60 years since D-Day - 07/06/04

It is also Queen's Birthday weekend here, so I get a day off.

LOCAL NEWS

Weather has been cold and wet. Not a lot of fun at all.

The Forest and Bird Society in New Zealand want us to stop eating fish, except pilchards and anchovies. They say the rest are over-fished or hurt dolphins. I don't get how they even have a mandate for anything to do with fish given that forests aren't in the ocean and there are sod-all birds over the ocean and they hardly ever get caught in gill-nets.

A couple of guys were rescued from Lake Taupo when their tri-maran flipped. They were lucky but family notified search and rescue when they failed to show up as expected.

A New Zealander is helping genetically modify corn and soybeans to produce petrol. That would be pretty cool. Then the price of gas might go down a bit. I heard it was over a pound a litre in England. It's like $1.21 for regular here, and that's heaps.

A burglar is believed to have drowned in the Waikato river, shame.

There was a protest about the sentencing of the girl found guilty of manslaughter for driving into a bunch of people near Whangarei. They feel the sentence will be insufficient.

The Green Party have said they will not contest any electorates, but will go solely for the party vote in the next election. If they keep video of them dancing at their conferences out of the public eye they may stand a chance.

WORLD NEWS

Ronald Reagan has died, I guess the US get upset whenever a president dies, but he was knackered anyway. Some reckon he was knackered whilst still in the job. It makes one wonder about how the family of a public figure feels when their loved one is carted off for all sorts of official engagements and state funerals. I suppose they get to have a private thing later, but they probably have to attend the public thing too.

REAL SPORT (bit long, sorry)

Hannah's team are in first division for sure, and we are going to have to work very hard to get through it in good shape.
Queen's birthday weekend always mucks up soccer. I consulted with the manager of Hannah's team and decided that if we were going to play with ten or maybe eleven without our best goalie that travelling all the way to Eastern Suburbs to play the team that scored 65 goals in seven games was probably not worth it, so we gave the rest of the team the weekend off and defaulted. First time I've ever done that, but we've played the team before and we weren't going to get anything out of it. I think it was sensible. We get docked competition points, but a 0-2 loss for a default is way better than we ever would have managed against them.

Instead, Hannah and Greta played for Mark's team. His girls had only scored one goal in six games and hadn't had a win. He was low on numbers, and was without his two usual goalies. They were playing down at Cox's Bay, so we could still see most of Rory's game. Both Hannah and Greta played really well, they worked very hard on the field on the basis that they may not get much of a chance as replacements. Well, the team scored two goals in the first half, the second of which was probably offside. A parent from the other team was grumbling that both were off-side. The first wasn't, in my view, and the ref (from our team) called a chance off-side when it technically wasn't so what the heck. In the second half the floodgates opened and they scored another five goals. Hannah was huge in defence, and gave them masses of go forward when she was on the pitch. She worked the hardest I've ever seen her play. The other team got a consolation goal late in the second half (when Hannah was off), but the final score was 7-1, a resounding win for Mark's team. The whole team were buzzing, the coach was overjoyed, and the parents were pretty happy, too. One girl said "it's still fun when we lose, but it's a lot more fun when we win." It was probably a good thing that Hannah and Greta didn't score, because the team will take that confidence into their next game, but their contribution really helped boost the team and the rest got much hungrier for the ball seeing how hard Hannah and Greta worked.

Rory's team lost, again. But I saw Rory on the field in the second half and if it wasn’t for him working hard on the right wing with a couple of others they wouldn't have had any chances. They scored a goal when Stephen lobbed a ball that Billy and Rory were competing for in the air and the opposition goalie carried the ball across the line. He competed really well, I was very pleased with how he went.

Quote of the week from a boy in 12th grade Team 2 that I was helping at training on Tuesday, after I said "my girls don't even do that." He says "Your girls, what are you a pimp?". I quietly pointed out that if my fifteen "girls" found out what he said, he would risk physiologically qualifying to play in a girls team.

DULL SPORT

I didn't forget to mention the Warriors last week. The coach resigned this week. Only two kinds of coaches, those about to get sacked and those that have been sacked. They won their game yesterday.

Second test has one day left, not looking good. Vettori injured. I thought it would be a draw but it could be difficult now.

Euro 2004 is only a week away, that will be awesome. England beat Ireland in a friendly. Holland don't seem to be playing at all well.

The All Blacks had a trial, and they were all guilty of playing a stupid game where they stuff about in group hugs and standing in queues for their turn to get the ball. They play England this weekend, I think.

MY SAD LIFE

Things seem to have been pretty quiet. Don't get a chance to do anything too exciting.

Rory came home from school after doing "health" one day. They had discussed the changes at puberty. Rory says "got that, done that, done that, got those. Now all I need to do is have a period and grow breasts." It was pretty funny.

Had a nice family night last night, we played Cluedo, watched Family Fear Factor (the jerks didn't win, the mother and daughter team did), and it was nice. We seem to be doing different things too often and spending little time together.

I had my radio thing again yesterday morning, went smoothly. I can't believe how popular the show is, we still get a full board of calls.

I was approached to write something for a new digital photography magazine, but it comes from another publisher and the publisher of PC World isn't grown up enough to agree to me doing that. The pay was lousy (20c a word, Jono, tell Emma that) anyway. Instead, they are running an extract from my book, which will help sales I think.

Because I rang Gavin on his mobile, he got distracted while walking the dogs, and Robin's puppy got hit by a car. I am so thoughtless and heartless, how could I callously ring someone like that. I would probably have been a nazi war criminal during the war. I bet those guys regularly rang people while they were walking their dogs, without leads, near roads, without any regard for canine safety. Despite my efforts to slaughter puppies, Chino has survived with a broken front leg, and will recover. I have to now think of a new way of getting my evil revenge upon him.

We saw the Bambis on Saturday night, Sasha is walking, just like a real person now. Bambi had been out fishing all day, in crappy weather, I wouldn't have bothered.

Koos, you alive?

Helen, you shifted house yet?

I wonder if the Goodins have bumped into the Tuckers? They were all at Port Douglas this week.