Posts by Craig Ranapia
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And how could I forget to wish everyone a an absolutely fabulous holiday season? Now I've got to bugger off, turn off the DVD player and do some baking otherwise I'm going to show up at a certain party tomorrow empty handed. Yes, Russell, I'm threatening you and your family with cookies!
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Today's attack on democracy is, um, the traditional practice of MPs sending out Christmas cards, funded from an electorate budget provided to cover such things as communicating with constituents. The Herald story appears to suggest that the offence is compounded by Phil Goff and Rodney Hide including contact details for their electorate offices in their cards. Somebody needs a holiday.
Well, I got a very nice Xmas card from my local member, the Hon. Wayne Mapp - do have to wonder, however, whether pseudo-personal greeting cards are really an efficient medium of constituent communication. Also could be rather offensive considering the number of folks I know who are some combination of, 1) don't observe Christmas for all kinds of reasons, 2) get enough snail-spam through their letterboxes without their local member adding to the volume, and 3) don't really give a shit about the pseudo-personal felicitations of someone they've never voted for, and really find rather vile.
In the end, I think it was a pure silly season story on the part of the Herald. But wasn't Idiot Savant's response just a little bit overwrought in its turn?
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OMG
My Inner Librarian is going crazy. Must... alphabetise...
Feh, comes around my place during spring cleaning and I'll definitely show you fear in (more than) a handful of dust. :)
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I read in this morning's Herald that "Ms Burgess said her electricity went off for about 15 minutes." I thought about New Orleans and felt glad to be here.
Indeed. Anyone remember the Edgecumbe quake in '87? (It was a lesser magnitude but very shallow compared to last night's show.) I was at boarding school at the time, and couldn't get in touch with my parents for four days - let's just say getting the phone and power lines back up to Te Kaha and other towns up the coast wasn't really the A1 priority.
I don't want to minimise what must have been a bloody horrible night for folks in Gisborne, but it wasn't another Napier. We're not counting up dead children and injured people trapped in burning houses. And I'm thankful for that.
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Merry Christmas to all, especially Craig with whom I seem to lock horns too often.
Tosh. It doesn't do anyone any harm having their views subjected to the refiner's fire of a vigorous and thoughtful dissent. (The bugger is that the people saying 'you're wrong, arsehat' are right on all counts as often as not.)
While the East Coast was shaking to pieces, the better half and I were at the mall cleaning up the Christmas shopping. Nothing useful will be done today as JB Hi-Fi (may it be eternally damned by the gods of fiscal responsibility) had the 2 disc edition of Blade Runner: The Final Cut for $18.99, days after it was released in the US. The image and sound quality are luscious (and while 95% of the tweaks are barely noticeable to folks who aren't hardcore BR cultists it is nice to finally have the film as close to Ridley Scott's original vision as humanly possible); the three commentary tracks are genuinely insightful; and the second disc has a wonderful (three and a half hour!) making-of documentary that is a model of its kind.
The only thing that could be more geek-gasmic is the five disc hi-def edition that has all five versions of the film (including the never-before released 'workprint'), 90 minutes of deleted scenes, and another three hours or so of extras.
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I liked the one that starts: "Have i got a story to tell you, well i was playing guitar hero 3 with my cousin and we were on the last level -teardrop- man we were rocking and then that's when the rolling part started ..."
Heh... there are moments when I say to myself, 'perhaps the human race isn't irredeemably fucked, after all.' :)
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For the record, and to give you the "on the other hand" you so clearly need in every statement
Well, as far as I'm concerned there really isn't much of 'on the other hand' here - either its out of line for everyone, and people of good will are willing to call out 'their side' with equal righteous indignation, or its all on, all the time. And God help us all.
To be blunt, I really think some of the most permanently indignant parties (particularly around Kiwiblog) need to meditate on the Freduian concept of projection, and clean up their own acts before doing an Emily Post impersonation.
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This show makes me very angry, actually. It's a fraud on the public, promoting superstition, and a nuisance to the justice system.
Well, this sound strange from a Catholic - which would pretty strongly imply a belief in the supernatural - it makes me very angry too. Because it's bloody cruel. I cant even begin to imagine not only having a loved one killed, but not even having the closure the perpetrator caught, tried and convicted. I'd probably grasp at anything, even a sideshow flim-flam artist - and the producers of this thing must know it. At least with most ghastly reality shows, the participants know what they're walking into, and if they want to degrade and humiliate themselves for (dubious) fame and fortune... So be it. But exploiting people's pain and horror like this. Ugh.
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WH:
Well when I assess who bears the closest resemblance to a a fake psychic out of John Campbell and Sidney Blumenthal... well, I'll pick the hack courtier over the well-respected biographer every time.
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And after that, I'm going to take my own advice, and
...shut the fuck up, go sit on a beach for a while with a good book and plenty of sunblock, and avoid excessive consumption of caffeine or sugar until around mid-February.
Have a splendid holiday season, folks. I'm planning to get a little further along on finishing __In Search of Lost Time__ before my time on earth runs out, do some Christmas baking, and get ahead of the housework.
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