Posts by Danielle
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Robyn wins the internet! That ruled.
Re Split Enz: I suppose I find blanket condemnation just as dull/infuriating as blanket praise. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. Perhaps I mean that railing against the 'Thing' that Split Enz have become in the national imagination is sort of counterproductive. Why not just take the music on its merits? Cut through all that other stuff and ignore it. It's like this friend I have who hates The Beatles. But he really likes sixties pop - The Kinks, The Zombies, The Left Banke. So what he *actually* hates, when you get right down to it, is the hoopla surrounding The Beatles, and that's poisoned how he reacts to their music. Which I think is a bummer.
(I think Split Enz were sporadically great, for what it's worth. A bit too much filler on some of those albums, though. I mean, who listens to Conflicting Emotions all the way through, ever? Some of it has dated rather badly, too. But still. Some terrific songs.)
And oh, yes, the 3Ds. I loved the 3Ds. And I used to go and see the Headless Chickens when I was 17, with my dodgy fake ID, and yell out all the words to 'Gaskrankinstation', lo those many years ago when the drinking age was 20... I suddenly feel old.
I might try to dream up a proper entry later this week. But seriously, Robyn needs that book! I vote for her! (I skimmed the book this past weekend. It's good.)
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Talk about clearing the air: some of us have been waiting ages for someone to say that.
I thought people said stuff like that about the Finns all the time.
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I don't think yr average copper and the vast majority of them are any more inherently fascist than yr average nurse or teacher (probably less so than yr average teacher)
Officious men in walk shorts made my life in primary school pretty annoying too, but I think that's rather too broad a definition of fascism. :)
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Would it help to point out that the US IMHO undermines undergraduate programmes with the use of the GRE.
That might be true - although it might not. If you did your undergrad degree at a 'bad' school, the admissions folks in the postgrad programme might not know how good you actually are based on your grades. I suppose that's the problem with having so damn many universities.
(Tangentially, I took the GRE ten years ago. I looked at practice questions for a couple of hours the afternoon before. Once you worked out the question formats - this is to that as blah is to blah - it wasn't particularly hard. I scored well, even in maths [which, I might add, I failed spectacularly in sixth form!].)
Rich, I agree with you about undergraduate degrees in the US. They do seem to cover the ground we cover in high school, in many ways - but on the other hand, their postgrad degrees are far more rigorous than ours. At least in history, which was my field: a PhD not only required a giant thesis and an extensive oral defence of it, but at least four years of coursework (in which you read several enormous books per week *and* summarised them in review essays, then went to three-hour discussion seminars) and a set of two-week exams which covered the entire historiography of your continent from go to whoa. It was hardcore. I often wondered why and how the enormous jump from undergrad to postgrad ended up that way. The sophomore essays and exams I graded over there were often barely literate! (I was not, of course, at a 'good' school - I was a rather mediocre scholar!)
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Oh my goodness me that was funny.
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I thought Rachel Hunter actually came from Glenfield, several suburbs over. Can someone confirm?
Browns Bay was (still is?) a boring place with a great view. I speak as someone who grew up in the equally boring and beautifully-viewed Mairangi Bay, a few beaches south...
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Oh, I agree. And actually, that reality show writers' strike from a while back seemed reasonable to me too - I mean, *someone* has to create an artificial story arc out of all those people acting like idiots...
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Yes, yay! Sarah Silverman is pure hilarity. (Although, partial boo: TSSP seems to replace It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is very very good indeed and, according to all reports, only gets better after Danny DeVito joins the cast.)
Also, another boo... no more Daily Shows until further notice because of the strike? Did I hear that aright?
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How many people would have been killed by Saddam if he was still in power? A lower number, but the country and its people have a chance of a decent future now
"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it." Where have I heard that before?
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A bit repulsive even.
Just a little, yes.