc @ 12:09 pm

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d: Tim Burton,
w: Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

Over ten years ago I saw Ed Wood in the theatre. I would have been 17 at that time, not even out of high school yet. My tastes in movies, music, art and other cultural things was still developing. It was a time where bad movies (you know, like Saturday Night Live character spin off movies) still entertained me, but I was also starting to understand what a good movie was. I would like to think my opinions from that era are still valid but a lot of what I liked back then I can’t stand now.
But then again, some things I’ve found a greater appreciation for, and Ed Wood is one of those things. I can’t exactly recall what I found so intriguing about Ed Wood back in 1994, but I knew I liked Tim Burton for his visual esthetique, and I knew I liked weird things. Though Ed Wood isn’t typically gothic Burton, it’s a signature film of his, the weirdness of Ed’s personality and the fallen star that was Bela Legosi fits in perfectly with Betlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Jack Skellington (and even Batman). Like The Elephant Man to David Lynch, Ed Wood is to Tim Burton (I’ll compare Dune to Planet of the Apes some other time).

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The Manchurian Candidate

Filed under: DeeVee — gkentetc @ 12:09 pm

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d: Johnathan Demme
w: George Axelrod, Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris

John Frankenheimer’s original interpretation of Richard Condon’s novel was a definite sign of its times, heavily representing the politics of the era. In that film, set post-Korean War, the “Red Chinese” capture a troop of soldiers, brainwashing them for later nefarious purposes. The greater political conspiracy that loops around to presidential assassination and Communist puppeteering of the United States played effectively off of the Cold War fears of the era and remains a smart, if dated, thriller.
In Jonathan Demme’s 2004 remake, the basic elements are the same, it’s just the politics that differ. No longer is there a “Red Menace” that faces us, but instead, evil corporations that seek more power and control. The brainwashed soldiers hail from the decade-old Gulf War, and their dimentia is explained simply as Gulf War syndrome.

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Ender’s Game

Filed under: Pages — gkentetc @ 12:09 pm

written by Orson Scott Card

enders.gif
From Lying In The Gutters

“I’m an admissions officer at a very well known university in the States (yeah check the address), reading applications, writing them up, voting on them, etc., and it’s been interesting to see that in response to our little question ‘what’s your favorite book?’ the runaway favorite this year has been ‘Ender’s Game’ by Orson Scott Card. Maybe as many as much as 15-20 percent of our applicant pool considers it their favorite book ever.”

Looking at that, I can understand it. These are people coming out of high school, the most tumultuous years of anyone’s life. Juggling expectations from both your peers and the adults in your life isn’t easy: fitting in while establishing your own identity is the challenge, not schoolwork. Being dubbed the outcast, getting rejected by others, and being forced into situations beyond your control, that’s growing up. That’s what Ender’s Game is about.

(more…)

27/03/2005

The many stages of evil

Filed under: geek, the body human — graigkent @ 2:29 pm

Okay, Mr. Nastycold, you can go away now. Any second you can leave my body, and leave me in healthy peaceland.
The stages of whatever infection I’ve caught has been weird and uncommonly random. Monday my throat became a little scratchy. I felt a polyp on the back of my throat (I could see it as I gaze at it in the mirror, mouth agape) which was a sure sign that something was going on. During the day, I was feeling uncommonly tired, more physical fatigue than standard mid-day sleepyheadedness.
Tuesday I awoke with a full-on case of the Awfuls, but it was all confined to the head. Sore throat, sore neck, sore jaw, sore eyes, sore ears, sore brain. Yup, I wasn’t going into no work. A quick remote log-in, handle a few tasks and back to bed. After a quick nap, I went back to work in the basement which involved handling issues as they came in and beating up bad guys in Paragon City in the down time. Working from home is the greatest. I was actually feeling pretty spry Tuesday afternoon and accepted Emma’s lunch invitation (having the best ever BLT at Butler’s Pantry). Tuesday evening I had a bath and chilled out, almost feeling better.
But Wednesday would prove me wrong. Everything that had bothered me Tuesday was gone, in its place was tonnes of mucous flying everywhere, coughing and sneezing. It was one of those half a box of tissue days. I felt so sexy. Another work-from-home day full of water and tea and bathtubs (I felt like I was liquid, I drank so much), enough that by the time I went to bed I was feeling good.
Thursday, in fact, I was feeling so good I went into work proper. I coughed very little, sneezed maybe three times, and had little urge to blow my nose at all. I even went out to lunch for some Thai food for a coworker’s birthday, and stopped off at the Snail for my weekly pickup. But things took a turn for the weird Thursday evening as my voice began to dissipate. It became a low gravelly baratone, akin to a white Barry White or a less soulful Isaac Hayes. That was kind of cool.
What wasn’t cool was waking up Friday morning and hack-hack-hacking the funky stuff out of my lungs. You know what I’m talking about… those hard chunky things of that “is that brown, green or yellow” indeterminate colour that smell like funky socks or boiled cabbage. Yumm, betcher glad you kept reading. This is usually a good sign, these things, as it means it’s the end of the sick and your body want’s it’s chunks of infections expunged. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be, as I not only continued to lose my voice but cough cough cough until my stomach formed a tight little six-pack (sicks-pack?). And for some reason my high volume consumption of asparin, vitamins, echinacea, tea, water and City of Heroes wasn’t helping. I found it hard to sleep as I couldn’t stop coughing. And it was a dry cough. Oh, and Emm started feeling some of my effects too.
Saturday was a different kind of day. Woke up at my normal 8am (despite my better intentions) coughing for an hour or so, sleeping for another hours, then settling into Paragon City until lunchtime, my voice but a whisper, my body fatigued from it’s convulsive exercises. I polished off the Superman Animated volume 1 DVD set, resumed the Batman Animated volume 1 set, had yet another tub, filling myself with tea and water, and reading my books for Thor’s review this week (think foetus). I prepped dinner for Emm, who was returning from work bruised and battered and totally run-down. We settled in and watched Ed Wood on DVD (love that movie). By midnight I was polishing up my review but, after a mild day, fits of dry, defibrillated coughing were taking over once again. It was another struggle for sleep.
Today, yes today, I managed to sleep until noon… good and restful. I have my voice back, kinda. I’m still coughing, but it’s not dry anymore, oh no. Once again I’m seeing alien things come out of my body, of colours you likely couldn’t find a paint chip for. I’m looking pretty haggard (did that term evolve from Sammy, he never looked very kempt), and my coughing isn’t very publicly acceptable (Emm’s dad is here and I’m hiding out, writing because I don’t want to choke up this filth in front of him).
Not to jinx it but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion this may be the end. Hacking and blowing, and then it’s done. All the gribblies out of my body, and maybe I can hop back on my bike tomorrow (or perhaps I should just TTC it for another week).
Anyway, I’m sure you’re glad you read all this, and everyone will be offering to shake my hand when they see me next. Hey, here’s an idea, why don’t y’all come over? No?

Cyber Stalker

So here’s the problem with City of Heroes, it’s largely populated by male gamers of the under-legal-age-to-drink variety. These youthful, exhuberant children are full of unchecked raging hormones, meaning when they see a lovely female digital superhero go by they can’t help but stop, stare, and pitfully hit on them. The thing I don’t think they understand is that the majority of female superheroes are operated by guys, usually older guys… like me, for instance.
My character Downpour is a 7.5 foot tall bronze skinned goddess, dressed in stylish red and yellow, with long black hair and wearing a silky veil for added mystery. She’s a tanker, and thus a very powerful woman, it’s easy to see why people would both feel attracted and intimidated by her. Earlier this week, Downpour randomly accepted a mission with a random group of heroes. It was a very uncoordinated team full of grandstanders and showboaters, but we did all right. One of that team has prompted DP for a team up no less than four times since then (obviously adding her to his “friends” list). And every time I’ve teamed with him, he’s used such affectionate euphamisms as “babe”, “sexy”, “honey”, “sweetie”, “lovely”, “my dear” and on and on.
It’s obvious this newly post pubescent has a crush on the dear heroine. He recently asked what my name was… my real name. I was avoiding the question when I responded “kay I’m only 250 xp away from level”, to which the kid said, “Hi Kay, my name is Scott…”. I thought typical gaming protocol was to stick to being a hero and keep your secret identity a secret (I know that wNoodle wants everyone to believe his female chars are actually operated by women).
Yeah, it’s all pretty sad, and I don’t have the heart to break the news to him that, well, in real life I have a penis… methinks I may need to block him from global chat. It’s weird, because I now kind of know what it’s like to be sexually harassed without provocation, because this has certainly made me uncomfortable. Maybe I just need to set the kid straight, or when City of Villains comes out I turn Downpour bad and beat the shit out of him. Who knows.
I’ve got problems.

22/03/2005

Star Wars: General Grievous

Filed under: Sequential Art — gkentetc @ 4:02 pm

grievousdh.jpg
This week in Thor’s Comic Column I reviewed the Attack Of The Clones comic book lead-in, General Grievous. It’s an admittedly “just okay” book with a title character with a very stupid name.
Other reviews include more Sin City, Daredevil, Grant Morrison, and the new title, Spellbinders, by Lucifer and Hellblazer writer Mike Carey.

Ugghs, volume uggh

Filed under: the body human — graigkent @ 3:40 pm

My physical exhuberance has paid me back twicefold with maladies of the upper neckial region… meaning my head’s sick.
No, not sick-in-the-head, but headsick. You know stuffed sinuses, scratchy throat, plugged ears, sore neck, stiff jaw, dull headache, tired eyes, unshaven wiskers… that kind of thing.
Emailed in sick to work but I’ve been connected through remote access. So it’s not a full-on sick day, just a sorta sick but not to sick to sit at the computer at home day. Of course, I did get an extra couple hours sleep in after checking up on the European office action that goes on before I get to work.
Took a lunch hour with Emma, which was nice, sitting in the window of a very nearby restaurant with the sun beating down on me for a 1/2 hour and drinking hot hot tea. It was like a steamroom. Good for the soul, methinks.
Keeping otherwise occupied (thankfully a slow day at “work”), thanks.
You may resume your non-headsickday now.

21/03/2005

Welcome to Squaresville, population: me

Filed under: Food, me me me — graigkent @ 5:06 pm

After trecking through Queen East for 90 minutes on Thursday and biking to work on Friday for the first time since November, Emm and I took a long (5+ hours) roam around tee-dot. It was supposed to be a nifty 2 degrees out (which is like 39 - or something - in Fahrenheit) but the cutting, oppressive wind was our consant nemesis the entire time. We were the spies too dumb to come in from the cold. Emm seemed to think she got sunburned, I think it’s more windburn than anything.
Our roamings took us to Seedy Saturday, where we picked up some tomato and other veggie seeds for our garden-to-be this year, as well as a huge jar of buckwheat honey which at $11 was an insane steal. From there it was random stopoffs at drug stores, cd shoppes, bookstores, coffee shoppes, an eaterie (for some mid-day snacking), and the odd apparel shoppe (including the uber-chi-chi spectacles place where Sir Elton gets most of his frames, apparently).
We left at some point after noon and returned just past six. I quickly got to work on some squash soup, which turned out as good, if not better, than I’ve ever made it (see below for recipe). After that was all done and ingested, it was lights out as I tried to do some reading, but passed out with a cat on my back instead.
The phone rang at 8:00. Emma picks up.
Emm - Hello
Caller - Hi Emm, It’s Jeremy, where are you
Emm - We’re, at home?
Jer - Why aren’t you here?
Emm - Why aren’t we where?
Jer - Dinner. We’re waiting for you.
Emm - Oh shit, I totally forgot
Y’see, apparently I had arranged for some friends - comprised of the “Go Team Action Bloggers” plus Emma - to meet up at Ten Feet Tall, a restaurant on the Danforth at 7pm. Also apparently, I completely forgot I had done so and thus missed my own arranged dinner engagement. I blame the impromptu and separate arrival of Rannie and Kelly at our domicile on Friday night (which led to good conversation and good dinner companionship but also a neglecting of emails and scheduled reminders for the following day’s dinner plans).
But all was not lost. I salvaged our appearance at the latest WDA (”Weekend Dining Association”) by suggesting a dessertly follow-up to the Ten Feet Tall meal at the ever-popular and insanely-busy Future Bakery on Bloor. All were in agreement, and thankfully I remembered our second instance of dinner plans for that evening. Much tomfoolery and grandoisly comedic conversation was had, including the resurgance of Antonio Banderas-via-SNL impersonations and the further development of what’s sure to be the first smash-hit GTABloggers sit-com (which includes a monkey in a diaper who smokes cigars and has an Austrian accent).
Following the disbanding of the WDA at 11:30 Emma got a call to go out to an ever alternating destination. The ever-so-tempting offer was finalized as something to the effect of “come to this guy’s place, we’re going to be banging on a drum, and we’re already drunk”. Umm, have fun, honey.
I don’t know when “the party” got rudely ejected from my mind, but “the party” is dead and it doesn’t seem to be coming back any time soon. I guess I just don’t feel the need to meet new people, or go drinking the the company of strangers. Or perhaps in just this one instance I was really fucking tired, and I didn’t want to go hang out with a group of middle-aged wanna-bes (or has beens or whatever) and get tore-up and make loud percussive noises. We had upstairs neighbours who routinely did that and I didn’t particularly like them very much.
So I felt kinda square, wanting to go home, write my review for Thor’s Comic Column (see sidebar), maybe listen to that Kid Koala album I picked up and crash out in bed. I think I was much happier doing that instead (actually once Emma recounted her evening, which she admitted “was okay”, I was glad I went home).
Sunday I wrote off, attempting to do my taxes, but got stymied on the “marital status” portion (which is, like, question number 1 after writing your name and address). So I didn’t get very far, but I did get organized. The Go Team AB had a Paragon City meetup which went better once we decided to just kick ass instead of standing around. Stayed up late to watch the gorgeous Maura Tierney kick some ass on Celebrity Poker, before resigning myself to some delightfully Maura-infused dreams (Newsradio season 1 and 2 on DVD May 24).

And now, Squash soup

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18/03/2005

Dance, Tiger!

Filed under: blogwatch, ent — graigkent @ 4:41 pm

The US rendition of the UK cult hit tv show the Office aired last night on NBC. While I didn’t catch the show, for reasons which will become clear, I did manage to watch 15 minutes of the programme here. Contrary to many other opinions, mine own prejudgements included, this American “the Office” is pretty damn funny. It’s that uncomfortable/wrong humour that positions it somewhere square in the middle of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthousiasm. It’s very much like a US version of The Newsroom, which was itself very much a Canadian version of the Larry Sanders Show.
From watching this on-line 3/4 episode, I can say that it’s really good, but I can also say that it isn’t going to last. Without a laugh track, how’s anyone going to know what’s funny? (*satire*) The on-line material is very un-PC so some people just aren’t going to get the joke to begin with (Steve Carrell’s impersonation of Chris Rock is hysterical, though).
Not the tragedy that Coupling was when it came over, it’s fortuned to be classified in the TV Too Good For TV alongside such recent gems as Wonderfalls and Firefly.

Who what?

A new Dr. Who has premiered in the UK to a mixed reaction. Some say it’s a perfect mixing of the old style with modern sensibilities (ie. cheap effects with current fashion sense) others say it’s juvenile and cheesy (potaytoe, potAHtoe).
I say it’s on CBC starting Monday April 5 so decide for yourself.

Take a hike

I had plans last night, for once, that would keep me from returning home after my workday was through. I’m becoming a crotchety old homebody so these occasional events are supposed to keep me sane. First, congrats to Rannie and Jon on their debut gallery appearance at Spacing Magazine’s PubliCity photoblogger exhibit. The event I was attending was the opening reception for the exhibit, and plans were for various attendees to meet up for dinner at 7pm beforehand.
I finished work roughly 5:15 so I figured with all the distance to cover on foot (and with such nice weather) it would bring me to our dinner point at a little past 6:30… covering territory from the 400 block of Queen West to the 700 block of Queen East seemed a surmountable challenge. It wasn’t. I passed by the gallery at 6:00 and the eatery not two minutes later, so I kept walking with an hour to kill.
I decided to walk until a) my iPod ran down (as I hadn’t charged it for a week), b) when the streetlamps came on or c) I found a coffee shop to settle into to read my book. Well, there was all of, as far as I noticed, ONE goddang coffee shop in Queen East up to the 1000 block. Lots of nice little bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants (a lot of really skid dirty ones as well), but no damn coffee shoppes.
After twenty minutes of eastward walking beyond my destination point, the streetlights popped on and turned around and made my way back. Interestingly enough, it took me less time to cover the same ground (from the 1000 block back to the 700 block), and I had a massive cramp up the side of my left calve.
The showcase was good… great pictures, some neat multimedia, but I found it a little difficult to delineate where one artist’s work stopped and another’s started. It would have been nice if the picture plaquards each contained the artist’s name.
It was packed in there, with trendy people, and nerdy people, media and scensters… and it got hot, especially in the basement. 20 minutes was all it took for a mild nagging to flare into a full-on migrane… and after the dinner I had eaten (see below) the migrane coupled with a rough streetcar ride home led to a sensation of nausia.
Thankfully when I got home I managed to put the roaring fire in my brain out with a leftover Tylenol 3 I had from my post-op laser eye surgery (remember that? I’m still milking it). The T3 is a blessed miracle (the drug, not that horrendous movie) taming the roaring lion in my head, leaving it a purring kitten. Nice.

Triple D

For dinner the selected place was the immortal Dangerous Dan’s Diner, home of the Quadrupal C burger (”Collosal Colon Clogger Combo”) - for $21 you get 24oz hamburger with 1/4lb cheese, 1/4lb bacon, two eggs, with a side of poutine and a large shake (plus a free defibrillation if necessary). I was hungry, but not that hungry.
The atmosphere at Dan’s is weird. You’re assaulted by a very large man in every sense of the word as you enter (obviously a partaker in their own wares) instructing you where you sit (if you’re not doing take out) and demanding your drink order. The environment is populated by benches from trucks and vans and cars, and are far from comfortable (and, as we learned, having a group larger than 4 is not a good idea). The three guys in the kitchen selected yelling as their preferred method of communication which was in equal measures uncomfortable, frightening, sad and highly entertaining.
The food was decent, but not spectacular. The burgers were massive and juicy, fire grilled, homemade style, with real slabs of cheddar on top (if requested), no damn processed cheese here. Toppings are chunks of tomato, pickles, lettuce, onion, and peppers, with mustard and catsup (because mayonnaise would be overkill). Tasty but really hard to eat as the bun dissolved under the juices and one’s mouth isn’t generally large enough to intake that girth of food at once (I don’t know how anyone eats the QuadC…)
Anyway, it’s interesting. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to eat there regularly, but definitely an experience.

Memories of gay Paragon City

As I wandered towards Queen East, I walked over a bridge that shadowed a beaten-down train yard. As I glanced over the railing I was checking for Sprockets, those little mechanized electro-zappy bastards from City Of Heroes and realized that I had a bit of an obsession going on with my digital superhero realm. And the further east I walked, and the more skid the neighbourhood got, I kept expecting a gang of green skinned Trollkins to be hanging out in the alleyway around the corner. “Me not know him” indeed. I’ve got a problem.
Speaking of Paragon City, local indie publishing guru Jim Munroe contributes another one of his video-game obsessed columns to weekly freeby newspaper Eye, this time covering his exploits as a Paragon City champion.

Spring Sprung Sprang

Spring is here - I don’t care what you say to the contrary - and I took my bike to work today. Little did I realize how choppy the side of the road is with hard-packed, pockmarked ice. Dangerous? Why yes, yes it is. Almost took a spill when i was cut off my some asshat in a van trying to scoot around a stopping streetcar but then having to break hard because people had already stepped into the road.
Nice.
But I’m safe and tired and gearing up for the ride home. I’m supposed to do something tonight, but I can’t recall what it is. Sleep sounds like an appropriate response.

16/03/2005

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Filed under: In Theatre — gkentetc @ 4:25 pm

emonysnicket_l.jpg

d: Brad Siberling
w: Robert Gordon

The novels that comprise Lemony Snicket’s series are young reader fodder, with pictures, bigger font settings and a truncated page count. They’re episodic (rather than serial) in nature, standing alone from one another but also more enriching when taken as a whole. It goes without saying that one book would not a movie make. A half hour weekly television show, surely, but not a movie. Which is why three of the books were strung together for the big screen to make a more rounded film, though it naturally takes some liberties in doing so.
I used to be a purist, but no longer. I realize that different media have different markets and different advantages. If you want the exact Series of Unfortunate Events, or the precise Lord of the Rings, or the real Constantine, go read the books. The movie versions are desaturated for wider audience appeal, which isn’t to say that there’s nothing redeeming about the mass marketed copies… far from it, especially with A Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s a damn, DAMN fine looking film.

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The Long Haul ogn; Ministry of Space tpb

Filed under: Sequential Art — gkentetc @ 3:13 pm

longhaul.jpg
This week in Thor’s Comic Column” I took a look at that other great train robbery, “the Long Haul”, an original graphic novel coming atcha from Oni Press. And then I turn my attention from the 1800’s old western to the alternative history space race with Warren Ellis and Chris Weston’s “Ministry Of Space” trade paperback…
Plus in preparation for the coming-soon-to-a-theatre-near-you Sin City, the other lads are running through Frank Miller’s reissued (and Chip Kidd redesigned) Sin City trades, plus comics based on Star Wars: Clone Wars animated shorts, crazy, crazy Batman villains in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, and, eugh, John Byrne on “the Demon”.

15/03/2005

Toronto’s Googlewhack Adventure

Filed under: Uncategorized — graigkent @ 3:17 pm


Though Googlewhacking has kind of cocked up since Google moved away from using dictionary.com earlier this year (to their own in-house answers.com), the spirit of it shall never die…
And so it seems nor shall Dave Gorman’s completely kidney-shatteringly (well, it’s a different euphamism than ‘gut-busting’) funny Googlewhack Adventure.
I’ve read the book. It’s brilliant.
I’ve seen the live show (in New York). Just as brilliant.
And now you Toronto-ites can see it too, nay, SHOULD see it too. It’s awesome. I know I’ll be going again… because, woah-oh, here he comes…

April 14 - April 17, (8:30 pm each night)

The HarbourFront Centre.
Lakeside Terrace,
235 Queens Quay West,
Harbourfront Centre
Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
Box Office: 416 973-4000

tickets on sale from March 19

You’ll go if you know what’s good for ya.

13/03/2005

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Filed under: Uncategorized — gkentetc @ 12:37 am

zissou.jpg

d: Wes Anderson
w: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach

I’m a little too young to really remember the ’70s. I was three when they ended and I generally have difficulty remember two weeks ago, nevermind decades ago. Most of what I remember about the 70s (and indeed most of my childhood) is implanted stagnant memories from the slide projector or Grandma’s photo albums which I’d comb through on a semi-monthly basis. My memories are basically still photos with my imagination filling in the ‘remembering’ details.
But, were I to take a trip back to the 1970s, I’d imagine it would be much like the Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, for Wes Anderson so effectively captures the look, feel, and spirit of the era before science was ‘hard science’ and before the internet and cable television made everyone an expert on everything. The Life Aquatic draws out the awe inspiring nature of our old fashioned heroes, looking back upon a time when the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom took us to inaccessible foreign lands, and drawing upon the legacy of Jacques Cousteu, documenting the sea like no other has before. I’m unsure if the film is supposed to be staged in the ’70s or if it’s supposed to be modern (that’s how effective Anderson captures the estetique of the era) but I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach watching the movie, a sense of wonder that I rarely felt since childhood. This took me back

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10/03/2005

Sealab 2021, Volume 2

Filed under: televideodisc — gkentetc @ 4:21 pm

2021.jpeg
Of all the Adult Swim line-up of programming, Sealab 2021 was the one that, early on, impressed me the most. I think it was the combination of science-fiction, repurposed cartooning, and messy absurdism that put it tops over the oddball Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the silly Brak Show, the sometimes-sketchy Space Ghost:Coast to Coast, and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humour or Harvey Birdman:Attorney At Law.
Volume 1 of Sealab contains so much gold, from arguments about the colour of henchmen jumpsuits, to the Bebop cola machine, to multiple time displaced Quinns and Stormys, to Chubby Cox… It was damn entertaining through and through. But I knew that the episodes to follow “Swimming in Oblivion” weren’t favourites of mine. “Hail Squishface”, “Bizarro”, “Feast of Alvis”, “Der Dieb” and “Fusebox” all seemed to descend into a similar pattern of something stupid happens and everyone screams at each other, in fact much of the episodes are all screaming (”Bizzaro” is the worst culprit) making their watchability factor kind of low.

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Solo #3, Ultimate Iron Man#1

Filed under: Sequential Art — gkentetc @ 3:50 pm

ultimateironman1.jpg
Though a little late this week, Thor’s Comic Column has finally reared its head. Contained within are my reviews of the most excellent Ultimate Iron Man #1, written by Sci-Fi author Orson Scott Card (who’s Ender’s Game I’m reading right now on the streetcar to and from work) and Solo #3, spotlighting the talents of Paul Pope.
Also reviewed: Shining Knight #1, the second issue in Grant Morrison’s 30-issue “Seven Soldiers” epic; Fallen Angel #19, which ends its run at DC with issue 20, although it looks good that the creator-owned series may be picked up to continue on over at IDW; the cheesecake Pin-up Art of Dan DeCarlo, yes naughty pictures my the now deceased Archie Comics artist; and Teenagers From Mars trade plus 5 Is The Perfect Number get dished.
Read more comics. Enjoy life.

Concert series

Filed under: Get A Life — graigkent @ 3:21 pm

Eye.net has a sort of backhanded interview with Margaret Cho, who’s Assassin tour comes to town tonight. Emm and I are congregating at Massey with the throngs of Cho’s fans for what’s certain to be a laugh-til-you-barf inducing evening.
More later.
Tomorrow I’m going to see the Inbreds at Lee’s Palace, because damn, it’ll be a rare experience. I’m going as much for Ry (who’s in ThunderBay Lockdown right now) as I am for myself.

Hip hop revolution

Lord Quasimoto has a new album droppin’, featuring the song Rappcats pt3, a complete namedropping song, giving propers to the old school/new school era of rappers. Even cooler is the Rappcats video which sightchecks even more hip-hop history (Maestro Fresh Wes even gets a drop). It makes me nostalgic for a more positive era of hiphophistory, when the message still mattered and before corporate sell outs and poseurs were acceptable.
I wish there was an all consciousness hip hop channel, because I can almost name every artist in the Rappcats video and I remember most of those videos. They used to make me giddy when they would pop up amidst Soundgarden and Weird Al videos back in the early ’90’s.

Toy Story 3

The Superman 3 (the trio of Superman action figures) on my desk at work have been rearranging themselves overnight for the last two nights. Yesterday I came in and they were in what Frecklestof deemed “Spirit Squad Formation”… yes, the Superman 3 were acting a-cheerleaderish.
Today, they’re in a conga line… a very Boys Town conga line. Golden Age Superman seems a little too happy to have Frank Miller Superman’s arms around him.

Dream a little dream of … who?

Have you ever had an inapporpriate dream about a co-worker? The kind where you wake up embarassed and confused because it’s so out of left-field that you really have no explanation for why it happened. Has it ever made you feel a little awkward around that coworker the following day even though it was just a silly dream (albeit with crazy Last Tango In Paris insinuations… that’s enough to make anyone blush)?
No?
Me neither.

Doc Soup

Frecklestof alerted me to The End Of Suburbia, a documentary about how the oil crisis will fix the suburban dream and fix it good. I missed it’s airing on Vision TV last night, but she tells me it’s great. It’s available now on DVD so I’m going ot ask my vid shoppe to bring it in. (I just noticed that the Film Buff is opening a second store out Queen East way (1300 block). If you’re in the area watch for it.

GTAB = GO! Team Action Bloggers?

wNoodle has posted a group shot of our City of Heroes team, which I steal for my own use.
Training.jpg
We’d like to theorize that TBIT is missing because he took the photo, but that would be a lie. Glitchy serverstuff kept our 5th memeber

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