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Showing posts from July, 2012

New "Like" Buttons

I confess, I'm a bit of a "stats" freak and I like to know I'm getting hits... You will notice all of my blogs now have a "Like" button beneath them, so please feel free to "Like" anything you like!

Quote for the Day

True love is not demonstrated by agreeing with someone; it is shown by disagreeing with some one but loving them anyway! -me-

Pimp My Twenty Bucks Part Eight

Success needs no introduction, no matter how small it is. Some people’s successfulness shines like the eyeball splitting brilliance of Sol, the fancy not often used name of the Sun. Other people are more lunar in their triumphs, glowing in the night while we marvel at their hoity beams. I however, am more like the red dot of a laser pointer, darting about your living room floor tempting the cat to madness as it chases what it cannot catch. Allow me to point that dot at this week’s microscopic victory… This week I successfully fobbed off two books: 2001 A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke for $4.50 and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for $3 Thus making me the grandiose amount of $7.50, enough to buy a bottle of milk and a cheap packet of cookies in my country. Keeping with my plan to replace every item I sell times two, I have purchased four “new” second hand books to relist at the cost of $3 this week. I found myself in a Salvation Army shop in the small town of Huntley,

How I Memorize: Bonus Video

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How I Memorize: Closing Statements

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How I Memorize Part 7: Fusing all the Techniques

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How I Memorize Part 6: The Typing Technique

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If I Was Jean Luc Picard

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  Found this in My Documents recently, the aftermath of an experiment with Photoshop :)

Defining Moment of the Day

For a Dad, nothing beats the first time your 19 month old daughter looks at you in the eyes and proudly exclaims the word, "Fart!" for the very first time. I'm such a bad influence.

We Have Forgotten Who We Were

I fear that we have let the Dark Knight Rise while we have buried Jesus, and as a result the Dark Night has risen.. This is my Christian perspective of the terrible events that have left Colorado, America and frankly most of us grief stricken by it's brutality. I have wrestled over whether I should publish this, it's likely to cost me readers but I don't care about that. What I do care about is whether people will see this as me taking advantage of a horrible situation for the sake of the things I have to say or will understand that my heart was moved enough that I sat down at this computer and bore my tormented soul to anyone who would listen. Nevertheless, despite the confusion I feel over my own motives I think what I want to share is important. For me it truly is necessary for us to stop and examine our hearts, our consciences and our decisions from here on in. Do we focus all our hatred on this pathetic individual who has horrified the World and his victims or do

Pimp My Twenty Bucks Part Seven

I love how the last paragraph I wrote In Part Six left my readers with a promise of things to come and then I left you all in the lurch for almost two weeks, sorry about that! It's been a busy time, still fighting the winter bug that has been trying to push me out of the game for most of the month so far. If I didn't know any better I'd say Felix is poisoning me to keep me down... If you read the last installment you'll remember I mentioned a customer who failed to pay me? Well, after four pleasant emails from my end I gave him the chop, relisted Charlotte's Web and made sure I left some nasty feedback. Not too nasty though, just in case something bad had actually happened to the guy and I was being a prat about it. One day some clever person will invent a social network site or online trading site that tells other users if a person has died so you can send your condolences rather than a complaint! Anyway, the good news is trademe have a function which allows

Defining Moment of the Day

My three year old wakes us up around 6 a.m. This morning, crying from a nightmare, it sounds like a rather bad one. Finally she comes into our room sniffling. Mum asks gently, "What's the matter sweetheart?" In utter despair she exclaims, "Daddy didn't give me any chocolate!" "You were having a bad dream sweetie, climb into bed and have a cuddle..." She climbs into our bed and settles down for about ten minutes, then whispers forlornly, "Mummy, can you ask Daddy to give me some chocolate?" !

50/50 - A Review

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Don't let the words, "from the makers of Superbad" put you off seeing this film. That was the line I used to convince my wife to watch this one with me. Mind you, if you're already feeling depressed and need an injection of good feelings and mindlessness, then don't see this film. This is a cancer movie. Enough said. Adam Lerner, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a 27 year old writer who learns from his insensitive doctor that he has schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma - or in layman's terms a rare form of spinal cancer. He seems to take it rather well, or maybe calmly better explains his attitude. But perhaps the real disease that this movie explores is not so much the cancer as it is the reactions of those closest to him... His girlfriend Rachael vows to take care of him but does the complete opposite, refusing to enter the hospital when he gets his chemo, not rushing to his aide when the chemo takes it's toll in late night vomit attacks and throwing

10th July on Planet Fatherhood

I'm doing something I've never done before, I'm blogging on the bus. I have 37 minutes precisely to tell the tale if my sick week. Sucky and sickly has been my health with self diagnosed bronchitis and an acute ear infection that saw me to the Doctor after only being able to take one day off from work because of the specialized nature of my mediocre job. In other words no one could cover me. But that's ok, the toughest job I have, albeit the most rewarding, is being a parent, which no man can call in sick from. There are no sickies for desperate dad's with man-flu. Actually that's what grandparents are for, "mum, I need you to watch the kids, I'm sick"... But that was me day dreaming again about a time long ago when grandparents had nothing better to do all day than knit and make syrupy cups of tea for under age drinkers (as my Nanna used to). Not to mention all my children's grans, nans, pas and pops all live out of town. So I was clearl

The Amazing Spiderman - A Review

I've learned over years of watching movies that there is a universal law involved in whether I will like a movie or not. That law is that if I expect nothing I will never be disappointed, or in the extreme case if I expect to be disappointed then I'll probably be impressed. That was the case with the new Spiderman reboot. I liked Tobey Maguire's Spidey way too much to want to like this new Andrew Garfiled guy! or was it Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane who made the "old" trilogy for me? No probably not, I'm married and seldom notice the females in any movie. But as much as I wanted to hate it I left the cinema loving it. Sure there were a few things that bugged me, like what happened to Mary Jane, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker the total geek? As much as Garfield played his part precisely well, he just wasn't geeky enough to create the stark contrast between Peter Parker the nerd and Spiderman the ultra cool Mime Artist in red... Sorry that's the Elec

Pimp My Twenty Bucks Part Six

I was going to let my cat write this installment but he can’t type, and even if he could he can’t speak proper Queen’s English. So thankfully we’ve all dodged a bullet there. If all you were reading now were “meows” you would miss out on what a wonderful victory I’ve been experiencing with the evolution of my twenty dollars! Well, I say victory but there has been one set back – a bad customer. You know, the kind who purchase an item online and then don’t pay you and ignore all of your emails pertaining to the fact. On one hand I want to get viciously annoyed but on the other the guy has some very good feedback from previous Trademe users he’s had dealings with, so he could be in a coma or something and that just makes me feel guilty, even if it isn’t true. It’s more than likely my cat, scared of how things are going here, has hunted down this customer and has him tied and gagged in some unsound location. Let’s hope that isn’t the case. This installment is over a week late by the wa