Venting, Airplane Seating, The Schepisi Family, and Brisbane Balls

1. Dreamed that, my sister-in-law shows us a Pikachu comic that mentions a place called Ausland (or something like that). I figure the name represents Australia, and that's why she's showing us the comic. 

Also had this dream where various people seem to live in our house. It's almost like our house holds a whole community. An Australian woman, I know on the Internet, is suddenly there in the kitchen. I talk to her in a friendly way, and then feel bad because I've complained about her on my blog...though not by name. It makes me feel two-faced. 

2. Felt there was truth to the dream. I am two-faced. I'm nice to people; then I turn around and bitch about them on my blog. I guess it's not unusual. People do that without blogs. We're nice and then turn around to bitch about them to our friends and/or family.

Some people would say it's better to just complain directly to the person. That's a good idea in theory, but from what I've seen in life, it rarely works.

3. Decided the only incident I'm going to feel guilt about is when I was especially nice to someone; then turned around and backstabbed them to people this person knows. In my (weak) defense, I didn't set out to be nice for the purpose of gathering information and then spreading it. I really truly cared and felt concern and sympathy. But I have skepticism about this person's issues and I ended up gossiping about them.  Well, and it's not like I shared personal stuff that this person shared with me. It's more like I acted agreeable to the person's face about the subject and disagreeable behind their back.

4. Tried to put myself in the other person's shoes, and wondered if it wasn't so bad.

What if I told one of my friends that I feel Australia is my spiritual destiny. I go on and on about my dreams leading to my Australia love. The friend acts interested and seems to believe me. Secretly, though, she doesn't really believe this kind of thing; and when having a conversation about my spiritual beliefs with a mutual friend, she says she doesn't believe in all this destiny stuff. But she wouldn't go into detail about my personal story.

Would that be so bad?

If I found out, I think I'd be hurt, disappointed, and insulted. But hopefully I wouldn't find out.

I think it would only be a major betrayal if the friend acted over-enthusiastic about my destiny beliefs. There's a difference between being super-enthusiastic about someone's beliefs or situation and simply being kind and supportive.

5. Thought more about my dream and talking about people on my blog.

In most cases, when I talk about people, it's more venting than gossiping.

I think there's a difference, and I think the latter is less excusable.

Venting is a form of processing anger and/or annoyance. Gossiping is usually just done for an immoral type of fun.

Yeah. You know what. I think I now have it figured out in my head. I feel guilty about that certain one time, because it was pure gossiping. I don't feel very guilty about venting. If anything I only worry that the people will end up reading my blog and realize I'm talking about them.

6.  Thought of a needed clarification.

I wouldn't feel conflicted gossiping and/or discussing something that's posted publicly on the Internet.
Though I do feel conflicted saying that, because one time I got majorly bitched out for talking about something that was PRIVATELY posted on the Internet. The thing is, I didn't realize it was a private or personal thing. It's like I wouldn't hesitate saying that my sister and nieces went to a Taylor Swift concert and saw Vance Joy. To me, that's not gossip. It's just kind of an interesting fact that fits in with my blog. But sometimes we misjudge, and what doesn't seem personal to us is personal to someone else.

7. Read disturbing article about a lesbian family being pushed to separate on Qantas flight, so a married heterosexual couple could sit together.

What the hell?

What makes it worse is the lesbian couple had a young child!  Really. I don't even think it matters that much that the two women were in a romantic relationship. No one should be forced to move so other people can be together. I think this is especially the case when a young child is involved. Whether the two women are lesbians, best friends, or sisters—it would be nice if they could both sit together and help with the child-minding.

8. Felt maybe it was worse, though, that they were lesbians, because that makes it seem like discrimination. Why else would they be pressured to move?

I do think it's fine to ask people nicely if you can trade seats with them. This is especially the case if they seem to be alone. Sometimes it turns out that they're separated from their loved one as well, and trading seats benefits them too. But no one should be pressured or forced to change seats.

Well, I think the only exception would be is if a child is separated from their parents. Then I don't think it would be bad for a person to be pressured to move.

9. Started to watch the rest of Breaker Morant.

10. Thought one of the actors (Vincent Ball) looks a bit like David Morrisey. It's something about his smile.

Ball, by the way, is the actor I mentioned the other day. He's 92, and worked recently on Home and Away.

10. Looked at Vincent Ball on Google Images

And here's David Morrisey.

11. Thought there was an interesting monologue in the movie.

It's about the army shooting civilians during a war.

On the surface, it sounds very wrong—more wrong than soldiers killing other soldiers.

The problem is that sometimes civilians are fighters, and this could be to a deadly degree.

The same goes for buildings. The military should target military buildings of the opposing sides, not schools, hospitals, or houses of worship. But then what if these buildings are used to build and house weapons? What's to be done then?

12. Thought that the defendant's solicitor J.F. Thomas (Jack Thompson) had a magnificent closing argument. It's disappointing and sad that they didn't win.

Or maybe he half-way won, because I remember hearing of two men being executed. Maybe some of the men were acquitted. Or just one. I forgot how many men were on trial. I think it might be three.

It could also be that all three men were executed, but I'm thinking it's two because I read about two being executed together. I think they held hands. Maybe two were killed together, and the other one had to be killed alone.

13. Decided I should just continue with the movie and find out what happened.

14. Saw that it IS three men—Breaker Morant, Bryan Brown, and the guy who looks like the preschool teacher on House Husbands.

15. Did not really understand why the movie is called Breaker Morant. The movie is more of an ensemble piece about several men.  If anything I would have named the movie after the solicitor.

16. Saw the men celebrating being acquitted.

But I think there's going to be a sad plot twist soon.

I don't think I dreamed up the bit about the guys being executed.

17. Sickened and saddened by the executions.

I kind of have a better idea of why the movie was named after Breaker Morant.  Morant seemed to be a funny and courageous guy. Or really, he was courageous enough to write a funny poem near to his death, and he said a funny thing moments before his death. I guess his humor was a great example of gallows humor.

18. Thought about the hand-holding scene. It's the one thing that I remembered about the movie before seeing the movie.

I remember reading that the actors grabbed each other's hand, not because of script direction, but as an ad-libbed thing. Later they found out that the real-life executed men did the same thing.

That kind of makes me a little teary-eyed.

19. Glad to know that George Witton, the man who got a lighter sentence and didn't die, went on to write a book about the situation—Scapegoats of the Empire.

20. Saw from Amazon that the book is what the movie's based on.

21. Ended up thinking Breaker Morant is a fantastic movie.

I'm glad I watched it.

22. Realized my tears over Breaker Morant might be partly hormonal.

Of course, the movie is sad. I'm not denying that.

But today during history I started doing a Thomas Jefferson-Harry Potter analogy involving the house elves, and I got all choked up.

Then, just now, I looked at photos of the now-grown actor who voiced Nemo, and I started getting emotional.

23. Wondered if The Secret Life of Us will make me cry.

24. Went to Random.org to pick my next thing.

It's season three of Farscape!

I'm quite happy about that.

I'll probably start watching that on Thursday.

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

26. Realized that one of the newbies on The Secret Life of Us might have the same name as an Australian director.

I'm wondering if they're related.

The actress is Alexandra Schepisi.

I think there might be a Fred Schepisi.

What did he direct?

I'm not sure.

Maybe Roxanne?

27. Saw that I'm right. Fred Schepisi did direct Roxanne.

The most recent thing on his filmography is something called Andorra? That's that little country in or near France and/or Spain.

28. Learned that Andorra is a movie about an American who leaves the US for Andorra, and then meets an Australian.

Interesting.

29. Learned from Lord Wiki that people of Andorra had the highest life expectancy in 2013.

30. Saw from IMDb that Fred Schepisi is the father of Alexandra Schepisi.

I wonder if the father and daughter have ever visited Andorra.

I wonder if anyone I've known has been to Andorra.

31. Wondered if my parents ever considered visiting Andorra.

They go to a lot of places.

32. Saw that Evan (Samuel Johnson) has a storyline this episode.

Actually, in this episode, the oldies seem more prominent than the newbies.

33. Started to have warm feelings towards Lucy (Alexandra Schepisi). It could be because I know who the actresses' father is now.  I think, though, that it's mostly because she's a nice person. She's sweet to Kelly (Deborah Mailman)  I like people who are nice to Kelly.

I've not yet warmed to Nikki (Anna Torv). She's a bitch. And Adam (Nicholas Coghlan) isn't very nice.

Bree (Brooke Harman) is sweet, but a bit annoying. The problem is, I'm still holding a grudge against her for injuring Tara's back.

34. Changed my mind.

I think this episode actually centers around three of the newbies— Stu (Stephen Curry), Nikki,  and Lucy.

Kelly has a storyline, but it's main purpose seems to serve as a catalyst for her narration that fits with the newbie storylines.

Evan has something going on, but it's less of a storyline, and more like a life-update. Like...what's going on with Evan these days?

Christian (Michael Dorman) is pretty much acting like a supporting player for Stu.

35. Went to palg1305's Flickr account.

Tonight I'm looking at his Brisbane album.

36. Thought this building and ball statue things were pretty cool.

I feel like I've seen them before, maybe.

37. Learned from this website that the ball artist is Donna Marcus. She made the balls out of vegetable steamers.

Marcus's thing is making art out of discarded kitchen appliances.

That's really awesome.

Maybe we should send her some of our kitchen appliances. There's a lot we've bought and then never much used.

38. Went on IMDb's The Secret Life of Us cast list to see what actor I can Twitter and Instagram stalk next.

The next actor is Damian de Montemas.

If he has a Twitter or Instagram, I might have looked at it a few months past when I did a post on him.  The same actually goes for Spencer McLaren and Sibylla Budd. I wrote posts about them relatively recently as well. I think probably within the last year.

39. Did not see Damian de Montemas on Twitter.

40. Could also not find him on Instagram.

41. Thought of moving onto the next actor, but I'm tired and want to go watch Coronation Street.

I'll maybe look at Joel Edgerton tomorrow. Though he's another one I wrote about this year.  Or maybe it was last year? I'm not sure.

42. Decided maybe I was being unfair about Kelly's storyline on my today's episode of The Secret Life of Us.  Maybe it's a real substantial storyline and isn't just being used to accentuate the newbie storylines.

43. Was about to publish this post, but then remembered I wanted to consult Lord Wiki about Breaker Morant. I told myself I'd only mention something if I found it especially interesting.

Well, guess what.

I found some shocking, amazing news.

The guy who wrote the screenplay was Jonathan Hardy. I clicked on his name, because I wondered if he might be related to Tom Hardy.

Instead I found out Jonathan Hardy is also an actor. Guess what he's on. Farscape!  He's Rygel!

Rygel wrote Breaker Morant! Well, the screenplay at least.

I love trivia like that.

44. Worried I already knew all this, and then forgot it.

Well, if I did it would be because the news wouldn't have been that exciting if I hadn't watched just  Breaker Morant. Now that I've watched the movie, it's exciting trivia. And what makes it even better is that I learned today that Farscape is my next TV show to watch.