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[Jul. 25th, 2008|11:19 pm] |
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Bloody hell I want a wine and Molly still hasn't rang yet to pick her up. |
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| Africa |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|10:02 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Magnolia Electric Co. | ] |
So this week I'm mostly reading The State of Africa by Martin Meredith. It's a really interesting book, especially if, like me, you're not that knowledgable on the history of the continent and want a good overview. I don't know enough to pinpoint his bias, but it *seems* reasonably even-handed....
It's also readable enough for tired-benbrains to cope... |
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| style |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|09:30 pm] |
a friend on an online forum recently posted a quiz about style - what style you have, how you developed it etc. i didn't do the quiz because i didn't know how to answer!!!
but recently i have had a plethora (yes, my big word for the day lol) of compliments on my style! i really enjoy it, especially as these days i don't have a lot of $$$ to spend on clothes. ( i wish i could say i'm making them but no, not yet). i remember in university an older friend commenting that i had a wonderful sense of style and always looked like i was wearing an outfit rather than clothes IYKWIM.
i have to admit that even for a day cleaning at home i can't wear clothes that dont' fit or don't match. i need to be colour coordinated and feel decent.
as for my style, i'm not really sure. i'm not sure that i have a definable style, it's probably quite conservative if anything, always colour matched (of course lol) and generally quite simple and uncluttered. i guess it's a lot like my scrapbooking when i look at it that way!!
  
so what's your style? |
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| Pack my bags and move to vermont |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|06:41 pm] |
So a few local dignitries have assembled a fund to help Mr Paul Haines in his ongoing battle with bowel cancer.
You can give money here.
I doubt there are too many people out there who haven't been backhanded by cancer to some degree or another, close at hand or at one or two removes. Not many who don't know the dread and anger it inspires. Those of us who are lucky get to experience it from some distance. Those who are less lucky get to dance face to face. It's an unloved, unwelcome surprise, the antithesis of all the good surprises that any decent childhood teaches us to expect.
What the fuck would I know? Not much, except that it's sad and unfair.
Cancer doesn't discriminate. But life does. If there's anything that pisses me off more than the unfairness of disease, of random illness, it's the thought of preventable disease, of treatable illness going untreated because of economics. The notion that our health should not only be at the mercy of an uncaring happenstance is one thing, but the notion that the chances that we do have of fighting it might be at the mercy of human-created circumstances, of the grotesque inequalities we allow ourselves to perpetuate while miming civility, the idea that the stupid meaningless money-making-and-losing games that idiot human beings play to entertain themselves, these arbitrary, idiotic, self-parodic socio-economic differences should be allowed, like out-of-control ventriloquist dummies, to dictate whether we are able to fight, to treat, to survive the fucked upness of cancer, is something more than random unfairness.
It's obscenity.
So help a decent guy out, and say "fuck you" not just to cancer, but to an economic system that allows our health to hang on financial pegs. |
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| The Internet and people |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|08:13 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | The Church - Block | ] |
I was thinking today about the internet as a tool for interaction and I think this:
The internet can be a tool for bringing people together, a tool we use to promote greater understanding and community.
Or
The internet can be a tool for segregation; for judging other people, for ganging up on people, for alienating and ostracising.
It's worth noting I think; because the way we act now helps to create what it will be for future generations. I know which I want it to be, and I know there are times when I need to work harder to make it that way. |
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| Bugger |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|08:10 pm] |
I'm not normally a spoiler nazi, but reading over various dr horrible arguments I stumbled over a *major* firefly spoiler...
grumble grumble!!!
I know it's been a couple of years since the show aired but still! Grumble...
To make matters worse most of the arguments I read just annoyed me...
Sigh. |
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| Sponsor |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|03:27 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | MC Que - More Front than Myers | ] |
So I decided to bite the bullet and sponsor a child...
I've always been a bit uncertain about child-sponsorship, for various reasons... but the organisation I decided on countered a lot of my arguments and seems very switched on - non-religious, focused on gender and human rights, money goes to infrastructure and community projects rather than to the child themself... so that's kinda cool...
and I figure when it's old enough it can move into my garage and be our slave...
(just kidding, really!) |
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| Still ill |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|01:31 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Eddi Reader - Please Don't Ask Me to Dance | ] |
I'm sick of being sick!
When you're well and you think of sick days, they seem like some glorious paradise of relaxation and decadence, lounging around, reading, watching dvds, generally living it up.
Unfortunately the reality is that your brain is too addled to achieve anything much and you spend the day vaguely staring into space, bumping into furniture, choking on soup and then you blink and it's done and you've done less than you would have on a work day.
J'accuse, illness! J'accuse!!!
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| hmmm |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|07:44 am] |
i'ma little sore this morning!
last night i went and did my first aquacise class at king's. as i was doing it i was thinking to myself that it was a bit too easy (compared to the pump aquatic classes i do on wednesdays) but as i walked out i realised i was already feeling it in my muscles. now i really know!!
really enjoyed it though! |
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| Dr Horrible |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|10:54 pm] |
Also, for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angriest, I would like to make today blog-your-thoughts-on-dr-horrible-day!
What? |
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| Burnout |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|10:52 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Some old AM radio crap my gf likes :-D | ] |
I dunno about you non-Australian folks, but a major tendency in small press in this country seems to be burnout; editors, publishers, etc. You're lucky if you get ten good years out of them.
What's the answer? Is there an answer? Is it just a natural cycle and it's a good thing that we old fuckers get off the treadmill and let the young radicals take the reigns? |
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| Dreaming Again |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|10:33 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Knievel - Catch My Drift | ] |
So I recently finished reading Jack Dann's follow up to his award winning Dreaming Down Under, entitled Dreaming Again.
I wasn't quite the fan of the first collection that a lot of people were, although it's a long time since I read it, so I wasn't sure what to expect with the new collection.
My first impression, on scanning the contents, was that, as a snapshot of the local writing scene, it didn't seem particularly representative of the writers who dominate the scene. There are a lot of novelists here contributing short stuff, and as a profile of some of our more successful authors the contents list is quite accurate. But a lot of the big names among the recent short-story scene are absent; Deb Biancotti, Ben Peek, Anna Tambour, Cat Sparks, Paul Haines, Brendan Duffy, Steph Campisi, Tansy Rayner Roberts. As a result, the snapshot has a bit of a dated feel to me, only partly compensated by the inclusion of some new authors, skewed quite dramatically toward those who attended Dann's year at Clarion South. There are a couple of exceptions; it was good to see Trent Jamieson in there. But a quick glance over the contents page had me thinking it would be hard to find a *less* representative snapshot of the local scene at short story level.
So much for preconceptions. But none of that matters, really. When it comes to the crunch, the anthology will earn its strips not by how representative a snapshot it is, but by the quality of the work contained within.
So how did it stand up?
Well, I dug it. Let's get one thing straight; this is a list of (mostly) professional authors and all of them are capable of turning out some fine prose, and of coming up with good ideas. All of them are capable of strong world-building and believable characterisation. The anthology stands up very well in terms of overall consistency.
In terms of highlights, well, it's difficult to decide on a yardstick. There are thirty-five stories here. What's a good percentage of standouts? I listed seven stories over at lastshortstory, which yeah is only one in five, but by the same token, that's well above your average anthology. And it's well worth the thirty buck price of entry for those seven stories alone. I'm sure less jaded readers will find many more favourites :-)
The standouts for me (with links to my reviews at LSS):
Empire... Simon Brown
Neverland Blues... Adam Browne
Heere Be Monsters... John Birmingham
The Constant Past... Sean McMullen
Twilight in Caeli-Amur... Rjurik Davidson
The New Deal... Trent Jamieson
The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga... Peter M. Ball
As you can see, the stories that worked for me were generally from the newer writers rather than the novelists dipping into shorts, and for that reason I wonder if the collection would have been stronger with inclusions from Biancotti, Peek, Haines, Campisi etc. But that's speculation.
As it is, it's well worth your money. It may not be a snapshot of the scene, but it's nevertheless a professional and at times inspirational collection of tales. |
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| Reading fatigue |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|09:14 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | ooh some old nineties song | ] |
Some days I wonder if reading too much is turning me into a monster where I am able to enjoy less and less, and where I'll reach the point where one day I'll never be able to enjoy anything ever again...
And while it's a nice backdrop to writing to have read so much, some days all the voices threaten to choke out any spark of an idea I may have....
Who am I kidding? I don't have *ideas*!
Hopefully a little space will remedy these things... |
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| Who's that voice? |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|08:26 pm] |
I was thinking but finding it difficult to put into words... there's something oddly similar about the kind of central character voice that *doesn't* grab me; whether it's a new writer or someone in the pros. And the closest thing I can describe it as is this:
There are a lot of stories where the central character seems not to exist as a real person, but where they exist instead as a vehicle, a hazy kind of gesture toward the characters in other stories, most often hard-boiled detective novels or nostalgic science fiction from decades gone past. Where the character seems to do anything *but* live and breathe, where there is an agreed nod between author and reader, as if to say, "We know this guy, right? I don't gotta say any more?"
And the writer can then get on with their clever idea or their science or their plot twists.
Which is all very nice for other people, but for me... I don't want to read about that guy....
I dunno... this is very vague... maybe one day I'll be able to elucidate just who this guy is more clearly... |
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| Interesting... |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|01:37 pm] |
"In memory tests, people confidently 'recognise' sentences they never saw if they are paraphrases of sentences they did see"
Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works |
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[Jul. 22nd, 2008|08:09 am] |
i keep thinking that i really should update, i should even set myself a challenge to update daily for a month!
then i wonder what i have to write about. should i write about everyday life which is pretty boring (though i know even in 12 months time it will be fascinating to look back on) or just wait for the big stuff and write about that? problem is then that the big stuff tends to overwhelm me and it's all too much to put down!
aagh.
so how about for now i do one sentence on each thing / person...
work is going ok atm, i'm still doing the boring C&P but i have had enough interesting stuff interspersed with it to stop me going insane lol yesterday i was asked to write a new policy - on a process which it seems no one actually wants to define even though everyone is using it *rolls eyes* and i nearly got stage fright and gave up lol. did it in the end though i know it will need changes (oh and not all the P&P i write will only take an hour ;))
hmmmm that was more than one sentence, oops!
emelia is going through a drawing phase and blowing me away with all the details she includes - such as the noses (for a 3yo!!) and the (LOL) vaginas http://www.flickr.com/photos/brazen20au/2688952466/
ryan is desperately waiting for preschool to start again this week
had to race off then and clean up the mess rory made trying to pour her own milk onto her cereal (all bran, crazy kids lol) aaaaagh
rory is so determined to be 3 years old too! she is a real handful!
we are off to try dancing lessons this mroning - we're giving the swimming away for a term to see if it helps with the constant illnesses (mind you i have a frog in my throat and a funny voice this week lol)
we just had school holidays for 2 weeks and we did nothing - i loved it lol i have been quite antisocial latley and not wanting to socialise except in small intimate groups or one on one. the usual get to gether of mums and kids fills me with dread...
and i'd better go shower! |
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| Sick |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|08:15 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Pink Floyd - One of These Days | ] |
Dunno about you other states but there's a cold that's doing the rounds up here in the so-called "sunshine state" that seems to hang around for weeks on end... I'm well tired of being sick I tells ya!
Brain is like mush and every time I stand up I need a sit down.
Bad for productivity... I'm used to polite colds that go away after a day or two...
I also lost my voice... those of you who have heard me sing will know what a loss this is to the world! I am the sort of person that sings a lot in day-to-day life, so I have been constantly starting to sing, only to be greeted by the sound of a goat dancing on a cheese grater...
Anyway, I am behind with everything, but perhaps less so than last week, so that's something...
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| Dog versus Calories |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|06:28 pm] |
This week the spread on our Doglike sandwich is Lisa A. Koosis's delightful tale; The Pastapocalypse!
Get it down yer gullet! |
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| Lazy? Or the way of the future? |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|07:39 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Honey - Lovers Electric | ] |
So is it wrong if I feel like listening to a CD in the other room with the CD player, and I think to myself "Well, I could go dig it out of the box, OR I have the album on my computer and a bundle of blank cds sitting beside me..."
Just sayin'... |
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| teenagersintokyo |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|07:34 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | teenagersintokyo | ] |
I really like the clip for teenagersintokyo's new song Very Vampyr. You can find it on youtube.
I'm not sure why exactly; all it is is just the band playing, but for some reason it really captures for me the excitement and energy of a new band. It reminds me of the early clips of New Order... again, largely just the band playing their instruments, yet somehow, because of that, full of potential and vibrancy.
It's a good clip... |
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