Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

We need a Kiwi correspondent. They will go first by a couple of hours.

How do Kiwis generally feel about their police? I'm assuming there's a reasonable level of trust and confidence there.

In the US, most people are afraid of the police, or at least think them too incompetent to be trusted. Now that we are seeing broad, organized criticism of the police we're also seeing an increase of confidence in the police, because there are 2 things we really love in the states: knee-jerk opposition to new causes and dismissing black people.

Your video, Kiwi Pronounces eYes, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 7 Badge!

Congratulations. You've managed to capture the entire diversity of the US by visiting several times and not get shot or had a gun pointed at you. This is like forming an opinion about whether sharks will bite humans after you've laid on the beach once or twice and have never been bitten. Searching for some relevance here... and ... nope, none.

Agreed, if your gun is in a traditional safe, it's not much good when the burglars or home invasion psychos kick in your front door at 2 a.m. Jim Jeffries is indeed a funny guy, but like many who don't understand what "for protection" means to some homeowners here in the US, you might want to cite a bit more credible source or at least educate yourself.

Thanks to biometric safes and locking devices, it is quite easy to have a secured gun in a safe at arms reach, accessible to only one person, that can be unsecured, ready to fire in about 4 seconds. I know this to be true, because I have such a setup, and we practice what to do when the home alarm goes off just like we practice fire drills.

The distressing part is I absolutely hate having to be in such a situation. I'm no cowboy and this isn't the wild west, but when families around me are having their doors kicked in in the middle of the night by armed thugs, or having one or two fuckheads follow them up the driveway for an easy push-in robbery accompanied by beatings, shootings, molestation and sometimes killing, I decided that there would be no way I could live with myself if something tragic ever happened to my family at the hands of these nut jobs, knowing I might have been able to do something to stop it. And no, one can't relay on the local police to take care of these crimes. Around here, even with a top notch alarm system in the house that goes directly to dispatch, the cops usually arrive to clean up the blood and take statements, and almost never in time to stop the crime or catch the criminals.

Do you have house, car, fire or life insurance? Sure, but you hope you'll never have to use it. So, what's so unbelievable about a gun for protection? What do you suggest? You appear to think it's silly to state it's for protection... so does one simply relying on hope, faith or good luck in never having to witness your wife or child being duct taped to a chair while criminals rummage through your house, or having their head kicked in or bloodied on the end of a baseball bat?

Just a suggestions, but try to spend some time as an actual resident in a country before you pretend to understand it, consider yourself fortunate that you don't live in such a situation, and for fucks sake stop with the snide, morally superior judgement of those who do. If you can muster that, on a guess that you might be from NZ but really don't know, I'll stop telling everyone that Kiwi's really do fuck sheep, especially on National Lamb Day when it's a competition rather than just a hobby.

Have fun.

Happy Birthday to my favorite Kiwi! Hope it was fantastical

I'm not so sure. Give a kiwi bloke a problem, a shed and some tools and you'd be amazed what they can do. I have two friends who have built their own CNC machines and are using them to manufacture snowboards and ultra light weight bindings.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a bloke in his shed...

Your video, automated orange and kiwi peeling machine, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2HqGK6g9h_k?rel=0

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/new-kitchen-accessories-cucina-cooking-tools-fruit-vegetable-slicer-spiralizer-Kiwi-spiral-peeler-kitchen-grater-househ
old/32333582647.html

UGH! I tried that once. I got a tongue covered in kiwi fur/hairs. I'm not falling for that again! ;-)
Really, we split them then dehydrate them. They last way longer that way (although keeping a kiwi isn't a problem, they don't ripen until you put them in a bag with an apple...I've kept ripe ones on the vine for months with no effect.). It also shrinks them by over 1/2.

The skin of kiwi fruit is edible, and my colleagues from New Zealand eat them skin and all.

Yeah, but it's harder than that sounds, especially when you're talking about doing that over 1000 times.
I do have a knifey/spooney that helps with the job (a Kiwi invention I think) automation would still be worth investigating...especially if it works on apples too, I have 30 trees!

Neat, but I don't think I can justify it for my single kiwi vine, even if I do get around 5 large grocery bags full of kiwi off it per year!

Did good on the kiwi too, and they're a bitch to peel.
Do they make a cheap home version?

That's just amazing Kiwi ingenuity at its best!!! The little boy was a real little charmer, too.

*happy *cute

My personal opinion is this is a cultural thing rather than a tipping thing. The times when I've interacted with customer-facing Americans, from memory, it's always been a pleasant experience, even though there's no tipping involved.

On the flip-side customers in NZ restaurants are often just as unfriendly as the staff which doesn't make it particularly rewarding to serve them. I think just having a table of people who really appreciate the effort you're putting in to serve them by being very friendly back and joking with you can go a longer way than a generic tip which, as the video pointed out, seldom changes based on the quality of service.

Kiwis are just grumpy. :-)