Big, veiny triumphant bastard...

Good god I cannot wait for this movie to come out. Superbad...

Impressive.

I cannot tell whether this Japanese TV thingy is impressive, sexy, decidedly Thai, or all three...

TBGM: The Little Magazine that Couldn't!

Many moons ago when I worked at Australian Consolidated Press (Australia's largest magazine publisher), I was browsing through the latest men's mag that was being launched to much hooplah -- Ralph magazine.

Both distinct from and eerily identical to FHM, Ralph was the usual mix of fart jokes, boob jokes, drinking jokes and sports jokes, all with a generous lashing of tits.

As the editor of the time once told me over a beer, it was the kind of mag a guy "wouldn't be afraid of leaving out where his girlfriend would see it, but that he could also have a wank to."

And how.

Anyway, the launch of Ralph scuttled my own ill-conceived plans for a similar magazine -- a magazine that has since become lore between my different magazine colleagues and I.

The magazine: TBGM, or as we knew it, Tits Bums Guns & Mud.

I didn't have much more than a catchy, humorous title, but you have to admit that you'd be under no illusion as to the mag's contents should you grab a copy at the newsstand.

Of course we would cover much more diverse topics than just Tits Bums Guns & Mud. Hell, sometimes we might not cover guns or mud for months. The masthead told you everything though, unlike FHM (For HiM? For Him M--? Ralph?). Then again, the generous helpings of airbrushed silicon all three mags would feature on the cover should give a fair bit away.

But it was never to be. The market was saturated with magazines purveying photos of breasts, stories about breasts and jokes about breasts. TBGM, with no business plan, no market research and nothing going for it aside from the title never stood a chance.

Tits Bums Guns & Mud lives on now only as a fondly-remembered dream of what could have been in the hearts and minds of hundreds, if not literally a couple people.

The world has truly missed out.

Drive Time

Found a classic clip from that brilliant series Harry Enfield and Chums



And I was going to leave it at that, but then I came across some other fabulous driving videos.

Firstly, how is this even possible?



Secondly, is this not the worst example of driving you have ever seen? There's nothing to the right, nothing to the left...and yet, and yet...

Sometimes when I close my eyes this is what I see...

The bubble is growing

Mr Brown has a fascinating article on the thread running on the Expat Singapore forum regarding the ridculous hikes in rental going on, and how many expats and companies are leaving Singapore.

Like most threads on Expat Singapore there are your highly salaried expat wankers who simply cannot live on less than SGD$20k per month, but in this case the thread is rather gentrified. The feeling is unanimous -- the rent increases are going to hurt everyone.

For instance, our landlord is increasing our rental from a modest ~$2k per month to a ridiculous $3k per month. This is made even sillier by the fact that the whole apartment complex is up for en-bloc sale, and is due to to be sold and torn down in a nebulous nine-to-twelve month timeframe.

So instead of guaranteeing himself rental of $24k for that timeframe, he is losing out. Jeremy and I are parting ways at the end of this month so the landlord is trying to now rent it out on a lease that will read something like "from now until the place gets torn down."

That's got to instill confidence in your leasee.

Other places have seen the rental increase from 40%-100%, so I guess our landlord is being kind.

Anyway, I'm offshore soon and will be looking for somewhere to live when I return. Since I pay rent for somewhere I don't actually live in for half a year, how much I pay is rather important. If the rental situation continues as it is then Singapore, as clean, friendly and convenient as it is will no longer become a tenable option. You know things are dicey when Sydney rentals look like a saving.

KL (gah!), Pattaya, Phuket, Sydney are all looking better by the day.

It'll be sad to leave. I just hope the bubble bursts in time.

If Charles Bukowski wrote Peanuts

Full work here.

Lucy

It began as a mistake.

The first time that Charles Branaski met Lucy Van Pelt, she was holding a football. He didn't care for the game, baseball was his thing. Still, she held out that old football.

"Just kick the fucking thing," she said.

"Listen, babe. You just hold that thing steady and I'll kick the shit out of it."

She threw her head back and laughed. She laughed long and hard and propped up the football. Charlie took a running start and he reared back his leg and kicked as hard as he could. Lucy was laughing too hard to hold the ball steady and it slipped out of her hand. Charlie missed the ball and flew straight up in the air and landed flat on his back.

"AUUUGGGGHHH," he said.

"You should have seen your face, Charlie Branaski," she said. Then she laughed twice as hard.

"Listen, you crazy bitch. I think I broke my ass. Jesus Christ!"

She helped him up. "Look, I'm sorry about that. You try it again and I'll hold it real steady this time."

"O.K., Lucy. I'll do it on more time, but that's it. You hold it this time, got it?"

"I promise," she said.

He dusted himself off. God o mighty, his ass ached! He walked a little ways away and Lucy set up the old football again. He took a deep breath and a running start. He could see she was holding it tight. He was really going to kick the shit out of that old football! He threw his leg forward with all his might and Lucy yanked the football away just as he kicked at it. He landed on his ass again.

"AUUUGGGGHHH," he said again.

Lucy laughed and laughed and left with the football. Charlie laid there and groaned. Good grief, he thought. What a cunt.

David Blaine Street Magic 2

He's levitating me!

Know your historical figures

First there was Washington

Now there is JFK.

I'm all about the learning.

God-damned fucking novel.

Can't you just get fucking written?

All journalists have novels sitting partly written in a drawer somewhere, or in some forgotten folder on a PC.

I'm no different. I've been trying to write and start a sci-fi novel for freaking years and the bloody thing keeps stalling. What a horrid beast.

I've had some ideas for years about what I want to write...and this one germinated from a seed of an idea from a dream I once had. But even that particularly cool premise has become merely a set-piece within a bigger story. And that whole bigger story I had wanted to tell....well that entire novel idea has now become a series of flashbacks that define the protagonist within the current novel plan. Like a literary Russian Doll, every time I have the novel mapped out I suddenly look and there's a bigger story to be told, and the current idea gets folded and kneaded into the uncooked dough of this newer story until I find the next bigger one.

I keep zooming out and out on this fucking fractal what-ifery going on in my head, which is why I keep trying to write the damn thing and get it started. My fear is it this keeps happening the novel is going to become Dellis' Anthology of Sci-Fi Shittery.

That is, save for the protagonist. He is a nasty motherfucker with few redeeming features and I love him so. Part Alfred Bester's Gully Foyle, part Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs, and all kinetic violence. He's got the tools, he's got the death wish, and he's got one motherfucker of a grudge. He's got time on his hands, lots of time. People are going to get hurt. You better believe it.

Now if only I could write the god-damned cunting thing.

(Apologies for the swearing. The future's nasty. Cope with it.)