Munden's Bar

I'd seen pictures of this Korean designer's work before, but it wasn't until @neilhimself posted this link that I realized that the guy who designs cthulhoid furniture like this

is named Chul an Kwak.

I think it would go very well with these concept yachts that @SallyMclennan and I will be running away on.



Any  women willing to wear bikinis are welcome to joins us, because, well, if one has such a yacht, one has to be a Bond villian, and have multiple bikini-clad women lounging around. Bonuses available if you are also a ninja assasin.

Speaking of which,  @SallyMclennan and I have finally been getting to the end of Dollhouse, and i have been enjoying the parallels between the Dollhouse and a geisha house. The characterization of the series is very anime-like anyway, the doll's favourite phrase "be your best"  is more Japanese than English, as is the design and structure of the Dollhouses. The drive of the boss lady ( De Witt?) seem very close to that of the geisha house mistrss in Memoirs of a Geisha. 

Also watched new True Blood.

Well, almost. seraphs_folly could have not had the sniffles, and then it would have been nicer for her. Still 'twas a nice two days and three nights. My lady arrived late Friday, and we went straight home. In the morning we met up with jarratt_gray & evie_fae for brunch, then went home and prepped for tyellas' Mad Scientist party, filling it the remaining hour or so with playing with the new toy.

Without going into too much detail, we have come to the conclusion that all wars could be stopped by air-dropping pallet loads of said toy(with appropriate power supplies) into combat zones. Both cheaper and much nicer than cluster bomblet munitions, but providing more "bangs for the buck." I can see it now, the Valkyrie Air Corps in their DPM cut-offs and khaki under-bust-tied fatigue shirts, shoving pallets of HMWs out the back of a pink C130 Hercules with both boxes and parachutes marked with a big red "O" Thanks to those who managed to "liberate" one for us. They know who they are. And seriously, if you haven't got one, you should. As soon as possible. Really.

Then we picked up chinese and headed round to tyellas' place where she introduced us to chocolate & peanut butter ice cream, which was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, as I don't usually like peanut butter itself, except in sate. In fact, it was delicimus. The home made vanilla was lovely and tasty too, much better than commercial vanilla. Then people turned up to help prepare the party and I got chained into my "Igor" costume.

There were some pretty impressive costumes, T's aviatrix with aerial wings and mini-jet pack was perhaps the most inventive, though the aetherial energy effects of the wings would need to be added in post. It was a very relaxed party, except perhaps when khaybee decided to actually tie the arms of my strait-jacket together and seraphs_folly decided to feed me beer. Or when the bucket of dry ice started making dangerous noises. We did discover that dry ice hypnotises roomfuls of people, and that tyellas is a dry ice pusher, providing it free to neighbourhood kids, presumably in an attempt to get them addicted young.

Things wound up, and we went home to watch the first two episodes of True Blood. Yummy. Finally, a TV vampire show done right, with just the right amount of sex and squalor, and some stupendous dialogue, along with believably stupid characters, and nasty violence. Not for the faint-hearted or prudish though. I mean, a show that in one episode has a major sub-plot based around vampire blood-induced priapism isn't exactly kiddie materiel, is it? Lovin' it at the moment, the mixture of Southern tropes, heat, bigotry, sex, and the supernatural, reminds me of parts of Warren Ellis' Hellblazer run, tho it is based on the Sookie Stackhouse book series by Charlaine Harris, which, unsurprisingly, I haven't read, as the author normally writes Ellery Queen style mysteries. The series is produced for HBO by Alan Ball, previously famous for Six Feet Under

We finally, after lazy snuggling, fell asleep at around half three in the morning, awaking in time for brunch and a drive to visit seraphs_folly's publisher in Waikanae. Back home and a quick run to Piwakawaka to pick up more True Blood crack, which filled in time till dinner jenni_talula & Lee, whom we hadn't caught up with in ages. Afterwards I found it amusing that we spent much of the time talking about toilets. Such scintillating and appropriate dinner-time conversation! *grin*

Prior to dinner, I had shown m'lady the bed in Okooko which she had previously seen on the web but not in real life, and which she is in love with, and she showed it to our dinner partners.

Back home, more True Blood and early to sleep due to m'lady's early Tauranga flight in the morning. Shame we couldn't have caught up with more people over the weekend, but it was the first time we'd seen each other in almost two months. so there was need of a certain amount of alone together time.

The lady returns Thursday afternoon, and we will probably be going straight to JJ's for early BBC, followed by TNC, as she is going through Dawaat bhaji withdrawal. Later in the week I'll hopefully confirm the BBC, so if anyone wants to catch up, they can pop in to JJ's between five and seven, whether or not they're not currying.

Friday I'll be seeing her off in the morning again, so she can have a dirty (labour) weekend with argentbear, holding_pattern, and grendel_khan, while I go and play a cute wee dispossesed anime girl called Emba in grandexperiment's Lambs of a Nameless God at Fright Night, which is fast becoming Wellington's regular Halloween role-playing con.

Whitcoulls currently has the first three series of BattleStar Galactica, plus the mini-series, selling at $89.00. I only have the first series in hard-copy which alone cost me about $50. Very tempting! Should I do it? Tell me, please!

So there's another NiN album out, Halo 27 - The Slip, again available free. Get it now!

This article on food that causes anal leakage isn't very well written, but it may be useful for some. It certainly explains why KFC goes straight thru!

Slightly more appetizing is Nik Ainley's art, probably easiest to experience on his site ShinyBinary. His Stranger is especially delectable. If you look at his DeviantArt site as well, it contains art with the txt "Join me in Shinyland" that made me think of Shiny.

Cracked have listed the poison head crabs from Half Life 2 at only Number Two in The 10 Most Terrifying Video Game Enemies of All Time. I would have to agree that they are damn scary. Especially because you know they're there before you see them, but knowing they are there only helps in avoiding them if they are at a longer range and you have line of site to them. Hearing them cackle when you're in a dark room, especially when you;re not already holding an appropriate weapon...well, HL2 is one of the few games that actually causes physical flight-or-fight reactions in me, and those poison head-crabs are big part of why.

So, now I'm part of "EDS, an HP company", how does that make me feel? Pretty "meh" actually.

Recently I realized I have been doing too much reminiscing over past good times, and not enough arranging for new good times. Long term this is, I know, and may fall apart before it happens. But this year I"m 47, and while I'll be spending the actual birth day at Southern Exposure, I would like to have a party somewhere up here. In keeping with my earlier attempts at theming my parties, this one will be called "Closer" (based on my own pseudo-Cockney rhyming slang of "Forty Seven - Closer to Heaven". Take that however you like, though I was thinking of NiN's Closer when I said it.

The next year, 2009, I will be 48. This means I will need to have a 48 hour party. A 48 for my forty-eighth. It will be a real party, I know several DJ's now! :) But hey DJ, please, play it at 48 rpm coz I'm slowing down in my old age! :) Start planning for November 2009 now! And don't die before it happens!

Thinking of TNC this evening, and need to spend some time doing something prior to that, so anyone gonna definitely be at BBC, or elsewhere, for an after-work relax?

(Slogan on the side of a fake window washing truck run by The Joker in an episode of the classic live action Batman series.)

"They're stealing the Maharajah - with a forklift"

"Not so fast old chum, we can't, the retro rockets would burn up the golf course!"

And we can't have that, imagine the increase in the green fees!

It tuns out that according to the Facebook Match "Things That Attract Me" quiz, I am "Twins" with bekitty and "Two of a Kind" with both jenni_talula & neongraal. Then again with only a small number of things to rank, it's probably not that surprising to get a few such matches even if everyone sorted randomly.

Listened to this interview from Naomi Wolf (best known perhaps for The Beauty Myth) about her new book The End of America. There's nothing new in it, but it's a good review of history, and a discussion of the blueprint for dictatorship. (Thanks meesto)

Watched a lot of season 2 Dexter. Really enjoying it, it's great for us closet socio-paths to see a like-minded character as a TV show lead (Bones is the other fun one). Y'know, although it might be rather scary for them, I think people who want to know what goes on in my head would learn a lot from Dexter's struggle to fit in.( some spoilery stuff if you haven't seen the first three episodes of season two )

Also really enjoying Heroes now. The second season has finally hit it's stride, with people being pushed to their limits in all directions.

Bought tickets to London today. Bought tickets to DragonMeet last night via PayPal and arranged to pick them up via email with angusabranson. So next weekend's schedule is now fixed. I arrive at London St Pancras (domestic) at ten to seven Friday evening on an East Midlands service. Tell me where to go when I get there please, guys! Pub, club, restaurant, street vendor, whatever, but give me a street address!

Last Friday, as we were going to work, I'm pretty sure ( this stone owl ) on the roof of the school across the road from us, winked at me.

As cha0sslave seemed to like "Alice" the T3 Guitar Hero model, I'm sure he'll like this X-Box advertising campaign from Poland, especially this (NSFW) "action shot" :)

I'm still listening to NMA's High a lot, and while I know what they're really about, the lyrics of Nothing Dies Easy are giving me theme ideas for Changeling games!

And nothing dies easy, it holds on until the end
It takes all of your power to push the blade in
The last glow in the ashes, a last spark in the eye
Breaking the glamour, breaking the spell
Breaking another bad part of myself
Breaking the glamour, breaking the spell, nothing dies easy

And, for the Mage players, if Drake wasn't dead, I think Wired would have to be his theme song. Then again, for those that remember that far back, it could almost be something that Spyder would have done. I think I'm missing role-playing, let's hope the DragonMeet fix will tide me over till I get home.

Damn I'm missing not having a guitar with me. Tempted to buy a crappy one, and throw it away when I leave. But I find that hard. My guitar at home is a crappy one, but even so it's mine, and to me a guitar is like a sword is to a samurai. Heh, cheesy animé idea right there ! Re-do Bleach but with musiicians and guitars. Sure Moorcock did something similar with the real-life band Hawkwind in Queens of Deleria, and Truman's Grimjack played battle rock in the Demon Wars, but they didn't do the guitar samurai thing! :)

Finally, while the song is actually talking about why there are suicide bombers and soldiers, the following lyrics seemed rather appropriate given what seraphs_folly is working on (he says cryptically :) ).

There is something in us all that wants to surrender
To be guided through it all like star-eyed children
...
I am part of something I am one of the Chosen

Can you tell I'm alone with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon except listen to music, watch TV and surf the web, and ramble on?

Enforced idleness is good for one thing though, I feel my batteries of "wanting to do things" charging. It's like forty days and nights in the desert, and like the album I'm listening to and the messiah in the dessert I am high above a desert. Admittedly, I am in the comfort of a penthouse apartment and the desert is a city full of people I don't know, and the chains that keep me here are of my own making, and there's not really a thing preventing me from getting royally pissed and going to a strip club, not a wife, not money, not fear, not morals, just a sense of asceticism and no real desire, a sense of being happy with what I have and the afterglow of a late night/early afternoon phone conversation with my lover.

I should stop this is already far too long.

It's Friday, so I had fish and chips for Tea.

seraphs_folly gave me some money to buy myself some whiskey for my birthday over here (even though she said she'd already bought me a pressie!), so this evening when picking up milk and bread from the local Waitrose I thought I'd check out their liquor section on the off-chance, not expecting much, and OMG!

This supermarket here in Sheffield has a better range of whiskey than most specialist bottle stores in New Zealand! It has all the standards, Talisker, the GlenLivet, Glenmorangie, Laphrohaig, and tons of others, many of which I haven't tried! And cheap! Most of them are just £20! Less than $60! Even the Special GlenLivet is only £25!

So I chose a whiskey I haven't had before called The Peat Monster from the Compass Box Whiskey Company which was on special for £21 , down from £27. Then, when I went through the checkout the operator said I could get another 20% off if I bought six of them! It's described on the box as

Big, Peaty, Smoky. A superb, balanced and delicious combination of smoky, peaty Islay malt whiskey with rich old Speyside malt.

Here's a review. The Whiskey Guide tells me

Peat Monster is bottled at 46%. It is not chill filtered and contains no colour additives. The whisky is composed primarily of Caol Ila 10-11 years old and Ardmore 12-17 years old. The whisky is married for several months in ex-bourbon First Refill American oak casks. The marrying allows the intense smokiness of Caol Ila to be beautifully balanced by Ardmore’s milder, sweeter notes.

I'll find out on Sunday when I get to open it. I am seriously considering bringing some whiskey home at these prices. And then da guys will have to do "The Whiskey" again! :)

Last night G and I found a hilarious TV show on one of the comedy channels called Badly Dubbed Porn. It consist of badly made porn movies being voiced like Kung Faux was by British comedy actors. I'm pretty certain I heard Dawn French in there.

Right now we're watching a sci-fi show called Charlie Jade, which was made in South Africa for Canadian television, and G tells me his twin brother M was an extra one of the episodes.

Shame seraphs_folly couldn't make it to Welly this weekend, but I hope you guys all have a great party tonight!

Though because I'm a lazy bastard it's after mid-day already.

Just relaxing and listening to the String Quartet doing Fallout Boy's Of All The Gin Joints In All the World or something like that, while Lancelot plays in the Christmas tree, ferrouswheel tries to take a picture of it, wasup_bro tries to stop it, and panda_pitt prepares the roast for later.

ELe and Ben are supposed to be here by now, but we just got a text to say they've just left Carterton, so it will be while before they're here.

Had a lovely Christmas Eve. Got up and walked uop the hill to Piwakawaka to feed and comfort Tryss. Good exercise! I should do it more often!

Watched the last few available episodes of Jericho with ferrouswheel and wasup_bro later in the morning, which wasn't bad, and then spent a relaxing time sorting out the contents of my hard drives.

Got a surprise chat from kittyfarmer saying hat he and bekitty has something for me! They arranged to visit and presented me with a surprising and real fun christmas present! A USB-controlled missile launcher like the one posted about a while back! Hah! The world will not be safe from my domination now! My missiles shall rule for metres around! I'm gonna love taking this toy to work! Thanks, guys! much appreciated!

Later in the afternoon the lads and I played Carcassone, ferrouswheel won by 18 points due to strategic field placement, with panda_pitt second.

The guys went out and picked up fish and chips, and then we settled down to watch some Heroes because neither panda_pitt or wasup_bro had seen it yet! ferrouswheel and I amused ourselves by seeing just how many times "the symbol" turns up. Quite a lot actually!

Then we watched Fearless which was great, the archetypical martial arts movie, but very nicely done.

After that finished it was almost 1.00am so we wished each other a Merry Christtmas and went to bed!

This morning my just before waking dream was about cats. Big, short haired, almost leonine, cats, in two prides fighting a turf war over a bakery, and a poor little fluffy tabby kitten getting caught in the middle.

The one image etched into my brain from the dream was a Japanese goth couple leaving the bakery with the two prides of cats fighting around the couple, using them as a tree, cats and couple entwined in a pillar of cat fight and goth cuteness like a pillar from an odd temple.

Right then, before I do POETS* thing, some quick TV stuff from my web-surfing.

Firstly everyone seems to be raving about HBO/BBC's Rome from kung fu monkey to elfs. Everyone that is except the Brits, who are pissed that the Beeb went and cut the premiere, for the stated reason that "The English already know Roman history so don't need it all explained to them again"!

Sounds like it's got quite a bit of sex in it, not particularly surprising seeing as togas are such a useful form of clothing for quick access! maybe I need to get BitTorrent running!

And then there's the news that Josh Freidman, who writes I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing, is on the Terminator TV project! The Terminator TV project....I'm not sure if I should barf or trust Josh to do something good with it I suppose Galactica was far better than expected, and there is certainly scope in the Terminator milieu for a good series, as long as the time travelling doesn't become a plot device every other week!

*(Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday)