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I must admit, I've not been following the buzz from this year's Comic Con. I usually don't, not being much of a comic reader. The odd bit of cross-media promotion grabs my attention now and again, but by and large, Comic Cons pass me by.

But it's one of those cross-media promotions that grabbed my attention by the short-and-curlys this morning as I read the latest Sci-Fi Weekly news summary. At the end of a Disney panel promoting the next Dwayne Johnson film, Race to Witch Mountain, Disney came out with a "surprise presentation" - which turned out to be no less than a three minute test reel for the sequel to one of my favourite movies.

That's right: after years of speculation and months of rumours, Disney has just announced, in spectacular fashion, that it's working on Tron 2 - or, as the trailer would have it, TR2N. I watched a very dodgy bootleg of the video, complete with light cycles, refashioned identity discs and no less than Jeff Bridges himself.

It's rumoured to hit in 2011. I cannot wait.

Posted by IMAGinES at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the midst of rising interest rates, skyrocketing petrol prices and gross grocery bills, it’s nice when live gives you something to smile about. For starters, publishers have glutted the office with comp copies of new novels, so I’ve been helping out by reading and reviewing some of them. Through this I’ve been introduced to the brilliant work of Scott Lynch; I’ve read both of his novels (so far) in the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, which is fantasy like I’ve never read it – street level, with a Tarantino-esque flair. Not even Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories have as much wit as The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies. Okay, maybe I’m slanging off a master just to get attention, but I really do prefer Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

Continue reading "Good Things Come..." »

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, now promise you won’t laugh.

The renovations have been proceeding pretty well. This afternoon, I was helping re-hang a curtain rod in our room. It was somewhere between four thirty and five, I think, and I’d just done drilling holes for the mounting brackets. I turned around and hopped off the middle rung of the low ladder I was on. There’s a CLUNG!, a bright flash and a sudden throbbing numbness near the crown of my head. I land on my arse, cursing myself for an utter twit for forgetting about our chrome ceiling fan – our running chrome ceiling fan.

Then the blood started to pour down my face.

Continue reading "Thankfully, The Brain Scan Didn’t Reveal Anything" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In a little under sixteen hours, I’m going to be running the fourth session of my Star Wars: Tarmadan Sector campaign for my players. Naturally, I’ve saved all the prep-work until the last minute. I doubt I’ll be burning the proverbial midnight oil, as I have some shopping to do tomorrow morning, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be up until around twelve to finish things off.

Last week’s Feng Shui session was fun. If you’ve never played it, Feng Shui is meant to encourage the kind of frenetic, stunt-laden set pieces seen in Hong Kong action films. Our GM, Leon, stripped out the standard setting in Feng Shui for one of his own, a cross between Blade and The Terminator where we players (Tracey, Patrick, Tracey’s daughter and myself) are trying to halt a future vampire apocalypse. I found myself coming up with lines of dialogue for my character more readily than improvisational stunts, and it was a great relief to be sitting on the other side of the GM’s screen again!

Continue reading "Movies and Movie-Based RPGs" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s quarter past midnight, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow – sorry, today – and I’m suddenly struck by the urge to write a new post. Jesus, there must be an author in here somewhere.

I’d characterise things around here as “chugging along”, but that’d be doing those things a disservice. “Chugging along well,” that’s better. Work is still work. I’ve been asked to start using up some of my accrued annual leave, so I’m taking the three weeks after ANZAC Day so Vickie and I can get stuck into the final round of interior renovations. We’ve given up on waiting for Karlos to do our computer desks – let’s face it, though, the poor bugger’s pretty damned busy at the moment, and on top of all that, he and his wife have a newborn son – so we’re going to get stuck into it ourselves. After that, I’m taking the week after my birthday off. What? Take leave on my birthday? And miss out on work cake?

Continue reading "Midnight Mumblings" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday was a busy one. I finally caught up with Karlos for some Halo 3 in the morning, and managed to get my Team Slayer ranking up to 12. He’s been putting some serious hours in lately, cranking his Team Slayer rank up to 22. We played for a couple of hours before I want to the local pub to help the Lions Club with a raffle draw. We didn’t have much luck; since the pub converted most of its lounge area into a restaurant, there’s little room for people to sit and relax, so midday custom has dropped drastically.

After that, Deena, Chooks and I went out for the grand final of our soccer league. Our team won 13 to 10, and we each got a trophy for it! I’m pretty sure it’s the first ever trophy I’ve earned for a sporting event! Ater that, it was straight out to Barlow Park to help out on the Lions Club food van for a couple of hours, raising money for the club through sales of chips, hot dogs and steak burgers to the crowd who'd arrived to spectate the Cowboys vs. Titans charity match.

Posted by IMAGinES at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A close thing indeed. Over a week ago, I was enthusing about the then-upcoming premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Then I leafed through the week’s TV guide and discovered it was premiering in the exact same timeslot as Women’s Murder Club, a new crime show based on the novels by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. As you can probably guess, this was a show Vickie was not about to watch on the TV in the bedroom, let alone miss. It could have been war, I tell you. A struggle for the remote control the like of which would never before have been witnessed.

Continue reading "It Was Very Nearly Murder" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The rebuild went okay. My system is, I think, quite a bit more streamlined. I’ve installed almost everything I want to put on it, save Transformers: The Game and Guild Wars, the former because I want to find the USB receiver which allows me to connect my wireless Xbox 360 controller to my PC and the latter because we’re at three quarters of our monthly bandwidth limit and updating the client might take a gig or two. Spyware Doctor is working again, thankfully, and I’m browsing the web with little trouble.

There’s one hitch; it’s not bothersome at the moment but it’s something I’d like to fix when the next rebuild comes around. For some odd reason, Windows XP is now insistent that my Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA hard disk drive possesses only 130GB. The BIOS disagrees with Windows, of course, reporting the full size on its settings screen. But, apparently, the BIOS is a pitiful moron compared to XP’s all-knowing wisdom, even though the last build recognised the drive’s full size. I have the feeling it has something to do with the SATA drivers I used and that I perhaps plugged the drive into the SATA ports controlled by the Intel controller instead of the Gigabyte controller like last time.

Continue reading "Some Good News for February" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vickie’s just recently put a new post up on her web log. One very noteworthy item she writes about is the visit we had on Monday evening. I'm only wishing we'd managed to get a photo of the tiny creature before he left!

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’re slowly heading toward the end of the ratings-blank period for 2008, and the TV stations are already running promos for this year’s new and returning shows. Two of these have caught my interest, but not (well, not just) because of the plot or the leads – it’s the co-stars who I want to tune in and see.

Continue reading "Bring On the Co-Stars" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Merry Christmas, everyone! Yes, I know I’m a little bit late, but you know, what the heck! I have no Internet or computer outages to blame it on, I was simply eating!

So, yes, good Chrissie. Good indeed. Big brekky, prepared by my lovely Vickie (note the buttering up as my trying to keep out of the way wound up with me not helping when it was needed). Then it was a nibbly lunch and after that, everyone was so tired out, they went home, and Vickie spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping. Me? Oh, I spent it with Mass Effect. I was at the point in the game where - hmm. How to explain it? It's like, there's this awesome TV series, but you've only been watching it when it comes out on DVD. You've polished off most of the show's first season, which has been good all the way through, and it's been gearing up to a huge finale in the last two or three episodes. You can turn the DVD player off and wait for a few days - or you can blitz through the last three in one big hit.

Continue reading "Christmas 2007" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm starting to notice a pattern to the recent days here. In Cairns, we've just had some of the hottest days in the past few years, and of course out where we actually live it's been even hotter. The evenings, though, have been rainy, and not just that; we've been switching our sensitive electronics off at night for fear of lightning-induced power surges. I have the feeling we're in for a cycle; the hot days will draw the moisture out of the ground, making the humidity a killer, and at night the humid air will make for whoppers of thunderstorms.

Last night was particularly nasty. It started bucketing down at around eight, and the sky was regularly lit with flashes. Ziggy, our red cattle dog, started getting very agitated, pacing up and down the house, never settling, even dashing underneath my desk a few times. This, it seems, is his chosen comfort spot when thunderstorms are about. I wouldn't mind, but for the facts that (a) behind my desk is an assortment of hanging cables connecting my PC and peripherals and (b) my PC itself is situated on the floor, and Ziggy sheds more than an airport hangar.

Continue reading "Starting the Summer with a Bang" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Only three more days and then I can shave this damned moustache (although calling it such is an insult to moustaches) off. I know it’s all in a good cause, but I just cannot wit for it to be gone. I mean, look at this photo. Look at it. Twenty-two days, three weeks of mo growth, and it’s still a pubescent straggle.

I promised a photo of myself and the rest of the work gang, and here it is, taken on the 13th:

We've had one casualty already. The ginger-haired guy, second from the left in the top row? He shaved a couple of days ago; apparently his girlfriend objected to the handlebars. A shame; a week ago, he was looking damn impressive!

Posted by IMAGinES at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sponsorships! I has some! Props to Daniel O'Connor for his donation, as well as Jayne and Gail at the office who've doanted offline. Jayne's offered me her sponsorship again if I last until December 1st.

You know, it's a bugger, as I was actually tempted to shave the bastard. I will be very, very glad when it comes off!

Anyway, sponsorships mean photos! I'l get one done tonight, and I'll also post a couple taken by work.

Posted by IMAGinES at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't believe it! Six days in and so far nobody's figured me growing a moustache is a good enough excuse to part with a few dollars! Come on, folks, this is me! The whitiest guy you've ever seen! The longest I've been without a shave is (maybe) forty-eight hours! I figured at least some of you would be in just for the novelty value!

You don't believe me. That must be it. Rob'd never grow a mo, that's what you're all saying. Well, have a look at this:

Okay, fine, it's still not a mo yet, but it clearly has the makings! And it's had twice the number of days than Jimmy Barnes!

If you need a reminder, check out the instructions in this post. Oh, and if any of you lot are in Movember as well, I want to know about it!

Posted by IMAGinES at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's what you need to know, folks:

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) Rob Farquhar is growing a Mo to raise funds and awareness for men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
  
• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
  
• Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.
  

To sponsor his Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter his registration number which is 160452 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor him by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for his Registration Number: 160452. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket.

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Commonwealth Bank, Holden, Schick and VB.

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Posted by IMAGinES at 06:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, observe ye this greasy skinned, sleepy-eyed visage carefully:

'Cos over the next few weeks it's gonna be changin' like it's never changed before. Why, you might ask?

I've signed up for Movember.

Continue reading "A Passion for 'Tache-ing " »

Posted by IMAGinES at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi, everybody. Another week-long break between postings. There’ve been a few reasons for that – busy-ness at work, a bout of illness and a dose of “OMG T3h n3w g4m3zz0rz!”.

On the work-related front, things have been in catch-up mode since Amateurs, the local equivalent of the Melbourne Cup. As my counterpart Imi (now there’s a thought – which of us is C-3PO and which is R2-D2?) was tied up with organising the invitation mailout, which had its own share of problems, things like entering ongoing ads in advance fell behind. Then I racked off for a week to go see Steely Dan (more on that later, maybe over on the MySpace), and shortly after I got back, Imi racked off for a week herself, touring and recording with some band friends of hers. So with only one of us on for two weeks, things got even further behind.

Continue reading "September '07 Catch-Up" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

... but I finally saw Dogma.

Ask anyone who's already seen the movie, especially fans of Kevin Smith's work, and you'll get a laundry list of reasons why the film should be seen by everybody. For me, reason number two is that, for all the profanity and gross-outs, it's honestly entertaining.

But then there's reason number one: If you've seen Alan Rickman in anything, you probably like him. If you've seen Galaxy Quest or Die Hard or Love Actually or Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, you almost certainly like him a whole bunch. But this little film does something that I'd never even conceptualised, let alone considered possible: It gives you the opportunity to love him.

Posted by IMAGinES at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our poor dogs haven't had a good time of it lately. A couple of weeks ago, we noticed that Zelda had started - well, not frothing at the mouth, so much, but her saliva had thickened, and she was licking her chops a lot, so her muzzle was covered in spit. She was also often scratching her right ear and eye. Vickie managed to get her into the vet's, who diagnosed her with a yeast infection and prescribed a daily regimen of pills, eye drops and ear drops. She's still on it; we still have a while before the pills run out.

Then there's Ziggy, who's been hacking away like he has a nigh-constant hairball. He's also vomited a couple of times, most recently last ngiht/this morning in the laundry where he and Zel sleep nowadays. We have the feeling that it might actually be worms, and Ziggy's regular medication covers heartworm only, so tomorrow Vickie will put an order in for some more dog-meds and I'll stop by the vet clinic on Mulgrave Road to pick a pill up for Ziggy's immediate consumption.

Posted by IMAGinES at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did anyone else think that Julia Zemiro was robbed of an Honourable Mention in last night’s Thank God You’re Here? She was having a serious “on” night with that whole medical sketch. Just because Gleisner used to mock the usage of “stat” in that Medico Point radio comedy he used to do is no reason to expect Julia to do so as well, I say!

Continue reading "Channel Ten: The Good And The Bad" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today was my second day of leave, and it's been a busy past few days! Jacqui and Kate arrived from Melbourne on Saturday; they're staying at the Colonial Club until tomorrow, so the past few days has been busy with getting the place ready for both their arrival and Friday night's big party. We've got around twenty people coming, and we've struck the idea of having a theme party - it's getting too damned cold up here of an evening for anyone to want to spend any length of time outside. On Thursday, we're taking our visitors on a trip to Port Douglas, followed by an evening screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (for young Kate's sake, you understand; no one else is particularly interested in it, especially not Vickie or myself).

And tomorrow is the big day itself, the day I turn thirty. Jesus, I know I have absolutely nothing to worry about - by any modern measure of age I'm still a good decade away from the halfway mark - but I do wonder where the hell the last twenty-nine years went.

Anyway, there shall be pictures, I'm sure, which I'll organise and put up on the MySpace photo album. Heck, I still owe you all those photos of me at Rhys' 21st, valiantly trying to down a yard-glass of bourbon and Coke.

Please note that I do not have the infromation required in order to give a certain response to the question of whether there will be a yard glass at my party. You'll have to wait and see. Or not. I'll probably be burning the negatives and erasing the memory cards.

Posted by IMAGinES at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, the good news is that Transformers is getting some positive press. I've not been hunting down reviews, mind you, but I couldn't resist going to the website of At the Movies, a TV show hosted by long-time movie reviewers David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz, and they both gave the film a three-and-a-half stars out of five, along with some nice comments in the actual review. Mind that (on their ABC show at least) they've only both ever given five-star ratings to Brokeback Mountain and Good Night, and Good Luck; a joint three-and-a-half puts Transformers in the same league as Before Sunset, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Serenity.

For you American readers, David and Maragert occupy a similar cultural space here to that of Ebert & Roeper; most Australian urbanites know who "David & Margaret" are. Heck, Wikipedia tells me that both duos' shows share the name!

Continue reading "Good Review News and Bad Review News" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Further to my last post: Vickie and I decided, "What the hell?" and splurged on two tickets (silver; the golds had all sold out) to Steely Dan. We're flying down to Brisbane on Sunday, September 16th, seeing the concert, staying overnight in a nearby hotel then flying back again on Monday. Naturally, I'm taking Monday off.

We figure, there's a chance Jeff will bring the tour out here again sometime, whereas Don Fagen and Walt Becker are such a pair of contrary bastards that we have on idea if/when we'll get another Dan album, much less when they'll tour again - if you're a Danfan, you'll know that they quit touring in the middle of their seventies career to concentrate on writing and recording and didn't tour again until the mid-nineties (the next album was still five, six years away). Besides, I've added all of the War of the Worlds tracks we own to my iPod nano's memory.

Plus, there's an upcoming development or two which makes taking more than a day or two off in September impractical. More on that as soon as some paperwork gets reviewed and probably signed.

Posted by IMAGinES at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I dropped the car off at the local authorised Ford service centre yesterday morning – and promptly got a “she’s ready for pickup” call at midday. Turns out the ABS problem was caused by rats chewing through the sensor cable leading to one of the front wheels.

I was disappointed by the bill, though. I'd been dreading the repair work for a good few months because of the hit I was expecting we'd take to the mortgage, but I was really not expecting it to set us back one whole hundred dollars. This is going to change the spec for that upgrade I was planning quite severely. I might even be forced to get a more powerful laptop than I was originally planning now, maybe even a faster CPU for my PC as well. After all the drama I’ve had with our computers lately, it’s almost heartbreaking that, thanks to this bill for the car, I won’t be able to go ahead with my original plan.

Only almost, though.

Posted by IMAGinES at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I called Vickie earlier on, she told me she’d had another visit from a Council inspector. Ziggy has been officially listed as a dangerous dog, and we need to get the fencing situation sorted out as soon as we can. We also need to buy a muzzle, which he’s not allowed off our property without.

Vickie’s called some fencing places, and most reckoned they wouldn’t be able to get out to us for at least another six weeks, and that’s just to provide a quote. Thankfully, one place is sending someone out to take a look on Wednesday, so with any luck we should be able to move quickly. The inspector was happy with Vickie's assurance that, when not inside the house, we can keep Ziggy safely in the side run, so that's bought us some time. Still, we need that fencing done sooner rather than later.

Continue reading "Dangerous Dog" »

Posted by IMAGinES at 04:19 PM |