Kicking and Screaming.

I felt the lil’ tine-eh bear-bee kickin’ for the first time the other day! Profound life moment and all that. Kate’s been feeling the kicks for some time now, but it takes a while before you can feel them on the surface of the skin. I’m sure I’m not the first father to recall the Chest Burster from Alien in response, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. Nice.


I’m pretty sure it’s not a Chest Burster though. It’s not in Kate’s chest for a start. And it was too soft and gentle a push to be coming from some amoral killing machine trying to force its way out. It felt more like a kitten pushing a paw into your palm, and now that’s an image from the other end of the scale. It could be a new sort of Burster, I guess, that’s more like a kitten; a kitten alien! Cool. That’s something I’d like to see. It always disappointed me that the alien in Alien 3 came from a dog. Not that I want to see a cat burst apart, but I would like to see the alien that came from a feline host, it’d be all...

Anyway, I’m not sure how I went from the miracle of life to Alien 3, but there you go. Let’s assume it’s not any sort of Chest Burster, as I’m pretty sure something would have shown up on the ultrasound. It’s not even going to be one like the character in Spaceballs, who’s more concerned with vaudeville song and dance routines than the survival of the species. It’s just going to be a totally normal human child that’s currently doing the totally normal set of womb-bound gymnastics and strenuous karate routines. Now that’s reassuring.

15 minutes of South Park.

Look, it's me on South Park. Wheee. Fun.

Make your own with the South Park Studio, then take a screen shot and email it to me so I can start a collection here!

First up, here's William.



Here's Nee Hancock.



And Jay as well. Hilarious. That is so bang on.



Here's Kate, at home with a cuppa.



Davidic, complete with a touch of Supes.



And Blythe, with her camera and its redundant flash! Nice.



CK, fighting poverty.



And, oh my gosh, JJ, this is so close it's incredible. Gold!



Here's Davet after a night of gaming, his Networking Bag of Joy in hand to solve all our networking problems.



And here's Lisa, all the way from Bangladesh, enjoying a balmy summer’s night!



And Adrian too, with his satchel (or "man bag", as some would unkindly call it).



Here's Ahab, appropriately kitted out exclusively with Sony and Star Wars merchandise.



And if there's anyone who could get away with using this smile, it's Bomber.



Of course, I need to mark the arrival of Winter.

"Alpha", aged 19 weeks.

Well, we had our second ultrasound on Friday and the verdict was "all good". The ultrasound person described herself as being "very happy with baby's progress". We got the VHS recording and can report that it's as exciting as most ultrasounds. We chucked it in the VCR when we got home and I got up five minutes in to go and fix myself another drink. No, only joking, it's the Miracle of Life and all that, although it's not a very clearly defined miracle of life. Resolution still leaves a lot to be desired, and I can't believe they're not recording to DVD yet! What is this? The 20th century? In years to come Alpha will be asking what this black rectangular box thing hidden away in the back of some cupboard is. No, probably not, actually. I'm sure we will have digitised it by then and ditched the tape into the abyss. But will we be watching the digital version on DVD-HD or Blu-ray?! Ha, ha; that's the question that... probably very few people reading this... are asking, at the moment...

Anyway, the image above is the print-out they gave us. In case you can't tell what's what, they also gave us this enhanced version that should make things more clear.


So 19 weeks down, and what seems like a lifetime to go...

The world isn't worse...

"The world isn't worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better."

I was tramming into work last week, reading my book, heading up Swanston Street towards Melbourne Uni. As we stopped at Melbourne Central, a woman walked up to the driver and said something that I couldn't make out. The driver stood up and looked towards the back of the tram, a concerned look on his face. He opened his... what is it? Cockpit? Driver's booth? He opened the door to his operating compartment and walked briskly to the back of the tram. I rubbernecked down the aisle and saw him pull a Puma sports bag out from under the seat. He unzipped it.

He smiled, stood up and carried it back to his booth.

It took me a a few seconds to realise what I'd actually thought as he unzipped the bag. I'd thought, "This is it". It was all over in a flash, but thinking back I'd actually felt my pulse quicken and my chest tighten. I'm sure if you slowed my mind down to frames you'd see images of all those Israeli buses, Baghdad markets, etc, flicker past, but all I got was a beat and then this faint feeling that a second ago everything could have changed.

I've always felt like Australia is an unlikely terrorist target. Mainland Australia, I mean. And then, somewhat coldly, that if it ever was it'd be Sydney before Melbourne. Not really something I need to worry about. Worry about in the sense that I don't need to think about my tram suddenly exploding. Now I'm not so sure. With everything going on at the moment, everything you hear on news, things seem to be escalating. Getting worse. The unbelievable seems to be happening more and more.

I'm not going to change my way of life or my way of thinking in response. I'm not going to avoid the city, or large public events, or expect every second tram to explode, but I'm no longer as sure of my little impervious bubble called Melbourne any more.

Doomed.

Went and saw Doom last night. As expected, it was pretty much entirely awful, but it did have a thematically-consistent film studio title-card at the beginning, which is something I always enjoy. In this instance it was the standard Universal animation, with their name revolving from right to left around the Earth, except this time the Earth was Mars. Once the ‘Universal’ stopped, the point-of-view zoomed down to the planet’s surface, and the film proper began.

I love it when big companies, who are usually so protective of their identity, allow their logo to be played around with. The first example I can think of (although it’s not actually the same, but close enough) was from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The graphic, blue and white Paramount logo (from the Olde Days, before animated studio logos), cross-fades into an actual mountain, and as the camera pans down we see Indy hiking through the jungle towards it. Nice little way to work your symbol into the movie.

Other ones like Doom that I can think of off the top of my head are Waterworld, where the oceans of the Universal globe rise up to flood the land; The Matrix, where the Warner Bros logo is rendered in the green of a monochrome computer terminal; and Batman Returns, where the Warner Bros logo is covered in snow and ice.

I also seem to recall Independence Day having a shadow crossing over the 20th Century Fox logo, Ocean’s 11 having the Warner Bros logo rendered in flat colours, and The Day After Tomorrow having a storm or something going on. But I’d need to check to be sure.

I wonder what the connection between these films is? Why do some get this treatment and not others? Do studios try for it every time, or only with certain sorts of films. Ocean’s 11 was highly stylised, so I guess it makes sense to follow through where possible. Most of the others I can recall are sci-fi, so maybe that’s clue, although I’m not sure to what.

Anyway, except for the FPS sequence (complete with exploding barrels), and the Universal opening title card, the film was a great disappointment. Even as a must-have-low-expectations, mindless, disposable nothingness it was disappointing. Oh well, maybe things will improve in the inevitable sequel…