Came across a bargain listing in my browsing on Sunday, and hit Buy Now. Paid immediately, address went out, courier notice arrived. Then, today I get an email from the seller saying she sold it to someone else and wanted my account details to refund me. And when I reply expressing my disappointment I get a reply telling me to be kind and spread the love...

I've often wondered if playing with the cat is just helping him to hone his predatory skills. Seems not. Apparently a study was done by University of Exeter that found that 5-10 minutes per day of play meant the cats did 25% less hunting. And also, feeding high-meat protein food resulted in 36% fewer animals killed by the cats. It's down to micro-nutrients and that part of the report matches up with what I've read elsewhere that eating grass is to offset digestive issues from a diet with insufficient wild prey. While indigestible, the grass provides folic acid and the fibre helps overall digestion. I think that's how it went.

Anyway, our nightly games have more purpose and benefit than just being fun.

I've been away a few days, and the place falls apart.

FGS petals, you didn't have to miss me that much.

Mwah.

Anyone going away for Christmas and/or New Years?

Will be sweating away in Napier for a week so that should be good. Sunburn in the offing.

Auckland city libraries catalogue and customer log-in are down right now and they cannot say when it will be fixed! Not good for stay-at-homes.

This is bits and pieces from today's herald, what do you guys think about it?
https://tinyurl.com/y3zgw6fw

Who calls the shots at northern checkpoints, iwi or police?
No one actually seems to know what
to expect on Wednesday when the border comes down and Aucklanders head north.
Police say they're only doing spot checks. Not every car will be checked.

Tai Tokerau Border Control disagrees. They say every car will be checked. They say police have agreed to allow this and will tolerate some queues as long as health and safety isn't threatened.

If this is how it plays out on Wednesday, commuting Aucklanders will be furious, not only at the inconvenience and congestion but also at being misled. Only three weeks ago, the Prime Minister assured Aucklanders they would not have to deal with a hard border and the checking of every car to get out of the city.

But probably the most damaging aspect of this is the sense the Government has deliberately kept the truth from the public.

While it kept assuring the public there would be no iwi-led checkpoints, the Government had actually amended legislation to allow iwi to man checkpoints. It turns out that three weeks ago Labour inserted a clause into the Covid-19 Health Response Act giving various groups including "a nominated representative of an iwi organisation" the power to "close roads and public places and stop vehicles".

Heat pumps for cooling residential.

How well do heat pumps work for cooling homes, or is it better find a/c of some description?

Strategy - have separate heat pumps for living and bed areas and turn on-off at different times?

Can we run both Freeview and Sky off this dish at the same time?  

Otherwise what's the best option. It's got to be very easy to use the Freeview and NO change to the existing Sky system. 

The Mrs has the Sky now and doesn't want anything to change. 

Her mum is coming to stay, (OMFG),  and we'll need to set up Freeview for her. Just like she's used to. No changes.

As quoted from News Hub

Future generations of Kiwis will be banned from buying cigarettes in New Zealand - those who are 13 years old right now are likely to be our last smokers.

Those aged 14 years and under when the law comes into force - likely 2023 - will never be able to buy smokes.

The number of places allowed to sell tobacco will be slashed from about 8000 to just 500.

Should the Government tell people how to live their lives?

Then what about all the overseas visitors especially the Chinese that smoke like trains will they want to come to a country where you cant get smokes from the local dairy?

As an online seller with our own fully functional e-commerce enabled website it really amuses me to see how much of a hash many of the physical retailers make in their attempts to conduct their businesses online.

Today's experience has been in trying to purchase a Mitre10 E-Gift Card. Enter in all the required fields which include our and the recipient's names and emails, add a covering message (for my nephew who is a first house owner) and input a card value. Add to Cart. But no...

The panel that contains the message was rejected despite it being 93 characters short of the maximum. Following contact with Mitre10 it turns out that their message input field will not accept any punctuation marks whatsoever, only letters. To their credit the person I am dealing with has rewritten the message I had written excluding 2 apostrophes, 2 commas and two full stops. As a result the message now reads like a primary school pupil has composed it.

If they want to make the input criteria that strict, and counterintuitive, why don't they state this on their website, or at least provide a reason for message rejection when this occurs. Their IT department needs a reaming!

As a result my nephew will now be sent a pressie card accompanied by a suitably worded card.