recollections

23 March 2006 Thursday

Sleep....... such a valuable commodity. To those of us who have suffered insomnia our entire lives its a rare thing that we long to enjoy.

I have some kind of virus - the latest one going round the office I guess. I have been dog tired since last weekend - barely capable of staying awake at work. I left early each day just so I could go home and rest on the sofa. On Wednesday I was home before 4pm and asleep until 7pm. Today I couldnt face the idea of trying to stay awake in the shower so I didnt go to work. Slept till 2pm - am still tired and feel like I could sleep for another entire day.

Sometime during all this sleep I was thinking about "Then and Now".

It occured to me that in the "olden days - pre puters" I joined fan clubs and waited with baited breath each month for a photocopied newsletter and new photos of my fave actor or singer. These days I look at their official websites or fansites.

Back then I would cover my walls with posters of hunks - now I create wallpapers and sceensavers for my computer.

Back then I kept scrapbooks, filled with photos and magazine articles on my fave hunks. Nowadays I just build a fansite for them !

Back then I would look for penpals with similar interests in Smash Hits magazine (and am still in touch with them all these years later), these days I join a forum or message board and meet dozens or even hundreds of people from all over the world with similar taste in music, actors, films etc.

Back then I would wait a week or more for magazines to release pictures from the red carpet at the Oscars. These days I search google just hours after the event and find all the pictures I need !

Ahhhh gotta love technology really.

Am pricing broadband. My bigpond dialup contract is up this month and I really need to get off my butt and change over.

Spent a packet on tickets to shows this month. Bought tiks to Split Enz (June), Dusty the Musical (June) and Let It Be (May). For a change these are all in Perth - no airfares !!!! Decided against seeing Hugh Jackman in Boy From Oz - mainly due to the price - $499 for the first 11 rows. And you know me - I never sit any further back than 5th row - cant see the point of even being there if I cant see the sweat on the eyelashes of the artist. So by the time I priced in the airfares and hotels - Hugh became way too expensive. Jeez - it use to be free to perve on him when he served us pasta at Valentino's !! The boy has come a long long way since those waitering days.

Am reading a delightful biography on Judi Dench at the moment.

If you like her - I recommend reading it. She really has led a full

life - and I am only up to 1984 !

Cyclone Larry slammed across Far North Queensland on Monday.

I have relatives and clients up there and hope that everyone is

safe. Half a billion dollars worth of damage to the banana, sugar

cane & avocado industrys - along with other tropical fruit farms

up there. Larry was a category 5 as he hit the coastal towns -

more savage than Hurricane Katrina who wiped out New Orleans

last year. Ancient rainforrests and the parts of the Great Barrier

Reef have been destroyed. Thousands of people will be

unemployed until the tropical fruit farms can be replanted etc.

More articles here.

11 March 2006 Saturday

"Wow..... Wow....... All right, so I'm not winning director. It's a

funny thing about winning an Academy Award, this will always be

sort of synonymous with your name from here on. Oscar-winner

George Clooney, sexiest man alive 1997, 'Batman,' died today in

a freak accident....Listen, I don't quite know how you compare art.

You look at these performances this year of these actors ... unless

we all did the same role - everyone put on batsuits, and we'll try

that - unless we all did the same role, I don't know how you

compare it. They are stellar performances and wonderful work and I am honored, truly honored to be up here. And finally, I would say that you know we are a little bit out of touch every now and then here in Hollywood - every once in a while - and I think that's probably a good thing. We're the ones to talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered. And we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. You know we bring up subjects. We're the ones, you know, this Academy gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community and proud to be 'out of touch' - and I thank you so much for this."

Congratulations to the Clooner - not just for winning the best supporting Actor Oscar, but for being the first to be nominated for acting and directing in two different films in the same year - not to mention a script writing nomination to boot. But thanks also for quite possibly the best ever Oscars acceptance speech in my lifetime. None of this thanking everyone from those who gave birth to those you pay 10% of your income to. George congratulates and praises the Academy he belongs to. Good on ya George. And thanks for looking so bloody great in a tux !!

A big week all round really. I love a big awards night so I wait for the Oscars all year. Lost was yet another amazing episode this week. The Amazing Race is back and has some interesting couples this year - I love the geek couple - so sweet.

Dana Reeve, wife of the late hero Chris Reeve, died this week from lung cancer. Only 44 and a non smoker. Their young teen son is now parentless. So very sad.

My team leader retired this week. She will be a big loss to the office. Its a place where so few managers have so little people skills. Her people skills and her genuine caring for her team made a big difference to so many of us.

I am getting the hang of the contact lens - only taking a "few" attempts to get it in in the mornings and just one or two attempts getting it out. To my shock tho - I was rubbing my tired eyes at work yesterday and the bloody thing actually fell out ! How can it fall out like that ? especially seeing as how it took me three weeks of practice to do it in the mirror ! To just pop out like that at work freaked me out - not to mention the poor person who was talking to me at the time !!!

We had such a vile heatwave the past 2 weeks. Days between 35 and 40. Last weekend was truly revolting. I didnt go outside except to buy the papers. Had the air con on 24/7 so I cant wait to see that power bill - NOT !!

Emails this week from friends holidaying in Vanuatu and New Zealand. I am jealous. I need a holiday but dont have the spare funds right now :( I need to make a decision about which broadband provider to sign up with. My dial up contract finishes this month so I need to make my mind up. So when I do - make sure you are all using the .id.au email addr and not the bigpond one.

25 March 2006 Saturday

Prix D'Amour is no more. YEAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY Farewell to the sheer and utter tack tack tack of the 80s. To really explain how tacky this place was - when Rose first put it up for sale a couple of years ago - Michael Jacksons brother Jermaine popped over to look into buying it. He turned it down saying it was too tacky. How tacky does something have to be to be too tacky for a Jackson ?? I think you will agree his words speak volumes !!

To those who dont know the story: once upon a time (in the 80s) there was a elderly weathly iron ore magnate named Lang. When Lang got too old to think with anything other than his remaining working appendage - he married his golddigging slag of a philipino mail order maid Rose.

Rose was of the belief that she was beautiful and talented - non of us were ever quite sure where her evidence came from.

Rose made Lang build her this monstrosity named Prix D'Amour and decorated it with larger than life sized portraits of herself (shudder).

Lang died - under reasonably suspicious circustances that led to dozens and dozens of courtcases (and dozens upon dozens of new courtroom outfits for Rose).

Rose then married a gay real estate agent who was unsuccessful in killing her when he "accidently" backed over her with his car. (Geez Willy!).

Rose threatened to leave Perth and lumber herself on the poor suckers in Melbourne, but alas it would appear she has yet to leave Perth.

Rose has an uncanny knack of developing amazing illness's - usually just in time for whatever court date is coming up. This week she was to attend for forging prescriptions but she developed a "brain stroke" - give me a break !

But for Perth folk one chapter of this stupid womans legacy is finally gone. This afternoon the wreckers pulled down the mansion no self respecting Jackson would buy !!

So I leave you with a pic of me posing outside Prix D'Amour - and yes - my pose is to represent the way Rose earned her living. Second pic is from todays paper showing the demolition in action.

1 April 2006 Saturday

Thanks to this weeks cyclone (Glenda) up north I am sitting here freezing !! I even have slippers on. Today was so lovely and cool and rainy and cloudy. A great sleeping in day - so I did !!

Yet another brilliant episode of Lost this week. I seriously think the second season is ever better than the first - and I thought the first was the best TV since Quantum Leap in the 80s ! Practically every episode this year has left me in tears. I knew this weeks would and I was prepared for it ! Finally Rose and Bernard found each other again. I love the way she has never doubted his being alive. She even pocketed a piece of chocolate for him in the ep when Hurley shared the hatch food around. She had absolute faith she would see him again. So beautiful. Even Michael seeing his sons dog again was a sweet scene. And Jin and Sun forgiving everything to kiss again. Sniff.

They are messing with our heads at work again - moving teams around, reshuffling staff etc. They just dont get it. People work better when there is stability and a knowledge of what the hell is going on each day. Stop changing the rules.

I bought a modem so I can move over to broadband - just need to sign up to someone now !!

I recorded the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. Gawd what an embarrassing debarcle ! It wont appear anywhere in history as the finale to end all finales - thats for sure. Friggen Ray Martin feeling the need to commentate throughout each and every song ARGHHHHHHH it would have been nice to actually hear them all sing. The one and only commercial break had to be during headline act John Farnham. Of course - too sensible to have put the commercials over the earlier bands that no one had heard of. Embarrassingly - John went on to forget the words to his ANTHEM - You're The Voice !! In all the times I have seen him perform live I have never heard him stuff that song, of all songs !! But yes - there he goes singing the first verse again instead of the chorus. I thought it was a new version - till I saw the look of panic in conductor Chong Lim's face and the puzzelled looks on the back up singers. Johns recovery wasnt seemless !! I am sure none of the 80,000 people in the crowd noticed tho !!!

Only time I have seen that before was when I went to Rod Stewart in the mid 80s and he sung the wrong opening lines to Do Ya Think I'm Sexy. He stopped after three lines and yelled "I sung the wrong fooken words to me most famous song !!!"

9 April 2006 Sunday

A fairly quiet week. Sitting here with the same office gastro bug that I had the other week - its making its way around the office for the second time in less than 14 days. Team leader has come to work every day with a foul cold so I am avoiding her as I dont feel like catching that as well.

Looking at this weeks tv guide and wondering why there is nothing but repeats on - then I realise - its easter next weekend. Apparently the entire country leaves home for two weeks - or so the tv prorammers would have us believe. These would be the same programmers who believe we all watch sport so they remove every show on stations that are not showing Commonwealth games or similar. Seriously folks - 95% of Australians have a video or dvd recorder of some description. If we were going to miss your show because we just couldnt tear ourselves away from the 50km walking race - we would simply tape your show. Why take your show off. Aside from that - what about the majority of us who want be watching the seriously unexciting walking race ? Dont you think we will be channel flicking in droves searching for something else to watch ?

Is it any wonder DVD boxed sets of TV series are selling out fast ? Why wait for the stations to play the series - and drag it out with repeats every second week or removing it for sports reasons - when you can order the boxed set and watch it at your leisure - 6 months before it gets shown in Aus ?

Good ep of Lost this week - not the best of the season but then it had a lost of good eps to live up to. As usual the last 5 minutes were the best ! Where the hell is Walt ??? And why is he always wet ? And never mind the build up to a kiss between boring Kate and Jack - give us Rose and Bernards love story PLEASE.

Still sussing out who to move to broadband with. God I hate decision making ! Have narowed it down to "probably" Westnet.

Yesterday I heard the radio announcer say the words "Well Burswood have finally worked out where they are putting the stage for Split Enz so 500 gold tickets in front of the stage go on sale Monday". Would that happen to be IN FRONT OF THE 2ND ROW TICKETS I ALREADY OWN ???????????? Cos seriously Burswood - you have done this before and its a method that really pisses me off. I know I went to a show where I had purchased Gold Front Row tickets - only to arrive on the night to be more than 20 rows from the action. When I asked the people in front of me they said they got their tickets that week when they heard an ad saying there were new seats for sale. Not only that - they paid $60 less per ticket than I did. Thats gotta be close to FRAUDULENT Burswood. If you are putting extra tickets on sale - they should be behind the ones already sold unless they are genuinely rwos that were not on sale originally. Its false advertising to just add a few extra rows of seats to a venue AFTER you have sold people tickets that claim to be front rows. NOT HAPPY JAN. I will be speaking to Fair Trading and the ACCC tomorrow.

23 April 2006. Sunday

I forgot to blog last weekend ! I spent much of the easter long weekend setting up my broadband account etc.

Mums partner spent easter thursday & friday in hospital with a friggen spider in his ear. ICK ! I am sure a broken limb or appendicitis attack would have been dealt with faster. 28 hours to get a spider out of someones ear is ridiculous. And more so in a week when the media was filled with articles about the massive payrise our state medical chief gave himself. His half million salary could have paid for more doctors to be on call over a long weekend. Worse still that the country hospital didnt have the facilities to remove the spider - necessitating a trip to the city - in peak holiday traffic.

This week is a week of anniversarys. None of them good. ANZAC day on Tuesday is commemorating our Gallipoli diggers and the sacrifices made in WW1. Its also 20 years since the Russian nuclear reactor debarcle in Chernobyl. The anniversary that upsets me the most this week is on the 28th when it is 10 years since Bryant opened fire in Tasmania's historical Port Arthur and killed 35 people. While people gather this week to remember their slain loved ones, Bryant sits around in jail with luxuries like TV and computer. They should have let him die from his self inflicted burns like the piece of scum that he is.

The Port Arthur massacre affected me a lot because for most of my life I had experienced nightmares about the place after visiting the location when I was 4. Days before the massacre the nightmares changed from watching convict cruelty, to being chased and hunted and the sound of gunfire. I havent had a dream about Port Arthur again since then. The thought of those dreams makes me nauseaus to type this.

My thoughts are with those that continue their grieving this week. We grieve with you. I share a poem I wrote the night of the massacre that has won several competitions since then.

6 May 2006, Saturday (well its 11.59 so its practically Sunday!)

Its been a quiet few weeks. Just plodding to work and plodding home again.

Big Brother is back - yeayyyyyyy. Love my reality TV. But there are no standout personalities in the house so far. For a change I am finding that I am not watching to see what the housemates do - in fact I am watching to see just how utterly nasty Mr BB can really be. Man has he taken a nasty pasty pill this year !! I love it.

Was also watching Dancing With The Stars. With the dvd recorder its so much faster to watch it when you fast forward thru everything Daryl Sommers does and just watch the actual dancing. But the big shock was this week when the favourite to win was knocked out in the semi final. Toby from Human Nature was a fab dancer and had an awesome chemistry with Bam Bam (Leanne who partnered Idols Dicko last year). Weren't all the teen HN fans voting propoerly or something ? how could they let their hunky lad get voted off !

Like many I have been following the daily (if not hourly) story of the two tasmanian guys trapped more than a kilometre underground in a collapsed mine. We were all astounded when, on day 5, the word came thru they were alive, especially after their co worker had already been found dead. But here we are at day 12 and the rescue team slowly drills metre by metre towards them - looking at getting them out tomorrow morning.

The miners should be greatful they havent had to listen to the crap that Today Tonight and ACA and their respective news stations have dished up to us this week. When they ran out of technical info about the huge drill being used - complete with fancy graphics to explain it fully to us - they were reduced to describing what food had been sent down to the miners - chicken soup and lemonade icey poles no less. Not to mention the story of the dog who misses his owner.

Sometimes news teams need to take a step back and understand the word "overkill".

Yes its a big story and yes we are all amazed they are still alive. But seriously - news flashes every hour on the hour all week to tell us that the drill got thru another 30cm of rock ????

Hmmmm what else is happening. Have started the proceedings to change my mortgage from the bloody awful citibank - to Members Equity. Citiwank gave me yet another reason to leave them this week when I discovered they have their call centres located in the Phillipines. If they cant be bothered employing Australians in Australia - then they dont get my money. I spent hours on the phone to them trying to get an explanation on a mystery credit to my visa. They were just not interested and couldnt understand the problem. never mind that it might well be someone elses money and that poor person is probably on another line complaining about a payment that has never appeared on their visa. But as if citiwank care. So I shall pour citiwank down the drain and move to ME and enjoy a fee free banking life with a bank that happily employs Aussies in Australia - and always will.

13 May 2006 Saturday

Well on Tuesday the tasmanian miners were finally rescued from their 15 days underground. I have to admire them - they were hell bent on walking out and thats exactly what they did (having had a shower in the staff quarters underground first !!!!), greeting their families with big hugs and kisses, before being driven off to hospital in ambulances. They stayed in hospital for an hour - amazed doctors agreed to release them - then they went to their friends funeral just a couple of hours later.

Well done to the huge efforts and bravery of the rescue teams and well done to to courage and extreme patience of Todd Russell and Brant Webb. I hope they strip the media of as much money as they can - they deserve it !

22 May 2006, Monday.

Mum came down to stay for the weekend. Last night we went to see LET IT BE - a musical tribute night to the songs of Lennon&McCartney starring John Waters, Rick Price, Christine Anu and Leo Sayer.

We had centre front row seats - good view of course !!

They performed as an ensemble for some songs then as duo's and solos for others. Each had picked the songs that suited their voice best and the arrangements were really nice.

John looked like the ultimate rocker - very lean in black jeans and a black sleeveless T.

Highlights were:

Christine singing Yesterday, Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby and I am sure I remember her doing Nowhere Man with John (I must try and get a setlist).

Rick sung a big rocking version of Back in the USSR and Revolution, before a haunting almost acoustic She's Leaving Home.

John's ballad was Butterfly - a song I dont know well but it was lovely. He rocked the whole set with huge angry versions of I Am The Walrus and Helter Skelter.

Leo - well while he was a lively entertainer and performed two nice ballads in Nothings Gonna Change My World and I Loved Them All, plus Girl - I couldnt believe he needed a lyric sheet for every song (someone told me later that he is known for that). I found it distracting that he spent so much time staring at the lyrics instead of the crowd.

The lot of them sung songs like Magical Mystery Tour, Lucy In The Sky, Let It Be, All You Need is Love and ending with all of us singing Hey Jude.

John then shushed the crowd and announced it was Leo's birthday, we all threw streamers and sung happy birthday and gazed in amazement at the cake that was brought out !!.

It was a good night. A very different kind of concert. Great to go to one where you already know all the words !!!!!

29 May 2006, Monday.

Mum came down for the weekend again. We went to see Menopause the Musical. What an absolute laugh fest !! From the opening number to the closing singalong. We literally laughed till our sides ached. If you are a woman over 35 and this show comes anywhere near your town - definately go and see it.

We dined on Italian in Northbridge before coming home to see who got evicted on Big Brother. Thank goodness it was the pathetic hypocritical lying condescending Mikey. I know I wasnt the only one voting to get rid of him !!

What else is happening. Still in the midst of changing my mortgage to Members Equity. Hopefully that will all be finalised this week.

Still addicted to Lost. Each ep sucks me in even more ! Also loving Desperate Housewives and Survivor (even tho there is no particular contestant that I like this year). Amazing Race featured Perth in its last two episodes - hilariously highlighting our daily shortage of taxis !!!

This morning I bought tickets to the Countdown Spectacular concert - due in Perth in September. All my fave 70s and 80s singers and bands in a 3 hour gig. We scored front row seats !!