Rolling Along

Just rolling along. Busy , busy , busy with just the usual things - SeniorNet , personal, Rotary etc etc.

Weather has certainly broken with rain coming down but the predicted storms did not eventuate down our way but the amazing factor is that it is still incredibly warm.

We had Kipp overnight on Saturday, which was great and Rhett had his, what will become an almost quarterly, grooming session on Monday and he looks really neat and tidy. A new man!

Saw an idea to raise funds which I will bring up at Rotary - as per usual may be too hard to really get organised and it also depends on a great deal of honesty. It involves selling glasses of tap water at restaurants at a $1-00 per glass with the funds raised going to a charity. We shall see.

Must update the Super 14. Lost a bit of interest for a while but with the Chiefs playing out of their skin, defeating the Crusaders, and then what was the best game viewing wise of the season against the Reds, a bit of life has been brought back. The most stessful game reesult wise was Chiefs-Crusaders but it didn't have the flow of the Reds game. With the three to join the Crusaders becoming very difficult to pick I think the Hurricanes will miss out and the Stormers although currently 6th, have a good final run, playing at home and facing some of the easier teams.

As for the Waratahs, lying second and having sacked the coach the Board are looking like idiots.

The comment of the week must be the ratbag involved in the shooting of the child in Wanganui who told the Judge he wanted to go to jail so he could form his own gang - so tthe Judge gave him 100 hours community service!! After all he only had about 100 prior convictions. Who is running the prisons - the prisoners. On a criminal note have been watch the australian TV series Underbelly. It is enthralling. The crooks continued to run their 'business' from prison because they were allowed, as are ours today, to have face to face, basically private meetings, with their visitors.

As I have probably said before - I would put up a sheet of perspex, drill some holes, visitors one side - prisoners the other. And I would record all conversations. It will never happen.

Anzac Day 25 April 2008

Anzac Day - it seems like a Sunday, which in many ways I suppose it is. Have just finished watching the documentary on Maori TV about John Pohe, the first Maori pilot in the RAF. Shot down he was part of the Great Escape and was murdered by the Germans.

I was alerted to the film by a Maori friend who had attended the World Premiere as he was a relation. Where was the World Premiere held - Taihape!! - because John came from that area.

It is said that those who were not shot were the blue eyed look that Hitler liked, so John Pohe had no show. Proves how weird Hitler was as he was not the Nordic type in looks himself.

Haven't added to the Blog recently as nothing different to the usual although plenty on as I am trying to rewrite the Email & Internet Course for SeniorNet which is proving more time consuming than I thought.

We are to Kipp overnight this Saturday - or should that say we are to look after Kipp overnight this Saturday.

More disasters

Seven Elim Christian College pupils dead from the flash flood at the at the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre is the latest tragedy following the fire at Hamilton. Life is full of risk and although I can understand Prime TV's reporter Kelly Swanson-Roe, who lost her husband in similar circumstances in Switzerland, I can't agree with her logic. She said these type of events are not freak accidents but we basically shouldn't take these types of risks. As an Ambassador for Outward Bound she seems to be contradicting herself. Under her logic we wouldn't cross the road.

Jobs are off to Mexico and Thailand (F & P) and India (ANZ Bank). I don't know what the answer is as we like our products and services to be cheap.

Just saw this. The next upside down year is 6009.

Well I remember the last one 1961 but don't think I will see the next - nor might anybody as Zager and Evans said

"In the year 2525, if man is still alive"

Netguide and the laptop letter

When we had the problem with our laptop that I ranted about in my blog of 27 February, I was so annoyed I decided to write to Netguide. My main reason was to warn people about following Microsofts recommendation to down load updates automatically.

Today I went to the Library and saw the latest copy - actually the May 2008 copy - it seems they date them a month ahead. I got it out and decided tonight to have a quick glance through and sudenly saw my name. They printed my letter. As one of the 4 printed I win a copy of a DVD - Beowulf!!!

Quite a surprise; but I hope people do read it and change their settings so they don't have the problems we had. I read in the N Z Herald last week 'Vistas endless reboot update bug allegedly squashed'. I noticed the word alledgedly - which doesn't give me confidence that they have indeed fixed it.

Kipp, Rhett and us walking

We took Kipp for a walk the other day in this glorious weather we have had for the past few months (which has, thank heaven, finally broken) and took some photos.

Double Jabs

As part of the going to South America bit, we have to have jabs for Yellow Fever and because of my age I needed a certificate saying it is alright for me to travel to the high altitude in Peru. So I went to the doctor and 'the Boss' said I should look at getting the free flue shot as they hadn't written to me as they did last year. She also suggested I look at getting a tetanus shot.

When did I last have a tetanus shot - who knows - probably in my Compulsory Military Training days when I was 20. So I went got the certificate and got two jabs - flue and tetanus but for the Yellow Fever it looks as if we will have to go to the Travel Doctor. Anyway, I've now got a couple of sore arms. When I asked about the free flue shots the doctor said they had decided not to write this time as they were overun last year ??? The logic defeats me.





Went to an Inner Wheel meeting last night about driving at our mature age.



This doesn't help. This picture was taken in Symonds Street, Auckland the other day. They either painted the two outside lane indicators round the wrong way or the right lane arrow should be showing a right turn.!!

Have taken some more pictures of Kipp so will upload these in the next enthralling episode of Waynes Writings.

All anybody could say about the Hurricanes is summed up in this Tom Scott cartoon -

Copy not right

The new copyright law has been enacted by our Parliament.

I have yet to see one commentator who considers it anything but useless dribble. My word is Pathetic Rubbish - whoops two words!!

As one said they have at least brought copyright up to about 1990.

It seems it is still illegal to format shift - definitely illegal for film and all the audio people have to do is opt out and that is it. There are probably more draconian measures, stupidity and kilometres of thickness within the Act; but I suppose that is all we can expect for a group that doesn't seem to have a clue about technology.

Paid the air fares for our trip today - if we hadn't they would have gone up due to the increase in fuel costs. Will be interesting to see if the price of oil drops, will the price drop.

Olympics - basically gave up a few years ago. Again, once something goes professional - and I accept that is the way of the world now - it goes down the gurgler. Drugs are a real problem and I see the US relay team have lost their medals thanks to the conviction of Marion Jones for being a drug cheat. You would not be a happy person if you were in that team. As for Tibet - I have always been against boycotts and I think it is better for the athletes to go and say what they think. Show them a bit of democracy for what it is worth!

Just been watching Kevin Rudd the Ozzie PM on TV press conference. A very impressive man who makes most world leaders look like hacks - well by the world I probably mean the USA. Their leader and all the pretenders to the throne seem very poor and often don't seem to have a clue about anything - although Obama comes across reasonably well.

Fire!! The ref as well!!

What a disaster and tragedy near Hamilton. As they say, it was almost like a nuclear explosion. I would assume an investigation will be underway shortly to try and find out exactly what happened.

Meantime daylight saving has come to an end and the clocks are all back an hour. For some reason I mentioned to Christine that it was certainly dark for 3.15 when she said it was really 4.15. Idiot - I put my watch back two hours!!

Anyway, we have been extremely lucky with the weather only finally breaking into some rain just as we changed back. Rain we badly needed, but it is now all sunshine again, so that didn't last long.

Hurricanes - What a refereeing farce on Friday night. He was out of his depth - not that the either the Sharks or the Hurricanes deserved to win and I think the draw summed up both teams. However, the taking out of Smith without the ball was at the very least a penalty (I thought a penalty try) although from my view Waldron didn't force the ball.

The 7's - the run has come to an end. I have probably said it before but the overwhelming population numbers and the black players coming through will mean the Boks will completely dominate Rugby into the future.

Have now booked our trip to South America. Now just have to find the $$$$.

Zimbabwe and the Mongs

ZIMBABWE - What a hovel. From our point of view we can only thank our lucky stars that we went last year and not this year. Although, as yet,nothing has really degenerated into a Kenya type disaster, but it is on the cards. My thoughts are that South Africa have put the hard word on Mugabe, as they are frightened if anything did fall apart, it would see a thousand times the current number of people will try to flee into South Africa. Will he go - who knows. Will his replacement be any better. He sounds alright but on past African performance - nobody would hold out much hope after the first few years.

We went to the Quiz evening last night and one of the teams was called The Mugabe Note Counters!

They have changed the system at the Quiz Evening to $4-00 per person, up from $2-00 but have introduced 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. Additionally, the monthly DVD player draw and the final Jackpot Question remain so it seems a better deal - especially as we came 3rd last night with our team The Mongs. Why the Mongs? I can't quite remember but when we were driving down a few weeks ago we were talking something about Ming the Merciless of Mong from Buck Rogers and decided to call ourselves the Mongs that night.

Telecom have been split. Will it be better. Like the African leaders time will tell but I don't have much confidence.

She has my Bott ahhhhhhh!!!!