RWC Confessions

With all the hype around the Rugby World Cup, I thought it would be the perfect time to make some rugby confessions. Actually they're not all that dramatic, so I'll rename that list:

3 Rugby Things You Didn't Know About Me And Probably Couldn't Care Less About

1. I thought the way the RWC song (the "World In Union" one?) was performed during the opening ceremony was ... lame. I apologise if you're reading this and you're the chick that sang it or whoever put the music together, or if you're a friend or relative. I don't mean this as a personal insult, and unfortunately your relation to them does not influence my opinion on the musical arrangement. I always thought of that song as a dramatic and inspirational sounding song, not a poppy lip synched one. I guess South Africa spoiled it for me. If you disagree, feel free to try and convince me, because I have recorded the opening ceremony but can't bring myself to watch that part again.

2. I don't think Dan Carter is all that...off the field. And I mean in the looks department, just to clarify! I don't deny that on the field he deserves to be drooled over by all the SKY commentators. But in the looks department ... I don't see it. (GASP! Oh no you DIDN'T!). Oh yes I did. It's such a burden, to have this complete disregard for all those Dan Carter undie ads. And that little boy face of his. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he is "ugly". Far from it. But when I see Dan Carter, all I can see is "that really talented first-five that comes from my beloved Canterbury." The end.
[starts ducking all the eggs that female readers are throwing at me]


And last but not least, the nail in my RWC coffin...

3. I don't support the All Blacks. That's putting in "nicely". I have never liked the All Blacks. I guess I've always been one for the underdogs, and I guess that's something the All Blacks can't help. Living in New Zealand has only made my dislike grow. I don't understand how the best rugby team in the world can't win the world cup. Apart from the so-called "food poisoning" incident. I mean, people say Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu is a crybaby for what he said about having only 3 days of rest before "that Wales game", and yet here you find a whole nation that can not shut up about their team getting "poisoned" in South Africa, causing them to lose the World Cup final. How many years ago was that again? How many world cup tournaments ago? Then you have all non-Cantabrians calling Richie a "cheat" during Super Rugby and NPC tournaments, and then he dons the black jersey and exhibits his same "cheating" ways and the nation grovel at his feet. I could go on, but I won't. I do value my permanent residence permit.



Deception. Disgrace. Exile - what could happen to me,
should the AB's not win the RWC


So there you have it. Feel free to stone (with words only). I'm interested to hear what you have to say. (Well, I'm also a bit bored now that I've vowed to log on to Facebook only once a day for a few minutes in protest of its stupid new layout and security issues).

Win!

And the winner of the FREE electronic copy of TELESA: The Covenant Keeper  from our previous post is ...

OMGeek Girl
OneSamoana

Please mail me your contact details, and Lani will get in touch with you.

From the comment it sounds like you may already have a copy of the book...? If so, here is one you can give away as a gift to some lucky person you know :)

For everyone else (all the other 4 of your who commented...ha!), don't despair. Everyone's a winner. How so? Well, you get to continue behind-the-scenes with Lani Wendt Young, as she touches on another important topic in her book: rugby. Loves! Today's tour stop is in Stellaville. Drop in and say Hello!

Weekly wrap

What a week it has been. Where do I start? Well, at the very beginning of course.

Sunday: Manu Samoa beat Wallabies
And by 'beat' I mean 'slaughtered'. It was a pleasure to watch, not just for the win, but the way in which they won. With so much heart, and never giving in to the Wallabies' attempt to take back what you could sense they thought was rightfully theirs.

Monday: Pretty pretty please
I checked the Sky schedule...no more replays of the Manu game. So I sent this short but heartfelt plea to Sky



Tuesday: Baby Becks
The Beckham baby was born. Harper Seven. That confused look on your face? That's what I had on too.

Wednesday: Go the Manu
The already popular 'Go the Manu' Facebook page started gaining even more momentum. As the NZ speeding ads go 'The faster you go, the bigger the mess.' In this case it wasn't the page itself, but more the people that were joining. I suppose it was inevitable. It started with a small group of like-minded fanatics who loved the Manu ... for the team they wanted to be, and for the team that they almost were ... we love them, we LOVE them. (Sorry, did I mention I'm on a Jerry Maguire buzz?) As the numbers increase, a few psycho stalkers and know-it-all loo-hoo-hoo-zer-hers have slipped through too. And of course, our favourite, the anal one, who didn't bother to read the page description: "This is a fun page for all supporters of our Manu Samoa rugby team in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand."

Thursday: Only the lonely
Husband flew out last night for a family faalavelave. It's just me and the tiger-monkey-queen. So I thought, I would revisit my idle Twitter account and see what goes on there. I logged in and never looked back. You can't look back, or blink, or go to the toilet, or take Lyla to the toilet, in case you miss a Tweet. If you ever have a spare 24 hours in your day, Twitter is the place to spend it. Then I found out I could get free text notifications every time someone Tweets me. Yes please! Then I get spammed by Sleepless. No more lonely night for me.

Friday: Lazy
Today was a work-from-home-with-Lyla day. I tried out a chocolate cake recipe courtesy of Sleepless. Bad idea. It's a good sized cake. A moist good sized chocolate cake. The kid is unwell, that leaves me to eat it all. I tell you, life can be so tough.

Now that it's nearly 10pm, it's time to kick into life, and start my cooking marathon. I plan to make mushroom soup, chicken curry and cheesecake - all to freeze and distribute to the needy in the community.

And I'm sorry if you visited just to see some hot rugby player photos. What do you think this is, my secret ogle stash a perve fest? Google him :)

Vicious love

This evening something happened that made the day/week for a lot crazed female Manu Samoa fans. Wait for it...Ezra Taylor joined the Go the Manu Facebook page.

In case you don't know, it's this guy

I am sure the minute the hard-working and devoted page administrator* posted this detail, there was a collective sigh and hearts stopping momentarily as the 600 or so female members of the page swooned. (Just speculating though, will need to check with one of these members to verify *cough*)

Then almost immediately the stampede of gushing comments began, including invitations for Ezra into fans' houses, lives and ... well you get the point. I hadn't seen the page members so welcoming before :)

And then I saw another comment. Saying how beautiful and athletic Ezra's wife is. Ooooookaaaay. *crickets* And ... ? I have to say I literally laughed out loud. Ia ua lelei defender of the universe of Ezra's wife. Now, I have no idea who this person is and if they were related to this wife or if they were offended by the comments/suggestions/invitations. But I found it hilarious. Like the fanatics give a care about wives, I mean, come on. I'm sure he (Ezra, not the friend) was flattered by all the attention and love he was getting, as vicious as some of it might have been. Lol! And it's all just silly and fun and nobody is really gonna hunt him down ... right ...?

Anyway, that's my story. I didn't want to stir the pot on the page by adding my half a cent, especially after the admin diplomatically smoothed things over. I gotta say though, some people are just tuned to a completely different station.

Go the Manu! I still love you lots. In a purely platonic way. Ua ma laia, go back to your wives.

----------------------------------------

* I don't know what the administrator is like, but I have credited her with some of my attributes :P

FB shorts

Lyla has come down with a chest infection/sinus infection/asthma combo. Note to self: don't tempt Murphy by saying things like 'This winter has been quite mild', or he will slap you around with his law. So it's been less blogging and more Facebook stalking for me the past few days, as it's easier to do in the little bursts of spare time.

Here a few interesting/funny/thought provoking (yes, I am still talking about FB) things I came across.

Go the Manu
 

Go the Manu















If you are not a technical guru or rugby purist, but an avid supporter (or extreme stalker type supporter even) of the greatest rugby team in the world (subjective), then this is the page for you. It has all the basic components of a supporters page:

• team photos



• game schedules



• pre-game team line-up



• details of which pools the team will be swimming at (that's right...pool as in swimming pool, not a competition grouping)



• hilarious and/or angry comments (depending on the result of the latest game) from other crazed/delusional/extremist fans



• opportunity to present questions for player interviews

Chemistry funnies
 

"Hey, know any good jokes about sodium?" "Na"












Caution: Contains extremely geeky Chemistry puns

If you think the periodic table is a schedule of monthly hormonal cycles, then it would be best to avoid this page.

I quite enjoy the puns that people post on this page. I admire their wit (or is it lack of better things to do). I don't ever plan on commenting on the page though, for fear of being shot down by those waaaaay more geeky than I. When chemistry geeks get angry at you for not subscripting the numbers for a chemical formula...it ain't pretty.

Reminder
This is day 3 of working from home as Lyla's too sick for daycare. She has been driving me up the wall with her whining and constant demand for attention (*cough* love). Then I see the FB status of a friend, a single mum of 2 little boys, saying one of her boys has bad tonsillitis and they've been up all night and he might be going for surgery. Oh shucks, now I feel like a drama queen. Puts things into perspective. A little bit more gratefulness and a little less selfishness can do wonders. And so does prayer...so I'm praying for you Xavy!

Blast from the past
There are quite a few photos and posts on my News Feed about the annual Sootaga, which is like a convention for the Samoan Students Associations from the different universities in New Zealand. It reminds me of my uni days at Canterbury. And how I refused to join such an association, because it consisted mainly of NZ-born Samoans, and I was a real Samoan...a Samoan from Samoa...real Samoa, not American Samoa. What a narrow minded turd I was. In my last year of uni most of my real Samoan friends were gone, either graduated or failed the previous year on a break, and it was during that time I came to befriend many of these NZ-born Pacific Islanders. I came to appreciate the realness to them of their culture and roots. I even frequented the Pacific Islanders study room, and for that got mocked by another sufferer of I'm-a-real-Samoan-and-you're-not syndrome. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

Right. Back to FB stalking.

Rugby gaga

The rugby world cup starts in 66 days. Now, before you assume I am the face-paint rugby crazed type ... I'm not. I do have teams that I love - Crusaders, Springboks and of course, the boys in blue - Manu Samoa.

As a teenage girl living in the wop wops of Samoa, I was quite fanatic about rugby. I won a trophy/cup in high school for something (note: something COMPLETELY un-sporty like mathematics or chemistry) and the side that had my name and the subject on it, I covered with a piece of cardboard on which I had scribbled "Webb Ellis Cup". True story. The lovely ladies at the photo shop past Molesi were quite used to me turning up clutching a newspaper photo asking for it to be laminated. They would smile and ask "Oh, who's this?" It was usually Bobby Skinstad. Or Joost van der Westhuizen. Yes, stalker scary fanatic.

Fast forward n years and I no longer have the energy to be fanatic (apologies for sounding repetitive, this is the general tone of my posts - getting old and tired). For my teams, I will sit still for 2 hours and Facebook/catch up with the blog world in front of the TV and look up to watch when the commentators voices start rising.

For a while the thought of the rugby world cup "coming to town" was just blah blah to my ears. But today, the pool match tickets went on public sale. I had the honour *cough* of buying the tickets for hubby and friends for one of the Manu Samoa games. And it wasn't until I received the confirmation email for the tickets that reality hit...the Webb Ellis cup was going to be competed for in this country in 2 months time. Ooooh exciting! At that point I also felt a bit of envy that I couldn't go. And in a matter of seconds, that envy turned into relief that I wasn't going, because like I mentioned before, I'm too old and tired for that stuff.

However, I am still excited about the games. Excited about the excitement surrounding the games. With hubby going to the game(s), Lyla and I will be able to enjoy the games girlie style. Hmmm, I think we'll dress up and have a high tea party while we watch the game on SKY. So our theme is completely unrelated to rugby or Manu Samoa. That's a minor detail. Woohoo for the world cup and William Webb Ellis and all things rugby!

Full credit

Saturday night, guess what's on our TV? Rugby, of course. I don't mind. I'm a Crusader (what they call "one-eyed") fan, and it's always entertaining to see Stephen Donald doing "Stephen Donaldy" (i.e. dumb) things.

So I'm putting away my groceries and the pre-match build up thing is on. Then I hear some guy (one of the Chiefs or Crusaders playing, I wasn't paying attention, I'm very particular about the layout of my pantry) answering the interviewer's question about how he was playing really well. Answer - "I'm just really enjoying what I'm doing". Really? Was that the real reason behind his obviously vast improvement this season, or was he just quoting from the Rugby Player's Almanac of Cliche Interview Answers?

Here's are a few favourites *

"I'm just enjoying / having fun with what I'm doing"
Usually a response to "You've been playing really well this season. What's your secret?". I tell you what's NOT a secret. What his answer is going to be!

"Full credit to the opposition"
Usually said by the winning captain

"Proud of the boys"
Usually said by a brown guy

"We knew they would come out hard"
Teehee...

"Beaten by the better team on the day"
This should only ever be used to answer the question - "The losing team has been what...?"

* By 'favourites' I mean - if I hear this being said by a rugby player again, I think I'll scream

Go the Crusaders! If you front up, play to the conditions and play the percentages then we'll come away with the win. Full credit.