Jul 3 'Mark of the beast': Bible fragment cited in bid to avoid driver licence photo 'Mark of the beast': Bible fragment cited in bid to avoid driver licence photo

Stephen Butcher believes driver licence photos are the "mark of the beast" - so he's taken NZTA to court in a big to get his licence without one.

Stephen Butcher believes driver's licence photos are the "mark of the beast". Butcher argued that the way a computer digitises photographs, signatures and barcodes on a driver's licence into binary code creates a pattern that can be added together to make 666, aka "the mark of the beast".

Top Gun: Maverick

9 out of 10

Saw it at an IMAX theatre with one of the new laser projectors. Visually stunning, well paced, a lot of fun.

Should have used Take My Breath Away.

Spoiler for the Elvis movie

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@Crazy-Horse said in What are you listening to, right now................:

Re Plant as a singer. I love him in the studio but I find his vocals cringeworthy live, to the point where I just can't listen to them live. Bowie is the same. Maybe they fuck with the melodies too much for me to enjoy?

With Plant there was definitely a bit of over the top 70s wank whenever he performed live ( from footage I’ve seen ) but that’s how they rolled back then I guess.

@Kid-Chocolate said in WWE Network:

Vince is stepping down. He just did a short appearance to introduce Smackdown, didn’t say much (maybe later in the show?), but he looked and sounded awful, looking very old, the bags under his eyes are startling. Been a very tough week doubtlessly, I wonder if he’s had any sleep. He looks defeated tbh.

“The most important thing is that we are in this together.”

Cryptic. What does this mean? Are Steph & Trips pushing Vince out of his own creation? Is Vince going to go scorched earth and risk burning it all down??

It's all a work - Vince has 83% of voting shares in the company. He will not be stepping down. He is even still working there as head writer for Raw and Smackdown

What key does R Kelly write his music in ?

A minor.

@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:

@MN5 said in Grumpy Old Man:

Sam Canes amazing pace

He weighs too much to be fast.

No he doesn’t you imbecile. He’s 10kg LIGHTER than Papai’li so is automatically faster.

Honestly, Don’t you know sports ?

It’s very simple, unless you’re an elite athlete you’re slower than anyone lighter than you.

Blimey that's not cool. Not cool at all.

Not much advice I can give, but those that do go through tough things in life I know find a lot of solace in the company of others experiencing the same thing. Although I'm sure TSF will be a support network, a closer one of people with the same issue will do you wonders.

All the best mate, thoughts are with. Might go and chat to the wife again now after our stupid argument the other day ....

@Victor-Meldrew watched a trailer for this last week and thought it looked like it could be good.

@dogmeat yeah, yeah, lets go with that....

Paige Spirinac has a very solid gram game

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@Smudge said in Whisky / Whiskey:

@Kiwiwomble said in Whisky / Whiskey:

@smudge that would work, would have been happy with 2-4 bottles each

....now thinking about a "fern" whiskey barrel

Update on this. We've paid for the barrel and have the filling ceremony in June.

Further update: filling ceremony was yesterday. Gorgeous day at Cardrona, with plenty of snow around, but with a clear blue sky above. They look after you very well - we were drinking Veuve Clicquot as we chatted and caught up with people, and had a quick rundown on the distillery's history. We then wandered through the distillery on a tour, before getting to the filling bit. As I was the one who corralled my mates into doing it, they decided I was the one who was filling the cask. Took about 2 minutes to fill the 230L barrel and luckily I wasn't one of the people who kept the tap on for too long and sprayed the fresh product everywhere, which has happened in the past apparently.

After that, we rolled the barrel out through to their storage hall, then went back into the main restaurant/bar where they take you to a separate room for a a rolling hour or so of food, some of their products (whisky, vodka, gin and liqueurs) and more wine. All up about 3 hours, and nice to have some pomp and ceremony above just buying into the cask.

Shit I feel average today.

The lads played an East Coast side on this weeks episode and then I see tonight that the East Coast Rising series kicked off which covers their 2021
Season. A pretty good watch really

@taniwharugby good letter writer, that Joe.

@Bones My stalking ground was upwardly-mobile Waiwhetu & Waterloo.

But there was this girl in Ludlum Crescent, Woburn, memories of whom ratchet up my happiness scale...

Replays on Sky Sport 1 (Fri 24 June 2022)

2.50pm: Māori All Blacks v Moana Pasifika (2020) 4.50pm: Manu Samoa v Māori All Blacks 1 (2021) 7.00pm: Manu Samoa v Māori All Blacks 2 (2021)

@Bones

That’s actually quite funny. Still a non-story but funny.

Just for the hell of it I opened a bottle of Alluviale 2006 Cab Merlot Franc.

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Touted as a cut price challenger to Coleraine, the grapes were sourced from the old Irongate vineyard. Dry but still with plenty of fruit, the wine still has legs. Which is fortunate because I have a few bottles salted away

@Frank said in Investing - Property/Shares:

How is the NZ housing market likely to fare should there be a major recession?

Watch RBNZ lending/deposits with big banks. They need to grow for market to hold up.

Bump.

Tickets to the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert at Wembley secured. Foo's with an awesome line up of guests.

@Kirwan said in Gaming/VR:

@Machpants said in Gaming/VR:

@Kirwan MSFS? Pretty good, some of the flight models feel very accurate. I've spent a fair bit of timme flying around in a (paid for) RAF Hawk, pretty good. The guy in the vid is ex RAF pilot, Hawk instructor, so much more stick time than me! He is praises the accuracy. The Hawk is cool, cos it's old fashioned, dials and stuff, and very little to learn. But still a 500 knot jet, fun to blast around the southern alps etc

Awesome. I’ve played these since 1990ish, when the buildings were yellow blocks.

Have no idea how realistic the flying is.

It's a pretty amazing game, and the mods you can get are increasing. Real time weather pretty special too

Mate messaged me this morning,

'Not even Phil could sidestep the Grim Reaper'

ELO do not yell out "Bruce" in "Don't Bring Me Down" ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Bring_Me_Down

A common mondegreen in the song is the perception that, following the title line, Lynne shouts "Bruce!" In the liner notes of the ELO compilation Flashback and elsewhere, Lynne has explained that he is singing a made-up word, "Groos", which some have suggested sounds like the German expression "Gruß," meaning "greeting."[8] Lynne has explained that originally he did not realize the meaning of the syllable, and he just used it as a temporary placekeeper to fill a gap in the lyrics, but upon learning the German meaning he decided to leave it in.[8] After the song's release, so many people had misinterpreted the word as "Bruce" that Lynne actually began to sing the word as "Bruce" for fun at live shows.[9][10][8]

ELO engineer Mack remembers the genesis of the term differently, stating that Lynne was actually singing "Bruce" as a joke in advance of an Australian tour "referring to how many Australian guys are called Bruce."[8]

Had to look up what it is he actually says after hearing said song today.

@Victor-Meldrew said in Bogans with kids:

UK version....

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Love the unintended irony by the commenter.

If any of you have followed any modern comedy podcasts then this will mean something.

"What if a retard was gay?"

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2022 Honda CBR1000RR-R FIREBLADE SP

Saw one of these yesterday at my Honda dealer - actually sat on the thing. 218 HP but easy to ride due to the electronics (apparently). £24,000 of hand-made, blueprinted engine, titanium exhaust worth about £3k, 14,000 RPM redline, DLC (diamond-like carbon) layer friction-coated mechanics and just jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Art on two wheels.

@Kruse I read the first six books when they first came out but didn't even realise that he hadn't written another four.

Fantasy in the 70's didn't have a history of anti-hero's and he did sort of try and address adult themes. My recollection is the first trilogy is a redemption arc and the second one inverts it. He comes back aeons later and is the true believer in a land that is the anti-thesis of everything he 'fought' for in the first three books.

I think I was probably too young to recognise it for the bs it was. I certainly couldn't stomach any of Donaldson's other books that I later tried to read

@canefan Yeah, Clone of Silence is another ripper ! ...from a show that started in the 60's the phone & weapon gadgets were brilliant... as you say had plenty of good gags as well, same goes for Hogan's Heroes.

@bayimports I walk 12 kms every day so I will qualify but couldn't ever be assed signing up. Might go a burger though.

A lot of this PR, but mildly interesting anyway.

Out of the Park Out of the Park

Cricket’s changing for many reasons. One of those is artificial intelligence. From finding the sweet spot of the bat to transforming the viewer experience, the machines are hard at work — A story from Paradigm / Shift, a series of stories in collaboration with Microsoft India.

@Kirwan said in 50 Years of Star Trek - RIP:

@kiwiwomble said in 50 Years of Star Trek - RIP:

makes me thing, for all their holes and problems.....i did kind of like at least the first two of the Chris Pine movies, enjoyable action rather than..."good"

I like all three, the third might even be the best.

I just wish they would tone down the action and up the smarts. Tell a good story first, and let Star Wars be Star Wars.

finally, beyond showed up on the streaming services, you're right, was much better than i remembered, the music scene at the end...super cheesy but spectacular

@Duluth said in Sky Sports Now:

@Kirwan said in Sky Sports Now:

Experience was not good. Stuttered several times and it skipped 20 seconds.

5 sec pauses a few times during the game? That was on the regular sky coverage.

Yeah ok, will let them off then. Was very annoying

@Kruse said in Marvel movies and tv shows:

@Nepia said in Marvel movies and tv shows:

@bayimports said in Marvel movies and tv shows:

@Nepia said in Marvel movies and tv shows:

@Kiwiwomble said in Marvel movies and tv shows:

Dr Strange....JESUS...we are a long way from a billionaire in a metal suit just trying to stop another bloke in a bigger metal suit taking over his company

Was fun but thought it was super dark...and not DC moody "dark"...actual jump scare and almost graphic violence

The director was Sam Raimi. Although I didn't find it too horror like, as I'm not a horror fan. Only the second best multiverse movie out at the moment though.

Are you meaning the Michelle Yeoh one? Cant think of the name.. both are on my watch list

Yep, Everything, Everywhere all at once (I think).

I really want to watch that... but I'm stuck travelling around, ah... "provincial" New Zealand... where the only screen-times are an hour travel away, and at night... and fuck riding a motorcycle home in the cold dark probably-wet.
And it looks like it's about to drop out of screenings at most cinemas in a couple of days.

I had talked the wife into seeing this and it was only showing in Queen Street. Super annoying.

Asians live all over Auckland dumb distributors.

You've heard of the definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

So the Mary River has just had it's third flood in 2022. That's 3 floods in 4 months.

Thankfully this last one is nowhere near as as bad January and March.

Nor has Maryborough been hit at all this time (stayed below "minor" flood level).

But Gympie town centre has gone under again (at least parts of it).

FYI - cutting Gympie and Maryborough off may threaten toilet paper and alcohol supplies to Hervey Bay ...

... so potential catastrophic disaster

How often do you allow your business to flood and try and rebuild/re-establish in the same place?

Since we moved to Qld they've flooded AT LEAST in 2011, 2013, 3x this year ... and I'm pretty sure a few other times that I cant get results from google. (Pretty sure at least 2x additional floods ... ).

So why do you try and build back in the same place? It's just going to flood again!?!? And then expect is to feel sorry for you?

Seems seriously fucking stupid to me.