Me and Linc at the Oscars! kinda.

By red carpet treatment of course I’m talking about the most prestigious, most famous, most *insert awesome adjective* film awards of the year – the Oscars! And by Oscars of course I’m talking about being at the venue, not attending the ceremony, but I was lucky enough to be in LA to feel that certain buzz that makes even waiting for a burger at Mickey D’s (that’s cool people talk for McDonald’s) exciting.

I’m very happy to say that some aspects of LA are exactly like I imagined. My first look at LA out the airplane window was this:

Yup. there are even palm trees on the runway.

There’s a frikkin PALM TREE to welcome you off the plane! Awesome! To reaffirm my image of LA there continued to be palm trees everywhere to and including in the street where I was staying. The sun really does shine everyday and I really do ‘wish they all could be Californian girls’!

After finding my footing and getting my bearings I’ve found that stuff actually happens here in a big way and it IS the place to be. Everything here is saturated in film and entertainment – you can’t’ get away. Forget about billboards advertising food, deodorant and cars. EVERY billboard here is a movie poster or a series or a show of some sort. The only billboard I’ve seen that has advertised otherwise was of The Beatles who are now available on iTunes (I love the Beatles) and well… actually it’s still all part of entertainment.

I have been seeing lots of movies here – the latest of which was Suckerpunch. I didn’t entirely get how the story worked, but it was full of hot girls in school uniforms kicking ass… actually maybe that was how the story worked. The look and style was visually incredible and the action sequences were mind-blowing!!  I subsequently found myself drawing (during acting class – oops) and thought I’d share some Suckerpunch fan art!

Babydoll from suckerpunch!

There’s been too much happening recently but if you watch the trailer below or even better head down to an (Australian or New Zealand only at the moment) cinema and watch Tomorrow When The War Began it will explain everything!

Production of Tomorrow When The War Began started in September 2009 and the film was released on September 2nd 2010 in Australia and New Zealand.  Having done a casting via video from Hong Kong ( in this place) I was fortunate enough to be cast as Lee in this (in my opinion) fabulous adaption of the book of the same name by John Marsden. The entire experience was literally a DREAM COME TRUE! Special thanks to Antony Szeto and Collette Khoo (RIP wherever you are – you’re an amazing woman) to whom I owe this role to for helping me with my audition tape and Stuart Beattie for being the absolute nicest director, mentor and friend; as well as making all this possible and giving me a chance!!!!!

There is too much to say about everything that has happened and knowing me I will simply keep putting it off, like I put off cleaning my room, until this blog lags behind, becomes irrelevant, implodes on itself like a supernova and devours the entire universe – which my room will also soon do – so here are some pictures to illustrate what has been going on instead!!!

Screen capture from the film

TWTWB Sydney Premiere - Red Carpet interview

TWTWB Sydney Premiere

TWTWB Sydney Premiere Afterparty - With Lincoln Lewis, Andy Ryan, Stuart Beattie and Deniz Akdeniz

TWTWB Sydney Premiere - With Andy Ryan, John Marsden and Lincoln Lewis

TWTWB Borders Book Signing

TWTWB Melbourne Premiere - With Caitlin Stasey

TWTWB Melbourne Premiere - With Deniz Akdeniz and Lincoln Lewis

TWTWB Melbourne Premiere - With Rachel Hurd-Wood

Oh yeah did I mention… GO SEE THE FILM!

So firstly I’ve kind of left this blog to wither away and die for the last.. oh… YEAR?!

It is mainly due to (besides me spending a ridiculous amount of time on the newly – or lately – acquired Xbox) an exciting project that I was working on! It was top secret and I wasn’t able to reveal anything about it till… well I still don’t know if I’m allowed to! There should be some exciting things to come though!

Preview of what I've been up to!!!

Anyway I’m just going to quickly check in and share the concept of Future Me – which I’m sure has been around for centuries even though I just found out about it and think it’s an absolutely fantastic idea!

You have your normal email to send things normally to everyone  but this site allows a special message that can be future dated like a time capsule and sent to a special person – YOURSELF!!! Now I felt compelled to write a deep piece from the heart to question (and predict) what I’m doing in exactly 2 years and see if they are in line with my dreams and aspirations of present i.e. job, house, CARS…GIRLS

However, you can also read messages that other people had sent themselves through the site and there were many quiet meaningful ones like:

“By the time you read this the scab on your knuckle will have healed over. I’m quite envious of you because it’s really annoying.”

“leave cris please, he is evil.”

“I hope, your alive, not a hobo”

“How’s that Swedish Penis Enlarger been working for us… not that there’s anything wrong with sizes that hit negative integers!”

I think my future me will appreciate my words and go into a reflective state – I hope he won’t think present me is (was) an absolute tool like those people’s future them probably will!

Too bad there isn’t a working website called pastme.org cos i just heard the national lottery results on tv…

SO……how do i sort my songs and mp3 files on my mp3 player???!!!!!!!!!!

DAMN FRUSTRATING! cos that means my newest songs (i.e. the ones I want to listen to the right now!) are LAST and i have to scroll to the bottom to find them! Apparently USB based mp3 players all have this problem?

ENTER: DRIVESORT!!!!!!!

http://www.anerty.net/software/file/DriveSort.php

My saviour!!! I found this nifty program that fixes all that! There are a few other useful options but FINALLY I can sort my songs on my mp3 player in alphabetical order!!

Maybe I should have just got an Ipod…

Prince - on his Purple Rain tour 1984

Prince is one of the best and underrated guitarists out there!!!  He’s an absolute musical genius and the absolute opposite to most modern pop singers/groups (since he’s the exact opposite of commercial!) After being sick of seeing his name everywhere and having it changed it to a symbol, he is currently so strict about his material that an internet search will bring up virtually nothing!

So I’m listening to Purple Rain – Prince’s 1984 chart topping song from his album of the same name which stole 3 Grammy awards.

Unpronounceable symbol which Prince changed his name to from 1993 - 2000

But what does Purple Rain mean? What IS purple rain?

Firstly if anyone hasn’t heard it GO GET YOURSELF A COPY and listen to it on repeat at least 5 times!

After looking up the lyrics I think the Purple Rain he speaks of has GOT to be a good thing, since amongst the good things he wishes for her he wants to ‘see u laughing in the purple rain’. It has been suggested that rain could actually represent his tears, as well as many different connotations of the colour purple.

I think the most clever thing at work here is that everyone can relate to what is being spoken about in the song allowing ‘purple rain’ to become a pliable metaphoric term with a different meaning for everyone!

One final very valid and clever meaning, since purple is often associated with royalty, is that the girl (or whoever he’s singing to) should be happy under Prince’s ‘purple REIGN’…

Wow. too intense. I’m going to go listen to it again.

Stop being such a titeass with your copyright Prince! In the mean time he remains, in my mind ,one of the most talented, original and also underrated musicians alive!

“Where can i watch T.I. – Remember Me?!”

T.I. in his video for "Remember Me"

To which it replied with a whole list of links that DON”T WORK!!! Where the hell can I watch this??! I frikkin finally find the ‘world premiere’ on MTV.com and watch that dudes little summary of it to get the message ‘Sorry, we’re unable to offer this video to user in your region’…

dot dot dot

China seriously sucks.

I want to frikkin know what message he’s sending out to the world through this cos he filmed it JUST before he started serving his one year and one day sentence for weapons charges (which… for those of you who know MY story – wow i would never know how that feels hahahaha).

Suggest me some good music that Mao’s little red book finds acceptable!

PizzaHut in Melbourne was that place around the corner that had ‘all you can eat’ pizza and ‘do it yourself’ icecream that made me go YAY as a kid, and usually ends in some kind of concoction containing a bit of everything that would end up spilt in the bathroom somewhere to look like vomit. In China, however, it’s somehow really classy and expensive?! I think Dougie (the pizza boy who rose to fame, went to jail, came out of jail, and is now a movie star) did a good job cos i always remembered 131166 for pizza delivery and today was the first time I actually WENT to Pizza Hut for a take away pizza!!

Since it’s such a special occasion I’m paying attention to everything, and I guess stuff in Australia costs more than in Hong Kong cos they only gave one of those ‘plastic table thingy’s’ per box in Australia, but i noticed here I got FOUR! Which got me thinking what do people DO with these things becuase they’re actually pretty cool!

MMMM....non asian food.

Well firstly I always remembered them to look like plastic outdoor tables and that confused me cos these don’t at all…they look more like the robot things from War of the Worlds. I guess China found a way to save some plastic by not including the table top…meh.

As you know I have no friends here and no life, so that leaves me with plenty of time to do random things like research what people do with these and I’ve found that there are actually lots of people around the world also trying to solve this mystery of life!

This noob couldn’t even figure out what they’re included in the pizza box for; out of all the correct answers he chose ‘They’re to hold the pizza together.’ as the best answer…but other ideas were:

What can you do with them?

• “Can you balance one on top of another? If so then you’ve got the makings of a game – who can build the highest tower.”

• “My friends and I plan on using them for making wargaming terrain…We intend to make a communications tower, use them as a base for statues, and make a towering scaffold for an outpost. If anyone is interested we will start posting pics” (ok…please don’t.)

• “They make great cat toys. We have a few that have become the favorite of one of my cats. Strange, but true.”

But the cleverest idea?

Using them as HUMIDITY TRAYS

and the

Most common idea?

Toy furniture for Barbie and Ken (or Barbie and Action Man when Ken is away on business).

Conclusion:

So basically I’ve concluded that even though there seems to be so much potential, there’s really not much you can do with them unless you still have Barbies lying around and you happen to be 12.

I can breath a sigh of relief and sleep well tonight knowing the official name for those things is a ‘box support’ and that next time any of us open a pizza box we can throw away those ‘box supports’ without feeling guilty.

Anyway I’m beginning to think that all guys working security in China/ Hong Kong also just FAIL and only do it because girls love a man in uniform. As I mentioned in my previous post the security obviously failed at Citibank and the police just really weren’t even concerned that there was a FRIKKIN RIOT going on in a BANK, but that’s fine because it’s just a random bank…nothing to do with me. More concerning to me is that I’ve been noticing the security in MY BUILDING having the same ‘don’t really give a damn’ attitude as I’ve gone past the front desk to see this a few times lately:

Security FAIL.

WHAT?! WAKE UP DUDE!!! I came out of the lift, went around the corner, then decided to come back, pulled my camera out and snapped away at him all while he was making Z’s. I should do something to him with whipped cream like these guys did! hahahah!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The whole front of the bank is fully COVERED with random signs saying stuff like ‘Citibank is a crook’, ‘Citi bank DEVIL BANK’ and there’s a whole crowd of people protesting with signs on their back and waving things around and chanting different protest chants inside the bank!! (Which is littered with paper and basically looks like a bomb went off in there)

Someone translate that for me i wanna know what is sez!

Meanwhile there were 3 cops having a nice chat leaning on some railing nearby just chilling…possible waiting for doughnuts and basically not giving a damn hahah

I can’t read Chinese so somebody tell me wha that says! I looked on the net and all i could find was something about some people losing some money to Citibank through some financial product…get over it people it’s a BANK – their JOB is to take your money!

5months of talk later i’ve got my lazy ass in motion and viola! It’s not talk anymore! CHRISTOPHER PANGS BLOG IS OFFICIAL!!

How often it’s gonna get updated is another thing, but hey i’m all organised and motivated and stuff now so you know it’ll happen more than once.