Posts by Kyle Matthews
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First they came for the sofa,
then they came for the fancy dress....I should point out that burning sofas on Castle street is a relatively new tradition Sofie. Sofas were traditionally burned at Carisbrook at the end of the cricket in the 80s and 90s. Carisbrook decided to ban people from bringing their sofas because they burnt them. In the late 1990s therefore the tradition switched to the street. Street parties tended to burn fence palings historically.
Which is ironic, because burning a sofa on the terraces at Carisbrook is only a risk to people, its unlikely anything else will catch fire.
Burning things on Castle St however is much more dangerous. A lamp post caught fire on the night in question, but previously houses have caught fire. As much as it's been adopted as tradition by the student body, it's not only a nuisance, it's also dangerous. The student who fell on the couch isn't the first person injured as a result of a burning couch, and quite possibly someone will eventually die as a result of a fire going out of control.
I've always thought that it would be sensible if there was an available piece of property on castle street, that the city council should set up a party property and have a fire pit in it. Be a lot safer than what happens now.
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Chances are good the jam was over, but with the amount of crowd noise we had trouble hearing our own whistles, let alone getting the skaters to notice them.
I'm not sure how much noise you get at one of these events, but whistle quality is very important when refereeing in front of a noisy crowd. A good quality officials whistle when blown loudly will scare the crap out of anyone near by. Metal is much louder than plastic and size does matter. These are very good.
Also attitude. In ice hockey officials training, the biggest problem is people not blowing 100% because they're only 98% sure of their call. Even if you're not sure, blow the crap out of it loud and long, like you want people outside the building to hear it. Better to be wrong than to half blow and not be clear. We teach our young officials that blowing the whistle is the only time you want everyone to look at you rather than the players. "Look at me, look at me, I am about to signal something, everyone look at me" is what a blown whistle is basically saying.
(Sounds like you have to penalise players into the box without blowing the whistle. Man that must be hard)
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Lincoln students, not to be outdone by their bigger city rivals, sure staked their claim over the weekend.
Sheep shaggers. They got nuthin'.
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EVP Reverse Speaking's Peggy Kane on Afghanistan:
This person is using valuable oxygen that could be used for... fluffy bunnies or something.
She knows the Truman Show wasn't real right?
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I've got even odds of there being a rising perception that this is an Auckland-Otago thing.
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Personally, I'm sympathetic to that idea and think they should go for an official dual spelling: Wanganui/Whanganui. As they should also do Christchurch/Otautahi and so on.
Hmm. Christchurch isn't a mispelling of Otautahi.
Otago comes from Maori (though I suspect it's mispelled/pronounced) I believe which is an interesting comparison.
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I was fascinated by the way that he suddenly seemed to get all 'indigenous' on TV last night, claiming it was an attack on the 'mana' of the people of Wanganui.
Does he normally put on pretensions of cultural sensitivity, or was it just his cunning ploy to 'undercut the Murrys'?
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No one is actually going to be hurt by the name correction, although Laws would have us believe there will be rioting in the streets when the good folks get really riled up.
I believe Canterbury ENSOC can help him with that. They're looking for a place to go next year.
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Well that's stupid TIVO.
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Undie 500 canned (stuff)