If I did the calculations correct it's already Next Year in New Zealand and
Australia.  Hopefully it will have a Happier outlook for the parts of Asia
ravaged by recent events.

  It's strange, sort of, after 50+ years trying to get the U.N. to work and
use more political will and money for Food and Ecology than 'war toys' and
'rich terrorists' vying to keep their place *outside of Lists with Mental
Dexterity, it takes a Natural(?) Disaster to bring so many countries
together.
  Hopefully some of what started, Internationally, over the last 2 weeks
will continue after those affected have been relocated, housed and started
back with medicines and agriculture to rebuild their societies and families.
After seeing some of those orphaned kids or broken families, it kind of
makes having to take 2-3 pills a day kind of a trivial exercise in
comparison.    How much more strength and willpower they will need compared
to so many things that, by comparison,  just aren't that important.

   In between calling the Red Cross and some other charities I already
support before year end (affects tax filing info. here),  I also ordered a
new Dell 'Porsche'  (Computer) with a legal preloaded  XP2 Pro, another
printer/scanner (they have their *own, separate from this hp one, so Son or
a school will get this one).
   A 'Computer consultant' who loaded the XP2 somehow, past the 'stolen
xp1' my original computer store (now gone)  put on this clone,  managed to
*Also either Hide or Lose (!!! )  my ~30 Folders I had accumulated over last
5 years with News Sites, email addresses of people who don't post any longer
but I was still writing off the group, and even the HP Printer I use isn't
supported (so far) on Win XP2.

 Lucky I'm not an Investment consultant ! -- I have about 3 Colour and 2
Black HP ink cartridges ($40.each), that might work at a school that still
uses XP1, plus 2 boxes of 'floppy disks' that the New generation computers
don't need.
  I might use a 'Find It' CD once this is unhooked to search the Hard Drive
to see if I can recover a bunch of posts I had with specific medical sites
of info.   If I copy those to CD and Mass-load them onto the other computer
it would save some (a lot) of typing to get together, and keep a lot of
email addresses that are only on those posts.
 (I have hard copies of the main www addresses I used to post from time to
time, but I also had about 60 weblinks to a UK Astronomy Group where some of
the Astro Geeks posted some amazing amateur photos they took there of
various astro-events or galaxies.)
   Also, funnily, since the Printer was obsoleted? by XP2 (it won't load
the HP Drivers either online or with the CD I used OK on both
computers-Win.95 and this XP-1), I *can't print the Warranty Confirmation
and Billing Info. of the Dell Computer Order I placed 2 days ago.   Ghost of
Redmond (M.soft) past........
///////////////////////////////////

  I hope everyone has a Healthy and Happy 2005, and 'things that matter'
continue to improve.  Someone somewhere can have a Glass of something 'for
me', since I can't mix Tegretol with Chivas Regal.    At least that's what
they Say.... Who knows? :-<   G./

 (In case the Virus checker expires before the Dell arrives, I'm going to
try keep *this email address when I first switch over ~Jan10, since I was
able to before, then may change up to another ID to shake off  last of these
yobs who follow the newsgroups with their robots. I'm allowed 6 addresses,
so could use a separate one for each of 2-3 newsgroups I read, plus a
separate one for mails, then newsletters I get, etc.  )   //

Peaceful 2005 -- a nice change.   /