New Years Eve

IT IS NEW YEARS EVE

2008 IS ON ITS WAY

What a sensational year. The highlight was of course Kipp. But we also had a terrific tour of South Africa.

The very first to greet the New Year will be the people of Kahuitara Point on Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands. Kiwis will be the first people to greet 2008 as we are just to the left of the International Date Line. Most New Zealanders think we only have one time zone as the vast majority of us live in the North and South Islands which have the same time zone. We tend to forget about the Chathams, who are 30 minutes ahead and Pitt Island, which is another 15 minutes ahead again. The weather is a little overcast locally so the Police etc will be happy as bad weather tends to dampen the stupidity.

We will have our usual low celebration - that is nothing - although we are having the kids around for tea. The last time we really celebrated a New Year was the millennium changeover.

Eve reminds me of a pathetic Xmas joke - What did Adam say on the day before Xmas. "Its Christmas, Eve" Groan!!!!

The next blog will be another day, another year !

So we will end with some photos of the highlight of the year.

From first day until December 2007

However apart from the picture a couple of hours after Kipp's birth this is a champion

Umbrellas, words and dogs

A couple of days ago we noticed our outside umbrella was missing. It was a large green one with a metal stand that slotted into the outside table. Although it has been windy I couldn't believe it could have blown away. However, Christine thought that was the solution so we had a look over the fence but couldn't see anything. I thought it had been stolen.
She decided to email the neighbourhood through the Neighbourhood Support listing and got a reply from three houses away. I couldn't believe that such a large umbrella with a heavy metal stand could have been uplifted like that and taken such a distance.

She has now been right twice in a week!!! Good grief - what is the world coming to!!!

Am reading Bill Bryson's book "Mother Tongue" about the English language. Words have always interested me - maybe that is why I talk so much. A couple of words that I like that have, unfortunately, fallen into disuse are - slubberdegullion: 17th Century, meaning a slovenly fellow - ugsome: medieval, meaning loathsome. I will try to use them in conversation (if I can remember them) in the next week or two.

We got our dog Rhett 12 months ago this week. Like Kipp, is it amazing how much he has changed in that time - not so much in size as he is only a little bigger - but in looks, having lost his puppy look.

Rhett a year ago and a few weeks ago with Kipp in the hall

It could only happen in .....

CRICKET. India has the better of Australia at the end of day one; the Black Caps won; but the incredible result that could only happen in cricket was the local club championship.

Eastern were 4 down with only 10 runs to score to win against Naenae. The Naenae wicketkeeper asked the Captain if he could have a bowl. Thinking that it couldn't get worse he agreed. Taking the ball he proceeded to bowl them out so that Naenae won by 2 runs!! Not a game Americans (or many woman for that matter) can understand.

Been writing about the weather a bit. It has become so changeable with a sudden turn to cold and wet for a while and as I write sunshine again.

The day after the day before

We survived Xmas Day and it is now Boxing Day. Another holiday here in NZ. To the uninitiated Boxing Day (St. Stephens Day) is celebrated mainly in the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and various other British Commonwelath countries.

In Oz it usually means the biggest Cricket match of the year at the Melbourne Cricket Gound and this year it is against India. Here it means what is now the biggest shopping day of the year as all the shops cut their prices. However people now realise that this is the day to buy which has meant an upsurge in Gift Vouchers.

The scene above is not us as once again the hot, sunny weather has returned.

Xmas Day we spent at my daughters. The rain only lasted for a short while, although it did turn a bit cold but by the late afternoon it was fine enough for us to take the four dogs for a walk -along with Kipp of course. A very nice day even though I was dismal at the Xmas Quiz.

Lots to eat, presents, Kipp, etc.

I suppose this cartoon sums it up for many.

Merry Xmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS

It is Christmas day and we have rain. Unbelievable after nearly two months of almost solid sunshine. Finding a couple of Santa pictures that reflect our Southern Hemisphere hot rather than the northern cold is hard.

But .....we always give it a go.

A rocking and rolling Xmas continues

Still a few shakes being felt in Gisborne but thankfully not by us although as they say - a few small ones often is good. Amazingly, I read that this one was five times stronger than the 1987 Edgecumbe quake. Luckily the epicentre was at sea and deeper.


Xmas is almost upon us and the weather is perfect if no rain is what you want. The Charity Raffle I am involved with is going great guns with our sales passing last years on Friday night with 2 1/2 days to go. I would have thought that with the economy slowing and interest rates going up, money would have been tighter this year. Or is it because it is tighter that people gamble more??

I see Tony Blair has converted to catholicism but an interesting side fact I heard was that no British Prime Minister has ever been a Catholic. That seems incredible as we have had our share of the various Christian sects as well as no faiths as evidenced by our current PM. I think we are lucky in that religion plays little or no part in our political set up, unlike the USA where they seem to have more than their fair share of almost religious nuts trying to be President.

Earthquake!!

We really felt the earthquake that hit Gisborne last night.

Originally said to be 6.8 it has now been revised down to 6.6. The incredible statement was on TV1 last night when they advised anybody who was injured not go to the hospital but to contact their GP. Do we need further proof that we are unorganised in many places.

As I understand it only Lower Hutt has a permanent Civil Defence chief - in all the other Local Bodies the Mayor/Chief Executive doubles as the Civil Defence head.

Madness - amatuers doing a job that must be professional.

Electoral Finance Bill

The Bill has now gone through the House.

Interesting that Peter Dunne changed his mind at the last moment. As it happens I support the general principle of knowing who is funding our politicians and how much.

I wouldn't want us to go down the US path where they are open to pressure due to donated money. I don't really understand how the Americans can put up with the "system" they have which is so money driven it is obscene and un-democratic. Then again with an Electoral College that allows a person with less votes to become the President they have a lot to learn about Democracy. So many laws seemed to be passed there due to the influence of $$$$. Bill Clinton said their system would never be clean until they cleaned up the fund raising which most candidates seem to spend most of their time doing instead considering the real problems.

Basically, unless at least both major parties agree no really workable law can be passed as the Opposition will just reverse it when they get into power. The solution should have been a Royal Commision.

What will it look like for Labour if a couple of people are jailed just before the election due to contravention of the law. They will be dog tucker and the law will be shown up once again as an ass.

When the brown stuff hits the fan

The inventor of a worm-driven composting toilet had to prove the worms were not traumatised or stressed by their task before Council bureaucrats would approve the system.
Invented as an alternative to septic tanks, an Auckland Regional Council staff member said they had to get an expert's report on the psychological impact on the worms after she became concerned during a site visit.

"She felt that the worms were being unfairly treated, being expected to deal with human faeces, and that it could affect them in a psychological way," said the inventor. "I said, `Well, what do I do about that?' and she said "you have to have someone with the necessary qualifications to say the worms are happy'."

The ARC was satisfied after a vermiculture consultant reported the worms were in excellent health.
The Senior consents officer for the ARC said their concerns were fair as " it did relate to a valid concern with stress on a proposed worm population from huge fluctuations in flows and thus feed for the worms"

Good Grief Charlie Brown what next - will they be around to check up and if they find the worms are unhappy will they have to go on stress leave!!

Meantime the same Council is happy for their staff to break the law as shown in this photo from the Herald showing a Parking Wardens car incorrectly parked while he was writing tickets.

What have they done to the rain?

Weather - hot, cold, wet, fine - it never seems to satisfy everybody. With no real rain for the past month the weather has been incredible. Problem is of course is that we need some good rain, especially in the storage lakes.

Then again we don't have rain these days, Instead we have -

Precipitation (meteorology), rain, sleet, hail, snow and other forms of water falling from the sky.

What happened to good old fashioned rain - in both senses of the word - that is the word rain instead of precipitation and good old wet stuff for a few days.

In a previous blog I mentioned mistakes - is this the best title of the year ?

Actually it is about -

What drives self-justification. The need to justify our actions and decisions -- especially the wrong ones -- is an unpleasant feeling called "cognitive dissonance."
Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent, such as "Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me" and "I smoke two packs a day."

Dissonance produces mental discomfort; people don't rest easy until they find a way to reduce it. In this example, the easiest way for a smoker to reduce dissonance is by quitting. But if they tried and failed they must reduce dissonance by convincing themselves that smoking isn't really so harmful, or that smoking is worth the risk because it helps relaxation or is a slimming device, after all, obesity is a health risk, too.

One experiment discussed is - In the 1950's a social psychologist and two associates infiltrated a group of people who believed the world would end on 21 December. They wanted to know what would happen to the group when (they hoped!) the prophecy failed. The group's leader promised that the faithful would be picked up by a flying saucer and elevated to safety at midnight on 20 December. Many followers quit their jobs, gave away their homes, and dispersed their savings, waiting for the end. Others waited in fear or resignation in their homes.

The prediction from the psychologist was: Those who had not made a strong commitment to the prophecy -- who awaited the end of the world by themselves at home -- would quietly lose their faith. But those who had given away their possessions and were waiting with the others for the spaceship would increase their belief in the leaders mystical abilities. In fact, they would now do everything they could to get others to join them.

When nothing happened, surprise, surprise - the leader had a new vision.

"The world had been spared, because of the impressive faith of our little band. Mighty is the word of God, and by his word have you been saved"

The group's mood shifted from despair to exhilaration. Many of the group's members began calling the press to report the miracle and later tried to convert others to the cause!!

CRAZY!!

I am so full of Xmas cheer??

There are approximately two billion children in the world. Taking out non-christians etc this reduces the workload to 15% of the total, or 378 million At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth. This works out to just over 950 visits per second. Plus he has to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and onto the next house.

Wow - I always knew he was a fast worker!! Probably down on Xmas cheer at the moment with Robbie Deans going. I realise that we have to face up to the professional era but I think the NZRFU have gone backwards as we need new thinking. If we can't win in 2011 at home then.......

Back

Yes "I'm bach" as Arnie would say having got the PC back from our friendly expert. However, it was not without its problems as it continued to close down.

I thought that the same problem - overheating - still existed.

But we have had a little program installed that shows the temperature and that indicated everything was OK. Christine said it must be a software problem with a box ticked to close it down as my monitoring showed it was closing down at a regular intervals after the Screensaver came on. What do women know!! I thought it was the same hardware problem - fool that I am. Further investigation showed what I thought was wrong as I tracked down the problem and changed the setting and everything is all go again.

So she was right. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!

Off Air and a NZRFU fall back plan

We are 'off air' at the moment - that is our desktop PC is in for repairs. However, we do have a fall back plan as we are using the laptop. Plus of course we have backed up our stuff to CD and/or Flash Drive. A laptop is not all they are cracked up to be as I found the mouse and keyboard extremely difficult to use. So we bought a keyboard/mouse to attach which has made it much easier. The cost - $18-00 - what!!!! It seems incredible that probably only 12 months ago it would be at least $100. Also bought a DVD player to put us a bit further into the 21st Century - although as one of my daughters says we still haven't got Caller ID on our phone.

The real question is does the NZRFU have a back up plan if everything goes pear shape over the next two years. If, as seems possible, Robbie goes - Warren Gatland has already gone - then what is the back up plan. If asked they would probably say yes they do have a plan - Yeah Right!!

The charity raffle I am involved in is going better than last year. Is there more money about? I wouldn't have thought so with rising interest rates. Anyway we will see on Xmas Eve what the final outcome is.

Henry - like Lazarus

Like Lazarus - risen from the dead. Graham Henry, Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen. How is beyond me - if you fail you go. In my view they failed at the most important hurdle. Another matter is he has been appointed for two years - then what. If the NZRFU decide he isn't the man for the World Cup then the new coach only has a couple of years to get organised for what is now a four year campaign. At least we are are home next time and one would presume the refferee situation will be improved. I hope I am proved wrong.

Ratbags and so cheap

Ratbags - but that is only the most pleasant word anybody could use to describe those who have stolen the medals from Waiouru. The problem will be the usual one if they are caught - nothing will really happen to them. They would have had a terrible upbringing and so it was not their fault or the 'P' made me do it.

We went to Johnsonville the other day then on to Porirua to have lunch. While she looked in one shop there I looked in another. They had "Giant Size Calculators" - about 20cm by 15 cm at $2-58. Yes - $2.58 - how can they be so cheap is beyond me. Anyway I bought two.

Christmas is rushing along with SeniorNet now finished but with lots of functions on as well as the Charity Raffle it is all go. Having a few PC problems which will need looking into.

Poor Cricket - he was a dog not a horse

Poor Cricket - Nicky Watson's dog has been found dead, being washed up on a beach. Prior to this the 'News" that Nicky had lost her chihuahua. was argueably the most important event that happened in New Zealand in the previous 48 hours.

So on TV Ones's Closeup program they went for it. Unfortunately being more of a John Campbell TV3 person I missed the interview with Nicky on TV One which it seems went something like this -

After numerous clips of Nicky nearly falling out of various dresses followed by clips of Nicky wandering around day and night with torch in hand calling out for her little lost pet, the interviewer finally sat down for a little heart-to-heart with Ms Watson. Recounting her tale of woe Nicky, voice strained with overuse and emotion, says, 'I must have called his name a million times', to which the interviewer kindly responds, trying to empathise: 'You're hoarse.' 'No', replies Nicky sadly, 'my dog'.

In amongst the Electoral Reform Act, murders etc this was pure drama!!

Good Grief - The Black Caps had a win

In the best attributes of N Z sport lately the Black Caps in the first one-dayer managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as did the Black Sticks (well draws) and the Phoenix. However in the second match the Black Caps did at last come through. Although I am not a Basketball fan I must admit that the Breakers are doing quite well.

Talking Soccer ( being a Rugby nut could never really call it football) - what a great example David Beckham is. At the airport he stayed until the end and signed every autograph. Nothing seems to be too much trouble. A consummate professional that many others could learn from. He knows where his bread (income) is buttered (that is where the money comes from - the fans).

Talking something more serious I see that the lawyer for the accused (and that is all he is) in the tragic case of Emma Agnew is claiming, as they are all doing now, that all the publicity is destroying his clients right to a fair trial. Rubbish. Juries should know that they only decide on the evidence placed before them. The world is a different place now and technology has changed it so that the likelihood of secrecy in a democracy now is very low if not impossible. We just have to get used to it.

A ruddy good job

The Oz election has been a resounding win to Labor (spelt the American way) but although they have a large seats number win the percentage difference between Labor and the Liberals/National coalition is only a couple of points. Typical of the De Facto First Past the Post system they run.

Sounds like a ruddy good job that "Honest John" Howard has gone.

It would have been interesting had Howard quit say 12 months ago and Costello had been the opponent as I think Howards day had passed but as usual he couldn't see it. Nearly 12 years as PM in a Democracy is a very long time.

Anyway here are some much better pictures- with a much better looking fellow as well!!








Top left was taken when we had him for the day when Mum and Dad went to the Martinborough Wine Festival and we went down to the stream to feed the ducks.

Its only our money

Just back from seeing the play I mentioned in the previous blog. It was excellent.

Its only money - especially when its not theirs.

I was clearing a P O Box for an organisation I belong to and inside was a leaflet from the Labour Department telling the Boxholders what the holiday dates for 2008 are. Good grief. Can't firms and people find this out for themselves. As they have probably sent a copy to every Post Office Box holder in the country plus they would have had a team to design the form, I suppose we wouldn't have got any change from $250,000. But of course they would say, it is only a infitisimal amount when taking into account the Departments total budget.

As a taxpayer I say "every cent counts"

I see that Auckland City Council have come to an agreement over their logo - on top of the estimated $1 million wasted only about another $50,000 down the drain!!

Another blog - another day

Christmas is coming fast and as usual at this time of the year we have been out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and will also be out this coming Friday - a play at the local repertory. Caught up with a few ex-work mates on Wednesday at a Pensioners function. Its free so we went!! Although we also try to attend the mid year one which we have to pay for ourselves.

The annual charity raffle that I am involved in started today so that will take up some time as usual. SeniorNet is down to the last couple of weeks of classes and I tutored at a Blogging for Seniors Course today which I felt went really well as they all seemed quite excited about the possibilities.

Crime again - our first real prosecution of a case under the new anti smacking Bill took place with the father being found guilty. Although what the papers said he did seemed quite inocuous, I think there was more to it.

Further to my last blog, we now find that the murderer who was out on bail when he killed again was previously charged with rape but got off as somebody gave him an alibi. Later, it was discovered that the witness perjured himself so, although they were charged with this, under the "Double Jeopardy" law he could not be charged with the rape. I know this law is being looked at but it seems crazy.

As they say the law is often an ass.

The World (NZ) is MAD!!

Todays news -

• a juror is sick and vomits listening to the evidence in another murder of a child
• a child is being flown to Auckland from Eltham as it has been bashed by the things that are supposed to look after it
• a Judge breaks down when sentencing a person to 18 years in jail for the murder of two people (and the person it is said shows no remorse)
• a girl has gone missing and her car is found burnt out
• a woman (a recidivist drunk) is picked up well over the limit with 6 unrestrained children in her car
• a person is found guilty of murder who was on bail at the time being charged with murder (why was he let out to kill again ?)
• over 20 people with numerous previous records are picked up drunk (some 5 times over the limit) in the Far North etc etc etc

Just another day in paradise!!

What can we do with these monsters.

The question that doesn't get asked about the recidivist drunk drivers is why aren't they banned for driving for 20 - 30 years, why aren't they banned from owning a car (everybody should have to identify themselves with their Drivers Licence when they purchase a car ), if they are driving somebody elses car then the other person also loses their licence and their car.

Of course as we know with the bail law the politicians recently made it easier to get bail.

Madness!!!

Morality?

Morality - a definition is - "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct"

I found an online morality experiment as follows -

The Sheriff of Nottingham captured Little John and Robin Hood and imprisoned them in his dungeon. Maid Marion begged the Sheriff for their release, pleading her love for Robin. The Sheriff agreed to release them only if Maid Marion spent the night with him. To this she agreed. The next morning the Sheriff released his prisoners. Robin demanded that Marion tell him how she persuaded the Sheriff to let them go. Marion confessed the truth, and was bewildered when Robin abused her, called her a slut, and said that he never wanted to see her again. At this Little John defended her, inviting her to leave Sherwood with him and promising lifelong devotion. She accepted and they rode away together.

Now in terms of realistic everyday standards of behavior, put Robin, Marion, Little John, and the Sheriff in the order in which you consider they showed the most morality and honesty. There is no "right" answer, and you'll be given the psychologist's estimate of you for each of the 24 arrangements.

The "answers" are at http://www.talisman.org/quizzes/robin-hood-morality.shtml

In my answer I put the Sheriff at the bottom - but one of my daughters put him at the top???
Her reasoning was that he stood by his agreement - mine is that if it wasn't for him the problem would not have arisen.

There is of course no right answer but I see that my morale stance was the majority view although not by much as the percentage difference is very small across the first few top responses.

The new Real Estate legislation is well overdue. This Dilbert cartoon sums it up in many peoples minds. Interesting that even in the US they think along the same lines. I have had few dealings with Real Estate Agents as it is not often in your life that one sells a house. However, apart from dealing with a personal friend who is an Agent (and he was great) the other dealings have ranged from poor to abysmal. At the time we dealt with the abysmal one a friend, who was also dealing with the same Agent, tape recorded all his actions and used that as proof of the lies to obtain a payment from the firm.

The only fault I see in the legislation at present is that the fines are far too low - should be up to $500,000.

John Key was on TV this morning and he seems to favour the legislation but he is turning into a "burbler" - going on and on and seemingly wants to have a bet both ways on this as well as the fireworks problem and the Fiji disaster.

DNA

DNA - the famous double helix.

John Key has proposed people being charged with a crime that could mean a jail sentence have their DNA taken. It they were found NOT GUILTY the DNA would be destroyed. As usual the the usual suspects are bleating and missing out the vital pount that only convicted criminals DNA would be retained.

The usual suspects are probably scared that the Police will use the DNA taken to look at other crimes and some of these would be solved (ie criminals will go to jail - how terrible).

The most important aspect is that we must make sure that the DNA matching is done correctly.

The last time we were in the UK a woman got stopped and was charged with being over the limit. Under their law they were able to take her DNA which showed a family link to a series of 20 year old rapes. They then charged her brother - who got something like 40 years jail.

As is well known, they only linked him to about 5 rapes, but upon searching his house they found he had taken a pair of shoes from each victim. The total meant he had raped over 20 women.

La vien rose

Went to see the film La vien rose about Edith Piaf last week. Found it reasonable in the story line, but it had too much flashback for me so it became a little disjointed. However the acting was a different story, particularly that of Marion Cotillard as Piaf. She was extraordinary. I noticed it seemed to gloss over the war period.

To sum up the state of the Hollywood film industry, I got my better half 10 film tickets for Xmas 2006. This gave entry to our local multiplex and since then we have only attended two films - one French as above, and the other being "The Queen" - British. So three films to go. At the present rate it will be 2009 before we use them.

And Hollywood wonders why they are not getting the patrons.

The new Cabinet was announced today. Was Trev really demoted. Watch for a comeback if the win the next election. Almost as important was the announcement of the Super 14 teams. I will have to study them before commenting.

Get in behind Trev

Mallard is my local MP and I have, over the years, had some interaction with him and have always found him reasonably helpful and inclined to act rather than talk. Probably a trait that has got him into the hot water he now finds himself. I would guess his career prospects are down the gurgler. You would think that Goff must be the front runner to replace Clark.

Interesting that it was Tau Henare (who I have a bit of time for) as their "relationship" goes back some years as Tau is Tuku Morgan's brother in law.

When we are overseas and being hassled by hawkers etc we speak a few words of Maori in an attempt to pretend we don't speak English. We usually start of with Tau henare, Matui Rata Pakeha Aotearoa. Has only worked a couple of times.

Telecom - a promise for faster (but at what cost?) Broadband. Again, although a new captain at the helm, seeing will be believing.

On the personal front I am involved with a Seniors Expo (which could have been organised better although there are some outside factors that have not helped) and we have now got a wireless connection for our laptop so we will see how that works out. I read on the Aardvark site about another insane Copyright problem. In Canada they put some Public Domain (according to Canadian law) sheet music on the Net but got a complaint from a German firm claiming the were breaching German Copyright. As per usual you know who won. It is like saying to one country you can't publish something that is legal in your country because it breaks anothers laws. Madness.

Its all yours South Africa plus some sex and petrol

What a poor game. It is often possible to have a tryless game that is a great game - good skills, a close encounter etc. But I don't think this was one of those. The almost try was ruled correctly in my view.

A classic that the claims of non-consensual sex against the Kiwi League player did not seem to have been able to go further as he filmed the "event". But again League is in the gun as going outside the "role model" role - if indeed they and other sports people should be setting standards of morality?

Labour Day tomorrow but most holidays don't worry me now but I did see that the price of petrol has risen in anticipation of people returning. But having said that for once I saw that BP was $1.63 while Mobil was still at $1.60 so that is something. I bet it won't last more than 24 hours.

Painting and the best of the tournament

Kipp went to Playcentre the other day and tried his hand and face at painting!!

At least he enjoyed himself!!

He came round on Friday as I said in the previous post and was looking a lot cleaner. Will be with me again tonight as they are all going to the Opera and leaving me to watch the final of the Air NZ Cup and to look after him.

C'mon the Lions.

The Bronze Medal. To prove I can't pick 'em France was completely destroyed by Los Pumas and who said Argentina were one dimensional. It was the best game of the tournament in my view and also probably with that first try after halftime they scored what is probably the best try so far. The try when the had a man in the "bin" was also a beauty.

Congratulations Argentina!!

Down to the wire

Down to the wire - well the final between

South Africa - England.

I hope for the good of the game that South Africa thump them and with style. Winning ugly is England. Although New Zealand has not been short of that, and winning is everything, it is now a professional game (entertainment) competing with many other options. I think France to beat Argentina and South Africa to win.

It seems like the rest of the planet, we have joined the world of the terrorist (and a huge explosion in Pakistan today). Yeah right! I think our ones are just a few of lifes nutters and are small time compared to the overseas variety and hopefully, basically harmless. But having said that we can't be too careful and if they do have illegal weapons then that cannot be allowed. But it certainly brings out all sorts of views.

I have been reading Scott Adams book about his cartoon character Dilbert. It took a while to grow on me and some are not funny (or I am too thick to get it) but some are hilarious.

Ran our first Blogging for Seniors class at SeniorNet (apart from the Course test class) and I certainly gained the impression that it was one of the more enjoyable ones.

Kip and crew are coming for tea tonight and of course it is the Labour Day weekend although holidays don't really affect me now.

Another day another game

Frogs - Poms Jaapies - Argie Bargies
I hope France and Argentina but can't see the Argentinians doing it although France can.

Nothing else on at the moment except the usual with SeniorNet teaching underway again.

Crime Comment - Another stupid decision. Six guys abuse and one of them attacks another chap. He retaliates and stabs his attacker in self defence. We all know the answer to the question of who goes to jail (He got 2 years!!). The NZ world continues to be mad.

Four more years

Oh Oh Tragedy !! - defined as any event with a sad and unfortunate outcome. There are dozens of words to describe the All Black defeat. Calamity - disaster etc etc.

What can I say - the Ref was pathetic, the IRB who won't allow linesmen to point out a forward pass are pathetic, the Referees Appointment Board who appointed a man who has only ref'd one test of any significance (France- Italy) - the other 5 all being the Pacific Five Nations , pathetic etc etc.



Then again, we should have won even allowing for that.



Was it Rotation? Who knows, but the coaching team will have to go. That is the price of failure in N.Z.

But the Cup itself is great with England showing that the scrum is an integral part of the game; Argentina have been a revalation; Georgia great and Fiji another surprise package. My thoughts a week ago was no Northern Hemispere teams but now it could be no Southerners although I am sure South Africa will be there.

Short Holiday

We have been away visiting Havelock North, Napier, Hastings, Whakatane, Ohope Beach and Te Awamutu.
We went to Havelock then on to Wakatane and stayed at Ohope with the plan to visit White Island. Sadly we couldn't as the weather was too bad. We will probably make another attempt next year. However, we stayed with friends in Te Awamutu for a couple of days which was terrific as we did a lot of catching up with old times.

But the interesting thing was the house numbering system. Rather than the usual one it numbers houses on the metres from the end of the road. Our friends house is in a short grove and as they lived at 85 our first thoughts were that we had the wrong number. As we entered the street we saw the first house was number 10 with the next number 26!!

He later explained the reason for the metric numbering system is that it enables each house to be located quickly by electronic tracking systems for emergency services. I had never heard of it before and he believes about 3 other NZ towns have it.

Our general feeling was that most of the small country towns are looking pretty prosperous.

Onto religion - RUGBY - It is now all on and we can only hope that all the planning comes to fruition. As for the jersey colour problem. We have played in BLACK for over 100 years and these other ratbag countries are now trying to change their traditional colours to match ours. I hope it really backfires on them on the the field.

Trojan

Got a damn Trojan called zlob.dnschanger - well according to the Panda Anti Virus site and Spy Bot. However checking with a couple of other Virus and Anti Spyware sites they didn't find it. Also Spy Bot said it was removed but it is still there. Will have to investigate further.

Rugby still enthralls (well almost) particularly the minnows. However the AB's were not impressive despite the score line. As for the jerseys - that is just typical of the incompetent IRB. Tonga - England will still be an England victory and I think Argentina will roll the Irish.

Going away for a few days up to the Hawkes Bay and also hope to visit White Isalnd although with Ruapehu erupting for the first time in 10 years it may have some effect out there. We will see.

The Cup runneth over

And so it does with more games than my brain can stay awake for. So that is one good thing about a Hard Drive Recorder I just tape up to 6 hours at a time and then make a decision from the result/what I read/hear/see on the morning news etc if I should watch it. Even then I watch part of some games in Fast Forward.

I think Georgia are the team I admire the most. The League people would hate it as they are not pretty and no "airy fairy" stuff. Just one game plan - drive it up the middle and if it goes to the First Five then boot it!! However it is effective from their point of view and it gave Ireland the hurry up.

The Phoenix, the Wellington soccer team, are to host the Galaxy Club with David Beckham at a cost of $2 million. I wouldn't cross the road to see him and I don't care but if I was a Wellington ratepayer then I would be concerned as they are to pay part of the bill. If it is such a good deal then why not let The Phoenix carry the can. I think it is $$$ down the gurgler.

Local Body elections are coming up and I suppose the usual pathetic voter turnout.

What is it with democracy that when you have it, you don't care, and when you don't, people have to die to get it.

Anyway I know a couple of people standing and will of course, as always, make sure my ballot is cast.

The World Cup and other matters

First the Xtra debacle. It now seems to be working except the Download Manager I use says it wants to download two .mp3 files. Telecoms brilliant answer was that it must be in one of the emails. What rubbish. It is due to their site otherwise why would I always get it with literally dozens of different emails?? Also they appear to have tweaked their Spam filter as legitimate emails now seem to be getting through, but of course so is a lot of Spam!!



Now to more immediate and important matters. The Rugby World Cup. Got up to see a reasonable upset but I have never underestimated "Los Pumas". I see that they have, in fact, more registered players than Australia. The downside is that we could meet France in Cardiff.

As for us - the injury front is a real worry and of course it is our two weak spots - lock and centre. Anyway Italy tonight which shouldn't cause too many problems.

Xtra Bubble - or should that be Booble!!

Well you can tell you are back home when everything is back to "normal" - just another Telecom "upgrade, enhance and improve" shambles. Cue Tui advert time - what a debacle.

Nothing worked and couldn't register for "Booble" and of course they only answer their "Help" desk if you have several hours to wait. So I emailed them and to their credit they phoned me. He went through the explanation of how everything would be better in a few days (weeks??) and give me a whole lot of free services I don't need or want.

However, of course I couldn't register anyway so I was told to wait a few days.

But as usual it got worse. Found out from others that emails were missing and as I had heard nothing about this from Telecom emailed them again. Their response this time was to ignore the questions and send a whole lot of useless links. Emailed again. They re-sent the same useless info. Emailed again telling them to read the questions. This time they did respond differently - but with some different useless info.

So as usual with this outfit you have to do it yourself.

I found I could now register and then after searching and digging around as well as reading all the stuff at the N Z Herald from the thousands of annoyed customers I found how to locate all my missing emails. Talking to others it would seem every person has different problems and Telecom doesn't seem interested in advising a list of the problems and how to fix them .

Oh for decent unfettered competition.

We're Back!!

Returned this week after a fabulous trip to Oz (4 days) and South Africa (16 days). Still seem to be suffering from a little bit of jet lag as we are both a bit tired during the day.

In Australia we met up with Janet and Jim, a couple we met on the tour we undertook to Europe last year. It was certainly good to see them again. Also this time in Sydney we, with them, walked across the Harbour Bridge at night.

South Africa - will put down my impressions in later blogs but it was an interesting trip to an interesting area of the world and would love to return some day but probably unlikely due to $$$$. When we looked at going to SA we thought we better go on a tour for safety reasons but our experience was that we could probably have done it on our own. It seemed to be safer than we thought as long as you used common sense and kept away from J'burg which seem a bit more risky than down south in the Cape area.

Travelling is always a thrill but returning home is always wonderful and even more so this time with Kipp and Rhett waiting for us. Kipp has certainly grown and now sits up on his own and is almost crawling while Rhett probably thought we had left him forever.

As I said great to be back!!

Up up and away - almost

Almost away to the "dark continent". Just thinking the other day, we only have two continents yet to visit, South America and Antarctica. Although the second closest to us it is unlikely we would ever go down south. We will be able to watch the Bledisloe Cup game but I understand the World Cup squad will be anounced Sunday so we will be in Oz for that.

Oz and the Netball - we are just not good enough. I hope we are good enough on Saturday night.

Anyway with the trip will be no updates for a while I would presume.

Black Friday

BLACK FRIDAY - Friday the 13 July 2007

Black Friday but had a quiet day and didn't do much. Went to Probus in the morning, tidied up a few personal and Rotary matters (always seems to be some filing to be done) and watched a Korean crime film which was quite good. Unlike the average American hack the killer is never found.

Talking about - or rather typing about - films - we went and saw Pierpoint the other night and enjoyed it. Timothy Spall was excellent. Pierpoint was the last British hangman (carried out 608 executions including at least one innocent in Timothy Evans) and it was interesting that he came out against capital punishment after he resigned. Although I sometimes think they should be shot or something I don't think anybody who thinks it through could favour capital punishment.

Sent an email this week to Radio NZ re Kiwisaver which they read out. The problem with the organisation of the scheme is again with the politicians who changed the details at the last minute. Until this week was unable to find out on the various websites how a person could join if they were not working.

Counting down to our trip and Rhett is counting the days till he goes into the kennels. They had a news item on TV last night about the security measures at airports. They seem to have gone overboard but I suppose if it has to be it has to be. Weather has continued to be lousy but of course not as bad as in the North.

Forty Years On - Decimal Currency 10 July 1967

Forty years on - I can remember it like yesterday. The Bank had just starting moving transactions to computers - a big mainframe - and the main centres had been converted so it was easy for us in Wellington. We were supposed to work the weekend and all Banks were closed for another couple of days to carry out the massive task of converting all records, cheques, cash etc. Thanks to the computer the conversion was easy. So we were able to take a couple of extra days holiday while those who had to do it all manually - mainly in the smaller branches - worked on.

Just heard on Radio NZ that petrol was 8 cents per litre and a pint (a what!!) of milk 4 cents in 1967.

The laptop saga. Hadn't heard anything so rang the Dom and they said they would get back to us which they did. They were surprised so had made contact with the supplier who later phoned from Sydney. It seems it is the fridge saga as explained in the previous blog and it is stilll a couple of weeks away - !!! However, can't complain I suppose as it is for free but you would have thought it would have been ready.