1. Whether its supposed to or not, Coldplay's 'The Scientist' nearly always brings tears to my eyes. Even more so if I am able to sing along. What this means to me is yet to be discovered. It could mean that it is a good song. It could also mean that I am a cry-baby wuss.
2. The Civil Unions/Omnibus Bills. A group of 40 of us met last night with Bernie Ogilvy - a United Future Member of Parliament - to discuss the implications of the aforementioned bills.
Ladies and gentlemen - these bills will tear apart the core of our society. The Civil Unions bill in itself is almost innocuous - i provides for the civil recognition of same-sex partnerships by means of registration. The sting is in the Omnibus Bill, which will erase any reference to 'marriage' from all existing legislation.
According to the 2001 census information, there were only 5000 odd same-sex partnerships. Only 1053 of these couples had dependant children (ie: are 'families'). Why is the government pandering to the wishes of such a minority? There are not as many homosexuals in this country as they would have you believe. There are far more bible-believing Chirstians than there are homosexuals, so it cannot be an issue of getting votes.
I think it comes down to the fact that they're experimenting. Other countries have civil unions acts to register same-sex relationships, but their legislation still prevents same-sex couples from adopting or receiving fertility treatment.
Its all in the name of 'pioneering' and 'progess'. If they were concentrating on the key roles of government (Justice and Defence) then they wouldn't have the time or resources for meddling around with families, education, health and other issues where they have no business interfering.
The homosexuals are organised and militant in their lobbying - whilst mainstream New Zealanders, Christians included, sit apathetic and oblivious to the political and social issues that this country is facing. The marriage relationship (ie: a male man and female wife living together in the covenant of marriage) has been internationally proven time and time again to be the most stable environment for the positive growth of children and hence the foundation for this country's next generation. New Zealanders need to confront the government with this - ask them why their legislation flies in the face of time-tested facts. Write letters to your MP - try and get them to answer your questions - confront them with facts. They must not be allowed to be controlled by a militant minority. Take the power back.
Grrrrr.
3. Daniel McC - a seriously decent chap, by-the-way - raises the issue of youth and their lack of appreciation of music.
This lack extends to almost every other area of youth life, and does not seem to be fulfilled until they are of a maturity that is able to recognise that they're simply hyper-consumers, at the complete mercy of very powerful marketing campaigns.
Music is one - if its not on the charts anymore, its crap.
Food is another - Starbucks is crap, and there are plenty of other coffee-houses that produce a far superior brew. But Starbucks is 'cool'.
Alchohol is another - when would a youth take a good bottle of merlot to a party and actually drink it to appreciate it? Its all about buying the most of the cheapest and drinking it all until you fall over.
Clothing - is so much more than the label. If you can be bothered to use your own creativity, you could create a very styleful ensemble from second-hand store clothing that would kick a label-basher's behind.
Of course, these are exaggerated generalisations, and I'm in a whiny mood, but that doesn't mean that our youth aren't in the increasingly powerful grip of marketing campaigns that have no consideration whatsoever for the well-being of their target market.
4. Today is hair-cut day. Just a trim, however. Michelle is liking it long, and so do I, so its just a tidy-up and an injection of some form of style.
Well, thats my rant - now I suppose I'd better get out of my chair and go and do something about it all.
- Download and install Rainy's Rainmeter
- Download and install moshi's Tempest skin for Rainmeter
- Bask in the new-found style and class of your Windows desktop
There you might find a very classy 24hr clock, as well as a Swiss Army watch.
Our regular bible study group resumed its meetings again last night after the Easter break. We're continuing to look at 'Community' and what it means. Last night we discussed various aspects of friendship.
Friendship really does work so much better when you can forget about yourself.
Just like Google's search engine, it doesn't look like much, but is very easy to use.
Here are some of Gmail's features:
- 1000 Megabytes of mail storage
- grouping of 'replyed to' messages, so that you'll be able to quickly recall what has gone before.
- labels rather than folders. You can add more than one label to a conversation.
- plus much more...
I'm seriously considering moving this blog to here.
Still a little rough - I have more content to put in the portfolio.
Many things I have learned today:
- the 'target' attribute is not valid strict XHTML 1.0
- Its not hard to make a site XHTML 1.0 strict conformant.
- PHP is jolly handy for site 'templating'. I was nearly going to use Smarty but I might save it for another day.
- The less work one has to do on a web site, the better. I'm talking about the end user.
Your constructive feedback would be coveted.
You name it, it had it - threads, (hence critical sections and semaphones), serial communications, the lot. Well, actually, thats about all it had, so you don't need to name it. But still.
Now its back to my research project. Yay.
I can't wait to get out of here and get a job. A great job came up - web designer/information architect at the NZ Herald. But I didn't get my CV ready in time, so I missed the application cutoff. Sigh. Oh well - there are plenty more fish in the sea, supposedly.
This is so cool.[thanks dave & ange]
Anyway, I apologise for my lack of postage of late.
How have you all been?
But I'm too busy. I currently working on a programming assignment that requires all of my available resources leaving preciously little time for blogging and the like.
I've also got a couple of jobs I need to apply for. But I've yet to get my CV together.
Argh! Stress!! Gotta go - bye!!!!
See here.[via jason k]
Its about time - I've made US$0.10 - someone downloaded one of my two stock images at istockphoto.
All valid HTML and CSS according to the lovely chaps at The World Wide Web Consortium.
Still needs a bit of work on the accessibility front.
The mouseover tags were fun!
I am still yet to obtain approval to update the logo and the content, so I had to work with what was there.
Come on people, either you want them to do their job or you don't.
Personally, I believe that police are perfectly entitled to pursue a vehicle for whatever reason, and if the outcome of that pursuit results in the fleeing vehicle having an accident, then the responsibility of that accident rests squarely on the shoulders of the offender.
In today's society where crime is on the increase, we must not legislate anything that might further hinder the work of the police.
And when it comes to responsibilty - I think everyone needs to step up to their own plate.
The amount of buck-passing these days is ridiculous, petty and does nothing to command the respect and integrity that our society sorely lacks.
A Heretical View of File Sharing.
I'm inclined to agree.
In fact, since I've stopped downloading music on ethical grounds, I haven't purchased a single CD. I'm talking, like, six months.
For managing projects online. Basecamp allows you to publish and maintain milestones, to-do lists, messages etc regarding your current projects.
Whats even cooler, is that you can allow your clients to log in and see how their project is going.
It produces nearly 110,000 horsepower. Thats right - all those zeroes!
It produces over five and a half million foot/pounds of torque.
It has 14 cylinders.
And it won't fit in my car.
Rather, my car would fit in it.
Its the most powerful diesel engine in the world.
Oh, and you'd better look at this : www.homestarrunner.com.
What follows is the outcome (or aftermath, if you like):
Segmented monopolies delve hungrily past overturned salmon grinders, clearly displacing decades of voluminous anti-matter, to produce staggering stainless-steel milk cartons, with complete naivety and vast consolation for all.Maybe I need help...
The opposing armarda squats pretentiously amongst budding saxophonists, further exacerbating the cause of the martyrs.
Active desktop proponents carefully spelt out the necessities of cross leased ringbinders, at the expense of negating their own soft drink bottles.
