A Bum Start To A Marriage...

Not a great way to start married life.
I take this bum, to have and to hold, for better
or for worse.
Perhaps they didn't even make it to the honeymoon...

You Know You Want To. See What's Inside Other People's Refrigerators...

You know you want to.
You know you love to have a peek inside other people's refrigerators.
New York based photographer Stephanie de Rouge wanted to and has recently documented more than forty five folk and their refrigerators in her photo-series In Your Fridge. From Paris To New York.
You can see some more intimate secrets that some other fridges hold here.
Stephanie said she discovered some amazing worlds and I guess you would wouldn't you.
It would be a rather personal experience too, similar perhaps to looking through women's handbags, but that's another story.
For now though you might like to consider if there's any truth in the old saying,
We Are What We Eat...  

Little Boxes. People In Mexico Live In Them...

Unbelievable but true.
These little boxes look more like kitset models and they all look the same. But I assure you. They're the real thing.
When photographer Oscar Ruiz was working as a helicopter pilot for a local Mexican radio station, he was required to fly around Mexico City chasing news stories.
He remembers flying up the highway that connects Mexico City with Puebla and this immense housing development
caught his attention.
It's the San Buenaventura Complex, located in Ixtapaluca on the eastern outskirts
of Mexico City.
This image of his featured on National Geographic's Photo Of The Day recently...

A View On Windows 8...

For six years I lived very happily
in my tiny 76 square foot house on wheels with just one window.
I didn't need more than one window because a person can only look through one window at any one time.
That's a simplistic philosophical approach but it worked and I would move my little home to access the view I most desired.
Those were the days of a little Compaq laptop and very slow speeds.
Life online was sometimes frustrating, very frustrating, but it was simple too. And fun.
Then there's been many happy years with an Asus laptop and Windows XP.
A great platform to view the world.
And now there's another Asus laptop and Windows 8.
It maybe Microsoft's latest but even they concede it's not the greatest.
They've now seen the light or perhaps the writing on the wall and promised a total upgrade.
If it hadn't been for the wonderfully talented David Semb at the Vodafone store in Kerikeri and my other computer genius friend Harvey Jones, the last week would have been much more painful.
Akin to walking barefoot over broken glass.
But I can see clearly now...
  

What The World Eats Each Week And What That Food Costs...

There's one thing that we need to do each day and that's eat.
Most of us can afford to but there's many in the world who can't.
And those who can afford to are not making very good choices when it comes to their own diets and those of their families.
It seems that those with small incomes are more selective of the foods they put into their bodies but too, they may be starved of choice.
Here's some images and statistics that might make us all consider what we're serving up on our dinner tables.
One thing's for sure, the western diet certainly consumes a load of processed food and artificially  sweetened beverages and many of the developing countries are unfortunately doing the same.
Hence the increase in diet related diseases.
But diet is often determined by uncontrollable forces such as poverty, conflict and today to a huge extent, globalization.
These images and many more here are from the book Hungry Planet by Peter Manzel and Faith D'Aluision who traveled through twenty four countries recording the people and the prices they pay for their weekly meals.
It's food for thought isn't it.

And The Winner Is...

Contests are funny things aren't they.
Beauty pagents and bodybuilding contests.
You have to be in to win and who knows,
maybe nobody else will turn up on the day.
We all have our own realities and hopefully don't take ourselves too seriously.
We don't see things as they are.
We see things as we are...

Georgia's Katskhi Pillar. Some Call It The Pillar Of Life. Others Call It The Stairway To Heaven...

In Central Georgia's Imereti region, about seven miles from the mining town of Chiatura, there's a very imposing 130 foot high rock pillar that's been venerated since ancient times.
In Pagan times the Katskhi Pillar was thought to represent a local fertility god.
It's since become a place of seclusion and asceticism. It's easy to see why.
The locals call it The Pillar Of Life.
Others call it The Stairway To Heaven.
There's a little church on top of this high limestone pillar and Father Maxim who's lived in the tiny structure for the last eighteen years says church attendance is low. Funny that.
The little church is being restored with the help of brave and strong volunteers who carry materials up the steep ladder.
Who's turn is it to put the milk bottles out tonight...