Category: What I Think

Best of Green: Culture & Celebrity : TreeHugger.

The world’s largest and probably most prestigious short film festival, Tropfest is on Sunday 21st February.

As the end of summer approaches The Domain in Sydney is overtaken by thousands and thousands of short film makers, their friends, family and fans for this amazing annual event.

I was lucky enough to be asked to shoot stills for one of this years entries which has already been accepted into the Top 60. The director and producer are now waiting to hear if they made the Top 16 – these are the ones screened on the night.

It’s a spectacular event and typically very, very funny. If you haven’t been before, or haven’t been for a while, this is the year to go!

You may be surprised to learn I’m not a fan a pedophiles. Honestly, I hope you aren’t surprised. But an interesting benefit has emerged from the saga that is; where do pedophiles who have done their time live when released from the big house?

To date, Dennis Ferguson has been relocated no less than three times since being released from prison for doing the evil that he does. (As he was convicted by a court I have no hesitation reporting Mr Ferguson as guilty).

In his most recent digs the local community, as with the situation at his other addresses, discovered a convicted pedophile was living in their area and alerted the press who of course made it impossible for him to remain living their by shinning their spot lights upon him which fanned the flames of the tinder box mentality within the mob which quickly forming and gained momentum.

All mobs have a leader. This person is not elected or really even decided upon by the rank and file of the mob in any formal manner. S/he is usually the loudest and most opinionated, ie, the biggest dick head.

So this turn of events as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald is fascinating as it would seem that the pathetic little excuse for a human known as Dennis Ferguson won an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) against the mob leader – some Aryan style  media man-whore who would have joined the Hitler youth as soon as the recruiting officers visited his school and probably turned his mother and father into his Nazi superiors.

This means that the mob leader can’t approach (legally) the pedophile. Although one may well ask; why would you want to?

It could be that the in some strange reversal of fortune that the law while protecting the lowest of low human forms may be protecting us all from the dimwitted mentality of the mob.

If you ever watched an episode of Two and Half Men (and thanks to Channel 9, who hasn’t) or The Big Bang Theory or CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or Dharma & Greg or Cybill or a bunch of other Emmy Award Winning TV shows you’ve seen the work of Chuck Lorre Productions.

But thanks to the deplorable way in which stations cut from the final scene of a TV show or movie and play promos for other programs, rarely do we see the credits as produced and originally aired. For example, over the credits of 30 Rock (produced by Lorne Michaels, not by Chuck Lorre) there is usually another gag or two – that we never get to see. Actually I do see them because I download 30 Rock because I hate watching FTA so much.

You also won’t see what is becoming one of the funniest ‘in jokes’ in TV; Chuck Lorre’s Laws. Firstly a ‘Vanity Card’ are the quick slides that flash past after the credits. Usually there is a single slide (a vanity card) for the production company or companies and the distribution company. Some times these are short animations with a sting (short music bit).

But Chuck Lorre Productions create a new vanity card for almost every episode of every series they make. Below is a sample which you won’t. And most of them are pretty funny.

Take a good look at the picture news.com.au used to illustrate their story about a United Airlines flight having to make a landing because it was low on fuel. That plane landed without difficulty, refuelled and took off. Why UA flights are running out of fuel is another matter. The image that has been used clearly depicts a UA flight that landed a couple of weeks back with a landing gear issue and made an emergency landing, with the starboard undercarriage failing to lock in position.

That didn’t happen in the story being reported. That some sub-editor or picture editor has picked a misleading image is sadly tyical of this publication. It is a rag in paper and equally so online.

Just spent an hour doing what any real coder would have done in 30 seconds. My first iPhone app may be in beta by the time we’re embedding chips in our heads. But there is great satisfaction in figuring these things out for oneself.

The dirty little secret about the internet is that if not for the porn industry it probably wouldn’t exist today. Or if indeed there was a version of the internet that started without the massive investment of the porn industry it would be vastly different than what we enjoy today.

The whole concept of displaying images via the internet was thanks to the porn industry. There’s only so much you can do with letters to the editor that start off something like; “Dear Penthouse, I read your letters every month and never thought anything like this would ever happen to me…(insert details of threesome, the good kind, here).

Then consumers demanded video. The porn industry delivered. Then instant messaging. Helllllo, porn industry. And of course the porn industry is like any other enterprise and wants to be be paid for the services offered. So they developed the technology for high security payment platforms years before the banks had heard of internet banking.

There’s a famous story about a research group at HP testing the technology of a scanner they had just invented. They wanted to email the scanned image to colleagues in the UK over the internet and determine if the result was acceptable by comparing it the original image. How do you get the original image to them for comparison? Their solution was to scan an image from a publication that is printed identically around the world. They chose Penthouse. As it turns out Miss November in the US is the same Miss November in the UK

The latest advance that the porn industry is leading us towards is 3D TV. smh.com.au has a story about it here.

In his latest movie ‘The Invention of Lying’, Ricky Gervais lives in a world where everyone always tells the truth no matter how insulting it may be. There is no such thing as being able to tell a lie. Not whoppers and not little white harmless ones. Until one day Ricky Gervais develops the skill to lie.

“Of course I’ll respect you in the morning.”

The premise is the reverse to the Jim Carrey movie ‘Liar, Liar’ where by some magical circumstance Carrey’s character finds he must always tell the truth. Always!

“Yes, your bum does look big in those pants.”

Both scenarios create humours social interactions (actually they don’t really but stay with me) which I’m not going to outline here – rent the movies. Or even better, download them.

Lying in all its forms is nothing more than hiding from the truth. But lying can be instigated through fear. The fear of repercussions, the unknown. It can then be argued somewhat circularly that we are fearful of the truth. While it is said that the truth can set us free human nature is generally concerned not with freedom but with protection. Fear has become on a geopolitical scale the most insidious method or tactic by which governments of all flavours control the will of the people.

The answer is not to take on large and heavily organised governments or even subsets of them but to look within and find the strength to over our own individual fears. Beyond threat to life and limb of fire, sharp objects and the myriad of Australian creepy crawlies that surround us, but the simplest of things.

1. Answering the phone even when it says, ‘blocked’ number because it could be the bank asking for a payment.
2. Asking that girl in the café for lunch even though she might say no.
3. Ringing the head hunter to ask the progress or result of an application even though they might say no.
4. Ringing someone to give them bad news just because it’s going to be a hard conversation.
5. Do the work/chore/whatever now and stop procrastinating.

Add to my list in the comments section the things that you fear. Perhaps it’s writing in the comments section of someone’s blog because other people might see it and think you’re weird…