it's interesting when you learn about something new, that you then see this new thing in a lot of places you had never seen it before. make any sense??? since i started blogging, i have now started to see a couple of mentions of this gem in the media, most recently my beloved wired magazine. which is still arriving after the stores get their copies, but at least now it is back in a plastic cover, and it doesn't arrive torn. that's another story altogether though.

the above theory was pointed out to me, well not directly at least, by lou tice. through a previous employer i was able to participate in one of his courses, and got a lot out of it. one concept that stuck in my mind was the one i mentioned above. it was demonstrated via the example of buying a new car. lou said that when you have just bought a new car, you start the notice that model of car a whole lot more than you used to. now i am sure my psychology student friends will have an explanation and probably a name for this, but i just thought i'd mention it in it's raw form, the way i understand it. bottom line is that blogger may well have been mentioned previously but i didn't notice it, as i was yet to be indoctrinated


better grab a bite i think, it's early here

top 5 films at the moment...not in any particular order

the usual suspects
ronin
high fidelity
arlington road
the shawshank redemption

top 5s should never remain static...

now i've seen another aussie gem outside of aussieland, 'the dish'. went to the local arthouse cinema, the globe, in downtown calgary, nice place, will go back. was most impressed with the film, those working dogs just seem to keep on moving on and upwards, a great production. storyline mildly thin in a few places near the end, but otherwise held my interest.

was a little shocked to see collette mann, a nearby neighbour from my former balwyn residence, on a screen so far away from home. my friends laughed almost as often as i did, which is a credit to the film makers i think, oh and my choice of friends of course. had a couple of other friends who couldn't go tonight, so may head back next week.

headed to the kilkenny afterwards for an ale, a grasshopper actually. nicely light-headed now, so i think i'll hit the sack, will be back in tommorrow.


mike keaton, p.i.

don't start me on the 'road to nhill', i watched this little aussie gem in christchurch, nz. a somewhat strange experience, as i watched with an audience of kiwis laughing at our little idiosyncrasies. i may well have laughed more with an australian audience, but for some reason i couldn't help taking some of their laughter personally, is this weird?

as for screening 'the castle' prior to a visit to the cinema to see 'the dish', a) my friends are canadian and i was testing the waters i guess, not sure how much of the humour they may grasp, and b) i forget what 'b' was, will come back if i remember. as they were firmly assumed, (like that new one?) we're off to see it this week.

more from video corner soon....

another day, another bunch of stuff done. more helping my coach moving into his new place, setting up his tv/dvd player/vcr, which those who know me well will realise is just fun and not real work. finally read the blogs of others, it took 2 hours to catch up with 10 days of blogging. now for me to get back into the bloggin' habit.

have thoroughly enjoyed reading the melbourne blogs, truly makes me feel like i'm there (sorry for the cliche). hope i can give back half of what i get from the ones i read.

last thing before i sleep, i have to get my student visa this week, or i get thrown out of the country the week after, small issue i know, but a little disruptive. note to self - DON'T FORGET TO POST THE FORMS.

bonne nuit from canadia!

must change my mind for just a moment, as i may forget to post this site, and i think it's just the dog's tuxedo (sorry, saw an old 's + the c' last night).

i have found many new great songs and some good bands through Internet 'radio stations'. so how to wade through the many thousands of them? i can't speak highly enough of live 365. i like a lot of 80s and 90s indie dance and alt stuff, and there is about 10 different stations that i like, it's tres cool. ultimately you need a high speed connection, like that of a telco you may work for, but dial up access is catered for also. they have several thousand 'stations' and they are searchable, you'll find something ya like.

even so called independant stations filter out some good music, ever heard of 'krezip' or 'fountains of wayne'?

never be concerned about how you sound in your blog. you are writing it for you, not others, no self-censorship please.

if others find it to be contrary to their liking, they have a choice to surf elsewhere. i think it is wrong to change the style or feel to gain marketshare.

do you really want to blog for the lowest common denomintaor?

4am in the morning, bit superfluous don't you think...is there a 4am in the afternoon? am i being baited?

thought i'd at least get through reading one of the blogs before i returned to babble on, but it appears not, i have only read three entries from one of my fellow bloggers and must add my 2c (plus GST) worth.

where does optimism come from, why do some of us end up always looking at the better side of any situation? there is much that i have done especially in the last 9-12 months that your average pessimist would never even consider. i know a couple of people through others, and have a few friends that always seem to find the darker sides of everything, why is this? i left my job, which i could have made a healthy career out of, hit six figures by 2008/10 or so, and lived happily in suburbia with my safe swedish car. but no, i had to throw all this away to chase something i thought would be sorta cool. didn't take into account that i wouldn't be able to work here, had no friends here, essesntially knew no one at all, and just before i left, 5 days i think, i still had nowhere to live! more on that another blog though, including my thoughts on what i consider a cool thing to do, but others see as following a dream...

optimism, it's pretty cool to have it, but so hard for some to understand. no, we're not dreamers, we just don't let the 'how' stop us from doing what we really want to do :-)

have blogged this morning a lot, and now it is time to read what my fellow bloggers have been up to...what have they been saying about me while i was outside of blogging range?

tales of als, ned and the mad one from adelaide, much to read, i shall return with comment, later

a while ago i got caught up buying dvds as over here they are under $20 CDN, this was all good and well until i realised that my money supply was quickly deminishing, spending now has somewhat decreased :-( during this shopping-fest i picked up LA Confidential, a good US film with many AUS ties, including two of the leads guy pearce and russell crowe (was NZer, now calls himself aussie). well i watched this finally last week, and during the 'extra features' section there is an interview with them both. after watching the film, and hearing them sound all hollywood, they start to speak in there 'normal' accents (all of us know that australians have no accent, it's just the rest of the world), and i started to crack up, they sounded hilarious. now it may be that i have been away from my accent for so long (few weeks since dale left), but it sounded sooo strange.

on strange accents, i introduced 'the castle' to my friends last night, in preparation for seeing 'the dish' later this week at the local art house cinema. i was a little concerned about the style of humour and heavy accents and told them only that it was a good film that i liked therefore it had no pressure to perform. i am glad to say they loved it, esp james, who i think will get the most out of our planned road trip to AUS in 2002.

no more web sites today, i've given you enough to look at already, whoever you are...

i started out including a url for a web site that i had liked, or had something of interest to me there. well this is one that i have seen quoted many times over the last few years of reading wired magazine (the computer mag for kewl kidz).

this site is now popping up in mainstream newspapers, so i better drop it in here before it becomes passe itself. The Dead Media Project is a collection of yesterdays creations, thrown aside by todays lust for things new and exciting (my words not theirs).

how's that, two urls in one blog! am i making up for lost time or just chasing the last wagon of the information superhypeway...

so another day is gone and i am back. james and john (skating team friends) have moved from two houses 20 minutes away from my house to sharing a house 5 minutes away on foot, so i am now a regulat fixture there, hence my lack of blogging. fear not there is good to come of this. one is that the house will soon have DSL, so i can take the laptop over and blog from there, or use one of the machines there and one is an iMac, woo hoo. the other is that james is a bit of a bike junkie, and i mean the two wheeled variety. for those who know damien r, he is like him in some ways, many bikes not all going all the time, but loves to play with them. this is great as i just discovered a crack in my mountain bike frame so we are moving all my bike parts to a spare frame that james has until i can get the frame replaced. also, i have acquired a new road bike and have need much help with adjusting that and getting it into some sort of excellent condition.

so on to stranger stuff. lamas. james' parents have a farm 20 minutes or so out of lethbridge, and along with the 10+ cats and three mad dogs, they have about 6 lamas. this includes 2 baby ones, which are even funnier than the older ones. lamas have these huge eyelashes and they all look very feminine, which must be tough on the big tough male lamas. can you imagine liberace in a film playing a big tough biker, well this is how it must be for those poor lamas.

the moral of this story is that i don't write morals at the end of my stories