Tuesday, September 19, 2006

.....aaaarrgghhh me hearties....

EVERY YEAR I get more and more stoked that my birthday is indeed, International-Talk-Like-A Pirate-Day .

Here's a link kindly provided by Richard (aaargh, there be gold in it me bucanneer chum) for those needing a little help.

Now go outside and see how many men you can fit on a dead mans chest.

Scurvy Knave.

b.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

...i love it when a plan comes together...

So we recently bade a fond farewell to a Mr. S Turner and a Dr and Mr Reeve. Their respective, overlapping visits were a swell time that included singularly too many deep fried squid legs, as well as a disturbing trend towards the consumption of vast amounts of french fries covered in cheese, bacon and mayonnaise. (Mr Archbold was mentioned in dispatches.)

We managed to fit in Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, a Beer Garden extravaganza, smatterings of raw horse, some Playstation madness, some swell-a-rific beer-y good times, and an awful lot of good old fashioned nattering amongst what was a tightly packed schedule.

It is always so much fun to have folk come and visit and we have been very lucky in that most of greater Auckland, not to mention some of outlying Christchurch has slept on our couch and eaten dried squid on our floor over the past 4 years. It means alot and we thank you all.

Before that I found myself winging my way to sunny NZ for work and was joined for a weekend by the lovely Tom "Welcome Back Kotter" Symons and the ever radiant Kerryn "Vigil" Moses. Managed to catch up with folk in the Auckland town in a seedy bar for a few hours and to be frank, that was about enough.

Since we bade farewell to Mssr. Turner on Friday, we have been catching up on much needed sleep and, oh yes, detained for two hours by undercover police officers at a nightclub at 2 in the morn. Not for being foreign mind, just for being a little less Japanese than perhaps they would wish (sigh). The assembled foreigners - shoved into a corner by the 5.0. managed to belt out a reasonable version of Kumbaya (sp?), but I think the significance of it was lost on the poor chaps with their burgeoning clipboards.

Big news in the last 24 hours is the superbly orchestrated known-to-everyone-but-Nic arrival of Darren "I Go To Kindy" Ede from sunny London Towne. It would seem my wife still has a mouth like a sailor when surprised late in the evening and as such I will be drafting letters of apology to our neighbours later this afternoon.

On a sad note, I was a little bummed to hear about the passing of Mr Brock. I have whiled away many hours in front of the mighty, mighty Bathurst 1000 with nothing but a large crate of beer and good friends to keep off the chill, and he will be sadly missed. I am reminded of a newspaper clipping I carry in my wallet to this day about an incident at Bathurst whereby some young hooligan (no doubt) broke into Peter Perfects car and scarpered with his laptop. It was later found, back on the seat from whence it was pilfered with a note upon which was simply scrawled...

"Sorry Brocky"

I reckon that's brilliant.

Hope you are all mouy (sp?) bien. In fact I hope you are all super bien.

Tata.

b.