God Bless the Japanese

Blue Lounge Take Two

This time I managed to get into the Virgin Blue lounge and have a shower, eat their food and drink their booze. The internet took a bit longer to get onto this time around but here I am!
Spent the last two days in Canberra catching up with Liz and Flick. Was good fun. The old capital ain't too bad really, I'd done most of the sights back in two thousand so we just hung out for the most part, except for Liz dragging me to Floriade [a very manly flower festival, full of men, doing manly things] Some bloke tried to sell us a whipper snipper using the line "when was the last time you bought your dad a present?" "uhh.. fathers day. you know, like a week ago" so that didn't work so well for him. I also managed to finish watching Underbelly, discovered that I was staying in the room of a paralympian, and was introduced to the hilarity that is Eddie Izzard.
Am waiting for my flight to the Gold Coast where I meet up with Jo and then Grampa.

Four Bolts

Mice and Men

The usual amount of ambiguity that follows me around came into play in the form of Tim Shaw (who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery) long story short; I'm not going to Wollongong. So I re-jigged the time table and now head to Canberra on Tuesday, Gold Coast on Thrursday, Melbourne the following Wednesday and Adelaide the Thursday after that.
Spent the last few days chilling with Stu, catching up with Ames and Grets, and eating Krispy Kremes. Tomorrow we're heading down to the river where there is supposed to be a rope swing and a pretty sweet spot. Should get some good pics!

Sleeping

Thirtysix hours, a plane flight with maybe two hours of sleep, trekking all round Sydney, a game of squash and then watching tennis. Woke up for half an hour to take Stu to work then back to bed. Woke up at three in the afternoon. What are holidays for? Sleeping all day in someone elses house on the other side of the country. Sweet.

Sydney

I'm in Sydney. Two months of holiday starts today. Flight over was a bit rubbish, but more or less standard. Planes suck in spite of their incredible usefulness. Virgin refused me entrance to their blue lounge when I got to Sydney airport, you have to be on an outgoing flight, tried the "i flew in with you guys" argument but the Irish woman at the desk probably didn't understand the concept of a reasoned position and ignored me. Forgot that Virgin don't really do service.. so I came down to the food court and got onto Virgins wireless network so I could slag them off online. Grabbed a Krispy Kreme donut and a coffee.

Secondhand Stories

Remakes are all the rage in the film industry at the minute. I went to see Batman: The Dark Knight yesterday and it was quality. Some remakes are just brilliant, better than the original, better than the remake of the original! This was one of them. There is good room for another one or two Christopher Nolan takes on the Batman, I'm hoping for two, with plenty of characters still to draw on. Robin, Batgirl, and Bane being the obvious options. Heath Ledger's performance is just about as good as it's cracked up to be and between the psycho acting and the dying thing he's probably got the Oscar locked up.
"Why is he running?" "Because we have to chase him."
On the subject of remakes, I've been wondering what happens when we run out of stuff to remake..? Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. No new idea's, no new thought's (yes those are the same thing, shuttup) no new movies? The classics, the greats, the fiction that is accounted the top of its class nowadays is mostly old. It's Tolkein, it's C.S. Lewis, it's cartoons that started in the fifties, it's Peter Pan and Robin Hood. The new stuff doesn't seem to seem to cut it. But what I want to know, is what is the stuff that is being written now that will be the gold of the next generation, slash my generation all growed up. Where is the brilliance? There is good stuff out there, and at some point the film industry will work it out and stop with the remakes and start with the new stuff, but in the mean time I'm looking for the next Tolkein (Robert Jordan?), the next C.S. Lewis (Pullman?) and the next Batman (Bourne?). Personally I want Lewis' spot.
Also, I watched a great film called Secondhand Lions. It has Michael Caine as a crazy old American who shoots at travelling salesmen with his brother. They end up looking after their nephew and buying a lion and flying a plane upside down into a barn.
"Ok. We'll see what he's selling. Then we shoot him!"
Speaking of crazy Americans and shooting things... Back home I copped some flack over a couple of the things I did with the youth, mostly from stuffy anal types for things like sock wrestling at the boys night (which wasn't actually my idea, I just took umbrage to the criticism and took up the argument) but I got nothing on these guys. I wouldn't mind pinching their budget though!