Saturday, March 31, 2007
Indigo sky
Friday, March 30, 2007
#3
Anticipating a week's holiday had her pondering the nature of time - how this time next week she'd be anticipating its end. Sometimes she wondered whether it was worthwhile doing anything, because of time's ephemeral nature.
Labels: One line wonders
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
discovering new blogs and a line for today
So, having decided to update my blog more regularly, I thought I should look for a few new links - many of my favourite bloggers having become quite inactive. I'm happy to say on my first search I found OMel and I reckon it's a cracker - light-hearted, funny and diverse. Then I followed one of her links and found Steph and it is if anything even more hilarious. My readers who were fans of Mellipop before she virtually gave up blogging will love them. Give them a try! I've blogrolled them, so you can click into them from my sidebar you non-bloggers. You have to go to the bottom blog roll because I forgot my account name and lost access to the original list - which is why I also can't delete the inactive blogs from the top list (sigh!)... mind you there are still some fine ones on that list too.
I'm so happy with these two - and am sure they link to others in the same vein - that I don't have to search for any more now.
My one-liner for today is:
2. She looked up and drew the perfect morning inside to sustain her
I'm so happy with these two - and am sure they link to others in the same vein - that I don't have to search for any more now.
My one-liner for today is:
2. She looked up and drew the perfect morning inside to sustain her
Labels: One line wonders
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Something doable
There are a number of bloggers I admire. I admire them for their succinct choice of words, for pulling a thought or emotion out of the air we share, expanding on it and making it live for all of us, for their sense of humour, for their plain diligence in keeping on blogging year after year. Some I admire for their astute political comment, some for their obvious love of hearth and home, some for their rabid rants and acidic commentary, some for their poetry - all for their desire to communicate with the world at large and their readership in particular. Most of them I could never hope to emulate.
But there is one that I really admire and who gives me something to aspire to that is almost doable One million footnotes compresses his philosophy into not much more than a line a day. They are thoughts that create mind pictures, small everyday passing threads that appear to us for an instant and then are gone. This guy captures them and blogs them and he's been doing it for years. The latest entry on his blog is number 1334 - now that's dedication!
So here's to you Geoff Hurd, I've tried to do it before, but I might give it another run - at least on the nights when my computer is working and I open it up. It does seem to be doable.
1. Sometimes her belly sat in her lap like an over-inflated football
But there is one that I really admire and who gives me something to aspire to that is almost doable One million footnotes compresses his philosophy into not much more than a line a day. They are thoughts that create mind pictures, small everyday passing threads that appear to us for an instant and then are gone. This guy captures them and blogs them and he's been doing it for years. The latest entry on his blog is number 1334 - now that's dedication!
So here's to you Geoff Hurd, I've tried to do it before, but I might give it another run - at least on the nights when my computer is working and I open it up. It does seem to be doable.
1. Sometimes her belly sat in her lap like an over-inflated football
Labels: One line wonders
Sunday, March 25, 2007
the good, the bad and the plain bloody ridiculous!
The good and the bad: Last night I went to see the movie "The Last King of Scotland". It was pretty damn good. The guy who played Idi Amin deserved all the awards he won and the other principal actors were good as well. It was good enough that it made me come home and look up the life and times of Idi on the net; of course I'd lived through those years (though from the safety of the Sydney suburbs) and remembered that he was a real bad bloke who committed atrocities on his own people and murdered thousands, but reading the details again and seeing the times fairly faithfully portrayed on the big screen was quite arresting.
I'd never realised what a charismatic character he was and what a good sense of humour he had - pity about his dark side! I mean a guy that could think up these titles for himself had to have a sense of humour right?
'conferred on himself the decoration of CBE which, he said, stood for "Conqueror of the British Empire". Radio Uganda then solemnly read out the whole of his title: "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE".' As usual Wikipedia gives an interesting overview.
I think those of us who live in a peaceful and prosperous country and have never put ourselves into the middle of someone else's civil war or dictator-ruled land just can't comprehend (on an emotional level) what it is like for the people who live there. You can read the words and look at the pictures and intellectually you are horrified and have sympathy for the people - but to really live it - well I at least can't comprehend living with that sort of fear.
The totally bloody ridiculous: Tonight I watched "Miss Marple" on TV. This silly old biddy and her complex detective stories set in England (I think between the two great wars). It has to be satire - I want to either sneer or laugh all the way through except when it's putting me to sleep with boredom, but I know people who actually seem to enjoy the "mystery". The hour felt like a year in prison. Sorry Miss Marple, I'm never going to waste another hour of my life watching you, even to be polite. If I'm at someone else's place and they turn you on - I'm outa there!
In other news - the workshop finally found a fault with my computer after looking at it for 3 weeks. They say it was the video card getting hot. This is the third time the video card has been replaced in three years. I'd say that is the problem, but gee, maybe there is something causing the problem? Still, they assure me this is a better video card and it will fix the problem permanently. Yeah, yeah!
The downstairs neighbours advised me the ceiling is still dripping below my bathroom. The first plumber never came back and after waiting a month we called in a second. The second reckoned he'd found the problem after about 20 minutes and fixed it. Not so it seems! Third time luck perhaps?
I'd never realised what a charismatic character he was and what a good sense of humour he had - pity about his dark side! I mean a guy that could think up these titles for himself had to have a sense of humour right?
'conferred on himself the decoration of CBE which, he said, stood for "Conqueror of the British Empire". Radio Uganda then solemnly read out the whole of his title: "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE".' As usual Wikipedia gives an interesting overview.
I think those of us who live in a peaceful and prosperous country and have never put ourselves into the middle of someone else's civil war or dictator-ruled land just can't comprehend (on an emotional level) what it is like for the people who live there. You can read the words and look at the pictures and intellectually you are horrified and have sympathy for the people - but to really live it - well I at least can't comprehend living with that sort of fear.
The totally bloody ridiculous: Tonight I watched "Miss Marple" on TV. This silly old biddy and her complex detective stories set in England (I think between the two great wars). It has to be satire - I want to either sneer or laugh all the way through except when it's putting me to sleep with boredom, but I know people who actually seem to enjoy the "mystery". The hour felt like a year in prison. Sorry Miss Marple, I'm never going to waste another hour of my life watching you, even to be polite. If I'm at someone else's place and they turn you on - I'm outa there!
In other news - the workshop finally found a fault with my computer after looking at it for 3 weeks. They say it was the video card getting hot. This is the third time the video card has been replaced in three years. I'd say that is the problem, but gee, maybe there is something causing the problem? Still, they assure me this is a better video card and it will fix the problem permanently. Yeah, yeah!
The downstairs neighbours advised me the ceiling is still dripping below my bathroom. The first plumber never came back and after waiting a month we called in a second. The second reckoned he'd found the problem after about 20 minutes and fixed it. Not so it seems! Third time luck perhaps?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Rainy Wednesday
Sitting sipping coffee in the Nightcliff Groove Cafe. The monsoon's pattering softly on the canvas overhead, while surrounding banyan trees drip greenly.
At ten-ish on a Wednesday, the patrons scattered thinly - there's me with my novel, two women at separate tables, each scanning today's NT News - for jobs perhaps or just what passes for the daily news.
One man, solid, casual, damp, dark hair, chats on his mobile phone, while in front of him, his leg juts straight, encased in plaster from toe to knee.
A sharply alternative woman with laptop and a slew of paperwork, hair skinned to the bone and a jaunty cap like an overgrown skull cap - what does it signify?
Two workmen in hi-viz vests, in animated conversation about fishing spots, favourite pubs or the bloody boss, smoke their way through the gentle morning drizzle.
Cups clatter sharply, a counterpoint to that plosive tock of raindrops overhead.
And peace softly reigns with the rain, at the Nightcliff Groove Cafe, on a Wednesday in March.
At ten-ish on a Wednesday, the patrons scattered thinly - there's me with my novel, two women at separate tables, each scanning today's NT News - for jobs perhaps or just what passes for the daily news.
One man, solid, casual, damp, dark hair, chats on his mobile phone, while in front of him, his leg juts straight, encased in plaster from toe to knee.
A sharply alternative woman with laptop and a slew of paperwork, hair skinned to the bone and a jaunty cap like an overgrown skull cap - what does it signify?
Two workmen in hi-viz vests, in animated conversation about fishing spots, favourite pubs or the bloody boss, smoke their way through the gentle morning drizzle.
Cups clatter sharply, a counterpoint to that plosive tock of raindrops overhead.
And peace softly reigns with the rain, at the Nightcliff Groove Cafe, on a Wednesday in March.
Labels: people-watching
