The forensics man said it will take about a week and a half to get the DNA results back, which I thought was astonishingly fast. He said that New Zealand has one of the best turnarounds for this kind of thing in the world, and he seemed quietly proud of that, as indeed he deserves to be ( Read more... )

Last night, while we were asleep, someone broke into my garage and stole my car. I reported it to the police and about 9.00am I got a phone call from them -- they'd found it about half a mile away and could I come down and check it out ( Read more... )

Well, I have a new toy. Whitcoulls are selling what I suspect is probably the first dedicated EBook reader to arrive in New Zealand (there are rumours that Borders were selling some piece of junk, but I never saw any sign of it).

Overall I am quite pleased with the Kobo (if you are wondering about the name, it's an anagram of the word "book"), but ( Read more... )

OK -- this is rather geeky. Please feel free to ignore it ( Read more... )

Kage Baker, one of my favourite authors of recent years, died this month. William Tenn, one of my favorite authors of my younger years, died this month.

It hasn't been a good month.

I've attached my old Asus Eee 701 PC to my stereo system and television and I'm using it as a media control centre. The computer acts as a console that allows me to play my mp3 files through the stereo system and my video files through the TV (the TV itself is also hooked up to the stereo system). The mp3 and video files are all stored on an ( Read more... )

Harpo The Bastard Cat, looking ever so cute, sat on the floor and stared at me appealingly ( Read more... )

Some friends of mine are currently embroiled in a debate about whether or not a particular work belongs to the SF/Fantasy genre. Indeed, some of them are trying to define just how much of it is SF or Fantasy -- 50%, 60% or only 30 ( Read more... )

There's a bar I drink at which has a "guest beer" every month. Anyone ordering the guest beer has to fill in a form which goes into a draw. If you win the draw, your prize is that you get to choose the next guest beer ( Read more... )

Bugger!