You may or may not get this - 23/08/99

Problems with our link to the outside world meant trouble late last week and now. When you get this you will know it is going again.
We were never destined to play soccer this weekend. After a non-committal phonecall to the club coordinator midweek, the F##king other team manager rang me Friday night to say they weren't going to turn up. Had been fine most of the week and the fields were likely to be okay in the morning. I was spewing. Not enough time to arrange any sort of alternative.
The next morning it started hosing down at about 8:15, and although we were officially on, we had nobody to play. Was going to let them play against each other, but it was way too horrible (raining hard and cold). That was it for soccer. Other teams who had people to play also didn't. One more game proper, then a friendly on opening day (should it not be rained out), then that is it for another season. Sad. Did a look at the statistics over the weekend. Joseph has scored two goals in every game, except one where he scored 1 and one where he scored 3. Not hard to calculate his average. Rory is third equal goal scoring wise, with 3. Not much of a hope of him catching Joseph this year, not that this would be important.
On the bright side, Man U kicked the Arse 2-1 at the Arse. Don't know about Newcastle or Liverpool. Wonder who Watford played this week.
Over the weekend, the final cricket test was not looking at all promising, Sunday morning didn't get the scores until about 11 but it didn't sound good. England 92 for 2 needing about another 140 runs. Then, woke up this morning to jubilation and happiness. The poms went for about another thirty runs them collapsed with nobody else scoring more than 12. We won by 83 runs and the game was all over after about 90 minutes play. No troubles with tail enders or anything. Very happy cricketers, only second test series win in England, ever, and takes us off the bottom rung of the test playing nations ladder. Sticks one up the pommy press who called the team mediocre and questioned us being givent the honour of four tests. Don't often win a series after being one-nil down, so was pretty good really.
Greg someone (a kiwi) won an indy car light race this morning, his first, led from start to finish. Those are the boring races in great big circles, silly really but good-oh. I believe he wasn't actually driving the car on his own, someone had left "the club" on the steering wheel and he just did the gears.
Merlene Ottey somehow tested positive for a drug she can't even spell the name of and couldn't possibly have taken. The indignant denial of these athletes seems to be a little bit too repetitive.
Waikato won the national netball championship, beating Auckland convincingly. Silver Ferns weren't taking part. Wellington had a hard time as a team mate died on Tuesday of a brain haemmorhage (Leilani Read, former Silver Fern and played for Samoa as well). Coverage of that continued most of the week.
The Warriors were thumping the Newcastle Knights about 36-0 at one point, didn't hear the final score. Was Stacey Jones' 100th game for the warriors. Maybe they will do better next year, don't know. Heard Sydney City lost to StGeorge/Illawarra. I think that was the last game of the season for those not in the finals, but not sure. Sounded like Brisbane lost as well. Sad.
Saw sod all of the rugby. Auckland beat Northland, Taranaki gave Otago a run for their money but lost about 16-40, Counties lost to Waikato in a very muddy Shield challenge, Wellington just beat North Harbour, Canterbury must have played Southland, I assume they won.
Seville held track and field world champs, we didn't do well. Beatrice Faumuina is in the final of the discus, others all crapped out. Chris Donaldson, our best sprinter for years (without the asistance of a policeman) didn't make the final, perhaps he lost his drugs.
The death toll odometer kept clicking over after Turkey's little tremor on Tuesday. Every bulletin the number was different. I think we started at 300 and last I heard was over 11,000. NZ has donated over $100k. We took pity on them and didn't send them Don McKinnon, they have suffered enough. Koos knows people that left Turkey just in time, and someone who is still there although not in the bad bit.
As I suspected, Koos went to see the eclipse, and it turns out he was one of the long haired weirdos wearing a white caftan trying to ward off the great pink pixie with a device resembling the sexual equipment of an excited bull elephant with syphilis. An extract from his email:

"I did go down to Cornwall to see the eclipse. It was a total eclipse of
the sky by thick rain cloud. It was still very freaky though. It got
about as dark as it is right now at 9:10pm and cloudy, with a faint glow
on the horizon. Except it came and went much more quickly. I enjoyed it.
I don't know if Patrick Moore enjoyed it under his umbrella. The BBC
were broadcasting from St Anthony's Head, where we were watching, so we
got to see the proper views transmitted from the Hercules on the TV
crew's monitor. I wonder what Patrick was hoping to view through his
monocle? It wasn't even tinted. Perhaps he knew it was going to be
cloudy all the time?"

News this week that we paid $25000 for 8 East Timorese to vote. Democracy at any price. Should be National's new campaign slogan.
Winston Peters gained huge amounts of kudos, credibility, and publicity after some decisions of the winebox enquiry were effectively overturned. Fantastic timing, now he could be back in the race for the election. You just couldn't get a better result for him. I am sure many of the people dumb enough to vote for him before will go back to him now. Why they couldn't defer their decision until after the election, I don't know. If he holds the balance of power again, I am definitely leaving.
Jenny did her foot and mouth thing again, this time over a government owned company, Timberlands, spending government funds on lobbying government about logging native timber. Brilliant.
Murder of a Tauranga woman found at the bottom of a cliff under a mattress near her car with three bullets in the head, she was a bit of a druggy, police suspect an underworld job, and are convinced it was someone with a gun that had at least three bullets.
The Scott Watson/Ben and Olivia trial is supposedly going to complete the prosecution's case this week. They pulled two witnesses who were cellmates of Scott Watson while in remand prison, about as reliable as a $2 G-Shock watch I suspect. Still not much doubt he is a creep, stuff all else. They had about 450 witnesses to call. I wonder how many the defense will have?
We have had a quiet week mostly. Rory is working hard on earning enough stickers in his class to win some sort of imaginary competition. Only Adam stands in his way. I take him to school so he gets there early enough to put down the chairs to get extra ones (the teacher never gives me any stickers, though). Seem to be doing that about four days a week. Once in a while I take Hannah as well. She has a proper school visit this Thursday and will now start school this term as her teacher will be there in time (advantage of having a parent on the PTA).
We sold his bike midweek and bought him a new one. It is pretty cool, red and black, with six gears. Took both kids down to the school yesterday to have a crack at getting Hannah off training wheels and let him have a go on his bike. She doesn't need them but isn't really ready for the commitment. The night he got it he met a 6yo kid from up the road, Chris. Could be handy to have a boy so close of similar age.
Managed to get out to Mission Bay during a break in the weather yesterday afternoon. Kicked a ball around, walked up to the MJS memorial, was quite windy. Kids had ice creams and expensive and not particularly appetising fish and chips.
Baby Thomas has been sick with bronchitis, was getting better but had a small relapse over the weekend.
The house was invaded by Diana's book group on Tuesday night, kids were not happy. I didn't like going through the coven in the lounge to the kids room and back, have to admit.
I am stuck on one scenario in Driver, and can't get the last monkey on Ape Escape. We have been playing Playstation when stuck inside.
I think the Lanes are back as of yesterday. Welcome home.