Heeeeere's Brendan

As the leaves on the trees change colour, from green to brown, and from brown to fire, I reflect on the month that was. It was a month that saw me gain ground in the Ranks sweepstakes, and a month that saw me totally repulsed by another boring internet-free afternoon. A month that saw great promises made and broken.

And on the solid bedrock of these fantastic dreams, I built a better plan: a plan that may yet broker a compromise between What Is and What Could Be. Instead of doing naught but work, OR doing naught but blog, I could do - as crazy as the idea may be - both.

I have to say that my month away from the internet - overall - did more harm than good. Before that month, I was learning heaps in many fields through the afternoons, then doing homework afterwards. In June, I did the same amount of homework and simply found new ways to distract myself otherwise. The net effect being that I came off worse. Sure, I did well in assignments, but on the whole, they were the kind of assignment I'm good at - home based, concretely defined (as opposed to "study everything and regurgitate a bit of it, and with luck you'll have studied the right bit.") and, my personal favourite, speeches. I'm good at speeches - you could probably hand me someone else's and I'd still go well, simply because I've done them since nappies.

So what did I do in June?

1. I got into photography much more.

1. I read more: the entire fictional canon of Jasper Fforde for instance.

1. I wrote a couple of those 100 word microstories
   

The telescope sat before him, offering a view of distant things. It was tempting, in its own way: a vision of what’s to come.

And yet, he pushed it away.

Time passed.

His future became visible to his naked eyes. And so he shut them.

Sound thundered – louder and louder still – and he clasped his ears.

The ground moves beneath his feet, and he can do naught to ignore it. And he denied, and evaded, and ignored.

*

The telescope sat before him. It offered a view of distant things. With fate facing him, he turned to admire the view.

1. Blogger isn't very good with numbered lists, is it?

Anyway. I've been observing politics - and what a month for politics it was. My thoughts:

• Dumping Kevin was a heartless move, but a rational one. Its true that his unpopularity was on par with John Howard's at a similar point during his first term, but there were different factors at play. It was him personally, and not the party, that was hated, and offing him was for the good of the Labor Party overall. A bit of a pity though. In my own fantasy version of politics, Kevin will one day rise anew from the ashes of his defeat, reclaim his rightful throne and the world will know peace.
  
• I changed my mind about him personally, after the betrayal of the ETS was a little more distant, and realised that that too was a logical decision to make. It was unpopular amongst the public, and almost certain not to be passed by the Mad Monk's Liberals, so he dropped it. Then everyone got mad at him for dropping that policy they all hated. I support and supported it, so it made and makes sense for me to be angry, but his popularity drop was greater than the percentage that supported the tax. I smell hypocrisy on the breeze.
  
• The Mining Tax - which arrived, battled it out, and left during my one month off - also made sense: he was seen as weak, so, like an emasculated teenager, he picked a fight with that ugly rich kid noone likes to show how tough he is. That's why all the rhetoric about no negotiations - he needed to appear decisive and powerful. When they fought back with huge ad campaigns and ridiculous counter-claims ("Retrospective"? Really? They wanted the tax not to apply to profits from mines that have already been set up? By definition, that means - ooh, let me see now - ALL OF THEM. Who took these bastards seriously)? He had no choice but to 'stick to his guns' or be branded a hypocrite.
• So we have a new PM, who is an atheist, unwed, childless woman, and thus the instant enemy of any and every cultural conservative you could mention. I'm deliberately refraining from forming too much of an opinion on Julia Gillard, mainly because I don't want to fall victim to the 'Honeymoon effect,' where politics junkies go all giggly over a new leader because they haven't done anything. She's keeping all the policies Labor was already supporting, dropping the Internet Filter legislation I was trying so hard to ignore, and she has the chance to reboot the ETS debate.
• The fact that she said in her first speech as Prime Minister that she was looking for 'consensus' on Climate Change, however, (as remarked in a Herald Letter to the Editor) means that Tony Abbott - in effect - is the new Labor frontbencher on Climate Change, as he is entirely in control of Labor Climate policy.
  

But wait: there's more.

1. I played Indie Games - not the ones in the Humble Indie Bundle, as they were all (ashamed as I am to say it) total crap.

I played Braid again (I forgot that the art, music and story were all as excellent as the game play. I'm not kidding when I say it's more an artwork than a platformer.) Also, World of Goo. Both of these are well and truly worthwhile pieces of entertainment, simply because they both have more going on than meets the eye: Braid with a storyline that can be interpreted in many different ways, and its complex appraisal of guilt, regret, time and hope; World of Goo with its subtle anti-consumerism, and the way it hides disturbing undertones to a game about building structures out of adorable black blobs.

Aaand that's that!