My company has finally allowed me to enter the 21st century (or is that the 20th?) by giving me a new phone with a camera. As a little experiment I emailed myself a photo. I know it is the worst one I have ever posted, well maybe the second worst, but it is a milestone in technology for me! Tomorrow, San Nakji takes on this thing you call the Wheel!San Nakji for President!
I haven't posted one of my photos for a while and I know you are missing them! Here's a boat I saw in the harbour the other day. I can't tell you a lot about it. I know it's quite big. I know it's name is Earthrace and that is runs on 100% biodiesel. The most important thing however is that it has Maori tattoos which means it is tough. It is a big tough boat!San Nakji for President!
The epidemic has even reached the Savanna! What ever will we do? At least there is more him him to love...San Nakji for President!
An 80 year old woman was arrested for shoplifting. When she went before the judge he asked her, "What did you steal?" She replied: "A can of peaches." The judge asked her why she had stolen them and she replied that she was hungry. The judge then asked her how many peaches were in the can. She replied, "Six."The judge then said, "I will give you 6 days in jail." Before the judge could actually pronounce the punishment the woman's husband spoke up and asked the judge if he could say something. The judge said, "What is it?" The husband said "She also stole a can of peas." San Nakji for President!
It feels like the week has only just started and it is Wednesday! Yesterday was ANZAC Day, which is the Rememberance / Memorial Day for New Zealand and Australia. I have written about my feelings on this before, so I won't go through this again, but if you are interested I am sure there is a post about it around this time last year. Anyway, it was a holiday which is good. That means we have had three weeks of only four working days. Wonderful. However, we now have no more holidays scheduled until late June when we celebrate Queen's Birthday.I started writing this piece this morning and now it is the afternoon. Apparently I have a lot of thoughts in the morning, but in the PM they vanish... It is a sad state of affairs when you are as old as me, the mind is the first thing to go. I had all these thoughts lined up... argggh! I am the poster child for Alzheimer's.Oh yeah, I remember now. I am thinking of writing a book. I have some personal experiences I would like to relate about a certain topic. I am not sure whether, after I have finished writing, there will be enough for a book, but I am not really under any deadline so let's see how we go. Any advice? Has anyone else had a go at a book? I am also keen on doing some children's stories for a member of my family. I would like to do some illustrations, but I just can't get it right. Would someone like to help me out by showing me how to draw a dragon? Not just any dragon, but a Chinese one... They are the friendly magical kind...I have also updated my blog list with three more links. They are getting a bit out of control, so eventually I will clean them up, not sure how. My three links are; Cergipontin, a blogger from France who posts photos of her hometown, near Paris. Roman, who provokes interesting debate with his opinion. I don't agree with him generally, but he is very accomodating to other opinions. Red Slipper Lady, who has been a great commenter on my blog. I should have added her sooner, but I, as always, have been really slack!That's it for now, keep cool 'til after school!San Nakji for President!
Another grainy picture from my previous film based existence. London would have to be one of my favourite cities in this world and the sky line is amazing. Try as he might Mr Hitler just couldn't really hurt London, for which I am very thankful. St Paul's Cathedral became famous in 1981 for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di. It is a beautiful Sir Christopher Wren designed church, but for my money you are better off going to Westminster Abbey where you can see so much more of the History of England and Britain. Double decker buses, a world famous London symbol, have been phased out and replaced with boring buses instead. There are still double deckers for tourists, but it's just not the same.San Nakji for President!
When I was at the FIFA World Cup in 2002 (I can't believe it was that long ago), I first discovered the joy of digital photography. I worked at the World Cup and this photo is of the Korean National Team bus. Koreans, teenage girls in particular, have a habit of expressing their love for various players of their favourite teams by drawing all over buses, dormitories, you name it. It's a hell of a sight!San Nakji for President!
San Nakji for President!
This is a Aotearoa native Gecko. They are quite rare now as cats have thinned their numbers a lot. The problem with native animals here is that they are not good at dealing with the foreign invaders like cats, dogs, rats, stoats, ferrits... I don't know a lot about Geckos. When I was a kid I used to keep the ones that my cat brought inside (yes, I am part of the problem) as pets. This one was really small. Smaller than your index finger. Yes, YOUR index finger.San Nakji for President!
No photos in this post, just for a change. I thought I would mix it up, so to speak. So, how is everyone? I'm fine, thanks for asking. Life is going along at a pace, as it always does and while there are always small potholes in the road, I can't complain. The way I figure it, there's always someone worse off than me, so snap out of it! (As Cher famously said...). What else is happening? Well.... I can't really give too much away about myself. I of course will never post a photo. (Sorry Friar) I wouldn't want to intimidate you with extreme good lookingness. What you can know is that I am from New Zealand, which I like to refer to as Aotearoa (the Maori name). I have a Mrs San Nakji. I am a huge fan of Korea which I try to get to about once a year. Um... what else? I love taking photos, I am quite opinionated and very left wing in my thinking. My hobbies are travel, movies and pub quiz. And for the record my star sign is Taurus. Anything else you would like to know?I found a website where for a small investment I can post my own podcasts. I am thinking that would be something fun to do. I wonder how my accent would go down? I wonder what the hell I would talk about? Would anyone listen? Do I care? So many questions and so much time.I leave you with this thought. If one and one are two and two and two are four, then why did the chicken cross the road?San Nakji for President!
The last one in this series. This Monarch had just hatched and was 'inflating' her wings as I took the photo. They are a truly beautiful creature. Beautiful as caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly. Nature is truly wonderful sometimes. To balance this, another butterfly was also trying to get his wings ready for flight, but they were not cooperating. He was never going to take off and probably starved to death. Nature is both cruel and beautiful.San Nakji for President!
This is a Monarch Butterfly chysalis. I must admit that I haven't seen too many other chyslises (or is that chysali?), but this is quite beautiful. The golden thread is particularly amazing.San Nakji for President!
Out and about on Easter weekend and I found some subjects for my camera. This is a Monarch Caterpillar. I am sure they are all over the place in this world of ours. We don't have a lot of interesting caterpillars here, so this one is about as good as they get.San Nakji for President!
It seems I reached a milestone without realising it. This post is number 501. I am a bit sad that no. 500 was not as happy and flowery as it could have been, but maybe it can be my message to all you kids out there!Thanks for the support thus far. I hope you can be here with me for another 500 posts or more. Happy Easter for those who celebrate. For those who don't, at least enjoy copious amounts of chocolate like I am doing! What better excuse?San Nakji for President!
Kira's Slave is talking to a guy who says he wants to kill himself. He asked me for advice. I have to be honest and say that suicide has never crossed my mind. I can't start to understand what kind of state you would have to be in to even contemplate doing yourself in. That said, I do know about life having lived a fair bit longer than this 17 year old. Life is all about ups and downs. When things are down it is easy to believe that the misery is all about you and no one can possibly know how you feel. Well, anyone can tell you that is crap. We all suffer from life, but we all benefit from it also. How I would miss the taste of bacon if I were to die today. A simple pleasure to be sure, but one that makes life just that little bit better. Everyone has things that make life worth living. Whether it is a big thing like love or a little thing like rain on the roof at night. This is what life is about. We all eventually die, so why rush it. I say enjoy the little things, enjoy the big things when they come along. Every day brings something new, sometimes bad, sometimes good, but who can say? In my opinion life rocks! Death doesn't sound that great... What say you all?San Nakji for President!
A friend from work was kind enough to let me post this photo of a fruitbat making it's way out for the night. It was taken two weeks ago in a inner city Melbourne (Australia) park. I know a lot of people find bats creepy, but for me they are majestic creatures that put other mammals to shame. I am sad to say I have actually eaten one, it was too boney with not enough meat. I am now one with the bats!San Nakji for President!
Twenty years ago, as a struggling and penniless sous chef in Paris, Giorgio Locatelli once saved a month’s salary simply to buy a cut of beef. But then it wasn’t just any cut. It was Wagyu, and it was making its European debut as the world’s most expensive meat. On Saturday he tasted it again, though this time it was free. Which was just as well, really, since the rare ingredient, imported from Japan, was the gourmet filling in Britain’s most expensive sandwich — a speciality which goes on sale from Monday at the Sandwich Counter at Selfridge’s, in Oxford Street. So who better than Giorgio, now a celebrity chef and the owner of Locanda Locatelli, the Michelin-starred restaurant, to give it a taste run? “It’s big, isn’t it,” he says, gazing at the sandwich’s creator, Scott McDonald, Selfridge’s executive chef, who, with the practised dexterity of a professional, slices the 21oz sandwich in two. “It’d better be, mate,” says Scott, “it’s £85 for a round.” But is the costly cut worth it? Well, Giorgio was certainly impressed. “Delicious,” he says, struggling not to lose any of the succulent beef as he tries to get his mouth around the sandwich. “Utterly fantastic mixture of tastes. Tangy, sweet... a monster mouthful that would be a really sexy love food to share with a lover. The beef simply melts, it falls apart. I’m impressed.” But just why does it cost so much? The slices of 24-hour fermented sour dough bread are spread with a mayonnaise flavoured with foie gras (£30 a lb) and black truffle (£340 a lb). There is a generous helping of brie de meaux, considered Europe’s finest cheese. The beef itself, comprising a third of the weight of the sandwich, is a snip at £28 a pound. English cherry tomatoes and rocket, plus peppers roasted on a naked flame and then skinned and sliced finely, complete the presentation.
(From the Telegraph)
San Nakji for President!
This is a photo I took a while back in Korea. to me this is a scene that always reminds me of Korea. Mountains and tradition. San Nakji for President!
My favourite ad on TV here in Aotearoa is a real example of what we find funny. It is a sad sad thing, but I think you should check it out here.Two things you should know. Togs is the New Zealand word for a swimming costume or bathing suit or whatever you call it in your part of the world. Undies are our word for underwear.And yes, he mentions budgie smuggling...San Nakji for President!
In Melbourne, Australia, they had a problem with wanting to build a brand new shopping complex on top of a historic building. Well, for them it wasn't a problem. They built the complex OVER the building... It is quite a sight. I don't know if this has been done elsewhere...San Nakji for President!
I am relying on a library of animals that I have personally photographed at the moment. All of them were in Australia, hence the plethora of Australian animals. In my opinion, Australia has some of the best animals anyway...This little guy above is a Wombat. By far my favourite of all animals. Kind of like Koalas that run around on the ground. Such a fascinating animal, please read the link to learn more. This one was an inhabitant of Melbourne zoo. He looked pretty happy about it too!San Nakji for President!
San Nakji for President!
"Hello, hello. What's going on? What's all this shouting? We'll have no trouble here. This is a local beach for local people..."Actually, I am sure very few of my readers will know this quote, but it is from a show I love called The League of Gentlemen. I don't know why I used it... This photo is of our local beach. Since it was taken NZ has come off daylight saving and I really miss it! It's still pretty warm here, but now it's getting dark as I get home, which really sucks!San Nakji for President!
So I am watching Oprah and she is talking about America's poor. Apparently there are 37 million people on the poverty line out there. That kind of sucks. However what urked me about Oprah was that she visited a place about 100kms from Chicago where most houses don't even have running water. She said it was terrible and then she left... That was it. Here is a woman who is more than happy to give a bunch of greedy white girls some free cars, but she won't give these people $1000 to hook up to the water supply... What the hell?San Nakji for President!
One place you are told you must visit in Greece is Delphi. It is the place of the Oracle, where generations of kings would go to find out whether they would prosper or fail. It is where Alexander was told that he would become a great king and even though those times are long past, it is still an amazing place, set in the mountains overlooking miles of olive trees and in the distance the Gulf of Corinth. I made it there in November when the tourist season was over and was blessed with great weather and the place all to myself. That was the time to go!San Nakji for President!
I have just been watching 28 Days Later. No, not that awful Sandra Bullock movie. (Well, to qualify, they are all awful!) It is a great movie set in a London where a plague has turned everyone into zombies. It sounds awful, and to be fair it isn't the most optimistic film, but there is something fascinating about the idea that London has been turned into a wasteland where a few survivors have to fend for themselves. I think we all imagine ourselves as the survivors somewhere, be it a desert island or a zombie infested metropolis. It is fun to imagine how we would survive and what we would do. I wonder why that thought is so fascinating? Anyway, I haven't seen the end of the film. I am taping it as I write this. Hopefully I will watch it tomorrow morning before work. I have a feeling it is not going to turn out too happy though. Great apocolypse films to watch in my opinion... (not at all humble!)1 - Stephen King's The Stand2 - Quiet Earth (A New Zealand film, bloody good!)3 - Reign of Fire4 - 28 Days Later5 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (nah, just kidding!)I am sure there are some more, just can't think of them right now...To set the record straight on zombies though. I prefer vampires any day of the week. Zombies seem to be a never ending tide of unstoppable shamblingness... So very depressing. With vampires, at least we have Blade kicking arse for us! Yay Blade!San Nakji for President!
My favourite place in all of Greece is Nafplio, about an hour or so south of Athens. It is so tranquil and is filled with so many amazing sights. It would be the place I would most like to live if I were not here or Korea.... I wish I were there now... *sigh*San Nakji for President!
I was looking through some old photos I took the old fashioned way and started scanning some from my trip to Greece in 2003. I have to count this as one of my favourite trips I have ever taken. Obviously scanned photos don't come out as well as digital photos, but I think this one did quite well. It is a place in southern Greece called Monemvasia. I think I wrote about it before. If you don't remember the story, I can tell you again. Just ask! I think the water came out wonderfully here!San Nakji for President!
San Nakji for President!
