YOU MAY WANT TO SIT DOWN FOR THIS

I wonder if Trout Fishing In Quebec ever regret their dumbass name?

As expected the Mitchell Rd guy was out in full force for Mothers Day. Dame Edna was the order of the day:

And our man, the artist, appeared in full Edna garb:

He very kindly allowed me to take his photo. I wanted to ask him his name and talk to him about his murals, but he was in character and I didn’t want to break the illusion. He did a great Edna voice.

The latest episode came and went - I watched it once because I couldn’t wait for Luke, a second time when Luke finally came home from work, and a third because I was bored. All over the course of two days, and every viewing was just as funny as the last, if not funnier. You can see a review/recap at Televisionary here, or ask me for my copy AND I WILL PROVIDE. I will probably even watch it again with you (note to self: grab Skins from Flip already).

After Becky and I walked out of the film and bitched about it over a cheap dinner, we hung out at Borders for a bit, shooting the breeze while not really looking at books. But I found the latest copy of Marie Claire with Tina Fey on the cover, with this interview, done by Amy Poehler, to plug their new film Baby Mama. So funny. An excerpt:

That’s actually not the best quote, and I checked the link and there’s only part of the interview there, so maybe just go to the newsagency and pick out the magazine and turn to page68.

Tonight Becky and I went to see a film - Then She Found Me, written and directed by and starring Helen Hunt. Long story short, we walked out. It’s not our fault we saw it, we got free tickets.

Quote of the evening from Becky while watching the film: “it hurts!!”

I went in with my expectations already lowered. But Becky sold me on the idea (”Dude. Colin Firth.”) and it was free. In the film, April (Hunt) is 39 and desperate for a baby. She won’t adopt because she herself was adopted and always felt her mother loved her biological son more. But her husband’s just left her, but it’s ok because the very next day, she meets Colin Firth, whose character’s name I forget because it was such a dumb movie. Colin Firth is immediately nice, understanding and perfect for her. And then her adoptive mother dies. And then her birth mother tracks her down. Her birth mother is a wacky small time celebrity, who tells April her biological father was Steve McQueen. Then April finds out she’s pregnant, to her  husband, who left her for a reason that’s never really made clear, other than that he’s sort of just a dipshit. I’m sort of giving away major plot points but the film’s too bad for anyone to bother seeing.

The husband was such a dick and Colin Firth so delightful you never understand why she can’t pick between them, the dialogue and screen action was so unbelievable and poorly played out, the direction was boring but not as boring as the editing - it’s too painful to go into specifics (but we could if we had to). We walked out at the point where Helen Hunt starts having it off with the idiot husband in her car in broad daylight in the street. The best part of the evening was when we walked out and bitched about it for half and hour.

We agreed that it felt like the film was a lonely, desperate forty-something’s fantasy.

But having said all that, the crowd of mostly 40-60 somethings TOTALLY LAPPED IT UP.

Patricia lives on the neighbouring property to Pony’s parents’ Wingham house, on Hobbits Lane.

She singlehandedly saved what was left of our working bee road trip, by meeting us at the eroded road bridge in her 4WD and driving us poor city sods the final 20minutes’ worth of gravel road to the house. After she did her good deed for the day, she busted open a well-earned bottle of Jack Daniels for refreshment.

Before we left she invited us over to check out the baby goats. Baby goats, you guys.

This is Patricia and her dog Buffy (the Vampire Slayer). She has seven other dogs, and goats, cows and horses. Pony said she claims to be related to Rob Roy. I think she’s pretty cool.

This is dedicated to the guy at the Mitchell Road Auctions who paints those great murals for each auction theme every week.  Having lived within spitting distance of the centre for so long,  I kept going past the place, meaning to take photos, but never actually got round to it. So I missed the Australia Day Ned Kelly on a surfboard painting, the egg-tacularness during Easter (which on Easter Sunday was repainted with hatching chicks - so great), but I finally got on board for Nautical Week:

Oh the detail!  Sometimes when he’s feeling particularly festive, he’ll get dressed up in costume on the weekend to hustle in more customers.  I’ve seen him as Santa, as the Easter Bunny, as Captain Cook, and Elvis.  He has a very stylish method of gesticulating and waving that is welcoming and not at all desperate or off-putting.  Over the last long weekend I could see the outline of a great Anzac painting, but he was rained out in the end.  I’m hoping I’ll catch a few more murals before we move.

So I mentioned my organic spelt ‘roo ravioli.  Here’s a picture:

I had forgotten to buy baking paper to layer them with, so I tried to dry them out on a tea towel, all floured and fresh.  Only after a while the flour would absorb into the pasta and things would get sticky, especially because the filling _wasn’t_ _totally_ cooled, because I just wanted to get on with it.  So I ran out and got that roll of baking paper and packed the lot.

I had saved the bulk of the batch for our Wingham road trip.  It was a great idea, until the heavy rain and the traffic left us stranded in Taree.  We found a caravan park by chance after we decided just to go back to Becky and Sonik’s parents’ place in Newcastle.   Thank god we found it when we did, otherwise the defrosting raviolis were probably going to go all gluggy and stick together and everyone would be horrified.  There was a crappy little kitchen there, so it all ended well.

I’ve started watching The Paper, a new MTV reality series based around the lives of students at Cypress Bay High in Florida, as they run their award-winning high school newspaper The Circuit.  It’s sort of fly-on-the-wall in style, very similar to the Osbourne show, and pretty gripping stuff.  I’m two episodes in, the first was based around the race for editor-in-chief, and the second was about the start of the new school year, and the new regime.  I love the bitchy schoolyard stuff that goes on, and I think I’m impressed by how sophisticated the newspaper is and how professionally it’s done.  Reminds me of Press Gang.

I just wanted to bring attention to something that hasn’t got enough of it yet…

Yoko’s Dream was a short film made by Abs, Becky Jo, Pony, Fi, Flippy and Sonik a couple years ago. Roff shot it on super 8 film, and it’s so great. By all accounts it was an arduous but ultimately fulfilling venture. It was mostly done using stop motion, which is a nightmare if your zombie makeup is running in the sun and it takes twenty minutes to film 5 seconds. I edited it together for them and put it on youtube, but in almost two years it has only been viewed 3700 times. So I’m linking to it here, and hoping others will do the same, and I’m submitting it to boingboing.net, because it’s a great film, and everyone should see it. I hope they feature it. The premise is that Yoko Ono dances with five prominent reanimated female figures from history. Also featured are Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the Utah Saints.

I think this is my fourth (?) week of unemployment.  I’m still loving it, although trying to find the discipline to keep the days filled with usefulness, like organising the trip and cleaning out the house, is slipping away fast.  Flicked on the TV, and saw Gracie Otto being interviewed on the Morning Show.  I’ve been noticing her presence in the media lately, it seems like some clever PR campaign is behind bringing her into the public sphere.  And there is a helluvalot of emphasis on her famous family and BF.  Laura Imbruglia would never have stood for it.