1. Bewildered by my 2011 brain.
I just read an old post where I talk about this architect that I read about in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His father had been married previously, and the architect had several step siblings. For some reason, I couldn't understand why he would have step siblings. I talk about how it would make sense to me for him to have half-siblings but not step siblings.
What?! Why?!
Why was I thinking that?
When reading the biographical information this morning, it made total sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is that it didn't make sense to me in 2011.
2. Listened to Youth Group's "Daisy Chains" while scrolling through the news headlines on my phones.
The song made the world seem both beautiful and sad.
3. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.
4. Finished watching the episode.
5. Thought about how Verity's (Emma Leonard) behavior frustrates me. Twice she's pulled away from her dominating friend Elizabeth (Bridget Neval). She stands strong against her. Then she comes crawling back.
I then realized it frustrates me, because it reminds me of myself. There are many times that I vow to take a step back from someone. I do that, but then later I become weak and let them right back in.
For me, it's not about actually cutting someone out of my life. It's more like pulling away.
Example: Let's say there's someone who often plays one-upmanship when I talk to them. I might tell them I saw a hawk in our yard—thinking that's pretty cool. They act very unimpressed and tell me they see hawks in their yard all the time, along with eagles, owls, ostriches, penguins, dodo birds, etc.
This happens often. I'm excited about something. I share something about my life, and they shoot it down. I decide to stop sharing my happy-special life things with them. It's a good choice. But then one day I have a weak moment and let them in again. Usually, the response they provide makes me regret it.
That's one of my big problems in life—giving people way too many chances.
I make rules that are good for keeping me emotionally safe. But then I break them.
6. Started to watch an episode of Home and Away.
7. Saw that Braxton's (Stephen Peacocke) family isn't pleased with his surprise not-guilty plea.
8. Learned from Twitter that there's a conference going on in Melbourne right now called Above All Human.
It's about being insightful and innovative.
9. Realized the conference is actually NOT going on right now.
It's starting in about thirty minutes...at 8:00.
Right now it's only 7:30 in Melbourne.
The innovative and insightful people of Melbourne are probably rushing to shower and dress so they can be there for the registration and coffee.
10. Saw some of the theme questions of the conference.
What startups should we be building?
How do we go from zero to hero?
Can we be successful from Australia?
11. Wondered about very successful entrepreneurs. Did they suddenly have a good idea; then ran with it? Or did they not have any ideas; then brainstormed until they came up with something?
12. Decided not to download the rest of The Rosie Project.
Now I'm feeling all conflicted about it.
I was put off by the anti-vegan sentiment.
It's not really fair, since I'm vocally anti many things on my blog. Do people stop reading because of that?
They might.
I don't know.
I'm not even vegan. That's the funny thing. And at times, I've been very amused by some anti-vegan/anti-vegetarian jokes.
Another part of me is tired of it, though.
I'm seen it too many times—the idea that us non-meat eaters are difficult, annoying, picky, abnormal, etc.
13. Glanced at reviews of The Rosie Project on Goodreads. A few people compare the main character to Sheldon Cooper.
I love Sheldon Cooper.
I should read the book.
14. Felt I'm going to be unsettled and conflicted if I don't read the rest of the book.
I think I'll download it.
15. Hoped that I end up loving the book, because otherwise I'm going to regret spending the eleven dollars.
16. Did a horrible thing.
I Googled to get a picture of the author (Graeme Simsion) to see if he looked like an asshole or not.
Yes. I do sometimes judge people on how they look.
I don't want to read a book written by someone who looks like a snob; looks like he's up himself; or looks like he takes himself too seriously.
Graeme Simsion looks like none of those things.
He looks fun.
He looks like someone who has laughing fits.
He looks like someone who laughs so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes.
17. Decided to check out Simsion on Twitter.
Because I also judge people on their Twitter accounts—even more so than their physical appearance.
18. Saw that Simsion has only six thousand followers.
Why?
He's written a famous, bestselling book.
I'd expect him to be much more popular on Twitter.
19. Felt that Simsion does a bit too much Retweeting. I think that gets annoying.
On the plus side, he doesn't Retweet things only praising himself.
He does that a little bit. But he also Retweets interesting things.
For example, I like this atheist quote he Retweeted. It's long and part of an image. I'd have to type it out if I wanted to share it here. If you're interested, follow the link. And I'll paraphrase...sort of.
The basic idea is that it's pathetic for religious people to assume humans need the concept of God to prevent them from committing murder.
The Tweet says it much more eloquently than I did.
20. Bought The Rosie Project.
It will take me a long time to read it, since I'm reading six other books at the same time.
21. Went to Tropfest.
Today I'm going to watch a 2009 finalist film called "Fences".
22. Started watching.
23. Saw that the film is about a dad who takes his son to work.
24. Thought that one of the actresses in the film looks familiar.
25. Didn't understand the point of the film, at first. But now I think maybe I get it.
I think it's saying that there are big domestic problems where the police have to get involved; and then there are smaller domestic problems. But they all can be painful for young children.
In the film, a detective gets a call telling him he's needed. The problem is, it's his turn to have his son. He calls his ex, and she refuses to help by taking the boy. The father, in desperation, takes the son on the case with him and leaves him in the car. The son escapes the car and ends up seeing the crime scene. The mother shows up and gets in a screaming match with the father. Then they both see the tormented look on their child's face and stop their bickering.
26. Felt I was somewhat more on the father's side.
It's not like he was overly eager to go to work. He tried to get out of it.
I don't know why the mother refused to take her son for awhile.
27. Thought that maybe I'm judging too much without knowing the facts (uh...imaginary facts). Maybe the father has often asked the wife to take the son off his hands. Maybe this time he had a legitimate excuse but other times they were flimsy and selfish.
28. Thought maybe the film was also about the whole struggle between job-dedication and parenting-dedication.
29. Saw from IMDb that "Fences" writer is not also the director of the film.
I think this might be the first time I've seen a Tropfest film like that. Usually, the writer and director are one and the same.
30. Saw that the actor from "Fences"—Brett Swain—has been in a lot of things.
He has a very long filmography.
It looks like one of his most substantial role was on SeaChange. He was on twenty-three episodes of that.
31. Looked again and saw that Swain also had a pretty big role on a family TV show called Fergus McPhail.
He was also on several episodes of Neighbours. He played a character named Kim Timmins.
32. Saw, from The Perfect Blend site, that Kim Timmins married a Rebecchi.
33. Looked at the filmography of Nicole Nabout.
She's the actress in "Fences" that looked familiar to me.
34. Saw that Nabout was one of stars of The Librarians. That's probably what I remember her from.
I would have also seen her on an episode of Offspring and an episode of Upper Middle Bogan.
35. Saw that the actress who played the mother in "Fences", Victoria Eagger, also appeared on The Librarians.
36. Saw that Chris Corbett, the writer of "Fences" has done a lot of television writing.
He's written episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Neighbours, McLeod's Daughters, Blue Heelers, All Saints, and other things.
37. Went to the Vimeo page of Tim Dean, the director of "Fences".
He has seven videos, including "Fences".
38. Started watching a video called "Wasting Away".
It looks depressing.
Maybe it's about depression.
39. Realized my view of what I'm seeing might be influenced by the title of the film.
40. Saw a woman, in the film, decide not to wear panty hose.
I think she made the right choice.
41. Saw, from the credits, that the woman in the film was played by Alison Bell.
I remember her from I Rock.
42. Wasn't overly impressed with "Wasting Away".
43. Started watching Tim Dean's "Not What I Expected" with hope that I'd like it more than "Wasting Away".
44. Liked the film so far.
First there was this fun, happy music.
Then, all of a sudden, the actress in it started singing.
Maybe it's a musical.
45. Got the idea that it's a musical about Internet love.
46. Thought that the actress in the film is cute.
47. Thought the song was a lot of fun, and I like the singing as well.
48. Finished watching the film.
I'm not sure I fully understand it.
A man and a woman win a contest to meet their Internet love. They're disappointed when they meet, and they never fall in love. Yet they get married and have a child together.
I was wondering why they'd do all that if they didn't love each other. It's not like it's an arranged marriage.
But then I started to think maybe they felt pressure because of the contest they won.
49. Watched another episode of Fear the Walking Dead.
The main family in the story is made up of two American actors, a British actor, an Australian actor, a Maori actor, and a Swedish-American actress.
It's very mixed.
50. Went to an Alycia Debnam Carey fan site.
There's an interview about Fear the Walking Dead.
51. Saw that actually there's a lot of interviews. They're copied them from other sites.
52. Thought I should give credit to the website for at least crediting and linking to the original interviews.
53. Followed the link to the AMC interview.
54. Thought this quote from Debman-Carey, about her character, is insightful. You’ve got everything to look forward to and that’s one of the saddest things about Alicia. She’s got so much to lose because she had so much to gain.
I think there are characters in The Walking Dead universe that have the opposite situation. Debman-Carey mentions this being the case for her on-screen brother. Then there's Daryl on the original series. The zombie apocalypse brought meaning, and a family, into his life.
55. Stopped reading the interview, because I saw it talks about the rest of the season.
We're only finished the second episode.
56. Went to another interview.
Maybe this one won't have spoilers.
57. Relieved to see this interview was published after the second episode.
I think I'm safe.
58. Agreed with Debman-Carey here, about the show. She says, You're just waiting for things to fall apart. It's a constant suspense.
Well, I don't know if I'd go as far as saying there's constant suspense. But there's a lot.
I definitely think this series has more suspense than the original.
The original MIGHT have had suspense in the beginning, but now the zombies seem commonplace, and the survivors are overly adept at fighting them.
59. Liked Debman Carey's honest response when asked how she'd react to a real zombie apocalypse.
She says, It could go one of two ways. I've got good intuition. So it could be something totally unrelated and I'd be like, 'Something is wrong, guys! Something is off! I heard a bump in the night.' So I could go too extreme or I would be the person who is like, 'Everyone is overreacting. Everyone chill out!'
It's really so hard to know what we'd do in these situations.
When I watch these shows, I get so frustrated when the characters make dangerous decisions. For example, Debman Carey's character insists on staying with her infected boyfriend. It seems so frustratingly foolish to me. But then, I don't know. Would I do the same if someone I loved had a super high fever If someone told me to get away from them—that I could get sick too, would I listen?
If it was a casual friend, yes. I'd very likely listen. I'd wish the sick person well and say good-bye.
If I loved them, I probably wouldn't want to leave; that is unless I knew they were bound to turn into a zombie. Then hopefully I'd leave...after shooting them in the head.
.
But how about in the time period before I know about the zombie thing?
It's easier to know what to do in a horror situation when you're watching it on TV. It's probably much less easy when you're in the midst of it.
Read my novel: The Dead are Online
I just read an old post where I talk about this architect that I read about in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His father had been married previously, and the architect had several step siblings. For some reason, I couldn't understand why he would have step siblings. I talk about how it would make sense to me for him to have half-siblings but not step siblings.
What?! Why?!
Why was I thinking that?
When reading the biographical information this morning, it made total sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is that it didn't make sense to me in 2011.
2. Listened to Youth Group's "Daisy Chains" while scrolling through the news headlines on my phones.
The song made the world seem both beautiful and sad.
3. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.
4. Finished watching the episode.
5. Thought about how Verity's (Emma Leonard) behavior frustrates me. Twice she's pulled away from her dominating friend Elizabeth (Bridget Neval). She stands strong against her. Then she comes crawling back.
I then realized it frustrates me, because it reminds me of myself. There are many times that I vow to take a step back from someone. I do that, but then later I become weak and let them right back in.
For me, it's not about actually cutting someone out of my life. It's more like pulling away.
Example: Let's say there's someone who often plays one-upmanship when I talk to them. I might tell them I saw a hawk in our yard—thinking that's pretty cool. They act very unimpressed and tell me they see hawks in their yard all the time, along with eagles, owls, ostriches, penguins, dodo birds, etc.
This happens often. I'm excited about something. I share something about my life, and they shoot it down. I decide to stop sharing my happy-special life things with them. It's a good choice. But then one day I have a weak moment and let them in again. Usually, the response they provide makes me regret it.
That's one of my big problems in life—giving people way too many chances.
I make rules that are good for keeping me emotionally safe. But then I break them.
6. Started to watch an episode of Home and Away.
7. Saw that Braxton's (Stephen Peacocke) family isn't pleased with his surprise not-guilty plea.
8. Learned from Twitter that there's a conference going on in Melbourne right now called Above All Human.
It's about being insightful and innovative.
9. Realized the conference is actually NOT going on right now.
It's starting in about thirty minutes...at 8:00.
Right now it's only 7:30 in Melbourne.
The innovative and insightful people of Melbourne are probably rushing to shower and dress so they can be there for the registration and coffee.
10. Saw some of the theme questions of the conference.
What startups should we be building?
How do we go from zero to hero?
Can we be successful from Australia?
11. Wondered about very successful entrepreneurs. Did they suddenly have a good idea; then ran with it? Or did they not have any ideas; then brainstormed until they came up with something?
12. Decided not to download the rest of The Rosie Project.
Now I'm feeling all conflicted about it.
I was put off by the anti-vegan sentiment.
It's not really fair, since I'm vocally anti many things on my blog. Do people stop reading because of that?
They might.
I don't know.
I'm not even vegan. That's the funny thing. And at times, I've been very amused by some anti-vegan/anti-vegetarian jokes.
Another part of me is tired of it, though.
I'm seen it too many times—the idea that us non-meat eaters are difficult, annoying, picky, abnormal, etc.
13. Glanced at reviews of The Rosie Project on Goodreads. A few people compare the main character to Sheldon Cooper.
I love Sheldon Cooper.
I should read the book.
14. Felt I'm going to be unsettled and conflicted if I don't read the rest of the book.
I think I'll download it.
15. Hoped that I end up loving the book, because otherwise I'm going to regret spending the eleven dollars.
16. Did a horrible thing.
I Googled to get a picture of the author (Graeme Simsion) to see if he looked like an asshole or not.
Yes. I do sometimes judge people on how they look.
I don't want to read a book written by someone who looks like a snob; looks like he's up himself; or looks like he takes himself too seriously.
Graeme Simsion looks like none of those things.
He looks fun.
He looks like someone who has laughing fits.
He looks like someone who laughs so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes.
17. Decided to check out Simsion on Twitter.
Because I also judge people on their Twitter accounts—even more so than their physical appearance.
18. Saw that Simsion has only six thousand followers.
Why?
He's written a famous, bestselling book.
I'd expect him to be much more popular on Twitter.
19. Felt that Simsion does a bit too much Retweeting. I think that gets annoying.
On the plus side, he doesn't Retweet things only praising himself.
He does that a little bit. But he also Retweets interesting things.
For example, I like this atheist quote he Retweeted. It's long and part of an image. I'd have to type it out if I wanted to share it here. If you're interested, follow the link. And I'll paraphrase...sort of.
The basic idea is that it's pathetic for religious people to assume humans need the concept of God to prevent them from committing murder.
The Tweet says it much more eloquently than I did.
20. Bought The Rosie Project.
It will take me a long time to read it, since I'm reading six other books at the same time.
21. Went to Tropfest.
Today I'm going to watch a 2009 finalist film called "Fences".
22. Started watching.
23. Saw that the film is about a dad who takes his son to work.
24. Thought that one of the actresses in the film looks familiar.
25. Didn't understand the point of the film, at first. But now I think maybe I get it.
I think it's saying that there are big domestic problems where the police have to get involved; and then there are smaller domestic problems. But they all can be painful for young children.
In the film, a detective gets a call telling him he's needed. The problem is, it's his turn to have his son. He calls his ex, and she refuses to help by taking the boy. The father, in desperation, takes the son on the case with him and leaves him in the car. The son escapes the car and ends up seeing the crime scene. The mother shows up and gets in a screaming match with the father. Then they both see the tormented look on their child's face and stop their bickering.
26. Felt I was somewhat more on the father's side.
It's not like he was overly eager to go to work. He tried to get out of it.
I don't know why the mother refused to take her son for awhile.
27. Thought that maybe I'm judging too much without knowing the facts (uh...imaginary facts). Maybe the father has often asked the wife to take the son off his hands. Maybe this time he had a legitimate excuse but other times they were flimsy and selfish.
28. Thought maybe the film was also about the whole struggle between job-dedication and parenting-dedication.
29. Saw from IMDb that "Fences" writer is not also the director of the film.
I think this might be the first time I've seen a Tropfest film like that. Usually, the writer and director are one and the same.
30. Saw that the actor from "Fences"—Brett Swain—has been in a lot of things.
He has a very long filmography.
It looks like one of his most substantial role was on SeaChange. He was on twenty-three episodes of that.
31. Looked again and saw that Swain also had a pretty big role on a family TV show called Fergus McPhail.
He was also on several episodes of Neighbours. He played a character named Kim Timmins.
32. Saw, from The Perfect Blend site, that Kim Timmins married a Rebecchi.
33. Looked at the filmography of Nicole Nabout.
She's the actress in "Fences" that looked familiar to me.
34. Saw that Nabout was one of stars of The Librarians. That's probably what I remember her from.
I would have also seen her on an episode of Offspring and an episode of Upper Middle Bogan.
35. Saw that the actress who played the mother in "Fences", Victoria Eagger, also appeared on The Librarians.
36. Saw that Chris Corbett, the writer of "Fences" has done a lot of television writing.
He's written episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Neighbours, McLeod's Daughters, Blue Heelers, All Saints, and other things.
37. Went to the Vimeo page of Tim Dean, the director of "Fences".
He has seven videos, including "Fences".
38. Started watching a video called "Wasting Away".
It looks depressing.
Maybe it's about depression.
39. Realized my view of what I'm seeing might be influenced by the title of the film.
40. Saw a woman, in the film, decide not to wear panty hose.
I think she made the right choice.
41. Saw, from the credits, that the woman in the film was played by Alison Bell.
I remember her from I Rock.
42. Wasn't overly impressed with "Wasting Away".
43. Started watching Tim Dean's "Not What I Expected" with hope that I'd like it more than "Wasting Away".
44. Liked the film so far.
First there was this fun, happy music.
Then, all of a sudden, the actress in it started singing.
Maybe it's a musical.
45. Got the idea that it's a musical about Internet love.
46. Thought that the actress in the film is cute.
47. Thought the song was a lot of fun, and I like the singing as well.
48. Finished watching the film.
I'm not sure I fully understand it.
A man and a woman win a contest to meet their Internet love. They're disappointed when they meet, and they never fall in love. Yet they get married and have a child together.
I was wondering why they'd do all that if they didn't love each other. It's not like it's an arranged marriage.
But then I started to think maybe they felt pressure because of the contest they won.
49. Watched another episode of Fear the Walking Dead.
The main family in the story is made up of two American actors, a British actor, an Australian actor, a Maori actor, and a Swedish-American actress.
It's very mixed.
50. Went to an Alycia Debnam Carey fan site.
There's an interview about Fear the Walking Dead.
51. Saw that actually there's a lot of interviews. They're copied them from other sites.
52. Thought I should give credit to the website for at least crediting and linking to the original interviews.
53. Followed the link to the AMC interview.
54. Thought this quote from Debman-Carey, about her character, is insightful. You’ve got everything to look forward to and that’s one of the saddest things about Alicia. She’s got so much to lose because she had so much to gain.
I think there are characters in The Walking Dead universe that have the opposite situation. Debman-Carey mentions this being the case for her on-screen brother. Then there's Daryl on the original series. The zombie apocalypse brought meaning, and a family, into his life.
55. Stopped reading the interview, because I saw it talks about the rest of the season.
We're only finished the second episode.
56. Went to another interview.
Maybe this one won't have spoilers.
57. Relieved to see this interview was published after the second episode.
I think I'm safe.
58. Agreed with Debman-Carey here, about the show. She says, You're just waiting for things to fall apart. It's a constant suspense.
Well, I don't know if I'd go as far as saying there's constant suspense. But there's a lot.
I definitely think this series has more suspense than the original.
The original MIGHT have had suspense in the beginning, but now the zombies seem commonplace, and the survivors are overly adept at fighting them.
59. Liked Debman Carey's honest response when asked how she'd react to a real zombie apocalypse.
She says, It could go one of two ways. I've got good intuition. So it could be something totally unrelated and I'd be like, 'Something is wrong, guys! Something is off! I heard a bump in the night.' So I could go too extreme or I would be the person who is like, 'Everyone is overreacting. Everyone chill out!'
It's really so hard to know what we'd do in these situations.
When I watch these shows, I get so frustrated when the characters make dangerous decisions. For example, Debman Carey's character insists on staying with her infected boyfriend. It seems so frustratingly foolish to me. But then, I don't know. Would I do the same if someone I loved had a super high fever If someone told me to get away from them—that I could get sick too, would I listen?
If it was a casual friend, yes. I'd very likely listen. I'd wish the sick person well and say good-bye.
If I loved them, I probably wouldn't want to leave; that is unless I knew they were bound to turn into a zombie. Then hopefully I'd leave...after shooting them in the head.
.
But how about in the time period before I know about the zombie thing?
It's easier to know what to do in a horror situation when you're watching it on TV. It's probably much less easy when you're in the midst of it.
Read my novel: The Dead are Online