Fire up

The Chaser headlines: "Unemployment rises, especially in ABC comedy department."

On Friday I went to see Songs of Sydney at the MCA with Beq, who I haven't hung out with for ages. Sir later joined us after her film session and we drank sparkling while listening to a mixed bag of talent introduced by the irreverent Pinky Beecroft. Also saw Faun inside, plus a whole bunch of FBi types.

Anyway, Sir got hungry so we wandered around The Rocks for a while not finding anywhere decently priced with tables available so we ended up going to Wynyard Hungry Jack's and the three of us went up to the park and had a chat, something we've not done for a long time.

Then Ness called me. I was supposed to go and see her in Newtown at someone's party that I wasn't really invited to - I was going to hop in a train after Beq and Sir got sick of being in the cold - but instead Ness said she was at the Fortune of War pub... at The Rocks.

Beq and Sir went home and I trekked back up to The Rocks and basically spent the night dancing unsteadily to a cover muso at the Fortune (nothing to do with drunkenness, everything to do with the tight space and the many people) then we ended up at Reuters, which is a complete dive on George Street. It was practically empty and Ness and I were the dominant ones ripping up the dancefloor, that's how sad it was.

It got to about 3am and I decided I was bored so took a taxi home on account of seeing the Nightride bus scoot off as I was walking to the station (no way I'm waiting for an hour to save $15, which is what the fare ended up being).

The next day I went to more Sydney Film Festival sessions: 'Art & Copy' (where I saw Wendy and Alison from writing group) and 'No Impact Man'. I then decided to see the Fire Water production in Campbells Cove, which is what they call the bit of water near the Park Hyatt these days.

Fire Water was part of the Vivid Festival and featured a convict ship rising out of the water, set alight and then sinking back into the water to the strain of one of my favourite bands, CODA. The context of this spectacle was the sinking of the convict carrier the Three Bees in 1814 after it accidentally caught alight.

Anyway, there were lots of people and the ship on fire was really cool, but I do question the extremely long lead up time of about 40 mins to get to the blaze part. Because it's hard to stand behind four rows of people for that long, tiptoeing every now and again to see if anything's happening.

Yesterday I had a movie marathon up and down George Street again, starting at the Dendy with 'Unmistaken Child', a doco about finding the reincarnation of a deceased Buddhist rinpoche, then 'Cold Souls', a film about being able to extract and store your soul, at Greater Union, a short break for unagi-ju at Ichi Ban Boshi then 'Religulous' at the Dendy.

'Religulous' was quite good - it was a doco comedy about religion and I was afraid it might be one of those bad parodies that doesn't say anything about religion at all but comedian Bill Maher does argue some very valid points with a range of people including a chaplain, a senator, an actor who plays Jesus at the The Holy Land Experience, a rabbi, a priest, two ex-Mormons. Also pokes fun at Scientology and a church of pot-smokers, as well as Maher questioning his own comedic ability.

I think my favourite line happens fairly early on in the piece. Maher stands on the place where Jesus is supposed to arrive for the Second Coming and talks about the destruction of the earth: "If it's one thing I hate more than prophecy, it's self-fulfilling prophecy." But there's plenty of other gold.

Today was a bit ho hum at work. A bit of everything done, you know, not ticking everything off the list because that would be crazy and miraculous.

And now, after being exposed to advertising through the free SMH I got at the film fest on Saturday, I want a new phone. It's a Nokia E63 and according to the ad it has maps but according to the internet it doesn't. Hmm. Still, it's $29/month on a $150 value cap, which is pretty good. Or $20/month I saw somewhere... I might go to Chatswood on Thursday and ask the Virgin people.

Speaking of which, Richard Branson called FBi Radio this morning and while he didn't give them the $1 million they were asking for, he did donate some prizes for the supporter drive and sign up as an FBi supporter. I'm about to renew my membership BECAUSE I LOVE THE STATION. And I really feel it's a community.