Summer comes early?

It's been a beautiful Brisbane weekend. Unbelievable, really, considering it's still September. It got to 30 degrees yesterday, and is going the same way today.

So what do you do on such a summery weekend? That's right - you head for the beach.



And that's exactly what I did yesterday. I went and sat on the beach at Bribie Island for a few hours. Of course, I got stuck in the traditional summer-weekend traffic jam on the Bruce Highway. All the way from the Narangba to Caboolture was stop/go. Very frustrating.

Still, it was worth it, I think. The beach was great. There was a fairly gentle cool breeze blowing down the beach and that felt great on my skin. The water was still pretty cool though; it is still September after all. But that just made it all the more refreshing, and it was so nice being back in the ocean again. The last time was in Vietnam, at Mui Ne, so not that long ago really, but it just felt different here. Cleaner, for a start...

Today I didn't feel like driving all that way again. I've been out on the bike instead, for an hour or so along the bike track. Not quite as relaxing as sitting on the beach, but still good. And I needed the exercise, too. I went out before it got too hot this morning. It's warmed up a lot now, though, and I think I'll be heading off to the air-conditioned shopping centre for coffee with some friends soon. That'll be nice, too.

A great weekend - shame about work tomorrow, really...

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Stardust

I went to see Stardust last night. I wanted to see this movie because I enjoyed the book. It's another screen adaptation - this one from a book by Neil Gaiman. I thought it was pretty good overall - a good night out.


It's been years now since I read the book, but from memory I think the movie was pretty faithful to it. The witches, with Michelle Pfeiffer leading them were evil and fun at the same time. The love story between Tristan and Yvaine was well handled. And the scenery was lovely. I think the effects owed quite a bit to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I guess there's only so many ways to show magic onscreen.

I couldn't remember the Captain Shakespeare character from the book, though. I'm going to have to re-read the book now - maybe they inserted him into the movie to make it easier for the characters to cross Stormhold, rather than having them walk the whole way. But maybe I'm wrong; like I said I'll need to re-read it now and find out for sure.

I think I might even have to buy the DVD when it comes out. I love this kind of movie - simple story, a hint of magic and dreams that captures the imagination. It might not work so well if you're not familiar with the book, but it is worth seeing.

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Telling it like it is

Politics the fun way! This is the ad created by GetUp! and hopefully will be screened during the AFL grand final tomorrow. Spoofing John Howards taxpayer funded election campaign ads. Good for them.

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The politics of fear

Here's a new scare campaign being run against the Labor party. No prizes for guessing that the government is behind it. Bring on the election!





Personally, I don't care if Labor is in power right across the country. Maybe that will be an incentive for the Liberals to get their acts together and actually offer some quality opposition. I just can't wait to get rid of John Howard and friends from Canberra. I think they've been a very damaging government, especially over the last 5-6 years. The sooner we get rid of them the better.

As for the Labor government being run by the unions, I think that's probably a bit overstated. Yes, there are a lot of union officials in the party. Hopefully that means that they will be concerned about the rights of employees more than the current government. They will hopefully care more about fairness - I know John Howard talks a lot about a fair go and mateship, but if he has to talk it up so much I think it just means that the concept is in trouble. You don't have to talk about something that is taken for granted by everyone; you only have to keep emphasisng it and encouraging it when the idea is in trouble. So John Howard has, I think, pretty much killed off the idea of a fair go at the political level. It's still alive and well for most people in their everyday lives, but it isn't reflected in our national politics. Hopefully Labor can do something to restore that.

Anyway, enough political crap - bring on the election and get it over with!

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Recovery is slow, unfortunately

Well, after being all proud of myself for not getting sick while overseas, what happens? That's right - I catch a cold! Dammit!


I spent all weekend in bed with a cold, and ended up taking Monday off work since I was feeling pretty bad. I dragged myself back to work yesterday, though.

It always seems to happen when I travel these days. Once I get off the plane, I get sick. I guess I'm just lucky I didn't get sick on the way over to Vietnam, so it could be worse. But each time I've travelled this year I've ended up catching a cold. Very frustrating, especially since I've got at least two more trips this year involving planes and airports. Ah well...

So I lay around all weekend feeling miserable. Very unexciting - although it did give me a chance to finish two books. The first was "First among Sequels" by Jasper Fforde and the other was the new Terry Pratchett book "Making Money". I was a little bit disappointed with the Fforde book - it started slowly, but it did get better. Of course, the Pratchett was excellent and made me feel much better.

Ah well - here's hoping I can kick the rest of this cold soon. It's supposed to be a hot and sunny weekend. I might wander off to the beach if it looks good!

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The road never ends... updated again!

On a related note - the people that brought you the map of visited countries now also bring you a map showing all the important places you've visited. Apparently I've been to 17 of the top 100 destinations! Cool!

Here's the map.



visited 17 destinations out of a beenda's top 100 destinations.
create your own map

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The road never ends... updated

Since I've now been to another three countries on my latest trip (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia) I thought it was time to update this map. Here's the new version.

Create your own visited countries map

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