Fair Trade.

I've just been reading up about Fair Trade and what it is and I've decided that I wanna get a Fair Trade chocolate stall at school during lunchtimes. But before I go into detail about that I will explain what Fair Trade is and how you can help.

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Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalised producers and workers – especially in the South.

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That's the definition from Trade Aid .

Fair Trade is about paying a fair price to the suppliers so that they can maintain ethical work conditions for their employees. It's about giving both Women and Men a place to work without being considered less than one another. Children are not taken advantage of if they do end up working, they are given fair pay, good work conditions and any work they do won't prevent them from getting an education.

There a lot of companies out there that pay the minimum to their suppliers, therefore preventing producers and employees of the producers from getting a fair wage for their work and from working in good conditions. I think Nestle is one of those companies, not to be rude to Nestle or anything. That means that companies like Nestle make money by taking away from people in third world countries who are already poorer and less fortunate than us.

Anyway, enough about that. You can visit Trade Aid if you want anymore information about Fair Trade.

So, about the stall. I wanna set up like a chocolate stall at school every lunchtime where people can buy Fair Trade chocolate and get information about Fair Trade. I also wanna get a speaker into school to tell people about Fair Trade so they realise just how unfair the trading world is now.

Anyway, that's a work in progress. I'm waiting on an email from Trade Aid to see how much it all costs and stuff.

Funny Video.

Dale gave me the link to this video earlier today and I was pleasantly surprised by it. One of the funniest hidden camera pranks I've ever seen.



In other news, I had a formative physics test today which I'm pretty sure I passed with either merit or excellence, so I'm pretty pleased with that. All the questions were just nice and easy to answer, easy excellences on every page.

That's my blog today. It's short, but that video doesn't need anything else with it.

The Future.

I was walking home from the bus stop earlier today and somehow ended up thinking about trees dying in the future and how we'd have no oxygen (or not enough) - but then I realised that that's never gonna happen. With all our clever scientists working constantly to solve problems like this one, someone must invent some device that can produce oxygen with more efficiency than any kind of plant. I think a lot of the futuristic movies we see where there are no trees or plants and everything is man-made are quite realistic in a sense. If someone invents a device to produce oxygen, then there'll be no need for plants. Everyone will make efforts to stop plants from dying out, but eventually the inevitable will happen - they will die. And it won't effect us very much at all; the only thing we'll lose is an aesthetically pleasing world.

If you think all that's unrealistic then just think about the things science can do today. Did you know that scientists are on the verge of discovering a way to reproduce human hearts? They say that by 2015 (or something like that) they should be able to reproduce several human organs.
Just think of all the amazing electronics we use regularly today. A computer, for instance, is the most crazy complicated device ever, when you think about it. They seem simple (or simpler) today, but think about the guy who invented them. What a genius!
"Hey, Maybe if I solder some transistors here and then some wires here, and then shove some floppy thing into there it'll create a computer!"
That's probably what he thought before he made the first computer. But seriously, think of how they work. The screen you are looking at right now has been created by 0s and 1s. How crazy?!

I don't know where I'm going with this. Something like:
Scientists will solve everything. All that stuff we hear about global warming and running out of fossil fuels etc we won't even hear about in a few years. That will be old news. There'll be new problems, even more crazy than the ones we have today. Instead of too many greenhouse gases in the air there'll be too much radiation so some people will have problems reproducing. Instead of the Earth being overpopulated, Mars will be (cause we would have moved there). And people won't terrorise each other with guns anymore; they'll terrorise each other with technology. Viruses on the internet will be everywhere, and they'll be able to do more crazy things than they can do now.
So. That's the future in my opinion. Maybe. We might just invent some crazy warmachine to kill each other with and just end up making ourselves extinct.

Thoughts.

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth" - Oscar Wilde

Don't know where I found that originally, but it was in my blog notes and must have been sitting there for a while. I think it's pretty cool considering that not 3 weeks ago I was walking round in a Darth Vader mask (at Easter camp) and was surprised at how much more confident I was while wearing it. I talked to hundreds of people I'd never met, but was able to talk to them as if they were my friends. It was pretty cool. So anyway, that's the thought for today.

I'm pretty annoyed about work today because I still haven't quit. Today was especially annoying because I was actually going to this time but then Dave mysteriously vanished and didn't return, so I couldn't. Every other time I plan to quite I have an unusually fun day so then I don't want to quit. It's kind of annoying. Maybe I'll just quit in the morning when Dave is definitely there and when I haven't had any fun to stop me from doing so.

One thing that I am happy about is my ScoutKnivez skills. To the majority of you "ScoutKnivez" will mean nothing, but don't feel bad - it's a good thing. ScoutKnivez is a map on CounterStrike Source where there's low gravity and just scouts and knives (as the name suggests). Scouts are sniper rifles for those of you who were unaware. So anyway, my ScoutKnivez skills are uber now, I just got a score of 88/37, and that's not unusual for me anymore. So that's one thing to be glad of, though it's a pretty useless thing really. When am I ever gonna need to kill lots of computer-generated people quickly and precisely? I guess this is kind of a contradiction of the post I wrote a few posts back about video games being just as useful as physical sports. Now that I think about it, that really was a silly post, with not a lot of evidence to back the points I was making. Physical sport really is better than video sport.

Oh! I just remembered another thing I'm not happy about - Children of Men. It's a movie based on a book about Humans not being able to reproduce anymore. It's set about 20 years in the future in England. Although the movie fails to explain in any decent level of detail why Humans can't reproduce, it still seemed like a promising movie. It starts off interesting, continues to be interesting, and then right at the second it ended it lost my interest. And that was what ruined my opinion of the movie - the ending. The ending failed to give any real closure to the rest of the movie and I was disappointed that they decided to end it there instead of adding maybe 10 more minutes onto the film to show us what happened to Key. Also when Theo dies near the end I wasn't really that worried either. Despite him being the main character, he hadn't really been developed into someone that mattered to me at the end of the movie. It was like the camera was watching him the whole time, but all we saw was what he did and heard almost nothing crucial to his character. Most of the stuff he said was just a few swear words slapped onto an ordinary, uncharacter-developing sentence. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that movie. Personally I don't recommend it to anyone but if you don't trust me at all then go ahead and rent it yourself. See what you think. I'm sure you'll be as disappointed as me.

Halo 3 and a Giant movie.

I just watched a video of Halo 3 multiplayer in the very-much updated Zanzibar. The link is from Chris in my comment box if you want to see. It looks really awesome, better graphics, although the low-res video doesn't do them justice, new weapons and vehicles and better gameplay. I don't understand the people that were complaining about the graphics because:
A) It was a crappy low-res video of a high-res game
B) The graphics should never be the focus of a game, the gameplay and story should be
C) That was a redo of an old map, so you can't expect too much new stuff in it
Also, it's not fair to judge a game by a 7 minute video of a beta version which barely shows off the games best stuff. From what I could see, Bungie have put a lot of effort into that game and they've done really well. And don't compare the game to Gears of War, they're 2 different games with different strengths and weaknesses.
Basically what I'm saying is, leave the game alone until it's been released out of beta. Then feel free to complain all you want, but you guys are missing the true point of Halo, which is to play a well designed, flowing and engrossing CAMPAIGN. We've come to expect high-class multiplayer from Bungie too, but it was already excellent in Halo 2 and really, from what I can see, couldn't get much better. Better graphics and new maps would just be bonuses.

Anyway, next blog item - Our Giant movie. Today was Anzac Day (a public holiday) for those of you who are unaware or are in a different country, and we (Will, Gareth, Anton and I) decided to make a movie today. We ended up getting a good 10 people along with us which was good. The movie was originally going to be "Everybody Loves Ra", a spin-off of the comedy "Everybody Loves Raymond" but then Will showed us some stuff on his computer and we decided a movie about giants would be easier. So that's what we did; we made a movie about 5 (or 6, I can't remember) people who had survived some kind of Giant epidemic thing. So they were hiding away in their shed, while all the rest of the world was being infected with "Giantism", which makes you a giant and makes you go crazy. Something like that anyway, in the end it turned out pretty crap, and probably, from someone who hadn't heard the plot prior to viewing it, would make no sense. But it was an experience, and we got some pretty funny stuff on camera, so overall it was a success.

School's back.... Hooray....

Today was the first day back at school after 2 weeks off and I already want the holidays again. There's so much work to do in all my subjects and it's just making me stressed. Plus, lunch times aren't the wonderful thing they used to be - now everyone just talks about how drunk they were last weekend and how so-and-so did this and this and it was sooo funny. And being the sensible man I am I'm not into getting drunk etc, and I shouldn't need to be. I don't believe that I need alcohol to have fun, only boring people do. It makes me feel sorry for the people who do need it, they've fallen into the trap of thinking that alcohol makes them cool. Sometimes I'm tempted to go out with them during the early hours of the morning but then I don't wanna ruin any reputation that I might have. I don't want them getting the wrong idea about us Christians, although some of my friends might have already done that by getting drunk with people. Oh well, what's a man to do. They're destroying their bodies and their minds so it's not my problem.

In other news, I almost have Age of Empires III. It's on like 80% with a couple of hours left till completion. That'll be a good addition to my collection of games, and something new to play for a few weeks. I love games - they're so good. Don't you hate people who think games are a waste of time? They're as much a waste of time as any other sport. What are you trying to do in (multiplayer) games? Be the best. What are you trying to do in other sports? Be the best. Games aren't as easy as people seem to think anyway. Most of them take a lot of thinking and strategy, just as much as soccer or rugby. The only advantage to playing a physical sport is that you get fit from the sport. But then again, when are you gonna need to be that fit? Only when you
re playing that sport.
Anyway, that was my rave on video games and physical sports. And I do rock climb for those of you who were thinking I didn't do any physical activity.

Blog over.

0.7% - Enough to stop poverty - Click here for more info

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2006 International Aid Donated (Official Development Assistance)

COUNTRY	For each $100 earned in the country, how much is donated in aid	Aid as % of income	How close the country is to reaching the 0.7% goal
Sweden	103 cents	1.03	Already reached goal
Luxembourg	89 cents	0.89	Already reached goal
Norway	89 cents	0.89	Already reached goal
Netherlands	81 cents	0.81	Already reached goal
Denmark	80 cents	0.80	Already reached goal
Ireland	53 cents	0.53	Scheduled to reach in 2012
United Kingdom	52 cents	0.52	Scheduled to reach in 2013
Belgium	50 cents	0.50	Scheduled to reach in 2010
Austria	48 cents	0.48	Scheduled to reach in 2015
France	47 cents	0.47	Scheduled to reach in 2012
Switzerland	39 cents	0.39	No schedule yet
Finland	39 cents	0.39	Scheduled to reach in 2010
Germany	36 cents	0.36	Scheduled to reach in 2014
Spain	32 cents	0.32	Scheduled to reach in 2012
Canada	30 cents	0.30	No schedule yet
Australia	30 cents	0.30	No schedule yet
New Zealand	27 cents	0.27	No schedule yet
Japan	25 cents	0.25	No schedule yet
Portugal	21 cents	0.21	Scheduled to reach in 2015
Italy	20 cents	0.20	Scheduled to reach in 2015
United States	17 cents	0.17	No schedule yet
Greece	16 cents	0.16	Scheduled to reach in 2015

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The table above is a list of countries who made a promise - a promise to give 0.7% to 3rd world countries - and yet only 5 out of 22 have achieved that goal.

It's a simple goal to reach, and yet our government is too slack to reach it. As you can see New Zealand doesn't even have a schedule for completion of the plan, and considering they said they would make a "concrete effort" to complete the plan it's pathetic. It makes you realise just how greedy us western-worldians really are. Of course we're not the ones who promised to give 0.7% - the government is. That's why instead of giving up 0.7% of your income you can simply print out the letter given here: http://www.poverty.com/printletter.html . The people at poverty.com have already done the hard part for you, all you need to do is print the letter and send it. And if you're really bold you could even email your friends and ask them to do the same. Then they can email their friends and so on and so forth. Imagine how quickly the goal could be achieved if we all just told a few friends! We would make poverty history in just a few short years!

Zoro, Mr Bean and Elfen Lied.

I just got back from Zoro the Drummer which was hardcore. It was this guy (we'll assume his name was Zoro) who has consistently been voted number 1 R&B drummer in the world. After seeing him play I have to agree with that; he was just beyond logic. He is also (apparently) a motivational speaker as well as a professional musician, and I can believe that after he rambled on for like an hour about simple questions such as "Is that the drum kit you usually use?". It was cool though, and very motivational, as it should have been coming from a motivational speaker. He's inspired me to practice a bit more on my drums and become pro too. But not as pro as him because he has dedicated his life to music, whereas I would like to branch out in other areas as well.

On Wednesday night I watched Mr Bean's Holiday which, to my surprise, was brilliant. I expected it to be a sad attempt at the hilarity that Rowan Atkinson and the producers had created so long ago. It turned out it was everything that the old Mr Bean had been (badum pish) and more. It was still a hilarious series of events (convenient or inconvenient - you decide) that lead Mr Bean into unimaginable situations. They even managed to get another tank to crush Mr Bean's mode of transport. One thing they did miss though was that 3 wheeled blue car which Bean seemed to destroy almost every episode. If that car had made it into the movie I would have been the happiest man alive. They made up for the lack of the blue car though with a guy called Muffin Green in the credits. I think we can all agree that that's a hilarious name. So anyway, Mr Bean's Holiday gets 4 1/2 stars from me.

Now then - Elfen Lied. Elfen Lied is this anime that I have been wanting to get all of for a while, and finally, at me and Dale's LAN, I managed to get it and I'm so glad I did. It's a really good anime, with heaps of underlying messages. There is partial nudity, but I don't mind nudity as long as it isn't unnecessary. It's about these mutant humans called Diclonius, who have invisible arms called vectors. One of these Diclonius, Lucy (or Nyuu), escapes a human laboratory into the world. The people running the laboratory go after Lucy in an attempt to stop what could be the end of humanity as we know it and the beginning of a new mutant breed of humans (Diclonius). It's quite a good story I think, and there is heaps to it even though it's only 14 episodes. I am going to watch the 7th episode now so I guess this ends my blog.

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This is me mentioning Heather.
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Easter camp 07

I got back from Easter camp yesterday afternoon and it was so good. The speakers were Antz, Catherine (from Satellite) and Christof. They were all really good and the main theme of the camp was getting rid of injustice and helping out those with less than us. It was super inspiring for me, I've decided that next term at school I will do my best to talk to people that have no friends and try and change their lives. I've always wanted to be the guy that makes sure no one is lonely, but Easter camp has motivated me to actually try and do it, so that's my goal for next term and the rest of my school time.

Satellite was excellent as per usual. I like them because they are a nice change from Hillsong, whos music is all just general rock. Satellite has much more alternative music, with strange timing and lots of heavy guitar riffs. A lot of their music is themed on helping the poor and making freedom everywhere. Moshing to their music is so good, especially that one that has the random instrumental where everyone goes insane. Can't remember the name of it but I screwed my neck headbanging in it. We had circle pits on some of the nights, but the security in the mosh pit didn't seem too pleased about it so we didn't do them very often.

Our youth groups area was nowhere near as big as I expected. Someone told me it was like 360m^2, so I was pretty excited about that. It turned out it wasn't very big at all, but we also had less people than I thought, so it wasn't too bad. We had an Xbox, PS2, and a pool table in there. It was pretty good, although some people spent basically the entire camp playing video games, which I thought was pretty sad considering that you can play them any time.

I was wearing random clothes that I bought from SaveMart basically the entire camp. I met so many people because of the pair of tight jeans I had. I also played the role of Darth Vader for one whole night, and one afternoon. I was happy about how many people recognised who I was by the last day of camp. Like in the outdoor dance thing people kept saying "Hey, It's the pants guy" or "Hey, It's Darth Vader". It was pretty sweet. Although, there were these 2 girls who were literally like the most disgusting people I'd ever met. All their jokes were sexually orientated, and just weren't funny. And they kept trying to touch me. It was awful.

I didn't actually go on any of the rides they had set up. Mostly all I did was walked round meeting people, but that's what I like doing so it was good. We also had an airband on the open stage a few times which I was the bass and electric guitarist for. It was so cool, we even got some groupies a few of the times. That was also another way I met people. People recognised me as the guitarist from the airband and came and talked to me.

The funnest part over the whole Easter camp I think, was the outdoor dance thing though. I just ran round dancing in peoples circles for like an hour and a half. It was so fun. There was this one circle of girls which I tried to avoid though, because everytime I went in the middle of it they all started grabbing my ass and slapping it. Funny, but kind of disturbing too.

So that's Easter camp in a very short summary. Obviously there was much more that happened than that, but this blog would be like 20000 words if I wrote everything.

No reason.

Don't really know why I'm blogging. I guess it's cause I'm at Easter camp tomorrow till Monday and I figured I should write something, though I don't know what. I'll start with school today....

Today was wicked because:

A) I got my Well Known for english done so I don't have to worry about that and
B) There was a sports awards assembly and seeing as the only sport I do is rock climbing, and I'm no where near the best, I wouldn't be getting any awards. So instead of the assembly we (me, Rachel, Gareth, Heath, Matt, Stephen, Lucy, Thomas L, Rowan B) went to Bush Inn where I purchased a 2L bottle of chocolate milk. It was so good. I was happy about that. Interval - Bush Inn - Lunch. 2 hours of socialising and eating.
C) Rock climbing. Even though we bouldered basically the entire time it was still good because it's rock climbing. It's never crap.

So... That's why today was wicked. I was also happy about proving that Vegeta's move, Galick gun, was not called Gatling gun to Anton. My DBZ knowledge is superior to everyones, it's excellent.

Also I'm just generally happy about friends. I've been talking to Rachel more lately, which is cool, because we were such good friends in year 9 and it would be pwn if we were again. But then, I just wanna be friends with everyone. It'd be so cool. I'm sure I've blogged about this before though, so perhaps I will change subjects before this becomes a duplicate of another blog.

Easter camp tomorrow! It's gonna be so good. There'll be so much to do. I have (or am trying to have) high expectations of what God will do in my life there. I'm sure it will be huge. So huge in fact, that I will become the single ruler of Uganda. I will lead my people with great wisdom and vision. They will bow down to me in reverence. Each night I will sacrifice a pig to make sure that the sun rises in the morning, and to protect my people from the evil spirits that inhabit the lands. I will reverse all the evil previous rulers have done to the people.
What are the Uganda people called anyway? Ugandanese? Ugandanasians? That doesn't sound right. There must be a word for them..... Well Google's got nothing in it's dictionary. It does, however, have the Uganda national anthem which I will paste in:

Oh Uganda! May God uphold thee,

We lay our future in thy hand.

United, free,

For liberty

Together we'll always stand.

Oh Uganda! The land of freedom.

Our love and labour we give,

And with neighbours all

At our country's call

In peace and friendship we'll live.

Oh Uganda! The land that feeds us

By sun and fertile soils grown.

For our own dear land,

We'll always stand,

The Pearl of Africa's Crown.

Wow. Those Ugandans sure do like their country. Hey! Ugandans! That must be the word for them. Wicked. Anyway, Those Ugandans must love their country. But then I do quite enjoy my country. I guess everyone enjoys their own country, except for real crap countries. Like anything that's not part of the Western world. But countries that aren't considered part of the Western world aren't crap, they're just much less developed, mainly because they were taken advantage of by people in the West world. In fact the people in undeveloped countries are better people in many ways. They just pwn. A lot of them live in the most horrible conditions and yet they're still the happiest people you'll ever meet. At least that's what I've been told. In fact, if you're reading this you should visit this link and really consider sponsoring a child, or if you don't wanna sponsor a single child go http://www.worldvision.org.nz/Rampant/ and sponsor an area. That's what I do. Rampant is also more flexible in the amount you donate each week. I'm only donating $5 to Rampant each week, but that's $250 dollars a year, and $250 in those countries is huge.
I just decided I'm gonna add some world vision links to this site. I may not be the biggest donator, but I can still encourage other people to donate. I'll do that now. I guess that ends this blog then.

Me and Gareth's holiday.

Yesterday afternoon/Last night we were at Rachel's/Kate's socialising. It was pretty fun although I did get hosed in the back. Anyway, Me and Gareth have decided that we will be taking a 2 week vacation at Rachel's house. We will be staying in her spare room. It's gonna be wicked. We're going straight there after Easter camp. We might also stay at Kate's house after that. Anyway, that's about all I had to say, I think.
Actually, no, it's not. Me and Laura went halves in a new Pearl drumkit, which is so much better than the new one. I'm more motivated to play now, because the snare actually sounds good, and the high hat can actually be opened and closed. It's wicked. We had to put a pillow in the kick though cause it was too resonant and whenever you pushed the pedal the snare made a sound too. I think it needs another pillow still, but it's a lot better than it was. I can't wait till I'm real good at drums. It'll be so cool. Maybe I'll end up as relaxed as Stephen... Actually no, what am I saying! No one can be as relaxed as Stephen. I don't even think there's a word or combination of words that can describe just how relaxed Stephen is. He's just gone beyond the laws of relaxation. If there was a way to measure relaxedness I think Stephen would have to be off the charts. He's just that relaxed.