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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Sunday 2 May 2004 (Day View)
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02.05.2004 – Sunday 2 May – Buddha’s Birthday Fireworks
- • I needed to get out of the house, and I planned to see the Buddha’s Birthday Festival fireworks, which didn’t start until half past seven, so I needed to fill in some time. I’d decided to go see “The Dreamers”, an art-house movie showing at the Palace Centro, which was supposedly good – so I caught the train into Brunswick Street, and realised I didn’t know where the Palace Centro Cinema was. I’d been there once before, a year ago, in the dark and in a rush. I had half an hour to find it, so after buying a veggie burger from McDonalds, I just walked in what I felt was the most probable direction, past things I seemed to remember. Sometimes trusting vague memories works – I walked straight there, but had I been logical, I’d have realised there was no way I could find it in half an hour, somewhere in or around the valley, and I would have had to ask directions – which, without even the street name, probably wouldn’t have worked and I’d have missed the movie.
- 4:30pm
- • The Palace Centro was bustling, as it was the last time I went. “The Dreamers”, while undeniably powerful and masterfully directed, neither satisfies nor makes any meaningful point. I rate movies based on two criteria: how successful the movie is at engrossing me while I am actually watching it; and how provoking the movie is – how long after I see it do I find myself still pondering it. This allows me to subjectively rate movies that I might otherwise simply think I did not like – it lets me separate “like” from “enjoy”. Thus, this movie rates highly – I sat engrossed by its poignant imagery and still find myself thinking about it now; that said, I did not like it and found it disturbing.
- 7:30pm
- • I managed to walk from the Palace Centro Cinemas, via a train from Brunswick Street Station to Central Station, and then through the city to Southbank, with no delays at all. A train was leaving just as I got to the station, and all the traffic crossings went green as I got to them – bar one where I was beeped at and nearly run over, but a little thing like traffic wasn’t going to stop me after such a good run.
The fireworks were rather average. I think I’m too old to appreciate them now – they’re no longer magical. I did enjoy it though, taking a few photos, wandering around, even coincidentally meeting a guy from uni. - XSLT
- • Because XSLT isn’t currently working on my site, I had to disable temporarily my journal and comments systems, so while I was at it, I converted the dynamically generated menu systems for nedmartin.org and my amused site into a static system that’s generated only when needed, rather than every time. My journal and the comments system are both still fully dynamic, but that should be all right unless traffic to them increases drastically – which it isn’t likely to any time too soon.