I was slightly annoyed when Rescue Dawn wasn’t playing locally, but I kind of understood.

But now The Darjeeling Limited, the new Wes Anderson film, isn’t anywhere near me, either! I know Anderson’s films are a bit offbeat, but it stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman — it’s not like it’s not marketable.

But hey, I always have the option of watching the new Alien vs. Predator movie…

On Wednesday I got the Blade Runner Ultimate Collectors Edition 5-disc DVD set. It’s… superb.

The only set that I own that comes close to it is the Criterion Collection Brazil 3-disc set. Personally, I find the Brazil set more interesting (because it’s an in-depth look at studio interference), but the Blade Runner set is absolutely comprehensive in terms of editorial choices in filmmaking.

Both films are landmark 1980s science fiction pieces by real auteurs. Brazil I just find personally more relevant.

Oh man…

I decided to go down to the local street party tonight. It seemed like a good idea at the time — I’d get to catch up with my neighbours, have a few laughs, maybe have a drink or two as well.

But then the bugs came.

Flying ants — hundreds, if not thousands of them — in my hair, in my shirt, in my mouth, in my underwear… When I got home, I immediately stripped-off, and while some were still crawling on me, others were mere body parts: a wing here, a leg there, all lying on me like the scatterings of a flying ant battlefield.

I cannot overemphasise just how thick the air was with bugs. They were, quite literally, everywhere, and they seemed to work their way into every place on your body that you didn’t want them to be.

In terms of horrible bug-related experiences in my life, this has to rank with the best of them.

(In unrelated news, this morning I went to have my initial interview at the disability employment service that I’d previously been referred to by the last agency. It all went fairly well, but I should know more in the new year. Of note was that the interview took place in a large, empty, cavernous room whose acoustics seemed designed to maximise the amount of echoey reverberation so that audibility was at a bare minimum.)

I had lunch yesterday at Rooty Hill RSL with a good friend from high school. Those who know me fairly well know that I grew up in Rooty Hill, spending my first 17 years there. (I now live in the Blue Mountains, which I’ve never really gotten used to.) It was good to be back home — some things have changed, but I know the area so well that I’m still very comfortable there. Yes, I made a spiritual pilgrimage to the “Vegas of the West”.

Meanwhile, there are only five weeks until I see The Police live at the Telstra Stadium at Homebush. I’ve been a big fan of The Police for many, many years, and seeing the trio perform again (live, in person no less) is the last thing I expected to ever experience. This should be an amazing night.

The other day I also bought tickets to see The Chaser’s Age of Terror Variety Hour live at Parramatta in April. I’m expecting much bad taste and topical humour, so it should be great!

Finally, I learnt today that my favourite “current” band, Porcupine Tree, will hopefully be touring Australia in Autumn some time. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for that.

2008 will be a very exciting year, it seems…

PLEASE NOTE: see this page for a zipfile containing my modified theme.

I was quite disheartened when I installed the ChaoticSoul Wordpress theme here on The WhimWham only to find out that the publicly available version of the theme was quite a bit more primitive than the version being used on Wordpress.com… so I did what any self-respecting geek does: rolled up my sleeves and got my hands dirty with some theme customisation!

Here’s what I did:

• modified the main page display so that all posts display fully rather than using excerpts — simply go into index.php and replace the_excerpt() with the_content()
• made the sidebar widget-capable, including a customised search box widget that restores the original theme’s search box appearance — very simple if you read this tutorial and take notice of how ChaoticSoul’s native sidebar is coded
• changed the hardcoded “chaoticsoul” text in the header so that it instead displays the blog’s name as given in the admin options — just change chaotic<span>soul</span> to <?php echo get_option(’blogname’); ?> in header.php. (This one is so obvious that I don’t see why it wasn’t included in the first place.)
• added a byline under posts on their individual pages — go into single.php and add ~ by <?php the_author(); ?> on <?php the_date(); ?>. within a <p> tag with a style that’s appropriate
• modified the header image so that it now uses the “Custom Image Header” feature available in the admin interface — read this tutorial and note that to display the image you can call header_image() in the header.php file
• added my name to the footer text

A lot of this could be achieved by hardcoding various bits and pieces (such as a custom header image), but where’s the fun in that?

(For anyone interested: the custom image header mod is more involved than the others just because of the way the theme was initially written with two images instead of one. The mod basically involves using an overlay image over the header image uploaded through the admin panel, thereby dividing it in two.)

I’ll probably tweak things further as I go, but as it stands I’ve got a pretty decent facsimile of the theme as presented on Wordpress.com.

Addendum: I just had to fix the unordered list style as well for the first post on the main page. They really need to publicly release the Wordpress.com revision of this theme because version 1.0 is far too buggy as is.

Last Thursday I went to an employment agency that specialises in disability (through the government’s Disability Employment Network), all in the hopes of getting some paid employment happening while I complete my studies. I was told that, should this agency decide not to take my case, they will then refer me to another (more suitable) agency.

Today they offered to refer me elsewhere.

Some people would be disheartened by this turn of events, but I’m far too positive a person to let this affect me. I feel that my life is very much moving forward at the moment, and this is merely further progression in the right direction.

And if it comes down to it, I’ll make my own opportunities. You don’t achieve goals in life by allowing yourself to be a victim of fate.

Well, folks, this is it.

In 2002, after getting two thirds of the way through a degree in Computer Science with a specialisation in Mathematics, I transferred to an Arts degree, hoping to major in Philosophy. Then I had a brain haemorrhage and it all went to hell…

Yesterday I sent in an application form to the university to apply for a transfer back to Computer Science, this time majoring in Web and Networks. The prodigal son is returning.

Why did I initially switch to Arts? I’ll be frank: I was young and stupid and taken with the romance of a purely intellectual pursuit. But the truth is that romance is a thing for teenagers and poets, not for those who want to succeed in life.

Life is what you make of it. I’m ready to create my own success.

My name is Dion C. Detterer, and this is my blog.

For the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve been blogging mostly about pop culture, with the occasional forays into bad poetry and politics. My life, however, is now changing dramatically, and so I want to make a symbolic break with the past by creating a new personal blog.

My old blog’s archives can instead be found here. (This post will always contain a current link to these archives, no matter where they may end up.) While I’m at it, I’m also declaring Bleat! (my experiment in group-blogging) officially defunct.

My movie reviews blog, Dion at the Flicks, is still very much active, however.

But let’s not dwell on the past — the future awaits!