For neither can live while the other survives

I'm a big fan of Harry Potter. There, I've said it. It's out. Say what you like.

More importantly, the purpose of that quote, and largely the reason for my lack of production over the last couple of months...

My new site is up. Yes, zaktravel.blogspot.com has served its purpose, and done well, but the times they are a changing.

Thanks to my good friend Budge, I'm moving over to a wordpress blog, kindly hosted by Thusa. Budge has introduced me to all that is good about computers - Ubuntu, Acer, and now hopefully Wordpress as well.

So, this is my last post on blogger. From now on, all posts will be to zakwood.co.za. All old posts are already there.

It is, forgive me, a work in progress, so expect lots of changes over the next couple of weeks, until I'm satisfied with it.

I'll see you on the other side.

Happy New Years

Happy New Years everybody.

My 3:20am, drunk as a skunk who has drunk a lot, zero forward planning or thinking, resolutions are:
1. I hereby resolve to be better.
2. I hereby resolve to try harder.
3. I hereby resolve to work on one thing until it is done (or almost done), before losing focus and working on ten other things.
4. I hereby resolve to do some oether stuff
5. I hereby resolve to lose another 6 Kg's before Ryan's wedding.
6. I hereby resolve to learn to sing "Perfect Day" before Ryan's wedding. (I resolved this a while ago, and am on my way, but thought I'd make it official).
7. I hereby resolve to decide what I want to do with my life. Whether that be something worthwhile, or to continue down my road of uselessness and eventually turn into my worst nightmare (you know who you are), remains undecided.
8. I hereby resolve to use the word resolve more often.
9. I hereby resolve to finally finish one of the books I've started. See life of unfinished stories.
10. I hereby resolve to do some other stuff that I'm not telling you about.

Hear hear.

The things that amuse us

I am, this year, feeling very unchristmassy. This could be for any one of a number of reasons, which I won't delve deeply in to, but the reason is irrelevant. The fact is, I'm not excited about it, and quite frankly that's ok.

What I am, however, very excited about is a little competition we've set up for next week. The brainchild of Leigh Hallam (a Brit I work with, and the oldest member of staff at 36), next week Monday (the 29th December) sees the inaugural Great Britain vs. The Rest of the World challenge.

Some have already hailed it as the greatest battle to have faced the island since the summer of 1940. Others have said it's a ridiculous effort by a bunch of silly buggers in stupid uniforms running around making shouting noises. Personally, I'm not sure what the difference is.

Regardless, the fact is that next week will see a team composed of seven citizens of Great Britain take on a team composed of seven citizens of her former colonies, in three sports: Football, Rugby, and Basketball.

The Brits are heavily favoured in football, the ROTWs in rugby, and basketball is a total toss-up.

I'm on my way now to pick up our uniforms - a plain black strip, with names in white.

Wish us luck!

Assigning value

The value of something is as subjective as you get. Any substance, be it a product, or cash, or reputation, only has as much value as an individual will assign to it.

Which is why we get situations like this.

Question for the day - What do you find less valuable than toilet paper?

(PS - if you live in Ch, and you travel, the answer may be "Quite a lot")

Regions of legality

I've mentioned before the bike taxis in Huizhou.

I rode one home today, who, in a six minute ride, broke in the region of thirteen laws that I counted. Some small, like riding into oncoming traffic, and some larger, like not slowing down at a red robot.

Now, to explain a little more, the bike taxis themselves are illegal. Illegal, but ubiquitous.

So here's my "wonder" for the day.

I wonder, once you're breaking the law anyway, what the buffer is in terms of breaking "bigger and bigger" laws. If you get pulled over riding one of the bikes, you're in trouble anyway, so you may as well drive with no concern for other rules.

Thoughts?

Reactions

People who have known me for a while may know that despite having the agility of a cat and a deftness of movement normally reserved for master ninjas, I don't have the worlds quickest reactions.

However, you'll be glad to hear that they've improved.

Just today, while making my breakfast (after a row), the lid of the bottle of precious pesto, brought from Hong Kong, slipped out of my hand. Fortunately, my semi-lightning speed reactions have improved so much that I made a valiant attempt to catch it, and almost succeeded.

I would have, as well, if I hadn't been holding the lidless pesto bottle.

So now I'm drinking pesto flavoured coffee, and my kitchen smells of pine-nuts.

Not going into a full blown post, for various reasons, but below is one of the funniest things I've seen in forever. Mike sent it to me.


PS - watch this space.