1. Learned about an Australian movie from Tim.
It's called Sanctum.
2. Watched the trailer for Sanctum.
Maybe I've seen it before. It seems kind of familiar. What's funny is Tim acted like I knew what the movie was. I was thinking how he seems to assume I must know every Australian thing out there. The truth is, often I'm quite ignorant about Australian things.
Anyway, maybe Tim was right about me knowing about it. Maybe he read about it on my blog, and that's how he first heard of it.
3. Searched my blog for the word "Sanctum". I came up empty. So now I'm back to thinking the movie is new to me.
Maybe the film trailer seemed familiar to me, because it's full of cliches I've seen in other trailers.
4. Learned from Tim that he did not like Sanctum.
5. Went to bed and had a lot of dreams. In one of them, I'm on a plane to Australia. The plane hasn't taken off yet. I start to worry that I didn't give a big enough good-bye to Jack. I feel that I gave him a dinky distracted good-bye and I strongly regret that. I'm worried Jack has the same opinion about the good-bye, and I worry he'll be upset.
Interestingly, the plane was taking off from New Jersey.
I had another dream last night that involved two weeks. I can't remember what it was. All I remember is waking up at some point and thinking it's strange that I had two dreams involving two weeks.
I wonder if it means anything.
6. Found two old dreams about Australia. They're from March 31, 2008.
In one, We're at some place that has a lot of wallabies—kind of like in a traffic circle thing, but in the middle of a park rather than the street. The wallabies seem wild, but I don't know if they're really wild or part of the park. Jack is petting them and I'm a little worried they'll bite him.
In the other dream, I invite my sister to do something....more out of obligation; to be nice. She says she can't come and confesses they are busy buying me a present. She's says she's trying to buy me land. I'm wondering what kind of land. In Australia? I'm thinking that I wouldn't want land anywhere else.
7. Received my first spam comment since returning comments to my blog. I was impressed it was from something that was actually Australian-related. But still, I deleted it.
I don't have spam-tolerance.
8. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read the continuation of How Do I Rebel? This is the story with Reade and Zofia.
Every time I see Zofia, I think of Sophia. And then I think of the poor little girl who turned into a zombie.
9. Started to read.
Zofia is cool with Reade being mute.
I think it's nice that he came right out and told her rather than making her guess at things.
10. Saw that Zofia is having some doubts about her rebellion tactics. She's starting to wonder if maybe her mom was right about her being dressed inappropriately.
11. Learned that Reade is a little bewildered by Zofia calling his muteness cool.
He doesn't think it's cool. He thinks of it as a disadvantage.
And it is definitely a disadvantage.
But I can also see Zofia's point. I think it is cool.
I think it's cool when someone is different in some way, and they work around it.
There's an Australian teenager who's missing most of both his legs. I would definitely see that as a disadvantage. Yet he manages to live a very active and joyful life. He sings. He swims. He makes fun YouTube videos.
I think that's really cool.
12. Saw that my Australian of the day is Warwick Windridge Armstrong.
He was a cricket player.
13. Learned that Armstrong was born in Victoria to parents who came from Tasmania.
14. Learned that Armstrong played cricket for Victoria from 1899-1922.
When did Don Bradman play?
15. Consulted Lord Wiki. He says Bradman played for New South Wales 1927 to 1934. Then he played for South Australia in 1935-1949.
So Armstrong came along earlier.
16. Learned that Armstrong later joined a firm that made whiskey. I'm guessing what this means is he lent his name and face to their marketing campaign.
17. Got the idea that Armstrong was really good at cricket. I don't understand the details, but I get the point that he was talented.
18. Watched an IMDb-provided clip of Rachel Carpani on the TV show Against the Wall. I wanted to hear how her American accent sounded.
I think she does a pretty good job with it.
19. Read about Gallipoli in "Over There" With the Australians. It provides an interesting prospective— one I've never thought of before. I can't say, though, that I've had a ton of learning about Gallipoli.
One of the things the author says is that people tend to forget their were other troops there, besides the Australian and New Zealanders. I mean there were other troops fighting WITH the Anzacs. Obviously there were troops fighting against them.
The author also gives a theory about why Gallipoli is so huge with the Australian psyche. His theory is that the young Australia had a reputation as being fun and frivolous. It was kind of like a party-country. Gallipoli was a chance to prove to the world that Australia had moral integrity.
20. Received query about participating in a documentary about obsessions. I said no.
I also was once asked to participate in a documentary about unschooling. I said no to that too.
I will admit I considered it for about three seconds. I thought, well, THIS is a way to attract readers to my blog.
But no.
I think it's rare that such things end up being positive. These shows are usually edited to make people look as awful as possible. Or maybe I shouldn't be harsh. They might not turn me into something awful, but I imagine they'd edit me into something I'd at least no longer even recognize.
I figure if I'm going to make my life public, I'd rather do it under my own conditions.
And seeing how The King's Speech fiasco worked out, my guess is that if I said yes, I'd end up on the cutting room floor anyway.
What's funny is, I was thinking about The King's Speech when I got the email. Then a minute or so later my iTunes DJ played a song from it. It's actually the first time he's played it since I downloaded it a few weeks ago.
21. Wondered if any other bloggers have gotten queries about being part of the reality TV world. Reality TV and documentaries have become so popular lately. There are so many shows on so many different channels. It seems eventually everyone will be invited into it at some point.
22. Decided I'd definitely consider being part of a reality TV thing that involved a fantastic prize—like the people who went with Oprah to Australia. They didn't seem to be overly harassed by the cameras. From what I saw, it didn't look like the show got too personal.
23. Googled the author of Over There With the Australians. Reginald Hugh Knyvett. This genealogy page says he died in 1918. That's the year the book was published. That's sad.
I'm guessing maybe the book was published posthumously. Or maybe it was published shortly before he died.
I wonder if he died from war injuries.
24. Read an interesting story about Perth in Shark Net.
There was some American space thing going on, and Perth decided to turn on lots of lights so the astronauts could see them...from space? Or maybe just from really high up.
For awhile, Perth had the nickname "City of Lights". Then some people commercialized the whole thing by selling empty cans with the label "Guaranteed Air From the City of Lights".
I thought that was a fun piece of trivia.
25. Learned from Lord Wiki that the City of Lights thing happened on February 20, 1962.
26. Confused when I read this part from Shark Net.
All the reporters came to the House of Meat parties, the suavest Harry Potter, often arriving with an actress or a Beachgirl Quest contestant, and once with the female chorus from South Pacific.
I wasn't reading carefully enough at first, and thought it was an allusion to the wizard. I was a bit surprised because it didn't fit in with the context of the story. Then I read it again and realized it was just a name coincidence.
27. Finished reading Shark Net. I liked it a lot. It was different than I expected. I thought it was just a true crime thing, about the serial killer. That did play a big part in the book, but it was also a biographical coming of age story. It's about Robert Drewe's life and how he became a writer.
I think it would be a good companion book to Cloudstreet. I think it's about the same time period...approximately. Shark Net goes from the 1940's to 1960's. I think that's about the time period of Cloudstreet. But I'm not positive. Cloudstreet, though, talks about the same serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke. Shark Net goes more into depth about all that. It has interesting interviews with the killer's wife. She had no idea what was going on with her husband. He was awful to her and would often disappear. She didn't realize he was busy killing people. She thought he was just a womanizer.
28. Started looking at more of Fredweng's day Nineteen in Australia Flickr set.
29. Thought this was a fun picture of tourists looking at Uluru.
30. Tired of looking at Uluru photos. I think I've seen too many in the last few years.
31. Went to Funtrivia to take another Australia quiz.
Today I'm taking a quiz about National Parks.
I'm not sure how I'll do on that.
32. Got question #8 wrong and learned that the ACT has only one national park and it's called Namadgi National Park.
I'm confused because I thought we went to a national park when we were in Canberra, and it wasn't Namadgi.
Maybe it was a different type of park?
33. Looked at my old trip report post and saw that we went to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.
I assumed it was a national park. I guess I was wrong?
34. Saw that Tidbinbilla IS listed on a National Parks website.
I'm wondering if it's counted as New South Wales rather than the ACT.
35. Looked at the address of Tidbinbilla, on the website. It's in the ACT.
36. Consulted Lord Wiki.
What he says is that Tidbinbilla is on the fringe of Namadgi National Park. So maybe it's not counted as a national park because it's part of the other national park.
37. Got question #9 wrong and learned there's a national park in Western Australia called Purnululu National Park.
Purnululu has something called Bungle Bungles.
38. Looked at a website that has information about the Bungle Bungles. The park is near Halls Creek.
The site wasn't known to non-Aboriginal people until the 1980's.
39. Looked at the quiz statistics and saw that only 15% of quiz takers got the question right about Purnululu.
I guess it's not very well known.
It's called Sanctum.
2. Watched the trailer for Sanctum.
Maybe I've seen it before. It seems kind of familiar. What's funny is Tim acted like I knew what the movie was. I was thinking how he seems to assume I must know every Australian thing out there. The truth is, often I'm quite ignorant about Australian things.
Anyway, maybe Tim was right about me knowing about it. Maybe he read about it on my blog, and that's how he first heard of it.
3. Searched my blog for the word "Sanctum". I came up empty. So now I'm back to thinking the movie is new to me.
Maybe the film trailer seemed familiar to me, because it's full of cliches I've seen in other trailers.
4. Learned from Tim that he did not like Sanctum.
5. Went to bed and had a lot of dreams. In one of them, I'm on a plane to Australia. The plane hasn't taken off yet. I start to worry that I didn't give a big enough good-bye to Jack. I feel that I gave him a dinky distracted good-bye and I strongly regret that. I'm worried Jack has the same opinion about the good-bye, and I worry he'll be upset.
I try to cheer myself up by thinking how I'll be in Australia for two weeks; and those two weeks will go by fast because I'm having fun. But I worry that won't happen. I worry I won't have fun, because I'll be too sad.
Interestingly, the plane was taking off from New Jersey.
I had another dream last night that involved two weeks. I can't remember what it was. All I remember is waking up at some point and thinking it's strange that I had two dreams involving two weeks.
I wonder if it means anything.
6. Found two old dreams about Australia. They're from March 31, 2008.
In one, We're at some place that has a lot of wallabies—kind of like in a traffic circle thing, but in the middle of a park rather than the street. The wallabies seem wild, but I don't know if they're really wild or part of the park. Jack is petting them and I'm a little worried they'll bite him.
In the other dream, I invite my sister to do something....more out of obligation; to be nice. She says she can't come and confesses they are busy buying me a present. She's says she's trying to buy me land. I'm wondering what kind of land. In Australia? I'm thinking that I wouldn't want land anywhere else.
7. Received my first spam comment since returning comments to my blog. I was impressed it was from something that was actually Australian-related. But still, I deleted it.
I don't have spam-tolerance.
8. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read the continuation of How Do I Rebel? This is the story with Reade and Zofia.
Every time I see Zofia, I think of Sophia. And then I think of the poor little girl who turned into a zombie.
9. Started to read.
Zofia is cool with Reade being mute.
I think it's nice that he came right out and told her rather than making her guess at things.
10. Saw that Zofia is having some doubts about her rebellion tactics. She's starting to wonder if maybe her mom was right about her being dressed inappropriately.
11. Learned that Reade is a little bewildered by Zofia calling his muteness cool.
He doesn't think it's cool. He thinks of it as a disadvantage.
And it is definitely a disadvantage.
But I can also see Zofia's point. I think it is cool.
I think it's cool when someone is different in some way, and they work around it.
There's an Australian teenager who's missing most of both his legs. I would definitely see that as a disadvantage. Yet he manages to live a very active and joyful life. He sings. He swims. He makes fun YouTube videos.
I think that's really cool.
12. Saw that my Australian of the day is Warwick Windridge Armstrong.
He was a cricket player.
13. Learned that Armstrong was born in Victoria to parents who came from Tasmania.
14. Learned that Armstrong played cricket for Victoria from 1899-1922.
When did Don Bradman play?
15. Consulted Lord Wiki. He says Bradman played for New South Wales 1927 to 1934. Then he played for South Australia in 1935-1949.
So Armstrong came along earlier.
16. Learned that Armstrong later joined a firm that made whiskey. I'm guessing what this means is he lent his name and face to their marketing campaign.
17. Got the idea that Armstrong was really good at cricket. I don't understand the details, but I get the point that he was talented.
18. Watched an IMDb-provided clip of Rachel Carpani on the TV show Against the Wall. I wanted to hear how her American accent sounded.
I think she does a pretty good job with it.
19. Read about Gallipoli in "Over There" With the Australians. It provides an interesting prospective— one I've never thought of before. I can't say, though, that I've had a ton of learning about Gallipoli.
One of the things the author says is that people tend to forget their were other troops there, besides the Australian and New Zealanders. I mean there were other troops fighting WITH the Anzacs. Obviously there were troops fighting against them.
The author also gives a theory about why Gallipoli is so huge with the Australian psyche. His theory is that the young Australia had a reputation as being fun and frivolous. It was kind of like a party-country. Gallipoli was a chance to prove to the world that Australia had moral integrity.
20. Received query about participating in a documentary about obsessions. I said no.
I also was once asked to participate in a documentary about unschooling. I said no to that too.
I will admit I considered it for about three seconds. I thought, well, THIS is a way to attract readers to my blog.
But no.
I think it's rare that such things end up being positive. These shows are usually edited to make people look as awful as possible. Or maybe I shouldn't be harsh. They might not turn me into something awful, but I imagine they'd edit me into something I'd at least no longer even recognize.
I figure if I'm going to make my life public, I'd rather do it under my own conditions.
And seeing how The King's Speech fiasco worked out, my guess is that if I said yes, I'd end up on the cutting room floor anyway.
What's funny is, I was thinking about The King's Speech when I got the email. Then a minute or so later my iTunes DJ played a song from it. It's actually the first time he's played it since I downloaded it a few weeks ago.
21. Wondered if any other bloggers have gotten queries about being part of the reality TV world. Reality TV and documentaries have become so popular lately. There are so many shows on so many different channels. It seems eventually everyone will be invited into it at some point.
22. Decided I'd definitely consider being part of a reality TV thing that involved a fantastic prize—like the people who went with Oprah to Australia. They didn't seem to be overly harassed by the cameras. From what I saw, it didn't look like the show got too personal.
23. Googled the author of Over There With the Australians. Reginald Hugh Knyvett. This genealogy page says he died in 1918. That's the year the book was published. That's sad.
I'm guessing maybe the book was published posthumously. Or maybe it was published shortly before he died.
I wonder if he died from war injuries.
24. Read an interesting story about Perth in Shark Net.
There was some American space thing going on, and Perth decided to turn on lots of lights so the astronauts could see them...from space? Or maybe just from really high up.
For awhile, Perth had the nickname "City of Lights". Then some people commercialized the whole thing by selling empty cans with the label "Guaranteed Air From the City of Lights".
I thought that was a fun piece of trivia.
25. Learned from Lord Wiki that the City of Lights thing happened on February 20, 1962.
26. Confused when I read this part from Shark Net.
All the reporters came to the House of Meat parties, the suavest Harry Potter, often arriving with an actress or a Beachgirl Quest contestant, and once with the female chorus from South Pacific.
I wasn't reading carefully enough at first, and thought it was an allusion to the wizard. I was a bit surprised because it didn't fit in with the context of the story. Then I read it again and realized it was just a name coincidence.
27. Finished reading Shark Net. I liked it a lot. It was different than I expected. I thought it was just a true crime thing, about the serial killer. That did play a big part in the book, but it was also a biographical coming of age story. It's about Robert Drewe's life and how he became a writer.
I think it would be a good companion book to Cloudstreet. I think it's about the same time period...approximately. Shark Net goes from the 1940's to 1960's. I think that's about the time period of Cloudstreet. But I'm not positive. Cloudstreet, though, talks about the same serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke. Shark Net goes more into depth about all that. It has interesting interviews with the killer's wife. She had no idea what was going on with her husband. He was awful to her and would often disappear. She didn't realize he was busy killing people. She thought he was just a womanizer.
28. Started looking at more of Fredweng's day Nineteen in Australia Flickr set.
29. Thought this was a fun picture of tourists looking at Uluru.
30. Tired of looking at Uluru photos. I think I've seen too many in the last few years.
31. Went to Funtrivia to take another Australia quiz.
Today I'm taking a quiz about National Parks.
I'm not sure how I'll do on that.
32. Got question #8 wrong and learned that the ACT has only one national park and it's called Namadgi National Park.
I'm confused because I thought we went to a national park when we were in Canberra, and it wasn't Namadgi.
Maybe it was a different type of park?
33. Looked at my old trip report post and saw that we went to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.
I assumed it was a national park. I guess I was wrong?
34. Saw that Tidbinbilla IS listed on a National Parks website.
I'm wondering if it's counted as New South Wales rather than the ACT.
35. Looked at the address of Tidbinbilla, on the website. It's in the ACT.
36. Consulted Lord Wiki.
What he says is that Tidbinbilla is on the fringe of Namadgi National Park. So maybe it's not counted as a national park because it's part of the other national park.
37. Got question #9 wrong and learned there's a national park in Western Australia called Purnululu National Park.
Purnululu has something called Bungle Bungles.
38. Looked at a website that has information about the Bungle Bungles. The park is near Halls Creek.
The site wasn't known to non-Aboriginal people until the 1980's.
39. Looked at the quiz statistics and saw that only 15% of quiz takers got the question right about Purnululu.
I guess it's not very well known.
I liked the photo of Wozza Armstrong. Cricket is as exciting as watching paint dry. Well, no, it isn't that exciting, really. But Wozza's cap is really tiny, and what with that and his pointy toed shoes, I've decided to call him Weird Wozza Armstrong.
ReplyDeleteEvery day, I learn something new!
Fruitcake,
ReplyDeleteI didn't even notice Armstrong's hat and shoes. I had to go back and look!
Thanks for pointing it out.