Was out on the water yesterday and spotted this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Aquila1nz/status/701151433459003392
https://mobile.twitter.com/Aquila1nz/status/701151779652632576
Well done to whoever put it there.

An apology, and a suggestion that they might change the cover for future shipments:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/sapphires8217-us-distributor-apologises-for-dvd-cover-that-8216whitewashed8217-aboriginal-stars-into-background/story-e6frfmvr-1226692206558

I'll be lining up to sit in Skycity Theatre's very uncomfortable seats, because some of those documentaries do look great, and I find I don't get around to obtaining and close watching them on DVD.

I'm gleefully enjoying the "what would you say to a doco in 3D..." *wince* "... by Werner Herzog?" *sudden interest* conversations.

Others on my still to be radically trimmed longlist include A Boatload of Wild Irishmen, Sons of Perdition, Better this World, Hot Coffee, Page One, Mana Waka, Position of the Stars, Miss Representation, Project Nim, Buck and Guilty Pleasures.

Neither Tree or Life or Melancholia interest me.

I'm still trying to figure out if I'll enjoy Spaceship Battleship Yamoto. I'll disappoint my stepdad by not wanting to see Metropolis again, or Nosferatu. I'd rather see Troll Hunters and Arrietty - I read all the Borrower books as a kid. And maybe Mill on the Cross.

Meek's Cutoff is already on my definite list, and She Monkeys and Tomboy.

I have a genius for picking sad films to go to, to try and escape that I want to see Happy, Happy, but not My Joy. The Giants, Kid with a Bike, the Acacias, and Attenberg have caught my attention.

My mother wants to see Mysteries of Lisbon. I'm just boggled that it has an interval! Very sensible, but I feel like taking teenagers to it and quavering about "when I was a child".

CMJ is what Transit calls the Central Motorway Junction project, better known as spaghetti junction

http://cmi.transit.govt.nz/html/cmj/home.htm

It's got at least a seven year history of being referred to as that in all advertising of closures, lane changes and works being done. You may recognise the logo, even if you haven't heard it referred to that way before.

A mini tooling across a distant hillside in symbolic 1800s NZ would be great - it'd serve as a nod to the "was it there or not - well definitely not on the DVD" car in Fellowship as well.

There are some really good scientific online tests of face blindness - I think it's this page here:

http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/index.php

I got 50% on new faces, 80% on famous (therefore familiar) faces, which made a lot of sense (80% and over is "normal"). I still occasionally blank on familiar faces - it can be very embarrassing to enthusiastically greet someone I don't actually know.

Thanks Emma. It looks like it's the difference between entering puberty and starting periods that is the confusion.

I finally found some statistics - Section E pg 183 of NZ Food, NZ Children 2002 gives 3% of Maori girls and 1% of Pacific Island girls as starting menstruation at the age of ten or younger. The median age in both those groups is 12, and in Pakeha/Others it is 13.

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/4330

The actual documents are pdf sorry.

Stephen, I doubt the only thing governing the start of puberty is bodyfat - the rate at which first menstruation has been lowering has decreased - I suspect there is a lower threshold, except for extreme cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menarche

Emma, do you have stats for the average age at first period in NZ being 10? I'm pretty sure it's closer to 12 3/4.

Dolly was what I read in a desperate attempt to fit in in the late 80s.

I also had to ring up and wait on hold 25 minutes to find out what settings to change because they couldn't just put it on their website.

And I was obviously one of only a few, since when I got through they started telling me how to fix it before I'd told them what the problem was ;-/

Some of their staff are supporting Tbird though since when they asked my email client and I gave it they said "let me bring up the settings for that" and did so immediately.