Saturday, May 29, 2010

the big day arrives

The time has come; the bags are packed; the flat's in lock-down mode; everything's ready to go... just counting down 'til it's time to go to the airport - London, here I come! :-)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

DC Comics 75th anniversary at Fed Square

This will be a sight worth seeing on Saturday! DC Comics' 75th anniversary comes to Fed Square. Gotta beat those poms!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

20 left

Can't believe how fast the time has passed... 20 days 'til I head off to London! I'm already stressing about what I've forgotten to do. Is it too soon to pack yet? :-)

Monday, May 3, 2010

twilight zone

"New freeway is top priority: state". WTF?

Did I wake up in some sort of alternate reality where Victoria has a great public transport system, lots of trains (that work), trams that aren't overcrowded, safe bike lanes and plenty of options for citizens in all areas to leave their cars at home?

A reality where petrol is cheap and non-polluting, and it's safe to encourage people to drive their cars everywhere??

Or is just that the Victorian government is so deeply in the pockets of the big petrol companies and roads lobby that it can no longer even pretend to give any precedence to decent public transport?

I'm so disgusted by this headline that I will never again vote for this government. Clearly, they are completely corrupt and out-of-touch with the real world. They can keep their Twilight Zone; I'm looking for someone to vote for in the real world!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

stark contrast

Couldn't wait to get to the cinema to see Iron Man 2 this week. Ok, I knew it wouldn't be, like, Oscar material or anything, but I'd mostly enjoyed the original, and I expected that this would be good too, and besides, there's been *nothing* of interest to me out of Hollywood in more weeks than I can recall.

I settled on the 11am session at the George. It was a mad rush to get there, 'coz I'm not the earliest riser on a Sunday, but we made it just in time. It was worth the effort, because, aside from the 3 of us, there were only about 4 or 5 other people in a huge cinema, so it was a very comfortable experience, and *much* better then slumming it at the over-crowded Jam Factory.

The movie itself was a delight! Robert Downey Jr brings a light-hearted touch that absolutely makes these movies, and makes them stand out from many of the other comic-based films of the past decade or so. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau nicely reprise their roles as Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan respectively. Don Cheadle makes a fine replacement as War Machine, Mickey Rourke is excellent as Whiplash, and then there's one of my favourite modern film stars, Scarlett Johansson, as the Black Widow. Truthfully, she's the only let-down in the cast; not through any fault of hers, but because she doesn't get anywhere near enough to contribute in any meaningful way to the story. I know that she isn't meant to be the star attraction of the film, but I would have liked to have seen her role expanded considerably.

The plot is pretty basic, the action hard and loud (like the soundtrack music by AC/DC!). The battle at the Monaco Grand Prix was fun, as was the climactic fight at the Stark Expo. I enjoyed this film more than the first one, largely because they left out the politics this time - no Muslim terror groups threatening American interests this time around, just good old-fashioned bad guys causing trouble to Tony and the gang. Good stuff! I'd give this film 4 stars, for pure entertainment value.

the mad monk steals our democracy

I seem to recall that at the last Federal election, we voted in a Labor government to run the country for the next term. And yet it seems that, every time that government announces a new initiative, it's immediately followed by a news bite of the mad monk, Tony Abbott announcing that it's all really just another new tax, and that he doesn't support it, so he'll block it in the Senate.

Since when does the Senate run the government? Does Abbott not understand that we voted for the other guy to make the decisions? Why has he decided to hijack the country and rule it from the Senate, instead of letting the government do the job that we voted them in to do?

I'm tired of his arrogant negativity; it's time he showed some real leadership and thought about what might be good for the country, instead of what might help his own political stocks. He's the absolute worst kind of politician imaginable - the rat who undermines the interests of his country in order to further his own personal ambitions.

In the meantime, we all suffer as he and his cohorts pervert the democratic system for their own benefit.