24

Beside Boston Legal, 24 is set to be another sitcom I'll follow from start to finish..

"You can look the other way once, and it's no big deal. Except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time and pretty soon, that's all you're doing is compromising because that's how you think things are done...." - Jack Bower, S01E02

a path between Earth and Heaven, happiness

Wikipedia tells me that in Greek mythology, a rainbow is a path made by Iris between Earth and Heaven. I took this photo on my way to dinner today, driving along Tamiki Drive.



Thanks to flickr, here is the Economist's view on happiness, as at 23.12.2006. What's missing is the famous quote by George Sand - "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."

mudbrick

Decent food - ticked.
Attentive waiter who cares to find out 1 gallon = how many liters for you on the spot - ticked.

As a restaurant, mudbrick rivals some of the best places in Auckland.

cufflinks

Thanks Mars for these cheeky cufflinks. Your flight back to HK must be one of best - Cathay Pacific ranked first in Forbes best first class airlines of the year in 2006.



Tips for fellow travellers: Looking sick (as in cough cough cough) + airpoints + an empathetic check-in staff = chance of getting upgrade to first class.

soul

Chocolate, hazelnut and beurre bosc pear pie, mascarpone ice cream, Turkish coffee custard is what it says on the menu, and this is what it looks like.

Soul is arguably the best place in the viaduct for people watching. People, from 3 guys holding "free hug" signs to ladies in their best frocks parading in front of you.

zilch

Attractive packaging, "no added sugar", National Heart Foundation "tick" = a product that should be able to woo any health conscious foodie.

I always believe if the business people are prepared to spend on their advertising budget, I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

It tastes better then I thought. Bottom line; marketing works. Can you tell it's by NZ natural by the packaging? Yes, you can't, and that's the point.

michael buble

The song "home" has been playing and playing inside my head for the whole morning.. no.. not hallucinating.. afterall did manage to get some sleep during my night shifts.. thanks to the boss and the nurses..

don't worry about e-mails, a SMS from you is just about enough to brighten this gloomy auckland day.

8 months old

Visited Brian a few days after the new year.. Terence and Michele's first child. Having known Terence since we were kids - his dad apparently posted the marriage notice in the paper for my parents, it's funny how I sometime still address him as "大哥哥" - literally "Big Brother", on the day he was admitted to the Bar, and till this day as well.

Soljan

Soljan - a winery place where for me, the food is the reason to go. So on this overcast Auckland day, the youngest in the family decided to have a long lunch. Yes, we didn't have any wine. Had deserts instead and boy, if you like vanilla, go for it. They have a young, pleasant, energentic crew - recommended.

Stephanie Coontz

It's peace on earth when today's Herald is publishing article by Stephanie Coontz that first appeared in The Observer at the end of last year.

The highlighted words "For millennia, marriage was a stable social institution precisely because it had little to do with love and intimacy" caught my skeptical eyes.

A historian's perspective is certainly refreshing. So is Kahlil Gibran's take on the matter in The Prophet.

There are things in life that just can't be explained, can't be proved, can't be reasoned. I'm in the believer's camp.

reading

Went on a bit of a reading spree during the holiday season.. instead of piling up books at the bedside, I actually managed to read quite a few.

Come across a new word, look it up the old fashioned way = joy.