More Stuff....

Strange Behavior, Strange Clothes, Strange Hobbies, and Cold Water

1. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

2. Thought this episode was especially far-fetched.

Toby (Andre de Vanny) creates a Dina (Saskia Burmeister) robot.

It's very obvious that she's a robot; yet the people she encounters don't seem to see it.

Elizabeth (Bridget Neval) at least suspects something is up, but doesn't seem to catch onto the robot thing. She just thinks Dina is being too nice.

3. Wondered if I'd notice that someone I know is not themselves and actually a robot.

It's not something I'd be expecting to happen.

If they had a big, neverending, phony smile like Dina; I'd probably at first think they were being silly. I would think they were playing a joke on me. But if it continued, I'd probably guess they were drugged. Next idea would be demonic possession. After that, I'd start thinking robot.

But if someone in my family was acting as strange as Dina is in this episode, I doubt I'd just shrug it off.

4. Proud of Elizabeth.

She finally caught onto the robot thing.

5. Started to watch an episode of Home and Away.

6. Felt bad for Hannah (Cassie Howarth)

She invited her boyfriend Andy (Tai Hara) to sleep in bed with her rather than the nearby chair. He politely rejected that offer. Then she tried to kiss him, and he moved away.

I'm guessing he's nervous about her being paralyzed. Maybe to him that's a turn off?

7. Wondered about pregnancy and sex.

I think I've seen men in fiction proclaiming that they're scared to hurt the baby. Is that really the reason they don't want sex, or is pregnancy a turn off for them?

8. Thought about how you can see some strange clothes on soap operas.

Denny (Jessica Grace Smith) is wearing a dress with a sea lion or walrus on it.

A few days ago, I saw Kylie wearing a donut shirt on Coronation Street.

9. Decided it's probably not that strange to wear a dress with a sea mammal or a shirt with donuts.  It's also about the style of the clothes, which in these cases, I think were quite odd.

That being said, I like strange clothes. Though I'm not sure if I like these strange outfits in particular.

10. Wondered what bad things Andy did in the past. Because people on the show keep bringing it up.

11. Felt relieved, because Andy started acting like he might have sex with Hannah.

BUT then he pulled away.

I think it would be funny if it had nothing to do with her being paralyzed. Maybe he's recently developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome and has to rush away to the toilet.  It would make sense.  Usually he would have probably told Hannah about his health problem.  But since she's dealing with a massive injury, he might feel his problem is small in comparison. He might be afraid to tell her what's happening to his bowels.

12. Thought about how I complained a few weeks ago about Home and Away having too many pretty people. Now I'm actually appreciating it. Or at least I'm greatly appreciating the beauty of certain actors on the show.

 I think my favorite male is Kyle Pryor, and my favorite female is Isabella Giovinazzo.

13. Learned from Twitter that Tony Abbott is going to try to return to Parliament.

Or he plans to try to stay?

Did he not leave? I thought he left.

14. Read an article.

I guess he never left.

It seems he did what Rudd did—stayed on the backbench.

15. Went to the Tropfest website.

Tonight I'm going to watch a 2009 film called "Notes From a Scaresmith".  The idea I get from the description is that it's about scaring people.

16. Saw that "Notes From a Scaresmith is twenty seconds less than the maximum seven minutes Tropfest time allotment.

17. Started watching the film.

18. Thought the kid in the film looks familar.

19. Thought that the film has cute pop culture references.

20. Thought about the film. It's about a guy who likes to scare people. He gets housemates and then uses different methods to startle them.  The scariest thing, though, is the guy's personality.  He doesn't seem to have conversations with his roommates. He just jumps out at them at various times.

I'd be less scared by the startling stuff and more scared by how obsessed this guy is with this one particular goal.

21. Decided this guy might fit well with the documentary I watched a few weeks ago—the one with various people and their compulsions.

22. Thought that this case feels like one in which the compulsion greatly overtakes the person's life in a detrimental way.

23. Got the sense that the film is supposed to be symbolic of something, but I don't know what.

24. Wonder if the guy in the movie isn't suppose to be as disturbed as he seems. Maybe it's the way he's presented, or the way it's edited.

I don't think it would be bad to have someone who enjoys scaring people. Pranksters can be fun. The thing with the guy in the movie, though, is he seems to have a one track mind. It seems he doesn't see people as being anything beyond being his targets.

25. Saw that the kid in the movie was played by Tasman Godkin.  He must have just looked like someone else, because Godkin doesn't have anything else on his filmography.

26. Liked the name Tasman.

Every so often I have a pregnancy scare. While I'm freaking out and thinking about how my fairly easy life is going to become horribly difficult, I also sometimes try to think of names.

I'd definitely want something Australian-related.

I never considered Tasman.  I like it a lot.

Uh...but not enough to want a baby.

27. Saw that Scot Edwards, the writer and director of "Notes From a Scaresmith" recently did editing for a TV program featuring Lachy Hulme, called Sandy Roberts Presents.

I'm not sure what it is.

It's something about sports.

Most of the people in the program play themselves but not Hulme.

28. Found a message board where other people seem confused about it as well.

29. Found an article about the program.

It confuses me.

Though I'm getting that it's probably a comedy—maybe a parody. Or satire.

30. Found an article about the difference between satire and parody, because after I wrote the above, I wasn't sure if I actually knew.

The article talks about how parody and satire are similar, but satire's purpose is to make a serious point.  A parody is more just for fun.

31. Started to look at the actors from "Notes From a Scaresmith".

Rob Alec, the star of the film, has starred in several other short films. He's also guest-starred on some TV shows, including Rush, City Homicide, and Blue Heelers,

32. Wondered if Hulu is ever going to get Blue Heelers.

33. Saw that Rob Alec starred in a 2015 movie called The Flame Wars.

It's about university students.

I guess they have a flame war.

34. Tried to find more about The Flame Wars but didn't have much luck.

35. Saw that Alec starred in another 2015 film. It's a German-Australian project called Elixir.

Then he also appeared in a film called Cat Sick Blues.  I don't think he had a huge part in the cat thing.

35. Started watching a trailer for a 2015 Elixir, but I think it might be the wrong movie. The narrating character has an American accent.

36. Searched and learned I was watching a trailer for an environmental science fiction film.

37. Found a trailer for Cat Sick Blues.

It looks like a horror-surrealism type thing.

38. Started reading an article about the correct Elixir.

It too is a surrealist thing.

It's actually about the surrealism movement.

It's so surrealist that I'm unable to really understand the article about it.

39. Thought there might be an IMDb mistake with the actress from "Notes from a Scaresmith".

They list Nicola Wright as appearing in Top Secret in 1984.  But the girl looks like she was born AFTER 1984.

40. Guessed that there are two Nicola Wright's and IMDb has combined them into one person.

41. Realized Nicola Wright could be a vampire or something like that.

Maybe she's a robot.

42. Found Scot Edward's website.

He seems to do a lot of sports editing.

43. Started to watch one of Edward's video.  It's a 2014 Olympics thing about people plunging into freezing cold water.

44. Wondered if there is some kind of pleasure derived from freezing cold water.

Do people do it just for a dare?  Does it give them a sense of power?

Or does it release some kind of hormone.

45. Consulted Lord Wiki about cold-water swimming. He doesn't say anything about it giving people a high.

He does say there are health risks for some but for others, it has shown to reduce stress and fatigue.

Sometimes it puts people in a better mood.

It also seems to help people with chronic pain issues.

46. Didn't know how much cold-swimming one would need to do to receive the benefits and how long the benefits last after the swim.

47. Wondered if the benefits could be more psychological.

If you jump into freezing water, that's pretty brave. I think it would boost one's self-esteem.  And if they're getting together with other cold-water people, they might be expanding and improving their social circle.

48. Followed Lord Wiki's link to the article about the health study.

49. Read that after the swim, the sufferers of chronic pain were pain free for two to three hours.

50. Saw that in the conclusion, they say the reduction of pain might be partly due to mood improvement.

51. Decided, from what I'm reading, that the benefits are probably a mix of psychological and physical.

52. Saw that Scot Edwards has an Avalanches video ("Electricity") on his page. I guess he edited it?

Well, I say edited, because the top of the website labels Edwards as an editor.

53. Remembered recently I saw or heard something with horses, and it made me think of "Frontier Psychiatrist".

54. Decided to watch Frontier Psychiatrist.

It's one of my favorite videos.

That's not saying much, though, because I'm not a huge fan of music videos.

55. Thought about how Jack did the ice-challenge when that was a fad. He liked it and did it more than once.

I also remember he and his Aussie friend seemed to like going from the hot tub to the cold pool when we were in Hawaii.

56. Thought about how I have sometimes taken a cold shower.

There is something exhilarating about it.

I prefer hot showers...a little too much. But I think it ends up making me sluggish, or at least tired.

Maybe cold water does the opposite.

57. Thought about how I'm not good at getting into our pool when it's cold. And by cold, I'm not talking about freezing or near freezing. It's probably like seventy degrees...or higher.

58. Remembered that I did enjoy getting into the cold ocean water in Australia. But again, it's not that cold.

59. Decided what I like is swimming in warm water where there are also little bits of cold.

It's like in our lake house pool. It's way too warm sometimes because of how hot is in Texas.  At a certain point in the summer, it's not refreshing. It's like a warm bath. A few times we've put the hose on in the water. It's nice to feel the cold within the warm.

I also like the feeling of swimming in the lake. It's warm near the surface, and colder near our feet.

60. Saw that Invasion Day is trending on Twitter.

61. Felt at a loss about the whole thing.

I guess maybe I think January 26 should be both Australia Day and Invasion Day.

White people did cause a lot of grief for the ones who arrived before them.  But I don't think it's been all bad.

I think people can celebrate the good aspects of Australia while also feeling guilty and horrible for the bad stuff that happened.

62. Thought it would probably be best to move Australia day to January 1—when Australia became a Federation.

That might be less controversial.

63. Watched some of a video about Invasion Day.

They mention the January 1 idea.

I think it's been a popular idea for a long time but not popular enough to yet have caused change.

64. Signed a Change.org petition about the date change.

65. Imagined if the official date changed, some Australians would still celebrate Australia Day on January 26.

66. Imagined the people who would insist on continuing to celebrate Australia Day on January 26 would be similar in personality to those people at the Fort Worth Stock Show parade who insisted on waving the Confederate Flag.  The parade organizers made a rule against the flag and then there were more Confederate flags than ever.

67. Thought that people don't really need to wait for the government to step in and make the change. They can just do nothing on January 26 or commemorate Invasion Day if they feel compelled.

Then on January 1, they can celebrate Australia.

68. Told Jack and Tim we shouldn't celebrate Australia Day on January 26.

Jack argued against this at first, because he thought I was trying to say that we as Americans shouldn't celebrate it.

We ended up having a nice little discussion about history.

We also talked about the Confederate flags at the parade and what flags we'd like to bring next time in response.

Jack suggested Nazi flags.

I had made snide comments about that at the parade. I don't think Jack heard me, though.

I guess what I'd want the Nazi flags to do is shock people and make them think.  Oh no! How scary! How racist! How can they have those flags? Oh wait. We have flags that are seen as racist as well. Maybe we should have thought twice before waving these flags. We don't want to be like Nazis.

The thing is, I read about how people felt they had the right to wave the flag because it's part of their heritage. Well, then should Germans proudly wave the Nazi flag, because it's part of their heritage?

69. Imagined that waving the Nazi flag would backfire on us.  People wouldn't know we're Jews trying to be ironic. They'd probably think we really support Nazism...even though some of our group isn't white.

BUT...there were black kids at the parade waving the Confederate Flag. So, there you go.

Also, there'd probably be some people who'd beam with pride and adoration when seeing the Nazi flag.

70. Wanted to list our other flag ideas—Communist, black power, Gay pride, etc.

I like black power the most, because it's in more direct opposition to the Confederate Flag.

71. Thought a coexist flag might be nice.

72. Wondered if not having any flag is statement enough.

73. Found Rob Alec's showreel.  It was kind of on a accident. I was doing my proofread before posting, and saw I forgot to link to Alec's filmography. When I Googled to get the link, I found the showreel.

I would have maybe found and watched it earlier if I hadn't gotten sidetracked by the ice-water stuff.

74. Started watching the showreel.

75. Saw a scene with Rob Alec on The Librarians. He played a guy who held onto the Da Vinci Code a bit too long.

76. Wished I could say I enjoyed watching Rob Alec's showreel. But our Internet was acting up, and the video kept freezing every few seconds.

The experience was tedious. But still. I saw enough to conclude that Alec is a good actor.  I hope to see him in more things someday.