Good riddance.

Meet Karlchen (f) and Friedhelm (m). These two have been living pretty comfortable lives in their enormous apartment on our lawn for the last two years, but in the neverending quest to make their lives even more exciting, stimulating and fun, we here at Messaged from the Outhouse decided to enlarge their sphere of influence and build a door into their cage, so they can roam freely around the garden. Problem is, that I never had a jigsaw in my hand. Ever. But first the design:

I am sure that Isaia Toeava, All Black 1064, never would have imagined that his likeness will make a great template for my door. Please note the Anthrosophy – inspired edges. Anyway, next up the gig with the jigsaw:

Not quite as intended, but near enough. Next up the exclusive, colour coordinated hinges.

Excellent handywork that. Note the cool Dremel thingie that smoothed the edges and removed all the splinters. Now all it needed was a lock and we could try it out.

A critical customer, but not too unhappy. Although…

Uh Oh. Karlchen ready to charge the hapless cameraman. Maybe it was the colour of the hinges?

The MP for Otago did what felt right: with an interest  in banning potentially harmful substances like BZP she raised the issue of the dangerous drug dihydrogen monoxide that seems to be ubiquitous here in New Zealand (and indeed the world) with the Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton, the minister in charge of New Zealand’s illegal drug policy, after a constituent sent her a letter making her aware of this terrible substance. On the other hand, H2O is a really useful molecule. It keeps people from dying all around the globe. I am sure she agrees that there’s a conflict of interest.

Mrs Jacqui Dean,  according to her website the “quintessential people person”, used to be the presenter of the television programme ‘Play School’ and “studied education at tertiary level”.

Chemistry or Biology must have been lesser priorities. But that’s ok if one knows one’s limitations. Nevertheless then I would employ a parliamentary secretary that can use such a useful knowledge commodity like the ‘intarweb’.

Turns out, even National MPs are human. What an astonishing find.

I have now been living in Kiwiana since 2002. I have embraced the mainland’s favourite sport, spent afternoons cheering the local team and evenings watching the All Blacks. And now there’s the world cup. But honestly:

What’s the frigging point?

We are getting inundated with rugby, on a national and international level: Nationally, there’s the emasculated, almost americanised provincial NPC. This has now been made completely pointless by ensuring that the teams from the previous second and third division can’t get promoted to the top division anymore. For my team, North Otago, this means to be stuck forever with the likes of South Canterbury in the same league, with no prospect of ever playing against the higher ranked teams, giving me no more incentive to cheer my team on. Why should they win, if they can’t get promoted?

Next in the neverending list of rugby is the ‘Super 14” (previously Super 12, previously Super 10, previously Super 6), an ever expanding ‘super league’ of rugby union teams from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, playing 13 round robin games plus semis and finals.

Then of course we have the testmatches of the All-Blacks: tri-nations, six nations, Lions, etc. Watching an All Black game these days is as common (and exciting) as seeing Paris Hilton being arrested for some minor misdemeanor.

And now the world cup is on. 2 weeks of group matches in which the usual six – nations teams beat the poor ‘minnows’ from such rugby countries as Romania, Georgia, USA, Canada (etc) by about 80 points in each game, just in the end to meet again in the quarter finals. By the end either Australia, England or New Zealand (sometimes France) win and male New Zealand asks itself whether it was really necessary to stay up all those nights. In soccer you have at least the chance of some of the lesser known teams causing a favourite to stumble (just look at the French in the last two tournaments), but at the Rugby World Cup? There is no chance in hell that any of the smaller teams will ever win against one of the six-nations teams (apart from Argentina, and they should have been made a part of that echelon a long time ago).

So, what’s the consequence of all this Rugby overkill? Ennui. I am as passionate about this year’s world cup as I am passionate about my choice of socks in the morning: Black, black or black, they look all the same anyway.

Just like Rugby on TV.

Here I am, sitting in front of my computer at work, 3 1/2 hours after France lost against Argentina in the opening Game of the Rugby Union World Cup, and I am already struggling:

The ‘official broadcaster’ of the tournament here in NZ, Canadian owned TV3, only shows me talking heads. No game action.

The official homepage of the world cup wants me to pay 50 US Dollars to subscribe to their ‘Mediazone’ and then lock me into a Windows only Mediaplayer hell.

ITV in the UK refuses to stream to IPs outside Britain, DSF in Germany seem only interested in showing you ads on their homepage, Foxsports in Australia only works with WMP 10. With other words, a Mac/Linux/BSD user in New Zealand either has to get up in the middle of the night to watch the bloody games live, or get Windows.

Looks like this tournament’s commercial sponsors won’t be getting  my eyeballs. Which is of course a shame, as I was just on the market for a new car, shaving cream and beer.