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We went and saw Star Trek with Potty tonight.

* loved it * !!

:)

OK so it's all Hollywood blockbuster with big CGI and battles and a pretty simple plot, but hey, it was fun.

And there's plenty of nods to The Original Series.

And of course you can see things coming a mile off.

But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

:)

(and Dave2, the lens flare is there and pretty annoying/distracting, you've been warned!)

.. with something that was going on thirty years ago this month.

All shall be revealed on the weekend.  Hopefully.

Not that anyone except my family will likely care..

And just to keep some colour in the blog, here's some pics..

Some leaves that were in our trolley at Coles the other week.  I thought they looked pretty.

iPhone sunset shot

So Stu told me about this a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't bother nominating anything because it looked like it was pretty much all covered from a John Williams perspective ;)

Tonight I voted:

• Titanic by Horner, James as performed in Titanic
• The Hunt for Red October Score by Poledouris, Basil as performed in The Hunt for Red October
• The Man from Snowy River Score by Rowland, Bruce as performed in The Man from Snowy River
• Back to the Future Film Trilogy Score by Silvestri, Alan as performed in Back to the Future Film Trilogy
• Shakespeare in Love Score by Warbeck, Stephen as performed in Shakespeare in Love
• Music from Harry Potter Movies by Williams, Doyle, Hooper, and Desplat as performed in Harry Potter
• Jaws Score by Williams, John as performed in Jaws
• Jurassic Park Score by Williams, John as performed in Jurassic Park
• Raiders of the Lost Ark Score by Williams, John as performed in Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Gladiator Score by Zimmer/Gerrard as performed in Gladiator

omigosh it was hard!  My first cull had over thirty movies in it.  Got it down to twenty three.  Then cut out music that was not written for the film (which sadly included things like Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns from Babe, Finlandia by Jean Sibelius from Die Hard 2 and everything from Fantasia 2000).  Cut a couple more.  And eventually decided on the movies above.  

These were my runners up:

• Batman Score by Elfman, Danny
• Inception Score by Zimmer, Hans
• James Bond Theme by Norman, Monty
• Music from Star Trek Movies by Eidelman/Giacchino/Goldsmith/Horner/McCarthy/Rosenman  <-- be good if they'd narrowed this down to Jerry Goldsmith's
• Star Wars Score (includes music from all 6 films) by Williams, John    <-- I'm hoping this will be popular enough to make it in from other people's votes
• Superman Score by Williams, John  <-- and this too

My brother and I had quite a lot of time to chat last week, and one of the things we talked about was car costs.

Now thanks to my genetics, I inherited my parent's obsessivness, and so ever since I've had a car I've kept a log book of petrol costs, as well a spreadsheet listing rego, servicing, and insurance costs.  I updated the last two year's worth of petrol costs this afternoon, and so here's a breakdown of how much this car has cost me since I got it in February 2001.

So this car has so far cost me $39000 in twelve years.  9.4c/km for petrol only or 35.04c/km for total cost (which would be less if I drove it more).  

Some of the stats are affected by how I've driven it over the years.  From 2001 to 2006 I was commuting to work in Sydney.  From 2006 to 2007 I was going to Canberra once a month.  From the end of 2007 I stopped driving to work, so usage dropped off dramatically.

And just for fun, here's petrol prices for the past twelve years.  Noting that in recent years, Canberra prices are typically 10-15c/L higher than Sydney, as you can see by the little dips on those last two Sydney purchases in the past month!

This morning I was all set to head up to Sydney to visit the parents, but mum rang me just before I was due to leave to tell me the news that Nana had died overnight.  The staff at the nursing home found her first thing in the morning, so it sounds like she went peacefully in her sleep.  She'd been wasting away for years, and the last few years the dementia really took over and she barely recognised her own children.

So I didn't go to Sydney.  I'll go up next week for the funeral instead.

Instead I ended up in a very strange mood.  I guess family members dying will do that to you.  

Growing up we didn't see my grandparents all that often, maybe every few months.  When we were kids sometimes we would stay there for a few days at a time during the school holidays.  

Grandpa died many years ago.  He fought in the war in the middle east and PNG.  He would never buy a Japanese made car because of that.  My mum was born just after the war, but her real mother died of asthma when mum was just three years old.  My grandpa remarried (my nana) and that was the only mother my mum ever knew.

Grandpa used to march in the Anzac Day march every year (when I was a kid I thought the march should be in March, not April heh) and we always used to look out for him and a man from our church who happened to be in the same battalian (and he's still alive!!).

So this afternoon (after being inspired by Lisa) I decided to bake some Anzac biscuits.  And I used some bicarb soda that used to belong to Nana - even the tupperware container is labelled with her writing.

Rest in peace.

My Nana passed away overnight.  She was not quite 85.

Was channel surfing tonight and ended up on a Top Gear special where they went hunting the source of the Nile river.  Lots of fun, I like the specials they do.  I really must see the one they did in Japan - I only saw the last few minutes of it some time ago..

I was toying with the idea of going to Skyfire last night.  And before that the Canberra day celebrations last Monday.

But Canberra makes it too hard and stressful to go to festivals.  

You see Stu has little interest in festivals.  Mostly because of the crowds.  We both *hate* crowds, but him even more so.  Which means he doesn't usually want to go to them.  Which means I'd have to go by myself (not very appealing) or find someone to go with (tricky).  Either way I would ordinarily still need to get myself there.

Now in Sydney if you want to go to an event, you just hop on a train.  It's much easier and faster to take public transport in Sydney than it is to drive, so that's what you do.  In Canberra the opposite is true.  Public transport takes *much* longer than driving.  So while you *can* take a bus to an event, it's usually too impractical.  But if you drive then there's the stress of parking.  Because everyone else has the same idea.  And the parking situation around the lake is pathetic.  Not to mention that if I drove myself I wouldn't be able to drink.  (The exception is Epic - there's plenty of parking there).

And then there's the crowds.  Have I mentioned the crowds?  And guess what crowds need to do?  Go to the toilet!  But Canberra festival organisers never provide enough toilets so you have to queue forever.  

The lack of food outlets and so therefore the huge queues at those is another turn off, but that one just takes a little bit of planning to bring your own food.

So basically the stress of it all turned me off going last night, so I didn't go.  Which is a shame because I *love* fireworks and would like to get some more practise photographing them.

Over summer I was letting myself wake up naturally with the light.

But now it's not even sunrise until after I need to be up I'm needing to set an alarm again.

Also, work is stressing me out like crazy :(

Last night I finished Careful, he might hear you, but Sumner Locke Elliott.  

Not a bad book when you get used to the switching of perspectives and the flashbacks that get inserted into the text with no breaks which makes it a little confusing.  

I liked the descriptions of Sydney, being able to picture a lot of the places talked about.  At one point they're going to a cemetery on the "electric train".  I thought it would have been Rookwood, but then there was a description of looking down at the river and seeing the jellyfish, and I'm like "hey that's the George's River, they're going to Woronora cemetery!" .. and of course I was right.  I used to catch the train over that river and see the jellyfish (different bridge though - the old bridge described in the book is now a pedestrian bridge).  And they went past the Como hotel too (although didn't mention it by name).  

Will have to watch the movie again some time (I think I might have seen it when I was much younger).

I thought this might have been a Bookcrossing book (it was in that pile), but no number on it.  Maybe I should register it.  And read all the other bookcrossing books I have ..