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Santa Ahoy!

Rachelle's Mum and Dad arrived safely on Friday to join us for Xmas and new year. I think Mandy in particular was a little shocked about the heat and humidity. We did warn them about coming to Brisbane in Summer!

On Sunday we all went to Rach's boat club for Sunday lunch and the kids Xmas party with George, Julie and Reyce. In typical aussie style the xmas party was a little different, with Santa arriving by boat...





It really was a dismal attempt at a Santa. Lauren was not convinced, or impressed.

Most of the kids dressed up in fancy dress, and so did some of the adults...



By this time I'd already had about 4 beers and half a bottle of wine, so things were getting a little surreal.

After the party we all went back to ours where we sat out and watched the sunset over a few drinks.

The sky looked amazing...





Today, Mandy and Steve have took Lauren up to Noosa for a couple of days with Cath and Bonny. This is the first time that Lauren has been away without us since we arrived in Australia. Last Friday she finished Year 2 so she's now into her 6 week summer holiday. It's Rach's last day today and I finish up for xmas on Thursday. We're both back to work on the 5th Jan so we've got a nice 2 week break to look forward to!

More photo's on Flickr.

Sheraton Gold Coast

A couple of weeks ago we spent a night away in luxury at the 5 start Sheraton Mirage Resort and Spa Hotel on the Gold Coast, courtesy of a hotel voucher from Rach's boss in thanks for Rach selling one of the Marina berths. Rach has already blogged about this on her own blog so I won't repeat it here. Suffice to say that we had a great time, right up until the point where I got burnt to a crisp.

It's 2 weeks later and my legs are still sore. A little tip for any blokes (and women) with hairy legs like me: if you use the spray-on sunscreen, make sure you rub it in thoroughly!

Quantum of Solace

Being a rather geeky James Bond fan I was very much looking forward to the Quantum of Solace.

After the re-incarnation of James Bond in Casino Royale, which kept pretty much authentic to the original plot and character in Ian Fleming's novel, I had high hopes for QoS.

What a disappointment.

Unlike the edgy, exhilarating and well-shot action scenes in Casino Royale, the action scenes in QoS were a bit far fetched at best, and for most parts, completely unwatchable at worst. Unfortunately, it seems the Director and Editor had taken the comparison with the Jason Bourne films to heart and decided to follow this latest ridiculous trend of shooting scenes with a shaky hand-held camera and over-editing the scenes so much that the angle of shot changes with nearly every frame. The result is you can't make out what's going on.

I can imagine that in 10 years time we'll look back at this period in film-making and think 'what was that all about? Who on earth thought it was a good idea to shoot big blockbuster action scenes with a hand-held camera and switch between cameras angles so fast that it gives the viewer motion sickness?'. I think Paul Greengrass is a good British directory, and both the last 2 Bourne films which he directed and United 93 are great films, but they'd be even better if we could actually make out what's going on in the action scenes! Please, please, stop it. There's a time and a place. For instance, it kind of works in films like Cloverfield. In Cloverfield there's a reason it's shot with a hand-held camera. It's part of the plot, and, it does add something to the reality of the scenes.

Besides the bad editing, QoS also suffers from a rather thin plot. The film is based on a short story written by Fleming, and fleshing a short story out into a feature movie was always going to be difficult. But this just feels like treading water. Bond travels from one exotic location to another with very little rationale for why he's going there, except to chase down baddies. It was as if the producers picked a few nice locations they wanted to visit in advance of making the film, and then wrote the script to fit around the locations.

One of the best things for me in Casino Royale was the quick and witty dialogue, especially between Bond and the love interest - Vesper Lynd. There's hardly any of that in QoS. The non-stop action leaves very little time for character building. There's not much of a love interest either - not a classic one for bond girls! Bond does get his end away with one civil servant, who incidentally meets a sticky end covered in oil, reminiscent of that famous scene in Goldfinger. Her death is obviously a reference to Goldfinger where the character 'Jill Masterson' is killed and covered in gold paint. The bond franchise seems to be trying to send a message - the currency of power in the early Bonds was gold and diamonds, whereas in 2008 the currency of power is oil. QoS is that un-memorable that I can't even remember if he kisses the bond girl who survives to the end.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a complete disaster. QoS is still better than the average action film. Daniel Craig makes a great James Bond and Judie Dench continues to do a good job as 'M'. The action scenes where the camera stays still for a few seconds are really good. It's certainly better than the later Pierce Brosnan bond films where some of the action got preposterously far-fetched. Mind you, surviving a fall out of an airplane where his parachute only opened 10 metres off the ground, and running through a building engulfed in flames without getting even his eyebrows singed, was pushing it a little in QoS.

In summary, watchable, but not a classic.

Brisbane Storms

It's tropical storm season here at the moment and this year it has been particularly bad. Tonight we've been treated to yet another fantastic lightning storm after a very hot day, but it was rather mild compared to what happened on Sunday 16th November when we had the worst storms for 30 years.

Luckily we escaped the worst of it where we live on the south side of the Brisbane river. No such luck for those in the northern suburbs, especially The Gap where my boss lives.

This YouTube video shows how bad it got in The Gap. In particular watch what happens from 1 minute and 30 seconds in:



My boss's house was without power for 4 days after this.

On Thursday the 20th November we had another big storm, and this time I got caught in it. I was working in the city at a client site and left a little early to go to my office for the first of our 2 Xmas parties - this one being the one where clients were invited. In the office, we had the weather radar up on one of the Plasma screens so we could watch the storm coming in. When we realised it was heading straight for us many of us decided to leave to try and get home before the worst of it reached us, particularly after what had happened the previous Sunday. So I set off walking to the train station (as my usual bus didn't run that late) and got half way there when the heavens opened, and as is typical, I'd happened to have left my umbrella at the client site.

The rain was coming down so ferociously that I decided to take shelter in a shop entrance and wait until the worst of it was over, thinking that it would only be a short one. Twenty minutes later it was still horizontal rain so I thought bugger it and set off again on a brisk walk.

Near the train station there is an area where I need to cross two major roads with a traffic island in the middle. I crossed the first road and just as I got to the traffic island the hailstones started. I couldn't believe it. Whilst waiting for the traffic lights to change, in a very short period of time the hailstones started coming down faster and in increased size. I was watching them fall all around me - the size of golf balls. The thing is, for that short period of time I had absolutely nowhere to hide. I was stuck, and the hailstones were coming down that hard I thought to myself if one of these hits me smack on the head I'm going to be in trouble. Yet, the unbelievable part is that none of them hit me. They were falling all around my feet yet I managed to stand through it for a good 2 minutes before the traffic lights change, and then run across the road to shelter without a single one hitting me.

Talk about lucky!

The End of Darkness?

In just a few hours time, after what's been the longest, most expensive, and perhaps most exciting presidential election ever, we'll know who is going to be the 44th President of the United States.

Being a political news junkie, I've been following the race fairly closely for the last 18 months, and, like pretty much the rest of the world outside of America, I'm praying (figuratively speaking given I'm an atheist) that Barack Obama wins.

The world can't handle another 4 years of a Republican administration in the White House.

A while back I read Bill Clinton's autobiography - 'My Life', and he stated that although history will ultimately judge his presidency, his own view was based on a simple mental list he kept:- jobs created, increased access to healthcare, increased funding for childcare, number of people lifted out of poverty, etc.

Now lets apply that principle to George W. Bush. Here's my mental list:

• Over 4,500 coalition troop deaths in the Iraq War and hundreds of thousands civilian casualties resulting from a war, lest we forget, which was sold to us based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction which never materialised;
• The trampling of human rights and civil liberties via the Patriot Act, Extraordinary Rendition, Water Boarding torture, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other such terms we had all never heard of before 2001;
• The failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty, and furthermore, the continual effort to block and hamper the fight against climate change;
• The abysmal failure to act or show any leadership in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans;
• The complete wipeout of the federal budget surplus and creation of America's biggest ever budget deficit;
• etc, etc.

Maybe I'm being a bit unfair. On the plus side he did give records amount of financial relief to AIDS riddled countries in Africa, and was the first US president to acknowledge that a two-state solution was the only way to resolve the Israeli-Palestine issue.

However, on the first, the amount of money given to the fight against AIDS ($30bn if I remember correctly) now seems a pittance in comparison to the $1 trillion spent on the Iraq War to date and the $700 bail-out of the banks (a figure which looks like it could double). And on the second, what progress has been made? We seem no closer to a solution now than 8 years ago. At least 8 years ago there was no wall built around the West Bank. Given what many people believe are the root-causes of 9/11, you'd think that pushing the middle-east peace process would be right up there with catching Osama Bin Laden. Yet both seem to have took a back seat to what I believe is Bush's number one priority - 'Energy Security'.

I remember a few years ago visiting the White House website to see what his administration had to say about climate change. If you go there now there is a section titled Environment but a few years ago no such section existed. Yet there was a section titled Energy Security.

Some cynics may say that Energy Security was the entire basis for the invasion of Iraq. After all, we all know that the Bush family's links to the oil companies are long and well documented.

The last 8 years have been a disaster and George W. Bush will probably be remembered as one of the worst and most unpopular American presidents ever.

So, will we see an end to this darkness?

I'm not naive enough to think that America will completely change its foreign policy and stance on climate change overnight if Barack Obama wins.

Lets just hope it is a new direction and an Obama win will go some way to reverse the damage inflicted by 8 years of the Neo-Cons in charge.

As for John McCain, I had a lot of respect for him before this process began. I've read about his 6 years imprisonment and torture during the Vietnam war, and his refusal to be released ahead of his compatriots. He truly is a war hero. But the way he has fought this campaign has surely undone a lot of the goodwill many people had for him.

Some political analysts say that he has simply learnt from his 2000 campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee against George Bush. In that campaign he mainly refused to go negative and resort to nasty tactics. Bush on the other hand had no such qualms and many Americans, bombarded with adverts and push-poll phone calls, fell hook, line and sinker for the Bush campaign's smear tactics.

McCain has clearly taken some political campaigning lessons from Karl Rove and thrown his morals out of the window. At every step he has attempted to dumb the campaign issues down to the lowest common denominator; painting complex issues as black and white, and virtually labeling Obama as everything from a terrorist to a socialist.

The soundbites coming out of the McCain team over the last few weeks since the economic meltdown really has represented a low-point in intellectual debate. How many times did McCain quote Obama as using the words 'share the wealth', insinuating that Obama is somewhere to the left of Karl Marx with his policy of reducing income tax on the middle tax, as opposed to McCain's policy of cutting corporation tax for big business. It amazes me how that word 'socialist' is used in american politics. It's as if no american has ever visited Western Europe and seen the balance between economic growth and state welfare that has given a high standard of living with free(ish) health care for all.

Obviously I'm making grand generalisations here. It's mainly commentators on the right side of politics in America (right as in opposite to left, not right as in opposite to wrong), such as the state news channel that is Fox News that have done the most to brainwash some Americans into believing that all the issues are black and white; free-markets - good, regulation - bad; religion - good, atheism - bad; etc.

I sometimes play a little game. I put on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News and see how long it is until I want to throw a brick at the TV or start laughing uncontrollably in an effort to hide the tears of frustration at the ridiculousness that is the pompous, egotistical Bill O'Reilly. It's been particular amazing to hear his rants lately against the democratic bias of the MS-NBC news channel. Talk about 'pot this is kettle'.

Anyway, speaking of black and white, some commentators are looking out for the purported Bradley Effect to see if the polls are wrong and McCain can clutch victory from the claws of defeat. The Bradley Effect is a theory that many voters tend to lie in polls when asked if they voted for the black candidate because they don't want the pollster to think that they are racist. I guess we'll find out in a few hours time whether there are truths to this theory.

I've been watching the Emmy award-winning drama John Adams over the last few weeks which is currently showing over here. I wonder what Adams, Washington, Franklin, et all would make of the circus that now exists as a result of Article 2 of the United States Constitution? Whatever happens, these are certainly interesting times we are living through.

Playing the Tour Guide

Our latest set of visitors arrived safely on Friday - Frances and Rob - so we had a busy weekend playing tour guide.

Friday evening we took them to the Manly Harbour Village Halloween Street Party. Loads of people dressed up (kids and adults) and joined in with the 'spooky street parade' at dusk. There were kids rides, live entertainment, dancers, street performers, and all in all it was a great atmosphere.



We'd booked a table at the Boats restaurant which overlooks Manly parade so we had a great view of proceedings as we were waiting for our meal to arrive.



We later went to Rach's work (boat club) for a drink before proceeding home, and we came out of the club just in time to see the closing fireworks. A pretty good welcome to Australia for Frances and Rob I reckon.

On Saturday, which turned out to be one of the hottest days so far this Spring, we took them down to South Bank and spent some time on the city beach and in the lagoons. We later returned home and went in the pool, before finishing the evening off with a customary barbie and a few beers.

On Sunday I managed to get some work done while Rach and Lauren took them to SeaWorld.

Frances and Rob have now gone up north to the Great Barrier Reef for a few days. If they think it's hot in Brisbane they're in for a shock up there!