We're moving house and I very nearly switched to Meridian. Their EV plan rates are terrible compared to Genesis though. Dodged a bullet there.

Text “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. "They're not the same at all!" YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—" MY POINT EXACTLY.” ― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

If you buy refrigerated items from Wonky Box, they're sent in a large-ish wool liner. I've been using them as weed matting on my garden

View of Akaroa harbour. Moody clouds with blue sky peeking through, reflected in the water. Boats moored in the distance.

View of Akaroa harbour. Grass and a pohutukawa tree in the foreground. Water with boats moored in the distance, and hills in the background. Cloudy sky. The end of a jetty is visible to the right.

View of Akaroa harbour from the main jetty. Sunny blue sky with sparse cloud, and blue water beneath. Moored boats and a smaller jetty stretching out into the water, with the main part of town visible in the distance.

View from a boat of Nikau Bay near Akaroa. A small valley of Nikau palms with cliffs in front and tall hills behind. The sea water looks especially green.

Home again after a holiday in Akaroa. Still one of my favourite places in the world.

Feijoas are the mangoes of NZ

Sea lions are big proponents of FAFO

Headline could have been "Hundreds of dickheads ignore new, safer speed limit" but RNZ made their choice

Yep. If you can't afford Bluff salmon, do not be fooled into thinking that Tassie salmon is a viable alternative

Sadly I met a lot of old-school "traditional family" christian men when I lived in Palmy, who would have found this hilarious

No, a resident was telling me just this weekend that they have to get to Oamaru via Maheno

Yeah I've had local business people make offhand comments like "the Maoris really do have it too easy" and "they're all criminals anyway" while trying to get me to spend money with them?! Makes me want to headdesk and move back to the city

"Shut up! We did not lose Vietnam! It was a tie!"

I can't help but think that if, in 1945, you told people that the US and Israel would be the aggressors of WW3 you would have been laughed out of the room

Aww I love that for them

Absolutely. They "o" everything. Rego, servo, bottlo, houso, arvo, avo

Between this and her chick hatching this afternoon, Rakiura is must-see TV 😄

Years ago a friend of mine worked for ECan. She said their operating model was that if they didn't have an overwhelming reason to say no to an application, they had to approve it. That's how we got dairy farms in the Mackenzie Country. I think about that a lot 😞

I've seen the dwellings in Glenavy fishing village referred to as cribs and baches in equal measure, so the border is definitely somewhere around Oamaru/Timaru

R.I.P. the Hutt Valley train tracks

gradient.horse Draw a horse, watch it run!

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse

Who needs an algorithm when you have MEEP

You just want to smack his head with a giant teaspoon to see if his brain is the consistency of a dippy egg.

I'm ok with them getting rid of the full licence test if they introduce retesting every 10 years or so. Iron out the bad habits people pick up

I love this. My grandmother was a notorious airline cutlery thief. I didn't know anyone else did this 😂

Kākāpō Cam: Rakiura the kākāpō – 2026 nest YouTube video by Department of Conservation

If you're not watching Kākāpō Cam, then you should be! Rakiura the kākāpō is nesting on the island of Whenua Hou and she might lay her 4th egg this afternoon!
youtube.com/live/BfGL7A2...

Of course they're keeping the inferior one at the posh end of town and shutting the one where people are poorer, more elderly, less mobile and less likely to own a car. That tracks.

Halfway through Shadowlands by Matthew Green

They lived and they died
They prayed to their gods
But the stone gods did not make a sound
And their empire crumbled, 'til all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found

www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

Alright, New Zealand "summer". I'm lighting the fire. You win. Are you happy now?

Help us make hope normal again.

Join the Green Party now.

Screenshot of a facebook post by a cousin of the affected family which includes a link to the givealittle page https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BnsWWhV8J/

Found the link and more info on fb