Bookcrossing the Night Away
Jan. 12th, 2005 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringMeetup last night. All the usual suspects attended and a few others. I wish my hearing was better but I think I got most of it. High point was seeing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sabriela clutching Alias to her bosom - I was a bit worried that Neesy's book might not find a proper recipient after its travels, but that's OK. And she read it immediately. Awesome!
Took some photographs which I've put up on the Meetup site. CoffeeBron took a great one of me, but I'm afraid that my photographs of the attendees are pretty ordinary. Next time I'll just hand the camera to Bron and she can take candid shots all night long.
One idea from Sydney, courtesy of jubby is to establish twinning of Meetup Groups. Sydney is twinned with Leeds and jubby reports of their reactions to a tube of Vegemite.
Sounds like fun!
We talked a bit (at the "senior" end of the table) about the possibility of hosting the 2006 Australian Bookcrossing convention. It's looking like the 2005 ABC will be in Brisbane in July, going by the poll on the BCAUS site, but in 2006 we could mount a credible bid, roughly pencilled in for October, the last weekend of the Floriade festival. Melbourne would be our biggest rival, judging by the support on the poll, but I reckon we could pick up most of the Sydney votes because we are only a couple of hours down the road.
Anyway, it's early days yet, and we're talking eighteen months down the track. I think we've got enough people to divide up the work and do the thing properly. Scott says he's good at delegating, but I think his experience in theatre would be invaluable. AussieNisi is a fair dinkum artist and is keen as. Peggysmum says that holding events in library rooms would be no problem.
Picked up another Inspector Rebus book at the end, even though I'm a mile behind in my reading. I'm weak in these things.
Staid up late, like to four in the morning, bringing my Convention journal up to date. A lot of this was uploading photographs and witing for the site to respond. There's maybe 150 journal entries and more to come from the London folk. Had a lot of fun reliving the experience. Looking forward to the delights to come, beginning with Christchurch.
Hot today. It's been a very mild and pleasant summer so far, but we're set for a series of 30 degree plus days, and this means closing up the house, drawing the curtains etc early on to preserve the overnight coolness and in the evening we open it all up again. We've got enough thermal mass in the brickwork that this is a viable strategy. We do the reverse in winter. A series of hot days and nights (or cold in winter) and we fall down in a screaming heap. At least we have a decent heating system for winter but in summer we're limited to fans which don't help much.
West Wing, Got both Monday and Tuesday episodes. A crisis in the budget, raising echoes of events in the USA a few years back and in Australia in 1975. I didn't think Jed would crack, but it was a way of getting Josh and Abby back on track. One wishes for reality to imitate art, but when you think about it, Bartlett hasn't done anything much except be a bit more decent than the other guys. I guess Bartlett didn't go into Iraq, but he sailed close to the wind on a few things.
I'm wondering when the penny will drop for the USA. Have an attractive lifestyle in comparison to the rest of the world and all that means is that those who don't enjoy it want to share in it. Or destroy it. They will cross the borders or pledge their lives to the elimination of the USA. The answer lies not in being more comfortable than everyone else, but in helping to bring everyone else up to that level. Global prosperity is a worthy and achievable goal, but selfishness at home does nothing but win votes. The foreigners will still be able, in an increasingly shrinking world, to do things in their own selfish way, whether it be to settle illegally or to blow things up.
Australia is in the same boat, but at least it's harder to get to us. We're Linux to America's Windows. Not as attractive a target. I think we are doing the right thing by helping out our neighbours when they have problems. The relationship between us and Indonesia is the best it has ever been, and that's going to pay dividends for both of us in the future. We are helping to bring the Solomon islands back from anarchy and we really should do more in Papua New Guinea.
sabriela clutching Alias to her bosom - I was a bit worried that Neesy's book might not find a proper recipient after its travels, but that's OK. And she read it immediately. Awesome!Took some photographs which I've put up on the Meetup site. CoffeeBron took a great one of me, but I'm afraid that my photographs of the attendees are pretty ordinary. Next time I'll just hand the camera to Bron and she can take candid shots all night long.
One idea from Sydney, courtesy of jubby is to establish twinning of Meetup Groups. Sydney is twinned with Leeds and jubby reports of their reactions to a tube of Vegemite.
Shylock wrote on Wednesday, 12th Jan.:
Hello jubby, Many thanks for recent very interesting package! Took the Vegemite with some Marmite to the meetup & let 'em argue it out which they prefered. Hopefully some will contribute to the following: http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/5/1590794
Would be nice if some of sydney meetup jumped in. Liked the tube ,haven't seen Marmite in one. One parcel due any day, another soon, and daemonwolf has one ready too i think. We took some pics with the Vegemite, i'll let you know when it's up on the Leeds meetup site.
Sounds like fun!
We talked a bit (at the "senior" end of the table) about the possibility of hosting the 2006 Australian Bookcrossing convention. It's looking like the 2005 ABC will be in Brisbane in July, going by the poll on the BCAUS site, but in 2006 we could mount a credible bid, roughly pencilled in for October, the last weekend of the Floriade festival. Melbourne would be our biggest rival, judging by the support on the poll, but I reckon we could pick up most of the Sydney votes because we are only a couple of hours down the road.
Anyway, it's early days yet, and we're talking eighteen months down the track. I think we've got enough people to divide up the work and do the thing properly. Scott says he's good at delegating, but I think his experience in theatre would be invaluable. AussieNisi is a fair dinkum artist and is keen as. Peggysmum says that holding events in library rooms would be no problem.
Picked up another Inspector Rebus book at the end, even though I'm a mile behind in my reading. I'm weak in these things.
Staid up late, like to four in the morning, bringing my Convention journal up to date. A lot of this was uploading photographs and witing for the site to respond. There's maybe 150 journal entries and more to come from the London folk. Had a lot of fun reliving the experience. Looking forward to the delights to come, beginning with Christchurch.
Hot today. It's been a very mild and pleasant summer so far, but we're set for a series of 30 degree plus days, and this means closing up the house, drawing the curtains etc early on to preserve the overnight coolness and in the evening we open it all up again. We've got enough thermal mass in the brickwork that this is a viable strategy. We do the reverse in winter. A series of hot days and nights (or cold in winter) and we fall down in a screaming heap. At least we have a decent heating system for winter but in summer we're limited to fans which don't help much.
West Wing, Got both Monday and Tuesday episodes. A crisis in the budget, raising echoes of events in the USA a few years back and in Australia in 1975. I didn't think Jed would crack, but it was a way of getting Josh and Abby back on track. One wishes for reality to imitate art, but when you think about it, Bartlett hasn't done anything much except be a bit more decent than the other guys. I guess Bartlett didn't go into Iraq, but he sailed close to the wind on a few things.
I'm wondering when the penny will drop for the USA. Have an attractive lifestyle in comparison to the rest of the world and all that means is that those who don't enjoy it want to share in it. Or destroy it. They will cross the borders or pledge their lives to the elimination of the USA. The answer lies not in being more comfortable than everyone else, but in helping to bring everyone else up to that level. Global prosperity is a worthy and achievable goal, but selfishness at home does nothing but win votes. The foreigners will still be able, in an increasingly shrinking world, to do things in their own selfish way, whether it be to settle illegally or to blow things up.
Australia is in the same boat, but at least it's harder to get to us. We're Linux to America's Windows. Not as attractive a target. I think we are doing the right thing by helping out our neighbours when they have problems. The relationship between us and Indonesia is the best it has ever been, and that's going to pay dividends for both of us in the future. We are helping to bring the Solomon islands back from anarchy and we really should do more in Papua New Guinea.
RE: global politics
Date: 2005-01-12 12:28 pm (UTC)I've been arguing this with friends for some time now. The only way to ensure our long term security is if we actively work to promote the economic development of those less fortunate than we are. Unfortunately, its so much easier to say than it is to do. We have enough economic disparity here at home to allow people to respond with "shouldn't we improve things here before we help elsewhere?" (never mind that most of our poor live in the lap of luxury in comparison to the worlds poorest countries.) It is so frustrating sometimes...
Unfortunately, you aren't completely immune...haven't most of the big terrorist attacks in Indonesia been targetted at Australians? I know that they set off a car bomb near your embassy, but weren't the majority of the foreign victims of the Bali attacks Australian as well? But, yeah, we certainly are a much more visible target in the global view.
Sounds like we could have a long and very interesting discussion on international politics. Hope we get a chance someday...