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Well it has been a bit of an odd weekend. Last week I tried to cancel an online order with a “reputable online company” which has been a nightmare. The order was for a wireless adaptor for the computer at home and some ink for the printer. This has bearings on what happened over the weekend.
On Saturday I went to the markets like usual but deliberately a little later so who I would consider dodgy brothers computer supplies would have set up shop. Well after getting all the fruit and vegetables and the bread I went to said stall. I asked for printer ink and they had it this time. I then said you wouldn’t have a USB wireless adaptor would you? The guy shows me a package which looked like the right thing and I purchased it. Total $58 – total online $118. Now i admit the stuff is not exactly the same but it all works.
I went home and then took my super son out as my wonderful wife was not feeling wonderful. We went to Windsor as it was Free Comic Book Day and I wanted to purchase an expensive comic (total cost $1). We parked where we usually park and then went to the comic shop. My super son loved seeing Batman. We then decided to try and find some lunch. We stopped at one (Korean?) bakery cafe and had toasted sandwiches. This was an interesting experience as I am not sure I have seen a cafe burn half a toasted sandwich before. Anyway we had that and my super son asked for more. We were about to order when the gentleman in front of us asked for a juice – from a juice extractor – the noise upset my sensitive sons ears and we went out of there. The next place did not toast sandwiches but it did give him one cheap. We sat and ate that and then he wanted a third. I compromised and purchased a choc chip cookie as he also wanted a biscuit and all was well. I’d rank the bakeries in reverse order the first was the worst and the last best. Total cost of outing $13.20 including comic excluding petrol. Plus a couple of “I love you daddys for taking em to the city” which are priceless.
Somewhere along the way I hooked up the wireless connector and could not get it working. And could not and could not. I got desperate and thought – maybe if I just change a password. Lo and behold no more cables through the house. In the afternoon we got to church as a family and then came home and had dinner for which my wonderful wife went to bed as she was still not well.
Sunday dawned and I sort of expected a repeat of the day before. Instead we all went to Frankston around 10am had a walk on the boardwalk and the beach and saw heaps of starfish. I have never seen them like this before washed up on a beach so it was an exciting experience for me and my son. We had lunch at Roxy’s Cafe in Karringal and will be back there as they actually understand what is Gluten Free for my wife. Mind you seeing a sign that the Taxi Stand is a security stand from 00am to 5:30am is a bit of a worry.
We had a quite afternoon at home, I did some lecture prep while my super son played and watched some television. In the evening for the first time in ages my wonderful wife and I watched a movie I had borrowed from the library, Brassed Off, with a very young Ewan McGregor. While not the most brilliant screenplay, consider:
Gloria: Do you want to come up for coffee?
Andy: I don’t drink coffeee
Gloria: I don’t have any.
it still worked.
It was a good movie which I wanted to see having lived near areas hit by Maggie Thatcher shutting down the mines. One line will stay with me for a long time where one of the characters is in a church and shouts about and to God that some people have died but Maggie Thatcher is still alive where is the justice in that. A powerful scene about injustice.
Overall a good weekend with lots done but more to do around the house.
As I have said earlier this week I am a romantic. For many years I have been reading Dilbert. One week Scott Adams, Dilbert’s writer had some guest writers including Greg Evans who writes Luann. I started reading Luann because it was not a southern American based comic strip like the name implied but one about “people” struggling in relationships at school, home and work. I am hooked to this day and delighted that finally Toni and Brad are on a date.
At the other extreme I have been listening to Martyn Joseph for around 20 years. I have only seen him in concert once, by the grace of my wonderful wife letting me go when we were in London one weekend. I missed Martyn when he was in Australia back in the 80s. His music has undergone change over the years and some songs I hated initially I now love and others I may cringe at if I had an LP player still.
Yesterday my wonderful wife was upset about something while we were driving along. I see our lives more as romantic, like Luann, but at that moment the words of a Martyn Jospeh song came into my head, “Everything in Heaven comes apart“. It is based on a poem by Stewart Henderson and having heard both Steve and Martyn perform it is a joy now for me to remember this song says ultimately that heaven does not destroys things but explains things when they come apart. The words say “Comes apart explains itself and shows it’s complex ways To see at last is to be free from a complicated maze” Heaven, the life to come, is not an end but an explanation and some days when we are upset we want explanations not the wait for heaven. We want to get out of the complicated maze and just to know.
The romantic in me wants life to be Luann but the reality is that it is more like a Martyn Joseph song and I am glad to have both in my life.
We all have a past. For better or worse. There are things we readily admit to and things we don’t tell anybody.
One bit of the past I saw on a T-Shirt recently said “Kitt is a Cylon”. This took me ages to figure out. If you need help see Kitt & Cylon for it all to make sense and remember the defining thing of a Cylon is the red light that flashes back and forth.
Another thing from my past is comic books. Now I may be stating I am more of a geek than I like to admit to but I still sometimes read them. For Christmas I received 52 Volume 1 and have read from the library Showcase Presents JLA, Vol 1 and The Tornado’s Path.
I have to admit I enjoyed all of them and now want to read all of 52. Even if its last volume is not quite out in this country yet.
The reason I realise I enjoy reading these, and these particularly is that they take me back to my first reading of comics. I can remember one year on the way home from or on the way to the Easter show, I think, my Mum, Dad and I stopped at St Leonard’s railway station and bought me my first comic. One story in the book was a Justice League of America book and it started me reading comics for many years. My preference has remained to this day to be DC. This does not mean that I am not looking forward to Iron Man at the movies, though I must admit some of the Fantastic Four movies seem more farce than serious takes but I still have a preference for the Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, Supes and the gang. I am really looking forward to the Justice League movie even if I have troubles thinking that Adam Brody will be the Flash. When was Barry Allen or Wally West that dark? Geeky no problem, dark no.
So is this a hankering for a simpler time? I actually don’t think so. The things that appealed to me when I was a child are still the things that appeal to me today. I don’t think we move as far from out childhood as we would like to think.
So I have confessed to my comic loves, what are your unwritable confessions?
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