Monthly Archives: January 2009

Alan Rickman is hot (for an OAP)

Posted on January 18, 2009 | 3 Comments

Just felt the world needed reminding.

(Sharleen Spiteri is also hot, but most people know and appreciate this.)

ED: Embedding was, annoyingly, disabled on this video recently.

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Posted in I Have Lots of Opinions

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January… When absurd ideas fly on the wings of unrealistic expectation

Posted on January 13, 2009 | 7 Comments

Ah, January. How I love you and the post-Christmas weirdness you bring. You are nothing if not consistent in the delicate mix of emotions you inspire year after year. A touch of hopefulness for the new year, a spoonful of disappointment for yet ANOTHER year gone by in which I didn’t develop mutant superpowers due to an unfortunate toxic waste accident at a nuclear power plant or similar. And of course, a healthy dose of wildly unrealistic expectations.

Every January I have the following conversation with myself.

“Ooh, it’s January. A brand new year. A blank slate. How exciting. What will we do this year?”

“Ooh, I know! We’ll try something new. And fun. Maybe some kind of SPORT! Yeah! A sport! Maybe we will join a canoeing club or learn archery! Maybe we will buy a red coat and some jodhpurs and start horse riding in Hyde Park! Maybe we will join a female football team and wear knee-high socks and shiny shorts!”

“But Jess… we don’t like sport very much. We don’t have a very good sense of balance or spacial awareness. We frequently trip over.”

“Rubbish! Remember when we were a Nipper, way back in the days of the Dicky Beach Surf Lifesaving Club? Remember how we won every surf carnival? Remember when we were the only girl who would play tackle football with the boys, and would completely exploit this unique position and their innate sense of gentlemanly caution by illegally tackling them around the knees and pushing them over?”

“Yes, I do remember that. It was 16 years ago. We were seven. We were closer to the ground, so falling over didn’t matter very much.”

“Remember nine years of jazz and tap? Remember third place in the 100m sprint at the athletics carnival in grade ten? Remember kickboxing? Remember POISON BALL?!”

“Remember when we fell up the escalator last week?”

“Ooh, maybe we will ROCK CLIMB!”

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Posted in My Life

Please don’t nick my content (you boring, whiny f***)

Posted on January 11, 2009 | 9 Comments

Please bear with me. This post has two points, and it will take me a little while to get to either of them.

A pretty good chunk of the (minimal) traffic Digressica.com gets is due to the posts I’ve written about the Landmark Forum, which I find quite interesting. When I first booked into the forum, I scoured the net in search of balanced, informed Landmark Forum reviews, so I could have some idea of what to expect of the three-day course. So I’m glad that now I can contribute to that conversation in some way.

It always amuses me to see the extreme reactions people have to the Landmark Forum. It’s either effusive declarations of undying devotion and tales of miraculous transformation, or embittered rants about how it’s all about making a profit, it’s a cult, it’s manipulative, it’s Scientology reborn (!?), and so on and so forth. Whether the former or the latter, they’re generally waaaaaay off the mark.

Because I have a fairly balanced view of the Landmark Forum, of what it can actually help me accomplish and where its limitations lie, I find myself playing Devil’s Advocate whenever anyone talks to me about it. If they bang on about how crap it is, I always want to point out the good points about it. If they wax poetic on its virtues, I tend to roll my eyes and poke holes in their praise. (Maybe I’m just contrary.)

So… my first point is that, anyone who’s read my posts about the Landmark Forum will know that while I feel I certainly got a lot of benefit from it, I tend to take the whole thing with a grain of salt.

And – importantly – I am completely okay with any extreme opinions that people have about the Landmark Forum. Mind-bending cult that just wants to take your money? Cool. Best thing to ever happen to the world EVER, probably going to fix global warming and end poverty? Alrighty.

But it irked me to find this blog post, which quotes a post of mine about the Landmark Forum in full and introduces it by describing me, the author, as a ‘professional in crisis’ (erm… not really, cheers though) and a ‘prime sucker’ (ouch, that smarts).

And this is my second point. Even more than completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting me and my experiences, it annoyed me that this person (who writes anonymously) actually thought it was kosher to reproduce someone else’s original blog post in its entirety without their permission.

Bloggers, help me out here – am I justified in my annoyance, or overreacting? I have no problem with being linked to (obviously) and quoted from, but for fuck’s sake… PLEASE don’t copy and paste my work onto your blog because you can’t write persuasively enough or are just too lazy to come up with original content.

And especially don’t do it if you’re trying to illustrate a point I most assuredly don’t agree with.

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Posted in My Life

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Dear Baz, I’m feeling slightly violated

Posted on January 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

Dear Baz Luhrmann,

Really loved your latest film, Australia. I know a lot of people didn’t get it, but frankly Baz, I think those people just don’t get you. Anybody who’s seen and loved the Red Curtain Trilogy is no doubt familiar with and loves your style, and can appreciate the slightly camp vein that runs through all of your work, as well as the bold, original choices you make. I think you are ace, and I love the way that in this film you both captured the spirit of our country and maximised the time Hugh Jackman spent shirtless.

Baz, you made me laugh (especially in the scene where Nicole’s character sees kangaroos for the first time – classic) and you made me cry (“I sing you to me Mrs Boss”… holy crap, I bawled my eyes out)… but then, alas, you had to ruin it by having ELTON FUCKING JOHN record the theme song played over the credits.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE, BAZ.

Now, look, before I get lynched by an Elton John-loving mob – I am no stranger to the musical delights of Sir Elton. B-B-B-Benny and the Jets is, as far as I’m concerned, no less than a work of boogie genius.

But I can’t help but wonder, as wonderful as our fine British friend’s menthol-cool musical stylings consistently are… was there no Australian artist you could think of who could possibly use a break on the international stage off the back of a major vehicle such as this film? A Pete Murray or a Bernard Fanning perhaps? A David Campbell? Or even a more established and respected stalwart of the Aussie music industry? The supreme king of eighties Australian soft pub rock, John Farnham, comes to mind. Middle-aged women don’t throw their panties at him for nought, Baz.

Of course there’s not much you can do about this now, but… well, it’s just something for you to mull over in retrospect I suppose.

Thanks again for all your top work, Baz. And thanks for including some premium Rolf Harris wobble boarding in the score. You’re a legend.

Sincerely,
Digressica.

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Posted in I Have Lots of Opinions, Music

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Happy New Year, and here is some awesome.

Posted on January 4, 2009 | 1 Comment

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Posted in Made of Awesome

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