chapter 5 - a splodge on the blogscape

Tommy seems to have decided to stay with us. I let him out for the first time yesterday afternoon; I opened the window and left him to it. He went out, he came back in, he had second lunch, went out again and didn't come in until 1.30 this morning. By then, all bravado aside, I was thinking the little swine (flattie's description, cos it's cleaner) had started off home without his chair.

But no, at 1.30 as I was going to bed, I stuck my head out and called one more time and Lo! there was a crash and a bang on the carport roof followed by a cheeky grin peering through the palm. Bright as a button and ready for dinner now, please.

Tonight he made in by 11.30. Pretty soon he'll be doing this



all day long.

God, how mundane, but it beats the hell out of talking about clearing wandering jew.

I don't normally post vids, but this one is an exception because not only is it cool, it's really small for dial-up users.



"Recorded by NASA JPL photograghers using the Photron APX high-speed video camera. Camera: ultima APX 120 KC recording at 4,000 frames per second (fps) with a 250 microsecond global shutter and a resolution of 1,024 (H) by 512 (V) 30-bit resolution."

This is a really old bee.



It's name is Melittosphex burmensis, it comes from Myanmar and it's been lurking around in a piece of amber for 100,000,000 years (that's 100 million if you are blinded by all the zeroes) which is a really long time, 45 million years longer than the next oldest known specimen.

You were dying to know that, I can tell.

:0)

This handsome gentleman is Tommy.



He is the latest addition to the family, a worthy successor (we hope) to the Magnificent Merlin. Most cats seem resistant to change and Tommy appears no different; at 10 years old being moved to pastures new is a big and scary thing, but with his Mum and Dad heading off to Oz to live and unable to take him too, his options were looking a little limited.

Hence his being stuffed in a box (big cat + small box = tight fit), his favourite armchair and blankie loaded in the boot of the car and a 20 minute journey across town to begin a new life as Top Cat in our humble little abode.

So far, on his first day here, he has eaten 3 days worth of food, been cuddled heaps, sworn at Loopy, smacked Nushie in the snout (and made her bleed), taken offence at fireworks being let off next door at the park (his Mum said he didn't like them) and taken up refuge under whatever bed is handy. Currently, this is Adam's bed. Adam is very pleased.

Welcome Tommy, we look forward to seeing a lot more of you very soon.

I am stunned by this latest news from Australia yesterday.

"SYDNEY - Australians have reacted with shock and outrage to revelations that a group of schoolboys filmed themselves sexually abusing and degrading a teenage girl and posted excerpts on the Internet.

The horrific video shows a group of 12 youths surrounding the 17-year-old girl, who has a mild developmental problems, bullying her to perform sex acts, urinating on her and setting her hair alight, local media reported Wednesday.

A DVD of the attack in Werribee suburb in the southern city of Melbourne was sold widely at several schools in the area and segments were posted on the Internet video website YouTube, the reports said."


I'm so stunned I don't know what to say. But if I did know what to say, it would probably involve words like public humiliation; nakedness; some aerosol cans and a lighter; a few paedophiles and lots of people taking the piss (or taking A piss, perhaps). Them Bible fellas had the right idea with their eye-for-an-eye stuff.


As for their egg-and-sperm donors, what sort of parenting breeds monsters like these?



Lucky I couldn't think of anything to say, isn't it...

At the supermarket the other night, we encountered this rather strange family shopping, which is of course what most people do in supermarkets.

What made this family stand out were several things:

They shopped as a family (Mum, Dad, 4 kids)
The kids bounced around like they'd had party pills for dinner
There was a little boy called Charles (what were they thinking???)
The father was constantly berating young Charles for touching things, yet Charles looks to be well under 3
Charles was riding a bike, a bike with outriggers

Young Charles was lethal with his bike and so were his trainer wheels.

It seemed that no matter where we went, this family were there ahead of us and every time, Charles and his damned bike were riding around in front of someone's trolley while his brain dead father honked "Chaaarles, look out" or "Chaaarles, be careful" or "Chaaarles watch the trolleys". I tell ya, it was damn near enough to send me right off mine. Toddlers with bikes do NOT belong in supermarkets with shoppers and people who would name their kid Chaaarles and subsequently honk it repeatedly in public should be forbidden from ever breeding.

I mean, look at the potential outcome! Kings in Waiting and those who become outlaws of Kings in Waiting and Kings of Silent Comedy.







See what I mean? Risky, eh, you end up wearing a tie.

That's all for now, you may go.

From the country that brought the world the health benefits of KFC, Maccas and Coke comes this little beauty.

"THE US has banned Vegemite, even to the point of searching Australians for jars of the spread when they enter the country.

The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite has been deemed illegal under US food laws.

The great Aussie icon - faithfully carried around the world by travellers from downunder - contains folate, which under a technicality, America allows to be added only to breads and cereals."

It's ok to have your folate in ya toast, but not on ya toast. And I like Vegemite.

Just one more reason to never visit America.

Hands up who remembers this joker



Yup, it's James Bolam who I first remember from a series on TV called "When the boat comes in".

I didn't like it very much and I liked the theme song even less, a traditional Northumbrian fav called (funnily enough) When the Boat Comes In. You remember, it went "Dance ti' thy daddy, sing ti' thy mammy, Dance ti' thy daddy, ti' thy mammy sing; Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy, Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in".

Geez I hated hearing that every bloody week.

Today we watched a boat come in and its a biggie





She's a condo ship called "The World" and is the first ship of the summer cruise season to arrive, I think, gliding through the harbour entrance early this evening amid very un-summer like wind and pelting rain. Even most of the seagulls had somewhere else to be. We should have done the same as it was very cold, but it's always neat to watch these monsters dwarfing the Mount as they round it once through the entrance, with a little tug lurking somewhere not too far away. Sometimes, way back in the dimdarks, we'd walked around the Mount to the harbour entrance and watched them sail past at what seemed only an arm's length away, but these days I have to be satisfied with sitting at Pilot Bay which isn't half as impressive.

The World heads out tomorrow night, but her place is guaranteed to be taken by many more over the next 5 months. We'll probably go and watch them, too, cos we are boring like that :0)

---

The World - numbers:
196 metres long
30 metres wide
200 passengers
250 staff
$1.9m - $5.4m price or
$1800 a night rent

Note the first pic shows something absolutely peculiar to Pilot Bay - because the Mount is lower than Tauranga, the harbour and beach are on a tilt. It's not my abysmal photography skills or leaning into the wind and stuff...

Would I shit you?

Arthur C. Clarke has been writing science fiction books since long before most of us were born. I am a great fan of his work; all those stories about strange creatures and alien environments full of weird gadgets with resocialised societies living the propaganda they take in their daily food pill.

I mean, come on, how likely is any of that? Eh? People aren't going to want video phones. They aren't interested in solar power and centralised, computerised security. They don't care about being entertained 24/7 and being kept up to date to the minute with global affairs. And they certainly don't want to have babies the normal way, or get out of their car to get things. And have everything they buy delivered without ever going to work. And no-one wants to live in Space.

Do they?

Just think, Man has only had powered flight for a bit over a century. Imagine where we might have been if the Catholic Church hadn't suppressed so many very clever men.

You want fried microchips with that?

HAL: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. - 2001, A Space Odyssey.

So why is this post called sausages? Because of all the links, of course.

We went to Bunnings at the Mount today to buy tools and potting mix and on the way out, I drove down the street to the airport, just for a gander. I like planes, you see. Especially loud jets passing through the sound barrier scaring small children (ok scaring my kids at the airport during a airforce display is just one of the things I have enjoyed immensely in the past) and we went past this place - a small aviation museum called Classic Flyers NZ. They had a whole bunch of their planes parked outside on the grass and just before the weather packed up and started raining, we got to watch three of them taxi down to the main airport runway and take off. They were very cool.

We'll have to go back again very soon for a real look.

This sticker was on the vehicle parked next to us yesterday.



Well, we got a giggle out of it anyway.

NZ State houses are far from flash, usually in areas where people don't really want to live and the rent is cheaper than market rate rents. Cheap rent means the inhabitants often have flash cars and SKY TV and there seem to be more SKY dishes in the likes of Merivale, just up the road than in the rest of the south end of town combined. NZ State houses are also owned by the gummint and therefore the taxpayer, not by the people who live in them even though people may occupy them for 20, 30, 40 years or more, perhaps until their death.

There are 11,000 people on the waiting list for a State house, and a huge chunk of them live in Auckland. There are criteria to be met to get one of these rentals such as the size of the house depends on how many people are going to live in it. The term of lease is as long as an individual/a family requires it and still fulfills the criteria. But they never own the house, the taxpayers do and when the senior generation pop their clogs, the rest of the family up and move to somewhere else, if they haven't already because they've grown up and left home. Unless they are teenage unwed mothers. Unless they are this lot or their ilk, in which case they decide to stay put because it was their mother's house. Rented, State house. Tenancy is not inherited.

In short: Housing Minister Chris Carter said police would be called to oust Maana family members from the Panmure state house – which their mother Kopu Maana lived in for about 40 years before she died last month – if they did not leave by the end of this weekend. But two of her daughters, bolstered yesterday by about 30 relatives and friends who have shifted to the property, have refused to move.

They are arguing they have a claim to the house because the family has lived there so long.

Yeah, they lived there so long because it was cheap and easy and they couldn't get their shit together to buy their own home, even though cheap rent was supposedly giving them the opportunity to save more for their own house. You know, the hand up not the hand out.

And now they have squatters in and appear to be trashing the place because they can't get their own "gimme, gimme" way.

This is the house (hardly a palace),



and its rating valuation is $660,000 because of its proximity to more desirable locations. They are even protesting about it and have support from the community. Yeah, of course they do, it's the same sort of people supporting them.



They think they have the right to stay because their mother lived there so long? What about the people who have been waiting years for a family sized state house? Where are their rights?

It's not this lot's house, they have no rights. Send them packing and prosecute the shit out of them for damaging Gummint property. AND refuse them any further State funded housing. There are many, much worthier people to spend the taxpayer $$ on.

The Marlboro Man has been judged #1 fictional or mythical character that had the most influence on history and society.



With 101 entries (# 101 is Paul Bunyon, a really big dude with a weird blue cow) it's a rather comprehensive list and you can find others such as King Arthur (#3), Santa (#4) and the Loch Ness Monster (#56).

Weird.

When I was a kid, a real treat was if Mum or Nana bought Rolos. They weren't very cheap.



Then we didn't see them a lot for a few years and now they are on special at Pak'n'Save, 2 for 99 cents... well, someone has to buy them.

Speaking of Pak'n'Save, the Gisborne Pak'n'Save is a den of iniquity, according to caughtya.org, who have posted 2 separate reports (with image confirmation) of people parking in disabled carparks without a mobility card visible.



Yes, caughtya.org is putting numberplates to offenders and broadcasting them for the whole planet to see. Sort of "Wankers on Parade". This website came in a bit of charity bumphf for CCS today.

I think this is an interesting idea as I've often wished I had my camera on me to take pics for the web of the vehicles of people who think stupidity is a condition that entitles them to park there without the right stuff on board. The only problems I have with this concept, and therefore this website so far are that 1) these pictures are taken from the rear, ie no proof there was not a mobility card in the windscreen or on the dash, and 2) because a small PostShop investment will yield you all the details of the registered owner of a vehicle, leaving drivers open to some sick sort of vigilantism. And that would be very wrong. The registered owner may not have been the driver. Or still live there. Etc.


Nah, not that last one, Goverment records for motor vehicle ownership must be accurate, surely...

* 260 weeks
* 1825 days
* 43,800 hours
* 2,628,000 minutes
* 157,680,000 seconds

People sometimes talk of life changing moments; most people encounter them in one form or another. They form milestones by which we track and plot our life's course, reference points - and today marks the greatest one in my life to date.

Today is the fifth anniversary of first hearing the words 'multiple' and 'sclerosis' as applied specifically to me. It's not a big thing, not if you say it fast and aren't personally pitched into the middle of it yet on the inside it's huge, overwhelming and calls into question everything one builds a life around, relies on, considers 'normal'.

For most of the first five years of the rest of my life, I charted, in the blogs my progress and regress; the trials, tribulations, triumphs, anger, pain and betrayals. For those that would take advantage, those that don't want to listen, to attempt to understand what this life sentence means or those who just need to pull the stick out of their ass I don't have a lot to say, but if I did it would probably be something like "go forth and multiply" or "sex and sightseeing - just do it". Well, someone has to and I sure as Hell can't travel any more!

Along the MS road lay many opportunities to discover new things, view new perspectives and trim the crap out of my life and this I have done, at times quite deliberately discarding things that no longer worked for me - routines and responsibilities and people and expectations. I probably missed more than I collected, but shit happens and 'Not My Problem' has become a necessity for survival. I think most people, at some time in their life, sit back and audit what's going on, revise their personal priority list and just occasionally, the timing of this is taken out of our hands.

October 15th 2001 was the day it was taken out of mine.

1825 days on, I don't give a crap what people think if I'm asleep all day and awake all night; prefer to spend my time alone in my Hermitage; suffer idiots, wankers and users not at all and daily strive to adhere to that good old Serenity Prayer, looking for the strength to accept the status quo, the courage to attempt things that will bear misery for days to follow, and the Wisdom to know when to change the batteries in the Caller-ID unit.

If I had my druthers, I'd choose to live in a big house above the sea, miles away from humanity, with 1000s of books, room for all my junk and no neighbours to bitch if I crank Pink Floyd at high volume all night. But I can't choose that, and I don't have any choice about living with MS either. Luckily, my torch doesn't shine very far down the tunnel that is the next 40 years and quite honestly there isn't much point looking much further ahead than the next scheduled burst of activity. Besides, no one knows what's coming and any one of us could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

What is this new chapter, chapter 5?

It's more of the same shit as the last one, but with a new wrapper. I was getting very bored, you see. But like the last one, I'll be taking it as it comes, one day at a time (well every few days anyway). You can come along if you want, one day I'll need someone to push my chair.

Happy Birthday to my MonSter. Your infancy was a bitch, what does your childhood have planned?

"Ah, I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" - Bob D.