We’re about to have a Federal election, and I honestly have no idea who to vote for. Both of the major parties are fairly disappointing to say the least, and the smaller parties have been getting on my nerves for a while now as well. I don’t want to make some statement like “all pollies are liars, so what does it matter who you vote for anyway”, but at the moment I feel a bit like that.

Labor started out so strong in 2007, and I actually felt like there was a bit of hope after the Evil Empire had been defeated. But how was I to know that we were actually only at a bit of an ‘Empire Strikes Back’ moment, where everything was about to come crashing down, and all that good work was being undone by internal conflict? I should have guessed, I suppose. The Unions were never going to stand for being shoved back into the industrial realm, and then we had Kev backpedalling on climate change, and the Peter Garrett roof insulation fiasco.

…and then we got our first female PM! Which was exciting, even if she wasn’t a smooth media (“moooodia?”) type. I’m all for substance over style, policies over personality, and statements over soundbytes, but you have to admit she’s a bit embarrassing. I mean, I suppose she’s representing a large portion of our community (tuck shop ladies in outer suburban primary schools?), but on the international stage..? Kev could speak Chinese (although sometimes it was just as hard to understand him when he spoke English), so at least he had something to work with when it came to regional powerhouses. I’m just worried that on her first overseas trip to somewhere in Asia, the local government will mistake her for that other red-headed female of Australian politics over the last few years, and think that we’ve finally voted in One Nation. We’ll be at war before she gets out of the airport.

And then we’ve got big Tony over on the other side of the fence. By all accounts (in last weekend’s Herald), he’s quite a nice bloke in person, and has friends from all sides of politics. But again, I’m not certain that I want him representing me. So far he seems to be doing his best to start up “The Australian John Howard Show” tribute act, which might be popular in some circles, but doesn’t fill me with confidence. The man lied repeatedly about fairly significant issues, and used those lies to build fear which in turn won elections (yay Australia!). I don’t want to vote Liberal just to ‘punish Labor’, if it means we get three more years of the Howard legacy.

The Greens seem to have a few things going well for them, but they’re not going to actually win, and giving them more seats will just mean Bob Brown gets even more smug. If smugness was radioactive, no one would ever be able to go to Tasmania again without all their hair falling out. Bob Brown has a halflife of about 200,000 years. It’s gotten to the point where I just cannot listen to him without screaming abuse at the radio/tv/internet. It wouldn’t matter if he was promising to give me bags of cash if I could just agree with him that the sky is blue, I would have to disagree out of sheer stubbornness. Which I recognise is why I’m also a massive hypocrite, and should never nominate for public office.

The Democrats were going to “keep the bastards honest”, then had the world’s most public domestic and killed each other off before they actually achieved very much at all. Thanks folks. At least Natasha Stott Despoja wore Doc Martin boots in parliament. That showed ‘em.

In any case, I live in a safe Liberal seat, so it’s not like my vote is going to actually mean all that much. I just like the idea that I’m participating in a genuinely important act by voting. Maybe I should just vote for one of the ‘little guys’, like the “Three Day Weekend Party”. That way I could be certain that some public funds would end up in the hands of a person who doesn’t really take the whole process too seriously… oh wait, hang on…

Why can’t we just have independant candidates, who say what they actually mean, and who genuinely want to help their nation, rather than set themselves up for a great superannuation plan? Is that really too much to ask? Really?

I keep catching myself muttering “world cup, world cup”. Brilliantly catchy.

”I purely blame police for it. He’s getting chased and that’s what young people do. They get scared and they take off,”

”You have to ask who’s responsible … in some part it’s the driver for doing the speeds he was doing, but mostly it comes down to the coppers … what good’s a stolen car?”

“One stolen car. He didn’t murder anybody at the time, you know, but that’s what it led him to because of the police chase.”

“People have really got to get the message out, police have got to stop this.

“Obviously you run from the police because you don’t want to get caught.”

“They’re to blame, they’re to blame totally, I blame the police totally,” she said.

“Yes, Justin may have a little bit to do with it but … you know.”

I read those quotes and just get angrier with every one. Are the Police supposed to just stop every time a criminal decides that he/she doesn’t want to be held to account for their actions? If I go and hurt someone, and then decide that I’d much rather go and have a nice cup of coffee rather than face the consequences for my crime, will I be allowed to just leave?

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Then again, I guess it could be some sort of explanation for God’s grace. I’m not sure that I’m clever enough to put all of these thoughts together, but it’s doing my head in at the moment.

I did the reinstall, which seemed to have gone well, and started reinstalling software and downloading Windows updates. I needed to restart the computer, which I did, then it died. Again.

It just repeatedly mentioned missing/corrupt System32 hal dll files and just wouldn’t work, even after I had looked up ‘fixes’ from the Microsoft website and tried everything that they suggested.

Boo.

So I’m currently in the process of spitting the dummy, and seriously trying to work out how to get together the money to just go and finally buy a MacBook. I’m so sick of talking about it, and just want to go and do it. But I had also decided that this was the year that I’d be financially responsible(ish) and not waste money… so although I really, really want to go and buy one, I think I’m going to have to live with the old laptop that Dicker gave me a few years ago (which I’m using to type this up now) for doing uni work etc.

So does anyone know how I change my iPhone over to sync with this machine, and if I manage to do it, will I be able to change again later if/when I eventually buy a new computer (the shiny new MacBook that’s calling to me like a siren)?

Google, here I come…

1. Get my car serviced / airconditioning fixed.
Took my car to the airconditioning guy this morning, who told me it would cost almost $700 to get it working again. I haven’t even come close to getting the car serviced.

2. Find out what happened with a guitar I tried to sell in 2008.
Went into the shop who were selling it for me, and they don’t have any record of it. They’re going to call me at some stage, so who knows. I know the guy who owns the business though, and he’s honest, just forgetful, so I should hear something eventually.

3. Teach Vanessa how to drive.
Not. One. Lesson. But it looks as though we may get access to a small automatic car soon, which belonged to her Nan. We’ll see.

4. Exercise every day.
Been for a few runs, done a few pushups. Nothing too spectacular. Been swimming once or twice, which was nice.

5. Read for fun.
Read a few books, which is good. Finally, I’ve achieved one of my goals…

6. Catch up on sleep.
Yep, at least I’ve done plenty of that.

7. See friends and be relaxed.
Ditto. (This is getting good, just ignore the first few).

8. Fix my computer.
Nope. Ok, I’m slowing down again.

9. Write some songs.
No, but I did play some guitar which sort of, kind of counts?

OK, that was my version of New Year’s Resolutions. How did you lot go?

I turned up at the shop assuming that they’d whinge about me not having the right paperwork, or try to fob me off onto Optus or something. I had my ‘cheerfully stubborn’ attitude ready to go, but didn’t need it at all! I was greeted by an iGeek who told me that there were no appointments available at the GeniusBar until next week, but that I was welcome to wait around on the off chance that someone didn’t turn up to their appointment. I was told that I was third in line (a bit like Prince Harry?), and that it may take a few hours.

I went upstairs and sat on a bench with my book, thinking that I’d wait 20 minutes or so, and then admit defeat by making an appointment, and coming back into the city next week. About 15 minutes later my phone was being serviced, and 45 minutes after that I had a brand new display fitted, and the button was working pefectly.

Yay Apple!

Now I can’t possibly think of Mr Gandolfini as anyone other than Tony Soprano. He was that character, and that character was him. I’ve seen him in a few other films, playing other roles, but I’ll never be able to see him as anyone else. Blame that on scripts/ acting talent/ production/ whatever, the character in the show was made real for me.

There are other actors out there who have made characters their own, and can never really move on. I think of most of the cast of ‘The Bill’ for example, who will probably never move on and get a different role.

But what about in other areas of life, beyond TV or film – are there characters in books that you’ve read, and imagined to look a certain way, that could just never be different, no matter how they were portrayed in a film? Or a definitive version of a song, whether it’s by the original composer or a particulalry inspired cover version. Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah comes to mind. No matter how many times I hear someone play that song, the version that I’ll always be comparing it to will be the one I heard on ‘Grace’, that starts with a sigh and ends with an amazingly sustained falsetto note.

Or your nanna’s sausage rolls, or your first kiss with ‘that person’, or whatever… what are some of the things that have set the benchmarks in your life?