Cramped

While out shopping yesterday I bought a packet of little Lego rip-offs from Japan called Nanoblocks. They're like Lego, only tinier and cuter!

But although they're adorable, in a "look at this little thing!" sort of way, they're actually not as fun as Lego. The miniscule scale makes handling them difficult, unless you have the fingers of a Japanese schoolgirl.

And if you drop a piece into the carpet, you have absolutely zero chance of finding it again. It'll just be a tiny chik noise as it gets sucked up by the vacuum cleaner weeks later.


So it makes a cool model, but it's too fiddly to play with, so this will be the last set I buy. However there may still be the occasional use for it.

Sad

Earlier this week, an unfortunate local family lost almost all of their possessions when their house in the scabrous suburb of Gosnells was gutted by fire.





Because I am clearly something of a psychopath, my mind does not immediately turn to thoughts of pity and empathy. Instead, my immediate reaction was, "Sweet merciful crap! Some guy named Ray decided it would be a fine idea to name his daughter Rayleen?"

Suspicion

Who will be the first to crack?

Banality

I have many friends with excellent taste in music. Through their mix CDs I’ve discovered great performers like The Baseballs, Lior, St Vincent… heck, if it weren’t for the mix CDs of friends, I might never have heard Sufjan Stevens! So as you’ll appreciate, I am always grateful when someone hands me a disc of their favourite music.


Unfortunately even the best musical taste will occasionally let a person down, as I discovered when a friend gave me an otherwise awesome CD with a song from the musical ‘Wicked’ on it.


‘Wicked’ is very popular with people who aren’t me. It bugs me, for two main reasons. One, I resent the twin modern habits of claiming that evil is just misunderstood, and twisting existing stories instead of writing new stories because it’s easier to suck the kudos from a classic rather than create something genuinely good from scratch.


And two, many of the people who have gushed at me about how wonderful ‘Wicked’ is have also gushed at me about the wonders of Barack Obama, or ‘Downton Abbey’, or various other glib, superficial things.


If I’m being generous, I can see how the emotional high of a musical might colour their judgement. And to be fair, I haven’t seen ‘Wicked’. But I have heard the hit single ‘Defying Gravity’, and that’s enough. It’s a terrible, terrible song: music that was created by running 70 years of Broadway clichés through an industrial shredder, and lyrics that came about when a trite American motivational speaker took a hit of really potent cocaine and didn’t stop talking for thirty hours.


Don’t believe me? Well, I can prove it. Here’s a little game I like to call “'Defying Gravity' Lyric or Motivational Desk Calendar Quote?” Just see if you can pick which lines are gleaned from ‘Defying Gravity’ and which are taken from last year’s crappy desk calendar.


1. Some things I cannot change, but till I try, I'll never know!

2. My life turned around when I began to believe in me!

3. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game!

4. I am not afraid to be what I want to be!

5. It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap!

6. If you can dream it, you can become it!

7. I'm through accepting limits because someone says they're so!

8. Be who you are, and say what you feel!


All quotes are 100% real and 200% awful. Answers tomorrow in comments!

Confused

Recently spotted at JB Hi-Fi:





Identical CDs, next to each other in the same rack, with a price difference of $11.


Obviously JB Hi-Fi just doesn't care any more. It could have something to do with the fact that only deeply uncool people buy CDs these days. I mean, when was the last time you saw someone under 40 in the CD section of your local store?