22 February 2005

I just can't think of a title, feel free to forward this to yourself and add one of your own - 21/02/05

LOCAL NEWS

A father heading home in his car hit his two sons on a motorbike and they were killed. The boys were on a farm bike, not meant to be on the road, aged seven and five. The seven year old was driving (good thing it wasn't a five year old).

Lots of controversy about the NCEA exams, not sure why but seems a lot failed that shouldn't have. There looks to be a witch-hunt brewing over it. Hope it settles down before Rory starts in a couple of years.

Pastor Brian Tamaki, owner of the Destiny Church (the one that had an issue with the Civil Union Bill and wasn't allowed to march over the Harbour Bridge), has been promoted to Bishop. "It is a great surprise, and an honour", said Tamaki, "when I signed my order for promotion, I had no idea I was going to get it." People are wondering how long before he reaches the rank of Pope. Interestingly, I had a conversation with a guy about ten days ago, whose last name is Tamaki. I told him not to be offended if I call him Brian by accident because the guy is in the news so much. "I won't be, he's my brother" he said. "You're joking," said me, being very diplomatic. Ooops. This guy has heaps of brothers, something that seems to be common knowledge to most people other than me.

Additional concern arose about the management of the "Wananga", a Maori-oriented university, Sounds like some very dubious practices are going on including incentives for students like clothes and computers, paying $60,000 to replace light bulbs to family, and some very dodgy courses. The Government is researching what options it has to investigate.

John Howard visited Helen this week. There has been debate about Anzac celebrations and whether John Farnham should sing at it (not sure he should sing anywhere, to be honest).

One father of a girl that died in the bridge crash seemed okay with the whole thing, but another isn't quite so understanding.

It was revealed this week that the number of speeding tickets has trebled, which is scary. I have avoided further tickets since the dreaded black Monday of 2003, and in October I will be "clean" again.

Half of Pt Chev road was closed for a while over the weekend, not sure why, think it might be for stormwater separation. It was chaos as cars were diverted through side roads.

WORLD NEWS

The Iraqi election result was finally published, but nobody seemed too worried or interested.

REAL SPORT

No real sport to report, although registration for soccer began this week, it is starting to get busy making calls in the evenings again.


SPORT

We lost the first ODI against Aussie.

Been a bit of a storm in a teacup over Vinnie Anderson leaving the Warriors, must have been slow news week.

Man Utd beat Everton in the FA Cup, Arsenal had a draw, Fulham lost to Bolton.

Super 12 rugby starts this coming weekend.

MY SAD LIFE

Penny and the lads arrived on Wednesday, with Craig arriving early Sunday morning. Matt's pretty cute, and Ben has matured quite a lot. Our two kids were very good with both of them, and did lots of things with them. I read Matt a Dr Seuss book and you have to wonder what sort of drugs the man was taking when he wrote them. That might end up being Rory's speech topic. On Sunday there was a gathering of people at Mission Bay. They fooled around in the fountain and played in the sand. Rory was too cool to go into the fountain until he was told it was to look after the smaller kids. Tania brought her two girls, the Goodins were there, as was Terry and Philly and a number of others. Ben buried the blue ninja turtle, and an excavation crew was despatched, but it was found without major work.

Went to the flea market with the kids on Sunday. When we stopped for breakfast at a bakery in Avondale, there was a car accident outside. A silly man decided he didn't need to stop coming down Henry Street onto Great North Road and got hit pretty hard by a Bentley (quite a nice Bentley). I think he was pretty badly hurt, he didn't move much, but we didn't stick about, we didn't see it and they didn't need us as witnesses. Was a lesson in stupid driving. Flea market wasn't anywhere near as interesting, although Hannah bought a bracelet that she is going to dismember for the beads.

We met the teacher at Ponsonby Intermediate, and learned a few truths about science fair and the homework diary. Rory wasn't too pleased.

Rory is off to councillor camp this Thursday for two days. They are letting the councillors spend $135 on food for the camp. Rory reckons that will be a lot of V (energy) drinks and 2 minute noodles, then they'll cook the noodles in the V. I don't envy the teachers.

I reckon that seventeen years from now there will be very few cicadas in this area. The cats are eating about four a day. The poor bloody cicadas live in a hole in the ground, as a grub, for seventeen years, come out for a couple of days to mate then die (they cannot eat as adults, it's not much of a lifestyle) and yet Ollie and Pandora are thwarting the plans of many of them. I can't tell if they get them before or after they've done their thing, but it would be pretty rugged to emerge after all that time to end up as cat poo.

Just when I thought it was safe to open the junk mail, I opened an advertising thing the other day to see Kath's smiling face in it. Hannah says it is a nicer photo than the other one (it has to be, Ross isn't in it). Kath says people like companies with a human face (again, that raises the question of why put Ross in it). I am certain that my phizzog would sell less of anything, except for maybe wrinkle cream.

Not sure if I mentioned that I installed an aircon unit in my office. It is getting used in the afternoons when I am in here. It works very well, I was really struggling to work productively in the heat. The weather continues to be pretty good, I think February is when summer really starts here.

Diana got an email from her cousin Jack in Germany, I got a rough summary of it.

Brett is responsible for our house being filled with hideous song as we tried to sing "Twinkle twinkle little star" and the alphabet song at the same time to prove or disprove a theory. It wasn't pretty, and music was not the winner on the day.

No news from Koos yet, but not completely surprised on that one.

Best go do some real work.

UPDATE: I can't believe I used the same title about four weeks apart, terribly unimaginative. Wasn't that funny the first time.

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