lovegeek Blog

I first came across Sophie McNiell’s work when I began working at SBS Online. This coincided with my obsession with SBS’s Wednesday night Current Affairs show, Dateline, and it’s host, George Negus. I will fill you in on my stalker tendencies later, but for now I want to talk about what other 20 somethings are doing with their time.

You can read Sophie’s bio here, but basically, she is a young journo who spends her time running around The Middle East producing quality foreign affairs stories. Her most recent being a piece on Facebook activists in Egypt, aired on July 2nd.

The blurb from the Dateline website reads:

Young democracy activists have flocked to the social networking site, to choreograph widespread protests against President Hosni Mubarrak’s 27-year rule.

It’s the perfect tool for them to voice their opinions, especially in a country that outlaws gatherings of more than five people. With the use of blog sites, Facebook and YouTube, their messages can now be projected globally.

“They were horrified by Facebook because it was something totally new that they could not control,” says Nadia, a key promoter of a recent day-long general strike in which three protestors were shot dead and 400 were jailed, including her.

You can watch the story online from here.

It’s a great story not only because it’s topical, but because McNiell’s youthful reporting inadvertently points the camera at the rest of Australia’s aging Foreign Correspondents. Not one, I don’t think, could have pulled of a story on young activists in Egypt using Facebook without coming across as out of touch, or at least calling it ‘The Facebook’.

So, I think she is kind of inspiring. As is her story. The idea that you can actually go to jail for starting a facebook group that is anti-government makes me feel kinda small league with my ’causes’ application…sigh.

How excited am I that Barack Obama has been nominated to run as the Democrats candidate? Fraking excited! I also think this is a great idea from Anthony’s tumblr:

I wish I could buy someone’s vote on eBay (or why I think I am a Category 4 Genius)

I’m an Australian living in Australia and therefore because of some absurd logic can not vote in the American Presidential Primaries.Yet I have more consciousness and affinity with this process than I did with the recent election here in my own country.

I would be comfortable voting in Louisiana (went to school in a tiny town in Louisiana called Linville for a year when I was 5), California (every December / January when I was growing up my family stayed with friends in Long Beach) or Florida (I briefly served time in a tennis academy there because I was sentenced to be a indentured son).

Considering so few Americans vote anyway. Why can’t the people who aren’t going to participate list their rights to vote on eBay so someone from a foreign country whose own Government is influenced and affected by US policy could buy that vote and make the US Citizen place a vote for whoever the buyer nominates? Put caps on the amount of votes from each country sort of like the green card lottery so as to not allow the process to be unduly affected by a country from the Axis of Evil etc.

It will boost voter numbers both directly and indirectly, put in an influx of foreign capital into the economy and make the world feel a lot less hostile towards the USA.

My work here is done. Now someone go make it happen.

Yeah, what he said…

My favourite ads in Japan feature the infamous Takuya Kimura of SMAP fame. These guys are everywhere in Japan, television shows, ads, music, and they’ve been around since 1991, now that’s longevity! If you have seen Wong Kai Wai’s 2046, he is the mysterious guest of Faye Wong on the train in the future and her boyfriend in the present.

But these ads are so addictive. They were playing on repeat today in the chemist I was in and now I can’t get him out of my head. I have posted the best one below. We are not sure if he is taking the piss, but we have noticed that it is more acceptable (perhaps because of the lack of Australia’s macho culture) to be slightly over the top in Japan.

We moved in to our own apartment today. Here is the view from our window.

Well, my mum actually.

My mum has recently joined a craft group in her local area, and I have been doing some research to find her cool stuff that she can suggest each week to get cred and props from her fellow craftsters.  Here is what I would suggest:

Robots

Rock Band Drum Cozies

or they could combine their environmental guilt with crafts and do something like this.

Hit me with your suggestions and I will forward them to my mum. She’ll love it!

Much to my friend Eli’s horror, I forgot to pick up my Joe Sacco book, Safe Area Goražde , before I left the country. But I have read the Graphic Novel a few times now, and it is the kind of book that you just need to share (much the same as his later novel, Palestine). So, if anyone needs a good book to read, call Eli! And if you don’t know Eli, head down to your local library or comic shop and have a read, you won’t regret it.

Osaka is crazy! It is so massive I have no idea how to orientate myself, but I think I am slowly working my way around the area where we are staying, called Namba (pronounced Num-ba, not to be confused with Nammmmba in Australia) It is basically a neon mall the size of a suburb. You can get anything under the sun here. The picture below is of the infamous ‘Glico running man’. This giant neon sign sits on the river that runs through Dotombori, the place to be at night in Osaka

Right around the corner from here is a pocket of coolness for the cultural vultures called ‘Ame-Mura‘ or American Village. Nostalgic for the recent past of America and England in the 70’s and 80’s, the kids here either listen to The Clash or The Beatles. They have taken western notions of hippy and punk and put an uniquely Japanese spin on the fashions. Everyone is happy to talk to us about their favourite music (Aerosmith, Queen, JOHN LENNON). We have been drinking at a bar called Candy Magic and Jo, The Barman, said there are various live music haunts in Ame-Mura, that we have yet to discover.

We did the tourist thing yesterday and went to see Cherry Blossoms at Osaka Castle, but we are off to Kyoto on Monday to see more. They are only on bloom for one or two weeks, so we are very lucky to catch them.

Technology wise, you can’t get pre-paid wireless, so that is making blogging a little hard. the next issue of lovegeek is almost ready, and will be live at the end of April

Love to you all xxx

Running Man

Apple　Shop at Shinsaibashi

Hot Food from a Vending Machine

A cute alley in Namba

Nerding it up in Namba

Osaka Castle

Cherry Blossoms

Room Face Mc Roomerton from Karen Abad loves Dinosaurs. on Vimeo.

This is Karen’s Room. She loved the idea so much she made a Channel on Vimeo called My Room. Heaps of other people have room videos too, do you?

I have written about my feelings on I Am Legend before, but today on Britticisms I found this, the other ending to the film.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Wow. It is amazing how much difference this ending makes to the film. My original criticisms stemmed from the ‘if it’s not like us, blow it up’ philosophy, a philosophy that was used at the ending of the cinematic release, and widely in real life by America abroad. And then there was the god storyline, that began about 3/4 of the way through the film, and culminated when woman and child walk into a fortress style pilgrim colony to presumably populate or perish with the other survivors. The lack of criticism of American Society as a whole in the first ending is dealt with well in the new, reflective alternative.

It is a pity Warner Brothers were not game (or insightful?) enough to run with the ending that portrayed a more considered approach to the ‘other’. As my friend summed up well in an email today:

[the alternative ending] is interesting cause people have often used a racial lens to comment on the (false) divide of the civilised and the barbaric in zombie films. The ending fully re-positions the idea of civility in these types of films. It’s cool

I know I shouldn’t expect so much from Hollywood Blockbusters, but I was particularly irked by I am Legend. I expect more from you Will!

Today I was given a link to Anarchy and Apron Strings by Diablo Cody (of Juno fame) all about feminism and the new domestics.

I guess I had never though of the idea of cupcakes and plush toys as a feminist pursuit. Possibly that is because it was my boyfriend who became obsessed with the idea of making plush toys, and we did it together as a non-work related activity. And I find making cupcakes a great DIY (yes I said it, DIY aesthetics do come in to this…I guess) present for friends.

Personally having a hobby outside of my 9-5 working week is so very very important for my sanity, but it is interesting that a lot of young women are finding themselves ‘relaxing’ by cooking or creating. I guess it is all about the choice, maybe I don’t have to cook or be domestic in other ways, but now I have the choice to if I want.

Does that turn back the clock? Does it put us back at Square One? I’d like to think not, and as one of the women at the end of the article states ‘i think we’re all having fun’…and that is what it’s all about, isn’t it?