Sea Patrol Actors, Songs on Underbelly, Kate Ritchie, and Planting Seeds

1. Started to watch an episode of Sea Patrol.

It feels kind of strange, because between watching season one and season two, I saw some of the actors in other things.

I saw Lisa McCune in Reef Doctors, so now I see her as a doctor.

I saw Saskia Burmeister in Pirate Islands, so now I see her as a sadistic pirate.

I think eventually, though, I'll get used to them being their Sea Patrol characters.

2. Excited! Alan Dale is on this episode. I don't think I've ever seen him on an Australian show...except for Neighbours.

3. Saw that Kristian Schmid from Packed to the Rafters is on the show.  He was on season one as well. I didn't realize that. When I saw him on Packed to the Rafters, I thought that he was new to me.

I know I looked him up, though. Did I see that he had been on Sea Patrol?

Maybe I learned all of this already, and I just forgot it all.

4. Remembered Kristian Schmid's character from Sea Patrol. It's all starting to come back to me. He's the unfriendly one who had difficulty when his dad died.

5. Remembered that I also saw Jeremy Lindsay Taylor in something recently—Puberty Blues. He played Claudia Karvan's husband. Well, it wasn't recently, but it was between seasons one and two of Sea Patrol.

6. Got the idea that I've probably seen most of the cast of Sea Patrol in between watching the two seasons.

7. Enjoyed the episode of Sea Patrol. I like it much more than Underbelly.

But who knows. Maybe, after awhile, Underbelly will start to grow on me.

What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there 
was life after death, and 
we could easily talk to our 
dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 

8. Started watching an episode of Underbelly; and remembered that yesterday I made plans to count the songs used in the episode.

So far, I have one.

9.  Saw that Kate Ritchie is one of the guest stars of this episode.

So now I have to watch Sally Fletcher shooting up heroin? Thanks a lot, Underbelly.

10. Hoped I don't have to see Sally Fletcher naked.  I think that might traumatize me.

11. Hoped that Kate Richie will be playing a cop or something like that.

12. Heard a second song on Underbelly.

13. Saw Kate Ritchie.

She looks suburban.

She might be playing the wife of a criminal.

14. Heard a third song on Underbelly.

And I'm only eight minutes into the episode.

My feeling is they play too many songs.

I love music in television shows. But I think with Underbelly, it's overkill.

14. Heard a fourth song.

15. Saw Kate Ritchie cleaning blood off of a man.

I think she (well, her character) is connected to the criminal world somehow.

16. Wondered if I wrote about Ritchie being on Underbelly when I did my post about her.

17. Heard a fifth song. In typical Underbelly fashion, a cheerful song is played during a violent fight scene.

18.  Saw that Charlie-Rose MacLennan , the girl who plays Kate Richie's daughter on Underbelly, is like her onscreen mother in that she too was a child star on Home and Away.

19. Heard a sixth song.  It was played for a very short time, though.

20. Heard a seventh song. It's a creepy lullaby type thing played after Kate Ritchie's family was attacked. The music plays as we see her dead husband's blood splattered all over the bathroom.

21. Heard an eighth song. Once again, it's a cheerful song played during a violent scene.

I've actually heard the song before. It's "Tiny Bubbles".

22. Consulted Lord Wiki. He says the song was sung by a Hawaiian pop singer named Don Ho.

I think I've heard of him before.

23. Wanted to say that I'm not against using cheerful music in a violent or sad scene. I think the juxtaposition can be quite effective and interesting.

My feeling, though, is that Underbelly overuses this technique.

24. Wondered if maybe I also feel that Underbelly overuses violence.

Does it glorify violence?

Is that why I don't like the show.

Would I equally dislike Breaking Bad?

25. Felt that I don't mind ultra-violence, probably, as long as there's something that I do like to balance it all.

26. Thought of violent shows I've liked.

Wentworth and The Walking Dead are two things that come to my mind.

There might have been others.

27. Thought about how the episode of Sea Patrol I watched today had some violence. There was violence and a major injury. There was some gruesomeness.  But it was one incident instead of multiple ones.

28. Heard a ninth song—though it might be the same eerie lullaby that was played earlier.

29. Heard a tenth. This one's a Christmas tune.

30. Started to read article about the real life Les Kane. This was the man that Kate Ritchie's character (Judi Kane) was married to.

The article talks about how women were sucked up into the violent world of the men they loved.

It sounds like Judi Kane didn't eagerly choose this kind of life. It's more like she fell in love with the wrong person.

31. Went to the Triple J 2014 list.

Today I'm going to listen to "Micro Wars" by Kingswood.  It's the 76th song on the list.

My browser shows I visited Lord Wiki's page on Kingswood before. Maybe they have a song higher up on the list? Or I might have looked up Kingswood for other reasons.

32. Found the Kingswood song I already listened to. It's 56th on the list—"I Can Feel That You Don't Love Me". I can't remember if I liked the song or not.

33. Revisited "I Can Feel That You Don't Love Me".

It's sad. I remember the song and video now, but I can't remember whether or not I liked it.

34. Found the post where I talked about the song.

I said I liked both the song and video.

You'd think I could just see a clip of the video and say, Oh! I remember that. I liked that song.

But, no. That's not the case here.

I think I'm a bit mentally confused today.

I'm not sure what I like or don't like, and I'm not sure why I like or dislike things.

35. Started watching "Micro Wars" which is actually a whole ten minute thing.

I don't like it already, because of it's length. I don't feel like watching something that long.

But maybe it will win me over.

36. Saw that, like Underbelly, "Micro Wars" is about gang fighting.

37. Thought the song was fairly nice but not the type to become one of my favorites.

I'm not very interested in the video yet.

38. Saw that the video is made up of two songs—"Micro Wars" and "Eye of the Storm".

I finished watching the "Micro Wars" bit. I don't think I'm going to watch the rest of the film.

I'm tired of gang stuff.

39. Wondered if I just don't like gang stories. Is that my problem with Underbelly?

I did like Bikie Wars, though.

40. Wondered if maybe I shouldn't worry so much about why I'm not a big fan of Underbelly.

41. Wondered if I could buy Australian flower seeds.

That's one of my obsessions right now. Gardening. Which is kind of funny, because I don't have a green thumb.  I have a stubborn, uneducated thumb.  I like to just stick things in the ground and hope for the best.

Although this time I have been kind of following directions.

I soaked the seeds that needed to be soaked.

Today I bought some proper potting soil.

Earlier this week, I planted some seeds with this not very nutritious soil that comes in patties. You add water and it expands.

Still, despite the lack of good nutrition, some of the seeds have sprouted.

It's exciting to me.

I don't really care about having a finished product that we can use in our kitchen.  I just get excited to see green stuff coming out of a seed.

I'm imagining, though, that maybe I'll get into this, and my thumb will turn green. That's why I was wondering about Australian flowers. Are any available in the United States? Are any legal?  I know there are floral and fauna laws in every country. I don't want to do any Johnny Depp type things.

42. Saw that a San Francisco site has information about the Golden Wattle; though they don't specify if it's legal, or where to buy it.

Maybe I should assume people are allowed to grow it in San Francisco. Otherwise, they'd probably tell Californians not to grow it.

43. Wondered if laws could vary by state. Maybe what's legally grown in California is not legal in Texas.

44. Looked at Google Shopping for Acacia pycnantha (golden wattle) seeds. They have golden wattle pillows, golden wattle prints, a whole book about golden wattle, golden wattle skirts, and  golden wattle iPhone case.

I don't see any seeds.

45. Realized that Australians go online too to buy things. I'm not seeing many Australian opportunities to buy Golden Wattle. So far, all I've seen, is something on eBay.

I guess it's not something people buy online.

46. Searched again, and found a place for Australians to buy golden wattle seeds.

I guess I searched in the wrong place before.

47. Found a website that talks about growing golden wattle sites in the US.

I'm getting the idea that it's legal, and I think I'm in the right USDA zone (8).

I just don't know where to get the seeds.

Although I'm kind of jumping way ahead of myself here.

I'm totally not advanced enough for planting something exciting and international.

48. Saw that, in California, there's a native Australian plants nursery.  That's very cool.

I should move to California.

49. Saw that I can buy Banksia seeds online!

That is so cool!

If I get good at this, I'm going to buy some.

Although if I get good at it, I'll probably do my research, and learn it's impossible to grow Banksia in Texas.

50. Bookmarked the Australian plants nursery website. They have all kinds of seeds I can order.

The only thing that confuses me is they say, Minimum of ten seeds per packed.  I'm guessing and hoping that means each seed packed has ten seeds. When I first saw it, I thought they meant you had to BUY a minimum of ten seed packets. That wouldn't make much sense, though, now that I think of it.  But, I was worried at first, because each packet is about $7.00. That means I would have to buy around $70 worth of seeds.  I'm not sure I want to invest that much.

51. Read the about page for the Australia Plants Nursery.

It was founded by a woman named Jo O'Connell. I think she's an Australian who moved to California.  She studied horticulture at the University of West Sydney. She's done horticulture work in Australia, South Africa, the United States, etc.

She helped rejuvenate areas in Australia affected by mining.

This woman has a very impressive resume. One of the things I love most is she's been used as a consultant for zoos in the United States. I think sometimes they have plants that are native to the places where the various animals are from.

52. Tempted to go on a shopping spree and go crazy now, but I'm trying to tell myself to calm down.

I will see how my current plants turn out.

Then maybe next year I'll try doing an Australian garden.

53. Consulted Lord Wiki about Fort Worth's climate. I'm thinking I can find out which area of Australia is most similar to us.

So....

We have a humid subtropical climate. That surprises me. I thought we were pretty dry.

54. Saw that Fort Worth gets 33 inches of rain per year, which is 84 centimeters.

Maybe it would help to find cities in Australia that have about that much rain.

55. Learned that rain is measured in millimeters; not centimeters.  Oops.

So I'm looking for a place that gets about 838 millimeters of rain.

56. Saw from this website that Perth's rain amount is fairly close to Fort Worth's rain amount.

57. Learned from Lord Wiki that it's south-eastern Australia that has a subtropical climate.

58. Figured I'm probably making too big of a deal about this. We live on different continents not different planets.

Plenty of people, throughout history, have planted things that are not native to their area.

59. Thought about skipping my TV Guide game today, because this post is already long.

But I want to do do at least one TV show.

60. Saw that the next show is Quantico.

I've seen commercials for it on Hulu. The premise sounds exciting.  There's a bunch of FBI students, and one is a terrorist.

61. Started looking at the cast list for Quantico.  I'm searching for Australians. It's my new game.

62. Did not find an Australian actor...yet.

But I did find a Lost one! One of my favorites—Mark Pellegrino.

The cast, though, has a nice international mix. The star is from India. Then there's a woman who was born in Lebanon to an Egyptian mother and Palestinian father.

There's someone from Cuba...

63. Looked at a cast member of Quantico, which brought me to a TV show Satisfaction that is NOT the Australian Satisfaction.

Yesterday I saw that the Australian actor Matt Passmore was in Satisfaction; and I assumed IMDb was talking about the Australian show. They weren't. Matt Passmore was on the American Satisfaction.

64. Finished looking at the Quantico cast list. I didn't click on everyone's name, but I clicked on most.

I didn't find any Australians.

65. Thought more about gardening.

I'm looking at this last-freeze website for Dallas-Fort Worth.  I'm getting the idea that late March to mid April would probably be the best time to start growing things.

I'm very excited!

Well, I'm excited about the plants.

There are other things in my life that are making me a bit anxious and depressed.

So...it's nice to have gardening to distract myself; even if I do end up being bad at it.

66. Felt guilty about vague-blogging.  I feel it's a little rude towards the people reading this, but especially rude to my future self. I'm going to end up reading this a few years from now and wonder what was wrong with me.

Or...well, I hope I'll be wondering.

If I know exactly what was wrong, it will probably mean something dreadful happens and these months become etched in my memory as the beginning of the nightmare.

Anyway, I'm having a desire to express my feelings, but I'm not up to expressing the exact reasons why I'm feeling that way.

67. Realized I'm wrong.

I do remember past times of anxiety—both the whens and whys.  With those things, everything turned out okay.  So even if things also turn out fine this time, I might still remember what I was talking about when I read my blog posts in the future.