chapter 5 - a splodge on the blogscape

If you find one of these under your windscreen wiper, you've probably pissed me off. Be glad your paintwork is intact.

muaaahaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaa

;0)

It's Gordon's birthday today. Gordon is three. His Mummy made him a birthday cake. She also made some videos of Gordon and put them on YouTube.



I'm not sure who is weirder, his Mummy who made him a birthday cake, or us for sending him an e-card.

I think it must be her.

I fronted up to the doc this afternoon for his verdict on my wayward vision, which though it's improved a bit in one eye hasn't improved in the other.

Yes, it is nystagmus. Yes, it is normally treatable. In my case, it looks like it's MS related so the MS needs treating, not the nystagmus. This involves a trip back to see "The Brick" also known as a neurologist. I asked if the doc could just do a little email/letter type consultation thingy with my Auckland neuro (who is brill) but he said no, I gotta visit The Brick first and give him another chance to provide the appropriate treatment before packing me back to the other one if Brickman once again fucks it up.

Downside: I might need a few days in hospital having IV steroids, if I'm not right in a fortnight.

Upside: I might get another MRI which would be nice seeing ('scuse the pun) it's only a couple of months shy of 5 years since I had the last one.

Ho hum, yeah I wanted a break but lying bored shitless and computerless on a drip in a hospital bed wasn't quite what I had in mind.

On Saturday, after I finally dragged my ass out of bed following our very late night at U2, Flattie very kindly took me (and Adam) up the road a ways from Thames to the Tararu Cemetery, where some of my heritage is buried.

Old cemeteries are cool and this one is very cool, built as it is on the side of a hill overlooking the Hauraki Gulf, with graves crammed higgledy-piggledy all over the hillside facing a variety of directions and in a variety of conditions ranging from very good to smashed and broken and beyond identification.









Add the night, some dry ice machines and a few strategically placed halogen lights and you'd have a graveyard fit for a B Grade movie. Or a Peter Jackson film (The Frighteners, anyone?).

But why did I inflict mountain climbing on my tired and frazzled body? I wanted to find the grave of my Great great great grandmother and grandfather, Anne Caroline and Henry Charles Lawlor, who both died in 1894.





And find it I did. It's been tumbled off its marble plinth, which has also been broken in two and lies on its back on top of the grave. There are lots like that in the cemetery, and worse.



Their daughter Elinor was to become my great great grandmother and is buried in our family cemetery at Oropi.



Great fun! On the way out, we met the custodian, whose name escapes me now, who voluntarily takes care of this monumental spot. He was very pleasant and interesting to chat to.

Family images borrowed from Geraldine Dunwoodie's excellent family genealogy site, with thanks.

U2 Vertigo - Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, NZ
November 24th 2006. About 6.30pm.


(The Saints are Coming and they're wearing Vertigo shirts
H and Ads outside Mt Smart Stadium)

Eleven and a half months of planning, a shitload of money, a fair bit of patience, a truckload of luck and some timely assistance (especially from the FlatCats) saw us finally get to U2.

Superb.

Kanye West, who was the curtain raiser was not superb. He was utter crap but if a shit opening act makes a mediocre band look good, the same makes a fabulous band look wonderful, marvelous, superlative.

And other polysyllabic terms of supremacy. It was WOW.

Yes, apart from a few instances of typical Ewe 2 proselytisation (this time invoking rapidly changing and compelling images and computer graphics verging on brainwashing), it was one hell of a concert and worth every cent. I may invoke my inate cynicism on this subject another night, but suffice to say that my charitable leanings and personal opinions, like my musical ones, are not based on being emotively and emotionally fleeced like sheep in a flock or lambs to the slaughter - I like to make up my own mind.

The crowd was well behaved, the dack was regularly supplied from many joints in close proximity and the atmosphere was largely euphoric. The Mexican Wave finally ended and the rain suddenly stopped and even if we didn't see the moon turn red over One Tree Hill, we saw the stars in the sky as well as the stadium.

There're reviews for Africa of the concert itself here, here and here, and YouTube has video of last night's concert already available



with some rather official-looking photos of the first of the unique Auckland shows here (including shots of the NZ Flag and the Koru design displayed during One Tree Hill, which was only included in the NZ Tour Dates). 45,000 people rocked the night away in the very best style and they are doing it one final time tonight.

Not bad for four Irish boys.

Shit I'm tired.

U2 on Techorati

UPDATE:

txt from Murray who is at tonight's show with his kids "am on the ground 20m from stage". Nice view, Tin Arse!

As we immerse ourselves tonight in the wonderful performers that are U2, we will also remember another great performer who left the stage 15 years ago today - Freddie Mercury.


"The days were endless, we were crazy - we were young
The sun was always shinin' - we just lived for fun" - These Are The Days Of Our Lives




Catch you on the other side :0)

At almost the last minute, my sister has come to the rescue and offered to drive us to Thames on Friday morning and so avoid me driving when I'm really not fit. Flattie is ecstatic to be driving us home again at the weekend. And so he should be, I bought marshmallows!



MY cup hath filleth almost to the top already.

Adam has his first real model train layout. His grandfather bought it for him as an early Xmas pressie. It's really kind of neat. There's plenty of scope for building/extending it and he already has spare track and rolling stock as well as all the stuff that came with it, he just needs another loco.






Eventually it'll be built into the front office, but at the moment it's doing duty in the dining room. What used to be the dining room. Ahhh well, the table was only a convenient repository for all Adam's crap anyway. I guess it solves the problem of "what does Adam want for his birthday/Xmas" for the next 50 years but already the sound of trains running around the place every minute he's awake is a trifle annoying. The upside is that in cleaning out the front office, H gets a bigger bed, Ads gets more storage in his room and Reg is finally going to fix the leak in the patio that is also the office roof.

Doc thinks my vision and balance problems are side effects of the new pills (called Baclofen) he gave me a while back. The not so nice ones with tons of nasty side effects. Set off by my fever spikes. Or maybe set off my fever spikes. That's the glory of multiple sclerosis - everything screws something else up.

Solution: stop taking the Baclofen (I already did).
Expected Result: Situation normal in 4 or 5 days (whatever 'normal' is).

It's really hard to type with dodgy eyes and crossed fingers...

C4 has had the Top 40 Rock Icons of the 80s on and it's been a blast. Ya know ya did a good job edumacating ya kids when as teens they love the music you rocked to long before they were even thought of.

Yay us!



Not everyone teaches their kids cool stuff. Some do it completely differently.

"Brodie Christopher Barry Te Waaka-Price turns eight weeks old today.

His head lolls on a limp baby neck because he cannot control his movement; he is probably blind and he cries in an alien squeal.

Twenty-five per cent of his brain does not work and he will not live a normal life.

Two large black holes on a brain scan show the parts of him that died when he was shaken on October 24...

Brodie's mother Kelly is still supporting Te Waaka and was hoping to visit him in jail this weekend.

Brodie's grandmother Tracy Savage says Brodie was lucky to survive."


This is lucky?

Quality...quantity... what a choice. I suppose it wouldn't be very politically correct to mention prolonging someone's misery at the taxpayer's expense. If only it were that simple, just columns of numbers on a sheet. Until you think of morality, spirituality, humanity; it's not so black and white then.

The important things never are.

Just when you think things are going swimmingly, things swim a different way.

MS is funny like that.

The latest glitch in my gleep is something akin to Nystagmus and Opsoclonus. Yes, they are as unpleasant as they sound.

Long time readers of my blogs will have read my whinges about being hot stuff, or rather getting hot and the fallout that ensues. Usually it's somewhat self inflicted when I've been overdoing things in the heat. This time, it's all caused by being too hot in bed. And so far it's lasted 2 days, cost me visual focus and spatial ability, balance, random temperature spikes, reading, thinking, typing (this post took bloody ages), walking, driving and a migraine. It's like being really pissed and can't see where you're staggering to. If this keeps up, at this rate I'm going to need a neuro soon and I loathe my neuro (he doesn't like me, either because I expect him to talk to me like an adult, not a halfwitted drongo who doesn't understand poly-syllabic words).

Besides, the coundown is on and I really don't have time for this shit.

Those icebergs are now close enough to the coast to be seen from land. Some have been out on helicopters for a looksee, and one landed and brought back some ice. Then, back on land, they chipped bits off and put it in their drinks.




Personally, drinking water hundreds of years old that probably has ancient penguin poop and seal shit in it sort of turns me right off. Funny that. This article talks about where giant iceblocks came from and this site is rather cool, too.

What is even cooler is the speed I am getting on my (Clayton's) broadband connection. My nasty lil 256/128 line that usually can only stagger along at 35KB/s is today blazing at well over 100KB/s.



Dunno how it's managing it, but I guess all those punters who bought into the new high-speed plans with all the major providers when they were unleashed the other week (Tui's) only to have their speeds die away to sweet bugger all have kindly donated it my direction. Rest assured, O Generous Geeks, it's being well and truly appreciated.

Why the Hell is our country, which can't afford to provide decent healthcare, spending a huge amount of money building a sporting stadium for silly men with odd shaped balls to run around gripping each others nether-regions? MP Bob The Builder estimates this arena could cost as much as $1.5billion. And he knows a lot about balls.

How seriously fucked up is that? Not the Bob's balls, the stadium expenditure. It's like sending Troops to, oh I don't know... somewhere. War's an arena sport too, innit?

Oh yeah, we go to war in black and wearing the Silver Fern, not khaki and camo.

Back in the 90's, the Variety Club Bash used to travel the country raising money for charity in towns and cities. They had celebrities in weird and wacky vehicles performing strange and humourous stunts for the benefit of the public (and their cash).

This was one of the vehicles that came through.



I wonder where it is now?

UPDATE:
Jo says it's now owned by a vet in Auckland. Lucky bugger.

Dear Ex Sperm Donor

When you didn't have time for your children for at least 8 of the last 10 years because you were selfish/your girlfriends/wife wouldn't let you/you didn't have any balls to be a man and take your responsibilities/parenting role seriously, the kids had to just suck it up, grow up and move on. When you now bother to contact them or spend your 30 minutes with them every Sunday or second Sunday (as your busy schedule permits) please don't bother doing any of the following:

Whine that you have no money - we three live on less than you make and you only have yourself to worry about now your wife has kicked you out.

Whine that you have to move flat again/might not have a garage to put all your shit in - we can't solve your problems and we wouldn't even if we could. They are your "lesson", mate. Enjoy.

Tell us all about your poor, recently ex, wife who is having/had a nervous breakdown - suppressing gales of laughter can be incredibly painful, not to mention dangerous to a person, and besides we just want to ring her up and suggest she jump off something very tall. You (and especially she) didn't give a shit about any of us, we sure as Hell don't give one about her.

Expect your children to give you their undivided attention - they don't actually have much of anything to say to you, they grew up without you, you don't know them.

Pretend you are here to spend some quality time with your kids - we know you are here because you have nowhere else more important to be right now. Until someone txts you, anyway.

Leave your cellphone on and waste time txting people during the kids short visiting time. That's just rude. Oh and dumb. Did I mention selfish?

Expect me to pay for the cellphone calls when H has no txt credit on her phone - you are the grown-up, you have a landline, you should give the kids the number to use it.

Send me txts about the kids expecting an answer - my phone is a convenient tool for MY benefit, I turn it off/let it go flat/ forget where I left it. I don't care that you want an answer, use the landline if you want feedback. You know the number.

Regards
Mother to your sperm-donated offspring.

PS Happy Anniversary - it's 10 years today since I sent your sorry ass down the road. Shame you still just don't "get it".

No longer do we sing "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" - now it's "Adam got run over by a loco" cos that's what happened at the track yesterday. About to mount his loco for a run at the point where the tracks are closest together, his foot was on the adjacent track and the train coming through didn't toot any warning and took Ads in the right calf. One gashed leg, one shocked boy, one more of Life's learning curves encountered and survived. A cuppa and a bickie made it all OK (and some doctoring by a handy nurse) and it was back to business as usual.

He doesn't seem to mind it much at all, he's just annoyed at having to wear plastic over it in the shower for a few days.



Shame he won't be able to do athletics at school tomorrow, in fact, you could say he's really cut up about it



;0)

Adam had a very busy day. It's open weekend at the club and he spent most of the day being dogsbody at the track, and had a lot of fun doing it.



The guy that owns the locomotive above, stopped on the track next to where Ads and I were standing and said to Ads "you want to drive?". It's pretty obvious what the answer was! He's driven a lot of locos now, mostly local club ones but occasionally the track visitors let him loose behind whatever does service as a wheel on an engine and he has a ball.

I took a few pics today and put the good ones together with the best of the pics taken at the Thames open weekend back in May and made Ads a blog for his train stuff. The permanent link, titled "All Aboard" is over there ---->>. Have a quick gander if you've a minute to spare, there are some beautiful locomotives (and a couple of mini traction engines) to enjoy.

Years ago, I used to do the "bring a plate baking" for open weekends like this when I was still married to Adam's father, when he was an active member of the club. Now I'm doing it again for Adam. I've made a huge batch of pikelets tonight to take tomorrow and am looking forward to bed, sleep and Adam making his own damned morning teas next year. All he has to do is get his hand around flipping them and he'll be flying solo.

Driving a loco is easier to learn than flipping a pikelet. Bet you didn't know that.

;0)

Twenty-two years ago, a bloke named Ray Singleton started a museum for cars at Rangiuru, just out the other side of Te Puke.

This weekend, a big chunk (88) of his Te Puke Vintage Auto Barn collection will be auctioned off.

Reg and Adam skived off this afternoon to have a last-chance look at the old and not so old, pretty and pretty munted vehicles and machinery that's been living there for so long and Ads took 165 pics. Here are a few of them.


It's a BMW Bubble Car but not Cousin Itt's Bubble Car


(If you aren't sure what this baby is, it's the original prototype 1969 McLaren M6-GT Coupe, developed, owned and driven by Bruce McLaren himself and later owned by Denny Hulme. Only 3 or 4 were built.)




The good old 100E Ford Prefect. (Not Douglas Adams' Ford Prefect.)


1952 Chev - nice teeth.


Bucket. (Not Hyacinth)


and a true thing of beauty. You tell me what year, I'm not sure.


Lovely. And heartbreaking.

I'd need a lot of Bailey's to go with this baby.



It's estimated to be about 2km long by 1.5km wide and 100m high, contains enough fresh water to fill 1 million Olympic-size pools and is thought to be part of a bigger (167km long) iceberg that broke off Antartica in 2000. It's located about 260km below NZ in the Southern Ocean.

No wonder there's been hail in Invercargill and snow in and around Gore today.

Blogging for a peaceful world...



I find it somewhat ironic that in the same week the Blogsphere celebrates Peace, a warmongering tyrant is brought to his knees. Don't you?

If we didn't have armies, we couldn't have wars. If we didn't have greed, we wouldn't have betrayal. If we didn't have want then we shouldn't have need. If we didn't have weapons, we wouldn't have slaughter.

But without these things, Mankind wouldn't have air to breathe or room to move and would maybe have pushed out into Space.

Peace, Man.

Read others' thoughts on Peace - Dona Nobis Pacem on Technorati

Things to do with your pumpkin next Halloween.

Carve it. Like this.



Clever bugger, isn't he.

Normally, I would be scared of doing something like this in case I cut myself, but where these pumpkins are concerned, I'd probably drop it on my foot and never get near a knife anyway.

It's Guido Day again.



When we were kids, celebrating Guy Fawkes was a big deal to our whole community. All year, people saved up their old timber and shortly before The Big Day a huge bonfire was constructed in the front paddock of the farm across the road. Many people made a lifelike Guy to put up, fireworks were bought and, on the night, picnics were packed, kids and blankets gathered up and people from all around converged for a fabulous evening of sparklers and Tom Thumbs, skyrockets and Double Happies, food, fun and entertainment culminating in exhaustion, sleeping kids and some rather unsteady fathers as they all wandered off home late at night with just the occasional burnt finger and hungover head to show for it all the next day.

Thirty-five or forty years on, it's all a bit different. Fire bans usually prevent bonfires, the fireworks are not like they used to be and the general public have turning into mewling, whining babies who want fireworks banned from sale to protect the general populace from the fallout of anti-social, moronic juveniles who have no understanding of consequence and less fear of punishment for the horrid and stupid things they do, like torturing pets, causing fires and driving the population nuts for weeks (and months) on end. That's what our Politically Correct, No Responsibility Nana State has produced in this generation where punishment is not allowed, freedom of choice rules and no-one has to feel accountable for the shit they do or cause. The Gummint banning things "for our own good" seems to have absolved the user from individual courtesy, care or consideration. It isn't the fireworks that hurt people and animals or damage property, it's the numbnuts yobos using the lighter, just as it isn't alcohol or the cars that causes car accidents, it's the wankers behind the wheel. Take away fireworks and all that's needed to build something just as destructive, just as dangerous lives in a plastic bottle under the kitchen sink. Or in the garage.

But the woofters and wowsers keep banging on about it (as I've mentioned before) and their limited intellect just can't comprehend that the issue is NOT that fireworks need banning, the issue is the social mess we are in where young people feel its ok to do this and know damned well that they will get away with it because the policing and punishment for it doesn't exist. THAT is what needs legislating to fix.

This year is the first that we haven't bought our own bangers. Instead we spent the same money going to the Speedway where Ads and I not only got some excellent racing in, but had a fabulous fireworks display afterwards. But that was my choice and buying them to use at home should be my choice, also. Instead of pissing of Joe and Jo Public who are responsible users of recreational explosives, they should start dealing with the issue properly by limiting the sale of fireworks to the 24 hours prior to the nearest Saturday night to Guy Fawkes, limit the time allowed to let them off to 24 hours either side of Guy Fawkes and prosecute the shit out of anyone breaking the rules, be they kids, teens or adults. The key word in there is, of course LIMIT, not BAN.

Public display can be fun; even though we cannot light our own, we CAN enjoy a much better class of explosion and not have to clean up the mess afterwards. These are pics I took of last night's show, and you can enjoy more of it via a small portion of the video I took, below.

No cleaning up required.





Just goes to show, celebrating anarchy doesn't have to cause more. Funny, that. Someone should tell the fuckwits that before our dozy lawmakers take away our choice.

There is a seven letter word in the English language that
contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters,
"therein" the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein and herein.

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
letter is uncopyrightable.

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase
"Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the
English language.

"Underground" is the only word in the English language that
begins and ends with the letters "und."

(it's getting late, I better wrap it up)

The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimau
ngahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Yay Us! No, I can't pronounce it, I get lost at pukakapikimau.

Well, doesn't everyone?

Tommy got lost in the plum tree tonight. Last night he got lost in the undergrowth down the bank.

I'm starting to wonder about Tommy.

In this morning's NZ Herald news was an item about undies. Mens undies. Australian mens undies that lift, separate and extend. *nod*

No, I'm not making it up.

Australian men must be feeling a bit inadequate and under-endowed, if their latest fashion item is to be believed. Yes, the Australian male's answer to the push up bra has arrived: The Patriot.




Now, I can honestly say I had never thought of underwear as a patriotic thing but Aussie underwear designers know better because they have designed a new male undergarment designed specifically to trick women (and men) into thinking what they see is what they get.

"Your country has never been prouder and neither have you! The new 'wondercup' technology in these attention-grabbing, all-cotton Patriot briefs will have you seriously looking bigger and feeling amazing".

Attention grabbing? Wasn't that what sox were for? Feel amazing? Weren't blokes always feeling their "amazing" bits anyway?



And just so they don't feel so horribly inadequate in the world's changing rooms, you can even get your new patriotic cup with other countries' branding on it - "Property of England", "Property of USA" and "Property of France".

Beware, you Aussie girls, what you see is not what you get (ditto for ewe sheep that might be reading this). But then, you knew that already huh.

Aussiebum, making real big men since 2006.



I bet the Togs, Togs, Undies man wishes he'd had a pair when they made this (respect the Budgie Smugglers) :-)



I'll be back when I stop laughing.

I have never seen Tommy. After all, I was only 6 when it came out.

I have seen Quadrophenia but not when it came out; I was almost 10 then.

For me, just like Elvis and The Beatles, The Who seemed to define their generation (one I had arrived into a bit too late to appreciate) and now, in retrospect, prove that in some respects, nothing changes. The beer-swilling yobs of then are the LPG sniffing yobs of now.

What are the kids thinking? Really?



You thought you were going to have to look at more pussy, didn't you.