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Showing posts from August 3, 2008

Un. Be. Lievable.

I tell you something - if you didn't see the opening ceremony to the Beijing Olympics tonight, you missed out. It was just incredible. I thought the Australian opening ceremony was good 8 years ago. The Chinese have move the bar so high that it's hard to conceive how any nation after this is going to be able to come even half way close to the sheer spectacle and quality of what we were presented with tonight. I hope NBC do a BluRay of the opening ceremony.

$540bn + $48bn =?

How much Bush has squandered on his Iraq adventure. $540bn in war funding. $48bn in reconstruction costs. Oddly, Iraq announced an $80bn budget surplus today.....compared to America's $482bn deficit. Just so you know.

Curse you, US Airways

Bastards! US Airways have set the precedent now - they're now charging for all drinks, including bottles of water. That means it'll only be a matter of minutes before all the other American airlines jump on board. So you now have to sit jammed into a 32 inch seat pitch, pay for all your checked bags, pay for blankets and pillows, pay for window, exit row or aisle seats, and pay for soft drinks on board. Fantastic. Has anyone pointed out to the US airlines that all airlines are suffering the same cost of fuel increase, but only the US airlines are stacking up the extra fees? It was hard to imagine how the airlines could make flying any less pleasant but they've managed it. I'm sure they can't see it now, but it's the extra fees that are going to kill them, not the price of fuel. People will simply stop flying.

A little bit of culture in Utah

We went to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts yesterday - they've got an exhibition running with art from private collectors. It spans all sorts of stuff from Rembrandt to Degas. It was quite interesting. Some of the Piet Mondrian stuff looks a lot better in the flesh so to speak. It's still just lines and blocks of colour, and it still doesn't make any sense, but it does look better when you see "it", not a printed copy of it.