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Name our Manx, Watchmen, Economics, Stuff

caseopaya and I would like to welcome the newest member of our household. An, as yet, unnamed Manx kitten. He's integrating well with the rabbits, but hasn't met the rats yet. Help us el-jay! Help us name our cat.

Went to see Watchmen last night. It has some changes from Allan Moore's classic comic series of superheroes and the very real fear in the early 1980s of nuclear war, but the changes don't alter the storyline or theme and indeed the one big change at the end actually makes much more sense (big credits here to the screenwriters, who must had balls of steel to try this). It is that the core content was included in the 170 minutes and the charactre portrayals as pretty good well, especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I suspect that history will largely absolve Zack Snyder's pretty average effort with 300 with this film. A genuine pity that Pop Will Eat Itself's Def Con One wasn't included in the soundtrack.

An inordinate amount of time was spent this week writing Normative and Postive Economics: An Isocratic Sketch, an attempts to reconcile, or at least find appropriate types of economic activity for socialist and capitalist means of ownership and planned or market means of distribution and exchange, and at the same time recommending the socialisation of income from natural resources. Comments invited. This week I also joined Amnesty International Australia. This is an organisation I joined and let my membership lapse several times over the past twenty-five years or so. This time, I've checked the box for 'renew every year'; the wonders of modern technology!

Recently

lokicarbis had a good idea for extending the functionality libraries; I have been playing with since Koha since then, which is great one you get the right version of Perl installed (*mutter*, *mutter*). In more Loki-related news, I'm looking after several crates of RPGs for him; at the same time, I've finally gotten around to cataloguing many extras that I have and am putting these up for sale on RPG Review. I also have a big collection of stuff that I just want to give away; including an Encore W255 Acoustic Guitar, a whole bunch of VHS videos (including series one and two of Friends.. uh, yeah), a lot of IT books including Microsoft MSCE NT books, Visual Basic books, MCDBA SQL server 7 and Oracle 8 books, a collection of 3D Studio Max guides etc. etc.

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"A genuine pity that Pop Will Eat Itself's Def Con One wasn't included in the soundtrack."

Seriously.

How sick is Dick? How gone is Ron? How sick is Dick? How gone is Ron? What's the time? It's Def Con One!

I seem to recall that one of their other songs had massive V For Vendetta references as well - Alan Moore knows the score indeed.

I think I need to write my own post on Watchmen about how terrible it was. I very nearly walked out of it. Twice. And had I not been sitting in the middle of sold out theatre in the middle of a row, I probably would have.

Women being raped on screen. Shooting and killing a pregnant woman. Two dogs wrestling over a child's foot. Is that what we've become? That's entertainment? If the graphic novel was that graphic, it's a crying shame it was every allowed to go to the box office. I was disgusted. Thoroughly disgusted by it. I don't think the American "R" rating was even remotely strong enough.

Yes, all those scenes are in the comic series as well.

It's not supposed to be "entertainment"; a lot of the thematic content was around the depths of moral behaviour and those scenes are meant to induce disgust.

In the graphic novel, for example, Rorschach justifies his activities in contrast to the murder of Kitty Genovese. That's not entertainment either.

Which is also meant to be contrasted by the character who kills millions but claims the ethical high ground of doing it to save billions.

That would be Can U Dig It?

We dig TV we dig remote control,
We dig the Furry Freak Brothers and the Twilight Zone,
We dig Marvel and D.C., we dig Run-DMC,
We dig Renegade Soundwave and AC/DC
(Can U dig it?)

CHORUS
Bruce Wayne auf wiedersehn,
Dirty Harry, "Make my day,"
Terminator, hit the north,
Alan Moore knows the score,
Riffs? Yeah! Can U dig it?
Riffs? Yeah! Can U dig it?

We dig Optimus Prime and not Galvetron,
We dig "The Leader of the Pack" and the "Do-Run-Run",
Spinderella and Bruce Lee, "The Bad and the Ugly",
"V for Vendetta" and "Into the Groovy".
(Can U dig it?)

I think I would have liked a few more scenes of the the clock moving minutes to midnight, like each issue of the comic series had. It certainly gave the feel of impending doom.

Actually, it was 'The Fuses Have Been Lit' off This Is The Day, This Is The Hour, This Is This;

Watch the skies, come in disguise,
Take more pills, Keep the lid on my life,
I got a little blue tube to give my views
Of a world in dischord, my mind's unmoved,
My nightmare scene's on TV screens;
Information still being received,
No deposit-no return!
No deposit-no return!

Win a trip to Mars, glow in the dark,
In the age of the plane I'm gonna go by car...
Run the red light, cower in the flashlight...
No time's enough to hid from the half life.
Fly sky high with my ghettoblaster, tune in-
Turn on to the latest disaster...
It's the land of do-as-you-please and I'm king!
Gotta get me some...Gotta get me some!
Here come the dreams that are split at the seams,
Better sew the sides, better get them dry cleaned,
Clears your head, clears your throat
Buy now-pay later; It's the sensible vote,
Not built to last-built to burn...
Contribute! Contribute! send all you earn,
No deposit-no return!
No deposit-no return!

Health and happiness guaranteed, free seven day trial:
It's all you need" every hour on the hour
This is...the voice of fate; it's the voice of power-
E104, E122, E127, E142...
Here's to the king of the 1990s...
Give me everything...give me everything!
This is the day, this is the hour;
We need the power.
This is this, this ain't something else,
This...is this; the fuses have been lit!

The song I was thinking of that is - Alan Moore knows the score is indeed from Can U Dig It.

Check it out;

"I got a little blue tube to give my views
Of a world in dischord, my mind's unmoved,
My nightmare scene's on TV screens;
Information still being received,"
V watching his many TV's seeing England coming unglued.

"Fly sky high with my ghettoblaster, tune in-
Turn on to the latest disaster...
It's the land of do-as-you-please and I'm king!"
V picks up the police bands with a ghetto blaster. There are continuing references to the land of do as you please through the story.

"every hour on the hour
This is...the voice of fate; it's the voice of power-"
Lewis Prothero was the voice of Fate, the computer which largely ran England under Adam Susan's guidance.

and of course, the fuses have been lit - to the Old Bailey, to Parliament and so on.

It is always useful when you can seperate pets. It made owning a mouse, fish and a cat much easier. So one of the names is out, sorry I just like the name.
I would love to hear how the cohabitation goes.

Ahh, yes... This Is The Day is certainly one of the great albums of all time.. I think I've ended up with multiple copies of it, quite by accident..

A lot of people have responded to the various violent elements of the Watchmen story. I think something to bear in mind is that the super heroes of the Watchmen universe are NOT facing comic book cliched villainy. They are facing real-world horrors. Soldiers in Vietnam did many of the atrocities condensed into the person of the Comedian. Many of the other horrors of graphic novel and film are similarly real-world as opposed to comic-world, which is where I think people find objection.

We see superheroes and expect 2 dimensional entertainment. Few are realistically prepared for their shiny superheroes to be mired in moral ambiguity, even depravity. Some characters regularly decry the worst excesses as well. The original Nite Owl decries the Comedian as a thug and a rapist. The second Nite Owl is about the only one to tentatively defend Rorschach, and only because they were once friends, but even he acknowledges that Rorschach goes too far.

Yes there are horrible elements to the story. But this isn't the Fantastic Four, or even Batman. This is something much closer to home, and thus scarier.

"At cost" is still likely to be rather a lot of money (and pollution from aircraft fuel). Let the locals get their bids in first.

.. or Gog, the other one? You could pretend he was named for his expression.

How about just the last name, Mac Lir?

Or after the Aussie version of the triple footed god, Jake the Peg?

Ralis Wayne!

I thought so, I just wanted to check :)

Good job with AI.

Also, I have a cat named Hedwig who has the same markings. It's like having little businesspeople prowling your house.

If it's not meant to be entertainment, why in the world was it marketed so aggressively as a major motion picture? I was in no way prepared to witness the violence that was so prominent in the movie. I don't find a single redeemable feature in the film - and I certainly don't condone the on-screen violence that was witnessed by at least several hundred teenagers in the theatre I was in as a way to combat or comment about our real life violence. There certainly must be other ways.

Something can be a major motion film without being entertainment ("an agreeable and amusing diversion") - Watchmen certainly isn't meant to be agreeable or amusing. Likewise, I do not think you can blame the film for you not being prepared for it; it's not as if you didn't have the opportunity beforehand to discover "what is this about?".

As for teens witnessing violence, that depends on the portrayal; I watched plenty of violent films in my teenaged years (and obviously I still do). Because the violence was graphic and because the people who carried it out with relish were not morally heroic acts as a means to psychically structure a person to be against violence, not for it.

Oh, Mac Lir is a very good one! I like the idea of calling out for "Maccy"..

Haha.. Black bowler hat... White shirt.. Black jacket.. Oh yes, I can see it..

i dont think cat and rats will mix, hope so!

wud b interested in some of the 1st ed stuff, few 2nd ed bits, guitar and a couple of thjose vids i miss! heh.

Guitar is goneski!

What videos are you after? :)

They can do; Erica has had cats, rats and rabbits in combination in the past - as long as the cat is brought up with the other furries around... One rat has met the cat, but it wasn't very impressed!

Cat: "Sultan"

I'm glad to hear people recieving Watchmen well- I'm halfway through the series and want to watch after I finish. Cute cat!

heh cool, i had thought it was a frong n scorpion type scenario, cant make rq this friday but keen on a few of your auction pieces, 1st ed etc

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Name our Manx, Watchmen, Economics, Stuff

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