Sunday, December 31, 2006
Competition
Good to see that a bit of competition in the petrol market is causing a few real options when it comes to pumping gas. Since Pac n Save on Lincoln Rd started its own petrol station in its carpark with 6 cents off a litre if you spend over 75 dollars there have been other stations trying to keep up. Mobil had had deals with Woolworths in the past where if you spend a certain amount you got 4 cents a litre off. But it wasn't worth it because you will end up spending about 10-20% extra there than Pac n Save making the savings more like a loss. Now though Mobil is giving away 2 dollar off vouchers if you spend over 20 bucks. They have even gone the step further of making the discounts instant.
What does make me think though is that if they can basically afford these blanket 'loyalty' type discounts then why can't they simply put their prices down by 3, 4, 5 or 6 cents? It makes me a worry a bit that from now petrol stations will have their prices anything from 2-10 cents more expensive than they would otherwise be but then play around with special promotions or offers to pull in the punters and give the illusion that we are getting good deals when in fact they are making more than ever.
FUCK!
But then there are whispers that we will be taxed for the number of turns our wheels make on the road rather than litres of petrol we pump so the thinking might be a little different there. That makes more sense in some ways but it is more likely to encourage people into gas guzzling monsters isn't it? Since they will be taxed a pittance on the 2 kilometre trip to pick the kids up from primary school in the burbs rather than the gross amount of CO2 they are pumping into the atmosphere from their SUV. A lot more thought needs to go into that idea to make sure we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot with a shotgun.
While I'm on the roads, I just drove down the Northern Motorway and across the Harbour Bridge hoping to get funnelled through the newly opened sections of spaghetti junction onto the north western. I follow the signs and get in the lane marked "Waitakere", but low and behold it spits me off at Victoria Park so I have to work my way back on to the motorway. Nice one fuckers. Whats even dumber is that at the Victoria Park off ramp there are more of those large green overhead signs saying the lanes for "Cook St", and.... "Helensville", but any mention of Waitakere has disappeared. Why in fucks name do they insist on putting signs for Helensville on our motorways around the central city??? People are travelling at 100 kms an hour and don't have time to work out if a mysterious destination miles away from where they are actually heading is the correct lane for them to be in. What percentage of the traffic passing through there is actually heading to, or through Helensville?! What percentage of the population have ever been to Helensville? (trust me, I teach high school students who haven't even driven over the harbour bridge let alone been outside of Auckland). What's wrong with putting simple signs up like "West" or "West Auckland", or "Waitakere City", or "Henderson", or "North Western motorway", "the Hood", "the Ghetto", "Bogansville", "Holden Central", "Eco City", "Pot smoking munta village" etc etc. But no, we get told (too late) which lane to get in to get to a small town of a thousand or so people about 50 kms north west of Auckland.
Speaking of competition, or rather, getting back to it since I post humously added the above paragraphs, what the hell is up with the NZ cricket team? They are fucking around with selections but are picking players who are out of form (H Marshall) and who were never in any form (J Marshall who now averages 12.5 from 13 innings for NZ cricket in both forms of the game). Andre Adams also seems a bit of a flat track bully. He regularly cleans out teams domestically but when it comes to internationals he hasn't done nearly so well.
I think that if they are going to piss around with the side they should go the whole hog like the ABs have done and pick several new players for a couple of games each and see who looks like they are composed at that level. Some players can step up while others wilt. You don't know though until you see them there. And lets be honest, who the hell will remember the result of this series in a years time? We have the series v Aussie and England coming up, then a series v Aussie in NZ, then off to the WC later in the year. So all this will be a distant memory. Combine that with the fact that Sri Lanka will probably dick us anyway because we pick a procession of medium/fast bowlers for tracks which suit slow bowlers and only play one spinner when we need at least two (get Patel in there you fucking dickwads). Vettori is consistently our most economical bowler both home and away. Sure he is worldclass but if he can bowl cheaper than the rest of the guys then it points to the possiblility (don't you think?) that slow bowlers might actually do well on our pitches. Jayasuriya and Murali were (along with Vettori) the cheapest bowlers at Napier. After the first innings in Queenstown Vettori has once again been the cheapest of our bowlers.
On a happy note, the Knights won 3-1. That now puts their record to 4 wins, 5 draws and 30 losses over two seasons. That makes the Breakers look pretty good. Although they have now plummeted to 7 wins and 14 losses for the season, sitting in second to last spot and their playoff hopes are once again halfway down the shitter. Considering they have Carlos Powell, arguably the best player in the league that is a woeful performance from the rest of the team this season. They need a decent point guard who can hit three pointers. Henare has just never turned up good numbers. He is over rated and is mediocre at absolute best. If they had one they could light up the league. Instead they are darkening these fair Pohutakawa illuminated shores. That was beautiful. I'm a poet and I didn't knowit.
Anyways, happy new year and all that jive.
What does make me think though is that if they can basically afford these blanket 'loyalty' type discounts then why can't they simply put their prices down by 3, 4, 5 or 6 cents? It makes me a worry a bit that from now petrol stations will have their prices anything from 2-10 cents more expensive than they would otherwise be but then play around with special promotions or offers to pull in the punters and give the illusion that we are getting good deals when in fact they are making more than ever.
FUCK!
But then there are whispers that we will be taxed for the number of turns our wheels make on the road rather than litres of petrol we pump so the thinking might be a little different there. That makes more sense in some ways but it is more likely to encourage people into gas guzzling monsters isn't it? Since they will be taxed a pittance on the 2 kilometre trip to pick the kids up from primary school in the burbs rather than the gross amount of CO2 they are pumping into the atmosphere from their SUV. A lot more thought needs to go into that idea to make sure we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot with a shotgun.
While I'm on the roads, I just drove down the Northern Motorway and across the Harbour Bridge hoping to get funnelled through the newly opened sections of spaghetti junction onto the north western. I follow the signs and get in the lane marked "Waitakere", but low and behold it spits me off at Victoria Park so I have to work my way back on to the motorway. Nice one fuckers. Whats even dumber is that at the Victoria Park off ramp there are more of those large green overhead signs saying the lanes for "Cook St", and.... "Helensville", but any mention of Waitakere has disappeared. Why in fucks name do they insist on putting signs for Helensville on our motorways around the central city??? People are travelling at 100 kms an hour and don't have time to work out if a mysterious destination miles away from where they are actually heading is the correct lane for them to be in. What percentage of the traffic passing through there is actually heading to, or through Helensville?! What percentage of the population have ever been to Helensville? (trust me, I teach high school students who haven't even driven over the harbour bridge let alone been outside of Auckland). What's wrong with putting simple signs up like "West" or "West Auckland", or "Waitakere City", or "Henderson", or "North Western motorway", "the Hood", "the Ghetto", "Bogansville", "Holden Central", "Eco City", "Pot smoking munta village" etc etc. But no, we get told (too late) which lane to get in to get to a small town of a thousand or so people about 50 kms north west of Auckland.
Speaking of competition, or rather, getting back to it since I post humously added the above paragraphs, what the hell is up with the NZ cricket team? They are fucking around with selections but are picking players who are out of form (H Marshall) and who were never in any form (J Marshall who now averages 12.5 from 13 innings for NZ cricket in both forms of the game). Andre Adams also seems a bit of a flat track bully. He regularly cleans out teams domestically but when it comes to internationals he hasn't done nearly so well.
I think that if they are going to piss around with the side they should go the whole hog like the ABs have done and pick several new players for a couple of games each and see who looks like they are composed at that level. Some players can step up while others wilt. You don't know though until you see them there. And lets be honest, who the hell will remember the result of this series in a years time? We have the series v Aussie and England coming up, then a series v Aussie in NZ, then off to the WC later in the year. So all this will be a distant memory. Combine that with the fact that Sri Lanka will probably dick us anyway because we pick a procession of medium/fast bowlers for tracks which suit slow bowlers and only play one spinner when we need at least two (get Patel in there you fucking dickwads). Vettori is consistently our most economical bowler both home and away. Sure he is worldclass but if he can bowl cheaper than the rest of the guys then it points to the possiblility (don't you think?) that slow bowlers might actually do well on our pitches. Jayasuriya and Murali were (along with Vettori) the cheapest bowlers at Napier. After the first innings in Queenstown Vettori has once again been the cheapest of our bowlers.
On a happy note, the Knights won 3-1. That now puts their record to 4 wins, 5 draws and 30 losses over two seasons. That makes the Breakers look pretty good. Although they have now plummeted to 7 wins and 14 losses for the season, sitting in second to last spot and their playoff hopes are once again halfway down the shitter. Considering they have Carlos Powell, arguably the best player in the league that is a woeful performance from the rest of the team this season. They need a decent point guard who can hit three pointers. Henare has just never turned up good numbers. He is over rated and is mediocre at absolute best. If they had one they could light up the league. Instead they are darkening these fair Pohutakawa illuminated shores. That was beautiful. I'm a poet and I didn't knowit.
Anyways, happy new year and all that jive.
Labels: breakers, cricket, driving, knights, motorways, petrol
Comments:
While I'm on the roads, I just drove down the Northern Motorway and across the Harbour Bridge hoping to get funnelled through the newly opened sections of spaghetti junction onto the north western. I follow the signs and get in the lane marked "Waitakere", but low and behold it spits me off at Victoria Park so I have to work my way back on to the motorway. Nice one fuckers.
I hear ya. First time, I had to change lanes three times in response to confusing signage between the bridge and the off-ramp. My partner aced it because she didn't really look at the signs and just stayed in her lane. How bizarre.
Still, once you learn to ignore the signs and stay in the second lane from the right until you see the turn-off, it's a pretty handy piece of motorway.
I hear ya. First time, I had to change lanes three times in response to confusing signage between the bridge and the off-ramp. My partner aced it because she didn't really look at the signs and just stayed in her lane. How bizarre.
Still, once you learn to ignore the signs and stay in the second lane from the right until you see the turn-off, it's a pretty handy piece of motorway.
You have to wonder why the fuck they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the motorways and those signs probably cost thousands and then they don't even put them over the correct lanes. They really must employ chimpanzees in the final stages.
Used the North-to-NorthWest connector for the first time last night. Changed lanes three times trying to work out which was the right one (was able to do this on account of their being almost no traffic). Hopeless. And couldn't agree more about the "SH16", "Helensville", "Waitakere City" signage.
Come to think of it, when you're heading in the opposite direction (from the North-West to the Northern) the signs say "Whangarei". Because of course you'd never want to actually go the North Shore. Morons. God knows what a visitor to the region would make of it all. Be lost in no time no doubt.
Come to think of it, when you're heading in the opposite direction (from the North-West to the Northern) the signs say "Whangarei". Because of course you'd never want to actually go the North Shore. Morons. God knows what a visitor to the region would make of it all. Be lost in no time no doubt.
Sorry to hear about your cat (on a Public Address post), Yamis.
# posted by 
: 2 January 2007 at 16:33
: 2 January 2007 at 16:33
Thanks. It fell and was caught in the fork of a tea tree. Probably stuck a good 5 hours or more as it hadn't come in for breakfast and it was 11:30 when I found it after hearing it meowing through the bush. It's back legs were caught on one side and the rest on the other. Its back wasn't broken but its backs legs and tail were completely limp, even over and hour later. The blood circulation had been cut off so long the vet said it had a piss poor chance of surviving from her experience so we put it down. I may have had a go of paying through the nose for it to be treated over the next few days but we are off to Korea tomorrow morning for 3 weeks so that wrecked that idea. Gutted though because it was such a cool cat. Real character. It was only 18 months old but gave hours of hardcase stories.
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