Visualizing the BP Oil Spill

If It Was My Home - Visualizing the BP Oil Spill

The scary thing is that it can well happen here too.

Rugby, as it should be played

That mid-winter time-honoured perennial ritual, the nude rugby match in Dunedin, was upon us again at the weekend, with a hard-fought match between the Nude Blacks and the Welsh Leeks.

TV3 has fantastic video footage of the match here, for which they are risking a telling off by the Broadcast Standards Authority because some anti-nude wowser group is planning to lay a formal complaint.

All sports should be played sans-clothes. It makes it worth participating, and watching!

Links to previous editions here.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Rural Bachelor of the Year 2010

It's that time of year again when the days are shortest and thoughts go to snuggling up in the hay with your favourite farm hand.
Our perennial favourite is the Rural Bachelor of the Year Competition at the Hamilton Fieldays and this year's crop of eligible rural young(-ish) men isn't too shabby.
You can see all entrants here.

My favourite is:

Jacques Reinhardt
Region: Napier
DOB: 13/02/1988
Occupation: Stock Manager
Why should you be Fieldays 2010 Rural Bachelor of the Year? I should be the Fieldays 2010 Rural Bachelor of the Year because I’m driven and motivated to be the best farmer that I can possible be. I have a real passion for farming. I am also attractive and fun to be around and have a good sense of humour. I am very skilled all round the farm and at most things I do. I’m fit and athletic, love animals and people. I am knowledgeable about most varieties of farming. Very sociable and confident. I have a great personality and am very loving and caring.

And the good news? He won.

The trams are coming back

Almost 60 years after ripping up the tram lines in Auckland, the Regional Council has voted to bring them back. Of a sort, of course, not the whole efficient, environmentally friendly system that ran in the first half of the previous century before addiction to petrol fumes caused under-investment, neglect, buses, cars and motorways to take over.
A new system will get its kick off with a heritage line connecting Britomart and the Wynyard Quarter, which won't be more than a tourist line. Even vintage tram cars will be used, like they do in Christchurch.
From the press release:

The project’s first phase will see heritage trams circuiting the 30 hectare redeveloped Wynyard Quarter linking it with the Britomart Transport Centre.
The proposal was first brought to the ARC’s Transport and Urban Development Committee last year by the Campaign for Better Transport and Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). Feasibility studies have been carried out by the ARC and Sea+City who developed a two phased proposal for the tramway.
Phase one will focus on Wynyard Quarter with a single track loop circuiting Gateway Plaza, Jellicoe Street, Halsey Street, Gaunt Street and Beaumont Street. This is planned to be ready in time for the Rugby World Cup.
Sidings at the western end of Jellicoe Street would house the trams in buildings beside the proposed Silo Park which is being designed to attract people to the western end of Jellicoe Street.
“The return of trams to Auckland’s streets will make a real point of difference for the Wynyard Quarter,” says ARC Chairman, Michael Lee.
“This is a modest beginning, but the longest journey starts with one small step.”
Phase two will see the trams linking to the CBD and connecting with existing public transport at Britomart and on Queen Street.

It will be still a long way from a modern, fast and efficient system that can give private transport a run for their money, so to speak. Like this one: