My new car is new. Bright, shiny, haven't had it for 5 weeks yet, new.

Yesterday, while it was legally parked in an off-street carpark, and I was nowhere in the vicinty, someone backed into the front of it.

Fortunately, a couple of guys I know saw the whole thing go down and got the offender's details beofre she took off.

This morning, I was parked in the vet clinic carpark. While I was inside talking to Secondborn someone backed into the rear end.

Seriously. Two totally unrelated, not-my-fault, you-wouldn't- fracking-read-about-it accidents in less than 24 hours.

They say these things come in threes. I'm tempted to back down the drive and hit the letterbox, just so I don't have to go through the stress of waiting for the next one:)

Supanova is ramping up their promo stuff, now we're only a month out from the Melbourne gig.

This week they put out the official magazine.

It's chock full of goodies about the coming events and they have some awesome guests this year, including paparrai-magnet Hayden Panittiere and that dude from Twilight (not a Twilight fan, but I know the numbers are going to be huge).

I'm more interested in hanging with Richard Hatch, Eric Roberts and Morena Baccarin, although I have it on good authority that she is even more gorgeous in real life, so maybe I'd be better off hanging with some of those ultra-cool but usually unphotogenic comic book guys. That way I can be the pretty one...hehehe

Hey... don't forget the World Building workshops, too!

See you there!

Oh... I nearly forgot... the "famous by association" thing..

Saw Ghost Town this week for the ABC. Very funny, but I'm not sure it would have been without Ricky Gervais. Still, there are worse ways to kill time:)

Ricky Gervais scores himself the lead in a romantic comedy (seriously) about and obnoxious dentist, Bernard Pincus, who, after dying for seven minutes during a colonoscopy, wakes up to discover he can see dead people. Worse than that, the dead people have realised he can see and hear them, and they want his help to resolve the unfinished issues that keep them haunting the streets of New York.

To rid himself of these annoying spectres, Pincus strikes a reluctant deal with a debonair, slightly sleazy ghost, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear), who wants to prevent his widow Gwen (Tea Leoni)  marrying a man he is convinced is all wrong for her. Archaeologist Gwen lives in the same building as Pincus, and after finding an excuse to introduce himself and bond over the dental cavities of a 5000 year old mummy, the two strike up a friendship.

Of course, this is a romcom, so naturally Pinucs falls for Gwen, but things don’t quite go the way he — or Frank — plan and he soon learns that before he can move on with his own life, he needs to put a few other ghosts to rest. Literally.

The outcome of this film is pretty much inevitable given it’s a romcom. Gervais makes an interesting choice of romantic hero. The movie is very funny, but much of that has to do with Gervais being Gervais. I’m not sure anybody else could have made such a thoroughly unlikeable character so likeable. Tea Leoni is excellent as Gwen, although a few times when she was laughing at Bernard Pincus’s jokes, I got the feeling she was genuinely laughing at Ricky Gervais. Greg Kinnear, who spends the whole movie in a tux, also manages to make sleazy seem kinda nice. 

The standout supporting cast member though, to my mind, is Aasif Mahndvi, who plays Dr Prahsar, Bernard's practice partner. The scene where Bernard tries to glean some interrogation hints from him, because he’s “not Christian” is hysterical, as is the scene where the eternally patient Prashar finally tells Bernard a few homes truths about his attitude.

The film has a few twists, as is required along the rocky road to happily ever after endings. Some of them are funny — such as the pivotal role Gwen’s too-good-to-be-true human-rights lawyer fiancé plays in the final moments of the film — to the touching scenes where Pincus accepts what he needs to do to rid himself of the ghosts who are following him around demanding help. Oh, and then there is Leonard, Gwen’s “puppy”. He deserves a star all to himself.

David Koepp, wrote and directed the screenplay, and it’s a polished piece of work — hardly surprising from the man who wrote Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, War of the Worlds and Spiderman, just to name a few. All in all, this is a fun way to kill a couple of hours, although I’m still waiting for a romcom where the reverse happens — you know… the short, overweight, unattractive chick manages to win the heart of the hot guy by making them see past their physical appearance and realise a sense of humour is all that really counts. Yeah… right.

According to an article on news.com.au, the Australian Federal Government just spent $1 million on "positive psychology" workshops.

American psychologist Martin Seligman, from the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, ran the residential workshops during January where Prof Seligman, the author of numerous self-help books including Authentic Happiness, had up to 15 support staff.

The Governemnt spent $642,000 of our taxpayer's money sending 100 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations staff to a five-day course. 

Bear with me here friends...

That's one hundred people at $6420 a head.

That's roughly $6200 more than we charge for a Worldbuilding Master Classes, although to be fair, ours is a 4 hour session and the Happiness course goes for 5 days.

That makes it worth $1200 or day, or thereabouts.

Now, for argument's sake, let say they trained for 6 hours a day...

That's roughly $200 per hour.

So, if you come to my Worldbuilding Master Class in Melbourne or Brisbane - which I'm thinking of renaming Finding Personal Fulfillment Through the Creation and Destruction of Entire Civilisations) and find any joy from it (or so much as crack a smile, I'm thinking), that means you're getting $600 worth of happiness for free.

So... what are you waiting for, you poor depressed worldbuilders! At the Early Bird price of $150, you're getting a real bargain! Hahahaha...

I spent last night in hospital.

I looked like this...

So, the nurse says to me this morning, "How did you sleep?"

"Not very well, actually," I replied through the Borg assimilation gear I'd been wired up to all night..

"Oh," she says, with a perfectly striaght face. "Can you think of anything which might have caused you to have trouble sleeping?"

"Nothing springs to mind," I replied. "Except, you know... the 17 tonnes of wiring you hooked up to me before you sent me to bed..."

I know... resistance is futile:)