Daylight Saving Time is now a memory, we are back to regular time. Not adjusting at all well, though.
LOCAL NEWS
Well, on Sunday morning, the predicted lahar finally came out of Ruapehu. It was predicted to happen on 27th January, and many Thursdays subsequent to that until the press got bored and moved on.
The NZ mint had a bit of strife when golfer Jack Nicklaus, on visiting NZ, said that he could not remember endorsing or signing some gold coins with his image on them. Bizarre really. They reckon they have an agreement they negotiated some time ago. I don't understand why people think signatures confer value, when nowadays some people sign so many autographs they are neither rare nor valuable.
A Taiwanese student died a few days after being struck by a tree that came over during wild weather mid-week. We had 48mm rain one night, and some nasty winds.
Prince Andrew is here, not sure why. The Queen magnanimously recognised a soldier from WWII, only 60 years after he did his bit, and a few days after he died. What a bloody crock.
There was a bit of a weird home invasion in Napier where a local journalist got a chunk bitten out of his ear.
St Patrick's Day was celebrated appropriately around the place.
We had another "it's interesting because they used one of them new-fangled portable phones" story. A woman drove off a cliff, but despite being apparently utterly thick, she managed to call someone on her mobile phone and tell them of her plight. The police couldn't find her so they then drove up and down the hill with the siren going and she said when they go louder.
A freight train hit a car near Canterbury, nobody was injured.
A truck dropped a 20 foot container onto a parked car with a man in it, he escaped injury also.
The number of people filing for bankruptcy has hit an eight year high. Although NZs rate of bankruptcy is considerable lower than Canada and US (and lower than UK, Australia), it is still on the high side. The official view is that people should be reducing debt (although the comment that they should be starting to now seems a bit late to me).
Two nine year old girls disappeared on Saturday, causing a major search operation. They were found by a police woman, but they ran away from her (how unfit was the officer, you wonder). They were then found again by a news crew. Possibly the first time a news crew has does something useful in a while (possibly ever). At least they broke the passive observer rule.
WORLD NEWS
The whales struck back this week, when a sperm whale killed a Japanese fisherman who was trying to help rescue him. Whales aren't silly. I would be worried too, if I was a whale and a bunch of Japanese fishermen tried to rescue me.
The Pakistan cricket coach, Bob Woollmer, died overnight. First reports were that he was found unconscious on the floor surrounded by vomit. Sounds like his departure may have been chemical assisted. They lost their first two games and are basically out of the World Cup with one game to go.
REAL SPORT
Not sure where this should go, but the water polo tournament continued until Wednesday night, by which time Hannah had become a true water polo groupie and was getting her shirt signed by the players.
Rory's junior team lost 4-12 against Kelston, a team packed also with club players.
The social league game was against a depleted team that got three club coaches to help out, so it was not pretty. I am not even sure of the final score, probably about 5-10 or so. I did block a shot from Joe Bensley, who was in u15 National Team, which was funny.
SPORT
Well, NZ looked knackered in the first World Cup game. They got the Poms out for about 204, but at 3/19 they weren't looking good. Somehow they did it, with nearly ten overs spare. First time they've beaten the Poms in a while. Bet the Poms weren't happy.
Herchelle Gibbs slammed six sixes in one over against the Netherlands. It wasn't pretty. He scored about 70 runs and seven sixes, so not many against their other bowlers. The feat cost Jonnie Walker a million dollars, because it promised to pay that much to charity if anyone did.
In other matches, Bangladesh beat India and Ireland beat Pakistan, causing problems for both cricket heavyweights. I don't think Pakistan can make it through now, having lost to the Windies as well.
Man Utd beat Bolton 4-1, Chelsea beat Sheffield 3-0, Man City had a much needed win against Middlesbrough 2-0. Charlton beat Newcastle 2-0, Everton beat Arsenal 1-0, and Villa drew 0-0 with Liverpool.
The Crusaders got a useful away win, 32-10 over the Bulls. The Hurricanes list to the Sharks in South Africa. The Stormers beat the Waratahs 16-10 in Sydney, not looking good for the Waratahs, Cheetahs beat the Brumbies, and the Force beat the Reds. The Western Force are third on the table. The Blues slipped to second but had a bye. The Sharks are top but have now played nearly all their home games and they don't travel well.
The Warriors beat the Eels in their first match of the season, 34-18. At least they don't start the season two wins down this year.
France won the six nations rugby title on points differential from Ireland. The Irish won't be happy.
MY SAD LIFE
Rather too much of the weekend was dedicated to homework. Hannah has been working on her project during the week but the weekend was dominated by construction of things for her character model (for English, no less). She did some good stuff, but it just takes so much time.
Rory had a social studies essay to do, which didn't take too long. I wrote one too, well most of one, in about 15 minutes.
Rory and I helped Paul shift furniture, although it sounds like he was doing it a lot longer than we were.
Hannah's soccer trial was postponed due to awful weather. You know it's bad when they cancel three days ahead.
Our hard disk video recorder seems to have died. We are getting it looked at under warranty but being without it is a major lifestyle change. We just don't worry about what time things are on because we record them anyway and watch them when we get around to it. If this means I miss Boston Legal tomorrow night I might cry.
Hannah baked a cake for a school fundraising thing on Thursday night. It was a baking competition and they sold the offerings by the piece (after the judges got some, the judges must have been pretty full, there were 72 cakes).
Finally got the lens I have been waiting for since before U14 Nationals in December. Got it just in time to take to Italy v Serbia game on Wednesday night. It was cool. Now I just need more games to use it at. Can't do it at games where I am coaching. For those interested, it is 70-200mm with F2.8 maximum aperture the whole way. Awesome in low light conditions.
After emails with Jono I decided to try uploading some photos to flickr.com. What a waste of time. I tried searching for them based on tags they were given and I cannot find any of them. If you go here you can see them: http://www.flickr.com/photos
There aren't that many yet, just from water polo tournament. One of Hannah getting shirt signed. Also some photos of praying mantis eating a cicada.
In theory I am porting my mobile from Vodafone to Telecom tomorrow. Won't be able to receive texts for a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed. Been postponed twice already.
POT WATCH
This needs to be renamed WEED WATCH. Not good news. We live in hope.
Well, that's enough for this week. Stay tuned next Monday for another incredibly repetitive and dull instalment. When will it end?
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