Random thoughts on a warm Sunday morning

I was planning to see the 10.15am session of Clint Eastwood's Invictus at the Kino today, but being unable to tear myself away from the forums at Gallifrey Base, I left the house too late to make it to the cinema in time. Instead I went on a gentle walk through East Melbourne and back home to Fitzroy, where I have plenty of work to be doing, so I don't feel too bad about missing the film. Hopefully I'll catch a session later today at the Nova instead. We'll see.

It's not a film I'm desperate to see, mind you - if it was on my 'must see' list I would have caught it several weeks ago, when it was first released - but nonetheless I'm interested in checking it out, having been moved to tears by the trailer. Yep, that's how much of a softie I am - a cleverly edited trailer can have me wiping away tears.

Then again, I've always cried easily. Beautiful things, sad things, dramatic climaxes, they all get the waterworks going. Not that I'm complaining. I'd much rather be the sort of man who cries often than the sort who doesn't.

Unemotional men are such a turn off.

In other news, I have spectacularly failed at not drinking for the entire month of February. That said, I did go three days without a drink at the start of the month, which is the longest I've been without a drink in several years. Now all I have to do is extend that non-drinking period, or do it every week, add some more exercise and a healthier diet into the mix, and voila, I'll be right as rain.

Yesterday afternoon saw a group of us - old friends I've known for almost 20 years - get together for a few hours in the beer garden of the Standard Hotel. As happens, when everyone present is hitting middle age, at one point the conversation turned to labour pains, the extraction of wisdom teeth, the gaining of scars (both physical and emotional) and sundry other injuries and illnesses; we were like war veterans showing off our wounds, demonstrative proof that we were still alive despite everything life had thrown at us.

Old friends remind us how good it is to be alive.