American Version, Marriage, Sins, and Kinky Dogs,

1. Had Marshall Napier's voice in my mind this morning.

It wasn't an auditory hallucination. It was just in my imagination.

You know what I'm talking about. Right?  

I hope so, because I don't know how to better explain it.

2.  Saw lots of sad and scary stories about young people dying this morning, including Nick Cave's son.  

So many bad things can happen to us or the ones we love. Sometimes it seems like a miracle just to be alive.

3. Started to watch an episode of Neighbours

4. Worried for Georgia (Saskia Hampele). She's broken into Nick's (Damien Fotiou) hotel room. 

It's very suspenseful. I worry she's going to get into trouble. I hope she doesn't, and I hope she finds the dirt needed to destroy Nick.

5. Started watching an episode of Rake.

6.  Saw that David Roberts is in this episode. 

7. Looked at the American version of Rake on IMDb.

Peter Duncan is the writer for both the American and Australian shows. 

According to IMDb, Duncan created the Australian show with Richard Roxburgh, and Charles Waterstreet.

The creators for the American show are Duncan and an American named Peter Tolan. 

8. Saw that the names of the characters are different.

Richard Roxburgh plays Cleaver Greene.

In the American version, Greg Kinnear plays Keagan Deane.

There's an Australian actress on the show—Miranda Otto. She plays the wife of Deane. Or the ex-wife?  In the Australian version, it's an ex-wife, but they have a amicable relationship. 

9. Saw that there's another Australian on the show. Bojana Novakovic. I know her from Satisfaction and The King is Dead

10. Learned that the episode I'm watching is about bigamy. 

11. Listened to John Butler and The Waif's cover of "From Little Things Big Things Grow".

The song reminds me so much of 2007-2009, because I listened to the song a lot back then. Although in those days, I usually heard the original with Paul Kelly and Kevin Carmody.

12. Started watching video of Sarah Storer and Archie Roach singing the song.

Archie Roach makes me think of True Blood, because they played his song during Terry's funeral.

13.  Went back to watching Rake.

14. Wanted to eat chips and guacamole after seeing a judge eating that on Rake

We have chips at home, but not guacamole.

15. Liked this quote from Rake. When you're in love, you're a prisoner.

I think that's usually true, especially if the person you love doesn't love you back. 

The good news is people can often eventually break out of the prison.

If the love is mutual, the prison is probably often a happy prison, and there's no need to break out of it. 

16. Liked Rake, because it questions moral conventions. Is it truly bad to eat a person who committed suicide?  Is it bad to be married to two woman and be a loving father to two sets of children?

As for the second question, I think bigamy is wrong when there's dishonesty. That's the case with the episode I'm watching. But the show is making me think more about how monogamy might not be the best thing for humankind. Maybe we'd all be happier if there wasn't so much pressure to stay faithful to one person through out our lives.

17. Thought about the difference between Cleaver Greene on Rake and Nick on Neighbours.

They both do bad things.

I think the difference is Cleaver seems to feel guilt and regret for what he's done, and Nick does not. I think Cleaver does try to like himself despite his mistakes. Nick doesn't even have to try. He seems to feel perfectly okay with his misdeeds. 

18. Thought about both their misdeeds. Cleaver's big one is he had sex with his best friend's wife. At the same time, he's trying to act supportive as his best friend vents about his wife having an affair. 

Cleaver did a bad thing, but I can feel sympathy for his crime. It was a heat of the moment thing. People sometimes give in to their impulses despite their best intentions.

I've seen Nick do two bad things on Neighbours. First he deliberately tried to come between Georgia and Kyle's (Chris Milligan) marriage by making a bet with Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) that he could succeed in seducing Georgia. Then he tricked Paul Robinson into thinking he has cancer and gave the poor guy unneeded chemotherapy. 

19. Remembered that Nick also sabotaged Georgia's career and got her suspended—or at least the show is inferring that.  

All of Nick's misdeeds are premeditated.They're not crimes of passion. They're crimes of deliberation. 

20. Wondered about a storyline on Rake.

Scarlett (Danielle Cormack), the one who had an affair with Cleaver, complained that her husband Barney (Russell Dykstra) is too good.  I think she meant he was too nice and too boring.

In this episode, Scarlett has the affair and then confesses, to her husband, what she's done. He stews on it for awhile. Then days later, with scorn, he tells her he's releasing her. She's free to go. He then insults her artwork, says Scarlett has no talent, and destroys one of her paintings.

This makes me question whether Barney is as nice a guy as people believe. Maybe he's just a repressed asshole. 

OR is he truly a good guy, and it's just everyone has their breaking point?  

The thing is, though, what he did was very emotionally cruel. It's stepping on someone's dreams. It's different from the nice person who finally loses their temper and slams a door or punches the wall.  

21 Had a stereotype of the so-called nice guy, and it's not a positive one.

I picture a man who sees himself as nice and feels angry at women, because so many of them have rejected him. His idea is that if he's nice to a woman, she's obligated to love him. If she doesn't love him, it's because she's a bitch who likes bad boys.

He's generous with women he likes but has no idea what they'd want as a gift. Why? Because he's more interested in performing his role as the nice guy than actually getting to know the object of his affection as an individual.

22. Started watching another episode of Rake.

Noah Taylor is in this episode. I've heard of him, but I don't think I've actually watched anything with him in it.  

23. Saw from IMDb credits that Josef Brown from Neighbours is in this episode!

24. Thought about Gabriel (Matt Day) and Melissa's (Adrienne Pickering) relationship on Rake.

Gabriel doesn't know that Melissa was a sex worker. She's keeping that from him.

If Gabriel knew the truth, would he still be interested in Melissa? And if he found out the truth now, would he forgive her for lying?

I imagine he'd be tolerant of the sex worker thing if the truth was out there from the beginning. He was accepting of Melissa's affair with her first cousin Angus (although the affair never actually happened).  His acceptance of that tells me he's a fairly open-minded guy.

What's funny is that in order to cover up the sex worker secret, Melissa is creating other controversies for her background. Well, actually Cleaver came up with the Angus storyline. But she also told Gabriel that her father did some dodgy stuff in Peru.

25. Got idea that IMDb made a mistake by putting Josef Brown on the episode credits.

They have him listed as playing Ben Rigby, but then Ben Rigby is listed twice in the credits. On the other, it's Joe Brown playing him.

I think someone got confused.

26. Thought that Joe Brown, who actually plays a corpse on the episode, looks a bit like Daniel Radcliffe.

27. Started watching another episode of Rake.

Sam Neil is in this one. That's pretty exciting. 

28. Intrigued by this episode. There's a secret DVD.  Dr. Chandler (Sam Neill) has it in his briefcase, and his briefcase is stolen. The police then find it, and call in Dr. Chandler  for questioning. But why?

I'm going to watch and find out. 

29. Excited, because I saw Rhys Muldoon in the IMDb credits for this episode!

30. Saw Cleaver Greene doing cocaine. When he did it, I thought he looked like the Master guy from Doctor Who. Well, one of them, at least. What's his name again?

I will go look it up...

John Simm. That's who it is.

31. Thought of The Power of One novel, because there's boxing in this episode.

32. Learned the DVD had bestality on it. 

33. Thought the courtroom discussions on bestiality were very interesting.

There's talk of whether it's equivalent to pedophilia. And if it is, does that mean children and dogs are equal?

There's also talk about consent. An animal can't give consent, but if they seem to enjoy the sex, is it still wrong? What if they're not coerced into having sex?

34. Impressed that the show mentions Peter Singer. He's not against bestality. I forgot about that.

In his lawyer speech, Cleaver Greene says that, in New South Wales, poisoning a water supply will get you a maximum of five years in prison while having sex with a dog will get you fourteen.

That's nuts. I'm guessing it's true?  

35. Found a law site.  It seems to be true. Well, the water thing is true. I haven't yet found anything about bestiality. 

36. Realized I was spelling bestiality wrong. Getting it right, helped me find the law thing for that. 

Apparently the prison sentence IS fourteen years.

37. Thought it was crazy that there are few laws to protect animals who are abused and neglected in factory farms. But there is a strict law to protect an animal from having a sexual encounter with a human.

38. Continued to watch Cleaver Greene's lawyer speech.

I'm totally loving it.

He says, The prosecution keep banging on about consent. But do horses consent to being ridden around a track having their backsides whipped?  Do rabbits consent to being tested for something Posh Spice dabs on her pulse points?  Forty-six million families in America own at least one dog. And this year, they're going to cook roughly twenty-seven billion pounds of beef. Sliced from some thirty-five million harmless, sweet, vegetarian cows.  It's a devastating hypocrisy.

39. Wondered why Cleaver Greene talked about Americans rather than Australians. If I didn't know better, I would conclude Australia is made up of a bunch of vegetarians—that cow eating is something that happens only in the United States. 

39. Felt I would rather have sex with a cow than eat a cow.  

That being said, I don't find cows very attractive. They kind of give me the creeps.

Lately, I've been kind of attracted to crocodiles. I find them sexy. But I imagine sex between a crocodile and human wouldn't work so well.

40. Would not want sex with a dog, though I've been propositioned a few times. 

Then again, maybe they were just interested in my leg. 

41. Saw a male and female cardinal together at our bird feeder. It made me feel bad for dissing monogamy.  If birds can do it, maybe some humans can as well.

42. Wondered if the two cardinals are happy together. 

43. Learned from this website that cardinals are not monogamous throughout life. They often choose a new breeding partner each season. So it's serial monogamy. I think that's different from the monogamy that's expected of us.