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.

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