College Students, Random Picture Of Ailsa Stewart, Clouds, and Tropfest

1. Remembered that I had a dream about Melbourne. I think it was last night, but maybe it was the night before.

When I woke up this morning, I could hardly remember any of my dreams. Then I started reading an old blog post where I mentioned dreaming about Australia. This is when I remembered the Melbourne dream.

Anyway....

In the dream, I get a brochure about going to university in Melbourne. It looks very nice. I'm wishing I was young and could take advantage of such an opportunity.

I'm envious of the young Americans who go to University in Australia—so envious, that I kind of despise these people.  

The thing is, though, I didn't have an interest in Australia back in my college days. I don't think I had any interest in extensive international traveling.  

2. Figured I'm more envious of these young college students for their desires and ambitions than I am for their received opportunities.  

I wish I had wanted to travel back then. I wish I went to college abroad or did one of those work-tourism things.  

3. Reminded myself that I had a very lovely and interesting college experience—even though it was still in my own country.  It was one of the best times of my life. I'm not sure I'd want to trade it in for something else...if things like that were possible.  

4. Saw something weird on Twitter. I can't figure it out.

I went to see the top trends.

The first one, on the list, is "Stroke". I thought it referred to someone famous having a medical issue, but instead it turns out to be a sports thing.  

5. Looked again and saw the word is "Stoke" NOT stroke.

Oops.

Anyway, Twitter has the photos related to the trend. Most of them involve team players wearing red and white stripes.

But then among all these photos is an old Home and Away photo. It's Ailsa (Judy Nunn).

6. Wondered if maybe I'm wrong and it's not her.

Or maybe it's Judy Nunn, but she's not being Ailsa. 

7. Looked again. It looks like Ailsa. It looks like she's talking to someone in their shop.  

8. Clicked on the picture.  It's a Tweet from someone named Paddy Power. He says, 

On the other bench Mark Hughes is just sitting there expressionless, like he knew Stoke would win easy.

So, he used Ailsa Stewart to illustrate the Tweet. That's kind of random.

9. Wondered if Paddy Power is a big Home and Away fan.

10. Looked at Paddy Power's other Twitter photos. He does it a lot—uses scenes from movies and television to illustrate his Tweets.

11. Started watching more of Drift.

The title describes what my mind does while watching the movie.

Actually, I play QuizUp while watching. My attention is split.

I also sometimes play while watching Farscape and other shows that I like. So playing the game isn't necessarily a reflection of how much I like or dislike a show. Though I do feel kind of guilty playing while watching something I like, because the game does take away some of my attention.

12. Thought about how there are certain movies and shows I like, but parts of it are boring to me. This is the case with Farscape. Some of the action sequences are tedious to me. I'm not really into that.

13. Thought about how Drift isn't just a surfing movie. It's also a business-biography type story—sort of like The Social Network.

14. Stopped watching Drift for today. I'll watch more tomorrow, probably.

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 

15. Learned from Australia Twitter trends that Taylor Swift is doing a concert in Brisbane. It looks like it's happening now.

What time is it in Brisbane?

16. Looked at my weather phone app, because it also gives local times.

It's 2 am in Brisbane. Do concerts usually go on that late at night?

17. Remembered that my dad took Jack and his cousins to a Taylor Swift concert. They didn't come  home in the wee hours of the morning.

18. Started to watch an episode of Farscape. This one takes me back to the Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black) group. She'll be busy with mourning Crichton, because on her episode string, he's dead.

19. Confused by the episode, so far. But maybe it will get more clear to me later.

20. Thought about talking to dead people, because that's what this episode of Farscape is about.

I think the general mindset of this episode, and Farscape in general, is that there IS life after death.It is possible to communicate with the dead. However, one message of this particular episode is that there are charlatans out there.

I agree with all that.

I believe in life after death; although not with 100% certainty.

I also believe that people will fake communication with the dead. Often it's for monetary gain. Other times it's done for fun, a laugh, cruelty, or to try to ease a mourning person's pain.

21. Continued to wonder if Aeryn remembers there's another living Crichton (Ben Browder) somewhere out there.

He was at least mentioned by some of the other characters—but not to Aeryn.

22. Thought about how it's hard enough to know what to say when someone is grieving. But what the hell do you say when that person is mourning someone who happens to have an exact double out there. Do you remind them? Do you keep quiet about it?

I would guess you'd keep quiet about it.

It would be such a weird situation.

23. Wanted to make it clear that I'm NOT talking about twins.

I don't think it would help any mourning person to remind them that the dead person has a twin that's still alive.

24. Learned about Trent Zimmerman from Twitter.

I think I might have seen his name in the news too, but I didn't give it much attention.

I'm seeing from Twitter that Zimmerman is openly gay, and he took the place of Joe Hockey.

I'm also seeing that he's Liberal, but I don't know if they mean he's from the Liberal Party; or if it means he has liberal views. Where I come from, having liberal views means you're on the left.

Life is confusing.

25. Started to read an article.

Zimmerman IS from the Liberal Party. He recently won the seat of North Sydney. What I'm starting to understand is that there were doubts the Liberal Party could keep that seat, but Zimmerman saved the day.

26. Guessed that Hockey used to have the seat of North Sydney, and that's what people were talking about on Twitter when they said he was replacing Hockey.

27. Consulted Lord Wiki.

He says Hockey had the North Sydney seat from 1996-2015.

28. Figured that, once upon a time, I actually knew Hockey had that seat, and it wasn't just a guess.

But I forget things a lot.

29. Confused about the article saying that Zimmerman is the first openly gay person in the Lower House.

I had to look up the Lower House thing. It's the un-senate house. That makes sense, because Bob Brown is openly gay, and he was in the Senate.

But what about Penny Wong?  I thought she was in the non-Senate group.

30. Googled.

Penny Wong is in the Senate.

I did not know that.

Although, again, I probably did know that...at one point.

31. Started to look at Palg1305's MacDonnell Range album.

I was thinking that was in South Australia, but I see from the description, on the album, that it's in the Northern Territory.

Now I feel stupid.

32. Thought this was a lovely photo—probably because of the clouds. I'm big on clouds lately.

I think they have a way of brightening up a photo.

Or maybe "brightening" is the wrong word. A better word would be "improve".  I think clouds make photos look better.

33. Thought about how I used clouds for my The Dead Are Online book cover.

I took the photo in Austin.

34. Liked the clouds in this photo as well.

35. Liked this photo; although there are not many clouds.

36. Thought this was a cool tree picture.

I like clouds; and I also like trees.

37. Went to my own Australia album to see if I have any good cloud photos.

Here're some clouds at McMahon's point. They're not that great—kind of wispy. I prefer the fluffy kind.

38. Found some clouds at Manly Beach. It looks like they're about to have a battle with the Norfolk Pines.

39. Liked the kind of eerie mix of clouds and tree in this photo.

40. Thought of The Secret Life of Us when I saw clouds in this St. Kilda photo.

41. Thought that this was another good tree-cloud photo.

The clouds are very impressive.

42. Thought that the clouds in this Dalysford photo looked kind of fake.

43. Wondered if it's strange that I'm giving so much attention to clouds.

It probably is, but what the heck. I've done MUCH weirder things.

44. Found another good mix of clouds and trees.

45. Found some clouds with the Big Merino from our 2009 trip.

46. Learned from Twitter that Tropfest got a financial backer, and all is well in that area.

That's good!

I didn't realize they were in any trouble.

47. Saw from the Tropfest website that they're the largest short film festival in the world.

That's pretty cool.

48. Tried to find other websites that agree with the Tropfest website regarding it being the largest short film festival.

I'm having a hard time of it.

49. Saw from Lord Wiki that there was supposed to be a Tropfest festival today, and it was canceled.

50. Read an article about the situation.

Tropfest was canceled because of a misuse of funds.

Then CGU Insurance Company came along and said they'd pay for the event. It's going to be February 14, 2016.

Awesome.

51. Thought about how the insurance company deserves gratitude.

How often does that happen?

52. Went to the CGU Insurance website.

They deal with all kinds of insurance —home, car, life, travel, caravan, etc.

I wonder if that's typical.

Do most insurance companies cover that range?

53. Figured that sometimes insurance companies probably DO help people.

It's just often I hear of them not being helpful. It's hard to love them.

54. Thought about how my insurance anger has been mostly directed at medical insurance.

Maybe they're the worst ones, and other insurance companies are less awful.

Well, at least one insurance company supports the film industry. That's a good thing!

55. Saw that Tropfest has gone international.

There's a Tropfest in New York now.

56. Clicked on the 2009 finalists, because I think the guy in the photo is from House Husbands.

57. Saw that the movie with the maybe House Husbands guy is called "Being Carl Williams".

It's written and directed by Abe Forsythe. The name sounds familar. Maybe that's the name of the actor from House Husbands.

58. Looked at Abe Forsythe on IMDb. He appeared on House Husbands, but isn't the guy I'm thinking about.  I'm thinking of one of the main stars, and Forsythe only appeared in one episode.

59. Saw that Abe Forsythe has directed an upcoming dark comedy about the Cronulla riots.

60. Looked up the House Husband actor on IMdb. His name is Gyton Grantley, and he IS the star of "Being Carl Williams".

61. Started watching the film.

62. Recognized another actor in the film.

I just saw him in something recently.

Oh! I remember. It was Mystery Road.

63. Saw that I'm wrong and confused.

The actor in the movie is Damon Gameau, and he was not in Mystery Road.

The Mystery Road actor is Damien Walshe-Howling.

Sorry about that.

64. Saw that Patrick Brammall is in the movie; and this is making me wonder if I maybe watched this before. It did seem vaguely familar to me...sort of.  And it would make sense that I watched the movie while writing my post about Brammall.

65. Concluded that I've seen this movie before.

It's about this guy (Grantley) who once played the criminal Carl Williams in a miniseries, and he's mistaken for the real thing.

Although...now I'm kind of remembering a certain twist to the story.

66. Realized that Grantley plays himself in the movie. Well, when his character gives his name, he says it's Gyton Grantley.

67. Saw that when asked what he's been in, Grantley names films from his real filmography.

68. Listened to Birds of Tokyo while making latkes with Tim.

69. Went back to watching "Being Carl Williams".

70. Finished watching the movie. It didn't end the way I expected...or falsely remembered.

I liked it, though.

71. Decided that I liked the real ending much more than the ending I had in my head.