Death toll up to 127,000 including approximately 85,000 in Aceh alone. The UN has reported that governments have donated $600m to the relief effort through their agencies, and donations from the European public have already hit $100m. Just on the local TV here, World Vision Australia alone has $7m (Australian dollar is about 0.76 to the greenback at the moment). I just hope that this isn't going to become an 'I donated, now I can forget about it' reaction, like most fund raising events. I haven't heard reports of how much the American public has donated, but surely it's more than their government - not saying the word 'stingy' or anything, but Bush was rather defensive about it all in his press conference.
New Year's Eve, will probably be out for most of tonight. Catch you tomorrow :)
Pauly
Friday, December 31, 2004
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Biting The Bullet
Well, here's another thing to open up about to the anonymous billions LOL - I am seriously in debt. It happens when you are credit card living, decide to move to another country, can't get a job there, move to a country where you can get a job but it takes six months to do so, and then finally getting your A into G and starting to sort it.
But, sent an email off to a credit counselling company, and gotten that underway - just need exact figures for my debtors ick. Two of them were OK enough, had email addresses on their webpages, but the other one ick - managed to track down a New Zealand fax number but tried it and it didn't work (wouldn't be because it's after business hours surely?) so tracked down a Sydney number for the same company and went through. Will try the Auckland number again in the morning I think.
So yeah, will pay everything off perhaps in three or four years, without the nasties of debt collection to maneouvre around, and will take a hit to my Aussie credit rating - now there's a surprise - but the monkey off my back gah. I sent emails to other companies earlier in the year to try and start the ball rolling, but they didn't reply grrr - and of course, I procrastinated LOL.
Going out for a couple of drinks tomorrow, SW lined it up with at least MC and JC turning up as well - JC's girlfriend, yes you read that right, has them going to a line dancing evening for New Year's with the girlfriend's mother, over from the UK. Well, I guess New Year's happens every year, LOL, how often do you have your in laws over from the other side of the world. But three of us should be a good enough start, now if only we can encourage MG to come out to the same bar hmm...
Walking With Beasts is on the box at the moment, quiet night of TV apart from the final of Amazing Race - think we are a series behind the North American market though - anyways, back to Walking With Beasts - is like Walking With Dinosaurs, but after the meteor hit, the mammals and birds taking over. Now it's wonderful computer graphics and stuff, but why on EARTH make a documentary series about things that no human ever saw? It could be so much Cinderella and fairy stories, lol, but I guess it popularises paleontology...
Oh, that's what I saw of interest earlier today - one of the many blogs glanced over, one piqued my interest - can't remember who it was otherwise I would link it, but he said that he tried not to do entries in his blog about either big stories (he didn't think he would scoop CNN), political stories (didn't want to alienate half the readership) or day in the life entries, where nothing much happened. Hmm, if I went by those rules, there go half my entries LOL - but it isn't so much what you write about, as how you write it, I feel...
Cos face it, blogs can be divided into about five categories LOL. There are only ever five things talked about on the blogosphere - children, movie/music reviews, politics, sex or general rambling. Maybe six if you take into consideration work. The differences between the blogs are who writes well and who writes less well. I write the way I talk (thank goodness I don't have to hear him I know you are thinking) so am scatterbrained in my topics here, but the way I write I feel is consistent. Not sure consistently what, but consistent LOL.
Mmm, Canada moment of the day - Amazing Race, is in Calgary tonight. Well, it's the Tory stronghold, and it has lots of oil, but hey, it's still got the Maple Leaf flying, that's all that's important :) but OMG they are doing subtitles for the locals lol, it's not Quebec for goodness sake :)
Humming Oh Canada in my head now, thinking of the Nation's Capital, O-Town, and all the national monuments and stuff - much more Canadian than I ever will be Australian. Sorry fellow residents on this island continent, but there you go.
Pauly
But, sent an email off to a credit counselling company, and gotten that underway - just need exact figures for my debtors ick. Two of them were OK enough, had email addresses on their webpages, but the other one ick - managed to track down a New Zealand fax number but tried it and it didn't work (wouldn't be because it's after business hours surely?) so tracked down a Sydney number for the same company and went through. Will try the Auckland number again in the morning I think.
So yeah, will pay everything off perhaps in three or four years, without the nasties of debt collection to maneouvre around, and will take a hit to my Aussie credit rating - now there's a surprise - but the monkey off my back gah. I sent emails to other companies earlier in the year to try and start the ball rolling, but they didn't reply grrr - and of course, I procrastinated LOL.
Going out for a couple of drinks tomorrow, SW lined it up with at least MC and JC turning up as well - JC's girlfriend, yes you read that right, has them going to a line dancing evening for New Year's with the girlfriend's mother, over from the UK. Well, I guess New Year's happens every year, LOL, how often do you have your in laws over from the other side of the world. But three of us should be a good enough start, now if only we can encourage MG to come out to the same bar hmm...
Walking With Beasts is on the box at the moment, quiet night of TV apart from the final of Amazing Race - think we are a series behind the North American market though - anyways, back to Walking With Beasts - is like Walking With Dinosaurs, but after the meteor hit, the mammals and birds taking over. Now it's wonderful computer graphics and stuff, but why on EARTH make a documentary series about things that no human ever saw? It could be so much Cinderella and fairy stories, lol, but I guess it popularises paleontology...
Oh, that's what I saw of interest earlier today - one of the many blogs glanced over, one piqued my interest - can't remember who it was otherwise I would link it, but he said that he tried not to do entries in his blog about either big stories (he didn't think he would scoop CNN), political stories (didn't want to alienate half the readership) or day in the life entries, where nothing much happened. Hmm, if I went by those rules, there go half my entries LOL - but it isn't so much what you write about, as how you write it, I feel...
Cos face it, blogs can be divided into about five categories LOL. There are only ever five things talked about on the blogosphere - children, movie/music reviews, politics, sex or general rambling. Maybe six if you take into consideration work. The differences between the blogs are who writes well and who writes less well. I write the way I talk (thank goodness I don't have to hear him I know you are thinking) so am scatterbrained in my topics here, but the way I write I feel is consistent. Not sure consistently what, but consistent LOL.
Mmm, Canada moment of the day - Amazing Race, is in Calgary tonight. Well, it's the Tory stronghold, and it has lots of oil, but hey, it's still got the Maple Leaf flying, that's all that's important :) but OMG they are doing subtitles for the locals lol, it's not Quebec for goodness sake :)
Humming Oh Canada in my head now, thinking of the Nation's Capital, O-Town, and all the national monuments and stuff - much more Canadian than I ever will be Australian. Sorry fellow residents on this island continent, but there you go.
Pauly
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Good Deed For The Day
Yay me - I donated $20 to the Australian Red Cross at work to go towards the tsunami relief. I know $20 is probably not a lot compared to what they need, but as Marx said, from each according to their ability to each according to their needs. What will $20 buy, people? A nice tent for a family of four or five? Ten blankets from WalMart? Anyways, it's my small bit for the planet, today at least...
Gattaca is on the TV at the moment - as well as being good for being an Uma Thurman movie, as well as a Jude Law movie, is a good sci fi movie, especially with all this talk of genetic engineering nowadays. Just thought I would mention it also because of the view of Titan as a wine glass filled with smoke, very now and Huygens probe LOL. Think it was the first movie in which I noticed Jude Law...
The news from South Asia just keeps getting worse - the toll is up to 68,000, and the reports are coming in from western Aceh now, 80% of the buildings in one of the villages was destroyed - and in the nearby Indian Andaman and Nicobar islands, maybe a third of the population has been wiped out on some islands, and they are fearing the ratio will be the same on the biggest, which still hasn't had communication with the outside world...
And the US military is doing something humanitarian for once, well ordered to for once I mean - two warship groups, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, are headed to the disaster zone to help out, and the US government has given $35 million in aid - I thought it was $60m on the TV earlier? Hmm, wasn't the Lincoln where Dubya declared Mission Accomplished - nooo, don't bring petty US politics into one of the worst disasters in the world Pauly. Anyways, a 9.0 earthquake underneath Wellington or Los Angeles would flatten either city, makes you pause for thought eh, and thank our lucky stars that it wasn't us...
And left for the inside pages, the killing in Iraq continues. Over the past couple of days there have been at least seventy civilians or local cops or National Guard killed in insurgent attacks. Less coalition troops are getting attacked the past few days, but the insurgents are adapting too efficiently and quickly, and I see this seriously becoming a civil war, not between the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, but between the National Guard and the rebels, whether or not the US pulls out or not. And the Iraqi National Guard are going to protect the ballot boxes in the election, just thirty one days away now - good luck guys, you are going to need it.
Mmm, Uma - Gattaca finishing up here LOL.
Pauly
Gattaca is on the TV at the moment - as well as being good for being an Uma Thurman movie, as well as a Jude Law movie, is a good sci fi movie, especially with all this talk of genetic engineering nowadays. Just thought I would mention it also because of the view of Titan as a wine glass filled with smoke, very now and Huygens probe LOL. Think it was the first movie in which I noticed Jude Law...
The news from South Asia just keeps getting worse - the toll is up to 68,000, and the reports are coming in from western Aceh now, 80% of the buildings in one of the villages was destroyed - and in the nearby Indian Andaman and Nicobar islands, maybe a third of the population has been wiped out on some islands, and they are fearing the ratio will be the same on the biggest, which still hasn't had communication with the outside world...
And the US military is doing something humanitarian for once, well ordered to for once I mean - two warship groups, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, are headed to the disaster zone to help out, and the US government has given $35 million in aid - I thought it was $60m on the TV earlier? Hmm, wasn't the Lincoln where Dubya declared Mission Accomplished - nooo, don't bring petty US politics into one of the worst disasters in the world Pauly. Anyways, a 9.0 earthquake underneath Wellington or Los Angeles would flatten either city, makes you pause for thought eh, and thank our lucky stars that it wasn't us...
And left for the inside pages, the killing in Iraq continues. Over the past couple of days there have been at least seventy civilians or local cops or National Guard killed in insurgent attacks. Less coalition troops are getting attacked the past few days, but the insurgents are adapting too efficiently and quickly, and I see this seriously becoming a civil war, not between the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, but between the National Guard and the rebels, whether or not the US pulls out or not. And the Iraqi National Guard are going to protect the ballot boxes in the election, just thirty one days away now - good luck guys, you are going to need it.
Mmm, Uma - Gattaca finishing up here LOL.
Pauly
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
When You Have Almost Given Up On Human Nature
Along comes a USEFUL task for the web to go with. If you want information and numbers for the Asian earthquake relief effort, plus general info, the SEA-EAT blog is for you...
Like sands through the hourglass, so do blogs become self perpetuating and viral - not quite, so are the days of our lives, but we will work on it LOL
Pauly
Like sands through the hourglass, so do blogs become self perpetuating and viral - not quite, so are the days of our lives, but we will work on it LOL
Pauly
What's Really Bugging And Distracting Me Today
V and I have argued today. For an extended period of time and quite bitterly I must admit. All because (this time) I received a Xmas gift from K (a framed photo of herself) and I didn't report it to V as soon as I could have. Which of course led to oh, well I think I will email or phone her myself - which I reacted harshly to, of all the threats to bring to the table, that is my nuclear button one. Mutually Assured Destruction as it were.
Like, even if they don't do a mutual dig up dirt session on me, if you have to do that then you don't trust me enough for me to stay in your life. Really, when I look at things currently, I should sooooo be single, so much stuff to sort out in my head, but eh, V came along earlier than 'convenient' for me. Does that mean I want to ditch her out of my life now, hell no.
And then the Ultimatum came, ditch her, don't talk to her apart from Xmas and birthdays perhaps, or I'm gone - ultimatum TO me, people. I don't handle ultimatums well, I hate being ordered around, so usually when that happens I do my little stubborn dance LOL - have been doing it the past year actually, or maybe longer in fact, and look where it has gotten me.
So yes, all the New Zealand trip plans up in the air, just because I got a gift from K. With a pretty poisonous message in the card if I might say so - which got V to say, well if you can't stand up for yourself and family that's just rewarding her behaviour. And then my missing Canada (as in the country itself) thoughts come in, as my previous post, and all hell breaks loose in my head.
Gods, it's like WW3 in my brain today.
Went and saw The Incredibles to try and forget it all - good movie, may give a couple of paragraphs review of it when in a better mood - and then left one of my baseball caps (New York Mets one) at the theatre - put in a lost property thing, but who knows if that will actually do anything grrr.
Is it treacherous to V if I download Canadian band songs? Barenaked Ladies came to mind before LOL...
Pauly
Like, even if they don't do a mutual dig up dirt session on me, if you have to do that then you don't trust me enough for me to stay in your life. Really, when I look at things currently, I should sooooo be single, so much stuff to sort out in my head, but eh, V came along earlier than 'convenient' for me. Does that mean I want to ditch her out of my life now, hell no.
And then the Ultimatum came, ditch her, don't talk to her apart from Xmas and birthdays perhaps, or I'm gone - ultimatum TO me, people. I don't handle ultimatums well, I hate being ordered around, so usually when that happens I do my little stubborn dance LOL - have been doing it the past year actually, or maybe longer in fact, and look where it has gotten me.
So yes, all the New Zealand trip plans up in the air, just because I got a gift from K. With a pretty poisonous message in the card if I might say so - which got V to say, well if you can't stand up for yourself and family that's just rewarding her behaviour. And then my missing Canada (as in the country itself) thoughts come in, as my previous post, and all hell breaks loose in my head.
Gods, it's like WW3 in my brain today.
Went and saw The Incredibles to try and forget it all - good movie, may give a couple of paragraphs review of it when in a better mood - and then left one of my baseball caps (New York Mets one) at the theatre - put in a lost property thing, but who knows if that will actually do anything grrr.
Is it treacherous to V if I download Canadian band songs? Barenaked Ladies came to mind before LOL...
Pauly
Inuvik, North West Territories
Wow, Blog Explosion has expanded my horizons - blog link to Inuvik, got me curious as to where the hell it was. So I went google searching (is there anything this company can't do LOL - computer wise I'm talking) and found that the town is two degrees above the Arctic Circle, hundreds of kays away from Yellowknife or even Whitehorse. The official link for the town is here, and imagine working for KFC all the way up there. I guess having a KFC there is better than having to go hundreds of kays to find a McDonald's LOL.
Pretty looking area and all - Inuvik has twenty nine days without sun in winter, and fifty two days without night in summer. As well as piquing my wanderlust and my missing Canadian tendencies (although I am sure Inuvik is as different to Toronto as Canada is to Uzbekistan LOL), imagining the temperature over there as it is the mid twenties this time of night in Brisbane.
Ah to be travelling again
Pauly
Pretty looking area and all - Inuvik has twenty nine days without sun in winter, and fifty two days without night in summer. As well as piquing my wanderlust and my missing Canadian tendencies (although I am sure Inuvik is as different to Toronto as Canada is to Uzbekistan LOL), imagining the temperature over there as it is the mid twenties this time of night in Brisbane.
Ah to be travelling again
Pauly
Back to Saturn
Well, the Huygens probe successfully detached from Cassini to explore Titan's atmosphere and perhaps surface in a couple of weeks time. Likely a cold version of Venus - I say that because when the NASA and Sov probes got to Venus they didn't have any idea what to expect. The same as Titan, what with that atmosphere blocking our view.
Back to thoughts of that Asian quake and tsunamis - some awful awful footage coming out on TV. Viewing the waves coming in and crashing over the beaches and into the streets behind and stuff, I don't know about any of you, but when I had nightmares as a kid, an awful thing was coming, I could see it, but I couldn't move at all - that's what comes to mind when I see those massive waves crashing over the seawalls.
Also remembering that movie Deep Impact when a huge tidal wave hits the east coast of the USA, the sea stretching back before rushing back in. And the footage from Galle in Sri Lanka which basically looks like it was a massive flood rather than just one wave, very umm bad...
Back to thoughts of that Asian quake and tsunamis - some awful awful footage coming out on TV. Viewing the waves coming in and crashing over the beaches and into the streets behind and stuff, I don't know about any of you, but when I had nightmares as a kid, an awful thing was coming, I could see it, but I couldn't move at all - that's what comes to mind when I see those massive waves crashing over the seawalls.
Also remembering that movie Deep Impact when a huge tidal wave hits the east coast of the USA, the sea stretching back before rushing back in. And the footage from Galle in Sri Lanka which basically looks like it was a massive flood rather than just one wave, very umm bad...
Monday, December 27, 2004
Grrr
I should be heading to bed, but just the callousness of this comment from right wing commentator babe Ann Coulter needed to be mentioned as soon as I saw it, rather than to sleep on it - in amongst a column saying how Rumsfeld is getting off lightly this week with signaturegate...
'On the bright side, this is the first war America has been in where the number of casualties is small enough that it would even be theoretically possible for a Defense secretary to sign each condolence letter personally. When Democrats were running the Vietnam War letters of condolence often began 'To whom it may concern' and were addressed to 'occupant'.'
Sooo, I see where Ms Coulter is coming from, Democrat war presidents bad, Republicans good - now, correct me if I am wrong, but did Nixon actually get the troops out the day after he was inaugurated? And is 1200 dead and 9000 seriously wounded a 'small enough' number for the columnist? And isn't the whole wartime America thing supposed to be non partisan? And surely JFK wriggling his way out of the Cuban Missile Crisis is known as a Dem president doing good? No? Well there's a surprise LOL...
And on the TV now is a documentary of an earlier war, World War 2. The German home front aspect - one raid on Hamburg, three quarters of the city destroyed, and forty thousand dead. Stunning in its magnitude of scale. More than the combined military and civilian death toll of Iraq AND this quake (so far, with 23 000 dead) in one night of British bombing.
Two world wars and one world cup indeed.
Pauly
'On the bright side, this is the first war America has been in where the number of casualties is small enough that it would even be theoretically possible for a Defense secretary to sign each condolence letter personally. When Democrats were running the Vietnam War letters of condolence often began 'To whom it may concern' and were addressed to 'occupant'.'
Sooo, I see where Ms Coulter is coming from, Democrat war presidents bad, Republicans good - now, correct me if I am wrong, but did Nixon actually get the troops out the day after he was inaugurated? And is 1200 dead and 9000 seriously wounded a 'small enough' number for the columnist? And isn't the whole wartime America thing supposed to be non partisan? And surely JFK wriggling his way out of the Cuban Missile Crisis is known as a Dem president doing good? No? Well there's a surprise LOL...
And on the TV now is a documentary of an earlier war, World War 2. The German home front aspect - one raid on Hamburg, three quarters of the city destroyed, and forty thousand dead. Stunning in its magnitude of scale. More than the combined military and civilian death toll of Iraq AND this quake (so far, with 23 000 dead) in one night of British bombing.
Two world wars and one world cup indeed.
Pauly
Hmm, I'm Not Usually One For Arguments, But...
This site is simply so anti tolerance - I know, I know that the internet is a varied place and people can have different opinions than me, but there is different viewpoints and there is I will never go to that site again, despite me trying to be open to all opinions. This is one of those sites. Sure, you can disagree with homosexuality, but to put all the reasons for the downfall of Western civilisation at the feet (figuratively) of the gay population, am rolling my eyes here...
'Thomas Jefferson, one of our nation's illustrious founders, was not, history records, a strong biblical Christian. Yet, as Governor of Virginia, in 1779 Jefferson introduced bills to punish homosexual sodomy with the penalty being banishment and castration. There is no record that anyone at the time accused Mr. Jefferson of bigotry or hatred. Americans back then were a great degree wiser than they are today.'
And I guess slavery is still a good idea as well? The vote only being for men? What people want to do in their private lives should be up to them - no, not advocating a don't ask don't tell policy, rather the acts should be private (graphic acts, kissing in public is OK), but that side of their personality should be allowed to show in public life as well, according to the actual person's comfort levels. My attitude is as long as they don't try to convert me, the gay population can do what they like.
Oh, I lean left politically, and am secular religiously. In case you hadn't figured that out yet. LOL.
Can just imagine the writers of the site of these comments gnashing their teeth, forcing themselves to watch Janet Jackson's breast, Desperate Housewives, Queer As Folk or Will And Grace, just to complain about it...
Pauly
'Thomas Jefferson, one of our nation's illustrious founders, was not, history records, a strong biblical Christian. Yet, as Governor of Virginia, in 1779 Jefferson introduced bills to punish homosexual sodomy with the penalty being banishment and castration. There is no record that anyone at the time accused Mr. Jefferson of bigotry or hatred. Americans back then were a great degree wiser than they are today.'
And I guess slavery is still a good idea as well? The vote only being for men? What people want to do in their private lives should be up to them - no, not advocating a don't ask don't tell policy, rather the acts should be private (graphic acts, kissing in public is OK), but that side of their personality should be allowed to show in public life as well, according to the actual person's comfort levels. My attitude is as long as they don't try to convert me, the gay population can do what they like.
Oh, I lean left politically, and am secular religiously. In case you hadn't figured that out yet. LOL.
Can just imagine the writers of the site of these comments gnashing their teeth, forcing themselves to watch Janet Jackson's breast, Desperate Housewives, Queer As Folk or Will And Grace, just to complain about it...
Pauly
Monday Holiday :)
Hey all - death toll from the Sumatra quake is up to 11,500, including nine that were drowned on Somalia's coastline. Still far too early for the areas where communication networks have been completely wiped out to be reporting in - still no reports from western Aceh, where the quake would have done as much damage as the tsunami...
'"For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology, an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.'
Best statement from a British politician in MONTHS as the EU announces $4m in emergency aid.
Hmm, the post Christmas we have to get rid of the leftovers thing - had cheesecake for breakfast this morning LOL. Only two chickens, a pig and two salads to go - and that's what I KNOW is in the fridge LOL.
Hmm, another American elite athlete dead young - Reggie White, one of the top NFL defensemen of the last decade, dead at 43. Mind goes back to Florence Griffith Joyner, when Ben Johnson and the East Germans and Sovs were being accused (rightly) of every drug abuse under the sun, Flo Jo kept under the radar - sureeeee they are natural muscles Florence. So the latest saga with Marion Jones and Barry Bonds has 'form' in the States. Of course any unexpected death is tragic, just as the at least eleven thousand in South Asia is, but the cause of death is unexplained, and just connecting a couple of dots in the paragraph...
Cricket has started - Pakistan 6 for 318 after the first day's play. Also in the cricket world, New Zealand beat Sri Lanka easily in the Boxing Day one dayer (doesn't have quite the same ring as Boxing Day Test), and Bangladesh beat India woohoo. Now if only they could avoid innings defeat in the test matches LOL.
Pauly
'"For all the huge advances in the control of our lives through science and technology, an earthquake on this scale is truly humbling as well as profoundly tragic," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.'
Best statement from a British politician in MONTHS as the EU announces $4m in emergency aid.
Hmm, the post Christmas we have to get rid of the leftovers thing - had cheesecake for breakfast this morning LOL. Only two chickens, a pig and two salads to go - and that's what I KNOW is in the fridge LOL.
Hmm, another American elite athlete dead young - Reggie White, one of the top NFL defensemen of the last decade, dead at 43. Mind goes back to Florence Griffith Joyner, when Ben Johnson and the East Germans and Sovs were being accused (rightly) of every drug abuse under the sun, Flo Jo kept under the radar - sureeeee they are natural muscles Florence. So the latest saga with Marion Jones and Barry Bonds has 'form' in the States. Of course any unexpected death is tragic, just as the at least eleven thousand in South Asia is, but the cause of death is unexplained, and just connecting a couple of dots in the paragraph...
Cricket has started - Pakistan 6 for 318 after the first day's play. Also in the cricket world, New Zealand beat Sri Lanka easily in the Boxing Day one dayer (doesn't have quite the same ring as Boxing Day Test), and Bangladesh beat India woohoo. Now if only they could avoid innings defeat in the test matches LOL.
Pauly
Sunday, December 26, 2004
That Was Surreal
Hmm, SBS has cut to streaming coverage of this Indian Ocean earthquake thing and is just devastating to watch - almost 7000 guesstimated death toll currently - no doubt is going to go higher, and more and more reports coming in from all over the region saying that the situation is currently chaotic. Getting more and more depressed by it, but it is news, it is worth knowing, so am watching it.
However, at the same time, V was trying to talk to me, after having a BBQ and a few beers - I was a bit distracted by the TV, and getting more and more into a depressive state, which led to her showing more of her insecurities, about Canada, about skinny girls in general and everything, and I was just not up to a thousand reassurances, a hundred perhaps yes, but a thousand grrr - will have to call her soon no doubt (only one phone line into the house, net or phone not both) when I have turned the TV off and stuff, not one of those situations you can leave til the morning...
Geez I hate long distancing - but at least I understand what effort goes into it... how did I end up with this again, when I said the FIRST long distance never again, and a second and now potentially (depending on what definition you give the V and me thing) a third - how did it happen?
Laterz, tomorrow morning methinks
Pauly
However, at the same time, V was trying to talk to me, after having a BBQ and a few beers - I was a bit distracted by the TV, and getting more and more into a depressive state, which led to her showing more of her insecurities, about Canada, about skinny girls in general and everything, and I was just not up to a thousand reassurances, a hundred perhaps yes, but a thousand grrr - will have to call her soon no doubt (only one phone line into the house, net or phone not both) when I have turned the TV off and stuff, not one of those situations you can leave til the morning...
Geez I hate long distancing - but at least I understand what effort goes into it... how did I end up with this again, when I said the FIRST long distance never again, and a second and now potentially (depending on what definition you give the V and me thing) a third - how did it happen?
Laterz, tomorrow morning methinks
Pauly
A ReStart, of Sorts
Not going to get annoyed by the mini politics of the Eurovision Junior votes - grr, Greece and Cyprus backscratching each other, but just in anticipation of any huge spike in readership, may be a good time to give an overview of characters in this blog - seeing as I didn't do an official character list at all in the six or so months to date (only six months? I thought I had this blog longer than I had a job?)...
Myself, Pauly, New Zealander in Australia, Brisbane to be more exact. Unsure where my life is heading at the moment, but trying my best whichever direction it takes. Have a job in a call centre (inbound calls only, not annoying people with unwanted outbound calls LOL).
My family - I'm currently living with my parents, while I sort out things, they have stayed together, married, for over thirty years now. Shrugging shoulders, not much else to say on the parental front. Have one brother and one sister, both younger than me - my brother has a long term partner, who's currently preggers and due in mid-February.
Now to the real characters LOL -
V - currently my best friend and fumbling towards something more. What the something more is, I am not completely sure of, but we have had holidays together, have a January one planned, and exchanged Chrissie presents. Is a long distance thing, whatever it is, within international boundaries (which is unusual for me).
K - my latest ex. Canadian, and I lived over there for ten months last year (2003). Left messily, I had medical issues and work issues and stress issues, and is having a conversation with someone online considered cheating? Still consider Canada as a more suitable second home than Australia ever will be (remember, I'm a Kiwi), and still embers there, both positive and negative, but who knows if when I will see the Great White North again...
H - no longer really top three material, but gets in here due to my truly madly deeply (or as I abbreviate it, TMD) way I fell for her. The first girl I did that for, and AGAIN a long distance thing, another one living in Canada when I first bumped into her (was a month old newbie on chatrooms), and went to visit as friends, with a plan B of watching hockey LOL. Fell for her big time, she said she was going to New Zealand as soon as she had a few months with her mother in Northern Ireland - visited her there and ten minutes after getting to Belfast International Airport (now there's a misnomer LOL) we were broken up. Then followed the funniest holiday of my life, funny peculiar, and my heart was broken for months afterwards. Now, four years later, we are back to chat buddies, a slightly positive aspect of things, still a ways to go to be GOOD friend material...
Work next I guess - SW is the person I am closest to there, fellow Kiwi, female, good social buddy (have told each other things that are best kept secret LOL) - JC, a Jersey girl - the original Jersey in the Channel Islands, not a J-Lo movie - nice enough, and I am friends with, but seems stressed a lot lately - MC, another friend who seems a bit stressed lately. There was another closeish work buddy, LB, but she was laid off two weeks before Xmas - we used to be the Gang of Five, if anyone was going socialising the whole five of us usually were keen. Need a new recruit otherwise it will be the Gang of Four, I should keep in touch with LB, but you know how it is, especially in this faster and faster paced world.
Also at work of note are KW - who could be the new Gang recruit, about the same age as my sister and I notice a similar type of talking between the two - nice enough, but has taken months for her to let her socialising guard down at work. MC2 is my current boss, thinks the world of me, but I hate being praised and whenever she says something nice, I try NOT to roll my eyes. AD is a nice guy, and I add him in here for going drink for drink with me at our section Xmas lunch LOL - and for the conversation we had at the office Xmas party where my feelings for Canada equated with his for Japan.
KW2 I got a Xmas card from this year, even though I didn't think I had had that much effect on her yet LOL - had love as the sign off in the card, which intrigued myself and V no end LOL. Final workmate of note is MG, who is my daily eye candy LOL - if you read deeper into my blog, you will see that I rate the friendship by how many hellos I get a week LOL. And avoided her when drinking at the staff party, am intimidated by attractive women and intimidated of what I might say when inebriated - more workmates to be mentioned at later dates, I am sure...
Most of the close friends I have are back in New Zealand - the whole work sphere is basically it this side of the ditch. MR and SR, well, he used to be my best friend, but then they got married, we flatted for a bit, and I was odd man out when there was tension in the flat - a shame too, it was a nice place. RB and KA, they are getting married, the reason I'm heading back home, they are a really really nice couple, and damn, I have to think of a good wedding present hmm. Other assorted friends from my time at high school will crop up, I am sure - especially around the wedding entries, if I do any...
AG was the closest work buddy I had back home before she up and left for pastures greener - we still kept in touch while I was in Wellington, but since I left, both in Canada and here, has been the occassional phone call, that's about it. I hope she's going to be in town when I visit, but I think she was going to be on holiday for most of the month - fingers crossed though...
Other Welly work buddies include BI, a Scottish guy whom I could talk soccer with endlessly, as well as the occassional socialising, JM, a former boss who likes me lots, who unfortunately is definitely out of town during my visit, and TF, a Nuiean lady who likes a bet on the horses and a beer LOL. From an older job, my first, is TA, a guy who is nice enough, but the best topics of conversation are either sport or the Beatles. Nice guy to take along to sports games though when not feeling in the mood to be a Nigel No Mates LOL. Mmm, Wellington Stadium memories :)
Friends further afield include CA, a former Queens Noo Yawk resident, currently engaged on Long Island - visited her back in 2002 - loved Manhattan, even the Ground Zero aspects and all - lest we forget... there is LC, a former Sask Canada girl who is currently engaged in Florida (hmm, theme here?)... and, just looking at my email address book hmm, that is about it for the primary characters - will fill you in on more soonish no doubt :)
Pauly
Myself, Pauly, New Zealander in Australia, Brisbane to be more exact. Unsure where my life is heading at the moment, but trying my best whichever direction it takes. Have a job in a call centre (inbound calls only, not annoying people with unwanted outbound calls LOL).
My family - I'm currently living with my parents, while I sort out things, they have stayed together, married, for over thirty years now. Shrugging shoulders, not much else to say on the parental front. Have one brother and one sister, both younger than me - my brother has a long term partner, who's currently preggers and due in mid-February.
Now to the real characters LOL -
V - currently my best friend and fumbling towards something more. What the something more is, I am not completely sure of, but we have had holidays together, have a January one planned, and exchanged Chrissie presents. Is a long distance thing, whatever it is, within international boundaries (which is unusual for me).
K - my latest ex. Canadian, and I lived over there for ten months last year (2003). Left messily, I had medical issues and work issues and stress issues, and is having a conversation with someone online considered cheating? Still consider Canada as a more suitable second home than Australia ever will be (remember, I'm a Kiwi), and still embers there, both positive and negative, but who knows if when I will see the Great White North again...
H - no longer really top three material, but gets in here due to my truly madly deeply (or as I abbreviate it, TMD) way I fell for her. The first girl I did that for, and AGAIN a long distance thing, another one living in Canada when I first bumped into her (was a month old newbie on chatrooms), and went to visit as friends, with a plan B of watching hockey LOL. Fell for her big time, she said she was going to New Zealand as soon as she had a few months with her mother in Northern Ireland - visited her there and ten minutes after getting to Belfast International Airport (now there's a misnomer LOL) we were broken up. Then followed the funniest holiday of my life, funny peculiar, and my heart was broken for months afterwards. Now, four years later, we are back to chat buddies, a slightly positive aspect of things, still a ways to go to be GOOD friend material...
Work next I guess - SW is the person I am closest to there, fellow Kiwi, female, good social buddy (have told each other things that are best kept secret LOL) - JC, a Jersey girl - the original Jersey in the Channel Islands, not a J-Lo movie - nice enough, and I am friends with, but seems stressed a lot lately - MC, another friend who seems a bit stressed lately. There was another closeish work buddy, LB, but she was laid off two weeks before Xmas - we used to be the Gang of Five, if anyone was going socialising the whole five of us usually were keen. Need a new recruit otherwise it will be the Gang of Four, I should keep in touch with LB, but you know how it is, especially in this faster and faster paced world.
Also at work of note are KW - who could be the new Gang recruit, about the same age as my sister and I notice a similar type of talking between the two - nice enough, but has taken months for her to let her socialising guard down at work. MC2 is my current boss, thinks the world of me, but I hate being praised and whenever she says something nice, I try NOT to roll my eyes. AD is a nice guy, and I add him in here for going drink for drink with me at our section Xmas lunch LOL - and for the conversation we had at the office Xmas party where my feelings for Canada equated with his for Japan.
KW2 I got a Xmas card from this year, even though I didn't think I had had that much effect on her yet LOL - had love as the sign off in the card, which intrigued myself and V no end LOL. Final workmate of note is MG, who is my daily eye candy LOL - if you read deeper into my blog, you will see that I rate the friendship by how many hellos I get a week LOL. And avoided her when drinking at the staff party, am intimidated by attractive women and intimidated of what I might say when inebriated - more workmates to be mentioned at later dates, I am sure...
Most of the close friends I have are back in New Zealand - the whole work sphere is basically it this side of the ditch. MR and SR, well, he used to be my best friend, but then they got married, we flatted for a bit, and I was odd man out when there was tension in the flat - a shame too, it was a nice place. RB and KA, they are getting married, the reason I'm heading back home, they are a really really nice couple, and damn, I have to think of a good wedding present hmm. Other assorted friends from my time at high school will crop up, I am sure - especially around the wedding entries, if I do any...
AG was the closest work buddy I had back home before she up and left for pastures greener - we still kept in touch while I was in Wellington, but since I left, both in Canada and here, has been the occassional phone call, that's about it. I hope she's going to be in town when I visit, but I think she was going to be on holiday for most of the month - fingers crossed though...
Other Welly work buddies include BI, a Scottish guy whom I could talk soccer with endlessly, as well as the occassional socialising, JM, a former boss who likes me lots, who unfortunately is definitely out of town during my visit, and TF, a Nuiean lady who likes a bet on the horses and a beer LOL. From an older job, my first, is TA, a guy who is nice enough, but the best topics of conversation are either sport or the Beatles. Nice guy to take along to sports games though when not feeling in the mood to be a Nigel No Mates LOL. Mmm, Wellington Stadium memories :)
Friends further afield include CA, a former Queens Noo Yawk resident, currently engaged on Long Island - visited her back in 2002 - loved Manhattan, even the Ground Zero aspects and all - lest we forget... there is LC, a former Sask Canada girl who is currently engaged in Florida (hmm, theme here?)... and, just looking at my email address book hmm, that is about it for the primary characters - will fill you in on more soonish no doubt :)
Pauly
More Eurovision
Hmm, the Belarussian song was interesting - the boy dressed as Donny out of NKOTB LOL, four ballerina girls prancing around, and a jangly headed poppet of a synthesiser player - and unlike the adult Eurovision, these kids are singing mostly in their native language. Yep, Lillehammer, you sure lucked into hosting this one, lol right up there with the Winter Olympics.
But even though it's so bad it's cheesy, Eurovision is one of those things that all of Europe has that stops them from fighting wars. One of those what if moments I am thinking - imagine if there weren't any EU? Or NATO? Or UN? Imagine if the last sixty years in international geopolitics had gone off in another direction. There is enough Brussels bashing in Europe and the States, but really, it is a good project - and yes, I think they should admit anyone who wants to come in, Turkey and Ukraine you have my vote LOL.
Or imagine if there wasn't any UN - would all the non profit organisations such as Oxfam or Amnesty or the Red Cross jump in on the humanitarian side, and would the US or Soviet Union have become the world's policeman without UN peacekeeping forces around?
But if only they could get some quality on Eurovision lol, it would all seem a lot more worthwhile - this Spanish entry aarghhhhhhhh (I'd Rather Be Dead Than Plain is the English title lol).
Pauly
But even though it's so bad it's cheesy, Eurovision is one of those things that all of Europe has that stops them from fighting wars. One of those what if moments I am thinking - imagine if there weren't any EU? Or NATO? Or UN? Imagine if the last sixty years in international geopolitics had gone off in another direction. There is enough Brussels bashing in Europe and the States, but really, it is a good project - and yes, I think they should admit anyone who wants to come in, Turkey and Ukraine you have my vote LOL.
Or imagine if there wasn't any UN - would all the non profit organisations such as Oxfam or Amnesty or the Red Cross jump in on the humanitarian side, and would the US or Soviet Union have become the world's policeman without UN peacekeeping forces around?
But if only they could get some quality on Eurovision lol, it would all seem a lot more worthwhile - this Spanish entry aarghhhhhhhh (I'd Rather Be Dead Than Plain is the English title lol).
Pauly
Let;'s Get Some Traffic In Here LOL
Have just signed up for Blogexplosion, so all my readership stats to date will be out the window once/if I get this blog approved - not allowed strong profanities or sexually explicit content. I don't think I fall under either of those categories, but we will see - have thought about going through the blogosphere all by myself, ie not depending on others to ramp the readership up, but that's just me being stubborn stupid LOL. Why not advertise, eh?
Hmmph, quiet day on the TV viewing front - have the Eurovision Youth Competition on the TV at the moment. Take all the cheesiness from the Eurovision adult comp and multiply it by ten and you get an approximation of how teeth grinding this is for me LOL. Carnivale on later tonight (first series only for the North American audience) so the night will improve...
Pauly
Hmmph, quiet day on the TV viewing front - have the Eurovision Youth Competition on the TV at the moment. Take all the cheesiness from the Eurovision adult comp and multiply it by ten and you get an approximation of how teeth grinding this is for me LOL. Carnivale on later tonight (first series only for the North American audience) so the night will improve...
Pauly
8.5 Magnitude Earthquake
Wow, I didn't know they went up that high - you know it has to be something major when it say Asia instead of a specific country. Has hit off the west coast of Sumatra, with casualties reported in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India - 200 deaths reported so far, with the toll no doubt going to rise further...
On a lighter note, a pissed off father is selling his kids' Xmas presents on eBay because they won't behave myself - yay, one parent against the whole kids have the power in a family conspiracy LOL. If you misbehave I will put your Nintendo systems up for auction - good on him LOL.
Goodness, just watching BBC News online and that Indian Ocean earthquake has been upgraded to 8.9 on the Richter scale. Shit. The Maldives and Bangladesh also affected...
Again on the lighter note, this report from China comparing the current new rich situation there as akin to the United States at the turn of the last century, robber baron territory - like really, why try to build and 'improve' on Fointanbleu Chateau in the middle of China? If you have money in that country it seems you have power...
Why oh why on earth does the White House press office give us press releases on what the First Family have for dinner? As well as the whole inanity of the Xmas present thing for the world's most powerful person - or at least, the most VISIBLE powerful person. And double hex on the news media that report that George and Laura are having turkey and cranberry. If only Laura could give George the military you want rather than what he has, or a peaceful Iraq, or a sensible foreign policy...
Thinking of walking the dog now - will spot you all again soonish, even if I eventually think not to :)
Pauly
On a lighter note, a pissed off father is selling his kids' Xmas presents on eBay because they won't behave myself - yay, one parent against the whole kids have the power in a family conspiracy LOL. If you misbehave I will put your Nintendo systems up for auction - good on him LOL.
Goodness, just watching BBC News online and that Indian Ocean earthquake has been upgraded to 8.9 on the Richter scale. Shit. The Maldives and Bangladesh also affected...
Again on the lighter note, this report from China comparing the current new rich situation there as akin to the United States at the turn of the last century, robber baron territory - like really, why try to build and 'improve' on Fointanbleu Chateau in the middle of China? If you have money in that country it seems you have power...
Why oh why on earth does the White House press office give us press releases on what the First Family have for dinner? As well as the whole inanity of the Xmas present thing for the world's most powerful person - or at least, the most VISIBLE powerful person. And double hex on the news media that report that George and Laura are having turkey and cranberry. If only Laura could give George the military you want rather than what he has, or a peaceful Iraq, or a sensible foreign policy...
Thinking of walking the dog now - will spot you all again soonish, even if I eventually think not to :)
Pauly
Strange Dreams
Hmm - had a few strange dreams over the last few nights - Xmas Eve/Day ones were that I was in a place/situation where I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be and was weighing the options of whether to go somewhere else or to stay. Later that same night I dreamt I was in another place but wasn't sure whether I had made the right decision.
This morning I dreamt that I was in trouble for something (money related I think) and had to go on the run. As I ran away, the troubles grew worse as I did more and more stuff to escape and eventually knocked someone out with a bottle, then got on a train and the cops were checking - think it was something to do with crossing international borders as well, remember jumping a high fence.
Now the scary thing is that these were total subconscious dreams (I didn't semi wake up and try to direct or control them in any direction) and they capture two or three of the major themes of the last year or so. That I dreamt about them now as I am trying to sort the issues out, hmm are there really such things as premonitions? Will keep an eye out for things over the next few weeks methinks...
Xmas yesterday was OK - the eating and drinking circus thing :) Ham and chicken and potato salad and coleslaw and bread rolls and pickled onion for lunch - steak and kebabs and potato salad for dinner, and cheesecake and mini pavlova and jelly and ice cream and fruit salad and whipped cream for dessert. Drinks about half half between beer and soft drinks. Pressies, hmm well Seinfeld series 1 and 2, a tie, two shirts, a cookbook and a framed photo of the ex - hmm yes, we did send pressies to each other...
So yeah, all in all a quiet Chrissie - sat around and talked (seven of us including one of my brother's mates who's over here for a couple months) or watched TV or played pool or ate... was hoping for it to be a no computer day, but my brother wanted to put it on for storm watch (through the Bureau of Meteorology site), so on it came...
More later peeps, parents have a taxi to order - two weeks home alone here I come LOL.
Pauly
This morning I dreamt that I was in trouble for something (money related I think) and had to go on the run. As I ran away, the troubles grew worse as I did more and more stuff to escape and eventually knocked someone out with a bottle, then got on a train and the cops were checking - think it was something to do with crossing international borders as well, remember jumping a high fence.
Now the scary thing is that these were total subconscious dreams (I didn't semi wake up and try to direct or control them in any direction) and they capture two or three of the major themes of the last year or so. That I dreamt about them now as I am trying to sort the issues out, hmm are there really such things as premonitions? Will keep an eye out for things over the next few weeks methinks...
Xmas yesterday was OK - the eating and drinking circus thing :) Ham and chicken and potato salad and coleslaw and bread rolls and pickled onion for lunch - steak and kebabs and potato salad for dinner, and cheesecake and mini pavlova and jelly and ice cream and fruit salad and whipped cream for dessert. Drinks about half half between beer and soft drinks. Pressies, hmm well Seinfeld series 1 and 2, a tie, two shirts, a cookbook and a framed photo of the ex - hmm yes, we did send pressies to each other...
So yeah, all in all a quiet Chrissie - sat around and talked (seven of us including one of my brother's mates who's over here for a couple months) or watched TV or played pool or ate... was hoping for it to be a no computer day, but my brother wanted to put it on for storm watch (through the Bureau of Meteorology site), so on it came...
More later peeps, parents have a taxi to order - two weeks home alone here I come LOL.
Pauly
Friday, December 24, 2004
Some Hockey News
No, the season hasn't had a Christmas wish restart, but the Bertuzzi thing got sorted - well, as much as it can so far. Bertuzzi admitted to assault, paid a fine and got probation for a year. That's in the criminal sense, still needs to be allowed by the NHL to do anything hockey orientated - he can't even go find a Euro team to play for during the lockout while the suspension hangs over him, Not to say that he shouldn't be punished, but hockey is a violent sport and he was getting Moore back for attacking Naslund in an earlier game, and Moore did fall awkwardly. And nothing was wrong with Richard Loe's elbow to Paul Carozza's face in the 1992 rugby LOL...
Bridge Over The River Kwai on TV at the moment, Obi Wan Kenobi in a British Army uniform LOL. Just looking at the way the Geneva Conventions are kind of adhered to in this movie, I'm wondering if in thirty years time there will be Camp In The Cuban Sun about what's going on at Guantanamo now :)
Merry Christmas Saturn - the Huygens probe should detach itself from the Cassini orbiter and land on Titan in a few days - could be as quick as the Venus probes and only survive a couple hours, or could stick around for months - the excitement of space exploration - unlike on planet Earth, where cause and effect can be gauged fairly well (apart from total surprises like 9/11), who knows what Titan will do to a fridge sized probe :)
And still the Washington state election goes on - the results have been certified now, but voters have the right to challenge the result, and with the hornets nest of Dems vs Republicans that has been kicked up, maybe they will sort it out in four years time - lol, but then again, look, Bush's 2000 election was only held up by the Supreme Court, and he got re-elected...
Am I a bad Allied grandchild for having more sympathy for the Japanese commandant in this movie (River Kwai)? Rather than the Brits? Haven't seen this movie in a while, and it's sorta good, but not a classic... not as bad as Casablanca though - the only non average scene out of that one is when the Marsellaise was sung...
Kobe v Shaq in the NBA on Xmas Day, should be good, those two have been feuding all year. With an undercard of Indiana v Detroit, the last time those two teams met, the old cliche about hockey (a fight started and it turned into a game), and mass suspensions ensued :) good will to all men indeed hehehe...
Merry Xmas everyone
Pauly
Bridge Over The River Kwai on TV at the moment, Obi Wan Kenobi in a British Army uniform LOL. Just looking at the way the Geneva Conventions are kind of adhered to in this movie, I'm wondering if in thirty years time there will be Camp In The Cuban Sun about what's going on at Guantanamo now :)
Merry Christmas Saturn - the Huygens probe should detach itself from the Cassini orbiter and land on Titan in a few days - could be as quick as the Venus probes and only survive a couple hours, or could stick around for months - the excitement of space exploration - unlike on planet Earth, where cause and effect can be gauged fairly well (apart from total surprises like 9/11), who knows what Titan will do to a fridge sized probe :)
And still the Washington state election goes on - the results have been certified now, but voters have the right to challenge the result, and with the hornets nest of Dems vs Republicans that has been kicked up, maybe they will sort it out in four years time - lol, but then again, look, Bush's 2000 election was only held up by the Supreme Court, and he got re-elected...
Am I a bad Allied grandchild for having more sympathy for the Japanese commandant in this movie (River Kwai)? Rather than the Brits? Haven't seen this movie in a while, and it's sorta good, but not a classic... not as bad as Casablanca though - the only non average scene out of that one is when the Marsellaise was sung...
Kobe v Shaq in the NBA on Xmas Day, should be good, those two have been feuding all year. With an undercard of Indiana v Detroit, the last time those two teams met, the old cliche about hockey (a fight started and it turned into a game), and mass suspensions ensued :) good will to all men indeed hehehe...
Merry Xmas everyone
Pauly
Happy Holidays
Or Merry Xmas, whichever gets you going - am an equal holiday blogger here :)
Thinking back to this time last year, with the vista of legal life in Canada ahead of me - the decision I made puts me in mind of the concept behind that movie Sliding Doors, with leaving I have one life, with staying I could have had another - the problem is, they are still equally valid in my mind, different pros and cons but still equal. Will see what the next year brings, I guess.
Work was hella dead today - there was a phone call about every half hour in the afternoon, and leading towards forty five mins at the end of the day. Got a smile out of MG at the end of the day though, which was a positive - and apparently is going to be similar next week... but a break for four days yayyyy :)
Have a good one y'all - will be back Boxing Day :)
Pauly
Thinking back to this time last year, with the vista of legal life in Canada ahead of me - the decision I made puts me in mind of the concept behind that movie Sliding Doors, with leaving I have one life, with staying I could have had another - the problem is, they are still equally valid in my mind, different pros and cons but still equal. Will see what the next year brings, I guess.
Work was hella dead today - there was a phone call about every half hour in the afternoon, and leading towards forty five mins at the end of the day. Got a smile out of MG at the end of the day though, which was a positive - and apparently is going to be similar next week... but a break for four days yayyyy :)
Have a good one y'all - will be back Boxing Day :)
Pauly
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Quiet Day Today
McDonald's yoghurt for breakfast, caesar salad for lunch - as well as the occasional croissant, I have been having a really healthy week eating during the day - and just having my usual dinners at night. Will be home alone for two weeks from Boxing Day on, and I usually eat like a bird when I don't notice meal times LOL, so let's see how much we can lose - the gaining heaps on Xmas Day itself is a given of course. Am starting to get fast food cravings though - think a week is the longest I've gone without burgers etc in yearssssssss :)
Bought the Wedding Singer on DVD today, in the grocery store in amongst the salads and stuff - saw it yesterday is pretty cheap and is a movie I want as well - saw Blades I and II there as well, but even though I think I would like it eventually, and remembering viewing Blade at Jonty's place in Wellington was kewl, have to figure out whether I really really want it. I so need a Blockbuster or Video Ezy membership, my pool of recent would like to see movies is growing larger by the week...
I mentioned that they are hiring over 30 permanent staff at work didn't I? The application has about eight questions, and not to write over a page per question - was thinking that this meant that they wanted a page each, but had it clarified by SW this afternoon (well as much as one relative newbie can clarify with another) that it's up TO a page each.
There go my plans for War and Peace Redux LOL. As you may or may not know, I work in a call centre - and would love to be able to write as well as this person about it, but the warm fuzzy glows talking to the customers, the office politics and the trying NOT to stare at the attractive girls all merges into one big chasm by the time I get home and have the chance to write here. And much easier material at hand websurfing around the world. The work itself is fairly forgettable, the socialising is the thing (and not enough of).
There was a bit of Florida 2000 like excitement in the US elections - not at the presidential level though, but the governorship of Washington State. On Election Night, the Republicans had won by 261 votes, after several recounts, the Dem has burst into the lead with 10. And the Republican lawyer saying that the Dems have alienated the people of the state, hmm pot calling kettle black, eh party of shrill gay marriage baiting LOL. It is the kind of result that burnishes that old saying of every vote counts :) One state down, 29 to go - well, Washington was a Dem state Presidentially anyways, still thirty red states to go :)
Good article from the Washington Post here, about probably the most pressing issue the US forces have in Iraq - the lack of actionable intelligence, and the wall of silence the Iraqi public has towards coalition forces. If the US military had sufficient intelligence about the other side, maybe they could stop a few more of these suicide bombings. If you can't protect your troops having lunch, then when can you - made me smile in a rueful grim way the fact that extra guards will be posted within barracks now - two terms come to mind, horse has bolted and how many layers of protection can there be and the military still to be effective? Have a vision of 90% guards and 10% grunts, like I said, smiling at the thought in a very rueful way...
When I mentioned yesterday that women being killed and wounded in war was not a good thing, for the US as well as the Iraqi side, the person that popped into my mind was a girl who was in Iraq for the Sound Of War, which got spliced into Fahrenheit 9/11. She was singing a gospel song or something, and she was so damned pretty, reminds me of one of my Canadian, now currently in Florida, friends. And to think of that girl killed or wounded really gets to me - for some reason Stalingrad just popped into my head, with all the hundreds of thousands of casualties there, and is easier to think of German and Soviet MEN chopping each other up with machine guns - even though Rachel Weisz was in Enemy At The Gates LOL...
Hmm, with all the chaos in Iraq and stuff, along comes a story like this from the LA Times saying that Rio de Janeiro could soon become like Mogadishu, and is Los Angeles itself on it's way there? The gangs blowing up police kiosks and sniper fire on police up 80% in ONE YEAR - hmm, no, won't even go near the guns debate this evening, too tired to bring my brain out to play LOL...
'Years ago I asked gang members what happened to kids who "just said no" to the Bloods or V-18s. They brought me a videotape other gang members had made for a 14-year-old boy who had refused to join them. The tape showed gang members raping his 13-year-old sister. The boy joined the gang so that its members wouldn't return to kill her.'
Less LOL, more ick. From that story about the LA Ganglands again...
Later peeps
Pauly
Bought the Wedding Singer on DVD today, in the grocery store in amongst the salads and stuff - saw it yesterday is pretty cheap and is a movie I want as well - saw Blades I and II there as well, but even though I think I would like it eventually, and remembering viewing Blade at Jonty's place in Wellington was kewl, have to figure out whether I really really want it. I so need a Blockbuster or Video Ezy membership, my pool of recent would like to see movies is growing larger by the week...
I mentioned that they are hiring over 30 permanent staff at work didn't I? The application has about eight questions, and not to write over a page per question - was thinking that this meant that they wanted a page each, but had it clarified by SW this afternoon (well as much as one relative newbie can clarify with another) that it's up TO a page each.
There go my plans for War and Peace Redux LOL. As you may or may not know, I work in a call centre - and would love to be able to write as well as this person about it, but the warm fuzzy glows talking to the customers, the office politics and the trying NOT to stare at the attractive girls all merges into one big chasm by the time I get home and have the chance to write here. And much easier material at hand websurfing around the world. The work itself is fairly forgettable, the socialising is the thing (and not enough of).
There was a bit of Florida 2000 like excitement in the US elections - not at the presidential level though, but the governorship of Washington State. On Election Night, the Republicans had won by 261 votes, after several recounts, the Dem has burst into the lead with 10. And the Republican lawyer saying that the Dems have alienated the people of the state, hmm pot calling kettle black, eh party of shrill gay marriage baiting LOL. It is the kind of result that burnishes that old saying of every vote counts :) One state down, 29 to go - well, Washington was a Dem state Presidentially anyways, still thirty red states to go :)
Good article from the Washington Post here, about probably the most pressing issue the US forces have in Iraq - the lack of actionable intelligence, and the wall of silence the Iraqi public has towards coalition forces. If the US military had sufficient intelligence about the other side, maybe they could stop a few more of these suicide bombings. If you can't protect your troops having lunch, then when can you - made me smile in a rueful grim way the fact that extra guards will be posted within barracks now - two terms come to mind, horse has bolted and how many layers of protection can there be and the military still to be effective? Have a vision of 90% guards and 10% grunts, like I said, smiling at the thought in a very rueful way...
When I mentioned yesterday that women being killed and wounded in war was not a good thing, for the US as well as the Iraqi side, the person that popped into my mind was a girl who was in Iraq for the Sound Of War, which got spliced into Fahrenheit 9/11. She was singing a gospel song or something, and she was so damned pretty, reminds me of one of my Canadian, now currently in Florida, friends. And to think of that girl killed or wounded really gets to me - for some reason Stalingrad just popped into my head, with all the hundreds of thousands of casualties there, and is easier to think of German and Soviet MEN chopping each other up with machine guns - even though Rachel Weisz was in Enemy At The Gates LOL...
Hmm, with all the chaos in Iraq and stuff, along comes a story like this from the LA Times saying that Rio de Janeiro could soon become like Mogadishu, and is Los Angeles itself on it's way there? The gangs blowing up police kiosks and sniper fire on police up 80% in ONE YEAR - hmm, no, won't even go near the guns debate this evening, too tired to bring my brain out to play LOL...
'Years ago I asked gang members what happened to kids who "just said no" to the Bloods or V-18s. They brought me a videotape other gang members had made for a 14-year-old boy who had refused to join them. The tape showed gang members raping his 13-year-old sister. The boy joined the gang so that its members wouldn't return to kill her.'
Less LOL, more ick. From that story about the LA Ganglands again...
Later peeps
Pauly
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Waiting to Be Discovered
Well, if it's in the New York Times, it must be true huh? First linked article of the day is about how some lucky bloggers are getting book deals. When you wish upon a star indeed - no, I'm just blogging for King and Country, fame money pfft LOL. First off, I am too scattergun in my approach of subjects, secondly I don't think I'm that good a writer, thirdly when I do write well I'm too cynical I think - fourthly, there's too many LOLs, and fifthly, most of my random traffic is looking for Twigley pics rather than Random House publishers or anything.
Although these things take time, for SOME people LOL. Just was visiting my fave 'adult' blog, and her lowest monthly readership was 862 - I would KILL for 862 a month. Well, maybe not kill, and I don't like blog whoring, but you know what I mean?
Last night's episode of Seinfeld repeats was the carpark one, one of my fave installments. Especially the ending, rrr rrr rrrr rrr :)
Geez, it's been a long year hasn't it? It was only in January that Janet Jackson got into trouble with her Superbowl show (picture 7 of this BBC slide show) - didn't the Patriots win, or have I got the wrong year LOL. What on earth will they do for Superbowl halftime this time around? Bet you the ratings will be huge in anticipation... with a five second delay LOL. Was going to write out loud whether the religious right was anti sex or nature, but then realised it would be a pretty circular paragraph LOL.
Hmm, from Janet Jackson's breast and the culture wars in the USA, to the REAL war in Iraq. The bloodiest attack on US troops since the invasion began, a probable rocket attack killing 22 in a barracks canteen near Mosul. And from the journalistic point of view, Jeremy Redmon of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and his photographer, were so in the right place at the right time, with the bonus of surviving the bombing. He writes well, and I am sure he will be ramping up the rankings of journalists after this - not quite a Woodward Bernstein breakthrough moment, but like I said, right place right time...
One of the tragic things about this war is the fact (from a guy point of view) is how many women are getting killed over there. Military women sure, and many many more Iraqi civilians are dying, but from my point of view women shouldn't be dying in uniform in war - call me 19th Century if you will, but it just strikes me as very very bad...
I dunno, I keep waiting for a Mogadishu Black Hawk Down or Beirut Marines Barracks Suicide Bombing moment in this war where the cost gets to be too much and the US cuts and runs. Remember, I'm too young to remember the last pigheaded let's stay in there just cos war, Vietnam. Was talking to K on the instant messaging the other day, and said that 9/11 could be my generation's Kennedy assassination, Iraq could be the equivalent of Vietnam. Thank god we haven't had a Cuban missile crisis style moment - although Al Qaeda with nukes, thanks for that thought Mr VP LOL...
Although, now that the US is in there, it would be worse if they were to cut and run. As Tony Blair kind of disingenuously said on his flying visit to Baghdad and Basra, it is now a fight between democracy and terror. Now, if Mr Bush and Mr Blair and Mr Rumsfeld had drawn up contingency plans eighteen months ago, maybe the insurgency wouldn't be as strong as it currently is... and I'm not sure what sort of democracy will emerge if they insist on holding the elections in the midst of a civil war...
Mmm, talking about the positive side of the US military, A Few Good Men is just starting on TV here. Mmm, drill competitions - and the ONLY good Demi Moore movie EVER LOL. One two three four, United States Marine Corps :) and one of the many many good Tom Cruise roles :)
Oh gods, here's a story with the headline Jewish settlers in Gaza are using the Star of David badge to bring back memories of the Holocaust. Now, I'm not advocating the intifada or anything, but don't these settlers look out their windows and see the huge open prison that Palestinian Gaza is? You got your homeland guys, withdraw a few settlements and we can have a Settlement of affairs hopefully... reading deeper into the article, it seems like the silent majority of Israelis are horrified with the comparison as well.
Another good report from a US reporter in Mosul (Portland Press Herald this time, how do these regional reporters get these assignments? Oh, the two main units at the camp seem to be Virginia and Maine National Guard) who wasn't in the canteen, but just a couple of buildings away. Not pleasant reading, but one of those you have to read to get an idea of what's happening in the world thing - and I can't believe people that don't read the news.
Although my first ex is apparently like that, and if she wasn't so goddamned sexy I could see her lack of news reading as an issue. She reads this blog occassionally and we have gotten to the point where we are moving towards good friends again - only took umm almost four years, but there ya go :) there is hope on the K front...
- I'm going to Cuba with you tomorrow - And the hits just keep on coming - LOL dialogue from A Few Good Men - one of the few movies I know the dialogue almost back to front, with Pulp Fiction and the Matrix - how on EARTH did A Few Good Men get up to that exalted level LOL.
Funny link of the day - those crazy Germans with their beer at the World Cup. Very Pythonesque in the sense of the ridiculous way...
"We never gave up hope that there would be a happy ending to the German beer question," said Grittner.
Seeing Noah Wyle on the box now, hmm when is ER due back. I go in and out of ER watching modes, I missed most of the last series - now I'm in one of the I wanna watch it moods - although hmm it has gone past it's golden age, ie when Anthony Edwards was on there...
Told you my writing wasn't for the book deals LOL - more later
Pauly
Although these things take time, for SOME people LOL. Just was visiting my fave 'adult' blog, and her lowest monthly readership was 862 - I would KILL for 862 a month. Well, maybe not kill, and I don't like blog whoring, but you know what I mean?
Last night's episode of Seinfeld repeats was the carpark one, one of my fave installments. Especially the ending, rrr rrr rrrr rrr :)
Geez, it's been a long year hasn't it? It was only in January that Janet Jackson got into trouble with her Superbowl show (picture 7 of this BBC slide show) - didn't the Patriots win, or have I got the wrong year LOL. What on earth will they do for Superbowl halftime this time around? Bet you the ratings will be huge in anticipation... with a five second delay LOL. Was going to write out loud whether the religious right was anti sex or nature, but then realised it would be a pretty circular paragraph LOL.
Hmm, from Janet Jackson's breast and the culture wars in the USA, to the REAL war in Iraq. The bloodiest attack on US troops since the invasion began, a probable rocket attack killing 22 in a barracks canteen near Mosul. And from the journalistic point of view, Jeremy Redmon of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and his photographer, were so in the right place at the right time, with the bonus of surviving the bombing. He writes well, and I am sure he will be ramping up the rankings of journalists after this - not quite a Woodward Bernstein breakthrough moment, but like I said, right place right time...
One of the tragic things about this war is the fact (from a guy point of view) is how many women are getting killed over there. Military women sure, and many many more Iraqi civilians are dying, but from my point of view women shouldn't be dying in uniform in war - call me 19th Century if you will, but it just strikes me as very very bad...
I dunno, I keep waiting for a Mogadishu Black Hawk Down or Beirut Marines Barracks Suicide Bombing moment in this war where the cost gets to be too much and the US cuts and runs. Remember, I'm too young to remember the last pigheaded let's stay in there just cos war, Vietnam. Was talking to K on the instant messaging the other day, and said that 9/11 could be my generation's Kennedy assassination, Iraq could be the equivalent of Vietnam. Thank god we haven't had a Cuban missile crisis style moment - although Al Qaeda with nukes, thanks for that thought Mr VP LOL...
Although, now that the US is in there, it would be worse if they were to cut and run. As Tony Blair kind of disingenuously said on his flying visit to Baghdad and Basra, it is now a fight between democracy and terror. Now, if Mr Bush and Mr Blair and Mr Rumsfeld had drawn up contingency plans eighteen months ago, maybe the insurgency wouldn't be as strong as it currently is... and I'm not sure what sort of democracy will emerge if they insist on holding the elections in the midst of a civil war...
Mmm, talking about the positive side of the US military, A Few Good Men is just starting on TV here. Mmm, drill competitions - and the ONLY good Demi Moore movie EVER LOL. One two three four, United States Marine Corps :) and one of the many many good Tom Cruise roles :)
Oh gods, here's a story with the headline Jewish settlers in Gaza are using the Star of David badge to bring back memories of the Holocaust. Now, I'm not advocating the intifada or anything, but don't these settlers look out their windows and see the huge open prison that Palestinian Gaza is? You got your homeland guys, withdraw a few settlements and we can have a Settlement of affairs hopefully... reading deeper into the article, it seems like the silent majority of Israelis are horrified with the comparison as well.
Another good report from a US reporter in Mosul (Portland Press Herald this time, how do these regional reporters get these assignments? Oh, the two main units at the camp seem to be Virginia and Maine National Guard) who wasn't in the canteen, but just a couple of buildings away. Not pleasant reading, but one of those you have to read to get an idea of what's happening in the world thing - and I can't believe people that don't read the news.
Although my first ex is apparently like that, and if she wasn't so goddamned sexy I could see her lack of news reading as an issue. She reads this blog occassionally and we have gotten to the point where we are moving towards good friends again - only took umm almost four years, but there ya go :) there is hope on the K front...
- I'm going to Cuba with you tomorrow - And the hits just keep on coming - LOL dialogue from A Few Good Men - one of the few movies I know the dialogue almost back to front, with Pulp Fiction and the Matrix - how on EARTH did A Few Good Men get up to that exalted level LOL.
Funny link of the day - those crazy Germans with their beer at the World Cup. Very Pythonesque in the sense of the ridiculous way...
"We never gave up hope that there would be a happy ending to the German beer question," said Grittner.
Seeing Noah Wyle on the box now, hmm when is ER due back. I go in and out of ER watching modes, I missed most of the last series - now I'm in one of the I wanna watch it moods - although hmm it has gone past it's golden age, ie when Anthony Edwards was on there...
Told you my writing wasn't for the book deals LOL - more later
Pauly
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Rummy Channelling McNamara
First cab off the ranks today is Ignatius in the Washington Post saying how similar Donald Rumsfeld and Robert McNamara are appearing to be in their war strategies. The article actually starts off with Nixon wanting to fire Rummy for being too anti Vietnam LOL. Still need to see that McNamara doco, The Fog of War - now why do I feel sympathetic towards McNamara and not Rummy? Maybe because Dylan Baker played him in Thirteen Days? Now THAT'S a movie I should get on DVD... very Camelotish :)
LOL, the Prez had another press conference yesterday. Seems from this Slate article that he was going par for the course - Dubya never has seemed to really revel in talking to the media has he? Was he really saying to people ask someone else about that? Whatever happened to Truman's the buck stops here? Oh well, I guess Harry only had the dilemmas of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, retaking South Korea and firing MacArthur, no really biggies there LOL...
Frank Rich here in the NYT following up on the North Carolina fatwa against Happy Holidays LOL, saying that instead of allowing different opinions in religious issues, the media especially are portraying it as winners and losers, and that the more extreme viewpoints make for better entertainment. Why can't we all just get along LOL. And this LA Times editorial almost afraid to say the C word LOL - very entertaining writing :)
Oh no - trolley buses could be on the way out in Wellington! Surely having an electric system is better than being dependent on diesel or oil? Sure, it will cost lots to replace the entire fleet, but think of our clean green image people. Sure, the wires across Lambton Quay can sometimes be an eyesore, but noooo keep themmmmm - as you can probably tell, I am getting more and more homesick the closer it comes to me actually being back in Welly - looking forward to it more so than Christmas actually...
Too bad it won't be rugby season when back home LOL...
Pauly
LOL, the Prez had another press conference yesterday. Seems from this Slate article that he was going par for the course - Dubya never has seemed to really revel in talking to the media has he? Was he really saying to people ask someone else about that? Whatever happened to Truman's the buck stops here? Oh well, I guess Harry only had the dilemmas of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, retaking South Korea and firing MacArthur, no really biggies there LOL...
Frank Rich here in the NYT following up on the North Carolina fatwa against Happy Holidays LOL, saying that instead of allowing different opinions in religious issues, the media especially are portraying it as winners and losers, and that the more extreme viewpoints make for better entertainment. Why can't we all just get along LOL. And this LA Times editorial almost afraid to say the C word LOL - very entertaining writing :)
Oh no - trolley buses could be on the way out in Wellington! Surely having an electric system is better than being dependent on diesel or oil? Sure, it will cost lots to replace the entire fleet, but think of our clean green image people. Sure, the wires across Lambton Quay can sometimes be an eyesore, but noooo keep themmmmm - as you can probably tell, I am getting more and more homesick the closer it comes to me actually being back in Welly - looking forward to it more so than Christmas actually...
Too bad it won't be rugby season when back home LOL...
Pauly
Monday, December 20, 2004
Quick Workies Post
Well - with LB gone and some people's morale in the negative sphere, it didn't make the best impression both MC and JC (and another staff member that I know less) having the day off as sick. Caught the train home with SW who made the comment hmm who's off looking for other work LOL. One bad day (last Thursday) and it could blow six months of upward momentum. Eh, but workmates come and go Pauly, why make a big deal out of it - because I am still finding my feet social wise in Brissy I think, back home there was always residual socialising from jobs years ago and school and stuff, but here it's still bedding in...
Seinfeld was good this evening, was the library police episode. Love that line - "I'll be all over you like a pit bull on a poodle." Maybe I could just rip open one of my pressies LOL and start watching - one, maybe two, of the Seinfeld series DVDs :)
Lot of people who come here due to random searches are searching for Rebecca Twigley lol - a girl that had her fifteen minutes of fame being a footballer's wife and wearing a rather revealing dress at an awards ceremony. This awards ceremony happened before I found the Hello photo posting system - maybe I will have to post the actual piccies now - if you post it, they will come - or maybe a pic of Stockholm, as mentioned a couple days ago...
Pauly
Seinfeld was good this evening, was the library police episode. Love that line - "I'll be all over you like a pit bull on a poodle." Maybe I could just rip open one of my pressies LOL and start watching - one, maybe two, of the Seinfeld series DVDs :)
Lot of people who come here due to random searches are searching for Rebecca Twigley lol - a girl that had her fifteen minutes of fame being a footballer's wife and wearing a rather revealing dress at an awards ceremony. This awards ceremony happened before I found the Hello photo posting system - maybe I will have to post the actual piccies now - if you post it, they will come - or maybe a pic of Stockholm, as mentioned a couple days ago...
Pauly
Sunday, December 19, 2004
More Blogging
How inspirational a title huh? Well, just a quickish one - went and saw I Heart Huckabees - enjoyable, but not in a laugh out loud way, more a cynical grin way, and I feel it will play to a minority audience. Dustin Hoffman and Jude Law were fab, Naomi Watts is gorgeous, Mark Wahlberg I have a soft spot for, but it's not a Lost In Translation (ie a brilliant non action movie). Also didn't help that half the admittedly sparse audience obviously didn't have an idea what the movie was about, and left in drips and drabs through the screening...
But then again, all the movies I wanted to see this week were all worthy but not in a must see kind of way. Blade Trinity, Meet the Fockers and The Incredibles start up in Oz next week (Boxing Day), so the distributors are saving their powder I guess. Might see Garden State during the week as well...
Bought two CDs while I was out today as well - currently listening to Pearl Jam's Best Of, and my Mum is like maybe I will have to burn that - in the copying way, not in the Nazi book way LOL - wow, didn't know that Pearl Jam was that accessible LOL, or is it just me trying to protect my teenagehood from normality LOL. And also bought The Diary of Alicia Keys - one of those the shop is only open for two minutes impulse purchases, I could have waited a bit for Alicia I think...
How can Australians keep being interested in their Test cricket team? I am sure perfection gets pretty boring, and the ratings must be slipping big time I think - I mean, I love test cricket but the Pakistani test maybe I have caught about half an hour a day, and if that's a test match fan, goodness help the average person. Admit it guys, competition puts a bit of spark into the games, just look at the two one dayers against us (Kiwis) earlier in the month - and when was the last time a team managed to bat out the final two days of a test against the Aussies? It didn't seem so hard ten or fifteen years ago, thinking of Mark Greatbatch and Snedden holding off the Aussies for a day and a half at the WACA in 1989 I think...
And just when you thought the culture wars in the US could be put to bed for another two years, until the Congressional elections, along come some North Carolina Christians boycotting the term 'Happy Holidays' and wanting everyone to say 'Merry Christmas' instead. If the people complaining were Muslims putting fatwas on the term Happy Holidays everyone in the West would ignore or laugh at them. But then again, I guess the US isn't very much like the rest of the Western world anymore, what with it's religosity (spelling?).
'Ed Jones, president of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Assn., agreed. This Christmas, he is more conscious than ever of "a conspiracy of leftist-leaning people that want to bring down traditional values in our country," he said.
"I don't see anything to gain by offending others, but many of us are offended ourselves," said Jones, who owns a remodeling business. "I think we — the collective we — are allowing a small minority of people to rule our lives. I'm opposed to that."
His wife bought cards that read "Happy Holidays" this year, Jones said, but he was careful to ink "Merry Christmas" onto every one of them.'
That last sentence, about inking Merry Christmas into each card, how fecking petty... leftist conspiracy indeed bleah.
Talking of religion and stuff, here's an investigation by the NYT - remember how there was the big hue and cry about Guantanamo being infiltrated by Islamic spies in the US military? Well, read and find out where it ended up LOL - two Muslim soldiers being accused of espionage and helping the enemy and the case fell apart so much that part of the claim was that one of the accused had given baklava to the detainees, and another one downloaded pornography. The latter of which made it to a formal charge, but was dropped, and there will be an honourable discharge next month... kind of like dead bodies in an Arkansas land deal being dealt down to an Oval Office blowjob LOL - is a good article. Recommended read :)
Pauly
But then again, all the movies I wanted to see this week were all worthy but not in a must see kind of way. Blade Trinity, Meet the Fockers and The Incredibles start up in Oz next week (Boxing Day), so the distributors are saving their powder I guess. Might see Garden State during the week as well...
Bought two CDs while I was out today as well - currently listening to Pearl Jam's Best Of, and my Mum is like maybe I will have to burn that - in the copying way, not in the Nazi book way LOL - wow, didn't know that Pearl Jam was that accessible LOL, or is it just me trying to protect my teenagehood from normality LOL. And also bought The Diary of Alicia Keys - one of those the shop is only open for two minutes impulse purchases, I could have waited a bit for Alicia I think...
How can Australians keep being interested in their Test cricket team? I am sure perfection gets pretty boring, and the ratings must be slipping big time I think - I mean, I love test cricket but the Pakistani test maybe I have caught about half an hour a day, and if that's a test match fan, goodness help the average person. Admit it guys, competition puts a bit of spark into the games, just look at the two one dayers against us (Kiwis) earlier in the month - and when was the last time a team managed to bat out the final two days of a test against the Aussies? It didn't seem so hard ten or fifteen years ago, thinking of Mark Greatbatch and Snedden holding off the Aussies for a day and a half at the WACA in 1989 I think...
And just when you thought the culture wars in the US could be put to bed for another two years, until the Congressional elections, along come some North Carolina Christians boycotting the term 'Happy Holidays' and wanting everyone to say 'Merry Christmas' instead. If the people complaining were Muslims putting fatwas on the term Happy Holidays everyone in the West would ignore or laugh at them. But then again, I guess the US isn't very much like the rest of the Western world anymore, what with it's religosity (spelling?).
'Ed Jones, president of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Assn., agreed. This Christmas, he is more conscious than ever of "a conspiracy of leftist-leaning people that want to bring down traditional values in our country," he said.
"I don't see anything to gain by offending others, but many of us are offended ourselves," said Jones, who owns a remodeling business. "I think we — the collective we — are allowing a small minority of people to rule our lives. I'm opposed to that."
His wife bought cards that read "Happy Holidays" this year, Jones said, but he was careful to ink "Merry Christmas" onto every one of them.'
That last sentence, about inking Merry Christmas into each card, how fecking petty... leftist conspiracy indeed bleah.
Talking of religion and stuff, here's an investigation by the NYT - remember how there was the big hue and cry about Guantanamo being infiltrated by Islamic spies in the US military? Well, read and find out where it ended up LOL - two Muslim soldiers being accused of espionage and helping the enemy and the case fell apart so much that part of the claim was that one of the accused had given baklava to the detainees, and another one downloaded pornography. The latter of which made it to a formal charge, but was dropped, and there will be an honourable discharge next month... kind of like dead bodies in an Arkansas land deal being dealt down to an Oval Office blowjob LOL - is a good article. Recommended read :)
Pauly
Lazy Sunday Morning :)
Will be going out this afternoon to catch a movie - either Garden State or I Heart Huckabees I think, but this morning will be the usual laziness and quietly websurfing...
This one I think for starters - China has a Miss Cosmetic Surgery LOL - surprised that America, with it's Extreme Makeover kind of crap TV, didn't come up with this first. Oh, well I just thought of how much of their original skin the Miss America kids have LOL, maybe they brought in the Stealth Beauty Pageant already, mmm B2 Stealth Bomber :)
And staying on the fake life theme, this link is about a virtual island in one of those multi player online roleplaying games being sold in the real world for $26 K - US dollars as well that one. Ooh, he will be able to charge tolls and lease land in the same fake world. Although all up, the economies of fake online worlds are the equivalent of the real world GDP of Namibia LOL. Reminds me of a Tad Williams series actually, Otherland, where some people lived their entire lives in fake online worlds - coming to a reality near you I am sure :)
Not sure whether I had previously linked this one over the last couple of weeks, but hey, a runaway hippo, what's not to love about the story and who cares if it is linked twice LOL - just as long as there is a good break between the two. Two years old and already 800 kilos, no wonder it took the South Africans ten months to capture it :)
Here's a good idea - genetically modified plants that identify the chemicals in landmine explosives, and turn red. I think it's a good idea - the comments in the link page half of them seem to be against introducing frankenstein plants to the environment, but the company states it has made the plants so that they don't reproduce - always things that can go wrong, but hey it's landmines, the cure would SURELY be better than the disease. How many people daily around the world are killed and maimed by landmines? If we in the blogosphere lived in landmine infested countries like Cambodia or Afghanistan, then we would have the right to wonder aloud whether we should use the plants or not, but I don't know about you, but Brisbane isn't in the middle of a warzone of the past fifty years LOL...
This link is a wrap up of the year so far, from a British internationalist viewpoint (the Guardian of course LOL). Not so much the straight reporting that I enjoy, but the bits and pieces of humour that crop up...
Pauly
This one I think for starters - China has a Miss Cosmetic Surgery LOL - surprised that America, with it's Extreme Makeover kind of crap TV, didn't come up with this first. Oh, well I just thought of how much of their original skin the Miss America kids have LOL, maybe they brought in the Stealth Beauty Pageant already, mmm B2 Stealth Bomber :)
And staying on the fake life theme, this link is about a virtual island in one of those multi player online roleplaying games being sold in the real world for $26 K - US dollars as well that one. Ooh, he will be able to charge tolls and lease land in the same fake world. Although all up, the economies of fake online worlds are the equivalent of the real world GDP of Namibia LOL. Reminds me of a Tad Williams series actually, Otherland, where some people lived their entire lives in fake online worlds - coming to a reality near you I am sure :)
Not sure whether I had previously linked this one over the last couple of weeks, but hey, a runaway hippo, what's not to love about the story and who cares if it is linked twice LOL - just as long as there is a good break between the two. Two years old and already 800 kilos, no wonder it took the South Africans ten months to capture it :)
Here's a good idea - genetically modified plants that identify the chemicals in landmine explosives, and turn red. I think it's a good idea - the comments in the link page half of them seem to be against introducing frankenstein plants to the environment, but the company states it has made the plants so that they don't reproduce - always things that can go wrong, but hey it's landmines, the cure would SURELY be better than the disease. How many people daily around the world are killed and maimed by landmines? If we in the blogosphere lived in landmine infested countries like Cambodia or Afghanistan, then we would have the right to wonder aloud whether we should use the plants or not, but I don't know about you, but Brisbane isn't in the middle of a warzone of the past fifty years LOL...
This link is a wrap up of the year so far, from a British internationalist viewpoint (the Guardian of course LOL). Not so much the straight reporting that I enjoy, but the bits and pieces of humour that crop up...
Pauly
Saturday, December 18, 2004
HUGE Burst of Homesickness There
I knew I was staying up late tonight for some reason - just watching Rage and stuff, and Split Enz's Six Months In A Leaky Boat just came on. Damn I should have gone to the Finn Brothers concert late last month, just had a huge surge of Kiwiness go through me. Brisbane is nice but it isn't homeeeeee... add to that that earlier in the night I was watching the Michael J Fox movie The Frighteners (directed by Peter Jackson), which was filmed in Wellington as well... I can't wait to get back there for the week that I'm going next month :)
Seeing home in real life will no doubt get rid of my homesickness for at least another year LOL.
Pauly
Seeing home in real life will no doubt get rid of my homesickness for at least another year LOL.
Pauly
Which Movie To See?
Hmm, have four movies that pique my interest this weekend, and feeling like going to any of them - Garden State, I Heart Huckabees, The Motorcycle Diaries or Napoleon Dynamite. Searching IMDb for information about them (well rating), the top is Garden State, by a whisker. Napoleon Dynamite loses out a bit because the only screening is at 9.30 and I live out in the suburbs - any suggestions people?
Back To Life, Back To Reality
Another real world entry - after the whole thing of seeing LB (and to a lesser extent, JB) go on Thursday, the next twist in the story is that they are converting 35 temp workers (I think about half of what our centre has) to permanents early in the New Year. Taketh away with one hand, giveth with the other hmm, and I had a quick look at the application form yesterday, OMG have to get myself into talking crap about myself mode - of course I am brilliant LOL - I don't do the transformation from usual self to selling myself modes very quickly, but am sure I will get there, for starters the boss loves me lol... but yeah a day after getting rid of people grrr funny timing. Well understandable from the company's point of view, but funny playing with emotions wise.
Hmmm, maybe I should have invited KW along to drinks on Thursday night, she said she had gone to our usual pub after work after SW had mentioned it, of course we weren't at our usual. Yeah, she's come out of her shell a bit especially since the Xmas parties - add her to the most emailed at work list - well, bleah need a replacement for LB - need to send her a txt or something this morning...
Had our section Xmas lunch yesterday - was reasonable - I got a funky HUGE mug out of Secret Santa, two regular cups of coffee worth LOL but am not much of a hot drinks drinker in sub tropical summers, will come in handy during winter though. The food was good, $10 all you can eat place - mmm, potato and pumpkin fritata (sp?), roast potatoes and pumpkin, apricot chicken, roast pork and turkey and bourbon glazed ham - yum, the company was OK, and AD and I were going drink for drink lol in a mini race.
The funny thing was that either their bourbon was watered or I can handle my drink better than I used to or the heat in the walk back to work baked all the alcohol out of me cos I was fine yesterday afternoon - more than fine I was enjoying my work, which hmm happened quite a bit this week actually. It's like I broke through a self imposed barrier of getting annoyed with work and then this week it seemed a breeze :) Good sign perhaps?
Must get back to thinking self selling thoughts LOL, bleah, next post will probably be a websurf :)
Pauly
Hmmm, maybe I should have invited KW along to drinks on Thursday night, she said she had gone to our usual pub after work after SW had mentioned it, of course we weren't at our usual. Yeah, she's come out of her shell a bit especially since the Xmas parties - add her to the most emailed at work list - well, bleah need a replacement for LB - need to send her a txt or something this morning...
Had our section Xmas lunch yesterday - was reasonable - I got a funky HUGE mug out of Secret Santa, two regular cups of coffee worth LOL but am not much of a hot drinks drinker in sub tropical summers, will come in handy during winter though. The food was good, $10 all you can eat place - mmm, potato and pumpkin fritata (sp?), roast potatoes and pumpkin, apricot chicken, roast pork and turkey and bourbon glazed ham - yum, the company was OK, and AD and I were going drink for drink lol in a mini race.
The funny thing was that either their bourbon was watered or I can handle my drink better than I used to or the heat in the walk back to work baked all the alcohol out of me cos I was fine yesterday afternoon - more than fine I was enjoying my work, which hmm happened quite a bit this week actually. It's like I broke through a self imposed barrier of getting annoyed with work and then this week it seemed a breeze :) Good sign perhaps?
Must get back to thinking self selling thoughts LOL, bleah, next post will probably be a websurf :)
Pauly
Friday, December 17, 2004
Bit of Websurfing
Goodness, can you imagine an 800 metre (2640 ft) high building? I can't, but apparently that's the latest idea out of Dubai - the piccie in the BBC link makes it look like one of those Lego buildings I made when I was a kid to make as high as possible, looking pretty ugly. I'm sure it will be rounded out though...
And here is the official site of the building consortium - when I saw the phrase Middle East, I thought how is Dubai viewed by Al Qaeda etc - I know Bahrain lets the US Fifth Fleet stay there, but Dubai - 800m is just as tempting a target as the 300m WTC's were if Dubai is seen on the 'other side'.
Harrison Ford has signed up to play the US General who led the forces attacking Fallujah in Hollywood's first foray into the latest Iraqi war. First off, isn't it a bit early to know how that story will turn out? Secondly, I guess the Saving Private Lynch thing was more a TV movie than Hollywood - god I hope this Fallujah movie isn't as saccharine. A Slate reporter who is sympathetic to the Marines is putting together a book and screenplay...
Maybe we should have a movie about the isolated brigades or battalions (this example in Ramadi) who are pretty well cut off from the local population. This type of story makes me think of that Apocalypse Now scene where the US has the furthrest upriver post where they keep building the bridge and the opposition keeps blowing it up. That was a pretty surreal portion of the movie actually, lol as opposed to the whole movie of course :)
This link is from a Guardian travel writer in Sweden. I remember my time (two days) in Stockholm in 1996 - mmm, beer - mmm, very expensive beer LOL. Mmm, dancing to the Macarena one song and then Acca Dacca (AC/DC) with Thunderstruck the next LOL. And then it getting light at 4am and wandering back to the hostel, and then doing the more refined touristy things in the daytime... would love to get back there... and a million other places of course, but Stockholm is right up there :)
Hmm, dunno what to think of the latest Yukos gyrations - they filed for bankruptcy in Houston (USA, not Russia) and usually US bankruptcy law is considered international bankruptcy law, and Yukos do have deals in the US, and the judge did put an injunction on the whole sale, but I don't really think Putin and the other Kremlinovskis will take much notice in this case. Watch this space indeed.
Good Economist article in the mag this week, saying that Putin is turning Russia more anti Western and anti democracy. How many nukes do they still have anyways? That's an eek thought - what was that movie where Rebecca de Mornay was a B-52 co-pilot and nuclear war broke out? Ah, that's it, By Dawn's Early Light...
Back to more localised content - this is an interesting one - a career drug addict and criminal who moved to Australia when she was fourteen months old is getting deported back to New Zealand, where she was born. How fucking stupid is that? For all intents and purposes she is an Australian, but obviously she is in the too hard basket so let's get rid of her. For once in my life, I find myself agreeing with Winston Peters LOL. Bleah, don't even get me started on the ins and outs of international immigration...
And this case, again back home, of a Ghanaian guy who failed to mention he had HIV on his medical certificate, when he knew he had it complaining about a six month prison term for fraud. And also had an Australian wife or girlfriend whom he didn't tell and broke up with before coming to New Zealand hmm...
Australia decided a couple of days ago to ask ships within a thousand NAUTICAL miles of the country's coastline to provide papers and proper documentation - hmm, talk about your overkill, international law only allows countries to really control the seas up to 200 miles out, and ships aren't the fastest things in the world, not as if from even 200 miles out they can suddenly rev up and ram the Sydney Opera House within a short period of time... and now the Indonesians are annoyed because their sovereign water would maybe be crawling with Australian frigates under these new 'rules'. Indonesia also unhappy that the Australians named a specific hotel chain in the country under threat of terrorist bombings. Deputy sheriff status indeed...
How do Australia keep doing it? 5 for 78 yesterday, the tail wags and they get Pakistan out and could have enforced the follow on if they wanted to - talking Test Match Cricket here LOL. But the mention of the cricket in this surf is due to the fact that yes, I am a Billy Bowden fan - he was a bit nuts in the one day circuit, but he has matured into a really really good Test umpire. Respect him a lot - and yes, I am biased towards a fellow Kiwi LOL.
Hmm, choice of movies for the evening - Apollo 13, Walter Cronkite currently crying about Armstrong on the moon, The Specialist (bleah) or Mighty Ducks 3 - probably about the most hockey I will see all season - the latest negotiation between the league and players went down the tube. Go the minor leagues LOL :)
Later peeps
Pauly
And here is the official site of the building consortium - when I saw the phrase Middle East, I thought how is Dubai viewed by Al Qaeda etc - I know Bahrain lets the US Fifth Fleet stay there, but Dubai - 800m is just as tempting a target as the 300m WTC's were if Dubai is seen on the 'other side'.
Harrison Ford has signed up to play the US General who led the forces attacking Fallujah in Hollywood's first foray into the latest Iraqi war. First off, isn't it a bit early to know how that story will turn out? Secondly, I guess the Saving Private Lynch thing was more a TV movie than Hollywood - god I hope this Fallujah movie isn't as saccharine. A Slate reporter who is sympathetic to the Marines is putting together a book and screenplay...
Maybe we should have a movie about the isolated brigades or battalions (this example in Ramadi) who are pretty well cut off from the local population. This type of story makes me think of that Apocalypse Now scene where the US has the furthrest upriver post where they keep building the bridge and the opposition keeps blowing it up. That was a pretty surreal portion of the movie actually, lol as opposed to the whole movie of course :)
This link is from a Guardian travel writer in Sweden. I remember my time (two days) in Stockholm in 1996 - mmm, beer - mmm, very expensive beer LOL. Mmm, dancing to the Macarena one song and then Acca Dacca (AC/DC) with Thunderstruck the next LOL. And then it getting light at 4am and wandering back to the hostel, and then doing the more refined touristy things in the daytime... would love to get back there... and a million other places of course, but Stockholm is right up there :)
Hmm, dunno what to think of the latest Yukos gyrations - they filed for bankruptcy in Houston (USA, not Russia) and usually US bankruptcy law is considered international bankruptcy law, and Yukos do have deals in the US, and the judge did put an injunction on the whole sale, but I don't really think Putin and the other Kremlinovskis will take much notice in this case. Watch this space indeed.
Good Economist article in the mag this week, saying that Putin is turning Russia more anti Western and anti democracy. How many nukes do they still have anyways? That's an eek thought - what was that movie where Rebecca de Mornay was a B-52 co-pilot and nuclear war broke out? Ah, that's it, By Dawn's Early Light...
Back to more localised content - this is an interesting one - a career drug addict and criminal who moved to Australia when she was fourteen months old is getting deported back to New Zealand, where she was born. How fucking stupid is that? For all intents and purposes she is an Australian, but obviously she is in the too hard basket so let's get rid of her. For once in my life, I find myself agreeing with Winston Peters LOL. Bleah, don't even get me started on the ins and outs of international immigration...
And this case, again back home, of a Ghanaian guy who failed to mention he had HIV on his medical certificate, when he knew he had it complaining about a six month prison term for fraud. And also had an Australian wife or girlfriend whom he didn't tell and broke up with before coming to New Zealand hmm...
Australia decided a couple of days ago to ask ships within a thousand NAUTICAL miles of the country's coastline to provide papers and proper documentation - hmm, talk about your overkill, international law only allows countries to really control the seas up to 200 miles out, and ships aren't the fastest things in the world, not as if from even 200 miles out they can suddenly rev up and ram the Sydney Opera House within a short period of time... and now the Indonesians are annoyed because their sovereign water would maybe be crawling with Australian frigates under these new 'rules'. Indonesia also unhappy that the Australians named a specific hotel chain in the country under threat of terrorist bombings. Deputy sheriff status indeed...
How do Australia keep doing it? 5 for 78 yesterday, the tail wags and they get Pakistan out and could have enforced the follow on if they wanted to - talking Test Match Cricket here LOL. But the mention of the cricket in this surf is due to the fact that yes, I am a Billy Bowden fan - he was a bit nuts in the one day circuit, but he has matured into a really really good Test umpire. Respect him a lot - and yes, I am biased towards a fellow Kiwi LOL.
Hmm, choice of movies for the evening - Apollo 13, Walter Cronkite currently crying about Armstrong on the moon, The Specialist (bleah) or Mighty Ducks 3 - probably about the most hockey I will see all season - the latest negotiation between the league and players went down the tube. Go the minor leagues LOL :)
Later peeps
Pauly
Double Meaning?
While having a look at the referring pages that my readers come from, I saw one that was a google search looking for Justin second place getter from American Idol One (don't want to skew the results by over mentioning the surname LOL) - my blog was sixth most relevant in my reader's search, but just did it myself and I am fourth of the Justin list LOL. Now is that because I have sooooooo many readers, or that the subject is sooooooo 2002 LOL? I know what I think, I will let you decide LOL...
World's fastest lifts in the world's tallest building - 508 metres high in Taipei. The lifts can ascend over 350 metres the height of the actual floors people can get onto in about thirty seconds, with pressure control systems so that your brain doesn't explode or anything :) After being quietish in the 80s and early 90s, the world's tallest building race has broken out again over the past ten, mostly in Asia, hmm but are they any good to work in? And building it in Taipei, ten buck bet that it will be targetted by China over the next twenty years or so...
Pauly
World's fastest lifts in the world's tallest building - 508 metres high in Taipei. The lifts can ascend over 350 metres the height of the actual floors people can get onto in about thirty seconds, with pressure control systems so that your brain doesn't explode or anything :) After being quietish in the 80s and early 90s, the world's tallest building race has broken out again over the past ten, mostly in Asia, hmm but are they any good to work in? And building it in Taipei, ten buck bet that it will be targetted by China over the next twenty years or so...
Pauly
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Intimations of Mortality - Job Wise At Least...
LB got sacked today. So did JB, but I wasn't that close to him - cast a pall over the entire day, calls that usually take me five minutes I was like yeah keep rabbiting on, I'll get focussed SOMETIME in this call - well not quite, but wasn't worried about the clock, or rather didn't even have an eye on the clock... it was one of those now you see her now you don't kind of dismissals - she turned up and everything, and was doing work, then was called into a meeting, and that was it.
This has happened because we had some 'experienced' staff transferred over to our area, well transferred as in the fact that they get our email work in a complete other state. And experienced as in the fact that ooh they must be permanents, all hail the permanents who will retire in five to ten years, rather than train up some new good potential staff - grr, I thought I had gotten past the thought of not enough experience for pleb-type jobs years ago LOL.
Was a definite vibe amongst us temps today - my boss came around trying to reassure us that all the cuts had been made, but that wasn't exactly the point in my head. That point being potential rather than looking towards retirement. Of course, if these South Australian newbies turn out to be hot chicks LOL - but we went out for a quick beer or two after work, the usual suspects, myself, MC, JC and SW and assorted partners, and the vibe I was getting off the others was last one on first one off... not sure about that, but best to keep my head down currently.
Oh gods, Will and Grace on TV - the two support characters are whiney and who laughs at a joke about Vietnam being a bad war for manicurists. There is nothing on TV at the moment, remains of the cricket from Perth on another channel - at least Amazing Race is on in a bit :)
First weblink of the day - I'm not much of a Bobby Fischer fan, but surely the US Administration has better things to do than hound him about some money he made in Yugoslavia when it was under sanctions? I mean, it's not as if he was a camp guard at Treblinka or anything - and better things being spending the time and attention on hmm Iraq or North Korea perhaps?
And in the category of why not lie low and let the fuss pass over, why on Earth is Marion Jones suing Victor Conte about him saying she took drugs? Especially when she has unlucky taste in drugged up men, and whatshername, the other sprinter, got banned for eight years without a bad drugs test... Marion, they are going to catch up with you you know. Your reputation is already sullied, and pulling out of everything apart from the long jump last time around has a hint of those Greek athletes running away from the testers as well... it doesn't look good.
Surprise surprise, the much vaunted missile defense has failed it's first major test - how many billions are going into this idea? How many troops are being killed in Iraq due to lack of sufficient armour? LOL and reading further the test was delayed due to bad weather, hmm I'm sure the North Koreans, Chinese or Russians are going to wait for a sunny day to launch their nukes LOL... oh, there's a price tag, $80 billion since 1985.
Laters peeps
Pauly
This has happened because we had some 'experienced' staff transferred over to our area, well transferred as in the fact that they get our email work in a complete other state. And experienced as in the fact that ooh they must be permanents, all hail the permanents who will retire in five to ten years, rather than train up some new good potential staff - grr, I thought I had gotten past the thought of not enough experience for pleb-type jobs years ago LOL.
Was a definite vibe amongst us temps today - my boss came around trying to reassure us that all the cuts had been made, but that wasn't exactly the point in my head. That point being potential rather than looking towards retirement. Of course, if these South Australian newbies turn out to be hot chicks LOL - but we went out for a quick beer or two after work, the usual suspects, myself, MC, JC and SW and assorted partners, and the vibe I was getting off the others was last one on first one off... not sure about that, but best to keep my head down currently.
Oh gods, Will and Grace on TV - the two support characters are whiney and who laughs at a joke about Vietnam being a bad war for manicurists. There is nothing on TV at the moment, remains of the cricket from Perth on another channel - at least Amazing Race is on in a bit :)
First weblink of the day - I'm not much of a Bobby Fischer fan, but surely the US Administration has better things to do than hound him about some money he made in Yugoslavia when it was under sanctions? I mean, it's not as if he was a camp guard at Treblinka or anything - and better things being spending the time and attention on hmm Iraq or North Korea perhaps?
And in the category of why not lie low and let the fuss pass over, why on Earth is Marion Jones suing Victor Conte about him saying she took drugs? Especially when she has unlucky taste in drugged up men, and whatshername, the other sprinter, got banned for eight years without a bad drugs test... Marion, they are going to catch up with you you know. Your reputation is already sullied, and pulling out of everything apart from the long jump last time around has a hint of those Greek athletes running away from the testers as well... it doesn't look good.
Surprise surprise, the much vaunted missile defense has failed it's first major test - how many billions are going into this idea? How many troops are being killed in Iraq due to lack of sufficient armour? LOL and reading further the test was delayed due to bad weather, hmm I'm sure the North Koreans, Chinese or Russians are going to wait for a sunny day to launch their nukes LOL... oh, there's a price tag, $80 billion since 1985.
Laters peeps
Pauly
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Hot Hot Hot
It has cooled down a bit today - only got up to 30, but Sunday to Tuesday was high 30s (Celcius talking, so that's almost 100 degrees American LOL) with high humidity. The kind of weather where you can have a shower four times a day and still feel gritty ten minutes after towelling off. Very ick. Air con at work is a wonderful oasis LOL.
The MG front is progessing well - smiles and good mornings and heys and stuff LOL. And KW is coming out of her shell - is about my sister's age, six years younger, and the first few months she was friendly enough but not really interested in the getting to know you stuff, but since the Xmas parties, she has been more out of her shell, around me at least. But back to MG LOL.
Link for the day is this one - saying how an iceberg is stuck in an awkward spot in Antartica, just in the way of penguin mums and dads being able to get food to their chicks. The iceberg itself is 3000 square kilometres, and is a remnant of the biggest iceberg ever, 11 000 square kays that broke off in 2000 - bigger than Jamaica - although that won't play as well in the American disaster movies that say object X is bigger than Texas LOL.
Later peeps
Pauly
The MG front is progessing well - smiles and good mornings and heys and stuff LOL. And KW is coming out of her shell - is about my sister's age, six years younger, and the first few months she was friendly enough but not really interested in the getting to know you stuff, but since the Xmas parties, she has been more out of her shell, around me at least. But back to MG LOL.
Link for the day is this one - saying how an iceberg is stuck in an awkward spot in Antartica, just in the way of penguin mums and dads being able to get food to their chicks. The iceberg itself is 3000 square kilometres, and is a remnant of the biggest iceberg ever, 11 000 square kays that broke off in 2000 - bigger than Jamaica - although that won't play as well in the American disaster movies that say object X is bigger than Texas LOL.
Later peeps
Pauly
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Recovering From An Imagined Slip...
Well, baby steps in the whole scheme of things, but had my first words with MG in a couple of weeks today - yay me :) Tried not to overdo it, two quiet heys to each other in passing, but then as she was leaving she said bye without me doing anything to encourage it - yay! Yes, it is the little things that cause me happiness LOL. And I think me being quiet to keep out of the way the last couple of weeks did more damage than anything I might have said to her on the party night, not that I think I did say anything...
I remember another close friend who I overdid things with one night, and we hardly talked for three months - of course, that was a conversation over the net, and internet friendships are always easier to start, harder to mend than those in real life...
Mmm, a bridge in the sky has just been completed in France - official opening by President Chirac later today, on the Paris to Mediterranean highway in the Massif Central. The cars are above parts of the valley floor at 270 metres and the height of the highest pillar is 343 metres - taller than the WTC used to be... saw a piccie of it on the news before, with cloud cover around it, very Gorillas in the Mist LOL.
Just a quick one, will have an early night ONE time this week LOL.
Pauly
I remember another close friend who I overdid things with one night, and we hardly talked for three months - of course, that was a conversation over the net, and internet friendships are always easier to start, harder to mend than those in real life...
Mmm, a bridge in the sky has just been completed in France - official opening by President Chirac later today, on the Paris to Mediterranean highway in the Massif Central. The cars are above parts of the valley floor at 270 metres and the height of the highest pillar is 343 metres - taller than the WTC used to be... saw a piccie of it on the news before, with cloud cover around it, very Gorillas in the Mist LOL.
Just a quick one, will have an early night ONE time this week LOL.
Pauly
Monday, December 13, 2004
Bit Of A Surprise
Hey all - just a detour into the real life angle of things for the first paragraph or two. Just was checking into an old hotmail address that I haven't checked for hmm almost six months, and AARGh guess what, all the old emails are DELETED. Starts up again on December 2... was the email addy I was using the first few months after breaking up with the ex, and had more than a few heart to hearts on there... plus also had the email that caused the break up there - wanted to go back and see whether it was the email of mass destruction it seemed when it happened after a few deep breaths and steps back...
So yeah, I saved a few of the emails, but not sure whether the break up one is there. I guess you shouldn't go over the past - onwards and upwards, but yeah, it was a shock not to see the emails there - has the email addresses I left behind still, but no actual emails. Even the whole arguments thing over there are gaining the warm sepia tones of what might have been... but into the future, not back to the past, whether or not I travel again...
Just watching the final of Survivor Vanuatu now. Bleah, I don't like any of the final three... but then again, thinking back to earlier in the show, I don't think I really liked any of this series people - good personalities and characters to have on the show, but no one I think I would have a beer with...
Later peeps
Pauly
So yeah, I saved a few of the emails, but not sure whether the break up one is there. I guess you shouldn't go over the past - onwards and upwards, but yeah, it was a shock not to see the emails there - has the email addresses I left behind still, but no actual emails. Even the whole arguments thing over there are gaining the warm sepia tones of what might have been... but into the future, not back to the past, whether or not I travel again...
Just watching the final of Survivor Vanuatu now. Bleah, I don't like any of the final three... but then again, thinking back to earlier in the show, I don't think I really liked any of this series people - good personalities and characters to have on the show, but no one I think I would have a beer with...
Later peeps
Pauly
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Stoopid Late Nite TV
Gets me again - watching the Untouchables into the wee hours, just to see how they get Capone cos it's so unfair how they are being shot up and everything - but OMG how believable is it that right at this moment in the movie Sean Connery gets shot up by a machine gun and gets to crawl off and then give Kevin Costner the vital clue LOL. And was Capone that much of a media man? Let's just compare that to Rummy LOL, no let's not, far too late in the evening to get riled about Rummy...
This link gave me a laugh, National Lampoon's rundown of the ten least successful Christmas radio or TV specials (in the United States of course). Good summaries of each of the disasters LOL, but the one I like best is the Muppets with National Security Advisor Brzezinski - 'the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then.' LOL, umm yeah, we are Afghan freedom fighter muppets...
Laters
Pauly
This link gave me a laugh, National Lampoon's rundown of the ten least successful Christmas radio or TV specials (in the United States of course). Good summaries of each of the disasters LOL, but the one I like best is the Muppets with National Security Advisor Brzezinski - 'the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then.' LOL, umm yeah, we are Afghan freedom fighter muppets...
Laters
Pauly
Scary...
The UK is preparing for a flu pandemic, to follow on from the WHO warning that bird flu will likely cross over to humans next year. Seven to a hundred million people may die if it gets loose, with a 73% mortality rate. The last massive flu pandemic was in 1918/19 and killed twenty million people - what with the comparative ease of international travel compared to back then, well, just look at all the fuss over SARS. Talk of closing schools and cinemas and stuff, scary - sounds like the breakdown of civilisation kind of thing - coming soon to a city near you (perhaps)...
A hundred million people - just imagine, one in sixty people on this planet - that's a HUGE number, I think HIV/AIDS has 'only' hit 40 mill so far... this related report is saying that the Asian health authorities are in a state of panicked calm about it (if the term seems strange, it is in my mind like gritting your teeth and trying to smile when things are really really bad). If a farmer tells the authorities about it, he loses his stock - if the authorities tell the government about it, they face trade embargoes - there is at least some underreporting going on.
Have Something About Mary going on in the background - what a great movie, but some dodgy dodgy bits in it - at the 'hair gel' scene at the moment, ewwwww LOL. There are a few more movies I want to buy on DVD before this one, but when in a silly mood - hmm, must not be in a silly mood when buying my next DVDs lol.
Later peeps
Pauly
A hundred million people - just imagine, one in sixty people on this planet - that's a HUGE number, I think HIV/AIDS has 'only' hit 40 mill so far... this related report is saying that the Asian health authorities are in a state of panicked calm about it (if the term seems strange, it is in my mind like gritting your teeth and trying to smile when things are really really bad). If a farmer tells the authorities about it, he loses his stock - if the authorities tell the government about it, they face trade embargoes - there is at least some underreporting going on.
Have Something About Mary going on in the background - what a great movie, but some dodgy dodgy bits in it - at the 'hair gel' scene at the moment, ewwwww LOL. There are a few more movies I want to buy on DVD before this one, but when in a silly mood - hmm, must not be in a silly mood when buying my next DVDs lol.
Later peeps
Pauly
Alberta Is Special
I picked it, I picked it - almost as soon as the Canadian Supreme Court said to Parliament that you ought to get some laws together because according to us, gay marriage is OK, I was saying to my ex (Canadian) that Alberta would pull out of the thing with the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution or Charter or whatever it is that holds Canada together LOL. And guess what, Premier Klein is on the net saying that there should be a national referendum on the issue and saying that in Alberta a majority would be against. All the fretting over whether Quebec will ever secede, I think Alberta is a likelier candidate LOL - just kidding, any Albertans reading this, I am sure you have a wonderful province - even though when I passed through, downtown Edmonton seemed closed on Sunday LOL.
Just listening to Pantera's 'Walk' for the first time in like years - oh mi god, what a great song, and what a greatttttt hook. Hmm, and going through that link, that's the first time I have seen the lyrics ever LOL - just a great hook, great chorus, great drinking song :)
Hmm, just reading the latest From Our Own Correspondent on the BBC - about the wonders of Afghan media :)
Just listening to Pantera's 'Walk' for the first time in like years - oh mi god, what a great song, and what a greatttttt hook. Hmm, and going through that link, that's the first time I have seen the lyrics ever LOL - just a great hook, great chorus, great drinking song :)
Hmm, just reading the latest From Our Own Correspondent on the BBC - about the wonders of Afghan media :)
'Reporters in the provinces, where mobile phone coverage is still patchy, sometimes have to resort to rather more traditional methods of filing their stories: running into town, finding the next bus going to Kabul, pressing a piece of paper into the driver's hand, and urging him to deliver it. Apparently it works.
But my favourite memory is the darkroom, where the photographers develop their pictures by the light of a bulb hanging precariously inside a small red plastic bucket. There are two enlargers in there. One no longer winds up and down, but still does what it needs to do thanks to a block of wood propping it up. The other was made in Stuttgart in the mid-1930s, a couple of years before Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia.'
And they had a reasonably free and fair election, wow. Somehow I don't think the rebuilding of Iraq will be as easy though.
Oh, this is a good article here - about how the US Administration is buddying up to Musharraf, the Pakistani President, who, to remind everyone, took power in a coup and has nukes outside the NPT (Nuclear Proliferation Treaty), and had his top scientist selling nuclear material on the black market. And has pardoned his top scientist for this, and won't allow foreigners to interview or interrogate him. And this is Dubya's top South Asian ally, hmm, what with the fears of a nuclear 9/11 and all, and Pakistan was just selling it on the open market, hmmph.
FINALLY, getting my first listen of Band Aid take 20's version of Do They Know It's Xmas - hmm one year wonder methinks. Not a patch on the original, in my honest opinion... only took about a month to get around to hearing it LOL.
Okies enough for this morning methinks
Later taters
Pauly
Oh Mi God - More Music Videos
OMG - this is just sooooooooo wrong - now, any non-Australians will be scratching their heads with the next paragraph or two, but the beatbox guy that had a national number one without even getting through the first round of Australian Idol, is duetting with Anthony Mundine, a local boxer with an ego the size of the country. For any American readers, it is like hmm Justin Guarino - second place getter in American Idol 1, duetting with Shaquille O'Neal - I vaguely remember Shaq releasing a rap album in the mid 90s? It is soooooooooo wrong, Mundine, you are NOT Ali LOL.
And even though she is soooooo jailbait from my point of view, Jojo is going to break some hearts amongst generation Y LOL - what a smile cha-CHING lol.
Pauly
And even though she is soooooo jailbait from my point of view, Jojo is going to break some hearts amongst generation Y LOL - what a smile cha-CHING lol.
Pauly
Real Life
Hey all - just a quick update on what is happening in the real world with me LOL. Not too much, the parents are away for the weekend - Dad's work's Xmas party is on the Gold Coast and his employer paid for one night at a hotel, parents decided to pick up the second night as well. So hmm, it is me and the pets LOL - with the only orders being to feed the animals lol. What an exciting life I have on the weekends eh - I usually just vege anyways, and I have done all my Xmas shopping and I would only spend money if I went out...
Work was quiet this week - lots of calls but very forgettable - you know what I mean? Socially has been quiet as well - although two and a bit Xmas parties (the agency one counts as the bit LOL) over the past couple of weeks, quiet is OK... LOL as you can probably tell, I'm not the most social of animals - and on the MG front, hmm, I don't think I messed up that much on the actual night, but the overcompensation of being quiet in case I did the week after probably did more damage than the night itself - will have to restart a conversation somehow - dreamt about her the other night, she was auctioning concert tickets or something, and I didn't really want them but hmm went to $25 each, they had a face value of $10, just to keep in her mind or something, and $50 for two tickets was about as high as I would go, reasonable value still... and was leaning against her arm, the way people comfortable with each other sit on a couch or something... yep, definitely need to get that conversation restarted (as he uses language akin to global peace talks or something LOL).
Damn my attractive-girls-intimidate-me ways LOL.
Just have the music vids on in the background at the moment - Fatboy Slim's Joker is a cute video, but was there any reason to remake the song? I don't think so. And Lindsay Lohan hmm - cute, nice cleavage LOL, but the voice sounds too electronic, let's hear what her natural voice is like - and hmm, I think of her and I think Freaky Friday - jailbait in other words LOL.
I could go into a bit of detail on my V and K fronts (no, it's not Germany forgetting not to fight on two fronts in either of the World Wars LOL, more like having two Cold Peaces -not Cold Wars - at the same time) but I only have 24 hours in the day LOL. Much too complicated to even start unravelling in my head, especially on a vege out weekend :)
Websurfing soon I would guess.
Pauly
Work was quiet this week - lots of calls but very forgettable - you know what I mean? Socially has been quiet as well - although two and a bit Xmas parties (the agency one counts as the bit LOL) over the past couple of weeks, quiet is OK... LOL as you can probably tell, I'm not the most social of animals - and on the MG front, hmm, I don't think I messed up that much on the actual night, but the overcompensation of being quiet in case I did the week after probably did more damage than the night itself - will have to restart a conversation somehow - dreamt about her the other night, she was auctioning concert tickets or something, and I didn't really want them but hmm went to $25 each, they had a face value of $10, just to keep in her mind or something, and $50 for two tickets was about as high as I would go, reasonable value still... and was leaning against her arm, the way people comfortable with each other sit on a couch or something... yep, definitely need to get that conversation restarted (as he uses language akin to global peace talks or something LOL).
Damn my attractive-girls-intimidate-me ways LOL.
Just have the music vids on in the background at the moment - Fatboy Slim's Joker is a cute video, but was there any reason to remake the song? I don't think so. And Lindsay Lohan hmm - cute, nice cleavage LOL, but the voice sounds too electronic, let's hear what her natural voice is like - and hmm, I think of her and I think Freaky Friday - jailbait in other words LOL.
I could go into a bit of detail on my V and K fronts (no, it's not Germany forgetting not to fight on two fronts in either of the World Wars LOL, more like having two Cold Peaces -not Cold Wars - at the same time) but I only have 24 hours in the day LOL. Much too complicated to even start unravelling in my head, especially on a vege out weekend :)
Websurfing soon I would guess.
Pauly
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Canada Moments
Hi all - yes, am looking at real estate in and around Vancouver Island, for some unbeknown reason LOL. Mmm, let's be rich and arty and live on the Gulf Islands LOL I wish. And making myself hungry by looking at the menu for a cafe bistro on Salt Spring Island - Calvin's yum - now I wanna go LOL.
Hmm, sorry to hear that there was a Snowbirds training crash in Saskatchewan - Snowbirds being the Canadian Air Force's aerobatic team. Good good pic of the dead pilot with the article - do they have the term All Canadian, like they do south of the border of All American? If they do, then Capt Miles Selby looks like he was one - had done combat runs over Kosovo before joining the aerobatics team...
Off to Iraq again - this time with David Ignatius of the Washington Post in Mosul. It was quiet here for a year after the invasion, but the last six months and the last month especially, the insurgents have extended their grip in the city. If Mosul is bad, god help the rest of the country...
It is so strange that the country most economically and culturally dynamic, with the most out and out violent and militaristic society (in the developed world) can have such a hang up about sex. Frank Rich in the NYT says that the film Kinsey is a useful hook to continue the culture war by the abstinence only, no sex outside marriage, oh no we saw a breast at the Superbowl and on Monday Night Football advertising brigade. Even says that one Family Values speaker on CNN's crossfire didn't put right the notion that masturbation leads to pregnancy - five times, according to the transcript...
Goodness, breaking news here, Dept of Homeland Security Director nominee Bernard Kerik has stepped out of the nominee role because a former nanny may have been an illegal immigrant. One down, but who will the White House get to replace him? And all the while, Rummy keeps his post LOL... only another forty seven months to go, grit your teeth Pauly :)
And further on all things Rummy, here's an article giving a few more details about the Guantanamo detainees, and how flimsy the Washington Post reporters and interviewees think some of the cases are. Feel especially bad about the Bosnian who got double jeopardy - released by the Bosnian justice system as not guilty, he is then immediately 'arrested' by the Americans and sent off to Gitmo...
Well, I was trying to see what the opposing world view was, to balance my liberal slant on this blog, but the Wall Street Journal wanted a credit card number before I could read ANY articles - even the other papers that charge usually let you read the top stories unmolested LOL.
Yay, David Coulthard may be back again in 2005 - he was axed by McLaren at the end of this season (Formula One we are talking here) after giving years of good service to them - if he hadn't let Hakkinen get past him a couple of years ago grrr - has always been my second fave driver, after Michael of course. If you have to ask Michael who, you have NO idea of F1 LOL.
And here shows that thirty years down the track, even Iraq might be a thriving self sufficient country. The first direct flight between the US and Vietnam since the Marines evacuated the 1975 Embassy, United Flight 869 will have landed in Ho Chi Minh City by now. Expecting a lot of Vietnamese expats to have holidays home and stuff...
Mmm, the real Sopranos - a quick insight into the workings of the Sicilian Mafia, from the most senior mafioso that has switched sides. Makes me want to do more google searches on the whole thing :) but getting tired here, need a break and some food...
Laters peeps
Pauly
Hmm, sorry to hear that there was a Snowbirds training crash in Saskatchewan - Snowbirds being the Canadian Air Force's aerobatic team. Good good pic of the dead pilot with the article - do they have the term All Canadian, like they do south of the border of All American? If they do, then Capt Miles Selby looks like he was one - had done combat runs over Kosovo before joining the aerobatics team...
Off to Iraq again - this time with David Ignatius of the Washington Post in Mosul. It was quiet here for a year after the invasion, but the last six months and the last month especially, the insurgents have extended their grip in the city. If Mosul is bad, god help the rest of the country...
It is so strange that the country most economically and culturally dynamic, with the most out and out violent and militaristic society (in the developed world) can have such a hang up about sex. Frank Rich in the NYT says that the film Kinsey is a useful hook to continue the culture war by the abstinence only, no sex outside marriage, oh no we saw a breast at the Superbowl and on Monday Night Football advertising brigade. Even says that one Family Values speaker on CNN's crossfire didn't put right the notion that masturbation leads to pregnancy - five times, according to the transcript...
Goodness, breaking news here, Dept of Homeland Security Director nominee Bernard Kerik has stepped out of the nominee role because a former nanny may have been an illegal immigrant. One down, but who will the White House get to replace him? And all the while, Rummy keeps his post LOL... only another forty seven months to go, grit your teeth Pauly :)
And further on all things Rummy, here's an article giving a few more details about the Guantanamo detainees, and how flimsy the Washington Post reporters and interviewees think some of the cases are. Feel especially bad about the Bosnian who got double jeopardy - released by the Bosnian justice system as not guilty, he is then immediately 'arrested' by the Americans and sent off to Gitmo...
Well, I was trying to see what the opposing world view was, to balance my liberal slant on this blog, but the Wall Street Journal wanted a credit card number before I could read ANY articles - even the other papers that charge usually let you read the top stories unmolested LOL.
Yay, David Coulthard may be back again in 2005 - he was axed by McLaren at the end of this season (Formula One we are talking here) after giving years of good service to them - if he hadn't let Hakkinen get past him a couple of years ago grrr - has always been my second fave driver, after Michael of course. If you have to ask Michael who, you have NO idea of F1 LOL.
And here shows that thirty years down the track, even Iraq might be a thriving self sufficient country. The first direct flight between the US and Vietnam since the Marines evacuated the 1975 Embassy, United Flight 869 will have landed in Ho Chi Minh City by now. Expecting a lot of Vietnamese expats to have holidays home and stuff...
Mmm, the real Sopranos - a quick insight into the workings of the Sicilian Mafia, from the most senior mafioso that has switched sides. Makes me want to do more google searches on the whole thing :) but getting tired here, need a break and some food...
Laters peeps
Pauly
Why On Earth...
...do I feel something akin to longing or homesickness for a place that is my exes hometown that even she despised when growing up that I was in for perhaps two hours of my life, but that I went looking for online and found this, as part of a real estate website...
I guess Canada got to me or something - or maybe it's the Vancouver Island connection or whatever - whatever it is, I do not feel anything like the same feelings I have for either Ottawa or Vancouver Island when I think of my current location...
'Just an easy half hour drive from Parksville or Qualicum Beach and about an hour from the ferry terminals in Nanaimo, nestled in the beautiful Alberni Valley is the "newest town to be discovered" on Vancouver Island - Port Alberni. Port Alberni, long known as a mill town, is an energetic community with plenty to offer. The forest industry is still the economic mainstay, and the community is also becoming an attractive place for retirees.
Recreational activities abound in the valley: fishing, hiking, gardening and golf to mention just a few. Port Alberni boasts the most active "Sunshine Club" in Canada, with excellent activities and services for seniors. Activities include: crafts, bridge, cribbage, lawn and 5 pin bowling, exercise, swimming, travel and many clubs.
The area population is about 30,000. Port Alberni is known as the "City with a Heart". A friendly, caring community known for active, friendly citizens, Port Alberni has services second to non for a community of similar size. There's North Island College, which offers both academic and vocational courses, as well as the popular Elder College. There's a world-class running track at Bob Dailey Stadium, a new double sheet arena/convention complex, lawn bowling, curling, skating, library, swimming pool, a new full service hospital, transit services and churches of all denominations. There are an abundance of parks, an 18 hole and an executive golf course, and of course the best fishing in Canada!
A temperate west coast climate, and a small town character with all the amenities, make Port Alberni an attractive place to live. Yet the best secret is the varied and affordable housing. A full range of housing is available at perhaps the most reasonable prices of any British Columbia community that offers such an array of excellent services. Acreage is available, so are single family houses, apartments, mobile homes and new patio homes. A moderate climate, small town character, backed up by almost unlimited recreational opportunities, all add up to make Port Alberni a choice place to call home.
Our branch in Port Alberni has the largest local real estate inventory. We serve all of the Alberni Valley, as well as the West Coast communities of Bamfield, Tofino, and Ucluelet.'I guess Canada got to me or something - or maybe it's the Vancouver Island connection or whatever - whatever it is, I do not feel anything like the same feelings I have for either Ottawa or Vancouver Island when I think of my current location...
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