The newest member of the family...

...no I haven't impregnated anyone... not recently anyway. I've got myself a new digital camera! Check it out here. Isn't it cool? I got the blue one.

Inevitably with a new camera comes stupid photos/videos. Here are mine:

I wanted to photoshop little gangsta hats/suits on the dogs just for fun, but I couldn't be bothered.

Whew... now that I've got that out of my system I promise only quality stuff from now on. Actually I'm not going to make any promises, lets re-phrase that. I can promise... stuff from now on.

I’m leaving on a jet plane; don’t know when I'll be back again.

It’s all booked and paid for and everything seems to be falling in to place, I’m not usually this good at organising things. Passports are almost sorted, work has been sorted for some time now, and I’ve even taken advantage of the Kathmandu Easter sales and got myself some luggage.

I leave Wellington at 8.30pm Tuesday 16th of May; it's only (this far) away! So as you can see you have a limited amount of time to get me going away presents. It’s also my birthday on the 13th of May so you have extra incentive to get me something nice and useful!

Like shoes maybe...

Its moments like these…

It was a rather restful weekend, punctuated by recurring medical problems, curry and celebrations. We’ll skip the recurring medical problems because I am of the firm belief that they only happen to old people and I am 23 years of age, i.e. not old.

So I guess that brings us to curry, Indian curry to be precise, Indian curry from Curry Village to be even more precise, in fact the Indian curry from Curry Village mentioned eariler on Valentines Day to be insanely precise. Right are you with me? You are? Good, let us continue. Guy invited us all out for dinner; the word “celebration” was bandied about a bit and as there were no obvious signs or reasons for a celebration, rumours and gossip flourished. A new job? A marriage? A change in sexual orientation?

Dave was the first to crack, as usual. Guy’s response was poetry in motion. He stands up and says that he has an announcement.

“I’m Gay”.

Silence.

“Oh ok” – Neil is never one for an uncomfortable silence

Conversation continues for a few more minutes and Guy makes another announcement, this time without any fanfare.

“I actually got a pay-rise, so not gay”.

Round of expected congratulations ensues… hilarious…

The last of the summer wine…

I guess that’s it then, summer is over. Daylight savings has finished and the weather is starting to pack in. It’s a sad time but we did see off summer in style on Friday, which also happened to be St Paddy’s day.

Billed as the last BBQ of the summer, we dutifully turned up to the Hataitai flat. Jared, bless his little soul had got me beer and a T-Bone, so from the moment I arrived there was happiness. As a side note, that man sure knows how to BBQ.

Dave and I spent many a happy hour reliving our former glory days as students in Dunedin; this was followed by some fantastic re-enactments of bad language and behaviour, ahhh those certainly were the days.

Some random chicks turned up, they seemed to know who I was so I played it cool and pretended to know them back. I think they went to my school or something.

Rebecca H and I decided to hit the town, realising that young Hannah would be finishing work in quarter of an hour. One text asking her if she wanted to come was answered 12 seconds later with an “Ok you talked me in to it, pick me up from work” – Hannah, you’re awesome. Also in the awesome yet additionally hilarious category, visiting my workplace while in a state of inebriation, I’d totally recommend it to anyone that works in a soulless job like me. It really lets you realise that the bastards haven’t got all of your soul just yet.

By this stage I was quite far gone, but I’m pretty sure there was dancing and Irish bars, and possibly dancing in Irish bars too. I said ‘no kebabs’ but got hungry and everyone else was having them so that rule went out the window pretty quickly.

Saturday morning I was feeling pretty damn well hung over so I moved about 4 meters up the stairs and watched the cricket all day, which is exactly what I had planned to do however I had planned to actually go to the game. To make up for my laziness I called upon Dad, who with a little prodding, (i.e. I’ll give you $10) roasted a lamb for dinner, it was awesome; he even made mint sauce, made mint sauce! I swear there is nothing he can’t do. So after that single act I felt like I had spent the day well.

Sunday was also not to be your typical day of rest, oh no. I had free cricket tickets from work and I was determined to use them, oh yes I was. Davey and I picked up some food and proceeded to the Basin, which it must be said, is the most beautiful ground that you could ever have a picnic on, let alone watch a test at. Lara got out for a measly run, which made his total for the match a massive two runs. The weather sort of packed in at the Tea break but it was time to trundle off to work anyway.

Like lambs to the slaughter...

Suitably suited up we filed up outside Wellington’s crappiest drinking establishment at precisely five past twelve, AM that is. Shooters on a Wednesday night has a large assortment of under priced drinks and under dressed students all doing their best headless chicken impressions on the dance floor. However we were not there to dance, no not at all, we had a clearly defined mission, get slaughtered.

As we were all bank people, not only do we look like money, we smell like it too, it comes from working with it albeit in electronic form all day. Since most of us have no social lives most of us actually have money to spend so this was the time to put ones money where ones mouth was, so to speak, or should it be, so to drink?. Fortunately this was no great struggle as a round of beer for seven people was only $21.

Suddenly we were everyone’s best friend, as typically one is inclined to believe when one is drunk, however in our case it was true, this is probably because Dave A decided that the way to make friends was buying them tequila. In my experience buying someone tequila is a good way to have ones first lesbian experience, but that’s another story altogether.

Four of five shots of tequila later, Heng swears I had seven but that seems impossible as I don’t appear to be a lesbian yet, we hit The Big Kumara where they have a half decent live band that plays songs that all drunk people can sing along to at a volume that no one can hear the drunk people singing. In all honesty it was great.

As for Thursday at work, Shane H summed it up with the words “I want to cry”. It appears that he’s good at summing stuff up.

Attention class, take out your spatulas…

Recipe: Warm Flat
- A simple dish that never fails to satisfy. An easy and delicious recipe that will impress your guests!

Ingredients:
- 30 ripe people
- 1 full keg

Method:
- Mix

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen I went to the Brooklyn road flat warming on Friday night and yes there was a keg. Isn’t it funny how parties with kegs are always just that little bit messier. All sorts of shenanigans flourished, it was great. There was a solid amount of good conversation, the odd bit of dancing, and mix all that with a constant supply of alcohol and you have the makings of a very enjoyable evening.

My god, I was hung-over the next day, I slept over and I actually couldn’t move until about 12pm, I believe The Mill no brand keg was partly to blame. Fortunately there was test cricket on TV so we went about things at a gentlemanly test cricket pace. Guy finished off the keg-dregs and by the time the cricket was finished for the day I was ready for food. I like to wolf it down… fried rice that is, sweet.

As we were all pretty wasted the next evening a good dose of board games was in order, Scene It and Travel Trivia took us through to 1.30am when I finally took my leave of the good hospitality of Brooklyn road and proceeded home...

A Bright Abyss indeed...

So yeah I went to the St James theatre on Friday night, there just happened to be a show on and I just happened to have tickets, how very convenient, how very… cosmopolitan, bourgeois almost. With mixed emotions, I saw an imaginatively comic acrobatic display that at times reminded me of the hilarious Arlecchino character in Italian Commedia dell'Arte and at times made me feel nostalgic and want to go back to Otago and ‘Lunch Time Theatre’. It was directed by and also starred James Thiérrée, a Chaplin progeny, yes that Chaplin.

Following the theatre I met up with Natalie in Jet, we had a few drinks and hung out there for a while then we moved on to Vespa lounge – and yes it does have a Vespa scooter strung up on the wall, not to mention relatively good couches too. The night was a cold and blustery one, so I was warm and safe in bed by 2am.

Saturday, I watched the weekends sporting loses, Hurricanes, Blackcaps etc. and decided that it was cold outside and tonight was to be a video night. I watched Constantine with Dad, notably there was minimal sighing and reading of the news paper, he even made pop-corn! Is there anything he can’t do?! Davey called later on so we caught a late movie about the first Gulf War called Jarheads; it was pretty good and confirmed everything I already thought about being an American soldier.

All in all a very cultured and civilised weekend… werid.