Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Bits and pieces

Slightly scary paragraph of the day:
Taser CEO Rick Smith and his brother, Chairman Tom Smith, unveiled the new device [a Taser that can shoot three barbs at once] to hundreds of law enforcement officers and distributors at the company's annual conference yesterday. They stood on stage, each holding two new Tasers, and fired six rounds a piece at metal targets to whoops and applause.
Don't worry, they're non-lethal. Right?


Garth-George-interest news of the day:
A Bay of Plenty baker has scooped New Zealand's best pie award for a record third time. Pat Lam [no relation... probably] of Gold Star Patrick's Pies in Tauranga won the supreme award with his creamy bacon, mushroom and cheese pie, the winner of the gourmet meat category.
Can't wait for tomorrow's column.


Advertorial of the day:
Ruby Giblin, 3, was among the thousands of Wagamama customers to tuck into a plate of free noodles yesterday when the restaurant declared it National Noodle Day and gave away free lunches at its five stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Its Queen's Wharf, Wellington store gave away the most meals (472) closely followed by its Auckland's [sic] store in the Metropolis hotel with 470 meals.
Accompanied, of course, by a giant picture of a child attempting to eat noodles. It's good to know that, despite staff cuts, the Herald still has enough journalists to cover the big stories.

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Also, can I just point out that the Herald I bought today came stuffed with not one, not two, but three identical copies of the Herald Jobs supplement. If that's intended as a hint: I just got a job, thanks very much! But as a solution to the general employment crisis it's inspired.

Only one copy of Viva, unfortunately.

10 comments:

  1. You don't imagine a journalist went anywhere near that Wagamama story, do you? It has "Press release" written all over it.

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  2. Indeed. Well that's even worse...

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  3. I hear they can cover anything within walking distance. If it's really big they can drive.
    But no sleep-overs.

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  4. They do have the District Court right across the street, which is handy for crime coverage...

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  5. What would you idiots know? That was "reporting", not journalism. There's an important difference. Reporters just go out and write about whatever they see, with no interpretation whatsoever.

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  6. I can't tell whether George is being ironic. For a start, reporters are journalists, right? Then there's the aspect of it being basically a press release for a restaurant chain - unless 'National Noodle Day' has some significance that I'm missing. Surely, even if reporters 'just go out and write about whatever they see' that doesn't mean that everything they see is worthy of being in a major newspaper.

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  7. Off topic...

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news/article.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10587407

    Picture caption:
    "Rob Mokaraka came at police with a meat cleaver."

    Article:
    "...he advanced...with what appeared to be a firearm wrapped in a towel..."

    One of these things is not like the other?

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  8. Rather than 'national noodle day', they should have called it 'national loss of dignity day'. Is there anything more pathetic that seeing people queing for more than an hour to get $15 worth of free food? Show some fucking pride, people.

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  9. noizy: Perhaps a meat cleaver wrapped in a towel. Yeah, that makes sense.

    JP: "$15 worth".

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  10. I think he had a meat cleaver visible and two knives wrapped in a towel which the police (not unreasonably I suppose) took to be a firearm. Due to the towel-wrapping.

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