Someone please give me an invite to FFFFOUND!?

Just found this cool site... you save/accumulate images that you like and the website generates recommended images for you. I can browse it without joining, but would need to be a member in order to save images. Please invite me, someone? If you invite me, I will send you a cupcake in the mail. Failing that, I will draw a picture for you of anything you please.

Anyway, here are some cool images that've caught my eye so far:

Niall Ferguson on Lateline - The Global Financial Crisis for Idiots - Part 2

Last night on Lateline there was an interview with financial historian, Niall Ferguson. Times like these certainly benefit from some historical perspective; if you really want to understand what's going on, watching this will help!

Here's the link to the Lateline website, the video is there on the front page. You can also see the transcript here.

Outfit for work

I never thought I could wear open-toed shoes that weren't thongs, but times have certainly changed. My experiences of being forced to wear jesus-style sandals in primary school completely put me off the open-toed style for many years. I stubbornly wore socks and closed-in-shoes, summer after summer up until this point. I never thought it would come to this;... but there's only so long you can avoid this 'fashion' item when you live somewhere with 38-degree daytime temperature peaks.

So on this day, I put the sandals on and crouched, waiting for the sky to fall. I counted to ten, and ... nothing. The sky didn't fall, I was still alive. I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and saw myself looking back- completely normal and unharmed. I can now wear sandals almost everyday with only a minimal level of psychological discomfort. You know, I'm 25 years old now, and this is one indication that the logic of life is slowly starting to set in. Eventually I suppose this logic will progress to wearing bumbags, the sock and sandal combo, plus eye-glasses neck strap whilst walking amongst birds at 5:30am.

One small step for a sandal, one giant leap for Karenkind.

Learning Japanese through music: "Folklore" by Clammbon

As a big fan of Japan, naturally I really want to like Japanese music. Listening to music is a good way to learn more about the language and culture of a country, so it's been one of my recent objectives to find more Japanese bands to listen to. In the past I've been glad at least to catch onto Cibo Matto, Shonen Knife, Kahimi Karie, Pizzicato Five and a few others. The problem is that when I try and search for more Japanese bands/music, the songs that I find seem to be lacking something. Many Japanese bands have earnt some reputation for being good at mimicking other styles, but music needs more than technical accuracy to be good. What is it?

Anyway, here's a particular song that caught my ear. At first I didn't like it, but it's since grown on me like a moss. I've decided to listen to it lots of times so my ear will acquire some more familiarity with the vocabulary (not that the lyrics are common-language or anything), but some familiarity is better than none. The lead singer Ikuko Harada, is also very cute and that's a bonus.

Without further adieu, here's "Folklore" by Clammbon:


Lyrics in English:

The night that the fierce typhoon passed, I was looking down on the city from the top of a tall building
The wind still a little erratic, tearing at the edge of its departure
The lights of the houses nearby shimmered like through searing air
I've never witnessed a scene like, though I was used to seeing it

Something is going to change, that's how I felt, in a little while
It disappears quietly, June, number 6, in a little while, in a little while

I can hear the low anouncement of the final train more clearly than usual
Like always, I just keep on staring blankly at the sky
My eyelids a little heavy, I close my eyes
From far away I hear your voice, I'd better get going

I've cleared a period of low pressure, that's how I felt, in a little while
My feeling suddenly becomes lighter, that's how I feel, in a little while, in a little while

Something is going to change, that's how I felt, in a little while
It disappears quietly, June, number 6, in a little while, in a little while
By the time I notice, the hour hand is pointing to 2 o'clock, in a little while
My feeling suddenly becomes lighter, that's how I feel, in a little while, in a little while

The night that the fierce typhoon passed, I was looking down on the city from the top of a tall building
I'm still a little erratic, tearing at the edge of its departure

La la la.....

The Global Financial Crisis for Idiots - part 1

If you are anything like me, you probably don't have much background in economics and financial theories. I was never really interested in this topic at school and I basically failed economics in upper high-school. In this subject area, I am myself, an idiot. However, the topic is both just so crucial and also, surprisingly interesting once you can tease out information from the enormous intimidating mess of abstract concepts and corporate disinformation. As the world falls into the economic crisis, it's about time we all took a bit of control over our own knowledge of money and the economy.

I thought that this video, Money as Debt would be a good start! Here's the write-up from the producer of the video, Paul Grignon. This guy is immensely interesting.


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"Born in Toronto, Canada in 1948, I first became suspicious of our money system when I was in high school in Ottawa. We were studying logarithmic functions such as interest and it struck me that a money system in which money accrues interest at every turn could only function with exponential growth of the money supply. Something did not make sense to me. I wasn’t sure what it was but I had a strong feeling that banking was a scam designed to benefit bankers at the expense of everyone else. I vowed never to get into debt to bankers.

As fortune would have it I got to (mostly) fulfill that vow. As a hitchhiking, backpacking young adult I was led to Gabriola, a forested coastal island off British Columbia, Canada where the building code was not yet in effect. My partner and I were able to take up residence in a tent, then a shack and as the years went by, and our four children arrived, our primitive shelter without water or power gradually evolved into a modest but comfortable owner-built paid-for home. This was achieved on a sporadic income that would never have been sufficient to buy a home had we gone the conventional mortgage route.

For several years, I made my living in the logging industry as a seasonal tree planter until injury forced me off the slopes. Taking whatever jobs I could get at first, I eventually established myself in my longtime ambition to be a landscape painter and visual artist. (http://www.paulgrignon.com)

In 1997, as a result of an inheritance, I was able to realize another long-held ambition. I set myself up as a digital video maker and produced several professional video projects.

In 2002 I was commissioned to produce a video for United Financial Consumers (http://www.ufc.ca), a small organization dedicated to defending credit customers from the predatory practices of banks. I taped a 5-hour seminar explaining an innovative strategy for reclaiming the equity banks defraud us out of when we sign for a so-called “loan”. I prefaced this rather abstruse lecture material by telling “The Goldsmith’s Tale” in animation form. Entitled “Money as Debt”, it was my first full animation project.

Other monetary reformers saw this original “Money as Debt” cartoon and approached me about using my animation as part of an information package being sent to municipal politicians, urging municipalities to demand interest-free loans from our publicly owned Canadian central bank, the Bank of Canada.

The Canadian Action Party, a federal political party devoted to monetary reform posted it on their website.

Two gentlemen from the American Monetary Institute in the USA also saw the animation. One described my cartoon as “far and away the best explanation of fractional reserve banking” he had ever seen. They requested that they be able to use it for their educational purposes as well.

I informed them that I was in the process of writing a much-expanded script. I knew there was a lot more to explain and felt certain that an animated cartoon was the best way to overcome the eyes-glazed-over reaction one often encounters when trying to interest people in this subject. I asked them if they could wait a few months until I had finished the project to my satisfaction.

They agreed to wait and to assist me. Their avid interest in the project spurred me on. I worked day and night (12 -20 hours per day) for 6 months to complete the movie.

My new US contacts were able to provide me with very valuable information and feedback on my script. One of them, a senior member of the Institute, had learned this information directly from US Congressman Wright Patman, who was Chair of the House Banking and Currency Committee for 12 years.

With the help of my partner Tsiporah and my neighbour and voiceover man, Bob Bossin, the final script was edited and rewritten numerous times. Money as Debt is now a colourful, fast-moving 47- minute animated short feature that explores the basic concepts of money creation in words and pictures that are not only clear but also enjoyable. It is intended for all audiences, including elementary school children. My particular hope is that it will convince environmental, social justice and electoral reform advocates that monetary reform is essential to the goals they hope to accomplish.

Money created as interest-bearing bank credit is a magic trick, a fraud - now 3 centuries old; one that very few people have seen through despite, or rather because of, its utter simplicity.

It is my intention to make this mysterious debt-money system comprehensible to everyone. It is also my intention to foster sufficient understanding of the problems with this money system that citizens will be motivated to join the monetary reform movement and/or create local alternatives to the global monetary system - a system in which most of the productive people of the world are collectively chained to an ever-increasing and perpetually unpayable debt.

This is a system designed for elite control of the people by those who have given themselves the privilege of creating money. It is also, I believe, a system that is designed for catastrophe. As the movie explains, there can be no sustainable civilization without a sustainable money system." - Paul Grignon

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The video is about 45 minutes long, so make sure you have enough time and possibly a nice cup of tea.

Happiness according to me

Ingredients:

- macbook with extra monitor
- episodes of Absolute Boyfriend / Zettai Kareshi / 絶対彼氏.
- asian style dinner with miso soup, tofu greens, rice and korean pickled veg

Vegan dinner in 20 minutes

I pretty much hate cooking in summer, but if I don't make and eat something then I am likely to starve. So I have become interested in making the quickest meals possible. This can be hard sometimes when you are a vegaquarian with a food intolerance to wheat. We don't even eat fish at home because I can't be bothered buying or learning how to actually cook it properly. So apart from a bit of cheese, milk, fish stock and oyster sauce, many of the meals we end up eating are practically vegan.



Here is an extremely quick and random dinner that I threw together in 20 minutes last night. On the left is a red cabbage salad. Just chop up half a red cabbage into small bits and mix it with two tins of beetroot (chopped), plus chopped parsley. This takes like, two minutes and tastes pretty good. The dish on the right was a random invention: I took a tin of lentils, rinsed the lentils and then put them in a foiled metal tray with some oil and put them under the grill for about 10 minutes. On the stove, I quickly fried some chopped cauliflower. Then I threw the lentils into the pan, along with some chopped cherry tomatoes, chilli powder, turmeric and tomato paste. That's all.