Tinfoil on the Windows

1260 words. Might try and get a few more in.

The Age sent a list of photos they want. Tweaked them before sending, and now I want to redo everything I've ever posted to Flickr. I love the Eee but man I wish it was better for editing.

Managed to get a little wordage done before bed. Today's fondest phrase is "messianic fuckwit." Starting to like these characters quite a bit, and I just want to work until 2am.

Going to make a start on the physical regimen stuff Alex sent me, before work tomorrow. Even if it makes me late.

Party good. Good to see Brendan and Tim again. Relief, actually, it's been so long. People seem to be doing okay.



Wordcount less than impressive the last few days. This job man, srsly.

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A casual hobby of mine is trying to pick the way things are going to go. I wondered if we'd ever see a Stephen Fry backlash and I think we are. It started before his recent comments on women and sex, and the slide seemed triggered mainly by overexposure, secondarily by tone and thirdly by his running out of material (ie. a lot of the same anecdotes and stories and bon mots are surfacing time and again.) The guy isn't a machine and I'm not standing here demanding he dance; I'm talking about Fickle and how it works.

I think 'internet celebrity' might be moving into a Scheherezade phase. You could argue it always was, to a degree, but I think it's now concreting. We keep them around because they entertain us on a daily basis, but once they become confident, gesticulate a little too wildly and move outside the chalk circle we've drawn on the ground for them, they get slapped. And when that happens, they retreat, keen to retain their shape and form. Fry's done it, and I've seen a couple of authors do recently as well. It seems like the social rules for this new proximity between star and fan are being quietly, unconsciously codified. Rules of behaviour are being established and enforced. The dynamic now more than ever seems to be that the crowd holds the power, and 'stars' are dancing for their dinner.

One prediction I've stuck with for 20 years now is that violence against children onscreen would eventually become graphic, commonplace and accepted. The poster for Man Bites Dog caused upset in its day, as it showed a man firing a revolver into a baby carriage, with a pacifier flying skyward on a jet of blood. The Professional featured a small boy being machinegunned off-camera. People left the cinema I was in over that one. Pan's Labyrinth shot a little girl. Most recently was Kick-Ass which featured a grown man kicking the crap out of an 10-year-old girl. Artfully cut so that, technically at least, you never saw a blow land... but really you may as well have.

The Walking Dead is the new zombie series from American cable. First episode was pretty good, and I've got hopes for it. But the first scene ends with the main character shooting an eight-year-old girl in the forehead with a large-calibre handgun. Not cut away, pretty graphic. The get-out with that one is that the eight-year-old is a zombie.

I don't know how I feel about it, but I do find it interesting watching society change. What's a hanging offence one decade is de rigueur the next.

Just took a day off. Convinced it's gonna get me fired.

Best thing about this so far is finding out the Beta for Scrivener on Windows is out.

Everyone does the best they can, and frankly I'm not convinced human beings live long enough to grow up.  We're all children, we're all confused on some level and even on a global scale we're still howling and kicking and thumping each other.

Every parent makes mistakes, but you couldn't find two more decent people than those who raised me.  That said there wasn't a lot of understanding between us for a long while, and I put that down to my parents being a product of their generation.  We never hugged, I think I was 20 or so before they told me they loved me, I don't think they've ever said they're proud of me, and my father's never been to anything I've been involved in.  I'm not sure he's even read anything I've written.  It sucked at the time, but it's one of those things you just come to understand, and the cavity that sort of thing leaves in a kid quickly gets filled once he grows up and takes charge of his own life.  What was important-yet-absent then replaced by what's more important now but present.  So I see my folks for who they are, with all their minor flaws and enormous virtues, and consider myself incredibly lucky.  They did a good job.