Monday, October 30, 2006

Simple pleasures

One simple pleasure of life is to lay your washed clothes in the hot sun. And allow nature to dry (and clean) your clothes with the sun's UV rays.

What's a simple pleasure you have?

Friday, October 27, 2006

Life so far

Quite a few things have happened.

I guess one of the most eventful was having this guy walk up to me just before TaiChi class and ask me what were the three most important things I could say to someone.

I thought initially he was nuts. But he seemed fairly serious. So I told him
1. God loves you.
2. He sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for you.
3. Believe in Him and you will have eternal life and fellowship with God.

The guy just cried. I then spent about 15 minutes talking to him about religion and God and churches. And encouraged him to go to a (good) Christian church. God knows that's so many crappy churches out there. We had a good chat- and then he said he wanted to go along his way to think about all I said. I offered to give him a call but he declined.

Another interesting thing that happened was a bad debt come good. A long time ago, I purchased shares in this gold mining company called Alliance Gold. It fell down to practically zero cents and showed no sign of recovery. It even started branching out to IT and healthcare and advertising at one stage. That's a bit like an IT company going into gold mining haha. Anyhow, I got a few letters in the mail about the firm recently - even offering new shares at a discount. I didn't think too much about it but when I checked out the share price- I was amazed to find it at $1.00!!!! It had risen nearly 1,000%. It seems to struck a profitable deal to mine uranium- or so they claimed. I couldn't believe my luck- and promptly cashed out - took the money and ran!!!! Can't say I made a lot out of it. I would have made more money simply leaving it in a fixed interest account. But its some story!

Lastly, I had a stomach flu bug- caused I think- by cleaning my baby nephew's shit. I threw up a dozen times, then later was glued to the toilet seat for over 6 hours. I'll spare you the details.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Elizabeth I - HBO BBC series


Watched Elizabeth I - produced by HBO - and starring the superlative actress Helen Mirren.

Mirren does a great job in creating the Virgin Queen- the last princess of the Tudor dynasty.

What I really liked was how she gave such great feeling and emotion to the character- in particular the moment where she learnt of the execution of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.

What I didn't like- well depending on the historical accuracy of it- was her hysterics over her boy toy, the Earl of Essex... which bordered upon ludicrousness.

But it has such great lines and use of language (not marred by hollywoody crass hack job like in Amistad):

Some of the great quotes in Queen Elizabeth I were:

Queen Elizabeth I: A man can be a good Catholic and a good Englishman.
Robert Dudley : Not at the same time, Ma'am.

Queen Elizabeth I: Bacon, people who compliment me on my breasts, even in Latin, run the risk of being thought impertinent. (Queen Elizabeth I was fluent in many languages- Latin included)

Queen Elizabeth I: Powers that set me on high. Pluck me down if I am in conceit.

QEI to Dudley, Earl of Leicester: If friendship is stronger than love. Outlasts Love. Let us be friends.

Spanish Ambassador (outraged): We shall hang your heretic Queen and have another Queen of England!!!!!
Dudley: Yourself perhaps?

Queen Elizabeth I: [to Leicester] The only thing that will kiss in this affair are lawyers pens and lawyers papers.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Elizabeth I - HBO BBC series


Watched Helen Mirren's Elizabeth I - produced by HBO and starring the superlative actresse Helen Mirren.

Mirren does a great job in creating the Virgin Queen- the last princess of the Tudor dynasty.

What I really liked was how she gave such great feeling and emotion to the character- in particular the moment where she learnt of the execution of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots.

What I didn't like- well depending on the historical accuracy of it- was her hysterics over her boy toy, the Earl of Essex... which bordered almost upon ludicrousness.

But it has such great lines and use of language (not marred by hollywoody crass hack job like in Amistad):

Some of the great quotes in Queen Elizabeth I were:

ueen Elizabeth I: A man can be a good Catholic and a good Englishman.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Not at the same time, Ma'am.


Queen Elizabeth I: Bacon, people who compliment me on my breasts, even in Latin, run the risk of being thought impertinent. (Queen Elizabeth I was fluent in many languages- Latin included)

Queen Elizabeth I: Powers that set me on high. Pluck me down if I am in conceit.

QEI to Earl of Leicester: If friendship is stronger than love. Outlasts Love. Let us be friends.

Spanish Ambassador (outraged): We shall hang your heretic Queen and have another Queen of England!!!!!
Earl of Leicester: Yourself perhaps?

Queen Elizabeth I: [to Leicester] The only thing that will kiss in this affair are lawyers pens and lawyers papers.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Political Correctness gone Mad

Its like a scene out of Southpark. This is absolutely crazy.

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after it was claimed she refused to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English.

Codie was attending a GCSE science class at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, when the incident happened. The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with.

“She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils,” said Codie yesterday. “Only one could speak English. Then she sat me with them and said ‘Discuss’.”

According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn’t understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher.

“I said ‘I’m not being funny, but can I change groups because I can’t understand them?’ But she started shouting and screaming, saying ‘It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police’.”

Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day.

A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest.

“They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewellery, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken,” said Codie. “It was awful.”

Codie Stott’s family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. The 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of commonsense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Why Why I never buy The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald

I never buy The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH- otherwise known as Support Marxist Holeheartedly)...

oh well... occasionally i do. The Epicure section and Travel and Real Estate sections of the Fairfax Press are usually very impressive.

But anyhow one reason why I don't buy them is because of their strong anti-Christian, pro-Marxist, anti-American, anti-capitalist stance.

Say what you want about Christianity, America, capitalism etc... but all three have contributed immense good to our societies. What has Marxism produced? 100 million plus people killed- Stalin's mass murders, Gulags, Mao's mass slaughter of innocents, Pol Pot, Castro, ... etc... add it up. Have they produced viable societies- NO! They produce police states. They produce poverty, hunger and misery both physically, spiritually and mentally. Their rules are so bloody bad - that people are willing to jump barbed wired fences, mine fields, and swim across shark infested oceans to escape.

Anyhow check this piece of crappy journalism. The Age's reviewer is doing Narnia. And this is what she had to say:

if you can't get it - click here:

"Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?" [and then later] "Why? Because here in Narnia is the perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America - that warped, distorted neo-fascist strain that thinks might is proof of right."

Oh Good grief!!!! How can the death of Christ dying to save us - be considered by any measure "Repugant"??????" I really don't know how to handle this sort of diatribe. But this sort of garbage makes me soooo glad I don't subscribe to "The Age" or any of the other Fairfax papers.

I also hope that the reviewer doesn't offer similar responses to doctors, surf lifesavers, nurses, paramedics or "good Samaritans" who go out of their way to help him at any stage in the future.

But its this sort of irrational vile hatred that drives me away from reading the Age, SMH newspapers. It sickens me. And I hope that if you read this- you will choose not to purchase them too.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Battlestar Lost

Just saw the new Battlestar Season 3. Hmm... suicide bombers... detention camps... reprisal executions... contrieved, cliched banality.

Ohhh... the humans on New Caprica- the planet which most of the human refugees settled after the Cylon attack- are REBELLING against the Cylon tyranny and causing an ARMED INSURRECTION. Oooo how exciting... not. yeah sure. Wonder why the producers don't make the human rebel actors wear arab scrafs?

Meanwhile, the idiot rebels are blowing themselves apart- killing humans as well as cylons. But the cylons can regenerate or be rebuilt - the humans can't. A thought the humans don't seem to grasp.

None of the humans are ever thinking the bloody obvious. If the Cylons want to control the damn humans on NC- they'd simply launch a nuke on them - or land a basestar on top of their precious settlements.

What's I'd do would be to have the humans cooperating and winning the trust of the cylons- but secretly plotting to escape.

All this armed insurrection business is totally idiotic. Who the hell wrote this script.

Anyhow, it keeps me mildly amused.

ABC's Lost, however, is intriguing. Its onto its 3rd season now like BSG. But looks promising. Plenty of twist and turns in the plot. Hope it doesn't end up like X-files. In this season, the plot focuses more on "The Others"- who seem to live actually fairly normal decent lives. Hopefully they explain more about their role and also expand on the Artic base station in this Season. Then in Season 4, they wrap it up.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Rome HBO


I just saw ... or rather spent the last three days watching HBO's ROME series.

They put in plenty of effort into this series. Beautiful costumes, excellent scripts, fantastic acting, the writing for this series is truly exceptional.

If you haven't watched it- go! But be warned there is plenty of nudity, sex, gore, violence. But it does the period justice- portaying the brutality, the intrigue, the politics, and the drama of human living.

Meanwhile, I've finally gotten around to getting my bed- after the current one I was using was "taken away".... complicated story won't bore u with the details. After going to 4 different shops- I've finally settled on the Crown Posture. Cost me about $1300 inclding the base, built-in drawers, and delivery.