iamaelephant

Here's the deal, Brad just built and put live dailysteal.co.nz - all that lovely gimmicky crap from China, IN ONE PLACE!!!! FOOCK YEAH!

Seriously dailysteal.co.nz

And any feedback you make using sidebar goes straight to his email, so bombard him with complaints.

Plus tell all you friends and fantastic coworkers...

Chinchin

With the budget due to be announced this afternoon, I thought I would start a budget thread, covering all things fiscal.

IMO we pretty much know everything already - the top rate of 38% will be cut, probably to 33%. No threshold movements are expected at that level. It's a coin-toss at the moment whether the current 33% rate will move, but it probably wont. As we know, GST will be raised to 15%, with yet more benefits and working for families payments to "feed the needy" (because middle income earners with no children aren't already doing their part, right?).

One of the big stupidities I've seen in the news lately is this article from Stuff:

As far as I can tell, the budget won't be doing anything to "crack" this "problem" - the alleged problem is that hardly any high income earners tax most of their income at 38%, simply because they have their wealth held in trusts. The budget won't solve this so-called problem, it will just reduce the top tax rate so they no longer have to bother with trusts.

"HA-HA, we'll show you tax dodgers who is boss - no logner can you avoid the top tax rate, because we'll simply LOWER your tax rate so it's equal to what you're paying anyway HAHAAAAA!!!"

Your thoughts on the budget?

Okay so the thread title is a bit of an exaggeration, but I had a scary moment yesterday.

I took a drive at 4:30 yesterday morning to head up the east coast of the South Island for some photographs. In hindsight I should have checked the weather before going, because the photography was kind of a bust, but I digress.

So I reach a nice rocky area on the coast about 45 mins before sunrise. I figure I better stop here and scope out a nice place for some sunrise shots. I park up and jump out of the car ready to do some exploring.

I'm walking along the coast in a particularly rocky area, doing my best to keep my balance. By now it's about 30 mins before sunrise, so it's pretty dark and my eyes are just starting to adjust. I'm feeling my way around on some rocks, stumbling and probably looking like a fool.

I step over a big rock and slip a little, knocking some stones over. All of a sudden I hear this great big "HHHHIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS!!" from directly in front of me. Like the sound a cat makes when it's angry, only way louder. I look up from the rocks I'm navigating and about 4 feet in front of me is a 100kg seal staring directly at me and looking REALLY pissed off! Well as soon as I saw the bastard I jumped and fell backwards. Now, I don't know shit about seal behaviour and had no idea what to do - all I knew is that this prick looked just like a rock in the dark and if there's one seal here there are probably many more.

So I slowly backed away, he followed me for a couple of steps then just stood his ground. I thought for sure he was going to maul me and feed me to his adorable seal children. I was prepared for fisticuffs with the wanker - thankfully (for him, amiright?) it didn't come to that.

That was my interesting moment of the day.

In case any of you people don't already have Portal, it's FREE, but only until May 24. So get it now!. And is also available FREE now on the Mac - yes that's you Priest boys.

My 5 year plan, best this guy!

I mean, come on.

He is major shareholder in a Solarcompany, a Electric Car Company and a mofo Space company.
And he keeps divorcing really hot women...

www.teslamotors.com
http://www.spacex.com/updates.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

Image(s): 

This is something I've known for a while from previous articles I've read, but I've always had a hard time trying to convince people. This is a particularly large and well performed study which proved that coffee and caffeine is no more diuretic than water.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/health/05brod.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=caffeine%20hydration&st=cse

Eat that, doubters.

I'm finding it harder and harder to get in touch with some of you, so I want to know what everyone is up to for the next few years. Last I heard Anderson was moving to Korea? But I haven't heard that from the horse's mouth. Scott, you plan on staying in Brisbane in the short/medium term? I guess Martin doesn't really know what he's doing yet, but I'm pretty sure he wants to travel overseas after graduating? Does ANYONE know WTF Mike is up to? Etc etc.

Having just bought a house, me and Jill's 5 year plan is pretty obvious - working, paying off debt, throwing dinner parties for our high class friends etc.

I'll be growing out the 'stach this month, who's with me? I'll post pictures of my glorious hairy lip approximately every week.

As mentioned in the shout-box, yet another accident occurred after an incompetent cop turned in front of a motorcyclist, and this time the motorcyclist was killed. There have been at least two relatively recent accidents exactly like this, and for months the motorcyclist community have been saying if police conduct doesn't change, someone will die.

These are other examples of similar accidents - two involving motorcyclists, one another car (1, 2, 3). When I have more time (eg not at work) I will look into the results of the investigations - but 99% of the time, the cops mates helpt hem out and nothing happens. Maybe a few weeks off work with full pay.

When are these assholes going to be held accountable, and when are the police going to improve their conduct? Dammit this makes me so angry.