I love the MIFF

The MIFF stands for the Melbourne International Film Festival just in case any of the filthy minded amongst you started snickering at the abbreviation.

So it begins, 19 days of films from the 4 corners of the world. So many great films and so little time and even less cash to afford to see all that I want to see!

I had my grand kick off at the festival on Saturday with a tasty documentary: The War Tapes

Edited down from over a thousand hours of footage, this film follows 3 US National Guard soldiers doing their tour of Iraq from an amazing first person perspective, showing us viewers a side of the war that we don't get to see after passing through the media censors.

More from a soldiers point of view, this film explores the soldier's mentality and tracks them before, during and after the war and how the sights and terrors they seen would somehow irreparably affect some of them for the rest of their lives.


Andy rates this: 4/5



The second offering I saw on Sunday was a tasty piece from Israel: Jellyfish

This film weaves a web over 4 different characters through Tel Aviv who are touched by loneliness. Its six degrees of separation which doesn't exactly make much sense until halfway through the show where the simplicity and brilliance of the story flows through. Its a whimsical exploration of existential angst

We need more films like these that explores and celebrates the nuances of life, giving you a warm fuzzy feeling leaving the theatre.

Andy rates this: 5/5

Tech. Consulting Workshop

Monday was a bit of a struggle getting out of bed, after all the shenanigans over the big weekend.

Thank god I had a 2 day workshop at the Hilton to break up the monotony.

This was a networking event for all the Technology Consulting practitioners in Accenture's SEAAK (SE Asia, Australia, Korea) region. A huge part of the costs are borne by companies like HP, Sun, IBM and the other big boys of the software/hardware industry as it was opportunity for vendors to showcase the latest and greatest in what they can do for today's businesses. Essentially we are the people that will be using these products to fuel our client engagements and improve the way businesses are run.

Did I say networking? Yes, the integral part of all business events cannot be complete without business cards being tossed around like bits of colourful confetti and names exchanged as fast as they are forgotten. Ahhh..... its like going to a computer fair, except a million times better because instead of getting nothing but shitty pamphlets you actually get cool freebies thrown at you and the vendors shout you lunch/dinner/endless drinks.

An example of cool technology being developed were: The Next Generation Data Centers for companies, that strive to be as close to carbon neutral as possible. (Data Centers require massive amounts of air conditioning; these new ones run faster, smarter, with less power and less air conditioning)

I got home that night at 2am, very drunk, carrying a brand new Dell926 All-In-One printer in a box and a massive bag full of promotional materials.

These are perks of the job I REALLY like ! =)

Anthony Pappa is da Man !

Awesome !


That's all the mental capacity I have left now to describe how Anthony Pappa's set was on Saturday night. The music was deep and the beats were phat. Prog house like you never heard before since 1999. 5hrs+ of aural ecstasy which at some peaks felt like your ears were having sex with your brain and the music from the speakers were providing the ambiance.



I remembered that it was dark and sweaty




I remembered talking to heaps of strange people




I remembered finding long lost friends I haven't seen in a while



I remembered making a new friend



I remembered Pappa dropping the Saints & Sinners track - Pushin Too Hard



I remembered making more new friends






and that's all I can remember....... from that awesome night.

FreeBSD vs Ubuntu

I have had it with the Windows operating system! Microsoft's overpriced OS with its slow and chunky interface, choppy response time and instability can kiss itself goodbye from my desktop very soon!

When Windows2000 came out, I thought it was great (compared to how shit Win95, Win98 and WinME was). Finally a 32bit (almost) operating system which was much more stable than its predecessors. Then Windows XP came along which was essentially Windows2000 with a few modifications under the hood. It ran great too, but not quite. Programs get installed and crap gets left all over your registry and hard drive.

Therefore: I'm going to trial out 2 different operating systems to run my PC on this weekend.



FreeBSD, which is a Unix like system descended from AT&T Unix.




Ubuntu, a Linux like system based on the Debian GNU/Linux but with a stronger focus on usability.


Considering that 99% of the time, I use my PC for basic stuff like surfing the net, downloading stuff and watching movies, its reliability, up time and robustness that is of the paramount importance to me. I can't be bothered doing all that fluffy stuff like customizing screen savers, wallpapers and all that nonsense. I am a pragmatic PC user, I need it to work fast and efficient, period!

Ginza Teppan Yaki

On Saturday night, we went out to help Marika celebrate her birthday in style at the Ginza Teppan Yaki restaurant in Melbourne's Chinatown district.

I can help but feel that the whole setup was westernized to cater for the white clientele to the point of being cheesy, but nonetheless good entertainment when you're pissed drunk. The hostesses wore bright garishly coloured kimonos pottering around serving cocktails circa 1980's with little umbrellas in them. These girls were definitely non-Japanese (more like cantonese). The chefs entertained with high flying theatrics like throwing your food in the air and making you catch it in your mouth or in a bowl.

A quick search on Wiki reveals Teppan Yaki as originating in Japan in 1945 as a way of cooking Western Influenced food on a hot plate, which only really became popular with the foreigners and taking off in New York city.
No wonder it never got really popular with the Japanese, I mean if I was a Yakuza mobster and had a chef throw egg at my face, somebody will be losing the end of a finger on the Teppan by the end of the night!


Well enough of the ramblings and on to the photos and Videos !














Mmmm... Big juicy chunks of meat! Who cares if its artery clogging!

















Big bad ass prawns

















An egg roll goes flying throuhg the air!



The whole team.

Martinez !

Wow! Is all I can say right now, I had an unexpectedly awesome Saturday night when I went out to my favourite underground dance music party - Sunny

The guest DJ was completely unknown to me, save for the fact that he's named Martinez and he's from Sweden.

The venue was dark, the sound system was booming and the crowd was up for it. In fact, it was so dark in there when I walked in around midnight it took a while before my eyes adjusted to the lighting (or lack thereof) and I could walk the spiral staircase downstairs to the dance floor of The Colonial.

The music was a thrilling mix of tech house, progressive and just really deep bass lines, which I just cannot get enough of these days.

We definitely need more non-commercial club gigs like these.

I already bought tickets for a Day Party featuring Anthoy Pappa on the 21st July, run by the Sunny and Darkbeat boys.
So if anyone is in Melbourne that weekend, bring it on !

Advanced Economic Models

Explained with Cows

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the
milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters
of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows
back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells
the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report
says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one
cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you
want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market
it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your
country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a
Democracy....

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate

A SINGAPORE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
One was caught chewing gum.
Cows are now banned from Singapore

Blog improvements v1

I've been messing around with some blog technology that is pretty funky and new to me tonight.

I've made some improvements to the site:

• Anybody can now post comments
• Each post has the option to be sent as an email
• Links now have a small preview window that show you in advance what you're gonna look at
• You can click on the right hand column to subscribe as an RSS feed or an email

D.O.M.S

Ow!

My arms, chest and legs feel sore and tenderised all of today. Its like a very pissed off Mike Tyson just used my muscles as a practice punching bag and he really meant business.
The condition is better known as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) in athletic circles. A pain or discomfort commonly felt 24-72hrs after exercise, caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibre due to eccentric contraction or intense training levels.

This was the result of a brutal gym session I had yesterday with my mad wog gym buddy, Milan.

Milan is a massive, hairy, 6ft brute who from first impressions, you really don't want to be around when he's pissed off because he seriously looks like the sort who can hurt you bad with one hand and rip your balls out with other. He has a brother named Dragon, who looks twice as nasty but got banned from our gym due to some disagreement with the gym manager.

Once I got to know Milan however, we just clicked instantly and he turned out to be one heck of a down to earth type guy who just says it like it is with no bullshit in between. He's also extremely good with the ladies and always dishes out gold nuggets of advice in that area.

It was in between sets of smashing 100kg on the bench press that I asked him of a problem in that area that was plaguing me the last couple of weeks. What do you do when you get a girl who's dropping big hints like bombs left right and center that she's keen to get it on, but you really aren't interested in her at all.

"Why the hell not? A root is a root!" He growled as he throws on more weight and motions to me that it's my turn under the bar.

"Well, I'm just really not attracted, she's really not my type and I can't see it going anywhere." I replied with a puff as I unracked the bar from the supports.

"Look mate, the way I see it, you think too much. You over-analyze everything and try to wait for Ms. Perfect to come along and until that day comes you are just missing out on potentially good experiences that come with life and living in the moment " Milan replied

Trembling from the weight, I exhaled hard and pushed up for my final rep, racked the bar and turned around to look at him quizzically.

"She might also be lookin for Mr Right but even if she doesn't find him, you be damm sure she'll have some fun along the way. That's how life is, quit ya thinking and go out there, meet new people, have some fun, get some good shags with some bad shags and you'll come out a wiser man. " He continued talking as he proceeded to head off to the next exercise.

I stood there and pondered for a moment as I looked at this modern day caveman trudge away. He could have a good point there......

What do you think?

The Lives of Others

First up before I launch into a review of the movie I saw last night, I have something to bitch about.

Why the hell do movie theatres bother with putting the first row of seats so close to the big screen?

The monetary returns from the poor bastards sitting in the front row won't adequately cover the impending class action law suit filed by patrons in the front suffering from broken necks and cock-eyed'ness after sitting in an agonising position for 2 hours.

Allow me to demonstrate: Exhibit A - the layout of last night's theatre

The art house theatre was free seating so first come best served. We really shouldn't have stopped for choc-top ice cream cones at the foyer, those time crucial moments could have been strategically used to secure better seats.
Steph and me were practically squirming in our seats trying to sit lower and crane our necks up with the screen 2 metres away with a vertical height of 3 metres. After the film I momentarily lost circulation to the peripherals and the right side of my body.

On another note, The Lives of Others was a sublime film. Written by relatively new screenwriter Florian Henkel von Donnersmarc, its weaves a multi layered tapestry over the greys and yellows of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). Set in1984, 5 years before the fall of the Berlin wall, the film centres upon Dreyman, the pre-eminent playwright of East Germany. Under suspicion of pro West German activity, the Stasi (Secret Police) listened in to his every move and word in the apartment he shares with his live-in girlfriend. Its almost scary to see how efficient the Stasi were in tapping his entire house with wires and setting up a control center to monitor and record everything that goes on in the house.

Although it starts off painting a sterile and bleak picture, this film plants the seeds at the beginning which grow and bear strange and wondrous fruit with each character developing in rich and unexpected twists. The film treats the viewer with the right amount of intelligence, and it really passes through your brain first before it hits your heart.