The Curious Beast That is a Weekend

So here's the thing.....

It's Friday night and you've survived another week in the hideous rat race that is corporate life. The cubicle has been left behind in a shower of sparks (this is not generally recommended Monday - Thursday on OH & S grounds but entirely OK on Fridays when frankly - who the hell cares if the carpet catches on fire?) as you accelerate out of the building bound for 48 hours of sheer unadulterated leisure (unless of course you are conducting an affair out of your relationship in which case it will be all adulterated I'm guessing). You decide that tonight, in direct contravention of social conventions worldwide that you will not go out tonight, and stop in at the Indian takeaway, liquor store for some wine, and convenience store for some dessert and go home to watch an episode or two of whatever TV show came out on DVD that week. You stay up late, mostly due to the sugar high from the wine and dessert, and look forward to a sleep in Saturday morning, ignoring the pleas from your exercise junkie friend to exercise on the weekend and run around a 50 hectare park at 4 a.m. Saturday morning ( who incidentally should be locked away for his own mental health)....

Saturday dawns (but naturally you decline to check it our for yourself and just accept that if the sun's come up when you wake up that the dawn did indeed happen) and you bound from bed - OK crawl in slow deliberate movements to the coffee - ready to face a day of running errands...after the sort of brunch that you never eat during the week and that will set off cholesterol alarms at the Heart Institute.... god bless the super grande el gigante breakfast of champions (and possible heart attack victims) that gets you set up for a day of grocery shopping, buying things you don't need (and never will) and driving to far flung parts of the city you live in to see dear and close friends where you will eat that will further trigger those already klaxon-like alarms at the Heart Institute...but you don't care because you have no timetable (other than the social opprobrium of turning up late for Uncle Carls' 80th birthday BBQ at the local RSL).... ah what a glorious thing is a Saturday!!

Then Sunday comes along, and if you are like half of Sydney, you head to Yum Cha in Chinatown..... there, if you are insane enough (and it's entirely possible most of us are stark raving bonkers), you arrive just as the crushing masses surge forward eager for their weekly fix of chicken's feet (I feel sorry for all those poor lame chickens in wheelchairs), eggplant/tofu (yum!), or pork buns (that I maintain look just like the pods in Alien/s....and I once ordered then using that name.....the Chinese waitress clearly was no pop culture addict and looked at me blankly).... or if you are like me, you turn up at 11 and have a brunch-type take on Yum Cha and are done in time to see a movie just after lunch..... of course somewhere in the middle of all the activity, you have to find time for that most sacred of weekend rituals.....The Nanna Nap...combine that with Saturday's Herald and you have the perfect afternoon....OK throw in some LindorBalls and you have the perfect afternoon..... right some Pinot Grigio, Lindor Balls, the Herald and nap and you have...well you get the idea....

Hot Cross Buns, Lindt Bunnies.... Oh My!

So this is Christmas...what have we done?....wait a second....no it's not.... the year has moved so fast, it's already Easter, and what's more it's almost over! I have done my best to use the time well - napping, movie watching, book reading, iPoding music (yes love using brand names as verb...think it should be a national sport!).....and catching up with good friends....I have also, as is clearly obvious, finally found my blog again in the wilds of cyberspace, and I am making an entry...... of course after 3 days of near to no thinking, my brain has the consistency and mental alacrity of tapioca pudding (never considered one of the clever desserts), and so this will be just a general quick entry...

It's been a brilliant Easter break.....I briefly thought of packing the 4 days with endless catch ups, outings, movies etc but decided I couldn't be..you know.... so I just saw a movie on Friday ("The Dinner Guest" - French and wonderfully farcical..they do it so well!) with my friend Tim, spent Saturday morning at Temple (aka IKEA - a holy place with do it yourself religious experiences...and swearing!), and Saturday evening drinks on the roof of the Zanzibar Hotel in Newtown (they have a bar there lest you think I was clinging to guttering with a martini in one hand, and a bowl of peanuts in the other...hmm that could be fun!) with friends Fahmi & Stephen....and Sunday was just lunch out with my friend Peter.... all very chilled and civilised.... and miracle of miracles, and a sure sign of the coming apocalypse, I put up my new IKEA CD unit (striking red to sit among the existing 4 silver ones - tres chic) a day after I bought it!!! I know.... none of that box becoming a part of the furniture routine.... the box is open, and the unit has been assembled with minimal swearing.... it's a sign! Not sure of what exactly but it is a holy weekend so it could be a sign of anything....I'm hoping for a good sign as impending pestilence and war is not my idea of a good time..... funny that....

I leave this entry with the following picture - I am sure the designer had such very good, dare I say, holy intentions, but unfortunately the end result is....well....let's just say Jesus needs a better PR agency.....

When Turnips Ruled the World

To be honest I wasn't around when giant turnips ruled the world - if in fact they ever did; the fossil record is scant in this regard - but was around when the rain poured down on Wednesday night (6 Feb) and still I went to the Open Air Cinema. Going to this most breezy of cinema complexes is a sacred rite of Summer for me, and the more times the better. When it's fine at least. Back when Sydney was mired in drought, worrying about a rainy night would have had you locked up in a mental institute, whereas now it marks you as perfectly sane, and well informed weather-wise. This year has been marked by never-ending deluges and even though I am a supreme optimist, not even that can stop the clouds spilling forth their raindrops. At least on Wednesday night, we made it through dinner with nary a droplet falling from the sky - and thankfully Warren & I had parked ourselves under a giant umbrella on the upper level of the eating concourse - but the fun started when just before the movie, so did the rain in a deluge that would have had Noah a little concerned......and me without my ark! (Hate it when I leave it at home....Mum always said to leave home prepared for any and every apocalypse but sadly I have gotten slack in my middle age.)

Unlike a great many other people, we stuck around for the movie, a delightful (if wafer-thin) romantic comedy called "Definitely Maybe", featuring the delicious Ryan Reynolds, and clad in our clear ponchos, rode out the rain which lasted for only about a third of the way into the movie.....it wasn't exactly sunshine and roses after that, but nor was it the deluge that swamped Sydney, and we walked back to the car nice and toasty dry..... alas my work bag, caught in the flood that washed across the floor of the dining area didn't fare as well but it has lived to commute again you will all be relieved to know...

Long time, no blog...has the world changed?

So it's been a while since the old blog was updated sad to say....actually there's very little emotional swirl attached to saying that but it sounds suitably contrite and a little melodramatic... I am not entirely sure who pressed the Fast Forward button on my life, and pushed me so far into the future, which interestingly has an eerie resemblance to the present, but the blog entry I am absolutely positively intended to do the next day never materialized... until now ...... there may be issues of alien abduction involved here, or a Bermuda Triangle disappearance, and really that would be far more dramatic, but in reality, I just got busy...far too busy...and a little lazy.....

But I am lazy no more! (He says with a flourish of the cape he doesn't have).....and yes the world has changed....well mine has anyway....since that last entry, I have finally left my old job (which was killing me with stress...alas not kindness.... and giving very little back) and got a great new one (which makes sense...getting a crappy new one would have been a village idiot kind of thing to do).... moved from The Shire (way down in Sydney's deep dark southern suburbs) to my natural home in the Inner West (I can hear David Attenborough narrating the doco now)..... and started exploring a whole new neighbourhood, life... and a great pizza place (this ranks very high on great new things in my life!)......

...and today is a blissful glorious day off, which naturally, as an office worker chained to a PC, I am partially spending at my computer.....lol..... good old Australia Day and the magnificent public holiday it brings.... after a week of frantic deadlines, and many social outings, all I plan to do today is read the rest of a novel (yes fast living folks!!) and take a nap..... stellar high-reaching goals I know but I daresay achievable by dint of their ordinariness.....

HAPPY OZ DAY!

JUST ANOTHER MANIC MOVIE REVIEW

"The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada", which I saw last night, is a profoundly touching movie that examined everything from racism in the USA and how this affects their border policies, the callous disregard for life bred into people who treat the illegal immigrants as less than animals with no understanding that they are people with lives too (something that is beautifully underlined later in the movie when the border patrol guard kidnapped by Tommy Lee Jones's character, Pete Perkins, comes face to face with a Mexican woman he assaulted back in the USA when arresting her, who was deported back to Mexico), and the loneliness and disengagement of people from others, or their homes - whether its the border patrol guard 1000s of miles from home, or the Mexican immigrant who makes a home in the USA but with the constant threat of deportation, which makes true interaction with their adopted land well nigh impossible, or the wife of the cafe owner in the border town who is married but plays around on the side so emotionally estranged from her husband is she. It was a slow moving drama, with a rich tapestry of characters, and in amongst all the grimness, quite a bit of macabre humour which softened the unrelenting harshness of the landscape and the lives of the people in it........all in all, a brilliant, emotionally evocative movie.....

Now I am old? I don't think so! Reflections on turning 40

So the big 4 - 0 hey? I have no idea why certain milestone numbers - yes we are still imperial when it comes to big birthdays it seems! - suddenly have to be spelt out, like you are trying to hide something from someone. Reminds of when my parents would spell something out when I was child so I wouldn't know what they were getting or doing - it may have been true that I couldn't understand that the spelled word was, but I understood the act of spelling all right and the fact that it meant something! Somehow saying the two numbers separately doesn't disguise the fact that I am officially sliding into a gloriously vigorous middle age.....not that I am all that worried really. 40...sorry 4 - 0....is the new 30 I am told, and 50 is the new 35, which places me back at the start of my 30s, which thus far has been my favourite decade. Lots of wisdom about me and how the world operates coupled with youtful zest (no, not lemon zest - too bitter) - lt's see of the 40s can top that! As ever, my cup is half full....full of Vanilla Coke that is!

The birthday was marked by a 12 day visit to Canada on frequent flier miles, where I got to help celebrate (and organise the party of) my wonderful friend, Sandra, who also turned 4 - 0. (See I still know what I mean!) I spent 2 days covering the greater part of Port Coquitlam (in Vancouver) with Ilesa, Sandra's friend and neighbour, for lots of food, red and yellow everything (inspired by the balloons we ordered) and even a birthday tiara (plastic) and a sash saying "Birthday Queen", which also somehow ended up on me at the 40th. Thats right - make fun of the gay man! LOL The party went off a treat....I drank lots of Sangria, Sandra got to see some close friends, and there was cake! Mmmmm....cake....when I wasn't doing the Queer Eye for the Party Guy routine, I was shopping in Kitsilano (funky neighbourhood) and downtown (with Sandra where we stopped in for sushi at good ol' Tsunami Sushi, and lots o' CDs at HMV Megastore), and checking out dead frozne salmon in a stream.....well I was supposed to be checking out live ones rushing to spawn but I was a tad too late....

Flew back into Sydney Town on the day of my birthday, where I was not wished Happy Birthday by the customs officer (so much for my tax dollars at work!) and carrying a very bad cold picked up courtesy of Sandra and her partner Ken's two lovely kids, Katie and Graham. The one thing I didn't have was jetlag but after some shopping and a birthday lunch of Indian with Susie, a very good friend, I had to come home and crash out for 3 hours to sleep off the effects of the cold. Do I know how to party of not?! Got up, felt way better, got an SMS from Warren (this great guy I met via Yahoo Personals, who may yet turn out to be the best birthday present yet) right at 6.18 pm when I was born - very sweet! - talked to various wonderful freinds, and Mum & Dad and headed out for fish and chips from the local in Gymea with John and Susie. Yes another night of wild and frantic partying that may or may not have included drunken sheep and small people with killer abs (long story) but more than likely didn't....

Got home, watched some "Queer As Folks" I'd taped, and then rang Warren at 10.30 pm for what I presumed would be a quick chat prior to our get together on Sunday. We talked for 3 and a half hours with a single stop, awkward silence or anything. Way cool. (Its very hard to make smart remakrs when you're happy isn't it? That could become a problem real soon, methinks). We did try a couple of awkward silences just for effect but they inevitably ended after 5 secnds when one of us lost concentration. Let's face it Waz - we suck at awkward silences! It was a wonderful end to my birthday and was followed by a quick call to my friend Kerry in Briz Vegas, who's a complete night owl.

The next big event on the 4 - 0 calendar was the Big Birthday Dinner That Ate Paris on Saturday night.....OK there were only 7 of us but they were very good friends (Andrew, an old housemate, Ellen & Tracy, John & Susie and Ross, a friend who travelled down from Newcastle, which was wonderful of him) and everything went like clockwork.....had the dinner at a fantastic restaurant called "Sealevel" at Cronulla, and we tucked into gloriously rich food (Szechuan Pork Fillets with mango, and pear dressing and rice rolls for me!) we looked onto the night ocean , lit up by a spectacular storm. Conversation flowed freely, as did the Southern Comforts and Coke (here's to not driving!!), and we followed up dinner, after a frantic dash through the rain (me with a ton of helium balloons including a giant Tigger one!), with Toblerone Cheesecake, silly party hats and presents at Ellen's. If you have to turn 4 - 0, then I figure this is the way to do it - great friends, great food, and cheesecake.....and you can quote me on that....

Right now to my 41 st year....roll on !!!

Dates, Figs and Various Other Types of Fruit

So I know that you have all been waiting with baited breath - I can't use that phrase without picturing a tiny, shocked worm desperately clinging to a teensy weensy hook, hanging from a minute piercing on the upper lip, while suspended over the gaping maw of someone's oesophagus: presumably someone did that once I 'd like to think unless there's a more prosaic reason for the phrase's evolution which would frankly be a bit disappointing - to see how my date went. Well so have I really! I am still waiting for a phonecall or email two weeks after the second date, which I was asked out on about 3/4 of the way through the firs date, which went exceptionally well. We met at a trendy cafe in Newtown, a funky inner city Sydney suburb, inside the Dendy arthouse cinema complex, and to my delight (I delight easily it seems) the man in question, Phillip, turned up in his work suit, looking suitably well dressed and handsome. So far so good. Thankfully there was a minimum of syllable-barren awkwardness, and we soon fell into a wide ranging discussion of our upbringings, backgrounds, families and the deteriorating geo-political situation in the Abkhazia region of the old USSR. Just kidding about the last bit but that would have been an interesting twist in the conversation. So engaging was the conversation, and so well did we get on that he asked me for a second date, even settling on the Thursday two days later.....

So fast forwarding to the Thursday, we agreed to meet at a funky (there's that word again but hey this is Newtown, and besides its a very cool word, right up with there with 'plethora' and 'soporific') Thai restaurant at 7 p.m. Only we didn't quite make it there, or in actual fact to anything resembling a real restaurant. He called me when I was already driving to the funky eatery (see you just can't use that word enough!) and proposed a switch of venue to the Taxi Club, which is just off Taylor Square, right in the heart of the gay heartland. All well and good, but City traffic is a bi-artch, and finding a parking spot recalls the search for the Yeti, Loch Ness Monster and Elvis all rolled into one gloriously frustrating quest, testing even the most half glass full of people (which would be me). As all sorts of funkiness slipped from my mind, replaced instead with 300-400 circuits of the roads around the Taxi Club, a lovely drive if you like construction work and bitumen, I had the vague feeling that this date was slipping into a coma even before it got going. But rallying my optimism (ya gotta love a Sagitarrian's ability to cultivate optimism), I persisted till dizziness (one too many circuits of the same block) and a dying wanderlust for discovering new and unknown neighbourhoods, forced me to call Phillip and propose another change of venue to Fox Studios, near where he lives. He didn't sound too thrilled but agreed and so being the nice guy that I am, proposed parking at Fox, and driving in his car - he has free parking - to the Taxi Club.

Happy to do this, we rocked up to the Taxi Club, and I wandered into something akin to a rundown RSL full of cross dressers (not an issue) and old carpet and ambience from a forgotten decade with bad decor. In its defense, I had one of the best salmon fillets EVER there and the French waiter, camp as an entire tent factory, was a lot of fun, and made ordering a vaudeville experience....and Phillip and I talked non stop....so mostly all good right? Well on paper yes, but something niggled at me as we drove back to Fox. Phillip had lost some sort of spark, and having not admitted to a yearning to marry him immediately (absent I can assure you), sympathies for right wing dictatorships (past or present), or a love of clog dancing to polka music at midnight while nude, I couldn't think of anything I could have said to put him off. There was much talk of keeping in touch via email and SMS over the next week, when he would be busy fixing up his rental house, and couldn't see me, and after a half-hearted hug that put human embraces back a few thousand years in terms of warmth and intimacy, he walked off, and though I tried to stay upbeat and positive, had a funny feeling that was it.....and it seems it has been. I am not entirely sure why gay man cut and run, and never even call you to say 'thanks but no thanks', but I find it faintly amusing that he thinks his rejection of me, when he didn't even know me, would send me into some sort of Cecil B deMille-esque melodramatic rant involving much crying, gnashing teeth and copious amounts of ash flung over hastily stitched together sackcloth. He would have actually got more of a mildy ambivalent shrug but let him run with his ridiculously over-inflated sense of his own magnetic attraction!

At least I found out he had great claim to flake status before he sucked me dry of money, hope or the will to live which some previous boyfriends have done. OK not the will to live, which I am rather fond of, but you get the idea. The upside to all this is that another man who said hello via the online personals at about the same time, had quietly snuck up the inside and he and I are well on the way to becoming brilliantly good friends, with the very real promise of more substantial things to come. Yes, happiness isn't as funny as dating disasters but I am happy to put aside witty barbs if it means I find true love...or as close you get to it in this life.....

And then he ate and a great multitude of calories did enter him

Ya gotta love the weekends! They invariably involve catch-ups with friends, and very rarely does this involve learned discussion of Archimedes principles of buoyancy; usually its food and great amounts of it. I do tend to let myself depart from my usually spartan diet on the weekends, consuming chocolate bars, Indian food, and icecream like its going out of fashion (and the way Sara Lee discontinues product lines, that could well be the case) but this weekend set all new benchmarks. I managed to consume two lots of Indian food - but in the interests of variety I did vary the curries lest you fear I had fallen into a great big culinary rut and couldn't climb out), fish and chips (accompanied by a long walk with a good friend and his hyperactive 2 year old so that must count for a reduction in the calorie count surely), and tons of Yum Cha including the Alien Pods (pork buns), Jellyfish (dumplings) and Glowing Yellow Logs (mango pancakes) - notice my use of the actual Chinese terms (which they would be if the Chinese person was adopted at birth by Caucasians who didn't teach their child of word of their native tongue). And today? Low flat muesli bars and cucumbers with salmon....yep, DE-CA-DENT.....

I have a date tonight! You don't care really but after 9 months of licking my wounds after the last disasterous foray into building long and lasting intimate relations with someone, I am back in the fray and in exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes shall be making really awkward conversation for a good 10 minutes till I either hit a comfortable groove or start counting the time till I can reasonably walk away with dignity intact. Stay tuned.

All Those Little Things That Jam My Brain

Its been awhile snce I visited the ol' blog, and many small, spectacularly important, as you will soon see, questions and observations have rushed into my brain, stuck to my grey matter like super glue and refused to let go. So in an attempt to dislodge them, and free up my brain space for important things like watching "Grey's Anatomy" and ordering lunch, here they are in all their unadorned glory:

(1) Why did my iPod, which if pushed could no doubt rule the world in a benign and caring fashion while simultaneously washing up and watching over a flock of sheep (assuming I had anywhere in my 1 bedroom apartment to keep them) beep at me when it was uploading the latest batch of Songs I Cannot Live Without When Away From Home - yep, it has all the manners of a backwoods peasant as a medieval banquet at times - and say it couldn't find song such-and-such and hence couldn't upload it. Yet it knew that song was there hence the song must have been there to upload. Strangely enough my yelling at it that the song must have been there for it to know it even existed, failed to move it and it remained defiant to the end, hinting that if I pushed it, I would find myself in a chain gang smashing extremely large rocks in Mongolia, come the revolution when it would take over the world (yes, I know, I should never have mentioned to it that I thought it could pull it off).

This naturally forced me to.....meekly tinker with the name of the song so the iPod would deign to recognise it. So I guess that cowardly act rules me out of leading the resistance to my iPod's rule - unless I get another MP3 player, with no charisma or ability to govern anything - then I will be free to resist the benign yet despotic rule of my iPod which...what's that above me? An anvil - but wait where'd it come from? And what's that sliver of white & silve behind it? No it can't be! It is...aaagghh....

(2) Right - false alarm....just my overactive imagination and love of cheesy melodrama getting the better of me.....now where was I? Ah yes trivial thoughts that may yet impact mankind's very future on this planet...actually this one already has...I have become quite the Ebay mogul of late, selling tons 'o' stupidly ill-considered purchases in an attempt to get the baying wolves of VISA from my door.....didn't know they were using baying wolves did you? Yes the wolves, and the odd really ticked off wolverine, and irritated domesticated barnyard fowl, were all congregating at my door far too often, scaring the aforementioned herd of sheep, so something had to be done!

Oh, and I had to somehow get some money for my trip to Canada in November so I immediately drew up a lengthy list of Christmas ornaments I never put on the tree, DVDs I have yet to watch even though when I bought them I Had To Have Them Or Life Itself Would End, singles of an eclectic collection of artists, and in the most amazing part of this, gathering together a pile of plastic creatures that came in Kelloggs cereals back in the early 70s that I had recently found it were worth actual money! Lots of actual money! They have been the cash cow of my whole operation - just a second, I have to calm the sheep; the idea of a large bovine near them scared them silly - in one case bringing in $210 for 6 small plastic pirates. Yes honestly. So while I am not a hoarder - when you move as much as I do, hoarding is a silly idea! - I am heartily glad I am a sentimentalist and kept these tokens of my childhood. So I can sell them off, and make money as an adult! Natch! Not sure if I owe my parents a cut off the proceeds since they did buy the cereal in the first place, but I will try to convince them that my great love for them is more than enough compensation...or give them a few sheep maybe....

(3) As well as selling off treasured mementoes of my childhood to the highest bidder like some callous childhood memento selling-type person - do not let me near your treasure childhood knick knacks or you will find them on Ebay faster than you can blink; I have the fever, I tell you, I have the fever and must sell - it all!! - I have also decided to be austere and only buy things I actually need when I need them. Get out! Too late, I already am! Now this thought initially was as alien as suggesting I miss the latest series of Survivor - Stephenie has been brought back for the latest jaunt...hooray! ....this time to Guatemala - but I have done it over the last 3 months and discovered you don't need Lots of Stuff. Frightening indeed but true. Of Course, VISA and Mastercard are running scared, warning shareholders of profit downgrades this year, and I have had one or two calls from the Treasury begging me to keep spending, lest the economy stall....but I am resolute.....I am going to keep living on less...so I can spend lots in another country instead! Hello Canada!

Right well now that my brain is a little freer now, I think its time to think about what to have for lunch.....sushi perhaps? See, I do focus on the important stuff!

!POP! KORN

MOVIE

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

I was beginning to wonder if I was meant to see this movie as my first attempt coincided with a rainy Father's Day and untold numbers of families deciding that the ultimate bonding experience would be a movie, and specifically the one I wanted to see, and my second, on the following weekend, synching beautifully with a massive street fair in Cronulla which meant that I couldn't find a parking spot to save myself. Success at last, and by this stage I was loudly proclaiming to my film buddy, Ellen, that the film had better be as good as everyone was saying, at Westfield Miranda which not only had it on at a good time, but had parking spaces (mercy me!) and tickets available. All snug in our seats and surrounded by more teens & pre-teens that a single person in their late 30s should ever be exposed to in a concentrated period, we beamed the sweet smile of victory as the pre-show ads and trailers (for a super exciting mix of G rated fare that I won't be seeing, thank you, lovely though the trailers are) started flickering onto the screen.....alas, with NO sound! Yes there was much gnashing of teeth, and a frantic rummaging of my mind as I'd tried to remember if I had ever offended Tim Burton (the director) at any point, and if so ( a little hard since I had never met him but ya never know), was he isn't some occultic religion that cursed me to never see any of his movies? (A very ego centric occultic religion if I may say so.) But then the sweet decibels of overhyped trailers and pointless ads kicked in and stayed on for the entire movie! Success at last!

So was it as good as the critics, all of whom praised it as a witty, colourful and faithful re-imagining of the dark tale by Roald Dahl, said it was? Thankfully, yes. Visually it was stunning, full of more rich colours inside the factory than I could process, and appropriate winter-like bleakness outside it, which made the scenes inside Willy Wonka's chocolate-driven flight from reality all the more richer. Freddy Highmore, who played Charlie, had the right mix of goodness & sweetness (without miraculously becoming nausea inducing), and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka was a delightful mix of loopy, dark, engaging and sad, and an absolute standout in the movie. Tim Burton was in fine form, staying faithful to the book, which no doubt suited him just fine since he and Roald Dahl share the same delightfully twisted view of the world. Even the brief musical numbers, performed by the mysterious Oompa Loompas to send off the four children who's various human foibles and glaring flaws doom their chance to win the factory as an inheritance, were fun, kitsch, and oh, did I mention, brief. Having disliked people spontaneously breaking into song in any movie since I was a child, this was an EGT (Exceedingly Good Thing)! There is very little to dislike in a movie that manages to wrap surreal characters, unusual circumstances and a happy non-corny ending - the less corn the better I say - into one wonderfully coloured, vibrant fun movie.

Strangely enough, I was left with a strong desire to eat not chocolate, which is what you'd expect after a movie set in a chocolate factory but for a chicken roast dinner, which Charlie's family ate in the last scene of the movie......so of course I went home, and ate a cajun flavoured kangaroo steak.....very, very close to a chicken roast dinner....OK no it isn't.....

Back from the dead (and boy was that coffin cramped)

Well I have recovered from a near fatal attack (OK not really but it sounds suitably dramatic) of the flu which turned the last 2 weeks or so into a (very pleasant at times) haze of Codral cold and flu tablets, enough zinc tablets that I should be able to start mining myself at some stage in the future should I need more money and commodity prices hold firm, and enough Advil to warrant a seat on the board of that company as a major investor. While the dreaded lurgy did earn me a week of work - a good thing at any time - my 'time off' consisted of staring at the TV with my best impersonation of a lobotimised mental patient watching - it pains me to admit this - day time TV! Yes, Yes I know, how could I ? How could I breach that sacred covenant that we all make with ourselves to only watch day time dross....NEVER? It started with the 10.30 a.m. news, which is quite justifiable since knowledge is a good thing, and I should exercise my brain while the rest of my body turns on itself like a few Balkan nations with way too much weaponry and time on their hands, and soon graduated to "Hope and Faith" ( an admittedly B-grade sitcom but I grew to love it - sad I know but it was the Codral I swear!), "Still Standing" (also 2nd tier but really quite anti-establishment and not your typical family sitcom....I like it deliciously subversive style), "Murder She Wrote" (c'mon Angela Lansbury looks like a lovely cuddly grandmother and when you're sick, who doesn't want to soak in such lovely warm maternal-ish images) and bfore I knew it, and impromptu naps permitting, I was watching.....oh God forgive me!!....OPRAH! Who knew so many woman were in need of relationship counselling/makeovers/decent books to read (while sick maybe?)....I , for one, had no idea and I am profoundly changed after watching more episodes than is good for anyone...well, 'profoundly' may be stretching it, but I can now talk about all sorts of Important Issues with suitable Oprah-esque gravitas, and hence, am all the more in demand at dinner parties hosted by those with actual lives and no time to watch day time TV......my dirty little secret is that I am still taping "Still Standing" but not "Oprah".....I do still have some pride, you know.....

Now that I actually feel like myself again - assuming I even know the real me which is debatebale given that Oprah has opened my eyes to how little I know about Important Issues which would have to include me right? - I have decided to start sticking all the photos still in tubs into photo albums as an Urgent Priority, which would be fine if there was only a few rolls but we're talking 3 boxes full, people! 3 BOXES! Yes, I wanted to run of the door screaming but the deadlock was on at the time so that didn't work too well. Must add sanding back the door to my lists of Things To Do.....the wonderful part of the whole exercise, aside from this whacked out idea of mine that organising the photos will be fun, and bring a sense of completeness and joy that hitherto I could only imagine, is that I have photos from the last 3 decades all mixed together! Not the smartest thing to have done but with all the moving I have managed to cram into my 15 years in Sydney, its not surprising....and even though I hardly ever take it, I blame Codral for the mess my photos are in! Yes Codral! Not only does it relieve cold and flu symptoms but it can also be used as a handy scapegoat! I expect to have all my photos in albums shortly before my death in 50 years time, or before the coming of Jesus, which happens to arrive first, assuming of course I never take any more photos, like that'll happen...yep, I'm screwed....

By the way, and with this I conclude I swear, does anyone actually like Tuesdays? It's a nothing day - not quite the start of the week but not even Hump Day.....its suck awkwardly in the middle, kind of like the 2nd year of a uni degree......

Someone stole my life and I want it back!

If only it were that dramatic...in truth, I am living the sort of life that I hope will win me all sorts of "Wow he's so dedicated to his art" bylines when the Novel That Rules My Life is sitting at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for the 20th week in a row, and people are wishing that another book, any other book such as "The History of Concreting in Latvia" (a solid read if ever there was one) or "When Ferrets Ruled the World", would sell more copies......yes, all I have right now are my ever present fantasies as I keep getting up at 3 a.m. to write for an hour and a half before going powerwalking for one hour through very dark streets, all the time hoping that I only suffer for my art, and not my commitment to exercising....so far I have not acquired a stalker and my iPod and I have been left in peace....I can't help thinking though that a stalker could provide untold health benefits, spurring me to walk faster and faster especially past the Police station....naturally we would have an unspoken stalker/stalkee bond where he/she only agreed to view me from afar from behind street lights - they would have to be an anorexic stalker to accomplish that - and did not under any circumstances feel the need to pray with me/marry me/do macrame with me....I am not entirely sure you can trust a stalker to agree to those kind of terms, but I will just remind them that if I am crazy enough to get up at 3 a.m. to type words into my PC, then I am crazy enough to do just about anything.....

One highlight of my thrilling and endlessly exciting life was winning a massive near inter-galactic in proportions trivia contest in Cronulla last Friday night, along with 7 other people including good friends, Andrew, Ellen & Tracy....OK I may have lied a little about the size of said contest - no actual aliens turned up so it was more earthbound in scope, I suppose but, and I cannot say this enough, WE WON! Not only did we win, beating 15 other tables of people, but we had two perfect rounds of 10/10, which I think is pretty much about the only time I have ever got remotely close to perfection in my life (its all downhill from here baby!), despite my attempts to perfect score in gymnastics.....that goal was severely hampered from being realised by my failure to actually take up gymnastics....for my troubles I won 2 free movie passes, along with a share in a massive box of chocolates, partway through the night, which I think may have contributed to our eventual victory, given how hopped up on sugar, caffeine and artificial colours & flavours we ended up......and if it didn't egg on our neurones and synpases to great eternal glory, it meant we did a one hell of a kick ass victory dance.....I mean we were very humble and didn't overdo it all....no, I'm fairly sure we hollered and screamed and made damn sure that everyone knew we were happy to have won......in my defense, to those who think we got carried away, may I just say it was the chocolate talking......really...nah kidding......

So Zen Like I Have Passed Out

I have just heard the most profound, amazing, impactful piece of philosophy from a co-worker that will no doubt lead to the establishment of several new mono & polytheistic religions, a new dawn for man, and possibly, cures for the common cold & a better mousetrap. Here it is...prepare to be awed and change forever:

"I am self sufficient like a vacuum cleaner."

No, I have no idea what it means either...........

Monday on My Mind - Hmmm, Feels like a Headache

To my absolute "delight", the flu that was lurking for several days and never got past a bad chest infection, thanks to an O/D of Zinc Complex tablets (not sure where all the simple, stupid zinc goes - vitamin boot camp perhaps? - but certainly not into the depths of my immune system where it would no doubt have had to ask for directions to my lymph glands while I got sicker) , cleared up last night, thus denying me the chance to legitimately stay at home sick! Not that I like being sick, nor taking days off sick - I have an amazingly resilient immune system which is no doubt thanks to not using the village idiots of vitamins above - but having a Monday off, which is the pond scum of days (no offense to any lovers of pond scum who may be reading the blog) , is an attractive thought. Of course, coming back to a Tuesday with all Monday's workload waiting like a rotting piece of roadkill in Summer heat (evocative enough for ya?!) is not attractive and so here I am, disgustingly healthy, and up to my neck in work, both real and cyber.....

I did get to go on an 'excursion' on Friday - going on an excursion these days is a much easier process now I don't need to get my mother to sign permission forms :) - to visit one of my main high revenue customers, Aussiebum, home to sexy swimwear and jocks for men. They work in this funky cool warehouse office, complete with trendy kitchen, TV etc - kinda like I expect some of those dotcom offices looked back in the days of boom - and while they expect the very best (which is fair enough given the money they spend with us), they are a very easy bunch of people to get along with, including the lovely Amy, who I deal with the most. Bonus was escaping the Beige Tomb (my beloved monochrome cubicle) for a couple of hours.....

Only 2 hours to go and paid work is over....then its home to switch on my home PC, and finally finish Chapter 12 of the novel which is half done and has been for the better part of a week. It required extensive re-writes and that has been time-consuming, but I also kind of 'fell off the novel re-writing wagon' and aim to clamber back on tonight before the horses pulling said wagon - and previously kicking on with steroidal speed - reverse over me (hoof marks do nothing for my complexion I can tell you now). I may even start Chapter 13 assuming my brain doesn't shut down, forget it knows the English language, grammar and syntax (in other words holiday/weekend mode), and demand to watch the latest episode of '24', which of course has nothing at all to do with my novel......I will, of course, find a way to justify viewing it but given that the need to rationalise my behaviour is not yet upon me, my rationale will have to wait for a future post.....for now, its Chapter 12 & 13 away! Ole! (See - my grasp of English is slipping already...now where is the TV remote again?!)

WAITING FOR CREATIVE INSPIRATION & FOR POND SCUM TO FORM HAVE MUCH IN COMMON

Well its been a while since my last post, and that is pretty much solely due to the novel, which is consuming great chunks of my day after work, and a lot of time otherwise, as my brain constantly tries to sort out narrative roadblocks, character dead ends etc. I would love to say I am overflowing with the joy of creative endeavour, but in reality, fun though it is to revisit the characters I now view as real beings and play God with their lives, a lot of my time is being spent getting the novel to a point where a publisher will welcome me with open arms, ply me with champagne and all expense paid trips to Paris in the Springtime, and make me the toast of literary scenes worldwide. Realistically, I will be happy if the publisher simply goes to the trouble to at least read the manuscript, and colour coordinate the rejection slip and envelope....then they can fly me to Paris to read the rejection slip. Yes, I will graciously let them salve their guilt at rejecting my fantasy epic by flying me somewhere to get over it.......now back in the real world - which I try to avoid inhabiting for too long given the poor food, boring job, and right wing politicians - I have just re-dne Chapter 11 and I only have 8 chapters to go and the epilogue so I am within sight of the end.....

Well, at least as it stands at the moment. I have been told that 90% of the work on the novel occurs after you get published, which is mildly frightening considering what it is requiring now. I guess the thing is at this point to concentrate on one step at a time - "baby steps, baby steps" - and hold on to what's left of my sanity as I do it. The big plus in all of this is that I get to use my brain to do things other than apologise to customers who believe God has bequeathed them the honour of occupying the centre of the universe - yep, sorry Galileo but the spot you thought was occupied by the Sun is actually home to Bill Smith of Steamrollovereveryone and Then BBQ Them Inc, and his charming Hitlerite secretary, Barbie Tiffany Biatch - and compose emails that outline the same thing I have just told the last 5000 customers. I am not entirely sure which side of the brain is the creative one, but these rewrites are its moment in the cerebral sun, as it finally elbows out all the useless work junk, and sprints off the bench, hopefully propelling me to the joy of creative fulfillment....oh, and a trip to Paris if it can manage it......

!POP! KORN

Immersing myself once again in the often shallow, and occasionally deep and thought-provoking waters of the prevailing zeitgeist, here are the latest media drugs to shoot up my sensory veins:

MOVIE

'War of the Worlds'

A week before seeing the latest masterpiece from Steven Spielberg, I was expecting another shoot-em-up-grab-a-dog-to-protect-you-from-mortal-danger-alien-invasion movie where the human race triumphs on or near July 4. This is naturally the only date around which you would lay waste to Planet Earth if you were an alien since you know from reading our books, and seeing our movies that your alien race will be defeated by water/computer viruses/budgies on acid quite quickly, and that the human race will emerge victorious, and needs an important symbolic date around which to stage a day of delerious celebration victory that totally ignores the fact that the world's economy/food supply/output of books and DVDs is terminally screwed.

Then the reviews started pouring in and I began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this epic blockbuster may just have a brain (and a heart and a soul), a rarity indeed in the cinematic monsters that bestride Hollywood in the US Summer. It was said that Spielberg had imbued the classic story by H G Wells, which was initially written as a warning of the dangers of untrammelled imperialism, specifically that of the British Empire, with echoes of the Holocaust. It is only when you see this most atypical of alien invasion blockbusters that you realise that Spielberg has captured all the horrors of genocide in so horrifying a fashion that this movie sends chills down your soul as you witness the almost wholesale destruction of the human race by the imperialiastic Martians, who do not see people but rather inferior nothings standing in the way of commodity acquisition. Previous alien invasion epics like "Independence Day" are almost cartoonish by comparison - yes, cities are destroyed and humanity is in peril, but you do not get a sense of real doom and dread, and the very real flesh-crawling, heart-sickening horror that unfolds in "WOW" (yes they deleted the 'the' to appease the gods of marketing!) is nowhere near as clearly in evidence in "ID4", if it is there at all. I was asked if I had enjoyed the movie and I hesitated to answer, not because I didn't like it; on the contrary I was powerfully drawn into an amazing movie that dares to wear its social critique very much on its sleeve, but because I don't think its the kind of movie you do 'enjoy'. It is hard to enjoy watching a woman being vaporised as she runs for her life, her face frozen in terror; to grab handfuls of popcorn when people are tossed from the tripods onto the ground, only to have their blood sucked from them, and used as macabre fertiliser. BUT what the movie does do is make you think and realise that you can the heartpounding action and thrills of a big epic, and not leave your brain at the door.

So thank you Steven Spielberg for this masterful piece of cinema, that even though it veers into a great big field of corny sentiment at the end (all the world is destroyed but the one nieghbourhood in Boston where Tom's family is), still manages to tell a brilliantly engaging story while making us realise that we can never rest on our humanitarian laurels while even one person is in peril.

MUSIC

'The Alternative to Love' - Brendan Benson



Bright breezy pop with more contagious melodies than you poke a musical prodigy at, and with more than a passing nod to the 70s, this is the sort of CD that makes you glad to be alive (listening to it with chocolate and a glass of Shiraz also helps)! As an added bonus, Brendan's third CD is replete with very cool lyrics that explore the meaning of life, love and relationships in a way that isn't too precious, engages the soul and mind, and allows for the fact that life isn't always a happy skip in the park with sunshine, candy and bright flowers all around. In other words, he writes about life with the frankness of someone who just accepts that this is how it is, and wraps it all up in music so contagious you can help but singalong. Which I do...with the windows shut...and the doors locked.....no sense upsetting the neighbours.....

My Brain is Already Gone

Well, it is Saturday, thank the powers that be, and I have survived another week in that scintillating world they call customer service. No real crises this week I am more than happy to report, but a new guy joined the ranks of the Customer Service Damned - its a new horror genre that is destined to overtake zombie movies as the 21st Century service industry du jour gathers pace, and grows and grows like topsy - and while he's a lovely guy, turns out he may have lied just a little about his knowledge of our systems. Having done some training of 'new hires' (aka 'lambs to the corporate slaughter') before, I ended up showing him the ropes, and while it was good to exercise my trainer muscles, which had atrophied a little, I got to Friday brain dead and very tired. There's something about trying to get your own work done, and simultaneously training someone that just kinda takes it out of you. By the time I filled up with petrol last night, I was barely able to string entire sentences together, which could be why I told the guy that my car was the 'Mars Bar' out there - yes I really, really wanted a Mars Lava bar so clearly my mind was elsewhere!! - when in fact it was the far less edible, and crying out to be washed, Hyundai Excel. Just as well I was 5 minutes from home, and did not have to engage any more actual human interaction.....Lord knows what I might have said! I slunk home, trying very hard not to think at all, and certainly not trying to string any syllables together, and made it in the door, slumping into my comfy chair to eat my curries, Naan bread and pakoras, all chased down by Absolut Vanilla Vodka and Vanilla Coke (yes, I would like to thank my sponsors.....) while I watched 'Las Vegas' (perfect Friday night brainless fodder for the mind), 'Lost' (Hurley's back story is one of the best yet - those damn numbers - yikes!) and 'The Amazing Race'.....it was one of those weeks where I feel like I just made it over the line, and was glad to reach Friday afternoon, and the allure of a relaxing chilled weekend with no demands on my time but a Stereophonics concert tonight which should be just brilliant.....oh yes, and I plan to finally read the manual (I hate and detest manuals in much the same way Carl Rove appears to hate all liberals) to my 3 week old mobile phone so I can actually start using it.....it does make a very pretty table ornament though I must say...shame to actually use it.....

Walking On My Hands Because I Danced My Feet Off

Actually I danced my feet off vicariously, and much as I would like to be called Stumpy by all and sundry (gotta hand it to Sundry - he is quite the individual and while he is always with All, he does at least attempt to stand out from the crowd), the closest I got to dancing last Thursday night was sitting about ten metres from the actual dancers. My good extrovertive friend, Kerry (also known as Alice, as in Alice in Wonderland) from Brisbane is an avid, and that is desperately understating the depth of her devotion to all things salsa and tango, Latin Amercian dance enthusiast, and has accumulated a number of very good and talented friends who share her passion. One of them, Alex, entered the ABC TV programme (the ABC is Australia's national broadcaster run on an anorexic shoestring), "Strictly Dancing"'s dance competition along with a good friend of his, Adam, thus becoming the first same sex couple to compete, and have made it as far as a final, which was taped last Thursday at the studios at ABC HQ in Ultimo (which is very funky and modern, and hipper than a human body part). Since I rarely get to see Kerry, and she was in town for this one night only, I tagged along to the filming along with about 20 other family and friends of Adam and Alex, and sat ringside for the taping of what can only be described as "Not Your Nanna's Ballroom Dancing Show". With a very funny and irreverent host, Paul McDermott (if you could only see the bits that will never make it to TV such as his wooing of a gorgeous 87 year old grandmother, Joan, with hilarious sweet talk and even a song serenade - a lot of fun to watch!), music from the likes of Will Smith and Britney Spears, and more glitz and glam than Oxford Street (Sydney's main gay street, and the main parade route of the yearly Mardi Gras festival), it is a ballroom dancing show for Gen X, Y and all the other younger demagraphics they are still working on catchy and ultimately meaningless names for. Kerry added to the buzz by making up her very own "GO ADAM & ALEX" sign, and will no doubt be edited into the show being the only audience member to go to that much trouble. Paul remarked on the whole "Big Brother" feel of having a banner, and trust me this being an endeavour of Kerry (who is as loud, gregarious and full of fun as they come!) , in the audience, but he made sure Kerry got filmed, and being next to her, half of my head may just make it into the shot...or not. Anyway, I am to Kerry's right, behind a mass of frantically waved red and white so I am kinda, sorta on TV. At last! My 15 minutes of fame!! Woohoo! True you can't see me, but when has that stopped anyone these days parlaying their brief TV notoriety into lasting fame and fortune. I can see it now - I will be styled as "The Guy Behind the Banner" and I will.....ah forget it...lets face it, they'll probably offer hosting of that new reality TV series, "Fat Celebrities on a Desert Island with their Pet Baboons on Ice" to the banner......it really is very charimatic and lifelike.....and will no doubt marry another famous billboard like the Coke sign at Kings Cross before divorcing it for a meaningless fling with a roadside sign for McDonalds, 23 km from Coffs Harbour......

The best part of the whole night was that Adam and Alex, who combined brilliant dance technique and more X-Factor charisma than a thousand high octane extroverts in a telephone booth all smiling at once, WON! Yes indeed! Kerry only watched them all night but kept asking me as the impartial observer who didn't know Adam and Alex, if they really were better than the other two couples, since she couldn't really be objective. Happily I could truthfully say that they were dazzling, and an absolute pleasure to watch! As was the taping of the show, which took place over four very entertaining hours (they also film another episode so that while one set of dancers is changing for the next round, the other episode's are burning up the dancefloor). The only downside was the fact that we had to line up to get good seats from 5.30 p.m. and filming didn't stop till 10.30 p.m., which meant I was just a little hungry by taping's end...so I did the unforgiveable and ate KFC at 10.45 p.m. on the way to Town Hall train station. Jenny Craig forgive me but I WAS HUNGRY!!!! Clearly all that glitz and galmour went to my head and I was caught up in the moment. Besides I am now a (partially obscured by a banner) minor temporary celebrity and such lapses are part of my public persona.....now all I have to do is enter a rushed marriage of PR convenience (hello Tom and Katie), get some nasty sort of drug and alcohol habit (will check with Courtney Love I guess for that one), and have a bizarre nervous breakdown in public somewhere in country California (thank you Margot Kidder)...so little time...so much trivial superficial living to do......better get dancing...uh moving.......

Ah the letter 'Z' how I love thee

Now before you think I am some sort of sicko last-letter-of-the-alphabet fetishist, assuming such a fetish exists (which this being Sydney is quite likely), my love of the letter Zed (or Zee if you watched way too much Sesame Street as a child) stems soley from the sleep deprivation I suffered on Monday night when for reasons known only to that lazy Sandman guy (who ironically must have been sleeping on the job), I experienced a bizarre bout of insomnia that kept me awake till 3.30 a.m. That wouldn't have been so bad if I had had the following day off, but alas the alarm was ticking inexorably down to 5.30 a.m.......I was very chilled after my 3 days off over the long weekend - to celebrate our dear Queen's birthday, the only time of the year I am a monarchist! - so the insomnia, which I usually get from everyone's favourite 21st Century affliction, stress, was unexpected....maybe it was the tension of "Atlantis" getting to me....the protagonist's life was hanging in the balance in the poisonous depths of the Black Sea and I just closed the book and turned over to go to sleep (callous reader that I am).....or didn't......fortunately last night I crashed out into the wonderful embrace of ZZZZZs and didn't stir all night - hence today 'Z' is my official letter of the day and unlike Sesame Street, I will leave you to work out which words start with it - and woke up feeling like a million bucks, even getting out for a walk with the temp hovering around a balmy 10 degrees, (which my Granpa
would have refered to as 'fresh') which kept me awake, alert and pumping, and has ensured my brain is zinging along like an ADD hummingbird on turbo-charged sap......

The weekend itself was one of those chilled weekends full of good times with friends, food with way more than 15 g of fat - lets hear for pizza and Indian food and Sara Lee ice cream to follow! - TV shows I taped weeks ago, and have just dug up from the deep dark video vaults, reading, and a nap or two, which is the perfect way to follow reading Saturday's "Sydney Morning Herald" which is so large it needs an entire postcode all of its very own....of course, all the benefits of chilling out were lost within an hour of starting work yesterday but it was good while it lasted.....ah, good times.....good times......

The cover of 'X & Y', Coldplay's latest CD, released June 6, 2005