Hugh Ford (The Magic Cowboy)

This is a pic of an excellent work called "Walkers" by my good mate Hugh Ford. If you really like it you might fancy youself as some sort of art collector and want to buy it. Well your too late as it has already been sold!
Check out Hugh Ford's blog FOREVER APE at : http://magicowboy.blogspot.com/

and dorfens

How do you feel now? You’ve got to remember these things as best you can….long after they’re gone. Because in a way, that’s far more important than the ‘High’. The accurate and more still, meaningful recollection of ‘The Moment’. What it meant, how you got there…how you get there again.

Den's Top Ten Films 2005

As part of my ongoing list therapy (boy I’m never gonna get tired of that piece of personalia) here is my first blog regarding the top ten films I saw in the year. I started this list a couple of years ago, mainly as a nerdy celebration for me and my fellow film loving mates to enjoy.

I don’t feel like my viewing in 2005 has matched the stellar heights of 2004. With the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost In Translation, Kill Bill 2, and Return of The King to name but four from last years list. I would however have to mention the Aussie contingent. Last year there wasn’t one Australian film in my top ten, (or even amongst the fourteen films on my short list). This year there are four. 2005 was undoubtedly an excellent year for the Australian film industry.

2005
1. The Aviator
2. Look Both Ways
3. Riding Giants
4. The Proposition
5. Little Fish
6. Sin City
7. The Weeping Camel *
8. Narnia LWW
9. Hitchhikers Guide
10.The Magician

*As in last years list, I made the decision to include a film, The Weeping Camel, that was released 30/9/04 in Australia (26/2/04 U.S), because I didn’t see this film until February 2005 and it was a significant part of my cinema going experience for the year. Interestingly this film is listed on IMDB as a joint German and Mongolian production. It was first shown to a cinema public at the Toronto Film Festival all the way back in September 2003. It made its debut in Germany 8/1/2004 and there is no listing for Mongolia. Guess I should look into this further, but I have no idea what Mongolia has in the way of cinema infrastructure. My mum was there in 2002, I should ask her what she thinks :-)

All other films on this list were released in Australia sometime in 2005.

As an example of how complicated things can get in listology, Stacy Peralta’s film Riding Giants made limited release in the US in July 2004, but didn’t get released in Australia until March 2005.

Listening to: Triple J

Energy Cannot Be Destroyed

I was going to make some big song and dance out of my return, but instead I’ve just decided to get the ball rolling again with this wee blurt about exercise, stuff and gunk.

Once you attain a certain level of fitness it becomes easy to forget how far you’ve come. As of writing this I have just completed my first boxing for fitness session for 2006. Prior to this it has been quite a lay off for me. In October I flew to Melbourne to work at the Spring Carnival for Advertising Associates, (but that’s another story), I ended staying in Melbourne for over six weeks. Whilst I was there I struggled to maintain a regular training program. I did a B4F class immediately upon my return to Perth, in which I was good and strong, but had clearly lost some endurance. Then I came down with a bizarre flu-like lurgy that ended up being viral conjunctivitis. It made my right eye puss up and close over, my nose bleed, my chest congest, threatened to turn into bronchitis threatened to never go away and generally beat the crap out of me for over two weeks.
So now I am taking a moment to reflect on where I have come from, how far I have come and how badly I want to resume progress on this journey to fitness.

I got onto this talking jag because tonight when the heat was on I was shocked to feel how weak I had become. On several occasions I actually had to stop during the circuit. I felt weaker than the first time I ever attempted this B4F circuit. Amazing sensation, but thinking about it now, it probably shocked me more because I have rarely been sick since about August 2003, (I know this because it was about six months before I quit cigarettes), when I had my final bout of severe bronchitis. And because I haven’t had to train back to form from being sick, since this whole campaign of transformation began some nineteen months ago.
I keep thinking of a scene in the M.Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable, when the character David played by Bruce Willis asks his wife “Do you remember me getting sick?” It goes on because she can’t recall a specific occasion and neither can he.

My old buddy Max Flory is fond of pointing out how many stories and novels could be condensed down to their first and/or last paragraphs…even last lines, without them losing their principle meanings. So it is with that in mind that I finish with:

It still surprises me how much the physical training battle is a mental one.


The First law of thermodynamics = Energy cannot be created or destroyed; only changed from one form to another.
(Also called the law of conservation of energy)


Listening To:
Bluebottle Kiss - Patient