Anotherblog

No sugar

No sugar
I’m back on the no sugar diet. This time, I’ll stop when I hit 86kg. I’m hoping it’ll take three months or so - that’s how long it took to lose an equivalent amount of weight last time - but I have a suspicion it’ll take longer this time.

It’s pretty tricky this time. I’ve only been on it for 24 hours, but I’m craving sugar much more than last time. Part of the problem is that I don’t have such a definite “start” point as the last time, in which I’d already been without sugar for several days due to illness. I keep starting to get up from the desk, to go and buy a chocolate and can of coke. Gah. I figure that when I’ve been going for a week it’ll become easier, if only because I hate changing habits.

Henry Fool
Although I’m a big fan of Hal Hartley’s films, I’ve never seen his critically acclaimed “Henry Fool” until Friday night. It was very good, but didn’t hit me in the same way as “Trust” or “The Unbelievable Truth”, but I think part of the power of thoe films was how unexpected they were. But I still found myself admiring Henry Fool’s terse dialogue and wonderful camera setups and lighting - Hartley’s art direction is always great. Oh dear, faint praise. Um… well, I enjoyed it a bunch and I’ll definitely watch it again and probably buy it on DVD the moment it becomes available.

Final Fantasy X
I finished off Final Fantasy X finally on Saturday morning. Pretty enjoyable, but rather too time-consuming and addictive, in the same way that solitaire can be. Anyway, just as I had finally gotten free, Andrea brought her copy of Final Fantasy VIII over to torture me with.

Hangi
Had a hangi on Saturday lunchtime, with my Dad, Chris, Amanda, Andrea, Paul, Greta, Marija, and Anna’s mum & dad and brothers. Unfortunately, it was our first flop - I don’t think the rocks were hot enough when Anna put the food in, so the three and a half hours were inadequate, and we had to heat the veges in the oven and fire up the BBQ to finish everything off. It came out kinda OK in the end, though Anna was terribly disappointed.

Afterwards, we did some roleplaying games, and Paul & Greta joined in, immediately getting the idea and apparently enjoying the experience. A good afternoon/evening.

Papa
Dad came over on Saturday afternoon for lunch, then disappeared to see “Bowling for Columbine” when he found out that we were going to be roleplaying for much of the evening. We hung around for a bit on Sunday and had lunch at the Post Office Cafe (good food, but a bit expensive) then went home and watched “It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world” (I’ve discovered the art-house and classic section of our local video store). It was actually rather good. The car chases especially impressed, as they were done generally with long takes, so in several shots it was perfectly clear that it was the actors actually doing some of the lesser stunt driving. And they were good stunts. I was quite surprised.
We introduced Papa (in my case, with a little envy) to the sixty-niners icecreams, and he went through a bunch of them over the course of his stay, settling on the Chocwork Orange. They really are quite good icecreams, despite their appalling names (Jami Hendix?!). And their run will certainly be over by the time I come off the no-sugar diet. It’ll be the middle of winter by then, so I won’t want any, anyway.

Dad was over for a medical conference on child care, and also for the formation of a group of doctors opposed to showing violent footage of the war at times at which children could see the footage, a perspective that hadn’t really occurred to me. I had been a little annoyed by the US media reluctance to show pictures of anything other than soldiers giving water to defeated Iraqis, holding babies, etc. on the grounds that they really ought to see the truth of the matter. This idea - the “rub their noses in it” kind of thing - is an odd and unpleasant impulse, and I’m beginning to suspect that showing images of terrible violence and horror wouldn’t do anything constructive, and would probably be the worst kind of war porn.

The Prisoner
I watched a bit of “The Prisoner” with Jon & Kate yesterday. I’d already watched a number of episodes, but it was still interesting thanks to Jon’s running commentary and assorted insights from them and Steve & Steve. Enjoyable. Apart from the fact that everyone else had creme easter eggs for dessert.

Film stuff
Paul & Greta will probably be able to come along to a fair bit of the 24-hour filming on Friday, so it looks like we’ll have enough people to even do two short films, if we feel like it. Good stuff.
I lent the lighting gear out to Chloe’s mob on Friday, but still haven’t gone along to any of the filming. I feel a little disappointed, but at the same time relieved. It really was a very busy weekend.

Thai food

Thai food
I’ve noticed that spicy food is no longer giving me quite the kick that it used to, and I can’t help wondering whether it’s my tastebuds adjusting, or whether I’ve just been ordering milder dishes. Last night I had dinner with Dad and CB and Aunt Elizabeth and another relative who’s name I have tragically forgotten, but who’s surname is “Wilson” so I’m not doing as badly as usual.

Anyway.

We ordered rather spicy food, and it was pretty medium. I’ve eaten there before and been blown away by the heat, so I *think* I’m adjusting. Could be.

Film gear

Film gear
I bought some more film gear from the incomparable “Purple Haze Lighting” last night - a nice big silver/gold reflector (vastly superior to our homemade ones from the “Once Upon A Time” shoot - sorry guys), some spare bulbs, and a couple of sheets of polystyrene. All good. We’re going to be very, very ready when it comes to the 24 hour film shoot next Friday/Saturday.

24 Hour film shoot
Still ramping up for this. It looks like both Ryan and Ben will be able to come, as will Kate (for much of the time) and Jon (a bit of time) and Kate’s sister and her friend (for most of the time). Only needs a couple more people and we’ll be totally set.
Dunno how big the party will be on 7:30pm Saturday. I haven’t really gotten any invitations out yet. If you’re reading this, you’re invited…

Weekend
I didn’t end up getting very involved in the film shoot last weekend - I just dropped the lights off to the crew there, and that was it. It was, as I expected, a pretty enormous setup. They were at a rather wealthy house, and there were probably a dozen or so crew, and at least that many cast. Not one, but two makeup artists. A lighting technician who really, really knew what he was doing - I kinda wish I’d stayed behind just to learn from him.
They had hired additional equipment, including some HMI lights (which are very expensive) and a dolly, the actors were looking charismatic and professional… boy oh boy, I wish I’d stayed. But I didn’t - I’d promised to go to a film with Anna on Friday, and on Saturday morning, ennui suddenly overcame me.
Anyway, there’s this weekend’s filming as well, and despite all the things that are going on, I’m hoping I’ll be along to at least some of the filming there. We’ll see.

Dinner with Dad
Dad’s in town again, so we’re having dinner at a Thai restaurant in Newtown tonight, then he’s going away and doing some other things, and coming back again to stay for part of the weekend. All good. We’re going to have a BBQ on Saturday, followed by roleplaying, and on Sunday are heading over to Jon & Kate’s place to watch Prisoner videos, in light of the possible re-emergance of a “Prisoner” book line.

Electioneering
No surprises in the election results. I went up to Hornsby to hand out Democrats pamphlets for Kate (who was running as democrat candidate), which was a mildly entertaining couple of hours, but unfortunately made very little difference to the result - she came last in the group, with a mere 450 votes. Pretty much what we were expecting. Even the democrat party faithful abandoned Kate, and she had to ask friends to hand out pamphlets for them - I’m a Green voter, and so were Steven and Stephen, who also helped.
We sat around afterwards chatting, exhausted. Phillip Ruddock came around to Jon’s polling station, and Jon took the opportunity to say that he disagreed strongly with his policies, and regretted later not putting the boot in a little more, I think. At my polling station, there was a huge crowd of young liberals. They embodied the classic stereotypes - rich, yuppies, ignorant, loud, outstandingly obnoxious. They did more to harm the Liberal chances than any of the rest of us. Wasn’t enough, unfortunately - the Liberals still got the seat quite easily. Hornsby is a pretty safe Liberal seat.
Marrickville is a pretty safe Labor seat for that matter, but the Greens made huge territory there, getting about 20% of the primary vote. Cool!

24 hour party film

24 hour party film
I’m thinking of doing a 24 hour film in the first weekend of April - start writing & filming on Friday night at 7:30pm, and have the film completed and ready for showing at 7:30pm on Saturday night in time for some kind of party/BBQ. Sound crazy? Excellent, knew you’d like it.

The only question is: do we just make one film, or do we make this a competition? In which case, would you (yes, you) like to participate?

radwm

radwm
The rec.arts.drwho.moderated moderation software server, thecabal.org, has been down since Friday evening, so no admin work for me. Yay. Nothing much I can do about it either - the power supply on it blew up, and it’s up to the owner of the server to bring the thing back up. In the mean time, I relax.

How to vote
I’m handing out democrat how-to-vote cards in Hornsby this Saturday, as a favour to Kate, who’s running as the candidate for the region. She’s not expecting to get very many votes, but, y’know, every one counts towards the Senate, so it’s all good.

I’m not actually voting democrat this year. I’ve gone Green. But she is a friend, and I’d vote for her if I could.

The pros and cons of war in Iraq
I’ve started putting together a big list of the pros and cons of the war in Iraq. The full list of all the arguments that are being put forward. There are many different perspectives out there, and I think it’d help if I got them straight, especially since people are repeating themselves a lot. Where relevent, I’m trying to categorise logical fallicies as I spot ‘em (argument through repetition aside, of course.)

It’s pretty depressing, and the work is a bit stalled at the moment - for once, editing “Lotus” is a nice distraction from something. But at least I’m getting a fairly broad picture of what’s going on. I’m doing a great deal more reading on the subject than I usually do.

Lazy weekend
Yeah, it was a lazy one. I finished off Blue Box (very enjoyable), played games, watched movies, wrote some Lotus. I’m getting engaged in it again.

Not much

Not much, really
I probably shouldn’t feel compelled to write if I have nothing to say, but I’m on a roll. I didn’t do any work on “Lotus” last night. I read a bit of “Blue Box” and watched “My First Mister”, which was excellent for the first hour and a bit of a yawn for the remainder. Actually, it was one of those films that had me itching to fix it up, much like the two most recent star wars films - the turning-point of the movie is so obviously a bad idea, I’ve had a fair bit of fun thinking of the other directions it could have gone.

Aliens
I’ve been amused recently thinking what the world would be like if it was revealed that one of those recent SETI signals was an alien TV show. I find the possibility strangely plausible. What if space travel was really, really hard, and there wasn’t an easy way to do it? Perhaps we would have civilisations chatting with each other over radio but never meeting.

Of course, having said that, I suspect we’re less than a hundred years from artificial intelligences. Once they’re possible, then space travel would be simply a matter of sending instructions to your good buddies ten light-years away, to build an AI with the included specifications. Perhaps that will be the most practical form of space travel. That, or sending nanotech “makers” out in space-ships, and instructing them to build people when they get to wherever they’re going.

Filming

Getting there
So I got up extra-early yesterday, staggered out of bed, got all the film equipment into the car, and drove off to work. Unfortunately, due to the increased traffic caused by the rain, the roads were very, very congested and it took me over an hour to get to work, even leaving just after 7:00am. Grr! I wanted to get to work extra-early so that I could get a decent amount of work in before I had to head off to the filming, which started at 1:00pm.

Anyway, I finished up at 12:00, got in the car, and drove over to Oxford St. I’d been to Metro Screen before - it’s just underneath the Chauvel cinema - so I was pretty optomistic I knew where I was going.

Foolish me.

My first mistake was forgetting that Anna had removed the UBD from the car. Grr! I can barely *drive* without the UBD, unless I’m going over vastly familiar territory. And as I was coming up to the harbour bridge, I realised that I wasn’t sure whether the Cahill expressway (across the bridge) or the tunnel was the better option for getting to Oxford St. Oh well, tunnel it was. I could vaguely remember that you could just turn left off the freeway and onto Oxford St, no worries.

Unfortunately, that was off the Cahill expressway. Attempting the same trick in the tunnel has you coming out at roughly the Sydney Cricket ground, which is all very well, but my mental map of Sydney just doesn’t join up the SCG and Oxford St., no matter how simple it may appear to you more experienced Sydneysiders. Aargh! I followed roads largely at random, trying to head back to the city so that I could find something familiar to get me onto Oxford St. Eventually, through much lunchtime traffic and stress, I found Central station, and kinda worked it out from there, with some further terrible navigation and one ill-advised short-cut (you’d think I’d know better, wouldn’t you?)

I was still early. I *plan* around getting lost.

Filming
So I spent yesterday afternoon working with Lachlan (the Hugh Jackman dude from the “China Doll” shoot) in Metro Screen Studio 1, which had a bunch of 2k lights on a lighting grid and a blue-screen background that extended around three walls.

It was pretty cool. We were doing a corporate video for a guy who evaluates medical trials, and it was mainly just pointing the camera at him while he talked, but it was pretty engrossing stuff in any case. We spent a fair while setting up the shot, and then ran through two takes of all the segments he was talking through, and that was it - finished a half-hour ahead of time. Unfortunately I hadn’t prepared anything to do in the remaining half-hour, so we just packed up and left. Next time (if there is a next time - I thought it all went pretty well, so I’m optomistic) I’ll write something up, and if there’s time, do a quick bit of filming at the end of the session.

The one pain? Setting up and packing up. I’ve got a lot of gear, and it takes a long time to transfer it to the car and back, the annoyance enhanced by the rain. I’ve got to get some extra-long bags, or something, anything that’ll hold all the stands and tripods the boom-pole. Such a pain. Oh, and I blew the bulb on the 800W redhead, moving it while it was on, but I wasn’t particularly worried as that light had gone through a *lot* of use. I have, or rather had, a spare bulb. Time to buy some more spares, methinks.

I’m really thinking about doing some studio shooting now. It’s far cheaper than I was expecting.

Home again
So, packed it all up, got rained on, drove home with only two wrong turnings. Unpacked, got rained on. Collapsed in bed with Anna, and read more of “Blue Box”. That’s my excuse for not doing any writing yeterday.

Spit

Spit
Wrote another Spit song today at lunch time. Not my best, but I had to write *something* after Down in the Meadow, although it is rather tempting not to, as I may never better it. Anyway. It’s about a topic much on my mind at the moment - procrastination.

Speaking of which…
Well, yeah, didn’t do a hell of a lot of book writing last night. Instead, I read some more of “Blue Box”, which is really rather fine.

Other writers
Much to my surprise I found that L. and G. (sorry about this, but I’m being a lot more careful with names nowadays), with whom I share a lift to work occasionally, are both writing novels. G. writes Pokemon fan fiction (!) and L. has written what sounds like an epic assassin/conspiracy SF novel, which is currently sitting in the Baen slush-pile. Coooool. L. is also a roleplayer. These trips to and from work could become really rather lively…

Filming
Got some filming work with Lachlan tomorrow afternoon, so I’m going to have to head into work early tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t be cancelled this time. It’ll be interesting if it isn’t, as it’ll be the first time I film in an actual studio. More info as it comes.

Lotus

Lotus
So, just how much less writing could I have done on the weekend? None. None less writing. That’s it: computer games banned until I get the first three chapters back to the agent. Kate kindly offered to read through it when I’m done, which is only slightly less daunting than sending it straight through to the agent… argh, my poor spelling…

Tired
I’m really rather tired at the moment. Not enough sleep last night, after watching Porco Rosso (superb - witty, poignant, imaginative, evocative, and beatifully rendered) and Greenfingers (couldn’t be more generic if it tried, total waste of Clive Owen’s time). I *should* be tired after all that writing that I didn’t do. Blurgh. Just can’t get going today… maybe I’ll wander out into that thunderstorm and fly a kite, see if I can’t kickstart a bit of action…

blogs

Weblog update
Well, Dave’s weblog is fine, ’cause he has a backup on blogger. Mine - well, I’ve lost a week’s worth of weblogs. I can’t even remember what I said, though I recall writing something most days. I think it was all depressed/ing gumf. Anyhoo.

Pub
Richard A. was made redundent from SecureNet so I went to his farewell on Friday. Much fun, and more alcohol was consumed than I’ve done in a long time. Rich can hopefully get working on the “Mike the Headless Chicken” script now, following my amazing success at doing useful things in my time-off-work. I also had a fair bit of a chat with Ryan “Funky Baron” W. who was in a terrible accident a couple of days before Christmas in Rio, which, to cut a long story short, resulted in a fractured collarbone, a broken rib, and a ruptured spleen which had to be removed. He showed us the scar. All together now: ewwww!
On the bright side, it won’t have a hell of a lot of impact on his lifespan, as long as he avoids catching a short list of diseases (incuding, for example, malaria) which would now kill him.

Filming
The mob who are filming on the last two weekends of March - let’s call them the “Sixth Commandment” crowd, ’cause that’s the name of the short film - had their first big production meeting today, and I went along. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to do the second weekend, but I’ve signed up to a very ambitious first weekend.
They need to film at the same pace that we filmed “Once Upon A Time”, but they have more than one location *and* outdoor locations *and* they’re hoping to get some decent lighting out of me, *and* they want to do some tricky camera moves, like dolly shots… could be tricky. They’re very dedicated though; it ain’t 10:00am to 10:00pm days, it’s 8:00am to however long that can stay up, for the whole weekend.
If I’ve made them sound a bit amateurish, I should note that it just ain’t so - the cameraman seems to have a lot of experience, and extremely good equipment; the producer has done casting calls and got aspiring actors (not just mates) in all the roles; and they’re planning it out hastily but quite efficiently - they already have photos of all the locations, and they’re checking them out properly over the next two weeks to do a kind of video storyboard of the whole thing, in advance. Everyone seems pretty friendly and enthused. I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far, though I do think they’re completely gibberingly insane.

Jon & Kate
…are back! They were away for a couple of weeks to go to the Gallifrey convention and visit Jon’s relatives. I dropped in on them on the way back from the film meeting, and we had a chat and I watched them gently swaying from side to side with jet-lag and excused myself. Jon showed off footage from the Gallifrey convention of a whole gathering of fan-Doctors - that is, the actors who had played Dr Who in fan videos. It was quite a collection, and the footage was rather amusing though with appalling sound. Entire thing will have to be looped.
I chatted with them a bit about “Lotus” as well, feeling quite the aspiring author, and got some good tips for the first three chapters, which I haven’t done very much work on this weekend. Hmm. It will have to happen soon, or I’ll ban computer games. Jon has written a script for a feature film, which apparently has just a couple of days filming to go before it’s finished. Rather exciting. And his novella “Falled Gods” has been accepted for a Dr Who novella line, who’s small hard-cover books look extremely stylish indeed. Kate gave me a copy of “Blue Box”. I started reading it and of course got immediately jealous again. Lots to go before I reach that standard, and I may never get there… not that I mind.