Archive for February, 2005
show me the money
A couple of years back, mr john laws got busted for the ‘cash for comments’ scandal.
Making comments on air about companies who passed him some nice little cash perks.
Well luckily for me, my blog is not governed by the same laws as a public radio station.
So if anyone wants to slip me cash or perks to say good stuff about them or their product.
Hey I’m up for it.
I’d even endorse pepsi for the right price.
Physio 2
So off I went back to the place of torture.
Cityrail did well getting me there on time, they decided not to dog me.
I went in and removed my shirt and layed down on the bed thing. The physio woman did lots of massaging and rubbing and poking and stuff, then used and ultrasound and heat packs and stuff for more treatment. It hurt quite a lot today as she was doing it. Then again she wheeled in the mini power station and hooked me up to the northern Sydney power grid. I’m sorry if your lights flickered this morning but it was for a good cause. Then more massaging. I think I layed on the bed table thing for about 35 minutes and when I got up I was quite stiff and sore. I have exercises to do and she said the muscled down the outside of my spine are really tight so I cant sit still in a chair for more than 15 minutes or they will get worse, she said I have to stand up and stretch every 15 – 20 mins for the next 2 days. She said its pretty bad, no lifting and stuff either. Bah I’m fine I can fight it I’m a man. Sure it hurts but its fine. I’m fine. What would she know?
On the way home Cityrail dogged me, I waited 40 mins for a train.
Dogs!
i have to go back on wednesday
UN Millenium Development Goals
All memebers of the UN (including Australia) have promised to halve world poverty by 2015
These are the eight Goals:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
a) reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 (US) a day.
b) reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education..
ensure that all children complete primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
Ensure girls have the same access to education as boys.
4. Reduce child mortality.
Cut infant and child deaths by two thirds.
5.Improve maternal health.
Reduce by three quarters the proportion of women dying in childbirth.
6.Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
a) halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV / AIDS.
b) begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other diseases like TB.
7. Ensure environmental stability.
a) reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
b) transform the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
c) reverse the loss of environmental resources.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.
Address issues such as trade, debt, aid and public health to promote economic growth and poverty reduction.
Well there it is. Pretty good goals I think. All we have to do is make sure the Government sticks to its word in honouring the UN goals.
We can show that we care and that we do want the government to commit to helping halve world poverty by singing the Micah challenge. Sure its not the only way we can help but its defiantly a start.
Show the government that we want to as a nation help reduce world poverty.
field of dreams
Westfield should have a “everything for howie is free” day
is it supposed to hurt after ?????
I went for my first ever physio appointment tonight.
I left work a bit early only to spend the next 15 minutes waiting on a cancelled train. Eventually cityrail pulled out a late running service and told me to change platforms.
I walked very fast to the Physio place, and got there about 5 mins late, but the lady was very nice.
I filled out some forms, and sat waiting while she broke some guys spine in the cubical next to me. Once he was dead it was my turn.
She told me to take my shirt off, I thought she was then going to pull out some special surgical glasses to stop the glare from my fluorescent stomach. But she didn’t. I had to twist and turn and stuff while she poked and prodded and squeezed until I thought to myself “ok that hurts now”.
Then it was lay on the table time.
The lady did more poking and prodding and squeezing, some how magnetically finding all the places that hurt the most. Then she put a nice hot pack on my back and walked off.
She came back about 15 minutes later and took it off then prodded and poked and squeezed some more. Saying things like “oh your muscles are very tight” and “oh all you muscles are so tense and tight”. Then she pulled in a mini power station on wheels and began to hook me up, with little sticky things on my back and neck.
She said ok now I’m going to turn the power up and you should feel a tingle, when it starts to hurt tell me. She began to turn the dial, the volts starting passing through my body I reached the hurting stage and said “ah” she replied with good, now I’ll leave it there for a few minutes. She walked off again, probably to drag out the guy who was in there before me. On returning she turned it up more. Why not just tell me to put my tongue in a toaster, it would have done the same job.
So there I was laying on a table having convulsions from 40,000,000,000 volts of power rushing through my body.
After the machine stopped, I stood up and walked around, I could still feel the tingles from the mini power station. In fact I can still feel it a bit.
I reckon I could power half of Sydney right now, just shove an extension cord down my throat and off you go.
I’m going back on monday
Newness
as you can see i have a new template. all very exciting.
Anyway the image at the top isnt very interesting so if people want to make me some I’ll put them up. The image size i’m looking for is width 600 pixels and height 300 pixels.
yay!
chest x-ray
Thats right, its time for free stuff again.
I found x-rays of my chest in my room from when josh snapped me in the office, tunred out my rib was just bruised not snapped so i dont need the x-ray who wants to win it?
first person to answer this question right can have my chest x-rays.
Q. What colour underpants am i wearing today?
all aboard
I’m not sure if i have ever mentioned on here that i collect train tickets. And have done since march 1997. This is a photo of my bedroom wall, showcasing half my collection. The deal is i can only keep a ticket that i have used amd probably about 80% of my tickets get eaten by the ticket gates so all in all i have caught a lot of trains.
I like trains and train tickets.
they are all in chronoligiac order and numberd on the back.
the verdict
Well after the cityrail dogging this morning, it was back to the doctor tonight. Jenny came with me, we waited at Hornsby station for a train to Berowra, and yes cityrail dogged us, not too bad only about 10 – 15 mins but it made me late. We walked up to the medical centre and the nice reception woman said there was a few people in front of me. She was right! in the end about an hour later I went in.
I like my doctor. The verdict is my ultrasounds un-earthed nothing special, so I have been prescribed some hard core tablets to take for a week that are designed to clean out any nasties like infections and stuff in my lower abdomen. Then if I still feel any nausea in a week or so, I have a referral to the “camera up the bum specialist”, I think that’s what they are called, I think the slang for that is Gastroenterologist but who likes slang. So there you go I could be off to the “camera up the bum specialist”. If I am you will be able to follow the process closely on this page.
Howie’s Halfpipe official sponsor of
“Passage of discovery”
A short film staring howie’s lower half.
Follow the pilgrimage of botcam46B, a robotic explorer, as he delves into the depths of the unknown and uncovers the mystery of the broken stool.
Coming soon to a cinema near you.
also the doc had a look at my neck and I need to get physio for a week then get an x-ray on my neck cause I may have torn a muscle in the left side of my neck. So there you go.
I’m getting a big head
Yesterday was the biggest day in the history of my blog. I have never had more than 200 visitors in one day, last week i had 199 and then yesterday 214.
you crazy people
The thing about cityrail is they are very reliable. You can rely on them to not run on time, you can rely on them to cancel the one service that you are waiting for, you can rely on them to dog you.
They sure were reliable this morning. I’m supposed to be at the doctor right now. But no cityrail decided i dont need to go to the doctor, cityrail thought i would much prefer spending my morning on platform 2. Just sitting waiting and waiting.
bunch of dogs.
I had to make anew appointment, its at 8:10 tonight. so afer work cityrail can dog me again as i try and travel up to berowra
Darlene sent me
Tonight myself and the Jenny went to see Hotel Rwanda.
We where sent two free tickets to the film at work by the one and only Darlene Zschech. So if Darlene is sending us then it must be a good film, and also didn’t want to let Darlene down and not make it. So off we went to the 9:20pm session at Castle Towers.
It was a very moving film, quite sad, intriguing, eye opening, educational and many more things too.
As the film began the opening shots took me back to my first few minutes in Africa when I was in the car from Entee Airport driving through the streets. It was a bit strange, I started picturing myself and reliving my trip to Uganda. But it didn’t last long as the story in the film began I became connected to the main Character Paul, following his every move. It was one of those films were it would not be a surprise if everyone in the cinema had a tear in their eye at some points. The struggles of the 2 tribes in Rwanda, the Rebels the fighting the cold blooded slaughtering. The film also showed the uncaring wester world, us snobby white men who did nothing except try and save all the white people.
The film follows a man named Paul who worked in a 4 Star Rwandan Hotel, his connections and networks with guests and his family. Paul was a courageous man who was extremely selfless and courageous. He goes against policy, he goes against normalcy and puts his own life on the line to save his people. Not just his tribe but his people being all Rwandans.
Its hard to rate films like this. But I’m going to give it 6/7
Thanks Darlene
Road Work Ahead
Caution workment ahead! My blog might look at bit ugly over the next few days, I’m just upgrading a bit and giving it a bit of a makeover. But due to my slowness it may take a few days.
I’ll still be posting just the template is a bit of a mess.
cheers
the wedding
Yesterday was the Wedding of Kaia and Mark.
On Thursday I asked tom if he ahd got Kaia a wedding present yet and he said no and neither had I. So we decided to go in the morning before the wedding. We went up to Westfield and walked around, then we decided we probably needed to buy new shirts to wear to the wedding. So off to DSD we went. I have a very light green – blue shirt and toms was a very light brown. From a distance they look pretty much the same. We ended up buying kaia and Mark a BBQ set from one of those poshy house shops. Its not just any BBQ set cause its in a metal suitcase. I think it was the metal suitcase that drew us towards it. Anyway we went halves on that.
At home we where all getting ready for the wedding, ironing and stuff. I couldn’t find my old schools shoes so I just had to wear my normal skate shoes but that’s ok. I looked like a trendy surfie youthworker. At 3:30 Tom and I left home and walked up to the church. The wedding started at 3:30. As we got to the church Kaia was standing beside the wedding car and said “I knew you boys would be late”.
The church was full to the brim of lots of peoples and it was a nice service. So so hot in the church though.
After the ceremony there was an afternoon tea, I tried to mingle but in the end gave up and just talked to my friends. A few people commented to me that tom and I looked the same, black shoes, black pants and same shirt. Bah different people!.
The Reception was interesting, there was no power at the reception place for the first 3 hours of the reception. It got quite dark, but fun and interesting and new. The main problem with no power was that meant there was no coke because the post mix machine needed power. But boy it was exciting when the power came back on, I made a B line to the post mix machine.
Its still a bit strange that Kaia just got married, its strange to be in a place where my friends are getting married, I don’t feel old enough, it’s a bit of life I haven’t really experienced before its new and strange and new things always take a while to digest. But at the same time its exciting I like kaia and I like mark. I think they bee a great couple.
Another highlight of the wedding experience was Scott, you know the boy who leaves a comment on here almost everyday. Well there he was, wearing a pink shirt.
Quote of the evening
Jemma to Ryan “If i died and my body was turned into a frankfurt would you eat me?”
No stirkes for me
Tonight was Anmols birthay gatering.
It was at hornsby Ten Pin bowling place. It was fun, lots of sillyness and bad bowling.
I have decided though that bowling is not a good thing to do when you have a sore neck because now my nexk is really sore, its ok if i turn my head to the right but looking up, down or left hurts. Its ok i’m going to the doctor on monday morning again to get my results from the ultrasound so i mgiht tell him that my neck is about to fall off too.
stupid neck, stupid body.
I should get paid for this
On Tuesday night I saw the Aviator with Tom, David and Anmol. But I forgot to blog about it and give it the big rating out of 7.
It was on $5 Tuesday. Fantastic, the person in charge of the $5 Tuesday at greater union deserves a 600 ml coke buddy.
Anyway it was a good film, I’m not generally a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan but he was good in this. Actually he was good in that one where he was on an island too, cant remember the name of it you know the one, bah I cant remember.
Anyway the Aviator, I had no idea what the movie was about before I saw it, I figured it was about planes and some romance with lots of Leonardo taking his shirt off. But instead its about a crazy eccentric entrepreneur who finds himself with a massive inheritance and spends it on making the biggest film the work has seen and also in the process making the worlds fastest plane.
The film follows the highs and lows of his career in the Air Travel business in the early 1900’s. A very good film. Also very long I think it was about 3 hours long. All films are long these days if its less than 2 hours its like you are just watching a trailer. Bit of a shame that because long films used to be a bit of a specialty but now they are just annoying because dodgy b grade films go just as long as little rippers.
Anyway the film was good, I would say that the character of DiCaprio was really an olden days Richard branson or that Branson is a modern day Howard hughs (di Caprios character).
I give it 5/7