Challenge

Listening to: Into the Blue again-The Album Leaf.

And an unaccustomed silence from the laundry where previously there used to be the random noises of various ratty goings on. An empty cage is sitting on the back porch. *sigh*.

Before we begin

Enjoying muchly D3vo's question and answer sessions at the moment. I wish I'd thought of it, it is the sort of thing I enjoy doing.

Played an excellent game of netball with Suspect tonight, including me winning the mindgame with a young superleague player by means of repeatedly getting him to fall into my shots then shooting twos over him. Also the team played really well and it was a thoroughly enjoyable game.


Right onto business

The Primary Objective

To get to this in Auckland:

My trusty and noble steed


My companions, spirit guides and advisors

Kush, Woodstock and Snoopy.


The Secondary Objective

Keep interested on a long lonely drive by seeking and recording various targets as nominated by readers. The list provided was long and varied, even if some submitters ignored certain eligibility rules. When a target did not comply with the rules a substitute was found. Only one target could not be found completely

The Targets (in order of submission)

Homeperms list

Sorry HP but custard squares generally aren't visible from the road as I stipulated. Never mind though, I found an old school tearooms in Waiouru.

And I didn't see anyone on a horse, let alone a male, but I found this nice picture of several males on horses in Parnell.

NotKate's list

It being a balmy late summer morning when I passed through Levin, there were no Levinians in Leggings. The target could not be located and hence was not photographed.

I saw a great variety of roadkill, ranging in size from magpie to sheep. These two ex-hedgehogs in Bulls and Whenuapai were least dangerous to photograph.

Bulls

Whenuapai

The Giant Market Gardener of Levin.

A wanky personalised plate. Although the plate cannot actually be made out in the shot, I can assure you it was personalised and wanky. Also the driving on display was wanky in nature. Somewhere south of Te Kuiti.

Incidentally, if you are the driver of the lowered and customised white Toyota Altezza that I encountered three times between Tokoroa and Taupo on Sunday, you're an idiot. Your overtaking on the outside of a blind uphill bend was one of the most potentially dangerous acts I have ever seen on the open road, never mind your u-turn in front of me at from the side of the road at Wairakei that required heavy braking and evasive action from me to avoid hitting your precious ride. You are a menace and an accident looking for a place to happen. I just hope no-one innocent is involved when it does. Rant ends.

The inside of a public womens bathroom. Again, not generally visible from the road, this shot of the womens in Ohakune with the interior partly visible will have to do

Rich's list

Huntly powerstation. In Huntly.

Low flying hideously decorated cookietime tearoom plane. Mangaweka.

A Constabull. Not being sure how to interpret this, I took a photo of the Bulls Police Station. This was the last target photographed incidentally.

A tourist in the Taupo toilets. What is with the requests for toilet shots? Taking photos in loos is incredibly difficult to explain, plus the interiors are not visible from the road and thus ineligible. Anyway I got a shot of someone inside the Taupo superloo who may or not be a tourist.

Fish's list

The big silver trout at Taupo.

Cassandra's list

The corrugated iron animals. Tirau.

The golf course on Lake Taupo.

Huntly powerstation. Still in Huntly

The Bombay Hills. Just south of Auckland

Janet's list (as received by text, hence missing an item or two from the commented list which I did not see before I left).

Steam pipes at Wairakei Power Station.

A bank that has been converted into an antique shop. Unable to locate as described, however I did find a bank serving as a bar in Hunterville,

and a petrol station craft shop south of Auckland.

The settler/pioneer family in Hamilton.

Power pylons on the desert road.

A wide load pilot vehicle, near Tangiwai.

Thanks to all who submitted requests. You shall receive your chocolate fish when I see you next.

Back

You miss me?

The challenge results are in. I got all but one of the targets. Results to be posted soon.

In other news, we put our Rat to sleep a couple of hours ago, a process which I found surprisingly upsetting.

To brighten things up after that, I sought this out on youtube. Really digging this song at the moment and the video is way cool.

Yikes its another photo essay

Or it will be when I get back.
I'm driving to Auckland on Friday, and I thought it would make an interesting travelogue of sorts to take a picture of everywhere I stopped along the way.

And then I thought, what if I had a list of things to photograph, like a challenge maybe? It would give my mind something to do at the very least.

So here is the challenge. You (yes you, reading this) name something you would like a photo of that I might encounter on my journey (via the magic of comments, or TXT if you have my number), and thus challenge me to record it.

Set me a challenge. Declare an item and I will see if I can find it.

Any reasonable thing eligible, but it must be visible from the road. Detours from the main route (I am undecided about going via National Park or Desert Road) of up to half an hour will also be considered.You have around 36 hours to submit.

Results will be published when I get back. Everyone whose item(s) I locate gets a chocolate fish. Yummy yummy chocolate fish.

Happy Tuesday

Listening to: Brothers in Arms-Dire Straits
Ah 1985. Despite being mythically uncool now, this is still a pretty good album. Except for 'Walk of Life'. That track is pretty much irredeemable.


Try to move


On a day when I have applied for two internal positions at work (I could do either, and by applying for two I figure I am increasing my odds of being succesful as well as sending a clear message to those concerned that I am rapidly becoming unhappy where I am), and have spent a good part of my day rearranging my CV and arranging covering letters (thanks Rich! ), seeing this in my stars is almost spooky.

Particularly when a coworker who is also a friend outside of work is applying for one of the same positions. Shame, seems a waste of talent, but on the other hand it would be stupid not to apply for that reason. We're friendly about it. Leos and Libras seem to have their work cut out for them today. Rewards are promised but they must be earned. I don't take the stars seriously, but occasionally they seem portentous.

***

Yo Carol, love the new do!

***

Its not all about me

But when I throw the intercept pass that ultimately costs us a must-win semi final, it sure feels like it. I rebuilt my ego by playing for our semi regular fill in Petone team tonight. I always feel like a superstar when I play for them. Sometimes I play like one.

***

Weighing oneself after exercise is almost always rewarding. I can remember when I weighed 4 stone. It was a long time ago.

***

This is just silly

How come I can do this to my kitchen (way smokier than the picture suggests) and not set the smoke alarm off, but the merest hint of combustion from the toaster (almost never accompanied by visible smoke) results in my eardrums trying to meet in the middle of my head?

I'm working on it. Time and serendipity may yet provide an answer.

A summer of two halves

The first half sucked. The second has been glorious. A fine still summers day makes one of my favourite places in the whole world even better.



I ruthlessly exploited the weather and went out to Day's Bay for a swim at about lunchtime before going to work (mega meh. Still, it pays the bills).

It was cathartic and cleansing and relaxing and nice and cool and just what I needed. Special kudos to the guys who swam out to the raft with a bottle of beer each, and to the amorous couple who appeared to be having, um, relations in the water. Or trying to. They were interrupted by a bunch of kayaking schoolgirls.

The Bakery Cult

Listening to: Back in Black-AC/DC

"And thou shalt eat of the bread that thou hast obtained. And if thou finds the bread to be of acceptable quality, that it be just fluffy enough, that it has good flavour, that it does not have too much flour on the outside, then thou shall proclaim "Thats Darn Good Bread!". And thou shalt pass it around, in order that others may also taste of it and make the same proclamation."
-Excerpt from The Book of The Bread, chapter 71

I'm not sure how it began. I think we were at a party and got a little bored. This was in 1996 or so, maybe early 1997. Tiring of the party we decided to vacate the area for an hour or so, by way of the Hataitai bakery. This being in the time of night, fresh bread was obtained. Eating it in the car on the way back, someone said "You know, this is darn good bread!". Eager to confirm this fact, the bread was passed around the car until all the passengers had tasted some, and agreed.

And so the cult of the Darn Good Bread was born. I'm not even sure who the original carload of members was. I was there. Maybe Kieran, maybe Morgue. There were four. It's creation was spontaneous. We had/have members, even if we are not certain who they all are. Instead of Acolytes, we have Apocolytes, because it sounds cooler.
Membership and initiation is fairly simple. To enter, one must consume darn good (adequate or stale bread is ineligible) bread in the presence of a member, and state that it is indeed 'darn good bread'. If the member acknowledges the reference, you're in. At all times henceforth, one must seek out the most darn good bread one can, and visit bakeries in the wee small hours whenever appropriate.

The cult arose as a natural consequence of bakeries opening very early in order to have fresh goods on the shelves first thing in the morning. I don't know who the first late night revellers to twig to this were, but clearly they realised they were on to a good thing.

I was inducted into this ritual in the mid nineties after a night out in Wellington. We stumbled into the Hataitai bakery at about 3am, to be met by bright lights, friendly islander staff, and shelves full of fresh baked goods on the shelves still warm from the oven.
The bakery soon became a regular calling point on the way home.

There are certain etiquette rules to follow when visiting a bakery at this time of day. They are designed to embrace the fact that you will be either drunk or very tired or both (ideally).

1. Stumble through the door. Trip on the sill or catch the door handle on your clothing, its up to you. Improvise if necessary. This should be relatively comedic (see rule 4). Sober drivers are excempted from rule 1 on the grounds of needing to appear sober as well as actually being sober. In fact sober drivers are excempted from most of the rules, in order to gain maximum amusement from watching their non-sober charges adhere to them.
2. Hold the door open for the gorgeous girl/guy who is leaving as you enter. It's about a 1/1000 chance, but your night may just pick up here.
3.Talk loudly to your mates and the staff in hoarse voices. You will be hoarse having to yell at each other in the nightclubs and bars, and slightly deaf for the same reason.
4. Laugh a lot. EVERYTHING is humourous in this situation and at this time of night.
5. Take AGES to choose your purchase. Its a big decision. The severity of your hangover and your need for breakfast may depend on it.
6. Rifle through every pocket, purse or carryall to find the correct money. Again, take your time.
7. Buy something glorious and munchie vanquishing.
8. Take it outside and eat it from the ubiquitous brown paper bag. Park benches and carseats are good eating locations, but failing that the footpath or kerb will suffice. Babble happily to other bakery patrons. Reflect on your good night out.
9. Go home and sleep it off. The night is essentially over. Unless rule 2 worked out for you, or you are introducing a new potentially special person to your late night rituals.

In addition to the Hataitai Bakery, the Moera Bakery was/is a good stop on the way home for Hutt folk. I recall many visits to it sometime around dawn. For those wanting the good night out to go on just a little longer, the Hataitai is a good bet. It got to the point with us where someone just had to say "Bakery?!", and we would head off for the short trip around the basin and through the tunnel to where the good honest food was.

And the food was good. Baguettes, sticky buns, coffee buns, rolls, pies. I think the king was the still warm cheese and bacon loaf.

Even though I am using the past tense, I still partake in late night bakery calls when the mood is right. There was a quality dip at Hataitai a couple of years ago, causing much lamentation, but I am reliably informed that it has returned to its regular good form.

So find a good bakery and add it to your night.

Not sure what I'm doing with this post, if its introspection, cartharsis or what, but bear with me.

I got Fi back from her conference in Auckland yesterday, and I am incredibly grateful for that.

Last Friday night we went out for drinks with some of my coworkers in honour of one who is leaving us to pursue his masters degree. Fi and I didn't stay long as we were going to a movie. As we were leaving another co worker arrived with his wife in tow. I had only met her briefly a couple of times and was a bit disappointed we couldn't stay longer and get to know her a little more.

Tomorrow we're going to her funeral.

This is absolutely tragic in more ways than I care to relate here, but whats been doing my head in for the last couple of days is that we could see someone happy, healthy, laughing and joking, when all the time someone could have pointed at her and said "you have less than five days to live. You won't see it coming, you won't get any warning, you'll just be gone."

Death is manageable as an abstract but in close proximity even when you barely know the deceased it gets messy. At work we had good news, bad news, scant details, then final announcements. There have been times this week when I have wished my memory would fail me and I could just forget.

I have found I can usually compartmentalise my emotions pretty well but the end of life breaks down those walls. I'm wondering if being *this* (brings thumb and forefinger together in a dramatic fashion) close to being dead once has a role in this, or perhaps I am more sensitive than I care to admit, or maybe I just really don't like people dying.

Brown eyed girl

I looked it up, the above Van Morrison song was released in 1967. So Reidun, Notkate and I were all wrong.

The ghost of Nightclubs past

Further to conversation of last night:

Notkate, Reidun might like to have a look at this

Shopping poster. The Christmas eve referred to is 1998.

And a Shopping flyer

I wound up at shopping with a bunch of cohorts in the wee small hours of Jan 1 1999 after a party at Knife's flat in Karori. It was hot and sweaty. The humidity generated from a mass of people in a small space made the walls run with moisture, and eventually drip from the ceiling. This is the only time I have been in a nightclub that has generated its own rain. A mate and I took a breather outside, where some random guy took a photo of us sitting on a step, drenched with sweat and exuberance. I'd love to see it someday. Rather than take a photo, I took a poster.

Now, the story as I understand it was that shopping was occupying a space between leases, and was only temporary. This is reinforced by the dates on the flyer. Reidun reckoned it was around for longer. I'm figuring d3vo might know the truth.

My clubbing phase pretty much ended in the early '00s. I just kinda lost interest. I turned 20 in 1996. The night I turned 20 we went out on the town. I remember going to Planet (now the Sports Cafe) before midnight, and the bouncer letting me in as I would be twenty by the time I left. I liked Planet. It was a good warm up bar. It was never great, but it was never truly dire either. It had a good consistency.

The Reading complex was a carpark then. Where the frontage is now there was a wooden fence with a couple of piecarts. Kenny was still actually busking rather than existing off donations

I've been thinking of other bars that were around then that are gone now. Shooters was located where the Cue room is now. What is now Rain was occupied by The Big Easy (or the Big Sleazy) as it was more commonly known. The Opera was where The Establishment is now, and of course, the legendary Tatou (which no-one could agree on how to pronounce) was still providing the end of the night haven for the hardcore reveller. This particular night ended at around 5am at The Bull and Bear, after watching the All Blacks win a test series in South Africa for the first time.

Then it would have been off to the bakery for breakfast before going to bed.

I'll be off line for a few days while Fi takes the laptop to Auckland for a work conference. I'll talk about the vital role of the bakery in the come down when I return. As well as the cultish aspects of bakery visiting.

It's been two years but,

Sunday mornings still aren't the same without Channel Z's "resurrection selection"

The Jazz show on Active is no substitute.

Big Fish and notes

"Makes Jaws look like a goldfish", reads the billboard on the Hutt Motorway advertising the James Woods TV vehicle "Shark".

Aside from the utter uncreativeness of the line, it is also in error. No mere lawyer can diminish Spielberg and Benchley's Great White.

This on the other hand, manages it quite well. Imagine the biggest Great White shark you can (the official record is 7.1 metres long). Now enlarge it by two or three times and you have a creature that primarily ate small whales, and could swallow you whole. Its extinct. We should probably be grateful, but imagine cage diving with one....
Another link here which I include solely because it includes the quote "50 Freakin feet!", as well as an interesting insight into the sort of turf wars scientists can engage in.

Why am I rambling about a giant dead shark, after viewing a billboard for a TV show I have neither seen nor intend to see?
I dunno, I saw the billboard, it made me wonder what could make Jaws look small, I've been interested in zoology and paleozoology since I was a kid, and knew about a shark more badass than Hollywood could ever dream, and here we are.

Really I am a closet greenie.


Interesing things I have discovered lately

If the UK participants are anything to go by, I am plenty knowledgable enough to go on "Who wants to be a millionaire", as are several of my friends.

A vast and majority proportion of commenters on youtube have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, but don't know it.

A shark's only tactile organs are its teeth and skin. They can see and smell of course but they learn about how things feel by biting them. Which is small consolation if one has just learned about you by biting your leg off, but hey it was just being curious. A lot of shark attacks only involve one bite, as the shark decides it doesn't like what it has just tasted and goes away to find something tastier.

Flying a Boeing 737 is much trickier than I thought it would be. Still, I didn't crash it, which is the primary object of the exercise.


Ancient boardgames

Further to my idea for recreating "Hungry hungry hippos" in breakage proof stainless steel or maybe titanium (clank clank clank clank), here are some old games that have been the subject of discussion lately.

Chopper strike
I suspect this one looks way cooler than it is to play. I have dim memories of playing it when I was about seven and enjoying it, but I was seven, so it probably gets old quickly

The Incredible Hulk
I'm pretty sure this was the one that had the wind up hulk that randomly roamed the board knocking down the little plastic buildings that would just as easily fall over on their own, even though said hulk isn't actually visible in the photos.

Mousetrap
Generally agreed to be way more fun to set up and activate than actually play. Didn't know it originally dates from 1963.

Dogfight
Also from the early sixties, this one actually wasn't bad. I have an inherited copy somewhere at my parents place.


Run to the water II

Had my belated first swim of the summer after netball at petone beach. Only vague nudity was involved as it was still daylight. The skinny dipping thing is more of a nighttime ideal, and best practiced as a group.
The water was bracingly cold at first but once acclimatised was quite nice. Helps if you run headlong into it rather than inching I find.


Crazy netball lady

I looked forward to playing her tonight and she didn't disappoint. She is strange...she'd be a lot better player if she didn't try to be so fancy, but in the meantime she is amusing as hell. I thought she was going to so a full on lay-up at one point. Apologies if some of you have no idea what I am talking about, but the Sparkle Motioners will. I'd like to say we won a hard fought victory tonight, but I think the reality is that we nearly lost rather than they nearly won if that makes sense. I blame the heat and the eternal 6:20 rut we seem to be in robbing us of our zing.

Run to the water

Listening to: At the drive-in: Relationship of Command

I think

its high time

some group skinnydipping occured.

There'll never be a better time.

Day's, Turakina, or Scorching Bays would be ideal locations.

That is all

Flying into the sunset

Listening to: Primal Scream-Screamedelica

Talking about the comet again......well it is my blog.
For those who thought that Comet Mcnaught on Saturday was a bit disappointing, here is what it looked like last Tuesday (23rd Jan) when it briefly appeared from behind the dominating clouds. I am quite surprised this came out given that it was about a four second exposure and the comet was barely visible through the lens, combined with a cheap tripod providing a less then steady platform.

It's fading now. I saw it again last night and it was only faintly discernable through all the light noise of Hutt Valley and Wellington. Still, glad that I saw it and will have a story to tell about the brightest comet for forty years. Definitely not an everyday occurence. In terms of spectacle it was way more bang for your buck than Halley's Comet twenty years ago. That was a not very bright smudge only about a quarter the apparent size. Still, glad I saw that too.

I think its way too easy these days to act too cool for school about these things. Sometimes you need to sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Hoose

Listening to: Tunnel of Love-Bruce Springsteen. Seem to be in a Boss phase at the moment. ToL is the underrated follow-up to Born in the USA. Always evokes memories of a road trip Fi and I made to the deep south in winter 2003.

Hoose

The hoosewarming was cool. In fact in view that it worked so well, and lots of excellent people couldn't make it, we might have a Mk2 version soon, in order that the aforementioned excellent people (who know who they are) can share the Kelson groove. Watch this space

The weather was warm and still, encouraging backyard action. The comet was visible for once and lots of oohs and aahs were heard.

Bubbles were blown, and pictures unstraightened
A good time was had by all.
And we wound up with a whole lot of leftover booze. Score. Admittedly most of it we bought ourselves to hand out to guests if refreshment bereft, but still leftovers is leftovers.

Thanks to all who brought gifts, many of which I missed noticing until today, so apologies if I didn't acknowledge at the time.

Maths at work

For those who remember our thursday night conversation, here is the fractal based camouflage I was talking about. Don't ask me where I find this stuff, I don't know, it kinda finds me. I think it was linked to on a forum somewhere.

"Maverick!!!"

I seem to have a penchant for spectacular low flying aircraft videos. This is one of the best/scary/craziest I've seen. Proving that Germans can be wild and wacky at times, this guy is either insane or about to retire (or be retired) or brilliant, or the plane is being retired. I'm not sure which. The guy in the back seat, who usually isn't a pilot and has no control over the flight from his position would have either loved or hated that ride.

Cool to see a Phantom being thrown around like that as well, as it is pretty much the aerial equivalent of a Holden Kingswood (i.e. an old dinosaur, big, heavy, not that agile compared to a modern aircraft. In its day though, the sixties and seventies, it was the benchmark that other fighters were compared to. Phantoms were what the air force really wanted when our Skyhawks were bought), which ties in with the music well.

Star Wars pondering

Jiving neatly with the alternative Star Wars readings posted here by the magnificent Svend, lately I have found myself reimagining Star Wars dialogue as if it had been written by Fred Dagg.

"Mate that's no moon, shes a space station. My mate Bruce had a run in with that last week. Took him ages to get his tractor back, and when he did the transmission was buggered". Etc.

I admit it isn't a very good evocation of Dagg dialogue but you get the idea. I am mildly disappointed that I am about ten years too young to have caught Dagg in his heyday.

Weather

It just just started hooning down with rain with no notice, prompting a mad scramble to get the washing in in the dark. Not really no notice to be fair. I looked at the sky about four hours ago, darkening to the northwest, and said to myself, "there'll be rain tonight". Still didn't get the washing in when I got home though.

"I seen the little lamp"

Finally, after several evenings of cloud filled frustration, tonight I saw the comet.

Stoked.

One week

A week of Wellington moods, from my second floor landing.

Nose Art and Zaps

Listening to: Paradigm Shift-Rhian Sheehan

Further to a conversation with NotKate, here is some Nose Art. Good brief definition here, even if some of the photos (the more modern ones near the bottom) are actually of standard markings.

'Nose art' is a term used to describe a genre of graphic art, which is non-standard personal markings applied to aircraft (or other machinery) by their crews or owners for morale purposes, most often during wartime, but also for special occasions and exercises away from home. Themes and subjects vary widely. Such decoration is usually frowned upon by officialdom, and is normally short lived. The heyday of nose art was during the second world war, with many aircraft sporting slogans or illustrations, however the practice continues to this day (if you check out the video for the U2/Greenday song 'The saints are coming', one of the helicopters lifting people out of the water has sharks teeth painted on the nose).

This is likely the most spectacular example of all, which was worn by a bomber in the pacific near the end of world war two.

Good second world war examples here.

Slightly more modern examples here.

'Zapping' on the other hand, is kinda like graffiti, and is usually inflicted on aircraft by friendly rivals, like in the picture below where an Australian aircraft has been zapped by New Zealanders.
This is a landing gear door on an Australian fighter that I saw at an airshow in Melbourne a few years ago. The aircraft has either visited NZ, or been on exercise with New Zealanders, since someone has spraypainted the stylised markings of a New Zealand air force squadron on it, albeit in a very discreet place. It is a related sub genre of nose art, with much more spectacular examples that I know of. For example, a New Zealand air force jet that was stuck at at Australian base for a few days with mechanical problems came home with giant Australian unit markings covering most of the tail, and a British jet visiting NZ had all of its British markings replaced with NZ ones.

Markings like these and nose art in general is cool because it personalises otherwise drab and generic machines, and also shows that art can exist even in unlikely environments.

Evolution

Listening to: 10,000 Maniacs-Our time in Eden, and Bruce Springsteen-Nebraska

Look to the skies
This comet chasing lark is proving very frustrating. Three nights in a row now I have been in the right places to see something rare and cool, and each time cloud has appeared in exactly the wrong place.....

Over the hill
Can't think of many better things to do on a Friday than take a day of annual leave to go over to Masterton and watch pilots practicing their display routines for an airshow. A road runs past the end of the runway (outside the airfield boundary) which I thought would be an ideal observation point. And lo it proved. Air displays are oriented along a line parallel to where the crowd is. By being at the end of the runway I was at one end of the display line, which meant often there were planes flying directly toward me and whizzing over my head. When I go to the show proper on Saturday safety rules won't allow aircraft to overfly the crowd. This unusual position meant I could get some cool photos from not normally obtainable angles for an amateur. If they come off (the curse of film...one day I'll have a digital SLR).
So a hunch I'd had from seeing that spot at a previous airshow paid off in spades. Even Fishy put up with it for a couple of hours without getting bored.

Evolution
Posting a picture of my latest plastic creation inspired me to dig out my first:



An Airfix Spitfire, the traditional first kit for many a modeller.

My father brought it back from a trip to England in 1982, along with a companion Messerschmitt-109. Neither are in their original colour schemes, both being repainted in the mid eighties.

The Spitfire went together first. A few years later it suffered dramatic damage in an accident. You might be able to see where the wing was glued back on (this was in the days when if something didn't fit I just added more glue). Both of the models had their tailplanes removed fairly early on, as as a five year old I just didn't like them. Propellor blades would have vanished fairly early as well, fragile items like that not being able to withstand the rigours of hand flown aerial combat.

By 1986 I had started to show signs that I had a clue. This is a Matchbox Spitfire that has at least the right colours painted on (even if the thickness varies), with a visible attempt to follow the instructions.

In 1993 I remade the original Spitfire building the same kit to show what it should look like (spot the differences).

Finally

Could this be the summer we have been promised?

Ok, so its not Blenheim or Napier melting the tarmac hot, but its a damn sight better than the crap we have been putting up with in Welly for the past few weeks. And it's five pm in the shade up a hill, which knocks one or two degrees off. No wind though.....

I like having my own little forest even if
A: they aren't natives, and
B:they are slightly allergenic

Global Netball

Found this on a random sitemeter trawl the other day. Interesting perspective from a somewhat unexpected place.

Plastic modelling explained

Carol, you can skip this bit if you want!

You start with stuff that looks like this:

Eventually after the application of various solvents, putty, sandpaper, files, paints and chalks, ingenuity, patience, skill, cunning, and one or two beers you end up with something looking like this:

1:72 scale (about 17cm long) A-4 Skyhawk kit modified by me to represent an upgraded RNZAF example as it looked when retired in 2001. About 99% finished. Not quite fully accurate but very close.

I like my hobby. It continually tests my patience, imagination, intelligence and creativity. And they look cool when they are done.

Any questions?

2006

2006 in review kind of


Best Movie
Based on what I’ve seen this year, regardless of when they were made. No gyp please if your favourite is not on the list. Also no gyp if your taste is more sophisticated than mine. Only movies I have seen are eligible. If I didn’t see it it is not included. Plus it’s all off the top of my head. I may forget my own favourite movie.
My halcyon days of the mid nineties are long gone, when I would see upwards of 50 movies in a year. These days I tend to focus more on quality than quantity. Historically I also seem to have a spidey sense about good movies, and seldom see bad ones.
Contenders include, ‘Good bye and good luck’, ‘Children of Men’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘Casino royale’, ‘Out of the Blue’, ‘Talladega nights’, ‘The 40 year old virgin’, ‘Walk the line’, ‘The smartest guys in the room’, ‘Munich’, ‘Snakes on a plane’, 'Batman begins', ‘Metallica: Some kind of monster’.
But the best I think was ‘The Departed’. It reminds me of ‘Heat’, a really good ensemble crime epic, with all involved giving career best performances. Plots pretty good too. (I know it’s a remake of ‘Infernal affairs’, and that ‘Infernal’ is probably way better etc etc blah blah blah….. I haven’t seen ‘Infernal affairs’. I have seen ‘The Departed’).

Worst Movie
Contenders:
‘9 songs’. You’d think a movie with concert footage and non-faked bedroom scenes would be more interesting
‘My super ex girlfriend’. Should have been better.
‘Grease’ (invoking my seen this year rule). I was looking forward to the car race at the end, but even that was a let down. They drive so sloooooowly.

Winner:
‘Loose change’. Dire on all fronts, almost actually offensive at times, rather than just relentlessly insulting my intelligence.

Wierdest:
‘Hedwig and the angry inch’. Good weird though.
‘Lady in the water’ gave it a good run for its money.

Favourite movie line
Bartender: “Will that be shaken or stirred sir?”
Bond: “Do I look like I give a damn?”

Dumbest fan campaign
The campaign against the new bond as being too ‘Blond/tall/short/smart/dumb/not Sean Connery etc etc’


Best TV that I made an effort to watch (I don’t really watch a lot of TV)
‘Top gear’, ‘Family guy’, Sky1 showing hours of Simpsons and Futurama re-runs on Sunday mornings, ‘Mythbusters’, ‘Globetrekker’, ‘Eating Media Lunch’.
‘Cold Case’ was good for a while, but seemed to run out of ideas


Worst TV
‘CSI’, ‘NCIS’, or anything with an abbreviation in the title. ‘CSI’ is the worst. Crap science selling itself as good science. If I worked in a lab that dark I’d go blind.
‘NZ Idol’, ‘Rockstar INXS’, reality TV in general.


Best Party
My 30th. Rocked. Almost worth getting old for.

Best sports event
The mist shrouded Super Fourteen final. I loved every vaguely discernable minute.
The Red Bull Air Racing on TV from Perth was awesome. Kinda like pod racing but real.

Most fun personal sports moment
Receiving the looong pass from Morgue downcourt with almost no time on the clock and then landing the basket for 2 from well downtown.
Also twice landing 2’s after opposition players dared me to ‘Go on have a shot, bet you can’t sink that etc etc”. Best way to shut them up.

Least fun personal sports moment
The opposition at Petone who confused personal insults with trash talking, then got really wound up when we showed them that good players don’t need to trash talk by beating them.

Worst sports event
The continuing idiocy that is beach volleyball. Not the sport, the costumes. Guys wear shorts and T’s, girls wear basically nothing. Stupid.

Best new thing I did this year
This blog. Oh yeah, and buying a house.

Most cathartic thing I did
Cut off all my hair on my 30th birthday.

Best roadtrip
The Big Day Out/Whakatane/White Island jaunt a year ago. Although the Queens Birthday Kapiti Coast Comedy Cruise came close. The Pinnacles camping was fun as well.

Most fun new thing I did
Jetboating in Taupo

Most fun new thing I didn’t do
Skydiving in Taupo

Best gig
The Go Team at the Big Day Out. Narrowly rivalled by The Shatsuns last weekend.

Best CD I bought
Nah, not even going to try that one, the numbers are too big (meaning I can’t remember what I have bought).

Take to the hills

Aside
Turns out my proclamation of normal service resumption was a little premature. Can't do no blogging when you ain't got no internet because yur ISP cut you off after stopping yur direct debit without telling you.......

FireBreak

Looks like we got out of Waiwhetu just in time. It saddens and angers me that a place I have spent a lot of time in and enjoy immensely is now a murder scene. And a particularly wasteful and pointless murder at that. There are a lot of ways I don't want to die, but being killed just because an evil moron thinks I am in the way is high on the list. I don't endorse capital punishment as a rule, but part of me wishes the police bullets had hit a little higher.


Hillside life

I've never been rained on from inside a cloud before. Kinda novel.

The view from the lounge has changed somewhat

Old






New

Still getting used to it. I have started tentatively exploring the network of trails around here.

The ghost of New Years past

Listening to: Lost Dogs disc 2- Pearl Jam

Aside

Bloggage has been interrupted of late due to moving house and switching phone and internet connections. Normal service will now resume.

The ghost of New Years past

This New Years day I have mooched around and helped my wife assemble some flat pack kitchen cabinetry in our new house. This time 13 years ago I was in A+E.

Rather than eulogise last night or 2006 itself (although I may do that later), I will indulge in reminiscence of New Years past. Note: Accurate recall may be affected by the passage of time. Those readers who participated in events described below are free to correct any inaccuracies. Some names have been politely omitted.

Unlike the cool bleak day we have today (although it is steadily brightening), Saturday 1st January 1994 was overcast and warm. As confirmed here, the last day of 1993 was a Friday. Folk gathered at Dan’s place on Pharazyn Street in the early afternoon to indulge in the time honoured teenage pastime of mooching around. My strong hands won me a few bouts of ‘mercy’, while Anthony (this Anthony in fact) expressed his distaste for U2 by jumping up and down on my U2 cap which was a souvenir from the concert three weeks previously.

The party broke up as plans were made to reconvene that night to welcome the new year. The venue for the revelry was never in doubt.

At this point, we need to thank Kevin’s parents. For going on holiday over the Christmas/New Year period. For taking Kevin’s little sister with them. And for leaving Kevin in charge of the house. Alone.

The first party was on the evening of Boxing Day.

Precedent thus set, every night in the ensuing week people were up there.

By the time New Years eve rolled around a pattern was well set.

I hopped off the train at Heretaunga in the early evening sunshine, a six pack of DB Bitter in my bag (along with some water and a change of clothes, likely some music cassettes as well). It was on.

People were already there when I arrived, driveway cricket being played along with loud music. Inside a drinking game was ensuing. I arrived just in time to see a slight girl misinterpret the meaning of ‘drink’, and down a whole bottle of beer rather than just a mouthful, quickly followed by a dash to the bathroom.

Events proceeded normally until about seven, when I fell off the trampoline. There was a trampoline in the backyard, and it was enthusiastically utilised by not quite grown ups. An incident occurred when I tried to dismount the trampoline by jumping to the ground from the mat (a technique I had perfected many years previously on my own trampoline) rather than stopping jumping and stepping off. Leaping forward to my launch point, I landed rather too close to the edge of the mat, where there is no bounce. As momentum carried me forward instead of going up I went out and started falling. As my feet were still on the mat I could not get my legs forward and underneath to facilitate a safe touchdown. For a moment I resembled a flailing bio-mechanical see-saw. This state of affairs couldn’t last forever, and in fact didn’t. The lawn rose up to meet me. Luckily, my left hand and face broke my fall.

After spitting out dirt and grass, there was a round of applause and laughter from the watchers on the deck. As I was rushed inside by others for some first aid the two spectators gave me 9/10 for the dismount. My top lip was grazed on the outside, and completely cut open on the inside. As I was almost upside down when I landed my hand and fingers had been bent up and back towards my forearm, and where now hurting in a previously unknown way. Some fairly inept probing and examination determined that no bones were broken, and I was released back to the party, with the suggestion that maybe I don’t have anymore to drink.

I had only had three beers (which prevented me from using any excuse other than incompetence for my downfall), and wasn’t even tipsy. However my current state of injury prevented me from drinking from bottle, can or glass with any degree of comfort. Luckily, my water bottle had a large sturdy straw.

Problem solved. Now I can’t really recommend drinking beer though a straw (it gets kinda frothy) but in time of necessity it will get the job done.

I met D3vo at the train station an hour or so later, and he promptly wondered aloud if I was in shock on seeing my state. I assured him I wasn’t (like I would have known) and we got back to the party.

The night really got going about nine as more people flooded in. Big epic youthful fun was had. At some point I laid down along the seats on one side of the breakfast bar as I was hurting more than a little. Not long after an argument erupted on the other side of the bar between two cohorts about who had taken the last of their beer from the fridge. I mentally resolved to give them my last beer if they would just shut up.

A little later another friend approached and queried me about whether the relationship I had with a mutual female friend (who happened to be his ex) was just friendly or a pursuit. Sensing jealousy, I told him it was friendly (in fact it was a pursuit), not knowing that said female had sent him to me with this question, and I had just given the wrong answer (I found this out much much later). Dang (it worked out in the end. we would have been disastrous for each other, and remain friends to this day). Still we wound up platonically sharing a blanket on the lounge floor at the end of the night.

By the time midnight approached everyone was hammered, except maybe for 2trees and Morgue if they were there (I think they were), who were sensible sober people at the time, and tended to wind up doing a lot of much appreciated looking after of less sensible folk.

The New Year was welcomed in by cheers hugs and for one tears (a girl whose name I forget had recently lost her father I think, and the celebration was a trigger for her emotions. ‘Bliss’ got put on the stereo, cranked up and sung along to. The party was at its height.

By two or three the casualties were starting to mount. One guy passed out on the deck. Quick thinkers rearranged him so his head hung over the edge, lest he choke on his on spew. By four passage through the lounge without standing on someone became impossible. Split Enz’ greatest hits went on to the stereo about now, and stayed on for hours. One sensible person spent the rest of the morning sleeping on a trampoline.

D3vo wandered into the lounge at about half past five, drink in hand still, and loudly exhorted everyone to come outside and watch the sunrise with him. Not surprisingly, several of the floor dwellers loudly exhorted him to bugger off. A little later some of the outside folk performed a dawn chorus, which consisted of three people walking around the outside of the house whistling badly and yelling ‘TWEET TWEET’ at regular intervals.

At about seven my platonic clinch was interrupted by someone stealing our blanket. Outraged, I followed the thief down to one of the bedrooms where another accomplice was trembling in a bed, considerably the worse for wear after too many bourbon and cokes. He was now being ably assisted by a couple of girls, which he was unfortunately completely unable to appreciate fully. Having ascertained that A: he was in capable hands and in no imminent danger, B: I wasn’t getting my blanket back anytime soon, and C: I wasn’t exactly a picture of health myself, I laughed heartily at his predicament, which elicited a single raised finger in response.

I got a lift home squashed up against the glass in the back of a Toyota hatchback. My hand had swelled considerably by this time. I don’t recall being hungover, although it is possible.

Getting home went something like this:
“Happy New Year, can you take me to accident and emergency sometime today?”

Examination of my injuries revealed a possibly fractured finger to go with a definitely sprained hand, along with a comment that I was lucky not to have a broken wrist or arm. My lip was also showing signs of infection. Due to being suddenly one-handed I got some time off my part time job, but couldn’t drive or ride, or drink due to the antibiotics. I asked for the x-ray as a souvenir but the doctor wouldn’t let me keep it.

Everyone who was at that party has a story to tell about what has become known simply as ‘Kev’s New Years’. For most of the attendees it marked the end of their last year at school. There have been other, greater parties, but this one remains special.

Happy New Year folk

I like weather

Lightning, thunder and hail last night. Cool

Woke up last night to the sound of thunder.
"How far off?", I sat and wondered....

I didnt start humming a song from 1962 however.

I'll give you a chocolate fish if you name the above reference within, say, 48 hours.

Moving

Home has a very 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' feel about it at the moment.














Things keep disappearing (if you have seen the movie you will get what I'm referring to).

Occasionally disappeared objects appear to have been replaced by bottles of champagne.

Done deal

Listening to/watching the cricket. Monty Panesar just had a very good day. First time he bowls against Australia and he gets a five-wicket bag. How cool is that?

Signed the mortgage papers today. Settling on Monday. Felt kinda like aerobatics. Fun and exciting but slightly scary. Getting ready to move out of my home for the last two and a half years. Looking very much forward to our new house.

Maybe its because 'Snoopy's Christmas' and its odd partner 'Snoopy Vs the Red Baron' feature planes that I don't like them. The Red Baron or Manfred Von Richtofen to his mates, wasn't particularly bloody, just efficient. Some debate exists over who exactly shot him down. He was being chased by a group of British fighters while at the same time some Australians on the ground were having a go at him. Pretty sure no beagles were involved though. And while he is famous for flying a red Fokker Triplane, most of his victories were scored in a more conventional Albatros biplane.

Call me sad, but finally I have found a white paint that will actually cover a surface decently, rather than looking like a threadbare sheet. Citadel good....Humbrol, Tamiya, Gunze bad....

A little late for advent, but if you want an advent calendar this is fun.

Shooting down Snoopy's Christmas

Notkate recently noted that I don't particularly like 'Snoopy's Christmas'. She's right.
"The baron had Snoopy dead in his sights. He reached for the trigger, to pull it up tight. Why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never know, or was it the bells from the village below?"
Bells schmells. His guns probably jammed, otherwise the Red Baron likely would have put a few machine gun rounds through the back of Snoopy's head.

But that wouldn't be a very nice song would it?

For a couple of years know I have turned Christmas into a sort of game of skill, where I can see how long I can avoid hearing 'Snoopy's Christmas'. I got through the whole season once. Alas, this year I encountered it fairly early. I don't pathologically hate the song (hmm, maybe I do), and quite like Snoopy, but I heard it once too often.

On that note, playing loud Christmas music in your shop does not encourage me to buy stuff. It encourages me to leave.

I'm not sure why I don't like Christmas music. That much of it refers to snow and winter cold and thus is irrelevant to southern hemisphere advent may have something to do with it. The cheesiness and inanity are also likely contributors. I love Christmas, just not the soundtrack.


Random notations

I watched the sunset in the red haze from the Australian bushfires from Petone beach. Took some photos.

I have my car back from the mechanics after the radiator top tank was replaced (expensive, but not as expensive as the cooked engine which would result from the complete loss of coolant which was imminent). I like my car. Running back to the garage from my house to pick up Fi's car after delivering my one home was not quite fun, but refreshing, especially as it was running to a deadline.

Orion and Taurus are dominating the eastern sky in the evenings now, with Scorpio banished until next winter. This more than any calendar date tells me that summer is about.

A slight misunderstanding concerning the house has been sorted. I am excited, but am trying to be restrained until settlement. Not quite there yet. Fi deserves almost all of the credit for getting us this far. She has talked to agents, arranged needful things, and generally been superlatively magnificent. I have just offered opinions and held her hand. Fi's mum also deserves a mention in despatches for mid-week finding of suitable open homes and a vehicle and fuel for driving to them.

Sunday afternoon not looking at houses was wonderful.

Netball was great fun. Meaningless clobbering of inexperienced minnows is great for reinvigorating jaded netball minds. Plus setting a high score for the dynasty team was memorable.

A total stranger complimented me on my new tattoo. The yellow border gets peoples attention, which isn't bad for an idea I had on the morning I got it. People have been saying nice things about it unprompted, which is encouraging for something I designed myself. Of course, if people don't like it they are hardly likely to say so aren't they? I find it amusing to think that people think I am somehow harder or tougher for having tattoos. At the same time I know I am doing what others have pondered or are too fearful to do, or look down upon as being degenerate.

After achieving the milestone of 100 posts, I have been re-reading some of the work. I quite like some of the stuff I have written, even if it has been somewhat uninspired lately. Thank you readers for reading and encouraging.

And its one more beer, and I dont hear you anymore...

Man the mosh pit at Elton John was awesome. There was some slamming, some surfing and one guy even got to stage dive from a speaker stack. I came out exhausted bruised and ecstatic.

Or maybe not :)

The above is one of my favourite forgotten lyrics. I hadn't realised how much I like it, or that I had forgotten it until hearing it live last night. Despite some unkind comments made about Mr Dwight's canon I have previously made, the Wellington concert last night was not an opportunity I could pass up. And it was well worth it.

It doesn't express much now, but I listened to a lot of Elton John when I was growing up. I have a somwhat dualistic relationship with him though: for every song I love (e.g 'Someone saved my life tonight'), there is one I hate ('Philedelphia freedom'). So while looking forward to seing one of the legends of the game live in concert, I was a little concerned that I would spend half the night waiting for the next song.

Fortunately, that notion was dispelled the instant the concert started when they opened up 'Funeral for a friend', and followed with 'Benny and the Jets'. With a new album to push I was expecting a modern tilting playlist, so it was cool to hear classics so early on, and that they dominated the set.

I like the 70's and early 80's stuff and I wasn't disappointed. I felt like they had deliberately chosen my favourites. Okay, so my favourite John songs also happen to be huge hits which helps. And there was no Disney, thanks God.

Also good was seeing an artist clearly still enjoying himself. The voice may not get to the high notes anymore (requiring masking/support at times by the band vocalists), but he really seemed to be having a good time rather than just going through the motions.

Highlights:
Going to a 'rock' concert with my Dad, the Waiata, 'Someone saved my life tonight', 'Rocketman', 'Tiny Dancer', the crowd la la laing to 'Crocodile rock', the person in the green polo shirt dancing exuberantly in the stand, at times rivalling the main stage for entertainment. You are a legend whoever you are.

Way fun in a mellow chilled out MOR kind of way. Wasn't perfect. The seating on the ground was way too confining (my arms were folded because I didn't have room to unfold them), and frankly I thought I would have had a better view from the stands.

Next gig to attend is Shihad. Which I expect to be considerably different. But also fun.

Ink

Or, how to discover who in my family is reading this blog. I like to surprise them with things like this.

Before





During





After





Thanks to Chas at Tattoo City for the needlework, 2trees for refining the design and organising the whip-around at my 30th that produced the big wad of cash that paid for it. And thanks to you if that is some of your money in my hand.


Fi got another one at the same time, imagery to appear here at some point. My design has a couple of levels of significance and I am well pleased with how it turned out. Also nice to get in and actually get some ink done instead of merely looking at flash-art and musing.
Be warned. Tattoos are highly addictive.

In other news, we tried to buy a house at auction today and missed out by about 20K.

Meh.

Music in my head

I've been working evenings for the last week, alone, so I've been getting songs stuck in my head. Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic' has been prominent for some reason. In a moment of idle speculation I recalled the line "It's meeting the man of my dreams, then meeting his beautiful wife", and wondered if anyone has thought that about me.

Also on high rotate in my head for no apparent reason this week:

YMCA. YMCA?
Various Frontlawn songs. Andy, Tomorow night, When you come back home.
'In the Valley' by Midnight Oil
'Idiotheque' by Radiohead.
'Until the end of the world', U2
'Haul Away' by Split Enz
'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys
A couple of random snippets of songs I know well but cannot identify.

My head is a noisy place.

Big day tomorrow. More about that later.

Thanksgiving

Still on the Uchoose



Big ups to anyone involved in putting together the thanksgiving event today, and the alligator in particular for forcing it on us. Other, bigger events this weekend meant I spent less time than I would have liked at it, arriving retro 'so out of fashion its back in fashion' fashionably late, and leaving well early. After the second round of capture the flag I suddenly, instantly realised my state of fatigue. Breakfast this morning in Napier seems a long way away and a long time ago.

However, whatever it was we were playing was big fun (although, I think bullrush combined with the extravagant number of attractive participants would have been even more fun, and far less confusing. Bullrush has no sides, only yours. Only one rule that matters as well.).

Let it be known, that if there is random rushing around on a field or beach or court chasing some piece of plastic or rubber on a long summer evening or afternoon with good friends to be had, I wanna be involved. We don't do enough of it these days, and it is one of my favourite summer things to do.

No mo

Listening to the Uchoose. Covers and samples this week. To my surprise, Scissor Sisters version of 'Comfortably numb' not only works, but is actually quite good. As is the video for Bowie's 'China Girl', which looks far younger than it's 23 years. 'I will always love you', unsurprisingly, is still godawful.

The mo, having served its purpose, had to go. After exactly three weeks on the grow, here is what it looked like moments before removal:



Fun while it lasted, but I was over it. Anyway, I was getting ready to dress like this



on Saturday, and the moustache didn't really jive with the look I was going for.

The wedding we were at in Napier on Saturday was great, as every wedding I have been to has been. I love weddings. Call me sentimental, but I get a thrill out of seeing two people commit to spending the rest of their lives together. I love the whole thing, the gathering, the ceremony, the mingling, the speeches, the dancing, everything. I love watching the first dance, and watching the older couples take to the floor to dance properly and show how it should be done. Weddings are fun.

If you are already married, hearing two more people declare themselves reminds you of exactly why you are with the one you are with:















And there are few better ways of spending an hour or two on a fine afternoon than this:
















(post wedding, pre dinner time killing, aided by bottomless glasses of various cold beverages)

Well makes up for having to sell my U2 tickets in order to be there.

The Tao of Indoor Netball

Listening to: Riot Act-Pearl Jam, and Doubt-Jesus Jones.

Tonight we played the same team we played last week. Our line up was slightly different this week, theirs was almost completely different. I thought their line up this week was better than last week, but we beat them by more than we beat them by last week. We had a slightly better game. Despite missing two regulars, our sub is a very fast learner, and brings a good game. And we finished strongly, building our composure in the last quarter while destroying our oppositions.

By my standards, I had a wildly varying game. Overall I'd give myself 6/10. My biggest issue was never getting into the game mentally, meaning I had to think too much about what I was doing, rather than going all zony and playing instinctively (I play much better when I am zoning). As a result of not zoning I was all over the place, physically and mentally, usually in the wrong for both.

I have been playing indoor almost continuously since early 1996. I have had only two or three complete seasons where I was not in a team somewhere. Several seasons have been spent playing in multiple teams at once (playing for two teams is ideal. More than two rapidly becomes unmanageable). I think right now my game is as good as it has ever been, although I think a comparison with my 1997 game self would be fun. I was a lot more aerial then, and a little bit faster. I spent a complete season at defence around that time. I only specialised in attack a few years ago. I had a near perfect shooting game a couple of years ago, missing only my last shot out of twenty or so.

I set very high standards (possibly impossibly high) for my game performance. If I feel I haven't lived up to them, played badly, and thus let my team-mates and myself down, I beat myself up about it. This is a reflection of low to middling self esteem I think. I've also been known for being very negatively expressive on the court, most commonly about umpiring decisions, something which I am actively trying to eliminate. I think I am much better at this than I used to be, although I still have lapses. I try too hard sometimes, and get frustrated when things don't work out. If I feel there is no chance of winning, I stop trying. My view of my own game and skills tends to veer toward the irrationally negative, interrupted by euphoric peaks of brilliance.

The highs outweigh the lows though, and keep me coming back. A great game is only a few quarters away.

I pride myself on using skill and knowledge to gain advantage, rather than dirty tricks. I am a very clean player. That said, I have been known to accidentally on purpose run into/through people if circumstances demanded it and after a fair amount of provocation. I will counter illegal play with illegal play to get the job done if absolutely required. I am fearless on court, and don't get physically intimidated, unlike in real life.

At times I think I can be a very good player. Sometimes I can be very average. I still haven't figured out how to play centre effectively, but it is still a relatively new position for me. After playing half court for so long, I am comparitively lazy over the full court distance.

In the last decade I have managed to learn a few things, and have been compiling them lately into a sort of Tao, in an effort to strengthen my mental game.

The 'Tao te ching' of Indoor Netball

1. Even if they are completely wrong, the umpire is always right.
2. No amount of gesticulating, eye rolling, or verbal discourse has ever changed an umpires call.
3.You are not the best player on the court. Sometimes you are, but this is generally a flawed assumption. The best indoor netball player in the universe is out there somewhere. Chances are its not you.
4. Even if you think you do, you may never know all the rules.
5. The ability to shoot well and consistently is as fragile as it is wonderful.
6. It is foolish to expect to enjoy every game. Some games will suck, and there is nothing you can do about it.
7. Winning every game rapidly becomes boring. Losses must be endured, to remind how good winning feels.
8. You are only as good as your last pass, shot, or play.
9. Old age and experience can indeed triumph over youth and raw skill.
10. Sometimes the perfect pass will be intercepted, and the perfect shot will not drop.
11. Sometimes no shots will drop, for no good reason other than mystic universal law.
12. No matter how good you think you are playing on a given day, you can always encounter someone better.
13. Umpires are not all seeing, nor all knowing. Sometimes you do know more about the rules than they do.
14. Oppositions will cheat and get away with it.
15. The net is both your friend and your enemy. Use it wisely and it becomes your seventh player. Use it unwisely, and it becomes your oppositions.
16. Umpires are not always neutral.
17. You can play brilliantly and still lose.
18. Pressure shooting cannot be taught, only learned.
19. No-one is good at penalty shoot outs.
20. Three seconds and three feet are infinitely variable measurements.
21. Tall players are often lazy. Short players are often underestimated.
22. Every player has a weakness in their game, somewhere.
23. If someone is trash talking, they are often hiding a weakness in their game. Or they are just an idiot. There is no sweeter pleasure than silencing a trash talker by out-playing them.
24. Good players don't need to trash talk to wear down their opponent.
25. Over aggresiveness, and short tempered opposition must be exploited. Rage focusses your game initally, but quickly overwhelms and destroys it. Composure is everything.
26. Sometimes, you need to take the hit to hold your position. Take the ball and brace for impact.
27. You are not more important than your team.
28. Sometimes medicocre teams will be elevated by single excellent players, who you will not be able to neutralise.
29. Never disparage your team on the court. Not cool.
30. You will almost always play better when filling in for another team than when playing for your own.
31. The object of the exercise is enjoyment.
32. There are always new tricks to be learnt.
33. Knowing how to fall is a skill.
34. Win with grace, lose with honour. And more grace.
35. Try to always play with humour. Some games it just isn't your day.

Feel free to add your own.