Slice

It was late February 2004 and I was half way through a marathon Grand Theft Auto session with my mate Dowling, when we decided to take a break from vehicular manslaughter and grab something to eat from our local 24 hour McDonalds. On the way back from Maccas we heard an add on the radio for Tropfest, an annual short film competition held in Sydney that garnered a lot of attention (and celebrity judges). The rules were that the film had to be under seven minutes in running time and incorporate a signature item (proof that you made the film specifically for Tropfest). The signature item for 2004 was "Hook" and the commercial was reminding entrants that they only had five days left to submit their films. I don't remember the conversation I had with Dowling at the time, but the end decision was something along the lines of "Fuck it, let's make a film in five days and enter it".

Since the film needed a "Hook" in it we decided to incorporate Cricket players into the story (as they have a hook shot) and a golfer (who also has a hook shot). Then we decided to make the golfer a Ninja Assassin hell bent on slaughtering the Cricket team (Because when you're cruising the Adelaide suburbs at 2am chewing on a Big Mac and listening to Cypress Hill, these are generally the kinds of ideas that come to you). We hired a ninja costume, arranged a few props, grabbed my video camera and spent the next few afternoons running around a park throwing shit at each other. (FILM TIP - if you're going to dress up as a Ninja running around throwing shit, it's best to do it somewhere secluded. If you do it in on a city street the cops will probably mistake you for a terrorist and shoot you).

We spent the next three days shooting the picture in the Adelaide Hills with a little help from Jayne lugging shit around, and an appearance by Campbell as the "Maniacal Batsman". Dowling whipped up a soundtrack in one afternoon using a music program for the PlayStation 2, we edited the footage and added sound effects using my PC and we sent the film off with one day to spare. And that's how Slice, Slice Baby was born.

I wrote an email to Dowling earlier this week and told him he should put the film on to You Tube. In an example of supreme efficiency rarely associated with my generation, he put the film on immediately and I was amused to find it online when I arrived at work the following morning. There amongst the clips of fat kids falling over and the Cam Whores dancing was our little bargain basement epic.

I could have been a clever boots and coded the video onto this website, but then I would have had to reduce the size in order for it to fit inside my blog's shitty screen width. Instead, watch it in all of it's 450 pixel (WOW!!) widescreen glory by clicking here.

I sent the link to a work mate on Friday, and he told me it was his second favourite clip of the day after this one. Which is high praise. I think.

God Bless the internet - as of writing this post the film has been viewed 1800 times. Not exactly Star Wars Kid figures, but a substantial incline from it's initial run. The film never made the finals of Tropfest, so up until a few days ago the film had only been seen by a dozen people and one kitten. And even then Miffy needed some persuasion to watch the whole movie.

The best part about this You tube experience is that there is now a visual record of myself which will still be on the web long after I finally pass away from cirrhosis of the liver (which will be some time next week the way I'm going). And forty years from now when my sister is sitting watching the film with her Grand children and one of them looks up to her and says "Grandma, who is that funny looking guy running around the forest in mirrored glasses and a mullet wig?" she'll of course reply "That's your Uncle Beef kids."

"That's your Uncle Beef."

FIFTY POSTS

I'm back, from out of space.

Apologies for the 2 week down time. I've been too busy or too sick with the flu to update this juggernaut, and I know there are a number of you suffering shoddy withdrawal symptoms - a problem I will try to rectify right now.

I actually sat down on the morning of Friday the 7th and started an update but halfway through I realised this was a milestone, the 50th Post. So to do something special for the occasion I was going to run the post in real time (the way some web-sites do for Sporting events or the Emmy's), updating every hour or so as my hungover Friday transpired in front of me. Two hours into this little project it became apparent that I was just too scattered to complete the mountainous task. That, and it seemed a little pointless considering 60% of the Shoddy readers are in an opposite time zone and probably asleep.

That post is still floating around my drafts somewhere, and I'll hopefully finish it and post it soon.

In the mean time this is still the Fiftieth Post on this illustrious web-site and something appropriate should be submitted to mark the occassion. I humbly present to you:

THE SHODDY STATS

Number of days online = 188
Not a bad stretch, considering I started the blog back in May purely to log my adventures of the Monopoly Pub Crawl (A set of posts I never got around to finishing). Sometime shortly after the third post on the crawl, I wrote some kind of dribbling tirade on Gordon Ramsey (the first "Neck Up Award") and I pretty much haven't stopped ranting since then.

Number of Hits (as of typing this post) = 1757
Traditionally my stat counter was a little spastic as it counted the number of Page Visits not unique visits. So if somebody stopped by and clicked on a few photos, then my counter would jump by a dozen hits and provide me with a false sense of popularity. I finally fixed that problem and swapped the counter from Page visits to Unique hits via the Stat counter options, 1757 since May.

Largest Fan Base = the UK with 36% of the hits
Australia is second with 32%, USA counts for 17% and Malaysia racks up 9%. Rest of the world = 6%, random foreigners who stumble across the site and leave with a mumbled "Chasquear la haba?".

Number of days since the Kitchen ceiling caved in = 61
We have had an English, Russian and Polish builder (yeah, sounds like the start of a crappy joke) come give us a quote, and all subsequently disappear from the face of the Earth. I don't mind the gaping hole in the Kitchen roof, but the upstairs toilet being out of action is quite a pest. Running down three flights of stairs at 2am in my Optimus Prime Pyjamas for a middle-of-the-night-pee-pee is not my favourite hobby.

Number of swear words = 132
I counted Shit-Whore as one word.

Number of times Ceiling Cat is referenced = 4

Number of times "Flicking the Bean" is referenced = 6

Number of baby elephants = 3
(I included Britney Spears in that count)

Photos of girl on girl kissing = 4

And finally, why the name?
The Shoddy name brand originated back in the heady days of the mid nineties when a group of my Film School cohorts and I ran a company called "Shoddy Horror Pictures". We spent the best part of three years churning out classics such as this:

I promise to write a post about the blood and guts mayhem of my film school days in the near future. Thanks for stopping by kids, here's to the next 50 shoddy posts.

beef.

Shoddy September

A quick look at the month of September.

SEP 2ND
BARFL GRAND FINAL:

Shepherd's Bush Raiders 5.11 41
Clapham Demons 4.3 27

The Demons B Squad made it into the BARFL Grand Final over the weekend, but lost to the Shephard's Bush Raiders - unable to capitalise on a half-time lead. More photos can be found at the Demon's website.

After the game, everybody drowned their sorrows in a tidal wave of booze at the Alexandra. Alcohol was served to us by the regular Polish girls, two of the unhappiest barmaids I've ever seen. I don't know their names so I just call them "Sunshine" and "Lollypop" executing some of that ironic sarcasm that's all the rage these days.

Speaking of irony...

SEP 4TH
STEVE IRWIN RIP

The man who spent his life pouncing on the world's most dangerous reptiles without hardly getting a scratch, had his life ended on this day by a fish. A life cut tragically short, and will definitely be one of the more interesting head-stones in the graveyard:

STEVE IRWIN
1962-2006
Wrestled Crocodiles up until he was stabbed in the heart by a fucking Stingray.

SEP 6TH
BIRTHDAY

On Wednesday I will celebrate my 29th year on the planet. I've got a hand-written list I wrote almost a decade ago of the things I wanted to accomplish by the age of thirty, and it's high time I started completing some of these. The list includes having a three-some, eating a Tequilla worm, and finding the man who crippled my older brother - so that I may fight him myself:


SEP ??
Kitchen Gets Fixed...Maybe

Would you believe it's been 46 days since the ceiling caved in, and it still hasn't been fixed? Problems with the insurance and dilemmas contacting builders have caused severe delays which will hopefully be wrapped up some this week. The good news is that Toby organised a couple of Russian guys to come and at least fix the leak. The Russians didn't bring any tools with them, and asked my house-mates if they had any tools when they arrived (they didn't). The Russians then proceeded to rip at the floor and wall panels in the bathroom with their bare hands. I was busy being ignored by beautiful Latvian women in the heart of Riga when all of this was going on - but whatever those crazy Ruskies did, they fixed the leak.

Now we can wash the dishes and not have filthy brown water drip on our heads. Luxury. Unfortunately the light fixture is still dead, hanging at roughly eyeball height so that I constantly keep strolling into it and yelling stuff like "Shit-Fuck Panda-Rape" as bright pain flashes through my brain. We used the fan-light in the oven as a source of light for a while, but that eventually blew. Our current light source is leaving the fridge door ajar. We should probably invest in some candles, but if you knew the guys I live with you wouldn't be placing naked flames around our home either.

SEP 10TH
DEMONS BEST AND FAIREST VOTE COUNT

The Wandsworth Demons' best players are rewarded for a season of hard work by being forced to chug Snake-bites.

That's what is happening in London. If I lived in America, You'd probably find me at this:


SEP 14TH
DEMONS TRIP

The Wandsworth Demons are heading to Krakow for the end of Season trip. 48 drunken footballers on one overseas adventure. That's insane.

SEP 18TH
A SAD DAY FOR TELEVISION

I honestly can't say I'm a Will & Grace fan, but I did catch enough episodes to grow a life-time hatred for this fucking harpy:

God that idiot-tramp annoyed me for a number of reasons, but I'd have to say it was her blood curdling voice that sealed the deal. I'd prefer the sound of a European Wasp trapped in my ear canal to listening to her speak. Well who cares right? Will and Grace isn't on TV anymore yeah? Well the Hell-fiend will be back because

SHE NOW HAS HER OWN FUCKING TALK SHOW.

I was checking out the Fall line up of new TV shows in the U.S., and this news came to my distressed attention. Megan Mullaly (aka Karen from Will and Grace) will be hosting her own chat show. Oprah Winfrey, Rosie O'Donnell, that coven of witches from "The View" - all painful idiots. But they are exquisite angels compared to Megan "Drowning Cat" Mullaly. Is this really the best idea for a talk-show host they could come up with? Hitler's frozen head on the body of a Rottweiller would have been a better option.

Mullaly says her show will be a "mix of old-school variety programs", but I'll never know for sure. I'd rather staple my penis to a moving bus then watch five minutes of that screeching Whore-Beast. Fuck off.

SEP 30TH
AFL GRAND FINAL

The Australian Football League Grand Final will be played on Saturday the 30th. My team the Adelaide Crows were favourites to win at one point, but have lost some key players to injuries and illness. Damn it.

The game is aired live at a number of pubs over here and a breakfast is put on for the Ex-pats. First beer at 5:30am, bacon butties at 6am. Bliss.

(More information on Bacon Butties can be found at Bart's site.)

Not much else to report for this month, but I think you should check out this. A website dedicated to a cat named Jeff, and more specifically to the things that Jeff kills and leaves on his owner's door step. I'll be damned if he isn't a dead ringer for Ceiling Cat.

That just about wraps it up for September, though I'm sure many new events will materilaise over the next few weeks. Fingers crossed that at some point I end up at a party like this one:

That would be fucking sweet.