Batting first we'll need 280+.

Batting second and we'll be chasing 280+.

I know it's cricket cliches 101 but we will have to get the same kind of tight bowling effort, applying pressure throughout, some brilliant fielding to save 20-30 runs and a better…

Yep, I was up posting here for that very reason, as I am now (tho' probably won't stay up for the whole game).

I understand Oram's 'man of the match' award, but jeez, how many runs did Guptill save? Fielding pretty much was the difference…

How good was that bowling/fielding/hassling effort from us!!!!

Sure, an inevitable spanking by Sri Lanka will follow but still, we watch sport for good days like that one.

Fingers crossed that England some how conjure up a miracle tonight because it's 28 years since they…

Well, the debate "with the unfortunate name" is now available on the net:

Is homosexuality un-African?

On the up side, Paula Akugizibwe was excellent overall, and Eusebius McKaiser gave a particularly good closing comment.

But I still found it kinda depressing that we live in a world where people…

And it is a very good piece by Rick.

And so it begins…

All this theory about liberty etc, then…

Check out the audio. A lot more laughing than described by Armstrong.

As one of several guest speakers to address the conference, former National Party leader Don Brash said he did not know why so many public events must began with a prayer (karakia) or lengthy speech in Maori,…

Lyndon Hood's

“John Key PM” Wins 2011 Walters Prize For Modern Art?
Is he a natural clown or the nation’s greatest conceptual artist?

In a move that has already provoked controversy, John Key has been awarded…

Gobsmacking. Like watching black death unleashed.

HANOVER FINANCE owners Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson are believed to have made a quick $20 million profit on the troubled Kawarau Falls resort development in Queenstown, before the first sod on the project was turned.

What will be even more…

Speaking of over the top, the Herald has this to say about the Fukushima reactor incident:

Workers have been desperately dousing a nuclear reactor with seawater to prevent it overheating, and causing an explosion that could wipe Japan off the map.
Someone…

Yeah, I was thinking that.

Compulsory:

What interested Lord Vetinari right now was the device all by itself on a table in the middle of the room. It looked like a collection of copper balls balanced on one another. Steam was hissing gently from a few rivets, and occasionally the device went…

"The tree frogs are singing…

Hmmm, hoping that's a good thing...

On reflection, I'd say you're right he was genuine in his fuckwittery

noted. thanks

Brett Roberts… troll …

Had not heard of him, but I think you throw that term around too loosely. Maybe he’s not “trolling”. Maybe he’s just a fuckwit.

Yeah I heard from Steve Grey on twitter that tv1 apparently left masterchef on, meanwhile tv3 went to the coverage.

Understatement of the year from the guy TV1 just spoke to from Australian tsunami centre: Don't go down to the beach to watch. That would be a very bad idea.

That wave of mud and houses and cars and debris is moving so far inland and so fast and so destructively it's just... unbelievable.

Edit: and now TV1 also, and apparently at Civil Defence request. So we can see what we might be in for if something let go off out coast?

New Zealand's best, for sure. They have arrangements for bottlings no one else can get and a hugely loyal customer base.

But this little place in Elliot Stables isn't even that far from the newsroom.

"New Zealand's only specialist whisky store"... top bit of researching, then.

Did Google leave mainland China? Yes, they moved their local base of operations to Hong Kong.

So how is it that Google HK still maintains mainland Chinese advertising and still seems very much to cater to the Chinese market?

They now outsource the work previously handled by…

roflnui

Nice! Thanks.

Just a short black before I'm put up against the wall, please.

Single or double shot? Ahaha.

I, too, am good for nothing in the morning before that caffiene fix, but afterwards?…

Less Than Zero(Bret Easton Ellis)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxRT60-kw78&feature=player_embedded

Other: Working hard or hardly working?
Aspie: Umm... somewhere in the middle.

Other: Have a nice day!
Aspie: Oh... Thanks; I will.

I tend to look ominous and say "Trust me, you really don't want to know!"

When I show up in a doctor's office and they start with "how are you?", I usually have to suppress a strong urge to say really inappropriate things, like "Isn't that what you're here to…

Sarcasm is not quite the same as a lie, me thinks...

Forgive me if I'm saying something rendered obsolete by later contributions – I haven't read the whole of the thread yet – but...…

Colleague: How Are you ?

81st: [Tries to describe how he is at the same time knowing his colleague doesn't want to know and almost immediately fighting back the question why ask ? Finishing with the introspective rebuke why try to…

It’d be an interesting thought experiment – what would happen if we were to conduct all our social interactions with total honesty? Would it be better or worse? My feeling is that it would all turn to custard pretty quickly.

Does my bum look big in this ?

Propped up on one elbow, her neck extended at an unusual angle, she met my gaze. "We all lie a lot," she stated. "We experiment with the science of deception; forge fact from fiction; extract truth from fable. Most of us do so as an instinctive, face-saving…

If lying is defined as a departure from some absolute truth, then yes it will be everywhere

It'd be an interesting thought experiment – what would happen if we were to conduct all our social interactions with total honesty? Would it be better or worse? My feeling is…

Social lubricant as you say; a societal machine that requires bullshit as lubricant,…

In America, we have wrestled with the idea of divine sanction since the country’s inception. Some of us believe we have a God-given dominion over the earth; others argue that we’re bound to a larger Gaian system and are, at our best,…

This is God punishing you....
This house will last 150 years...
No Phyllis you look great in that frock...
It's the best purchase you'll ever make....
Brutus is an honourable man....
I'm working late at the office...…

Civilization is built upon layer upon layer of lies, to the extent that to successfully be assimilated and contribute one must not only be adept in the practice but more significantly able to successfully ignore/ obscure truth to function adequately socially.

Wot trewth you talkin' bout boy?

Aren't you a dangerous radical? I agree, but only so long as we introduce at least two more tax brackets for top earners.

Why not just adequately fund tertiary education (i.e. ensure it is both free and universally available) and then let it sort itself out?

Yes, it's part of my disaster survival kit that I have instant coffee. You never know what the disaster could be – what if it's a proletarian revolution? I can slip the instant to the front of the cupboard, video myself dismantling…

Yeah, they had a few words about that in that Standard thread. Sure sign of the feckless middle-class elite, apparently. Just a short black before I'm put up against…

Yes, it's hard to get decent blood these days.

There have been studies that posit that the penile corona in humans serves this purpose (that is, removing competing sperm).

I can't stand bloody coffee.

You'll upset the proletariat's guardians with talk like that

I just discovered how to invert my Aeropress...gets the oil back in the coffee...so very good.

There aren't any good quality videos of his animaris rhinoceros online... But if you ever have a chance to see the full documentary on his work Loek van der Klis – Works of Art by Theo Jansen (2006) there is a great sequence that shows the…

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-penis-lost-its-spikes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKyHmjyrkA

I like Leigh and I think The Standard can play a useful role, but it was depressing reading a post about the de-funding of TVNZ 7 and seeing sneering comments about how I'd be too much of a lackey of the…

Rich, I know the answer to that. She was having a dark night of the soul.
In 1933, the novelist Graham Greene published an article about Beatrix Potter.…

Ducting? I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork.

Ere I am J H....

But don't you think that in the transition from punk -> cyberpunk -> steampunk -> steampunk espresso machine, something has been lost from the word…

Over the long run, our fixation on residential property has helped bugger the economy. I'd rather not encourage more of it.

Although I have to say, an espresso machine sounds kinda inherently more steam-smooth-jazz than steampunk.

Well, at the moment it does. And over the long run, I can't think of anyone else who should be building our houses.

Edit:…

Details? We would like them, oh yes.

I value some of the content they surface; just their management of commenters leaves a lot to be desired.

a massive coordinated rebuilding/upskilling effort much like that behind the state house building of the 1940s.

Totally different times – especially with…

A question that has been troubling me for some time: what the hell was Ms Potter on when she wrote Pigling Bland?

The two bad mice was always my favourite. Smahsing up the doll's house always appealed to me as a lad. Can't…

Scary. My opinion was hardly erudite – I just considered it unlikely something with a drumstick that size would last very long at all if there was no…

But no, instead of essential equipment, the prince is…

Wow so I was having 2 roll-ups at the same time last time I played...spooky.

Perhaps we can, as the old chaps say, have a roll

I think the correct terminology is "a roll up" *

* Grandfather Life Member @ Grey Lynn BC

Which reminds me... The preponderance of evidence, whilst far from conclusive, appears to indicate that you are likely more correct than I was about moa.

That was always my favourite Beatrix Potter, even more than Peter Rabbit. It's probably because of that book that I'm careful never to dangle my foot in the water when I'm fishing.

I've noticed this about you.

– from [[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15077/15077-h/15077-h.htm|"The Tale…

A Puddock sat by the lochan's brim,
An' he thocht there was never a puddock like him.
He sat on his hurdies, he waggled his legs,
An' cockit his heid as he glowered throu' the seggs
The bigsy wee cratur' was feelin' that prood,
He gapit his mou'…

OK c'mon, this requires elaboration / pics (or it didn't happen etc.).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZoImzA5iO4

I can testify to this.

On that tip, did anyone else get annoyed reading this article in the Express? It's the sort of faux-journalism that we have to put up with these days. An entire piece blathering on about how reptiles are vile, people who like them are vile, and the whole…

__Mine ears have heard the croaking of the Giant Barded Frogs.
They are swimming through the marshes, they are leaping over logs.
They are eagerly devouring people, vampire bats, and dogs,
As they go hopping on!

Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!
Glory, glory, ribbit ribbit!…