I snapped this picture with my phone several months ago. It's outside a house down by the train station, where, sure enough, there was a real estate sign for several weeks. One day it disappeared, and was eventually replaced with this. Looks like the estate agent got fed up with our local vandals...

 

The sign reads: "Notice: To the person who thought it was a good idea to smash our real estate sign (it cost me $120.00) You are an IDIOT. Idiot n. 1. A person with severe mental retardation (Collins Shorter Dictionary 1993)"

I laughed a lot.

(Click on photo for a larger version)

I'm home!

Exams are oooover, and I survived my first trimester at University. I'm quite proud of myself, but am reserving final judgment until after exam results come out. After exams I went out with some old friends and new for a post-mortem and dinner at Nando's (Take note, Sounisian people. I totally only went there because I heard you all talking about it) and then gelato and bubble tea (NOM NOM NOM!) I also had my own private celebration by ducking into my favourite second-hand bookshop and buying myself two Dorothy L. Sayers books I'd put on hold. The joy of possession - I has it.


Three Whole Weeks. To do Whatever I Want. I think the occasion merits the gratuitous capitalisation. 

What have I done with my freedom so far?

Some looong over-due editing, some slightly tardy betaing, and even some of my own writing has finally been done. Yeah! I am accomplishing stuff!

I got sick. Blech. Every time I travel from home to uni or back again, I end up a sniffing, miserable mess. Could it possibly be the climate differences? Pass the echinacea, plz...

( I read Memory and Forged In The Fire and witter about them here in a slightly spoilerific way ) 

My school friends Ducky and Bear and I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies, back to back. Note well, not only did we watch all three, but they were the mega-awesome extended versions. We started at 6.10 in the evening and finished at 5.30 the next morning, still arguing over who was best: Aragorn, Boromir, or Faramir. (Yes, that is the kind of deep meditation Tolkien's epic inspires in our fangirl-y hearts. I am only slightly ashamed.) By the time we finished, we were holding our eyes open with our fingers, although I had slept right through Helm's Deep. That's what comes of living near a hospital - when the emergency helicopter doesn't wake you at night, it's a fair bet that 10,000 screaming Uruk-hai won't either.

( I baked, and took pictures )

Matariki, the Pleiades' rising, and Maori New Year, has come and gone. It's not an official holiday in NZ, but not for lack of trying, and has got increasing press these last few years. Seeing as we live in a part of the world where Christmas falls in Summer and Winter has no bright spots, my family always celebrates with a meal for the extended rellies, games and general jollification. We had a hangi (Maori roast, traditionally steamed underground, but we do it in an old beer keg with manuka sawdust) for dinner, and included mussels. Look what I found in one:
( Warning: may include close-ups of a crab ) 

And, just to complete the pic-spam, tiegirl  asked for some non-identifiable pictures of the area I live. Excited at the thought of exercising my camera, I immediately dragged tencups_i_swear out to take some snaps. We only managed to get a couple before the batteries died, but I found some other fairly generic pictures kicking around the hard-drive. They're all from around my home-town, not the city where I go to Uni.

.( Image-heavy! )
( Image-heavy! )
And that's all, folx!

*which exists in fiction only, yo. London in real life still looks pretty good.

PS: Happy Independence Day, Americans!

A tale of daring, derring-do and cultural diversity

As I am a poor benighted person, who lives neither in the USA or the UK, there are many things the folx over at sounissay that make me go 'bwuh?' and wander down strange and foreign paths. thelasteddis 's mention of  V8 vegetable juice was one of these. She was referring to this veggie drink ad campaign in the US pitching the drink as one of those 'make-you-smarter' things. Apparently the ads show people doing dumb things and then getting bopped on the head by someone who then says cheerily 'coulda had a V8!' i.e 'If you'd had a V8 you wouldn't be so dumb!'
Of course I was totally ignorant of all these subtle cultural overtones, and our conversation went something like this:

TLE: 'Coulda had a V8!'
Me: Bwuh?
Tiegirl/Philia/Ninedaysaqueen/TLE: *explain*
Ninedaysaqueen: *suggests how I can find out for myself*
Me: But, guys, this stuff sounds disgusting. Besides, it reminds me of racing cars. Hey, they're cultural... a bit.
Checkers: Lolz, you missed your chance to get your very own shipment of yuck!
Philia/Tiegirl/Checkers: *continue discussing it*
Me: Hey, people are still talking about this. Mayhap I should assuage my curiosity and expand my cultural horizons (Two birds with one stone! Oh frabjous day!) by trying some. Okayz, everyone? I'll tell you all if it tastes horrible.
Philia: You'll love it, really.

( A cultural lesson )
I feel all warm and fuzzy and culturally aware now. Thanks guys. XD


PS: The transcript is only loosely based on what people actually said in Sounis. Sounisians are very nice and give very helpful suggestions.
PPS: Heehee, the V8 website makes me giggle.
PPPS: Yes, I do enjoy gratuitous pic-spamming.

Dear Sounisians: You won't believe this. 

Remember this post?

Looks like our esteemed authoress has taken a break from 'Eugenides and the Bath Bomb of Doom', upped sticks and taken a stealth visit to New Zealand.

With her knitting needles.



Cuba Mall, Wellington

( Looks like this is the Summer version of the tree cosy ( )
I think this was actually part of the Cuba Street Festival, which was on last week.
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