lightning strikes twice

All week we scoured the weather reports — would the bbq we were hosting to celebrate the upcoming arrival of our baby be ruined by rain?  The consensus was rain and the morning, and clearing in the afternoon.  And that pretty much summed it up, though we never really got the sunshine we were after (Sunday, however, was perfect!).

Really though, the weather was only a small part of it anyway — the best bit was getting to see friends we hadn’t seen in a while (this year has been especially hectic).  I was also really keen to show off our beautiful house — so many of our friends hadn’t even seen the place…. and we’ve only been here for 12 months.  The worst bit (apart from completely forgetting to take any photos!) was kids and chocolate — some dirty hands found their way on some of my favourite furniture.  But I guess I’ll just have to start getting used to it huh.

• Forgetting Sarah Marshall - I wasn’t expecting much, but this was a pretty decent comedy!  Some genuinely laugh out loud funny moments in this story about losing a longtime love, and trying to put the pieces back together again.
• Rocknrolla - A few script flaws aside, this was an enthralling and snappily edited gangster type flick.  Full of humour, the two hours flew by.  I particularly enjoyed the characterisations and the lighting (not sure why I noticed the lighting, but it seemed to particularly good!).  I was suprised to see Idris Elba (aka Stringer Bell from The Wire) in one of the prominent roles… I had no idea he was English.

Great article about a real serious record collector.

Tell me this isn’t better than what is available today:

Great letter from a hedge fund manager quitting!

”I was in this game for money,” Lahde, 37, wrote in a two-page letter in which he said he had come to hate the hedge-fund business. ”The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

”All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other sides of my trades. God Bless America.”

Great essay: “The indignant shall inherit the world“.  I’ve heard of the Little Books on Big Themes series several times this year — might be time to track them down.

• 2 Days In Paris - actually pretty good!  Starring Adam Goldberg and Julie Delphy
• There Will Be Blood - amazing film about ambition and humanity, set in the Amrican west in the early 20th century.  Daniel Day Lewis is phenomenal, and the equally ambitious young preacher is creepy as an evangelical manipulator.

In my younger years I was all about rave parties.  They used to get a bad wrap in the media, but in reality it was just good fun.  Well, on the weekend just past, there was a massive ‘rave reunion’ party, featuring all the music and people from my early 90s youth.

An absolutely smashing time was had.  Highlights include Vision 4/5 playing a blinding live set, Jumping Jack doing a great job with the classics, John Ferris was good early, and Shade did a great cutup style classics set as well.

From Six Words:

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

What a phenomenal story!  So much intrigue and possibility.  I gather from vague implications in my reading that some people consider it not cool to enjoy Hemingway, for minor considered flaws, but I just love his story telling.  Much like ‘The Road’ (which I described as ‘Hemingway-esque’), if you can’t put it down then it’s a winner, regardless of the small stuff.

While hardly any one reads this dear little blog, I treat it as a public representation of me, and one of the things I feel strongly about is sportsmanship. I’ve mentioned several times on here how I think on the whole, we lack sportsmanship in Australia in some areas (I’ve been particularly critical of the Australian cricket team). Sportsmanship is the most important thing about playing the game, even at the professional level, it should never be overlooked.

Well, last night there was a public debate with some sporting heavyweights at the City Recital Hall. I’m glad we’re talking about it at least… after the way the US basketball team handled themselves at the Olypmics, and the way the Australian cricket team has been overly aggressive for years, the worry for me was that people were just becoming used to it, and no longer saw sportsmanship as something worth valuing.

It seems that most SMH readers agee with me in saying that we’re not all that sporting.