My first attempt at writing a political thriller/adventure has passed an important milestone.

This was a far more difficult exercise than I anticipated; with the endless research and theorising dragging the writing process through additional weeks and months, causing considerable stress and fatigue.

But it’s done now and I’m very happy with the result at this early stage.

I’ve not looked at the manuscript for almost four weeks, so now it is time to start the final editing process. After adding a little more detail and correcting elements I may have overlooked, I anticipate the word count will nudge nearer to 65,000 words.

If all goes to plan, ‘The Vision’ should be released early next year.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup began yesterday and there is a great live site at Parramatta Square.

As you can see in the photo, there was a good turnout for the Australia v Ireland game.

I’m sure they are playing all the matches on the big screen, but here are two upcoming games to note;

Thursday 27th July at 8pm – Australia v Nigeria.

Monday 31st July at 8pm – Australia v Canada.

There’s plenty of food and drink available close by, such as whatever that lady is eating at the nearest table. I have no idea what it is, but I’m sure it tastes good.

It’s a great night out and the council have been kind enough to put this on for us, so we should support it if we can whilst wearing our Green and Gold!

This happened last weekend in Sydney.

The sky was clear until this streaky mist began to form in the afternoon.

The visuals are quite striking, but there are two sides to this mystery that I would like to point out;

Firstly, it was a very warm day for July, so it could have been a natural occurrence.

Secondly, for my fellow cloud-seeding conspiracy theorists, there was a plane up there emitting a trail that DID NOT register on flight tracking apps.

Both photos were taken at Northmead, NSW on Saturday 15th July at 2:30pm.

Donald Trump’s social media platform has arrived Down Under at last.

It’s been live for a couple of weeks, but I chose the 4th of July as the day to sign up.

You can’t get much cheesier than that!

I stumbled across this today.

I think it is old, and have no idea who the original uploader is.

I have been using the Flightradar24 app over the last two weeks on the hunt for unusual plane behaviour.

Of course ‘unusual’ does not mean nefarious or illegal, but some of these patterns are interesting to say the least.

VH-PJU out of Archerfield Airport, Brisbane.

This plane has been very busy, and below are the flight paths taken on four different days over the last two weeks. All the activity appears to be around and to the north of Ipswich.

VH-YFD out of Moorabbin Airport, Melbourne.

This plane flew all the way from Melbourne to perform some fancy tricks near Newcastle.

I think it’s fair to say it would have something to do with mining and surveying, but it’s a long way to fly.

Old mate Cessna C310 out of Bankstown Airport, Sydney.

This plane has made two trips to the Newcastle area over the past few days, following its trip to the Blue Mountains last week. The flying patterns are pretty much the same.

Flightradar24 has been a lot of fun, and there’s a lot of stuff to check out such as military planes, bizarre joy flights and even Trump Force One.

I installed a flight tracker app today and thought I might have a little fun.

It did not take long for me to find C310 flying over the Blue Mountains, and decided to track its movements.

There was not a lot of information about the plane, only its altitude and type, but I can tell you that it took off from Bankstown Airport and returned there a couple of hours later.

But what exactly was it doing? Check out the flight path below.

Mapping? Chem Trails? Your guess is as good as mine.

I’m speechless!

(Headlines and photos courtesy of ‘Sport Bible’ and “Daily Mail’)

It’s been three long years since the last season, so I was very excited when I saw this pop up on Netflix.

Needless to say, I watched all five episodes right away and here are my thoughts.

No spoilers or plot reveals, I promise!

Episode One – ‘Joan is Awful’.

Interesting, entertaining and puzzling; which probably describes ‘Black Mirror’ in one sentence.

I thought it was okay, and not a bad way to start the series, with the promise of harder-hitting stories to come. In hindsight, I would have kicked off the season with this one as well.

Episode Two – ‘Loch Henry’.

Now we’re talking! A ripping mystery set in a small Scottish town.

This did not go the way I expected it to, catching me by surprise, which is a rarity these days.

Episode Three – ‘Beyond the Sea’.

This was a great episode. I can’t say anything about it, other than Josh Hartnett and Aaron Paul starred.

Episode Four – ‘Mazey Day’.

The shortest (and weakest) of the episodes, but still a bit of a spin-out.

Episode Five – ‘Demon 79’.

They saved the best for last!

This story was really well made, with some standout performances.

I’d like to write more in-depth reviews of each story, but I don’t want to take the fun away from anyone watching this show for the first time.

For those who aren’t aware of ‘Black Mirror’, it’s been around for a few years and every season is available to watch on Netflix. I have to say, there are some serious works of genius in there.

I came across a pair of interesting characters during my adventure, and got the very firm impression that they were gay.

Allow me to introduce Gulu and Gido.

They first appear early on in the game, and are found loitering around the local tavern on Koboh.

Not long after first meeting them, I soon came across a ‘force echo’ nearby that enlightened me on part of their backstory, specifically their first meeting. I believe the quote “consider this a date…” was used.

Their ‘official’ bio also gives away a clue…

Knowing the way Star Wars and Disney in particular are trying to introduce a lot of this stuff into their narratives, it doesn’t surprise me at all.

However, if their intention was to insert some ‘inclusion’ into the story, it was done so in a well-written manner. The issue was not pushed, nor did I encounter any more clues or hints about the couple other than what I have posted here.

Are there any other gamers out there that got the same impression?