Sideswipe: Rain disrupted play

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Gabriela Diver snapped a superfluous billboard at Kaeo Rugby Club.

Mystery verse of Shortland St

Lois is trying to solve this minor mystery: "You'd think I should be able to find the owner of an A4 poetry journal which I found in Shortland St about 1995 ... but despite my efforts, I haven't been successful yet! The back page had the writer's goals: to get a J.E.T contract ... get an Italian scholarship ... set up a hat business ... get on a small business scheme ... get a reference from the Dean of Architecture. One of her poems was signed Rebecca and she had recently had a leg operation at Auckland Hospital." Ring any bells?

Weird, wacky and dumb

Strange but true:

1) A woman returned a 3-year-old ginger-and-white Jack Russell she adopted from the SPCA saying that it clashed with her curtains. "We told her to put him in another room, but two days later she brought him back and said she had spent a lot of money on her curtains and that she didn't want Harvey any more," said a spokesperson.

2) Mexican drug smugglers have found an innovative way to get pot across the border - authorities found two catapults and cannabis packaged for the flight into the US.

3) A shoplifter in Pittsburgh left a trail of his own blood for police, starting at the Wal-Mart where he had cut himself badly removing razor blades from their packages to fit more into his pocket ...

No flies on them

Michael Collins was interested to note the animals used to represent three countries on an FX Converter shown in the Prouds Suva shop."For Fiji a clownfish, fair enough. For New Zealand predictably enough a kiwi. However, the choice for Australia was not a kangaroo or koala, but a blowfly. Lovely."

Nuked blowflies

"Hope you are still interested in getting rid of flies?" asks Pat. "My way never fails. I use it on those big ones that buzz around the lounge when all the doors and windows are shut and you're settled in for the night. First, turn on the light in the dining room, then turn the light off in the lounge. The fly will follow the light; keep doing this till the fly is in the kitchen. Open the microwave door and turn off the kitchen light, the fly will go into the microwave and when it does, shut the door. Ten seconds on high and it's all over for the fly and great fun, especially when visitors are around."

Good corporate citizen

Many readers were touched by solo Dad Alex's situation (the GPS he used for his second job delivering pizza got nicked) and wanted to donate money towards a new one. But before you could say "pizza delivery disaster" the folk at TomTom came to the party and gave him a brand new GPS. Good on ya.