Umamiblog

Apparently there are none. As many of you will know, on the 7th of March we’ll be having the 5 yearly census. Everyone who is in the country on that date has to fill out a form. There has been a little bit of debate recently in that us honkies can’t identify ourselves as New Zealanders. My family has been NZ-born for the last 6 generations, we’ve pretty much been here since the treaty was signed. Only, Statistics NZ ask that we identify our ethnicity as New Zealand European.

I agree that we should be able to identify ourselves as New Zealanders, heck, even in Australia we can call ourselves New Zealanders (where we form one of the largest groups of overseas born persons). But the thing that incensed me the most was Human Rights Commissioner Joris de Bres comment on why things shouldn’t change:

We need to know the demographic make-up if you like of the population…the ethnic composition because we need to be sure that people of different ethnicities are receiving equal treatment

To me, if you want to ensure different ethnicities are treated equally then you stop focusing on it all.

Richie, my bro who has spent the last X amount of months in Sao Paulo, sent through an email with this image titled:

“Me and the quadruplets”

I can only count two.

UPDATE: Ok, maybe I get it now…

What a joke, we live in Te Aro which is the largest entertainment district in NZ. Yep, its f***ing noisy but you live with that, deal with it, and enjoy it. If you didn’t the entire city would get to you.

Anyway, someone thought that at 11pm on a Saturday night we were making too much noise and found it within their wisdom to ring the noise gestapo. WTF?! Here’s some advice, don’t live in the middle of town in the middle of the club/entertainment district and think that you’re entitled to sleep on a Saturday night!

The guard was good about the whole thing and respectfully turned down an offer of a few vodka jellies, which went down an absolute treat for everyone else!

We’re having a partay tonight (yes, it is different from a party – partay’s are more fun) and foolishly thought it would be a good idea to make vodka jellies:

I’ll let you know tomorrow how it turned out…

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with Wellington Airport then maybe this video over at Wellingtonista would be a good introduction.

Amazingly, with a short runway and notorious wind I don’t believe there have been any serious accidents at WIA…

Theives make off with an estimated £25 million and what can really only be described as one very calculated and well executed plan (read: financed).

Check it out at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas_depot_robbery

Basically, they kidnapped the branch manager by impersonating police officers while simultaneously kidnapping his family, again by impersonating police officers. Then with the right amount of motivation applied (ie. do what we say or say goodbye to your family) about 6 people got in and tied up 15 guards then made off with £25 million in bank notes. Surely that would weigh more than a few tonnes…

UPDATE: Looks like teh revised estimate for the cash they made off with is now somewhere in the £25-50 million range…

And we all know it but here is another example:

Read the rest of this entry »

This is just a test to see if i can post and publish an entry from my wee under powered cellphone

Phil, my Irish co-worker pointed me at this site: AllofMp3.com. It is run from Russia so it doesn’t exactly have a lot of Kiwi music on it but it does have quite a good catalogue. Songs are about 10-20 cents a track and are available in pretty much any format you’d like.

I can hear you think (as I did): “Yeh, but is it legal?”
Well, according to Wikipedia, the jury is still out on that one. Maybe it is more accurate to say “It’s not illegal”.

I’ve always loved the beautiful design that public transport maps seem to exude. Even Dunedin’s bus map’s look good.
However, I do love Wellington’s new (but around for a while) organisation (Metlink) and website. But my absolute favorite feature is the Google Map -like transport map available here.

I’ll be running this Sunday, how about you?

How very cool, Wellingtonista points out that there is now a Petone Ferry which leaves the Queens Wharf. Cool!

Am still yet to make it on the Eastbourne ferry though