The Eight Ball [8Ball]

According to British Scientists the most repelling sound to the human ear is the sound of someone vomiting.  This is closely followed by the sound of a baby crying, a dentists drill and radio feedback.  I for one am extremely surprised that the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard is not the most repelling sound, it’s not even in the Top 5!

Common behaviour for a drunk Kiwi

Yes, don’t we all just love Public Holidays.  Here in NZ we certainly need them, we don’t have 25 of them like Brazil do so the few we do have we really like to make the most of and get out there and do what we love doing best, binge drinking that is (for the majority anyway).  Sometimes these inebriated souls take a moment to remember why they’re getting an extra day off to get tanked but let’s me honest, most of them are just stoked they have a free paid day off to get absolutely trolleyed Friday, Saturday AND Sunday night and feel sorry for themselves on Monday while they look forward to a shortened four day working week.

Usually on the NZ calendar we have ten public holidays, ten holy days for us to look forward to shorter weeks and more time to spend with our friends, mammals, families and philanthropods.  This year however, there is a slight change.  As some of our public holidays aren’t fixed on certain days of the week ANZAC Day and Waitangi day land on a weekend and we do not get a day off for them at all!  I for one will NOT be celebrating their causes this year.

In fact, poor old Waitangi day, that sacred day of the year when every NZ’er gets to dress up like what every other country in the world thinks we look like every day, in grass skirts and crazy face paint (like a cat maybe???) along with pointy weapons, will not be celebrated by giving us a day off until 2012!!  So all of you that were hoping to get your freak on this Waitangi day, prancing around the street like some native warrior on the Monday you’ll be very upset to know that you’ll have to do this on your own time during that weekend or just sod it all like I probably will. 

Most NZ'ers dress like this daily

So before you yet again go into your, “Well at least it’s not so bad at the start of the year cos you get a few four day weeks to ease you back in…” speech, be suitably depressed and think again.  From our last official Public Holiday on 4 January we have 63 continuous business days with weekends before we get our next national day off!

It’s called “Wikipedia”, it’s the 5th most read website in the world.  It’s completely non commercial and has no advertising, sadly they don’t have enough money to run it without having to commercialise it in some way soon. 

Please, if you use Wikipedia regularly … come on … of course you do!  Then please donate so it can remain clean, tidy, free of advertising and commercialism and become even better!  I gave $20 today, I think it’s worth that much, actually it’s probably worth more than that, I gave Plug’s Mo $20 and let’s face it, THAT WASN’T WORTH SHIT!!! (luv ya pluggles!)

Go on, click the link and donate, they deserve it, they RULE.

Donate to Wikipedia!

My current ASL is: 26, Male, AND in the middle of no where (Tindale). Not just any old no where but proper English countryside no where. For the past 3+ months I been stranded in Newcastle Upon Tyne up here in the North East of England and whilst I initially tried to find work (which lead to nothing) I ended up just basically relaxing and having a holiday. The house I’ve been looking after in town has had access to the important things like pubs, supermarkets, and coffee; my current situation is that I have landed a job for 2 weeks looking after 3 dogs and a house while their owners are away in Canada. This job is probably less of a job and more of ‘exactly what I was doing before but this time getting a few hundred squid for it’, not bad in my current financial state!

Currently it is day 2 of 15; day 1 consisted of me realising that I had forgot to bring my own coffee which then lead to the trying of various instant coffee lying around, finding out the reason that I don’t drink instant anymore, finding a tin of French press ground coffee, realising why I don’t drink coffee that isn’t kept correctly (I tend to drink it fast enough not to have to worry), reverting back to instant coffee and starting a timer ‘days left till real coffee again’. I also managed to further improve the haircutting process (see left) to a stubbly #0 length which to my surprise is quite a lot different to a #1 both in terms of ability to warm ones heeed and imagine having sandpaper on your head… now try to pull on a benni or hood on, not easy.

The countryside, especially the English is littered with a wealth of history. This particular area was once big tin mine, scores of old stone buildings litter the hills with most just barely still standing. The house that I am actually staying in isn’t a farm house like one might think but instead it is a normal attached house that one finds in the towns and cities. Imagine about 10 of these attached houses simply picked up from Coronation Street and more or less just plomped onto a hill high up in the northern hills with little else around them. They are the old miners houses, each room has a working sink/taps presumably because circumstances in regards to mining tin was probably just as average as mining anything 100 years ago.

The environment would have been a tough one to work, weather wise the wind gusts almost non stop it’s about 3-4 degrees colder then Newcastle (which in itself is about 4-5 degrees colder then London), and unlike most other places it rains 90% of the year. It is however very pure, generally unspoilt by man. Long stone walls sprawl out in all directs boxing off vast green paddicts or cutting of harsh volcanic like hills. The colour is rather stunning with the bright green of the fields mixing nicely with stone walls and finally finished off by a bush shrub that is currently in a bright pink flower.

Unfortunately not working for eventually 6 months has it positive and negative effects in that I love not working but that I am running out of cash and hence am having to come back to NZ in October. Lucky for me though that since I may not be back for a while the good old Ma and Pa have decided to come up to the UK and utilise my navigations skills to show them around for a month  Should be a hoot or I’ll be in jail due to having killed them both as they may drive me crazy… Hitting Beijing on the round trip back for a few nights then bring on the cheap flight from Beijing to Auckland via Sydney and taking 24 hrs!!! Just in time for ‘J’s never ending summer‘ to continue (#5), yay!

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