Demolition

It's hard to believe it has been about nine months since the family house burned down but now there is progress on the site.
Demolition crews arrived on Thursday and the old house is no more, making way for a new one to be built. My mum was a bit sad about the place coming down, myself I'm not so attached, but I did point out that it was a worse day when it burned.
Also, I think they will benefit greatly from having something a bit more modern and something they can build to suit them now.
They're telling us that July is the time the new house will be finished.
You'd probably have to allow another month or so for weather interruptions but it will be interesting to see what it looks like when complete.
The pictures are a before and after of the demolition.
Well, sort of a shortly after starting the job (I thought the ominous positioning of the bulldozer was a good effect) and pretty much done shots.

Zack and Miri.....

There are a lot of words to describe Zack and Miri Make a Porno but probably the best way to sum it up is inappropriately funny.

If you're offended by anything you probably shouldn't see it. Writer and director Kevin Smith (Clerks etc) pokes fun at everything equally and in true Smith style doesn't hold back.

The funny thing about the odd pairing of Seth Rogen (Zack) and Elizabeth Banks (Miri) is that it works and works very well.

Flatmates for 10 years, Zack and Miri find themselves broke with a mountain of unpaid bills. After attending their high school reunion Zack comes up with the idea of making an adult film to solve their financial crisis.

So, they go about doing it.

They cast all sorts of weird and weirder characters, a couple of Kevin Smith regulars, and plan to participate. What they didn't count on is that they actually have feelings for each other despite claiming to be friends only.

In his unique style, Smith has actually made a romantic comedy but with more lowbrow humour than all his previous movies combined (if that's possible).

The bottom line is that I had a pretty good laugh. Yeah it was inappropriate and probably crosses the line on what you should be able to see in a cinema but at the end of the day I enjoyed myself. If you like any of the Smith films then this is your cup of tea.

I can only give a 6 out of 10 but it was good fun and well casted.

Attitude adjustment

It occurred to me today that I probably haven't been that pleasant to be around, especially at work, for the last little while.
I shouldn't arrive at the office an immediately feel the frustration and impatience hit me before I sit down. There's a bit of a back story that I won't go into but if you've been reading between the lines over the last week you'd have an idea.
I don't think there is anything I enjoy more than my job. That's pretty sad, really, but true. How bad can it be when you get paid to talk about, watch and interact with what basically is your hobby unless you turn into the Comic Book Guy?
So why the bad attitude? In one respect it is borne out of the frustration that one or two of my coworkers are stifling our progress when what I want to do is make what we produce the best it can possibly be. Sure, everyone does that at work right? Not mine.
We have a culture of fearing changes of any kind and, as someone who wants to continue to develop not only the quality of what I write about but the overall quality, it seems whenever change from the routine is suggested it is pretty quickly dismissed because `that's not what we do every week'.
Today, anyway, I kind of packed everything in and refused (privately) to make any effort above minimum required, which I have to say is pretty darn easy. Yep, I went against everything I just wrote about with regards to quality and offered no suggestion on original material.
I know I need to change my attitude towards all this. I don't like being closed off and unresponsive unless it is some passive-aggressive thing I have going (I strangely relish those times now and then). Exacerbating the problem has been a few battles with personal issues and fears and when I get caught up in that world I can be hard to communicate with.
Any wonder I'm single. That's another subject. I will try harder tomorrow to adjust my outlook.

Promises, promises

Before the end of last year I reprimanded myself for not helping myself out enough in 2008.
What that meant, if you didn't get it, was that I spent too much time worrying about things I have no control over and that had a negative effect on me.
We're half way through February and I wonder if I have learned my lesson. Everything was going great early on and a couple of weeks ago I hit a speed bump (metaphorically) and it's like I flew back in time about nine months or so.
Almost. I am better equipped to handle these situations in a lot of ways but still react to them in the same old self-destructive manner.
It's funny, sort of. Some people are afraid of the dark, or alleyways at night. What scares me the most are internal things not so much external things. Uncertainty, the past, almost fear itself. Most are borderline irrational. They aren't baseless but for anyone wanting to actually have a life they are counter productive to say the least.
Good example. I hadn't jumped on the scales for a while until a few weeks ago and I noticed I had put on 3-4kg. Now I feel like I can't try and lose that because I became afraid of losing weight for other reasons a while back.
So I'm left feeling uncomfortable about the extra kilos and uncomfortable about shedding them. Talk about rock and a hard place. That's how my twisted mind can work.
Instead of working with myself and continuing the awesome progress I had been making I've gone back to over analyzing and this causes mild stress, moodiness and restlessness. I know I can win this but, man, it is a battle.
How do you win when you are fighting against yourself?

Sad songs

The Zombie has compiled a list of his `favourite' break-up songs. It's true that when something bad happens - a break-up, disappointment, whatever - we turn to music to soothe ourselves or to help us wallow for a while.
Having not had a lot of break-ups (through lack of relationships, which is a bad and a good thing) I'm listing a few songs I turn to when I need comfort.

I Want To Know What Love Is-Foreigner
We Belong Together-Mariah Carey
Losing My Religion-REM
Crash And Burn-Savage Garden
Not Myself-John Mayer
The Freshmen-The Verve Pipe
All I Want Is Everything-Def Leppard
I Stay In Love-Mariah Carey
I Need You Tonight-Backstreet Boys
Where Are You Now?-Roxus
Painless-Baby Animals
Spending My Time-Roxette
Unlovable-Darren Hayes
The Other Side-1927

I could go on for a while, it really depends on what I feel like at the time. I think the thing about listening to sad songs is that once you've got it out of your system you actually feel better.

Be still

Somewhat inspired by driving past my previous church a few days ago I decided to actually go to church on Sunday near my place.
I'd been there a few times before so I wasn't a complete stranger and had a friend who goes there to meet up with. The service still takes getting used to but the style is accessible and that's great if you're not a regular.
A couple of things struck me from the sermon and the general feel of the meeting.
The first was about being still on the inside. I found this very interesting and relevant because a lot of the time I don't feel that there is stillness underneath me.
The second was about growth, personal growth through spiritual growth.
So I guess it was timely making a visit to that church. You get the feeling you've heard messages that you needed to hear, or that God was wanting you to hear.
I haven't made a firm commitment to go back straight away but I possibly will soon. I don't get the feeling that this church is suitable long term but that's not something you can know after one visit.
I settled on my next trip to Melbourne and that's taking place in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it again and this time around I am going to keep my long term well being in mind and make sure I don't overdo it like last time. Not saying I didn't enjoy last time but it definitely contributed to some unpleasantness last week.
The other thing worth mentioning is that my parents' new house will be built shortly and they expect to move back in mid-year.

Back to the future

On the way back from the city this afternoon I drove past my old church, well the site of it anyway, for the first time in, gee, maybe a year.
The building is under construction at present. You know I felt hesitant doing something so harmless as a drive-by. It's just an example of what a friend was telling me earlier this week about looking forward rather than back. I hope the church there thrives when it is re-opened and continues to do good things in the area but I can't go there.
That's my issue and I need to put it in the past and not let it affect my future, which when it comes to churches has stalled.
It seems I have a lot to learn though. While things are better than they were earlier in the week I have found myself reverting to old negative thinking patterns. Not only is that not good in general it is disappointing that it was so easy to fall back into.
Clearly it was the wrong time to try reducing the medication, it came at a very busy time that was affected by the hot weather and lack of enough sleep and a come down from an awesome period just gone. So I shouldn't be hard on myself there.
Next time I will try a more stable time to try it. There's a bigger issue inside all of this, and one that according to a good friend with some experience I must contend with.

Fray review

I've broken with my normal practice of one listen before review for The Fray and it's a good thing I have because this would be one different review.
On first listen obviously the single You Found Me was a standout but really that was all that grabbed me. Quite a contrast to How To Save A Life which I named the album of 2007.
I'm going to go with the highlights and save the best for last.
I played this CD about four times over in the car on Sunday and it grew on me gradually. It's funny when you expect to instantly like something and get disappointed. But I didn't give up and kept listening and, sure enough, the gems were there, just hidden a little better than they were on the first album.
The first two songs Syndicate and Absolute are in the grower category, particularly the first one but now I have it in the top four songs on the CD (at four). Never Say Never, track five, is a fairly standard ballad-type song on the surface. It is also one that grabs you later on but it's out of the top five for me.
Jumping down to Enough For Now, my second favourite song, and it's a haunting tale that kind of creeps up on you but it has a chorus that cuts you open and makes you feel it. Brilliant.
As I said, saving the best for last. Say When is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned and is really worth a few listens. It reminds me a bit of How To Save A Life meshed with Trust Me from the debut album. If you know those songs well you'll have some idea of what I mean.
There are a lot of lyrics to this song and it just builds and builds and, honestly, I can't listen to it enough. I want to get to know the lyrics so I can sing a lot but I think it will take a bit of time.
I'm impressed with The Fray's second album, the only negative I will give (aside from the packaging that I mentioned a while back) is the fact there are only 10 songs. I know there are a few more floating around on iTunes as part of a deluxe version but they should have been on the main release.

Decision time

When I was in Melbourne I decided to see how things went with reducing some medication as it had been suggested to me to try it again a while back. I'd had one failed attempt after I went down too much in one hit last year.
The problem is that on Monday when I woke up I felt the same as I did that time before when I'd reduced too much. This time I'd only gone down a small increment and had no side effects for over a week until now. So I've got to decide whether or not to tough it out and see how I adjust (because it isn't fun to feel tired and headachey most of the time) or just return to my previous dose.
As much as I'd love to not have to use this medication it seems to do the job pretty well.
It may be drawing a long bow but in perspective this isn't a massive issue when you see what's going on in Victoria with the fires destroying towns and devastating people's lives.
Maybe I need to put up with a bit of discomfort for a few days while the body adjusts. The cooler weather has been great for getting good nights of sleep, it's amazing that on the weekend it was around 40 degrees and now it's half that and I had to get my doona out this morning because I was cold.
I guess the main question is do I put up with it for a while and see what happens or return to the comfortable level. I feel like I've made plenty of progress in the last few months and I know the decision to reduce was made in the middle of a high point in the steps I've been taking. Was it too fast?

Milk

There's no doubt that Sean Penn is a remarkable director and actor, that's very apparent in Milk . It's the true story of the first openly gay elected official.
A bit like his masterpiece, Into The Wild, Penn gets the ending out of the way early on.
Unfortunately, Milk is littered with outstanding performances but hotch-potch storyline mean the parts are much greater than the sum, if that makes sense.
Penn is at the same time captivating and annoying as Harvey Milk, a gay activist who decides to run for public office.
At the start Harvey meets, and picks up, Scott Smith (James Franco) and they start what appears an unlikely relationship, but one that neither realise the significance of.
As Harvey gets deeper into campaigning it is at the expense of his relationship.
This is the tragedy of Milk, as far as I could see. He becomes so caught up in the cause that he and Smith drift apart and only really begin to reconnect just before Milk is killed.
As I said, there are some good performances here. I thought Franco was the standout personally, even though Penn has been nominated for everything. And, Emile Hirsch who Penn directed in Into The Wild is a shade tough to pick out straight away but he also puts in a solid performance despite his character Cleve being quite out there.
The film came together fairly well towards the end but it didn't grab my interest as much as I expected from all the rave reviews. I almost hate to say this but I think it was a bit too, well, you know. A 7.5 out of 10.

Continuity

One of the strange things about me is that I hate it when there is no continuity with things I collect.
For example, today I bought the new CD by The Fray. Now normally I would just grab it and head straight to the counter. I saw the packaging and it wasn't the standard CD pack like the billions of others in the world. It was some kind of thin packaging and I thought twice about buying it.
More than twice actually. I went to four other stores in the shopping centre to see if they had the traditional CD pack. They didn't so I reluctantly bought it. I'm now going to try and cut up the cardboard and fashion it into the normal CD style.
It's the same thing when they released Wall-E on DVD. The packaging was not the usual DVD style so I'd have every other Pixar movie in the traditional style and one that is different. Anyway I found a copy of it in the normal style and quickly nabbed it. So that crisis was averted. A similar thing happened with season 5 or 6 of the Simpsons when they decided to put the DVDs in a character head pack not the standard box. It caused such an uproar on the net that Fox now release both a head pack and a box version when they release a season. So they should.
Don't these companies know that the essence of collecting things is continuity? I know I'm not the only one who has this quirk, and it really gets to me when they do this.

Gran Torino

Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is starting to lose everything.
He's lost his wife, he's estranged from his family in an emotional sense (his greatest regret, or sin as he put it, is that he never got to know his sons), he's aging and his neighbourhood no longer resembles the one he calls home.
And, everyone seems to want his car.
Gran Torino isn't about a car but it is the centre of the film in many ways.
Walt's living in a world that has been, to his mind, taken over by other cultures. He doesn't understand them and many look like people he fought against in Korea.
When teenager Thao (Bee Vang) is caught trying to steal the Gran Torino to impress his gang leader cousin he is forced, by his family not Walt, to make amends. In time Walt takes a liking to the young boy who he relentlessly insults for not being a man.
But that's Walt. He calls it like he sees it.
This is a movie about sacrifice, atonement, redemption and love and it is a great one. Even though at times you just want to hear Eastwood say `go ahead, make my day' it is satisfying that he doesn't. But the feel of that character is very much alive in Walt.
It's a shade slow to get going, it takes its time building the characters then tends to rush a bit towards the end. That's a minor criticism because this film moved me, shocked me at times and had me thinking how fortunate I am.
If you don't walk away from Gran Torino moved in some way I'd be very surprised. Eastwood has made a touching film that is rough around the edges (and doesn't mince words) but one that has heart. The first high quality film I've seen this year. A 9 out of 10.

The Flemington experience

A large part of my trip to Melbourne was to go to the races down there (as you would expect from me) and it was simply awesome.

Even though I have worked in the industry for closing on nine years I felt like a bit of a kid going to the big smoke for the first time. (Ironic since I was travelling from the biggest city in the country to the second biggest).

When I arrived at Flemington (the racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is held for those who don't know) the first person I encountered was someone I knew from Sydney (a racing official) and he and a few others were heading onto the course to check it out. I tagged along and got to walk up and down the home straight for as long as I liked.

In contrast to the day before the conditions were much more comfortable and there was even a breeze - ideal conditions for a race meeting.

I wandered on the track for about half an hour before heading off to meet a number of people, which was my aim for the day.

I watched the last race from the grandstand as opposed to the mounting area and it was great to take in the whole track.

I also played racing fan a bit by hanging out and having a look at Weekend Hussler, one of the best racehorses in the country when he arrived at the horse stalls. The trainer gave me a cap and I had a bit of a chat to him. There was quite a crowd around to check him out.

I didn't take any pictures of his race, he ran fourth and was quite unlucky.

The second photo i of an earlier race, the winner is the horse to the far left and is just about to get a clear run. It was taken about 300m from the winning post and you can also see a bit of the Melbourne skyline in the background.

The day seemed to fly by. I met a couple of great young racing reporters there. One of them surprised me a bit by telling me he remembered reading some of my stuff when he was a teenager. It made me feel a bit old but he said he was 25.

Still it was weird to meet someone like that who had read my stories from a different state.
After the races I headed straight to the airport for the trip back. Airports are fairly boring and once you've checked in I found there was little in the way of decent food.

Anyway it was a great experience all up and I will definitely do it again, but perhaps in a less whirlwind way.

I love Melbourne

Despite looking like a stunned mullet in this picture, I had an awesome time in Melbourne this weekend.
The trip was the one I mentioned a week or so back about being the challenge I set myself, to do something out of the comfort zone.
So it was a trip to Melbourne, where I knew nobody and very little about getting around even though I had been there once before, about nine years ago. My situation then was much different to now, though.
I flew down on Friday lunch time and arrived in Melbourne to temperatures of about 45 degrees (Celsius), the city having been in the middle of a heatwave. It was hot, no doubt, but fortunately it was a dry heat with very little humidity and that is a lot easier to handle.
I arrived at my hotel in Carlton and changed my shirt, then headed off into the city to explore.
I remember just as I was walking there how awesome it felt to be doing it. I made it to the city in about 10 minutes and took a tram ride around the city until I arrived at Federation Square.
The first thing I wanted to do was check out the Australian Racing Museum and it was good, as far as museums go. I then walked along the river to Rod Laver Arena where the Australian Open tennis was being played and caught another tram back to the city.
I met a guy on the tram who was from, well I'm not sure where exactly, Canada or the US I think and he was telling me how he was going to St Kilda. After a bit more walking around I decided to head that way myself and caught another tram down there.
I walked along St Kilda beach, which was packed as you'd expect with the weather, and had dinner there as well.
After that I caught another tram back but caught the wrong one and almost ended up getting lost until I realised I needed to get off. I walked a few blocks back towards the city and eventually got onto the right tram. By this time it was much more comfortable and I found people to be generally pretty nice. There was one idiot who tried to pick a fight with a tram driver and another guy on a bike that almost collided with a tram I was on.
I walked back towards my hotel, it was 9pm by now, and missed the street I needed to turn down and got a bit lost but I didn't really mind because I was enjoying the walk despite being a bit tired.
I hung out in my room for a while and went to bed a bit late, then got up Saturday morning to prepare for my trip to the races (of course). More on that shortly.