Broken Flowers

About two thirds of the way in I started fear there was going to be a "clever" ending that tied it all together and made sense of everthing. But I should have had faith. The movie is slow. Nothing is resolved. Nothing makes sense. And it is extremely satisfying. Four and a half stars. I wonder if anyone other than Bill Murray could have made this movie as good.

Australian Big Brother 06 thoughts

• Anna's eviction: Why Australia, why??
• Jade as the insider: Jade is a train wreck. Jade as the insider is a train colliding with a bus load of sick orphans. With puppies. But, who doesn't love a train wreck...
• Gretel: Please give her job to Mike Goldman. Or Bree. Somebody. If it's too late this year, then next year. PLEASE SOMEBODY!!! Gretel is unbearable. I literally can't stand to hear a second of her voice. She is wearing out my fast forward button. Actually if you hire a decent writer things might improve. But I doubt it. Who the hell writes her lines? And who the hell picks her clothes? Blind hobos? The goat? Nooo!!! Make it stop.
• Jade in general: She makes Camilla seem like a normal human being. And that's saying something.
• Katie and Jamie: The new Brangelina. "Katiemie". If that word takes off I'm claiming it with this post as evidence.
• David: I think he has a crush on Mikey. Here's a scenario that I would like to see. With Rob's help David convinces Mikey to experiment with his sexuality and make out with him in the spa. Perhaps some alchohol is involved.

MC Lars and the rise of nerdcore

If this was any kind of decent blog I would have some witty and poignant commentary about how myspace and the falling price of technology is changing the music industry. Instead I'll just hit you with some links. (The song is being hammered on MTV right now and yeah I'm liking it). An article. His myspace page. Update
I also watched Signing Emo. It's good and pretty funny but more like an SNL sketch than a song.

Jim Bumgardner's wonderful creations

This is the coolest thing I have seen for ages. Read more about it here. It was created by this guy. Check out the many other delights on his site, especially these and these. Via digg.

Sigur Rós Movies

I decided to upload these for your viewing pleasure. I am surprised how capable my little camera is. If I'd known they were going turn out so well I might have put a bit more effort into it.

Sigur Rós Photos

First two are at Enmore, 12/4/06. The rest are The Tivoli, 15/4/06.

E3 Coverage

The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is on right now. It's the biggest event in video games. I like get my coverage from Joystiq. Big news so far: PS3 controller just like PS2 controller. Halo 3 trailer not worth download. Grand Theft Auto coming first to Xbox360. Zelda to be launch title. Here is the coverage of the three keynotes: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo

Update
Lots of good stuff is hitting YouTube. To YouTube uploaders, I think that's enough with the Halo 3 trailer. :)

Cancer resistant mouse may cure cancer

"The cancer-resistant mice all stem from a single mouse discovered in 1999."

Ha hah. :) They should build a big damn statue of that mouse!

Via SPH.

The Annotated Joanna Newsom, Part 1

... and I can recall our caravel¹ a little wicker beetle-shell with four fine masts and lateen² sails its bearings on Cair Paravel³ oh my love oh it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen the sight of bridges and balloons makes calm canaries irritable⁶ and they caw and claw all afternoon catenaries⁴ and dirigibles⁵ ...

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravel
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateen
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cair_Paravel
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigibles


Bridges, balloons, catenaries, dirigibles. Ahhh... Sublime. Darren Hanlon has met his match - no, his new master. :)

Ps, how many of those five words did you know? Me, one.

Thanks to Milky Moon.

Bill Maher's New Rules

Daniel put me on these. Bill Maher has a talk show on HBO and he does a final monologue which is usually pretty funny. Latest one here. Unfortunately no RSS feed.

Okay, New Rule: Anna Nicole Smith can't get pregnant until Britney's baby grows up. There are just not enough investigators at Child Family Services to keep these two infants alive at the same time.

Welcome back trapped miners

And well done to all the rescue dudes and, to the mine manager who was constantly doing press on Sky News, I think your very cool.

Big Brother 06 Housemates

Here's my mini review...

• Favourites: Katie, Anna, Jamie
• Like: Claire, Dino, John, Gaelan
• Sort of like: Michael, David, Tilli
• Don't care about: Ashley, Elise
• Annoying: Krystal
• Can't stand: Camilla
• Must die leave: Karen, Gretel

Why I love Nintendo

They care about making games fun. They know that a boring game with beautiful graphics is still boring. They are not afraid to be different. Here's an article about a guy from Time Magazine who tried out the new console, including a tennis game where you use the revolutionary new 3d controller like the handle of your racket. Via digg.

Update
The full article is here.

Fun with Google SketchUp and Earth

Presenting an original sculpture I have titled "Freedom"... I put in in Google Earth facing north roughly at the location of my house. The first shot is looking towards Mt Stuart, the second is towards Mt Louisa. Here are a couple of wider shots showing the Townsville area. My sculpture is the small object in the foreground. Google can you please hurry up with the high res coverage? For my next project I plan to terrorize the Townsville area with a giant robot of some sort. If you have SketchUp you can download my sculpture for a better look. I didn't upload to Google Earth Community (yet) so you won't find it in your Google Earth (yet).

Sesame Street Classic

Via Google Video of the Day.

Random notes...

• Today I wore a scarf to work! I thought you would want to know. Townsville turned a little wintery this week and there is quite a wind chill factor at 70 kph on a scooter.
• Someone referred to me as "Simon himself" on the TiddlyWiki mailing list. :) Heh heh.....
• Sigur Rós live was amazing. The Enmore had slightly better sound but I think the overall atmosphere was better at The Tivoli. I will post my photos and maybe some videos some time soon. I found this piece on the band from NZ television. Also playlists and bootlegs are here
• Joanna Newsom is good beyond words. I figured out what Sadie is about. It has to be her insecure religous mother. Now I know this I have to think it's one of the most beautiful and sad songs ever written.
• Everybody Hates Chris kind of sucks. I gave up watching it after about three episodes. Sorry for the bad advice earlier
• Currently reading Setting Free The Bears by John Irving. He's very good though it is possible that he is not in fact God. I am trying to read in chronological order but I started out of sequence with 158 Pound Marriage.

Interstella & Mike Cooper

I have a new band called Interstella. For more info see the brand new web site at interstella.biz. And we are supporting guitar legend Mike Cooper tomorrow night! Sweet.

My House in SketchUp

Imaginary Art Project 1
Repeatedly create your house and everything in it in SketchUp with successively more detail. Stop when your toothbrush has individually modelled bristles.

Imaginary Art Project 2
For fun, extract all objects from We Love Katamari and make them available as a SketchUp component library.

I have started on Project 1 myself: For the record this took me about 90 minutes with the amazing SketchUp. And it looks almost exactly like my house even though I didn't put accurate dimensions on anything! Next thing to add is the upstairs interior walls. And my drum kit. :)