Saturday, March 08, 2003

 
Isn't it sad ? I bet most journalists have already written their initial "war coverage" .. just waiting for it to happen .. just like they have their obituries of most famous people written and handy .. I feel so sad (sorry for getting political) .. but the world has been such a nice place 4 years ago .. the biggest problems were the Euro conversion and the Y2K threat ... do we need those things that induce fear in use to go on with our lives ? Makes you wonder about "the matrix" .. where agent smith explains that the first matrix was a paradise .. but it did not work .. do we need those conflicts ??

All what happened since 9/11/01 reminds me of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" ... in order to control .. you need an outside enemy and an inside enemy ... did they EVER find out who mailed the anthrax letters ??

#posted by Peter 11:06 AM

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Friday, March 07, 2003

 
Typical Saturday morning .. we woke up because the rain was just SO loud !!! ... it rained all morning, but stopped around noon and it got pretty ... and pretty hot ...
Last night's dinner was chinese which I picked up from Fong Lee: Sweet& Sour chicken, Chilli Fish and those noodles with minced pork .. very nice .. and the perfect warm up lunch for a lazy saturday afternoon !!!

#posted by Peter 11:35 PM

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Thursday, March 06, 2003

 
This cartoon from yesterday's fiji times nails it :)



The only way to make it even more funny would be "Let's email them about it" :)

Well, what else ... last night we had Jonathan and Kozue (with their kids Kaia and Ethan) over for Pizza .. i made 3 different kinds: Ham/ Pineapple, BBQ chicken with red onions and then olive/parma ham/goat cheese.

We had a fun evening and the kids were seriously wound up and loved to run around, play with the froggies and try to find the cat.





#posted by Peter 6:29 PM

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Tuesday, March 04, 2003

 
I think I have not bitched enough about the great great online connection here for a while ..(read that link before you tell me "just switch to a different ISP!" .. there is NO OTHER ISP !!!)

Anyways ... it is getting worse .. even with all the restrictions and busy signals .. I usually was able to connect with 44000 or even 49000 bps ... nowadays it is rarely over 33000 .. I have also gotten used to the busy signal .. but now, instead, the server pics up .. and either "authentication failed" or "I don't like your modem settings anymore" or you get conencted, but you can see that you only send, but not receive (great for checking email) ... or you get on and get kicked off after 4 minutes ... and for each of those trials telecom charges us 11 cents .. so .. 5 times trying to get email = 55 cent ... thank you very much ...

I am also used to "prime time" which is usually from 5 PM to 11 PM, everybody is home, going online .. so, I avoid that timeframe (which was easy since I was without power anyways yesterday from 3 to 7 PM)... but last night it really got me ... after midnight, after many of the above, I got on with 7200 bps (yes, that is about 1/8th of 56K modem speed) ... even better, a couple of minutes later, I got a 2400 bps connection (i think my very first modem 10 years ago had that speed) .. see image below !!!



So, I gave up ... then this morning I barely got my email at 14400 bps, and I am typing this offline right now .. wondering when / if I can upload it.

Oh, dinner was chicken in black bean sauce over rice with veggies :)

#posted by Peter 2:24 PM

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Monday, March 03, 2003

 
For some idea I felt like cooking korean, though I have to admit, I think I never have ... but I made korean seafood/veggie pancake, with a special dipping sauce and then some steak. As for the steak, I found very thinly sliced beef at that chinese butcher place we discovered not too long ago. Perfect for sukiyaki or shabu shabu. Well, I used this and marinated it for some hours ... the trick is that you can only very quickly flash-fry those, but when done right, this over rice and some nice salad: great.

Sorry for the political intermezzo: but this article by Terry Jones is a fun/scary read. Comparing the real political situation to your neighborhood. Terry Jones is one of the original Monty Python members, so, you can even read it with his voice and inflection in mind. (thanks to Norn for sending me the link)

And since there are no pictures today: Those pics below came to me in one of those emails that have 1.5 MB attachments ... it had like 14 of those "crossed movies" ads, some of them less funny (like "The scorpionking and I" or "My big fat greek wedding planner") but the ones that got me rolling on the floor are below ... click and see it bigger ... read the tag lines :) oh, and it is not at all fiji related.



Oh, it seems the pics appear on worth1000.com and I must be in big doodoo since they say "no reposting on any other site" ... well .. let's see if they ever email me :) .. but go check out that site .. it invites to all kinds of photoshop contests .. and some stuff is hillarious ...

#posted by Peter 1:47 PM

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Sunday, March 02, 2003

 
Weekend Summary:

Friday night (after I made some little turkish dinner something for us) we went out to meet some colleagues of Ritsu at O'Reileys. A guy she worked with in the Solomons (Richard) was here for some days and wanted to enjoy the nightlife of the "big city" (compared to Honiara, Suva is a Metropolis)

We also made reservations at Daikoku, but that was postponed again and again, much to the Takeda's (the manager lady of Daikoku) dismay. Since I found O'Reileys too loud, we had drinks at Bad Dog, where Wayne poured me a nice Gin & Tonic. In the end 6 people of all different nationalities ate japanese in Fiji :)

After that we went to Traps for a short time (where, of course, we ran into James). Some fun dancing, but after a while we were tired and went home.





Saturday we went shopping downtown, got myself a new Bula Shirt, this time 4XL (which is usually great for me) was actually a bit too big .. but I like it that way :) We also found out that a stationary store close to the downtown boulevard mall has actually a nice selection of books, even some cheapos for 99cent .. so I got some. Then Ritsu found that some prescription medication can be had here for 1/8th of the price in New York, and even though it says "Prescription Only", nobody is really asking :)

Lunch was Noodles with minced pork and sweet and sour pork at Fong Lee (actually a shame, since it is a SEAFOOD restaurant... but both dishes were very very good !!!)

We went home, napped a bit, I prepared stuffed potato skins for the upcoming BBQ. We were invited by Jonathan and Kozue to come to their house in Tamavua to enjoy the pool and later have BBQ. Since it started raining around 11 AM and never really stopped, we dropped the pool part and went there at 6 PM. BBQ was great, while Ritsu and Kozue chatted away in japanese, Jonathan and I were talking about fiji, computers, our old neighborhood in New York, fascinating to meet someone in Fiji who went to all the same restaurants and shops. I really liked the way Kozue marinated steaks: some mix of garlic, mustard, soy sauce and what not ... was goooood.




We left around 10:30 PM and I had a fun time driving in the dark, the lights of the upcoming cars nicely reflecting in the drizzeling snow ... but we made it safely ... Misha was maybe sulking that she had to wait so long for her dinner ... so she did not show up until midnight.

Sunday was a real lazy day, though I actually got quite some work done ... but we stayed in pretty much, napped, ate snacks and leftovers and watched TV. For dinner Ritsu prepared some japanese dish: squid, carrots and seaweed over rice ... and she made miso soup, which is fantastic when home made (compared to the Miso Soup at Daikoku, where they seem to be stingy on using miso paste). And we enjoyed some great Sake with that.

#posted by Peter 4:11 PM

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