To celebrate my 1541st blog post...

...I present the ultimate peripheral device for the greatest games machine ever constructed.

The freedom of starving wolves

SBS 2 has started showing "Attack On Titan" late on Friday nights. Having sampled the manga, I wasn't surprised by the humanity-under-siege-from-ravenous-giants premise. No, what struck me about the anime was the opening song. If the station's subtitles are to be trusted, the lyrics are a koquillion miles from the upbeat rhymes attached to the majority of Western cartoons -

"Unknown are the names of the flowers that have been trampled
Birds have fallen to the earth and long for the wind
Prayers won't solve anything
Only the will to fight can change here and now!
Oh, pigs, who laugh at the resolve to walk over corpses to move forward
Livestock complacency? False prosperity? Give us the freedom of starving wolves!
The humiliation of being caged is what triggers us to fight back
We hunters slaughter prey beyond the castle walls, consumed with surging bloodlust, as our crimson bows and arrows pierce scarlet holes into the twilight."

Remember the "Titansgrave"

Beginning Tuesday (Seppo time), Felicia Day's excellent YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry, will be hosting a 10-episode series in which Wil Wheaton GM's four players through a science-fantasy campaign entitled "Titansgrave: The Ashes Of Valkana". Based on his antics on "TableTop" (a G&S regular), I'm expecting a mix of amusing NPCs and devilish double-crosses. The PCs will be controlled by Hank Green, Laura Bailey, Alison Haislip and Yuri Lowenthal, who *should* possess the necessary acting/comedy/gamer-nerd skillz to succeed...unless Wil's in an evil mood that day. Supposedly, the eps will also contain animation.

Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: I'm a sucker for "The Big Chill". That said, "Chappie" didn't deserve the fanboy disses - it works fine when you accept that it's a fairytale.

So last weekend

"Toys Through Time" @ Museum Of Sydney

A small-but-sweet exhibition from which I learnt that there were brick toys long before LEGO, including a literal interpretation that required cementing the pieces together. The billycart hanging on the wall triggered a memory... A friend's dad who was a carpenter made a multi-person contraption that was a bike at the front and a chariot-like standing area at the back. Three of us rolled it off the side of a grassy rise and I hit my head on the bitumen below. Which might explain a lot!

What pleased me most about "T/T/T" - more than the soldiers, quaint boardgames of yesteryear (historical bingo, anyone?) and wind-up robots - was being able to alert Mum to the dolls section and looped video on Sydney's famous Doll Hospital. Since she avidly collects and painstakingly restores the things, she's now planning a trip to the museum herself.


MCA Zine Fair

If I had to sum up the fanzines at this well-attended event, I'd say: not cheap, deliberately obscure (there were dealer tables where I couldn't tell what *anything* was about), design heavy, often girlie and usually accompanied by stickers, bookmarks, badges, etc. But, for all that, the scene seems healthy. $25 bought me the following -

After I'd read them, the "Catwoman 75" tribute zine went to DL and the "I Love Petersham" one to JC. SC will score the "My cat is better than your cat!" badge when next we meet. The "I can't bear puns!" magnet will probably go to SFL - via RS - at some point in the future. The stickers, they got stuck.


"The Room" @ Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace

"The Room" is abysmal in every way. What makes it an enjoyable experience nonetheless is (a) alcohol, and (b) a list of "Rocky Horror"-style rituals, e.g. hurling plastic spoons whenever said utensils appear in the flick (there are heaps, so grab plenty of ammo). DL and I were lucky enough to choose a packed session with an obviously high proportion of hardcore fans. That much became clear when, prior to the screening, an usher with a mic held a competition to determine the best impression of the bizarre main character, Johnny, and people rushed to take part. While there were stock phrases to yell in numerous situations, audience members still called out random funny heckles. A jeer of mine got a good laugh and DL started a wildly inappropriate chant.

"Michael Frayn: A Life In Theatre" @ Sydney Writers' Festival

I won't try to do justice to the amount of intellectual ground covered by this Q&A with my #1 playwright (that's F-Dawg on the left). There were challenging assertions - "There's no such thing as translation, because every language is embedded in its culture." And there were beaut anecdotes, like the one about the director who saw a couple leaving his new play and heard the man lament, "All we need now is to find the dog's been sick in the car." It was as cold as a necromancer's nipple at Walsh Bay early on a breezy autumn morning, but worth enduring to hear Mr Frayn hold forth.

"World Press Photo 2015" & "'SMH' Photos1440" @ State Library

IMCO, the always confronting "W/P/P" pics actually upped the shock factor this year. Maybe that's why shallow me preferred the artier "Sydney Morning Herald" snaps. However, given the collections are in adjoining spaces and entry is free, you'd be dumb not to inspect both. Were it not for a curious image in "Photos1440", I'd be unaware of the existence of these modern-day worshippers of John The Baptist - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeans


"Who Am I - No System Is Safe" (German Film Festival) @ Chauvel

Half a lifetime ago, I did my English honours thesis on the representation of hacking in fiction and non-fiction - and yet the research continues... This entertaining fillum evokes elements of everything from the Cold War computer crims to Hollywood illusionist romp "Now You See Me", slickly rendered and set to a techno soundtrack. Particularly effective is the way the net's dark underside is depicted as a seedy subway train in which every passenger is masked and moving between the carriages can be tricky, if not downright dangerous.

Watching: Part 1/3 of "The Casual Vacancy" on Showcase was instantly enthralling.
Listening: "Coming To Reality" (1971) by Rodriguez. Even better than "Cold Fact"?
Playing: Endless snowboarder "Alto's Adventure" [iOS]. May've peaked at level 32...

Colour supplements

Sloshing around the interswamp, I discovered there are folks who colour classic "D&D" art, such as this beautiful Larry Elmore illustration of a cleric charging into battle. As someone who used pencils to update every critter in the old "Monstrous Compendium" to appear in its "correct" hues (as described in the accompanying text), I approve. Don't get me wrong - the B&W original is superior. The point is that, having viewed it a million times at the gaming tables of my youth, it's nice to see it in a brand-new way.

Last five movies watched

Pick of the bunch: "Fury Road", of course.

In the days of Ford Cortina

When I was growing up, my beloved maternal grandmother (sadly no longer with us) drove a Cortina. It wasn't my favourite model of the car, an honour which belongs to this'un -

Nor was it the model that would much later feature in brain-bending retro cop show "Life On Mars" -

It was similar to this version, though with no racing stripe, more doors and less lions -

When I picture it, I picture the rear end, ready to be backed by Grandma from the garage behind her house out onto the road at full speed (as was her wont) -

You may not believe that a Cortina could achieve a very great velocity reversing the length of a surburban driveway. But to my cousins/siblings and I, it felt like this -

"Band On The Run" (1973) by Paul McCartney And Wings