Scavengers at Work

I Do Not Trust Birds Who Perch Above Me

Ever since I saw Hitchcock's 'The Birds', ravens with big beaks have never been the same. They do have lovely shiny black feathers though. They must use Pantene.

Crate Men at Victoria Park Station

A Melbourne Tram

Old and New in the CBD

New Additions to the Magnet Collection

I Think My Tea Is Looking At Me...

Is it possible to tell one's fortune from examining the marshmallows? I'm sure this cup is telling me it's surprised.

The ANZ Turd

Unusually for a Saturday morning in the CBD there was no long queue outside the ANZ ATM alcove.



They were all lined up at the Commonwealth Bank ATMs several shopdoors down. Upon entering the ANZ alcove the reason was obvious. An aroma redolent of a kitty-litter box was overwhelming to the point where withdrawing money was an exercise in mind over stomach. Someone had already stood in it. I hope it was the offender. I hope the offender is suffering from a terrible hangover today.

INTERESTING CHINA BLOG

http://sixty4-middle-kingdom.blogspot.com/

For about the first time since I did a random blogger search I didn't stumble upon an American political blog or a teeny-bopper gossipy blog. This one is interesting. I've wondered for a long time what it's like to live in China. It's written by a British/Australian teacher there.

TERRIBLE NEWS

After beating my existing Pacman high score by a whopping 15,000, my laptop crashed before the result was saved! I am now on a mission to get there again… Nevertheless, I have now seen the next level transition with my own eyes. The one where Pinky is dragged across the screen looking like a one-eyed slug. That made it all worth it.

postscript in June: No worries. I'm now up to 70,000.

GEEKS WILL RULE THE WORLD

The more I learn about computers the more I notice the trend towards encapsulation. At least, this is what they call it in programming. I’m talking about object oriented programming, where classes contain all the code required to make multiple copies of objects. Then there’s the physical hardware itself. If you look at a motherboard from c1981 they needed multiple chips to perform the function of just one single modern component. Of course, it’s not that computers have become more simple since 1981; the reverse is true, but peripheral components tend to be incorporated into the one. Then there’s other hardware like printers, which are not just printers but also scanners and fax machines. In the old days these were all separate machines. In web design the move is away from tables and towards using cascading style sheets, which is, from what I can see, html’s answer to object-oriented coding.

I guess what this means for the future of technology is that the deeper parts of computing will become more accessible to the masses. I’m a good example of that – there’s no way I’d be the slightest bit interested in computing if it were 1980 and coders were struggling with really low-level bytecode type stuff. I would have gone mad. (No doubt many did, and after yesterday’s maths test on binary arithmetic, I can fully empathise… note to self: Take a Calculator to Next Maths Test.)

Another example of the finer side of computing reaching the masses is Dell’s move toward installing the Linux OS on its PCs. (Though according to APC this is just a proposal and they have yet to argue their way into deciding on what version.) Being open source, Linux would result in cheaper computers, but of course Linux requires knowledge of the ‘darker side’ of computers over and above what you need using Windows. People migrating from Windows to Linux must therefore experience a learning curve before they become productive on their own systems.

What will the world be like when the average Joe is fully computer literate? By fully literate, I mean able to write our own programs, customise our own operating systems and commit white collar computer crime if we so choose. I suggest a number of things would result from this kind of world:

1. We would spend more and more time with computers just to keep up with technology, thus becoming enslaved by them as much as liberated by them.
2. We’d have to spend much time and expense battening down the hatches, keeping hackers out of our systems.
3. Governments would be forced to re-examine the nature of crime in the wake of existing loopholes which can’t currently prosecute certain computer nuisances and criminals.
4. Technology would grow at an ever-increasing speed because with more people able to program, more programs would be produced and some of them would be very good.
5. Geeks will rule the world.

Does this make me a religious blogger?

Jim Crace is an English author who has found fame in both the popular and critical realms. Not easy. Jackie Collins hasn't achieved it. (But I bet she doesn't care.) After hearing him on radio I'm now motivated to read one of his books, as he apparently divides people into those who love him and those who hate him, and I'm interested to know which group I fall into.

The interesting thing about listening to Crace talk was realising that he considers Atheism to be a religion. I’ve always thought that atheism is lack of a religion rather than a religion per say, but then I suppose that all depends on your definition of ‘religion’.

Crace talked about the death of his Atheist father, who asked for no pomp and ceremony at death, in fact no funeral. Crace carried out his father's orders and has regretted it ever since. He has found no comfort in his atheist beliefs when confronted with the mortality of his family. He asks, "Why was it that religions had all the narratives of comfort? We don’t have our own words for mystical or spiritual or transcendental… These are all religious words and we don’t have anything to comfort us when loved ones die. Atheists are too Stalinist in our approach. We don’t know what to do with the dead. "

This leads me to think that over and above our belief in God, or belief in God’s absence, humans need some sort of spiritual comfort when confronted with mortality. I don't believe animals on the African plains give a second thought to what's going to happen to them at death, and less to what happens after they die. As they stand there chewing on grass or whatever they're probably a lot happier for it. Maybe we should take a leaf out of their book and just leave the hell alone.

After all, we'll never know. We can only but have faith.

STANDARD ENGLISH IS STANDARD ENGLISH IS STANDARD ENGLISH

I listened to an interview with Jackie Collins on Radio NZ National and was struck by the fact that she doesn’t seem to have much of ‘an accent’. All that means of course is that her accent isn’t as different from mine as I had expected. I always assumed she was American. In fact, she’s English, and immigrated to America in her teens, so her English is now a mixture between English and American. The resulting accent is remarkably similar to my own.

In Japan I was often asked by studious learners of English whether my New Zealand English was like ‘English’ or ‘American’. I always found this an exasperating question, because for a start, there is no such thing as ‘English English’ – having now lived there I’m even more certain that the locals can fairly easily tell whereabouts you grew up, at least in vague North, South, East, West directional terms. American English too, seems quite different depending on where in America you come from (after all, it’s a rather large continent). More annoying again is the assumption that a country with its own identity can’t have its own English altogether. And that’s precisely what we have down there in New Zealand. We certainly have our own brand, but it’s definitely English. We have a different accent and we have a few distinctly Kiwi words, but that’s as far as it goes.

Once in Japan I was attempting to help a lecturer in her office. The lecturer, a graduate of Japan’s top university, was wrestling with some particularly difficult academic English, and although I eventually understood the convoluted passage, my Japanese wasn’t up to translating it into Japanese, so I tried to simplify the academic English into simple terms. My lecturer, who only ever reads English, and doesn’t speak it unless she has to, announced that my English was ‘strange’ and she couldn’t understand the New Zealand accent. She being lecturer, me being student and that being Japan, I was in no position to tell her otherwise, but it seems to be a common misconception amongst the Japanese that New Zealanders, and probably other regional dialects with small populations, are impossible to understand. Well, I’ve lived in the South of England, Australia and travelled to Southern Africa, Scotland and Ireland. I’ve also met plenty of Americans. Of course we tend to focus on the differences rather than the similarities and for this reason I can say there’s very little difference between all of them.

In Japan, on the other hand, although there is ‘Standard Japanese’, the regional dialects seem to vary after every mountain range, and it’s not just the words; it’s the grammar. It’s absolutely astounding to me that within such a geographically compact country the dialects can differ so much. I suppose it’s only natural for the Japanese to then assume that, being so geographically remote, New Zealanders must speak a very odd variety of English indeed. I just wish learned Japanese academics would do a bit of research into English linguistics before propagating the idea that educated English speakers in remote parts of the world can’t understand educated English speakers in any other part of the world.

教育標準が高い日本人でも、英語が話せないのに、英語圏に住んだことがないのに、いろいろな変な考えがあるようだ。日本には地域によって方言がずいぶん違うけれど標準語は日本のどこに行っても通じるだろう。ニュージーランドという国はほかの国から離れているのに、ニュージーランドの標準英語はアメリカやイギリスやオーストラリアの標準英語とはあまり違わない。私の英語を聞いて、「ニュージーランド人だから分からん」と思っている日本人は言語学を勉強すべきだ。

Oh, I must go and read one of Jackie Collins' books now. They sound like an interesting cultural experience. Kim Hill called her 'Enid Blyton with sex'. Having grown up with The Magic Faraway Tree and so on, she was flattered!

How To Eat Like A Geek

Most of my all night writing raves are fueled by a variety of possibly less
than nutritious (but very tasty and loaded with temporary energy) food and beverage. In particular, this edition was fuelled by bags and bags of
starbucks coffee made by a killer coffee Capresso automatic/espresso machine (utter nirvana for an addicted coffee drinker like me), Coke Classic (no Pepsi allowed - gotta have the burn!), Red Bull and AMP energy drinks, and cases of Trolli Brite Crawler Eggs and Pearson's Salted NutRolls. Why, that covers the three major workaholic nerd/geek food groups right there: caffeine, sugar and salt!


As said by Scott Mueller, the King Geek himself (and who I respect very much), in his famous book Upgrading and Repairing PCs. In this very same paragraph, you can also see that geeks are interested in appliances. Talking about your "coffee machine": bad geek. Using adjectival modifiers which include at least the brand name and ideally the model number: good geek.

Also, where possibly, programming naming conventions should be adhered to wherever possible. It's NutRolls, not Nut Rolls. If geeks had their way, it would actually be nut_rolls or nutRolls (depending on your leanings).

How To Make A Hotdog Surprise

Use a knife sharpener or something to make a saveloy shaped hole in the bread roll. Boil up the saveloys while you're doing this.

If the sav splits open it's a bit harder to get inside the roll, so butter her up.

Apply margarine to the opening. The sav slips in more easily.

Yes, this just looks wrong.

There you go. The sausage part is well hidden, which is why these are 'Hot Dog Surprise'!

What's With the Dog?

Why are dogs so popular on toilet roll packaging? Did dogs sign away their right to loo roll companies years and years ago?

Extra soft, really thick and I love the way it feels.
(Emma and her best friend India)

Which one is the kid? Does the dog use it too? On the topic of pets and personal maintenance, a friend sent me the following email. You may have got it yourself. Hopefully you've not had the same experience...

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally look round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.

postscript: A classmate just informed me that the enduring link between dogs and toilet paper is that in prehistoric times, early humans used dogs as wipes.

Who Thinks Up Two's Complement?

How would you like to be remembered on Wikipedia after you die?

Few distinguished men... have had a less eventful life

Well, actually I think the easiest way to make it onto Wikipedia as an individual is to commit a crime... or be victim of a heinous one, so I have no ambitions to make it onto Wikipedia whatsoever. But it might interest you to know that the above quotation does exist on the entry of a late mathematician - a mathematician whose name you've probably heard of. George Boole lived in Britian in the 1800s and as far as I can see, was totally and utterly absorbed by his work. I guess you'd have to be. We've been learning binary arithmetic in Maths for Computing (as you'd expect) and I find myself wondering, "Who the hell THINK of these things?" Of course, maths was discovered, not invented, which makes it all the more astounding. What fascinates me about Boole is that he discovered Boolean logic long before it was actually used in technology. I wonder if someone else would have happened across it had Boole's mother and father not felt like it on that particular night.

I once heard that 'Boredom is the mother of creativity' (no, not Mark Twain) and I think the person who said it was right. There's nothing like a mundane job to get the brain juices working overtime. Over-stimulating and exciting jobs, on the other hand, very often sap workers of all their creative juices and the benefits are channeled in different (more lucrative) ways. But the really great thinkers, the ones who go down in history (usually after they've karked it) often had pretty dry lifestyles. Not many lifestyles today are dry in the same way a life in the 1800s would have been dry. No, we're probably all far too over-stimulated. Perhaps the next major breakthroughs will come from well-educated people from developing countries.

So What's Fake White Chocolate?

Some people hate white chocolate. Others love it. My childhood cat Mistie (who's now buried under a rose bush in Hornby, ChCh), LOVED white chocolate. She was only ever allowed to eat it in small doses because if chocolate kills dogs it's probably not exactly medicinal for cats. But she could smell it when it was unwrapped and would sit salivating in front of you, with the cutest look she could muster until you scraped her off a sliver. She was then ecstatic and never happy until the block was finished. (I think she was a human reincarnated, and by the way, only good people are reincarnated as over-indulged house cats. What better reward than lying around in the sun all day?)

Mistie also loved milk chocolate, chips, ice-cream and especially Crunchie bars. She lived approximately half of her life with one tooth, and when that fell out she still seemed to get by quite happily with tough gums. I suppose when you've got no teeth left you've not much to lose and throw caution to the wind. I wonder if it's the same the day you get your first set of false teeth?

Seven

Would you believe I only just got around to seeing the movie Seven for the first time, and since it came out about 10 years ago, I'd managed to get around in life without anybody ever telling me the ending? (And I do have a friend who is apt to tell me the endings of stuff - you know who you are!) I found it a bit slow moving at the beginning, but that's probably just me and the fact that I'm hopeless when I'm trying to get into something. I very rarely enjoy the beginning of a book or movie, and tend to go off on a tangent, missing key points. However, I didn't have any trouble with Seven, and even though the plot is a little predictable, that's probably only a reflection of the fact that I must have watched too many gory thrillers lately. In sum, I enjoyed it immensely.

I have a font on my computer called SE7EN, which I have been using for a while now. It's handwriting style. It's available as freeware on many free font sites. I have far too many free fonts on my laptop and am loath to copy them onto my new desktop because it really does slow the system down. But still I love fonts and the enjoyment I derive from choosing a font appropriate to the occasion overrides the many cups of coffee I'm forced to sip leisurely while my computer is loading up Illustrator, or whatever.

There's a trick you should know if you're in the habit of using free fonts in MS Word. Of course, a weird font is unlikely to be installed on someone else's computer, and when someone else tries to view your document on a different computer they'll be viewing a different font... usually one that's completely inappropriate and mucks up your formatting. So if you use an unusual font in your document do this before you save it for the final time:

Go to Tools | Options | Save tab and check the box which asks if you want to 'embed True Type fonts'. This will mean that the end user will see your document the way you intended it to be seen.

Caramel Tartlets

INGREDIENTS:
One can of caramel.
Some pastry cups

METHOD:
Spoon the caramel into the cups.

Have you ever noticed that the simplest things go the quickest at parties and pot-lucks? (Chips, chocolate biscuits and icecream??) I once took egg sandwiches to a Marae and nobody ate ANY of them. I wasn't offended for long. I love egg sandwiches.

My Dad tells the story of a boy who he went to school with who requested a can of condensed milk for his birthday. He then used to consume the whole can in a single sitting. I like condensed milk and I also like its newer issue on the market... the caramel... but there's no way even I could eat that much in a single sitting!

White Orchid Fudge

This fudge is not as rich as the kind you make yourself at home with sugar, butter, golden syrup and condensed milk. For that reason, it would no doubt be easy to eat far too much of it...

The Lawn's New Do

The lawn decided it was time for a new look so it got a mohawk. Not dead centre mind you. That's so 80s. No, the new mohawk is slightly off to the side.

Amarula - South African Bailies

I'm not the world's biggest drinker, and half a bottle of this stuff is all the alcohol I've consumed this year. The bottle has only just finished and I thought I'd take a photo of it before it gets recycled. I don't think this bottle of booze can even count as alcohol, because the milo into which I tip it must almost be hot enough to burn the low alcohol content that was in the drink in the first place. Yes, it would be hard to get drunk on this stuff. I first tried it in Southern Africa, where it's often poured into hot chocolate and no doubt drunk quite often on its own. One of the camping sites in Malawi was called 'Mama Rula's' because the lady who ran it liked Amarula so much.

It's kind of like African Baileys. With Baileys I'm sure you pay for the brand name as much as anything, and if you're a Kiwi, a cheaper alternative that doesn't taste much different to me is Canterbury Creme.

I think one of the nicest things about drinking is the cool bottles the stuff comes in. (Like perfume, only better tasting.) The graphic design of traditional alcoholic drinks doesn't seem to have progressed much since the early part of last century (though of course if you're a graphic designer you will no doubt reckon it has!) and I almost feel like I'm traveling back in time as I wrestle with a cork. I like the 'literature' on bottles too.

Amarula Cream is a smooth experience - a pure and precious blend of nature's fresh cream and the mysterious taste of the wild marula fruit. Enrich your taste with the smooth fragrance of this amazing drink - it goes down beautifully with any mood, any time. The Marula tree, indigenous to the southern latitudes of subequatorial Africa, and known by the local inhabitants as the elephant tree, is favoured by the elephants for its fruit. The wild tree, never cultivated by man, bears small yellow fruit in great profusion - a wild fruit from nature that mixes harmoniously with nature's own fresh cream.

Where label-writers be without adjectives and adverbs? It's like they were given a very large label and a choice between 6 and 8 point font, and told to 'Fill up the label, whatever you do. We can't have any blank space on the label!" Either that or they were playing that party game where you're given a topic - Amarula! - and you have to talk for a minute without stopping about the word out of the hat.

There's a wine produced in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, where the label literature informatively tells wine connoiseurs that the grapes were grown 'along the banks of the beautiful Tutae Kuri River'.

The locals know full well that Tutae Kuri is the indigenous phrase for 'dog shit'. The wine, however, is good.

POSTSCRIPT: ONE YEAR LATER
When I'm not pregnant anymore I'm going to make my own Bailies with cream, coffee, cheap whiskey and condensed milk. It looks a lot cheaper and apparently is very good. Various recipes can be found on the net, like here.

Success With Asian Names by Fiona Swee-Lin Price

I went into the library to do some study, and as usual, I noticed another interesting-looking book on the recently purchased shelf. I wish I'd had this book when I first started teaching. I can't think of many other professions where you can so completely make a fool of yourself having to read out a list of 30 names. Teachers do this every day, once an hour, and sometimes in front of hundreds of people (eg. prizegiving). So I appreciate a book which gives people more confidence in reading unfamiliar names.

The book is broken up into chapters covering some of the major Asian languages and how the names are broken up. It also goes into how the names would be written in native orthography.

The last chapter gives hints on how to make an educated guess about where someone is from by looking at their name. Here are just a few pointers:

• Tamil, Sinhalese and Thai names tend to be very long with multiple components, whereas Korean, Sikh and Mandarin names tend to be short, with one syllable components. (It seems to me that there isn't a vast array of names to choose from in Korea either!)
• If it has a q in it, and it looks Asian, there's a high chance the name is from Mainland China. They may be Vietnamese, too. If it's a q in a name from Mainland China, it's pronounced 'ch'.
• Same goes for the letter x. X also appears frequently in Khmer names.
• If there's a uy, it's probably Vietnamese.
• If the last name is Lee the person is probably Chinese or Korean.

Swee-Lin Price also conveniently breaks names up into 4 different types:

1. Confucian (names originating from Chinese languages - 1 syllable components common)
2. Indo-Chinese (originating from Sanskrit - 2 0r 3 components - India)
3. Islamic-Asian (made from Arabic and local languages combined
4. Indian-Subcontinent names (

An interesting point is made about the different values various cultures attach to names. It's probably safe to say that most Western people attach quite a bit of importance to getting names right, and Swee-Lin Price has observed that Westerners become very concerned if they are not able to pronounce someone's name correctly, and speaking for myself, perhaps we are reluctant to even try. (The structure of the English language means that if we don't know what to call someone, there are ways of avoiding it altogether... until we have to call out to them, perhaps.) Pakistanis and Bangladeshis very seldom Westernise their names so I guess they feel equally attached to them as Westerners do, yet Chinese immigrants often pick a Western one to replace their own in a Western context, and they seem quite happy to seemingly forfeit their identity.

As observed in this book, Chinese people 'are not their names'. Interestingly, the author points out that people are defined by their familial relationships as much as by their individual names, and their names simply aren't used as much anyhow. (Japan, I think, is a bit different - if you don't know someone's name they'll pick it up from the grammar you'll be forced to use. At least, you need to know someone's name if they're your equal.) Names are just something that identifies Chinese people, and they may be reluctant to labour the correct pronunciation if they sense foreigners aren't going to get it right anyhow.

I had an interesting 'name' experience as a foreigner in Japan, being blessed with a name that's full of sounds Japanese people often find impossible to pronounce. For the first time, I became known by my last name, which is easier to say. This happened quite naturally and it made life easier for everyone (I still curse my parents for my first and second names though!). But I have also met a number of Western people who are very fussy about how their names are pronounced (and spelt) even if their parents seem to have concocted names out of thin air, or taken a traditional name and altered the spelling. (I think there should be bylaws against the latter.)

I have to be honest and admit that I have only skim read the book - and I'll get it out of the library as soon as they let me. Isn't it funny how a computer glich can send librarians into a spin? What did they do before computers??

Prey by Michael Crichton

I just finished Prey, which I listened to as an audio book. The good thing about audio books is that you can do 'incidental reading', washing the dishes, walking to the shops... and before you know it, you've finished a book. Good audio books are very good. You don't really notice that you're listening to anything because you get involved in the story.

If you're used to reading rather than listening to a book, it can get a bit frustrating at times, because I didn't realise until listening to an audio book (which is read at the same pace right the way through) that I tend to speed up reading when I get to some action. You can't speed up an audio book even if you want to hurry up and hear the next bit.

As for the story itself, I really enjoyed it. I'm not a big reader of fiction, let alone science fiction, and this is the first Michael Crichton I have read. Crichton employed the classic method of beginning with the realism of a father looking after his kids, dealing with day-to-day issues such as choosing table place-mats before launching into the science fiction. The contrast between familiar and unexplainable makes the unexplainable all the more scary.

The other thing about listening to an audio book is, you don't have a physical sense of 'coming to the end' as you do with a book. When you are holding a book in your hand, you can see how many pages are left, and when I was listening to this book on my iPod I kept thinking it was going to end... and then it went on a bit longer. This is because Crichton has less than a perfect plot, which needs resolving in the form of 'footnotes' at the end. I am not one for predicting the outcome of anything and never make much effort to foretell a plot, but I did see this one coming from about the middle. There is a certain pleasure to be derived from being right, and it makes you want to read ahead just so you can feel smart, although it can be a bit of an anti-climax when you finally get there.

Overall, I do recommend this book if you're somewhat fascinated with the idea of nanotechnology, the future of programming and the idea that clever, educated people can still muck up the world if they're playing with technology they don't really understand. The book has a didactic tone to it and if nothing else, the book should be read for the author's introduction. Michael Crichton does have a knack for taking some of the most interesting parts of science and conveying them to the layperson in a way that makes us want to learn more.

This Afternoon's Art Effort

None of my flower paintings actually resembled flowers so I decided they could be abstract. Again. I used beads, ribbon, gouache, pencil and felt pen. I think the beads thing is becoming a habit. "Hmmm. I think I'll just stick some beads... here. And here."

White Flower Collage

Abstract Violet

Anatomically Incorrect Kiwi

A colleague once told me he asked his class to draw a redesigned NZ flag. One student came up with a huge kiwi plonked in the middle of the paper as the one and only design feature. It had four legs. I think I'm happy to stick with the English flag and the Southern Cross.

My First AFL Game

Well, we watched a few minutes of a game, anyway. I'm a Kiwi and I don't even understand rugby so I can't see my AFL knowledge deepening in the near future. As far as I can make out, AFL looks like a cross between rugby and basketball.

The Most Disgusting Looking Hotdog

'Hot dog Nonpareil'

Pineapple Pizza

Tomato paste, heaps of pineapple, ham and olives. Garlic bread. Excellent.

The Grass is Greener

With the recent burst of rain the sound of suburban lawnmowers once again provide a background soundtrack to the weekend. Long may the rain continue. There's nothing like the smell of lawnmower fumes mingling with freshly cut grass...

Band of Brothers

Today I finished watching the 10 episodes of Band of Brothers. I also watched The Making Of, which came with the DVD set. I imagine most people who are interested in war stuff have already seen this because it was on TV, in NZ atleast, a good five years ago I'm guessing and I just never watched it. It's one of those serials you're better off seeing from the beginning because it starts at the end and 'flashes back'. Of course, this is such a good series that any one of the episodes in isolation is in itself very good and I highly recommend it. I'm also motivated now to find out some more about Hitler and the Japanese and how they could have really believed that they could take over the world. The young Japanese and Germans I have met are so different from the characters portrayed as enemies during the wars. It pays to remember that this was a war between high ranking officials in powerful countries, not between individuals.

There's not much about war that I can say which hasn't already been observed by others who know a lot more about it than I do. I just hope we never have to live through another World War. Lest we forget, do watch Band of Brothers if you haven't done so already.

The Procrastinator

There's a new movie coming out. It's called The Procrastinator, starring Harold Timebeggar. Its famous one-liner is set to be "I'll be back... tomorrow." This will no doubt be followed by The Procrastinator 2: "I'll be back tomorrow... (Or maybe the next day)."

Geeks in the Kitchen

What are you doing?
I'm just instantiating some scone objects from the dough package.
What method are you using?
I just created a constructor method to instantiate extra large scone objects, and I'm about to make some getJam and getCream methods for the scone class.
They look great. Can I have one?
No. Not until you create a getScone method for your cakeHole class.

I smelled a goat because I'm NOT crazy!

Pick the month you were born:
January..... I kicked
February... I loved
March....... I karate chopped
April......... I licked
May.......... I jumped on
June......... I smelled
July.......... I did the Macarena With
August...... I had lunch with
September. I danced with
October..... I sang to
November. I yelled at
December.. I ran over




Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1............. a birdbath

2............. a monster
3............. a phone
4............. a fork
5............. a snowman
6............. a gangster
7............. my cell phone
8............. my dog
9............. my best friends' boyfriend
10............ my neighbor
11............ my science teacher
12............ a banana
13............ a fireman
14............ a stuffed animal
15............ a goat
16............ a pickle
17............ your mum
18............ a spoon
19............ a Smurf
20............ a baseball bat
21............ a ninja
22............ Helen Clarke
23............ a noodle
24............ a squirrel
25............ a football player
26............ my sister
27............ my brother
28............ an iPod
29............ a surfer
30............ a llama
31............ a homeless fella

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White...... because I'm cool like that
Black....... because that's how I roll.
Pink......... because I'm NOT crazy.
Red......... because the voices told me to.
Blue......... because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green...... because I think I need some serious help.
Purple ..... because I'm AWESOME!
Gray........ because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow..... because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange .... because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown..... because I can.
Other....... because I'm a Ninja!
None....... because I can't control myself.

My Place by Sally Morgan

There’s a novel that many Australians seem to have read and which has very much become part of their heritage since it was published in 1987. It is now on high school reading lists around the country and I, being new to Australia and hungry for some more cultural knowledge, decided to read it. I embark upon many books and don’t get around to finishing them, but this one I have read in just a few sittings. I just finished it now and can safely say this is one of the best books I have read.

This is an autobiographical novel about losing and finding identity. The author, Sally Morgan, grew up in the 1950s when it was shameful to be part Aboriginal. She was led to believe she was Indian because her mother and grandmother felt this was easier to live with. She never quite believed this, and felt disconnected from who she really was until she grew up, had children of her own, and visited her relatives in the Northern Territory. Once she discovered the truth about her heritage she felt that she had a place in the world.

It’s difficult to believe how the Aborigines were treated during the majority of last century and earlier. The more I learn about the story, the more I realise how many similarities exist between the native people of Australia and the Maori, the native people of New Zealand. I suppose the Aborigines had life even harder for a while, because the harsh Australian landscape in which they were miraculously able to survive for so long meant that they ended up looking so different from the white people who arrived off the boat from Europe. Because they looked so different, it was then easier for the Europeans to treat them like animals and shoot them like wildebeest for sport. At least in the Maori case, more interbreeding took place from the very beginning of European invasion, though no doubt this is interpreted by many as a disaster for the preservation of Maori culture.

It amazes me how recently this happened. I say it happened ‘last century’ but that century was the century into which I was born, and that means I was a part of that century. It scares me that this sort of inhumane cruelty is still happening around the world.

There was certainly a lot that is very sad about My Place, yet it is written in a light-hearted and at times, comic, style which only serves to make the bitter even more heart-wrenching. This is because we learn to love the characters in the book, who are described so warmly.

Something that fascinates me is how native people feel about land. I’m not just talking about the native people of Australia, but it seems that native people anywhere around the global are bound by a link to their land. This is something my (recent) ancestors didn’t have; or at least, they didn’t pass it on to me. I suppose they can’t have felt overly connected to their land if they were prepared to get on ships which took them on a three month journey to the other side of the world, never to return and never to see their older relatives again. It’s easy to feel envious of the connection that native people have to the land, though when it’s something that can be taken from you so easily perhaps it’s better not to have had the link in the first place. That’s something I’ll never know for sure. My older relatives feel proud that they the offspring of Pioneers, a word with connotations of bravery and miraculous survival. What some of them never realised is that the same pride is felt by people who stood by their land all along.

Another aspect of Aboriginal culture which came across clearly in My Place was the spirituality of the elders. The stories of almost miraculous recoveries and healing touches remind me of biblical stories of Jesus. Before she died, Morgan’s Nanna talked about this spiritual side of Aboriginal culture which she felt was sadly lacking in white culture. She remained uneducated in that she was never taught to read or write, but she felt strongly that it was the white people who were uneducated in the spiritual side. She felt that the white people were only living half a life. I’d like to understand what it means to be living what she describes as a full spiritual life.

There are certainly many things I don’t understand and it’s a pity there couldn’t have been more of a balance when it came to the sharing of cultures, rather than one culture feeling they had to inflict everything in their own culture onto everybody else. We’ll be paying for our ancestors’ mistakes for a long time yet.

The World's Brainiest Fly

Yesterday we decided to make pizza for dinner, which involved a wait at the meat counter to be served ham. Whilst gazing at the vast array of meat and cheeses I noticed a fly, happily and nonchalantly crawling over the most expensive cheeses in the glass cabinet. He'd probably already had a go at the meat which we were about to purchase.

When the lady served us, we pointed out the fly. The black fly had now crawled into a black crevice, only just visible to a customer and totally invisible and hidden to the worker, who by the way, didn't understand the word 'fly'. She thought I wanted to buy the expensive cheese that the fly had just sat on. I even made buzzing sounds and a vague flapping motion as I said "Fly", but I think her English was limited to tools necessary for the job. (Slice, pastrami, expensive cheese...)

No doubt the fly is still there, having dashed into the meat counter when the door was open. That is the brainiest fly in the whole world. Either that or he was an extremely virtuous fly and he died, and that was his ghost, right there in fly heaven.

(The ham and pineapple pizza was delicious, by the way.)

ANOTHER EXCEL TEST OVER AND DONE WITH

The thing about Microsoft Excel is, unless you’re an accountant, you never feel you really KNOW it. The other thing about Excel is, if you’re anything like me, you seem to go to excel training every few years and every time you go back to it you know you’re going to forget how to use it again almost instantly. I suppose the trick is to actually use it. I tried my best for a while, by doing my register and grade calculations on a spreadsheet at work, and it must have helped a bit because I didn’t find this Excel module as demanding as the last one, which was markedly easier.

It also helps that I have been suffering through Java programming classes. Although I feel I have absorbed absolutely nothing from those (now extended to 4 hour) sessions, I was able to make a nested IF calculation with less bother than if I’d never ‘been exposed to’ any programming. (By the way, I still feel sorrier for myself than I do for our lecturer.)

Another benefit of learning programming is that absolutely everything else in life seems remarkably interesting. I’ve been reading the junk mail with renewed vigour, and even listened to a radio programme about rural vets who examine dead farm animals for disease. Now I just have to decide whether that makes me a pessimist or an optimist.

Hangover Cures

Lily the Pink

Today in the 'interest' section of the newspaper (ie the back page) I was reading a full-page spread about hangovers, and the urban myths surrounding the cure of them. Although I like the idea of bacon and eggs, and salt and vinegar chips, I'm doubtful about any hangover cure that doesn't involve sleep and copious amounts of water.

Most of all, I was reminded of how glad I am to not be a teenager anymore. I have never actually suffered from a hangover (due to a general dislike of alcohol and an even greater dislike of making a fool of myself). Therefore I suppose I'm not a fully-fledged adult. Getting hammered at least once must be a rite of passage in many quarters. Even as a teenager at high school, I got sick of the stories about who drank how much, what they got up to and how sick they were feeling. Binge drinking is a big problem in New Zealand, and it seems the smaller the town the bigger the problem. Therefore, teenagers whose only real aim in a week is to get as smashed as possible don't really have a lot to talk about come Monday and they're what I call 'Drinking Bores'.

Most of those 'Drinking Bores' eventually grow up, get families and mortgages and jobs. Then, I suppose, they become 'I'm Busy Bores'.