Bathtime meltdown
We had a bit of a meltdown in the bath. His majesty didn't get his sleep this afternoon (except for a short one in the car), so our bubble blowing was greeted with screams and quivering bottom lips. Before that he was all good...
The Challis Family are very good looking
Typhoon morning
The HK Observatory called a Typhoon 8 last night, which meant that we got to come home early (to play with George), and since it's still in force, we go to work late. It'll be lifted in another 40 minutes, but then everyone gets about two hours to get to work (it takes a while for buses and taxis to get going again). Although I walk to work, I might take a sneaky extra half hour with George... Here are a few photos from this morning:
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A few other photos from around and about. Firstly, the cats find safety in numbers. And Ben's fat tummy provides ample warmth for Poppy:
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This one from the real estate agency next to the supermarket. I think they're trying to say that the market is hot at the moment, but they probably should have avoided using an online translator:
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And finally this one from our pool area. There was a gale force wind blowing when I took it, plus I was laughing at the time:
Aaaaaaah... aaaaah... BOO!
Apologies for the fuzzy focus - I shot this with Philip's D90, and with digital SLR cameras, filming video is done with manual focus. Let's just pretend that I was being arty.
Weekend playtime
George's buddy Hugo popped in yesterday for a playdate and a swim, good times for all. I don't think there was a great deal of interaction going on, but they stared at each other a bit, and appeared to be happy with a spot of toy sharing. Here's George earlier in the day as he was watching the Canterbury v Otago game:
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And here's one of his little mate Hugo (who is a month or two older than George):
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As the playdate toddled along, the All Blacks were busy showing us that it wasn't just the Black Caps who couldn't catch a ball. The lineouts - which I swear have sucked since 2000 - were abysmal, we dropped the ball in open play more times than I care to remember, and with almost 20 minutes to go and 10 points down, we chose to go for a try (instead of an easy penalty which would have put us within one score of the Boks).
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The simple way to fix the lineout problem would be to tell the lineout chaps that their match fee is paid according to the following formula:
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Match fee = (Number of own line outs won ÷ Number of own lineouts taken) x Normal Match fee
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So, if they take five lineouts in a game and lose three of them, then they would get 40% of their usual match fee. I suspect the stats would get much better if this was the case.
Still, traitorous beggar that I am, my emotional hedge came through - the Boks were paying $2.65 for the win, so my TAB account balance is looking ok this week.
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***
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Finally, after coming to their collective senses and electing a President who can actually pronounce the word 'nuclear' (it's not "NOO-KEY-LURR", dude), a large section of sub-par-IQ Americans are panicking about the Nazi / Socialist / Muslim / Marxist / Baby killing / Grandma killing president in charge and have lost their collective minds. These from the "We're not really sure what we're protesting" Protests in Washington DC yesterday:
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And my favourite one:
Friday morning photos
Featuring the photography-neglected kittens:
Upside down turtle...
... is how you could describe his current "crawling" technique. Limbs flailing, voice grunting, but not a whole lot of movement other than rocking. Both photos below were taking during this morning's "crawling" session (the second is completely off centre because I was laughing so much, but I love the look on his face).
Mmmm. Delicious injection-molded plastic.
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In other news, my camera is with the Nikon service people for a while - I had a very random problem (very random = 5 out of about 2000 photos) where some vertical banding would appear on some photos. Although it didn't happen often, I figured I'd get it checked out while the camera was under warranty - so no D700 for me for a few weeks. The service man muttered something about replacing the Compression Board (whatever that is), and then my baby was whisked away to get in the queue for surgery.
Faced with the prospect of being cameraless for a few weeks, Philip (my neighbour at work) has very kindly loaned me his back up camera until mine comes back. It's a D90 - similar to my D700 but a little bit smaller. Works beautifully, although some of the controls are in different places - but I'll get used to it (today's photo was taken with the D90).
Toof
A little photo of the grinning monster this morning:
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And if you look a little bit closer, you'll see a little surprise:
It's been visible for a few weeks, but has really started to break through now. Soon it'll be no more daft gummy smile - just a daft toothy smile...