lightning strikes twice

I love Australia and I’m fond of some cricket, but the Aussie team continually comes across as arrogant.  Now Hayden is complaining about the Indian’s giving back what he dishes out every game!  Then he claims that he acts in the spirit of cricket!  What a joke.

versus Perth Wildcats, Kingdome 26/2/08

Great, close, tense game at the Kingdome with the Kings winning 101-98.  Sav lit it up in the first quarter netting 15 points, but only scored again in the last, with some crucial buckets to close the game out.  Crosswhite was excellent, and flashes of brilliance from Dontaye Draper too.  Good stuff.

And a great look behind the scenes at the Kingdome.

I turned 29 yesterday, and was taken to dinner at the the amazing est.

Their website is understated, but have a look at the awards!  There was a five course degustation, and I ate sashimi, Moreton bay bug (with truffle butter sauce, mmm), John Dory fillet and glazed duck breast, followed by a chocolate torte.  And being Valentine’s day, wasn’t the people watching good!  The older man with the very young drunk woman, the cute young couple next to us.  The bored older couple, and the guy who stormed out and left his date with the very expensive bill.  Better than the movies.

My lovely wife also gifted me a beautiful (and comfortable) Kartell ‘Spoon’ chair from Space Furniture.  Now there’s no excuses for not getting any work done…

I’ve had a semi-coherent blog post about media sensationalism sitting around for about a year.  I’ll never finish it, and this got me down a little, but then I realised I could summarise it with: “SMH.com.au is a bit rubbish innit?”

• Joy Division – following on from last year’s Control, this documentary interviews the remaining members of Joy Division about the band and in particular about Ian Curtis. Interesting, from the kooky goofy drummer Stephen Morris to the brilliant Bernard Sumner to the brash Peter Hook, these guys were just young guys having a laugh. Ian on the other hand was deep and melancholy with a penchant for serious writing. Annike Honore was perhaps the most interesting person in this documentary. All round, very good.
• The Kite Runner – a worth cinematic rendition of the excellent book of the same name. Hassan as a child, and later his son, were both spectacular characters and the actors in these roles were magnificent. I think I almost cried about a dozen times in this film.

by Cormac McCarthy

Brilliant book, instantly up there with the best. Ernest Hemingway like in the sparseness of the prose, the issues raised by this single threaded narrative are far more complex than you’d first think:

• The divide between selfishness and altruism.
• How far would one go to survive, even if there was no clear reason for striving for survival.
• The relationship between man and son.

and many more.  I read this in one weekend, absolutely riveted the whole time.  When I was doing some work, all I wanted to do was stop so I could get back to the book.  I’ll have to track down his other books.

by Khaled Hosseini

While not flawless writing, the emotion and feeling of this book, combined with the introduction to a part of the world most of us are not familiar with, makes this book compelling. The character of Hassan, for instance, will be with me forever (particularly after seeing the brilliant movie rendition of the young friendship). Further, the reflections on one’s own childhood that are inspired give the story even more depth than the author could have hoped for.  I can’t rate it as highly as The Road (Pulitzer winner 2007), or Middlesex (earlier Pulitzer 03/04?), but worthy of a Pulitzer nonetheless.

The late 80s for me were all about Sierra Entertainment.  Kings Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry.  Classics all of them, and good memories too.  This was pretty much the only time in my life I was into games… I’m not sure if anything new could measure up.

• What Happened to Baby Jane? – apparently a classic, and I could see how it might have been enjoyable at a certain time, but it didn’t keep me enthralled enough to not read a book while it played.
• Hairspray – wow, really, really, really annoying.
• Superbad – very entertaining.  Hopefully these guys get a few more good movies till they become the Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson of current comedies.
• Hitch – really enjoyed this.  Light but entertaining.
• The Kite Runner – this killed me.  I thought I was going to cry about 15 times.  The little Hassan was even better than my imagination had conjured up when reading the book.  Brilliant.