You can sponser me here by entering the rego number 140709 and following the steps. Unfortunately I’ve had some sort of reaction to something and the blood vessels around my eye sockets have given up the ghost, so a photo at this stage would be a little disturbing to look at. You can get a rough idea of my pedro sanchez though by looking at this photo from a few days ago.
/UPDATE: My face aids has cleared up enough to post this picture, and thank christ immediately afterwards the mo met my merkur razor
Back in high-school I had meticulously grown sideburns that extended down to my jawline (a’la Jemaine Clement). I would regularly be told by teachers to square them off at ear level, but I was rebellious and I knew better! About once a month I’d be pulled into the dean’s office, given a brand new Gillette razor and made to shave the sidies off. Rinse and repeat, I had a box of Gillette razors by the time I left school.
But let’s go back even further – when I was a kid I would have an allergic reaction to any soap on my face, with a breakout not unlike exczema, but I could use cetaphil – pricey at some NZD$13 a bar though. So I have grown up wary of what cleaning products go near my face. After a lot of trial and error, with a lot of pain and blood, I finally settled about 5 years ago on Imperial Leather for Sensitive Skin shaving foam, a standard Mach-3 handle and blades and Nivea for Men (again, Sensitive Skin) Aftershave Balm.
But $15 for a pack of 4 Mach-3 cartridge blades just doesn’t make sense to me. Not when you can get standard blades for a couple of bucks a piece at the most. NZD$8 tops for a pack of something decent like the Japanese Feathers shown in the picture above. (I’m currently using the South African Lion’s)
Or consider it this way: McDonalds makes the best burgers because they make them en masse? I don’t think so. Give me Burger-Fuel, Wendys or even a homemade burger any day.
So these run of the mill razors that lock you into a proprietary and expensive blade system, and based on bad methodology resulting in an increased chance of ingrown hairs and irritation are somehow better? I didn’t think so, and it turns out that I wasn’t alone. There are blogs, youtube videos and wholecommunities dedicated to reviving the lost art of shaving.
My shaves have since been a lot better, with even less irritation, and my beard is growing back a lot more evenly. Now I look forward to shaving, to the point where I wished my beard would grow faster! But I think the biggest factor for me was getting rid of the canned goop and switching to a proper badger hair brush (which came with my beautiful German Merkur Futur) and a proper shaving soap. That combined with a decent non-alcohol aftershave balm should be enough for most. But for people wanting to go the whole way – sure, there can be an investment of hundreds, or even thousands of dollars – I was offered a cut-throat/switchblade/single-edge pack for NZD$1500, you have to consider that it pays for itself in shave quality and long term savings on the blades. Shaving is also now a lot more enjoyable for me; it’s an event. It shouldn’t make sense, but somehow it does.
In the picture:
1x Nivea for Men Aftershave Balm (Sensitive Skin)
1x pack of 5 Lion brand razors (South African)
1x pack of 5 Feather brand razors (Japanese – highly regarded)
1x Nix shaving pencil – halfway between an Alum Block and a Styptic Pencil for any nicks and cuts
1x Merkur Futur, Badger hair shaving brush and stand
1x Cappuchino mug for use as a lather mug – 50c at the local St Vincent De Paul’s
1x misc mug – 20c at the local St Vinnies. I have milled my own shave soap into this, which is obscured by my block of Goats Milk shave soap
1x Skinfood shaving gel – not recommended at this stage
1x Mennen shaving cream – recommended for beginners
Interesting. After the world cup loss a poll was held where about 80% of the people polled said that Graham Henry deserved to keep his job. Today a poll on Stuff indicated that had dropped to about 40%, so what happened?
As I was overseas while the roots of this were taking hold, I didn’t get to be caught up in the flow. So I feel a bit more of an outsiders point of view – the media started out like everyone else: the referee was useless. And they were right. The French played hard but they played illegally, and they were right – hell, even the French public acknowledge that fact. You cannot ignore an independant FRENCH review of the game saying the French should have been penalised around 24 times, even the IRB conceded that several penalties were ignored.
And let’s not all focus on just that forward pass. Leon McDonald’s yellow card was unjustifiable and while he was off the French took advantage of the hole in the defences for a try – even then it was after some gruelling defence against dozens of powerful All Blacks phases. The referee regularly said “I don’t know” – well there’s a video ref for a reason you numbskull, and the referee singled out Richie McCaw from the opening whistle. This forced Richie to play a bit more reserved than usual so as not to get sent off. Putting the All Blacks at a disadvantage against an inspired French side sounds a little like a conspiracy doesn’t it?
But over the last few weeks some hard questions have been asked, and each of them were answerable. Questions like “Why did the reconditioning and rotation policy fail?” well, it didn’t, as it was only a very very MINOR variable in the whole affair. In fact, the only question that has been asked that still remains open for me is “Why was Doug Howlett not in the line up?” – sure, Dougie was not the obvious choice for the match, but he would have been extremely useful on the bench for the second half as he’s consistent, hungry for results and almost always leads to exciting rugby and above all lots of tries.
The other thing I’ve noticed over the last few weeks has been the media rhetoric changing from blamepointing at the referee’s incompetence to blamepointing at the coach, Graham Henry. There have been words used like “now Henry must defend the indefensible.” Excuse me? This from the same rag that a month ago was finding plenty of defensible material? Then the Robbie Deans drumbeat started up: Robbie Deans, Robbie Deans, Robbie Deans… Lest we forget that Robbie Deans was also part of a previous failed world cup attempt. “Oh, but he’s got better as a coach and learnt from his mistakes!” Ummm and Henry is suddenly incapable of learning from his mistakes too?
The other argument that “well, history says that if you don’t bring home the world cup then you lose your job” is just silly. We had a history of using lead in a lot of our products, and asbestos too. Should we have kept using those for the sake of history? I mean.. I’m just saying… Following tradition blindly for tradition’s sake is just shortsighted.
I thought my fellow New Zealanders had grown up, and were above kneejerk idiocy. Instead, I feel I’m surrounded by people who, much like the poms, did not watch the same game that I did and are now overanalysing it. Graham Henry is not solely to blame, he should not lose his job because an incompetent referee failed to do his properly, he should not lose his job because the team failed to work as a unit, and he should not lose his job because a population that are following a sensationalist media’s Robbie-Deans-drumbeat like sheep say so. Judging him on his merits and his track record, Graham Henry should keep his job, the All Blacks should stay the course, and some fundamental changes to the sport should be argued by the NZRFU to the IRB:
1) The coach of a team should be able to object to a call made by a referee, as is the case in many other sports
2) The video referee should be able to overrule and/or guide the referee within a particular timeframe (eg 30 seconds)
3) A much fairer world cup format based around team points gained over the course of the tournament
I was enjoying a cruisy day at work, browsing some airline sites to try and find a cheap flight to Auckland – after a 40 hour epic trip back from Belgium, I have zero interest in being in a car for 10 hours, I’ll take the one hour flight thanks – anyway, I got a text from Tamati reading Could not start kstartupconfig. Check your installation. WTF?.
oh.yay.
The short of it is that he had created a seperate account for his girlfriend and since then things had been severely bung. As he’s on Kubuntu, I figured I’d just upgrade him from Feisty to Gutsy and that would be that. CTRL+ALT+F2, logged in as him and issued the following:
After a couple of hours of waiting, alas the problem remained. Nothing in the logs, nothing in any tails. I figured I’d try to install gnome and see if that was any different
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
After some more waiting, a nice Gnome login screen appeared, the login attempt failed albeit differently. Fortunately this time, gtk and X were a lot more forthcoming with useful information in the logs. Essentially Tamati’s profile was trying to build itself within /home instead of /home/tamati where it should be. So something like this:
Okay, only a couple of Auckland’s problems. Fletcher Constructionhave warned that the Eden Park upgrade for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 will fall behind schedule if rapid moves aren’t made now. And they’re right. But the stadium is not the sole major problem.
The major problem is that the world cup is based in Auckland, a city with desperate public transport and infrastructure issues. Not to mention the capability to only house half of the expected incoming fans. So what’s my suggestion?
Yes, Hamilton – the city of the future, and I never thought I’d recommend Hamilton for anything other than looking soviet from a distance. Anyway, the smaller city to the south of Auckland can serve as a surrogate for what Auckland cannot handle – offering accomodation, shopping, and a staging point for tourist-type stuff such as Rotorua. But we need to figure out how to get people from Hamilton to Auckland quickly, so here’s what needs to be done.
1) Improvements at Auckland International Airport – this is so that when people arrive in New Zealand, they can easily find their way to wherever they need to go, with shuttle services to hotels and other transport systems
2) Completion of the Waikato Expressway to at least Hamilton
3) Temporary seating at the Albany Stadium and regular and plentiful free/cheap transport between Eden Park and Albany for lower grade matches
4) A fast train.
Seriously, a fast train between Hamilton and Auckland is a smart way to get a lot of people moving fast, and after the world cup is over it can remain as a public transport system for commuters – especially appealing for those with a vested interest in living outside Auckland but working in the city. And during the world cup, the popularity would practically pay off the investment. Ideally it would gradually move further south, ultimately linking up with Wellington, offering a commute time of 5-6 hours tops – taking into account regular stops and slowdowns for some of the more challenging sections of our main trunk such as the Raurimu Spiral. Wellington can likewise get fast trains for its Palmerston North and Wairarapa services, allowing commuters a faster and more sensible way to commute.
Sure, there’s a bunch of investment in wide-rail technology, but we’re well overdue for that and it will allow us greater flexibility with what we can import and put in use domestically. So, imagine you’re a foreigner and you miss out on a hotel in Auckland – no biggy, you go and stay in Hamiltron – The City of the Future! You get on a shuttle to the train station and jump on the (hourly?) fast train to Auckland. Arriving at Britomart (the most underwhelming station in NZ), you exit to a clearly marked track to a regular shuttle service to the Kingsland train station, which again has a clearly marked track on the short walk to Eden Park. Regular train services to Kingsland, and even making Kingsland a temporary stopping point for the fast train itself would also help to streamline the process.
On Saturday Jim and I went around the harbour to Days Bay, had breakfast and a coffee before jumping on the East By West harbour ferry out to Matiu/Somes Island. After a 10 minute trip on the ferry at a cost of NZD$18.50 for a return pass, you are debriefed in a small quarantine building designed to ensure that nobody smuggles unwanted pests onto the island. Anyone interested in the history of the island can ask questions here, for anyone who misses it, you can read up some major points at the wikipedia.
It was very interesting to hear about the importance this island had for New Zealand’s biosecurity and by extension our economy, and it was also very interesting to learn of a more xenophobic time for us – even if you weren’t Italian or German, in WWII if you simply had an Italian or German sounding surname, you would be interned there. This side of WWII and the far side of WWI, the island served as a quarantine for both humans and animals, however judging by the photographic records on display there, there is not much remaining of the buildings that housed the human population, these days only a few select buildings stand, along with a seemingly untouched tennis court and some old security fences. The island also served as an anti-aircraft gun location during WWII.
After the (brief) debriefing you are free to roam the island in your own time. Immediately after the quarantine building is a sealed road that runs from the wharf to the top, it’s a bit steep but it’s over quickly and you come across the first indicator of the history of the place: When the road was being bulldozed in, a graveyard was accidentally uncovered. For those who do not hear from the person doing the debriefing, this is roughly at the halfway hairpin corner. A couple of headstones (and, I assume, remains) were relocated further up the hill to the side of the road with a monument for all those who died while either in quarantine or interned there during one of the world wars. The monument itself is very sobering, not that I was drunk, but looking through all the names and seeing the ages at which they died – some were as young as a few months old, most were less than 10 years old, and then at the bottom of one side of the monument there is mention of the infamous Kim Lee.
Kim Lee was a Chinese man who arrived at the quarantine in 1904 suspected of leprosy. He was immediately exiled to the nearby and barely habitable Mokopuna Island. There he lived in a cave for 3-4 months, fed by food delivered via a flying fox from the main island, before he passed away on 14 March 1904, at an age of about 51. Unfortunately Mokopuna Island is still called Leper Island by some, when the modern view held by DoC staff, volunteers and historians is that he instead had tuberculosis and psoriasis. It is a very sad story, and probably not the best start to an island exploration. Not far from the monument is a solitary headstone, overlooking the harbour, facing northwards to Petone and the Hutt Valley.
Further up the road you come across the remaining buildings, some Department of Conservation (DoC) buildings and the visitor centre. Further up from there, past about a dozen sheep with a couple of lambs, is the Trig station, which is at the highest point of the island. I’ve always had a fascination with trig stations and I’ve never known why, regardless, from this vantage point you can see some of the other major features of the island, namely the remains of the AA-gun installation which are a literal stonesthrow away and the lighthouse.
After all of these are explored, then it’s time to check out the flora and fauna. There are Kakariki birds playing in bird baths, there are curious North Island Robins who will follow you about, and even jump on your foot to check you out if you stop to give them a chance. Then there are about 50 Tuatara floating about, who are extremely hard to spot and most can go an entire day without spotting one, we certainly didn’t see one.
Overhearing a conversation between a DoC staffer and a volunteer, apparently people who go out when the weather isn’t so great – like we did – are people who are geniunely interested in the island. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with going out there on a sunny day. I for one see the island from both viewpoints – it is a very interesting place that’s sitting there in the middle of Wellington Harbour, yet nobody gives it a second thought. The fact that it remains relatively untouched (some 15,000 visitors per year) is appealing to me. It’s a very peaceful place, and on a sunny day would make a great picnic location. And afterwards, on the ferry back from whence you came, you can have a beer.
I was thinking today about how I hate going through bank statements and looking at all the sub-dollar amounts. I also realised that after being in Europe where they’re not big on ATM’s like we are here in NZ (like literally having to go from one side of a city to the other to find a traveller friendly ATM, as apposed to our virtually 6 ATM’s on every damn block here) that I’ve been in a “use cash” habit. Carrying around chump change is a pain in the butt, but at least some places give you a place to ditch the shrapnel for use towards a charity.
So I thought – hang on: Why doesn’t EFTPOS give you the option to ’round up’?
Imagine this: You go into McDonalds and you order an upsized combo worth $6.60. You elect to round up and pay a nice, clean, round $7, with the difference going to Ronald McDonald House. Now, let me be clear here, I don’t want McStaff going “*yawn* would you like to round up it goes to a worthy cause” in the most canned voice possible, I want this to be purely user opt-in.
Most chain stores have aligned with a charity of some sort, and for all other retailers who haven’t – another foundation could be setup that distributes the funds, or EFTPOS could randomly (or round-robin) assign it to one of a short list of maybe a dozen charities.
That’s my random thought for the night, mull it over and see what you think.
Executive Summary: Fred Dagg had it right; We don’t know how lucky we are
Well I’ve been back for a week now, thanks to my experience with sleep deprivation over the years I was able to effectively plan ahead and squash that wee issue called jetlag quicksmart. 40+ hours awake, thankfully on Singapore Airlines one of the lovely attendants goes past every couple of minutes, so you can stay wired on some pretty terrible filter coffee, but that’s what you get for going in the cheapseats. We got back in the afternoon, I managed to stay up for about 5 more hours and then I slept like a log before getting up bright and early the next day. To give you some perspective, here’s a photo of me about 4 hours after arriving in Wellington with T-Ho, who had been drinking all day, maybe even since the day before.
That, by the way, is my second beer. And after that I was a nana, went home and snored my “too many croissants with butter and too much belgian beer” little heart out.
So what I have I noticed now, thinking comparatively between NZ and Europe?
Well, the French aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Everyone says they’re arrogant, but as I’ve said in a previous post – go there with no prejudice, show them a bit of respect by giving their language a nudge and they’re pretty forgiving much like the Italians, and we found them to be absolutely polite – even more polite than New Zealanders. Go to their country expecting them to speak english, and expecting them to be arrogant, and that’s exactly what you’ll get. And the argument that “heaps of other Europeans speak like 4 languages so I conclude that ALL French must speak English, they’re just holding out because they’re wankers!” is about as dumb as an English speaker expecting to come over here and engage with any New Zealander in conversational Maori.
The air in parts of Europe is disgusting, especially compared to the air in New Zealand which is so very clean and pure. In Paris you cannot see the horizon from the top of the Eiffel Tower due to the pollution, but Paris has nothing on London. One weekend in London and by the time we got to Belgium my throat was RAW. I practically had to drink from a water bottle whenever I wasn’t drinking sweet Belgian beer to keep my throat moist. It wasn’t any better until a couple of days ago The only respite in the trip was Grenoble, but even then due to its geographical location, Grenoble apparently has a Christchurch-esque tendancy to have smog settling down. Still, the water in Grenoble was right up there with Petone’s Artesian – my hosts explained to me that the water comes from a mountain catchment that has a strictly controlled zone around it to ensure that nothing, NOTHING, enters the water. It filters down through the mountains (French Alps that is) and remains untouched all the way to the taps.
London was 50/50 for me. Like Paris should not be taken as the real France, London should not be taken as the real England. While it was nice to be in an English speaking country where people drive on the correct side of the road, their insistence on sticking to the pound is just dumb and frustrating. Having had to elbow another man in the face to ensure my head wasn’t decapitated by the doors on the Tube, I can now look at a “packed” Wellington train with a smile; It’s luxury in comparison.
Belgium was awesome. A very beautiful place, even the drunk homeless and beggers were pleasant compared to London’s. Beer that is 11% alcohol was just dandy. Brussells was cool, the Mannequin Pis was astoundingly disappointing (it’s TINY) and Antwerp was an amazing place, even though we were only there for one night.
Food: I had frogs legs – they taste like chicken. I had steamed snails – they’re just like eating shellfish. I had horse steak – now that was tasty. The pastries were very rich, sugary and starchy. The butter was outstanding. The coffee was, well, the French like to sprinkle their coffee beans with Cajun seasoning and then cremate them – an exaggeration sure, but if you don’t like the taste of burnt beans don’t bother drinking coffee in France – oh, and Cafe au lait (ie coffee with milk) after say 10am is a fine way to say “I’m a twat” though not as bad as Cafe Americano. The Poms cannot make a coffee to save themselves, and this is coming from me – a tea drinker. The wine in France was outstanding, the beer in Belgium was outstanding, the greasy in London was outstanding. The Coca-Cola in all countries was weird; its aftertaste was a bit more like syrup and gave a bit of a headache afterwards. The oysters were terrible; I may as well have drank sea water.
Frankly though, while France’s work ethic was pretty cruisy – especially in the south of France, the lifestyle was not quite a match for NZ’s. Pulling into Wellington Airport after dealing with Brussells International, Heath-fucking-row, CDG and Singapore.. well… Wellington Airport is like a farmer’s airstrip in comparison. After ripping through a tunnel on the way to Antwerp at 140kmh, our 100kmh speed limit seems a bit more sane. Things are smaller, simpler and slower here. Now that I’ve had this perspective, I love living in New Zealand even more. Sure, our history might not be as old as the public toilets in Grenoble, or as interesting because we’re doing our utter best to ignore most of our defining moments such as the Treaty of Waitangi, the previous Declaration of Independance, the New Zealand wars (which, seriously, is something to be proud of in a twisted way), and a myriad of other things. I realised this when our hosts – my workmates – were pointing out very interesting things and discussing their histories, and I came to the conclusion that if they came to Wellington, I would not be able to show them anything remotely as interesting – because they know their city better than I know mine.
I’ve resolved to get to know my own country better; to get outside my comfort zone, my rut, my same old schedule and explore. To find other pubs, to meet other people, to experience as much of New Zealand as possible. My weekends are going to be a lot more interesting now. I will be going back to France for work though and I’m looking forward to it – I could be a month, I could be three. I’ll be better prepared and will make much better use of my time while I’m there, so bring it on!
Tiki Taane, best known as the former lead singer of Salmonella Dub, and vocalist on some great tracks such as with Concord Dawn and Rhombus has released his solo album “Past, Present and Future” Unbeknownst to most kiwis, Tiki is like our own homegrown version of Mike Patton; an amazing (and underrated) vocalist, but an even greater talent behind the scenes, and in many ways this is Tiki’s Peeping Tom
What can I say about this album? In pairs or triplets the songs mesh together very well, but from one end of the album to the other it’s apparent that Tiki is drawing on several influences such as traditional Maori, reggae, dub, drum n bass and hip hop – where the album loses a bit of flow in that regard it also gains some depth and character and I think that’s a positive thing; better to have an album with variety rather than what I call the Offspring Syndrome: every damn song sounds the same.
Alone, this is probably not the album for the coming summer – the individual tracks are perfect in their own right but the variety between them makes this a bit disjointed to have a BBQ and some beers with. In conjunction with Salmonella Dub’s Heal Me (keep an ear out for Love Sunshine and Happiness and Watching it Rain), Shapeshifter’s Soulstice, and Concord Dawn’s Chaos by Design, perhaps with the odd Black Seeds track and Recloose’s Mana’s Bounce, a cruisy and progressive playlist could be formed.
And let’s not all focus on just that forward pass. Leon McDonald’s yellow card was unjustifiable and while he was off the French took advantage of the hole in the defences for a try – even then it was after some gruelling defence against dozens of powerful All Blacks phases. The referee regularly said “I don’t know” – well there’s a video ref for a reason you numbskull, and the referee singled out Richie McCaw from the opening whistle. This forced Richie to play a bit more reserved than usual so as not to get sent off. Putting the All Blacks at a disadvantage against an inspired French side sounds a little like a conspiracy doesn’t it?
The only respite in the trip was Grenoble, but even then due to its geographical location, Grenoble apparently has a Christchurch-esque tendancy to have smog settling down. Still, the water in Grenoble was right up there with Petone’s Artesian – my hosts explained to me that the water comes from a mountain catchment that has a strictly controlled zone around it to ensure that nothing, NOTHING, enters the water. It filters down through the mountains (French Alps that is) and remains untouched all the way to the taps.
