Posts by Joe Wylie

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  • Hard News: Mac Ouch,

    Can I second that with a small warning? I don't want to know about everything you can do with rosary beads.

    Never did stick at them long enough to find out. As for their functionality, there were basic beads, made by the Little Yellow Sisters of the Sick or whoever, somewhere in Ireland, and a deluxe model with a little plastic bubble on the crucifix component, which was claimed to contain actual dust from the catacombs of Rome. I guess that added a kind of broadband capability.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Mac Ouch,

    I found a camera, so here is my smashed iPod.

    Kewl.
    I couldn't help but be reminded of someone who smashed a fully functional set of rosary beads with a hammer, back in their early adolescence, by way of proving to themselves the non-existence of the vengeful god of Catholicism. No consequent deadly bolt of lightning, therefore no God.

    I wonder, has this changed whatever feelings you might have had about Steve Jobs?

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Self-satisfactorily Yours,

    Yeah, wee donte nead noe edjakashun.
    ;-)

    Thank you. For all I knew, that pic might have been Hogwarts.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Self-satisfactorily Yours,

    Todd cut her teeth on TV3's late news where Joanna Paul filled that role and Todd played the naughty, but sexy, BFF. And they had some good moments together.

    For the Nightline edition following the Aramoana massacre, Joanna Paul fronted the entire show alone, in funereal black. There were, it seemed, times when Todd's manic manufactured ditziness was deemed unsuitable.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Casino,

    (sigh) A braw muckle haggis, made frae the forrrrrreskin ae a cu . . . . with any luck I'll make it through this life without encountering one.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: The Casino,

    I think you got a bit carried away here.An abattoir?

    Maybe, but it's a hard analogy not to make when struck by the sheer industrial nature of clients/victims poking the pokies en masse. As someone noted about the onetime Nintendoland at Sydney's Darling Harbour, unless you happened to be immersed in the games on offer, the place seemed only one step short of a concrete barn filled with modified poultry processing equipment, where young men were suspended by their heels from the moving chain while their pockets were rifled by men in cheap suits.

    Meanwhile, a local case of blatant corporate piracy.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Mediocrity Watch,

    Chickenhawk meant two things to me: the bird, and (after spending 5 years on our country's IDPtribunal,) the cruiser.

    Goodness me.
    I believe the generally equivalent Australan term is rock spider.
    Isn't English wonderful?

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Two wallops of wonk, with a…,

    One of the things I enjoy about NZ. Obama builds a Maglev from LA to Vegas and Key builds a cycle track from Bluff to the Cape.
    It makes yer smile.

    The colony of Western Australia only signed up for Australian statehood on the condition that the trans-Australian railway be built. In 1917, 16 years after Federation, they got it. As more than one Australian's observed, if the somewhat shorter rail distance to NZ could've been bridged, we'd probably have signed up.
    Cycle track to Singapore?

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Mediocrity Watch,

    I once found a wasp inside the hive entombed in propolis


    How curious. I wonder if they did that to prevent it rotting?

    The wasp had probably been in there less than a year, but inside the casing of propolis it was in pretty good nick. As I was a rather lax beekeeper and rarely ever ventured into the base storey of the hive below the queen excluder there may well have been more mummified intruders down there. It would have been an intrepid wasp to have made it to the upper supers of the hive.

    I bet real beekeepers would have some good stories of things found in hives.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Mediocrity Watch,

    If I were one to anthropomorphize nature, I'd say that the bee's sting is very much designed with wasps in mind as a highly likely honey and larvae thief.

    That sounds about right. I had a backyard beehive in Grey Lynn for around ten years, and while I often saw 'German' wasps loitering around the entrance, I never witnessed any actual combat between them and the bees. I once found a wasp inside the hive entombed in propolis. Presumably the bees had dealt to it before mummifying it in that interesting substance.

    BTW while extracting the stuff from the combs can get a bit messy on a small scale, inner western suburban Auckland honey can be pretty good. The combs vary wildly in colour and taste, depending on what happened to be in flower at the time. Probably less pesticide risk than rural honey, too.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

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