I really need to stop being disappointed with what some people consider to be "news"

Arguably, my own view isn't always particularly discerning, as many of you could readily attest.

LOCAL NEWS

There has been lots of news about a teacher that was a convicted sex offender. There's no detail about the offence, it was a while ago, but I am not sure where I stand on it. He's teacher 15yo girls, and to be honest, they can stick up for themselves from what I have seen. I suppose that they can't really tell the kids about him, but in some ways I wonder if that might be a good idea.

We had a few fatal car crashes, a quad bike death (tragic loss of a fun loving son, you know the drill). Just your usual sort of thing.

Some motorcyclist died while competing in a timed hill climb event. There was no mention of whether he was beating the winning time.

Some young girls were hit by a train and hurt when they leapt to avoid the said train. I can't help but wonder why people aren't calling for better supervision of children, etc. They don't seem to be blaming the train, which surprises the hell out of me.

The wharf strike at Auckland has continued, with the workers who labour 26 hours a week for a mere $91,000 now being made redundant (and getting up to a year payout). This, not being good enough, was motivation for them to block rush hour traffic this morning, not sure who feels more supportive of them as a result, I would love to meet them and learn their views on euthanasia for the criminally deranged.

Former All Black and current (temporarily) administrator Jock Hobbs is in hospital for what sounds like it is the last time. Funny, nobody seems to have bought his story for the women's magazines.

There's been a bit of noise about an New Zealand woman who's husband has taken their children to Algeria and she can't get them back. It all sounds exceedingly dodgy (he took the whole family back there on the pretext his father was ill, he wasn't, he took all their passports, and held them captive, the woman escaped but left her kids behind, which seems odd).

There's been a bit of noise about New Zealand cricketers involved with match fixing. I don't really get it, because a) you would think that most punters would know better by now, b) you would think that most bookies would know better by now, c) what happens if a punter fixes something and a bookie fixes something that goes contrary to the other "fixing". There are, after all, two teams in most matches. And finally, d) New Zealand are crap and anyone betting on them to win anything must know something, or have way too much money, in which case why don't they just donate it to someone?

They reckon reported HIV cases in New Zealand are dropping. I didn't notice any ACC statistics this week, which is disappointing. I suppose, given that you don't contract HIV deliberately (well, not very often) then perhaps this could be considered accidental. Oh, and after I wrote this I saw an article about a woman that won compo from ACC for the stress of her lover was HIV positive. Couldn't have asked first? Couldn't have used the usual precautions? Nope. ACC is there.

WORLD NEWS

I know I shouldn't laugh at the misfortune of others, but sometimes it is particularly hard not to. The case of a Sri Lankan man, for example, who was setting a record for being buried alive. The problem was, when they dug him out he wasn't alive any more. So now they don't know how long he was buried alive before he was buried the regular way. Technically, he was alive but unconscious, so he was still alive, but they could have saved a lot of bother if they just left him buried.

Joseph Kony 2012. I shouldn't say anything, but this guy came out of nowhere, a nasty Ugandan man who gets kids to kill their parents and then join his army. He put the infant back in to infantry, and created sooo many memes and jokes in such a short time. The man is a legend. And yet, according to some he was kicked out of Uganda years ago, so the whole thing is a total joke.

I did put this on Facebook, but this is an utterly insane corkscrew, and very very cool: http://youtu.be/31cl8Obftdg

Things in Afghanistan don't seem to be going too well for the Americans, I suppose killing 16 villagers is considered rude. Given the view on destroying the Koran, I love the idea of cladding Humvees and soldiers in them.

The Republican primaries drag on. I saw a bumper sticker that said "America - don't re-nig 2012". Very nice.

Apparently Iraq has a new sport, killing Emos.

The USS Enterprise is on it's last mission. It is a 50 year old aircraft carrier. I think it is being scrapped, which is a terrible shame. I would love to see it.

The solar storm was a non-event of non-biblical proportions. The guys on the ISS didn't even get super powers.

REAL SPORT

Hannah's volleyball team beat Kristin on Wednesday. My junior boys lost 5-15 to Mags B but they had a few A players in the team.

SPORT

Lionel Messi scored five goals in a Champs League game this week, the dude is awesome. I watched the video here a couple of weeks ago - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9S7hlL4sJek

The Black Caps lost the first test to SA. Not sure why I mention this because it isn't really news or noteworthy. They are nowhere near the class of the South Africans, and to think otherwise is simply delusional.

Man Utd beat West Brom 2-0 thanks to that Rooney person. Swansea City missed a penalty but somehow scored at the other end of the game to beat Man City 1-0. Chelsea squeaked past Stoke 1-0 in the 93rd minute 1-0. Sunderland got a valuable 1-0 at the expense of Liverpool. Spurs lost 0-1 to Everton. Man Utd have squeaked past City to lead the table now with daylight coming third, Spurs are well behind then Arsenal and Chelsea 4th equal.

I didn't hear anything about the Super 15, although I heard Kevin Mealamu got a bottle in the back of the head during the game against the Bulls.

Local sportswoman Valerie Adams now holds every major title in the shot put.

MY SAD LIFE

I spent the week dealing with the ever more complex obstacle course at Western Springs Lake as they built more stages, toilets and stalls for Pasifika on Saturday. It takes them about 2 weeks to set it up, which seems bizarre. It is on for one day only, doesn't seem worth the bother.

Hannah has thrown herself completely into the shave for a cure thing, and is grinding away at her target. She is planning to sell the right to shave her head on trademe now, which may draw some attention. She wore sandwich boards on Queen St on Saturday and three of them raised a further $400.

Diana and Hannah finished their pattern making course at night school, it was only four weeks.

Charles donated (although I suspect it might have been Steph) to Shave for a Cure, Hilary Barry (a TV3 newsreader) donated half as much as Charles. She is about two weeks away from doing the deed. If you want to, the link is here http://www.shaveforacure.co.nz/view_event_profile/5792.

Speaking of Charles, I see it is Steph's birthday on Friday, hope you have the gift sorted dude.

Meanwhile, on top of this, she has found someone for her food tech project, a lady called Philippa who is opening a bakery in Grey Lynn, she has met with her a couple of times and Philippa seems to be streaming considerable amounts of data into Hannah by email and verbally. It's good experience for Hannah, so fingers crossed.

On Friday night, water polo was at EGGS, so Diana came with me and we went to One Tree Hill and walked up it from Sorrento, only took half an hour. There were tons of sheep wandering around and getting in the way, and plenty of sheep poo also.

Saturday, because of Pasifika, getting anywhere was logistically challenging. We dropped Hannah off at a meeting with Phillipa, went to Lake Pupuke for coffee and watched some newbie divers and a woman feeding her toddler to the ducks. Then we came home and attacked the garden a fair bit.

I still haven't fired up the 3d printer but I did do some fiddling and I think I am going to have a crack anyway. There is a little slope on the base plate but it is about 1mm the entire range of it so it isn't a lot and I am not certain how I can readily fix it.

Diana and I watched an interesting documentary called The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. I don't really approve of reality show nonsense, but this was oddly compelling, I think we understand hillbillies a little better now. Not sure if that is of any use at all, but there you go.

On Sunday it was a bit wet, so we went to the movies. Diana saw some Marilyn Monroe thing and me, Rory, Koos, and Gavin saw John Carter and it was pretty good, I think. Certainly didn't deserve all the buzz about there not being any buzz.

Rory just posted on facebook that he got round of applause from a group of old ladies (probably over 30s) on a bus. Diana wants to know why. I just hope he remembered to wear pants.

Diana is having the book coven here tomorrow. Trying to think of somewhere to go.

And with that thought, I shall leave you all in relative peace, until next Monday NZDST…