An interesting day in NZ politics today. I invested some time in reading the report re. NZSIS and Goff, as well as watching QT and the debate that followed.

My overall impression is that no-one in Parliament actually cares. There was posturing. There was party-political broadcasting.

Are there issues? Of course. Deficiencies in process have been identified and will be rectified, if they haven’t been already.

To the debate.

Norman bleated. He repeated himself often. He was speaking in soundbites. There wasn’t really a cohesion in the speech. He came across kind of whiny in my opinion.

Little was interesting. Clearly he’s positioning himself as a Leader. Not helped at all by the leaking of the report but he presented well. I’m not a fan of Union posturing, aggression and rhetoric, but he’s not trying to appeal to me. Overall he did well, as evidenced by 3 News using his soundbites and avoiding Norman (apart from the ‘Key must resign’ song in the Presser afterwards).

Peters: used for comedic effect. I do wonder if he’s ever seen the movie he referenced. Oh well. He was a little hard to listen to. A bit mumbly, a bit irrelevant. Past his prime methinks.

The Government. Front-footed. I don’t think they’ll suffer at all.

I do think it was a good report. Thorough. I’ve learned much from reading it wrt the importance of documenting everything accurately.

The next few weeks will be fun.

I wasn’t going to get into this series. I really wasn’t. But then it just sucked me in!

Whilst it’s fairly contrived and definitely made-for-TV, it’s just fun. I’ve spoken to a number of architects that despise it for setting unrealistic expectations for their clients in terms of timings and how long it takes to get resource consents. But it’s still just fun.

It became even more fun when my 9 year old daughter expressed that she liked the show. I ran her and her brother down to the site six weeks ago to show them. At that time the houses were all under shrink-wrap, but she loved getting a feel for things.

Spotting Mark Richardson in the wild was also fun.

I have absolutely loved snuggling with my daughter on the couch watching each episode for the last couple of weeks.

Last Saturday we made our way to the Open Homes. Amazingly my kids coped with the 2hr15 wait to get to the houses, and then the 1hr00 required to walk through and view. No complaints. No fractiousness. This is the benefit of them being completely engaged.

I have to compliment EyeWorks and MediaWorks for the event. The Neighbourhood was out in force, flogging baking, drinks, sausages… pretty much everything. It was great to support the local school. It was so festive. Everything was smooth – I was most impressed with the Traffic Management and the volume of staff that were keeping things moving and calm.

A highlight was a visit from Cate Owen who came and found me with branded hats and drink bottles for my kids. That really made their experience! Thanks Cate!

Having seen the houses? My favorites are still my favorites. There is a definite difference between the houses in terms of finishing and quality. The overwhelming crowd favorites are Jo and Damo, and their home has some pretty nice detail.

Overall, I can’t wait to see the final result. I’ve enjoyed this Season.

^sd

Election:
The Internet-Mana video. I don’t care that a sycophantic group of blinded Cult-worshippers spontaneously chant “f**k John Key” at a rally. I do care that it is released by Internet-Mana as an electoral promotional video on their YouTube channel. And tweeted. And Facebooked. I think it’s quite damaging to Internet-Mana (well, just adds to the damage the existence of Internet-Mana creates).

“Sugar Daddy”. Hmm. I haven’t got a problem with this comment. Fact is, Laila is bought and paid for by someone who simply doesn’t share her political beliefs. IMHO she is hopelessly compromised and has zero integrity.

Palmerston North. I’m keen to see Jono Naylor elected.

Movies:
The Terminator is still awesome, 30 years after release.

Auckland:
Len Brown is STILL Mayor?

The Auckland City Council has started a conversation about regulating, and therefore charging for, the dispersion of the ashen remains of loved ones.

Whilst I like the idea of having many many people weep at my funeral (and possibly perform some interpretational dance), personally I think the idea of someone a) retaining my ashes in an urn or b) someone taking the effort to spread me over Kingsland (because I said once I ‘really like Kingsland’) is just a little strange.

I would however appreciate something along the lines of this:

Python

For various reasons I’ve been able to have my kids stay with me for a couple of days.

My Master 11 was in an extension Claymation animation class for the day, leaving me to find things to occupy Miss 8, whilst being on a stupidly tight budget.

Thanks to an online pal, Simone, I became aware of geocaching. This is a global treasure-hunt type thing. All over the world are caches to discover.

And discover we did. Miss 8 and I found five caches today. From concealed plastic containers, to peanut butter jars, to a ridiculously small hollow magnetic container.

So much fun had.

She did get a bit worried when we’d go to a place while NOT hunting for caches, and I’d pull out my iPhone to see if there were any nearby…

I may have a problem.