Happy New Year
LOCAL NEWS
A man that was hit in the head with a helicopter rotor on Boxing Day and had what was described as extensive head injuries appears to be fine. Surgeons believe that the rotor got the 80% of his brain that he didn't use.
The Road Toll for the year is pretty low but the holiday road toll seems high.
Usual news about new year celebrations. Bit of trouble New Year's Eve near Queenstown. Couple of cops caught on tape being a little too enthusiastic with revellers.
Lots of fuss about trees in Queen St in Auckland city. They want to remove them and replace with natives. Population doesn't agree. Slow news week.
Been a few drownings, people falling out of boats without lifejackets and a 6 yo who drowned without any obvious parental supervision.
WORLD NEWS
Kerry Packer did the media a favour by dying in a slow news week. It occupied business, sport, and world sections for a few days.
It was quite hot in Sydney, fires not helping that.
SPORT
The Aussies convincingly won the second test against South Africa. Third one starts today.
New Zealand's Black Caps thumped Sri Lanka in the first ODI. The spectators were pretty pissed because the low strength beer, long queues, soft containers, and two drink limit stopped them from getting pissed. Many left early.
Man Utd had a win over Bolton, haven't looked otherwise.
MY SAD LIFE
Rory asked this week whether there was a pill that had the opposite effect from Viagra. I asked why (something that I thought I might regret). However, he said that actors wouldn't want something to happen whilst doing a kissing scene or something like that. An interesting concept.
We saw Koos's sister Paula for the first time in a very long time, plus two of her children (Ash and Rosemary, Rosemary was born the day before Rory and Rory would have been a Rosemary if he was a she). We saw them again when we visited the new house. It is quite big and has big decks and a very big lawn. Ride on lawnmower would be too small.
After continuing drama with Rory's cellphone, it was replaced with another model on Saturday. He is very happy. The new one works, even better is does some really cool stuff. He was in geek heaven. He can download stuff for free for a month, so he has filled it up a couple of times already.
Went on a photo-taking trip on Friday with Jono and Paul. We took far too many photos of flowers so we had to drink beer to re-bloke ourselves.
New Year's Eve was at Gavin's house. He tried out the new barbecue, new cutlery, new plates, new glasses, new patio lights. I've seen the water feature. It wasn't worth it. Night went well, we came home before midnight though. Fireworks woke me up at midnight anyway.
Diana had a disturbing dream about me dying from a heart attack. As revenge, the next night I dreamed about her dying of cancer. She hadn't actually died when I woke up, so mine doesn't really count, and she didn't seem to be suffering that much. Nobody has been victim of our dreams since then.
I just checked my emails from beginning of last year. I had no resolutions, which is excellent news because I couldn't remember what they were. At least I achieved them all. I am not sure I can be bothered having any this year either. It does make life easier.
Christmas tree coming down today.
We are going to Tiritiri Matangi Island, a bird reserve, tomorrow. Paul is going, plus Allan, Jaqui, Brett, and others.
Well that is all the normal stuff. There are three more sections, including some stuff from Diana's cousin Jack - it is worth reading.
Have a good new year.
Rob
WHAT IF THE PEOPLE MAKING THE ADVERTS GOT WHAT THEY WANTED
I am sooo sick of these advertisements on TV. The kids watch then on their quiet days and seem to know the infomercials off by heart. Imagine a world where the advertisers wishes and statements came true. This is the kind of world we would live in.
1. There would be no world hunger, every starving child would get their dollar a day in rice and basic tuition and medical care. The western world would have tons of starving dance and music teachers, empty soccer and tennis clubs, and McDonalds would be bankrupt because everyone is spending their spare cash on feeding the poor.
2. We would all use our fitness equipment, and would be in peak physical condition. Hospitals and Doctors would be going broke.
3. We would have all given up drinking excessively, smoking, and speeding. Breweries would start making soft drinks, cancer wards would go quiet, and panelbeaters and insurance companies would be laying off staff.
4. Our kitchen cupboards would be full of mega-sets of knives that can cut tin cans, labour saving devices, and just plain gadgets. Our kitchens would be full of friends going "ooh" and "ahh" every time we made a margarita in our magic bullet or created melon balls with a flick of the wrist. Not sure why we'd do this but apparently we want to. The World's GDP would increase because of how much time we all save with these things. The price of melon would rocket upwards as demand rose.
5. We would eat only 99% fat free and sugar free food. Unfortunately, the fat free stuff is full of sugar and the sugar free stuff is full of fat so we wouldn't be any better off. However, because we are still using our exercise equipment, it doesn't matter, we’d still have six-pack abs.
6. The people selling dodgy girdles and stockings to hold everything in would go out of business because of the exercise equipment.
7. Nobody would have unsightly hair.
8. The fashion industry and models would take a hit as all women would buy the one pot makeup systems and so all the big makeup companies would go out of business. Women would also be wrinkle free from using Victoria's wrinkle removal products, so nobody could tell how old anyone was any more. Men would still look the same, just with less unsightly hair.
THE PAUL AND ROGER BASTARD DEATH MARCH FROM HELL
This is likely to be an infrequent section, in fact I think it is highly unlikely to reoccur.
Paul said he wanted to go do the Parahaha Gorge. I heard he wanted to go do the Parahaha Valley. I should have realised something was up when Paul asked me if Diana was coming. It never occurred to me that this was anything more than a thing where you walk somewhere, eat, and then walk back again. I should have known better.
You see, I have been there twice before, many years ago, and it involved about an hour walk in to the valley, we camped there a few days, and then walked forever to get out. The first time out was down along the beach to Whatipu then we walked the road out to Little Huia for what seemed like hours. It is a long gravel road. The second time we went cross country over the hills and out to Little Huia. My dog Turk was so tired that a few hours after we got home, when I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk (which always elicited a boisterous reply) he just lay there and wagged his tail very half-heartedly. The pads of his feet were sore and he was pretty quiet the next day, too. Anyway, the basic theme was an easy trip in and long hard trek out. That should have told me something, too.
There was Roger, Paul, Shin, Roger's friend Sonny, and the four of us.
Anyway, we parked at Karekare beach, was walked around the rocks to what is basically Whatipu, a very long surf beach with dunes and tundra as far as the eye can see. We walked among the rattly lupins, saw dragonflies, and heard the birds (I know not what sort, but they are always there, and I don't hear them many other places). Then we ran down a dune and wandered up along the stream to the place I had camped before. We had lunch, and I figured we would fool around there for a while, maybe go up stream a bit more, and then take a marked path out to civilisation.
I could not have been more wrong. Paul and Roger said we were about a quarter of the way. I thought they were joking. We started going upstream. We got to a few pools and things that I had been to before. They were nice. We kept going. We walked past a sign saying that the track beyond is not maintained and isn't really a track. That should have registered something in my head.
We got to a bluff where we had to climb around the side of the stream. Diana wasn't happy. The kids were starting to enjoy themselves. Beyond that, things started to get tricky. Every so often we would get to somewhere that you couldn't easily skirt the stream and it was too deep the wade. Some people (not our group) swam one pool. Going up the bank and over was not easy. There was a path, of sorts, that had roots for hand holds, and in some places there were planks nailed to the cliff, along with ropes and cables. The downhill side was often a near-sheer drop to the water and rocks below. Occasionally so of us would go the direct route (Roger and Shin once, Rory and Paul once). The rest of us would go up and over. Not really sure which was hardest, going up or going down. I know that being the last one was not much fun because the wet boots from everyone in front made it slipperier (not sure if that is a word).
Diana was not enjoying it in a few places, doing climbing that she hadn't really done before. I was mostly okay with it, had done similar in my youth but in more known territory. There were a few places where I wondered whether going back was going to be worse or better than going forward.
There was one point when Hannah grazed her knee, and I was a bit worried about how she was holding up, but she came right and did very well. Rory just kept going and at one point even went back up the hill to get food on the downhill stretch.
The really scary thing was that we kept losing the path and Roger and Paul would try to decide which way was best. It did not inspire confidence. Shin reckoned they were competing with each other as to who to scare us the most. They both said they had done the gorge on school trips, which I find staggering. I bet they don't do it these days.
We then got to another sign that was facing the other way saying that the track was not maintained. This signalled a return to relative civilisation. Near there, we found a sign for the Odlins Timber Track, which has slug-gun pellets embedded in it that date back to when Roger and Sonny were at school. At this point we saw some trampers who we had last seen further down, and it appeared they had used the more civilised track that was actually a track. They seemed far less tired and much more together than some of us. From that point we had a steady climb up about 500 steps to the top. From there it was a mere three kilometre walk down to the cars. I have never been so happy to see my car (or my bed, later on).
Funny thing is, the further we got from the gorge, the happier we got. This was more because we were alive and not because we had done something we had really enjoyed (although looking back now we seem to be forgetting the dread and remembering the happiness and relief). Many of us had slipped and fallen along the way, many were carrying scratches, grazes, and bruises. I suppose you could call it an adventure, but I have to say I was genuinely surprised we didn't find a body somewhere along the way.
GUEST REPORT
This is an extract from Jack's email (Jack lives in Stuttgart, I think, somewhere in Germany, anyway. He is Diana's cousin).
One job on the house which I haven’t done yet is repairing damage caused by a pair of tits. Great tits that is. Parus majorus, to make it perfectly clear what sort of tits I mean. The little feathered fiends
decided to build themselves a nest in a chink in the masonry under the eaves and ripped apart our fly-screen to use as building material.
Worse, I caught them pecking away at the rubber gaskets around the window glass, which will be very expensive to repair if they get damaged. Trying to shoo the little buggers away didn’t work. I made a
half hearted attempt to drag them out of their hole with the hoover, but gave it up as the neighbours could see and I was worried that someone could report me to the Animal Protection Society. Didn’t fancy spending the rest of my life explaining how I got done for sucking tits with a
vacuum cleaner. European animal protection laws are so stupid, so out of touch with nature that they’ll soon have us forced to sweep the way in front of us as we walk, like jainist monks, to protect the bugs and microbes on the ground. You heard that story about the sparrow and the dominoes. Even wasps are protected by law in this country. And there is talk of granting “human” rights to all primates. I don’t know if that includes voting rights. Absurd, that’s what it is.
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