Ten is the prettiest number that you've ever seen!

Ten whole fricken' days sans caffeine, sugar and fatty foods. I am ALL astonishment. I'm going to celebrate tomorrow with one coffee. Just one.



(But it will be a BIG one . . . heee heeeeeeeee)

Nein Nine

Today when the coffee van came I may have gotten a soy decaffe latte.

. . . that's not cheating, right?

Eight/Ate

I'm hungry.



That is all.

On the Seventh Day . . .

And lo, the Detox sayeth that there shall be trembling and a dryness of mouth. There shall be faint rumblings of thy tummy and thy temper shall be shorteth, ay, and there shall be a wont for chocolate that has not been witnessed since the Great PreMenstrual Blowout of Nineteen Ninety Three. But thou shalt not crumble, no! Falter, thou shalt NOT. Thy step will remain firm and steadfast as thou sees the light at the end of the long and dark tunnel of your journey.
And on that day, lo, there will be celebration.

(And you will not smack upside the head those who decided that seven days into your detox would be the PERFECT time to bring a coffee machine and filtered coffee into the office and leave in the kitchen with what I'm sure they thought was an incredibly generous offer for anyone to use it, but which actually makes you want to spontaneously combust with need every time you walk past it.)

Day Six (four more to go!)

The tiredness isn't as much of a factor anymore and I seem to be sleeping better. I am literally counting down the days when I can have coffee again but I will curb my intake now, maybe only two a day instead of the usual four which is sometimes five . . .

My usual Monday morning gut wrenching urge to rip people's heads off would appear to be . . . absent. My co-workers appreciate this, but I don't know if this can be attributed to the whole 'no coffee' thing or the fact that viewing American Dreamz on the weekend has sapped the very will to live from my bones.

Seriously. Detox combined with crappy low par film about tired reality tv show starring Hugh Grant and Stifler's Mom? Oy to the suck. Well, at least my mum enjoyed it. And the tickets were free - thanks Red!! Kisses!!

(And we did get the teaser trailer for Superman Returns and it looks stupendous. Great visuals - I do love director Bryan Singer. Marlon Brando's bit from the original Christopher Reeve version where he says how he has sent them - being, us earthlings - his only son? I got a little verklempt, I don't mind telling you. Tears were welling.* And he's no Chris Reeve - may he rest in peace - but nonetheless Brandon Routh looks a hell of a lot like he could be his son. The chin, the eyes, the Superman kiss curl in his hair. Gorgeous. They didn't show Lex Luthor but I am really looking forward to seeing how hammy Kevin Spacey gets playing Lex - Gene Hackman's turn as 'Mr Lutor! Mr Lutor!' is one of my favourite Hackman performances, closely followed by his turn in Mississippi Burning - but I can wait several years to see Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, I think she's woefully miscast and a terribly boring actress.)



*That's a REALLY bad pun that you'll only get if you know that Tom Welling plays Clark Kent on Smallville. So basically, that was for Shaneequa.

Day Three

The detox? So far, so okay. I've been drinking a herbal drink that's meant to be a caffeine replacement. Its called dandelion root herbal tea or something. I don't know, it resembles coffee once you add soy milk to it and it tastes reasonably okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay . . . but it's not coffee.

But I'm okay . . .
I am. I'm fine.

Except I'm constantly tired at the moment which I am blaming on the lack of caffeine and the newly discovered fact that like most humans, I do require more than five hours of sleep a night. I am NO Winston Churchill - who existed on four hours a night. The big showoff. I don't know that I could run a country and make all those awesomely stirring speeches and defend freedom on four hours a night. Although he also used to take an hour nap every afternoon. That? Would be sweeeeeeeet. I could do that. I could make up a little bed below my desk like George Constanza in that one episode of Seinfeld. I loved George. I thought that Jason Alexander was the best thing in that show, Kramer was too showoff-y, Jerry couldn't act and Elaine's hair was too high. My dad says I remind him of Elaine. I also randomly push people and have been known to dance like a kook. I like that word. Kook. Say it out loud with me . . . kooooooook. It clicks in your mouth. My mouth is a little dry, I need some water . . .

I'm a little punch drunk right now.
Am . . . am I . . . babbling??

*breathe breathe*

THERE IS CAKE IN MY OFFICE. CHOCOLATE CAKE.

I have had THREE people ask me if I want some. I am thinking of getting a sign, or a t-shirt that says "I am currently DETOXING, please do not feed me".

I gave up coffee today . . .

. . . for the next ten days while I'm doing a Blackmores 10 Day Detox.

Don't fuck with me, I will get medieval on your ass. The slightest provocation will inspire yelling, screaming, the reckless pointing of fingers, tanties of a nuclear nature and spazz attacks the like of which have not been seen since Tonya Harding's iceskate laces came undone during the winter Olympics. (And the word 'fuck' may appear a teeny little bit more in my posts over the next ten days as I have given up coffee.)

Coffee.
Given up.
Nooooo coffee.
Nada caffeine.
Less latte, heaps herbal.
Cappuccino? No-a-thank-you.
Espresso shot? Not.
No Nescafe, no International Roast (although really, who would miss International Roast, right?) no decaffė, nuttin'.

Oh, and it hasn't even opened yet and I am already officially OVER Mission Impossible III.
OVER.
So fuck off Tom Cruise.

AND the Da Vinci Code. Yes, you can fuck off as well, Tom Hanks. And take your serial killer hair with you.

Bah.

Booyah

Do y'all remember my previous post regarding the Green Room Awards ?

Well kids, in lieu of actually getting to give him a big hug personally, everybody give it up for Fosse, whose production of The Laramie Project won Best Production (Fringe/Independent Theatre) this Sunday in the 2005 Green Room Awards. A thoroughly deserved win for an incredibly moving and beautiful play, performed and directed with clarity, insight and a pleasing lack of heavy handedness (as are all his plays).
Kudo's to Fosse and the company on their win.

(cue massive amounts of squeeing from the theatre whores who read my blog - which is pretty much just . . . Shaneequa)

Say it with me everyone, loud and proud (and in manner of overexcited US Marine cheering the President)

. . . for Fosse . . .

BOOYAH!!

That Brokeback Got Me Good

I'm sorry, but the bunnies are at it again . . . just awesome.

Go away

Go away Simone Warne.

Yes, I know you stiff upperlipped your way through the hideous freakshow that was your very public marriage breakdown to that cheating scumbag and I admire you for sticking by him the first time because you didn’t want your children to suffer (although I would have left his wandering ass, because you get ONE chance. One. And by one, I don’t mean you get to cheat on me and then you get another chance after that because that, my friend, would be your SECOND chance and . . . no no no no and no.)
I commend your willingness to try and make it work, at the same time that I don’t think anyone should stay in a shitty situation ‘just because of the kids’. Believe me, the kids hate the shitty situation as much as you do (although most kids parents marriage breakdowns aren’t splashed across the New Idea sitting on their best friends coffee table for all to see before her mum hurriedly whisks it away muttering about stupid rubbish magazines and she doesn’t know why she buys them and you shouldn’t pay any attention to them anyway and how about you kids watch that M rated movie she never lets you watch but will now because she’s desperate to distract you from the picture of your dad texting some British tramp who appeared in Hello magazine in a French maid costume designed to make her look ‘saucy’.)
Regardless of your 'bravery in the face of tragedy and national ridicule', I am OVER seeing you on any show that has the word ‘Celebrity’ in the title, because other than Nicole Kidman, when did the rule get passed that your husband cheating on you makes you more famous than you deserve? And even if you hogging the space inside trashy weekly mags does mean less stories on the latest chapter of Paris Hilton Did Another Dumb Thing, I am still heartily sick of you.

Buh-bye.

Oh, and go away Paris Hilton.

(Seriously. Read the above linked Paris Hilton story, is it still April Fools? It . . . can't be for real, right?)

The King ain't dead

(and Randall Flagg is the devil)

“Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow.” Carrie, 1974

I was going to write about Stephen and another author Laurell K Hamilton but I got started and realised I loved/loathed/had SUCH an opinion on so many of his books and his writing that he had to stand alone. Fair enough, especially when you consider that King has also written as Richard Bachman, whom I have reviewed here separately - I think King would approve, I mean the man held a mock funeral for Bachman after he was unmasked and his book The Dark Half is a thinly veiled ‘spookier’ version of how the pseudonym affected his life.

(The) King . . .
No-one is perfect. This is true of everyone. Even The King.
Dude has had a LOT of misses (The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Dream-PfftDon’tYouMeanNightmare-catcher which was, and I don’t think this is coincidence, the last King book I bought but that may change because I kind of want to buy his new book Cell – mmmmmm zombies . . .) but he has had sooo many hits, so very very many hits.
The Stand, Carrie, IT, The Shining, Christine, Misery, The Dead Zone.
Classic American literature.
Classic.
And also? Scare the pants off you scary. I can’t read The Shining unless I have checked under my bed, made sure the doors and windows are locked and that there is someone else within audible screaming distance (should Jack Torrance – who of course in my mind wears Jack Nicholson’s face, damn it – leap out of my closet with a mallet and chase me up some stairs *shudder*)
The first time I read IT, I couldn’t walk past those grates in the side of the road for WEEKS, I caught a cold the first time I read The Stand (I’m very impressionable) and Christine has meant that I am SUPER nice to my car. Love my car. LOVE. (Just in case she’s reading my blog although I don’t know how she would get the internet connection. But she could! She’s very smart! Smart car!)

I feel like he drifted for a while after Misery, like he got bored writing good stuff and thought he'd give crap a good solid try. The Tommyknockers and Needful Things were written then, and both novels have always felt more like they were written by Dean Koontz (don’t get me started. Hack.) And yes, Dolores Claiborne is in there as well (and might I add, that ‘sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to’ is a GREAT line) and The Green Mile, but so is Insomnia. Which actually put me to sleep. Honestly. I have NEVER fallen asleep reading a book in my life, except when I was reading Insomnia. In 1999 King was hit by a car whilst out walking – his injuries included a shattered hip and collapsed right lung that kept him in hospital for several weeks and bedridden for even longer and I personally blame whatever drugs he was on at the time for the utter fucking shambles that is Dreamcatcher. Ugh.

His novel on writing called, not terribly imaginatively ‘On Writing’, is actually a pretty damn interesting read for anyone who isn’t a professional writer, ie us. He’s taken on new forms of media for his novels, ‘publishing’ a couple via the internet and reinvented the old, releasing The Green Mile as an ‘olde tyme’ serial (I bought each book as it came out and hungrily devoured them, desperate to know how he would save John Coffey from the electric chair . . . *sob*)
He is inarguably the most prolific and well known American writer in generations. If you haven’t read one of his books, then you’ve seen one of his films – even if you didn’t realise it at the time. I remember many arguments trying to convince people that The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me were Stephen King stories. Currently they are filming Nightmares & Dreamscapes in and around Melbourne – a friend has hit the acting jackpot and has scored himself a role (he was astounded to discover he was actually allocated a TRAILER on set) - Desperation was made into a feature movie for US ABC starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy/Alien Resurrection) that’s apparently on there sometime in May (God knows when we'll be able to see it) and The Talisman (I completely heart that book and its sequel The Black House, both co-written with Peter Straub) is currently still in pre-production hell.


Richard Bachman : I haven’t attempted to reread any of the novels he wrote as Bachman in recent times, but I do recall reading The Bachman Books, a collection that includes short stories The Running Man, The Long Walk, Road Work and Rage in the car one summer - we must have been driving from the Pilbara down to Perth to visit my grandparents. I remember that The Long Walk and Rage had me in tears. In retrospect Rage is even sadder, dealing as it does with the story of a student bringing a gun to school and holding his classmates hostage. When the massacre at Columbine occurred, I recall I commented to someone that it was just like a book that Stephen King had written. It did not surprise me at all to read a few years later that King had advised his publishers not to do any further printings of that story or the Bachman Books and you can now only find them at secondhand bookstores. His writing as Bachman seemed . . . simpler. A lot more . . . accessible? But not as good, not as well written, not as seep-into-your-bones and definitely not as psychological as his work as King – Bachman stories were less about creepy things that go bump in the night or lurk in the minds of men, and more about futuristic possibilities. As a teenager they were fun. As an adult, I don’t know that I’d enjoy them. A little like going back and watching Degrassi Junior High - still a pretty good show but it hasn’t held its age the way say, Press Gang has. Put Running Man or Long Walk up against IT or The Stand and they suffer quite badly in comparison. They’re King’s middle children, they’re Jan Brady.

In short, he is still The King. I suspect he always will be. I immediately flick to his fortnightly column on Pop Culture in Who Weekly before I read anything else (yes, even before the stories on the state of Britney and K-Fed’s marriage or how Tom Cruise is annoying everyone this week). I return to the worlds he has created in his books regularly and I eagerly await the day Cell is released in paperback* . . . . seriously, zombies!!

Long live The King.

*(A real fan would buy it in hardcover, you say? Sod off, I have tiny wee child sized hands and hardcover books make them owie . . . )

Eat your fucking vegies.

A still from a student film I did with the lovely Zara who would appear to have dropped off the face of the earth . . .

Its a fake gun. Which I yelled at the many many passers-by who stopped to watch us film but didn't necessarily notice that there was a crew with a camera, hence I wasn't actually about to shoot Zara's brains out . . . this time . . .

*evil cackle*

(Yeahhhhhhhhh, it ain't a particularly flattering angle . . . chipmunk cheeks anyone??)

Reason number 5,325,684 to love him

Sigh.

The tux

He should wear a classic Armani tux always.
When he gets up in the morning, he should take off his night tux and put on the day tux.
When he swims, (because I hear that swimming is really good for your back) he should wear the tux.
When he goes grocery shopping (although, who are we kidding, right? But nonetheless, if he did his own grocery shopping) he should - say it with me . . . wear the tux.
When we meet for coffee in that charming little cafe near his Italian house where he arrives early and pre-orders me a skinny latte with a touch of caramel because he knows that's how I like it, he should wear the tux.
When he meets my parents, whom will love him because my mother always liked him on that ER show and because my father will just be happy I've made a decision on whether or not I'm a lesbian, he should wear the tux. (Even if he will be hideously overdressed because my dad is a shut-in and thinks a wifebeater and stubbies is appropriate for meeting potential son-in-laws.)
And on the day that he falls to his knees and asks me to marry him (thereby causing him to have to pay scads of money to Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts who have bets with him that he'll get married again, breaking the hearts of women and gay - and straight - men everywhere) he MUST WEAR THE TUX.
Always.

Enjoy.

Please please please

I refuse to get excited or worked up about the Oscars. I quite desperately want George to win but I will NOT get my hopes up (Paul Giamatti, I am trying not to hate you, its not your fault you didn't get nominated last year for Sideways when you should have and I think you know that if you win today that you're winning for that film and not Cinderella Man, so we are cool. Its the Academy I'll be pissed at.)

Basically most of the Big Awards are two horse races with Fairly Clear Favourites :

Best Supporting Actress - this is really between Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams but Weisz has won everything except the Bafta where she was inexplicably nominated for Best Actress instead of Supporting and lost to Reese Witherspoon. Expect her to come away with this as well.

Best Supporting Actor - oh, it hurts. He's nominated for three - THREE - Oscars and this is the one he should have been the shoe in for, but the race between George Clooney and Paul Giamatti is ridiculously close, too close for me to call without potentially breaking my heart. (And yes, we see you there in the corner in your tux, Jake Gyllenhaal and we think you were WONDERFUL in Brokeback Mountain but darling you're not in the race. But kisses!! And I will see Jarhead, I promise!)

Best Actress - Felicity Huffman versus Reese Witherspoon. This is a tricky one. The smart punter would say Reese has already made space on top of the tv at home for a certain gold, sexually ambigious statue but don't be surprised if Felicity's dusted off the top of her bookshelf as well. They've shared enough of the other awards for this to be Annette Bening/Hillary Swank 1999 redux. I haven't seen either film so can't comment on who deserves it more, but I think Felicity is an amazing actress and Reese is just kind of coming into her own and will have plenty of time to win another one. I would like this to go to Felicity but its too close to call.

Best Actor - there is a possibility that Heath Ledger will take this away from Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but only in the same way that there is a possibility that I was on that grassy knoll and shot JFK. Also? Apparently Phillip made a bet with some friends (including Capote writer Dan Futterman) when they were young and this kind of thing was just a dream, that the first one of them to win an Academy Award would bark their acceptance speech. That? Would be awesome.

Best Director - Not really going to be anyone else but Ang Lee. If George wins this (which would be fantastic but highly unlikely) I will buy a hat just so I can eat it.

Best Film - Based on other film awards (Directors Guild, SAGs, Critics Association, Golden Globes, Bafta's etc) this is between Crash and Brokeback Mountain. Now I loved the shit out of Brokeback, I haven't been that moved by a film in a long time, I mean I saw it twice in four days the week it opened, I really really liked it and I've also seen Good Night and Good Luck which is also about as perfect a film as you can get, but due to my *ahem* alleged adoration of the director and co-star of GN&GL, my housemates Fosse and PGiddy have disallowed any and all opinions I might hold about that film. They think I'm too biased. Ridiculous. Regardless, as FUCKING BRILLIANT as GN&GL may or may not be (it is, I promise, it IS) Best Film will be Crash or Brokeback. My money is still on Brokeback, although there is talk of a backlash against the film which could see Crash win. Which would make me unhappy. Very unhappy.

So, thems the biggies. Tis a strange year - there are some wins that seem obvious but the Academy has been known to do some bizarre things. How else can you explain that Forrest Gump won best film the same year that Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show and The Shawshank Redemption were nominated, except that quite obviously the cocaine in Hollywood was especially badly cut with generic brand baby powder that year?? Who knows what the coke is cut with this year.

We can but wait and see . . .

(and avoid the internet and the radio and news broadcasts until 8.30 tonight when the telecast starts on Ch9)

Cock a doodle doo

In lieu of him beating his own chest and standing on top of our house and proclaiming that he is indeed King Of The World, let me take this opportunity to pimp Fosse. A play he directed last year (The Laramie Project) has been nominated for Best Production (Fringe/Independent Theatre) in the 2005 Green Room Awards. For those who don’t live in Melbourne or frequent the independent theatre world, this is pretty big. Fosse is already a highly respected director within the world of amateur theatre and this is (fingers crossed) the start of some recognition outside of that – leading to paid directing work, bigger and better productions and parts for me.
And this is I think, especially exciting for Fosse, because one of the Patrons of the GRA is Rachel Griffiths* whom he swoons over. So massive props and a little raising of the roof for Fosse!

*Aside
Channel Nine? Hello? May I speak to Eddie Macguire? Thanks.(mmmmmmbopadipadabawhoobopadiddyyabammmmmmmbop**) Yellllllo, oh hey there Eds, how goes it? Condolences on Kerry’s death but congratulations on being given the head honcho possie at Nine, dude. Sweeeet. Yeah. So who is taking over Millionaire . . . really? Interesting choice, I mean I was available and all but . . . you didn’t get my CV? No, no, no, I understand completely, I mean you can’t be expected to read everything that crosses your desk, right? Nah man, s’cool. You want to make up for it? Okay. Um. Well, HOW ABOUT YOU AIR THE FINAL FUCKING SEASON OF ‘SIX FEET UNDER’ HUH, EDWARD? Just a small request, you know, when you have time. Anyway, congrats again on the new job. Best of love to the wife. Take care.

** I love it when hold music is cheesy nineties pop . . .

(My continuing post of my favourite authors is coming but the Stephen King one is currently a five page essay and needs to be culled. I mean, you don’t care about the ongoing themes of absent parental figures in his earlier works or the way his books lost their edge after the birth of his third child or his use of parentheses, right? Exactly. It comes.)

Smell THIS greasepaint

From an email conversation betwixt myself and Shaneequa about the incredibly unreliable people you can meet doing a play during which I let loose in a nasty but thoroughly deserved way . . . ( this is a play that I was asked to step into six rehearsals out from opening, its not a huge role, it is of middling size but six rehearsals - or just over a week - is still a BIG ask and I only agreed because I admire and love Fosse and desperately want him to cast me in something he directs at some point. Ahem. Sucking up portion of today's blog completed. Continue . . . )

Oh, and Fosse is not the director mentioned, he is acting in the play . . .

Email : DUDE. Do NOT even get me started. Woh, too late . . . at the tech run for (current play Tallulah is in), people actually thought they would be able to leave at FIVE o'clock because that's when they normally finish rehearsals on a Sunday. Members of the cast had made other plans. WTF??!! Apparently none of them have ever done any theatre before, ever. EVER.* And the director was all ready to let them leave (and please bear in mind that at this point, ONE rehearsal before we opened, I still hadn't done a full run-through of the play. There were still scenes that I hadn't done at all. We had Monday rehearsal left and that was it, audience in on Tuesday, thanks very much).
It was only the fact that one of the committee members was there and could hear Fosse and myself rolling our eyes in disbelief and clucking our tongues for all we were worth - and basically losing our shit - that he stepped in and overruled the director and said I'm sorry but you shouldn't have made plans on a day when you're doing a tech and dress rehearsal, you have to stay, cancel your plans (causing one of the girls to burst into tears and the others to bitch furiously in the dressing room at the director, the committee and us for having the temerity to want to do a FULL FREAKING RUN two days before we open, I mean can you believe the rudeness of wanting a full run, its crazy talk!!)
If we hadn't done that I'd have had one full run. One. I was freaking out that they were all going to leave and we'd have only half the cast for the dress rehearsal.
And the bitching, oy the bitching.
And the bint who came and talked to us who Fosse can't stand? - she threw a massive hissy fit because the company wouldn't organise a BABYSITTER for her. She wanted to bring her son to each performance and have someone look after him and the company said I don't freaking think so lady**. And she threatened to walk out. Gah.
The director was apparently thinking of getting her to play the character I'm doing and Fosse nearly died and I think it was at that point that he threw my name into the mix "she's not the right age but at least she can act . . . " And bint is another 'professional actor' and she's fucking useless on stage. Training RUINS some people. She's also the kind who constantly says "well, I've done professional theatre and I've never known a tech run to run so overtime" to which I responded "well, I've been doing amateur theatre for over ten years and this is what its like when people WHO DON'T DO IT FOR A LIVING AND ARE UNPAID VOLUNTEERS GIVING UP THEIR OWN LIVES TO PUT ON A SHOW muddle their way through things, and yeah, sometimes it takes a lot longer than you think it will, I've know tech runs to still be going at midnight princess.***"
End Email

So I say kudo's to Shaneequa for resisting the urge to smack people upside the head at her own recent tech/dress run. Tech runs are THE BEST!! 'Cause yeah its 'just' amateur theatre and people have lives outside their current production, but if you agree to take the part, then you agree to a certain amount of time waste-age. And seriously. No director I have ever known (and this includes you Shaneequa) has ever been able to stick to a timetable for a tech run - they're extremely complicated and frustrating things. So actors? When you are required for a tech run - which is not always - keep quiet, listen to the director and stage manager, move when told, speak when told, shut up when told and stop fucking around with the props because the quicker the techies get the lights and sound completed and ready, the faster we get to get into costume and makeup and get to the fun bit. Its all just common sense really. Sigh.

* and to look at their bio's in the programme, I know this is not so. They've all done a lot of theatre and should have known better.
** there are potential insurance liability issues here.
*** only I said it nicer. A bit.

The fish turned towards shore.

I am greatly saddened by the death of Peter Benchley a week ago. Regular readers (yes, you three) will know about my deep abiding love of his most famous novel and its subsequent blockbuster of a film, Jaws - I have talked about The Best Movie Spielberg Ever Made In My Opinion Thanks almost as many times as I've mentioned The Clooney . . . . well, maybe not as much as I talk about The Clooney because lets face it, I don't think I've done a post recently that hasn't mentioned George, but I digress.

Peter Benchley is dead. So sad.

But that got me thinking about his other books - most of which I've hated - which has lead me to ponder, who are my favourite authors? Could I do a Tallulah's Top Ten Inspiring Ink Slingers? The answer is yes and no. Yes, I could. And in fact have . . . please read on . . . but not a Top Ten, I could only manage a Top Eight . . . ( and a caveat here - whilst I love the authors I will discuss over the next week, I hasten to add that I don't love all their works unconditionally. For instance, I loathe Austen's Emma - the selfish little cow - and think Benchley's White Shark is easily the worst book I've ever read . . . oh hang on no it isn't, yes Stephen King's Dreamcatcher I am looking at you. So I adore these authors most of the time, but do admit that, like any writer, they can sometimes be a tad hit and miss. *coughLaurellKHamiltoncough* . . . and also that they are in no particular order.)

Douglas Adams . . . aaah Douglas. Douglas of my heart. There are two things I would save if my house was burning down (this is assuming that there are no human shaped things still in need of saving) and they are : my cat Giles and my signed copy of HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy. This is the only other book (along with Jaws) that I have owned multiple copies of - I actually currently own two, the one I can read and the signed one. Shut up. I got it signed when Douglas was here for a Science In Film convention about seven years ago and it represents one of my most cherished possessions.

I discovered his books only after falling in love with the TV series of HH and along with Pratchett, he is one of the few authors whose books I reread on a regular basis. His death upset me greatly and I sobbed openly when I saw the film of HH and the incidental music from the TV show started playing. And yes, I was one of those geeks in the cinema with you who was quoting along with the film. We should all love this man, if only for the Art of Zen Driving, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and the fact that he surmised that the love of the British for cricket is the reason Earth has been left alone by aliens. His dissertations on the stupidity of sheep are completely hilarious.

Terry Pratchett . . . Tezza. I have quite a few signed copies of Terry's works. In fact, I once played Nanny Ogg in the first Australian production of Wyrd Sisters and at a book signing when I told Terry I was in the play, he looked me up and down and pronounced that I must be Nanny Ogg. For those who don't know her, she's a short, dumpy witch with an unfailingly cheerful disposition, a tendency to get drunk and sing at the top of her lungs and who owns a particularly mean and nasty tomcat (Greebo) whom she babies ridiculously.
The only real difference between the two of us, is that my kitty isn't mean, nor nasty and is in fact only slightly dumber than the nearest box of hammers. Bless him.

The Discworld books are a triumph.
It must be said that for a while there I did think Terry had gone slightly off the boil, to the point where he was recycling the same storyline ad nauseum. I am delighted to announce that he is right back on track and his last couple of books have been quite good. I just wish he'd get Carrot and Angua married. Or at least get them talking again about the fact that he's (just quietly) the heir to Ankh-Morpork's crown (strawberry shaped birthmark, sword and all) and she's a werewolf who doesn't want to lump the (potential) King with furry children. Also, the Patrician and Ridcully and his merry band of Wizards - the Bursar, the Dean, the Chair of Indefinite Studies etc - are some of the funniest characters ever created. I'd just like a teensy bit of closure for some of them. Other than that, carry on Terry. Good work, that man.

Authors still to come :

Stephen King, Laurell K Hamilton, Jane Austen, Jasper Fforde, Peter Benchley and Sarah Bunting. (Sarah who? You'll see . . . )

I'll sing it to the world . . .

I can't afford to see Split Enz on their re-union tour but I'm fine about that, people - nothing to see here.

(I mean, its not as if Neil Finn was my first ever crush and I've loved him since I saw him in the I Got You music video on Countdown one dusky summer Sunday afternoon. Or that I missed the EnzSo tour in both Melbourne and Perth due to a phenomenally badly timed interstate move. Or that Neil Finn is a god. Or that it is going to be incredibly sad because Paul Hester won't be there. Or that Neil is GOING TO SING MESSAGE TO MY GIRL AND I WON'T BE THERE TO SEE IT. )

I. Am. Fine.
Really.

I'm FINE.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT? HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A GROWN WOMAN SOB AT HER WORK DESK?!

*sniff*