A Blog Darkly
Movies, and the quiet librarians strike again
I've managed to have a relatively social week. Monday I went to two separate movies - one an Iranian film at the Film Society, and the other 28 Days later with Drake. A competent horror, quite interesting visually, even if the ending seemed a bit lame. Tuesday was another non-date with Rachel (date? non-date? I don't know. I don't normally 'date' people). We went to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is the best mainstream film I've seen in a while. Johnny Depp looked like he was having a lot of fun.
Wednesday I'd planned a trip to Porirua to watch the musical Laurie's in, but it had completely sold out for the rest of the season. So no go. Almost a relief, I got to sit around the house and do absolutely nothing. Doing nothing is good. And under-rated. I continued reading
Middlesex and played Championship Manager. Matt and John have mocked my tendency to play as Man Utd or Barcelona rather than Halifax Town or Rushden. Fair enough. Waiting eagerly for November 21st when CM03/04 comes out, with lots of sexy new features (and updated squads, of course). I can see myself saving a lot of money/wasting a lot of time that way.
Thursday the MLIS class went to Syn for drinks and food. Unfortunately, once again most of them made it an early night, and by about 8.30 only Bruce, Mandy and myself were left. So we hung around for a while, headed to a karaoke bar, left that and went to the Bristol to listen to jazz. Where I got to see my father out on the town and dancing to impress the ladeez. (Hey, I shouldn't mock - he was doing better than I was).
Friday night is for sleeping, but Saturday is for the Lions. (A home final! Outstanding).
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School is over (if you want it)
After one of the more stressful weeks in recent history, I've finished school. I spent the weekend basically sleeping, as a compensation. I did manage to get round to Tanja's house for a few quiets on Saturday, and got to catch up with Ange for the first time in what must be months. All good. But I was tucked up in bed by midnight. This weekend has been dedicated to watching sport, with the bonus being that
all my teams won -
Wellington beat Waikato to make the NPC final, then
Auckland beat Otago away in the last seconds of the match, which means that the final will be played in Wellington.
Joy compounded when the
Kiwis won the Centennial rugby league test (let's gloss over the fact that the Aussies had 19 players unavailable - we did it without Stacey Jones). Followed by a Sunday morning that got off to a great start when
Roy Keane scored the goal that gave United a 1-0 win at Leeds (scum!).
Could things get any better? Well, I had some other good news on Sunday, but I'm keeping that to myself ;-)
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If we all lived in the same small town....
[From an email from Paul]
Sometimes I wish the world was one small town that we could see each other
every day....When I feel down I just want to surround myself
with old friends and drink and joke about the old days. Everyone seems so
far away sometimes, like we have all been banished to far off lands.
Sometimes I envy those people who grow up in small towns and never see the
world, whose entire existence is in one small area. Everyone they know stays
in the same place and they see them everyday. They can be there when their
friends need them and they can share their joy when success comes their way.....
Of course all the people that we wanted to live in our small town would,
like Cory, Anthony etc....
So sometimes I wish that we were all back in Wellington sitting in a small
bar listening to funky music while talking about James Smiths or St Pats or
Kime hut or Propaganda or politics or religion.
Well said.
Although if I hear one more story about everyone's tramping exploits, I think I'll smack someone in the head ;-)
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I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear
It's Friday. That means it's time for...The Smiths tribute band gig at Indigo!
What can I say? It was truly an awesome night on so many levels.
I've arranged to meet Tanja. I get there early and no-one's around, so I swallow the Frenzy I bought from Cosmic Corner a few minutes ago (the thinking being that as it takes so long to wear off, I'd better start early if I want to get to sleep tonight). I quickly get bored with hanging around on my own and head off to play pinball, only to run into Tanja, who jumps up and hugs me (risking serious damage to my already sore back). We turn around and head back. I'm standing talking to her friends when Esther walks up. It's been, oh, at least 18 months since I saw her - probably longer - it was when Adele was over here, so that would be September 2001. Hell of a long time. She's well, engaged, and chatty. Inevitably, being Esther, she manages one tactless comment. In this case it was asking me if I'd heard from Justine or Marama. Hardly likely, as they'd pretty much indicated they'd never speak to me again, even if forced to at gunpoint. But you know what? No reaction from me. None. I really didn't care. Monkey off my back, I think :-) That made me very happy.
I left Esther to join Tanja on the balcony. Minutes later, Hamish walks up! That's THE Hamish, ex-guitar legend and Valley boy, last heard of in China where he was the soundman at the Hard Rock cafe somewhere. He's back, and in the air force! Possibly the most unlikely sentence I ever thought I'd hear him say. AND Mike and Chris are there as well. Looking around the balcony, it's almost a case of 'who don't I know?' here....Anthony turns up, Red Dave wanders past and says hi, and it turns out his girlfriend is one of my classmates...
By this time I'm buzzing. The band come and do their thing to rapturous and deserved applause, even if it wasn't as good as last time. The crowd thins out after they come off, but there's still time for Adrian to come off stage and try to teach me to dance like Morissey, and tell me about the Pixies tribute show they're doing next week. Fantastic night. No complaints at all.
Then I head home and send an incredibly drunken trippy email to Cory (which she later says made her happy on what was a very stressful day). I get about 3 hours sleep and get up to start coding that damn website again. End up talking to Cory on AIM for about 90 minutes, which gets slightly surreal as she's also having an argument with Christian (her boyfriend) who's drunk and in the same room. I've given up trying to understand this situation at all. It is just too weird for me.
Saturday night I end up on a 'date' of sorts - I didn't think of it as a date, but she called it that a couple of times, so I guess it was. Very chaste, mostly sitting around drinking coffee and being cynical about other people. Then we went to my sister's flat where Steven (her boyfriend) was having birthday drinks. So Rachel got to meet my sister, my brother and various others, all within 2 hours of meeting me. Very good. Want to see her again, but.......nothing compares to....
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Meantime, Cory....
Well, yes. I'm still in love with her. And she with me. Unfortunately, there's the little matter of 10, 000 miles between us.
We still want to be together, and she says she wants me. But she also says she needs him. And I find it hard to condemn her for that. I can offer her 1 month together between now and March 2005. We could have more, but one of us would have to drop out of school and move halfway around the world to be with someone who we've spent a total of 1 week with. It's not realistic or fair to do that.
So. We've managed to come to an agreement. She's definitely coming out here in March. But because she's currently in a relationship, we're assuming that she's just coming for a holiday, and we'll spend time together as friends. If anything more is possible, then it will happen then. But this way is probably for the best - it frees me. I probably couldn't have gone and dated anyone else while there was still a chance with her - now we see things as being in the future, not the present.
Tough though. She cried at the end of our conversation.
But if it's worth it, it will happen eventually. Today I remembered Matt, who managed to have a long-term relationship with someone he met for about a week while she was on holiday, and who he caught up with maybe 18 months later. So, this sort of thing has worked before. Let's hope so.
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Internet dating tips
Interesting insight into the way people act:
I'm on
NZ Dating. I've met some interesting people and made some friends - nothing serious has eventuated though. Recently, I changed my profile slightly. I went from using a cartoon as my picture to using a photo of me - not a good photo, but it is me. And I changed the text slightly, to say I wasn't planning on contacting any women, because they never seem to reply. Soon as I did that, I received 4-5 messages - which is about as many as I've received in the whole six months previously.
So, is it the fact that I had a real picture up there? Or is it the challenge of knowing that I'm not going to message them?
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Stood up, met up, loved up
Mandy managed to stand me up on Tuesday - we'd agreed to head down to the quiz night at JJ Murphy's. Used to be quite a crowd from class that went along, but this time nobody at all turned up. Something tells me it's because we're at the sharp end of the term.
Fortunately, I ran into her the next night at the White Stripes, and she apologised and explained she had no memory of Saturday night. I didn't really, either, so it all seems fair. We ended up sitting upstairs in the Town Hall, feeling very old. (Her flatmates were downstairs in the mosh pit, laughing at the old people on the balcony). A few songs in the WS set she asked me to save her seat, then disappeared, and didn't come back for ages. I was just deciding that there was some very heavy symbolism here for how I relate to women (standing round holding things for them, while they gallivant off somewhere else) when she turned up again. With TWO beers. One of which she gave to me. I should probably try reading some symbolism into that.
The White Stripes rocked. That is all that needs to be said. They are pure rock n roll stars, obvious from the first moment they walked on stage. I'm not even a huge fan of their music, but they had me enthralled. Only downers were: they didn't play 'It's true that we love one another'....and they messed with 'Fell in love with a girl', turning it into a ballad. OK, they must be sick to death of playing it by now, but I had been hanging out for that song all night....
Thursday night sees me at the Roots concert. I'm there early, meeting up with T and her 'sexual guru' Ed. I'm not quite sure what being a sexual guru entails, but I have a fairly good idea ;-) Up early were Footsouljahs, followed by King Kapisi - two quality Welli hip hop acts that nearly made the night worth the $60 on their own. By the time Footsouljahs finished, we had lost Ed, and by the time Kapisi finished I had lost T. So I ended up spending the rest of the night watching the Roots on my own.
I'd never heard one of their songs before last night, but I think they have me converted. They play hip hop with funk influences and real instruments, and they're good. There's a definite P-Funk influence in there, both musically and satorially. Along with some 60s psychedelic soul. Definitely a good mix, but brought up to date by the hiphop side. Only downer was the long instrumental solos - I've still got enough of a punk bone in me to be bored by that sort of thing.
Weird experience of the night was about half way through. I was dancing, I'd been thinking a bit about Cory, lyrics to a song ran through my head ('Here we go' by Shelter), and all of a sudden, I closed my eyes and I felt like I was coming up. A tingle ran up my body, my head felt clear and all of a sudden I felt
good. Connected, happy. Hopeful. I don't know where it came from, but I danced in my inner world for about 5-10 minutes, all the time feeling
altered. Weird experience. Less good was the panic attacks I started getting - not bad, just feeling really claustraphobic - like there were too many people in the room.
Anyway, got the Smiths tribute gig at Indigo tonight which should be a momentous event. :-)
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(Saturday) Peer pressure: 'drink this, it's gooooood'
...And it was. But dear God, I managed to get drunk last night. One of those nights where the agenda as planned was:
a) go to 6pm comedy show with my flatmate
b) go home early, eat pizza, watch sport, and study. Save money, have quiet night.
What actually happened:
a) as above (Flight of the Conchords - they rock)
b) run into classmate Mandy and her friend
c) get dragged round every flash bar in Wellington, while Mandy complains that she wants to go somewhere scungy
d) get pressured into drinking cocktails (they were delicious, I wish I could remember what they were called)
e) run to the bottle store just before closing time
f) wander randomly around the central city trying to find their friend's farewell party
g) find the party. That's me finding the party, even though I didn't know where it was
h) drink some incredibly potent punch made of whisky, vodka, champagne or something like that
i) realise I am really fucking drunk
j) stagger home. eat pizza. watch
football. collapse at half time and stagger to bed. Wake up in middle of night still drunk, and with hangover, and stagger to bathroom, nearly destroying my bedroom on the way.
Ah, life is sweet. I love those random encounters. There was a girl at the party dressed as a strawberry. I'm sure I remember that right.
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(Friday) I can't believe this rain
It is so wet and so cold....it feels like it's been raining forever. For some stupid reason I went to
watch the rugby, even though Wellington couldn't beat a team of schoolgirls in the wet. Naturally we lose, although at least there was a bit of fight to the game, and it wasn't a disgraceful performance by any means.
Christian Cullen's last game at Wellington. *sniff*. The man is a legend and I can't believe he didn't make the All Blacks this year. How John Mitchell can be the only person in the country who doesn't realise Cullen is one of our 26 best players, I don't know.
Some schadenfreude (German: pleasure at the misfortune of others) taken from the fact that the rain has caused slips that have blocked the roads up the coast. Anyone who came down for the game is stuck in town. Whereas I live walking distance to the stadium.
Michael is down from Auckland for his uncle's 70th, and we're supposed to be catching up soon. I have no motivation, I'm cold and wet and like being inside by the heater.
Oh, and I managed to gain a reputation as the hard man of indoor netball today. Normal people play netball as a non-contact sport. Not me. I was barging into the other team, which meant I conceded a lot of penalties, but I'm sure put them off their game completely, helping us to win (32-31!). Of course, netball's a mixed game and the players I was marking tended to be girls about half my size, so it was all a bit unfair, but that isn't really my problem.
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(Thursday) Stood up
Just got back from Bodega. Was supposed to be checking out the Rhombus gig with Tahnda. Guess who didn't show up?
Bad karma was cast on the night from the start when I got to the venue and saw that tickets were $25 - which is a hell of a lot for Bodega on a weeknight - especially for a local band. That made me dubious about going in anyway, because I'm not overly familiar with their music, and I've really got other things to spend my pennies on.
But I went in to wait (they hadn't started charging yet). Sat there for the length of a beer. No sign of Tahnda. And I'd got there late anyway. So I came home. I'd been there at least half an hour after we were due to meet, which is all anyone is worth as far as I'm concerned.
Am slightly pissed off. But will get over it.
Meanwhile Janet Frame is being
talked about as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Which makes me smile slightly smugly, seeing as I've just been hyping her work. On the other hand, she's up against De Lillo, Coetze and Atwood...She has
offered to renationalise the railways if she wins. Which I don't quite understand, but good on her. She's also promised to take her family to dinner at Valentine's, which is a $25 all-you-can-eat self-service buffet place.
True class. I love Janet Frame.
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