Personal Experiences 1

As some of you may be aware, over the end-(and start)-of year holidays I have been working once more at Education World; a company that deals with primary and secondary school supplies. Today's blog describes a small portion of my last day working at Education World as I feel it is interesting enough to recount.

At our shop in Willetton the workload grew thin that morning, so around about 12 o'clock the store manager asked me to run a few errands: a few pick-ups and deliveries starting near the Fremantle end of Stirling Highway and ending close to the City's end. I obviously agreed to perform this task so I set off down Leach Highway in our loaded-up white van heading towards Fremantle.

The first few things on my itinerary passed without incident as I travelled, listening to a surprisingly good selection of music without having to change radio station. Then I had come to my third (out of four) designated institution; a school named St Hilda's Anglican School where I was to deliver only a single envelope.

I was unfamiliar with that school as I had never been there before so I kept an eye out for the general office. I passed an oval where a group of students were doing a sport of some kind though I paid it no attention; I was busy driving slow enough to look around for my intended destination. I reached a carpark and so - as the name suggests - I parked my car (or van). However I realised that this was not where I wanted to be, the reserved parking spaces and sign saying "Boarding" something-or-other being an indication of this. As I was at the far end of the school campus I returned back the way I came, hoping to try along the side I had not checked. I passed the oval again which was situated on the corner of the block and turned north. I skimmed the side of the school until I found a building entitled "The Shop". As I had an envelope containing pacers to be delivered here I had a fair shot of being on the right track in a shop. However I was turned away - evidently the package was for the English department - and so I was given directions to get there on foot from the carpark I was previously in. I passed the oval a third time, seeing that the figures on the oval had ceased their sports and retreated to the far side of the oval. As I entered the carpark and parked a thought occurred to me. I checked the invoice of the package I was delivering and discovered what I thought I would, and suddenly I realised what I had inadvertently done. St Hilda's was an Anglican school for girls, and I had just spent the last while slowly driving around an oval full of young girls doing sport in a seedy looking white van.

There was no time to go back and explain to the girls taking shelter on the far side of the oval (for whatever reason - it needn't have been me) that I wasn't a kidnapper or anything, so I pressed forward with my task: to find the teacher in the English department whose name I had on a piece of paper. The directions I had been told soon appeared to be incorrectly-given and so I searched hurriedly for the department in the midst of a sea of buildings without signs (clearly not a haven for those unfamiliar to this place) worried about looking suspect: I was walking around alone in an all-girls school with only a single envelope with a few pacers in it to back up my story of being on a delivery and not being there for ill purposes. I asked the gardener where I should go to find either the office or English department as he was the sole person in sight, and he pointed me in a direction after admitting he didn't really know where much was. I shook off the idea that perhaps it was he that was the kind of person I was afraid of looking like and headed off in the direction he had showed me. I walked through a set of doors I thought would take me into some sort of hallway leading to the English department but immediately realised I was standing in the middle of someone's office, and that the occupant was looking up from her desk and staring at me. After apologising and getting new directions I walked out and through the door the lady had pointed at - the exact door - shut it behind me and froze. I had just entered a hall full of students - females obviously - that were in the middle of some sort of stretch or yoga routine. And unfortunately for me this was no large hall - it was quite a small room - and so I stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of a bunch of not sore, young lady-thumbs - pinkies if you will. After my initial shock I went quickly across the room, looking for the exit only to find that all three doors on the opposite side of the hall were locked, so tail between my legs and head bowed down I walked back across the room mumbling sorry to whoever looked up at me again and exited via the very same door I came in though.

Needless to say, I didn't enter another door until I knew for sure what was in it - not just blindly trusting second hand information. I reached the general office desk and jumped at the offer made by the secretary to leave the package there so that the English teacher could pick it up later. I hope you've all learned from my journey that no matter who you are, it is never safe to provoke a bear unless you're a Great White Shark in your natural habitat.

Dave Hughes is Handy

One of Australia's greatest and most iconic comedians came to Perth for two nights and three shows at the Regal Theatre (his last show here is tonight (Saturday - don't mind this blog's publish date)), and I was lucky enough to go to the second show, along with Ronelia and Andrew.

Needless to say, it was a terrific experience, side-splittingly funny from first second to last. Dave Hughes displayed his unique brand of good ol' Aussie comedy, with his distinctive drawling voice and vast range of comedy topics ranging from current world events (eg. the economic crisis), through to personal anecdotes and on to widely relatable stories and ideas.

It was a fantastic night and I very much enjoyed it; the show not even being spoiled by the drunk asinine moron that shouted out incoherent babblings countless times while Hughes was trying to speak, each instance of which Hughes dealt with amusingly. Dave Hughes remains a great Australian comedian and earns 10 The Glass House episodes out of 10 for his performance and his comedy career thus far.

Hellboy 2 Review

Upon seeing the trailer for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army I thought: 'That looks really good, but it looks like a better movie than the first movie did from its trailer.' I had not seen the first Hellboy movie upon viewing the second; deciding that if I wanted more after watching The Golden Army, I could still watch the first movie. I can now say with confidence that the second movie cannot have been better than the first, despite still not having seen the first, simply for the fact that the second was so abysmal that if it had been an improvement over the first, the movies would have been forcibly stopped there with no chance for any sequels.

I was quite disappointed with the movie as (I thought) the trailer made it look so good. The plot (no spoilers) involves the prince of a forgotten elven race coming back to piece together a magic crowd so that they can command the Golden Army to destroy the human race. The main protagonists who aim to stop this plot include Hellboy, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and I'm going to throw in the name of Johann Krauss for reasons mentioned below.

In the film, Hellboy (despite 57% of his name) displays absolutely no abilities that you would attribute to someone with 'hell' being in their name: no fire manipulation, no summoning demons to do his bidding, nothing. Though I mustn't complain as this is true of the original comic Hellboy also. Instead I will only take issue with the fact that despite his other verified abilities (see the wiki page on him but they include invulnerability and accelerated healing factor) all he does in the movie is provide a battering ram that will run into or shoot any obstacle he is faced with, leaving us with no doubt that he retains his superhuman strength from the comics but uncertainty as to the rest of his alleged abilities, not to mention the fact that it gets kind of old.

Liz Sherman is the resident pyrokinetic of the group (the B.P.R.D). Does this mean that we'll see a bunch of cool flamethrowing sequences? The answer is no. Liz uses her fire manipulation abilities so scarcely that, if the aforementioned events were counted up through the movie's entirety, it would equal the number of minutes in the movie (out of 120) that did not contain a gaping plot hole. Her relationship with Hellboy through the whole movie is a display of how movie makers deal with the romantic relationships they introduce (not consistent with the comics of course) in first movies to make sure that every movie has a love story (I'm still fuming about Get Smart the movie!). The love story is all of: drawn out, pointless and relentlessly boring - a thorn in the sides of viewers watching an already thorny movie.

Abe Sapien is essentially a frog-man; living underwater and only able to walk on land with a breathing apparatus resembling a toilet-seat. Curiously enough, the breathing apparatus begins to disappear throughout the movie, as Sapien is freely walking around their base with no such aid. Are we to believe that he can hold his breath for a very long time? Should we suppose that there is some difference between needing a breathing apparatus in some places but not in others? The answer is that we do neither and simply add it to the already lengthy plot holes list, along with the elf prince not taking the last piece of the crowd despite the fact that it is right in front of him - he obviously thinks it's a better idea to watch the giant shrub-man he released as a distraction die; this seems a bit pointless and ironic to me.

Lastly, Johann Krauss (spelt Kraus in the comics) is a gas-man (I hope you're starting to see a pattern here: fire-woman, aqua-man, giant shrub-man, gas-man - it seems as if alot of the ideas stem from mixing an element (the old concept of elements) with a person and seeing what comes out) that can take control of essentially anything he desires, though we see as much use of this ability in the movie as Liz's pyrokinesis. The sole reason that I mention him is that his voice is provided by Seth MacFarlane, whom I am a fan of.

In summary, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was a thoroughly disappointing movie. The only good thing about it was the very creative and good looking creatures provided by (I think) Guillermo del Toro - seen also in Pan's Labyrinth and Blade II. The plot (including the holes and the awful ending) could make you cry and the relationship stuff even more so (and not in a good way) and as such, Hellboy 2 receives a 1 The Marine DVD out of 10, with the awesome creatures receiving 10 Reapers (from Blade II) out of 10. It is a worrying concept that there will be a Hellboy 3 made.

Essential Software 1

A great deal of my time is spent in front of one or more computers for many purposes. These include, but are not limited to, uni work, creativity, internet browsing, time wasting and video games (which I stress does not fall into the category of time wasting for the reason that should an invasion of aliens with ice-based weapons befall the Earth, I will be prepared - given that I am equipped with a Nanosuit). Anyway, in keeping with a nickname given to me by a fellow university student ('The Computer Man') I thought I would write a short summary of a few programs running on my computer that have either made my computing much easier or provide an irreplaceable service to it. I hope this list helps whomever may read it looking for help.

First of all, the program that I use most often and would never be able to live without: Launchy. With a click of Alt+Tab a small box pops up, allowing for a text search of selectively indexed files and services. It is the single most used and (in my opinion) best piece of software on my computer(s) and allows me to open up everything else that I would ever need.

I will include my operating system of choice in this brief summary: Windows XP. I have used Vista on a few computers and have found it to be a slow-running, resource-hogging, stupidly-set-out piece of garbage of an OS and would only just rather use it than no computer at all. Windows 7, I hear, will do a good job at ridding us of (and making us forget) the mistake that is Windows Vista.

Internet browsers obviously are a must have (at least for those with an internet connection). I use Firefox primarily because of its customisability and relative speed, Chrome for quick things I need to do, Opera for solving the p4x riddle and IE7 because Windows Update requires it.

My firewall (Comodo Firewall) not only is light on resources and is free but it is very effective and a top-notch security application. With its Defense+ setting off (alerts you to inter-system offline changes, etc) it provides the perfect balance between reliability, flexibility and speed.

I will wrap-up this 5 point list with the last piece of software I will mention this time around: Auslogics Disk Defrag. Auslogics is a brilliant company that produces outstanding software, a lot of it being free too! They also make a free system information tool and a free registry defrag, however my focus is on the disk defrag. Fast, efficient and effective, this program is a perfect replacement for the default Windows Disk Defragmenter.

30 Rock Season 1 Review

I was recently introduced to 30 Rock by a friend of mine, and was pleasantly surprised by this - until now - undiscovered (by me) comedy show.

The show (at least insofar as I have watched) centres on the writers and actors of a comedy show for NBC as they hire a new actor slash former movie star to re-energise their show as demanded by their new boss, played (well) by Alec Baldwin. 30 Rock features many familiar faces such as Tina Fey, the aforementioned Alec Baldwin, Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski, Scott Adsit and a very familiar looking lady whose name I do not know at the moment, all of whom I have seen before but cannot recall from what without imdb; with the exceptions of Jack McBrayer from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Alec Baldwin from Friends.

I half expected the comedy, whilst obviously being funny as the show is still on television, to nonetheless be quite similar to other comedies I have seen that appear similar at first glance. I was fortunately mistaken on the half that I half expected, as the unconventional (at least to me) humour provided by 30 Rock was both successful in its delivery and unique in its conception.

I have watched half of the first season so far and am simultaneously very glad I was introduced to this television show and slightly shocked that I have never seen it before now, as it began airing in October 2006. I am currently 2:33 into an episode featuring Wayne Brady from Whose Line is it Anyway? for those Foxtel-watchers and episode-downloaders and Don't Forget the Lyrics for those of you that watch regular TV, and thus I have a good feeling about the remainder of the epsiode, entitled The Source Awards.

I wish to thank Nicole for presenting the show to me, thank Tina Fey for writing (and starring in) it (and for turning up in funny things I watch every now and again) and thank you for reading. 30 Rock receives 10 Scrubs out of 10 for its good humour and original concepts.