The Week That Was

Wow, its been five days since I last blogged. That must be one of the longest stretches that I haven't blogged for, not including my forced hiatus when I didn't have internet.

So whats happened in the past week in my life. Well I jetsetted to Paris for some foie gras, flew to New York to mark the anniversary of September 11, went to Queensland to pay my respects to Steve Irwin at his zoo and talked to a friend I haven't seen for a while. Take a guess at which one of the previous four events actually happened, that's right, I went to Paris, not!

Actually I do want to talk about all four topics I mentioned. Firstly, The Age newspaper compiled their Good Food Guide for 2007. As usual, I looked at all the restaurants and wished I had enough money to go eat at them. The best restaurant this year is Vue De Monde, a Frech restaurant. I looked at their website and the prices are so expensive. I will try to go to a few hatted restaurants this year just to see what's so good about them. I do think that there is a lot of politics in the restaurant review business as well, with large restaurants wooing reviewers with lots of complimentary products. Why does a small modest restaurant never get mentioned. They can produce food that is as good, but the lack of so called "class" would get them excluded. One of the best performing restaurants in recent years, Flower Drum, got demoted from three hats to two. I remember reading the reviewer who helped judge the restaurants say that one of his complaints about the place was that they had let the standards dip. Flower Drum had allowed people to go there dressed casually and act like tourists taking photos and generally soaking up the experience of being there. I've never been there, but if I did go to Flower Drum, I would want to soak up the atmosphere and take photos too. I'm sorry that not all of us can be rich snobs and dress in our expensive Armani suits and go eat at places like that everyday. For the everyday man, you might only go there a few times in your life, and I think that as long as I have the money to pay for the food, why should I be judged just because I earn less than this rich restaurant reviewer. Now that I have had my swipe, I will move on to the next topic.

Just recently, the 5th anniversary of September 11th passed. I remember that event so clearly still. This was the first truly global terrorist act since there was so much television coverage. All day, when you turned on the tv, all you saw were replays of the planes crashing into the building and people running around everywhere. It was such an unforgettable sight. The world as we knew it really did change. In terms of actual deaths, it was much lower than the Asian Tsunami for instance, but it was the way that the people had died. This was no natural disaster, but one made by man. It changed the way that people felt in terms of security. At any moment now, as was witnessed later in the London bombings, some suicidal maniac will copy those actions of September 11th and cause much harm, all in the pursuit of what, "religion", "idealism", I don't know?

This past week also saw many people mourn the death of Steve "Crikey" Irwin. I used to love watching his tv shows, but I didn't feel the overwhelming sadness that seems to have suddenly taken over a lot of people. I felt sad that his life should have ended so early, but since I don't know him personally, I can't say that I was exactly crying endlessly. I'm not sure what compels some people to grieve more for the death of a celebrity than their own families. Do they feel like they know that celebrity so well and that they are grieving for a "friend". I also can't believe that some people are comparing Irwin's death to that of Princess Diana. I also didn't know Diana personally, but she was truly a global person. She touched the lives of many who she helped through her charities and her story is the classic rags to riches fairytale. My eyes welled up a bit when her funeral was televised. I guessed she represented a certain innocence and a link between the common person and that of royalty. People wanted her to do well as she was sort of representing what may be possible for regular people.

Finally, I got a call from a good friend of mine. I was actually going to call him this week as well just to catch up. I can't believe it's been four months since we last caught up with each other. Boy how time seems to fly. He's been working extremely hard and even though he was already skinny, has lost 8kgs from working. He must be just skin and bones now, I gotta see when we meet for dinner. Although we hadn't talked in ages, I still consider him a very good friend. Some people you can see all the time but yet never really know them, whereas good friends you can just see once in a while and feel like you still know them so well. Of late, I'm discovering that people who I thought were good friends really aren't. I don't mean it in the sense that they betrayed me or anything, I just mean that either I have changed or they haven't. I finding that I don't have much in common with some people and find it almost tedious to talk to them. Maybe it's just that we all move along in our lives and so will our choices in friends. In certain stages in your life you wil require certain characteristics in the people around you, but when your circumstances change, so will the choices in who you befriend. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are all trying to gain something for ourselves from our friends, and they are also doing the same. It's not a selfish thing, merely how we are. If you didn't see anything to gain from another person, you won't associate with them. The thing to gain can range from material, to skills, to things you admire in them, to just being in the prescence of that person and enjoying it. I have surprised myself by becoming friends with people who I thought I would never get along with. You really start to see more of people as they trust you more and open up. Similarly, you will also open up and be more genuine with them. I can think of a couple of examples lately where I can pinpoint the exact moment where I have identified someone as going from just a friend to a good friend. From then on, I feel the dynamics of how I interact change significantly.

So those are my thoughts for "The Week That Was". Now, my next quest over the weekend is to find the best LCD TV so I can watch crystal clear high definition television. Until then, I would love to hear some feedback on your views of what I have written.