Marco and Luca are cousins.

Marco (Left - 6 months old) and Luca (Right - nearly 3 years old) are cousins. They are also both my nephews. Marco lives in Wellington and Luca lives in Auckland so they don't see one another very often. They love each other, but they are still a bit unsure of each other. Luca is a sweet wee man and tries his hardest to be friends with Marco. Marco is still too young to really understand much, so all he can do is examine and analyse Luca. This makes Luca unsure, but he smiles anyway.


When Marco is lying on the floor I can't help but lying down next to him so I can tickle him, or kiss him on his chubby cheeks. Marco usually cycles through a whole collection of facial expressions, including: smiling, frowning, shocked, confused, annoyed etc. He's wearing his Pac-Man top. It has a matching bib too, but he's not wearing that.

The cute little Italian girl in this picture is Cecilia Martelli (my mother). It was probably taken around 1953-54, when she would have been about maybe two or three years of age. She passed away peacefully yesterday at our family home. I am currently putting together a photo-montage-thing for her funeral. I found some pretty awesome photos of her. I really like this one. She is standing outside the family house (on the farm), wearing a little dress that my Nanna Margherita (her mother) would have made for her. Nanna was as seamstress and made most of the family's clothes. "There wasn't a lot of money around in them days", Nanna said to me recently.

This picture of my Mum and her four younger siblings was probably taken around 1959. All clothes would have been tailored by my Nanna. I showed this picture to my Uncle Peter (pictured far right) recently. He laughed, and said something like "God, look at us! We look like refugees!"

A great-grandmother and great-grandson.

My Nanna Margherita holds my nephew Marco. She remarks at what a big boy he is! She tells him that he'll be a policeman when he's big and that he'll go around clobbering everyone.

"You'll go round clobbering everybody. That's what you'll be doing. Clobbering everybody", she says to him.

I can't figure out which one of them I find cutest.

Some nice quotes relating to weasels.

Hello. Lately I've been looking around for some quotes involving weasels. Here are some I've found:

"I have come up with a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel."- Blackadder (in Blackadder the Third)

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield ( a very wise man.)

"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what seperates us from the animals... except the weasel." - Matt Groening

"Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether." - Hunter S. Thompson (from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

As awesome as those quotes are, here's something more awesome:

What it means to be a fan of the Beatles.

Annie - The Movie

This is about the 1982 film. For any other Annie things, sod off.

Man, me and my friend Elizabeth were reminiscing about how we used to watch Annie all the time when we were both little. So, a couple of days later, we got together and watched it. It was the first time either of us had watched it in about 15-20 years and we were both freaking out a bit beforehand. When you have such great memories about a movie from your childhood, sometimes it's not a good idea to watch it as an adult. Like, often (as was the case for me with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie), you realise that it's just not that good a film and you feel like you've ruined the idealised memory you had of it. But Annie was just how I remembered it. Awesome.

I think I had a grin on my face through the whole film. Seriously, let me tell you about how I loved the characters:

Little orphan, Annie is really cute. I never realised this when I was little because I guess I was younger than Annie the last time I watched the film. I never realised how optimistic and positive and happy she was. Her best qualities are: a) her smile, b) her singing voice, and c) her ability to beat the living shit out of a gang of boys.

Miss Hannigan, who runs the orphanage and who is perpetually drunk (she brews her own gin in her bathtub), is even more entertaining now that I have experienced being drunk myself. I believe she would be an absolute riot to have as a guest at a wedding reception.

Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks (billionaire) shouts when he talks - like a deaf grandfather type guy, (except me and Liz reckon he's about 50 so he's still got a lot of energy and enthusiasm). He's the ultimate capitalism success story and hates liberals and commies. He owns an Autocopter and he's pretty good mates with the President. The character of Daddy Warbucks really went over my head as a child.

The music in the film is nothing short of genius. My favourites include: Maybe (which makes me well up a bit), Little Girls (sung by an inebriated Miss Hannigan), the heart-warming Dumb Dog/Sandy sequence, and, of course Lets Go To The Movies which is such a bloated epic that it can only exist in a broadway musical setting.

Topping it all though is It's a Hard-Knock Life, OMG what a freakin' sweet sequence. Not only is it the type of song that you can happily have on repeat in your head at work, but the choreography on display in the scene where the girls are singing it, while simultaneously doing advanced acrobatics and cleaning up the orphanage, blew my adult mind.

Other choreography of note is the scene I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here number, where Annie is overwhelmed after arriving at the Warbucks Mansion and finding that the entire staff are really bloody good at singing and dancing.

I don't know whether it'd be quite the same to watch Annie as an adult without having seen it as a kid, but I'd still recommend it. But to all those of you who haven't seen it since being a wee thing (Joanne, I'm looking in your direction), DO IT!

How to grow a Snow Man.

Growing a snowman is easy! It's good when you have no real friends and need some company. To be perfectly honest, a Snow Man provides little company, but it's better than being Nigel No-mates. Anyway, here's how you do it:

1. Choose a patch of ground where there are not likely to be any people or animals to interrupt the process. I chose my disgusting backyard. IMPORTANT: There needs to be a red bucket near the site otherwise this will not work!
2. Every night, before your bed time, repeat the following rhyme that I just made up:

Silly Billy, Peter Pan,
Jack be nimble, ripped and tanned.
I've got no friends to eat my flan,
Beam me down a real Snow Man!,
or Snow Woman.

Then, the next morning, you go outside into the shitty backyard and this is starting to happen:

3. Make sure you keep repeating the spell every night, otherwise all you'll end up with is a snow Foetus - (not half as fun, and a little creepy).
4. At this point, the Snow Being has reached adolescence. Soon, it will begin frothing out snowy spunk, not unlike human adolescence. One of these particles of spunk will develop into the head of the snowman. In fact, there is evidence of the seed of the head to the right of the photo.
5. Here's what I was describing in point four. I stress, keep saying the spell. You don't want the Snow Foetus to be stuck in adolescence forever.
6. The head is now attached to the body. This is one of the most special parts of the whole Snow Man creation. If you get a chance to witness this moment, bring popcorn.
7. Another violent discharge marks the point when the Snow Man is about to be born.
8. Finally, on day 8, the arms now erect, there is one more violent eruption, and the Snow Man springs to life!

It's easy. Now have a go yourself.