littenz

08:40 am: Dealing with dickheads
Today I will be dealing with dickheads - the type that steadfastly refuse to learn.

As par for the course in my job I interact with a lot of people who see me and my colleagues as overburden who add nothing to the productive process; and then these people progressively come to see that we add value and then start seeking us out to get our input in as early as possible. Sometimes this happens slowly, and other times it happens quickly, but in the main it does happen.

However, there are always those hold outs who believe that not only do they know the better way to do something, but also that no way ever, will it be possible for one such as me to add value - so sign the approval and stop being such a dead weight.

The attitude is not the problem - after all, branch office resistance to head office is almost axiomatic for business life - no, it is the absolute refusal to learn, to recognise that me and my colleagues are performing a chief executive stipulated step, and possibly, just possibly, there is some confidence lacking in their ability to get the whatever it is I am reviewing to the expected standard at the first attempt.

And these people wonder why they find it hard to get traction for their ideas.

02:01 pm: More damn rowing
Minor milestone achieved on the rowing machine today: 2,000m in 7'18.1". I was breathless but pleased. Got the result without really trying and aiming for it. The difficult bit was maintaining the speed after the first 1,000m - I actually started a bit faster than I should have and found myself looking at a really quick time.

Back feels good today too. Pulse afterwards was a bit fast: 146 a minute afterwards, but had dropped to 136 two minutes later. Getting the breathing under control was a little harder, but not unexpected.

Enough of this boring twittering about rowing and exercise.

Now back to inter-office counter-terrorism.

09:45 am: Breathe in, breathe out
Was feeling a bit under the weather when I went to the gym last night. Nothing serious, just lacking in energy.

The lack of energy was reflected in the work rate shown on my aerobic programme. Slow on th stepper, letahrgic on the rower, and exhibiting a higher than expected pulse rate when I bothered to measure it. So I wasn't surprised that my signature event (ha!) the 2,000 metre row was slower than I have come to expect. Yes, I fair dragged the chain at 7'28.1".

Eight months ago (pre-heart attack) I would have been very pleased with that effort, and four weeks ago too. But now I consider that a mediocre effort, rowed at a steady unstressed paced. I was breathing a bit heavier than normal (last week's normal, not last month's or last year's), and felt like I had rowed harder than I had the previous week. All in all I was glad I hadn't tried to get under the 7'25" mark as that could have deleterious to my health. On the upside, my back certainly felt a lot better.

If I can keep the back feeling good and maintain or beter the current time, then there might be an assault on the land speed record. Note that this is not definite.

03:44 pm: Have treadmill will travel (revisited)
A month ago I saw the heart surgeon. He gave me an echo-cardiograph, an ECG (oh, joy - a shaved chest again) and treadmill test. Back to seeing blue-shift as blood travelling away (not towards) the viewer. Anyway, the surgeon was pleased with the results of the treadmill test and pronounced me unfit to darken his doorstep again, a.k.a healthy enough to do whatever I wanted to do.

At the gym, the scene of the crime, I had given myself the opportunity to stress my heart before seeing the surgeon and attempted the 2,000 metres in under 7'30" and got there just. Felt all worn out I did. So I knew that game was back on between me and that most malicious device.

A week or so later I had my gym programme revised. The physio gave me some neck exercises to treat an old neck injury (whiplash 1991) and changed my rowing technique - keep your back straight and splay your knees (I was an aspirin and saying "no").

My previous rowing exercises were three lots of 5 minutes (separated by 10 minute bursts on an arc-trainer, bike and treadmill (pick 2)), where I aimed for 1,100m, 1,200m and 1,300m - that last being the inspiration for the 2,000m - with a stroke rate of 26spm, 28spm and 31spm (and I must say that 2,000m at 31spm takes a lot of very deep breathing). With the new technique I am now doing the first two distances at 23-24spm, and 25-26spm. The 2,000m has fallen to 28spm and the time is now sitting at under 7'25". The surprise of it is that I don't feel almost totally blown at the end of the 2,000m. The treadmill, bike and arc-trainer have pulse rate monitors embedded in the handgrips and I can confirm that my heart rate after the final row for the day is nolonger kicking past 145 beats a minute - in fact I am now down at 130 or lower.

At some point in the near future I am going to throw caution to the wind and go for a speed test with the new technique. But that can wait until I am confident of my ability to hold this technique when I get tired (translates to: my lower back is giving me a bit of gyp and up with this I will not put). In the meantime I will concentrate on rowing each 500m faster than the previous (also another way not to run out of puff too early in a row).

I can see the 7'20' barrier falling.

09:38 am: Inflammatory devices
Yesterday I read an interesting article about omega-3 fatty acids and their associative causal benefits on human health. There is much in the way of implied and strongly implied health benefits; and, true, for some people health malefits - however, for this small group there were pre-existing problems.

But back to omega-3. There were three acids ALA, EPA and DHA (initials used because I'm too lazy to look the full names up again), but only the last two are metabolised as such. For humans, ALA is a pre-cursor to EPA and DHA and is a very low efficiency source of omega-3.

So why would I want to eat omega-3 anyway? These acids are supposedly very good for preventing, and treating(?), coronary heart disease and stimulating brain development and function. They are also found in relatively high concentrations in certain types of fish including shellfish (remember that old saw about fish being brain food?).

So I went to the listed website from the article to find out which foods are high in omega 3. The site didn't exist, or rather, the spelling was incorrect. After a few spelling variations I found what I presume to be the correct site - and found partial information, tantalising references to alterantive sources of omega-3 and a minimal listing of dietary sources of said acids.

Then ensued a frustrating google search on the acids and food sources. Out of the twenty to thirty sites visited that matched those criteria none were comprehensive, though one was a lot better than the rest (I also discovered that the term mackerel covers over thirty very different species of fish). For example, omega-3 are present in offal, such as brains, at higher rates than red meat - absolutely no discussion of this point from the American sites. And I found a fascinating abstract about Australian consumption of omega-3, but the full article would cost over $20. And I should stop cooking in nearly all vegetable oils if I want to avoid omega-6 replacement of omega-3; as omega-6 interferes with the uptake of omega-3. I just can't see a "Cook with lard for omega-3" advertising campaign succeeding in the current anti-cholesterol environment.

Anyway, I am only marginally the wiser as to good dietary sources of omega-3. And I saw far too much partiality in the sites I did visit. And no clues as to a good, comprehensive site.

03:30 pm: Health statistics
Now that I am being medicated for the effects of a heart attack (HA) my interest in health statistics and medical treatments has gone from being that of an interested bystander (as though I wasn't really alive) to that of a keen participant in the ongoing medical experiment that is life.

Immediately post HA diagnosis I was on three forms of medication (aspirin as an anti-coagulant, an anti-lipid, and blood pressure reduction). With surgery that increased to four - another anticoagulant was added (this will end in three months as it was for the surgical steel placed in situ during heart surgery). The level of medication has since reduced; once because the blood pressure got down to 100 over 60 [a bit too low according to the heart surgeon]; and once because I have significant doubts over the efficacy of of prolonged anti-lipid treatment.

Last week I started reading the literature. Anti-lipids have some unusual side effects, with a correlation to short-term memory loss - this is not surprising really as the brain uses fats for a lot of its base functions. Cholesterol is important for the healthy running of the brain (and bodily development). I have now read through the 4S study, also known as the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study, which was a study on medium-term survival with the use of cholesterol management drugs. The sample size of 4,444 and the period length of just over 5 years showed little in the way of adverse effects on the general population due to simvastatin (a.k.a. lipex and zocor). And there was a reduced mortality in the simvastatin group. I am still working through the statistical analysis to determine how the claimed 30% reduced mortality rate was arrived at. It looks like smoke and mirrors to me as I am having difficulty reproducing the 30% death avoidance rate, and I consider myself good with numbers.

Another study I read through, but with less source data to analyse as this was not focussed on anti-lipid medication, was the ALLHAT study (something like antihypertensive something something heart attack treatment - I was also not too interested at the time as I was chasing the mirage of anti-lipids) - the focus of this study was the treatment of blood pressure and that treatment's impact on heart attack and ischaemic coronary heart disease survivability. This study concluded that there was no statistical difference between the population groups on or not on [should that be "off"] lipid medication. The big factor was getting blood pressure to below 140 over 90.

That's right - the coronary care factor was blood pressure of 140 over 90; stay below it! There may have been a smoking gun in the hand of serum cholesterol levels above 5.2, but if that blood pressure factor was managed then the serum cholesterol levels were nowhere near as significant as first thought and the smoking gun was firing blanks (which can still be deadly close up).

The other factor that came through from both studies was that diabetics (type 2 especially) need to manage cholesterol and blood pressure levels. Elevated blood pressure and type 2 diabetes are both strongly correlated with weight above physiological norms and lack of exercise (either and both). If one manages one's weight back to normal by diet and exercise then blood pressure levels trend to normal and the type 2 diabetes tends to come under control. Nothing new there.

The item of greatest focus all through the studies was low density lipoproteins (LDL). The evidence is that the human body does not use these lipids anywhere near as efficiently as high density lipoproteins (HDL). The evidence suggests that not only does the brain work better on HDL, but that persons on HDL-richer diets are more physically active (or perhaps less sedentary) and thus less prone to the health problems resulting from a comparatively LDL-rich diet.

All this research means I am loathe to go back on the anti-lipids. Anecdotally, I feel a bit sharper mentally but that may just be a relaxing weekend with a decent night's sleep.

Conflict of interest? At the moment I have no interests in salmon farms or deepsea fishing, but I am thinking about it.

02:47 pm: Focussing the mind
Much and little has happened over the last eleven or so weeks.

Today I realised that (short term memory problems aside) I have become a little more focussed on achieving aims, and a bit more dismissive of time-wasting. That revelation today at the gym.

For the past three and a half years I have mouthed off about exercising for pain management (long story, but it works) and to lose weight. Since I have started my cardiac rehabilitation programme the weight is coming down. As the exercise programme is light, or more correctly, not intensive, I am somewhat surprised. My eating habits may have improved too.

I thought I hadn't changed my eating habits much, but I have really. I haven't bought cheese or cream for three months. I am eating more chlorophyll laden vegetables. I cook a dinner more often than reverting to snacks; and my evening snacks are more likely to be fruit than a hummus dip with chippies.

As for that focus thing - when the main muscle gets a going over there is a change in attitude, no matter how much one shrugs it off at the time. The rehabilitation programme acts to reinforce the less than subtle message of: to survive a heart attack long-term exercise regularly. And then one thinks about survival...and what that means for continued living. And what is unimportant or not as important as what one wants to do.

Well the whole experience has affected me. Maybe for the better.

04:13 pm: The big HA!
Monday last week, I received a surprise, early birthday present.
It was so much a surprise that I didn't know I had been given it until Wednesday.
And what was this interesting present?
A heart attack!
That's right -- the big HA!

On Monday I was rowing fit to bust and I think something broke. Anyway, after a depressing 20'08" for 5,000m I went back to the office and contemplated shortness of breath and upper-left arm muscular pain (that's pain the top half of the left arm, not the top arm of two left arms - I'm not that weird!), and booked a doctor's appointment. Strode in Wednesday morning and got the once over, which included an ECG; and several chesthairs plucked in the process. Got sent to the Emergency ward at the local hospital for a second opinion. Several ECGs and one blood test later the word came back "You've had a heart attack." Frantic phone calls to ensure plans dependent on me weren't buggered, and the start of notifying people that I might not be available for a few days.

More ECGs, an ultrasound (watching and listening to the heart in action is fascinating) later the damaged area is identified. Am booked in for an angiogram and probable surgery. Also told no treadmill test as this might mean the staff would have to use the defribulator: and that's a piece of excitement we can all do without, thank you. Remembered to reschedule birthday celebrations.

Friday get stabbed in the leg with a blunt object and made senseless with a sedative - in that order. Had a detailed conversation with the surgeon that I have no memory of, but am now sporting a piece of wire mesh in a cardiac artery. Learn about tourniquets too. Avoided painting my ward's ceiling red. Was told my operation scar looked like a pimple.

Have to wait two weeks to drive, four weeks off work, and have conceded the current match to the rowing machine - it has won on points.

10:25 pm: Have treadmill will travel
After months of insistent argument (not incessant mind), I have finally started winning again against the rowing machine - that brute of yore and myth.

Last week I achieved 19' 58.5" for the 5,000m and yesterday 7' 29.3" for the 2,000m. In neither instance was I totally exhausted, but oddly enough yesterday's efforts felt like it took more out of me.

Not that all this go nowhere exercise makes me look a vision of athletic splendour. Enthusiastic eating at wild food challenges put paid to that. And there was another cause for celebration. I dined at 14 of the 15 entering restaurants and bars. Number 15 had sold out, much to my chagrin. I must say that not enough pigeon or eel appears on the menu these days.

I wonder when the beer festival is?

04:07 pm: An air of achievement
Today was almost a red letter day. At the gym I attend, I conduct an ongoing argument with the rowing machine. This is a beast with a capricious and oft times vicious nature, and is not to be trusted. The gym has two of these monsters - they are always approached with trepidation by any who have even a passing acquaintance with either of them.

Last month I had a break from the gym of four weeks and lost a measure of aerobic fitness. This loss of condition meant that the rowing machines (vile cruel beasts) were able to easily defeat my best efforts. I had been reduced to the gymnastic expression of nullo contendio. The machines smirked at me and feasted merrily on my lungs.

Oh! There were moments in the engagements when the I was allowed to believe I had the upperhand. But, no. The machines bided their time and ambushed me most effectively. On each occaision I was left bereft of wind, staring at the wall in a daze of oxygen deprivation, unable to move from acetic acid build up. The machines would gloat mercilessly.

Today I remembered to emply tactics. I was sure and steady - I refrained from the temptation to take an early advantage. The rowing machine had to resort to its most incidious of tricks - it modified the speed of the passage of time. A brutal, but effective measure.

Today I fell short of my target for the 2,000 metres of 7 minutes 30 seconds (or better) by 1.1 seconds. I was able to get up and walk away in less than ten seconds. Last week I fell short of my target by over 5 seconds. I will start achieving my target again next week (as I used to do before my holiday).

Now to ensure I get below the 20 minute level for the 5,000 metres (I was only 15 seconds short on Monday) - but this may require standby bottles of oxygen and a jolly good rub down afterwards.

01:34 pm: More food
Just had a lovely meal of venison occo busso cooked in valrhona (or possibly vahlrona)with moi moi potatoes (they're purple) and 560ml of Montieth's black.

For those who don't know occo busso is gravy beef with the bone in. It was lovely. I got to suck the marrow out of the bones. I was later told that that was the correct etiquette.

The gravy venison was very well cooked and almost fell off the bone. The marrow was very tasty too. There was a nasty moment, near the end of the dish, when I discovered some celery - but I'm a big boy now, I coped (just); I only growled at the waiting staff (especially when they cleared the bones, oh and the plates, away).

Made the mistake of coming back to my desk via the Kirks' sale - I have a few exotic jams and sachets of mint chocolate drink, plus a German bread stick. I have an inkling what I shall eat for tea.

09:33 pm: Food - and other delights of the flesh
For those of you have know me there may, at times, be a temptation to describe me as having a strong resemblance to an ambulatory dumpling. I will concede the analogy.

In the interests of ensuring the physical similarity between me and a ball of starch I started out in search of provenders in the annual Montieth's Wild Food Challenge. A likely starting point was in the Wellington suburb or Brooklyn. The eatery in question is offering pistachio wrapped quail with watercress & horopito pesto stuffing on a manuka-smoked kumara rosti. (Salivation levels while typing are high.) Visitation at said eatery proved salutory and entertaining, most entertaining indeed.

The host staff didn't know anything about the the meal putatively on offer, and were aghast when they saw the poster showing the challenge starting today. Worse, the chef who had designed the recipe had left the establishment that Friday night and would not be returning. All was not lost. Plan B (there is always a Plan B) was standing in the eatery (and bar) and ready to offer his services. What Plan B didn't know was what the meal was. What followed next was worth the price of the two beers I drank as Plan B brought the perceived recipe to a realisable standard.

Plan B used to work at the eatery and bar and had designed its existing menu. He knew his food. He knows his quails. Based on suggested ingredients he gave a quick costing, and then blanched at the final price (inclusive of beer). He was hampered by there not being a menu to compare what a small group, including me, thought he meal was. We decided it was proscuitto wrapped quail. Plan B said anything wrapped in pig tasted good; he referenced some bacon wrapped monk fish he had cooked the night before. Sage nodding from the audience.

"The stuffing of the quails with pesto?" said Plan B. "Why would you wan to stuff quails with pesto? It's going to flow everywhere." We treated these as rhetorical questions. "Perhaps a kumara bung would work?" we opined.

"I know," said Plan B, "I shall add cream cheese to the pesto and use it to create a source for this meal." We whipped our chins (and my jowls) and bowed to Plan B's greater culinary knowledge.

In the meantime there was much texting and phonecalling of the manager of the eatery, while Plan B was working up his salvage plan. The manager sent through what she thought was the final menu item. Plan B relaxed. It wasn't as bad as he thought.

But what was the beer??
"Radler," said Plan B. "Otherwise it's the red - Celtic. It'll all be ready by Friday."

I found out that one needs to book breathing room in the eatery on Fridays. "I'll be back on Sunday."
"Good," said Plan B, "they'll know how I cook by then."

Thirst moderately slacked, I drove to Petone and had a meal at another participant. (Raw marinated hapuku (or groper), skewered with cherry tomatoes & pickled mushrooms served with herb salad & a stick of bonfire beer damper, matched with Radler.) At only $13 including the beer it was very nice, but lacked starch (I had skipped lunch in anticipation of the quail). I was the first person to order the challenge meal. At this point I was grateful it was on. I was also hungry.

I remembered to collect a copy of the challenge menu. Suppression of laughter can be injurious to your health. The quail was not to be wrapped in pig but in nuts. But if in nuts - how?

On my immediate return home I called the first establishment, where I was remembered, and pointed out the problem with what the quail was supposed to be wrapped with, and the beer match. The conversation was sanguine and also speculative. We were both keen to try either dish. Life is good!

11:38 pm: Eclipses
I have just finished reading a fun book about eclipses - but as I somewhat missed the mark with my other comments today I shall wait to post my thoughts.

11:36 pm: The Taste of Shoe Leather
I should know better, I really should.

I read other's livejournals, and occaissionally I post comments. I think today I totally misjudged the tone of a comment.
Any further statements would reek of flippancy and insincerety. (Two parts gloom, three parts contrition.)

03:52 pm: Fund raising
I did!
All the raffle tickets got sold. This means that the wallets of my friends are safe from instant assault in the course of fundraising. It also means that the raffle will raise the amount I informally budgetted. Now to organise the drew (Monday or Tuesday) and publicise the results.

As for how personal this raffle was to me: besides being identified as the organiser (for those who bought a ticket, bang goes a thin veneer of anonymity), I sold 600 tickets out of 372, or 62% of sales.

After that exercise bank robbery looks a lot simpler - and more rewarding. And possibly less socially odious.

09:20 pm: Personality Disorders
I'm involved with a national science fiction convention.

Due to an unexpected rush of blood to the head, I thought a simple fund raiser would be to organise a raffle and sell tickets. I short circuited some problems by self funding the prizes (I didn't think to get sponsorship for the raffle).

Then hooray fuck (reference to an old Leunig cartoon), I had a few raffle tickets to sell. Honestly, 600 tickets is not many as far as raffles are concerned, but selling these bastards has felt like one of the labours of Hercules - one of the ones [is the plural of one, ones?] he never bragged about. Clean Stygian stables, tick; hold pillars of the heavens, tick; sell raffle tickets, not prosaic enough, better hush up.

Anyway, I have developed an alter ego (Oliver Sutton?) who has no shame about selling raffle tickets, soliciting money for starving children in Africa, or procuring abortions. In away I enjoy this alter ego, he allows me to be something I don't see me as: brazen, relentless, and motivated by the Ferengi code of conduct. I chaired a meeting at work, all of a sudden Oliver Sutton was selling raffle tickets before the meeting began. The deputy office solicitor was muttering about probity, I said it was an of abuse of process. Oliver, or I, managed to sell some tickets.

The weird thing is, I still need Oliver. There is still a week till the raffle closes. Buggered if I am going to this much trouble to make a surplus of a few dollars. I want maximum return for the effort involved, because if Oliver can't sell all the tickets printed there is something rotten in the state of Denmark...

08:53 pm: Hydroponics
Today I weeded my hydroponics garden.

What? I hear you exclaim. Hydroponics should mean there are no weeds. You get what you want to grow.
In the traditional sense, this would be true. Unfortunately, my hydroponics garden, whilst in a traditional site, is not a traditional garden.

I wqas inspired to do weeding when I visited a friend and he was weeding his hydroponics. He had a problem which I don't have - namely one of access.
My weeding involved getting the ladder out of shed (a chore in itself); finding a safe place to lean said ladder against the house wall; and then climbing onto the roof. My garden is, or rather was, in my roof guttering.

After clearing out all the vegetation, and there was a lot to clear, I also made sure that the water drained as much as it could. The bad news for me is that the garden will return as my drain pipes are not at the low points in the guttering. But young Norm, who was the inspiration for for my activity, had little in the way of safe access. He also had less in the way of visual reminders to weed the gutters, his being on the downhill side of the house - and he has a prodigious downhill side (this is not a euphemistic insult for his physique; he really does have a sloping piece of land on which his house is built (painting that south side will be a really challenge)).

While I was up and about, I also cleaned off some lichen - it was telling me I should get my John Wyndham collection back from a Midwich Cuckoo.

11:02 pm: Dietary accident
Well, I suppose one day it had to happen. The day you know before it has really started that you have eaten too much of entirely the wrong things.

I am not talking food sensitivities or worse, food allergies. No, this is something much more fundamental. Food that is supposed to be really, really good for you. Low fat, low cholesterol, high glycaemic index, high fibre food. Yes, especially the fibre part. Food with a mission.

The day dawned dark and early after a weekend spent eating lots of fruit. My body beat the alarm clock by at least an hour. After doing my bit for global warming the passionless embrace of Morpheus returned. Then came a succession of contemplative moments at more frequent intervals. The last was the most distressing as the Rodin moment occurred less than twenty minutes into my gym routine and the same length of time after my previous pause for thought. I cursed my folly for drinking four well-malted beers on Saturday evening. I praised my foresight at trimming my fingernails Saturday afternoon.

The scales at the gym showed I had lost weight. I'd rather not think about how.

09:36 pm: The beauty of language
Today I learnt a new word - callipygian (or callipygean if you prefer).

The more formal definition I sourced via dictionary.com, which coyly presented the meaning as "beautiful buttocks" and other similar phrases. Nowhere was the vernacular argot of "nice arse" used.

My supervisor had learnt this word at toastmasters and written it on the whiteboard to display his new found knowledge. He happily pointed out that this was a gender-neutral word. (As a voices off he said that the presenter had been unable to source the battlecry for one of the superheroes in the male pantheon.) A little internet research unveiled the source of the word - and I feel honour bound to decry the drop in standards society that can prevent temples being opened to women who ask unfamiliar men to judge the comparative quality of their arses. Just what has the world come to?

So acting on my bosses aside I thought such a word as he wanted should exist, given the abiding interest that a large proportion of humanity has in the comeliness of the human anatomy - but I was proven wrong. So I decided to create my own neologism, because polite society needs this term. I decided to stay with the Greek roots of the original and elected on "callimastotian".

So if people ever refer to callimastotian attributes you will know the phrase started here.

03:56 pm: World Domination
The regular reader of my journal will have noticed a few changes - I have moved on from the plain vanilla (more properly plain cardboard) format of my journal to something approaching an acceptable site. This wondrous change is due in large part to threemonkeys and his unstinting patience in helping a proto-luddite.

My proto-luddism extends from a frustration with the technology and not a philosophical back to nature rose-tinted world view. A few small examples: mobile telephony, including inhouse handsets, almost prevented me making outgoing calls - hear dial tone, call number, hear number ringing, call is answered and then it all went quiet - and this was under supervised instruction; and livejournal decided that befriending others was a technical logic error that my user account was not recognised for. But I can programme a VCR - without a user manual (mind you my mother's, even with a manual, was an exercise is self disciple suitable for a candid camera game show At the Censor's Discretion; well, she got lots of entertainment).

In the past few days I have been for at least two drives in the country. Once with threemonkeys and lobelet to Martinborough to taste of the beers. The dead bird on the brewery tavern floor suggested more than just closed for today (the smoked salmon sausages at Alana Estate were a must try and tasted much better than expected). The other was a visit to see cat_i_th_adage and investigate some of the crafty stalls in the Manawatu (I got to one, which is some - ah, the joys of mathematical logic). The stall had a very good range of non-grape wines and litres and litres of mead...and large amounts of honey, all different flavours of honey even clover. And feijoa schnapps. And it was a place I had meant to visit for I don't know how long.

Now armed with a new suit of clothes for my livejournal, an acquity with mobile telephony, a bottle of [feijoa] schapps and pots of honey world domination is only a hearts-and-minds campaign in Asia away.