My gorgeous Sasha. 🐶

Blag dog looking at the camera.

The Kiwi accent [is] one of the most variable accents in the world… “Over the last 120 years every single vowel has changed its articulation, which I think is probably unheard of in any other accent.”

Via Major new study into how New Zealand accent changes in childhood.

There is so much to Wow about and to quote in this article: Scooped: The history of ice cream in New Zealand. Just go and read it!

Includes how ice was shipped from the USA to Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1860s (across the equator!!!). Egads! 🍦

Reminder to self — when my new M1 MacBook Pro eventually arrives, install this: Hush: Noiseless Browsing for Safari.

We really enjoyed So My Grandma’s a Lesbian!, another Spanish movie:

When Eva’s grandmother decides to marry her best friend, Celia, Eva worries what her conservative fiancé and his family will think.

Set on the Canary Islands which look intriguing.

Movie poster.

Using algorithms, machine learning, and satellite technology for good: A New Method Has Been Enlisted to Help Save Elephants, And It Involves Space:

images from a satellite orbiting 600 km above Earth, could survey upward of 5,000 square km of land in … minutes.

I enjoyed Holy Camp! a bizarre Spanish comedy musical:

two 17-year-old girls spend summer at the camp they have attended since they were little. Both love … music; but God’s apparitions to and calling of María begin to change all their lives.

I adore listening to Spanish!

Movie poster.

Good point:

only the impossible problems make their way to the [leader’s desk]. Everything that’s clean and easy? That gets decided down lower in the chain of command. It’s the intractable, no-win situations that get escalated to the leader’s desk.

There Are Only Hard Decisions

The Ōtaki Festival of Pots opened today, and I bought a garden ornament of 3 birds on driftwood: a Tūī, a Kereru and a Piwakawaka. Now we need to work out where in the garden to put it.

People looking at pots other garden art works and the like displayed on a lawn. 3 ceramic birds perched on driftwood.

I’ve never before paid the slightest attention to the inauguration of any US President, but today I watched the event live on the web. I’m so relieved that previous stain on humanity is now gone and no longer has delegated power. May Biden and Harris bring hope and humanity!

I frequently admire our neighbour’s large Tīkouka or cabbage tree. What a fine specimen!

Large, multi-branched cabbage tree.

Something to keep in mind — You Are Dying Every Day:

It’s easy to see death as this thing that lies off in the distant future. …We think of dying as an event that happens to us. It’s stationary—whatever date it will happen at—and we’re moving towards it, slowly or quickly, depending on our age and health.

Seneca felt that this was the wrong way to think about it… Instead, he said, death was a process—it was happening to us right now. We are dying every day, he said.

The Shoreline movie theatre in Waikanae is one of those small ones with two-seater couches. Since our last visit they have installed (presumably) Covid screens.

Plexiglass screens between couches.

What an excellent movie! A Call to Spy:

inspired by the true stories of three women who worked as spies in Churchill’s Secret Army.

Their daunting mission: conduct sabotage and build a resistance.

Just watch it!

A Call to Spy movie poster.

Processing: I’m imagining some factory worker in China polishing the Apple logo, dusting off the chips, inspecting the connections, tightening the screws…

Screenshot of status for my ordered Mac.

What I currently miss most from my 2016 MacBook Pro: using my fingerprint to unlock 1Password. I’m so sick of typing the unlock password, and it’s only been 2 days.

Somehow I blocked all cookies in Safari on my 2012 MacBook Pro and couldn’t log in to anywhere. Before I figured it out I switched to Firefox. So glad to be back on Safari now. Apart from anything else it allows me to use an Applescript within TextExpander to grab URL and Title.

I’m using my ‘new' old 2012 MacBook Pro while I wait for my new M1 model to be shipped. Even though I’m doing only a few things on it, it still takes a lot of setting up to get it just how I like it. Love being back with this soft touch keyboard though after the 2016 version.

I came to very much enjoy The Complete Tyrone Swift Mysteries seven gripping crime thrillers by Gretta Mulrooney after some initial skepticism. That was a lot of reading for less than $1.50. I skipped one book that looked like it was about a serial killer. 📚

Series box set cover image.

Waiting for a routine vet check. 🐶

Two small dogs waiting in the veterinarian display area.” /></figure>

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