Sideswipe: No time for bromance

Miscommunication at the Waiwera hot pools just north of Auckland.

Prompted by chronic overuse, Time magazine has made up a list of Banned Words of 2010, which includes "tweet" (a sentence on Twitter), "app" (short for application, as in iPhone app), "sexting" (sending sexual text messages and pictures), the phrase "in these economic times ..." and the word "stimulus" used with regard to financial matters, "bromance" (an intense male friendship) and "chillaxin" (a combination of chilling out and relaxing).

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We've hardly started 2010, yet there is still argy-bargy about how to pronounce the first year of the new decade. It is the year "twenty ten", folks. Not "two thousand ten" or "two oh ten". The people behind www.twentynot2000.com are worried that because people said "two thousand and nine" last year, the habit may continue this year. "Say the year 1810 out loud. Now say the year 1999 out loud. See a pattern? It's been easier, faster and shorter to say years this way for every decade (except for the one that just ended) instead of saying the number the long way. However, many people are carrying the way they said years from last decade over to this decade as a bad habit. If we don't fix this now, we'll be stuck saying years the long way for the next 89 years. Don't let that happen! (Via Neatorama.com)

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Graeme McIntosh has his own story of coincidences: "While in Chicago we took a guided bus tour of the city. I got talking to a man beside me and we discovered we were both from New Zealand. He was from Eketahuna and I told him I had grown up in nearby Woodville. Although at that point we had not exchanged names, he looked carefully at me and asked if I was Don McIntosh's brother, which I confirmed with absolute astonishment. Turns out he had bought a pedigree bull from my brother just a few months earlier and although there isn't a family resemblance between me and my much older brother, clearly he saw a likeness. What were the chances of our sightseeing on the same bus, let alone being seated together and with someone who would pick a doubtful family likeness?"

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In a new biography titled Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, the author estimates that Beatty, 72, has slept with "12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on." (Source: NY Post.com)

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More places Telecom's XT coverage doesn't work: "It's practically non-existent out Riverhead way," says Liss. "I, too, have to drive up/down the road to get a signal, or climb up on the roof with a dicky ticker. The old system was better. My sister, who lives in the wilds of West Otago, has always had rather limited Telecom coverage anyway, so it was expected XT would be better. Well, she was wrong - it's worse (ie, absolutely no coverage)." Peter reports that XT coverage doesn't work in Kaiaua Rd, just south of the Bombay Hills. "Telecom should be refunding the $30 a month they charge for something that is useless ... but if you don't want it they charge $90 for breaking your contract. But can we charge them for a product that doesn't stand up to the stuff that comes out of bulls' bums that they talk on their TV ads?"

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