I’ve been watching Top Gear quite a bit this year. It’s taken over as what I look at while eating dinner I’ve cooked. I completely stopped watching the SBS news because is was so much garbage. It’s part of admitting and getting back to my boyhood roots. I like cars. For a while it conflicted with my ‘oh what about the environment?!’ phase but I’m not really thinking that we humanoids and out contraptions are the real problem.

Top Gear is a bit formulaic but it’s good fun. I was really impressed with the Arctic special they did. They were the first ones to drive a car to the North Pole, they raced there against a dog-team, documented it and shoved it all into one 60minute episode. On American tv of the ‘survivor’ calibre that’d be strung out into a 14-part series.

I have been watching from the early series’, when they didn’t even had May, they had some fat bloke who like to talk about used cars. They used to have a black Stig. But I guess he had other job offers so he left. They got the white one.

And recently, in the news I see that the guy who is/was the stig won some court appeal to release a book about himself. Like when Luke got Darth’s mask off at the end of Return of the Jedi it was a bit of a disappointment. He’s just some formula 3 driver. I thought it was Damon Hill.

The interesting thing is that it seems like in this day and age, no one can be famous and not want to get the recognition the think they deserve. Surely this guy was getting paid enough by the BBC, so I am thinking the money from book sales was not the motivator. He just couldn’t not be famous. The thing is, I think he’s a lot less interesting now.

For ages I’ve wanted to get a foto of one of these dudes. I seen them on the highways, but of course I’m always on a bus and can’t stop to get out. If I was ever going to make music and if it needed album art I would get a foto of three of these dudes and me.

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I just finished watched the 2nd and last season of The Invaders. Really is amazing how much the X Files borrowed off of it. My final conclusion is that is wasn’t alluding to the soviets and the cold war, but that the stiff little finger was more hinting at the Illuminati and its secret hand signal. Please refer to this GIS of prominent figures including Clintons, Obamas and Bushes doing the hand sign.

Lol. It’s like one of those community meetings where something exceptional has happened and some whacko or hippy gets a hold of the mic. for an extended period and they’re saying Y’know why can’t we completely do things differently and all get along? And a group of people are actually agreeing with them and you’re thinking have I really become that cynical, or is that hippy fucking crazy.

And then there’s Bob Katter and I’ve always thought he was scary. It used to be just that he looked scary, but now with the position he’s in, he is actually scary. He reminds me of one of the leaders of the aliens in the original V. Someone should get him some dark, wrap-around sunglasses and a dark-red jump suit. That would be awesome. And Adam Bandt must be pissed that he’s a Green and not an independent because he ain’t getting a fraction of attention that the other three are getting. He’s also scary, because I dead-set remember that name from years back but I can’t remember if it was from one of those student unions like NUS, or from one of the ultra-left groups. Scary because it’s another reminder that people I knew in the protest-kid days are now politicians.

Anyway, it won’t be long before the powers that be from the rest of the world send Australia a memo to cut that shit out because a) all this talk of ‘unity govt’ is making a mockery of the illusion of choice in regualr two-party systems and b) in two weeks time, when there’s still no government, and society hasn’t fallen apart, people will see that they don’t need politicians at all, and that all we need are an unelected public service, the corporate elite and the Illuminati/Lizardmen.

From:

Effect on Animals

A student named David Merrill subjected mice to the music of a heavy metal band called Anthrax 24-hours a day to discover how it would affect their ability to learn new things, but instead of completing Merrill’s maze, the heavy metal mice all killed one another.

In a subsequent experiment in which the mice listened to heavy metal music for 10 hours each day, they did not become homicidal, but they did grow worse at solving the maze than they had been when they first encountered it. But research indicates that reactions to music are shaped by whether or not it is the genre of choice, and it’s highly unlikely that if the mice had a musical preference at all, it would have been Anthrax.

All I can say is when mice rise up and take over scientists will be in for some cruel and unusual times. David Merill, you have been warned.

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I was thinking more about car colour and why black, white, silver are so prevelent here now. Car colour choices correlate with economic conditions. In boom times people want exotic bright colours, but in more conservative times, like these economic times, the dulls predominate. And Korea always thinks it’s in hardtimes. If only it would relax, take a day off work and stop throwing rubbish on the ground.

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A couple more car chase movies:

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry : had a lime green 69 Dodge Charger in it. Script was pretty lame and I was cringing at how heavy Susan George’s natural tan was, although I never picked that she was English and doing an American accent.

The Seven Ups : Have no idea what the title was about. Second of this subgenre to star Roy Scheider. I like Roy Scheider. He’s like a solid actor who was in some pretty big films of his day, but if you asked someone who was the main actor in Jaws (not the fish) most people wouldn’t have a clue. He was an important part of making the films that he was in, without being bigger than the film itself. I like to think of Sunny Breaks as being the Roy Scheider of the blog-O-sphere.

Seven Ups also featured some of those great landmark bridges they have in New York, reminding me of GTA4. And it was shot in the dead of winter which seems so distant now.

Magnum Force Written by that great hollywood hack, John Milius, with david Soul as the motorcycle cop baddie. Don’t know if this was an inspiration to T2, but manm, motorcycle cops can look evil when they want to.

Duel Spielberg’s first film, which shows that the guy had talent before he had huge budgets to help him through. I loved the way it focussed on the truck as an entity. Part of what the car chase movie is about is long shots of the car—glorification of the car—something that Dirty Mary… completely missed. Duel was a really simple idea that really worked, is just as relevant today, with road rage and all, plus it was kind of ballsy to use so much internal dialog.

Man I should really be writing about Grunge but it’s hard to concentrate. I’m seriously thinking about writing to the uni and proposing that they start to transition the system for the next generation of permanently ADDed slackers, of which I seem to be part of. I was sick of this thesis topic before I’d even started tapping the keyboard. I’ve probably written it here before but I’d much rather have done four or five 4-5ooo word topics.

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Car chase movies: the original Gone In 60 Seconds was the next one I could find. Interesting in that it’s another bit of what life was like in my birth year (1974) and unusual in that it was classified as an independent film. It was the brain child of one guy – most of the cars used in it belonged to him, and he got his friends to do the “acting” in it. There weren’t any professional actors. There’s a whopping 34 minute car chase in the finale, which helps it to blend in with much higher-budgeted films of its time. When looking at the directing of the dialogue and actors I was just thinking, ah that’s the 70s for ya.

The best bit about it was the wigs, sunglasses and suits. In fact I think, in some small way, one of my fav video clips, Beastie Boys’ Sabotage is ahhhn ohmaaage to it.

From the movie, this is H.B. Halicki, writer, producer, director and main actor:

Apparently, the wigs were to fool the cops. I think he just had a funky wig fetish.

Here is the token black guy in the car-stealing team, and a young lady dressed in a rather racy 70s way.

There was a caddy full of homies cruising around that was kinda cool too.

I’ve been meaning to mention this for ages but I can never keep a bottle unopened long enough to get a foto! Here is one of the good things about living in Cheongju. The only mineral water bottling plant in the country is located somewhere nearby. Most of the restaurants and small grocery stores stock these fantastic glass bottles with the metal cap. I don’t think there’s many (if any at all) places in AU that are persisting with the glass bottles, which is a damn shame because tactile-ly they’re a lot better. Also, these aren’t available in Seoul, only around here. It’s only 700 won for one 340ml bottle, which presently is 66cents Australian. Plus you can get some sort of refund if you take the bottle back, but I leave them outside for the urchins. It’s not as minerally as I remember mineral water being in Australia, but the level of carbonation is about the same – a lot more than the plastic-bottled variety here—and really, it’s all about the bubbles. And the glass.

I promised myself I’d do at least one productive thing today before the heat and humidity were too much of a prompt to totally sloth it up, so here is blog.

A couple of weeks ago we went for a local/intertown bus ride to Jincheon and stopped at a Buddhist memorial on the way. Not a full temple, it’s commemorating a once prominent dude in the local area. Quite a large property going up a hill, and dead quiet! It’s not that I hate people and never want to be around them, but it’s just that I can never go anywhere in public (especially on a sunday) without it being crowded. Anyway, thanks to Buddhism’s waning popularity here, there was no one at all there.

Even more surprising was seeing a couple of deer bounding up the side of the hill. I’ve never seen deer in the wild before. They were quite small.

There’s a minor restoration of the Grand Seoul Station going on at the moment and they’ve got old fotos showing scenes back through to 1961. Interesting, because photos of the last 60 years don’t pop up that much in public. I like this one because of the action pose of the chap in front-centre. So what’s changed in 40 years on annual Thanksgiving scrambles? Colour photography is the norm these days.

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from last wednesday am:

I again find myself waiting in a starbucks coffee place. Their music machine is beguiling. In the morning it’s mellow stuff- steel guitar and a little bit of the smiths. They have a weekly rotation. Did I mention that? Once I walked into one at a certain time on a Saturday night and it was the rock n roll animal version of sweet Jane. Then exactly a week later I was there again—exactly same. Now, a Tracey chapman cover of that 80s pop song (tears for fears?).

I’ve been thinking a lot about my feet and feet in general. Summer is a time of feet. I feel inadequate about my feet. I never had arches but if I did they’d now be fallen. I really do think they’ve become worse in recent times. There’s way too much surface area connecting with the ground. When I’m at home taking a pee in the bathroom, bare feet on the tiles I become conscious of how I’m rolling them in slightly and standing on a completely wrong part of the foot.

Son of five seven four

There will be a foto here of my shoes.

These three pairs of shoes represent the height of comfortability spanning back 4.5 years and unknown into the future. I had to wear the Nbs the whole time of the camp because I was on my feet for so long each day. This pair (in the middle) have exceeded expectation. They’re like the mars rover. I was prepared to chuck em once I got back from hoju in feb. But still going strong. Last week I found they’re still making 574s and promptly got a pair. There are some minor cosmetic differences but they feel the same. Any other 2 – 3 year gap between shoes usually ensures them being unobtainable. Interesting to see how my feet have shaped the older ones though; they’ve become much wider. On the left are catapillar shoes from way back but have not been worn for some time due to a hole in one of the soles. They died in Shanghai one rainy day in May 07.

I realised I have more shoes now than I’ve had at any other time but generally there is always one pair that is the most comfortable and they get 90% of use. It’s an odd relationship between me and shoe. They seem much more intimate and important than other pieces of clothing.

I’ve started looking at great car chase films. So far only using wkpdia as a reference and began with Bullitt which is supposed to be the first. Although the charger was a pretty classic looking car, with the hidden headlights that make it look like it’s wearing sunglasses, i’s surprised how little chase action there was in the film. Bonus points for daring to have longish scenes with no dialogue.
Next was The French Connection whose only chase only involved one car(and a subway train). This movie obviously had a lot of influence on the creators of GTA4.

I’ve been working like a dog for the last three weeks and it will continue for one more. This is partly why I’ve not been writing here much. It’s hard on my flat feet but also on my motivation to anything else that requires thinking.

I happened to be sitting outside for a half an hour last thursday evening around 6pm and realised how little I’ve appreciated the summer now it’s here. Winter is so long and monotonous and I’ve never felt a softening->adaptation to it. It reminds me of Grimm Bros. fairy tales. Sending your 8y.o.s out into the forest to collect firewood so the family can boil a few misshapen potatoes. That’s winter. But summer days like that one last thurs where the sun is dulled by storm-cloud that aren’t doing anything are nice. Even now that the rains have a-started and every piece of clothing feels damp and clingy I’m still not thinking ‘oh when will this end?’ like winter. Summer is so much shorter.

Niko Belic stares into the guts of another upturned car, a glancing realisation in the futility of it all—life, mortality and being stuck in a computer game. It’s 4AM.

I went with a friend to the national guitar emporium and realised there are other kinds of stringed instruments there too. He is nutty about ukuleles as I normally am about guitars. We went to all the same shops I got to to look at guitars and they had ukes there. I’d never noticed before. They just looked like toy things getting in the way of the real thing. I can appreciate that he really digs the uke, and can play Cold Chisel songs on them, among other things, but they still look frustratingly small to me. Can’t really wail on em.

I went to Ah myeon do last weekend with the g/f. It’s a small island in the west sea. It’s connected by road and bridge so it didn’t really feel like an island. The weather was bright, grey and misty. The lack of impression that the place made on me is reflected in how few fotos I took. Here is one of a rice field:

After posting that last foto and explanation of Korean food a while back I found that it looks rather unappealing, or more to the point, there’s quite a bit of technique involved in photographing food well. Here is another foto of food that surely won’t make anyone hungry, the only difference here being that I cooked it—a thai curry of sorts.

This was the first time I’d bought fully raw big-size prawns from the supermarket and cooked them. I was going to write a poem about how in life, prawns are an ugly dell grey colour, but in death thru cookery, they attain a brilliance and vibrance and colour that they never would have dreamt they were capable. It’s beautiful like a sunset. I was going to write a story about the recollection of a dream that I had fiction-ally had about reciting the poem spontaneously at the recent end-of-semester teacher’s luncheon, and how I was abducted by giant, sentient, space prawns who taunted me, twisted my head off, removed my ridiculous interno-skeleton in a messy way before they could finally dine of the delicious flesh, of which there was surprisingly little.