sorry

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who cried like a freakin’ baby watching the ABC this morning. I cried and cried. It was just nice to see such a mark of respect. I kept thinking ‘those aboriginal doods are the first aboriginal people – the first indigenous Australians to be given such formal respect, EVER!’ It was just so exciting and wonderful. Sure, there were some problems with that second speech there, but still – it was like, all of a sudden, Australia had suddenly realised that there were people who’d been here before the skips rocked into town. Like they went, “Holy shit! We’ve had our heads up our bums for 200 years! Let’s get on it, STAT!”
I know it’s only a symbol, but holy moly, if that doesn’t give good evidence to the power of symbols, I don’t know what would. That was some seriously hot shit. Now I have an idea how people feel when they go to the dawn service for Diggers or put up flags in their front yard. It was like, all of a sudden, I had a reason to be really proud of being Australian. It was like, amazingly, even though people had been doing fuckful things for 200 years, and then refusing to admit they’d been fuckful, they suddenly, really, did think “Oh, man. That was some bad shit. We have to apologise.” And then they did! I was just proud. It was like a couple of kids had suddenly realised they were being mean to another little kid and apologised to him all on their own. Now I’m hoping they’ll be taking that kid home for detty-and-a-bandy before out to the back yard for a rousing game of tiggy.
And I was also really struck by the power of turning your back on someone. No fisticuffs, no nasty retorts. Just turning away. I think that’s a nice alternative to bombing the shit out of people. I know it’s the solution I’ve used on discussion boards when I’ve had a gutful of sexist dickheads, or I’m dealing with trolls, but who’d have thought it would be so useful when dealing with the Liberal party? And that it just keeps getting more effective?
For those who are about to reconcile, we salute you.
edit: and I’m just thinking: it’s the overwhelming symbolism of having those elders in parliament while they were speaking. I just kept thinking, ‘it’s like they didn’t exist before. And now, all of a sudden, parliament has discovered they exist. They’re recognising them, and they’re honouring them’. I know that’s problematic in itself, but goddamn, I just can’t get over it.

oh man

I am trying to watch So You Think You Can Dance, and it’s really hard. It’s really crap.
But there are fleeting glimpses of dancers I know (Trev! Trev! Trev!), and I’m half thinking of writing a paper on it. Maybe doing some interviews with dancers. Maybe something about the way ethnicity and dance and bodily aesthetics are represented in SYTYCD.
But it’s really freaking painful. The worst bit is the way the judges have a small group step forward to be humiliated. It’s all a bit lame. I know it’s all orchestrated for a specific reality TV formula, but it feels far more forced than the American versions. So I’m really not sure I can manage much more of this.
But there are a few lindy hoppers who made it through to the final 100. But man, I’ve been watching for almost an hour and a half. And it’s horrible.
The other really annoying part is the way it’s cut up and stuck back together – lots of short, snappy bits. No where near enough long, long sequences where we just watch the dancers and assess their abilities. Which of course suggests (like we really need it suggested) that the dancing is really only important for brief moments of spectacle and that the real drama is in the judging and backstage stuff.
It’s all a bit painful. I’m also a bit sceptical of comments about including the young aboriginal bloke because he brings ‘diversity’ to the program. Hm. And the woman from El Salvadore telling her (quite terrible) story to a pretty wet soundtrack…. kind of clumsy and chunky and nasty.
[good news: there’s a new series of Good News Week coming. Bad news: it’s on channel 10]
Ok, it’s supposed to be over now, and we’re supposed to be watching Billy Holiday. But it’s not. Oh man.

intertube moofies

Because we are queen of media, and because our local video shop sucks arse, I am considering an online DVD ordering arrangement. It’s terribly old school – DVDs coming in the mail. Just like ordering seeds from a catalogue (my favourite thing ever), and I guess as soon as the internet becomes a superhighway rather than a single lane (covered) central Queensland highway it’ll be superseded by downloads. But for now, it’s about the most exciting thing I can imagine.
So does anyone use any of these things? We’ve looked atquicklix and bigpond, but quickflix is winning at the moment. Once you get to the $36 per month plan, you get unlimited DVDs per month, 3, 4 or 5 at a time. It’s a bit cheaper on Bigpond (especially as we have a Telstra phone account for our internet), but Bigpond don’t do the unlimited DVDs and they have some slightly dodgy small print. Both offer free trials.
I’m not sure which account we should get. I’m a massive DVD renter, so I think there’s definitely the potential for unlimited DVDs. When we had a halfway decent DVD shop, I’d get DVDs out every other day – 2 and 3 at a time. So we’re looking at a family who’d hire about 10 DVDs a week, possibly 5, and that’s about 20 a month. That’s $46 on Bigpond or $36 on quickflix. The issue would be how many you can have at a time – only 3? Would 4 be better? It’d depend on your turn around time and how good you were at putting them in the mail. We’re weak on returning DVDs round here.
And you have to keep 20 DVDs in your list to be hired on quickflix. There are no overdue fees, but you are paying for the service, monthly, so you’re losing money if you don’t return DVDs.
… I guess we’d take advantage of the films (especially the older, harder to get arty ones and others that I think of as ‘weeklies’ – musicals, classics, foreign, etc), and would really benefit from the telly. It’s easier to get through multiple discs of a telly show than multiple movies, because you watch them in 30 minute, 45 minute and 1 hour blocks, rather than committing to one and a half hours at a time. That’s good for me because I like to watch an episode of something over lunch, to take a break from work.
So, does anyone use any of these services? Which? What’s good about them?

let’s say no to perforations

Three interstate trips in one month. No more, thanks. Conference, christmas and a funeral. Brisvegas was interesting and I quite liked seeing it – it’s changed, I’ve changed, so it’s kind of nice that we could get together again after seven years and find that we had lots to talk about and quite liked each other.
Acclimating to mega-humidity? Tick.
Family visited, without incident? Tick.
Old mates visited. Tick.*
It is hot today, and I have cleverly booked in an appointment with the doctor for another ear inspection. It’s becoming an annual thing. Well, something I do a few times a year, actually. I have had enough of not being able to hear properly – it makes me irrationally furious, inciting Shouting, Stamping and Offensive Language. So I will have them irrigated today at 3. When the ambient temperature is about 40 degrees C. I’m hoping it will soften the wax and aid its removal.
I have plans for films to see, and I have started thinking about redoing the thesis. I have decided that it will now be known as The Book rather than The Thesis. I will start thinking about fonts immediately, as that is obviously the most important part of the process. Pav articulates my current feelings about the project quite nicely. As an ob-con type person, proof reading and editing is really the best place to site my natural abilities and interests. Serious Tidying will commence in a few hours, once this post is written, a cup of tea made, and a little clothes mending completed.
What fillums have I seen lately? Well, one of the most pleasing was Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. I hated this when it came out, but now, after a few years of Howard government, it makes a lot more sense. It’s also part of a recent spate of early 90s sci-fi fillum delightfulness, after we watched Total Recall the other night. In discussion with a fellow nerd yesterday afternoon, I realised that they’re both actually Verhoeven fillums, and that’s probably why they’re both so wonderfully specrappular. Having read this type of SF as a Young Person, first discovering the Adult part of the family bookshelves (at about the age of 11, when carefully scanning the Adult stuff for the least hint of sauciness), these two fillums really capture the mood of terrible authors like Peirs Anthony. It’s lovely, teenage stuff, and absolutely low-brain. So that’s a tick tick and a V.G. from us.
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Last night on SBS I also stumbled over In the Mood for Love, a Kar Wai Wong film that I absolutely love. I keep hoping their relationship will end well, but it never does, no matter how many times I watch the film. I love the obvious stuff – the colours, the framing of shots, the slo-mo, the soundtrack, the almost-love-affair ness of it.
Let’s have a look at a couple of PR shots:
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And just in case that’s not enough, here’s the trailer:

I think I might have a Thing for Tony Leung. My Thing for Maggie Cheung continues.
This new Thing is only fuelled by the immanent arrival of Ang Lee’s latest film, Lust, Caution, which I’ve heard has heaps of hot sex, which I know will be an absolute visual feast, and which I’m terribly excited about. I’m thinking about special preview sessions on Friday day. It also stars Leung, which is very nice, and Joan Chen, who I also love (you might remember me crapping on about this stuff a little while ago in this post). I have rewatched Lee’s Sense and Sensibility in preparation. Because no one does suppressed lust and caution like Austen.
The nicest part about catching this film last night was discovering it’s part of an SBS series screenings of films by the cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The worst part was realising I’d missed Hero. Dumplings is on Wednesday 23rd January. I’m not sure if the others have already been on or not, but the SBS search function on their site sucks a bit, and I can’t be bothered figuring it out. Guess I’ll have to go to the video shop. Oh wait, our video shop SUCKS, so that won’t work. Guess I’ll be the last kid on the block to get into it, and use Netflix/Quickflicks.
Additionally, I also missed the first episode of Skins, a new series by the doods who made Shameless. And that’s a big poo.
Well, think of me as I make it by PT (it’s probably too hot to ride) to the doctor this afternoon, and pray for my ear drum. Let’s say no to perforations.
*twice in a year! Dang, we’ll have nothing left to talk about next time!

john from cincinnati

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This show is blowing my brain.
Surf noir.
Deadwood on a beach.
Clever dialogue, lovely cinematography, Luke Perry, mysteriousness, freakin’ A1 soundtrack, surf-scenes that make me want to get wet*.
Once again, another HBO program that doesn’t seem to understand that women are, like, you know – more than for shagging – but that seems par for the course with them…
John From Cincinnati is for you if you like Deadwood. It will make you want to go surfing.
PS I am still crazy for Big Love.
*that’s surf talk, you hooplehead.

eurovision 2007 finals: romania

Romania.
The Squeeze has decided he’s sticking with eurovision. I want West Wing. He feels he’s made a commitment.
Romania sucks.
I suspect that all of the remaining entries will make me angry.
The Squeeze will now review the remaining eurovision acts.
Final verdict for Romania?
TS: dull.

eurovision 2007 finals: serbia and ukraine and united kingdom

I can’t take any more.
Terry Wogan is ruining it for me. The doods last night at least sounded like they really liked the whole eurovision thing. But Wogan seems to despise and spends far too much time being derogatory.
And Serbia wins, so there’s no point watching past here. Even though there are seven to go…. though there are 2 hours left.
Shut. Up. Wogan. You suck!
… no, wait. Ukraine has captured my attention.
Glitter? Check.
Synchronised choreography? Check.
Not a band act? Check.
Piano accordian/baziki/other novelty instrument that isn’t a bhodran? Check.
United Kingdom. No freakin’ Bucks Fizz, that’s for sure.