On 2 February 1994, I started my first full time job. It seems a lot longer than just twelve years. In the time since, I have only been out of work hmm - calculating in my head, carry the one, multiply by 0.14 for tax purposes etc - twenty months I think. Damned protestant work ethic, catholic guilt, even though I'm not religious or anything, those two phrases sum up my attitude to work LOL. Guilt if I feel I am slacking off, work ethic meaning I can't think of what else to do for ten hours a day - including travel time and breaks of course.
The guilt thing came into play with a quiz that was making the rounds of the Kiwi staff in the office - world famous in New Zealand.xls - with pictures as clues. It seemed the others were doing them all during the day, but me, I did a quick ten minutes during my arvo tea break and then forwarded it to home. Where I got 90 out of 100 without any hints or google searches - quite proud of myself...
Although one of the things did spark me off at work - in a good but unexpected way. One of the pictures is of the Chesdale cheese ad - 'we are the boys from down on the farm, we really know our cheese' and such - it is one of the things at the Te Papa Golden Days theatre exhibit, you know, the part of the museum which actually draws the locals in again and again. All Kiwiana and memorabilia and Great Moments Of Our Nation and Shorty Street and advertising jingles and such. It gets me in that patriotic spot every, single, time I go.
Well, thinking of it got me in that spot again, at work, and I almost teared up, at work. Had to wipe my eyes to get rid of it - I'm usually OK with letting the tears fall (thinking of the sensitive boy vignette out of the Brendan Fraser/Liz Hurley Bedazzled movie - mm, vignette, word of the day), but eh, don't need to let the workmates see that.
I don't think remembering the Chesdale jingle hit me in the homesickness spot, more so the patriotic spot. That great, undefined area of the brain where I am sure it hasn't evolved much from the tribalism of two hundred thousand years ago. Now I have Message From My Girl bouncing around my head, Split Enz are apparently reforming and doing a tour of Australia...
It's finest cheddar, made better... and then Golden Days would segue into the underarm bowling, then the Olympics, with Jack Lovelock winning the 1500 at Berlin, the Nazi salutes and then into WW2, El Alamein, Cassino. And then onto something else, kinda sorta related to what was just on. I wonder if the National Museum in Canberra has anything similar - what makes Australians patriotic, apart from the Oy Oy Oy slogan?
Talking of Australia, this AWB corruption story just keeps growing and growing. From just maybe kinda maybe we bent the rules a bit, to the whistleblower today saying that the board was well aware that there were kickbacks going to the Iraqi regime - former Iraqi regime, make that - to the Australian Embassy in Washington making diplomatic representations to Congress to tone down an AWB investigation that the Senate was undertaking.
Letters apparently flying around from both Foreign Affairs and the PM's department, although they look well above board at the moment. And more angry letters from Congress in Washington now that all this info is leaking out. It's not exactly illegal wiretapping, but where is the good going to come out of this story?
Oh, and that's another kinda sorta related topic - Afghanistan. They had a conference about the country over the last couple of days, $13 billion promised in aid and such, they had a sound bite from Tony Blair saying how much progress the country had been making, blah blah blah, but oh, Australia is sending another 200 troops, how much does the national government control outside of Kabul, where is Osama Bin Laden.
And not even going to go into the whole rosy speech that Bush made for this year's State of the Union - I wonder what would happen if a politician ever told the truth. And yes, I am thinking of Warren Beatty in Bulworth LOL. If Bush said, 'well, the country isn't going too well - we had 800 fatalities in Iraq last year, I'm not too sure whether we are winning that or not, we got belted by Katrina and Rita weatherwise last year'. Wouldn't it be novel :)
Oh, and another rant moment, saw someone from Concerned Mothers of America on SBS news just before, concerned about the number of gay movies that have been given nods at the Oscars this year - Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Transamerica. I would think it would be better for Concerned Mothers of America to worry about the Iraqi war, but then, what do I know, I didn't think too much of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction either.
No chance of that this year, with the Rolling Stones as Superbowl halftime entertainment - in Detroit this year, I sure hope they have a roof, otherwise Mick, Keith, Ron and the other one will get mighty cold.
Brokeback Mountain, or as TSSH has put it, Crouching Cowboy, Hidden Sausage.
Oh, and in the good news, well at least it's not bad news, of the day, the planet 2003 UB313, aka Xena, is bigger than Pluto. Well, I like to call things bigger than Pluto independent of other celestial bodies planets, that whole debate is due to maybe be decided in August, when the International Astronomical Union next meets. Fingers crossed if it is decided that 2003 UB313 is a planet it gets a more august name than Xena.
Think that's about it for the evening, carry on, as you were.
Pauly
The guilt thing came into play with a quiz that was making the rounds of the Kiwi staff in the office - world famous in New Zealand.xls - with pictures as clues. It seemed the others were doing them all during the day, but me, I did a quick ten minutes during my arvo tea break and then forwarded it to home. Where I got 90 out of 100 without any hints or google searches - quite proud of myself...
Although one of the things did spark me off at work - in a good but unexpected way. One of the pictures is of the Chesdale cheese ad - 'we are the boys from down on the farm, we really know our cheese' and such - it is one of the things at the Te Papa Golden Days theatre exhibit, you know, the part of the museum which actually draws the locals in again and again. All Kiwiana and memorabilia and Great Moments Of Our Nation and Shorty Street and advertising jingles and such. It gets me in that patriotic spot every, single, time I go.
Well, thinking of it got me in that spot again, at work, and I almost teared up, at work. Had to wipe my eyes to get rid of it - I'm usually OK with letting the tears fall (thinking of the sensitive boy vignette out of the Brendan Fraser/Liz Hurley Bedazzled movie - mm, vignette, word of the day), but eh, don't need to let the workmates see that.
I don't think remembering the Chesdale jingle hit me in the homesickness spot, more so the patriotic spot. That great, undefined area of the brain where I am sure it hasn't evolved much from the tribalism of two hundred thousand years ago. Now I have Message From My Girl bouncing around my head, Split Enz are apparently reforming and doing a tour of Australia...
It's finest cheddar, made better... and then Golden Days would segue into the underarm bowling, then the Olympics, with Jack Lovelock winning the 1500 at Berlin, the Nazi salutes and then into WW2, El Alamein, Cassino. And then onto something else, kinda sorta related to what was just on. I wonder if the National Museum in Canberra has anything similar - what makes Australians patriotic, apart from the Oy Oy Oy slogan?
Talking of Australia, this AWB corruption story just keeps growing and growing. From just maybe kinda maybe we bent the rules a bit, to the whistleblower today saying that the board was well aware that there were kickbacks going to the Iraqi regime - former Iraqi regime, make that - to the Australian Embassy in Washington making diplomatic representations to Congress to tone down an AWB investigation that the Senate was undertaking.
Letters apparently flying around from both Foreign Affairs and the PM's department, although they look well above board at the moment. And more angry letters from Congress in Washington now that all this info is leaking out. It's not exactly illegal wiretapping, but where is the good going to come out of this story?
Oh, and that's another kinda sorta related topic - Afghanistan. They had a conference about the country over the last couple of days, $13 billion promised in aid and such, they had a sound bite from Tony Blair saying how much progress the country had been making, blah blah blah, but oh, Australia is sending another 200 troops, how much does the national government control outside of Kabul, where is Osama Bin Laden.
And not even going to go into the whole rosy speech that Bush made for this year's State of the Union - I wonder what would happen if a politician ever told the truth. And yes, I am thinking of Warren Beatty in Bulworth LOL. If Bush said, 'well, the country isn't going too well - we had 800 fatalities in Iraq last year, I'm not too sure whether we are winning that or not, we got belted by Katrina and Rita weatherwise last year'. Wouldn't it be novel :)
Oh, and another rant moment, saw someone from Concerned Mothers of America on SBS news just before, concerned about the number of gay movies that have been given nods at the Oscars this year - Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Transamerica. I would think it would be better for Concerned Mothers of America to worry about the Iraqi war, but then, what do I know, I didn't think too much of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction either.
No chance of that this year, with the Rolling Stones as Superbowl halftime entertainment - in Detroit this year, I sure hope they have a roof, otherwise Mick, Keith, Ron and the other one will get mighty cold.
Brokeback Mountain, or as TSSH has put it, Crouching Cowboy, Hidden Sausage.
Oh, and in the good news, well at least it's not bad news, of the day, the planet 2003 UB313, aka Xena, is bigger than Pluto. Well, I like to call things bigger than Pluto independent of other celestial bodies planets, that whole debate is due to maybe be decided in August, when the International Astronomical Union next meets. Fingers crossed if it is decided that 2003 UB313 is a planet it gets a more august name than Xena.
Think that's about it for the evening, carry on, as you were.
Pauly
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