A series of unfortunate events - 28/08/06

LOCAL NEWS

Well, after saturation coverage the Boobs on Bikes parade went ahead on Wednesday. Diana went, because everyone at work went. Didn't sound like it was remotely worth the fuss. Great publicity for the dodgy expo, though.

An Invercargill parachutist went mental in his car and went off a 15m drop. Broke a couple of bones and knackered the car. Rescue services were none too impressed.

Very big news locally was the when a 17 year old remand prisoner was beaten fatally in the back of a paddy wagon. He was there because he had taken his mothers car without permission, and they felt that pressing charges would teach him a lesson.. Worse still, they refused bail as they thought a few nights in prison would give him more of a lesson. In the paddy wagon, there were 11 witnesses and one perpetrator. Or 10 witnesses and two perpetrators. As usual, the dead youth is a great loss, loved by everyone, etc, but seriously disliked by 12 other remand prisoners. I would hate to think how much guilt they have. Their final act as parents was to authorise the turning off of life support for him in hospital, possibly a better decision than the first two, but part of a rather unfortunate trio of events. Chubb Security were in charge of the van, and I would sue them if I was a parent (mind you, I think the parents need to be sued as well).

More rain in Wellington has resulted in a commuter train derailment (no injuries, I don't think). More houses have been evacuated due to mud slides.

Taito Philip Field is under threat again, the MP was recently "cleared" of allegations of dubious behaviour.

WORLD NEWS

We got to see the Olaf Wiig video about a hundred times, then we had the countdown to the deadline set by the kidnappers. He was finally released over night, thank goodness - no more Anita on the telly.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's water polo team were playing an under-strength Glen Eden team but were also missing a key player themselves. The Glen Eden team pulled away to a 9-3 win but lost by default because they were using too many ring-in players. The Glen Eden team is very strong this year.

Rory had a school game against Kaipara College, the team that got very nasty last time we played them and the game had to be stopped when one of their players was ejected for misconduct. This time it wasn't so bad, the game was very tight, no score in the first quarter, 1-1 at half time. Springs pulled ahead to 3-1 end of third and in the dying seconds the Kaipara team scored again but it wasn't enough and Springs won 4-3. Rory scored first and last goals, but he didn't think he was playing particularly well.

Hannah played for the 13th D2 soccer team on Saturday because they were short a couple. Hannah scored in the first half and was on her way to score again (only the goalie to beat) when the ref blew the whistle for half time, was very cheap. So they had a 1-0 lead at the end of the first. In the second half the wind came up and they were playing into it, they just couldn't get out of their own half. The opposition scored twice to beat them 2-1. Hannah was happy, though, she played well and worked very hard. The girls were quite happy she was there to help.

SPORT

The All Blacks won 45-26 against South Africa in Pretoria on Saturday night. Some serious injuries resulted from the game, about four ABs are out for a while.

I hadn't really noticed that the premier league has started again in the UK. Man Utd beat lowly Watford 2-1, Liverpool beat West Ham 2-1, Man City beat Arsenal 1-0 (without a stiff arm to anyone's head). Chelsea beat Blackburn 2-0.

We didn't win as many medals as expected at the rowing champs. There was only one gold, and the Evers-Swindell twins came third, which is a major surprise after winning gold four times in a row.

Auckland lost to Wellington in the rugby, I am really not keeping track of it all.

The Warriors won, the four point penalty for exceeding the salary cap would mean they had a chance of making the playoffs still, but they don't now.

MY SAD LIFE

Can I just say that I haven't received any chocolate yet. I am most disappointed.

Spring cleaning has been happening in the house, again. We reorganised a few areas including the bookcase, the entertainment cabinet, the DVDs and Cds, took a while. The kitty play house that Hannah and I built a good year or two ago had to be disassembled, which was a bit sad. We've managed to put the PS2 and Xbox into the cabinet so they don't hang out into the room like they did.

Spent a chunk of the week trying to get the PC going (still). Finally gave up, about five times ("I'll just try this one thing and then give up" - Not very self-delusional at all, really). Eventually I really did give up, about Wednesday night, and put a new graphics card into the PC that I did not want to ruin by loading games on. It worked, and still does, so Rory and I finally got to invade Poland, repel the communist hoard, bomb England, and destroy the heavy water plant somewhere in Norway.

Rory and a few cronies spent Friday at our place working on their "playstation tan", as they had a teacher only day at school.

Rory has bought himself an Xbox 360 on trademe (last night), after discovering a game he really likes on a friends one. He was trawling auctions for ages over the weekend. I suppose it is better than all the hassle with PCs and games.

Diana has been working hard on an assignment, which she managed to finish between visits to dodgy events.

Judy had took a tumble on Friday night, whacked herself in the head. The next day she got nine stitches in her forehead for a rather nasty gash about three inches long. She asked the doctor to take a bit in while he was at it, he did his best. She hasn't lost her sense of humour, which is a good thing.

I sent to letters as a consumer the week before last, one to Sealord when I found a piece of plastic tape in a can of tuna, the other a letter to Wendys wondering when they would reply to my letter of the 29th of May. I received responses from both of them but I have to say the Wendys response was barely sufficient to cover the value of what I had not been supplied in the first place.

We still have coffee machine #3 sitting in a box waiting to fulfil its destiny…… (Numbers #1 and #2 produced disgusting coffee).

Hannah's dance exams are over, thank goodness. Our activity levels are dropping fast with no soccer or dancing this week and a reduced dancing schedule from next week. She should found out what team she is in for club polo this week.

RANDOM ACTS OF POSTAGE

I received a revenge attack from Heidi in the form of a fluffy donkey from Guernsey, which was very cool. I don't understand why post companies don't promote this concept. Maybe I will talk to New Zealand Post.

TEN YEARS AGO

Gavin got a new PC, a Pentium with 40Mb of memory. I was jealous. Paul Holmes was at his grandstanding best trying to interview wanted fugitives, but police arrested the man before he got to be on the telly. A woman was shot twice in the arm by police after a hostage drama in Avondale.