Just remembered that I had written the following quote about love on a piece of hotel notepaper and stashed it in my Tokyo guidebook.

Made it just in time to catch a small part of the Carnival of Flowers. I was particularly taken be this piece. As you can see, it touched me deeply.

My younger brother, James, who is currently views the world from the ripe old age of 12, gave me his review of Spiderman 3, and I quote:

Spiderman doesn’t turn evil. He turns emo.

I saw the film the other day, and I have nothing to add to this review. He was spot on. It was, perhaps one of the funniest, most awkwardly painful things that I have seen in a long time. It was worth my six dollars fifty, but probably not anything more than that.

As a side note: Awwwww. It makes me all fuzzy on the inside. I know its just PR, but I have always loved their incredible PR machine. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, in another life, I could have been writing shit like this. Actually, I suspect I will be, but it will be about human service agencies and not about computers. Sigh. Next time perhaps.

Addendum: New and exciting typo – Introfuction.

There are many things that are wrong with this world, and there are many reasons for despair.

But Helen Mirren winning the Oscar (TM) for best actress for her role in The Queen, makes me think that perhaps the world is not so terrible after all.

This sentiment is also boosted by the knowledge that Borat was nominated for best screen play (produced from materials already produced or published). It didn’t win, but that nomination counts for something.

Meanwhile, The Departed was good, but was it really that good?

Two hot ladies, and one futon.

Oh ok.. for non myspacers..

However, I should mention that this particular shot is courtesy of Stuart.

But I love Bollywood. I really, really do.

Here are a couple of ditties that might take your fancy.

And something a bit more modern that is rather reminiscent of N’Sync and Britney video clips in the late 90s and early Naughties. While this is only a small clip and the quality is so-so, I should mention that the lead, Hrithik Roshan, is absolutely beautiful to look at. More so, I believe, than the illustrious Daniel Craig.

I took some happy snaps of Brisbane Square a number of weeks ago, just to illustrate the horror of the balls. Well peeps, here they are, in all their splendor and glory.

And look! They’re even encroaching on our Christmas Tree!!

Although, I must admit, they do look rather pretty at night when they light up and I am tidly…

And this. I don’t even understand why anyone would sanction this. It’s certainly not tasteful. Although hopefully it’s just for Christmas.

What can I say but – Bah Humbug.

Along with my fellow Queenslanders, I enjoyed the privilege of voting in the state election over the weekend. And as most of my fellow Queenslanders would also know, our dear Mr Beatie has been returned to office, winning by a greater margin than anyone expected. The results were expected to be a bit closer due to the energy/health/water debacles that have been happening over the last couple of years.

Most people are saying that the win of Team Beatie was due to what has been described as a "absolute bloody shocker" (Gosh Australian politicians are eloquent) of a campaign on the side of the coalition. To be honest I cannot even remember any of their campaign ads specifically, but I do remember thinking that they were rather lame and annoying, although most campaign ads are.

Now, I must admit that I like Peter Beatie. I am not sure why exactly, but I suspect this is because he has a hold over me in a way that only a rather charismatic politician can. And I do not like Flegg aka Flemm and Springborg (you don’t even need to make something up to make fun of this name, it speaks for itself). I suspect that this election was called early just so the Flemm/Springborg team would not get their shit together in time to make a good go of their campaign, and evidently they did not let us down in this respect. But to be fair, they did only have about 6 weeks to plan. Still, you would think that this kind of planning was ongoing for any political party . . . ?

Now I must also admit that when it comes to elections I am also a bit of a nerd. For some reason I have always enjoyed the TV election coverage but this year I found a glorious website that can fulfill all my nerdy election desires discretely and I don’t have to listen to any rather boring commentators. Turns out the wonderful people at the ABC have an elections homepage. My favourite feature of this site is the ability to examine the votes as counted and as predicted by individual electorate. I also found it quite heartening to see that in my electorate, Moggill, the electorate that due to its steadfast liberal voting patterns can keep Flemm in business for years to come, had a nice little swing to the Greens. Ok, so they did not come anywhere near getting the seat (neither did the ALP for that matter), but I found it somewhat heartening nonetheless. In fact I believe that there has been a bit of a swing to the Greens in general in this election, even though they did not win a single ‘bloody’ seat. This makes me wonder if dissatisfaction with the major political parties will continue over the years in a way that will actually effect the composition of Parliament. I certainly hope it will.

[rant]

Frankly I would love to see what Australia would look like if it was not being run by old white men in utterly dull, heartless and outdated political parties. This is of course a pipe dream, but considering who our politicians are, it is no wonder that young Australians are not interested in National and Local politics. My only concern is what on earth will happen to our country in the next twenty to forty years while we are waiting for the conservative, A Current Affair/Today Tonight watching aging population that control the vote to start "carkin’ it". So far the outlook is not that great, case in point: Welfare to Work. Even mainstream charitable organisations are baulking at this one.

Did you know that despite all of our "welfare addicted dole bludgers" the vast majority of welfare payments made are the Aged and Service Pension payments?

And here I was thinking that dole bludgers, students, young single mums, so-called-disabled people and the youth out of control living out of home with exbordant and ill-gotten youth allowance payments were the ones unethically receiving my tax payer dollars. Turns out its all of those old farts aged 65 years and older. And not only are they undeniable ‘welfare addicts’ too dense to have put money away for their old age (their own ‘bloody’ fault if you ask me, I don’t care if the lived through wars and the aftermath of the depression), they’re ‘hogging’ all of our health care budget too! Shame. Shame. Shame.

[/rant]

Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I would also ask you to note the sarcasm used towards the end there. I think it is perfectly acceptable for people who have been life long tax payers to get a little bit back in their old age. However I do not think it is acceptable to demonise and punish those in minority groups who are exteremly vulnerable and are extremely likely to be living in poverty and experiencing high levels of exploitation. That, is not on.

Phew, what a long post. See what democracy does to me? It’s a beautiful thing.

I have always enjoyed the royal show, or as Brisbanites call it, the Ekka. There is such an interesting array of people who attend, ratty teens, carnies, sport-tracksuit families and lots of cute kids in cute flares. I usually go with my mother and this year was no exception. And while we did not purchase matching hats this year (but you can be damn sure we were wearing them) we did enjoy the following experiences and attractions:

• Sitting on a ramp wall, eating baklava and absorbing the tunes of the roaming Red Rooster Brass Band. They were fantastic, I’d hire them for a function any day . . .
• Coffee and the grassy knoll at the Energex Green Arena.
• Visiting the Government Pavilion and getting a stress-witches hat.
• Having an allergy based mucus incident in the wool pavilion all the while enjoying the merchandise that K9 Chic has to offer.
• My mother and I making the decision to go into cat breeding together if I were to ‘end an old maid’.
• That if we were to go into cat breeding together, all of our cats would be named after characters in Jane Austen novels and our breeding property would be referred to as ‘Norland Park’.
• Becoming mildly terrified yet oddly intrigued by the enormity of the bulls testicles.
• My mother suggesting that there were plenty of eligible bachelors hanging around the bull stalls.
• Watching young people dance in lederhosen and wondering how young people in Brisbane take up this style of dance as a hobby.
• Fairy Floss and Hot Dogs with Cheese and a showbag featuring a copy of a magazine w a pregnant Britney on the cover.

All in all, it was a most pleasant day.