Just recently, I came up with the title for my next book. It is a very cool title and I like it well, heaps, and my agent likes it and the publishers like it, (even though they know nothing else about the story and I haven't even formally offered it to them yet) and so does everyone else who's heard it.

It's a one word title. I like one word titles. But they don't always do as well as more complicated ones. I mean, would Harry Potter and the ______________ (fill in the blank) have worked as well if the books were just titled Harry Potter - 1 thru 7?

Stephanie Meyer's Twilight (or the Sparkly Mormon Alpha Vampire as Lillith Saintcrow calls it) has done pretty well, and that's only one word...

But then I found this book, whose title is Children: The Challenge : The Classic Work On Improving Parent-child Relations--Intelligent, Humane & Eminently Practical.

I like this. It's like a synopsis, blurb and advertising pitch all in one. Perhaps I should name my next book something like this:

Zombies: The Challenge : The Classic Work On Improving Zombie - Human Relations--An Intelligent, Humane & Eminently Practical Guide, with Minimal Eating of Brains or Other Vital Organs Required for the Proper Functioning of the Undead.

You know... I reckon I'm onto a winner here:)

I got some new pets today. 200 hundred of them, actually.

Yup, I am now the proud owner of a worm farm. Of course, now the problem is going to be naming them all (God knows how I'm going to go about training them to come when they're called). Anyway, after giving the matter some serious consideration, I've decided to name them all after politicians.

So far we have Kevin, Wayne, Peter, Julia, George W, Vladamir and Bob. Oh, and there was a particualry pretty, although rather useless one we named Sarah. Then there's John and Jodeen, who I like, and Paul who looks a bit silly, if you ask me.

Now I just have name the other 189 of them.

There's a tall dark skinny one I'm thinking of calling Barack. And a little short tubby pale one on his last legs that I might just have to call Mac.

Whatever... I plan on feeding them dog poo, so whichever way you look at it, before too long, they're all going to be up to their necks in do-do, anyway:)

Here's a fun quiz for you. Find out which sci-fi crew you belong to.

I scored the Heart of Gold from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Not sure what to make of that. Better go find a towel, I suppose. Bit embarrassing that I only scored 63% on Stargate considering I, well, wrote a book for them...  whoops:)

I love politics. I have close friends who are politicians. Firstborn is the branch secretary of a political party. I think it’s fun, and if you’ve read my books then you know the game of politics is something I love to mess with.

I follow politics the same way other people follow football. I sit down with popcorn and ice-cream to watch the tally room telecast on election nights. The game that is politics fascinates me endlessly. I love the hedging. The “key phrases”. (Here's a cool drinking game - slam one down every time you hear the word “maverick” coming out of the McCain campaign. Or “change” from the Obama people). I love the spin. And oddly enough, the good intentions — however misguided — of what I believe are mostly good people who start out thinking they can do something useful for their country and often end up doing stuff all, because the system, by it’s very nature, emasculates them. (Peter Garrett anyone?)

Most of all, I live in anticipation of a journalist asking a politician a closed question requiring nothing more than a Yes or No answer and have them actually answer “yes” or “no”.

As a rule, I don’t talk about politics on this blog, because that’s not what’s it about. I am not a political commentator and there are plenty of other sites on the net where you can find a much more qualified opinion than mine.

That said, I feel the need to mention my fascination with the US presidential race, and in particular, Sarah Palin.

I cannot decide if Sarah Palin is a breath of fresh air or a slightly more articulate version of Pauline Hansen*. I think she is amazing to watch. She is clearly an accomplished performer, but so far, she’s doing just that — performing. She is merely delivering the lines written for her (rumour has it) by seasoned Whitehouse speechwriters before she was even offered the job.

I’m not suggesting she doesn’t have the goods to make it as the US VP. She might be the best thing that’s happened to the US in years. Or she might be the worst. It worries me a little, I have to admit, that should the 72-year-old McCain be elected and die in office (20% of  US VPs end up president through either death or resignation, btw)  we could wind up with a leader of the free world whose foreign policy experience is being touted as “she lives near Russia”. That's something of a concern to those of us who live in the, you know... free world.

They say she’s a quick study, and I don’t doubt that for a moment. She is also on record as claiming the war in Iraq is a mission from God. Hmmm.

What amazes me though, is the idea she will attract women voters, simply because she is a woman. What a steaming crock of shit. If you follow that logic, every female candidate who has ever stood for office should have been elected, because women, after all, make up just over 50% of the electorate.

I think people who believe Sarah Palin will attract women voters have been listening to too many Helen Reddy songs. Most women with two legs and, well,  a heartbeat, don’t really care what gender a candidate is. They care what the candidate stands for and how it will impact their lives, their families and their futures. If you disagree with Palin’s pro-life, pro-moose hunting principles, you’re not going to put aside your own beliefs just because she’s a “sista”.

The next couple of months are going to be so interesting. I can’t wait to watch the VP debates. It’s going to be utterly fascinating.

And now I’m going to get on to the Fox News site and try to email Bill O’Reilly so I can ask him that if Jamie-Lyn Spears’ parents are “pinheads” for allowing their teenaged daughter to get pregnant —“I blame the parents” were his exact words — what does that make Sarah Palin and her husband?

PS: People complaining about sexism toward their candidate should probably not do so while wearing buttons like this:

*For non-Aussie readers, Pauline Hanson is an extreme right-wing politician who enjoyed a brief run of popularity (until she finished up in jail – followed by Dancing with the Stars) a few years ago. She got her start with a speech in parliament claiming we were being overrun by Asians and stunning fiscal policy like “we’ll print more money”.

This week's movie has been out for a couple of weeks but I was a little reluctant to see it, expecting a bit of the same old, same old, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a bit of a hoot, actually. One of those "shoot 'em up with absolutely no legal consequences" sort of things. You know... the movies where the hero is killing scores of bad dudes like flies and getting away with it while the likes of you and me are getting arrested for jaywalking.

Ah, movieland. What a fantastical place:)

Taken treads the familiar territory of a man with “special skills” who finds his family threatened by foolish criminals too stupid to realise they’d picked on the wrong guy.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a retired spy who has moved to LA determined to make up for lost time with his estranged 17-year-old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). His ex (Famke Jansen) is married to a wealthy businessman who spoils Kim in a way her father can never compete with, and there’s all that baggage between him and his wife about his job to deal with, which took him away from home so much that he barely knows his own child.

Desperate to reconnect with his daughter, Bryan agrees — against his better judgement — to allow Kim to take a trip to Paris with a girlfriend over the summer break. His fears for his daughter prove well-founded when she is targeted by a group of Albanian sex-slave traders, who prey on innocent young travellers in Paris, almost as soon as she lands in the City of Lights.

Aware that he only has a very narrow window of opportunity before Kim is lost forever, Bryan calls on all his resources, both mental and physical, to identify the kidnappers and retrieve his daughter. He does this with the desperate dedication of a man who cares about just one thing and that one thing —his only child — is threatened.

What follows is a dizzying array of stunts, car chases, fist-fights and shoot-outs in and around Paris, as Bryan bulldozes his way through every contact he has, and every lead he uncovers, to get to his daughter before she is irretrievably lost.

The poster for this film on the way into the cinema had the quote “best action film since Bourne” on it, which I thought was a bit optimistic, but I’d have to come close to agreeing with the sentiment. Neeson does the desperate father thing brilliantly, and if he survives stunts that might flatten a younger man, he at least suffers some injuries in the process. And to be honest, the set up with him and his daughter is sufficiently convincing that you’re quite happy to believe this man is prepared to do anything, and I do mean anything, to protect his daughter. The rest of the cast is just as good (what you see of them), although Maggie Grace hasn’t seen 17 for a number of years now, she manages to pull off the bratty teen thing convincingly enough.

Directed by newcomer, Pierre Morel, who cut his teeth writing such action staples as the Transporter movies, the film is taut, well paced and action-filled. Except for the minor question I had at the end as to why our hero wasn’t rotting in a Parisian goal for mass murder, millions of dollars in property destruction and breaking numerous laws — well, actually, all of them — I found it a pretty entertaining ride.