8 January 2007

The passing of a pot noodle icon and home improvement madness 08/01/07

LOCAL NEWS

Older people seemed to be getting into strife rather than the insane youth. A 53-yo woman broke her ankle while using the long drop, and was helicoptered to Wellington Hospital on New Year's Day. No mention was made of whether it occurred before or after she had used the long drop.

There was a jetski fatality on lake Taupo. It was the driver of the jetski, a 52-yo man without a life jacket, who lost control, tipped the jetski, and drowned. His two passengers survived, and had lifejackets. So strictly it wasn't ON the jetski as he died when he was OFF.

The house at the scene of a fatal stabbing on New Years Eve was razed to the ground by the owner. It seems somewhat extravagant, one assumes he isn't contacting the insurance company about it.

Fire-fighters got a nasty surprise when they extinguished a car fire, there was the remains of a person in it. Not sure how old he/she was.

There was a fire in the tegel chicken factory in Christchurch. I will resist all temptation to discuss them selling pre-roasted products.

Bucking the trend, a teenager was shot in the head with an air rifle by a friend while they were trying to unjam it. Ooops. He is not in great shape.

We've had a homicidal maniac on the loose, who I thought had escaped custody but he merely was paroled (after a murder in 1992). The SWAT (called AOS here) team took a house that he wasn't in. He killed another person and wounded five others before finally being apprehended. He was shot in the leg at the time, and has since lost the leg. We all await news of his bail and his rampage on crutches or a mobility scooter.

An 80 yo man did himself in with cyanide, and two police and a third person inhaled the stuff whilst trying to assist him. He had left warning signs around the ute where he did the deed, of which they took no heed.

Six hoons did 150 km/hr down New Zealand's steepest street in an unregistered and unwarranted car. But it was okay, they crashed into a hospice. I don't think anyone was seriously hurt but I really can't see how.

WORLD NEWS

A toddler in Melbourne died in a parked car. They think she got into the car herself, parents were looking for her for a while. Temperatures in Melbourne reached 32 deg C that day.

They got some rain in South Eastern Australia. They've had a hell of a lot of fires.

The inventor of the instant noodle, Momofuku Ando, has died. He was pretty old (96), and nobody heard of him until now. Figures in the Independent suggest that while four pot noodles are sold every second in the UK, five are being eaten every second. Interesting.

SPORT

Woeful display from Black Caps in fourth ODI versus Sri Lanka. They got 262, New Zealand were all out for 73. Craig McMillan (who always goes out for nothing) high scored and was not out on 29.

The Poms fared about the same in the final Ashes test, the Aussies completing the last game of the first whitewash in 86 years. Warne, McGrath, and Langer all retired at the end, and all played an important part in the win.

Arsenal beat Liverpool 3-1 in FA Cup. Man Utd beat Villa 2-1. Most matches are very one sided this time of the year in FA Cup (like Chelsea 6-1 over Macclesfield).

MY SAD LIFE

We puppy-sat for Gavin and Yana on New Years Day. The dog coped fine, the cats handled it in different ways. Ollie just took off, Pandora kept the dog where she could see her the whole time. She followed it off the section four times (it was taken for a walk three times). She was really quite funny with her, would fluff up now and again but just would always keep an eye on her.

Well, we went completely bonkers in the lounge and did all sorts of rearranging and made a hole in the wall. Worked pretty damn hard for two days, but I think it was worthwhile. We now have considerably more storage in the house (the old hot water cupboard was sealed off from the outside world when we re-did the kitchen about four years ago). The Fubar was particularly useful.

There was a floater in the pool at Mums place. Someone drowned. Circumstances not published. I suggested people could go body surfing.

I also completed the series of tasks involving the trailer, which included finally take a load to the tip. Organisation of the garage has commenced but is far from complete, however is considerably easier as a result of everything removed for the new cupboard inside and sent to the tip. Rory has been asking me about having days off that are actually days off (his way of saying he doesn't want to help around the house).

Penny and the boys came to stay for a few days this week. They did a few day trips around the place, including the zoo and the pool. It was Penny's birthday on Wednesday, she is now in her 40th year. Hannah was particularly good with the boys and entertained them a lot. Rory not so much. They left about 4am Sunday morning, very quietly.

We managed to force Paul to go swimming, once, almost twice.

We are off to Blair Lodge, somewhere near Tauranga, for this coming week. Leaving this morning via the Goodin factory.

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