More crappy pics

Amen, brother.

So, think curling on grass while inebriated. That's generally what lawn bowling is all about. This is the lone piece of artwork in my flat. The State Department called and promised to renounce my citizenship if I ever wore that much white. Basically, with my sunless complexion, I'd be transparent and thus a security risk.

On an unrelated note, it's "Movember" here in New Zealand. Men grow moustaches this month and get upper-lip hair sponsorship, with proceeds going to support men's health issues. As my flatmate says, "ball cancer." He really means prostate cancer, but he's usually drunk, so we won't quibble. And he's English. Anyway, my flatmate, who has a clean-shaven head, has a full-on 70's Ron Jeremy porn 'stache going on, mid-Movember. Pretty impressive. I should get a picture. I gleefully asked his parents during a recent phone call what it's like to have a son who puts on his resume, "pizza boy." I heard only an awkward silence and what I imagine a stroke sounds like. Evidently, they're pretty old. I was shaving the other day and left my 'stache intact for a brief mo-ment. Needless to say, I looked like a mo-ron. Mo likely, a mo-clown. A pedophiliac clown. "Awful" is not a strong enough adjective to describe my face with lip hair. I would have had elementary school minimum-distance restraining orders put out against me as soon as I left the house. Hitler looked better than I did. I called it the "Chernobyl" before consigning it to the drain.




Whoops, the one day I didn't make my bed. Shucks. Notice, if you will, the post-Modernist touch that I've created in my abode. It says to the discerning eye, "I'm busy, I've got places to go and people to see. I'm somebody." To others, "I'm lazy." Also notice the portable radiator that I've borrowed from the common room. New Zealand housing is notoriuosly cold and damp as few houses older than 5 or 6 years have any insulation in them. Welcome to the First World! It's colder inside the house than it is outside. Combine this with the four television channels that Kiwis receive, and it's no wonder they're all outside bonding with nature. It's either that or chronic bronchitis.

Christ Church in Russell is the burial ground for the seven British seamen from the H.M.S. Hazard who were killed in Russell in 1845 fighting a local Maori chief during the early colonization/"we're just here to help you get settled" days. The maori leader had cut down the British flagstaff atop a nearby hill on three separate occasions in defiance of the European presence here in the Bay of Islands. On the fourth occasion, and after a sneak attack from the chief's followers on the small British garrison here, a battle ensued, and six men from the Hazard were killed. The captain of the boat drowned and he too is buried on church grounds. The British retreated to the boat anchored in the bay, and then proceeded to shell the small town from offshore as the victorious Maoris looted the stores.

I like the poem that is etched into the young sailors' tombstone.

"The warlike of the Isles,

The men of field and wave!

Are not the rocks their funeral piles,

The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! Track the deep,

Free, free, the white sails spread!

Wave may not foam nor wild wind sweep,

Where rest not England's dead."

In another unrelated note, a 19 year old German drowned in the bay a few days ago after he tried to swim from a local beach to one of the small islands a few hundred meters offshore. Police divers found him the next day in about 8 feet of water. The bay looks pretty. It is pretty. Turqouise is pretty. But it's also a recipe for disaster, especially as the water temperature hovers around 60 and the strong tides push further out to sea. The moral of the story? As with women, the prettier it is on the outside, the more dangerous they are beneath the surface. The bay, like a pretty girl, is fickle. It is only because they can get away with it: there will always be other men and other swimmers. I have an entire philosophy on this, but not enough room to type it.

Long story short: always, always ask the locals.

The backyard "Garden" bar at zee Gables. It had rained for three days straight and the sail which acts as a source of shade when the sun is out instead acted as a reminder of pressure and gravity as the weight of the water caused its collapse. The lesson here: when you have a sail in your backyard, think angles. Zee Gables will overcome.

Atop Flagstaff Hill in Russell. Awesome views around the entire peninsula. These pictures won't do it justice. Maybe it's the photographer. Next time you're in Russell, climb the hill. There's a one-in-three chance you'll be run over by a local on the way up, but the reward will be that much more poignant. If you survive the climb up, you'll actually get a preview of what your soul will see as it ascends skyward after getting hit on the way back down.

The vegetation is luscious.

Incorporate that word into everyday speech and be the Belle of the Ball.

Why spend $4,000 or $5,000 a night for the view at the Eagle's Nest when you can hold this picture in your bosom as you sleep on my couch? Or depending on how you look, in my bed.

What's the funny part of the Flagstaff Hill story? Well, after 3 weeks, I finally made it to the top. Mind you, I live at the bottom of the hill. And look what greets me at the top. "Area closed: Flagpole upgrade." That'll be the name of my band. Either that or "Nuns in Public," or "Penguin Waddle," or something happy like that. I've got a bunch of possibilities, actually. When I finally access my right brain and acquire some artistic talent, I'll be ready to go.

Not to be outdone, the sundial atop Flagstaff Hill waits joyously as visitors ascend the hill and visit this site thinking it's the flagstaff part of Flagstaff Hill. Yet, it's just a random sundial, whose feelings are probably hurt because everybody usually goes to the flagstaff and ignores the precious sunset information on his iron frame. I'm not saying I thought this was the flagstaff part of the hill, but I did stand there for 15 minutes wondering how that resembled a flagstaff, only to be clued in when I was going back down the hill and passed the "Flagpole Upgrade" sign. This is a reminder that I have a postgraduate education. Seriously. I have the loans to prove it. Anyway, the next time you're in Russell, the flagstaff should be upgraded (to what, I don't know) and you probably won't suffer a precipitous loss of self-esteem when you confuse a sundial with a flagpole.