Three Monkeys, Ten Minutes

A few years back when I bought my current car, I remember the salesguy commenting that this type of car tended to flatten their batteries if they were sitting around the lot for a while. They need to be run regularly.

No prizes for guessing why I have just been reminded of this comment this evening. So much for my plans for being sociable tonight.

There is a point in the evening when there isn't enough natural light left for reading and the time comes to watch some TV. On some occasions, rather than look at the library of stuff lying around, I turn to what is coming in via the dish attached to the house. You all know the phenomenon that that then triggers - hundreds of channels and nothing to watch. Scan up and down the program guide and there is nothing that catches the eye. On one such occasion I decided, in desperation, to watch Chelsea Lately on E!. I've watched it quite a few times since. It has a compelling quality to it that is a bit like watching a car crash.

If you don't know the show, it consists of the eponymous Chelsea discussing the entertainment news of the day with a bunch of unknown stand-up comedians and the like. Discuss being the polite term for an out of control series of one-lines, insults, interruption and general chaos, probably fueled by significant "hospitality" in the green room. What then follows is an interview with a B-list celeb who is promoting their show/book/album and can't get on any of the good talk shows. The non-sequiturs and sexual innuendos fly everywhere.

You will probably all hate it. The description is accurate and yet misses the point. The show has a kind of raw energy as well as a subversive sarcastic edge that makes it rather endearing. It may be the same thrill at watching a car crash happen that reality shows generate. Yet in an odd way, it is more real than those.

Anyway, I'm not recommending that you watch it. I repeat that you will probably hate it. But there has been something niggling at the back of my brain about this show and I couldn't resolve what it was. Then last night I twigged. Chelsea Lately is a real life Wayne's World. It is E! actually making a show that does what Wayne and Garth did on their public access show in the movie and SNL before that.

I'm glad I got that out of my head. I can go back to surfing channels now.

I did reference this when I was setting it up, but now that we have been running for a few weeks, I should describe it properly. The thing is at Au Contraire, rather to my surprise, I ended up back on the SFFANZ board. I didn't actually expect to actually do much, but as a result of early discussions about the role of the organisation and the press function, I ended up setting up a news blog site for SFFANZ.

The site is http://sffanz.wordpress.com/. Basically it is a blog of news items around the sf genre stuff which is related to New Zealand in some way. The important functional thing is that it feeds to other services - Facebook, Twitter, LJ, DW etc. That way you can have some flexibility in the way you read it and we won't be spamming your inbox. The info about finding those feeds is here.

Of course, all that is straightforward stuff these days. The key to any news service is ensuring that it has plenty of good content. So if you have any genre related news that is specifically relevant to a New Zealand audience, then please let us know. You know the sort of things, book launches by NZ authors, visiting authors, film events, workshops, zombies vs steampunk battles, new websites and so forth. Send the info to the email address listed on the site.

A whole week of fine weather. I don't remember the last time we had one of those. I've been using the time to clear vegetation from around the sides of the house. It started with a need to remove branches overhanging the drain I was clearing (last post), then further clearing to stop the overhang over the path around the house and the overhang over the house itself. The scope increased until it is now possible to walk right around my place without being attacked by an aggressive branch or fern. A good part of that overhang has now been fed through the chipper and is gracing the beds of what I laughingly refer to as my garden.

But this morning was another step in intensity. I decided to take out a couple of trees that were shading areas that didn't need shade. The trees weren't serving any decorative function either. In fact one of them was dead*. They weren't very big trees - the larger (live) one being 4 or 5 metres tall and about 150mm diameter trunk, ut it is more than just sawing through the base - a lot of side branches and the top have to be taken off before doing the actual felling. That is quite enough though when you are doing the sawing with a bow saw. None of those chainsaw things for me. A big part of this whole process is actually giving me some exercise. Still, about half way through the second tree, I was wondering whether a chainsaw might not be a good idea after all. A small amount of irony there - I was woken up by the noise from a chainsaw this morning and I cursed its owner for owning such a noisy machine.


*Interesting side note - when I think of the term "dead tree", my first thought these days is of print journalism. I wonder when that shift happened.

Supposedly they had learned their lesson. Supposedly they were going to give shows a chance to develop before canning them. In particular, if a show gets good press/critical acclaim then the show would be given a chance. With that in mind, Fox today canceled Lone Star after just two shows.

I'm not going to rant though - given that yesterday I dismissed 9 shows after one watch each. But is it bad that now I want to watch Lone Star. Consensus is that it was mis-promoted. Certainly the description turned me off.

ETA: Have now watched it. No big loss as far as I am concerned.

The New Zealand cultural cringe is alive and well. Headline news today was given to The Simpsons making a reference to the Wellington Botanic gardens. I suppose it is worth a mention on a slow news day, but to have it as a lead item is going too far. It really is a slow news day, because the botanic gardens actually leads the news twice today. Slow blogging day too.

Today I came across the story of Gabriel Hanot (1889-1968). I'd never heard of him before, but I will remember this story for a while.

He made 12 appearances for the French national football team, but following an aviation accident he gave up football and became a journalist. After World War II, Hanot served as both coach of France and a journalist for L'Équipe and France Football. The dual roles created a celebrated complication: after his France side was humiliated in a loss to Spain in 1949, Hanot, the journalist, wrote a withering criticism of his players' performance, and followed this the next day by submitting an unsigned editorial calling for the resignation of Hanot the coach. A day later Hanot, the coach, resigned. Hanot never tried to combine both roles again.

I encountered the story in a cricinfo article about the IPL Champions League but it could be used in so many other situations.

Another election and time again to wheel out the circulars based selection mechanism. It is best used when you are trying to decide between two candidates, as we are here in Lower Hutt.

1 - Stick a no-circulars or no-junk-mail notice on your mailbox if you don't have one already.

2 - Wait for one of the candidates to put some of their unsolicited advertising in your mailbox.

3 - Vote for the other one.

It is a matter of respect. If the politician concerned and their mailbox stuffers don't respect your wishes in this simple matter, how do you expect them to respect the electorate. Of course there is a chance that both/all the candidates put their rubbish in your mailbox. But in my experience that usually isn't the case.

Got this from Sideswipe so don't know the source. It seems that a survey of Britons found that the 10 most commonly held superstitions are the following:

1. Won't walk under a ladder.
2. Salute a lone magpie.
3. Throw spilt salt over your left shoulder.
4. Put money in a purse or wallet.
5. Don't step on cracks in the pavement.
6. Avoid crossing people on the stairs.
7. Won't put an umbrella up in the house.
8. Won't walk across three drains.
9. Won't put shoes on the table.
10. Say "pinch and a punch for the first of the month".

Now, I should say, that I don't do superstitions like this. Well, I try not to, they are very seductive because they speak to the pattern matching engine that is at the core of our brain mechanism. Nevertheless, it still comes as a surprise that I do not recognise half of them. Really, where do they come from and how come I've not heard of them - I honestly thought that such things fell into the "common knowledge" area. For what its worth, the ones I hadn't heard before are 2, 4, 8, 9 and 10. I'd put them in bold or italics or something in the list above but that would look too much like a meme and I don't do memes either.

Potato chips (crisps) and ice cream. They are the calorie sources that have really got to me. When motivated, I can show restraint against most foods, but those two power my overeating addiction like no other. Consequently, since the start of my sabbatical, I have banned them from my house. Not an easy fight - they have a tendency to just leap into my shopping cart when I'm not watching.

My resolve was somewhat broken on my recent trip to Oz. But there is a reason for that - I had to get a fix of the best chips available in the region. I went to the nearby convenience store and managed to buy just the one packet to keep me going through the weekend. But it didn't end there. You see, since last time I was in Melbourne, Ben and Jerry's ice cream has entered the market there and the convenience store sold convenient (naturally) sized tubs of it. Well I just had to try it didn't I? Air New Zealand didn't help by serving up Kapiti ice cream on both legs of the journey.

So, I'm home and have resisted so far. But what do I see in the news today Bluebird have announced 4 new flavour chips and are asking people to vote on them. I just don't think I can resist. Help. If I break on this, ice cream can't be far behind.

For your reference, the flavours are:
Cheesy Garlic Bread
Butter Chippin'
Paua Fritters with Lemon Wedges
Sunday Roast (which I can easily bypass - previous "roast" flavoured chips have been revolting)

The potential has always been there, but a court case in the US has ruled that you cannot sell a second-hand piece of software. Its the old "its a licence" issue. If a software vendor states that you may not re-sell the software in the End User Licence Agreement (EULA) then that is binding. That consequence has always been there, but now it has court sanction.

The really worrying bit in all this is that it could apply to any digital media depending on how the wording in other EULAs is to be interpreted (Autodesk's is particularly restrictive). So it isn't just software, it also potentially affects music, games and ebooks.

It may still go to higher appeal and of course it only applies to the US as it stands. There is a good chance that consumer law in other countries may stop this particular wording in EULAs from being enforced. Nevertheless, as somebody who buys a lot of secondhand books, it is a bit of concern.

For me, Aussiecon 4 was all about talking to people. People I know well, people I hadn't seen in ages and new folk who I met for the first time at this convention. Some people I saw regularly throughout the con while others I only caught up with right at the end. And yet, there were people I know were there who I didn't see at all. I'm not sure how that happens, as it wasn't that big an event - different modes of operation I guess. Next time eh?

I spent as much time as I dared in the dealers area. As it was I filled my luggage with books and only got below weight limits because a friend brought some of them back for me. This despite giving myself a daily book budget and determinedly only buying books from small presses who don't distribute to outlets over here. I didn't want to buy anything I could have bought at home. So Andromeda Spaceways, Twelfth Planet, Ticonderoga, Mirrordanse, Coeur de Lion, Eneit, Morragon and others are going to occupy a good chunk of my reading time in the months to come.

Didn't get to all that many items on the programme apart from the big ticket items (opening/closing ceremony, masquerade, Hugos, GOH speeches). The few panels I did get to were a mixed bag. The low light being a certain NZ fan who was much more offensive than anything said at the masquerade (I was there and I still don't know what the fuss was about). There were some good points too, including a panel on the future of short fiction where Cory Doctorow said something so witty and profound that I thought at the time that I must share with everybody. The problem is that I promptly forgot what it was.

While I'm noting embarrassments, KSR in his speech took the time to make it clear that he does not climb mountains despite what it says in wikipedia. He might more accurately be described as a cross-country hiker. Why did he take the time to mention that - well have a look near the end of the bio in the souvenir book. And just who wrote that bio? Aye, well, umm. In my defence, that factoid appears in other places other than wikipedia. I didn't actually expect the article to appear in the souvenir book - I wrote it for the web site and adapted it for the first PR. It was an advertising piece and I would have written something rather different if I had known where it would end up. Still, d'oh.

So what else? The usual stuff really - went to a few parties, looked at upcoming cons (most of which I want to go to but have to get a job first), looked at the art show, ate too much junk food and got too little sleep. Looking forward to the next one.

Well, I'm back from Melbourne and more or less intact. Even when the travel arrangements work pretty much as they should, it is still so tiring. Anyway, as is my style (hah) here are a few notes about the trip not directly related to Aussiecon 4.

Christchurch and the earthquake. How weird to be in Aussie and have New Zealand items lead the news. The earthquake was number 1 and the crash at Fox was number 2. It was the number one topic of conversation for a bit. I have family in Christchurch - they are all OK which is the main thing, but all have damage to their houses and have had to spend time without power, sewage facilities or even drinking water.

There were floods in Victoria. You wouldn't have noticed it in Melbourne though. Nobody wants to complain about the rain there. They have been in drought for the last 5 years. Complaining about bad weather seems like bad form.

Feet. You don't really think about them that much until they go wrong. Mine went wrong and I was in quite a bit of pain if I stood around too much. I wasn't the only one so afflicted. Too much standing around talking on day one means a lot of people sitting putting their feet up in following days. It means no exploring into central Melbourne. Partly because of the foot pain involved and partly because there was so much to do. Instead of expeditions to restaurants there was the quick hobble to the Crown casino complex for a quick meal and back to the convention centre.

As mentioned in the previous post, I got a room upgrade at the hotel. The room was the same, but the view was much better - one might even say spectacular. On the subject of the room, it was very luxurious. The bathroom area alone was almost as big as some whole rooms I have stayed in elsewhere. Then there was the bed - incredibly comfortable. Yet the layout of the room was quite odd. For a big room by hotel standards it was a poor use of space and some of the ergonomic things were just plain strange. It seemed like a place planned by interior decorator stylists rather than people with practical experience. Did I mention that the bed was comfortable. Good. In the end, that was the thing that mattered. When you aren't getting much sleep, it is important that you get the most out of it.

More to come...

Hmmm, Wellington has been wet and gloomy all winter. I'd say wetter and gloomier but that would leave completely the wrong impression. Today is the official first day of spring and it is a bright clear sunny day. Of course it could be because I'm heading out to A4. Last time I had to leave town for a couple of days the weather turned fine then as well. It is almost enough to make one believe in weather gods.

Damn allergies. They did their best to curtail my weekend. Luckily the pharmaceutical industry came to my aid and I was able to attend a good chunk of Au Contraire. Although I think some of the attendees got sick of me asking if my eyes had turned red again, signaling the need to go put some more drops in them. After sleeping for most of the last 14 hours, I think I might be through the worst of it. Although the number of typos I'm having to correct as I go may suggest otherwise. Lets hope I'm through it because there is another con to go to in a couple of days.

On the subject of Au Contraire, I have to say that I thought it went extraordinarily well. The concom are to be really congratulated on delivering what they promised - a con that broke the mold and gave people a lot of enjoyment. I don't think I have ever heard so many positive comments from people about how well they think a con has been run. The tactic of running the con immediately before Worldcon was a success with a large number of international visitors who contributed so much to the flavour of the con and boosted attendance to heights not seen for at least 10 years.

While on the subject of congratulations, lots of applause for the SJV winners. Official announcement of the awards will come out soon (as soon as the notifications are sent out), but you can find out from the live blog feed of the award ceremony.

By the way, would anybody like to run the Natcon in 2012? Would you? The end of the world Natcon.