Entries from January 2005 ↓

Drove up Friday to typical Hawke’s Bay weather – blue sky, very little wind and fairly sweltering temps for Wellingtonians. While business dealings were going on indoors I lazed under an umbrella reading a book with 2 cats to pat. Later coffee and yo yo’s by the pool while watching the more active splash about. Perfect day! Filled in the rest of the weekend with walking along the beach, dining at wineries (at tables outside!), purchasing local fruit and veg, eating breakfast at a local bakery (at a table outside!) and driving around looking for high octane petrol (Clive of all places!).

Cnr Victoria & Bond: was Robyn Matheson clothing until mid-December, then was hat shop, as of this week is now Norsewear (TM).

It’s been a day of random thoughts – PEQSS (Post Earthquake Stress Syndrome) – another one. I think I surf (the web) like I shop. I very rarely set out to ’surf’ the web, I pretty much never do it, because I don’t know where to start. My kind of surfing is to look for something specific. Just like when I shop. I don’t randomly wander and end up looking and buying interesting things along the way – I very much target specific shops for specific things and when on this train of thought never buy anything unless I find that exact thing I think exists. Back to surfing – I rarely come across interesting sites discovered link hopping journey – perhaps if I read general interest/newsy type sites I might find something interesting and follow it. Nah, don’t have the patience!

Walking back from getting my coffee today I saw a guy trying to get into the back window of his car (I assume it was his, perhaps I should’ve been a more thoughtful citizen and asked him in case he was stealing it) with a coat-hanger.  Which made me think – you see this fairly often when people lock their keys in their car, and they always seem to be able to find a coat-hanger somewhere. Whether on Panama Street or The Terrace. What do you do – find the nearest dry cleaner? Interesting.

While out in the car last night I flicked through radio stations. When the autoseek found a nice clear one I noticed a new read out in my dash panel. In the bit between the rev counter and speedo where there’s a little panel of date/time/estimated fuel left/radio station frequency I noticed flashing words “ALL” “I WANT” “BY” “[can't remember]” “HOT HOT HOT” “SUMMER HITS” “ZM ZM ZM” – what the ?? I flicked away from that station immediately. Because a) I didn’t want to be distracted by it and b) I didn’t want to condone this nasty behaviour in a car. When I stopped later, I went back to the station and it constantly prints stuff out “POLLY” “N” “GRANT” “BACK MONDAY” “HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND”. Kind of a cool gimmic and in some ways, not necessarily the radio station’s fault. Obvioulsy Audi can cope with this kind of radio text or whatever it is and while I would *never* slag off Audi I don’t think it’s a particularly safe thing to have in a car. Maybe you get used to it – perhaps I was just suffering from first-timer’s wide eyes.

7.56am I was paralysed in the corner of the bedroom looking at our not so sturdy kitset bookshelf swaying back and forward, photo frames toppling over, hearing other random crashes around the apartment as we were struck by the latest of a series of earthquakes. It was a 5.5 – the biggest yet. I was freaked. Upstairs in our apartment other photo frames fell down and chopping boards fell over and pictures were shaken crooked on the walls. I keep telling myself I have lived through a 6.3 quake, that being the Edgecumbe earthquake in 1987, but it doesn’t help that there’s recently been lots of earthquakes following the tsunami in Asia.

I guess at times like this it’s good not knowing a whole lot about how the earth works because I can latch on to the opinion that it’s better that the earth release pressure points and that after the deep sea earthquake that shifted coastlines and caused tsunamis that all techtonic plates are just gently readjusting … possibly a load of bullshit but it’s my way of calming down. Still, the only thing I’ve been able to do at work so far today is fill my water bottle and reorganise my pen pots.

There’s always one, and it’s not necessarily a difficult one. For me, it’s ‘renegging’ – oops that should be ‘reneging’. As in to fail on a promise or commitment. I don’t know why I go for the double g, I suppose I see and hear words like ‘pegging’ and go by the old general rule about double consonants making a harsh sound as opposed to single consonants making a soft sound. Now that I know the correct spelling, ‘renege’ seems totally wrong for how it sounds!

Work is a buzz with this news. Perhaps because they have an orange worshipper in their midst, perhaps because I work with scientists – whatever the reason, they all feel compelled to report this amazing news to me and adorn my desk with newspaper articles showing pictures of the orange surface. Pretty interesting actually and have learnt some new stuff since the news broke, like Titan is not the probe, it’s the name of the moon and that Saturn has 31 known moons. newscientist.com has quite a good picture.

I have just finished Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code after being one of the last people I know to read it. I don’t know that I enjoyed it as much as other people seem to have … oh no, it’s The English Patient experience all over again. A movie that people raved and raved about and I was left wondering what all the fuss was about! For years I was too scared to admit it though – its only recently that I have been brave enough to voice this opinion. The Da Vinci Code was good, don’t get me wrong, but I read to escape and in the case of a book like this I got wound up in the who-dunnit mystery and action rather than the exploration of what the Holy Grail is and means and the whole spin on Catholicism. So for me, this book was only as good as all the other murder mystery-, forensic science-, district attorney-, medical examiner-based novels I read. Does this make me a shallow person?

Went to the theatre darlings last night – a few girls from work went. The play was ‘Taking Off’ by Roger Hall about 4 older women setting off on their OE’s to the UK and Europe. Pretty funny and really well done I thought – really interesting use of monoluges in different styles – a wannabe author essentially reading out her first novel abuot a women travelling for the first time; a live-wire making a series of phone calls to friends and family from all sorts of parties and exotic locations; a sometimes-Bridget Jones style narrative from the travel diary of a let’s face it, bit of a prude really, and a collection of emails to report on the trip. Not sure how long this link to Circa will last but it gives details.