Queen's Birthday & Such

The big news down here in Middle Earth is the recent capture of William Stewart, a 47 year old fugitive who managed to stay on the run from the law for 3 months by slipping through police undetected, earning him infamy & the nickname Billy the Hunted One. With him back behind bars, he’s now known as Billy the Captured One.

Following that is the release of the government’s budget to combat the Recession. Long story short, no tax cuts, and there’ll be a deficit of a few billion dollars.

And to top it all off, comes the problem of boy racers (known as street racers in North America). Federal & Municipal governments are passing strict laws to combat the road pests with severe punishments such as prolonged impoundment, and having your racer compacted into a cube.

While these stories surround the community, college life has been going quite steady. My classes are senior history, junior music, Creative English, and Prof. Studies. With regards to assignments, I have to write a Y12 history unit plan about the IndoChina Conflict (1945-1975); arrange a song for a Y10 music class; and create a portfolio full of resources that would help me in teaching English. In Prof Studies, we looked at how to deal with the sexual harassment, & bullying (cyber, texting, verbal).

Ilam Village received a new neighbour this week, Pizzacarto, a pizza, coffee, & gelato shop. The business made itself at home in a big empty room that sits across the laundry room. Despite odd location, I paid them a visit last night to test the quality of pizza and was impressed with the quality, although the price was quite high ($12.50NZD for a thin crust medium pizza). Next time I’ll be trying the gelato.

The people of Middle Earth will be getting a three day weekend because it’s the Queen’s Birthday on June 1^st. The extra day off gives me more time to complete assignments for my classes. Canadians, however, get an extended weekend a week earlier for celebrating Queen Victoria Day.

On the world stage, I was shocked to hear & watch Canada’s Governor General Michelle Jean partake in the consumption of seal meat while touring the territory of Nunavut. Annually, 900,000 seals are clubbed to death in Northern Canada for food & clothing. As much as I respect the Inuit, they need to find another source of food. If I were Prime Minister, I’d replace clubbing with shooting, and slowly & continually reduce the maximum quota until it reaches zero.

Another shocking surprise to me is the ending of May – almost half of 2009 is already complete! The first decade of the 21^st century is nearing its end! I never thought it would get here so fast. So much has happened & yet it feels like not a lot of time has passed.

North Korea’s insane & stubborn 12 year-old-but-stuck-in-a-66-year-old-body dictator, Kim Jong Il, has got it in his head that if he dies, then his country will die with him. And so he orders his isolated Stalinist country to conduct another underground nuclear weapons test, and announce that they’ll no longer follow the terms to the 1953 truce with South Korea. I’ve always wondered if the situation in Korea would ever be resolved and right now it’s looking like there may be another Korean War.

And lastly, the university has recovered from a major computer network failure, which prevented me from posting a link to my latest CD review for CANTA Magazine. I reviewed Where I Was Born, the debut lounge album from NZ's own Rare Shot Blue.