Kris & Simon Down Under

Sat 19th July 2008, 12.30pm

I've finally been able to scrape the money together to arrange flights back to New Zealand - Wednesday 24th September is NZ Day!   We're going with Emirates this time, with stopovers in Dubai (3 nights) and Melbourne (5 nights) which will get us into Wellington for 5th October.

The other great news is that friends of ours have had a Claims Direct windfall and will be joining us over there in the New Year, which will be lovely.

The only downside is that my incompetent Kiwi accountant has landed me with over $3,000 worth of penalties and interest for late payment of taxes - and had the cheek to include a $500 invoice with the return!    If I can't get the penalties overturned or passed on to him I'm going to sue his arse for malpractice when I get over there, and I've made sure I'm caught up with outstanding tax to avoid more penalties. 

I'll put that out of my mind for now, the Sun is out and we have a party to host for Wor Lass' birthday which has a Kiwi - all the blokes in loud shirts and boardies, all the women with windswept hair - and I'll be slaving over a barbie for the afternoon passing out the E-coli burgers and Macs Gold.    Sweeeet As, Bro!

Sat 19th July 2008, 12.30pm

A short clip that just had Wor Lass honking like a seal.  Childish but funny, and wouldn't dare try this on her ...

Thu 17th July 08, 8am

The good news for Fernando Alonso is that his team have managed to secure sponsorship from T-Mobile and TWA Airlines.   The bad news is the team's graphic designer doesn't seem to like him very much ...

Alonso

With thanks to Paul Keaveney and his funky hair for the tipoff.

Mon 14th July 08, 10pm

Following on from that strange, wrinkly BMW concept car video I posted, here's another video from those teutonic boffins.  Quite hypnotic footage of a moving sculpture made up of lots of tiny metal balls.  

While they're producing interesting stuff like this you can almost - ALMOST - forgive them the fact that 99% of BMW drivers are complete c*cks.

Sun 13th July 08, 9pm

Finally the scales are my friend again - another 2 pounds lost this week, taking me up to a half stone of blubber gone in this 6 week period. 

The Good:   Two decent workouts, a decent amount of veg most days, every other day off from the vino.

The Bad:   Bread intake is creeping up again; giving the running a swerve because it was raining and I was feeling bleurgh that day (no other way to describe it);  having a big ole slab of beef & some cheesecake (cheese? cake?) last night on a lovely night out with friends*.

I hope you don't think I'm cheating but I got weighed before going out Saturday night (just as well since I put on 2lbs in one meal).

Week6

The sharp eyed amongst you may have spotted that I've moved the goalposts a little and upped the target weight from 200lbs to 210lbs.  Now that is blatant cheating, but I wanted to keep motivated to reach the target so I've decided to be a little more realistic.  I may even add a few extra weeks at some point, as long as the line keeps sloping down I ain't bovvered!

Have a healthy week, everyone!

*  I would point out that during the meal one of our friends managed to wolf down TWO 14oz steaks with cheese and bacon on top, plus chips and onion rings, THEN polished off a portion and a half of cheesecake without getting a sweat on or belching once.  AND the b*stard's only 3 stone heavier and looks thinner than me!  You know who you are, if you're reading this ... are you related to Nibbler from Futurama  ;-)  

Sun 13th July 08, 5pm

After 3 weeks of waiting the rain has finally stopped, so this morning me, Wor Lass and The Mad Welshman set off at 6.30am for the nearest car boot sale, passing groups of Saturday night casualties staggering home, stilettos in hand.

We reached the venue -- basically a farmyard beside the motorway -- at 7.20am and it was already in full swing.  We were allocated one of the last available pitches.   Up went the wobbly trestle table; out came my collection of '80s rock tapes, outdated computer books and VHS videos;  stickers were written - 50p for a tape, 3 for £1.  Prepared with our tuppaware box of small change, carrier bag of carrier bags and enthusiasm we waited for the rush.   And waited.  And waited.

Wor Lass tried to drum up trade with a cunning combination of friendly banter and cleavage.  We kept moving items that people were picking up into more prominent positions, but still we struggled to fill the tin.   People walked past with coffee tables under their arms, grubby dolls houses sticking out of Tesco carrier bags, even a young chav with a fat exhaust pipe over his shoulder.  (I checked under my car, thankfully it wasn't mine).   But very few people seemed desperate to go home with a cassette by a poodle-haired rock band from 1993 or a book of Windows NT registry hacks.

Five hours later, tired and pink from the burning sun we packed up and drove off, the car only slightly lighter than when we arrived.   Here are the final figures :-

Gross Takings:     £21.00
- Cost of Pitch:     £12.00
- Petrol Cost:        £ 8.00
= Net Profit:          £ 1.00

Wor Lass had spent £6 on plants while we were there, and I had forked out £5 on coffee and bacon sarnies, so in real terms we lost money on the day.   Fail!

Strangely though we really enjoyed the experience and can't wait to do it again.  We learnt a few lessons from watching other, more successful stalls:  carry more variety of stock to attract more punters (we'll take men and women's clothes and ornaments); get there earlier to catch the dawn shoppers (we took most of our money before 10am), and show more cleavage (mine or Wor Lass I'm not sure);  take a flask and sarnies to cut down on expenses;  don't go buying stuff when you go stretch your legs.  

If things go better next time we may even break even.

Sat 12th July 08, 4.45pm

This is why you should never play golf with the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Sat 12th July 08, 1.45pm

Having problems with sweaty plums?  Chafing in the love spuds?  Discomfort in the hairy hangers?  (You get the point, I could keep this up all day).  Then you need Balla Powder.  Spotted on Boingboing.

Betty_swallocks

Tues 8th July 08, 8am

One of New Zealand's TV channels is in trouble for accidentally playing four minutes of hardcore porn instead of a local rugby programme - story here.

Knowing the kiwi obsession with rugby most of the complaints would have been about missing some of the match, rather than the offensive content!

Definitely_not_porn

Sun 6th July 08, 8.30pm

Nuts.  Another week of eating more veg than bread, cutting back on the vino and hitting the gym, and still no pounds shed.  There's definitely less wobble in the old belly area, so it must be a case of swapping muscle for fat. 

My mate Kev -- aka The Mad Welshman -- reckons I've just got to be patient, and that at some point it's going to just drop off me.  He's taking me out for a run on Monday, which I'm sure is going to be painful. The man can down a bottle of vodka then get up and run a half marathon the next morning.  Must be something strange in Welsh DNA.  I'd better show some decent progress next week or I'm not going to get anywhere near the target before I head back to NZ without liposuction or amputation, which might be a tad drastic.

If anyone has any safe ways to boost the weight loss programme quickly please email me.  Cheers!

Week5