27 February 2012

Late and largely boring, I would complain if I was you

LOCAL NEWS

We had a third traumatic toilet event, this time in Picton with a Canadian tourist.

On Wednesday there was no news other than the earthquake anniversary. And it just kept going.

An escaped prisoner was found hiding in the ceiling of a house. Perhaps there was no air conditioning ducting handy, that always works in the movies.

Lucy Lawless was true to her name, when she broke the law. Her daughter works at JB with Rory, but I think her surname is different. She looks a bit like her mother. Lawless was arrested today.

The woman who fought being fined for "parking" when she was giving way to a spy car, still has to pay the fine. Not fine, not at all.

Beer consumption is up, however I challenge that statistic based on the fact that purchase <> consumption. I have beer I bought last year. I am sure many people do.

The message this week from ACC was "never approach a goat from the front, a horse from behind or a shark from any side". I presume that next year we will get statistics on how effective that message was.

Jonah Lomu is back in hospital, I am guessing he needed to sell another exclusive story. Hope he gets enough money. Not.

The fact that fruit juice and honey are considered unhealthy seemed to surprise a lot of people. Just remember, if you are of average intelligence that half the population are not as clever as you. This would be where journalists come from. And Editors are from below them. And Publishers are below them. Then there is Rupert Murdoch.

WORLD NEWS

The leadership struggle in Australia got plenty of attention. Feels a bit like Witchy-poo versus Puf-n-stuf, not sure either of them are much use. Anyway, Julia kept the job, I reckon she's scarier than Auntie Helen. She's like Thatcher and Helen's bastard love child or something.

There are plans to sequester a million tonnes of CO2 under Illinois in sandstone. It got me wondering. What if one day we discover that all the oil we drill up came from sequestered CO2 that the intelligent dinosaurs pumped down there because they had a greenhouse problem, and they did too much and caused an ice age? Regardless, it doesn't seem like much of an answer to me.

Good grief, the Aussies are still going on about Azaria Chamberlain, the baby supposedly taken by a dingo waay back in 1980. I am guessing there is a good chance the dingo is long since dead.

I saw a thing about making factory farmed chickens brain dead for high density production. Interesting matrix-like connotations there. Hard to say whether it's better or worse. Kind of eliminates the whole suffering argument though.

The Sun doing a Sunday edition (basically News of the World in drag) made headlines. I really don't know why.

Things in Syria are still pretty rough.

There was quite a lot of coverage of the idea that humans should sleep 4 hours, wake up for one or two hours, then sleep another 4. I am not sure I want to try it.

The Oscars are happening today, I really don't care. Neither should you.

REAL SPORT

My junior water polo boys had their first game, B team versus A team, they lost 1-12. They actually did okay.

SPORT

The Super X started again (is it 15? I forget). The Crusaders just beat the Blues, the Highlanders just beat the Chiefs, Hurricanes lost to some South African team.

Arsenal beat Spurs 5-2, Man Utd staggered past Norwich 2-1, Chelsea won 3-0 over Bolton, WBA beat Sunderland 4-0, Man City beat Blackburn 3-0.

I think the Black Caps lost an ODI to SA.

MY SAD LIFE

After Diana's struggles with insurance, she wrote a letter. Believe it or not, it actually resulted in a response from a real person. It resulted in us getting a $100 bribe. Not sure what we will do with it. Probably nothing.

As we got close to the end of our internet billing cycle, we were averaging about 10gb per day. We did over 30Gb one day. Some people use 30Gb a month - noobs.

I saw Allan on day 3 after his upgrade, he was using crutches. I was thoroughly disappointed that he had no wifi or device to use wifi. I would have had the surgeons put one inside my leg, I think. They go in through the front, which seemed odd, but apparently it minimises disruption of tendons, veins, arteries, and stuff.

Koos came over on Thursday night, we assembled the electronics, cut a wire, soldered a wire, connected to the PC and actually got it talking. Can't actually print anything yet, have a software issue, but I will work on it.

Diana and I spent some money in the hope of organising various things better, and it did seem to help. I have learned that it's easier to organise crap if you get rid of a lot of it.

Hannah's life seems to be back to utterly full-on out of control-ness. Not sure how we feel about facing a year of that, because it's pretty hard for everyone in the fallout zone, which is quite a bit zone. Meanwhile, Rory seems to live in a world which goes by the following rule "I can't help because I am too busy at Uni, or I can't help because I am on holiday." The shortened version is "I can't help because I want to play LOL and browse Reddit". His back is still sore.

I offended Hannah by giving her key to the Falcon to the insurance company, who had actually bought the car. I didn't know it had meaning. I also got the number plates from the Falcon back this week. Now they are Falcon useless. I may put them on trademe, perhaps.

I better press send, I keep getting distracted.

13 February 2012

You know, I really wish I could send an email without a subject at all, sometimes.

As we approach Valentine's Day tomorrow, it occurs to me that it is really only relevant to a very few people. Arguably those who are in the throes of new love. Anyone else that thinks they should acknowledge it is just sad, if you ask me.

LOCAL NEWS

A 3yo fell down a manhole in Marlborough Sounds. It was at Furneaux Lodge, near where the dreaded Ben and Olivia went missing.

The Halberg awards were announced on Thursday night, the All Blacks dominated. It's such a futile waste of time, like all awards things.

Been lots of post-mortems going on. The Pike River coal mine and Canterbury quake dodgy buildings are the two main ones. It's all very ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and they should spend the money on prevention rather than persecuting the scapegoats.

A 5yo boy died when him and others were bouncing around on a pile of logs. I wonder if they had red bands on the logs? Yet again, there would be a witch hunt to assign blame. See paragraph above.

Some fool got arrested for selling things he stole from neighbours at a garage sale in Paeroa. He shouldn't have invited his neighbours, really.

They reckon teenagers are faking depression to score happy pills. I know, why don't we tell them all about the idea so they can all get some?

There was a bizarre case where a company was charged in a sexual harassment thing when I would have thought the actual guy doing the harassing was not doing it under the instruction of the company. Diana reckons that OSH rules can hold the person liable when it is far more likely that company policy and budgetary constraints are more likely to be the cause. Seems kind of arse about face.

The council wants to put a rail route around Auckland City, and they want to do all sorts of crazy things to make us pay for it.

It was Big Gay Out in Point Chevalier on Sunday, so we had lots of gay music, including a Whitney song.

The Urewera four were in court today, they were originally arrested in 2007. Justice seems to tick particularly slowly. Isn't timeliness kind of a requirement for such a thing?

WORLD NEWS

The ice drilling in Antarctica broke through to the 20 million year old lake, some of us are now waiting with baited breath to see what they find. If they find a copy of the times from Pearl Harbour Day, I stand to make quite a lot of money.

A new "Super Earth" has been discovered, it is only 22 light years away which is only just down the road - galactically speaking. It is much bigger than earth and goes around it's smaller star in 28 days. Imagine the conversations there - "Particularly unseasonal whether for this time of day. Oh wait, there we go."

Another well known torrent site that I have never heard of, Btjunkie, closed its virtual doors this week.

Some grey haired old lady reckoned she had an 18-month affair with JFK. Good grief. It's like a rule that to be POTUS you can't keep it in your pants. Perhaps this is why there has never been a female one.

A man was run over by a 787. That must have been kind of annoying. I bet he wasn't on a pedestrian crossing, but how could it has sneaked up on him? Do stealth bombers run over people all the time?

Apparently New Zealanders went on a pub crawl in London to celebrate Waitangi Day. They are just about the only ones that do.

QE II is celebrating 60 years on the throne (that just sounds wrong). There is a web site showing the great unwashed how much has changed in the world in that time. I hope she isn't claiming credit for all of it.

A 10 year old girl supposedly invented an unknown chemical. This seems bizarre in that her chemistry teacher thought it was unusual and worthy of examination but if it was so obviously new, how would it not have been explored before? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

The last "World War I" veteran died this week. A 110 year old woman that served food in the officer's mess in England for about three months of the war. Seriously, I know she contributed and all that, but even a male mechanic or cook who did three months without going to France or somewhere that actually had fighting is not really a veteran. I can't imagine a bunch of old diggers talking about the war with someone who never left blighty.

The Greeks are upset that they have to pay for their lifestyle.

Whitney. Seriously? Why does anyone care?

SPORT

The Black Caps won the second Zimbabwe ODI. I was very confused because I saw video of the Zimbabwean team celebrating, but it must have been because someone faced a ball and didn't go out. They won the third one, too.

SBW had a boxing bout this week, I ignore all the usual promotional crap. The fight lasted less than three minutes. I hope everyone got their money's worth. This shouldn't really be in the sport section, but I don't have one for "entertainment" or "reality TV".

Wayne Rooney beat Liverpool 2-1, Blackburn beat QPR 3-2, Everton beat Chelsea 2-0, Spurs handed Newcastle a good old fashioned towelling 5-0. Man City beat Villa 1-0.

The Sevens team lost to Samoa, I think, in the final in Las Vegas.

I think the Black Caps are about to play South Africa, they don't have a chance.

MY SAD LIFE

I did very little on the 3d-printer this week, approaching zero.

The insurance companies continued to torment us this week. On Wednesday we got a reminder from the car yard about the Falcon, had to ring the insurance people. They went "oh yes, it's been written off. You want to get any belongings out? You have until tomorrow." Great stuff. Rory and I went and visited it and got a few bits and pieces that had been left behind.

Thursdays. Like Arthur Dent, I never really could get the hang on Thursdays. However, on this particular Thursday, I seemed to finally get it right. It started badly, don't remember why, but something went wrong, I just can't remember what. However, after that, everything seemed to go remarkably well. It was lots of things. A couple of work things produced spectacularly good results, one was noteworthy on many levels. I also discovered something really cool wasn't outrageously expensive and that was good. Also, Rory had a fun interaction with a fellow LOL geek, so he was happy. We got the valuation from the insurance company for the Falcon, and to be honest is was probably higher than anyone would have predicted. A couple of other work things went well, a package arrived from overseas that held some very cool things I really needed, and I had lunch at the Bluebird Café. All in all, it was pretty hard to complain about Thursday.

Friday was a bit of a let down in comparison, but it was still not a bad day.

I spent a chunk of Saturday in my first day of mentor training. Oddly, the gender balance was the opposite of what I expected, with 8 women and 2 men attending. It was okay, no real surprises, not sure I got many of the answers to my questions, but I understand the process a bit better. I have another day this Saturday then a few more hoops then finally a speed dating session and we get matched up in May.

The twins turned four on Sunday and had slightly rain affected party. I spent a lot of time blowing balloons and they just kept popping, it was ultimately unrewarding.

Gavin had a big day in court today, another round in his ongoing battle with the dodgy vendor of his house. It doesn't appear any closer to resolution, but by definition I suppose it must be. It is his birthday on a doubtful day this week. I think it is actually tomorrow but he pretends it is the 16th.

This coming Tuesday is the first episode of the new season of Go Girls. There is a very good chance Hannah is in it, and maybe me too. We will record it, or try to. Hannah doesn't seem to want anyone to know.

I am quite convinced that there is something really important I was meant to mention, but I haven't a clue what it was. This is a worry.

6 February 2012

Life in a 3d world, well almost

LOCAL NEWS

Some guy was sent a reminder to pay a fine from 1962, and was dismayed that four pounds ten had grown to $40. He had already paid it. The increase seems pretty okay to me, I had a fine for $40 turn in to $120 in about 10 years.

A man died after being stung by a swarm of wasps, and despite that has been referred to police, not really sure why/

Some guy charged for opening his car door and causing the death of a cyclist had the charge dismissed, and it appears that it is more than deservedly so.

There continues to be lots of whinging about haves vs have nots and the cost of housing. I can't see what good can come of such lazy reporting of a non-issue that has been around forever.

The Sevens seemed to be the usual people in crazy outfits, although the first one hospitalised with alcohol excess happened two hours after the start of the tournament, which seems pretty quick.

The scrap over the sale of the Crafar farms, a big chunk of land, to Chinese investors, went to court again this week. Selling our farms to overseas investors does not seem like a good idea. Then James Cameron bought a few thousand acres for a little ranch in the Wairarapa somewhere. Maybe it was the whole of the Wairarapa.

Today is Waitangi Day, but nobody really cares. There was some kind of a fuss yesterday, but I wasn't really interested enough to get the details.

WORLD NEWS

An Afghani woman was supposedly killed by her husband for bearing another girl. Don't you just love how religion and culture can create a society where people think it is okay to kill someone else under a completely ridiculous pretext (given that the gender of a child is determined by the sperm, he should have strangled himself).

Some parents are suing IVF providers for not telling them about the risk that their offspring might have something the father had. Seriously? They go to the trouble of seeking IVF, you would think they would know about basic genetics.

It was George Romero's birthday this week, crazy zombie film director. Wonder if he is related to Caesar Romero?

Apparently a US laboratory is researching a bird flu strain that could kill half the world. Part of me wonders if that really would be a bad thing. It would solve a heck of a lot of problems, wouldn't it? Just as long as vaccines weren't given out to politicians and car salesmen.

The primaries continue in the US with Mitt and the other guy. I don't see why we should care, isn't Obama just going to win, anyway? And the money they blow is unbelievable.

I think the superbowl was today, people seem to care more about the half time entertainment and the ads than the game.

SPORT

The Wellington Sevens were on, New Zealand beat Fiji comfortably in the final 24-7 but squeaked through so earlier rounds.

It was a battle incompetente when New Zealand played Zimbabwe in the first ODI. New Zealand didn't make it to 50 overs and Zimbabwe sucked even more.

Arsenal gave Blackburn a 7-1 thwack across the back of the legs and sent them home, Norwich beat Bolton 2-0, QPR lost to Wolves 1-2, Sunderland beat a ten man Stoke 1-0. Man City beat Fulham 2-0. Man Utd managed to stagger to a dodgy 3-3 draw with Chelsea this morning, they scored four goals and two were penalties, at least the OG wasn't a penalty. Newcastle beat Villa 2-1, Villa must be real crap.

MY SAD LIFE

Hannah returned on Tuesday and was basically a zombie. Rory left on Tuesday and returned on Thursday. Haven't really seen a lot more of him though. He has a plan to make a large model of a racer thing for the release of the PS Vita at his work, so we went and bought some bits on Friday afternoon. This resulted in me getting a new battery powered drill, because my old one is ten years old at least and doesn't charge any more, which technically means it isn't battery powered any more.

The Falcon was discovered on Thursday, in Mt Roskill, I got a call from Police. We still haven't seen it yet. But the ignition and door key are knackered. Not sure if anything else has been harmed. Probably a couple more days before we find out.

Those of you on facebook would know about Diana's fun times with insurance companies. It's been a trial. I rang them on Friday to give them info about where the Falcon was, and they said they didn't need it. Then they rang us to ask for it. I just wish Diana had had the foresight to put them on hold.

Thursday night Diana and I went to the engagement of Paul Chambers and Jess, not before time most would argue. They are about to go overseas for a couple of years so the wedding could be a while off yet.

Meanwhile, Paul Grant has been posting photos of whales and nice Hawaiian beaches on Facebook, the scumbag.

On Friday I went to a funeral with Mum, of Les Watson, a guy that lived in the street we lived in for all of the 70s and little bit either side. There were a few old familiar faces, very old. One thing I learned was this - get someone to check the speeches. One guy went on for over half an hour and he was bloody terrible.

Sunday night most of us had dinner with the Goodins at Lone Star. Rory and Thomas managed to drag themselves away from online world for a while. Hannah was at the Lantern Festival, which she said was boring.

The 3d-printer arrived on Friday, and some construction has happened but I have had plenty of challenges. Having a go today, Koos is coming to help. Not sure how far we will get, I broke a piece the other day.

Rory is working again today, four days in a row. His back is still troubling him a little. He may actually have to see a professional. Hannah worked yesterday and is again today.

I broke Rory's headphones yesterday when I picked them up, so he thinks I should buy new ones. Not entirely sure that is fair given the heavy use he has subjected them to. The fact that the same model seems to be

I saw Piri Weepu while I was walking the dog this morning, said good morning to him before I realised who he was.

I have been working on the 3d printer today with Koos and Ash, three brains are better than one. Well, two and a half. That's why this is late, they just left.