The Secret Life of Us, Farscape, Mystery Road, and Tim Tams

1. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

2. Liked Kelly's (Deborah Mailman) voice-over.  Sometimes you can feel that a moment's coming when you have to make a defining choice. Either it will lift you towards perfect happiness or spiral you down towards despair. 

What if your choice plunges someone else into despair. Does that mean your happiness is tainted? 

I think if the happiness isn't tainted, the happy person is a cold and selfish person.

That's not to say we can't live our lives doing things to make other people happy—especially when it makes us feel unhappy. But if we can hurt other people and not feel bad about it; I think that's pretty low.

3. Thought that Bree (Brooke Harman) is adorable. She has really grown on me. When I first started watching the season, I saw her as being quite annoying.

4. Liked Kelly's closing voice-over.  I used to think that if you brought all the elements of your life into balance, you could obtain perfect happiness. Now I see that—for me, anyway—There's just going to be the odd glimpse of perfection. Just a moment; then it's gone. And in between those moments, I'll be okay. I'll be waiting for the next one to come along.

5. Finished with the last season of The Secret Life of Us. Now I just have the clip-episodes left.

I think the season was probably underrated.

It was hard to adjust to all the cast changes, but once I did, I liked the show a lot.

I really think I prefer the new cast members to the original ones.

6. Consulted Lord Wiki about Bindi Irwin winning Dancing with the Stars.

I wanted to see what songs she danced too.

The reason for this is, I heard this song somewhere. I could picture people dancing to it and got the idea I might have seen it in a clip from Dancing with the Stars.

Anyway, I haven't seen that song yet. But I did see that Irwin and her partner danced to "Cry Little Sister" from Lost Boys. That's very cool.

7. Watched some of the video of the dance.

8. Did not see the song I was thinking of.

I don't even know the name of the song.

It's something about beautiful.

9. Found the song. It's "Beneath Your Beautiful" by Labrinth.

I don't know why I associate it with Bindi Irwin dancing.

10. Started watching The Secret Life of Us clip-show episode.

11. Realized that Joel Edgerton has a slight resemblance to Stephen Curry.

I'm wondering if Curry was brought on as a sort of replacement to Edgerton.

Then also, Anna Torv seems like she's sort of a replacement for Sibylla Budd.

12. Decided that Nicholas Coghlan could be a replacement for Damien de Montemas

13. Hoped this clip show helps me remember what happened to Richie (Spencer McLaren), Miranda Abi Tucker), and Gabrielle (Budd) Because I can't remember. Where did they go? Did they leave Melbourne? Australia? Who did they end up with?

I'm trying to remember if Gabrielle ended up with Tidy (Spielman), or not.

14. Realized that the fight between Stu (Curry) and Christian (Michael Dorman) was never resolved.

15. Started watching the second part of the clip show.

16. Finished watching the clip show.

I'm officially done with The Secret Life of Us.

17. Went to Random.org to pick my next show.

It's a movie called Mystery Road.

I'll probably start watching that when we get home.

18. Saw from IMDb that Aaron Pedersen, from The Secret Life of Us is in the movie.

Other actors familiar to me: Hugo Weaving, Ryan Kwanten, Jack Thompson, Roy Billings, and Damian Walshe-Howling.

19. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

So far, it's quite entertaining.

20. Wondered if Crais (Lani John Tupu) is my favorite character.

I have a weakness for bad-turned-good characters.

21. Saw that the top trending Twitter topic in Australia, right now, is about the photos of Princess Charlotte.

She's actually quite cute.

I'm not the type of person who's typically interested in royalty or babies. But Charlotte was cute enough to make me want to tell Tim and Jack about the photos.

22. Surprised that Farscape is continuing to have the double Crichton's (Ben Browder)

23. Started to watch another episode of Farscape. This one features the other group that wasn't in the previous episode I watched.

I realized that Ben Browder isn't the only one acting in both groups. Lani John Topu is as well. In this episode, he's playing Pilot. In the episode I watched yesterday, he played Crais.

24. Saw that the episode I'm watching now features Francesca Buller.  She's married to Ben Browder. It's funny, because yesterday I consulted Lord Wiki about Browder and learned that he married someone from the show. Then today I'm watching one of the episodes that features his wife.

This episode is actually not the first to feature Buller. She was on two episodes in season two but played a different character.

25. Looked again and saw that Buller was actually in three episodes before this one and has played a total of three different characters on the show.

26. Learned that Buller played the hungry plant woman in the episode "Born to Be Wild". I remember her!

27. Wondered if many science fiction fans have attempted to watch The Secret Life of Us. Because two of the actors from the show (Anna Torv and Gigi Edgley) have been on science fiction shows with pretty big fandoms (Fringe and Farscape)

28. Checked Gigi Edgley's filmography. She was on The Secret Life of Us after Farscape.

Anna Torv started Fringe three years after The Secret Life of Us.

29. Decided not to wait until getting home to start watching Mystery Road.

30. Started to watch the movie.

At first, it looked like it might be science-fiction horror, and I got kind of excited.

But now I'm getting the idea it's a murder-mystery type thing.

31. Started to get an idea of what this movie is about.

There's an Aboriginal man (Aaron Pedersen) who has a job as a detective.  His coworkers are white men. A young Aboriginal woman has been murdered, and the white people don't see the case as being important. They trivialize it.

So, it's a political-type murder mystery.

32. Looked at the plot description on IMDb. It's similar to what I thought it would be.

I'm not saying I'm psychic or brilliant—just pointing out what I gathered about the movie after watching about twenty-five minutes of it.

33. Figured while looking for movies to add to my to-watch list, I probably saw a plot description. So I could have gotten ideas back then and remembered on a subconscious level.

That being said, even without previously seeing any plot description, I could have probably figured out what the plot of the movie was after watching it for twenty-five minutes.

I'm sure most people could do that with most movies. I'm not trying to say that anything fabulous has happened here.

I'm just blabbing away...rather aimlessly.

34. Started to think this movie reminded me of something else I've seen—another story about a young Aboriginal woman being murdered.  Then I realized I was thinking about The Code.  Both stories are mysteries involving a murder in an Aboriginal community.

35. Stopped watching the movie for now.

I'm going to watch more of it tomorrow, probably.

36. Started to look at palg1305's wet tropics of Australia album.

37. Thought this was a picture of a weird insect; but when I clicked on the photo to get a larger view, I saw it was a crab.

38. Liked this photo of a crocodile.

I wonder if palg1305 saw it in the wild.

Well, I think it IS a wild crocodile. I guess what I mean is, did he see it during a tour, or did he just run into it?

I think I'd be terrified if I saw a crocodile in the wild. Or maybe I would think I wasn't awake. I often dream of alligators and crocodiles.

39. Learned, from Twitter, that Tim Tams and Coles are fighting.

From what I can understand, Arnott's wanted to raise the price of Tim Tams. Coles said no. So then Arnotts said they won't supply Coles with the biscuits anymore.

40. Wondered if that would effect business for Coles. Will Tim Tam fans go to Woolworths instead?

Or are most people like us and go to multiple grocery stores?

41. Saw from Twitter that there is something called Adriana Zumbo Tim Tams.

They have fun flavors like salted Caramel and Coconut.

42. Went to Arnott's website and found an official notice from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Arnott's got in trouble for false product labeling and advertising.

It's quite a punishment. It's not like a tiny little notice in the corner of the website; or one you have to search for. It's what you see as soon as you get to their site.  I had to scroll down to see the main part of their site.

Arnott's had to pay $51,000 for saying their Shapes Light and Crispy had 75% less fat when in reality they had 60% less fat.

43. Tried to understand the other part of Arnott's bad behavior.

It's something like they compared their product to potato chips that had this ingredient called palmolein oil. But most potato chips in Australia don't have that oil.

44. Saw from the Arnott's website that there are two other Adriana Zumbo Tim Tam flavors—chocolate raspberry and red velvet.

Fun!

Black Friday, Fires, Thanksgiving, and Bird Sounds

1. Saw that one of the top Twitter trends in Australia is #BlackFriday.

I'm wondering about the Australian Tweets regarding this subject. Are the majority of the Tweets about how stupidly materialistic Americans are, or are the majority about Australians joining in the fun?

I think there are online sales as well.

We passed by a Target tonight around 5 pm, and saw a long line of people waiting for the store to open.

I'm thankful for the few stores and restaurants that stay open in case people need things at the last minute; or...for people who'd rather do a restaurant than home-cooking.  I don't think the whole world needs to shut down on Thanksgiving.

The whole Black Friday-Thursday thing is ridiculous, though. Not only is it forcing a lot of employees to work instead of celebrating Thanksgiving; I imagine a lot of people are leaving their family meals early so they can grab the best deals.

2. Thought that it's one thing to stay open so people can pick up an electrolyte drink for their vomiting child. It's totally different staying open so you can attract consumers with your discounted PlayStations.

3. Found article that talks about how Black Friday is now a thing in Australia.

So I guess the Tweets might not be mostly about bashing American materialism.

OR maybe there is a lot of bashing, because not only do we have the very materialistic Black Friday, but it's spread outside our lands.

One of the early lines in the article reads, Like Halloween, the United States online shopping phenomenon known as Black Friday has migrated Down Under.

I know there are Australians who aren't happy with the Halloween thing.  I'm guessing there are many who aren't happy with the Black Friday thing either. They SHOULD worry. What's next? Australians using electoral voting?

4. Read the article and saw that it's not about Australian stores having deals on Black Friday. It's advising Australians to shop at American retailers via the online stores.

5. Started to look at Amazon, because although I'm against GOING out to a store, I'm not against shopping while sitting in a hotel room with my family.

Actually, I'm not against the Americans lining up at Target, Best Buy, Walmart, etc.  I can understand them wanting to get the best deals so they can have a fruitful Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, etc. If they waited to shop until Friday, they might miss out on the best deals.

But if the stores waited and opened on Friday, these eager shoppers could stay home with their families all day on Thursday.

6. Imagined a busy father or mother trying to decide whether they should use Thanksgiving to spend time with their daughter who hardly sees them or use Thanksgiving to get their daughter the doll she' wants for Christmas.

7. Saw that there are bad bushfires in Australia.

My thoughts are with the people plagued by all this—especially the ones who have lost family members and friends.

8. Looked at the news again and thought that, right now, Australia looks like a scary place.

It looks like there are fires everywhere—like the whole country is burning.

9. Understood that in reality, there are not fires everywhere in Australia. There are many places that are fire-free. It's just there are all these separate stories of fires, and it makes it feel like there are fires everywhere.

10. Saw one of the top trending topics for Australia is now Happy Thanksgiving.

The American Thanksgiving is over; so I'm guessing they're talking about another Thanksgiving?

11. Looked at Tweets that made me realize I'm wrong. Thanksgiving isn't actually over.

Well, as I'm writing this it's the day AFTER Thanksgiving Day.

It's Friday, and Thanksgiving is Thursday.  But we really have a Thanksgiving weekend. I think a lot of people (including us) celebrate Wednesday through Sunday.

12. Figured Australians on Twitter are saying Happy Thanksgiving to their American Internet Friends.

13. Found a religious website that's pushing for Australians to have a national Thanksgiving Day in May.

14. Wondered if many people are going for that idea.

15. Learned from Lord Wiki that Thanksgiving is celebrated in Norfolk Island.

He says it's celebrated on the last Wednesday in November; and that the holiday was brought over by American whaling ships.

16. Found an article about Norfolk Island Thanksgiving.

It seems like it's a pretty big deal.

17. Watched part of an episode of The Secret Life of Us while walking through Hollywood Studios at Disney World.

It was an interesting experience.

At one point, I got myself confused. Because sound effects sound very real with the earphones on.

I heard Australian birds (magpies, probably?) and for a moment I was wondering why Australian birds were at Disney World.

18. Saw a Marzipan penis on The Secret Life of Us.

That's pretty cool.

19. Realized I might like the second cast of The Secret Life of Us better than the first.

I sort of wish the show with the new cast lasted longer.

20. Started to understand why Anna Torv is so popular.

She's very sexy. I especially like her voice.

Reclaiming Lands, Wayne Pygram, Airplanes, and Modern Communication Methods

1. Saw one of the top Twitter trends in Australia is #reclaimAustralia".

I have an idea of what that refers to.

But I'm just going to imagine that the Aboriginal Australians are going to kick out all people that do not have ancestors reaching back past 1788.

They're going to take back their country. Everyone else will have to return to the country of their own ancestors.

Then the native folks of the Americas will do the same.

2. Wondered where I'd end up.

Maybe the Ukraine.

One of my great grandmothers was from England. I'm not sure if she was born there, though.

3. Saw that someone else had the same idea as me.

Keyana Dorsey Tweeted, I thought the #ReclaimAustralia was about the Aboriginal culture but now I see it's a bunch of stupidity

4. Disgusted by white people.

5. Decided I'm racist against all people but especially white ones.

6.  Decided this is a bad attitude to have.

So I'll just direct my hatred towards white bigots and bigots from other ethnic groups as well.

I'm not talking about people who have quiet, subtle prejudices that they wish they didn't have.

I'm talking about the ignorant assholes who actually think it's okay for their ancestors to invade and steal a country; then turn around and feel slighted when new people want to make their home on the same land.

7. Felt that it was maybe okay for a country to want to be homogeneous. That's their business. It's a little small-minded and unwelcoming, but oh well.

However, if a country wants this, they need to be the original inhabitants. They can't take a country from another ethnic group and then imagine the country belongs to themselves.

8. Thought about how one-celled organisms were really the original inhabitants of ALL Earth's lands.

In the end, they might be the one to reclaim it all.

Or at least most of it.

9.  Started to watch an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

10. Finished watching the episode.

11. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

12. Got to see Scorpius in his younger years.

He's not a pretty sight. He kind of reminds me of Zelda from Pet Sematary.

13. Saw, from IMDb, that one of the guest stars on Farscape is Sam Healy from All Saints.

I'm not sure if I've seen her yet on the episode.

14. Saw Sam Healy. She's very recognizable—doesn't have a lot of creature makeup.

15. Decided to watch part of an interview with Wayne Pygram. I wanted to see what he looks like without his Scorpius makeup.

As I suspected, he's quite sexy...especially with the Australian accent.

16. Thought Pygram actually looked familar.

Maybe I've seen him in one of his other projects.

17. Thought that it MIGHT be Lost that I saw him in. I'm not sure, though. I think his episode might have been the one episode that I missed.

18. Saw a description of the episode on IMDb.

I think I did see it. It's with Bernard and Rose flashbacks.

I'm pretty sure the one I missed was with Claire Flashbacks.

19. Went to bed and had a dream about platypuses.

20. Went on an airplane to Orlando, and it was a Qantas codeshare thing.

I guess this means there were Australians on the plane. Though I didn't hear any of them.

I wanted to hear them.

But it's kind of hard to hear people on airplanes unless they're sitting close to you.

21. Decided it also helps if they're talkative and loud. Which I'd tolerate if they were Australian or British. I'd be annoyed if they were American.

22. Figured that, after awhile, loud and talkative British and Australian people would get annoying too.

23. Started to watch an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

The theme of this episode is modern forms of communication—email, text messages, video phone, etc.

The episode is close to ten years old. It seems weird to me that the world has been doing this type of communicating for so long.

A lot of it feels new. I guess because it took me awhile to join in the fun.

I started email quite early—more than twenty years ago.  I say early, because I remember going on job interviews in NYC, and the some of the people interviewing me seemed amused that I had an email address.

As for texting, I didn't really get into it until....

I actually don't know.

All I know is I did do texting a little bit during our 2008 Australia trip, and it was a rare thing for me.

24. Figured I probably started texting on a regular basis sometime after 2010.

25. Thought about a conversation between Kelly (Deborah Mailman) and Bree (Brook Harmon).

Kelly subtly pushes the idea that we should pursue the person who makes us flustered not the one that makes us feel safe.

I guess that makes sense. Love usually begins with feelings of nervousness. We might lose our appetite. We stress about our appearance. We might have a hard time talking like an intelligent person.

If the nervousness is not there, maybe it's not love.

26. Decided if the nervousness is there, it doesn't guarantee there's love or any strong attraction. The person might intimidate us for other reasons.

27. Wondered about best friends becoming lovers.

I imagine in those cases, there's a feeling of safeness, but then that temporarily vanishes when the attraction begins.

28. Remembered a time I started having romantic feelings for my best friend. I don't think I had symptoms of nervousness, really.  I think instead I began acting difficult—maybe kind of like testing him.

Or maybe it wasn't really about testing him. It could have been that my emotions were confused, and this was making me moody.

29. Started to see the benefit of watching a video with headphones on.

There was a scene on the show at a bar with music playing. It was so loud. I thought that music was coming from our room—that Tim had decided to blast his TV show. But then I removed the headphones, and the music went away.

30. Liked Kelly's monologue at the end.

So, what's the answer?  Would we be better off without this technology? Would we suddenly find that we're communicating more clearly?  

Probably not.  After all people were having trouble understanding each other long before email and SMS kicked in. 

Maybe the only real difference now is that we can confuse and mystify each other at high speed, great distances, or with the press of a button.

Let's face it. You can fight it all you want. But it's not going anywhere. And after all, nothing like a snappy SMS message to brighten up your day. 

31. Amused, because Kelly took the time to write out a long old-fashioned snail male letter to Corey (Aaron Pedersen), and he responded with a quick text.

I'm guilty of the same. I have a lovely internet-pal who will sometimes write snail mail letters, and I respond by email.

I'm very lazy about snail mail. Though I wasn't lazy about it when it was the only option. I wrote many letters back in the olden days.

32. Blabbed on and on to Tim, about The Secret Life of Us, as we walked to the bus stop.

He was nice enough to act interested.

Manchester, Parents, Token Friends, and Reviving TV Shows

1. Saw that the top Twitter trends for Australia involve some kind of sports thing.

I just looked and saw that it's a football game involving a team from Manchester, UK.

Manchester is where Coronation Street takes place. 

I think it's also where JK Rowling was headed when Harry Potter popped into her brain.  

2. Consulted Lord Wiki and learned Rowling was traveling FROM Manchester not to Manchester.

3. Saw that Australians are also Tweeting about Watford, the opposing team. 

They're also still talking about Mali.

4. Wanted to mention that Australians are probably talking about a zillion different things on Twitter. The trending topics are just the most common ones.  

5. Saw that The United States is also talking about the game. That kind of surprises me. I don't think of Americans as being into that type of football.

It's ignorant of me to think that, though, because while we were in NYC, we saw people very excited about international football games.  

6. Saw that even MY city is talking about the game.

Wow.  I guess it's a huge deal.

7.  Decided that sports, music, movies, and politics are the most common trending topics on Twitter.

8. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

It might be interesting.  Based on Kelly's (Deborah Mailman) voice-over, it seems to be about judging people. 

My opinion about judging people: I think it's normal and fine to form opinions about people. What's not okay is to come down with an absolute verdict.

Because we can end up being very wrong.

9. Thought about how we can live out our whole lives and never learn that we were wrong.

10. Disagreed with Justin's (Sullivan Stapleton) sentiments against the term "the right people". 

Well, I understand why he doesn't like it. In this context, it's his dad (Barry Quinn) trying to push him into a certain lifestyle. 

It can definitely be a snobby term.

But it can also be simply practical.

There are people who are right and wrong for certain situations.  

If you want a job in the film industry, the guy working at the dry cleaner, who has no ties to the industry, is not likely to be the right person to help you find that job.  

If someone is looking for a drinking partner who likes to go clubbing, I am not the right person for them.  At least not for that situation.  

11. Saw that Justin has a horrible father. He actually called up the places where Justin interviewed for a job—places where Justin wanted to work. I'm not sure if his father sought information about Justin's chances of getting the job...or if he actually pressured the places not to hire Justin.

Either way, it's extremely controlling.

12. Didn't blame Nikki (Anna Torv) for being upset about her new man, Rob (Ben Mendelsohn), and Lucy (Alexandra Schepisi) spending the whole day together and majorly bonding. 

No, nothing sexual happened.

But if two people seem to be getting along so incredibly well; there's a question of why aren't they the ones together romantically? If it's not happening today, might it happen tomorrow or next week?

I think sometimes the two just-friends are meant to be together; and that's fine. I wouldn't think they're awful people if they got together. What bothers me is the expectation that we shouldn't be jealous or feel threatened.  Or the idea that, it's okay if they go on walks together; share a hobby, have long texting conversations, cook together, go see movies together, tell each other almost everything, etc...AS LONG as they don't have sex.  

13. Saw a conflict between Kelly and Justin and felt Kelly was in the wrong.

Justin has been invited to see his dad speak at some snooty event. Kelly knows Justin doesn't like his dad. She offers to come with him for moral support.

At the event, Kelly is charmed by Justin's father, and questions Justin's dislike of his father.  I thought that was unsupportive of her. If someone doesn't like a relative; who are we to judge their judgement—especially if we just met the disliked relative five minutes ago.

After the dad does his speech, Justin attacks his father about moral issues. That was rude and unfair of him. So I'm not on his side there. But then he lashes out at his father about his father's stance on Aboriginal issues. He wanted Kelly to know that although his father is charming to her, in reality he's a racist.

Kelly then gets angry with Justin and storms out. When he catches up to her, she tells him she's not going to be his token Aboriginal friend just so he can piss off his father.

That would be a fair argument if Justin had invited Kelly to go with him. But she's the one who suggested that she go to this event.

If Justin really was friends with Kelly just so he could piss off his father; wouldn't he have introduced them to each other a long time ago?

14. Concluded that Justin treated his father unfairly, but he didn't do anything wrong in terms of Kelly.

As for his father, he shouldn't have publicly embarrassed him at the event. He could have shared his grievances with Kelly, about his dad being a racist, privately.  If he really wanted to confront his father, that should have been done privately as well.

14. Looked at the episodes I have left of The Secret Life of Us and saw the last two seem to be tribute/clip show episodes.

I wonder if they're worth watching, or not.

Maybe I'll try watching one, and if I like it, I'll continue with it. 

15. Learned from Lord Wiki that the last season of The Secret Life of Us not only got a new cast but also a new writing team and new producer.

He says the season got bad ratings; and that the show was discontinued for awhile.  Then they came back a few months later.

I just looked at the airdates; and now I can see it for myself.  

The twelfth episode aired in March 2005.  Then there's a hiatus until November 2005. I think that's when they suddenly brought in the roommate for Stu (Stephen Curry).  

16. Wanted to say that I actually don't think the fourth season is bad at all. I think the writing and acting are fine.  The characters are interesting to me; and I like the storylines.

However, I think it's ridiculous that they tried to continue the show when almost everyone in the cast had left.

Why not just create a whole new show?

Or since they were still blessed to have Deborah Mailman, how about present it as a spin-off? They could have had her move somewhere new. How about instead of having Justin move into her old apartment, have her move into Justin's apartment building?  Then all the new people could have been living there.

I think it was a big mistake to try to continue the show in the same building, in the same neighbourhood, with the same bar.  Seeing all that just reminds the viewer of all the people they've lost.  

17. Felt guilty, because my plan didn't include (Simon) David Tredinnick.  He's the other one, besides Mailman, that stuck around.

Maybe he could have moved in with Kelly and Justin.

Or he could be a recurring guest star.  He and Kelly would still be friends; so he could come to visit.  

18. Thought another good idea would be to do a spin-off about Simon. He's kind of a background character on the show; so it might be fun to see him as a central character.  

19. Thought that now since time has passed; it would be cool to have a revival of The Secret Life of Us.

With the passage of time (ten years) I think it would be fun to have a whole new cast in the same building in St. Kilda.

I wouldn't have any of the old characters, EXCEPT maybe Simon. He could still work at the bar.

Some of the actors could maybe do brief cameo, but nothing corny like Alex (Claudia Karvan) returning to the building to visit her past.  

It could be fun stuff like someone getting injured; they go to the emergency room, and Alex is their doctor.

Or someone could read a book, and then we see it's written by Evan Wylde.   

Maybe Richie (Spencer McLaren) would become a movie star; and one of the new cast members would have a movie poster, featuring him, hanging on the wall.

20. Thought having a revival of a show a decade later is much different than trying to rescue a show that's in the process of dying.  

21. Disturbed by something I read on Boundless, an educational website we've been using.  

In their section on Art of the Middle Kingdom, they say,  Chinese art has arguably the oldest continuous tradition in the world, and is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, that tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of classical styles.  

Wouldn't Aboriginal Australians have the oldest continuous tradition? Or is the website talking about art only? In that case, maybe Aboriginal Australians are no longer painting on walls; so it wouldn't count.

Have they stopped all the wall painting art?  I'm not sure?

Even if they now mostly paint on paper and canvas; if they paint similar type paintings; wouldn't it still count as continuous?

22. Saw that the website also has a section on Australian art; and here they say, 

Aboriginal rock art can be traced back at least 30,000 years, and is one of the longest continuously practiced artistic traditions in the world.  

Either they contradicted themselves; or I'm missing something.

23. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

24. Saw that this is another split-cast episode.

It's like the prison-Woodbury season of The Walking Dead but with Rick Grimes being cloned, so he could be with both casts.

25.  Thought of that other season of The Walking Dead—where the cast was split into five or so different groups.  It would have been funny if each group had a Rick Grimes clone.

26. Saw that both The Secret Life of Us episode and Farscape episode have very dramatic parent-offspring fights.

In The Secret Life of Us, it was a battle of words. On Farscape, it's physical...violent.

27. Saw that the director of this episode is Peter Andrikidis. He's Australian; and he also directed the miniseries Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms.

Well, really, that's one of many things he's directed. He's had a pretty prolific career.

28. Finished watching the episode.

It was pretty sad.


Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Treadmills, Cages, Dream Interpretations, and Dying Insects

1. Saw that Mali is one of the top Twitter trends in Australia.

It's good that it's being noticed.

It's not good that there is something horrible going on there now.  

2. Thought about how Mali is a hostage situation. And Paris had a hostage situation.

Maybe it's not about white people getting noticed more when they're in peril.

Maybe it's about hostage situations.

3. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

This episode is about being stuck on the treadmill of life—stuck in a rut.

Last night I had two separate dreams about keeping an animal trapped. One was a fish that I put in a bowl that was way too small, and the other was a spider in a glass cage. 

The cage theme and treadmill theme are somewhat similar.  

4. Thought about how I am trapped by my own routines.

I like the routines. But maybe I like them too much. It's gotten to the point where I'm not very thrilled about going on vacations, because I dread breaking away from the routine.  

One thing I do every day is read an old blog post. I told myself that on our next trip, I'd make time to continue doing that. After those dreams, though, I told myself to relax a bit.  If there are days where we have a lot of time in our hotel room; I'll probably do it. But I'm not going to try to wake up early, stay up extra late, or make us late getting out of the hotel, so I can get it done.  

5. Thought about the other thing causing me not to look forward to our trip is that it's making us miss our annual Thanksgiving at the Lake House.  

I feel sadness about abandoning our Lake House tribe, and a lot of guilt. But maybe the lake house Thanksgiving is one of my treadmills. It's a fun and beloved treadmill, but even with those treadmills, maybe it's important to step off every so often.

6. Thought about how I am extremely fortunate to be making my own routines. And besides some of the cleaning stuff, I actually like the things I require myself to do.  

I love my days. I love watching Australian TV shows. I love blogging. I love homeschooling with Jack. I love a few of my cleaning chores.  I love exercising. I love the end of my day where I sit on the couch watching Coronation Street, with Max, our cat, sleeping on my lap.    

Are our treadmills a problem if we love them?

7. Thought of another kind of treadmill.

On The Secret Life of Us, Adam (Nicholas Coghlan) has seen his coworker, Markus (Mark Priestly) as an ass-kissing jerk. He's never liked him. But on this episode, he finds out he was very wrong about Markus. They start becoming friends.

Seeing this has made me think that hating someone or holding prejudices against people is a treadmill—especially if we're very stubborn about it.

If someone continues to be awful, and we continue to dislike them, there's probably nothing wrong with that. But what if the person starts showing us their good side, and we refuse to see it or acknowledge it?  Then we're trapping our own self in a treadmill of hatred.

8. Saw that Markus is a bit of a jerk after all. Or at least he's unethical. 

So, where does that leave the message I thought I was receiving from the show?

Now I'm getting the idea that we should trust our initial instincts and keep walking on the treadmill of dislike.

9. Liked Kelly's (Deborah Mailman) voice-over at the end.  We can all get off the treadmill if we really really want it. But until we're ready...until we know where we want to go; we just have to keep on running. 

The beginning of the episode seemed to push a follow-your-dreams message. Face your fears. Be daring. Go after what you want. Don't be tied down to the drudgery of life.  

Then the show switched messages by showing us that taking risks and jumping off the treadmill doesn't always pay off.  

10. Thought about Adam confessing to Nikki (Anna Torv) that he has loved her for years. 

She rejects him.

I think, sometimes, there's the idea that if we love someone, we're destined to be together. All we need to do is be brave enough to reveal our feelings and then they'll end up telling us they love us back. 

Sometimes that does work out. But other times, professing our love just leads to rejection.  

Wanting something and going after it doesn't mean we're going to get it.

Deciding to get off the treadmill and being brave enough to do it, doesn't guarantee we're going to find success, freedom, or happiness.  

11. Felt confused.

Does this all mean that I should stay on my treadmill of reading an old blog post every day—even when traveling with my family?  

I feel like the universe is giving me mixed messages.

12. Imagined this might be one of those times where it's nice to be the type of person who doesn't believe the universe sends us messages.

13. Thought about another dream I had. It involved someone I know becoming more daring. They climbed a tree and sat in the branches. I was happy to see this change in them but also worried that they might fall.  

Maybe it's all about balance. We need to be daring and free ourselves from our fears, but at the same time be weary of dangers.

14. Thought back to the fish dream. Earlier, I failed to mention what happened after I found out the bowl was too small.

What I did, in the dream, was find another much larger container. I didn't free the fish. I simply made positive adjustments.

Maybe this is saying you don't have to throw your life away to find a new and exciting one. Sometimes you can just make little changes.

15. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

16. Wondered if I've missed something on the show.

They're not showing Crichton's (Ben Browder) duplicate.  I understood why that was the case in the episode I watched yesterday. Crichton II was missing, but so was Pilot (Lani John Tupu) D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), Chiana (Gigi Edgley), and Jool (Tammy Macintosh)

17. Realized something.

The characters that were in yesterday's episode, so far, haven't been in this one.

Maybe this episode is happening to one Crichton while yesterday's episode was happening to the other Crichton.

18. Got some clarification.

The Crichton I'm seeing on this episode is on Moya. The other Crichton is on Moya's offspring, Talyn.

What I don't understand is where's Stark (Paul Goddard) and Rygel (Jonathan Hardy).

They were on yesterday's episode but not on Talyn with the others. I assumed they were still on Moya. Though if that's the case, why didn't we see D'argo, Chiana, etc?

19. Started to look at palg1305's album of the far north of Australia. This includes Kakadu, Darwin, Mataranka, and Katherine.

I don't think I've heard of Mataranka before.

20. Thought that this Kakadu photo, of trees in the sand, was kind of interesting.

I also like this similar photo. 

21. Found a The Secret Life of Us actor that has a Twitter account.

Finally!

It's Nicholas Coghlan, who played Adam.  

OR it's another Australian Nicholas Coghlan. 

22. Clicked on the link in the Coghlan Twitter bio. It's for something called The Public Studio.

23. Saw that Coghlan's bio on the about page. It says,  Nicholas Coghlan is The Public Studio's executive producer. Alongside filmmaking, his passion for storytelling is also expressed through his work as a highly regarded actor in the Australian film and television industry, as a dramaturg, performance trainer, and instagram photographer.

I'm guessing it's him, because I think it would be shocking if there were two highly regarded Australian actors named Nicholas Coghlan. It's not like his name is Tom Jones or Adam Smith.

24. Saw that Coghlan's most recent Tweet is one of those embedded-Retweets. It's about the French child and his father talking about the Paris attacks.

25. Saw Coghlan having a lovely short conversation with a fan about his appearances on House Husbands.

26. Saw, from IMDb, that Coghlan was on the House Husbands episodes I've seen!

I had no idea!

I think I know who he is, though.

I'm thinking he's the gay partner of Kane (Gyton Grantley)

27. Learned from Google that I'm totally wrong.

Coghlan plays Rodney, the guy that started dating Nicola (Lea de Niese). He was also Justin's  (Firass Dirani) former manager.

Saw that Rodney left in season one but then he comes back in season four.

Wow. I wonder what's the reason for his return.

28. Saw Nicholas Coghlan getting political on Twitter. He says, These leaders of ours are terrorists and criminals, pure and simple. @TurnbullMalcolm & @PeterDutton_MP #nauru #Abyan.

I don't think I agree with him there.

The criminal thing might be true.  I have no idea.

I wouldn't agree with terrorists. It's a very strong word that can be overused.

It reminds me of what John Green, from Crash Course, says about using the term slavery.  There are people who like to say they're slaves—such as colonial American settlers not wanting to pay their British taxes. Or housewives who don't get enough gratitude from their family.

But there's a difference between being disenchanted with your life and literally being OWNED by another human being.

There's also a difference between a politician who lets us down with his bad decisions and someone who purposely causes death with the intent of terrorizing and intimidating.

A politician may cause death with his bad decisions, but that still doesn't mean it's terrorism.

29. Found an Instagram account that may belong to Nicholas Coghlan.

The Public Studio website said he's a photographer on Instagram; and this account does look like it belongs to a photographer.

30. Reminded of The Ring when I saw this photo; then I looked at the hashtags, and saw that's what Coghlan was going for.

Well, he succeeded getting his message across—with me, at least.

31. Watched a video of a fly dying.

Nicholas Coghlan has a dark soul.  He should make horror movies. Or has he already done that?

32. Liked this abandoned hospital photo.

33. Thought this cat was adorable.

34. Thought that Nicholas Coghlan seems very artistic, weird, and macabre.

I like him.

Or at least I like what I see of him on Twitter and Instagram.

He's the kind of person that makes me curious.  I want to know more about him.

Does he like horror novels? Is he interested in writing horror? Does he like writing, period?

Does he like to read?

What are his favorite movies?

What are his life dreams?

What does he dream about at night?

Was he sad when the fly died? Did he have conflicting feelings while filming it's death?

35. Listened to some Tkay Maidza songs while doing homeschooling records stuff.

She might become my new favorite Aussie singer.

Though it won't last long.

I often get new favorites of things.

Tourism Promotion, Americans, Colors, and Anna Torv

1. Thought August 2011 me was brilliant when I read about my promote-Australia-to-Americans tourism idea in this post.

I hadn't been impressed with the Oprah campaign. I had an alternate idea using the 3.5 million dollars they had spent on Oprah's adventure.

My idea was that they should have taken that 3.5 million dollars and divided it up by $28,000.  I'm not sure if it's the same now but back then, I had seen that round trip plane tickets in economy were $1400.  For $28,000 per month, there could be one person who wins an Australia trip for themselves and twenty of their favorite people. That campaign could go on for about ten years.

The winners and their friends could promote Australia via social media.  

2. Thought that Australia could also make it a world-wide contest rather than just for Americans.

I was just thinking of America, because I'm American, and we're naturally ethnocentric.  

Also, the Oprah thing was probably mostly geared towards Americans.  

The worldwide thing might get confusing, though, because the price is going to be different, depending on where the winner flies from.  

3. Thought that I might also change the twenty-guests thing. That might be intimidating for unpopular people like me.  

Actually, though. My lake house tribe alone has eighteen people. I'd need to add only two more.   

4. Wanted to mention that my plan involved airfare-only. The visitors to Australia would have to pay for their own lodging and food. That way Australia would get American tourism dollars. It would also give social media a more varied view of what Australia has to offer.  Some folks would afford the fanciest hotels. Others might stay at hostels.  

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 

5. Read article asking whether selling already-chopped vegetables, at the supermarket, is genius or lazy.  

I'd say it's both. The consumers are lazy, and the people selling the chopped vegetables are genius.

I like buying already chopped produce. I AM lazy when it comes to cutting vegetables. Plus, I'm sometimes bad at it.

Lately I've been buying finely chopped up lettuce and cabbage.  

We've bought chopped up onions before. I hate cutting onions. The only problem with the chopped onions is the container has much more than what we need. We end up throwing about half away.  It would be more useful if we were cooking for a larger group.  

With fruit, it depends on what it is. Apples are easy to just wash and bite into, so we usually buy them whole. With stuff like melons, mango, and pineapple, it's so much easier to buy them chopped. There are downsides, though. Definitely! First of all, it's usually more expensive. Second, you end up with plastic containers you wouldn't have if you bought the fruit whole.  

The argument against the second, though, is that our non-produce food comes in packaging. So, what's the difference? We might as well buy a plastic bin of pineapple over a plastic bin of muffins. 

BUT...we usually buy both.

6. Concluded if you're a non-lazy person who's good at cutting vegetables and washing cutting boards, more power to you.  If you're not, then better to buy pre-chopped produce than not buy any produce.

ETA 1/24/20-Tons of ableism in the above paragraphs. Sorry!

7. Went to Twitter and saw that the top thing trending in Australia is Michael's birthday.

I had no idea who Michael was, so I had to do some digging.

It turns out he's one of the singers from 5 Seconds of Summer. 

8. Wondered about the fact that Zoolander 2 is still trending. I didn't realize that  it was such a beloved and popular movie.

9.  Saw that Zoolander 2 is not trending in the United States.

I guess the movie franchise is more appreciated by Australians.

10. Started to change my mind about my idea for Australia increasing American tourism after watching a Crash Course video regarding Americans and their Manifest Destiny ideals.

If we're anything like we were in the past, there's a danger Americans might try to take over Australia and steal their land.  

11. Decided it was unfair to label Americans as the type of people who still want to take land from other countries. We're not like that anymore.

Now we're just the type of people who don't want to welcome newbies into the land we once stole. IF they're not white enough. Though we're not the only country like this.

12. Felt a little bit less harsh towards Texas. Because if I'm understanding things right, Mexicans gave land to future-Texans, because they wanted the area populated.  Then when Texans started getting a bit crowded with Americans, Mexico wanted to take back the offer.

Plus, Mexico itself was an invaded country. It's not like white people invading Aboriginal Australian land or white people invading Native American land.

The Native Mexican people had already been invaded by the white folks from Spain.  

13. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

14. Saw that Alexandra Fowler is on this episode.

I did have to look at IMDb to find her name. But I did recognize her as being the actress who was on Neighbours in the 1980's and on Wentworth recently.  

On Neighbours, she played Zoe—a friend of Daphne's (Elaine Smith) and girlfriend of Jim Robinson (Alan Dale) 

15. Saw The Secret Life of Us characters playing Connect Four. They have red and yellow pieces.

Here we have red and black pieces.

Or do we?  Now I'm not sure.  Maybe it's red and white.  

16. Looked at Connect Four on Google Images.

Some games have red and black pieces and others have red and yellow.

Is the difference an international thing? Or maybe it's a decade thing?  

17. Looked at Connect Four on Amazon. It looks like the newer versions of the game are red and yellow, while the used and/or nostalgic versions are red and black.

18. Decided to look at Target, because they won't also be selling used versions.  

19. Saw on Target that it's red and yellow.

20. Thought that Bree (Brooke Harman) is too controlling. She requests that Justin (Sullivan Stapleton) promise not to have sex with any of her relatives or friends. 

Now this comes after he sleeps with her mom (Fowler). I can understand that being controversial. But what about cousins? Why would that be wrong? What if Justin's soulmate is Bree's cousin?

I definitely think it's ridiculous to request he not sleep with her friends. Would that include Kelly (Deborah Mailman)? Kelly's her friend, but Kelly and Justin knew each other before Bree came along.  

Right now Kelly is with Corey (Aaron Pedersen), but that could change someday.

21. Could someone understand Bree's feelings. Or maybe I understand it a lot, actually.  If I had a male friend, and my sisters, mom, or cousins were single, I would probably be jealous if that friend started dating my relative. Or I guess it could be a gay male friend dating my dad or male cousins. 

Either way, I can imagine being jealous. This would especially be the case if I had a secret crush on the male friend. But let's say I don't. Then I might worry about being abandoned and replaced—not needed anymore.

But I think this is one of those feelings you don't act on. You kind of just suck it up, and learn to get through it.  Sometimes you can actually grow to enjoy the situation...or at least be happy for the couple.  

22. Thought about how I don't know a lot of single people, and I don't have a lot of friends. So I kind of have to reach into the past to imagine all this.  

23. Tried to think of whether or not I know of single people in my extended family.

I don't think I do. Most of the relatives I know are in the state of being unavailable.

24. Had a rare moment of regret about quitting Facebook. Because if I was on Facebook, I could look through it and see if there are any single relatives.  

25. Started realizing I DO have single relatives. Or the last I heard, they weren't in a serious relationship. That might have changed.

26. Tried to imagine having a friend that started dating one of my relatives.

I think I'd probably be okay. 

That might be because I'm so unsocial lately.

If it was back when I was social and eager to find new friends and keep new friends. I'd probably be jealous and feel threatened. Still, though. I think I'd be decent enough to not demand that the relationship end.  

27. Started watching my next episode of Farscape.

So far, Crichton II hasn't been eliminated. Maybe it will happen this episode?

Or maybe there's going to be double Crichtons for the rest of the series.

28. Looked at this episode on IMDb.

The cast list is very small. 

I wonder if the episode has a limited cast or if the IMDb list is incomplete. 

29. Finished watching the episode.

It was very intense; and it truly did have a very small cast—four actors and a puppet. Though I guess the puppet counts as an actor as well. He's a voice actor, at least.

By the way, the voice actor, as I've mentioned before, is Jonathan Hardy. He's the one who wrote the screenplay for Breaker Morant. 

30. Saw the top Twitter trend in Australia right now is BlackLivesMatter.

I think most people know that at the tip of their minds but aren't truly thinking it deep inside. 

Otherwise, why do people notice deaths in Paris more than Nigeria?

31. Saw that although BlackLivesMatter is mattering to Australian Twitterers right now; it's not a trending topic in the United States.

Isn't it a United States thing?  Or, at least, I think the movement originated there.

32. Checked some individual cities in Australia.

BlackLivesMatter is not trending in Sydney. It IS trending in Melbourne. 

33. Saw that it's not trending in Brisbane and Perth.

So, it seems to be a Melbourne thing.

34. Wondered if BlackLivesMatter has found supporters in Melbourne.

35. Wondered if BlackLivesMatter refers to just African Americans or black people around the globe.

36. Read editorial about how Australians are more likely to notice mistreatment of black people in America than black people in Australia.  

I read the same thing in a book a few years ago. 

In the same way, both Australians and Americans...and other countries seem to notice the mistreatment of Palestinians more than they notice the marginalized people in their own country.

37. Hoped I haven't come across this way.

My blog is about Australia, so I tend to talk about Australian atrocities more than American ones. But I hope I haven't made it seem like I think America's morality is superior to Australia's.

38. Couldn't remember if I've already looked at palg1305's album of Heron Island.

I feel like I did; though the photos don't look that familar to me. 

I don't remember the interesting thingies in this photo.  What are those?

39. Decided that if Australia and the United States ever had a war, it would be about which country is most racist.

We've already had two fights that I can think of offhand. There was the blackface incident with Harry Connick, Jr; and then the KFC West Indies battle.  

I also vaguely remember some documentary that was maybe somewhat popular a few years back. It showed how African American soldiers were treated much better by Australians than they were treated by their own country. And that's probably true. But it goes back to people showing more consideration to mistreated people in OTHER countries. The same can be said for the blackface and chicken issues. Whether it was a misunderstanding or not, one of the main issues is that Americans were pointing their fingers at Australia rather than pointing them at themselves.

40. Imagined there are people out there who have the time, energy, and consideration to notice the atrocities abroad and in their own backyards.

41. Went to IMDb to see what The Secret Life of Us actor I'll be exploring on Twitter and Instagram today.

Why does that suddenly sound sexual to me?

I don't know.

But whatever. It's probably going to fail.

I get the sense that actors from The Secret Life of Us aren't into Twitter and Instagram. That's fine...admirable, in a way, actually.

42. Did not find an Anna Torv Twitter account, but there are a LOT of fan accounts.

She's well-loved.

43. Figured the love is more about Fringe than it is about The Secret Life of Us. 

Actually, though, I think the first time I ever saw The Secret Life of Us was on a YouTube channel of an Anna Torv fan. I don't think I watched a lot of the episode, because there were problems with the audio.  I also think I didn't realize it was the fourth season instead of the first one.

That being said, when I began watching the fourth season, a few weeks ago, I didn't get feelings of deju vu. So maybe I watched a very small amount of it.  

OR... it was probably four to five years ago that I watched part of the episode.  Even if I watched the whole episode, it's doubtful I'd remember it.  

44. Figured I'd probably at least remember the dead cat.

So I'm betting I didn't get to that part.  

45. Remembered that when I first started watching The Secret Life of Us on Hulu—from the beginning, I was confused and thought Sibylla Budd was Anna Torv. 

I knew Anna Torv was in the series and didn't realize she doesn't appear until the fourth season.  

46. Saw that Anna Torv is going to be on an Australian TV series called Secret City. 

Alan Dale is going to be playing the Prime Minister. When was the last time he was on an Australian show? 

47. Tired of looking through Alan Dale's credits. He's a BUSY man.  But from what I can see, the last Aussie thing he did was Sea Patrol.  I think mostly he does American stuff but also a few British and New Zealand things.

Twitter Trends, GeoGuesser, Copies, and Failed Twitter Adventures

1. Looked at Twitter Trends in Sydney, because that's my default setting now. The bombs in Nigeria aren't trending. It's also not trending in Perth, Melbourne, or Brisbane.

It's not trending in Dallas-Fort Worth, where I live.

It's also not trending in Los Angeles.

2. Saw that it is trending in Johannesburg. So at least people in Africa are noticing that their own continent is being bombed.

And it's trending in Nigeria itself.

3. Saw that it's trending in London.

It's also trending in Manchester—the hometown of all my beloved Coronation Street characters.

4. Changed my default setting on Twitter to all of Australia.

I didn't realize I could do that. That being said; it wasn't until a few days ago that I learned you could change your trending-location setting.

5. Saw that right now the popular topics with Australian Twitterers are Mockingjay Part II, Star Wars Battlefront, Justin Bieber, Charlie Sheen, Zoolander 2, a song called "I Know What You Did Last Summer", the sad death of Jonah Lomu, and....

Justin and Halsey.

Who are Justin and Halsey?

Oh! Okay. Justin is Justin Bieber. Halsey is a female singer I've not heard of, because I'm a bit out of touch with the American music scene.

6. Saw that ISIS is now trending in Australia. It was added when the page was refreshed.

7. Saw that my episode of The Secret Life of Us for today is about risk-taking.

8. Saw from IMDb that Jane Harber, from Offspring, is on this episode.

And this is the first episode that has Ben Mendelsohn.

9. Hungry for pasta after seeing it served on The Secret Life of Us.

Or maybe I'm just hungry in general.

10. Saw Ben Mendelsohn. It looks like he might be brought in as a love interest for Nikki (Anna Torv).

11. Learned about a fun geography game website from Jack.

We're playing now.

It's called GeoGuesser. You get images from Google Maps and have to guess where it is you're looking at.

I failed at an Australia image, unfortunately. I guessed that it was Africa.

Oops.

12. Learned that Jack chose Africa for the Australia location as well.

In our defense, the last Mad Max movie was filmed in Africa, so obviously there are some imagery similarities.

13. Started to play an Australia-only map in the game.

14. Got the first question wrong.

I choose Queensland, and it's Sydney.

15. Got the second one wrong. I guessed New South Wales, and it was Perth.

I'm doing horribly.

16. Got the third one wrong. I guessed south Victoria, and the answer was Queensland.

17. Got the fourth one wrong.  I picked South Australia, and the answer was Queensland, again.

18. Was wrong yet another time. I picked New South Wales, and the answer was Western Australia.

Will I ever get anything right?

19. Felt like I either missed an episode of The Secret Life of Us, or I daydreamed too deeply at some point.

Stu (Stephen Curry) suddenly has a new roommate—Zelko (Ryan Johnson).

I don't remember him living there before; though I do remember Zelko playing cards with the guys on a previous episode.

Did I miss something, or did the creators try to sneak in yet another new main cast member?

It's getting a bit ridiculous.

20. Found out that Jane Harber plays a relative of Zelko. Maybe his sister?

21. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

This one's going to have two Crichtons (Ben Browder), because, in the last one, he was cloned.

D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) and Chiana (Gigi Edgley) were cloned as well, but their clones perished.

22. Figured that Crichton II is going to die as well. I doubt Ben Browder is going to do a Hayley Mills thing for the rest of the series.

23. Remembered that they're not really clones. They're...

I forgot what they're called. But they're exact copies. They have the same memories and personality.

It's like the second 10th Doctor on Doctor Who.

24. Thought back to that Doctor Who question.

When the Doctor dies, does his consciousness end and then a new doctor appears with the same memories? Or does the consciousness pass on from Doctor to Doctor?

I kind of think it's the former based on David Tennant's melodramatic good-bye scene. The 10th Doctor seemed to think it was the end for him.

25. Thought maybe The Doctor himself doesn't know.

It's like on the last episode of Farscape. Chiana didn't know if she was truly herself or if she was the copy.

26. Saw, from the opening credits, that Rebecca Gibney is in this episode.

27. Saw that Linda Cropper is in the episode as well.

She was in an episode in season two. I wonder if she plays the same character.

28. Saw from IMDb that she plays a different character—maybe a relative of Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black). She has the same last name.

29. Wanted to get a screenshot of Rebecca Gibney, because she looks quite different on Farscape.

30. Wasn't 100% sure that it's her. But I am 99.9%. Because she's in the credits, and that character looks more like her than the other characters.

31. Listened to "Switching Lanes" by Tkay Maidza.

I'm going to listen while looking at palg1305's Flickr pictures.

Tonight I'm looking at palg1305's Northern and Tropical Queensland album.

It includes photos of a wild platypus.

32. Saw a photo of cave paintings at Carnarvon National Park.

That's pretty cool.

33. Saw, on Google Maps, that Carnarvon National Park is about nine hours west of Brisbane.  It's pretty far out there.

34. Saw that you can do a road trip to the park, and stop in Roma.

That might be cool.

35. Liked this photo from the park.

36. Loved this photo from the Whitsundays. Amazing!

37. Decided to begin my exploration of Dan Spielman's Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Although there's a chance he might not have those things.

38. Saw Dan Spielmans on Twitter, but not the Australian actor one.

39. Could also not find Dan Spielman on Instagram.

Maybe I'll move onto the next The Secret Life of Us actor.

40. Looked on IMDb.

The next person on the list is Brooke Harman.

I got to say. She kind of amazes me. In terms of range? Her character on The Secret Life of Us is so different from her character on Dance Academy.

Saskia is an uptight, scary bitch. Bree is overly bubbly. In a way, she actually kind of reminds me of Tara (Xenia Goodwin) on Dance Academy.  They both have a lot of enthusiasm, and they're both idealistic romantics.

41. Saw that Harman played a housekeeper on Banished, a BBC series about convicts in Australia.

Russell Tovey, from the Titanic episode of Doctor Who, was also on the show.

42. Did not find the Brooke Harman, I'd like to find, on Twitter.

43. Did not find Brooke Harman on Instagram.

44. Decided to try for one more person. Then I give up for today.

45. Saw that the next actor is Stephen Curry.

46. Did not see any Stephen Curry account on Twitter.

That's kind of strange.

47. Found a Stephen Curry.

He's not the Australian actor, but he seems to be very famous. He has three million followers.

He's some kind of sports star.

48. Found another popular Stephen Curry on Twitter. He doesn't have millions of followers, but he does have ten thousand.

He's a structural biologist in London.

Cool.

The Less Preferred One, Suicide, Blame, and Not-Quite Stalking

1. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

2. Heard the Umbilical Brothers mentioned on the show.

I wonder if they're going to be guest-stars.

I haven't seen them in a long time.

3. Saw from IMDb that the Umbilical Brothers are appearing on the episode.

That's cool.

I look forward to seeing them.

4. Saw that David Collins, of the Umbilical Brothers, is in the cast of an upcoming Australian Christmas horror movie starring Dee Wallace. 

It's called Red Christmas.

That might be interesting.

5. Related to Justin's (Sullivan Stapleton) former girlfriend, Celia (Edwina Wren). On her video diary, she talks about how Justin seems to prefer her parents to her, and her parents seem to prefer Justin to her.

I have felt that way many times, and it's caused me a lot of anguish. It's made me feel lonely, rejected, used, and unwanted.

I'm sensing it less these days, so I guess that's good. 

I don't think the change is due to perception only. Some parts of it are probably in my imagination—self-esteem stuff. But I think other parts were reality—that I really was less preferred.

6. Felt disgust and anger at Celia's mother, Jean, (Joan Murray). She bitches at Celia while Celia's making her video diary. Okay, and that's fine. All mothers bitch at their kids sometimes. I'm guilty of it. My parents are guilty of it. Their parents are guilty of it.

And I'm sure Jean didn't realize her daughter was very depressed and that she'd soon commit suicide. But then Jean has the nerve to try to blame Justin for the suicide.  

I guess she was trying to cover up her own blame. After she bitches at Justin, she bitches at her husband, because she has this idea he's been secretly blaming her.

I understand she's grieving, and is transferring blame. But she does it in such a cruel, unhealthy, and unfair way. I find myself thinking that maybe she DOES share a large portion of the blame.

And that's another thing. I don't like the mindset that suicide is caused by mental illness, and no one is to blame. I think sometimes people are to blame. I don't think one person is usually the cause—even if they did something hurtful like ending the relationship.  

My feeling is it's usually about the person being rejected and hurt by multiple people.

I was going to say, I'm just guessing on this. But I think some of it comes from personal experience. Iv'e never attempted suicide. But I have had times where I feel quite awful about myself and the world.  I don't think it happens when I have a conflict with one person. It happens when I feel rejected and neglected by multiple people. It happens when I feel I have no one on my side.  

7. Wondered why some people endure the pain and get through it and other people kill themselves. 

I don't know.

Sometimes it might actually be a mental illness thing. But a lot of times, I think it's just differences in personality and differences in what someone can handle.

It could also be that some people (like me) are much less bold when it comes to the actual killing part.  

So yeah. You know, I never thought of it that way. It might not have been my strong inner courage and perseverance that has kept me alive. It might be the simple fact that I'm scared of guns, drug overdoses, excessive blood, etc. 

I know it's kind of true. Because sometimes I think of the worst things happening. I question whether I'd kill myself. I try to think of methods, and then I kind of decide I'll just keep living.

The thing is, we're all going to die at sometime. So my feeling is it's usually best to not take things into our own hands. Why go through all the fuss? 

Plus, as they say, It gets better.

That's actually not exactly true. It gets better for SOME people. For other people, it keeps getting worse. But I think people might as well live, so they can see whether or not they're one of the lucky ones. 

8. Learned that Celia might have actually been mentally disturbed.

Justin talks about how she'd call him about twenty times a day; then sometimes not say anything on the phone. I'm not sure if that's before or after he broke up with her.

I guess that's something I hadn't thought of before.

Maybe some suicidal people are ignored and neglected, because they're very difficult.

9. Started to feel all mentally conflicted, because I was relating to Celia before.  

She was less preferred by her parents and boyfriends, and it turns out she was very annoying.

Have I been less preferred, not out of some type of unfairness, but because I'm a blah person?

I guess I've always pictured suicide victims as being lovely people who were treated unfairly by the world. But I should remember that's not always the case. Sometimes they might be the type of people that I try to avoid. They might be like the people who have angered me and disturbed me—the ones I've told not to contact me anymore.   

10. Wanted to say, in case I gave off the wrong impression, that I never blamed Justin for Celia's suicide.  I think he might have been the cause but not in a blame-worthy way.  People can't help if they fall out of love and want to move on. 

I didn't realize, though, that it was Celia's behavior that made him want to leave her. I thought he just fell in love with someone else...or grew tired of her. Which is fine. 

Well, it's not fine. But I know it's a natural thing that happens, and often no one is to blame.

11. Tried to figure out if I'm a relatively unlikeable person.

Or am I a cool, weird person who's not readily appreciated?

12. Figured it's probably a little bit of both, but now I'm worried that it's more the first than the second.

Oh well....

It's not like this is the first time I've worried about this.

I think I've done so less in the past few years. I've kind of taken on the attitude that I'm a good person, and if people don't like me, it's their problem. Well, it's my problem too, because it hurts me. But I have felt it was more a lack of appreciation on their part than a lack of worth on mine.  

But now The Secret Life of Us episode is making me feel my old low self-esteem type thingies.

13. Decided to try not to get upset about this.

I might not be a popular person, but I like me. I mean I really do. I find myself to be entertaining and interesting.—fascinating, actually. 

I do know that a few people love me. They might not like me all the time, but they like me some of the time.

If I'm not liked by many, who cares? Maybe I don't have what it takes to be adored.  But I think as long as I don't cause people great pain and annoyance, I'm okay in this world.  

In other words, I may not light up the world for many people, but I also don't think I'm making the world a bad place for people. Hopefully.  

14. Started to watch an episode of Farscape.

In this episode, like pretty much all episodes, the Moya crew is in mortal peril. 

That's actually getting kind of old. 

15. Went to palg1305's Flickr account.

Tonight I'm looking at his Southeast Queensland Album.  I guess that would include places like Brisbane and the Gold Coast? 

16. Thought that this photo of Moreton Bay was beautiful. 

17. Started having the "Moreton Bay" song in my head.

18. Went to IMDb to see which cast member of The Secret Life of Us I'll be looking at on Instagram and Twitter today.

19. Saw that it's Nina Liu.  

I think she was on season three. She played the lesbian coworker of Miranda.  And then she and Miranda got together and have a romance.  

20. Failed to find Nina Liu on Twitter or Instagram.  

21. Wished there was a tame-version of the word "stalking".

I usually just use the term "Stalking", but now I'm feeling maybe that isn't appropriate.  

I don't like saying "looking", though. In a way, I think it sounds creepier than stalking.  

Is there any other word that would describe spending time exploring someone's social media account?

22. Saw from this website, that an alternate term is "Creeping".  I think I've heard that before.

I prefer stalking to creeping.

I don't know.  For me, "creepy" has a very negative connotation. It makes me think of scary men in dark alleys doing things in public which I'd prefer they do in private.

But I know some people see the word "weird" as being very negative. They think I'm insulting myself with my blog title, but I see it as positive.

23. Found this article. It uses the term "research", and has all the ways you can tell whether you're stalking someone or researching them. 

So I'll say I was planning on RESEARCHING Nina Liu on Twitter and Instagram.

But my plans failed.

And I'm not going to work on researching anyone else, because I want to watch Coronation Street. 

24. Decided "Research" doesn't work for me, either. It sounds too serious for looking at the social media accounts of TV show actors.  

Well, I guess it would be fine if I was doing some kind of psychological study.

But I'm just doing it for fun.

Really!  I wish I knew of a good word.

25. Thought of a word I sort of like!

Explore.

How's that?

I could say. If time permits, tomorrow I will explore the Instagram and Twitter account of Dan Spielman. 

Yeah. I like that. 

Waleed Aly, Bad Moods, Pink Lakes, and MyPeace

1. Started to watch Waleed Aly's video about Daesh being weak and realized I probably disagree with him.

His argument is that random people are doing the murders in France and other places. Then Daesh take the credit for it. That way they appear stronger than they are.

At first, I agreed with Aly's point.

But then I started thinking. If you can get random people to happily do your bidding without even requesting it; isn't that kind of a strength? Or at least I don't think it's weak.

The one way I would agree with Waleed Aly is if the murderers spoke up and said, Uh...no, actually. ISIS didn't hire me to do this. I have nothing to do with them. I work alone!

But if the murderers are happy to be seen as working for Daesh, and the Daesh are happy to take credit for it; it kind of is like they're working together.

2. Thought that maybe we can say Daesh is unorganized, but I don't think that means they're lacking in power.

3. Watched more of Waleed Aly's video.

I agree with the next thing he says. Daesh wants to create World War III.

Yep.

And we're falling right into their hands.

4. Thought about what Waleed Aly says about Daesh wanting to turn non-Muslims against Muslims, so then Muslims will feel alone and turn to Daesh.

Yeah. That's true.

I think it has to go both ways, though.

While we request that Non-Muslims not assume all Muslims are terrorists, Muslims need to remember that not all Non-Muslims are stupid, ignorant racists.

5. Liked that Waleed Aly's video is balanced. He talks about white racists spreading hate but also about members of the Muslim community pushing the idea that Muslims aren't welcome in Australia.

It really goes both ways.

It's like a pyramid of evil. On the very top, you have the actual murderers. On the next level, you have the racist haters that push for more division and encourage violence.  Below them are the haters who hate but don't condone violence.

Next you have the people like me. We're kind of prejudice sometimes, but we try not to be.

6. Was going to say there's a group below that who aren't prejudice But I don't think it would be a pyramid then, because that group has to be the biggest group in order for the pyramid shape to win.

I seriously doubt there's a large number of people in the world that are completely lacking in prejudice.  I have my doubts that they even exist at all.

I think we all have prejudices. I think it's best that we admit to them—at least to ourselves and try to get past them.

7. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

8. Saw Kelly (Deborah Mailman) feeling insecure when she meets Corey's (Aaron Pedersen) workmates.

She also felt insecure and alienated when she met Frank's (Rhys Muldoon) social circle.

I can relate to that.

I sometimes feel worthless, insecure, and invisible when I meet with Tim's friends or family.

I'm betting a lot of times it comes from me. Sometimes I just feel judged and disliked, even when people are being friendly.

Other times...well, I'm pretty sure it's not all in my head.  There are certain people, whether on purpose or unintentionally, who do things to make me feel marginalized. Or sometimes it's what they do NOT do.

9. Learned about the beginnings of the American Democratic Party in our homeschooling lesson today.

It confuses me, because some things about the party have stayed the same and some have changed.

Back then, as today, the Democrat party was concerned about the gap between the rich and the poor. The opposing political party (The Whigs) were supported by the wealthy bankers and businessman.

Where the Democratic party of old differed from today was that they were more racist. It was under their leadership that the Native Americans endured the Trail of Tears.

It made me think of Australia. We think of the Labor Party as being the less racist political party, but at one time they're the ones that brought in The White Australia Policy.

Now I don't know if this means the opposing political parties promoted ethnic unity in the past. It wasn't necessarily a switch. I imagine both political parties might have been racist with less bigoted people sprinkled here and there in both parties.

10. Learned that I'm wrong. The Labor Party didn't start the White Australia Policy.

Lord Wiki says it began with the beginning of Federation.

Why then do I associate it with the Labor Party?

11. Dug deeper in Lord Wiki's confusing maze of knowledge and saw him saying that, Historically, Labor and its affiliated unions were strong defenders of the White Australia Policy, which banned all non-European migration to Australia

Well, so maybe they didn't start the White Australia Policy, but they were known for supporting it.

In the same way, Andrew Jackson and the Democrats weren't the first Anglos to be shitty to Native Americans.

12. Could totally relate to Kelly in this episode of The Secret Life of Us.

Corey, her boyfriend, is in a bad mood because he played badly in his sport-career game.  Kelly becomes intolerant of the bad mood.

I have a lot of trouble not taking bad moods personally. I end up getting angry and grumpy too.  In other words, the bad mood passes on to me.

What really sets me off is when Tim is in a bad mood but then I see the his mood lift when he's with other people. It's like I can't bring him out of their bad mood, but other people can.  Then it's hard for me to not take it personally.

I saw the same thing happen with Kelly. Corey's been grumpy and distant with her. But then she sees him acting quite happy and playful with his mate and two beautiful women in a hot tub. Later, Kelly asks him about this, and Corey's stance is that the women were fans, and he has to be nice to fans.

Okay. Maybe? But he sure looked genuinely happy.

13. Thought there were two opposing explanations for someone being in a bad mood with us but not with other people.

A) They love us the most and feel the most safe with us, so they can take off all masks and show their true miserable feelings.

B) We make the bad moods worse, because we're annoying and boring. We don't have what it takes to light up their lives, but other people do.

Maybe it's a little bit of both; or one or the other depending on the situation and the people involved.

My main argument against A would be that it's hard to fake joy unless you're a trained and/or talented actor.

Now I think most people can hide their dislike, and push politeness. But that's different from actually acting happy. It's hard to fake laughter that sounds genuine, and it's hard to pretend you're having a a fabulous time when in reality you're bored and depressed.

14. Went back and watched the hot tub scene.

First of all, Corey looks genuinely happy.

Second, he smiles and laughs when the other occupants are under the water. So, no. It's not just a happy face that he put on to please his fans.

Also, his mood visibly drops when he notices Kelly's arrival.

15. Wonder if Kelly will ever find a boyfriend that meets with my approval.

16. Loved scene with Nikki (Anna Torv) telling off her mother. This comes after her mother interrogates her about her career and offers controlling, bitchy advice.

Nikki concludes her attack on her mother with these lines. Well, how about next time we catch up, you ask me how I am instead of bagging me for how I'm not.

Amen to that.

I can't remember a time in my life where someone gave me a lot of grief about my career choices.  But Nikki's statement reminded me of how I feel when certain people (my parents) ask about our recent trips. They don't give attention to what we DID do. They ask us if we did this thing and that thing. When we say no, I'm not sure I get an attitude of disapproval. What they do, though, is then talk about what they did when they went to the same place. It's like...hello? I thought we were talking about OUR trip not yours.

Actually, it's not just trips, but with other things such as what TV shows we watch.

They want to know if we're doing the things they want us to be doing. And if we're not doing them? Well, they really don't want to bother knowing what we ARE doing.

17. Decided to give an example conversation.

MY PARENTS: So how was your trip to Australia?

ME: Great.

MY PARENTS - Did you go the the Great Barrier Reef?

ME: No, we went to—

MY PARENTS-We went to the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing. Beautiful. Even though it rained.  And we didn't see that fish from that Disney movie. What's it called again?

ME: Finding—

MY PARENTS-Did you go to the Opera House in Sydney?

ME: Well, we went outside of it, but didn't go inside.

MY PARENTS : Oh, you should have went inside. They have beautiful tours there.

ME: Well, I'm not really into tours. And I like—

MY PARENTS-Did you go to Hobart?

ME: No, but we did go to—

MY PARENTS- Oh, look. There's a sale at Macy's!

Note: That's not a transcript of a real conversation, but it strongly represents many conversations I've had in my life.

18. Loved Kelly's monologue at the end of the episode. Even though a sense of security has to come from inside, human being are social animals. Our security is always going to be linked with other people—people who let you join in and make you feel like you belong.

People can't make you feel like you belong if you absolutely hate yourself, or you have a huge amount of insecurity. But if there's no one in the world who wants you, I think it's going to be very difficult to have inner strength and security.

19. Felt this lesson fits incredibly well with something I was privately thinking about the Waleed Ally thing.

I'm not sure if I kept it private, because I didn't want it known. It was probably more like I had a lot of thoughts and needed to reign them in, so I could start our daily history curriculum.

What I was thinking, though, is that Muslims shouldn't depend on us non-Muslims to give them love and assurance. Even if everyone is mean to them that doesn't give them an excuse to join evil Terrorist groups. They should stand strong no matter what.

Kelly's monologue makes me rethink all that. If someone is hated by those who surround them, might they desperately seek out love in the wrong places?

Isn't that how cults work? Don't they prey on the emotionally needy?

20. Wanted to say, though, that if a Muslim did feel that all non-Muslims hate Muslims, they're blind, ignorant, and delusional. Really. They should just  take a look at Twitter and see all the support.

Yes, there is hate. But the love is there if one is willing to see it.

21. Figured it's probably not just about the Muslim community being loved in general but instead about the individual.

Someone can go on Twitter and see all the love showered on the Muslim Community. But if they're lonely and alienated, it might not make a difference.

22. Intrigued by the new Australian Muslim Party.  How many votes will they get?

What are their policies?

Maybe I'll look into that later.

23. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

24. Saw some exciting guest stars in the credits—Dan Spielman and Marshall Napier.

Well, and I also saw Lucy Bell. She's not the one who played Anna in Frozen. Is she?

25. Saw that Lucy Bell does NOT play Anna.

I was thinking of Kristen Bell.

Oops.

26. Realized that this guy is Marshall Napier. He's wearing a lot of make-up, but I can tell it's him from his voice.

27. Wondered if I could have figured out that's Marshall Napier if I hadn't seen his name in the credits.

Probably not.

I might have recognized his voice, though, and wondered who he was.

28. Finished watching the episode.

I think it was the best of the season so far.

It was about time travel—the whole thing about trying not to change the past because you might screw up the future.

29. Got the idea, from this episode, that by actively trying not to change the past, we might cause more harm than if we just acted naturally.

If we know something bad is going to happen, we should try to stop it.  Or, at least, we should be like Donna Noble and rescue a few of the people.

30. Wondered if time travelers should kill Hitler.

I'd say no. At least not when he's young and innocent. Maybe the time travelers could use their history knowledge to catch evil-adult Hitler at a time when he's less protected.

31. Realized that killing Hitler would be actively changing the past which is different from not actively avoiding changing the past.

I think it would be okay to forgo killing Hitler. I think it would be less okay to watch Jews being shot and not do anything, simply because you feel this is what's meant to be.

Who knows. Maybe the saved Jews would change the future for the better.

32. Tried to find a website for the Australian Muslim Party; then I saw this article saying it's going to be up on Tuesday.

I think that's today for Australia.

I wonder if it will be up before I go to bed.

33. Started to look at Palg1305's Melbourne album.

He has photos of a pink lake.

I didn't think there was a pink lake in Melbourne.

Is there a mistake, or am I the one that's wrong?

34. Googled and saw the Pink Lake is in Western Australia.

35. Googled Pink Lake and Melbourne. It turns out Palg1305 isn't confused.

There's a lake in Westgate Park that has turned pink.

36. Learned from this article that the pink is caused by high salt concentrations, hot weather, and low rainfall.

Well, actually that stuff doesn't directly cause the pink. If I'm understanding things correctly, these conditions cause an interaction between algae and halobacterium. They bring on the pink.

What are Halobacterium?

37. Learned from Lord Wiki that Halobacterium are from the archaea domain! We learned about those last Friday.

Halobacterium, like bacteria, are one celled-organisms like bacteria. But they're different enough to be in a different domain. One of the interesting things about them is they can live in really hostile environments. For example: Very hot environments.

Halobacterium live in salty environments.

38. Learned from Lord Wiki that Halobacterium are a possible life form on Mars.

That's very cool.

I'm guessing Lord Wiki means that Halobacterium could have grown there in the past and might still be growing there.

I can't imagine he's talking about plans for the future, because I thought they were making plans for humans to go there.

Or maybe the plan is to start with more basic life forms?

39. Saw from Google Maps that Westgate Park is west of the Melbourne CBD.

40. Could not find a Twitter account for Diaa Mohamed, the founder of the new Australian Muslim Party.

Though I could be spelling his name wrong.

41. Spelled it right.

Couldn't find it.

But I do see other Diaa Mohameds.

42. Watched a commercial from My Peace, Diaa Mohamed's organization.

It's lovely—show's Islam's best side. It's talks about charity and saving lines. One thing I liked is they say even a smile is charity.  I agree. There are cases where kindness is needed more than donations.

43. Looked at the website for MyPeace.

44. Saw that their about page is very kind and welcoming. They say,
Offering a free copy of the Holy Qur`an and Islamic literature, and also organising Mosque Tours, speakers will be on hand to discuss anything to do with Islam, no question is off limits, we encourage the participation of all Australians to feel free to call or email with any questions.

45. Saw that MyPeace condemns any violent or extremist behavior.

They also advocate the right of free speech for all Australians.

46. Read the MyPeace page about women in Islam.

They kind of ignore the negative and accentuate the positive. They talk about how women in Islamic history were pushed to be educated and that there have been female Muslim scholars, doctors, business women, etc.

I'm guessing sexism comes from the usual place—the patriarchal males.

We've been learning about the sexism in early American history.

I'm not educated enough in history to know why some cultures have reduced their sexism and others have kept it at a disturbingly high level.

47. Wondered if there's sexism in the Koran. If there is, is it worse than what's in the Torah and New Testament?

48. Started to read the MyPeace page for Misconceptions about Islam.  As for Muslims being terrorists they say, Has anyone else noticed how when a specific group of people attack another group of people it is labeled as a ?hate crime?, but when a Muslim opens fire on anybody it is quickly regarded as ?terrorism?.

Well....

Have there been many groups attacking other groups lately that are not Muslim? I've seen individuals, but I don't know about groups. Maybe I missed it.

Besides that, who cares?

What would the difference be if we changed the name of the crimes in Paris, Beirut, Sydney, Turkey, etc. to hate crimes?

Are hate crimes better than acts of terrorism?

Murder is murder.

If a Jew shoots a family of Muslims, and we call it a hate crime; then a Muslim blows up a bus and we call it terrorism; are we saying the terrorism is worse?

I don't think so.

Hate crimes and terrorism are both really horrible.

49. Read more about Islam and women on the misconceptions page.  I like this page, because it acknowledges the negative.

They say, And while there are Muslim countries in the world that do implement many harsh rulings against women, this should not be portrayed as Islamic law. Many of these countries have cultural differences that go against the teachings of Islam.

The general idea I'm getting is it's not Islam that's the problem but certain bad Muslims.

50. Felt that if the majority of Muslims were like the ones described on this page, I wouldn't mind them taking over Israel.

I think the Jews would be well loved and protected.

Unfortunately, though, I doubt most Muslims are like the ones described on the website. Just like most Muslims aren't terrorists, most are also probably not overly wonderful human beings.

They're just regular human beings; and regular human beings are sometimes nice and sometimes not. They're manipulative, greedy, selfish, rude, prejudice, grumpy, vain, etc.

Oh goodness. I'm sounding very negative.

Sorry. It's just reading Twitter; and learning about American history?  It's really hard to read that kind of stuff and not feel like humans are very flawed.

51. Decided to have hope that things can get better.

It doesn't matter if we're Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Atheist, Pagan, etc. What matters is whether or not we're usually kind and whether we avoid going on killing sprees.

52. Decided peace and stability in Israel won't be about the Jews winning against the Muslims or the Muslims winning against the Jews. It will come about when the kind people outnumber and overpower the wicked.

And that goes for the rest of the world as well.

53. Hoped that The Australian Muslim Party adds to the wonderfulness of Australia.

Read my online novel:  The Dead are Online