LOCAL NEWS
Big rain during the week in Northland with about three months worth of rain in a day and a half. The Stone Store was in trouble in Keri Keri, four double units were washed away near Haruru Falls, and large chunks of highway were under water. We got a bit of rain but not quite that much.
Forgot to mention the news last week about two Auckland high school girls who tested vitamin C in popular drinks and found very little in Ribena (a product that advertises blackcurrants as having four times the vitamin C of oranges). It is a product of large company GlaxoSmithKline. (while I type this bit in GMail I get adverts for cranberry juice on the side, very funny)
The Ribena thing stayed in the news all week. First we had news of it making the news overseas. Then we had the stories about the girls being suddenly famous. Then we had GSK's bollocks about the product being okay in Europe and it was a shelf life thing in the colonies. Then we had scientists pooh-poohing that theory. Meanwhile, everybody else was getting on the bandwagon testing products. There was no rat found in ratatouille, they found salmon in the salmon mousse but no moose, there were no babies in the baby carrots, no fish or fingers in fish fingers, and in one case they found no water in bottled water (it was later realised it was actually a water bottle, and empty).
A Waikato academic is being funded to the tune of $96,000 to study bogans (westies). Some people think this is not a good idea.
A 6yo girl was hit with a slug pellet from a ricochet (they say) which entered her chest and scratched the surface of her heart. She was in pretty bad shape and was helicoptered to Starship hospital. The individual who discharged the weapon was her 9yo brother. I don't see how a slug pellet could manage that, especially off a ricochet. The other interesting point about this is the parents seem to want to concentrate on their sick daughter and their probably distraught son and not spend their time talking with the media. They have now been labelled "media shy" (as compared to "sensible", "rational", and other words I would use).
A 13 year old petrol head was killed by a flying car at a speedway near Blenheim. People seem surprised when this happens. I am pretty sure I would not rely on chicken wire and would sit near the back. It is third fatality of a motor sport fan in NZ in a month.
Not sure how often I have mentioned the "anti-smacking" bill but we continue to hear about this far more than any reasonable would consider remotely interesting.
A school in Rotorua had a geyser erupt yesterday, up to 5 metres, but now bubbling away at less than a metre.
Meanwhile, four people died in a house fire in Christchurch this morning.
WORLD NEWS
Apart from the British troops captured in Iran, I don't think I've heard much at all.
REAL SPORT
Another tough game for Rory's senior team. They drew 3-3 with Mt Roskill. Rory scored a last minute goal to equalise, it was a very good goal under pressure at centre forward (two on him, head was under water a lot).
Rory's junior team failed to have an opposing team show up, so instead of playing Rangitoto Boys B, they played Rangitoto Girls A, who thumped them 5-0.
Not to be outdone, Hannah had a soccer friendly on Saturday. It was a mix of teams but most of her new team was there. They had a 3-3 draw, Hannah scored last goal to equalise. Rory refereed.
Rory had a social league game Sunday night. I don't know the score, I didn't go, I was tired.
Hannah has interschool cricket on Tuesday. Rory never played cricket for the school.
SPORT
Highlanders beat the Cheetahs 21-17, Hurricanes beat the Bulls 17-9, Blues beat the Chiefs 18-11, Crusaders beat the Waratahs 34-33 (so only just).
Liverpool surprised quite a few punters (well, Peter Crouch did I suppose) by beating Arsenal 4-1, Peter Crouch got three goals (I think he is rubbish for England but this was not a bad effort). Man Utd beat Blackburn 4-1 also. Man City beat Newcastle 1-0. Chelsea beat Watford unconvincingly 1-0 with a goal in the 90th minute.
England beat the giants of soccer, Andorra, 3-0 (although it was 0-0 at half time and the England crowd booed them off the field). Andorra is well known also for it's sweaters.
The Black Caps comfortably beat the West Indies in their first Super 8 round at the World Cup. It is going for another four weeks.
Samoa won the Hong Kong Sevens beating Fiji in the final.
MY SAD LIFE
I went to see the movie Hot Fuzz with Hannah on Saturday evening. We had to commit some subterfuge to get her in because theatres are now demanding photo ID (It was R13 and she is 12 years 6 months old). So we simply bought a ticket for a non-rated movie and went into the wrong theatre. How ridiculous. Why do they try so half-heartedly to enforce such an idiot rule? The movie itself was very good, we both enjoyed it, and it was the first time I think I have been to the movies with just Hannah.
We had a bit of a crisis on Tuesday with the untimely death of the washing machine. It was 14 years old so I suppose it had a good run. There was water everywhere in the laundry, which took a while to clean up. It was quite similar to the experience the week before in the bathroom.
Wednesday was a busy day. We got Rory's new bed, someone took the old bed, we got the new washing machine, and the old video recorder returned repaired. He was happy on Thursday night when computer, xbox, and cellphone privileges returned.
Because of the new bed, Rory needed to sort his room out and rearrange things. It took far too long as he kept getting "distracted". The Lego has now gone, consigned to storage in the garage (quite the end of an era), as has a lot of other stuff. The room is far less cluttered with bunk bed (he now has a trundler underneath his bed).
Inorganic rubbish is collecting on kerbsides around our suburb, and the awful kerb crawlers have come too. They wade through the rubbish, often making neat piles messy and pulling things to bits and leaving the bits to blow around (like insulation from a refrigerator near us, and we are going to try to empty a bean bag before that goes out to prevent it snowing in our street). We had a bit of a session on Sunday and cleared out a few things including a crappy set of drawers I have had in the garage that were left here by the previous owners (nearly 11 years ago).
The 7th of February marks Brett's birthday, as well as the big wedding. I need to work on my speech. It is also Easter this weekend so four day weekend should be nice (although three days of it are already booked up). If nothing else having two short weeks is nice.
1 April came and went, and despite some high drama on Friday we survived the first day of local and mobile number portability in New Zealand.
Rory has now started reading about Java programming and knows about as much as me now. We both need to do something constructive with it.
Nothing happening in the pots, the seeds are not germinating visibly. I think any assertions of me having green fingers relate solely to mould.
Bye for now
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