Visions of Elections....Sugar Plums..... and Monks......

America has redeemed themselves and Obama is President. Woo!

New Zealand have taken an interesting route and voted National. My current thinking is WTF (!) but I will reserve judgement to see what gets screwed up first.

And advertising my heritage this week, I saw that some Greek Orthodox and Armenian (!) monks were in a brawl over some slight or other at the supposed site of Jesus' crucifixion. This is bizarre for me cause it seems that they are a *wee* bit far from home on both counts and it really doesn't fit with the overweight, blustery priests from both religions that I've met. This just reinforces my view that sometimes religion can go too far.......

I've been musing alot on Christmas and what I shall get for people. Currently I have a limited selection of ideas. It's very exciting thinking that I will get to be like Santa and travel down the island just to give presents to people. I'm thinking some fairy wings may be required.

Opera and World Politics

Woo - that's a hummer of a title for a post isn't it :) If I chucked Religion in there I'm sure that would have covered all the things that you shouldn't discuss in polite conversation.

Opera. Phantom of the, to be precise. FREAKING AWESOME. I've never seen it on stage before, although have been a huge fan since I was a nugget with a walkman and figured out how to copy records onto tape. Mum regularly used to come into the kitchen to turn down "Music of the Night" while I was washing dishes.
There was a whole issue with a cancelled plane from Wellington which lead to some panic, but since everyone got here in the end it was all fine.
The whole thing is just amazing - the chandelier as it goes up, then comes down, the very active set changes, the candelabras (so cool, I want), the scary high notes that people can actually reproduce while standing in front of a full house, and the costumes (OMG the COSTUMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Although Christines costume in Masquerade was AWFUL - she looked like a cheesy barbie doll! Not at all what it should have been!
I get all goosebumpy just thinking about it. And now I want to go again... :)


And now onto the other topic. World Politics.
I've been randomly following NZ and American elections with no real devotion, and I'm interested and apprehensive all at the same time to see what the next few years will look like.

NZ - National sucks, Labour sucks, and as far as I can gather Winston is a liar. So no real change is expected. What concerns me is just HOW lacklustre our so-called leaders are. You can't even mention illustrious in the same sentence as these people! I've seen the highlights of the leaders debates and all I'm hearing is Charlie Brown's teacher (or perhaps some of Romero's zombies..... aarrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh brrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnssssssssssssss). At this late stage I am only decided that I am not voting major party, mostly cause I'm sick of Helen and I don't trust John Key.

America - remarkably more interesting since they will have a first either way they go. I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about Carabou Barbie's clothes, but hey anything goes in American politics. Personally, I'm more comfortable with the idea of Obama in office but I don't get to vote so who cares.
What I'm finding the most interesting out of this election at the moment though is one of the more recent items the reporters have latched onto and are now squeezing every last drop of interest out of. Factions within the USA have been flapping their big fat mouths about how there will be Civil War if Obama gets into office. Now I find this remarkably funny for the following reasons:

1. Some of these people were dumb enough to do this on television. Seriously, if you want to launch a War, would you advertise it? No. Most coup leaders stay fairly lowish profile until they are in a position where they have good backing and some kind of power, and then cut the knees out from under the bugger they are trying to take down. (Alternatively, you find yourself a moron to act as the fall guy. Potential to succeed while not directly implicating you.).
2. The President has control of a rather large, well equipped army. What do these dumb arses have? A couple of rifles, and Arkansas. My bet in this scenario is the army.
3. The President has control of FBI, CIA, and who knows what else. Going back to my initial point that they were dumb enough to go on television about it, I think they can probably be indicted as under whatever law there is about internal terrorism/traitor. I'm pretty sure that if it all came down to it, a couple of black bag ops would quietly go into operation. It's a big country with lots of places to disappear. Conspiracy anyone?

The potential impacts of Civil War in the current economy would make the Great Depression look like a lovely day at the beach. Although I'm sure that it would be fine for all those people who have been reinacting the Civil War every weekend since it happened.

So I'm going to sit back and watch this "reporting" for the entertainment that I believe it to be.

And this weekend Judge is up to see me! Yay.

Random Thoughts and Speeding Cartoon Birds

For some reason, it's Thursday and it's the last one in October. I'm not sure where Tuesday or Wednesday went, although I'm sure that they happened - I've got the e-mails to prove it. Even worse it's Halloween tomorrow, which means I will have to leave the house and find some cinema to hibernate in between 5 and 9 to avoid children. Although this gives me the opportunity to wear light up devil horns to work if I so wish.

So obviously we are through the "hump day" of the year and are on the rapid downward slope to the weekend/summer.

Right now I'm feeling a little bit like Wile E. Coyote waiting for the Roadrunner to smack him with an Acme anvil. Seriously, where the hell has the year gone?

Finding Old Friends

So I've had two very busy weekends and am about to have another two very busy weekends.

The weekend before Labour Day weekend I decided to scoot down to the Tron to visit Miss T for a bit of a girls weekend while her hubby was off playing snooker in Wellington.
Earlier in the year I had been on Facebook and found one of my friends from primary school who I haven't seen since she moved when we were 11. We had tried to be pen-pals, but it kind of fell by the teenage wayside. I found out she lives in the Tron too, so we had a wee (online) chat and decided that we should catch up for a coffee while I was down visiting.
So on the Saturday morning, Miss T and I bowled over to Shell's place to meet her (again), her hubby and wee boy James. We thought we would be in for a quick tactical-strike-style catch up for a couple of hours and then out again. Were we ever wrong!
It's surprising that, given Shell and I hadn't seen each other in almost 20 years and that Miss T and Shell weren't particular friends, we just fell back into really easy conversation and were totally relaxed and had a complete blast. There was quite a bit of giggling, hassling her husband, looking at photos, and laughing about old school stories (especially ones that involved us 3 white girls in the Poly Club at primary school!).
5 hours and a really good quiche after we got there (5! 5 hours!!!!), Miss T and I decided that we should leave since Shell was planning on going out later and taking an 8 month old baby out takes preparation. But we swapped numbers and addresses, and have promised to catch up again soon (which is likely to involve some kind of party in her big party shed).
As people may know, I am *not* someone who really chases after people that I knew at school since I've managed to keep in contact with the ones that I actually liked. So I'm really, really pleased that I found Shell again. Facebook, I salute you (but just this once).

So this weekend past was the long weekend. Hurrah the holiday drought has ended! Ahem, but apart from that, Sarah, Alistair, Em and Jess came to visit. Actually they came up for a family reunion but I like to think I was all important enough for them to visit! I have rather missed all the higgledy piggledy noise and mess and hugs. I have forgotten how cool it is to have kids around. I'm all hugged up for the moment, but has made me miss Wellington again..... :/ Which means that I miss everyone.... :/ Damn you all for not moving to Orcland with me!

But to tide me over, I have Nic and Becks up this weekend for Phantom (YAY!!!!!!!) and Judge coming up the weekend after that just for the double-hockey-sticks of it (More YAY!!!!!!!). And then Xmas is coming so I'll be down in Wellington to visit for AGES (well 2 weeks but that's ages in my world at the moment).

So hugs and kisses to everyone, and I will see everyone soon! Unless of course you are overseas somewhere, cause then I won't. ;)

The Good, The Bad, and The Undateable

Good things:

• Charlotte has finally made it home out of hospital. Hurrah Little Fish.
• Nic loaned me the good version of Persuasion.
• The Evil League of Evil Application: The Embezzler. Congrats to everyone involved esp Morgue and Tec. If Joss doesn't pick this one, I don't know what is wrong with him (not that I'm biased or anything).
• A friend has announced she's pregnant. Woo! Especially so since she was starting to get a touch paranoid (*grin*)
• I'm going to visit the city of the future (Tron) tomorrow. This trip I've managed to get time with Miss T and will catch up with a friend that I haven't seen since Form 1. V. exciting.
• I finished my first strategy document ever. And apparently it was good.
• I finished writing my first RFP document ever. And apparently that was good too.
• Work paid for some trips to Wellington which meant I got to see a few people unexpectedly.
• I found some friends through work to play Munchkin and Apples to Apples with.
• "My" girls come to visit next weekend! I'm very excited.
• The Phantom has started at the Civic. Also v. exciting. And I get to go!
• Judge comes to visit soon!
• Xmas is only weeks away and I'm on holiday in Wellington for 2 whole weeks.
• The tax rebates. Took long enough and might actually have some benefit on my savings.

Bad Things:

• Charlotte was in hospital :(
• Babylon AD. Don't do it to yourself.
• The neighbours got burgled, which has made me slightly paranoid about locking things.
• I've been lacking hugs. I'm starting to go into serious withdrawl.
• I've put on weight again and current exercise levels are not balancing it. And I don't want to spend bundles on joining a gym cause I have yet to find one I like.
• I haven't been to dancing in ages cause I've been so busy that I'm finding it hard to actually get to classes.
• I haven't talked to my brother in ages. I'm feeling like a very bad sister.

The Undateable:

After considering my pathetic lack of love life, I decided to give the virtual dating world another whirl. I don't consider myself to be a supermodel in any way/shape/form (unless you count the generous cleavage), but I'm not some huckery-mole either.

So after putting myself out there, I managed to talk to some bloke and arrange for coffee. The obvious next step when you are spending considerable time chatting to each other. Not a problem!, I hear you say. It's just coffee! LIARS, all of you. I got STOOD UP. Luckily it was at the coffee place in Borders so I made myself feel better by buying a new book.

So following all of this I have continued my search for someone who I might make friends with, with a potential to date, with a remarkable lack of success. I swear that I must have some kind of glow in the dark sign on my forehead that says "DON'T DATE ME". Obviously this means that my very stylishly modern uber-pessimism superhero overundies (with hi-beam anti-dating labelling) have particularly successful. I'm glad to see Not-Kate is having more success than I am, cause someone has to be.

Poor Baby Whale

(I've finally figured out how to change my timezone! Hurrah!)

I've been avidly avoiding the stories about the baby whale on TV, on the various websites that I view, and in the newspapers (even though I don't see a whole lot of those). But this morning I saw on the NZ Herald site that vets are going to euthanise the poor little blighter because he's starving, and my pathetic girly hormones kicked in and I started to tear up.

In my logical brain, I have a voice saying it's for the best, cause you don't want a starving baby to suffer.

In my illogical, girly brain, there is a big storm of pathetic sobbing saying don't kill the baby whale, get a whole lot of milk and get a really big baby bottle and just attach it to the bottom of a yacht.

This is why I don't watch animal movies. I worry too much about the animals and just can't cope with all the drama.

Edit Note: It's 3.45pm and I've just been told that they put poor baby whale Colin down. More tearing up. :(

Amusement

1. There is a man that rides a bike around the streets near work. He's put a lawnmower motor on his bike and rides around pulling wheelies all the time. I'm guessing the wheelies are so that he doesn't accidentally apply the breaks to the wrong wheel.
2. The end of my student loan is in sight. Mwah ha haha. My last statement suggests that I should be free and clear leading into the beginning of the next tax year. There is a lot of happy happy joy joy about this and anticipation of the future freeing up of more funds.

Life is like a Tui ad.

I've come to the semi-conclusion that Life is sometimes like a Tui ad. Something will catch your attention and all of a sudden Life will pop up and tap you on the shoulder and shout "YEAH RIGHT" in your face, while turning you upside down and shaking all the change out of your pockets.

But anyway....

Following the last post, I made a bit of a mad overnight dash to Wellington to attend the funeral of the now-deceased person. I'd forgotten how much I truely dislike funerals. I always get a bit creeped out by having a dead body in the room, especially since I know the general stuff that goes on inside a dead body when things don't work any more and the whole embalming process..... I think that some of that is from the number of different "accidentally burying the live person" permutations that come out in all the horror movies that I've watched in my life. On the other hand, it was nice to see some of the people that I knew back then and see that they were kind-of-okay.

I spent a weekend in Torbay (the last suburb before you get to Rodney District!) with a friend of mine. It was the weekend of the big and nasty storm, so I drove down to the beach and spent some time watching the ginormous waves break right up over the dunes at the top of the beach. It was very cool to watch although the stupid idea Deb and I had of getting out of the car to have a closer look was just that - stupid. It was cold, and windy, and I had a better view from the car without all the sand and water blowing in my eyes.
So we headed back to Deb's place to watch DVD's and sit and stuff our faces in front of the fire. This was a brilliant plan until the power went out - for 7 hours. Deb and I sat at the table doing her 1000 piece puzzle (Toni joined in when she arrived just after the power died) and Deb's partner sat there counting down the time until the first Bledisloe match was due to start. I would like to say that I seriously admire everyone who existed before electricity. You wouldn't believe just how hard it is to finish a 1000 piece puzzle by candlelight.
The power kicked in about 5 minutes before kickoff, and by the time MySky loaded up, the TV kicked in just as they put the boot to the ball (not that it would have mattered if we missed it cause we LOST).

I've been working alot, and I mean alot. Over the past 2 weeks I've pulled one 11 hour day, two 10 hour days, one day where I have no idea how long I actually worked but I put it in the vicinity of 12 hours, and the rest were 9 hour days. This is NOT conducive to actually doing anything. It also means that I have not been to dancing in over a month. BAD.

Yesterday (today according to the post date?), it was 8 years since my dad died. It's quite an odd feeling realising that. Only 2 years to go and it's a decade. Sometimes when I'm feeling out of sorts stuff like this makes me wonder where my life has gone, cause a third of it has shot by. I think this may be part of the Tui ad that I'm feeling. *sigh* Life is like a box of chocolates......

I've finally gotten round to seeing The Dark Knight. I couldn't find an Imax session so I went to a regular session on Saturday afternoon. Heath Ledger is a legend in that movie. Movie psychos will take a lesson from this movie I'm sure. I'm not sure if it's worthy of an Oscar, but then I've never really got exactly how they manage to pick some of the awful crap that they've nominated in the past.

And on to the regularly featured Oscar acceptance speech of this blog:
Big ups to 2Trees & Laura. Hope everything goes well for the weekend.
Hugs to Judge. You are such a dude, and see you soon.
Hugs to Chell. Thanks for the sanity check
and super special thanks to Nic for the lend of the clunker.

&$*%&#(%@#(&#)@

I don't know if you all remember my semi-rant about bad surprises.

Well, the bad surprise has delivered it's punchline (almost literally) and the afflicted person died this morning.

Apart from the godawful experience that I know is happening to a loved one in Wellington, I'm feeling particularly crap about the whole thing and to be honest wanting to go home and sit on my deck with a really really really big glass of wine (you know one of those ones that take almost an entire bottle at a time).

I'd feel much better if I could have one of those huge bear hugs where someone you loves wraps you up and you just disappear into a nice comfortable cocoon of arms, but that ain't on the cards today.

So *virtual hugs* to the person that is in Wellywood going through all this without me, and more *virtual hugs* to me cause I feel like them.

Happy Dancing

Rach just told me Nina arrived pretty much on time, and no complications like being induced. There is happy Woodstock and Snoopy dancing going on in my head.

*virtual hugs* because I can.

Out & About

So it's been a while. Again. Who would have thought that I am so easily distracted!! (and no funny comments from the cheap seats thanks!)

It's been a bit of a busy month and a bit so we shall start with the week of the entertainment extravaganza!


5 June. A Thursday. Most of the girls from the office buggered off to the opening day 7pm screening of Sex and the City. If you actually want to be precise, our boss was convinced by Anita that it would be a good bonding thing for the girls so he sprung for cosmopolitans at a bar and movie tickets for us all. Go Anita!!! And they were good cosmos too (bonus!).

I will admit I was a little apprehensive walking into the movie. Although the series was very good, I was just not quite sure that they could really pull off a large screen version.
We got to the theatre and realised it really was a girls session - there was a lot of chatter through the previews and there was a single XY in the audience.

Honestly, I'm not going to complain about the movie. I rated the clothes and shoes (Vivienne Westwood, YSL, Donna Karan, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo), was fascinated by Samantha's French next-door-naked-neighbour (OMG, that gratuitious shot lasted much too long and was... er.... rather large on the screen!), and then there was the staring at Big. I do alot of that. Whoever Carrie went out with before I don't care (even though I rate John Corbett/Aiden a whole bunch) because Big is definitely my preference. *grrrr ruff*

**I don't care that I'm mixing my pop culture references cause he's way grrrr ruff.**

As a result of the movie, I'm seriously contemplating rewatching the entire series and seeing the movie again. I'm sure this is particularly pathetic but I don't care.


7 June. A Saturday. Judge and K came up for the night and we scooted out to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical on stage. To be honest there is no way I can top Judge's description of Priscilla, so I won't. Go read his review here.

I will however comment on the moronity of the useless ushers. On the presentation of our tickets to a series of 3 ushers while going up the stairs, we were directed to the centre aisle of the seating. So we tromped up the stairs to find our row, closely followed by a bunch of other noisy people attempting to locate their seats. Once we had launched ourselves into the row and disturbed and apologised a large number of people, we found out that our tickets were AT THE OTHER END OF THE ROW!!!!!!!!!!
This was slightly offset by the fact that the people next to us suffered the same issue, but was still painful and exacerbated by the fact that this guy kept babbling on about it in the most moronic way.

I will also note that for about 2 seconds I thought maybe I should have been a drag queen so that I could wear some of those costumes cause they were SO COOL.


19-21 June. A weekend. My birthday. I went to Wellington and had dinner with lots of people. Then we went out dancing for a while. I had a wonderful time. I also got very stressed out trying to organise catching up with loads of people while getting confused about when my flights were and still didn't manage to see everyone.

But I got pretty earrings and books and dvds and vouchers. Good haul really.


2 July. Wednesday. Auckland Philharmonia Happy Hour. Yes, you heard me, I went to get some culture. Our group of 16 was whittled down to 8 after pathetic excuses for non-attendance. It was Beethoven, and they did bits of an aria (Deidemia & Achilles) and the 4th Symphony which I knew the tunes for and one of the piano conchertos which I didn't know at all. Was very relaxing but I'm not sure if that was the 2 seabreezes I had on an empty stomach or the Beethoven. I think an hour of Beethoven highlights is a good idea. If they played the whole thing I'd need more seabreezes.

Somewhere between 7 and 19 June I went to a "goth" mini-concert at a bar. It wasn't really cause it was full of old(ish) people with not a single goth bone in their bodies. Toni however did quite a good goth imitation although she didn't quite get the whole brooding thing down. At the time of leaving the house I wasn't actually aware that it was "goth" but was quite pleased that I had atleast managed to dress completely in black.
It was an okay mini-concert cause they played stuff I could sing along to, and I got a little dribbly over a bass player. We had KFC afterwards - it was good.

So apart from having the most awful cold in the world over the weekend just gone (and Monday and Tuesday), it's been fairly regularly busy which is nice.

Sorry girls, no living vicariously through this single friend. Apart from the minor dribbleage there is nothing to report on the action front.

Kisses to everyone cause I'm feeling super generous today.

It's been a while

And I've missed you.

Firstly - big ups to the Fishy. Happy Bday and *hugs*!
Secondly - *hugs* for Ug. Sorry I missed you but I'm glad you are okay.

There has been lots happening.

1. I went to my first bookfair in Auckland. It's not as well organised as Wellington ones - actually it wasn't really organised at all! There was about 5 paperback tables and 2 hardback tables and the non-fiction was all sorted but other than that it was a free-for-all. It was still rateable because of the fact I picked up 2 books by an author that I quite like but have never seen on a table at a bookfair in Wellington, and the fact that Toni was a book-fair virgin until we walked in the door :)
2. I won a raffle. So it's not lotto, but still. It was a cooler bag full of food, much of which was desserty. Excellent.
3. I went to Auckland Zoo. It was okay since they have cool things like hippos and rhinoceroeseses and baby orangutans, and californian sealions with a viewing port under the pool. I enjoyed it more than I would have normally since Nic was with me and it was a really nice day and we got sunburnt. Comparisons were drawn about cage sizes and the lack of chimpanzees so not as cool as we had hoped. But still - lions and tigers and ex-shorty street stars, oh my! (sorry no bears).
4. Toni took me to Barbara's Books out in Manukau. It was full of Brotherhood of the Black Dagger, Mary-Janice Davidson, and Kressley Cole type books. They do mail order and they are relatively cheap. Awesome.
5. I went out dancing for the first time in Auckland. Ballroom dancing. It's so nice having a proper floor to dance on. It was not so nice having blisters so bad that I was unable to wear closed in shoes the rest of the week, but I don't think I care. I'm addicted again.
6. I went out dancing for the first time in Auckland. Well Nic and I attempted to. Apparently nowhere in Auckland really gets going until midnight so that kind of sucks. Another attempt will be made at a later date.
7. I drove to Wellington in just on 7 3/4 hours on 1 tank of gas on the day they upped the price to 2.009.
8. I saw Indy at the movies. Personally I was slightly less impressed than with the other movies but it was fun. And it's not going to stop me from getting it on DVD.
9. I moved into my new house. It's very odd as am still unpacking and have no furniture so means that I can't buy food unless I eat it straight away. :/ But it's still really nice being able to have a place all to myself! I have walked around the house sans anything atleast once just cause I can.

I've been very busy at work. My boss went on paternity leave on the same day he told everyone he might go any time in the next 2 weeks. So I've been covering his job and reviewing 48,000 lines of product information. I hate spreadsheets at the moment.

I'm back in the office next week with little/nothing to do so am very relieved. Quick breather and then I'll be off again :)

I'm totally raving about Botany Downs. Okay, so it's half way to frigging Hamilton but it's quite cool - loads of shops and a good pub. And there is ice skating which I would quite like to try.

Heading down to Welly again soon for birthday. Hopefully will catch few more people then. But until then *hugs* for everyone.

P.S. Chellica / Nic / Becks - Step Up 2 has release date of 15 Jul on Amazon.... I'm thinking of preordering :)

Rehomed

I have finally found myself an abode. It's in Birkenhead.

Moving will happen in the next week. Then the rest of my stuff will get here :) but I don't care..... Cause it's a place ALL of my own!!!!

*happy Snoopy type dancing*

So exciting!

Bad surprises suck.

I had a call yesterday. Someone I have known for a very long time and have had a very close love-dislike relationship with has been diagnosed with cancer. This is very bad as said persons mother and father both died in their late 40's/early 50's of cancer.

Even worse, I was speaking to another person affected by this and there was tears on the other end of the phone. All I wanted to do was get on a plane to Wellington so I could distribute hugs and possibly a bottle of bourbon. Instead I have been stuck with the virtual hugging, spouting what I hope are reassuring words, and offering that my phone will be answered at any time.

As ever with this type of news, this is a bit of a shock and has made me feel rather flat for the past 24 hours. It has also made me feel very homesick for hugs from my mum, and has made me miss my dad.

Thank goodness it's Friday and I can wallow for 2 days rather than putting on a reasonably happy face.

All hail the great and powerful Joss

The Dollhouse is officially in production. 7 (count em!) episodes are being produced as we speak, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing all of them in the correct order.

FOX network had better not screw it up this time!

Random thinking

Someone mentioned to me the other day that you will tend to socialise and communicate best with people who have IQ's within 20 points or so of your own. Given that the person I was talking to had been measured with an IQ of 160ish, this gave me a wee bit of a surprise although when I thought about it, it seemed pretty reasonable.

Knowing what I do about the IQ of some of my friends (I'm pretty sure I have atleast one if not a couple who are in Mensa), this makes me quite curious to know what the IQ's of my friends are.

Maybe combined we are smart enough that tonight, Pinky, we could take over the world......

Day Off

It was lovely having a short week, which is fantastic. It's even more fantastic that Nic and Sammy are in Orcland for the weekend :)

So yesterday Nic and I decided to just hang out and mooch at her uncles place and watch DVD's. That was fine until the DVD player decided to completely CRAP OUT and stop every 5 minutes until we were both going mental (Sammy was asleep on the other couch).

This was about when we flicked over to Channel 1 and saw this great documentary, Reluctant Hero, about Willie Apiata VC. Tem Morrison was narrating (so cool) and it covered the lead up to Willie getting the medal, the circumstances in which he won the medal, some of the things that he has done since getting the medal like visiting Passchendaele (so sad) and gifting the VC to the SAS (so awesome). Seriously if anyone gets the chance to watch it I would fully recommend it.

It reminded me that my family lost alot of people in the WWs, including a few at Gallipoli and some in the genocide in Armenia. When you consider this, it's kind of odd to think that the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are barely even news worthy these days. I think that perhaps the modern world has begun to get a bit immune to the violence and forget that there are people still affected by war every day, even here in NZ.

So everyone raise their glasses to our defenders, both present and past, guys and girls, frontline and support. Here's to you.

Continuing life

So the apartment search has been relatively successful but after talking to my financial guru advisor guy I have decided that to successfully manage the demands of Auckland and my plan of actually saving some pingas I will be required to share with another person.

Okay - I know I swore black and blue that I wanted to live on my own but gosh-darn-it-all-to-HE-double-hockey-sticks there is a whole lot more places out there if I have a couple of hundred extra bucks a week added to the budget. So the searching approach will be slightly altered but the plan is that this will also allow for the world of Spare 'Oom to be sufficiently financed for visitors. This now means navigating the world of flatmates. I'm not sure if I'm worried or okay with this.

And on another track, I'm rather looking forward to seeing Nic & Sammy at the weekend, my first friends to visit Orcland since I've been here. We will be going to the monthly Titirangi markets on Sunday which are apparently excellent.

Moving right along..... Work is AWESOME. I've been on site for a week now and am settling into a bit of a routine. I've got another bit of work to do for that customer as at tonight and will be learning SQL next week to do that! Yes yes geekiness ensues.....
My boss is pretty damn cool and he trusts me quite a bit which is a very refreshing change.

But anyway right now I'm watching the ever hilarious Robin Hood Men in Tights on telly so I'm going to bugger off now. But FYI the first thing that popped into my head when I saw it was on telly was how wierd it is not living with M&M!

Apart-mental II

This will be a short rant/post.

After my last post I was tasked with the lovely job of finding myself parking for my vehicle - since I need to have one 'cause it is Orcland and with the nature of my job I will actually need to use it.

After reconciling myself to the idea of actually paying rent of the first-born level, I went and got quotes for parking which would have required me to sell a gosh-darned (swap for the expletive of your choice) kidney to even contemplate. And just to slight me even more, for the selling of said kidney they wouldn't guarantee that the car would be monitored and they had no process to let me know if the car got broken into or smashed up by some useless driver.
ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH. Given how much I love my car this actually offends me that they are so very inconsiderate!

As a result this made the lovely apartment completely unfeasible, and the amount of money I would have been paying made me want to vomit (no really I did actually contemplate making a dash for the ladies at one point).

As a result the trawl continues. I am moderately disheartened, but currently coping. The range of the search is being expanded to accommodate my current negative mindset. Any suggestions of good locations would be good.

I think my "short" rant got a bit extended :/

Apart-mental

So for the past couple of weeks, I have subjected myself to trying to locate a place to live here in Orcland. I decided while in Wellywood that I would prefer to attempt dwelling on my own

Here is where I would like to point out that I have done the "living quarters trawl" before in Wellington and more often than not it has been relatively successful with some semi-decent abodes to be found.

Orcland seems to have a large range of places available from cheap and naaaaaaaaaasssssty to mortgaging your soul and handing over your firstborn. Yet strangely they seem to cycle through pretty quickly and for a price that wouldn't kill a Wellingtonian but would certainly raise a few eyebrows. Even worse, for a town that relies almost solely on vehicles due to the seriously crap nature of much of it's public transport, many do NOT come with carparks even if you have handed over your firstborn and all rights to future and as yet unconcieved children.

So after looking at a lovely *wee* apartment for the price of my left kidney, I had very serious second thoughts about the idea of moving and reluctantly continued looking for somewhere to live. (Quite seriously if I had tried to swing a cat in that apartment it would have hit all the walls and splattered on the sliding window/door. Alternatively if more than one person had come to visit, there would have been a queue in the hallway. Pick the analogy that grosses you out less)

Anyhoo, over the weekend I appear to have had more success. There is an apartment I have found which is lovely. It's only 1 bedroom, but there is a nook with enough room for visitors to crash in. There isn't a balcony but there are opening windows (YAY) and it's up high (extra YAY) and it's only a block to get to the movies (DOUBLE SUPER YAY).
Now I just have to convince the landlords that they want me to live there......

And following another thread of thought, I'm stealing a leaf out of the Judge's blog.
I went to see "Definitely, Maybe" on Saturday night. I went into the movie knowing that that this was likely to be complete chicklit pap, and I was not disappointed. I was somewhat disappointed that the storyline wasn't even half as funny as the ads and the various reviews had implied, and the kooky redhead (Isla Fisher, the other half of Ali G) wasn't even half as kooky as I like her to be. Abigail Breslin was occasionally entertaining, but not in best form (as an aside, is she the sister of the other Breslin boy? The one from Zoom and The Kid? My head is spinning OOC). Not even the very, very lovely Ryan Reynolds could save that poor doomed storyline.

So my opinion is girls, watch this on DVD when hormonal due to the cutesy love story; boys, save yourself and leave the house if it's on TV. Other than that, I would ignore it's existance except I know that I'll watch it again just for the Ryan Reynolds eyecandy........

Update: The apartment is mine..... Excellent....... *evil grin*

It's a whole new world....

And I ain't kidding.
I packed up the car, and drove to Hamilton on a Sunday and then to Auckland on the Monday. And now I've been here almost 2 weeks.

It's quite different from Wellington and I find myself comparing things all the time - parking costs much the same, rush hour is completely different, buses are better (! - atleast from the North Shore), and the weather is relatively good. Housing is generally similar although the turnover is way faster, and the rents are slightly more expensive.

The job rocks. After being somewhat bored for the past 12 months, although earning very good deniros, I find that I am enjoying actually having something to do! (even if that thing is learning linux...)

And since I'm lazy I decided that I would start a blog. That way I don't have to keep emailing the same information to everyone and repeating myself repeating myself.

So more to follow shortly......