Old Folk rock!
The other day my wife and I were the guest speakers at our church’s ‘Senior Saints’ group.
We sang vintage chorus’s with great gusto (helped along by a piano accordion) had yarns and laughs and listened to amazing stories (like hiding-from-Nazis-in-wartime-Holland).
We were sad to leave, but eventually had to (laden with gifts and cake).
Very good times indeed.
As a kid I never spent much time with Old Folk — and to be honest, I was a bit scared of them. Call me a slow learner but nowadays I’ve realised a priceless truth:
Old Folk are just like us ‘young folk’… only older.
Yep… I must declare that Old Folk Rock! (Especially the happy ones that love the Lord and laugh at my jokes.)
Unicycling is the answer
Yesiree. I’ve always been keen on learning to ride a unicycle and as the old adage goes “You’re never too old to learn.”
I was reading the instructions that came with my newly-acquired, made in China, “half-bike”, and they assure me that all my wildest dreams will come true – all thanks to my humble unicycle.
From the Instructions (spelling and grammar as printed):
“Unicycling holds great attraction towards today’s youths who seek new and strange pleasure. It is beneficial to build up one’s body, to develop ones’ intellectual power, to enhance ones sense of appreciating beauty and to entertain oneself.
Unicycling can enrich one’s spare-time and cultural life. It effectively promotes the growth of cerbellun and therefore improves one’s intellectual power.
“Unicycling can create an effect of psycho-logical pleasure, strongly stimulate the regular movement of nerves, and so mould one’s temperament and strengthen one’s body and one’s mind”
So there you go. If you feel drawn to ‘strange pleasure”, want to increase your intelligence and your physique at the same time, appreciate beauty along with culture while entertaining yourself, I have good news for you…
Unicycling is the answer.
NZ’s most expensive cupcake
World’s most expensive edible cupcake: “Decadence D’Or”
Made by by Sweet Surrender, The Palazzo, Las Vegas. Cost: $750 (USD) See picture.
New Zealand’s most expensive edible cupcake: “Honey Popcorn Surprise”
Made by by my son. Cost: $160 (The cost of the dentist bill to repair my molar which split due to an unpopped corn kernel hidden in cupcake.)
Some surprise.
Introducing Grover the parrot
Following on from the last post…
The next day I visited a few pet shops (actually all of them in town) in search of the perfect budgie. To my surprise the humble budgie is almost worth its weight in gold, a whopping $40.
A Facebook friend told me that her dad bred parrots, so on a whim I phoned him up and he very kindly offered me a young, hand-reared, blue-coloured ‘Indian Ringneck’ parrot at a bargain price. Being the animal lover I am (some would say bordering on obsessive/compulsive), I couldn’t possibly refuse.
After a couple of hours of speed-researching, and some masterly sweet talking to the wife, I had a new pet to pick up. Problem was, that a parrot can’t really fit in a budgie cage (not humanely anyway) – so a whirlwind trip to Kerikeri’s ‘Parrot Place’ was in order to purchase an early Birthday present in the form of a cage.
So, who would have thought that the kind offer to euthanaise a sick canary would eventuate in owning my very own parrot? (which, by the way has always been a secret dream of mine.)
Grover has been with us one week today. He/she (I won’t know for a couple of years) has gone from biting hard to stepping up on my finger and preening my eyelashes in just one week.
Masterly sweet-talking does it again 
.
Dr Death gets a birdcage
Today, my dear Grandmother-in-law asked me if I would be kind enough to euthanase their aged canary (apparently I have gained a reputation for such things). I did the deed and was given a now empty birdcage as a thank-you gift.
(And have also earned the nickname Dr. Death, thanks to my darling wife.)
So, for the first time in my life, I’m thinking seriously about buying a bird. A talking bird. A cheap talking bird.
Which leaves only one option to choose from… the humble budgie. I was kinda keen on a Lyre bird (view amazing vid clip below), but unfortunately none are listed on Trademe at the moment.
Looks like the Drake animal farm is going to have another member very soon
I am a singing at the party…
The latest movie to grace my best-movies-of-all-time list is a film that exudes intelligence, high drama, phenomenal acting and a deeply spiritual message…
Nacho Libre.
Some movies have the magical ability to get better with each viewing and Nacho Libre is definitely one of these. Especially when the whole family watches it multiple times. Then a well-placed Nacho quote, impression, song, or pose brings the house down and leaves happy memories forever after… like singing the Encarnación song around the dinner table as a family (after sucking spaghetti up our noses) – Classic.
Below are some of my favourite Nacho Libre quotes…
Nacho: Chancho. When you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It’s for fun.
Sister Encarnación: Well, my favorite color is light tan. My favourite animal is puppies. I like serving the lord. Hiking, play volleyball…
Nacho: You gotta be kidding me. Everything you just said, is MY favourite thing to do, every day!
Nacho: I’m a little concerned right now. About… your salvation and stuff.
Nacho: I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies, and the clothes, and the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good! Really good! I get to wake up every morning, at 5am, and make some soup! It’s the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed, all by myself, all of my life! That’s fantastic!
Sister Encarnación: Where are your robes, Ignacio?
Nacho: They were… stinky. These are my recreational clothes.
Sister Encarnación: They look expensive.
Nacho: Thank you. I mean… they might have the appearance of riches, but beneath the clothes, we find a man… and beneath the man we find… his… nucleus.Sister Encarnación: Ignacio, I have been looking all over for you, where have you been?
Nacho: I have been here. I have been sleeping.
Sister Encarnación: In a frilly shirt and slacks?
Nacho: They are my PJ’s.
I know, I know… just reading the quotes just don’t do them justice. So why don’t you treat yourself to an evening of happy shenanigans and rent the DVD. It’s good, clean, very very funny and…
“It’s the best.”
Grifters, BMXs and Sweet Jumps
The summer of 1983. BMX mania had swept the world. Hence, all I had dreamed of all year for Christmas was a BMX. Imagine my excitement (or lack of) when I got a Grifter.
Grifter: Children’s bicycle manufactured and marketed from 1976 and until early 1983 by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England.
Grifter Pros:
- The gear shift (which was incorporated in to the handle grips and was controlled with a twisting motion).
- Looked like a BMX.
Grifter Cons:
- Chunky, heavy and cumbersome (felt more like a motorbike than a bicycle).
- Not a BMX.
Don’t get me wrong – Grifters were cool … until BMXs were invented, then they became insult magnets for BMX riders.
One thing categorized the Standard-4 boys of Owairaka Primary… those who rode BMXs and those who rode Grifters who were constantly picked on by those who had BMXs… all 3 of us. The Grifter Gang years began.
I grew to love my Grifter and spent most of my school holidays and after school riding it all over west Auckland with the other two members of the GG. Needless to say we pulled many a sweet jump on the things. (which nowadays i might add, are highly collectible to retro buffs).
The Summer of 2009.
My eldest son received a bona-fide BMX for Christmas from his very over-generous grandparents. I don’t know who was more excited, him or me.
Yesterday I introduced him to the art of backyard sweet jump pulling. Life is good.
Blogs and Bollywood
How did I see the New Year in? I was up to 1:30am wrangling my new blog platform (goodbye Blogger, hello WordPress), oh and watching Bride and Prejudice at the same time… I cannot honestly say which was more painstaking to watch – countless ‘error notifications or Martin Henderson being all romantic-like in a sherwani. Bollywood aside, I’ve finally made the jump to WordPress – and only now (after many hours of frustration) am I glad I did. As they say perseverance pays off in the end. Please forgive the layout over the next few days as I will be endeavoring (in between pulling off some sweet jumps on my son’s new BMX, playing Candyland and swimming in my daughter’s paddling pool) to tweak it into pure blogging awesomeness. Happy new year!
