I haven’t posted as much lately… so you should read these articles instead of waiting for an interesting tidbit from me (I can’t bring myself to say titbit like they do here).
They’re both posted at The Spinoff, which offers a hipster-friendly, left-of-centre alternative in New Zealand’s media landscape. I would argue that they’re still part of the ‘mainstream’ media, since they are ad-supported and seem to care about the things I associate with professional journalism, but they are tackling topics and showcasing ideas that might not get as much space on other sites.
New Zealand’s new local history curriculum was announced this week. This article summarizes it. I must admit to feeling like quite the reactionary… where’s the Queen in all this?
And how about money? This article wanders around the NZ economy using the idea of rent-seeking behavior as its primary lens. Lots of food for thought, particularly when you look closely at the rich and powerful people who seem to be written out of the new history curriculum.
Ten years ago to the day was the theatrical release of the Disney film John Carter. As I reported then, they gave me tickets to a free advance screening, a t-shirt, some other swag. I’ve still got it all (but not as much hair on my head), even the t-shirt, which has proven to be very high quality. Unlike the movie, which was a giant flop.
I went online today to see how history has treated this expensive fiasco. Mostly forgotten, it seems. Film students get to study it sometimes as an example of a high-profile flop. An occasional film buff will remember it when I introduce myself. The director Andrew Stanton and the star Taylor Kitsch seem to have made out all right, although one could argue that Kitsch’s career trajectory changed that year, when he was in several dubious movies.
Supposedly, the film did very well in Russia… a dubious honour even then.
I’m still glad they made a big Hollywood movie with my name as the title.
When people make listicles about favourite NZ foods, it’s surprising how many of them are sweets and desserts. And of a surprisingly juvenile nature.
Pineapple Lumps are one of those nostalgic foods. Chocolate covered pineapple flavoured marshmallows. Often stale. The chocolate is waxy. But I like them. Lee does not.
So when I saw limited edition Feijoa Lumps at the store the other day, it was a no-brainer to get a package. The taste of feijoa also divides the household, so there’s no danger of a conflict over scarce candy.
Our little island paradise went from a few COVID cases per day to 20,000+ over a period of about two weeks. And so the government implemented Phase 3 of the plan… Phase 3 says that due to the high number of cases, most aspects of the previous plan have become impossible, so here’s what IS possible, and y’all please do these new things.
Fair enough… we don’t have unlimited resources for contact tracing or quarantine. And more important, we do have a highly vaccinated population. Relatively few people are getting badly ill.
To the RAT manufacturers, thanks for your products, and we hope you enjoy this year!!
Here’s Auckland’s two tallest buildings lit up in blue and gold to show solidarity with Ukraine. Lots of people are doing the same with their Facebook profiles and the like. Awesome!
Or is it? People are dying, and this kind of naked invasion threatens to erase all the gains Europe fought so hard for over the last 100 years. It’s clearly not enough to protest by programming the LEDs and changing your social media colour scheme.
But maybe some is better than none. Do those lights lead to letters to MPs and Congressmen? Do those lights lead to disinvestment from Russia? Do those light inspire a few people to get on a plane to Kyiv and stand in front of a tank holding a flower?
The top picture is of the pharmacy in our local shopping center. It’s permanently closed.
The next picture is the why… somehow the mall management struck a deal to let in the new kids in town, who are offering lower prices, bigger selection, and longer hours. We already shop at another of their branches.
Even though the closed pharmacy is owned by a big corporation with stores everywhere, this feels like a classic big guy overthrows little guy story. The stores are relatively small, and they only have health and beauty… none of the household items that make an American drugstore so useful. And since the money is in beauty products, and nutritional supplements, you have to walk past a couple of too-eager salespeople (it’s sexist to say salesgirls, although I’ve never seen a male one) in order to get to the Band-Aids or athlete’s foot powder. We’ll see what happens, but we expect Chemist Warehouse will continue to destroy the competition, whether local or corporate.
Chemist Warehouse is better. They do stock a slightly wider range of stuff, they’ve dispensed with the salesgirls, and they’re definitely cheaper. But if a Walgreens or CVS were to show up in NZ, I think it would be a whole different ballgame.
I’m just arranging my first post-COVID trip outside NZ. Back in the day, I was flying enough to identify quite strongly with George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air. I always had a bag ready and partly packed.
But even though my frequent flyer days have been on hold these last five years or so, I didn’t get out of the bag packed habit. Left to right: ocean swim, pool swim, laptop, band practice. There’s also a pétanque bag that stays in the car.
It’s hard for me to imagine getting along without these bags… so many fiddly bits needed for these activities that I could never get out the door reliably without them.
A couple weeks ago we had to push the morning swim 15 minutes later due to the shortening days. But now even 6:30 is flirting with darkness. The water is still at its warmest, but the start of the workday may put paid to the morning group that formed up during last year’s lockdown.
In conditions like this, from a beach I know well, I don’t have any particular problem swimming out in the semi-darkness. But there are a couple of our group who absolutely won’t go out until the sun is up. It’s funny how those feelings affect us differently… we are all in agreement that if there ever were something dangerous in the water we probably wouldn’t see it coming. But the idea of not being able to see it is not ok for some.
Yesterday I played in my first pétanque tournament, an interclub match hosted by the Panmure Pioneers.
I won all three of my games: a singles match-up, then doubles, then triples. And we won as a team, thumping our opponents from Kennedy Park before retiring to the clubhouse for beers. I was resplendent in my new team shirt.
That picture shows a common feature of the game : measuring to see exactly who’s closest. It can come down to the millimeter. As a result, there are more timeouts than in an NFL game, making an already leisurely game even slower. Yesterday’s matches were untimed, so there was no real incentive to hurry up.
Pétanque is in a class of sports / games that demand consistency and precision more than strength, speed or agility. As a result, just about anybody can play. Horseshoes, pool, darts, bowling, even golf fall loosely into that same bucket.
And (cause or effect??) all of those pastimes are associated with drinking to a greater or lesser degree. As a result of the low physical barriers to entry and the easy availability of a nice cold beverage, these tend to be games that people play casually. Which is fine… playing games like that is fun!
But some people just enjoy competition, and some people must subscribe to the “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well “school of sports participation. As a result, there are tournaments for all those sports, and I was inordinately proud to be called on to fill out the club roster this weekend.
In all these activities, the difference between a casual player and someone who really takes it seriously is immense… To me, watching a pro or semi pro darts player, golfer, or pétanque player can seem like watching something impossible, a magic trick. But we were separated into different divisions, so the big boys played against each other and most of the match-ups were reasonably close. It would be almost as un-fun to win 13-0 as to lose by the same margin. All my games were close enough to be exciting right to the end.
I enjoyed the tournament, and I especially enjoyed winning. While I was playing I was concentrating hard… trying to read the tiny little imperfections in the gravel surface that can throw a ball off course, planning my shots, even trying to psyche out the opposition by playing to their weaknesses. The stakes could not have been lower, but I was fully engaged. That’s a satisfying feeling, and for me a more enjoyable road to mindfulness than most.
As fun as it was, and even though there are tournaments every weekend during the summer, I don’t know that I will be joining all that often or practicing enough to move up the rankings very much. There are many fun and also important things to be done on a Sunday. And besides, it took a long time to get to that cold beer!
After a fun but uncomfortable fishing trip a few months ago, I tried again, joining some workmates on a day charter out into the bay. Same skipper, bigger boat, better weather.
We saw dolphins a couple of times, way cool. They were feeding, followed along by a flock of birds. But I wasn’t quick enough to get a mid-air dolphin shot, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
And like last time, in some spots there were no fish to be caught, while in others you could barely drop your line without hooking a snapper.
No big ones really, but we all caught our limit of snapper and a few other fish. Two of us hooked big ones at the same time, and those fish managed to get tangled up with each other and we lost them both… there really was the one that got away.
And at the end of the day, we were able to get the filleting done by a very cool group called Kai Ika, who not only provide this service but also donate the heads and off cuts to people who both need and enjoy them. After my experience last time, the $24 I spent on filleting was definitely the best value of the day.
Yesterday afternoon’s walk — after a pretty lazy day — took us down to the sugar mill, where this grumpy heron sourly surveyed the slow progress on the new footbridge that should at least hide this rusty old pipe.
Then, just below the little dam separating the heron’s pond from the bay, there was a whole school of fish, something we’ve never seen there before. Not sure what kind they were, but big enough to eat…
Later on, we hopped in the car and drove down to the ferry terminal to watch the Lunar New Year light show on the Harbour Bridge. They promised us a show that repeated every half hour, but it wasn’t until we saw it that we understood it was a 2-minute show rather than , say, a 25-minute show. Still it was cool… there was a webcast of Chinese sounding music and they managed to make a pretty effective tiger out of lights.
It may look like a puddle in a parking lot, but it’s actually the normal state of affairs at Little Shoal Bay, where there’s a nice park and the Bowling Club where we play pétanque. When the tide comes in above 3.2 metres, it flows up into a marshy area to the side of the bowling club and spills out onto the parking area. For context, that’s a very common tidal height, spring king tides run about 30cm higher. Anecdotally, cars have been ruined sitting there overnight.
The city has recently taken some steps to clean up the informal marina at Little Shoal Bay, and is working on a plan to completely re-do the whole park area in a more naturalistic, salt marsh style, with playing fields replaced by a boardwalk path through the bush. They project that half of all tides will be above the existing sea wall in the next 20 years.
Mom… Dylan parked the car on the roof again and it’s not fair!!!! My room is sunk like half a metre and that’s before climate change and how come he gets to drive anyway he’s not responsible enough to make a sandwich. Ooh I hate this family and just make him get the stupid car off the stupid roof!
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 