Dog = God???

for all you doogie owners out there -- enjoy!!
PS - Charles Schulz thought so - read his "the Parables of the Peanuts" book - enlightening stuff

Identikit gone wrong

Yikes,
Well this will take a bit of explaining.
I am hiding a certain Mr Spoon - who by all accounts is on the run from his wife - and u gonna love this her name is Mrs Fork - yikes a marriage in heaven - or was it. Hmmmm what are the odds of two people with names like that ending up marrying????
Anyhow, Spoon has been granted refuge in our little hovel and is member of a certain secret S. Club . . .

Mrs Fork meanwhile is on the prowl and has made inroads into his whereabouts. A identity picture has been drawn up and circulated - but I am sure you will agree - this cannot be the real thing. it could not possible be!! I have to say - for once I am glad the net got its wires scrambled.

Broom / Brush / Sir G.H./ Mr Schick/stitch and lil O'l Smilie - we need to have a executive meeting soon.

Ladle

Who needs enemies when u have friends

SOMEONE (who shall remain nameless but has a nick like Jamo_black or similar) has sent these through.
Seeing SHE is sooooo friendly I decided to share them with the rest of the world!!










Hmmmm this one I do like.
Wonder if I can make this into a large fridge magnet!!

Does internet speed beat a telephone call??

I almost blew my internet allowance on listening to a radio station from Bayern / Germany (Bayern3). I always liked the station - the other day I went through 700MB of data. It is great, it is a live stream. So Micky and I discussed the merits of transmission.

Which is quicker:
A live stream via ADSL on the net --- OR
I call someone in Bayern and listen to HIS/HER radio on the phone??
Does the internet speed beat a telephone call transmission???

Hmmmmmmm

Who do I know in Germany that will take a "collect call" from Neu Seeland???

How to get a teenager to clean his room

I am sure tis is a very universal question - how to get your teenager to clean up his room?!?!
So far nothing has worked, we tried all sorts of parental techniques but failed, and came to the conclusion that said teenager just likes to live messy and urm - once he moves out - of house - eventually -- it will be his flatmates or partners problem to sort. So you can imagine the total shock at dinner time when said teenager calmly announces that this coming week during the school holidays his major goal is to clean up his room!! -
WELL - it took another hour or more for him to come clean!! Seems a girl (whom we know and he keeps stressing - they are just friends!!!) is visiting at the end of the week.

Hmmmm wonder if we should invite the young lady round once a month ? ? ? :D (A)

Anyhow I am on the most strict instruction, not take a photo of said teenager who will be wearing a pinnie and do the cleaning. (Thank goodness there is photoshop) - Since when did I listen . . . .

Mind you he cuts a fine figure and does wonders in the kitchen - which doesn't do much for MY figure!!

Lulu castagnette dream watches

Papabear drools now already
Need to go to Manila I think

Lulu bear dreams of fame and glamour

LOL - I was trying to see if I can order one of the lulu castangette watches online (Yeah I know still dreaming here) and I came across this little gem of a sweet innocent bear who can dream too
Enjoy

Swing Lulu ! ... Castagnette - Amazing videos are here

Coffee Break needed

Apparently I'm good with words -- yeah right
anyhow

Finding and slurping a hot Latte I will try,
for I am in great need of a decent brew,
taking my GPS and out through a door I fly,
searching for the perfect cuppa I once knew!!

The New Vicar of Dibley????

Well maybe not of Dibley but certainly the Anglican Parish of Burnside-Harewood got a new Vicar, and we had his induction service last night. I had to do a speech and present a tea pot. Nerve wrecking I can tell you. Anyhow - spose you had to be there to fully appreciate the speech - below in full text . . . . . .

On a clear midnight - it came to pass . . .
that a young clergy decided that a stint in the antipodes might be a good idea and applied for a job down under. Long story short - Matt has been offered and accepted a job with our Parish.
Wohoooo

Having been told by our very own Bishop (at the annual Secretaries Luncheon held in the Bishops Board room) that the "real power" of a parish rests with the churches secretaries, I decided it would be a good idea to engage the inbound help - ooops - Rev. Matt Watts via email and have some sort of dialog about various matters - basically to keep him informed of what secret ongoings in our parish are happening -- while he was still lodging in old blighty.

Many a humorous email exchanges later it became clear that Matt is a a-typical English man, who likes his hot cuppa. Seeing that I have not had a "full diploma course in Tea making" -- we ended up agreeing to play it to our strenghts. I will look after our computers and Matt will look after the Tea making . . . .

This of course left us with a teeny weeny problem in that we have teapots for large functions, but NOT for individual drinkers. Upon hearing this plight - the Wednesday am congreagtion has very graciously offered to buy a special teapot, so that the inbound young clergy can have his cuppa a n d drink it.

'Course I can see it now -
one clergy drinking his cuppa on a Saturday afternoon,
several sermon notes in the waste bucket,
not having had much luck with google either,

(me looks furtive from side to side)

Hmmmm maybe the tea leaves might provide inspiration????

Matt - I present to you this tea pot.
May it provide many a houmours office morning tea breaks.
Inspiration to jaw dropping / spine tingeling sermons (worthy of a 9 or 9.5 score from Peter)
and of course - most importantly,
while you are so far away from home / family and friends which you had to leave behind in old blighty,
May it remind you that while you are living and working with us here down under

as long as you have a hot cuppa

LIVE IS GOOD

God Bless

Australia dust dumped in New Zealand

Hihihi - I read my morning paper and had to laugh -
Al Nisbet - your cartoons are alway spot on.





Its a bit of a worry alright - these Aussies letting their topsoil escape to our shores and then they have the cheek to ask for it back - for "scientific studies". So we had to scrape 3 tons of the glaciers and ship them via a refrigerated container. Wonder if the ice melted between our states ^^

Wait - maybe seeing that they always laid claim to our shores and some of our most famous products (Pahr lap, Pavlova, Russell Crowe, Crowded House etc, etc) -- this is the latest cunning plan to claim our land as their "Eastern Island"??? They must be delusional. . . .

On a SERIOUS SIDE - this dust storm did cause a few health problems in Sydney and Brisbane with respiratory systems - and hospitals getting a good work out.


Be good - enjoy

A good weekend all-round

Yes it has been a good weekend all round. Friday night we had a scout meeting out at a farm. Build a large-ish campfire and got the scouts to cook their dinner in a golden syrup tin. Amazingly it tasted good and no one got burned - not even the dinner!!





Then on Saturday Mamabear and oneself took a certain teenager and two of his friends up to Hanmer and had a lovely lunch and then some time in the hot pool. The teenagers burned of their energy in the cooler pools while the two oldies sat and soaked in the sun!
L O V E L Y - just lovely, I tell you.



All to soon it was time to go back home - via short dinner stop in Amberly and then in the evening the AB's finally played the game like we know they can and caned the Australians 36-6!! Wohooo. (ps - last weeks loss to South Africa was the 100th loss in Test Rugby for the All Blacks - so it is / was poetic justice that it had to happen against the arch rivals from South Africans!!!!)

This morning after a lazy breakfast - I took Mamabear into town and we took some more photos of the lovely spring time flowers. I eventually got the perfect shot of flowers and cherry tree that I had been hunting for the last 10 days or so. This was followed by a stroll through the gardens to find another location of a certain spot! Eventually found that and took a GPS reading for Autumn. Then home via groceries and lunch.

Will have to help Mamabear in the kitchen soon - yeah dishes - the house slaves were on strike last night - and then will watch a bit of sport on tv - so yeah all in all a good weekend all round!!

The hills are alive with the Sound of Music - or is that a location in some NZ hills?

Yes the hills are alive with Sound of Music - even in good ol' New Zealand - but I am getting ahead of myself. Let me set the scene:

Take one teenager turning 18, add long hair, laziness, and a taste for music that can only be described as LOUD. In other words like any typical teenager from millions round the world and we LOVE him very much. (thought I make this clear now!!) So we are discussing what we should get him for his birthday and him being a teenager - we just got a grunt in reply to our probing question as to what he would like. So his loving papabear jokingly suggests that perhaps a cd of the Sound Of Music (being totally counter productive) would be a good idea and he might actually enjoy a bit of Salzburg history. After all his papabear grew up in the very town where the Von Trapps used to live! Well - lets just say we got the most dirty look from said teenager you can imagine. So we left that hanging in the air and decided we would get him a voucher so that he can choose his own heavy metal rock slash music - taste to suit.

HOWEVER while his parents do love him he very unwittingly presented us with an opportunity to take out the Micky (yeah I know bad pun here). We downloaded of the net a full color DVD cover from the Film "Sound of Music"and printed that of and then put that into an empty DVD case and put the gift voucher inside that and gift wrapped it up.

roflol - his look upon opening the pressy was just priceless . Got ya Son - love heaps
Dad and Mum

Tirol ist im kiwi land??? seit wann??

wohoooo - woke to a gorgeous sunny Sunday decided to NOT do the regular cleaning (which we missed on Sat already - urm - for - well can't remember what we did now- but I am sure it was more important then just cleaning!!) and - instead I took Max - our beagle - for a long walk - then after wards to a Craft show and THEN did a round trip the hills! Fabulous









Anyhow sights where good and then we stopped somewhere else for a Photo shoot and found this little gem stuck to the road railing!!! Amusing really considering we are living in New Zealand und so da muss mann schon fragen, wie geht das, das Tirol in dem Kiwi land ist und seit wann??!?!





Na sowas

:)

Candid camera

oh yeah there are some very good candid camera clips around - try this on out for yourself

eday in New Zeland

Yep I was so excited to go up on the tower I forgot the mention that today was eday in New Zealand!
What is eday - check this out ----
http://www.eday.org.nz/
Basically it is an opportunity for ordinary folks to dispose of their old pc's - screen's, printers, scanners etc etc. Our Scout Group had a large number of Pentium 2 and 3's and combined with some gear from our own house and my and Mamabear's work - we had a large number of gear to dispose of. The folks who run this were very efficient. You did not even have to get out of the car!! Makes for good disposing of the old gear - and I have to say - it is all being recycled, broken up and shipped of to - urm - China I think and they melt out the metals and shred the plastic etc etc. So that is good as it does not fill up the rubbish tips.
Gotta say - one of my scout leaders was staggered that a 22 inch Apple IMac was taken to eday.
Must have been only 5 month old - or so . . . .

Check out the latest news release today

Kiwis recycle 966 tonnes of e-waste at eDay

Despite rain across much of the country, over 966 tonnes of old computer equipment and mobile phones were diverted from landfills across the country today in the third national eDay.

The free drive-through recycling event saw 15,700 carloads of electronic waste (e-waste) dropped off at 38 centres from Kaitaia to Invercargill today with at least another ten areas organising local community e-waste collections in the weeks leading up to eDay. This is an increase on the 946 tonnes collected at last year’s event.

The annual event, organised by Computer Access New Zealand (CANZ), has seen strong growth since it began in 2007 with 12 centres and this year saw more than 82,700 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers collected for recycling.

“There is a clear need for e-waste disposal services as again we see strong support for eDay this year. The total amount of e-waste collected today is enough to fill 55 shipping containers,” said Laurence Zwimpfer, National eDay Coordinator.

Mr Zwimpfer said e-waste contains many valuable and scarce materials that can be recovered and reused for new products instead of being dumped in landfills.

All good :)

Air Traffic control tower open day

hmmm oh yeah - Christchurch International Airport is expanding its facilities and while they were at it - they also build this brand spanking new air traffic control tower. It has been officially opened by our right honorable Prime Minister - John Key - urm - 2 days ago (10 Sep 2009). I know 'cause I saw the plaque on the wall. Anyhow - TODAY - a few members of the public (who had to register online and pay $20 -which goes towards a charity) had the opportunity to climb up the air traffic control tower and have a brief look. It is a fantastic "office" to work in - 360 degree panorama views - and they can see both runways all the way. Staff were on hand to display and explain what the various computer screens are meant to be doing. One guy engaged micky and had a good long convo with the longhaired teenager. Seems he still would like to pursue this as a main career!! Anyhow after 30 min it was time to come back down again and while one of the teenagers lived up to the lazy reputation and used the lift- the rest of us walked down all of the stairs!!

Hmmm took a video - will see if this will load later.

urm - nope - that's 179 mb of data mehhh

1.5 hours of upload time later :P