This site was originally a Forum for family / friends to act as an alternative to using Facebook, however never achieved adoption and subsequently evolved into a personal general blog that it is today (serving as my personal self-hosted surrogate to Facebook).
As always, the views expressed here are my own and (unless otherwise explicitly stated) I do not purport that any of my views to be factually correct and opinions on any given topic are most certainly subjected to change. The intended audience of this blog is Family and friends and the content here should be regarded in the same vein as a series of personal public Facebook posts as opposed to a fully-fledged blog.
Email I got back from Fonterra Brands Customer Service regarding not being able to find the larger Anchor Probiotic+ yoghurt tubs…
Dear Fergus,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
It’s great that you enjoyed our so much and we’re sorry it’s no longer available.
Here at Fonterra, we want all our products to stand the test of time but sadly it’s not always possible. Occasionally there are circumstances that mean we need to discontinue a product.
Loyal customers mean everything to us and we understand how disappointing it can be. We don’t take these matters lightly and do our best to let fans know about any major changes.
Again, we’re sorry your favourite is no longer on the shelves.
Kind Regards,
XXX X
FBNZ Customer & Consumer Services Team
As a aside, thinking of moving all the thoughts and posts off of this domain and putting them elsewhere. As it currently stands, this site is intended to be a collection of informal public notes and commentary and are certainly not intended to be formal articles or researched reports, but simply my personal reflections as an otherwise little-known member of the public based on available information and lived interpretation at the time of writing them. Admittedly, the domain peak.nz may unwittingly give these thought posts more authority than they ought to receive.
If you employ Parking Services Ltd to manage your customer car park, you WILL lose me as a customer.
There have been repeated reports of this Tauranga based company issuing inflated breach notices, aggressive collection tactics and even issuing notices incorrectly to genuine paying customers of some businesses.
While fortunately I haven’t had to deal with Parking Services Ltd as a motorist nor as a recipient of such a notice. As a (prospective) customer my concerns are that…
I certainly don’t want to risk the stress and wasted time of dealing with disputing an incorrectly issued notice (which if the news reports are anything to go by, they appear to regularly do) and…
I certainly do not at all appreciate having some firm monitoring (via CCTV) my car park movements like a hawk for the slightest breach ready to pounce and issue with me a $85 – $95 breach notice.
If I see the Parking Services Ltd (PS Ltd) logo at your site, I will simply take my business elsewhere. A line I feel has to be drawn regarding these sorts of practices.
Note: This is an entirely separate organization to the Wilson parking’s owned Parking Enforcement Services. “Parking Services Limited”.
Reviewed 26 May 2026: Since publishing this post, I have heard from a business owner who commented experiencing genuine difficulties with unauthorised parking and who view private parking enforcement through PSL as a necessary service to ensure parking remains available for their customers.
While I acknowledge those concerns and understand why some businesses choose to engage such services, my perspective remains that of a customer / prospective customer / member of the public. While businesses must weigh the costs and benefits of different parking management approaches, I am equally entitled to consider those same approaches when deciding where to spend my time and money.
More broadly, many of our larger centres continue to rely heavily on private vehicle access. To some extent, disputes over parking availability may reflect wider questions about transport choices, urban design, and our dependence on car travel.
Piazza at Hamilton Gardens. Little / short roadtrip to get out of Auckland for a while to collect my thoughts + a short hike at the North end of Hakarimata ranges. Trails appear to be rather quiet currently.
Hamilton Gardens Piazza
In other news. Yes, to confirm the stories on the grapevine, I did indeed purchased yet another rental property earlier this year. (Why people seem to be so fascinated at this, I wouldn’t know…)
There’s little I can do to fix the state of the state of humanity or the world as an individual. Can only ever hope to look after my little part of it and “bear witness” I suppose. I’ve said my piece, and shall hunker down, rest and “protect my fire” as it were.
The world is changing, people are changing. I don’t necessarily agree with (nor understand) the way the world is currently headed, but other than continuing to express my views and concerns to elect representatives, “chewing the fat” with friends and family over the challenges facing society, participating in public consultations held by any government agency, discussing civics in a broader setting and continuing to partake in civic discourse, I otherwise feel powerless to effect any change as an individual.
Just another day out of the house… Someone causing a scene and getting arrested at Britomart.
In a way, it feels like some sort of generalized regression or devolution is slowly creeping in to the human species, but can’t put my finger on the root of it. Closer to home, It just seems some kind of ‘strangeness’ is happening. E.g. Everytime I head out, chances are very good that I will witness at least one incident of people losing their shit in a public freakout. People obviously under the influence smashing things, public shouting matches between groups of people, physical assault along with other public disorder incidents. In truth, it is beginning to feel like scenes out of a zombie movie at times as obvious drug use continues to increasingly grip society.
As my uncle said to me, you can’t save the world and you know what? He is 100% right. Going to be hunkering down, closing up a bit, sticking to my knitting as it were, and focussing more on taking care of the people who matter the most in my life. (Engaging Some sort of self defense mode as it were).
I’ve tried (and I shall continue to try – through continuing to engage in the civic process over issues such as housing affordability, inequality, infrastructure, public health, transport, public safety, among other social issues), but the reality is, there’s little else I can do and anything I do in the overall scheme of things has little impact on the prevailing. Embrace human imperfection, I guess. Even if any fix for any given social issue may seem glaringly obvious.
I’m also anticipating in due course, I will probably eventually stop updating this site entirely. I’m seeing little point in continuing to write and spell out my thoughts here.
“Night Glow” at Claudelands Event Centre, Hamilton for Balloons over Waikato…
Night Glow at Balloons over Waikato. Claudelannds Event Centre, Hamilton
Didn’t have a ticket (They’re Free to grab, but very limited in number), was passing through The Tron, so walked up and took some photos through the fence.
Part of a series on Disdain and Dividends where I document investing (out of existential dispair) in companies that I deeply dispise as a psychological analgesic due to public apathy and the institutions who are suppose to protect us legitimize these companies’ actions through inaction.
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The situation I feared almost two decades ago has materialized.
Facebook has begun and is already replacing having a website for a lot of businesses. Often when I do a search for a business, I find they now only have a Facebook page. The issue with this is that it effectively forces people to get a Facebook account to look at their page. (Scroll a handful of posts and FB now demands you login or create an account)
I will admit to buying shares in Facebook (now Meta Platforms Inc.) as a psychological analgesic to try and take the edge off of my high disdain towards the company. The stock price has now since quadrupled.
Despite my attempts to set up alternative self hosted platforms for friends to use (this site, peak.nz originally being one of them) to try and stop Face-borg taking over in this fashion, this was ultimately in vain. In hindsight and upon blunt reflection, I stood no chance.
The old web is dead. 15 years ago I was panned for being “Oh so pessimistic” for suggesting what has now eventuated today.
Admittedly, I really dislike the “new” Internet and have responded by drastically cutting down my personal use of it
Update 5th February 2024: Have now tested negative. Apart from sleeping for much longer and a dry cough, symptoms are largely gone. Overall, for me, felt like a longer acting but milder version of the flu.
Positive COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Test
Symptoms initially appeared mid last week sometime but daily Rapid Antigen testing only began showing positive 4-5 days after symptoms first appeared.
So far symptoms have been rather mild (so far). More like a mild / low grade influenza with mild fever for only a day and a tickly / itchy throat for the rest of it,
That said, it’s appears to affect everyone differently and quite vastly so. Have had APAC Development team members at work being knocked out for weeks at a time.
Funnel cloud spotted from Grand Drive, Remuera as I was nearing home yesterday. First time I’ve ever seen such a thing with my own eyes. Thankfully it never developed into a fall blown twister / tornado.
Funnel cloud spotted in Auckland
Admittedly, I was initially concern that it was headed for my home. Turns out the thing was quite a bit away fortunately (out in the Harbour). The formation did resemble almost precisely the tornadoes I’ve been repeatedly seeing in many of my apocalyptic dreams.
