Best news ever!

Forget earthquakes (Somebody at my school had a chair fall over!) and anti-Bush ads, my office got air conditioning!! WooHoooo! I am a happy pregnant lady.

Earthquake

Here I sit at about 12:23 am on 22-Feb-2007. I just happened onto the New Zealand Herald website where it is reported that Auckland experienced several earthquakes this evening -- measuring as much as 4.5 on the Richter Scale.

I guess Mindy and I missed it. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary in the evening and certainly nothing that I would consider a techtonic event. A dish did slide off the counter and break on the floor earlier this evening at time that would coincide with SOME of the reports, but we attributed it more to our precariously stacked draining rack than to outside forces.

Amazingly, there has been no coverage of this on TV -- still hasn't, I just looked. Back in Abilene, if there is even the potential for a natural disaster, the networks bombard you with repeated information like some modern twist on Chinese water torture. Here, nothing. I hope there is nothing that I need to be doing.

There is a series of commercials from the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness, or some such governmental agency, in which a menacing looking bloak keeps promising that he will tell us what "[we] need to keep [us] and [our] family safe," but he has not done so yet. To think that the big moment almost came and went without the Ministry of the Getting Together of Things Necessary for Safety and Welfare in the Face of Impending Doom, or some such governmental agency, playing THE last commercial in the series where Deadly-Serious Guy finally makes good on his promise to prepare us for the quasi-End.

I just went to the website for the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (the correct name). It doesn't even list the earthquake as having occurred. So much for lightning-fast emergency response, seamless coordination of agencies, and rapid dissemination of information.

Orwellian Doublethink

I am rereading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. With mock horror I am finding that the book perfectly tracks American domestic and foreign policy in the last 5-6 years.

Specifically apropos is the accusation leveled by the mythical rebel leader "Goldstein" that Oceania remains in a perpetual state of war with the dual purpose of (1) uselessly expending the nation's production surplus to artificially maintain the unequal balance of power and (2) pacifying the proletariat with war fever and infectious (though artificial) patriotism.

While mulling over the inescapable similarities between Big Brother and the US Government, I see this clip of George Bush on the Daily Show. If there were any doubt in my mind, it was quickly vanquished by the seamless use of Doublethink by our intrepid leader.

19-Week Sonogram

We just returned from our 19-week sonogram. What a growth spurt Baby Pickle (maybe "Gherkin" for a name?) has had in the last 7 weeks!

Me and Sunny D

I just returned from a shoot for a Sunny Delight commercial that will run in the USA! It lasted far too long, but it will be worth it if I can be spotted in the background. Look for a commercial for Sunny D where Sunny is participating in a log rolling competition. Bottle of Sunny D on log, me in the background wearing either green or blue shirt (hopefully).

Although, I want you to watch the commercial, I don't want you to drink the product. It is nothing but chemicals and artificial this-and-that. It was all but banned in the UK where it turned a girl yellow. Drink fresh-squeezed orange juice instead.

P.S. -- The picture above is stolen from the Sunny D website (I put a link so maybe they won't sue) and, obviously, I am not in it.

Sunrise Over Auckland

I was up at 3:00 am the other morning, so I decided to go to Mount Eden (known to the Maori as Maungawhau). Here are the pictures from that early morning hike.

http://picasaweb.google.com/boots4walking/AucklandAtSunrise