g: the early years...

OMG, my mother is a drug dealer...

Mum is here from Sydney for 2 weeks and her new cell phone from AT&T is quite the entertainment center.

Day one and she receives the following text message:
"I have 10 mg of OC. for 10$. Who needs it?" According to google, "OC" is OxyContin.
A voice mail follows with a similar message.
Then yesterday another text :"What's cooking? Who needs what?"
Mum had just put together a terrific lunch. We were so tempted to reply with "Deviled eggs and some cold cuts on a baguette"!

I wonder what today will bring.

The best time management tool I have tried to date...

I was reading a blog post from Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Workweek over the weekend. 

He mentioned that using an online stopwatch actually helps him stay focused and avoid multi-tasking. 

So I am test driving it today and lo and behold it works. 

 

New Rules from Bill Maher

With thanks to Greico

Go Cate Go!

The Dow Jones is going to lose more today than on 9/11 and probably more than Black Tuesday in September of 1987, the late night comics are struggling without writers and the Oscars will probably end up looking like a press conference but at least "our" Cate Blanchett picked up two Oscar nominations - one as a bloke and one as a lady.

There she goes...

An answer to my own question from the post below regarding the Dow Jones tomorrow...as a recovering Stock Broker I can only imagine how the boys on the Street are feeling right now...

日本語でブロッグすれば...

今週、私 のブロッグのリンクのデーターを初めて調査しました。考えてみると、もし日本語でポストをすると影響あるかどうか、調べます。さて、日本の方皆様ようこそ！

Previous post

I suspect every other blogger has been doing this since the beginning of time but yesterday I figured out how to blog by iPhone. The result is my previous post...The car comment was because Kim and I had just picked up a rental at LAX and the lack of really basic features in some autos always amazes me.

The other one that kills me is leaving your lights on as you turn of the engine. Some (smart) cars simply kill the lights as you turn the engine off. Others however have the technology to annoy the heck out of you with an extended warning noise but can't quite figure out how to just turn them off for you...sounding like a doddering pensioner now...

Birth

NB: I am in no way judging a woman's choice of birth so hold the phone - this is about better birth outcomes.

Just a day before Ricki Lake's aforementioned movie premiere and the lead story in Sydney's major newspaper is a timely one. Choice of birth is for each expectant parent to decide. I had just never thought through the impact of the increasing number of C-Sections on overall bed availability.

They definitely have their place. But C-sections are increasingly becoming the default which seems a shame as the process of natural birth is one of the few experiences that ties generations of women together. In Australia as the article suggests, 30% of all births are now done by C-section. It certainly hasn't delivered Australia better birth outcomes. In 2007, we ranked 20th. America is at 28th. The clear goal is improving birth outcomes. An approach other than C-sections would appear to be a good first step.

Nostalgia: It isn't what it used to be...

Thirteen years ago a rag tag group of graduates from Newcastle University with some hangers-on put together a rugby team for the Waverley rugby club that went on to win the prestigious (ish) Sydney Judd Cup rugby competition. For many of us, it was our only Premiership in rugby careers that were cut short by buggared achilles, torn ACL's, tight hammies and girlfriends who just kept asking why. That and the reality that at 25, we were probably not going to make it into the Wallabies.

The boys will be gathering for a slap up Chinese meal in the coming months. I hope to Skype myself in for a virtual beer.

Why commemorate after 13 years? Counting was never our strong suit. And if Kim tries to throw the jersey out one more time, we may be off to "irreconcilable differences" land...!

Pop quiz answer...

The winner of last week's pop quiz were Gillian & Arden with this response:

"Tuvalu leased the marketing rights to its ".tv" Internet domain name to a Canadian entrepreneur in a much-publicized deal that has so far brought in more than $30 million (the rights were later leased to VeriSign); it adds capital through the sale of colorful Tuvalu postage stamps; and until 2000, it sold its excess phone capacity to overseas sex-chat operators." (!)

Congratulations!