It has now reached the stage where I have received a fake email from a friend of mine pretending to be Anthony Lane wanting to meet me for coffee.

People know about my weakness for the film pages of The New Yorker and they are starting to exploit me for it.

Very funny, people. You tease me now, but read this. If I'm going to fall in love with writing, I may as well fall in love with someone who uses the word "scumbled" as though it's the sort of thing people say at the breakfast table.

Meanwhile, I went to the physiotherapist today to check up on my (previously broken) wrist. She said it would be fine for work. No worries, she said. Writing and typing and working? Fine. Gym? Brilliant. Not a worry. Manual labour? Ace.

Frisbee? At least a month. Six weeks, maybe more. No frisbee. Ever. Scouts Honor.

Stupid dumb broken wrist. How is that fair?

I have long been of the opinion that nerd is the new black.

Watching somebody doing whatever it is they are good at is a very powerful thing. Whether they are drawing, swimming, fixing a car radio, or working through a maths problem... the nerdy obsession is somehow transformed into poetry.

The further the subject of the nerdy obsession is from my own experience, the more impressed I find I am. For instance, watching someone do a maths problem or riding a skateboard or doing yo-yo tricks or remembering poetry or doing any number of the vast oceans-worth of things I can't manage, is much more impressive to me than watching someone else throwing a frisbee or being, you know, good at grammar and spelling and that.

Anyway, for various reasons, I went to a gaming convention on the weekend. Computer gaming. A nerd convention. A geek festival. A scene out of The Simpsons featuring a thousand comic book guys.

I have enough material to write a novel.

I think from now on I am going to go to conventions. At least while my arm is broken, I can claim it on tax as research. Any recommendations, let me know. There is a sci fi convention and a wetlands convention, which I am hoping are sharing the same venue, but my search continues... The more obscure the better.

What does a writer need? According to Virginia Woolf, it's a room of your own. I would add that probably the use of one's writing arm should also be condideration.

On Saturday night, Stewart Thorn, who shot our short film, won a cinematography award from the Australian Cinematographers Society for his work on another short film, Hollow Bones (directed by Nicholas Verso and produced by Rita Walsh). See it all in lights here. To say that I was a little bit pleased and proud of this would be an understatement. But in retrospect I could have expressed my pride a little more eloquently than by falling over and breaking my wrist.

Yes, I fell over on a slippery floor and snapped my wrist. My writing wrist. I am learning to type one-handed, and the frisbee won't be coming out for at least six weeks, but possibly the worst thing is that I have to bathe wearing a plastic bag. Also, it's kind of cruel that the film that I was celebrating was called Hollow Bones. Do you think someone is telling me something?

Congratulations to Stew and Nick and Rits. Very, very proud. Obviously.

I have a sore frisbee arm.

Hurrah!

Best feeling in the world is the particular kind of exhausted you feel after chucking a frisbee at the beach for an hour and only stopping because it's dark and you left your glow-in-the-dark frisbee at home.

Now, of course, I am back to reality.

On a serious note... this weekend, Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who criticised her government and reported bravely on matters such as the war in Chechnya and the Beslan school disaster (on the way to which she was poisoned) was gunned down in the lift outside her apartment. She spoke at the Sydney Writers' Festival earlier this year (I didn't see her speak). Here are some of the other journalists who have been murdered in Russia in recent years, and these two journalists, from one of my favourite international radio stations, were killed in their tent this weekend as well. They had been researching for a documentary. All of this makes 2006 the most deadly year for journalists on record, apparently. Previously, 2005 was the most deadly year on record, and before that, it was 2004.

So when I talk about how crap Australian journalism is, it's not because I don't respect journalists. It's because I do. People are risking their lives because they recognise that media is a very powerful tool, and they are being murdered because of it. And today's Melbourne Age online stories? Brad and Angelina have a bodyguard who punched someone, Princess Mary is coming to visit, the MCG is ready for a terrorist attack on the basis of a rumour in a British newspaper, and there's a story called Sex Behind the Engagement Ring, which is the most viewed article of the day, and which is actually just lifted from the Telegraph.

I would like to think that Australia, being a "free" country, has greater opportunity for investigative journalism. Perhaps not.

Dave Eggers (culturally aware frisbee playing writer = dream boy) has written a book about Sudan, which you can read about here. Eggers wrote one of my favourite books and is responsible for many impressive things since then, such as the above website, this website, and this very cool dvd magazine.

Anyway, Sudan.

He doesn't do anything by halves. Read the interview.

Meanwhile, I'm getting away again this weekend. I saw Jet of Blood last night, which is Artaud, who I remember studying and whose biography goes some way towards explaining his artistic approach, which is refreshingly insane and experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment.

Also, thanks to the always sensible Dave Barry website, here is today's What I Would Be Talking About If I Still Worked In Commercial Radio link.

Because you should always finish the week on a light story that really only yahoo would print on the internet, right?

May I take this opportunity to welcome...

FRISBEE SEASON!

You little bloody ripper.

Anyone looking for me, I'll be somewhere green.