Chris Sheehan from Otumoetai, Tauranga, was woken at 6.30am by a couple of men building a fence outside his neighbour's property. "Well done, I thought, of their early start and they certainly looked to know what they were doing. When I returned home from work I was most amused at the new location of the letterbox. Our postman is of standard height, so I figured a few beers after the very speedy construction led to a hasty new placement of an obviously overlooked letterbox."
* * *
Gillian from Takapuna writes: "My new cycle shorts offer a one-year warranty. Against manufacturing defects as follows: 'BRAVE will repair or replace, at its discretion, any products found to be defective within the scope of normal and appropriate utilisation and are within the One, (1), Year Limited Warranty covenants which exclude normal wear ... That does not mean we replace clothes that have been trashed. We will do our best to look after you, the original owner, but do not tell lies or karma may get you'."
* * *
Andrew Jacobsen writes: "At 5am on Saturday, I dreamed I was Avatar's Navi and, to the sound of the deafening thunder of Pandora hardwood being felled in their search for Unobtainium, with machines roaring at the din of 10,000 Panzer tanks in blitzkrieg, my home was being rent asunder by humanity's armies. I awoke to discover I had not entered James Cameron's imagination, but that I simply lived at 22 Emily Place, Auckland CBD, next to Kalmar Construction's Celestion site where they had decided to take down a crane at 5am on a weekend morning next door to an apartment building."
* * *
Tony writes: "Autocar magazine use fancy equipment to test the speedo accuracy when they test cars. In the January 2010 issue they measured the actual speed when the speedo indicated 100. The actual speeds on 12 cars were 98, 97, 98, 97, 96, 97, 97, 91, 96, 97, 99, 93.5, 96 95 (the last two were motorbikes). This is always the case. Speedos always read too high. Maybe it's a legal requirement. Incidentally, speed cameras are not accurate. They have a margin of error of 2km/h (ask for a copy of the calibration certificate). When I got a speed camera ticket for doing 61km/h, I went to court to argue that my actual speed may have been 59km/h. They agreed and reduced my fine from $80 to $30. But I'll never do that again. I still had to plead guilty to the charge in front of a room full of people - somewhat humiliating. And they slapped me with $30 court costs."
* * *
In 2008, Nasa beamed the Beatles song Across the Universe into space, sending a message of peace to any extraterrestrial who happens to be in the region of Polaris, also called the North Star, in 2439. "Send my love to the aliens," said Paul McCartney. But as people strive ever more enthusiastically to reach ET, experts say some messages zipping through the cosmos are little more than space spam. "A lot of the stuff is very responsible, but I do wonder about some of the other stuff that's being transmitted," Albert Harrison, a professor of social psychology at the University of California at Davis, said. "There are pictures of celebrities ... snack-food commercials ... love letters to rock stars and so on. When you start broadcasting and drawing attention to yourself, you have to be very cautious about the image you give. We might appear as a threat to them."
Today's Webpick: How to report the news on TV…Brilliant! Go here to watch.
Follow Ana Samways on Twitter
