Have they outsourced the sub editors already?
"There's only one wall standing at the woolshed and our garage roof was ripped off so it's pretty much a right off."
The family home also suffered extensive roof damage and the Bell's believe the tornado lifted their house off its footings.
I was starting to get a bit worried about firewood this winter. I mean, we've enough for this year, but it's been getting near time to sort out next year's woodpile. The options were:
1. Cut down a few expendable trees which aren't particularly great burning wood, but which are free, or
2. Buy some macracarpa in, but winter isn't really the best time to be buying firewood.
Anyway, last Wednesday's storm has solved the problem. When we arrived, there were bits of beech all over the front garden & I thought "Cool! Firewood!". It wasn't till an hour or so later that I looked in the orchard... needless to say, I haven't even got to the front garden to clean up the beech yet.
Another metre & the berry house would have been totalled.
There used to be a young macadamia tree here. Oh well, we had too many anyway.
The neighbourhood was without power for 36 hours. We weren't there, but if we had been, our biggest problem would have been water, we have gas & gas water heating, but we're on bore water & the pump is powered by electricity.
Every time the rain eased this weekend, the peace in the neighbourhood was disturbed by the sound of chainsaws firing up. Not least at SunnyO. There's now a large woodpile weathering away in the orchard, and I should have the fence upright by the end of next weekend - when I get the last of the stump from the big pine tree off it.
I need to think of a back up solution for the water, but I'm sorted for firewood.
This has done the rounds before, but I came across it again today & it really is a most curious thing - remove Garfield from the cartoons & the strip oozes pathos.
Click for bigger image.
garfield minus garfield
Last Saturday, we were a bit too late to take Wilma down to the beach for a run, so I walked her a kilometre or so to a local public park. This park is bordered by State Highway 1 & used to be home to a couple of horses. In the last few years, it's been converted into a lovely little park area, with native trees, grasses & a couple of streams running through it.
Occasionally I come across other dogs & their owners, but not often.
This night though, as I arrived, there was a lanky character ahead of me, black jeans, tatty jersey, leather jacket, a beanie & white gumboots - he looked like a gang member out without his patch (that sounds judgemental, but bear with me a moment). He was with a dog that looked like it had some Staffordshire Bull Terrier in it.
As we approached, his dog came running up to Wilma, and so I let her off her lead. She & the staffy roamed ahead of the guy & as she passed, Wilma gave him a big smile.
The guy was still ahead of me, he'd looked around, but otherwise ignored us, and as he crossed the rickety bridge over one of the streams, he slipped. Turning, he gestured to me to be careful. I said "Thanks, I noticed you nearly slipped."
Over the bridge, the dogs played for a few moments, the Wilma went off looking for the other stream to splash in mud.
The guy approached, and as he did I noticed that he was bearded & had a droopy eye.
He asked me "Are you from SunnyO? I said that "yes, sometimes I'm from SunnyO, why do you ask?"
He said "Most people keep their dogs away from mine. For some reason they're scared of him."
I had to laugh to myself, because I'm quite sure people are more nervous about him, than his dog. I might have been myself, but Wilma giving him a big smile, when she'd take a wide berth around anyone posing a threat convinced me he was almost certainly harmless. As was his dog, which tellingly, was called "Ricky" rather than "Vengeance" or "Satan". A dead giveaway.
So Brad & Angelina have produced twins. They've given them relatively normal names - a boy called Knox Leon and girl called Vivienne Marcheline.
I tend to agree with the first commenter at the bottom of the story:
How disappointing, these two could have used their superstar status to really push the boundaries of ridiculous celebrity baby names.
#1 Posted by housemonkey — 09:14 AM | Monday , 14 July 2008
Sacha Baron Cohen & Will Ferrell to play Sherlock Holmes & Dr Watson, in a new spoof of the Arthur Conan Doyle super sleuth.
Seriously, no Sherlock Holmes spoof has ever been remotely funny, not the one starring Pete & Dud, nor the John Cleese one, and especially not the Roger Moore one. Additionally, almost nothing with Will Ferrell in it has been remotely funny either.
Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh," Columbia Pictures co-president Matt Tolmach said in a statement.
Fascinating stuff - while searching the website of the Dept of Statistics (that's what I call fun), I came across this page examining a number of myths associated with the New Zealand population - the "Brain Drain", the "browning" of New Zealand, and more.
Worth a look.
Myth Busters - Population and Sustainable Development
I wonder if the Dept of Justice have one on crime spiralling out of control?
In the pilot episode, John's laying low in a school in New Mexico, in 1999, when a new teacher reveals himself to be a terminator sent back in time to kill him.
Luckily the weird girl in his class also reveals herself to be a terminator (they're all over the place in this series) sent to replace the T-Arnie model destroyed at the end of the 2nd movie. This terminator, Cameron, is played straightfaced, by the awesome Summer Glau (NB: this photo is absolutely not from the series).
Forget Terminator 3: The Terminatrix (or whatever it was called), that didn't happen. Because what the T-Summer does, is transport Sarah & John 7 years into the future (thus, avoiding for the time being, Sarah's death from cancer that was reported in T3), to 2006.
The game's still the same, protect John from a legion of robots sent back to eliminate him, and try to find the origins of Skynet (now a prototype chess playing computer called The Turk).
There are also some nice nods to the earlier films, for instance, Cameron patrols LA in police uniform, rayban aviators (in the dead of night) and a motorbike. Sarah quips "Somewhere there's a naked policeman bleeding in an alley".
Oh, and that guy that always stuck me as a martian in Beverly Hills 90210 - Brian Austin Green, is also in it - he's Kyle Reese's brother (John's uncle).
Glau's a trained ballerina & one episode has her undercover at a ballet school. Later, a character muses that once machines learn to appreciate art, they may not feel the need to wipe out humanity - and cut to: Cameron alone in her room practising her ballet moves in the mirror.
Smart, violent, funny, and not unimportantly, a talented & attractive cast.
Series 2 has just been commissioned. Yay.
More Summer Glau photos (SFW) for your entertainment.
summer glau terminator - Google Image Search
Woman trampled by cows sues farmer for £1 million damages - Telegraph
A better one can be summed up in 4 words: Foot and Mouth Disease.
No sweat, they can have our old one later this year when we've finished with it.
Auckland 'needs mini-government' on Stuff.co.nz
Can't they?
I've yet to see a film featuring Sienna Millar, so I'm not qualified to comment on her acting talents. But I can put 2 & 2 together & divine that Ms Miller has top class talents in other areas.
Consider - if you happen to be a young, presentable actor, and especially if you're British, it's probably only a matter of time before Sienna will get around to you.
SO look out Daniel! (Or perhaps more likely, Rupert Grint.)
Rhys Ifans throws phone tantrum after Sienna split - Stuff.co.nz
Actually, given it jettisons most of the original plot & changes everything else, it's more like the "major" film that they made out of The Wizard of Earthsea. A steaming heap, in other words.
The Seeker (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Why do they bother?
Some macadamia trees drop their nuts. These are the Winter Harvest trees. The nuts on the other trees hang tight until Not Winter.
Last year, we harvested 49.9kg from all 4 Winter Harvest trees. That seemed like a lot at the time. This weekend, we harvested 62.5kg from two of the trees (not counting some 20kg of windfalls picked earlier in the month). That was two trailer loads (ok, small trailer). We only had time for two of the trees because as soon as they’re picked they have to be run through the smelly & noisy de-husking machine, or the husks will taint the nuts.
De-husking is a long & tedious task. My arms hurt today from hours & hours of cajoling & wrestling nuts through a tiny opening. But there’s something satisfying about the 6 sacks hanging in the drying room now. They’ll hang for 3 months, before being given a bit of a booster drying through the ovens (very low temperature). I expect them, at that stage, to weigh about 45kg.
Harvesting any kind of home grown produce is satisfying, Mrs Llew managed to find time this weekend to finish picking the granny smiths, about 5 20 litre buckets full, she’s given a fair few away, and stewed & frozen what she’s kept. We enjoyed apple crumble the other night, first apple crumble in decades for me.
We’ve also now got a pantry well stocked with quince jam, quince paste, quince & apple jelly, crab-apple jelly. Mrs Llew bought herself a stainless steel preserving pan which sits proudly on the stove top (because we don’t have a cupboard big enough to put it away.)
I remember my mum doing all this stuff when I was a kid (she still does, actually), but I was still staggered at how much sugar goes into preserves... I can see we'll be buying it by the sackload next year.
Aside from processing our own produce, the other old worldey sort of thing we do is make our own stock – in fact, there is a large stainless steel stock pot sitting proudly beside the preserving pan, every few weeks I simmer the collection of chicken carcasses that we keep in the freezer, along with whatever else I can find to chuck in – leeks, celery, herbs , carrots, onions, salt & pepper. I simmer the whole lot for a day or two, before straining the stock off (the sludge gets fed to the dog, by now any chicken bones are the consistency of chalk.)
The stock will set to the consistency of jelly. We freeze it for later.
If someone would be so kind as to click through this link, save the picture within & photoshop some wind turbines onto those ranges...
Save Central - NZBC
...I will post a companion piece.,
Banks Blame Tax Cuts for Mortgage Rates Rise - Stuff.co.nz
I don't get it - tax cuts have been announced, but not yet implemented, how can they be responsible for increased interest rates?
It's probably 15 years since I was last in the famed Civil Defence Centre that's underneath the Beehive. You know the one - it's where the government retire to in the event of the Big One, so that they can govern the country in safety. Or something like that.
Nats call for inquiry into Civil Defence power lapse - Stuff.co.nz
But anyway...
I was disappointed that the place was like a tramping hut, bunks, rudimentary cooking facilities (& PCs bolted to the desks so that they survive earthquakes.) No high tech communications, the PCs weren't even networked, no big screen from which to monitor the catastrophe through satellite images. Of course, it may well have changed since then.
One thing I remember the Civil Defence fellow telling us, which doesn't seem to have been imparted to Helen & John, is that this bunker exists in order to manage the aftermath of a disaster that occurs outside of Wellington.
Think about it, if (or when) the Big One comes, do you really think Civil Defence staff will be able to dig their way through the rubble of the collapsed Beehive? The CD guy showing us around was scornful of the chances of that.
No, apparently (and I am prepared to be corrected if this is wrong or has changed) there exists another Civil Defence bunker somewhere in Auckland, possibly it's above ground, that's the one to be used in the event of a disaster befalling the Capital.
Nat MP Hone Carter (remember him?) said, through a hole in his head:"It's not acceptable that there's a gap. This is our civil defence emergency headquarters that we are talking about here. These guys should be able to respond immediately."
The place isn't even staffed around the clock as far as I know. Hone's as full of wind as he always has been.
I finally have a DVD recorder. I note that in September 2005, my technological priorities were over-ridden:
SunnyO: Technological priorities
But now, thanks to an unchaperoned visit to LV Martin (to buy vaccuum cleaner bags), and a quick survey of the Consumer Org website, I have a brand new Panasonic something or other.
I will note, that the reason for this reckless purchase is the death of our previous DVD player the other night, and the temporary absence of the backup player, the PS2 mentioned in the link.
It remains to be seen if I can wire it up so that I can record from MySky. Could be a frustrating evening.
