Lying, Acting Awards, The Grey Cloud, and The Katering Show

1. Dreamed about my blog.

I write a fake comment on my own blog. It has something to do with being a lesbian. Not long after posting it, I feel regret and delete it. 

Later I return to the post and see someone had responded before I deleted it. They point out that they know I was lying, because I mentioned being related to a celebrity. They say they looked up that celebrity and saw she or he doesn't have me as a relative. 

After seeing the comment, I worry that people will think I deleted the comment only because I had been caught and not because I had a decent change of heart.

I decide to write a post explaining my actions. I talk about how I didn't lie to get attention. I lied for fun— wanted to create a fiction. 

I have a roommate-friend who is hurt and angry by what I've done. It turns out that I had also posted a gruesome photo of someone being injured. My friend says that he'll be fine thinking an injured person is me but doesn't want to think that someone like his sister is injured. At first, I take this in stride—feeling I deserve his wrath. But then soon I feel hurt and start getting defensive. 

2. Woke up and tried to figure out why I dreamed that.  

The only thing I came up with was that I recently saw lying on Coronation Street. I'm often very much against certain types of dishonesty. But with what happened on the show, I was kind of sympathetic towards it.

What happened is Dennis staged a fight with his roommate that included her kicking him out. He did this so Rita, his sort of estranged wife, would feel bad for him and ask him to move in with her.  

Rita was furious when she found out and ended their relationship. I thought what he did was manipulative, but I was sympathetic towards him, because his reasons for lying were kind of lovely. 

So...

I think my brain was kind of asking which lies are okay and which are not okay.

I don't think creating stories on a true-life blog is in any way okay—even if it's done just for fun, for the joy of being creative. Writing a fictional blog is fine, but it should be labeled as fiction.  

3. Looked at the one of my fictional blogs. On the top, under the title, it says, A Story About the Future.  I think that's a pretty blatant indication that the blog is fictional. In case someone misinterprets that, or misunderstands it, hopefully they'll catch on with the first sentence of the blog.
My grandma was born on the eighth day of the zombie epidemic. If a reader is still believing the fiction is reality, I don't know how to help them.

I did have problems with my novel Thirty Cats. I published it online, and I got many emails from people who believed it was a true story. I had to repeatedly explain that it was fiction. On the website, I had labeled Thirty Cats as a novel about Neurofibromatosis.  To me, a novel indicates something is fiction. But I guess people missed that or have a different definition of novel than I do.

4. Remembered that I DO have fiction on this blog. I wrote all those pretend trip posts.

I think I did label them as fiction, though.

I know I wrote posts explaining that I was going to be going on a fictional trip, but if I didn't label each post, someone might come to an individual post and believe my lies.

5. Remembered that the post titles themselves indicate the trip was fiction.

6. Saw that not only did I title the fake trip posts as being pretend but also wrote disclaimers at the bottom of each one.

7. Thought that passing fiction off as reality is okay as long as it's done for a joke, and the truth is revealed in a timely fashion. April Fool's Day pranks would be a prime example of that. There are also little things. For example, at Disney World we asked a cast member how to get out of a building. We couldn't find the exit. She replied,You don't—meaning we were stuck there for an eternity. I was amused and laughed. I enjoy this kind of humor.

8. Thought about how I'm also okay with stuff like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I just feel that once a child starts doubting and asking questions, the truth should be given to them.

9. Thought that lying for the purpose of hiding a surprise party is also usually okay. I say usually only because I'm not a big fan of surprises. I think they often lead to disappointments.

Yes, it would be lovely if you surprised me with a trip to Australia. But it would be a million times better if I was allowed in on all the planning.

10. Saw that Ben Mendelsohn received a Golden Globe nomination for his supporting role in Bloodline.

So far, that's the only thing on the list that's given me any satisfaction.

I wish The Mindy Project was nominated, and I thought for sure that Inside Out would be a best picture nominee. The latter was nominated for best animated film, but I think it deserves to be in the general category as well.

11. Saw that George Miller was nominated.

I'm glad for that.

12. Saw that another Australian was nominated for something—Cate Blanchett.

That's not too exciting. I think she's nominated for something at every awards ceremony.

13. Saw that Lord Wiki has a whole damn article about Cate Blanchett's award nominations. And it's REALLY long.

14. Saw that Cate Blanchett has been nominated for six Oscars. She won two of them.

15. Looked at Toni Collette for a comparison. She too has a whole Lord Wiki article about her awards; though it's shorter than Blanchett's.

Collette has been nominated for only one Oscar; and that's for The Six Sense.

16. Wondered if Lord Wiki has an awards article for many actors.

17. Saw that Lord Wiki doesn't have a whole article about Claudia Karvan's awards.

I guess an actor has to get a certain minimum amount of awards to get that honor.

18. Saw that Cate Blanchett has gotten five nominations from what used to be known as AFI (Australian Film Institute)

Toni Collette has gotten nine.

19. Saw that Cate Blanchett has gotten nine Golden Globe nominations. She's won three of them.

Toni Collette has gotten five nominations—three for television and two for film.

20. Looked at the movie Carol—the one which has brought about Blanchett's most recent nominations.

It seems to be a lesbian romance type of thing.

21. Went to palg1305's Flickr account.

Today I'm going to look at his photos of The Great Ocean Road.

22. Liked this photo of the Twelve Apostles; though, it's pretty typical.

Maybe the clouds are especially nice, though.

23. Thought the clouds look very low in this photo.

24. Went to the Tropfest website.

I'm going to watch a short film. Maybe. The last time I tried, the film was no longer available.

Maybe I'll have better luck today.

25. Decided to just go through the finalists and find a movie that's still available to watch.

26. Remembered if the Tropfest link to YouTube no longer works but a film sounds interesting to me, I can see if it's on Vimeo.

27. Found a film that's still on YouTube. It's called "The Grey Cloud".

28. Saw that "The Grey Cloud" has two directors and Producers—Matt Peek and Cam Ford.

I wonder if they are film school friends.

29. Saw that Cam (Cameron) Ford has done a fair bit of editing and cinematography.

30. Looked at The Katering Show on IMDb. It's a recent show that Ford worked on.

The tagline is: The journey of a food intolerant, and an intolerable foodie.

It sounds like it might be a fun show. Or it might be overly offensive.

There are people who are annoying because of their extreme pickiness when it comes to food. Then there are other people who are annoying because of their extreme intolerance towards people on special diets.  I think if the show doesn't come down too hard on either group; I'd probably enjoy it.

31. Saw that The Katering Show is available online. That's very cool. I guess it's a web series.

Maybe I'll watch an episode later.

32. Saw from IMDb that Matt Peek has less credits than Cam Ford.

I wonder why.

Did Peek work on The Grey Cloud as a favor or a hobby-type thing?

Did he hope for a screen career but then got sidetracked?

Maybe he's pursuing something else now?

33. Looked through the actors to see if there are any big Aussie stars. A lot of times Australian short films have big-time actors.

For this one, most of the actors didn't do much besides The Grey Cloud.

One actor has a lot of credits to his name—Mick Preston.  I can't tell if he's more of a character actor or if he's had memorable roles in some of his projects.

34. Saw that Preston is going to be in an upcoming movie about the afterlife—Experience The Knowing.  I wonder if that'll be any good.

35. Went to Mick Preston's official website.  

He was born in Papa New Guinea; moved to Melbourne when he was a baby; and has been living in New York since 1992.  I guess he returned to Australia to make The Grey Cloud...unless the movie wasn't filmed in Australia.  

36. Saw that I should have just read a little further.

Preston moved to Sydney in 2004. 

37. Learned that Preston was in a Japanese Godzilla movie. He seems very proud of that.

I would be too...if it were me.  

38. Decided I should get my ass in gear and finally watch The Grey Cloud.

39. Watched the film.

I don't get it and therefore, I didn't like it.

It reminded me of Underbelly: Razor—violent crime around the same time period.  I think? I'm guessing it was the 1920's, but who knows. Maybe it was the 1940's. I'm bad at pinpointing the past.

40.  Had another theory about why I dreamed about lying last night.  

Because the other main thing in my dream was a LION.

I did think about the lion/lying connection—noticed that the words sound alike.  But I didn't give it much attention.

But I just saw the title of my post yesterday. It was "The Lion's Den, Science Fiction Favorites, Confusion, and Stuart Beattie".  Lion!

My lion dream was interesting to me because I have recurring dreams about big cats. In most of these dreams, a big cat roams free. I worry about it, but no one else seems bothered.

This dream seemed different, because there were two or three other woman who were scared and worried. We kind of huddled together...bonded.  

I thought the dream took a positive step forward. The others had the message of me being alone in my fear. Isolated. In this dream, I was much less alone.  

41. Saw that The Katering Show has a YouTube channel—well, because I've been trying to figure out how to watch it on the website. I clicked on what I thought was the video, and didn't work. So then I clicked on the YouTube icon.  

42. Saw that The Katering Show itself doesn't have it's own channel. It's part of a channel called Lead Balloon TV. They don't have much besides the Katering Show—just one other web series.

43. Started watching the first episode.

So far, I'm liking it.

44. Wondered if the show is trying to be realistic about people with food allergies and intolerances.

Well, I know it's a comedy. But....

I guess I'm wondering whether they're laughing WITH people who have to avoid certain foods or laughing at them?

45. Thought the actresses (Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan)  in the show were cute and funny.

46. Thought that McCartney's voice and accent is similar to Annie Maynard's.

47.  Saw that the episode has close to 780,000 views. It's pretty popular.

48. Decided the show has a balanced approach to making fun of people with food difficulties and the chefs who have to cater to them.  

49. Saw that McCartney and McLennan also write, produce, and direct the show.  

50. Looked at both McCartney's and McLennan's filmographies.

McCartney seems to have more writing credits; and McLennan seems to have more acting ones.

51. Bookmarked The Katering Show.

I might watch more on another day.

52. Learned from Crash Course that America too stole native children.

I didn't know that.

53. Saw John Green mentioning other countries doing the same evil—Canada, South Africa, and Chile.

He didn't mention Australia.

I'm guessing there's a lot of countries that did it, though.

54. Saw I spoke too soon.

John Green does mention Australia.  They get special mention, because they stole children for quite a long time.

That being said, slavery was all about stealing children....and adults.

In terms of past atrocities, America is worse than Australia.

We're about even when it comes to how we treated the people who already occupied the country we invaded. But then with the US, you have to add slavery to the mix.

Slavery is HUGE.

Oh, and there's not just slavery, but all the evil discrimination that happened after that.





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