1. Loved this line from Belinda Castles' The River Baptists. She watched the credits through a blur of tears and a pain in her throat from trying to cry silently. That is TOTALLY me. It happens to me multiple times a day. I silently cry at almost every episode of Modern Family. Today we watched the ones with the line Ninety percent of being a dad is just showing up. Just thinking about that line makes me get all choked up.
Yeah. I don't need to be even watching something to cry about it. I often just think about things and it happens. I do a lot of silent crying in the car. There's lots of time to think about things on long rides. Today in the car, I thought of the cut scenes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I saw them a day or so ago. They're painfully sad. One has Ron coming down to tell his father it's time for dinner. That doesn't sound sad, but it was. It's so sad it makes my stomach hurt. Then there's the scene with Harry saying goodbye to his cousin. Yes. I'm crying right now as I write about it. I just sniffled. I need a tissue.
2. A bit bewildered by a lucid dream I found in my old Livejournal archives. This one is from November 2005. I dance with someone. And someone who looks sort of like Thaao Penghlis. But kind of a demented version. Maybe I dance with him at one point?
And then I'm somehow trapped by him. Physically. By his body. I sort of remember a railing near us. I ask him if he's Thaao at one point and he says no. Then at another point, I ask if he's Tony and he says yes. I panic about this, knowing that Tony is bad.
That in itself isn't strange. What's strange is I had a very similar lucid dream about Julian McMahon two years before; but it was in reverse. When I asked if he was his character or himself, he said himself.
Even that's not too weird. But it IS weird if you add in this story. At least I think it is.
3. Listened to Kate Miller Heidke's anti-bullying song, Caught in the Crowd. It goes well with the Irish anti-bullying video. Have you guys seen that? Jen, I think you'd like it.
4. Tried to understand article about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. I THINK what's happened is that Kevin Rudd has come forward to say that certain Labor Party members weren't supportive of the Carbon Tax in the past. I'm not sure if this includes Gillard, or not.
5. Saw that the James Wan, the Australian creator of the Saw movies, has come out with a new movie; Insidious. The plot description on IMDb reminds me of a book I read awhile back. A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.
I wonder if they're connected? I don't remember much about the book, except the child's coma came about during a fight with his mom. I think he fell down the stairs? Then there was something with comic book characters?
Rose Byrne stars in the movie. I'm not sure if there are any other Aussie actors.
Here's the trailer. It looks pretty freaky, especially the line that begins with It's not the house that's haunted. Yikes.
I have to find out what this is all about. Does Lord Wiki have any spoilers? Don't worry. I'll keep what I've learned to myself.
Okay. I'm done. It sounds fairly interesting, but I think it's something I'd rather read about than see. Maybe I'm past the point of wanting to be scared by movies. I probably still like horror movies but not the ones that are super depressing and creepy.
6. Decided to stop my Adelaide vs. Hobart game. Adelaide was so far ahead, anyway. I think I prefer that because then we can do the drive to Adelaide and spend some time outside the major cities.
7. Watched a video from AshAlmond. He's a Beatles fan from Melbourne. In this video he sings "In My Life". It's a beautiful song, and AshAlmond has a good voice. His Asian accent shines through and gives the song a little extra something. I'm thinking...Is the original song sung in a British or American accent. Let me go listen......
Ah. Cool. It's British. I'm sure other people would have known that without having to listen to the song again.
Here's an American singing the song...Bette Midler. She uses an American accent.
8. Listened to Ben Lee sing the song. His r's are a bit American sometimes, but I can also hear a little bit of Australia in there. When he says "love" at 1:25, he sounds very Australian.
9. Watched this absolutely adorable video of two kids singing "I am Australian". They're not just cute; they sing very good. They're fantastic. Their names are Chloe and Corey. At the end, they talk a bit. They have adorable accents.
10. Listened to Chloe sing a song from Glee. She has such a beautiful voice.
11. Listened to Chloe sing "Take a Bow". She's a brilliant singer, but I don't like that particular song too much.
12. Watched Tubbie0075's video of himself playing piano, violin, AND the cello. He does the song "Falling Slowly", which is really beautiful. It's cool how he put it together. I guess he video-taped himself doing one instrument, then video-taped himself with another instrument; and put it all together. My guess is it's harder than it looks.
For the Harry Potter blog, I did something like that. I wanted to do a video of my character talking....kind of introducing herself. But to try to make it more interesting I had a fight going on in the background between her sister and mother. I wrote a script for that and recorded it. It took several times to get that right. It's hard because I had to keep changing my voice. Then I did a recording with the main character; the fight is in the background. It was hard to get the timing right. There was a point where I had to talk to the recording, and then have it respond to me. It took several takes, because the responses didn't match up well.
It was hard work but fun.
13. Read the interesting exchange in comments between Tubbie0075 and a commenter. Tubbie0075 gets a bit defensive, but I don't really blame him. A commenter says, wow how lucky are you to have all these instruments. I've only got a piano, and it's nothing like yours..
Tubbie0075 says I don't count on luck. I studied and worked hard to pay for all those instruments. He has a winky face there; I suppose to show he's not overly offended.
It's not like the commenter was being horribly mean. But in a way, I still think it's a bit rude. I don't think it's right to assume that someone is lucky. It's been said to me before, and it really annoyed me. How do you KNOW I'm lucky?
That's not to say I haven't said it to others. I'm sure I've said it to Australians. You're so lucky to live there! What's more accurate to say is I would love to live in Australia, and I'm slightly envious of you.
I DO believe in luck, and I do think some people are luckier than others. But to say it to someone without knowing their full story is presumptuous and annoying.
The other thing that's rude about the comment is nothing was said about Tubbie0075's talent or effort. It's like this commenter thinks the instruments played on their own.
14. Decided it might be better to say something like that's cool that you blah, blah, blah rather than you're lucky that you blah, blah, blah.
I'd rather someone say It's cool that you have a blog rather than you're lucky to have a blog.
I'd rather someone say It's cool that you live in Texas rather than You're lucky to live in Texas. The latter makes me feel kind of...I don't know...guilty? I don't really like Texas, so then it makes me feel bad; because yeah. It could be worse. It's all about perspective. I feel unlucky when comparing it to living in somewhere like Australia, New York, Hawaii, London, etc. But compared to living in a shack in some country where it's always freezing; yeah I feel lucky.
I feel like I'm rambling a bunch of nonsense.
Maybe when we say lucky, there's the underlining message You should be happy about this. I don't like having people dictate what should or shouldn't make me happy. But if someone says something is cool, it's less about my feelings and more about their own.
Am I making any sense?
15. Decided I feel it's okay to tell someone they're lucky when they're almost killed or seriously injured. Like if you see them cross the road and a bus almost hits them. Wow. You were lucky! It would be a bit odd to say. Wow! You didn't get hit. That's so cool!
16. Remembered the scene from True Blood, Season Two which was very similar to Tubbie0075's conversation. Andy tells Ryan Kwanten's character that he's lucky for having such a great body. Kwanten responds by saying it wasn't luck. He has had to work very hard for that body. Here's the scene. Jen, don't watch that video. You won't like it.
17. Decided we can always find an excuse to tell someone they're lucky. If their kitchen burns down, we can say Well, it was lucky it was only your kitchen; and the rest of the house was saved.
If their whole house burns down we can say Well, it was lucky that you lost only your house. At least you still have your family.
If their oldest child died in the fire we can say, Well, it's lucky that you lost only one child. You still have two left.
If all their children and their spouse dies we can say, Well, it's lucky that YOU survived.
If the person themselves dies too we can say, Well, it's lucky she died and didn't have to endure such horrible losses.
Some may say this is a good attitude to have....very Pollyannaish. Always look on the bright side of life. I think it is kind of charming when we're able to apply it to our OWN life. But when someone tries to apply it for us. Well, I'd probably be tempted to slap them.
18. Started to lose my love for the Magic is Might experience. Well, honestly my feelings for it started to go down hill a few weeks ago—at least the Facebook part. I DO think the idea was a good one. I think a few of the official role-playing actors are fantastic. A few of them also seem to be fairly nice. Others are acting rude—way too controlling, and cliquish. I'm much more impressed by the unofficial players—mostly teens and college students. Some of them are very creative and talented.
Today I saw a Facebook argument between "Charlie Weasley", and some girl. The girl criticised "Charlie Weasley's" behavior and the role-playing actor (or actress) took it personally, and threatened to ban the girl. In my opinion, the girl was very polite and reasonable. She wasn't vile or cruel. She also made sure to emphasize that she was insulting the character, not the role-player. "Charlie Weasley said," By insulting Charlie you are insulting me, because I am playing Charlie.
I've dealt with people like this in the blogging world. Disagree with me and I'll be hateful towards you, get others to turn against you, and ban you from my site.
I think the Magic is Might (MIM) actors are getting a bit too carried away with themselves. I think that's disrespectful to the Harry Potter fans, and I think it's also disrespectful to JK Rowling. If they're going to build a project based on her work, I think they need to represent it with kindness, fairness, and respect. That's not to say they shouldn't put their foot down if someone becomes abusive. But disagreement does NOT equal abuse.
Anyway, I felt bad for the girl "Charlie Weasley" threatened to ban, because I know what it's like to try to reasonably argue/debate with someone and have them react in that way. I clicked on her name to learn more about her and saw that she's from Australia. That made me more mad that Charlie Weasley is picking on her. I know. I'm prejudice.
I really need to remember that this is not really Charlie Weasley; otherwise Charlie Weasley is ruined for me forever.
19. Played total stalker and found the Aussie girl's blog. She's living in Kuwait. She hasn't updated in about seven months.
I'm hoping she's not as sensitive as me and wasn't hurt by fake "Charlie Weasley". I would be hurt. I'm sensitive like that.
This girl is very adventurous. She's living in Kuwait, and she went to Nepal! She has pictures of a rhino. That's very cool.
20. Tried to find the Dropbears musical group on YouTube, because my friend mentioned it on Facebook. I found a Dropbears group. I'm not sure if it's the right one. Here's one of their videos. It's called "Fun Lovin"
21. Listened to another Drop Bears song. This one's called Shall We Go. It's a pretty cool song.
22. Read about the open-air urinals in Sydney. They're places for people to pee, so they don't have to do so on the street and people's lawns. That seems like a good idea to me. Although someone named Jill comments, Great idea. At least no more unwanted smells when I get out for a walk in the mornings! But would they not know that females need to pee too? Yeah. I actually forgot about that.
I think the world is really lacking in good clean public toilets. How many times have we been about to burst with no relief in sight? And how horrible is it to be with a child who has to pee? Very horrible.
In my utopian world, we'd let MOST parents educate their own children; then use school funds for clean and plentiful toilets. Disney World would be a good place to look towards for guidance. There's lots to say bad about Disney World, but they do good when it comes to toilets. They're usually clean. There's usually one close by. And you don't often have to wait in line.
23. Decided to send a Facebook message to the girl who disagreed with Charlie Weasley. I remember when people were nasty towards me for disagreeing with them online. I deeply appreciated anyone who emailed me with support. This girl might not need it or appreciate it, but I feel I should at least try.
Yeah. I don't need to be even watching something to cry about it. I often just think about things and it happens. I do a lot of silent crying in the car. There's lots of time to think about things on long rides. Today in the car, I thought of the cut scenes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I saw them a day or so ago. They're painfully sad. One has Ron coming down to tell his father it's time for dinner. That doesn't sound sad, but it was. It's so sad it makes my stomach hurt. Then there's the scene with Harry saying goodbye to his cousin. Yes. I'm crying right now as I write about it. I just sniffled. I need a tissue.
2. A bit bewildered by a lucid dream I found in my old Livejournal archives. This one is from November 2005. I dance with someone. And someone who looks sort of like Thaao Penghlis. But kind of a demented version. Maybe I dance with him at one point?
And then I'm somehow trapped by him. Physically. By his body. I sort of remember a railing near us. I ask him if he's Thaao at one point and he says no. Then at another point, I ask if he's Tony and he says yes. I panic about this, knowing that Tony is bad.
That in itself isn't strange. What's strange is I had a very similar lucid dream about Julian McMahon two years before; but it was in reverse. When I asked if he was his character or himself, he said himself.
Even that's not too weird. But it IS weird if you add in this story. At least I think it is.
3. Listened to Kate Miller Heidke's anti-bullying song, Caught in the Crowd. It goes well with the Irish anti-bullying video. Have you guys seen that? Jen, I think you'd like it.
4. Tried to understand article about Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. I THINK what's happened is that Kevin Rudd has come forward to say that certain Labor Party members weren't supportive of the Carbon Tax in the past. I'm not sure if this includes Gillard, or not.
5. Saw that the James Wan, the Australian creator of the Saw movies, has come out with a new movie; Insidious. The plot description on IMDb reminds me of a book I read awhile back. A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.
I wonder if they're connected? I don't remember much about the book, except the child's coma came about during a fight with his mom. I think he fell down the stairs? Then there was something with comic book characters?
Rose Byrne stars in the movie. I'm not sure if there are any other Aussie actors.
Here's the trailer. It looks pretty freaky, especially the line that begins with It's not the house that's haunted. Yikes.
I have to find out what this is all about. Does Lord Wiki have any spoilers? Don't worry. I'll keep what I've learned to myself.
Okay. I'm done. It sounds fairly interesting, but I think it's something I'd rather read about than see. Maybe I'm past the point of wanting to be scared by movies. I probably still like horror movies but not the ones that are super depressing and creepy.
6. Decided to stop my Adelaide vs. Hobart game. Adelaide was so far ahead, anyway. I think I prefer that because then we can do the drive to Adelaide and spend some time outside the major cities.
7. Watched a video from AshAlmond. He's a Beatles fan from Melbourne. In this video he sings "In My Life". It's a beautiful song, and AshAlmond has a good voice. His Asian accent shines through and gives the song a little extra something. I'm thinking...Is the original song sung in a British or American accent. Let me go listen......
Ah. Cool. It's British. I'm sure other people would have known that without having to listen to the song again.
Here's an American singing the song...Bette Midler. She uses an American accent.
8. Listened to Ben Lee sing the song. His r's are a bit American sometimes, but I can also hear a little bit of Australia in there. When he says "love" at 1:25, he sounds very Australian.
9. Watched this absolutely adorable video of two kids singing "I am Australian". They're not just cute; they sing very good. They're fantastic. Their names are Chloe and Corey. At the end, they talk a bit. They have adorable accents.
10. Listened to Chloe sing a song from Glee. She has such a beautiful voice.
11. Listened to Chloe sing "Take a Bow". She's a brilliant singer, but I don't like that particular song too much.
12. Watched Tubbie0075's video of himself playing piano, violin, AND the cello. He does the song "Falling Slowly", which is really beautiful. It's cool how he put it together. I guess he video-taped himself doing one instrument, then video-taped himself with another instrument; and put it all together. My guess is it's harder than it looks.
For the Harry Potter blog, I did something like that. I wanted to do a video of my character talking....kind of introducing herself. But to try to make it more interesting I had a fight going on in the background between her sister and mother. I wrote a script for that and recorded it. It took several times to get that right. It's hard because I had to keep changing my voice. Then I did a recording with the main character; the fight is in the background. It was hard to get the timing right. There was a point where I had to talk to the recording, and then have it respond to me. It took several takes, because the responses didn't match up well.
It was hard work but fun.
13. Read the interesting exchange in comments between Tubbie0075 and a commenter. Tubbie0075 gets a bit defensive, but I don't really blame him. A commenter says, wow how lucky are you to have all these instruments. I've only got a piano, and it's nothing like yours..
Tubbie0075 says I don't count on luck. I studied and worked hard to pay for all those instruments. He has a winky face there; I suppose to show he's not overly offended.
It's not like the commenter was being horribly mean. But in a way, I still think it's a bit rude. I don't think it's right to assume that someone is lucky. It's been said to me before, and it really annoyed me. How do you KNOW I'm lucky?
That's not to say I haven't said it to others. I'm sure I've said it to Australians. You're so lucky to live there! What's more accurate to say is I would love to live in Australia, and I'm slightly envious of you.
I DO believe in luck, and I do think some people are luckier than others. But to say it to someone without knowing their full story is presumptuous and annoying.
The other thing that's rude about the comment is nothing was said about Tubbie0075's talent or effort. It's like this commenter thinks the instruments played on their own.
14. Decided it might be better to say something like that's cool that you blah, blah, blah rather than you're lucky that you blah, blah, blah.
I'd rather someone say It's cool that you have a blog rather than you're lucky to have a blog.
I'd rather someone say It's cool that you live in Texas rather than You're lucky to live in Texas. The latter makes me feel kind of...I don't know...guilty? I don't really like Texas, so then it makes me feel bad; because yeah. It could be worse. It's all about perspective. I feel unlucky when comparing it to living in somewhere like Australia, New York, Hawaii, London, etc. But compared to living in a shack in some country where it's always freezing; yeah I feel lucky.
I feel like I'm rambling a bunch of nonsense.
Maybe when we say lucky, there's the underlining message You should be happy about this. I don't like having people dictate what should or shouldn't make me happy. But if someone says something is cool, it's less about my feelings and more about their own.
Am I making any sense?
15. Decided I feel it's okay to tell someone they're lucky when they're almost killed or seriously injured. Like if you see them cross the road and a bus almost hits them. Wow. You were lucky! It would be a bit odd to say. Wow! You didn't get hit. That's so cool!
16. Remembered the scene from True Blood, Season Two which was very similar to Tubbie0075's conversation. Andy tells Ryan Kwanten's character that he's lucky for having such a great body. Kwanten responds by saying it wasn't luck. He has had to work very hard for that body. Here's the scene. Jen, don't watch that video. You won't like it.
17. Decided we can always find an excuse to tell someone they're lucky. If their kitchen burns down, we can say Well, it was lucky it was only your kitchen; and the rest of the house was saved.
If their whole house burns down we can say Well, it was lucky that you lost only your house. At least you still have your family.
If their oldest child died in the fire we can say, Well, it's lucky that you lost only one child. You still have two left.
If all their children and their spouse dies we can say, Well, it's lucky that YOU survived.
If the person themselves dies too we can say, Well, it's lucky she died and didn't have to endure such horrible losses.
Some may say this is a good attitude to have....very Pollyannaish. Always look on the bright side of life. I think it is kind of charming when we're able to apply it to our OWN life. But when someone tries to apply it for us. Well, I'd probably be tempted to slap them.
18. Started to lose my love for the Magic is Might experience. Well, honestly my feelings for it started to go down hill a few weeks ago—at least the Facebook part. I DO think the idea was a good one. I think a few of the official role-playing actors are fantastic. A few of them also seem to be fairly nice. Others are acting rude—way too controlling, and cliquish. I'm much more impressed by the unofficial players—mostly teens and college students. Some of them are very creative and talented.
Today I saw a Facebook argument between "Charlie Weasley", and some girl. The girl criticised "Charlie Weasley's" behavior and the role-playing actor (or actress) took it personally, and threatened to ban the girl. In my opinion, the girl was very polite and reasonable. She wasn't vile or cruel. She also made sure to emphasize that she was insulting the character, not the role-player. "Charlie Weasley said," By insulting Charlie you are insulting me, because I am playing Charlie.
I've dealt with people like this in the blogging world. Disagree with me and I'll be hateful towards you, get others to turn against you, and ban you from my site.
I think the Magic is Might (MIM) actors are getting a bit too carried away with themselves. I think that's disrespectful to the Harry Potter fans, and I think it's also disrespectful to JK Rowling. If they're going to build a project based on her work, I think they need to represent it with kindness, fairness, and respect. That's not to say they shouldn't put their foot down if someone becomes abusive. But disagreement does NOT equal abuse.
Anyway, I felt bad for the girl "Charlie Weasley" threatened to ban, because I know what it's like to try to reasonably argue/debate with someone and have them react in that way. I clicked on her name to learn more about her and saw that she's from Australia. That made me more mad that Charlie Weasley is picking on her. I know. I'm prejudice.
I really need to remember that this is not really Charlie Weasley; otherwise Charlie Weasley is ruined for me forever.
19. Played total stalker and found the Aussie girl's blog. She's living in Kuwait. She hasn't updated in about seven months.
I'm hoping she's not as sensitive as me and wasn't hurt by fake "Charlie Weasley". I would be hurt. I'm sensitive like that.
This girl is very adventurous. She's living in Kuwait, and she went to Nepal! She has pictures of a rhino. That's very cool.
20. Tried to find the Dropbears musical group on YouTube, because my friend mentioned it on Facebook. I found a Dropbears group. I'm not sure if it's the right one. Here's one of their videos. It's called "Fun Lovin"
21. Listened to another Drop Bears song. This one's called Shall We Go. It's a pretty cool song.
22. Read about the open-air urinals in Sydney. They're places for people to pee, so they don't have to do so on the street and people's lawns. That seems like a good idea to me. Although someone named Jill comments, Great idea. At least no more unwanted smells when I get out for a walk in the mornings! But would they not know that females need to pee too? Yeah. I actually forgot about that.
I think the world is really lacking in good clean public toilets. How many times have we been about to burst with no relief in sight? And how horrible is it to be with a child who has to pee? Very horrible.
In my utopian world, we'd let MOST parents educate their own children; then use school funds for clean and plentiful toilets. Disney World would be a good place to look towards for guidance. There's lots to say bad about Disney World, but they do good when it comes to toilets. They're usually clean. There's usually one close by. And you don't often have to wait in line.
23. Decided to send a Facebook message to the girl who disagreed with Charlie Weasley. I remember when people were nasty towards me for disagreeing with them online. I deeply appreciated anyone who emailed me with support. This girl might not need it or appreciate it, but I feel I should at least try.