Here's looking at you, kid.

For one reason or another, I've got a pile of movies to watch over the next little while. Some new, some old. It's really interesting re-watching movies from years ago and seeing how they compare to my memory of them.

Tonight it's Casablanca, I have seen it before but it was when I was doing a film paper at varsity. Unfortunately myself and another friend didn't attend too many of those lectures, they were possibly either very early in the morning - 8 am (unfathomable!) - which I think was the equivalent of my 5 am today, or they were on a Friday. And, back then, Friday was the first day of the weekend.

For our non-attending sins we ended up doing a 48 hour movie marathon in an effort to cram for our exam, which meant the films sort of ended up colliding into each other. The movie version of a Contiki Tour.

Last night I watched Kramer vs Kramer. The thing that really struck me about that movie was how both of the lead characters (Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep), to begin with, are both really incredibly annoying - stellar performances by both of them - but I didn't like either of their characters.

The night before last was The Godfather and, for me, that still stands up. Tomorrow night is The Godfather II which is three hours long. Pass me the cup of tea, the pop corn and the lie down.

My favourite so far has been Adaptation, the comedy drama written Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze and starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. I had seen it when it came out, but I enjoyed it so much more than when I first watched it in 2002.

It's quite interesting how the same actors keep popping up, but it doesn't mean you necessarily still like them. The night after I watched Nicolas Cage in Adaptation I watched him in Leaving Las Vegas, he was really good, but I couldn't stand the film. I put it down to being Nicolas Caged-out but possibly it was just too black for Pollyanna over here.

Anyhou, I won't bang on with an endless list of what I've watched and what I've yet to watch 'cause A) that would be boring and B) I've got a date with Casablanca.

*Goes searching for popcorn*

Things you don't think about.

I was talking to a colleague of mine who spent much of last week in Christchurch working inside the earthquake cordon.She was describing the absolute devastation of it, and then went on to say how much it really stunk, especially on Manchester Street.

She was talking about a fish shop which was right beside a butchery shop.

Can you even begin to imagine the collective smell of month-old shops full of rotting fish and meat?

Urgh, some poor people have got some really rugged jobs ahead of them.

But then I thought, perhaps that could be a fitting job for the looters?

How to make the world a scarier place....

..give cats opposable thumbs.

Be very afraid.

Eat your heart out, Goldilocks.

Sometimes I hear stories of people's incompetence and they just fill me with joy.

In this case, it's the story of a Northland teenager, bless her wee cotton socks.

Kerikeri police report that the 17 year old broke into a house, helped herself to some money and 'other bits and pieces', got overwhelmed with a spontaneous attack of narcolepsy and had to have a wee kip on the sofa.

Only to be discovered the following morning by the vaguely bewildered victims of her crime after they woke up.

Police say alcohol had 'almost certainly played a part in her failed burglary'.

If I was her, I would seriously be considering another career, cause it's looking like crime isn't working out for her.

When you put it like that...

I was reading Newsweek and stumbled upon these words from Simon Winchester.

'In calmer times we invariably forget the most stern and chilling of mantras hold, quite simply, that mankind inhabits this earth subject to geological consent, which can be withdrawn at any time.'

Kind of makes you realise that if there were to be the Humans vs Geology Grand Slam, we would be the underdogs.

The eighties called, they want their shorts back.

Bit flat out like a lizard drinking the moment with work, but thought I just had to share this from Awkward Family Photo, the website that just keeps on giving.I'm picking the family sport is body building and stubbie wearing.

Genius.

A question.

So they're saying that the devastating earthquake in Japan was so powerful that it's moved the earth on its axis.

What I want to know is: how on earth do they measure that ?

I'm picking that it's not with a tape measure.

A lovely text...

...from Themotheroffourboysundereight from Christchurch this morning.

'The birds are back today.'

My Glass is Half Full.

Getting Really Excited.

...getting an email from Qantas saying that you've got 2000 airpoints that are about to expire. ('Who-hoo! Isn't that's like being handed $2000 in air travel?!)

Getting Not So Excited.

...plugging in your details to discover that Qantas Airpoints work on a different currency to the one that works in your brain and that a return Auckland to Ho Chi Minh will cost in the vicinity of 41,000 airpoints dollars.

Even a Dora the Explorer Pack is out of my league at 8500 airpoints dollars.

Oh well, it was still worth the eight and a half minutes of delight I got out of it.

Irony.

I was talking to my father last week and he was telling me how my brother, Sunshine, was getting an Ipad.

'Well, you know', he said, 'with his clients he's not going to be wanting to open up his laptop. Much easier just to show them'. (My brother works in advertising).

I was driving home thinking about what he said when it occurred to me.

A number of years ago my father used to lamb a ewe, grow that lamb into a sheep, kill a sheep, skin a sheep, hang a sheep, cut a sheep up and then his beloved would cook the sheep.

And now he's saying that opening a computer up is too hard?

I love the way my father has evolved.

An Observation.

This is a shot of Christchurch's mayor in today's Sunday Star Times.The thing I find interesting about this shot is the mayoress's choice of footwear.

To prove I really have no shame.

In January I wrote the following post:

'Serendipity

Finding your earring before you'd realised you'd lost it.

It's like the universe giving you a wee hug'.

That was the post, sadly, I now have to update this.

Stupidity.

Discovering your earring after forgetting you'd already lost it and had it remade.
Oh yeah.

As a friend of mine said (completely dumbfounded after I'd told her), 'I'm really pleased you don't smoke drugs'.

In my defense, it was over two years, two cities and two jobs ago.

*She mumbles, looking at her feet, waiting for the men in white coats to burst through the door*.