Crazy Research 2.0

Life Getting Back to Normal

2009-04-16T14:12:00.002+10:00

The last couple of weeks have been rather interesting. On the Friday night before the last post on 'Leaving Kinglake' I got the bad news that my grandfather on my father's side had passed away. This was rather sad even though my father's side has been a side of the family I haven't seen much. This is something I feel has somewhat upset my father as he has memories of growing up close with his aunts, uncles and cousins, and we have a good relationship with our mother's side of the family, but not his. I think a major part of this problem is that dad's family is unfortunately more spread out across the country side than my mother's side. Much of mum's brothers and sisters are in towns near us, Kinglake, Yarrambat, Steels Creek, Hurstbridge, Smiths Gully and South Morang are some of the place I can thing of where I have relatives from my mothers side. The family grow up on Hurstbridge for much of their lives and clearly haven't moved far from there. My fathers family however spent much of their time growing up moving from town to town, eventually settling down in Diamond Creek when my father was in his teens. Since then my fathers family has become rather spread out. I'm not even sure where most of them are. My Nan and Pa, when he was around, live in Carrum Downs with an aunt near their, I then have an aunt and a cousin in Sydney, and some other relative I think over near Geelong and in Shepparton. This coupled with the fact that their has been a few problems with some of people on that side of the family means I don't get to see them. Their has only been a few get togethers with them over the passed couple of years. Probably the last time everyone from that side of the family was together maybe my uncles funeral a fair while back, unfortunately my fathers family have already had to deal with two death in the past, two of my uncles on that side has passed away a couple of years ago.

It was sad visiting their house the day after getting the news. Out the back pa would usually have a vegetable garden, but when I visited the garden had been pulled up. My initial thought was that he was planning to start a new vegetable garden but then I discovered that he had done it himself a couple of weeks earlier. In addition to this he had also bought Nan a couple of new birds even though I the passed he had made it know he didn't want any additional birds. He had be become less willing to put up a argument and started saying 'goodbye' to people rather than say 'see ya later'. That day I spent most of my time their scanning in images, with my sister, of Pa onto their computer using the scanning wizard tool in windows that I had forgotten even existed in windows because much of my scanning up until then I had done using the scanner import option on Photoshop. I then spent that night doing what I could to fix up those images on my computer at home. A lot of it some fixing up of the colour, contrast and brightness of the images with a bit of dirt removal. A couple however were very old and/or weren't stored away properly and as a result had rips and marks on them. Some had some tape put on the corners that had to be carefully taken out on some images. Over the next couple of days my sister would take care of putting together a video off the images, much of those days spent unfortunately working out what song to use for the video

Thursday was the day of the funeral. Just about everyone from my fathers side of the family was there, including a number I haven't before and some I haven't seen in years. My brother Andrew was down from Canberra for the funeral. Originally he was planning to come down and get here on Good Friday as a surprise to my parents but those plans were changed upon hearing the news. My brother isn't really one for family get togethers on ever side of the family, and it's not hard to see why sometimes. For some reason we found ourselves being the ones sitting on the corner not really talking much with some of the other relatives. I don't mind it to much as I'm pretty much like that at most form of get togethers anyway but my brother doesn't like it much. The service was rather good. My father read out a good eulogy detailing parts of Pa's life and reminiscing on life growing up with Pa as his father. This was followed by a song that he use to sing to his kids. This was followed by my sisters video which was rather good, though I did dwell on the quality of the images a bit later, I spotted a few dirt spots that weren't taken out.

The next day we had a family get together of a different kind. For a couple of years now my mothers side of the family on Good Friday we would get together to have some fish. Supposedly this is a normal tradition on Good Friday, but I don't think we really started doing this as a tradition thing as neither side of my family seem extremely religious, we don't go to church or pray to any particular god. The only religion things we do it celebrate certain christian events because we like presents, big meals prepared by other people and chocolate. The Good Friday fish meal I feel just came about because my grandfather in law, I guess that's what you can refer to him as, a while back started sell fish and Good Friday was seen as a good way to get rid of some extra fish. I not really sure about that, all I remember is just one year we started have fish on Good Friday. Once again this was another chance for me to come along and note really interact with anyone.

For the rest of the weekend I spent much of my time with my brother Andrew. He has always been an interesting person to hang around with. On the Saturday I decided to go with him into the city. I mentioned to him that I was interested in finding out what to do in the city at night because I'm 24 about to turn 25 and I feel I need to try and get more out of life and experience more. The web may be a good way to communicate with people but I feel it's not really a good way to meat people. My brother took me to a couple of interesting bars in the city and told me a bit about what to do when going for a night out in the city. An important thing he mentioned was to go with friend if possible, something I feel may be a bit hard for me. I've already tried once to rope in some friends for a night in the city and failed. I guess I'll try and see what I can do this Friday, but I'm not holding my breath on getting anyone involved. The next day we then went traveling all over the country side looking for some place to pick up a copy of Taken, starring Liam Neeson, only to discover that most DVD stores were closed because it was Easter Sunday. It was an interest drive though.

Things are finally settling back to order here though. I've started reworking another old story from my high school years to be posted up here hopefully sometime soon. I'll also be taking up some volunteer work with the Whittlesea City Council, assisting with some work relating to the bush fire recovery. Hopefully Friday should prove to be somewhat interesting. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks for Reading

Leaving Kinglake - Post 9 - Final

2009-04-06T10:53:00.003+10:00

The next day I was taken to school by my mother. I sat in the passenger seat with my head leaning against the window watching everything go pass. My sister was with us to, she sat in the back seat playing with her Nintendo DS.
“So what classes you got today?” asked mum, attempting to strike up some from of conversation to try and make me happy. I don't respond. “I'm sorry things had to be like this but you can't just go off doing what ever you want” said mum.
“I'm seventeen now mum, for how much longer do I have to be treated like I'm a child?” I said back to mum.
“You should probably talk to your father about that” I hear mum mumble out the side of her mouth. “You could have at least called us and let us know what you were you doing, why didn't you do that?” mum then said to me.
“If I did call you would've told me to just come straight back home and started organising for someone to pick me up” I replied to mum.
“You're just assuming that” said mum, “I would have been glad to let you have an afternoon out with your friends provided you let me know what you were doing.” I was somewhat surprised by this, I didn't expect to hear something like that. “Did you have a good time with your friends last night?” asked mum. I thought about it for a sec.
“Not really” I replied back.

As soon as I got to school I put my stuff in my locker, grabbed what I needed for my first class and went straight to it. I actually arrived to class quite early. Everyone else who was early was already in the room. I guess someone unlocked to door for us a bit early. As soon as I step into the room I hear Beth call for me.
“Hey Liz, over here” Beth call out some what enthusiastically. I walked over and sat next to her. “Good job on Brent, I'm impressed” Beth said to me.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. I then see Brent walk into the room and it appear my right hook had a fair bit of strength begin it because Brent had a big black bruise on the left side of his face. Beth and I let out a little giggle at the sight. Brent then proceeded to walk, with a bit of a limp to a seat in the back corner of the room. During that class Beth and I managed to strike up a bit of a conversation. I told her everything of what happened that night and she told me about what actually happened with her relationship with Brent. As it turns out she had actually dumped Brent several days before the party, and had agreed to just be good friends with Brent, at least that's how she thought it would go. Beth was actually surprised when at the party while she was 'getting along' with old boyfriend Jake, Brent decided to barge into the room and claim he was dumping her. I guess he didn't like the idea of having the woman in the relationship be the one initiating the breakup. I actually managed to form a good relationship with Beth during that class. I don't think I've become part of the in crowd, but then again their had been a lot of talk around school about Brent's bruised face. He tried to explain it away as a sporting related injury, but everyone know where it really came from, especially when they saw the shocked expression that came on his face when ever I walked pass.

Recess came and I decided rather than sit outside the library I would go inside the library and find something to do there. Having been told I can't hang around with Jason any more does make things kind of hard. I probably could be sitting with him now, talking about the usual rubbish we manage to go on about but there is a worry my sister Vanessa could spot us and I'm pretty sure she would be will to rat on me as soon as she found it possible. I manage to get onto one of the computers in the library and do some searching on the web. Unfortunately I was sitting I got spotted from outside by Jason who then came inside and sat right next to me.
“So what are you working on?” whispered Jason as he sat down.
“Jason” I yelled back in surprise at him sitting next to me. All of a sudden everyone in the room was looking at us. I grabbed Jason's wrist and took him to the back corner of the library.
“Hey, what's going on?” said a some what confused Jason.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“What am I doing? I was wondering what you were doing, just saw you sitting in here and thought I would see what was going on” replied Jason, “how were things with your parents by the way? I would imagine they were a bit upset last night?”
“Umm, no, they grounded me” I replied, pacing a bit as I thought of the response.
“So, that kind of what we expected, that doesn't really change anything for you, does it?” said Jason.
“I'm also not aloud to see you” I said as I stopped pacing. Jason was shock by what I said.
“They can't do that, there is no way they can enforce that” said Jason.
“I don't know, but I don't want to test them as to what more they'll do” I said to Jason “They've even started driving to and from school.”
“But you can't put up with this, you can't keep away from your friends” said Jason.
“Well I could hang around with you here but I worry about what my sister will do should she see us, she would probably have a field day telling the parents about that” I said, “I'm sorry.” I was about to walk out when Jason grabbed me by the wrist.
“Wait, surely there is somewhere we can go where you're sister isn't likely to see us?” said Jason.
“Okay, that sounded kind of awkward, but I get what you're trying to say” I replied to Jason “hmm, guess we could hang out around near the back of the tech building.”
“Alright, but I'm not taking up smoking” said Jason. At lunch we met up around near the back of the tech building and were able to somewhat get back to normal, Beth even oddly joined in. But it still didn't feel right. It felt very odd now that we have to hide out with the smokers just to talk.

After school I was sitting outside the school waiting for mum to pick me up when Jason came up and sat next to me.
“Whow, Jason, what are you doing? You're going to get me in trouble” I said with some surprise.
“Don't worry, I would imagine your mother or father will be coming here from work, therefore they probably won't be here for sometime” said Jason, “where is your sister?”
“Oh she's sitting over with her friends, unlike me she is allowed to associate herself with whoever she wants.” I replied.
“I just wanted to know, were your parents really that harsh on you after you got back?” asked Jason. I kind of got the sense he felt I was avoiding him for some other reasons.
“Jason, if I hadn't been told to avoid you, I would be rushing up to you to give you a big hug for yesterday, even though it did ended on a bit of a bad note” I replied, “because I still got to have a bit of fun and find out some things about my friends I didn't know before.” I then leaned towards Jason and gave him a hug. We hugged for a short while until we heard a car horn beep. Mum had arrived and spotted us hugging. “Shit it's mum, I'm gonna have to go” I said to Jason as I got up to go to the car.
“Well come on get in, we got some shopping to do” said mum as I opened the door to get in the front passenger seat. Mum then started looking over my shoulder as I got into my seat. “Hey Jason, you want to come with us to Greensborough” yelled mum. I looked at her with a stunned expression.
“What the hell is this?” I said.
“What, I thought after yesterday which you said was not really that good you might want to spend sometime with your friends,” mum said to me “ you telling me you don't want to spend sometime with your friends?”
“But, what's with the change?” I asked.
“Because you're seventeen and I'm not your father” replied mum, “you should probably go grab your sister, and maybe ask anyone else who wants to come.” I kissed mum on the cheek and then ran off to grab Helen and my sister with a big smile on my face.

I have a feeling this is going be a good day.

The End

Leaving Kinglake - Post 8

2009-04-05T14:30:00.002+10:00

Jason's parents eventually came out of the house. They were happy to take me back home. I Got out of the car at my house. From the driveway, even though their was only a few lights on, I could see my father pacing in the lounge room. I took a deep breath and walk up to the front door. I opened the front door to see my family seating around in the lounge room, somewhat stressed and very unhappy. As soon as I stepped in everyone's heads turned and looked right at me.
“Where have you been?” yelled my father.
“Settle down honey” whispered my mother to dad.
“Out” I replied. I'm in such shock that I can't come up with much of a response.
“Out, where?” dad yelled back.
“Greensborough” I answered.
“Greensborough, late at night, you know what I think of that place?” yelled dad.
“Now honey, charm down,” said mum.
“No, she has been out late at night, in an area that is potentially dangerous to be in late at night...” ranted my dad.
“I was with friends” I interrupted. This just seems to upset dad more.
“That doesn't matter, you're still a young girl and have no way to defend you self” yelled dad, “what were you going to do if someone attacked you? What were you going to do?”
“But nothing happened” I replied.
“So what, you still put yourself at risk” yelled dad, “that's it, you're not aloud to leave this house.”
“What?” I said.
“You are not aloud to leave this house, you are to stay home and do your homework” yelled dad, “and if you happen to not have any homework to do, then I'm pretty sure there'll be some house work that needs to be done.” The law had been laid down and it was as expected, nothing that really affected me at all.
“Fine, what difference does it make? I already can’t leave Kinglake, there's not really much I can do in town anyway, so what difference is it going to make that I can't leave this house?” I yelled back. I began to head for my room when dad yelled another rule. This one was definitely going to make a difference.
“You also can't see that Jason kid again ever” yelled dad at me. I stopped for a second, turned around and stormed up to dad.
“What did you just say?” I said to dad through gritted teeth.
“You are not to see Jason, I would imagine he is behind all of this” said dad, “I would imagine he's behind a lot of this stuff, I've never really trusted him, you're also going to have to be driven to and from school by me or mum at least until you've learnt your lesson, you're not a grown women yet, you can just go off doing these things.”
“Especially in an outfit like that” piped in my sister, Vanessa, with a stupid little smile on here face, “makes you look like a slut.”
“Vanessa please, we don't need comments like that” said mum to Vanessa.
“But look at it, it doesn't suit her at all” Vanessa said back to mum. I sensed that Vanessa's comments on my dress had upset dad that little bit more, hell they annoyed me too. I should never had gotten this damn thing.
“You know, what you're right, I'm not a grown woman but I'm not a little girl ever, and don't need to be overly protected like this” I yelled angrily at dad, “why can't you just let me live like a normal teen and be able to go out with my friends after school? never have I been able to see a movie or go for a sleep over, instead it has always been come straight here, I guess it's just to much to ask for that.” I storm off to my room, pull my stupid dress off and throw it into a clump at the corner of my room. Then I curled up into a ball on my bed with face in my hands crying.

Leaving Kinglake - Post 7

2009-04-02T10:09:00.002+11:00

We got to Brent's house. Jason's parents car was already sitting out the front, while his parents were already inside talking with Brent's parents.
“I'm just going to wait in the car” said Jason before getting into the back seat of his parents car. Brent and I walked into the house. The place was big inside. Nicely decorated, everything seemed somewhat expensive. It must have cost his parents a lot to buy all this stuff. At the dinner table Brent and Jason's parents sat chatting about how they don't get teenagers these days, and how things were different back when they were kids. We waved to them and said our hellos. Brent then grabs my hand and leads me down the hall. The hall felt very different to the rest of the house. It was very dark. The walls were bare bricks that were a dark brown colour. If you looked carefully between the bricks you could see some little spider 's nest. Anxiety started coming over me as we head down the hall to a lock door with a hand drawn sign on it saying 'Keep Out, Do Not Enter.' Brent takes some keys out of his pocket and unlocks his door.

“Oh my god” slips from my mouth as I first got to see inside Brent's room. It was shocking. The walls were covered in pictures of women from various men's magazines and explicit websites. The floor was covered in clothes, mostly Brent's but I did seem to spot the occasional piece of ladies garments. What was I doing here? Brent walked over to his computer in the corner of the room and turned it on. A desktop with an inappropriate wallpaper popped up on the screen. Brent then started playing some music from the computer, and turned it up loud, I'm guessing so that anyone else in the house don't hear what was about to happen. Brent casually walked up to me and began hugging and kissing me. I felt his hands moving all over my body into inappropriate places. I manage to push him off. I head over to the computer and stop the music. “What the hell is this?” I angrily push out of my mouth.
“Isn't this what you wanted?” Brent casually asked.
“Not this, no, I wanted us to have a bit more of a relationship” I replied back. Brent lets out a quick laugh.
“You wanted to be my girlfriend?” said Brent, still acting casual.
“Yes” I angrily reply. Brent laughs again.
“You're not my type” Brent then states looking right at me. I felt myself be over come by rage. I stomped up to Brent and thrusted my knee up towards him. I felt it impact hard with his groin. Brent let out a loud painful yell as he hunched over, putting his hands over his hopefully some what bruised manhood. I then swung my right hook right into the left side of his face. The punch instantly sent Brent crashing to the ground, with his face landing into some underwear that didn't seem all that clean. I then stormed out of the house to Jason's parent's car.

I opened the door and got into the car. Jason was already sitting in the car, looking kind of depressed, but then was surprised to see me. “So, you’re coming home now,” said Jason.
“Yeah, Brent turned out to be a jerk” I said as I began to cry a bit. I placed my bag down on the floor of the car.
“What happened?” asked Jason.
“Brent Stevenson, the most charming, nice guy in school turned out to be a complete sleaze bag” I replied, “But then again I guess I should have seen it coming, considering the company he keeps.”
“You mean Beth?” said Jason. I slowly nod back.
“She tried to warn me, back at Greensborough, we ran into each other in the toilet” I said, “she claimed she dumbed him.”
“That doesn't seem like her” said Jason, slightly confused by the statement, “she's usually a cold hard bitch to us, what broke that shell?”
“I don't know” I replied, shaking my head. Jason then leaned forward with a tissue and started wiping the tears from my face.
“Don't worry Liz” said Jason, “it may feel very bad now but there are worse things that could've happen and you've still got a number of years ahead of you for sorting these things out.”
“When did you become my mother?” I said giving out a little laugh.
“Yeah, that was kind of a mum statement, I think my mum actually said that to me once when I was dealing with something” replied Jason as he settled back into his seat, “I'm just trying to help out.”
Jason Gates has always been there for me. No matter what he has always been there. We have always had a strong relationship. He has always been a shoulder to cry on and a person to help you forget what is currently wrong in the world. Jason is a great guy and is my best friend. I leaned across to the other side the car and gave Jason a small kiss on the cheek and then sat back in my seat. I noticed a completely surprised expression come up on his face as I kissed. “Thanks Jason” I said to him with a bit of a cheeky smile. Jason then smiled back.

Leaving Kinglake - Post 6

2009-04-01T21:39:00.002+11:00

What a slut. Just as things were going well she comes in trying to ruin everything, making threats at me. I had the feeling she was upset at loosing Brent but this is a bit much. I arrive at the cinema still a bit upset from my run in with Beth.
“Hey Liz, are you alright?” asked Jason.
“Fine” I replied, giving a bit a smile to Jason to give him more of an idea that I'm okay.
“Jason got us tickets to the latest comedy, we should get in and take our seats” said Brent.
We head into the cinema and sit up in the back row of seats. Through out the beginning of the film I couldn't help but think about Beth and what she said to me. Why should it be any of her business what I'm doing with Brent? She is no longer with him, and I don't think he is in anyway interested her, but something didn't seem quite right. I suddenly felt someone gently touch my arm. I looked over. Brent was sitting next to me with his hand gently moving across my arm. Looking at me. He leans towards my ear. Oh my god.
“So I’ve heard you’ve got a bit of a thing for me,” whispered Brent.
“Y y yeah” I quietly stuttered. My heartbeat goes up.
“Well I’ve been a little bit interested in you too” whispered Brent. I feel my eyes widen with surprise.
“W w what n n now?” I somehow manage to whisper back. My heart now feels set to explode. I find it hard to swallow because of my heart beating so hard.
“I was thinking maybe…”
“Yes” I yelled before Brent could finish off what he was saying, bursting the word forward from my mouth without control, jumping out of my seat in the process. Everyone in the cinema starts complaining. I apologise to them all as I sit back down. Brent just sits back, smiling. We then leaned towards each other and start kissing. Oh my god, it was so good. A welcome relief after I felt as though I was going to explode.

After the movie we all walked outside towards the train station. It was a full moon out making the night a bit more brighter than usual. The sky also seem packed with more stars than usual as well, all of various colours. It was wonderful. But not as wonderful as getting to walk out holding onto Brent Stevenson. Our hands held tightly together. We catched a train to Hurstbridge to go to Brent's house. Helen got off the train a bit earlier at Diamond Creek and made her way home from there. Jason made a phone call to his parents to arrange for a pick up.
“Well my parents should be meeting with us soon” said Jason after finishing his call “they said they would be willing to drop you off home.”
“Actually, I was thinking of staying at Brent's place tonight” I said to Jason with Brent's arm around me.
“What?” said Jason.
“I’m thinking of staying over with Brent,” I said, a bit confused as to why Jason would be shocked at my decision.
“Liz, could you come with me please?” asked Jason. We walked to the other end of the carriage while Brent stayed where he was. “Are you sure about this?” whispered Jason.
“Well it's as you said before, what sort of punishment could me parents give me that could make things worse for me? I replied.
“Yeah, but isn't this a bit quick?” asked Jason.
“I'm just going to be sleeping over, It's not like I'm going to do anything” I replied back “I'm probably not even going to be sleeping in the same room as him.” Jason paused for a while. I can't help but notice a slight bit of sadness from him.
“It's nice to see you're happy then” said Jason, with a slight bit of distress in his voice. I give him a hug before going back to sitting with Brent. Jason stayed sitting at the other end of the carriage with his hang low. I've know Jason for a while and I have never seen him like this. The whole thing was unsettling me. I've always seen Jason as almost a brother, but has he been seeing me as maybe something more?

Leaving Kinglake - Post 5

2009-03-31T10:41:00.002+11:00

We briefly parted ways to pick out what we wanted to eat and then sat together at the first available table we could find. I found it a bit hard to decide what to have but Jason helped me out. I could have gone with Brent and had him help my selection but he's usually someone who tends to stick to the health stuff. For a guy, Brent seems incredibly worried about how he looks and what he eats. Jason and I however aren't to fussy about what we eat. I'm actually rather lucky to still have a good metabolism. I would hate to think what I would look like if I didn't. I most definitely wouldn't be fitting to this dress that's for sure.
“Okay, it has to be asked, how are we going to get home?” I asked.
“Well we could probably go to me place and then your parents could pick you all up from there, rather than have them drive all the way out here.” said Brent.
“Yeah, that could be alright” said Jason, “I would imagine my parents would be happy to catch up with your parents.” Jason and Brent's parents were old school friends back in the day when they were about our age.
“I should be alright to find my own way home, thanks” said Helen. We continued to eat our food.
“Excuse me, I have to go to the gents” said Brent as he got up and headed towards the toilet.
“Oh my god” said Helen.
“What?” I said.
“You and Brent, in love” said Helen.
“whoa, slow down a bit their, I don't think one night out in Greensborough is enough to build a relationship on” said Jason.
“Yeah, he can’t be in love with me, can he?” I said.
“Oh, why well else would he be with us?” said Helen.
“Why well else would he be with us? He was going to be here anyway, he just decided to hang with us because we happened to be here to” replied a some what aggravated Jason.
“Apparently he asked Liz to came to Greensborough before we did, plus look at the body language, the way he looks at Liz, he wants her” said Helen ending with a little cheeky smile.
“Really” I said, ”oh the thought just sends chills down my spine.”
“I can't believe this” I heared Jason faintly say under his breath, he then turned to us. “I'm going to head off to the cinema to grab us some tickets, I'll see you there” said Jason before he headed off.

Before I headed off to the cinema I decided to make a stop at the toilets. As I step out of the toilet stall I saw myself in the mirror in the dress Brent selected for me. My god this dress is so not me, but Brent selected it for me. Is it really possible what Helen said is true. I begin to feel light headed just thinking about it. I walked over to one of the sinks to wash my hands and wet my face down I bit. As I'm wetting my face I heard someone walk in.
“Oh my god, I so want that dress, where did you get that?” I heard a voice say from behind me. I look up in to the mirror above the sinks. Standing there behind me is Beth. She notices to her surprise that it's me.
“Hello Beth” I said to her, attempting to act somewhat casual.
“What are you doing here?” said a stunned Beth “I thought you weren’t aloud out of Kinglake.”
“I'm here with a couple of friends, Jason, Helen and Brent” I replied, I put in a bit of extra emphasis on Brent's name as I say it to try and be a bit of a smart arse.
“You're with Brent, doing what?” said Beth.
“Non of your business” I said back.
“It is my business because Brent is with you” said Beth, “do you know what you're getting into here?”
“Oh I do think you’ve forgotten that you're no longer Brent's girlfriend, didn't he dump you?” I said.
“Yes we are no longer together but it's not what you think” she replied, “I dumped him.”
“I'm getting out of here, I don't need to hear this” I said as I began to head out. But then Beth grabbed my arm.
“Listen, I know we've never really gotten along, and that my advice is most likely going to be filed under bullshit somewhere in you're head,” said Beth “but I know enough to know you don't want to get involved here, so it's best you stay out before you get hurt.” She lets go of me and stormed out.

Leaving Kinglake - Post 4

2009-03-27T09:51:00.002+11:00

We got up started head towards the train station.
“Hey Liz” said Brent head passed him ”what are doing?”
“Oh I’m just going to Greensborough” I replied “you want to come?”
“What? I was originally going to be heading there anyway,” said Brent ”What made you change your mind?”
“Just a bit of a conversation I had with my friends” I replied.
“It was Jason’s idea,” said Helen “he called me up last night and told me about it.”
“Is this what you and Jason were talking about before?” I asked Helen.
“Yep” she replied.
“Oh Liz, I guess you've got nothing to change into?” asked Jason.
“Of course not, do you carry around a change of clothes with you everywhere?” said Helen.
“That’s alright,” said Jason “we'll pick up some clothes when you get there.”
“I know I great place for women’s clothes,” said Brent “Beth would shop there all the time.”
“What’s the place?” said Jason “Sluts ‘R’ Us?” I gave Jason a little slap on the arm for making the bad comment but then gave him a bit of a cheeky smile, because it was kind of funny.

We took the train in to Greensborough, passing through some nice parkland and pleasant scenery as it headed from Diamond Creek to Eltham. But I wasn't looking at it, instead I was looking at Brent sitting with me and my friends. Brent and Helen were playing some sort of game, Jason for some reason was not joining in.
”Come on Jason, join in” I said to him.
“Na, I'm fine” replied Jason.
“Alright” I said, “this is great.”
“What?” said Jason.
“Just getting to go out with my friends, I've never really gotten to do something like this” I replied. I then leaned forward and gave Jason a hug. “Thanks Jason.”
“I'm glad you're happy” said Jason as he put his arms around me.
“It's great that Brent is here too” I said as we separated. Jason seemed some what discomforted
by my comment.
“You should probably go play with Helen and Brent yourself” Said Jason, “I'll be fine here.” I went up to Brent and Helen and join in their game. I don't know why but something seemed very odd about that conversation. I looked back at Jason, he seemed some what depressed.

We got to Greensborough. I've been here a couple of times before. While my family don't seem to like leaving Kinglake, we do still need to pick up all the usual necessities of modern living, and Greensborough, is unfortunately for them, the best place to get those things. Usually it would be just mum who would go down here to do the shopping, but occasionally me and my sister would get to tag along. Greensborough Plaza, the big shopping centre in town, has almost every store you may possibly want. When we got there Brent took us to this clothing store that apparently Beth would visit quite a bit. The place had some very nice clothes.
“That’s the section that Beth liked,” said Brent, pointing at a section in the store. The section pointed out was not full of nice clothes but rather had clothes that were well kinda skanky.
“I think you should keep your mined off Beth for a while” said Jason to Brent.
“That’s the sort of stuff Beth wears,” said Helen “I'm glad I've never ran into here outside of school.” We started looking around for something that I could wear. We picked a t-shirt, some pants, and a jacket. We went up to the counter to pay for it.
“I’ll pay for it,” said Jason.
“No, I can take care of it” I replied.
“No you can’t, you’ve only got twenty dollars” he replied.
“You’ve forgotten that I’ve been getting five dollars pocket money for a number of years to spend on nothing because I can't get out to spend on anything” I said.
“I still think I should pay for this, consider it my present to you” said Jason. I give the stuff to the shop assistant.
“No, I'm fine” I said to Jason. The shop assistant scanned the items.
“One hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty five cents” said the shop assistant.
“What?” said Jason.
“Actually, maybe you should pay for it,” I said.
“Umm, you sure you want that?” said Jason.
“I'll look for something else” I said to Jason before head off to find something else to wear. I ended up spending ages trying to find something appropriate that was at the right price but it was hard, most of the stuff here was to expensive. I almost considered going to another store.

“Why don’t you buy this?” I heard Brent say from across the store. I wondered over to where Brent was to see a dress he was pointing out. The dress was very nice, it was a nice reddy, orangey colour with a very nice design, but at the same time it wasn't quite for me. The dress seemed a bit too short and it seemed more like something that Beth would wear.
“I don’t think so” I replied “it's so not me.”
“That really seems to be a bit much for what we are doing” said Helen.
“It's the right price, could you at least try it on?” asked Brent. I look at Brent and find it hard to disagree with him.
“Alright, I'll try it” I Replied. I took the dress and walk into one of the changing rooms and put the dress on, it was a bit hard to get on and it did feel kind of funny. Helen was right when she said this dress was a bit much. Why don't I just get around in my school gear? Do I really need to wear something different? I don't think my friends have much more organised than just seeing a film. I walk out of the stall and see everyone's reactions. Brent is just standing there with a grin on his face. Helen is doing the same with sort of a surprised look added to it. Jason is standing at the counter with his mouth wide open in surprise.
“Good choice, wasn't it?” said Brent.
“Yeah,” said Helen “I still think it's a bit much though.” I walked up to Jason to get his response.
“What do you think Jason?” I asked. Jason took a while to respond.
“You look amazing” said Jason.
“Thanks” I replied giving a little smile. Jason paid for the dress and we headed off to the food court to have a bite to eat.

Leaving Kinglake - Post 3

2009-03-26T15:27:00.002+11:00

“Excuses me,” said a voice from behind us. We both looked over to see who it was. It was Beth. “Can I go though?” she said. We both move for her. She gives us an obviously fake smile. We give her the same smile back. She stormed off to her class. Jason walks past her towards us.
“Hello ladies, how are things?” he said.
“Fine” replied Helen.
“Hey Liz, birthday girl, having a good day, I guess, what did you get for your birthday?” he asked.
“Twenty Bucks” I answered.
“What?” he said, “How you going to spend that if you can’t get out of town.”
“Oh Jason, can I talk to you for a bit” said Helen.
“Oh yes, you won’t mined if Helen and I go off and talk for a while” said Jason.
“No, off you go, talk” I said. Jason and Helen went off and talked. I sit there watching them talk, nodding, and smiling at each other. I start thinking about what they could be talking about. I then start thinking about the possibility of them being in love. I was unsure weather this would be good or bad. It would be good because Helen would be in Kinglake more and I would get to see her a bit more outside of school. But it would be bad because they would want to be alone most of the time, away from me. What will I do while they are alone? Who will I talk to? I’ve got more friends but none like them. I don't want to be separated from them, especially Jason. We've been friends for so long, he's practically like a brother to me. We have grown so close that I don't want him to be taken away from me. He's one of a kind and I don't know who could take his place.

“Hi Liz” said a voice from beside me. I looked over. Standing there waiting for a response is the cutest guy in school. Brent Stevenson. What is he doing here talking to me with his perfect eye, perfect hair, perfect smile and perfect cheeks? “Hello” he said.
“Oh ah hi ah Brent, what are you doing here?” I stuttered.
“Talking to you, about to go to class,” said Brent “what are you doing here?”
“Oh me, I’m ah breathing in the fresh air,” I said. My face started to feel hot as it is slowly turned red. “How are you by the way?” I asked.
“Oh fine considering I just dumped Beth yesterday, I guess you've heard about it” he replied, “and how are you?”
“Oh fine” I replied, my reply comes out a bit squeaky because of the amount of nervousness that has built up during the conversation.
“I’ve heard it your birthday today” said Brent.
“It is, oh yes, it is, it is” I replied.
“You got anything planned?” said Brent. My heart was pounding its way out of my chest.
“Ahh no, wh why do you ask?” I stuttered.
“Because I was wondering if you would like to come with me to Greensborough, after school?” asked Brent.
“I I can’t” I said. My heart feels like it's going to burst as I say it.
“Are well, if you change your mind, just tell me,” said Brent before he left.
I should have said ‘stuff it’ then to my parents rules. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I take that offer from Brent Stevenson? Brent Stevenson. The cutest guy in school just asked me to go to Greensborough with him and I say ‘I I can’t’. Why? What is wrong with me today and why is he asking me to come with him to Greensborough? I would've normally not been the first choice. Has he somehow been taking notice of me?He has been giving me some interesting looks over the last couple of weeks. Is it possible he likes me.

That afternoon I was sitting alone waiting for my bus when Jason and Helen sat down next to me. I noticed they had changed out of their school clothes into some regular clothes.
“Hi Liz” said Helen.
“Hi Helen” I said.
“You doing anything for your birthday?” said Helen.
“What do you think” I replied.
“That you're coming with me and Jason to Greensborough, we were thinking of seeing a movie for your birthday” said Helen.
“Excuse me, you know about my parents rules that prevent me from doing something like that” I said.
“Liz, I don't think your parents are going to punish you for going out on your birthday and if they do what sort of punishment are they going to give, what ground you? What difference is that going to make to what you do now?” said Jason.
“I don’t know,” I said. I then see Brent walk past, also in regular clothing, and remember the conversation we had earlier. “Stuff it let’s go.”

Leaving Kinglake - Post 2

2009-03-25T10:40:00.003+11:00

“Now you all stay here and do your work whilst I go off and get the test sheets,” said the teacher before he got up and walked out of the room. Everyone stopped working and started talking as soon as he was out of the door. I just sat there staring at Brent for a while.
“Wake up” yelled Jason into my ear.
“Ah, Jason” I said back with an annoyed look and holding my hand over my ear.
“Sorry Liz you just seemed to be in your own little dream world there” said Jason.
“I was just looking at Brent” I said “isn’t he cute?”
“Liz, let me remind you that I’m a straight male who would not be attracted to the other men in this class” said Jason “so I wouldn’t have much of an opinion as to whether Brent is cute or not.”
“Shut up” I said to Jason as I continued looking at Brent.
“Fine then, continue with your creepy stare” said Jason.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing, continue staring” replied Jason.

At recess I sat at my usual sitting spot, just outside the library. Jason sat with me and another one of my friends. Her name is Helen. She started at this school last year so I don’t know much about her, she seems pretty cool though, and has managed to connect with me and Jason very well. There are some year seven kids playing some sort of ball game in the courtyard. Jason was now and then yelled stuff at them as though he was their coach.
“The goal is that way, you idiot” yelled Jason.
“So Liz doing anything tomorrow for your birthday?” asked Helen.
“You know my parents won’t let me do anything?” I relied.
“Why don’t you just forget the rules for that one day?” asked Helen.
“No, no, go left” yelled Jason.
“Well I have considered saying ‘stuff it’ and going out to somewhere that my parents wouldn’t want me” I replied “but then I think of how much shit I could get in doing that.”
“It’s a damn shame, you should be allowed to do something, it's your seventeenth” said Jason, he then went back to yelling at the year sevens, “get the ball you short useless pieces of crap.”
“Shut up, you idiot” yelled back one of the year sevens.
“I think something will come up,” Helen said to me.

It was then that it hit me. I’m going to be spending my birthday sitting in Kinglake doing nothing. I just couldn’t stop thinking of it. I’m going to be having my birthday in a shitty house in a shitty town doing nothing more than the usual. It was annoying just to think of it. Me in Kinglake with my present that I got from my rubbish family. Me in Kinglake with my…
“Twenty dollars” I said to my mum the next day looking at the present that she got me.
“Well we couldn’t think of a thing to get you so we decided to give you some money instead” said mum with a cheesy grin on her face.
“Twenty dollars” I repeat. I cannot believe this. Twenty bucks. If the stuff they got me for my other birthdays, and other events that required gifts to be given costed twenty dollars then they must have gotten some idiot to go out and steal it for them.

I went to school unhappy until Helen came to talk to me. “Liz you won’t believe what has happened” she said happily “Brent and Beth have split.”
“What?” I said surprised by the news “are you sure?” I then see Brent walking through the courtyard. Beth is off at the side of the courtyard.
“Brent” Beth called out. Brent's arm shoots up with his middle finger fully extended.
Helen spilled the beans to me as to what happened. Beth and Brent were at a party last night, so was Beth’s ex-boyfriend Jake. Beth and Jake use to have a very strong relationship, mainly physical. Apparently one day Beth's parents court Beth and Jake being very 'physical' and the two were forbidden from seeing each other with Jake's parents taking him away to another school, Beth has been with Brent every since. Back to the party and Beth was apparently getting rather reminiscent of her relationship with Jake and after a couple of drinks decided to do a bit of a re-enactment of what got her in trouble with Jake, just this time she got court by Brent. The two then argued for a while and Brent decided to break up with her.
“Shit” was my response after hearing what Helen had to say about the breakup.

Leaving Kinglake - Post 1

2009-03-24T19:47:00.003+11:00

Well I've finish doing rewrite work on 'Leaving Kinglake' which will form the base for my post over the next couple of days. It should be noted that does not present the town of Kinglake in much of a good light, it is just that way as a means to help the story, though at the time I original wrote this, Kinglake kind of was not much of a great place as a teenager. The probably wasn't really necessary to go through but I felt for some reason it was necessary. Anyway, here is the first of possible 10 post of 'Leaving Kinglake'.

Leaving Kinglake

Another usual school day. I get up, get changed into the school uniform, have breakfast, brush my teeth, wash my face, do my hair, have mum drop me off up at the shops and sit up there and wait for the bus. When the bus arrives me and all the other fellow students slowly shuffle on, find our seats and get ready for the long trip. I go to Diamond Valley Collage. It’s shit but I’ve heard that it’s better than some of the other schools in the area. The school is in Diamond Creek and were all from Kinglake so it’s a long trip which is that travels along a long twisting road and is very boring, unless you’re sitting next to the right person. I’m sitting next to the right person everyday. His name is Jason Gates and he has the best sense of humour in the world. He could say anything and it would be funny. Jason is my best friend. We met in grade six. He was a lonely and confused little boy that needed help at the time and I was the only one who was willing to help him. Now he is a smart and quick person who’s incredibly funny.

We get to Diamond Creek. Everyone gets off the bus. We all cross the road to the school. The bell rings before I have put my bag in my locker. Wait a moment.
“Shit, I’ve forgotten my bag” I said “Jason can I have some money for a phone call?”
“Sure, Liz” replied Jason as he gets his wallet out of his pocket and gives me some change.
“Thanks” I said “you want to come with me? I’m just going to make a call home and see if someone is willing to drop off my bag.”
“Sure, whatever gets me out of class” replied Jason. We go into the main school building to the payphone. I put some money in and dial in the home phone number.
“Hello” said my mum.
“Yeah hi mum, hey is my bag there?” I ask.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your bag, your dad's not going to be happy you have” said mum.
“Please could you bring it down mum, I’ve got an important assignment in my bag that I have to hand in today” I said “you don’t want me to fail, do you?” their was brief pause.
“Okay, I'll see what I can do” replied mum.
“Thanks mum” I said.
“Just don’t do this again, alright” said mum.
“Okay, bye mum” I said.
“Bye love” said mum in a soft voice. I hang up the phone angrily.
“So what’s happening about your bag?” asked Jason.
“Mum should hopefully be coming down with it” I replied “lets get going to class.” We go to our lockers.

God my parents can get annoying sometimes. They’re alright it's just sometimes they can really get on my nerves. Their rules especially, that is my main problem problem with them. A fact of my life that is extremely annoying. Except for school and certain special events, I cannot leave Kinglake. It is annoying. Kinglake is an alright place but when you're a teen with friend who almost every weekend are going out to parties, movies, shopping and a variety of other fun things, having to be stuck in that town is kind of a painful. Kinglake was a cool place when I was in primary school, being surrounded by bushland in which you could go and build little cubbies and play around. But as a teenage, Kinglake is hell. To add to this is my home in Kinglake isn't great. It’s a small place that feels like it has been modelled off of a little girls doll house that has been made using an old shoe box. I live with my parents, and my younger sister, Vanessa, who is viewed as the jewel of the family who can do no wrong. She is very annoying because she’s always telling me what to do. Isn’t that the parent’s job? All I do when I’m home is sit and watch the television. It sucks.

I open my locker, grab my diary, look at the timetable, grab my books and go to class. As I step into class I notice that everyone was already busy with whatever work was handed to them.
“Liz why are you late” asked the teacher as I walk into class.
“Oh, I had to call home because I forgot my bag” I replied.
“Sit there please, next to Jason,” said the teacher pointing at the seat next to Jason.
“Okay” I replied. I go and sit next to Jason.
“Coming in late, you bad girl” said Jason “I bet you're feeling sorry now that you have to sit next to your best buddy.” I smile and laugh a little I then start looking up at the teacher, listening to what he is saying I then start looking at the front row of people and noticed Brent Stevenson sitting in the front. Brent is the number one cutest guy at this school and I absolutely love him. He's part of the sort of in crowd at our school, a group of some of the most popular people here. Brent is really into sport, and has been the top player in the schools football team for a number of years. But he’s taken. The girl sitting next to him is Beth Stents, the sexiest, most attractive girl at school, as according to a majority of the guys at our school. Whatever hall Beth goes through there is likely to be a couple of guys carefully watching here body bouncing its way through. She's always walks around with her chest sticking out so everyone can see how much she has 'developed'. In addition to being one of the most attractive girls in school she is also a mega bitch. While Brent maybe willing to talk to various people around the school Beth is only willing to associate with people who are in the in crowd or are part of her small circle of friends. I hate her and it's obviously not because she is going out with Brent.

Old Story Reminiscing

2009-03-17T14:16:00.002+11:00

Recently I decided to try and find some of the old short stories I wrote back when I was in high school. As I've been working on some of my story ideas for films, I can't help but feel that my biggest hurdle with these ideas won't be budget and equipment but getting people to go along with them. My vampire idea is probably a good idea and is coming together well but is quite intense and will need to be taken quite seriously which would be hard to do with other people on a low-zero budget. My zombie might be better for getting a few people involved but I'm finding it hard to sort out what to do with that and bring things together with it's story. So I feel what I need to do is find some form of concept that is capable at being cheap to do but can also be fun and draw in other people to the project.

So for a while I've been trying to come up with another idea, because I'm not sending myself nuts enough already, and in the process decided to watch a bunch of John Hughes teen flicks. If you don't know who John Hughes is just think of any teen flick you can from the 80's and then look it up on IMDb.com and you'll likely find that John Hughes was involved in someway, ever as a writer or as the writer and director of the film. I picked up all the teen films he wrote and directed rather than pick up ones he had only write on, because that would be a pretty major investment in time and money (Number of teen films John Hughes wrote and directed = 4 + Number of teen films John Hughes just wrote = 6, okay so it's not that much extra but still a bit.) As I was watching these films I could help but think about the old stories I us to do when I was in my teens, and kind of felt that these films were kind of similar to that stuff.

Sometime later I found myself hunting through old CDs and DVDs for some form of backup of the My Documents folder from my old PC that I had when I was writing these stories in some hope to get those stories out and go over them again and remind myself of them. I managed to find the files I was looking for and got into reading the stories all over again, and then writing notation on the stories, and for much of last week doing some rewrite work on one of those stories because I just found myself so getting back into what I was trying to do with those stories I just want to try and fix a few of them up and then presumably put them up here.

I'm surprised actually how long it has taken for me to rewrite this on story considering that I had selected this first story to edit because I thought that it would be one the need the least amount of work. The story I've been working on is that I had call 'Leaving Kinglake'. The story follows a teenage girl who on her 16 birthday is taken by her friends and the number one top crush in school to Greensborough Plaza, a place she is forbidden to go to unless her parents happen to be going their, and in the process sort of discovers some stuff about a long time relationship she has had with one of her best friends. I don't know if that best describes the story but it should give you a bit of an idea of what's in it. It was one of a few stories I told from a first person perspective help to give the story some more details, as in the past I would usually prefer to stick to third person perspective what was bad for me as I use to be so focused on things like dialog and actions that I would forget to properly detail out the environment of the story or much of the thoughts of the characters, but still I managed to get back into those stories because I could remember what I was trying to do with those stories.

So will any of this be used for a potential movie idea? Yes, because some of these stories had a common cast of characters (because I was taking some inspiration from the work of Kevin Smith at the time who tends to do a similar reusing of characters in his films with his Jay and Silent Bob characters and extra side characters like Steve-Dave and the Fanboy - "Tell'em Steve-Dave") that I think could be interesting for a sort of reunion story to happen with them and explore certain story ideas I had from them but were never explored, or I could just do something with one of the already established stories. What ever happens it is likely to be more entertaining and fun to than a depressing vampire story that would probably demand a lot from some low budget actors. I should hopefully be posting some of the 'Leaving Kinglake' Story next week, the story is short and yet is too long for onr blog post.

Thank you for reading

Photography Fun

2009-03-03T09:52:00.003+11:00

Recently I decided to go to the Melbourne International Motor Show and take a number of photos with my old film SLR camera. Oh the fun of not being able to take dozens of photos not stop, changing film every 24 photos, discovering you haven't packed anymore film but then discovering for some reason 7-11 still sells Kodak film for some reason and then eventually getting the film to be developed at someplace that still does photo developing to discover how the photos actually came out, finding out that certain percentage of the shots actually come out shit arse. That film has not yet been developed by the way so I don't know what percentage of the shots actually come out shit arse, but I got the feel it might be not a good percentage as it has been a while since I've done this for of photography.

The last time I used this camera was probably 2004, when I was doing the Diploma of Multimedia course at Swinburne Lilydale Campus. Over the last couple of weeks I've been scanning a bunch of old photos onto my computer with the intent at some point to load them up onto that internet somewhere, most like Facebook. The purpose of this is not just to let other people see my photos but also to help preserve the photos so should the original photo albums be lost some copy of those photos do still exist somewhere. What I didn't expect was the number of photos I would be scanning and how long it would take as I also have to do clean up work on the photos after scanning them in (take out dirty, correct the colour, etc). At the moment the number of photos scanned is at 217 photos that there are still more to go.

After a while of doing this I start thinking it might be a good idea to pull out the old SLR and start taking photos with it again and after a bit of looking I managed to find the old fella with a few roles of film waiting to be used. The battery needed replacing but other than that camera seemed fine. Unfortunately the Motor Show probably was not the best place to start my new beautiful photographic adventures (don't question where that came from I don't know ever) but I'm back into taking photos with my old SLR camera taking a number of great looking photos, at least until the current film I have in my camera bag runs out, then I might look at the cost of getting a digital SLR camera, though I haven't factored in the cost of developing the film ever, so that might have an affect as well om me and my SLR's future. Hmmm....

Thank you for reading

Resurrecting the blog again

2009-02-24T09:29:00.001+11:00

Well here I go again. Once again it has been a long time between blog post and a reasonable amount has happened in between those times. On the positive side I did get some employment, but unfortunate it was only some temp work, so that only lasted for a short amount of time and oddly became a bit of a test as to how I would cope in a IT/Office environment.

Unfortunately work has not been kept up on the WebMedia demonstration site, I might get back into work on that soon but it unfortunately has not been a priority of mine to finish it (possibly a stupid move).

As for the possible movie concepts discussed in the series of 'This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something' are still being worked on. At the moment they are being worked on in some notebook I now carry with me almost everywhere. The main story I've been working on is the story of the two rape victims who have become vampires, and the story for that one is going very strong. I'm actually crossing my fingers on getting that one finished soon so I can then start typing it us and maybe get some people reviewing that story then look at moving forward with writing a proper script.

The other concept that has been discussed a fair bit in the 'This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something' post is the concept of 'Zombie Stories'. This concept has very much been rework I started to become hard to find any fun the idea and therefore was becoming a bit of a hard one to write about, not to say there is any fun in the 'Vampire' concept previously mentioned but there is something more to that concept than there is to this one. So now the 'Zombie' concept has been changed now to be less of a multistory concept about the various stages of an zombie apocalypse, but will more be about a specific group of people trying to survive an zombie apocalypse. At the very least this could become a short film concept which would be good because most of my idea so far have been some what large ideas that probably can not be achieved on a small to zero budget.

Finally, something that probably should have been mentioned at the start of this post is the fact that my old hometown of Kinglake has recently been hit by large bushfire. This was different to the fires that hit in 2006, that only took out bushland and maybe a couple of sheds. The fires that hit this year managed to take out a major amount of the main township. It's odd, I've been living in Doreen for a fair while now and yet Kinglake still feels like home to me. This whole this is actually messing with my head a bit. I recently heard my sister start her car to head of to work and thought I was back at our old house off Victoria Rd hearing my brother head of to work, starting his car below my bedroom window, but that house is gone, which is a shame because 19 years of my life was spent there. I actually wish I was back there at the moment, because that is my home, and I probably should never had left.

Well it's good to be back blogging. This is going to be my main blog for everything now, no more separate MySpace blog. Which means there will be a bit of my weekly ridiculous ranting with mixed with some important work and projects but it's better for me to do this than become a complete weirdo introvert who can't really say anything at all. Hopefully I'll be able to avoid ranting on about why films based on video games will suck, maybe I can put some work into write a blog piece on how a film based on a video game could work.

Thank you for reading.

Extra Links:

WebMedia Podcasts Pre-Design

2008-03-28T12:02:00.002+11:00

WebMedia Podcasts Pre-Design by ~Tro-OyiHuch on deviant ART

This is some Photoshop pre-design work I've done for a fake podcasting site. The site is being designed as an experiment in seeing how I would go at building a podcasting site with working RSS Feeds and content in multiple formats.

This demonstrates a potential layout for the two different podcast listings pages for the site (one for video, one for audio).

Note: all podcast used on this site are used for example purposes only. I am in on way associated with them.

WebMedia Main Page Pre-Design

2008-02-17T15:31:00.003+11:00

WebMedia Main Page Pre-Design by ~Tro-OyiHuch on deviant ART

This demonstrates a potential layout for the main/home page for the site. This displays the latest video and audio podcast on the site, as well as show the colours associated with the two different types of podcast formats (video is green while audio is blue). In between the two list is a space where some of the latest podcasts are given a bit of extra promotion, giving a visual to go with the podcast. This is all then caped off with a small welcome discussing the site and what is does.

Inspiration for this site comes from already existent podcasting sites Revision3.com and TWiT.tv. These are two sites that are deliver some of the most popular podcast out today. The problem with these sites is that TWiT.tv on does audio podcast while Revision3.com only does video podcast with audio only versions available of some of those podcast.
The goal of this site is to develop a platform that could do both.

Update (20/02/08): Added a gradient to the podcast list and changed the middle promo to correct some mistakes made there.

More while be done with this concept including more page designs, some HTML & CSS page designs, and possible some files for a working version of the concept built with PHP & MySQL.

Note: all podcast used on this site are used for example purposes only. I am in on way associated with them.

Old Design Work on DeviantArt

2008-02-06T19:44:00.001+11:00

Caffeine Addiction by ~Tro-OyiHuch on deviant ART

I've consolidated all my old computer based design work into one folder on DeviantArt in my gallery there, so if you wish to see some of my older work go to tro-oyihuch.deviantart.com/gallery/#Design. This is also where any newer work will go when posted on DeviantArt.

Because everything gets so much better when you add a 2.0 to it

2008-01-23T02:23:00.000+11:00

Well it has been a while but I've finally gotten around to updating this site. This new version of Crazy Research will be use to keep track of various project ideas and stuff that I'll be working on for the next year or so (well that's the idea). Already you should notice that I've removed a number of the older post where I've tried to be a tech journalist kind of person, posting up crazy predictions and bad review, leaving mostly post relating to the Widgets I've made. I have also copied across some post from my MySpace blog (blog.myspace.com/troy_huch) relating to a movie project I hope to do.

As for my Yahoo Widgets, well it maybe likely I won't be doing anymore, because of the fact that Yahoo seem to be interfering to much with the application. When I began doing the widgets the platform I was doing it for was call Konfabulator. They had, at the time, just been bought out by Yahoo and had promised that they would still operate as a separate entity to Yahoo. Skip forward to now the Konfabulator has become completely overrun by Yahoo. Now distributed as the Yahoo Widget Engine, you are now required to have a Yahoo ID to login to the site for it, which has left me some what displeased. But then again it has been fun to work on some of these widgets, so their might be some more work on them, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Anyway, lets hope this new site leads to good things, and that all works out well.

This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something (Part 3)

2008-01-23T02:20:00.000+11:00

Note: This post was originally made on my MySpace Blog on January 20, 2008

Well it's been a while but I've started doing some more work towards the early plot layout for Zombie Stories. I have actually started over on the plot layout for Zombie Stories as I wasn't really happy with how things were going with the original plot layout I was doing. The problem with what I was doing before is that things seemed to be going rather slowly, and it was becoming rather hard to work out how things should work. Their was also the problem I mentioned in the last one of these post of it possibly not working as a zero budget film script, which is something I'm interested in having it be. This new plot layout has a completely new opening and a new first story in the set of short stories that will make up the structure of the film.

Just as I did in my last post I also have another film idea that I want to just put out. The film would follow two separate people who have been victims of this serial rapist who has recently turned up dead under some weird circumstances. since their rape the two have not been outside in the really world for sometime. It's until sometime after their attackers death that they decide to go out with their respective friends for a bit of a night, but then for each something happens that courses them to realize that they have both become vampires. The film then follows the two different characters as they deal with this new change in that one night.

This a concept that I've really been thinking about fair bit recently, more than the shock therapy idea I talked about in the last post. Since that post I've done really nothing towards that idea as their really isn't much I've got in ideas towards it, all I've got is an idea of what is it kind of is, how it could probably be visually presented, and how it could end. With this new one I've got more of an idea of how it could start, how it could end, what could happen in between, and how that could be visually presented. And as this is mostly set at night this one could be easier to achieve. Once I've worked out a title to put to this idea I'll start going into early plot layout mode, as I am with Zombie Stories, and hopefully will produce something good from that.

Finally if you're interested in seeing some films this week or so, I have two films I have to recommend. I know I did film recommendations in the last post, but I strongly feel these are must see films. The first is No Country for Old Men. I saw this film when I went to see my brother in Canberra towards the end of last year, and it made me wish I had held off on doing my Best and Worst of 2007 - Film & Media post for just a couple of days more, especially since that film has also been label best film of the year at a number of other places.

The second would have to be Cloverfield. I saw this on Saturday and I have to say I loved it. The only problem with it is that people are going to go it to see this and expect it to be like your average special effects driven monster film where you get to follow heroes as they battle and successfully take down the monster, which it isn't. Cloverfield is more about a small group of friends who decide to try and save love interest of one of groups members, all made out to be shot from one hand held camera that is being operated by one of the group members. If you're interested in reading more from me on this film, I have posted a review on the Flixster Movies app on Facebook, so if you've got all that going you can read that.

Today's links are:

This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something (Part 2)

2008-01-23T02:17:00.000+11:00

Note: This post was originally made on my MySpace Blog on December 17, 2007

Well after doing all that stuff discussing the best and worst of 2007 I feel like doing another "This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something" update. So I've managed to finish the plot layout for the first of four shorts that will make up the story for 'Zombie Stories' and am now a reasonable amount into the beginning of the second story which is getting to be a bit of a hard one to get out because in this story I'm trying to details a bit about the zombies, as well as carefully setting up connections between stories and characters.

The basics of the four stories are that the first story establishes how the zombie outbreak begins, the second establishes the idea of containment, and what it is that is turning people into zombies, third details one groups attempt to survive within the containment area/town, then the fourth details another groups attempt to get out of the containment area/town. That is sort of the structure of what I'm going for. Once these plots have been properly set out I plan on doing a bit of review of then and rewriting of parts of them, then moving on to producing a proper script or series of scripts for them.

The problem with 'Zombie Stories' is that if it's to be done, as a single film or a set of short film, it isn't going to be a basic low low budget/zero budget affair, which is a shit because I was hoping to be able to have this script as maybe something that could be done with a small group of people. Essentially I was looking to do this as my 'Clerks' or 'El Mariachi'. But with some of the stuff I've got in 'Zombie Stories' at the moment I don't see that happening.

So now I'm thinking of also do some work towards two other video project ideas. One is sort of a short film idea I've had of looking at how a comedian may deal with the death of a loved one as humour usually plays a major part sometimes in help people out of the sadness of loosing someone. The idea was something I started thinking about when TV presenter Rove McManus lost his wife Belinda Emmett, my intent however is not to try and make sorry based complete off that, though that probably would be interesting. The key things I would like to have with this is have a story that at least deals with the loose of a loved one and uses to Split Enz music should it get done into an actual shot film (specifically the songs 'Charlie' and 'Message to My Girl').

The other story is something that could be a short and/or long form piece. The basic description I could give for it that it would be like a if Chris Cunningham was to do a version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The story follows a woman who is in a mental care facility for reasons she doesn't know and is receiving a weird form of shock therapy that sends her into a series of weird recollections of her past. As time goes on the main character find herself forgetting thing she has been made to remember in the shock therapy, this doesn't just affect the way she acts in the real world, but also affects the way things are in her shock induced recollections. This would be a very visual based piece and at the same time could also be much cheaper than 'Zombie Stories' as it could mostly be contained to one location with little required in cast and such.

So their is a bit of what's going though my head at the moment, along with other things about the future and stuff, as it's look as though I maybe on the dole again, but this time if don't find myself in a position by May I'm going to be looking to see if I can get into a TAFE course RMIT delivers into screen production. RMIT has a mid-year intakes for some of its course, information for which becomes available about May. If I do get any form of employment during the time between now and May, then that's likely to be better as I would get more money in a job than I would possible get while on the dole, or getting student allowance, which would allow me to by my own equipment, which I would prefer to do rather than borrow equipment. As for time to be spent on the projects when and/of if they go into proper(ish) production, well that probably would be that much different if I'm employed or not, as I would probably have to work around other peoples free time (weekends and/or public holidays) anyway as I can't really do all of this on my own.

Anyway, it's time to finish this all off. This really has been a long post, that has taken a long time to get out. For the next couple of days work on this stuff is going to be slow as it is the end of the year, and I'm taking advantage of this time to also relax a bit and get through some other stuff. I'm also going to be heading up to Canberra on the weekend to stay at my brother's for a while and sort out some stuff for him with his computer. 2008 will be when thing will hopefully start to be on the go, along with working on one of two of the thing mentioned here, and applying for jobs, I'm also going to me working on some web and tech stuff and ideas, including a possible resurrection of the old Crazy Research blog. Lets just cross fingers and hope 2007 will be a good year. See ya.

Today's Links are:

The course I'm looking at from RMIT
Today's special at Warehouse One in the US (and before you go saying photoshopped check out the Warehouse One site too)
Here's a surprise sighting while at the Servo (also posted on Digg)

This Hopefully is the Beginning to Something (Part 1)

2008-01-23T02:13:00.000+11:00

Note: This post was originally made on my MySpace Blog on November 27, 2007

For ages now I've talked about doing something towards film or TV production, but have never really done anything real towards it. Well now I've begun making some steps towards putting together a script for a possible first project. Just last night I began work on a draft plot outline for a script which is current 4 pages long and still being worked on as so far it probably only details out the first quarter of the script.

The title at the moment for the potential script is Zombie Stories and the basic idea of it is that it details out the beginning of a zombie outbreak in a small town, but rather than focusing in on one small group of survivors it details the breakout through a set of smaller stories (ala Sin City) with a few common strings tying them together. This has been sort of a idea I've had for a while as I've felt it would be interesting see a sort of film like this get played out from a couple of different angles, rather than just see only the prospective of the chosen few survivors the filmmakers has decided to focus on. It has however been a motivating factor to me finally getting around to actually watching a few zombie films as at the time I started thinking of the idea I hadn't watched much in the way of zombie films except maybe Shaun of the Dead.

I've since seen a bunch of the major must see zombie films such as the George A Romero series of zombie films, and the 28 Days/Weeks Later films. These films have been a good reference for zombie material. So hopefully I should be able to get something good out script-wise and I'll try and get out updates on that when I can.

So yeah I'm late again but I've been recovering a bit from 3treme LAN on the weekend, which was quite cool. Unfortunately didn't play as much in games as I intended to but it was still OK. Finally got to play a bit of Team Fortress 2 however, and soon discovered it probably would have been a good idea to play a bit of it online before hand to get a bit of a better feel for it. Also got to play a bit of the Half-Life 2 mod Zombie Master which was cool. This week I should be going for another check up on the knee which could decide if I need an MRI scan of the knee and if an operation has to be done, things have however been coming better with the knee but it could still require work. Anyway, I'm out of things to say now so, see ya.

Diggth 1.0.2 Update

2007-08-28T19:25:00.000+10:00

Hey, though I would post this here as it still seems to be the main source for information on widgets I've done. Well, it's been a while but I've put out an update too the Diggth widget. Two factors played a major part in making me update this widget, one was a load of emails I got from Yahoo! on how I should update all may widgets for potential security exploits in them, which was just going to ignore, until I noticed that mashable.com had done a post of Digg Tools in which Diggth was featured (along with the old Digg with Diggnation widget which Diggth is sort of a replacement to).

Diggth is a Widget set up for reading various Digg.com RSS feeds.

Features included:

3 Panel design (Top Pod, News Panel, Options Panel).

Optional display of News and Options Panels.

Options panel to allow for more dynamic feed selection (no more context menu. Preferences still used for update time selection, Username entry, and Top Pod Feed selection).

Search.

Expandable item info.

If you have any problems, questions, or whatever E-mail: crazyresearch@gmail.com
Note: "digg" and the Digg logo are Trademarks of Digg inc.

Version History:
1.0 - 18/09/06
- Initial Release - Troy Hutchinson (Troy_Huch)
1.0.1 - 6/10/06
- More work on character correction
- Fix to description not closing when digg news is closed
- Link to digg page button changed from a basic digg thumbs up to the green thumbs up button in comments.
- About updated
1.0.2 - 25/08/07
- Security Updates Made
- New Design to select element
- Slimmer Top Pod
- Additional updates made for the Widget Engine 4.0 platform

Get it at:
Yahoo! Widget Gallery
Softpedia
DeviantArt

Don't expect anything much for a while here, I'm kinda busy at the moment with studies, making time every so often to update my MySpace blog that is pretty much just filled with random stuff (more so than this place was). Don't expect any new updates for any of my other widgets, actually if you do see anything from me widget wise expect it to me a new widget to replace most of the old widget I use to do in kind of a similar way to how Diggth replaces all the Digg/Diggnation widget I use to have, but don't expect it for a while.

No More Widgeting

2007-01-16T10:49:00.000+11:00

I've decided to stop producing and upgrading my Yahoo! Widget Engine widgets because, well I no longer feel motivated to do them anymore. Thanks to everyone you downloaded and used my widgets. It's been fun working on some of these widgets but with other things now taking priority over the little things like widget making. If I were to do a widget sometime soon it would probably be some form of widget that doesn't use the Adam Parson RSS code, something a bit more original. But for now there are no plans to make any more widgets.

I'm on the MySpace Now

2006-11-06T20:50:00.000+11:00

I've spent a reasonable amount of today in CSS hell setting up an alternate styling to my new MySpace profile page. Go to http://www.myspace.com/troy_huch where I will be posting more sort of small things of stuff that have caught my interest and other stuff, while this blog while continue to be a place for more my much larger Tech orientated rants. Keep an eye out by the way for TWiT Widget version 1.5.4

diggth Widget 1.0.1

2006-10-06T12:47:00.000+10:00

diggth has been updated and upload to all the appropriate areas.

Formerly known as the Diggnation Widget

Diggth is a widget set up for reading various Digg.com RSS feeds.

Feature included:
- 3 Panel design (Top Pod, News Panel, Options Panel).
- Optional display of News and Options Panels.
- Options panel to allow for more dynamic feed selection (no more context menu. Preferences still used for update time selection, Username entry, and Top Pod Feed selection).
- Search
- Expandable item info.
- About.

If you have any problems, questions, or whatever E-mail: crazyresearch@gmail.com

Note: "digg" and the Digg logo are Trademarks of Digg inc.

Version History:
1.0 - 18/09/06
- Initial Release - Troy Hutchinson (Troy_Huch)
1.0.1 - 6/10/06
- More work on character correction
- Fix to description not closing when digg news is closed
- Link to digg page button changed from a basic digg thumbs up to the thumbs up button
- About updated

Get it at:
DeviantArt
Widgipedia
Yahoo!

Thanks to t00tan from DeviantArt for telling me about Widgipedia.

Digg This

Diggth Widget

2006-09-18T02:26:00.000+10:00

Formerly known as the Diggnation Widget

Diggth is a widget set up for reading various Digg.com RSS feeds.

Feature included:
- 3 Panel design (Top Pod, News Panel, Options Panel).
- Optional display of News and Options Panels.
- Options panel to allow for more dynamic feed selection (no more contect menu. Preferences still used for update time selection, Username entry, and Top Pod Feed selection).
- Search
- Expandable item info.
- About.

If you have any problems, questions, or whatever E-mail: crazyresearch@gmail.com

Note: Digg and the Digg logo are Trademarks of Digg inc.

Version History:
1.0 - 18/09/06
- Initial Release - Troy Hutchinson (Troy_Huch)

Get it at:
DeviantArt
Might give this one sometime before sending to Yahoo!

This is the new Digg widget that I've been working on, on and off, since
Digg 3.0 was release, I would say more about it but it's getting late
and I've got what could end up being a long day coming up tomorrow.