Posts by Josh Addison
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Quite by chance, I got into Facebook a few weeks before everyone started paying attention to it, so I can now feel all trendy and ahead of the curve. The initial attraction for me was that fact that some friends and family overseas had accounts, which gave me a handy way of seeing what they were up to or saying "hi" with minimal effort -- "you never write me e-mails anymore" can now be countered with "read my Facebook -- it's all there."
When I first tried out MySpace, my initial reaction was "**this** is the most popular social networking site in the world?" The interface has terrible usability, and isn't much to look at (fortunately, you can customise it so that it looks utterly hideous, which makes those who choose to stick with the default scheme seem much better...) I'm not sure about this MySpace/Facebook class war people seem to be trying to generate -- for me it just seemed that Facebook is MySpace for grownups.
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Screenwriter Jeremy Slater gets it exactly right, if you ask me.
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I must admit I get rather fraked off by the subtext - which pretty much becomes screaming text here - that Lost is for smart people, and pretty much everything else is for brain-dead, pap-fed morons. I don't need every plot point and character motivation signposted in 100 ft high neon; but I would like some idea that there's a little more going on on the creative front than 'wouldn't it be really cool if..., and we can make it work later'.
Quite. My full thoughts on the topic here (spoilers, obviously), but it's worth pointing out that in the replies to that Salon.com article, many people point out that it's not all the teasing that annoys them, it's the fact that in order to enable all the teasing, the characters are forced to act in really stupid and unbelievable ways. That's just bad writing.
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Re: Unfortunate names, things get even stickier in cross-cultural situations. I know a couple of teachers who have had as students polynesian girls called Vagina (pronounced "vangeena" with a hard G). Of course in such cases, you can't blame the parent -- unlike, say, the guy I know, who, chortling at his own perceived originality, announced his plans to give his daughter the middle name Danger, so she could say -- get this -- she could say that Danger was her middle name. Oh, the mirth. I'm pretty sure that never happened in the end.
Of course, as with most things, celebrities are to blame. Pilot Inspektor Lee? Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette? Think of the children!
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And as a friend of mine once pointed out, these prisoners aren't being abused by a state-approved Convict Rapist -- for every prisoner receiving their "just desserts" in prison, there's another (or possibly more than one) who's getting away with the sort of crimes that prison is supposed to be punishing them for.
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...generally was an enjoyable place to chat about politics or complete bollox (as the fabulous rambling creation of mercproductions was).
I thought it was a place to chat about the topic at hand (as defined by the blog post each thread is commenting on), not whatever you feel like -- that's what your own blog is for. A bit of arsing around is always fun, but when a thread gets utterly derailed by page after page of witty rejoinders (as happened to that one of Damian's) -- well, that's not what I'm here for. I personally find that sort of thing distracting and self-indulgent; other people seem to like it. Vive la difference, I guess -- the failure to agree to disagree seems to have been behind most of the spats here recently.
(In the past I've not bothered to say anything, because I figure that complaining about a thread being derailed only derails it further, but this one seems pretty knackered already...)
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Emos are just soft goths. Which, considering goths are just soft punks, makes them pretty soft indeed. Soft squared.
What's funny is listening to the goths rattle off "emo jokes" that up until a few years ago were "goth jokes" -- "I've got a goth/emo lawn -- it cuts itself" and so on...
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am I the only person who thinks some of the stock characters who've been around since the radio show (Emily and Vicki and Daffyd The Most Annoying Gay In The Whole Boody Universe) are showing signs of serious wear-and-tear?
No, I thought they were getting a bit old, too. Especially the Lou and Andy sketches, which featured the exact same joke every time. On the other hand, the newer characters seemed a bit stale from the start -- am I wrong in thinking that the Ting Tong character was anything other than blatantly racist?
The sketches with Anthony Head as the PM were consistently great though, and Tom Baker voiceovers were never short of awesome.
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Dylan Moran last time he was here worked some piercingly good local stuff into his act virtually straight off the plane.
Although I'm told he used the same off-the-cuff insights again this time... Still, brilliant standup.
I've seen Ed Byrne almost every time he's been here, and while there a few familiar jokes, by and large the routine is new every time. (On his DVD, he uses the fact that Alanis Morissette re-released Jagged Little Pill to "re-release" his old favourite about "Ironic" not really being ironic). He also does some great improvisation when interacting with the audience.
Brendan Lovegrove is a funny bastard with great delivery, but yeah, he's the one I've noticed the most re-using old material. Especially material covering current events, which eventually aren't that current...
who says pot decreases memory? or maybe only short-term memory? which is why he can't remember the new material.
Or maybe the long-term memory, so he forgets that the old material is old...
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And of course the other implication is that the dog attacks that don't occur during the latest "epidemic" (and which therefore don't get any press) don't matter. I got bitten by a dog when I was 11, for little more than looking at it, and I didn't get in the paper. It bloody hurt, too.