Also check out the Huffington Post

I could go on for ages, and probably will.  It is absolutely terrifying that Sarah Palin could actually become president.

Enjoy.

Back on track now.  The other day i watch Sex in the City Movie. To me it was great. I had seen most the episodes upto last season and when I was last in the UK with one my great friends I discovered I was not quite as upto date as I thought, so after a wonderful sofa day I was!

I guess if you never followed the series you would be in two minds of follow it or follow an know the ending.  To me it was fairly predictable what happened.  But what really pulled it up a few notchs to just predictable was the actessees. They really put it all into.  The scene of Bridget telling Big "No" is so well done and powerful it pulls the whole act off. Before then it was rather predicable, and the emtions well, they were pulling them all in as predicable. But that particular display of emotion grabbed!

Well done, it was a great movie to us who know the story, it completed the story almost!  We all know that Samatha didn’t want to be part of the story, and sorry that bit did show, but over all, it was great.

For many months now I have felt something screaming at me from the back of my mind.  I wasn’t sure what it was, and the cancer drugs didn’t help, but the event did give my some clarity.  Now I can start to put the two together.  Actually I needed a third thing.  Watching Antony Bordain go through New Zealand and show the part of it to the world I finally started to finally hear that voice.

His bit about good food and communities really got me, and then I got it.  Home! I come from a community of people in a very small valley, but we all left!  The children of all the families have grown up and left, whats left in the community.  Its still going but how long can it last.  I’m not saying stay the same last as no community can stay static it must evolve and change, must as the closet town has done.  What is needed thou is young people to move in an invigorate it.  I know now what that voice in the back of my head is saying.  "Go Home, go home, go home".

For someone who has lived all over the world and crossed it more times than I care to count thats an odd calling, but now it suddently rings true.  I’ve never counted anywhere else as my real home.  I always refer to Papa Aroha as my home, and really it is the only home I’ve ever known.  I think its about time I started listening to that voice and go back.  After all thats happened and simpler life is not looking all the bad!  Maybe its also time as well.

Today a load of us went out for lunch today at one of the local Indian restaruants that many of the team love (and frequent so often they could organise a table to 10).  A close friend asked me while we were waiting when did I first try Indian food.  I was rather stumped at that.

The easy answer was in my travels and in the UK, but that leaves a huge gap.  I think going way back it was never a cuisine I wasn’t away of.  I remember my mum cooking them when I was a child.  For sure they were not the authentic and relied on available curry powder, which given NZ 30 years ago was probably an oddity on the shelf then!  But eat and enjoy them we did.  Mum also had a wok so Chinese etc was on the menu as well.

Thinking back I’m so pleased that I didn’t have a restrictive food exposure when I was young, mainly due to my mum coming from another country and even today no cuisene is off the menu.  I’ll confess some of the middle european foods leave me a little cold overall (aka German, Austrian) but there are also some true gems there as well.

When talking with a friend in the UK he told me that he had just brought a games console.  My first reaction was "I hope its not a Wii".  Looking back I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to say that.  I know that horse power wise its not upto the same level as the Playstation or XBox, but it does have an inovative interface.

Well after a few more talks with him I totally changed my mind and looked into getting one.

Hi there.

Its been rather interesting cleaning up the site after your hacking job.  I’m both impressed and flattered.  I’m flattered as the site is basically just a personal blog of events here in Japan and doesn’t carry anything of significant interest, so the fact you found it means the search entries must be working!!

I’m also rather impressed on how you did it.  If you feel like sharing so I can secure the site more (as I was resonably certain it was) do drop me a line.  I work in IT so professional interest is piqued!

Also I will say thanks (provisionally) that all you have done is deface the site and not damage the content.  It is backed up, but it’s such pain to have to do that.

Cheers  David

Its been a while since I’ve written to the blog. Not much has really been happening.  The trip to Thailand was fantastic and I had a great time.  It was also one of the best weddings I think I’ve been to.  (other weddings have been great as well in case I begin to offend here).

What set this one a little apart was the size.  Due to the location not everyone could make it which was unfortunate for those who could not, but it was a good choice for them as well.  As the bride comes from the UK and the groom from Australia, Thailand was a good middle location.  As they have both spent alot of time travelling in that region it was another good choice.  And for the friends, some of use met each other for the first time in South East Asia, so for us it was also special.

I’m totally blown away about how cool this plugin is.

Piclens, or CoolIris as it is now known allows you to view enable pictures sites in cool 3D like Apples cover flow, but useful.

Whats ever cooler is that the lastest version of Menalto Gallery is fully enabled for it and that the new gallery I’ve installed.  Its adds a whole new dimension to browsing picturs online.  Seriously take a few minutes and install the plug in.

It works for IE, Firefox and Safari.

I’ve had time now to clean up the photo’s from Thailand, and I’ve also started using the new Gallery from Menalto.

the gallery is above as per normal.  For best results you should load PicLens/CoolIris for 3d browsing.