The White Party revisited, and why not!

Holidays are on the way!

I’m just finishing up a few things and then we’re out of here in the next few hours, bound for the central coast, and leaving a “lite edition” disassociated in the capable hands of the WP Timestamp for the duration.

Getting ahead of time, there will be a few changes here in early 2009, but they will mainly be behind the scenes.

I’m rewiring the disassociated backend – not the interface design, though you may have noticed some tweaks recently – and a hosting move is mostly likely on the way also.

Anyway thank you for reading, following, subscribing, commenting, and sending messages, I hope you’ve had a productive and happy 2008, and enjoy the year end break. Remember, time wasted, if time enjoyed, is not time wasted at all.

And last, but by no means least, a special thanks to the (presently) London based Mandi who acts a WP editor here, and whose help has been indescribably invaluable this last year.

Happy holidays. :)

Speak Up has put together a list of design-ery books they think will make for good reading over the year end holidays.

Because you clearly have money to spend this Holiday season, I have put together a list of some of the best books of 2008. If you prefer not to buy, I do strongly recommend paying your local bookstore a visit and lingering.

The list actually represents quite a bit of reading if you ask me. An excuse therefore to take an extended break perhaps?

Ah yes, sometimes going back to the place where you grew up can be so satisfying!

Your middle-school tormentors. Still living in that town you left behind. Wait, are they still living with their parents? Ha! Their top friends – your other tormentors from junior high. You think of all the people you’ve met in your life – on a train in London, at a gig in Rome, on the playa at Burning Man, on a photoshoot in Portland, in class, at a roller derby, on LJ, that time you volunteered – and you wonder, is this tiny slice of the world the only thing they know? Yes, you decide for them. It is. With great delight, you page through photos of their greasy significant others, and their babies, with their stained bibs, who look so heavy. A sense of poetic justice settles on the story you’ve been playing in your head, in which you’re the main character in the universe. Yes – the boy who put garbage on your desk grew up to be a garbage man. You won. They lost. And you all deserve everything that you got. It’s so simple, after all.

If you’re stuck with workmates from hell, or housemates from hell, don’t think you’ll find any respite by going on the holiday… presenting the travel companions from hell:

On the tour bus, murder is on the cards. As sticky minutes creep by, the ways and means are becoming increasingly bloody – and satisfying. But there is a problem. Al, a member of our tour group and our intended victim, is missing. He’s a stranger to this busy port city of Tobruk, has no grasp of the local language, not much of a clue where the bus is and a tendency to get lost. He sloped off while we were buying local sweetmeats and simply disappeared. As a consequence, our leader hurried off in pursuit while the rest of us returned to the bus. Time drags. The temperature inside the vehicle rises and so do tempers. Curses are cast upon Al as the rustle of paper indicates the breaking out of cakes and pastries. As we bake on the stationary bus, our blood sugar levels skyrocket.

Here’s my advice. Forget the tour bus. Buy a good travel guide and do it yourself, or with two or three friends. It’s far more rewarding.

Holidays can become dangerous affairs, especially if you are a determined photographer, or travelling with one. Photography should also be added to the list of things not to do during a lightening storm.

The odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 700,000, while the odds of being struck in your lifetime are 1 in 5,000, according to the National Weather Service. It’s a lot more likely that a seasoned photographer with a knack for storm chasing will be struck by lightning than an average person caught in a storm.

The Most Depressing Day of the Year.

Apparently today, Monday 21 January, is the most depressing day of the year, according to Dr. Cliff Arnall, a researcher from Cardiff University.

Arnall bases his yearly prediction on a formula he developed, which factors in the weather, consumer debt from holiday spending and failed New Year’s resolutions and arrives at that conclusion that we’ll hit rock bottom on Monday the 21st.

This is of course based on conditions in the northern hemisphere, where the middle of winter probably weighs the heaviest on many people’s minds, and has seemingly been keeping search engines busy.

In the digital age we’re likely to turn to search engines just as often as we would confide in friends and medical professionals to gauge our psychological state. If we think we’re suffering from a real bout of the blues or a mental crisis, we’re likely to Google the symptoms or find a chat group in the hopes of performing a self-diagnosis.

However as I write this in Sydney, it is overcast, cool (19°C), and raining intermittently; hardly summer like weather. But 21 January is pretty close to the most miserable day hereabouts though.

I usually find the work day after the Australia Day (gazetted for 26 January, but being marked this year on 28 January) holiday as being rock bottom though.

Australia Day weekend well and truly marks the end of the summer holidays. Schools re-open, and the remainder of the workforce who have thus far managed to avoid it, also return to work.

Only uni students have a little more respite (those not attending summer classes that is), with holidays running on through to the end of February. What a charmed life…

Tis the season … for divorce.

While most people seem to enjoy holidays and time off work, it seems some do not enjoy the company with whom they are “forced” to spend the time. Company in this case meaning one’s spouse, life partner, love of your life, whatever.

The “solution”? File for divorce of course.

Paul Doolan, a partner with Sydney divorce firm Barkus Edwards Doolan, said: “The first few weeks of January are always our busiest time. We get a large spike in people wanting advice. Christmas can be a real pressure cooker situation for some people. They are thrown together for an extended amount of time and at the end of it someone just says, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it any more and I want a divorce’.”

“They are thrown together for an extended amount of time”. I think I’ve seen it all (though of course I haven’t). Generally marriage says to me that you’ll be spending the rest of your life with someone. That includes holidays.

I could understand unpleasant eventualities such as long term sickness or ill-health possibly placing stress on a marriage, but… holidays?

Friday 11 January saw the last edition of the Sydney Morning Herald’s special holiday lift-out, the aptly titled “Summer Herald” for this summer’s holiday period.

I’ve actually been buying the print edition of the SMH just to read this section these last two weeks.

I guess this means the “official” end of the summer Christmas and New Year holiday period, so… what better time than to skip out for a few days?!

Timestamp has the com, see you on Wednesday :)