love em or hate em we all have them (cept for me)

There is nothing worse than watching a film or a programme on the telly and having your accent murdered....  the worst Kiwi accent on film was done by an Australian actor (Peter Archer) in "Enter the Dragon".  Seriously I cringe at the accent when I watch this...

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOKJEgZr8WQ

this is how a Kiwi accent actually sounds:

some actually think this guy is a Kiwi putting on an American accent, what do you folk with American accents think?

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C6arOwzsus&feature=related

What is it about some accents that attract us, I certainly have a soft spot for Irish, Scottish and some English accents (there are several).  What about you, what accents appeal most to you?

well I missed you all a great deal!  I see some changes have ocurred - I'll have to get my credit card debt down (damn Xmas) and buy a flame membership so I can get the year of the ox profile skin - me like very much.  I also see ads, not that I have any issues with that. 

this week I have finished working on my mum's property, she returned home last week and now we can both get our lives back - WOOT WOOT

I still haven't found work - had lots of rejection letters though  oh well, I will keep trying and it has given me time to help my mum and now to start on my house....

for those of you all who have asked here are some photos:  just to recap last year my mum's cottage was hit by a drunk driver and while insurance paid for the rebuilding of the front and damage done by the driver this meant the front of the house was charming and the rest old, grotty and decrepit.  (I should add this is my mum's rental and the tenant was not hurt in the crash, the driver broke his leg).

the front redone after the accident - unfortunately it is my mum who has the before pics of this (I was in Korea)

 somebody got the wrong green and I am repainting it with the lighter green

 finished painting the house but the guttering is saggy and leaking and the fibre glass roof of the patio is horrid and make the lounge inside really dark.

 guttering done, patio concret repainted, patio roofing replaced etc

When mum bought the cottage it was run down but tidy the previous tenant however left it filthy so we really had to scrub everything. the floor slopes and the retro carpet destracts from it. hehe

 kitchen window when I moved in after returning from Korea (I just started to clean it) the tenant from the cottage moved into the sleepout (seen out the window). sleepout when we bought it and here with the last tenant in it  and ta DA...  and from the back  (this was no longer lawn but thigh high weeds)

I had to put a skylight in the bathroom of the sleepout - there is very little natural light and the roof was leaking, the gulley trap of the basin was leaking (rats) the hot tap pipe was leaking (rats) and consequently the back wall and basin cabinet were completely rotten and needed replacing.  It was dank and revolting, I don't know how anybody could live in it but I did learn a lot about what I could do myself before requiring tradesmen (which was only the plumber).   we also repainted the inside completely, laid lino and carpet (we cut it to fit the room and had it edged, it fits like a perfect mat).  We also took down rickety shelves and put up cupboards.  The sleepout was hard because nothing is flush or level, there are not many studs in the walls or joists in the ceiling, whoever built it in the beginning was a real cowboy.  Anyhoo it's finished now and I am sooooo Happy to have my life back!!!

EFTPOS - do you have eftpos in your country?

it is not a smart card loaded with funds for a particular service (like transport) nor is it a credit card, it is your bank card - the same as you use at an ATM machine - but it can be swiped in the same manner as a credit card at any store/service provider that has the eftpos facility.

In NZ we love eftpos, we are very nearly a cashless society.  In Korea it drove me nuts, the first time I handed over my bank card, they swiped it and handed it back telling me "this is not a credit card", well duh, I just expected them to have the same, or even better, technology that we have.

In Ireland they do not have it, according to an Irishman I recently met this is a good thing or they would spend all their money at the pub (in fact eftpos was first used here in student pubs but that was in the late 80s).

I know my Aussie mates have EFTPOS but out of interest do others?

Speaking of great inventions (that I forgot to blog) - screw top wine.  Yep, when our wine industry first introduced it many of my friends and I threw our hands up in horror "oh how could they, the world was ending" (what snobs) but honest to god screw top wine is great.  I also sorely missed it in Korea - you expect me to use a cork screw - how barbaric!!   Seriously it does not affect the quality of wine at all and it is SOOO much more convinient.  Sometimes consumers really don't know what is good for them!!

Hehe on the note of modern technology my daughter was listening to a record on our player and asked "mum, how do I fast forward this".  haha

 (this is my player, it plays records, cds, tape cassettes and the radio - when visitors see it they think it is an old fashioned radio, just yesterday somebody asked me if it still worked  )