Aliens will fix world's problems - later today.

Relax, it's all going to be fine, a psychic called Blossom Goodchild says so., In fact, she says that benign aliens will "come in love", today, and sort things out for us. Possibly with vibrators.

I only hope they're really hot & wearing lycra.

Aliens to arrive today - psychic - Stuff.co.nz

Crackdown on Christmas crackers

Hee - I could wear a sensible water flow regulation (6 litres per minute isn't it though), but if the Gummint is trying to play down the "nanny state" aspect, they need a new strategy.

Crackdown on crackers - Stuff.co.nz

Following years of carnage exacted in freak Christmas cracker accidents, I'm astonished to learn only now that they are classed as "fireworks" and subject to importation of explosives regulations.

Cool.

Painters - Gallery - Ken & His Gal

Painters - Gallery - Ken & His Gal

She's gone now.

Earlier stories here & here.

Hikers find Steve Fossett ID, belongings

The Thot Plickens

Hikers find Steve Fossett ID, belongings - Stuff.co.nz

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Yay!, season 2 of the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles starts next week. And bonus, there's a new T-1000 on the block, and it's played by Shirley Manson.

Shirley Manson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh - and yes, Torchwood is improving - I skipped the one with the dead guy/ghost, because that looked silly, but I really enjoyed the one with the people who took off in 1953 & landed half an hour later in 2006, that was quite moving (although the guy who plays Owen is a dweeb). And the one where Tosh & Jack end up in 1941 meeting the real Capt. Jack Harkness was good too - in fact, for a moment there I thought the old man/caretaker who seems to be able to travel through time might be the original Dr Who!

The Goose is Getting Fat

Cripes, Christmas is coming faster than expected.

This year, Christmas will be hosted at SunnyO - it's a big enough place that we've successfully hosted up to 50 people in the past, and there's a motel 5 minutes walk away for people staying longer who can't be accommodated onsite.

Mrs Llew is from a big family... 7 kids (I think, at last count), there'll be 4 generations of her family on board. If you watch the series Brothers & Sisters you'll know the drill - the gay sibling, the addict, at least two of them not talking to each other at any given time, the brother who left his wife for Sienna Miller, and years & years of secrets, intrigue & grievance *.

I'm from a family whose numbers are fewer & dwindling... I offered to host because I thought it'd be nice for my mum to spend her first Christmas without her daughter among family. My brother was committed to another excursion & can't make it unfortunately. And to complicate matters, my Mum is determined to spend Christmas alone.

It's shaping up to be a goodie already.

* Not all of these apply in real life.

Apologies for the lack of photographs recently, it's a long & boring story, but I'll find a camera & make the effort soon - the garden is very photogenic in Spring, especially when the lawns are mowed.

New Toy Alert

I'm not a huge fan of lawnmowing. Nor am I a huge fan of lawn mowers. Nor any machinery really.

Which is ironic, because I have nearly 2 acres of lawn & more small engined machines on the property than most people have in their lifetimes.

And in my defense, I inherited most of these machines when we bought the property.

I brought my own chainsaw and a linetrimmer, but in addition to that I now have:

Another chainsaw
Another bigger (you have to wheel it around) linetrimmer
A chipping machine
A cheap lawnmower
An ancient ride-on mower (Countax brand, although remove the "a", and move the "o" and you can guess how I pronounce it) which no longer picks up the clippings & mainly flattens the lawn rather than cuts it.
An old farm trike, which we've only managed to start twice because the pull start is so munted.

And there are sundry electric devices too - a yard blower, which is a waste of space, and a nut de-husking machine, which looks like junk thrown into a heap & bolted together, but it works real well.

The ride-on has caused the most trouble, it's estimated at 20 years old & has already cost us more than $1k getting the catcher fixed, which lasted nearly a year.

We've muddled through Autumn & Winter with the mowing, but the spring flush beat us this weekend.

It takes, they say, 5 hours to mow all of our lawn. I wouldn't know because I've never done the whole lot in one go. And the last few months have hardly seen 5 hours of sustained dry weather.

This weekend we bit the bullet & decided we needed a new mower - not just a mower actually, but something to tow the trailer around the property since we can't get the trike running.

So down to Borat we went (Note, he just looks like Borat & has an unidentifiable European accent). I was thinking a John Deere, because everyone tells me they're the Stihl or Husqvarna of the mower world - ie, reliable & long lasting. We've put this purchase off for a while because quite frankly, we could buy two relatively new model Japanese cars for what one of these things goes for.

But Borat recommended a Kiwicat Cheetah II, which looks like the sport version of the Cuntox (did I say that?). He said the things never break down & they're made from standard parts, and a Honda engine & they do a great job.

So we took him at his word, we could have bought 1.5 2nd hand japanese cars for the same price, but what the hey!

Anyway, bottom line is Mrs Llew is pleased with the croquet lawn for the first time in 2 years. It was worth it.

I still hate doing lawns, but this thing has twice the cutting width & should therefore get through the lot in 2.5 hours! We'll see.

Oh - and it is Kiwi made!!

Next week perhaps, adventures in selling old ride-on mowers & farm trikes on Trademe.

TV's hottest women?

Meet TV's hottest women (+pics) - Stuff.co.nz

I don't think so.

Mildly NSFW

No grounds to censure Peters

Oh well... if you can't beat 'em....

No grounds to censure Peters - Cullen - Stuff.co.nz

Dr Cullen said the evidence had to be greater than MPs believing it to be true, because Mr Henry and Mr Peters denied it.

If I am ever up on charges in court, I sincerely hope that the judge subscribes to the same logic.

I mean seriously, What. The. Fuck?

Road-rage driver burns to death

Another contender for the Darwin Awards.

Road-rage driver burns to death - Stuff.co.nz

And this reminds me of a story I read in one of the local (Kapiti) newspapers recently, I wish I'd kept it as I can't find it online.

Anyway, some young guy was burning rubber doing doughnuts in the street, he had a bit of an audience, so showing off, he opened the car door...

...and fell out of his moving car (WAY COOL & CLEVER), which narrowly missed running over & killing him. The car careened across the road & into a lampost. An injured man limped to it & shamefacedly drove away.

Police found him shortly afterwards, at home, bleeding profusely.

They did name the doofus, but I can't remember what it was.

Anger over demise of Kiwi lollies

I wonder how many of those angry at the end of these (in my view, horrible) confections, have actually bought them in the last few years?

You vote with your wallets if you want things to remain on the market.

Anger over demise of Kiwi lollies - Stuff.co.nz

My Mum, the Prize winning gardener

I popped out to see my mum yesterday, she's been laid low with a bout of bronchitis - the first time she's ever suffered that particular ailment. She's had a rough year, but she's pretty resilient.

Anyway, she looked & sounded better than I expected, the drugs must be working.

And she told me an amusing story (which, fingers crossed she doesn't check here...) is not always the case :)

Last Friday, while laid particularly low, she got a call from a friend urging her to enter her camellias in the Lower Hutt Horticultural Show on that weekend.

Mum is a bit of a gardener, but not hugely so, and she was sick at the time of the call & so she told her friend that she wouldn't be bothering, she didn't even know the show was on & she was not a particularly dedicated camellia grower - it is possible that the only attention these bushes have ever received was when they were planted a few decades ago.

Her friend persisted, and irritated, mum told her she was welcome to come & pick some flowers, but she herself wasn't at all interested.

And that's the last she thought of the matter, until she got another call on Sunday telling her she'd won 1st & 2nd prize in the "Novice" section of the competition.

camellias - Google Image Search

When I told this to Mrs Llew last night, she pointed out that it is conceivable that some decades ago I was called out to dig holes & plant the camellias in the first place.

I considered that for a moment & it dawned on me that I am the prize winning camellia grower!

Freaky dolphin sh... stuff.

Wild dolphins mark passing of Marineland's last performer.

Kelly's guard of honour - Stuff.co.nz

Caribou Barbie

Absolutely priceless

College OTR OTR: Sarah Palin as "Caribou Barbie" Realized

Hat/tip to Kerry Weston

All competitions should be like this

I just won a Snapper card which has been pre-loaded with some amount of money that I can't quite recall.

Entry was via an email link from the e-magazine of a company I do business with. All I had to do was click the link & answer some (forgotten) skill question in the subject field & click send.

A second or two later the message bounced back with an error. A little sniffing around revealed that they'd made a typo in the email recipient's address.

I corrected it & sent it back.

I surmise I was the only one who bothered to rectify the error :)

Torchwood - I have an issue

Been watching a couple of episodes of Torchwood - the one with the fairies at the bottom of the garden (liked it), and the one set in the Brecon Beacons (a desolate place that I've mentioned before on this blog someplace - it's the Welsh equivalent of the Desert Road, complete with army manoeuvres, and that episode was so-so.).

Anyway, here's my issue:

If Capt Jack is invulnerable & immortal, how come he lets Gwen crash through the farm door first, so that she collects a shotgun blast? Doesn't it make sense to send the unkillable one in?

Sheesh. It's little things like this that can ruin a show. Aside from that & the feeling that a couple of the cast at least can't do action to save themselves, I like it.

BBC - Torchwood - Homepage

Meet the Governor.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska reclines on the carcass of a Kodiak bear she has just killed with her bare hands & dragged in from the backyard after the luckless beast wandered into the Gubernatorial mansion looking for salmon in the fish pond.

A weary but satisfied Gov Palin then tucked into a King Crab lunch prepared by her staff.

Next issue: Old Youtube footage of a bikini clad Gov. Palin machine-gunning elks.

Brian Lochore on Political correctness

It may well be the reporting to blame, but can anyone make sense of what Sir Brian is saying?

Brian Lochore: Political correctness destroying NZ - Stuff.co.nz

"We are living in a PC world which is destroying us, where you actually can't put the hard word on people when they have digressed and committed bad blunders," he said.

Um... Just let us know who's transgressed (I presume that's what you mean) Brian, and we'll send a few of the boys around. No sweat.

He said his daughters went to a rugby game at three weeks old, and later played in the mud while their dad downed a jug in the bar after a game.

"In the evenings we went to the rugby parties with the kids, who slept in the back of the car. We can't do that any more because we haven't got rid of the perpetrators that actually destroy our society."

Say what? I kind of get the first bit: people are no longer free to get pissed while the kids play outside in the mud (was the motorway not handy?) and later sleep in the car, bacause the olds are STILL in the club pissing up large. I'm not quite sure who he's blaming for this state of affairs though. Unless by "perpetrators" he means the Gummint.

"The one thing I believe is important in life is respect. They respected authority, they respected teachers, I respected the teachers. We lack a great deal of respect for authority nowadays, there's always someone protesting."

He says that like it's a bad thing. I have little doubt that protesters protested in his day too. But hey, he's free to state his opinion, even if he thinks others shouldn't.

Sir Brian admitted to smacking his children, "but I've never hit them".

"Yes, I smacked other people's children, but I never hit them. But we are not allowed to do that any more in this PC world."

Dear me. And good.

So to summarise:

NZ is being destroyed because people who respect authority are no longer allowed to take vigilante action against those who may have transgressed, parents can't leave their kids unsupervised while they get pissed somewhere else, we can no longer physically "discipline" our & others' children, and too many people are protesting.

It's a disgrace I tell you!

The F-All Plan Diet. And Labradors.

The Kelburn Vet Clinic rang me the other day to remind me (I hadn't forgotten) that Wilma was due for her 12 monthly checkup and vaccinations.

Actually, I had been a bit remiss, I got the reminder a month ago, and only last week I found lump on her side that I thought should be checked out promptly.

My reservation was that Wilma is clearly a little... stout at present, and could do to lose a few kilos before coming under the watchful eye of one of the vets (they seem obsessed with weight & teeth - of your pets of course, although just as an aside, the two primary vets are very svelte and attractive, and have exceptional teeth, so maybe this is some sort of unconscious projection.)

The clinic is a few houses along from our place, but a few houses in the opposite direction to that which Wilma & I take on our daily walks. So she was apprehensive the moment I corrected her trajectory with a breezy "This way." She knows that means to change direction.

She started to get really worried when I shortened the lead as we approached the vet's, she's used to taking a very wide berth past their doorway.

And in we swooped! Wilma spinning slightly as she settled to patiently, and rather optimistically, face the exit.

While no-one was looking, I coaxed her onto the scales. 34.4 kg. Bugger. Fat Bitch. A receptionist appeared at the computer terminal & enquired as to her weight. I was entirely honest.

And I was slightly gladdened in one way, to see that we were to be attended by a new vet who wasn't familiar with Wilma's history. And slightly disappointed that we weren't to see the hot female vet (not that I make a habit of channeling Jon Arbuckle or anything). And then totally disappointed to discover the new guy had a printout of her history.

"ooh. She's put on some weight!"
"Um. Yes."

Wilma was pretty much dragged across the polished floor into the consultation room. Every time she was urged to stand up to be examined, she kind of slid down with her back to the ground, a puzzling but highly effective manoeuvre

Her teeth checked out - we've been keeping her from the macadamia nuts this year. She was led out the back & had a biopsy performed on her slightly worrying lump (fat deposit, nothing to worry about). She took her vaccinations like a brave little dog should.

And then I took the lecture about fat pets. Although this was from the new guy & not so bad as usual, the Fat Pet Lecture from the boss is infamous around Kelburn. You should hear the guy whose lab is 47kg moan about it.

And I learned that avocados are poisonous to dogs.

"They can't be that poisonous!?" I queried, "Wilma has eaten LOADS!"

But anyway, in the interests of regaining her waist, and her preferred upper limit of 30kg, she's now on the avocado-less diet. And the carbo-free diet (aside from whatever is in dog food naturally). And reduced rations of the labrador specific dog food I only bought the day before yesterday. Whatever will they think of next to part me from my money? Although to be fair, I bought it because it came with a free doggy travel bed. They have cool free stuff with dog & cat food now & then.

And it won't take that long to get her down to 30kg, we've done it before.

Phil Lewin

It's fair to say that the death of my sister in March has cast a pall over this year. The pain from the loss of someone close never really goes away, but it does get easier to bear. However, it may be a while before I regain the spontaneous inspiration to post that I used to enjoy. Somehow this year hasn't been as funny as others. That happens, I guess.

And onwards...

Early in 1973, a skinny kid with an angry scar on his face & a funny accent was introduced to his new school and classmates. Among them was a guy with a permanent grin & an irrepressible wit, his name was Phil Lewin & he befriended me.

Phil would march between classes with a merry "Ta ra ra boomteyay, I'll take your pants away, and while you're standing there, I'll steal your underwear." or a version of John Denver's Country Road, into which various gynaecological terms had been seamlessly integrated.

I knew almost no-one, but Phil knew everyone. Like most conservative old schools, it had something of an underground bully culture, there were some kids you just steered clear of. Not Phil though, on spying one particularly feared hulk (who looked for all the world like the bully character in the Dennis the Menace cartoons), Phil would bellow "Duuuuh! MacPhee you moron!". For some reason MacPhee would merely curse & walk away.

I was only at that school for half a year or so, before my family moved into deepest Hutt Valley & I changed college. But as chance would have it, we moved to a place just around the corner from Phil's grandmother & so as the years passed, I'd often see him & other family members on their way to visit.

Later, we caught up at University, he was studying English Lit & French. He told me he took French because there were 300 in the class, of whom 296 were women, whilst the other 3 guys were gay.

A clever guy, he appeared on University Challenge, was a Rhodes Scholar, career diplomat and business lobbyist. I heard rumours that he was being urged to enter politics. He would have been a dream Wellington Central candidate.

It's been a few years since we last spoke, probably shortly after he returned from a posting in Moscow. I always figured we'd catch up one day again. I was wrong.

My sympathies go to his family, his wife & kids, his sister, and his mother. Mothers shouldn't have to farewell their children like that, but it happens.

So long Phil. You went far too soon.