Thinking

In 2000 Edward De Bono advised a U.K Foreign Office committee that the Arab-Israeli conflict might be due, in part, to low levels of zinc found in people who eat unleavened bread, a known side-effect of which is aggression. He suggested shipping out jars of Marmite to compensate.

Hmm.

We're being audited so I'm looking for anything to distract me from the hellish task of preparing self-review notes. Had a chai latte at Piccolo and now reading up on De Bono.

Guilty

Lucky Me

I was born, lucky me
In a land that I love
Though I am poor, I am free
When I grow I shall fight
For this land I shall die
Let her sun never set
Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria
Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria

Thanks, The Kinks...

The Royal Treatment

Three day weekend means terrible Mondayitis on Tuesday. Hmm.
Picked up Ma on Saturday morning from that hospital. Very miserable place and Ma was busting to get out. She's doing ok now I think...
Finally saw 300 and nearly fell asleep. What a boring movie! Was very underwhelmed.
Been reading recipes lately and going on chilly walks. Found 5 buttons since Saturday.

Tinker Tailor

Sometimes I'm just tinkering. And I think we all are.

Clothes swap party last night then visited my lil Ma in hospital.

What I Saw in the Country

Bumper Crop

It was a week ago that I'd found my last button - outside the Night Cat - that great big stripey one. So I was wondering when the next was coming. On my way home I found a big scratched thing on the edge of a building site in Izett Street. Was it technically a button, I wondered...
Then I found a business shirt button, and a big black coat button, and another shirt button.
It was a bumper crop! Four buttons in one day!

Sweet Anticipation

Such a sweet weekend planned.
Friday: drinks; then Korean barbecue dinner with dear friends
Saturday: be quiet cos Charlie is studying; then market for ingredients; then drive to Castlemaine!
Eat drink cook be merry take photos general goodness at this place and surrounds.
Sunday: more of the same plus going to Daylesford Foto Biennale and Artist Market.
Monday: more of the same plus seeing Romulus, My Father at Theatre Royal in Castlemaine.

Buttons Make Me Happy

Finding a button makes me instantly delighted.
Seeing Charlie makes me so happy.
Getting photos back makes me so happy.
Holding a baby fills me with delight.

Our Lady of the Flowers

But now I am afraid. The signs pursue me and I pursue them patiently. They are bent on destroying me. Didn't I see, on my way to court, seven sailors on the terrace of a cafe, questioning the stars through seven mugs of light beer as they sat around a table that perhaps turned; then, a messenger boy on a bicycle who was carrying a message from god to god, holding between his teeth, by the metal handle, a round, lighted lantern, the flame of which, as it reddened his face, also heated it? So pure a marvel that he was unaware of being a marvel. Circles and globes haunt me: oranges, Japanese billiard balls, Venetian lanterns, jugglers' hoops, the round ball of the goalkeeper who wears a jersey. I shall have to establish, to regulate, a whole internal astronomy.

With thanks to Jean Genet.

New Pictures

Lithuanian Hospitality

Something of a cultural weekend. Windy and warm in Melbourne. I watched the first 3 installments of Die Hard, which I'd never seen. Loved them. All ready for number 4 now. Went to St Andrews' Market, bought food, flowers and a 3 dollar red t-shirt. Sunday walked to Camberwell market and scored a waistcoat for a buck. Walked home and felt a bit over it. After some fashion crises Charlie and I got it together to walk to North Melbourne to the Lithuanian Club where we planned to meet my exchange mate and experience some 'culture' in the form of an 'ethnic' celebration.
Unfortunately the dragon ladies at the door shooed us away as we were running late. So we missed our on hearing the 'comb' composition and queuing for pancakes. Instead we sat around the corner and drank and ate... Then headed to a Korean restaurant and ate and drank. K-beer, K-pancakes, K-style seating, K-TV. It was a cultural experience. Bought dessert from the K-konvenience store and walked home.

Would you sell your home to us?

A strange thing came through the letterbox yesterday...

Hillsong

Tumbi Umbi. Tuggerah. Wyong.
These are the places I'm familiar with, having just visited rellies on the NSW central coast.
Things are different there. It's not just like the difference between Prahran and Hawthorn; or Sydney and Melbourne. It's different.
Firstly, yeah the weather is good. But more importantly, everyone is white. Church is big. And weirdly, there are lots of mums much younger than me, pushing strollers around the shopping centres. Public transport? Forget it, take your big-arse 4-wheel drive to the nearest shopping centre. Shopping centres? Everywhere. No old-fashioned strips there - everything is mega.
Lots of golf clubs for the retirees; lots of surfers. We ate our first breakfast at Bay Beach, on the foreshore, off polystyrene. POLYSTYRENE?!

But the big thing, the big weird uncomfortable thing, was that my family up there are religos. They are members of one of those evangelical new-skool churches. Like Hillsong. Maybe it IS Hillsong. My cousins 21st on Saturday was a sit-down dinner for 100. On the stage in the hall, grace was said into the karaoke microphone.

I am not so pure

Back in the nineties I went to a second-rate Big Day Out style concert called 'Alternative Nation'. Lou Reed played and had bottles thrown at him. Ice T and Bodycount played and rocked the bogans. I think I had a dance to Skunkhour. Late in the evening Nine Inch Nails hit the stage and I was so upset. Dad had set a pick-up time for me and my best friend Kelly and it was nearing... We had to leave whilst Trent was still rocking out. Very disappointing.

My friends know I have pretty average taste in music. My CD collection is pretty dismal, with a few points of consistency and a strong soundtracks section, but lots of fairly embarrassing bits, like seven Greenday CDs. So last night I headed to the Metro and saw Nine Inch Nails' final Australian concert of the current tour. I haven't got the new album so I wanted to hear some familiar tunes from With Teeth and the albums I've got. I was satisfied.

Trent looks different to the mid-nineties posters: stocky, older, but full of passion and energy. They played Head Like a Hole - damn, that song is nearly 20 years old! And March of the Pigs, plus my new favourites like You Know What You Are?; The Hand That Feeds; The Line Begins to Blur. No encore. Thrown tambourine. Trent very sweaty.

Blogger Is Wak Today

Rarely discover new blogs these days.
Walked on a beautiful mild night to the cinema last night. It's not a cinema I go too often. The crowd is definitely a 'type': wealthy, middle-aged women. Chardonnays in hand.
Movie was another to add to the East file - after Goodbye Lenin, now The Lives of Others. Charlie was introduced to Brecht via this quote::

Long Year

Well we joined the library and borrowed lots of Tintin. I read them slow and Charlie reads them fast. I'm going in order, too. The Blue Lotus is my favourite so far. Of course, I read them all, once. Borrowed from the library in Eltham in the years before it was demolished cos of the asbestos.

Took my first sickie of my new job yesterday. Been sick for a week or so and Charlie more than me. Yesterday was the only day I didn't have a presentation on. We had such a great sickie, too. Though at about 6pm, we walked to work so I could do a few things, but even that was nice. Charlie came with me and sat at the desk next to me and I worked for a while at my computer.

This Friday my Mum launches her latest book. It's a reference book called 'Eat Your Words'. It's been years in the making and is the result, in part, of her pedantry with spelling and grammar on menus and blackboards at all the eateries and cafes that she haunts. She hopes that it will make her rich. Heh heh.

Flying Green

Booked a domestic flight and after it was all done I saw a little thing saying 'offset your carbon emissions'. $5 on my credit card and I received this::

Confirmation
Thank you for joining with us at Virgin Blue, and with many other concerned people around the world, to help make a positive difference to the level of greenhouse gas emissions on our planet.
By taking the time to offset the emissions relating to your flight, your investment is helping to ensure we all have a future.
Your tax invoice will be emailed to the nominated email address. You can download your tax invoice clicking here.
Sincerely, The Teams at Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue.

What happens with my $5? Does it really make a difference? How big is my footprint?

Sometimes I get Scared

Watched a truly great movie last night. I can't remember the last time I was so gripped by a film. Afterwards I was a bit achy from sitting so rigid in my seat for that 100 minutes.
See Sunshine if you can - intense, well-acted, good music, crazy intense plot, challenging ideas about the world, human nature and ethics....

We walked there after recycling old tabbouleh into napolitano pasta sauce - yum! We got booth photos which were silly and cute. Today, I'm off to an 'Effective Teams' workshop that lasts EIGHT hours............ Ugh.

I Get Impatient

I went on camp and was sick. So now I'm home. Camp was ok, the bush is pretty, it was nice having kangaroos visit and splashing my (snotty) face with stream water. But there were noisy bogans all around, and we were sick.
Melbourne is quiet and sunny and beautiful. I'm visiting Jack at his house - walked from ours to here and it was peaceful and nice. Finished my Tintin and am thinking of joining the library so I can borrow them all out like I used to when I was a kid. At the old library, the one full of asbestos.