Folks, I have a theory.
After asking on Twitter, and using two different ISPs in two different cities, and trialling different browsers, I have found that in New Zealand, I (and one other Twitter friend) cannot reach our Autocade site without the browser coming up with an error asking one to save the page.
However, using a US proxy server, there is no problem, and the page functions normally. It actually opens.
I suspect something is afoot with ISPs in New Zealand blocking certain sites. Can friends reading this confirm this with me, please? The site is autocade.net.
I remember last month there was quite a bit of furore on Twitter when TelstraClear customers could not reach justinflitter.com (since closed). Again, I had no problem accessing Justin’s site via a proxy server. I simply could not reach it from New Zealand, even though Justin is a New Zealander.
I love the OUTDOOR GIRLS series books by Laura Lee Hope.
I found two (non-fiction) books that might have been read by the girls and boys of Deepdale, had they (the boys and girls of Deepdale I mean...) been real:
On The Trail, An Outdoor Book for Girls
and Camping for Boys
If I can't live one hundred years ago - and I do wish I could, I can still wish my friends and I could take a month off and camp out like this:
What's the oldest article of clothing you own? Bonus points if you show us a photo!
There goes Vox, reading my mind again.
I have a pair of gray sweatpants I bought right before I moved to California from Colorado, that was 11 years ago.
They now stay up with the help of a safety pin since the waistband elastic has long since gone and they never had a string. And there is a big air-conditioning run/rip in them right up the back seam.
I have another pair of sweatpants, but I always reach for those old ratty ones I bought while shopping with the only friend I made in Denver... May be that's I why I keep hanging on to them.... one good memory in a 9 month* long nightmare.
*9 months was the time I was in Denver, May to November. It's almost time for my get the hell out of Denver Anniversary. I got the hell out on Thanksgiving Day, and I've never been so thankful to leave a place... but I still wear those ratty sweatpants all of the time.
While I can now compose on Vox (not, incidentally, something I could consistently do from Christchurch, either, so we can now conclude the problems were not ISP-specific), is anyone else having problems with the YouTube conduit? I know at least one other user is.
It gets me a bit worried how things fall down here regularly. But I don’t think we can blame Vox exclusively. I am sure the other site, in this case YouTube, is to blame in part, for perhaps changing its specifications.
Still, YouTube clips are going to be fewer in number for a while, I expect.
Action Concept, the crowd that makes Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, has an English trailer for the show on its site. I am surprised no English channel has ever picked up the long-running series. Sure, it’s devoid of real plot and there are inconsistencies the size of Düsseldorf itself, but my gosh, is it fun.
The budget has been cut since its heyday and the ratings are down, but from what I have read in the German press, it still outperforms everything else in its time slot.
One problem is that the trailer is ancient. The German accent on the American English (why do announcers in Germany all sound the same—is this the same guy as on DW-TV?) might make it too foreign for some English-speaking countries, but who cares?
As fans can see, Semir’s partners end with Tom Kranich (played by Réné Steinke). Since then, Chris Ritter (Gedeon Burkhard) has joined and been killed off in the course of duty, and Ben Jäger (Tom Beck) has been fielding the sidekick position since. The intro is pre-Chris, though this is still the only one I can recite with my extremely limited German.
This is the sort of show that might start off at a bad time slot on an English channel and steadily work its way to prime-time. Even if it was dubbed, I am sure it would get plenty of fans.
PS.: I have tried Vox at another office, and I have used it with another ISP. The compose screen either fails to come up or takes several hours. Something is afoot.
Ever wandered into a music or video store here and there are sections marked ‘A–Z’, ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Foreign’?
The biggest section is the first one, and often we have the smallest section.
Think about it though: shouldn’t everything not in ‘New Zealand’ be under ‘Foreign’?
The other one I get a kick out of is ‘World’, which Borders uses. Shouldn’t everything be under ‘World’? I mean, if you have this category, there is no need to have any others.
Who knew that there would be an Already Ghosts group right here in Wellington?!
If you read my blog, I must insist you turn your speakers all the way up to 11 and rock one of these in your living room. I don't care who's watching.
But you know what, when all is said and done - Cheap Trick will ALWAYS win out as my favorite band.
I managed to get NZ$20 credit thanks to the Real Groovy loyalty card, meaning that I paid a grand total of NZ$10 for these two purchases today:
There is even a documentary about the 50-year journey of the novel to this version of the movie, and clips from the first James Bond (with Barry Nelson) and the first time Casino Royale hit the big screen (in 1967, with David Niven—and we do get clips of Barbara Bouchet, Jacqueline Bisset, etc., too).
Given how basic the Quantum of Solace DVD set is, my bet is that Sony will do this again.
Secondly, this CD was on special anyway (NZ$5), and it has a few John Barry tracks, plus one Chet Baker one. It’s not the special album that Barry and Baker put together for this film, but considering that was never released in New Zealand, it’s the next best thing.
Do you like stories about twins? About Scotland? Then you might like THE SCOTCH TWINS (1919) by Lucy Fitch Perkins. It made me clap my hands with excited anticipation many times. I can't explain why very well... I knew what twists were coming but it was told so well I felt like I was a fly on the wall the whole time. You know what's coming, but you aren't quite sure that's exactly what IS going to happen....
There are other books in the TWINS series, but this great little easy read was an immense delight.
Here's a sample from the Gutenberg E-text:
"At the very moment when Jock and Tam came flying over the fence and down the hill like a cyclone after the rabbit, Angus was kneeling beside the brook to get a drink. His lips were pursed up and he was bending over almost to the surface of the water, when something dashed past him, and an instant later something else struck him like a thunderbolt from behind, and drove him headforemost into the brook! It wasn't Tam that did it. It was Jock! Of course, it was an accident, but Angus thought he had done it on purpose, and he was probably the most surprised as well as the angriest man in Scotland at that moment. He lifted his head out of the brook and glared at Jock as fiercely as he could with little rills of water pouring from his hair and nose, and trickling in streams down his neck.
"I'll make you smart for this, you young blatherskite," he roared at Jock, who stood before him frozen with horror. "I'll teach you where you belong! You were running after that rabbit, and your dog is yelping down a hole after her this minute!" He was such a funny sight as he knelt there, dripping and scolding, that, scared as he was, Jock could not help laughing. More than ever enraged, Angus made a sudden lunge forward and seized Jock by the ear."
