I thought this was funny:



... but possibly only because it's fun to make your cat talk to you when they are waiting for you to open the door for them and they are very very very hungry.

"LEMME IN YOU BASTARD!!1!1@!one" etc.

Labels: cat photos, lol

Last night I was walking home across Newtown about 1am and boy, it was foggy. Not exactly a pea-souper or anything -- I could quite easily see where I was going and whatnot -- but it was doing that weird and neat acoustical thing where the slightest sounds are amplified out of all proportion. Was having a lot of fun strolling down Lawrence Street while sounding like the BFG or something tromping along.

The cell-phone camera really didn't do the business, though -- it's really quite shit in the dark:


When I got home I set about taking some photos with my digital camera -- improvised tripod (stack of books on the window-ledge, anyone?) and all. This is looking west with a 5-second exposure at f2.8:


It's not a completely accurate representation of the scene, but it's as close as I could get. I tried to stop the shutter down but the field depth was too great and the resultant image not as effective.

One thing which alarmed me somewhat was that the flashing red lights on the cranes at the new hospital building site were completely invisible in the fog -- to the naked eye, anyway. "So," I thought, "let's try burning-in a loooooooong exposure to see if the camera can pick them up". This is a 30 second exposure looking north, using f2.8 again -- this time to get as much light as possible:


"Hells bells," thinks I -- "not a smidgeon of a trace of the warning lights. What happens if a plane comes flying down the valley and smacks right into the cranes, or worse still -- one of the hospital buildings!? It'd be like a re-enactment of the bloody Erebus disaster in my back yard!"

I zoomed in to 3x optical (Carl Zeiss lens, thanks for asking) and tried another 30 second exposure:


Wait a minute... did you see that?


Ho ho ho etc. Actually, of course the reason that the warning lights on the cranes were not visible is that construction of the super-structure of the new hospital is complete and the cranes were taken down some weeks ago.

Phew.

Labels: cat photos, lol, mai new house, photos

Sorry for not posting more. Sorry for mixing up the publishing of the last Friday Farce, and Monday Mystery. Sorry for well.. sorry for not having a farce today, either.




Truthfully, it's been a bit hard to concentrate, what with bloody Kerry Prendergast getting another term as mayor of Wellington, and the country being overrun by terrorists.

Yeah.. so..

...

At least go here, there's been another installment by The Commonsense Nihilist to his graphic novel.

Labels: cat photos, comix, lol, miscellany

This day in murderous thug history.....

Labels: lol, misanthropy

Labels: lol

The Science of Sleep is a newish film from Michel Gondry, the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my review); it's a charming, enthralling, and ultimately alienating and frustrating fairy-tale romp through the whimsical world of a complete loon.

Here's the IMDB plot summary: A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is lovestruck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Yup.

Here's something from Marc Savlov via RottenTomatos.com (where it scored 67%): An endearing, beautiful, hopelessly honest mess that's supported by a pair of performances so unnaturally natural that they draw you in and clutch you, struggling, to their flipping, flopping hearts.

Yup.

On the plus side, it features the totally fuck-able Gael García Bernal and the utterly lovely Charlotte Gainsbourg (or did I get those two the wrong way around?) in the lead roles, as well as supplying this week's farce. And so without further ado....... I give you........ this week's farce.

In summary, why would you turn this:

The Velvet Underground - After Hours (1.96 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

...into this:

Gael García Bernal, etc. - If You Rescue Me (chanson des chats) (3.91 MB mp3)

...or, god forbid, this, even:

Linda Serbu - If You Rescue Me (acappella) (2.12 MB mp3)

Still confused?

Why would you turn one of the most sweet, touching songs of all time into a cutesy little ditty about...... a kitten.

I dunno.

Gah.

Labels: cat photos, films, Friday farce, lol, music

Hugecrab.com was created on September 15, 2007 to "catalog the internet's RAPIDLY GROWING stockpile of huge crab; hencefore, All Your Base are belong to Us".

The Original Huge Crab.

Labels: linkage, lol, miscellany

Labels: cat photos, lol, photos

There's no end in sight to the cheezburga shortages, and this -- coupled with the perennial burbps blight -- has led to feasibility studies being carried out on alternative food resources.

Labels: cat photos, lol, photos

There was a brief remission in the cheezburgaz availability problem, but then the local stockpiles were exhausted and the supply dried up again:


This morning there were official requests for cheezburgaz at 5.30 am, 6.45 am and 7.55 am, in addition to a couple of unofficial entreaties around midnight and 1am.

And then to top it all off, there were rumours of a breach of security at the bucket storage facility:


Fortunately, Harry was able to see off the purloiners quickly and effectively, earning himself a cheezburga and a commendation for bravery.

Labels: cat photos, lol, photos

Thanks, Pete...

...

(with a view to padding out this post) Recently I reviewed an interesting release by equally interesting NZ doom metal outfit Devoid Of All Mercy, for Foxy Digitalis:




Um, how many different ways can I find to write that "Devoid Of All Mercy" is the perfect name for this band; there is no possible band name more appropriate, more fitting, more apt, than that. It's ruthless. It's fucking pitiless. It is without qualm or conscience. It's.. devoid of all mercy. It's the new CD reissue of the Battlecruiser 3" cdr of a couple of years back. It's Bob Dylan's wretched, evil twin, with a real bad phlegm problem, gently strumming at his guitar, fingering the shapes of the Diablo En Musica, singing about abduction, torture, rape, cannibalism, desolation, ruin. It's fucking horrible. And so, so good. 9/10 -- Stephen Clover (19 June, 2007)


Interesting because extreme music like "doom" "metal" is possibly not well-knowned for holding up a mirror to its own community and turning the spotlight on some of its more bleak socio-pathological ailments, albeit through the lens of a horror/slasher/gore/cannibal exploitation narrative.

Labels: cat photos, lol, misanthropy

... and Harry continues to be hungry, more often than not:


Link: ICANHASCHEEZBURGER?

Labels: cat photos, lol, photos