Homework, Hitchhikers, Homework

Spending yesterday and today at home, working. This week and the next are strangely teaching-free weeks for me as the two Monday public holidays mean that my Creative Industries unit doesn't run again until Monday week. So, instead I'm getting some other important work done. Yesterday I made further inroads into two papers - the one co-authored with Sal Humphreys about our wiki efforts in KCB336 New Media Technologies (which will go out to the International Wiki Symposium organisers later today), and one with Danny Butt on digital rights management in the music industry, for a special issue of Media and Arts Law Review (which Sal also has a hand in).

Today I'm back working on my application for promotion to Lecturer B. This is not so much difficult as simply time-consuming, as I need to present a full and clear record of everything I've done in research, teaching, and academic service over the last years. The good news is that I've done plenty, but at the same time I still need to present this in a way that clearly shows I'm performing at least at B level (in fact I'll be trying to show that some of my work is already well beyond that level). There are also some very specific formatting requirements to follow. I've already confirmed a number of my referees as well - including John Hartley, Jude Smith, and Paul Makeham.

Last night I went to see the new movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with some of the UQ EMSAH posse. Overall they did really very well at translating the book (and yes, it covers only the first book of the five-part trilogy - no doubt there'll be sequels) onto the big screen, and it's clear that Douglas Adams himself had a big hand in this before his death. They even managed to solve the old 'Zaphod Beeblebrox has two heads' problem (although my first pick as Zaphod would always be Owen Wilson). The Magrathea sequences are particularly stunning, and Bill Nighy does a fantastic job as Slartibartfast! Update: Well, what do you know - Jo clearly and absolutely didn't like it. I can only disagree - and the inclusion of a few references to the TV series (which I never got to see in Germany), which Jo notes, only makes me like the movie more... (Besides, you've got to like this movie just for the knitware sequence alone!)

Not doing too well with the cold nights and mornings we're starting to get now. Time I started investigating a trip up north to Darwin to visit my friend Ron...