Oh snap! … I’m all grown up.

As the movers and shakers of Australian parliament name call, seduce, lie and contradict each other all under the guise of forming a ‘minority government’. I realised an undiscovered truth about myself in the fallout of the 2010 Australian Federal election.

I care

This might well be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but if I’m honest with myself. I have to admit that my opinion of Australian politics is likely to have changed forever. It is comical that I’ve come to this insight after we have headed to the polling booths, but then we could be heading back sooner than we think.

Since coming of age and having a say in my nation’s future I’ve always taken a pretty bullish and simpleton view of the political landscape. I would whimsically declare “I don’t think either party has any true power to influence or change anything in my life”, so I’d vote for the same party every election regardless of polices.

Despite taking great interest in a number of issues that affect a minority of Australia’s. Such as R18+ censorship for video games or the recently announced intention of the government to ‘try’ and censor electronically distributed apps to tap into a source of revenue. I didn’t really draw the dotted lines together and see that either lack of action or attempted action would negatively impact my life.

Unfortunately with this new found appreciation to at least take an interest in what is going on in the nation, I can only concur with the rest of Australia. It is pretty much a dead all draw as to which party I favour running our borders, digital highways and general coming and goings.

I hope to do go back to the polls, and both parties run another campaign based on what they learnt listening to us the people. Given the decision is clearly on a knife’s edge either party could make an ever so slight adjustment and potentially stream role the opposition. It might even be proof the whole kit and caboodle system actually works!

Now while I’m on a role, maybe its time I try Vegemite again, you never know I might even like it this time around …

Inception

I recently caught myself reading my own reflections of some choice movies I posted about last year. I was delighted to rediscover the insight I’d had on them; so having seen a couple of good films lately, hopefully I’ll continue the trend.

As I posted almost twelve months ago, while I’ll try and keep this entry spoiler free it is definitely better to read it after you’ve seen the movie in question and formed your own view of the film.

In my review of the Soloist last year I commented that while I don’t mind a good thinking man’s film I usually prefer them to be interlaced with a couple of explosions and some exciting action sequences. Enter: Inception.

While I don’t consider myself a film geek, as I rarely know the director of a film when walking into the cinema. If I’m particularly inspired by an idea or enjoyable film I’ll often crave more of its back story. This is a pretty simple venture in today’s world with the internet and sites like IMDB and enthusiast podcasts etc. It turns out that Inception is directed by one of the more critically acclaimed talents in the industry today. Nick Nolan is rapidly becoming a household name, directing the two latest Batman movies as well as Memento to name a small sample of his back catalogue.

Upon reflection it becomes obvious that Inception is directed by a gifted film maker, some of the action scenes in the middle of the film are brilliantly original, no mean feat in cinematography these days. I also found the pacing to be extremely well staged with clever - tried and true - storytelling tricks injected to keep the audience as well informed of the story as required. I can’t say the story isn’t completely void of plot holes but sometimes I think these are purposefully positioned to let the audience interpret it themselves – much like a cryptic line in a the words to an emotional song.

I was also pretty offended by the ending of the film; I read it described as “a fifty/fifty bet each way by the director”. I tend to agree with this as some in the audience would have liked to be told the story ended one way, and the other potion of the audience would anticipate the other. The film simply refused to confirm either, creating its own social networking buzz among patrons that have viewed it.

I’ve formed my own opinion but still feel slightly robbed that it wasn’t expressed in full by the film itself. It’s the storyteller’s story to define the ending … not mine.

At the end of the day Inception is an easy movie to recommend to others, and I even look forward to my eventual re-unrevealing of its mysteries when I watch it anew …

69,081 Words later ...

After a rather seemingly unsuccessful attempt to reboot my blog a couple of months ago it would be easy to assume that I haven't been writing anything. This couldn't be further from the truth. Around the same time I was motivated to fire up the blog again I discovered a rather unusual metal exercise (for want of a better word) that I have taken to with surprising ferocity.

750words.com is a beautiful website created by a budding technologist in the US, that has taken the existing concept of 'Morning Pages' and completely retrofitted it into Buck Roger's century - well our 21st century at the very least. The idea is you dump your thoughts, concerns, successes, fears and triumphs on to paper - preferably daily. Well that was the "old skool" version anyway. Buster's version (as I affectionately know him from his update emails) removes the need for paper and replaces it with a very comprehensive web portal. Rather than write you rambling's, you type them; and while the core concept is perfectly intact, Buster has improved it with some incredible innovation.

I'm not sure exactly why I've continued with it to be honest, but today I will have contributed yo my own 750 words journal for ninety days in succession. The tag line of the site is "Private, unfiltered, spontaneous, daily" and couldn't be more articulate. The original creator of the concept, Julia Cameron describes the exercise as the minds wake up call, or a mental morning shower. I concede it does sound pretty cheesy, but as a convert to the exercise I have to agree with this analogy.

Some of the innovation that Buster has brought to the table with the website 750words.com are blatant 'hooks' to give you a feeling of obligation to return each day and dump your words. Simple yet brilliantly implemented features such as monthly score boards in association with achievement milestones in the shape of badges can be earned over continual usage of the site. I think these are wonderful additions as self discipline can only motivate people so far. I can think on a couple of occasions after I'd amassed a streak of over thirty days or more in a row. I didn't feel like adding my days entry, but instantly turning that thought around when I pictured the streak being broken and having to start again.

So over the last three months - yeah it has been that long - I've been writing vigorously to myself about all manners of topics, all of which I'll keep private as per the nature of the 750words.com site. However I've also realised that I like writing to an audience, no matter how small and hence the second re-boot of the virtualsteve space. Like last time I've still got plenty of topics that I want to cover but haven't been making the time. This post is simply a public declaration that I still want to contribute to virtualsteve regardless of my daily electronic dairy commitments. For a long time I've felt that writing to myself was adequate but have slowly discovered that they are similar but distinctively different ventures to writing to an audience.

So while I've written 69,081 words to myself in the past 90 days its long time I re-begin to write a couple of words to everyone else ...