Nugget's Noodle

A `too much coffee' Saturday rant about manufacturing.

2012-01-21T17:42:00.000+11:00

It's a warm, sunny Saturday morning here in Newcastle. I'm in at my favorite Cafe, ' The Last Drop', patiently awaiting breakfast and downing a couple of strong long blacks. As I sit at my table with a fine view of my dearest as she commands her small army of gorgeous servers and admire the tanned, lithe beauties who parade past to and fro from Newcastle Beach. I think about China in relation to the state of manufacturing in Australia and the geopolitical shift that has been underway for the past two decades. Well - I do!!

Everyone's aware of the whole China thing, no new news there though I did enjoy that aliteration. The poor buggers building our iPhones, computers, Telly's etc are getting paid up to 31c an hour (with 36 hr individual shifts) to build them, did you know that? And that's at Foxconn, the 'prestige' factory. What are the smaller business' paying? It's no surprise that the west can't compete with that. How can they? It's slave labour.

My answer? Don't.

We in the west are collectively wringing our hands about loosing our manufacturing jobs offshore to countries who use their population as slave labour. So we need to stop whining about it and get clever.

Reading a Wired Magazine article last year got me thinking. It was about how a small but growing number of companies in the US were shifting their manufacturing away from China. Sure it cost them peanuts to get their products manufactured, but they were more frequently than not paying hand over fist for poor workmanship, silly mistakes and corner cutting from Chinese factories. With some rethinking of different elements within the manufacture of their products and some negotiation on wages with American factories, they were able to sell their products at roughly the same price and for the same profit margin as they had with the Chinese factories but with increased quality and assurance of delivery.

Later in the year, friends of mine went to the west coast of the US for a holiday and bought me back a sensational bottle of Cayenne Pepper sauce. I guzzled it down and went online to try and find some more. In my search I found that the sauce was manufactured by a small company in Kansas called `Original Juan' that bottled, manufactured, marketed and distributes food products, retail and online, by whoever has a great food product they felt needed to be shared with the rest of the world. These were folk who built their own trade marked, small and flexible assembly line for brewing & bottling food products. It's Micro-manufacturing or as they call it Micro-Batch and I reckon systems like and similar to this are the way to go in Australia. We've been conditioned to think we can't compete with China and India, Indonesia etc, because of the costs involved with making a widget. But what price the widget if it’s of poor quality or fails to work to expectation?

Australian garlic is another example. For some time, Australian farmers had given up. How could they compete against cheap Chinese imports? But they have. Using the Internet and some lateral thinking and hard work, they have managed to crawl back market share for Australian Garlic.

Are you following my train of thought?

With some lateral thinking, wage negotiation and courage there's no reason we can't get manufacturing happening again in this country. We can use the gifts that living in the west affords us such as the freedom to create, innovate, question and negotiate that you just can't do in China. Quality and innovation from western countries will easily surpass the countries where creativity and independent thought is discouraged and corruption is part of every day life. We don't have corruption anywhere near the scale they do in the rising asian countries. Just bad laws that can be changed if enough people get on board.

Good service is something successful companies realise is unquantifiable monetarily, (that I know of,) but is part way the reason to many successful companies. The time will soon come when the mining boom will cease, what are we going to do then? It's a way for Australia to level out the two speed economy and keep our population at work when the mining boom ends.

For some people the point of owning and running a business is not to make billions of dollars. It's to earn enough to maintain a modest standard of living leaving enough to retire on. Small manufacturing and related industries can supply this. There's always a chance for some to strike it rich but for the most part, people just want to earn an honest living. This is what living in a liberal western democracy can achieve as opposed to living in a Communist dictatorship. (is it obvious I'm not fond of communism?) We enjoy the freedom to be creative and bold - we just don't use it.

UPDATE: Through the week I wrote to the lovely folk at Original Juan telling them about this article and asking permission to use their company as an example and if they had any comment. Here's their reply;

"Hi Ross, thanks for contacting us. I thought the blog was very well written, thanks for including us. I have a few points to include, you can word then however you want.

1) The food system in American is becoming more and more concentrated. Four to five major corporations control a great deal of the food system. Companies like ours meet a lot of opposition in stores because our prices are slightly more expensive and we don't pay slotting fees. We have to operate at a smaller profit margin than larger companies to get on the shelves. The benefit to consumers is we help keep prices competitive in stores. There are a lot of barriers to get into major chains when you are our size. We have been successful through a lot of determination and a little bit of luck.

2) Companies like ours depend upon the loyalty of our customers. We are thoughtful in the quality and contents of our products. We are never going to be the cheapest, but we are proud of the quality of products we manufacture. Our customers have a connection with us, they visit our facility, they participate in our social media. Simply put, we know and care about them.

Sorry about the rambling, hopefully there is some useful info to you. Let me know if you need anything else.

Lindsay Howerton

Vice President of Marketing"

Original Juan Speciality Foods

Thanks so much to Lindsay for taking the time to reply.
I'm going to be ordering more of their sauce and I highly recommend it to you. It's mighty tasty!!
(I had the `Pain is good! Cayenne Hot sauce' It was hot but marked mild, so I'm keen to see what the medium and hot ones are like)

My Exhibition, ENHANCED - words and pictures.

2011-12-19T13:17:00.001+11:00

My first solo exhibition is up at the Last Drop Espresso Bar in Newcastle. If you're in town, I hope you'll drop in to have a look and try some of the best coffee in town and the yummiest all day breakies and lunches. You can't miss it, there's lots of fairy lights.
The images are all still for sale!

So if you see a piece you just have to have or you'll just explode, or maybe just because you like it moderately even, drop me a line and lets see what we can arrange to bring you and my artwork closer together.

Later on, I'll let you know, I'm going to be putting these pictures up onto my Redbubble site where you will be able to buy the work in many variations. ie; framed photo prints, cards, posters etc and they're all exceptional quality.

To explain a bit of where I'm coming from and also to show some of my work, here are some excerpts from my catalog.

Digital Photography

This exhibition will be the first in a series of exhibitions of images of houses from down the length of Beryl Street in Broken Hill, an infamous old mining town in Western NSW and some 'Cartoony Art'. Really, this is a series of photos of old houses with some intense colour manipulation. Yet it could be argued that they represent so much more. The Cartoony Art does as well but from a different though complimentary angle.

We're always living through interesting times, to reference the old Chinese curse, but (apologies for mashing cliches), some are more equal than others. There is some discussion at the moment about the decadence of our society and the decline of Western Civilization and gradual shifting of power; political and cultural, to the East. (As if the warming of the planet wasn't discomfort enough). How do enhanced images of old miners homes in a 19th Century mining town relate to the decline of our comfy civilization as we know it? And isn't that a big call for such a little exhibition? (I mean, who the hell are you Carroll?)

Broken Hill really is a very interesting place and the old miners huts, up to and over a hundred years old as they stand today, have been added to and enhanced by numerous occupants over the towns checkered history reflecting their cultural and ethnic heritage and in a lot of cases, personal artistic expression. They are all examples of personal expression in a town where the very reason for it's existence is based upon hard physical labor and dreams of huge wealth but exist in a reality of drudgery, violence, sex and a lot of alcohol. (Probably a bit of love thrown in there too but lets not get pedantic.)

They are conscious and unconscious expressions of inner desires and introspection. I've amplified these expressions by saturating the existing colour in the images in an illustrative way as a comment on our own cultural narcissism. Narcissus was in love with his own image and disengaged from reality to engage with the illusion of self. An indication of a cultures decline is it’s propensity to indulge in this onanistic practice to the exclusion of everything else. Why are we not considering what we can learn from the East and elsewhere to halt a decline into cultural, economic and political irrelevance, where the advantages of living in a liberal democracy become distant prosaic memories? Or they might just be some nice pictures of houses.

Digital Illustration, Cartoony Art

I call my illustrations Cartoony Art because I love the art work of animated movies, specifically those from Disney, Warner Brothers shorts and Pixar. I love the styling, colour and textures. It’s hard not to look at the artwork of Disneys `Sleeping Beauty’, art directed and in most cases rendered by illustrator, Eyvind Earle and not feel excited at the artistic potential of animation. Beyond the movies or on my television, I wanted to see work like it on my wall, and I wanted it to tell a story as well, for context and entertainment. These images, and there are many to come in different stages of completion, are in my mind, all from movies that have never been made, about characters who still have a story to tell.

There’s the insidious niceness of Dinky Bo Bo. From first viewing, he appears a lovable, childlike, sausage shaped character who is inexplicably found serving tea in the African Jungle by a lost French, Boy Scout Legionnaire. On eventually emerging from Africa’s dark heart many years later, desperate to get home to France and his beloved family estate and Tyre factory, he tries to sell Dinky in the back room of a seedy, smoke filled Moroccan Taverna. The buyer, a Sydney Greenstreet kind of character, plies him with a home cooked meal and a mug of an hallucinogenic cactus and mango juice to trick him into selling Dinky at a low price or better still, for nothing. But pity those who ever come in contact with Dinky Bo Bo. He is a character of true evil.

Domestic Spuff is a riff on all of those old TV shows from the early years of Television like Mr Ed, Bewitched, I dream of Genie and My favorite Martian. Spuff is a visitor from another world who’s somehow got himself into a very intense relationship with a career minded single woman. We can only speculate as to the nature of their relationship but it seems as if this day is the day where it all hit the fan. The pressure of being constantly spied upon by nosy, `Kravitz’ style neighbors and the machinations of the seemingly urbane and sophisticated pet dog `Mr Tickle’ have conspired to bring Spuff and his beautiful lady to the very knife edge of their relationship and into the back seat of a waiting Taxi. And you thought you had troubles!!

Candlelight Willy is an image of Willy Wobble and Pepe, the mistakenly canned Tuna. Together they stumble blindly around the Austrian Alps keeping invaders away from their precious land. They own the best views in the world and sharing it with others is simply unheard of, especially when you’re blind.

...And here are some snap shots from the opening night.

My first Exhibition

2011-11-20T13:08:00.001+11:00

Yep! I'm finally having an Exhibition.

Hope you can make it along to the opening on Friday 7pm, December 9 at the Last Drop for drinks and nibbles and a chance to snap up some top quality artwork as a Christmas gift to yourself or someone special.

The deaths of Colin and Steve.

2011-10-08T18:49:00.002+11:00

I'm assuming everyone in the the Blogger-sphere and beyond is writing about the death this week of Steve Jobs and what he mean't to them. And who am I to buck the trend? But my Uncle Colin Kerr died this week as well, two days before Steve. And he mean't more to me, even though I'd only met him several times more than I'd met Steve. Which was none. But I admired them both, if not for different reasons.

Steve was a distant, cult-like, celebrity figure who made computers, gadgets and movies I adore, (how long will it be before the first post-death sightings begin to surface?) My Uncle Colin was my Dad's cousin who with his wife, Eileen and their sons, owned and ran one of those big old sprawling Australian Sheep Stations that were the envy of the world back in the day, but later struggled through mountains of debt and endless drought in Western NSW.

I'm too young to remember early childhood visits to 'Wattlevale', west of Young but east of Quandialla and Bibbaree, but I remember vividly our family holiday out there in my early teens. In the late seventies, we trundled out in the family Holden Kingswood towing one of the old, modest sized Viscount Caravans and parked ourselves under the shade of the coolibah trees* that bordered the area of the Farm. I don't remember it being excessively hot but I do remember it being bright, flat and brown with bits of olive green in between a cloudless blue sky.

I've only flashes of memories now. I remember the homestead and it's enormous kitchen with the smell of the wood fired stove in it. The creamy fresh milk that my sister and I excitedly helped milk straight from the cow that very cold morning and poured out later at breakfast onto our bowls of Wheet-bix. Stomping down the wool, shawn fresh from the sheep into the canvas bales and the laughter of the shearers at my chubby size and young enthusiasm. The heat of the sun outside in the flat pasture and the coolness of the Wool-sheds interior. The overwhelming, sweet smell of lanolin and spreading out the wool onto the table to be sorted. The farm dogs, Pepper and 'D-fer' ('D fer Dog' geddit?) who seemed so pleased to be running with kids and the attention they got as a change from being yelled and whistled at. 'Smoko' breaks with all of the shearers and drinking hot tea from a battered old metal Thermos and eating thickly cut fresh sandwiches from an equally battered old metal esky left over from the fifties and perched on the rear tray of an old Bedford truck.

My Aunty Eileen Kerr (left) and Mum at Wattlevale

I remember my Uncle Colin especially. He loomed, like the cliche to me, larger than life. When I see the independent politician from Tamworth, Tony Windsor on the telly I get a sense of him. Strong, solidly built. Conservative but based on common sense and experience rather than any blind right-wing ideology. Balding and pale on top from the sweat stained old Akubra that only reluctantly left his head to come indoors and a tan line across his forehead below which was a sun-weathered and kind, smiling round face. He was soft spoken, good humored but the quiet type. He taught my sister and I how to slaughter a sheep. A taste of reality for us townies from the coast. We had a hilarious adventure chasing it down that day in the paddock, putting it into the boot of the ole Kingswood and bringing it back to the Homestead. Uncle Colin held it down and showed us how to cut it's throat cleanly and quickly so it wouldn't suffer. We watched in intense fascination as the blood spurted out from the wound. Then as he began butchering it we pulled out the long ribbon of it's intestines down the length of the farm so we could see how long they got. But it wasn't gruesome or cruel. It was instructional and to us at that age, extremely interesting. We were taught to be respectful of the creature who gave up it's life for us to eat cooked to delicious perfection for the rest of our all too short holiday. (a couple of weeks I think).

From what my Dad has told me, like him, Uncle Colin worked hard all his life taking over the property after his father died. The last few years were a constant battle. I don't believe in god. But if there is one it's an arse-hole deity with a questionable sense of humour for the last few decades of shit it put my Uncle and Aunty Eileen through. If there was a break in the constant drought it was always just over the hill and not on Wattlevale and if there was rain there was so much it washed any benefit away.

He had a couple of strokes and didn't recognise anyone in his last days which ended earlier this week. They're burying him today and I'm sure that there will be a lot of folk from the district there to celebrate his life and say hoo-roo. I feel for my Dad at the moment who I know was really close to his cousin as men of that generation can be. Dad and Mum visited them often. My sister and I never made it back to Wattlevale. Not because we didn't want to. It just never happened. One of those things. But Uncle Colin has a particularly special place in my heart and memories.

Steve Jobs was a distant celebrity figure who headed a company that make beautifully designed and engineered computers, that for me are a pleasure, rather than a chore to use. All of the fidgety, tech stuff is done 'under the hood' leaving me to just get on with creating stuff. And I've never been as productive as I have since I switched to Mac. Apart from anything else about them - I love how they look like we imagine computers should look rather than the dull and utilitarian beige boxes of their uninspired competitors.

I love the iPad which rarely leaves my side. I take my books, magazines artwork, newspapers, amazing apps everywhere with me and interact with friends and the world on it. I'm continuing my education and expanding and challenging my consciousness and thoughts on it. I'm still in awe of the iPhone as a companion device and the things you can do on it. I don't watch much free to air Telly anymore, it's all streamed from the net onto my AppleTV and I hire the latest movies on it without having to worry about being fined for late returns. All with a couple of clicks of a small, splendidly designed remote control.

Steve Jobs pushed computers and technology to be what we imagined they should be and not to settle for what we were given as a compromise.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

* I don't know if they were Coolibah trees or what even a Coolibah tree is, but it seemed poetic to put them in. Facts are for Journalists' not story tellers. (Hey! Does that make me like Allen Jones?)

It's language Jim but not as we know it.

2011-06-15T16:49:00.002+10:00

I've been hard at work illustrating and animating since the beginning of February of this year on a sequence for a TV Commercial. The way I work gives me lots embarrassing rashes, time to think and now with the iPad in my life, my wide and free ranging interests are more easily accessible through some cleverly designed apps that widely source articles from around the web and package them together into these terrific, networked little apps. That and it's an easy way to order effective ointments online. I'm going to try and put some of the memes ricocheting around my brain hole for the past several months into a semi-coherent stream of consciousness. Let's start with Sir Ridley Scott
and his return to the Alien franchise because, well, why wouldn't you?!

Initially there was a fair amount of excitement within the geek world that the man who made the original Alien movie was returning to make a prequel and potentially heralded a return to the moody, atmospheric suspense and genuine science fiction of the original movie. There was lots of speculation; about it's story line, whether Sigourney Weaver would be returning in some capacity or the original designer, Swiss artist, H.R. Giger would reprise and build on his original concepts of the alien. Would it be in 3D? Would Russell Crowe perform in motion capture technology as the Alien? It was all terrifically exciting speculation and I know many geeks soiled themselves in giddy expectation.

Sadly that's all changed. And there's some previous and ominous form to my dread. Ridley Scott recently made a Robin Hood movie with his grumpy muse, Russell Crowe. I haven't seen it, well, I'll correct that. Apparently I have. But I don't remember it. I got stoned and fell asleep ten minutes in and woke up through the end credits but from what I've heard and read I didn't miss much. I was, in an apparent way, pissed off about what Mr Scott apparently did to the Robin Hood movie because of what I'd read it was apparently going to be about. Like the concept for the Alien prequel, it sounded like something I really wanted to see. Apparently.

Russell Crowe initially signed on with another director to a storyline that had him playing the Sheriff of Nottingham utilizing the latest 15th century scientific knowledge, 'CSI' style, to work out the mystery of who was bailing up and stealing from travellers through Sherwood Forrest. In this concept, the Sheriff would be the conflicted hero. Torn between his loyalty to the King and his own morals. Now doesn't that sound like a fresh angle on such a well known story like Robin Hood? I thought so. Things went south reportedly when Russell got old mate Ridley on board who decided that what the world really needed was a modern, gritty and more historically accurate retelling of the Robin Hood story. And the world responded with a collective -'meh!' Well everyone except David Stratton.

So back to Alien. Yep, there's no fooling my thoughtfully logical readers. It is happening again. Reportedly the revised Ridley Scott version of the Alien prequel is that it's no longer an Alien prequel... Or at least it bears only a cursory resemblance to it. Until it comes out we'll just have to wait and see if what he's done improves on the original idea or sinks it like a huge Robin Hood stool to the bottom of the toilet. Personally I think he's missed an opportunity to experiment & make a truly interesting and 'alien' movie.

I used to fantasize that what would make a really interesting Alien prequel would be if it had no human beings in it at all. Or at least not until the end when the crew of the ship Nostromo from the first movie, make their appearance in response to the distress call. I imagined a story line where alien scientist's encounter the alien, not on it's home planet but in the ruins of a recently dead civilization the species has decimated. Then, full of hubris that you could imagine has been endlessly repeated and is doomed to continue, they transport a captured Alien to their home world for study. Perhaps the ship and crew remains the rescue party from the Nostromo discover, were the last survivors from the civilization the Alien destroyed when it made it's inevitable escape from their labs.

Reclining drowsily in the placenta inspired thought capsule I've had installed off the exterior of my house, (you can't miss it. It glows quite brightly through the day and makes a loud, irritating noise if you get too close,) I wondered if they would have the creative courage to make a movie with truly alien characters and environments. The secret, I speculated through my large unwieldy Italian designed goggles, in depicting a truly alien species would be to not go too overboard in imagining the alienness of the aliens because we humans still need a bit of human to relate to the story otherwise you end up with a David Bowie, 70's era music video. But it still needs to be alien enough so that we can still recognize it as alien in every sense of the word.

So this has been floating about in my brain and I've made a connection between that nascent meme and reviews I've been reading about British author, China Mieville's new novel; Embassytown. This isn't a review because I've yet to read the novel (But I've since downloaded it to my ipad). Of the several exciting reviews I've read, this excellent one from James Bradley in the Weekend Australian says that he explores and contrasts Alien species against our own through differences in language. But rather than just basic differences like those between, say Chinese and English and the whacky hilarity that ensues when someone tries to ask for directions to a public toilet, these are differences in the actual form of language.

It can't be a given that future communication between our own and other off world sentient species will be like anything we could currently envision. From the sounds of it, Mr Meiville's latest novel goes a long way in exploring this conceit.

The alien species in Meiville's novel communicate not through symbolic language where words denote and connote meanings. Mievilles aliens have no such device. If I'm summarising correctly because it's a difficult concept to get your head around, they communicate like us through a series of noises however as Bradley writes, `there is no space between thinking and speaking, or mind and word. Which means: "Each word is like a funnel. Where to us each word means something, to the Hosts, each is a door opening. A door through which the thought of that referent, the thought itself that reached for that word, can be seen." On the surface this sounds like a language that could have been invented by Bureaucrats or the Insurance industry but it also sounds like a language with a basis in modern poetry where context, historical, emotional, personal and societal seem to me to be the key to appreciating much of it. But ironically I think it would be a very efficient language as backstory to a topic you are conversing about is already known because of how the language works. Or at least that's my reading of it.

I hope Ridley Scott doesn't get his hands on the movie rights to Meiville's new novel. I respect him, he's made some great movies but I really don't think he has the courage to tackle a story like this based on his latest form. Still, we shall see as `Alien: Prometheus' isn't due out till March 2012.

My Tangled Review

2011-01-21T15:41:00.000+11:00

I caught up with Walt Disney pictures 50th animated feature, Tangled this week. First things first, I love digital projection. I know the tedious purist's out there will waffle endlessly on about how they miss film and how much better it is, yadda, yadda, yadda but let me tell you now. They are morons. I haven’t actually met anyone who holds that opinion yet but I’m sure they’re out there and they’re morons, okay? However. Tangled in a sumptuously comfortable new cinema, (the new Readings Multiplex at Charlestown, NSW), was heaven.

It’s so Purrrrdy

Heaven (of the non sexual kind) is big screen, high definition, richly coloured and in crisp focus. Focus being something modern projectionist's seem to have an enormous amount of trouble achieving and maintaining, among other things too I’m guessing. I remember seeing a Blu Ray for the first time on a large new high definition Telly and aside from being blown away by the richly saturated, crisp image, and falling instantly in love, I realised I didn’t have that metallic taste in my mouth anymore. And this is the same but on a much larger scale and with no rectal bleeding. I've been to this theatre before but the reason I'm being so gushy about it is because it's the first time I've gone along with my glasses.
I know, I know. Well. I'd misplaced them for a month or so and only just found them again the day before. I really must get a new pair.

Anyway, to Tangled. It's really the standard princess fairy tale that you expect from Disney but rather than being a bit `Meh’, it's fresh, well paced, not too long...or short, great fun and just the right amount of tears without becoming treacle. It looks beautiful. The artwork is CG but rendered in a very painterly way. It doesn't have any of the harshness of lighting that some CG movies have and there is a great attention to detail without it becoming too busy. The lantern releasing sequence for instance, toward the end of the film, took my breath away in how masterfully well it was directed and rendered artistically. It's just so damn purrdy.

The character animation is once again Disney's animators at the peak of their art. The Princess and the Frog, Disney's previous movie, was my previous high point but there's not one moment in this movie where the acting in this animation is not extraordinary. Every character is 'alive' with their own personality, it's really amazing to see. I could go on about how much I loved the animation but we all have lives to live and people to kill.

Showering Thematically

In the shower this morning I was lathering up and thinking about Tangled thematically, (hey, It's what I do). It's really a film about Mothering. Motherhood perhaps, probably more parenting in general I suppose. Actually it’s not about Mothering at all, it’s about being a parent. Let's leave my mother issues out of it. It's about how you can loose your kids completely if you don't let them go and become the people they want to be. The villainess of the story is a passive, aggressive old witch called Mother Gothel who has stolen the Princess Rapunzel from her parents and keeps her hidden away from the world in a tower so she can use the princess's magical neon hair to keep her young. For some reason I can imagine young, pre-teen, beauty queen contestants leaving sessions of this movie bewilderingly disturbed and their mothers regretting taking them to see it. (Well they might get ideas!!) The writers at Disney sure seem to be having some interesting parental issues they're working out through their movies.

Before I finish, there's something that's struck me as interesting in the latest clutch of movies from Pixar and Disney and considering they're both overseen creatively by Pixar it makes sense to lump them together. You see, Walt Disney was always a firm believer in putting characters at real risk, increasing the stakes and not avoiding the emotional impact of a characters death. It’s great because it means he has so much respect for his audiences. It went out of fashion for a while. Some parents thought (and still think) such emotion is too edgy. They don’t want their children exposed to such things afraid that they might have nightmares. Meanwhile those kids grow up friendless because all the other kids think they’re pansies with no abilities in life to cope with situations where their metal is tested when up against the shit that life throws at them and who wants to be friends with someone like that? Pfffft - Not me!!

Spielberg is a big gay nancy

Seriously, who would? Steven Spielburg's a big PC Pansy arse these days. He took all of the guns out of ET and replaced them with Walki-Talki’s for Christ's sake! Indiana Jones doesn’t fire a shot in his latest movie...where’s the fun in that? Anyway, there seems to be a bit of a reaction against that kind of thinking (and bad story telling), once again led by Pixar. In Toy Story 3 there’s a great scene toward the end where the characters are seemingly all going to die in a giant trash compactor.

It’s a real, heartfelt moment in the movie and it’s done so well, you really do believe that they might actually kill these characters. I sat up out of my seat thinking to myself, `well this is new.‘ It wasn’t of course. It was what Walt used to do. But film makers don’t anymore for fear of offending someone in the audience, like dull, mediocre parents who want to wrap their kids in cotton wool and make them unable to cope with a real crisis’s when they’re an adult. There’s a near death scene in Tangled and I love Disney for it. Rapunzel and the hero, Flynn, are trapped in a cave with the water rising up around them. They’re desperately trying to find a way out and the tension is increasing. This is nothing new in live action movies, you see it all the time. No. It’s the look that passes between them that’s new for an animated movie. It’s a moment of mortality and just for a fleeting second, you believe that these characters are in real danger and it forces you to invest so much more in the characters. Now that’s good story telling.

Go See it on the Big Screen!

Trust me. It’s worth seeing this movie on the big screen. Hell, if I can go by myself, (my date was exhausted after moving house - kisses to her,) and have the ticket girl ask me, `Just yourself?’ in a way that obviously is mean’t to imply I’m some kind of big gay pedophile then you can too.

4.5 out of 5 Stars.

My Tron Legacy 3D review

2011-01-05T22:57:00.000+11:00

For the life of me I don't understand how a movie like Tron Legacy, that is almost overpowered by it's own spectacular special effects, can be so dull. The movie was conceived, like Avatar, to be shot in 3D, or so I've read, but it was the most underwhelming display of the fad that I've ever seen. It's a movie that has been years in development at Disney and a lot of time and money has been lavished on it but I don't know if it could have been improved by a better script because ultimately, what is there to write about? I mean it's about being sucked, literally, into a video game. I suppose some talented writers with some original and lateral thinking could have come up with something but I guess they were all busy working on the Yogi Bear movie.

The story, such as it is, goes like this, the son of a missing genius and idealistic gaming millionaire finds his way to the alternate world his father created inside a computer. The son, Sam, played by an actor of some sort, learns quickly that he has to fight in a neon, gladiatorial arena to survive. Sam causes a stir and meets the bad guy who looks like a younger, CG version of his old man, but of course isn't. Then he gets rescued by an attractive young lady with a bowl haircut wearing a very snug fetishistic, fitting neon jumpsuit who takes him to meet his real, wrinkly non-CG Dad.

There's a bit of argy bargy between father and son and the first yawn should begin to happen around this point of the movie. I'm not even going to bother describing the rest because you've seen it all before. It's like watching a movie that wasn't just typed up in Microsoft Word, it feels like it was written by Microsoft Word. Jeff Bridges is the best thing about this tedious effort. Every now and then, flashes of 'the dude' would come out in his performance which was nice to see but God it hurts my brain trying to find something interesting to write about this bloody film...I liked the soundtrack!

Two out of five stars but honestly, wait till you find it in the three dollar weekly bin because there's nothing you haven't seen before.

Bloody Christmas. Part 1

2011-01-04T16:44:00.000+11:00

There goes Christmas and the New Year for 2010. Waving from the back window of the family car rapidly disappearing in a trail of gravel dust down the front driveway. Bye Bye now - See you next year you mongrel bastards! Mixed feelings about Christmas have always followed me around in the November lead up to the season since I was capable of independent thought or at least since Santa was brutally murdered in my imagination. Santa to me, was someone I managed to hold onto a bit longer than most other kids due to what I came to recognize was a tenacious, lifelong talent to avoid reality. Yes, that was me you saw on the Television News that year. The sensitive child, alone in the playground nursing the bloodied corpse of Father Christmas in his lap. You see what I mean?

I've long wrestled with the hypocrisy that I'm sure many atheists do, of celebrating the fictional birthday of a mythical, supernatural, Jewish, messianic figure and the guilt for being such an ungrateful little cuss for not appreciating the season. I continue to celebrate it, like I'm sure many do, to keep the peace in the family. Back in the day, I would stress about getting the right gifts for my family and then be greeted by cries of 'Oh You shouldn't have!' and 'How much did this cost? It's too much!' I found that Christmas in Australia is an orgy of passive, aggressive behavior with the words 'Tradition' and 'Family' used as a cudgel to beat uppity questioners into submission. Buying presents for my close friends was conversely a pleasure. They could see and appreciate that I had gifted them something they were interested in or see how it might relate to something shared we’ve enjoyed through the year. Then if I mentioned to my mother about how good it was that my friend enjoyed their Christmas present I'd get `Well you spend more time thinking about your friends than you do your own family.' But then If a gift wasn't ultimately practical or of some use, my family was disappointed. `Well it looks good but it’s not something I could really use, like a shovel, is it? Now Days they're the complete opposite and we're all loaded with useless novelty trinkets and chocolates from K-Mart. Admittedly it is hard to buy gifts for people you don't know or understand.

My family is not a family where debate and argument is encouraged. Even imagination is looked upon with suspicion. No. `That's what other people do on the television and not being on television you're obviously not as smart as they are so keep your trap shut.’ Nope. My family has inherited a peculiar trait of 'just putting up with things' until perhaps there's a death in the family. Putting up with things until world events change so much that the everybody is forced to change because we're all on the run from invading forces and Christmas is now seen as a frivolous indulgence compared to foraging for food each day to survive. That they can relate to.

It wasn't always this way. I've wonderful, idyllic memories of Christmas mornings alive with the excitement of knowing that Santa had visited through the night. He'd left exciting presents under the Christmas tree and there was proof he really was there because the beer, cake and carrots that you and your sister had prepared for him the night before had all been eaten or partially molested in some way. I can remember Christmas Dinners that were overflowing with delicious roast meats, well cooked vegetables and smothered in gravy while Bing Crosby warbled from my grandmothers old record player cabinet. Aside from the fun of pulling bon-bons there was real money to be found baked into the Christmas pudding. I remember lots of laughter and warm feelings of being loved. Then there was an afternoon nap and a late picnic dinner down at the beach. Boxing Day was spent with the other side of the family, another picnic lunch at the beach and it was the perfect time to show off your own presents and admire others.

Then at some point. I’m not sure exactly when. It all seemed to change. The magic of Christmas was replaced by cynicism, guilt and long drawn out feelings of dread. For some time after my Nanna died, we had Christmas Dinners with my mothers side of the family at our home in what was then the small fishing village of Nelson Bay. This was before my father bulldozed the lush garden my mum and he had spent years building and replaced it with pebble paving and shops. (This turned out to be a good thing financially for the family but it was very traumatic at the time). Then, some years later, the venue for Christmas Dinner changed location to the farm of my grandmother `Mardy' and my mothers side of the family at her farm in rural Anna Bay.

Let me paint a little word picture for you so you may understand the kind of people we’re dealing with. If perhaps, you are part of this family and you want to find another member. Don’t ask around politely as to their location. No. YELL out loudly the persons name. Over and over again at the top of your voice until that person responds - by yelling back! That’s the easy description. The reality was much worse. Lets go on now to propose that at least one of the people doing the yelling is partially deaf. So even when the other person yelling back is heard, they’re not heard completely. Hence, loud clarification for their location is again yelled out for. Of course not being a terribly big farm there are not many places for them to be but that’s beside the point. More yelling is required to nail down any ambiguity as to weather the person is either in the back shed or the side paddock. What that person is ultimately needed for is irrelevant. It’s the very act of yelling loudly out for somebody that accords it’s own strange sense of status.

That’s the larger end of the yelling scale in my family. On the smaller end is the casual yelling over each other to be heard at the dinner table in ever increasing scales. First off, Christmas dinner is held in the hot and humid open area under a canopy of large leafed trees. Second, it seems standard that at each dinner there will be someone at the table who nobody knows. It’s usually a girlfriend or suchlike but can also be the elderly parents of the previously mentioned girlfriend or a sullen brother or cousin. Either way. At no point is this person introduced to you or anybody else so you really have no idea who these strange people are. It’s entirely logical to ask these people who they are and how they fit in to the family gathering. But after asking one too many times I’ve found it easier to just ignore them or wait vainly for a family member to introduce me to their mono-sibylic guest for the year.

TV Series idea; The Classic Adventures of Superman

2010-12-21T12:19:00.003+11:00

I've wrote previously about getting ideas out of my head so they don't sit around in my skull rotting away like so many bits of dead fish at a fishing Co-op. Here's one I've been developing and using as a bit of a Fisher Price mental gym for my brain while working on artwork.

Do what you want to see yourself
A regular piece of advice I read from successful artists, authors and film makers is to make what you want to see yourself. It's how I approach my own artwork. Artist friends of mine say to me 'you should exhibit your sketches Rossco rather than the finished piece - they have so much more energy and life than your finished work.' Well, maybe they do, and it's passively-aggressively nice of them to say so (Rrrrowwwwrr!) but I have a vision of the finished piece in my brain cavity and for the life of me, I can't shake it until I've completed the work and exorcised that little fella into existence. The sketches to me, are works in progress. Half finished ideas and exploratory mental musings. Hmmm, I digress. My point is. If you're an artist. You have to be selfish and trusting in your own ego. Doing work for others I've found, can be soul destroying.

The point of this ramble is that you should do what you want to see and this is my idea for a television series that I want to see. I've always been a big fan of Superman. Without overly gushing - I love him. And like many millions of others around the world, he's my Jesus myth. I've enjoyed the American series Smallville over the years, But it's always frustrated me. I know it's about the young Clark Kent coming to terms with his powers, his place in the world and building up to becoming Earth's mightiest hero. But for me it's been a ten year prick tease and goddamit, I need some relief!

A Re-visioned Classic Take on Superman!
One day earlier this year, I was watching the underrated classic 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'. The production style and direction of it got me to thinking that this was how a TV series of Superman should look and with digital special effects these days, nothing is impossible. (Oh, it goes without saying that it would have to be in 3D!) Sky Captain had iconic shots of people in suits pointing to the sky and I could imagine them pointing at Superman flying through the skyscraper canyons of Metropolis on his way to rescue someone. The series would begin in the thirties when men wore hats and women liked men who wore hats. It would have the popular hits of the day as part of the soundtrack but with new modern arrangements. (which I reckon would be really cool and provide another revenue stream for the studio. How `bout it Warner Bros?)

There could be digital cameo's from Movie Stars like Bing Crosby & Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart and historical figures such as Albert Einstein, President Roosevelt, Gandi and Hitler! Perhaps visiting or living in Metropolis and getting into adventures with Superman, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. I don't see the series as campy but a hybrid of the old movie cliffhanger serials that were the basis for the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies and film noir detective adventures but with truly suspenseful action and adventure. Stylistically I see the series moving season to season begining with the high contrast look of the thirties to the gritty reality of the forties fighting enemy spies and threats from above, to the Fifties where there is a rich saturated colour that would herald the Golden Age and the formation of the Justice League of America and a whole slew of other DC Comics Characters.

Moral Complexities abound
This would be a series where people, villains and superhero's die. The series should treat Superhero's as if they're real and look at the worlds reaction to their appearance. The villains would have to be truly evil and corrupt. Metropolis would begin the series corrupt and over-run by the mob. The Daily Planet would begin as a mouth piece newspaper for organised crime but through Supermans example, things begin to change. Cynicism and Apathy should be as much an enemy to Superman as Brainiac is. But Superman's goodness, his sense of truth and justice, should be real but not glib. The series can illustrate to younger viewers that doing bad is easy. Being good is a challenge that requires hard work and mental discipline but the rewards can be far greater and stronger than the easy, cheap and short-lived gains of crime. The moral complexities of this series would, I reckon, require writers of the calibre who wrote the 'Sopranos', 'Deadwood' and 'Boardwalk Empire'. Children today are not as innocent as they once were when Superman first appeared. They can smell bullshit a mile away and they see injustice every day, so cheap n' easy moralizing just won't cut it.

A Man all men want to be
I reckon Superman should be a genuinely likable bloke as well. Men should want to be like him and he shouldn't be a derisive figure of fun. He's from the country. Country people tend to have a dry sense of humour. They're not into silliness, they only speak when they've got something to say but they love a good chuckle. He's the strong silent type, like a buff Clint Eastwood. I like Tom Welling from Smallville as the young Clark Kent but he plays him like someone who's just had a mildly uncomfortable rectal examination and isn't looking forward to the next one. And Brandon Routh? Well he was playing Christopher Reeve, who for me, was Superman.

What I've written here today is just the tip of the old iceberg. I've thought of putting up a Facebook page to perhaps try and gauge interest for the idea and maybe start a movement to get it made. I'll put an update when I do, but for the moment, write me your opinions in the comments for this posting. I know it would be an expensive series to make. But it would be an Event Television Series and if it has the right balance of mystery, suspense, humour, cliffhangers and well written, compelling story lines with great special effects - how can it loose?!

I even have an idea for the final episode of the series in mind that I reckon will leave people as blubbering wrecks on their couches while watching it. I won't say any more other than it involving the death of a prominent world figure.

Tell me what you think and if you yourself would enjoy watching each week, `The Classic Adventures of Superman' on your widescreen, high def 3D telly in surround sound.

I'll leave my last words for the season to the man himself;

My Christmas Card this year...

2010-12-14T15:26:00.000+11:00

Courtesy of `Jib Jab'. I had planned to make my own animated card again this year but decided against it because, well, it was probably borderline racist (borderline??) and really, I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm. I reckon this one is far funnier than the idea I had anyway.

So Merry dead Jewish Carpenters Birthday everyone and all the best for the New Year!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Some actual thoughts on Wiki-Leaks. No Really!!

2010-12-03T12:57:00.002+11:00

Often an event or `Black Swan' will occur that will disrupt the status quo and can as a consequence reveal many truths about ones true nature and/or intentions. Wiki-leaks has certainly done this in a big way. How are western democracies any different from Communist China if they hunt down and lock up Julian Assange?

I don't see what Wiki-leaks has done and hopefully continue to do, as any different from what a good investigative journalist would do. Oh wait! One difference. Steroids. This is a huge leak on steroids. (Man that must be painful.) It illustrates the challenges we face as the internet evolves and grows. It raises questions about freedoms and the strength of those freedoms when put under stress that we are now having to face, though they are certainly not new.

The French aristocrat Alexis De Tocqueville wrote presciently of the logical conclusions to where Democracy was heading back in 1840. What seemed then like outrageous speculations about the duel nature of democracy are now coming true. It's illustrated by not just how difficult it is to travel freely around the world but the reactions of democracy's when challenged on truths. One has only to read De Tocqueville and compare his musings on the consequences of disent within Democracy with for instance, what happened to Joe Wilson and his outed CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame. He was dead on the money on how a democracy can attack itself from within and it's passive/aggressive tendencies almost 170 years ago.

Our modern democracies are built on a bed-stone of perceived tolerances, but we're all a bit iffy about having too many Muslims or Mainland Chinese about or tolerating some of the more radical elements of different immigrant cultures. Yeah I'm looking at you France, Switzerland, America. Don't get me wrong. I totally fall into that category. It's an academic argument I have in my head on a pretty much weekly basis. How do we cope with a stone age religion in our midst that's growing more prevalent and influential and has a strongly held and unashamed desire to take over the world and run it in it's barbaric and ancient ways? And then apart from Christianity we have the Muslims with similar motivations.

Wiki-Leaks has bought to light behind the door comments of diplomats and public servants that the majority of people didn't know about but at the very least, probably suspected. Russia in bed with it's Mafia? Nothing new there. Pakistan is schizophrenic with borderline personality disorder issues and lots of nuclear missiles? Pffft! Prince Andrew is a pompous dick? Durrrr.

President Obama was partially elected on cries for transparency of Government but when faced with true transparency reacts like a naughty child who's been told to go their room. Poorly. Modern democracies need to display a strength of character and self awareness that can tolerate dissent without curtailing the very liberties and laws on which they're built. What's the point of trying to convince countries without it that democracy is a strong, reliable system of government if they continue to nobble and curtail it whenever it's threatened? We need to lead by example and we're failing ourselves and the wider world if continue on this path unchecked.

Goodness! That was a long rant. Don't worry. Stupidity will return here sooner than a worried look appearing on the face of fat kid lost in a lion safari park.

More new Telly!

2010-12-01T17:28:00.000+11:00

Hello there fellow telly-fish. Here's a round up of another show I'm enjoying from the 2010 fall season of telly-visual n audio broadcasting.

No Ordinary Family
I've gotta admit. When I first read the description of this show I was very underwhelmed. It came across as a poor mans version of the Fantastic Four or The Incredibles. Just, not as interesting. But I've watched every episode so far and I'm hooked. It's a good show!

Theres no lurid spandex outfits or flying but there is a nice, though not saccharine, hour long adventure show about a modern fractured family. After crashing a light plane in the Amazon River, they find themselves with a range of super powers. Well c'mon, stranger things happen at sea for some reason. They could have been eaten by Piranha fish but then, where does the show go after that hypothetical? So far, it's been dealing with the family coping with their new found powers and it seems to be heading toward an `Incredibles' style Super-family team-up.

There's the Scientist Mum (Julie Benz, who previously played Dexter's wife, Rita), with too much to do and not enough time to do it who gets super speed. She works as a genius research scientist for a large, kinda naughty, Biotech company. With the help of her daffy assistant, who seems to solve more problems than her genius boss, she tries to get up to speed as to why her family has these new found gifts.

Meanwhile, impotent, Police Sketch Artist Dad (Michael Chiklis from The Shield and `The Thing' in `The Fantastic Four ') wants to use his super strength, ability to leap long distances at a high altitude and invulnerability to bullets to be a Superhero and frankly, why wouldn't he? The incomunicable teen Daughter can read minds and the just hitting puberty dunce Son is now a genius who is far more intelligent as a character than the motion artists employed to visualize his intelligence. I can almost hear the memo from the studio, (Can't you make it look more sciencey?)

They're minor quibbles though. Yes you've seen these situations before but the show has it's own likable charisma and that more than anything keeps you wanting to tune in again. Lets hope it doesn't go the way of the sadly turgid Heroes.

Where ideas go to die

2010-11-29T13:52:00.001+11:00

I have lots of ideas and most times, well, who am I kidding, all of the time, they just sit there piling up in the back of my mind. Gnawing on themselves until the day when someone else thinks of a similar or identical concept. They pop up on the news or the Internet and I say to myself, 'goddammit!'

So I'm going to put them out there now because beyond the obvious fact that my mind needs the room, there's absolutely no way I'll ever realize them to conclusion. But perhaps they might inspire someone reading them who will. The most I can expect in thanks is a nice comment saying 'thanks Rossco for your wonderful idea. I took and ran it and after further development, I'm triffically successful as a result and I couldn't have done it without you. What a guy!'

So here's one item in my garage sale of ideas for anyone to take for their own and build on.

Movie idea:

The colony.

And nothing's really changed.

Australia in the near future. A fleet of modestly sized, beat up looking spaceships appear above The city of Sydney. There is the usual kerfuffle when events like this happen. Attempts are made to contact them, the worlds media descend on Sydney to cover the event, people either flee Sydney or alternately flock to it to welcome the extraterrestrial visitors. Soon one of the ships descends to land and from it a small group of large, pompously dressed, bright red aliens walk/ slither from it. Ignoring the locals vainly trying to get their attention, they plant an elaborate, important looking shiny pole in the soil, salute it and then seem to congratulate each other.

They signal to the other ships who move off around the country and land disgorging what look like Alien soldiers and a ragged bunch of other aliens who we soon come to learn, are convicts. This is a story that literally mirrors the British colonisation of Australia. A bungled first contact with the locals and the clumsy attempts to communicate with them. The aliens are arrogant and seem only to acknowledge the locals in the most anthropological and at best, condescending manner. Some however seem to genuinely engage with us and want to learn our language and customs.

Mirroring the story of Bennelong, one of the locals is captured and 'tamed'. He is asked if he wants to go back to the aliens home world and does so when one of the ships leave. Alien disease wipes out many Australians and the country is quarantined from the rest of the world, there are cultural misunderstandings and locals and aliens loose their lives. The aliens seem also to have trouble living on our food and many lie close to death or dying of starvation in the streets of Sydney and around the country. Just as we seem to have reached an understanding between the two species, more ships appear above Sydney.

My Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows part 1 Review.

2010-11-22T15:24:00.003+11:00

Harry Potter, Dealer of Death
For the past ten years or so, it's almost been a given that at Christmas time, we'd get a fresh new Harry Potter adventure stretching the metaphorical sock over the mantlepiece. They've been a sort of warm and cosy Christmas expectation, even here in Australia where warm and cosy at Christmas really means hot and sticky. Realistically though, Christmas in Australia is more a season of death what with the road toll, drownings, bush fires and shark attacks we have, so appropriately this season, we're lucky to be spoilt with two evil movie blockbusters who will murder your family while they sleep.

The point of any grin
Well almost. At Christmas we have part 1 of the Deathly Hallows and at Easter or thereabouts, we get part 2. Judging by the box-office take on the opening weekend of part 1, I'd imagine the producers are laying back now on their Lilo's in the pool with the biggest shit eating grins on their dials and toasting together large German Steins overflowing with cocaine and sprinkled with chocolate. Or is that just me? Hmmm, I just wrote `shit eating grins' automatically then without giving any thought to what it means. The only reason I could think of to be grinning while feasting on faeces would be if you'd gone completely insane or are into German Porn.

So enough drivel. Is it any good?
Absolutely.
It is very good.
It's part one of a bigger and darker tale with wonderful characters we're more than familiar with in a world we think we know well but still holds many surprises, including an appropriate way of entering a Government Civil Service building. I love this alternate world that JK Rowling has built. I've read that at university she was heavily into the classics and mythology and it shows. This is a world you can believe exists because she has painted it with such confident detail and affection. The story is building to the climax of Harry's young life and quest. `Destiny' even, if you're one of those. It's genuinely spooky and creepy and has several shocks in store. If you're a book fascist then there are a couple of disappointments for you. I'm not a creature of that ilk but even so, I was a bit disappointed they left out a couple of strong plot points that would have given the movie more gravitas.

But leaving them out I guess gave them room to play with ideas that weren't as strong in the books. I don't remember the rise of magical fascism having the same prominence in the book as it does in this movie but then that may be because it's more interesting as a visual theme then a literary one and I noticed it more. Or more likely it's been a while since I read the last book. The designers have obviously had a great time designing magical fascist propaganda items, I'll be keeping my eye open to get a better look at them next time around.

Harry's ever so big Climax
This movie is the build up to the climax. (Narrative Foreplay anyone?) It's Harry and friends on the skip ' run around the UK all the while being pursued by the evil wizard, Voldemort and his many minions. It's all about the rise of magical fascism and the ever so English insurrection against it. The three wizardeers, Harry, Ron and Hermione, are hiding out in their magical wonder tent (I would love one of those tents) around the countryside of England in pursuit of four Horcruxes, magical totems that hold different quarters of Voldemort's soul. His backup drive so to speak. Tension builds between the three with Harry believing that he's responsible for the whole world going to shit. Hermione is torn between her sense of duty to the wider wizarding world, her loyalty to Harry and her conflicted feelings about Ron Weasley. And Ron just wants to go home, preferably with Hermione at his side.

It's great to see a continuity and thoughtfulness in the progress of all of the characters we've followed in the movies and books - there's a short dream scene where Harry and Hermione get a bit nude and get it on however it's not as interesting as the media makes it out to be, (is it ever?) But it's great that it acts as a catalyst for Ron to finally put to rest a few demons of his own. Even Neville gets to heroically hold his own - to many cheers, part of what makes seeing this movie at a full cinema so much fun. There are a couple of laughs but mostly it's a dark action, adventure about a civilisation and it's people teetering on the brink of the abyss. It's like the Schindlers List of Harry Potter movies. Well, maybe not that dark, but pretty dark.

I'll give it 4.5 stars. It's worth seeing at a good cinema too. They've spent a lot of money making this movie and it's all there on the big screen. Seriously, Dobby and Kreacher look far more real than they ever have, it's quite amazing.

This weeks Movie News

2010-11-19T18:09:00.002+11:00

Wow, it never rains but it pours hey? There's a fair whack of geeky goodness getting about the internets this week. First off is the trailer (click the link to see it) for `The Green Lantern' which looks like it's going to be a huge eye candy, intergalactic, superhero, wet dream of a movie.

Then there's Iron Man director Jon Faverau's next boof-fest - `Cowboys and Aliens' with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford (where it looks like he's playing the baddie for a change). Once again, click the link to see the trailer. The trailer doesn't give too much away but it looks like Craig or `Mr Bond' as he's now known, plays a naughty cowboy waking up with no memory and a big chunky bangle he didn't get at the last fair and going back to a town where everyone but him knows who he is. Harrison Ford turns up to grumpily demand the locals turn Mr Bond over to him and his motivation group and then a whole lot of space ships come flying in shootin' the place up and scattering everyone about `willy nilly'. Oh, and there's a hot looking Pocahontas chick who seems a bit miffed that Mr Bond doesn't remember who she is. Pffft, he really must be sick. Apologies, but I do have a major `Squaw' fetish thing going.

Down and out and bound
And then there's one I've never heard of, it kind of snuck in under the radar. `Your Highness' stars those blokes, James Franco (damn fine actor/artist) and Danny McBride from the TV series, `East bound and down' - which I've only discovered this past couple of weeks. This fillum may reward us all in the jocular department, so keep an eye out for it. Mind you having a scene where Natalie Portman bathes in armoured underwear doesn't hurt either and once again, it looks like Gary Oldman is the villain. HEY!! Back off man, it's what he does. Oh, and there's a trailer out for the new Winnie the Pooh movie and it actually looks really quite lovely. (The artwork looks so lush).

Being sociable about `The Social Network'.

2010-11-17T18:05:00.003+11:00

I reckon personally, that this movie is a triumph. It's `The Social Network' or so that everyone will understand what movie it is you're talking about, `The Facebook Movie'. It really shouldn't succeed as it does because the characters are utterly unlikable and it's very verbal. Though I hasten to add, in the best possible way. Aaron Sorkin's dialogue zings and ricochets like I'd imagine a debate between Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Peter Ustinov would be like if the three of them were on cocaine and had the latest amazing new product from Apple sitting between them. (now that'd be something to see.) If I met the Mark Zuckerberg portrayed in this movie I'd want nothing to do with him. I imagine he'd want nothing to with me either but this is MY fantasy so he doesn't get a say in it. In fact, seeing as it's my fantasy, lets reference him as `The Gimp' from now on.

Believe the hype.
This movie is as good as what everyone is saying it is. It may even be better. I suspect that David Fincher has made another masterpiece that will be remembered as such in years to come. (Another? C'mon, the bloke made Se7en and Fight Club! I'd argue that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one as well but I know I'm paddling against the stream with that one...I also reserve a special place in my heart for Zodiac as well).

For the life of me as I was watching this movie, I couldn't see why I should be enjoying it so much. I was keen to see it at first, not knowing anything about the Gimp but aware only that it was a collaboration between Fincher and Sorkin. But then I saw some video of the gimp fronting a conference on mobile applications and he just came across as an utter dick. And although I use Facebook, I was uninterested in it's origins, I mean really, who would be? However the trailer was compelling and I admit my interest was piqued when the question was posed, `what did it take for someone to sue his best friend for $600 million?' M-kay.

The paradoxical Gimp as young romantic hero - discuss.
The thing is, as the movie progresses. You do end up liking the Gimp. You come to realise that he's a confident, middle class, astoundingly intelligent person (who is well aware of it) surrounded by other highly intelligent people, who as clever as they are, are just not on his level. He's sexist, devious, sneaky, highly manipulative and controlling. He seemingly has no interest in money which makes him seem either naive or stupid because he is strongly driven by status and it's appearance. Although you end up cheering for him to succeed you keep thinking, well kid you want the status but you don't want the money - but it's the money that gives you the status, so what gives gimp?

Although it is a talky movie, visually it's stunning. The scene that tipped me over the edge, (in that I shot forward on my seat staring in awe and excitement at the scene unfolding before me.) was the `Regatta sequence .' It's a tour de force that forces you to realise that the movie is an examination of a society and culture so many of us will only ever read about or see in a documentary. Fincher uses Tilt Shift, A film technique that compresses an image with different focal lengths to make, say for instance, A photo of a town square give the appearance of a scale model of a town square. In this films context, it's used to distance the viewer thematically and forces them to realise that what you are seeing is a microcosm of a particular moment in time that is ironically, timeless. You're looking at a particular world through anthropological lenses and this sequence rams it home like an enthusiastic young Proctologist with large hands.

Get out of the house!
Go see this movie on the big screen because though it's not a big visual blockbuster, it is a beautiful film to watch and experience in a theatre. Go along for the ride and watch master movie makers take you on a journey where thoroughly unlikeable people grow on you so you end up cheering for them to succeed. No small feat that the makers of Skyline could learn something from.

4.5 Stars from Uncle Nugget.

Just back from watching Skyline.

2010-11-14T22:32:00.002+11:00

I'm just back from seeing the latest in the `Naughty Aliens invade Planet Earth' genre of movies; Skyline.

If you like mindless boof (and you know I do Mumma!) then you'll enjoy this. It's really not that bad a movie but it's certainly not a great one either.

The Nissan Skyline has absolutely nothing
to do with this movie. Although it would
have been cool if it did.

Aside from an ending that is just...well, what can I say? It's just plain fucking awful, (oh there I did it), other than that it's a fun hour or so at the flicks. Good popcorn, yay human race, boooo greedy aliens kind of movie. Just don't bring your brain cause other than enjoying what the aliens do with them, there's no point in bringing your own along, and truly, it would be a waste of time.

The worst part about this movie is that you want the aliens to eat all of the characters. They're so unlikable you wish you could yell to the aliens - `They're hiding in the kitchen!! No no, look harder, they're crouched behind the bench!' The best part, aside from it's short running time, well, it looks like they've made it on a relatively low budget and in that respect it's very well done. The aliens are a range of scary blue light, tentacle thingies and bigger versions of the monster that tries to eat Luke Skywalker in `The Return of the Jedi'. Humans fight back with some degree of success but then, you can never keep a good alien down. You don't get to fly about the universe in big space ships like they do, to be defeated by shaved apes with basic implements for weapons. Or do you?

I went with my friend Mr Wilbert to the new Titan XC cinema at Charlestown to see it. It looks like us Novacastrians who like quality movie going experiences won't be going out to Glendale for our Big Boofy Movie fix anymore. It's a big stadium cinema with huge comfy leather armchair seats and enough leg room for a big bugger like me to stretch his legs out all the way and not annoy the people in front. Cause I can't reach them.

The movie gets a three out of five from this Scout Master and the new cinema a 4.5.

My Bad!

2010-11-13T18:48:00.000+11:00

Yep. I was fiddling around with some of the settings when I accidentally deleted everyone who had been following my site. `Sorry `bout that Chief'. If you've joined already, please do so again. I promise not to delete anyone again.

Natalie Sherring's Sweet Dumplings

2010-11-09T23:49:00.007+11:00

Hello Art Luvvers!
Here's a lil' video I made last week with my dear friend Natalie Sherring and her exhibition - `Sweet Dumplings'. Enjoy!

An upcoming exhibition image

2010-11-06T16:52:00.000+11:00

Here's a photo I'll be printing up soon, and at quite a large size, for a photographic exhibition I hope to have in the near future. It's on the road midway between Broken Hill and Port Augusta. It'll be a corker nice n large because of the intense colours and the layering effect they produce. Every now and then I'll put up some images that I'll be making available for sale. Which...BTW, ahem. I have a few available for sale as framed, high quality prints from my online shop at Red Bubble.
Click this LINK TO RED BUBBLE if you're on the scout for a great Christmas present for yourself or someone who isn't you.

Finger up yer bum Banking

2010-11-05T10:18:00.004+11:00

Much better today, thank you Doctor (can I put my clothes back on now nurse?) While drifting through the tedious, brain-stuffed delirium of influenza, I thought about the current kerfuffle that's going on in the media here in Australia - The Banks. Surely it's the same all over the world at the moment.

Here in Oz we have a sort of toothless financial regulatory body called the Reserve Bank, which among other things concerning money I don't know about, sets interest rates for the nation. The Banks look at what they set and follow accordingly and they pretty much stay nicely in line. But this week the Commonwealth Bank, our biggest bank, set interest rates up further than most people felt was reasonable and the sheep bleated loudly. I say sheep because, well. That's what we are! (Not me of course. I'm more of a goat).

So many people and politicians complained loudly about the interest rate rise and how almost immediately the bank announced a record profit for the year. We really are a strange duality of a country. We love our capitalism but don't want to give up our safety blanket of socialism. But the thing is, no one has a gun against anyone's head making them stay at this or any other bank. Hence the sheep reference. If you don't like it. Leave.

And then of course the sheep bleat loudly that they can't possibly do that. Where would they go? A building Society? Yep. I made the change years ago and I've never been happier with the decision. Admittedly I didn't have a mortgage but these days that doesn't seem to matter. I went from Westpac, who I felt were charging me more fee's than what it was really necessary considering the piddly amount of money I banked with them, to the Greater Building Society. For those not in Australia, this little Building Society began here in Newcastle and has slowly been building bigger and bigger. As part of their expansion. They shocked the advertising world last year by getting comedian, Jerry Seinfeld to be their celebrity spokesman.

A lot of folk, surprisingly to me at least, complained about having Seinfeld as the spokesman for this Building Society. `He wasn't Australian. What's wrong with our own celebrity's?' Ahhh, the joys of parochialism are unmatched when bedded with mediocrity. I thought it was a stroke of genius. Good old fashioned advertising done really, well. It would have been perfect if they'd maybe let Seinfeld write the ads because they certainly weren't funny. But the shock of seeing an international star spruiking your local building society and the free publicity generated by it must have made it worth every cent they paid him.

And it wasn't `finger up your bum' advertising. That's what most ads are on TV. It's like being rudely goosed while relaxing in front of the telly. A short jab designed to get your attention. It's not pleasurable and you wish it never happened but it's got your attention and it knows that it can make you do almost anything it wants now because you hate it so much and never want to feel it again. Go to a happy place, go to a happy place.

And the point of all this was? If your not happy. Do something about it and stop bothering me.

Alien influenza will destroy us all, before we become mince. No it's true!

2010-11-05T00:26:00.001+11:00

Ahhh, there's a break in the fog. I've been in bed dying of the dreaded flu today. So much painful coughing, sneezing and runny snot along with fuzzy brains and poor focus. When you don't have a cold or flu you forget how much you really don't want to have one again. Well. I do. It's usually a couple or so years between flu's for me and I forget so easily how much I hate them.

But I have some great insights too. Last night it occured to me that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to have `First Contact' with any space aliens coming our way. Forget that they might want to herd us all into feed lots to slaughter us for food (would we be good meat or end up as their version of hamburger?) What if we get some hideous disease that we can't cope with and get wiped out as entire species?

That's enough for now. I'm getting dizzy again and my focus is going in and out. Plus I keep hearing a noise in my head like the Six Million Dollar Man going for a nude, flappy jog.

Time for beddy byes. Nigh nigh now.

Catching up on New Telly!

2010-10-28T18:29:00.008+11:00

In h-America (where first you get de sugar, den you get de wiimin), they're coming out with their fall season of new shows. Here's a few that I'm liking and `not' liking this far. Keep an eye out for them either on the bit-torrents or if you're an Aussie, remember to watch them several years in the future when they get aired on TV here.
Smallville

I'm a huge Superman fan so the final 10th season of Smallville is the one I've been waiting most for. No it's not a guilty pleasure for me - it's a out and out big, cheesy, overwritten Superhero, joyful bag of biff and general heroeness pleasure. This is the season where the young Clark Kent finally leaps into the sky ready to take on his destiny as Earth's greatest hero. Over the past nine seasons the writers have taken some huge liberties with the well known origin story of Superman. The've said in the past (the recent past, not the distant one) that everything will be wrapped up by the end and all will be restored to the Superman `canon'. But how will they wrap up not giving Clark Kent glasses? Will they bring Jimmy Olsen back to life? How are they going to reveal the butt plug or whatever other apparatus actor Tom Welling must be using to give himself the pained, earnest look he's been wearing since he began playing Clark Kent? As of writing, there are about 5 episodes of the new season and I've gotta say, it's a corker. The ninth season I found a bit of a mess and couldn't really follow what was going on and with who. But being the final season, this seems to have focused the writers and producers on what's important to bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. It seems like they're setting up the whole DC Comic's universe.

$#*! My Dad says

I put this in because I love William Shatner and I want to be clear that he's not the problem with this show. To be fair, I did watch an episode last week that I quite enjoyed (though it could have been food poisoning) but for the most part, it seems to have been written by writers from `Who's the Boss'. Yes. It's at that level. Cheesy, cloying, nauseating, moralizing and unfunny Television. Only watch if William Shatner is for you, a sexual fetish or you're a `hip' religious fundamentalist trying to get into the pants of a thirteen year old girl...or boy.

Boardwalk Empire

Now this is what we in the Adult Theatre cleaning business call the `classy shit'. Co-Produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlburg with the first episode directed by Herr Scorsese. This is a big production centred around `Nucky' Thompson, (Steve Buscemi) the charismatic and corrupt Council Treasurer of Atlantic City on the eve of and beginnings of prohibition. He's a great, complex character. Strong in ego and bluster but also lonely and insecure. Plus there's a fascinating group of supporting characters around him ranging from dwarf performers and show girls to cynical Republican politicians and mob bosses. This is as much about the people of Atlantic City as it is about the events of the time, there's even a young, sadistic Al Capone to give you a sense of where this story is heading. Boardwalk Empire is don't miss telly. It's like reading a chapter of a good novel each week that you don't want to put down and don't want to end.

The whacky world of Entertainment

More to come but for the moment here's a roundup of the latest news I've found around on the net.

Goodbye Caprica

The Battlestar Galactica spinoff prequel series Caprica has just been cancelled by the Syfy Network. Not enough people watching is the official line and I can understand that. Caprica is, or was, a very interesting show and possibly as website i09 put it, `ahead of it's time'. It was set fifty years before the beginning of Battlestar Galactica and was about the creation of the Cylons and the multi deity society they were created in. Unfortunately it was, I reckon, a bit too clever for it's own good. For all of the interesting concepts and insights that propelled each episode, it was let down by that old chestnut of unlikable characters.

Hello Batman

The Los Angeles Times blog `Hero Complex' reports that the new Batman movie will be called `The Dark Knight Rises' and will not have the Riddler as the main villain. However it's said elsewhere that director Christopher Nolan is presently casting his female lead so speculation is rife that Catwoman may take centre stage.

Pot Pie??

Ang Lee is the latest director attached to the adaption of the popular novel by Yann Martel, `The Life of Pi'. It's due out in 3D in 2012.
But 3D?? I haven't read the book but I'm aware of what it's about and it kinda seems out of place for this story. If I'm wrong - let me know in the comments.

Here kitty kitty...

And this just in... Sam Neill, Frances O'Connor and Willem Defoe have just gone into production on a new Australian psychological thriller called `The Hunter'. It's about a mercenary who's employed by a bio-tech company to travel to Tasmania and to hunt down the last Tasmanian Tiger. Well of course!!

Another cartoon

2010-10-17T15:44:00.002+11:00

A Friday Funny from the future...

2010-10-15T13:45:00.001+11:00

Don't mess with the Panda man.

2010-10-10T14:49:00.001+11:00

Love the Milk. Love the Panda. Love life.
It's that simple.
Drink now Mummy?!

A book review...of sorts.

2010-10-08T12:45:00.002+11:00

I say `of sorts' because I've not really finished reading it yet. It's Thomas Keneally's `Australians. Origins to Eureka'. I'm three quarters through about nearly 600 pages of Australian colonial history and it's taken most of the year to get that far. Some books grab you, pull you in and won't let go of you until they've thrown you around and shaken you up like a lil kitty in a front loading washing machine. This is not one of those books. It's not a bad book by any means. It's engaging and very well written. I just got to a certain point and was distracted by the novelty of my new Apple iPad.

Now, the meat...
Keneally's prose is guiding mix of historical fact with a leading novelist's ear for balanced story telling. There are a lot of details about the character and characters of the early settlement, both Aboriginal and interloper. (oooh that was very `PC' of me). His sensitivity in weaving together, with respect and honesty the story of the local Aborigines and the relationship between the two peoples is refreshing and fascinating. Certainly from an Australian who went to school in the 70's where none of this was ever taught. (ooh, goody, lets learn about the Gold fields - again!)

Keneally demonstrates how the origins of the Australian national character, or at least the origins of the anti-authoritarian, knockabout, stereotype that we like to promote about ourselves, began. He does mention the gold fields. But he's more interested in the Irish martyrs and the politics that fed colonial revolution and the beginnings of a class war that still simmers ever so politely today. This is part of what marks it as different from the tedious, ignorant shite the NSW Dept of Education fed so many of my generation.

It's difficult, after reading about the American Revolution and the characters involved in drafting the Declaration of Independence, (John Adams biography specifically) to not make any comparisons between the genesis of these two great social experiments. America with it's origins in religious extremism tempered over time with influences of the Enlightenment, began with an argument for justice against a complacent and arrogant ruling elite. Australia began as a means to an end concerning what to do with the detritus of an extreme justice system born of the very same ruling elite.

It's refreshing also to read of convict stories that go against the widely perceived narrative of lives of unremitting torture, starvation and drunken tedium. It seems quite a few actually liked it here and thrived in the bright sunlight and alien landscape. There's no doubt that life was tough. But once a working economy began to take hold in the colony after several very hard years of starvation, lifestyles began to improve for many. The children of these `First Fleeters' were far healthier and led generally better lives compared to their counterparts back home in England.

Writing this review and picking up the book again after several months has made me want to finish it. Keneally has invested so much time into the details of colonial life in Australia but not in a dull, pedantic way. He provides a fascinating narrative timeline of how the colony established itself. How it grew from Sydney to exploring the country and establishing new cities such as Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. There's just so much that here about the history of my country that I never knew before and so much that I knew about but not in context with what was happening in the wider world at the time.

If you're an Australian interested in reading a great book about your history, this is, apart from Robert Hughes' `The Fatal Shore', the book for you. Just be prepared to invest a good amount of time to read it all the way through and don't be distracted by shiny objects. If you're not Australian, sorry, but there's just no ointment that I know of to cure that. Reading this book should go a long way in explaining why Australians are the way we are and how we got to be how we are in an epic and oblong way.

Take two tabs and call me in three days.

2010-10-08T10:35:00.002+11:00

I don't know. There's just something about this video, maybe the toys, maybe the colours, that I find oddly erotic.

Aspirins - Cutter from Alex Harrison on Vimeo.

Functionally Capitalist and functionally retarded.

2010-10-06T14:38:00.003+11:00

It's October and some time before Christmas I'm going to revamp and repurpose this Blog with reviews of movies, telly and books and stuff, personal videos. For instance, the ongoing saga of me trying to loose weight or just a breakfast with me at my favorite Cafe. I've also this idea also of doing a series of short videos of the utterly stupid history of Australia with Robert Hughes `Fatal Shore' as my guide.

Why am I doing this? Well basically I need to earn a quid and I don't want to work for anyone else to do it.
Selfish? Well, yes. But I think also realistic. I could go on and I've deleted what I wrote here because I don't want to burn any bridges but.... I get excited about stuff most of my circle of friends don't, ie, the new Superman Reboot. I'm excited about the reboot and that they announced very recently that Zack Snyder who made 300 and Watchmen is on board as director with Chris Nolan of the new Batman movies overseeing production. I'm excited about my new AppleTV and pretty much anything new gadget wise. I get excited about new TV shows or new concepts and scientific discoveries. I get excited about doing my artwork and getting it out there for people to see and buy. If that excites you too then I reckon we can be friends. I'm pretty easy that way you know. My point is. The internet provides a great way to make money from just being yourself - if you know how to milk it (as they say in the classics).

So inbetween working on artwork for a couple of exhibitions I've got planned I'm going to be making some changes to this here blog. I hope you like it.

Rossco

An update on some artwork

2010-07-22T14:10:00.005+10:00

I thought I'd put up some sketches of pics I'm working on at the moment. I've had to postpone my `Jungle goddess' pic till October as my model is going on a World Discovery Tour till then. But here's a preview.

Rihanna will be photographed in my lil garage studio against a green screen and then composited into the image. I'm hoping to work on it so that although she's been photographed, she'll still look illustrated enough not to stand out as a photo within the illustration. So just imagine a gorgeous, dark and sultry, petite Indian/Malaysian girl reclining naked on the lilly pad in front of the waterfall, one leg dangling in the water. She should have a `come hither' look but also shy and demure. (de muuuuuuurrrrrrrrr)

So until then, I'm steaming ahead with some other pics I've got in my pipeline (ewww).

Frinstance... Here's one I've had in my scone for several years now. I've had this thing about doing to the Australian Outback what the Warner Bros Artist's did to the American landscape. Stylising it down to it's essence but making it unmistakably the Australian Outback. Part of why I went on my trek last year to Alice Springs with my parents was to research and take lots of reference pics. Below is a series of pics showing some roughs of some trees called Desert Oaks. I love these tree's, they reminded me of the Truffler Tree's in Dr Seus.

Here's some landscape designs. I've a bit more work to go refining the shapes.
And below are a couple of sketches detailing the idea for the final picture.

I call it `Encounter at Red River'. I originally thought of it as a scene from an imaginary Western movie that was never made. Indian braves look down on a Preacher riding a tired old horse and a young Indian girl on the saddle in front of him. Behind them, a young Indian brave (teen) tethered with rope around his wrists to the horse's saddle.

But I had a think and decided to change the location to Australia. A young Aborigine girl sits on the saddle in front of the old priest. There is a young Aborigine boy still tethered to the horse but between them there could be someone else. We can see a shadow but there is a rocky outcrop blocking our view of whether there is someone else between the boy and the horse.

And up above them, three Aborigine hunters look on. The one closest to us will look directly at the viewer. When I was a kid, I remember an old illustration of some Aborigine's looking at some settler's or something. I always remember this black fella in the front who was looking at the viewer with his eyes wide open and staring. It used to freak me out, so I'm going to have a go at putting him in this pic. I'm also having a muck around with perspectives in it. The first image below has three different perspectives going on. Looking straight down onto the preacher, off into the distance and left, down into a gorge. But I thought that was a bit much so I've knocked the gorge out on the second one.

But is it a positive or a negative image? What I like most about the concept is that, to me at least, it's really ambiguous. Is the old priest good or evil? Are the Aborigines in the foreground up to no good? Are they coming across children being stolen or returned? Why does Allbran have such an impact on my internal thingies?

Dear Mr Abbott...

2010-05-11T11:48:00.004+10:00

Dear Tony Abbott,

If you were to recreate this video as a viral contribution to your election campaign. I reckon you'd win Government with the greatest majority ever achieved by a non totalitarian government. Garn Tone, do it!!

Breathing proves to be source of most Cancers

2010-05-07T11:17:00.004+10:00

Scientist's have this week proven that breathing can give you cancer. Professor Jermal Feng of the Philadelphia based Crimany Institute this week proposed in a paper in the esteemed True Science Journal that barring hyperbole, the `sucking in and blowing out', orally and nasally of oxygen and carbon dioxide can contribute to cancer build ups in the `internal jiggery' that happens inside the human body. "In lieu of anything else investigated that could prove carcinogenic, we decided to have a look at something literally under our noses that could be the cause of so much misery and deathness in the wider community." Said Professor Feng this week. President Obama could not be reached for comment.

My plea to software boffins.

2010-03-25T11:53:00.005+11:00

I've just been looking at a new presentation of `Flash Catalyst' on the new Adobe Creative Suite 5 site. It's sensational stuff and it's what I've been crying out for for years. An application to create websites with all of the benefits of Flash but intuitively and with the application handling the code `under the hood'.

A bit of background here; I'm a designer, a visually creative person. In my early years of using Flash I had a go at learning the code side of the program and got a pretty good grasp of it and I was quite happy. I had a basic knowledge of coding and it was enough for me to make interactive websites and animated promo's for my clients. Then another version of Flash was released and they decided in their wisdom to change the way Action Script operated. This went on for a few years, tinkering with Flash and with how Action script worked within it. I kept up a bit, but honestly not that much. Flash wasn't the only other program I used. There was Photoshop and Illustrator to get my head around as well as trying to teach myself 3D (something I still haven't got the hang of). I have a friend who quit his job for a couple of years to go and learn 3D exclusively so I was battling upstream trying to learn that, keep on top of Photoshop, illustrator, Flash and improve my drawing and animation skills while working Freelance within an Ad Agency at the same time. Oh, and not forgetting to have a life.

But I had to make a decision with Flash. Did I want to dedicate time to learning how to code or improving my skills as a designer and artist. I went for the latter because realistically, that's what I'm best at and what I enjoy the most. But a job came up last year where I had to use ActionScript. I'd just moved to the Mac platform and bought CS3 which had the latest version of Flash in it. I also found out that they'd changed how Action Script operated again. I had a go trying to work it out but with a deadline approaching I had to work in the old way that they, luckily, still supplied.

I was angry. Why should I have to keep relearning this shit every time they release a new version of Flash? I don't care about it. I just want to design and implement my work. I don't need this shit! I don't make websites now because of this. There's too much code to learn and relearn and I'm just not interested in it. Well it looks like they've solved that problem with Catalyst and kudos to Adobe for finally doing it.

However!

What about the iPhone & iPad? What about the move away from Flash to more open sourced & faster Html 5, CSS and Javascript? A lot of folk say that there's more people using Flash now. Don't bother with Html 5. But I figure, to use a surfing metaphor, that I'm sitting out back of the break and I've spotted a swell with potential (no, I'm definitely not a surfer, I'm just stealing a metaphor and no doubt, badly). In a few years I figure we'll be looking at Flash the same way we look at animated gifs now. Therefore my question is; Where is the Flash Catalyst for Html 5?

Will we have to wait years for someone to design a program to make animated, interactive, database driven elements and sites where we don't have to know how to code? Where a designer can design, confident in the knowledge that it's being handled efficiently behind the scenes by the application?

Am I asking for too much?

Because sometimes, life is just so fucking beautiful...

2010-03-22T17:27:00.000+11:00

To iPad or not to iPad...

2010-02-17T10:50:00.009+11:00

I'm glad I didn't rush in and buy a Kindle - dodged a bullet there. Nope. The iPad is for me.
Early last year I wrote an entry on this blog about what I'd like as an E Book reader/ tablet device and Apple have delivered. The iPad is close to perfect. A lot of snarky folk have been down on it because it doesn't support Flash or it doesn't have multi-tasking, a camera. Yeah. And?

I think they're missing the point of the device. No doubt Lenovo or Acer will come out with a tablet or slate device that will address these issues and good on them. But that's not what the iPad is for. The iPad has been positioned as a user friendly, multi-media device for the masses. It's for people who aren't interested in where to save their photo's. They just want to open up a photo program and their photos are there for them in one handy spot, to show off, browse through etc. Not everyone is into computers. Not everyone can be bothered with them because they're needlessly complicated.

Now before the ever so intelligent of you sneer that they must be hillbillies or something. Let me provide as an example,a dear friend of mine who is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met and is a very highly regarded Doctor of psychology and academic. She hates computers. She uses them because she has to, to write papers and model statistics etc, but beyond that - she has no time for them. Lately I've bought her around to some of the joys of using a computer because she's seen some of the things I've been creating on my Mac. Apple's software is very mature - it's intuitive. If you build a website for instance , why bother with Html? The user should be able to intuitively drag n drop, move things around and push a button to publish. Let the software deal with the code under the hood. And that's what's great about the iPad.

It can act as a companion device for your desktop computer. Something to have around the house that isn't as bulky and cumbersome as a laptop or net-book. I wrote a bit of a wish list in my posting last year on what I'd like to see the Kindle become, the iPad at that time was a mythological beast. I wanted to be able to read books with full colour covers. Not just novels etc, Fiction and non fiction with illustrations and potentially, animation and video. Wouldn't it be great to read a book about David Lynch with video clips to highlight details the author might like to make about a scene? Magazines! Newspapers, blogs and sites on the net. Salon.com is as valuable to me to read as Wired is as a real world magazine. And now I will be able to access them together on the one device anywhere I take my Tablet. High on my list was the ability to read comics - Check. I'll be able to do that too. Full colour Superman comics each month on a handy portable device? For me that's heaven.

One thing I did want though, which I'm not sure yet, how well the iPad can deliver. Is to be able to sketch and paint on it. It seems I might be able to with my fingers. But I'm quite used to using a stylus and I'm not sure I can do it with my index finger. I've tried a bit, just a bit, with a couple of apps on my iPhone but with no success whatsoever. That's a bit annoying. But I'll see how that goes. It may just be a matter of screen size that held me back.

What I will love is sitting in a cafe and reading the Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Times or whatever Newspaper takes my fancy. Up to date and with not a tree killed and pummelled for my short term product use. And yes Mr Murdoch. I would be happy to pay for that news. However that news has to be of a quality worth paying for, not the halfwit excuses for journalism you peddle.

Since I began writing this posting, a couple of new tablets that are soon to go to market have popped into my view. Nvidia, a very big chip maker that specialises in the graphics cards that power most PC's (and some Macs) have announced a mobile chip, ideal for tablets, called the Tegra. They demonstrated some great tablets that will be coming out through the year and I've gotta say, they're good. One of them that will be out in June is from India and called the `Adam'. I won't bore you with the specs here but it looks like a good machine. Maybe a bit bulky and ugly looking for my tastes. But it certainly address's a lot of the issues that the iPad downers have (Flash, multi-tasking, camera etc)

It's all early days though. Apple don't have a monopoly on the tablet computer market but they've led the field and I reckon that one of those mob out there will build a tablet computer that will be awesome and just what the doctor ordered.

Merry Christmas from Rossco!

2009-12-19T08:55:00.004+11:00

Here's my Christmas card for the year folks. I hope you all have a great time, make it home in one piece and enjoy a happy and prosperous new year.

Just so you know, Christmas in Australia is an utterly stupid time of the year. We live in the hottest continent on the planet and yet everything about Christmas is interpreted as if we were in Europe or the US. We spray fake snow on our windows for the illusion that our homes have been recently caught in a snow storm. Decorative items in and on our houses bear no relation to Australia at all.

European villages, covered in fake snow are created in miniature in shopping centres where Santa Clause, a morbidly obese gentleman rugged up for cold weather, listens to and sits patiently waiting to be photographed with sugar engorged children. He sits and sweats and sweats in the heat. I know this because I used to be one. (and it was one of the best jobs I've ever had so there is a good side to it).

On Christmas Day, while the temperature is around the thirty to forty degree mark, many of us will eat a hot roast dinner. And then of course there's the bloody shopping. But then that's a curse felt by everyone around the world.

Featured Art Work: `The Painted Desert'

2009-10-19T17:18:00.000+11:00

This lovely pic was taken on my recent trip out back with my folks earlier this year. I've found it to be a strangely relaxing photo - somewhat zen like. Quite often I'll just stare at all the grains of sand in focus in the foreground, but then that's part of my schtik, pointing and staring at things that don't move. You should try it some times. It's oddly relaxing.

If you like this photo and would like one of your own or perhaps have thought `Hey! What a great great christmas or birthday gift idea!!' Then head on over to my online shop and order one today. And what better time to buy now with the Aussie dollar so high against the Greenback.

New Mr Shiny Web Comic uploaded!

2009-10-14T15:06:00.001+11:00

I just put up my second Mr Shiny Web Comic onto my website. If you click here on www.rosscarroll.com it'll take you to my site, click on the ad at the top of the page and look for `Fearless Dan' or click on the `Web Comic' link in the Nav bar, it'll take you straight to the comic page. Ho-Kay?! Off you go now.

It's Kindleicious!!

2009-10-07T20:03:00.002+11:00

Well this is good news (mostly). It would seem Amazon have finally decided to release the Kindle Internationally. Mostly good? Well, it'll be wireless and have 3G connectivity, you will be able to buy books and download directly from the device but you won't be able to view Newspapers or Blogs as you can in the US, which was half the joy in having one of the things.

I think I'll hang off and see what Apple are going to do. The rumours are very strong that they're going to release a hand held device that'll be to E Readers what the iPod was to music.

Back to blogging.

2009-09-15T09:52:00.003+10:00

Goodestly Morninge!

I've neglected my blog lately (poor lil thing). I've changed it around, prodded it, all for it's own good mind you. And I'm still not done yet. A little bit of tweaking will be in order to bring it into sync with my new site, however for the moment I'm going to give it a rest and start posting some more. Facebook has taken over my brain a bit lately. I cursed it when I first was on it because no one I knew was on it and I just couldn't see the point of it (kind of like how I feel about twitter at the moment). But now a whole slew of my folk are using it and it's value is far more apparent to me. Well, for the most part. I've already managed to put my foot in my mouth. Isn't the first time and won't be the last, but I've got to be careful and think before I post. (damn)

I've been really happy with my work lately. I've achieved a great balance of paid work and personal work happening. I've been working on a `Mr Shiny' web comic. I've quite a few to do as a whole lot of them came out of me in the space of a few hours and I furiously scribbled them down. I'm going to try and get them out once a month and I'll see where they lead me.

Here's a great ad I've just found online.

Enjoy!

Nope!

2009-08-27T17:49:00.002+10:00

No. I've Changed my mind. I don't like the iWeb blog.

I'll keep this one and change it to look like my website.

And more of you folk out there can see it that way too.

Just gotta work out how to get it looking like my iWeb

site now.

New Website

2009-08-15T21:07:00.002+10:00

I've gone and made myself a new website.

It's here at www.rosscarroll.com

It's got all my artwork and a new blog all under the one umbrella so to speak.

I'll be keeping this blog here for a while but only as I transfer all of my old

entries across to my new one. Seems a shame to waste them.

So come on over.

Rossco

The thin, taught tightrope of thanity in thentral Authtralia.

2009-07-06T18:47:00.016+10:00

On the road again, in fact I’ve only two days left of my trip. The Suzuki was finally fixed and after five days in Broken Hill my folks and I headed west to Port Augusta in South Australia. What was wrong with the Suzuki? Well the lil fella is connected physically and psychically to our `Swagman’ Motorhome by a couple of hydraulic rams, (like sheep but smarter). On a previous trip the front of the car pulled away from the chassis. It was welded back on but by incompetent welding jockeys who did a such a woeful job, the welds never actually stuck. In a sense it was like being pulled around at great speeds by your teeth and having your jaw pulled out from your face. Then pushed back in again by small retarded, hyperactive men in overalls and ripped out once more while traveling at high speeds over Outback cattle grids and gravel roads.

What I liked in Broken Hill? The houses are cool. They’re probably shit to live in, I don’t know. I didn’t ask (what? Me talk to strangers? I might get fondled!) but the different retro styles all cobbled together over the last century, eccentric extensions (you’ve gotta love concrete Roman Columns and Fibro) and multi-coloured exteriors are something to experience.

I went to the Pro Hart Gallery and I fell in love some of his work. Beyond his old TV commercials and a vague awareness of his work I really knew bugger all about him. But seeing it all together and in Broken Hill really opened my eyes which was lucky because otherwise I had no idea where I was and was beginning to panic. But they were opened not just to his art but also how one can live a full and creative life without any hint of artistic indigestion. Critics and snobs be damned. He was a self-taught, naturally inquisitive and talented artist with many insanities and rashes who bravely followed his creative intuitions and seemed to have fun doing it. I thought he was cool.

But enough of you, lets talk about me.
Here are just a few more photos out of the literally dozens I've taken on the trip so far. I mean pffft, there's two more days left, I'm likely to take several more before I get home and that's not counting the one or two I may take waiting for my connecting flight in Sydney! Then again, I may not.

Formerly known to Westerners as `The Olga's' named by Explorer Giles Stuart because they reminded him of his childhood German Nanny. They are now called `Kata Tjuta' which means `Site of future Casino'.
Regretfully, Dad and I had an argument during our stay at Broken Hill where I said some rather harsh words that left him feeling quite small.
Unlike many mountains of this type around the world, this is not known as `Table Top Mountain' but `Brown Coffee Table Top Mountain'. Named by Explorer Lionel Stuart Threadbare in 1834. Threadbare became known for giving literal names to many landmarks he discovered such as `Pussycat shaped Rock' in Western Australia, though many are still baffled by his naming of `Craigy Head' in New South Wales.

A lazy pink sunset over the dusky jewel of inland Australia that is the um, damn what is it? It's on the tip of my tounge. Ohh I hate it when that happens, you know? Ohhhh it's right there. . . . .
No it's gone. Hang on. If I try not thinking about it it'll come to me. You go on ahead.

Trailing behind Kata Tjuta are many smaller rocks. Aborigines call them `the eyes of the Dingo' though scientists believe they are technically `Monument poo'.

Ularu as viewed by those whacky folk who do`The Muppet Show'.

Geraldine Federal-Thumping tries her hand as a work experience bar maid at Alice Springs only legal brothel and public Glory Hole.

Formerly known as the `Caustic Road, this Hillock is now known by many Americans as the birth place of the modern casserole.

I had to `Shoo' off many young aborigines and Americans from this sacred site which determines the time `Afternoon tea' is served by many NASA Scientists and lab coat wearing `Boffin's. from all over the world.'

A view of the beginning of the `Eric Nuff Desert' named after the tragic `cabin boy' and expedition mascot who tagged along for many miles during the first leg of Giles Stuart's Expedition to find out if there was anything worth taking in Central Australia. No one was
ever sure of what became of Nuff but there are many rambling entries in Stuarts Diary as he lay dying of thirst that he'd had `E-Nuff'.

There's more to come, I've just come over all tired like and need to have a good lie down.

Broke down in Broken Hill

2009-06-23T12:47:00.012+10:00

Truck gone bung! Well, not quite. Our little Suzuki 4WD we’ve been towing behind the motor-home has had an injury. Depending on the damage (we’ll find out this arvo), we could be heading home a bit sooner. Either way I’ll be heading out this way again for sure.The country side here is amazing to look at and every town we’ve been to, except for poor old Wilcannia, is very tourist friendly. A lot of the small towns we’ve travelled through have made a fist of it (so to speak) and reinvented themselves with restored facades on the main street buildings, new businesses, cafes, shops etc and landscaping around the town.I can remember coming through some of these towns on family holidays as an impatient, weird little kid along with a very easily teased younger sister. The towns back then in the late seventies, were slowly dying and the young folk with their dreams and ambitions were leaving and moving to the cities where there was a better chance of a living.But now it’s changing and artists and entrepreneurs, travelers etc are returning and bringing life back to these little towns. The internet sure has helped and the new rollout of fibre optics around Australia is going to be amazing for these rural centres.The further west we’ve come, the redder the earth. But it’s contrasted with the intense green of fresh grass and scrub. There’s been a fair bit of rain out here lately and it looks like some of the grass and scrub is in shock. They’ve been brown for so long, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be green. In some places there’s flat red earth, overlaid with a rich purple of metallic oxide in amongst deep green grasses, ashen grey mulga and snow gums. There’s the odd wattle and small native flowers scattered about but it’s still a bit early in the year for most of the flowers. It the rain keeps up, the west of NSW will look girly pretty around September and October.Maybe it’s because I’m getting older but the history of the area is far more interesting to me than what it was when I was a kid. Could be also the museums are better presented than when I was last here as well. There’s still the old dry facts hanging about, statistics, dates and so and so did this in dum, dum, dum. But there’s also a lot more emphasis in the museums on the characters, crimes and whacky events in the area as well.That’s it for the moment. I’m having a good time. There’s been no arguments or dramas and I’ve been enjoying listening to music on the iPod and staring at the countryside as we pass though it.Until next time - eat your greens, suck your reds and whittle your blues away.

Look Kids - Dubbo!!

2009-06-18T16:26:00.004+10:00

Goodbye fellow meat sacks. I’m on Holiday again. This time I’m on my way out west with my folks in the Australian version of a Winnebago, the `Swagman’. We’re heading South West to Broken Hill, then Lake Eyre, Uluru and finally Alice Springs. All up. Three weeks Of driving and pointing and staring at large expanses of desert and pointy mountain type thingies. At the moment we’re in the uplifting spiritual experience that is Dubbo.

For those outside of Australia, Dubbo is a unique place located on the western plains of New South Wales. The little pet door within the larger door to the outback of Australia.
It is a mysterious place with much Koorie law and history taking place here. The Aboriginal law court of Australia it used to be known as. Many tribal disputes were sorted out here. The first `Bush Lawyers’ were trained here and to this day it is referred to by the Australian Supreme Court each time it begins a session. If Justice has an Aboriginal name, it is Dubbo.

Those from Australia reading this, Shoosh!

So that’s it for now. I’ll try and keep updating as I go along with blog entries and pretty pictures n stuff.

Hello!

The dark and Mysterious Dinky Bo Bo

2009-06-09T15:41:00.003+10:00

What evil lurks within the soft shell encasing of Dinky Bo Bo's skull?
Oh sure, he looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth... which it wouldn't
because his body temperature is unnervingly low. But be wary of him, he can turn on you in the blink of an eye. If you see his limber little body bouncing along the street. Don't hesitate to run to him and kick him. But don't feel guilty, he deserves it.

Where's my head at?

2009-05-26T01:27:00.003+10:00

This is Willy Wobble and Pepe, possibly on their way home from `Passover', I don't know. I never let facts get in the way of a good story. Which is why many people think I'm the worlds first Autistic Rotarian. Well, maybe not the first.

You'll someday be able to buy this picture, printed A3 Size on high quality paper with archival ink and framed ready to hang on a lonely wall along with a whole lot of other pictures I'm currently working on. I've this idea of doing scenes from cartoons that don't exist. Who knows what the narrative is about? The viewer is set up to speculate and wander off into the large, meandering garden in the middle of the ship yard of their minds.

I live to serve, and chew onion.

A new website for you to check out

2009-05-12T15:09:00.002+10:00

Every now and then. I think people should just stop and take stock of what we
have. For instance, how could we possibly have lived life for so long without
the Internet? Go to this site http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/ if you need clarification. Awkward family photo's??
Genius.

Mobile Library Launches

2009-03-24T09:44:00.005+11:00

Here it is, all finished and bringing moist `Book-Luvin' to the far reaches of Port Stephens. Port Stephens Council's new Mobile Library. This has been my biggest job so far, literally, and I'm `happy as all buggery' it's turned out so well. You sure as hell can't miss it out in the open.I had the biggest head swell at the low key launching at Raymond Terrace last week. I was grinning from ear to ear taking the photos below when someone from the Library staff recognized me and soon I was set upon by exuberant folk in suits and ties congratulating me and asking me how I made the graphics. I had to look down and check I was still wearing pants as lately I've had several dreams where I get a new job or I'm doing well with work but look down and find I'm not wearing any pants.I have to give Many Thanks with generous dollops of chocolate sauce to Little Green Frog Marketing for the job. The Froggies were fantastic in their trust in me to get the job done and I am so pleased they thought of me to do it in the first place. Jamie, Prue, Stephanie, Katie and um... the new girl...damn, I've forgotten her name. Anyway I'd come up with several concepts for the exterior design but they were all too close to other Mobile Libraries on the road. I had this idea on the spot and very excitedly scribbled it up on the white board in the meeting, tripping verbally over myself to explain what I was seeing in my head. Thankfully the Froggies saw it too and sold the concept to the client who were very keen as well.The idea was that it was to look like a quality book illustration. I was going to draw them up but if I'd gone down that path I'd still be working on the job now. As it was the deadline was Christmas and the job was given to me in late November 08. The only way I could see of doing it was to photograph a wide variety of people all looking like they were tumbling over themselves happily reading a book.
I did a test for the clients of Tony, one of the regulars at the Last Drop Cafe in Newcastle East. I Photographed him, cut him out in Photoshop and then painted him over with a raspy style brush with my graphics tablet and sketched in some pencil lines to make him look like he'd been sketched and painted onto a canvas. Then he was composited together with some motion blurred trees, blue sky and fluffy clouds. And that turned out to be the best way to do it.Then there was several weeks of photographing friends and family. Directing them into many different positions, happily snapping away and pointing at them until they asked me to leave their house. Beyond making the tight deadline another stress was having a powerful enough computer to create a layered image that in the end would be about fourteen meters long and three and a half meters or so high. The only specs given by the Library manufacturer were the truck plans and the instructions that the art work should be twenty percent of the printed schematics. Oh goody. And me being numerically retarded.
I had three days off for Christmas and two for the New Years eve but beyond that I was head down, bum up trying to get this job finished on time and looking good. Eventually it was all finished on time for my deadline of the 15th of January. There were a few tweaks but on the whole everything was Tickety Boo.
So. All done. Now for my next trick...
Huge Thanks to my Mum and Dad for posing, Tony, Monique, Dougie, The Gumpins; Steve and Wendy and Zoe and Lexie, Felix, Huali, Xio, Megan and lil Digby, the Wilbert kids, Eden, Benny and Ruby and all those who posed for me but didn't make it into the final cut - Sorry Lee.

A New NBG Pic

2009-03-23T12:08:00.001+11:00

Another Bob pic completed.

Fresh Brain Juice on EBooks.

2009-03-02T13:38:00.016+11:00

What set me off.
I've had a case of the old Gadget lust again lately. This time it's for a good ebook reader. What set it off? Well I went for a short little trip up to Port Macquarie to have a bit of time off and recharge the batteries & went looking for some fresh reading material to take with me. I found a big arse Star Trek story spread out over three paperbacks in a newsagents and snapped them up. I'm a sucker for Star Trek and Star Wars novels. So I had a great break and enjoyed being engrossed in a good story that I couldn't put down.

Then I was finished. `Spent' as they say in the classics. But then the books were still there. They just looked so big and lumpy and well, frankly, a bit dejected and maudlin. All that paper. It felt so wasteful. But I want more! I want to read more like this but not feel so bad about killing a forest to do it. So it got me thinking about ebook readers and as it happened, the Amazon Kindle 2 was being announced about that time so I went and sussed it out.

EBook Nirvana
Short answer. I loved it. Not unconditionally as I will explain. But for the moment it seemed just what I needed. It's small and light, it has huge battery time, something like two weeks between charges. It can hold a hell of a lot of books on it as well as digital access to a lot of major newspapers and blogs. You buy the books from Amazon at under $10 USD which is still cheaper than paperbacks in the Aussie Dollar. Those same Star Trek novels were available to read on the Kindle and there were more in the series available as well as latest release books and a huge variety of others. So I was getting pretty excited about the Kindle. I still love having a physical book. But some books are more special than others and you really don't need them taking up space on the shelf. But wait! It's only available in the USA! Huh?! This is ridiculous. How can this be good business? Lets put this into perspective. This is like Apple releasing the ipod but only for people in the USA. It's the same with the Sony Reader, the Kindle's major competitor. What gives? Both are great ideas. But then frankly, both are not quite there and here's why.

The Ultimate EBook
For me the ultimate ebook reader should be light like the kindle. Easy to navigate and use. Be interactive with either a digital (touchscreen like the iphone) or a keyboard on the device. It should be wireless and it should have a colour screen which the Kindle and Sony Reader don't have at the moment.

I would love to subscribe and download digital versions of magazines I enjoy but I reckon they should be laid out on the reader screen as the magazine intended and not reformatted for the device, So reading a digital edition of Wired or Rolling Stone or whatever mag, should look the same as the `meat space' version. That being said, my ultimate dream machine would have video embedded into emag articles or flash animated ads - which would be great for advertisers too. A fair whack of the ads in Wired Magazine are eye catching and sometimes interesting but if those ads were animated and/or video I'd be more inclined to look at them. Imagine downloading a magazine, reading the article and then downloading a video follow up to the story. It wouldn't have to stay on the pad using up space either. It could stream from the cloud and be deleted from your pads drive when you turn it off. And I want to be able to read full colour comics on it as well. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, all those man's... and some incredo-womans too. Then I wouldn't have to put up with the loud, annoying little shit who owns my local comic shop when feeding my monthly Superhero addiction. I could just download them.

But I'm getting away from myself, which is not an easy thing to do when there's so much of you. For the moment, I've found a great workaround. The iphone is surprisingly good at being an ebook reader. There's a free app available called Stanza. Download one to your desktop and one to your mac, load up an ebook and you can wirelessly copy it to your iphone. And it works great! I bought some Star Trek and Star Wars ebooks to test it out. I'd still prefer a Kindle 2 though - Do you hear me Jeff Bezos!!

And so I wait.

More Bob

2009-02-25T17:38:00.002+11:00

Here's a new illustration for National Brokers Group. Bob's proposed, now he's on his bucks night up at `The Cross' Sadly the sheep in lipstick and fishnest stockings had to be replaced by a keg. No really. Next picture in line up is the wedding day and on another note, I've seen a mobile phone pic from the workshop of the printers of the Port Stephens Mobile Library with much of the work installed onto the rig. I'm quite excited by how good it's looking. Apparently the printer is quite overwhelmed as well (head swell) It's been the biggest and most high profile job I've done so I'm going to make full use of the free publicity when launch time comes around.

My Bushfire bit.

2009-02-15T13:04:00.004+11:00

Well I may be a bit cynical about Australia Day but I couldn't be any prouder to be an Australian than when something so terrible as the recent bushfires in Victoria bring out the best of what it is to be one. Bushfires are scary and confusing when you're in them and I've only been in a couple that were so very mild in comparison to what happened in Victoria last Saturday. Not just a few houses, whole towns were wiped out. I've been up around that area years ago and I remember it being so beautiful.

These aren't city people that were affected by the fire, they're good, down to earth Aussies with their heads screwed on properly (and grow the best mull, cook the best food and put on awesome parties), who were caught up and so many died. Yeah I know, I'm a bit biased against City people. Love em but they're so very different to people from the country. I've had a good cry now and then watching the news, reading the paper, especially for some of the kids and reading how some folk died but what's awesome is the attitude of these people. The dry humour and the appreciation that no matter what and who they've lost, they're glad to still be around and determined to rebuild their lives. They also know that the Australian family is real and we take care of our own and after this last week they've seen it in action.

The Red Cross appeal is staggering. The last time I looked it was up around 80 million dollars mark which is just amazing. So here's my challenge to you if you're reading this. Match my donation of Two hundred dollars and make a difference and help your fellow Australians rebuild their lives. It might be you one day. Click here to go to the Australian Red Cross site.

Be my Valentine Pimp.

2009-02-13T16:24:00.004+11:00

Ahhhh Valentines Day. One of those days where women dream their men actually could look like George Clooney or Bradley Pitt, if they only squinted their eyes long enough. While men give women chocolate hallucinogens to help them maintain the illusion long enough to get a blowy. Here's some animation for a viral spot I did for the intriguing and charming folk at Out of the Square Media and Perisher Ski Resort. Compositing and non wombat art by Ryan Jenkins. The Valentine cynicism is on the house. Humbug!

Just a little vent...

2009-02-08T22:08:00.004+11:00

... The French language, to me, is a beautiful thing to hear. Like a cooling breeze on a warm summers day. The Chinese language, I've concluded,
is like a leaf blower on a Sunday morning.

Is this the sort of image that gives pedophiles a hard on?

2009-02-08T15:56:00.005+11:00

Wot?
I dunno. Did I go too far this time? ;)

More fun images like this at a lovely new site I've found called Sexy People.

A Rossco Rant!

2009-01-27T10:50:00.003+11:00

I'm not someone who celebrates national days. I've always been a bit suspicious of them. I'm patriotic and a proud Aussie and all but Australia Day always seemed to have that nasty whiff of nationalism about it. Yobbo's stumbling drunkenly about wearing the Australian flag like a cape and yelling `Aussie, Aussie, Aussie - Oi! Oi! Oi!' reminds me of boorish, xenophobic English soccer hooligans. It's sad that the chant that began with such good humour at the Sydney Olympics has now come to signify something so much darker and potentially evil. The re-enactments, ridgy-didge concerts, barby's and such like, all seem a bit desperate to me. Like children showing off trying to get your attention.

Even though I'm not a fan of our national day, I'm even less a fan of `Invasion Day', the name some folk of vague aboriginal connection use instead of the one we have at the moment. I think they should go further and call it `Victim Day' because that's all they'll ever be as long as they keep vainly thumping their chests and wallowing in self pity.

Australia Day is the day that commemorates the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. Fair enough. It was quite an achievement to make it so far. The equivalent today would be to send a rocket full of male and female prisoners to establish a settlement on the Moon. If we really want to celebrate and be culturally accurate about our national day. Then we should have lots of sex orgies about the place because that's what the convicts did when they were finally let off the ships.
The Men were let off first apparently, then a couple of days later the women disembarked and it was on for young and old. If we were to celebrate like that then I'd get really nationalistic.

I think this piece has turned me Gay!

2009-01-19T14:48:00.007+11:00

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A job on Bob

2009-01-19T12:18:00.002+11:00

Here's some of what I've been working on over the Christmas, New Year break. A new pic for those chaps at National Brokers Group utilizing Bob, who's always on the job, even when he's proposing. I've nearly finished the Library illustration which I'll put up when the job has been completed and put onto the Mobile Library. I'm quite excited about that one. I reckon it'll look amazing. Keep an eye out but don't eat it like that crazy bloke did in America recently. At least have the good sense to saute it with some butter and garlic before hand.

No I haven't died...

2009-01-13T16:55:00.002+11:00

Ha ha ha, ahhh, yesss, I'm still here. No messy bowel cancers or early strokes for me yet. I've just been very very busy over the last two months on a quite large job. I've been doing an illustration for Port Stephens Council's new mobile Library. It's the size of a semi trailer so it's quite large. It took me ages to find a monitor that big. I've also been working on another illustration for National Brokers Group and although I didn't have a Christmas break as such, I did find time to molest elderly people in their beds in nursing homes on the Central Coast. Love those forced sloppy kisses.
Anyway, just so your not lonely and don't feel like you've wasted your time navigating over to my site to see if I've put anything new up. Here's a lovely little video about Jockeys.

Fight the power!!

2008-12-09T11:42:00.002+11:00

What's happening with Kev? He and Conroy's internet censorship plan is
startingly dumb for people who you'd credit for having more intelligence.
This is something John Howard would have pulled and to his credit, never
tried. But then that was always the problem with the left, they want to
govern like an over protective grandmother.

Some new work

2008-11-05T17:01:00.002+11:00

Here's a nice lil illustration for a Brank ad I've just done for Little Green Frog Marketing.
I haven't written anything in a while, I've been a bit busy with work and all but the new site is still on it's way. It's looking mighty cool too. Very Australian retro. I'm going for a 40's Australiaaarna movie theatre style thingy with bakelite buttons that you push to bring up different sections of the site.
And Obama has won! I'm reading one of his books at the moment. I hope he can do what he promises. If he does, the worlds going to be a much better place because of him.

A toon from the goon.

2008-10-09T19:01:00.004+11:00

Update - Feb 09;
Hmmm, this doesn't make any sense now that I've had some time to look at it again.I intended it to be about how I'd noticed that everyone and their dog has an opinion on the economy at the moment and is suddenly an instant economist. Hell, I've fallen into that trap myself. But now it just looks like two derro's commenting on the number of economists who've recently joined their ranks. Fuck, that's not funny at all. I've gotta fix this. Leave it with me. Go have a decafe, skinny, soy latte chi and dissapear up your own arse while I think of a funnier toon to go with this line.

Bob on the Job!

2008-10-09T18:21:00.002+11:00

Hi kids! Here's a new picture for the National Brokers Group who've commissioned me to do some more illustrations for their lovely press ads through Little Greeeeeeeeen Frog. This series involves Bob who's always on the Job. When he's proposing, he's on the job. At his bucks night he's on the job. Then getting married and doing a poo. No hang on, that's me on the job. Bob, Bob, Bob. Always on the job.

A new GOOFY cartoon!

2008-09-29T14:36:00.004+10:00

I'm still working on the new website in between work so here's a great lil something I've been wanting to see for quite some time.
A brand new Goofy cartoon! I'd read that the Pixar people oversaw this (and there's a nice lil' appearance from Uncle Walt and Mr Lassiter in it) and that they'd `nailed' the whole tone and style of the old Goofy shorts and still kept it contemporary. I couldn't agree more. They didn't just nail it, they stayed overnight without snoring and cooked it a hearty breakfast in bed in the morning.
Hey, if you can't stretch your analogies what else can you stretch!?
Don't answer that.

Mr Wilbert and myself have long hoped that Pixar would reinvent or `reboot' Mickey Mouse. This may just be the beginning.
And if any Pixar person happens to read this post, Mr Wilbert (who's not a fictional character but a good mate of mine) and I reckon that Mickey should be naughty and mischievous like he was in the original black and white cartoons. That was when he was funniest, had an edge to him and was at the height of his popularity.

An awesome Tellyfish commercial

2008-08-27T13:25:00.002+10:00

A stunning piece of commercial art. I'd love to do stuff of this calibre.

Sea Orchestra from Shy the Sun on Vimeo.

Fiddling about in Photoshop

2008-08-07T18:23:00.005+10:00

Here's a nice lil piccy I did. I adapted it from a photo taken on my holiday (another entry is due soon, I'm still writing it) I was in the bus looking out the window and saw the bus driver telling some of my fellow travellers a story. I've no idea what but she was quite animated. So, amusing myself one Saturday in my favorite Cafe on my Macbook, I had an idea and started doodling.

I'm gunna print it out and put it on my wall I think.

MEN AT WORK!

2008-07-18T16:14:00.003+10:00

Yes things look a bit different here. I'm in the middle of a redesign of my presence and promo on the web so bear with me for a bit while the builders are in. Watch the scaffolding and make sure you have your hard hat on.

Canada/Alaska - Lake Louise

2008-07-18T12:00:00.009+10:00

Enough of Banff (`tis a silly place’) lets go to Lake Louise. We had a couple of chances leaving Banff on our way to Lake Louise to stop off and point at places we’d been, where we were and where we were going. (isn’t that a Burt Bacharrach song?) It’s amazing to look at the mountains and landscape and imagine in your mind how everything was formed. How God pulled some earwax our of his listening hole. Rolled it about on his fingers for a bit before flicking it at the treasured blue marble he’d just created, made some mountains on it and then spat at it to make some lakes. Yes, he’s quite a grotty deity. Or if you believe that silly scientific nonsense and it was all created by huge plates of rock and earth deep in the ground being forced against each other and pushing the colliding pieces up out of the ground to make enormous mountains and valleys - pfffft! Well some people will believe anything.

We stopped off at one place along the way to walk along a long path to view a fairly interesting waterfall. And it was good, don’t get me wrong. But the walk was better than the waterfall in my opinion because there were chipmunks along the way! I’ve never seen one in real life before (I don’t count the reoccurring dreams). They’re very cute and fast. Rather like a cute blur of fur. (giggles to self for several seconds) What interested me most was the roadside Diner/Kiosk/Holiday Cabins that were at the entrance to the walk. We stopped in for a bite on the way back and it seemed to me like some mythical place run entirely by a family of pretty young women. No men. Just a lot of girls who looked like sisters shuffling about the place serving and cleaning.

We travelled for a bit along the highway until we stopped - inertia’s a bitch sometimes. The bus had broken down just meters away from a mysterious wood cabin with a light on in the second story window. Several of our group volunteered to go to the cabin and ask for help. But within the hour, less even. Another Bus was there to transfer everyone and their luggage onto it and on to Lake Louise and we never spoke of those that went to the cabin again except to divide their luggage up between us later that night. The APT people it should be said were awesome in their service and took a reasonable cut. No one on our trip could fault them. Those that did were beaten and publicly humiliated - Sigh

The weird thing about Lake Louise is how much it looks so much like it does in the photos you see of it (go figure!). It’s almost too pretty to be real. But then that may have been the medication I got in my cut of `those we don’t speak of’s’ luggage. Once again we stayed at another luxurious Fairmont Resort that seemed to want to loom over the landscape as much as the landscape loomed over you. If that makes any sense.

Protest! Don't watch the Olympics in China

2008-07-15T11:10:00.005+10:00

One thing I don't like is bullies. Big or small, a person or a country. Bullies really piss me off.
I watched Four Corners last night on ABC 1 and got really pissed off at how the Chinese are repressing the Buddhist population in Tibet. Men with Guns who violently push around Buddhist Monks are not men. They are cowards.

There's not too much an individual can do against such a giant force as the Chinese Government but one thing I can do is not watch the Olympics. To me, I can see no difference between this and the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany. Supporting the Olympics, watching them even, is tacitly supporting a government that supports evil regimes like the Burmese junta, Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the criminally insane Sudanese President, Omar al-Beshir.

Recently I went looking to see what Falun Gung actually was. Was it a cult? Was it a disruptive political force that could destabilize a government or way of life? Nope. They're just Buddhists. In fact they're closer to the real ideal of the Buddha that's become distorted like most religions, through the centuries. It's kind of like Buddhism with a bit of Tai Chi thrown in. Wow, what a threat. But why would you want to go anyway? I've just read that spectators won't be allowed to wave banners or flags supporting their teams at the Olympics! What the?? Talk about control freaks.

There's not much you can do. But the very least is you can do is not watch the Olympics. Give them the low ratings they
deserve at the very least. Tell your friends, switch off. Have a barby, a beer and toast the Dali Lama instead and celebrate the true meaning of what it is to be an individual.

Canada/Alaska; DAY - ahhh buggerit.

2008-07-10T12:47:00.017+10:00

Click this link here to view the full range of pics I took on my trip. Well, most of them. I've got the first two weeks up and I'm now going through the ones on the boat - I mean Ship.
I tried. Really I did. I had this idea that I would write a bit each day and upload photos as I trundled along on my Women’s Weekly World Discovery Tour of Canada and Alaska.  I figured that there would be heaps of places to connect my laptop and write away and upload. Well there was, but it cost a bit and while the download speeds were great the upload speeds were quite sad and it took sometimes up to an hour to upload any pics.Interestingly (for you geeks back home) there seems to be a sway away from community broadband hotspots etc in Canada and the US. It’s too expensive for the groups running them to maintain and those little usb, mobile plugins, doovy-whacker modems seem to be becoming very popular. None of this unsustainable, commie style, community access nonsense - pffft! Anyway. I had a great time, met some lovely people and took heaps of photos and HD video to keep me happy (and help me learn some of Final Cut Studio). I’ll do a bit of a roundup of the trip now from where I left off all those weeks ago. When I last wrote I was catching up a bit..wot me? It was a cool flight in the chopper and the footage I got was pretty awesome. When I got back home and looked at it on my telly it was a bit wobbly and all but looked amazing - sigh, I love high def. It’s so purdy. Gotta get me a good tripod now.That day in Banff turned into a bit of a shopper day. Heaps of bargins about with the change of seasons and heaps of young Aussies working behind counters or serving you food and footware. The little buggers were everywhere - One of them did give me a great discount on some hiking shoes, down from $350 to to $80 and he knocked off another twenty for me - onya cobber. I remember as I was typing the previous blog entry in the Starbucks, over-hearing a pretentious lil’ Aussie, Princess Bogan (and potential future Big Brother contestant) carrying on about how boring Australia was and that was why she was loving Canada and the States to her friends at the table. She was really loud and that’s saying something considering she was with a table of Americans. Sad to say we Australians may be taking over from the yanks as the worlds most annoying travelers. It used to be we were known for our good humour and graciousness overseas. But I think we may be getting a bit up ourselves.I really liked Banff. It’s a lovely old place surrounded by the most amazing mountains looming over a pretty Alpine Town dotted with these huge pine trees. We stayed for a couple of days at the Banff Springs Resort which I renamed Hogwarts due to the number of times I got lost inside. (and me with an impeccable sense of direction). It was also a bit `Hogwartian’ looking inside. At the Resort art gallery I discovered the artwork of a Canadian Artist called Doris McCarthy. I noticed this painting. A triptych of a Canadian Rockies Landscape that was so beautifully stylized and with such an individual palette of colours that was so out of the very ordinary. The artist is 97 now and was 90 when she painted the picture. You could have knocked me over and slapped me about for a bit - it looked like it was painted by a very competent and creative, much, much younger person and certainly challenged your stereotypes of what elderly people...or people of any age, paint. (No pretty watercolour roses in country cottage vases for Doris) She was the last living link to the Canadian version of our Heidlebrandt School of Art from the thirties and fourties here in Australia. But I think they called theirs the `gang of Seven’ or something. Perhaps they solved crimes and guzzled down lashings of Ginger Beer while they weren’t painting. Jimminy!Hmmm, now what did I eat? Well the first night there, I trundled along and eventually found a Bavarian Restaurant, hidden in the woods a kilometer or so away from the Banff Springs Resort. It was worth the trip. The place looked like it had been sucked off from Southern Germany and deposited into North America. In the entryway, on the walls were lots of stuffed animals who weren’t fast enough to live. I was met there by a gorgeous vision of Germanic blondness in a Dirndl who escorted me to my table where my dinner companions were patiently waiting. I just loved this place. It was so...German! Very warm and comfortable and to me at least, quite exotic. After downing a very large stein of Guinness I feasted on an entree of escargot (in garlic and butter) and a main course of something I can’t remember. It’ll come to me one day when I’m not thinking about it - but I did have a great night. Got a bit pissed and caught the shuttle bus back with two elderly Australian blokes from South Australia who were very merry as well. We had a great old chinwag and giggle winding our way back to the resort through the huge trees in the twilight and past the waterfall where Marilyn Monroe filmed `River to Nowhere’ back in the late 50’s.I liked Banff a lot. I’d love to go back there when it’s snowing, I reckon it would be such a beautiful place then. If we’d had been there two weeks earlier we would have seen the place covered in snow. So apart from eating some great food - like hamburgers with bacon and sprinkles of blue cheese (a taste sensation that takes burgers to an amazing place), I went up in a gondola to the top of a mountain and pointed, sketched and stared at the incredible view. Went up in Helicopter that scarred the shit out of me. Went on a great walk along the Bow River and pointed at the native wildlife and some beautiful old houses. (`Len! There’s a strange hairy man outside pointing at the house! Get the gun out.)

All these pics below are of the leg between Whistler and Banff. The landscape changed from bloody big mountains to relatively flat and then back to bloody big mountains again. Much pointing and staring was achieved.

Canada/Alaska; DAY 6 - `It is Happening Again.'

2008-05-30T07:32:00.006+10:00

Day 6 and I'm here in Banff, Alberta. Sitting in a Starbucks, hands shaking after a short helicopter flight over the rocky mountains. I was glad to touch earth again but I was shit scarred going up in my first helicopter flight. I would have been okay but what I thought was a solid wall I was leaning against in the copter was in fact a door and a girl opened it to help me untangle the headphones and get buckled up. From then on I was somewhat paranoid that the door would fly open. I kept my tiny brain occupied videoing the ride but I was somewhat nervous up there. Bloody spectacular view though. Strewth! But lets back up a few days shall we?These are pics continuing on my adventure trundle to enroute to Whistler. Just about everything I see here reminds me of Twin Peaks. The haunting, jazzy soundtrack playing in my head as we drive along. Misty mountains covered in Douglas Fir and dark and foreboding skies, heavy and pregnant with either rain or snow. Some guy clicking his fingers in a rhythmic fashion - `Laura?! Lauuura?!' Man I'm looking forward to the Festival of the Log (Twin Peaks marathon) when I get back home. Whistler is a cool place and not just temperature wise. This is where the Winter Olympics are going to be held in a couple of years. It has the cutest little shopping centre that looks like a little Bavarian village. Not that I know what one looks like...maybe a Disney version of one then. Either way it's very pretty and must look great in winter when it's full of snow.The Fairmont Whistler Inn is where we stayed the night. For my mind, such as it is, fricken luxury. Tonight I had a skype chat with Dougie Robertson back in Newcastle and then went down for dinner. I gobbled down some air dried Buffalo and Truffles with shaved parmasan and olive oil for entree followed by Elk Meatloaf in a lush rich gravy and bacon with three coloured Cauliflower and garlic mashed potato's. All this topped off with a `Study' of Creme Brulei. Burp and Feck is all I'll say to that. Our breakfast's have been on a huge scale as well. Basically I just gobble down a delicious American style breakfast, chock full of all thats good for you and then sit around on my puffy white ass all day on a bus snoozing and staring gobsmacked at the scenery. Love these holidays.Woke up nice and early and headed off to the Sun Peaks Resort near Kamloops. The landscape has changed again and is now more hilly with less trees. Still, lots of trees but in comparison a lot less and full of naughty bugs eating them too. Something to do with Global Warming and hippies not allowing fires to be lit and then the bugs which need the fires to control them go ape shit and eat all the trees. Bloody Hippies.

Canada/Alaska; DAY 4.

2008-05-29T15:27:00.007+10:00

Day Four already - ey?! Yep, Canadian’s say that a lot ey.
I’m on my second Ferry, who’s name art thou Brian, leaving the capital of British Columbia, Victoria and heading by merry coach to Whistler, high up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. By the way, Ferry’s here are very big here. Nothing like the piddling little ones at home. Ohhh no.

The weather has been more pleasant than the pleasantest thing you could think of. As an exercise, think of that; the pleasantest thing you could imagine and double it! Then put cream and honey on top. Yesterday, Sunday, was a lovely spring day. Warm but not too hot and with a soothingly nice cool sea breeze blowing every now and then in over the city.
Everyone on the tour is gradually getting to know each other. There are aussies from all over the country. I’m the youngest by a long shot and they’re all a nice, friendly bunch of people.

We had a choice of things to do on Sunday Morning. Some went fishing or schlepping for Salmon, some went up in a sea plane while others trundled about Victoria in a horse and cart. I went along with another couple on the historical tour of the city. We got to have a good look at the city from a bit of a non tourist’s point of view. Saw lots of nice houses and ended up at the Lieutenant Governor's Residence in the up market part of town.

As I said, it’s spring here and this place is awash with flowers of all sorts. It’s disgustingly pretty if that’s a valid description. We spent a good two or three hours at the Governor’s and her amazing garden. The colours and textures are so intense. The place is worked and maintained by volunteer gardening enthusiasts and they’ve done an awesome job. I’ve seen nice gardens before but this one was really like...really nice. On the way back we stopped off at a suburban mini-mart to get a drink etc. If you like strawberry’s this is the place to come. They are fricken enormous here and still really sweet and tasty. I was tempted to buy a big punnet of them (hold two fists together side by side and you can get an idea of the `standard’ size punnets filled to the brim with gorgeous and rich tasting strawberrys and only five bucks.

I had a great time with my new Handcam and digital camera filming and photographing everything. It should look really good in high def when I get home and edit it all together. I almost overdosed on Gardens today. After the ole guv’s residence we trundled off to have a look at a private garden that was just the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. But not in a cutesy sort of way. The fence around the place was nailed nice. Some people in this world put an awful lot of work into their garden. I don’t. But that’s something else entirely.
We got back to the hotel and then it was out again at 1pm to have a look at the Butchart Gardens. This garden made the governors look like a little hobby garden.
Bloody hell it’s a big place.

I’m still trying to get over my jet lag. Not a lot of sleep at night and little kitty concussions through the day. This means it’s like having a light nodding off but rather than a light little nap after nodding off. It’s straight away into a deep sleep. I’m having trouble staying awake writing this so sorry if it’s a dull read. Here's a nice lil pic for you milk lovers. It's quite difficult finding full cream milk here. Everything is divided into percentages. 2%, 10, 15 and 25% for instance. I asked the chirpy young minimart girl if they had anything like full cream milk and she gave me a look as if I'd done a messy sneeze and forgotten to wipe the snot off my face. I only asked because I was curious to see how their milk tasted. (Hey! Some of us collect stamps, others climb mountains, I'm curious about the taste of milk internationally.) In New Zealand, for instance, it's really sweet and creamy. I didn't end up finding full cream milk, but she did recomend the brand I bought below. It just tasted like normal to me.

Got Milk!

Canada/Alaska; DAY 1. `Wheer dud you gut the muney frum Jinet Frame?’

2008-05-24T13:03:00.003+10:00

`My Dud gave ut to me!’ Here I am in Auckland International Airport filling in time till the flight to Vancouver takes off, enjoying my second long black and cursing that I didn’t recharge my digital camera batteries. Not that you’re allowed to take photos in Airports anymore but I almost felt like I was on the `100 Bus’ (through Mayfield) in Newcastle. Most Novacastrians will nod and smile knowingly at that. Yes, that was a very parochial statement but I’m sure every big town has a route where it seems there is a disproportionate number of people on board who seem somewhat loud and retarded. I didn’t think they let yobbo’s onto planes...still, they let the poms travel so anythings
possible.

Things I noticed;
I’m too big for Air New Zealand economy seats...I’m too big for seats at McDonalds so what does that say? Put down that burger? Pffft! What good will come of that?

Deja Vu. I’m sure I saw the same couple at Sydney airport that I did when I went to America in 2003. Either that or I’m having a wickedly strong Deja Vu thingy. Have the French invented a word for an experience of the experience yet?

He was elderly, tall and distinguished looking in an Aristocratic, rural kind of way. Tweed coat, big nose and eyebrows that could sweep cobwebs out of those hard to get to places in the ceiling. She looked at first like his middle aged daughter who’d never left home or the Scout movement (“dib, dib, dob....”)

I thought perhaps he could be someone famous. He had a very `Sir Edmund Hillary’ look about him but following them around (what? I was bored!) and sitting in front of them I realised he was the `Anti-Hillary’. A loud mutterer, rude to airline staff and he `talked in’ the pilot as we were landing in Auckland. `That’s a boy, pull er up now, good, good, don’t over steer. The aerealon’s are up. Arrr excellent landing, well done.’  Riiiiiiiiight.
But I’m positive I’ve seen them before. It’s that weird, tangible but not, kind of feeling.
The other thing I noticed is how disconcerting it is to hear the same loud Harvey Norman TV commercial in another country.
Better get to the boarding area. More soon.

Go mildly into the wildly

2008-05-20T18:14:00.003+10:00

Just found this at YouTube and I reckon it's kind of inappropriate to put here considering I'm going out trundling amongst the wildlife and Tundra - So here it is! Oh yeah. It's got a bit of swearing in it so if you have any kids about you might wanna tell them to fuck off before you play it.

Phew! All Done!

2008-05-20T17:48:00.003+10:00

I've had my head down and bum up for the last couple of months trying to complete my slate of work and now it's time for my holiday. I'm leaving this Friday from Sydney and will hopefully post here on Saturday or Sunday night from Vancouver ... which I guess will be Monday here in Oz or something - (Strewth! I can't even count my change, how do you expect me to work out the international date line?)

I'm taking my Macbook and digital camera and I just bought a full High Def handycam so I'll be keeping myself busy shooting the shit out of everything I can point and stare at. And when I get back I'll edit it all together with dull music and a monotone narration and have a movie night at my place. And you're all invited!

Below is the final in the current series of National Brokers Group illustrations for you to see. I can't remember what the copy is... something about teams pulling together I think - I don't think Sally Robbins works at NBG.

Freakoid Gadget lust

2008-04-15T11:44:00.009+10:00

It won't be long and I'll be off to Canada and Alaska for three weeks holiday, (end of May)
Woo hooo!
But before then I've a heap of work to do.

Here are a couple more illustrations I've been working on for National Brokers Group. After working now for a bit over a month on my new Mac I can say `Yep, that was a wise decision'. No more Windows for me.

I've my Time capsule set up so I can back up regularly and once more be wireless at home. The next purchase will be a lil mac book so I can do presentations and work away from home...or in home but not at the desk - how cool is that?! Ahhh but talking about gadget lust is boring so I'll shut up about it now.
Go Speed Racer!!

Proof positive that sleeping with the boss isn't the only way to the top. Sure it's more fun...for the boss at least and you end up a humiliated mess of nerves for having compromised yourself and feel dirty and used...but at least you can buy food for your children and take them off the streets now ... or should you? Think of all the extra things you can get through prostituting your children? Go on you know you want to. Pimp your kids bitch!
Hmm, that seems harsh and somewhat off topic.

Steve Brule! You Rule!

2008-03-03T18:10:00.005+11:00

Wow! Everything feels all weird and discombobulated when you move from PC to Mac.

It's like being at sea for 15 years and then hopping off to walk on dry land and everything is all funny like.

Oh yeah! I've made the move from Pc to Mac. Windows was really shitting me. Slow, sluglike... and that's just XP!

Below is a video I found on Boing Boing that made me giggle like a teenage girl on a pony.

Showing the ropes

2008-02-24T00:05:00.002+11:00

Ahhhh, all done.
Here's another in the National Brokers Group magazine campaign.
It's all about being shown the ropes by professionals...Like National
Brokers Group! I'm pretty sure it's the last one for this campaign...I'll check with Dorothy Duffnell, my electric, expandable personal assistant and chrome bufferer.

A new NBG ad

2008-02-12T15:45:00.000+11:00

Toon Time

2008-02-12T15:33:00.000+11:00

This is amazing but...

2008-01-18T20:52:00.000+11:00

Here's an amazing clip of three graphic art students who were challenged to remake the opening sequence of `Saving Private Ryan'...with just themselves and their own computer and video skills. It's great stuff, inspiring and all. Heck, it's amazing what they did...but I can't help thinking they missed an oportunity to put at least one of them running about the beach, frantically waving their arms about in abject terror yelling `We're all going to die! We're all going to die!' Now that would have been funny.

Don't hate me because I'm special...

2008-01-16T23:40:00.000+11:00

...hate me because I'm just like you.

Wake up! Christmas is finished! You didn't get kissed at the New Years party and it's time to start another damn year again. Oh sure, we'd miss'em if they weren't around - but really now...would we?

Just to start the year on an oblong note. Here's a link to a chap in the world somewhere who has invited lots of different artists to do their own Stan Lee of Marvel Comics, artistic tributes.

I've gotta say, I like a lot of them. If I had the money. I would buy this one below just so I could give it to Sir Ian McKellan as a present for being such a lovely chap and a terrific actor. Another favorite is one with Spiderman using his webbing to amuse a group of kittens. hee hee. Lil' Kitty!

I think I'd like to do one set in an Aussie main street on a Saturday morning at a CWA stall with the Hulk asking Mrs Blanch for a tray of Lamingtons.

My version of someone elses cartoon...

2007-12-18T14:17:00.000+11:00

Thanks heaps everyone

2007-12-07T13:59:00.000+11:00

Thanks to all my friends (sorry if I missed some of you) who voted to name the Greenpeace research whale, Mr Splashy pants. It's going well, waaaayyyyy ahead of the other tedious and politically correct names put forward. Nothing's official yet but I'll let you know when it is. You can still vote I think by clicking this here link

UPDATE (11/12/07) It seems as if Mr Splashy Pants has won (hooray)
Now all we have to do is stop him from being harpooned and ending up on a Japanese or Norwegian dinner plate. So click this link and help Greenpeace do whatever stuff it is they do to save Mr Splashy pants.

Go! Speed Racer! Go!

2007-12-07T13:34:00.000+11:00

Wow, here are some preview images for you all of the new Speed Racer movie currently in post production. It looks like the Warchowski's (who made the Matrix trilogy) have nailed the `live action' cartoon concept.Ahhh, I love cinema like this. The whole thing was made in a Green Screen studio. There are a few more movies like this coming out soon that I'm excited about seeing including Frank Millers take on one of the great cartoonist's, Wil Eisner's `The Spirit' - A film noir style (which may be very `Sin City' like)Superhero movie set in the 40's. Zac Snyder who made `300' is making the `Watchmen' based on a series of comics I've only just started reading so I can't tell you too much about it yet.

And of course, Pixar will be doing their first live action movie `John Carter of Mars' based on a series of pulp novels from the 1930's about a civil war soldier who finds himself battling dragons, martians and flying about in space ships with busty women in metal bikini's and loin cloths on Mars! And Pixar's making it! That's going to be amazing to see how that comes out.

If these pics of Speed Racer are anything to go by the we're in for some exciting eye candy movies over the next few years. You wouldn't be dead for quids hey?
Now all jokes aside!

Today's whacky competition

2007-12-07T13:14:00.000+11:00

Here's a whacky picture the dear Kate Brady took of me at Dan and Natalie's wedding.
If you'd like to win an authentic Rossco designed T-shirt, then download the pic and write in the funniest caption into the above balloon. (It's actually a sculpture I'm standing in front of)and email it back to me at rossco@internode.on.net
I've already recieved one entry.

Dan and Natalie take over the world.

2007-12-07T11:32:00.000+11:00

My dear friends Dan Waldron and Natallie Sherring were married a few weeks ago and here's a rundown for you folk who know them. The cojoining of these two was lovely and good for the local economy. They had a beautiful wedding and on Monday launched an aggresive bid for Rio Tinto ahead of BHP-Billington.
N.S.W. State Government treasurer and weekend wedding car hobbyist, Frank Costa drops Natalie off at the local taxi stand conveniently located outside the church.

Grand Canyon tour guide and American Express cover girl, Peggy Thrombosis, arrives by Hover Car for Natalie and Dans Nuptials.

Natalie's father gives his daughter away. This of course would never happen in India where you'd get a good price for this prime piece of ass. I hope Dan appreciates the value of what he's getting! He can always put her up on EBay India later after he gets bored with her.
To the tune of Dans Favorite song,`Convoy', Dan and Natalie leave the church together all `Married up'.

Just like the Kennedy's but with more bagpipes, Mr and Mrs Dan Waldron confront the world Ninja style together.

Gladys Thrush-Decliner, Nerrida Strutwhistle and myself as we appeared in this weeks edition of the `Hamilton Snoop'. The `Snoop' is a particularly vicious local newspaper that prides itself on investigative journalism. Usually in areas where none is concerned or needed...like local weddings for instance. It was reported by the Snoop that week, that the three of us sabotaged Dan and Natalie's wedding by screaming out during the service about the babies we'd had between us that Dan was responsible for and had had aborted. This was of course plainly untrue. They're all in safe homes and wish him and `Mummy-Nat' all the best.

Father `Trim' Bennett and Ms Gladys Thrush-Decliner discuss the nuptials.

Local Town identity and serial pest, Ces Thermos gets it wrong again.

The beautiful yet fiercely competitive Natalie wins by a nose in the Australian Wedding tradition of `Cat fight for my man' usually played out in a fun way with the bridesmaids before the officialities of the reception and often times bringing up deeply hidden feelings and Lesbian-like tendencies amongst the gentler sex. A time worn favorite with the men folk of Australia.

Peggy Thrombosis regaled the guests with ribald stories of her and Natalie's times spent swindling corner shops of their licorice jars and stray men folk across the western half of NSW during the eighties.

Our dinner consisted of Goose lip and armandine Dwarf sauce covering a tender free-loader bred Lamb prebirth cutlet served with a sponged vegetable Julianne assortment of French underpant vegetables. Strangely delicious!

Peter who?

2007-12-06T10:30:00.000+11:00

I thought this was a corker letter in todays Sydney Morning Herald. Poor ole Pete.
"It's been only three days since Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol and already there has been a reduction in the emissions of Peter Garrett. Peter Wall Ascot (Qld)"

Labour has another Craic at it.

2007-11-25T15:30:00.000+11:00

The most well behaved boy in class became our Prime Minister today.

Last night, well after his bedtime (which is when `The A-Team' finishes), Little Kevin Rudd went to bed with the news that he and his `Yay Team' had beaten that Johnny Howard bully and his naughty gang of private school boys to become "king of everything in the whole wide world of Australia."

This morning he woke up ahead of Mummy (but not Daddy, he's with Jesus now), bounded out of bed, ran straight down the hall and into the front room with the `scarey pictures of Jesus' to see if anything had been left for him.

And there it was. A big, dark blue leather Box with a Kangaroo fighting an Emu in gold paint on the top. He opened up the box and inside was a sight that made him gasp because it now belonged to him. There was lots of red, shiny fabric and on top was a thick gold chain and on the end was a large, shiny gold medalion with the words
`Prime Minister' written across it and at the bottom it had been engraved to read `Kevin Rudd'. On the back was a picture of the Queen fighting the Kangaroo and the Emu combined in her own Ninja style. It was the coolest thing he'd ever seen and it was all his.

This morning, he and his sister spent much of the morning at the `Water Wonderland Milk Bar' buying lollies for all the kids and showing off his big shiny pendant and letting everyone touch it and have a hold for a while.

Stupid animal party tricks for bright humans

2007-11-03T19:08:00.000+11:00

Good Morning and get off my feet. I reckon it's time for a break from the Christian freaks from the previous post so here are some nice photo type images from my reality. Ahhh my reality, just like yours but with more fat.

Below are some photos of little Clair Robertson's Fifth Birthday party and a couple from a very brief trip to Sydney for the day with fellow dog botherer and chum, Ric Woods.

Clair is the daughter and racing tipster of my mate Dougie Robertson, a stout young fellow who I rescued from a drain while he was trying to drown kittens in a `Bi-lo' plastic shopping bag. The kittens had unexpectedly fought back and overpowered him. He was a goner until I turned up and like many of my friends, he's been eternally grateful that he knows me.

Doug finally gets the news that the Greek Island of Lesbos isn't all he imagined it to be.
Gumpins arrive and the tone of the party settles quickly.

Meridith Baxter-Birney of `Who's the Boss?' fame recounts a story for the kiddies of her backstage fun with a young Michael J Fox before it became too hard to understand what the hell he was talking about. I mean really! He's meant to be a professional.

Young human children congregate and travel in packs together from a young age. Most wear party hats while stalking their prey and are deceptively cute looking until they are tearing the flesh from your throat while you're still alive and screaming vainly for your mother.
Clair thanks her mother for the raffle ticket. Sadly though, there was to be no meat tray for the little one that night.

Heavy Weight Boxing Trainer and Cake Decorator, Kate `Meat Gravy' Brady enjoys the party with a suspicious eye on the youngsters.

Clair wishes as much as any little girl can wish, (which is quite a lot), for a real live pink pony with a flouro green mane to be in the tiny package at her feet.

Nerida Buttress-Tickle of Medowie Heights and her amazing expandable gob. Strangely, Nerida can also get a strong Digital TV signal when pointed in the right direction.

The young daughter runs at a leisurely pace and with no small amount of indifference toward the far too eager arms of the father figure.

Wendy Gumpin has no idea how she got here or why. She does however make a lemonade guaranteed to make someone with even the widest, happiest mouth, collapse in on itself like a cats bum crossed with a black hole.

Menacing looks for the camera from the radicalized members of the Country Women's Association of Cooks Hill.

If you wake up one night and this is the first thing you see. Get up and run as far away as fast as you can! For godsake, don't look back - there's nothing you can do for your family now. Move on, invent a new identity and forget the real you ever existed. Don't think. Just do.

Ric Woods, standing member for the Federal seat of Sittingdown (up the road from Slightlean). Policy platform consists entirely of marshmallow and those little chocolate bud things you get on the top of those yummmy cream cakes you get from the Mall.

It's tamborine time folks!!

2007-09-24T14:02:00.000+10:00

What can I say? No really. What can I say?

A title for the new Indiana Jones movie

2007-09-11T09:27:00.000+10:00

Movie goss time! Just announced, the title of the new Indiana Jones movie is (drum roll...)
"INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL"...... There. (tuck your jammies in, go back to bed now and make sure you've turned off the heater.)

Using my authentic gravel voice disquise and my sisters hairpin, I've deduced (that's Sherlock Holmes speak), that it will be set in the 50's and have Indiana Jones teaming up with his old crumpet, Marion Ravenwood (from Raiders of the lost Ark)and his son! He's also meant to be battling a very naughty Cate Blanchett as a Communist Russian (mmm, please have a riding crop and eye patch) and now it looks like he'll be solving the true life legend of the Crystal skull which you can find out about via this link to Wikipedia.

It's the NSW Police! Sieg Heil!!

2007-09-10T15:48:00.000+10:00

I'm mightily pissed off with the Gestapo like tactics of the NSW Police during APEC recently in Sydney. This is from video footage from Ninemsn of Greg McLeay, a 52 year old accountant and father of an 11 yr old boy who was with him, from Neutral Bay. He was roughly hauled away by the Police in Sydney on Friday and locked up for 22 hours without any legal representation for.... wait for it, crossing a road. Yep. That's it.

According to Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald, this is what happened.
Mr McLeay, his son George and a friend, who Mr McLeay had been doing his tax return for, were walking down Pitt Street on their way to have Yum Cha in Haymarket when they came to a blue police tape across the footpath. Where to go? Well they crossed the road, were half way across when a Police officer yelled at them to stop. They were in the middle of the road so they went to go back. They were unaware that one of the many motorcades criss crossing the city had just left. You can see what happened next in the video which was taped by a quick thinking Channel Nine Cameraman.

I've not a problem with the police doing their job protecting all of the world leaders and so on. But where is their common sense? They spoke to the bloke, they can see he's there with his young son. No doubt they could check to see that he's an accountant with offices in the city and using your fucking brain you would see he's of no threat whatsoever. But it's plainly clear that the police have instructions from above not to think, just react and hit, pummel and forcibly detain innocent citizens on their way to lunch. That's why I think they're Gestapo like. Many Nazi's explained away their actions during the second world war by saying that they weren't responsible because they were acting under orders. So too are the NSW Police who should hang their heads in shame at this abuse of their powers. There is no excuse for this stupidity.

I used to be a lefty but saw the light some years ago and went a bit right wing. I'm a Howard supporter, which living in Newcastle makes me a very lonely man. (And I utterly loathe the NSW State Government) I'm all for APEC, globalisation etc. I have very low opinions of most of the protesters who marched on Saturday, mainly because they're so bloody earnest and serious. If only they'd used humour like the Chaser boys who got publicity all over the world. But no. Get a few greenie half wits together and photograph them looking so very serious together holding up an inflatable earth. What wankers. I was pissed off at the people in Sydney complaining about having APEC there and disrupting their lives (You live in an international city, this is what happens when you have a conference with the leaders of the most powerful nations on the planet, deal with it. It's only a few days!)

But this is wrong and they went too far. This is exactly what we should be fighting against. In our efforts to combat terrorism we risk becoming the very thing the terrorists say they hate us for. We are taking away the rights and freedoms we have that the terrorists hate. They hate our freedoms. They hate our separation of church and state. They hate democracy. They hate the idea of having authority that is accountable to the people. They hate the freedoms we take for granted. They say it's all lies.

Well over a few days, the NSW Government and NSW Police force have embarrased this nation and people and proved them right.

Seig Heil!!