Please . . . just walk away

I've sat through some pretty terrible movies in my time. I once watched "The Bodyguard" - from beginning to end - and even pretended to like it. Although that was hoping to impress a girl, so I'm not sure it should count. Here's a better example - in 1992 Forcey and I went to see "Stop or My Mom Will Shoot" - a film best described as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone and the eldest of the Golden Girls - and again stayed through to the closing credits. (www.rottentomatoes.com gives it a rating of 6%, with reviewers quotes like "Being shot might be preferable to sitting through this" and "Stop! making lousy comedies or you'll permanently damage your career.")


What I'm trying to say is that I don't give up on a movie easily. If I've spent the time and money to go to the movies - or even the video store - I'm going to give something every chance to succeed. I reached my limit last night though watching "Miami Vice" - after about an hour I turned it off.

The original plan was to grab "Rest Stop" - a horror movie recommended to me by a colleague. But by the time I got to the video store I wasn't in a great mood, and didn't really feel like watching random people being murdered. I looked around for a while but nothing was jumping out at me - it was one of those times where you can't really find anything you want to see, but hate the idea of going home empty handed. So you talk yourself into something you never really wanted to watch in the first place.

Anyway . . . I get home and pop the movie into my DVD player, and it jumps straight into the action. So much so that it feels like I've started in the middle of the movie. After about ten minutes, I take the disc out, check to see if it's a double sided disc that I put in wrong, and realise I had been watching the start, they just neglected to include anything like opening credits. Or a proper introduction of the characters. As far as I could work out, they were undercover agents trying to infiltrate a drug ring. And they drove a Ferrari, and had a very fast boat.

The film was directed by Michael Mann, whose made one great movie in "Heat" and another pretty good one in "Collateral", and to be honest, it did look great. I just honestly had no idea what was going on with the plot. And when you can't follow the plot of an action movie, there's either something very wrong with you, or with the film. I'm going with the film.

So next time you're in a video store, and you talk yourself into seeing something you never really wanted to, do yourself a favour and walk away. Just walk away. I wish I did.

Ballin' in the Ghetto

A couple of weeks ago our Thursday night basketball comp got moved from the Powerhouse (Distinctive Homes Dome if you really want to be correct) to St Ives stadium at Port Adelaide. I can't really remember why, I think it had something to do with resurfacing the courts. Either that, or they realised they could make more money hiring the venue out to corporate clients.

So now we're at St Ives, and it kind of sucks. I've played here before, and it hasn't changed at all. Perhaps that's what seems vaguely depressing about the place - you play here for a while, then leave, get on with your life, make some new friends, start a new job, buy a new house - then you come back here and feel like you've instantly regressed ten years.

The main problems, as far as I can see it are:
1) Terrible lighting - it's light enough to play safely, but still dark enough to give off a sombre vibe.
2) Crappy rims - when you spend a lot of your time bombing away from the three point line, you really want soft rims that will - more often than not - give you a friendly roll. These don't fit that mould.
3) The size of the court - I can't prove this without the aid of a really long piece of tape, but I'm pretty sure the courts aren't full size.
4) The odour - a slightly musty smell that greets you as you walk through the doors.

It's not all bad though, there are a few benefits:
1) Probably the biggest advantage is that the stadium is only five minutes or so from my house. So the convenience is great.
2) Presumably since the comp organisers are aware of points one through to four above, they've lowered the cost from $9 a game to $7.50.
3) The snack bar seems to be at least the equal of the one at the Powerhouse, although since I don't eat mixed lollies during half time of our games anymore, that's of limited value to me.

Anyway we played there last night against Blaze. Who we rarely lose to, except when we played them in the semi finals last year, a game I'm still kind of bitter about. Last night we lost by one, but in our defense, we played the fiinal twenty minutes with four players after Ash injured his knee at the end of the first half. He's having an MRI on Monday, but it's terrible timing for him, having a ski holiday to New Zealand booked in less than a month . . .

Things I recommend

Entourage
Until the Sopranos returns or we get a third season of Extras, this is the best show on TV. Of course, it's not even on free to air, but that seems about right - you wouldn't want to deprive Australia of the chance to watch quality fare like "Two and a Half Men" in prime time. Still there are advantages to it being on Foxtel - they don't have to bury it at midnight like Channel 9 do with the Sopranos, and we actually get episodes only a few weeks after they air in the US, rather than a year later. How novel.

Nixon Watches
I bought myself one of these a few months ago and am now looking at maybe getting another. I got "The Player" which I suppose is fitting in an ironic sense.

Next up I'm thinking of "The Banks" in gold. The question is whether I can pull off a giant gold watch without looking like a complete loser. Michella thinks I can't. I kind of want to prove her wrong.


Top Taste Little Bites
Do you ever feel like just a few small bites of a piece of cake, but hate wasting food with all the starvation going on in the world? I know I do. And that's why I'm loving the new Little Bites range from Top Taste - perfect for topping off a lunch with something sweet without having to buy (and then devour) an entire muffin. Available from all good supermarkets in choc-chip muffin and chocolate brownie varieties.

"Can I Keep My Jersey" by Paul Shirley
I just finished reading this book, and if you have even a passing interest in basketball, it's worth having a look at. His self deprecating style of writing does wear a little thin after a while, but it's worth it just for the stories which show just how shallow and stupid the average NBA player is (eg guys making more than $10 million a year buying lottery tickets, hoping to win and be "set for life").

Cotton On
The clothes here aren't great quality. And come to think of it, with the amount they cost, they probably aren't manufactured in the most ethical way. But if there's somewhere you can buy a better tshirt for $10, I haven't found it yet.

Omlettes
I just recently discovered how delicious and easy to make these are. I take two eggs, half a tomato, three mushrooms, one spring onion, a handfull of grated cheese, add sea salt and cracked pepper, and mix it all up in a bowl. Pour the mixture into the pancake maker Forcey gave me for my birthday last year, and within five minutes dinner is served. Or breakfast . . . or lunch . . . that's the beauty of the omlette, it's the meal for all occasions.

Snow Patrol
I've only got the latest album but I'm slowly coming around to these guys. Initially I had them pegged as U2-clones, then (even worse) Coldplay clones, but I have to admit a few of their songs are really growing on me. Check out "Make this go on forever". They are coming here later this year, my early prediction is their concert will one day join the list of concerts I can't believe I passed up.

Top five meals for the weekend

I sure hope Serious Scott isn't reading .. . .

5. Saturday lunch
Where: My house
What: Two KFC Twisters, one Coopers Dark Ale.

Not a bad meal considering I just wanted to grab something quickly after the gym. Loses points because of the lack of ambience (eating on the couch in my TV room with the curtains closed) and company (dining on my own).

4. Sunday lunch
Where: Hungry Jacks
What: Chicken BLT Baguette (available for a limited time only), medium Fanta, a handful of fries
My philosophy is that if the people at Hungry Jacks (or McDonalds . . or Subway) put the time and effort into coming up with a new dish, the least I can do is give it a go. I thought this was a pretty solid addition to their baguette range - it's the standard country chicken baguette, but with free tomato and bacon. Unfortunately we didn't get the chance to stay long enough to sample something from their dessert menu, the sticky date pudding looked tempting.

3. Saturday Dinner
Where: My house
What: Spaghetti Bolognese, can of Coke Zero, single serve mixed berry and apple pie.

Normally this would be at number five on this list, but Michella has a bit of a talent for combining raw mince, Paul Newman's pasta sauce, and assorted herbs and spices and coming up with a delicious meal. Dessert was a Nana's mixed berry and apple pie - very tasty and easy to prepare at home.

2. Sunday Dinner
Where: My house
What: Combination Hot Pot, Can of Coke Zero, one of Karen Crouch's delicious home baked muffins

Then Peter approaching asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times." Matthew 18:18-19.

Wise words indeed. Except someone who will remain nameless feels that these principles of forgiveness don't apply to restaurants who are forced to temporarily close down due to Health Department orders. So instead of getting a hot pot from Vietnam Restaurant at Pennington, we had to go to Vietnam Village at Thebarton. A bit further away, and the food wasn't quite as good, but it was just good enough to sneak into the number two spot, although a very distant second behind . . .

1. Friday Dinner
Where: Lenzerheide Restaurant
What: Gnocchi with Walnut and Cream sauce, topped with pesto, Steak Olympus, Creme Brulee and a glass of Wirra Wirra Church Block.

This meal might not be topped in 2007, definitely the classiest place I've ever eaten at. The food was great - the gnocchi entree was a playful yet mysterious little dish, and the main was kind of over the top - steak stuffed with prawns - but fantastic. It kind of reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Moe ordered the most expensive dish in the restaurant, stuffed with the second most expensive.

I think we may have stuck out - our waitress asked us as we were leaving if it was our first time, which of course I took to mean "you don't look rich enough to have eaten here before." Other than that she was nice though.

Smokin' Aces

Over the weekend Paul asked me if Ben Affleck had made a good movie since Good Will Hunting. I thought about it and couldn't really think of one (not counting Chasing Amy, as I think I'm in the minority when it comes to that one). Last night I saw what may be his first, despite (or perhaps even because of) the fact that he dies a violent death reasonably early on.

I had wanted to see Smokin' Aces at the movies. The selling point for me was the inclusion of Ari Gold, I mean Jeremy Piven, and the promise of high level violence just sealed the deal. Anyway I missed it there but grabbed it at my local Video Ezy last night (shouldn't that be updated to DVD Ezy sometime soon?)

The premise is reasonably straightforward - Buddy Israel (Jeremy Piven) is a Vegas entertainer turned mob associate turned snitch who is in the witness protection program, hidden away in a penthouse in a rural Nevada casino. The mafia have put a bounty on his head, and so it's a race between a few different groups of assassins and the FBI to get to him first. As luck would have it, they all arrive at roughly the same time, so the majority of the film is the bloody stand off between all of the different groups - kind of like the last ten minutes or so of True Romance, stretched into a full movie.

Jeremy Piven was great as the increasingly paranoid Buddy, isolated from the world and waiting for the inevitable. I also liked both the guys playing the FBI agents - Ray Liotta and Jeremy Reynolds. The script was decent I suppose, but you don't watch movies like this for the acting and dialogue, it's more of a "sit back and enjoy the carnage" experience.

I've read some bad reviews about this where people compare it to the films of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino, and if that's the standard you're holding a movie up to, yeah it's not going to make it. On it's own merits though I thought it was really good, I'd definitely watch it again.

Weekend in Melbourne

Just got back today from an extended five day weekend in Melbourne.

The plan was to leave at 6.30am Friday morning, although we didn't hit the road till about 8.30am in the end. Luckily we had a great mix of music to see us through (see below).

We got into the Melbourne area at about 7ish, thinking we weren't far off from a delicious dinner at Paul's house. Well, we were. After getting lost a couple of times we finally arrived at Paul's place about 8.45pm. A surprisingly tasty dinner of lemon chicken and satay veggies was waiting, and after tea Paul and I watched the Cavs get killed in game one of the NBA Finals.

Saturday morning we had breakfast in a delightful little place called "Flippin' Pancakes" in the Dandenong Hills. The exact name of the town escapes me but it was really nice, kind of like Hahndorf, but a little less rubbish.

After this we went shopping at some factory outlet complex, then later in the afternoon Paul and I schooled some Asian guys down at his local courts. David and Anthony their names were I think. Anyway really nice guys, not so hot at basketball though.

Dinner was at a local cafe "Smokin' Joes". Their advertisements say it's not just a cafe but a way of life, but I don't know, it kind of seemed like a cafe to me. We grabbed Babel on DVD, but unfortunately we all hated it.

The next morning we left Paul and drove out to Careforce Church at Mt Evelyn. Michella had heard the Pastor before and wanted to check it out, it was really good. From there we drove into the CBD, checked into the Radisson, and did some shopping. Having a late lunch we ran into a guy from Adelaide who just seemed desperately lonely. He started off bagging Melbourne, then bagging Adelaide, and I got the feeling he'd say anything just to keep the conversation going a little longer. We would have obligued him, but I really needed new trackies so we slipped away.

Dinner Sunday night was in the Radisson's restaurant. I had the steak, and it was probably the best meal I've had in recent memory.

Monday morning we planned an early morning walk in the park opposite our hotel, which looked stunning - it reminded me of Central Park in New York. Unfortunately we slept in so after checking out of the hotel headed to the Melbourne Aquarium. It was better than I thought it would be, but completely overcrowded with kids (being a holiday and all).

We left Melbourne about lunchtime and drove to Horsham. We checked into the Darlot Motel, and took the vouchers they gave us to the RSL for dinner. It was kind of nice - the place was a bit run down and the food pretty crap but the atmosphere was great, with all of the locals and ex-servicemen in there. We saw Shrek the Third at a local theatre, then retired to our room, where I managed to catch 15 minutes of Passenger 57 before Michella made me turn it off. Man that movie has not aged well. Kind of funny though that at one point Wesley Snipes was actually making popular movies.

Drove through to Keith this morning where we stopped for lunch at a nice cafe, then home this afternoon. A great weekend, but it's good to be home . . .

Making a mixtape

The making of a great compilation, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. The you got to take it up a notch, but you don't want to blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

I spent tonight making mix cds for my trip to Melbourne this weekend. Rob Gordon was right, it takes ages longer than you think it would. Possibly longer than I've spent actually researching things to do when I get to Melbourne. Anyway, if anyone is interested, here's what I came up with.

CD One
1. California Dreaming - The Mamas and the Papas
2. War - Edwin Starr
3. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
4. Use Me - Bill Withers
5. Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys
6. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
7. Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
8. Under My Thumb - The Rolling Stones
9. The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel
10. Uptight (Everything's Alright) - Stevie Wonder
11. You Keep Me Hanging On - Diana Ross and the Supremes
12. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) - Nancy Sinatra
13. Time of the Season - The Zombies
14. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You - Led Zeppelin
15. In the Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett
16. Hold On I'm Comin' - Sam and Dave
17. Little Red Riding Hood - Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs
18. Solitary Man - Neil Diamond
19. The Turtles - So Happy Together
20. I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye

CD Two
1. Paranoid - Black Sabbath
2. Layla - Derek and the Dominoes
3. Tiny Dancer - Elton John
4. Freddie's Dead - Curtis Mayfield
5. Sure Know Something - Kiss
6. Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
7. Express Yourself - Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
8. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
9. Roxanne - The Police
10. American Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. Cocaine - Eric Clapton
12. Hurricane - Bob Dylan
13. Heart of Gold - Neil Young
14. Baba O'Reilly - The Who
15. The Logical Song - Supertramp
16. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

CD Three
1. Manic Monday - The Bangles
2. Love Song - The Cure
3. With or Without You - U2
4. Under the Milky Way - The Church
5. The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
6. Into the Groove - Madonna
7. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
8. Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
9. Hello - Lionel Ritchie
10. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
11. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns n' Roses
12. Short Memory - Midnight Oil
13. F.I.N.E. - Aerosmith
14. Call Me - Blondie
15. I Ran - A Flock of Seagulls
16. Wanted Dead or Alive - Bon Jovi
17. Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
18. Four Seasons in One Day - Crowded House
19. Africa - Toto

CD Four
1. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak
2. The Last Stop - Dave Matthews Band
3. Not an Addict - K's Choice
4. Pick You Up - Powderfinger
5. Polyester Bride - Liz Phair
6. Mama Said - Metallica
7. Dumb - Nirvana
8. Animal - Pearl Jam
9. My Friends - Red Hot Chili Peppers
10. Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
11. Losing My Religon - R.E.M.
12. Glycerine - Bush
13. What It's Like - Everlast
14. Easy - Faith No More
15. White, Discussion - Live
16. Wonderwall - Oasis
17. Every You Every Me - Placebo

CD Five
1. Volcano - Damien Rice
2. When You Were Young - The Killers
3. Son of Sam - Elliott Smith
4. From the Sea - Eskimo Joe
5. Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
6. Mad World - Gary Jules
7. Evil - Interpol
8. Orphelia - Kashmir
9. Time is Running Out - Muse
10. There She Goes, My Beautiful World - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
11. Let It Ride - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
12. Make This Go On Forever - Snow Patrol
13. A Sorta Fairytale - Tori Amos
14. London Still - The Waifs
15. The Saints Are Coming - U2 and Green Day
16. In the Fade - Queens of the Stone Age
17. Twenty Years - Something for Kate
18. I Got You - Stone Temple Pilots

Great song, not so great dancing

I found this live version of "Set the fire to the third bar" by Snow Patrol with Martha Wainwright on youtube. Great song, fantastic version . . . but the singer looks like he's having a seizure of some sort.

Zodiac

Last night I used some tickets I won to go see "Zodiac". A few thoughts on the experience:

Arndale cinemas are totally dead on a Monday night. In our particularly screening (admittedly at 6pm) there were three people - Murray, myself, and an elderly asian man.

A lot of cinemas these days don't bother to put someone on the door collecting tickets - presumably because they don't sell enough tickets to cover the salary of both the person who sells you the ticket and the person who collects them. Pretty soon we're just going to be on the honour system with ticketing, as well as a self serve philopsophy for the candy bar.

Jake Gyllenhaal is great. I haven't seen a bad movie with him in it yet, although admittedly I've never watched that "Day after Tomorrow" film or the gay cowboy one. I think I'd strongly consider seeing both though just to watch his performance. He joins Ed Norton and Robert DeNiro on that list for me.

Robert Downey Jr plays an alcholic, who also has a drug problem. I guess that's what you call method acting. Actually it was kind of weird watching him/his character snort coke on screen. Murray joked that it was real and was part of his deal for appearing in the movie.

The movie itself was pretty good, although because it's based on a true story, it didn't have the resolution I was hoping for. I'd be interested to read the book that it is based on.

The film has a seventies look which was really cool - the film stock was kind of faded so it looks like it was made thirty years ago. The movie was pretty long - at least two and a half hours. Not in the league of David Fincher's great movies - Se7en and Fight Club - but probably better than Panic Room. Or any Jodie Foster movie really.

Murray's Birthday

Lies for the Liars

I'm not quite sure that I should share this, in case someone from the band is reading and it goes to their head (see previous post and the comment on it for explanation). But the new album from the Used, "Lies for the Liars", is quite good.

I bought their first album when it came out in about 2002 I think, after hearing "A Box Full of Sharp Objects". It was a decent debut, in fact the first four or five songs were great (if you like punk music with liberal amounts of screaming), although the rest of the CD was kind of average.

The next one was a CD/DVD with live versions of the first few songs from their first album ie the good ones, and some filler. Still good, but you're expecting a bit more at this stage.

The next album, "In Love and Death" really sucked. It was at about this point that it became impossible to walk down Rundle Mall in the middle of the day without tripping over freakish punk/emo/goth kids. Mainly because for some reason they like sitting on the ground (often outside bookstores), talking about death and My Chemical Romance (at least I think they do). Anyway these kids love bands like The Used, so I kind of stopped listening to them, scared that maybe one day I'd decide to dye my hair black, get full length arm tattoos and insert a small hockey puck in my earlobe.

After this album, they brought out another CD/DVD package, with live versions of the crappy songs from their last crappy album. Awesome.

Their new album came out a few weeks ago and I thought I'd check it out by downloading it. I was surprised to find out that it was actually a retun to their first CD - a bit heavier, with less of the ballady type stuff on the last album. It seems really rare for bands to actually revert to their previous form - once they start to suck, it's a slippery slope that's not easy to climb back up (also see Smashing Pumpkins, The). Somehow though these guys managed to recapture the feel of their first album without coming out with a carbon copy of it.

This kind of music isn't everyone's thing - actually I can probably only think of one or two of my friends who may possibly like this - but if you think you might be interested perhaps download "The Bird and the Worm", "Paralyzed" or "Wake the Dead". Or just watch this video where Bert pretends to be Kurt Cobain.

Quickflix

The other day I joined up with Quickflix for a free trial. The concept sounds good - you order movies online, they ship them to your home within a day or so, you return them in the reply paid envelope they send you, then they send you some more DVDs.

I can see one problem already - the cost is like $30 or more a month, which is quite a lot to spend on DVD rentals, assuming you have a job to go to and some semblance of a social life.

The other problem is you can't just order anything you want - you have a "queue" of movies you want to see - which they recommend you keep topped up with at least twenty titles. What this means is that you might not get your first pick, or your second, but there's a good chance you'll get your nineteenth. You'd be surprised how few movies there are that you are interested in seeing, I know I struggled to fill my queue.

Anyway I joined up last Thursday, and my first movies arrived in the post yesterday. Which was awesome timing since I was home sick. (Side point - staying at home in bed all day is not nearly as fun as I remember it being. I would have had to have been in intensive care to stop me coming in to work today, and I don't love my job that much). I didn't get the movies I really wanted, but the ones I got were pretty good.

The first one I watched was "The Wrong Man". Starring Josh Hartnett (as the wrong man), Bruce Willis, a surprisingly attractive Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley. I thought it was really good - kind of like a Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie movie, but with less funny dialogue and perhaps a few more twists. I recommend this one, check it out. Final rating - B plus.

The second was "World Trade Centre". I was kind of in the mood for this after watching "United 93" a week or so ago (which by the way was a bit of a weird film - it's all in real time so there's no real character development, backstory or anything like that - its just a 90 minute dramatisation of the event). I enjoyed both films but possibly World Trade Centre a little more - for one thing, anything with Maggie Gyllenhaal is usually better than something without her in it. Also this movie just seemed a bit wider in scope - the scenes they shot in the New York streets as the building was coming down looked amazing. Nicolas Cage can be a bit annoying but he was fine in this. I'd give it seven out of ten.

Live in concert . . . Samantha Fox

I saw an ad the other day for Count Down 2 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Basically the idea is a whole lot of bands that nobody has really cared about for 25 or so years playing together, with the whole thing hosted by Molly Meldrum. I suppose the purpose of this type of thing is to a) ensure Molly continues to have employment in the entertainment industry until he dies and b) allow a whole lot of people to relive their youth by listening to songs from their adolescence.

Of course, if you're seeing 20 odd bands in the one night, you know that you're not really getting quality. No U2, REM, Police etc . . . the biggest name on the bill (or first one listed at least) is Rick Springfield. My only conection to Rick is shopping in JB Hi-Fi one day with Mirjana while she tried to find the cheapest possible way of purchasing "Jesse's Girl" on CD. I think eventually she decided $10 was too much to pay and we left. Which makes me wonder who is going to pay $100 to see him and all his friends in concert in 2007.

Anyway, what really struck me wasn't how crappy the lineup is . . . I'm sure there are people out there saying "If Samantha Fox, Richard Clapton and Kate Cebrano ever tour together I'm totally going" . . . it was that most of the performers were single people from bands. For example - Katrina (formerly of Katrina and the Waves) . . . Paul Gray (of Wa Wa Nee) . . . Les McKewon (formerly of the Bay City Rollers). Where are the rest of the guys? I want to know what the remaining members of Wa Wa Nee are doing that they can't make the show. Actually now that I think about it Wa Wa Nee sort of used to rock - maybe if they could get the rest of the guys back together it might not be half bad.

On second thoughts, maybe not.

Wouldn't it be nice

Drove up to Mintaro in the Clare Valley yesterday to check out a cottage on an acre of land. I was thinking the place would make a great weekender one day. Now obviously I don't have enough money to buy a weekender in the country right now, but Oliver the real estate agent didn't realise that. Or if he did, he decided to humour me. I felt kind of like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode where he pretends to own a house in the Hamptons. I was just waiting for Oliver to call me a liar.

Anyway, it was amazing - 160 years old, with a giant main room, a few bedrooms, and a nice garden out the front.

The house fronted onto the main street in Mintaro, which is just beautiful - lots of great old trees and historic buildings, with cellar doors, a pub, a war memorial . . . if you took away the cars the place probably would have looked almost identical half a century ago.

Out back was vacant land - a few horses grazing in the next paddock over, an old schoolhouse on top of the hill - just an incredibly peaceful and relaxing outlook.

Unfortunately unless I come into $250,000 in the next week or so it looks like this place will remain a dream for me. Sure would be nice one day though.

Serious Scott

I've had a few people (OK fine, just one) request a picture of Serious Scott . . . well here he is. I'm sure you'd agree he kind of looks like an Asian Tim Pearce (well those of you who know Tim anyway).

Training sessions are moving along nicely. Still not a lot of smiling, but this week he was so pumped with my performance on the bench press he told me I was "f@#$ing awesome". That was nice.

After the session he gave me a photocopied sheet of paper with a drawing of a birthday cake on it. I figured it was a ploy to get me to buy him a birthday present (I would probably get him the Chris Rock Bring the Pain DVD, he could use a laugh) but instead it was a "gift to me". He's running a competition this month where in honour of his birthday, everyone who purchases a block of ten personal training sessions goes into the draw to win five free sessions. Still sounds more like a gift for him, but anyway.

Back soon with another update (and hopefully not in two weeks time).

Are you kidding me?

Turns out tickets to see Axl, Sebastion and Angry are going to be $120 - $170. I think I just lost interest. Maybe if Slash and the rest of the gang were in tow, but not without them, that's just ridiculous.

While I probably won't be going to that show anymore, here are a few other things I'm looking forward to.

Grind House

I think this comes out here next month. Two horror films back to back - one directed by Quentin Tarantino, the other by Richard Rodriguez. I've been looking forward to this for like a year now - it got released in America a few weeks ago and was a big flop for some reason, but hey I don't care. It's going to be great. It has Rose McGowan with a machine gun for a leg. I sense an Oscar nomination isn't far off.

New music from Tori Amos and Queens of the Stone Age

Tori's album is out in May, QOTSA in June I think. I'm looking forward to Tori's the most, even though her last one, "The Beekeeper" was a piece of crap that I don't think I've listened to since the month it was released. The early reviews say it is her best album since "From the Choirgirl Hotel" in 1998, which is still my all-time favourite, so I've got high hopes.

Queens of the Stone Age should be really good too, although I think they are maybe 25% worse since they kicked Nick out of the band, it's not the same without his screams on a couple of songs on each record. It's nice though knowing if you go to one of their concerts these days that everyone on the stage is going to be wearing pants.


The NBA Playoffs

Man it's going to be good being able to watch basketball for the next six weeks without having to worry about my fantasy team. I don't really have an opinion on the whole San Antonio - Dallas - Phoenix debate, but I really hope the Suns win. And Nash gets MVP again.

Tori Amos - Live

Word on the street is that she's coming to Australia in September this year. If so, I'll be there. Her last tour was a bit of a disappointment, but I think part of that was becase the source material was kind of weak (see above). Hopefully she brings the full band this time, and a decent setlist.

"The Timewaster Letters" by Robin Cooper

Mirjana lent this to me today, it's a book comprised of ridiculous letters this guy has written to various people/organisations, having a laugh. Sometimes, when these people don't realise he's making fun of them, they write back, which can be even funnier. Anyway I'm really looking forward to reading this on my daily commute. Mirjana knew I'd like this because it's got a quote from Ricky Gervais on the cover, and I'm a sucker for a good celebrity endorsement. She's trying to use this book to get me to rewatch a TV show this guy made called "Look Around You" which she thinks is hilarious but I think is rubbish. It's not going to work.

That reminds me - I think someone may have read his book and been inspired because I got an email about a month ago from some crazy people whose dog had recently died, and wanted me to send them a card from the city of Adelaide consoling them on their loss.

The weekend

Because work hasn't been that much fun lately.

GNR

After years of waiting it seems I might finally get the chance to see Guns n Roses live, with their upcoming concert at the Entertainment Centre in June. Unfortunately its not really the same band - it's just Axl and a whole lot of session musicians. And there's a good chance the whole thing will fall apart and he won't bother to show up. But I'm excited anyway.

I'm not real sure about the support acts though. Sebastian Bach from Skid Row? What, the rest of the band weren't available? But that's not even the worst part. The second support act are . . . Rose Tattoo! Did they break up and reform? Or have they just being playing biker rallies for the last twenty years? I'm not expecting much there at all. Last time I heard Angry Anderson was like a reporter for the Today show or something.

Anyway, I'm not going to let anything as trival as a stupid support act ruin this for me. "Welcome to the Jungle" . . . "Nightrain" . . . "Rocket Queen" . . . "Mr Brownstone" . . . OK pretty much any song from the first album . . . how can this fail? Who's with me?

Fitness update

Two weeks in to the gym experiment, and I've got two personal training sessions under my belt. Things seem to be going fairly smoothly.

My personal trainer is called Scott. Scott is very serious. I don't think I've seen him smile once yet. Even the other night, when I told him I would be continuing with the training sessions, he didn't crack a smile, not even at the thought of all the cash money I was going to be handing over to him. I'm not sure if this is his natural facade, or if he doesn't really approve of me and my non-personal trainer-like body. Actually now that I think about it, he kind of remains me of an asian version of my old friend Tim Pearce. Although Tim loved to smile, but other than that, I think its a pretty good description of what he looks like.

Anyway he's come up with a program which involves me working different parts of my body three times a week. It seems to cover everything, which is probably a good thing, because left to my own devices I probably would have just done bicep curls and bench press and morphed into some freaky looking guy with an otherwise regular body but with huge arms and chest. Like most of the guys who go to my gym really.

The actual gym work isn't too bad. I don't think I'll ever be one of those guys who actually enjoy working out, but it's not all that bad. The hardest thing is making the time to get there a few times a week - since it's only open till 9pm, and I'm usually out a few nights a week, it takes some planning.

Still with the movie reviews?

For some reason I've been watching a whole lot of DVDs lately. I suppose laziness. Over the Easter weekend I worked my way through three more - "The Prestige", "Capote" and "Kenny".

The Prestige was the best of these. It was directed by Christopher Nolan, who directed probably the only good Batman movie (Batman Begins) as well as Memento, which is one of my all time favourites. The film is about two aspiring magicians, who start off as friends, and become rivals, with one eventually killing the other (that's not really a spoiler since you see that happen in the opening scenes). The movie moves back and forward in terms of the timeline a lot, so can be difficult to follow at times, but it's worth it.



The two magicians are played by Hugh Jackman (who to me will always be the guy who explains how to use Foxtel on channel 999) and Christian Bale. I'm not really sure if I like Christian Bale or not. He was in the pretty horrible film version of American Psycho, although it wasn't really his fault the film was so bad. And that movie The Machinist which was meant to be a cross of "Fight Club" and "Memento" but was mainly just weird. He was scary thin in that, so much so that he seems quite overweight by comparison in The Prestige.

The film also stars Michael Caine as a mentor to both magicians, and Scarlett Johannsen as the girl who works as an assistant for Jackman and then Bale. I used to be a bit of a Scarlett fan but my interest is waning, and she did little to win me over in this.


Capote is a film I'd been planning on seeing for quite a while. I've read the first half of "In Cold Blood" - the book that this movie is about - two or three times. I feel like it's a book I should enjoy, so have returned to it a few times, but never manage to stick at it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is one of my favourite actors - I think he just has a real presence to him - but I didn't really enjoy his performance in this all that much. Perhaps it was the fact that he sounded like Cartman from South Park that put me off, I'm not sure. I know the movie did become a lot more enjoyable when I started imaging Cartman in Capote's place in various scenes in the movie. Apparently people who give out awards for movies liked this but it wasn't really for me.

Finally, Kenny was some good lighthearted entertainment for a Sunday night. I'm not really a fan of Australian movies, or toilet humour, but this was well done, with a surprising amount of heart - I guess that's where all of the Castle comparisons come from. Worth checking out if you're looking for something lightweight.

Weekend movie recap

Ahh the weekend - the time to get out, hit the town, and blow off the stress of the working week. Or stay at home and watch DVDs, like I did this weekend.

First up I saw "Little Miss Sunshine", with Steve Carrell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Chloe from 24, and Phil the Writer from the Larry Sanders Show. I had heard pretty good reviews about this, and really enjoyed it. It's about a dysfunctional family who travel cross country to enter their daughter in a junior beauty pageant. The tension between the family members is great, the opening scenes in particular sucked me in. It slowed a little towards the end but was still good. I especially enjoyed the work of Steve Carrell in this, better known as Brick Tamland from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burghundy"



and Michael Scott from the (unfairly I believe) often criticised US verion of The Office.



This was a bit of a different turn for him. It's still a comedy, but he plays a gay professor who has just attempted suicide because one of his grad students declined his romantic advances, so his character isn't really all that zany. He carried it off well though, and there was a lot of humour and humanity in his understated performance.

Sunday night I saw "The Interpreter". I'd seen it a while ago but Michella hadn't so I watched it again. As I'd seen it, she asked a range of questions during the movie (eg "Who is that guy?", "Is that the same guy as before?", "Is he a bad guy?" etc) and often I couldn't answer. Remember this is a movie I have seen before, and thought I understood. It made me wonder if I ever really understand movies, and take everything in, or if I'm content to just figure out the general gist of what's going on and then enjoy the car chases and explosions.

Michella pointed out that for one of the world's most famous actresses Nicole Kidman doesn't really make that many good/successful movies, which I'd never really thought about before, but it's probably true. Anyway if you haven't seen this before and want to know whether it's any good . . . it's OK. You probably won't be blown away, but you won't get bored. Although you might not understand it all if you're anything like me.