5 May 2008

A good summer narrowly avoided, two 15 minute of famers get another 15 minutes - 05/05/2008

LOCAL NEWS

Well, the family of the man who recycled his legs held a funeral for them. What would you say at such an event? Something like "We always liked Basil's legs, they made him seem somehow taller"?

As the Kahui trial (about the twin baby boys) continues, the man charged with their murder has asked to get custody of his remaining child. You have to give it to him, he's an optimist, obviously very confident of not going to jail. Or perhaps the mother is worse than he is? The mind boggles.

Meanwhile, natural selection ran it's course when a man leapt off an 8th floor balcony into the water down near Princes Wharf, his body was found a couple of hours later.

A young English female tourist died in a riverboarding accident (no, I don't know what riverboarding is either, sounds like surfing, on a river). She got trapped under the water, and they couldn't get her out fast enough.

Our "listening post" spy installation was attacked and unveiled as a boring old satellite dish. How embarrassing.

Chloe of Wainuiomata made the news, for shoplifting, she was a complete prat before anyway.

Meanwhile that random woman who "streaked" at a super 12 game a few years ago is going to read the semi-naked news on a local subscriber channel. Good grief, does anyone care?

The family of a 36 yo woman who drowned while trying to save her 9yo son from a swollen river want her to get a bravery award. Come on, a Darwin Award, perhaps. She couldn't swim, her silly fault. It was her son, she knew she couldn't swim, why let him get in the river? I would expect every parent to be prepared to try to save the life of their child, end of story.

I think local papers are finally starting to get the idea that money is tight and people are struggling. Getting more in depth stuff on saving money, increases in cost of living. Meanwhile some economists are going "I told you so" about people with high personal debt.

The government has bought the railways back from Toll. Not sure what that means, other than that it will be expensive.

WORLD NEWS

Five people died and nine were injured on Sydney Harbour in a boat crash. Then something happened on the harbour in Melbourne a couple of days later.

New Zealand soldiers have been accused of damaging the already ruined buddhas in Afghanistan (the Teleban did them over a few years back, if you recall). Sounds like a load of bollocks to me. They were clearing some explosive, might have been unplanned collateral damage but who really cares, there wasn't much left anyway.

There was something about an Austrian molesting his daughter on Tuesday but in a survey 46% of people thought it said all Australians were child molesters. Meanwhile the media continued to cover it, it never got less disturbing. Someone must have suspected something.

REAL SPORT

The first game in the tournament was against the top ranked team in our group, we were behind first quarter but came back, ended up with a shot of goal at each end in the last 3 seconds, but final score was 6-6.

Won the second game 14-4 against Rotorua, much easier. Third pool game was not expect to be a hard one. We used everyone off the bench, all at once, for half some quarters, and still won 19-0. This qualified us second in our pool, and through to the championship section.

Tuesday didn't go well, lost both games, which put us into playoff for 7th and 8th. Rory scored in both games but he had pulled a muscle in his left arm and wasn't swimming as fast as he can.

Thursday we had the playoff for 7th and 8th, which we won (thank god) so at least we finished on a win. The team we drew with lost in the final, so we didn't do too bad.

Hannah finally had a soccer game, feels like ages (two weeks). They played Pukekohe. Took a while to score, but then the gates opened. They won 6-1, two girls got hat-tricks. Hannah still playing centre back.

SPORT

Man Utd and Chelsea both won through to the Champs League final, which should be a good match.

Man Utd beat West Ham 4-1, Wigan beat Villa 2-0, Blackburn beat Darby 3-1, Bolton beat Sunderland 2-0.

MY SAD LIFE

I didn't really have a life for much of the week, the tournament took quite a bit of time. I did catch up with a friend, Chris, who lives in Hamilton. Haven't seen him since the wedding a year ago. Diana and Hannah went mad at various clothing stores on Monday, while I did some work. I did manage to swim after the second game, adding another pool to my list of pools (it's a mental list, read that however you like, I won't disagree). One night I went out to where the team was staying, it was not even in Waikato, it was Waipa District (a long way from the pool, let alone civilisation. I got to barbecue 100 sausages before I fought the elements to go home. We did go to the Hamilton Zoo, which was interesting, I guess. School holidays mean that the animals on our side of the cage were often more apparent than the ones on the other side. One thing that was pretty funny was the chimpanzees have their own goldfish.

The local version of "Stars in their Eyes" has begun, another crime against music and humanity. Diana has irrefutably established that the hottest girl wins not the best singer. It's woeful. If I do watch the final, it will have to be with the sound off.

I learned about Maori potatoes this week. There are like 20 varieties and they look very different from regular potatoes and each other. Some are quite purple inside.

Went to the flea market with Hannah, spent heaps, bought only vegetables. Not very exciting. Was wet, too.

Diana and Hannah have been expanding their horizons with the breadmaker, making croissants and bagels this week. It made 13 croissants which would have cost considerably more if purchased in a shop.

I took 900 photos on Saturday, 400 at Hannah's soccer game and 500 at a men's water polo game we went to see. We know a number of players in the team, three have coached Rory or Hannah, and one was in Rory's team last year.

The 100 sausage barbecue broke my attempt at avoiding cooking on a barbecue for the whole summer. So close, and yet so far.

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