Bwahaha! Excellent.

WellUrban: A subtle message

Note to the BBQ Factory

I do expect your junkmail to have more barbecues in it than spa pools.

Note to self: find a No Junkmail sign pronto.

SunnyO: Some Grills Will

Glancing at the Stars

Matariki Festival, Te Papa, 16 June - 1 July.

Glancing at the Stars | the wellingtonista

You Want Closure?

Spoilers for things that never happened (probably). I like the winning mashup - it explains the ginger cat.

Sopranos endings you can live with. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine

Some Grills Will

Some Grills won't
Some Grills need a lot of loving &
Some Grills don't

Following up on the last story of home renovations (somewhere below), let me share another!

A couple of years ago, we decided to get a car deck built (the trials & tribulations start somewhere near the beginning of this blog, if I were any sort of host, I'd provide links. But who ever said I was any kind of host?). First there were the architects' drawings. Then there was the builder's quotation. Then there were the amended drawings, and more quotes.

Then, bulldozers came in & removed our front garden. Then there were the complications, and builders started on the virgin site some many months later. And many more after that the deck was nearly finished (it'll never be finished, but it's close enough).

Anyway, back at the beginning, when the garden was removed by bulldozer, I remembered at the last minute to save our letterbox. This sat on top of our gas meter for some time, until the deck & a new fence were built.

At this stage, the intention was to get a new letterbox. But you know how it is, the old one, looking like a delapidated birdhouse, sat tacked to our garden fence for more than a year. Once or twice I retrieved it from down the road, presumably having been taken by passing students. A couple of times the wind just blew it to pieces...

Then, recently, I bought a new one over the internet. It arrived in pieces, a slot, a mailbox to be installed into the fence, and some street numbers.

Because our existing letterbox now only consisted of a base, two sides and a No Junkmail sign, some urgency was placed on istalling the new one.

Complications arose when I discovered that my skillsaw was somewhere else. But resourceful as ever, I hand sawed a recess with a Swiss Army knife. It only took most of the day. But now we have a lovely & discreet, working letterbox!

But it doesn't have a No Junkmail sign. A situation I have frowned upon for the last month or so - but I haven't yet found the "right" sign.

Although yesterday, I paused for thought about the No Junkmail... you see they delivered a glossy brochure all about the new BBQ factory in Lower Hutt. And if there's one thing to get me all excited... it's the new season's barbecues.

I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile - do catch this clip before it gets pulled (lame pun). It's priceless.

Spare Room » Blog Archive » Cheeky Darkie Pulled On Holmes

A Headline you probably won't see in the newspaper.

Good news is no news, as they say.

Dog aggression hits all-time low - New Zealand Dog News

Wheelchair man gets highway ride

Would have been a remarkable sight, no doubt.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Wheelchair man gets highway ride

Grey Day

What was with the Skyline last night?

There are two superior locations for restaurants in this city. One is the Band Rotunda at Oriental Bay, the other is the Skyline complex in Kelburn.

Yet for some reason there has never been a decent restaurant in either location.

However, the Skyline does get used for private parties now & then - July 4th for example, I predict that the cul de sac end of Upland Road will be packed to the gunwhales with limos & sports cars, many of which will sport diplomatic plates, on Independence Day next month. That's what happened last year, residents had to stop & ask chauffeurs to move forward a few metres so they could park in their own driveways. I passed through & idly suggested to one of the policement on diplomatic protection duty that he should get a booze bus in for later on. he told me that there was no point, since the chauffeurs were all gathered outside, smoking, but not drinking.

But last night... I was shambling up Salamanca Rd, when an SUV coming in the opposite direction stopped in the middle of the road & a lady with a mid european accent asked me if I knew where the Skyline was.

I gave her directions "U turn, straight ahead, turn right up past the University, turn right at the roundabout, at the top of the hill, turn right again & there you are."

What I should have said was, "Give me a lift & I'll show you", because what she did was: a U turn, and the "turn right" must have stuck because she turned right immediately into the Met Office & disappeared over the hill.

I caught up with her a few minutes later, just before she descended to the Treehouse & main gardens in Thorndon & went through the directions again.

And this time, just as I walked past the Skyline, she turned up. Gave me a cheery wave, and turned into the carpark which was the fullest I have ever seen it!

And there were limos, and chauffeurs again, and a BMW Roadster, license plate DC501 (I think, possibly 5501), parked across our driveway. No police this time though to have a bleat about useless diplomats to.

And I rang Mrs Llew & told her not to exercise her road rage option when she got home & couldn't park on our car deck, because the diplomats don't care! But as it happens, by the time she got there, it was gone.

And so... anybody know what was going on there? Oh, and if you're wondering what's so cool about the Skyline spot, all the photos of the harbour that get posted here are prety much taken from beside the place.

Random link - borderline disturbing photo from the fieldays.

Bachelor farmers strut their stuff - Stuff.co.nz

Nothing to do with Sinatra, nor Santa.

MiramarMike: Sanatravious - your word of the week

I'll be trying to use it every 10 monutes or so.

meanwhile - Is Tony dead? Whacked by a sinister restaurant patron? Best theory I've heard is that Jamie Sigler (Meadow) tripped over the power cord on her way in.

If this makes no sense... tante pis!

Blue Day

Earlier today...

Very early.

Crossblogging Again - Pruning With The Stars.

Pruning With The Stars! Sunday 17 June | the wellingtonista

Augie - Auer & Out

Probably just coincidence that the day after the death of Augie Auer, weatherman & global warming denier, is pretty much the coldest day so far this year.

Weatherman Augie Auer dies - Stuff.co.nz

Man's Inhumanity to Dog

Which if memory serves, is a phrase stolen from Charles Schulz.

Dog starved, hanged from tree in Manukau

Bastards.

What do they call the guys..

At the front of pipe bands? The guys who swing a long stick with something metal on top. Actually, they don't seem to contribute much. Maybe they own the rest of the band.

Anyway.

There're a shitload of kids marching past my window behind the aforementioned pipe band at the moment. They're dressed in fluoro orange & wearing matching orange dunce hats.

I surmise they're celebrating school patrols & promoting road safety...

...which is pretty ironic actually, given they're marching down the middle of Lambton Quay in the middle of a working day. Watch out for those buses!

And now, a carbon-neutral* gag:

Exactly one year ago today, Wim Binliner was an unknown 18 year old Swedish tennis player.

Today he's 19.

* 100% recycled from a Not the Nine O'Clock News calendar from decades ago.

Who in the world is Gilda Kirkpatrick?

Must be an Auckland thing.

The name "Gilda" evokes for me this 1946 Rita Hayworth/Glenn Ford classic film noir.

IDLE VICE: Trashion

So in 25 words or less, can any Aucklander tell me WTF* she is? And what on earth was Ian thinking?

*this has been a google-free post.

While we're on the subject

I guess if you're Sir Paul, you can persuade Natalie Portman to get jiggy in your video... and I don't suppose that was supposed to look like a lapdance... ewww...

Rock Town Hall - Minute-by-Minute Review of Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full

WARNING!!

Um... conmsider yourself warned.

The Long & Winding Road

For reasons too silly to mention, I found myself embarking on a 2.5 hour round trip to SunnyO yesterday afternoon, to pick up a cat & bring him back to town.

There's nothing at all interesting in this, save I was planning to use the reflection time driving, to dream up some proverbs for NZBC. Sadly, the muse was absent.

Happily though, I had one of those wonderful bogun moments, having stopped briefly at New World Waikanae, having travelled thus far listening to Jim Mora & some boring guests, I was turning left back onto an oddly deserted State Highway One, when Jim, brightly announced "And here is Alice Cooper".

And it must be that I haven't heard No More Mr Nice Guy since the 1970s. Yet I remember every lyric (except the name of the preacher that punches him in the nose).

And I blasted North in my Euro Planet Muncher (TM) bellowing:

I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing.
Till they got ahold of me,
I open doors for little old ladies
I help 'em find a seat.
I got no friends 'cos they read the papers
They can't be seen
With me, and I'm feeling real shot down
And I'm, gettin' mean!

Honestly, Marilyn Manson is a wannabe.

But from the sublime to the ridiculous, just a little earlier, navigating the borderline chaos that is Centennary Highway, Mora was pleasant enough to treat us to Paul McCartney's new single, which (have you been reading Doonesbury recently?) was launched yesterday in every branch of Starbucks in the world. Non stop Macca. In fact, non stop very mediocre single song Macca.

This in itself is unremarkable, I'm sure Sir Paul has churned out many, many songs that are not destined for the greatness of some of his earlier work. The strange thing is that I heard this one.

What IS remarkable though, is that later last night, we chanced upon a biopic of John Lennon on Rialto. We missed the first few minutes so I have absolutely no idea who played the main roles, nor what the film was called. They looked kind of like the Beatles if you squinted. Although whoever played Astrid Kirchher looked JUST like Sheryl Lee, who played Astrid in Backbeat.

Well. Maybe not THAT remarkable. All I'm saying is it was poignant, seeing a dramatisation of the glory days, juxtaposed with a boring ditty released that very day. Wonder what Lennon would be doing if he was still around?

Oh, and the biopic played no actual Beatles music, not even when they got to the bit where they were making their own.

Maybe Michael Jackson would only give them the music rights if they let him play Astrid.

Anyway, after all that, skip the Rialto movie, watch Backbeat.

Men With Fire

What I love about all YouTube-like movies of people being stupid with fire, are the little touches, like the slow-mo replay of the very moment that the rubber meets the road, or more accurately, the flame meets the accelerant. That "You dumbass" moment that someone funnier than me coined, which is the moment that you realise that you're standing in the middle of high explosive, about to flick... the BIC.

Spare Room » Blog Archive » How To Make A Fireman Very Angry

I also love how, at the end, the very concerned mate approaches, one hand in pocket, the other clutching a pint. It must have looked like a close one.

:)

Hat tip to the Spare Room