Brave

Because Pixar. They rarely go wrong. And the voice cast sounds amazing; I think I have a crush on Kelly MacDonald, and with Emma Thompson and Billy Connelly, this should be fun.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I recently read The Hobbit again and remembered why it’s so wonderful. Bilbo, Gandalf and a bunch of dwarves. SHouldn’t be as heavy as the LOTR films, but with essentially the same talent involved, it should be as good. And once again, a great cast!

Cogan’s Trade

Don’t know a great deal about this, but I loved The Assassination of Jesse James etc and expect this to have some of the power of that one. Sam Rockwell is awesome. And the world’s favourite architect, Brad Pitt.

The Dark Knight Rises

Well obviously. Can Christopher Nolan screw up? With this cast? I doubt it. I’m in it for Bane. I think I”ll see anything with Tom Hardy in it at the moment.

The Great Gatsby

Should be epic, as is everything that Baz Luhrman does, and a brilliant cast including a few Aussies. Wooo!

The Wettest Country

John Hillicoat directing another NIck Cave script with Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce. DOn’t care much for Shia LaBeouf, but the rest should make up for him. Oh, and Mia Wasikowska.

Django Unchained

Because Tarantino.

Prometheus

ZOMG. If there was a Number 1 on this list, this would be it. Ridley Scott, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender (whom I would see in anything), Charlize Theron, Idris Elba (brilliant) and the beginnings of the Alien saga. Looks AMAZING.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Recently read the Millennium Trilogy and watched the Swedish films, all of which were great. But I can’t wait to see what David Fincher does with it, and once again it looks well casted. And that soundtrack.

Hyde Park on Hudson

Because Bill Murray

Life of Pi

Loved this book, and will be fascinated to see how in fact it is adapted for the screen, but with Ang Lee at the helm I don’t expect much short of wonderful.

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg hasn’t done anything that’s excited me greatly for a while, I hope this is the one to change that. And Daniel Day-Lewis

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best ensemble cast ever? Seriously. The best of what the Brits have to offer when it comes to male actors at the moment.

Stoker

Because of Park Chan-Wook of Oldboy fame and the three Australian women in the cast: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Jackie Weaver.

So. What have I missed? Your thoughts on the above? Leave a comment below.

INCIDENTAL COMICS: The World-Famous Architect.

Source: http://frugaldad.com

One disturbing trend has come to my attention, and I feel that it is my duty, dear reader, to bring this to your attention. Please refer to the graph below, which tracks browsers used to access this site over the last year.

Over the past year, of the people accessing this site, a whopping 13% have been using Internet Explorer.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

This is NOT how to use the internet! IE will only ruin the experience for you! I’m one of those who is forced to use that horrid browser at work, and even the simplest sites, including Twitter and Tumblr, don’t render properly in IE. I hate to think what this blog looks like in IE.

For your own sanity, so as to improve your experience of the many wonderful things that one can find on the interwebs, and for the sake of thousands of graphic and web designers around the world, give up this archaic thing. I beseech you. Get yourself Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera.

I LOVE YOU KEN DONE.

via Australian INfront and Acclaim

The latest edition, Adventures in Depression is simultaneously one of the funniest and one of the most poignant depictions of depression that I’ve ever come across. I’d like to reproduce it all here, but I think you should  head over to Allie’s site and check it out.

I’ve written and talked quite a bit about depression lately (see my most recent posts). But it’s Movember, so deal with it. And while you’re dealing with it, sponsor me as I help raise much needed funding to raise awareness and provide treatment for men with depression.

Head to http://mobro.co/dayaal and drop a few dollars for a great cause.

But I’m back, and I’m going all out with my Mo this year.

Movember is about raising awareness and raising money to support initiatives that help men get the help they need to deal with prostate cancer and depression. I haven’t had any real direct experience with prostate cancer, clearly I haven’t had it myself, but until this year I haven’t known anyone personally who has been through it. But depression has very much been a part of my experience. Not only am I continuing to have treatment for depression, but I’m discovering more and more friends and acquaintances who are having to come to terms with it too.

To a lot of people who hear for the first time that I have depression, it comes as a surprise. I’ve done well in the past to hide it, and since being diagnosed and commencing treatment a few years ago, I’ve not had to hide it so much given that it’s mostly under control. Given that for some who might read this it’s news that I’ve been having treatment for depression for roughly the last 5 years, I thought I’d give you a bit of background. Shortly after I was diagnosed I wrote a blog post about it. That was at one stage on this blog, but it’s since been moved to my other blog (my secret one!) so I’ll quote some of it here.

I’m not sick but I’m not well, August 2006.

In the first half of this year, circumstances aligned in such a manner as to bring my state of mind as near to collapse as it has ever been.

Bec and I were dealing with some pretty heavy issues that have essentially changed our lives. There was upheaval in the lives of my close personal friends. There was tension and change in the relationships between those in my circle of friends. Church and ministry became unbearable and unmanageable. My work had become overwhelming and intensely stressful.

Full on.

There was no escape. There was not one element of my life in which I could find peace. At all times I felt under immense pressure and strain. I was not sleeping, I was unable to work and actually address any of the things that were troubling me. I went into a kind of brain freeze. All the while, as I usually do, I tried to maintain a facade of control, and all the while I was increasingly out of control.

I had moments of the most extreme fear and anxiety, times of total rage, and times of hopeless apathy.

Driving home one night, unable to contain my emotions, I found myself in tears behind the steering wheel. It struck me that this wasn’t the first time I had been in this exact situation. I realised that there were several points dating back to my late teens when I had felt the same way. This was not the first time that I had become overwhelmed by circumstance and felt totally out of control.

Bec, in her wisdom and out of her own past experience quietly observed this and gently (and occasionally not so gently) walked alongside me through this period. Eventually she suggested to me that she thought I was depressed. Clinically depressed.

This seemed quite ridiculous to me, but there was a part of me that couldn’t shake the possibility that she might be right. After a few days I spoke to my sister, someone who has been able to observe me over a long period of time, and who, as a medico, has some knowledge and insight into these things. She agreed that I was depressed, and that she thought I had been for a very long period of time.

It took me some time to digest these things, but it started to feel like that moment in The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis’ character realises that he’d been dead all along. All the pieces fit.

Maybe I’ve been depressed all along.

I went online to various websites about depression and took some of their online tests. All of them seemed to indicate that I had a depressive illness. Ultimately, with a sense that I could go no lower, I went to a doctor. Over a period of time and several appointments, his diagnosis was that, as suspected, I have clinical depression.

Fuck.

I’m not really comfortable with the notion that I have a mental illness. But sadly, having had my eyes opened to it, I see that it’s true. While I’ve always been able to present myself well and for the most part not allow my state of mind to greatly influence how I get on with life, I have not been a happy person. The negative experiences of my life are more noticeable to me than the positive. While I have always known in my mind that I am blessed, I have always felt cursed. I have had a very poor opinion of myself for a long time. I don’t consider myself to be particularly good at anything. I see myself as a failure. I feel that I haven’t been much of a friend and an even worse husband. And scarily, I have become used to suicidal thoughts flickering through the background noise of my thoughts on an almost daily basis.

What a mess.

That I could be depressed was as depressing a thought as anything I had ever experienced. But ultimately it gave me an explanation for how bad I was feeling. I knew there was now something I had to deal with.

It is very hard in that depressive funk to actually find the energy and the will to do something about it. But with Bec’s and my sister’s encouragement, and following some seriously nasty lows, I did get treatment.

I am now in a much better state of mind, but still dealing with those things that cause and aggravate my depression. I feel much more in control, but still struggle to stay on top of things. But I am getting there. I know there’s a long road ahead of me in dealing with this, and probably a lifetime of trying to stay on top of it. But I’m ready now to take that on. Already I’m planning major life changes to change priorities and put myself in a position to be a happier person. I hope that in doing so that I can be a better husband, brother, son and friend, that I can be a more significant contributor to the life and ministry of the church, and a more positive influence on the people I encounter.

I’m not sure if this has been an appropriate forum in which to share this, but it is therapeutic for me to know that it’s out there. I’m not sharing this in order to gain anyone’s sympathy. Not at all. This is just so I can stop pretending to be someone that I’m not.

At age 32, it seems I get a chance to start again.

THIS is why I continue to support Movember and encourage others to do so. I don’t want for anyone else to go what I went through. I want everyone to get timely help to deal with what is a very real and all too common health issue. If you know someone who’s doing Movember, sponsor them.

Or you can sponsor me. And remember that you’re not actually sponsoring me, you’re helping some people who quite desperately need your help. No doubt you’ve got other causes you support, and other issues that are close to your heart, but if you can find a few dollars to send towards this cause, or if you can promote those who are seeking sponsorship for Movember, do what you can.

TO SPONSOR ME, CLICK HERE GO TO MY “MOSPACE” AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS THERE. THANKS!