I was in the mind for Japan last night and thought Lost in Translation at the Rialto would be a good idea. Like all good plans of Mish and Men when their clutch-plates are playing up, I ended up at the closer theatre and The Last Samurai. For those who don't realise, chunks of The Last Samurai were filmed in and around Taranaki, New Zealand. It was kind of strange to see Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) train the new Japanese recruits on the cricket pitch at Pukekura Park. Katsumoto's son's village looked very much like North Taranaki (Urenui, Ureti) and some of the final battle scenes, I believe, were shot here too. Sorry I got carried away with linkages and forgot about the movie. Tom Cruise has a *lot* of hair in this movie. It's on his face and never growing. Streaming out from his head in slow-motion, long brown feathery locks - its in his eyes all_the_time. Funny that with all the hair on his head and face, he has none on his chest. The Samurai Armour was wonderful to behold. Beautiful and intricate, I'd like to learn more about it. I viewed a similar suit on display in Te Papa [note: this link goes to a page that was never finished - greeked text instead of information but the pictures might be interesting enough for the meantime. Weirdness.] a few weeks ago. The movie boiled down to David and myself having a discussion about whether the Samurai's bow skills matched or surpassed those of Legolas. Seems Legolas wins because of the whole sliding-down-the-stairs-on-an-inverted-shield-while-shooting-orcs whereas the Samurai's were as accurate and graceful and fast, but where on hands-free horse-back - no contest, really: according to David. I loved the fight choreography. The Armoury and the Weaponry. I liked a lot of the cinematography. The Japanese characters were great. Yes, I am listing my likes because I can't put my finger on why I could have easily left the theatre half way through the movie. I guess it came down to, I didn't really care what was going to happen in the movie - I figured it was called "The Last Samurai" because the Samurai weren't going to win. I figured Tom Cruise'd survive - because he always does. If there was a girl, he'd probably get her too. I dunno, it just didn't do much for me - I mostly wished I made the effort to drive into Newmarket to see Lost in Translation.

Why This Morning is a Good Sunday Morning 1. Waking up this morning - turning squinting eyes to the clock to see 7:31am and for a fleeting flash groaned because I'd slept in and would have to rush for the ferry. Then smiled and smooshed my face into my warm feather pillows realising it's Sunday and I don't have to budge at *all*. 2. I managed to set up Internet sharing between my computers - which says a lot about the simplicity of the operation than the cleverness of me. 3. CuteFTP comes Mac flavoured now. 4. It's a beautiful day. 5. I have marmite toast and a cup of tea. 6. I found out where my phone is. Seems I didn't lose it so much as someone picked it up by mistake. I should get it back this afternoon. 7. Although I've known about running schedules for downloading online content for viewing offline, I've never used it. Last night I set schedules for my favourite webpages, set my computer to automatically start in the morning and download them to my laptop so I can read them on my iBook when I'm not connected to the internet. 8. I love my Macintosh computers. I have a large list of things I need to do today - not the least of which is tidying my bedroom. It looks like someone's ransacked the room and not taken anything. It's clothes. I dislike anything to do with clothes except making them. I especially hate the laundering part of the whole clothes process. Although I *love* my washing machine, I hate the pegging-clothes-out, remembering-to-bring-them-in and the folding-and-putting-them-away parts of the process. If I was a Maths-whiz I'd express my problems with laundry by saying "I dislike 60% of the laundering process." Jo - click here for a picture of Delany in Cuba Mall. Check back here for Allania soon.

So, I'm at work now and my phone's not here either. It's flat, so it won't ring when I dial my number. I wonder where the heck it is. I have a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee from the Seattle Cafe. It's misty rain and the ferry ride was cool, and blew plenty of the night-time cobwebs from my brain. Last night Magnummac delivered my iBook and my Macromedia software. The laptop is more beautiful than I could imagine. It's not white, but a very soft, warm grey - a buffed grey maybe, hmm. I chose one of the multicoloured Apple wallpapers for the background [important information] and I just had to sigh with the complete beauty of the clean harddrive, spase desktop, dock on the lefthandside [because that's my preference]. I'll continue to utilise my clam-shell iBook - it's still really snappy and beautiful to use - it's just so heavy to carry everywhere. So, now, I have all my software updated and computers up to specification. For those of you that don't know yet I've resigned from my full-time job. From the 2nd of February, I will be a freelance Multimedia Designer, working from home and hanging out in dodgey cafes complaing about small clients and slow bill payers and the price of coffee. It wasn't a really difficult or time consuming decision in the end - although I'd been actively looking for alternative employment for a good 6 months - life has a way of showing you which way you need to be going by shutting a few doors in other directions.