The One I Love

I just watched The One I Love, starring Mark Duplass, and I loved it. It was playful and original and falls into the category of movies I recently talked about when discussing Groundhog Day - movies where the characters must react to strange, unexplainable phenomena. I think the makers of the movie did a good job of piquing the audience's interest within the first few minutes and then steadily increasing suspense right up until the end. The ending was less of a surprise than other parts of the plot, but amusing all the same. Also, in this day and age of 3 hour epic movies, I appreciate that the independent The One I Love is a respectable 91 minutes (quality is not always equal to quantity, and vice versa). I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Elite Freelance Food Critic

Flashback to 10 years ago when I was discussing careers with a few friends. We joked that we could just always introduce ourselves the title of "Freelance Food Critic" even if we were unemployed. It doesn't mean anybody cares what you say about the food you eat, but you have an opinion. 

Flash forward to about a year ago. Before we moved abroad I wrote occasional Yelp reviews for restaurants we went to. When we moved to Sydney, I noticed that less people use it here; I think more people use Urban Spoon and Trip Advisor. I decided it was my duty to review most of the places where I eat on Yelp, for those who already use Yelp and travel or move here and also get frustrated trying to find a good, reasonably priced meal without having to download another app. I half did this for those people, and half just for myself to remind myself of places I would like to bring future visitors. So, maybe once a week or every other week we'd try a new place and I'd write a review. A few people read my reviews and left little comments saying they liked them or found them helpful. 

Flash forward to last week when I was sent an invitation to join the Yelp Elite. I did not know this was a thing. The Yelp Elite: Sydney (most of the major cities in the world have their own groups) is a real group that gets invited to exclusive tastings and food events. There are articles that have tips on how to try to become Yelp Elite, but they insist there is no magic formula. Apparently some people write hundreds of reviews and never get picked. I guess if the right person sees your reviews and likes them, and you're moderately active on the site, you have an in. 

Flash forward to today: I am officially an elite member with a little stamp on my profile. Supposedly I have some sunglasses and a water bottle coming to me in the mail. I suppose it's the least they can since I provide them free quality content for their website. I definitely want to check out some of these secret events, if they ever have one on a day I don't already have plans. 

I may not be successful at all of my endeavors, but I think I can actually say that I have successfully and unironically earned the title of Freelance Food Critic.

Casual Queen Update

I actually got two more casual jobs today and had to turn down one; it's a nice position to be in for a change. For those of you keeping track at home, I now have three jobs.

The one I turned down was kind of a backup to the other stuff I'm doing, and probably wasn't going to lead into something bigger in the future. It would have been okay, but in the long run I think it would have interfered with me getting other substitute teaching gigs because of the way they do their scheduling.

The new organization I'll be working for facilitates regular workshops for teens that combine soccer/sports skills with important life skills (aka "21st century skills" - for example, conflict resolution). The kids are primarily from immigrant populations and the program helps them get acclimated to their new culture. In case you don't know me that well, this is right up my alley. It's also a small organization, so there may be other opportunities that come out of facilitating.

So that's the update. It's interesting because I am halfway through doing the exercises in What Color is Your Parachute?, and so far they have worked. This book was recommended to me years and years ago, and I read parts of it, but never went through it cover to cover. Now that I am going through it I have a much better idea of what to look for and what to stay away from, in terms of my personal preferences. This most recent organization fits a lot of the criteria I came up with and I didn't even know it existed until a frisbee acquaintance told me about it. Now, if only there was one full-time job that fit my criteria, instead of 3 part-time ones.

Lunar New Year

Happy Year of the Sheep!

Terra cotta warrior lanterns at the harbour bridge...

Other lanterns at Darling Harbour

32 Flavors and Then Some

My birthday festivities began with Michael creating my own "escape the room" experience in order to attain my birthday gift. It involved solving a succession of puzzles that Michael had made himself, more professionally made than the ones in most of our previous room escape experiences. He said he learned from the experience that we could make our own small business and probably do a better job than the others - maybe one day.

I went on to celebrate being one year older by going out and acting 10 years younger. We started with some friends at the Shady Pines Saloon (I love the art on their minimal website) in Darlinghurst. They have dead animals on the wall and free peanuts - what could be more American (it is actually supposed to be an American themed bar)? 

We had not made any further plans for the night, not thinking I'd want to stay out all that late. However, from the Wild West to a Polynesian tiki bar. Next stop was The Cliff Dive. Unlike the previous establishment that played ambiance-appropriate music, The Cliff Dive DJ was playing some 90's hip hop which was pretty nostalgic even if it was out of place. 

Then we got the message that a friend was inviting the group to his house and had snacks waiting for us. This is always good news. Away we went to Surry Hills. 

From there we walked to Ding Dong Dang and sang karaoke until all our voices hurt and we closed the place down. I had invited an eclectic group of friends, and it was a pleasure to have them all get along and goof around together. It was the next best thing to getting to celebrate my birthday with family and friends back home. 

Punxutawney Phil

I re-watched Groundhog Day today (a few weeks too late) , which I have seen at least 10 times. This movie stands the test of time and is genius for so many reasons. There is a reason it has a 96% on the tomatometer, even though the tomatometer came into existence many years after the movie was made and I'm not sure who's writing reviews for a movie that is over 20 years old. 

Regardless, I love movies in general that have an unexplained phenomenon that the characters must react to, assuming those movies have good dialogue and production value. At this point in time there have been lots of time travel and strange phenomenon movies made; at the time Groundhog Day was made, it was based on a very unique concept. It touches on so many funny ideas, as well as dark and serious ones presented in a humorous way. 

Bill Murray was a genius then, and he's still a genius now. Harold Ramis was also a genius. 

Don't Waste My Time

I went to get my RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol) training this week and it was the biggest waste of time. They showed us a bunch of news clips about how the drinking culture in Australia needs to change and how people need to take more responsibility for their actions when they drink. Then they proceeded to tell us that it is our fault if someone gets intoxicated from a drink we serve them. Gee, I wonder why there's a problem.