And I've not been posting

In the last week and change. Partly due to the amazingly loud vomiting of my wife, who is suffering from a severe case of morning sickness, only during the evening, possibly to make me suffer through it as I wouldn't be awake for the morning version.

Jests aside, I haven't really done much at all really. I did see The Expendables 3, of which I will put up a movie review in due course with enough gap between that and the last review that this doesn't become a default movie review blog. Then again, I'm really writing for myself, so why not write it now? But I haven't, which is pretty telling in my reaction to the movie, probably.

Antonio Banderas was possibly the funniest I have ever seen him though - for his performance alone it is worth a DVD hire.

Otherwise it has been housework and painting miniatures while watching the Apple TV. Fortunately the judicious decisions to buy a good dishwasher and easily cleaned benchtops and floors makes that part easy. The last month of rain hasn't made drying washing easier however - there are no real options for drying apart from the rack which takes 3 days to dry anything in the damp, or the dryer which takes in cotton shirts and gives back kids clothing.

Somehow this turned up when I searched for clean rooms - not quite what I was looking for.

As for the miniatures I'm going through systematically (well, kind of) and cleaning up all of the projects I had started and never really pushed to finish in the last 3 years.

So I owned 8 dreadnoughts - think of mortally wounded trans-human soldiers put into life support caskets and inserted into a giant war machine so they can use their skills and fury in almost death as they did in life. Unfortunately the rules have never really made this distinction between this sort of awesomeness and an expensive tank with arms meaning that it is sually bad if you take large numbers of them, but the models and story behind them are so awesome I owned 8 but had never painted them as I mainly paint for tournaments. And since you don't take sub par stuff to tournaments they sat around - lovingly built but forgotten.

So I've completed the main chassis for those - now I just have 35 odd arms to put on them as they all have mutiple options for weaponry - everything from missiles to fists (though no fist missiles sadly).

I've been doing this watching House MD - I always thought I would like this show but never really got into it at the beginning and I hate coming in part way through a storyline of something I actually want to watch. Stupid, I know. But 9 or 10 years after it started I'm finally getting around to watching it and it hasn't dated nor does it feel overwrought or silly - a big achievement not many other shows can live up to, especially if they are also giving an entertaining storyline and fascinating medical mysteries along the way. I've never liked a single 'doctor' or 'hospital' show - possibly because they have always used them as vehicles for soap drama with easily accessed emotional content via sick patients when they need it for effect. House MD is much more about the patient as well as the doctors, or at least what is wrong with the patient as often they are in a coma or unable to speak. I think about everyone one in 2 cases so far has called for intubation.

Anyway, that's enough from me, I should be back on the writing bandwagon and posting new stuff soon.

Singing in the rain

It has been wet in sydney - really, really wet Link

Even though it hasn't rained properly since Monday, the world looks like someone left the sprinkler on too long - the ground is amazingly wet and boggy in those places you only realise afterwards are natural low points. The afterwards part refers to after you step in it, performing an impromptu breakdance move as you try and stop slipping over.


A picture....
I've not seen many accidents as I've gone through apart from the first day - it seems the first day of solid rain is quite the Darwinian process winnowing those who can't drive safely in the wet from those who can or are just lucky.


is worth....

One annoying thing is trying to do washing and drying due to inability to open doors without wetting more of your house than drying - the bathroom window was a testament to this, bringing in all the grit attached to the fly screen into the house - specifically onto the toilet and floor I had cleaned on the weekend.

Artists interpretation.

It's times such as those that cause you to be grateful for the ability to internalise swearing.

But eventually the rain will pass, probably today, unless it does the typical thing which is pass on but leave lingering traces sitting in the sky, forcing you to take your umbrella everywhere awkwardly in case it rains while you are out.

But at least some of the rain went into the garden, and may have given enough life to the weeds in the back garden for them to reach the next level of civilisation and start using stone tools, so high and mighty have they risen. I may need to break out the napalm, as the movies would have it.


Soon....


And so ends the ramble - it seems the brain is unable to easily cope underneath gloomy skies, which explains the plot off all of the Twilight movies, I guess.

Weekend fun

So, the weekend was fun - firstly we had my church's weekend away at Katoomba. Unfortunately as the lovely wife was sick in bed, I organised to just go up for Saturday with a friend of mine.

Now Katoomba is about 30 minutes west of the edge of Sydney, or about 100 minutes from the CBD (traffic being relatively clear) and a fair way up into the Blue Mountains, meaning it was cold for most (though not cold enough for a jacket for me). While it used to not be the best place in the world due to unemployment and drug issues among others, in recent years it has improved greatly due to better access to the mountains and a swathe of development which has seen more shops, amenities and opportunities for employment open in the mountains.

Hat tip in the watermark.

After 15 years they still haven't finished duplicating the road across the mountains - I know it takes time but considering that it took less time to originally explore the way across the mountains themselves the engineers and construction companies aren't well liked.

All of this leaves the driving experience like being the guy strapped to the spinning wheel when knives are thrown at you by someone in a blindfold - everything is just fine until a tiny mistake is made somewhere. Then you sit and wait, as there isn't a duplicate road around meaning you can turn around and go home or wait and hope someone just stopped to let some ducks pass - which actually happened to me while I was up there.



Too bad there wasn't one of these - road rage is reduced when there is a sign, right?

A good time to be indoors - though while Sydney was being soaked it seemed it hadn't worked up the courage to climb the mountains towards us - plenty of fog though, enough to cause slower speeds on the way back.

The weekend away itself was good - there were two talks from Zach from Menai Anglican Link - talking about the church community and what it should look like, and how we can use our gifts within the church to serve.

Unfortunately at such weekend away type talks, it is mainly the committed who come along, while those who need the encouragement and teaching about learning to put your gifts to use and being part of the community aren't there. This isn't to say everyone who isn't there is a slacker - life intervenes in strange ways for people and work commitments also take their toll - but the point still has merit. However, a better sense of community is formed by those who spend time with each other, which has a value all of its own - and sharing a meal with people you don't often spend time with is a great way to get to know people in a more meaningful than the usual head nod fashion.

In regards to spiritual gifts, it is always a tricky topic, which the speaker covered the general points without getting bogged down into any major specifics, which is both good as it offends few, but leaves people knowing little more than they did previously, especially when churches on either end of the spectrum surrounding some of these gifts project strong viewpoints of the issue.

 All in all, a good day out and about - the photo rally taking us across the mountains was especially enjoyable as it took us to some interesting places and watching the photo's come up afterwards was awesome, especially those socially awkward ones when you ask someone to take a photo and so they take 12, all of which have your face blurred and eyes half shut.


No, really, thanks for the photo mate... anyone else want to try and not take a post modern take on 3 people standing together? Anyone?

Hope all of my 2 readers had a great weekend and a good run into the week to come.

Know your markets

Advertising usually tells you what market is being targeted. Sometimes it doesn't seem to be flattering.

I was listening to The Edge 96.1 - a radio station here in Sydney playing the best of new hip hop and rap, meaning whatever was popular 3-6 months ago in the US, but occasionally they get it right and I've always had a soft spot for some good hip hop.

For once I didn't change stations when the ads came on and I found the advertising for the market was very telling. At least I'm assuming so.

First we had one for debt consolidation, once for the hire of performance cars for weddings and formals, one for performance enhancement for men in bed, one for easy qualifications training and one for low and no doc home loans for those with bad credit history.

Now I'm not a demographer or anything but I think I have found the typical listener advertisers are going for here :

I loves the hippity hops!

Ah, the ruins of Greece

Inspiration from Link .

Greece has been on a downwards spiral for the past decade and a bit. Well, if you go via a historical graph of influence and power, culture and learning the Greece has been on a downwards spiral for the past 2300 years but that isn't the point here.

It seems they are determined to create new ruins for tourists but have decided to skip the ancient part of it by creating a large number of sporting venues they neither want to use nor maintain and so are going to seed in rapid order - 

Ah, the historical diving pool, used for... well nothing really useful.

I know baseball is more boring than watching grass grow but I didn't think that someone wanted to prove it.

And so the office chair goes for the gold!

For once I'm glad I live in Sydney - everyone (especially the media) kicked up such a fuss about the Olympics that the government actually put thought into how facilities would be used after the Olympics. There was even a comedy drama called The Games about what a shambles organising The Olympics was for Sydney before it had even happened. 

Of course the major part of the Homebush Olympic site is still an ugly park built with the finest lack of aesthetics in mind but at least the facilities are used regularly.

Did I mention ugly? But still in use.

What a failure of governance this is - they couldn't finish building and planning in time, couldn't fill the stadiums for the events and then couldn't find a use for them afterwards. 

This paints a larger indictment on the former legislature - they couldn't get the Olympics right nor the aftermath - a lack of ability to deliver and vision to find a use for what they built.

Oh, and the cost of the Olympics to Greece? Only 8 billion Euros. What a bargain. 

Israel and Palestine

I really didn't want to publish anything about this - wherever you go, people have an opinion on this and usually it is quite... strident. Strident enough at least to make reasoned debate hard and changing of viewpoints in the light of cogent argument and good information harder.

I think that the echo chambers of the internet only reinforce and ossify opinion really - you read articles, blogs and forums that mostly agree with your point of view, occasionally punctuated with a straw man or an 
'outrageous' article from the other side designed to show how foolish they are.

However I was talking to a few people and they mainly mentioned how sad it all was, and how both sides are really to blame for the conflict, which did raise my hackles a little bit. Why?

Because you only need to look at how the Israelis operate compared to Hamas, and what they say to see the difference between the two sides, and who is in the wrong here.

Mark Steyn puts the Hamas position as more extreme than the Nazi's, at least in what they say Link -

But Hamas spells it out, in giant-size neon lettering: Its charter pledges that Islam will "obliterate" Israel, with Article 22 blaming the Jews for the French Revolution, both world wars, the League of Nations ...oh, and the Lions and the Rotary Club. 

Their spokesman - the man who is supposed to be able to articulate their position clearly and accurately 
 Link

 The Israelis concentrate on killing children,” Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas representative in Lebanon, said on Al-Quds TV. “I believe that this is engraved in the historical Zionist and Jewish mentality, which has become addicted to the killing of women and children.”“We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos,” he continued, referring to the traditional unleavened bread that Jews eat during Passover. 

Their actions - firing missiles from or near schools and hotels Link or UN shelters and buildings link . They build tunnels from Gaza into Israel so their militants can attack civilians and cause the deaths of 160 Palestinian children building them link . They hide rockets in UN buildings including schools and hospitals Link and then generate outrage when civilians are killed or injured by return fire.

Hamas say Israel is invading Gaza, without mentioning the 2200 rocket attack into Israel proceeding it. Link They say that they don't use civilians as shields, but then shoot more rockets from hopsitals and threaten journalists who report it Link . They fund TV shows promoting racial hatred and genocide to their own children Link Link.

Hamas isn't beyond using children and the mentally disabled as suicide bombers either Link and Link . 

Then people wonder why Israel and Egypt keep Gaza blockaded - because giving these guys access to more weaponry from Iran and others Link is not an option, especially when even their humanitarian aid is often filled full of new materials for rockets and terror attacksLink

Now this doesn't mean Israel and the Israelis have never done anything wrong at all. No nation can claim to do so, especially one that has fought 3 wars against its neighbours and 2 intifadas in the last 65 years.

However, you can see the differences in methods and goals between Israel and Hamas - one tries to preserve lives via building bomb shelters and missile defence systems for their people, and warning areas about to come under attack via leaflets, sms, warning shots and loudhailer. The other builds tunnels using children to send terror attacks into communities, uses suicide bombers and rockets to deliberately target civilians and calls for the actual genocide of their opponents as a central tenet.

You might see why I wouldn't call the two sides equal, or as bad as each other.

Now I know a number of people have a very different viewpoint, seeing Israel as racist/genocidal and intolerant and support/tolerate the above or excuse it away.

Here is an example Link - the comments are instructive as well.

And I'll leave it there. People can and should make up their own minds.

Hat tip - Tim Blair Andrew Bolt Breitbart Times of Israel and others.

And so I'm going to be ...

A father! My lovely wife is due in February this year. I'm ecstatic, notwithstanding the haggard looks on the face of my friends with newborns and the smirks of those parents who see my enthusiasm and know my future child will mock me for my arrogance. 

You fool! My master plan is coming to fruition and you will be too tired to realise it! 

Now my wife has decided to tell everyone I'm getting advice on names - funny that everyone thinks their own name is awesome.

At least unless I am speaking to one of those unusually named people - all of which are giving me horror stories of having a unique or near unique name.

The horror, the horror....

So Hubert or Beatrice it is, right? I'm bet those names will be wildly popular in the future.

Weekend

Weekend.

A great weekend - Saturday sat happy and lazy at home, enjoying opening up the house to some warmer weather and just getting small stuff done. 

Sunday saw us at Costco before church - and the place was packed.

I know it's a growth zone and people will travel to buy in bulk, but it always stoked me as amazing as people only come out with 6 different products and $200 lighter in the pocket. Now I'm not saying it isn't worth it - 200 garbage bags isn't going to go off for a million years or so. But you do look at the dude buying the 5kg cake and think 'wow, I hope you have a lot of friends or a good doctor/plumber'.

Good luck, kid, and enjoy the diabetes right?

Also funny is the purchasing choices between myself and my wife. I love specials and buying everything up front while my wife loves the don't buy until we needed it a week ago school of thought. A compromise saw us with a years worth of toilet paper it seems but I may be paper towel-less in the future. 

Well that image search was easy. 

Also saw the Lego movie on the Apple TV (or it is iApple iTV?) which was great - someone had a great sense of the ridiculous and didn't mind going there. Combine this with a few witty screen writers and some great voice acting from Will Arnett, Will Ferrell, Alison Brie and Liam Neeson and you have a very funny time. 

Everyone seemed to have a good time and sense of humour about the entire thing (as much as you can tell from scripted and edited voices), which seems to permiate through this movie and make one of the few non Pixar films to delight young and old that I've seen for a while (Kung Fu Panda being the other exception).

Rating : 4.5/5 - Almost perfect in pitch and tone throughout and brilliant use of the lego range and script - it just got a bit messy in the end for the obligatory multi shot super fight scene with everyone involved.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Now I will warn you - this contains at least some spoilers - read at your peril.


So I went to see 'Guardians of the Galaxy' last night.

Interesting movie - certainly it had some funny moments in it- though few of the one liners actually come to mind now.

The plot is a standard Marvel opening movie for a series - the guys meet, they fight, they learn to fight together, and then stand against the galaxy's most overacting man - Ronan.


His face paint and fabulous hammer are the least loud things about him.

Ronan is a fanatic, wanting to destroy a species his own species had conducted a peace treaty with because something religious something shut up he is evil ok? We know this because he loves to monologue in a tone even he must find patronising to listen to.

My face, continued

So unlike the last time I went to the dentist, my face still hurts the days after visiting. Whether it was because they did a more thorough job this time on my molars I'm not sure - you are never really sure whether the pain is 'bad' because something is wrong or 'good' because they fixed something and it is healing.

He gets it.

Or whether neither is happening and your dentist was having an off day because he didn't have his lunchtime coffee. He actually mentioned this (the missing coffee section, not the bad performance section) which never fully inspires one.

So I'm sleeping badly and being grumpy. Let's hope it clears up soon.

They don't think that the citizens who elected them are capable of making good decisions for themselves...

It's about what you don't need, says the Health Committee chairman in the UK.

Link

From the article - "The former GP called for a direct ban on “supersized” foods and drinks, so that manufacturers would be restricted to producing chocolate bars, junk food meals and fizzy drinks in standard sizes."

"The Conservative member for Totnes suggested the Government was too fearful of being accused of “nanny state” tactics, and said the public would be likely to adjust quickly to changes to protect their children’s health."

There are always people who say they know better than you in some area - and if they are real experts they probably do. No problems there.

The issue is when these experts or people claiming to be so decide that they shouldn't just provide information and advice, but they must force you to do their version or the right thing because people are too stupid to do it on their own, and this is so wrong it must be legislated to make people do what they suggest. 

While I don't mind a small amount of government paternalism to protect people (for instance, road signs and street lights, seatbelt laws that are not revenue raising, banning dumping chemicals into dams etc) I draw the line at whether people should be banned from choosing what portion size they have - at that point, what isn't in their scope of regulation? How much shampoo you use at night? How often you mow your lawn? It seems silly, but these people think you are that dumb that you can't say 'No' when someone offers to upsize your food beyond you need and desire, and sit there without agency, shovelling food into your mouth, costing the taxpayers billions. And then they blame 'Big Food' or whomever for doing it to you. Sure.

I should be able to work out whether this is good for me or not, and how often I should have it. Or rather I shouldn't be forced into not eating it.

Tim Worstall on the Adam Smith blog sums one of the core issues here :

Link 2

"And there’s an interesting legal point here as well. Clearly she thinks that we’re all too damn stupid to be allowed to decide what to put into our own bodies. Despite their being, you know, ours? OK, so she obviously does think that. But she’s an elected politician: one, clearly, elected by people too stupid to know what they’d like to eat. At which point she’s not really got all that much authority, does she?"

Remember rhis the next time one of our elected representatives decides that they know so much better than us that they need to control how much we eat, drink or watch TV etc. There is a natural contempt for the views of the voters who elect these officials - even though they are the source of their legitimacy. Don't let them get away with it - because it never stops at sugary drinks, or portion sizes. We are adults living in a free society- be informed about your choices, but don't have those choices dictated by you by the well intentioned scolds who run the public policy debates.

It never stops.

Things you don't want to see or hear from your dentist.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday but I was having a not so fun trip to the dentist after a filling decided to come out of my mouth, taking half of another tooth with it.

This was the third visit to rectify that situation and they found some other problems too caused by my original metal fillings from when I was a teenager, so I have at least two more fun trips to go.

Somehow this is one of the top images on the search for dentists. I'm guessing this movie didn't help people with their dentist fears.

Anyway yesterday was the best yet in classic ' things I don't want to see or hear from my dentist'.

2)The ritual shaking of the head as he looks at my file 

3) "That nerve looks really exposed"

4) "I'll need a bigger wedge"

5) "This may hurt for a few days, probably"

6) "Oh. That's not good." - in relation to me not having extras insurance.

So I'll be rectifying number 6 today - while I've been ahead so far in not paying my premium I will end up behind before long at this rate. 

Oh, and I left #1 til last.

1) (to the nurse) "Can you pass the (larger drill)?" 

 I didn't even get that assurance.

Update : 

Now my face is still swollen, and my teeth are very sore. Good, because the roots are still working. Bad, because it can't be good, right?

If my mouth falls out I'll let you all know.

The faith of the earth.

Now anyone who knows me will know I am not a greenie. Not because I hate the environment, rather that the people who run and are the activists of the green movement often seem to want to combine the worst of Malthusian drama, the instincts of control and distrust of society of the Communists and the fervour  language of religion.

Yes, I know you know someone who just cares about the environment and isn't like that. But enough are to allow me to segway to...

It was this last instinct that saw me reflect on this article 

Dying Green

Now people choosing to be buried in caskets made of coffee cups while dressed in mushroom suits is unusual but not wrong. To be honest, when I'm dead I don't mind how and where I'm buried - I'll be dead, right?

It's the implications that these people care so deeply that they want to be buried without releasing the toxins into the air, yet are wearing clothes almost certainly made overseas with caustic dyes and dangerous chemicals, driving cars made of electricity hungry aluminium and using polluting petrol/diesel/LPG to get around. The list goes on. 

But it's the language of penance towards the earth which intrigues me the most - this lady is talking about being buried in a suit of mushrooms she is currently training to eat her body after death.
 

Join usssssss ..... this is not creeeepy at alllllll....

 "I realise this is not the kind of relationship that we usually aspire to have with our food," says Lee.

"It's a step towards accepting the fact that someday I will die and decay. It's also a step towards taking responsibility for my own burden on the planet.”

Just.. wow. Ok- you feel guilty for living a life not subsiding from the land and contributing to pollution no matter what, and when you die you sin, I mean pollute, even more.

It feels like what David Thompson wrote on his blog (The Sound of Wringing) - they are better than you because they feel worse than you.

So you have a movement with an idea of consistent and original sin, I mean continual guilt for pollution and degradation in life and in death, and want to find atonement a better way to help the world and sin I mean pollute no more. They find those who don't accept the faith, sorry, The Science, Blessed be His Name, guilty and say they will be damned by God science and future generations.

I know I'm being heavy handed here - but listen next time you hear one of the leaders of the green movement speak next time and look at the language in use - is it that of a leader of a political party or a prophet of a faith? One very sure of themselves at that? For example from the carbon tax repeal - Christine Milne

“Have we got the courage and the leadership to do what is necessary to save life around the world? The Greens have, but I have to say the Parliament has failed on that,” she said.

And the rest. It's worth a read to get the tone.

The thing that worries me is that you can justify many things in the name of faith, and the green faith does not seem tolerant to those who leave or question it at all. It calls them 'deniers' - apart from the quick wink association with Holocaust denial, if you added 'of the true faith' to the end, would it sound wrong?