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!"

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