5 tips for surviving long-haul flights

PSA 06-_00229, originally uploaded by San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.

Having recently returned from a trip to UK and Europe (from Perth, Western Australia), I thought I would summarise some of my tips on how to survive long haul flights.

1. Be prepared!
Here are some supplies that I have found to be useful on board long haul flights:
1) A small (<100ml) bottle of hand sanitiser.
2) A few of those moist towelette things that you get from some takeaway stores.
3) Eye mask.
4) A neck pillow.
5) A pen.
6) A double-pronged airplane headphone adaptor.
7) A pashmina scarf/shawl.
8) A very small multi-purpose moisturiser - for dry lips, hands etc.
9) A small bag of hard candies and some chewing gum.
10) Lightweight entertainment! Suggestions: an mp3 player loaded with long and interesting pod-casts/music, a small games console, a paperback, book of puzzles etc.  

2. Noise reduction
A recent article on WAToday confronted the negativity that is often aimed at the parents of crying children on flights:

"Sure enough, at 35,000 feet, crying began in stereo, with two tots screaming. Dads passed babies to mums. Mums passed babies to dads. The crying continued - two minutes, three minutes, four minutes. One baby finally quieted but the other, a girl about 18 months old, kept up the wail, arching her back, screaming her misery. Passengers started staring at the mother. They ruffled their newspapers. Turned up their overhead fans. Blasted the volume on their headphones. Anything to make the noise go away."

On my recent flight (from London to Kuala Lumpur) I was seated right next to several families with young children (several of which were crying and screaming for long periods). Was I annoyed or irritated? No! The reason? I always bring two things on ANY flight: ear plugs, and "isolation" headphones (which I use simulaneously). The exact type of headphones that I used was: "Direct Impact, Extreme Isolation". Although the isolation headphones are rather bulky (and need careful storage during travel so as to avoid damage), they are just excellent for reducing noise during flights. Even without screaming babies or chatty teens, the sheer noise from the engines is enough to exert a stressful influence on the ears. Being able to block this can greatly improve your ability to survive any flight with minimal psychological and physiological impact. I have found that with the ear-plug, headphones combo, I don't even need to play music to block out most sounds. Whilst watching a movie or listening to music, the blocking-out effect is absolute,...what bliss!

3. Drugs
I don't want to give you the wrong impression here. I do not advocate prolonged or excessive use of any drug (legal or illegal) as I believe when it comes to drugs and the human body, less is best! Although I prefer not to overload my liver in the long-term, I can hardly ignore the beneficial and useful phsyiological effects of drugs in the short-term. Antihistamines, naprogesic, paracetamol,.. ahh blessed be those little magic little pills for the relief that you deliver! With a little bit of help, the right combination can turn the unbearable eternity of long-haul flights into a fleeting blur. In my cabin bag I take a small stash of: paracetamol, ginger capsules and sleeping pills (in my case, temazepam). The ginger capsules work like gold on motion sickness, settling the stomach and battling any pangs of nausea. And I can't speak highly enough of using sleeping pills to get through a night on a plane. They are only recommended when you have longer than 8 hours on board. Although I did not sleep continually for the whole 8 hours, time passed very quickly and I was continually shocked upon checking my watch to find that 2-3 hours had passed in what felt like a 30 minute nap. Sleeping pills are also good for reducing the physical discomfort of sitting in the same position for hours at a time. You do have to be disciplined with sleeping pills though, and make sure that you don't use them upon returning home as they can be addictive and highly disruptive to natural sleeping patterns.

4. Clothing and hygiene
Aeroplane cabins are notoriously chilly. Even if the weather is sunny and warm at your departure and destination,... you should always be prepared for <20 celsius temperatures on board. This may not be an issue for the more thick-skinned, but if you are in any way sensitive to the cold, be warned! On my recent flights I wore leggings and a long-sleeve cardigan under a winter jacket. At times the cabin warmed up and I could lose the jacket,... but I am very glad I had the leggings. One thing I always try to do for a flight, is to put on an absolutely fresh and clean set of clothes before leaving for the airport. This can be hard when you are travelling and laundry facilities are hard to come by, but wearing clean underwear, socks etc really helped me last the extra mile. In the past, when I did not do this, by the time I reached my destination I felt super gross, like I would on a Sunday morning after a big night out; hungover, nauseous, with that somewhat clammy feeling of being still dressed in the clothes from the night before. This is not a great feeling! I also recommend bringing a toothbrush and toothpaste and brushing your teeth at the airport before boarding, for similar reasons. I also believe that being clean also helps get through immigration and customs!? Apparently having a beard or looking stubbly can cause problems for male passengers passing as they disembark. Bizarre I know, but I have seriously been told this by several male friends.  

5. Manners and courtesy
I know this sounds obvious to many, but some passengers do not seem to realise that by they can actually improve their own flight experience by extending good manners to those around them. Aeroplane flights are like a macrocosm of karmic retribution. Smile and thank all air attendants as they check your boarding pass and direct you to your seat. Pay attention to the lifejacket demonstration even if you have seen it a million times before. You cannot anticipate what needs you may have during the flight,... what if you become sick, what if you need to make a special request? If you have been polite and courteous to the cabin crew, then it will be much easier to call on their assistance if required. Courtesy to the other passengers around you will also go far. Make sure that none of your belongings intrude on their space. Keep your elbows from overhanging over the arm rest. Don't make too many unnecessary noises (eating very crunchy food for long periods, rustling through loud crackly plastic bags for belongings, talking or laughing at an excessive volume, using game consoles etc with the volume on). If you are waiting for another passenger to move for some reason, be patient. If they have wriggling children, try and be empathetic. By extending human decency to the people around you, you will have a much more pleasant experience. Other passengers will be more obliging and less annoyed if you need to climb over them to go to the toilet. Also, if there is ever some sort of emergency, you never know whose hands your life might be in!

Do you have any tips for surviving long distance flights?

The best albums of 2011 (so far)

Here are some of my favourite albums of 2011 so far (in loose order). Yes I DO like subpop!

1. Low - C'mon

A track from the album:


2. Braids - Native Speaker

A track from the album:


3. The Antlers - Burst Apart

A track from the album:


4. Starfucker - Reptilians

A track from the album:


5. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place

A track from the album:


6. My Morning Jacket - Circuital

A track from the album:


7. Washed Out - Within and Without

A track from the album:


8. Cape Dory - Tennis

A track from the album:


9. Papercuts - Fading Parade

A track from the album:


10. Cults - Cults

A track from the album:

Meal made from leftovers

Meal made from random leftovers, originally uploaded by sleepy chan.

I only had a few random vegetables in the fridge so I made a few different salads and combined them altogether to make a passable meal.

Books I've read recently

The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

An intriguing story of suspended animation and time travel written in a wonderfully curious and sardonic tone. Recommended, 7/10.

   

The Man From Beyond and other stories by John Wyndham

Stories of aliens ship-wrecked on earth, space travel, alternate history, time-travelling tourists, insidious planet-threatening red goo, alien/human misunderstanding, occult horror and musings on the whereabouts of the souls of those cryogenically frozen. I LOVE John Wyndham! Some stories are stronger than others but as a whole, this is a solid compilation. Recommended, 7/10.

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

A simple yet bizarre story of a man trapped at the bottom of a sandpit with it's female resident. A genuinely chilling and perfectly constructed existential horror. Recommended, 9/10.

Tomorrow by Philip Wylie.

A story describing the response of two small American cities to the threat and eventuality of nuclear attack. Major flaws in character development and overall tone. Not recommended 4/10.

Limitless

 

Limitless. So this is not normally a film that I would rush out and see. But, a few friends wanted to see a movie, any movie!, preferably an ACTION movie. So, Limitless it was!

So the basic story-line is, a struggling writer gets a hold of a new, not-yet-approved super drug that him super intelligent for 8 hours or so. He finishes his book in four days, and then tackles the stock market in order to achieve supreme wealth in a matter of weeks. 

With films, I have a basic test: watchable or unwatchable? I think that the line of watchable or unwatchable hovers around 2.5 out of 5 stars. Are all of the film elements of a passable level in their own right?... and do all of those film elements mesh together imperceptably to create a believable scenario that draws you in to the point where you forget about your own life, your own body sitting their in the chair, the un-eaten jar of nuts in your bag?... On this point, Limitless passes the test! I give this film a 3.5 out of 5. It's definitely above a pass, with seamlessly arty special effects, an apt sound-track, believable casting and acting.

There is also something to be said about films that are based on books. Limitless is based on a novel of the same name by British author Alan Glynn. Contrasted with other action films (that often have only limited dialogue peppered throughout expansive visual action scenes), Limitless has an intelligent and thoughtful narrative flowing throughout the entire film, adding a layer of interest for the cognitive senses.

Thematically, the film (and novel) are apt and timely; at present, smart drugs are actually starting to become available through both legal and illegal means. This film will therefore be of use to various high-school and university teachers wanting to engage students in discussion regarding the ethical complications that these sorts of drugs will have as they permeate society.

A few of the major thinking points that this film raised for me are:

1. Currently, Olympic athletes must pass drug tests in order to compete. What sort of status would smart drugs have in society in terms of regulation and control? Would aspiring students need to pass drug tests in order to entire prestigious colleges or companies? Or would these colleges and companies tolerate the use of such drugs in respect to the intellectual advantages and productive benefits that may result from usage by students or employees?

2. What kind of impact would these drugs have on society if they are only available to those who can afford/obtain the drug? How would you feel if you were applying for a job in competition with a person using a "smart drug"? Would it become necessary for you to also take the drug in order to retain competitiveness?

3. The drug portrayed in this film is an "intelligence" drug, which enables the user to fully draw on his own memory and neural pathways, recognise patterns and make accurate predictions. In my experience, however, intelligence is separate from motivation and action. It's one thing to be a high level thinker, but another to be motivated enough to do something with your intelligence. This relates to the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of judging individuals on IQ. Provided that the IQ is high enough (ie, 100), individuals have been known to achieve great things in life due to motivation and sheer tenacity. Having a genius IQ does not mean you will create genius work,...  making a mark on the world usually entails a great deal of perserverance, effort and productive activity. People may take a smart drug expecting that they will suddenly shoot to the top of the ladder, but I think a lot of people make it in this world by actually putting in the hours (whether that be through research, repetition, vast productivity, or networking with the right people and entering the circle of cronyism at the top of many organisations).

At the end of the day, Limitless is very watchable; exploring interesting issues regarding the human use of performance enhancing substances; which is certainly a phenomenon that is not going away any time soon.

127 Hours - human survival at it's most extreme

Last night I went to a preview screening of 127 hours at the outdoor cinema at Burswood. As I expected from reading some reviews prior, the film was excellent. All of the film elements: script, casting, acting, set, sound, music, cinematography, editing/pacing, effects etc were singularly exceptional and also perfectly gelled together.

The dynamic soundscape, bright colours, slightly raw but crisp and powerful camera-work made for a strong impact on the senses. The representation of Aron: as reckless, bold and adventurous; spontaneous, creative and unhinged; a loving son; a young man reflecting on the failures in his life; and finally, the mix of a primal, wild super-human mad-courage and a serious, calculated and desperation-driven rationality that enabled him to cut his own arm off.

The story is inspiring because many of us would not be able to do the same. Many of us would perish, pinned by the rock. It reveals the human survival instinct at its most extreme, and it serves as a reminder for all the softies out there (myself included) to toughen the $%#* up!.

I thought I'd now dedicate the rest of this blog entry to some other brave self-amputees (being, as they are, so few in numbers - at least according to Wikipedia). On the"Self-surgery: Amputation of Trapped Limbs" page of Wikipedia, there are only four other individuals mentioned other than Aron Ralston. The following text has been copied and pasted from this page (and the cited pages). Warning: not for the squeamish!

On July 20, 1993, Donald Wyman was clearing land in a remote section of Pennsylvania, as part of his work for a mining company. In the process, a tree rolled over his shin, severely breaking the leg, and pinning Wyman to the ground. He yelled for help for one whole hour, but no one came. He concluded that the only way to save his life would be to cut off his leg. So he made a tourniquet out of his shoe string and tightened it with a wrench. Then he took his pocket knife and cut through the skin, the muscle and bone just above the knee and freed himself. He crawled thirty yards to a bulldozer, drove a quarter-mile to his truck, then maneuvered the standard transmission with his good leg and a hand until he reached a farm house one-and-a-half miles away, with his leg bleeding profusely. The farmer at the house helped him get to a hospital where his life was spared.
 
In 1993 Bill Jeracki was fishing near St. Mary's Glacier in Colorado, when a boulder pinned his left leg. Snow was forecast and without a jacket or pack, Jeracki didn't believe he would survive the night. Fashioning a tourniquet out of his flannel shirt and using his bait knife, he cut his leg off [3] at the knee joint, using hemostats from his fishing kit to clamp the bleeding arteries.

In 2002 Doug Goodale cut off his own arm [4] at the elbow in order to survive an accident at sea. He had become caught in a winch hauling lobster pots up from the sea floor, and could not free himself. The power of the winch left him hanging over the side of the boat, unable to either free himself or clamber back aboard. Somehow he managed to haul himself back onto the deck, dislocating his shoulder in the process. However, he was still trapped in the winch, bleeding heavily, and with no way of getting free, his only option was to pick up a knife and cut through his right arm. He then managed to pilot his boat back into harbour to get medical help.

In 2003 an Australian coal miner trapped three kilometres underground by an overturned tractor cut off his own arm[5] with a box-cutting knife. The 44-year-old man, who was not identified by police, was working late at the Hunter Valley mine when the tractor tipped over, crushing his arm and trapping him.

You can't ignore MONEY

If you had of asked me 7 years ago what I thought about the topics of "money", "investment", "economics" etc I probably would have said: "BORING!". I grew up in a middle-class household where money wasn't a big issue (or one that was even spoken about),... and I also found the subject slightly distasteful. I did poorly at Economics in Grade 10, I think because at the time I found it to be abstract and had no experience in its practical application.

Today I am hardly a bastion of knowledge when it comes to the subject of money/finance. Don't ask me any questions about Keynesian economics (ask Ai-Ling!). I have very little in savings, zero investments and no assets. But a few things have changed since then.

Probably the biggest thing that has changed is: I have recently noticed that, uh, the whole world is currently in a tremendously momentous period of change due to developments in global and regional management of MONEY. If you are interested in the past, present and particularly the future path of human-kind, therefore, there is absolutely no way you can ignore this subject.

A problem that I have with the subject of money, is how enormous, expansive and complex the world economy is. There is no way that I will ever understand either its entirety or all of the tiny cogs and micro-machinations that it is composed of. I am not an economist, I do not work in finance and I never plan to. So it can be hard to come to any sort of understanding, when you only dedicating perhaps 1% of your time towards it.

One video that I found really helpful was Money as Debt by Paul Grignon. The most useful part of this video, I thought, was a very simple and visual explanation of how finance came to exist. So at first people were trading gold. Carrying gold around all the time was not very practical, so people started storing their gold with other people who offered the service. These first "bankers" then issued pieces of paper stating the amount of gold that each person had deposited, which people then used as currency. Then the bankers realised that they could easily issue MORE PIECES OF PAPER than ingots of gold... because people hardly ever came and retrieved the physical gold. I learnt that in these early times, rules were developed about the ratio of "paper money" to physical gold that the bankers were allowed to "create" ie, the birth of fractional reserve banking. But of course lots of people didn't abide by these rules. I don't know the figures,... but say,... at first the ration was 4 paper units:1 gold ingot,... this later became 10000 paper units:gold ingot... something like that. Of course this is all simplified but it really helped me to understand how the world of finance was born.

I was also pretty interested to find out, that when you take out a loan, the bank
WRITES THAT MONEY INTO EXISTENCE. Ie, you ask for $400K for a home loan. The bank says: "sure thing!" and then writes $400,000 on its balance sheet. Even though the $400 is in the negative, that debt can then be "re-packaged" into some-one else's investment. So when you see those clips on the news of money being printed... and you think that's how most money comes into existence,.. it's not really true. Money is virtual!

One thing that I find really bizarre and a bit scary, is that the world of finance/the amount of "virtual" money that is created and traded in the stock-market etc is way bigger than the actual world economy. The amounts of debt just kept increasing, puffing up like a massive balloon... and now, in most places in the world this has popped/or is rapidly deflating,... taking down with it the ACTUAL economy. The balance sheets of ACTUAL companies involved in real physical products and services.

So everyone is panicking, selling their "virtual" monies and buying physical gold again,... but unfortunately that is removing a lot of the actual finance and liquidity that was required by actual businesses to go on operating.

It's a little surreal, living in Australia where large effects from the global financial crisis have yet to hit home. I look at the rest of the world and feel sad for the low-middle classes of very normal people around the world who have now had the brunt of the crash forced upon them as austerity measures such as reduction/elimination of social services, pensions, welfare, public health, education etc. I think only time will tell if Australia will suffer a similar fate...

Anyway, to sum this post up,... we are now living in a time where MONEY is the biggest player of our times. It will be extremely interesting to see how things go from here,.. we can only hope that more people will try to understand it and hopefully be able to curtail its worst abuses.

17 tips for hosting a party

Paul Petrov of the Ballet Russe, backstage at the JC Williamson New Year's Eve party, Theatre Royal, Sydney, 31 December 1936 / Sam Hood, originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection.

I think now, having (co)hosted at least 6 parties, I have a few things to say about hosting a successful party.

1) If some of the party will take place outside, make sure you use mosquito coils and have mosquito repellant available for the mosquito prone.

2) Supply enough chairs for two thirds / half of the guests. You don't want to have chairs for everybody, there'll be too many chairs and there'll be less "party flow". But some people will want to do some sitting down at some point. That's why I think 2/3 or 1/2 is the optimal ratio. If you are throwing a really big party though, people don't expect chairs as much. I am only talking about 30 or so people.

3) There should be no fluorescent lighting. Everyone looks terrible under fluoro and it makes you feel like you're in a meat fridge or office. Warm/soft/non-direct lighting only!!! For any lightbulbs, 60W or less and not direct! (ie, no ceiling lights, just lamps pointed upward, downward or at a wall).

4) You should have a stock of "emergency drinks" on hand. Ie, a carton of beer for the inevitable occurrence that someone will forget or run out of drinks. Add to that, some dry ginger ale, tonic water and coke, for people to mix with. Add to that, a cheap bottle of spirits.

5) People need to eat snacks if they are drinking. Due to the costs of providing emergency drinks and so-forth, at our last party I asked people to bring their own snacks. I think this worked well and nobody minded.

6) Make sure the party starts at 8pm or later. I think this is the unofficial code for: "we will not be feeding you dinner". For instance, if a party starts at 6pm then I think the host needs to feed food to the guests or at least assist in food facilitation ie, with a barbeque.

7) Have some blankets on hand for when people get cold.

8) Ask your most music obsessed friend/s to DJ/supply the music.

9) Make sure there are no dirty dishes in the sink, people might need to use the sink for preparing their drinks.

10) If you are the host, spend more time with the people you see less frequently and/or the people who don't know many other people at the party. The friends you who see regularly, you'll see them again soon, plus they know your house and can look after themself more easily.

11) Have some ridiculous decorations/something that people can play with. People enjoy novelty items.

12) Take lots of silly photos so you can more easily remember what happened.

13) Put away your valuables/things that could be broken easily.

14) Use lighting to direct flow of people. If there are any rooms/parts of the house that you don't want people to go onto, make sure all the lights in those areas are OFF. People won't really hang out in blackness.

15) Make sure there is an ample supply of toilet paper, very easily accessible in the toilet so there is no possibility of it running out, or people not being able to find it.

16) Don't go to bed until the last person leaves.

17) If someone has passed somewhere, make sure they are breathing/in a position where breathing would not be obstructed by surprise vomit.

So there you have it, Karen's guide to throwing a party. I think if I have to wrap it up in a nutshell, make sure people are physically comfortable, drinks are flowing, and there are no lights shining in their face.

Life-hacks

Gosh, I can't believe I haven't blogged here since June 2010. I've decided that this year I will try and blog more regularly. So here goes!

The first topic of the year is life-hacking. If you don't know about life-hacking, just punch it into google as it's all over the internet. The concept/idea started to spread online a few years ago. Basically, people share ideas online about how to make different aspects of their life more efficient/cheap/logical/easy/stream-lined/quick/pain-less.

I am not a life-hacking fanatic, but I am interested generally in this area. I love sleeping and lazing around at home, so if there are any ways of making more time to do this, then I will try and use these.

Anyway, here are some relatively minor "life-hacks" that I am now doing regularly. Some of these probably don't really qualify as "life-hacks" but just as straight domestic sense, but anyhow.

1. Thermos Coffee to work
Late last year I started making my morning coffee at home on our cofee machine, and then bringing it to work in a small thermos. A small coffee at work costs $3.80 (even with staff discount). Drinking one coffee a day would cost $19. Fourty eight weeks of this would cost $912. The coffee beans, electricity and water costs of making my own coffee and taking it to work, I hope wouldn't be more than $200? I don't know exactly, but it's definitely much cheaper to make it yourself.

2. Work clothes laid out the night before
Ever since I started full-time work, I have always laid out my work clothes the night before. That way it only takes about one minute to get dressed in the morning.

3. Smart-rider (RFID transport pass) and work pass put together.
Using coins to catch the bus was a pain in the ass. Fumbling in my purse for my new smart-rider was a pain in the ass. But then I tucked the smart-rider in with my work pass (which I wear around my neck). I haven't lost either of them since that.

4. Sniping cheap clothes off ebay.
Sniping is using a third party website or program to automatically put in a bid on an auction item at the very last moment. Initially I thought that sniping was kind of like cheating and unfair to the other bidders. However, those bidders could also snipe as well if they wanted to. Auction sites don't mind if people snipe and at the end of the day, you only put in the price you are willing to pay anyway. If someone else put in a bid with a higher maximum price than yours, you'll lose the auction.

So what I do, is I trawl ebay for clothes in my size at the lowest possible price (including shipping). I have bought lots of nice clothes for work that would've retailed for over $50 that only cost me $0.99 + $5 shipping.

If you are to buy clothes successfully of ebay then you need to be pretty aware of your body size/shape, what fits you, and also what types of fabric you prefer. For instance, I won't buy anything that is 100% cotton because I can't stand ironing.

My only problem with buying clothes off ebay is that now I have become somewhat addicted, so I need to be a bit more careful of this in 2011.

5. Turn off the TV
About a year ago, my boyfriend and I agreed to switch off the TV and not watch it at all. I think we were getting sick of all the advertising, and were also aware of how much TV saps away your time. Over the past year I only watched about 10 minutes of Channel 7 news (I wanted to see some footage from the huge storm/flood in March 2010), and TV at other people's houses.

When I say that we don't watch TV, that only means that we don't watch any broadcast TV. Actually we still watch DVDs (currently the third season of 30 Rock), downloaded movies, and streamed programs (through ABC iview), youtube etc. The programs that we watch at the moment are:

The 7:30 Report (ABC iView online)
At The Movies (ABC iView online)
PBS News Hour (streamed through the PBS website)
The Keiser Report (streamed through RT.com)
30 Rock (on DVD)
Equals 3 by Ray William Johnston (youtube)

I think that's all we regularly watch. By not watching free-to-air TV, you only watch the shows you actually enjoy, no filler!

6. Computer in the kitchen

We had a spare computer lying around so we set it up in the kitchen with some speakers. So we can watch all of the above programs while eating dinner. It's also good to stream video and audio (TED talks, youtube lecture, podcasts, news etc) while preparing dinner or cleaning up. Grooveshark.com is great for streaming music.

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Okay that's all I've got today for you. I'm going to try and update my blog a bit more regularly on random topics from life etc from now own, so see ya soon!

Rose Heritage Cafe

Arch, originally uploaded by sleepy chan.

Monday was a public holiday, so I took a Japanese friend up to the Bickley valley in the Perth hills for a bit of local tourism.

We went to: Rose Heritage Cafe (Carmel), Cosham Wines, we attempted to go to Brookside Winery and the Packing Shed but both were closed for a private function, and lastly, Piesse Brook wines. Oh I forgot, we also went to Lesmurdie falls and... Lesmurdie IGA.

This photo is from Rose Heritage Cafe. I didn't really know what to expect from this place expect that we could eat lunch there. We did indeed eat lunch there, but this was not the highlight. This place actually has an extensive nursery with about a million different species of roses, plus a few extras. They also have a "French Garden" (for which I cannot vouch authenticity), but involved a pretty awesome bed of light-fluorescent succulents (click through the image above to see my flickr stream).

This is a pretty nice place in general. I would recommend it to: tourists, guys looking for a place to take their girlfriend or wife on a surprise day-date, anyone looking for a place to take their mother or grandmother out for a scone and cup of tea, people with small children (there was a pond with a million koi fish which many small kids were entertained by), people looking for a place to get married, and lastly, people who like plants.

This day spent in the hills reminded me of the fun of being a "home tourist". Sometimes, when you get bogged down by the same old schedule, just try and become a home tourist for a day and go somewhere you've never been before. I think I'll try it more, provided I don't run out of places to go to in Perth/Perth surrounds.

Just Like Heaven

Okay okay okay. I know I watch a lot of trash. Forgive me! There is a part of my heart that loves the cheesiest crap that Hollywood can deliver. Just Like Heaven, well, it was cheesy, no doubt about it. But was it trashy? Not really. It was more like a pleasant stroll in a rose garden or a lovely cup of earl-grey tea. Sweet, but somewhat unaffecting. Why did it not really affect me? Probably because I didn't buy the chemistry.

I notice a trend in some of these romantic comedies (well, in this movie, and also in The Proposal and I suppose in Suddenly 30). You have the over-achieving career-woman who works so much that they've not left any space for a personal life. Then you have the sweet, down-to-earth guy who the girl has overlooked until some kind of personal crisis delivers him to her. The girl is all righteous, self-centred and bossy and the guy just kind of puts up with it dopelybecause he has always loved her.

This is my problem with a lot of these films in this kind of post-feminist(?) film-production landscape. The leading female, as an extreme example of the single American career-woman, seems to be more of a caricature than a character. She works too hard, other people are perhaps a little afraid of her, she eats chinese take-away alone at home etc. This is the reason why I think this movie failed; Reese Witherspoon's character was based a little too completely on a stereotype and I couldn't really learn anything about her apart from the fact that she worked 20 hours a day as a doctor and drank too much coffee. When she did come into Mark Ruffalo's life (sorry I can't remember the character's name, just the actor's), she swiftly proceeded to lash out with the pussy-whip, forbidding him to talk to his next door neighbour because she answered the door wearing a crop-top, and totally ruining his night out when he simply tried to have a whisky with his friend at the pub. Geez. IF SHE WAS THAT BAD AS A GHOST (which she was at that point in the movie) HOW BAD WOULD SHE BE IN REAL LIFE? I couldn't even really believe that they were in love.

If you didn't really care or notice chemistry between characters, then this movie would be fine, but the more I think about it, the less convincing they were. If you can suspend criticism and belief for about 90 minutes though, it was all rather pleasant. Your heart-strings will be manipulated in the usual ways and you can vicariously experience elements of their newly found love for each other. If you find it hard to surrender your intellect in such films, and don't find enjoyment in the escapist ride on a side-show alley ride of romantic emotions, then you would find watching this film to be a rather pointless exercise as it makes no meaningful statement about men, women or humankind.

Can I just add as an aside though, I THINK I LOVE MARK RUFFALO.


He's a vegetarian.

Reading

Wow, I've actually been reading books lately! I used to be an avid reader when I was much younger, but then life seemed to get in the way. I stopped reading novels around year 11 and 12 when I started having to analyse them for the purposes of writing essays. Then at uni, if I had time to do any reading at all, it'd be for the purposes of researching for essays. After uni, if I had any free-time it would either be taken up with going out, sleeping, or doing housework. Now it seems that I have a bit more free-time, which is good because I can finally pick up on that old pastime.

I don't like to waste time with classics, or with "books I ought to read". If I read, I like to read something that is just exactly the kind of thing I want to read about. Does that make sense? Anyway, I have always been fascinated with escape stories (and survival stories). We had this book in the house ("True Stories of Great Escapes"), which I read at some point. I must've been pretty young at the time because I couldn't really remember anything from it. My sister had taken it from the house when she moved to Melbourne, and only just gave it back to me when I visited last September. When I re-read it the other week. I'm surprised that I read such a thing at a young age, because there's lots of semi-disturbing historical escapades involving bombs, death, amputation, starvation etc. But hey, my favourite part of Reader's Digest was always Drama in Real Life where people narrowly escaped encounters with sharks, mountain lions, falls from icy cliffs etc.

There are lots of amazing stories in this book. People digging tunnels to escape from POW camps, swimming 100km over the Baltic Sea to escape from East Germany (before the wall fell). And a simply EPIC tale of a group of Russians escaping from a Siberian prison camp and walking across the GOBI DESERT and the HIMALAYAS to INDIA.

After reading the stories in this book, I contemplated on whether I would be able to survive any of the many gruelling escapes. My answer was: NO. I think if I was in most of these situations, ie walking through barren deserts of sleet with clothes made out of deer and nothing to eat but tiny slithers of old black mangy pork, I would probably end up just curling up to die. I really am a massive wuss! I don't like being too hot, being too cold or being too hungry. Maybe that's why I find these stories so impressive, that the escapees can just keep on going despite extreme hardship and discomfort. Next time I find myself suddenly out on a cold night without a jacket, or when I forget to bring a muesli bar and apple to work and have to go without a morning snack, I'll think of them and try and toughen the f$#k up!

Places I would buy/live in if I were rich

You have to be rich to buy almost any house in Perth, Western Australia. I am not rich. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating nice houses on the interwebs. I think I am reconciled to the fact that I'll probably never be an owner/part-owner of a house in this city, unless the house is kinda poor. But let's ignore that, and look how beautiful this house in Lesmurdie is:



"Built by well known architect Wally Greenham in the early 1970's, this home has been fastidiously maintained and presents today as a testament and reminder of creative forces at work during this period. Wally Greenham was an important Western Australian architect who, upon graduating from the University of WA completed a study tour in Japan. This piqued an interest in Japanese architecture akin to the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Goff. His work has been described as being loose and experimental and as having great freedom of expression."

Here's a pic of a room in this house, and then a pic of an authentic Japanese interior.




You can really see the influence. The Japanese style really fits well with the bush setting.




I'd never tire of washing dishes with a view like that, but anyway, at a price of $990 000 which equates to $1517 a week for 30 YEARS, this aint never gonna happen.

13 Going On 30 / Suddenly 30

So if you haven't noticed already, I'm a big fan of comedies/romantic comedies that involve a fantasy/time-travel element. By this, I mean either a body swap, or a "going back in time to your previous self" type plot-line. Suddenly 30 involves the "going back in time to your previous self" story line.

I'm always entertained by the different methods by which the fantasy time travel takes place. Sometimes people bang heads in a pool and switch bodies, sometimes it's a voodoo statue in an art gallery that the characters accidentally invoke. In this case, it's some glitter on top of a dolls-house that falls on the 13-year-old Jenna's (Jennifer Garner) head and magically whisks her 17 years into the future; her 30 year old self.

She's ecstatic to discover that she is now the owner of a huge shelf of shoes, and the successful editor of her favourite magazine, Poise. Apart from that, she is rather shocked to find out that her 30-year-old self is also a huge bitch with a back-stabbing best-friend and lame jock/himbo boyfriend. She rushes to track down her old best friend (played by Mark Ruffalo) and is further shocked to find out that they had a falling out in high-school when she ditched him to hang out with the popular crew, the "Six Chicks". Of course, this ex-dweeb is now this AWESOME kind of indie, very modest, down to earth photographer living in New York and Jenna is now KICKING HERSELF HARD because he's totally awesome but now engaged and she has zero chance. Actually, I was in love with his character too. Here's a photo:


* sigh * . So Jenna realises that she totally stuffed up her life by choosing popularity, fame and the bitchy road to success instead of this completely awesome guy who was right in front of her. Is it too late!? You'll have to watch in order to find out. Hahah though it's not hard to guess what happens.

In terms of this particular genre, I thought this film was pretty successful - the characters had an authentic chemistry and Jennifer Garner really played a 13 year old in a 30 year old's body quite well. Her performance made me reflect on the way some adults become; as they get older they get wrapped up in money and career and stop seeing the magic in life. Well, it's ok to care about your career, and money to some extent, but not when you lose your heart in the process. It does make you realise that we do have choices in life, but sometimes they are so gradual that they don't even feel like choices. Over-time, these tiny little "mini-choices" add up and suddenly that's your life. I think this would be a good lesson for the 13 year old girls who probably made up the majority of the audience for this film, to ignore the superficial bitches and try and just live your life with heart and authenticity.

I think if this happened to me; if some wishing dust fell on my head and I was SUDDENLY 30, I'd be like, oh ok. Hahah actually it's only 3 years away so I can't imagine life will be hugely different. I won't be the editor of a successful magazine. Actually, when I was younger I couldn't wait to be old enough to move out and live my own life. Now I'm doing that, it's harder and not as much fun as I thought it'd be. By 30 I hope I'll be better at looking after myself so that it's less stress. Going from being the youngest of 7 children (with the whole dependent/slacker/wait-and-see style of living) to self-sufficient adult has been hard. I think my challenge in life is to get above that and not get weighed down by it all, which is how I often feel these days. Work seems to suck out a lot of my energy and then I just feel like sleeping the rest of the time. If I continue like this, then I think I'll be a boring 30 year old so I should give myself a kick up the ass eh.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Ok let me try and summarise the plot. If my summary is incorrect, forgive me, I'm trying to do this from memory instead of just looking on IMDB. So, Doctor Parnassus (top image) is this guy who gained immortality by promising his daughter to the devil on her 16th birthday. Her 16th birthday is fast approaching when the devil re-appears, keen for another gamble. So, Doctor Parnassus and the devil make a bet with his daughter as the wager; the winner has to "capture" five souls by her 16th birthday.

Doctor Parnassus has an "imaginarium", which is a kind of magic mirror. When someone goes through the mirror, they find themselves in their own imagination, surrounded by everything they'd ever wished for. They are then faced with a choice; of temporary, material, earthly satisfaction, or the eternal truth of life. In order to pass into the eternal/immaterial, they have to let go of their narcissism, hedonism, materialism, and their fear of death. If they choose the eternal, then Doctor Parnassus has "won" their soul, but if they choice hedonism/materialism/earthly desire, then the devil wins.

Doctor Parnassus is hopelessly struggling to attract willing participants to the Imaginarium when Tony (Heath Ledger) comes into the story. Tony revamps the stage and presentation of the show and manages to "win" several souls. As the story goes on, we realise that Tony is not who he claims to be, and the battle between dark and light is not as clear as one would imagine.

Gosh that was very hard to explain. I think it'd be best if you watched the movie for yourself and tried to make sense of it. The concept, the story and the film are all quite incredible, it's always a treat to watch something by Terry Gilliam. It reminded me a lot of Hermann Hesse's "Journey to the East" where the main character is on a long symbolic/metaphysical journey where things are not as they seem.

I tried to visualise what my imaginarium would look like. I think it would be very pretty and aesthetically perfect, I always want to be in nice surroundings. Is it bad to wish for a perfect life? Nice house to live in, nice clothes, nice friends, nice hobbies, nice family, nice partner, nice holidays, nice everything. Is it bad to wish for everything to be pleasant? Because that's what my imaginarium would be. I'd be living in a kind of amazing tree-house in a city with a perfect layout, brilliant public transport, intelligent and humane governance. I would have amazing clothes, toe-socks every day, and extremely cute pets. Then, what would be the choice I have to face? To accept things as they are instead of constantly chasing perfection? But sometimes it's better to strive for things or you go backwards. I guess the key is to strive whilst also being content with the imperfect moment? I'm not sure. I'm just thinking aloud here. Anyway, when you watch this film it'll definitely make you ponder your own imaginarium and how we create our own heaven and hell right here on earth.

The Dinner Game / Le dîner de cons (1998)

A group of elite French businessmen host a weekly dinner where each of them must bring "an idiot", for the amusement of the group. Pierre Brochant's "idiot scout" finds him a premium idiot on the train, Finance Ministry employee and budding match-stick landmark replica builder François Pignon. On the day of the dinner, Brochant severely busts his back on the golf course and has to cancel on the dinner. His "idiot" Pignon is already on his way over. Hilarity ensues as Pignon manages to almost accidentally destry Brochant's whole life through a series of blundered telephone calls and cases of mistaken identity.

I didn't know this when I watched it, but the director of the film, Francis Veber, had actually originally written Le dîner de cons as a theatrical play. 95% of the film is set in Pierre's apartment, and the film moves along at a cracking pace by virtue of Pierre and François' often ridiculous dialogue.

Apart from a fleeting 87 minutes of entertainment, I didn't find much to contemplate on. What was the meaning here? That an idiot is not always an idiot? In my books, if someone can build realistic mini replica's of famous landmarks, then how can he really be an idiot? I couldn't do that. I think the essential quality of Pignon that had him defined as an "idiot" was not stupidity in itself, but a kind of lack of self-awareness whereby Pignon could not see himself as others did. Here's the formula for this kind of idiot:

1. A quirky/strange and/or obsessive hobby that sits on the border of normal and insane.
2. An innocent and earnest enthusiasm,
3. Total lack of awareness of how others see him.

In order to demonstrate this principle, let me use the example of Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday. If you haven't seen Chocolate Rain yet, just type it into youtube and you'll see.

Why is Chocolate Rain hilarious? Well, firstly, the song really sits on the border of normal and crazy. What do I mean by this? Well, there are PLENTY of guys doing songs in such a way on youtube. That's pretty normal. BUT, why is his voice SOOO low? And the lyrics of this song? "chocolate rain"? It's not quite right is it? Secondly, Zonday seems totally earnest throughout his performance, and the interviews I've seen with him. What do I mean by earnest? Well, no irony, no intended humour. He's not trying to be cool, he truly is singing a song from the heart. Just like Pignon builds his match-stick replicas with completely and non-self-conscious, innocent enthusiasm. Lastly, it doesn't seem like Zonday can really appreciate why his video has gone viral,... because, I don't think Chocolate Rain is funny or strange to him. To him, it's an honest self expression.

I think the humour in this type of video/situation, is that Zonday is not aware of why his song is funny, which makes the song even funnier. There is a gap between the self-perception and the audience perception that really creates the humour. I have seen a lot of viral videos where this really seems to be the case. Ie, the recent barking dog man (which you will easily find on youtube). He wasn't trying to be the star of a viral video, he wasn't trying to be funny, but man, WTF. I think this is why engineered viral videos so often fail, because you can't manufacture that kind of innocent/earnest weirdo who sits on the border of weird and normal to create a song/performance that is sincere and heartfelt to the weirdo, but hilarious to everyone else. Another big example of this phenomenon is Tommy Wiseau in the 2003 film, The Room. Think about it.

Uncle Buck

So, Uncle Buck is a story by John Hughes about an unmarried, fat, drinking, cigar-smoking uncle who comes to look after his brother's kids when the couple leaves town to visit the wife's father (who's just had a heart attack). The kids parents are extremely square and meal-times are tense. Then crazy ol' Uncle Buck arrives to stir things up. He swears and curses, smokes cigars indoors, makes giant pancakes, tells the daughter's nitpicking headmistress where to go, punches an alcoholic clown and threaten's the teenage daughter's boyfriend with a hatchet. My favourite scene is when he crashes a highschool party to find her and walks through with a cigar and beer in hand totally freaking out all the teens who are like, WTF who is this crazy old fat guy doing here? Basically, Uncle Buck is great because he doesn't stand for any kind of shit and he's not afraid to poke a stick in it no matter how many people it'll piss off. His honest humanity wins the kids over, and even breaks the icy wall of the teenage daughter. Society needs more Uncle Bucks.

As I was watching this movie, I constantly keep feeling, wow! That's nuts!? How the hell is he doing that??.... I think that today's society is a lot more square and regulated and you couldn't make and release Uncle Buck today. It's interesting, if you asked people if they thought society was more square or more liberal than 30 years ago, a lot of people might assume it's more liberal because of all the "sex, drugs and violence" on TV. I haven't seen any TV from the 70's but I've been told that there were totally naked people on TV all the time, and not just late at night. So, maybe there is more violence on TV today, but that doesn't exactly indicate a culturally liberal society. Yes, I definitely think that society has got more square in some ways.

Another reason why you wouldn't see this film made and released today, is due to the social climate in context of the recent "war on men". I'm not sure when it all started, but it seems that these days, the media is completely and overly obsessed with the threat of pedophilia and pedophilic porn. OK, so pedophilic porn is no good. Keep funding police programs to thwart it. So, sexual abuse of children is of course no good. Well, haven't studies shown that most sexual abuse comes from family members or those known to the family and not strangers? So, they should address that through family-centred social programs. So, why this very generalised, hyper-paranoia about men? Apparently it is hard for men nowadays who want to pursue careers child-care or early-childhood teaching without being seen as dodgy... And although we were always taught "stranger danger", I think it's really been hyped up generally over the last few years and especially towards men. Today's Uncle Buck wouldn't stand a chance. I think that's sad.

The end.

An Education

I can't really describe this film that well without showing heaps of photos. The 1960's setting is brilliant. I'm really hungry right now so it's a bit hard for me to write anything more about this film (I hate cooking in summer, and I'm all out of milk so I can't even eat cereal). Let me just say that most of this film is a highschool girl's dream come true. High school is, as depicted in the film, a total drag. Most highschool boys are useless (sorry boys), and if I were Jenny (the main character in this film), I wouldn't blame her for getting swept up! Ok, that's all I can write before I faint from heat and malnutrition.

District 9

Ok so here's another piece of compulsory viewing for 2009-2010. Well, compulsory only if you can handle shaky "documentary-style" camera-work and R-rated bloody alien gore. There is A LOT of alien gore.

So if you're not familiar with the storyline already,..an alien ship "washes up" on Johannesburg, South Africa, filled with hordes of malnourished extra-terrestrials. The local government sets up a refugee camp of sorts, which soon becomes an alien ghetto slum that causes all sorts of problems for the human citizens of J-burg. A tough and cheerful official is put in charge of a project to move over 1 million of these aliens to a distant location (ie, concentration camp). This is when the problems start.

Throughout the first part of the film (showing the interaction between humans and the aliens in the ghetto slum), I felt very weird inside. Partly because of the very-current refugee/ghetto situation and the cruelty aimed at the aliens. Also, because the director very successfully supplanted this very alien situation into an extremely believable contemporary reality. The first part of the film mostly uses documentary style/news footage clips, adding to the surreal believability of the scenario. This gave me a very unsettled and uneasy feeling - AWESOME,... this is what a good surreal-sci-fi/horror-type film should do. Imagine Cronenberg, add an alien-apartheid situation and put the whole thing on FAST FORWARD and then you've got District 9.

Oh, and I need to mention that the special effects are INSANE. People keep talking on about how the special effects in AVATAR changed their life. Sorry I haven't seen this film, but I reckon District 9 would stomp all over it. The director, Neill Blomkamp, worked for years as an animator... and the result is that you totally buy all the special effects. The aliens are REAL, which makes it all the more creepy. And, no 3D glasses required. Oh, and also, the story-line and dialogue are also ... really good.

Lastly, If you think you can bear the shaky camera work on a big screen, I recommend seeing this at the cinema. I watched this on our piddly TV and thought at times that it'd be heaps better with a big screen and full sound.

Up In the Air

In trying to find some good movies to watch, I was browsing top films on Rotten Tomatoes. Up In the Air had like 92%, so I thought I'd give it a go. The movie ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are not always reliable. Films that I've loved, have only scored in the 50's and 60's, and then some films that I think are total bullshit have scored in the 90's. So you can't use this website as a guide for all films. However, in this case, I realised that the film is by the writer/director of Thankyou for Smoking, Jason Reitman. If you haven't already seen that film, it's really funny and I recommend it. C and I once went to see it at Innaloo Megaplex Greater Union whatever it's called on a Saturday night and although the cinema foyer was PACKED, there were only about 5 other people watching the same film as us. So we could kinda stretch out across the seats of a row as if we were on a couch at home. I was kind of wearing my pyjamas under my coat, which made it all pretty awesome.

Anyway, what have I got to say about Jason Reitman based on these two films. Well, he knows how to WRITE. The characters and dialogue were great. Both films are pretty smart and I consider them both to be compulsory viewing. I don't know what else I can tell you about Up in the Air that you can't learn from other sources. Oh! Anna Kendrick's portrayal of a early 20's graduate go-getter was spot-on. Intense and still with a head full of book-learning from university. Aww.

I just realised I have neglected to mention that Jason Reitman also directed Juno, a film which upon retrospect, I realise that I didn't really like. I liked the aesthetics of the film, the music, the characters, everything. The only problem was, Ellen Page's character, Juno's lines were just WAY TOO witty/ironic/sarcastic for her age. It didn't seem believable to me. I wished they would've toned it down a bit so I could believe in her character a little more. But hey, Jason Reitman didn't actually write this film, so it's not entirely his fault.

Oh, and one last point, I never noticed this before but George Clooney's voice is REALLY DEEP. C recently built these funny sound-trap things for our lounge-room for his recording, and it makes the bass level on everything pretty immense. George is definitely a real man.