Posts by webweaver
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
This year, the Women's Refuge annual appeal highlights psychological abuse and the lasting impact this has on the women and children they work with.
From the website:
People recognise physical abuse because there is something to see. Psychological abuse is far more sinister and far more prevalent. We know that 90% of the women we work with are dealing with psychological abuse. Physical abuse destroys the body, psychological abuse destroys the soul. This year we want to encourage New Zealanders to think about how it feels to be constantly living in fear of your partner. Our new campaign will give them the opportunity to do that.
1 in 3 NZ women need your help.
Because living in fear, isn't living.Saatchi's have created a viral activity (I can't call it a "game" because that would imply fun and this subject isn't remotely fun) which you can partake in here - Living in Fear - it's really quite effective - and it's accompanied by a bunch of posters that are really rather disturbing. You can see large versions by clicking on the thumbnails on the Women's Refuge homepage.
Please make a donation if you can. Women's Refuge is the only national domestic violence organisation to offer a 24/7 service, and they take 1 crisis call every 9 minutes.
If you need help, you can call them any time on 0800 REFUGE (0800 733 843) - and if you'd like to make a $20 donation by phone, you can call 0900 REFUGE (0900 733 843). Alternatively you can donate online as Gio mentioned above.
Thank you.
Oh - and if you like Anika Moa, she's doing a TradeMe auction of the ultimate Anika Moa fan collection - she's calling it the Anika Moa Life Pass and all proceeds go to Women's Refuge. Bidding ends tomorrow (Sunday 25th) at 9pm.
-
Back when I was temporarily living in Nelson in order to organise The Gathering, we found what we thought was a nice little house. It was a villa divided into 3 flats, all on the ground floor.
Things went swimmingly until some new tenants (a bunch of young blokes) moved into one of the other flats, which was separated from our abode by a distressingly thin internal wall.
They played heavy metal INSANELY loud every night - so loud it was impossible to even have a conversation in the bedroom next to their flat, let alone sleep - and they responded to angry bangs on the wall from our side by turning the music up even louder.
One night they had a massive party which ended with one of them roaring up and down our shared driveway in a clapped out old banger while being exceedingly drunk. I went out and confronted them and tried to talk the driver out of continuing to drive, but I couldn't get the keys off him, so I called the police instead. They lay in wait for him down the road and arrested him for drunk driving, driving without a licence and driving an unregistered and unwarranted car. Ooops.
When we finally went up the hill to do TheG itself, I was completely terrified that they'd break into our flat while we were away and steal all our stuff, but thankfully they didn't. Yay!
The landlord eventually decided to turf them out, but they wouldn't go, so she ended up having their power disconnected (which I don't think is legal). It still took them weeks to move out, during which time they lit their humble abode with candles, resulting in many more sleepless nights for us as we worried about them setting the whole place on fire.
Good times, good times.
-
ooh ooh I found it!
Till Someone Loses an Eye
I was woken by my flatmate's
alarm. Her room lies acrossfrom mine, and her alarm is a meditative
tape by an Indian Guru. His thicklyaccented evocation of bubbling
brooks and Placesof Peace went on
and on as she slept off herlate night. I told my friend Giovanni
about this, and he suggested the violentdrowning of the Guru in one of his
Series Of Still Pools. He told methat a German company in Italy
marketed an alarm that was voiceneutralised. The TV ad had eager
people in pyjamas sitting upand chirping, ‘OK Mr Brown!’
to stop it beeping, thenbounding out of bed. A friend of Giovanni's,
whose mother bought one, regularly shouted,‘Shut the fuck up!’ through the bedroom wall, while
she slept through everything.Anyroad, I'd been following a young, sprightly,
and occasionally goofy EdHillary around Te Papa on his first
visit there. (It was closed to the public,like Disneyland for The Prince Of
Pop.) I was trying to jot down the greatman's impressions
as he dictated them to me, when I cameacross someone representing Bill
Rowling sitting at a Formica tablein the kitchen. Seeing as we
were back in time, I knewthat he was dying. He had a terrible,
pale, dirtybrown complexion. Dreams are
in colour. I asked ‘Bill’ as he rosein greeting, how he was
going. He said, ‘Not too bad,’in a wise Indian accent,
and he meant it. -
Oh yeah - the morally superior thing annoys the shit out of me.
I'm "lazy" and "ill-disciplined" because I can't get out of bed at the same time as most people, and therefore tend to arrive at the office quite a few hours after some of them have begun their day.
The fact that I carry on working many hours after they have gone home for the day (and as a freelancer I'm likely to be found in front of my computer working hard waaay past midnight most days of the week) seems to pass them by...
-
Oh, and Twitter & Wikipedia has helped me to self-diagnose myself with something else that normally I used to call "Living in Perth's timezone".
OMG! This is exactly me! To a tee!
When I was an employee I reckon I was quite majorly sleep-deprived, as I was unable to go to sleep until sometime after 3am, and would then struggle to get up in the morning. I was late to work (and often very late) every.single.day.
It got so bad that not one but two different employers have given me an alarm clock as my Secret Santa present. Hardy har har. Doesn't work cos I switch it off in my sleep and am completely unaware that it's even gone off.
Now I'm self-employed again I've been able to return to my natural circadian rhythm which is something like "go to bed at around 4am, read for an hour, fall asleep, sleep really well until sometime between 1pm and 3pm, get up and start my day."
I am an extreme night-owl for sure. The only problem comes when I have to arrange meetings with clients, but I normally get away with admitting I'm a night-owl and only doing meetings in the afternoons.
-
Regarding the yellow card... it seemed to me that in all fairness if Rossouw was going to get sent off for starting the fight, then McCaw should have also been yellow-carded for continuing it.
I thought refs were pretty tough on players who fought back, and I was kinda surprised that McCaw stayed on the field when Rossouw got sent off.
I was particularly impressed by Israel Dagg's try - his zig-zag running to get through the defence reminded me of Christian Cullen - and it was GREAT to see that Mils still has the ability to put on a serious burst of speed when he needs to. Great tries!
I thought Ranger did pretty well actually - although he did have a bit of a case of Nonu-like dropsies a couple of times - but his work rate was pretty high I thought - he seemed to be everywhere at once for quite a bit of the game - and his try was very cleverly done, so I'm quite surprised they've left him out for the next test.
It was also great to see Weepu have such a blinder of a game. Of course, Hurricanes fans know how awesome he can be - and I'm still bemused as to why he was left out in the cold by the All Blacks selectors for so long. I think he runs rings around Cowan every time he plays... Very nice to seem him in the starting line-up for a change.
We (Wellington Batucada) were invited to march around the edge of the field and play samba to the arriving crowd for half an hour before the game started - you could hear us (very clearly) in the background as the guys up in the commentary box did the pre-match warm-up.
At one point they had a commentator on the field doing a little summary to camera as we marched and played behind him - I was amazed we didn't drown him out, but I guess that's the wonder of modern microphone technology for ya.
He referred to us as Batucada Sound Machine (not us) instead of Wellington Batucada but never mind. It was heaps of fun to play, and the half-hour seemed to go by in a flash.
I was quite surprised how well we were received by the crowd - they really seemed to be enjoying us - I just hope our playing didn't distract the commentators too much! We were very loud...
-
Gosh I'm getting nervous already and there's still hours to go.
I banned myself from watching the Italy game on Sunday night (so I could actually get up in the morning to start a new contract - never easy for a night-owl like me) and in the end I regretted my decision mightily.
I've taken a new tack for this game and I've told my clients in advance I won't be available tomorrow morning as I'll be asleep :) One of the big advantages of being a contractor I guess.
I'm also planning to watch the game in the company of others for the first time instead of quietly at home. Should be fun, whatever happens!
Crossing my fingers, toes and everything else that we get the result we need to progress through to the next round. How incredible would that be?
-
Ah I don't care that the game wasn't so beautiful - I think I probably woke up the entire neighbourhood (those who weren't also watching the game, anyway) with my yell of delight when the ball went into the net. Couldn't believe it!
Hooray!
-
* sticks hand in air and waves it wildly around *
Me! Me! I love Toblerone! We used to get it but once a year as a massive treat from duty-free on the ferry back from Europe after the family summer holiday. Yum!
But anyway... didn't they say on telly last night that mini-bar was OK and is allowed to be charged on the Ministerial credit card? Which if true is not particularly impressive IMHO. So I'm paying for them to get sozzled in their hotel rooms at every opportunity? Not to mention overdosing on chocolate. Not impressed!
-
In regard to the $500,000 - it's a red herring and has now been retracted by KP.
Carnival's fate 'not council's fault':
She also retracted the council's earlier suggestion that Mr Morley-Hall had requested $500,000 for next year's carnival.
Instead, she said that no formal request for funding had been received by the council.
and Rugby didn't steal carnival cash - mayor
It has been reported that Mr Morley-Hall asked for $500,000 from the council for next year's carnival, but Ms Prendergast said that figure included a much wider range of events than the council and Cuba St Carnival Collective Trust had been discussing.