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Today's song:

Sunday Stealing is for Adults Only

 This set of question isn't really that adult - more like having to do adult things, which are more boring and necessary than fun. 

I'm just back from the blood bank, where I donated plasma. It was my 25th donation today - which means I got a pin and a block of chocolate. It's a nice thing to do on a cloudy day. 

Let's get on with the questions, which have been sourced by Sunday Stealing, as always. 

1. Do you have a college degree?

I have two. A Bachelor of Arts in Classics and English, which was done far too long ago. I also completed a Master of Arts in Writing around ten years ago. I have been lucky enough to use both of these degrees in my career. 

2. What was the amount of your last electric bill?

My last electricity bill was $77 in credit. I recently changed suppliers, and part of the deal with the government rebate was put towards your first bill. This bill is normally around $100 a month on average. The hot water and gas bills are normally around $50 a quarter - and these have gone up recently, only because prices have gone up (hence changing suppliers). 

3. Do you have life insurance?

Yes. Those sorts of insurances are attached to my superannuation .(I think the Brits call this your voluntary pension, the US calls it an IRA or 401K). This means I don't have to think about it much. 

4. Do you check your cholesterol on (at least) an annual basis?

Yes. My doctor runs my bloods around once a year. Thankfully I'm stupidly healthy. 

5. Have you ever attended a high school reunion?

Yes. Just one. That's enough. 

6. Do you have a will or estate plan?

Yes. I have a will registered with a lawyer. My affairs are simple, thank goodness, but it's been done and it's all above board. 

7. Do you remember when MTV played music videos?

Very much so. I remember when MTV started. Mind you, in Australia we had our own, home-grown music show, Countdown (like the Brits had Top of the Pops). I used to love it. It drove my mother mad. 

8. Is there a bottle of wine in your refrigerator?

Yes. I have a bottle of French champagne in the fridge - Piper Heidsieck - there for a special occasion. It's been there for years - I've had nothing to celebrate. I must change that. 

9. Have you been divorced? 

No. Never been married either. 

10. When you were 16, did you play music on vinyl, cassette, or CDs? 

Way back when God was a boy, I played music on cassettes. DVDs didn't come out into mass use until the later 80s. I do miss a good mixed tape. 

Today's song:

Movie Review: Digger

Movie Number 40 of 2026

The Movie: Digger

The Cinema: Palace Cinemas, Kino

Runtime: Two hours Eight minutes

Stars: 4.5

This film isn't going to be for everybody. It's weird. It's freaky. It's in your face. It's a rollercoaster. I loved it, despite it tanking at the box office. 

Here's the thing. Tom Cruise is polarising. I'm not a fan of his mainstream stuff. However, Tom Cruise in movies like A Few Good Men, Magnolia, Jerry Maguire and Rainman - roles where he's not playing the action hero - he can be good. Even great. 

Tom Cruise is great in this. No silly running. No overacting. This is a real, character-driven role on a number of levels.

The other reason people aren't going to gel with this is that the film is strange - until you get into it. It's very meta. It also has one of the coolest endings I've ever seen. 

The writer/director, Alejandro G. Inarritu, who's responsible for movies like Birdman, The Revenant and Babel, is know for strange and thought-provoking films. In many ways, Digger is some of his more accessible work. A dark comedy, highly satirical, barking mad but thought provoking. The script and cinematography are fantastic. 

As is the cast. Some of England and America's best and brightest pepper the cast - along with Cruise, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Sandra Huller, Emma Darcy, Riz Ahmed among others help make this very good. The animatronic cat also steals the show (even more so when you work out what's going on.)

Not to give anything away, imdb.com describes the plot as "The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster, he's unleashed destroys everything." To say any more would ruin it. 

This isn't going to be for everybody, but for me, it's going to be another one in the top ten movies of the year - but I like well-crafted bonkers films. File it under arthouse and give it a go. 

Today's song:

Notes from today

 It's 10 p.m. It's been a really busy day:

So far, I've:

• Walked 15,000 steps (including going on a walk with an old colleague along the river)
• Read a few chapters of my book
• Gone to the gym for a session with Chuck
• Released the COVID weights to another poor sucker for Cleo to torture her with
• Talked to an agency.
• Revamped my CV for a role that I don't think I want and they probably aren't going to want me, but, hey, that's what AI is for and you have to let the universe know you're looking. (I'm not sure I want to work in Moorabbin...)
• Talked to my shrink. 
• Talked to my shrink without melting down too badly - a couple of tears, but that's okay - expected. 
• Done some crochet.
• Did a mini food shop
• Started work on a proposal document for a job I interviewed for two weeks ago. 
• Accepted a HR call with another company for tomorrow. 
• Didn't whinge about the heat.
• Thought about cleaning the kitchen table
• Had two showers.

This being between jobs thing is busy. 

Of the blessings I'm counting:

• I am getting calls and emails about jobs. 
• I'm out of the bank I was working at - their press at the moment is awful.
• I've happily cut my Ritalin down to one a day unless I really have to focus in the afternoon - just enjoy the fizzy brain in the afternoon. 
• Some writing has been done.
• And all the exercise I'm doing is making me feel great. 
• Oh, and I got a big cuddle from the cat, who likes sitting under the airconditioner, looking like a very large cockroach when he's all splayed out. 

I told my shrink about the job hunting, and how the RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) doesn't really come into it because, to be frank, I really don't care. I'll know the right job when it comes. It's not far away (touch wood) and I'm enjoying this stay in Windowsill Bay. It's coming

The cat showed his displeasure at my speaking with the shrink by hopping up on the table and showing her is butt. 

You gotta love them. 

Me, I've done 15,000 steps today and I think I need my bed. I've got to be up early to finish off this proposal document. It should come easily once it's percolated overnight. 

Today's song:

#amwriting

I prefer the back entrance, the one down La Trobe Street, opposite the gothic splendor of the RMIT buildings, just down from the Old Melbourne Gaol, where the ghosts of prisoners past reverberate down Russell Street. I prefer the back entrance as it's close to the loos, which are clean and little used. I prefer the back entrance as it's the easiest way to get into the Redmond Barry Reading Room, my preferred writing room, preferably upstairs in one of the corrals. 

Unfortunately, October is exam time, and the State Library is full to the brim with students gathering points and stomach ulcers for their ATARs by hitting the books. Finding an upstairs corral was impossible. Finding a seat in the downstairs area was nearly as bad, but I'd spotted a couple of perches and was able to snag one. From last week's experience, the main reading room with the impressive dome is filled with the pheromones of stressed-out students - and I don't need to be around that. The Redmond Barry Reading Room is more my jam. It reminds me of my favourite possie in the Adelaide University's Barr Smith Library, in a corral, next to a window with Samuel Pepys for company. 

The laptop fired up and plugged into the socket. The wireless mouse is turned on - spare batteries are in the pencil case with the other leads. My notebook is placed next to the laptop, the Yeti half filled with water, no longer cold, but the sign on the desk says no food or drink other than water, and the Coke Zero in my bag will have to stay there. I've always been too obedient.

I'm writing. There's 15000 words in this document. I'm second drafting. Trying to tame my words into something cohesive. I'm back with the dystopian novel. I've discovered formatting. adding, subtracting, smoothing the words, slashing paragraphs, noting ideas. 

Having the time to write is a privilege and an opportunity I can't waste. I want this for myself. 

Just as the job will come, and come soon, I need to take this time do to what I love. 

For the next week or so, however, I might have to find another library. Maybe Richmond, or Kew. Maybe go to the city library near the market (although that is dangerous for all the food) or the one near Degraves Street. Quiet writing possies are a necessity. Between cats and Fleischman is in Trouble, there are too many distractions at home. 

I'm going to get a great job and it's going to be great - but for the moment, I'm a writer of novels. 

Today's song:

Movie Review: La Bola Negra (The Black Ball)

Movie Number 40 of 2026

The Movie: La Bola Negra (The Black Ball)

The Cinema: Village Rivoli Camberwell

Language: Spanish with English subtitles

Runtime: Two hours forty minutes

Stars: 5

Mark me with this one. La Bola Negra should be up for a Best International Film Oscar nomination. 

It's incredible. IMDB.com has it ranked as an 8.2, RottenTomatoes.com a 92%. 

It's also tense, violent, queer, cerebral and dramatic. Along with this, bring in the fact that it's superbly shot, with an excellent soundscape and you've got a film you don't want to take your eyes off, even when things are getting tense. 

Also, if you're aware of the concept of the black ball, the apparatus use to vote new members into associations by a blind poll (White ball for acceptance, black ball for rejection) this adds another meaning to this, along with the associations with an unfinished play by Federico Garcia Lorca - which comes part of the film. 

I went into this blind, knowing that the cinematography looked amazing. 

I'm so glad I went. 

There are three strands to the movie which weave in together, which looks at what it is to be gay at certain points in Spanish history. You have to trust the process as you really will have no idea how the three stories are linked. 

In the first we meet Sebastian (Guitarricadelafuente) in 1937, who lives in a small town, plays the trumpet for his local town band, until the Italians bomb his village and he's conscripted into the army. At an army hospital, he's ordered to stand guard over Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau) a dissident who is only being healed so he can be interrogated. 

Secondly, we meet Carlos (Milo Quofes) in 1932 who is trying to join a casino cartel in his town. He is rejected for his homosexuality. 

Lastly, we meet Alberto (Carlos Gonzalez) who's living in 2017 and has just been contacted by the executors of his grandfather's estate. 

Oh, and Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close have cameos in this. 

I'll say no more about the plot, other than this is finely woven into a glorious, cohesive story. Written by Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo and Alberto Conejero, and directed by the two Javiers, this is exquisite. I won't say more. Go see this - it will be better on the big screen.

Yes, it's a long film, and yes, it's got subtitles. It doesn't matter. This film is exquisite. You will learn something about a lot of things - not only Spanish history, but it provides insights into what it was, and is, to be queer in societies which from upon it. 

Hunt this out. It's amazing. 

Today's song:

1500 Days of French

 My Duolingo streak ticked over to 1500 days today. 

1500 days - somewhere around four years and one month I've been doing my daily French lesson. I've not missed a day. I haven't even used streak protection. Every day, for around ten minutes (now that I've finished the Duolingo French course) I do a bit of practice. 

Why? I want to be bilingual. I'm not there yet, even though I can get around the language without butchering it too badly.

If I had my way, the universe would let me settle in France, where I could get my French to an even better state (and hop over to London regularly for a visit to the theatre.) Immersion is the only way to go. 

I try and read Le Petit Prince regularly. It's the only French text I have in the house. 

Thinking about it, I did five years of French at high school. I reckon I've done more French as an adult than I did in school. 

I love it. I'll keep going. I'd like to find either a regular conversation group or a course that can get my language knowledge further. Maybe I should learn to sing La Marseilles, not just the 'marchant! marchant! bit. (If you've never seen Casablanca, when they sing this, knowing most of the extras were of French origin while the Germans occupied their country - superb.)

At least I have something to aim for. Maybe for my big birthday in two years, save up and go to France for a month. 

Still, any language skills are never wasted. 

Vive la France!

Today's song: