Wow, for once a current commercial I enjoy is actually on YouTube! (I know the blog is supposed to be on hiatus, but posting a random vid doesn’t really count, does it?)

Check out the funky top-loading VCR!

In addition to just being a plain cool commercial, it’s also of interest to me as it’s relevant to some research I was doing last semester about television in the 1950s, and the way Walt Disney (or his studio, I should say) presented a view of history and progress as inseparable from and propelled by consumer technology. Here’s one example.

In other news, I’m off to Seattle on Friday.

I’m thinking of finally buying an mp3 player, cos I’ve already listened to all the (good) albums Qantas has loaded on their entertainment console thing numerous times on previous trips. Gonna pack it with lots of They Might Be Giants and 80s film scores (Giorgio Moroder FTW!).

I just did a quick search of what movies they have playing this month. There’s not much on offer. They have a few movies that I was vaguely interested in seeing, but not beyond the actually-doing-it threshold, such as Cloverfield, 10,000 BC, or even The Mist (probably would never have considered seeing it, but Matt from X-Entertainment gave it a pretty good review, and his taste is always impeccable). I could always fall back on Casablanca, too. Or I could just hope that they’ve updated the same 3 episodes of The Office they always have, or even added some Flight of the Conchords… If only they offered Who’s The Boss, Family Ties, or ALF!

Hey, forest friends.

I just wanted to quickly update people on my whereabouts. I’ll be heading to Seattle on the 27th of June, and returning sometime early August. (Julian- we definitely need to catch up when you get back into town. I’ll call you.)

There are rumours of a possible Dan Roberts appearance at the Geelong/Port Adelaide game this Sunday. Early reports are unsubstantiated, and experts dismiss them as unlikely, but we’ll see…

I’m looking forward to getting back to Seattle for a little while. Laura and I will probably be spending a lot of time in movie theatres and haunting thrift stores/garage sales/near-defunct video stores, so maybe I’ll have some fodder for a possible return to blogging in the very near future.

Speaking of the witty, attractive Ms. Laura, you should check out her blog (http://jemgirl.wordpress.com). It’s a sparkly, pink shrine to all things girly and 80s.

And lastly, if you would like a glimpse into the innermost workings of my soul, here it is: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mxHw-PuyIBA

Ta-ta!

Hard to believe that this blog’s been running two years and that’s the first Casper (1995) reference I’ve made. Come to think of it, have I even made a Mighty Ducks reference on this blog? These are formative texts, people.

I have decided to place this blog on hiatus, seeing as I really don’t do anything with it, and I don’t want to continue wasting everybody’s time by simply posting vaguely amusing YouTube clips.

I’m not going to delete it or anything (although that thought did occur to me), so if anyone has a burning desire to reread an old entry about the El Maco or the Cookie Dough Kit-Kat, they’re more than welcome to.

I may be back, so check in some time. I have a couple of ideas for actual blog projects that would give me more of a focus and a reason to blog, so if I start any of those I’ll be sure to let you know here. One would involve reviewing forgotten classics from dusty old video stores that still stock VHS tapes. For the other, we’d bring back some of those ice cubes and switch it over to a pitching wedge.

I’ll be heading back to the States for a short while at the end of June, so maybe I’ll pop back here to post some pics.

Thanks for reading, guys. It’s been real.

I leave you with this final piece of advice: “Don’t put Twinkies on your pizza.” Words to live by…

I remember seeing this trailer on my Hanna-Barbera videos, and thinking it was going to be the most awesome cinematic masterpiece of all time. Seriously, that is one awesome trailer. Remember a time when trailers actually made you want to see a movie?

80s rock ballads? Little Ewok creatures? Yes, please!

Remember before the Internet, when you had to do your shitty little primary school assignment research with Encarta? And then you’d just end up watching an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, or listening to about 5 seconds of “Take The A-Train”?

Yeah, this entry’s goin’ nowhere.

Anyone read any good books lately? Books? The rectangular things, with printed matter inside? Books?

I highly recommend The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely by Anthony Vidler. If you’re like me, and urban spaces make you feel nervous and ill, this book’s for you. We should all live in caves, I say. Plato’s Caves.

I think I should shut this blog down. Show of hands?

3:02!

Gotta love bad Neighbours acting. This scene was referenced practically every 30 seconds by my brother and me around the time it aired (probably 4 or 5 years ago now). I was chuffed to find the clip on YouTube.

Great winter drink, or greatest winter drink?

You decide.

Watch this, it’s pretty cool.

So, my mum was in the car yesterday when she heard a news item about an attempted child abduction in Leopold earlier this week. It was also in the paper today: http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/05/09/13765_news.html

It came as quite a surprise to her, seeing as the school had not seen fit to tell the parents of the 700+ kids who attend Leopold Primary school (my 10-year-old sister among them).

This incident occured on Monday, and only came out in the media yesterday. Even worse, my mum found out that the parents of the child involved did not immediately ring police, instead informing the school the next day, after which the police were contacted.

If you read the news article, there’s a detailed description of the car and suspect involved. Had the school community been informed, parents and children could have been on the lookout for this car if it had returned to the area. But no, these guys had free rein in Leopold on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

I live on Kensington Rd. It’s chaos before and after school. Cars parked 500 metres up the street on both sides, hordes of kids and parents going every which way… quite easy for some psycho to grab a kid without anyone noticing anything amiss.

When my mum, understandably outraged, called the school to inquire as to why parents had not been told about this, the school’s line was that they ‘did not want to cause a panic’. Well, guess what? CHILD ABDUCTION IS SOMETHING TO FUCKING PANIC ABOUT.

The Gremlins are back in this commercial for British telco BT. 

We may not get a Gremlins 3 (and I’m not sure I’d want one), but it’s nice to see the little buggers running rampant again in some form.

Also interesting is this short behind-the-scenes video on the commercial: http://youtube.com/watch?v=PCTlDj0f6go. That’s some classic movie magic going on right there. Lovely to see. Too bad the advent of CG had to go and fuck up puppeteering in film as well as supplant traditional animation.