I raise my glass to 2005, but for the first time in exile I was sober last night. When was it last time I was not over 05? In fact, I was totally sober. We did not even dance a first one for me especially when it comes to Silvester aka New Year Eve.
Best of 2004 comes down to simple daily joys; those morning routines and evening rituals. The way Lauren makes the cofee scent travel into every corner of our house. The way I am allow to take risks and still be forgiven. As the legislatures around the world are well aware, 2004 was a milestone in the Imrich journey through this amazing life in exile. Being married to Lauren for two decades feels much less than 2 years drilled inside the Czechoslovak army: Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle...
Best albums we bought this year: Despite my salty hair, I am hooked on Silver(C)hair. Every now and then we are reminded of how rebel music can do more than merely stir us ... One of those albums whose lyrics make you wish you had a richer inner life somehow. I blame Lauren for this as she loves listening to the CDs at 4 am with the girls as they head towards swimming pool ...
Best TV series I saw this year: I fell in love with Love My Way (Warning - May improve your love-life dangerously)
Best book I read this year: I am a big reader to begin with, but I think that being researcher by trade and passion, I read more newspapers, journals and books than most people. I enjoyed reading Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, The Last Juror by John Grimsham and the insightful and daring book by Margo Kingston entitled Not Happy John.
Best Film Festival I attended this year: In Sydney for the first time was the eightth Annual Resfest Digital Film Festival
Best Art Festival since 1981 - January: As the New Australian I discovered the Baracks. Today the Barcadi Latino Festival, also part of Sydney Festival rocks.
Best Parade since 1989 - July: The first Love Parade was held in 1989 and attracted just 150 revellers. Many children of the Velvet Revolutions were conceived under the same spirit. The Love Parade snakes past the Angel of Peace monument in the middle of the Tiergarden and down to the Brandenburg Gate, potent symbol of German reunification
Best kiss I received this year: I am omitting this category for 2004 in the interest of privacy and people who might be scared to reenter the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Destitute Writer’s Motto: Love is like war, begin when you like and leave off when you can ...
David Tiley gives us many reasons to keep going in 2005 Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes
Literature & Art Across Frontiers: 2000000005 Richer inner life
As we have seen, subjectivism--whether "supernatural," social, or personal--fails to provide proper guidance for human action, because each version calls for human sacrifice and leads to human suffering. If we want to live and achieve genuine happiness, we need a non-sacrificial alternative that is grounded in the facts of reality. But in search of such an alternative, we are faced with a big problem: The world is full of facts. Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It
I have caffeine in my blood. So I appreciate that expresso is a battle between water and coffee. It is great to see cafes using their cultural clout to help those in need. At Starbucks my macchiato is deep and full like a trombone note and the foam sits on my pepperish Moustache until I finish reading the SMH. If you are not too keen to provide credit card details but you still want to help urgently Tsunami victims go to your nearest Starbucks anywhere in the world and tip the jar generously. Starbucks is on a Tsunami crusade: it is high, like a Gabriella’s violin
[I love independent bookshops and cafe, but there are grey areas when it comes to act locally and help globally way of thinking. “There was a mutual realisation that by working together we could achieve more than by working alone”
Quote from a survivor of Tsunami: "The wave was like a cobra," he says, demonstrating with his hand, "it fanned out before crashing down on us." Only days ago Australian surfer David Lines was reading a book about the famed 19th-century eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano, which warns the region could be hit by a giant earthquake
• · Australian surfer's Krakatoa omen came true ; Responding to tsunami appeal
• · New York Times The Year in Pictures
• · · The Da Vinci crock Too bad it comes from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," a masterpiece of bogus history
• · · · Da Code River Forgers 'tried to rewrite biblical history'
• · · · · Steve Pasvolsky is one of the most promising film talents to emerge from the Australian Film Television and Radio School
• · · · · · And we all are Children of Sex. We may or may not be Children of God, Jesus, Allah, Krishna, Buddha or Isis, but, until we start cloning ourselves, we are all Children of Sex Why do end-of-time beliefs endure? Ach that one is too hard @ Lovemaking Central. Amen and Awomen!