Cartoons

Well I was home ill for a couple of days last week. Tis the season for every virus that pass my window for me to grab it. Actually I've been not too bad this past Christmas since every December April and October I have rounds of the flu or cold or some other ache and pain. So I actually made it through December without any problems. Maybe this is just to fulfill my quota. I have been watching in interest the Muslim community's outcry to the Danish cartoonist depiction of their founder. Not saying that some things are not sacred but burning and rioting and violence is taking it just a little too far. UI can honestly say that I cannot understand how a nation built on the principles of peace can be so irritable to the ponit where many persons even here in Jamaica see Muslims as fanatics and are seen as crazy through the eyes of many. Granted that this recent behaviour isn't helping any. It is kinda only strengthening the views. I won't post any links to the cartoons for fear of drawing the wrath of many on the blog of one. Seems that cartoonist in contraversial situationwas the order of the week because another cartoon appearing in a US newspaper Washington Post drew the wrath of citizens when it showed a veteran with no arms and legs and in bandages being told that his condition would be listed as battle hardened or something along those lines. I linked it from a website here. I guess they were insinuating that the real effects of the so-called war on terrorism was being understated. Just my interpretation. Other than that nothing too much going on. I rewired my car stereo system yesterday. Took me almost the whole afternoon. An amplifier that had served me for 10 years finally burned out. I replaced it but the new one required more power and different speakers so I just decided to do a wholesale rewire and use fresh stuff. It sounds good but now my wife is cussing because my son is trying to deafen her. Suffered a few cuts and bruises in the prcess but I'l live. Gone do some reading, so till later.........

Idle Chatter

Well nothing much on the home front to chat about. Apparently the cowitch thing got a little out of hand on Monday because quite a few schools reported serious infiltration from the menance. At my wife's high school the nurse's station was beyond capacity before school started. At a co-worker's son's school they had an overwhelming number of cases and almost the "entire" school going to the nurse. The story actually made the news on Tuesday. Well for the past few weeks I have been toying with the idea of giving up the blogging. It's easy to say but I guess hard to do. Right now I am so caught up in the whole school thing that I really am finding it hard to keep up the posting and the reading. The time that I had initially ear-marked for blog activity is rapidly disappearing as assignments get more difficult and closer together. I am determined, though, to keep going as long as I can and to exhaust every other alternative before calling it quits. May even have to go to late night/early morning activities if the need arises. I have already exceeded my opening targets. When I started this blog I gave myself a year. That has gone and I'm still at it. Sometimes there isn't the vibes to post or the drive to go find something of note but some how or the other something gets said. Maybe what I need to do is to go back to what the real reasons were for this blog: 1) a bit of fun and mystique.......ok still there 2) a voice....still there 3) meeting a few good people.......still happens 4) keep in touch with the world.......still happening 5) run off my mouth......still happens 6) represent for the Caribbean.......ok sometimes 7) something to pass time.........this is the changed part...there isn't much time to pass anymore. 8) to explore other cultures especially those nearby......still awed by how similar we are and by how different we are as well. 9) fass in people business.......ok, not so, more like interest in the lives of those we meet online. All in all things really haven't changed much. Maybe I should just ask you to bear with me as I try to deal with these final 5 semesters at school with the understanding that I won't have as much free time to give to this (or anything else for that matter). I've already given up my badminton and going out and my motorsport vice has become even more limited because of school so I don't think I want to give up much more so we'll see how it goes. Anywayz, I was just writing some off the brain stuff. BTW, did you notice that I finally organized my links panel and I added some daily reads that I've kinda been meaning to add for some time. Maybe I'll play with some other stuff on the weekend. Have a great week all.

Life Lessons

I've never been a a fan of English Literature. In fact, I failed the subject miserably in high school probably (more like most certainly) from not trying. I just despised it and hated the idea of being forced to read for passing grades rather than for the love of the book. Granted there were some good books forced upon us but eventually the bad ones won out and my love for reading kinda went through the door. I remember having to examine certain phrase and find it's source in literature. I asked my grandfather and he was able to just rattle it off. That phrase was: "Neither a borrower nor lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. And this above all, to thine own self be true...." I remember him jokingly saying that most phrases given to look up come from one of two places, The Bible or Shakespeare. This one came from Shakespeare...Polonius preparing his son Laertes for foreign travel in the play "Hamlet". This phrase has been relived so many times in modern society and is as true today as it was then. Think about our own financial dealings. So many times we've tied ourselves into the credit cards and bank loans and the hire purchase that we can't even breathe at the end of the month. The pay cheque belongs to somebody else and we are forced to beg borrow or steal to survive till the next pay cheque (which incidentally isn't ours either). I've been a lender on a few ocassions and I've managed to recover a few of those loans. I keep telling myself that I won't do this again and still I keep getting myself into these kinds of dilemna. I loaned some funds to a friend who was in deep hot water at the time and I had a little bit extra from some allowance or the other so I decided to help out a situation, since this person has helped me out in the past. Now getting back the funds is the hard part. Now I'm not saying that things are not hard because I know the situation but I can't help but feel a bit slighted since I don't see the effort necessary to repay my funds. Case in point, this person came into some extra money recently and chose to repay some outstanding bills from whenever with a "plan" to repay me out of the second part of her payout. To date that promise is yet to materialize. My question is, "Is it because I am a friend why I am not a priority?" Now I've seen this person "beg" tickets to the Jazz Festival and get sponsorship for other things which to me are not of any priority and yet I am still awaiting my money. Now in very much the same way that you can acquire these expensive sponsorship to these events I think you could acquire sponsorship to help repay the debts that you have. My thought would be that if I know I owe so many people so much money then three nights of singing no matter who the artistes would not be paramount on my agenda. In fact I would certainly be keeping my little tooshy quiet. I guess some of us think differently. Who knows, maybe I wanted to go to the Jazz Festival too but couldn't spare the funds because all I had extra is tied up in a loan to somebody. I know I will be repaid, that's not the point, my only concern is when. Everytime I think about it I have a new round of depression and anger and disbelief all rolled into one. This is my friend treating me this way. And yes the person is still a friend and will remain that way because despite whatever is not so right there are more than enough good thing about them to make me overlook this shortcoming. The writing here is because I just need to vent a bit. One thing I can assure you is that it won't happen again not with this person at any rate.

Frightening

Today's children (and adults) are living in a digital age. They are exposed to so many issues. As a parent how do you protect them? It may be all well and good for you to say that it's only a computer screen and you can't shelter them but this article from Dateline NBC paints a shocking picture of what can happen.

It's quite a few pages long but when I started I went through them all and thought immediately about my own kids one of whom is an internet junkie.

From my own point-of-view, I've met a few people from the cyberspace realm and they have proven to be pretty decent people. If I were living in some other country maybe I would have been a little more apprehensive. Then again we face dangers in everyday life. Is the answer to just simply isolate yourselves away from everybody or everything? In reality, the persons we meet online could have well been met at a friends party. I guess the key to it is that if it doesn't feel right then leave it alone.

Be safe you all.

Nadda

Well the weekend went by really quickly and it almost feels as if it never started. I took some time out toady to go watch some driving at the dexerity event held near by me today. It was relaxing. The shorter one celebrated her 14th birthday on Friday. Hard to believe that she has reached that already. She had a good day and tied it up with a games evening. Heard a corny joke on Friday and decided to share it with you guy: Well Jesse and his brother Frank decided to hold up a train in one of their glory moments. The gang all got on and one gang member decided it was his turn to make the announcement but he wasn't too bright. "Ladies and Gentlemen...this is a holdup......we shall be....robbing the women and raping the men!!" Miss Prim and Proper in the front asked "What did you say?" Not too Bright says in his best holdup voice " We will be robbing the women and raping the men!" Miss Prim and Proper pipes up..."Don't you mean robbing the men and raping the women?" Not so bright stutters but before he can answer, from the back of the train a strange voice shouts out . (It's Mr. Gay Lord Frankyguy) "Hello there missy is you or is them robbing the train?....leave them alone to do what they want to do to us men!" Have a great day all.

More Political Chit Chat

Well I haven't ben able to get about the task of blogging although I have been reading. The joys of school life have returned. OK for all you non Jamaicans out there...there are 2 major political parties in Jamaica...the JLP and the currently ruling PNP. There are also quite a few others including a major party wanna be, the NDM. They are probably the closest thing to a rival that the 2 major parties will have in the foreseeable future (somehow that don't look like it spell right). Now we are in a sad state of affairs when so many people can't make up their minds about who they want as leadership simply because...THERE IS NO LEADERSHIP. I am facing this dilemna 1 year before an election because I honestly don't think the JLP has sufficiently adjusted its policies and style of leadership to take on the problems being faced by this nation. They have not settled down to the task at hand and have offered no alternatives to the current mechanisms. The PNP on the other hand look like a bunch of imcompetent idiots who can't tell their nose from their tails. Problems that have arisen are given some serious band aid treatment and that goes no further. What are my solutions? I really don't know that I have any to offer...but hey, that's why I not involved in politics. One thing for certain is that our political system and criminal elements are too closely tied together for comfort. Politicians attend funerals and parties for the area leaders (a nice way to say area dons or badman dem). Frankly, it is time that we start to weed out the problems one by one. We have put such high emphasis on traffic offences and yet the murders continue. I am not saying ease up on the traffic offenders because I believe that a traffic offence is as bad as any other crime but we ALSO need to look heavily at the other issues as well. I say bring out the army if that is what it takes, have curfews if needs be but we cannot have 4 or more murders a day and still expect that it will be business as usual. The tourist will stop coming (unless we can find a way to market Jamaica as the murder capital of the world being a good thing). I get frustrated every time I think about our political system. A party is elected and they are put into Gordon House. They dismantle everything started by the other party because it wasn't good enough. They start their thing and it goes on until they leave office. A new party is voted in and the tear down process starts again. We need to reach a stage in this country where we examine the policies and methodology put in place by our predecessors and find a reasonable starting point on which to build. Don't try to sell me the idea that every single thing the other party did was no good. We need to have a collaberative government and stop the stupidity of the faction system. Not because you are the oppposition party means that you have to oppose everything that is presented. Not because you are the ruling party means that you lay own the rules and nobody can differ in opinion. I recall the days when there was the budget debate and it really was a debate. The proposals were tabled and a final decision was made after discussion and rebutal. These last few years the Minister of Finance gets up and simply tells you what he is going to increase and it is effective whenever he says and sometimes as early as tomorrow. No discussion, no chance for review, nothing, just take it or leave it. Maybe that's why so many people are skeptical about his bid for party presidency. Our system needs revamping and from my point of view this can only be done by removing all the current players and declaring them ineligible to participate in the leadership role. Honestly as a citizen, I can't see a path for our future and I think that is sad particularly because I don't think I'm alone in this frame of mind. Anyways enough from me...later all.

Hopefuls

These are the four Prime Minister hopefuls here at home. One of these four persons; Hon. Portia Simpson -Miller, Dr. Karl Blythe, Dr. Omar Davies or Dr. Peter Phillips will be Jamaica's Prime Minister at least for a short time until the next election. I can't help but wonder what each will bring or take away from our little nation that will make such significant differences in such a short time. The two names that one has been hearing consistently are "Portia" and "Peter Phillips". Whether or not either is successful will be determined at a future date. Right now we the common people kinda just hope that they don't destroy civil Jamaica during their campaigns. Jamaicans tend to be really passionate about their politics so........take it easy people. Have a great day you all.

Equity and Equality

I'm seeing the message played out in front of my eyes. A few weeks ago our pastor at church tried to give the differences between equity and equality. His theme based on the fact that you can be equal without being equitable and vice versa. I couldn't qute figure it out then but then he gave an example but let me set a stage first.......... Our church is in one of the most affluent areas in Kingston. It is surrounded by financial wealth. All the neighbourhoods are predominantly residential and at the high end of it as well. Let me say now that I don't live in any of these areas :) (before anybody gets any ideas). I work in the downtown area. This is an area noted for poverty and some really crass residences and residents. Let's say that there are no apartments and townhouses down here. As a matter of fact you will find more squatters and tenament yards here than anywhere else. Now Port Royal Street, Harbour Street and its environs and all the way westwards to Marcus Garvey Drive were badly damaged by the onslaught of rains over the last few months. Parts of these major thoroughfares were reduced to riverbed type passageways. But as i said they are the only ways through downtown. Now Norbrook Road is a typical residential roadway and used in comparison to these others only by a handful of people. It too was damaged but I drove there shortly after the rains and it was passable not perfect but it could use with some swerving here and there. Pastor told us that by January he would safely bet that Norbrook Road would be fixed but that the others would remain until whenever. Well it is January and guess what...Norbrook Road was fixed from the week after he spoke so that puts it at mid November. Well Marcus Garvey Drive was repaired a couple of weeks ago and Port Royal Street is still to be fixed. The situation is equal......both will be fixed. Not equitable because it has come down to a case of money talking. The roads that provide service to the greater population and the greater need of our nation has again succumed to the injustice in society. Why?....because it's not in an area populated by the well to do.......... :( Sets you think............. Tomorrow maybe I'll take on politics...heheheh. Later all

Tech Stuff.....(Boring to Dr.D)

Well Dr. D will not like this but it will be short. I finally got my router last night and felt like a millionaire. I had to use my phone a friend life line but it seem that everything is up and running. The one I bought is one without an external antenna. It works well from the wired point of view but the signal got really weak really fast when the wireless side of things was used. The many corners and concrete walls between the bedroom and the living room where the router is located may have something to do with that. So I have two options 1) Hard wire the bedroom 2) move the router halfway down the passageway using patch cables 3) stay out of the bedroom when using the laptop. All in all I am pleased. Setup was fairly easy but I got a little confused with some of the settings. I called a friend and he talked me through it in few minutes. pretty straight forward. We are yet to complete the firewall settings since he was unfamiliar with how this particular router set the permissions and filters so it will have to wait until he returns from abroad. Thanks for the help Mr. C. I like option 2. Since I anticipated that there would be an issue with the walls and the signal I went looking for cabling the other day and all I kept finding was CAT-6 I am familiar with the CAT-5 and therefore need to know the difference between the two. Are they compatible and will the devices be able to work using the CAT-6 cables. The connectors look the same but hey...it's all the same to me. Anyways for the time being I can at least have access when the kids are online with the desktop. Other than that everything is fine on the home front. School has restarted and I've had one class thus far. That course seems interesting (until it starts to dig out yuh tripe with unreasonable deadlines and.....) and I'm going in open-minded. We'll see how it pans out later. Anyways, I gone do some work so till later.

Free Paper Bun!!!

Well my last day of the school holiday was spent looking about the car. I have been calling it a piece of scrap iron and I'm going to behave myself because it has served really well over the past few years. So the one time it decides to act up isn't sufficient for me to be dissing it. The pothole scene in Jamaica finally took its toll on the ride. I had to change almost the entire front end over the course of Friday and Saturday. Control arms, ball joints, bushings, tie rod ends and finally an alignment were the order of the day. Thank God for Nissans otherwise parts alone would have seen me "in debt up to my eyeballs" as one commercial put it. :) In all I spent about US$175.00. I use the US cost so most of you can relate. That's about $12000.00 Jamaican. Quite a hefty sum out here. Good thing is that the car feels great. no more squeaking and groaning and strange sounds when you drive on less than ideal roads. As my heading says...back to school today. Classes are Mondays to Thursday and most finish at about 8:00 or 9:00....arrrrgggggh!!!!!! So after a long day at office I will have to drag my sorry self up to campus and sit and endure the torture of lectures and tutorials for another 14 weeks followed by exams in weeks 16 and 17. Can you resign from school?....I don't know but I'm gonna give it a try and see if they accept the resignation. Nah....only 5 semesters to go so I may as well tough it out. Had dinner with wifey's family last night and it was a pretty enjoyable evening. Met a classmate at the supermarket who had gone to have her baby. Congrats to her and her little girl who should be about 3 months old or so. She told me of another classmate who also had a little girl recently so congrats to her too. So that makes only one young lady who I have not heard about. I neglected to get a phone number for her but I know she used read here some times. Hope all went well with her delivery too. Anyways I gone do some work since I wasn't here on Friday. Later all.

Lots about Nothing

Well I haven't had much to talk about and quite honestly I've been under some stress at office over the past few weeks so to come home and fight with the children for the machine and then force a post hasn't been the way to go just yet. Don't worry about it, I'm working on the solution. I bought my router and I see from the tracking that it has been delivered to my mailbox service in Miami so in a few days it will be in Jamaica and I can start messing with stuff that doesn't trouble me :).

Yesterday there was this big discussion at office about our justice system here at home. I won't get into the detail but to say that it has stemmed from the recent release of Mr Adams and the other police following a jury trial in December. I can only state that I think the verdict was arrived at after much thought and based on the depth that the jury went to obtain information I would hope that their verdict was fair and reasonable. I can only hope that all involved are able to live in free conscience at the end of the day.

BBC has done us badly and honestly we may have done it to ourselves. What am I speaking about?......Read more here. Them boys going on really badly and it need to stop now.

I was kinda shocked yesterday at the kind of video games available to today's teens. My son borrowed this game called Grand Theft Auto San Andreas from a friend and has been playing it for a few days now. I can safely say that i can now understand why it is under so much discussion. The game is horrific. It has all the elements of criminal written all over it. It portrays quite abit of the mentality of society today. The guns the violence the crime from prostitution to grand theft auto and murder. What struck me was when he "stole" a car and somebody ran him off the road, his reaction is to get out and "pop him with some shots". I just kinda sat there. and looked. I am insisting that he returns the game to his friend. Reality though is that in a few months he is legally an adult and I can only then insist that I don't want it done in MY house. He is a pretty decent young man though...riddled with all the teenage worries but hasn't gone too way out on the limb. Straying from the point.....If these games are market driven how then can we be any better off if we continue to fuel the essence of the problems with this kind of gaming. Some argue that "It's just a game"...it is not just a game, it models behaviour that children emulate. It may be marked mature but then what about the adult that is playing in the presence of the 5 year old who then says...."shoout him daddy" when a real incident of poor judgement in driving happens on the road. He has seen it done like that in the game so why not in life. My teen is learning to drive and I constantly remind him that it's not like GT4, the cars don't bounce off each other in real life. (Not that he drives to deserve these comments, but I am not taking any chances :) ) .

I think we have major issues to deal with in today's world. But I also see the small issues that we need to address and one can only think that if we start to manage the small issues then the larger ones may be more manageable as well. This article for instance shows something that should never happen at the international level.

My last thought goes to constitutional rights in the US. I have seen laws enacted and enforced over that last few years that essentially promotes the rights of those persons who feel that religion has no place in society. Their judicial system seems to be upholding that concept. My question is...By upholding the views of these persons are they not now trampling on the rights of those who hold the view that religion does hold a place. Can we now sue the various entities because I as a Christian have lost my constitutional right to say public prayers in school?

Do we have a case?

Anyway enough from me this morning...have a great day all.

New Year Resolutions

I think one of the most perpetuated myth/lies of modern society is the belief that people actually keep new year resolutions. I can safely hazzard a guess that, for the most part, most of them are out the window by the end of February. If I was a gambling man I would put a figure of say 98% where my mouth is. Don't get me wrong now, I am not saying don't, what I am saying is if you do, make the effort and make it reasonable and attainable. You hear everything from losing how many tens of pounds to finding a new soul mate to giving up smoking. Not saying they can't be done, but are they being done for the right reasons and is your heart really in it. I stopped making those things before I even started so I guess that's why I can proudly say that I never break them. If I were to make them what would mine be......hmmmmmm???? I have no idea. Maybe to help more around the house. Put the clothes and shoes where they belong. I don't smoke or drink (an ocassional beer). I know...focus more on school adnd stop the last minute assignments. Wish it were that easy. Yeah they are all attainable...do I really want to do them...nope.....will they be resolutions....nope....will I be any worse off for not making them....nope...don't think so anyway. So I save myself and those that have to endure the misery of me trying the heartache and pain.....yay!!!! Daddy not making any resolutions this year. I did some blog readings today and actually left a few comments on some new blogs. I have been really terrible in these last months. I haven't done any return visits nor have I welcomed any of my visitors.......no excuses so that I will make as my 2006 resolution...be courteous to my guests and be polite to visitors...go check out their sites since they were nice enough to check out mine. One and only one. Anyways have a Happy New Year and may 2006 be better to you than 2005.

Holiday Mood

Well to tell yuh the truth, I'm still very much in the holiday frame of mind. I'm not on leave and I have to report to office daily but........... The Christmas was good. I would be wicked if I said otherwise. I've had the rounds.....family dinner on Sunday (which was excellent) and visiting friends on Monday. Tuesday I decided to lay off a bit and never left home. I was feeling a bit under the weather and had enough time during all the merriment to be sick for a few hours, so I actually ran the gammit. A friend who I haven't seen in 5 years is visiting from the US and I'll make sure to see her before she returns. We used to interact a lot before she migrated and since then we have stayed in touch but just barely. the contact, limited as it may be, is not devoid of the friendship that exits and I will definitely make the extra effort to pass her way before the week is out. Last night the bloggers link up took place. It was a good evening as we got to know some of the bloggers a little better. In the roll call was: CaliJ, Stunner, Shotta M, Owen, Mad Bull, Dr. D, and Scratchie. Owen had to leave early and it was a pity. The remaining bloggers chatted up a storm over a few well earned drinks and you would have believed that we had all known each other since yesteryear. It would have been difficult to believe that I was actually meeting several of the bloggers for the first time. CaliJ, Shotta M, Stunner and Owen...I am pleased to make your acquaintance. The blogs will keep us in touch. At least one photo will come from Dr. D at some later date. The place was kinda dark and so photo taking was a chore but somehow we managed at least one good one. My only question and I'm sure the question on all the attendees' minds is...WHAT HAPPEN TO ALL DI WOMAN DEM???????? Not even one!!!!!! We had a total bull show (no pun intended). It turn out to be a stag session. Is it that the women are all show and no go? Well all I can say is...you lose :( The women are desserters, Benedict Arnolds. Anyways I not gwine dwell on that...a good time was had and I can say that I've met a few more people through what started out as random ramblings on a hidden piece of cyberspace. What's up for the weekend?...I have no clue. Maybe I'll just keep it quiet and chill with family, or maybe I'll go to the beach or something. I'll let the spirit decide when the time comes. Until then...take care of you.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Just say to all who come my way...May you experience the Peace Love Joy and Hope that the true meaning of Christmas brings to us. May you find happiness in your lives, in your families and friends. May the spirit of this Holy Season stay with you throughout the years. To those who are not spiritually inclined....may you enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas to All!!!!!!

Crying Out

Well people my blog is crying out......for neglect. I have been having a really busy time at work and being out in the open just isn't helping so I tried the night thing but then it's a competition with the kids who want to play Sims and Virtual DJ andMSN messenger so I'm left out in the cold. So I've decided that enough is enough...they can have the machine. I'm gonna go find something less interesting to do. Sleep...gardening...washing the car maybe. No :) I'm gonna buy a router and have an adventure networking my house. I'm pretty proficient with the computer but have never gotten into the whole networking thing so I figure that I'm gonna have a few mishaps but I'm gonna try it....worse thing that can happen is that it fails miserably. Other than that Christmas is coming and I'm not quite ready for it yet. I think I'm going to mount a demonstration this morning. My placard will read.."We want Christmas postponed..." Think it will work? I figure that if I get it pushed back by about a month I should be good to go. The last couple of nights has been spent updating compi which is also suffering from neglect. I reloaded everything last week but because the kids have been at it I haven't been doing the updates and so every time i turn on the machine it does a few. Last night it did like about 26. I turned off auto update and am going to do some reading because I don't think it needs every and any of the releases, so I've set it to alert me about available updates and let me choose which ones apply to me instead. Last night the updates and the antivirus were fighting it out for bandwidth with me chatting to friends online...a most annoying experience so no more auto anything....me run tings.

Oh...I decided to go to the mall on Saturday and part of Sunday.....nuff chaos. Luckily The family decided to go early. My early was like 10:00a.m. If yuh eva si di crowd :O I got parking in the 4th shopping centre (Tropical Plaza) and just stayed put for the day. (Oh there are 5 shopping centres joined together to make what we Jamaicans call the plazas. It is nowhere as big as the US malls but hey...we gotta work with what we got ;) The rest of the day was spent walking back and forth and trying to deal with gifts for the family type people.

Sunday I actually went to see King Kong. It's the 1st in a long while since I've been to the movies. School always came 1st. I like this idle time. I think it's the longest break I've had from classes since I started in 2002. All my exams were crammed into the 1st half of the schedule so it resulted in extra vacation time for me. The movies was......no comments. Not my style but not a bad movie either. All I can say is that the directors spent a lot of time getting up to the meat of the matter and then seemed to rush through the meat part to the dessert.

I'm going to pay some more blog visits later on, but in the meantime...take care.

I'm Baaaacckk

Greetings and hailage all Caribbean and International massive. I and I deh bout again. I finished my exams on Tuesday but as luck would have it I finished off my compi on Tuesday as well. :) Nah not true. I was the subject of a disgusting little insect type virus. My son apparently downloaded some music and whatever it was bypassed the firewall and did a number on the compi. I cleaned it off but it was still behaving a bit quirky so tech Scratchie went to work. New hard drive, reloaded and activated Windows XP and now in process of getting all my software loaded. Downloaded SP2 last night and auto update is doing something tonight so I am back on track it would seem. I ordered the laptop on 2 December with a slated delivery date for 29 December but guess what....our mailing system has gotten efficient. It is already in the island and I should have it in hand by Monday...all of ten days early. I was actually laughing at the situation just today. I had ordered 3 items at three different times....the laptop 1st then about a week later the carrying case for it and then a piece of software for the home compi. Guess what, the software arrived on Friday. (The last shall be the 1st I guess). The case came in yesterday and I hadn't heard about the laptop until this afternoon. Not to mention that the shipping manifesto shows that the laptop has travelled more than me all over the place. Dell has a wild network for the delivery of their products. The exams were not so bad. I am still awaiting results before I predict pass or fail. Typical case of the examiners trying to cover too much ground so they water down the content. Other than that I'm still tired nuh hell. Well I actually went to the shopping mall this week after my last exam. Things expensive nuh backside. Lots of people looking but minimal buying in my estimation. I saw a head line in a newspaper this week that accused JPS of putting out the festive lights. It stated that the public were less inclined to put up Christmas lights because of the exorbitant light bills. Somebody need to tell that to my wife and kids. Tree light up...verandah light up....grill light up.......every corner of the house have light. My daughter is a real gladice so she enjoys the season and I ain't about to kill her spirit. I'll just have to foot the bill later I suppose. Apart from that, my nephew tief ou his mother's van on Sunday and nearly kill himself...write off the van and leave them with a hell of a bill. We are glad he wasn't hurt but somebody needs to kill him for that. Not my son or my car so I just stand back and watch. Other than that...I'm baaaaccckkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exams!!!!

Everythig I have to say can be summed up in one word... "EXAMS". You guys will have to do without me until Wednesday. Until then.......take care. Had the first one yesterday. One will be on Monday and the final one on Tuesday. Yesterday's own wasn't too bad.

RJ05

Well the final major event of the Jamaican Racing season was held over the weekend in the form of the Rally Jamaica 2005. The event had numerous sponsors including Petcom, KFC, and Digicel. These and other sponsors ensured the success of the event. I was a spectator for the New Kingston stage of the event. Building on the experience of past years, I arrived at the venue from 2:00p.m. for a 4:00p.m. start. That way I got to choose my viewing spot and a "secure" parking space in view of my perch. Spectators came alive at about 3:30 with the sounding off of the Digicel truck and the mc's fastest fingers game giving away free credit to spectators by calling out credit codes and having persons enter them on their phones. This final stage of the rally started at 4:00 with a drive through by the Clerk of the Course and the Opening Marshall. The crowd visibly shifted for viewing vantage points as the cars did their drive through and parade. exhaust gases filled the ait and there was a short break as they returned to the start. The crowd was treated to a mix of car and driver capabilities. from the lack lustre to the sublime. The event showed that there are drivers and there are DRIVERS and that there are cars and there are CARS. The crwod was hell bent on seeing WRC driver Didier Auriole at the wheel but after a quick run through of the cars it was obvious that he had retired. :( Anyway the show continued. The smell of tires and exhaust, the near crashes, the spectators and camera men who almost got creamed by the white GTI Swift/Cultus, the scream of the engines and the sound of blow off valves from turbo charged machines, the slides and the show boating by some of the drivers all ensured an enjoyable afternoon for most. Off special note was the presence of so many Subaru Impreza's both WRx and WRC's that dominated the line up.....GO Scooby!!!! Ok ok yeah there were a couple of Evo's too....maybe one or two. BTW, you Bajans should be proud. Your drivers did extremely well in the event. I guess we'll hear the scores later. I know they have been published (even prelims) but I'm just too lazy to go find them and most of you not interested anyway, yuh just humouring me. :) Panton needs another year in the Evo to get it just right. It was obvious from his lack of antics for the crowd. New cars always do that to you. All in all a well spent even. The stage ended with a display of automibile handling craftmanship by none other than Mr. Auriole himself in a car borrowed from one of the other competitors. And yes it was a Scooby. :) :) :) Watching these guys you realize that they are definitely in a different league. The Tall One said as we were leaving "I waited all year for this event and it was well worth it." I think I echo his sentiment. I was only able to catch one stage because exams are actually on Thursday for me and then Monday and Tuesday following so no driving all over Jamaica countryside to watch cars for me. Anyways I was just giving you all a hail and gone so till later.

Update

Well I took your advice..... Dudes getting a Dell. Stayed away from the Compaq. And the Acer, as alluring as the package was, the hassle to get it to Jamaica was just too much. Truth be told, by the time I pay shipping, handling, and mailbox charges it would have been way over my rounded up cash. Dell delivers it to my door with a one time shipping charge which they tagged to the machine. All things being equal I should have it before school reopens. I am being conservative because we in the Caribbean know how shipping goes during the Christmas season. The final major racing event for the year is underway here and I'm missing it. Schoolwork and exams are playing a major factor in this but "if yuh want good...nose haffi run". I may visit the New Kingston special stage tomorrow but the cross country thing never swing this year at all. Other than that.....I won my Kalookie match last night. I was too tired to even think about the game and just simply played by reflex, no planning and gues what...I beeat the ish out of the other guys and set a meeting new low total score of only 157 points from all the games. Other than that...idle weekend filled with study. Enjoy the rest of it.

Lights! Camera!....Christmas

 Well Christmas is definitely in the air....at least it is in New York. Last night I sat and watched the lighting of their huge Christmas Tree and it marks the beginning of the season in my neck of the woods. I swiped this photo from the WNBC site. Apparently they have a tree cam so if you want you can go there and see it live at any time. It was sooooooo much prettier in the night but I saved that picture at home so this will have to do.

I'm still not feeling the season but that will come too I guess. The last few days have been spent hunting for a computer. The one at home is working fine all be it 5 years old. But I had spent a lot of time and effort building it so it can still run with the best of them. Only thing showing some date is the processor and I'm not too worried about that since it is still pretty fast. I've finally decided on a notebook. Don't know where the cash is gonna come from yet but frankly, with these lots of presentations and group assignments at school the laptop is fast becoming a necessity and not a choice. I'm am tired of having to borrow them and beg and then end up still not getting the work done as how I would want it so I am gonna make the plunge. Choice right now is between an ACER and a DELL. I like the Compaq for looks but I've had bad experiences with their desktops in the past so not sure if I should chalk it up to "one of those things" and try them again. I like the ACER because all in all it offers the best package but then shipping to Jamaica is gonna be an issue...(an expensive issue I might add). DELL sends their stuff here so that won't be a problem. Which do you guys like Heard them debating in the news this morning about whether or not the newspaper carries too much about the violence and crime. It seems that one newspaper has vowed to stop carrying it front page. I don't want to quote since I haven't seen the paper as yet but apparently it is felt that by carrying all this stuff on front page it glorifies the dons. I can't argue with that. Frankly speaking I find the front page of the weekday papers depressing most mornings hence me not buying a during the week newspaper in years. I buy the Sunday Gleaner because usually the paper is a lot tamer then. Will it help?...Your guess as good as mine but it certainly can'thurt. I got my ham last night....yessssssssss!!!!!!!!!! Pork haffi deh yah fi di season. Sorry fi all di dread dem roun di place. Dem cyan call dun fyah pon mi if dem want....gwey!!!!!! Ham fi nyam!!! So last night I was reminded twice that Christmas is around the corner. Anyway I gone....have a great day.