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.
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