Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self?

Want to be more creative? 

Then get on bored;-)

I get bored doing chores like washing dishes and ironing, etc, so I like to listen to a podcast while I work.

Unfortunately, I was bored with listening to all the shows I subscribe to on iTunes, so I did a search and found a different TED talk to what I'm used to listening to called -

'How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas'

by Manoush Zomorodi, author of, 'Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self'

TED: Third Eye Drops podcast

Manoush Zomorodi's TED talk

So, if you are bored with all of your other regular podcasts like me, give Manoush's talk a listen.

By the way, I'm not really bored with the other TED talks, just up to date with them all and waiting for a new one.

As for the other podcasts I subscribe to on my iPad the "unsubscibe" button is looking mighty tempting to me if they don't lift their game and keep boring me.

The modern day Mona Lisa and the monkey mind?

Peace out.

An Afternoon at the Museum and a Night at Aladdin?

On the 24th of May this year I decided to check out the 'Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives' exhibit at the Queensland Museum, before going to see the stage musical 'Aladdin'.

The first thing that caught my eye when I entered the exhibition was a red onion as a modern sample of an ingredient used in embalming.
I hadn't eaten an onion like this for years, except for the night before, when I chopped up a whole red onion and fried it to eat with some vegan sausages, sweet potatoes and peas I had bought at the supermarket.
I had no idea the Egyptians used onions for embalming until my trip to the museum.  

Apparently jars like this one below were for putting organs in, like the liver, stomach, lungs and intestines.

Oddly enough they would discard the brain, as they believed the heart was the center of consciousness.

I wrote about the heart scarab in a previous post linked here -
From 8 and to Infinity and Beyond?

When I was walking (like an Egyptian;-) through the museum there was a movie playing on the wall and I didn't realize until I got home and uploaded the photo to my computer that I must have caught a frame of the movie that made it look like a ghostly skeleton was floating out of the mummy's head. 

I wrote a post about this figure above possibly being where the idea of the Hei-tiki originated from - 
Did the Hei-tiki Originate from Egypt?

I thought this lotus shaped goblet looked pretty trippy for an old timey cup.

And this bracelet below almost put me into a psychometric trance where I had a feeling of a time bridge where the present seemed to be pulling the past into the now through this bracelet as a common focus, if that makes any sense ... which I'm sure it doesn't ... but just sayin'.

This statue of Hathor below reminded me of a real old post I once wrote about actress Anne Hathorway Hathaway -

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman

Anne Hathaway, or Anne Hathor-way?

After I got out of the Mummy exhibition I had a look around at the museum's free exhibits, which I found pretty cool on a shamanic level.
But hey, that's just the way my mind thinks these days, I guess.

I couldn't help thinking of Patricia Piccinini's 'Curious Affection' exhibition a short walk away from the museum when I saw this Wedge-tailed eagle pictured above -
Curiouser and Curiouser Affection?

My bird of choice, much smarter than an eagle

I found a case with some dung beetles in it, which wasn't part of the Egyptian Mummy exhibition. 

Walking across this projected floor image above was strange.

I've encountered quite a few of these (Red-bellied Black) snakes on bush walks and one day a friend pointed to one laying behind me on a path while informing me as to what I just walked over without knowing I had.
What are friends for, I guess.

This stuffed(?) kingfisher above has to be one of the worst depictions of a kingfisher I have ever seen.
Surely it doesn't look like that in real life?

And no, it doesn't I found out from a net search when I found this picture above of one. 

Standing under these bones I was kind of glad these things don't roam the earth anymore.

And I hope Cthulhu is awake no more, as well;-)

And don't ask me what a synchrotron is, I just like the name.

Now there is a piece of history that has already faded from my memory.
Boring Bear ... or whatever it was called.
And with the thumbs up from the drop bear that was the end of my museum visit, and it was off to South-bank to get something to eat before seeing Aladdin.

I got an $80 seat in the back-row near the red arrow above 

A Queensland Ballet dancer I met at a book-talk at West End told me that I had to see the magic carpet fly, but Aladdin is my favorite Disney animated movie, so it didn't take much to persuade me to buy a ticket anyway.   

'Never Had a Friend Like Me' is one of my all-time favourite songs I must admit.

Pretty good view for an $80 ticket I thought 

I liked how the curtains had a magic carpet pattern and changed colours through lighting effects like a psychedelic drug trip before the show even started.

It's a whole new world after that experience

Wow, what a trip that was:-)

Better than staring at a black screen/monolith before the show starts, right?-)
Well, that's pretty much all I can show you of 'Aladdin' without getting my ass sued by Disney, who'll probably still sue me for showing the curtain to you.

It was turning pretty cold at nights in Brisbane when I saw 'Aladdin' and I kept meaning to look around the shops that week for a throw rug for my bed just to give that extra layer on cold nights, and what do you know, they were selling "Magic Carpet Blankets" in the foyer, so I bought one to thrown on my bed on those colder nights.

What a cool warm blanket, hey?

I was a bit worried about Disney embedding a 666 or something more sinister into the design of the blanket, but what I found on the packaging was far worse than I ever could have imagined.

Fundamental Christian fish symbols everywhere I looked, so I had to get a shaman in to exorcise my bedroom so I could sleep properly;-)
I should have known a company like Disney would try something fishy like that, but you have to get up earlier than that to pull one over me I'm afraid.

2,500-year-old mummy found in what was thought to be an empty Egyptian coffin at Sydney University