Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

Poor Rocket has reached the grand old age of 7 and now has to swap onto 6-month warrants. Makes me feel like I’ve got an ‘old’ car. Truth of the matter is, it’s in excellent condition (one careful lady owner and all that) and so doesn’t belch black oily exhaust or have rusty bits that fall off or no indicators that work or whatever else is checked for the warrant. I only bring this up because when in Switzerland I found out that cars only need to go for a warrant every 7 years and the only thing that’s checked is exhaust emission. So does that mean that cars driving on Swiss roads are more derelict and unsafe than cars on NZ roads? Not that I saw. But having said that I never saw any cars that looked older than about 10 years and if so, they were fine examples of solid German engineering – old Mercs, BMWs, Audis etc. Not like the old Kingswoods or beaten up Civics that you see on the roads here sometimes.

Perhaps warrants should be given on basis of condition rather than age? Like teeth and trips to the dentist – depending on your level of and likely occurrence of decay, checkups are recommended at 6, 12 or 18 months – and that doesn’t necessarily correlate to age. As I get older, my checkups are scheduled less frequently as my teeth are considered to be in ‘stable’ condition.

Have driven by the new Kumutoto development on the waterfront (previous post) a few times in the last couple of days on the Monty mission and finally snapped a picture of this new building.

What’s up with the louvres/louvers*? At first I thought they’d left the scaffolding up, then wondered if they were outside shutters operated by a little screw handle on the inside like so many shuttered homes in Europe.

Have scratched around and worked out that it’s the new building for Meridian Energy and is the first ‘green’ building in NZ – warming and powering itself by natural elements and its own recycling.

Based on their press release, the louvres could be part of either of these:

• A double-skinned façade to manage the internal environment.
  
• Photovoltaic solar panels to generate a small amount of electricity.
  
• A computerised building management system that automatically adjusts windows, lights and air conditioning for the weather conditions outside.

* spelling of this word is somewhat ambiguous seeming to be used in either format in New Zealand and in some case in both formats at the same time. My gut feeling is ‘louvre’ but have included ‘louver’ as well to show that in this case I’m not sure and that I accept there may be another spelling of it. 

The conversation at Fuel today was whether tomatoes are a fruit or vegetable. All sorts of theories were submitted by those of us standing around:

• It’s got pips not seeds – it’s a fruit


• It grows on a vine, not in the ground – it’s a fruit


• You eat it for lunch, dinner etc, not as pudding – it’s a vegetable


• It’s not sweet – it’s a vegetable (never mind that lemon’s are not sweet and they’re a fruit)


• It’s in the same family as capsicums – it’s a vegetable


• It’s in the vegetable section of the supermarket – it’s a vegetable


• There’s something not so obvious about this – it’s a fruit.

And Wikipedia says … (something quite long and detailed…)

Botanically, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant: a fruit or, more precisely, a berry. However, the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called fruits and, from a culinary standpoint, it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, as are vegetables, rather than at dessert, as are fruits. As noted above, the term “vegetable” has no botanical meaning and is purely a culinary term.

This argument has had legal implications in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato’s status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy in 1893 by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)). The holding of the case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes other than paying a tax under a tariff act.

So, it’s a fruit? Or a vegetable?

I went and had a wander around the Kirkcaldie & Stains department store sale yesterday. Wander is a thing I shouldn’t have been able to do. It was rather disappointing. The sale used to be ‘Kirk’s’ stuff cheap, now it’s cheap stuff in Kirk’s.  It seems they import a whole lot of stuff that they don’t normally sell – big bottles of pink bathwash and 5-packs of knickers and thinner towels and put sales tickets on them. The store just wasn’t as crowded as it usually is on the first day and I came away with nothing. Usually I manage to pick up something from their normal stock that’s going cheap – a bottle of perfume, a jumper, some earrings. Sigh.

Perhaps I can re-write the pamphlet for the Justice Department – it’s all so familiar to me now. Can’t believe I was there Monday and today for the 2nd time in 6 months, 3rd time in 3 years. I was balloted into the trial room both days but not called for the jury box.

My observations are a bit more scathing this time and there’s no easy and less snobby way to state them. I had a good look around the room this time, trying to see who was there and work out if there was some system at work that had me there for the 3rd time.

• The people I heard talking were all trying to figure out how to avoid getting on a jury – discussing what they were wearing or reading, how they could look or act to make them get challenged. Apart from the reasonable chance that the case would be pretty revolting to participate in, what is it other than the disruption to work that would make them so adamant that they didn’t want to be there?
• I shames me to admit that I was just a guilty as the lawyers looking up and down people called to the jury box in my impression of the people on jury service this week. Completely by the look of people I surmised that there were no doctors, financial experts, real estate agents, business owners, entrerpreneurs, IT people etc. Well if there were, they were not from the private sector. It struck me that Government workers probably have no legitimate excuse for getting out of jury service, that everyone in the private sector is too busy, too important, too critical in the revenue generation of their company to spend what is likely to only be 2 or 3 stints of 2 hours out of the office sitting in a waiting room.
• Is there something wrong with me that I don’t mind doing it? I never thought of myself as being on a moral, political or social high ground … rather apathetic and more than happy to sit on the fence but by my willingness to go do this and to not fight it or find an excuse to not do it, in my calm temperament in the face of being chosen does this mean I actually *do* have an opinion?
• Is there a ‘best practice’ response expected when called for jury service? Like every I’ve told that I’m doing it this week immediate says “oh no! Can’t you get out of it?“ and when I say I’m not bothered, I’m asked “why would you *want* to do it?“. And everyone there saying “god I hope I don’t get picked.“ Is this a conditioned response so that you seem ‘normal’?
• I can’t imagine the Mister attending. Mostly because I just can’t see him sitting in a room waiting. No computers, no TV, just sitting. The jury waiting rooms are just like every American TV show or movie that takes the character down to the DMV to take a ticket and wait to renew their licence.

Often a topic of conversation when with my parents – Alexander Kitten – the little orange kitten that was the subject of my most read childhood book. I remember reading it and like hearing the stories about how I loved reading it and having it read to me (complete with the bits about telling people off (mostly Granddad) who read it to me and missed bits out because I knew it by heart before I could even walk).

Mum did suggest that I hunt it down on the Internet and she was right, it’s there to be hunted. I might just have to get a copy seeing as my very own book was given away to some boy kids when it was thought that I’d grown out of it (obviously the orange thing hadn’t kicked in back then otherwise they wouldn’t have dared!) … and yes that’s part of the whole story-telling process above which is why Mum suggested I locate a copy … the scars of having the book wrenched from my teenage grip (yeah woteva) obviously run deep!

So, $3.99 on Amazon and in the mean time I can look at these pictures that someone had on a Flickr site. It’s a lot older than I though – 1959 – I thought it was at least from the 70’s!

• Whenever I have a day, or a substantial period of time to myself, I clean and iron and polish and tidy our stuff. And feel depressed that of all the things I could do for myself in the time that is mine alone, I choose to clean. I don’t have a thing to choose.
  
• Is it a boy/girl thing or just a me/Mister thing that we can quite clearly see traits of my parents in my behaviour (or in some cases the exact behaviour) yet in the Mister they are fewer and much less recognisable?
  
• You have to take toiletries in a small clear plastic bag in containers of no more than 100mls on international flights now.
  
• I don’t know my sister’s address, not in a lemme-just-get-my-address-book-to-confirm kind of way, but I just don’t know where she lives anymore.
  
• I still feel guilty after laying what I suppose is a complaint against the new barista at Hunter Street Fuel. He has a somewhat challenging attitude and maybe I am a self-centred coffee snob expecting special Fuel customer treatment but to be told that I can just order a flat white like everyone else instead of trying to tell him how to do his job by being specific in my order of a double latte which he told me is just the same, is not a confrontation I expect to encounter at Fuel. I think he’s in trouble and now I have to avoid Hunter St.

Heard an amusing (but undoubtedly true) comment on the news the other night – it was during a segment about damage to motorbikes and small cars during crashes and the topic of close following distances came up. An Auckland motorist said:

“There’s no 2-second rule on the motorway in Auckland, or anywhere in Auckland. If there was a 2-second rule they’d put a car park in there.”

Once upon a time the first thing I did when arriving at the cafe for our Saturday morning breakfast was to grab the ‘Indulgence’ section of the Saturday paper and go straight to the back to look at all the photos of the kitties and cast the rest of the paper aside. Then onto the toast with peanut butter and a latte. However with all the happenings at work now, we go in manner of grown-ups to the business section to share prices. The company is not listed yet but we’re learning and practicing where to look just in case! Then to the kitties.

Had to grab this screen shot off the metservice website – it’s been off and on over the last couple of weeks and I think it’s fab! I hope it stays for good this time. Choose your town and wa-la:

Shows you the effect the wind chill has on the actual temperature to give you a ‘feels like’ temperature. The layers of clothing bit is not particularly accurate but hey, knowing what it feels like outside means I can make up my own mind.