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?

This morning, the checkout lady in Piedemontes looked at me and burst into tears.

Quite quickly, she went from speaking Italian to the woman in the queue in front of me, to looking at me and getting all choked up and apologising into a tissue.

Now I'm worried about her and I want to take her one of the seven dollar bunches of Piedemontes roses. What happened? Did I remind her of someone? She was sixty or something and her manager was a seventeen-year-old in a tie. Did he look a little bit smug? I couldn't quite tell.

This one goes out to the checkout lady...

Oh Piedes checkout lady
You spoke in different tongues
You were clever with the register
And very good with sums

You smiled at your customers
You didn't think you'd cry
And when you did I got a shock
And now I wonder why.

What was it that made you sad?
Somebody at work?
Was it some obnoxious little prick,
Some Piedemontes jerk?

You turned the little lightbox off
That says "Register Three"
You put the closed sign on the bench
And all because of me

I'm sorry that I made you cry
I hope you're feeling better
If you'd like some jerk to cop it
I can write a nasty letter

I think perhaps it isn't that
I think it's something bad
So I hope you feel less lonely
And I hope you feel less sad

And I hope you have a donut
(You can get them free upstairs)
And in the chocolate lolly aisle
You stock some nice eclairs

There's nothing good on telly
But have a bath, it's total heaven
Meanwhile I promise next time
I'll stick to register seven.

I went to a Fringe Festival show last night, and I was late. This is not a surprising or newsworthy event by any means, but it did afford me the opportunity to catch up with the doorbitch while I waited for the "late entry" moment when they open the door and allow you to slink guiltily into your front row seats (man I hate it when pricks like me walk in late to shows).

Anyway, the doorbitch at this show was a chap who goes by the handle of Noack. Now, Noack is the kind of bloke who rigs his shitbox car up with an elaborate alarm system, so that when he approaches the car in the street and points a remote control at it, passers-by are befuddled to see a 1984 model Sigma going "bloopbloop". Several years after first meeting Noack, I discovered that he is a highly skilled (not to mention bestockinged) performer of traditional Estonian Dance. This is completely irrelevant but it is the kind of detail I wish I could think of for characters in the scripts I write.

But I digress! Noack and I had a conversation which got me thinking. Noack has clearly put some thought into this, and I doff my hat to him while completely stealing his premise and writing it here:

WANT TO MAKE A BILLION DOLLARS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY?

Can't be done, you say?

Not in Australia, you say?

No such thing as a film industry, you say?

Then think outside the box...

START YOUR OWN FILM FESTIVAL!

Seriously. Start your own film festival. Now. What are the overheads? Maybe you have to get a permit for something. Maybe you have to get some insurance. Maybe you have to do a teensy bit of publicity. But get this, you charge! You charge, say, thirty bucks to EACH SHORT FILM ENTERED. Imagine that! That's, like, three dollars per minute that most of these films will run for. Most festivals have twenty thousand submissions. The smaller ones only get hundreds.

Hack in to the desperate market of filmmakers who can't find a way into the film industry, and watch them come to you. You can even write it into the application form that you own various rights in relation to the films these people submit to you.

Then, and here's the really good bit, hold the "festival" somewhere big and cheap but with a huge screen and CHARGE FOR ENTRY. Better still, the prizes for best film and so on can be donations from companies who want their stuff advertised to young people . Also, get a website and try to get Americans to enter or something. That way you can call yourself an International Festival, which means people will be doing interviews with you in the EG all about how you started the idea in a garage one time because you "just knew there was this gap out there and all these voices weren't being heard". Preferably there will be a shot of you on a lounge chair that has been dragged into an urban street, which will afford you an excellent opportunity to be photographed in sunglasses. And possibly also to carrying a martini which you can rest on a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being or Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

If it seems that I have a chip on my shoulder in relation to any of the above, well that is because I do. I wish I had thought of it earlier, frankly.

My festival is going to be called Alternation Film Festival (because it's alternative and nation all merged into one). Bugger, though, it already exists in Taipei.

Of course it does.

I went and saw the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing the other night with a young lad called Ben Folds. It really was quite something, and it made all of us want to go to the orchestra more often. Like, ever. There are some things I never do much, which I possibly should do more. These include:

- Attending orchestra productions

- Attending dance productions

- Reading books without interrupting self by purchasing more exciting book, which I then also don't finish on account of newly purchased and more exciting book

- Messing about in boats

I plan to add to this list. Lists of what I am inadequate at doing are always long and thick and rich with juicy goodness.

Carry on.

So I admit to being a bit of an Aaron Sorkin nerd, and I am currently watching The West Wing, Sportsnight, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip concurrently (alternating episodes).

Seriously though, you absolutely have to watch this (scroll down to watch the clips).

It's a show about making television, which of course makes me squeal like a pig at a child's birthday party, and it's been reviewed here. For the more nerdy among us (pick me! pick me!) there is also a blog. Oh yes there is.

If you're wondering why all the talk about TV, it's because life has consisted mostly of staring at a computer screen this weekend. Went to the beach and wrote a whole lot of stuff that I've since deleted. Yay for progress.

Aaaanyway, I have now returned home to play with my friends, most of whom are called Tim.

None of them is this Tim, though, which is something I'm hoping to change. One can never have too many Tims at a dinner party, I find. So, more Tims and also I find there are insufficient people called Snuffy in my life at the present time as well. Let's everyone see what we can do about that.

I have to confess that I haven't exactly followed the AWB story, except that it has apparently cost tens of millions of dollars and it sounds mega boring (I mean, "wheat" and "Iraq" are not the most entertaining words to google, are they?).

But a couple of emails were read out in court today discussing how AWB money was being spent. One of the emails detailed how trenches were being built in order to "bury the Kurds under the cement". Oddly, nobody can remember ever seeing such an email (I know I'd probably forget that kind of thing). Despite the fact that one bloke burst into tears and had to be comforted by his wife, pretty much everyone else appears to be attending court in a fog of amnesia.

It will be interesting to see if the AWB folk suddenly start remembering things when they're threatened with charges of terrorism. If you search "terror" and "wheat" and "Iraq" and "links to Government" on google, it gets a bit more interesting, is all I'm saying.

Also announced today (and also something that would usually bore the pants right off me) is the fact that Australians owe a trillion dollars in personal debts (credit cards and houses and stuff). Being a bit mathematically retarded, I kind of don't really know if a trillion is a lot. I mean I know it's a lot for, you know, an icecream. Or rollerskates. But is it a lot for household debt?

Well apparently it is. Apparently it's our GDP. Apparently we OWE our own GDP.

Good on us.

Anyhoo, that's my attempt to comprehend two of the more dense stories in the news today. I'll leave you to struggle on without me on matters such as what Kylie's "vowing" to wear in her upcoming concert, or how "worrying" it might be that sport is being played in one State rather than in the other.

I do, however, feel compelled (against my better judgement and might I say everything I stand for) to whoop enthusiastically along the following lines: "Go Swans!"

(It's not me. It's Rita. It was that, or change the colours on the entire website to red and white. I've done what I can and I will struggle to regain my dignity in the coming weeks).

Have a good weekend, Rits.