Supanova 2011 preview!

In less than a week the nerd circus will roll into town for this year's Supanova Pop Culture Expo. It's quite impressive how the country has embraced it over the last few years, within four years it's gone from being a bit too uncool for the general populace to a hugely popular and busy event.

Last year I didn't have much interest in the 'Supa-Star' guests, so spent most of my time shopping and taking photos of the cosplayers, but this year the lineup is awesome. Of particular interest to me are Sean Maher (Simon Tamm From Firefly), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto from Torchwood) and James Marsters (Spike from Buffy). Cary Elwes and Luke Perry were on the original lineup, but when they had to pull out they were replaced by Tom Felton from Harry Potter.  I'm hoping the Felts-hysteria takes some of the heat off the others, I do want autographs, but I'm not massively excited about the thought of lining up for an hour for them. There was like a ten minute line for Karl Urban two years ago, and that was well enough for me. Though Karl was super. I liked him a lot.

Anyway, because I'll be spending quite a bit of my time lining up for stuff and attending 'seminars' (horribly awkward Q&A sessions with the talent), I doubt I'll be taking as many photos as previous years. Will probably take my smaller camera in case of photo-emergency, but I won't be going out of my way.
Just in case I am a bit slack in the photo department, here are a few I was too lazy to post after last year's Supanova.

My main goal for this Supanova was to not spend anywhere near the obscene amount of money I spent on (really awesome) stuff last year, but given it will cost me over $100 just for the autographs (collectively, not individually), I may have to be realistic about how much I'll really be restricting myself. James Masters is doing a concert on the Saturday night, and the novelty factor will be high, so I already have a ticket to that. Also bought a ticket to the Supanova After Party on the Sunday night which essentially involves hanging out with James Marsters & Gareth David-Lloyd. That ticket was a wee bit expensive, but how often will that opportunity present itself? Hopefully there will be free drinks. I'd expect free drinks for the price.

I hope Ianto wears a suit.

Kiss My Camera 2011

Don't know how relevant this post is actually going to be, cause I'm not sure if the exhibition is still running, but last month was the start of the annual Kiss My Camera music photography exhibition run by WAM, as part of the WAMis. 50 photos all up, and for the first year included...absolutely none of mine. If I'm 100% honest I wasn't overly happy about it, but y'know. These things happen.

The gallery of the finalists is available to view at http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/explore/galleries/kiss-my-camera-2011-finalists. Jordan Shields won the Grand Prize with his portrait of Drapht, which was well deserved.

My submissions for your viewing pleasurez:

Jane's Addiction, Soundwave

Josh Pyke, Fremantle

Kasabian, Metro City

Operator Please, Capitol

Rufus Wainwright, Perth Concert Hall

 

Buried in Verona, Amplifier

When merchandising goes bad

I have been forced back into the blogosphere by an item I found and purchased yesterday. I buy a lot of dumb shit all the time, but never before have I been quite so compelled to share the ridiculousness.

So, yesterday I was at Priceline, and I would go so far to say that I blame Suzanne for the fact I was there in the first place. Her blog has opened up my eyes to the shiny appeal of the world of cosmetics, and Priceline is the primo place to go for said things.  So yes. All Suzanne's fault.

Anyway, I was in Priceline, walking past the perfume cabinets, and I saw this staring at me from the bottom shelf:

What. On. Earth.

Anyone who knows me well will know I have a 'slight affection' for boybands of the 90s, and Westlife are no exception. I liked them back when they were called Westside. Yeah! Look at me being all pop elitist! Yeah! Anyway, I saw this thing (whatever it was, I didn't even really look at it properly to be honest) was $12, so promptly tucked it under my arm and headed for the counter.

At home I opened it up. First the removal of the LUXURIOUS PLASTIC SLIPCASE:

Roses and a bit of a crap font. Nice! Time to pop the box open and see what treasures are inside:

Faux velvet, more roses, more crap font! I found an 'Eau De Parfum', a body lotion and a shower gel. Interesting. Upon spritzing some of the odour on my wrist (I'm having a hard time conceding and calling it a 'fragrance' at this point)  it was clear it was aimed at three groups of potential buyers.

• The Elderly, who would be happy with just about anything as long as it covered up the stench of Death.
• Little Girls, who just don't know any better.
• Twenty-Somethings, buying it for The Lulz.

I'll admit, when I first smelt it I thought 'Oh, it's not THAT bad!' It was quite dense, and tended to hang over you like a foggy cloud of odour as opposed to a subtle perfume, but I guess that's value for money? EVERYONE EVERWHERE WILL SMELL YOU! *shrug* The best way to describe it would be 'mature' (like the stinky perfumed talc that old people got from Avon about 20 years ago) but with a sickly sweet after-smell. Quite strange. Smelt the body lotion and the shower gel, they seemed similar, but much milder and a little sweeter.

Despite being something that I'd never wear myself, I did assume the perfume to be 'okay'. That is, until 4 hours later when I was headachey and nauseous and no amount of washing of my arm could remove the choking fog from my body. I'm wearing the jacket I was wearing last night and I CAN STILL SMELL IT. This is some potent crap. I'm far too terrified to use any of the other products now.

Sadly (or perhaps not), the Westlife fragrance set is destined to never again be worn by a human person, and will live out its days on a shelf in my bathroom. Cause it might smell like shit, but it sure does look nice!

"Why the fuck did I agree to this shiiiiiit?"

I give the Westlife fragrance set 1 Schnicky out of a possible 10.

I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!

Oh yes friends, it's that time of year again! Another six months agonising over the health and form of 20-odd young men from across the country. AFL season is back, so that means one thing: DREAM TEAM, BABY!

Now, this is my second year, and I made a lot of rookie errors the first time round, but I've learnt from those mistakes and am off to a pretty good start. I only cracked a score of 2000 once over the entire of last season, but I started off 2011 with a bang, scoring 2054. I'm stoked!

Go under the cut to check out my squad of super maxi legends.

I'm F**king Maaaaaatt Daaaaamooonnn

I don't like doing two posts full of YouTube clips in a  row, cause it's SHIT LAZY, but I found these clips while tidying up my hard drive today, and just had to get them back out into the world. Back in ye olden days of 2008, the world was blessed with not one, but two, meme-tastic videos. It was a running gag on Jimmy Kimmel's show that at the end of the night he'd 'bump' Matt Damon's appearance and say something along the lines of 'My apologies to Matt Damon, we're out of time tonight'. Sarah Silverman saw an opportunity where others just saw simple lols. Behold, Part 1:

Oh yes.

But Jimmy wasn't just going to sit idly by and take it lying down. Them apples were HIS apples, goddammit! A wounded yet defiant man, he countered with this heartfelt ode:

OH YES. 'Matt Damon' makes me laugh, but 'Ben Affleck' makes me CRY. And it's not cause I'm swayed by Lance from Nsync being in it. Ok...maybe a bit. A little bit. To this entire exchange I say:

Bullshit music Monday

I have been delivered a few aural treats in the last 24 hours, so it would just be rude of me not to share. The first one has gone insanely viral so you may (or, if you're really lucky, may not) have heard of this one. As I type, she is currently the top trending topic in Australia. Good lord. 'Friday' by Rebecca Black.

I really think Rebecca Black has done the world a favour. Everyone is suffering from a little bit of Charlie Sheen meme fatigue, so it's nice to have something fresh to mock relentlessly. Her lyric about the order of the days of the week will be on a tshirt before the end of the year, mark my words. I was questioning the sanity of whoever would bankroll the recording of the 'song', and the production of the (in parts, quite slick-looking) video. Turns out there's a production company that targets tween girls, writes them a song, records it with shitloads of auto-tune, does up a video and makes them 'stars'. I don't think it's particularly exploitive, if the parents are silly enough to cough up the cash, then that's their problem, but I do feel really sorry for the kids. You're 13, and everyone on the internet is laughing at you. That's gotta be a great self-esteem boost at a particularly fragile time in your life! I did watch a few of the other girls' videos, and while the lyrics were (slightly) better, they were still just as depressing, so we'll just leave it there.

Next up, we have BANGS (yep, capitals), the Sudanese casanova who wants to 'Take U To Da Movies'.

If I'm being honest, the more I watch this, the more insanely charming I find it. Safe to say that English probably isn't the first language of Señor BANGS, but his dedication to THUG LYFE is clear in any language. Just like Rebecca Black explaining that Sunday comes 'afterwards' Saturday, BANGS explains that 3.30pm is half an hour away from 4.00pm. They educate the kids, man. They provide a SERVICE, and ask for nothing in return. Except for some popcorn maybe.

I just couldn't leave BANGS there. I needed more. I clicked on the promising sounding 'My Special Girl'.

BANGS wants to let you know that you're his 'Special Girl', but he also wants to you know that he's operating at a maximum level of pimp. Exposing his little pigeon chest maximises his pimp status. Looking up his own website maximises his pimp status. Forcing his bling upon you maximises his pimp status. This guy is one badass PIMP, yo! I had to leave the world of BANGS, lest he slap me with his pimp cane. I just can't handle that kind of power.

As for this next one, I'm going to pre-apologise for posting it, but it needs to be seen. It's a 'local production' called 'Summer' by someone called Vee, but I like to call it 'Scarborough Slappers in bikinis with Garageband and a video camera'. I AM SORRY.

I can't even...I can't...oh god. I think the commenter who said 'This is worse than the holocaust' really sums it up, and I can't articulate it any better than that.

I applaud all the above artists on getting their work out there, as I know I certainly wouldn't be brave enough to release a shining example of my burning shititude onto the internet.

BRAVO, sirs!

EDIT: BREAKING NEWS! Damn these exciting, fluid memes! Please now feast your ears upon 'Friday' by Rebecca Black, as performed by (a) Bob Dylan (impersonator).

That was a little bit excellent. Kudos.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Good Bye

Today when I get home from work, I will sit down to watch the last episode of one of the best dramas of the past decade. I know what you're thinking. 'How can some dumb jock show ACTUALLY be considered a significant contribution to the television landscape? It's about SPORTS!' I know quite a few people who would dismiss Friday Night Lights on the grounds that not only is it a sports show,  it's a show about a sport they have no interest in.

Those people are missing out.

I will admit I started watching it BECAUSE of the football element, but stayed for the compelling storylines, the knockout performances from a cast largely made up of inexperienced actors, and the genuine connection I felt for the characters. Take Matt Saracen for example. He's 16 when we first meet him. A young kid running a household by himself as his Mum's AWOL and his Dad is in Iraq. He's the backup quarterback for the Dillon Panthers and is pretty unlikely to get a game ahead of their superstar starter, but he's ok with that. Caring for his grandmother with Alzheimer's and concentrating on his studies are more important. He doesn't want to play football in college, and even if he did, not being able to get a game kills his chance of a scholarship, so good results are the only way he's going to get out of Dillion and make something of himself.  The Panthers are shattered in the first game of the season when their quarterback, the dynamo who was without question going to lead the school to victory in the State Championship game, makes a poor decision in a tackle and ends up a paraplegic. Saracen has to step up, and not only become the leader of a team that is heavily grieving, but the leader of an entire town relying on him to fulfil the Panthers' destiny of greatness. No pressure, right?

A teen drama it ain't, and a one-dimensional meathead sports romp it ain't either. I wouldn't really call myself a tv-aholic, I'm weeks behind on most of the shows I watch, and there's plenty of shows I just haven't got around to watching even though I want to, but Friday Night Lights has always been the show I couldn't miss. Being from Australia, where up until recently converage of the NFL on free to air tv only extended to the Superbowl, it really felt like the show was my own little secret, and it felt like my own to enjoy and keep sacred.

When I heard that the show wasn't going to continue beyond season 5, I was obviously bummed, but y'know. All good things must come to an end. Now that it's D-Day and I have one hour of tv left with my beloved Coach, and Riggs, and Mrs Coach and the rest, I'm not quite so ready to let it go. While I can only imagine that it's written in stone that the Lions will win the State Championship, there are so many other loose ends that I'm scared won't be tied up. Admittedly I should have faith in a show that hasn't put a foot wrong in five years (excluding the 'storyline that shall not be spoken of' in season 2), but there's some big stuff going down. I'm going to be genuinely nervous hitting the play button tonight.

The outpouring of love for this show on the internet now that we're faced with the end really shows what an impact it's had. Maureen Ryan wrote on TV Squad 'Friday Night Lights' was very good when it started, but it quickly developed into one of the most innovative, moving and thoughtful shows of the modern era. It wasn't perfect, but television as a whole could learn a lot from what FNL did well.

Alan Stepinwall of Hitfix articulates it far better than I:

There's a level of honest, raw humanity in "Friday Night Lights" that few TV dramas have ever achieved. Over and over and over, the show and its characters wore their hearts on their sleeves, in a way that somehow made them more solid than characters on other series of comparable quality.
That rawness made the show great, but it was also likely one of the aspects (along with the high school football setting) that kept the show from being a hit, as most viewers don't turn to TV to be confronted by emotions as powerful as the ones this series brought up. Watching "Friday Night Lights" often felt like being put through a ringer. You felt like part of the town, and the team, and you bled with the characters and cried with them, and on occasion you got to soar with them, too. And a lot of people simply don't want to get that close to the fictional characters they watch - don't feel that experiencing the devastating lows is worth also getting to share in the glorious highs.

One thing's for certain. Tonight I will cry like a little bitch. Be it at the opening credits (99% chance, they make me teary at the best of times), if (when) the Lion win and Vince gets to share the victory with his recovering drug-addict mother (80%), if Luke gets to follow his dreams to college (90%), or if (and this is a BIG IF) Smash comes back and at any point leads the 'Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose' warcry (100%, I'm tearing up now just thinking about it).

Riggins: Here's to God, and football, and ten years from now Street, good friends livin' large in Texas. 
Street: Texas forever.

Texas Forever. And ever.