http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog my random thoughts Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:52:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The People's Daily reports that the "White House district secretary" of Anhui, China, has been charged (in Chinese). See a post from another blog here. The "White House district secretary", for those who don't keep up with the weird and wonderful world of Chinese provincial politics, is Zhang Zhi'an, the Communist party secretary ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/12/28/the-land-of-the-supersized-government-office/ I passed by the Guardianship Tribunal of NSW in Balmain recently, and noticed an Indian restuarant on its ground floor - it had a massive sign saying "AIR". Air? That's a strange name for an Indian restaurant, I thought. Then I noticed the small writing: "All India Restaurant", and I ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/12/21/look-look-a-pun/ Hillary Clinton accepts Obama's offer of the Secretaryship (word?) of State. Reading through the list of appointees, I saw a lot of familiar names. If, like me, you are an interested amateur when it comes to US politics, the following might help. Name: Hillary Clinton Appointed: Secretary of State You may remember her from: ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/11/22/old-new-faces/ Yesterday, London's Telegraph carried a piece about how iPhone's new voice-recognising Googling tool fails to recognise British accents. Then today, its antipodean and tabloidal namesake tells us that the iPhone gets confused by Australian accents. I bet the same thing is happening across the world: every paper puts a local spin on ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/11/20/new-internationalism/ I was walking down the long, dark valley of the shadow of death that is Phillip Street (and not in a particularly elated mood, as you can probably tell) when I looked up, and saw - sapphire blue sky reflected in the windows of Chifley Tower, and behind, Governor Phillip ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/11/20/125/ On Sunday, I submitted the last assessment for my College of Law course work. This brings to an end 15 weeks of stress, learning, and - sometimes - fun. I'm glad to say that my thousands of dollars in accrued debt has not gone to waste. I made some great friends, ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/10/28/one-journey-ends-another-begins/ Unfortunately, I am at my most prolific when I should be studying for exams. All four of them in the next four days, to be precise. I happened upon the Wikipedia article on family dictatorships - and the related articles on dynasties and political families - and found it in a most ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/10/19/political-dynasties-and-family-dictatorships/ Name: Sushi Tei Address: 1 Chifley Square, Cnr Elizabeth St and Hunter St, Sydney 2000 Website: http://www.sushitei.com/ Phone: +61 2 92327288 Type: Sushi restuarant/sushi train Cuisine: Japanese/other Asian Opening hours: 11:30am-3pm, 5pm-10pm Sushi Tei ("Sushi pavilion") is a chain of Japanese restaurants concentrated in South-East Asia (and even has a branch in Shanghai). Its Sydney branch is ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/10/16/food-review-sushi-tei/ I bought a Nikon D80 camera on Monday, and am now spending a good part of my afternoons walking around the city like a lost tourist - lost, because I'm constantly digging out the manual to work out how to work one setting or another. I look so much like a ... http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/10/02/new-camera/ Is the Great Wall of China lawful at international law in light of the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall? Discuss. http://bla.nointrigue.com/blog/2008/09/23/75/