Thursday Peanuts

Stuff I Wish You Loved As Much As I Do: Bone

Comic books are not everybody's cup of tea, and that's fine. As a medium, you're either interested in it, or your not. But I reckon, like most mediums, there are very rare exceptions where something is just so good, and so universally accessible, that it crosses over, and the medium takes a back seat to how great the thing is.

Bone is the example of this for comics. I guarantee you, that even if you have zero interest in comics that you would just fall in love with this, because it's just a perfect piece of art. Fantastic story telling, characters you love, and just a perfect realisation of the story through brilliant drawing. It's a travesty that something so good is not a household name like Harry Potter. It should be on the school curriculum. Every child should own a copy.

American cartoonist Jeff Smith wrote, drew and self published 55 issues of Bone from 1994-2001, a great big sweeping fantasy saga, but full of humour and lighthearted stuff to balance it out. Sort of like early Walt Disney meets Lord of The Rings. It's all drawn in beautiful black and white, and Jeff Smith is just the master. Not a bad drawing anywhere to be seen. I bought all 55 issues back in the day, but it's one of the few things that I loved as a teenager that I can appreciate just as much now. A few weeks ago, I started reading it to Little e. We read 2 issues before her Sunday arvo rest, and she's really getting into it, which is great. We are up to #18 now. It's just one of those very rare things that is as appealing to a four year old as to a 34 year old. And I'm sure a 64 year old would love it to. There's nothing rude, or dodgy, and it's just family friendly all over, yet it doesn't feel like some boring 'kids' thing. Honestly. So, I'll leave my rant there. But you've gotta believe me. Your life will be that much poorer if you never read Bone. Your kids' lives too. Think of your kids!

You can get started with the first trade paperback, 'Out From Boneville', which collects the first several issues. There are also coloured kids editions you can find, or even a giant mega 1332 page version which collects the entire 55 issues.

Book Review Wednesday by Crazyjedidiah

The Crescent Dunes
by Steven Barclay

Review by Crazyjedidiah

Martin Colbrook arrives in Egypt to carry out a secret mission, so secret in fact that you don't find out what it is until the very end of the book. He travels around Egypt to carry it out, including out to the archaeological site of Gus Lowell near the town of Baris. There he meets up with Graf who runs an aid organisation and a Serbian “documentary teamr”. He runs into trouble with them as he discovers their secrets and he eventually completes his mission in the Theban Tombs while once again thwarting his enemies.

This is a great thriller to read with many twists and turns along the way, leaving you guessing till the end. I would really recommend this to anyone who likes thrillers and who is interested in Egypt and Egyptian archaeology.

Thanks, sounds cool. Check out Crazyjedidiah's Gibberish.

Winter's Bone

We watched a movie called Winter's Bone over a couple of lunch times at work, about a teenage girl trying to track down her father in order to try and hold her family together.

Set in the grim Ozark Mountains of Missouri, the film is pretty hard going and tense viewing, but as the viewer you care so much about the main character, and are curious enough to find out the fathers' whereabouts to keep you in your seat the whole time.

Really well written, made and acted, and Jennifer Lawrence as Ree is very, very good. Great movie, but not for the faint-hearted.

4/5

Go Back

We watched the follow up panel discussion thing for Go Back To Where You Came From last night. It was good to hear more from the group about how their attitudes changed over the course of the show.

I admire people who are able to admit they had it wrong, and have changed their views. That takes a humility that not many people can muster.

Heav'n

You know what I don't like in church music?

When 'they' try to turn 'Heaven' in to a one syllable word.

It's not.

So don't.

Riddip

Every now and again I have dreams about meeting you blogging people. I had one last night, and it was semi-pleasant, semi-stressful. The fun part was that some big party was organised, and I was meeting lots of you face to face for the first time.

The stressful part was that I turned up in a spandex sort of frog suit thing, without the head. So basically a tight-fitting green leotard. Whereas you were all dressed much more sensibly.

So. Really nice to meet you all, but I felt pretty self conscious sitting there in all my green glory. I hope you managed to avert your eyes as much as possible.

They're Not Thinking What We're Thinking, B1

Bananas in Pyjamas got a belting in the SMH over the weekend.

It's really painful reading that stuff when you've invested so much time and effort into something. The stuff the guy says is pretty unfair, and inaccurate. All that rubbish about how we've killed an Australian icon, and how it's (gasp) animated in a 'factory' in Singapore. And being called 'cheap and nasty'. It doesn't feel very good.

The fact is, the ratings are killing. The target audience is loving the show, and that's what matters. Tell you what though, it certainly saps your enthusiasm. Sitting here first thing on Monday morning, I'm not feeling very enthused.

Speaking Of Mispronunciations..

I probably should clear this one up once and for all. Say I did something on purpose. Umm, like, I drove slowly on purpose, say.

I never know whether I should say 'I purposely drove slow' or 'I purposefully drove slow'. Which is it?

Please help me out. In a non-condescending tone preferably.

The Quiz

1. Obama's plan to pull out the troops. Overdue, timely or premature?
2. A mispronunciation that bugs you
3. The best thing about yesterday
4. The best book you read at school
5. Where are you placed in relation to your siblings?

The Hermit Crabs

At Little e's pre school they have hermit crabs, and the deal is that a different kid takes them home each weekend. It was our turn on the weekend, a stressful and heart breaking time for us all. Gotta say up front, who knew hermit crabs were such prima donnas?

So E picked them up Friday, and sat them out in the sun for the arvo as directed, and they didn't do much. Friday night I had a hold of them, trying to get them to come out and say hi. They were shy, uncommunicative and boring, unwilling to do ANYTHING.

Saturday morning, I tried again, still no love. They hadn't eaten any of their apple or weird dried smelly fish things. Saturday night, I had another good hold. I gave them a prod. Nothing. Had a bit of a sniff. A bit on the turn.

Our suspicions were right. The fellas were dead. I don't know when, how or why, but they were pretty dead. I suspect they were D.O.A. though I'm sure the pre school wouldn't have a bar of that. "Here, mind our dead pets for the weekend". Yeah, thanks pre school.

So on Sunday arvo E had to race out and buy a couple of replacements, and they were a little more adventurous then the dead ones, though one just dug a hole in the gravel and went underground straight away. The pet shop people said they had to be kept really warm or they might die in the night.

So last night we cranked the heater and the lamps and tripled our electricity bill just to keep those needy little suckers breathing till we could give them back this morning. You know what I don't get? They come from the sea. The big, cold wet ocean. Do they have incubators and lamps and slices of apple in the sea?

My view is, if you can't stay alive in a warmish living room overnight, with all your sliced apple needs met, well, maybe Mr Darwin needs to step in. You're cute and all, but a bit too hard, to be honest.

Go Back To Where You Came From

Did anybody watch Go Back To Where You Came From? It was a 3 part doco on SBS about 6 Australians who get taken on a journey to different parts of the world to experience the plight of refugees and boat people.

I didn't catch all of it, some of the first ep, and then all of the last, but I thought it was really great. It was also very heart-wrenching. It should be compulsory viewing for every Australian. Being on SBS though, it was probably to an extent preaching to the converted.

It's easy to say of the contestants, 'tsk tsk you were so bigoted', and also of the AM talkback radio listening and Today Tonight watching public 'you should be watching this.' but I also found it pretty convicting personally.

I'm often way too apathetic, not taking enough notice of the terrible plight that people are going through around the world, and closer to home. And not only that, I'm often in a state of ho hum about my own life circumstances, rather than seeing daily how richly blessed I am, and just how much I have to thank God for.

Strike Me Dead

I had a very disconcerting dream that Alf Stewart from Home and Away died. I woke up very shocked and sad.

It felt so real that I had to Google him this morning before writing this post just to make sure it was a dream. It was.

Phew.

Thursday Peanuts

Nostalgia Drunk

Sometimes I find myself so deep in nostalgia that I'm not really present in the moment. Since I woke up this morning my body has just been on auto-pilot while my head has been somewhere else, long ago in a galaxy far away.

When I have certain music in my head, I am transported to some other time, and I kind of long for those times, even though those times may not have been particularly great. This morning the music was Ride and Swervedriver and the time was 1991-1992. Music to play LOUD.

Do you ever get like that? I get it so strong sometimes that I look kind of sneeringly at the present and just want to jump in a Delorean and go elsewhere.

Book Review Wednesday by buckleboy

Sydney
by Delia Falconer

Review by buckleboy

Sydney, Delia suggests, is a mass of contradictions, all revolving around a central failing that it wants beauty but more readily embraces ugliness; It's urge is to play and be playful but it is in fact an angry workaholic, Sydney delights in the finer points of life but also adores debauchery. Delia has a point. She has many and perhaps too many. There are myriad metaphors for Sydney and she writes with a colour that does the metropolitan area proud, but, like Darling Harbour, she just tries a bit too hard.

The author has an intriguing history herself and perhaps because of that, she feels at one with Sydney in many deeply profound ways. She grew up playing with the kids of Brett Whiteley and her parents knew Patrick White. She seems like something of a socialite but thankfully doesn't get too high-brow on the reader. (She's the Chatswood of writers.)

Delia has many fascinating sidelines about how our city functions and its people oscillate around our festivals and routines. She exposes our bigotry and our generosity equally. She draws on Kenneth Slessor's great old poems and splices little known colonial history with recent memories.

Towards the end of the book, it all starts to unravel - like when Anzac Parade reaches La Perouse "Where are we?" I remember thinking. "It's Mad Max meets Blacktown!" - and the book's editor's get sloppy as the author starts navel-gazing.

Maybe it's all supposed to resemble a walk across the Harbour Bridge. It begins wonderfully, then half way along you realise the fences spoil the view and by the end you think it'd be fabulous if they'd just finished it right.

Thanks for the great review. Go check out Buckleup's Blog.

You Don't Want To See Me When I'm Angry

Listening to people talk on mobile phones on the train may be the thing that in the end will be my great undoing. I can feel it approaching.

Here are two of my most well-loved, and most frequently heard phone conversations-

1. Hello? I'm on the train. I'm on the train. I'm on the train! On the train!! The train!!!! Train!!! What? No, the train. TRAIN!!!

So you're on the train, you say?

2. Yeah, so anyway, I was like OMG are you serious and she was.. oh, I'm about to go through a tunnel so I might cut out... hello? Are you still there? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Oh they've gone.

You think?

The Quiz

A Monday quiz for Tuesday..

1. A saying you like
2. Something you have a love/hate relationship with
3. A show you're into at the moment
4. Plain packaging for cigarette packets: good idea or bad idea?
5. Your favourite item of clothing at the moment

Update

Had yesterday off sick, back at work today, still fairly under the weather. The two kids are pretty crook, so it's been a very indoorsy few days. If I hear the phrase 'got a snotty nose' said in a whingey voice one more time, I may finally snap.

The time I spent with the two lowercase vowels while capital E went up to Brisbane was good. We coped pretty well (apart from the whole sleeping aspect), and had a nice time together. It felt good.

Little e and I made our first comic together, hopefully the first of many. I drew up the panels, and wrote out the words as she told the story, then I got her to draw the pictures, and we both coloured it in. It was a fairly sad story about a girl called Rita who wanted a baby but didn't know where to get one. Heady stuff.

Thursday Peanuts

North and South

E's going up to Brisbane this weekend to see our good friend Peter get married. I'm very excited for him and Katharine, and sad that I won't be able to be there too.

Meanwhile down here it's going to be a Dad and daughters weekend. Bit nervous, but looking forward to it as well. Just gotta work out how to fill all those hours..

Blues!

Bloggers don't seem to care for the football very much. Which is sad, because I love it, but know that posting about it will most likely be met by surreptitious eye rolling from you. But post I must.

Painfully, Origin II last night coincided with Bible study, so I only got to race home and catch the last 20 minutes, but it was a beautiful thing to see the underdog Blues get up against Queensland in front of 80,000 people. It brings a little tear to me eye.

Gallen was amazing, and the team was good in general. Hoppa's try was a beauty. Soward and Minichiello's try at the end was wonderful. I can't wait to catch the last 20 minutes of the decider in a few weeks.

Go you mighty Blues.

Book Review Wednesday by Belle

Stuff White People Like
By Christian Lander

Review by Belle

This book was certainly nothing like I expected when I casually picked it up at the library last week! According to the blurb, this is a book that “investigates, explains and offers advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion”, and it covers topics such as tea, music festivals, acoustic covers, vintage and t-shirts. It’s quite funny, although it didn’t take too long for the truth to begin to sink in: “This is me! I’m so predictable! I’m so pretentious!” That was the point at which I stopped chuckling and started freaking out.

If you’re not inclined to think too deeply about your books, this one will provide a lot of light entertainment and the bite-sized chapters make it an easy read. There are also enough American references in there to reassure an Australian reader that they can’t be that “white”. If, however, you like mulling as you read, this book could be the catalyst for a full-blown identity crisis (aaaargh, I’m a social construct!) – proceed with caution.

Either way, it’s worth a look.

Thanks for the review, Belle! Go and have a look at Belle's Elbows, it's a good read.

Super 8

E's Mum came over the other night so the two of us could go to the movies. It was great, it's been a while.

We saw the movie Super 8. To be honest, I think I'd have liked whatever we saw- I was just happy to be at the movies full stop. But it was a fun movie, and we both really enjoyed it.

It is very much a homage to those early 80's Spielberg movies like ET and 'a group of kids come of age' movies like Stand By Me. It's basically a sci fi Stand By Me really, but it works well. The group of kids really make the movie, and particularly the main boy Joel Courtney and the girl, Elle Fanning. She's really good, following in her sister Dakota's footsteps.

JJ Abrams of Lost and Cloverfield fame is at the helm, and Spielberg I think is producer, and it really feels like their kind of movie. It's a fun ride, and ha a lot of likable stuff in it. It certainly isn't perfect, and there's some pretty CG heavy aspects to it, which turns me off a little, but at the heart of it is a strong set of main characters that have been set up well to start with, so I was more than happy to go along with the ride.

3.5/5

The Quiz

1. Earliest memory of going to the movies
2. Largest amount of money you've ever found
3. A typical Saturday morning at your place
4. I gravitate towards people who..
5. I gravitate away from people who..

Test Pattern

Might be a bit of a quiet week, folks.

Thursday Peanuts

Opportunity Knocks

Read any good books lately? Novels? Cook books? Magazines? I'd love to post your reviews.

If you're keen, knock out a couple of paragraphs and email me at bmclaughlin AT sstar DOT COM DOT AU.

In return you will receive my undying loyalty and affection. And that's nothing to sneeze at, as you would well know.

Progress Report II

Facial nudity.

Progress Report

Bearding it up.

It's going to go very soon. Way too annoying. It's like having a small animal glued to your face.

Book Review Wednesday by Crazyjedidiah

Death and the Running Patterer
By Robin Adair

Review by Crazyjedidiah

Sydney, Australia 1828, Nicodemus Dunne, a transported ex-Bow Street Runner on parole, is called on by Governor Darling to help solve a spate of unsolvable murders. He joins forces with the beautiful Rachel Dormin, a seamstress, but there are many twists and turns along the way. There are also numerous suspects with secrets worth killing for, including the Governor himself. The biggest twist of them all though is who the actual killer is.

I found this really easy to read, I loved the Historical aspects, that is the real historical figures from the well known figures such as Governor Darling and Captain Rossi, to the quirky figures like the Flying Pieman. I also loved the information about the colony itself like how things had been built up and how they had been run, as well as the naming of the places. I also loved how fact and fiction were intertwined to become 'friction' without losing anything, there were little snippets of facts that didn't take anything from the story.

Anyone who enjoys a read of crime fiction and loves reading about the history of Sydney would love this book.

Crazyjedidiah blogs at Gibberish

The Tyre Swing

A couple of weeks ago E made this awesome tyre swing for The Tree in our back yard.

She is way more handy than me - she found a tyre on the side of the road, then looked up how to do it on the net, bought some rope and junk from Bunnings and did some stuff with "my" power drill while I was in the kitchen making something with "her" slow cooker. While probably wearing a floral apron.

Anyways, it turned out great. You can't so much tell from the picture, but the swinging arc is HUGE because the branch is so high. You swing right across the width of the yard. Epic. The kids love it, and they both fit on it, so there's no fighting over whose turn it is. Genius.