Saturday, September 30, 2006

I'm Fine.


I'm fine - really I am.
IG - I have not given back everything I've borrowed over the years. So you don't need to plan an intervention.
Mum - I'm not saying I will never be a Dad. I just think that it is a possibility you might consider....

Sheesh!!! - maybe sometimes I have a thought, and write it down - and god forbid I write a load of crap that isnt true. :)

So in the meantime, dont think it's all doom and gloom, It's just that I cant write nice stuff all the time. Life just isnt like that, and neither am I.
Regular transmission will resume soon. And it will be about Top Gear.

Love
Mark.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Funk.

"Duck", said the Narrator.

It's funny how the little things can really throw you off your stride. For the last week I've been walking around in the biggest funk: a partial depressed state of mind. The arrival of Asquared (who I will blog about soon) has offset this slide, and the contant flow of red wine and fine dining has set me back on the road to happiness once again.
So why the funk?
Last week I managed a trip to Christchurch; I had some work to do with some people there, and I even managed to stay an extra day because I got involved in a nasty fault.
Serendipidiously my folks were also passing through at the time so I managed to spend a couple of days with them, but all this isnt what threw me out of whack: It was Coffee Girl.
In all fairness it wasnt even her fault - I was planning to drop in for a quick chat, and possibly meet her partner.
I arrived pretty much on time, and as a bonus got to meet her little daughter, who is, by the way, as cute as a button. The trouble is: I like kids. Obviously other peoples kids, because I eventually get to give them back to their harried, sleep deprived parents. I realised a long time ago that I really dig kids. Although one or two can be a bit shy around me, most can't wait to show me all their toys and books. Years ago I remember reading to Georgia when she was small, I even remember going around to see Tim and Sands just so I could catch up with her. It was an amazing thing to do, and in a strange way, really put the world in perspective. Kids really have a way of doing that.
Anyway - I was chillin with Coffee Girl's toddler, checking the latest in pop up childrens lit and platics toys, when Coffee Girl said "Mark, you'd make a great Dad".
You know - I think she was right. Problem is: realising I may never get to find out.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Our problem children

LinkImage from Whaleoil

I've been thinking about our politicans and their recent muck raking campaigns to discredit each other. Here are some points I'd like to consider;

1) They behave deplorably
2) They don't take responsibility for their actions
3) They lie to us.
4) If they don't get their way they change the laws to say its OK.

They are basically children, and don't deserve to be treated any differently. I for one believe that the time has come to treat them as they deserve to be treated - with contempt.

They are our elected representatives, and should behave (at least publicly) as such. How many times must New Zealanders be reminded - THEY WORK FOR US!!!!

Until they grow up I suggest we drop their honorific titles, at least until they deserve them. So no more Prime Minister or Right honourable - lets just use their real names because they are no better than us.
Respect is earned, not given lightly.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Mary Stuart Masterson is a Goddess

Yes: Mary Stuart Masterson is a Goddess.

When I first started taking photo's, I started with sports: first Rugby, then Motor sports. Eventually I got bored watching motorcycles go around and around in circles: Now I'm now mostly grown up I watch Formula One on TV where cars go around and around in circles. But I digress; because my friends, when it comes to photography, cars and bikes may be nice, but eventually you'll realise the real deal as subjects are people.

Take the photo above; metaphorically I mean - because this actual photo is mine - ALL MINE. It is not for you.

Mary is without a doubt the most talented and attractive character actress of her time. And although I will never meet her in person, I would like to comment on what I believe the photographer has captured.

Note the lack of formal clothing and jewelry and the imperfect hair, suggesting a practical, no nonsense approach to life.
Note the strong angles with the left arm, and the equally strong angle on the right, creating an impression of strength of character.
Note the tilt of the head, and the sadness in her eyes that seems to be mirrored by her expressionless mouth, designed to promote a sort of vulnerability or ambiguity.
The use of the chair as a barrier to symbolize the barrier she perhaps has to keep between her public persona and the real private person beneath. The hand through the chair perhaps to say she is not entirely shut off from the world.
The use of the brown and warm colors to create a feeling, that this is a good, kind, warm, down to earth person.

What I am trying to say, badly, is that a photo can mean many things to many people. A portrait can capture many different emotions, often dependent on the viewer, and a good photographer can, on occasion, capture a moment in time when the subjects character can truly shine through. It's rewarding when it happens.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Borat - believe it or not!


I stole this article from here.

Bush to hold talks on Ali G creator after diplomatic row.


US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter.
And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.
The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week.
But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted a swift reaction from the Kazakhstan government, which is launching a PR blitz in the States.
Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.
President Nazarbayev has confirmed his government will buy "educational" TV spots and print advertisements about the "real Kazakhstan" in a bid to save the country's reputation before the film is released in the US in November.
President Nazarbayev will visit the White House and the Bush family compound in Maine when he flies in for talks that will include the fictional character Borat.
But a spokesman for the Kazakhstan Embassy says it is unlikely that President Nazarbayev will find the film funny.
Roman Vassilenko said: "The Government has expressed its displeasure about Borat's representation of our country.
"Our opinion of the character has not changed. "We understand that the film exposes the hypocrisy that exists both here in the USA and in the UK and understand that Mr Cohen has a right to freedom of speech."Nursultan Nazarbayev has taken Mr Bush up on an invitation to visit this country to help build our relationship with the USA. "I cannot speak for the president himself, only for the government, but I certainly don't think President Nazarbayev and Mr Bush will share a joke about the film. "The bottom line is we want people to know that he does not represent the true people of Kazakhstan."

The Kazakh government has previously threatened Baron-Cohen with legal action, for allowing Borat to, among other things, make fun of his homeland, demean women, slander gypsies and urge listeners to "Throw the Jew Down the Well."

Anti-Borat hard-liners have pulled the plug on borat.kz, Borat's Kazakhstan-based Website after his frequent displays of anti-Semitism and his portrayal of Kazakh culture.
Nurlan Isin, President of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies took the action after complaints. He said: "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name. "He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."

The row originally erupted in November 2005, following Borat's hosting of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon. The Kazakh Foreign Ministry was furious over Cohen's bad taste representation of the nation.

'No such thing as bad publicity'

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference: "We view Mr. Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with the ethics and civilized behaviour of Kazakhstan's people. "We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."

Baron Cohen responded to Ashykbayev in character by posting a video on the Official Borat website. In the video, Borat said, "In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government's decision to sue this Jew.

"Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. "Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."

His blatant outpouring then prompted the Kazakh government to hire two public relations firms to counter the claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times. The ad carried testimonials about the nation's democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women. News of President Nazarbayev's upcoming visit has prompted experts to study the character's impact on US culture.

Sean R. Roberts, Central Asian Affairs Fellow at Georgetown University, has been studying the phenomenon.

He said: "I have found that more Americans are aware of Kazakhstan than four years ago when I last lived in the United States. "The increased knowledge of Kazakhstan, however, is not due to the country's economic successes or its role as a U.S. ally in the war on terror. "Instead, most Americans who have heard of Kazakhstan have heard of it through a satire of a Kazakh journalist named Borat.

"Borat certainly does not promote an image of Kazakhstan that is in sync with that which the government and its leader would like to promote abroad. "As the old adage goes, however, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity.' "If that is true, Borat is bringing much more publicity to Kazakhstan."

Cohen's representatives refused to allow him or his alter ego to respond to the controversy because it's not close enough to the film's release date.

Monday, September 11, 2006

The geek in me

Firefly fans unite!
Sign up to try and get a second series of Firefly on the TV.
Do it here, and I conjure you'll never regret it.
"You just can just take the book of my life and jump in at the middle"
Say's a lot about me - as does this post. :)

Ode to IG


I was talking to IG this evening and this morning, and in both cases the conversion flowed like the second bottle of a great red wine, just after a particularly stunning bottle of first red wine.
Guy conversations are never boring: they are fill of partial "bits", that to a casual girl observer would never make sense of.
for example;

Car?
Fixed
Valves?
Yep
Bollocksy mechanics!
Too bloody right.

Guys can talk for hours - debating the latest XBox game - to asking the universal questions of why all my girl friends like girls, and why slim girls always surround themselves with not so slim girls.
Guys are so unPC - and that is a good thing. In a guy conversation, what you see is what you get. No stone unturned - no truth unsaid.
When asking why I am still single - a guy response may well be "Because you're soooo fucking ugly - thats why".
Well I'm happy we got that sorted then - shall we move on to world peace then? Nah - lets have a bourbon on ice and a white owl cigar - It's been a long day.

The guys conversation is rarely heard in the home anymore. Sometimes the guy may make the mistake of uttering a line of "guy speak" within air shot of a women - or worse a wife. I had a friend who once decided that it was safer to say "I have no opinion on that honey" to every dodgy question his wife asked. It didn't work for long. It seems that the irony of honesty is not lost on the opposite sex. What would I know? All my friends are girls: and they like other girls.

So while I was discussing the irony that is my life - we skipped from conversation to conversation - much like a stone skipping on a clear still lake, until the inevitable sinking of the stone, when IG mentioned he was naked.

Nuff said.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Only happy when it rains

Artist's impression of subject

Have you ever been close to someone, only to find out eventually they were a complete nut bar?
A name out of my past has come back to haunt me, and although it has been over two years since we spoke the feeling of loss is daunting.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a feeling of sadness or remorse - I was totally happy to remove the "5 foot something" pile of crazy from my life. It was for the best - really it was. I just regret I spent so much time and energy trying to help solve a problem that had no solution.
But like all those other disasters in my life, I learnt from it - and although it killed me a little to live through it - and killed me a lot more to let it go, I never ever regretted it.
Some may say I had no right to interfere to offer help, but it was a friend, and for a while I think it helped. In the end I just ran out of energy, I'm sure "a certain someone" blames me for my failure - of that I'm sure.
I'm just thankful that I learnt something from the whole thing, and although the name spoken or written still makes me feel physically sick, I realize in time my memories will blur enough to totally forget. But in order for that to happen I cant really stand to hear that name anymore.
Does that make me a shallow person?

Friday, September 01, 2006

Everything Affleck

Affleck and alterego Damon take Best Actor Award for Pearl Harbour.

Anonymous said...this is very interesting, tell us more about ben affleck.8:17 AM

OK I will....

Ben Affleck is a fictional character. He has appeared in numerous movies - most recently in Kevin Smith's Clerks 2. In actually Affleck has appeared in a number of Kevin Smith's films but confusingly in all cases, known by other names. His aliases are many and varied; Shannon Hamilton, Holden McNeil, Bartleby, Himself, Ollie Trinke, and Gawking Guy.

Affleck has had an interesting career. At one time or another he has worked in the following jobs; Sheriff, Miner/Astronaut, Angel cast from Heaven, Captain, Comic Book Artist, Government agent, Blind Superhero, and Mobster to name but a few. I wonder where he gets the time. I suspect he had padded his CV ; as he was born in 1972, which would have made him -31 in 1941, and hence too young to enlist as a Captain.

However even superhero's have flaws: he is a complete womaniser. He has had relationships with Alyssa Jones, Grace Stamper, Bridget Cahill, Ashley Mercer, Elektra Natchios, Dr. Rachel Porter. Often seeming to be heading to marital bliss at the end of his last movie Affleck suddenly appears uninvolved at the start of his next movie. Girls beware!

In a vague reference to this shady past Kevin Smith added a bogus reference to having to '86 dead hookers from his trailer....

Affleck is however currently married to Elektra Natchios, who herself, goes by many different names. It goes to show that truth is stranger than fiction.

Evidentally Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms. We know this to be a fact; because Affleck actually said it himself in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Affleck also played himself in J.A.S.B.S.B - playing Chuckie Sullivan in Good Will Hunting 2 (Applesause). It was very ironic!