It is now the year of the dragon. I won't do the joke.
LOCAL NEWS
A woman from Porirua drove 100km without her kids after a toilet stop. Her parents must be proud.
Three women have been pulled over in Auckland for driving whilst breastfeeding. It's not illegal, is it? The cellphone rule is still stupid.
The woman charged for slapping the girl bullying her daughter was given diversion, which I think means community service.
A 5yo boy was hit by a van and killed by a van while playing on the side of the road. Not sure whether he was actually off the road when he was hit. Excellent East Coast style supervision going on there.
The salvation army had a whinge about the rubbish they get in their donation bins. Seriously? They don't know the world is full of dirtbags? Where have they been?
The ACC helpfully gave us stats on dog bite attacks last year, it's nearly 5,000. That seems a lot.
There was a nasty car accident with four fatalities, they reckon that emergency services couldn't tell who came from which car.
Lake Hayes Estate near Queenstown is the victim of some sort of serial cat-napping with 30 gone missing in the last year.
Some highly questionable research suggests that cheating husbands are likely to be National voters, smoke, have a PC (not a Mac, doesn't mention iPads), drink coke (not Pepsi), Christian (what does that tell you), smoke, eat meat, and have a tattoo. What a load of bollocks.
Towing cars came under the spotlight this week. A man fought a fee for his car being towed about 5km, which was $230. That really opened up a can of worms. Turns out that some people were being paid as "spotters" for cars to tow. Apparently, if the spotter owns the parking space being illegally used, then the payment is illegal. Thing is, if you own the car park, and you pay for the car park, you can't get some money back when someone else uses it and you are disadvantaged? Isn't that a little bizarre? And surely, someone parking illegally in a park, even if for ten minutes or less, will often (not always) cause inconvenience, waste time, and potentially incur cost to the owner of the park?
I misread a headline about New Zealand's youngest pro golfer to win a tournament, thought it said "ugliest". That got me thinking, about the lack of honesty in reporting. Wouldn't that be more interesting, if a little subjective? "New Zealand's hairiest man win's shearing contest" and so forth?
An SAS hopeful went into a coma during a trial. Does that make him tough, that he can go until near-fatal collapse or is he eliminated?
A crazy retail worker that swore and left then changed her mind got $8,000 in compensation for unjust dismissal. Good grief.
WORLD NEWS
Richard Branson made himself a right Richard this week when he said the war on drugs has failed, so we should decriminalise it. Totally disagree. We should be criminalising cigarettes and probably alcohol.
There was news this week than the male sex drive is responsible for all war. Part of me thinks that is ridiculous, and part of me couldn't agree more. Now, if we could only find someone to blame for religion.
It was Australia Day on Thursday, apparently the biggest day of the year for alcohol related injuries and violence. Makes you proud to be an Australian (I assume).
There has been flooding in Fiji this week, but people are beginning to care little for that country, with their dubious politics.
I am pleased that the Costa Concordia is likely to stay put for months and months, makes me feel better about the Rena still being there four months later.
SPORT
Australia played India in the fourth test, it wasn't pretty, nobody was very surprised. They made it to day five, for the first time., but for less than an hour.
New Zealand played Zimbabwe in a test, the battle of third world cricketing nations wasn't expected to be up to much. I didn't even realise it was on until half way through the first day. Turned out it was just about all over by then. Zimbabwe got rolled twice on the third day to lose by 301 runs, and an innings. Pathetic.
Man Utd lost 1-2 to Liverpool in their FA Cup game, and that's all I am prepared to say about that. Arsenal just beat Villa, Chelsea just beat QPR.
MY SAD LIFE
It was predictably quiet without Hannah. The weather during the week was very nice, didn't seem like there was enough wind, but plenty of sun. It was a little wet on Friday, but overall hard to complain.
Thomas arrived on Tuesday, Rory and I rearranged his room a little in preparation, and they basically stayed in the man cave 24 hours. They didn't go to sleep until nearly 6am, and Diana didn't see Thomas until about 5pm (I ventured in there at 3pm to get proof of life).
Hannah returned on Friday, very, very tired but happy. We did get a quick tour over the boat, Spirit of New Zealand, not Adventure.
Spent a chunk of time learning to draw in 3d this week. No printer yet. Maybe not even by the end of next week. Not very impressed. I suspect I will need the time. I did manage to create a cookie cutter for a relatively complex geometric logo, and started playing with icing tips - more seeing one I can do rather than making to order.
Saturday morning, Rory couldn't find the Falcon. Someone has stolen it. Been two days now, no idea what we do about insurance, I believe we have to wait a week or something.
Matt and Juliet seem to be having a lovely time in San Francisco, the weather seems nicer than it is here. This means Mark Twain was probably wrong.
We (Diana and I) spent Sunday on the Pacific Pearl, a cruise liner, to check it out. Was interesting, bloody scary seeing the people lining up to come on board as we left, average age was about 89.5 years old. Corridors aren't wide enough for two walkers to get past each other, either. As for the nightclub being open until 4am, I suspect at 5am most of the passengers will want their breakfast.
Hannah is on "leadership" "camp" (this truly deserves separate inverted commas, I believe). She returns on Tuesday and then school proper commences on Wednesday.
Today, Diana and I have been washing the outside of the house on our day off. Now I am truly knackered.
Rory is leaving tonight for about three nights, to Orere Point which is about an hour to the South East. Except he might not, he has a sore back now.
Brett is off to Hong Kong and Singapore again, not sure about the state of his back.
I have enlisted in a mentoring program for teenage kids that need help. I have to pass some tests, and once that happens I have to pay to attend a two day course before I get matched up with someone. Will be embarrassing if I don't pass.
Time to hit send and go have a bit of a lie down.
30 January 2012
23 January 2012
You would think by now I would be better at coming up with a decent subject
Things are almost back to normal, Christmas break wise (radio shows and such).
LOCAL NEWS
A woman was fined $60 for parking on a yellow line when she pulled over to let a Wellington council traffic "spy car" past her and they photographed her as she waited for them. Just bizarre, and it is going to court. The council needs a good smack.
Some Darwinian child went to hospital after he swallowed a $2 coin that was going to buy him an ice cream. Why? Did he think it might taste better than the ice cream?
An arrest was made after the wedding hit and run last week. The victim was an amazing guy, etc, tragically taken before his time, and so on. And pissed as a fart and unable to cross a road, let's be honest.
They reckon the body in the drain was that of a man trying to retrieve lost car keys. His name was Peter Black, 43. I know a Peter Black, no idea how old he was. It wasn't that one.
A 77yo woman, an archaeologist (who knew we had any of those) did her best to become something for someone else to dig up when she fell 50m down a cliff then a bank. She had minor bruising and cuts, she was very lucky.
There was a survey correlating poverty of parents to poverty of their kids, and things like teen pregnancy rates in the poor. It was an interesting mix of mind numbingly pathetic stuff, of both the blindingly obvious and the utterly ignorance of cause and effect. Questions I have include:
- Why would a rich parent let their kid be poor in adult life? (unless they somehow lost their fortune or the kid spent it all on drugs or gambling, it seems pretty unlikely);
- This of course is true in the converse, why would a poor parent suddenly find money to give to their kid as an adult?
Some morons took some prison inmates to a beach to harvest seafood from a marine reserve. Turns out they "didn't know" it was a reserve. Sorry, that's just bullshit.
Meanwhile, those living in the Eastern part of the North Island seemed to be doing their level best to show us what depths you can achieve when you live somewhere that you feel has no police. One drunk 13yo drove the family home on two hours sleep and none wore seatbelts. Only one died. A four year old was told not to go near an open water tank on a farm, this was considered sufficient supervision, so he drowned in it. One couldn't help but wonder if there would be a larger population out that way if they weren't so mind-numbingly thick.
South Auckland managed to stay in the spotlight, despite the efforts of the East Coast, with police shooting a man in the leg.
The Megaupload shut down (below) included a number of arrests here including the German-born Kim Dotcom, who had about 20 cars impounded.
Sione's Wedding, a movie that got considerable publicity because of supposed piracy, has had their sequel released. General feeling is that even the pirates won't bother, it's not that good.
WORLD NEWS
I missed out completely on the Sydney case of the dead woman in a tree, which they reckon got there about New Year's Eve and was found a few days later.
The SOPA/PIPA blackout happened Thursday our time. Not sure if it achieved any more than the OWS people, but it did show some solidarity - to the people that cared and were watching anyway. The hipsters did come out and say they knew about SOPA before the blackout, but that seemed like that was about it. Then Congress noticed.
There was a revenge attack on Megaupload, somewhere I never go, by the feds. Then, there was a number of attacks by hacker group anonymous on the feds. It was fast, it was brutal, and it just about turned the internet into an all out war.
Apple released some new products around iBooks and methods for making electronic text books. And they killed off the Steve Jobs figure, wankers.
A man was squashed in his 4x4 between two trucks in a Melbourne tunnel, and walked away with little more than some aches and pains. The car was toast, and the medics were amazed. Wonder if the guy's health insurance will get cheaper?
The US Presidential primaries continue, they go on for ever, I can't believe it is time for that whole thing again.
Some Fijian news agency had to do some major back-pedalling when the military coup el presidente only came second in a popularity poll. It's all about as believable as all the crap in North Korea. Who do they really think they are kidding?
SPORT
Man City continued their good run with a dodgy bit of football and a late penalty to beat Spurs 3-2. Man Utd squeaked past Arsenal 2-1 this morning. Fulham beat Newcastle 5-2, Chelsea drew 0-0 with Norwich (losers), Bolton beat Liverpool 3-1 (also losers), and Sunderland managed a much needed win 2-0 over Swansea.
There has been Australian Open tennis, but meh…..
MY SAD LIFE
Forgot to mention that last weekend Hannah drove me to and from the Browns Bay market in my car. She didn't tell Rory, which surprised me.
I found what was making the smell in Rory's room. It was nasty old coffee. Very nasty. Very old. He blamed me….
Eva went to the vet on Friday, she was so excited, we really must take her out more. Or would that mean she gets even more excited?
Thomas seemed to enjoy his geek course this week. He learned how to use blender, which I need to do some work with. Well, want to.
Hannah discovered she had been charged on her cashcard for something that they thought hadn't gone through. A mere $11.50 but the point is that if you take something from a shop without paying that is theft, if a shop takes money from you without you buying anything that's a "mistake". They seemed to cooperate.
My friend Matt and his daughter Juliet entered a competition on TV3, the junior jedi journalist, the prize is a trip to Skywalker Ranch for two days. They won with their video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXlcWTldUoQ&feature=colike
So they are off this Friday for four days. Even if you aren't a fanboy, that has to be an experience worth doing. As one person said to me today, it is probably a bucket list entry for a lot of people.
Speaking of Star Wars, over the weekend I learned that the copy of Star Wars and Empire I had on VHS, was recorded at Easter 1996 on TV2. Rory didn't even know about ewoks until Special Edition came to theatres in about 1998.
I have embarked upon a journey into a 3d world. I have ordered a 3d printer, which I should receive some time in the coming week. In preparation for this, I need to be able to edit/create 3d models on the computer. I foolishly thought this would be easy. Instead, I have spent considerable time making myself feel stupid, ignorant, and devoid of all computing skills. I haven't been enjoying myself. As I said to Diana at one point, this is making me feel like normal people do when they use a computer. I have found a program (Google Sketch) that appears promising, and I am working my way through it, reasonably well now but haven't done anything useful yet. It's not massively feature rich, but intuitive, clever, and there is a massive depth of things you can download to add to it.
We dropped Hannah off to the Spirit of Adventure this morning, she returns Friday 4pm. After yesterday, I think we may appreciate her absence. It was something of a mission getting her to get things ready. Photo of the boat Diana took is the first photo in her album here.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.216527545074094.54350.100001505500458&type=1&l=7fe413e6a3
There was some house maintenance done this week, nothing major, although we did clean a chunk of the weatherboards and the outside, really should do it more often. Rory was supposed to be rearranging his bedroom today, but he's done nothing yet. This comes as no real surprise.
Well, that's about it I suppose.
LOCAL NEWS
A woman was fined $60 for parking on a yellow line when she pulled over to let a Wellington council traffic "spy car" past her and they photographed her as she waited for them. Just bizarre, and it is going to court. The council needs a good smack.
Some Darwinian child went to hospital after he swallowed a $2 coin that was going to buy him an ice cream. Why? Did he think it might taste better than the ice cream?
An arrest was made after the wedding hit and run last week. The victim was an amazing guy, etc, tragically taken before his time, and so on. And pissed as a fart and unable to cross a road, let's be honest.
They reckon the body in the drain was that of a man trying to retrieve lost car keys. His name was Peter Black, 43. I know a Peter Black, no idea how old he was. It wasn't that one.
A 77yo woman, an archaeologist (who knew we had any of those) did her best to become something for someone else to dig up when she fell 50m down a cliff then a bank. She had minor bruising and cuts, she was very lucky.
There was a survey correlating poverty of parents to poverty of their kids, and things like teen pregnancy rates in the poor. It was an interesting mix of mind numbingly pathetic stuff, of both the blindingly obvious and the utterly ignorance of cause and effect. Questions I have include:
- Why would a rich parent let their kid be poor in adult life? (unless they somehow lost their fortune or the kid spent it all on drugs or gambling, it seems pretty unlikely);
- This of course is true in the converse, why would a poor parent suddenly find money to give to their kid as an adult?
Some morons took some prison inmates to a beach to harvest seafood from a marine reserve. Turns out they "didn't know" it was a reserve. Sorry, that's just bullshit.
Meanwhile, those living in the Eastern part of the North Island seemed to be doing their level best to show us what depths you can achieve when you live somewhere that you feel has no police. One drunk 13yo drove the family home on two hours sleep and none wore seatbelts. Only one died. A four year old was told not to go near an open water tank on a farm, this was considered sufficient supervision, so he drowned in it. One couldn't help but wonder if there would be a larger population out that way if they weren't so mind-numbingly thick.
South Auckland managed to stay in the spotlight, despite the efforts of the East Coast, with police shooting a man in the leg.
The Megaupload shut down (below) included a number of arrests here including the German-born Kim Dotcom, who had about 20 cars impounded.
Sione's Wedding, a movie that got considerable publicity because of supposed piracy, has had their sequel released. General feeling is that even the pirates won't bother, it's not that good.
WORLD NEWS
I missed out completely on the Sydney case of the dead woman in a tree, which they reckon got there about New Year's Eve and was found a few days later.
The SOPA/PIPA blackout happened Thursday our time. Not sure if it achieved any more than the OWS people, but it did show some solidarity - to the people that cared and were watching anyway. The hipsters did come out and say they knew about SOPA before the blackout, but that seemed like that was about it. Then Congress noticed.
There was a revenge attack on Megaupload, somewhere I never go, by the feds. Then, there was a number of attacks by hacker group anonymous on the feds. It was fast, it was brutal, and it just about turned the internet into an all out war.
Apple released some new products around iBooks and methods for making electronic text books. And they killed off the Steve Jobs figure, wankers.
A man was squashed in his 4x4 between two trucks in a Melbourne tunnel, and walked away with little more than some aches and pains. The car was toast, and the medics were amazed. Wonder if the guy's health insurance will get cheaper?
The US Presidential primaries continue, they go on for ever, I can't believe it is time for that whole thing again.
Some Fijian news agency had to do some major back-pedalling when the military coup el presidente only came second in a popularity poll. It's all about as believable as all the crap in North Korea. Who do they really think they are kidding?
SPORT
Man City continued their good run with a dodgy bit of football and a late penalty to beat Spurs 3-2. Man Utd squeaked past Arsenal 2-1 this morning. Fulham beat Newcastle 5-2, Chelsea drew 0-0 with Norwich (losers), Bolton beat Liverpool 3-1 (also losers), and Sunderland managed a much needed win 2-0 over Swansea.
There has been Australian Open tennis, but meh…..
MY SAD LIFE
Forgot to mention that last weekend Hannah drove me to and from the Browns Bay market in my car. She didn't tell Rory, which surprised me.
I found what was making the smell in Rory's room. It was nasty old coffee. Very nasty. Very old. He blamed me….
Eva went to the vet on Friday, she was so excited, we really must take her out more. Or would that mean she gets even more excited?
Thomas seemed to enjoy his geek course this week. He learned how to use blender, which I need to do some work with. Well, want to.
Hannah discovered she had been charged on her cashcard for something that they thought hadn't gone through. A mere $11.50 but the point is that if you take something from a shop without paying that is theft, if a shop takes money from you without you buying anything that's a "mistake". They seemed to cooperate.
My friend Matt and his daughter Juliet entered a competition on TV3, the junior jedi journalist, the prize is a trip to Skywalker Ranch for two days. They won with their video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXlcWTldUoQ&feature=colike
So they are off this Friday for four days. Even if you aren't a fanboy, that has to be an experience worth doing. As one person said to me today, it is probably a bucket list entry for a lot of people.
Speaking of Star Wars, over the weekend I learned that the copy of Star Wars and Empire I had on VHS, was recorded at Easter 1996 on TV2. Rory didn't even know about ewoks until Special Edition came to theatres in about 1998.
I have embarked upon a journey into a 3d world. I have ordered a 3d printer, which I should receive some time in the coming week. In preparation for this, I need to be able to edit/create 3d models on the computer. I foolishly thought this would be easy. Instead, I have spent considerable time making myself feel stupid, ignorant, and devoid of all computing skills. I haven't been enjoying myself. As I said to Diana at one point, this is making me feel like normal people do when they use a computer. I have found a program (Google Sketch) that appears promising, and I am working my way through it, reasonably well now but haven't done anything useful yet. It's not massively feature rich, but intuitive, clever, and there is a massive depth of things you can download to add to it.
We dropped Hannah off to the Spirit of Adventure this morning, she returns Friday 4pm. After yesterday, I think we may appreciate her absence. It was something of a mission getting her to get things ready. Photo of the boat Diana took is the first photo in her album here.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.216527545074094.54350.100001505500458&type=1&l=7fe413e6a3
There was some house maintenance done this week, nothing major, although we did clean a chunk of the weatherboards and the outside, really should do it more often. Rory was supposed to be rearranging his bedroom today, but he's done nothing yet. This comes as no real surprise.
Well, that's about it I suppose.
16 January 2012
The usual mix of slow news stuff and random acts of fatality for this time of year (Oh, and Hannah passed level 2)
As the second proper week of the year, I think things are returning to a more level of normal.
LOCAL NEWS
There was an attempted baby abduction at Middlemore, in South Auckland. As normal, they got all paranoid after that.
The Rena slowly sank but not from the news. They now reckon it will take two years to sort out and detritus has been appearing all over the place. I really don't get why they couldn't somehow refloat it and tow it away from trouble quickly, it ran aground back in November.
Some New Zealand born person in Perth is fighting deportation, because he reckons his family will be a bad influence on him. He was arrested to beating some small time drug vendor in Perth. Hasn't the bad influence horse already bolted?
Another week, another major downpour for Nelson.
The Auckland Port continues to sink into the poo.
A man went ballistic when Wendy's got his lunch order wrong in Lynfield. He destroyed things and it took five police to detain him. Would have been quite fun to see. There appears to be two stories as to what happened, but Wendys are bastards so I am siding with him. He is banned from the Lynfield Wendys now, but still allowed to go to others. I wonder how the staff at the other branches feel?
In Tauranga, a man set fire to himself by smoking while he refilled his lawn mower, who'd have thought? ACC told us that 3450 similar accidents were reported last year and cost $10m. Apparently a similar thing happened to a guy while siphoning petrol. Sheesh. If cellphones are "dangerous" around gas stations, then wouldn't cigarettes be really dangerous?
Meanwhile, a pregnant woman in Rotorua got the bash from another woman. Probably the father's wife or something.
Some woman is selling the chance to tattoo her arse on trademe and the bidding is well up into the thousands. Good grief.
Drownings this year is up to about 10. A canoeist got washed away down the Whanganui River.
Meanwhile, a man was killed by a train, and a body was found in a Wellington drain. A wedding guest was killed, probably in a drunken stupor, out on the road outside the do in the early hours on Sunday morning. Don't drink and walk, ever.
Some old golfer got two holes in one in one round, but his total wasn't pretty. Seems kind of typical of golf, really.
A fire in a motel turned out to be a meth lab accident, motelier wasn't too happy, and seemed a little uneasy about it - like he knew bloody well what was going on. The retards came back the next day to get their stuff and got arrested.
WORLD NEWS
I forgot to mention an article on what your facebook profile photo says about you. Apparently a quirky shot means you are staying true to the pre-spam generation, whatever that means. It seems that most options are uncool. Your kids, your pet, an action hero, an arty shot, a drunken moment, you name it. With 700 million out there, they are all cliché…
Eric Cantona wants to be President of France, that would be cool. Maybe Zidane would be cooler. Is it better to have a head butter or drop kicker as President? In retaliation, David Beckham wants to become king of Narnia (according to News Thump).
While CES (Consumer Electronics Show) was announcing cool stuff at regular intervals, there was a study released that says we drive as bad when we are sick as we do when we are drunk. Interesting concept.
Top Gear has managed to offend yet another third world country by telling the truth about them, this time it is India. Can we just take it as read that they will be offensive about wherever they go and move on?
The cruise liner in Italy made the news a lot until we heard the only New Zealander on it was okay. Last I heard eight were dead, no three, wait five, and about 40 missing.
The euro seems to be still bouncing all over the show.
SPORT
Turns out there was another test between Australia and India, but by the time I heard about it Australia had already won by an innings.
Swansea City beat Arsenal 3-2, good grief. Worse still, Blackburn were down to 10 men after 22 minutes and still beat Fulham 3-1. Chelsea squeaked a 1-0 over Sunderland, Liverpool drew 0-0 with Stoke City (why bother to show up). And Man United managed to beat Bolton 3-0, despite that fool Rooney missing a penalty.
MY SAD LIFE
It was relatively quiet this week, while Hannah was away. She took my Wifi 3g to stay connected, so she could not email us in style. Still only used 400Mb out of 2Gb on it, but it has been so useful.
Hannah got her NCEA results on Thursday, earlier that I thought, the results were largely as expected and hoped - she passed with Excellence, and got the excellence endorsement in Accounting, and Art Design. She had hoped to get it in others, but I think she is pretty happy with the result.
Rory fills his drink bottle nocturnally, apparently. And about 4am one night this week he filled it from the garden hose. He did have the foresight to check it before he drank from it and found a weta in the bottle, which some of us knew had been living in the end of the hose. Near miss, there.
Rory was proud, he made the front page of Reddit with this "rage comic": http://imgur.com/UWH06 He continues to administer his LOL forum, which continues to gain in popularity.
We had dinner with the Bambis on Wednesday night at Prego for Bambi's birthday. We saw actress Robyn Malcolm there. We always see some actor or some "luminary". We had dessert at café Cezanne down the other end of Ponsonby Road, and it was pretty good.
Diana installed Office 2010 on her computer because I refused to. I had to use it later in the week and it sucks completely. I really don't get why people want it.
We had Maddie and Kim over for dinner on Saturday (Kim being Rory's mother in law).
I have reconnected with Skyrim world. I hadn't touched it for about 10 days, but Rory's absence for work has made it possible. I have enjoyed it.
This may explain why it feels like I haven't achieved a heck of a lot this week, but I did actually have work and I was reasonably busy with it. I had lunch with Peter (my business partner) on Friday at Bluebird, a bit of tranquillity every visit, I just love the peanut sauce dish they do.
One thing I have achieved is an improved system for dealing with inbound videos, I am sure you are all very pleased to learn of this. It will save time and be safer.
Meanwhile, Mum was off around the north island visiting siblings again. So on Sunday she got a cat. But don't tell anyone, it's an illegal immigrant.
Sarah went off with the family on her birthday, sounds like she had fun. She went on a ferry, but not to Rangitoto….(she's never forgiven me for that, I don't think)
Young Thomas is off in a school holiday program this week, learning to program in iOS for iPads and iPhones etc. Should be very cool. I am a little jealous.
Today is Joe's birthday, well, tomorrow I suppose because it is still the 15th in Texas, assuming I send this soon, which is less than certain.
Times up, I am really going to send it now.
LOCAL NEWS
There was an attempted baby abduction at Middlemore, in South Auckland. As normal, they got all paranoid after that.
The Rena slowly sank but not from the news. They now reckon it will take two years to sort out and detritus has been appearing all over the place. I really don't get why they couldn't somehow refloat it and tow it away from trouble quickly, it ran aground back in November.
Some New Zealand born person in Perth is fighting deportation, because he reckons his family will be a bad influence on him. He was arrested to beating some small time drug vendor in Perth. Hasn't the bad influence horse already bolted?
Another week, another major downpour for Nelson.
The Auckland Port continues to sink into the poo.
A man went ballistic when Wendy's got his lunch order wrong in Lynfield. He destroyed things and it took five police to detain him. Would have been quite fun to see. There appears to be two stories as to what happened, but Wendys are bastards so I am siding with him. He is banned from the Lynfield Wendys now, but still allowed to go to others. I wonder how the staff at the other branches feel?
In Tauranga, a man set fire to himself by smoking while he refilled his lawn mower, who'd have thought? ACC told us that 3450 similar accidents were reported last year and cost $10m. Apparently a similar thing happened to a guy while siphoning petrol. Sheesh. If cellphones are "dangerous" around gas stations, then wouldn't cigarettes be really dangerous?
Meanwhile, a pregnant woman in Rotorua got the bash from another woman. Probably the father's wife or something.
Some woman is selling the chance to tattoo her arse on trademe and the bidding is well up into the thousands. Good grief.
Drownings this year is up to about 10. A canoeist got washed away down the Whanganui River.
Meanwhile, a man was killed by a train, and a body was found in a Wellington drain. A wedding guest was killed, probably in a drunken stupor, out on the road outside the do in the early hours on Sunday morning. Don't drink and walk, ever.
Some old golfer got two holes in one in one round, but his total wasn't pretty. Seems kind of typical of golf, really.
A fire in a motel turned out to be a meth lab accident, motelier wasn't too happy, and seemed a little uneasy about it - like he knew bloody well what was going on. The retards came back the next day to get their stuff and got arrested.
WORLD NEWS
I forgot to mention an article on what your facebook profile photo says about you. Apparently a quirky shot means you are staying true to the pre-spam generation, whatever that means. It seems that most options are uncool. Your kids, your pet, an action hero, an arty shot, a drunken moment, you name it. With 700 million out there, they are all cliché…
Eric Cantona wants to be President of France, that would be cool. Maybe Zidane would be cooler. Is it better to have a head butter or drop kicker as President? In retaliation, David Beckham wants to become king of Narnia (according to News Thump).
While CES (Consumer Electronics Show) was announcing cool stuff at regular intervals, there was a study released that says we drive as bad when we are sick as we do when we are drunk. Interesting concept.
Top Gear has managed to offend yet another third world country by telling the truth about them, this time it is India. Can we just take it as read that they will be offensive about wherever they go and move on?
The cruise liner in Italy made the news a lot until we heard the only New Zealander on it was okay. Last I heard eight were dead, no three, wait five, and about 40 missing.
The euro seems to be still bouncing all over the show.
SPORT
Turns out there was another test between Australia and India, but by the time I heard about it Australia had already won by an innings.
Swansea City beat Arsenal 3-2, good grief. Worse still, Blackburn were down to 10 men after 22 minutes and still beat Fulham 3-1. Chelsea squeaked a 1-0 over Sunderland, Liverpool drew 0-0 with Stoke City (why bother to show up). And Man United managed to beat Bolton 3-0, despite that fool Rooney missing a penalty.
MY SAD LIFE
It was relatively quiet this week, while Hannah was away. She took my Wifi 3g to stay connected, so she could not email us in style. Still only used 400Mb out of 2Gb on it, but it has been so useful.
Hannah got her NCEA results on Thursday, earlier that I thought, the results were largely as expected and hoped - she passed with Excellence, and got the excellence endorsement in Accounting, and Art Design. She had hoped to get it in others, but I think she is pretty happy with the result.
Rory fills his drink bottle nocturnally, apparently. And about 4am one night this week he filled it from the garden hose. He did have the foresight to check it before he drank from it and found a weta in the bottle, which some of us knew had been living in the end of the hose. Near miss, there.
Rory was proud, he made the front page of Reddit with this "rage comic": http://imgur.com/UWH06 He continues to administer his LOL forum, which continues to gain in popularity.
We had dinner with the Bambis on Wednesday night at Prego for Bambi's birthday. We saw actress Robyn Malcolm there. We always see some actor or some "luminary". We had dessert at café Cezanne down the other end of Ponsonby Road, and it was pretty good.
Diana installed Office 2010 on her computer because I refused to. I had to use it later in the week and it sucks completely. I really don't get why people want it.
We had Maddie and Kim over for dinner on Saturday (Kim being Rory's mother in law).
I have reconnected with Skyrim world. I hadn't touched it for about 10 days, but Rory's absence for work has made it possible. I have enjoyed it.
This may explain why it feels like I haven't achieved a heck of a lot this week, but I did actually have work and I was reasonably busy with it. I had lunch with Peter (my business partner) on Friday at Bluebird, a bit of tranquillity every visit, I just love the peanut sauce dish they do.
One thing I have achieved is an improved system for dealing with inbound videos, I am sure you are all very pleased to learn of this. It will save time and be safer.
Meanwhile, Mum was off around the north island visiting siblings again. So on Sunday she got a cat. But don't tell anyone, it's an illegal immigrant.
Sarah went off with the family on her birthday, sounds like she had fun. She went on a ferry, but not to Rangitoto….(she's never forgiven me for that, I don't think)
Young Thomas is off in a school holiday program this week, learning to program in iOS for iPads and iPhones etc. Should be very cool. I am a little jealous.
Today is Joe's birthday, well, tomorrow I suppose because it is still the 15th in Texas, assuming I send this soon, which is less than certain.
Times up, I am really going to send it now.
9 January 2012
Mega balloon fatality, and the Rena finally splits, otherwise typical slow news week
LOCAL NEWS
Being this time of the year, we got the usual pap about most popular baby names and other fluff. The papers became thin and more than usually tedious.
In keeping with this tradition, the ACC kept giving us cheerful statistics, like "street bashings cost $2.8m" and "ambidextrous paraplegic lesbians have a high propensity for paper cuts'.
Some 15yo kid was rescued from under a waterfall, sounded like he was very lucky last week. Turned out he wasn't so lucky and he died in hospital. His foot got wedged in rocks.
We had a bit of an air safety fuss when one of those floating "air sharks" was seen by an Air New Zealand flight over Christchurch, then someone saw one in Hamilton. Sightings continued around the country and someone advertised one in the lost pets section on trademe.
The biggest thing this week was when a hot air balloon crashed near Carterton, and 11 people died. Who knew they carried 11 people? It clipped a power line and was more conductive that the cable, I suppose. The biggest air fatality since Erebus, and perfect timing to give the media something to talk about during the quiet season.
The troubles at Auckland ports seem to be continuing to lose it customers, with Fonterra pulling out this week.
There was whales stranded in Nelson, as well as tourists.
There was a nasty accident when a guy was gutted by an anchor in a boat race.
A DOC worker on remote Raoul Island was suspended, they figure he was washed off the rocks where he was likely to have
They reckon buying organic/fairtrade/etc costs 25% more, I am surprised it's only 25% to be honest.
A man got crushed when the 40m tall tree he was trying to murder managed to get him in the process.
That bloody ship Rena finally split in two. Nobody seemed sure what that meant but I am guessing the salvage approach changes now.
A man mowing a large lawn drove his burning tractor into lake Te Anau to put it out. No mention was made of any pollution issues about doing this. The grass is pretty dry, it seems.
A preserved snake was found on a Christchurch street. Funny how such things make the news here. It was very, very dead.
We had a story about a large crayfish, 9.8kg, that was caught by an eight year old. By the time they told anyone about it, it had long since been eaten. It was reminiscent of the end of the Dodo and other extinction events. Experts thought it may have been more than 50 years old. Good thing they killed it, at least it was delicious.
WORLD NEWS
A man was arrested for lighting 55 fires in LA. Perhaps he was a tad cold.
There is a new theory that hurricanes and typhoons may help initiate earthquakes. This is interesting,
There was a little bit of fuss over a body being found on the Queen's estate, or should I say one of them. Kind of funny, really.
Apparently two Australians are arrested overseas every day overseas. They must be racking up a lot of fines, those two.
Stephen Hawking is 70 (that's not a bad run) but he wasn't in good enough shape to attend a party.
Meanwhile, apparently more importantly, Kate Middleton is 30. I think Betty White's birthday next week is far more interesting. Maybe that David Bowie is now 65 is of interest, also.
Some guy lost 90kg very quickly when surgeons removed a tumour. Yep, a 90kg tumour. Perhaps he didn't notice it when it was only 50kg. Was he eating for two?
Been a lot of news about some dodgy French-made breast implants.
I had never heard of the "Pizza Principle", but apparently the price of a slice of pizza and a ride on the subway in New York have been the same for 50 years. Not sure if the size of the pizza slice has changed, sounds a little like the Big Mac Parity thing. Anyway, the subway price has just gone up to $2.50 so pizza is expected to increase also. Bit self-fulfilling now, I suspect.
SPORT
Swansea City upset Villa 2-0, Chelsea squeaked past Wolves 2-1 thanks to Frank Lampard, and Fulham upset Arsenal 2-1 late on last weekend.
Man Utd beat Man City 3-2 in an FA Cup match, which is odd because I could have sworn Man Utd was out of the FA Cup already. Sunderland and Chelsea also won, with the upset being Sheffield Wednesday squeaking past West Ham.
The Aussies thumped India by an innings in the New Year's test.
MY SAD LIFE
We basically farted about achieving very little until Tuesday when we left for Parua Bay, near Whangarei Heads. We were in a little old cottage, constructed of similar materials to the place we had in King Street, same ceilings, same cladding. The facilities were good, although the shower was less than grunty. We were in a small valley with a pond next to us and a sheltered private beach we shared with one other house, the owners of the place we stayed. They were pretty low profile. There were tons of birds, mainly ducks, wood pigeons, tuis, pukekos. The kids saw a kiwi as they came down the drive, which was pretty cool, we've never seen one in the wild.
We brought Eva up in my car, the kids (including Maddy) came up later in the day in the Falcon. Eva was pretty happy when she got down to the beach, but we had to keen an eye on her, I didn't want her attacking birds or anything. The first day we just settled in and fooled around a little at the beach, the kids arrived about 9pm, very animated and excited because of the kiwi.
On Wednesday, didn't do a lot more than that, although the kids went off to explore downtown Whangarei in the afternoon.
On Thursday, Diana and I did a bit of a walk out around Busby Point and Smugglers Bay, saw cows, an old gun emplacement, quite a few birds. Hannah hit Rory in the head with the kayak and he looked like a wounded prize fighter with a small cut over his right eye, Hannah said it was payback for the one he gave her when she was about three with a tennis racket. We had dinner at the Parua Tavern down by the water, it was pretty reasonable pub food.
Friday, Hannah and I went off kayaking and did a 5km loop of the bay area, to the pub and around some rocks populated by seagulls and oystercatchers.
Late Friday afternoon, the kids decided to head home, rather than get up early Saturday morning. The weather turned pretty ugly on Saturday and we decided to head home in the afternoon, rather than stay another night and face possibly more traffic the next day.
Some photos of it are here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.342923262404318.96645.100000599405805&type=1&l=30bd7715d4
On Sunday, we managed to see Gavin, then Jono, Anna, and the brats before they headed home to Sydney. It felt busy.
Hannah has just finished watching Firefly and the Serenity movie. Her path to geekdom continues. Not sure that there is any turning back.
It's Bambi's birthday this Wednesday. Oh crap, that means it is Sarah's birthday on Thursday.
Hannah is off to Matarangi for a couple of days, in Coromandel. Mum is off to New Plymouth today to visit family.
Next week is likely to be the week that Hannah gets her results for NCEA level 2. That could be a tense few days, although you get results online first so the mailman isn't that relevant any more.
Well, that just about sums it up for the first full week of 2012. You are now legally allowed to bash people that say "Happy New Year" to you.
Being this time of the year, we got the usual pap about most popular baby names and other fluff. The papers became thin and more than usually tedious.
In keeping with this tradition, the ACC kept giving us cheerful statistics, like "street bashings cost $2.8m" and "ambidextrous paraplegic lesbians have a high propensity for paper cuts'.
Some 15yo kid was rescued from under a waterfall, sounded like he was very lucky last week. Turned out he wasn't so lucky and he died in hospital. His foot got wedged in rocks.
We had a bit of an air safety fuss when one of those floating "air sharks" was seen by an Air New Zealand flight over Christchurch, then someone saw one in Hamilton. Sightings continued around the country and someone advertised one in the lost pets section on trademe.
The biggest thing this week was when a hot air balloon crashed near Carterton, and 11 people died. Who knew they carried 11 people? It clipped a power line and was more conductive that the cable, I suppose. The biggest air fatality since Erebus, and perfect timing to give the media something to talk about during the quiet season.
The troubles at Auckland ports seem to be continuing to lose it customers, with Fonterra pulling out this week.
There was whales stranded in Nelson, as well as tourists.
There was a nasty accident when a guy was gutted by an anchor in a boat race.
A DOC worker on remote Raoul Island was suspended, they figure he was washed off the rocks where he was likely to have
They reckon buying organic/fairtrade/etc costs 25% more, I am surprised it's only 25% to be honest.
A man got crushed when the 40m tall tree he was trying to murder managed to get him in the process.
That bloody ship Rena finally split in two. Nobody seemed sure what that meant but I am guessing the salvage approach changes now.
A man mowing a large lawn drove his burning tractor into lake Te Anau to put it out. No mention was made of any pollution issues about doing this. The grass is pretty dry, it seems.
A preserved snake was found on a Christchurch street. Funny how such things make the news here. It was very, very dead.
We had a story about a large crayfish, 9.8kg, that was caught by an eight year old. By the time they told anyone about it, it had long since been eaten. It was reminiscent of the end of the Dodo and other extinction events. Experts thought it may have been more than 50 years old. Good thing they killed it, at least it was delicious.
WORLD NEWS
A man was arrested for lighting 55 fires in LA. Perhaps he was a tad cold.
There is a new theory that hurricanes and typhoons may help initiate earthquakes. This is interesting,
There was a little bit of fuss over a body being found on the Queen's estate, or should I say one of them. Kind of funny, really.
Apparently two Australians are arrested overseas every day overseas. They must be racking up a lot of fines, those two.
Stephen Hawking is 70 (that's not a bad run) but he wasn't in good enough shape to attend a party.
Meanwhile, apparently more importantly, Kate Middleton is 30. I think Betty White's birthday next week is far more interesting. Maybe that David Bowie is now 65 is of interest, also.
Some guy lost 90kg very quickly when surgeons removed a tumour. Yep, a 90kg tumour. Perhaps he didn't notice it when it was only 50kg. Was he eating for two?
Been a lot of news about some dodgy French-made breast implants.
I had never heard of the "Pizza Principle", but apparently the price of a slice of pizza and a ride on the subway in New York have been the same for 50 years. Not sure if the size of the pizza slice has changed, sounds a little like the Big Mac Parity thing. Anyway, the subway price has just gone up to $2.50 so pizza is expected to increase also. Bit self-fulfilling now, I suspect.
SPORT
Swansea City upset Villa 2-0, Chelsea squeaked past Wolves 2-1 thanks to Frank Lampard, and Fulham upset Arsenal 2-1 late on last weekend.
Man Utd beat Man City 3-2 in an FA Cup match, which is odd because I could have sworn Man Utd was out of the FA Cup already. Sunderland and Chelsea also won, with the upset being Sheffield Wednesday squeaking past West Ham.
The Aussies thumped India by an innings in the New Year's test.
MY SAD LIFE
We basically farted about achieving very little until Tuesday when we left for Parua Bay, near Whangarei Heads. We were in a little old cottage, constructed of similar materials to the place we had in King Street, same ceilings, same cladding. The facilities were good, although the shower was less than grunty. We were in a small valley with a pond next to us and a sheltered private beach we shared with one other house, the owners of the place we stayed. They were pretty low profile. There were tons of birds, mainly ducks, wood pigeons, tuis, pukekos. The kids saw a kiwi as they came down the drive, which was pretty cool, we've never seen one in the wild.
We brought Eva up in my car, the kids (including Maddy) came up later in the day in the Falcon. Eva was pretty happy when she got down to the beach, but we had to keen an eye on her, I didn't want her attacking birds or anything. The first day we just settled in and fooled around a little at the beach, the kids arrived about 9pm, very animated and excited because of the kiwi.
On Wednesday, didn't do a lot more than that, although the kids went off to explore downtown Whangarei in the afternoon.
On Thursday, Diana and I did a bit of a walk out around Busby Point and Smugglers Bay, saw cows, an old gun emplacement, quite a few birds. Hannah hit Rory in the head with the kayak and he looked like a wounded prize fighter with a small cut over his right eye, Hannah said it was payback for the one he gave her when she was about three with a tennis racket. We had dinner at the Parua Tavern down by the water, it was pretty reasonable pub food.
Friday, Hannah and I went off kayaking and did a 5km loop of the bay area, to the pub and around some rocks populated by seagulls and oystercatchers.
Late Friday afternoon, the kids decided to head home, rather than get up early Saturday morning. The weather turned pretty ugly on Saturday and we decided to head home in the afternoon, rather than stay another night and face possibly more traffic the next day.
Some photos of it are here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.342923262404318.96645.100000599405805&type=1&l=30bd7715d4
On Sunday, we managed to see Gavin, then Jono, Anna, and the brats before they headed home to Sydney. It felt busy.
Hannah has just finished watching Firefly and the Serenity movie. Her path to geekdom continues. Not sure that there is any turning back.
It's Bambi's birthday this Wednesday. Oh crap, that means it is Sarah's birthday on Thursday.
Hannah is off to Matarangi for a couple of days, in Coromandel. Mum is off to New Plymouth today to visit family.
Next week is likely to be the week that Hannah gets her results for NCEA level 2. That could be a tense few days, although you get results online first so the mailman isn't that relevant any more.
Well, that just about sums it up for the first full week of 2012. You are now legally allowed to bash people that say "Happy New Year" to you.
2 January 2012
A new year but the same old tired jokes, attitude, and news
LOCAL NEWS
A New Zealand man died in Thailand while visiting to commemorate the death of a friend four years ago. I can see a nasty cycle starting there. Then it turned out he wasn't a New Zealander but Brazilian and had lived here for some time. Same thing.
Then an New Zealand woman in US was murdered by her boyfriend. And another was shot dead in Vanuatu.
A man died when his ride on mower became a ride under mower.
Meanwhile the carnage with the road toll just went up and up. Despite this, we had the lowest total in 50 years for the year.
Rain, yet more of it, was forecast for Nelson, hitting Thursday, how did we get there when it wasn't raining? It used to be it always rained where we went on holiday.
The attack on a 5yo girl by a 16yo male in Turangi got masses of coverage. Sounds pretty nasty, at least they caught the bugger but nobody in court is identified to protect the victim, etc.
I really take offence at yearly statistics that come out before the end of the year, they inherently lack credibility even more than regular statistics. There was a record number of prescriptions, but a record low number of suicides during the RWC (WTF?).
The rain came down pretty hard over new year, and caused mayhem with celebrations and music festivals. Slips blocked the exit for 29,000 at one event.
That container ship was still leaking oil and breaking up more, can't believe how long that has taken, must be nearly two months and every time the weather gets a bit crappy we hear about it.
TelstraClear got some bad coverage after a customer reckoned their credit card got used fraudulently after giving their details to a call centre person in the Philippines. You would think that is a bit of a nightmare scenario for companies using call centres like that.
With all the fools dying on the roads, you can't help but wonder how come the percentage of retards out there seems to be increasing. We had photos this morning of a couple that thought that flooding was holographic and wouldn't affect them.
WORLD NEWS
Sinead O'Connor's fourth marriage lasted 16 days, is that longer or shorter than that Kardashyan nutjob?
Meanwhile, Russell Brand and Katy Perry lasted less than two years. TBH, the kind of people they seem to be, it is a little amazing they lasted that long.
Some of the best news out there at this time of year is the pisstake stuff. Like the American Gay war hero being awarded a posthumous dishonourable discharge, and MIT Mad Scientists telling us that corpse reanimation technology is still ten years off.
Keeping with that theme, Helena Bonham-Carter was awarded the CBE for her contribution to women getting cast in their partner's films. There were many other New Year's honours here and in the UK, all utterly meaningless.
Louis CK's little experiment continued to confound pundits and the take hit $1m in 12 days.
The meme proposal by "Tim" to "Audrey" got the attention of the internet, it wasn't bad, and she said yes which helps.
A survey off the coast of Scotland found a few things that were interesting including giant mussels with shells over 18 inches wide and a star fish with 10 feathery arms. Best find was an "Amphixious" (which does sound like the name of a medical condition, rather than a creature), a faceless, brainless fish with a very basic spine, certainly an interesting species. No sign of Nessie, though.
Some winner in the US tried to buy $500 worth of stuff with a $1 million note, which he insisted was real. I didn’t know the largest note in the US was $100.
Two Australians made it to the South Pole and ran around the world a couple of times to celebrate. Turns out there is a pole there now, who knew.
SPORT
Man Utd lost 2-3 to Blackburn, Blackburn! At home. Good grief. Arsenal beat QPR 1-0. Chelsea lost to Villa 1-3, silver lining there. Liverpool scored four goals to beat Newcastle 3-1.
Australia beat India in the Boxing Day test, what is going on with their wickets in Australia? The tests don't seem to last very long, very low scoring.
MY SAD LIFE
It really hasn't been a very productive week, I suppose we are on holiday, but even so were haven't achieved very much.
I may have mentioned reddit.com now and again, Rory spends a lot of time on it looking at meaningless crap. Anyway, he started a subreddit this week for a game called League of Legends, aka LOL. He got about 500 subscribers within a day and recruited others to help moderate it from Spain and the US. He was pretty pleased with himself.
We went to Devonport on Tuesday with Joe and Rose, and then popped in on the Goodins on the way home.
On Friday, Joe went home. We had dinner at his parents house with the family on Wednesday night. Rose made gumbo, a little spicy but not at all bad.
On New Year's Eve, we all went to see Tin Tin with the Goodins, we had dinner first then occupied much of gold class in Albany. We were among the last to leave the theatre, I think 7pm was about the last showing so people to go off to parties. Some restaurants were closed but others were reasonably busy. Hannah and Rory went off to things afterwards, and the old people just went home. The movie itself was very good, worth seeing.
Diana and I spent a fair amount of downtime watching "The Wire", which has proved to be a good show.
Rory isn't happy with me using his computer to play Skyrim, so he installed a batman game on mine, which I didn't want. So I haven't played it.
On New Year's Day, the Christmas tree got "retired", which was a little bit sad in a way. I am really not sure why, perhaps it was the way I unceremoniously dismembered it to fit it into the garden bin. I did do some other judicious pruning, also. And the lawn needs mowing again, I only did it on Christmas Eve Eve.
I had to fart about on the phone for ages with Vodafone to get things set up so I could check my balance on my mobile wifi thing. I had 1984Mb left out of 2048Mb, which means I used bugger all. I used it to post a photo on facebook from the theatre while we watched Tin Tin.
Apparently I don't tell anybody anything, so I am telling you all that we are going to somewhere near Whangarei Heads for five days, we leave tomorrow and return on Sunday. The dog is going with us and the kids are coming up after and leaving before we do.
I haven't come up with any resolutions for the New Year, I did consider inventing a new obscene word each day but that just seemed like too much bother.
Happy New Year, etc.
A New Zealand man died in Thailand while visiting to commemorate the death of a friend four years ago. I can see a nasty cycle starting there. Then it turned out he wasn't a New Zealander but Brazilian and had lived here for some time. Same thing.
Then an New Zealand woman in US was murdered by her boyfriend. And another was shot dead in Vanuatu.
A man died when his ride on mower became a ride under mower.
Meanwhile the carnage with the road toll just went up and up. Despite this, we had the lowest total in 50 years for the year.
Rain, yet more of it, was forecast for Nelson, hitting Thursday, how did we get there when it wasn't raining? It used to be it always rained where we went on holiday.
The attack on a 5yo girl by a 16yo male in Turangi got masses of coverage. Sounds pretty nasty, at least they caught the bugger but nobody in court is identified to protect the victim, etc.
I really take offence at yearly statistics that come out before the end of the year, they inherently lack credibility even more than regular statistics. There was a record number of prescriptions, but a record low number of suicides during the RWC (WTF?).
The rain came down pretty hard over new year, and caused mayhem with celebrations and music festivals. Slips blocked the exit for 29,000 at one event.
That container ship was still leaking oil and breaking up more, can't believe how long that has taken, must be nearly two months and every time the weather gets a bit crappy we hear about it.
TelstraClear got some bad coverage after a customer reckoned their credit card got used fraudulently after giving their details to a call centre person in the Philippines. You would think that is a bit of a nightmare scenario for companies using call centres like that.
With all the fools dying on the roads, you can't help but wonder how come the percentage of retards out there seems to be increasing. We had photos this morning of a couple that thought that flooding was holographic and wouldn't affect them.
WORLD NEWS
Sinead O'Connor's fourth marriage lasted 16 days, is that longer or shorter than that Kardashyan nutjob?
Meanwhile, Russell Brand and Katy Perry lasted less than two years. TBH, the kind of people they seem to be, it is a little amazing they lasted that long.
Some of the best news out there at this time of year is the pisstake stuff. Like the American Gay war hero being awarded a posthumous dishonourable discharge, and MIT Mad Scientists telling us that corpse reanimation technology is still ten years off.
Keeping with that theme, Helena Bonham-Carter was awarded the CBE for her contribution to women getting cast in their partner's films. There were many other New Year's honours here and in the UK, all utterly meaningless.
Louis CK's little experiment continued to confound pundits and the take hit $1m in 12 days.
The meme proposal by "Tim" to "Audrey" got the attention of the internet, it wasn't bad, and she said yes which helps.
A survey off the coast of Scotland found a few things that were interesting including giant mussels with shells over 18 inches wide and a star fish with 10 feathery arms. Best find was an "Amphixious" (which does sound like the name of a medical condition, rather than a creature), a faceless, brainless fish with a very basic spine, certainly an interesting species. No sign of Nessie, though.
Some winner in the US tried to buy $500 worth of stuff with a $1 million note, which he insisted was real. I didn’t know the largest note in the US was $100.
Two Australians made it to the South Pole and ran around the world a couple of times to celebrate. Turns out there is a pole there now, who knew.
SPORT
Man Utd lost 2-3 to Blackburn, Blackburn! At home. Good grief. Arsenal beat QPR 1-0. Chelsea lost to Villa 1-3, silver lining there. Liverpool scored four goals to beat Newcastle 3-1.
Australia beat India in the Boxing Day test, what is going on with their wickets in Australia? The tests don't seem to last very long, very low scoring.
MY SAD LIFE
It really hasn't been a very productive week, I suppose we are on holiday, but even so were haven't achieved very much.
I may have mentioned reddit.com now and again, Rory spends a lot of time on it looking at meaningless crap. Anyway, he started a subreddit this week for a game called League of Legends, aka LOL. He got about 500 subscribers within a day and recruited others to help moderate it from Spain and the US. He was pretty pleased with himself.
We went to Devonport on Tuesday with Joe and Rose, and then popped in on the Goodins on the way home.
On Friday, Joe went home. We had dinner at his parents house with the family on Wednesday night. Rose made gumbo, a little spicy but not at all bad.
On New Year's Eve, we all went to see Tin Tin with the Goodins, we had dinner first then occupied much of gold class in Albany. We were among the last to leave the theatre, I think 7pm was about the last showing so people to go off to parties. Some restaurants were closed but others were reasonably busy. Hannah and Rory went off to things afterwards, and the old people just went home. The movie itself was very good, worth seeing.
Diana and I spent a fair amount of downtime watching "The Wire", which has proved to be a good show.
Rory isn't happy with me using his computer to play Skyrim, so he installed a batman game on mine, which I didn't want. So I haven't played it.
On New Year's Day, the Christmas tree got "retired", which was a little bit sad in a way. I am really not sure why, perhaps it was the way I unceremoniously dismembered it to fit it into the garden bin. I did do some other judicious pruning, also. And the lawn needs mowing again, I only did it on Christmas Eve Eve.
I had to fart about on the phone for ages with Vodafone to get things set up so I could check my balance on my mobile wifi thing. I had 1984Mb left out of 2048Mb, which means I used bugger all. I used it to post a photo on facebook from the theatre while we watched Tin Tin.
Apparently I don't tell anybody anything, so I am telling you all that we are going to somewhere near Whangarei Heads for five days, we leave tomorrow and return on Sunday. The dog is going with us and the kids are coming up after and leaving before we do.
I haven't come up with any resolutions for the New Year, I did consider inventing a new obscene word each day but that just seemed like too much bother.
Happy New Year, etc.
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