I could never hope to uphold this site's position as the preeminent Justine Clarke Appreciation Blog if I did not tell you that her new album Songs To Make You Smile will be in stores this Thurs 3rd July. Just in time for the school hols!

The main impression left by the police officer who visited Abbey's kinder today is that the back seat of the police car is "really stinky".

At my graduation we had some guy talking about road accidents and statistics. This speech is far more motivating, and I must say, more appropriate.
The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.

Hello, blog. You're still here then? Have a meme.

Pinched from Lili.

How to play:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name (I got no hits for my flickr name, so used my Last.fm name instead,)

Not so much a movie as a catalogue of past Lucas and Spielberg productions. You can have fun with a catalogue though, known territory and all that.

Spoiler follows in white text:

I was sitting there towards the end thinking, but what about Close Encounters? And there was the frickin' space ship! Why would inter-dimensional creatures need a flying ship?

Thanks, Cam!

The first of many, many reviews that I will be writing for the foreseeable future has gone up today over at the Shiny blog. Yes, I have volunteered to join the team expressly and solely for the excuse to rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and Angel from the very beginning. To start off I've done an overview of Season One and later this week Alisa Krasnostein and I will begin tackling each episode individually starting with "When She Was Bad".

*I totally wrote Vampire Layer then, but that's a bit later on.

I just saw an ad for a BBC production of Philip Pullman's Ruby in the Smoke that will air this Sunday on ABC1 at 8.30pm. How did I not know this had even been made? It stars Billie Piper (from Doctor Who) and Julie Walters (Educating Rita, Billy Elliot) and has been adapted by Adrian Hodges (Rome). Looks like more of the Sally Lockhart Mysteries will follow. I've only read one of the books - and not one where she plays a major role - but we all love Pullman, right? and Sally's a great character.

Anyway, could be good, could be bad. Only one way to find out.

Took 36 hours off-line over the weekend, which is the first time I can remember doing so while remaining at home. Nasty habit the ol' checking email, updating RSS feeds thing. Not that I achieved anything spectacular with all the added time, but that will come. I plan on doing this regularly now.

So, I read a little, ate a lot (was fed a lot - Mother's Day!), had some friends over, and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Mostly, I cultivated a sore throat. Yay.

As a counter:

1. I won a free facial today!
2. Tomorrow's Friday.
3. Braised celery for dinner - love it, but rarely cook it.
4. More House of Eliott to watch tonight.
5. May have solved a novel problem.
6. Rediscovered a box of old cassettes. Including the theme from Twin Peaks and Do the Bartman.
7. Brian Wildsmith's ABC

Things that are cheesing me off today:

1. People who do not include their name on a file when they know that 15 other identical files will be perused at the same time.
2. People who send three times as much data as requested. Yes, you're special. We'll make an exception for you.
3. Websites that highlight text using blue. And underlining. And it's not a link.
4. Small talk.
5. People who commit to projects then remain conspicuously silent and absent. (This may include me, I'm afraid.)
6. The fact that I only just remembered to boil water for the pasta when the rest of dinner is almost ready.
7. I could really use a drink, but I have a headache.

Don't know why I'm complaining. I won a free $100 facial today. I'm not really a day spa/facial/massage kind of person, but I'll make an effort to enjoy it.

Watching The Doctor Dances. Having a small voice behind you say, "Mummy. Mummy!"

'Scuse me while I climb down from the light fitting.

These huggable headless sheep seats come from Sam Brown. Now that I think about it, I have a four legged stool that needs recovering. Hmmm.

This is one of those things that everyone is pointing to, but it's really worth watching or reading the transcript. Especially if you're in media, publishing, watch tv, drink gin, play online games, read books, wonder where people find the time, or are awake.

Transcript.

"A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken." - my new motto.

I've decided that our garden needs a scale model of Tatlin's Monument to the Third International. I'm sure it could be aligned to act as a sun dial.

Step One: Learn to weld.

I just went into Abbey's room and vaccuumed around all the clothes on the floor.

Incidentally, if this is the kind of entry that keeps you returning to this blog you can now also follow me on Twitter where I am entertaining myself with the minutiae of life. Until I get bored of that and start making stuff up. I wonder if you will be able to tell the difference?

I wanted to make a few notes about the wedding I went to on Saturday. It was by far the largest and most extravagant I've ever been near and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it all.

It was in an absolute barn of a reception centre. So large it could accomodate the 300 guest reception I attended plus another, although not quite so massive, I think. Three hundred guests. Did I mention it was a sit-down dinner? With nine courses? And one of the courses was half a lobster each? I told you it was big.

What really impressed me though was the way it all ran. Sure the meals were not served exactly as to the program on the table, but they were all a)piping hot and b)delicious. Amazing co-ordination by the dozens of staff. No glass went unfilled, no dropped fork went unreplaced, no one went hungry.

An MC ran the proceedings, and to be honest he was dreadful. Fortunately he was brief. If he'd left out mentioning the name of the reception centre twice in each sentence he would have been even briefer. There were speeches, but they weren't too long either, even though they were in two languages, and there were only a couple of fart jokes. (no, really...)

There was a dance floor, naturally and the bride and groom were well rehearsed for their waltz, but when the MC announced them, they were nowhere to be seen. Then a section of the floor broke away and they ROSE UP IN A GLASS ELEVATOR. I am not making this up. So awesome.

The lesson here is if you're going to do a big production number for your wedding there really are places you can go to that will facilitate your dream. Your dream of rising out of the fog-drenched floor looking like a cake topper.

After that there was more food, drunkeness and dancing, bouquet tossing, more dancing. It all blurs together a bit, but it was a great night out.

Thank you and Congratulations Melissa and Quan!

Paul Poulton and I will be co-chairing the next Continuum convention which will be held in mid-2009. We're having a casual meeting shortly and if you'd like to find out what Continuum is all about, you're interested in helping, have some awesome ideas or can bring food, we'd love to see you there. Here are the details:

Sunday 20 April
10am-12.30pm
Carlton Library
667 Rathdowne Street, Nth Carlton.

Ring the doorbell if there's no one about and we'll rush down to let you in!

If you're not able to make this meeting, but would like to put your hand up please email me and I'll make sure you're kept up-to-date. Don't forget there is a Continuum Members Yahoo group and a loosely associated blog at Livejournal.

We're off at the crack of dawn tomorrow to collect Richard who has been in Chicago for the last two weeks. The tradition has become that whenever he's away I do something to the house. I think I overdid it this time. Here's what's been done, most of it today:

Tank base prepared
Tank installed - admittedly the tank stuff was not done by me, but I had to fight to get it done before Easter
Bathroom benchtop and cabinets painted (three coats!)
Silicon sealant applied
New handles fitted
Two picture frames painted and hung
One additional picture and two mirrors hung*
Towel rail and four hooks installed
Chips in bath and basin repaired
Every surface dusted and cleaned

I'm so chuffed! The tank is so pretty - I keep going out to admire it, even though it remains stubbornly empty. And the bathroom is now complete. We began a minor renovation of it about four years ago. Renovation is not our strong suit, apparently. Now I'm curled in a nest on the couch idly surfing the 'net, congratulating friends and watching some early Star Trek TNG. Ahhhhh.

*The technique there being lots of double sided mounting tape, liquid nails and crossed fingers.

Anthony Minghella is being remembered today for his directing achievements - in a not very long list of released films he has directed 5 actors to Oscar nomination and took one for himself for The English Patient. But I'm mourning the loss of his writing. Among other things he wrote the scripts for the highly acclaimed Jim Henson's The Storyteller and Greek Myths series*. Beautiful work.

*And some Grange Hill. How cool is that?