LOCAL NEWS
Sizable quake near Gisborne on Thursday night was the answer to all the prayers of local news services experiencing pre-Christmas lethargy and a paucity of actual news (which doesn't normally stop them). Couple of buildings collapsed, one elderly lady died. There were a couple of aftershocks over a couple of days, one was big but not that big.
Nasty tourist bus crash up north where a bus load of oldies got rolled by an out of control dune buggy, no fatalities but not a good end to a day out.
The dreaded electoral reform act was passed into law. The Herald continues to say how bad it is. At first impression it doesn't seem to be a biggie, but it's not good.
A survey shows the majority of apprehended felons have dodgy substances in their bloodstream. Hardly surprising. I thought the theory was people mostly did burglary to fund drug habits?
The local Burger King got smacked for showing a ceramic coffee cup in their advertisements but supplying coffee in a paper cup. Good job. Kind of funny, when you think about it. If they never serve it in a proper cup then the ad is a complete misrepresentation.
We've had a flurry of "shame it was at Christmas" stories. Dumping kittens or losing a loved one in a car accident is not worse at Christmas, it's bad regardless. How come nobody cares when it happens at Easter or on Queen's Birthday? It's just vacuous and repetitive.
A gang of badly behaving santas forced a cinema to close in Christchurch. Terrible thing, giving Santa a bad name (remember Santa is an anagram of Satan).
WORLD NEWS
We had a weird story about how the Queen is now the oldest Monarch that England has ever had but she must have started late because she has about eight years to get the longest reign.
SPORT
The cricket happened. We don't discuss it. Aussie are good. New Zealand are not. Why have any coverage of it at all? Why even play the game, we know they are crap. Now we have Bangladesh coming. Not surprisingly they beat New Zealand in a 20/20 game. If we lose to them can we stop having so much coverage of the cricket?
Liverpool had a 4-1 win over Portsmouth for Christmas, Arsenal beat Spurs 2-1, Man Utd beat Everton 2-1 and Chelsea snuck past Blackburn 1-0.
MY SAD LIFE
Hannah had her graduation on Wednesday, her last day as an intermediate school kid. They had the graduation dance afterwards, and she got dressed up for the occasion. There were lots of tears, the crocodile was exhausted. I helped her find shoes on Tuesday, but I don't think she liked them.
Speaking of shoes, we also got some shoes for me. They are pretty far out, Nike Air Force Ones in two tone brown and orange. Ten things you can say about them:
- if I walk through vomit, it won't show on the shoes, even if there is diced carrots in there (which is could because they can induce vomiting and are basically a cure for not being bulemic)
- at least nobody will think I am gay, gay people have taste
- the advantage of being tall is I am a long way from the shoes
- they came with free sunglasses, ear plugs, and a health warning
- I can leave my fly undone and nobody will notice
- I did try to donate them to the salvation army, but they turned me down
- Somewhere, there is a blind person that is missing their shoes
- If I leave them in the sun, they should fade sufficiently in 18 months so that I could leave the house in them
- I can leave them anywhere and the risk of them being stolen is zero (although there is a very high risk they could be binned)
- If they were a horse, they would have been shot
- At least when I wear them people know to not ask me for fashion advice
Thursday night, Hannah had a surprise birthday party. What's that, you say? Her birthday was actually three months ago? That's the perfect way to ensure it's a surprise. We've been busy, okay? We took her to Prego, our favourite restaurant, sat down, then her friends popped out of nowhere. We left them to it, they had dinner together. We sat at another table, the other side of a chimney so we weren't hovering (couldn't even see them). The waiter kept us informed, which was exceedingly useful (in terms of how they were going with mains etc) and he passed messages to them (like that they could have hot chocolates with their dessert). He also told us that Hannah had ordered a latte and we got it modified to decaf. I think they really enjoyed it, probably first time any of them had been to dinner without an adult at the table. We left the restaurant about ten minutes before them, bumped into Allan and Jaqui who were celebrating their 32nd wedding anniversary (32 years, crikey). We returned to pick them up and take them home. I think it was unusual enough to be considered a good event. They then stayed over night and proceeded to use each other as Barbie dolls and did each others hair.
Friday night we staggered up to the local garage for the Christmas party. Rory brought Maddie, Raf, and Cassidy, although they were a bit nervous about all the grown ups and disappeared. Then they showed up finally, had three beers each (not large ones, but they inhaled them and they were 6.3%, made by local brewer who we've known for a long time) and disappeared again. Graham Brazier sang some songs, which makes sense because what else do you do with songs? (apart from write them and download them)
We went to another local barbecue on Saturday night with some of the regulars, mostly ex-Rangitoto College people. Went to see some lit up houses on the way home, which were nearly as impressive as the much vaunted Franklin Road in Ponsonby, but less crowded and faster.
It was Jono's birthday on Sunday. I thought it sucked having a birthday in early December, but on Christmas Eve Eve is worse.
Brett is off to Truk for a diving holiday.
Funny how things change. Wrote the bit up top about things happening at Christmas and then Mum's friend Sue Casey died on Sunday. She'd been fighting a losing battle for a while, but it's still pretty sad. Just tricky with Christmas organising funerals.
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