Off to Akaroa after OB for a debrief ;) It’s always a lovely place to get away to. The slightly annoying thing was that, pretty much for the rugby world cup, legislation was passed so that you can’t just rock up anywhere in your camper van *unless* it has an installed toilet. Now, my little van doesn’t have one. I’m not sure how much it’s being enforced, and I *can* understand the reasoning… but still… I hate staying in parks like this one… (pretty ‘n all as it is)

I suspect if you’re out in the wilds then you’re very unlikely to be snared.. but I dunno.. it’s just the *fear* of being caught I suppose. Still, the fine is only $200 or something, so if you can get away with a ratio of 5:1 then you’re on the up ;)

Mostly the weekend was about the chatting eating and drinking.. Maaike trying to get accustomed to my attempt at a beard (here to stay for a while I think)

There was swinging too

We also went to see The Tree of Life. It recently won the Cannes Film Festival.. and I must say.. it was total pants. I’m sure it was entirely “clever”, “arty”, “thoughtful”, “deep”, “meaningful” etc. etc. ad nauseam. I’m quite possibly too dense to really “get it”, but I thought that while it was a pretty film with some nice images, the actual plot, storyline, charachters, y’know, something you might enjoy in a 2 hour long film might actually be there. Total rubbish in my opinion…. I’ll leave you with a couple of quips from imdb:

The Tree of Life wilts under the scrutiny of any audience not sitting in a museum or on hallucinogenics.

Basically it had no plot, a vague meaning, and seemed to be consciously attempting to be artsy. I suspect that Cannes critics praised it out of fear that they were the only ones who didn’t understand it, somewhat of a ‘king’s new clothes’ scenario.

Please email for the password if I haven’t already given it to you. The reason it’s protected is simply so that information about Outward Bound isn’t too easily accessible as it’d spoil the fun if people who were going to go on the course could get info on it toooo easily!

So.. I was listening to a podcast (This American Life – excellent).. and it was on gossip. During the podcast they played a snippet of music which I loved.

So.. downloaded Songza – which is an app which can discover what music you are listening to.. found out that it was “I heard, by the mills brothers”.

Put that into youtube.. and here’s the result.

It is quite ridiculous what you can do with computers these days. Really quite incredible. I remember ZX Spectrums and very slow modems (128bps?). Crazy. Really crazy

A few pictures from last weekend, walking about in the hills above our house.

It’s great – a 40 minute walk from front door brings you up here… One of the challenging things post-quake has been finding outlets for energy.. a lot of the tracks are dangerous with rock-fall hazards etc. ChCh is getting back on its feet though – which is great… but it is slow work.

This weekend just gone, Maaike and I flew up to Wellington to see Glynn & Jayne, and also the Irish comedian Dylan Moran. He was definitely funny – though I had less gut-wrenching laughs than I have had with others. I think this might have been down to the acoustics of the theatre (he talks very quickly), and I was also expecting more topical / political humour. Still, an excellent excellent evening. In a parallel dimension, I would love to be a standup comedian. I think.

Oh, Maaike and I also went for a walk above Wellington. I love that you can be right up with a good view in literally minutes walk from the city centre. Wellington really is a nice city, even if she is sitting on a time-bomb (big overdue quake!).

It was lovely seeing Glynn & Jayne. Their daughter Isla isn’t getting any smaller, or quieter. Which is all right and proper for a 1 1/2 year old. Does bring it home the sacrifices one makes from *not* being in Ireland. That said, I read the Irish papers daily, and while I’m sure it’s not as bad as the papers make out, I’m still quite happy to be in New Zealand, and not in a country which must be going through such a harsh transition. I think I’d take earthquakes over mountains of debt any day.

Still, we do have houses like this all over the place. Which is less than ideal.