Hazar for Instructables

I had a desire today to find out how to screen print. In doing so, I found the Instructables website - a collection of nifty DIY projects. The site contains such interesting, if a little pointless, projects as making a kinetically rechargeable flashlight in a tic tac container, making an LED display board for your fridge, or making a dock for your iPod out of Lego. Obviously lots of outrageously necessary things, which is why I had so much fun browsing through the site. I'll never make anything on the site, but at least I'll know some of the things are possible, which is just as worthwhile, I believe.

.e

[Category: random_stuff]

Hazar for words

I love words. Words are cool, words are great, words allow one to get one's meaning across, but they also allow so much more. The words you use, the way you use them, and the care with which you choose your words tells a great deal about you, in my opinion. And before you jump to accusations of snobbery, I admit that education and social class are two of the broad categories your word usage can reveal, however those aspects of your character have nothing to do with whether I like you and wish to carry on a conversation with you or not. My friends use words in all sorts of wonderful ways, and I love them for it. Hazar for words.

Having said all that, I'd like to issue a qualified hazoo to the Macquarie Dictionary who have a "Word of the Year" competition on their website, trying to find the best new words or phrases from 2006, presumably to include in the next edition of the Dictionary. They have included such "words" as emo, muffin top, spaghettini, ubersexual and cyberstalking.

Now, I am all for people making up and using words in any way they see fit. I love it when someone tacks the German uber, meaning "super" or similar, onto some other word to show that they loved watching Buffy. I can't get enough of people shortening entire concepts into one brief word (i.e. emo) and then complaining that no one really knows exactly what the word stands for anymore. And I just love phrases such as muffin top, which are nothing but derogatory, becoming common parlance. Words are great that way - but do we really need to write them all down and record them for posterity? I can recall being a young student and being given only the Macquarie Dictionary to study. If this trend has continued today, and I believe it has, then kids will be coming out of school thinking that uberthis and cyberthat are perfectly acceptable English words and phrases, and not the quirky, idiosynratic words they really are. Thin spaghetti is thin spaghetti, or better still, vermicelli, not spaghettini. Call me an old fasioned purist, but I'd love to see people going to the trouble of finding the right word for the circumstance, and not being rewarded when they use the most convenient one which springs to mind.

So, hazar for people being themselves and using words in whichever way they wish, and hazoo for the people who try to record the individuality out of our society.

.e.
[Category: random_stuff]

P.S. I am quite happy to admit that many of the wonderful words we have in our language now were once quirky and new, and then Mr Johnson decided to note them down in his dictionary so we have them today. Excellent! But methinks the practice has to stop sometime, and now is the time!

Hazar for the Hottest 100

I listen to a lot of radio. Throughout my uni years I spent about 4 hours each day on public transport, and, always preferring to have music or voice or something to listen to, I spent most of that time listening to the radio. And my radio station of choice at the time was triple j, the "youth station" in the Australian ABC stables.

As I have mentioned in the past, I have eclectic tastes in music. So triple j was just right for me - lots of variety, always something new, and rarely anything outrageously commerically poppy. I thought most of the presenters could do with a good course in sensible radio journalism, but generally, I was happy to listen to them.

And I loved the JJJ Hottest 100 - the more or less annual countdown of 100 top songs from the previous year, as voted by triple j listeners. Many a Hottest 100 CD has become the soundtrack to my parties, and I quite often rated the number 1 song as a musical highlight from the year. It's a little commercial and not for everyone, and quite often I haven't heard of half the songs which make it into the 100, but I still like it.

Anyhoo, follow the link above to check out the songs in this year's list and have a vote. For those who wish to know, this year I voted for:

• Gotye - Thanks for your time
• Gotye - Learnalilgivnanlovin
• Anberlin - Never Take Friendship Personal
• Ben Harper - Better Way
• Karnivool - Roquefort
• Matisyahu - King Without A Crown
• Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
• OK GO - Here It Goes Again
• Regina Spektor - Fidelity
• Regina Spektor - Samson

Not enough Australian bands in my list for my liking, but it couldn't be helped. Since I don't listen to triple j each day anymore, I can't predict the number 1 song accurately, but I'll take a stab at Wolfmother to get up there. People like them for some reason.

Hazar for triple j and hazar for the Hottest 100!

.e
[Category: random_stuff]

Hazar for Australia

The Aussie cricket team whitewash the Ashes!!! Whohoo, yay and hazar!

I think I wrote a post during the last Ashes series saying Hazar for Cricket, even though we lost the series. I would like to reiterate that sentiment - hazar for cricket, such an interesting game which is loved by many age groups, social groups and countries. Some may think it a little slow, boring even, but you can't argue with cricket's ability to bring all these diverse people together for 5 days at a time. Such a good game.

Anyhoo, I won't go on, except to say that I was lucky enough to be the guest of an SCG member at the first day of the final test match for Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer, and I'd like to issue a big Hazar to all three of these cricketing champs. Hazar for the atmosphere created (eventually) by the Barmy Army. Oh, and Hazar for Australia!

.e
[Category: random_stuff]

Hazoo for The Holiday

Despite the fact that I am a red-blooded, facial-hair wearing, sport-loving kind of bloke, I don't mind a good romantic comedy. To be honest, I prefer the quirkier ones - Love Actually, Four Weddings and Funeral, Bridget Jones, So I Married an Axe-Murderer, to name a few. They have some good lines and some humorous characters which make up for the inevitable soppiness of the romantic bits. Not bad movies in my opinion.

Judging by the trailers, I was hoping for The Holiday to be in a similar vein. The cast includes the rather humorous Jack Black and, well, it just looked good. Argh, how disappointed I was.

The plot revolves around two complete strangers, one in L.A., USA and the other in Surrey, England. When both of them suffer a romantic crisis of sorts, they opt to swap houses for two weeks, and, lo and behold, both of them find new romantic pursuits while abroad. Naturally, the two leading ladies (Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz) find two fantastic leading men (Jack Black and Jude Law, respectively), plus a bunch of other characters. Having four leading characters seems to be where the problems begin for this film. Judging by the length of the film (about 2 and a 1/2 hours) the director and writer, Nancy Myers, just couldn't bring herself to reduce the screen time for any of the stars. This would have been acceptable if there were only two of them, but when all 4 need equal face time, it all starts to get a bit long-winded. Compared to the excellent Love Actually, which also features quite a few "stars," the balance was just all wrong. Scenes that should have taken just a few seconds took a minute. Plot lines which should have been only mentioned in passing conversation were shown in full, and characters who really weren't material to the romantic plot line were given unnecessarily and confusingly long treatment.

There were other issues, such as the oddity of sharing house, car, everything with someone with whom you have only shared a few IMs across the internet; the moral issues related to sleeping with people expressly because you'll never see them again; the unreal perfectness of everything in the film; the self-aggrandising commentary on why people in Hollywood spend so long patting each other on the back and giving each other awards; and the blatant level of product placement, to name just a few. It is not all bad - there are some funny lines, mostly from Jack Black, and lots of things to laugh at if not with, but really, this is one for DVD after it is no longer a new release and when you have a few hours to spend.

Looking on IMDB, I've just noticed that Richard Curtis was the writer or director for quite a few of my favourite romantic comedies, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones, as well as one of my favourite comedies, Blackadder. He seems to be able to make a good romantic comedy which isn't too long-winded or soppy. I don't have much more to say about that other than hazar for Richard Curtis, and hazoo for The Holiday.

Happy new year to both of the people who are likely to read this post.

.e
[Category: random_stuff]