I found this on a random internet page somewhere, and just had to post it. I don't completely agree with it, but I can see how some people would. But anyway, I thought it was funny. :-)

1. Be RICH. This is important for you, but not for her. For her the number two rule follows.
   
   
2. Spend MONEY on HER. This is the most important thing for her, whether you are rich, have any money, or must lie, steal, or kill to do it.
   
   
3. Be TALL. Of course you have no real control over this, but if you don't do it, she will secretly and forever resent you for it and it will come out of left field to smite you. Preferably be about one foot taller than her - not for comfort or aesthetics, but because you are a trophy and, as always, the bigger the better.
   
   
4. Be a MINDLESS ZOMBIE RULED BY HER. Forget what you've heard about submissive Asian women. They actually rule every relationship with insidious and painful, passive-aggressive, guilt-evoking, whiny, crying mind-control.
   
   
5. Have the EMOTIONAL STABILITY OF A 4-YEAR-OLD. She will be impressed and enraptured by your delight at the sight of Hello Kitty, stuffed animals, puppies, kitties, duckies, bunnies, as well as chocolates, shiny jewelry and other trinkets and knick-knacks. Also, she will understand perfectly well if you pout over the smallest perceived slight or slip and demand to be appeased, assuaged, or made up to. If you behave any other way, she will never understand it.
   
   
6. Dress like a PRETTY-BOY GEEK. This will save her the trouble of replacing your wardrobe and dressing you, herself.
   
   
7. Remove EVERY HAIR ON YOUR BODY EXCEPT THOSE ON YOUR SCALP. The sight of a whisker on your face reminds her that somewhere inside you, something is trying to grow. You must not grow - you must be as unchanging and constant as the firmament.
   
   
8. There are NO MORE RULES to making your Asian girlfriend eternally happy. If any situation arises which you feel the rules have not addressed, you are mistaken - immediately refer to the primary rules #1 and #2 - they are the solution in every such case

Categories: Fun

Web 2.0. You may or may not have heard of it. I've been hearing more and more about it over the past few weeks, so I thought I'd take the time to talk a little bit about it.

What is it?

Over here is a very succint, and yet, technical description:

Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

What does it actually mean?

Well, the internet that we've had for the past decade or so is Web 1.0, where the web pages and sites were (are) often static and unable to change according to user participation (except for bulletin boards and forums, which aren't really the actual websites themselves, but added functionality to static sites). Web 2.0 changes that by introducing web-based applications which allow for visitor interaction that changes the content of a website. As more people become members of a site that uses these applications, the more functional it becomes. The content is organised and displayed by the members in such a way that it reflects their feelings about that content.

Various terms have been created that explain what it's all about, like social networking and social bookmarking. Dating and friendship (social networking) websites started this with Web 1.0, but now Web 2.0 takes it a step forward by allowing members to vote for popularity of personality or interests. You can also store your bookmarks on social bookmarking sites, allowing you to share your favourite websites with others, and involve entire communities around like-minded bookmarks.

A lot of this sharing and integration is created through the tagging of content or links, allowing searching via those tags. I've been implementing it on this website for the past few weeks, by using Categories. These are 'tags', allowing for the searching of material related to whatever tags you want to search for. You can do this for the site, for all the blogs, or for communities that facilitate this throughout their member's sites.

There are already various sites that are allowing the bringing together of all this information into something often called 'My Page', allowing you to bring together information according to your personal requirements. This can be based on RSS feeds for specific news or content, tags for content and files, and even the sharing of contacts and other websites.

Personally, I love it! I have always loved web technology that inspires and creates communities, and Web 2.0 takes the internet into a real community-oriented medium. Major media is going to have to change the way they do things, moving away from static information and allowing fluid user-driven information. Communities are forming and will become more popular, and the internet will become something closer to having various 'neighbourhoods'.

I remember the relatively early days where web companies tried forming neighbourhoods of like-minded websites. They were often popular, but were static rather than dynamic. Unless you advertised or promoted your website in some way, it was highly unlikely that your site would become a strong member of that community. And even then, if you promoted it, you'd more likely make your site stronger, rather than the community it was part of. The new Web 2.0 sites are focusing on content throughout the community, and not the sites.

I've added a new heading to my blogroll - Web 2.0. Those blogs that provide more information about Web 2.0 will be listed there. Enjoy.

Categories: Web 2.0, Blogs

Title: Corona Red Roses

Description: Single 31-year-old, Washington DC area resident. Work for the government, but not a fan of Dubya. Interested in travel, my friends, and world events. Oldest of four.

I found Corona when she left a comment on my Dating For Men website, and I discovered that we had a common interest. Dating! She's single and dating, and I'm not single but writing about dating.

For me, the attraction to Corona's website is mainly her dating exploits. It's interesting to read about about a woman's dating adventures and realising that they're not that unlike men's dating adventures. Both men and women have their various issues, insecurities and annoyances associated with dating.

As a blog, however, its more a personal account of her life than just about dating. There's two complaints I have about the site, however.

First, her description starts off with 'single 31-year-old''. Straight away, she invites interest about her single life. We want to see more of it!

She also works for the government in Washington DC, and while she says she's not a fan of Dubya (is anyone these days?), we would still love to see more stories about her government involvement. She also says she's interested in travel, friends and world events. And yet I haven't seen any discussion of these things at all!

Admittedly, I haven't been a fan for that long, and I haven't read every single post dating back to Auguest 2004. But I'd love to see more of it.

Secondly, just a small complaint about her blog template. The white background seems to have been set with a definite height rather than for however long the page is, and so a number of posts are stuck onto the darkish page background that prevents you from seeing links, and various other elements of the posts, unless you use your mouse to highlight the posts themselves, so that you can see what's 'missing'. Can be a little frustrating at times.

If she gives us more stories about what her description is about, I would imagine her readers would increase tenfold. Everyone wants to hear about single women and the US government. Give us more of that! :-)

Categories: Blog Reviews

Deidre and I went out on a date on Friday night, going to dinner and then to see a movie (we saw "In Her Shoes", which I thought was quite good). During the movie I heard something.

Pppfffftt

That sound. You know the one. Of 'escaping wind'.

This is something I've gotten used to, as she lets her wind escape in places that she feels comfortable with, or where she thinks people won't hear her. But people often do hear her, and she says 'excuse me', which is great. It means we can go back again, where she does it again. But hey, as long as she says 'excuse me', they keep letting us back.

I think the cinema floor shook when she let her wind escape. I looked at her, and she smiled. I hoped no one else noticed, and grinned back.

When we were going back to the car, which was on the 7th floor, we jumped into the elevator. There was another couple in it with us, and we rode the elevator quietly.

Pppfffftt

I looked at Deidre, and she hid her head in her hand. The other couple pretended they didn't hear, but I noticed the lady's eyes flicker to look at who violated her airspace, but she stopped herself and kept looking ahead. I looked at Deidre again, and she was still hiding her head in her hand, shaking it as if she couldn't believe she'd just done that in the elevator. I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing. The lady smiled cautiously at me, and Deidre squeaked, 'excuse me'. The door opened and the other couple left. It closed, and I continued laughing. I couldn't help it!

That was the hilarious ending to a nice night.

It reminds me of when I was going out with Michelle, 5 years ago. We were living together for about a month, and one day I said to her, "Michelle.... you know, farting is natural. It's ok to fart every now and again. I haven't heard you fart at all, so you're probably hoping you don't offend me, but it's ok." She breathed a great sigh of relief and agreed with me, that she hadn't wanted to offend me.

From then on, she was farting all the time! It was amazing! After another month or so of this, I said to her, "Christ you fart a lot!" She looked at me in surprise.

"I thought you wanted me to fart?" she asked.

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"Well, you said it's ok to fart, and so I thought you wanted me to. I thought you had a fart fetish or something, and I was trying to cater to that."

Sheesh....

I'll be providing links for a couple weeks to articles I post on Eyes On The World, just to remind you to go there if you've been interested in my views on here.

Here's an update on the bird flu hoax:
British Medical Journal talks about bird flu hoax

I love tweaking, customising, modifying the look, feel and functionality of my website. I love it so much, I'm always looking for something to make it better in some way. Here's what I've been working on recently:

Drop down lists

When I created the drop down lists I did this to reduce the clutter. However, there were two drawbacks to this, which I disregarded in favour of tidying up.

1. The drop down list aren't links, and therefore don't show the visitor where they have or haven't been, as 'visited links' do. I know it can be a valuable means of functionality to see which links you have or haven't been to. And seeing unvisited links can often invite you to visit them! Which only increases the 'stickiness' of the site, causing visitors to browse a bit more.
   
   
2. Search engines, as far as I know, love to follow links. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I believe the dropdown lists don't allow for search engines to see or follow the links within them.

As a result of these 2 drawbacks I've been keeping my eyes open for a means of having the dropdown lists AND overcoming those drawbacks. Today, I actually got off my butt and looked for a way of doing it. The result is in the 'Photo Blog' section on the right. If you click on the + sign, the dropdown list shows you the actual links to the relevent pages, allowing you to see what you have or haven't visited, and also allows, I believe, search engines to follow them.

I'll be changing the other dropdown lists over to the new style over the next couple of days.

Formatting

I adjusted the CSS formatting to enhance the posts from each other, emboldening the headings, and generally enhancing the appearance of the posts.

Link backs

You might also know them as Trackbacks. Blogspot.com introduced the functionality a few weeks ago, and a few days ago I implemented a variation of the coding to this site. I did it in such a way, however, that they're visible on the front page under each post, not only showing links back to the post, but also allowing you to click on a link that'll take you to the actual post itself, just in case you want to link back to it on your own blog. (Please do, if you find something interesting!)

It's been quite a challenge to work on the blog coding in such a way that the functionality of it is changed in ways that is uniquely mine! I love it!

Categories: Website

Uhh... Hi, my name is... uh... Alan Howard. And ummm... I'm addicted to Starbucks.

I blame my friend Garry, who started me on this path some years ago, when we first started getting together and discussing my Star Trek: Rebellion game. We'd get together a couple of times a week, and he'd be my sounding board as I came up with ideas for developing and maintaing the story and the website.

Ever since then it's just been getting worse. Now I come here by myself, not needing the presence of any friends to join me or provide an excuse. I sit here alone, drinking that insidious chai latte, watching the asian babes - ahem, the people - walking past and writing for my blog/s.

I tell myself I find it relaxing and enjoyable, but really, I need help. I'm sure of it. Please help me by suggesting alternatives to where I can watch the asian babes - ahem, the people walking past - and writing about whatever's on my mind or in the news. Help me, I implore you.

So here I sit today, and it's yet another lovely day indeed, watching the... people walking past, an empty cup of chai latte on the table next to me, and the laptop on my lap, as I sit here typing away.

I discovered a very interesting little fact once I came here this afternoon. At home, my internet connection has been speed capped because I've gone over my download limit for the month. I have a limit of 10 Gb per month. I exceeded it this month in only 10 days. Wow, that's pretty high even for me! But I've been downloading episodes of a new series called Threshold, as well as a few movies (Dark Sky and Sliding Doors), and also a few episodes of Firefly. Where does the bandwidth go?

Anyway, I've been speed capped down from 2Mb to only 64k, a few days ago. It's a nightmare! But after coming into Starbucks today and connecting to my account via wi-fi, I find that I'm not speed capped! This means that the account limits are only associated with the ADSL connection at home, and not with the actual account login. Very nice!

A neat trick I plan on taking advantage of every now and again...

From the ABC News:

Israel's vice prime minister said Iran should be expelled from the United Nations after its new president said Israel should be "wiped off the map," and Britain summoned an Iranian diplomat Thursday to protest the remarks.

From What Really Happened:

Okay, let's just step back here for a little bit of context.

AIPAC is pushing for the USA to attack Iran for Israel

AIPAC spurring Congress to pass sanctions bill against Iran

Israel says Iran close to having a nuclear bomb

Israel warns on Iranian "nightmare"

Iran the next nuclear threat

Sharon stirs up conflict with Syria and Iran

Israel instructs America to attack Iran and Syria

ISRAEL DEMANDS IRAN BE ATTACKED NEXT AFTER IRAQ

US Assures Israel That Syria And Iran Are Next

Sharon Says US Should Also Disarm Iran, Libya and Syria

Israel urges harder int'l line towards Iran

Israeli foreign minister calls for international action against Iran in light of elections

Israelis urge U.S. to stop Iran's nuke goals

'Israel will take out Iran's nuke facilities if US does not'

According to al-Watan, Israel made it clear that it would only be able to wait until a certain date next year and would strike at Iran if no progress is made by that time.

Yes, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements are inflammatory, but he is hardly initiating hostilities here. Israel has all along been screaming for Iran to be attacked. President Ahmadinejad is reacting to what Israel has been saying and doing.

One more point, before you all get hot and bothered over poor little Israel's hurt feelings. President Ahmadinejad knows that by talking like this, he increases the chances for an invasion. But he acts like he has little to fear, which may be the truth if in fact Russia has agreed to a defense arrangement.

I agree. Stepping back and seeing the context shows it in a completely different light. Everyone wants to talk about how bad Iran is, but what people are ignoring is all the anti-Iranian threats and rhetoric that has been preceding this. What would any country do when faced with the threat of attacks from others? Obviously threaten them back.

This is how the game of war is played, and we are seeing the beginnings of what is to come. First the threats, then the battles.

Categories: News, Politics

I feel sorry for the person whose search for the following statement brought them to my site:

"doesn't matter I know I am shit in his life"

They didn't stay, however, so I guess they didn't find what they were looking for. The world is full of sad people, with sad stories and sad experiences. I wish I could be of help to some of them.

Categories: Life

Title: Chancelucky

Description: "I've written for many years and see this as a way to both get what I write to the world wide web at large and to encourage myself to write on a regular basis..."

I remember Chancelucky making a comment on one of my entries at my old Eyes On The World site. In fact, I think he was the first ever person to make a comment on my site! I figured that anyone who likes what I write about can't be all that bad!

Chancelucky is interested in American politics. Can't blame him really, as he is an American. His interest, and wacky sense of perspective, has allowed him to even apparently create his own political and religious idealogy that he calls Theobertarianism. Try saying that 4 times quickly! It's his unique perspective and creative mind that keeps me reading his entries. Not all of them are interesting, but how many can claim all their entries are? I know some of mine are downright boring!

His best post, in my limited experience of reading his blog, was where he delved into his past, talking about his childhood and the accursed fortune cookies. One of the best posts I've read on any blog.

Keep up the good work!

Categories: Blog Reviews

What do you think of the new look? I've got boxes around the posts to highlight them a bit more, in order to enhance the headings and make them stand out a bit, and moved some of the sidebar content around. Does it look and feel better to you?

Oh, and thanks to Not PC, I've updated the Recent Comments to be JUST how I wanted them! Yay!

Categories: Website

Hat tip to Not PC for a link to some tips on Better Browsing (and Blogging). It involves using Firefox, which is something I've been using for the past 6+ months, and have already found a lot of great extensions. Go read, you might find something you like.

Categories: Blogs

Title: Bark / Bite

Description: "Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite?"

What I like about this blog is that it bites! The author doesn't hold back on the language, especially when he's disgusted about something. And he sure does find something to be disgusted at on a relatively regular basis!

It's a blog that's mostly about US politics, and the author's view of it. I'm suspecting that if he carries on having the fits of pure anger that I see every now and again, he'll end up having a heart attack!

But it's refreshing to see such anger, especially if you feel the same way the author does. He says the things that we all feel, but with such intensity, that we're glad we just don't feel as extreme about it as him. An example:

What the fuck is up with these people? Do they not get that there are limits in this country designed to keep their fucking bronze-age sky god out of our fucking laws (let alone our uteri--I know that if I had a uterus, I would really, really not want Jehovah climbing up inside it and making mischief)?

Oh, I'm sorry--in case you've been living in a "Hmmmm!! Hmm!! I've got my fingers in my ears and I can't hear all the feminists in the fucking country screaming at once Hmmmm!!" cave, I am of course, referring to the charming piece of legislation proposed by one Patricia Miller (R-Indianapolis) of the Indiana Legislature.

Charming. But oh so amusing!

I've been enjoying Bark /Bite ever since I found it a few months ago. His views aren't groundbreaking, but they're personal and emotional. And that makes them interesting.

Categories: Blog Review

Further to the bird flu entry here, there's another article here that talks about the bird flu hoax.

Interestingly, the intelligence analysis by Stratfor has these particular comments...

An uncomfortable but undeniable fact is that there are a great many people and institutions in this world that have a vested interest in feeding the bird flu scare.

My own research into this has found the following information:

• Gilead developed Tamiflu in 1996 and used F. Hoffman-La Roche for global development and marketing in exchange for royalties (link)
  
  
• US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was made Chairman of Gilead in 1997 (link)
  
  
• In 2003, Roche begins increasing Tamiflu production "in preparation for massive orders", with up to $2 billion from the US government (particularly the US Department of Defense, of which Rumsfeld is head of) (link)
  
  
• It wasn't until December 2004 that WHO issued a warning "that bird flu will trigger an international pandemic that could kill up to 7 million people" (link). (I'm curious as to how the US government knew there would be a 'bird flu pandemic' and order Tamiflu a year before the World Health Organisation started warning people.)


• 2005, and the US government advises that "a super flu could kill up to" 2 million Americans. The Bush administration advises it's spent a year updating its plan on how to fight the next flu pandemic. Again, this update apparently started a full year after Roche began preparing for massive orders.... (link).

People around the world start going into panic mode. International governments begin stocking up on their supply of Tamiflu (link). Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense and also Chairman of Gilead, the creator of Tamiflu, rakes in the money from his shares in Gilead. I'm sure it's a coincidence that the US Department of Defense, of which Rumsfeld is head of, is behind most of the movement within America of causing panic about the bird flu, and stocking up on supplies to combat it.

Let's revisit what Stratfor's intelligence analysis says:

An uncomfortable but undeniable fact is that there are a great many people and institutions in this world that have a vested interest in feeding the bird flu scare.

Categories: News, Conspiracies

Wth thanks to stratfor.com:

Stratfor subscribers have been sending us a steady river of requests for our opinion on the bird flu situation. Although we are not medical experts, among our sources are those who are. And here is what we have been able to conclude based on their input and our broader analysis of the bird flu threat:

Calm down.

Now let us qualify that: Since December 2003, the H5N1 bird flu virus -- which has caused all the ruckus -- has been responsible for the documented infection of 121 people, 91 of whom caught the virus in Vietnam. In all cases where information on the chain of infection has been confirmed, the virus was transmitted either by repeated close contact with fowl or via the ingestion of insufficiently cooked chicken products. In not a single case has human-to-human communicability been confirmed. So long as that remains the case, there is no bird flu threat to the human population of places such as Vietnam at large, much less the United States.

The Politics of Genetics

An uncomfortable but undeniable fact is that there are a great many people and institutions in this world that have a vested interest in feeding the bird flu scare. Much like the "Y2K" bug that commanded public attention in 1999, bird flu is all you hear about. Comparisons to the 1918 Spanish influenza have produced death toll projections in excess of 360 million, evoking images of chaos in the streets.

One does not qualify for funding -- whether for academic research, medical development or contingency studies -- by postulating about best-case scenarios. The strategy is to show up front how bad things could get, and to scare your targeted benefactors into having you study the problem and manufacture solutions.

This hardly means that these people are evil, greedy or irresponsible (although, in the case of Y2K or when a health threat shuts down agricultural trade for years, one really tends to wonder). It simply means that fear is an effective way to spark interest and action.

Current medical technology lacks the ability to cure -- or even reliably vaccinate against -- highly mutable viral infections; the best available medicines can only treat symptoms -- like Roche's Tamiflu, which is becoming as scarce as the oftentimes legendary red mercury -- or slow a virus' reproduction rate. Is more research needed? Certainly. But are we on the brink of a cataclysmic outbreak? Certainly not.

A bird flu pandemic among the human population is broadly in the same category as a meteor strike. Of course it will happen sooner or later -- and when it does, watch out! But there is no -- absolutely no -- particular reason to fear a global flu pandemic this flu season.

This does not mean the laws of nature have changed since 1918; it simply means there is no way to predict when an animal virus will break into the human population in any particular year -- or even if it will at all. Yes, H5N1 does show a propensity to mutate; and, yes, sooner or later another domesticated animal disease will cross over into the human population (most common human diseases have such origins). But there is no scientifically plausible reason to expect such a crossover to be imminent.

But if you are trying to find something to worry about, you should at least worry about the right thing.

A virus can mutate in any host, and pound for pound, the mutations that are of most interest to humanity are obviously those that occur within a human host. That means that each person who catches H5N1 due to a close encounter of the bird kind in effect becomes a sort of laboratory that could foster a mutation and that could have characteristics that would allow H5N1 to be communicable to other humans. Without such a specific mutation, bird flu is a problem for turkeys, but not for the non-turkey farmers among us.

But we are talking about a grand total of 115 people catching the bug over the course of the past three years. That does not exactly produce great odds for a virus -- no matter how genetically mutable -- to evolve successfully into a human-communicable strain. And bear in mind that the first-ever human case of H5N1 was not in 2003 but in 1997. There is not anything fundamentally new in this year's bird flu scare.

A more likely vector, therefore, would be for H5N1 to leap into a species of animal that bears similarities to human immunology yet lives in quarters close enough to encourage viral spread -- and lacks the capacity to complete detailed questionnaires about family health history.

The most likely candidate is the pig. On many farms, birds and pigs regularly intermingle, allowing for cross-infection, and similar pig-human biology means that pigs serving in the role as mutation incubator are statistically more likely than the odd Vietnamese raw-chicken eater to generate a pandemic virus.

And once the virus mutates into a form that is pig-pig transferable, a human pandemic is only one short mutation away. Put another way, a bird flu pandemic among birds is manageable. A bird flu pandemic among pigs is not, and is nearly guaranteed to become a human pandemic.

Pandemics: Past and Future

What precisely is a pandemic? The short version is that it is an epidemic that is everywhere. Epidemics affect large numbers of people in a relatively contained region. Pandemics are in effect the same, but without the geographic limitations. In 1854 a cholera epidemic struck London. The European settling of the Americas brought disease pandemics to the Native Americans that nearly eliminated them as an ethnic classification.

In 1918 the influenza outbreak spread in two waves. The first hit in March, and was only marginally more dangerous than the flu outbreaks of the previous six years. But in the trenches of war-torn France, the virus mutated into a new, more virulent strain that swept back across the world, ultimately killing anywhere from 20 million to 100 million people. Some one in four Americans became infected -- nearly all in one horrid month in October, and some 550,000 -- about 0.5 percent of the total population -- succumbed. Playing that figure forward to today's population, theoretically 1.6 million Americans would die. Suddenly the fear makes a bit more sense, right?

Wrong.

There are four major differences between the 1918 scenario and any new flu pandemic development:

First -- and this one could actually make the death toll higher -- is the virus itself.

No one knows how lethal H5N1 (or any animal pathogen) would be if it adapted to human hosts. Not knowing that makes it impossible to reliably predict the as-yet-unmutated virus' mortality rate.

At this point, the mortality rate among infected humans is running right at about 50 percent, but that hardly means that is what it would look like if the virus became human-to-human communicable. Remember, the virus needs to mutate before it is a threat to humanity -- there is no reason to expect it to mutate just once. Also, in general, the more communicable a disease becomes the lower its mortality rate tends to be. A virus -- like all life forms -- has a vested interest in not wiping out its host population.

One of the features that made the 1918 panic so unnerving is the "W" nature of the mortality curve. For reasons unknown, the virus proved more effective than most at killing people in the prime of their lives -- those in the 15- to 44-year-old age brackets. While there is no reason to expect the next pandemic virus to not have such a feature, similarly there is no reason to expect the next pandemic virus to share that feature.

Second, 1918 was not exactly a "typical" year.

World War I, while coming to a close, was still raging. The war was unique in that it was fought largely in trenches, among the least sanitary of human habitats. Soldiers not only faced degrading health from their "quarters" in wartime, but even when they were not fighting at the front they were living in barracks. Such conditions ensured that they were: a) not in the best of health, and b) constantly exposed to whatever airborne diseases afflicted the rest of their unit.

As such, the military circumstances and style of the war ensured that soldiers were not only extraordinarily susceptible to catching the flu, but also extraordinarily susceptible to dying of it. Over half of U.S. war dead in World War I -- some 65,000 men -- were the result not of combat but of the flu pandemic.

And it should be no surprise that in 1918, circulation of military personnel was the leading vector for infecting civilian populations the world over. Nevertheless, while the United States is obviously involved in a war in 2005, it is not involved in anything close to trench warfare, and the total percentage of the U.S. population involved in Iraq and Afghanistan -- 0.005 percent -- is middling compared to the 2.0 percent involvement in World War I.

Third, health and nutrition levels have radically changed in the past 87 years. Though fears of obesity and insufficient school lunch nutrition are all the rage in the media, no one would seriously postulate that overall American health today is in worse shape than it was in 1918. The healthier a person is going into a sickness, the better his or her chances are of emerging from it. Sometimes it really is just that simple.

Indeed, a huge consideration in any modern-day pandemic is availability of and access to medical care. Poorer people tend to live in closer quarters and are more likely to have occupations (military, services, construction, etc.) in which they regularly encounter large numbers of people. According to a 1931 study of the 1918 flu pandemic by the U.S. Public Health Service, the poor were about 20 percent to 30 percent more likely to contract the flu, and overall mortality rates of the "well-to-do" were less than half that of the "poor" and "very poor."

But the fourth factor, which will pull some of the strength out of any new pandemic, is even more basic than starting health: antibiotics. The 1918 pandemic virus was similar to the more standard influenza virus in that the majority of those who perished died not from the primary attack of the flu but from secondary infections -- typically bacteria or fungal -- that triggered pneumonia. While antibiotics are hardly a silver bullet and they are useless against viruses, they raise the simple possibility of treatment for bacterial or fungal illnesses. Penicillin -- the first commercialized antibiotic -- was not discovered until 1929, 11 years too late to help when panic gripped the world in 1918.

Categories: News

Here's a great site with some tips on how to blog. Go read it, you might get something worthwhile from it.

Categories: Blogs

While I was transferring content over from my previous sites I found this fascinating entry from February 2002 where I talked about how stupid blogs and bloggers are. Now here I am, a blogger myself.

It's amazing how times change, and where you once thought something was so stupid, a few years later you find yourself doing it.

Admittedly, blogging has grown to also include 'online journaling', and that's where I came in. When blogging evolved to include what I do, I made the switch. And I've been without any regrets.

Categories: Blogs

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to review the blogs on my Bloglines list. Every day a new blog. Why? Just for the fun of it. Oh, and because I think it'll be fun. Ok... it'll increase the exposure of some of those blogs that I think are cool, and I think that's cool to do.

If you want your blog reviewed, and it's not on my list, write a comment to this entry and ask me. Make sure you provide a link to your blog if it's not in your linked profile.

Categories: Blogs

Over here I talked about deleting the pre-2005 archives that come from my other sites. I just started doing this, but after deleting the first one, and then looking at the next one, I just couldn't do it! Even though these archives are available at my other sites, I decided I really want them to be available on this site. Mainly for me. I realised I want to be able to find things, from one site, rather than exploring through 3 different sites. So I'm keeping them, and I'm now going continue the archiving process of bringing the best posts across to this one. I know you aren't interested, but this is for me, now that I've realised that. :-)

Categories: Website

One of my readers left a comment over here, asking how to encourage people to leave comments on her website. I've been thinking about that ever since I read her comment.

One of the things which I really appreciate is the fact that with almost every one of my entries, someone comments on it. It shows that they're interested in what I have to say and that gives me a warm feeling deep down in the cockles of my heart. I'm yet to analyse which of my entries get the most comments, and why. That'll be a project for me to check out soon, when I come up with a new section - 'most popular posts', which will be based on how many comments the posts get.

Back to the topic... how to get readers leaving comments? I think the method is to first, not alienate your readers. Make sure that you write in a language that's familiar, that's more like how you talk to your friends and acquaintances, rather than how you think you should be writing.

Second, don't worry about people leaving comments. Get yourself a statistics meter like SiteMeter or something, which will allow you to see the number of people visiting your site. This will give you confidence, at least, that you're getting visitors. That's a good thing.

If you're not getting visitors, then you need to do two things: 1) put your blog into a number of directories and search engines that will increase your exposure. 2) POST MORE! You won't get readers coming to your site or coming back if you're not posting anything. You need to be posting often, and posting about stuff that's likely to inspire your readers to interact with you about it.

One of the biggest turn offs for me when I visit blogs is reading crap about daily activities. I don't want to know what people ate for dinner, or what they did when their friends came over. I don't want to know running commentaries about the daily trivialities of life. I want to read about how the writer's experiences have helped him learn something. I want to read about how the writer's life has been changed or enhanced by whatever it is they're writing about. I want to read about how the writer's feelings have been influenced by their experiences.

Everyone has experiences, but it's how we deal with those experiences that really matters, and it's how those experiences make us feel that has such an impact on us. I want to read about the impact those experiences have had.

I know there's blogs for all kinds of reasons, catering to all kinds of interests, and what excites me may be something that completely bores someone else. Each to their own. I'm referring, above, to the more personal blogs, where people talk about their lives and stuff.

Life is mostly boring, but you know what? Everyone has a story. The challenge is to find a way of relating that story to others, in a way that they can relate to and find interesting. It's a challenge that's not for everyone, and not everyone that tries it finds it rewarding. But the fear of writing something boring should never stop anyone from trying, 'cause only through practice and learning about what works and what doesn't, will one find success at writing.

For me, Life Through My Eyes is about what inspires me, excites me, aggravates me, relaxes me, outrages me and helps me. Everything I see, feel or do that somehow makes my life more interesting, is something that I try to write about in a way that might make other people's lives just that litte bit more interesting as well. If you can write with that in mind, your blog will become something that people will enjoy coming back to, and making comments on.

Categories: Life, Blogs

Whenever it's a beautiful weekend, I love getting out and taking photos. Previously, it was the beach. This time we went to a wildlife sanctuary for a nice walk, and I got a few nice photos while there.

Just to show how much of a nice day it was...


This is one of the lovely views at the wildlife sanctuary...


And here's another...


This is one of the few examples of wildlife we managed to see in this wildlife sanctuary. It's a Kaka bird, having something to eat. Unfortunately, not a very good picture, but that was the theme of the day for most of the wildlife shots I got (all 3 of them).


And we finish this series with a small dam that was part of the sanctuary...


That's all until next time.

Today's Daily Tao is:

Nature

Nature is not kind;
It treats all things impartially.
The Sage is not kind,
And treats all people impartially.

Nature is like a bellows,
Empty, yet never ceasing its supply.
The more it moves, the more it yields;
So the sage draws upon experience
And cannot be exhausted.

I think this is saying that the Sage is one who treats people without favouritism. He is as I aspire to be, seeking the balance in all things. It is also experience that continues to drive the Sage, providing incentive and inspiration to do the things he does.

Categories: Taoism

I've always been appalled by how Israel can so blatantly disregard all forms of humanity with their treatment of Palestinians, and the latest such incident is even more shocking to me. The Israelis are blocking material into Palestine that will help the Palestinians locate and treat the bird flu that's of such a threat these days. Now, the only reason the Israelis would be blocking this is simply to maximise the number of potential Palestinian deaths from the bird flu.

Absolutely disgusting and appalling. How can any country get away with shit like this in today's world? How can they have gotten away with all that they've done to the Palestinians? It's like there are commonly accepted rules for the world. There's our rules and then there's Israeli rules.

Well fuck 'em I say. Their actions earn my disgust, and I'm sure that karma will bite them in the arse one day. I pray it's a day I'm around for, and I'll dance in the street.

Categories: Politics

I'm always interested in ways of improving myself and doing things better, and for that reason I'm often looking out for ways of improving myself. Here's something I found that I thought interesting, and maybe you'll find it interesting too.

1. Ignore everybody.

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the biz card format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn't I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?

(more...)

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

The two are not the same thing.

(more...)

3. Put the hours in.

Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina.

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4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

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5. You are responsible for your own experience.

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is.

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6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, "I’d like my crayons back, please."

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7. Keep your day job.

I’m not just saying that for the usual reason i.e. because I think your idea will fail. I’m saying it because to suddenly quit one’s job in a big ol' creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory”.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

Nor can you bully a subordinate into becoming a genius.

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9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow-line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

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10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

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11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

Your plan for getting your work out there has to be as original as the actual work, perhaps even more so. The work has to create a totally new market. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.

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12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

The pain of making the necessary sacrifices always hurts more than you think it's going to. I know. It sucks. That being said, doing something seriously creative is one of the most amazing experiences one can have, in this or any other lifetime. If you can pull it off, it's worth it. Even if you don't end up pulling it off, you'll learn many incredible, magical, valuable things. It's NOT doing it when you know you full well you HAD the opportunity- that hurts FAR more than any failure.

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13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

The more you practice your craft, the less you confuse worldly rewards with spiritual rewards, and vice versa. Even if your path never makes any money or furthers your career, that's still worth a TON.

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14. Dying young is overrated.

I've seen so many young people take the "Gotta do the drugs and booze thing to make me a better artist" route over the years. A choice that was neither effective, healthy, smart, original or ended happily.

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15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.

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16. The world is changing.

Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I'd recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter. Just my two cents.

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17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does.

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18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

They’re a well-meaning bunch, but they get in the way eventually.

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19. Sing in your own voice.

Piccasso was a terrible colorist. Turner couldn't paint human beings worth a damn. Saul Steinberg's formal drafting skills were appalling. TS Eliot had a full-time day job. Henry Miller was a wildly uneven writer. Bob Dylan can't sing or play guitar.

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20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

Every media's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a set of fundematal compromises, one is not "higher" than the other. A painting doesn't do much, it just sits there on a wall. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Film combines sound, photography, music, acting. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Prose just uses words arranged in linear form to get its point across. That's the best and worst thing thing about it etc.

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21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

Diluting your product to make it more "commercial" will just make people like it less.
Many years ago, barely out of college, I started schlepping around the ad agencies, looking for my first job.

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22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

Everybody is too busy with their own lives to give a damn about your book, painting, screenplay etc, especially if you haven't sold it yet. And the ones that aren't, you don't want in your life anyway.

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23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

You can argue about "the shameful state of American Letters" till the cows come home. They were kvetching about it in 1950, they'll be kvetching about it in 2050.
It's a path well-trodden, and not a place where one is going to come up with many new, earth-shattering insights.

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24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

Inspiration precedes the desire to create, not the other way around.

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25. You have to find your own schtick.

A Picasso always looks like Piccasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven Symphony always sounds like a Beethoven's Syynphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.

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26. Write from the heart.

There is no silver bullet. There is only the love God gave you.

(more...)

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

This is equally true in art and business. And love. And sex. And just about everything else worth having.

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28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

People who are "ready" give off a different vibe than people who aren't. Animals can smell fear; maybe that's it.

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29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

Selling out to Hollywood comes with a price. So does not selling out. Either way, you pay in full, and yes, it invariably hurts like hell.

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30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

If you have the creative urge, it isn't going to go away. But sometimes it takes a while before you accept the fact.

(more...)

Categories: Life

The weather has really been getting nicer here in Wellington, New Zealand. So nice, that last weekend it was actually warm enough to sunbathe on the beach...


Not quite warm enough to get into the water though, as you can see. I heard that it was freezing! But hey, at least it's getting warmer, and I so love the warmer weather. In fact, if we zoom in just a little, you'll see what I mean....


Now that's what I'm talkin' about! Oh yeh, bring on summer!


That's a nice view of the fountain in the harbour, looking back from Oriental Parade towards the city.

The weather was so nice that day that we can finish this series of photos with a lovely moonrise shot over the harbour, looking out from where I live.


Almost as lovely as a sunset, but more peaceful. I hope you enjoyed viewing these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Categories: Photos

Ok, I found this and I laughed my little arse off. I laughed and laughed...

Now that I've calmed down a bit from all the laughing I've been doing, let me explain it to you. It's a woman's vibrator that's like a 'bullet'. It's inserted into that place where these vibrator thingies are inserted, and... it has text message capabilities, so that you can receive text messages from your loved one, and when you receive it, the vibrator vibrates. So the woman can be walking around with this inside of her, just waiting for a text message....

Here's a corny intro from the website:

We all send romantic, suggestive text messages to our partners, often deliberately to get them going. Imagine if these texts could touch the body as well as the mind. Thanks to new technology, now they can. Mental images and physical sensations are one with The Toy. Your text fantasies are no longer confined to the imagination. With The Toy you can unite, wherever you are...

Absolutely hilarious...

Categories: Fun

For those of you who are regular visitors, you might notice a few subtle changes. One being the text of the posts has changed slightly, to something I hope is easier to read. Another being that I've created drop down boxes for various sections of this site. It keeps things tidy.

Finally, one of the drop down boxes holds a new feature called Categories. Using Blog Search and categorisation tags, the Categories section will help you find various content easier than the Find feature. I'll keep both of them there though, just in case you want to find something that's not marked by a Category.

Enjoy.

Categories: Website

Up until I met Deidre early this year I had spent a couple of years dating mainly asian women, as I had come to feel that western women just didn't have the attitude I was looking for in a relationship or in a partner. I had a number of experiences and realisations in my life that helped me realise I was more interested in being with an asian woman than a western woman. The main reason for this was that throughout the relationships I'd had and the things that I'd learnt, what stuck out was that asian women respect what their men do for them, something that in my experience most western women do not. I learnt that what many westerners see as asian submissiveness is actually misunderstood by them, and is instead respect and appreciation for someone who cares for them.

My comments, of course, are generalised. There are western women who do respect and appreciate what their men do for them, and there are asian women who truly are submissive in all ways. My experiences, however, showed me that there were more asian women with the qualities I was looking for than there were western women with those qualities. And yes, it's quite likely I just hadn't met the right women - but all we can do is make decisions about our life, our needs and wants, based on the experiences we have and what we learn from it. Your experiences, and others, are obviously very different. Each to their own, and this post is about my experiences and what I learnt from it. Let me continue...

I used to be in a relationship with a Japanese woman, Wakana, who I thought was submissive. But only in public, and only in a way that was deferential to me. In private, she was very open about her wants and needs, and quite happy to tell me when she thought I was failing her. This wasn't a submissive attitude, and it confused me. My relationship with her eventually failed because of a number of reasons, with a primary cause being my misunderstanding of her cultural expectations towards the relationship.

My problem was that I had looked at it from a western point of view, which had been tainted by my understanding and experiences of western women's attitudes towards men and relationships. I expected her to want equality, as most western women do. Problems arose, however, when I tried to make her an equal in our relationship, which was something she rejected. This confused me, and made me feel she was actually preferring to be submissive by wanting to put me first.

Most western women (especially Americans, I hear) are different, in that they certainly aren't submissive. They often demand equality in a relationship, but at the same time, they demand a gentleman. For me, this had also caused certain problems. How can you be a gentleman with a woman, when she demands to be your equal? Being a gentleman means treating the woman as a woman, rather than as an equal. Here's an example of a typical quandary related to this situation:

"Ok, if you're my equal, then you can open the doors for yourself, or you can open them for me occasionally. Oh, that offends you? Then how can you demand equality in our relationship when you don't want to give to me what I give to you? That's not equality. How can you demand equality in the workplace, for example, when you'll use your sexuality to get what you want when men have to merely use their merits? Women can dress provacatively but if men do then that's sexual harrassment. That's not equality. How can you demand equality as a woman when men and women ARE NOT EQUAL. Men can't have babies. Women can't perform great physical feats, no matter how much they try. In sports, there are two categories - men's and women's. The expectations of the performances of each gender are different. There is no equality."

What I'd learnt from my experiences with the Japanese woman - and other asian women after her - is that asian women don't demand equality. They like to be treated as a woman, and they understand that men are men and women are women. They are attractive because they accept their femininity, and they do not try and compete with men. They appreciate their men for being gentlemen and treating them like women.

Yes, there are many western women that do that too (as you know, I found one in Deidre), but western society in general promotes aggressive equality and competition, and some men just aren't interested in that. Including me. I don't want to compete with the woman I choose to be with. I want to compete with my workmates, or with other men in sports, etc. I don't want to have to compete with the woman I love.

Asian women respect, honour and appreciate the man they love, but in return for those qualities they expect the man to also respect, honour and appreciate them back. No woman, western or asian, will want to be with a man who doesn't (unless they've got serious problems of low self esteem). To many of those men who prefer asian women, they are more attractive than western women because of what they offer in a relationship: acceptance, without competition or demands.

I was only interested in asian women, and then I met Deidre. To me, as I came to know her, she had many qualities that I was looking for. She was feminine in her attitude, understanding that men are men and women are women. She was appreciative of the qualities I had, what I did for her and how I made her feel. She gave me respect in return for the respect I gave her. She gave me the freedom to be myself, instead of wanting me to be what she thought I should be.

How many men in relationships are free to be themselves? How many, instead, feel bound to be and do what their partner wants of them? We hear about it all the time, where men are initially happy with the woman they're with, but then their happiness fades over time. The woman has this ideal in her mind that the man never meets, and so she tries to help him become her ideal man by changing small things about him, or demanding that he change his ways, attitudes, hobbies, etc. The man is usually obliged to change to suit the woman, but woe betide any man who wants the woman to change to suit him.

Personally, I think men are to blame for this situation in the first place. Men gave up their individuality and personal freedom to fit into what they believed their women wanted. They think that in order to be in a successful, happy relationship, they have to ensure that they don't upset or disappoint the woman they're with. As a result of this, many men live on virtual egg shells, wondering what their partner actually wants from them, and hoping that they meet her expectations. Men give up who they are because they're afraid of being alone, and so they submit to the demands of the woman. It's amazing how much a man will give up of himself in order to try and make his partner happy. (Yes, I know the opposite is true too, where the woman gives of herself and the man doesn't respect her and takes everything she gives. Whether you're male or female, I'm sure what I'm saying is somehow familiar to you.)

Unfortunately, women went along with this, believing that this was what feminism was all about. Finally men were giving women all the power, all the respect, and all the control. Having their men try so hard to fit their expectations, giving them all that they could, made women feel great! Why would they want this to stop?

However, it's getting tired. It's a social experiment that's not working. More and more people are finding themselves unhappy in their relationships, because men are giving up who they are, and women are demanding more than what they need or deserve. Everyone is unhappy, and few people know the resolution.

Men and women are not born or live as equals, no matter how much they try. Men are born to be the hunter, the provider, while women are born to be the mother, the carer. This is nature's role for the male and female of the species, regardless of species, and by confusing those roles the relationships between men and women are confused as well.

Asian cultures still have these understandings, where the men and women know their roles in a relationship. Unfortunately, while asian women are expected to respect the man, and they hope for the man's respect in turn, they don't often get it. Asian culture is very male-oriented, where submissiveness in the women is expected. At least in public. This is part of the culture of 'face', or respect. You've heard of the term 'saving face', I'm sure. Face is a very big part of asian culture, particularly in Japan and China. (I'm uncertain about other asian cultures, so I would be happy to have more information provided to me in the comments section.) When a woman is openly respectful of her partner in public, he gains face in the eyes of his peers. This can have favourable consequences to his career and social prospects. If she's disrespectful, or neutral, this can have the opposite effect.

Western society has it as well, the concept of face. We call it respect, politeness, etc. No one wants to be disrespected in public, and yet, how many women do this to their men? How many women embarrass their man in public, out of some misguided sense of saving their own face, of gaining power and strength from their humiliation of the man? Many. We see tantrums occurring in public places like restaurants, and especially in presentations by the media of how they seem to believe men should be treated by women. The media, of course, has a very strong hand in guiding not only public perception, but also public trends, with people thinking that if they see it on TV or in the movies then that must be how it should be. A 'smart' man has learnt to be a good, pussywhipped individual, meekly agreeing to whatever his partner says, avoiding confrontation, etc etc. And in the process, losing the essence of who they are.

Respect goes both ways, as far as I'm concerned. I am not going to respect any woman who doesn't respect me. If I'm out in public with a woman who is doing her best to embarrass or humiliate me, I'll walk away. "Don't you walk away from me!" she'll likely call out. I'll continue walking. "You come back here this instant or we're done! We're through!" I'll keep walking. She wouldn't have realised we were through as soon as she started to disrespect me in public like that.

When you keep your strength, your individuality, over and above anyone else in your life, you will find that your relationships will be happier. You'll find more quality women to be with and to choose from. Regardless of what you might think, your happiness has to be more important than the happiness of the woman you're with (and if you're a woman reading this, YOUR happiness has to be more important than the man you're with!). This is because of a very simple little rule.

If you look after yourself and your happiness, then any woman who is with you - on your terms of mutual respect - will find herself happy to be with you, and the result? Mutual happiness.

Whether you're with an asian or a western - or any culture - woman, mutual happiness is what's really important. And it starts with you, making the choices in your life that lead to your own happiness. What I learnt from the asian women in my life was to respect myself, because they certainly respected me. I learnt I was worth it. I learnt that without respect - your respect for yourself and from the woman you're with - you have nothing.

Make the decision to respect yourself and to insist on respect from others. Without it, you're missing out on quality relationships, with quality people.

Categories: Articles, Relationships, Life

Thanks to this site:

1. Your president is George W. Bush. He lives in the White House. He doesn't actually do anything except act as a figurehead for American politics, which is kind of embarrassing. I know we all could think of someone a lot more impressive to show as our leader, but American voters screwed it up twice and now we're stuck with him. Well, maybe that's a little harsh, because American voters didn't actually screw up any elections; electronic voting machines did that for them.
   
   
2. Don't try to understand any "war on terrorism", because there isn't one. It's impossible to fight a "war" against an ideal. It can't be fought, and even if it could be, it couldn't be won. "War on terrorism" is nothing more than a scary-sounding catch phrase, meant to keep you thinking you're in danger so you'll just go along with whatever program is dictated to you as being your protection. It's like saying, "Bush will save you from those meanie terrorists, if only you'll vote for him". You get the idea.
   
   
3. Do not try to think too deeply about what comes out of George W. Bush's mouth. Why should you have to think about it when even he doesn't think about it? He doesn't think this stuff up - he's got a whole team of handlers and script writers who do that for him. All he has to do is read what they write, but he tends to screw up the bigger words. Most of it is baloney anyway, just neat phrases and sound bites to paint whatever picture they want you to be seeing. Think Hollywood, and movies, and bad actors - that's about as authentic as it is. Pinocchio meets the 21st century - pull his strings and watch his mouth move.
   
   
4. Under no circumstances should you be buying crap like magnetic ribbons that say mindless things, such as "Freedom Isn't Free". Displaying such trinkets will only tag you as a mindless sheep in a mindless herd. Don't do it. If you see things like this, avoid the people who display them. They have absolutely no idea about much of anything, and certainly no clue about Iraq, oil, Bush, the economy, etc. They go along to get along, where they are comfortable. Avoid them at all costs.
   
   
5. Cable TV news? It isn't. It's entertainment. The giveaway is usually when the word "news" is in the show's title, such as "Fox News", a prime example.
   
   
6. If you really want the truth about anything involving American politics and current events, you'll need to do some homework. Here's a major tip: look outside of the American mainstream media, which gave up on objective journalism a long time ago. Try international news sources and online independent sources. Chances are good that you'll find more to every story there than you'll ever get from American mainstream media.
   
   
7. When you cast a vote for somebody, you do it because they're going to represent you and your wishes, right? Well, that was the original intention a couple hundred years ago, but it's not like that anymore. Once they get to Washington DC, all bets are off. They're in the club now. Oh, they'll do some representing, but not if you aren't sitting on a pile of cash. Elections have degenerated into a choice between two evils, and your only option is the lesser evil. Pretty sad, isn't it? Welcome to American politics in the 21st century. If an honest one does happen to slip in through the cracks, he won't be there after one term.
   
   
8. What is patriotism? It has nothing to do with the size of your flag. It has nothing to do with blind loyalty to a president. It has nothing to do with supporting a war. What is patriotism? It is standing up to a president (or anyone else) who goes against the principles this country stands on. It is a decision to ask the difficult questions, to demand accountability from every elected official (including, especially, the president). It is an attitude that says, "Nobody, not even a president, is more important than the good of the country". Patriotism is non-partisan. Patriotism bows to nobody. And patriotism will kick a president in the ass when it's called for, every time it's called for.
   
   
9. Your Vice-President is Dick Cheney. Sometimes he lives at the White House, too. Most of the time nobody knows where he lives or what he's doing. He's not very good at clearing that up. All he's really been good at is awarding multi-billion dollar contracts to his former company, for cleaning and rebuilding Iraq - and now the U.S. gulf coast, too (probably because he's still getting paid by his former company). Cheney is worse than Bush, because Bush is only lying according to a script, and Cheney can do it on his own. Again, some intense homework is in order if you really want to know about Dick Cheney.
   
   
10. This is your initiation into the world of American politics in the 21st century. It's not very in-depth, because it would take too long to erase what Big Brother has sold to you as the real story of American politics. It's been whitewashed and dressed up and sugarcoated for so long that now it's just a tacky piece of junk on a souvenir stand, painted in red, white, and blue. Do some homework. Do some research. Ask questions. Question everything. And turn off that friggin' TV!

Categories: Politics, Humour

Today's Daily Tao is:

Limitless

The Way is a limitless vessel;
Used by the self, it is not filled by the world;
It cannot be cut, knotted, dimmed or stilled;
Its depths are hidden, ubiquitous and eternal;
I don't know where it comes from;
It comes before nature.

The Way is that which carries us, has no limits, is not material and therefore unchangeable, and is eternal in its nature. To me, the Way is the energy of the universe. It carries us, is not able to be cut, knotted, dimmed or stilled, is hidden and eternal.

Categories: Taoism

There's an excellent post here at Daily Kos, about the Republicans defending the President and his advisors, all of whom are implicated in treasonous acts against the country. An excellent quote here:

There's something beyond mere politics in all of this. Politics, one would hope, is not sufficient reason to damage the country. This is different. This is the cult of power, and of corruption, that is not just defended, but celebrated by pundits, by journalists, and by politicians alike.

The Republican pundit machine wails, and wags their fingers, and is shocked by the investigations, and depositions, and prosecutions, and calls it the "criminalization of politics".

Most of the rest of us call it crime, disguised as politics.

Crime, disguised as politics, and defended by crooks, cowards, and blowhards.

Another excellent quote here:

I'd say when the most important Republican figures in the White House, the Senate, the House, and the Republican lobbying machine are all under investigation for separate alleged criminal actions, something is wrong.

Impeachment processes are under way, and all the leading figures of the Republican party are in the targeting sights. When the entire party seems to be corrupt, there's a real problem. And whats' worse are the apologists and commentators trying to brush it over, suggesting, as Dail Kos puts it, that chasing down members of the Republican party for their crimes is simply criminalisation of politics, when if was anyone else implicated like this, the Republicans - and their pathetic supporters - would certainly be calling for public executions in line with treason during times of war.

American politics and its leadership is pathetic, appalling and sickening.

And yet I'll keep commenting on it because I find some strange fascinating with watching all that I was afraid of actually becoming a reality.

Categories: politics

Today's Daily Tao is:

Without Action

Not praising the worthy prevents contention,
Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.

In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.

If people lack knowledge and desire
Then they can not act;
If no action is taken
Harmony remains

I spent a bit of time on this one, trying to write up an explanation of it, then a disagreement; then I realised that I didn't really understand it. It seems like it's saying that through inaction there is harmony, and yet according to my dictionary the definition of harmony is: "Compatibility in opinion and action." So how can Taoism be saying that without action there is harmony, when harmony seems to require action by its very definition?

Your thoughts will be welcome. I'll come back to this one some day.

Categories: Taoism

I've had an interesting life so far, doing many things and living in many places. Apparently I've been typical for a Sagittarian, never settling down, always seeking out travel and excitement. It's the fresh air blowing in my hair, and the excitement of new places that drives me, the astrology books say. Bullsheet, I say. It's circumstance and that feeling of being lost, not knowing what I was doing or where I was going, that drove me from one thing to another.

So let's begin. I was born in 1966 in a small town called Rosebud in the state of Victoria, Australia, but was there for only 3 months before my parents packed up and moved on. This turned out to be the story of my life up until I was 10 years old, as we apparently (and to my memory) were never in any one place for more than 3 months. My parents were itinerants, travelling from farm to station to farm to station... you get the idea. This means that if we take an average of 2 months in any one spot, and divide that into a year and divide that into my first 10 years, I've lived in around 60 different locations in Sth Australia and Victoria - before I was 10 years old. (I've never looked at it like that before... holy cow!)

When I was 10 we were in a tiny town called Quorn. Surprisingly, we were there for a year, before we moved to Port Augusta, only half an hour away. I was to be here for 7 years before moving with my family to Berri in 1985, the year after I left high school. I was there for 4 years until I left home and moved to Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. After living there for 4 years, I then moved in 1992 to Canberra, the capital city of Australia. (If you're American, Canberra really is the capital of Australia. It's not Sydney, so please don't argue with me like an American did about 8 years ago, calling me the world's biggest idiot for not knowing that the capital of my own country was Sydney. *sigh*) I lived in Canberra for 8 years, finding a spiritual comfort there that I'd never found before, until I moved in 2000 to Wellington, New Zealand, where I've been ever since.

But then there were the times within some of those locations that I moved around, from house to house to house... Adelaide was to be the first of such adventures, with me living in at least 8 places within the 4 years I was there. In Canberra, I was in around 10 places within that 8 years. And in Wellington, I've lived in 8 places in 5 years. I've lived in the last of those 8 places for 2 years now (meaning that I was in 7 places in 3 years), which is literally the longest I've lived in any one place in my entire adult life.

I feel a lot more settled inside of myself these days, and that's probably reflected in my job (5 years now - the previous longest job had been 2 years in 1992-94) and in my accommodation (2 years - the previous longest had been just over 1.5 years, back in 1993-94). I wonder how many people in this world can claim to have lived in over 90 locations during their life - and before they're even 40!

And now we get onto the jobs I've had...

In Berri I was an 'administrative assistant' for the government, working in the welfare offices, helping administrate the local welfare system. Bored the hell outta me. I was also in the Australian Army Reserves when I turned 19, and was in it for 3 years, spending the last few months of it in Adelaide when I moved there. While in Adelaide I did a video camera and editing course, and ended up as a tv and freelance cameraman, working for myself and a tv station to film the news. Definitely not boring. It was the fulfillment of a high school dream/goal, to be a tv cameraman, but after a couple years it ended, when a bad back prevented me from shouldering those heavy cameras any more. I was then a vacuum cleaner salesman for 2 years, selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. Interesting and challenging times, not to mention character building. Then I moved to Canberra and got a job as a salesman selling histories of surnames and coats of arms. I did that for a couple of years before being a car salesman for a month. That didn't work out as I made the General Manager look like an idiot (which really wasn't that hard to do) and he fired me. The only time I've ever been fired in my life. Not that I'm complaining, as being a used car salesman really wasn't my cup of tea. I was a receptionist for a while, and then a 'pizza delivery boy' for a year, and then 'moved up' to 'pizza seller', standing in front of the shop and selling pizza to drunken nightclubbers passing by. It was cold work, but fun. Then I started my own business as a website developer, and gained a large enough reputation for me to be 'headhunted' by a local ISP. I quit the pizza job and started work for the ISP, quickly moving up the ranks of web design, tech support, administration, reception, and finally management, over a 3 year period from 1997 - 2000 (with a year's break in 1998). In 2000 I left and moved to NZ, where I've been with the same company from a month after I got here. In this company I've been helpdesk analyst, software trainer, service delivery manager (for a month or two, as it didn't really go anywhere), and am now systems administrator.

That's my life, in terms of living and working. It's not including all the emotional journeys along the way. That'll be enough for a book one day, I'm sure of it.

Anyway, I hope that's been of interest to you. It's been interesting to me to write down these aspects of my past, and I've surprised myself with how many places I've lived. Phew! But things are slowing down now. I'm getting older, and I'm feeling more settled, which really is reflected in everything I'm doing. I love it. The journey has been challenging, and yet interesting, and I know it's going to continue into my future in similar ways.

Categories: Travel, Life

Egad! Someone's tagged me. Now I'm tagging you! (I'm keeping it open, so take the tag if you want it.) Here's what you need to do:

1. Delve into your blog archive.

2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).

3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…

5. Tag five people to do the same.

Ok, so here's my sentence from 24th July 2005:

"I've decided to do the displaying of my photos a bit differently to how I used to."

Meaning, subtext or hidden agenda: I used to put all my photos onto my online photo album, but then I decided to continue my photo album by inserting random images into this blog, but doing a 'best of' each month.

As it turns out, I haven't been doing that. Instead, I've created a 'photo blog' section on the right-hand side there, and just linking those posts which contain my photos. Much easier.

You'll find a lot of stuff on this blog like that, where I come up with ideas, and then change them as those ideas develop and evolve. My blog, like my previous online journals, is an example of how I like to evolve. Everything I do evolves in some way, as I explore new ways of doing things, writing things, and creating things.

I'm wondering who else is going to pick up the tag. Link back to me, and I'll link to you. Cheers!

Categories: Fun

Today's Daily Tao is:

Abstraction

When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.

So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.

The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.

This tells me that judgement is something that the sage does without. To find beauty is to judge between beautiful and ugly. To find good is to judge between good and evil. Abstraction is judgement. The sage experiences without judging those experiences, and accepts that things are simply the way they are, without needing to be one thing or another. He nurtures his experiences, and those things he finds, but he does not own them. He lives for the moment, instead of dwelling on what might be, and what has been.

I'd like to be that sage. :-)

Categories: Taoism

A few years ago there was a Japanese lady called Wakana. It was one of those strange relationships - I met her and didn't think much of her. Then, the next thing I knew, we're been going out together for a few months before I realised I liked her. Then, the next thing I knew, I'd left her before I realised I love her. Then... it was too late for anything else. I had lost the only woman in my life, at that time, who was everything I'd been looking for, but I only saw that when I didn't have her any more.

What made it worse was the tragedy of a love that could never be. Be what, you ask? Be realised, dear reader. A love that could never be realised.

However, it was a choice she had made, where duty and obligation were felt by her to be more important than love. This was something I was never able to understand, until, at her request, I read the book "Bridges of Madison County." She had told me that she was the woman in the book, and I was the photographer. With this in mind, I read the book.

To sum it up, she was married, he wasn't; they met, fell in love and shared an amazing passion; he wanted her to leave her husband and live happily ever after with him, but she sadly declined the offer, talking to him about the duty and obligation she had to her husband and children; they parted, never to forget each other, and yet never to meet each other ever again. He died a lonely man, years later, never to have loved another woman.

I read that book and I 'got it'. I understood the complications in her life - her perception of it at least - and I understood the depths of her feelings for me that led her to use that book as an analogy, and an explanation, of her feelings.

'Getting it' was not a happy moment for me. You can read about it here if you're interested. Happily, in a sad way, I had the opportunity to let go of her 7 months later by physically and emotionally saying goodbye to her, which was the real beginning of my healing process.

The communication wonders of the internet weren't around during the time period of the 'Madison County' book, so her and I had something that the couple in the book didn't have - the means of chatting online. She wanted it to be every 6 months, which she kept to for a while.

She contacted me again a couple of nights ago, which was the first time in close to a year without contact. It was also the first time we chatted where I knew I had truly let go and moved on, as I told her all about my life over the past year, about Deidre, and about how happy I was.

It was a very positive and enjoyable chat, marred only by some bad news of her own: she had been pregnant but miscarried due to stress. She didn't want to tell me when it was, but since she told me she tried to talk to me when it happened but I was unavailable, I suspect it was about a couple of months ago, as that was when she'd come online a few times and left me messages saying hello, but I was away from the computer. I told her how sorry I was about it, and she said she's ok now, but she was sorry I wasn't around when she wanted to talk to me.

The conversation came to a close after an hour of chatting by us both letting each other know we were happily moving on. She said she felt comfortable about meeting up with me again, and would be happy to meet Deidre. She asked me at one point if I was still available if she needed help. Always, I told her. I also told her that Deidre knows everything and understands how I feel, and would be supportive if she needed any help. She seemed happy about that. I know I'm happy about that too! It's great having a partner who's not jealous of ex's.

I've moved on from wanting anything more from Wakana, and our chat helped me see that. It's a great feeling to realise I'm not carrying it around with me any more. I'm not going to die old and lonely, never loving anyone else other than her. I feel like I've finally closed that chapter of my life, the chapter called 'Wakana'.

Of course, the story continues, and those people who are prominent in one chapter will always be part of the story. Wakana's going to be around for a while, it seems. There will always be that love, that connection between us that will never be broken. But while the relationship we once had will never be again, the love that we share will always be there.

Where this chapter closes, the story moves on with new, meaningful characters and events. Where it was once Wakana and I, and unrealised love, it's now Deidre and I, with very-much-realised love, and a very strong desire from both of us to move forward with that love. The lessons of the past have been learnt by both of us, with our shared experiences, and they've helped us both to find a commitment with each other that we've been looking for all our lives, and never found with anyone else for one reason or another. I'm happy with where I'm at right now, and it feels great!

Categories: Relationships, Life

I decided to get away from the colours of the old site, which started off with the energising oranges and yellows of the sunset and then to shades of grey... How boring. This new site starts off with the pleasant view of the ocean, followed by more shades of blue, leaving you (me?) with a feeling of relaxation, calm and peace. Which is a much nicer feel, to me, than it used to be.

For posterity - and bad memories - here is the old next to the new.

I think it looks much more professional too... I'm very happy with it!

Oh, and the new picture is also mine, and you can find it here. It's part of this series of photos I took last year.

Categories: Website

For a long, long, long time now, maybe quite a few years, I've always had this song on my mind, which I've whistled to myself on the odd occasion. It had stayed with me from whenever it was popular, or from when I had heard it. I couldn't remember the name of it, and I couldn't remember the lyrics, except 'baby it's you...' That's it. On the odd occasion that I remembered it while web browsing and subsequently tried finding a song to download called 'baby it's you', I was never successful, it constantly eluded me.

Two days ago, I remembered again and decided to search in earnest. I looked up lyrics with those 3 words in them, trying to find something that seemed to fit what I could remember. My research finally met with some results! After a few uncertain websites that pointed me in the direction of a number of artists, I finally found reference to the song 'Baby it's you' by Promises. The lyrics seemed to fit, so I had to download it. Unfortunately, the file-sharing software I use was unable to help me. No one else had the song by Promises, so I searched for a web-based download of it.

Now, downloading songs from web pages is next to impossible. People just don't store songs on file servers and then make up web pages to allow you to download them. But surprisingly, I found a page where the song was available! I was shocked, and even more shocked to find a whole bunch of songs that I could download! (I ended up downloading 20-30 of them.)

The whole point of this entry is because I want to share with you what I think is an excellent song, and has stuck in my mind for many years. It's a great relief for me to finally find this song, and be able to play it at my leisure, rather than just whistle an aimless tune to myself.

If you'd like to listen to it as well, you can download the song from here. It's #0693. Right-click on the link to that song on that page and select Save As. Choose a folder location of your choice on your computer, but make sure you change the file extension from .jpg to .mp3 and then click on Save. It's only 3.6 Mb so it's not that big.

You can read the lyrics here.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Categories: Fun

I've decided to add a 'daily Tao' each day - or whenever I remember, whichever comes first. Main reason is to help me get more into Taoism myself, and the secondary reason is to invite comments from you guys, if you're interested or inspired enough to do so. (No pressure!) Let's begin...

The Way

The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not real.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;
To experience with abstraction is to know the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

This tells me that the Way can never be experienced, and that the seeking of it is an ideal that can never be realised. Unless one steps out on a limb and recognises that if the Way manifests all that happens and may happen, then one is part of the way.

I think it's saying that while you can see the tree, you can't BE the tree. And yet, both you and the tree are the same, because you are part of the energy that constructs you. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... from energy we come, and to energy we go. The Way itself can never be 'experienced' because the very essence of experience itself is already the Way. Without seeking it out, you already are part of the Way.

Categories: Taoism

I'm curious. With all of America's security and rescue preparations over the past 4 years, how is it that Pakistan was able to get military and civilian personnel on the ground, and rescue operations well underway, within 24 hours of the earthquake that hit without warning, and the US was unable to do the same after a week - and they had almost a week's warning in the first place?

How is it that the mightiest superpower, the most technologically advanced, the most culturally superior (allegedly) country in the world was unable to do in a week what Pakistan was able to do in a day?

Categories: Politics

If you go here, you'll see George Bush stated that Harriet Miers' religion was the reason he nominated her for the Supreme Court.

Since when has a person's religious beliefs outweighed the requirements for legal qualifications and experience?

Obviously in George Bush's world, a person's religious beliefs are more important than their adherence to the law, or their experience with the law, when being nominated to a position on the Supreme Court.

Even more obvious is the swing in politics to enhance religion in Americans' lives, where people are chosen for their religion, are rewarded for their religion, and supported for their religion.

There's a bad smell coming on the storm that I can see on the horizon, and it's only made worse by Pat Robertson, a leading religious figure, who not only encouraged the assassination of the Venezualan President, but has also recently supported nuclear strikes against Venezuala - "nuke 'em before they nuke us!"

Fear, paranoia and religious ecstasy are dragging the US into areas the rest of the world fears them to go.

Categories: Politics

Ok, I found the most awesomely wonderful site that I could ever find - The Top 1000 Songs Of The Last 30 Years. I'm in heaven!

Most of the list are songs I've never heard of, and I'm really, really surprised about the top 100 of those songs, as most of them I've never heard of before.

Anyway, if you're not into downloading songs off the internet for free, and would prefer to buy them from the shop or over the internet, then this site isn't for you. Don't go there. :-)

Categories: Fun

A man went to a bad taste party in Christchurch the other day, dressed as a suicide bomber. When trying to go to nightclubs afterwards, he was denied entry while carrying a pretend bomb that looked like dynamite taped together with a clock and some wires, so he threw it in the bin. The next day a homeless man, rummaging through the bin looking for food, found the 'bomb' and alerted police. The police called in the bomb squad and the centre of Christchurch was closed down and blocked off for 6 hours. When the man heard about what was going on via media reports, he contacted the police and was very co-operative, although embarrassed, about the incident. The police decided not to lay any charges, which is great, as far as I was concerned.

Here's the situation as I saw it. A man dresses as a suicide bomber and carries a fake bomb. He's out to have a good time, probably with a bunch of other bad taste dressers. It's obvious what the situation is, but bouncers deny him entry while he's carrying the fake bomb. As you'd expect. It's obvious they knew it was a fake bomb as the police weren't called about a suicide bomber trying to get into nightclubs to blow them up! So anyway, the guy throws the toy away and goes into the nightclub. Having thrown it into a bin, you'd think that's the last he'd hear of it.

But nooooo... downtown Christchurch is closed off because of a bomb in a bin. The man calls up, mortified about what occurred, and is co-operative. The police, who had gone to so much effort to defuse a potential bomb and save so many people's lives, decided not to lay any charges. What charges could be laid anyway? There was no intent for public harm or mischief, and it was a simple misunderstanding based on circumstances. A sign of the times, so to speak.

However, here's where my outrage starts coming into play. As a result of the police not laying any charges against the guy, business owners in the centre of Christchurch are now wanting to take the guy to civil claims court in order to recover loss of trade, with the estimate by one of them as being up to $10,000. If a number of business get together and do this, the guy could be going to trial and held liable for many thousands of dollars.

If the guy hadn't come forward, it would have been determined the bomb was a hoax, a 'sick joke', and life would have gone on as normal. There wouldn't be any court cases, wouldn't be anyone liable for loss of business, etc. Everyone's lives would have gone on as normal, with these people in Christchurch excited or inconvenienced by the ongoing paranoia caused by the 'war on terror'. But since a guy came forward, advised everyone it was a mistake, a misunderstanding, now greedy people want compensation.

The obvious solution here is that it's not a good thing to come forward and say, "Hey, you people are overreacting here. It's a toy bomb, it's in the bin because it's a toy and it's rubbish, and there's really nothing to worry about." If you do, people are going to follow the American way and try to get as much money from you as they possibly can.

Honesty? In the eyes of the law, it's appreciated. In the eyes of greedy sonsofbitches, honesty is simply something they can try to make money from. Arseholes.

Categories: News

I've been summonsed to be a juror on the 7th November, just 4 weeks from now, at the Wellington High Court. This should be fun, as I've always wondered when it would be my time as a juror.

I've been reading about it since Saturday, of course, when I received the summons, and I've found that most people don't want to be a juror and do their utmost to get out of it. There are even jokes that jurors aren't actually average members of the community, but instead are those who are too stupid to find ways of avoiding it. Is it a measure of stupidity to WANT to be a juror? Is a person who is interested in being part of a community service a stupid person?

I tend to think of jury duty as a position of responsibility. A juror is representing their community, and the administration of justice within it. Since I have reasonably strong ideas about justice myself, I think it's going to be an interesting time for me.

That's if I get selected, of course.

If I do, I imagine that I'm going to have a very interesting time holding my tongue on occasions, where I'll want to call out to the prosecution, "What kind of stupid idiot are you," or to the defence, "How about asking the most obvious question here!"

The worst part for me will be an entire day sitting in one spot, without a computer! That'll be, like, suffering a handicap - losing a limb or something as horrible as that. I'll be taking the laptop for those times when I'll have an opportunity to reconnect with reality via wi-fi (if I can pick it up from in the court - or at a nearby Starbucks during lunch hour). I'll take a book for the boring moments - they recommend that.

They'll supply a notebook and pen (you know, the paper notebooks. Yeh, I know... how quaint, hey?), which I'll use to keep notes on the case as it unfolds, to help me remember stuff and make my final decision. I'll also be using it to record interesting or humourous moments for my blog, but I probably won't be able to write about it until after the case is finished. Hopefully there'll be an interesting story to write.

Again, if I get selected as a juror.

Everyone who I've told about the summons to be a juror has given me advice on how to get out of it, ranging from dressing in a business suit to wearing a swastika-covered t-shirt. No one has said, "Cool!" Makes me wonder if I'm the stupid one, or if I'm instead the only one with a sense of responsibility...

Categories: Life

Here's a couple of photos of the sunrise this morning that I took from the lounge room window again:



And here's Deidre and I from a Murder Mystery party we went to on Saturday night. It had a 1920's theme, and I was a golfer while Deidre was a journalist:

Categories: Photos

It's starting to become a habit now. When Deidre and I go for a walkk, if we let Eve out at the same time, she'll follow us, join us on the walk.

The second time it happened was 3 nights ago. She came with us for about 10 minutes, then I picked her up and carried her for 5 minutes along the busy road, and then put her down again on the quieter road where she followed us all the way home again.

It's so cute, and cool. Taking the cat for a walk. Hehehe

She's beside me on the bed while I'm writing this, purring away. She knows she's loved, and I'm really happy about how she's happy, healthy and warm.

UPDATE: Dammit, she's got fleas! Good thing I've got a flea treatment lying around in one of the drawers. She's now been treated. I wonder if that means we'll see little black dots jumping off her like rats deserting a sinking ship... or in this case, a stinking cat (stinking, as in flea treatment).

Categories: Cat

In my internet travels this morning, I found these pictures (click on them to enlarge them):



From my research it's unknown what happened to the girl in the first photo, as the photographer didn't stay around to find out. He spent 20 minutes waiting for the perfect shot, with the vulture spreading its wings, but it didn't happen, so he took the photo and then left to talk to God underneath a tree and cry. A few months after winning a Pulitzer prize for the photo he committed suicide.

The second photo had the girl die, and neither the photographer, nor the rescuers, could do anything about it. She was trapped in mud debris from an erupting volcano that had solidified like concrete around her legs and up to her chest, preventing her from being pulled out. It also prevented her from being able to relieve herself (eg. she was unable to go to the toilet). She was trapped like that for 60 hours, with people around her unable to do anything for her, before dying. She knew she was going to die. There was no equipment there that could save her.

The dilemma of the photographer is clear, and yet is criticised for being inhuman. You're there to record the event, knowing that if people see it, enough outrage, guilt and sadness might occur to create changes so that such things don't happen again. And yet, in the process of recording something that needs to be known, the photographer is not involving themselves in the rescue of the subject.

While it's understandable that the photographer, like the rescuers, could do nothing about the girl in the second photo, the photographer of the first photo was criticised for not helping the girl by scaring away the vulture and picking her up and taking her to the food camp.

As a budding, amateur photographer myself, and previously a news cameraman (about 15 years ago), I have often thought about my own actions if I was to be around a catastrophic or tragic event and had my camera with me. Would I try to help, or would I stand there and take photos?

My first aid skills are nonexistent - I have no skills whatsoever, apart from common sense, which as I understand it, might not be that helpful either, depending on the nature of a person's injuries. If I'm confronted by an injured person, I know that my assistance is not likely to be of much use. What would I do instead? If I could help, I would, and THEN I would take photos not of the injured, but of what injured them. If I couldn't help them, however, or other people were helping, then I would stand back and take photos.

If I was in the situation of the first photo above, I don't think I'd be spending 20 minutes watching the girl weakly crawling to the food camp. I would take the photo and then take her to the camp myself. I think the same result could have been achieved without waiting 20 minutes for the 'perfect vulture shot'. I suspect the photographer may have committed suicide not just because of his depression about inhumanity, life, and twisted perceptions, but also of his own guilt at not doing anything himself. After taking the photo he left, and no one knows if she was eaten by the vulture or if she got to the food camp. He didn't know, and I could imagine the guilt that would affect him.

If I was in the situation of photo 2, I would have done the same. When there's nothing you can do to help someone, what else can you do except take a photo? At least there is a legacy of their existence in that case, and the photo drew the world's attention to the fact that the government of that country didn't provide the resources to help, which it could have done but chose not to.

Taking a photo can change the world, and change things for the better. One person's tragedy is another person's catalyst for change.

The dilemma of the photographer - and of myself - is, what would you do in a situation where you can help or take a photo? What would the taking of the photo mean? How much help could you provide?

In my exploration of the stories behind the photographers and the photos, I found that the photographer who had taken the first photo had also been in an area of a gunfight between some rebels and police, and while he hadn't captured on film the murder of a rebel by a policeman, other photographers did. He was angry that he was reloading his camera when the event occurred, but also depressed that he had witnessed a murder and was unable to do anything about it.

If I was witness to a police action - or any violent action - I would do what I could to take the photos. When there's violence, I know that my own involvement would be detrimental to my personal wellbeing, and I'd do what I could to avoid it. But at the same time, I'd do what I could to record it.

Ultimately, my philosophy is that if there's something you can do to help someone, then you should. If you can't, then you shouldn't. And if you can't, you shouldn't hit yourself up with guilt trips about it, because it's out of your hands. It's the same as feeling intensely guilty about murders that are happening on the other side of the world, that you don't see, don't know about, and can't change. If you have no control in the matter, then there should be no guilt or self-retribution.

You might not be able to change something by your direct involvement, but by taking photos of it, you just might be able to help prevent it happening again, or even changing the results of something for the better.

I understand it's not easy being a photographer who is passionate about capturing a moment for the viewing by other people. The backlash of an unknowing and overly sympathetic audience can be disheartening. But I wouldn't let that stop me from taking the photos.

Each situation is different, but as long as I am unable to help the subject of my photos, I would have no qualms about taking photos of them in their final or tragic moments. Someone has to record it, as a legacy to those involved, and as an eye-opener to those who weren't.

Categories: Photos, Life

A friend of mine, who's a bouncer, has his own website which I've linked to on the left here. I just wanted to give him a plug, as he's looking for new visitors to his site, Bouncin' Around.

For a bouncer, he's quite educated - going against stereotypes - and opinionated (maybe that's why he's my friend!), and I recommend you visit his site to read his views on various subjects. If you like it, maybe you'd like to bookmark it and become a regular visitor.

Categories: Blogs

Ok, here's the latest bunch of photos for you.

That's the view from the lounge room window recently, when there was a bit of a storm. The wind was blowing (you can tell from the whitecaps on the waves), the clouds were low, and it was raining. It got worse after that, but none of the subsequent photos turned out any good.

A random building I photographed as I went for a walk at lunchtime today.

This is a photo of a helicopter that was filming a recent running event, like the world mountain run championships, or something like that, that was held in Wellington. Garry and I were just going for a walk along Oriental Parade, and I got this nice zoomed-in photo that shows the camera underneath it. Well, the photo was interesting to me... :-p

This was docked at the wharf today, and I had to take a photo of it. I like those kinds of views, where the front of something looks so large while the rest of it disappears into the background.

And that's all for today.

Categories: Photos

Over here, The Scribe talks about her experiences with 'sleeping paralysis', and also over here she talks about her experience seeing a ghost, or something like it. Welcome, Scribe, to my reality. *grin*

However, her sleep paralysis reminded me of my own similar experience, back in 1992. I was dreaming, and in the dream I was one of a small group of people. We were in a house, it was night time and the lights were off - or there was no electricity; I was unsure. We were hiding from something or someone, but I don't know who or what. Then there was the sound of a car coming, and we all tried to find somewhere to hide. Everyone was afraid. I laid down on the bed and tried not to move. The car turned into the driveway of the house we were in, and the lights flashed onto the wall opposite me as they swept over the window. I was lying on my side on the bed, with my head at the top of the bed under the window. The car stopped, and I could hear the door open and someone get out. There was silence for a few moments, and my heart was pounding. I was completely afraid, but I don't know why.

Then the person who'd gotten out of the car - if they were a person, that is - started walking up the driveway, getting closer to my window. The driveway was covered with gravel, so as they walked the footsteps crunched in the gravel. Crunch - crunch - crunch. They were getting closer to my window, and I was just terribly afraid. Then the sound of the footsteps in gravel merged and became one long crunching sound, before it changed tone slightly to sound like gravel falling on a tin roof, with the crunching turning into clattering. It was at this point that I opened my eyes, coming out of the dream and finding myself awake in my bedroom.

I was laying in the same position as I was in my dream, looking at the cupboard next to the bed. It was daylight, I could see through the door and into the lounge room. I couldn't move, however, and the sound of the gravel was still clattering in my ears. I realised that I felt like there was something on my chest, something heavy. I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't move. I was paralysed, with something invisible on my chest, and this horrible sound in my ears. I did what any person is likely to do - I panicked!

With a wild exclamation of something I can't remember in my panick, I was able to move again. The weight disappeared, the noise in my head faded away, and I jumped off the bed looking back at it, scared, wondering what the hell that was about.

About a year or two later I was reading a book on psychic attacks, lower astral entities, and spiritual protection. According to what I read in the book, which mirrored almost exactly my experience: paralysed after having come out of sleep, and the weight of something on my chest. According to the book, I had been the victim of some kind of lower astral entity, a being that had attached itself to me in my weakened state, and was causing the fear and paralysis. The reason for this was that I was basically opening myself to spiritual energies, moving my awareness up into the 'higher realms' of understanding, and opening myself up to receiving whatever spirituality wanted to offer me. This was a common occurrence with people who were delving into spirituality, becoming psychic, etc. They were open to receiving a higher energy, usually in the form of psychic energy that allowed them to be clairvoyant, etc. But it was like a gateway, and when you opened the door, not only good things came through, but so do bad things. (This is why seances can be so dangerous.) If you didn't actively protect yourself spiritually, then the entity would have various side effects on your own energy as it fed on it or caused disharmony with it.

I realised I was lucky, because it was around the same time that I experienced that event that I also started actively protecting myself (spiritually), after having read about the value of it from various books I had been reading. Understanding protection was very important, or so a lot of those books said, and I certainly understood - from my own experiences with demons and energy that Kate had introduced me to - that the value of protection could not be understated.

This experience, and the drug-induced experience mentioned previously, both had a common factor - the sound of gravel raining on a tin roof. A couple of years later, I was speaking to someone who was quite knowledgeable about spiritual experiences, and when I related mine to him, it was his opinion that the sound meant I had somehow crossed that barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world, which is apparently where a lot of heavy drug users end up without knowing it. In this merged reality, one can be at peace or be in turmoil, depending on the 'area' that they have transgressed and their state of mind at the time. Like attracts like, and in the spiritual reality where thought has power, a chaotic mind will unknowingly invite chaotic influences, while a peaceful and positive mind will be inviting similar influences.

He said that my dream, where I experienced fear, was also a transgression where I carried that fear with me, and as a result, gained the attention of something which fed off it. But when I transgressed while on the drug-induced high, I wasn't experiencing fear at the time and therefore the experience was without fear and chaos. The sounds I heard both times were likely the physical mind trying to interpret a non-physical sound, which some people experience as a ringing sound, and has also been described in the past as the ringing of angels.

I can understand that those people who may have experienced similar transgressions and seeing or talking to angels or other such higher spirits, they might have heard ringing sounds and associated with the arrival of angels. Mine, however, certainly wasn't ringing, and was instead quite disturbing.

But happily, ever since I began protecting myself on a daily basis, I've never had any such experiences since.

Categories: Spirituality

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

When I was around 18, I started mixing with people who became my friends or associates, but who partook liberally of that wacky weed called marriage-ooh-ana (marijhuana). I constantly resisted their efforts to indoctrinate me into their drug-smoking club, just happy to be friends with them instead. A big part of my resistance was my desire to not succumb to peer pressure, to avoid brainwashing and manipulation, to make up my own mind about what I wanted to do. And smoking weed wasn't one of those things I wanted to do.

When I was about 24, I had moved away from those Cheech and Chong wannabes, but had mixed with a bunch of other people who smoked the stuff as well. I just couldn't get away from it, but it was something I accepted. People smoked it, and I didn't want to.

However, one night at a party I attended, there was a pipe and some weed on the kitchen bench. I looked around, but saw no one. The kitchen was empty, except for me and the drugs in front of me. For the first time in my life I had the opportunity to try it without any actual peer pressure, and so I decided to do so.

One of my fears which probably helped me stay away from it in front of my peers was the embarrassment of choking on the smoke. I'd seen how much they had hassled those amongst them who choked, coughed, spluttered, etc. As I put the weed into the pipe, held it to my lips and put the flame to the weed, I wondered how it would feel as the smoke went into my lungs. I wondered what it would feel like to be 'wasted'.

Hesitantly, I sucked in the smoke drawn through the pipe, holding it in my lungs and feeling the warmth inside of me, before slowly letting it out. I didn't cough or splutter... in fact, I felt no awkwardness or uncomfortableness that I thought I might, and so I did it again.

I finished the pipefull of weed, and then went outside, telling one of my friends about my experience. He congratulated me, welcoming me to 'the club'. I was feeling happy. I'm not sure if that was because of being 'accepted' or if it was simply because I was 'happy'. I suspect it was the latter.

Since I was now in 'the club', whenever the pipe or the joint was passed around, I had my share and passed it on. It was funny, but for the entire time that I did this, I never actually bought anything myself. I shared only in what others bought. It was probably remiss of me, maybe even rude in the grand scheme of drug-smoking etiquette, but it helped me keep my distance from it, ensuring that while I engaged in the practice of it, I was never fully part of that culture.

One day, while my workmates - who were also my friends and acquaintances - were sitting in the van (this was during my time with Kirby) waiting for someone to finish their demonstration and join us, a rather large joint was passed around. I puffed away on it before passing it on, and maybe even had seconds a few minutes later.

While it was still being passed around I felt even more light-headed than normal. I was starting to feel a little nauseous, and so I got out of the van to get some fresh air. As soon as the fresh air hit my lungs, I started to experience a strange thing. I could hear what sounded like gravel falling on a tin roof, a loud ongoing clatter echoing in my mind. I started to walk around behind the van, but then suddenly my vision changed, so that instead of seeing the normal 3-dimensional, colourful view of the world, I was instead seeing a black and white negative image, before it faded away to just blackness.

I could feel the van at my side, and I continued walking, following it with my fingertips. But I could see nothing, and all I could hear was this clattering of gravel on the tin roof. My vision began returning by the time I had made my way back around the front of the van and next to the passenger door, which I had earlier stepped out from. The sound had disappeared as well, returning me to the reality of a middle-class suburb as the sun had just begun setting, and the birds were chirping in the trees.

While trying to remain nonchalant about the whole thing, and feeling slightly better now that I had some fresh air, I climbed back into the front passenger seat, and realised that everyone was looking at me strangely.

"What?" I said, looking around at them. One of them - there was about 4 of us in total - laughed.

"Man, you looked like you were wasted!" He passed me the joint again. "Here, have another."

"No thanks, I think I've had enough," I replied, declining the offer. Everyone settled back into the normal routine, while I was sitting there wondering what the hell had just happened to me.

That experience, and the realisation that these people were going nowhere in life, made me re-evaluate what I was doing. Shortly after that experience, I decided that I didn't want to be like that, like them, and that I actually wanted more out of life than escaping from it with drugs.

In total, my drug-smoking experiences lasted about 6 months. I haven't touched it since. At all. I've also not been around people who partake of it themselves (or if I have, it's been not more than once. Once is enough to know I don't want to be around them any more), preferring to acquaint myself with people who are 'clean', who prefer to deal with their reality than to escape from it.

It would be quite a few years before I would get an idea about what happened to me with that experience of going blind and hearing gravel, but I would have it once more, from a seemingly unrelated event. I'll be writing about that one shortly though, and in the upcoming post I'll explain more about what I learnt.

In the meantime, I just wanted to share my 'Cheech and Chong days,' where I involved myself in the numbing, mindless escapism of smoking drugs. I was going to say "where I enjoyed the numbing, mindless...." but really, I didn't enjoy it. I experienced it. I got some semblance of greater acceptance from the people around me, but in the end, I realised it wasn't their acceptance of me that was important. It was my acceptance of myself and the reality I was living that was really important. Drugs create a reality that takes you only into nothingness. No hopes, no ideas, and no future. An illusionary calm that only hides the truth.

The truth is, drugs are for those people who are searching for an answer to what life's all about, but it's not the solution. If you let the drugs rule your life, they create a dead end in life rather than simply a stepping stone on the path of life's enlightenment. And that problem only keeps you from experiencing the life you're meant to live.

Many people don't need drugs to understand this. Some need drugs to escape from the pain in their life, while others need drugs to find acceptance. Ultimately, we need to accept ourselves and our experiences in life in order to avoid any dependency on drugs.

Categories: Articles, Life

I found this, thought it was excellent. What do you think?

Man's destructive hand spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him... from the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses... And who [in this general carnage] will exterminate him who exterminates all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man... So it is accomplished... the great law of the violent destruction of living creatures. The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.
- Josef de Maistre

Categories: Life

On Friday night I did yoga for the first time in my life. Since when has yoga been something that, for the first ever experience of it, makes you feel like your old army training was a walk in the park compared to it?

I have muscles aching in places that I never knew existed.

Categories: Life