I have encountered people in the past that are ashamed (whaka maa) to be of a certain ethnicity. Whether that be Russian, Spanish or Polynesian, it should be something to be proud of, as it is where your whanau (family) and ancestors come from and also a greater part of who you are. Some people I have encountered like to suppress it and act like are not of a particular ethnicity to close friends and work colleagues.

In my personal opinion it is a loss of your identity as a person, culture and heritage. In the public eye I can think of one person who has lost his identity Winston Peters. In saying that though I don’t think he is whaka maa to be Māori. He definitely has lost a part of his identity though, you can see it in his numerous speeches and talks about politics within NZ.

It really is no surprise that some people struggle to pronounce properly some of our of national locations around NZ.

Even when I’m just helping to correct them on the correct pronunciation of a location, then without warning everyone turns on you and makes a big deal out of it. People who make snarky comments about pronunciation of Māori areas and locations from people who are not Māori does not really offend me but people who are Māori making those comments, makes me feel sad and a little sorry for them for them to be honest.

Over n Out

What I like more than Box.net though is Dropbox as any files you put inside your Dropbox syncs those same files to any other dropbox clients linked to you account. Excellent for using for other work I do with design (images/scripts) and need to use them at home or somewhere else, just put it in my Dropbox and by the time I get home, that same file has synced to my Dropbox client on my desktop machine.

I also like SugarSync, which is similar to Dropbox but people have differing opinions on that service, some would say not as good. They give you 5GB of free storage where as Dropbox only provides 2GB. You can get more storage with Dropbox through referrals though, 250mb per each referral with up to 12 referrals.

If you are thinking of signing up, use my referral link! You will get 250mb as well for using my referral

With the following post Hotmail took 10 times  as long to release POP3 and SMTP access to free customers especially if you consider that Hotmail has been a free email service since 1996!

So without further adieu Hotmail has come out and released POP3 and SMTP access to people that have either:

1. A Hotmail Account
2. A MSN Account
3. A Windows Live Account

There is a catch though you need to have signed up for your account and set your country to one of the following:  United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

I have been hearing rumors from other people on the web that if you didn’t set it to one of the country’s above you can sign in to your current account and change the country properties to that of one of the above and that will give you access.  Not sure how true that is.  Bear in mind also though it is likely you will need to know a state and also the postal code of the country you are changing to in your account settings.

Alternatively you could just use Windows Live Mail which I’m currently using to check my Hotmail account without having to login to the ugly web interface.  It acts a lot like Outlook Express, thinking about it.  I would say it is Outlook Express but for Windows Vista and it works really well.  I prefer to use that, than Thunderbird and have been using Thunderbird for quite some time.  You need to have a Hotmail account to sign in to it, but you can setup other accounts on it that don’t have anything to do with Microsoft or Hotmail - your ISP account or your GMail account and Windows Live Mail supports IMAP just like Outlook Express does.

For more information about POP3 and SMTP with Hotmail follow the below link:

http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2F7EB29B42641D59!32413.entry

On those occasions that I would use the Webmail I found the default interface a bit bland for my liking, sure it looks clean and all but it really needed to have an option where you could add color to spice up the interface a bit.  MSN Hotmail has that option, Yahoo!Mail has that option, and GMail have only just added that option.

It’s the only time I have seen Google a step behind the other 2 giants in regards to anything.

You can read all about how to spice up your GMail account here and have a look at what themes are available at the moment.

Personally I think its a highlight for everyone in the United States and the world as a whole. Hopefully he can bring on the change that is needed in that country in so many different areas.

Anyway On Saturday and Sunday ended up playing a bit of poker Got to the final table at one event out of about 40 people and there was about 9 of us on the final table. Was interesting to say the least.. getting reads on people, and just trying to figure out how my hand stacked up to the rest of the people on the tables I played on before getting to the final table. My stack was small compared to the other 8 people when reaching the final table, so got bullied around a little bit by the big stacks :/ All good I thought, part of the learning process some of these guys have been playing for at least 2 years.

And on Sunday got an invite from a friend to attend the North Shore Regional. Which was very interesting, as only the top 10 players from each bar on the North Shore (6 Bars) get to compete for a prize of $600 and the people that come 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th get bar tabs.

One thing I will say is that poker, or rather Texas Hold’em in itself is exhausting. I was just so tired mentally, which I think has alot to do with the mental focus on different aspects of the game and what is going on at the table. They did have breaks every 20mins or so and that was good, it didn’t really hit me until the showdown going on at the final table for the North Shore Regional.

Doesn’t matter in my eyes, I’m more than happy with what I received

I mean there can’t be many employers out there in good ol’ NZ anyway that give bonuses for staff.  I know that when my dad was working in his trade he would get a bonus at the end of the year from his boss which was good little buffer at a good time of the year when people are doing the mad rush with Christmas Shopping.

For me though it’s just going into my piggy bank for a rainy day, which is getting bigger by the fortnight I might add, with the cancelling of my european holiday that I had been planning

I think I speak for everyone when I say that the taxman (IRD) is making more of a killing though just by sitting there and collecting tax, my tax….

P.S. My 30th is on the September 10th, so will definitely be digging in to my piggy for a big night out with family and friends which will be on the 13th of September (Saturday) :D!

Well as most people know the Blues beat the Hurricanes in the Super 14, so they have a slim chance of making the semi-finals of the competition.

Blues beat Canes

In saying that they don’t really deserve it, having been playing really really poor this season in my opinion.

They are in a bad position at the moment anyway looking at the table they are 3rd behind Wellington and then Canterbury who are 1st in the competition. But they are waiting on 3 games to complete before the weekend ends to find out their fate.

And it’s likely those 3 teams will win and will then move ahead of the Blues in the lead up to the semi-finals.

Should be interesting..

Always the ninja eh John even on your birthday

On behalf of the rest of the Vampire Team and anyone else that stumbles on this blog - We all hope you have an awesome day filled with lots of beers and even more shots of tequila. Today and the ensuing weekend!

Birthday’s I thought are to be celebrated not just with friends and family but with work mates as well. My motto is: “What you lose in youth you gain in wisdom” which might not quite apply to John but alas it still stands

p.s. Don’t think that you have been immortalized on my blog either. Come a couple of weeks after a few more blog entry’s this post will be all but forgotten.

Veels geluk met jou Verjaarsdag mate!

pp.s. Hope that is right for Afrikaans - As it’s quite different I know to how the dutch (Netherlands) spell/say it in their slang
- Earl