You know how I have been saying the weather's been bad? Well, it's been really bad. Oh, and we should be getting more.
LOCAL NEWS
A retarded kayaker got lost off Mt Maunganui in the bad weather, he deserves everything he gets. Only a mad man would kayak in this weather, when it has been dangerous just to walk on the beach in many places. Rather than being feared dead, I think I feared he might still be alive.
Earlier in the week there was a bit of fun at Lake Karapiro when a press boat sank while getting shots of Olympic rowers. All the footage disappeared but none of the journos died. Shame nobody had a camera to record the news people becoming the news.
A burglar in New Plymouth was well caught when he chose a flat occupied by a Hurricanes loose forward. He was tackled and held until police arrived.
Bit of a controversy over an airline charging adult rates for a 14 year old passenger then not allowing him to accompany his 2 two year old sister (on the return journey, not the outbound journey, which is a little inconsistent).
As well as Maori Language week, it was Australasian Rail Safety Awareness week. This meant we got lots of ads about being careful around trains. Meanwhile, various shows slipped in some meaningless Maori babble here and there, it was most disconcerting. Today it is back to normal.
Winston went from the frying pan and into the fire this week, with another healthy sum coming from big players in the racing industry (and he is Minister of Racing, don't ask why they need a minister for horse racing, they don't have a minister of roller hockey or scrabble).
Then things went from worse to 28x more worserer for Winston as it turned out Bob Jones had been donating via some anonymous vehicle called the Spencer Trust. Meanwhile Winston continues to show his contempt for the law and I think he has got to the point where only the most irrational voter would consider him worthy of elected office. However, there is no shortage of irrational voters, is there?
This week we also had Condoleeza Rice visiting us, Winston's best mate. Lousy timing for Winston because he should have been basking in reflected glory, but it mostly backfired.
We got tons of coverage of the sob story about how psychopath Antonie Dixon was abused by his mother and Jehovah's witnesses. This, of course, means that chopping limbs off people is completely understandable and rather than jail he should spend time shelving books in public libraries for an hour a week to make up for it.
The coach and father of a young tennis player got the player disqualified for coaching during the game with a concealed earpiece.
A motorcycle collided with a horse, the man died, they didn't mention the horse. Or the motorbike.
Bodies kept showing up in unexpected places. We had one in a central Auckland street, another near the Kowai river, wherever that is, then a man's body was found on the side of the southern motorway on Friday night. Then the kayaker was found on Matakana island (the one who went missing at Mt Maunganui).
A climber died on Mt Aspiring, but it wasn't really a case of finding a body, the other three in his group saw him slip (while wearing running shoes instead of his boots, which were on his back) and when he came to rest 100m down, he was in a state ready to be laid to rest. So they saw him become a body, I suppose.
Hanover Finance, with a supposedly rock solid reputation, became the 23rd finance company in New Zealand to fail. They haven't entirely failed but they are basically knackered because who will invest with them now?
The two major shareholders of Hanover Finance were prominent on the rich list published a few days later. Interestingly enough, John Key also made the list, which I don't think will help him get votes.
A woman was shot in a dairy in West Auckland on Saturday. She wasn't body-fied, and should be okay.
A man was fatally shot on Sunday morning in Waharoa, the place with the straight to Matamata (or from Matamata depending on your point of view). Sunday night, his house got burned. Supposedly as revenge for being shot. I don't think gang members have quite got this revenge thing figured out.
Google must have read my email last week because that added Maori soon after I mentioned it last week. Well they said they had, but I can't find it.
Our youngest convicted murderer, Bailey Junior Kuariki, is back in prison after breaching parole by using drugs.
WORLD NEWS
Fugitive ex-president Radovan Karadzic was apprehended, I didn't actually know he was a fugitive. They seemed surprised he was using a false name, but I can't imagine him hiding for long using his real name. One commentator said that it did nothing for the reputation of faith healers, personally it does not surprise me that they included genocidal maniacs in their midst. Naturally, he will be defending himself, as one would expect.
The Model T is 100 years old this week. I guess that means 100 years of global warming.
Barack Obama set a record for clichés and tired aphorisms in his speech in Berlin. He will be awarded the Cybill Fawlty fellowship for stating the bleeding obvious on his return to the US.
A 15 year old boy in Winnipeg had his fate tarsealed when a truck load of asphalt was dumped and he was buried in it.
Mick Jagger is a senior citizen this week, turning 65 on Saturday. Meanwhile Ron Wood keeps his youth by running off with Russian teenagers.
The credibility of the global warming theory took a hit with "soft hail" in Sydney. It wasn't snow, apparently.
THE GOSS
Okay, this one is real. There was a piece about how film makers were digitally removing Sienna Miller's Brazilian. You have got to be kidding. This is just as bad as the one about them giving Justin Timberlake some artificial shrinkage in some music video (too much salami). Any body that suggests that either change improves the artistic merit of a movie or a video, feel free to explain that one to me.
Also this week, we hear about the disease Winston has been battling since Wednesday. Pecuniary Amnesiitis is the disease of the brain which makes you forget where the money went. We find out how he's been living a secret life without cash, using taxi chits and purchase orders to get by.
We then learn how the majority owners of Hanover Finance appear to have suffered the same affliction.
Police this week will decide not to press charges against Tony Veitch, because he's suffered enough. Being wealthy, white, and short are all things he has to live with and he just wouldn't survive in prison.
Subsequently, the will be a riot at Mt Eden prison as inmates demand refunds on raffle tickets. The prize was getting Mr Veitch as their bitch for a week.
REAL SPORT
Well, despite the continuing rain, we played school soccer on Wednesday. This was the final round robin match and they won 5-0. The don't play next week and play 4th place the week after.
Club soccer was cancelled, again.
Rory's U16 polo team played on Sunday, won about 12-1 versus a B team, as you would expect. However, the girls A team lost 2-3 to a B team which we didn't expect.
SPORT
The much over publicised Deans v Henry game resulted in a clear win for Deans with the Wallabies winning 34-19. I still think that the media here heavily overestimates how obsessed we are with the All Blacks. I wonder if the Rugby Union are starting to realise what most of us already knew.
Warriors had another win, tight game 8-6 over the Storm.
The Waikato (think they are Waikato) Magic made the final of the transtasman netball series which is played tonight.
MY SAD LIFE
I went to see Hannah's teachers this week. Two said she was very quiet in class. "No, Hannah CLARKE," says me. They assured me they had the right person. I still think these things are a complete waste of time. Her English teacher was MIA, I don't think we've managed to see her yet. I suspect she could be fictional.
Saw the twins briefly, and taught Jack to say "Mama". He did it three times, although slowly, it still counts. I did point out to both of them that whoever says "Mama" first gets to be the favourite, I think that motivated him. They are about five and a half months old now.
Brett's gone to Singapore and Hong Kong for work, lucky bugger.
Spoke with Gavin, briefly, Maria is walking. Haven't seen them for ages.
Diana and I went to see the Dark Knight on Friday night. Man, it was long. Yes, aspects of it were quite good but overall it felt laboured, I think. It's not one for the kids.
Hannah and I went jeans shopping. Well, actually, I went shoe shopping and she went jeans shopping. I didn't think any would fit me, because usually they don't stock ones big enough for me in Jeans West, but I ended up down sizing twice before I got the right ones. Third from biggest is pretty unusual for me. Maybe they are just stocking larger sizes. They are stretch jeans, my very own stretch-n-grow.
We popped in to the Goodins on the way to the polo game. Their house is chaos as they prepare for some reconstruction to sort out the leaking issue. Hannah stayed there to make afghans while we went to Millennium.
Rory turns 16 this Thursday. Nope, nobody around here is feeling old….
28 July 2008
21 July 2008
Kidnapped Chinese, Indians on the run, a killer Iraqi, and that's just in Auckland! - 21/07/2008
I can't believe I am saying this, but maybe Winston is right about immigration, given events this week.
LOCAL NEWS
It is Maori Language week, so you have to read this with a Maori accent. I have restrained myself and not ended every sentence with "eh". Did you know Google doesn't translate to or from Maori?
A five year old Chinese girl was kidnapped. Sounded like a Chinese community kidnapping deal. A Chinese woman translator involved with 60 kidnappings tried to tell us that it didn't happen very often in Chinese community (yeah, right). Meanwhile, the girl was found on Friday, alive and well. Turned out the kidnapper was Chinese, and a real estate agent.
A high school rugby player died a couple of weeks after a nasty neck injury.
Thirty nine Indians visiting New Zealand on the way to the world youth day papal visit in Australia all disappeared. Immigration officials are checking dairies. By this morning they had tracked down twenty of them, which is pretty impressive. Two are on their way home (genuine Catholics, apparently, not sure why that is remotely important) and they are encouraging the others they have found to head home under their own steam. They can't have hidden very well if more than half were found in less than a week.
Poor old Tony Veitch finally resigned on Thursday, finally realising that the only thing worse than kicking a person when they're down is trying to hide the fact.
Paul Holmes managed to make himself look like an even bigger tosser by spending his second consecutive Sunday Herald column telling us why Veitch is being picked on and it's not fair. There needs to be a new word for pathetic, at it's best it was a guy sticking up pointlessly for a colleague, or perhaps a case of "but for the grace of god…" after his fun in the spotlight with his daughter.
A Christchurch man heard a loud explosion, it turned out to be his Nokia cellphone on the charger. The device was spread over 10 metres. Lucky he wasn't talking on it. The charger was fine…..
On Friday it was National Poetry Day, I will resist the urge to put this in rhyme. News writers everywhere seemed to think rhyming makes poetry, it's very sad.
On Saturday a man threatened police by holding a knife to his own throat. Meanwhile there were two dead men inside the apartment. I am not sure the police were terribly concerned about the threat. Looks like a love triangle. The man was Iraqi, but he spent a lot of time in South Auckland.
Winston finally admitted that New Zealand First had taken money from Owen Glenn. Still no idea why it is such a bad thing. Apparently Winston didn't know it went in to their legal fund, funny how he didn't notice an extra 100k, they must have tons of dosh.
The Auckland Harbour Bridge was closed after an accident on Saturday morning.
Two West Auckland boys did their bit to draw attention away from South Auckland by abducting a fellow 14 year old and molesting her.
The man that killed teenager Liam Ashley in prison van has now attacked a guard, in a prison van. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me….
A funeral director delivered the wrong body, and a family farewelled a strange man rather than their mother. Would it have made any difference who they buried, if they hadn't discovered the error? Not really.
A contractor cut two cables, killing most phone lines in Pt Chevalier. We were off the air for about two days. Didn't impact broadband, though, so not all bad. Second big outage in two weeks.
WORLD NEWS
Meanwhile they had a mass mass with the Pope in Sydney, with over 150,000 Catholics. The prime minister was there as well, prompting many to say "Who's that up there with Kevin Rudd?". I would have thought that false idols must be pretty close to the definition of the Pope, but let's not go there.
Some survey of pop songs has Bohemian Rhapsody as #1, which I can understand. But many of the others were shockers (the list was on onepoll.com, it was really odd). Imagine was the only other one in the list that I could agree with.
Oil prices seem to be easing, about time too.
THE GOSS
I am thinking of maybe adding a section with the sort of stories I expect to turn up the sort of magazines that pay $15m for a photo of the baby of an actor or actress. The following is a small sample.
Paul Holmes reveals his early morning trysts with Tony Veitch (they did work in neighbouring studios, both starting at 6am), and the fact the he, too, was beaten by Tony one day after they broke up. Their adventures on the "On Air Club" will then be serialised for mobile phones.
Owen Glenn will tells all about how his money is considered somehow "dirty", and he doesn't understand why. The spread will include finally admitting he used to sell real estate, used cars, and Amway. After writing the article, the journalist will end up being committed to an institution after trying to wash the hand that touched Owen Glenn for 15 hours straight, this of course, will be in a second article.
Winston Peters gives back the $100k after learning that Owen Glenn used to sell real estate.
I welcome contributions from everyone for this section.
REAL SPORT
Well, Rory's 18B team nearly finished with a win, but they lost 5-6, so came 15th, I think. Hannah's team lost their remaining two games so came 6th.
Hannah's soccer on Saturday was defaulted by the other team but we didn't find out until everyone drove all the way to Botany Downs. Andy's team (that I help coach) had eight players so it worked for them (they had six ring-ins play for them in the end). They got a healthy win, but it was with quite a little help from their friends. The weather was actually quite nice for the game, but wasn't flash before and after.
SPORT
Australia played South Africa in the tri-nations and beat them 16-9.
The Warriors won again, third time in a row. They need to win quite a lot more.
Podraig Harrington won the British Open, second time running I think.
MY SAD LIFE
This week was a bit quieter once the polo finished, which was nice. 12 days solid of visiting a pool up to three times a day was a bit more than you really want. Haven't been to a pool since.
On Thursday afternoon both our phone lines died. Then we worked out that everyone else in our area has no phone either. Sounded like the whole of Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier. We will have so many credits on our account we won't have anything to pay.
We went bowling on Friday, just the four of us. They didn't sanitise the shoes, ugh. Diana owned everyone in the second game, got two strikes. Bowling does seem to get boring pretty quick though, one game is never enough and two feels like one too many. Maybe they should do a 15 frame version.
Diana and Hannah popped in to see Sarah on Friday. I must try to do that.
We also all went to Get Smart on Saturday, with Maddie and Maddie's Mum, Kim. We ended up sitting in three different places because it was pretty crowded and without allocated seating nobody wants to sit next to each other (and Diana wonders why I don't like going . I really enjoyed the movie, it had some pretty formulaic stuff but enough of the original stuff old series was included. I know it wasn't exactly high-brow but very few things make me laugh out loud and this certainly did.
I had two messages and two phone calls from Telecom to check my phone is working. Yes, it is, but it is engaged all the time with customer service calls!!! Sheesh.
The kids are not exactly overjoyed to be back at school today. They are either in shock, or mourning, or both.
LOCAL NEWS
It is Maori Language week, so you have to read this with a Maori accent. I have restrained myself and not ended every sentence with "eh". Did you know Google doesn't translate to or from Maori?
A five year old Chinese girl was kidnapped. Sounded like a Chinese community kidnapping deal. A Chinese woman translator involved with 60 kidnappings tried to tell us that it didn't happen very often in Chinese community (yeah, right). Meanwhile, the girl was found on Friday, alive and well. Turned out the kidnapper was Chinese, and a real estate agent.
A high school rugby player died a couple of weeks after a nasty neck injury.
Thirty nine Indians visiting New Zealand on the way to the world youth day papal visit in Australia all disappeared. Immigration officials are checking dairies. By this morning they had tracked down twenty of them, which is pretty impressive. Two are on their way home (genuine Catholics, apparently, not sure why that is remotely important) and they are encouraging the others they have found to head home under their own steam. They can't have hidden very well if more than half were found in less than a week.
Poor old Tony Veitch finally resigned on Thursday, finally realising that the only thing worse than kicking a person when they're down is trying to hide the fact.
Paul Holmes managed to make himself look like an even bigger tosser by spending his second consecutive Sunday Herald column telling us why Veitch is being picked on and it's not fair. There needs to be a new word for pathetic, at it's best it was a guy sticking up pointlessly for a colleague, or perhaps a case of "but for the grace of god…" after his fun in the spotlight with his daughter.
A Christchurch man heard a loud explosion, it turned out to be his Nokia cellphone on the charger. The device was spread over 10 metres. Lucky he wasn't talking on it. The charger was fine…..
On Friday it was National Poetry Day, I will resist the urge to put this in rhyme. News writers everywhere seemed to think rhyming makes poetry, it's very sad.
On Saturday a man threatened police by holding a knife to his own throat. Meanwhile there were two dead men inside the apartment. I am not sure the police were terribly concerned about the threat. Looks like a love triangle. The man was Iraqi, but he spent a lot of time in South Auckland.
Winston finally admitted that New Zealand First had taken money from Owen Glenn. Still no idea why it is such a bad thing. Apparently Winston didn't know it went in to their legal fund, funny how he didn't notice an extra 100k, they must have tons of dosh.
The Auckland Harbour Bridge was closed after an accident on Saturday morning.
Two West Auckland boys did their bit to draw attention away from South Auckland by abducting a fellow 14 year old and molesting her.
The man that killed teenager Liam Ashley in prison van has now attacked a guard, in a prison van. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me….
A funeral director delivered the wrong body, and a family farewelled a strange man rather than their mother. Would it have made any difference who they buried, if they hadn't discovered the error? Not really.
A contractor cut two cables, killing most phone lines in Pt Chevalier. We were off the air for about two days. Didn't impact broadband, though, so not all bad. Second big outage in two weeks.
WORLD NEWS
Meanwhile they had a mass mass with the Pope in Sydney, with over 150,000 Catholics. The prime minister was there as well, prompting many to say "Who's that up there with Kevin Rudd?". I would have thought that false idols must be pretty close to the definition of the Pope, but let's not go there.
Some survey of pop songs has Bohemian Rhapsody as #1, which I can understand. But many of the others were shockers (the list was on onepoll.com, it was really odd). Imagine was the only other one in the list that I could agree with.
Oil prices seem to be easing, about time too.
THE GOSS
I am thinking of maybe adding a section with the sort of stories I expect to turn up the sort of magazines that pay $15m for a photo of the baby of an actor or actress. The following is a small sample.
Paul Holmes reveals his early morning trysts with Tony Veitch (they did work in neighbouring studios, both starting at 6am), and the fact the he, too, was beaten by Tony one day after they broke up. Their adventures on the "On Air Club" will then be serialised for mobile phones.
Owen Glenn will tells all about how his money is considered somehow "dirty", and he doesn't understand why. The spread will include finally admitting he used to sell real estate, used cars, and Amway. After writing the article, the journalist will end up being committed to an institution after trying to wash the hand that touched Owen Glenn for 15 hours straight, this of course, will be in a second article.
Winston Peters gives back the $100k after learning that Owen Glenn used to sell real estate.
I welcome contributions from everyone for this section.
REAL SPORT
Well, Rory's 18B team nearly finished with a win, but they lost 5-6, so came 15th, I think. Hannah's team lost their remaining two games so came 6th.
Hannah's soccer on Saturday was defaulted by the other team but we didn't find out until everyone drove all the way to Botany Downs. Andy's team (that I help coach) had eight players so it worked for them (they had six ring-ins play for them in the end). They got a healthy win, but it was with quite a little help from their friends. The weather was actually quite nice for the game, but wasn't flash before and after.
SPORT
Australia played South Africa in the tri-nations and beat them 16-9.
The Warriors won again, third time in a row. They need to win quite a lot more.
Podraig Harrington won the British Open, second time running I think.
MY SAD LIFE
This week was a bit quieter once the polo finished, which was nice. 12 days solid of visiting a pool up to three times a day was a bit more than you really want. Haven't been to a pool since.
On Thursday afternoon both our phone lines died. Then we worked out that everyone else in our area has no phone either. Sounded like the whole of Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier. We will have so many credits on our account we won't have anything to pay.
We went bowling on Friday, just the four of us. They didn't sanitise the shoes, ugh. Diana owned everyone in the second game, got two strikes. Bowling does seem to get boring pretty quick though, one game is never enough and two feels like one too many. Maybe they should do a 15 frame version.
Diana and Hannah popped in to see Sarah on Friday. I must try to do that.
We also all went to Get Smart on Saturday, with Maddie and Maddie's Mum, Kim. We ended up sitting in three different places because it was pretty crowded and without allocated seating nobody wants to sit next to each other (and Diana wonders why I don't like going . I really enjoyed the movie, it had some pretty formulaic stuff but enough of the original stuff old series was included. I know it wasn't exactly high-brow but very few things make me laugh out loud and this certainly did.
I had two messages and two phone calls from Telecom to check my phone is working. Yes, it is, but it is engaged all the time with customer service calls!!! Sheesh.
The kids are not exactly overjoyed to be back at school today. They are either in shock, or mourning, or both.
14 July 2008
Big news about a small man, a quiet week in South Auckland, vehicle madness strikes NZ - 14/07/2008
LOCAL NEWS
Local TV Radio sports presenter Tony Veitch was revealed to have paid $100,000 to an ex-girlfriend after inflicting severe injuries on her including four broken vertebrae. It wasn't a drunken car accident, but kicking, which seems pretty bad and charges should really have been laid. We've had flow on update stories all week. From where I sit, it doesn't matter whether he did what he did to an ex-girlfriend, his mother, his child, a complete stranger, an all star pro wrestler, or a dog. It's just not right. And worse, keeping it secret and buying his way out of it is exceedingly cowardly.
Not surprisingly, after the pressure from price rises and petrol, people in New Zealand are buying home brands more, shopping closer to home, and seem to be trying to stem the bleeding.
Vehicle madness #1. A police officer was killed in the line of duty while putting out road spikes to stop the guy that hit him. We had the usual fuss. Wouldn't have happened if he had looked both ways first.
Vehicle madness #2. A drunk driver speeds in a park, hits a curb, misses the ground (ie flies through the air) and drops 20 metres to hit a tree that he never liked anyway. The tree won.
Vehicle madness #3. A 73 year old woman squished herself against her own granny flat with her own car. The timing to get this right is actually quite tricky, when you think about it.
Vehicle madness #4. After #2, the Green party announced a bill to ban cars because of the harm they do to trees.
Vehicle madness #5. After #3, and hearing about #4, the leader of Grey Power started a petition to ban old people from parking cars. He has since been taken to a home for the extremely confused.
The dodgy mouth taping rest home has been closed, didn't take too long.
A 14 year old girl is on the run with a 41 year old man.I believe she is dyscalculic (which is dyslexia with numbers) and thinks he is 14 too. Nevertheless, whilst it may be true love, and he just "wants to protect her", it is exceedingly dodgy (he is ex-con, generally not a nice man).
A winner of the highest order got sprung for faking a $300 Waiheke ferry pass. His technique was legendary. He got an expired pass, crossed out the word June and wrote July in crayon (okay, he used a sticker, not crayon, but crayon is funnier, and the sticker was utterly pathetic). He reckons he had no cash and did it in a hurry, but three weeks later he used it again (and how many times in between, you wonder) and was apprehended. He will be banned from the ferry for two years which will make getting to work exceedingly difficult. There's a lesson there…
Meanwhile, after the trouble with A minus list celeb Veitch, B list celeb Brooke Howard-Smith got in trouble pushing a woman out of a bar.
A paraglider had to make a forced landing at the bottom of a cliff at Taylors Mistake near Christchurch. If he had clipped the cliff further up it would have been a lot worse than a forced landing.
There has been some controversy about New Zealand First receiving a donation from Owen Glenn. I don't understand why it's a bad thing (other than the fact that Winston is a bloody danger to society).
Another fuss this week about making locomotives for our new national rail asset. I thoroughly agree that encouraging manufacturing here is a good idea, even if it does cost a little more.
Everyone in South Auckland behaved this week.
WORLD NEWS
G8 does not interest me so I took no notice.
A New Zealand born Australian solder died in Afghanistan. A car bomb, I think.
Obscene amounts have been paid for photos of the Brad & Ange new babies. $15 million is ridiculous. And who wants to see them? I mean until now, if someone was going to pay to see Angelina's twins, I would have thought they meant something completely different.
The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day, which I just don't get at all. It seems to be world Catholic day.
REAL SPORT
After the promising start to the tournament, Rory's team lost two games that they could have won. This put them in to play offs for 7th/8th. A team they beat ended up making it directly to semis by beating two teams that beat us. The lead early in their last game, were down 3-6, then scored eight unanswered goals to win 11-6.
Hannah's team won their first five matches, but played terribly at times despite winning. Then they played really badly in a tougher game and lost 3-10. Hannah scored a few goals, was generally playing very well. Some of the others were just shocking. In the loss, Hannah scored a goal from her only shot and there were 22 missed shots at goal. I know winning isn't everything but I have grave concerns about the capability of many of the players in that team.
Rory's 18B team are yet to win a game. They were 5-2 up over Maranui but lost 5-6. They were doing very well, Rory scored two nice goals in that game. I think they have one more game tomorrow.
SPORT
The Boks beat the Blacks, just, in the second match. At 30-28 it was just a case of how soon the clock ran out.
The Warriors had a win on Saturday, for a change.
MY SAD LIFE
Not much happening in our world beyond water polo with up to three trips to the pool a day. We had the billet staying until Friday. I have taken nearly 3,000 photos at the polo so far.
Hannah and I managed to wake up the Goodins on Sunday morning, after wandering the flea market with Nanny. I found the mute button on Pippy (if you pat her she goes quiet). Thomas and Katie seem to have discovered YouTube.
On Tuesday night, Hannah played indoor soccer, and I ended up playing too because there weren't many people there. It was cold, my warm up was getting out of the car. I pulled a lot of things, not bad, because I did slow down. It took about three or four days before I could walk normally.
Diana and Rory went to the Warriors clean up on Sunday while me and Hannah went to the flea market. Not sure how we managed to swing that, but you take your chances I guess.
Question from Diana last night "Why do they call it Two and a Half Men?". My answer "I beg your pardon?". "Yes, it makes no sense, there is JD, Turk, Elliot, Carla, and so on, so why Two and a Half Men?". My measured response was "Well, dear, that's because they are in a show called Scrubs, and aren't in Two and a Half Men, are they?" See Rory Story 1, Diana should be watching her back. (the two shows were being advertised together, because they screen together, but really).
RORY STORY 1
On Thursday, Ollie caught a mouse. He mostly killed it, but not enough. Rory had to finish it off. Not sure I could have, he did well. Now we are nervous about how quick he will be to turn off our machine when we are old. Well, more old.
RORY STORY 2
Maddie had a rough night on Thursday. Rory was off to see her on Friday after his game. Soon after, Diana and I were off to the pool (for a change). We saw her car parked outside the florists, and Rory inside looking very sheepish. Sent him a text that said "sprung!"
Local TV Radio sports presenter Tony Veitch was revealed to have paid $100,000 to an ex-girlfriend after inflicting severe injuries on her including four broken vertebrae. It wasn't a drunken car accident, but kicking, which seems pretty bad and charges should really have been laid. We've had flow on update stories all week. From where I sit, it doesn't matter whether he did what he did to an ex-girlfriend, his mother, his child, a complete stranger, an all star pro wrestler, or a dog. It's just not right. And worse, keeping it secret and buying his way out of it is exceedingly cowardly.
Not surprisingly, after the pressure from price rises and petrol, people in New Zealand are buying home brands more, shopping closer to home, and seem to be trying to stem the bleeding.
Vehicle madness #1. A police officer was killed in the line of duty while putting out road spikes to stop the guy that hit him. We had the usual fuss. Wouldn't have happened if he had looked both ways first.
Vehicle madness #2. A drunk driver speeds in a park, hits a curb, misses the ground (ie flies through the air) and drops 20 metres to hit a tree that he never liked anyway. The tree won.
Vehicle madness #3. A 73 year old woman squished herself against her own granny flat with her own car. The timing to get this right is actually quite tricky, when you think about it.
Vehicle madness #4. After #2, the Green party announced a bill to ban cars because of the harm they do to trees.
Vehicle madness #5. After #3, and hearing about #4, the leader of Grey Power started a petition to ban old people from parking cars. He has since been taken to a home for the extremely confused.
The dodgy mouth taping rest home has been closed, didn't take too long.
A 14 year old girl is on the run with a 41 year old man.I believe she is dyscalculic (which is dyslexia with numbers) and thinks he is 14 too. Nevertheless, whilst it may be true love, and he just "wants to protect her", it is exceedingly dodgy (he is ex-con, generally not a nice man).
A winner of the highest order got sprung for faking a $300 Waiheke ferry pass. His technique was legendary. He got an expired pass, crossed out the word June and wrote July in crayon (okay, he used a sticker, not crayon, but crayon is funnier, and the sticker was utterly pathetic). He reckons he had no cash and did it in a hurry, but three weeks later he used it again (and how many times in between, you wonder) and was apprehended. He will be banned from the ferry for two years which will make getting to work exceedingly difficult. There's a lesson there…
Meanwhile, after the trouble with A minus list celeb Veitch, B list celeb Brooke Howard-Smith got in trouble pushing a woman out of a bar.
A paraglider had to make a forced landing at the bottom of a cliff at Taylors Mistake near Christchurch. If he had clipped the cliff further up it would have been a lot worse than a forced landing.
There has been some controversy about New Zealand First receiving a donation from Owen Glenn. I don't understand why it's a bad thing (other than the fact that Winston is a bloody danger to society).
Another fuss this week about making locomotives for our new national rail asset. I thoroughly agree that encouraging manufacturing here is a good idea, even if it does cost a little more.
Everyone in South Auckland behaved this week.
WORLD NEWS
G8 does not interest me so I took no notice.
A New Zealand born Australian solder died in Afghanistan. A car bomb, I think.
Obscene amounts have been paid for photos of the Brad & Ange new babies. $15 million is ridiculous. And who wants to see them? I mean until now, if someone was going to pay to see Angelina's twins, I would have thought they meant something completely different.
The Pope is in Australia for World Youth Day, which I just don't get at all. It seems to be world Catholic day.
REAL SPORT
After the promising start to the tournament, Rory's team lost two games that they could have won. This put them in to play offs for 7th/8th. A team they beat ended up making it directly to semis by beating two teams that beat us. The lead early in their last game, were down 3-6, then scored eight unanswered goals to win 11-6.
Hannah's team won their first five matches, but played terribly at times despite winning. Then they played really badly in a tougher game and lost 3-10. Hannah scored a few goals, was generally playing very well. Some of the others were just shocking. In the loss, Hannah scored a goal from her only shot and there were 22 missed shots at goal. I know winning isn't everything but I have grave concerns about the capability of many of the players in that team.
Rory's 18B team are yet to win a game. They were 5-2 up over Maranui but lost 5-6. They were doing very well, Rory scored two nice goals in that game. I think they have one more game tomorrow.
SPORT
The Boks beat the Blacks, just, in the second match. At 30-28 it was just a case of how soon the clock ran out.
The Warriors had a win on Saturday, for a change.
MY SAD LIFE
Not much happening in our world beyond water polo with up to three trips to the pool a day. We had the billet staying until Friday. I have taken nearly 3,000 photos at the polo so far.
Hannah and I managed to wake up the Goodins on Sunday morning, after wandering the flea market with Nanny. I found the mute button on Pippy (if you pat her she goes quiet). Thomas and Katie seem to have discovered YouTube.
On Tuesday night, Hannah played indoor soccer, and I ended up playing too because there weren't many people there. It was cold, my warm up was getting out of the car. I pulled a lot of things, not bad, because I did slow down. It took about three or four days before I could walk normally.
Diana and Rory went to the Warriors clean up on Sunday while me and Hannah went to the flea market. Not sure how we managed to swing that, but you take your chances I guess.
Question from Diana last night "Why do they call it Two and a Half Men?". My answer "I beg your pardon?". "Yes, it makes no sense, there is JD, Turk, Elliot, Carla, and so on, so why Two and a Half Men?". My measured response was "Well, dear, that's because they are in a show called Scrubs, and aren't in Two and a Half Men, are they?" See Rory Story 1, Diana should be watching her back. (the two shows were being advertised together, because they screen together, but really).
RORY STORY 1
On Thursday, Ollie caught a mouse. He mostly killed it, but not enough. Rory had to finish it off. Not sure I could have, he did well. Now we are nervous about how quick he will be to turn off our machine when we are old. Well, more old.
RORY STORY 2
Maddie had a rough night on Thursday. Rory was off to see her on Friday after his game. Soon after, Diana and I were off to the pool (for a change). We saw her car parked outside the florists, and Rory inside looking very sheepish. Sent him a text that said "sprung!"
7 July 2008
Pan Pacs in full swing, Dannevirke goes crazy, dodgy broadcasts, good news for Pringles - 07/07/2008
LOCAL NEWS
Weather has continued to be awful. Lots of hail here, snow elsewhere.
Sad news this week that real estate agents are finding economic conditions difficult and 10% have left the profession. Whilst there is one that is older, there are few that have a worse reputation. The flood of sympathy cards and food parcels has been impossible to detect with the human eye.
On July 1, our railways became KiwiRail. This joins the stable of kiwi-named companies run by the government (KiwiBank, KiwiSaver, and Kiwifruit, the gay men's collective).
It's all been happening in Dannevirke. First controversy about a brothel opening in the main street (called Klassi Sheelaz or something, an oxymoron is ever there was one). Second, a man was killed by a plough near Dannevirke. The owner of Klassi Sheelaz wasn't concerned, it was only one less customer. Nothing happened the day after, I looked very hard.
Some Siamese fighting fish were intercepted in the post this week, from Thailand. I think they were alive when detected but not for much longer.
We had a seven year old boy die in Nelson, the step father has been charged, and guess what? He's from South Auckland. So now they are exporting murderers to other places.
National has said they will privatise ACC, not sure why this is so controversial, they had done it last time they were in power and Labour reversed it. Are people's memories that short?
Great bit of guerrilla marketing this week. Some guy put his soul for sale on trademe, it attracted the usual sort of attention that sort of thing does (the media are just sluts, really, for an easy story). Anyway, in a bit of a coup, Hell Pizza bought it for $5000. This generated considerably more than $5k in coverage, so one has to wonder if the whole thing might have been planned.
A DOC (Department of Conservation) worker shot a rare takahe, he thought it was a pukeko (there were 36 on the island, now only 35, he should have known the difference).
A police chase ended in the death of the retarded teenaged chasee. A few more fatal chases might prevent more.
Truckies protested on Friday about a rise in road user charges but clogging main roads. They were pretty sensible, generally, occupying only one lane. Diana went over the harbour bridge which she said was pretty weird with a lane full of trucks coming the other way.
A 14 year old boy was found dead on a sports field near Taupo. They reckon he was drunk, fell asleep, and froze. Is that natural causes?
Asians had a protest march this week, about crimes against Asians. However, the organiser is recruiting help from the triads, which seems to be a little odd. There are rumours that triads are organising local gangs with things like drugs.
A dangerous substance incident where a mystery powder was spread around a park. Wasn't explosive or anthrax, it was cake mix powder.
Sky TV cocked up (literally) when they showed porn on their free to air channel for four minutes during a rugby show. So far the only complaints made have been that it wasn't for longer. No mention of whether the porn channel people got rugby as well.
WORLD NEWS
Nasty incident in Australia where a man killed his wife and two grand daughters with an axe and tried to get his police woman daughter also.
Is it just me or is Gaddafi the Michael Jackson of world leaders? He must have had facelifts, he looks like he always has. He is 66, so I suppose he's not that old.
When the cure is worse than the condition. Two helicopters containing people bound for hospital crashed into each other on the way to the same hospital, and were diverted to the morgue. You'd think choppers were slow enough that you'd see each other, surely?
Nasty incident when lightning struck at a soccer match in Cambodia, which killed three players and injured three others.
A "bulldozer" went amok in Jerusalem. It wasn't really a bulldozer in my book, more like a front end loader, and it was on wheels not tracks. It created mayhem, killing people along the way.
A court in Europe has ruled Pringles are not potato chips. They did stop short of saying they aren't food, which is a shame.
REAL SPORT
Despite all expectations, we did have soccer on Wednesday afternoon. Hannah wasn't in great shape but played. It was against the bottom of the table team, St Dominics, and we won 6-0. I refereed the second half and their coach was trying to spring an offside trap by not defending, it was woeful.
Club soccer was again cancelled on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Rory's Pan Pac tournament started on Friday, with a 9-1 win over North Harbour B and a much tighter 9-8 win over Maranui. Rory scored a goal in both games, generally played pretty well. Then they played Rotorua on Sunday morning, should have been relatively tight as Rotorua lost to Maranui 11-18, so they scored more goals than we did against them (although they let in ten more). It wasn't, ended up being a 22-0 whitewash, Rory scored about four or five.
We play North Harbour today, I think we should win comfortably, and the NSW team ( that our billet is in) tomorrow.
SPORT
Queensland won the deciding state of origin game 16-10. Not really ever interested in that but it is very big in Australia.
The All Blacks beat South Africa in their first Tri-Nations game, 19-10 or so.
Venus won Wimbledon women's, beating Serena, and they won women's doubles together. Federer and Nadal were hammering out a close match, but Nadal won which is quite big news, first time someone has won French and Wimbledon since 1980 (Bjorn Borg).
Lewis Hamilton won British GP.
MY SAD LIFE
We got a call on Wednesday to say that Hannah had actually broken her finger again. Great service, five days after the x-ray. Haven't heard anything yet from who she was referred to.
Sarah and the twins visited this week. I reckon Jack is teething but don't know if any results have appeared yet.
We had a billet staying with us from the Combined NSW High Schools polo team. Cameron, nice kid. Another guy was staying at Rory's friend Cassidy's house, Nathan. They spent a bit of time together as a group. Cameron's parents came over to watch the tournament, their names are Bob and Diana, kind of funny.
It is Heidi's birthday tomorrow.
It is five years today since Dad died, it was also a Monday. Feels like a very long time ago.
Diana has been making a lot of bread to save dough. I think we used 5kg of flour in not much more than a week. The bread is damn good, and it is cheaper than store bought stuff.
My broadband and office phone line failed on Saturday night, about the time of a big lightning strike and is not yet functioning. We found a weird pile of cables poking out of the ground at the end of our street on Sunday, not sure if it is related, they sure looked like phone cables.
Diana took the two billets and Rory and Cass down to Mission Bay where they got some fresh air. I spent a while with them in a mall looking for a Rubik's cube.
We had the opening ceremony last night, there are over 100 teams taking part. I got to climb up inside the pool roof to take photos from above the action in the ceiling of the pool (Paul, you would remember the roof at West Wave, it was quite high).
Diana kind of starts a new job today. Kind of, because she has been doing a little bit of work for them already.
Weather has continued to be awful. Lots of hail here, snow elsewhere.
Sad news this week that real estate agents are finding economic conditions difficult and 10% have left the profession. Whilst there is one that is older, there are few that have a worse reputation. The flood of sympathy cards and food parcels has been impossible to detect with the human eye.
On July 1, our railways became KiwiRail. This joins the stable of kiwi-named companies run by the government (KiwiBank, KiwiSaver, and Kiwifruit, the gay men's collective).
It's all been happening in Dannevirke. First controversy about a brothel opening in the main street (called Klassi Sheelaz or something, an oxymoron is ever there was one). Second, a man was killed by a plough near Dannevirke. The owner of Klassi Sheelaz wasn't concerned, it was only one less customer. Nothing happened the day after, I looked very hard.
Some Siamese fighting fish were intercepted in the post this week, from Thailand. I think they were alive when detected but not for much longer.
We had a seven year old boy die in Nelson, the step father has been charged, and guess what? He's from South Auckland. So now they are exporting murderers to other places.
National has said they will privatise ACC, not sure why this is so controversial, they had done it last time they were in power and Labour reversed it. Are people's memories that short?
Great bit of guerrilla marketing this week. Some guy put his soul for sale on trademe, it attracted the usual sort of attention that sort of thing does (the media are just sluts, really, for an easy story). Anyway, in a bit of a coup, Hell Pizza bought it for $5000. This generated considerably more than $5k in coverage, so one has to wonder if the whole thing might have been planned.
A DOC (Department of Conservation) worker shot a rare takahe, he thought it was a pukeko (there were 36 on the island, now only 35, he should have known the difference).
A police chase ended in the death of the retarded teenaged chasee. A few more fatal chases might prevent more.
Truckies protested on Friday about a rise in road user charges but clogging main roads. They were pretty sensible, generally, occupying only one lane. Diana went over the harbour bridge which she said was pretty weird with a lane full of trucks coming the other way.
A 14 year old boy was found dead on a sports field near Taupo. They reckon he was drunk, fell asleep, and froze. Is that natural causes?
Asians had a protest march this week, about crimes against Asians. However, the organiser is recruiting help from the triads, which seems to be a little odd. There are rumours that triads are organising local gangs with things like drugs.
A dangerous substance incident where a mystery powder was spread around a park. Wasn't explosive or anthrax, it was cake mix powder.
Sky TV cocked up (literally) when they showed porn on their free to air channel for four minutes during a rugby show. So far the only complaints made have been that it wasn't for longer. No mention of whether the porn channel people got rugby as well.
WORLD NEWS
Nasty incident in Australia where a man killed his wife and two grand daughters with an axe and tried to get his police woman daughter also.
Is it just me or is Gaddafi the Michael Jackson of world leaders? He must have had facelifts, he looks like he always has. He is 66, so I suppose he's not that old.
When the cure is worse than the condition. Two helicopters containing people bound for hospital crashed into each other on the way to the same hospital, and were diverted to the morgue. You'd think choppers were slow enough that you'd see each other, surely?
Nasty incident when lightning struck at a soccer match in Cambodia, which killed three players and injured three others.
A "bulldozer" went amok in Jerusalem. It wasn't really a bulldozer in my book, more like a front end loader, and it was on wheels not tracks. It created mayhem, killing people along the way.
A court in Europe has ruled Pringles are not potato chips. They did stop short of saying they aren't food, which is a shame.
REAL SPORT
Despite all expectations, we did have soccer on Wednesday afternoon. Hannah wasn't in great shape but played. It was against the bottom of the table team, St Dominics, and we won 6-0. I refereed the second half and their coach was trying to spring an offside trap by not defending, it was woeful.
Club soccer was again cancelled on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Rory's Pan Pac tournament started on Friday, with a 9-1 win over North Harbour B and a much tighter 9-8 win over Maranui. Rory scored a goal in both games, generally played pretty well. Then they played Rotorua on Sunday morning, should have been relatively tight as Rotorua lost to Maranui 11-18, so they scored more goals than we did against them (although they let in ten more). It wasn't, ended up being a 22-0 whitewash, Rory scored about four or five.
We play North Harbour today, I think we should win comfortably, and the NSW team ( that our billet is in) tomorrow.
SPORT
Queensland won the deciding state of origin game 16-10. Not really ever interested in that but it is very big in Australia.
The All Blacks beat South Africa in their first Tri-Nations game, 19-10 or so.
Venus won Wimbledon women's, beating Serena, and they won women's doubles together. Federer and Nadal were hammering out a close match, but Nadal won which is quite big news, first time someone has won French and Wimbledon since 1980 (Bjorn Borg).
Lewis Hamilton won British GP.
MY SAD LIFE
We got a call on Wednesday to say that Hannah had actually broken her finger again. Great service, five days after the x-ray. Haven't heard anything yet from who she was referred to.
Sarah and the twins visited this week. I reckon Jack is teething but don't know if any results have appeared yet.
We had a billet staying with us from the Combined NSW High Schools polo team. Cameron, nice kid. Another guy was staying at Rory's friend Cassidy's house, Nathan. They spent a bit of time together as a group. Cameron's parents came over to watch the tournament, their names are Bob and Diana, kind of funny.
It is Heidi's birthday tomorrow.
It is five years today since Dad died, it was also a Monday. Feels like a very long time ago.
Diana has been making a lot of bread to save dough. I think we used 5kg of flour in not much more than a week. The bread is damn good, and it is cheaper than store bought stuff.
My broadband and office phone line failed on Saturday night, about the time of a big lightning strike and is not yet functioning. We found a weird pile of cables poking out of the ground at the end of our street on Sunday, not sure if it is related, they sure looked like phone cables.
Diana took the two billets and Rory and Cass down to Mission Bay where they got some fresh air. I spent a while with them in a mall looking for a Rubik's cube.
We had the opening ceremony last night, there are over 100 teams taking part. I got to climb up inside the pool roof to take photos from above the action in the ceiling of the pool (Paul, you would remember the roof at West Wave, it was quite high).
Diana kind of starts a new job today. Kind of, because she has been doing a little bit of work for them already.
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