Anschlag!

Sometimes I feel the overwhelming urge to get authoritarian on the train, to be a vigilante who will right the wrongs I see on public transport. For they are many.

This morning I was watching a lady work on a book of find-a-words. They were difficult ones, full pages of tiny letters, with words hiding somewhere within. On top of that, at the top of the page it said "Wort Detectiv" or something or other, so I guess it was all in German to make it even harder.

But she'd not been on a page for more than a minute before she was flipping to the back, looking at the answers, then going back to her page and circling the words. Come on, lady. Cheats never prosper.

It was all I could do to restrain myself from leaning across the aisle, slapping her wrists and saying sternly, "Stoppen sie das im augenblick und tun sie es richtig!"

Or something.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

So we saw Twilight:Breaking Dawn Part 1 the other night. It was pretty bad in numerous ways, but I also apologetically loved it. Despite and because of it's badness.

Edward and Bella finally tied the knot, and went off for some early marital bliss on a deserted island where all manner of fun ensued, including several heated rounds of chess. Then, falling pregnant with vampire spawn, the honeymoon was over, and the difficulties of marriage began..

It's difficult to describe the joy and silliness of this movie adequately, so allow me to just run through some highs and lows in point form. There are SPOILERS ahead, so feel free to abandon ship now (it might be for the best).

* Hilariously in the very first scene of the movie, Jacob found an opportunity to whip his shirt off. It must be in his contract. On receiving an invite to Edward and Bella's wedding, he is furious, and yanks off his top, and to let off some steam, goes for a run. To Canada.

*The wedding and all the sugary romantic ickiness involved was actually kind of nice. I liked it, and was inwardly saying "Awww", while outwardly I sniggered and rolled my eyes. Even though it apparently took Bella about seven hours to actually make her way down the aisle while she gave furtive glances and bit her lip a lot. But still, 'awww'.

* The wedding night, I thought, was actually done surprisingly well. It showed the apprehensiveness and awkwardness well, and got across the momentous.. um..ness of the occasion. That Edward then proceeded to break the bed and most of the room was beside the point. It was tender, just in a vampire kind of way, you know?

* Excuse my soapboxing, but it was actually a refreshing change to see marriage treated in such a reverential way, and the fact they waited until this night, was frankly quite unusual for a romantic story in this day and age, vampire or not.

* As luck would have it, Bella fell pregz on the first night. What amazed me was how aghast they were at this occurrence. What? pregnancy? What is this crazy thing? They were so baffled. For a vampire who has lived for a very, very long time, Edward seemed to have a pretty ropey grasp on the ins and outs workings of the birds and bees.

* The next hour or so was kind of annoying. It became less about the two of them and just about Bella getting all skinny and bruised as the baby vamp grew at a rapid rate inside her, with Edward standing over in the corner all grumpy, mumbling and grumbling how he didn't sign on for this. Too late, buckaroo, time to man up and borrow some birth books from Faulks County Library.* Meanwhile Jacob is very angsty about the whole situation. How could Bella marry a vampire when she could have totally married a werewolf? Ludicrous. But I actually liked Jacob, and I liked how he put aside his angst and supported her anyway. He even broke away from his 'pack', who wanted to murder the lil' bubba. This however involved a very comical scene in which a pack of very dodgy CGI werewolves bark and growl angrily at each other while we hear human voice overs saying what the dogs are barking. "Grr, you're not the boss of me" "Woof, do what you're told, upstart" "Bow wow wow, nuh uh, I'm going!" Fantastic stuff.

* Bella is now skin and bones, as the demon child is apparently killing her from within as it grows. But the baby is unhappy, and they just don't don't how to satisfy it, no matter how they try. Then boom, a light bulb moment "I know, let's get Bella to drink a blood smoothie from a styrofoam cup!". These vampires are not super bright, despite their age and experience. Gosh, who would have thought that a vampire child might just want a lil' ol' bit of the red stuff? Poor old Bella- they couldn't have thought of this perhaps in the first trimester?

*Anyways, then the birth, which was epic as epic gets. Lots of blood and guts there. Also an audience of about twelve vampires plus a werewolf for good measure. Um, privacy anyone? One great thing here was how Rosalie got all freaked out at the sight of blood and had to be escorted from the room to save her from snacking, and yet then a little later it's her who is left to hold the blood-drenched baby a few minutes later. And then the great bit, the next time we see her come back in with the baby, all the blood is cleaned off, and little Renesmee (yes that's her actual name) is miraculously clean. Rosalie, you got the blood off with a dampened towel, right? Right? (Innocent whistling).

* Well then Jacob comes in, maybe to kill the baby, but whoops, he accidentally 'imprints' on her, which is basically werewolf for falling in love. Age difference issue here? Apparently not. Nice little twist, though, I thought.

* And then the nifty ending where Bella comes back from the brink of death, and is now.. A VAMPIRE!! Edward had done a Pulp Fiction on her, injecting her with some of his venom. So, all in all a relatively peaceful and run of the mill birthing experience for the happy young (sort of) couple.

Thus ends this wonderful movie. All in all, some A+ viewing.

And I can't wait for Part 2.

The Quiz

1. Favourite shop?
2. A movie you'd like to get around to re-watching
3. Something you achieved on the weekend
4. Something you didn't
5. Would you like to do some more study at some point? What would it be?

Reading

Date Night

Tonight me and E are off to see the girl marry the vampire with sparkly eyes.

It's going to be EPIC.

Thursday Peanuts

Keanu Roach

We'd run out of coffee yesterday, so I had to use decaf in the plunger at breakfast time. The taste was okay, but it did nothing to lift my head-fog, and so I had a headache for most of the day. It made me feel very cross towards decaf. What's the point? It's like eating a Big Mac only to feel healthy and well-nourished. Purpose: defeated.

Anyways, it was with great excitement that this morning I poured newly purchased ACTUAL coffee into the plunger for me and E. So I pour the water in, and put the plunger lid thing on, and push it down a bit, leaving it to sit a mo while I make my Vegemite toast, and then I hear this skitter skitter kind of noise. I look around, but can't find the source. Skitter skitter, there it is again. It has a very six-legged vibe to it. But I can't locate it, so I get on with the toast.

Then, licking my chops, I go to complete the plunger-pushing-down action, and there, as the steel plunger flat bit slowly decends towards the hot black coffee, I locate the skitter skitter source.

There, standing in a thrill-seeking manner, is a cockroach on the plunger platform. I think he thought he was Keanu Reeves in that movie Speed, fooling about in elevator shafts, climbing up on to the roofs of lifts and whatnot.

Pop quiz, hotshot- who's going to be burned alive in the sink by boiling hot kettle water, and eventually pushed through the drain with the end of a teaspoon?

NOTE: E, don't worry, I washed the plunger bit thoroughly before continuing with making your coffee. I thought it best not to bring up this escapade with you until after you'd finished drinking. I hope you understand.

One Of These Days

Have you ever noticed that over at the side there, to your right, it says "Vanishing Point" twice? Once above the picture, and then another one beneath? How annoying is that?

It happened accidentally, um, nearly four years ago, and I haven't gotten around to trying to fix it. But still, how annoying is that?

Just so you know, the one above the picture is the impostor.

Joy

So the other day I got my Best. Present. Ever.

I can't tell you how excited I am about it. I've been making a list of all the cool bits and pieces I'm going to be able to get.

Junk to build a chicken coop, a stack of plants for the yard, and plants to become bonsai, garden gnomes, paint to paint some of the rooms, tools, mulch and so much other good stuff it hurts, to be honest.

Not The Right Man For The Job

If I wasn't nervous enough about flying as it was, when I went down to Tassie, they put me right next to the emergency exit. Thanks.

Hey guy with fear of flying, can you please be responsible for saving the lives of all your fellow passengers when the plane goes down? It's not a big deal, just pull this lever, break off this whole panel of the aeroplane, throw it out the window, and help everybody get out. You'll be right mate.

And then the same on the return flight as well! The other people in my row who were responsible had obviously heard it all before and zoned out during the stewardesses' (yikes, is that term un PC now?) tutorial, whereas I was memorising every word, and poring over the instruction sheet whilst trying not to have a panic attack.

Good times.

The Quiz

1.Last time you watched an episode of The Simpsons
2.What's worrying you at the moment?
3.What's calming you at the moment?
4.Have you ever sold anything on ebay?
5.What's for lunch today?

Tatts Ahoy!

I like looking at people's tattoos. It's a way of vicariously living out my wild streak, because let's face it, were I a slightly different person, leading a slightly different life, I'd be inked, baby. Prolly some great wizard, or a barbarian with a sword, fighting a dragon. Something really good like that.

Anyways, occasionally I am impressed by people's tatts, but mostly I'm just baffled. People make strange choices about what they would like to have permanently branded on their bodies.

The other day I saw a girl in her early 20's with a dolly tattooed on her arm, a really big one. All well and good, except that it was a zombie dolly with green decaying skin and red eye balls. Fabbo for your edgy early 20's, but what if she has kids down the track? They are going to be traumatised daily by Mummy's terrifying death dolly. they'll be more scarred for life than she is. Another girl I saw was more thoughtful. She had a big Snow White scene on her arm, all Disney and lovely, with cute lil' watery eyed dwarfs fawning about the place. Her future daughters say thank you.

The train was crowded this morning, and I stood right behind this other lady, about three inches from her back. At the top of her neck was some name tattooed in running writing. It was lovely and all, I'm sure, but even from three inches the writing was completely indecipherable. It looked like it had been done with a Magnadoodle- basically just a black, bleedy blob of ink. Nice. But sadly her back lacked that great feature of the Magnadoodle which allows you to delete said black bleedy blob.

This same lady also had a little treble clef tattooed behind her ear. I've seen a fair few peeps with one of those bad boys. I guess it's a bit of a homage to music. "Hey, guess what world, I like music a real lot". Good for you. But this to me has always seemed a bit broad and overly general. No offence, but most people like music a lot. Could you not be a bit more specific about your fondness? It would be like a sailor, rather than having "Mum" tattooed in a love heart on his briny forearm, just getting "Mothers" instead. It doesn't really matter which Mum, I just quite like mothers in general, you know.

There is no other real point to this post. But please continue to get strange tattoos so that I can keep pondering your strange logic when I'm bored on the train.

Brave

Looking forward to this one.

Book Review Wednesday by Belle

How I Became a Famous Novelist
by Steve Hely

Reviewed by Belle

This book tells the story of Pete Tarslaw, a guy who hasn’t quite recovered from being dumped by his girlfriend back in college. When he hears she’s engaged, he decides to write a best-selling novel so that at her wedding she’ll see how cool he is and regret ever having let him go. He studies the best-seller list and the people who buy those books, decides on key, sell-able ingredients for his story and characters, and then sets out to become rich and famous. His goal: “Write a popular book. Do not waste energy making it a good book.”

‘How I Became a Famous Novelist’ is funny and clever. I loved Hely’s jabs at contemporary fiction – “lyrical” prose is one thing that often drives me NUTS in novels these days (Markus Zusak’s writing in The Book Thief is a prime example –blecch!) and Pete Tarslaw’s intentionally and ridiculously flowery language is hilarious. I also loved the completely unromantic way Pete approaches writing his book. Early on he decides (page 73):

“Writing a novel – actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs – is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV’s so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it’s damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.”

I found this book immensely enjoyable. It’s original and fun and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for entertainment and/or distraction and/or an interesting look at what makes a book great.

Thanks Belle! Check out Belle's Elbows.

Tassie

Well, I had a great time down in Tassie with my brother. It was quite an adventure. The highlight was our trip out to the remote South West wilderness. We camped down in the bush, then got up the next morning and did the Mt. Anne track, climbing Mt. Eliza (apt!).

It took about four hours to the top, and then another three back down. The last hour or so of the climb was really hard, I had to face a lot of fears! It was a big boulder fall, so we had to scale all these massive rocks, on a steep incline, feeling like you could blow off the edge to my death at any minute! I'd never done anything like it before, so it was pretty life changing, though completely and utterly exhausting.

Had a good time at my bro's place as well, up in the mountains on a big bush property. All in all, a great trip, but it was fantastic to get home to my girls as well. We'd never been apart that long so I missed them a lot.

Hope you've all been well, and it's good to be back in Sydders!

The Quiz

1. A household name you resent knowing
2. How many novels have you read this year? (Don't worry, it'll be more than me)
3. How many non-fiction books?
4. What's worse- tea breath or coffee breath?
5. the last thing you ate

Adios

So this will be my last post before heading off on my Tassie adventure at the crack of dawn tomoz. I hope you have a good few days, and I'll see you when I get back.

Not very fond of flying, so please pray that both wings remain attached to the plane and that I don't wind up on a beach chatting to a volley ball called Wilson.

By the way, I've even scheduled a quiz for Monday, that's how much I love you. See you a day or two after that.

Peace out.

Spider On The Silverbeet

Princess Going To The Ball

Little e did this painting at pre school. It's called "Princess Going To The Ball".

But all I can see when I look at it, is this guy-

Jacaranda

The Quiz

1. I can't believe I used to..
2. How many planes do you reckon you've been on?
3. A movie you want to see
4. I think people probably see me as..
5. But really I'm..

3 More Sleeps

Very, very early this Thursday morning I head off on a solo trip down to Tassie to spend a few days with my brother, somewhere in the foothills of Mt Wellington. He said there's still snow at his place, so I better pack the thermals. I'll be back early next week.

The plan is apparently to wander off on An Adventure into the mountains and camp out. Never been to Tassie. Never seen snow. Never flown alone. Rare chance to catch up with my bro. I'm very excited. Ben vs. Wild, y'all!

Who Left The Tap Running?

Our good mate Simon McGrath got into Sculpture by the Sea.

Check out the massive tap..

Book Review Wednesday by Belle

Things the Grandchildren Should Know
by Mark Oliver Everett

Review by Belle

I really, really liked this book. Everett, aka E, is the genius behind Eels, a band responsible for two of my favourite songs of all time. Everett’s life has been crazily tragic, yet he tells his story in a way that celebrates life rather than begs pity (without making you gag with its positivity). It’s simply but powerfully written; in no way is it emotionally manipulative, but I laughed, cheered, cried, grumbled and, ultimately, celebrated along with him.

Understanding the inspiration behind Everett’s lyrics has made me adore his songs all the more (Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) is one perfect example), and understanding how much work goes into arranging the song order on an album has made me repent of often picking out my favourites rather than listening through from start to finish. This book left me feeling happy. If you haven't yet met Eels, open up grooveshark and introduce yourself immediately. And then read this book.

Thanks for the tip, Belle. I'm only vaguely little familiar with Eels, maybe I'll track an album down. Check out Belle's Elbows.

Triumph

Me and E finished a crossword last night.

The fact that we spent half the time standing by the computer typing stuff into Google, Wikipedia and online thesauruses is completely beside the point.

It's That Time Of Year Again..

Silly high heels!

Semi-cooked canapes!

Dopey hats!

People throwing away their money!

Too-short dresses!

Stressed out horses!

Lot's of annoying drunk people!

I'm so pumped it hurts.

Wattamolla, Y'all