pushing the sky

The streets of Iraq were quiet for 90 minutes as the soccer team played in the Asian Games final, hoping for gold. People were anticipating victory, as a united nation, but the simmering ‘sectarian’ tension remained… “I urge the people not to shoot in celebration of the victory of the Iraqi team,” Sheik Abdul Hadi [...]

We had a “grads” Christmas party last week, and we’d invited along the summer interns mostly to make up the numbers. As soon as we settled in to start the night, a group pulled out cigarettes. And they kept going through the night. Now, I’d seen it often enough in Europe, and given the reputation [...]

Enough Politics! Casino Royale, the 21st Bond film, goes back to the “start”, the story of how Bond became Bond. Only… it’s not. It’s full of little cues to all those standard Bond quirks. The ignore-what-happened-last-time persists, as in all Bond flicks, but Bond’s never gone backwards, as it were. For cryin’ out loud, Q [...]

The last week of the year for the parliament was an action-packed one to say the least – the like that goes “one week’s a long time in politics” was shown to be quite true. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard replaced Beazley at the top of the Labor party, something which I would consider just [...]

The Firefly universe is to get an MMORPG: hotness shiny =). I may finally have a reason to start playing an MMOG.

The amended version of the stupidest copyright law ever has a FAQ to clear up “misconceptions” – remains stupidest copyright law ever. The hand of RIAA/MPAA is quite clear in this. Also, Ruddock is a bastard.

I genuinely feel sorry for the English; it’s not like they’re that bad, actually. Any other side in the world, they’d do fine (probably), especially if they put this much effort into it. It’s just that the Aussies are just that little bit more arrogant, that little bit more self-believing, that they’ll put in those [...]

I’ve hard enough of the Hemmingway design. I originally intended it as a way of provoking me to write more per post, but it’s ended up making me write less because I didn’t have the big things to write, or I just wanted to jot down a quick line. So it’s back to the original [...]

How well can you identify countries on a map? I struggle with the African, South American and former USSR Central Asian countries. My score: 70 (via).

Nice, Monaco, Barcelona, Paris, Stonehenge, Bath, Windsor Castle, Amsterdam, Grad Training and Parties in London photos all up =) Just London sightseeing to go!