More Random Doobings

"God damn it!" declared Captain Doobie forcefully as he entered the loungeroom.
Goodtime Slim looked up from his Big Book For Important People**.
"I beg your pardon?" he said, mildly miffed at the sudden intrusion.
"I was at the shops just now and I heard the Beatles singing 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and now i've got it stuck in my head."
Goodtime Slim nodded. "Ah," he said, "that old chestnut. You have my sympathies."
He had just settled down to his book again when Captain Doobie, whom he had thought was finished, started talking again. Captain Doobie did this a lot.
"It's true what they say, you know," Captain Doobie said.
"It usually is," replied Goodtime Slim, "what in particular do they say in this instance?"
Captain Doobie's brow grew dark and he crossed himself. Leaning in close to Goodtime Slim he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper, "They say that John Lennon made a deal with the devil himself. They say that he stood at a crossroads at midnight on Hallowe'en and sold Old Scratch his soul in exchange for being able to play the blues."
Despite his housemate's best efforts to make the world a scarier place Goodtime Slim remained deadpan. "No," he told Captain Doobie, "he didn't."
"He did!"
"No he didn't. You're getting him confused with that other bloke. Robert Jordan."
This gave Captain Doobie pause for thought. "Robert Jordan? "
"Yes."
"Are you telling me that the author of the Wheel of Time series was the world's best blues guitarist?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad," said Captain Doobie, "because his books were shit."

*By which I mean more of the random doobings, not doobings that are any more random than normal.
** Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.

Random Doobings

The plane hadn't even taken off yet and already Captain Doobie was bored. He'd spent the first few minutes fiddling with the barf bags and the 'complimentary'* magazines, and in a rather worrying move was now investigating the underseat storage space. Goodtime Slim buried his nose in whatever airport book he'd been able to buy with a picture of an exploding airliner on it, did his best to ignore him.
It didn't work. Next to him Captain Doobie sat up again, triumphantly clutching a life-jacket.
"Put it away!" hissed Goodtime Slim in alarm, hurriedly looking around for the Stewardesses he felt sure would be approaching like a proverbial yet horizontal ton of bricks.
"Pig's arse," replied Captain Doobie, "I want to find out how to inflate it."
In desperation Goodtime Slim grabbed the life jacket and threw it over the seat in front of him, where it landed around the neck of a small child who subsequently thought it was Christmas.
"Let it go," Goodtime Slim told Captain Doobie in a stern voice, "You're not to touch anything for the rest of the trip, is that clear?"
"You know what your trouble is?" cried Captain Doobie, "You're anally retentive."
Goodtime Slim considered this. "What does that mean then?" he asked.
Captain Doobie had not expected this. "Um," he declared, "Well, it means that you, er, retain your...bum."
"Oh," said Goodtime Slim, "right. That's a bad thing, is it? Only I notice that you've still got yours and all."
"You don't understand," Captain Doobie yelled, "It's an insult!"
"No it isn't. It's not like people's bums just fall off all the time and the nasty people pick them up and put them in a green bag** while all the cool people just walk around with their large intestine hanging out."
"Look, it is an insult. Just live with it."
Goodtime Slim wasn't having with any of that. "I agree that normally anything mentioning bums is an insult. If you had told me, for instance, that I had a face like a smacked arse, then i'd be properly insulted, mainly because I don't but also because the first ever English usage of it occurred in an Enid Blyton book ***, and when you've been insulted by Enid Blyton you've been insulted fullstop. But this nonsense about being anally retentive doesn't seem to cut the mustard. Dick."
There was silence on the plane, or at least it was as quiet as you could reasonably expect on a plane full of bogans, business executives and stewardesses hurrying to extricate a child who had discovered how to inflate a life jacket.

*Anything that claims to be complimentary yet requires you to pay $100 to recieve it, isn't.
** People outside of SA shouldn't even ask about this one.
*** And it bloody well did, too. One of the Amelia Jane Adventures, if memory serves.

Signs That I Am Getting Old.

I did want to write just the one post today but then I thought of another so i'll do both.

1. I Hate Bridgestone.
I came home from work today to discover a leaflet in my letterbox advertising "Back To School Deals With Bridgestone". I don't have children, but i'm fairly sure that the current SA school curriculum does not require them to bring their own tyres. I am willing to stretch to the idea that if people weren't quite so litigious the school might want a tyre-swing for the playground, but even then i'm fairly sure that Bridgestone could work something out with the schools directly instead of sending me the leaflet.

2. It Doesn't Feel Like Ten Years.
I just realised that it's now more than ten years since "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" was released. It's never been the strongest movie in the series but it's better than "Attack Of The Clones" and even dare I say, "Return Of The Jedi". Yes, i'll see your Jar-jar and raise you an Ewok or two. At least the bloody Gungans didn't sing.
I will admit that in recent years my attitude towards 'Episode 1' has softened. It's not as visceral as Eps 4, 5, and 6; it doesn't grab you quite as much, but I do now get off on seeing the ships and the droids and Qui-Gon Jinn CUTTING THROUGH A BLAST DOOR WITH A LIGHTSABER. Yes, the villains could have been more evil and had proper entrances like Darth Vader at the start of Ep 4, there should have been a Han Soloesque character (scoundrel) in there somewhere and I could have done without the stupid NASCAR-style podrace, but I still enjoy watching it every now and again. It's still visually stunning in a way that, say, Avatar will never be. It still draws me into the story. It's still fun. I refuse to apologise for liking it.

In Which I Get Mah Deutsch On.

It's halfway through January and it's 42 degrees in the shade, so it must be time for Schutzenfest, the largest German festival that's not actually in Germany.
Many people in Adelaide deride the Schutzenfest as being merely an excuse to buy really big steins of lagerbier and get astoundingly drunk, but there's many more facets to it than that. There's cakes, for a start, and air-rifle shooting, and lashings of Aussie Cider. It's the one weekend of the year that you can wear a truly awful hat in public and say the words 'pretzel wench' with feeling. And what's more, you'll probably end up with a pretzel.
It's also the only place in Adelaide where you can reliably buy German-language CDs. Apart from the sublime tones of Zillertaler Schurzenjager, last year I found Germany's answer to Status Quo: a band called 'Normaal'. This year I picked up a live CD of 'De Dijk', who have a damn fine brass section, if I may say.
So there you have it. Schutzenfest: an Adelaide institution of dubious morals and even more dubious musical tastes. Long may it run.

Australian Fiction

Last week while jonesing for more secondhand books that I don't need I stumbled across a three-book volume by an Australian author called Ion Idriess. Ion was an author in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and was one of the bestselling authors of his day. I have a non-fiction book of his about diamonds (Stone of Destiny) and so I decided to pick up the set, which contained the books 'Silver City', 'Lightning Ridge' and 'The Desert Column'.
'Silver City' recounts the author's childhood in north-western New South Wales in the 1890s, culminating in his family's settlement at Broken Hill after the big lode was discovered. 'Lightning Ridge' picks up the story when Ion is old enough to go roving and heads to the opal-fields to become a 'gouger', or opal-miner. 'The Desert Column' is set several years later and recounts the author's experiences at Gallipoli and in the Palestine Campaign of WW1.
While I have struggled to read colonial fiction before (the sadistic 'For The Term Of His Natural Life' and the excrable 'Robbery Under Arms' being cases in point) Ion's work proved very different. I devoured the three volumes in a matter of days. I liked it so much that I decided to read Xavier Herbert's 'Capricornia' as soon as I could find a copy.
What was it about Idriess that struck a chord? The reality. There was no "beauty of the bush" arty soliloquising, and no overdone "we're all white Irish slaves banished to a life of the lash" moaning. It was a simple story told in simple language and, thank Hubbard, the words 'crikey' and 'strewth' do not appear anywhere. My previous excursions into Australian 'literature' had convinced me that unless your main character spoke like Alf Stewart then you just ain't got it, kid.
I'm actively on the hunt for more of Idriess' work now, particularly his major work 'Flynn Of The Inland' but also 'Nullabor Crossing', in which he proves that the Nullabor can be crossed in a tiny post-war Peugeot.
All in all, thank you Mr Idriess for restoring my faith in Australia historical fiction. It was looking a bit bullshit there for a while.

Aparrently I'm Big In Asia

Then again, when you drink as much beer as I do, you're pretty much big everywhere.

An Open Letter To Clive Cussler

Dear Mr Cussler,

While I'll admit that I stayed away from your books for many years because I didn't want to be seen reading the same books that my dad reads, I got into them a while ago and enjoy them immensely. There is, however, only one problem.
Recently I read 'Valhalla Rising' in which I was introduced to Dirk's son and Daughter, Dirk Jr and Summer, who were apparently gestating inside their mother (Summer Moran) after Dirk shagged her then left her to die in a subterranean underwater cave-in way back in the events of 'Pacific Vortex!' While she was thought dead it turns out that she survived, was washed to shore and lived to give birth to the two non-identical twins mentioned above.
The problem is, Mr Cussler, that I've just read 'Pacific Vortex!', having tracked it down in my local secondhand book exchange, and Dirk and Summer NEVER SLEEP TOGETHER. Every meeting we see it all in real-time, so there's no point at which they could have nipped out for a quick knee-trembler without mentioning it in the narrative.
Please explain.

Yours,

D C White

P.S. Can we see a return to the use of exclamation marks in the titles? They were cool.

A Trivial Pursuit

Ladies and gentlemen, please find below a hitherto unknown and unreported cornucopia of facts recently discovered behind the radiator in the original offices of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. These were uncovered during a routine tea-drainage check of the premises at Dickenspot Lane and appear to predate the original compilation of the encyclopedia in the 19th century.

Necks: The longest known neck in the animal kingdom is that of the cameleopard. The author recommends the use of .50 calibre rounds.

Speed, Aquatae: The fastest recorded mammalian (air-breathing) speed is displayed by the Capybaras rodent of the Spanish Americas. The author recommends the use of a Benchley & ffyfe breech-loading smoothbore scatter-ball rifle.

Wingspan: The largest wingspan ever recorded belongs to the Greater Southern Albatross, known to frequent the frozen wastes to the south of Van Diemen's Land. The author recommends .357 rimfire rounds in use with a repeating rifle.

Sloth: The laziest form of life in the animal kingdom is the Irishman. The author recommends use of hollow-point ammunition from .32 to .577 (service revolver) calibre.

Something Something Something Bullshit

I like Family Guy. I like the Star Wars movies. Ergo, when 'Blue Harvest' was released I was ecstatic with joy. Likewise, when Dec 23rd rolled around I couldn't wait to head to JB Hi Fi on my lunch break and pick up the second installment, 'Something Something Something Darkside'.
I needn't have bothered. While I have only seen a few episodes from the latest season of FG, from what I see in this movie there's been some shark-jumping going on in a major way.
Family Guy has always pushed boundaries: that's why I love it. But until now they've always used the crudities they use in very witty ways. In BH, for example, when Darth Stewie starts making diaper jokes then magically pulls out a list and says 'I could go on, i've got hundreds of these', that's funny and a great moment. By contrast the moment in SSSD when Stewie starts doing 'Darth farts' is just crass, and far less funny. There are some good gags, don't get me wrong, but on the whole it not only feels forced, it feels MEAN, like the writers really wanted to stick it to everyone in a major way. It really made me feel like I was watching some dickhead rant about how much he hates Empire and pointing out all of the plot holes. There are constant cheap digs at gays, blacks, gays, hispanics and gays. Did I mention there are a LOT of gay 'jokes'? The whole thing goes just way too far. I can put up with watching jokes about race and sexuality when they're witty and good-natured, but this was simply too juvenile and unnecessarily harsh and as such, unfunny.
It's a pity. BH was fantastic. What the hell happened?????

2012: A Review

When I first heard that "2012" was coming out I was very excited and couldn't wait to see it. However, now that I have seen it i'm sorry to say that the naming convention is almost the only thing that connects this movie with the first two in the fanchise, "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
Initially it looked good, opening with some nice shots of the sun and Saturn, and I thought we were going to see a repeat of the end of "2010" when Saturn gets turned into a second sun. However, it appears that this has now been retconned, and the power of our original sun has just been increased, with some rather disastrous results for the Earth I must say!
Most disappointingly there is no HAL, no monoliths and no space travel. There's barely even any Heywood Floyd, but when he does show up at the end he's played by the original Nite Owl and is now the captain of a boat. Odd.
I simply didn't see the reason for this sequel as it just seems tacked-on to the series, particularly when you consider that there's a perfectly good Arthur C Clarke-written sequel in "2063: Odyssey Three".
Oliver Platt was good though, as always.

In Which I Behave In The Manner Of A Character From A Charles Dickens Novel

Today I officially entered the 19th century, as I made use of the services of a Cobbler for the first time. As I have now started work at a job that requires nice shiny shoes, my old boots looked a bit shabby. I polished them and found that the leather is still really good but the heels had worn down. Unwilling as I am to throw some otherwise perfectly good (and expensive!) boots in the bin, I hunted down a strange and wizened Cobbler by the name of Mr Minit, who NAILED some new heel pads on. How cool is that? I now have hob-nailed boots.

I am not a Dustman, however, because I fail to refer to them as 'daisy roots'.

That is all.

This Is Just Plain Cool

As an amateur gemmologist with delusions of grandeur I was poking about on the PIRSA (that's Primary Industries and Resources of South Australia to you) website looking for new fossicking grounds, and I found this:

http://outernode.pir.sa.gov.au/minerals/earthquakes/recent_earthquakes_in_sa

How cool is that? I know that SA is fairly unstable (heh heh, I live 5 houses down from the Darlington Fault Line) but I had no idea that SA experienced shocks and tremors with this sort of regularity.

A Message From Our Sponsor.

sniffIMPERTINENCE

Hyundai Announces Production In Alabama.

Pyongyang: Ginormous Automotive Chaebol Hyundai have opened a new production facility in Birmingham, Alabama, and have promised that the move will not inhibit the lack-of-quality for which the brand is reknowned.
"This is a very exciting move for us," announced Hyundai spokesman Yay Wee Suk at a news conference, "Until now, consumers unhappy with their purchase have always been able to be given the standard excuse 'What did you expect? It's made in Korea'. However, recent advances in education and standard of living in Korea have now made this excuse untenable. Now, when a consumer drives down the road and his or her door falls off and their seat explodes they will be told with a shrug and an embarrassed grin 'Well, it is made in Alabama...'. This should solve a great many problems."
Consumer groups have welcomed the move, with automotive lobby group the Ku Klux Klan embracing wholeheartedly the return of profitable industry with low expectations. "Toyota din't like the way we'all did things 'round hyar," Klansman Hyman T Spunkfelcher III reported, "They came in hyar wit all they highfalutin' idees bout sheeit actually workin'. But these here Hyundai fellers, I seen the kinda crapola they'all want, an I think we'all kin work together, us and they'all, even if'n they is a bunch o'commies.
In light of Hyundai's announcement local Australian manufacturers Holden and Ford re-eiterated their commitment to continue to build at Elizabeth and Geelong.

Random Doobings

Goodtime Slim pulled the binoculars from his eyes only with extreme reluctance. "Oh my g'quan," he breathed slowly.
Next to him Captain Doobie sat peering out of the front window, but without the benefit of any form of visual augmentation he was at a loss to know what would cause such a reaction.
"What?" he asked Goodtime Slim, "What is it? What do you see?"
To Captain Doobie's consternation his housemate merely shook his head. "I can't tell you," he replied, "You wouldn't believe it."
Captain Doobie, who was even more prone to irrational belief than an Electric Monk, was nonplussed. "I might," he challenged.
"No, really, you wouldn't."
Captain Doobie was hurt, as this was his reputation on the line. "I would!" he cried, "remember that time that I accidentally superglued myself to the TV and ended up believing that the guy on the Flight Centre ads was a real pilot for a whole week?"
Goodtime Slim nodded sagely. That had been a bad week all round. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you just wouldn't believe it. The Flight Centre guy was nothing compared to this. The Honey-Making Powers of Wasps was nothing compared to this. The time I got you to believe that Jeremy Clarkson was the new British Prime Minister was nothing compared to this. If I were to tell you what i've just seen you'd spend so muct brain-power trying to believe it that your brain would simply explode and i'd get muck on my lapel."
"Lapels," supplied Captain Doobie, indicating that Goodtime Slim did indeed have a plurality of lapels on his person at this time.
"Lapel," repeated his housemate, indicating that his use of the singular implied that one would be all that was necessary in this instance.
Captain Doobie's mood had plummeted from 'curious' to 'high-dudgeon'. "So you're not going to tell me?" he grumbled.
"No."
In reply Captain Doobie booted Goodtime Slim really quite hard in the arse. His housemate flew forwards over the Occasional Table, banged his head on a doily and went down for the count. In triumph Captain Doobie grabbed the discarded binoculars and looked through them, hurriedly fiddling with the little focussing thingie in the middle of the bendy bit.
"Oh my g'quan," he breathed, "I don't believe it."

You Might Be A Fascist Dictator if...

1. You wear peaked caps and aviator sunglasses with a regularity above that which is currently considered excessive.
2. Bono organises charity concerts for your population whilst never actually setting foot in your country.
3. You own at last one gold-plated firearm.
4. The official currency of your country is unknown.
5. Dirk Pitt has killed you at least once.
6. Your first name is also a military rank.
7. There exists a preponderance of statues of yourself in your country.
8. You have released a book which every single person in your country has bought.
9. You own some form of Citroen.
10. You look good in Khaki.

It's A Thanksgivin' Hootenanny!

Today is the American holiday of Thanksgiving, so if you're wondering why all of your favorite websites haven't been updated in the middle of the week, that'll be why.
But what, really, is thanksgiving? As a holiday, it can be hard for those portions of the world who aren't America* to comprehend a holiday that doesn't involve the birth/death of a deity or monarch/despot, or a horse race. This shouldn't be a stumbling block, as Thanksgiving is really quite easy to get your head around. All it requires is a little knowledge of American history, like what I have got.

Thanksgiving: In the Olden Days some people from Europe with funny hats discovered America. Though many people with funny hats had discovered it beforehand (Phoencians, Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, Basques and the Irish) they didn't count. The native Americans, or Injuns, did not appreciate the intrusion and tried to Sioux them, but their hats were only made of feathers so this didn't count. As the native Americans were displaced by the new native Americans they began to have reservations. Unfortunately the new native Americans had even bigger hats by then and they all got shot by John Wayne. Four-score and seven years ago everyone started driving Cadillacs and were pretty happy, so they decided to give thanks by walking on the moon. They asked George Washington to have a lie down and he chopped down a cherry tree with Abraham Lincoln. That is why every November they carve shit into pumpkins.

*Basically, the Communists and the British Empire.

On Pulp

I love pulp fiction. I recently read Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep", and my literary horizons have been astoundingly increased by the discovery of Robert E Howard's "Conan" stories (not to mention Solomon Kane and Sailor Steve Costigan). The only problem is of course that the Golden Age of Pulp is well behind us. I still pick up Asimovs' Magazine when I see it, and I've read my was through a few of the paperback westerns from the newsagents, but otherwise i've had to rely on comics to give me that good old short-story, punchy plot, hard-edged fiction that I crave.
However (and I guess you've been thinking since the start that there was always going to be a 'however' coming up somewhere) today I found in my local newsagents a small a5 chapbook (some a4 sheets stapled on the fold line) of about 60 pages or so. It was called "After The World: Killable Hours", and across the top of the cover was emblazoned the motto 'All-New Australian Pulp'.
I bought a copy. It turned out to be quite a well-written piece about the inevitable zombpocalypse* occurring in Melbourne, and a young lawyer who gets caught up in it all. I'm quite taken with it, and from the looks of things it's going to be the first in a series novellas all set in the same universe, but otherwise not linked. There's no word yet on when the next installments will be out, but if it follows the procedure set out by Black House's earlier release "The Dark Detective" comics it should appear monthly.
It only cost me $5, it's a good story and it's a change to help both Australian writers and a new Australian publishing company. I can't think of anything more worthwhile to get behind.

*yes, its a word.

Crikey O'Trousers

Bloody hell. It's been longer than simply ages since I updated this rotten thing. You'd think I were dead or something, judging from the smell. So, long story short, there is no story. I'm just here because i'm feeling guilty about not supplying my legions of fan with any new material, and thus am forced to do one of those tricky (and slightly nauseating) actual blog posts about life. My life, to be precise, because I can't think of anyone else's worth a damn at the moment.
So, to recap the events of the last few weeks:
Stories published: 3. Surprisingly good, if I say so myself. Harper-Collins may not be beating a path to my door, but other people are. Two stories being published in a South Australian crime anthology (despite one being set in rural Pomgolia and the other in Paris, Frograq); and one being published in an English humour anthology (despite being set in Straya). Go figure.
Competitions won: Sort-of, a bit. I ended up coming second in this year's Burnside Literary Awards for a story about Robin Hood. This marked my first attempt at writing something arty-farty in order to please judges and it worked a fair-to-middling treat. The fact that it was peer-judged by Malcolm Walker (of The Stone Crown fame and all-round jolly nice chap) was a pleasant bonus.
Novels published: 0. A dissapointment on this score. However, the relentlessly-commercial "Shannon Stone" vampire opus is currently being read by Curtis Brown, and hope springs eternal. I saw a pig flying the other day, so it all bodes well.

A Public Service Announcement

Due to poor planning Movember has been shifted into early 2010, where this time it will be known as Mobruary. Thank you.