Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Pilates of the Caribbean - review

I saw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ yesterday and I’ve decided to give it a review here and warning about it. The first thing I must say is that if you really hate movies where the whole thing is a set up that mostly gives half answers and half reveals only to finish up with a HUGE ‘to be continued’ feeling at the end, then perhaps this isn’t the movie for you. Or at least wait until they have made the next sequel and then watch this one on dvd before seeing it. The reason I say this is that unlike the first one which left you feeling satisfied and happy that you have seen a whole film, for me this movie was purely the setup for the next sequel. Perhaps I have been ignorant by purposely avoiding reviews about this film, but I was really expecting a beginning, a middle and an end. But now (as the film makers obviously intended) I will have to wait until the next one in this series comes out to find out what happens with all the loose ends. And loose ends there are! Eg. What has become of Jack Sparrow? What of Will Turners relationship with Elizabeth Swann? What happened to the poor dog that got left with the Cannibals? What are the East India Trading company’s plans? Can the new captain be trusted? Etc, etc. Too much unfinished business in a movie if you ask me. So that’s my main gripe out of the way.

Now for a quick explanation of the main plot. The film starts with Will and Elizabeth being arrested by a new sinister character who is some Lord that is high up in the East India Trading company. Basically he represents the capitalist scum bag type that will stop at nothing to increase their profits to buy nicer wigs, brandy and other such upper class English paraphernalia of that era. Throughout the movie not much is revealed about their grand plans, but it’s obvious they’re up to no good.

As for Jack Sparrow, well apparently to get his ship (The Black Pearl) in the first place, he made a deal with Davy Jones that after 13 years he would serve aboard his ship (The Flying Dutchman) as one of the damned crew. Or….he could find another person to take his place. Of course Davy Jones really wants Jack, so when Sparrow tricks Turner into taking his place, Jones says that it’s not good enough etc, etc and then spends the rest of the movie chasing him.

The story with Davy Jones is that he was a pirate who fell in love with a woman (shock-horror!) and then had some problems which aren’t really explained, and so he decided to cut his own heart out so he couldn’t feel anymore. Apparently doing so didn’t kill him but instead gave him eternal life/death and as a bonus he is able to summon the Kraken (gigantic, mythological sea creature) to wreak havoc on his enemies. Another of his powers is that he can make a deal with sailors to serve aboard his ship for a hundred years (or more if they want!) thus putting off the judgment of the afterlife for 100 or more years of slavery. Over time these damned sailors become mutated into weird hybrids between humans and sea creatures mostly just to cause a lot of entertainment for computer animators. As for Davy Jones heart, well he placed in a box and wears the key to the box around his neck. The key to the box is what Jack Sparrow wants to get and preferably without putting himself in danger if possible. With Jones heart I believe he plans to get out of his debt and possibly do other stuff, but again that’s something that isn’t really explained.

Confused yet? Well obviously each character has their own motivation for doing what they do and in this film there are a lot of characters. It is possible that I have given the impression that I didn’t really like this film, but that isn’t true. I did enjoy it even though it didn’t have as many comedic moments as the first one and is considerably darker with more deaths either shown or that take place between scenes. Johnny Depp is great as Jack Sparrow as he was in the first film and I liked a lot of the other characters even though there are too many to keep a good track of. The main thing I didn’t like about it was that I think a number of scenes were dragged out too much for the sake of making the third film. The story and some of the script was pretty messy, but in general I did like where it was going. It’s just a big adventure film and if that appeals to you, you should still get something out of it. I gave it 3.5 out of 5. It might have otherwise been 3, but Keira Knightley was hot.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Nobeltitus

As the son of two doctors I feel fully qualified to notify everyone about the current epidemic that seems to be sweeping the nation. Mainly restricted to males between 14 and 30ish, it is a debilitating illness that affects not only the sufferer, but also those around them. I have named the disease, ‘Nobeltitus’. The first symptom is the loss of fine motor skills, specifically the ability to either a.) Put on a belt at all, or b.) Put on a belt, but be unable to buckle it tightly enough to keep their pants up. This symptom results in the sufferers pants resting at various points between the mid gluteus maximum muscle and the half way point of the femur bone. A further tragedy of the illness stems from the exposure of the ‘plumber’s crack’, or ‘coin slot’ of the patient to all around them. Sadly the victim is either unaware of a.) The distress they cause others and b.) How much of a f***wit they look in their condition. Unfortunately there is no known cure. It is suspected that patient zero or the initial carrier is ‘Jamie’ from the Australian Big Brother TV show and so far the attempts to isolate him in a quarantine area with suffers of other annoying disorders such as ‘Whineyvoicitus’, and ‘Cantshutupism’ have been successful. But I’m not sure how much longer this can be maintained.

If you know someone who has contracted Nobeltitus, please kick them in the butt as much as you can. It can’t be cured, but hopefully one day these idiots will realize that it’s not cool to be able to see the top of their tool.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

A grand visit

Let me start by saying how much I respect old people. They always have a story to tell and so much life experience that I think we could all learn from. However one of the few things that really scares me is ‘crazy’ old people. I don’t know why, but it just freaks me out when some oldie comes up to me and starts spouting gibberish or treating me like I’m some relative even though I’ve never met them before. With this in mind you can image the dread I felt at the prospect of visiting my grandpa in the home where he lives. I have been there before, but every time I get this feeling like I am going to be swarmed by a bunch of zombies who will claw at me and ask me if I’ve seen ‘so and so’ who for all I know has been dead for 10 years. Many of the people in the home have some form of Alzheimer’s or Dementia including my grandpa who can only recall bits and pieces of information, but still recognizes family and friends.


When we got there, we made the mistake of bringing the baby who is of course a magnet for those in their twilight years. Only those who had the energy to get up actually came over to see her up close and she just kind of stared blankly at them as though not sure what to make of the strangers who were trying to hold her hands. The weirdest thing was when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder and saw another hand rest on my grandpa’s arm. Upon turning, I saw an old Italian woman who began saying something in her native tongue and then started to praise my grandpa as a lovely man, before turning her attention to the baby and saying how lovely and beautiful she was. Then she tottered off. I thought to myself, ‘what a nice lady to be so flattering about my family’. Then my grandpa said that the lady always came up and was very complimentary about everything and I suddenly felt used. We left when the lunch bell rang and I though to myself how stupid my fear was and how selfish it was to let it keep me from visiting my only living grandpa who may not be around to too much longer.


After that we spent some time with my grandma who still lives at home and she told us of some of the other characters in the home that she had seen when she visited. We told her about the Italian woman and how she might have some competition for grandpa and she mentioned that one time another man in the home had invited her back to his room! I had to suppress a cringe about that one though.


I guess the point of this is that if you have relatives not long for this world, you shouldn’t put off visiting them cause you’re too busy or are concerned about having to look at those close to passing on, but try to spend as much time as you can making them feel loved and happy cause although you might still have many years left to live, chances are they won’t always be around for all of them.

This has been a community service announcement.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Random update stuff

• I have to come up with 3 grand by Wednesday (car repairs). Suggestions? Originally I was to have a few months to pay it back, but there was a communication issue and now I have four days.

• A while back I posted about finding a syringe on the sidewalk in a relatively heavily trafficked area. Well a few weeks later it was still there. Are the druggies getting too picky to take used needles now? Have needle exchange programs spoilt them?

• My plan to get my fitness back up is proceeding…slowly. I have done a little more exercise and have been eating a few more vegetables, but have found it hard to really get my arse out of a chair. It’s too warm and relaxing in the house and too cold outside to really get into sweating. And I hate gyms…and jims.

• I wonder what would happen if everyone just stopped going in to work at the same time and just focused on surviving? If anyone who tried to gather power for their own desires was ignored and we could all just try and become better humans. It’s a shame a utopian society can’t exist cause people are just so, f**ked up.

• It was my wife’s b’day a few days ago and we had no money and I had to work so it sucked.

• I like the show ‘Futurama’ and one thing that always makes me smile is one of Benders (the robots) favourite lines: “Bite my shiny, metal ass!”

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Busy much?

I’ve been hellishly busy recently. Last week I worked 60 hours and the other night I didn’t leave the office till midnight. When I first started this job, things were pretty cushy with good pay and only a mild amount of work. More recently a new computer system is being introduced and the bulk of the work and support of it falls to us. We had a meeting the other day where the boss pretty much said that play time was over and we would become more and more busy. We even had to set up a proper roster as to when we take our breaks, whereas before each of us would usually take lunch whenever we wanted and half of the rest of the day was a break. The boss (who up till now has been very laid back and turned a blind eye to most of our internet browsing/book reading/snacking when we felt like it, etc) for the first time mentioned the ‘P’ word, which scared me, he referred to, getting the most ‘productivity’ from us! I fear that he may soon approach us, fire the double barreled fingers at us and say, “Hey buddy, how do you feel about doing a few extra unpaid hours tonight?” Then what’s next, barcodes on the neck? Another thing that struck me as odd in the meeting was that the boss was saying how much he likes his job, but the thing he didn’t like was all the paper work, and he soon hoped to shift some of it to us!! WTF, who says ‘This is what I hate about my job, but guess what, I’m going to be letting you do some of that aspect soon, so that’s a burden off my mind.’

Thankfully I like my job so it isn’t too bad and usually the boss is a good guy, but some days you wonder if all the time away from your family is worth it. Then you remember that if you don’t work, you lose your house, cars, ability to feed and cloth said family, and you realize that maybe it is worth it. The important thing is to find the balance I guess.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

One of the best magicians today

This guy named, 'Cyril' (poor guy), is one of the best magicians around and the stuff he does sums up the kind of magic that I like.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Funny business.

While at work, I often go for a walk during my break to get away from the cretins. So imagine my amusement when I saw this van while out on my wanderings today. That place must give new meaning to the term 'King Dick'!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Car woes

My car broke down the other day when I was coming home from work. Very annoying, not only for the inconvenience of having only one car between two people, but also cause I have to deal with mechanics. I know about as much about cars as I do about shopping for women's shoes, so when a mechanic starts talking about car parts that I've never heard of and all the work that needs to be done, my eyes glaze over and my hand moves protectively over my wallet. Thankfully my father in-law is a ‘car man’, (not a Transformer like Optimus Prime (although that would be really cool), I just mean he knows about cars), and can usually sort the necessary from the to-do-later basket of suggested repairs. In this case the best thing we can do is to have the engine ‘reconditioned’, whatever that means, which will set us back about $3000. Yay!, we’re going to be broke again.


As our other car is a bucket of bolts and even older, we also decided to invest in a much newer second hand car. A 2004 Astra to be precise, so as long as the finance goes through we should have the newest car either my wife or I have ever had. Yay! (for real this time)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Nuisance neighbour.

This is a difficult issue for me to relate without me coming off sounding a.) judgmental, b.) nasty, or c.) both. So I’ll just try to keep to the facts and let you decide.

A few days ago a single mum and her two kids, both under 10 years old, moved into the rental next door to us. Pretty much the next day/morning, the kids show up on our doorstep saying that their mum had gone and they didn’t know where. Apparently they had a phone number, but when it was rung no on answered. We let the kids in and my wife looked after them while I questioned them about their mum (thinking the worst, that she might have abandoned them or something). My wife also left a note on their door so that the mum would know where they were. About 15 or so minutes later she arrives and explains that she had mentioned to the eldest while she was in bed, that she was going down to the shops for a few minutes, but some roadworks had kept her out longer than she’d planned (I wasn’t in the room, but could hear this as she explained it to my wife). Now my wife being an overly nice person was friendlier that I would have been to a mum who left her young children on their own, and pretty much told her to let us know if she was going to do that again, so that at least someone could keep an eye on them. I disagreed with this because her kids aren’t our responsibility and I don’t think you should leave kids on their own in the first place. The next couple of days after this, the kids have shown up on our doorstep (while I’m at work) and on one occasion invited themselves around for dinner, telling their own mum that my wife had invited them when she hadn’t! Yesterday morning they showed up again peering in our front window and loitering on the doorstep. This time I opened the door and politely told them to piss off (I didn’t swear at them at all), by telling them that it was rude to hang around other people’s property and that they should go back to their own house. That very night when my folks had come around for diner, the mother turns up telling us that she had to pick up her boyfriend from the train station and that she was leaving her kids alone, so if we ‘wanted’ to pop in and check on them she’s let them know it was ok! When my wife goes around there and gets stuck, having to be rescued by me, the kids are showing her some pics on a mobile phone and amongst them are moving porno images! This mother had left a phone with accessible porn with her children!

Now all this is over the course of a few days and I can clearly see that they will fully take advantage of my wife’s kind nature and I want to put a stop to it. If much more irresponsible parenting becomes apparent I may have to contact child services, but would like to avoid doing that. Any suggestions?