Well, shit eh. The things we do. Filling in quizzes about being punk resulted in:
”Political Punk! You don’t necessarily have an ‘image’, persay. You may dress a bit punky but it’s more your attitude and outlook on life that make you punk. Probably found at shows focusing on unity, vegan markets and even riots and protests, you fight for your cause. You’re a true rebel, and even if others in the scene don’t agree with your views, they respect your conviction. You rock.”
I think I need a hobby and/or a life.
I just realised that people who use the word ‘perfect’ tend to scare me. Not a big revelation but when someone says “this needs to be perfect” I usually get a shiver down my spine…though it might be the slightly hysterical look they tend to have on their face at the time that actually does it. I’m finding that people who aim for perfection are usually very odd people. It’s one thing to work hard to get details right but another to push beyond the realms of reality. I was listening to the Ramones at the time the revelation struck.
I like spring. It doesn’t get anymore random than this in life.
It’s no surprise that printers piss me off but I discovered an interesting fact about mine recently. If the printer starts printing out crap when it should be printing words, slap it silly. It’ll start to whistle. I’m guessing it’s a feature. It doesn’t stop the crap from printing but at least you have a tune to get angry to.
This product is going to kill me yet.
It is another Friday and after the last few weeks I am thankful for that. Saturday morning is my dead time. At the risk of sounding like a complete plonker, I have been a little surprised at how emotionally draining the cat episode was. That along with a new contract, two new projects, the final development of DriveChain and doing another presentation for one of the local design schools have left me feeling like something large and angry has hit me between the shoulder blades.
It is weird what we get used to and how our brains react when it’s not there anymore. I have a lot of habits based around the cat which are dying hard. We humans are a little odd methinks.
Of note, was a goal scored by yours truly at last week’s game. Notable as it’s a rare occurrence and because it was a shot on goal with purpose. Normally I am so busy trying not to pass out from exhaustion that the goal seems to move on its own accord. Slapping a puck into it was somewhat gratifying.
Well, wee Max didn’t make it. After only three and half years of life he is gone. Our final visit to the vet this morning was to say goodbye. We’ll miss him dearly.
Last week I turned thirty and had a joint party on Saturday with a friend who turned 29 two days later. A good night though a bit hazy in memory. My tattoo has healed in pretty well and has stopped itching which is all good. Despite all odds a friend bought two of my t-shirts. I am stoked.
The garden is starting to move with spring and I am back to the waiting game with it while veges and various cuttings set themselves for replanting. I am waiting with hope.
Our cat, Max, a young fuzzy, insecure little tabby, has been in at the vet for the last few days after getting incredibly sick very quickly. It’s not looking good for the wee guy, who has had a pretty tough life as it is, and we are now having to wait to find out whether he will make it. This is the sort of waiting that makes life hard.
She’s been a bit of a boring one lately. Lots of little jobs that get done quickly and nothing to really get stuck into in any serious fashion. Such is the nature of work I guess. Still, in the gaps I have been creating stencils to print on to t-shirts, set up the screen for printing and been gently beating the vege garden into shape.
Have discovered that house hunting is a soul destroying task and not one I seem to get overly enthusiastic about. One day.
Got my first tattoo last week. An interesting experience and while the pain of the actual needle wasn’t bad the incessant itchiness now is driving me slightly batty. After the deed was done I had to quietly ignore the line in the Sommerset song Say What You Want that says “You’d cut yourself up to feel anything”…was just a bit close to the mark for comfort. What I can see of the tattoo through the scab and flaking and general nastiness is starting to look good though.
The house is getting very quiet…
I have just had the living shit scared out of me by the cat. Here starteth the week and it looks like a downhill slope from here but I’ll stay positive and pretend it’s uphill instead.
But, back to the cat. It would have been funny if I hadn’t almost died from heart palpitations. I can only surmise that while coming through the cat door a gust of wind slammed it shut on his tail causing him to do what all of us would probably do, scream like a banshee while hissing at the root of the problem. To come out of a computer induced trance to that noise was a spectacular experience and one I hope not to encounter again too soon as too I’m sure, is the cat. A quick extraction of tail from door solved both our problems. Food fixed it all better.
I can’t tell if it is Winter or the result of having too much flowing in one ear and out the other but I am buggered. Waking up tired and going to bed comatose with very little to show in between is getting to be frustrating. I seem to be waiting for something but my brain won’t let me in on what it is we’re waiting for. Stupid brain.
I turn 30 in a few weeks…
My screenprinting sessions have come to a successful end. Saturday was spent grinding to get the designs onto the screen and some basic testing done. Sunday was spent firing on all cylinders to get as many prints done as possible. (I figured if I did a lot I’d end up with some that were really good). By the end of Sunday I was well and truly buggered but had some really cool prints, the results of which will be up on The Trouser Project soon.
”Time like an ever rolling stream”, Isaac Watts: My pet peeve, the thing I most dislike to hear from others is simply “I don’t have time”. We all have the same amount of time, give or take a few years, in our lives and we all do similar things to survive (which is relatively piss easy to do these days all things considered) so what do people mean when they say they “don’t have time”? Are you implying I have more time than you, am I less busy? Do you maybe mean that you don’t have time for me? Maybe you mean you can’t manage your time properly and take on more tasks than you can handle? Whatever the reason I can only deduce one thing – you are lying and are using a throwaway social phrase to cover something. Do me a favour and get real.
Went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 in the weekend. Despite having reading Stupid White Men and Dude, Where’s my Country I still came away feeling screwy and with an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the United States public. The more I learn about people around the World the more I realise we are all pretty much the same. Sure there are some superficial differences but in general we’re all pretty stock standard. That and arseholes are everywhere. Imagine a World without fat, white guys in suits.
I sometimes wonder if trying new things all the time is a good thing. It always feels like you know nothing and that you’re always cocking up in some way. It’s often nice to simply do something that you’re reasonably good at. On that note, last weekend was spent doing Part 1 of a Polytech course in textile printing. A small class that spans two weekends and covers the basics of screen printing, stencilling, mixing inks etc. Despite knowing very little about the technical parts, so far it’s been good fun and my screen is now degreased and all covered in emulsion eagerly awaiting my return with a design to set into it. I can see myself getting into screen printing and hopefully it’ll give me some motivation to carry on with The Trouser Project. Roll on the next session.
I have bitten the bullet with the home page of this site and finally made every component on it a separate object that gets pulled in. The home page is now made up five distinct areas that are all held in separate content files. Word, the news feed, the mood graph, Current Joys and Music Playing today are all brought together dynamically to present themselves on one page. Why bother? Well, I can now keep all the old entries for each component while presenting only the latest. This is fairly important as this is essentially a diary of my life and the overall picture is as important as the day-to-day stuff. It also means I can present each component in different ways if I want to which is an important part of future proofing the content. I’d hate for XHTML to go out of vogue and have to transfer all that content to a new format. Bugger that for a joke.
We bought a little olive tree last night. It is now settling in on the back porch before being repotted to a larger container. We got a small guava tree a few weeks back. I was a bit surprised to find this variety can handle frosts down to -5 degrees. It is also now sitting on the back porch waiting for summer. I noticed the worms have started reproducing (big time) in my little Worm Bin so I’m guessing that by summer they will have started to become quite the little composters. It’s nice when a plan comes together.
If anyone is wondering where the interface switching has gone, it will be back soon. The new infrastructure requires a slightly different approach for switching XSL files which we’re currently working on.
Last Friday C and I headed for Hanmer for a much needed break. We booked the spa room at Albergo Hanmer for one night and it was excellent. We don’t get out often so our expectations are maybe a bit lower than many but any place that is clean, warm and has a spa bath is okay by us. Dinner at The Laurel restaurant, being the only place that wasn’t packed with families and kids (bless their messy little fingers) and the first chance we have had in months to sit and talk. Who knew Punks could be so romantic. Damn it was nice but now it’s back to the cold little flat and our dreams of a place of our own and warm summers.
I pricked out most of the Pohutakawa seedlings I have managed to germinate and they are now sitting on the kitchen table waiting for slightly warmer weather so they can harden off outside (and we can eat at the table again). The vege garden has started to move. The garlic I planted a few weeks back have pushed up (Dad was right when he said “put it in the ground and step back”), the Brocolli have started in strong and the silver beet is, well…silver beet really. I’m on the hunt for fruit trees now that we can keep in containers and keep smallish for now. I have big plans for this year and am looking to stagger the plantings better so we don’t get inundated with food like we did last year. Will also shoot for a bit more variety this time around.
I recently moved my office back home for a more flexible workspace and, due to my tendency to get bored quickly, the opportunity to work on multiple things at once. One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the constant questioning of others as to why I had moved home…some people just don’t get it and most assume I’m in some sort of financial difficulty. Odd assumption. I love working from home, it’s quiet, I can take a break from computers to do some gardening, I see all the assholes who come up my driveway, I can talk to the retired neighbours, I can bake, cook dinner, clean up, check the worm compost (which is gross so I don’t do it often) and in general reduce the amount of space I consume. I have more than tripled my productivity as a person since moving home and after almost three years of business I’m still doing pretty well. I can only assume that some people are so old school they’ll never see the light. It’s just a shame they keep talking.
Changes in the vege garden this weekend. The tunnel house was moved to a sunnier spot freeing up space in the vege patch for open air plants. Started turning the soil and dumping compost on it. Noticed all the black currant cuttings are growing, potted out some of the Pohutakawa seedlings (there are hundreds growing) and generally pulled muscles and had a good time.
If all goes according to plan C and I are off for a long weekend in Hanmer this weekend. We have booked a room which describes itself as a home away from home. I don’t know how other people live but we don’t have walk in wardrobes, a spa pool, or outside dining areas. It’s going to be a nice break.
How time flies when you’re sick, tired and working your nads off to keep things ticking over. That’s right, it’s Winter again. Looking back on passed Word instalments I never seem to have much to say in Winter (relatively speaking) which is odd as I do a lot of thinking at this time of year. It’s like a blown lightbulb (stay with me here), you only remember to fix it when it’s dark and can’t see enough to fix it. Thinking in Winter works in a similar way with me, if something’s going to go wrong and I’m going to notice it, it’ll be in Winter.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about success and what I want out of life lately. This is probably partly to do with the business doing it’s usual slightly-above-mediocre best, oil depletion (which I just can’t seem to hide from no matter what I do), TV showing endless Reality TV shows and people around me being a little odd. The end result is that at the moment I don’t feel particularly successful which is weird considering I live in a pretty decent country, have been running my own business for almost three years, can grow a decent crop of potatoes (and other assorted veges) and make a mean Focaccia bread. I’m not sure why it all feels a bit illusory.
For the want of something better I keep plugging away at web design with the ever nagging sensation it’s not overly valuable to the World. We’ll see I guess.
In other news, I got a worm farm for getting rid of some of the food scraps. Standard composting just wasn’t working and kudos to the Christchurch City Council for all the info they have on composting on the web site. Good to see.
It is Stanley Cup finals time again and this time I have a TV in my office…or my office is near my TV, whichever way works best for you. This year the Calgary Flames are the team of choice, if for no better reason than my inline hockey team is called the Flames. We share a uniform design and very little else.
Working from home is excellent. ZYPE is operating at full throttle at the moment so it’s been an action packed few weeks. Have been working on a prototype for a new shirt design I’ve got in mind which is filling the gaps just nicely.
Beyond that I’m too tired to get all angry about anything at the moment and working at home has meant less attempt on my life from mad SUV drivers.
You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re on TV. I say this as a stupid TV show about Donald Trump appears on TV behind me. It took me 5 minutes of watching to realise it was another load of bollocks dealt out in the name of entertainment – something about young twats getting a job with the old school bastard.Try thinking for yourselves dumb asses.
The 6 o’clock news had two fascinating articles tonight. They follow an interesting trend I’ve noticed and it is kind of like the media has realised they screwed up in a number of areas and are now trying to catch up. The first article was about hybrid cars. Petrol prices are on the increase here, finally, and quite frankly considering the global environment at the moment, that’s not surprising. The media is ‘shocked’ that NZers aren’t taking up hybrid cars (by which we mean hydrogen engines) after two whole months of violent increases in petrol prices. Putting aside the complete disconnection of well known (if constantly ignored) oil depletion issues, the average NZer earns $30k a year. The average Hydrogen car costs around $45k. You do the math. Pay your food and electricity bills or buy a car.
The second article was about the third of it’s kind in a trend of U.S. Bush bashing (that’s the president Bush and not the porn kind). That’s not a big deal really, we know he’s a dick, along with John Howard (to keep it closer to home) but the media seem a bit late off the mark on this. Intelligent people clicked that shit was wrong with our US friends when they declared war on Iraq with dubious connections between the Trade Center attacks and Saddam Hussein. Why has it taken mainstream media two years to figure this out? I’m guessing it’s because it’s now ‘trendy’ which is a disgrace. Politics is never trendy and war is just plain disgusting. I should stop watching the TV news.
With that out of the way, work is busy as hell and has pushed aside the Trouser Project for now. I have some time to spend on it this week and have a new shirt design in mind to try out. It’s a slow process but a good process. I am back in my home office now and thoroughly enjoying it. After we got a chat server running I can now stay in touch with the others I work with and in general life is a little easier. That said I’ve had to bike into town every day for something this week. The exercise is surely good for me. Back to hockey this week after a two week break…I imagine I will feel pain.
New Zealand’s student debt passed the $7 billion mark today. Not bad for a nation of 4 million people. I can just see that coming back to bite us all on the ass. If I was leaving school now I’d be looking at a trade. Universities just aren’t what they used to be.
I just got a high speed internet connection set up at home so will be moving my office back soon, hopefully this weekend. It’s a strange feeling leaving the office in town but I figured it was time to start using the technology I sell to other people and try and get my life back in order. Just in time for winter as well…how I will miss biking through the wind, hail and smog.
Busy times for ZYPE at the moment which has effectively slowed down progress on The Trouser Project but the plans are still there and the groundwork is still being laid. It’s quite nice to have projects on…they pay the bills and keep me off the streets which, after a weird combo of stencilling and watching Monster Garage is probably a good thing.
I think I’m getting too old for inline hockey. Spent more time off tonight than on…and most of that was spent leaning on my stick trying not to die. Life is good…if a little odd.
I found this quote on Wired.com’s rant/raves area and kinda liked it: “There is dignity in labor. Let’s not let the robots mow our lawns. Let’s make robots watch television for us.” Brilliant.
Interesting times. The last few weeks have been full on but in a somewhat fulfilling and exciting way…actually exciting is the wrong word, some mix of excitement, character building, interesting, new direction sort of thing. I have decided to move my office back home so I can have a more flexible work space. Having learned how to manage my time I feel it’s now time to learn how to expand my knowledge into other areas of Design that interest me. The Trouser Project has expanded into the initial stages of a business with the first t-shirt designs and a web site and I am wanting to spread my time between that and ZYPE now. Alongside is the vegetable garden and a growing interest in sustainability which will all benefit from my time and focus. I can also now justify a fast Internet connection at home which just tops it all off.
On a different tack, I had a thought this morning. One of those out of the blue moments of clarity when you define a little part of your life. I have been struggling with the growing mentality in New Zealand that the government is meant to fix all our problems. When the shit hits the fan the first comment is always “What will the government do?”, “what will our leaders do?”. This has always bothered me as I wasn’t raised to see politicians as leaders…I mean, we elect them…how can they be leaders? I also like to be independent and having other people ‘fix’ my life seems like a cheap way out. At any rate, this morning my brain helped me out a notch with the following: You don’t hire employees to tell you how to run your business, why would you elect politicians to tell you how to run the country. “Too right!”, I thought. We elect them to do a job. In my case I elected Labour to look after the little issues around Canterbury – make sure everything runs reasonably smoothly and listen to all the nutty ideas us residents have about making it a better place to live etc and The Greens to stamp their feet at a national level, keep the Genetic Modification issues on their toes and generally get in the way of the main parties. I don’t expect them to come up with ideas of their own, god forbid. That’s the rough idea anyway and I am very appreciative of my brain for offering it as a potential solution.
Music…sigh. What is up with this industry? That and the movie industry for that matter. These huge industries seem to have lost the plot completely with their continued attacks on file sharing and music fans in general. It’s strange that they are blaming, supposed, huge slumps in sales on file sharing via the Internet and piracy in various undetermined forms. I bought an album recently. It was an old Sommerset album (on CD), NZ punk at it’s best and it was second hand for about $14.95. The price was right, the music was good and I got to see them live two days later. Other than that I have bought nothing, not because I download them all, though I do download the odd song here and there, but because I haven’t heard anything that I want to own. The best punk has always been in the backyards and the bands on Epitaph all seem a bit contrived these days – don’t get me started on the mainstream music. My income is beginning to stabilise now but costs for damn near everything seem to constantly be going up (the house market at the moment is insane and food is more expensive every year) and, quite frankly, the luxuries are beginning to become harder to justify. Music, unfortunately for the music industry, is a luxury. DVDs still seem way too expensive and I’m not sure what I’m paying for: is the movie I’m paying for? The formats would all cost similar amounts then; is it the medium it’s on that I’m paying for? Video tapes are surely more expensive to make that DVDs; or am I paying for what the industry thinks it can get out of me? In which case they are still about $10 too expensive. Seems like a bad business model to me.
But, enough ranting. With any luck my new winter garden will grow and provide us with some veges in the cold months and maybe life will not get any weirder…though I’m not holding my breath.
I remember a particular day at primary school, sometime in the early 80s when I was about 8 or so and the teacher was reading to us a story about nuclear war. I can’t remember the actual story but I do remember that every one of the kids was scared crapless. Afterwards during a discussion it was revealed that the single biggest fear for us all was dying in a nuclear war…not falling out of a tree, being run over by a drunk driver or being maimed by marauding hippopotamus (we were 8 okay). This fear was not the direct result of hearing the story but was already ingrained…we honestly believed that it was possible and entirely likely that either the Americans or Russians were going to kill us all by firing nuclear missiles at each other.
I am not sure why this memory was triggered recently but the World is starting to feel the same as it did then: uncertain, unfriendly and dangerous. The US, so long our supposed ally, are now acting like a crazy older cousin with a penchant for violence (the one everyone looks at thinking “dodgey bugger” and quietly ignores until he goes psycho again), nutters are running around blowing up buildings, trains and anything else they associate with their perception of evil, and the rest of us are sitting on the floor listening to the teacher quietly tell us indirectly that we are all going to die. Nice.
My time at the nursery has come to an end. My one day a week was becoming somewhat unworkable so we called it quits, said our farewells and smiled happily. It was a nice period of time, though hard work and I appreciate the time my temporary employer put in to try and make it work. It will be missed though I imagine my garden will now prosper. A strange feeling of resignation has settled in.
Holiday might be a dubious term for what we did last week but we have, at last, visited Auckland with a vengeance…and left again with even greater vengeance. This has been a goal for a while now but never seemed to happen so last week we finally got there for a decent look around and decided it was lovely to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there.
The good bits revolved around shopping and a particularly good punk gig with Missing Teeth, The Bleeders and Sommerset. Despite feeling old (and deaf) by the end of the show a good time was had by all and Missing Teeth’s Serial had us all singing “Hey ho hey huh ho hee hey” all the way home (can’t sing, don’t care). Being a larger city Auckland had some neat little shops and bigger versions of all the same naff ones – Bigger seems to simply mean more of the same crap. Transport was a bitch…though a relatively cheap bitch so can’t really complain. Lots of cars seems to make for lots of traffic congestion…go figure.
I managed to pick up one of those dribbly not-quite-a-flu thing which I am now trying to beat into submission…with limited success. All a bit gross really.
I have discovered an interesting way to live life. Recently, after a particularly stupid day of computer behaviour, I started looking for work in a Nursery (the plant kind, not the baby kind) to do something that involved physical labour, plants and dirt. I now spend my Tuesdays out Yaldhurst way at Arcadia Nursery potting plants, moving plants around and generally doing planty stuff. I’m always absolutely buggered Tuesday night and, as it’s a somewhat blokey environment, a bit rough around the edges. Topping this off the new inline hockey season has just started up so Wednesday nights are now spent chasing a puck and generally running into people/walls/floor etc. The skinny of all this is that Thursdays are now completely messed up. With a mix of coffee and testosterone rushing through my system, mental fatigue from all this business crap and physical fatigue from labouring away I can happily say that I have no recollection of Thursday at all. I think I had a meeting today but who knows.
This year is about trying new things and generally not pissing around. I’ve got a better handle on who I am and who I want to be. The whole trying new stuff approach to life has also revealed how many dickheads there are around. For some reason as soon as you mention something you want to try people feel the need to outline all the things that could possibly go wrong and why it’s all a bad idea….dickheads. If this all sounds a bit petulant…well..it is really. Some day’s it’d be nice to tell someone something without hearing all the negative crap which, quite frankly, anyone with half a brain would have already thought about. Actually what would be really cool is to tell someone something and hear something positive come back.
All in all though, life is pretty good at the moment. Apparently living a slightly simpler life is the answer to being happy.
I read an excellent article yesterday (found via Punk Rock Academy) entitled One Suicide Too Many. Suicide is one of those things that hits me hard for some reason. It always feels so close to home, though I don’t know why. I have never known anyone close to me who has killed themselves and, apart from a couple of times in my life, I’ve never really seriously contemplated it myself. The article nails all the human issues of suicide and, while U.S. focused, remains fully relevant to New Zealanders.
An interesting thing has happened to me over the last few years, I have refound my creativity and experimental nature again. As a kid I was always writing, drawing and dreaming, was always described as imaginative and was often known to enhance reality to make it more interesting. And then I went to High School and was wrung through the study hard, get a job, buy a house, marry and have kids template. My creative writing stopped about 4th form (age 14), the subjects got more technical and by age 18 I was depressed. This was the time I went to Norway and started to make a break for it.
It has been about 8 years since I left University and it was really only last year that I started expanding and experimenting again. I now run my own Design company, make my own clothes, have learned to cook interesting food, have more hobbies than I know what to do with, am constantly meeting new people, think creatively and most importantly I try new things and challenge myself mentally and physically regularly. This should have fucking happened 12 years ago. Not once in my schooling was I told that it was easy to run a company, not once was I challenged to think for myself and not once was my creativity encouraged. I have nothing but loathing for that time now that I look back and see what it did and what it cost me.
On a much brighter note we saw Billy Connolly live last night which was excellent. I have been wanting to see one of his live shows for ages and now it’s done and was well worth it.
After a massive blow out on some pretty major coffee on Monday, the rest of the week looks like a bit of a write-off. Finished a shitload of stuff in one day though.
Also, completed a pair of shorts. I finally have a pair of long, solid shorts complete with a chain stripe. Based on a basic (and pretty crappy) pattern, a bit of sweat, some tears, a bit of blood (stupid needles) and lots of hacking they started to take shape really nicely. Surprisingly my sewing skills have come a long way since the Trouser project and these ones fit really well and are mega comfy. Complete with the Ouch logo – stencilled on the arse pocket. Will do a write up one of these days – soon as I forgive my computer and camera for being stupid.
Still listening to the Ramones. This must be a world record for my attention span.
Isn’t it interesting that these days: it is social unacceptable to live with your parents passed about 25; manual labour is considered of less value than a desk job; a desk job is considered less valuable than a management position; the Americans are allowed really big guns but no one else is; most new popular culture sucks; capitalism goes hand-in-hand with conservatism; computers can launch missiles but still can’t seem to handle printing; we have a society built on oil and are running out at an extreme rate; and with all this running through your head you happen to catch sight of your reflection in a glass door and realise you’re just a skinny white guy stuck in the middle of it all. Not surprisingly it was a fuck this, I’m going home early day. The rest of the day was dedicated to making t-shirts and listening to the Ramones.
Does anyone else get the feeling that something has got to give in Western society soon. Everything feels so tense and rigid. Usually shit breaks when that happens.
This article was the main story in the Christchurch Press today: Lucky Joe hits the jackpot. Fair enough, the guy’s lucky, he won lotto, can’t hold that against him…until I read that he’s also considered lucky because he’s found shitload’s of wallets and stolen the money out of them. What the hell! When did ‘lucky’ become synonymous with ‘thief’? Not only is this guy (and I can understand why he wants to remain anonymous) being heralded as ‘lucky’ but also ‘generous’. Sure, it’s easy to be generous when you’re not giving away your own money. You have got to ask what dumbass thought this was a good article to put on the front page of a fairly major paper.
In other news, we ate roast spuds last night out of our very own garden. It was excellent. C and I saw School of Rock on Saturday. For some reason we’re both in a silly mood at the moment and Jack Black was just the ticket. I rarely sit through a movie laughing so tears stream down my face the whole time. As I’m currently on a Ramones bent the soundtrack was particularly welcome.
Another blistering day. Went out for a bike ride this morning to get to know my new bike. As it was about 10am I slathered on the 15+ sunblock to stop from frying and headed off. Two hours out riding and I’m feeling a bit burnt and certainly looking browner.
I had a friend visiting from Norway a few years back who learned first hand about how dangerous not having ozone is. Used to the Norwegian sun which is pretty gentle really (5+ sunblock) he ignored our warnings and sunbathed with no sunblock at all. One hour lately he was badly burned and needed a cold shower to stop some of the blistering.
If you honestly believe global warming isn’t really a problem get your ass down here and sunbath for a few hours. If you’re not dead by the end of it you’ll be fucking sore. What really pisses me off is that NZ doesn’t spit out that much crap so we can’t really do much to stop the problem, other than rant and rave at UN meetings about the Kyoto protocol and generally get shitty.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and some cloud cover will come in soon. At least it’ll feel cooler. Hell, maybe some of the larger countries in the World will wise up.
Well…Happy New Year. Christchurch has had some blistering weather lately and thanks to our lovely hole in the ozone that means stay inside or go crispy.
A nice Xmas and a fun New Years party saw the end of 2003. Finally got a new bike so looking forward to getting out on it. Other than that I need to find some water and find some shade.