Spring is on the way - 09/08/99

Hi folks, welcome to another riveting installment of life according to Rob.
Addendum to last week. The excellent second goal by Brazil against NZ (they beat Saudi Arabia 8-2 in the semi by the way, Brazil not NZ) was from Porto Alegre, Hayden's current home town (my cousin and recipient of this little publication). He didn't name him, but he was probably called ronaldino-rivaldo-pele or something like that.
Final of the Confederation Cup was Mexico versus Brazil, it was a butt-clenching final few minutes with people getting yellow cards for timewasting and one getting a red card. Mexico prevailed 4-3, at home, very happy crowd to say the least.
No real soccer over the weekend, although we had our team photo last week. Awesome weather all weekend, just too wet underfoot. Bloody Michaels Ave played, we played there the week before when everyone played. It is a bloody curse. It was our second and last chance to play another Western Springs 7th grade team, the Grizzlies. Bugger it. Was very disappointed.
Even Paul didn't play on Saturday, the team they were playing defaulted.
As a substitute, we went out to Cornwallis to see the new wharf that has been built at the far end. "We" consisted of us, Mum, Jared (Rory's friend) and the entire Chambers family. This is something of a novelty. With Nicola now denying that she is a teenager (she is 18), Paul 15, and Emma very nearly 13, we hardly ever see them in the same room at the same time. It was really great, Paul and I played soccer with Jared and Rory for a while, two on two. Hannah played with Emma, just a few kicks. We kicked a ball to the other end to check out the wharf, Rory kept calling Allan "Shearer" (as in the Newcastle player). We half-arsed tried fishing off the end of the wharf with two drop lines, and a couple of oysters I murdered, and some bread that basically fed a couple of seagulls when it blew off the wharf. We were all pretty stuffed when we got back, so me and Allan had a game of squash, and I was even more stuffed. Great day though, outside in the crisp spring air. We even got a little burnt. Of course this morning we had the heater on inside and could still see our breath.
In terms of news in the real world, there was another shooting by police of a person who attacked them with a knife. Not quite as stupid as that guy a while back. Is actually still alive, despite getting a glock slug in the chest.
More attacks on armourguard vans, but this time they caught the culprit. Apparently has been five in recent months. High excitement as the culprit was captured in downtown Pt Chevalier, near 3 Guys.
The cancer curing mussel byproduct sold out, was taken off the shelfs, then people decided other things in these mussels caused cancer. By the end of the week last week, you were left wondering whether or not the whole thing was a hoax to increase sales ($2m in a couple of days isn't bad) or perhaps if they were about to announce that parts of this mollusc would be a wonder new paint stripper or household cleaner.
They caught a few people for the assasination in Samoa. Son of another cabinet minister has confessed. Death penalty is still in effect there. Allan reckons nobody can call themselves civilised if they kill people. In the paper this morning, the dead man's son pleaded for the killer to be spared. Very christian country, Samoa. Whole thing is kind of weird.
Latest poll suggests that Labour will get 55 seats (out of 120), Nat 46, Alliance 12, ACT 7. This puts Labour well in with Mad Jim's assistance. Better than the Winston scenario, who is down to 2.2%.
An NZ man is accused of running a child-sex ring out of an indian brothel. We really are good at finding niches, aren't we?
News today that Phil Raffils has leukaemia. He is (now past tense) principal of Avondale College, where Nicola, me, Koos, and Jono went to school. He is also an Auckland Councillor and was going to stand at the next election, will probably be lying down at best by then.
Sporting weekend results were pretty good.
We beat the Springboks in Pretoria, 34-18. Not enough tries for a bonus point so we have to beat Australia in two weeks to win the Tri-nations if they beat the boks next weekend. However, to keep, or rather get, the Bledisloe Cup back, we need to win anyway. Cullen scored the only two NZ tries, 7 penalties (northern hemisphere dork ref, Ed Morrison) and Jeff Wilson got a drop goal. The boks played a lot better than many predicted they would, so they could just get their shit together in time for the World Cup.
News that Larkham and Eales won't return in time for the game against NZ gives us some hope.
In the cricket, we are in a strong but possibly likely-drawn position in the 3rd test. Astle got a ton, as did McMillan. Weather stopped play last night, after we declared at about 496/9, poms got 199 in their first go. They were 112 for 2 when rain stopped play and it could stop the last day as well. Bet we end up with the poms having 1 wicket in hand when play is stopped for bad light on the last day. Damn it all, they deserve a win. Harry (Chris Harris) took a couple of wickets and ran someone out, after finally being allowed into the squad. Our number 11 batsmen this time (Vettori) has a century to his name so batting is not really a weakness at the moment. We don't often get 496, that's for sure.
Waikato handed Hawkes Bay an 86-0 lesson in a ranfurly shield game, in what many would say was a little one-sided.
Not much else to report, really. Been fooling around with a Sony Mavica digital camera. Way cool fun. 14x zoom. Take a photo without having to leave your armchair. Straight onto floppy disk.
Had some sort of horrible bug on Wednesday, thought it might be the flu, but bounced back by the end of the day.
Rory lost another tooth on Friday, finally. No more for a while, Hannah will be next. She starts school visits next week, Diana reckons. He has spent his hoard of money a hundred times, has just over a hundred bucks now. Announced the other day he wanted to buy me something (Star Wars lego). Nice move. Got to admire his thinking on that one.
Some discussion last night as a result of me filling out the recommendations for awards for the soccer. I had to be straight up with him and say he wasn't up for anything. He wasn't happy. Problem is, he is close, but not close enough to deserving something. Wasn't a real fun conversation. We watched Empire Strikes Back afterward with his new lego Snow Speeder he got from Ross and Kath for his birthday.
Charles - we saw Thomas and have done some digital photos so you should get one or two shortly.
This could be just about my last mail to the Lane's in Canada. They leave for a slow trip home. Have fun on the trip home, guys. It is going to be weird when you return. (Iris is coming to see Diana, today, by the way) We will then say - "Hey, who is that driving around in Jan and Doug's car?" (something of a turnaround on a year ago).
Anyway, better go do some work, the mail server is up now, so I can send this. Everybody pray for sun, we only have three games left in the season. Have to start organising the cricket team, I guess.