Avoid beach holidays in Sri Lanka - 27/12/2004

The weather has not been good, lots of rain and very little sunshine, temperatures very mild.

LOCAL NEWS

The "what happened this year" stuff got me utterly bored, so I won't subject you to it. I wasn't interested in shrek the sheep, ever, it's just a sheep with long hair. Images of Olympic success and other things dribbled out of the television and onto the pages of our newspaper the whole slow-news week. The remarkably similarity of topics between the Herald and television would suggest they were either completely correct in their summation of the year or mind bogglingly unoriginal.

The crossbow killing was "self-defence" against one of three people who seemed intent on burgling a property. The guy was charged with murder (which seems a stretch, manslaughter would be better, it was hardly pre-meditated).

News of a fatal accident this week on a stretch of road where there have been eight fatalities in five years. Given that you spend about five minutes on it each time you pass through, you have about a one in 500,000 chance which isn't too nasty.

A woman and her two children were found dead near Taranaki. Was described as murder, then became murder suicide. They say it's twice as bad at Christmas, I don't think anything is twice as bad as taking the life of anyone else, especially your own children.

The whole "this is doubly bad at Christmas" thing, which might be relevant for problems at car rental companies and airports, or having to work unexpectedly, but I don't really see why bad things are worse at Chrismas.

Three girls died when a van (also in Taranaki, not a good week down there) they were in lost control and went into a river. I hope the driver is charged appropriately, there is no excuse for careless driving when you have a van full of people, especially if you are related to the passengers.

WORLD NEWS

The Tsunami that killed nearly 10,000 people in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Thailand must have been very big. It's one thing being 30 feet high, but how wide was the bugger.

The cloning of a pet cat for a Texas woman was interesting. I like the name of the company (Genetic Savings & Clone). As for the concept, it doesn't sound good, especially with such a large percentage failing to survive 30 days (do owners think about how many "fluffies" had to suffer and die for one apparently healthy one?).

An Australian barricaded himself into a Gold Coast hotel room with hostages that weren't there. The siege ended peacefully.

REAL SPORT

Still no real sport happening, going into withdrawal. Rory might play water polo on the 16th. Must make it to then.

SPORT

After nothing for most of the week, Sunday blossomed with various cricket fixtures.

The Black Caps comfortably beat Sri Lanka in the first ODI, winning in about the 33rd over, only needing 142 or so to win.

The Pakis looked like they were in trouble again in the second test against Australia at about 80 for 3 but a good partnership got them to over 300 for 6 at stumps on day one. The result is inevitable but at least they are having a go.

Man Utd beat Bolton 2-0, Man City lost to Everton 2-1, Chelsea beat Villa 1-0, and the Arse won 2-0 at home to Fulham.

MY SAD LIFE

The kids cruised this week, achieved sod all, forgot to eat breakfast most days. They got pretty stir-crazy with the weather keeping them inside. We went swimming a few times, took Paul along a couple of times. I did another full length under water, which I was pleased to do.

It seems like there are a series of trips to shops every Christmas where you say "right, that's the last time I go" and then you go again for something else.

Rory and I watched our favourite Christmas movies in the lead up to Christmas Day (Die Hard 1, 2, and 3, although technically number three isn't set at Christmas, somebody does sing part of a Christmas Carol).

There was some last-minute activity around the house, preparing for Christmas Day. This included putting up a picture from Sarah, hanging some christmas cards, doing the doorstop on the bathroom door (which I still hadn't done after the painting episode), constructing a cat playhouse with Hannah (much tougher than the last one), and general tidying.

Christmas Day in our house was very relaxed and low stress. We had a nice lunch then a very quiet afternoon. The kids were pretty happy with their haul, and hadn't even tried everything by the end of the day.

I am sure little Ben's first Christmas included getting more than his weight in presents. We met up with everyone down at Mission Bay on Boxing Day, where Roger, Paul, Rory, and I threw a mega-howler around a bit and we all had Thunderburgers for lunch. Nobody went in the fountain, which was surprising (it's been closed for a while for refurbishment).

Well, that will do for this year. Be sensible for New Year, and stay away from waterfront areas if you hear about an earthquake.

Boring stuff follows that you don't have to read.
Rob

2004 - how I did.
Not attend any funerals - I don't remember going to any.
Enjoy myself a bit more - wasn't hard compared to last year.
Avoid stress - mostly managed.
Take more walks with Diana - some weeks we manage quite a few, I think we made the grade.
Do something exciting - well, we got to the US, that counts.

2005 - what I want to achieve.
* I am going to adopt a no-bullshit approach to what I cover in news next year.
- If the opposition disagree with something the government does, I won't talk about it unless there is a reason (other than "because they did it and they are the enemy").

- If someone dies and everyone says how wonderful they were, it won't get mentioned. Same goes for family saying that someone is innocent.

- People dying in Iraq is not news, people not dying in Iraq is news.
I really wish our news services would think about this.

* I want to keep swimming, we are all enjoying it and I would like to carry on through winter if I can.
* I honestly don't know what else I want to do, I've not really thought about it much, perhaps I will come up with something before next Monday.

Five sleeps to Christmas - 20/12/2004

I apologise to those who received three copies of my email last week, and those who got none (possibly the lucky ones). There was a situation with my email server and Outlook and it decided it hadn't been sent and kept re-sending. Most unusual. Send requests for refunds to youhavegottobedreamingpal@email.co.nz where your applications will be dealt with appropriately.

LOCAL NEWS

The weather has been bizarre. It hailed on Saturday, so much that Rory was making snowballs out at Muriwai (on the west coast). They were quite big balls, nearly marble size. Damage was done to some aging plastic roofing in some places, but I think strawberry crops in Auckland will be knackered for Christmas.

Judy Bailey, mother of our nation, newsreader, and professional talking head became one of the highest paid people in the country when her pay doubled from $400,000 to $800,000. Our state broadcaster is going to cop considerable amounts of flak over this one. At the very least, any unions at TVNZ should be pushing for payrises of similar percentages. They are obviously running scared with Holmes going over the fence but I thought they had already realised that the person mattered not.

A light plane landed on an unplanned basis in Cable Bay (near Coopers Beach, up North). One person died, others were hospitalised. It made a big splash.

A ceiling collapsed in the Auckland International Airport check-in counter, fifteen people were hit by falling ceiling tiles and bits of aircon ducting. A couple were a little serious, two people didn't get on a flight as expected. It was in a new part that had been opened the same day.

Still no sign of the guy that drove off the kaimai range in a ute. I reckon he's hiding and he's in trouble for something (maybe a massive gambling debt or fraud).

A 13 year old child in "care" was found dead down a cliff whilst on a camp. They waited four days to report him missing. Not sure that "care" is the right word as there didn't seem to be any.

A ferry ran aground in the Bay of Islands, but nobody was seriously hurt.

Someone was shot and killed by a crossbow on Sunday. What is this country coming to? Can't we even afford guns?

Two santas were arrested during a santa pub crawl involving thirty santas in Auckland on Sunday.

WORLD NEWS

That new bridge in France looks pretty cool, but I don't see why a road wouldn't have done the trick.

The premier in Istanbul of a horror movie resulted in 150 being hospitalised, five seriously, as a result of smoke inhalation from a fire. Wonder what happens when they screen "Blazing Inferno"?

Two people have been eaten by sharks while surfing in Australia. I don't think I will take up surfing. Apparently, Australians tase like chicken.

SPORT

The results New Zealand had against Australia in the tests don't seem so bad after they demolished the Pakis by 491 runs, the 4th biggest loss in history, and McGrath took eight wickets in the second innings, including the first seven, which was awesome.

Man Utd won 5-2 over Crystal Palace, Spurs won 5-1 over Southampton, Chelsea beat Norwich 4-0, Liverpool beat Newcastle 3-1 this morning and the Arse squeaked a goal in to beat Portsmouth 1-0.

MY SAD LIFE

Rory was made a school councillor on the last day of school. They made nine kids councillors and there will be more created in the new year. Diana seemed to think Rory really wanted it, Rory seemed to think he was always going to be one (love that confidence). I am not sure whether it was Diana or Rory that wanted it the most. Regardless, it topped off a very good year for the boy.

Rory came with us for a walk on Thursday. Not surprisingly, he didn't want to. Once we got to the lake, he had a great time feeding the baby swans, geese, ducks, and pukekos. He kept disappearing and then showing up as he kept getting distracted. I bumped into a guy I know and had a chat with him. Then, as we left the park, a lady we see walking her dog there regularly gave me a christmas cake (she said it was for her friend who hadn't shown up). It was very nice of her, but quite unusual. I think she is dutch.

Hannah did the big show this weekend, doing four shows in two days. She did very well, but she was lost in the second dance when there was like forty kids on stage at once. She was awarded a prize last night at prizegiving for best in Jazz in her age group. She was pretty happy about that, as Rory has been hogging limelight lately.

I decided to clean out the VHS tapes. Have a huge box full, and just don't use them. Has created massive amounts of space in the entertainment unit which has now been filled by a pile of DVDs and other bits. Also started transferring video footage of the kids onto hard disk for transfer onto DVD. Lots of footage from 1997 when Hannah turned 3 and Rory 5. I really didn't like his hair back then. Interestingly, there was footage at the swimming pool and you could hear water polo whistles going in the background and I mentioned seeing water polo on the tape. Don't remember that at all.

Life will be a lot queter this week, I think. I am planning to do some serious garage tidying and reorganising over the break. It really needs it.

I heard from Johan the day I exchanged some emails with Heidi (Monday or Tuesday). He is buying a digital camera.

Basketball hoop continues to get used. It came off the mounting during the week, but we fixed it with a pair of new screws and were away again. They won't let me shoot underarm (I got ten in a row doing it that way, Rory says it's cheating). We only went swimming twice, but should manage more this week.

Happy birthday to Jono for Thursday (I hear you are coming over, and what is your blog site?). It's Linda's birthday too (is it 25th or 26th, I forget).

Paul arrives from SF some time this week, Tuesday morning I think.

Okay, that's about it. Have a really nice Christmas, don't eat too much, be happy that you made it though another year. It's been a much better one than last year, from where I sit.

An NZ Sporting Legend dies in Texas - 13/12/04

late today, had to go do some work first.

LOCAL NEWS

Arthur Lydiard was just about a household name, not quite Sir Edmund Hillary, but pretty close. He coached a number of people to win Olympic Gold including Murray Halberg and Peter Snell. His passing absolutely dominates news today.

Four separate homicide investigations began last Monday, wasn't a good weekend for three New Zealanders. It has to be something of a record. No murders since, so things calmed down a bit.

One of the four was a mother of six, killed by her estranged partner, who was the subject of a non-molestation order. I really don't get non-molestation orders, those that take notice of them don't need them, those that need them most are unlikely to heed them,

A local magazine has run an article on the fifty most powerful people in New Zealand. The list is bizarre. I don't think they meant powerful, possible visible, high-profile, perhaps even influential, but not powerful. It included the captain of the All Blacks, Black Caps, an Olympic gold-medalist, a dubious TV "personality", Paul Holmes (as the king of dodgy muzak?), as well as the PM and other people who genuinely might be in a position of some sort of power.

The Civil Union Bill passed into law, coming into effect on 1 April, I think. This allows people to formalise a union without actual wedlock. Not really sure why it was needed, but it seems that marriage is not an option for some people (happy for someone to explain what the difference is). It also allows gay couples to create a legal relationship which gives them rights as next of kin and so forth.

Ahmed Zaoui was freed on bail on Thursday, amid much fuss. I don't really understand why he wasn't deported two years ago if he was that dodgy. Every day since, he has been in the media doing something for the first time in two years - having a pint at the pub, going to a movie, buying parts for a weapon of mass destruction, christmas shopping, that sort of thing.

The 10th of December marked the change of law that meant smoking in the workplace is now illegal. It has issues for working girls (who can't smoke afterwards) and some are whinging about smokers polluting outdoors. I am not sure it will change much, and wonder why they don't just make smoking illegal.

A teenager who had $43,000 in fines turned into 300 hours of community service has been jailled as he has not done any community service. There was quite a fuss when he was let off the fines, but now they are back.

Masses of whinging about speedway noise. Personally, I don't care either way, but not sure why speedway fans have some right to ignore the law in pursuit of happiness. Yes, the people in the houses nearby should have known it would ge tnoisy now and then, but some of the vitriol about their complaints has been rather nasty.

Couple of nasty accidents blocked traffic on state highway 1 on Friday, one was truck versus car where truck caught fire and went over cliff. Other involved truck catching fire but nobody died.

The woman jailled for euthanasing her mother is out today after serving half her sentence of 15 months.

WORLD NEWS

The US troops in Iraq body count hit a thousand. This sounds a lot but consider that California alone has around 4,000 people die per year on the state's roads. For the number of troops over there and how long they have been there, it is surprising more haven't died falling out of their humvee.

News of poisoning the Ukrainian guy with dioxin is disturbing. I wouldn't go there for a holiday.

REAL SPORT

A whole week without water polo, although we have been swimming a few times. I swam a length underwater, which helped me prove to myself that I am not old and clapped-out (not yet). On Wednesday I drove there with my togs on inside out, so I drove home and put them on properly (didn't want to be seen in public like that, getting vain and unable to dress myself in my dotage). Rory did a length in 15.6s so he is improving slowly. He also cracked 100 lengths in one session (did 101) and I averaged 40 lengths for the three visits this week. Hannah came once and did about 34. We are still enjoying doing it, which is good.

SPORT

We lost second one day match against Australia and the third one was abandoned, which was disappointing.

The NZ Rugby Sevens team won the tournament in George, South Africa. The were bundled out in Dubai, not sure who by.

The men's hockey team are crap and finished last of six in a tournament where they got two draws but no wins.

MY SAD LIFE

I don't really feel like much has happened this week. The kids finish school in the coming week, Rory tomorrow and Hannah on Friday.

Gavin and I erected the basketball hoop on Saturday. Hannah seems especially happy (we did it while she was at dancing so it would be a surprise for her). (Sarah, she got it with her birthday vouchers). On the first test the aluminium bracket came off, so we screwed it on like Gavin suggested (I admit I was wrong, basketballs are quite heavy). It has been getting reasonably heavy use since, with lots of little shooting competitions. Hannah has bagged ten shots in a row, Rory seven. We'll see how long it lasts but it seems to be very worthwhile so far.

Hannah has been busy with dress rehearsals and photos and things in preparation for the show this coming weekend. She looks very grown up in her costume.

Brett has been "of no fixed abode" as he travels Australia, having been just about everywhere in the last month or two. I want to know where Ningaloo Reef is and why he went there when he hasn't been to see the stromatolites yet (although they aren't much to look at, the idea of seeing creatures 3.5 billion years old is pretty cool from where I sit, and Perth is practically next door to them).

Paul has been partying hard in San Francisco, including getting down with Tears for Fears (who? You ask, a two hit wonder band from the 80s).

Got a surprise package in the post from Amazon UK, which I assume was from Koos (it didn't say on it). Thanks, Koos, greatly appreciated and a nice surprise.

Pandora has been sick this week, wasn't eating for a couple of days, went to the vet on Saturday, but she is okay now, started eating normally on Sunday and bounced back quite quickly. Ollie has been eating abnormally (eating for two while Pandora wasn't eating and we hadn't worked it out).

The Christmas tree went up on Saturday, the kids were both excited. Ollie went mental and attacked it. Hannah keeps a close eye on the gifts under the tree, and thinks there should be more. Diana and I snuck off and did some shopping for the kids on Friday morning, we are nearly there.

An email from an old man - 06/12/04

Welcome to Paul and Rachel, who are working in a winter wonderland somewhere in the US, I think Paul is in Tahoe and Rachel is in Mammoth.

LOCAL NEWS

Two female cousins died when a tree was uprooted and landed on their car. Yet again the copywriters called this a "freak accident". This disappoints me. It might have been a low probability event, but it is safe to assume that when trees blow over near a highway that someone might get hurt if they are in the right place at the wrong time. A freak accident would be if the car swerved to avoid the tree, hit a power pole, which brought down half a dozen power poles, then an exposed cable lands on a pensioner's mobility scooter which then shoots off at speed and as he gets it under control is knocked off a bridge over a gorge by 4,000 litre water tank that had been blown off it's trailer at the top of the steepest hill in Dunedin.

A pod of pilot whales beached near Pauanui on the Coromandel, very soon after another pod beached in Tasmania. Seems awfully coincidental. One of them had dolphins as well, which is quite unusual.

A plane landed on an unplanned basis on Mt Taranaki. The weather had closed in which hampered searching. They eventually found them 20m from the summit, what a bugger. I guess they call that a "nearly miss" in piloting circles.

Bizarrely, the same day, a ute went through a wall and over a cliff in the Kaimais, dropped 250m, and the driver was nowhere to be seen. Again, weather hampered searching for him/her. We went past the scene on the way to Tauranga on Saturday, they still hadn't found anyone by then. As we had a look, we realised it would have been nearly impossible to drive through at the angle he did, accidentally (you would have to turn off to the rest area, corner, then swing around into the wall). The newspaper suggested the same thing subsequently. Driver not yet found.

A teacher accused of sexual assault of students was cleared on all counts. He's a bit grumpy.

Three young women who were jailled for something they were subsequently cleared of, were offered about $140,000 each in compensation. They want more. They were in jail for about eight months, and were 14 or so at the time so still studied. Not sure where I stand on this one, as it sounds like they weren't exactly squeaky clean and they may have got off on something of a technicality.

For some reason, the sacking of Team New Zealand's Tom Schnackenberg was considered major news on TVNZ, but nowhere else.

WORLD NEWS

Nasty little reverse-rambo event in US where a laotian immigrant hunted deer hunters and took out six of the eight of them. Seems to have been sparked by redneck remarks from the hunters, but the survivors outnumber him two to one.

Bob Geldof has committed another crime against humanity by redoing Band-Aid. I can't believe this is possible but the new version is actually worse than the original, and I don't recognise hardly anyone in the video. The only hope we have is that nobody plays this song on the radio.

REAL SPORT

Rory's team played two friendly games on Monday, and again on Thursday. They beat the Waitak B team then lost to the Waitak A team on Monday, on Thursday they lost to the Waitak A team and the Waitak Girls A team (narrowly). They became the Waitak B team for the tournament and the Waitak B team became the C team.

At the tournament, they scraped past the Waikato team 4-3, then beat the Marist team comfortably. The qualified top in their group. They played Waitak B/C in the semi-final and it was very confusing for everyone. The semi was very close and was 2-2 at full time, so they played a fifth quarter and finally won 4-2. They didn't play very well in that game, they expected they would win after beating that team twice before. The final was against Northsport, a team that beat Waikato 22-0, and were very good. It was never going to be close, down 0-3 in the first quarter, held at 0-4 at half-time, but the floodgates opened in the third and the final score was 1-12 (at least we got one off them). Four games in five hours, including a long semi-final, and the guys were stuffed. Rory's extra swimming paid dividends, he was still slogging hard in the last game. He slept in the car on the way home, and was a bit sunburnt (the venue was an outdoor pool). Coming second in the tournament wasn't too bad, they got silver medals.

SPORT

I didn’t want to mention cricket, but then the Black Caps pulled off a win against Australia in the first ODI, by the skin of their teeth.This gave them some much needed self-respect. When the slow guys did the sprint at the end of the test they did it in dodgy lycra outfits and it wasn't pretty.

Chelsea thumped Newcastle 4-0, Arsenal beat Birmingham 3-0, Everton had another win 3-2 over Bolton, Liverpool only managed a draw with Villa. Man Utd won 3-0 over Southampton.

The ABs beat the Barbarians but so what.

MY SAD LIFE

I took the Pajero out on Monday night to test Diana's theory about whether Meola Road's highest point is the Pt Chevalier end or the Westmere end. It didn't prove much. Paul (G), can you bring your GPS with you when you visit next and I can test it with that? It's a long story, and involves street direction nomenclature. At least it gives me something to think about. The kids and I did notice on Saturday that the street numbers start at the Westmere end, but that has nothing to do with elevation.

There was a lot of noise in the house at 2am Tuesday morning. Pandora had caught a mouse. Not sure if it was caught inside or out, hoping it was out. Ollie has a new collar and the bell is very noisy, he played with it at 4am. I didn't wake up, Diana did.

Went to a press do this week as a Dphoto person, not a PC World person. That was weird. A new guy from PC World sat opposite me, which was also weird.

I survived my birthday, and seem to be coping with fortyism. We went to dinner with Ross & Kath, Gavin, Bambi, Matt, Allan & Jacqui, and Peter & Michelle. I depressed them by pointing out that I have known more than half of them for more than half of my life. I also got a few emails and phone calls from all over the planet, but I have to say that a larger letter box was not required.

We drove to Tauranga on Saturday for a water polo tournament on Sunday. The weather wasn't good, and the venue is outdoor. The place we stayed was nice enough, one of the other players stayed in the same motel, David Hoskins (who was also in Team 2). They fooled around in the pool for a while, and we all played table tennis. In the morning we played more table tennis, then a round of mini-golf and then went off to the tournament.

Better go, have a good week. Only 19 days until Christmas.