My workday (today) started out (as it did yesterday (1) but not as it does every day) with finding great.big.daddy.cockroaches (5) on and around my desk (makes my head itch just thinking about it). This ongoing problem has *finally* been escalated from cans of bug spray to an exterminator. My workday (today) ended (as it did yesterday but with less computer and more free software (I won Photoshop Elements at an Adobe seminar for knowing about Seam Carving)) with this beautiful machine, fully loaded with Adobe CS4, sitting on my desk. So you know what you're lookin' at when you're viewing the movie: Chaz (IT dude in the red shirt and all round cool banana) ordered and configured my new Apple Mac Pro computer and installed it today at work. Andrew (colleague and desk neighbour and all round MAC disliker) is the voice in the background you can hear declaring that the amount of RAM is "insane" and I am the one making funny little animal noises because this computer is so bloody gorgeous.

Last year a little girl named Nia Glassie was murdered by bullying, violent hands in her family home. This past month, the five adults who were responsible for the three year old's torment and death have been on trial in Rotorua's High Court. This case has, and continues to affect me deeply. I don't want to examine my feelings here. I don't want to turn away from what Nia faced, she couldn't turn away as they were happening to her, but I also don't want to recount the various and escalating torments she endured either - the story is easy to find online; read what happened to her; believe that what Nia endured and finally what took her life, is only the tip of a violent ice burg. Children live this life every day until it either kills them, or they survive it enough to possibly go on to repeat the behaviour. I have to say something, though, as disjointed as this is. I want to acknowledge her life - let you know that she is not a shame or a news headline or someone to be forgotten. My heart is broken for Nia's last months and weeks at the hands of people who (obviously to me) didn't see her as human, let alone the vulnerable little girl she was. I am so sorry and sad she had a mother who didn't protect her against the meanness and hurt in her own home. My heart is broken for Nia's siblings who were caught between the violence and were witnesses the torment and death of their baby sister. I am broken for all the children who aren't safe in their own homes, who aren't cared for by those who are meant to, and not loved enough or protected by anyone who can make a difference. How on earth I can keep these children safe? I use the word "I" and not "we" because it is about me doing something. It is not a statement I want to say in general terms - I don't want to say "we as a society" or "you feel like you should do something" - it's all such vague language and chest beating blather. I have the responsibility. Me, the individual. I want violence towards children gone from the community I live in. I don't know how to do that. How do I do that? [Monday 17th November] This was how what Justice Potter had to say to the Jury this this morning before sending them out to deliberate. [Tuesday 18th November] Jury's Decision, Full verdicts and summary of Nia's Story. Nia's Trial

Boy-oh-boy I enjoyed this 1956 science fiction classic. Though it was hard not to see Leslie Nielsen, young as he was (and looking very much like a member of the Baldwin clan at times) and remember this isn't a comedy. Faces of other cast members are familiar to me as well - mostly because they pepper themselves through my early television years: Gunsmoke, Alias Smith and Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man, Bonanza, The Virginian (quite a few cowboy series for a girl who claims to not like the genre, Michelle). One of the most interesting things about this movie is how many themes and ideas are familiar in newer productions, like Star Trek and Star Wars. Retro memory kicked in and there was this weird time warp going on in my head where I had to remind myself that Forbidden Planet came first - the Grand-daddy of them all. You can see the title at the end of the trailer (above) are quite In-a-galaxy-far-far-away-esque. This is no The Angry Red Planet (oh man that's my favourite - every cinemagical moment) this is serously good, and well made - no red cellophane over the lens tricks here! Well worth a first-viewing or a revisiting. Now, maybe it's just me, but does anyone think this selection of scene index titles for Forbidden Planet's DVD seem a little... saucy?

5. The red carpet treatment
6. Dr Morbius
7. and he does windows
8. Some dark, terrible force
9. Alataira Morbius
10. Alta's "friends"
11. Preparing for the transmitter
12. "Just a kiss" giving Alta 'tude
13. "I must have a new dress!"
14. Invisible intruder
15. Shock the monkey; the beamer
16. Bathing beauty... and the beast
17. Clarification; the Kral
18. The "plastic educator"
19. Subterranean wonders
20. The perimeter; Cookie and bourban

Plot keywords for the movie on IMDB.com include: magnet, space travel, force field, single father, concealed nudity (?? what the ??), monkey.