James Hogan's Personal Blog
So awhile ago, in a moment of sickness, I Got All Creative and had a fun time at home one work day whilst feeling very sick. The best thing about the Fundamentals of Music website was the it taught the basics of music, keys, tones, scales etc.Well, now I’m in…
This is the bay directly across the road from my serviced apartment
So, here I am in New Caledonia. And as any right-thinking economist does, when they do their shopping, I’ve sourced comparative prices from New Zealand so I can check for systematic price differentials. 🙂Here’s the shopping bill from the local supermarket, Carrefour market, expressed in South Pacific Francs (XPF):I’ve typed…
So there I was…It’s not every day you find yourself in Fiji. Especially when this morning you were getting your kitchen installed, after your wife had just melted down about how bad the kitchen was.I bagged my stuff and tools of my trade and shuffled out the door of a…
I’ve long been an admirer of the Singaporeans. For the modern day equivalent of Greek city states, the Singaporeans have no lawrels to rest upon. They’re not endowed with mineral resources like Australia. They don’t have old money like Europe. They weren’t endowed with fertile lands like New Zealand. And…
Left by someone on a bench on Wellington’s waterfront.It’s much easier to wear a slogan than live a slogan🫤
My partner and I were coming back from dinner when I recorded this display of people-trash making public trash.Walking back from dinner, we had already passed two separate areas of homeless people, each camped out around Victoria and Manners streets.Before I snapped this tirade between three homeless, or whatever people…
Do you remember when your cat was young and new?You’d play with him, and he would come and cuddle with you. You were the most important thing in his life. And his fragility and new-ness to the world made you feel special. You might just be the dopiest prick in…
Stats NZ released its Consumer Price Index today. Booze & Ciggie InflationHere’s what’s been happening to the relative cost of your weekly booze and smokes.Booze and smoke annual prices increased approximately 1.6% faster than other goods and services between 1988 and 2009. All other goods and services increased in price,…
Woo hoo!!Rebecca and I are off to Brisbane for a week!!I’m hoping to catch-up with one of my best friends, Peter & Leigh Wysocki, and their family Trixie and Theo.Peter and I are going to the Nick Mason concert! And Rebecca is going to hang out beside an infinity pool…
Hot from the “Straight Out of ThunderBirds” file, comes the soviet Caspian Sea Monster Look at this baby!It’s called an Ekranoplan. Unlike other planes, this modified sea plane is designed to fly just meters over sea level, exploiting a aerodynamic effect called the Ground EffectThis beasty was created at the…
I’ve gotten myself a new drum kit 😁It’s a Alesis Mesh Drum KitLast week, I wasn’t feeling that great on Monday, so I took the afternoon off sick. Of course, with a new electric toy, my first idea was how do I connect it to my computer 🙂A few years…
From the Bad Supreme Court Decisions file comes this latest missive: Fiona Margaret Mead v Lilach Paul and Brett Paul.A relationship property case starring one guy (Brett) and two women (Fiona and Lilach) all sharing the same bed for 15 years, temporarily swapping in and out other partners, before finally…
I’m currently reading The Bertrand Russell CollectionBertrand was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and widely regarded as a super smart guy with his head in many different subjects. Political IdealsBertrand had a lot to say about the State which I’m finding, when you look at…
So one of my trip goals for this ride is to meet people, and talk to strangers. I’ve given myself the goal of chatting with three people each day, finding about what’s the haps in their world and what’s their background. Janet and SusanneJanet and Susanne are a couple of…
Both John and Victoria have completed their Sounds to Sounds ride – John in 11 days, and Vic in 16. Both of them said was hard. Real hard. Harder than the Tour of Aotearoa.Much anticipation 😊 Here’s a bit of lowdown on what I’m taking and planning while I’m in…
There’s a difference between analysis and telling a rollicking good yarn designed to move people.Good analysis draws from the scientific methodology of making falsifiable statements about the world, and testing whether they’re wrong. For example, economics sets up a logical mathematical model as a simplification of the world, and draws…
More on my current fade of reading signs.Recently, I was working on my boat over at Evan’s Bay yacht club, and I came across this sign:In the early days of flight, landed airports were the exception instead of the rule when it came to flying. More often, planes were amphibious,…
Sunday 4 September was a glorious day, for no other reason than the sun was out for the first time in what felt like months.But I had another: the day before I had just brought a brand new carbon fibre mountain bike.So, of course, I had to take it out…
Always take the opportunity to read signs. Here’s one I found on my travels.It’s a very functional sign, devoid of hyperbola or ceremony. It speaks nothing of the time this road took to make, the amount of labour effort which went into it, nor the loss of whatever it was…