Had another satire article published in the Rockall Times online magazine. Read it here.
They folded another writer's article into mine, but at least I got top billing!! Forks and Knives.

The New Zealand Film Festival sent me an e-mail saying that they did not want "Soul Trader" in the film festival. I didn't really expect a low-low-budget tongue-in-cheek splatter horror film like "Soul Trader" to meet their criteria for exhibition, but I'm still disappointed. :-(

Haven't updated the blog for a while due to other commitments.
Then I saw this and just had to comment on it. The Comp Air Jet. I think it is a very bold move for an aircraft company. Trying to sell a single engined jet as an 8 person transport will be a hard sell. If you want to fly people by jet you should be flying IFR up high. I don't think that a single engine aircraft will be accepted as safe enough to do that. That's not to say that it isn't, but I think there will be a lot of pilot based resistance to overcome. Good Luck guys!

My sister-in-law Diana gave birth to a 7lb 7oz baby girl @ 5:12am this morning.
Claudia Jane Blake, welcome to the big bad world.

Photo

(Just Kidding)

Ric Salizzo from Sportscafe sent me a Muhammad Ali video as my prize for the Big Question.

Thanks, big guy!!

I must get up to Leftfield and watch the show one day.

I'm off to Sydney on Monday to attend a workshop of Australian government departments on property/event disease database systems.
AgriQuality, the company I work for, has a product called VADIS ( that I developed ) that we will be trying to promote to the state governments in Oz. We developed it in partnership with the Victorian Department of NRE. I will catch up with Ian Mackenzie from Vic when I get there.

Cool...

Ric Salizzo from SportsCafe sent me an e-mail to apologise for not giving me a prize for getting the Big Question about Magnum P.I.s dogs. He promised to find me something.
We'll see...

Somebody sent us the Klez virus. My work also sent a MailMarshal response to say that I had sent it the Klez virus. I guess someone with both my home and work E-mail addresses must have it. I deleted the infected e-mail without checking the headers to see who it was. Damn.
Used Symantec's Klez Removal Tool to check our computer and it says we don't have Klez. Good.

The organiser of the 2002 New Zealand Film Festival e-mailed me while I was away in Australia saying that he wanted to see a VHS preview copy of "Soul Trader" for consideration in this year's festival. Cool!!

I'd better tell Michael (Director). With film being a director's medium, it will probably be he who gets the invitation and free tickets.

When you follow the link don't worry about the fact that it seems to be for 2001. They probably won't update the website until they have the programme sorted.

Got back home from Brisbane (Australia) today. Flew on budget airline Freedom Air. The plane was 75% full on the way out and 100% on the way back. Apparently the runway at Hamilton is not long enough to let them take off with full load of fuel and passengers, hence the decresed loading on thw ay out.

As a result of this consultancy trip I have been invited to attend another one in Sydney in a couple of weeks.

Had a real Rain Man moment last night. My wife is the treasurer of the local Embroiderers Guild. She brought home a whole stack of cash that had to be counted prior to being banked. She handed me a wodge of notes and said,
"Make yourself useful, count that for me".

I waved it around a bit, weighed it in my hand and said "One Hundred and Forty Five Dollars"
Helen scowled at me and told me, "No. You actually have to count it."
So I did... and bugger me if it wasn't exactly $145!!!

Of course she thought I was pulling her leg and she counted it herself. $145 exactly.

Yeah!...I love it when a plan comes together...

Well, it's official. The New Zealand Rugby Football Union has been told "No co-hosting the 2003 Rugby World Cup for you!!". The aussies have taken the lot. What a cock-up! It would be divine justice if the All Blacks could now go on and win the damn thing.

We've all heard the Urban Legend about some idiot who imbeds himself in a cliff after attaching a JATO bottle to his Chevy Impala. Is it just a legend? Go away and read this article.
Even if it is all just fiction, it is so well written that it deserves to be true.

First Post. Wow!!

Submitted an answer to the "Big Question"on Lion red Sports Cafe ( a New Zealand Sports chat show on SKY Pay TV ). The question was "What are the names of the dogs in the TV programme "Magnum P.I.". Did a bit of research and found that their real names were Brutus and Dominique (Apollo and Zeus respectively). Made up a story about how the dogs were not allowed back to the mainland after the show finished due to a disease outbreak and how they were eventually put down and buried in the back yard of the Robin Masters mansion (complete with bronze statuette headstones). Complete bullsh*t of course. They seemed to like it on the show and awarded me the prize. No idea what it is but I'll keep you posted.

Had my first article published by the Rockall Times online satire site. Read it here Rockall Times. No pay but good to know that they like my work.