Kerinthian's

(This is a little note for my recent traffic from fellow trademe users... Please view this series as a humorous approach to how I have achieved my own personal goal of turning $100 into more. It's not meant to be a get rich quick scam and it was never my intention to imply a method of tax avoidance, I do not talk about tax in this series simply because I have not crossed that bridge yet and NOT because I have no intention to, any one who would suggest as much has made a gross and unfounded assumption and judgment of my character... Otherwise, please enjoy my little adventure...) I just made a hundred bucks and I’m still excited about it. I’m still trying to remember the phone number of that pretty Ewok I met in the tree party I had in my make-believe reenactment of the best party scene of any 80’s movie ever – The Return of the Jedi. I’m also wondering about the morality of Droid – Ewok relationships, so perhaps losing her phone number was for the best? In any case, I still hav...

Stop! Before you read any further go get that bottle of champagne you were saving for your second honeymoon and bring it to your computer, because you might want to toast with me on this one. It is with a hefty sum of alacrity that I write this, the final chapter in what can best be described as a magical process of making money do what it was meant to – and that is, to grow. Taking baby sloth steps through the muddy lapse of 18 weeks (or 126 days to be exact), I took a plain old twenty bucks and planted it in the rich organic soil of the internet and carefully tended it until it bore me the fruit of a tender ripe and juicy One Hundred and Twelve Dollars! That’s right, I EXCEEDED my goal like a petrol marinated soccer ball enveloped in flames; burning through the goalies hands as if he were a Wiggle handling a very hot potato! Allow me now to give you a brief verbal montage of how the last 18 weeks, and 16 blogs, went down… I took her royal highness, the green queen clad $2...

If I had a dollar for every time I wished I could go back in time and box myself around the ears for my stupid mistakes I would have enough money to invent the time machine that would allow me to do it. This movie is sort of about that... but not really. One of my favourite movie tricks is to release a trailer and get your potential audience believing that the film is about one thing, and then completely blow their minds with something slightly or completely different. That's what Looper did for me. I thought, from the trailers, that this movie was going to be about this hotshot assassin played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who gets sent his targets from the future until one day the target just happens to be him and then they spend the rest of the movie trying to protect each other from the bad guys. Well, it was a lot more complicated than that and you need to watch this film with your eyes wide open (except for the nudey scenes) and your ears unplugged to grasp the full exten...

If Star Wars is your creed, if Star Trek is your enterprise or if Dr Who is your time-lord, and if you are one of those rare Science Fiction Freakazoids who are lucky enough to have a girlfriend, or even a wife, then perhaps you are like me and your female counterpart does not share your love for lazar guns, aliens and time travel? Like me, have you found yourself standing in the DVD store begging your maiden, saying, “Come on, I know you’ll love the new Star Trek movie, its directed by J.J. Abrams for goodness sake!” or, “It even has Chris Pine in it, and romance… look, we’ll watch it for half an hour and if you’re still not into it we’ll watch the Note Book…”? If that is you and all hope has gone at warp nine across the cosmos then have it Quantum Leap back home because I think I have found the movie that could be the potential “face hugger” to put the “alien” into the one you love… Ok, so perhaps The Hunger Games does not have any of the above science fiction related mumbo ju...

UPDATE:  I'm not writing this blog anymore, but please visit my YouTube channel  The Vocabuverse   and subscribe for more great things to come! Only $7.34 to go… I feel like a snail trapped in a glacier at this rate! Last week on Facebook some smart fellow asked me if it was worth the time and effort, and I said, “Yes, yes it is.” In the old days, before this adventure, my spare time was spent on not making money. My time was spent cursing the cruel world for not handing me itself on a plate. Ok, so that’s a bit dramatic but I explained to him that the time I have spent on actually buying and selling books hasn’t really been that extensive and when it has, I’ve actually enjoyed it, so spending time on my love for books and “searching” for treasure in Op shops hasn’t been a waste for me, on account of having fun while doing it. And what good is your time if you haven’t enjoyed it? Perhaps another way of looking at it is this. I spend 40 hours a week in a com...

If I had to list a few of my least favourite things, exercise, Nazi’s and dentists would be so high on the list they would challenge the physics of the paper they were written on. They are indeed three things worthy of a “dislike” if my Facebook profile allowed for such a thing. This movie featured all three. And I loved it. One of the marks of a good story teller is to take something boring or absolutely painful and turn it into something exciting and thrilling, thus had John Schlesinger proven his Directorial skills in his adaptation of William Goldman’s Marathon Man for screen, and with such a plethora of brilliant actors from the good old days of 1970’s suspense films. Dustin Hoffman, (the original Hoff) plays Babe, no not the pig, an historian graduate who has two ambitions in life, to run a marathon and to clear his Father’s name, after having committed suicide during the McCarthy era, by completing his dissertation on Tyranny. A liberal pacifist, Babe is completely unaw...

Just for a bit of fun, if this gets a hundred "likes" by October 1st then I will personally perform the below rap and post it to YouTube! The inspiration for this came from my contempt for Celebrities always trying to tell us how to think whenever there's a social or environmental issue. Or even worse, they'll try to tell us who to vote for! Fed up with these "Preachers of the Left" I did the only thing I could think of and wrote a rap about it. I'm confident it won't get a hundred "likes" so I think I'm safe... Enjoy Listen to Yo Celebrities A rap by Kerin Gedge Yo Listen to your celebrities Coz they’re the only ones who know what’s good For you and me They can tell you the right thing to do Just because they lie for a living Doesn’t mean it's not true! Yeeeah Actors are expert at this thing and that Coz of all the study they do while getting ready to act An actor can tell you to do what you should coz ...

If you told me that I would enjoy a movie about relocating 10,000 salmon to the Yemen I would have checked your temperature before telling you that you'd have to pay me to watch a fishing movie! On a normal day I find fish, or fishing or anything about fish only slightly less exuberating as, say, worm farming! Nevertheless, I had caught glimpses of this movie while working (I’m a projectionist) and noticed at once several gleaming things it had going for it: One – it stars Ewan McGregor, master of the Light Saber and also pro at maintaining a successful acting career post Star Wars. Two – It’s directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the Swedish Director who gave us such mouth watering “classics” as Chocolat and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. And for the people who care about this sort of thing, I guess a third good point would be the co-starring finesse of Emily Blunt, who to be honest does not quite rank in my list of favourite leading ladies but it might be a selling point to someone…...

It's important to remember that no matter how off topic I seem to appear, that I am going to make a point, so please, keep reading! I remember the few weeks before I first became a fully functional Dad. Up until this point I had been the stunned husband with the occasional twitching eye, trying to reconcile the abstract notion of having a mini-me in the house with the reality that it was really going to happen. When you're a kid time seems to have no meaning. A two hour trip to our family holiday spot seemed to drag on like Lawrence of Arabia, whereas the holidays themselves seemed like this amazing never ending cycle of lazy bliss. Then you become an adult and suddenly two hours doesn't seem like such a long time and two weeks off work doesn't seem long enough... My point is, just when you think that your age has caused your brain to process time like a digital photo, suddenly you find yourself waiting for your first baby and your brain goes back to processing t...

I realize most of my Readers are American so I feel the need to write this brief “disclaimer” before launching into full swing. I am writing from a cultural background and history that is completely void of slavery. New Zealand’s history, as far as I know, has never had any part in the slave trade, so if I seem cavalier in my attitude towards this topic please try to understand that I do not have the psychological or emotional paradigm that someone growing up in a country with such a history might hold. This article is in no way about the European/American treatment of African slaves, nor is it a justification for the slave trade, I am merely trying to point out that Atheist Antagonists who claim that the Bible condones slavery are wrong to think so. Some time ago I was doing some late evening shopping at my local grocery store and found myself standing at the magazine rack. Seeing as it was one of those rare moments when I didn’t have the kids with me I began to peruse the section...

I was clearing out old notes on my iPhone today and stumbled upon this little gem, I think I had intended it to be a Vlog but forgot I had written it! Oh well, hope this speaks to someone... Recently I found myself thinking about the Hans Christian Anderson story of the Emperors New Cloths. In case you haven't heard it before it is the tale of a king who had to have all the latest fashions, when one day two conniving tailors came along and convinced the king that they had the most expensive and fashionable outfit that money could buy, only they didn't really have anything at all, it was a scam, a scam so convincing that the King, not wanting to look like a fool, bought the outfit and went about his palace in the nude showing off his wonderful new "garment" to his attendants who were too afraid (and embarrassed) to tell the king the truth about his obvious nudity, that they played along with the deception. After a while even his lords and ladies were sucked...

Before we get started, as a disclaimer this is not intended to be financial advice but rather encouragement.  Below I have jotted down the simple formula which I have used to do just what the title claims - turn $20 into $100. The steps are easy to follow and the process only requires a bit of time and patience, an eBay account (or any online trading site you prefer) and the product of your choice. The process works. Anyone can do it. So here's how it's done... Step One: Find an item of interest that you know something about and that you can easily reproduce or purchase at a low cost, preferably less than $10. Step Two: Use $10 to purchase or manufacture the item. Step Three: List the item on eBay or any online trading site of your choice. Use the remaining $10 to cover listing and success fees. Obviously, list the item for more than it cost you to purchase or make. On that note, make sure the price you sell the item for is enough to: 1. Cover what you pa...