Dreams are free

Listening to: Foo Fighters-Echoes, silence, patience & grace. Finally.

As a joke this would be pretty funny, but as it is an actual product it is brilliant. Now all I need is a few spare mil to drop on one and pay for someone to house, maintain and fly it and I'll be sussed.

* If you don't get it, Haynes manuals are very useful how to's for home vehicle maintenance and repair. If your dad, brother or anyone you know likes to work on their car at home, there is probably a dog-eared, oil and grease stained Haynes manual nearby.

of netball quizzes and vegas

Still not listening to Foo Fighters, but at least I know where it is now. Listening to Hysteria-Def Leppard instead.

Made up for no netball on Monday night by playing three games on Tuesday, two scheduled and one fill in. Victories from all three which was nice, especially as one involved out-thinking opposition with tactics overcoming physical prowess. Bit sore yesterday though.

Friday night attended a Fundraising quiz at Chilton St James. It was odd, but looking around at the assembled punters I felt like a shark amongst minnows. Still we didn't win, although I suspect had answers not been available wholesale for $5 each we might have.

Memo to quiz organisers: selling answers is fine, but only if you have set a limit on the number able to be purchased. Otherwise it makes the quiz meaningless as a competition......still as organisers I suppose the funds get boosted, which is kinda the point I guess.

Off to Wanganui for the weekend, thus allowing me to answer 'yes' when anyone asks if I am going away for the long weekend, which I seldom get to do.

I'm not sure what to make of this whole anti terrorism raid business, other than to suggest it has been a boon for both left and right wing conspiracists. I do agree however (based on my limited knowledge of stuff like this) with the commentator (I forget who), who said that if there had been a genuine and imminent threat to public safety and well being, it would not have been the police carrying out the raids; it would have been the SAS, with much less publicity.

Hope you enjoyed the rare commentary on current events.

I really don't have much else to blog about. Its been a quiet couple of weeks. I had a great catchup with old friends last night, and ran into another old aquaintance tonight at netball. Seems to be the season for homecomings.

Just don't know what to do with myself

Listening to: Make yourself-Incubus. Wondering why I picked it up only last weekend instead of in 1999 when it was released. And Recollection-The best of Concrete Blonde after Incubus finishes. "Ghost of a Texas ladies man" is the favourite song I never think about. Would like to be listening to Foo Fighters-Silence Echoes Patience & Grace but it is MIA at the moment.

No netball on a Monday night after having our semi final yesterday.

What to do, what to do?

Hmm.

Wash the car:

Enjoy a calm evening after a stormy day from the sanctuary of my bay window:
Look for my missing Foo's CD:
Have a beer (tempered over burning witches apparently):
Idly check facebook to see who this weeks MVP is:
Do the dishes. Note beer. Makes the dishes go faster:
Work on various projects:

And blog:

Control! You must learn control!

This stuff just finds me I swear

Youtube video of the launch of a 21 foot long rocket propelled X-Wing model

Its only 20 seconds long. Apparently the guys who built it thought what happened to be a fairly likely outcome, but they did it anyway.

Brilliant.

Inevitable II

I held out for as long as I could, but I have finally succumbed and let Fish set me up.

I now have a facebook account, bringing my list of web identities to four if you include fora....

Inevitable

The more you hype yourselves up the bigger the fall.

I think we are reaping the whirlwind as far as hype vs reality goes after the All Black exit from the world cup. It's funny, at the time I didn't think it would become a 'where were you when' moment, but it seems to be heading that way. As I said a few weeks ago, I thought the team, the game, and the event were getting well over exposed, with waaay too much baggage being attached (kinda like the America's Cup) It's okay if you win, but all that junk is going to fall around you if you lose.

Its kinda interesting to see how quickly the media has turned on the team and coach, when really what we need to admit is that the other guys were better on the day. That's the problem with expectation in professional sport. We should have won yesterday, but from the hype and buildup it was almost we just had to turn up and the French would lie down and say "the semi's are yours, off you go!"

Full credit to the French. They deserve it. Never mind that their winning try came from an obviously forward pass. If we were good enough that wouldn't have mattered.

Kinda cool that the Wallabies got taken out early as well. Reality checks all round me thinks.

The Bathurst 1000 on the other hand, was much more fun. 161 laps long, and it comes down to two or three contenders duking it out on the last one. Brilliant!

Nights on my own 12, takeaways 0

Listening to: Another old tape, this time of Channel Z on the last day of 1999.....Just like listening to the radio live but all the ads are 8 years out of date. Like new Playstations (1, they were just called playstations then as the PS2 didn't exist yet) for $179.95. Some of the ads are good and funny in their own right. Especially the 'tips for wearing sunglasses' ads for the Sunglass Store. I had also forgotten how much I liked 'Venus as a Boy' by Bjork, which I probably haven't heard much since 1999.




When the girls went down south I made a pact, a challenge to myself if you will, not to get any takeaways for tea, as I am wont to to when home alone.


Winning so far.


Okay so it is strictly meat and two veg, but it is way better for you than BK. Broccoli, oven baked fries and spicy chicken breast. Beer optional. Picture just to prove to folk I am cooking for myself. I haven't even had steak yet.

I have also bought a lawnmower (of the pushy kind rather than the motor kind. The latter is too heavy and too much hassle for our varying levelled section), and fixed the ceiling in the bathroom (I think. Time will tell....)

***

Bit stormy around here today. The southerly was brief but violent. However, it has yielded a very clear starry night. If you remember Lauren, it is the sort of night I have told you about.

I don't know what you did to Milford Sound either, but it looked fine when I was there six months ago!
Still cold though.
And after Fi took my jacket (here modelled by some random dude) with her, it has now seen more of the South Island than I have. I take it it is sharing the jacket love and looking after Fishy quite nicely.

Thanks for passing on the comment about the firefighting. Very interesting! Sounds like a ride I would enjoy, but like Pattie I'd be a bit greeny.

I's got arms now

Listening to: an ancient (summer of '94-'95) compilation tape, featuring Supergroove, Stone Temple Pilots, and stuff off the Crow soundtrack.
Got the arm pods attached and they haven't fallen off yet. Just need to finish the side pods (which I have been putting off as they are far more work than is necessary) and it will be complete.......

***

Envious of the wahines activities down south knowing I am missing out on fun and adventure. Missing the company.

Are you listening?

Listening to: A Stitch in Time-The Twilight Singers, and Cure for Pain-Morphine

When writing the 'Listening to', I can never remember if I put the album or artist first. Does anyone take note of it anyway?
I would like to think someone has discovered their new favourite band through my listing it and encouraging intrigue by naming semi obscurity, but I doubt it. I'm the only person I know who listens to some of the stuff I do, but that goes for pretty much everyone who has a serious music habit I think.

Here's how the Department of Conservation tells you a link from their website is bad:

I love it.

Speaking of semi obscurity, I picked up The Afghan Whigs retrospective "Unbreakable" last weekend, at the Warehouse of all places, an outlet not especially known for eclecticism in its wares. Saved me fifteen dollars though. Despite this, the warehouse is really not my favourite place to score sounds. Selection is poor (invariably involving a single CD title stacked many deep on a shelf, making you think there are more CD's available than there actually are), service is worse, the only attraction is the price. No lectures about mp3's and buying on the internet please, I'm not into that at the moment.

I'm not sure it adds anything to the stuff I was saying about greatest hits collections here, but I am now of an age where the bands I spent my late teens and early twenties listening to are or have put out best ofs. As I have the Whigs back catalogue, I get the luxury of knowing the tracks anyway. As compilations go it isn't bad. It isn't chronological, and the tracks cover all era's of the bands sound, from the early post-punk to the latter soul and funk influenced. There is a nice fade from 'crime scene part one' into 'faded' to close, which are at opposite ends of their source album.

A couple of half decent unreleased tracks are included (which I think is written in some law somewhere "thou shalt have previously unreleased material on thy retrospective compilation, or thou shalt suffer the consequences of mediocre review and poor word of mouth expectation" or something more legal and less biblical sounding). The chosen tracks are good ones, some are my favourites.

For the sake of being a whining fan I would have liked 'Honky's Ladder' or 'My Curse' (the only Whigs track with a female lead vocal, and a damn good one at that), or the instrumental 'Closing Prayer' to have been included.

In the 1990's, the Afghan Whigs were just the right band in the right place at the right time for me.

I like this collection, it works. Unlike the Thompson Twins compilation I picked up in Masterton (for all of five dollars) a few weeks ago, which is diabolically bad. All of the best known tracks are on it.

As awful 80's remixes. Yerrrgh.

Yay

Listening to: The Essential-Cheap Trick

Had a good day at work, starting to slightly feel a little tiny bit like I know what I'm doing.

Had a casual smash fest at netball.

Spoke to my fishie on the phone.

Had a very interesting opportunity present itself hobby wise.

Had a very nice dinner at the in laws.

Good day.

Now I'm going to play with the rats on the stairs. They're fun to watch when exploring. Curious little creatures.

Up too late

Listening to: Everclear-Sparkle and Fade

I had a longer post planned, but I've been staying up too late lately and I need to go to sleep.

I really enjoyed filling in (along with everyone else) for Michelle's netball team tonight. Without romanticising it too much, when I finally can't play anymore, games like tonight will be ones I remember, fun games with old and good friends, and well practised combinations.

Getting used to the absence of human females in my house, and envious of their mainland shenanigans. Deriving a stupid amount of pleasure from leaving the loo seat up though.

Man about the house

Listening to: Throwing Copper-Live

On my own here at home for a couple of weeks while Fi and Lauren are tiki-touring in the South Island. Naturally, upon boarding the ferry, the first place they headed to was the bar, even though it was only 10am. We scheduled a photo op of sorts as they left the harbour. After mad scrambling across the length of Breaker Bay (no nudists present! Also shingle beaches are really really hard to negotiate quickly) I climbed a precarious rock to shoot from. The girls promised to be on deck, and on the right side of the ship.Try and find them in this photo:
Maybe this one would be better. If you biggify the image by clicking on it you can make out the people on deck. I think I know where they are. I like the newish Interislander logo, they certainly got their moneys worth from the design studio for that one.
This pic included solely because I like the composition. From Breaker Bay looking across the harbour entrance to Pencarrow. MV Arahura in the middle.
Meanwhile, when I got back home I found all these packages for Lauren in the mail box. She missed them by an hour or two. Hopefully if the relevant Canadians see this they recognise their respective packages and can be reassured they arrived safely. They won't be opened for another fortnight, so hopefully there isn't anything in them perishable......

Speaking of relevant Canadians, I found this picture in one of my aviation magazines and put it up for Lauren's dad to see, since I understand it is in his line of work. A former Saskatchewanian fire-bomber, now being flown privately in the UK. For those wondering what I'm going on about (yeah like thats unusual) fire-bombers dump large amounts of water or fire retardant from the air onto forest fires etc. We don't have any here, relying instead on an abundance of helicopters with monsoon buckets. Amphibians like the Catalina (which can land on a runway or on water) were/are handy for this because they can reload by skimming the surface of lakes without having to go back to an airfield.

As it happens we've got one flying here in NZ. We operated a bunch of them in World War Two. This isn't one of them (ours were pure flying boats, not having any wheels like this one), but its painted like ours were.

I like the Catalina, its kinda funky. Designed for ocean patrolling (what Orions (Auroras if you're Canadian) do now) in the 1930's, it is basically a huge wing with some floats attached. It has only one speed, cruise, and does everything at its own unhurried pace.

From some angles it can be almost elegant.
And from others not. It has an unglamourous charm all of its own.

Linky Dinky Do

Links I have been telling people I will post for ages, plus a couple I haven't. Mostly youtube so apologies if you're still on dialup.

Irrefutable proof if any were needed that Star Wars Episode IV was reverse engineered from The Dam Busters (among others).
Anyone with the intention of seeing the Peter Jackson produced version next year(?) should check out the 1954 original first. Still an excellent movie, and almost all as it happened in real life

Boy Racers in 747's. Nuff said really.

RNZAF Skyhawk fleet put on Trademe. It's only two years since the government announced (probably completely coincidentally just prior to the last election...) that they were sold and would be leaving the country soon. Farce. Seller allows pickups apparently.

How to make your tank or Landrover disappear in the middle of the street. Inventive.

Crazy 1950's US airshow using actual live weapons. Think of the liability.....course, in the 1950's this was probably perfectly normal.

The nine minute tour of Paris. Don't try this at home, especially if you live in Paris. Okay so it isn't as fast as the soundtrack would have you believe, but there are some plenty faster than sensible bits.

And trying to recreate the tour thirty years later. Not trying the recreation at 5:30 in the morning probably didn't help. Good background though.

And finally, all glory to the HypnoToad!

Pimp my dropship

Because I know one or two of you might be vaguely interested.
After years of being back-burnered by real-world kit subjects, the dropship will likely be completed during the current phase of work. There, its in writing.

The keen eyed among you will note that it does not depict either of the movie Cheyennes (if you don't know which movie.......its this one ) I figure there are thousands of those around, so I decided to create my own colour scheme for the beast. Besides, I try and make my real world models fairly accurate. Doing SF means you can kinda throw away the rulebook and have some fun.

The windows are taped over for protection from the painting and weathering process. Not that you can see through them, as they are blacked out due to the cockpit being too much hassle than it was worth to detail.

So it's a dropship with a custom paintjob and tinted windows.

Even incomplete and without the weapon pods, it still looks a fintimidating creature.

Fetch!

Listening to: Devils and Dust-Bruce Springsteen and Dyzrythmia-Split Enz

Picking up the stick thrown at me by Morgue here and running with it.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

My first inclination was to say 'Fahrenheit 451' just to be absurd.
'Empire of the Sun' by J G Ballard. I love the depiction of a world in complete collapse (Japanese occupied China at the end of the Second World War) yet seemingly still full of wondrous possibilities.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Assuming from the context of the other questions that this is a literary character...
Miss Alexandra Kincaid (Brunswick). Maybe Mara Jade (Dark Force Rising Star Wars trilogy) as well, although she might be a bit difficult to live with.

3. The last book you bought is:
Discounting book fair purchases, which tend to be en masse, the last new book I bought (for myself, gifts don't count) is "When the wind calls your name: Tales of the supernatural in Aotearoa", by Tahu Potiki and Grant Shanks. A companion to "Where no birds sing" by the same authors, this is a nicely presented collection of anecdotes from around the country that lets the reader draw their own conclusions.

4. The last book you finished is:
"Modern Naval Combat", by David Miller and Chris Miller. Thats 'modern' as in published in 1986 'modern'. Interesting guide to how naval warfare works, and was expected to progress, and how things were in the mid eighties at the height of the Cold War. Still vaguely relevant since the last significant naval combat was in 1982, meaning a lot of theory is still just that.

5. What are you currently reading?
Fortuitously still current, see here.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island
'Fools Paradise' by Steve Braunias. A collection of 'Listener' columns from the late 1990's. Steve and I appear to see the world in similar ways, and I like the way he writes.
'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S Thompson. One of the most quotable books I have ever read, and whether you read it as critical journalism, scathing satire, a work of fiction or straight comedy, it is the only book I have ever read that has stuff that can make me laugh out loud on almost every page of text. Given that it was first published in 1971, I still find it oddly relevant in trying to understand US culture and the death of the Hippie dream.
'Piece of Cake' by Derek Robinson. Following the a Royal Air Force fighter squadron over the course of a year from the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939 to the climax of the Battle of Britain in September 1940, this novel utterly refutes the myth of the noble steely eyed, square jawed, chivalrous and unafraid fighter pilot. Somewhat controversial at the time it was published, it paints it's protagonists as real people; some nice, some thoroughly unlikeable, most good, some bad and some barking mad. And inevitably one by one they fall (often messily and horribly) as the war moves from a sort of exciting and risky game into an utter and desperate battle for survival. Being well researched and peppered with irreverence and blacker than black humour doesn't hurt either. I like its lack of idealism.
'A Brief history of Time' by Stephen Hawking, on the grounds that the isolation might force me to actually finish reading the damn thing.

7. Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?
Why? Because they read interesting stuff.
Judge and Jury
Not Kate
Ethel the Aardvark

200 not out

Listening to: Chisel-The best of Cold Chisel, and Who cares a Lot-the best of Faith No More.

Drinking the Monteiths Black that a certain Mr Heegers left in my fridge.



Tribute

To mark my 200th post, a tribute of sorts, with apologies to Tenacious D



This is not the greatest Blog post in the world,

This is just a tribute.

Couldn't recall the subject,

Of the greatest post in the world,

This is just a tribute.

***

Not so wobbly eclipse

The Tripod helped things considerably, although the breeze still induced some camera shake. Still looks cool though.

Forgetting to close the apeture a little meant that the later eclipse shots got over exposed somewhat. Earth's shadow visible to the left of the face of the Moon.
Perfect Day

Had a near perfect day (moment of imperfection: catching the repeat of 'The Nine' while waiting for the AB's Kickoff) on Saturday.

The weather was good.

The magazine back issues I had ordered from the UK arrived, and weren't in Spanish, as I had dreamt the night before.

Breakfast included yummy fresh pancakes courtesy of the lovely fish.

Discovered the most elaborate abandoned house I have yet seen near Stonehenge Aotearoa. I bet its haunted.

Went roadtripping with a good bunch of people.
Who seemed strangely obsessed with photographing each other as well as the scenery....

Our notional destination was Castlepoint, which when you think about it, is a fairly long way from anywhere, being on the sparsely populated east coast of the southern North Island. 64 K east by road from Masterton, which itself is hardly a bustling urban centre. For some undefined reason I really don't like Masterton. Maybe it's because they demolished possibly the best adventure playground set up ever sometime in the late eighties (a series of interconnected concrete tubes, buried in a concrete hill, with several possible entries and exits. It was way cool, trust me).

I took a picture of the boardwalk because I liked the way the shadow was falling on to the sand.

Castlepoint, reef and lagoon on an uncharacteristically calm day.

While calmish, there were some nice breakers coming into the lagoon. The Northerly breeze gave them some elaborate headwear....

As well as quickly erasing any passing footprints in the sand.
As usual the lighthouse watched everything impassively
One of my favourite places.

Eyes and Ears

What I'm Reading
Verdict on Erebus, a memoir of sorts by the presiding judge of the Royal Comission of Enquiry into the Erebus disaster, Love is a Mix Tape, an insight into how music can become the sondtrack to your life, Magnitude Eight Plus, an account of the 1855 Wellington earthquake and its impacts, and Planet Simpson, about the Simpson's place in popular culture.

What I'm listening to

Bought with my birthday present from the Hall in-laws (Thanks guys!)

Woke up today, a Mockers best of. Shapeshifter Live, Shapeshifter umm live, making up for me not getting to their concert on Friday, and Take Control by State of Mind, some NZ (actually all three are NZ) drum and bass with a killer track called Sunking that I have been trying to find for yonks (took me ages to figure out the title and artist).

What I've just finished working on Skyhawk in the 1987 RNZAF 50th anniversary scheme. Making serious plans to finish the dropship now, to the point of acquiring the necessary materials for completion last weekend.

What I'm not doing

Playing any sport this week after my thumb was sprained due to opposition cluelessness.

Wobbly eclipse and shooting stars

Listening to: Boys for Pele-Tori Amos

Its amazing the results you can get when you try to take a picture of a Lunar Eclipse with a long lens, a long exposure, and no tripod. Still the colour shows up nicely.
I did take more with a tripod, but I haven't developed them yet. Hopefully they will be better; it would be hard for them to be worse....

I have been messing around with taking photos of the stars (with a tripod). These pictures should be clicked on to biggify, it will make the details easier to see.

Southern Cross
The pointers, Alpha and Beta Centauri are the two bright stars near the centre of the picture, showing the way to Crux (the Southern Cross) in the lower centre. The orangish thing on the left is a tree, while the blurry thing at the bottom is cloud. The other white dots are stars.


Scorpius
The big bright thing is the Moon. Left of the Moon and curling down to the bottom of the picture is the constellation of Scorpius. The planet Jupiter is shining brightly just to the right of the constellation two thirds of the way to the bottom of the photo from the Moon. Scorpius' tail is up by the Moon, its head the three stars at the bottom.

With a nearly full moon in the sky, the stars get washed out a bit. I intend to try these photos again when there is no moon and the stars are brighter.

Ephemera

Raukawa Falls (on the Whanganui River between Wanganui and Ohakune) at near dusk. The sun had already set when I took this and darkness was imminent. This meant a longish exposure (making the water look like hair rather than liquid, emphasising the flow) which made for a classic waterfall shot which I quite like

Cabbage trees outside my house illuminated by streetlights and mist. I really really need to take these sort of pictures with a tripod.
Kereru (Wood Pigeon) in our backyard the other day. I like these birds, they have a lot of character. They are the only birds I can hear flying past my house. When I am inside it (woomp woomp wooomp).

Bored already

The Rugby World Cup starts in a couple of weeks.

Is it too early yet to be totally freaking over the All Blacks hype machine dominating everything?

Every other damn commercial or promotion has the All Blacks in it in some way, usually in soft focus slow-motion.

It's just a game people.

Not watching the eclipse

Listening to: Hunters and Collectors-Collected Works

Unfortunately tonight's spectacular in the Moon turns blood red kinda way eclipse has been messed up due to manky high stratus cloud providing complete obscuration. I saw the beginning, the moon start to get eaten by shadow, but then the clouds rolled in and I could see no more. I took one extremely wobbly photo. By the time I got the tripod there was nothing to be seen.

Buggar.

I remember the 1982 eclipse well, gazing through the window of our house in Rotorua at a crimson moon I hadn't seen before.

I remember the 2000 one a lot better, mainly due to the 'hey wouldn't it be nice if I brought my skin drums so everyone can like commune with this great natural event and we can all be one with nature' complete prat who ruined the viewing experience from Mount Vic with his inane and repetitious-even-for-drums slapping. Still a great spectacle though.

Just popped my head outside and like magic the clouds cleared, long enough to take some perhaps slightly better photos.

Sweet.

As I have said earlier, its far to easy to be too cool for things like this and dismiss them as boring. You can see a white moon all the time. A red one every several years only. Think about it. How often do you get to see the shadow of your own planet? Thus I deem it cool. To quote a great philosopher of my time, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it".

***

To the wanker who broke into Fi's car last night: Not only are you a wanker for trying to steal what others have rightfully earned, you're not even very good at it. You go to all the risk and effort of breaking in and then you don't even take anything!

You are pathetic.

***

On a much more important note than anything else in this post, please everyone spare a thought for strong-light at the moment. Especially today and the days to come. She and hers are going through a tough time.

One day this time will be a sad memory rather than a sad experience Cal.

Peace and empathy to you.

Arcane netball trivia

Listening to: Jam and Spoon-Tripomatic Fairytales

Back to posting about me again.

I was idly wondering how many points I have scored in my Indoor Netball career. I wasn't able to arrive at a definitive figure other than 'at least hundreds', but I did come up with the following useless facts and figures.

Highest score my team has been beaten by
75 or so. My first ever Superleague match.

Highest score my team has scored while I was on the court
62.

Highest personal score in a game
Hard to pin down exactly, but it is in the 30+ region. Fairly recently. I have often tried to remember my points during games, but have never managed it.

Most perfect shooting in a game
On a wild and stormy night on court 5 at Newtown I hit all but one (the last one) of my 15 or so shots first time.

Number of times I have been sent off
None

Number of times I have been threatened with being sent off
Three

Worst Immediate Consequence injury
At Cuba Street one time, both myself and the D were watching the progress of the ball into the circle. Unfortunately we were both running quite quickly. I saw him briefly after my head connected with his shoulder, but this vision was quickly replaced by a view of the court ceiling as I had been knocked flat on my arse and close to unconcious (I saw everything in shades of lime green for a while). My team-mates scored the points before attending to me, as they should, bless 'em.

Worst Delayed Consequence Injury that was a lot worse than I thought at the time it occured
The sprained forefinger I got in early 2006 (the physio sent me for X-rays before she would even look at it), narrowly beating the sprained shoulder I incurred a couple of months ago.

Most spectacular fall
Leaping high for a tip one time at Cuba Street (1997 ish), I stretched just a little too far, enough to make a co-ordinated landing an impossibility. 'This might hurt' I thought as I watched the world rotate 90 degrees or so before landing very heavily on my side (shoulder and hip to be exact) from a height of about two feet, which doesn't sound like much, until you try it onto a thinly astroturf covered concrete floor. I suddenly felt pain in areas that should never be painful in indoor netball. Still jarring I rolled over and got up to unsteadily run after the play. I retired from the game shortly thereafter. I have a theory it is somehow related to my occasional random and unexplainable thigh/hip pain that I currently experience.

Fastest scoring I have participated in
7 points in under thirty seconds. I was centre for Teachers Pet, about 5 years ago.
Sequence thus: Two point shot, pass-off, intercept, one point shot, pass-off, intercept, two, pass-off, intercept, two (buzzer beater) to end the second quarter. I shot the twos. We lost the game by one point....

Longest scoring shot
Pass that went through the hoop from about one metre inside halfway last year.

Worst team I have played against
The folks at Petone last year who included personal insults and a total disregard for fair play as part of their game, and then nearly had a fist fight with an umpire after the game. Big factor in my dropping playing for the Petone team last year, as they weren't the only team in our grade with a significant attitude problem.

Most netball I have played in one day
Four and a half complete games, or 18 nine minute quarters to put it another way.

Best partner in A
Wouldn't be fair to name one, there have been so many to catch my wild passes, or deliver me the ball safely, or carry me when my shooting was off, or just make me look like a better player than I am.

First game ever played
October 1995. I played C/L, ran around lots, had three attempts at goal, missed them all, and was generally rubbish.

It's your birthday

Actually no it isn't.

Unless you have the same birthday as me.

Like if you're Sean Connery for example. If you're reading this Sean, Happy Birthday!

Right, where was I?

Listening to: Audioslave-Audioslave

As I was saying last night this article in yesterday's Dom, conveniently reproduced on Stuff, detailing apparent 'tampering' with Wikipedia's account of the Erebus disaster by someone using Air New Zealand's server caught my eye.

Caution: the below contains opinions. Please don't start a flame war in my comments if you disagree. Constructive comments only will be allowed.

What's interesting isn't that the entry was altered, it is what it was allegedly altered to.
According to Stuff the amendment said "pilots are divided to this day as to whether the responsibility ... should rest with the pilot or the flight planning department".

For those not familiar with the subject, on 28 November 1979 an Air New Zealand DC-10 on a sightseeing flight to Antarctica crashed into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus, on Antarctica's Ross Island. All 257 aboard were killed instantly, making this by one fatality more than the 1931 Napier Earthquake the worst single loss of life event in New Zealand history.

It has been often said that everyone in New Zealand at the time either knew personally or was connected to one of the victims (certainly true in my family's case).

The official Ministry of Transport accident investigation report listed the cause as (massive summarisation here, so as not to spend days writing this thing) pilot error in descending to an altitude below that of surrounding terrain when he may not have been certain of his position (the crash occurred 1500 feet up the side of a 12,000 foot mountain). This was compounded by a change to the pre programmed flight path by ANZ's navigation department to fix an incorrect set of coordinates for a navigation waypoint, the effect of which was to place the DC-10 flying over Mt Erebus instead of some distance to one side. The change in track was not communicated to the crew, meaning they may have thought they were in one place when in fact they were in another. Whiteout conditions ahead created the illusion of flat land ahead, meaning they never saw the mountain which killed them. Many many more factors were detailed, but those are the main ones.

Are you with me so far? This is where it gets complicated.

As would be fairly normal practice for an event of this kind, in 1980 a formal commission of inquiry was set up to investigate the circumstances. It's findings disagreed completely with the accident report, exonerating the flight crew and blaming ANZ for the accident (changing the flight track without telling the crew basically), going so far as to accuse the airline of a conspiracy to avoid blame and hide evidence (the famous 'orchestrated litany of lies' referred to by the inquiry judge), ordering the airline to pay $150,000 in costs.

This was overturned on appeal (on the grounds that the inquiry judge had considerably exceeded his remit and not allowed ANZ a fair hearing), and reinforced by a Privy Council hearing which overturned the inquiry judge's counter appeal.

As you can imagine, there is a fair amount of history and opinion to this. So my thoughts on seeing the quoted wikipedia amendment were "fair enough". I didn't think that statement was particularly inaccurate.

The quotes from The Right Honourable Jim Anderton, if accurate, that the amendment was "outrageous (and) entirely erroneous", and "to suggest there was disagreement over blame for the Erebus crash was unjustifiable and wrong" are completely laughable and absurd. At least three books have been published about the inquiry and its aftermath, and the fairly definitive "New Zealand tragedies: Aviation accidents and disasters" devotes an entire chapter (55 pages out of 300) to discussing the argument.

Also nonsensical is Anderton's proposal that the government "make a formal declaration that Captain Jim Collins and co-pilot Greg Cassin were not to blame for the crash". I'm not sure they can, as the accident report is the only official statement of facts (and that is all it is meant to be, rather than the assignment of blame it has been used for) about the disaster (it was not overturned by the commission report as the item claims. It has never been properly challenged in court). The Commission of Inquiry report is legally opinion only.

In all fairness to the spokesman from the Airline Pilots Association who is quoted as saying "Justice Mahon's finding, that was the official finding of the Royal Commission and that was accepted in Parliament. Our pilots are completely happy with that finding, that it was not pilot error", he is pretty much bound to say that. The statement that other pilots associations agree with the commission findings, while it may be true now is not exactly accurate historically (an article strongly criticising the commission was published in a British pilots association journal after the Privy Council hearing).

In my admittedly lay experience, there has been a huge amount of debate amongst pilots and others about Erebus, so this whole item appears somewhat under informed and misleading, as well as being hijacked for some soundbite time by a member of cabinet.

I feel sorry for the relatives of the who have had to put up with this crap periodically for 28 years now, especially the families of the crew. My personal viewpoint based on what I've read is that a combination of circumstances put those people into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Wikipedia vs the Volcano

In a timely relation to Billy's post here about just who is editing wikipedia, comes this item about someone at Air New Zealand editing Wikipedia's account of the Erebus disaster.

This is interesting and bears further discussion, but its late, so I will examine it in a bit more depth tomorrow.

In the meantime, for those who have seen Die Hard 4.0, here is what actually happens when a hovering aircraft loses it's vertical thrust component, (i.e. the bit holding it up) thanks to the miracle of youtube.

As usual for youtube, ignore the comments. After a rough browse of the numbers, less than 1% actually know what they are talking about. Seriously. The ignorance is that rampant.

And the pilot survived if you're wondering, although he did sustain a broken ankle when he landed on his now semi submerged aircraft.

Happy Monday

Listening to: Under a Blood Red Sky-U2. Say what you like about them now, 'Gloria' still kicks arse.

This Saturday


Is the 25th of August. Which is my birthday. Hence, it will be an ideal time to drop by to my place and say hello. In accordance with this, we will make sure we are at home. If you bring appropriate Kai, we may even get the barbecue going. Anytime from say 2:30-3:00 ish. It's not a party as such, just an excuse for you to drop in, say hi and spend as much time as you feel like. Also a great opportunity to meet our houseguest, plus any fellow travellers she has attracted.


Hopefully that cleared up any doubts about the date.

Why bad Umpiring annoys me

Inconsistent or indifferent umpiring hacks me off because I, and the teams I play in are generally wholesome clean living folk, who make an effort to play within the rules (I have never played in a dirty team, or one that encouraged dirty play. I have played against many though.). Which means that if my opponent breaks those rules either through intention or incompetence and gets away with it, they are gaining an unfair advantage.

Thus frustration occurs.


That said, Sweep The Leg overcame such umpiring tonight to win by one point in a great come from behind victory, in which all team members had a useful hand. It's nice to get both a moral and an actual victory at the same time. Tonights was a very satisfying win.





Not Blogging, modelling

Haven't been blogging much lately because I have been diligently hacking away and painting at this assembled lump of plastic, a Fujimi 1:72 scale TA-4J Mcdonnell Douglas Skyhawk, converted by moi to a TA-4K (the letters at the end make all the difference):


I know this is may be boring and you may not care. But its my blog. So there.To mark the 50th Anniversary of the forming of the RNZAF back in 1987, they decided to give one of the Skyhawks a one-off paint scheme (also known as "The Benson and Hedges special" ), which I remember fondly from the time, and think looks way cool.


Heres what the real thing looked like in more sensible clothing:


So when a nice company made decals for it a little while ago, and I got my hands on the right kind of kit, and the extra bits needed to make it look proper, and the decals themselves, I had to give it a go. Despite the looks, single colour paint schemes (the gold base) are actually a little harder to do than more conventional schemes.

Before you all rush to comment along the lines of "Hey that looks cool" (right after thinking "Geek!" ) being a self deprecating perfectionist Virgo, I have to point some of the faults. All models have these, usually only known to the person who built them:

It's not finished yet. It needs seats, fuel tanks for under the wings, a refuelling probe (not attached yet as it is way too fragile, a canopy. All the bits are ready, deciding which order to put them on vs likelyhood of breaking them off again however takes some time.

There was something else I was going to blog about, but I have forgotten what.

No doubt I'll remember after hitting 'Publish Post'

Maybe it was the migraine I had on Saturday that continued messing my head around on Sunday, and again today.