I invented dice. What do you do?

Call me maudlin but I've always liked films about grief. I suppose the sine qua non of the genre is Three Colours Blue but we saw another corker last night; The Son's Room. It's elegantly filmed, perfectly acted and genuinely profound. Great soundtrack too.

Thanks to the lovely Dani providing babysitting duties we also got to the cinema this week for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. A bit hectic but very good fun - does anyone else think it's a wiseass version of Chinatown?

We've spent the last few days sorting out details for the new jobs - all going swimmingly on that score. M starts on December 12th with a view to working one day per week, and I start at Sydney Uni in the New Year.

Sorry there aren't any more photos here; we're buying a new camera at the weekend. In the meantime you'll just have to trust me that Beth is the most gorgeous little girl in the world.

Me and sports science - a natural fit

Fair to say we’ve had an unequivocally good week. Which is nice.

First, I was offered the job at Sydney University. The post is “Faculty Liaison Librarian, Health Sciences” which basically means I’ll be responsible for the collection in one particular study area (most likely sports science). Professional attractions include liaison with academic staff, subject specialisation, research support and some budgetary responsibility. Other attractions are being in a proper academic environment, on an attractive campus and having access to other academic libraries – DVD collections ahoy!

2 days later, M was offered a job in a private practice just down the road from us. With a few caveats this is pretty well her dream job; certainly it’s a great chance to get into private practice which is rewarding both professionally and financially. She’s be taking it easy at first, just one day a week while Val baby-sits, but she did tremendously well to get it.

The weekend was hectic, taking in:

1) Beth started solid foods! That is solid in the sense of a single teaspoon of runny rice cereal, but a landmark moment nevertheless. She seemed sublimely unperturbed as usual, so hopefully it’ll be an easy transition. (Incidentally, she also seemed unconcerned when I failed to notice that she’d cut her foot open on Saturday morning. I got in a right old fluster while she looked at me wondering what all the fuss was about).
2) 2 DVDs. Kundun was pretty good, whilst Sunrise is a superlative and very important silent movie. I also watched Bergman’s The Silence on my film course – demanding viewing but sort-of worth it. Oh yeah, and a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is just fantastic.
3) Gardening. We now have a spiffing new front garden with a path and lots of mulch.
4) The Whitlams at the Metro on Saturday night. They’re a tremendous band that are unheard of outside Godzone, but are very popular locally. Boozy sing-alongs and grumbles of “too much new stuff” – I had a blast.
5) Brunch with friends then an afternoon drink with Aussie Rob, trying to get Beth from place to place without being caught in the pouring rain. She coped admirably, but I think she was glad when we got home.

By the way, you might want to change your bookmarks to http://tomgoodfellow.suprglu.com/ which includes feeds from this blog as well as photos on Flickr, tags on Del.icio.us and maybe more in the future…I like technology.

“I can sense your rank-oor. Rank-er? Rank-oor? I know how to spell it.”

The boy who was pregnant with his own twin

Much beer this week but not much else happening. Avoca with Nick and Lou was predictably boozy and extremely enjoyable. You know you’ve played too much Articulate when the same questions start reappearing.

I also enjoyed a couple of rollicking nights with the lasses over here – Boo, Laura and Gill. They arrived in Sydney on Sunday and hotfooted it into deepest suburbia to meet Beth. Beer and Uno ensued. Then I got a passout and met them at the Wynyard hotel. Beer ensued, but no Uno, and I was the only male in a group of 8 or so. Great to catch up as always.

In responsible news, I had a couple of job interviews and M had one. No news yet, so pessimism all round. Gah!

Beth is well, and appears remarkably normal when not attempting to chew off her own feet.

You look like me, but please don’t turn out like me.

Kavalier & Clay

Sadly no new photos this week because, um, we left the camera in a restaurant and it disappeared. Silly us. Oh well, what’s $500 when you’re as extravagantly rich as us?

Take my word for it, then, that Beth and Michelle are both more beautiful than ever. Beth is rolling from back to front and vice versa very easily now, which is causing a few problems in getting her off to sleep. We put her down but 5 minutes later she’s crying cos she’s on her front and her foot is sticking awkwardly through the slats on the side of the cot.

Sport and books were the themes this week. The book was the novel I cracked through, “The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon. I can’t praise it enough, it’s the first book to make me cry in ages and there are some of the best jokes I’ve read in a while too. Entertaining, beautifully written, memorable characters – you get the gist.

The sports included cricket at the SCG and football at Aussie Stadium – another win for the mighty Sydney FC by the way. On telly there was the Australia v Uruguay World Cup play-off, England v Pakistan cricket, the league, the union, and probably some ten-pin bowling if I looked hard enough.

What else? Some gardening, some drinking, a barbie with Nick and Lou…

People I see remind me of mooing like a cow in the grass, but that’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with being a cow.

Someday I'll Grow Up To Be A Beautiful Woman

We just had another Avoca weekend, this time with a footie match at Gosford being the most notable point. It’s the third Sydney FC match in a row I’ve gone along to, so I’m getting pretty familiar with the personalities involved. A handy 5-1 win for my lot, but the highlight was the view in the stadium pre-match. Probably the most dazzling sunset I’ve seen over the hills on the horizon and, rather than seating to the left, there’s just a row of palm trees with a huge lake behind it. Fantastic.

Beth is going well, and seemed to enjoy a bushwalk on Sunday. We can have her propped up safely in her backpack thing now, so lots more wandering around the place to come, I hope. She is turning herself over now, which is new, and looks like she really wants to get crawling but can’t quite manage it. M reckons it’s time to child-proof the house.

Watched a few movies; Phone Booth (lame), Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (strange acting but otherwise fascinating) and HMS Defiant (pretty good with better performances than the material deserves). Top tip this week, though, is a book – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I sped through it in 2 days.

Gearing up for the big January arts fest. Festival shows include theatrical sorcerer Robert LePage, the spell-binding Antony and the Johnsons, and the always entertaining Tiger Lillies. I can’t wait.

Librarian humour: