hp-verse

which is kind of unavoidable when you spend any amount of time on the net nowadays.
i saw some pics of the weasley twins in GOF and oh dear, their hair is longer than mine is.
but something really funny i saw was that the weasley's ford anglia from whichever movie it was got stolen. apparently it doesnt actually work - its just a prop, so someone had to have towed it away. one to look out for on ebay i guess.

newfangled technology

apparently, the government wants to introduce some kind of watchlist that people can sign on to to stop telemarketers from calling them at ungodly hours.
the woman they got on to talk about it on sunrise (yeah. my family watches it, so...) said something about it being monitored by extremely complex computer systems. um.. i dont know if that was meant to reassure people or make them decide its not worth spending our moneys on.
tech is getting ridiculous at the moment though. i was watching something on telly about mr gates expanding microsoft into home entertainment. but one of the guys on the program said that it probably wouldnt happen for a while because people are used to tv sets that turn on and off and change channel. no one has ever heard of a tv or vcr 'crashing' in the middle of you watching something, and no matter how possibly 'cool' microsoft can come up with a home entertainment set that can play, record, wash dishes and give massages, they have a reputation for falling to bits at the worst times.
i dont know if that guy was right. he has a more than valid point, but people nowadays are willing to put up with anything and everything, as long as they have the coolest and newest 'stuff' to fidget with in front of everyone else.
speaking of which, my sis finally got a new phone. her friends pooled their money and bought an lg flippy thingy with a camera. which is all pretty cool really. and if youre wondering why im happy that she got a new phone, well let me just tell you, you have no idea how bad the whinging and going on-and-on-and-on-and-on can get. one of my aunts from malyasia (dont ask the relation, its beyond my memory capacity) came over last night and halfway through joho's speech on something or another, she turned to us with her mouth hanging a bit and said, 'wow. she talks erm very fast'. which is so distressingly true.
but anyhoo. our computers are being blah so i cant do anything much on the net till next month. tomorrow. oh wells.

btw, the extension test was bor-ing. the questions were just a bit predictable (after all mr mo's exhorting that the board was almost definitely gonna do something out of the ordinary this year), and the stimulus picture was a bit ghei. but its over now, so whatever.

mels.

vocab test!

which will always remind me of latin. ah. those were the days. sitting on that table by myself and drawing pictures of grecian urns when i was meant to be learning my tenses and subjugations.

last night mr tony jones was having a noice little chat with mr ruddock, who is the proud owner of whatever-in-the-hell portfolio he is in charge of now. i like those interviews, and ruddock is always more interesting to watch than someone like, say, mr costello (who owns ONE facial expression). the interview was fun, i could see mr jones having fun, but there were a couple of phrases that ruddock referred to that scared the living daylights out of me. one was 'control order', which im sure everyone will be hearing about soon (ie. putting someone under surveillance, and i think possible detention without charge), and 'preventative detention' which i just think sums up the current thinking at the moment. all this 'innocent until proven guilty' dren has been effectively chucked out of the window.
another one that i thought was pretty cool is that we have a 'telecommunications interception legislation'. cool.
but anyways. the second mr jones started saying something about the 5 yr jail term for anyone who told anyone that they were under control orders (even family) mr ruddock said this:

" The carrying out of terrorist acts is a very serious matter in which people's lives are at risk and exposed. And we've seen it abroad, we've seen Australians tragically lose their lives. If people are likely to compromise efforts to thwart such acts, you're dealing with a very serious matter. I wouldn't underestimate or play down the seriousness of those matters at all, Tony. I think the provision of information when you are dealing with a terrorist act that has occurred, or is about to occur, ought to be seen as a very, very difficult issue but one which the penalties have to be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence. "

and started pushing hypotheticals. but what if they got it wrong? they have before, and with ruddock in charge of the place after all that stuff about immigration deportees, id say theres a pretty damn big chance theyll get it wrong, and pretty soon. say youve been wrongfully detained. youre not allowed to see the evidence against you, youre being held without charge, and youre not allowed to tell anyone where you are so they can help you out. 'yeah sorry mum, im stuck in a queue at the centrelink office' and other such excuses for two whole weeks. now i dont know what the gov thinks about the people they govern, but we're not that stupid. someone is going to notice if their husband doesnt come home for a fortnight.

im not bloody scared of 'terrorists'. i mean, i dont really think suburban sydney is anywhere near the top of their 'places to attack in the name of jihad' list, but i could be wrong. i think theres more chance of me being affected by these anti-civil libertarian legislations than being caught up in a car bomb at westfield.

wakes.

jumping on the bandwagon

oh the hypocrisy of it. well, yes. i know i tend to go on and on about the world and the media and how its annoying that ppl think theyre cool when theyre not. so here is my disclaimer. i know its sad, lame, late whatever. i make no attempts at trying to be 'hip' (can you tell), but this is stuff that i find interesting, and maybe you wanna read too.
so heres a nice little comparison to add new perspective to your day:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
wherein someones (dunno who) try to put together a number that no one wants to talk about. i like the quote at the bottom "change the channel". i kinda sums it all up at the moment. although, you dont really have to change the channel, cos the networks have decided not to play that kind of thing anyway (and from a marketing point of view, this makes absolute sense)

and here:
http://icasualties.org/oif/
even though theyre always telling us about the poor sods who died everyday, bravely sallying forth on dubya's personal crusade for ... actually i dont think anyone knows what for anymore. you never hear that number, 2002. hits a little too close, maybe.
hmmm. no reference to australia at all (although bulgaria is in the other list). i agree with wil anderson.
"its wednesday night, the national day of austria. president bush sent john howard some flowers".
do they even know where this country is?

and i read somewhere that some hairdresser is giving the 'condi flip' as a special. caz, i reckon your mum would love it. =P

wakes.

zombie food!

oh. now this is amusing as all hell:
http://www.brains4zombies.com/

" The precentral gyrus, located rostral to the central sulcus, constitutes the primary motor region of the brain, which, as we all know, makes for a great party dip when blended with a superior parietal lobule. "

but of course it does. i have the exact recipe right here. you add some superior parietal lobule, and some avocado. delicious.

actually, the chat section over there reminds me a lot of bec. i think ive found your true brethren, bec. no wonder she always freaked me out.

yeah thats all for now folks. but theres new songs up at 3pod.com.au which is always interesting.

wakes

on the grapevine

several things grow on my grapevine. one of which is an lj, by the same name. but its boring at the moment so ignore it.

Now this is quite amusing:

"The Office of the Attorney-General has contacted the Labor Party to inform the Opposition that the (anti-terrorism) bill would be introduced on Tuesday (Melbourne Cup day) and the Government would force debate on the same day.
Labor says Parliament will be given no opportunity to analyse the legislation before voting on the bills."

and its funny for several reasons. Theres the fact that the government are even trying to pull this kind of stunt in front of everyone; that the labour party are claiming Cup day is some kind of national celebration in the style of Christmas; and the overwhelming fact that it doesnt even matter. Whether or not Labor gets to look at the bill has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. They dont have a majority anywhere and the gov can basically do what it wants to to. In a real 'democracy' bills and prospective legislation have to be debated for ages before they get passed, so that any flaws or anything at all can be cleared up. We've only known about this for something like a few weeks, and the gov wants it in by next week. i dont want to be annoying or repetitive, but i feel like pulling out that pic of ian mcdiarmid as emperor palpatine as he takes conrtol of the galactic senate. ahh. metaphors.

and hughesy pointed out something disturbing last night. with all the new anti-sedition laws and media restrictions, will shows like 'glass house' and some of the more debatable sbs shows even be able to stick around? the amount of anti-government talk on those programs has always been more than the gov has wanted to put up with. it should be hi-larious, but with these new laws the gov is trying to get (and most probably will get, seeing as how the opposition seems to just be waving their arms around ineffectually), its actually a little scary.

in other, non-vicarious, news, i just finished my 3U maths exam. i think the acceptable parlance is: w00t! it was pretty hard at the end, but since ive always treated 3U as my baggage unit, i didnt really give a damn. apparently, zinger has now hereby finished her hsc. so while all of us poindexters are sitting, re-reading our notes till our eyes water in agony, she will be prancing around her house and playing the latest sims2 expansion pack. life 'sux'.
oh, and by the way, i managed to get myself quite sick yesterday, so i spent about 20 minutes in the 120 min exam blowing my *flipping* nose. apologies to anyone who was distracted by my extremely loud and painful-sounding sneezing. i hope i didnt lose you too many marks. although im sure i chucked about 10 of mine down the toilet automatically, by not attempting them at all.

and what, may i ask, is going on with the media and this new bird flu pandemic that we're all sposed to have died of a few days ago? i flip channels a coupla times and from what i can gather, that 'tamiflu' stuff doesnt work; wild birds have been banned (however-in-the-hell they did that); 'tamiflu' does work but roche is unwilling to give the research to anyone else without payment of a huge licensing fee; the usa has been producing a sum total of zero vaccines to today; and, oh yeah, we're ALL GOING TO DIE from the same kind of mutant virus (which, by the way, doesnt actually exist as of yet) that wiped out half of the world in 1918.
now, im not a pathogen/virus expert here (and neither are the media, incidentally), but isnt the media getting a little carried away? i mean really. if the definition of a terrorist is one who creates terror, then i would have to nominate the commercial media as key suspects. besides telling all the third world nations that they are not allowed to manufacture the vaccine because they can't afford the research, that may or may not work, all the media has achieved is getting people all over the world to run around like headless chickens.

wakes

word of the week, etc.

im a bit obsessed with the word 'gratuitous'.
gratuitous (according to google, who never lie):
without cause; "a gratuitous insult"
complimentary: costing nothing; "complimentary tickets"; "free admission"
unnecessary and unwarranted; "a strikers' tent camp...was burned with needless loss of life"
i much prefer my dad's old australian heinemann dictionary (1976 edition for those playing at home), that he stole from his melbourne highschool and passed on to me. where other normal people pass on jewellery or long strips of red cloth, my family's heirloom is a stolen dictionary. sigh.

speaking of family and stuff like that, i just wanna ask you peoples at the board of studies one thing. i wouldnt make you sit for an hsc exam (the exam that defines the rest of your life, if you have asian parents) on christmas or easter. its damn annoying that i have to do my 3 hour modern exam on the very day of eid. speaking of which, so you know how many days ive skipped fasting cos my mum wouldnt let me on the days of my exams? really, its the studying that you need the food for, not the actual writing in the hall. geez.

now lets see. what tv did i watch last night, while trying to escape from studying...?
oh yeah, the finale of csi:ny. right now let me say this first. i like the original series quite a lot. i liked grissom the nerd and the rest of the socially dysfunctional lot of them. oh - and greg. who apparently is some kind of sucessful entrepreneur in the 'real world'.
but when miami came out i wanted to gag. its just so...bad. and cliched and horrible. horatio is some kind of uber-cool criminal genius and the master of all TV forensic psychology (which is not true, because that title belongs to a dr tony hill), that woman with the blonde hair she never ties up is whiny and the rest of them look like they should be running down a beach in their underthings in slo-mo.
now my first impressions of ny were pretty dodgy. the whole 'mac taylors wife died in sept 11' is a bit of stretch (no offence, but to someone who comes from sydney, it seems a little implausible). but the show has grown on me. hill harper is especially cool, like a much more 'real' version of the crazy m.e. woman in miami (and not just cos theyre both black). the woman who plays stella is quite good, and i like danny and aiden as well. not to mention that those accents really rock my socks, although sometimes it feels like they get carried away.
mac makes mistakes, stella doesnt know everything (although that ep where she got a little clucky freaked me out), and danny and aiden bicker much more than their perfect-looking counterparts on miami or even the original show ever did. the greg substitute on the show has so much opportunity to be really funny and/or snarky, but the writers havent deigned to notice him that much yet, which is the one of the things that i reckon they could do next year.
anywhos. i like ny, and at the moment i reckon i like it more than csi:lv (although that may partly be because of the way the nine network have decided to make sunday night their csi new eps night). im gonna go into withdrawal without it. i wonder what theyre gonna put on instead.

channel 9 by the way, is pissing me off because of their funky new '50 years of oztv' promos. they put all the shows they ever owned the rights to into the 5 minute ad, but where are the shows they commissioned? alright ill just come out and say it: where is farscape? the show is probably the only one that is recognised outside of this country that was made by the network, its won international awards and nominations, and the directors, writers and producers of the thing now represent a very large slice of the australian scene at the moment. rowan woods 'little fish' with cate blanchett and hugo weaving is up for about half of the AFIs this year, justin monjo's series just wrapped up on ...channel 9, ben browder is on stargate, claudia black's got a new movie out soon. kate beahan is some kind of hollywood star now, and the rest of the guest cast reads like a whos who of the aussie tv/film industry. the effects guys just did star wars, and the henson co. are still doing harry potter. geez, you would think the guys up top would realise that this is the kind of thing the industry should be doing, not hiding it in a musty cupboard and pretending it never happened.

wakes.

fit to print

theres not a lot really, going on in my life, so heres bits from the big wide world theyre always telling us about at school (if you ask me, theres no such thing and its just a myth the teachers use to fool us into believing that there is a reason to learn the cos rule)

mediawatch last night had an interesting segment on the govs new anti-terrorism laws, and how it may start to hinder free speech. tim blair (timblair.net) seems to have seen the bit different to how i did (different *readings* anyone?) but, well everyone knows where press restrictions lead to... and is it just me or can we get the old mediawatch guy back again.. i dont like liz so much, her reading the autocue strikes me as a bit too forced. not that ive ever tried or anything.

oooh. and i found this somewhere, which is majorly majorly cool:
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/94526.html
but i wonder who they will cast as westley and buttercup.

now this is a pretty cool site. will i get arrested for saying that?
http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage
its just interesting to see how they are talking out the western world, when all the news we ever hear about is about dodgy plumbers, old horses and princess mary. oh, and the hoff at the moment. there i was sitting at home, minding my own business and mistakenly believing that that bloody email-a-hoff phase was over and done with, and bloody mr mcmanus has to start it all up again. not to mention the man himself decides to take a holiday here. is it just me or was it really scary when he started singing that freedom song in the middle of the arias?

the one other thing i need to get off my back (well, ok there are a few gazillion other things, but school just finished and joho will be coming back soon) is that show 'brainiacs'. im sorry but its horrible. really amazingly offensive. and im not just talking about the annoying hammy brit host-guy, or the large-breasted girls in bikinis (who remind me strangely of the alien 'really hot chicks' in dude, wheres my car), or the rampant use of explosives for no good reason. theres the fact that channel 10 are trying to pretend its a great 'mythbusters' type thing, trying to (and im only guessing here) appeal to the 'geek' demographic who they believe are into that sort of thing. i think they need to talk to the folks at acnielsen or something because no one finds that show amusing. its stupid, moronic and lame. and now ive bagged it out i feel much better.

wakes.

but boss, this is how i got my name...

and since the hsc is all-but-over, ive decided to knuckle down on this thing and actually commit.
welcome to the new age of the trichorder2 blog.

now shut up everyone, i know i still have a few (4?) more exams to go, but as ive been telling everyone for the last year-and-a-half (to much disbelief), I. Dont. Care. im just gonna rock up and make something up. its not like ill ever have to see these essays ever again, anyways.

theres a pretty cool pic going around of a burning journeys stimulus booklet. it kinda sums up the entire hsc experience.

but, speaking of experiences, im gonna talk about mine. the vicarious experience (thinking of renaming my blog that, whaddya reckon?): TV.

the latest thing im 'digging' is that new justine clarke one, the surgeon. its pretty good, but after 2 eps i feel i cant really say much about the whole vibe of the show. matt newton (whom ten tried to talk up a bit, prolly mostly cos of his surname) appeared for a sum total of about 2 minutes in last thursday's ep about a fat guy undergoing some kind of stomach bypass. complications abounded of course, but what most confused me was that the characters were a little bit disjointed. i blame this mostly on the network (as i always do), who decided (for some obscure reason) to play the second ep before the pilot, thus ruining any character development at all. dash, the anaesthetist, was surly and annoying this week, but more understandable last week, and that intern was like a totally different character. it really threw me off. i know that the half hour show was never meant to be a 'drama' or anything, but if you wanna tell a story you gotta get the characters right (one of the issues i had with doing frontline at school - apologies to my class who had to put up with my pointing it out all the time). but i think, if ten give the show a couple of weeks, and back it with some good (or even mediocre) promos, it should settle in. of course, knowing the commercial networks, if it doesnt sell sell sell within two weeks, itll get canned immediately - the alice anyone?
http://www.graysonline.com.au/sale.asp?SALE_ID=13808

this is interesting:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/entertainment/archives/the_tribal_mind/002556.html
my fav part, music to my ears (the first time i can say that about this show):

"Idol has slumped so badly that it is unlikely to be renewed for 2006, which will leave a big programming hole. "

amen.

wakes.

3 wishes.. what would they be.. gee im sorry.

anyways. i am so over hi5 right at the moment. that song is driving me insane.
but, i know i always forget what i want (if i want anything) by the time its my birthday, and in the 2 seconds i have to reply to someone's question of 'what do you want for a present' i always forget, and later i regret it.
so as my own memory aid, here goes:

a miyazaki dvd or two (im missing laputa - bloody psycho vcr, and my porco rosso tape is a bit dodgy)
the piano music to anything from bugsy malone - i can't find it free on the net
amelie dvd (my tapes almost gone)
PeaceKeeper Wars DVD (to round off my collection)
The Princess Bride DVD
'Unfinished Tales' by Tolkein (its the only one im missing - the one with the black cover and pretty stained-glass looking circle on the front)
Some piano sheet music (something familiar, not too easy)
Futurama dvds, mmm.

whatever i cant con out of someone, im gonna hafta find and buy myself so this is partly a self-reminder as well as everything.

mels