Onto The Soapbox

I listened to a bit of Jim Chapman's NewsHour today. He was off on another rant, this time about teen moms. He took the classic style of not actually saying how he felt, but masking it by asking pointed questions, ostensibly to create discussion, but perhaps also in aid of saying how he feels without actually saying it.

He floated this universal question: Is it right that the government subsidizes teenage moms to sit at home with their kids? Why do we do that?

Well, gee, Jim, I don't know. So that maybe the baby won't go without food? But I'm like that. I don't like seeing kids go hungry. It's part of being a do gooding liberal type. I also don't get my hair cut every week, so it's clear anything I say is probably spiked with hippie-ness. I probably wear beads, too.

He then laid out the sad tale of how some 'people of substance' in the community--you know, people with jobs and houses--can't have kids, and there are none to adopt. NONE. And why is that? Because those tattooed teen moms are keeping them.

And he went on, and I despaired for this city even more than I thought possible.

Which brings us to the election. Yes, we here in London are having another mayoral election. We do this not primarily to elect a mayor, but to let the right wing, right thinking folk shout about taxes and how we should lay down, spread ourselves, and await any business that may wander by the city limits.

Our choices for mayor--despite the high number of candidates--actually only comes down to a race between two: Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best and Joe Fontana.

To my eye, Mayor Annie offers to do the same job she's done since the sixteenth century: running the city in a rather cold, detached fashion, riding the waves of Council infighting, and rarely showing that she can be a rather fun person. Many people have deemed her Anne Marie De-Cyborg for her curt manner, but like Threepio and Robbie The Robot, she seems to get the job done.

Joltin' Joe offers another more dramatic vision of the city. A vision where we can all work together, union and business, hand in hand, probably dancing to 'We Are Family'. I suspect in this future the sun will always shine and unicorns will be seen prancing in the distance. His offer of NO TAXES! gets the right wingers clutching at their genitals, but his plan to achieve this utopian ideal seem as vague and atmospheric as a Moog synthesizer solo. A 'line by line' examination of the city budget makes me think of Joe wearing a green visor as he pores over the budget with a ruler, but doesn't inspire much confidence.

I mean, I can do a 'line by line' reading of Joyce's Ulysses and still have no fucking idea what's going on. Maybe Joltin' Joe will have more luck with the city budget. Maybe he won't. Maybe we'll just both go and read Dubliners instead.

To my ears, Fontana is selling a dream that London still believes can come true. That the Good Old Days can come back, that--to use Fontana's own words--London can get it's 'swagger' back. That this rather scary future the city faces--major industries closing up shops and lightspeeding down to Mexico or the States; the eroding of economical invulnerability London always felt it had, and always would, and the grim truth that London's children will probably have to leave the city to find meaningful work, or accept that it'll be one low paying job after another--doesn't have to be. Fontana has the Time Machine. With him, we can all go back. Before you know it, the Simpsons Christmas Windows will be back--year round!

And that's what's going on in London right now. If you're a right winger, you have lots of radio to listen to, with the self proclaimed 'Voice Of London' letting you feel good for beating down on the unfortunate. You can vote for Fontana who is pro-business and pro-dream, and maybe once you rent out that last of your ghetto apartments to teen moms, you can buy that armoured SUV you've had your eye on.

Or you can be like me, and feel alienated by the whole thing. By the whole city. I'll probably vote for Mayor Annie not because I think she's the best choice for the job, but because she's not trying to sell me a modern version of It's A Wonderful Life. Fake dream over proven management style? Yeah, it ain't exciting, it doesn't inspire, but it'll do.

Just like London.

My New Hero!

Dude.

Games I Do Get: Zombies!!!

With my September cold now making me even more miserable and nihilistic, I tried my best to ignore the futility of existence last night by playing a new board game.

ZOMBIES!!! is impressive, essentially because of its relative inexpensiveness and its generous provision of ways to completely fuck up the other players in your game. In that sense, it reminded me of Munchkin, but with a darker, more bloodsoaked heart.

In the game, you have to be the first player to either make it to the helicopter escape point in the typically abandoned city or rack up 25 zombie kills first. The city is built as you play, with cards each player pulls at the start of their turn. Some of the city cards have instructions to place loot and a number of zombies on them. After that, you roll for movement, having to fight any zombies whose square you pass through.

A four and above is a win--anything less is a loss. You can spend the two forms of loot to better your chances--Hearts let you re-roll, and Bullets let you add points to your failed roll to make it a kill. You also can draw cards that can either buff you up or fuck up the other players. At the end of your turn, you then make a roll for the zombies, the number rolled allowing you to move that number of the undead one place. In this way, you can clear a path for yourself, or make life more horrid for the NotYou.

In last night's game, my friend Chad got stuck in a toy store, surrounded by zombies. My character took the route towards just killing all zombies, which ended in my dying myself. (Bruce Campbell, you make it look so easy.) In the end, Vulcan Ninja managed to completely outfox everyone else and made her escape into the skies, while the zombies continued their inevitable stagger towards the rest of us.

It was quite a bit of fun, even with a killer sinus cold and the game lasting until past midnight. Simple rules, lots of cards (of good paper stock and nice art), and tons of fiddly plastic zombies to move around. Tactile and just enough tactics not to hurt my stupid brain.

Unlike other games I could mention. Oh, wait, I did...

Games I Don't Get: Civilization

Civilization is the Radiohead of games. If you say you don't like it, then you're obviously lacking in good taste. If you don't enthuse about the game every time someone mentions it, then you probably listen to Nickelback. You may even have a tattoo of them, you love them so much.

Believe me, I've tried to get into this game. I've put in the hours. But every game I play ends the same way: I get invaded, my citizens riot, world leaders bitch me out, and I turn the game off, the hours I spent trying to make headway in this game twirling away down the temporal toilet.

Even now, I'm trying to play it again. I change things up--I'll go all offensive, invading everyone who looks at me funny; I'll try and take the Culture route and make the prehistory versions of Disneyland to enthrall potential suckers; I'll try and mine, grow food and build roads like a Doozer. But still, it all ends in flames and tears.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe I should play it like a shooter. Make it needs Pokemon. But whatever it is, I just don't get Civilization.

And I didn't think In Rainbows was Radiohead's best, either.

Sorry!

All The Geek Movie Reviews You Need On A Monday Afternoon ARE HERE!

While normal people spent their Labour Day Weekend texting each other about mulch or wondering if they couldn't get another round of golf in before they head off to see their mistresses, I watched little films that could. Films that were made for very little, with a very specific audience in mind, and can never truly aspire to be anything other than a cult favourite.

In short, my kind of movies.

The first was a British construction entitled FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. I had a trailer linked, but it was extremely fucking twee and gave too much away about the film. It's about three losers who discover a time traveling pub. It stars some familiar faces if you watch THE IT CROWD and BEING HUMAN, and it's also surprisingly fun. It's also clever, and if you're a time travel addict like myself, you will only hate yourself until you've seen it. Most importantly, it's fun and light for people who like to read books as a pasttime. Others may find it confusing, or simply turn it off because the actors aren't American.

The other l'il film was DEFENDOR. Granted, this looks like the recipe for Bad. A man tries to be a real superhero without having any money or, apparently, common sense. But I thought it worked fairly well. The cast is good, from Woody Harrelson as the lead, and a familiar assemblage of Canadian actors who can always be relied upon, like Clark Johnston and Elias Koteas (can any other Canadian actor play Slimy Creep better than him?) Kat Dennings is also good, but doesn't get enough screen time. Her forte is humour and deadpan delivery, and casting her as the Hooker With A Heart Of Gold Somewhere Deep Inside seems a bit of a waste. Like SCOTT PILGRIM Pilgrim, DEFENDOR doesn't hide that it takes place in Canada (it was filmed in Hamilton), but they only refer to the city by one of its many nicknames--The Hammer. But we do have the Hamilton Spectator on view, and a court room scene is clearly of the Ontario variety.

The script is also a surprise. It isn't cheesy, or God forbid, wacky. It's just a good, solid, little film that rewards your time spent watching it. And it takes place in Canada, with the apparently requisite Metric song on the soundtrack.

Right. Now to see if I can get a tee off on the back nine with Tiger...