September 23 2008
Discipline Your Teen On Trade Me and Other Choice Links
posted by Ana Samways at 12:12 pm
Who knew Young Labour could tag? Impressive stuff, as the billboard on the corner of Vivian and Willis Street, Wellington, is about 3.5m off the ground.
Trade Me as a discipline tool: A father from Lawrence in South Otago is selling off his son’s things online. Explanation?
“ …argumentative 14 year old boy is losing his gear item by item until he does as he is told and keeps his fists to himself.” Dad continues: “next to be listed if he doesn’t find the manners he was raised with is a $450 lap top computer with a $1 reserve and a bunch of Star Wars Lego which frankly can have a .50 cent buy now if need be.”
Exercise a commodity: Fitness Fun’s My Treadmill and Glide-a-Stride — both pieces of fitness equipment are aimed at kids as young as three, and promise fun “just like Mom and Dad!”
New Zealand property investors looking for something more secure than the nearly-on-its-knees housing market might be interested in putting their cash into the Time Travel Fund.
The idea is that one day, it may be possible for people living in the future to retrieve you from their past and your present, and bring you into the future, their present — your future. Stay with me now…
You pay $10 to the fund, and reap the financial rewards of the interest accumulated in few hundred years. That money will be used to retrieve you, “perhaps seconds after you join or moments before your recorded death, and will pay to have you “rejuvenated” medically (assuming this is scientifically possible at that time) and support you financially for a number of years”.
The ‘fund managers’ point out that you can’t be retrieved if you die by suicide. “Sorry, but we don’t want your family blaming us for you killing yourself because you think you will get to the future sooner.” Or if you die by execution, or are killed in the process of, or the result of, committing a crime. “You are responsible for your actions, and the fund is not an excuse for you to take your frustrations out on society.” The good news is, you can contribute to the fund on behalf of a deceased loved one. “The other person must be a close family member. Sorry, but we don’t want you bringing Adolf Hitler or someone else evil like him back.”
Good art: The America Gift Shop is an installation by Philip Toledano using the vernacular of retail to make political comment. Gifts includes an inflatable Guantanamo Bay bouncy prison cell, the sought after Abu Ghraib coffee table and the Cheney shredding secret documents Snow Globe. View here.
Video: There is no need to concern yourself with the world’s crumbling financial markets, or the devastation Climate Change will bring, or who to vote for in the upcoming election…Not if this enormous asteroid destroys the planet first. Watch this doomsday digital rendition of the damage a 500km chunk of gaseous molten rock could do if it landed in the Pacific Ocean.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Oh dear, that asteroid looks just terrible. Hopefully there won’t be too much disruption here in Herne Bay.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
well not the most comforting thought watching that asteroid video but it is a great rendition. the music totally makes it.
September 24th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Quite likely too, sooner or later…………
Anyone notice we seem to have an oval planet though?
September 24th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I’ll be Ok. I live at the top of a hill.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’d probably bring the washing in, just in case.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I blame global warming
September 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
uhm…not as bad as the CERN practicl collider thingy I have to say. Wacth the video on YouTube…it sux the whole world in…very freaky.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
sorry about the grammar in the abvoe comment.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Why is the asteroid depicted as magma filled, if not volcanic? It’s cold in space!! Besides. everyone know the Americans will just send up so old fullahs to nuke it. They practised in that movie, remember…
September 25th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Love the grammar in the last statement on the video: “…has happened at leasts 6 times”… Glad they’re much better at making videos than they are at writing…!
September 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
*runs to corner and rocks self*
September 25th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Given that the earth is 12,000 km wide, a 500km asteroid would be the size equivalent of a marble hitting a basketball. Sure there’d be a tidal wave and fallout etc but the massive explosion impact shown in the video at 1min58 with Australia to the south shows both the country totally out of proportion to the globe and looks to me to be waaaay over-stated. Sure, it’d be an absolute disaster but the simulation seems pretty over-sensationalised ….
September 25th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Looney-Toons yes it is cold in space; which is where the Earth (another magma-filled rock) also lives. Hmmm. But you’re right about the Americans with nukes, they always save the day.
Pctek the earth is oval. Its rotation causes it to bulge out around the equator – but I notice on second glance the video shows it longer around the poles. Weird.
September 25th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Then again this is obviously file footage from the last time this happened so who are we to question its veracity?
September 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Still, you’d want to make sure the cat was indoors. It’s the pets I feel sorry for, it’s not fair on them you know.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
What are the implications for Kiwisaver?
September 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Gee, I hope this doesn’t happen next Tuesday. I have a really important meeting that day and I so don’t need this going off in the middle of it.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:35 am
The earth is oval in this because it’s shown at a different aspect ratio than originally intended (read ‘widescreen’). Great music.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jeff – if you are right, then a tiny wee bullet shouldn’t hurt you, right? The damage is done by the vast kinetic energy, not (primarily) its mass.