Another great night for the All Blacks. The Bledisloe cup was played in Wellington last night against the Wallabies. Tickets were sold out almost immediately so Laura, Achilles, Nicole and I watched the game from our house. The weather was horrendous and it made the match a bit scrappy but hugely exciting. The score was 16-7 to the ABs but the big story was how they dominated the entire game. The Ozzies managed to get into the ABs 22 only 3 times in the entire game and scored once- pretty much the rest of the game was played in their own 22. I've never seen a game more one sided and it wasn't a shock that one of the Wallabies snapped and decked Keven Mealamu half way through the game.
I think it's impossible to live in New Zealand and not get excited by the Rugby. Even Laura knows most of the AB first team by name and was hugely excited the other day when she ran into Tana Umaga, Daniel Carter, Joe Rokocoko, Mils Muliana and a few other All Blacks on Lambton Quay. She got slightly too excited by that short-arsed Aucklander Carlos Spencer if you ask me. Anyway, congrats to the team - a pretty devastating force since Graham Henry took charge and Wellington fave Tana Umaga took over captaincy. Fantastic to watch as usual.

please, please, please

Impressive maybe. Pointless .... definitely.

Bobby Fischer was arrested a few days ago in Tokyo trying to use an invalid passport to get to the Phillipines. He's a truly amazing character. At age 13 he was a better than average chess player in Brooklyn, good but nowhere near world champion material but then overnight, something clicked, and he suddenly became the greatest chess player the world has ever known. He started destroying people, really enjoying watching talented, experienced chess players turn into broken shells as a gawky 13 year old humiliated them. He beat everyone he played all the way to the Russian world champion Brois Spassky. He wasn't a nice person, just an undisputed genius. He did nothing but play chess, he was anti-semitic, he (correctly it turned out) called the Russian's cheaters, he was arrogant, unsociable, greedy and nasty at times. He's been on the run since 1992 after breaking UN sanctions to play a rematch against Spassky in Yogoslavia because he fell in love with a local girl - his story is truly phenomenal and well worth the read.

Yep, Lolly and I are very proud of ourselves. Two months now with no ciggies. It wasn't easy but it was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be. There is one major trick (in my opinion) to giving up and that is to start rolling your own smokes. Initially I didn't plan on giving up, I just wanted to start saving some extra cash and worked out that by rolling my own ciggies, I would be saving around $40 per week. I found it hard but it really made a huge difference. For one thing, it took longer to have a smoke (had to get the tobacco, rizla and filter out and then roll) - half the time I just didn't bother and after a couple of weeks, I actually felt healthier - I was still smoking, much less maybe, but still smoking and yet walking up the hill to my house didn't tire me out. Hmmmmm, weird!! I remember seeing a movie with Russell (I'm hard me) Crowe called the Insider where he claimed that Marlboro put extra poisons in their tobacco to make them more addictive. I then read this article about Marlboro putting ammonia (yep, ammonia) in their cigs to boost the kick. I've now convinced myself that it was either those extra poisons or the ammonia that I was addicted to. Well, maybe!!
Anyway, it wasn't nearly as hard to give up the rollies than it was to give up the ready-rolled. I'm glad I've given up now anyway - for financial, health and social reasons. (In New Zealand, there's no such thing as being a social smoker, only an anti-social one) - anyway - with politicians using "no smoking policies" to win easy votes (even in the pubs of Ireland for crying out loud) - I guess it's a brave new world (what would Aldous Huxley say) and although I'll still argue for an individual's right to smoke, drink and say what he wants - we're gonna try to stay healthier and richer for while. Hooray for us!!

With my cousin Andrew marrying Laura in Guernsey this weekend, I'm guessing there will be muchos celebrating and intoxication. I'm really disappointed that I can't be there and wish you both all these best for the big day and in the future. Congratulations.

... well they're dumb if you tell them they are first ... another pointless study by psychologists who need to find a proper job.

Some pictures are up from last weekend on Ruapehu. Great start to the season. Going up next weekend to meet Scotty and Dee. Can't wait.

Yorkshireman David Walker goes out, drinks 15 pints, argues about who's round it is, snaps, goes home, picks up his shotgun, returns to pub, realises pub closed, accidently shoots his testicles off, hides gun, crawls home, gets caught by his Mum, gets taken to hospotal, police called, gets arrested, gets five years in prison. Bugger!

The ideal job predictor will tell you. I have listed below some of the results I found. Check if you don't believe me.

Christopher Johnston, Your ideal job is a Gigolo.
Lolly Carter, Your ideal job is a Circus Freak.
Kylie Winterburn, Your ideal job is the job you have now.
Steve Johnston, Your ideal job is an Insurance Fraudster.
Jennifer Green, Your ideal job is a Spinster with cats.
Ruth Johnston, Your ideal job is a Professional Shopper.
John Meehan, Your ideal job is Teaching Pensioners to Drive.
David Murray, Your ideal job is a Kids TV Presenter.
Chris Wigg, Your ideal job is a Office numpty.
Hatty Richmond, Your ideal job is unemployed.
Kirstie Ferguson, Your ideal job is a Muppet Impersonator.
Cheryl Carter, Your ideal job is a Puppeteer.
Kathryn McLean, Your ideal job is an Evil boss.
Sarah Carter, Your ideal job is a Fluffy Bunny Trainer.
Lyn Johnston, Your ideal job is Anything where you can kiss ass.
Nick Von Dadelszen, Your ideal job is a Professional Tramp.
Jamie Finnigan, Your ideal job is a In a land far, far away.
Simon Smyth, Your ideal job is a … who are you kidding, you work?
Ruairi Hatrick, Your ideal job is a Rabbit Slayer.
Sam Hatrick, Your ideal job is a Brain Surgeon.
Margaret Whittaker, Your ideal job is a Dog Walker.
Brian Johnston, Your ideal job is a Pole Dancer.
Angela Kennedy, Your ideal job is a Reality TV Show star.
Ant Carter, Your ideal job is a Human Shield.
Julie Bell, Your ideal job is as the Speaking Clock.
Sophie Carter, Your ideal job is a Nursery Teacher.
Dave Ponton, Your ideal job is a Panto Dame.
Knobby, Your ideal job is a Stripper.
Chalkster, Your ideal job is a Lap Dancer.
Hank Jandrell, Your ideal job is a Bunjee Jumper
Marc Woosnam, Your ideal job is a Bearded Lady in the circus
Justin Dean, Your ideal job is a Porn Star.
Michelle Ponton, Your ideal job is a Paleantologist.
Mick Carter, Your ideal job is a Muppet Impersonator.
Tina Carter, ...........errrr .... I'm stopping now !!

Blatantly stolen from Hank's site but made me smile ...

1. Magnets destroy your data files - true for floppy disks - false with most everything else - PARTLY TRUE
2. Using a cell phone on a plane interferes with the navigation and communications systems - Absolutely false and ludicrous - I don't care if you've always believed that nice air hostess - he may believe it, you don't have to - this is rubbish - NOT TRUE
3. Removing a USB device without unplugging it will ruin the data - only if your still writing to the device, otherwise no - NOT TRUE
4. Cookies track everything you do on the internet - although some cookies can perform limited tracking, the info is usually benign and for advertising purposes as opposed to anything harmful- PARTLY TRUE BUT MOSTLY FALSE
5. Windows' Japanese edition uses haiku error messages - eg "Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred." Errrrr, nope, gullible fool - FALSE
6. Terrible things happen if you turn off your PC without shutting down Windows. - No again - it'll take longer to boot up 'cos it'll make you do a disk check but unless you were saving something as you switched it off - NOT TRUE
7. The government reads everyone's e-mail. - yeah, like they have time - NOT TRUE
8. Saddam Hussein bought PlayStation 2 consoles to use in Iraq's weapons program. - he he he - NOT TRUE
9. Only a pricey surge protector can keep your devices safe. - Again, not really true at all - most surge protectors work pretty much the same way and the cheapest one you can find is just as good as the expensive named brand ... worth having one to protect your PC but buy cheap - NOT TRUE
10. If you don't periodically run your laptop batteries down to zero, you'll lose battery life. - true about ten years ago but for modern laptops (and cellphones) - NOT TRUE
11. Hackers can destroy data on your computer's hard drive - Well, not really - some rare nasty viruses can destroy data but not often - the odds of a hacker deciding to hack into your home computer is as likely as ....erm .... well it's not likely OK .... so yes it is possible but the odds are slim, nothing to be concerned about - TRUE
12. Turning off your PC daily to save power shortens its life. - opinion varies but if it does shorten life, it'll shorten it from 15 years to 12 years or something - well outside the useful life of a PC anyway - I don't believe it anyway .... I say NOT TRUE
13. The number 13 is unlucky - yeah right, walk under that ladder, hang that painting at a jaunty angle, smash that mirror - it's not true OK, it's just NOT TRUE

This is a Russian Joke translated into English about their view of American life.
If a woman puts a cup of hot coffee on the car seat between her legs when she is driving and talking on mobile phone at the same time, and the coffee gets spilt and burns her thighs, she blames the restaurant for this. If your son commits suicide, you blame rock-"n"-roll or his favorite musician. If you smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years and finally die of lung cancer, your family accuses the tobacco company. If your daughter gets pregnant from the captain of the school football team, you blame school for bad sexual education. If your neighbor crashed the car onto the tree when he was drunk and was driving home - the barman is guilty. If your relative got AIDS when he injected drugs to himself with the dirty syringe - the government is guilty as it did not provide him with the sterile syringe. If your grandchildren are bullies - television is guilty. If some psycho killed your friend - the weapons producer is guilty. If some other psycho breaks in the airplane cabin and tries to kill the pilot when the plane is high in the sky, and the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the killed guy accuses the air company. I have lived long enough to understand what the world is about. If I die when sitting at this computer, I want you to accuse Bill Gates.
Indeed !

In an effort to please Cheryl Carter - here's something of more interest to you. :o)

You've been here since the dawn of time itself, old timer, and you've been biding your time with your eye on the boss's job.
You deserved to have a promotion. You've been here longer than anyone else. Your fingers have become craggy, and you see Excel spreadsheets when you go to sleep at night. More than half your life has been spent at budget meetings, advertising liason sessions, team-building seminars and pub lunches with people you hate. Yet for some reason you've been passed over every time in favour of younger, less competent workers.
No more. You're at the end of your tether. Where's your gold watch? Where's your acknowledgement? Your raises? When does your time come around?
Your time is now, hombre.


Which Office Moron Are You?

I'll smoke you a kipper, because you'll be back for breakfast. You're the cult television show quoting, user account deleting, soap loathing IT Manager.
Something in your childhood has made you the way you are. You've been hired to provide a service to everyone else in the office - you make the computers run, and you make them run well. You've streamlined everything; you've removed all the viruses and installed all the firewalls. The only trouble - the only hole in your veneer of digital perfection - is the way you laugh at everyone.
If someone doesn't know UNIX, you laugh at them. If they lose their password, they laugh at them. If they visit a website using Microsoft Internet Explorer and their computer succumbs to an Internet worm, you laugh. Then you take a swig of your Coke, and with another hearty chuckle tell all your friends on IRC about the idiots you have to deal with.
Maybe it makes you feel better about yourself, although let's face it, you don't need help in that department. You're great, you. Fantastic like burning cool. If only those luddite office fools would let you play Unreal Tournament in peace.


Which Office Moron Are You?

Kat sent me this ..... typical :o)

Later holes are tricky. Ten under in 5 minutes and 6 secs - thought it was good until I saw the leaderboard - 32 under in 4 1/2 minutes.

This is too funny.
Excerpt: Saddam: TIGER HAND! RAWR!!!!! RAWRR! rar. Hahaaa, hi. Tiger Hand. Come on! You Know! ... You don't know Tiger Hand? Tiger Hand beats paper. Like totally beats paper. Always

I've been waiting for this to happen for so long. On the eve of his departure for the European Union-U.S. summit in Ireland late last week, George W. Bush gave a sit-down interview to Irish TV journalist Carole Coleman in the White House Map Room. Unlike American reporters, who lob softball questions Bush can field with prepared, rehearsed answers, Coleman performed in a naturally engaging, intellectually rigorous, conversational manner. She really pissed him off too - the first Irish reporter to get a white house interview in 20 years and it's gonna be another twenty before we get another one. She challenged him so much that he stumbled through the interview, lodged an official complaint with the Irish Embassy and cancelled an interview his wife was supposed to do with Radio Television Ireland. When questioned about whether God supported his war (a nicely double-edged question), he replied that "One of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, don't try to take a speck out of your eye if I've got a log in my own" .... he complained afterwards that she was "disrespectful" ...a transcript of the excruciating interview is on the Whitehouse website ... Carole Coleman, I salute you.

PowerPizza is designed so you can use your laptop without removing it from its disguise. They'll think you're having pizza for lunch again whilst you’ll be preparing that last minute presentation for the board, on your shiny new laptop.

Photos are in the gallery of Wellington Flugtag, Melbourne and my Birthday Weekend .... at last. There's also a couple of movies but the quality isn't great in either.

31 years old. The decision of what to do on my birthday had been made for us this year as my company's annual weekend away fell on that day, we were heading 5 hours north to Taupo to do the 100MAX challenge. Oh yeah, team-building-a-go-go. We left early Friday morning armed with a camera and the task of taking ten photographs, one of the figure 100, one of 100 sheep, one of 100ml of blood, one of a 100 eggs, one of 100km/h, one of 100% effort, one of something weighing 100 tonnes, one of 100 people, one of something 100 years old and one of $100 note. We arrived 45 minutes late with 8 out of 10 and had missed the next task which had involved a lot of running. Shame! We did a blindfold task, a task which involved attaching 100 clothespegs to the body of a team member, then built a large wooden structure and returned to the Wharenui before dinner. The next day it was much more of the same - drive around Taupo hunting for clues which gave the combination to a safe where the next clue directed us to take 100 carrots to a woman in town who gave us directions to a river where we hauled a fellow team member up a cliff to receive instruction to canoe to the nearby island and back again before heading north of Taupo to a rest stop where we had to direct a blindfolded team member through a maze, collect 100 pine cones, return them to the same lady in town, fish buckets of water from a trench to fill a well, build an A-frame and march someone standing on it for a certain distance and then race back to the Wharenui for pizza, soft drinks and the prize giving. Got a couple of nice bottles of wine out of it .... not bad for just driving too fast around Taupo. It was then off to our afternoon activity. Laura and I had chosen Mountain Boarding down Gravity Hill. We got all kitted up in protective wear, stood on top of what seemed to be a large but unstable skateboard and one by one pointed it down an incline and said goodbye to reason. After a couple of runs, we were allowed to use a smaller skateboard, with straps to attach ourselves to it. Then the pain really started. It was great fun but snow is definately softer than gravel.
We said goodbye to everyone and Laura and I headed down towards Ruapehu to treat ourselves to a night in The Grand Chateau. We ate in a pub nearby watching the All-Blacks pound Argentina and then a little of England getting whupped by the Ozzies. Eating humble pie YET, Sir Clive ???
The next day we went up the mountain and spent the morning boarding on the nursery slope, in a cloud, in the rain, with limited visibility and limited enjoyment. At 12, we decided to head back down to Wellington - oh well - first tracks of the new season, good to get back on the board again anyway.
Well that's about it for the minute. Work is extremely challenging and very demanding at the minute, Laura is very well, a bit bruised from the mountain boarding, a little stressed from hassles at work but still funny and gorgeous. That's it for now. I'll write again soon .... Jennifer hassles Laura at work when I don't write anything for a while so I'll try to stay on top of things. :o)

Sorry, over half a month since my last post and quite a lot has happened. I've been struggling to find the time to blog recently as I seem to be working every minute of every day. I'll try to catch up now.
A few weeks ago I headed over to Melbourne to do a course in SAP Authorisations. The course was a little disappointing - too easy in the first two days and then a rush through the tricky stuff on the third and final day. It was nice to see Melbourne though as I'd never been before - it was as wet and windy as everyone had told me. Laura remained in Wellington working but I was there with a graduate called Taryn who was happy to take over Laura's shopping duties as I carried bags and moaned that I would never understand how females actually enjoy shopping - they're just clothes, they're practical, any more than 3 pairs of shoes per person is ridiculous, where's the nearest electronics shop, there is absolutely no reason to return to the same shop five times to see if you've changed your mind about that little outfit .... aaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh. As Taryn spent a couple of thousand dollars on clothes, I reminded her that the money could have been far better spent taking her poor fiance away for a two week full board holiday in Fiji. She actually seemed to pity my lack of understanding that the new Country Road coat that she had just bought was vital to the future of the planet. It just proved again how lucky I am to have Laura ... she's not the same little shopaholic she was a couple of years ago .... still wants some Jimmy Choo shoes though ;o)
Friday night, I left Taryn to her shopping and went to an Australian Rules Football game in the Telstra Dome. It was a good game between St Kilda and Hawthornes and it was OK. It was fun to see once anyway - it's all a bit too much like netball to me. All these strapping Aussie blokes come out in their dodgy tight shorts and wife-beater tops and kick the ball to each other. When someone catches it, the game stopped and everyone took their places getting ready for the next kick. Each quarter lasted half an hour and at the end St Kilda won with ease. Enough Ozzie Rules for me, I wandered back into the centre of Melbourne, caught a tram back to the hotel, realised I was on the wrong tram, jumped out, realised I was lost, remembered I had a map, read the map and strolled back to the hotel, .... in the rain .... soaking wet. Perfect !
So that was Melbourne, it was nice but I still prefer Wellington. If we were going to move to Australia, it would only be for the weather and Melbourne just isn't far north enough.