RED LIGHTHOUSE

                                 


While making GI Joe, did nobody in the ENTIRE filmmaking process bother to mention that GI Joe is the exact same movie as Team America, only without the irony or the marionette puppets? Actually, even the puppets are debatable, hey.

This week I finally got around to watching Weeds and True Blood. Ohmygod holyshit they almost make up for not being able to watch 5.05 & 5.06 of Supernatural yet because of download limits. Almost.

I wish we celebrated Halloween here in Australia. It looks like a lot of fun.

When Voltaire lay dying the priest came to him and said 'You must renounce the Devil', and Voltaire said 'This is no time to be making enemies!'

LJ just ate part 2 of my atheist's guide to season 4.  So now I'm like, 'screw this, I don't wanna do this anymore'.

At the start of season four I thought it was going to be so hard to be an atheist and still enjoy my Show. When Castiel spread those creepy black shadow wings and said 'I am an angel of the Lord' in the first episode of season four, it was almost all over for me right there, in that moment. No more Supernatural for me, thanks. It's been fun. Unfortunately (fortunately), the individual stories of the individual episodes just wouldn't let up being so fucking EPIC and AWESOME and I just had to continue to tune in, put up with my own uncomfortable squirming at any mention of God and Angels, Heaven or the Lord and just enjoy being scared and told a ripping story.

I was brought up religious and went to church every Sunday until the age of fourteen.  I never felt God reveal himself to me in any way in all of those years, but never quite wanted to give up on the idea that he might be out there, either.  Since that time, I've had a number of frightening experiences, near death experiences, the suffering of loved ones, etc.  It's in those moments, when you're backed into a corner, that you find yourself praying, because it's not up to you anymore.  You can't influence the outcome, take away the pain, prevent death.  Except I never prayed.  I just knew no-one was listening. No-one was out there taking a special interest in me.  Even when I was still nominally a believer, it never occurred to me that God would intervene, so praying seemed utterly futile.  I wished and hoped, but never prayed. 

I've had times when I've been in tears and terrible pain and terror and I can recall specific moments, usually in bed or on bathroom floors in the middle of the night, wishing so hard that I believed in God, so that I could pray and feel that someone out there was watching over me and helping me through.  But you can't make yourself believe what you don't believe.

Beddytime now.  Wil continue.

I haven't checked in for...probably since around Christmas.  I quite literally woke up one morning to find that fandom was not only not fun anymore, but was severely diminishing my enjoyment of the show and in some aspects getting kinda disturbing.  Spoilers without LJ cuts or warnings, hysterical speculation and wank just made the whole thing completely tiresome and I also felt a bit creeped out by knowing so much about the private lives of famous people who are otherwise complete strangers to me.  Or maybe it was more that I was creeped out by how NOT creepy it seemed.  Suddenly I felt like I was in the twilight zone or something.  Like, did you ever have one of those 'naked' dreams where you arrive at school or work and realize you forgot to put on clothes? Only everyone is just acting normal like there's nothing strange about being naked in public? So, instead I'm carrying on watching Supernatural alone, in private, spoiler and speculation free and gossip free.  Just enjoying a damn good story and watching it unfold as it is broadcast, as it was meant to be enjoyed.  No judgement on anyone who enjoys spoilers or gossip.  I just need to get away from it all for awhile.

Love to all, especially rose_janice who I miss heaps and gretazreta - I'm so desperately sorry to hear about your cat, babe. I have a cat as well who is like a child to me and can't imagine what you must be feeling. *hugs*

Here is a list of my selections for the best, worst, most over-rated and most under-rated movies of 2008.  These are movies released in Australia during 2008 that I have seen.  I'm sure there are many films that deserve to be on this list but I can't comment on them because I haven't seen them, such as Australia, Wall-E, Saw V, Max Payne and others.

I'd love to hear other people's best and worst of 2008. It's the time of year for "BEST AND WORST" lists!


BEST
1.  No Country for Old Men
2.  Burn After Reading
3.  Rambo
4.  The Orphanage
5.  The Dark Knight


WORST
1.  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2.  Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
3.  Get Smart
4.  Towel Head
5.  Sex and the City



MOST OVER-RATED
1. Juno
2. Iron Man
3. Eagle Eye
4. Vantage Point
5. Hancock



MOST UNDER-RATED
1. The X-Files: I Want to Believe
2. The Jammed
3. Black Water
4. Untraceable
5. Tropic Thunder



HONOURABLE MENTION
The Quantum of Solace
Not Quite Hollywood
Cloverfield
The Strangers
In the Valley of Elah
Body of Lies

FIRST: To my funny Christmas valentine, rose_janice  I got your card today!!! You really made me smile, honey ILU! You are such a cool chick that I'm proud to have as a friend! 

I was perusing a Richard Dawkins forum a couple of days ago when I came across a thread entitled 'Stop Internet Censorship in Australia!' Thinking 'wtf there's no internet censorship in this country!' I clicked on it skeptically.  What I discovered is a proposed federal law to be introduced next year, being pushed by the Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, that has received absolutely ZERO media coverage and been allowed absolutely ZERO public debate.  This proposed law makes my blood run cold and I am fucking boiling mad about it!  If being both boiling and cold is possible in one very angry body.

Basically, the government wants to introduce mandatory internet filtering in ALL homes in this country, regardless of whether or not there are children living there.  This filter will prevent all 'illegal', 'unwanted' and 'inappropriate' websites from being viewable.  Illegal websites are those that are blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and pertain only to activity that is already a crime, such as child pornography, which we can all agree is abhorrent.  As for material that is 'unwanted' or 'inappropriate', this is of course a completely subjective and nebulous matter, and the decision as to whether a website is 'inappropriate' is made by a select group of people without any transparency or debate.  Furthermore, the filter is likely to slow internet speeds by as much as 80% and is highly unlikely to help curb criminal behaviour in any way.

I am absolutely fucking outraged about this, and I just found out today that the company I work for (a large telecommunications company) is participating in the trial early next year.  I brought it up at work today with our national manager, who had nothing to say except, 'Well, it's a good thing, right? We all want to live in a clean world where we don't have to look at filth'. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

For more info go here: http://www.nocleanfeed.com/

Most Australian capital cities are conducting protests on Saturday 13th December. The one in Melbourne is at midday at the State LIbrary. Here is the info about the others:

http://wiki.efp.org.au/index.php?title=13th_December_2008

Just shows if draconian censorship like this can happen here it can happen anywhere.

I mentioned in a comment to someone today, ewanspotter  I believe, that I've never held a full-time job and base my entire life around not getting up before midday.  The problem is that I do wish I wasn't like that.  I do wish I could be an early bird who gets things done and has that 'busy energy' you see people with, you know, those people who finish work and then...go and do something social or improving...instead of what I did today, which is come home and watch five hours of television I wasn't even committed to (I don't even remember the names of the shows. Oh. One of them was Eli Stone.) The only edifying part was watching Lateline and learning about the government's proposed new national school curriculum and thinking that Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pretty foxy, for a politician. Then I shaved my legs and critically evaluated the size of my bum in the mirror.

The issue is my body clock, I think. I probably have the perfect body clock for, like, Northern Europe.  But here it's all screwed up and I take about two hours to fall asleep so how can I get up early?

I just Googled 'caffeine addiction' because I'm actually getting a bit concerned about my habit. Is my caffeine dependence related to my inability to sleep? I mean, it's only caffeine, right? It's not like I'm mainlining heroin or meth on a daily basis.  Reminds me of the story about Peter O'Toole and how he famously gave up drinking, only to be admitted to hospital two days later with caffeine poisoning.  We all gotta have our vices.

Spoilery for Supernatural 4.09 and 4.10 under the cut:


( The siren song )

As a non-American, the recent US election campaign (recent meaning going-on-for-the-last-two-years) alerted me to a curious piece of confusing cultural disconnect between the American and Australian way of life.  All throughout the campaign, especially on the part of Obama and the Democrats, all I would hear about was hardworking Americans, hardworking families, parents who have worked hard all their lives, hardworking this, hardworking that... Why is this considered such an attribute in the United States? Why is working a fucking hundred hour week considered something to aspire to? Or am I misunderstanding the rhetoric? Perhaps Americans just want acknowledgement and validation that their contribution is appreciated, and that is certainly understandable. In Australia you can work three days a week on minimum wage pulling beers or serving coffee and make enough money to spend the rest of your time surfing (or gardening. or whatever). Isn't having a life that's liveable more important? Isn't it better to notice you're alive? I'm hoping someone American can tell me whether I've misinterpreted what it's like to be a working American. Is it really the Dickensian grind I'm picturing?

This is a special birthday message for gretazreta . I hope you have a wonderful birthday and I hope the fact that it coincides with the New Zealand election is an advantage in some way, rather than a stealing-your-thunder detraction. I've been very lucky over the last twelve months to witness your infectious love of life, enthusiasm for learning, your boundless faith in people, especially your very lucky students, and your incredible talent and intelligence!

Just keep doin' what your doin' baby or keep on truckin' or some other appropriate classic rock metaphor because you are wonderful. xox

* I now more fully understand how the Bela and Ruby lovers last season felt to watch all the hate rain down upon their beloved characters (even though they were wrong, wrong, wrong to love them).  Being the only Supernatural fan on Earth at this moment who dislikes Castiel and his whole tedious arc is lonely.

*This season I've also realized that this show is not just inspired by, but actually lifted wholesale, from Hellblazer.  Hellblazer is a comic book series about a longstanding war between the soldiers of Heaven (or something like it) known as the Resurrection Crusade and the soldiers of Hell, called the Damnation Army. Earth and Humanity are caught in between as their damaged and fragile battleground.  The main character, John Constantine, is a morally compromised anti-hero who mediates between both sides, sometimes for his personal gain, and sometimes for more altruistic purposes. He is infected with demon blood and has special powers as a result. He makes bargains with demons and is saved from Hell because of his specialist abilities and consequent usefulness on Earth. He deals in rare and esoteric books and antiquities and the ghosts of those he failed to save or who died because of him follow him around tormenting his broken soul.

This doesn't make me love the show any less. I think it's kind of cute.

1. I've realized recently that I think Eric Kripke is HOTHOTHOT. Is that wrong? Weird?

2. Just 3 episodes in and I'm SICK TO DEATH of Castiel. Angels are strictly for the housewives and teenagers and a performance consisting of one facial expression, one tone of voice and one costume belongs in 24, not Supernatural. How many more episodes is he going to be in?

3. New!Ruby sucks balls.

4. I still love the show, in spite of.

5. I've had two hours' sleep.

6. I'm suffering from the WORST case of writers block I've ever had. It's killer. Anyone who can offer any cures gets  free love and cupcakes!

This is not really a review.
( Spoilery for Supernatural 4.01 and 4.02 under the cut )

( Spoilery for Supernatural 4.01 under cut )

It should be a special kind of birthday that happens to a hot little pixie called kentawolf who can speak with as much eloquence and erudition about astrophysics and quantum mechanics as she can about comics and video game rendering. There is literally no-one in the universe like you and I just wanted to let you know that I love reading all your posts (and Encyclopedia of Weirdness, of course!) and I'm sending you awesome birthday vibes from down here in Melbourne Australia! *hands you ENORMOUS margarita you could swim in*

XOXOX

I decided to combat my internet-less days at work by downloading audio books onto my ipod and listening to them all day at work, thereby learning something and avoiding boredom-induced dementia. I've started with The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, read by himself (and occasionally his lovely wife) in a gorgeously avuncular upper class British accent. I've resisted this book since its first release due to not really seeing the point of it: To an atheist it is merely preaching to the choir. To a religious person it is dismissed without any real attention, if the book is even opened at all. I'm so glad I overcame this 'what's the point' prejudice because it's a stunning work of genius that I recommend to the non-believer, the resolutely devout and everyone in between. Even if you DO dismiss everything he says, if your faith is strong, then what harm is there in listening to what he has to say, at least? If nothing else, it is a very compelling and well-researched presentation.
            

So hey, anyway, today is the birthday of someone very special:  icymorning I love your insight, your loyalty, your love of life and your strong willed fighting spirit! I hope today is the day the clouds break on the rough couple of months you've been having and the good times and parties begin! Have a wonderful birthday, wherever you are and whatever you're doing! xoxoxox

My work is taking away our internet access *hyperventilates*

I'm going to climb the walls without it! *woe*