This is sort of a reminder to myself as well as letting you know what to expect here soon.
At some point I’ll write up what happened on St Patrick’s Day and the engagement party, and I’ll also do some talking about my work on the school newspaper and my plans.
Look forward to it.
I’m off to bed.
So, I finished watching the Band of Brothers TV show a few weeks ago, but haven’t thought of putting a review up until now. Here tis.
First of all, the cast is rockin’, with so many recognisable faces that you won’t be able to help but become attached to the characters. But, it’s not like they’re just playing the same roles, each character is an actual soldier, many are veterans who gave interviews that are played at the beginning of each episode. It’s very interesting working out which old man is which soldier, and the acting is good enough that you can work out quite a few of them.
Also, since it’s HBO, the production values are excellent, with absolutely amazing sets, fantastic film texture and actual filming, awesome costumes, top-notch writing, music, effects, etc. Everything is really perfect.
As I said, the writing is absolutely top of the pile, every character is developed, you actually care about and genuinely like pretty much every character, and those you don’t like are still amazingly complex and thought out. The scripting itself is terrific, very realistic without cutting down the drama.
I also learned a lot about the war, other than main events. You definitely get a soldier’s perspective, getting news about the wider context through telegrams and things like that and you see how the characters respond.
One of the biggest things I learned was in an episode in which Easy Company finds a concerntration camp. Not only is this one of the more distressing things I’ve ever seen, but it also made me realise that the soldiers had no idea this was going on until deep into the war. I had always assumed that a main reason for going to war against the Nazis was that these camps existed. So, when the soldiers found the camps, the impact was so strong for them, and even stronger for us as an audience because we had to watch the pure shock that the characters felt. It was rough.
Anyway, overall, there is absolutely nothing that I can complain about with this show. It is well made in every aspect of its being, so much effort has been put into it and it has been worth it. Another gold star for HBO.
Your Commanding Officer,
TDE
P.S. I’m curious to see how The Pacific will go.
I know that for some, education is a means to an end. If you’re doing Law or Commerce or something, you likely have some goal in mind: you want to be a lawyer, commerce-person, etc.
But I do Arts…
For me, education is not a means to an end, I’m not at uni to become more eligible for employment (though, please, hire me.) I’m not here to become a doctor or a pilot, I’m here because I’m interested in literature, I’m here because the history of film actually intrigues me. I would spend three years of my life at uni to end up with nothing except a good grasp of a few things and a fun time with friends.
So, what exactly is the point of assessment for someone who finds education intrinsically valuable?
I am here to learn what I want to learn, I am here to discuss what interests me, to research things I would love to read about anyway. I am not here to show anybody how high I can jump, to show anyone how quickly I can count to 100, to show anyone how well I have been listening. I am not here to prove myself, to try to be better than anyone, to do anything for anyone else.
I can motivate myself to learn, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. If I didn’t have a desire to learn things, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to get a Bachelor of fucking Arts. I don’t need people to set checkpoints for me, I’m happy to miss things, I’m happy to go off on tangents.
I’m happy to just sit back and listen to someone who is smarter than me explain something.
It rocks. I’m genuinely thrilled to understand something.
Maybe this isn’t normal, most people probably wouldn’t come to lectures if they weren’t being marked on it, I don’t know. It just seems to me that the whole reason for getting an educated has become wrong somewhere. Sure, lots more people come to uni now, probably because they’re expected to.
For me, this expectation is ruining my education. Assessment for those who can’t motivate themselves makes something which is intensely enjoyable into something stressful. I don’t want to have to worry about learning, the only worry I should have is understanding what the fuck Descartes is talking about.
If you’re one of those people who think being challenged or pushed is valuable, fine, but I can be challenged intellectually by a conversation in a much more valuable way than when I am challenged to write thousands of words about an aspect of a course that doesn’t interest me just so bureaucrats can tick some boxes.
Don’t ruin my end by adding your own means.
Your learner for hire,
TDE
So, I haven’t been posting much lately, since I got back really.
As an update, I’m back at uni, a few new friends, a few old ones. I’ve been watching through Band of Brothers, I’ll put up a review of that once I finish, but so far it is brutally fucking awesome.
I saw Avatar at last and was impressed, the 3D was super awesome, hurt my mind, it was used well, plus the story was nowhere near as bad as I had been told. It wasn’t good enough to win an Oscar, but still, good enough to be nominated. (For best picture, that is, it deserves every fucking technical award out there)
Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day, so that should be fun, followed by not fun the day after. Then on Friday two of my friends have an engagement party, apparently there will be beer and strippers, so that sounds good, hehe.
Umm, I dunno what else to add, it’s been so long since I’ve written anything worthwhile here, sort of hard to know where to pick it up.
Oh, I’ll write on some other uni activities that are worth mentioning soon, maybe on the weekend.
Anyway, ciao for now,
Your soon-to-be Beery Swine,
TDE
Sandra Bullock, you say? heh.
Tom D Ellis, Superspy, infiltrates the toppest echelons of the biggerest organisations, spreading exaggerations and cuss words from behind an animal mask, a pig or a frog, perhaps.
Tom D Ellis, door-to-door magician, a scotsman with a painting, a very expensive painting, gathers jugglers and witch-doctors from around the land for a secret meeting.
Tom D Ellis, battle-master extraordinaire, fights terrorism and gun runners in his spare minutes, working on his combat beard.
Tom D Ellis, beach bum, rides the warm waters like a giant of the deep, digging the best sandcastle defences in the history of sand or castles.
Tom D Ellis, scholar and pool-king, prepares for the old man from scene twenty four.
So, that’s what I do with my time, what about you?
Tom D Ellis, animal-faced window-shopper.
“Give them nothing, but take from them everything!”
- Inglourious Basterds on the Academy Award nominations
“When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.”
The opening of my favourite book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
I’ve just come home from the film adaptation and I thought it was very good. Of course, the problem with it is that it is based on my favourite book, it’s very hard to compete.
The nature of the book means that there is nothing in it that can be portrayed better on film, in my opinion. The silence is actually important, so music isn’t missing from it, the descriptions and the horror and the suspense and the love are so perfect.
I can’t word this properly. What I should say is that the film is very very good, but I don’t feel like I can judge it properly because of my attachment to the book. I know that it is a great movie, but yeah. Viggo did a great job, all of the supporting roles were good, it was written well, but I would have preferred less talking, I think the pace could have been better, slower. The music was good, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis create another fantastic soundtrack. Anyway, it was good, see it, read the book.
TDE
I return, you sick fuckers!
Seriously, I am so impressed at the number of you people that have found my blog by searching for “bestiality” or “child pornography.” If anyone is brave enough to come forward, are you guys looking for it or are you looking for writings about it/against it/etc.?
Anyway, I am jetlagged, though my sleep patterns never were the best. I got back yesterday and had not planned on posting anything for a few days, but when I find myself in an overly warm room in the early morning and I am wide fucking awake, what’s a boy to do?
I had a damn good time, relaxing, adventuring, racing, warring, choking, blaring, sleeping, reading, listening, roaring from the rooftop with a drink and a weapon at four in the morning.
I stand on the edge of a roof, looking across a wintery piece of land. The music inside is loud enough for me to hear it out here, so it’s not a tranquil scene, this time. This time I drink a lot more and sink myself into the feeling of being free enough to do something you’d never want to do unless you were wanting to test your freedom. As idiotic as it seems when I’m not doing it, standing half-naked on a very cold night with a beer and a gun, firing directly at the moon, is something to be done at least once a year, three is ideal.
The moon did nothing to me, and I know I won’t hit it, so it doesn’t matter.
I play baseball with a beach ball and feel impotent so I pop the thing and lie on the freezing lawn.
Other nights I stay inside, reading a book from my friend’s shelf. The music is quieter, not to be heard outside, or even in other rooms of the house. I lie on the couch that is my bed and there is no shouting or shooting tonight.
Then on the road, exploring places I’ve never been before in a country that isn’t even close to mine, where I am a stranger to all but five people in the whole land. Of course, being the Australian makes you a character in people’s heads and there’s no nervousness around you. It’s simplified, you don’t have to earn the attention you get, you don’t need an excuse to talk to be talked to. Same questions everywhere.
Fuck this rambling, it’s too early/late, I dunno what time it is in my head, but I don’t want to sleep. And yet, I’m too tired to think straight. One thing I do know: I’m hungry.
I’m looking forward to these duty free drinks, I’ll tell you that much.
I might give a proper little thing about where I’ve been, but not now, wait until I’m not talking so much shit.
Your jetlagged freedom fucker,
TDE
P.S. a friend said he got a hundred views from tagging Avatar in his blog, so testing, testing, hello Avatar fans? I still need to see the movie, I have a little catching up to do.
For my last post before I depart, I’d like to share the joy:
Half of the views of my blog today were made up of people searching “bestiality” and “child pornography” and finding my blog about censorship.
Oh lord, this makes me so happy. So, on that high(ly filthy) note, arrivederci for now and here’s a quote to enjoy:
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”
See you in a few months or sooner,
Your sexually filthy adventurer,
Tom D Ellis
