Have a merry Christmas people and a rockin’ new year

Because we all know how uncivilised chickens can be sometimes…

For those of us not in the know, uncivilised chicken is the literal translation of ’Jungli Murgi’, which is more of a slang description of how the chicken you’re about to eat was raised i.e. not cooped up in some unnatural metal meshed, artificial light, automatically feeding machines environment, fed weight lifting buff up vitamins along the way sorta up bringing.

No. This chicken was raised old school. Like, a simple fence, a tray with water, a little house on the prairie in the corner complete with adoring farm kids to chase them around, squeals of laughter abound, precious exercise for the coming night where the chickens have to play hide & seek with hungry mongoose. These chicken are Darwin darlings, bush bunnies, uncivilised. Ca.

Is there any taste difference between ‘uncivilised chicken’ and the run-of-the-mill manufactured versions? Of course. When you eat ‘jungli murgi’, know that you are consuming the bloodline of a thousand brave and defying chickens who laugh in the face of ‘progress’ and have struck a path on their own, forging through the tall grasses of the dangerous highlands of Naitasiri, pecking away at conventionalism, eating the very hearts of their enemies with cold precise eyes, crowing to the full moon on top of tallest mango trees, their very essence containing the spirit of the land upon which they live on.

Or something along those lines >.>

Why yes indeed that is the middle finger!

Bottled Water has over the years gained flack over a range of issues ranging from the marginal difference bottle water is from normal tap water, to the fact that the ecological footprint of every bottled water is more damaging then the so called health benefits it brings. Whatever that means.

So someone is trying to start a meme on Flickr denouncing the evil ways of the bottled water empire and its many subjects, this one being the infamous Fiji Water (with new export only packaging!). The hater on Flickr rants:

“Everything is wrong about this. The message that is it “green in every drop” when it has to be flown halfway around the world, the company will chase you down for saying anything against them, and while the company makes money, most of the island lives in poverty.”

‘…most of the island lives in poverty”? Surely Fiji isn’t as bad as everyone overseas thinks. Just because we don’t have HBO doesn’t mean we’re living in the doldrums. Granted Fiji does have its fair share of poverty, but what country doesn’t? And I don’t necessarily think that some bottled water company named after its host country is going to wave its magic wand and just…make it all disappear.

What do you think?

So. Come November 29, Fiji’s getting Dailylight saving.

Hmmm. Not too sure what to make of this. There is much debate on the pros and cons of daylight saving, and how it will affect people’s everday living. Personally, I’m still trying to recall how it affected me back in the late 90s (when was the exact year?) when the government had implemented the same decree. I guess the fact that I can’t quite remember means that it didn’t really cause strife in my daily routine. Of course, I was in college, so aside from study hours being slightly skewed (who am I kidding, what study?), there wasn’t much cause for concern.

These days however, as part of the working force, the outlook may be different compared to my (relatively) easy going days as a college student. Getting up early in the morning means waking up to a strange skyline which (I assume for most people who get up early) by normal hours, should already have the slight tints of dawn. And then there’s the added confusion in the first few days after the magic flash fast forward date, where people will be late for dental appointments, AA meetings and after school beatings all because someone forgot to adjust their time. Factor in most people’s fondness for “Fiji Time”, and you’ve got deadlines that fail at their jobs and rather turn into simple notes in the email your boss sent you about that report you were meant to send 2 hours ago. The boss’s wrath however, will be pretty much on time.

So I’m curious. What do you people think of Fiji’s daylight saving move? Do you think we could benefit from this ’spring forward’ both economically (Fiji Islands Hotel and Tourism Association president Dixon Seeto says, “more light, more tourists, more money!”)* as well as peace of mind (Fiji Islands Hotel and Tourism Association president Dixon Seeto says, “more light, less robbers, more happy!”)*? Or are you miffed that – holy crap I just came across an article stating that Daylight saving can affect your health and wellbeing. Hmph. I guess that’s a pretty big argument against the whole deal.

There’s a poll! Let us know whether or not you’re with this whole get up an hour early deal or not. And post in the comments if you feel the need to vent/troll/hate/spam.

Art, as they say, imitates life.

And when it comes to movies, no stone has been left unturned. You name it, they’ve got a movie for it. True stories, action flicks, girly movies, horror movies, documentaries, and the staple of all feel good stories – sports movies. Sports movies are a dime in a dozen, with almost every popular sport covered. From the rough-it-out boxing slugfest that is Raging Bull, to the hoop sailing documentary, Hoop Dreams, most sports fans have a movie that is both loved by critics and fans alike, with sports lovers identifying with said movie as well as adding it to their much hallowed dvd rack.

Except for rugby.

Rugby is a sport that, while being able to lay claim to being a world-wide sport, isn’t quite the eye catcher for movie makers in general. Most popular big budget movies that contain rugby are just that, rugby in the background. In The Four Feathers, rugby was just another tool used by the government to groom the men for war and violence and is shown briefly at the beginning. Quite appropriate if I might say so myself. The Departed has a scene at the beginning where Matt Damon plays 10 seconds of rugby before his team is shown on the losing end. Proper mainstream rugby movies are quite rare, and unfortunately, the one movie that most people will remember rugby for isn’t about rugby but rather rugby players who err eat each other.

Of course, you’ve got Forever Strong, the most recent rugby movie to grace the dvd rental stores that is, if anything, a play by the numbers clique ridden flick that adopts every staple notion of every great sports movie made and flaunts it like no tomorrow. Sorry. But its no fair when boxers have their “Rocky” and american footballers have their “Remember the Titans”, and all we’ve got are some non-new zealanders butchering the haka both on the field and in prison >.>

All however, is not lost. Hope is just around the corner. From the stable that’s brought you Mystic River, Million dollar baby and Grand Torino comes our (hopefully) saviour of a proper rugby movie, Invictus.

This is a dream come true for the oval ball fans like me who despair for a proper treatment of our beloved sport on the big screen. This movie has a lot going for it that, at least I hope, seems destined for greatness and perhaps even a few oscar awards along the way. Let’s do a checklist shall we?

1) Awesome director? Clint “Make my day punk!” Oscar chewing, .44 magnum wielding, anti-hero, manly man Eastwood? Check. Punk.

2) Awesome leading character? Morgan ‘batman’s Q” Freeman playing Mandela? Come on – he was batman’s gadget go-to guy! Who can compete with that? Batman says “check”.

3) Awesome leading character 2? Matt “My name is Jason Bourne and my head hurts” Damon playing Francois Pienaar? A karate chop to the head check.

4) Awesome story? It’s based on a true story! How more awesome can that be?! IMDB says:

“The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.”

Here’s the trailer to dispel any lingering doubts:

Or for you youtubers (Vinaka Kania Tiko!):

December 11, 2009 folks. As village 6 always say, “Mark the date.”

It’s true. Watch as Vijay Singh commands the elements to his will as he bounces,  rolls and ultimately pockets this near hole in one play.

Now if only he can do this on a game by game basis, we’d be the 7s equivalent world champions of golf, and both golf and rugby would be guaranteed medal earners in the Olympics, thanks to our otherworldly prowess.

Thanks Mark Simpson!

PS: Still alive and kickin

The Fiji Times salute alludes to a more sinister figure then intended when they begun celebrations to honour our country’s World War 2 heroes.

Vinaka @Strangepants!

A promise of future vengeance for a real or perceived wrong;

(I’m not too sure of the origins, but Mafatu was the main character from Armstrong Sperry’s growing up novel, The Boy Who Was Afraid.)

I know I should be saving my money but… I will. One day mafatu.

Yeah you wait there boy – one day I gonna smack your face properly saraga. One day Mafatu…

Strange Pants brought to my attention the Firefox Fijian language addon made available by AvonSys, and it’s proving to be an interesting development in the field of native language interactive media. As it stands, most fijian language websites are usually about the study of the actual language itself. Television already has a few shows in fijian, but compared to the internet, tv has been around for abit longer.

Since software releases of any kind must be vigorously tested before, during and after its release to the wild, I’m going to be doing my part in giving the Fijian language addon a lap or two around the barracks ground. Because my fijian isn’t in any shape to give a run through with anything thats fijian and written, I’ve arranged to have some of my other friends and family who are in a better vernacular shape then me to have a go at the language pack.

First up, my trusty but sly workmate, Marika. Technically, Marika doesn’t know that he is been used as a lab rat to test run the new firefox language pack, but I promise to show him the post and give him his 2 minutes of fame when this trial run is published. Here’s an apology in advance to you mate >< Bullet points of interest to follow:

• Before we could even start the review process, Marika had to update his Firefox. “What? Why?” He shrugs. “Everytime thing pop up to update, I just quise it and close it.” A short break while we wait for the updated version to download and install, with much impaitent foot tapping and furvative glances at the progress bar.

• Set. With Firefox now up to date, we eagerly download the language pack, run the installation process – and immediately run into a wall of complex instructions. Ok, to be honest, as a person who likes to think of himself as sorta web savy, it wasn’t that complex. Just…well note for any interested parties: Save time and reading concentration energy. Use Locale Switcher to switch between English and Fijian.

• /Cheer! Behold Firefox in all its majastic, somewhat jarring mix of english and fijian, menu localised glory! First disappointment – websites weren’t rendered in Fijian. Awwww. Of course, Marika was expecting his whole operating system to be in Fijian, so in comparison my disappointment wasn’t that bad.

• Oookaaayyy, lets see now. The first item on the menu bar…Nomu File. Sounds about right. Though to be honest, Fiji needs to come up with more fijian versions of english words, since nomu ‘file’ just won’t cut it. Of course, that’s another topic for another Professor Local Language Convention meeting. For now, the mix of fijian and english in written form was strangely…jarring. We ended up playing a minigame of figuring out which menu was what in its new (disguised) Fijian form, by reading it out aloud and relating it to what we knew as the english version. For example, “Na veisau”, translated literally, means “Change”. What’s there to change? Or maybe…to edit! Yep, we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves =_=

• My favourite fijian switcheroo is “Na MakaniVola”, which lends itself quite well in terms of literal translation: the mark in the book, or Bookmark.
• After stumbling around the menu items, there was a pause then, “Ok…set.” I raised my eyebrows in confusion. “Huh?” “I…gonna switch back to english.” Shock! Horror! “Boy…I’m not used to working in fijian, let alone reading fijian. I dunno boy, thing will uhh take some getting used to.” Hmm. Fair enough point. “Set. But – like how do you like this?” “Woo boy thing set boy. Heavy that they got a Firefox in fijian. Like, from here, us gang can start making more computer stuff with fijian in it.” He slowly and deliberately switched the language from Fijian back to English. “Its good. I will use come back later and try using it again. Thing will take some time to get used to, because first time to have a fijian program, and to use it for work. It’ll take some time. But set.”

Sounds good enough for me.

Next up, the more challenging field test Part 2. My sorta computer literate uncle.

Din Maro:

Hey, I saw you in town yesterday. You sa looked bored saraga. Too much din maro or what?

The boss left for Nadi yesterday, so since then I been do nothing but din maro all day.