March 2010
The Weekender 14/03/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 14/03/2010 - 21:55Well this is the last Weekender for a few weeks. I'm getting married next Sunday & will then have three weeks honeymoon, we will see you again after that!
Sport
Well the NRL has started a new season and the Warriors had a final quarter meltdown to snatch a 24-18 loss against the Gold Coast Titans. In other first round games the Newcastle Knights beat the Bulldogs 16-20, the Brisbane Broncos snatched a 30-24 win over the North Queensland Cowboys and the Dragons beat the Eels 18-12.
The Super14 continued - but not in a good way for most NZ teams. The Hurricanes were thrashed by the Stormers 37-13, the Waratahs thrashed the Lions 73-12, and the Bulls beat the Highlanders 50-35 (no defence there!). The only winning NZ team was the Crusaders who wore down the Chiefs 19-26. The Brumbies beat the Sharks 24-22, and the Reds thrashed the Force 50-10.
Well the One day cricket has continued and Australia has retained the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy with dominant results in the third & fourth ODIs (admittedly mostly due to inadequate batting from the Black Caps - maybe they are taking lessons from Chris Martin - go on, YouTube "Learn to bat like Chris Martin"). But the fifth ODI regained some pride - I'm still not quite sure how it happened but you can be sure that if NZ ever win, it's a result of the bowlers. I gave up when NZ was at 6/155 or 7/186, but the tail enders (i.e. bowlers) batted well and we reached a still inadequate 9/241. Shane Bond and Tim Southee then saved the day by taking four wickets each to bowl Australia out for 190 - and a 51 run win is very good.
The Wellington Phoenix have had their season ended losing 4-2 to Sydney. Obviously having the ref miss a goal scored by hand, didn't impact the final result, but it was a crucial point in the game as the Phoenix were level up to that point. Regardless of the result, NZers got very excited about football over the past few weeks - let's hope it continues for the World Cup!
Team New Zealand has continued it's run of wins in the Louis Vuitton Trophy in Auckland this weekend. They had their fourth straight win after beating the Franco-German All4One entry by 26 seconds.
The Black Sticks played a good 20min of hockey but were beaten 5-2 by defending champs Germany in the World Cup. They played South Africa for 9th-10th placing (but what was the result?).
Hayden Roulston has pulled out of the Paris-Nice cycling race after suffering from a head cold, however Greg Henderson is in sixth place. Greg actually won the opening stage.
NZ News
Well he has done it! Shaun Quincey has rowed from Australian to New Zealand. The first single rower to have ever rowed in that direction and the second person to have ever done - the first being his father, Colin, in 1977. It took him 53 days - nine days quicker than his father, he rowed around 3,900km (although in a straight line it's 2,200km) and he lost 17kg on the trip.
Here's a reason why I like NZ so much. Maybe it's just the paper trying to stir up trouble, but the large headline read "Police in abuse of power row". The abuse in question is a former highly ranked cop, calling a friend and current highly ranked cop, when he was stopped on the way to a sports match. Apparently he was late & didn't want to wait even for the brief police check. Ok I agree he should be checked like anyone else, but if this is the worst they can come up with for a Police abuse of power story, then that is great.
The opposition had something to say when transport minister Stephen Joyce announced a review of the SuperGold Card transport concessions this week. Everyone was up in arms claiming that all the benefits would be cut - until near the end of the news story they talked to John Key and Stephen Joyce, who said they were committed to the SuperGold Card and were just reviewing some of the high cost options like the Waiheke Island ferry. Mr Joyce said "It possibly wasn't clear enough but I think also there was definitely some political desire to create some concern and fear" - which of course for everyone except reporters seems obvious (they're the opposition - it's their job! You don't need to report it). If you don't know the SuperGold Card gives free off peak travel on public transport to Senior Citizens.
The SundayStar Times got into trouble this week by stupidly deciding to "test" NZ's anti-terrorist response at rugby games for the Rugby World Cup. They sent people into Waikato Stadium and Christchurch's AMI Stadium with fake explosives, then they got into "public" places without the police knowing (duh). Police Minister Judith Collins said "If they were trying to make some point that Kiwis go to rugby games and they don't get treated like they're all potential terrorists - well, so what?".
A kiwi is indeed a hero over in Afghanistan when the British Army soldier picked up a grenade that had been thrown at him and his colleagues and threw it away just seconds before it went off. He and the colleagues received up minor injuries but they have credited James McKie with saving their lives.
4: people rescued from a burning car by hero Real Estate agent Rob Kuypers
5.0: richter scale earthquake hit Fiordland this morning
5.5: m waves caused house evacuations in the Hawkes Bay this week
7: months in a row of dropping produce prices
10: top Irish-themed pubs ranking for Auckland's The Muddy Farmer, just in time for St Patrick's Day
16: Vodafone cell sites had degraded performance for 6 hours last Saturday
50: WWII Maori Battalion men met for what might be their last big reunion, they are aged between 84 and 101
60: fire fighters put out a major fire at a boat building plant in Te Rapa, Hamilton this afternoon
95: % of NZ Defence Force troop injuries, happen in NZ compared to those overseas "in action"
182.9: c/L for 91-octane petrol, the highest price for 18 months
140,000: $ fine for a company whose employee was killed by a vehicle while collecting rubbish last year
5.5m: $ in aid pledged for the Cook Islands after the devastating Cyclone Pat
7.5b: $ net worth for Graeme Hart - NZer & Australasia's richest man, however he dropped 43 places to 144th - equal with Giorgio Armani
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4620 (+0.0012)
EUR 0.5102 (-0.0018)
USD 0.7022 (+0.0048)
AUD 0.7676 (-0.0011)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Robert Dickie
CHAMPION OF AUTOMATION
RJ Dickie invented and patented the world’s first stamp vending machine. His machines were in use for 50 years, 18,000 were used in Britain, with countless others around the world. The machine that won highest honours at the 1909 Seattle Expo came from a New Zealander with a single idea.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/dickie.html
Salt and Mensa
Mensa is an organization whose members have an IQ of 140 or higher.
A few years ago, there was a Mensa convention in San Francisco, and several members lunched at a local cafe. While dining, they discovered that their saltshaker contained pepper and their pepper shaker was full of salt. How could they swap the contents of the bottles without spilling, and using only the implements at hand?
Clearly this was a job for Mensa! The group debated and presented ideas, and finally came up with a brilliant solution involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer. They called the waitress over to dazzle her with their solution.
"Ma'am," they said, "we couldn't help but notice that the pepper shaker contains salt and the salt shaker..."
"Oh," the waitress interrupted. "Sorry about that." She unscrewed the caps of both bottles and switched them.
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
The
Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website:
www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
{If
these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll
take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source,
sometimes it's even just an opinion}
The Weekender 07/03/2010
Submitted by darrenh on Sun, 07/03/2010 - 20:58Welcome back, things are still hot around this place despite a predicted early winter! I just hope it will be nice weather on Sunday 21st!
Sport
Well football has been the sport of the week (and maybe cricket and rugby). The All Whites had a big game when they took on Mexico in a World Cup warm up match. The game was in L.A. (so essentially a home game for the Mexicans) and Mexico is ranked much much higher than NZ, so holding them to 2-0 loss was a fantastic result for NZ.
Then some of the key players were back on a plane & straight into training for today's A-League semi-final against the Newcastle Jets. The Phoenix won the game 3-1 in extra time in front of 33,000 ever vocal fans at Westpac Stadium - Wellington is becoming a football town! The Phoenix are one game away from a place in the final.
In trans-tasman cricket, NZ had the momentum from the Twenty20 for the first One Dayer and they used it! With Dan Vettori withdrawing due to a neck strain, the formerly overlooked Scott Styris was in the game and there at the end as NZ chased down 276 to win - in fact Styris won by hitting a six with four balls to go (and two wickets).
During the game Aussie Mitchell Johnson felt the need to have a face-off with Scott Styris & even went so far as to gently head-butt him (isn't it rather dumb to head-butt someone who has a helmet on?). The funny part is that there were two follow up stories on it, the first with the headline "Game better off without fiery spats, says Hussey" (so then maybe Australia should pull out of cricket?), and the second saying "Ponting - We need to be ruthless or pay price". Talk about mixed messages.
The second ODI was just as close, Australia again chose to bat first and again were restricted to a score that wasn't quite good enough, but this time we lost too many wickets along the way. We were still in with a chance but with Dan Vettori batting near the end, he needed 12 off 11 when he got out - it was doable but another close game. 1-1 in the best of five.
In national cricket, Northern Districts beat Wellington by nine wickets and surged into the lead with three rounds remaining for the Plunket Shield.
In the Super 14 there were a couple of upsets to the detriment of NZ teams this week. The Cheetahs had a surprise 28-12 win over the Hurricanes, and the Chiefs had a surprise loss to the Reds 18-23.
In other games the Waratahs required an extra two men to beat the Sharks 25-21 after the ref handed out plenty of yellow cards, the Highlanders were thrashed 33-0 by the Stormers, the Crusaders beat the Blues 33-20 in a close game, the Brumbies beat the Lions 24-13
Chiefs player Sione Lauaki was in the news this week after a complaint was made to the police, but it sounds like it might have been someone looking for trouble after the bar staff said it all happened within about five seconds and the staff would have noticed a punch and when approached both parties said everything was ok.
The New Zealand Ironman was on again this weekend and Jo Lawn won the womans title for the seventh time, and Cameron Brown fought back from being nearly eight minutes behind to win his ninth Ironman New Zealand title.
On Friday Dean Barker was in danger of dropping out of the Auckland match-racing regatta but on Saturday he picked the right winds and beat young Kiwi Adam Minoprio (who has been doing very well) and Britain Ben Ainslie in the final.
New Zealand beat Korea 2-0 in the Hockey World Cup after earlier losing 3-1 to the Netherlands.
NZ News
New Zealand news seems to be getting less & less thorough in their investigations. This week a leading news story was about a sighting of missing British girl Madeleine McCann. The sighting was last August with a lady 80% confident that they saw her, and upset that police had ignored her report - so I guess she took it to the media. A lengthy in-depth story followed, but later in the news there was a brief update (without any sort of apology for errors) saying that the family of the Madeleine lookalike have requested privacy. The police had positively identified as not Madeleine.
The court case behind the murder of a liquor store owner finished up this week with the gunman found guilty and the other five men found not guilty of murder or manslaughter but guilty of aggravated robbery. The widow is still angry with police because they followed protocol despite being assured the robbers had fled, which resulted in a 26 minute delay getting the man medical attention.
A kiwi was jailed in Brisbane after asking for help from a policeman & then after getting none he called them "useless". He said "In New Zealand we are taught to trust and respect police and seek them out for help when we are in trouble".
The government is looking make some changes drivers with the minimum driving age being raised by one year to 16, and implementing a zero-alcohol policy for drivers younger than 20.
5: c/L rise in petrol this week
15: weeks in prison for a German resident of Uganda who tried to smuggle 16 protected geckos out of NZ
20: NZers still unaccounted for in Chile after the earthquake
147: tonnes of poison-laced cereal bait dropped on Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands have resulted in large numbers of native birds heading back to their new sanctuary
358: litres of paint & 500 pairs of hands have given decile 1 school Glenbrae Primary a makeover, thanks to the Life Centre Trust and sponsors & volunteers
2,500: $ fine for rubberneckers during the Jan Molenaar siege in Napier last year
500,000: $ in aid for Chile from the NZ government
1.2m: $ collected by the IRD from tax dodging online traders
3m: $ for the Rugby World Cup free-to-air broadcasting rights
10m: $ investment by TVNZ hasn't helped sell Tivo boxes with only an estimated 2000 units sold
Finance NZ Dollar
GBP 0.4608 (+0.0021)
EUR 0.5120 (-0.0008)
USD 0.6974 (-0.0012)
AUD 0.7687 (-0.0120)
The
Weekender NZer of the week
Ernest Godward
INVENTOR, OVER-ACHIEVER, INVERCARGILLITE
An innovator of many talents. During the 1930s he was the world's leading expert on the internal combustion engine. He built power tools, eggbeaters, burglar proof windows and hairpins. He was a champion sportsman, a fine musician, a talented painter, an expert on international weapons. In short Ernest Godward was a brilliant over-achiever.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/godward.html
Ladder Borrow
My next-door neighbor and I frequently borrow things from each other. Not long ago, when I requested his ladder, he told me he had lent it to his son.
Recalling a saying my grandmother used to repeat, I recited, "You should never lend anything to your kids, because you will never get it back."
With that, he responded, "Tell you the truth, it's not even my ladder. It's my dad's."
Check
out my photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/dunwich42
Darren Harrison:
darren@harrison.gen.nz
The
Weekender: mailed weekly (Sunday nightish)
Website:
www.dunwich.co.nz/weekender/
{If
these just fill up your junk mail, then send me an email & I'll
take you off the list | The Weekender is not a verified news source,
sometimes it's even just an opinion}
