Losing Visitors, Incapacitated, Guilt, and Blaming the Victim

1. Spent time looking at Statcounter.

I had thought my blog was in a slump, but I was wrong. What really seems to be happening is, each year my blog gets less and less popular.

By 2020, I think I'll have about ten visits a day...or maybe even less.

I was a bit disheartened to see that my blog is getting less and less popular. Then things got even worse. I Googled for information about blogs losing popularity and ended up seeing an article with this headline: Why Do Narcissists Lose Popularity Over Time?

I have this fear that, while I'm disgusted by narcissism, I'm actually one of the worst narcissists out there. The headline fed into that fear.

Not only has my blog lost popularity, but the not-blogging part of me seems to lose people as well.  It's one of the patterns that makes up my life.

But then I started to feel better...sort of.  The thing is, though narcissism might repel people eventually, there are other things that do as well.  For me, it's probably the other things. The narcissism thing is doubtful.   

The thing is, though I've had a reduction in popularity, I've never been very popular in the first place.  It's not like I've gone from very popular to not popular. It's more like I've gone from not popular to even more not popular.    

I don't have much of that narcissistic charm and confidence.

2. Started watching an episode of Water Rats.

This one is about a ferry crash.

3. Learned from Lord Wiki that there was a Sydney Harbour ferry crash in March 2007.  

Four people were killed.

4. Learned that, in 1927, there was a more severe disaster. A ferry called Greycliffe crashed into a mail steamer. Forty people were killed.  

5. Finished watching the episode.  

6. Realized one of the themes of the episode was feeling guilty for things in which we really can't be blamed.

Tommy (Jay Laga'aia) feels guilty, because during the disaster, he ordered a passenger to go radio for help. The passenger ended up dying, and Tommy thinks the man would have survived if he hadn't been given the radio task. One of Tommy's colleagues points out that other people died, and they hadn't been given orders by Tommy. There's no guarantee that the man would have survived without Tommy's interference, and if he hadn't called for help, more people might have died.  

In another storyline, Taylor (Raelee Hill) ends up returning stolen loot to a thief. The thief had lost it during the crash and then came to the station to retrieve it.

Later the real owner of the money shows up, and Taylor feels stupid. Her colleagues point out that she had correctly followed procedure. There was no way she would have known the money was stolen, because when she gave the money to the thief, the money hadn't yet been reported stolen. 

In contrast to those stories, there was another one in which a person WAS to blame for their mistake.

The reason the ferry crashed was the captain had an angina attack. At first, the story seems similar to the two above. The captain says it was his first attack, and who can blame anyone for suddenly having a debilitating heart problem?  However, then it comes to light that the captain had known he had the problem and his doctor had told him he needs to retire. He didn't, because he liked his job.  

It's nice that he liked his job so much, but not so nice that he risked other people's lives.

7. Imagined there might be real life people out there who are risking our lives by staying in jobs they shouldn't be in anymore.  

8. Didn't think that people necessarily need to retire because they have a health condition that can incapacitate them.  

I think, though, that they need to be honest, take the needed medications, and in jobs like transportation, have backup personnel. Although maybe that would get expensive.

I think with things like airplanes, there already usually is a co-pilot. I imagine ships would have co-captain.

I'm not sure if the ferry, on Water Rats, had one. There was a guy frantically yelling at the ferry captain as the crash was about to happen, but I'm not sure if that was a co-captain, another type of employee, or just a passenger.     

But anyway, I'm thinking when it comes to things like buses, having a co-driver for every bus might be difficult.  

9. Remembered the movie Speed. I think the bus driver had a heart attack. Or was he shot?   

Either way....

Sandra Bullock took over.

Maybe with buses it's different. I think there are more people who know how to drive a vehicle than there are people who know how to fly a plane or drive a ferry.

Then again, a bus is quite different from a car.  

10. Did some more Googling and saw various things that made me realize just driving a vehicle can be hazardous if someone becomes incapacitated by a health condition.   

This UK website says that if you have a heart condition, it's likely you'll be able to drive again. For heart attacks, they say to wait four weeks before getting back behind the wheel. For angina, they say you need to talk to your GP. There are different types, and some are less easy to control.I'm guessing the captain had a hard to control type.   

11. Thought that if someone is pushed to retire from a job or a favorite hobby, because of a health condition, it might be a good idea to bring in a counselor. Or at least doctors should be kind and sensitive about the issue.  

12. Thought that whether or not someone is willing to quit because of a health condition probably depends on A) whether the risk is only to themselves or a risk to other people as well B) the  likelihood that the health attack will reoccur C) the personality of the patient D) Whether the doctor is known for being overcautious.

13. Started watching another episode of Water Rats. 

14. Felt something was missing in the episode.

There's this whole scary stalker storyline involving Terry (Aaron Jeffrey).  

The stalker (Helene Joy) breaks into his apartment and ends up stabbing Terry in the chest.  He falls to the ground and is having trouble breathing. Then the scene cuts to him being taken away by paramedics, and the stalker is in police custody.

I would kind of like to know how he escaped the predicament. Why would the show just skip over that?

15. Learned that Terry has damaged lungs now, and won't be able to dive anymore.

Hearing that made me really hate the stalker, but Terry's talking as if he's the one who did something wrong.

I don't think he did.

The stalker flirted with him. He responded. They had sex. Then Terry learned she had a boyfriend and tried to end things. She wouldn't let it end and accused Terry of using her.

I definitely don't support men using women. And maybe Terry had been using her in some ways.  On the other hand, he could have thought the encounter was casual sex and didn't realize she was expecting more. Also, it's possible that if another man didn't accuse Terry of sleeping with his girlfriend, Terry would have been interested in continuing the relationship.  

16. Felt unnerved by the episode.  

I just re-watched the scene where Terry briefly talks about what happened. To Dave (Scott Burgess), he says, Look. I'm responsible for what happened to Gina (the stalker). 

Dave, to his credit, makes a small attempt to argue. She was the one with the knife, Mate. 

Terry says, Officially, Yeah.

What the hell does that mean?

It bothers me that Dave doesn't fight harder to get Terry to see sense. And I don't like that the show concludes that particular storyline with the inference that Terry is to blame for what happened to him. 

Yes, he's a bit of a womanizer. Or at least he's a flirt. That's not a great thing. But it definitely doesn't excuse stalker behavior.   

He definitely didn't deserve to be slashed on the arm and stabbed in the chest.

17. Hoped that they return to the storyline in a future episode. I hope someone pushes Terry to understand that he's the victim.  

18. Remembered another scene.

When Terry is being taken away by the paramedics, he says to Frank (Colin Friels). If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you. Frank responds, Not a word, Mate.

Terry being attacked by a stalker is presented as an almost embarrassing mishap.  

I'm not sure what I would have wanted Frank to say instead.  

19. Decided maybe he could have said something simple like,  We'll keep it between us, but you know you have nothing to be ashamed of.  

That sounds kind of corny.

Maybe Frank could have said nothing, just given him a kind pat on the shoulder.

I don't know....

20. Googled to try to find out if anyone else has had issues with the storyline.

I ended up finding a website that says Aaron Jeffrey himself was a victim of a stalker. It went on for seven years.  

Maybe the storyline was inspired by his own experience, and maybe they are going to deal with the whole victim-blaming thing.

21. Felt a little bit bad for stalkers and their delusional mental problems, but I feel much worse for their victims.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Drug Bust, Legal Habits, Adventure, and Regrets

1. Started watching an episode of Water Rats.

2. Wondered if Gavin (Brett Partridge) lied to the people at a party.

There's an unconscious young woman (Chloe Allan), and Gavin tries to get information about what she ingested. Alcohol? Drugs? He tells the party people that he's not aiming for a drug bust.He needs the information so it's easier to help the woman with her medical disaster.

Someone speaks up and says speed was going around. Gavin then asks the speaker if he knows who the supplier was. I wondered about that—wouldn't that be a drug bust path?  But I argued against myself. Maybe he wanted to talk to the supplier, so they could get more information about what drugs the woman took. Maybe it would help with her treatment.

Now, though, the woman is in a coma the hospital and the police are questioning her parents. If they're not trying to do a drug bust, why do they need to talk to this woman's parents?  What kind of information are they seeking if not drug bust stuff?   

3. Thought about the drugs in the episode.

The episode is very anti-drugs. The drug creators and sellers are the evils of society. The police are the heroes who fight the drugs.

I just wonder why is it that speed is shown as a big bad evil, but then there's no such action taken against alcohol.  

4. Wondered if speed is that much worse than alcohol.

I think it would be hard to measure, though, because more people are going to use alcohol since it's legal.

Alcohol probably causes the most damage of any drug because it's the most easily obtainable.  

5. Figured that to get a semi-accurate picture of how dangerous a drug is, it would be best to divide the number of users by the number of deaths caused by the drug.

How many people use alcohol on a regular basis? How many of them die from the alcohol?  

How many people use speed on a regular basis? How many of them die?

I guess there'd also be disastrous situations with irregular use. There are people who might not often use a drug but then use too much of it on a specific occasion.  

6. Thought that underlying health conditions might be an important variable. Then with that, I think we'd need to know how common the health condition is. If a drug is likely to kill anyone with type A blood; that's different than a drug that is likely to kill someone with a rare metabolic disorder.

7. Tried to find studies that look at use divided by deaths. I haven't found anything yet.

I found this article, which I'm trying to understand. Drugs were rated by how much they harmed individuals and how much they harmed society. They don't really explain, though, what that entails.  

If a drug hurts society is that due to the drug itself or the laws surrounding the drug?

For alcohol, I think it's often the drug itself.  For example, driving while drunk can kill people. That's about the alcohol and not any anti-alcohol laws.

For other drugs, the criminality of it might cause more problems. In order to get the illegal drugs, people might lie, kill, steal, etc.

8. Thought it might be best to look at the chart and compare oranges with oranges.

How do legal drugs compare to other legal drugs, and how do the illegal drugs compare to other illegal drugs?

For legal, alcohol is rated much worse than tobacco—72 vs. 26.  It's interesting then that we have more rules to marginalize smokers than we do drinkers.  How often do we go to a hotel that has non-drinking rooms?

9. Had confusing thoughts about the whole thing.

It seems to make more sense not to allow smoking in public places. There's the whole second hand smoke thing. It's not just bad for the smoker's lungs, it's bad for the rest of us. If someone drinks near me, it's not like my brain cells and liver will be affected.  

10. Wondered. If drinking was more marginalized, would it cut down on things like domestic violence and drunk-driving accidents?

At first, I thought maybe. But then I realized people would just take it underground.   

11. Wondered if anti-smoking laws have cut down on smoking at all?  From what (I think) I know, smoking has been drastically reduced in the past decades.  But is that more from health education or the fact that all these rules have made it difficult to smoke?

When a teen is offered that first cigarette, does she think.  Well, if I get into this, I might look cool  But it might be a problem, later on, if I get addicted and want to take a long flight to Europe. How am I going to handle not being able to smoke for all those hours?  

Do people say, What's the point of smoking if I can't smoke at any club in the city?  

12. Started to look at the illegal drugs.

Heroin (55) and crack (54) are about the same. Amphetamines (23) the villain of the episode of Water Rats is actually lower than tobacco (26), and much lower than alcohol. The police worked hard to find the amphetamine dealer but did nothing to find out who was providing the alcohol.

13. Started to read up on amphetamines and was reminded that ADHD drugs fit into the category.  So, although it's an illegal drug, it's not always an illegal drug. The same can be said for opiates. There are illegal versions and legal.

14. Thought it was incredibly odd that society has had legalized amphetamines and legalized opioids for the last few decades...or even longer, maybe?  Meanwhile there's been this huge controversial struggle to legalize medical cannabis.  

15. Went back to watching Water Rats. I have a few minutes left. 

16. Saw scenes of the brain dead speed victim. It made me think of something I read. It was one of those controversial speeches down at the Sydney Opera House. What's that event called?  

17. Googled.

It's the Festival of Dangerous.

Okay, so there was one speech about how people see drugs as a bad thing because sometimes they kill people. Yet there are extreme-adventure type activities that carry a similar risk, and people look at those things in a much more positive light.

The girl on Water Rats took speed and ended up brain dead. The conclusion is that drugs are very bad, the people who supply the drugs are very bad people, and the police who fight against the drug dealers are doing a good thing.

How about when someone climbs Mount Everest? That's a pretty risky endeavor.  If a person climbs and survives, they're celebrated. They can maybe write a book about it or at least brag about it at dinner parties.

Yeah, a drug user can write a book too, but impressing the reader is usually going to come from OVERCOMING the drug habit not from the drugs himself.  

Back to the climber.  Let's say he dies.  He doesn't make it to the summit. He doesn't make it home.  Are the police going to try to find the person who talked him into going on the climb?  Are they going to arrest the Sherpa who helped with the climb?  Well, that might be the case if the Sherpa did something unethical.  But let's say he didn't.  Let's say he followed proper safety and health procedures.  If the climber died, would the Sherpa be presented as a villain?  

18. Tried to find the Festival of Dangerous Ideas topic.

I failed.  But I'm pretty sure I didn't dream it.  

19. Finished watching the episode.

20. Learned that Sonny Leunig, the son of Michael Leunig, has published a book. It's full of uninspirational quotes—an antidote to all the inspiring messages that bombard us.  

Tim was a fan of a similar thing a few years back.  I forgot what it was called.  

21. Compelled to admit that I have some inspiring quotes on my screensaver. Sometimes they do make me feel better. Other times, I realize it could all be bullshit.

Anyway, some examples of some of Leunig's messages:  

No Regrets: Just deep inconsolable sorrow buried in a bottomless pit of missed opportunities and shattered dreams. 

Today is the day for positive change. Tomorrow is the day to default back to our inevitably disappointing self.

I like the honesty there.

It's nice to have no regrets, and I think some people have good enough lives that they can move forward with appreciation rather than backwards with sorrow.  But there are people who took the wrong turn, and they ended up on a nightmare path. AND they're still on that path. It's kind of unfair to ask them not to have regrets.

22. Started watching the rest of All About E.

23.  Thought that the movie has a good example of a regret.  

E (Mandahla Rose) cheated on her girlfriend Trish (Julia Billington) and got caught. This led to E being dumped, which is a problem because E still loves Trish.  It would make sense that E regret cheating or at least regret being caught cheating.  

If E didn't still love Trish, then there'd be less reason for regret.

24. Realized that there is a way around the regret. E could take the attitude that things happen for a reason. Yes her mistake led to her losing Trish, but eventually something better might come along.

I think, though, that it would take a huge amount of inner strength to truly believe that. For most people who say, or think, they believe it, they're probably lying to themselves.

25. Thought that things that cause regret are probably a combination of our own choices and how others react to them.

What if Trish forgave E for cheating on her? What if they didn't break up? Then E might not regret her transgression as much. 

26. Thought that our level of regret is also probably determined by luck.

A person who drinks and drives and makes it home without incident is probably going to regret their misdeed much less than someone who hits a pedestrian and ends up going to prison.  

27. Thought that this movie has the most explicit lesbian sex I've ever seen.  

I haven't seen many lesbian movies, though. I don't have much to compare it to.

28. Thought that the sex was interesting at first, but now I'm getting bored.

29. Thought that Julia Billington looks a little bit like Marcia Brady.

30. Finished watching All About E.

I ended up liking it more than I initially expected to.  

31. Went to Random.org to pick my next thing to watch.

It's a movie called A Few Best Men. 

32. Looked at the cast.  

Rebel Wilson is in it, as well as Xavier Samuel and Olivia Newton John.   

33. Saw that the director of A Few Best Men is Stephan Elliot.  That name was very vaguely familar to me.  It turns out that he's the writer and director of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. 

34. Saw that there's a sequel coming out to A Few Best Men.  It's called A Few Less Men.  It has the same writer as the first movie (Dean Craig) but a different director.  

Deborah Mailman is in the sequel and so is Saskia Hampele from Neighbours. 

35. Wondered if Saskia Hampele is still on Neighbours.

She left around the time that I was forced to stop watching, but then, I think, she returned.  Is she still there?  Or did she leave again?

35. Saw that Hampele is listed as being in only one episode of 2016 Neighbours. 

36. Checked to see if Hampele has written any more blog posts.

I don't think she has, unfortunately.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Medical Miracles, Bonds Leading to Betrayal, Moms, and Claire van deer Boom

1. Started to watch the 210th episode of season #28 of Home and Away.

This week I've been watching the show backwards, counting by tens. Why? Because Hulu is losing Home and Away. This is my weird way of having fun with my last days in Summer Bay.  

2. Saw, from the recap at the beginning of the show, that Josh (Jackson Gallagher) has some kind of medical condition.  

3. Saw that Josh is blind, and he also has a speech problem.

Has Summer Bay had another head injury? Or maybe Josh had a stroke?

4. Read an article about Josh.

He was beat up by Evie's (Philippa Northeast) ex-boyfriend, and at one point, was almost taken off life support.

I think it's a bit ridiculous.

They had the same storyline with Leah (Ada Nicodemou) only a few months before. I understand that soap operas repeat storylines, but do they have to do the same one within the same year?

With some storylines, it would be less absurd. For example, it's fine to have multiple break-ups, affairs, babies, etc. But in a small knit community, it seems a bit extreme that two people both get severely injured, both are almost taken off of life support, and both end up surprising everyone by surviving.

5. Saw that Jett (Will McDonald) is back in town.

I'm guessing it was a cameo appearance type thing and not permanent.

6. Checked IMDb. It looks like McDonald returned to the show sporadically throughout 2015 but hasn't returned for 2016.

7. Wondered why Evie is keeping her distance from Josh. It doesn't seem like she wants to; more like they feel it's for the best.

The residents of Summer Bay have a strange way of treating their sick and injured. Oscar (Jake Speer) broke up with Maddie when she had cancer, even though he supposidly loved her. Evie's keeping away from her hospitalized, blind boyfriend.

I don't get it.

8. Learned that Josh doesn't want Evie around.  So, I guess that's why she's keeping her distance.

I can understand that.

9. Wondered about Skye (Mario Kelly), the girl that Jett brought to his house.Though Jett leaves the show, Skye is around for 2016.

Maybe she becomes yet another foster child. 

10. Learned from a conversation between Evie and Andy (Tai Hara), that Evie feels responsible for what happened. I guess because it was her ex-boyfriend?

11.  Wondered if Josh asked Evie to stay away because of some macho I-don't-want-you-to-have-a damaged boyfriend idea. Or is he asking Evie to stay away, because he too blames her for what happened to him.

12. Finished watching the episode.

13. Got an idea about how Evie and Andy end up falling for each other.

They're bonding over the mutual goal of helping Josh.

I can totally imagine and understand things like that happening. It could happen with an illness...or even after death. A brother comforts his brother's wife, and a year later they're getting married.

It could happen with non-medical things as well.  How about a woman helping her brother-in-law plan a surprise party for her sister? They start off doing something nice for the wife/sister, and the next thing they know, they're betraying her.

13. Wondered how often things like that happen in real life.

14. Thought it could also happen with friends and cousins instead of siblings.

15. Started watching an episode of Water Rats.

16. Bewildered by a sample from an Australian novel I started reading (Jilted by Rachel Johns).

A character uses the term "mom" instead of "mum". I've heard and seen Australians using American terms, but I don't think I've ever encountered that particular one.

The book also uses American spelling, which is unfortunately not terribly unusual with Australian books.

At first I wondered if the author was an American who hadn't done a proper amount of research. But there are enough Australianisms to make me think the author IS Australian, or has done a good amount of research. For example: there's reference to someone being in hospital rather than in the hospital;  and TV Weekly and Women's Weekly are mentioned.

17. Remembered that the first word that threw me off wasn't "Mom". It was "breakfast". But I can imagine that sometimes Australians say breakfast instead of brekkie. Maybe I've encountered it before.

18. Looked at Rachael John's bio.

She is Australian, or at least she lives there.

She herself uses the term "mum" in her biography.

19. Wondered if maybe the character in the book is American. Maybe that hasn't been revealed yet, or maybe I wasn't paying well enough attention.

20. Learned that Rachael Johns started writing when she was a teenager. She broke up with her boyfriend and used writing as her therapy.

I did some therapeutic fiction writing when I was a teen...and I've done it as an adult as well.

21. Learned that Johns likes pink.

I do too.

22. Learned that Johns likes Raffaellos. I never heard of those, so I looked it up.  It's a coconut-almond candy made by the Ferrero company.

23. Learned that Johns likes Diet Coke and trolls.

24. Went back to watching Water Rats.

25. Was playing around on IMDb while watching Water Rats and learned that Claire van der Boom is going to be in a movie called Dear Eleanor.

26. Looked around more on IMDb, and saw that Paul Mercurio, a guest star in this episode of Water Rats, was the star of Strictly Ballroom.

27.  Finished watching the episode. It was good.

There was a scene that got me thinking about stuff.

In the scene, Detective Goldie (Catherine McClements) goes a bit nuts with a criminal and talks about how she'd like to blow his brains out. This is because she's mentally disturbed from stuff that happened to her in the first season.

Two of her colleagues, Frank (Colin Friels) and Terry (Aaron Jeffrey) witness the inappropriate behavior and agree together to keep it a secret.

I think it's nice that the guys want to protect their colleague. I think they're understanding of Goldie's emotional issues, and also, it's not like she abused an innocent and/or good man. He had recently strangled a woman and had a knife up against Terry's neck.

The scene did make me a little uncomfortable, though, because I think police officers sometimes stick up for each other when it's NOT appropriate. For example, there's the recent movie I watched, Felony.  The police act as enablers for a fellow officer who drinks and drives and injures a young pedestrian while driving. Yes, it's a movie. But from what I read, it was loosely based on a true story.

Plus, there are all those stories about black men in Australia and the US who get killed by police.I imagine there are cover-ups there.

 28. Thought about the Dumbeldore quote. There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

And it also takes a lot of courage to come forward and speak out against a friend.

29. Decided to watch the trailer for Dear Eleanor. I'm not sure if Claire van deer Boom will be in it.  I'm also not sure if I'd even recognize her if I saw her. I might have forgotten what she looks like.

30. Finished watching the trailer.  I don't think I saw Claire van deer Boom, but I might be wrong.

I did see that she probably doesn't have a huge role in the movie. The trailer lists seven main stars of the film, and she's not included.

31. Saw a photo of Claire van der Boom and am thinking maybe I DID see her in the trailer.

I'm used to her having blond hair, and in the photo, she has brown hair like a woman I saw in the trailer.

Anyway...it's the woman at 1:08 and 1:11 that I think might be van der Boom, but I might be totally wrong.

32. Looked on IMDb, and saw that I'm probably wrong.

The woman at 1:08 and 1:11 seems to be someone that the young teens meet during their adventurous road trip.

From IMDb, I can see that van der Boom plays the mother of one of the teens.

Oh well.

33. Saw that Claire van der Boom IS one of the stars of another upcoming movie. It's called Battlecreek. The movie is similar to The Others (which also starred an Australian actress!) in that it features the medical condition where one has to avoid sunlight.

34. Started watching the trailer for Battlecreek.

35. Finished watching the trailer.

It looks pretty good.

From what I saw on IMDb, and in the trailer, it looks like the movie villainizes the mother for being overprotective. But I think it would be hard not to be overprotective if your child's going to get a horrible rash every time they're out in the sun.

I'm just basing my opinion, on the trailer, though. She didn't seem so bad there. The movie might show her going way too far in the overprotectiveness.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Xenia Goodwin, Cleaver Greene, Safety Video, and episode 220.

1. Dreamed that, I look in the mirror while wearing a fake nose. I decide that I look like Xenia Goodwin. 

I was thinking that dream seemed totally random, but then I remembered that yesterday I mentioned Dance Academy.  

2. Thought of the TV show Rake.

I went on Flickr and saw Tim had left a comment on one of my photos.  He said our cat looks young in a photo. I wrote back, You're right! He does!

I realized what I said was ridiculous. What does that mean, he's right? Tim's not right or wrong. He shared an opinion, and I agreed with him.   

That's why I thought about Rake. There's a s scene where Cleaver Greene (Richard Roxburgh) bitches out a woman because when she listens to someone, she  says something like "right" or "yes", as if she's giving her approval.  

3. Found the scene on YouTube.

The woman uses the word "correct". 

4. Deleted my comment to Tim after hearing Cleaver Greene's rant. He totally shamed me.

5. Remembered that the past few years it's been a verbal fad to say, I know! Right?

That's different, though. That's more like we're saying, I agree! Do you agree with me agreeing? Aren't we like totally together on this?  

My response to Tim wasn't like that. It was egotistical and snobby.  As Cleaver Greene says, Oh well. It's sort of like a school teacher talking to a ten year-old.  You know? You're not actually agreeing. You're approving. It's as if the statement isn't valid until you deem it so.  

6. Hoped that I don't often act like the woman on the show.

7. Watched a beautiful, amazing, and brilliant Qantas safety video, that was featured in an article I read on my phone.

Each piece of safety guidance is given by a different Australian in a different location 

It's not just a safety video but a tourist promotion video as well.  

The video has some interesting visual euphemisms. For example, the crash position is demonstrated with a yoga class getting into position on their yoga balls.  

For the message about leaving belongings behind, in the event of an emergency, a woman is shown leaving her bag behind as she happily slides down a nature-created water slide.

8. Wanted to link to the article, but couldn't find it on my laptop. Maybe it's only available on mobile devices??

9. Tried again, and found the article.

Well, it seemed doubtful that there are articles written that are available on phones but not on laptops.

10.  Saw that I was likely wrong, the other day, when I said that the rhinos coming to live in Australia wouldn't take an airplane.

I just saw an article which talks about lions being airlifted from Latin America back to Africa.

If a plane can take lions, I'm sure one could also take rhinos.

Rhinos are heavy, but it's not like they have to take all of them at the same time.

11. Started to watch the 220th episode of season 28 of Home and Away.

Yesterday I watched the 230th episode.  The reason is I learned that Hulu is losing Home and Away. I lost the motivation to continue watching in a normal manner, since I have little time left. I decided to, instead, do something fun and weird.

I guess it's just a way for me to see more of the season before saying good-bye.

12. Saw that this is around the time that Maddie (Kassandra Clementi) and Oscar (Jake Speer) broke up.

In the episode I watched yesterday, they were over. Maddie was moving on with Matt (Alec Snow)

13. Saw Nate (Kyle Prior) text Ricky (Bonnie Sveen) asking if she's up. She texts back.Duh, single mum.  Come over.

Yes, because mothers with a partner get to sleep in until 9:00 each morning.

I do imagine that being a single parent is often more challenging than being a parent with a partner. But I think some single parents idealize the life of the parent who is not single.

The thing is, though we might not be full-time single, we do experience part-time singleness—some of us more than others. Our partners travel out of town. Sometimes they work out of town. When they're in town, they might work late. They might go out with friends. When they are at home, they might be too tired and distracted to help a lot.

I think with most parenting partners, it's not going to be a 50/50 partnership. One parent is often going to spend more time with the child and do more childcare work.

14. Thought that Raechelle Banno, on the show, has a slight resemblance to Diana Glenn.

15. Felt the two people I will miss most from Home and Away are Maddie and Matt.

16. Saw that Oscar is missing. It all looks a bit ominous. He's gone but his wallet and clothes are on the beach.

BUT I know he'll be found safe and alive, because he was in the future episode I watched yesterday.

17. Finished watching the episode, and am wondering what happened to Oscar.

Tomorrow I plan to watch the 210th episode.

18. Consulted Lord Wiki about what happens to Oscar.

He was swept off to sea, and then found by Billie. She helps him. I think that's one of the ways she redeems herself in the eyes of summer bay.  I don't think the fire-rescue-hero thing worked, because people thought she had started the fire.

19. Decided to check up on Xenia Goodwin, since I dreamed about her last night. I mean to do it this morning, but got sidetracked by a zillion different things.

20. Looked at Goodwin's filmography on IMDb.

I don't think there's anything really new there.

She was on an episode of a TV show called Winter last February.  That's about it.

I was hoping to see something about The Dance Academy movie. Are there still plans for that?

21. Googled and saw that most of the news, about the movie, is from last year. I'm not sure if there's been any recent new developments.

22. Looked at the Dance Academy Twitter page. There's a Tweet from April 25 that says shooting's beginning in five weeks.

So...that's good news.

I wonder how many people from the TV show cast will be in the movie.

23. Went to Xenia Goodwin's Instagram.

I should have just gone there first. Her most recent post is of the Dance Academy film screenplay.

24. Liked Goodwin's photo of her cat and dog. They're very cute.

25. Saw that Goodwin taught a school holiday dance workshop for children.

She posted photos of herself with the kids and wrote a nice message. It's very sweet.

26. Looked at the brochure for the workshop. It looks quite prestigious. If having a Dance Academy star as your teacher isn't exciting enough, another one of the other teachers is a choreographer for Bindi Irwin.

27. Thought that the school sounds very nice. Well, there's the fact that Goodwin wrote the nice message on her Instagram.  But also, with the dress code, they say, The dress code is not strict. Please wear casual dance wear, something that you already have and feel comfortable in eg. Lycra dance tights and top, leotard tights with skirt or shorts over the top, track pants and t-shirt/singlet top.  They do request that you bring the appropriate dance shoes, but that's quite understandable.

28. Saw that Goodwin taught the eight and nine-year-olds.

I wonder if it was her first time teaching.

29. Noticed that the Instagram post is from eighty-two weeks ago. Wow. And here I was thinking the dance class was fairly recent.

30. Saw that that brochure is for June/June 2015. So I guess they had the class the next year.

I wonder if there will be a 2016 session.

31. Watched the recap of season one of Water Rats. I forgot about all the exciting stuff that happened.

32. Thought about how I saw Colin Friels recently in Killing Time. He was a criminal on that show, and on Water Rats, he's a cop. But I think the personality of both characters are kind of similar.

33. Started watching the first episode of season two of Water Rats.

34. Saw, on IMDb, that Marshall Napier is in this episode.

I like him.

35. Saw Aaron Jeffrey.

I totally forgot he was on the show.

Napier and Jeffrey played father and son on McLeod's Daughters.

36. Learned that the third season of the American TV show The Leftovers is going to take place in Australia.

Learning that made be slightly regret that I stopped watching it.

Well, actually.  I barely started. I think we watched only the first episode or two.

37. Wondered if The Leftovers will have many Australian actors.

38. Remembered that Lost, Damon Lindelof's other show, also had a strong Australian connection.  

39. Thought it was sweet that the police officers, on Water Rats, allow the escaped prisoner (John Walton) to watch his daughter at her gymnastics class.  He escaped custody just to go see her.

I also think it was sweet that this prisoner took such a huge risk just so he can see his daughter. He doesn't insist on talking to her or getting up close to her.  He just wants the chance to watch her.

And he gets all emotional while watching her. That's kind of lovely.

40. Wondered about the song playing at the end of the show.

It kind of reminds me of a Rebecca Lavelle kind of thing. I wonder if its her. Or do I just have McLeod's Daughters on my mind because of Napier and Jeffries?

41. Thought that Water Rats is really into using extreme close-ups.

42. Finished watching the episode; then watched the credits to see if they'd give the name of the song in the episode.

They didn't.

They give all this other information.

Apparently it's more important for me to know who provided the food for the actors and crew and who assisted the person providing the food.  But it's not important for me to know who wrote and sang the song on the TV show.

I think there should be a law requiring TV shows to list the songs they use. Why do we have to depend on fan-based websites and message boards to get that kind of information?

43. Thankful to the Australian Television website. They have a list of songs on the show, and the song I heard is included.

The song is called "Goldie's Theme", and it wasn't sung by Lavelle. The singer is Cathi Ogden.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Responses to Criticism, Using our Gifts for Personal Gain, Breaking Up With Sick People, and Being Strong

1. Dreamed about Australian celebrities.

In one of the dreams: I play a made-up game with children that includes asking them trivia questions. I ask them where Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman met and got married. I realize I'm not 100% sure of the answer. I'm guessing it's Australia, but I figure it might not be the case.

The kids get a bit giggly, and I then see Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are in the room. They can answer the trivia question about themselves. Hugh Jackman does this. He says it was Australia, and I say something about being glad that's the answer, because I wasn't sure if it would be.

Yes. I know Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman aren't married in real life.

I'm actually not 100% sure it was Nicole Kidman in the dream. It was definitely Hugh Jackman. I remember seeing him. I don't remember seeing the wife, but when I woke up, the actress I had in my head was Nicole Kidman. So I'm going with that.

I also had a dream about Kate Jenkinson, but the memory is vague. It's something like, my work is being included in something, and it's a good thing—an honor.  I start to realize that I have Jenkinson to thank for that. But I'm kind of annoyed...as if I don't want to feel indebted to her.  

2. Reminded of Tallygarunga, the Australian Wizarding world role-playing site when thinking about the recent Elon Musk drama.

A blogger criticized an Elon Musk event, because it went behind schedule.  In the scheme of things, having an event go badly isn't a major atrocity. I don't fault Elon Musk too much on that. Everyone fails every so often—even very wealthy and powerful people.  Still, disgruntled people have the right to criticize, as long as they refrain from being abusive.

What does disgust me is that Elon Musk didn't handle the criticism with maturity and grace. He personally canceled the guy's car order. That's so incredibly petty.

Why does that remind me of Tallygarunga?

Well, I used to be a faithful fan of the site. I read the stories of these up and coming writers and blogged about them everyday. All was well until I questioned a wizard being put on antidepressants after his girlfriend was raped by her father.  Personally, I thought depression was a normal human response to what happened to the teen and not an immediate indication of mental illness.

The role player controlling the depressed wizard didn't like me having an opinion about mental illness that differed from her own. She wrote me an email requesting that I stop reading any of her material.

3. Tried to imagine a world filled with writers like that particular role-player and business tycoons like Elon Musk.

I'd be banned from Disney World and American Airlines. Those are the most recent companies I've criticized.

I'd get emails from Graeme Simsion asking me to stop reading his book since I had some complaints about it.

The only people who'd be allowed to read the Harry Potter series are those who are happy with every single decision JK Rowling made about the books.

4. Wondered about musicians who request that a politician stop using their music.

I think the musicians is in the right IF the politician is using the music in a way that would require permission or paying royalties.

If the musician asks the politician to stop listening to the music; then the musician is acting as ridiculous as the Tallygarunga role player and Elon Musk.

5. Started watching an episode of Wicked Science.

6. Wondered if I agreed with what Toby (Andre de Vanny) says on the show—that using his super brain power to get what he wants is cheating.

I did think Russell (Benjamin Schmideg) was cheating when he used guitar-enhancing gloves to become popular.

Is there a difference?

I think so.

The main difference is that Toby's enhanced abilities came from a mistake. He didn't purposely seek it out.  It's pretty much equal to being born with a talent. Toby didn't ask to become a science genius in the same way Adele didn't ask to be born with a fabulous voice.

7. Thought of an analogy.

What if an athlete has some kind of brain issue that suddenly gives them enormous bursts of energy and strength.  I think it would be fine to use those new abilities to win a bike race. It would be different from someone who uses drugs to win the race.

8. Saw that Toby might actually be planning to use his brain power to cheat on a video game.

I'm not sure, actually.

I'm confused.

I don't think it would be cheating for him to use his acquired intelligence to win the game. I do think it would be cheating if he used his acquired intelligence to come up with a cheat for the game.

It's like Minecraft. If you're very skilled at a multiplayer game, that's not cheating.It is cheating if you use your intelligence to hack the game.

9. Thought that Toby was being awful in this episode.

He's trying to gain the affection of a girl by impressing her with his video game skills (maybe cheating) and winning her a gift she doesn't even want. He doesn't know she doesn't want it, because he's not giving her any attention. He's so focused on himself.

I can't stand it when people act that way.

10. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

11. Felt sorry for Maddie (Kassandra Clementi).

She has cancer.

She's returned to school and is feeling sick there. Also, she's very behind on the work, and that's very stressful.

On top of all that, it seems her boyfriend (Jake Speer) doesn't love her anymore.

12. Felt bad for Oscar too.

It's hard enough breaking up with a healthy person. But one with cancer? Oh goodness!

13. Wondered how many people out there are stuck in a relationship with someone who is plagued by a terminal and/or chronic illness?

Of those people, how many stopped the loving BECAUSE of the changes the health problem brought, and how many of them stopped loving for other reasons?

14. Decided sometimes the love can stop because of secondary reasons. For example, someone might not have stopped loving their wife when she got cancer, but they stopped loving their wife when cancer made the wife act chronically spoiled and demanding.

Then again, the wife might have acted spoiled and demanding in response to her partner being neglectful and uncaring.

It's really hard to know what goes on behind the scenes in a relationship.

15. Proud of Maddie.

She handled the break up with grace, maturity, and strength.

I admire people who pull themselves up after a fall.

It's like Tracy on Coronation Street. She was left at the alter when her fiancé turned out to be a murderer. She's heartbroken and financially broken but still has to find money to pay for an expensive wedding that never happened. Yet despite all this, Tracey still gets out of bed each morning and does what needs to be done. I really admire that.

It's not that we all don't deserve a pity party at times in our life. There's nothing wrong with taking time off to cry, scream, overeat, etc.  But eventually, it's a good idea to get out of bed and get on with life...even if you don't yet have a purpose for living.

16. Felt that I don't usually fault those who linger in their sadness and can't move on—especially if I'm very sympathetic to their problem. It's just I have a lot of admiration for those who manage to hold their heads up high when life gives them shit.

17. Went to the Tropfest website.

Today I'm going to watch a 2009 Finalist film called "The Delivery"

18. Started watching the film.

19. Saw, that so far, the film is a showcase of sound effects.

20. Thought that the sounds in the movie are very irritating. Though I think they're supposed to be that way.

21. Finished watching the movie.

I didn't like it very much.

And I didn't understand the ending.

22. Got an explanation for the ending from YouTube comments.

That's kind of helpful.

I still feel the film wasn't my kind of thing. I was bored by it.

23. Saw that the film had two directors.

One of them, Rohan Jones had a small acting role in Muriel's Wedding—I mean small as in his character wasn't given a name.

24. Saw that Rohan Jones was one of the writers for a 2010 Venezuelan movie called Brother.

Maybe he's Venezuelan?

Actually, maybe everyone from "The Delivery" is Venezuelan. It could be one of those Tropfest films that's not Australian.

25. Saw that the actors are Australian.

Three out of four of them have guest-starred on Rush. I wonder if that's a coincidence, or there's some kind of connection.

26. Saw that one of the actors in "The Delivery" (Nicholas Stribakos) was in a recent Australian horror movie called The Plague.

I think I might have heard of that before.

27. Watched the trailer for The Plague.  It looks like a typical zombie thing.

28. Started to watch Nicholas Stribakos show reel.

29. Saw that Stribakos does a lot of crime stuff.  So far I've seen Stringers and Water Rats on the showreel. "The Delivery" was a crime thing too.

30. Decided to watch the fourth episode of The Justice Lease.

I love the opening titles of the show.

31. Saw that the Robin (Morgan Powell) in this episode has a bigger role than the Robins in the previous three episodes.

32. Thought that the episode was very good.

I love the show.

33. Started watching another episode of Home and Away.

34. Saw VJ (Matthew Little), and thought about how he was one who was slow to emerge from his pity party, and it took a lot of urging from others.

I think with his type of problem, it would be very hard to leave the pity party.

It seems, to me, one of the hardest things in life is dealing with the unknown.

I imagine it would be absolutely horrible for a teenager to lose his mother through death.  But for some reason, it seems it would be even worse to have a mother who's probably going to die, except there's a tiny chance she'll be okay again.

A less extreme example: As hard as it is being dumped, maybe in some ways it's harder to go through that time when you expect to be dumped. It hasn't happened yet and you hold a tiny bit of hope that things are going to be okay. You wait around for the phone to ring.

35. Concluded that what I'm thinking is maybes are sometimes harder than endings.

Though it depends on how much hope there is.

If it's 50/50 or even 90/10; than I'd say the maybe is better than the ending.  But if it's 1/100 or 1/1000; then an ending might be easier.

36. Felt I'm contradicting myself by admiring people who manage to get up and face the day after a big loss or big blow.  I've also often felt that people rush others to get over their problems, and I don't like that.

I guess I feel both things.

People should have the right to take the time they need to recover from a loss or problem. They should receive compassion from their loved ones.

Hopefully, they have loved ones.

At the same time, I admire people who manage to take things in stride.  Well, it would be weird to take some things in stride.  I'm not sure how I'd feel about someone happily doing their grocery shopping the day after their brother was killed in a shooting. But kudos to the grieving brother who manages to get out of bed and go to the grocery store so his children won't have to deal with an empty refrigerator.

37. Reminded myself that hurting people can stand strong AND fall apart.

They can go to work, get the job done; then come home and cry hysterically.

There's a time for sadness and a time to pull yourself together.  They don't have to be in that order. It can go back and forth...for weeks, months, years. Sometimes a lifetime.

38. Heard a Vance Joy song on Home and Away. I don't think I've heard it before.

It's called "First Time", which is fitting because they're playing it with a storyline about two teens planning to have sex for the first time.

39.  Thought Vance Joy's voice was very distinctive.

40. Amused that Josh (Jackson Gallagher) thought it would be a good idea to include balloons in his first sexual experience with Evelyn (Philippa Northeast).

And he knocked her back when she made advances in the car.

I'm surprised he didn't say, No, not here, Evie. Where are the balloons? You can't have sex without balloons.   

41. Realized the balloons are sparkly balloons.

42. Felt lots of love for all these adorable Summer Bay people.

Being Neglectful, Being Pushy, Ed Oxenbould, and Sydney

1. Dreamed I was a somewhat awful person.

I'm staying with my Australian friend Tracey. She leaves to go somewhere. I work hard on my blog. Then, when she returns, she tries to help another woman who was left at home with me. This woman is in some kind of horrible pain; and for some reason, I failed to try to help her because I was too busy with my blog.

I don't actually remember hearing her and ignoring her. But when Tracey returned and was trying to help the woman, I felt guilty for not helping.

2. Dreamed that I have an Australian guy with me who is seeking my help in planning a future trip to the U.S.  I'm quite pleased to have an Australian by my side, and I enjoy showing him off...just to my parents, really. (Don't remember anyone else in this dream)

I try to figure out whether the Australian should go to Disneyland or Disney World. I'm also wondering if it would make sense for him to fly into DFW rather than LAX.  

He's planning to go to Atlantic City, and doesn't seem too thrilled about it. I try to tell him it's actually pretty cool, because you can see the Monopoly Streets. (I think, in the dream, Atlantic City was somewhere out west rather than the north-east).

Later I get a video message from him politely demanding that I make him videos promoting the places I think he should go. He wants me to sell him a plan.  I'm not pleased with this. First, I'm disappointed that it seems we'll no longer be working together in person. Second, I don't like the idea of having to try to sell something.  

3. Wondered if I dislike selling things. I don't mean literally for money...but promoting things.

I like sharing things I like, especially on this blog.  I have hopes that I'll lead more people into liking what I like. But I don't like pressuring people to like something.  I also don't like it when other people try to push me into trying something...even when it's not actually directed at me personally.

The other day I quit reading a Disney Blog, because in a restaurant review, the blogger talked about food that people HAVE to try.

I prefer when people say things like, I'm a huge fan of this. Maybe you'll like it too over saying, You have to try this. You'll totally love it! 

I'm also a believer in the fact that some people might dislike what I love, and they might love what I dislike.

4. Wanted to say that I don't usually quit reading a blog as soon as they get pushy about recommendations.

This one annoyed me, though, because, in the intro post, the woman talked about having unique opinions about Disney things. She presented herself as an off-the-beaten path type person—not always liking what's popular. So I felt, in that case, she should be sensitive to the fact that other people might have their own unique opinions about things and might not like what she's recommending.

Also, the items she was pushing were not off the beaten path at all. They're actually quite popular and well-known among Disney Foodies.

5. Thought about the dream—the one where I'm an awful person.

I don't think I'd ignore a person in medical distress to work on my blog.  But I do think I get uptight sometimes about taking a break from my routine.

I'm the type of person who gives myself daily assignments. It's not easy for me to say to myself, well something very important has come up. I need to spend time on that. It won't kill me to lose an hour of homeschooling or not write a blogpost.

Yeah. It won't kill me. But it will make me anxious and stressed.

6. Felt a need to defend myself. Yes, I'm a bit anal. Yes, it would be bad to ignore someone in acute, severe pain, because I'm busy with my blog. I hope I wouldn't do that in real life.

On the other hand, some people go in the opposite direction and exploit their problems (And sometimes other people's!) to take a break. I wouldn't want to be that type of person.

7. Decided I maybe feel guilty for opting out of a family medical thing. I felt stressed out about losing homeschooling hours. Well, I didn't actually opt out. I just didn't say yes. I didn't give a yes or no. I decided to wait until I was asked again, and when I wasn't, I was kind of relieved, and I didn't feel too bad about not being there. But now I feel I should have been there. Because if it was me in the situation, I'd probably want other people to be there for me.

The good news is someone WAS there for the person in need. So the story is more about me being a bad family member than someone in my family being neglected.

8. Started watching an episode of Underbelly.

9. Saw that Ed Oxenbould, the little boy from Puberty Blues, is in this episode.

Oxenbould is also in the recent American movies The Visit and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

In the latter, he's an Australian pretending to be an American who wants to move to Australia.

It reminds me of something I learned yesterday.

We've been watching The Mindy Project. There's a British guy on the show, and I thought he was faking it. I mean I thought the character was pretending to be British in order to impress the girls. But then I found out the actor is actually British.

It made me remember the storyline on Nip/Tuck where there was an American guy pretending to be British. I wanted to find out who the actor was, and I learned he's actually British.  I thought that was pretty funny.

10. Started to watch Rake—season two; episode four.

11. Saw an incident on Rake that fits in well with what I was blabbing on about this morning.

Cleaver Green's (Richard Roxburgh) sort of girlfriend (Robyn Maxwell) has had a death in her family.

Cleaver is informed of the loss and offers to send flowers. He's quite reluctant to actually clear his schedule and be there for her.

I think that's unfortunately kind of like me. Or very much like me.

I'm fairly generous in terms of listening to people via email or text. I'll send gifts, maybe. But I'm lazy when it comes down to getting off my ass and actually being physically there for someone.

12. Looked at the cast for this episode of Rake and thought I saw Ed Oxenbould again. But no. What I saw is BEN Oxenbould. Lord Wiki says Ben is Ed's uncle.

13. Glad to see Barney Meagher (Russell Dykstra) call out his wife Scarlet (Danielle Cormack) on the fact that she's forbidding him to be friends with Cleaver Greene because she slept with Cleaver Greene.

Scarlet is the one who made the mistake.Why should Barney have to be punished for it?

14. Went to Palg1305's Flickr account.

15. Got the idea that the order of the albums changed.

Everything looks different from yesterday.

16. Started to look at Palg1305's Sydney album.

Here's a photo of some construction at Darling Harbour—lots of big cranes.

Flickr says the photo was taken July 2014.

I wonder what was going on over there.

17. Liked the photo of these trees in Manly.

I wonder what kind of trees they are.

Maybe eucalyptus?

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I don't know Eucalyptus trees on sight. I might be able to point out some in a crowd, but my accuracy rate would probably be about 75%.  Or maybe 35%.

The trees in the photo don't make me think of Eucalyptus trees, except for the fact that they're in Australia.  But...I really don't know.

18. Liked this photo.

I wonder what it is. Some kind of boat dock. There's a sign that says, Welcome to Station.

What station?

It's like having a city with a sign that says, Welcome to City!

It's a bit generic.

19. Thought the trees in this picture looked more Eucalyptus to me.

20. Wondered what percentage of trees in Australia are Eucalyptus.

21. Guessed that the tree in this photo is not Eucalyptus. I think it's one of those fig things.

What is it? Moreton Fig?

22. Googled.

Lord Wiki says it's Moreton Bay Fig.

It's native to Australia.

23. Thought of Water Rats when I saw this photo of Watson's Bay—cliffs to fall from and water to drown in.

24. Thought the ocean looked beautifully blue in this other Watson Bay photo.

25. Liked this photo of the Opera House. I don't know why. There are a zillion Sydney Opera House photos out there. But something about this one is special.  It has a 1970's feel to it.

26. Realized I'm making it sound like there is something particularly special about the 1970's.

It's not really that.

Maybe it's that it reminds me of the old movies they'd show us in elementary school—probably filmed in the 1970's.  You know, the one with the wooden boat floating about, or the Red Balloon thing.

27. Googled and learned The Red Balloon was made in the 1950's.

Oops.

Maybe I should say the picture reminds me of movies I SAW in the 1970's. They were probably filmed way before that.

28. Decided the picture probably reminds me of my old dream. I've talked about it here before. I had it sometime in my childhood—and remember close to nothing about it. But it gave me a good weird feeling when I'd think about it.  Then later, as an adult, I saw photos of Sydney Harbour and it reminded me of the dream.

29. Liked Bec's post about trying to fulfill a happiness challenge on a day she's feeling grumpy and snarky.

It's easy to do self-help, positive thinking type stuff when we're in a good mood. But what about when we're in a bad mood or life is shit?

I do disagree with her feeling she failed at her daily random act of kindness act.  She says:
This is probably a cop-out but in my introverted and selfish state today all I pretty much did was smiled at the bus driver and said thank you at the shops and to people who did stuff for me at work. Lame. I feel like I need to make up for it with something spectacular tomorrow.

I think smiling at someone and thanking people is quite lovely. It's small. But small things add up sometimes.

30. Got texts from my sister and niece.

They're at the Taylor Swift concert. Vance Joy is the opening act.

That's cool! Maybe my sister and niece will become Vance Joy fans.

My sister suggested I add him to our karaoke song list. I had to tell her I did and that we already sang his song twice.


Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Starting New TV Shows, IMDb Fun, Dominic Purcell, and Rarmian Newton

1. Thought that most of this blog post will be about Australians in American TV shows.

I'm not watching any Australian show today, because my rule is that I don't start my new TV show until two days after I pick it on Random.org.

Why do I have that rule?

I don't know.

Actually, I do.

It's mostly to give me time to catch up on other shows. Then sometimes it gives me time to mourn the show I've just lost.

2. Decided that I liked Review with Myles Barlow. Sort of. I didn't love it. Sometimes I was bored by it. Sometimes I found it interesting.

But I certainly don't need to mourn it.

3. Went to the TV Guide fall preview feature.

The next show for me to look at is called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It's about a woman who moves from Manhattan to Los Angeles.

Why is that supposed to be interesting?

I'm just wondering.

The star of the show is Rachel Bloom. I've never heard of her. Maybe she's Australian.

4. Learned from IMDb that Rachel Bloom is American not Australian.

5. Looked at the cast list for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.  I don't see any Australian actors I recognize.

I'll click on some names to see if there are Australians that are new to me.

6. Saw that Hans from Frozen is on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. He's not Australian, but I thought that was a fun piece of trivia.

Who is Hans? I'm guessing he was Anna's love interest.

7. Done with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I did not see any Australians.

8. Went to the next TV show. It's Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, starring Gary Sinise.

Any Australians?

9. Looked at the cast list.

10. Did not find any Australians on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders; but did see that Noah, from The Walking Dead, is on the show. That's kind of exciting.

11. Worried I won't find any Australians today.

12. Ate a Tim Tam.

I think I might prefer the originals over the caramel ones.

13. Looked at the next American TV show on TV Guide.  It's called Crowded.

I don't know if there are any Aussies, but there are some Yanks I recognize.

First, there's iCarly herself—Miranda Cosgrove! We used to love iCarly. 

Then there's Carrie Preston from True Blood.  I also know her as being married to Michael Emerson from Lost.

The premise of Crowded is a husband and wife that suddenly have their grown children and parents moving in with them. Sound a bit familiar?

It's not exactly Packed to the Rafters, but there are some major similarities.

14. Started looking at the cast list for Crowded.

15. Found an actor that's not Australian, but he looks Australian to me. Ryan Dorsey.

Maybe he was Australian in a past life.

Sometimes people just have an Aussie aura.

16. Did not find any Australians on Crowded.

17. Looked at the next TV show. It's called DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

Guess who's the star?!

Arthur Darvill!  No, he's not Australian, but he's from Doctor Who, and that's equally exciting.

18. Saw from IMDb that Legends of Tomorrow isn't starting until 2016. That's not exactly fall. Not to be picky, or anything.

19. Found an Australian on Legends of Tomorrow.

Dominic Purcell was born in England, but grew up in Australia.

Purcell was on three episodes of Home and Away in 1991.

He was on two episodes of season three of Water Rats.

He was on Heartbreak High.

I think that's it for the major Australian shows. Most of his work has been done in the US. He has a pretty extensive filmography.

20. Saw that Dominic Purcell is probably most known for Prison Break.

21. Saw another Walking Dead star popping back onto television—Sarah Wayne Callies, who played Lori Grimes.

22. Saw at least three of the stars of Legends of Tomorrow were also stars of Prison Break.

23. Added one to the three. Now I have four.

And there's probably more.

24. Moved up five....

25. Saw that the creator of Legends of Tomorrow is the same guy who created Prison Break.

I kind of guessed that.

26. Went to the next show on TV Guide.  It's called Dr. Ken. It's a family comedy about a doctor who's good with the medical bits, but not so good with the patients.

27. Saw a man in the cast picture who reminds me of Kevin Rudd.

28. Saw from the cast list of Dr. Ken that the Kevin Rudd guy is Dave Foley.  I remember him.

29. Thought that maybe Tim told me about this show.  I vaguely remember him telling me about an Asian actor who's also a doctor. And that's the case with Ken Jeong, the guy who plays Dr. Ken.

When we had the conversation, I brought up Jeremy Cumpston from All Saints. He's not a doctor playing a doctor, but he's pretty close. He's a doctor who played a nurse.

30. Looked at the next show. It's a thriller called The Family.  It's about a family who lost a child; then he returns ten years later. The thing is, they don't know if it's really him or not.  I guess they didn't save a DNA sample when the child was lost?

Maybe that's not usually done with missing children.

31. Found an Australian in The Family!

It's Rarmian Newton. He's from Melbourne.

Newton plays young Danny.  I'm not sure who that is—probably not the missing child, because Newton is in his twenties. And from what I gather from TV Guide, the child was supposed to be young when he got lost.

32. Saw that Rarmian Newton was in four episodes of Dance Academy—the second season. He played Michael Slade.

I don't remember him.

33. Learned, from Lord Wiki's cousin, that Michael Slade was a dancer from a Tasmanian school. He competed against the Sydney kids.

34. Went to the Triple J 2014 list.

Today I'm going to listen to the 70th song, which is "Is it a Banger" by Odd Mob.

What is a banger?

Google says it's a sausage or a a bad car.

Oh! Yeah. I think I've heard the sausage one. Bangers and mash.

35. Could not find an official video for "Is it a Banger".

Or maybe this is official but isn't labeled official. I'm not sure.

36. Liked the beginning of the song.

37. Liked the sound of the song, though, not sure why he's so against the Lumineers.

I love the Lumineers.

38. Started to look at the cast list of the first episode of season two of Underbelly.

I plan to watch that tomorrow.

39. Saw Roy Billing's name.

I know him from Wonderland.

40. Saw that there's an actor from Water Rats—Scott Burgess.

I don't know if I remember him.

His name sounds familiar, though.

41. Found a photo of Scott Burgess.

Now I remember him on Water Rats.

42. Recognized Damon Gameau's name.

I didn't remember who he was at first but then saw that he was on Slide.

43. Saw Asher Keddie!

I think I knew she was on the Underbelly; or I least knew that some Offspring stars were also Underbelly stars.

44. Wondered from where I knew Matthew Newton.

It turns out he's from Farscape! He played the long lost son of Ka D'argo.

45. Saw Myles Pollard's name.

I know him from McLeod's Daughters.

Cake, Ignoring Phone Calls, Kick-Ass Women, and Complicated Villains

1. Dreamed that, I'm at an Australian reenactment of an American gun tragedy. 

Andrew is there. We talk about road trips in the United States, because when he came here, they did a road trip. 

I tell Andrew that it's customary to fervently wave to people in other cars when you're on an American road trip. I say this is especially the case if you see other people who are also on a road trip. I tell Andrew if we had seen them on the road, we would have waved. But then I feel stupid, because I don't know if their car had signs of a road trip. Andrew assures me that it did.

Andrew then confesses to liking some kind of cheap hotel restaurant. While he says this, I think about cheap restaurants I've liked and think about how crappy food is sometimes really good. 

I think the restaurant I had in mind was Denny's. In real life, we went to Denny's in 2013. I don't quite remember feeling like it was fabulous crappy food.

2. Thought about crappy food that I do think is good.

Pizza is probably the main one. I usually prefer cheap crap pizza over the fancy stone-oven, fresh mozzarella stuff. I love frozen pizzas, Dominoes, and that pizza, still in plastic, that they used to serve to us at our pool cafe.

And cake! That's the other thing. I prefer cheap grocery store cake to the expensive stuff my dad buys at the upscale supermarket. Although that's just one place I don't like. I might like cakes that come from other upscale bakeries.

3. Saw from my Statcounter that Peter Allen is quite popular today.

For a moment, I was wondering why my blog is getting so much Peter Allen traffic. Aren't there many other sites out there?  But then I realized, although my blog has had an increase in traffic because of Peter Allen; there are probably other Peter Allen sites that have gotten an even greater increase in traffic.

When I check Statcounter in the morning, I usually see my blog having about 30-50 hits. This morning, it's at 200. That's a pretty big increase. But there are probably sites out there that get 1000-2000 hits each morning; and with Peter Allen traffic, they're getting 5,000 or more.

4. Interested to see what the Statcounter numbers will be like later in the day.

The increase probably won't be huge, because most of my traffic comes before I wake up. My blog is more popular with Australians than it is with Americans and other people. Once the Aussies go to bed, my traffic pretty much goes dead.  It picks up again in the late afternoon here, when it is morning in Australia.

5. Started watching an episode of Neighbours.

I feel like I'm having ignore-an-important-phone-call synchronocity.

Last night I watched Coronation Street.  Baby Jake had a high fever, and Izzy kept trying to call Gary, so she could tell him they were bringing Jake to the ER.  Gary was busy and ignored the phone calls.

Now, on Neighbours,  Paige (Olympia Valance) is being bullied Joey Dimato (Steve Sammut). She dials Mark's (Scott McGregor) number, and he ignores it, because he's talking to Tyler (Travis Burns).

6. Liked the twist with Paige.

Mark finally checks his phone and hears that Paige is in trouble. He rushes to Paige's house. I expected to find Paige tied up, crying and terrified. Instead it's Joey that's tied up.  Paige was able to rescue herself.

It's cool to see a woman who can rescue herself. I don't think I'd be one of them. Though I often get the idea that Tim expects me to be that.

There was the time that our alarm went off for unknown reasons. I was terrified, and said yes when the security folks asked if I wanted the police. Later when Tim found out, he seemed annoyed that I hadn't refused the police.

Another time the alarm went off, and Tim told me to go upstairs and check it out.  I was terrified. He didn't seem worried at all.

I think Tim likes women to be like Paige. And I like men to be knights in shining armor who show huge amounts of concern for my health and safety.

So we have a bit of a challenge there.

I guess my ultimate ideal would be to be tough like Paige but also have a man who worries and rescues.

7. Gave myself some credit. Because when Tim encouraged me to go upstairs to check the doors, I eventually went and did that. I gathered up enough courage. I didn't call the police or hide in the closet crying.

I'm not sure what would have happened if I had found robbers, zombies, vampires, or a serial killer upstairs. I'd LIKE to imagine I'd fight and kill them. But I'd probably end up in a pool of blood...my own.

8. Wondered. If it was a vampire that killed me, would there still be a pool of blood? Or would he lick up the blood before it soaked into the carpet?

9. Saw that Russell (Russell Kiefel) is regretful about hitting his son Tyler (Travis Burns) but not very apologetic. Instead of acting like it's a bad thing that he did, and he's sorry; it's more like he sees it as a bad TIME. He also seems to have an expectation of easy forgiveness from Tyler.

Sometimes people need to grovel and show a lot of remorse.

10. Annoyed with Russell.

First of all, he thanks Tyler for not telling his brothers about being beaten up by him.  At first, I thought that was kind of nice. He shows gratitude, at least.  But now I'm thinking it's like he's pressuring Tyler to stay quiet. Tyler shouldn't have to keep that secret from his brothers. He should be able to talk to his brothers.

Then Russell is having a dinner with Paige and his other two sons. One of them makes a comment about Tyler not being there and says something about family not being important to Tyler.  Here Tyler is being insulted behind his back, and Russell says nothing to defend his son. This would be the perfect opportunity to confess that he mistreated Tyler and explain that Tyler might need some time to forgive him.

11. Thought it was nice that Tyler did eventually show up and is showing effort towards forgiveness.  It's big of him. I just don't know if Russell deserves it.

12. Started watching an episode of Water Rats. I have three more episodes left for the first season. I might finish watching it today. If not...probably tomorrow.

13. Received a text from Tim containing a photo of a Southern Cassowary.

He's in St. Augustine Florida. They have an animal park with alligators, crocodiles, and various exotic birds. I hope to go there someday!

14. Encountered more similarities between what I saw last night on Coronation Street and what I'm seeing today on Australian television.

First. I forgot to mention this before. But with the Paige thing?  Last night, on Coronation Street, three women were attacked by a mugger. One of them, Beth fought back with her shoe and was able to retrieve a stolen purse. So both Coronation Street and Neighbours had a woman defending herself against a criminal.

Second.  Remember how I said Gary didn't answer the phone when Izzy was trying to call them about their sick child? Well, the reason he didn't answer is he was standing over a man he had severely injured. The man had sexually harassed his mother, and Gary confronted him. The man put the blame on Gary's mother. Gary angrily lashed out and hit the guy with some kind of tool.

Now, on Water Rats, there's a man who confronted his sister's husband, because the husband had been abusive.  The husband told the brother that his sister liked being hit, and the brother lashed out with a knife.

15. Got idea that the brother didn't kill the husband, after all.

I think the wife killed the husband, and the brother is trying to take the blame.

I wish this was a case of me being a brilliant detective. But no. The show is being pretty obvious about it.

16. Thought that episode of Water Rats was emotionally complex.

The end has a very intense scene where Detective Harrison (Peter Mochrie) tries to stop a woman (the wife/sister I mentioned above) from committing suicide.

Harrison is the same guy I talked about yesterday—the one who is secretly evil.

I think it messes with my head when bad people do something good like that.

I have to wonder if there's a part of Detective Harrison that's good. Did he really care about the woman about to jump? Did he want to see her survive?  Or is it all a game to him?

Is Detective Harrison a sort of good man who is also sort of evil? Or is he a completely evil man who wears a mask of decency?

17. Started watching another episode of Water Rats.

18. Loved the Crooked Fences blog post about an ad campaign trying to shame teens into avoiding parenthood.

Michelle illustrates her frustration with the campaign by imagining a similar campaign aimed at older parents.

If we can scare teen moms by telling them their children are less likely to graduate high school; why not tell older parents that their child is more likely to have a genetic disorder?

Michelle's not in support of using fear tactics against women in their forties. What she wants is teens to be treated with the same respect as people of other ages.

19. Felt I was doing an awful job paraphrasing Michelle's post.

She says it much more eloquently than me.

20. Started watching the last season one episode of Water Rats.

21. Read Bec's somewhat depressing post about writing eulogies for people you don't like.

She didn't have to do it. Her friend did, and Bec struggled to help her friend.

She found a website that advised writing a factual eulogy. Where was the dead person born? Where did they get married?  Where did they go to school? Did they have any pets?

Bec says:  I would like to hope that when I'm gone people will not have to scrape the barrel to come up with anything nice to say about me. How sad if someone has to read a list of facts instead of eulogising on how I added something positive and meaningful to their lives, without lying through their teeth. I don't want to be remembered as a saint, however I would like to think that it wouldn't be that hard to remember me for being a decent person.

Yeah. I hope the same thing for myself.

It's not just about people saying nice things, but I want people to say nice things that are true.

And they can say bad things too.

I'd rather have a funeral that's honest—bad and good stuff. I don't want a fluffy phony funeral.

22. Decided what I'd most want is funny stuff.

I think the funny stuff is usually the most real.

Plus, funerals can be a drag. It's good if you can add some laughs.

23. Thought it would be much better to have a funeral where people are laughing so hard they're crying than a funeral where people look bored and depressed.

24. Finished watching Water Rats. It was thrilling but predictable as most thrillers are.

There was one thing I didn't expect.

There was a girl in danger. I expected her to be saved but instead she died.

I feel bad that she died but kind of impressed that something unexpected happened.

25. Went to Random.org to pick my next show.

It's the one show on my list that's NOT Australian.

What is it?

Doctor Who!

It's funny, because I've been thinking about the show lately.  I mean JUST today I was thinking about it, and wanting to get back into it. I was thinking that it might be good that I waited several months, because I've had time to get over Matt Smith.  I think I'm ready to embrace a new doctor.

Maybe.

26. Checked out Statcounter.

There's been sixty-two new visits since I checked this morning. So it's not a large increase.

It is more than I usually get in the afternoon, though.

I'll check again later tonight.

27. Started crying over TV shows, which I know is kind of stupid.

My Spotify shuffle played "Wonderful Wonderful" which I associate with Desperate Housewives.  I started thinking about how we were really obsessed with that show two years ago.

Then a year ago, in September, we were watching Doctor Who; and, by myself, I was watching the third season of McLeod's Daughters.

28. Thought that my sadness is probably about longing for the days that we used to watch a TV show together.

29. Remembered back in 2008 when the three of us watched McLeod's Daughters.

I think that's the only Australian show we watched together.

We've watched one British show all together; one Australian; and the rest have been American.

30. Realized I'm probably a very bad person. I'm sad that my teenage son would rather talk at mealtimes than watch a show together.

No...Well, it's not that.

We still talked a lot back when we watched a TV show together.  And having a common show gave us an extra subject to discuss. I think it added to our conversations rather than detracted.

So, I'm not going to see myself as a bad parent for longing for our TV show days.

That being said, we're going to get a little TV-together time, because one of Jack's electives is film/television studies.  This weekend we watched two episodes of The Twilight Zone.

31. Remembered that McLeod's Daughters is not the only Aussie show we watched as a family.

We also watched Bindi, at one point. I can't remember if that was before our second Australia trip or after.

Or maybe it was before the first?

32. Went to the Triple J 2014 list.

Today I'm going to listen to the 52nd song, which is "Sunshine" by Flight Facilities; featuring Reggie Watts

Flight Facilities has another song higher on the list. I've listened to it. Do I remember what it's called?

Nope.  And I also don't remember if I liked it or not.

33. Found the song. It's "Two Bodies".  I don't think I liked it even though it features Emma Louise, who sang that song I like on Offspring.

34. Started to watch video to "Sunshine".

It's interesting, so far. There's a man talking in the beginning. Maybe that's Reggie Watts?

35. Realized the man talking has an American accent.

36. Consulted Lord Wiki. He says Reggie Watts is American.

37. Thought the "Sunshine" video was similar to another video I watched from Triple J.  That one was filmed in Venice Beach, California. This seems to be the case for this video as well.  Or at least somewhere in California. Maybe not Venice Beach.

38. Searched through my blog for "Venice", because I decided that would be easier than trying to remember the song by looking at the Triple J list.

It worked.

I found the song. It's "Maybe" by Carmada.

39. Felt jealousy towards Reggie Watts because in the video, someone is combing his hair.

I love having someone brush, comb, or monkey with my hair. You know, I'd much rather have that than a massage.

Why don't spas ever have that?  Or do they?

I guess they might have scalp massages, but I don't think that would be the same.

40. Realized you could probably just go to a beauty salon. But sometimes the pleasure is subtracted by having to hold your head straight, and all that.

And what if you don't want a haircut, perm, or color change?

41. Thought what might be nice is having someone braid my hair into those tiny little braids.

Maybe I'll do that when we go on the cruise.

I'm not sure I'd like the look of it, though.

42. Explored online.

I think the braiding is more for children.

It's not that I'm against celebrating my inner child. I'm just not sure braiding is how I want to do that.

43. Looked at the info on the "Sunshine" video. They have a thank you message to Venice Beach.   So, that answers that question.

44. Started to watch a Neighbours backstage video.

This is the one about the Erinsborough festival disaster. I was thinking of the trapped-in-the-well thing; but now I realize it's probably when Harold (Ian Smith) drove his car into the festivities.

45. Loved the cupcake display at the festival.

I wonder if they're edible.

And did anyone eat them?

I think pink frosting is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

46. Wished I could have a dream tonight that included someone playing with my hair while I stare at pink cupcakes.

It would be better than last night's dreams.

Well, the Andrew dream was fine. But the other dreams involved vomit—lots of vomit; a fight with my mom, strangers laughing and snickering at me; opting to be shrunk so I could fit into this slot; and finding Julian McMahon turned into a tiny rubber/plastic toy with a mustache.

Yeah. Pink cupcakes would be better.  



Read my novel: The Dead are Online