sunsets

Lately I’ve been getting Sunsets by Powderfinger stuck in my head. I don’t think I’ve heard it anywhere anytime recently, so I’m not sure how it randomly got in my head, but there it is.

This song was released back in 2003, and I do remember liking the song back then, but I think part of that was the music video, which was an animation rather than actual people. It was really cool, and I liked watching cartoons a lot back then (still do, really). Many years later, as it turns out, I still really like the song itself.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the MV on Youtube, but here is the original audio:

I found the MV on Vimeo, but the audio quality doesn’t seem as good (?) The little description thing says the video is based on a Chinese myth about a warrior named Hou Yi, and ten suns.

Anyway, perhaps it’s just a fitting song for the end of the year, and that’s why it has resurfaced from the depths of my memory. Or maybe I heard it somewhere recently but didn’t consciously register it at the time. Either way, I’m glad this song has revisited me, and I’m happy to be sharing some Australian music on my blog.

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9 to 5 hero

On my way in to work this morning, I randomly thought of this article-type thing that I’d read a while back, which advised something along the lines of looking at the stories you like and finding the common theme in them in order to determine something about your own values or goals or something… Yeah, I don’t really remember what it said, but surely you get my drift…

So I thought about the stories I grew up with – the books, TV shows, movies, etc. Well, mostly I thought of shows like ‘Pokemon’ and ‘Dragonball Z’.

Actually, I should back-track a little bit here. Prior to thinking about this, I was thinking about what I like about work, and I figured out that, for me, it’s not about having power or authority. For me (at least to some extent), it’s about having mastery over what I do. Put simply, it’s about being the best.

So that made me think of ‘Pokemon’ because we all know the ultimate goal of that show’s protagonist was to become the best Pokemon trainer ever. And then I thought of DBZ because I watched that in the same years that I watched ‘Pokemon’. But I think the thing with DBZ is that it’s not just about simply being the best ever – it’s about being the best you can be and about being better than your opponent, and not necessarily in terms of brute strength.

Thinking of the books I grew up reading – particularly books like those in the ‘Redwall’ series – I realise that last point was also pretty recurrent in my books. There’s an overarching emphasis on doing the right thing – for yourself, for others and for the greater good. Perhaps this is what I value about my work.

Well, to be fair, I’m sure that not all of the books I read and shows I watched had these sorts of themes running through them. I’m pretty sure that most of the time I only cared that they were entertaining and interesting. If I learnt something or developed some quality in me on the way, then that was a bonus.

return of the lounge lizard

Coming home from uni today, I had this inexplicable desire to just lie in front of the TV and watch afternoon cartoons… And that’s exactly what I did!

Well, it was late afternoon / evening when I got back home, but there was still plenty of time before dinner and, more importantly, there were still cartoons on TV. I felt like I was back in school. Those were the good days – back when life was simple… It was a nice way to spend the afternoon/evening. Definitely a much-needed break.

I don’t think I’ll ever out-grow watching cartoons. And not just the cartoons for general/mature audiences (The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, etc), but the ones that are actually intended for kids/adolescents too. Today I (half-)watched ‘Sally Bollywood’, ‘Kid vs Kat’ and ‘The Avengers’. (Only half-watched because I was too tired/distracted to pay full attention, and then ‘The Avengers’ was a repeat that I’d already seen before.)

Not. Ashamed. At. All.

I’ve also taken a liking to ‘Deltora Quest’ (also on ABC3 – thank-you ABC for this cartoon-dominated channel). It makes me want to read the books (for some reason, I never read them as a kid, even though they seem like the sort of books I would’ve liked), especially considering that I only have patches of the story because my cartoon-viewing is not very regular/fixed.

Yes, I have a life, thank-you very much.