Not much I can say about this…

Just because.

Happy Wednesday.

Things what I did, aka MacGyver is the King of All Men.

I love the Mothership, even if she is walloping me in three games of online Scrabble simultaneously (I logged on yesterday to discover that she’d dropped diuretic on a triple word score, giving her eighty six points. In response, I  said a rude word.) The last time I saw her I gave her Like Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightttime by Mark Haddon to read, and she called me during the week to tell me how much she loved them – especially the latter, as she is a teacher aide who works with kids with Aspergers. She got so excited about it that she’s lending it out to people left and right.

I love it when a book finds a good home like that. Since I started reading the Harry Potter books in 2001 I’ve forced about ten other people to read them (although none of them would come and line up with me the morning the books came out, the ingrates). I’ve also talked one of my non-reading friends into such books as Like Water for Chocolate, Bridget Jones’ Diary and other assorted books not about rich powerful divorcees (not that there’s anything wrong with those). Book recommendations make the world go round, so make sure you let me know yours.

Speaking of which, my TBR pile has gotten big again, thanks to my tax return. Love tax time! Due to my inability to gain a job that pays much money I’ve successfully avoided paying my HECS debt for another year. Take that government!. To celebrate my tax return hitting my bank account I went book shopping (again) and went to see State of Play and Transformers 2 back to back in the city this afternoon. Transformers 2 was fantastic (having been forewarned of the gratuitous Megan Fox – if I’d been a teenage boy I would have been over the moon), but I loved State of Play. Russell Crowe was fantastic, as was Helen Mirren. I love a good thriller, especially one involving a newspaper – I think it stems from when I was a kid and I used to be obsessed with Press Gang.

It was a good day, but not the highlight of the week. That was yesterday, when I spent the whole day eating chocolate and watching the first season of MacGyver. Incidentally, I’ve had the best idea I’ve ever had – MacGyver the Musical.  How genius would that be? I think Macgyver building a homemade flamethrower to defend the jungle plantation from the killer ants* while tap dancing would be the single greatest thing ever seen by anyone anywhere.

* this was an actual episode of MacGyver. I nearly spontaneously combusted with excitement. In another episode he sandboarded away from the terrorists on a MAP, which he then used to patch up the bullet hole in the HOT AIR BALLOON he used to escape. He is my hero.

Every one of us has all we need…

Reasons why I love The Divine Miss Em #677

Em: You know how if you start making the noise sometimes the word will appear? Didn’t work.

I once saw an episode of Scooby Doo where Shaggy and Scooby were hiding from the ghost, and Scooby stubbed his toe or something and had to howl but couldn’t because they were hiding. Instead, Shaggy gave Scooby a paper bag to howl into (silently), and when the bad guy inevitably found them, Scooby gave the bad guy the bag, the bad guy opened it and it howled back at him. I’ve always wished I could do that. That is a skill that has many useful applications.

Anyway…once upon a time the only things I knew about the Beatles was that they sang some songs, and that that was what Ringo Starr did before he narrated Thomas the Tank Engine. When I was in year 7 George Martin released the anthology and the world went Beatle-mad again. We taped the documentary off the TV, and on the final night we forgot to stop the tape.

And then I discovered this:

This was how I fell in love with The Beatles. It was like Alice in Wonderland, but musical! I think my brother and I watched this movie at least once a week for about two years, and it was only recently that I found out that the voices aren’t actually the Beatles, but are stand-ins (one of whom was Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances, which is proof that sometimes THE WORLD IS WEIRD). You can actually watch it online here.

I was reminded of this on Saturday night, when I went to see the Classical Mystery Tour at Hamer Hall with the Divine Miss Em and her family. Beatles tribute band + Melbourne Symphony Orchestra = win. If I ever needed reminding that The Beatles were the greatest band in the world (which I didn’t), tonight would have done it. Especially when they played A Day In The Life. It’s incredible to think that they were basically only around for nine years as a band.

(I met someone who snuck out when she was 14 to see the Beatles live in Adelaide. She was in the front row and ended up on the front page of the newspaper. That is the definition of awesome.

Sunshowers are wonderful.

Five Things  I’ve Recently Remembered That I Had Forgotten About

1. My friend Tom falling out  of a tree and breaking his foot while he was drunk. He brought the offending branch back to my flat, where it remained for the whole of 2004. (Instead of going to the hospital, he sat on the bench in the kitchen drinking more alcohol while wearing my Richmond slippers)

2. When I was maybe ten my brother, the kid across the street and I crumbled up about a million silver birch seed pods into a bucket, the ones that look like this:

I’m not sure what shenanigans were intended with the bucket of seeds, but I’m pretty sure it sat there for about six months before Mum gave up and tipped it out.

3.  Hiding from one of our friends girlfriends that we didn’t like. I was about 20.

4. At the time of the first Gulf War, someone invented a very peculiar game where you lept off a cement block on the beach, and depending on where you landed you had either bombed Iraq, Kuwait, Iran or America. Such was our grasp on international affairs at the age of seven.

5 . The first time I ever saw Richmond play football was in 1997 at York Park. I went with my Dad and my friend Nyssa and it poured with rain all day. (And Richmond lost. I didn’t see Richmond actually win a game until 2001).

I don’t know what has made me so nostalgic this week, but at some point or another each of those memories has popped into my head.

In other news, it is so much more fun catching the train on the weekend. During the week the train is full of people going  to work, and the train is almost completely silent apart from the few people who play their Ipods far too loud. (Including a man in a suit with a soft spot for Beyonce). Today I caught the train into the city to go do some work for the Melbourne Writers Festival and the train was full of over-excited children, who were completely enamoured with the concept of train travel and who alerted everyone in the carriage whenever we passed another train.

I wish I got that excited about trains.

It’s been a good day though. Had breakfast with some of the gang that I used to work with, helped out proofing the program for the Writers Festival, and right now I’m listening to the soundtrack from Life On Mars, in preperation for heading out on the town with my friend Helen. (Incidentally, I’ve updated my happy list after carrying around my umbrella today)

Above all else though, this week is good for two reasons:

1. I’ve left the job of doom, and am slowly getting my sanity back.
2. My brother (who shall henceforth be known as St Lazarus of Lame), gave me the following DVD for my birthday, which was a month ago:

Now as I’m sure you’re overcome with amazement at the above trailer, let me just point out three things:

1. Mega Shark lept out of the water and ate a plane.
2. Mega Shark lept out of the water and ate the Golden Gate Bridge
3. I am on team Mega Shark. Quite frankly, the giant octopus is a wuss.

It is without a doubt the most hilariously bad movie I have ever seen. Huzzah!