rightCHEWare

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

2006-10-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

' Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced. ' (www.climatecrisis.net)

Real good movie.......... Al Gore........... A brave man .......... Smart man........... Someone who has definitely researched to back himself up.......... One of the few with contacts enabling him to impact the world ........Another of those empowering films which frightens and inspires .........But more obviously the best damn powerpoint you would ever see !!

HAVE I SEEN YOU?

2006-08-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I love watching people. When I go shopping with Peta, thats usually my best chance to just stand there watching people. She's in the shop, looking at every possible item........TWICE, and I just quietly meander back out the door and wait out the front of the shop against the railing, watching people. Its an amazing time, wondering what people are thinking about, do they realise someone is watching them closely in amongst all of this hectic activity, what has been happening in their life to get them to this point, what happened in the past that could possibly have led them to have that haircut, or wear those clothes..... At these times I often see some strange things, and then start little experiments to watch other 'like' people to see if they all do that same strange thing. For example in Europe recently, I discovered that 'generally' (of course the odd exception may occur) girls drink out of a bottle differently to guys. I saw one girl sucking whilst drinking the water, so the bottle was ridiculously squashing in as she drank. Then I thought, oh my, I wonder if other people drink like that, and do you know what, HEAPS of girls started just sucking bottles. Its like I'd never noticed it before, even people back here in Hong Kong. In fact I can't stop it, I notice it everywhere now, its CRAZY!! So anyway, I had to watch guys to see how they did it, and you would not believe it, but most guys DON'T SUCK. They tilt the bottle and let the water flow in, but leave an air hole so the bottle doesn't suck in. Its quite fascinating, and an amazing piece of research in my opinion...... so here are some strange anomolies I've seen or heard around the traps;

* more people than you think almost collide whilst walking along corridors, footpaths etc... doing that, 'dodge one way and then the other' thing, where neither knows which way you want to go, until eventually you just embarrassingly say sorry and pass on by
* when there's a spare seat next to an adult (usually male) a kid will almost never sit in it
* chivalry (especially in HK) is very close to dead - particularly holding a door for someone, loading onto buses, helping a lady with her pram up stairs
* nude sun-bakers always put their bikinis back on to go for a swim - why bother??
* women are almost always more attracted to, and more likely to goo-gar over babies than men (even ugly ones), they just can't seem to help themselves
* the better people know each other, the more they don't look at each other when they're talking
* old people don't seem to be bothered at all, by not doing A THING all day EVERYDAY
* many people use 'up' and 'down' totally wrong eg.. someone from Melbourne says 'I went down to Sydney' when actually Sydney is clearly, geographically, above Melbourne - or 'I went up to my brothers house' when actually the brothers house is closer to the bottom of the hill
* a guy with no legs, and no wheelchair, in Rome was begging on a side-walk......then an hour later we saw the same guy about a mile away, begging on a different side-walk - WHAT THE??
* more than 75% of the people you see taking photos, take FAR too long to actually press the button

EURO 2006

2006-08-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

STOP IT with that place!! Peta and I just got back from a month in England, Italy and Croatia. We went with Toby and Sarah, and of course the cutest baby we saw in all three countries....... Daisy. There is no doubt that England is damn awesome, although we did get there during a heat wave, so didn't get to experience the miserable side of the Poms. They are amazing at looking after their historical stuff........being a history buff (which is not real good being an Australian - Oz discovered in 1700's as you obviously knew), I loved just being able to look around and see things that were so old. Tom and Sara Benyon live in a cool place on the Thames, at Tom's school actually, which is highly prestigious as you would expect. It was great seeing them, and they really showed us the finer points of British bartering by getting us free tickets to centre court at wimbledon. JEEPERS.....there's no doubt that Wimbledon is one of the most elegant, high class, toffy nose, strawberries and cream style events I've ever been to. Was great to see the Woodies in action though!!

Then there's Italy.....just happened that we were there right when they won the world cup. Sitting in a restaurant in Venice, every eye including the waiter's, on the screen, we got to experience the 'jubilation of a nation' winning the most highly sort after trophy in world sport. Italy was stinking hot, and every tourist and his family pet dog seemed to be there, making it the most crowded, touristy place since visiting Mong Kok for a cheap mongolian bbq 6 weeks ago. We thought we were lucky to escape with our limbs intact after having dinner at an obviously, Sopranos-style, mafia run restaurant in Bolognia, until I got my camera pick-pocketed on a bus in Rome, with all our photos still on the memory card, and had to chase them down the street, grab the bag and camera back, and sprint back to jump on the bus.........now that was lucky!

Croatia had its moments, but Dubrovnik SHUT UP!!!! Easily the best place in Peta and my view that we visited. Infact, we all (including Toby and Sarah, and Daisy if she could) commented that we could live there. What a beautiful place, and well preserved 'old stuff'......you'd have to be a spanker to want to bomb it (which we saw plenty of remnants of) and even more of a spanker not to look it up if you were ever in Croatia.

But we're back in HK now, and to be honest, it's nice to come back to our place and just relax for a bit. With work around the corner........all good things must come to an end.

SHATTERED...

2006-06-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

ITALY 1 AUSTRALIA 0

If only the score told the whole story...

WORLD CUP DOWNUNDER

2006-06-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

For someone who has been guilty of never being very interested in 'SOCCER' I must say I'm finding myself getting quite excited about it in recent times. I truly never thought the hype would rub off on me, and the ridiculously addictive discussion about (who might beat who, and if they beat them, then they'll go through and I reckon the form of that team is lookin better than....etc etc). But actually when your country is in it, a part of you is there.

Ask me a year ago if I ever thought I'd be getting up at 3am in the morning to go and watch that crap game called 'SOCCER' and I may have answered with a resounding - "JEEPERS MATE - what 'dya think I am, I already have a previously diagnosed problem with waking up at dawns crack, let alone watching some greasy haired spankers prancing around at 3 in the morning, diving at every opportunity they can get to earn a free kick cause they're too gutless to actually admit that the guy was too good for them in the clinch......STOP IT WITH THAT DIVING BUSINESS......I HATE DIVING, if there's one thing they gotta do, its get rid of those prissy little poofos who keep DIVING!!!

anyway.........so now I get to Thursday night, AUS V CROATIA - biggest game in OZ history, to put us into the next round. Well bugger me, haven't my opinions somewhat readjusted now that I have some sort of 'investment' in the worlds BIGGEST SPORTING EVENT. I find myself trying to get a few hours of shut-eye, waking up every hour or so, thinking I've missed Veduka and his men marching up the ramp.....I couldn't help it, my heart was racing and I had to get down to the pub to watch it.

All I can say is that I think this world cup is definitely going to change the Aussie sporting culture. A game of this magnitude, on this world stage is what our dreams are made of down-under. We grow up with sport as our motivation, in our veins, talked about at dinner...and we love the sports we're good at (which is most of the majors) but not until now, have we had the inspiration to embrace the worlds BIGGEST crowd puller.

ROUND OF 16
AUS V ITALY - may the revolution continue...

PS.. thanks for a great article Tom

MELANCHOLY OF THE WEE HOURS

2006-06-01T02:58:00.000-07:00

"It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom" - Aristotle

(Yeah, so I've heard STOTS.............but there's gotta be an easier way)

Well I guess I must concede..........I am not a morning person. I have mused over my lethargic inefficiency in the morning for many years. Finally in the last 6 months or so, it has become ridiculous. Mornings SUCK!! I find myself aimlessly wandering around the loungeroom, then the kitchen, then back in the bedroom, somehow oblivious to reality and the need to actually get in the shower, which will then hopefully wake me up. I've tried some different strategies in my attempt to defeat the habitual 'morning melancholy'.......setting my alarm earlier so as to embrace my morning stuper and gradually warm up to the day, but of course I then just stood there thinking about how stupid it was that I was already up when I could be still snoozing for another half hour........I tried leaving my alarm really late, so that I'd shock myself with adrenalin because of the rush factor, but of course then I forgot stuff that I needed to take (even with everything ready the night before).........I tried hot and cold showers, walking fast laps around the flat, even cuddling up to Peta and pretending time doesn't exist.

Now some may say its the result of too many late nights, far too much to drink and a general lack of exercise. However these factors are only minor influences on effective sleep habits. I recently did some research into this 'morning melancholy syndrome' and did you know that:
1. It doesn't matter what time you go to bed at night, you just need to go when you're tired -
2. You're not supposed to drink before going to bed.........but I've had some of my best dreams after a few glasses of wine, so bugger that
3. You should only exercise in the morning or afternoons cause otherwise your heart rate is too high and your nights sleep is stuffed.........well thats handy isn't it, I have trouble getting out of bed let alone putting the 'in-built undie' running shorts, wife beater and previously moist sweat bands on for a trundle around the local 'hills' AND THEN I work all day.
4. You should wake up the same time EVERYDAY not just weekdays...............well thats a bugger isn't it, cause on weekends thats half Peta and my quality time gone right there

So I guess it all comes down to self discipline. Can a relaxing, comfortable morning routine be attained? Is it possible to ever actually enjoy that part of the day, or even look forward to it?

.........cool website http://www.helpguide.org/life/sleep_tips.htm

HAVE A CRACK AT THE CODE

2006-05-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Davinci Code has just hit cinemas in HK and let me tell you............they're lining up from Yuen Long to see it. After searching every cinema this side of Guandong, we finally got tickets to see it at Cyberport the other night, I'd have to say all the hype was probably just that.

Having read the book, I was intrigued as to how they'd capture the thrill aspect of the story on film. Tom Hanks is always the master, and so I was confident going in, that he'd pull off the roll as Robert Langdon...however it was a lesser light who took the honours in my view (a.k.a sophie neveu). Many of the scenes were uncannily similar to what I'd imagined as I read the book. The re-created scenes from Roman times were excellent...Ron Howard built the suspense in all the right places, and yet something was not quite there. Is it the old 'film never lives up to text' syndrome? Do we go in expecting way too much? Is it the shock factor of not knowing what will happen that thrills us?

Whatever the mysterious explanation is, this will have to go down as one of the those movies that just didn't quite live up to the authors lofty standards. However I think this film will definitely cause millions of people to delve deeper into their own beliefs about our purpose here on earth, and to consider the true significance of Jesus' existence.

BLOG IT UP

2006-05-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

So blogging seems to be the go at the mo'. It does seem to be nice way to document one's thoughts and ideas. I often wonder about the things that are popular here in HK, whether its the same back in Aus. Is blogging a mad craze in Aus? Does everyone sit around in cafes with their powerbooks open on their laps in Aus? Alot has changed if thats the case. When we came to HK mid 2003, the 'AUS CRAZE' was to think of as many DIY jobs around your house, to add as much value to your house as you could, whilst spending as little money as possible on it.............all of which meant that most people spent their weekends at Bunnings. I don't think I'd even seen a mac computer before coming to HK. Now here I am...