'The Hurricanes Handbag Incident'

Not news to Kiwis, I know but worth a mention for the rest of the world.
After the Super 14 Rugby Final in the fog - (see previous post) the defeated Hurricanes went out for a quiet beer or two, some of them ending up at the Jolly Poacher at 7.30 in the morning. Chris Masoe apparently tripped over someones outstreched leg, thought they were doing it on purpose so he punched the chap! Tana Umaga tried to teach Chris a lesson in a friendly sort of a way by picking up the nearest thing thing he could find and belting Chris over the head with it ! - better than using his fist I would say. It was a handbag belonging to a girl who happened to be sitting at the bar minding her own business.
You can imagine the press after that - 'Handbags at Dawn' etc etc.
When the girl whose handbag had been used discovered that her cellphone had been smashed in the attack she got a bit upset so the Hurricanes Management offered to pay for it.
One of her friends got the idea of auctioning the bag and cellphone on our wonderful online auction site 'Trade-me' thinking someone might be interested in the rugby memorabilia angle.

Well it went ballistic - bigger than the 'dophin in a swimming pool' auction or the 'Time Machine auction'
See details here http://www.trademe.co.nz/Sports/Sports-memorabilia/Rugby/Other/auction-58555525.htm
finally sold for $22,750.00!!! after causing so much web traffic the the Trade-Me servers apparently crashed.

There you go, thats what we do here for Entertainment!

The Super 14 Final......Fog, and the Drinking Game

OK for those foreigners out there, Super 14 used to be Super 12.

'Super 12 Rugby commenced in 1996, with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa forming SANZAR (South African, New Zealand and Australian Rugby) to administer an annual provincial 12 team competition and Tri-Nations Test Series between the three countries.

A provincial series, Super 12 Rugby consists of five teams from New Zealand, four from South Africa and three from Australia (NSW, Queensland and the ACT), and each team plays all the other teams once during the yearly tournament. Bonus points are given to any team scoring four tries or more, putting the emphasis on strong, attacking rugby.'

There you go, thats the official word.
This year they let another 2 sides in, one from Australia one from S.A.

The Final was between 2 NZ Teams , The Hurricanes, from Wellington (North Island) and the Crusaders from Canterbury (South Island). Its always a good excuse for a few drinks and of course this time was no exception.
We packed the car with Wine, Beer, and Duvets and set off for Paul and Kirsty's house via the sauasage shop.
The rugby ground (Jade Stadium in Christchurch) was enveloped by fog which made it challenging for the TV Crew and anyone else trying to watch apparently a lot of the spectators left before halftime as they couldnt see it! we made up up for the lack of visuals by enjoying our own little drinking game.
Write down all the players names on bits of paper, put them into a 'hat' and distribute between the participants. We ended up with 3 or 4 each.When your player gets a mention you have to take a drink. Phil and Kirsty drew short straws - one of Phils names was Piri Weepu he got injured twice, and got involved in all sorts of stuff on the field and the commentators couldnt stop talking abpout him, Kirstys downfall was Dan Carter (how many women can say that I wonder?).

See below some pics showing the action:-

Highlights of the 2006 Super 14 Final

Weepu opens the scoring for the Hurricanes from long range.		Carter’s second successful penalty from three attempts gives the Crusaders the half time lead.
Casey Laulala crosses for the only try of the game.		Richie McCaw doesn’t infringe at the breakdown, honest.
Skipper McCaw triumphantly holds the trophy up as teammates look on.		The crowd goes wild in the stands.

The Family Sting Ray

The tides were good, the sun was shiny and off we went via the fish shop to get some bait to spend the afternoon messing about in boats ('Sedan Delivery' our 1985 Tracker 7.7m Yacht to be exact). Recently repainted lovely bright yellow with a black bum. (Mr Mad said we would get attacked by whales if we had a black bum!!!) Theres one in every boat yard, Mr Mad that is, not a whale. The fishing was lousy in the spot we chose out by Little Manly Beach up the Whangaparoa Peninsular, although we saw loads of fish on our lovely new Navman fish finder/Depth/Speed/Temp thing on the way there and back, they all buggered off when we stopped to fish. Phil caught a couple of little (too little snapper) but then got seasick as it was swelly, so back up the river on a rising tide we went and tried our luck on the mooring. Lots of people catch decent fish up the river.
We had got through most of the bonito bait when something ran away with my line. I promptly gave the rod (Ryans) to Phil so he could do the 'old man and the sea' bit and reel in the giant huge snapper that I had caught. It took forever, the fish ran away with the line, came back, sat on the bottom for a bit, swam up and down the river by which time we had decided it was probably a ray but we weren't prepared for the SIZE of it!!!! it was at least as big as the dinghy from its pug nose to its long whippy tail, anyway thats enough writing lets have some pictures, the first one is Phil being Heroic and the other one is the Fish. We had to cut it loose in the end - Phil got it close up to the boat and I reached over and cut the line just by the hook.
almost as good as the 'Cuttlefish incident' but bigger and less squirmy.

My what a long tail you've got!
We called it the family Stingray 'cos I hooked it, Phil played it and it was Ryans rod.

The hugest lightning storm in years!!

Yesterday morning the whole house was shaking, car alarms were going off down the street, the birds were flying in circles and dogs were howling!! - no, it wasnt one of Phils farts. we had a really intense thunder cell right over us, a house half a mile away was struck by lightning we watched the lightning forks hit the ground on the other side of the valley it was BIG. Ryan collected hailstones and put them in the freezer for phil to see when he got home from work. the stream at the bottom of our road was up to the top of the bank, Awaruku road was closed by a flood, we had to go round the long way to school. It was a really localised storm as Kirsty and Paul 5 kms away just had some rain and heard the thunder.

I dont like cats - these are cuter!

Baby Porcupines - ahh
but imagine giving birth to that, I hope the spines are soft.
This is Ryans favourite image at the moment.

Welcome

well whaddya know a paynepirates blog !!
Phil will be texting next (actually he got a lesson off of Ryan last night).