2003-07-03 - 11:05 p.m.

First Of All…

The Notify List whatsit at the bottom of the page doesn’t work. Never has done, probably never will. It’s one of those widgets you can get for the page and it looks good. Problem is: IT DOESN’T WORK. There’s no need getting upset about it. That’s just the way it is. We’re probably going to leave it there because it looks good and balances out the composition of the diary rings and that appealing picture of a duck. But if you want to find out what's happening in the world o' bears - you'll just have to come back and look.

There’s Royalty In Town

The Temporary British High Consul has been touring this modest burg. Teddy ordered in extra gin, some crackers and decent cheeses in anticipation of the fellow dropping by the TEZNEZCO! offices. As Nesbitt had read Under The Volcano, he was frankly worried that there would be appalling behaviour.

“Worse that your arse? I think not,” said Teddy.

“That’s exactly the kind of behaviour that I’m worried about,” Nesbitt replied, his paws fidgeting as he tried to fold some napkins.

“Settle down,” said Penguin “He may not be coming. Have you seen… this?”

Penguin flung a copy of the Central Coast Advocate on the floor.

The bears read how the Temporary British High Consul had been visiting Gosford. He was on a “good will mission” (possibly to try and calm down feelings over the Newcastle convict tourism dollar fiasco) when he was offered a meat pie. Being a pleasant fellow, he accepted. Unfortunately an ace reporter with the paper had got a “scoop”, a photo of said Consul eating a pie (with sauce), which was then plastered on page three of the august journal.

To the bears’ horror, it was clearly shown in the background of the photo that the tasty meat pie had in fact come from… a… vending machine. Now, it should be said here and now that the bears are pro-pie, being great fans of tasty meat treats served in pastry (Teddy is also an aficionado of the pasty and the sausage roll). But we have a basic objection to any pie being served from a machine, especially when the machine only appears to have two buttons on it: PIE and PIE [WITH SAUCE].

“That’s it,” Teddy announced. “The Temporary British High Consul will not be joining us for elevenses…”

Nesbitt felt much relieved.

Fruit something devola something something

We highly recommend you go and visit Ramon. You ask why? Put it this way. He’s trapped in a small airless container and he needs your help. Go there. Read words. Leave a message. That way he might even give us a link. Go there now.

What Do We Want to Put On Our Shopping List?

When we go to New York we’re going to take advantage of the superior DVD shopping opportunities. We’re thinking classic, hard to get a hold of classic sci-fi titles that are a dime a dozen in the USA but no one bothers to sell here. We’re thinking of stuff like Colossus: The Forbin Project - which is a damn fine movie about a giant computer that takes over the world – and also Soylent Green which, aside from having a silly punch line, is for the most part an excellent and rather weird film about an overpopulated future. It’s also got Charlton Heston in it.

We might therefore also see if we can’t find a DVD of The Omega Man. That’s kind of crap but also kind of good. Unlike Soylent Green that has too many people, The Omega Man has very few at all. It’s interesting how in the 1970s science fiction films used to speculate about different kind of futures. (Nowadays SF futures all look more or less the same. You can just tell it’s the future by certain things. Only Minority Report and AI tried something really different in the last few years).

In Soylent Green there’s very little oil around and so there are no plastics – the cops who are investigating a murder write everything down on reused writing pads with pencils. The future looks very much like a lot of other futures and there are a few establishing shots of the city that are a bit like Blade Runner. Made in the mid 70s there’s one really odd thing about Soylent Green and that’s the fact that no one has a computer. It’s strange seeing a future with no computers. Everything looks suitably “futuristic” but there are no PCs on desks.

There’s a crazy old early 60s SF film called KRONOS that may just be alright. Bearing in mind that Mr. Oaf hasn’t seen it since the early 1980s. it might be crap, but he also remembers that it also had a certain joie de vivre that was a lot of fun. The basic plot is a giant robot descends from space and goes around the world destroying all power sources. The cool thing about this robot is that it’s just a cube on legs. Nothing fancy. And the really, really cool thing was the robot wasn’t a tormented soul or anything dubious like that – it was just a machine that was sent by aliens to gather up all atomic energy for transfer back to the home plant. So put away those nukes, General!

Another film that’s available on DVD in the States is Francois Truffaut’s version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. There are people saying that it’s not a good film and they may be right. We only ever seemed to see it at 1am when we weren’t at our best but the film does have a very strange dream-like quality that’s fantastic. We shall investigate. There have been persistent rumours that Mel Gibson will do a remake. So long as he’s not in it, we’re not philosophically opposed.

We shall also check out to see if odd-bodd things from the late 60s and 70s like The Illustrated Man are available - another Bradbury adaptation with a sweaty Rod Steiger as the tattooed monster. That would be interesting to see again as Mr. Oaf only saw it that one time at a SF film festival at Sydney University way back in, oooh, well, before a lot of you were born.

There are a lot of very bizarre SF films from Eastern Europe made in the 1970s that are on DVD but you have to get them from Amazon if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. There is the Czechoslovakian animated film called Fantastic Planet In the 1970s it used to be shown at repertory cinemas with surfing films. How they went together is anyone’s guess but it probably had something to do with marijuana. Mr. Oaf saw it again on TV about ten years ago, and the animation was terrible. The ideas, however, were quite cool and interesting. We might also see if a Soviet era SF film called Journey To A Prehistoric Planet is cheaply available. That is one of those films that Mr. Oaf saw as a child and it’s stuck in his head.

While we’re at it: Zardoz! Can you imagine anything worse than Sean Connery dressed up as a “savage” – a pair of red skin tight swimming trunks, double bandoliers over his super hairy chest, a gay man handle bar moustache and two six guns? Actually, there is is one thing worse than that… It’s Oliver Reed and his wife adopting a robot child because the government has forbidden them to have children due to chronic over population in the dastardly ZPG!!!!

bears in history - future bears

“This diary cracked me up, completely, perhaps the oddest diary I have ever read. I'm not sure if it's a takeoff on something or someone that I have somehow missed. Regardless, TEZNEZCO! chronicles the adventures of two bears and describe them as if they are a minority of some sort. The writing is disturbingly matter-of-fact as if it is perfectly normal to be writing about these bears as people. I like it; it's pleasantly novel" - Diaryreview

DiaryReview