Haere Mai,Welcome,To all family & friends in NZ & around the world and anyone reading my blog ! This is my first ever blog, which I started on Black Friday, 13th May 2005. My thoughts & prayers are with you all. Take care & God Bless. Arohanui ! Kakite !

Blog Archive

Sunday, October 29, 2006

#400 - #409

Something Old

The "Birdcage Tavern", an imposing two storey brick & plaster building nesting next to the Victoria Park motorway is one of the few surviving hotels from the mid 1880's. The site where it stands was first sold by the Crown in 1853 for 74 pound. In 1863, the site was sold again and a wooden building was erected on the site, which became The Rob Roy Hotel. In 1885, the hotel was demolished and the building that stands there today, was built. At some stage it was done up and renamed "The Birdcage", but to those who love the hotel, it will always be The Rob Roy. A lot of older American's will no doubt recall The Rob Roy Hotel, from the days of World War ll, when they camped in the Victoria Park across the road from the hotel. It has been the focus of courtroom battles, war-time romances and workers rallies, but now it seems, it is standing in the way of progress and has to go !!! Rather than demolish it, the plan is to put it on skids and move it 30 metres up the road. It gives a whole new meaning to the term been on skid-row, as normally it's the patrons of a hotel that end up on skid-row, not the hotel itself.
Impossible to move ??? Noooo !!! Don't forget the fact that we are kiwi's and we can move anything if we put our mind to it - well almost anything !!! We are still trying to move NZ futher away from Australia but the ones sitting at the back aren't paddling hard enough !!!
Have a look at this building in Wellington, which stood in the way of the building of the Te Papa Museum - it was put on skids and moved !!!

#401. Something New

Right where The Birdcage Tavern cuurently stands, Transit NZ intends to have the portal for a new motorway tunnel they hope to build for northbound traffic, hence the hotel having to be put on skids and moved 30 metres. The construction of the 460 metre tunnel costing over $300 million due to start in 2009, is been proposed as an alternative to widening the current motorway viaduct. The tunnel will constructed by the cut & cover method. Once the tunnel is built, it will be interesting to see where the exhaust gases are vented. A skateboard ramp which currently which stands on part of the land will have to go as well as 86 trees and 100 carparks on land belonging to a church. Hopefully the skateboard ramp will be reinstated once the tunnel is built and covered over but if they intend to vent the exhaust gases in & around the area, I don't think kids are going to be "too happy" !!! Or will they ???

#402. Something Borrowed

When I think of hotels & bars, etc I wonder how many there are around NZ. A few hundred, a few thousand - who knows ??? In USA, where there would be have to be 10's of 1000's, one blogger went out there and over a course of a year he visited One Thousand Bars !!! It doesn't say how many times he did "weight-lifting" at the bar but even if he just lifted one glass at each bar, well.............!!! Anyway, start off in the archives at Bar #1 and see how long it takes you to visit each & every bar like he did. If you end up on "skid-row" by the time you get to the 1000th bar, don't blame me. Just make sure you don't drink & drive or get into a fight.

#403. Something Blue !!!

As I sit here, my mind wanders on a walk around the Auckland inner city area as I try to "picture" old hotels that are still standing as well as those that have long gone - demolished in the way of progress. Old hotels, where I have just happened to walk past the door at sometime or other over the years - not one's that I have been "weight-lifting" in. One old hotel that has long gone, was "The Globe" on Wakefield Street, where an apartment building now stands on the land. As with any hotels & bars, etc no doubt there would of been a few fist fights in & around the hotel, but one fight that will never be forgotten was when a group of young people in their mid to late teens, having left the hotel got into a fight on the corner of Mayoral Drive & Wakefield St, which resulted in one of them, been "kicked to death". When ever I walk past the spot, where the teenage boy was murdered, I stop for a few seconds and put my hand on the "tree", into which his friends have carved their intials. Every now & again, someone ties a yellow ribbon around the old "tree" and leaves him a flower or two in rememberance !!! He was a friend of a friend.

#404. For Green Fingers !!!

The 19th Taranaki Rhododendron & Garden festival is on again for another year from October 27th - Nov.5th. Showcasing 47 stunning gardens, 15 of which are of national or regional significance. A great opportunity for "green finger" tourists and NZer's in the area to have a look.

#405. Google-eyed !!!

If you had been one of the lucky one's to be on-board when Google was first founded by Sergey Brin & Larry Page you would be well and truly google-eyed by now with $$$$ !!! Brin and Page both age 33, are rated at #12 & #13 on the Forbes list of richest American's, with a fortune of US$14 Billion each. "Google" with a market capitalisation of US145 billion, is now the world's third most valuable technology company, having surpassed IBM which is valued at US$139 billion. They still trail Microsoft (US$279 billion) and Cisco (US$147.5 billion) The market capitalisation of other tech companies - Hewlett-Packard US$109 biilion; Intel US$123 billion; eBay US$45 billion; Yahoo US$32 billion and Amazon US$14 billion. "Google" is worth US$58 billion more than the combined value of America's three automakers - Daimler-Chrysler US$54 billion; General Motors US$20 billion and Ford US$15 billion. The largest company in the world is ExxonMobil valued at US$416 billion.

#406. Time Is Fast Running Out !!!

If you live in NZ and you haven't already raided your childrens piggy banks or your own stash of the old coins and taken them to the bank to deposit into "your account", you had better get your skates on - fast !!! Because Tuesday is your last day that the old 5c, 10c, 20c & 50c coins can be handed into your bank. On the lst of November, the old coins will no be longer be legal tender and will not be accepted by banks or retailers throughout the country. It's no use you "sitting" on them thinking that maybe in 10 or 20 years time, they will be worth a bit to collectors because of the 1000 million coins issued since 1967, only 280 million have been returned. which means thousands of hopefuls are sitting on millions of coins

#407. Fireworks !!!

On Friday 27th, as the night darkened, noises could be heard as people once again let off fireworks !!! It's time the government pulled their finger and issued a total ban on the sale of fireworks to the general public at large. If people want to enjoy "fireworks" let them do so at public events organized by service clubs, like the Lions, etc on November 5th. As it is at present, people have 10 days to purchase fireworks and 10 nights to let them off. They aren't going to purchase them and then sit on them, until the night of the 5th of November, when they know they can go out the next day and buy some more.
If people know that the government is going to issue a ban after this year is over, the people will no doubt store fireworks for next year. If people do intend to store fireworks, for Guy Fawkes next year they are bloody stupid because if a fire occurs resulting from the storage of fireworks, guess what your insurance company is going to say...........tough ttties !!! You should not of had fireworks stored on your premises.

This is from my archives...............
# 790. We Owe It All To "Guido Fawkes" !!!
November 5th,1605 - A day that went down in history !!! That was the day, 400 years ago, that Guido (Guy) Fawkes was caught in the cellars of Palace of Westiminster where Parliament of London is, with 36 barrels of gunpowder. The plan was to detonate them, during the official opening of Parliament. Guy Fawkes was one of a group of consipirators, trying to blow up Parliamment with all the politicians & Royalty inside. The consipirators claimed to be oppressed Catholics, who felt that the best way to change the rule of King James lst and the Protestant aristocracy was to blow them up. Guy Fawkes was convicted of treason, tourtured & hanged. Since that day, we have burned bonfires & effigies of "Guy Fawkes" on the night of Novemeber 5th. In earlier times, children used to take effigies of "Guy Fawkes" through the streets and beg for money for fireworks, chanting - "Penny for the guy, mister" ??? Now it would be $5 for the "guy" mister !!!

#408. Wife Squads To Find Sober Men

After decades of futile tactics of trying to "wean them off the bottle" without any success, alcoholics may have finally meet their match in a scheme set up by a coalition of exasperated housewives and entrepreneurs. Committee's of women who are married or were married to alcoholics will interview men across the country and decide whether they qualify for entry to a teetotallers database that will be made available to prospective employers. The Register of Non-Drinking Men (it doesn't say anything about non-drinking women ???) hopes to succeed where all else has failed, in trying to men off the bottle. Don't worry, NZer's it hasn't reach us yet - this is in Russia, where it said that there could be up to 2 million alcoholics !!!

#409. Spammers Beware

A Perth, Australia based company that sent out at least 75 million spam messages, between April 2004 & April 2006, has been fined - four and a half million dollars !!! The director of the company has also been fined - one million dollars !!! A$5.5 million for spam !!!. The company which was found to have contravened the Spam Act 2003, has been banned from sending out any futher unsolicated emails.
It is the first time, that an Australian company has been fined under the Federal government's spam laws introduced in 2004. The judgement has provided a strong warning to Australian spammers. They think they can run & hide but they can't as every computer ever built and been built has a special number which is traceable right to the scource of where it's at.

I'll be back............

About Me

Check out all My Blogs ***** I am now living out in the country / rural area all the time, away from all the hustle & bustle of city life where I just kick back, relax and take life easy. Check HERE !!! for updates.