I’ve got a new friend :-). He visits me almost everyday. He loves sunning himself on top of the grill, oh what a life!! It’s going to be cold again this weekend, so I suppose my dear friend will not be keeping me company.
Jim’s been away to Japan, and I am on a mission…. to get away from winter 😉
Well, I have just booked our winter vacation away from the rain and cold. Jim and I are going to FIJI 🙂
Just before work there was enough light to take some photos.
…and raining and blowing and generally nasty out. I’d heard that it would be pandemonium here when it snowed, since they get practice with it about once a year, so I’m quite looking forward to seeing what disorder results. I could tell something was awry when the morning DJs who wake me up were overly giddy and talking about school closings. (They’re even playing “The Flight of the Valkyries” during the weather/traffic report which means it’s really bad.) It’s still dark here and while I did see some snow on a neighbor’s roof, the roads looked perfectly fine. No photos just yet…
I thought I’d have to wait a bit longer for this given that it was about 65F only two days ago, but weather calamity strikes NZ! Snow here and down the East coast, tornadoes and floods on the West coast. Bring it on, Tasman Sea.
Well our broadband has decided to revert back to pre-56k modem speeds. It’s shockingly bad how unusable most every web service is at these speeds. I spent a good 3o minutes on the phone with the Xtra tech support and they’re actually taking an interest and seem rather competent. My fear is that there is something with the neighborhood service that they won’t fix, as I’ve seen some little newsletter blurbs about crap internet service in Westmorland. If it stays at 26k, we’re breaking our lease and moving! No satellite TV is tolerable, but dying internet offends my post-1998 values.
Feel free to rub in just how snappy your connection is by clicking here.
For the past week the NZ media hasn’t had enough to say about The Handbag Incident. The abridged story goes something like:
Enter TradeMe, the NZ eBay. Since the Incident people have wasted no time selling silly memorabilia and spending outrageous sums to buy this crap. The crown jewel is, of course, The Handbag, and that just sold for a handsome $22,000 NZD ($13,800 USD). An acrylic drawing of the handbag picture on TradeMe sold for $600. Bidding on camera footage from the bar is at around $2500. In a week I bet this stuff goes for 1/2 the price, in two weeks 1/20th. So go the opportunist!! I was impressed that Ms. Davies jumped at the chance to sell the bag while the getting was good, but then I came across this interview quote:
“She confirmed she had only traded once on [TradeMe] before – and that was to buy a DVD which claimed the Twin Towers were deliberately demolished and the September 11 attacks were a fraud.” –New Zealand Herald
Hmmm… not as impressed. OK so she’s an idiot who is $22,000 richer. Better than the “successful” bidders Sue Langmaid and Aaron Crapp (I kid you not) who have just paid 733x face value for a bag. Huge amount of media minutes/pages, lots of TradeMe junk, a $3000 fine and broken cellphone… this is a major economic event in NZ! (Dislodging the other economic story in NZ about rising petrol prices which keep people from putting food on their table… not nearly as fun and The Handbag Incident.)