If you say 'Wedding' when you ask for your booking, expect a price hike..

We ordered a 'Birthday' cake for our wedding. Exactly the same cake - 30% of the price.

And we otherwise had a fairly 'budget' affair and still spent several thousand dollars all up.

All I can do is agree with the website - avoid the use of the word 'wedding' when generic terms can be used instead - and shop around. I'm sure a lot of the excuses for 'extra creativity' are exactly that, unless it's the creativity you're actually hiring...

Yet more evidence that the NZ Education system is creating a mediocre society: Shakespeare is too hard!.

Good grief.

Not only do we remove the concept of pass/fail with a fixed threshold (which exams did) and replace them with 'internal assessment' for far too many aspects of the curriculum, but now we're talking about simply removing 'hard stuff'.

I hated Shakespeare initially. Then with the help from an excellent english teacher I finally felt the penny drop, and began to understand exactly what made him such an incredible writer.

And English was my worst subject, bar none!

So if you get a chance, oppose this dumbing-down-of-society... again!

Fancy being that guy?!.

Saw this on the news tonight. I'm not suprised. I am however, quite disturbed at the people taking it seriously.

This sorta business breeds a superiority complex (and like it doesn't already exist, between 'believers' and 'non believers' or simply 'other kinds of believers') and like is being predicted, how long before we end up with our own version of Waco, Texas?

No way should segregation of this nature be condoned.
(And yet, ultimately, I don't know what you could do to stop it. It's just the urban version of a commune, I guess.)

Are you as disturbed as I am?

Edit: The next day, more news found:

Those who felt it was their "gift" to help others were urged to move to South Auckland and work for one of the ministries at the new complex once it was completed.

It also had to accommodate its existing preschool and primary school, as well as a new secondary school planned for next year.

So theyre changing tack... this is not going to be a 'walled city' encouraging isolationism... or so they say...
Still can't say im happy with the idea... but time will tell...

I really, really don't believe this..

It's going to cost the average householder several hundred dollars more - and potentially add considerable delays - if they want to build a bathroom. All because of government mandated standards requiring lower pressure and the means to use other-than-electricity for heating.

Good grief.
Recommendations - discounts! - would work wonders. Regulation? It'll just piss people off.

And I for one do not want to compromise on water pressure. User pays. I'll pay for my water consumption - I want the right to choose!

My fears of the Nanny State syndrome appear to be bourne out:

Stuff covers the fact that 'avoiding' allergens may not be the way to go. Perhaps you need to be exposed (carefully) and be allowed to build tolerance.

Wow. Is this revolutionary thinking?

Surely this is the only way to deal with some allergies.. especially for the stuff that's hard to avoid.. ??

Even a tolerance is better than anaphylaxis, rash and all...

As reported by Stuff and also covered on a TV doco (60 minutes or 20-20, cant remember) recently.

What a damn good idea. You can wrap your kids in cotton wool for only so long.
The outpouring of support cited at the above URL is telling - everyone thinks that the nanny state syndrome has gone too far.

I want one of these schools in my town...

... how the hell can ASB Bank justify bouncing a direct debit attempt for $24.75 for 'insufficient funds' and then tack on a $25 DD-Dishonour fee?

*pulls hair out*

Gotta be simply about being a moneyspinner. Especially on an account which transacts several thousand dollars a month.

It's the Americans this time..

I agree that Breast is Best. But often there are very good reasons for the alternative.
The risk we run is that we go to one extreme (Breast _only_) and those with reasons to look elsewhere (say, for example, allergies) get shunned or locked out.

Caution urged, please!