Long absences
Too much to talk about, really.

I've started the new job. It's going really well, it's interesting and challenging and the people seem good. It's also all about working hard for the 8-hour working day, and then going home, which suits me down to the nines because I've never been a big fan of overtime and I don't tend to socialise too much with workmates anyway. (I'm not going to say much more about the job - keeping personal and professional lives seperate). David, if you're reading, you'd love it there. No mindless chatter. Just work. (Oh, but you were right about being stuck using IE).

I spent the last weekend in Napier with Rhonda. 'Twas a good time, almost all of the time (given how hard I am to be around for protracted periods, we'll take that). We did have one minor 'argument' (hardly worthy of the name and quickly made up). I'm enjoying her company more all the time. Napier itself was pleasant enough - except for the weather (overcast? we went there because it was supposed to be sunny. oh well). And the bogans (nothing against them, in general - just that they were playing their music and revvin' their cars and doing other bogan things, loud and late. The drunks shouting outside our room at both 2.30am and 5am deserve two slaps, as well). And the food poisoning I got late on Sunday. Bad bad bad. Neither of us slept very well that night. I still haven't got over it properly, got indigestion and so on and so forth.

My friend and ex-girlfriend Adele is pregnant. She will be the first of my really close group of friends to have a baby. Not unexpected, but signifying the start of our move into adulthood - especially when coupled with Paul and Kim buying a house (in Wilton). It's all starting to make me think I need to get on with life a bit more productively.  
| ¶ 10:33 pm

  How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence
Those centrifuge tubes that Powell and Cheney said were for nuclear centrifuges? They were really, and truly for short-range missiles. As proven by inspectors before the war started. The New York Times has the story (long, but worth it - the sort of detailed research we need more of).  
| ¶ 12:46 pm

  Nominations for the Shortlist Prize
The longlist for the Shortlist prize (that makes no sense). Some good names from a range of genres (the Eagles of Death Metal are my new favourite band, based purely on their name - although their album would have been a thousand times cooler had it been called "Peace Love Unity Death Metal". I dig many of the bands on this list, and haven't heard of a lot of the others, so I'll be checking them out.

Via MTV.com , of all places.  
| ¶ 4:02 pm