Category: Random Thoughts

Late at night in a dark bar, one drunk to another …..

“Being a sports nerd from way back, I can’t let the Olympics end without putting my oar in. So to speak.

But first, a little trip down memory stream.

Rugger

Of the Old New Zealand trifecta of rugby, racing, and beer, my Dad pursued two. He replaced the middle one with cricket.

So as a lad growing up in the grey early 1970s ( “you want two types of milk?” ) , I followed his lead, and sport helped saved me from death by boredom. There was nothing I looked forward to so much as Saturday morning mud-wrestling ( a.k.a junior rugby ).

My brother and I played backyard rugby with such gusto that the ball was confiscated over summer. So the legendary British Lions 1971 tour of New Zealand was meat and potatoes to us. To add the gravy, they became, and remain, the only Lions team to win a series in New Zealand.

I remember listening to most of it on the radio, with commentators like the gentleman on the left.

Looking back at clips, playing in muddy bogs with sodden , leaden rugby balls their backline was dazzling, especially in the provincial games. They won the series 3-1, as you know.

The Games

I discovered at primary school that I was Ok at “long distances”, which then meant 800m races.

In 1974, I watched John Walker finish 2nd to Filbert Bayi in that year’s Commonwealth Games 1500m final, pondering my grandfather’s remark – “harrumph, he would’ve won if he’d had a haircut”.

That was a  golden era of New Zealand middle distance running, with the trio of Walker, Dixon, and Quax winning medals and breaking world records. And so through my teens I followed the sport, and won some minor races.

Fast Forward

So , back to the present, and some thoughts on a few of the remarkable performances.

Yes, thanks, top me up, Captain. Oh yes, some of that as well…..

What’s Happening In Norway?

Never mind the Chinese, the Vikings are coming. With two out of the park performances in track events, and one in endurance, one wonders;

• Karston Warholm clocks 45.94 seconds in the 400m hurdles, breaking his own world record of 46.70s. He’s the first man to run the event in under 46 seconds. The previous world record had stood for 29 years.
• Jakob Ingebrigtsen  , at 20 years old, wins the 1500m over Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot, clocking a time that places him 9th on the all-time list. Is this man capable of beating Hicham El Guerrouj’s 23-year-old record?
• Kristian Blummenfelt wins the men’s triathlon ( swimming, biking, running ).

It’s two-nil to PB Tech in the home-and-away online shopping games.

But you know the rules – let’s not talk about the war.

Instead, let’s talk about buying phones online. The fast decline of my old phone started when I pried off the back cover to do some surgery with blunt instruments.

A few weeks later, the sim card slot no longer slid out, and my attempts to wrangle it back into shape resulted in a banana-shaped back cover. Go figure.

With the upcoming escape to Oz, my daughter suggested the inevitable had hit the fan, and it needed replacing.

After poring over specs and costs etc at gsmarena.com, I settled on a Redmi 9 ( no “Note”) , cheap at Dick Smiths.

I bought that online on June 15, thinking that even if it was being imported from Australia, it would arrive in time.

Whereabouts Unknown

Not. When I hadn’t heard, or received, anything a week later, I looked up the tracking. It was nowhere to be found.

Since Dick Smith’s is now 100% online, and one doesn’t get to talk ( even by text chat! ) to a real person, a busyness of emails followed.

They were “opening an investigation”, which may take “up to 10 working days”. After repeating myself a few times, I think it dawned on them that what I wanted was a phone, and not an investigation. Thank you.

They did eventually refund the money, leaving me to scramble about again.

I found a Redmi Note 9T at PB Tech.

They had delivered within two days an SD card I bought soon after the Dick Smith’s Redmi buy.

And so it was with the phone, which arrived less than 24 hours after I’d ordered it.

So here’s to PB Tech, which delivers stuff pronto with no palaver.

Unlike some other outlets. Which suspicious minds might think advertise products knowing that their delivery tracking is broken, and they don’t have to stocks to meet demand.

It’s official –  i’m on my way out of this cold rainy Isle to soak in the sun.

For a bit. Maybe as brief as three weeks, but perhaps for as long as three months or more. I don’t ( yet ) have a return ticket.

Destination ? Cairns, Far North Queensland, in the Land of Oz, where it’s warm.

Maybe the 16-month stint in South–East Asia messed up my thermostat, but this winter – my first in the “Winterless North” since 2018 – has been brutal on this skinny old bloke.

I wouldna thunk of Cairns, except that it kept cropping up in conversation with Japanese students at Engoo.

July 13

is D-Day. I’ll be leaving Whangarei late afternoon, and arriving in Cairns close to midnight.

I’ve got a room booked in an AirBnB house for the first week. I plan to spend most of that beetling around for ( cheaper ) longer-term digs.

I’m told by an Insider in the airBnB game that at NZD 270 / week, I’m getting a good deal. But at that price, a 3-month stay may be a stretch.

But, barring Aussie customs deciding that they don’t want another recidivist Kiwi, I’m hoping to at least dodge the worst of the remaining winter.