20 Pics of 2011 (via mobile phone)

I've had my HTC Mozart Windows phone for just over a year now. It serves my purposes well enough, but I must admit that my usage remains fairly basic. Calls, texts, email, Twitter, a bit of web browsing. I've not explored the world of "apps" much; mainly because I figure there are maybe 17 or 18 that have been made for the Windows Phone.

One feature I do use is the inbuilt camera. It's not particularly great quality, as the shutter button is external, not on the screen, so it's harder to fire off those super-quick shots people with iPhones seem in the habit of doing. However, it's often the only camera I have on me, as my other camera is a big Nikon DSLR.

I thought it might be fun to have a look back at the year that was 2011, through the prism of my mobile phone camera. So often our mobile phone pictures are disposable. I thought collating a few might help me look back on the year, and the shape it was. I took hundreds of pictures, but displaying them all would be foolishly boring, or boringly foolish. So I settled on the round number of 20 to show to you. Some I've used in posts or tweets throughout the year; some are blurry; some are just plain silly.

But, here they all are anyway. 20 Pics of 2011 - via my mobile phone.

HTBAM Shenanigans

This little clip is a bit of a love song to the cast of How To Be A Man.

I know I keep harping on about it, but there are only three shows left this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and I would dearly love to pack the Brisbane Arts Theatre full.

Life is lived to learn lessons, and staging Felafel, Tassie Babes and now HTBAM have made these past three years heart-breakingly challenging and heart-achingly satisfying all at once. My twin goals through all of it have been to help the theatre, and above all to be faithful to the spirit of John Birmingham's work, which I treasure dearly.

I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to put on these marvellously crazy productions. I don't hope that they are Art, or Important, or Meaningful. I simply hope they're damn entertaining for a couple of hours, with more than their fair share of nob gags and unexpected dance routines.

Mostly, I'm thankful for the truly wonderful people these shows have brought into my life. I am richer for knowing them, and I hope some of their talent has rubbed off on me.

If you are in Brisbane, come along to How To Be A Man.

I Like To Move It, Move It

Because 1990s dance tracks are awesome. And so is my play.

There are only six performances of How To Be A Man remaining, and I would love to see you there. Book now!

Three Weeks

It's been three weeks since I posted anything here. I can't remember a time when I left it so long; but the absence doesn't seem to have been noticed, or commented upon. It seems my regular appearance on social networks is enough for people. Over there, I am altogether too verbose. Over here, not enough.

It's been a busy three weeks with a few highs and a few lows. I've come here several times to try to write, each time I have sat, frustrated, unable to make a half-decent argument or summon up enough creativity to finish a piece. I don't know if this is writer's block, but certainly it is a writer's rut.

Hopefully all that's needed is a short post like this, just something to draw a new line in the sand. Then I can get back to the regularly scheduled self-deprecation and wildly speculative opinion pieces, and see if there still is some form of writer left in my brain.

But I'll leave with a quote from the new The Adventures of Tintin film, which I had the pleasure of seeing recently.

There's a scene where young Tintin, frustrated after chasing a lead that runs cold, dejectedly admits he's 'failed'. His companion, Captain Haddock (in my mind, the greatest brilliantly-flawed literary character since Falstaff), rounds on him, and in Andy Serkis' best Scottish brogue, tells him:

"Failed. There are plenty of others willing to call you a failure. A fool. A loser. Don't you ever say it of yourself. You send out the wrong signal, that is what people pick up. Don't you understand? You care about something, you fight for it. You hit a wall, you push through it."

Well said, Captain.