Posts by Steve Barnes
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Shreikback. First band I saw in NZ, at the Galaxy.I had been here for only a few days and had just realised that Mt. Eden was not the nightspot I had been led to believe but it had the Galaxy within walking distance, they used to put the buses back in the toybox around 9 pm and the guy I was staying with thought drinking and driving was like a bad thing so wouldn't lend me his rather smelly gib-stoppers van (he used to use milk-powder to slow down the chemical reaction in the plaster back then). I was surprised to find out that they were an English band 'cos I had been living there for years and had never heard of them.
One of my new year's resolutions, that I haven't already broken, is to go to the Powerstation (nee Galaxy) more often. -
Oh dear. I'm told HD porn is nothing short of horrifying - I can't imagine 3D would make things any better...
And then there's reality...
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From my limited experience of Golf I came to the conclusion, many years ago, that it was what you told the wife you were doing when you "Reach out and touch someone." ® AT&T and "Get More Than Lucky" ® Upper Deck and "Just do it" ® Nike, then you can say "Is It In You?" ® Gatorade . With "High performance, delivered" ® Accenture, it's "The Best a man Can Get" ® Gillette, after all "What Are You Made Of?" ® TAG Heuer, "Challenge Everything" ® EA Sports.
And they say he was led astray?. -
Edge of Darkness still kind of freaks my Cold-War-raised ass the hell out. What a great series.
Too bloody right. That was the first TV series I repeatedly taped and gave to people. And as for...
send gameshow contestants to evil aliens
The BBC did a fine job with Vonnegut's between time and Timbuktu back in 1972.
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This may not be the update I promised, regarding Germans or, in fact, Austrians but (see how I left out the comma there? we don't need it with the word "but", apparently) I did, however, use brackets.
Any road up (as they say on Coronation Street but I digress, within parentheses) My power problem was, in reality, solved when "help" came.I heard a car coming up the drive, which is always suspicious if you are not expecting visitors in this neck of the woods. A Mazda Bongo scraped its way up the steep driveway, so steep you have to be careful descending, if you go too fast breaking is not an option, you will just slide off the edge into oblivion, I have been known to drink to that.
Help came in the form of a pig hunter, a Maori pig hunter, to be precise, with large knife, who was looking for his dog. I asked what his dog's name was, he said "Girl"
"So technically it's a bitch" I stated, with all the confidence of one who lives in a City and has a superior understanding of gender than the typical pig hunter, of what ever cultural descent.He regarded me with a look that said "I'm looking at you wondering what you meant by that. Were you dismissing me with prejudice with regard to my cultural background or my chosen hobby or occupation?"
I said "Do you have any jump leads?"
On ascertaining the fact that he didn't said "I think I may have some"
I didn't.
" I must have left them in the other car"
That is when I felt like a right cunt.Most people who find themselves in this kind of situation will apologise profusely and try to make amends, or continue to be a total prat.
I chose the former but didn't. I just said "I'll see if I can find some wire... Bro"
I went off to see what I could find to fashion into some kind of jump lead.
I found a coil of No.8 fence wire. One part of me, not my rational side, thought. "Yeah, Kiwi ingenuity. Use these to link two batteries together" my rational side said. "What if I cross the "streams" ? Ghost Busters scenario?"
Mohi, that was his name, asked for a spanner "Even those pliers you got there will do. Bro"
I handed him my Gerber.
For those of you that don't know what a Gerber is and they are quite common amongst filmo types, a Gerber is a "Multitool" you know, those knifey things that turn into pliers or screwdrivers and stuff, a bit like a grownup's Transformer.Te next thing I heard (see how I slipped into the vernacular there?) (actually it was a typo but then I thought...) was "OK, start her up Bro"
I walked out of the garage, where I had been, hopelessly, trying to construct some jump leads, to find Mohi had removed one of the batteries from his Bongo (apparently they have two) and was holding it upside down over the battery in my Hilux with the terminals touching each other in a way that was, at the same time, enlightening and frightening. I turned the key...
And that, dear reader, is how you came to read this.
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Thank you all for your support, I shall wear it when needed.
I did attempt to write a follow up piece but managed to render the Hilux into a state of uselessness, it being the only source of power in this neck of the woods I have drained the battery and now we are stuck here 'till help arrives. Must go now the eeepc is starting to show signs of panic.
:-)
Note to self; Get solar panels and batteries before attempting hi-tech backwoods blogging. -
Some of the more literary amongst you may have noticed a surfeit of commas in my last post. Commas are a common crop up this way and at this time of year they are in season. Northern commas are quite similar to the southern apostrophe which grows higher up in the word and sometimes denotes possession, not by spirits or such, it also can be used as a replacement for excessive lettuce or letters as they are sometimes known.
So, as a gift to all of youse down south I decided to send some ripe and juicy northern commas your way. Feel free to use as many as you like in your own posts. -
I find it difficult to sleep in a strange bed, you may ask why I'm sleeping, or in my case not, in a strange bed. Well, it's the holls see? I thought of cramming the four poster into the back of the Hilux but somehow I knew it was a no go sort of situation. So that's how come I woke out of some kind of disturbed slumber to hear the other half muttering half baked economic theory.
"Monetary reform is not on the agenda" I heard
"What?" I asked in a tone usually reserved for bar fights.
"I said" she replied "It's warm, I'm going out on the verandah"
She looked at me as if I were some kind of vagrant with an unpleasant odour. Not surprising really as I hadn't washed for two days and the weather was, to say the least, sweaty but pleasant with a slight chance of showers.The slight chance of a showers involves a short trek through mature native bush to a Kauri tree with a Califont strapped to its mighty trunk.
"Please turn gas bottle off at the valve" reads a note scrawled in the native tongue, hippy. There are, however, no instructions for turning the damn thing on.Being a man of means, whatever that means, I was able to figure out that if you turn the thing off at the valve at the gas bottle then the bottle with the valve must be involved in resuscitating the beast. All well and good but those of you familiar with such technology will know that there is more than that to getting the bloody things to work
"Right, gas on now what?" I opened the door of the, obviously, hastily constructed enclosure. Of course, my assessment of the haste in which this box was constructed is based purely on city dwellers principals, for all I knew this could have been an entire seasons work by a dedicated herbalist.
Well, to my delight as I opened the door I could see a whole list of instructions, in plain type. Unfortunately this plain type was printed in a size that could only be read with the eyes of a teenager. Purely by luck, and not, I must admit, by forethought, I had my glasses tucked into the grubby neck of my tee shirt.
Glasses on I proceeded to scan the text. As I mentioned, the text was a size that could only be read with the eyes of a teenager, a Russian teenager. As luck would have it previous life experience had prepared me for such an occasion.
Way back in the dim and distant past I had the fortune to acquire a basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet whilst waiting for a flight out of Mockba, Moscow to those of you who have not shared this experience, on route to London from Delhi. The flight, Aeroflot 192 if my memory serves me well, although to be perfectly honest it rarely does, arrived in Mockba on time and in one piece. Unfortunately the same could not be said of my connecting flight on both counts, it had flown where no plane was supposed to attempt to fly, through a mountain. Well to be honest, again, only a little bit of it had tried to fly through the mountain and luckily for its passengers the pilot, or in Russian, pilotnik, had managed to wrestle the crippled plane safely to its destination without further incident.
It was because of this that I and my fellow travellers were to spend the next four days held up in an imposing structure within the confines of Moskow airport, eating chicken Kiev and translating propaganda posters into English. But I digress.
I suppose while I'm digressing I could explain why I thought my other half was expounding on economic theory rather than hearing what she actually said. This is quite simply that I had been reading our David's wonderful Reserve Bank Annual which I can recommend highly.
Anypoo. Having finally managed to nurse the Soviet beast into life I stood, naked as the day I was born, under a steaming gush of cleansing water, it was then I heard the voices, German voices. Have you ever had one of those flashbacks to a time before you were born, which technically are not flashbacks but vague memories of movies seen as a child, war movies.
As the voices approached I had visions of men with guns and those helmets that almost covered the ears that I thought were more sensible than the ones that the English Tommies wore that, kind of left the ears totally exposed to the rigours of combat. The voices came closer. One of the things that always intrigued me about the bush is that you can never really tell what direction sounds are coming from. I leant forward to peek under the canopy of trees to see if I could spot the trespassing Tutonics.
It was because of this that I found myself bending over with my back to a group of tourists, mostly elderly women shouting "Oh mein Gott" which caused me to whip around with waving willy shouting "Oh holy shit" Grabbing for a towel to try and recover some modesty I felt my mouth blubbering out apologies whilst my brain was saying "What the fuck are these Germans doing trampling over the place?"
Within moments they were gone, muttering unkknown words of horror.
I finished my shower without further ado, dried my now well observed body and trekked back up the hill to tell my partner of my ordeal.
"Hey hun" I said as I walked in through the door "I've just been perved at by a bunch of bloody Germans"."I believe you have met my parents" said Gunter, mein host.
I have never been so embarrassed, because the next thing he said was "Did you turn off the gas at the valve at the bottle?" in his wonderful Austrian accent.
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You might be able to hear Harawera's radio station from there, Steve.
Nah, but I can hear crickets and bees and later I will have to put up with those bloody moreporks and kiwis. Still, better than Harry Harawera or wotever his name is.
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Happy New year t'yall.
Just for a bit of holiday geekery I thought I'd try tethering my new phone, Samsung GT S5603T, to an eeepc 701 via Bluetooth.
So, here I am sitting in the bush at the top of Fern Flat sending messages to all and sundry via Telecom's 3G goodness. For once I can say good on ya Telecom, this 3G really flies. I tried doing the same thing with Voodoofone and it was as sluggish as a sluglike thing.
Anypoo, 3410, I've been racking my brain thinking of Jerry Lewis tracks only to discover that I misread your post.
;-)