Saturday Update

I think I may have a disease called schleroderma, and yesterday, I was kind of obsessing about that.

It's not a new idea. I have had problems with the skin on my toes and hands the past few years. It's something I've come across while Googling my symptoms before. 

I also did a ton of Googling when I had my blood clot, so maybe I came across it then as well. Blood clots aren't listed as a symptom of schleroderma, but I Googled yesterday to see if there was a connection, and they do say people with schleroderma are more likely to have blood clots.

But who knows. I might not have schleroderma. Or I might have it, and the blood clot was totally separate. 

In Broadchurch news, we are onto season 2.

Tim and I both correctly guessed the identity of the murderer...I think by the second episode of season 1, Tim claims I get the credit, because I said it first. But when I said it, he didn't argue against it. And he said something like, I was thinking the same thing. So, I feel we both get the credit. 

In contrast, when we watched Us, and I guessed the twist, Tim was more surprised at the idea, and he didn't tell me he had the same idea. So I give myself sole credit on that one.  

I feel a bit skeptical about season 2 of Broadchurch. 

One thing I'm wondering is if the creators intended to have season 2 or 3. Were they planning it when writing season 1?   

I get this idea it was supposed to end with the first season. But then they had so much fun making it. And the show got such good reviews, so they felt unwilling to let go.  

Watching the first episode with the new characters, new decisions, new backstories, etc. Were these in the mind of the writers during season 1. Or were they pulled out of thin air for season 2?

Another thing I'm wondering about the show...and this is less of a potential criticism...is whether the actors knew who the murderer was when filming? Was it one of those things where the actors themselves don't know their own character's secrets? 

Maybe the actors who weren't playing the murderer knew they weren't the murderer. But maybe they didn't know which of them among themselves WAS the murderer. And maybe the actor playing the murderer knew that he was the murderer.

I wonder about all this, because I remember learning that Terry O'Quinn in Lost didn't realize he was no longer playing Locke. And this led me to believing in this whole theory of Locke being the Man in Black all along.  Since Locke possessed by the Man in Black was acting so much like Locke...and adding all the time travel stuff...,

But then I realized it was probably just an actor not getting enough information on his character. 

Yesterday I was about to Google and try to get some answers to my Broadchurch questions...if they are out there. But then I realized I might run into spoilers. So I shall wait until we finish the series.

There are some new actors in season 2. Tim recognized Eve Myles, and I was able to quickly tell him she was from Torchwood. I felt compelled to add a disclaimer. I told him I was quick knowing it, because I had looked at IMDb for the episode. Otherwise, I would have been sitting through the episode thinking, she looks so familar. Where do we know her from????

Tim also asked about Charlotte Rampling. What do we know her from? 

My quick answer back: Racism. That's where I know her from. I told him it had something to do with saying something racist regarding the Oscars. I had to Google to remember what it was exactly.  

Rampling went with that idea that if we are colorblind and ignore things like race, the truly talented people will rise to the top and get their rightful rewards. Are the Oscars racist, or is it simply that all these years white people have shown more talent with acting?  And writing, directing, producing.....

With this mindset.....

Are we really supposed to believe that Jodi Whittaker is the first woman out there to have the talent and abilities needed to play the Doctor?

No. There have been plenty of actresses out there who could have done the job well. But someone...multi-someone's had to have the realizations that it actually doesn't make sense for a Time Lord to keep regenerating into white British men.  They had to put effort into diversity, because there is NO colorblindness or gender-blindness. Without that effort, the Doctor would probably continue to regenerate into white British male bodies way into the next 200 seasons of the series.  

Well, I just did some Googling to see if maybe I'm wrong about the Doctor always being British, and I ended up finding that Whittaker isn't the first time the Doctor has been a woman. Joanna Lumley played the Doctor in a Red Nose Day Sketch.  That's not a big step forward in terms of gender equality, since it was just a sketch. But at least it shows...some logical thinking.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I've been taking a break from the Peru travelogue in Dog Food For Chairs and am now reading Doctor Who posts from Dog Food for Chairs. This post is a history of the show in terms of being Broadcast in the U.S...and personal fandom history.  And this one goes deeper into the new series. 

I'm glad I'm back into Doctor Who and have a blogger I can turn to for information and encouragement/enthusiasm. Hopefully that will help me keep up the fan-feelings so that when the next season comes out, I've not lost the interest again.  

What else...

In YouTube news, my eleven-year-old nephew has a channel now, and I watched two of his Minecraft videos. One was very suspenseful. He played hardcore and spawned in a place with no animals. He injured himself falling and was running low on hearts and hunger. He made a boat and went off his spawn-land and found a ship wreck. I assume he was looking for food. Then he ended up drowning. 

I would share the link, but I don't think his mom would appreciate that. And sadly, I'm not popular enough to bring him more views anyway.  I'm more likely to anger my sister than I am to make my nephew a YouTube star.

Another thing I've been watching on YouTube is videos from the Learn French with Alexa channel. Yesterday I did one about adverbs.  For some reason, I'm very bad at learning pronunciation with Duolingo. I tend to pay more attention to the reading/writing aspects. So...the videos help me with the speaking.

In my screenwriting news. It's mostly bad news. Or...I should say stressful and unhappiness news.

I finished with a round of proofreading/revising The Dead are Online (version A) and am now onto version Version b. That's not an issue.

The issues began with me seeing something on Twitter about writing a one page pitch-summary of your screenplay. I HATE HATE HATE all that...loglines, synopsis, query letters, treatments.

That's why I decided to go the contest route. I felt maybe I could have some success and not have to do all the hateful, evil stuff. But I started getting idea that I'll eventually have to do face my nightmare. 

And I finally paid some attention to this TV show bible thing I've been hearing about. I did some research into it. It seems like the kind of thing that would be extremely fun if you were doing it...just for fun. But doing it for other people to actually read and judge?  It sounds incredibly intimidating and NOT fun.  

So I had THIS writing angst going on.

Then I started blabbing to Tim about it, and somehow we got into the conversation of TV writing jobs. When I first started writing these TV pilots, I had this willful ignorance about the whole concept of success. I pictured if my writing-a-TV-show dream came true, it would involve me getting a nice check; then going on with my life, and watching the TV show when it came on TV. OR not watching it, because it would be too nerve-wracking to do that. But I would know it's out there...and that would be really cool.

I should not have been that ignorant, seeing that I'm a fan of TV and have read enough to understand the whole concept of writer's rooms and all that.

But it's like Hawaii. You hear that there are tall buildings...that there are regular cities there. But despite that, you get off the plane and are disillusioned that it's not 100% beaches, palm trees, and vacationing. 

Anyway, though. I started to face the idea that if a miracle happens and I have any screenwriting success, it might involve actually having to work at a job with people and all that.  

I suggested to Tim if such a thing happens, we might get to move to somewhere cool like Canada or Atlanta. Tim questioned this and said he thought writers usually work in Los Angeles.

I Googled and from what I saw, it looked like he might be right. 

This was very unhappy news for me.

The idea of living in Los Angeles didn't appeal to me...at all.

And then I felt super stupid for even worrying about it. I know that my chances of success are very slim.

Okay, but then I feel bad for having that negative mindset. And that makes me feel even worse. I feel annoyed at myself for feeling that way and hurt by imagining that all of my family would agree with my negativity. 

Then I stupidly start talking myself into not-hating-the-idea of living in Los Angeles. That then turns into, how stupid can you be? Why are you talking yourself into being okay with something that is not going to happen? But then....

If it's never going to happen, why am I spending money on screenplay contests?

I don't want to quit.

So I'll keep allowing at least a small part of myself to dream big.

In a way, maybe the Los Angeles thing is a good thing. Because if I end up having good luck and success, it will be a very nice turn of events in my life.  But if I end up having bad luck and no success, then at least I can say...well, at least I won't have to move to Los Angeles.

Although it would be really cool to live close to Disneyland. 

 

Cuckoo Nest, Cosby Sweater, Heel Face Turn, and Upward Inflection

1. Started watching an episode of Neighbours.

2. Saw that Toadie (Ryan Moloney) had started a secret bank account to protect himself and his children in case Sonya (Eve Moloney) went back into her scary drug habits.

Sonya told him this was fine; that she wasn't mad; and he did a good thing by protecting his children. I couldn't tell if she really meant this or not.

Well, I think she meant it with her brain—logically speaking. But I think her feelings were probably hurt.

I personally think he did the right thing.

It's lovely to have someone's full trust in us; but if we have a rocky past, sometimes it's good for them to have some sort of insurance against bad things happening.

I think if someone had a serious substance abuse problem in their past; it's always possible that it might return.

3. Started watching an episode of Farscape.

4. Felt very determined, because as I was playing a QuizUp question about the word determined, Zhaan (Virginia Hey) said something about being determined.

5. Looked at the plot of the next episode of Farscape I'm going to watch.
 "Won't Get Fooled Again" sounds very similar to one of the Charmed episodes.  In both episodes, one of the characters is tricked into believing their fantastic adventures never happened.  In Charmed, Prue is led to believe that she's a delusional patient living in a mental hospital rather than a powerful witch.

6. Found the name of the Charmed episode, thanks to Lord Wiki. It's "Brain Drain".

The Farscape episode actually aired first—August 2000. The Charmed one aired in November 2001.

7. Went to the TV Tropes website to see if there are any other TV shows with this premise.

TV Tropes labels the trope as Cuckoo Nest. They describe it as, a character is convinced that they are in an insane asylum (a Bedlam House is a popular choice), where they are told that the events of the series are actually hallucinations.

I'm not sure yet if the Farscape episode involves an insane asylum, I shall see soon.

8. Saw Twelve Monkeys listed as a film that uses the Cuckoo Nest trope.  I think that's a good example.

9. Saw that the Lost episode "Dave" had the Cuckoo Nest trope. I totally forgot about that!

10. Went to the Triple J 2014 list.

I'm on the third song now, and that's "Cosby Sweater" by the Hilltop Hoods. That group is somewhat familar to me.  Well, I've heard a few of their songs, at least.

I'm eager to hear the lyrics to "Cosby Sweater". I wonder if the song talks about the rape stuff.

11. Started watching the video to "Cosby Sweater".

The beginning just has people wearing Cosby-type sweaters.

12. Saw that actually not everyone in the video is wearing Cosby-type sweaters.

There's a girl wearing a sweater-dress and a guy wearing a jacket.

The jacket guy might be the Hilltop Hoods singer/rapper.

13. Failed to understand the lyrics. The guy raps too fast for my ears.

I like the sound of it, though.

14. Heard references to other celebrities, including Oprah and her car give-away thing.

15. Realized I was hearing the name Bobby Fisher—the chess player. I kept thinking they were saying Barbara Fisher, which is the name of one of our family members.

16. Finished watching the video. The basic idea I get from the song is that this guy feels like a winner (like Bobby Fisher) because he wears a Cosby Sweater.

17. Started to look at the lyrics to the song.

It has a lot of pop culture references, which I tend to enjoy.

There's stuff about Tom Cruise jumping on the couch.

18. Started to think that there are references to the rape stuff. I can't tell if I'm imagining it. I'm really bad at deciphering poetry and song lyrics.

But here are the lines that make me wonder:

They're not awakened, stare a lot and vacant  That could about be the drugged rape victims.

Till they're gathering they no longer matter like a black hole. That could be saying that his female victims won't matter until they gang up together to fight him. One person speaking out against a celebrity abuser isn't likely to bring the celebrity down. Many speaking out against them is a different story.

Imma get drunk and dance like your uncle 
Till I'm all hands like your uncle, Could be referring to molestation.

When I'm spitting venom I'm as generous as Oprah You get a scar, you get a scar, you get a scar.  Could be referring to emotional scars that happen from sexual misconduct.

I won't beat around the bush like a seventies porn I'll make you wish that you'd never been born and it's all good  Well, if you're raped by Cliff Huxtable, there could come a time where you wish you were never born.

19. Figured either the whole song is about the rape stuff and I'm stating the obvious here. OR the song had nothing to do with the rape stuff, and I'm totally over-interpreting.

20. Started watching Farscape—the "Won't Get Fooled Again" episode.

21. Saw that Crichton (Ben Browder) is not in a mental hospital—at least not yet.

The story he's getting is that his space ship thing crashed, and he's been in a coma for a week.

His nurse looks exactly like Aeryn (Claudia Black).

22. Liked this episode so far.

I think I have a soft spot for these kinds of stories—the ones that make us question reality and sanity. On the other hand, they make me emotionally stressed. I get very eager for the character's experiences to be validated. I need to hear that the character really did go on these fantastic adventures, and that they're not delusional.

23. Thought that Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) reminds me of Ben from Lost. They're both very evil but also not so evil and sometimes helpful. Ben turned actually kind of good in the end. I wonder if the same will happen with Scorpius.

24. Read more stuff on the TV Trope website.  Both Ben Linus and Scorpius are listed under the Heel Face Turn Trope.  These are bad characters that eventually turn good.  Crais (Lani John Topu), from Farscape is another example.  Others include: Dalek Caan and Dalek Sec from Doctor Who; Cole From Charmed; Sawyer from Lost, and various Harry Potter characters.

I like when bad characters turn good.

25. Wondered about good characters who turn bad. I'm sure there are some of them.

I can't think of any offhand.

26. Saw that TV Tropes has a name for this too. They call it Face-Heel Turn.  They say it has to be someone who was truly good and then something happened to make them evil. It doesn't include people who were evil all along and just pretending to be good.

27. Saw that Anakin Skywalker is an example. Yeah! I guess that's a huge one. I don't know why I didn't think of it.

Also, there's Magneto and Mystique from X-Men, and Michael and (maybe) Claire on Lost;

28. Saw that many characters on their list are ones that only went temporarily bad.

Then again, Anakin Skywalker's evil isn't permanent either.

It's probably very rare for a good character to turn evil and then stay evil.  There's probably redemption, or at least remorse, somewhere down the line.

29. Realized that I'm an inconsistent mess when it comes to writing down actors' names with their characters.

I really started doing it in hopes that people searching for these actors will come to my blog. Sorry. Yeah. It's a traffic thing. It's not like I want a huge amount of traffic, but I'd like a moderate amount.  I have a small bit of hope that putting actors' names in my blog will help.

Of course, I don't randomly name drop just to bring actor-fans to my blog. But if I'm talking about a character, my feeling is, why not add the actor's name as well?  Plus, if someone's a fan of the actor, or at least interested in them, they might like to know what I'm saying about the character the actor has played.  Maybe? Probably not.  I don't know.

On the other hand, I'm lazy and don't feel motivated enough to write down the name of every actor of every character I mentioned. So then I made this rule for myself. I'll only write down Australian actors, since this is an Australian blog. Screw the others.

But recently I've had the urge to skip over Australian actors acting in American TV shows I've mentioned. And today I realized I've been writing Ben Browder's name, and he's American.  Plus, I know I've mentioned several Kiwi actors.

So, maybe my real rule is to talk about the actors appearing in Australian TV shows, whether they're Australian or not. And if an Australian is in an American TV show, I may or may not name them.

30. Decided the American TV show is not much of an issue; because I don't often talk about American TV shows on this blog. It's just that Farscape is often reminding me of Lost and Charmed, and both of those shows happened to have an Australian actor playing one of the main characters.

31. Wondered if maybe I do talk about American TV shows a fair bit on this blog. Well, it's probably not a lot, but I don't think it's incredibly rare.

But most of them don't have Australian actors.

The Walking Dead and Bates Motel don't have any.

True Blood had one.

Modern Family doesn't have any, but they did have strange allusions to Australia-related things. And then I guess they had some Aussie actors when they did the Australia episode.

I don't think The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother has any.

And American Horror Story. That's my other American show. I don't think that has any Australians either.

32. Remembered Ugly Betty and Torchwood. Those both had Alan Dale. Although he was only in one episode of Torchwood.

Oh! And Alan Dale was in Lost as well. I forgot about that.

33. Saw that Lord Wiki classifies Dale as a Kiwi actor not an Aussie.

I knew he was born in New Zealand, but I wasn't sure if he had made himself Australian, or not.

34. Tried to remember the name of the Australian character on Desperate Housewives. AND...I just remembered there was an Australian character on Ugly Betty.  Coincidentally, both characters were romantically involved with a character played by Vanessa Williams.

35. Found the Australian actor on Desperate Housewives. It's Charles Mesure.

Mesure was born in England, but grew up in Sydney.

36. Saw that Grant Bowler is the guy who played the Australian on Ugly Betty.  He was born in New Zealand, but Lord Wiki says he did his growing up time in Australia.

37.  Learned from Lord Wiki that Grant Bowler was on True Blood.  I think that's something I already knew but then forgot. But anyway, that means Ryan Kwanten isn't the only Aussie on True Blood.

38. Started to watch the two-part Neighbours backstage video featuring Ariel Kaplan.

39. Learned that Kaplan and her castmates are filming a dinner scene at seven in the morning.

40. Got the sense that Kaplan is less serious and intense than Imogen.

41. Started watching part two of the video.

42. Learned that all the actors on Neighbours have their own little chair area in the green room.  Though I guess it would be only the main actors—probably not the ones who appear a few times a month.

How about the ones who have an intense role for a week or two—like Adrienne Pickering? Did she have a spot in the green room?

43. Wondered if all TV/movie sets call the actor's break room the green room. Or is that just a Neighbours thing?

44. Looked up Green Room. It has a broad definition—a place for actors to wait, rest, hang out, etc.

Though from what Lord Wiki says, it seems to be a theater thing.

Is it also often used for movies and TV? Or is Neighbours special in that way?

45. Decided that Kaplan has a highly energetic and bubbly type of personality.

She also sometimes does that Australian thing of making every sentence sound like a question.

Not every Australian does it, and not every person who does it is Australian. But I do associate it with Australians a fair bit.

46. Found Adam Hills video about the Australian accent and the question thing.  I think I watched it before—a long time ago.

47. Thought that maybe Hills got his history stuff wrong. I'm not sure.

He talks about Cook coming to Botany Bay, thinking it was shit, but then deciding to check around the corner for better things.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was Arthur Phillips who went looking for better things. Well, I KNOW he did that.  But maybe Cook did as well?  I'm not sure.

Yeah. I know. Adam Hills is just doing comedy. He probably doesn't need to be 100% factually correct.

48. Consulted Lord Wiki. He seems to agree with me. Cook found Botany Bay. Eighteen years later, Arthur Phillip and the prisoners arrived. Phillip wasn't impressed with Botany Bay and eventually found his way to Port Jackson.

49. Started to read an article about the question thing; or as the article refers to it—the "upward inflection".

Some people believe it started in California with the whole Valley Girl thing.

Other people believe in began in Australia. The article says that there's a belief that it slipped into the UK in 1986 with the airing of Neighbours.

50. Finished reading the article. Basically, there are a lot of different theories about how it began, and no one knows the definite answer.

Also, there are different beliefs about it's purpose and what it conveys. Some say it's a sign of meekness, while others say people in dominant positions use it more.  Some say say it's used to make sure the listener is still paying attention. The article says that lately this is a concern for people, because often the people around us are playing on their phones and not looking at us when we speak.

51. Thought about the dominance thing. The article says; Liberman suggests that uptalk is a way to assert dominance. He points to a 2005 study by Winnie Cheng and Martin Warren, who highlighted that speakers in dominant positions (the chair of a meeting, or an academic supervisor) use uptalk between three and seven times as often as the people they're talking to.

My guess, though, is that it's not about someone feeling dominant. I think it's more likely to be an insecure person who is put into a position of dominance. For example: a nervous professor meeting his new students.

52. Concluded that there are four probable reasons for the upward inflection A) habit B) naturally mimicking other people. I think I've heard Tim and Jack picking it up when we're in Australia; though later they drop it. C) insecurity/nervousness D) trying to make sure listeners are still paying attention.

53. Wondered if I do the upward inflection thing.

I don't think I do it often.

But I might do it sometimes.

On rare occasions, maybe?

54. Realized I do it in my writing sometimes!  Like when I'm writing posts? And I put a question mark where there's not really a question?

In my writing, it IS about insecurity.

I do it when I'm not fully sure about something.

55. Decided to watch another episode of Farscape.

56. Saw that this episode has a time warp storyline.

Aeryn leaves for a day and comes back as an old lady.

57. Learned that Aeryn was gone for only an hour, not a whole day.

58. Thought of the Doctor Who episodes "The Girl in the Fireplace" and The Girl Who Waited".  Both those episodes have characters that end up on an alternate time track.

59. Confused. Now I'm hearing that Aeryn was gone for a day.

Day? Hour? I guess that part doesn't matter too much.

The more important thing is Aeryn is old and gray now, and she has a grandchild.

60. Wondered about the random new guy on Moya.

Are we supposed to know him?

It reminds me of that episode of Torchwood. There's suddenly a new guy that everyone knows, and it turns out he put a spell on them to believe they knew him for a long time.  Is that the case with the guy on Moya?

61. Saw from IMDb that the mystery guy is named Spark (Paul Goddard). He appeared in two episodes of season one, so he's not completely new.

I don't remember him.

62. Consulted Lord Wiki's cousin.

He's helping my memory.

Spark's the guy that Crichton met when they were both imprisoned by Scorpius.

I remember him now.

I'm just not sure why and how he suddenly appeared on Moya again.

63. Decided to name the spiders in my bathroom after Farscape characters.

The small one is going to be Moya; and the tiny one will be Scorpius.

64. Realized this episode is also like the Weeping Angel episodes of Doctor Who and also Matt Smith's last episode, The Time of the Doctor.

They're just various episodes where characters age at a different rate than other characters.

65. Decided that although Doctor Who is fun, adorable, and great at provoking strong emotions; Farscape has better writing; and it's much more logical.

Farscape makes sense to me most of the time. With Doctor Who, I was often completely confused. And it seemed like sometimes they were really stretching things in order to push the storyline in a certain direction.

For example, in "The Angels Take Manhattan",  the big question is why does the Eleventh Doctor consider the good-bye to  Rory and Amy to be permanent? He time travels, so why can't he just visit them somewhere, sometime. Some excuse was given. I don't even remember what it was, but it sounded very flimsy to me.

And then there's "Blink" and that whole confusing videotape thing.

The video has the answer to pretty much everything confusing on Doctor Who.  Time is a big bowl of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.  If there's ANYTHING on Doctor Who that doesn't make sense to you; or you don't understand the logic of that...that's the answer you're supposed to remember.

66. Wondered what would be worse in a time warp—to be the person who lives a long life while the other people don't age or the one who sees their loved one reach old age in a time span of a few hours or days.

67. Tried to apply it to my family; and it made me feel that it would definitely be better to be the one who ages.  It would be really depressing to wake up tomorrow and find Jack, Tim, or someone else in my family is a very old, and they've had this whole life I don't know about.  But with the other way, I get to have this whole other long life; and then come back to be with my young family, knowing that they have their whole life ahead of them.


Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Doctor Who on Neighbours and Other Random Stuff

Today, on my episode of Neighbours, some of the characters mentioned Doctor Who.  It was something about a guy being told he needs to get out more, and he talks about finishing with a certain Doctor and now he's moving onto Tom Baker.

Who came before Tom Baker?

Jack's coming upstairs. I'll ask him. He tends to know these things.

He also tends to walk slowly up the stairs. So maybe I'll Google instead.

He came before I Googled, read over my shoulder and said, It's John Pertwee, by the way.

Anyway, I was delighted they mentioned Doctor Who.

What else?

Dena Kaplan's sister Ariel is on Neighbours. She looks very similar to her sister.

Alan Dale is long gone from Neighbours, but we saw him on Torchwood the other day.  His role was similar to his role on Ugly Betty and Lost, and again very different from Jim Robinson of Ramsay Street.

There's a character named Paige on the show. She's trying to figure out if she likes her newly found birth parents or not. I thought the actress looked familar, and was wondering if I had seen her before. Then I realized she reminds me of a preschool teacher I worked with in the past.

I thought I had a good photo of this teacher I could share, but I don't. Too bad. I guess people will just have to take my word for it.  I do have this photo...it's me pregnant, her pregnant, and two people I don't know who are pregnant. She doesn't really look much like Paige there, though.

Paige also looks a little bit like Katie Holmes.

There's another person on Neighbours that reminds me of Kate Hudson and Anna Paquin.  I don't know her name yet.  Everyone is really new to me.  I think, in terms of names, I know only Paul Robinson and Paige.

Oh! And I know Napoleon. He's a dog.

In other news: Last night, my dreams combined the hostage situation, The Elephant Princess,  and Torchwood.   I escaped two young ISIS woman by strangling one, putting her in my pocket, and running. I talked to John Barrowman about Disneyland. I mourned the loss of my magic button and wondered if it was possible for me to do magic without the button. I tested my powers out by trying to make a kangaroo appear.  And there were other things.....

From the Dusty Red Soil Plains...and Whales.

I dreamed about Australia related stuff last night.

I'm at a place and I start singing "I am Australian" with an Australian. She sings part of a line, leaves out a word, and then I fill in the word. She corrects me on a word. I believe I'm right and she's wrong, but I don't argue. 

Then she sings, "I came from the Dreamtime". I sing back, "From the dusty red soil plains". She's impressed that I got it right. 

I then notice my singing buddy is Aboriginal. I think it's very cool that I'm singing this song with an Aboriginal Australian.

Then later I think about Africa and Australia. This leads me to wondering what's scarier the wildlife in Australia or the wildlife in Africa. I think about going around and asking people.  

Personally, I think I'd probably be more scared of African animals....just because big animals sometimes scare me.

Speaking of big animals, I continue to feel haunted by whale sharks. I saw another screensaver photo yesterday and then our episode of Torchwood was about an unfortunate partly-eaten extraterrestrial whale type creature.

I've asked myself. Am I really seeing an abundance of whale shark photos? Or am I just noticing them because they're on my mind. But WHY are they on my mind in the first place?

I like to imagine it's a message from the universe...well, just because I like imagining the universe sends us messages.

What's it trying to say then?

I can't help, but think it's telling me we should go to Western Australian instead of Tasmania for our far-in-the-future Australia trip.  If that's true, I'd say the universe wants us to spend a lot of money. First of all, plane tickets to Perth are going to cost more than plane tickets to Hobart. Second, then we'll have to pay for the $300+ whale shark tour tickets.

I'd say if the universe wants us to spend that much money, it should have me win the lottery. Or one of my Kindle novels should suddenly become super popular and be optioned for a movie or TV show.  If I get tons of money, I'll certainly seriously consider swimming with whales. Though I'm not a fan of snorkeling and being out there in the open water scares me.

But I do like the idea of meeting whale sharks.  Yeah, so if I was rich...I'd probably swallow my fear and go for it.

Statcounter Google Maps Game

I decided to play a game today and turn it into a blog post, even though it might be a really bad blog post.

We'll see how it turns out.

Anyway, this is the game.  With Statcounter, I'm going to look at the next seven entities that visit my blog.  I'm going to plug their location into Google Maps, randomly choose a Street View image, and then decide if I'd want to live there, visit there, or avoid it all together.

Three notes before I begin. 1. It might not be exactly accurate, because locations given don't always actually match where people live. 2. I'm just judging the particular street I land on and not the whole suburb, city, state, country, etc. 3. The places probably won't all be Australian.

So...let's see. What's first.

Boston Massachusetts!  I was going to list what post they visited. But I don't know. That kind of feels like an invasion of privacy. Or maybe it's not. I'm not sure. I'll leave it be for now, though.

I landed on New Broadway Bridge.  It doesn't look at all appealing to me. It's looks like one of those places, in which, if you're walking, it's very hard to find the place to cross the street. It's confusing. The red brick buildings don't excite me. So I'm going to choose avoid for this one.

Now I have to wait until someone else visits my blog.

It might be a long wait. 

I'll go do something else in the meantime.

I'm back. Still no visitors.

I'm thinking of eating the rest of the leftover Pavlova. I was going to have it for dessert tonight, but Tim took the sticky toffee pudding out of the freezer. So now that's available. 

Two desserts in one day. I'm very bad. And here I'm trying to make it look like this is unusual when, in reality, it's pretty much typical for me. Plus, I just had trail mix that involved chocolate and other sugary stuff. 

On the plus side, though, I had an apple for breakfast, and salad and broccoli for lunch. 

I got another visitor!  This one is from Sheffield in the UK. I totally forgot, but then was reminded by Google Maps. I have Sheffield, Tasmania on our way-in-the-future Australia trip itinerary. 

I've landed on Newlands Road, which is a residential area. It reminds me of Doctor Who and Torchwood. I'm guessing anything in the UK these days will remind me of those shows. 

I think I'd want to visit there; probably not live there. It's lovely but not beautiful.  Plus, when I picture myself living there, I imagine getting murdered. By aliens. 

See my problem is most of my ideas of the UK come from Harry Potter, In the Flesh, and Doctor Who. So I associate it with wizards, friendly zombies, and aliens.

Now I have a third place. This is Saint Catharines in Ontario Canada. 

I've landed on Michelle Drive.

By image alone, I'd like to live there.  It looks like a happy neighborhood.  It reminds me of my childhood...not my own streets but ones of my friends. I can imagine my mom dropping me off to one of these houses for a birthday party. 

I like that there's a sidewalk, even though it's only on one side.  

Knowing the weather of Canada, though, I probably wouldn't want to live there This website says June through September in St. Catharines is usually comfortable. Then everything else is either cool, cold, or freezing. That's not my type of place.  By the way, comfortable is defined 65-75 degrees, Fahrenheit. Comfort's quite subjective, though.

Wait! I actually read the chart wrong. I missed the warm bit. They have some warm days during the summer. If I'm reading things right...81% of the time, it's cold in St. Catharines. 66% of the time, it's comfortable, and....

That's not adding up right. I must be reading things wrong. 

But I AM reading information beyond the chart and they say the cold season goes from December 5 to March 9 and the average high is below 40 degrees. That's too much cold for me.

In comparison, Fort Worth (where I live) has it's cold season from November 26 to February 21, and our average high is 63 degrees. 

Sydney's cold season lasts from May 29-August 23, and the average high is 65 degrees. 

This is a fun weather website!

Well, I ate the Pavlova. Then Tim emailed us this link to a YouTube channel of this girl (Malinda Kathleen Reese) and she sings Google Translate versions of songs. It's very entertaining—funny, and she's quite talented. 

Anyway....

I have a new place on my Statcounter. This one is Bremen, Maine. 

I landed on ME-32. I was less random with this place, because there are not many areas there covered by Street View.

It's very beautiful. There's lots of trees with their fall colors, and one lovely white house. 

I'd like to visit. But again, because of the cold, I might not want to live there.

Next visitor is from Sydney!

I landed at the airport!

I don't think I'd want to live there; nor would I want to visit. I wouldn't want to do anything more than drive past this area.

There's a river in the picture. I left Street View to find out what it is. It's Cooks River. 

Lord Wiki says it's a tributary of Botany Bay. Yeah. I remember learning that Botany Bay is near the airport. 

Botany Bay is south of where I landed. 

The next place is Hampton, Victoria. 

I landed on Kerferd Street. 

Something I notice is there are a lot of fences, and each fence is different. 

It kind of reminds me of the street I researched when I had been doing research for my novel-sequel that I'll likely never write. I do remember the name of the street, though. Oven Street. Does Oven Street really look like Kerferd Street, or is it just my imagination?  Do Victorian Streets have a certain look to them? 

I'm looking at Oven Street now. It's quite different from Kerferd. The fences are more uniform. 

Well, no never mind. One part of the street has a bunch of white picket fences. But then in other areas of the street, the fences have more variety.

So...where is Hampton Victoria? Is it part of Melbourne?

I just zoomed out. It seems to be Melbourne.  It's north of the Mornington Peninsula. 

Lord Wiki says it's a wealthy area. 

If we could afford it, sure I'd like to live there. 

I'm guessing Kerferd Street is named after George Kerferd. Lord Wiki says he was the 10th Premier of Victoria. 

I have one place left. What will it be?

It's Baulkhalm Hills in New South Wales. I think that's in Sydney.

I landed on Raemont Lane. It looks like a commercial area, and not somewhere I'd want to live. But I'd like to visit.  There's a park.  It has a nice bench, and maybe there's a playground.

Nearby, there's a South African restaurant and a Korean-Japanese one as well. 

I just zoomed out. Baulkhalm Hills is in the Western Suburbs—slightly north of Parramatta. 

Lord Wiki says the original owners of Baulkhalm Hills (and other nearby suburbs) were the Bidjigal people. These were the people of the famous Aboriginal man, Pemulwuy.  

About 20 minutes south of Baulkhalm Hills is a suburb named after Pemulwuy. 

Well, my game is done. I had a lot of fun and will probably play again someday. I hope it wasn't too boring for people to read!

Birthday Fun

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was a nice mixture of Australia and BBC love.

Thanks to Chef Tim we ate pies and Pavlova while watching Doctor Who, Torchwood, and then the Catherine Tate Show.

I was a bit apathetic about the Pavlova at first, because I was totally not in the mood for fruit. I have a weird relationship with fruit. Sometimes I love it...almost too much. I can have strong cravings sometimes. Other times, I'll get really tired of it. I had an apple in the morning, raisins for a snack, and after that felt blah about fruit. Then Tim came home with all this fruit—strawberries, cherries, and grapes. Usually, I'd be thrilled about it. But this time I wasn't. 

He later revealed he was making Pavlova, and I couldn't get myself to look forward to it. Just because I was not in a fruit mood.

But fortunately, the bad feelings towards fruit lifted by dinner.  I ended up loving the Pavlova, and I look forward to eating the leftovers today. 

Oh...in case you're wondering. The grapes weren't for the Pavlova. That was just an extra bonus. Although I suppose you could put grapes on Pavlova. Why not? 

Road Trip

We're on a road trip—visiting Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, and other places.

I thought the United States was ugly compared to Australia. But now I realize I was wrong. It's just Texas that's ugly compared to Australia; or at least the part of Texas where we live. It's very blah for the most part.

This road trip isn't the first time I've seen pretty scenes in America. We've seen lovely scenes in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, etc. But this is our first time driving out west; and in my opinion, the west could compete with Australia in a beauty contest.

Parts of Arizona remind me of pictures I've seen of central Australia. Though, there's less red.

Here's one photo I took while driving. I think it's from Arizona, but it could be from New Mexico. I'm not 100% sure.

In Anaheim, we stayed at the Howard Johnsons. In their lobby, they have a display of Aussie and Kiwi stuff. Tim asked what's up with that, and they told us they get a lot of visitors from that area of the world.




After we checked in at the hotel, we went to Downtown Disney and ate lunch at the Earl of Sandwich. Look whose picture was on the wall....

Well, never mind. You can't look. I thought I took a photograph of the picture, but now I can't find it.

Anyway...it was Captain James Cook.  I was happy to see him.

What else?

We've been listening to Spotify in the car.  Today we heard "Surrender" by Ball Park Music. I liked that song, but today I suddenly loved it. Maybe it will always remind me of our road trip.

When we drove past this amazing scenery in Dragoon, Arizona, the Pet Shop Boy's "Go West" started playing. It all made me kind of emotional. And I started thinking about how that song was featured at the Sydney Tower 4D movie experience thing. It wasn't there the last time we were there, but it was there one of the other times. Anyway...I'm wondering what message they were trying to convey with the song.  Were they trying to say we shouldn't just stay in Sydney? We need to make our way out west? How far west did they want us to go? All the way to Perth? Or would Melbourne be far enough? Maybe Adelaide?

Right now Tim is watching Zero Dark Thirty. I think there's an Australian in that movie. I remember writing about it recently.  I shall google to see who it is....

Never mind. Tim is NOT watching Zero Dark Thirty. He's watching another version of the story.  But anyway...Joel Edgerton is in the movie I was thinking about. I haven't written about him yet, though. The actor, from the movie, that I have done a post on is Callan Mulvey.

I'm also seeing that John Barrowman is in it!  I was kind of obsessed with Barrowman and Torchwood before we left for our trip. Now the interest has faded a bit. But I'm sure it will return when I start reading his autobiography, and we begin watching season 2 of Torchwood.

Back to our road trip....

We might go to the Albuquerque zoo. They have Tassie Devils there. I have a feeling we're going to go, and the devils will be sleeping, and we'll just see their butts. But still. It will be an honor to be near them.

We're going to the Grand Canyon this weekend. I'm curious to know how I'll react to it. I'm often not interested in very famous sites. I'm more interested in the ones that aren't over-loved by the masses. So I've never been super interested in seeing Uluru. But then I've imagined I could be wrong. I could go to Uluru and be totally amazed.

If I end up loving the Grand Canyon, it could mean I might love Uluru. And if so, maybe we should go there someday.  If I go to the Grand Canyon and shrug my shoulders thinking, this is pretty, but we've seen more beautiful things while on the road. And it's annoying that there are so many other tourists. Well, if I think that, then there's probably no point in us visiting Uluru.

Really. Arizona is FULL of beautiful mountains and other scenery. I'm wondering what's so extra special about the Grand Canyon.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the cactus. We saw a lot of cactus while driving in Arizona. It was the tall stereotypical cactus.  Do you know what I mean? It's hard for me to explain.

Another thing I've loved seeing on our road trip is the wind turbines. I love them. They look like they're dancing.

Maybe in a few days, I'll admit to being wrong. But for now I am guessing that the wind turbines and cactus will be my favorite thing in Arizona...rather than the Grand Canyon.

As for my favorite thing on this whole road trip in general; it will probably be the roller coaster at Disney's California Adventure Park. The three of us had a fantastic time on that.

I  feel this post is totally disjointed and badly organized. Sorry about that. Or maybe all my posts are like that; and I'm noticing it more today.

I don't know....

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Patrick Brammall

Today I'm going to be learning about the actor Patrick Brammall.  I've watched him in Offspring and A Moody Christmas. I like him a lot in both those shows; though I think his character in Offspring was a little more endearing.

On Offspring, Brammall portrayed Leo, who became a love interest for Nina. When the show ended, and they were together, I was satisfied with the pairing. But now I'm rethinking that. I think they're a good couple but maybe just temporarily. I can't really picture Nina spending her life with Leo. So then I'm wondering, who should she end up with?

I think maybe Nina should go Lesbian. I don't know why. I'm picturing her with a woman. Maybe Eloise would be a good match?

Or maybe not. Maybe Nina would fit better with an older woman rather than a younger one.

I don't know....

I should get to the Patrick Brammall stuff.

There's not much on his IMDb bio, so I'll just move onto his IMDb filmography.

It's long...longer than I expected.

I'm not going to go over everything. I'll be skipping movies in which I can't find a lot of information. And I'll also be skipping one time appearances on TV shows, unless they happen to be TV shows that I personally watch. For example, if he's been on All Saints, I'll read about that, because I've been watching All Saints. Therefore it might be interesting to me.

Also, no matter what. I usually will talk about the first thing on filmographies. For Bramall, that is a 2004 TV movie called The Alice.

I'm guessing it's about Alice Springs. I think there's a book called The Alice.

Okay. I just looked. I'm right. The movie is about Alice Springs and a solar eclipse.

Is it the same as the book?

Well, it looks like I'm totally wrong.  From what I can see, there isn't a book. What I was probably thinking about was The Alice TV show. That show came out in 1995 and was born from the movie.
Bramall was one of the stars of the show.

Another person on the movie and TV show that I know is Jessica Napier. Well, I don't know her personally. But I know OF her.

Oh! Also. Simon Burke was on the show.

Here's the opening credits for the show. Brammall can be seen at :34.  He was on twenty-two episodes of the show from 2005-2006.

In 2007, Brammall was in a short film called Prada Handbag. It's on YouTube, so maybe I'll watch it later.  It's fairly long, though, so I might not. It depends on how long this post takes me and whether I'm burned out by the time I'm done with the filmography.

Also in 2007, Brammall was on Home and Away. His character was named Ethan Black. The Back to the Bay site has information about Black.

From what I'm reading, I'm getting the idea that Ethan Black wasn't a very good person. He drugged a woman. He bribed someone into stealing morphine from the hospital. He scared someone by faking his death. And he blackmailed someone.

This episode might have Brammall.

Yep. He's there. He appears at 2:30, but I couldn't really tell it was him until 2:50. They don't give a clear view of his face until then.

Guess what. Brammall WAS on All Saints!  In 2008, he was on an episode in season 11. He played a character with Aspergers.

Also, in 2008, Brammall was on a short-lived show called Canal Road.  It's about a medical and legal advisory centre.  Lord Wiki says it didn't do too well with critics or ratings.

Here's a promo for the show. Brammall can be seen at :17.

Wait! Is that Sibylla Budd? It looks like her (:29) and sounds like her. I must confess that I had to look up her name. I had it all wrong in my head. I Googled Sylvia.

Anyway...just looked at the credits for Canal Road. It IS Sibylla Budd. But then why didn't I write about Canal Road when I wrote about her?  Maybe I did and forgot about it?

The show looks wild.

In 2009, Bramall was in the short film Being Carl Williams. It's available on YouTube, so it's another movie I MIGHT watch later.  According to it's description on YouTube, it was a Tropfest finalist.

Being Carl Williams is only five minutes long, so I might be more interested in watching that than the longer film. We'll see....

Bramall was in an episode of the 2nd season of Rush.  The episode was called Milos Fink, and Brammall played Milos Fink. So he was probably very important to the story.

In 2010, Brammall was in the short film Shock. And this was the WINNER of Tropfest.  That's quite prestigious.  It's on YouTube. I'll be watching it later, hopefully.

Also, in 2010 Brammall played Kim Beasley in the TV movie Hawke. Asher keddie, his Offspring co-star, was in it too. She played Blanche d'Alpuget.  I was about to say I don't know who that is. But I think I do.  I think she was Hawke's biographer; and then she became his second wife.

Lord Wiki says I'm right. I'm feeling so smart.  Not as smart as Doctorized Donna Noble. But smart enough.

Seeing the Hawke movie made me remember something I forgot earlier. I've seen Brammall in something else recently. At Home With Julia. I think he was in either the last episode or second to last one. He played Julia Gillard's personal assistant, who was tricked by Rudd into switching allegiances.

Brammall was in 2010's Griff the Invisible.  I've been wanting to see that, because of Ryan Kwanten. And also the storyline looks really good to me. What's sad is, I started wanting to see it when it first came out. That's four years ago. I'll get to it someday. Probably.

Now I can add Brammall to my reasons for wanting to see it.

Tim and I were actually hoping to watch it a few weeks ago. Or really...I wanted to watch it, and Tim was willing to find it and watch it with me. We couldn't find it for free on the programs we already belong to (Netflix and Amazon Prime), so we kind of gave up. But Tim just bought an on-sale iTunes gift certificate. Maybe we can use that to watch it. Although, right now, we're busy with Torchwood. We just started watching that last night.

I've decided we need to take breaks from Doctor Who. I like binge-watching, but I'm not sure it's a great idea to finish one season and jump to the next season the very next day.  In September, I was devastated, sobbing over the loss of Rose Tyler; then two days ago, she returned. Rose and the Doctor are running towards each other having this major reunion. 

For them, it was a couple of years that they were apart. For me, it was three weeks.

Okay, and to be honest...the main reason I'm wanting us to watch other shows is I'm procrastinating the whole regeneration thing. I want to keep David Tennant as our Doctor for as long as possible. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. If I wanted to, we could just quit watching the show and never see Matt Smith as the doctor. I'm not going to go that far. But maybe we can keep Tennant with us for a few more weeks.

I should get back to Brammall and Griff the Invisible.

Here's the trailer.

I don't see Brammall, but I heard him at 1:44.

Oh...and he appears very briefly at 2:10 or 2:11.

I'm wondering if the movie will have a The Boy Who Could Fly type ending. Or is it a depressing story about mental illness? A delusion thing. I suppose it could be an uplifting movie about mental illness. But I prefer the other type of story—the one where it ends up the delusional character isn't delusional after all.

I was thinking the girl in the trailer looks familar to me. I looked at her on IMDb.  She's Maeve Dermody. I saw her recently on Bikie Wars.

In 2011, Brammall was in the short film Dik. I don't see the movie online, but the trailer is available.  It looks cute. Maybe. The basic story is a child brings home artwork that makes his parents wonder if he might be gay.

2011 was also the year that Brammall was on At Home with Julia. He was in the last episode.

Brammall was in yet another short film: Bars and Tone. That one's online as well.

And the short film list keeps growing. In 2012, Brammall was in Dave's Dead. I'll have to watch that one. Stefan Dennis is in it! I miss seeing him on Neighbours.

I have quite a lot of short films to keep me busy today. So I think I'll probably skip the not-so-short film. Maybe I'll watch it someday in the future.  Or maybe someone reading this can watch it and then tell me if it's something that shouldn't be missed.

Brammall was in a a comedy mini-series called The Strange Calls. Lord Wiki says it's about a police officer who gets transferred to a country town where the emergency calls our strange. Hence the title. It sounds fun.

I was looking at the credits and saw the name Katherine Hicks. She was on John Safran's show!  He takes her to Europe so he can get over his hang-ups regarding "Shiskas". His grand plan is to make out with her in Anne Frank's Attic. I was about to say diary. That would would be surreal.

Awesome! I was looking for a trailer for The Strange Calls on YouTube, and I saw a promo from Hulu. They have the show, and I actually already had learned that, because it's on my to-watch list. I learned it, but I forgot. Typical.

Here's the Hulu trailer.  Brammall looks different in this than he usually does. I'm not sure if I'd recognize him without his voice.

I think I could like this. I was wanting Australia to have something science fiction/fantasy, and maybe this kind of fulfills that.

A Moody Christmas was in 2012. Here's the promo for that.

In 2013, Brammall was in The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting. I wrote about that recently when I did my post on Jane Harber.  Here's a skit featuring Brammall.  I think it's more sad and annoying than funny. But I also think the idea is very creative. There's a guy who works as a performer on a children's program. He has a cartoon voice, and it ends up the voice is his real life voice. It works quite well on television but not so well when he's on a date with his partner.

Also in 2013, Brammall played Rupert Murdock in Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story.  Lachy Hulme, another one of Brammall's Offspring co-stars, played Packer.

And we also get Maeve Dermody again! She plays Anna Torv. For a moment I confused Torv with Poppy Montgomery and was about to ask what happened to The JK Rowling movie. Did that ever come out?

Here's the trailer for the Packer-Murdoch thing.

Why is Anna Torv in the story?

I'm consulting Lord Wiki. Maybe he'll know.

He does know. He says Anna Torv's paternal aunt was married to Rupert Murdoch. Her name was Anna too. So I think it's the aunt that''s a character in the movie and not the actress.

This year, Brammall has been in a few projects besides Offspring.

There's the movie The Little Death. Here's the trailer.  It's about sex—fetishes, roleplaying, phone sex, and other things. It looks kind of cute.

Well, I made the same mistake I always make with IMDb filmographies. I missed a TV show.

So back up a year.

In 2013, Brammall started working on the show Upper Middle Bogan.  Here's the trailer.  I've seen it before. I mean...I knew I had heard of it before, and I mentioned it when I wrote about Jane Harber, because she's friends with one of the stars. But I think I've actually seen the trailer before. I kind of think maybe I saw it when we were in Australia.

It looks cute. The premise is, a young upper middle class doctor realizes her parents aren't her biological parents, and her bio-kin are bogan folks.

Getting back to 2014. Brammall appeared in the continuation of the Moody family story: The Moodys. I wonder if the show will have another season in 2015.

Here's the trailer for it. I'm eager to watch it. I want to know what happens next to the Moody's.

Marshall Napier from McLeod's Daughters plays Jane Harber's father.

I recognized Tim Mathieson in the trailer; not the real one, but the guy who played him in At Home with Julia.  I consulted Lord Wiki and IMDb. It turns out the actor is Phil Lloyd, and he was in The Moody Christmas as well. I didn't recognize him when I saw At Home With Julia, and I had just finished watching A Moody Christmas a few days before.

Lloyd is also the writer of the Moody stuff. And he wrote At Home with Julia. Now that I think of it—the humor is pretty similar.

I'm almost done with Brammall's filmography. There are two more things...upcoming.

There's a movie called Super Awesome. It's a comedy-musical about making a musical.

Then there's the movie Ruben Guthrie which was written and directed by Brendan Cowell from Love My Way. Brammall plays the title character.

Who is Ruben Guthrie?

Well, I thought he would be a real person. But he's not. It looks like he's a figment of Brendan Cowell's imagination.

Ruben works for an advertising agency and is dating a model. Then he drinks too much and thinks he can fly. It's a story about alcoholism and probably does not have a The Boy Who Could Fly type ending.

I'm done with the filmography. I'm wondering what I should do next—watch the short films or read some interviews?

Maybe I'll start with the interviews. I don't really know anything about Brammall yet. I just realized that.  I've spent hours on this post, and really, I've learned nothing.

Well, I learned what movies and TV shows Brammall has been in. I suppose that's something. Well, and it's kind of important, since acting his is career, and his career is probably a big deal in his life.

Here's an interview on Tumblr.  Well, actually it's not from Tumblr. The Tumbler people (fans of Offspring) got the interview from TV Week. 

Here we go... Here's the original interview.

It says that when Brammall got his Offspring role, the first thing he did was call Matthew Le Nevez. Le Nevez played Patrick on Offspring. Not Patrick Brammall, but Patrick Reid. And Le Nevez was Brammall's milkman in real life. That's cute and not something I learned when I did my post on Le Nevez.

Are there a lot of milkmen in Australia? The only time that we had a milkman was when we lived in Madison Wisconsin. That was in the early 80's. Now we get our milk from the grocery store.

The article/interview says the reason Brammall called Le Nevez was to get advice about working with the cast. Or actually it sounds like he wanted reassurance.  Kind of like, will I like these people or not.? This is before he accepted the role.

Le Nevez told Brammall that the Offspring people were good people.

But just because a group is good for your friend doesn't mean they'll work well with you. I'm thinking of my family. They'll tell me someone is so wonderful, nice, down to earth, etc. Then I meet the person and can hardly stand them.

Or look at Doctor Who (again!). For Billie Piper and David Tennant, the cast and crew were wonderful. For Christopher Eccleston...maybe not so much.

Ah. Guess what. That Tumblr page is going to come in handy after all. TV Week provides only a glimpse of the interview. You have to buy the magazine to read the rest, which wouldn't be easy for me to do.

The Tumblr people were nice and copied it for me.  What they did MIGHT be plagiarism. But I'm thankful to them, anyway. And they did give credit to the source.  That was decent of them.

The milkman relationship happened in Canberra. Brammall would write notes to Le Nevez asking for strawberry milk.

I imagined that they were friends, but the article says Brammall looked him up. So maybe they hadn't talked since the milkman days. Hey, I don't know if you remember me but you were once my milkman, and.....

When Brammall was offered the role, he had other plans in mind. He was planning to come to Los Angeles for pilot season. I wonder if he still wants to do that someday. Or is he now satisfied enough with television in Australia?

Earlier in Offspring's history, Brammall was offered a role on Offspring and turned it down. I wonder why. I would imagine most actors would be excited about the opportunity. It almost seems like he had a fear of Offspring.  He says no to a guest role and then has to call his milkman for advice when he gets a starring role.

Further down in the interview, Brammall explains his hesitation, at least with joining the show as a cast member.  It was an established cast. That makes sense. I think most of us can relate to joining something where everyone else already knows each other. I actually saw that in my John Safran episode today. He went to Jewish camp, but the other kids had gone to camp previously. They all knew each other and had their little private jokes. He felt alienated.

Brammall has a wife. Her name is Samantha.

And here he answers my question about America. He's still interested but also interested in continuing work in Australia.

That would be cool if he appeared on one of my American shows.

You know...I can totally picture him on American Horror Story.

Brammall says he didn't have a great time on Home and Away. It wasn't that the cast was awful and he felt left out. The sun bothered him. He ended up squinting a lot. I wonder if he has problems with vision like I do. I don't know what I have...haven't bothered with an eye doctor. But I'm very sensitive to certain imagery. It makes me nauseated. Things like bright light. Tim was using his iPhone flashlight the other day. He didn't shine the light in my face. But just seeing it made me feel sick. I do bad with 3D movies. I have low tolerance for people putting things up to my face. It makes me very irritated.  I'm also bothered by photographs where part of it is clear and the other part is blurred.

My problem is likely more mental or neurological than visual. Who knows....

Here's a very recent article about Brammall. It's from yesterday!

The article says he's getting a lot of attention from Offspring fans.

Brammall says, acting is about wearing clothes that are inappropriate for the weather. That's awesome. I like that. I mean I like his statement. I'm not saying I like it when actors are freezing or sweating in their clothes. I'm not a sadist.

Here's something quite funny. Brammall's wife is an Offspring fan. When Patrick (the character, not her husband) died, she said, I pity the poor guy that has to follow him. Then her husband got that role. Or so the article says. It's not exactly true. Thomas was the next love interest, actually. And he wasn't a poor guy. He was an asshole. Well, the character was. The actor was probably okay.

The article says that Brammall met his wife Sam on the set of The Alice. Because her last name isn't given, I'm guessing she was crew and not part of the cast. Although I don't know why I'm guessing that. Why couldn't they mention a crew member's last name?

Well...you know what. Now that I think of it. They might be more likely to mention an actresses last name, because it's an opportunity for her to promote herself.  Then again, why wouldn't a crew member want to promote herself?

Shit. I should have just read a few paragraphs down.

I feel that's my theme for this post—asking questions and then realizing the answer is right here in front of me.

Sam was part of the crew.

Sam talks about how she sees the different characters Brammall has played in her husband. She sees his Leo side but he also sees is Moody side. And there are other sides as well. That's interesting. I wonder if spouses of other actors see the same kind of thing.

The first person that came to my mind for some reason is Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead.  Okay. Actually it was David Tennant. But I figured I should talk about someone else for a change. So let's go with Andrew Lincoln. I think he's married. So...does his wife sometimes see glimpses of Rick Grimes when she's with him?  Well, maybe he'd have to change his accent for that to happen. But how about when he's being English, is it still possible for Rick Grimes to seep through?

Brammall's parents sound wonderful to me. They've gone to all of his plays minus one. That's fantastic. And they supported his acting dreams from when he was very young. I love that.

Brammall's dad actually worked for Murdoch for awhile. And then he saw his son playing his past boss.  I imagine that was interesting.

Yikes. Brammall has a genetic disease. It's called Prune Belly Syndrome. It affected Brammall's kidney, liver, and stomach. He wasn't expected to survive.

He's had a lot of surgeries and spent many childhood days in the hospital.

Brammall escaped from the medical stuff with books and movies. I love what Brammall says here. I remember I watched Indiana Jones and wanted to be an archaeologist, then I wanted to be a Ghostbuster,” he says. “At some point I realised I didn’t have to choose just one — I could be all those things if I became an actor.

That's wonderful. Although you can also be many things by watching movies and TV shows and reading books. There's this wonderful post I've seen on Instagram.  I can't really find it, because I can't remember enough words to Google it. But it has someone feeling unhappy because they see characters their age who are going on all these wonderful adventures, and their own life seems blah in comparison. And someone replies that they too were on the adventures.

I'm not giving it justice but just thinking about it makes me have some tears.

I guess the main point in Brammall's quote, and in the post I can barely remember properly, is that imagination makes our lives so much richer.

Despite his dreams and parent's support, Brammall did have a back up plan. He got a degree in law. Having a back-up plan is probably not a bad idea. It's there if your dream career doesn't work out. And if your dream career does work out, the knowledge and experience you gain with the back-up plan path might one day prove valuable. And it doesn't have to be a degree. It could be something like working at a local restaurant.

Brammall has an embarrassing story. He was approached by someone who said he knew him from somewhere. Brammall started naming his television roles and then it ended up the guy went to school with him.  I guess that could have made him look a bit up himself. But it's an honest mistake. It's hard to remember everyone we knew from school.

I was curious about Prune Belly Syndrome, so I took a lot at this medical website.  It sounds quite serious. Brammall has been lucky career wise but not so lucky health-wise. Although maybe he's healthy compared to other people that have Prune Belly Syndrome. The website says many babies with it are stillborn or die within the first few weeks of life.

Here's Patrick Brammall's Twitter page.  His most recent Tweet was on October 16. It's in response to a Tweet from someone named Adam Zwar. Zwar Tweeted about the recent Patrick Brammall article.  Zwar refers to something about a look that women have in their eyes if they're an Offspring fan. Brammall's Tweet says. Come on Mate, You Know the Look.

A week ago, Brammall had several Retweets about his Little Death movie.

Here's a funny Twitter exchange between Brammall and Laurence Leung.

On October 8, Brammall Tweeted 14 empty tables in the cafe and this couple sits next to my table. I'm so baffled by this I can't focus on anything else. 

Maybe they were semi-stalking him?  Well, I guess that's not really stalking. It would be more like...hovering?  I don't know what's more disturbing, people sitting too close to a celebrity because they want to exploit that "opportunity" or people sitting next to him for no reason.

Maybe they were so deep in their own conversation and their own little world, they didn't pay attention to where they were sitting.

I don't know....

Brammall does a little too much self-promotion via retweeting for my personal taste. It seems most of his posts and replies to other posts are about his own work. I guess, on the bright side, since he worked with others on the projects; in a sense, he's promoting his friends and coworkers as well.

Here's Patrick Brammall's Instagram page.

His most recent post is from a week ago. He's drinking a coffee drink at a cafe with his wife.

Here's a photo of Brammall with Brendan Cowell.

Here's a very cool eye photo.

I think this is Brammall back when he was a little boy.

Here's a cool photo of a black cat. They CAN be photogenic.  Maybe the thing is that black cats can look good on their own but when used in a selfie, they make the human look bad.

Brammall seems to like using photo special effects on people's faces. There are plenty of those kind of posts. Here's one of them.

Now I shall watch the short films.

I'm going to start with Being Carl Williams.

So far, it's pretty interesting. The premise is an actor is doing an interview and he's kidnapped by confused criminals. The actor played a criminal named Carl Williams, and his kidnappers believe he really IS Carl Williams.

I love the monologue at the end. The actor recites one of those phony-bio things that sound so...I don't know how to describe it. Self-righteous maybe? Too good to be true? Maybe perfect to the point of being unappealing.

The next movie I'm going to watch is Shock. This is the one that was a Tropfest winner.

Brammall does a lot of crying in this one. So far, I don't know why he's crying.

There's a girl (at 2:20) that looks like Anna Paquin.

Is it Anna Paquin??

Well, I don't see her on the cast list. The only woman is Helen Dallimore. So maybe it's her.

Once she started talking, she stopped looking like Anna Paquin. Before that, the resemblance was really strong. Kind of freaky.

At the end of the movie, it says it's dedicated to Kyle Sandilands. I don't know if they're being serious, or that's a joke. It might be serious, because the movie is about shock jocks. The whole thing is Brammall is crying, very sad about something. Then he goes on air, and puts on a whole new persona.

There are jobs where people have to do that. They have a shitty morning and then they have to put on their happy talk-show host face.

Well, really...a lot of sad people have to fake happiness at times. How about parents who don't want burden their children with their problems or sadness? Teachers....And some people do it just because they're afraid they'll lose their friends if they're not chipper 24/7.

The next film I'll be watching is Bars and Tone. 

I like that one a lot. I think it's clever. It's about cameramen filming a commercial, and they're not exactly great at their job.

The last film I shall watch tonight is Dave's Dead.

Brammall is Dave in the film. He's not quite dead.

Oh! This is the one with Stefan Dennis.

Well, I'm done with the movie. I liked it a lot. For me, there were some good laugh out loud moments, and it was also somewhat cathartic.

Anyway....I need to start getting ready for bed.

Good night.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online