My Name is Al

You wake up in a room with no coffee…

This morning I was pulled out of my usual dream consisting of Godzilla and I(a 120 foot tall, space titanium Mexican Luchadore) fighting an unending battle royale against the tag team of almighty Cthulhu and Voltron, by the sounds of a heater being turned on.

After figuring out where I was and why I was suddenly so much smaller and fleshy, I reached for my phone to check the time. 5:00am. I cursed the universe for unleashing such sickening cruelty by mumbling incoherently into my pillow. With my dark work complete, I pulled the covers over my head and attempted a face down sleep via suffocation.

Godzilla tail-swiped Voltron, who fell down in the centre of the ring. He breathed atomic fire at Cthulhu, before jumping out of the ring in a perfect moonsault to further punish the bringer of insanity. I climbed to the top rope, pointing at the downed lion-not. The crowd’s roar continued. I heard thunderous footsteps. The crowd was silenced. I stood, confused, on the turnbuckle. I woke again, more frustrated that the win had been taken from me.
Dad had trundled through the house to turn the heater off.

5:50am. Tremendous. Rather than destroy the old man for attempting to undo someone’s earlier heresies, I turned on the TV and stared blankly at who knows what.

Prime Minister, something about voting. Someone named Julia. Something, something, take over almost complete. Something, something, Death Star.
I turned to Twitter to find out what was happening. It was true. Someone named Julia was indeed ’something something’. I made a few surly, pre-coffee tweets that may not have made much sense.

I made a coffee and played with a spoon. Twitter told me a new PM had been named. It wasn’t long till they would burn the Pope to signal the decision had been made and the new PM would consume the last to complete the ceremony.

A shriek came from the front of the house. Resisting the perfect opportunity for an amazingly relevant Tick impression, I dropped the spoon and moved quickly to the front room.

Mother sat smiling and looking quite embarassed. Possibly an over-reaction to the crowning of our new Overlord? A sentimental cry over the Fallen One’s farewell speech?

‘Sorry, Australia just scored in the soccer’
‘Wasn’t that game on last night?’
‘Yeah… I didn’t watch it, this is the replay’

I turned to get back to my coffee and the remainder of the 8am children’s “educational” programming.

Mum went back to the newspaper, I could see the sports pages from 2 rooms away.

There was a good chance she had already known the result.

Even with all the political drama and activity, the show had been stolen by a heater and a delayed telecast.

This is how my family rolls.

To Do

I just noticed how odd these lists might look to an outsider:

mail postcard
meat for goulash
car insurance
attack of the gargantuas
get biolante
COFFEE
maco book
gow3
new ufc?
ellington tues
senor coffee service
alestorm thur
clf shoes
wed visit
SOCKS FFS
movie
fight saturday
alexander library 10am
lunch/bon scott
PAV FOR PIXIE

Legion – wait for it – dary

A joke so nice I used it twice. On Saturday last week I saw Legion. I had forgotten exactly what the movie was about, so I asked around. The general consensus was ‘angels with machine guns’. At the time, I may have sneered. A friend who had paid a little more attention to the movie sent me a link to the trailer:

I may not be interested in cherubs with M-16s, but I am damn interested in possessed Golden Girls chowing down on yuppie jugular, so off I went.

Unfortunately, what started out to be quite an entertaining movie, fell apart quickly in the second half. The appearance of the first ‘evil angel’, Gramma Biteypants(from trailer), was probably my favourite scene in the movie. It was entertaining and just a little creepy(maybe moreso if you hadn’t seen the trailer). The second angel, Stretch, was introduced slowly and under similarly creepy circumstances. This was going well, the audience was interested and waiting for more. Then angels 3 through 5000 turned up, apparently carpooling and having followed Stretch. The movie had shifted from an atmospheric, Raimi-esque horror to something that resembled a supernatural Zulu. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There were a lot more angels than I expected though. A shambling, shuffling horde of angels. Angels that, even with their righteous fury, bite people and seem to have the survivability of lumbering corpses. Do you see where I’m going with this? Good. I would have loved to see a super Zombie lead the humans in their defence, and it would have made about the same amount of sense. I guess they couldn’t have used the upside down crucifix scene then, as it is common knowledge that God’s messengers prefer to use supposed symbols of religious defiance as they carry out their masters work. Yes, that definitely added to the story, those sick, bastardly angels.

Legion then realised that it’s 1 hour and 45 minute parking ticket was almost up, and started hurtling towards completion. Exposition Angel attempts to justify somewhat ‘odd’ plot choices and reveals conditions previously unbeknownst to us, but beknownst to him. Badass Angel uses his sacred bulletproof wings and mace, forged by the collective minds of MacGyver and Inspector Gadget, in a righteous game of fisticuffs. Things die. No one is surprised.

From it’s humble beginnings in the most inappropriately stocked toy factory on Earth to the predictable ending, Legion was a pretty confusing ride which left us wondering what kind of movie we had actually watched. Was it intentionally funny? Was it attempting to be a stupid action movie? Why were you so good in the beginning scenes? It’s a DVD movie at best, and probably a drunken DVD movie

High on LIFE

J: Hey bro, what’d you think of God of War?
Al: FUCKIN’ brutal man. It’s so chumpy, you can carve it!
J: Hahaha, what?
Al: It’s meaty. Like, a fucking meaty game
J: Ah.. that.. kinda makes sense
Al: Pffft, your mother kinda makes sense
J: What?
Al: You heard me
J: What the fuck? Are you high?
Al: You know I hate that shit. I’m HIGH ON LIFE, my friend!
J: ….
Al: … also I’ve had kinda of a lot of bourbon..
J: Can I have some?
Al: Sure.

Iron Man 2 – Doing all the things an Iron can

Yeah, it was pretty entertaining hey…

Clash of the Jerks – Release the Crappen

Clash of the Titans was a favourite movie of mine when the look of disgust and contempt in my eye was a mere speck of excitement and childish glee. I was not expecting it to be good. I did not want to see it in 3D. I do not really want to see another movie in 3D. I prayed to my gods for strength. The volcano was slaughtered, the zebu was thrown into the virgin. In return, I was granted 1 perfect movie companion and the Leviathan sized popcorn, as it was a mere $2 to upsize from the Titanic-crushing size. With the feast of gods in hand, I prepared to have my inner child’s septum crushed.

Hades
In the 1981 movie, Hades was known as Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film. What kind of epic could possibly inspire generations without having a huge, dark adversary? You’d need to use another non-cliched antagonist. Maybe even a female? Pfft, that wouldn’t work.

Calibos
I would love to bleed scorpions. I would bite my tongue and spit arachnid doom on my inferiors just to spite their fathers. Calibos was not critical to the (new) story and didn’t really seem to fit in at all.

Weapons
A gift from the Gods themselves! A lightsaber handle! Let’s not use it though, I need to be angry. Sparta-angry, not they burnt my coffee angry. This shiny shield will help me defeat Medusa though. What do you mean it’s not shiny? It was shiny for that scene wasn’t it? Pfffft, you weren’t meant to think about what it was like BEFORE! GEEEEZ, movie patron, suspend some more disbelief please, that dude just bled a scorpion at me.

Jinn/Djinn
The presence of Jinn ensured a few of the Giant Scorpions could be rideable, instead of killed as in the original.

Rideable Giant Scorpions
Without these, the character of Jinn wouldn’t make any sense.

Pegasus
“Here is Pegasus, the last of its kind… wait… no, not these 5 winged horses, that black one. Yep… there you go, he likes you instantly. Convenient.”

Hades’ Kraken
Zeus: O SUP HADES, PLZ WELEASE TEH KWAKKEN!
Hades: KK ZOOS, I GETS HEM
Poseidon: The Kraken is my creature… I am the God of the Sea
Zeus: STFU POSYDON, CANT U SEE IMMA DO TEH PLAWTS?
Poseidon: I understand, but, you’re implying it’s a creature of Hades, who resides in the Underworld
Zeus: WATS U POINT AY?
Poseidon: Don’t you think people may notice that a sea-faring titan should be controlled by the God of the Sea as opposed to God of the Underworld?
Zeus: YA I NOE WITE, BUT U DONT WEELY HAF ANY LINES, WE GIF KWAKKEN TO HADES
Poseidon: He doesn’t even have anything to do with this!
Hades: IM JUS HAPPEE TO BE HARE GUYSE
Zeus: HADES, WELEASE YOU KWAKKEN!!!

Awful. Just awful.

Flash of Rage

Horatio Uriel Ramblethorn – Hey bro, just got inked…
Al – Nice, so did my notepad. See? I wrote “you’re a tool”.
HUR – Nah, I mean, I have ink on me now…
Al – Yeah, so does the paper. Also my pen leaked, so my hand has been inked too. Pretty sick, eh broo?
HUR – Nah, like, I have NEW INK!
Al – OHHHH, you mean like my printer?
HUR – FUCK AL, I HAVE A TATTOO NOW!
Al – Yeah…. and it’s shit.

Help me, Calibos, you’re my only hope.

When at the movies the other day, I saw a poster for a Clash of the Titans remake. I will most likely see it, if I can get someone willing to console me, should it devastate my inner child. If my beloved Kraken is reduced to a computer-generated, unobtainium eating, 3D showboat, I will undoubtedly wind up a quivering mess, surrounded by popcorn-infused salt and crying into a $17 Coke Zero.

So, who wants in?

Word Games – Band Camp

Glen:
this one time, on band camp

Al:
yes

Glen:
Banned camp – A Place for Trolls

Al:
Bam camp – we knock it up another notch!

Glen:
Barn Camp – For the Animal Connoisseur

Al:
Spam Camp – For a Budget Getaway

Glen:
Spam Camp – For a Ham of a Time

Al:
Jam Camp – It’s Pretty Sweet!

Glen:
Jim Camp – Not Everybody is a “James”

Al:
hahahaha
Cram Camp – We Always Have Room

Glen:
Scrum Camp – Get Close To Your Fellow Man

Al:
Ram Camp – its not baa-aa-d

Glen:
Tram Camp – We promise your holiday won’t be de-railed.

Al:
Dam Camp – Not-available in wet season

Glen:
Flan Camp – Tart Camp is 2km on the LEFT

Al:
hahahaha
Bran Camp – Not as shitty as you might think

Glen:
Brann Camp – Archaeology Expeditions Daily (Must have Bronze coloured Beareds to Enter)

Al:
Scam Camp – Pay up front

Al:
Wham Camp – Wake us up before you go go
win

Glen:
lol
Camp Camp – Absolutely FABULOUS

Al:
hahahahahaha
okay, thats game

Glen:
zing

Mono means One and Log means Log

I attended a small meetup of writers yesterday. I would not consider myself a writer and I would never really recommend anyone reads anything I do manage to vomit forth into ‘teh internest’. Nonetheless, I do enjoy the company and I had a hankering for 2 Flat Whites and a brownie. After a few hours of chatter and scrawling random notes that may or may not make any sense to me later on, I’d realised I’d essentially done nothing. I decided to write an interior monologue for, well… 5 minutes? 3 minutes? 1 ambient flamenco solo? Whatever it was, I started writing. Unfortunately, writing this way always reminds me of how little focus and attention I have at times. Fortunately, it makes me smirk at myself. Without any further dudes, here it is:

Man, this guy is really good at guitar.
I should play more, but I cant be fucked.
Shit, I’ve torn up my fingers anyway so how am I meant to hold a pick? Maybe it’ll be okay, its just the side of the fingers.
Fuck, he’s really, really good. He looks like he’s not paying attention.
He has that Zoolander hair. It’s so hot right now.

I wonder cow I can conciously break topic mid monologue. Is conciously even the right word? I have a feeling its not. Hey, how bout that, see what I did there? Considering the amount of people I can see, it seems really loud here. Maybe its just the 2 girls gossiping behind me. Its like, really like, important and stuff. There is also a kid in the opening of the laneway yelling. What the fuck, its not even consistent, its like an annoying vocal drive by.

Ah nuts, the guitar guy has left and music is on. Killing Me Softly by the Fugees. As opposed to Killing Me Loudly by the Roofies. Nice song but I don’t like that line. If looks could kill, if songs could maim, softly. This must be why I’m not a moderately successful musician, or hitman. The volume of my killing may be too inconsistent and inappropriate for it to be a viable profession.

Speaking of inconsistencies and… what’s an intelligent sounding word for loud? Go, go Gadget Thesaurus!!! Fuck, that would have been cool! How’s the exclamation marks?!?! Actually, where was I going… oh yeah, Gozdilla movies. Remind me to look for some in JB in 20 mins or so. Actually, even if you wanted to, it wouldn’t help. Check this out “make me a sammich”… nothing. “Simon says: make me a sammich”, see, at least one of you would have I reckon. Ah time, you make fools of us all you horse-riding, apocalyptic bastich. God, what the fuck music is this now? Some…. shit… Michael Jackson sounding… actually, is it him? I’m not really that familiar with his work and what I do know I don’t really like. True story.

I never did make it to JB…