Personal Evolution

 From Marianne Williamson

I'm not an enlightened master but this is where I am in my life.
I'm not evolved beyond having crazy thoughts...but I think I 'm beyond being in a place where I am telling myself they are not crazy.
If I am having an insane moment I think I'm evolved enough to know I am insane in that moment.
Which means most of the time I'm evolved enough to not act on any insanity I have.
You can feel angry but that doesn't mean you have to send that email; doesn't mean you have to answer that text right now. Doesn't mean you have to say something.
You can know I am feeling like telling that person "WHOAAA!" But I can know this is not the real me feeling this. The fact that I am feeling it doesn't mean that it's the authentic me. If you are angry and you say, well, that is how I authentically felt - how you authentically feel in any given moment is not necessarily who you authentically are.
Who you authentically are is love - but that person said something or did something that so triggered you based on childhood wounds that you are not able in this moment to answer with love and feel psychically like you are getting your needs met.

Not a joke?

Not a joke..... or a protest about Burger King's connection with BP oil....

With a black bun, black cheese, and black sauce, Burger King's new Kuro burger could be the perfect edible accessory for the rabid All Blacks' fans - if it ever reaches these shores. 

Burger King Japan will soon release its latest creations in the gothic Premium Kuro Burger range (kuro means "black").

The Kuro black bun and tar-black cheese is coloured with bamboo charcoal, while the sauce is blackened with squid ink.

While All Blacks purists should stick to the Kuro Pearl ("Black" Pearl) burger for maximum blackness, the Kuro Diamond is also available with unpatriotic green lettuce, red tomato, white onion and buttery garlic sauce.

Burger King started the noir burger range in 2012, and the Pearl and Diamond are third generation black burger.

The two new burgers will be available in Japanese Burger Kings.

I love Godzilla too.

Todd's Godzilla review originally posted as a comment here

Godzilla films are special to me. I saw my first one 36 years ago, Godzilla Vs The Sea Monster, on UHF56 out of Boston, one Saturday morning on Creature Double Feature. Since that day Godzilla has inhabited a significant portion of my fandom. I have been waiting since that day to see just what Hollywood could really do with the big guy, and I will say that Gareth Edwards and the cast and crew of Godzilla have brought something to the table that reaches my expectations in some ways, and falls short in others.

I'll start with what bothered me the most; I don't understand the choices made with the human side of this film.

Why kill Joe? It means literally nothing to Ford, and nothing to the audience. It doesn't imbue Ford with any emotion at all, not anger, not sadness, nothing. "Oh well, back to San Fran, I guess."

The movies spent 30 minutes connecting the audience to Joe, investing in Joe's needs, wants and reasons, and then we're dumped off on Ford, the human plank. I mean, the film starts with Joe essentially damning his own wife to a horrible death, and his redemption comes through having a couple data discs in a bag? Joe should have been given the opportunity to redeem his years of madness, allowed to move past "I'm right!" into "I can help!" That is called a character arc.

By removing Joe from the film, it takes away the only human foundation the film has built to that point, and it collapses.

How awesome would it have been to see Joe and Serizawa together as the Voice Of Science, with Ford on the inside with the ear of the military? Except the military won't listen, until the end, when they're all proven to be right. That would have been THREE character arcs!

But, I guess we shouldn't expect Gareth to understand that, considering his first film is really nothing more than an A to B road trip with monsters hanging around the joint. Yes, a gorgeously put together, excellently presented road trip, but nothing more. We have no right to expect anything more this time around, I guess.

And just what the hell is up with the Japanese kid on the monorail? Is this meant to show us how heroic Ford is? Or maybe how good he is at catching things? It doesn't raise the stakes, it doesn't add drama and it means nothing to the narrative. The whole sequence is an air bubble in a chocolate bar.

Amazingly, as bad as the choices made by the filmmakers are in regards to the human element, they certainly nailed the monsters.

The MUTOs are easily the greatest new addition to the menagerie of Godzilla foes in 40 years. I had seen the toy designs a few weeks ago, and I wasn't really impressed, and then the first couple shots of Wing Muto really do resemble the Cloverfield creature. That said, once I got a good look at them, the design came into its own and suddenly I need those unimpressive toys to go next to all my Bandai vinyl kaiju.

The way the MUTOs behave is even more of a surprise. These aren't mindless, city-smashing monsters, no supernatural forces at work, no hidden aliens pulling the strings, these are genuine animals. They aren't doing anything but swimming, eating and making little MUTOs, to paraphrase another film about a giant monstrous animal. This is so refreshing, and it makes the MUTOs feel real, and dangerous.

Of course, the real star of the show is Godzilla. I've read a lot lately about how this is a return to his roots, where he is scary again, and this isn't the good-guy-Godzilla of the 1970's. Really? That isn't what I saw.

"But Apex, he kills all those people with the tsunami and let us not forget the Golden Gate Bridge!" To that I will simply point at Gamera, and the collateral damage and death he causes throughout his films and yet remains "friend to all children."

If you look closely, in this film Godzilla doesn't implicitly attack anyone or anything but the MUTOs. He is one-minded in his quest to destroy them. He's not flaming entire divisions of military personel, or pushing landmarks over, or laying waste to city centers. For crying out loud, he swims UNDER the aircraft carrier and yet seems to swim fins up everywhere else! He gets in, gets it done, and gets out. At the end he looks directly at Serizawa (Tell your sister you were right...) and swims away.

This is not a villain. This is not a return to the nuclear allegory of 1954, and I don't care. He's AWESOME, in the original, biblical sense of the word. He is the check and balance, the sword of mother nature, and the lesson learned here is that we better figure out what the hell we're doing, because mother nature could point that sword at us!

The design is great, but is also very old. This isn't revolution, rather evolution, and that may have been the smartest choice the filmmakers made for the entire film.

Except the feet. Those f*cking feet. What were they thinking? Thank God we only see them once and when we see them we don't see the rest of him. Don't know what I'm on about? Go look at the toys. You'll see what I mean.

It may sound like I didn't enjoy this film, but in truth I loved it. I've seen it twice so far, and I'll see it a couple more times before it leaves the cinemas. As a Blockbuster Summer Movie it has it's problems, and as a fanboy of these films I was always going to bitch about them, but as an entry into this franchise, as a Godzilla Film, it's fantastic.

The Twice Forbidden Fruit...

For a while now I have been fascinated by apples. Ever since I learnt, from one of the thousands of docos (Apples: British to the Core) I watch, how the species of apples I love came about and are propagated.

Now there's this... Joe Davis plans to use synthetic biology to insert a DNA-encoded version of Wikipedia into the apple and create a living, literal tree of knowledge.

“I can fit the whole Wikipedia in a small forest, in—let’s call it a very large grove,” he explained.

It's a whopper of a read - especially at this time of night.


As an aside - I worked super hard today (reflective teaching practise) - has been helpful that I am dramatically reducing the amount of time I am logged into Facebook and the amount of times per day I am checking it.
It was getting to the stage where I forgot what to do with the rest of the internet.

ANZAC Family Tribute

It's that time again (when I post the list of family members that I know of that served in some capacity).
I am in Melbourne for this one - interestingly feeling guilty (?) that I am not at the Nelson Dawn Service this morning!


For me (and everyone else I know) not a glorification of war but a day of remembrance and respect for those men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who suffered trauma no people should have to suffer in order that we are among the lucky people of the world who have the right to complain about things like the "glorification of war" on social media such as twitter and facebook.

While I am standing in the chill and lifting-dark of early morning at the Dawn Service I am thinking about how cold, dirty, sick, hungry, lonely, sore and scared the majority of soldiers were in that transitional time between night duties and day duties on front lines.
I also often think about the agonising unbearable unknowingness that people at home must have felt in a time before skype, satellites and high speed internet.
Not my idea of glory, that's for sure.

Thank you to those people I know of in my family who were changed immeasurably and in some cases lost their lives and futures as a consequence of war.

I do my best to remember you, especially today.


Uncle Bob Silcock  1917 - 1999
WW2 #296993
4th Brigade 20th Battalion 2nd NZEF 1939 - 1945

Uncle Bob Papps 1922 -
WW2 Navy

Uncle Les Papps 1923 - 2006
WW2 reg# 618429. 
Compulsory military training. He was called to service overseas including Egypt and Japan. 
 
Uncle Richard Papps 1931 -
Served in army in Malaysia

Uncle Jack Park 1926 -

Great Uncle Edgar Noble Papps 1908 - 1998

Great Uncle Charlie Papps 1883 - 1943

Great Uncle Henry (Harry) Papps 1878 - 1958

Great Uncle George Samuel Papps 1874 - 1948

Great Uncle Arthur Papps 1888 - 1977
WW1 #33149 Lieutenant New Zealand Rifle Brigade

Great Uncle Herman Wendleborn 1896 - 1962
WW1 #7/1160 & WW2

Upon enlisting in 1915, Herman stated his year of birth as 1894 to appear older and therefore be eligible for service. After being wounded at Gallipoli (head wound) and spending some time recovering in Egypt, Herman was sent home to New Zealand on 11 February 1916.

At the outbreak of WWII, Herman re-enlisted for duty with the Home Guard. He again changed his date of birth, this time to make himself seem younger (40 instead of 43). He served at Papakura Military Camp, Waiouru Military Camp, and HMNZS Devonport until his discharge on 2 January 1944.


Great Uncle Laurence Wendelborn 1893-1918
WW1 #7/291 Corporal

Laurence served in Egypt, Gallipoli and Western Europe.
His military awards included the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
He was wounded in action at Gallipoli on around the 7th August 1915 and admitted to hospital on the 9th. He was discharged back to base and readmitted to hospital a few times throughout August, through September and into Dec 1915. On 13 Nov 1918 he was admitted to the Featherston Military Camp Hospital in Wellington and died on 15 November 1918, age 25.

Great Uncle Darkie Wendelborn 1884 - 1952

Clifford Wendelborn 1914-1995
WW2

Lance Corporal Clifford Laurence Wendelborn - serial number 16215. Clifford served as an infantryman, despatch rider, tankman and driver during WWII. He repeatedly refused promotion. 

Ron Wendelborn
 WW2 Reg #: 21111 NZ Army Corp 1939/1945 

He returned to New Zealand on 23 January 1946. During the trip back, Ronald requested a demotion from Sergeant back to Corporal.

Jack Leslie Friend 1920 - 25 May 1941

WW2 reg #8378
Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF), 1st Echelon 20 Canterbury and Otago Battalion
Died of his battle wounds in Crete

Stanley James Wendelborn 1919 - 1945
WW2 Gunner, New Zealand Artillery, 4 Field Regiment
Died at war - Cassino, Italy

Henry (Harry) John Windleborn 1910 - 1988

WW2 Chief Petty Officer Airman
Military awards include  the 1939-45 Star, the Africa Star, the Pacific Star (Burma clasp), War Medal 1939-45 and the New Zealand War Service Medal.

Percy Herbert Windleburn 1885 – 1945
WW1

New Zealand Mounted Rifles, Reserve Battalion. # 80399. When he enlisted in 1918, Percy gave his birth year as 1890 rather than 1885, making it appear that he was only 28. 



Lawerence (Lon) CF Windleburn 1897 – 1974
WW1 New Zealand Expeditionary Force 42nd Reinforcements D Company

Philip Edward (Tulip) Windleborn 1920 - 1990
WW2 Korean War reg # 72279 & 207892

 

New Zealand Field Artillery, 29 Light Anti Aircraft Battery: Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF) & Kayforce.

Military Awards

• 1939-45 Star
• Pacific Star
• Italy Star
• Defence Medal
• War Medal 1939-45
• New Zealand War Service Medal
• Korea Medal 1950-53
• The United Nations Medal (Korea)

Henry Charles Schroder 1895 - 1971
WW1 reg #: 26461 New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 14th Reinforcements New Zealand Engineers

Percival August Edward Schroder 1896 -
WW1 Reg # 35501  NZ Rifle Brigade 11th Reinforcements 4th Battalion, (H Company )

Albert Charles SCHRODER 1874 - 1929
WW1 reg# 72861. New Zealand Expeditionary Force 37th Reinforcements C Company

Bernard Austin Schroder 1897 - 1956
WW1 reg# 25/570. NZ Rifle Brigade 3rd Battalion, C Company

Cecil Lawerence Schroder 1883 - 1968
WW1 reg# 59463 New Zealand Expeditionary Force, 31st Reinforcements Auckland Infantry Regiment, A Company

Henry James Schroder 1881 - ?
WW1 reg#25/144   New Zealand Expeditionary Force 3rd Battalion, B Company

Arthur Charles Schwass 1905 - 1982
WW1 reg#74550  New Zealand Expeditionary Force 40th Reinforcements E Company


Leo Philip Schwass 1897 - 1918
WW1 reg#48413  New Zealand Expeditionary Force 26th Reinforcements Canterbury Infantry Regiment, C Company killed in action 15 July 1918 Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France


Sidney Charles Schwass
WW1 Reg# 29307 New Zealand Expeditionary Force 18th Reinforcements Canterbury Infantry Battalion, C Company

Lewis Henry Windleborn 1893 – 1917
 WW1, Canterbury Infantry Regiment, 2 Battalion, 13 Company

Polygon Wood (Polygoneveld, or Bois de Polygone), named for its shape, was a large wood near the Ypres-Menin road at Veldhoekn (north east of Ypres), Belgium.
A prominent artificial mound in the wood, called the Butte, had been used by the Belgian army as a shooting range prior to 1914. Fought over during the First Battle of Ypres in October/November 1914, it thereafter remained in German hands until Third Battle of Ypres (aka The Battle of Passchendaele) in 1917.

The NZ Division went to Polygon Wood during the winter of 1917-1918 (about October). It was a very cold winter. NZ suffered about 3000 losses during that winter in Polygon Wood. They carried out the attack on Polderhoek Chateau on the right hand side of Polygon Wood on 3 December.
 On the 13 December Lewis was killed in action here.
At the end of February 1918 the NZ Division were relieved from their post.

Lest We Forget 
.

Lucky us....

Asteroid impact risks 'under appreciated'

A visualisation showing where sizeable asteroids have hit the Earth in recent years has been released by the B612 Foundation. The US-based group, which includes a number of former Nasa astronauts, campaigns on the issue of space protection. It hopes the visualisation will press home the idea that impacts are more common than we think.

Harold Ramis #missingyou

Al Bean Rocks

"I realise, if you go through any endeavour, any journey across town or to the moon and back, all that matters is that you share the experience with people that you love. That's what makes life special. As ultimately that's... all there is. That's really all there is." - Alan Bean, Apollo 12 Astronaut, 4th person to walk on the Moon

2014...