Weird Animals...

This months installment of weird animals should be called "Creepy Crawlies to Scare the Pants Off a Kiwi".

The spider in this photo is a Huntsman Spider. Isn't he cute - not. This particular one was living under our kitchen sink.

Huntsman Spiders have 8 eyes, and can have a leg span of up to 30cm. Pretty big and scary!

They do bite, but only cause a small amount of pain and are not harmfully to humans. Huntsman don't use a web to catch their prey, but hunt them down - hence the name Huntsman.

They are actually good to have around the house (I am told!) because they eat insects you don't want inside.

But if the spider in this picture appeared in my house, I would be grabbing a cricket bat or can of spray - I'd rather have bugs than this any day!

I Know Almost Everyone Has Seen It...

But I couldn't resist adding it! I'm parched as!

News Flash

Research shows that smoking while pregnant harms your baby.

Ok, so it's not new, and everyone knows this fact.

So why do so many Australian women smoke when they are pregnant. I see it almost on a daily basis.

And every second car has someone smoking in it, with children in the back.

How can people be so stupid when they know the damage it's doing?

If you smoke while pregnant you should be charged with child abuse.

All Things Rugby - Union and League

I feel sorry for Brisbane sports fans - particularly those who are fans of the funny shaped ball.

You see two Saturday nights in a row I have been to a packed Suncorp Stadium - the first for the Bledisloe Cup, and the second for the Broncos vs Storm NRL semi-final.

I feel sorry for those home fans who paid a couple of hundred dollars to get to see both games - and see both home teams lose.

Ok, when I reflect on a glorious victory by the All Blacks, that feeling soon disappears!

I'm back!

After months of frustration I've finally ditched Vodafone, and have a landline ADSL2 connection installed. And the 24 megabits is great!

The Vodafone connection has been so bad I haven't been able to get on here to post anything - but as of today Vodafone are gone!

It's Cold!

We've lived in Australia for just over a year, and it seems we've become acclimatised already.

Today was cold - 17 degrees. The heater's cranked up tonight, as it's supposed to get down to around 5 or 6 degrees.

Coming from Dunedin it seems really odd - 17 degrees would be more than you could hope for at this time of year! 5 or 6 would usually be the high!

The Greatest Day in NZ Sport?

Yesterday was perhaps the greatest day of all time in New Zealand sport - at least it's the greatest day in a long time. Kiwi's quickly jump all over their sports stars when they don't perform, so I thought I would recognise the great achievements of Saturday 16th August 2008.

Firstly, New Zealand won 5 Olympic medals in one day for the first time ever - 2 gold (1st Olympic gold in track and field in over 30 years), 1 silver and two bronze. It's certainly our greatest ever Olympic day.

While in South Africa, the All Blacks kept the Springboks scoreless in a test at home for the first time ever. It's hard enough winning in SA, without even considering keeping them scoreless.

And to top it off the New Zealand Warriors had a win in the NRL propelling them into finals contention.

I can't think of too many other days that would rate higher in NZ sport! It's a great day to be a kiwi!

Day 6 - Still No Medals

Today marks day 6 of the Beijing Olympics, and New Zealand still has no medals.

I've just been looking at the medal table, and even Kazakhstan has more medals than New Zealand.
Even countries I haven't heard of (is Kyrgyzstan even a real country?!?!?) have won medals!

I wonder what the TAB is paying for NZ athletes winning nothing at all?

Makes me wonder how long the NZ government can continue to pour millions into these constantly under performing sports.

My First Vent - Vodafone 3G Wireless Broadband

I've decided to use my blog as an outlet to vent my frustration of bad service, bad products or just anything that pisses me off.

The first company on my target list is Vodafone Australia.

Earlier this year when we moved house, we found that Telstra (maybe they should be my first vent???) had removed the phone connection from the house and required $299 to reinstall it.

I wasn't too happy about having to pay that as you can imagine, so I decided to investigate wireless. I found that Vodafone Australia offer a 3G Wireless connection, where you get 5 gig of data for $39.95 per month, with speeds of up to 1.5 megabits.

So I signed up for a 24 month contract. All sounds pretty good. But the problem is, that like me, thousands of people signed up for the same deal. So what should be broadband speeds, turned out to be less than dial up for 3 times the price. And there are also frequent disconnections (I'm talking 15 - 20 per evening).

And don't even talk about their help desk service where a computer named Lara can't understand what you are talking about.

So if you are thinking wireless broadband, don't think Vodafone!

How Will They Cope?

Last week Telecom New Zealand announced their annual operating profit fell 15.5% for the last financial year.

Apparently they made a disappointing $NZ713,000,000.

However will they cope with only making three quarters of a billion dollars? I guess they'll have to overcharge even more.