A geek odyssey

Yesterday, a group of us went on a sojourn to the Astor Theatre to watch a fillum. The film in question was 2001: A space odyssey and was presented on a 70mm awesome print, and was accompanied by an introduction and Q & A session following the film by its stars, Kier Dullea and Gary Lockwood. All in all, one might think, a delightful expedition.

Well, most of it was.

The introduction was great, the film itself was great (and I'd never seen it on the big screen so doubly great), the discussion after was great. Until we got to the Q & A. The problem with these kind of sessions is while you know there are generally intelligent people sitting in the audience somewhere, they're not the ones to leap up to the microphone and then refuse to let it go. The questions ranged from "what did you eat in the final sequence of the film?" to "do you believe in aliens?" to "did you like the film?". Bloody hell. Is that the best we can do? This is probably one of the few times (if not the only time) these people are going to be in Melbourne, and these are the best questions we can come up with. I was quite embarrassed. The stars even gave hints before the movie, talking about which were their favourite scenes and saying maybe we could talk about that afterwards. Nobody asked them about the scenes they mentioned. Some of the questioners seemed to have trouble distinguishing the actors from their characters and I'm pretty sure some others thought that the entire film was fact.

I've never been to a sci-fi convention but this is the sort of behaviour I expect at them. I'm just sorry that the Q & A got hijacked by geeks.

Everybody needs good neighbours....

I love where I live. I love living in Melbourne, we have a great apartment to live in in a good area. But living in an apartment block means we have neighbours. In general, I have no problem with our neighbours. They are quiet and they do the gardening. Also, they leave us alone (to the point where I don't know any of their names and no-one came to say hello when we moved in...). So these are all good things. However. One of our neighbours (the one underneath us) likes playing loud music. That's fine. I like music too! The problem is she plays it quite loud and seems to have only one CD, which is on repeat from, you know, 10-4 EVERY DAY. This CD seems to be the best of Andrew Lloyd Weber, plus other incidental popular songs (somewhere over the rainbow, I will always love you, etc), SUNG IN PSEUDO-OPERA. It's really starting to wear me down. If it were (almost) any other type of music I could deal with it. But to hear the best of Lloyd Weber, sung in opera, is slowly driving me towards insanity. Worse still, it forces me to retaliate, playing my music louder to drown hers out. I wonder whose speakers are going to give out first?

The sociology of libraries, part 6

Dear library patrons:
When you ask me to waive/discount/delete your fine, for no good reason other than you don't want to pay it, and I tell you I can't do it, it means I won't do it. I am not going to get my supervisor because they will tell you the same thing. It doesn't really matter how long you try to convince me that you are an exceptional case and it's only this time and you've never had a fine before IN YOUR LIFE, you are not going to change my mind.

One thing I will do for you is hold any items so you can go out and get some money. This is as far as my generosity extends.

Why would I give you a discount anyway? It really boggles the mind.