After we went shopping on Sunday, we went and had dinner at Hogs Breath, followed by a movie.

When we entered our cinema, it was pretty much empty however it was bound to fill up. Belinda was leading the way and decided we’d sit about midway up the seating on the right wall. We all sat down and soon there after I said we should move forward a little and into the centre section of seating.

We moved into the centre section, which in my opinion put us in a prime viewing position. This is where the cinema etiquette came into play. At this point, there was no one sitting in front of us so Belinda was happy – then someone happened to sit in front of us. Belinda had said to us, that she felt it was rude of them to sit directly in front of us, based on the logic that there were other seats available in the cinema that were just as good. Andrew reasoned that since they sat there, with no concern for us/Belinda at all that cinema etiquette clearly doesn’t exists, does it?

About five minutes later, the row in front of us was pretty much full on the left side. A new group of four people came into the cinema and instead of sitting back a few rows of seating – they had the nerve to ask the front row of people to move over two seats, so that their group of four could all sit beside each other. Keeping in mind, that if they went back about 4-5 rows they could have done that anyway and everyone else on the front row wouldn’t have been sitting in each others pockets.

My take on the situation is that in the first instance, it wasn’t particularly rude to sit in front of us. However, if it was me I probably wouldn’t have sat there; so for me, cinema etiquette does exist. In the second case, it was plain rude to ask the front row to move over two seats. For me, the only time moving of seats should take place is if you are asked to by an usher or if the cinema is clearly full and its just polite to do so. In this case, it was neither and they group of four could have seated themselves in seats just as good, if they would have moved back 4-5 rows.

Do you have any personal cinema etiquette rules you generally abide by and what gets on your goat when others don’t play nicely?

Today my older brother Andrew and his wife Belinda decided they’d come for a drive to the Gold Coast for the day. After a little discussion between Claire and Belinda, it was decided we’d head to Pacific Fair to check out the shops (I know, who would have thought; women and shops?).

We all had some lunch in the food court after which the chicks decided to get a little shopping in. Belinda tells us that it is nice to have the shops so close, as they have to drive into Brisbane from Ipswich (roughly 45 minutes) to get to them; where as it takes about 12 minutes from our place to Pacific Fair. One has to wonder, it takes 45 minutes from Ipswich to Brisbane and about an hour from Ipswich to the Gold Coast; was the extra 15 minutes a sacrifice to get to one of the largest shopping centres in the Southern Hemisphere? ;-)

Back on track, women shopping is an amazing act to watch take place. The female species have an uncanny ability to walk through shopping centres aimlessly for hours on end, not looking for anything in particular, whilst being perfectly content. They’ll go in and out of shops, touching nearly every piece of clothing, just to see what it feels like and if it would look good on them. Keep in mind, they aren’t looking for anything in particular, they are just there, therefore they must look and touch.

Compare that against how a male shops. Males will go to a shopping centre with the express purpose of buying something and those somethings will be predefined before they get in the car. When they get to the shopping centre, they will seek out the nearest shop which offers one of the items on the list. Once in said shop, they will do one of two things; buy the item or immediately move onto the next nearest shop which offers one of, but not necessarily the same item.

I wonder if the difference is that women find shopping relaxing and fun, where as for a male it is more of a chore. I personally, don’t not like shopping; I just don’t like shopping for no particular reason. If I’m not there to buy something in particular, I’d prefer to be at home relaxing. By comparison, Claire hates just sitting at home doing nothing. Is the driving force to do something one of the forces that makes females shop? Maybe we’ve just unravelled part of the puzzle.

I think you could summarise the two like this:

• shopping for men is an exercise in efficiency
• shopping for women it is a relaxing fun excursion
• a graphical representation

Friday night saw Dave turn 25, so in typical Dave style the penthouse at the Bel Air was hired and a bit of a doo was held. The night went well, Dave was drinking out of coffee percolator as there were no glasses of fitting size, everyone was blind and there was only one hole in the wall !

Today, as stage two for the birthday celebrations; we went Zorbing at the Gold Coast venue near Pimpama. Until now, I’ve only ever seen it on TV briefly and never realised just how big the damn things are. The Zorbs are constructed out of a semi flexible PVC and come in two varieties, a harness and a hydro version. Both are of equivalent size, approximately 3.5M in diametre with an inner sphere suspended in the middle through guy wires.

I went the harness path as I thought the off centre weight rolling around would be cool. It would be fair to say, I under-estimated just how much force was involved rolling down a 120m 30 degree decline grass slope! As you roll off the starting platform, your first roll is quite gentle. However, from that point onwards you are going that fast, that as your weight hits the bottom, you are bending the Zorb out of shape! Midway down our slope, it actually feels like you are physically lifting off the ground, or very close to it.

We also had quite a few people in our group try the hydro version as well. Same sort of deal, you hop inside it, they throw in about 60L of warm water to lubricate the PVC and shove you off the starting platform. They have a standing deal, that if you can ‘run’ inside the Zorb down the hill, you’ll get another ride thrown in for free. A couple tried it unsuccessfully, however John managed to make it about a third the way down, lose control and then splash, flip, tumble and roll his way to a stand still.

If you get a chance, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot; it was a blast. I’ll hopefully have some photos to show you shortly.

Whilst getting ready for work on Thursday morning, there was an atricle on the morning news show Sunrise about dress suits being back in fashion for work clothes. At the time, I passed it off as just another morning news article and attributed the content of the article to changing fashions this year.

They had a fellow on there saying that “casual Friday’s” are on the down turn and that the “casual” nature of the clothing reflects in staff performance. He also went on to say that, paraphrasing here, “you don’t want people coming to work in thongs and a singlet”. Now, you would assume that he is referring to the typical plugger thongs and a jacki how singlet from yester-year. The reality is though, that on the Gold Coast, the majority of females do in fact wear strapped shoes of some sort, a denim skirt and a singlet of some form. Does he infer that they shoudln’t be allowed to come to work in that attire, when that is what they are happy to be seen wearing in public, knowing full well females are always critical of what they wear?

Back to the submarines.

Tonight, I thought I would check back to some of my ‘not as frequently visited sites’. One such site was Paul Graham’s, of which I make a point of reading his excellent essays. Pauls latest essay entitled The Submarine is, in short about the role that Public Relations companies play in main stream news.

Once you read through the essay, which is dated this month, you’ll notice that he also talks about the phrase “The Suit is Back”. Given that, we are in the same month and Sunrise even had an “expert” in toe, you have to wonder whether or not this is in fact the work of the wonderful PR machines. The one thing that I don’t recall hearing in the article, was the name of any particular company that they were pitching for; in Pauls case that was The Men’s Wearhouse.

I thought Paul made some great comments about picking up PR in the news, this one in particular:

Remember the exercises in critical reading you did in school, where you had to look at a piece of writing and step back and ask whether the author was telling the whole truth? If you really want to be a critical reader, it turns out you have to step back one step further, and ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he’s writing about this subject at all.

The mind begins to wonder.