Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2007

Back pain - not cool

Over the last few days I've experienced a fair bit of back pain. A dull ache that spirals up to a sharp pain in the area between my waist line and shoulder blades. Not a lot of fun to cope with. Between the 2 hours of sleep a night and the rush, bustle and general unpleasantness of the holiday season, I'm starting to get a bit cranky. I think it's more the stress of this time of year than an actual injury of any type - although I do have to stoop over or bend when I do a lot of household stuff (which I've actually been doing). Coming back to the stress of Christmas though... I've been downtown a bit and the behaviour of people at this time of year is appalling. Of course, we all hear the wonderful Christmas stories from the media - marking this the one time of year they'll actual cover something good, but we don't get the unpleasant underbelly of Christmas coming to the fore. For example, as everyone rushes to get stuff for people, their driving habits worse

Disgraceful Politicians

Each day I read quite a few articles on the net about various things. This one here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/16/telecoms/index.html is referring to the eavesdropping the US government perpetrates on it's citizens and the desire of many of the piss weak pollies to allow the corporations, and by extension themselves, off without even a slap on the wrist. How the fuck does this support the people they are supposed to represent? In Australia the new Labour government are starting to bring in rules to prohibit various types of lobbying that involve an exchange of funds of any type. Why does the Government not take away the requirement to have any need for outside money in the race for the top spot? I'd love to see this happen in the US, where it appears the more money you have, the more likely you are to reach the Presidency. Now I'm not a fan of Kevin Rudd, the current Australian PM, but I'll give him a chance. I thought John Howard did alright - alt

Update to Rant: eBay and Stupidity

I should have noted this some time ago. I was pretty pissed off when I stuffed up and paid for something I really didn't want on eBay - a CD of stuff for Nokia phones. At any rate, I resolved to make the best of it and see what came out of it all. Good news! eBay emailed me saying the seller's account had been suspended. I waited the requisite number of days and then emailed them indicating I had not received the goods. Surprisingly swiftly the money was returned and all was good. That'll learn that no good seller. It was also a good lesson for your's truly - pay attention to what you are bidding on!

Struggling with Creativity

I had attempted to write each day for December, but it's really not working out. When I want to write is generally when I'm trying to work and the great ideas I have are often swamped by the complexities of my tasks here at the office. Plus, I'm just finding it damn hard to write something interesting! And this led me to an ongoing thought stream I've had and that I pondered in some depth yesterday. You see, yesterday I watched the movie "The World's Fastest Indian" with Anthony Hopkins in it. Basically, the movie is about a Kiwi fellow by the name of Burt Munro who wants his 1920 model Indian motorcycle to be the fastest of its type in the world. He was focussed on his goal, lived, ate and breathed it and eventually it came to fruition. That passion, that burning desire to achieve a single goal - I don't have that. Nope, no passion for anything in particular. Even the things I really like doing, if I couldn't do them any more I'd miss them but

Firefly and Serenity

Over the course of the weekend I watched the entire (short) season of Firefly and then the movie Serenity. I cannot for the life of me understand why Firefly was cancelled. The characters were awesome, the environment they were set in was great and there was so much scope for different stories. I love watching it. Possibly the thing I like most about Firefly is the characters and how there seems to be a nice balance amongst them. No single character takes all the limelight, although Malcolm Reynolds is fairly central to most of it, he is not the focus. Joss Whedon and Tim Minear have done a fantastic job of writing the series and the movie. No wonder it has such a following. It raised another point that I've been pondering a little bit. The people we admire most have qualities that are reflected in us. I've heard this said before and I see in Firefly how the mix of characters allows so many people to find something in the characters that they can relate to, admire and connect w