Zombie Apocalypse Watch Day 1088

Not a fucking sausage. Again. How long do I have to keep doing this? Till all of the hoarded SPAM goes off? How long is that going to take?

Where Were You...?

It's become pretty popular these days to talk about where you were on 9/11. As i'm unable to resist a new fad I thought i'd give you my two-cents-worth.

When 9/11 occurred I was either racing around Bathurst or committing piracy on the Spanish Main. This is because I was asleep. Friends of mine were apparently ringing each other and having whatever the apocalyptic version of a kaffeeklatch is but they've never fully explained why they didn't ring me. I'd say because I was the only one who had a job at the time but I don't want to be accused of making value judgments.*

Anyway, the upshot of all this was that the next day, while everyone else was blearily ruminating into their tenth-or-so coffee, I was keen-eyed, clear-headed and Taking Care Of Business, which in my case involved selling cars. I'm pleased to say that if it had been the aim of Al Quaeda to disrupt the Australian economy by aggressively negotiating an ultra-sharp deal on a 2001 Mitsubishi Magna, then their plans were foiled.

*Despite the fact that I am.

Reviews Of Books I Have Not Read, Nor Ever Will

Quite a lot of people don't have the time to read books these days. Thankfully I am not one of them. A lot of these people ask me to review books on this emblogulation in order that they may pretend to have read them. While i'm flattered, I read books for entertainment and not to show off so instead, I will review books as asked, i'm just not going to read them first.

Gone With The Wind.
If you're a fan of things that happened in America quite a long time ago then this may be the book for you. Most of the covers have the title in that old-timey font I associate with Western movies, so that's probably what it is. I'll go out on a limb and say that it's about the American Civil war because I heard that somewhere. I can tell you that it was read by one of the characters in The Outsiders, a book I read for Year Nine English. That's a bit meta but I hope it helps.

Fahrenheit 451.
It's about burning books, but that's all i've got. Mind you, I also know that the combustion level of woodpulp-based paper is about 850 degrees fahrenheit so good job with that one Heinlein or Bradbury or Dick or whoever.

The Quick and the Dead.
Written by Norman Mailer who was supposed to be the 1960's literary answer to Teddy Roosevelt (the American Alfred Deakin). It's either about World War Two or its a Western. I like both those genres but i've never read this. Curious.

Ulysses.
An Irishman gets drunk, which was apparently torn from the front pages of the newspapers of the day. It's a pretty shit read so I read Gravity's Rainbow instead. That's saying something.

The Wheel of Time series.
It goes on forever and doesn't stop. It's either better than or worse than Lord of The Rings depending on whether you talk to a Tolkien fan or not. I really don't care.

Random Doobings

Captain Doobie, after some struggling (owing entirely to the chair which had been placed in front of the door) barged into the bathroom. Here he confronted a be-shavingcreamed and altogether quite embarrassed Goodtime Slim.
"Aha!" he declared, channeling James Earl Jones from the internets, "I thought so!"
Goodtime Slim his his face in shame. "Don't look at me!" he cried, "I'm hideous!"
"Oh shit yeah," agreed Captain Doobie.
Goodtime Slim was a bit miffed. "You don't have to agree quite so readily," he told his housemate.
"Bugger off. Anyway, I know what you're up to, bucko. You're growing a moustache!"
This was true. Goodtime Slim could hardly deny it, standing as he was in the bathroom, in his pyjamas with a face freshly-shaven save for the delicate curls of shaving cream on his upper lip. He knew there was no reasoning with Captain Doobie, so he decided to brazen it out.
"Indeed," he replied, "Because it's Movember."
"Movember?" shrieked Captain Doobie, mainly because he found so few opportunities to do so, "Poppycock. You know full well that it's Burt Reynolds' birthday coming up. I bloody know you, mate. You were gonna dress up in a red shirt and black jeans and try to scam a test drive in a Trans-am."
Goodtime Slim thought this was grossly unfair, completely true though it was. "Don't tell me you've never wanted to."
"True, but I already have a beard." This was a point for debate. Whatever the bum-fluff covering Captain Doobie's face and chin was, it could only very loosely be called 'a beard'.
Captain Doobie grew thoughtful. "I suppose I could go the 'fro instead," he mused.
Goodtime Slim considered this. "What, Frovember?"
"Yes."
"The mo's already have that one." Goodtime Slim smiled, "Why don't you try 'Froctober' instead?"

These 'Day' Days Are Getting Out Of Hand

This week at some point (Thursday? Fuck knows) was National Are You Okay Day. For the philistinic and unenlightened, this was a day when people were encouraged to talk to their friends and loved ones to make sure they weren't about to commit suicide.

This was all terribly important and I hate to be a fly in the ointment but if you have to take time out of your day to speak to someone to see that they're not fitting a noose around their own neck at that very moment, you should probably be sharing some blame for their predicament. Call me needlessly pie-in-the-sky on this one, but wasn't your ignoring them kind-of causing this problem in the first place? In part, at least.

I don't want to brag, but i'm happy to say that I didn't receive a call from anyone. Not a fucking sausage. I assume this means that everyone thinks i'm a level-headed chap for whom self-destruction is merely a remote possibility. There's also the other option that i'm just such a forceful guy that people thought that to intervene in my suicide may well result in my killing them too and then riding their soul to hell ala Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove. I'm pretty cool with both of these, truth be told.

Personally, I didn't ask anyone if they were ok simply because I didn't want to get any answers in the negative. It would be awkward. I mean, what would i do?

"Hey man, I just rang to see if you were ok."
"Hold on, I can't hear you with this damn noose on. What?"
"It's National Are You Ok Day, so I thought i'd give you a call."
"Oh. I see. Well, since you're asking, I was just about to kill myself."
"Wow. That's harsh."
"Yeah. So, you're gonna change my mind now, I guess, right?"
"Um, about that. I'll level with you, i'm just doing this because of some internet meme. I have no fucking idea what i'm doing."
"Right. Well, id better go. Shit to do, man."
"I really do feel obligated to lodge some form of token resistance to your plan."
"Yeah, well, noted."
"Um, right. Hey, can I have your car?"

Random Doobings

"Hello," said Captain Doobie, holding the phone in what he believed to be a cavalier manner, "I'd like to speak to someone about my internet."
There was a pause.
"No I don't have my home phone through you."
There was a slightly longer pause.
"Or my mobile."
There was an even longer pause.
"Could I speak to someone who's not from the planet fuckhead?"

Some Heavy Shit Has Been Going Down And We Didn't Spot It, Man.

There's no easy way to lay this on you, so i'm just going to come right out and say it: how do we know that the characters in the Peanuts comics are kids?

I mean, really, think about it. Apart from Snoopy and Woodstock (who i'm fairly sure are not human), what do we have?

Schroeder: Displays a talent for the piano that children usually don't.
Lucy: Operates a successful psychiatric clinic.
Charlie Brown. Bald. He's fucking bald! Why did you think he was a kid?

We've never seen any 'adults' at all in the comics. Oh, they're talked about, mentioned, but NEVER SEEN. Its like they were all murdered or something, and their children have simply grown up in denial. I can only speculate as to the fate of Ms Othmar.

Suddenly the Peanuts strip seems a whole lot more bizarre, doesn't it?

Cue The Theme From The Magnificent Seven...

You can get it knitting,
You can get it sitting,
You can get it milking a cow,
Matter of fact i've got it now...

A great big thirst
Needs a nice cup of tea

And the nicest cup is Vic.
Victoria Breakfast.

A Conversation Very Much Imagined

This evening I found myself at West Lakes shopping centre and, through a curious set of circumstances too tedious to relate here, was wearing a suit and tie. Imagine my amusement then when I found that the centre contained a small charity mugging stand to extend African women loans or some shit.
I must have passed that stand about five times but the damn chuggers must have guessed that the game was afoot and kept their distance. This was a pity, because had they approached me the following dialogue would have ensued:

Chugger: Excuse me, would you like to...
Me: Now see here my good man. I'll have you know that I already own five factories in Nigeria alone, so if I haven't given Umbopo over there a job by now it's probably because I don't damn well want to. Good day.

People ruin all my fun.

Our Greatest Prime Ministers

For all of those out there in the blogosphere who are by now heartily sick of the porkbarrelling, gerrymandering and general stepping-in-dogshit feelings engendered by our current election between the nefarious forces of the Mad Monk and the Ginger Ninja, The Impertinence Of It All is pleased to bring you "Our Greatest Prime Ministers".

1. Alfred Deakin. As Prime Ministers go this guy was Teh Shit, as the kids say. Not content to be Prime Minister once, in 1903, he had a second go in 1905 and then changed parties (he was originally a Protectionist. Where did they go and why can't I vote for one today?) to the Commonwealth Liberals and did it again in 1909. I know that electioneering was in it's infancy in those days (Kerry O'Brian was just starting out) but Deakin must have had one hell of a slogan. I have no idea what his campaign posters looked like but a picture of him punching a Boer in the cock is what initially comes to mind.

2. Earle Page. Hit the ground running, did Earle. For 20 crazy days in April 1939 Earle Page dominated the Australian political scene. During this time he abolished slavery, made the CSIRO invent the helicopter (finally!) and shot 25 kangaroos a day from the window of his office in Parliament House (that's 500 kangaroos!) before standing down. War was coming, he knew it, and he wanted in. Rumours that he led a team of Long-Range Reconnaissance Commandos against Rommel are unfounded but persist to this day.

3. Frank Forde. Australians love a larrikin, and the Prime Minister is no exception. In 1945 Frank Forde, a snot farmer from Gudgeeplonk in Outback Melbourne, went to Canberra to tell Curtin what he thought of him. Curtin called Forde's bluff, installing him as Prime Minister while Curtin stepped out behind the Lodge for a sly fag. Unfortunately for Curtin security refused to let him back in as Forde now held the Royal Warrant. Curtin was forced to spend 9 uncomfortable days at him mum's sleeping on the couch before he could jemmy the laundry window with a safety-pin and let himself back in.

4. Harold Holt. Australia's only official cyborg Prime Minister, Holt was the result of a super-secret CSIRO research program to produce the ultimate Prime Minister: one who could lead the nation and also keep up with Dawn Fraser. Unfortunately Holt short-circuited during initial sea-trials and the project was abandoned.

5. Gough Whitlam. A true warrior in every sense of the word, Whitlam bestrode the world like a colossus, crushing his enemies, seeing them driven before him and hearing the lamentations of their women. From the steppes of Outer Mongolia he rode an army of the finest horsemen ever seen. Eventually he choked on a chicken bone and got played by John Wayne in the first movie and Steven Seagal in the second.

Another Open Letter to Clive Cussler

Dear Mr Cussler,

Recently I read your excellent novel, 'Night Probe!', which ends, you may recall, with the United States and Canada becoming one nation, with the exception of Quebec, which gets a bit of it's French on.

However, I just picked up your more recent novel, "Arctic Drift!' which involves Canada, and I couldn't help but noticing that Canada and the US are still separate entities. Given that everything else in the novels follows on what, Mr Cussler, the fuck?

Are you just making this stuff up or something?

Yours,

DC

My Life As A Musical

Today I bought a new toothbrush,
Hooray! Hooray!
Today I bought a new toothbrush,
Bought a new brush today!

I bought a new brush,
because I felt a bit flush,
and I didn't like the old one,
thank you very much!

Today I bought a new toothbrush,
Hooray! Hooray!
Today I bought a new toothbrush,
I hope it's here to stay!

Magnus: Robot Fighter

*sigh* I suppose, looking back a few years from now, i'll count this moment when the lying stopped and the self-realisation hit that I am a geek, because i've now blogged twice about new-release comics. This is getting dangerously regular.
Once more unto the breach...Dark Horse have released a new series written by 60's stalwart Jim Shooter. The first, Dr Solar, was reviewed on this emblogulation not long ago and was criticised for it's awful artwork, although the story was strong. This time, Magnus gets the opposite: good, clear (if a little lifeless and static) artwork and poor writing. You know you're on the wrong track when the old 60's version (reprinted at the back of the book) hold's a reader's attention more than the new one. Magnus is a man trained by a robot to kill bad robots. Why do the robots need to be killed? In the original, because humankind has been subjugated and needs redemption. In the reboot, because everything is hunky-dory with people but the robots are getting all uppity, forming organised-crime cartels and kidnapping people to sell as food to aliens.
That's your problem right there: in the original Magnus is a saviour, while in the reboot I was left wondering why no-one else bothered doing anything. It may be an omission, but it's glaring: in the original humans are shown pretty much like the humans in the ship in 'Wall-e', but in the reboot they're all perfectly able-bodied.
It doesn't work, much as I wanted it too. Put the artist from Magnus to work with Shooter on Dr Solar and I think you'd have a winner. Hopefully the third release in the Shooter series, Turok, will follow this path.

When Elevenses Attack...

Today (well, Sunday) whilst shopping for tea, I was confronted by the sight of a new brand on the supermarket shelf. Tantalisingly, alluringly, it was called 'Just Tea'.
Now, i'm all for Just tea, but it does conjure up some odd images of a peaceful, caring society in which the quality of mercy is not strained but rather droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.

As I stood there, picturing the utopia from which Just Tea must spring I realised that by it's very exisence, Just Tea implied the existence of Unjust Tea. The thought chilled me. Who, I asked myself, could be drinking Unjust Tea?

Presumably they sell a lot in Pyongyang.

Wheels Within Wheels...

C.S. Lewis, author of the 'Narnia' series, died on exactly the same day as the Kennedy Assassination. OR DID HE?

There are many good reasons why English gent Lewis potentially wanted Kennedy dead. For example:

1. Kennedy was a Catholic, Lewis was a Protestant. Screwtape didn't like Catholics.
2. Lewis was about talking lions. Kennedy was slipping a length to Marylin Monroe. Join the dots.
3. Lewis' book 'Peleandra' contains detailed numeric references to the exact wind-shear factor which had to be taken into account by the shooter in Dallas.
4. The Zapruder footage shows a seemingly innocuous wardrobe behind the grassy knoll.

Its an oft-used phrase but there's nothing new under the sun, and nothing proves it quite like today's post on Sniff Petrol, the increasingly erratic car-related website we all loved then got quite bored with when it wasn't being updated for six months at a stretch. However, there's nothing like Ferrari tomfoolery to get ol' Sniff back in action, so thanks to the fact that he's been stuck in an 'I hate Ferrari' time-warp for the last few years, the minute the Maranello team a) lead a race and b) break the rules, Sniff's back in the saddle like the years since Schumacher's retirement never happened. Those old faves are back, D.I. Blundell and Crazy Dave, both of whom were conspicuous by their absence when there was nothing to whinge about, Englishmen were winning championships and Ferrari were in the middle of the pack.
How about a story on Red Bull? What about the Brawn team winning on debut last year? No, while the entire face of F1 was busy changing Sniff was busy piddling on, wearing his Ferrari hairshirt and being irrelevant. Now, for one brief shining moment he's managed to recycle the zeitgeist, like a hippy who wore flares for so long that one day he went for a walk and slightly fewer people laughed at him.

Congratulations, sniff. Now fuck off again.

How To Blow Up A Whale

Humans are by-and-large a coastal species. If you live by the sea for any stretch of time (in species time) sooner or later you're going to have to deal with a beached whale. Generally these can be rehabilitated back into the ocean by being kept wet and threatened with bagpipes (the bagpipe is the hereditary enemy of the celaphod), but every once in a while one will up and kark it.
If the whale has died, two things are important. First you must make sure that all of the people who tried to keep it alive know that they have failed. Guilt and the stress of holding a watering can over a whale for 72 hours without a break can often combine in hilarious ways. I recommend a camera phone and a quick upload to youtube. Hell, if you can't keep the damn whale alive, you might as well go viral.
Secondly, despite what the Greens may say, whales aren't constructed of hugs an unicorn farts. They're usually full of blubber and guts and other whale shit that starts to go off quite quickly. With all of the angry tree-huggers still milling about the opportunity to cut off a big hunk and have a barbecue is not going to be there (despite it being the only time that harvesting and eating whale would be acceptable) so there's only one thing left to do to stop disease spreading from the slowly-putrefying carcass: blow it up.
This is not as easy as it sounds. For a start, in western society explosives are not easy to get hold of in large quantities....or are they?

To blow up a whale, you will need:
1. Grease;
2. A flatbed tow-truck;
3. A Caltex Starcard;
4. Quite a lot of duct tape;
5. A biggish cork or bung
6. A marine flare.

The first step is to securely tape the carcasse's mouth shut. Go around the head using a single piece of tape in a spiral motion. Once this is achieved, you need to get the whale up onto the back of the tow-truck. You may think that it would be quite difficult to persuade a tow-truck driver to help, but in my experience if you explain the situation quite fully most tow-truck operators are only too keen to give it a go and in some cases even waive their fee.
Once the whale carcass is on the truck, drive to the petrol station. It's handy here to have nicked the fuel card from a work vehicle earlier. Whales can usually hold several hundred litres of petrol (assuming the mouth is securely taped up) which can get pricey. As in the case of the tow-truck driver, once you explain the situation most service station attendants will be only too happy to help out. Once at the service station the filling of the carcass is simplicity itself. Simply climb on top of the whale and shove the fuel nozzle straight in the blowhole. Depending on the pump speed filling shouldn't take more than five minutes. When the carcass is filled, pop the cork in the blowhole and bob's your uncle.
Drive to wherever you have decided to blow up the whale from. Ideally this should be out of the suburban area. Try to avoid shopping-centre carparks.
Once the site has been selected, place the whale on the ground and remove the cork from it's blowhole, replacing it with the marine flare. The petrochemical contents of the dead whale may have settled during transit, so it may be necessary to top it up a bit from a jerry-can.
Move everyone except yourself to a safe distance. Light the flare. Run like hell. Assuming you're not drunk* you should be able to reach cover before the flare burns low enough to ignite the petrol.
Film it and put it on youtube, next to the video you prepared earlier. For heaven's sake, footage of exploding whales is exactly what youtube is for.

*Don't be drunk. Alcohol and blowing up whales JUST DON'T MIX.

Dr Solar, Man of The Atom!

Those who know me well will know that one of the indulgences I allow myself is the reading of comic books. Usually, I read Dark Horse Comics, as they have the most interesting stuff: The Goon, Conan, Hellboy and a lot of good little short-run things usually involving the Whedons. I don't usually stray away from this except to buy graphic novels, but lately i've been getting into Marvel (World War Hulks, to be exact) and I have to say it's opened my eyes. Thus, when DH announced that they would be publishing a new run of Dr Solar, I was enthused. Dark Horse publishing superhero stories? Sounds great.
It wasn't. I got the first issue today and while the writing was quite good the artwork was terrible, and as comics are a predominately visual medium this impacted on my enjoyment a lot. Dark Horse, if you're going to continue with thr superhero stories, could you please:

1. Draw the comic in such a way that I can follow it between frames. In Dr Solar the framing was just a non-connected series of shots. Comics grew out of that in the Forties, for hubbard's sake.
2. Have your characters engage. Some non-stock poses would be nice, as would characters making eye contact instead of standing around like mannequins. Facial expressions are always good, too.
3. Pay attention to what's supposed to be happening. If you don't draw it, I can't see it. It's the first issue, I have no idea what powers Dr Solar has, so having him point vaguely in the direction of the bad guy, with a corresponding 'fwoom!' coming from said villain does nothing to tell me what just happened. Nothing.
4. Stop the 'photo-realistic' artwork. How realistic was it? Have you ever seen the animated Lord of the Rings? About like that.

Dr Solar looks promising and could be quite fun. Dark Horse, why don't you pick up a Marvel or a DC and take some notes on how a superhero story should be drawn. They're where they are today for a reason.

The Tweelight Saga

I will confess to feeling a little bit of shock and awe today upon reading the news that a New Zealand chap had died whilst watching the new Twilight movie.

Please, gentle reader, exercise caution when watching this movie as it is apparently now possible to be bored to death.