Paint Me Red

There seems to be a lot of anti-Labour sentiment building in the local Christian blogging community. I think it’s time someone took a stand and that someone is gonna have to be me!

I’m not entirely happy with some of the actions of our present government, but nothing scares me more than the prospect of a National government.

I don’t see National repealing any of the legislation that has turned Christians against Labour, but I do see them making my life – and that of my South Auckland neighbours – a little harder.

For me it has to be Labour. It’s a two party system, I can’t vote for a minor party because I don’t think it’s fair that a party that most of New Zealand didn’t vote for, ends up deciding who gets to govern us – yes, I’ve managed to be anti MMP as well as pro-labour in this post!

The other thing that makes me smile is the concept that Labour is the government that God wanted elected. They have to be when you think back to all the churches that hosted prayer vigils for the last election, just to make sure that Labour didn’t get in, but God’s chosen Government did. Whoops. That would mean that Labour…

Who am I going to vote for in the next election? Probably Labour. It would take some convincing for me to vote National – and no, that isn’t an invite for people to start evangelising me!

And now a word from Delerious...

Autism in a bottle...

Need to finish that work project, and wish you had the mental intensity to do it? Just take a synapse-regulating inhibitor, induce temporary autism, and you'll want to ignore your friends and do nothing but number-crunching for days. Autism-inducers could become as popular as Provigil among the geek set by 2020. Last night, in fact, a group German researchers announced they'd perfected the method for inducing autism. (They can also cure it.)

Over the past year, researchers have demonstrated several times that they can turn mice autistic by messing with brain chemistry -- and then "cure" them using the same techniques. The discoveries could lead to a scenario similar to the one in Vernor Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky, where people are given a brain treatment called "focusing" that essentially turns them autistic and makes them obsessive, detail-oriented workers.

It might also lead to recreational autism, where people who want to take a break from having messy emotions about other people decide to unplug and enter a state where human relationships are no more important than inanimate objects.

Read about how scientists can induce autism [PNAS] and how they can cure it [BBC News].

Growth

Hi, I'm Hope and I'm busted!

I took my work camera home over the holidays, in case I needed it. It has a handy little video function as most digital cameras do these days. My wife’s smaller, compact camera however is easier to take out on day trips, so my work camera was left at home unused for the entire holidays.

Well, not quite unused as I discovered after downloading some photos I took for work today.

Hope knows that she’s not allowed to use my work camera, especially without my permission. Curiosity however got the better of her and she just had to video herself.

The thing that makes me chuckle, is what was she going to do with the video? She couldn’t download it because the lead was at work and by leaving it on the camera; she was going to be found out.

Sometimes children just don’t think things through.

Just wait till I get home Hope.

I Drink Your Milkshake.

I Drink Your Milkshake.

This is going to become the catchphrase this year.

Trust me.

Don't believe me? Then go and see There Will Be Blood when it releases in cinemas next month.

Stomp-Stomp

We completed our first family tramp today! Read about it here.

That's all, I'm wasted.

There Will Be Blood

I’m a lucky man; not only am I married to the most wonderful woman in the world, but because of my involvement with FilmGuide I get to go out with this wonderful woman to numerous movies.

Last night was one such nigh. We saw There Will Be Blood. I’m still forming my thought on the movie and the more I think about it, the more I like it.

The interesting thing is that the movie is normally the main event of any give night, but this night was going to be different.

On the way home from the movie, we dropped by to have dessert with 5 friends. Dessert turned into dinner and dessert, along with some very nice wine.

The short time spent with our friends turned out to be the best part of the evening. They are some of the most genuine, generous and just damn nice people I know.

Because of the good time we had with these friends, the movie seemed like it was only the entrée, spending time with friends was the main course, and our awesome babysitter was a fantastic dessert.

Yes, a very special mention to our babysitter, who originally expected us home at 8.00 but then we pushed that back to 9.00, and only managed to get home after 10.00pm.

A good movie, great friends, all made possible because another great friend is willing to look after our little tribe of kids.

I hope you found someone to give those chocolates too!

Bloody Hard Work!

Well the garden is going bananas, well, at least the pumpkin is growing like wild fire, the peas have all been eaten and some of the beetroot has been eaten. Planted last night in the pea space is some silverbeet and lettuce.

Due to the success of our foray into gardening, more space was required, which necessitated, as the tile of this post proclaims, some bloody hard work! A sprawling bush in the left hand corner has to be pruned back, rather severly, and the ivy had to be tamed. The ivy itself was a meter thick and had not been trimmed for some years. After two days of work, quite a bit had been removed.

But there is plenty left to be cleared!

The root system of the ivy was so well established after years of un-checked growth that it was like cutting tree branches in places!

But at least there is now some room to start work on a potato patch and a kumara patch.

Tomorrow I get the day off as I'm back to work, ditto on Friday. Come Saturday however we're taking the kids to their summer swimming programme at 8am and them going on a family tramp up at the Hunua Falls, taking the Cossey Falls track.

Come Sunday however, it will be back in the garden for me!