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I'm taking a dump now...

I've succumbed to Twitter.

I'm not convinced about the twitter gadget on the sidebar though.

Right Here, Right Now.

Personally, I have no problem with the promo & song for the Rugby World Cup. But they're going to need to mix up the footage a bit if they expect us to care for more than the next week or so.

On reflection, I don't see it necessary that the song be a kiwi song, and "Loyal", while great, has done its dash in rousing the throng for a sporting event. Even if it was yachting.

How come "Business Time" wasn't a contender?

The birds, the birds...

I'm surprised at how much the local birdlife has burgeoned over the last few decades. I somewhat arrogantly presumed the birdlife preferred the city and Karori to the 'burbs. But I've nearly been floored by low flying kereru twice now, and the river birds are thriving. I've even seen pukekoes.

An interesting gate to somewhere uninteresting.

Golf is a mystery to me. The most I have done is a few buckets at a driving range. I aimed for a guy in an armoured ball collector. Still, golf courses are nice. Actually, I have a cousin who is so good, he gets to be partnered with celebs for charity golf matches in the UK.

Red Letter Day

Take note, that it was on Good Friday 2010, that I completed a Times cryptic crossword.

OK, it was yesterday's one. And there were a number of words which I had to check in a dictionary whether or not they even existed, let alone bore any relevance to the clue.

I now know that "ortulan" is some kind of bunting; an "indiaman" is a ship; "adipose" is fatty; and that a "ram" is a beak of some sort on a boat.

Respectively, the clues were:

• Bunting taken from door to landing
• Vessel a serving girl carried back into pub
• Fatty is a dope, unfortunately
• Beak given the staff required to press charges.

The whole answer to that last one is "ramrod". I tricked myself by having "reason" and then "ration" in there for quite some time.

• Infuriating, like Gray's crowd concealling directions

This took me quite some time and wikipedia to rationalise, the answer is "maddening", I long suspected it was, but who knew that Thomas Hardy was quoting Thomas Gray? Not me.

Oh, and I still have no idea why

• Expand home, adding fifth apartment

is "inflate", neither do I care, it just is.

Anyway, my work here is done.

And Yesterday...

For a change of pace, I attended a memorial service for someone who died far from home, peacefully in his sleep, after enjoying a fantastic evening with friends.

I have known the family since I was 14 or so. I was at college with the deceased's brother, whom I flatted with for years. We were best men at each others' weddings. Their mother was our English teacher, and she took the opportunity to apologise for us having to read the Grapes of Wrath. We reminisced about the class where no-one had read the last chapter, and one chap, with a stated plan of George Costanza-like ingenuity, decided bravado, and having his moment in the spotlight early, was the best strategy to avoid detection, bluffed that he had by volunteering an answer at the earliest opportunity.

Instead of moving quickly onto the next student, our teacher pressed him to expand on his response. The rest of us were breathless with awe at the speed this boy's plan had turned pear shaped.

Good times.

The father has a military bearing. With good reason. Family legend has it that the scar on his ear came from a knife fight with one of the Kray twins. It's a credible story.

There are more brothers, and a sister. They are fine people. And strong.

The deceased can most diplomatically be described as an irrascible rogue. Amongst other things, an accountant, a publican, raconteur, husband, father, grandfather, philanderer, sailor, drinker, and one of the most memorable & likeable fellows you are ever likely to meet. Like most of us, his life experienced its ups and downs, actually a great deal more than most of us. My friend, his brother, tidied his affairs, collected his ashes from a place near a beach on the other side of the world, and brought him home.

Many stories and memories were unspoken. He did for instance, upon being pulled over at a checkpoint in the middle of the night, abandon the car, run across the motorway and up into the bush above Wellington Harbour, to escape identification.  He later reported the car stolen. it was borrowed from a friend anyway.

He also, purportedly, knew how to slow an electricity meter down so that his entire home full of appliances was costing him about the same as running a small fridge. The power company sure knew something was going on, but I don't know if they ever managed to rectify the state of affairs while he lived there.

I walked back from the church along the river bank, straying briefly from the track to investigate something in the river, a head popped up from the long grass. Eww, rutting teenagers. I laughed & determined to stick to the track from now on. Later I realised I should have checked they were practising safe sex.

This dog is keenly waiting for a train. Apparently he goes amusingly nuts when one passes. He was certainly reluctant to continue his walk until one appeared.

It did, about a minute after he gave up.

For Old Time's Sake

I checked on the house this week, it was a nice Wellington Autumn's day, a little too breezy perhaps, but that goes with the territory.

She is beautifully presented, but empty & lonely. I felt a wave of sadness as I recalled good times past in those rooms. But it passed as it dawned on me that this isn't my home now, and the place looks like a fictional representation of somewhere I once knew. Some of the stuff within looks a little like mine, but the master bedroom looks only slightly familiar now. Even the suits and shirts in the wardrobe do not look like things I'd wear. Later, I thought I should have taken the opportunity to pick up my dinner suit, no-one looks out of place in a dinner suit.

Leaving, I actually couldn't bring myself to walk through the Botanical gardens, it just didn't seem right without a dog.