Today a woman left a message that her internet connection wasn’t working, “the wheel keeps going around but nothing happens”.
Eventually I discovered she was referring to an animated graphic in her Safari web browser program that ‘spins’ when downloading data from the net.
My first thought had been that maybe hamster-generated power is not all it’s cracked up to be.
This year was an early lunch over at my parents, with my sister, grandmother, brother, his wife and family (five kids, another on the way).
Here is what Santa brought me this year:
DH: the complete second series Doctor Who (David Tennant) on DVD.
Parents: a gift voucher for a local restaurant
Sister: tea towels, a couple of C S Forester books (Hornblower series)
Brother: an Expresso coffee pack
Nan: chocolates
Boss: chocolates & wine
Secret Santa: native bird portrait by Dee
Today Jo and I were set to watch a couple of anime movies, since she is studying manga art. I picked up a couple of DVDs from the local hire place – Iria: Zeiram the Animation and Voices of a Distant Star.
Iria was split into three episodes (I’ve learned there are another three out there somewhere) and was reminiscent of anime series like Yugioh, DragonBallZ – full of action, fighting and strange looking alien creatures. The story revolves around Iria, a young female bounty hunter seeking revenge for her brothers death at the hands of a ruthless corporation and the evil alien creature which escaped their control. Entertaining.
Voices was a very arty anime. Beautiful graphics and a poetic quality, it tells the story of a teenage couple who become separated by time and space when the girl, Mikomo is drafted into the war against an alien enemy, and their only form of communication is by text messages via mobile phone. As she advances further out into space the time lapse between their communications increase – the 15 year old Mikomo sends Noboro a birthday greeting for his 24th birthday because she knows it will take more than 8 years for the message to reach him. We don’t find out if Mikomo is ever reunited with Noboro, although their thoughts unite in the final part of the story. Arty and beautiful, it reminded us of the movie we saw recently The Lake House.
Jo commented that there are many anime stories that cast a female as the action hero; these two were no exception.
While at the DVD place I also picked up a movie copy of Beyond the Sea – Kevin Spacey’s tribute to Bobby Darin. I love Spacey’s work and in this movie he was fantastic, superb acting and singing – he actually sings Bobby Darin’s songs in the movie! What a talent.
The other day I discovered a freezer full of partly defrosted meat, because silly me didn’t close the freezer door properly the night before. This is a freezer the size of an average fridge, and it was full of about three or four months worth of meat – snags, chops, steaks, a couple of bigger cuts for roasts. H likes to buy our meat in bulk from his favourite butcher – and it is always very nice meat. Kicking myself!
We could have had a giant barbeque but it was a bit too spur of the moment, so instead I loaded the esky into the car and drove around giving family members their pick. I felt like the “meat fairy”.
As a short diversion from studies I went a long with Mum and Jo yesterday afternoon to see a locally produced play, Brush with a Body.
The play was performed at the local auditorium, we were in the front row and had a good view of the set – a living room with back door to the garden at back, and a doorway leading off to other parts of the “house” on either side of the stage.
Written by an English playwright Maurice McLoughlin, the story is set in London a few years after the second world war. A situation comedy, it is about a middle-class family who discover a body stuffed inside the chimney of “father’s old study”. This creates a dilemma for the two elder siblings who wish to avoid scandal. The younger sibling is more concerned about being allowed to go out and meet her new boyfriend. A tug of war ensues between the three siblings trying to avoid scandal, prevent the news from creating shock for their widowed mother who is returning from holiday in Scotland.
The comedy emerges with the involvement of the Irish chimney sweep, a gossipy fellow who agrees to keep a lid on the scandal in return for certain considerations. When “mother” returns home her reaction to the news is quite unexpected and rather suspect as she is less concerned about scandal than the involvement of the local constabulary.
Naturally the police appear on the scene, although unaware of the situation in the house. They are searching for the runaway daughter who happens to be a patient of the psychiatrist elder sibling. Through a series of misunderstandings and wild assumptions the “body” is finally disposed of, the missing patient goes off with the youngest sibling’s boyfriend and mother telephones her friend in Scotland, who turns out to be her “dead” husband.
It turns out the body belonged to a thug who had been sent over to sort out the father while the family were evacuated from London during the war. The thug was killed accidentally from a fall down the stairs and the father, fearing reprisals from the thug’s mob boss, stuffed the body in the chimney. When a bomb hit the house during the London blitz, it provided the perfect opportunity for the father to disappear to Scotland.
An odd choice for an Australian theatre group, it was such a lame story it was quite funny! The acoustics weren’t too crash hot, with a number of live microphones hanging above the stage the dialogue sometimes drifted in volume, particularly as the actors moved across the stage. I enjoyed the acting talents of the Irish sweep and the detectives who seemed to perform to the greatest comic effect.
It was a nice diversion to study; at intermission time we had a lovely cup of tea and scone with jam and cream! Then had to move our seats as the rainstorm outside started blowing down through the ceiling vents!
Last night I went to bed happy, I’m finally getting back into the swing of uni. I spent most of the day studying – didn’t really get much work completed but got my mind back into ‘thinking’ mode. I have two weeks until my next assignment is due, and a bucketload of work to do – I’ll be working overtime to catch up, but the end is in sight.
This week I have to try and organise somewhere to do my exam. I’m working for M today, but tomorrow I will pop out and visit a couple of local libraries and schools to see if one of them can help me out. Failing that I’ll go to the nearest TAFE, which is not so local. Failing that I will I have use the services of a professional invigilator in Brisbane.
H is on holidays this week, and the next two weeks. So far he has gone into work three times to finish off urgent paperwork that can’t wait. We were discussing it this morning and he says the problem is he doesn’t switch off. Unlike some of his colleagues he keeps going full steam right up until his last day before holidays, generating all this extra paperwork that has to be done. Sounds similar to the way I was when working in an office.
We moved our bird bath to another part of the garden a couple of months ago. H reckons it is the best thing we could have done, the birds hardly used the bath at its former site. This morning the bath was empty but there was still a bird running around in it. H filled it with water and had barely turned his back when the birds were back in it splashing around.