Ok here’s a newsflash for you. Babies cry lots. And not even during sociable hours. In fact, the chance of crying is directly proportional to the chance that you’re watching ‘The Game’ or talking to ‘The Boys’ or you have ‘A Headache’.

I’m told by those who know more about babies than me (note that this includes pretty much everyone) that one reason that makes babies cry is baby teething. For some reason, babies aren’t born with teeth. Very impractical, I know. Someone needs to talk to the designers.

Apparently, turning the stereo up is not a great solution to this and definitely not recommended by the team here at NZ:RAW (ok yeah there’s only one of us but sometimes the power of one is more effective in the battle for – ok I’m rambling). Nor is it recommended by child support services and I’ve heard that first hand so in some small way that makes me better than you when it comes to supremacy in parenting.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Baltic amber teething necklaces. Not sure if you knew that yet but yeah that’s the solution. This lady I know hand-crafted some kick-ass amber teething necklaces using nothing but amber, teethes and a woman who happens to be a mother AND a mid-wife so it’s possibly fair to say that she knows more than me, maybe, about not only educating a baby but actually extracting that baby from … a woman’s … place … in the first place.

Not only that but she sourced the top-grade-best-teething-pain-reducing-amber all the way from Lithuania, by crikey! Apparently it doesn’t even work by voodoo magic or anything. You can read how amber teething necklaces work by clicking on that link back there, no, no, you’ve gone past it.

Personally when I hear someone talk to me about amber I instantly think of:

a) traffic lights

b) dinosaur DNA

But no. They also happen to be a damn fine solution to baby teething pain! Who would have thought it? Not me. Although, not knowing anything about babies other than the fact that they make loud noises and attract women better than an Italian ballroom dancer doesn’t exactly qualify me as a baby expert per-say.

So there ya go. You have a problem with screaming babies. I have provided the solution. If that doesn’t qualify me for Dr. Phil status I don’t know what will.

Wait, don’t leave! It actually looks like it could be an interesting movie with a gripping story full of back-stabbing and … more back-stabbing.

From the trailer, with its soundtrack of “Creep” by Radiohead, it looks like Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg), the ‘founder’ and CEO of Facebook, is portrayed as a student who ends up out of his depth when a smooth-talking Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) – head of Napster – encourages him to pursue an idea that may never have been his to pursue.

The movie comes out in earl October in the US so probably not too much later here in New Zealand.

The official website is here and of course there’s a prominent button to recommend the movie on Facebook. I wonder what Zuckerberg thinks about that?

I’d say on average at least one a week.

Mostly they tell me that my penis is too small but today I received two emails from one person.

It didn’t take too long to realise that the woman that sent them had set an email ‘signature’ that was actually just a line of text, her name, and her address.

Basically her email signature was something very similar to this:

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

An Accountant.
A big accountancy firm.
Accountantsville.

The first email I received from Jane was along the lines of…

Great post on the Auckland Council. You really are attractive. I’m interested in starting a blog.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

So I’m like. Ok. That’s cool. She wants me to contact her to tell her about blogs. I replied to say thanks and told her a bit about WordPress and then received:

Thanks Mark.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

Which is when I realised that her email signature included the above line of text and so, in turn, is quite lame.

Why is it lame? Surely it’s nice to offer to explain things in more detail. To open an opportunity for conversation. Not really. Here are some examples where this line of text doesn’t work:

Email Signature Fail Example 1.

Dear Simon,

I notice that you’ve been taking my lunch. Please don’t do this as my lunch items are clearly labelled with my name.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

Nothing here needs explaining. If everyone took you up on your invite, you’d be forever answering queries.

Email Signature Fail Example 2.

Dear Natalie,

I know you’ve been seeing my husband.

I never want to hear from you again.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

Email Signature Fail Example 3.

Dear Paul,

You’re a dick.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

Email Signature Fail Example 4.

Frank.

I hate you. If my dog had a face like yours, I would shave its butt and teach it to walk backwards. You clearly fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

You **** eating **** **** eunuch **** horse **** **** jack ***.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Jane Smith

The moral of the story; don’t add extra lines of text in your email signature to make it look like you’ve added them to your email body. As you can see, you might find yourself in an awkward situation whereby your friendly throw-away line completely destroys the message of your email.

Please contact me if you have any queries.

Kind Regards,

Mark

Luckily for him, he’d got some travel insurance sorted before he left so he was covered for his massive hospital fees plus extensive changes to his transportation plans. Any NZ travel insurance company worth its salt can be found in the NZS.com directory so check them out if you’re about to head away on holiday.

I got thinking about this Nepal incident again because recently I was playing with the House of Travel’s insurance selector-ma-tron. This is the coolest insurance selector thing I’ve found.

I hate it when you get your car insurance and they ask you a heap of questions and then give you a final price. You’re like “Ok so hang on, how much did I save when I told you I keep the car parked on a driveway? And now how much if I keep it in a locked garage?” The insurance guys get all nervous when you ask questions like that because they don’t want you to know they added an extra $20 to your premium just because you said you had a red car.

So that’s why this selector thingy kicks arse. You can play with the settings as much as you like and see the direct result on the price you have to pay. I didn’t even realise how cheap travel insurance can be. Very soon, I’m heading off to North West Island off the coast of Australia. Any New Zealander knows that in Australia, if it moves, it’ll kill you. So I reckon travel insurance is gonna be a bloody good idea!

Not so much for around New Zealand. Our Kiwi aren’t really going to do you too much damage. Unless you step on one. And then a guy from DOC will turn up with a shovel and flatten you. Not sure if insurance would cover you for that anyway come to think of it …

So what was the point of this blog post again? Oh yeah:

1. Get travel insurance before you travel because it’s cheap and if you buy it after you’ve already travelled then you’re daft.
2. I’m going away to a tropical island and you’re not.
3. The photo in this post is by this bloke. Not actually a point but I can’t be bothered turning off the numbering system.

Yup that’s right. To hell with search engine optimisation. No links allowed! Maybe Google themselves even received an email that said “Hey, if we find our site in your results, heads will roll!”.

NBR pointed this out earlier today with an article about Auckland Council’s new website.

Ironically, NBR linked to the page that says that links are not allowed without explicit link permission from the people that give you permission to link.

Very shortly after this was mentioned on Twitter and picked up by influential tweeters such as myself (cough), the entire website collapsed.

Did the powers-that-be take the site down? Or perhaps there was a REASON no one was allowed to link to the site? Maybe linking to the site caused the server to melt-down? Are there desperate website technicians somewhere that are drowning in the emotional ocean that is the loss of their new website, sorry, Website? Is it all NBR’s fault?

Not too long after that, the website was reinstated but, alas, without the humourous “linking’s a no-no” condition. What a shame. Expecting this, the geniuses at NBR plus the genius at NZRAW (that’ll be me then) took snapshots of the message before it was removed. NBR added it to their post and you can see it here too:

Funny that other websites all suck so much that they need to be spelt with a lower-case wuh yet the Auckland Council Website is epic enough to be spelt with a capital wuh. Could this interesting style of proof-reading also explain why they have a news article on their homepage which announces the launch of the new website today, Thursday 1st July. Despite it being Wednesday, the 30th June?

So yes, while short-lived, this special condition brought joy and mirth to the hearts of many in the wuh wuh wuh. Thanks Auckland Council. To show our appreciation, here’s a free link.

Link.

Update: One of the Google ads that may come up on the right there is for the Yellow Pages councils category that features links to the city councils.

No, Yellow Pages! No linking! Bad Yellow Pages.

Mark Inglis has a firm place in New Zealand’s mountaineering heritage having been the first double amputee to stand on the summit of Everest.  Since then, Mark and Anne Inglis created Limbs4All – a sustainable New Zealand based Charitable Trust committed to helping some of the 400 million disabled people in the world to express potential.

Inglis contacted me to invite me on a trekking expedition that he is hosting in Nepal. Arranged by World Expeditions, this trip takes you to the Gokyo Lakes region at the head of the Dudh Kosi Valley. The trek takes you higher than Everest base camp to Gokyo Ri and to see what Inglis tells me is the real Nepal.

The beauty of having Inglis there with you is that you see the area, and views of Everest, from his own perspective. Inglis can take you around the mountaineering haunts of Kathmandu and introduce you to his Sherpa friends.

Trip Highlights

The highlight of the trek is an ascent of Gokyo Ri. From the summit you’ll see impressive views of Everest as well as the 8,000m peaks of Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu. To put this in perspective,  Mount Cook – New Zealand’s highest peak and the place where Mark lost his legs in 1982 – stands at 3,754 metres. The highest peak in Brtiain is Ben Nevis at a comparatively minuscule 1,344 metres.

Personally, the highlight for me would be walking alongside Mark Inglis himself and discussing the stories and personalities that I’ve read so much about and knocking pint glasses with a guy who features in a large number of the more recent books himself.

Alas, I’m unable to head of on this remarkable adventure this year but Mark has allowed me to put the offer out there to others. Looking over the trip information, this really is an incredible trip at fantastic value – less than the price of a 20 year old Hilux (yes, I compare all prices to my truck to help me put them in perspective) . Plus $500 goes towards Mark’s charity, Limbs4All.

For a full guide to the trip itself, head to the Gokyo Lakes page on the World Expeditions website and download the trip notes. If you have any questions or want to get in touch with Mark about the trip, feel free to post a comment here or contact World Expeditions through their site.

If you end up going, take some photos for me and give me a run down of your experiences and I’ll post them on this blog.

The incredible pictures of Mount Everest on this page are by my Christchurch photographer friend, Heather Ellis.

But last weekend’s World Cup football match for New Zealand just takes the piss! New Zealand is rightfully basking in the glory of what, at first glance, might otherwise appear to be a mediocre game.

The All White’s 1-all draw against Slovakia might not look like much on the surface but has actually been described as the greatest result in New Zealand’s footballing history.

Stuff.co.nz posted a fantastic photo of the goal, which shows the awesome look of triumph on goal scorer, Winston Reid’s, face.

In the mean time, Australia went on to lose 4-0 to Germany. Which brings me nicely to more Australia-trying-to-hog-the-glory..-ness.  In a game that the world clearly knew as New Zealand versus Slovakia, tell me what’s wrong with this Sydney Morning Herald headline:

Yup. Australasia 1 – Slovakia 1. Australasia? OK, New Zealand is part of Australasia but if it was England versus Slovakia you wouldn’t exactly say Europe 1 – Slovaka 1 would you? Unless you were from a country called Europia and you wanted to claim back some of the glory for yourself!

There’ll probably even be a lot of internationals (Americans) that will glance at that page and have no idea they’re talking about New Zealand. I mean let’s face it, they could be talking about Christmas Island versus Slovakia with a title like that.

The Sydney Morning Herald reporter that wrote it, John Huxley, opens the article with a scoff at the All White’s manliness and a reference to them being the least watchable team of the 32 nations and then goes on to slate the match.

At least the poll at the end of the article shows that 74% of the article’s readers think that the All Whites are “capable of emulating the Socceroos of 2006″. In your face, Huxley!

Let’s hope that New Zealand’s shining voice to the world, The Flight of the Conchords, will create a good novelty song about this one day.

Update: The Guardian newspaper in England gave New Zealand the respect they deserved:

“The World Cup may not have seen a great game yet, but the tournament has been startled … Nobody supposed this would be the fixture to set the World Cup alight at last. It might as well have been clad in asbestos for most of the time. New Zealand are absolved of blame. Their intent to attack was apparent in the use of three forwards and there is no shame in Herbert’s team making few chances.”

As evil as it is, porn is massive all over the world.

It’s big business. Porn is Russia’s largest export after vodka (Note: I made that up).

People search for porn in Google more than they search for cookie recipes. I know. I too was shocked. Porn entrepreneurs (I may have made that up) know that to be successful, they need to be ranked in Google.

Not too long ago, the Google chaps sat down for a cup of tea, or “coffee” as they pronounce it in Americaland, and said “Let’s change stuff”. One major change was that they removed the Pages from New Zealand checkbox from the www.google.co.nz homepage. I’d post an image to show you but hey, it’s not there any more. You’re keeping up right?

So anyway. To get pages from New Zealand you now have to submit a search, get some results and THEN click “pages from New Zealand” to narrow your search. This isn’t tooooo bad as you still get some NZ-specific results without checking the option. Google knows that you’re in New Zealand when you make your first search. Heck, Google knows what you’re having for dinner tonight even if you don’t.

You can narrow your search down even further by only clicking for “images” or “news” etc. That’s where Google seems to have screwed New Zealand’s hard working porn businesses.

Do a search for “porn” in Google. Results are as you’d imagine. Lots of porn. All over the place. One website’s description even says “Porn and free porn videos updated daily. We have porn movies of 100% porn.” Ok mate. We get it. You have porn.

Here’s where it gets interesting – click on “pages from New Zealand”. What do you get? You get this. Unless Google have changed things again, what you’ll see is a heap of listings for NEWS websites. Stuff, NZ Herald, Infonews, Scoop and 3News dominate the results with news stories about porn. It’s like the “Only show me news websites” button is stuck down. Where’d all the Kiwi porn go?

Yup. The actual porn is only on the right in the sponsored links section. And only two sponsored links?? Surely some other porn places need to switch on to this and start advertising there. Maybe that’s what Google intended? Now companies will have to pay for adwords rather than feature in the organic results?

Seems a bit unfair to New Zealand businesses when you happily get a heap of international porn sites without “pages from New Zealand checked.

What ever happened to Google’s slogan; “Don’t Be Evil”?

Note: Boob photo from mylor on Flickr.

A Message from John Cleese:

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up aluminium, and nuclear, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing them.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise’. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’ ).

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent.

Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). In the meantime don’t try rugby – the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God save the Queen!

Following a two year absence, New Zealand’s leading retail excellence awards, TOP SHOP®, kicks off in Christchurch on Monday 3 May with the organizer, the New Zealand Retailers Association, calling for entries from all Christchurch shops.

The launch of the retail sector’s showpiece comes as Canterbury retailers are slowly recovering from a downward trend in retail sales due to the economic situation.

Brian Finlayson, the Association’s South Island Regional Manager says

“The TOP SHOP® Retail Excellence Awards are a great opportunity for retailers to highlight their professionalism in retailing. The TOP SHOP® Awards are open to all shop owners proud of their customer service, store ambience and how they run their business.”

The Awards are now in the 22nd year and have a well established track record of assisting retailers to improve their customer service still further.”

Greg Shepherd, Managing Director of Simply Furniture, Tower Junction, winner of the Giftware and Homeware Category and winner of the 2008 Overall TOP SHOP® Christchurch says, “Winning TOP SHOP® was extremely satisfying, not only did we enjoy an almost immediate increase in customers from the publication of the finalists and even more after the winners announcement, it gave the staff a sense of pride and achievement.”

“All staff are taking the challenge to defend the title very seriously. I don’t think you can put a figure on how much business has been attracted, but it has definitely given our brand awareness a huge lift.”

A key test during the competition for all 2010 TOP SHOP® entrants is the mystery shopper exercise, during which staff from a specialist mystery shopping company make unannounced visits to entrants’ shops to provide judges with information on criteria such as service and presentation.

Other criteria include doing the basics well, innovation and having that ‘something special’ that keeps customers coming back for more.

TOP SHOP® is open to all retailers within the TOP SHOP® region. Entries for the Christchurch regional awards close on Friday 25 June. The winners will be announced at a black-tie awards dinner on Wednesday 29 September, 2010.

The awards also run in the Waikato, Wellington and Auckland regions.

Shops can enter in categories such as large format, which this year includes supermarkets, lifestyle and wellbeing and, new this year, sustainable retailing. The overall regional winner is selected from seven of the categories announced at the awards dinner.

If you think you have a shot at being the next top shop, enter online here.