Doctor Blake Guest Stars, Denial, Casey Braxton, and Gene Alberts

1. Saw, from Statcounter, that more people than usual are going to my Geoff Paine post.

I Googled to see what was up with that—hoping something bad hadn't happened to him.

Fortunately, it seems all is okay.

I think there's interest in Paine because he recently guest-starred on The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

2. Saw that Paine played Noel Foster. There's also a Valerie Foster on the episode, and she's played by Diana Glen.

Another name I recognize in the credits is Robert van Mackelenberg. I've been watching Mackelenberg lately in Wicked Science.  He plays the science teacher. In the episode yesterday, he was fired...by a clone of the school principal.

3.  Saw that Anna McGahan guest-starred in this episode, and her character has also appeared in another episode.

I wonder if she'll be in more.

Oh! And Rodger Corser is in the episode too.

I recognize a lot of names in the credits of the episode. It's just I don't know who's a regular cast member and who's a guest-star.

4. Thought that The Doctor Blake Mysteries sounds fun...at least in terms of actor appearances. I hope Hulu or Netflix has it someday.

5. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

6. Liked the way that Dina (Saskia Burmeister) handled Bianca's (Anya Trybala) question about what was going on with Toby.

Bianca can see something's going on with Toby—that there's some kind of secret.

Instead of continuing to deny it, Dena tells her that yes, something is going on, but it's up to Toby to tell her.

If someone's suspicious about something, it can be kind of cruel to keep denying that anything is happening. Doing so might make them feel delusional and/or paranoid.

7. Thought about when someone asks us what's wrong and we say "nothing" even though there's something obviously wrong.

It would probably be better to say something like Yeah, I'm a little down right now, but it's not something I want to talk about at the moment. 

Although sometimes we might say nothing is wrong, because we ourselves are in denial about there being something wrong.

8. Remembered times that someone thought that I was upset about something, but I really wasn't.

I think this is something that tends to happen with email and texting.

9. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

10. Felt disgusted with Brax (Stephen Peacocke).

He's being an ass about his friend Ash (George Mason) getting together with Denny (Jessica Grace Smith).

What kind of friend tries to forbid his friend from dating someone?

Well, if Friend A was in a relationship with the someone in the past, I can understand there being hard feelings about Friend B dating the someone.  Even then, though, I think people should try to be open-minded and forgiving.

This isn't the case with Brax and Denny, though. I have no idea what the case is—something to do with Denny being hurt in the past. Her man Casey died.  That hurt her. (Of course!)  Brax doesn't want her to get hurt again.

So, should she date someone immortal?

Well....

There's also the fact that Ash has been in jail. He has a criminal past.

Yes, I can understand people being judgmental about that. But Brax has been in prison too!

11. Learned, from dialogue on the show, that Casey died because someone was trying to get back at Brax.

That doesn't make me more sympathetic towards Brax.  Not that I'd say it was his fault that Casey died. But it's bad enough that he was an indirect cause of Denny losing her love. Now he wants to be the DIRECT cause of her losing another?

12. Learned from Lord Wiki that Casey was played by Lincoln Younes. That name sounds sort of familiar to me.

Casey's last airdate was September 16, 2014.  That's not very long ago.  I thought he had been dead for a few years, not a few months.

13. Looked at the date of the episode I'm watching today. It's April 1, 2015.  So, Casey died about seven months prior to that.

I'm wondering, though, if the appearance was a flashback or spirit visit kind of thing.

14. Learned from Lord Wiki that Younes was on Tangle. So that's why the name sounds familiar.

15. Learned that Casey is Brax's brother. Well, Brax is really Brax's last name—Braxton.  Casey was Casey Braxton.

16. Learned that Casey did die in September 2014.

17. Saw that Saskia Burmeister was on Home and Away—involved with Casey somehow.

I might have already known that about her. I forget.

18. Learned that Sasha (Demi Harman) once had feelings for Casey. The feelings, though, weren't mutual. Poor Sasha.

19. Learned that Casey was in a car accident caused by Josh (Jackson Gallagher) and Andy (Tai Hara). He was paralyzed.

Ah! Karma. Andy might have caused someone to be paralyzed. Then in the future his girlfriend becomes paralyzed.

20. Learned from Lord Wiki that Younes played Romeo on Tangle.  I remember him. He's the son of Roo Stewart, actually.

The original Roo....

21. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to watch a 2010 Tropfest finalist film called "Stakeout".

22. Started watching the film.

23 Saw that the movie is about police officers who also happen to be Star Wars fans.

24. Realized I definitely have some police-prejudice.

I'm watching the film, thinking it's cute. But then I find myself thinking, these guys won't be so cute when a black teenager comes along for them to harass and murder.

25. Relieved to see that no innocent civilians were killed in the film.

It was sweet and cute.

I need to remember that not all police are bad. It's probably a small minority that does awful things.

26. Felt that, although some of my prejudice comes from what I've seen in the news, my prejudice feelings were probably increased yesterday from our government class. We learned about due process in the US, and ways that police will try to trick people into confessing without a lawyer.

What we read and saw made the police look very bad to me. It's like our government has created laws to make things as fair as possible, and the police find ways to circumvent the law.

I'm sure it's not all bad bad, though. I'm sure there are many police officers who truly care about people and want to help.  Like Katarina (Pia Miller) on Home and Away.  She told Nate why she had wanted to be a police officer.  When her dad died, her brothers went astray. She decided she wanted to help people....

I forgot how she wanted to help people.

I guess she wanted to help them stay away from crime.

27. Saw, from IMDb, that, in 2010, there were two short films called "Stakeout".

It got me a bit confused for a moment.

28. Saw that Jonathan Lee Jones, who plays one of the cops in the film, was recently in a horror movie called Hidden Peaks.

29. Watched the trailer for Hidden Peaks.

It's a horror movie with a first-person viewpoint.

It looks pretty good, actually...at least in terms of the visual effects, make-up, and cinematography.

Recently I saw news of a first person zombie film coming out. I got the sense that they were doing something innovative.  But I guess I was wrong. First person horror has been done before. Though maybe the other movie is the first ZOMBIE film that's first person.

30. Saw that there's a whole list of first person horror movies. But most of them (or all?) are found footage.

I'm not sure that's the case for Hidden Peaks. It didn't look like it.  I thought it more looked like a video game, but one that you're watching instead of playing.

31. Saw that the other cop in the movie was played by Tom Sheldrick. Sheldrick also wrote the film.

32. Went to the website of Gene Alberts, the director of "Stakeout".

33. Looked at some of Gene Albert's photography.

 Some of it was done in the U.S.

This picture has an American stop sign.

34. Started to watch Gene Albert's film "Painting with Light at Cockatoo Island", but the sound in it bothers me.

35. Had a dream flash when writing the above sentence. This is happening to me more and more often.

Is it common? Does it happen to other people?

It's these random memory flashes of past dreams I've had.

Certain things almost always bring them on—specifically flossing my teeth or clipping my toenails. I have no idea why!  I don't think I've had dreams about flossing or toenails.

36. Saw that Gene Alberts also designs book covers.

I'm pretty sure I've read one of the books shown on his side. It's called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

37. Checked my Goodreads shelf to see if I was thinking of the right book.

I am.

The cover on Goodreads is different, though, from the one on Albert's website.

I'm guessing maybe he designed the Australian cover?

Or the book might have multiple covers.

38. Saw that Gene Alberts was involved in couch-sitting.

His profile page says he's not accepting guests. Maybe he was a traveler rather than a host. Or maybe he's not accepting guests temporarily?

39. Saw that Gene Alberts is not into astrology.  He says, If you believe in star signs please keep it to yourself - for me its just effective cold reading and universal commonalities (everyone is in their head at times, is adaptable, is looking for love on some level, somewhat of an independent person but who also values friendship, seeks adventure, etc. give me a break)

Yeah. That's pretty much how I see it. Though I think it can be fun sometimes to imagine there might be truth to it.

At one time, I was really into numerology.  I think that's because my number fit me really well, and I could see other people in my life fitting with their number. Though it's probably one of those things where if I assigned other numbers to my family, I might see that fitting as well.

40. Thought about it, and decided that's not really true.

I think for the most part, my family DOES fit their numbers.

The biggest exception would probably be my older sister. She's a five, and totally does not seem like a five to me.  My dad, though, very much fits his eight. My mom and I both fit well with seven.  Tim fits well with one. My younger sister is a nine, and that fits her quite well.

Shit. Now I might end up getting all into this again.

41. Decided that numerology and astrology might be true. Or it could be that any truth we see in it  comes from coincidence.

It's fun, though. I think that's the main thing.

It can, though, get annoying when someone takes it too seriously and seems to see it as fact/science rather than a belief.

It's annoying when people get overly pushy about it.

42. Liked what Gene Alberts says about philosophy discussions. Yes please but no redundant semantics conversations. 

I wonder if he's talking about what I'm imagining he's talking about.

I've had debates/discussions/arguments with a certain person who tend to do this annoying thing. He'll disagree about something. Then when it's looking like I might be the winner in the particular argument, he'll get into semantics.

I wish I could think of an example.

43. Struggled to think of an example, and failed.

Basically, though, it's like the person just wants to WIN...even if they're "winning" based on a technicality.

44. Wondered about what Alberts says regarding girls.

He says he wants, girls to date who have an actual personality and good energy and a sense of humour.

At first, I was thinking, well, that's dumb. Every person has a personality.

But then I realized I HAVE met people that seemed to be lacking one.

What's the deal with that?

They must have a personality. But why don't I see it?  Is it hidden?  Or Is it right there, but I don't recognize it, because it's so different from my own?

45. Had an image in my mind of these no-personality people. They're like the minor characters in Puberty Blues or the victims in horror movies.

It's the people who don't seem to have any interest beyond having sex and getting drunk.

46. Liked that Gene Alberts likes epic ping pong tournaments.

That's cute.

47. Liked that Gene Alberts likes Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze.

Tim and I used to love Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Though I haven't seen much of their recent stuff.

48. Wondered if Kaufman and Jonze collaborated on anything after Adaptation.

49. Saw that they haven't.

It looks like Kaufman has been directing his own stuff lately.

As for Jonze, we did see Where the Wild Things Are a few years ago.

50. Found an article, from 2012, that says Gene Alberts got in trouble for selling alcohol without a license.

I don't understand most of it, but it sounds like he didn't do anything illegal on purpose.

I think maybe he was confused about the rules.

I learned, though, from the article, that Albert's stepfather is Grahame Bond, the guy who played Aunty Jack.



How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   


The Dead are Online  a novel by Dina Roberts