New financial year, new bits and pieces to the blog, nearly a thousand hits...not too shabby actually...

I'm home, for the moment at least, and I'm enjoying it...as I should...come on, who doesn't enjoy eating good, wholesome home cooked meals?

Anyway, we had a pretty big (and long) black out earlier in the evening, and let me tell you, you don't really appreciate what you have until moments like this...started just a bit after 1700 local, and ended at about 2300, so, 6 hours of no electricity. Candlelit dinner, sitting around in the living room with candles burning, might sound pretty romantic, and we were lucky too; it was raining all day, or most of it to be precise, so it was pretty cool tonight, but yea, mum was commenting how this was what it was like "back in the day", and what would the family be doing - sitting around the old kerosene lamp, the father telling stories, and sharing tradition, day in, day out. Here we are nowadays, internet, radio, TV, airconditioning/heating, delivery...and people are wondering why traditions are being lost, because of the lack of moments like these. Now, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the internet, radio, TV ect, but there should be moments that the family shares the past...one of the things that my sister and me realised that it was in these moments that dad would tell his favourite story of how he learned to cook rice at the age of 8 for his other siblings - always told us that when he was trying to make a point of self-reliance and responsibility...gee, I miss him...nearly a year since he passed on, and it's been a year since my sister and me last talked to him. We left today last year from Singapore, and my sis managed to tell him, but I couldn't get the words out...I think he knew what I wanted to say, but yea, I wasn't man enought to say it...not much I can do about it now...*sigh*...anyway, the point I wanted to get across was that the world is a noisy place. The blackout was total, that is, the town was blacked out, no streetlamps, no outside lights, no nothing, only candles...and the stars were out - saw, of all things, the Southern Cross...whoa...but yea, in the words of Gabby, "...Government must want a population increase..."

Live 8 was on over the weekend, some pretty awesome songs/bands were on, and some pretty horrific ones too...pretty good cause, and bloody excellent for six weeks planning on the organisers part - glasses up to them...shame they didn't have a theme song like they did at Live Aid (Feed The World (Do They Know It's Christmas Time))...sign up, and plug your name in, only going to take you a couple of seconds to change the world, kinda like the G8 leaders...some good ads too, real eye openers..."Every 3 Seconds"...another good site to go to is http://www.one.org, the American G8 site...

Found a stockist shop in Bandar, they sell some pretty nifty equipment, going to see if I can get a Bergen and some webbing before I go home, and hopefully, or if only, a camo Camelbak...saw some pretty cool ones there, including a Hi-Vis one that I didn't realise they made...

Anyway, time to go, getting sleepy...talking to E a bit more recently too...and I really should update more hey, I always say that, but I never do...:(...bad Nick...oh, updates include 3 new sections, "Google Search", "Ads" and "Links and Affiliates"...click on an ad or two, never know what you may find, and links, well, Rhi's World is finally a permanent feature...wanna be linked, just leave a message in the shout box...

Right, off.