Too much rain, too little money
So I sit inside for another day. I do attempt to do a little study, so I guess I can feel virtuous about that. Got a meeting with my thesis supervisor tomorrow which should be interesting. It's our first meeting, even though the first part of the thesis is due in 10 days. That's more my fault than anyone else's, I didn't make contact with her till just before Christmas.

The thesis should be interesting though...I'm doing a bibliography of government and media documents relating to methamphetamine (P), ecstasy and herbal/legal highs in New Zealand. Which is (let's say) a topic reasonably close to my own heart ;)

Seriously though, if this weather doesn't improve I'm leaving town. I love this city but this will be three bad summers out of four since I've been back. I'm sick of it.  
| ¶ 9:56 pm

  Sunburnt on a cloudy day, and Wellington scrape home
Yesterday was my second-to-last chance to see live cricket this summer. It was also my second chance to see live etc, due to some strange scheduling of State Shield matches (dear NZ Cricket - many of us have jobs where we work on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, so maybe scheduling the games for the weekend might be an idea) and the understandable cancellation of the Sri Lankan tour.

So I head down to the Basin to watch Wellington play Auckland, and I'm lucky enough that James, Damian and Anthony join me. I'm sometimes a little wary of putting Damian and Ants together, but they always seem to get on OK, so perhaps I'm over-reacting. A good time was had, anyway, and Rhonda turned up right at the end so we could go drink with Drake and Casey. Which was a fun night, mainly because my pool skills were out of this world. I've always been a pretty random pool player, capable of missing easy shots and then effortlessly nailing a ball from an odd angle at the other end of the table. This night, though, everything went my way. Everything I tried for came off, I had luck coming out my eyeballs as well. It was beautiful. It also greatly upset Rob (Drake's friend) who had been telling us what a great player he was. On a normal day, he'd have beaten me, but tonight he didn't come close.

Oh, the match?

Wellington won, but made hard work of it. The pitch was terribly slow, no-one really looked comfortable on it, and it was a day for dogged knocks rather than graceful ones. Rob Nicol got 50 out of Auckland's 183, and Wellington looked to be doing it easily when Fleming and Nevin scored 51 for the first wicket in ten overs. Fleming was fooled by Mills' slower ball and caught and bowled, and Wellington collapsed. The game slowed down to a crawl as Wellington struggled against Canning's medium pacers. Luckily for both Wellington and my credibility Pasapati scored a late 38 with some big hits off Walker and Adams, and we won in the last over.

It isn't going to be a good season though: Wellington have lost too many good players (Jones and Hitchcock to Auckland, Donaldson retired and Walker quit after falling out with the coach) and have too many journeymen or sub-par players. Jesse Ryder will hopefully fulfil some of his promise, but he won't be enough to hold up a top order that looks very weak (he made 15 today and looked good, but it wasn't a pitch for stroke-makers). Bell can't seem to buy a run, the Parlane brothers are only average, Fleming will be with the national team most of the season. Franklin is never going to be a number 6 (why he's batting above Woodcock, who's played two decent holding innings in succession, I can't see - especially as Woodcock isn't bowling). The bowling is weak apart from Franklin, though Patel tries hard and seems hard to score from. Sigh. At least Wellington has a rugby team.  
| ¶ 11:22 pm

  2005
2004 ended for me on a reasonably up note. Mainly because I got to spend it with a whole bunch of friends who hadn't been in the country at the start of the year. It's amazing how the landscape of this town has changed for me in the last 6 months now James, Kim and Paul, Vana and Anthony, and Damian have turned up here again. Not to say that I didn't have friends here before, but there's a big difference between people who you've just met, and people who you've known for 15 years or more.

Notwithstanding, I didn't much feel like doing anything on NYE, but I dragged myself out. Rhonda and I had different plans for the evening - she had friends back in town from overseas, so she obviously had to be with them - I didn't want to be at a big party with only a few people I knew, so I went my way and spent time with my friends. That's probably a good sign that our relationship is healthy and can tolerate difference. Or something.

Anyway, I managed an evening of silliness at Anthony's house, started off with a few hours on the beach (I got lost and only got there towards the end, but never mind) and James and Paul wrestling. The party itself was good, not heaps of people but good people - a core crowd plus some friends of Miranda's and some more of Laurie's. We managed conversation spanning the serious (why the US economy is fucked; has democracy peaked as a political ideaology) to the less so (taking the piss out of James for his attempts to involve us all in a wine-making scheme on a grand scale, and out of Paul because it's easy to....). Made easier by my consumption of a couple of caps of Frenzy.

Only shame was Damian's absence, no doubt because he didn't want to be around Vana and Anthony together. Which is sad, but there comes a point in life where you have to get over your past relationships.

Later on I was driven over to Rhonda's party, spent about an hour there, basically just showing my face but I'm glad I went. (Also a chance to properly meet some of her friends who I'd only met in passing at the Chills show, when I wasn't really in a good state to meet anybody).

Then home (to R's) and two hours spent reading Cosmo on her couch in my underwear because I couldn't sleep (note to self: take drugs early in the evening if you don't want to be going to bed at 6am).  
| ¶ 10:56 pm