4 February 2008

Urinal etiquette, tagger wars, and the new game known as "hide the sparrow" - 04/02/2008

LOCAL NEWS

We had a fuss about the banning of the mankini at the Wellington sevens. Most news stories were oriented towards the costumes and partying rather than the rugby.

We had two people shot outside a tinnie house in a turf battle in Manurewa. Tokoroa joined Manurewa as a place you don't want to live with more violence breaking out.

Meanwhile a man was punched in a Christchurch Bar toilet for breaching urinal etiquette. Fair enough, too. I think pointing and laughing is just not right. Comments like "Is it supposed to be that colour?" and "Hey, it's just like a penis, only smaller" are not appropriate. He got community service.

Tea Ropati was found not guilty of the dodgy stuff he was accused of. I mean, he did it, he just reckons there was consent. The jury believed him. Meanwhile the accuser is reported as devastated. Perhaps next time when she over does the drink and drugs she could:
a) do it in a locked room;
b) get a minder to stay with her who hasn't been drinking;
c) have a reality show film crew follow her; or
d) grow a brain and stay off the booze.

A man died when a train pushed his car 350 metres. That’s over a third of a kilometre. I wonder if trains have a version of the two second rule and if so I wonder how many seconds it should be?

Another man died after a brawl in a pub in Mossburn, in an area described Northern Southland. People in Southern Northland were quick to minimise the confusion, to ensure their tourism was not impacted. Meanwhile, Western Eastland hasn't been invented yet.

Following on from the tagger being stabbed, we had a sevens fan in Wellington confront a tagger who stabbed him with a steak knife, not fatally. We now have escalation in the tagger wars. Who knows where it will all end.

Favourite MP David Benson-Pope won't be standing for Labour in his electorate. Someone else has been selected. Apparently he will stay loyal to the party, which is good because no other party would want him either.

We've had nearly twenty people drown so far in this year, including some poor bugger who drowned after rescuing some kids. A retarded Cook Island family went floundering in the Manukau close to dusk. They couldn't see in the dark, and they floundered around until two of the four drowned. No mention was made as to whether they caught anything. Given their capability with planning, safety, and seamanship, I suspect the fish were pretty safe. Meanwhile a man swam in the Hutt River, then got out, felt bad, and died. Not sure if that counts as drowning. We also had five rescued from an overturned boat in the south island and another guy rescued from the air pocket under his overturned boat near Otago.

The euthanasia guy Dr Nietzsche visited New Zealand this week with plenty of noise and controversy with his book being censored and stuff. Then he supposedly helped some women leave early and she didn't even have a terminal illness.

WORLD NEWS

It is super Tuesday in US this week. Such a long drawn out process, such a massive waste of money.

News this week that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo to regain some position on the internet. I don't see it making a difference.

REAL SPORT

I have been neglecting this section recently, Rory has actually been playing summer soccer for three weeks now. We've not had the numbers the last two weeks with people being away but returned to a decent squad this week. They generally struggle against older, male dominated teams but they got a rare win last Monday, 3-0, against an all woman team. Rory got his first goal of the season and nearly helped the team to a scorcher when his corner found Andrew's head and it hit the upright. The team is normally three boys and about eight girls but the make-up varies every week.

SPORT

The New Zealand team narrowly won the Wellington rugby sevens, just overtaking Samoa in the dying minutes.

Man Utd drew 1-1 with Spurs, Arsenal beat Man City 3-1, Chelsea drew 1-1 with Portsmouth, Liverpool beat Sunderland 3-0.

New Zealand did okay in A1GP in Sydney, but not great, sharing lead now with Switzerland I think.

Tiger Woods won the Dubai Classic. He's playing well.


MY SAD LIFE

The Amazon books arrived on Thursday, ironically the same day the library copies were due back (is that irony? Perhaps coincidentally). They were seven days earlier than predicted by Amazon, but the tracking for this class of post was really boring (ie there wasn't any other than telling me they were due on 7th Feb the whole time). I may try again with a better class of delivery but not sure if the cost is worth it. The delivery was 37.5% of cost as it was.

I was wrong about the twins. They were actually 7 pounds 11 and 7 pounds 15 on Friday 25th. That's bigger than our two were, and they were serial children, not parallel. No news yet on their arrival now about a week from officially due.

I found Ollie trying to get under Hannah's swim bag on Wednesday. There was no skink underneath, but I heard something alive inside the bag. I took it outside and found a male sparrow within, which was able to fly out and away with a little encouragement.

I visited a friend, Will, who owns a gun shop on the shore. He has an MG34, a German machine gun from WWII, he let me hold it. It is exceedingly heavy and very, very cool. It is basically illegal to shoot it unless he is selling it and the buyer wants proof that it works. Can't wait for the to happen.

Our neighbour, Jim, fell and broke his arm this week, just before his 92nd birthday on the 31st. The cat, Pandora, misses him horribly. I am trying to figure out if I could smuggle her in to the hospital to see him. Not a real nasty break, but not easy to recover from at that age.

I think I am going to do some study, of sorts. Going to do a certificate in sports training and development. Not a big thing, only level 3 so about 7th form level.

The kids had sequential sleepovers Saturday and Sunday at the same house so we've been one down for a couple of days.

Hannah's knees are continuing to strengthen, they seem pretty good.

The kids start school this week, sort of. Bit of a false start, one day each.

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