I'm Doing OK

Just to let you know I'm doing ok. I am not in Christchurch and no-one I know there was hurt. We hear updates on Christchurch every day on the news and everyone has been doing different fundraising things - concerts, raffles, collections. Our contributions may be a drop in the bucket but it helps us feel like we are doing something. Japan is also much in our thoughts and conversations.
It's 2 years since I wrote here. 2 years of working hard, healing from deep loss and trying to prioritise where I can be effective. I thought initially my friend's death would make me more tolerant. Somehow it had the opposite effect - I became impatient in some ways, and less tolerant of human foibles (this despite having plenty of my own). It was time to step back from saying and focus on effective living.
I'm not sure who is reading this blog still, but having finally found my sitemeter login again, I've discovered people still come here daily and read the old posts. It never occurred to me 9 years ago that this would happen. I may write some more, as the inspiration hits and time allows. It is heartening to see some old friends still gracing the internets with their thoughts. As we say here - good on ya mate!

Comment Change

In my absence haloscan changed and went pay per use. I am not paying for a comment serice so I've switched to Blogger comments. Unfortunately that has wiped the old comments from the blog. But it means the new ones will be free. I will still moderate them to keep the spammers at bay.

Susan Boyle

I was the 20 millionth and one person to see this I guess. I heart this. She's 47, unemployed and looking for a job, recently lost her mother, sings in the church choir, and has spent the last year and a half doing community work with her church - visiting people in hospital and helping the elderly. She's like the lady next door. Did I mention she can sing? Can she ever. She's been singing since she was 12 years old. It doesn't matter whether she wins the competition or not anymore - she just won millions of hearts by being herself. This is a gift that wasn't buried in the ground because fast results didn't happen. She invested in it for years. She put time into practice and technique, and used her gift for others around her. She just turned the world upside down with it.

Easter Begins

I took this photo just after sunrise at a beach up on the east coast. At the time I couldn't take my eyes off the scene in front of me. I thought of it as majesty arriving. Later I looked at it and it seemed to picture a struggle, perhaps because I had been struggling with a major event that occurred in my life. Death and yet the promise of life. Looking at it now it seems to say that I may know the outcome, but there is a process getting there. I've been thinking of it today as Easter begins.

Slumdog Millionaire

Went to see Slumdog Millionaire recently and have been talking with people about it ever since. It's a movie that works on a lot of different levels, and it reminded me of a Rushdie novel in the way the elements are combined. There a fantastic fairy taleness aspect, a lot of gritty realism, and plenty to chew on regarding questions of responsbility, choices, and human nature. Personally I've had about all the game shows I can stand thanks to "reality tv", so I appreciated that the game show is not actually the real point of the movie. It's a device, a reference point really, to look back through the main character's life. On one level I did find myself wanting to know if he would win the game, and on another I thought it was a very clever comment on a global cultural phenomenon. Do we succeed through luck, or destiny? That is one of the questions the film tackles.

It is a violent movie, although not gratuitously so. And the love story is one of the main stories of course. I say one of, because although it gets billed sometimes as primarily being a love story, to my mind it was even more about how two brothers growing up in the same circumstances can make quite different choices. I was left asking a lot of questions about suffering and responsibility. Can we point purely to circumstances to justify our choices? The movie suggests not.

It is also not so easy to dismiss this as a story about one guy who gets a lucky break. Yes, there is that, but there are also some scenes which left me thinking about all those who didn't get any relief or escape from their slavery. The scene where our hero bumps into the blind beggar he shared part of his childhood with was one of the most powerful. We can enjoy the Bollywoodish fairy tale thread, but the film isn't going to let us off that easy. Religious hypocrisy and questions about fatalism are in there too.

Some have characterised this as a "good brother and bad brother" story. It isn't that clear cut or simple. The "bad" brother is sometimes good, sometimes his actions, even in his context, are pretty awful. Does he redeem himself at the end? I found his story the most thought provoking because it was the most realisitic in terms of his choices. It's tragedy in the classic sense: power, hubris, troubled conscience, nihilism, and a world disintegrating. Had he become as hypocritical as the villains that influenced his childhood? Were they the products of similar backgrounds?

One of the criticisms of the film from some quarters is that they consider it anti-Hindu. I don't think that's deserved. This is about human nature, and we wouldn't be hard pressed to find selfishness, greed, poverty, and exploited children in many other parts of the world. What it does do, through some frenetic camera work, is capture the innocence of the children and the impact of a swirling nonsensical world. I think one of the reasons this film succeeds is that it doesn't moralise every point of the story, but just presents it as is. The police officers attitude to the "slumdog" is an example - it is a given that one can look down on and mistreat another because of their social position. The movie simply presents this attitude, and leaves you to be impacted by it.

This film is funny, disturbing, thought provoking, and entertaining. It's about love and corruption, childhood and choices, depravity and responsibility. A game show might change one person's life, but does it change who they are? And what of all those who continue on without rescue. Is it circumstances that dictate character, or choices?

And for sure, there's some great music.

Note: The only link I don't recommend below is the Review. It's more like a comment thread and has been hit by spammers.

Have You Got the Conficker Worm & Techy Stuff

Wondering if your computer has been infected with the Conficker worm? Here's an amazing 2 second visual test, from the group working to defeat it, that let's you know: Conficker Eye Chart
Can you see all 6 images? Your system is hunky dory.

Twitter: I'm still on Twitter - the experiment continues. There's tons of different apps for Twitter. I've been using twhirl. If you download twhirl it may prompt you to download Adobe Air - which you need for it. Twhirl creates a nice little screen you can access from your desktop and flashes your latests updates when they arrive. It's relatively unobtrusive and easy to use. Easier than using Twitter on the web.

Been tidying up the blog. I noticed Ron at northern 'burbs has the latest JS Tracker and I added it here (right sidebar under Global Surfing). Great way to instantly see how many users are online. Very simple, just add a small piece of code to your template. On the subject of blogs, I'm a firm believer in having a blogroll. That's how we let people know our favourite reads, foster more interaction and conversation, and help each other in the search engine rankings.


I'm really enjoying the seamlessness of Google applications. I switched from Bloglines to a Google Reader to get my favourite blogfeeds. This means I can access my email, my blog, syndicate my feed, and read my feeds all from one page, with one sign in. Advantages - Google is less cumbersome, more user friendly, and quicker. It's also much easier to find and add feeds. Even with Windows Vista and upgraded RAM, Bloglines is still slow and clunky. Sign up for a Google account first, then get the apps you want.

On the subject of RAM. You've come up clean on a virus scan but your computer is still slow, freezes, or times out on the web. Check your RAM. In simple terms, RAM (random access memory) is the amount of memory your computer is using in real time. More RAM means you can do more, have more screens open at once, run more programs at once etc. I upgraded mine recently. Here's a simple explanation of how adding more RAM makes your computer faster.

Ok, I'm tech geeked out. Now I'm going to kick back.