good things and bad

tomorrow i start training for self-care in dialysis. they had tried to arrange evening sessions, but this wasn't possible, so i am taking some annual leave.

this also means a chnage of days for the next two-three weeks, so i am going on monday, wednesday and friday afternoons at one.

this is good. i should get home by about six, and to bed at a decent hour.
plus, i get weekends, even if i will be too tired and drained to do anything on a sturday night.

there are two worries, though.
firstly, all dialysis is done in a chair, and the last three times i've used a chair, i've gone flat. the last time i vomited. i hope that the fact that i haven't had to take off that much fluid would address this.

the second concern is learning to needle myself. the nurse techs have two hands and are looking straight at my arm and they still occasionally manage to hurt me. i'll have one hand and will be looking at it upside down.

still, here goes

huh?

todays scandal du jour

the bit that has worried some people is this:

"Why are we fighting whakapapa against whakapapa? There's so much enemy that is not brown."

was the minister of maori affairs really advocating that gangs start a race war?

or is the result of lazy journalisim that forgot to publish what he meant or the full context of the quote.

i suspect the latter, or else the headline would have read "KILL WHITEY SAYS MINISTER"

this was discussed on natrad today with criminolgist (and ex-con) greg newbold. he suggested that the summit wouldn't make a difference to the supply of p and the gands are essentially anarchic. whatever committments the gang leaders make will be largely ignored by the rank and file

stillit makes it look that sharples is at least trying to do something

Yay

I’ve had Sky UHF for years. Well, in October Sky are going to close that service down. So they offered me a deal to get Sky Digital installed. Free installation, and the old price for twelve months. I said yes.
So now I’ve got 4 movie channels, three news channels, Comedy Central, UK TV, Documentary, History and a bunch of others. Its pretty cool.

Now there is always something to watch.
For instance, Angels with Dirty Faces is starting on TCM in half an hour

Dressed to bore

Interesting article in the listener from Douglas Lloyd -Jenkins on why New Zealand men dress so badly.

His contention is that our bad dress is due to gay panic. The logic seems to be

a) Only poofs dress stylishly
2) Therefore if I dress stylishly, people will think I’m a poof

If this is the case, I suspect that it’s a subconscious thing, but I don’t thing he’s right.

First of all, it assumes that men actually think about what they dress like, and I’d suggest that most of the time they don’t. Their main concerns on clothes would be comfort and cost. It would be a hang up from childhood that your “good” clothes a re always uncomfortable, so if you have a choice, why wear them? There is also the imperative that you’ve got to keep your good clothes looking “nice”, which often seems like a bore.

Dressing well for men often means wearing a tie. I can’t speak for all men, but I hate ties with the passion of a thousand suns and only wear them when I have to.

Then there is the issue of cost. I remember being horrified when a colleague at work bought a $400 shirt, not least because at the time, $400 was close to my weekly wage. And it was just a shirt. Why spend a lot of money on a shirt when you could get something that is conceptually the same thing for cheaper.

Then there is the shopping angle. Most men, I would suggest, think that buying clothes is like shopping for groceries-it needs to be done, but you don’t need to spend a lot of time on it. I can spend hours in book or DVD stores, but just going on memory, I think that over the last year I have spent less than an hour shopping for clothes.

As for dressing to emphasize my heterosexuality, I don’t think I’ve ever done this. I’m a firm supporter of Albert Einstein who claimed that he had several identical suits in his wardrobe so that he didn’t have to think what to wear in the morning.

Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins’ article was a precusor to his book on a History of Fashion. I suppose that a theory of gay panic will sell more copies than a theory that men just don’t care about fashion.

A cure for all ills

Just finished the latest Dalzeil and Pascoe novel by Reginald Hill. This is his best since Death’s Jest Book. No political undertones, just a relatively straight forward whodunit.

The fun thing about reading a series of books is that it is like visiting a group of old friends. A cure for all seasons is not for casual readers of the series. You would need to have read An Advancement of Learning, Dialogues of the Dead, Deaths Jest Book and The Death of Dalzeil to understand some the relationships between the characters, and if your going to read those, you may as well go through the entire ouevre.

There is nothing like reading a good book for the first time, where the twists come as a surprise. I read this pretty much over a weekend.

My only problem is that now it could be some time before a new book is released.

dead list

Sir Howard Morrison OBE died on September 24.
There have been plenty of tributes to him, the best being a 15 minutes summary of his career on radio live.

Interesting to hear that his OBE and knighthood wasn’t for services to music, but for the work he did for Maori children. This was a side if him that didn’t get a lot of publicity.

The tangi went on for five days and it was estimated that well over 10,000 people turned up to say farewell.

On the day of his death, talkback hosts Willie Jackson and John Tamihere opened the lines for people to talk about him. It was interesting to hear people in provincial New Zealand remember concerts from the 60s and seventies, or people who had met him.

The overall feeling I got is that New Zealand is, at heart a small town. And that‘s no bad thing.

things are tough all over

NEW ORLEANS – Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition.

Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation — even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

Gun sales spiked when it became clear Obama would be elected a year ago and purchases continued to rise in his first few months of office. The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before.

"That is going to cause an upswing in ammunition sales," said Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association representing about 5,000 members. "Without bullets a gun is just a paper weight."

The shortage for sportsmen is different than the scarcity of ammo for some police forces earlier this year, a dearth fueled by an increase in ammo use by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We are working overtime and still can't keep up with the demand," said Al Russo, spokesman for North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which makes bullets for rifles, handguns and shotguns. "We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."

Americans usually buy about 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, according to the National Rifle Association. In the past year, that figure has jumped to about 9 billion rounds, said NRA spokeswoman Vickie Cieplak.

Jason Gregory, who manages Gretna Gun Works just outside of New Orleans, has been building his personal supply of ammunition for months. His goal is to have at least 1,000 rounds for each of his 25 weapons.

"I call it the Obama effect," said Gregory, 37, of Terrytown, La. "It always happens when the Democrats get in office. It happened with Clinton and Obama is even stronger for gun control. Ammunition will be the first step, so I'm stocking up while I can."

So far, the new administration nor Congress has not been markedly antigun. Obama has said he respects Second Amendment rights, but favors "common sense" on gun laws. Still, worries about what could happen persist.

Demand has been so heavy at some Walmarts, a limit was imposed on the amount of ammo customers can buy. The cutoff varies according to caliber and store location, but sometimes as little as one box — or 50 bullets — is allowed.

At Barnwood Arms in Ripon, Calif., sales manager Dallas Jett said some of the shortages have leveled off, but 45-caliber rounds are still hard to find.

"We've been in business for 32 years and I've been here for 10 and we've never seen anything like it," Jett said. "Coming out of Christmas everything started to dry up and it was that way all through the spring and summer.

Nationwide, distributors are scrambling to fill orders from retailers.

"We used to be able to order 50 or 60 cases and get them in three or four days easy, it was never an issue," said Vic Grechniw of Florida Ammo Traders, a distributor in Tampa, Fla. "Now you are really lucky if you can get one case a month. It just isn't there because the demand is way up."

A case contains 500 or 1,000 bullets.

At Jefferson Gun Outlet and Range in Metairie just west of New Orleans, owner Mike Mayer is worried individuals are going to start buying by the case.

"If someone wants to shoot on the weekend you have to worry about having the ammunition for them. And I know some people aren't buying to use it at the range, they're taking it home and hoarding it."

With demand, prices have also risen.

"Used to be gold, but now lead is the most expensive metal," said Donald Richards, 37, who was stocking up at the Jefferson store. "And worth every penny."

.

no, this isn't scary at all

quesque se?

It may pay to take a closer look at your colleagues - one may be a corporate psychopath with a "dark side" capable of creating a toxic workplace.

Up to one in 10 New Zealand workplaces harboured a psychopathically oriented worker who functioned within normal society yet victimised colleagues and harmed business with their dark side, research had shown.

The Auckland University Business School's Department of Management said its research showed some corporate psychopaths had such dysfunctional personalities they could create toxic workplaces "and could seriously traumatise workers to the point of suicide".

Psychologist and senior lecturer in management Dr Giles Burch said most people with personalities which fitted under the psychopathic umbrella did not commit obvious crime, and were not imprisoned or hospitalised.

They functioned within normal society, often with apparent success and the respect of their bosses, he said in a statement.

"However, psychopaths are generally highly destructive and manipulative individuals with dark sides who have no remorse for their actions, which can result in a range of serious issues for organisation and the people within them.


"We all come across people at work from time to time who are difficult, devious and troublesome," he said.

"They are typically only interested in power, control, domination and subjugation, and it is believed that female psychopaths are more dangerous than males as they are more socially skilful in their manipulation.

"Victims of corporate psychopaths can experience intense and sometimes prolonged symptoms as a result of the glib deception.

"Insomnia, intense self-doubt and mild depression are very common, and in more severe cases chronic anxiety, depression, despair and even suicidal ideation can result from the destruction of jobs, careers, joint ventures or businesses."

International research had showed unrelenting stress from a toxic workplace caused anxiety and clinical depression in 30 per cent of female and 20 per cent of male targets, Dr Burch said.

The damage by a corporate psychopath was not limited to the primary victims but also affected colleagues, families and friends.

Psychopathic behaviour covered a wide spectrum - from the devious, manipulative and bullying behaviour of an employee who was a high achiever and very sought after by management, to the compulsive violence of a hardened criminal.

The damage caused by psychopaths was potentially huge and impacted a business as a whole, individual staff, customers, suppliers and joint venture partners.

Genetic tendencies of a psychopath such as glibness or superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, cunning and manipulative behaviour, lack of remorse, guilt or empathy, a sense of impulsive non-conformism, sensation-seeking, egocentrism, disloyalty and narcissism, could take a huge toll on other employees, Dr Burch said.

They could hide their tendencies and were often promoted to senior positions with power, the research showed.

They could be difficult to remove from businesses and were likely to become highly abusive and litigious when threatened with job termination.

- NZPA

and the sad thing is that most of these are managers

the qyeston is, am i a psychopath?

how can you tell?

Men lie twice as often as women, fibbing an average six times a day to their partners, boss and work colleagues, while women told just three, according to a new study.

Common porkies told by men included "This will be my last pint," and perennial favourite "No, your bum doesn't look big in that."

According to overseas reports, the poll of 2000 people in Britain revealed the most common lie was the same for both sexes: "Nothing's wrong, I'm fine".

But Victoria University senior lecturer in psychology Marc Wilson said you can't always trust how much a liar says they lie. Women were less likely to admit to it than men, he said.

His online study of 4000 New Zealanders, showed women told more white lies.

"Men are happier to admit they engage in self-promotion, lying to make themselves look better," Wilson said.

And there's no reason to feel bad about stretching the truth, lies serve an important purpose.

"It's a social lubricant because it helps smooth over some of the cracks in our every-day interactions," he said.

Men lied about missing phone calls and being stuck in traffic, while women were more likely to be evasive about their spending habits. Both sexes were prone to playing down how much they'd had to drink.

But we're not really fooling anyone: four fifths of those polled said they could tell when their partner fibbed.

And more than half admitted to being caught stretching the truth.

And think again the next time a colleague says it's "nice to see you" - it was the most popular workplace porkie.

TOP 10 LIES

Men

1. Nothing's wrong, I'm fine
2. This will be my last pint
3. No, your bum doesn't look big in that
4. I had no signal
5. My battery died
6. Sorry, I missed your call
7. I didn't have that much to drink
8. I'm on my way
9. It wasn't that expensive
10. I'm stuck in traffic

Women

1. Nothing's wrong, I'm fine
2. Oh, this isn't new, I've had it ages
3. It wasn't that expensive
4. It was in the sale
5. I'm on my way
6. I don't know where it is, I haven't touched it
7. I didn't have that much to drink
8. I've got a headache
9. No, I didn't throw it away
10. Sorry, I missed your call

online study. it must be accurate.

missing the point

from the herald

A

New Zealander has been crowned Australia's fastest reader after she became one of the first people in the world to read Dan Brown's eagerly awaited novel The Lost Symbol.

Carly Palmer, originally from St Heliers but living in Sydney for the past five months, churned through Brown's 509-page book in two hours and 34 minutes.

Her prize for beating 26 others in a competition: a $500 collection of books and transtasman bragging rights.

"We were told it would take about four hours to read the book. I guess I was lucky there were no real speed readers among them," said Miss Palmer.

The 23-year-old administrative assistant said the hype surrounding its release - a million copies were sold in the United States, Canada and Britain on the first day of sales on Tuesday - was justified.

The new tome was "definitely a better read" than Brown's controversial The Da Vinci Code, which has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 44 languages since it was first published in 2003.

i know that reading dan brown is something that you'd like to get over with as quickly as possible, but still...

isn't reading a new book one of the great pleasures in life? something you want to savour?

i've got the new reginald hill and as soon as i finish my internet stuff today, i will be taking it into the garden and slowly drifting through a couple of hundred pages.

i can think of no better way to spend a sunny sunday afternoon

ha

Book titles, if they were written today:

Then: Romeo and Juliet.

Now: The Teen Sex and Suicide Epidemic: How to protect yourself and your family.

Then: The Da Vinci Code

Now: Jesus Christ: An International Man of Mystery.

Then: The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Now: Shed Your Skin!: How I gave up junk food and released the butterfly within.

Then: The Gospel of Matthew.

Now: 40 Days and a Mule: How one man quit his job and became the boss.

Then: A Clockwork Orange.

Now: Hooliganz: Ultra violence and the media.

definately maybe

i watched this because it was recommended-i had planned to give it a miss because of the oasis reference.

its basically a fairly bog-standard rom com. nothing spectacular, but a pleasant enough way to waste a couple of hours on a post dialysis sunday

know your place

Child Youth and Family staff at a regional office have been told they are Social Development Minister Paula Bennett's servants who should not trouble their master with concerns about their work.

In an email dated August 13, supplied to NZPA by Labour Party deputy leader Annette King, Kaitaia CYF staff were told to show respect to the minister when she visited the next day.

"It is not appropriate for staff to pour their hearts and souls out to the minister," a manager wrote. "This is a formal visit and she is not your 'friend'. It's a bit like the relationship between a servant and a master, ie the servant knows their place. She should not be presented with the woes of the office, or lack of resources, or anything like that."

However, the email said it was okay to state there were challenges that could be managed.

whoa, upstairs downstairs flashback.

who'd be a public servant these days, eh? considered as paper pushing bureaucrats by the public, considered as a resource that can be fired without affecting the unemployment stats by governement and as serfs by their managers.

i also liked the little bit of management speak at the end. yes, we all know that there are no problems, only opportunities, or in this case challenges.

now, if it's all right with you, i'm going to have something to eat. i'll be back at my desk early tomorrow. i promise, master

just missed

a person at work today managed to get a screen shot of her computer showing:


09.09.09am 09/09/09

me, i was two seonds out

apparently all registry offices have been booked up today with chinese couples getting married. i saw two wedding parties getting photos taken at lunchtime, and another group heading up mt eden on my way home. (aparently nine means happiness or something)

honesty is subjective?

Dishonesty is not the clear-cut concept the criminal courts assume because it can vary from person to person and situation to situation, according to one of the biggest-ever surveys of public attitudes to deceitful behaviour.

Women are more likely than men to categorise some behaviour as dishonest, although men are more likely than women to convict someone of a dishonest crime in a court of law, the study found.

Older people more readily judge someone as being dishonest than younger people, although the situation is reversed for certain youth-oriented offences such as cheating in exams or prying in someone else's email account.

The online study analysed the attitude of some 15,000 participants to 50 different scenarios in 10 categories that involved varying degrees of dishonest behaviour, from claiming for an expensive insurance fraud to eating grapes in a supermarket without paying for them.

The research was carried out by two academic criminologists who wanted to test a central thesis of what constitutes dishonesty in law, namely that dishonesty as a state of mind is based legally upon the "ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people".

"The law is based on an assumption that the majority in society hold the same views about what conduct is dishonest," said Stefan Fafinski, a criminal lawyer at Brunel University, who carried out the study.

"Our research challenges that assumption. We found a great deal of disagreement, even upon very basic situations," Dr Fafinski said.

The study found 31 per cent of people thought it dishonest for someone to keep money found in the street, yet only 8 per cent would convict someone of theft for doing that if they were prosecuted.

Nearly two thirds of people said they had taken stationery home from work, but 82 per cent thought it dishonest, according to the study, released at the British Science Festival at Surrey University, Guildford.

Big discrepancies were found between online crime and physical crime.

Nearly 97 per cent of participants said taking a DVD from a shop was dishonest, yet only 58 per cent thought it dishonest to download pirated music, and 49 per cent said it was dishonest to buy a pirate DVD.

Only 43 per cent of people called it dishonest for a carer to try to persuade an elderly person to change their will in their favour (twice as many thought it dishonest to wear a dress before returning it to the shop). Only 21 per cent would convict a carer of such an offence.

Some 98 per cent of women considered it dishonest for a man to conduct an online romance behind his wife's back, but only 74 per cent of men agreed.

"Women are more likely to categorise a person's conduct as dishonest but less likely to convict that person of the offence," said Dr Emily Finch, a criminologist at Brunel University.

"Female participants are more likely to excuse conduct by reference to the circumstances or character of the person involved."

- INDEPENDENT

interesting. its like one of those irregular verbs

i am pragmatic
you are immoral
he is a criminal

hmm

from the herald

Every time Health Minister Tony Ryall and Education Minister Anne Tolley use the term "nanny state" to justify their new food policies, many public health researchers wince.

They know the two words masterfully tap into the ideology that the state should stay out of matters like food consumption.

So much so that public health workers and researchers have felt virtually powerless to respond.

Until yesterday.

Now they are planning a counterattack against the use of the terms "nanny state", "bureaucracy", "political correctness", "health nazi" and others by politicians and the food, tobacco and alcoholindustries.

Dr George Thomson and colleagues from Otago University at Wellington searched the English language media internationally and their findings included a sharp increase in the use of "nanny state" after 2002.

In relation to obesity, tobacco and alcohol in New Zealand, its use peaked last year at 120 references per 100,000 articles.

Big rises in the use of "nanny state" and "bureaucracy" coincided with the proposal to make bars smoke-free and Parliament's obesity inquiry.

"When industries think their profits are at risk, they negatively frame the efforts of government to protect people from an industry's activities," Dr Thomson said.

"There's a need to reframe public health activity as stewardship that protects people. We need to emphasise the advantages of the strong state, the state that protects," he told the conference. But the public health community, delving into alien territory, acknowledges it needs some help from the country's top advertising brains in coming up with catchy counter-phrases.

Professor Boyd Swinburn, of Deakin University in Melbourne, promotes the term "ninny state", which he picked up from an Australian conference audience.

Dr Thomson said "ninny state" was used to describe some current public health policies that were "stupid, weak and not protecting people".

He also promoted the slogan "end corporate welfare", which he said was a hit at industries that benefited financially from inadequate controls on their products.

the ideology here is the question of who has responsiibity for looking afetr themselves. in the case of restrictions, the question is often pitched as removing choice from consumers in their own best interests. this tends to rub people up the wrong way.

the problem is that consumer choice means that people will often do the wrong or stupid thing, even though they know that its wrong or stupid (i speak as a smoker).
this leads to the problem 9according to pro-large state people) that the people who do these stupid things will then turn to the state for assistance with health problems. the most common exxample given these days is letting junk food into schools leading to greater costs in dealing with obesity and diabetes.

i will be interested to see how they manage this campaign, but i suspect that deleivering a message of "you need to be protected from yourself" will be a hard sell.

still railing against the corporate sector may have some results

ouch

took 3.6 litres/kilos off last night, leaving me .9 under my target weight
nurse tech was worried as my systolic blood pressure dropped under 100 during the session. i am finding, though, that it always does. it seems to stabalise between 90-100, and rose to 123 once the needles were out
came off fine, but got bad cramps in both my legs a couple of hours later.
what i've learnt:

1) leg cramps are more powerful than sleeping pills
b) obscene language does not sound nearly as powerful if it is whimpered

a confused post on bullying

Further to my post on the car driving into the IRD and Taniwha’s response that this could be seen as an extreme case of workplace bullying.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.

Firstly, I must reiterate that I know nothing about the dispute between the driver and his manager. I am also assuming that his actions were a deliberate plan, rather than something that seemed a good idea at the time and then rationalized later.

I think that driving the car through the lobby could be seen more as protest. It was done at a time when no staff or public were near and it seemed to indicate that his problem was with the organization as a whole.

If he had driven his car through his manager’s (or human resource person’s house)…well, firstly, it wouldn’t have been as funny and secondly, it would have personalized the issue and put other people into danger.

The nearest equivalent I can think of is the local father’s group. They started off protesting outside the family court (and IRD, because of child support) chanting and waving placards. An annoyance, yes, but still a legitimate protest.
Then they started the same action outside the private homes of family court judges and solicitors. THAT, I would consider as bullying. it’s the difference between protesting against an organization/policy and protesting against a person.

The other issue, I guess, is the money that it will cost the IRD to fix the building. Again, I guess you could call this as bullying, but this is an increasing method of protesting. For instance, the latest protest against Hell Pizza involves not only protesting outside its outlets, but clogging up its website, and costing them money by ringing their 0800 number and not ordering.

The difference, you could argue that these actions are all legal, whereas driving a car through a building is not. I agree and while I may sympathize with his actions as a protest, I am pleased that he has had to face the consequences of his actions in court.

join the war

One of the things I do when I’m training new comers to the organization is that I tell them what I did that day, using all the jargon and acronyms I can think of. After I finish my spiel, I ask the recruits if they knew what I said, inevitably, I get met with blank looks and nervous giggles.

The point is that each organization has its own dialect and that once you know what you’re doing, its easy to talk almost exclusively in that jargon. Which is fine if the people you are talking to know that jargon, but less than useless if you’re talking to a customer. It’s all very well for me to say “if you fill in a 490, I’ll be able to distill the Maguffin from the slimy tove” and know what I mean, but the customer will not have a clue what I’m going to do or, more importantly what they are supposed to do. My lesson to the recruits is one of the most fundamental pieces of advice about communication I know

Its not what you say that’s important, its what people hear

And added to this

How you say something sends a message that you may not want received

The worst example of this is management speak. It is a dialect that is particularly annoying-unnessarcarily verbose, filled with empty phrases, buzzwords and phrases, spin and so on.

When our organization was going through its last restructuring, management promised clear communication. When the report of the review came out, it was five pages long. Grabbing a metaphorical machete, I went looking for the key messages. After about quarter of an hour, I found that the five pages were concealing the following messages:

1) because we are short of money, 50 of you will be unemployed by next Tuesday
b) its not our fault. Honestly.

I know why management does this. Firstly to hide bad new (as in that example) but more importantly to send the message “We are smarter than you. Look at all the words we know. Some of them are really long, too. And so because we know these words, we really are smarter than you. That’s why we get the big bucks. So you can be sure that we know what are doing. Did you see that four syllable word in paragraph five? Only someone who knows what they are doing could use that. That’s why we’re here and you’re going to be looking for a new job. Remember to use of lots of big words on your resume”
(Sorry, got carried away there.)

The real fun part is when they make words do things that they are not supposed to. For example for the last few years I have been fighting managers who insist on using “learnings” as a noun. I guess that they think it sounds “cool” from a managerial perspective. I just think it sounds illiterate, a point I’ve made repeatedly, along with the notion that there is already a perfectly acceptable noun available for use. I have had limited success, because while “lessons” is a word that anyone can use, “learnings” is clearly a word used by people who really now what is going on.

About a year ago, radio live’s weekend host (and former able tasman) Graeme Hill declared war on the phrase “going forward” claiming that it is a completely redundant phrase. Yes, it’s designed to make the speaker sound dynamic, but its been used so often that its passed through being a cliché, to being really annoying, especially when its over used. In her last presentation to us, our manager used it fifteen times in thirty minutes (yes, I counted)

I’m with Graeme on this. Do not allow management speak to continue. If a speaker continues to use it, all them out on it. The strategic use of mockery can be effective. Don’t forget the value of irony.

Make a stand for clear communication. Lets stamp out Management speak in our life time.
Going Forward

beatles for sale

News is out that the entire Beatles back catalogue has been remastered and will released on 9 September. Apparently, the sound has really been cleared up and the question is whether its worth getting the brand new sparkling versions

Most of my Beatles stuff is on vinyl, so I guess I could use an upgrade. The question is, which ones? The box set is going to be around the $200 mark, and I don’t really care for the early stuff, so I guess I’ll just be getting the crucial ones.

Well, the white album is a given, as is revolver. I don’t think I’ll bother with sgt pepper, at least at this stage

If I was to buy a third, which do you reckon, rubber soul, or abbey road? My instincts tell me abbey road, but there is some good stuff on rubber soul

More importantly, when is the kinks back catalogue going to get the same treatment?

cashed out

dead-kashin the elephant-euthanised on monday 24 august after a long illness

there hasn't been a time that i remember that kashin wasn't at the auckland zoo. and yeah, i had the kashin money box that was issued in the early seventies to help kids get used to the idea of saving (i wonder if i've still got an asb account somewhere)

i mourn him, noy for himself but because another piece of my past has been lost and gone forever

r.i.p kashin

time drives

i had to renew my drivers licence the other day

thats ten years that's passed

three cars
four pairs of glasses
sixty-four dislysis sessions
five thousand, four hundred and twenty cofeee spoons (thanks, ts)
seventy-two thousand, six hunded and forty-eight cigarettes (and isn't that a sobering thought)

ten years ago, there was no grey in my hair

unfortunatly, it was a post-dialysis day when i got the renewal. so for the next ten years, my photo will make me look as if i've been dead for two days. still as i look like that three days out of every seven anyway, i guess that's ok.

oh, and now? 72,639

lost in the supermarket

they've changed the layout of my local supermarket. its like exploring a brand new store with all the exasperation of trying to find somwething that you need

it was very confusing to someone still suffering the after effects of dialysis, and what's worse when i was in there on sunday, i felt mayself starting to go flat and had to cut my shopping early so that i could go and lie down before i fainted

so i collapsed in front of sky movies and saw shine a light, the rolling stones film. i was never a fan of the rolling stones and still aren't, but i was amazed that these guys in their sixties still
a) have extremely bushy heads of hair, and
2) are so energetic

an hour of watching them run around made me even more tired, and so i also watched the house bunny, which....no. just no.

stupid supermarket

may be funny

from the dominion post

A taxman driven around the bend by continuing work woes drove his car through the building where he had worked for 25 years.

David Jerrold Theobald, 47, drove his Mazda 626 through the foyer of the Christchurch Inland Revenue building on Cashel St at 6.30am on Saturday after a three-year employment dispute.

He crashed through two sets of glass doors and smashed a third on the other side of the foyer before coming to a stop.

Mr Theobald said he had gone to great lengths to avoid risk to any staff.

"I checked with the cleaners the night before to make sure no-one would be in the building. I drove right up to the doors, looked both ways, then slowly pushed forward till the doors broke."

Mr Theobald said he was fed up with what he saw as concealment of workplace bullying and incompetent management at Inland Revenue.

"This has been going on for three years, and now I've got four official information requests in with them and they're making that as onerous as possible ... This was just a way to make a gesture."

He also wanted to highlight how easy it would be for someone with terrorist intentions to ramraid the building with a truck full of explosives. "It's just another 9/11 waiting to happen."

Mr Theobald is a fixture of the Christchurch music scene. He is known as Mick Elborado when he plays with his band The Axemen and in other groups.

He appeared in Christchurch District Court yesterday charged with intentional damage and reckless driving and was remanded on bail till August 31.

He told The Dominion Post he had not decided how he would plead, but was prepared to accept the consequences of his actions.

Inland Revenue would not comment on the incident as it was before the court, but Mr Theobald has received a letter from human resources head Patrick Crawford.

In it, Mr Crawford said: "Information has come to my attention which indicates that you may have intentionally driven a car through Inland Revenue's Christchurch building ... I am concerned that your conduct may be inconsistent with the Code of Conduct."

Mr Theobald could face up to seven years in prison if found guilty of criminal damage.

what made this story for me was the letter from hr advising that his "conduct may be inconsistent with the code of conduct"

may? may??

but then, think about it. he did this in his own time,and having seen the IRD's code of conduct, I'm reasonable sure that it doesn't say that you're not allowed to drive your car into the builsing.

mugged by nostalgia

today, tv 3 are holding the first telethon in 16 years
i remember the community spirit
i remember seeing people on tv who only came out for telethons
i remember the hype

i'd forgotten how cheesy the whole thing is

still, it could be worse. i missed the beginning as i was at dialysis and the people prefered the tv2 alternative-a double feature of high school musical and high school miracle 2.

john hughes is dead

sixteen candles, pretty in pink, some kind of wonderful,weird science, planes, trains and automobiles. these films are the cinematic equivilant of a big mac and fries, but they were kind of appealing. ok they were basically standard teenage romcoms, but the differnce was that hughes didn't assume that teenagers were a homogenous bunch, but that there were a large group of sub-cultures in theage group. he got a fair bit of praise for this, and his view of teenagers has informed teenage cinema since (see 10 things i hate about you, for instance)

nontheless they're not bad films and ok for a mindless 90 minutes

the two films he will be best remembered for (at least according to the media) were ferris buellers day off and the breakfast club.. both of them screened on tv last year. ferris bueller held up pretty well, but i was surprised how much the breakfast club irritated me.
when i first saw it in the mid eighties, i actually liked it a lot as an attempt to take young people seriously. i did notice that hughes seemed to be indulging in SIGNIFICANT WRITING, but the performances managed to overcome this and actually make a quiet and effecting film.
however, when i saw it last year, the characters all seemed to be a bunch of selfish whining brats and i couldn't help muttering "wait till you get out into the real world, you little snots"
i guess its a movie you should see when you're fifteen and then never see again.

if hughes was one of the giants of eighties cinema, then we must remember the duff films. john hughes, you are accused of making:
uncle buck
home alone
home alone 2
101 and 102 dalmations
(most of these have the same plot)

he hadn't make a film in some years, but his films (and their soundtracks) still strike a chord in the teemagers of the eighties

woodsmoke

it is said by ....somebody, that the sense of smell is the most powerful of senses and a simple odour can trigger a memory long gone

someone around here has an old fashioned fireplace and they use it in winter. and the smell of woodsmoke drifts through the neighbourhood, mingled with the chill of winter air.

and i am sitting at my window at 5.30 on a 10 degree sunday evening listening to a warren zevon cd playing softly and wondering whether i have the energy to make a full dinner, or if only a sandwich would do and i smell the woodsmoke.

and i am sent back thirty years or more:

to the pile of woodblocks in the box in the lean-to by the passionfruit vine
to using the small axe to cut kindling
to the pine cones collected from the trees behind our place
to the lighting of the fire and the sibling critics who were alwys sure you'd got it wrong
to the secret timing of putting on the first big blocks so that they would feed rather than smother the flames.
to staring at the fire which was often more hypnotic and interesting than the images flickering on the tv screen.
to burning bread over the embers and calling it toast

i remembered all of this and started to cry.

these happy pills are doing me no good at all

the question

got my referendum question in the post today and have three weeks to decide which way to vote. the qestion is, of course

should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in new zealand?

i have all kinds of problems with this question. first of all, it assumes that a smack is a part of good parental correction. isn't this, in part, what the debate is about?
the battle over the repeal of section 59 of the crimes act began because parents were beating their children and getting away with it.
rather than trying to fully stop the cases of child abuse in new zealand, sue bradford was actually trying to send the message that new zealanders do not tolerate violence against children.
unfortunately, this was not the message that came across.
itt was hijacked by people who claimed that the governement was trying to tell them how to raise their kids, and the claims that a smack on the hand or a swat on the bum was exactly the same as bashing the kids head in with a piece of 4 x 2, did not help.
it was one of those issues where dealing with serious child abuse was so difficult that the easier thing to do was to make everyone feel guilty. so the message received was that nz parents cannot be trusted not to beat their kids, so the governement reserves the right to imprision them if they get it wrong.

this proves the fundamental factor of communication. its not what you say that is important, its what people hear.

in the meantime, people on both sides of the argument ae getting shriller and shriller.

given that the question is stupid, the referendum is non binding, and the prime minister has already announced that he will not be making a law change no matter what the esult, this referendum seems particularly pointless.

as i don't have children, and probably never will, the whole question is rather academic to me, but as i beleive in democracy, i really should vote. shouldn't i?

worth checking out

phil judd's new album, love is a moron. closer to the swingers than his split enz years. the track tha is earworming me is hanging by a thread

oh, and i'm still looking for the first schnell fenster album

ambience

out of the blue is a beautiful terrifying film. it depicts the 24 spree killing undertaken by david grey in aramoana in 1998. i remember seeing the events on television, especially, the asinine tvnz reporter asking one of the residents, whose partner had been killed by grey "who do you feel?

the film is srongley effective, focusing more on the residents, than the killer. there is no music on the soundtrack for the bulk of the film, which helps draw you into the whole atmosphere. the first time i saw it on tv last year, i deeply resented the commercial breaks which pretty much destroyed the flow and feel of the film

the place not to watch it is a crowded dialysis ward

iron man

i was going to give this one a miss. my tolerance for huge cgi movies based on comic books is lessening these days, but i was convinced to give it a look

its not going to go on my top ten movies. overall its pretty much what you would expect. when, early in the picture, it was said that jeff bridges character was looking after the hero's father's estate until the hero came of age, my brain flashed up "villian alert" and (sigh) i was right.
and yes, there were a lot of effects. and yes, the story was unoriginal and predictable.
but what made it worth watching were the performances of robert downey jnr and jeff bridges.
bridges is, of course, one of the most underated actors in the business, and i don't think i've seen downey give a bad performance in anything (ally mcbeal accepted)

best of all, the movie is not too long.

on the meal scale, i would rate this as a half-cold ham and pineapple pizza

i've been beaten

when i was first diagnosed with my list o' diseases, i was determined that it would affect my life as little as possible. hell, i was back at work the day after i spent time in hospital for the diagnoses as well as the day i had surgery to have my line put in. i can handle this, i said.

even when i started on dialysis, i was able to do it in the evenings, so i could work full time. apart from meaning that i spent three evenings out, instead of at home,there was no change. i used to that when i was in my twenties anyway.

i was even able to incorporate the dietry changes and even (swearing and cursing) the fluid restrictions.

however, dialysis proved to be the killer. it is literally draining and the day after even with a "good" session, i am much slower than i am usually. wednesdays i can usually handle and sundays can be mitigated by sleeping in and not doing anything too strenuous. but fridays...

there are some people who dia;ysis actually makes them feel better, but i am not one of them. the issue (i suspect) is my blood pressure which tends to drop alarmingly during dislysis and stays low. thus for thursday's session, i still haven't bounced back from tuesdays. hence on friday, i feel absolutley terrible (and apparently look terrible)

everytime i stand up, i get a rush of blood away from my head that makes me dizzy. sometimes, my vision gets blurred and indistinct. i call the greying out. i couldn't concentrate on any one thing for any length of time. as it was it was getting rare for me to work a full day of friday

so, i've admitted defeat and have taken the financial hit of reducing my hours and working only four days a week. it pisses me off, as it means that i am being beaten by this thing

all i need to do now is ensure that i am doing as much work in four days that i used to do in five.

i am legend

the third version of richard matheson's novel, and no.
sorry, wasn't impressed. the will smith alone in new york isn't a patch on vencent price in the last man on earth and is way short of bruno lawrence in a similar situation in the quiet earth. i just didn't feel it, you know what i mean?

as for the third act, let us not speak.

don't bother

a job well done

bookshelves assembled
books, cds and dvd's arranged
carpets steam cleaned
floors scrubbed and mopped
walls washed
window cleaned

it should be easy to keep cleaning and stuff up to date now

mind you, i've said that before

not today

i haven't blogged in a couple of weeks as my time has been taken up with other things.

after the inorganic collection a few weeks back, i had a lot of empty space, and cds and dvds stacked in boxes. i needed bookshelves. and fortunatly, the warehouse has kitset bookshelves at a reasonable price. and being a kiwi male, putting them together would be no problem. (and i was right about that)

unfortunately, the only day i really get to do them is sunday. and sunday is not a good day for me to anything. so i've been doing it piecemeal. two weeks ago, i went to buy them, but by the time i got them home, i was too tired to put them together.

last week, i spent five hours putting them together and then was too tired to fill them up.

yesterday i did fill them up, it took longer than i expected and it turns out that i need a few more.

last night, i came out of dialysis half a kilo under my target weight. today, its raining, everytime i stand up i get a headrush and a bit of dizziness. taking a shower wore me out. i think i've done enough for this week, so i'll be watching a terrible film (superhero movie) reading a book or two and getting an early night. at this rate its going to take another month or so before everything's squared away.

still, the stuff i've done so far looks good

not dead yet

i was half-listening to the radio yesterday, when the news came on and i heard rge name of chris knox. unfortunately i didn't hear the rest of the news, so i had to wait.

it turns out that he wasn't dead. chris knox had a stroke on thursday night and is now in hospital.

still, the fact that he is still alive hasn't stopped the eulogising. highlights of his career were mentioned in the herald, and on stuff.

i've met him, you know. when i was doing the lights for francis sect, he occasionally played solo as support, and i ended up doing the lights for him as well.

at the they might be giants gig in 1990, he said hello. and when they started a singalong section, he was joining in as cheerfully as anyone else.

get well soon

epigram

a post-dialysis day has all of the fun of a hangover with none of the tedious business of getting drunk

wrds mttr

Television New Zealand has been forced to scrap a new advertising campaign featuring promos with text language after a backlash from members of the public.

TVNZ spokeswoman Megan Richards said the new promos, which screen exclusively on TV2, were introduced around a fortnight ago and there had been a "clear message" from the public that they were not popular.

"We have learned in that period that vowels are extremely important to New Zealanders."

The ads featured abbreviations for upcoming shows, using 'TON' for 'tonight' and 'TMW' for tomorrow in the style of language usually used in cellphone text messges.

TVNZ were aware of the Facebook site created to fight the vowel-free promos and had received "dozens of letters and emails" on the matter, Ms Richards said.

More than 6000 people have signed up to the 'I hate TV2's new abbreviations' Facebook group.

"While TV channels don't stand still and we'll try new ideas and look for points of differences, there is no point in having a point of difference that people don't like," she said.

"It was an idea that was obviously not appreciated."

Ms Richards said the promo campaign had been created "in-house" and had involved "no extraordinary cost".

The new-look promos would be phased out in the coming days, she said.

"Progressively, over the next few days and weeks it will return to the way it was and you will see vowels once again."

A blog by Moata Tamaira on Stuff.co.nz about the ads received more than 100 comments, most of them negative.

"It took me ages to figure out what 'TON' and 'TMW' meant," said one poster.

"I think it's ridiculous. 'TON' annoys me the most - it's like they forgot the rest of the word. Bring back the old format," said another.

to be honest, i hadn't even noted the changes, and now they're gone.

i just can't get to grips with this new text lenguage though; even when i send i text i tend to write the words out in full

i'd be useless on twitter

inorganic weekend

yes its that time of year again when the detritus of a consumerist society is sprawled over the grass verges of the neighbourhood. the end result is that today, mt eden looks like a rubbish tip

about two weeks ago i got a note through my letter box from the auckland city council warning me that this was coming up on the weeked of the 6 and 7th of june, but not to put any rubbish out before then, or i would be prosecuted.

so over the last two days i have eschewed my usual packrat tendencies and not only got rid of a lot of my rubbish, but sold an old steroeo and playstation to cash converters, a bunch of books to the book exchane and found about fifty dollars in notes and coins.

oh, and taniwha? the bed you left with me when you moved to england? sorry dude, out on the road.

there has also been the ususl inorganic dance. no sooner do you put stuff out for collection, that others come around and pick through it. fair enough, you know, one person's trash is another person's treasure, but i ntried to be considerate to the collectors and put my smaller stuff out in boxes and bags. the collectors open these to rummage through them and do they replace the things they don't want? no, of course not.

fortunately, i was able to get a lot shifted yeaterday but there was still plenty to take out today. this is not an activity designed for a post-dialysis day.

my home now looks substantially larger, and i am officially stuffed

can't cook anything too complex for dinner, thank god for sardines on toast

across the universe redux

ok, i said i needed to see this film again and i did (thank you sky), after all its a rare film that earworms me for days on end.)
i was more alert this time and it turns out, i really really like it

its a story about the 1960s, more or less and concerns six people; jude, lucy, maxwell, prudence, sadie and jojo ( i can hear you groaning from here). there is a plot of sorts, but its more an impression of the times, rather than a history.

the essential problem with these kinds of films is that they are trying to write a story around a group of already exisiting songs, but this fil does it much better than, say mama mia. in that film, the moviemakers pretty much stuck to abba's arrangements, in across the universe, musical director elliott rosenthal has often rearranged the songs, sped some up (falling) slowed some down ( i want to hold your hand) which has given a new perspective on the songs. take it won't be long, sung here by the female lead and very well done too.

joe cocker's version of come together is so good you wonder why he hadn't done it before.

other highlights are i want you (she's so heavy) and happiness is a warm gun

as i said before, it's visually stunning, and the choreography isn't bad either. my one quibble is that tv carpio, who has a great voice, as well as being heartbreakingly gorgeous, doesn't get enough screen time (and only one solo)

i will definatly be picking up the dvd once it hits the cheapie bins (that will be in a couple of months, i reckon)

i also need to get a new copy of the white album as i seem to have misplaced mine

dead list

david carradine
i vaguely remember kung fu, his series from the seventies, and yeah, i sat through kill bill. both parts. twice
i just found it annoying that these were the only two productions mentioned in his obituary. what about boxcar bertha? or the long riders, or even (the original) death race 2000.

for my money, his best role was as woody guthrie in bound for glory

as for the rumors surrounding his death, i don't really care.

so very cold

first frost of the year reached mt eden last night

5 degrees when i got up this morning

was tempted to leave the heater on while i was at dialysis last night, but didn't. when i got home at 10.45pm, the place was freezing

dead list

danny la rue (distant memories of 1970s british variety shows)

annoying headline

from the nz herald

No NZers among 216 passengers on missing jet

well that's alright then, so long as it was only foreigners...

i know that this is a new thing; monty python satrised the british tendency to do this kind of thing in the seventies (and not the nine o'clock news did it again in the eighties)

it is irritating the way that papers need to have a local slant to try ands make it relevant for local readers

i remeber one headline that came out on september 12 2001 (kiwi slightly hurt in new york attack)

the irony is that print media is one of the most blatant signs of globalisation in the modern world. the herald is owned by an irishman (who is still in ireland), the sub editors are based in australia.

rem

picked up a double cd plus dvd of rem's early years

they used to be good. certainly, they werer just coming to fruition when i went flatting and i had all of their albums. i was listening to fables of the recconsruction when i heard granddad had died

rem and the smiths. every time i hear them it brings back all sorts of memories, not all of them good

across the universe

on paper, this sounds like a bad idea. a musical based on the songs of the beatles? i mean it's been done before-i've always wanted to see sgt peppers lonely hearts club band, generally regarded as one the worst movies ever made wherein peter frampton and the bee gees save the world from (if memory serves) aerosmith

but i'd heard some good things about across the universe so on a damp sunday, i tuned in and....

well, visually its stunning. julie taymor is an underated director. i remember seeing her version of titus (andronicus) a few years back and being knocked out by it

i was surprised to see that the screenplay was by dick clement and ian la frenais. it didn't seem to have any of there ususal with or warmth

and the beatles knew how to write a good tune or two (i still prefer ray davies though)

but bono is not an actor (worst cameo ever?)

after about half an hour, i stopped trying to make sense of it all and just let the film wash over me, enjoying the tunes and spotting the beatles references.

all in all, not a bad film for a low blood pressure post-dialysis wet sunday afternoon

and i think i'd like to see it again at some point

inevitable

LOS ANGELES - An openly gay teen has been voted prom queen at his Los Angeles high school in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and popularity.

Sergio Garcia said he felt "invincible" when he was crowned queen of the Fairfax High School dance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Prom is a formal spring dance that is a tradition for American high schools.

Days before the dance, Garcia told fellow students that he was "not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye".

He also promised that he would be wearing a suit on prom night, but "don't be fooled: Deep down, I am a queen."

And he made good of that promise on Saturday, wearing a grey tuxedo topped off with the prized tiara.

Garcia, 18, said he saw fliers advertising the prom and the election but they didn't specify that the queen must be female. He thought the role would suit him better than prom king.

"I don't wish to be a girl," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I just wish to be myself."

Senior class president Vanessa Lo said she and other students were initially against the idea but became convinced he wasn't just an attention-seeking clown.

"It just goes to show how open-minded our class is," Lo said.

Unique Payne, 17, said she voted for Garcia because she supported the gay community.

Although many students were supportive of Garcia's run, others were upset and didn't understand why Garcia chose to run for prom queen.

"I'm not really happy about that," said 17-year-old Juan Espinoza. "He should've run for prom king."

- AP

and i agree with jan espinoza

when i first read this, i thought it was mildly amusing, but on reading it again, i started to think

the fact that he ran for prom queen comes across as a bit of a joke, especially as he says that he doesn't want to be a woman. fair enough, but i think it would have made more of a point if he had gone dor, and won prom king. if elected that would have shown that his fellow students accepted him for who he was-a gay male

n.b. did you notice the name of one of the students? unique payne. i wonder if she has a sister

who needs a comment section

one of my go-to blogs is the dim post. its often a standard political blog, but from time to time danyl indulgences in sharp and very funny satire.

if you've read blogs regularly, you'll notice the real battles take place in the comments section.

in this post, danyl shows that you can do without a comments section at all

the wire season one

just finished watching this and can i say-brilliant

i meant to ration it out-one episode a week-nut as the show reached its climax i couldn't help myself and watched the final two in one session

i've even been ear-wormed by the theme song (tom wait's song "way down in the hole" performed by the blind boys of alabama)

admittedly i had to watch it with the sub titles on because of the slang used and the the fact that some of the actors mumbled

i was a big fan of homicide: life on the street, which was sourced from the same writer (david simon) and same situation (crime in baltimore) but the wire takes it to a whole new level. because it was made by hbo, rather than nbc as homicide was, it seems a lot more...ahem...authentic. (i.e more swearing). in one scene where homicide detectives mcnulty and bunk are working a crime scene, the dialogue consists entirely of the word "fuck" or its variations.

its not a show you can dip in and out of, as i've said before its like watching a book, but the benefit of this is that the effect of the story is cumulative.

if you like crime dramas, or enjoy quality televisison, i cannot recommend this highly enough

my depression at having finished the series is leavened with the joy that there are still two series to watch.

the karma of jokes

there is a running joke at the dialysis based on the premise that no one really wants to be there

("where do you want the needle?" i was asked last night. "in someone else's arm " i replied)

a common one is trying to finish our sessions early, you know like telling the nurse techs that when the countdown clock says 2 hours to go, it really means 20 minutes, that sort of thing. yeah, its joking but not really if you know what i mean.

last night, the guy in the bed next to mine was trying something of that sort on with jills, one of the nurse techs, when beth (another nurse tech) came up and joined in the fun telling jills that the patient was checking to see if she was a soft touch (she isn't incidentally)

"do not let him off early" says beth

i look up and decide to put my two cents in: "you'll notice," i say to jills. "that she didn't say not to take me off early"

beth turns around to me "did i hear you say you wanted to do an extra hour?"

of course i backed down immediatly. we all had a good laugh and then each of us went back to what were doing.

cut to 9.47pm as i finish my session. it had been pretty good, only my nurse-tech shelley had worried when my bp dropped below 110 and dropped my blood flow to 350ml/min. (i've been pushed up to 400ml/min since i saw the specialist last week).
but this is when the problems start. first of all when the needles are removed, it takes ages to stop bleeding (as the needles go directly into an artery, you can imagine that there is a lot of blood). when the needle is eemoved there are two band aids and a special piece of material put over the resulting hole. i get a piece of gauze and press down hard on it until the bleeding stops. ususally this happens afeter 2.5 to 3 minutes, but last night it kept bleeding for five minutes. on each needle.

after the bleeding stops they do a final check on my blood pressure to check that i'm not going to faint on my way home. shelley does things by the book (101 ways to delay your patints getting home) and so insisted that i do this check standing up. bad move, as i stood up, everything started getting blurry and my bp came out at 95/36. so i did it again, sitting down. 88/33 and again. 86/30. and so it went. i had a bit of water and eventually, shelley got another needle and put 200ml of fluid back in. eventually my bp climbed to 108/45. "thats close enough" i say, grab my laptop and run (well, shuffle slowly) out of there.

as i'm leaving, i pass beth and note that the time is now 10.55. i had indeed spent an extra hour there

"i'm sorry" i say to her "i'll never joke about leaving early again"

juno

i have noticed a depressing tendency for "independent" films to become somewhat homgenous:
1. a coming of age story ehere the protaginist' intellegence and/or artistic sensitivity is brutalised/ignored
2. a quirky or repressive family
3. a soundtrack featuring songs by obscure alt-rock/folk bands
4. a vaguely episodic plot structure
5. pacing based on thne speed that paint dries

gone are the people who have their own vision like lynch or who can put a new spin on an old genre like the cohens. where are the dazed and confuseds, the pis, the happinessess? the films that have an edge.

these days it seems like the back stories of the fimmakers are more important than the film itself

for instance, late last year i saw waitress. a pleasant enough film which i enjoyed at the time, but which i would have to go back to imdb to remind me of the best lines. i think that much of its critical success was because the writer-director adrienne shelley was murdered just before the film's release.

similarly with juno. arguabbly the first thing that anyone knows about this is that it was written by an (ex) stripper, diablo cody. are we taliking about the susan boyle effect here?

ok, i have to admit that she wrote some good lines and the cast, especially lead ellen page (who was so much better in hard candy) delivered them well. and there was a good solid support cast. but its not all good. rainn wilson's cameo was trying too hard to be hip and the film was trying too hard to be wryly funny.

i didn't hate it (but then i'm still suffering post traumatic stress disorder from seeing meet the spartans; any film looks good after that) and i'd say that it is worth a look, but its never going to make my top ten

plants need to be watered

WESTERLY, Rhode Island - A Rhode Island Democratic lawmaker says he'll donate $100 (NZD$164) to charity for every second former President George W. Bush withstands waterboarding.

State Rep. Rod Driver also included former Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in his offer. He sent letters to all three.

Bush's administration allowed the interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, to be used on terror suspects. Driver says that, if Bush is so confident it isn't torture, he should try it for himself. His offer was first reported Thursday in The Westerly Sun.

A spokesman for Bush didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Cheney has defended waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, saying they yielded important information.

-AP

i think that its been a long held dream of servicemen that the leaders who put them in harms way should have to suffer the same privations as those on the ground.
american soldiers were waterboarded in world war two, and the japenese interogators were later tried for torture

i'd rather see cheney rather than bush waterboarded as i think that cheney was actually the giy in charge
sadly, i can't see any of them taking up the challenge
if they do, i hope its televised

creative

An extortion racket has taken a new twist with would-be victims being offered protection from the extortionist – in return for cash.

At least two businesses have received calls asking for $2000 protection money, The New Zealand Herald reported.

The calls come as police investigate reports of a Mandarin-speaking man calling Asian businesses asking for sums ranging from a few thousand dollars to $20,000.

Counties Manukau police spokeswoman Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey said the caller claimed to part of an Asian gang.

"Police employees in the wider Auckland area have been deployed to the targeted businesses and are ensuring that there is no fear within the region," she said.

"Police advise the public if contacted by the caller to not present themselves as vulnerable and to not be intimidated."

Ms Gates-Bowey said the Asian community had responded well so far and urged anyone who was contacted to get in touch with police as soon as possible.

Police said anyone receiving these calls should note down all details of what was said, and whether any threats were made.

"Do not give out any bank details or pin numbers over the telephone and be alert around your business place. If you notice anything suspicious contact police immediately," Counties Manukau police's Asian liaison officer Justin Zeng said.

Police said no one had yet reported giving any money to the callers.

i saw the original article about the initial extortion attempt a couple of days ago.
at that stage, the potential victims were being asked for protection money. they were refusing to bite and reporting this to the police.

now someone is offering them protection for the previos extortionist

i wonder if its the same guy

the smartest guys in the room

just saw this documentary
it was made in 2006 before the current erecssion, and its interesting to watch in light of recent events. the behaviour demonstrated by lay and skilling is not dissimilar to the hubris and arrogance demonstrated by the executives of merryl lynch, leamen brothers and so on
in fact, the list of those banks who suppported and acted as cheerleaders for enron sound awfully familiar (citibank etc)-the same ones who have either gone under or required bailouts

as ever, the executives came out of the exercise with millions of dollars while the rank and file lost everything

some things to note. skilling was big fam of richard dawkins book the selfish gene and had applied the evolutionary theory to business. essentially selfishness was the order of the day, most notably when they exploited (and to a large extent caused) the california energy crisis

it was also interesting to note that at the height of their crisis enron were insisting that their grred was not the problem, but that their market was too regulated.

i noted that several right wing blogs have claimed that the current recession was not caused by greed, but by (left-wing) governements and agencies forcing banks and financial institutions to loan money to people who couldn't afford to repay.

at the time, there were suggestions that enron's behaviour was an aberration.

apparently not

definatly a filem worth checking out

new zealand justice

A

man who tried to steal grocery items from a Blenheim supermarket has been ordered to shout the staff a $200 morning tea.

In Blenheim District Court yesterday Judge Tony Zohrab said Steven Gary Page, 26, unemployed, should pay the $200 in emotional harm reparation to the manager of Redwoodtown Super Value after he put $9.77 of groceries in the pockets of his shorts on May 13.

The Marlborough Express reported that Judge Zohrab told Page, who had pleaded guilty to shoplifting, the money should be used to buy morning tea for the staff.

"Dealing with people like you is not the most pleasant part of their job," he said.

Judge Zohrab sentenced Page to 80 hours' community work. He said Page had a long history of shoplifting and stealing.

- NZPA

everyone knows that a couple of sausage rolls and a cream filled scone helps with post-traumatic stress disorders

kids today

LAROSE, Louisiana - A Louisiana middle school student stormed into a classroom and fired a gunshot over a teacher's head yesterday before shooting himself in a bathroom, authorities said.

Investigators found a suicide note and plans for a rampage in the teen's journal.

The 15-year-old student, whose name was not released, fired once around 9 a.m. local time inside a classroom at Larose-Cut Off Middle School, then shot himself in the head, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre. He was in critical but stable condition. The teacher had never taught the teen.

Webre said investigators found a note describing the boy's plans to "gear up" before his spree, along with a drawing of how he'd dress. The boy also scribbled "I am king" and "y'all will die!" on a sheet of paper investigators found.

Although he apparently was intent on killing people, he was armed with only four bullets for the .25-calibre, semiautomatic pistol he had taken from his father's home during the weekend. The boy's mother noticed he seemed nervous before school, but he said he was just worried about seeing his standardised test results, which were released Monday, Webre said.

About 500 sixth, seventh and eighth-graders attend the school in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 72 kilometres southwest of New Orleans. Webre said the boy had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law. The teen had no reason to be in the classroom, he said.

He was a year or two older than most of his classmates, who described him as a quiet boy who never talked about guns or violence.

Webre said investigators found inside the boy's bookbag a completely filled journal and two loose sheets of paper that appeared to be a plan for the shooting and a suicide note. The school has both standing and handheld metal detectors, but they aren't used all the time and weren't in use on Monday.

Webre said the boy arrived at the school in uniform - white shirt, khaki pants - but changed into camouflage pants shown in his drawing. In an expletive-laced note, he wrote, "First, I will tell my art class teacher that I had to go to the bathroom. Then I would go to the last stall and 'gear up.'"

The school was scheduled to reopen today with enhanced security and several counsellors on hand.

-AP

it has been ten years since columbine (yes, really) and sadly school spree killings are still going on

still, is this the most inept pree killing ever?

only four bullets and the first is a warning shot

i think there may be another story behind this

my new favourite blog

check out "editing the herald"

vantage point

i like "clever" movies-it can be quite fun trying to figure out falshbacks and flash forwards and fanatasy sequences, especially when they all come together

one of my favourite films of the last few years was run lola run. i've lent it out at the moment but i really must watch it again. (also momento, now that i come to think about it)

when done well, they can be a quite staidfying watch, although there is an alternate point of view that they are just gimmicky (what? even rashoman?)

which brings me to vantage point. here's the scenario. the president of the united states is in spain announcing a summit on anti-terrorist action, when he is shot and building explodes.

these events are told from eight different point of view-a television producer ccoverinng the event, a seccret service agent, a tourist with a video camera, a couple of the terrorists and so on. a vantage point of the events is shown, then the film returns to 11.59am, just before the president makes his speech

the last third of the film continues on the events as the characters begin to interact.

so far, so clever, but for all the visual flair, and the strong underlying concept, trying to deal with so many characters in a short space of time (the film only lasts for 90 minutes) means that many of the characters come across as underwritten. b ack stories are hinted, or ignored completely, as are motivations-why is the tv producer so determined not to mention the protestors, what are the terrorists trying to achieve (duh, they're terrorists)

i liked the jigsaw concept, but unbfortunatly like a jigsaw, once you've put it all together, its falt and two dimensional

health status

its been a weekend of medical professionals

on friday, i saw my gp-nothing too major, just a "hi-how-are-you-that-will-be-$39.00-please" thing (and a 45 minute wait)

on saturday, my case manager looked in during my dialysis session, but we mainly talked about music. he is looking for a copy of metallica's black album. i'm always a little worried about medicos who are heavy metal fans-i'm scared that one day i'm going to fall unconcious during a session and wait to hear a doctor say "accept this sacrifice, oh dark lord"

this morning, i went to see the specialist and the dietician for reviews on my case.

my anemia is worsening slightly, do my recormen is increasing to 2 injections per week

my blood pressuere has reduced, but a little to far. it was 90/60 this morning, so my bp medication has been cut in half

phosphrous and calcium are fine (said in doubtful tone) so no change there, but they still want to cut my throat open to play with my glands-i said no.

happy pills are not having the effect hoped for, so that dosage has doubled as well-i think they are determined to get me playing the happy game (if you remeber pollyanna)

the lukeamea is still asleep

the dietcian seemed cautiously pleased with my project-she did a quick check on my typical menu and seemed to have no problem with it

the two issues were fluid intake, which is mostly under control. but there was a warning to watch what i eat-fluid hides in food; and exercise.

i said that the principal problem with exercise was that i was either on dialyis or recovering from dialysis. they are hoping that the reduction in bp medication will stop me from feeling as wretched on the post dialysis days.

i restocked my meds and as out after an hour and a half.

as usual, i am using the low bp as an excuse not to do anything else today

hmmm

i was reading an interesting article in idealog the other day (i was at the GPs, and the doctor was running 45 minutes late)

it was an arguement that tv is not being dumbed down, but that the quality is actually improving. as an example, he compared the old seventies show "starsky and hutch" with "the sopranos". using that comparison, i can see his point, but i think that he only used the sopranos as it is an example of "quality" programming reaching a major audience.

I am currently working my way through "the wire' which as it works in the same genre of "starsky and hutch" would be a better comparison.

S&H is about two policeman, who always manage to solve their crimes within the commercial hour and is effectivly shown in bright primal colours-cops are good, criminals are bad, goos always triumphs over evil, usually involving an exciting car chase, the odd gun battle and some well-timed quips

"The Wire" is about a series long investigation into a drug crew. I've seen eight episodes so far, and it looks like getting the crims arrested is still a long way away (and even if they do, it won't solve the problem of drugs in the community

it shows both the cops side and the crims. the cops are not angels-there are brutal cops, and a lot of political game playing. the crims are not total villians either. one of the main characters, d'angelo, who has already killed two people and is in charge of sales in the pit (as they call it) is musing on why they need to kill people.
another crim, wallace, who is in his early twenties, is having a crisis of consience about having told his bosses over the wherabouts of a rival, only to find the rival haveing been obviously tortured and killed and dumped in his neighberhood.

overall, i'd say the wire is a deeper, more satisfying watch. it is like reading a book; its certainly not a show you can dip into from time to time, you actually have to watch it.

but the differecne is that S and H was one of the most popular shows of its era. the wire is at best a cult show. some of this is the time it screens (in nz, the fifth and final series is screening at 1.40am on a tuesday morning), but ai think a lot of it is that it is a show that you have to concentrate on. i would suggest that more people have watched the show on dvd than have actually seen it live (extra bonus, you don't get the ads interuppting the narrative flow. because this was made by hbo, they didn't feel the need to put an artifical cliff hanger in every seven minutes or so)

prime time is full of "reality shows" and more generic cop, doc and lawyer shows. some of the best shows of the last few years; deadwood, firefly, veronica mars and so on tend to get shoved into unflattering time solts and quickly get cancelled to the dismay of the few fans who find the shows.

they say that the future of television is the internet. i'm not so sure. the increasing sale of dvds of shows indicates that in many cases people will start to collate and programme their own home channels from their dvd collections.

i already do that already to a large extent

if the audience wants quality programming, they will have to find it themselves

with extra cheese

everyone has a secret shame when it comes to music-some band or singer who they secretly like, but will never admit to in public.

for many people, that band is ABBA. they were once very popular (yes, i admit i had one of their records-i was 11 at the time) then punk came along. and then, it was kind of ok to like them again, so long as it was, you know, ironically. eventually the ironic part faded away and you has all these people noting what skilfull writers benny and bjorn were. several music critics even consider "dancing queen" the greatest pop song of all time. (i disagree; i find it lyrically awkward)

i'm not a diehard abba fan; i could go the rest of my life without hearing fernando again, but i have to admit that they do have some catchy songs

last night, sky screened "mama mia", the film based on the musical based on abba songs.

firstly, the scenary was terrific. there is nothing like sitting in a warm room while there is a full thunderstorm going on outside to make you appreciate summer in the greek islands.

however, the problem with trying to write a story around of unconnected songs, is that the ultimate story is less than it could be. in the end, mama mia is a series of disconnected sub plots, some havr a begiining, some have an end, a number of the ends seem to come out of nowhere. but that's not the point, is it. the point is to get to the next song. (i beleive that the dvd has a karioke version of the film)

other bad points? well, pierce brosnan can't sing, julie walters looked really frumpy, there were too many slow songs.

the best singer was amanda seyfried, who played the daughter. the best performance was (naturally) meryl streep, who seemed relish that she was getting paid to spend several weeks in the greek islands. the exception was her performance of "the winner takes it all". her singing was ok, but she was flailing her arms around like marcel nmarceau on speed. musical highlight, for me, was christine baranski's performamce of "does your mother know"

i won't be buying the dvd, or the soundtrack, but i may pick up a copy of abba's greatest hits. if i find it in a bargin bin

i've been cinematically violated

i intended to note the death of don deluise, largely becasue of his work as one of mel brooks' stock company in the seventies, although it seems that most of the tributes focused on his performance in "cannonball run"

however, i discussing his death with rob, i remebered that he had appeared in a truly horrendous film called "the silence of the hams". yes, its a parody film and for a long time, i considered up there wikth sister act 2 as one of the worst films ever made.

then yesterday, i saw the first 40 minutes of "meet the spartans" ( idin't see the rest as i had to go to dialysis".

yes, i get the joke, the spartans were repressed homosexuals, homosexuality is funny, reality tv shows are funny, celebreties are funny, farting is funny, ripping off other people is funny.

i disagree. i did not laugh once. i almost vomited, but i did not laugh once.

compared to eatching this film, having two ten inch needles shoved into my arm came as an absolute delight.

the saddest thing about this fil? accoring to wikipedia, it grossed $84 million dollars.

question of the day

channel surfig through the fm band this morning, i came across a radio station "for the over forties", coast fm. since i'm over 40 i listened for a while.

why is easy listening music so hard to listen to?

just because it sounds like a good idea

A primary school has caused an uproar by asking students to come to school dressed as a disabled person as part of a fundraiser. Ramco Primary School in South Australia wrote in a newsletter that it would hold a "disability day" fundraiser. The aim of the dress-up is to raise money for a clinic in Bangladesh that repairs cleft lips and palates in children. Its newsletter stated: "There will be prizes for the best students dressed as a person with a disability. Get your thinking hats on and see what disability you can represent." (Source: News.com.au)

no, nothing could go wrong with this idea

you've got to think these things through, people.

i wonder if they have any kids that are already disabled. they would surely have the inside track for the prizes.

i think that if i was in the contest, i'd go as an autistic person. that way i could dress in my ordinary clothes and i wouldn't have to speak to anyone

swine flew

what happened to the big swine flu panendemic? it seems to have vanished.

does this mean we can go back to panicking about the recession?

a fluid situation

there has been some confusion over my dry weight
you see, since i'm not expelling fluid naturally, at least not in the volume i used to, dialysis has to do it for me. the problem is, i still need some fluid to keep the body functioning. so i have to aim for a target, or dry weight.
as you can probably imagine, estimating the dry weight is by no means an exact science. you only know when you've got it wrong when the patient passes out or gets cramps in their legs.

after my incident last thursday, the put my dry weight up,bout, as i said there seems to have been some confusion as to what it should be.
tuesday's session wore me out, and while i felt fine after thursdays's seesion, on friday i greyed out a couple of times. i didn't faint, but for a couple of moments there it felt like a distinct possibility.

we have now settled on a number-138, and i came out of last night's session at 138.8.

the next step is to reduce my dry weight, since according to the bmi calculation, my ideal dry weight is 115. more sacrifices ahead, i guess.

oh, i'm feeling fine today, or i would be if the neighbour hadn't decided to do a little gardening with a chainsaw

why not?

from yahoo news

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Award-winning entertainer, businesswoman and education advocate Dolly Parton has a new title.

"Just think, I am Dr. Dolly!" she said Friday after receiving an honorary doctorate of humane and musical letters from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Always joking about her buxom figure, she added, "So when people say something about 'Double-D,' they will be thinking of something entirely different."

The audience of 1,069 new graduates from the College of Arts and Sciences roared with laughter and gave Parton a standing ovation.

Parton, a Tennessee native who is the fourth of 12 children from a poor Appalachian family, is well-known for her philanthropic work. Her Imagination Library sends a book to about 500,000 children each month from birth until they start school.

ha ha. imagine giving dolly parton an honorary document. i have seen some comments on this, most of it sneering.

however, i country music circles, she is actually well respected-not for her crossover stuff, but for her hardcore bluegrass albums. amongst fans of serious country music, she's up there with alison krauss and gillian welsh.

i was never a fan of dolly parton-dad had a copy of her duet with kenny rogers "islands in the stream" which is horrible. plus all i ever really saw was her public image-how could you take that seriously.

then, a couple of years ago i heard a documentary on national radio about an album that she was making where she was returning to her bluegrass roots. it was something of a revelation. skilfull playing, hearing her as part of a group rather than as a star. her interviews showed that she did know where she came from, as it were.

another surprise was hearing her original version of "i will always love you." if you're used to the bombastic diva version done by whitney housten that infested the airwaves a few years back, then parton's original version is actually listenable. its a wistful afterthought of a song.

ok i'm not rushing out to buy any of her albums, but i would suggest that in terms of her skill, her knowledge of appalachian music, and most of her songwriting, yhe idea of giving her a doctorate is not as ridiculous as it sounds

up and down and down again

i had a bad session on thursday.
they put me in a chair, which seems to hate me because everytime i get put in a chair i go flat

so with an hour and a half to go, i start getting cramps, so i try to adjust the chair so that i can put me feet on the floor.
i blink, and when i open my eyes again, there are four nurses standing around me and an oxygen mask over my face. and i still have cramps. and then i throw up.

so, as you can imagine, friday was a bit of a write-off. i felt seedy all day and for some reason my knees weren't working properly.

so, as you can imagine i approached last night's session with some trepidaton. as indeed did the nurse-tech. i was in a bed and only targeted 3.5l (i usually try to do 4 on a saturday)

the nurse-tech hovered, taking my blood pressure every 45 minutes and asking me if i was alright everytime i cahnged position on the bed.

my arterial line kept clogging, so i reduced my blood flow to 300 ml/min after and hour and after my bp dropped to 103/39 (which is about average for me during a session) she reduced my target to 3.1l.

i kept telling her that i was fine and i was. it was adrian in the chair(!) next to me who started going flat, although she never passed out.

i did my four hours, came off at 120/47 and felt fine

up until this morning when i was hanging my washing out on the line, and my bp took a sudden drop and i had to sit down before falling over.

i now have an excuse not to do anything else for the rest of the day. there is always an upside.

what is a new zealander?

from the herald

Despite almost half a million people claiming their ethnicity as "New Zealander" in the last census, Statistics New Zealand is opposed to making the grouping official.

"Initial consultation and research suggests that including a New Zealander tick-box would alter the meaning of the question so it is more about nationality and less about ethnicity," statistician Geoff Bascand said. "This could affect the accuracy and usefulness of the data collected."

In the 2006 census 11.1 per cent of people gave New Zealander as their response when asked to which ethnic group they belonged.

It was the third largest grouping after New Zealand European and Maori, and jumped from 2.4 per cent in 2001. But New Zealander does not have its own category and falls under "other".

In 1996 Pakeha was bracketed next to New Zealand European but was dropped after some adverse reaction. A high-profile campaign in 2006 sought to get New Zealander its own tick-box, but the status quo remained.

A Statistics New Zealand discussion paper issued yesterday recommends no changes to the ethnicity question for the 2011 census.

It says that, of those who wrote New Zealander, 90 per cent would come under the New Zealand European group.

Academics say the desire to drop the "European" element shows a search for a new identity.

However, Auckland University geography senior lecturer Ward Friesen said that, if more people responded as being New Zealanders, ethnic data would become useless because it was non-specific.

The ethnic groups in the census include Maori, Pacific people, Chinese and Indians. The data is used particularly for planning health and social services.

But Dr Friesen said New Zealand European was not always the most appropriate term, especially for new migrants or those whose families had lived in New Zealand for generations.

Wellington School of Medicine associate professor Tony Blakely agreed: "We are in desperate need of a word that describes those who would fall under New Zealand European."

Statistics NZ is seeking public feedback until May 25.

there has been some discussion over this. what does it mean to be a new zealander. the term pakeha is actually becoming offesnsive to some people, being as it means, alternatly, foreigner, european, or (more offensivly) white pig.

the declamaton on the census of nz european is not suitable as many new zealanders have never been to europe. how many ancestors, they ask, have to have been born in this country before we become a race of our own?

interestingly, there are also some grumbles of another category-that of asian. indians are not the same as chinese and so on

i wonder whether this question is still appropriate. maybe it was a couple of generations ago, when much of the population were immigrants, but the fact that a number of people are identifying themselves as kiwis (myself included), perhaps this is no longer relevant.

what it does say is that maybe the population are starting to see themselves as one people.

FOR GOD'S SAKE, PANIC

its now quarter past six on a monday eveing and all 6pm new bulletin so far has been about the swine flu. the story has, of course dominated news throughout the day.

the goverment have asked that anyone who has been to mexico lately and are showing flu-like symptoms are to wander along to their g.ps and get tested

an expert from WHO has said that while there is no need to panic, this new strain of flu could decimate the human race

and yet, people seem remakably unconcerned. after all, the millenium bug, sars, bird flu, muslim terrorists and robot cockroaches from venus were also supposed to kill us all. the reaction to this new threat is being greeted with a sardonic "yeah, right"

after all this flu hasn't killed any new zealander yet. 14 people died in car accidents this weekend

rainy sunday in front of sky movies part two

second hand wedding

whereas there will be blood was quite heavy going, second hand wedding was a light easy watch. set in a new zealand suburbia of garage sales, fiances called darren,garden sheds and times when a cup of tea really is the solution to all problems, there is an easy connection to its audience. not even remotely ironic (not even the john rowles cameo) its a warm hearted watch

there is anice little sting at the end, though

actually, an ideal movie for a wet post-dialysis sunday afternoon