So bored

I always whinge about having to go to work, but being at home all day is downright boring.

I've tried everything. I've watched some movies on cable, some episodes of Star Gate Atlantis on DVD. I posted around 100 posts on the Ubuntu Forums in the last day or two. I even cleaned up some cat spew and washed under my busted shoulder. What a way to spend my day. I was so close to calling work to see if there is anything I can do from home.

I'm not that bored.

I still have hours of ChinesePod podcasts to listen to. And Dapper is being released in less than 3 or so days. Time to start cleaning my hard drives. Plus I just happened to have bought some good classic DVDs to watch too. A Bridge Too Far, Great Escape and The Party anyone?

See if I can bust out a partition scheme for Dapper.

My first broken bone

Well I broke my first bone. Playing soccer. What a surprise.

It was a pretty big clash, almost a conservation of momentum. Neither of us fell over. All the energy went into my left collar-bone. With a nice sickening crunch. Gooone! Strangely enough it didn’t hurt, not until about 15 mins later, then it hurt.

Thank you to Ryan’s dad, a paramedic who was on hand, for getting my arm in a sling before the ambulance got there. That’s when the real fun began; narcotics.

My paramedic was a big dude called Igor, who gave me the whistle; Penthrox. A bit like breathing in mild acetone. That started having an effect after a couple of minutes. In the ambulance he upped the concentration of that, and gave me two doses of a synthetic opiate; pethadine I think.

That worked wonders, like being drunk without feeling sick or hungover. Nice.

We had a bit of a wait in the emergency ward, then an xray or two. I got a nice greenstick fracture. Not as bad as I had thought. It felt like it was snapped in two.

The doc said ‘you’re done’, didn’t even touch me. Apparently the collar-bone is a good bone to break. And being 24, my body started healing once it broke. I will still need 6+ weeks and much time in a sling to heal. I can’t believe my body can just pull itself together.

Washing is a pain. Undressing is hard, dressing is friggin murder. Sleeping is very difficult.

To make matters worse, my parents just went OS for two weeks. I was meant to house-sit and look after my younger siblings/pets. Guess its a role reversal now.

Did we win?

WPH 4-2 PUT

We did? Great, I must have missed it, being in hospital and all!

This competition is so open. We completely dominated these thugs the entire time I played. Phil got a good goal minutes after we conceeded from a dubious free-kick. I swear the ref had every call backwards, since we rarely cause free-kicks.

I had some good plays, but honestly most I think I’ve forgotten now. In the last ten minutes of the half, me and some big guy challenged for the ball, and then I heard it; *crunch*

I felt my collar-bone, yep its broken. The guy even had a go at me saying “that’s how you tackle”, I really can’t be stuffed replying to that.

As I sat waiting for the ambulance, Phil got two quick goals in the second half for his hat-trick. Good onya Phil! At least someone is scoring regularly. They got another, but so did Scott (finally), but I was gone by then.

So good luck for the rest of the season fellas. At least I can do some real match reporting and photography, from a less biased view on the sideline.

The Da Vinci Code

I watched this last night, with Cathy and her work, which booked the entire cinema. We got lots of popcorn, icecream and drinks all for $5. Her work has a real nice social club thats for sure.

I thought this was pretty good. I really don’t understand the controversy over this movie.

I thought in some ways it was better than the book, other ways lacking what the book had. Firstly the movie actually was at the locations described by the book. This makes things clearer, not having ever seen ‘The Last Supper’ or the Louvre, than the book. Of course books are always better for stimulating the imagination.

I felt though that at some points the movie skipped over important plot points, and sometimes seemed to include things just to pay lip-service to the book. I had thankfully forgotten some of the book (I think seeing a movie with knowledge of the book can detract from the experience) but must admit found myself a little confused at times.

Audrey Tautou is cute as all hell in this movie. Tom Hanks was pretty good in this role. I actually liked this Robert Langdon more than the novelised one. I also liked how the story panned out between the two main characters. Dan Brown got a little too-cheesy, with the hot police detective and handsome, heroic humble professor thing. The movie was much more subtle and tasteful. The way they worked the chemistry was good, and thank God they didn’t kiss. That would have been so wrong.

Paul Bettany was pretty scary as Silas, and Ian McKellan was really good as Teabing. I didn’t think the film was particularly bloody or gruesome, but everone was getting so shocked by events on the screen. The car crash was one moment where everyone fell off their seats.

I liked how the film ended, the book dropped off too much for me. I loved the first half, but was bored by the remainder. The movie had me interested all the time.

As we exited the cinema there were people with loudspeakers telling us about the one true Jesus. I was quite surprised to see this, to tell the truth. I don’t really see why people would have a problem with the plot line. I honestly don’t think it detracts from Jesus’ message and purpose. The only thing I can think of is that people think that the idea that the plot was true undermines the church and their power. I don’t really believe it undermines faith or Jesus’ message, just the power of man over other men.

Anyway I don’t feel much like analysing the effect of the movie on cutural/religious life.

The Da Vinci Code: Pretty Good

Hard Rock Hallelujah

We had a Eurovision party on Sunday night, everyone brought some cuisine from the various corners of Europe to watch the final of the Eurovision song contest.

I always thought Eurovision was a 70’s thing. I knew ABBA won it, I didn’t expect it to still be going.

I had been warned that it is pretty tacky and trashy, and I wasn’t disappointed. A good number of the performances were completely tragic. Everyone seemd to be going for the Boyz 2 Men all white suits, and too many acts were way over the top in theatrics. Just sing dammit! And while you’re at it, try singing in your national tongue, not bloody English. The French did (no surprise) but she was way out of tune.

Speaking of the bloody English. Daz Sampson’s yellow jacket was laughable, and the “school girls” accents *shudder*. While some British accents are to die for; Kate Beckinsale, Rachael Weisz, Kiera Knightly, et al, these were so cringe-worthy.

There were some notable exceptions. The act from Bosnia and Herzegovina were really good, IMO. No pumping music and psycho light effects and corny lyrics. They even sang in their language. Double props. Similarly to Lithuania.

I was a bit peeved by the way the voting works. There are so many ex-soviet countries, so of course Russia will get a lot of their votes. But Russia was terrible. I was pretty miffed every time a country like Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus voted 12 points for Russia. They, however feel otherwise (naturally).

At least the rock group from Finland won. It was nice to hear some rock music on a predominately poppy show.

So my first Eurovision party. I think the only thing that will get me back next year, was the sometimes witty, sometimes hilarious commentary by Terry Wogan. Hmm on second thought…

Still I got to eat lots of good food, so not a complete waste of my Sunday night.