The Case for 2011

Positive signs for the New Year:

1. Stratos coming to Freeview Terrestrial

There is a big hole in my viewing schedule that came about when I lost access to Stratos Television, as it is not available on Freeview Terrestrial. The mix of news programmes from around the world, including the fascinating perspective of Al Jazeera International (the English version), was something I always appreciated, even when my preferred news source was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Losing both last year was a big blow.

However, the powers that be at Triangle/Stratos headquarters have decided to expand their service beyond its current satellitic confines and, come March, I will once more be able to bask in its multi-ethic magnificence. Oh, joy!

2. Noticing new things

I never really looked at the msn.nz site before (as I normally get booted here after I got out of Hotmail), but this time I noticed the NZ Men option, with links to Babes Galleries, $ex and dating and NZ Men News. No option for NZ Women yet, though perhaps that is because women run the media industry so they don't need their own menu.



3. Wall to wall All Blacks

Okay, technically speaking, we got lots of this last year too. And, when I flew Air NZ earlier this year, I noticed that the "All Black All Men" kiss request has been removed from their still highly annoying safety video. But I had better view the whole "All Blacks All Advertising" thing positively, otherwise I will need to strangle people. Or else I will just have a blogb!tch.

4. It's an election year

Promises will be made, and will then, after the election, be broken. But at least we, the public, will be sucked up to for a few months before we get told to tighten our belts, stop complaining about the price of almost everything, and most definitely to stop being so damned lazy - unless you are a multimillionaire made rich on the back of thousands of small investors or government asset sales and then you can do pretty much anything you want as long as you leave your cars in the country.

On a more negative note, however, I did notice the following sign in Paraparaumu the other day:



Verdict: Not entirely sure why it is necessary to look forward to a New Year as it is just an arbitrary number used to tabulate man's perception of time, but it somehow feels like quite a nice thing to do. 2000 out of 2011.