Archive for In the news

Using energy wisely

{ March 27, 2007 @ 7:38 pm } · { In the news, Random streams of conciousness }
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I love the random trivia throughout the free paper available to weekday train travelers and always look for a seat with one tucked in the side if I don’t have a book with me. Tonights gem was a small piece reporting a study on the lure of sweet treats. It apparently found that those who nibbled on something yummy often got their tasks done. My favourite suggestion is that it sometimes takes valuable mental energy to resist the temptation of chocolate or lollies, which results in a depletion of the resources and will you have to finish what it is you’re trying to do.

I’ve been thinking about ways to get back into blogging, as a way of recording what I’m thinking and have learned recently. I thought trying some non work/web related topics would help. Specifically, I hope that some one else having as much trouble as me finding out information on a certain topic might find my post and benefit from the research I’ve done. The first idea I have is to write up a bit of a review on my new phone the Nokia 6300 (I love it!) with all the bits that I was trying to find out, rather than the usual regurgitation of spec pages.

If I could just feed my inner monster some of the chocolate it’s begging for (thank you all retail stores with Easter displays up for the past month), I might be able to sit down and write that review.

So it’s been a little while

{ December 5, 2006 @ 8:20 am } · { Adventures, In the news }
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I did try to be all enthusiastic about blogging but as you can see it lasted all of about 2 weeks. Consider this the second attempt. I often have the thought of “that’s something I could blog about” when a certain event occurs or I read something but I just can’t get over that hurdle of doing it, most of the time I’m not in a position to immediatly write about something and just forget.

Well, here’s something I just couldn’t get past… SMH has reported that apparently there are a bunch of people who want Australia and New Zealand to merge into one big happy country. Hilarious to me, but even funnier is imagining the reactions of anyone living outside either country and their close neighbours, a confused look followed by “But I thought… aren’t they already?”. I understand as well, no visa to get in for Aussies, sure, but I didn’t even get a stamp on my passport.

I actually like New Zealand, had a great time there on holildays last December/January and look forward to going back there again. It’s a great place for a first international trip, similar enough that you’re not completely disoriented, but a different landscape to take in. My biggest hurdle was the give-way-to-your-right-no-matter-what rule when driving, I got used to one way bridges with train tracks and being asked for a pin when getting money out (sorry? No I don’t have a pen on me, it’s savings not credit I shouldn’t need to sign). I also love that the Maori got it right – one language that could be used to communicate anywhere with anyone (if I remember correctly), how many misunderstandings can happen when you don’t have a common language to communicate with someone? Surely that saved a lot of fighting.

If we could some how tow New Zealand a little closer – say, close enough for a bridge or ferry between the two I’d vote for it. Plenty of things will need negotiating, just don’t touch the dialect, the polarities where they exsit will be amusing for some time yet, “fesh and cheps” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.