17 May 2004

Another Ben arrives in the world - 17/05/04

Roger and Shyn are now the proud parents of their son Ben, 3.9Kg, on the 11th of May (I think, not sure about time differences). Congratulations to parents, uncles, grandparents, etc.

LOCAL NEWS

It just feels like nothing happens around New Zealand these days. We don't make pyramids out of prisoners or anything really interesting.

A man was beaten to death in South Auckland on Friday. Another man has been charged with "beating a man to death".

The moth spraying campaign is officially over. We haven't been sprayed for ages. The more dramatic people out there have said that the moth spraying "ruined people's lives". It is fair to say that it ruined the lives of a number of moths, and woke a lot of people up earlier than they may have liked.

The idea of a tunnel under Parnell to help Auckland traffic has been thrown out. Meanwhile, they seem to keep coming up with new ways of charging people to drive around Auckland. This is mildly bizarre given that everyone pays heaps of tax for their petrol anyway. I don't really understand why they need more money when the Government is said to have billions of dollars spare.

The spectre of passport free travel between Australia and New Zealand has been raised again. I don't see why, I thought New Zealand was considered an easy security border and this would allow Mossad and Al Qaeda easy access to Australia. The theory is that it would encourage tourism. I reckon people would enter one country on visitors permit and go live in the other one.

The Green Party have decreed that thou shalt not use disposable nappies, because each baby creates 2 tons of landfill with disposables. They don't seem concerned about the cost of cleaning cloth nappies, the use of water, etc. I am so glad we have them out there looking after our best interests. Their bill for the compulsory wearing of caftans and the banning of plastic supermarket bags is in Parliament next week.

The government is planning on introducing changes to allow people to be prosecuted again for the same crime. It is limited to situations where they are found to have perjured themselves or threatened witnesses that affected the outcome, or where new evidence comes to light. I think where they get off due to some technicality that could be remedied should also be considered.

A Palmerston North man had boiled eggs explode in his face after microwaving them. I guess people forget what you can and can't do. Can't dry off your hamster in one, that's for sure.

WORLD NEWS

The Royal Danish wedding got plenty of coverage in Australia, because an Australian is marrying the next king of Denmark.

I am sure other things are going on, but we just don't seem to hear much, other than the prisoner thing.

REAL SPORT

Rory's water polo team were without two experienced players and they got hammered by another Ponsonby team 9-4 or something. Rory and a couple of other players stayed on for the whole game, rather than having two quarters off, he was stuffed.

Hannah's team had a tough ask. The team they played had scored 45 goals and conceded none. I told them I didn't expect them to win, but I wanted them to go out there and have a go, have a bit of fun. Well, they slogged very hard, keeping them out for about 12 minutes before the first goal. It was 0-3 at half time, and I said I wanted a better result than the 0-7 a few weeks back. Final score was 0-5 (and one was offside). That is the second worst result for the team we played and second worst for us, too. We came damn close to scoring once or twice, too.

Rory's team had another draw. I should get to see them play, finally, this weekend with games scheduled at home at 10 and 11.

SPORT

The Crusaders beat the Stormers and the Brumbies beat the Chiefs and the final is in Canberra.

Man Utd won 2-0 over Aston Villa, despite having two players red carded towards the end of the match. Arsenal were 0-1 down but came back to win 2-1 to be the first team to go unbeaten in a premiership season since about 1888-9 (when they only played 22 matches). Portsmouth had a big 5-1 win over Middlesborough, and Newcastle drew with Liverpool 1-1.

The FA Cup final is this weekend, Milwall versus Man Utd.

MY SAD LIFE

It has been really wet this week, never thought soccer would be on. Then it came right and was perfect all weekend. Spent a lot of time outside on Sunday, in the sun. Saw the first hot air balloon of the season this morning, it's very still and clear. They float around quite often in winter (is it because hot air works better in cold air?).

Rory must have been quite ill on Wednesday. He stopped Diana before she left for work and asked is she thought she was properly dressed for work. This caused much hilarity as he was the person voted least likely to know when he last changed his clothes in the family.

Hannah fell down some wet stairs at dancing mid-week, but she is okay. She complained about varying body parts for a day or two then forgot about them. She got booted in the thigh by a team-mate with little vertical control at practice on Thursday, to add to her woes.

Hannah's cat decided to pee on Rory's bed on Wednesday, for no obvious reason. First offence, hasn't been repeated. Rory took it quite well, considering. And worse, I saw him drink out of the toilet this morning, he gets inside the bowl, it's quite bizarre, he might think he is a dog.

I think I did quite well not saying that Shyn had a Ben in the oven. I never said that when Penny was pregnant first time around, either.

Diana and I went to see Troy with Rory and Adam (a friend from school, first time he's done something after school with someone from Ponsonby) on Saturday afternoon. It wasn't a bad movie, in fact it was quite good. It got two stars in the Herald, but then they did give "The Thin Red Line" five, so I haven't taken any notice of their reviews since.

After finally finishing one homework thing (myths and legends) Rory had to start on his next big thing (science project). It isn't going well, we have to nag and harass the whole time.

I'M SORRY, I'LL WRITE THAT AGAIN

Forgot to mention that the issue of PC World with Ross's gleaming fizzog came out last week. It was an incredibly boring piece on using contractors, and they needed a real person. Ross was all I could find. Interestingly (for me, at least), they didn't put my pic in it's normal place, except at the back next to a pic of the lead singer of Alien Ant Farm, who somebody thought I resembled.

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