Kind of went hell for leather with my final days of leave by ramming in as much as I could, and now here I am on the final Sunday afternoon before I return, pretty much knackered out completely.
Spent my Australia Day in full on chore mode, cleaning and polishing the house within an inch of it's life whilst I listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. It's kind of a tradition around here to listen to the entire broadcast every Australia Day, this year my vote (Redbone by Childish Gambino) came in at number 5, that's the highest that any song that I have ever voted for has been on the poll. My picks are lucky to clock the top thirty, does this mean my tastes are getting more mainstream or that Redbone was just that bloody good that everyone loved it? I am going with the latter. After bopping around and singing into various mop and duster handles for hours; Seth, Craig and I headed down to Lake Wendouree to watch the sunset over the foreshore and to see the obligatory annual fireworks display, gotta say, pretty good this year, the finale was truly banging.
Spent Friday binging out on movies and TV series, my final chance to burn the midnight oil and stay up until 3am watching back to back crap, god I'm gonna miss my long TV embraces when I go back to work.
Saturday was Chinese New Year, year of the Rooster; so Helen and I got together for a serious a Yum Cha feast out in Enfield that included green tea, potluck soup, pork buns, pork and chive dumplings, prawn crackers, fish balls, spring rolls, prawn toast and prawn har gow. There was so much food that we had another go for dinner as well. And of course, we always leave room for fortune cookies. My fortune said - What we see is mainly what we look for. Unbelievable, talk about a fitting fortune given the way that this year is panning out, it may as well have said When you get everything that you want, then what do you want?
Spent the final day of my holidays with my family out at the Buninyong Winery. I am a serious advocate of this place, and have sent dozens of people out there over the years, but the service today was nothing short of shithouse. A two hour wait for pizza? I was actually really embarrassed, because this is the first time that I have chosen the venue for our family to meet, and when I say family, I mean 17 of us in total. Aunts, uncles, cousins, the lot. So yeah, I was really disappointed that they couldn't even get a pizza on the table in under two hours. And they really didn't seem too phased about it either, the owners were just chilling out having a smoke and a drink on the lawn, it was pretty weird to be honest, and they certainly weren't apologetic about making us wait for two hours! I don't think that I will ever take a large group out there again, and I know that I will never get Craig out there again, he carried on like a pork chop about the service all the way home, which made me feel even worse! A bit of a bummer really, because in spite of the crap service the food was pretty good, and the weather was beautiful, maybe they just need a bigger woodfire oven or something? Oh well, cest la vie, shit happens, not worth getting upset over a late pizza now is it?
And that's all there is folks, the holidays have drawn to a close and the curtain has fallen. Tomorrow I return to work at 7am to attend mass and get myself right with God before the new school year begins, I cannot believe that it is all starting again already! There is never enough time, never.
Spent my Australia Day in full on chore mode, cleaning and polishing the house within an inch of it's life whilst I listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. It's kind of a tradition around here to listen to the entire broadcast every Australia Day, this year my vote (Redbone by Childish Gambino) came in at number 5, that's the highest that any song that I have ever voted for has been on the poll. My picks are lucky to clock the top thirty, does this mean my tastes are getting more mainstream or that Redbone was just that bloody good that everyone loved it? I am going with the latter. After bopping around and singing into various mop and duster handles for hours; Seth, Craig and I headed down to Lake Wendouree to watch the sunset over the foreshore and to see the obligatory annual fireworks display, gotta say, pretty good this year, the finale was truly banging.
Spent Friday binging out on movies and TV series, my final chance to burn the midnight oil and stay up until 3am watching back to back crap, god I'm gonna miss my long TV embraces when I go back to work.
Saturday was Chinese New Year, year of the Rooster; so Helen and I got together for a serious a Yum Cha feast out in Enfield that included green tea, potluck soup, pork buns, pork and chive dumplings, prawn crackers, fish balls, spring rolls, prawn toast and prawn har gow. There was so much food that we had another go for dinner as well. And of course, we always leave room for fortune cookies. My fortune said - What we see is mainly what we look for. Unbelievable, talk about a fitting fortune given the way that this year is panning out, it may as well have said When you get everything that you want, then what do you want?
Spent the final day of my holidays with my family out at the Buninyong Winery. I am a serious advocate of this place, and have sent dozens of people out there over the years, but the service today was nothing short of shithouse. A two hour wait for pizza? I was actually really embarrassed, because this is the first time that I have chosen the venue for our family to meet, and when I say family, I mean 17 of us in total. Aunts, uncles, cousins, the lot. So yeah, I was really disappointed that they couldn't even get a pizza on the table in under two hours. And they really didn't seem too phased about it either, the owners were just chilling out having a smoke and a drink on the lawn, it was pretty weird to be honest, and they certainly weren't apologetic about making us wait for two hours! I don't think that I will ever take a large group out there again, and I know that I will never get Craig out there again, he carried on like a pork chop about the service all the way home, which made me feel even worse! A bit of a bummer really, because in spite of the crap service the food was pretty good, and the weather was beautiful, maybe they just need a bigger woodfire oven or something? Oh well, cest la vie, shit happens, not worth getting upset over a late pizza now is it?
And that's all there is folks, the holidays have drawn to a close and the curtain has fallen. Tomorrow I return to work at 7am to attend mass and get myself right with God before the new school year begins, I cannot believe that it is all starting again already! There is never enough time, never.
LION
Release Date: 2017
Rating: PG
Running Time: 120 mins
A debut feature for director Garth Davis, Lion was filmed across India and Australia, and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2016. Based on the non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley, this touching story received six Academy Award nominations and was a massive box office success, doubling its production budget within days of its Australian release.
Five year old Saroo becomes separated from his family and finds himself living on the streets of Calcutta. An Australian couple adopt him (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and raise him as their own in Tasmania. As Saroo (Dev Patel) grows older, he begins to have flashbacks of his childhood, and feels overwhelmingly compelled to seek out the family in India that he lost 25 years earlier.
This is certainly an interesting and deeply moving story, I particularly enjoyed the first half of the movie that showed Saroo's early life in his village and the struggles he endured on the streets, which were equally illuminating and disturbing. I really wanted to know more about the character Mantosh, a second Indian child that was adopted by the Brierly family, but that storyline went nowhere at all. I also felt that Rooney Mara's character Lucy was of little consequence to the story in general and that her strained relationship with Saroo was really under-developed; as was Sue Brierley's character who just seemed to swing between moments of what appeared to be profound wisdom and emotional instability.
The story itself, most certainly deserves to be heard, and Patel does a fabulous job of portraying all of the emotional range that this role required. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like it, but it fell a bit short for me overall.
FINAL SAY: Where are all the missing Indian children?
3 Chili Peppers
Release Date: 2017
Rating: PG
Running Time: 120 mins
A debut feature for director Garth Davis, Lion was filmed across India and Australia, and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2016. Based on the non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley, this touching story received six Academy Award nominations and was a massive box office success, doubling its production budget within days of its Australian release.
Five year old Saroo becomes separated from his family and finds himself living on the streets of Calcutta. An Australian couple adopt him (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) and raise him as their own in Tasmania. As Saroo (Dev Patel) grows older, he begins to have flashbacks of his childhood, and feels overwhelmingly compelled to seek out the family in India that he lost 25 years earlier.
This is certainly an interesting and deeply moving story, I particularly enjoyed the first half of the movie that showed Saroo's early life in his village and the struggles he endured on the streets, which were equally illuminating and disturbing. I really wanted to know more about the character Mantosh, a second Indian child that was adopted by the Brierly family, but that storyline went nowhere at all. I also felt that Rooney Mara's character Lucy was of little consequence to the story in general and that her strained relationship with Saroo was really under-developed; as was Sue Brierley's character who just seemed to swing between moments of what appeared to be profound wisdom and emotional instability.
The story itself, most certainly deserves to be heard, and Patel does a fabulous job of portraying all of the emotional range that this role required. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like it, but it fell a bit short for me overall.
FINAL SAY: Where are all the missing Indian children?
3 Chili Peppers
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