If it doesn’t fit elsewhere, it goes here.
At about ten to seven last Thursday evening, the Dutton Park Ferry terminal on the St Lucia side collapsed into the Brisbane River. Apparently nobody was injured. At the moment the ferry is using the St Lucia CityCat terminal. The first photo below shows the collapsed terminal. The second one was taken this morning and shows a repair crew starting to rebuild the pontoon.
I’ve been a little slack in reporting the movies I’ve watched of late. Last weekend I saw Bad Santa at the Southbank 5 (which, by the way, has very nice cinemas and the cheapest movie tickets in Brisbane at $6 for an adult during the day). This movie was pretty much what I was expecting after seeing the reviews. Billy Bob Thornton stars as a permanently intoxicated Santa Claus who robs the department stores that hire him. An odd friendship (if one can call it that) develops between Billy Bob’s character and an eight year old kid, who lives with his grandmother. There’s also an appearance from Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls) who plays Santa Claus’s love interest. An amusing film, but not one of the best of the year. Don’t watch it if you’re offended by profane language.
Karen and I also hired out Prozac Nation last weekend. The film, starring Christina Ricci, is an examination of the depression suffered by the lead character, and her eventual use of the widely prescribed drug called Prozac. I liked this film. Ricci played her character, Elizabeth, brilliantly, and was ably supported by Michelle Williams and Jessica Lange. The movie highlighted the ways depression can affect friends and family, and the manner in which one can suddenly slip into depression and just as suddenly slip back out. This movie is worth watching at least once.
This weekend we rented Imagining Argentina, starring Antonio Banderas. In Argentina, more than 30,000 people went missing between 1976 and 1983. These people were kidnapped and executed by the fascist military regime. Imagining Argentina has got to be the strangest take on this sordid period of Argentina’s history. Banderas plays Carlos, a stage director for children’s plays in Buenos Aires. His wife, played by Emma Thompson, is kidnapped by the junta after she writes a provocative newspaper article. In the following weeks, Carlos discovers he has clairvoyant powers, and can see the fates of those kidnapped by the junta. Weird. When Carlos begins making problems for fascist regime, his daughter and colleague are "disappeared", and he foresees their fates. He follows clues found in his visions in order to try to find and rescue his wife. This film definitely has its moments, and it builds up tension. Some of the fantastical elements work, and others don’t. All in all, I guess I kind of enjoyed the film. Also, not having seen any other films or read much about this period of Argentinian history, I learned a few new things.
On Saturday, Karen and I hosted a pre-Christmas picnic for some of our friends. It also doubled as a birthday and sending off party for Ryan, who is leaving for Vietnam (in fact his plane is probably taxiing out to the runway of Brisbane airport as I type this). He’s spending a few weeks over there on a holiday. The picnic, which was suitably held on Picnic Island at Southbank, went very well, I thought. Picnic Island turned out to be a great spot, and we’ll have to do something there again some time.
It seems like I’ve been reading A Pair of Blue Eyes for ages. This is probably to be expected given that I’ve been working hard on my thesis of late. Well, I finally finished it, and in the end it was a much better read than I originally gave it credit for. Of course, it ended more or less in the same manner that all Hardy novels end: sadly. A Pair of Blue Eyes is the story of Elfride Swancourt and two suitors, Stephen Smith and Henry Knight. I haven’t given any of the story away by stating this here: as much is written in the blurb on the back cover of the novel. But I won’t say any more, except that, as I have come to expect of Hardy novels, this book is very much a character study of the protagonists, more than it is a romance between characters. Another excellent novel from one of my favourite authors.
At long last, the world game in Australia will be called what it is called everywhere else in the world: football. The Australian Soccer Association is soon to officially announce a name change to the Football Federation of Australia. I’m not sure I like that name completely, but at least the sport will be called by its rightful name. The Socceroos brand name will be left to slowly die out, just as it should be. I’ve often wondered why Australia, and Australia alone, needs an official nickname for its national football team. Sure the French give their national side the nickname les Bleus (the Blues) and the Italians call their team gli Azzurri (the Blues ;), but these are not brand names and they are not official in any respect. I’ve always called the game football, and soon I will be able to do so officially and without having to explain myself. :)
Russell Beale (of Abowd & Beale fame) gave a seminar at ITEE today. He gave a pretty cool talk about some of the projects he’s been working on at Birmingham. Among other things, he talked about his Bluedating prototype (proximity-based profile swapping), BTShare (proximity-based file swapping) and SmartBlog (a blogging system that supports mobile users). Another cool and useful prototype he talked about was a notice board system that he has attached to his office door. If he’s running late for work or for a meeting, he can send an SMS to the electronic notice board, which is comprised of a PDA stuck to his office door and a backend machine that receives the SMSes. Now people waiting for him to arrive at work, such as undergraduate students, can read the notice board to get an idea of how long they’ll have to wait. A lot of this stuff isn’t new. But what is cool is to see it actually working and being used.
This is classic. Anna brings us the Datapig: a farmyard animal with USB datastick capability. You’ve got to see it!
Over the weekend I saw Garden State, a movie written, directed and starring Zach Braff. This is almost exactly the kind of quirky, character driven movie that I love. It’s just a pity the ending had to be so clichéd. Anyway, I didn’t let that spoil my enjoyment. Andrew Largeman (Braff) is an aspiring TV actor living in LA. One morning he awakes to a message being recorded on his answering machine. The voice on the machine is his father’s, who has called to say that his mother died by drowning in the bath. Largeman flies across the country to his home in Newark for his mother’s funeral. It’s here that the story really begins. Largeman does not have a good relationship with his father (played by Ian Holm), who is also his psychiatrist. Largeman meets his old friends, including a guy who invented silent Velcro. He also meets a girl, Sam (played by Natalie Portman), in a doctor’s surgery. These two befriend each other immediately. They’re a rather unlikely pair, with Largeman being a melancholy character who’s spent the last few years of his life drugged out on head medications, while Sam is lively and exuberant. What follows is Largeman trying to make sense of his life, with Sam helping him along. Sam is the spark that Largeman needed to get his life going again. This is an excellent movie, and it’s definitely among my top three picks for the year (probably just behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Station Agent – two other quirky art-house movies).
It’s almost Christmas time again, and that usually means finding appropriate gifts for everyone close to your heart; a time of giving. I love the fact that these days you can do almost all your Christmas shopping right from your desktop. You gotta love the web! Well, actually, you gotta love the web and your credit card. But we don’t like credit card bills, though. No, we definitely don’t like those. They’re nasty.
A ten year old grilled cheese sandwich has sold on eBay for $US28000. Apparently the sandwich bears the image of the Virgin Mary, and after ten years it still isn’t mouldy. Personally, I think the markings bear more of a resemblance to the Mona Lisa, though, having not met the Virgin Mary in person, I can’t be sure.
ABC News Online is carrying a story about the way a pod of dolphins shielded a group of lifeguards from a great white shark off the coast of New Zealand. The lifeguards were on a training swim when the pod of dolphins began circling around them tightly. It wasn’t until the divers saw the shark that they realised what the dolphins were doing.
It’s truly remarkable that wild dolphins should display such altruistic behaviour toward humans. There are many stories where dogs have protected their masters from danger. This is somewhat understandable, given that dogs and humans have had a close relationship for centuries. One study shows that dogs have evolved to understand human beings, and that this trait is genetic. Putting it differently, humans have selectively bred dogs so that, to some extent, they can understand the gestures we make, and I suppose, so that they protect us. In effect, we’ve bred them to be loyal. But why should a pod of dolphins want to protect a group of humans? If the story is correct, surely this must rank as one of the best examples of altruistic behaviour exhibited by animals ever recorded.