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I've just finished reading The Whale Warriors, by Peter Heller, the companion book to the Animal Planet channel series Whale Wars on the Sea Shepherd. The writer/journalist went on the hunt with them in 2005.

The Sea Shepherds are a hardcore anti-whaling group, with two ships at their disposal -- at the time of the book there was only one -- and have been known to sink whaling ships, or at the very least ram them. During the course of the book the chap at the wheel deliberately puts the boat in the way of the whaling ship, and would have been cut in half, if it weren't for the whaling ship turning away at the last moment -- which may have had something to do with the ropes they were about to foul its propeller with, and not to avoid killing a bunch of anti-whalers.

What struck me about it was just how undisciplined and daft the lot of them were. Hooning around in inflatable boats in the harbour, "for fun", and doing so with jetskis later on in open waters outside a Tasmanian harbour, proceeding to flip it over and drown it; six people taking to an inflatable when it wouldn't support that capacity in rough seas, and not even being able to anchor properly when things came to a crunch. What the hell? Didn't they train their volunteers properly?

A number of the chaps on board seemed to be there because they were ex-military and the setup of the boat lent itself to shady, secretive maneuverings that people with gun issues would in all likelihood love to be a part of. Others were hardcore vegans who harassed non-vegans, and the boat was vegan vittles only. The writer was annoyed about this, I sensed between the lines, considering at every opportunity he would stress their veganhood when they were doing something daft.

The people running the show appeared very us-against-the world, and the skipper well familiar with the international marine law; although it says that people breaching international law against poaching can have their property confiscated/destroyed, it also says that boats attempting to sink other boats are pirates and so should get full strength of the law. They skate close to the line, and as I recall they were boarded by the Australian Federal Police earlier this year for pirate activities.

I'm not pro-whaling by any means. Greenpeace's "witnessing" is a bit limp, because although they get footage, they're not exactly going to stop any ship from spearing. Hell, just about every year they get footage and it's not stopped the Japanese government going back for more. Ramming boats with scythes attached to their sides, however, could kill people, and running up a skull and crossbones? Nutter territory.

One would presume that this group would have people all over the world volunteering, and out of those there'd be a fair number who'd have reasonable qualifications to assist properly in the ship's running. Instead you have a bunch of professional card players, a vegan nurse who got kicked out of uni for not participating in dissection (eh?), children of a few prominent eco-founders, and somem random folks who seemed on the far side of sane. Admittedly an Australia sparky joined the ranks when he heard they needed an electrician, but you'd think, at the very least, you'd get a few people with marine experience -- or train them!

They stopped some whaling, yay! On the other hand, I think of the fuckups they had, and that if it wasn't from sheer luck they'd have their volunteers dying because they didn't think it through, because of the skipper deliberately playing chicken with whalers. Only, that was the idea, kinda; if they'd all died that day there would have been an uproar and the Japanese would have been shamed into stopping. Yet not everyone signed up for that. What a bunch of insane proto-murderers! As if the Japanese are any worse than they!

I grow tired of being on a small yacht in the same place for years. Small yachts are for sailing, for travelling on, and when I bought this yacht I was single, plans filling my head about places I was going to go, places I was going to station the yacht while I went off to the mines and worked for top dollar and then returned home to cruise.

( "It's when they find out that there is no toilet that they screw up their faces and reconsider boat living." )

I got into a rage with my hair the other day, got out the scissors, and chopped most of it off while hanging over the side. The idea was that no itchy remains would be on the boat, but when I turned around I saw that all the hair offcuts were going into the dinghy; I would have to fish them out anyway.

Mostly I was angry with Ben's mum for not cutting my hair the way I wanted it; her last visit a couple of weeks ago I asked for it short and she cut off a couple of centimetres, the straight-cut way. If I'd been paying her, for she's a professional hairdresser, I would have had a few choice words to say.

There was hardly any time before I had to go to work, and so I packed everything up quickly and headed ashore to find Ben.

"What does it look like?"

His horrified face said it all.

"Can you fix it up a bit?"

"I only have the fibreglass scissors," he said, and went off to find them. They're huge shears, and he delicately SNIKed bits of hair off with them, the blades sounding ominous in between his admonishments. "It's all different lengths! Okay, I've fixed it as much as I can, made it layer-y, but there are chunks everywhere."

I wwore it in a ponytail the next couple of days anyway, and then went to visit my family up on the Gold Coast over my 'weekend'.

"You cut your hair!" said my mother, and then got out her scissors to 'fix' it some more. "It's not straight!"

Which I didn't want it to be, anyway, as hair cut straight across looks awful on anybody. I fended her off that time, but throughout my visit she would take to combing my hair and then -- a surreptitious SNIP! would occur, and I'd have to fend her off again.

Work rolled around again, and on Sunday I sneaked out during my lunch break for a proper, paid-for haircut, by someone I could tell off if they didn't do what I wanted.

"What happened here?" she asked, combing my hair down furiously.

"Um, my mum cut my hair," I lied.

"Your mum's not a hairdresser, is she? I'm sure your mum's a nice person, but don't let her do it again!"

I walked out of there twenty minutes later feeling kilos lighter. I hadn't realised just how heavy my head of hair usually is, and although it seemed like she cut enough off to make me bald, I still have longish hair -- only now all layered so that it's springy and swishy like in shampoo ads.

Even the video store lady stopped me in the aisle, a couple of hours into wearing the new look, and complimented me on my hair. Every second female -- no blokes -- have made comments on the hair, about how nice it looks. It makes me dread how I've normally looked with the usual old-style homecut! There are photos of the really bad ones my mother gave me years ago, unfortunately; I look at them sometimes and wish her to perdition...

"Your hair looks more like you, now, than your old hair," said Ben. "Suits you more."

I can even put my helmet on without it being in the way, take it off, and it doesn't look overly helmet-hairy. Helmets are good to save your life, but sheesh, they sure do get in the way of trying to look good at the end of a ride.

And so, all that came to an end with a $23 haircut. Don't be so cheap in the future -- you're not starving! As a reminder along these lines, I accidentally cut one particular chunk next to my ear very short, and it sticks out from the side of my head. That'll teach me to shell out the required funds!

Edit: 'after' photo added

"Did you hear about what happened?"

"...no?" said I.

"L.C. came in the other morning, in full work uniform, and V. was on checkout 1. She walked up to her, tapped V. on the shoulder, then punched her in the face! In front of the line of customers waiting to be served, calling her a slut! It was all caught on camera; the managers were watching it in the general office earlier."

( And why did this happen? )

I went to see Terminator Salvation for the second time yesterday, this time with Ben; the first was with a coworker with SFnal tendencies. I'd hoped for some discussion of the movie with the coworker, but instead we discussed his intentions to move to Thailand to be with his boyfriend, and so Ben and I nerded it up in the car last night, desperately trying to avoid stepping out into the cold.

My opinion was that if it wasn't a Terminator movie, it's not all that likely that anyone would have bothered hyping this, because the storyline is thin on the ground, so full of holes they might as well renamed SkyNet to MosquitoNet. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it; I did go see it twice, after all.

( Spoilery musings about the good and bad. )

"You don't look Australian."

That's what people say when I ask them why they want to know where I'm from.

What the FUCK does an Australian look like, then? What if I were Aboriginal? Because I've met Aboriginal people with my colouring, and how would they feel to be said that to? Other people cop it too; in a way it's reassurring that I'm not the only one getting the insensitive wankers, but on the other hand it's depressing how pervasive to Australians it is.

The other day I was describing the high school I used to go to, with the wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the students there; Samoan, Fijian, Indian, Cambodian, Thai, Laotian, Papuan:

"Oh, so there weren't any Australians?"

( angry. )

Last week we were made to watch another of the demeaning training movies the supermarket produces. This one was on safety and compliance, along with skits of supposed employees performing in "So You Wanna Dance?" style, and other things so horrible I have since blanked them from my mind.

In fact, I watched so little of it the night captain kept barking my name because of my unsuccessful attempts to slide around the doorway and leave.

Around the time they started in on compliance and workplace safety a terrible poem appeared next to the finger scanner. It goes along the lines of:

I could have saved a life today
I saw someone doing something dangerous
I could have told them not to do it
but I didn't
and now they're dead
I could have saved a life today, rinse and repeat.

( And so I couldn't resist... )

There's been a low pressure system hanging around the Northern Rivers area the past few days, which will stay over the weekend. High wind warnings were issued and now flood warnings for all the major rivers in force. We couldn't sleep the other night, because of the wind howling and being in general nervous over whether the anchors would hold. Nothing untoward happened, unless one counts a lack of sleep.

Ben's father, Dan, left for Mackay yesterday morning, going to check a boat for someone who's interested in a boaties' opinion of its current seaworthiness. We dropped him off at the bus stop and then hung around town. Before leaving we had a look at the ocean; the beach was a mass of white froth and the wind, even though it had eased off considerably, was still so strong I could only just wedge the car door open with my body to get out.

It was just edging towards evening and Ben had gone ashore when I looked over at Dan's trimaran and noticed it was now further out in the river and pointing towards my boat, a sign it'd dragged anchor. Chances are if a boat points sideways to the wind, it's moving, adios, bye-bye.

"Ben," said I into the phone immediately, "you'd better come back. Your dad's boat's moved."

It must have snagged something, for it stopped moving shortly after. It was dark when Ben finished moving her closer back into the shore and resetting her anchors with the strongest one shoring up against the prevailing winds. He turned her navigation lights on so he could keep an eye on her against the dark background of the mangroves, the bright red and green lights reassuring us over the next few hours that she was all right.

We'd decided to pack it in for the night, for although it was windy it's wasn't as bad as the night before, and we were tired from sleep deprivation. It was still raining, though, and around 11pm Ben went outside to bail the dinghy so it wouldn't sink, as happened recently when we slept through the rain.

He'd hardly gotten back in the boat and was drying himself off when the wind picked up suddenly, and the next I knew the boat was flattened sideways, wind screamed, water came through the boat, and Ben was swearing.

"Fuck! Fuck! Dad's boat just flipped over!"

I jumped up and threw my clothes on hurriedly and scrambled around in the dark for my glasses, which had gone flying when the boat was knocked sideways. There's a reason to get laser surgery, thought I out of nowhere, and eventually I found my glasses -- and opted for the contacts, instead, in case the wind and rain picked up again.

By the time I was dressed it was eerily calm, and has remained that way ever since. Gone from 55kt (100km/h) winds to nothing in the space of minutes. [ screencap of Ballina weather info from bom.gov.au over this period of time ]

Our dinghy had filled up with water; the gust had come down the creek in a white wall of wind and water right up our stern, which was why the cabin had gotten wet even though the boards were all in. Priority was saving the dinghy and getting the engine working again. The fuel container was gone and we had just enough fuel to get ashore.

"I'm scared the shed's fallen in," said Ben, "I'm shaking."

We both were. We made it ashore just as the outboard began to splutter and ran up the yard, which was flooded with water, up to the shed. It was miraculously still standing. All around us small boats had fallen over and trees were broken and this shed, banged together with recycled roofing tin and whose sides are nothing more than tarpaulins had held together. Inside was a shambles, but it hadn't fallen in on the catamaran; I think it would have broken Ben if he'd found that these last two years of work had just been destroyed.

We found some fuel, "borrowed" some, and then went to look at the the capsized trimaran. The current in the creek was strong and the boat in the middle of the channel. The only thing keeping it in place is the mast stuck fast into the mud underneath it.

"Let's go ask Jacko for help," said I, expecting him to brush my suggestion away. "I know you hate asking people for help, but we have to this time. We have no rope, nothing."

He didn't even put up a fight about it and off we went, knocking on a yachties' boat downstream and sourcing rope and assistance. First we had to bail his dinghy out, and then took ages motoring against the current to get back to the boat. Tying a rope to the riverbank was hard, because such was the force of the water on the rope that the dinghy wouldn't move. We eventually managed, just, and then for the rest of the night watched the debris make an island of the trimaran.

As the night wore on we pulled out the boathook and pushed the collection of sticks and logs piling up on my yacht, for if the pressure grew too much it probably wouldn't hold, and Gecko would go on down the river too -- we ran out of diesel a couple of days ago and the prop is fouled; even if the engine was full we wouldn't go anywhere, not with how much growth is on the hull.

I kept quashing tears at the thought of Dan's home gone; he left yesterday with only a backpack, and now that's all he has in the world. The only comparison to a house I can think of is someone's house burning down, only they'd still have the land value, and the house would be insured. Now Dan has nothing, no savings, no insurance ... nothing, not even money to fix his boat if it could be salvaged -- and he has no money even for that.

At least he wasn't inside. His chances would have been slim, what with the boat flipping around in the wind and then smashing back down in the water. With it upside down it would have been impossible for him to get out, if conscious to do so. If last night had been the night before, when he'd been on board ...

"I can't believe Dad's boat's capsized," Ben kept saying last night. "I just watched the lights go around, it just flipped with the gust. I can't believe this, it's like it didn't happen."

"Let's have a cup of tea," said I, and continued to do so as we maintained watch throughout night, eyes burning but still awake.

When I was working during the day I would ride an extra twenty minutes out to the breakwater wall and see what the water was doing. When on these rides I would often see the same people over and over again: the guy who "walked" his dog by having the dog pull him along on a skateboard; the two grey-haired ladies who colour-coordinated with their pink bicycles, but whom I never saw riding; the older Aboriginal man who would call out and wave as I rode past.

This morning I rode out to get a loaf of bread from one of the local bakeries. I discovered this loaf, their Pana di Casa, a dense, light-tasting sourdough which reminds me of the breads my mother used to make, an excellent example of home-made bread. It's best eaten the day manufacture, and as I sped along to get some, I came up behind a couple of people along the bike path. I wormed my way around them slowly and was about to speed up again when the man called out --

"Wait!"

I stopped and hopped off the bike, then turned to face them. It was the Aboriginal guy of the many waves. They were middle-aged with friendly faces, and when they got closer I noticed the guy had wonderful, beautiful dark eyes.

"Hi. I've seen you around a lot, and I wanted to know your name. I'm Antonio, and this is Rhonda," he continued after I introduced myself. "I've seen you for the past twelve months."

( And so their curiosity is satisfied. )

I have been steadily watching the days go down until today: when I could go see the latest Star Trek.

Ben and I went to the matinee session, the first screening in Ballina, and after getting our ususal crunchies and drink we shuffled in and sat down.

"Look at all the single guys," said Ben once we were comfortable.

I looked around; sure enough, there were lots of men sitting by themselves. Usually around here there are packs of oldies, or couples, but not often men by themselves.

There was this peppering of blokes, but it took me a while to notice that they were seated in this particular order: bloke empty seat, bloke. With lots of empty seats all around. Why seated so close?

"Are those guys together, do you think?" I asked Ben.

"Of course. They can't sit next to each other; that'd be gay," was his response.

It was clear that these guys, all of them, thought so; they stretched their necks over the empty seat to talk to one another, but that space was taboo when it came to two blokes seeing movies!

I found this very funny, laughing until I cried. I started Ben off too, and I saw little tears of laughter in his eyes. We calmed down in time for the trailers, at which I think our laughter would have proven annoying to the others.

Ben nudged me when the trailer for Transformers appeared; I nudged him accordingly when the Terminator one concluded. He wants to see one, me the other, and we'll drag one another along for the viewing.

All in all, we were both very pleased with the movie. It was full of action, which I was told about by a lucky fan who got to see an advance screening, but at the same time it felt appropriately Star Trek-y.

( Spoilers )

Ben and I have been watching the Canadian SF series Odyssey 5 over the past two weeks. The premise runs thus:

( Spoilery bits but read it anyway. )

I was rugged up against the cold, walking down the street towards the convention hotel. A guy walked up towards me, unshod and slightly unclean, hair stringy down his back. I smiled at him from habit, my eyes sliding away, shoulders hunched inwards.

"Good morning!" he said just as I passed.

"Good morning," I replied, twisting backwards, feet still moving forwards.

"You have a lovely smile," he continued.

"Thank you."

"You've the loveliest smile I've seen today. People have said good morning, but you've the loveliest smile."

"Thank you very much," said I, walking backwards now, ever closer to the hotel but not game enough to present him with my back.

"Have a good day!" he called as I carried myself further away.

"You too!"

And then he was gone.

I faced forwards once more, firmly on track, and another man slowed just as I was to turn the last corner.

"Hello," he said, and waited for my attention.

"Hi." I looked slightly off to the side of this man's head.

"Are you Indian?" he continued, looking somewhat eager.

"No, South American."

"Oh. Sorry," and with that, continued on his way.

( Finally I get to the convention... )

Holy Respectability, Batman!

Comics making the adaptation to film, beginning with DC -- the first Superman was deemed acceptable, and then went downhill from there. Superman, the man, after some discussion, is now hailed as very creepy due to his entrance into his son's bedroom without his parent's knowledge, to watch over him.

Batman, the first Burton, was deemed acceptable; the second less so, and then the others horrible, except for when we came to the reboot -- all right, on the road again, with both Jokers (Nicholson and Ledger) considered excellent evil guys.

Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing were considered bad, and "Heather Locklear looks way too happy in the poster" of the latter, said one of the panellists, who was grinning away in the arms of the Thing.

Shaquille O'Neal was in Steel, a superhero who makes his costume out of steel from a junkyard; is as far a description as we got, other than it was horribly bad. Catwoman had howls of derision, deservedly so.

Onwards to Marvel, and Captain America -- the costume! So bad! The first movie had a blue motorcycle helmet with "A" painted on it; the second movie, not a sequel, had very limited release and then was shelved.

Fantastic Four was done many years ago, only to hold onto movie rights; it screened for a week in Italy and was very bad, the heroes grinning cheesily in the poster. Not redeemed by the ones made recently, either.

Mention was made of Alan Moore's comics being made into movies, and how he must be spitting mad. All bad, including the latest, went the opinion. Sin City was all right, but now is responsible for the scene-by-scene retellings being done, which don't work except for vignette movies.

( Lots of panels, with possible spoilers for latest seasons of Heroes and Battlestar Galactica. )

Yesterday was a write-off; few panels sounded interesting, and so there were few I went to, and those two were:

Women Characters in Comics

I arrived late for this. As I rocked up they were showing an alternate version of Supergirl and her massive knockers, and pointing out the typically drawn female dimensions are out of whack, with huge boobs, teeny waist, muscular thighs, and skimpy clothing. As if a real female warrior would look like this, and then pointed to Gabrielle of Xena as a real athletic woman, with six-pack and muscly arms. No huge boobs and tiny waist there, and so she was deemed "fat".

(Although here I feel obliged to point out that Gabrielle lost most of her clothing as the seasons went on, and the buffer she got the tinier the top and the skirt.)

( Read more... )

After my jaunt to Fremantle, I returned to the backpackers to get suited up for airconditioning -- although not enough, for I was still cold -- and settled in for a day of conventioneering.

Top 10 SF & F TV show - Vote!
This was a completely chaotic panel! There was so much hubbub from the audience that shows called out could hardly be heard, and some of the things were amusing beyond belief. Darkwing Duck? Aeon Flux? Roger Ramjet? No, really. There were lots of animated series named, so many that I think next year there ought to be a separate animated SF series panel, so they can be done justice, for they were always going to be outvoted by the likes of Dr Who.

There were more, and although there were over 80 shows listed, few of them were serious contenders. In fact, the series listed at first -- Dr Who, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, were the ones with the most votes. Enterprise got only three votes, and when Hercules and Andromeda were wiped off the board someone called out "Kevin Sorbo exits the building!", and deservedly so. Andromeda was such a waste. It seemed to have some promise, and then when Sorbo got his production hands all over it that was the end, my friend.

Some series probably would have gotten more votes, except for that people hadn't seen them yet. True Blood, Primeval, Being Human, were all listed; I hear they're all right but hardly any hands went up. Despite this day and age of broadband and downloads, there are still the few without the werewithal.

( Long description and discussion of Friday panels )

I'd hardly arrived at the sign-in desk yesterday when I was collared by a male fan, who I didn't recognise at first. Who was this fellow? It clicked after he began on a familiar spiel. Being a bit lost, I sat down at the bar with him for a beer, and then it was too late: I was locked in until I could find an excuse to leave.

It became one of those horrible scenes where the guy starts in on how beautiful you are, while looking at your boobs. I found a reason to leave -- a good one, I wanted to find my co-panellist -- and got out, finding others to hide behind.

Just now as I was leaving the convention hotel he stood at the door, smoking with another fan.

( Read more... )

I almost didn't make the flight to Perth this morning. The traffic into Brisbane city was almost at a standstill; what would have taken two hours took nearly three. I was ushered through the check-in desk fast, and then sat around anyway, for the plane was going through "technical problems". Funny that you need so many Federal Police hanging around the gate for a technical problem!

Once into Perth city itself I walked to the backpackers instead of trying to hunt down another bus. The wait would have been just as long as walking, and plus: the bonus of exploring while getting from A to B.

( A month in this area wouldn't be enough. )

It rained almost non-stop for a season last year; with winter it broke, and it was with sighs of relief that we welcomed the dry cool days. An entire summer of rain. We dreaded the appearance of summer towards the end of last year, and although it wasn't as bad, it still rained more often than not. I splurged and bought expensive raingear, two sets; one for boating, and one for on the bicycle, so that either way I wouldn't get caught in a downpour and join the legion of drowned rats.

The weather has turned grey again, and the rains started up. There's a low squatting above us. I've been lazy the past few days, not doing long rides because of rain. Walking through the quagmire of a boatyard is bad enough; riding through town and having an accident on every hidden pothole just takes the fun out of things.

This morning I entered the cockpit to greet the day and as I looked around I noticed the dinghy was apparently missing. This is not an entirely uncommon event; a couple of years ago, when we were anchored in Mobb's Bay, the dinghy disappeared.

( oh no! )

The past few weeks have found me plastered to the DVD player, much to Ben's wrath, as he has wanted to use it as well. Where I have been knee-deep in the most recent seasons of Doctor Who, he has been sucked into Oz, which has much to do with my evil-doing. I try to get him interested in TV series so that he doesn't get bored and annoying in the evening, which might be fine if you live in a house, but when your living space is 3m², it makes you want to cosh them over the head with the rolling pin. (Hey, maybe that's why my mum always threatens my dad with it...!)

This time it backfired on me, however, seeing as I was wanting to watch Doctor Who, thought about it as I rode to work, thought about the show as I packed shelves, and hummed the theme as I "freshed" the shelves in the afternoons.

( So, thoughts! Spoilerrific. )

The short way to work involves a 15-minute bike ride, and that's my old route; the new one's 40 minutes and involves a loop taking me out to the northern breakwater wall, following the bikeway which starts not too far from here and goes just about right up to the supermarket's door.

My thighs are the hugest they've ever been, thick and ropy with muscle and I don't have to even think about squats anymore; I can lift heavy boxes from a squat when at work, push harder on the bicycle than I can ever remember. I've always been kind of wimpy when it comes to speed, and now I find myself wishing for a racer with narrow tyres and sleek frame just so I can whiz past the chaps with their fluoro lycra in the morning.

I come across amusing things:

( just warbling about cycling )