C is for Cat Stevens

We went to Cat Stevens yesterday. Isn't that exciting? I had no idea he sang so many cool songs.

Well it wasn't really Cat Stevens. It was a guy called Paul Dillon who did the show called Wide World and he sang and told the story of Cat Stevens. The show was chockablock full of old people. I think EGG and I brough the average age down by about 15 years. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not being judgemental but these people were pretty old. They were so old that some were wearing their mobile phones on their belts. Some were so old that they had walking sticks and were a huge chance of not making it up the stairs to their allotted seats.

Then it got me thinking, these old people were young, cool people once who probably lay around smoking pot, listening to Cat Stevens while having sex. Isn't that lovely, so I stopped judging and got into the groove (that's what they did in the early 70's isn't it, grooved).

There were lovely songs like Peace Train and Wide World all the time put into context from Paul Dillon's monologue. I just loved it. Not as much as the old man in front of me. He whooped and cheered and clapped and went off. Actually he was pretty badly behaved, but he had such a good time I forgave him. They should have had a mosh pit, that would have been a good place for him. One old lady got so emotional that she started crying. Gosh it was all happening.

At one stage Paul got us to sing the chorus to Morning Has Broken. EGG and I couldn't join in of course because we didn't know the words because we were a smidge too young. It's a lovely song Morning Has Broken. I'm thinking about it for my funeral song. Perhaps I spent too much time with the old people.

Anyway it got me thinking. Who will be our generation's Cat Stevens? Probably ABBA. Hope it's not Eminem.

B is for Barefoot Bowls

I'd tried for weeks to organise our B is for Barefoot Bowls but unfortunately the weather gods conspired against me, so given a lull in the rain, we were on our way to do what we'll probably be doing in 20 years time, bowling.

There was a bit of casual approach to barefoot bowls at our local. Just turn up and we'll get you sorted and sure enough that's all we had to do. Of course no one was expecting us, no one got us sorted, but we paid our fees and the beer was really cheap so EGG was thrilled.

That was temporary though because they sent us off with the key to get our own bowls from the big green shed. EGG finds opening strange locks a bit challenging so after about ten minutes of a badly concealed temper tantrum with "this is all getting a bit too hard" muttered from between clenched teeth, I took over and opened that pesky roller door to reveal bowls heaven.

Everywhere you could see there were wooden crates with bowls in them. I guess this would be very exciting to real bowlers, but to rank amateurs like us well it was a case of too much choice, so we grabbed the closest ones and off we went.

Actually only one of us is a rank amateur and that's me. I find it the most mind-numbingly boring thing in the world, but then my attention span is short. EGG however was the runner up bowling champion of North Rockhampton. Pretty impressive hey? So when lessons were offered by the woman on the next green, we politely declined because EGG knew what he was doing.

Big mistake. He really is a terrible teacher. He doesn't explain how things work so I gave up and just started bowling them any old how and he got a bit cross because I wasn't taking it seriously. Actually I had had lessons a long, long time ago at a social day, but I didn't learn anything that time because I spent the whole time batting off my ancient old instructor's roaming hands. Ahh memories.

But anyway it got hot and humid and I got sunburn and they didn't want to put the covers over for us because there were only two of us so I started complaining and EGG said we could finish. We kindly offered to leave our bowls for the next group of people who might come and they said no we had to put our bowls away.

I took lead with the locks on the shed this time avoiding a potential tantrum which may have actually included the pelting of bowls at people. But no, we returned our bowls, locked up carefully, returned the key and wondered why barefoot bowls wasn't taking off at this particular club. It's a real mystery.

A is for Avatar

We're back.

EGG and I have really missed our Alphabet Weekends so we've decided to start all over again, but this time we're swapping the letters.

So EGG had A and although I am being a wee bit critical here, the best he could come up with was A is for Avatar. OK, we went Gold Class, but haven't we already done that (H is for Harry Potter) and it was 3D but we've done that too (U is for U2). So a big fat F for originality for EGG.

But Avatar it was, so off we went for three hours of excitement and adventure courtesy of the imagination of James Cameron. We got cool glasses again. The picture is EGG modelling them. After three hours they got a bit annoying though.

Now EGG loved Avatar. Me not so much. It went on and on. And it was such a pity to see that lovely Sam Worthington all stretched out and blue. He looks much nicer when he's human. I will admit to getting a little bored about half way, asking EGG "How much longer?". He just laughed at me. I passed a bit of time taking my glasses on and off to see if they made that much difference (they did).

I don't get this movie. Sure the special effects are great, but it was sort of predictable. I wonder if lovely Sam will turn to the good side (durr). I wonder if the evil marine will get his comeuppance (double durr). Will the boy get the girl (triple durr).

What I find most fascinating about this movie though are all the blogs and forums that have popped up around the place concerned that we here on Earth will never experience life on Pandora (the setting of Avatar).

Imagine it, all of these depressed whackos, I mean people, sitting in front of their computers typing things such as:

When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning

or

Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it."

I did not make any of the above quotes up. I cut and pasted them directly from the web. How scary is it that people can't differentiate between real life and a movie. And quite frankly I don't know why anyone would want to live on Pandora. Didn't do much for me with all that poisonous gas, but live and let live I suppose (although some of you Avatar bloggers really should consider therapy of some sort).

EGG was impressed by the 3D effects, they were OK, but the movie could have survived without it (oh that's right you could choose 3D or not 3D versions). There was a nice theme about colonisation that could have been a lesson for all of those European countries about 300 years ago. So don't let me put you off.

By the way if you're interested there is an Na'vi language that is set to replace Klingon as the language of choice of nerds. Guess what this means? “Kaltxì. Ngaru lu fpom srak?” No idea? It means "Hello, how are you going?" There's grammar and syntax and stuff like conjugated verbs in the Na'vi language. Someone's actually written a user's compendium. And I think I've got too much time on my hands.

A is for Avatar.