Sir Thursday is coming out on Wednesday!! I am so very, very excited! Hurrah!

And then it will be another year until Lady Friday… sigh.

I walked in the rain today. Not by choice. It hailed on me. The things I do for my friends.

It was the launch for Kate’s Wishbone saga appearing on http://www.australianreader.com; there will be 13 parts, because some of the stories are a bit long so they are going to appear in two parts. It’s very exciting! She has had other stories in different websites, but none have actually made her their star. Hopefully this will mean more people reading it and heck – maybe she’ll get money one of these days.

She’s also had a couple of stories accepted by some radio station, which is also very cool.

I have frequently noticed this phenomenon: although we have The Empire Strikes Back on video, we are still watching it while it is on TV. I think it’s the idea that lots of people are watching it at the same time that makes it a special occasion. Almost like there is a sense of community – as though we are all together at the cinema – even though we are all watching it on our own screens. It’s the same as when you hear a favourite song on the radio, even though you own the album.

Mark Hamill is so bad. Harrison Ford is so good.

Being 36C today, it was a “show off your shoulder tat” day in the city. The best one I saw was a finely drawn spider crawling up a girl’s shoulder, on a very fine thread. It was cool. J thought it would be even more effective if the spider was smaller, since it would be more believable.

I’d never read a David Malouf book before this; he always seemed a bit too much like Real Literature. However, Mum had to read this for one of her English subjects – Classics, maybe, actually – and she recommended it. So I borrowed it, and I’ve just read it. It’s Malouf’s fairly fabulous conception of what might have happened to Ovid after his exile from Rome.

It’s pretty weird, I’ve got to say: based on the idea that as a child Ovid encountered a feral child, and then in his place of exile encounters another (the same??) feral child, whom he attempts to ‘civilise’. It’s really about Ovid (re)discovering himself as a person, I guess, and as natural, separate from being a Roman citizen… ok so it’s pretty hard to explain. It’s also written in the present tense, which is an added dimension of interesting-ness. It is beautifully written, lots of sparse description (which is not an oxymoron, if you think about it), although oddly it also felt very un-described. Maybe this is what makes it Literature? And the fact that the entire story is told in just 150 pages?

Anyway, because it is only 150 pages long and it’s not exactly hard to read, it’s not like it’s a huge waste of time or brain space if you decide you didn’t like it after reading it.

Mild spoiler alert.

I watched this movie when I was in Adelaide, most of it. I have, of course, heard of the movie – although I was getting a bit confused between this and Howard’s End when I first started, then I really noticed Emma T wasn’t in the latter. Anthony Hopkins was excellent, as I knew already. Emma T was quite remarkable too; her make-up was good, and not too extreme for the 20 odd years of ageing they put on her. There were some incredibly painful bits, of course – O that class prejudice. But that was nothing compared to the ending. I cannot believe that I sat through it only to have them not get together in the end! I also cannot believe how sentimentally attached I am to the notion of The Happy Ending.

I was very irate at the end, as a number of people can attest. I was yelling at the screen, in a rather frustrated tone. I was nearly stamping.

One advantage of the sis leaving: she isn’t taking any CDs with her (what did people do before iPods, when they went overseas?? CD wallets, I guess). So I got to steal some. I forgot to do that before we were about the walk out the door, so I only got three – the Kaiser Chiefs, and the two earlier Goldfrapp albums, which I am checking out prior to purchase (probably). Very useful indeed.

I left this in Adelaide, so I don’t remember who the second author it, but the top-billing author is Arthur C Clarke. I bet he had the main plot ideas, and the other guy – Michael someone – did most of the writing. I have no proof to substantiate that claim, of course.

It was a good techno book; not really a thriller, more about the social and political ramifications of inventing (by accident) a device that effectively neutralises gunpowder and other nitrate-based explosive type things. Some of the discussion was really interesting. One of the more disturbing parts was the way the point of view held by people in the NRA and other such bodies was presented: very reasonable, often, and not at all like they were loonies. I know that not all gun owners are loonies, but I find it immensely hard to understand how anyone can genuinely believe that owning gun actually makes the world a safer place. Maybe they don’t think that – only that it makes them safer. Also the conspiracy theories… the “baddies” were not over-drawn or ridiculous, in other words.

It was a fun book. Definitely made me think about guns and weapons and all… I already am a pacifist, but reading some of the arguments put forward by the gun owners made me think through some of my own ideas and decide why I really hold them and how I might back them up.

So obviously, I spent the weekend in Adelaide – the glorious thing about working 0.8, I could have three full days there! Kat had a farewell do at a funky bar in the city on Friday night – it has a marine fish tank, which was entertaining for a while. I talked to a few people, but eventually they all found their own frends and decided an old fogey teacher was boring (although two people asked which of us was older… one of those doesn’t really count, I think, since he was trying way too hard to impress me… long story). There was a big screen in one corner, and Star Wars was on, so I watched that for a while… then I piked.

I did watch large amounts of Rage (by my standards, anyway), because the JJJ Hottest 100 was being played. I also made THE most amazing brownies for a family do: combined 5th for a cousin and Kat farewell. One of the aunts made an upside down pear cake with balck treacle. Woah.

And – most exciting of all – I got to leave from the new Adelaide Airport. Yippee.

So I’m Adelaide (the sis is off o/s, so I wanted to say goodbye), walking down Rundle St, and I notice this record shop has Josh Pyke performing live in their basement, promoting his extended single (or whatever it’s called; it has 7 songs), that day. I walk past. We meet up with said sister, I tell her, and all of a sudden I discover that I am being dragged back along Rundle St and down into said basement, to listen to said singer. The basement is obviously used to such treatment; as well as music DVDs, and collectables, there was a little stage and a clear space in front. There was maybe 20 people there; a few speakers, Josh and his geetar on a chair. He played 5 or 6 songs… Kat bought the album, got it signed (much more bravely than me with Chris Ross, but then she always has been), and off we went.

Much fun.