Posts by Geoff Lealand
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One possible explanation for the surprising Best Picture Academy Award was that the Academy moved this year to a preferential voting system, rather than first-past-the-post voting which has prevailed from the beginning (previously, with the distribution of votes, a film with around 27% share of the final votes could win). This means it is now easier to shut out the James Camerons of the world. In addition, I read somewhere that the average age of Academy members is 70+. which suggests they are far removed from the dominant film audience these days (ie males 15 to 25).
Still, I was pleased that a small film won over the over-financed, over-blown, over-praised Avatar.
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OTOH, we have just discovered The Wire
One Big Ambition for summer which never happened. Managed another whole two episodes. Perhaps the dank winter months might be a better time to try once more.
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Night rain has been a blessing in the Waikato. It patters gently on the dry magnolia leaves and the dawn feels fresh and renewed. The veges grow mightily--in fact, I pulled out the apple cucumbers at the weekend as I no one was eating them. Summer still lingers and I build up a mighty sweat biking to the uni.
The highlights of summer? Al Green at The Civic, La Dolce Vita under a full moon at the Hamilton Garden's Festival, the neighbours offering use of their swimming pool whilst they were away, late night curling at the Winter Olympics, reading through a stack of quality mags, getting all my writing commitments finished, seeing my family off to Japan for a trip, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo....
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Just to side-track the discussion for a moment (but not derail it), I wonder if anyone else has been to any of the docos screening at the Rialto over the past week. Pinki's Smile was touching (about a hospital in India providing surgery to fix cleft palates in India) but the real beauty was a doco Pop Star On Ice, about the flamboyant US figure skater Johnny Weir. My daughter is considering setting up a NZ branch of Johny's Angels.
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Damn the Chiefs tonight! Sloppy handling when they could have beaten the Reds.
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I guess we will have to work our way through the backlog of homemade relishes and chutneys, some of which are a few years old.
My Sony wind-up radio is always to hand. Where are all those wind-up computers? One was being passed around at a Wellington Great Blend a year or two back.
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Whilst we are on about Act, is anyone else willing to subscribe to a fund to sterilise David Garrett?
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A great game. Ricky Ponting was gracious in defeat but it seemed like some of his team-mates are not accustomed to losing!
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My 16 year old daughter, who has a rather wicked sense of humour, picked on two zingers in commentaries during the Winter Olympics..
The Austrians like to lead and dictate..
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The Koreans like it from the rear
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o And by the way, Scott Hamilton (aka maps)
Thanks for directing us to this site, Gio. It is rather excellent--and easy to post a comment (Mr/Ms 'Anonymous' is obviously enraged by the discussion).
Re Junior Kauriki. Through a chain of events, I was privy to the history of his early life. It was such a dismal story, it almost made me cry.