Friendship, Hugh Knyvett, Bridget, and the Dandenong Ranges

1. Saw that it's raining in a lot of Australian cities right now.

By right now, I mean 4:30 PM Texas time. It's mid-morning in Australia...on Tuesday.  

2. Saw that it hasn't rained in South Australia in the last two hours.  It's rained in only one town in Western Australia.

It seems to me that Tasmania and New South Wales are getting the most rain.

There's also heavy rain in Darwin and Canberra.  

3. Saw that song #80 on the Triple J countdown is "The Truth" by Pnau.

Lord Wiki says Pnau is a dance band. They did an apprenticeship under Elton John.

That's cool.

4. Started to listen to "The Truth".



It sounds like a 1980's song to me.

I kind of like it.   

5. Learned from Lord Wiki that Nick Littlemore from Pnau worked as the music director for a Cirque du Soleil show called Zarkana.

6. Went to bed and had dreams.  In one dream, Fruitcake tells me I'm not her friend. She doesn't mean it in a hurtful or offensive way, like I'm not good enough to be her friend. It's more like she takes the word "friendship" very seriously, and we're not at that point yet.    

Later I'm in the car with Happyorganist.  Happyorganist is driving.  I talk to her about the friend thing. I feel weird opening up to Happyorganist, because she's usually the one who does the opening-up in our communications.  She's very sweet and listens well. I still feel nervous about it, though.   

7. Saw that my Australian of the day is Thomas Arndell.  

Arndell was one of the surgeons on the First Fleet.

He was born 1753.  So that means he was around thirty-five when the fleet sailed to Australia.

8. Read more carefully and saw that Arndell was actually a surgeon's assistant on the First Fleet.

9. Learned that Arndell was on the Friendship ship.  

Lord Wiki says the Friendship was one of the smaller First Fleet ships.  It had seventy-six male convicts and twenty-one female convicts.

When the ship reached South Africa, the women were transferred to other ships so there'd be room for livestock animals.

10. Learned that Arndell did hospital work in Parramatta.   It turned out he preferred farming work, though.  So if I'm reading this right, he gave up the surgeon work and put his effort into the land.

He ended up doing work for the government as well, though, and at one point went back to surgeon work.   

I think his life was quite busy and somewhat stressful.  

11. Found a First Fleet website with a page about Thomas Arndell. I find it somewhat more readable than the Australian Dictionary of Biography.  

Oh...never mind.  This one is confusing to me too.

I'm getting, though, that Arndell had a wife back in England. Her name was Susanna.  Together they had seven children but only two survived.

12. Confused...very confused.

Wait...now I get it.

I got lost for a moment.

It turns out four months after Arndell and his wife had their sixth baby, another woman gave birth to his baby.

Wow.

Then I guess he left both women behind when he went off on The First Fleet. When he got to New South Wales, he romanced a convict. They ended up having seven children together.  Before the last was born, the two got married.

13. Learned that Arndell lost a lot of his home and land in a fire.

If I'm understanding this right, the government gave him some jobs to help supplement his pension.   I'm not sure if they did it because they needed his work or if they were trying to give him a boost to get over his difficulties.

Arndell did surgeon work.  He was Justice of the Peace, and he had the responsibility of reporting on the feelings, grievances and happenings of the locals.

14. Learned that Arndell organized flood relief for the community in 1806.

15. Thought these quotes from "Over There" with the Australians were interesting.   

The observation of men in many circumstances of peril has quite convinced me that it is those who are most afraid that do the bravest deeds. 

Further down in the paragraph, R. Hugh Knyvett says

I have ever found that the best scouts, men who must generally work alone in the dark, are those of highly strung nervous temperaments. 

It goes along well with other stuff I've heard and read— that it's not the lack of fear that makes people brave.  It's the confrontation of fears.

16.  Saw that Australia had their first AACTA Awards.  It's for film and television.

Red Dog won for best movie.

Hugo Weaving won an award for Oranges and Sunshine. That's the one where the British kids are tricked into being sent to Australia.

The Slap and Cloudstreet won some TV awards. 

17. Tried to understand the AACTA awards. I consulted Lord Wiki. I'm pretty sure he's saying that the AACTA awards are replacing the AFI awards.  But the AFI is involved with the AACTA.

Okay...yeah.  I see in Lord Wiki's little sidebar.  AFI is AACTA's parent organization.  

18. Went to the AACTA website to see the full list of awards. 

A movie called Snowtown won for best directing, screenplay, editing, and sound.  

19. Started to watch the trailer for Snowtown.



It all seem vaguely familiar to me, but I'm probably thinking of something else.

20. Searched through my blog and found I watched the trailer for Snowtown on May 13, 2011.   

So this time my feeling of familiarity wasn't imagined or confused.

21.  Saw that Offspring was nominated for best television drama, but they lost to East West 101. I think that's the show with Nina's season one boyfriend.  I forgot his name.  

22. Found his name.

It's Don Hany. 

23. Reminded of George W. Bush when I read this part from "Over There" with the Australians.

Every one now knows what Germany stands for and the menace she is to the future of the world if her power is not destroyed, and everyone who does not help to defeat her is an ally of the Kaiser and helping him to win the war.  

There's probably a lot of stuff in Knyvett's book that George W. Bush would agree with. It has his type of belief system.  There's a strong thick line between good and bad, and you're either on the right side or the wrong side.

24. Finished reading "Over There" with the Australians. 

My next Kindle book is Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land: A story of Australian Life. 

Hopefully I'll like it.

25. Started to read another Robert Drewe book.

This one is called The Drowner.

So far I've just read the prologue.  And like most prologues, I didn't really understand it.

All I know is it has something to do with schizophrenia. 

I'm sure I'll find out more as I read the book.

26. Saw from Amazon.com that The Drowner is a romance involving irrigation.

Interesting.....

27. Read more of The Drowner.

So far I'm bored.

I hope it gets better. 

28. Enjoyed reading the beginning of the Lady Bridget book.

The first few pages were not too exciting except for the description of a property that had a great variety of fruit plants.

Then the woman on the property received a letter.  She started reading the letter which was from Bridget.  The letter is entertaining to me.

I wonder if the whole book will be the letter with the fruit lady's reactions.

That would be interesting.

I'm still relatively bored by The Drowner, but it's getting slightly more interesting.   

29. Intrigued by what is said about the Bridget book's author on Amazon.com.

Australian authoress Rosa Campbell Praed wrote during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She started her writing career by fervently observing the life around her. She also wrote on occult subjects as well as on spirituality.

The Bridget book alludes to the possibility of reincarnation. That surprised me a bit.

I know the belief in reincarnation is very old.  It's not something New Age folks invented. I know spiritualism was big in the last few centuries.  But I'm not really used to seeing non-Christian spirituality mentioned in older novels like this.  

30. Saw that the Bridget book is available to read online, if anyone's interested that doesn't have a Kindle.  

Now I see that the book is divided into three parts. The first part is through the eyes of the fruit lady (Mrs. Gildea), but I guess that also includes the viewpoint of Bridget via her letter.

The second part is told from the point of Bridget.

The third part is told from the point of view of someone named Colin, plus some other people.

31. Noticed that the book was published in 1915.

I associate that period with the Titanic. Although I can't remember the exact year of the sinking.   Maybe it was 1914?

32. Consulted Lord Wiki.  He reminded me that the ship sank in 1912.

He also reminded me that World War I began in 1914.

So the book was published during that whole time—after Titanic and during the war.

33. Looked up Leichardt Town because that's where the Bridget book takes place.

I pictured the book taking place in Queensland probably because of all the fruit.

When I looked up Leichardt, though, I got New South Wales.  Sydney. And now that I think of it, I've seen Leichardt in that context.

There's also a suburb in Ipswitch Queensland called Leichardt.

Maybe I'll learn more as I read more of the book.

Knowing me the book has already indicated the location of Leichardt, and I missed it.

34. Reread some bits.

There's mention of the Leichardt River. According to this government website, that's in north-west Queensland.  

Then Emu Point is mentioned. I Googled that and found one in Western Australia and also one in Queensland.  But it's in South-east Queensland.  

35. Decided I will give up  the geography for now.

Maybe later I'll be less lost.

36. Loved this article about the owner of a Melbourne bus company.

Ken Gendra sold his business for four million. Then he shared some of that money with his two thousand employees.

The man based the bonus amount on each staff member's length of service.

He gave some workers more than $100,000.

That's really cool.

I wonder if they'll keep working for the bus company.  It will have different owners now.  Hopefully, they'll be nice.  

37. Went back to the Triple J countdown.  Song #78 is "History's Door" by Husky.

According to their Triple J Unearthed Page; Husky is a Melbourne band. 

38. Started to watch the video.  



I think it's relatively pleasant; but it doesn't excite me too much at this point.

39. Enjoyed reading part 1 of Diane B's teen years memoirs.   

I highly suggest Diane B's blog to anyone who's a fan of Australia or the 1950's.

She's a great writer and has fabulous photos.

For those who love Australia, but are more interested in modern times than past times, she also has frequent blog posts about her more recent adventures.   

40.  Started to look at Fredweng's day Twenty-Two in Australia Flickr set.

It's a long set, so I'll look at a little today, and then I'll look at more later. 

41. I think this is a neat building. What is it?

The previous photos were from Federation Square, so maybe this is too?

I'm thinking maybe it's a theatre? 

42. Saw that Fredweng went to the Dandenong Ranges National Park.  

How far is that from Melbourne?

43. Looked on Google Maps.   Dandenong Ranges National Park is about an hour east of the Melbourne CBD.    I'm guessing the park might be part of Melbourne. It seems to still be in the city....or really, the suburbs. 

44. Consulted Lord Wiki.  He doesn't see the park as being part of Melbourne.

He says the park has a huge problem with feral cats. They're eating the birds.

Speaking of invasive species....

The other day there was a story about Florida on the Sydney Morning Herald  iGoogle widget. 

Apparently pythons have taken over the Everglades.  How did they get there?   People get pythons as pets; they get tired of them and then release them into the wild. Now there's been a great reduction in wildlife.  The pythons are eating deer, rabbits, foxes, raccoons, etc. They've even eaten alligators.

I do like snakes. But I also really like rabbits.

I'll be sad if there's no more rabbits at Disney World.

Or maybe there'll be MORE rabbits because the rabbits will use Disney World as their place to hide from the snakes.

Until....the snakes follow them there.    

45. Saw that Fredweng went to Sherbrooke Forest, which is in the Dandenong Ranges.

It has a lot of parrots.

That's very cool.

46. Felt envious of the girl in this picture.

That's a beautiful parrot.  

47. Liked this forest photo.  

48. Went to Funtrivia to take another Australia Quiz.  This one is called The Road Less Traveled.

49.  Got question #1 wrong and learned that Australia is the 6th largest country in the world.

My guess was 4th.

Oops.

50.  Learned from Lord Wiki that the 4th largest country is China and the United States.

They're tied.

51. Got question #6 wrong and learned the Pilbera is up north.

I had heard it before. It felt familiar.  I associated it with the west, but the west wasn't a choice.

Then I consulted Lord Wiki, and he said it's part of Western Australia.

So, I think it's a tiny bit unfair that I got the question wrong.

Although if I really knew a lot about the Pilbera, I would have chosen north, because I would have known it was in northern Western Australia.

52. Answered question #7 wrong and learned the north part of Australia, the one near the Gulf of Carpentaria, is called Gulf Country.

53. Saw that song #76 on the triple J countdown is from a Melbourne group Redcoats.

The song is "Dream Shaker".

54. Started watching the video.



I don't really like it.  

Disturbing Dreams, Disturbing Movies, Liberators, and Nathaniel Kiwi

1. Had dreams that were probably influenced by my recent IMDb adventures.

In the past I've appeared on The Secret Life of Us. I think about this and also think about how I've been on talk shows regarding Australia. I start wondering if I'm on IMDb because of all this. I'm afraid to check, though. I'm not sure if this is because I'm afraid of seeing my name or afraid of not seeing my name.

2. Dreamed that, I know I'm dreaming. I want to have more dreams about Australia. I start my quest by going to a zoo.  It's not a normal zoo, though. All the animals are statues. There's nothing alive. Still, I take the time to go into the Australian animal room.  

I decide I want something more. I'll go to Australia in my dreams. I'm on a time restraint, but decide to give it a go. I ask the powers-that-be to help me along. I start floating around through Texas...quite slowly. I am wondering how I'm going to make it all the way to Australia at this rate. I ask the powers-that-be if they could perhaps speed things up a bit—maybe zap me to California.  They don't seem to give my request any real consideration.

3. Had disturbing dreams likely influenced by The Snowtown Murders. The dreams involved me raping people and murdering children. I'm pretty sure I was a man in this particular dream. As for the children, they didn't seem real. I think they were dolls. I don't think I actually stabbed, shot, or did anything else disgusting like that. It was more like someone and myself made decisions about what was going to happen to the doll-kids.  It was like a very dark form of make-believe games.

The dream made me think that maybe this is how some vulnerable people become murderers. They don't see their actions and the situations as being real. Maybe it feels like a dream to them. Maybe it feels pretend—like a game. Or maybe they feel like they're on a movie set.  

4. Thought of the young adult novel I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga. It's about a teenager whose father is a serial killer.  The teen struggles with his identity and worries that he's going to be a serial killer too. One of the things he does is force himself to remember that the people he sees and encounters are real.  

It would be easier to kill people if we saw them as dolls, characters in a movie, or characters in our dream.  

In our dreams, we're probably the only real people. Everyone else is fictional, (sometimes I believe otherwise, but that's a different story) so it might be okay to kill them.  It's also okay to kill people in our daydreams or in the video games we play.  But when it comes to real life and real people, it's incredibly not okay. So we need to remind ourselves, when we're dealing with the real world, that we're in reality and we're dealing with real people who are NOT disposable figments of our imagination. 

What's scary, though, is the idea we might confuse our reality with our dreams. I used to be nervous that I'd accidentally kill myself. In my lucid dreams, I'd often ask myself if I was dreaming. When I determined I was, I'd jump off some kind of high balcony. Then I started to worry that one day I'd get it wrong and jump off something high when I was awake.  

5. Had some homeschooling time with Jack. He said when we finished our US history for the day, he wanted to show me this blog about someone traveling to each country without using airplanes.

We started reading the first entry, and we learned that the adventurer is Australian.  

No! Wait.

I just looked again. The guy's girlfriend is Australian. Oops.

The guy doing the traveling is from Liverpool.

However, while I'm on the subject of randomly running into cool projects done by Australians, I found one the other day. It was after I posted my blog entry for the day. Sometimes if I see an exciting Australian thing after I've already posted, it gets forgotten. Or really, I'm too lazy to write about it...probably because there is already so much to write about.

But I'll write about it now.

I watched this lovely video where these people get on a train and pass out the lyrics to "Somewhere over the Rainbow". Then they have a sing-a-long with a bunch of strangers. It's so sweet. 

After watching the video, I checked out the YouTube channel—Liberators International. Is it just me, or does that sort of sound like a terrorist group?

But these guys don't participate in guerilla warfare. Instead they do peaceful and fun things to get strangers to bond with each other.

Anyway, my point to all this is, I eventually learned through my exploring that the main guy running the show is Australian—I think from Perth, probably. 

6. Explored the website of The Liberators to see if I'm right about them being from Perth. It wasn't overly easy to find the information. Location is not mentioned a lot. I had to Google the name of a festival. That ended up being in Perth.  So I'm right about that. Good!

7. Felt less impressed with The Liberators private function services. You can hire them for your events and help people bond with each other.  

It's not a BAD thing, but it kind of just sounds like a glorified DJ.

I much prefer the idea of getting strangers to sing on a train together.  

8. Saw that the leader of The Liberators, Peter Sharp, has his own website. 

He calls himself a social artist. 

9. Followed the link to Peter Sharp's blog.

From the blog and other websites, I'm getting the idea that his biggest project is an eye contact thing—getting people to stare at a stranger for a minute.

I wouldn't even want to stare in the eyes of someone I know for a whole minute.  

10. Decided I much prefer the singing on a train thing.

11. Watched the video promotion of the eye contact experiment. 

There were some sweet moments. I'll give it that.

I know, though, that for me personally I'd feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. 

I think other people might feel very uncomfortable about being on a train with strangers singing together.  

So...it's probably a good idea to have a variety of bonding experiences.  

12. Looked at the tagline of the eye contact video. True Connection is Our Pathway to Peace.

I think another pathway to peace is understanding that there are many different ways to connect and what works for some doesn't work for others.  

13. Read an article about people who don't like eye contact.

I didn't understand it, unfortunately.

14. Wanted to say that I don't hate all eye contact. I like short little moments of eye contact.  I just don't like it when it becomes long and intense.

15. Started thinking negative things which is making me feel bad.

It's about the train video. I love it. But now I'm thinking it's a bit invasive.

The thing is, what if you're too shy too sing?  Or what if the whole thing makes you embarrassed? Then you get caught on video looking bored and uptight.  

Though I love these viral video things of random people singing or dancing, it can be kind of unfair to people who don't want to be on video.  

16. Thought the best solution was to continue with these flash mob type things, but not videotape them. 

That's never going to happen, though.  

The world is one mass YouTube movie now, and we're all a part of it.  That scares me and bothers me a bit, but I also kind of love it.  

17. Started watching an episode of Scooter: Secret Agent.

The premise is interesting to me.

It's about children, from the past, who admitted to faking fairy photos. I think it's based on a true story.

On the show's version of the story, an elderly women talks about what she and her co-conspirator did as children. Yes, they faked the photographs. HOWEVER, the fairies were real. It's just they couldn't be photographed, so the children made fake photographs.

I like that twist.  

18. Consulted Lord Wiki.

It turns out the version I'm seeing on the show is more based on the true story than I thought.

The two cousins, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, did claim at some points that despite the fake photography, the fairies had been real.

19. Saw from IMDb that the episode aired on April 1. I guess the show's creators felt the date fit well with the hoax theme. 

20. Saw that despite airing on April 1, the show took the believer stance.

21. Started watching more of The Snowtown Murders.

It's a very disturbing movie.

I just watched a scene where the serial killer ringleader, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), coerces Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) into shooting John's dog.

22. Saw the first human-murder in the movie. Bunting rationalizes it by saying the victim was a junkie and a waste.

I think that's another way people get themselves okay with murder.  They look upon the victim as being inferior and therefore less deserving of life.  

23. Had to admit that I view some people as being inferior to myself.

For example...John Bunting. I definitely feel superior to him.

Despite these feelings, though, I'm not thinking it's okay to go out and kill anyone.

I think it's okay and natural to feel superior to some other people. But it's not a great idea to go out and kill them—the main reason being that someone else might see us as the inferior ones.  

It's like the whole golden rule thing.

Don't kill shitty people, because someone else might think you're the shitty person; and you wouldn't want them killing you. Right?  

24. Felt that The Snowtown Murders was one of the most unpleasant movies I've ever seen.

One thing I appreciate about it, though, is that the characters aren't all completely unsympathetic.

I feel for Jamie, because the film shows him NOT being okay with the murders. It's not like he happily and whole-heartedly joined the murder team. The film portrays him as being very scared and reluctant.  He seems like a decent kid who got partnered up with the wrong mentor.

25. Finished watching the movie, which is a relief. 

I'm glad to be done with it. 

Well, I hope I'm done with it.

I hope it doesn't visit me in my dreams. 

26. Looked at the filmography of Justin Kurzel, the director of The Snowtown Murders.

He's the director of the Macbeth movie that came out recently.

I imagine it's a very dark version of the story. Then again, it would be very hard to make a happy-light version of Macbeth.  

27. Looked at Kurzel's upcoming video-game based movie—Assassin's Creed.  Michael Fassbender is one of the stars of that, and he's also the title star of Macbeth.

Maybe Kurzel and Fassbender are friends?

28. Saw that Fassbender is going to be one of the stars of The Light Between Oceans.

29. Saw that Kurzel is married to Essie Davis. 

30. Watched the trailer for Macbeth.

It looks very good.

I think Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, though, I can't say I'm one of those big Shakespeare fans. 

I once wrote a screenplay that involved Macbeth. It was inspired by Andrew Hubatsek from Pet Sematary.  I think I've mentioned here before that Hubatsek is one of my minor life obsessions.  

I'm trying to remember the screenplay. 

There was a woman who had a life-long fear of a horror movie monster. It might have been so bad that she had to seek psychological care.  I think maybe she ends up trying to face the fear by seeing the actor? Meeting him?  That might be a bit stalkerish.

Maybe she was just supposed to see one of his theatrical performances.  

I don't know.

I think they end up falling in love. The actor is in a performance of Macbeth as Banquo. When the woman sees him looking all bloody and scary, she has a relapse.  I think?

There's a gay best friend in there somewhere as well. I vaguely remember that.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is this. Andrew Hubatsek is an actor in a New York theater. They do Shakespeare sometimes. Did I know that? I'm guessing I did. But another part of me is wondering if coincidentally I made something up that was close to the truth.  Because I think I wrote the screenplay before it was really easy to Google people.  

31. Realized if I did make it up, it's not a huge coincidence. It wouldn't be unusual for a not-overly-successful film actor to be working successfully in local theater.  

What happens to most of these actors who have one or two very memorable roles in horror and sci-fi movies, and then vanish from IMDb?  They probably either do local theater or they do conventions. 

If my character became a veterinarian who specialized in hamsters and then I read the same thing happened in Andrew Hubatsek's life, THAT would be a coincidence.

32. Wanted to watch a short film and blab on and on.

This post is so long, though.

I'm trying to reassure myself. No one reads these posts in their entirety. They just skip around and find what's interesting to them. Right?

But I worry that someone out there is anal like me and forcing themselves to read the whole thing.

I HAVE made stupid rules about having to read a long blog entry in it's entirety. Then I start getting aggravated with the blogger.

No...wait. Actually, I stopped reading them after awhile. With this one particular blog, the posts were very long. So eventually, I stopped reading the whole posts. I read the first sentence of each paragraph and then the whole paragraph if it sounded interesting to me.  

Or maybe that's not it. Maybe I read the paragraphs that were around the photos that interested me.

I'm not sure, really.

It doesn't really matter, though.

33. Started to watch a 2007 tropfest film called "Pig Latin". 

34. Stopped watching the movie, because I remembered I need to go to Random.org and pick my next full-length thing to watch. 

I was going to wait until after I finished "Pig Latin", but now I can't get my mind off of my show-picking ritual.  

35. Had Random.org pick my next show.

Strangely, it turns out it's a short film.  

I  didn't know I added short films to the list. But that's cool.  

The movie is called Glenn Owen Dodds, and it stars David Wenham.  

If it doesn't involve murder and torture, I'll be grateful.

36. Went back to watching "Pig Latin".

The woman in it looks familar to me.

37. Saw that Stephen Curry is in the movie. Or at least I think it's Stephen Curry.

38. Wondered why the movie suddenly changed from black and white to color.

Unlike the Wizard of Oz and that surfing movie, the change seemed very random.

39. Finished watching the movie.

I think the main point of it all was to make policemen look stupid.

40. Saw that I was right about Stephen Curry.  

He's in the credits. 

41. Looked at the Thanks part of the credits. I love those.

In this one, they thank Saffron the cat.

I wonder if Saffron is still alive.  

42. Thought Saffron is a cool cats name.

Actually, I think it would be a cool human name as well.  

43. Saw that there's an actress named Saffron Burrows.

She was in The Deep Blue Sea. 

44. Went to Pig Latin's IMDb page.

45. Saw that Nathaniel Kiwi, the writer and director, appeared as a paramedic in the Nicholas Cage movie The Knowing.

That was Kiwi's last film role.  

46. Saw that Pig Latin was Kiwi's last film project.

Why?

And what is he doing now?

47. Looked at the 2002 TV series Flipside.  It was a comedy show. Kiwi was one of the writers and also acted in it.

It was kind of a Curry family thing—with Stephen Curry, Bernard Curry, and Andrew Curry.  

48. Realized I don't know for sure that Andrew is related to Stephen and Bernard.

I kind of just assumed. 

49. Looked at Andrew's bio on IMDb. 

He IS a brother to Stephen and Bernard. 

I'm guessing that they're all friends with Nathaniel Kiwi. Or they were friends with him once upon a time.  

50. Saw that Andrew Curry is the eldest of the Curry Brothers.

He's a few months older than me.

51. Found out what Nathaniel Kiwi is up to.

He's become an artist—the type that uses a canvas and gets their work hung up on a wall.  I'm trying to clarify, because filmmakers can be seen as artists as well.

52. Started to watch a video about Nathaniel Kiwi's art.

53. Thought about the possibility of this being a different Nathaniel Kiwi.

But I doubt it. 

How many Nathaniel Kiwis are there in Australia?  It's hard for me to imagine it's a common name. 

54. Thought that one of Kiwi's artistic themes is American pop culture.  

There's a lot of Coke stuff.

55. Liked Kiwi's artistic style, and I also think his video is very cool.

56. Went to Kiwi's Instagram. 

It shows his artwork. I think I saw a lot of it in his video, but this allows me to get a closer look.

It's also easier for me to link to it.

57. Liked his animal masks. They're kind of scary, but in a cool kind of way. 

58. Liked the bright colors in this painting. 

59. Thought this elephant and penguin picture was sweet. Sort of. The penguins look a bit sad and scared. 

60. Loved the giraffe picture.

61. Wondered about the meaning behind all the McDonalds/Toy Soldier paintings.  Here's one of them. 

Maybe it's about America's aggressiveness—both with their military and consumer culture.

62. Had verification that I have the right Nathaniel Kiwi, because I've continued to be sort of worried about that.

But here. He has a painting of Stephen Curry. 

63. Went back to "Pig Latin" on IMDb. 

I want to look at some of the actors.

64. Looked at the actress who looked familar to me. Her name's Diana Greentree. I think the only thing I might have seen her in is House Husbands. She played a celebrant in one of the episodes. 

65. Saw that one of the actors in "Pig Latin", Charlie Clausen, is a major Home and Away star now.  

Or at least he was. IMDb lists his last episode as being October 2015.

But maybe they just haven't updated lately? 

66. Saw that Clausen was on McLeod's Daughters! And it was the season I watched.

He played Jake.

I remember him, I think. I'm pretty sure he was that guy who was dating Becky (Jessica Napier). 

67. Googled and saw I'm right.

68. Saw that Andrew Neil, the guy who did the sound for "Pig Latin" has a VERY impressive filmography.  

He's done work for Wentworth, Patrick, Animal Kingdom, Mao's Last Dancer, Bran Nue Dae, The Proposition, Salem's Lot, Holy Smoke, and a zillion other things. 

69. Saw that Jane Forbes, the script supervisor for "Pig Latin, also has a huge filmography as well. 

Her projects include Grace and Frankie, Slide, Wilfred, The Pacific, Underbelly, Rush, Sea Patrol, McLeod's Daughters, Charlotte's Web, Scooter: Secret Agent, Stingers, and a lot of other stuff. 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Profile of Lisa Merrick....Part IV

All right. Now I'm on 1995. This is the year Jessica was born.

I think I already had her a birthday in past notes. I'll just stick with that.  

It's April 6, 1995.

When was she conceived?  

I'll go to the old birthdate website I used to love. 

According to the site, Lisa and Dale had sex on July 14, 1994.  It was winter then. Maybe they were trying to keep warm. No. That's such a cliché. Really. If it was just a matter of being cold, they could have turned up the heat.

I probably need to put some thought into where Lisa and Dale were living at the time. Lisa finished with school six years before. Would she and Dale still be living in the apartment they lived in when they were students?

But then in 1996, they're going to move to Yarraville. I don't want them to have to move too many times. 

Maybe they'd still be in the apartment. Maybe in the beginning, it was kind of squished because they had two other roommates. Then the other roommates moved out, and Lisa and Dale had more room.  

I imagine it would be two bedrooms. When the other roommates moved out, Dale and Lisa used the second bedroom for an office.  In the beginning months of 1995, they'd be working very hard to convert the office into a nursery.

Where would this apartment be?  

I'm looking through my recent posts, because I think Jason or Andrew mentioned some good housing areas around the University of Melbourne.  

Found it. Jason mentioned Fitzroy and Prahran.  

I'm going with Fitzroy. It's kind of in-between the university and the condom company. It's almost perfect.

I'm not going to dive in deep with research on the area, because I can't know what it was like in 1994-1995.  I'll just leave it at they lived in Fitzroy.  

I'm going to look at Australian life in general around the time Jessica was born.

Maybe Lisa's favorite song around that time was Kylie Minogue's "Confide in Me".  

I think once Jessica was born, they started playing The Wiggles music for her.  

The Prime Minister at the time was still Paul Keating. 

Now I'm looking at this website which gives an overview of Australia in the 1990's. 

The Port Arthur Massacre would have happened when Jessica was a year-old. 

The Whitlams were fairly popular. I imagine Lisa would have liked them. Although she probably didn't really discover them until about the next decade.  In the second half of the 1990's, she probably listened to The Wiggles and Disney music.  

Muriel's Wedding came out in 1994...before Jessica was born. So Lisa saw that and liked it. After 1994, it was probably awhile before she saw many movies again.  

You know, I think I'll just make this post about the 1990's in general.

In 1996, Lisa, Dale, and Jessica moved to Oven Street in Yarraville.  

Anything else happen that decade?

Lisa left her job and became a stay-at-home mom.  

I'm consulting Lord Wiki now. 

When Jessica was close to a year old, John Howard became Prime Minister.  

The Wiggles were big and newsworthy. I think the family became big fans. Well, at least Lisa and Jessica did.  I think Dale was apathetic about the whole thing.  

In July 1997, there would have been some scary things on the news. A hospital imploded in Canberra, and then the Thredbo Landslide was a few weeks later.  

The movie The Castle came out in 1997, but Lisa had a toddler then and was too busy to watch it. Years later, she'd finally see it. 

When Lisa was the mother of a four-year-old, there was a major serial killer thing going on near Adelaide—The Snowtown Murders. I think this is the first I've heard of it. Lord Wiki says, 

The notoriety of the murders led to a short-term economic boost from tourists visiting Snowtown,[2] but created a lasting stigma. I heard almost the exact same thing, a few weeks ago, on Home and Away.  It was with the shark attack. Mr. Macklin wanted to exploit the tragedy to bring in gawking tourists to his resort. But there was worrying that once the excitement died down, the town would be remembered for the shark attack, and ultimately lose business. But Macklin didn't care, because he had a diabolical plan to sell his resort.

Also, when Lisa had a four year old: Australia voted on whether or not they should become a Republic. Both Lisa and Dale voted yes. Lisa's parents voted no.

I'm going to quit the 1990's soon, but first I'm going to look at Disney movies. Jessica becomes a fan, so I'm guessing the love started in her early years.

Here we go. When Jessica was eight months old, Lisa was dying to see a film. See, when she was pregnant she imagined they'd see lots of movies. They'd just have their friends babysit. But once Jessica was born, Lisa found it wasn't so easy to find a time that their friends weren't busy. And also, she didn't have complete confidence in her friends, when they weren't busy, because they seemed kind of clueless about the whole baby care thing.

It wasn't like Nina Proudman's life—having tons of baby-free time. That woman always seems to have a babysitter available. Hell, Nina has much more baby-free time than I ever had, and I had a living husband in the picture!

So anyway. Lisa wanted to go to the movie, so they decided to take a chance and see Toy Story.  She imagined they'd have to take turns taking Jessica out of the theatre. But a miracle happened. Jessica stayed quiet the whole time. She slept part of the time, but when she was awake, she quietly watched the movie.

They tried other movies here and there, after that. None were a success.

Then when Jessica was four, they went to see Tarzan. Jessica loved it.

The other thing I'd say about the early parenting years is that Lisa's own parents left her and Jesse with babysitters a lot. They were the type of parents who insisted their life not change because of the whole kid thing. So when Lisa had her own daughter, she made the decision to be there as much as possible. She wanted her daughter's childhood to be different than her own.

Before I end this, I have one more thing.  In 1999, another point-of-character in my book moved to Oven Street. This would be Kevin Grant. He was six—two years older than Jessica. He had a two-year-old sister Haley and his mother was heavily pregnant with a third son.

Towards the end of 1999, the Grants and Merricks became friends.

Well, I was going to end this. But then I ended up doing more Googling—trying to figure out more about the life of young Aussie children in the 1990's. This led me to learning that Deborah Mailman was a presenter on Play School! I might have already known that fact, but it was forgotten. I'm so glad to have learned it again. Here she's singing "Aiken Drum".  It's very different from the way I learned it.

Anyway, of course Lisa and her daughter loved Deborah Mailman on Play School.

Oh! Justine Clarke would have been on the show when Jessica was four. They would have liked her too. And Lisa would know her from Home and Away!

Quarantine for Colds, Homicidal Homophobes, Justin Drape, and Mysterious Toy Commercials

1. Saw from Google News that the cooler weather might not help Victoria against fires after all.

Why?

The wind.

2. Started to read an article about the fire.

Twelve houses have been destroyed.

3. Read that the cool weather and rain DID bring some relief to some areas.

The strong winds, though, help the fire.

4. Felt bad for the families who are leaving their houses and don't know if there will be a house standing when they return.

5. Hoped the families who have lost their houses will be able to recover from the disaster—both financially and emotionally.

6. Started watching an episode of Scooter: Secret Agent.

7. Was going to bitch about a character coming into work when he's sick and sneezing. But then I realized it would be hypocritical. Twice I've taken Jack into Epcot when he was sick.  Hopefully he didn't pass his germs on to anyone.

I felt guilty about it and realized it's a lose-lose situation for everyone.  If you're sick, you might spread germs, and you're not going to enjoy being out, anyway.

That being said, as for spreading germs, it's complicated. I think you can spread germs in that time period before you know you're sick—you know that time where you wonder if it could be allergies.

I guess my standards now are a fever and whether or not someone is sneezing all over the place.

I have colds where I feel like my body has become a snot factory.  I think I prefer, and the world would prefer, for me to stay at home.

There are times, though, where there's not much of a choice. For example, airline flights. I don't think they usually give refunds if you're sneezing too much.

8. Saw that this episode is the one with Damien Fotiou.

He wasn't easy to recognize. I wouldn't have even considered it being him if I hadn't known that he was going to be in one of the episodes.

9. Wondered if I'm wrong.

Maybe that's not Damien Fotiou.

Maybe Fotiou plays another character in the episode.

I'll wait and see.

10. Watched the scene again to see if they give a character name.

Fortunately they do.

So now I know it's definitely Damien Fotiou.

11. Annoyed by Melanie's (Talia Zucker) behavior on the show.

She has a secret crush on Scooter (Martin Sharpe) and becomes jealous when he shows interest in a female music star (Ramona Von Pusch) he's supposed to protect. Melanie acts pouty about it and even goes as far to sabatoge a cup of coffee Scooter is making for the music star.

I think it's fine and sometimes cute for a boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse to be jealous and act mildly possessive. But a crush? No, I don't think that's okay.

Well, it's fine to feel jealous. We can't help our feelings. But I think it's very wrong to try to sabatoge our crushes chance with THEIR crush. By being so selfish, we could be standing in the way of soulmates, true love, and all those kinds of things.

12. Felt that I would not be open-hearted and generous enough to want to see an object of my affections happy with someone else. I'd be secretly wishing they'd break up.  So yeah. I'm not that good of a person. But I think I am decent enough that I wouldn't actively try to break them up.

13. Started to watch The Snowtown Murders.

14. Saw that this movie showcases the worst aspects of humanity. A mother asks her boyfriend to babysit so she can visit someone. In reality, she goes gambling. The boyfriend-babysitter uses the kids for his child pornography hobby.

Lovely.

15. Got a spoiler from IMDb.  Apparently, one of the kids is going to fall in love with the boyfriend.

Read more.

Maybe it's going to be a different boyfriend?

16. Glad to see Elizabeth, the mother, (Louise Harris) attack the man who had photographed her sons.

And now she's calling the police.

So she might have a bit of a gambling problem, but she still cares for her children.

17. Saw that John (Daniel Henshall), the man who's going to have one of the kids crushing on him, is a homophobic asshole who seems to enjoy chopping up dead kangaroos.

I think he also might turn out to be the murderer.

But I'm not sure.

18. Thought the movie was hard to follow.

19. Finished watching the movie for today.

I'll probably watch more tomorrow.

I think I'm going to read about the real Snowtown murders. It might help me understand the movie.

20. Consulted Lord Wiki.

So the basic idea is this John Bunting led three other people in a seven year killing spree in South Australia. They targeted people that Bunting labeled as homosexuals or pedaphiles.

Yeah. I'm seeing that in the movie.

It's all kind of creepy and sad.

Bunting enters the family as they're dealing with the aftermath of the child pornography photographer. Bunting swoops in to rescue them—but his rescuing includes rabid homophobia and other disgusting things.

21. Started to read an article about the murders and the movie.

22. Started to see the positives of the movie. Or at least the point of it.

I think it's similar to what I saw on Review with Myles Barlow. You have a bad person but then those that come to fight the bad person are worse than the original bad person.

Yes, it's very bad to take photos of half-naked teenagers. But it's a lot worse to encourage teenagers to join your bigoted killing spree.

I think the main point is that when we're in a low place—when we're victims—we become vulnerable to people who might want to exploit us.

23. Figured it's probably similar to teens joining terrorist groups. They're hurt by society in some way. Then the terrorist groups swoop in and give the teens the sense that they belong somewhere—that they can make a difference in the world.

24. Thought this quote from the director (Justin Kurzel) is good.
It’s about the corruption of innocence. Many kids in these areas don’t have father figures, and they’re searching for them, so I found this paternal relationship between a serial killer and a young boy fascinating.

I think that sums up things pretty well.

There's a lot of loneliness in the world, and people end up clinging to ugly and dangerous things.

25. Excited to watch a Tropfest film.

I had so much fun with it yesterday.

26. Found the film I'll be watching today. It's called "Being Boston", and like the other Tropfest films I've watched recently, it was released in 2007.

27. Started watching the film.

A dog is the narrator of the story.

28. Thought that the movie reminds me of the Pixar dog short—except this one isn't animated, and it involves masturbation.

29. Saw that Josh Pyke sang a song in the movie.

Isn't he famous?

I was thinking he did the songs specifically for the movie, but it could just be that the filmmakers bought the licensing rights.

30. Googled and saw that Pyke is an Australian singer.

I don't know what he sings, or why I've heard of him before.

31. Saw that I have two Josh Pyke songs on my Aussie Spotify list. That's probably why his name looked familiar to me.

32. Looked at "Being Boston" on IMDb.

33. Looked at the writer and director of the film—Justin Drape.

He did writing for two TV shows in 2009.

The first was a reality TV program called My Family Feast.  Drape wrote four of the episodes.

It sounds like a good show. The premise is that the host (Sean Connolly) is invited to a family meal. Each episode features a family from a different culture.

34. Went to Sean Connolly's website.  He's a chef. There's a page about My Family Feast.

35. Wondered how much of a reality TV show like this is ad-libbed and how much is scripted.

36. Looked at Justin Drape's other TV show. It's called :30 Seconds. He was one of the creators.

Stephen Curry, from The Secret Life of Us, was one of the stars.

There are other actors I recognize, including two from Tangle—Kat Stewart and Joel Tobeck.

37. Looked at Abe Forsythe in the credits. His name sounded familiar to me.

It turns out I saw him in Howzat! Kerry Packer's War.

38. Shocked.

Confused.

I just saw something that I should have seen before.

Have I see it before? Did I forget about it?

I don't think so. I don't know how I could have learned this little piece of information, and then forgotten about it.

So...I was looking at a cast member of :30 Seconds— Peter O'Brien. He looked familiar. I saw that he had been on Dance Academy and Underbelly. That's how I knew of him.

But then I scrolled down to see his earlier credits.

He was Shane Ramsey on Neighbours!!!

WTF! How did I not know this?

I could have sworn I had tried to find the Shane Ramsey actor before.

39. Wondered if I have the wrong person.

The guy I'm thinking about was half brothers with Danny Ramsey. He was in a car accident and couldn't drive anymore.  He then worked in a limo business but killed someone in a car accident and developed a fear of cars.

40. Reminded by Lord Wiki that Shane dated Daphne (Elaine Smith).

I forgot about that.

41. Found a post where I talk about the Ramsey family, and mention that Shane is played by Peter O'Brien. But I don't think I learned anything about O'Brien.

I didn't know that he was one of the past Neighbours actors who found long-term acting success.

42. Wondered why Justin Drape hasn't written any TV shows since 2009.

What's he up to?

43. Learned that Justin Drape is in advertising now.

He's the co-founder and chief creative officer of The Monkeys.

44. Saw that Drape co-wrote and directed a short film called "Losing Face".

I don't know why it's not on IMDb.

I guess not everything is.

45. Saw that Lord Wiki has an entry on The Monkeys.

Here's something exciting. The Monkeys are what brought us the brilliant Ship Song Project.

I haven't watched that in a long time.

I'll go watch it now.

46. Finished watching the video. At the end, when I saw the exterior of the Opera House, I thought about how I feel very lucky that Australia is my main obsession in life.

It's almost like it makes me feel patriotic, but not really since I'm not Australian.

I guess there can be obsession-patriotism.

It's like some of us are part of our fanboy/fan girl nations.

Like all the Star Wars fans are bonded lately in their massive Star Wars patriotism.

47. Wanted to confess that I can't identify several of the singers in the video.

That makes me feel like a failure.

The ones I do know: Neil Finn, Kev Carmody, Angus and Julie Stone, and Paul Kelly.

Oh! And I think Sarah Blasko is there.

48. Started to watch a video about the making of the Ship Song Project.

Maybe The Monkey agency will be mentioned.  And more importantly, maybe some of these singers will be identified for me.

49. Thought Guy Pearce's narration in this video is a bit annoying.

Actually, a lot annoying.

He's using this soft tone. I feel like he's trying to hypnotize me.

50. Had one of the singers identified for me.

Kate Noonan.

I've heard of her.

Although I'm probably mostly thinking about Phil Noonan (Garry McDonald) on Offspring.

51. Saw one of the singers is Martha Wainwright. I don't think I've heard of her before.

52. Learned that Martha Wainwright is Canadian-American; not Australian.

The funny thing is, when I saw her name I thought of Rufus Wainwright.  It turns out he's her brother.

I know of him because Nip/Tuck used one of his songs, and I liked it a lot.

53. Wanted to mention that I didn't notice Wainright's American accent. Oops.

54. Wondered if it made sense to have non-Australian singers in the video.

At first I was thinking, sure. I mean lots of people from all over the world perform at the Sydney Opera House.  But now....

It seems kind of strange to have all these Australian singers and then one American.

55. Remembered that Neil Finn isn't Australian.

But still. That's different. He's from New Zealand, which to me, when it comes to the entertainment industry, is part of Australia.

Lisa Chapelle, Alan Dale, Morgana O'Reilly...they're all Aussie even if they're not technically Aussie.

56. Went back to learning about The Monkeys.

They did an anti-cancer promotion with Ben Lee.

57. Watched that video. It's called Sun Sound.

58. Intrigued by what Lord Wiki says regarding The Monkeys making some advertisements for The Gruen Transfer.  For some reason, they caused outrage.

Why?

Well, I'm going to read an article about that so I can get some answers.

59. Finished reading the article. If I'm understanding things right, the complainers were mad because they thought they were watching real advertisements on ABC. And there aren't supposed to be advertisements on that network.

60. Watched the credits of "Being Boston" again. In their thank you section, Three Drunk Monkeys is mentioned. That's the original name of The Monkeys.  I wonder when it started.  I guess when Drape thanked them, he was thanking his coworkers? Was he also thanking himself, since he is part of the company?

61. Looked at The Monkeys website.

62. Saw that The Monkeys are looking to hire people. They're needing a front-end developer, a senior copyrighter, and a Finished Artist/Designer. They're also looking for some freelance workers.

63. Saw that The Monkeys sell merchandise and that includes ice-cream. Though you can't buy it from their website. There's a link to Woolworths.

The ice-cream is called Homer Hudson.

64. Looked at The Monkey's client page and saw that Homer Hudson is one of their clients.

65. Saw that The Monkeys have an impressive list of clients, including, the government, IGA, NIDA, and The University of Sydney,

66. Looked at the address of The Monkeys. They're in Surrey Hills at 531 Sth Dowling Street.

The Sth is strange. What's that?

Maybe they meant to write 5th.

Oh! Wait. Maybe it's supposed to be south.

67. Found the address on Google Maps.

It's right outside Moore Park—the north bit.

68. Saw that The Monkeys have a blog. It's called The Monkey Barrel.  It features videos they like. The latest post has the Star Wars Bad Lip Reading.

69. Wanted to look at other people in the "Being Boston" credits, even though this post is already very long.

Oh well.

I figure people can fast forward through the stuff that doesn't interest them.

70. Looked at Sean Lynch, the main actor of the film.

He has small roles in many things, so I guess he's a character actor, maybe?

He's due to appear in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales.   He plays Liam—British Soldier 4. It's interesting that he's given a name. British Soldier 3 doesn't get a name.  Neither does British soldier 2.

71. Saw that Sean Lynch was the writer, director, and also appeared in a movie called Our Footloose Remake.

I wonder what that's all about.

72. Looked at the movie on IMDb.  It's full-length, and it's American.

73. Saw that the movie has MANY directors and writers. So it's a major group effort kind of thing.

74. Saw that the full film is available on Vimeo.

I'm reading an article about it now.

What happened is many filmmakers were upset when they heard Hollywood was making a remake. Why? I think because the whole remake thing is getting annoying. Reboots are very cool. Remakes are usually not.

So these filmmakers got together and made their own remake. They broke it up into different segments and gave the scenes to various filmmakers.

75. Started watching some of the movie.

So far, it's awesome.

Beyond awesome.

I feel so American right now. Isn't saying "awesome" a very American thing?

76. Saw that the movie has multiple actors playing each character.

77. Skipped around and watched various pieces of the movie.

Some of it's adorable.

78. Did some more "Being Boston" credit exploring.

I came across Simone Brandse who is credited as being the dog wrangler and caterer.

I decided to Google her, and learned she married Justin Drape in 2007. I wonder if that was before or after they made "Being Boston".

They got married in Boston.

79. Wondered. Are Drape and Brandse Americans living in Australia; or are they Australians living in America?

Or maybe they're Australian and live in Australia but wanted to get married in Boston.

80. Saw that the title of the article I was reading has the answer. It says, Aussie Creatives Justin and Simone get Hitched in the US.

They must have a thing for Boston.

82. Saw a photo of a Sculpture by the Sea project that Brandse and Drape did together. It's a giant straw in the middle of the ocean.

83. Went to Justin Drape's Twitter.

He thinks IKEA has come out with the best toy ever.

84. Saw that Drape wasn't actually promoting a new toy from IKEA. I followed the link and ended up with an article about The Monkeys doing an add for IKEA.

So the Tweet was a self-promotion one.

It had me fooled.

I mean not that I'm saying Drape was trying to fool people.  It might not have been intentional.

85. Watched the IKEA ad.

It confuses me.

I thought they were talking about imaginary friend—or scary, evil spirits pretending to be imaginary friends. But then at the end, the ad says the best toy is you.

Is you the child? The parent?

I could have sworn one of the kids says their best toy is invisible.

Do they have an invisible parent?

Or maybe the intended audience of the ad are those evil spirits pretending to be imaginary friends...like Captain Howdy.

86. Reread the article about the ad.

They seem to be talking about parents—specifically fathers.

I hope I'm wrong about the father thing. That's rude. Moms can be just as good a toy as dads.

87. Decided I need to re-watch the ad.

And yeah. The first kid says, My best toy is invisible.

Maybe it's supposed to be a sad thing. Maybe her dad is a ghost.

88. Continued to be confused by the ad.

89. Thought the ad could be a commercial for my novel The Dead are Online, because there's a girl who has a dead father that she talks to all the time.  She's not unusual in her universe.  Everyone is talking to dead people. Because dead people are online—Twitter,  Skype, Facetime, Texts....

But this particular girl also happens to be a medium, so she was talking to her dead father before most people were talking to their dead people.

What's sad is I don't remember the girl's name.

90. Found the girl's name. I have notes, fortunately.

It's Kayla.

I'll imagine Kayla is in the IKEA commercial. Then it will make more sense to me.




Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Sex, Blogger, Unreliability, and Identity Confusion

1. Told by Tim that it was not right for me to try and discourage Australians from coming to America.  It's not that he works for American tourism, or anything like that.  He was just having the common sense I'm lacking.  If Qantas can't fill up their airplanes, they're going to have to charge each person more to make up for the fuel cost.  I didn't think of it that way.

I guess it has to be the perfect balance.  If Qantas has too many Australians and Americans wanting to visit each other's countries, they can make it as expensive as they want. But if they don't have enough interested people, the few of us who want to travel would have to make it financially worthwhile for Qantas to do the flight.

2. Had lesbian-type dreams about Deborah Mailman....PG, rated.  We were a couple.   I think she was more Cherie than Deborah Mailman, but maybe not exactly Cherie.   I like an outfit she wears.   It involves 15 layers including two pairs of pants.  At some point, she gets mad at me because I forget her last name.  I try to defend myself saying it's not like we often refer to each other's last names.  And it's not like I forgot her first name.   

In another part, I think we held hands.

3. Saw the photo of the giant snake from Australia.  I saw it yesterday too.  It seems to be spreading.  Am I the only one in the world who thinks it's beautiful and amazing?  Supposedly, it's a King Brown snake, so might be a bit dangerous.  

The person who posted the photo says the King Brown snake is part of the cobra family, and most other Australian snakes are as well.  I didn't know that, and I'm kind of thinking maybe she got that wrong.  Or maybe I'm wrong.  It's not like I'm a snake expert.

4. Consulted Lord Wiki about Pseudechis Australis, otherwise known as the King Brown snake.  

I'm trying to figure out the whole cobra thing.  Lord Wiki says that in 1842, a scientist placed in in the cobra family.  But it looks like that was later changed.  Now its Genus is Pseudechis.

Lord Wiki has a list of cobra species.   As far as I can see, there's none in Australia.

5. Felt selfish when I read comments on the Qantas Facebook Page.  They asked what people would do if they won ten thousand dollars.   Robyn Rickey says, To fly home and see my family in Australia. With 4 kids (2 at adult fair!) it's incredibly expensive to travel home every year to see everyone. Heartbreaking! Qantas you should have special rates for all Aussies returning home!! All the time :)

I didn't even think about that.  Plane ticket prices aren't just a problem for tourist fans like myself.   What about all the people who want to visit their family?  It's really sad.   

I hope soon they figure out a cheap and easier way to travel.

You know what I think about.  Phones.  I remember in the 1990's, it was so expensive to make long distance phone calls, and I'm just talking domestic calls.  I remember worrying about phone bills.  Now it's pretty much a non-issue.  First of all, I rarely call anyone because I can just email them.   But also, the phone rates went down.  It's pretty affordable to make international calls.  Oh! And you can use video chat which is free, I think.

So I'm hoping what happened with the phones will happen with travel.  I'm hoping someone will come up with an invention that will make it easy and affordable to travel overseas.   

6. Watched trailer for Snowtown.   It's about a serial killer.   It doesn't look like something I'd like.  I heard about it from the Australian Film Festival Facebook Page.

7. Read article about Bob Brown wanting to increase the mining tax.   I probably don't understand most of it, but I find his quote here interesting.  How is it that so few are benefiting from the country's wealth?   Yeah.  I don't know.  I keep hearing about how Australia's economy is doing so well, and that's because of the great mining boom.  But is it really helping average Australians?  Is it helping cyclone victims in Queensland?

8. Read another story about the economy.   I'm really getting the idea that Australia is NOT doing well despite the mining boom.   It might not be doing horrible.  I won't go that far.   But it doesn't seem to be doing that great.  The article says that employment rates are decreasing.   Jobs are disappearing because of retail and manufacturing expenses. Supposedly, this is due to the rising Aussie dollar.

It's too bad there's not some easy way to fix all this.

9. Started watching episode #6 of Offspring.

10. Wondered how much dating in Offspring reflects real dating in Australia.  Is it typical for people to have sex on the first date?   I haven't dated in a long time, and I've always been a bit of a prude.  But in my little world, people usually see each other several times (or at least a few times) before they have sex.   In Offspring, there was the assumption that sex would happen on the first date.   And also it was like a sex date.  Let's go straight to your place. What happened to let's have dinner or let's go see a movie or let's go to a concert?

Maybe it's an age thing?  I haven't been a single woman since I was twenty-three.   Maybe when you're younger it's more typical to wait a bit.  Maybe single women in their thirties and forties jump into bed faster?

11. Realized that my minor crush on Dr. Chris Havel has already ended.  That was disappointingly short.   I think I'm no longer capable of sustainable celebrity and character crushes.  That's probably a good thing, I suppose.

12. Read article about Patrick McGorry wanting kids to be given mental health tests at age three.   What some people don't seem to understand is that there's no magical test you can give to people to determine if they're mentally ill or not.  It's based on opinion.  It's not like getting a Strep culture or Pap Smear.

I think two things need to happen.  First of all, parents themselves should be educated to look out for certain signs.  Parents know their children the best. They're the ones who should make the diagnosis.   Then doctors should learn to listen to parents and take their concerns seriously.

If a child has severe autism, I think by age three the parents should be able to see this...if they know what to look for.  If the autism is very mild or they have Aspergers, it's probably not a big issue anyway.

If your child is happy, social, and intelligent do you really need to worry if they like to obsessively line up their toys or get fixated on a certain topic.? Oh no!  Oh no!  My child is so obsessed with trains. He knows every line in the city.  He has it all memorized!


Yes, let's get him some early intervention because it sounds like he might have that tragic autism thing. 

But really.  If a child is severely autistic—not talking and not connecting, I think parents can pick up on that fact.  And if they're ignorant about autism; or in denial, the pediatrician can ask some questions to get a vague picture of what might be happening. 

13. Realized from Facebook that today is Friday the 13th in Australia.   Cool.  We spent a Friday the 13th in Australia.  It was the day we drove from Canberra to Gerroa.

14. Frustrated because Blogger hasn't been working for a few hours.  But I'm not going to complain too much.  It's really nice and generous that Blogger provides this service to us for free.   I don't often enough show gratitude for that.   So if they have a few bugs in the system they need to work out, that's okay.  I hope everything works out for them. 

15. Figured it is good that Blogger is down because I really miss it.  Missing it is really making me appreciate it more.  I hope it's back when we return from dinner though.  This is a challenging social occasion for me. Very challenging.  Most social occasions are challenging for me, but this one is particularly so.  It will be nice to return from the challenge and see Blogger is all fixed and waiting.

If not, I will lose my mind and have a huge violent tantrum.

No, I'm joking.   I'll be fine.

16. Survived the social encounter...barely.  I returned home to find Blogger is still not working.

17. Decided to warn people never to listen to me when it comes to our Australia plans.  Well, you can listen to me, but don't put any faith into anything I say.   I change my mind every five minutes.

18. Went for the spiritual route and asked to be given a sign about whether or not we should go to Australia.   Then I remembered what I've told other people about this.   If you have a tough question and you want some kind of spiritual answer; it's not the signs or answer that matter.   It's what you WANT to hear that matters.   If you ask the magic eight ball should I take this job or not; it says yes; and you're disappointed to hear that, then you shouldn't take the job.

Anyway, I realized when I was thinking about asking the question, that there was a definite answer I wanted.   I want to be told (in some magical mystical way) that it's okay for us to go to Australia.   I do NOT want to hear that it's the wrong decision.

Now I do believe in spiritual messages, but I personally feel they come when we're not asking a question.   I think we just get signs,  because something out there wants to tell us something.   I'm guessing that when we directly ask the question, our spirit guides roll their eyes and say, Figure it out yourself.  If we wanted to give you advice or guidance we would have already done so. 

19. Realized that in order for me to know I wanted to go to Australia, I had to cancel the trip.  I thought that's what I wanted, but I ended up feeling more sad than relieved.

It kind of reminds me of that episode of Friends.   Rachel goes to take the pregnancy test, and she's not sure how she feels.  Does she want to be pregnant?   Does she not want to be pregnant?   Then Phoebe reads the test and tells Rachel she's not pregnant.  Rachel expected to feel relieved, but instead she cries with disappointment.  Then it turns out Rachel was pregnant and Phoebe did all that to make her realize she wanted to be pregnant.   Although then there's hints of how it might have been a mistake if Rachel wasn't disappointed and instead very relieved.  Then how do you say, Ah....just kidding.  Stop acting so relieved.  You are pregnant!  

20. Wondered if I'm being overdramatic by comparing a trip to Australia with a pregnancy.   Probably.  

21. Decided if Blogger is not back on by the time I go to bed, I will just double this post up with tomorrow's post and publish it all tomorrow night.

What is Blogger's not running by tomorrow night?

Scary!

22. Found out Magnum Ice-Cream bars are now in America. Or at least they're coming.   They're not Australian, but they remind me of Australia because that's where we first ate them.  Now we need to get the Golden Gaytime ice-cream.  

23. Woke up for find that Blogger is still down.   Yikes!   I can imagine they're feeling incredibly stressed and horrible.  What's weird is yesterday I read that all posts written on Wednesday had vanished.   I checked mine and it was still there.   Then this morning I checked and it was gone.   That's all very mysterious.   Blogger says they're trying to restore all these lost posts.  

24. Liked this photo from the Australia Facebook Page photo album.   It's shoes on a beach.   I love leaving my shoes on the beach and taking a walk.   Although one time I lost my shoes and panicked a bit.   But eventually I found them.  

25. Read article about man who caused havoc in Sydney by protesting on the Harbour Bridge.  What did he want?   It had something to do with his kids; a custody thing.    I don't think it matters much.   Once you use such tactics, I think the message becomes tainted.  It loses its value.  

I am grateful that he didn't use terrorism.  He didn't attempt to blow up innocent people to get his message across. That's good.

But he still caused great annoyance to people.  And he made Sydney lose money by making folks late to work.

Is there any time an action like this is merited?   I'm doubting it.   There's many good causes out there; but it seems to me the best and most fair way to make changes is to speak out, write letters, send emails, form petitions, model desired behavior, etc.   It can be a slow and frustrating process, but I'm not sure the alternatives bring about positive change.

26. Very happy to see that Blogger has returned!

27. Saw that Blogger has not restored the posts that vanished from 11 May.  Are they still planning to do that?  I still have my post in drafts, but I'm not sure if it's the whole post.   I forgot where I ended it.

28. Read very nice apology post from Blogger.  What a nightmare!  They're trying to get everything restored.

I talked to Tim about it and he agrees with me.   It's not right to act angry towards a service that you get for free.   I think it's okay to get sad and frustrated at the situation,  but not towards the people who provide the service.   Mistakes and malfunctions happen sometime.  I admire Blogger for working hard to remedy the problem; and I admire them for acting professional and apologetic.

I'm less okay when I pay a lot of money for a service and a mistake is made; although I forgive easily if I feel apologies and remedies are offered.  I'm also less okay (whether service is free or a paid for) when rudeness is involved.

29. Realized I had two #10's on my blog and had to fix, that rendering what I said in #13 untrue. So I'm deleting it.   But I'm going to repost it here so you can see:

 It's too bad this is item #12 instead of 13.   If only I had thought of something else to say before noticing it was Friday the 13th.   That would have been cool.   Although people would probably be sceptical of the coincidence.   They'd probably think I faked it.    

I don't know if anyone is going to believe me, but I will say that I'm not making any of that up.   I don't know if I really had two #10's or if something went wrong.    Around the time that I noticed that issue, I also noticed the post to this title vanished.  It could be a blogger issue.  

Now I have to struggle to remember the title of this post.  Or maybe I'll just come up with something new. 

30. Figured out that I actually did write two #10's.    Yesterday when Blogger stopped being able to save my post, I cut and pasted part of it (starting with #7) to TextEdit.   There're two #10s there as well.

31. Decided to add unreliability to the title of this post.   I think it's a relevant word.  You can't rely on anything 100%....not even blogger.    And you can't rely on my travel plans.  Sometimes they happen the way I say they're going to happen, but often they do not.   If you want an accurate idea of our travels, it's much better to wait until AFTER they've happened.   

32. Saw that my May 11 post is back.  The labels look weird.   I wonder what's up with that.

33. Started watching episode 7 of Offspring.  I hope I like it better than episode 6.  I think episode 6 was my least favorite so far.

 34. Struggled with feeling like I'm four people in one.   There's the weird blogger Dina who's obsessed with Australia.   Then I feel like I'm the British Muggle and her witchy sister living in Australia.  On top of all that, this weekend I'm teenage dorky loser Dina.   Why? My cousin is here, and when I'm with her plus my sisters I just feel like a total loser.

Do other people have this type of identity crisis?

Whatever.  I'll just embrace my weirdness.  I guess it makes life more interesting.

Maybe that's why I like Offspring.   Nina Proudman is a bit mental like me.   And she still manages to deliver babies.

35. Thought of something positive.  Out of all the personalities in me right now, I like the real me the best.   I love being a blogger obsessed with Australia.   I love being Jack's mom.   I love being Tim's wife.  I love my life.   I do adore the little Muggle.  I have to admit that.   And she gets to live in Australia.  So maybe it's nice I get to be her sometimes.  Maybe she's the teenager I wish I had been.

I'm sitting here realizing that I have no love for my past self.   Is that awful?   I think it is, because I felt so unloved when I was young. What if my past self knew that even her future self didn't like her?   That's really horrible.  

It's bad because I wasn't a bad person. I was okay; just a bit pathetic.

Bits and pieces of that pathetic teen come out almost every time I'm with my sister.   I'm afraid that with my cousin there, the pathetic Dina will come out all the way.

36. Decided to sing, exercise, and blog a lot this weekend.   Those three things usually make me feel better about myself.