TONYFURY

A couple of exciting technology developments:

1. Got a new Apple MacBook: 2Ghz Core Duo, 1Gb RAM, … very nice.

2. Finally got a broadband connection. 2mbps, which is a nice improvement on 56k dialup. Whoohoo!

Tired of those boring movies where everything makes sense? Want to combine all your favourite genres into one movie? Got a special interest in grandfathers who can through firewood a really long way? Boy, have I got the movie for you.

“The Happiness of the Katakuris” is about a family who, for a variety of reasons, move to the country to open a B&B near a major highway, that doesn’t yet exist, in the quest for true happiness.  What better way to tell such a heart-warming yarn than by combining normal dramatic movie techniques with sci-fi, horror, clay-mation and of course regular broadway musical-style scenes? I’m not kidding! Oh, and did I mention its in Japanese?

Without giving too much away, every guest that comes to stay ends up dying. The family decides its better to just hide the bodies and avoid the negative publicity.

My favourite scene would have to be the one where a clay-mation alien creature emerges from a bowl of soup. As the terrified Okyaku-sama screems, the alien rips out her heart-shaped uvula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatine_uvula) which he then flies away with! Nice.

My favourite character? Hmm, thats a bit tricky. I have two.
Richard Sagawa: The half Japanese, half British son of an illegitimate member of the British Royal Family who is a pilot in the US Air Force. He is not a native Japanese speaker and to emphasise his point he has the most hilarious accent. If you can imagine Elvis or John Wayne speaking Japanese, you’re on the right track
Shizue Katakuri: The eldest daughter of the family. She has a problem that she “falls in love very easily”. She has some great musical numbers including one where she finishes up lying on the ground with lots of people giving her funny looks. Nothing unusual I guess. She’s also very cute.

Want to know more? You know you do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_of_the_Katakuris

Ok, it might have been a normal bee or more likely a wasp, but I got stung on my way to work on Wednesday. I was biking along when I felt a sort of scratching that got quickly more painful. I looked down and saw a little yellow and black critter nestled in the fold of my t-shirt apparently doing his best to hurt me. He did a good job!

Not long after I moved into my house, about a year and a half ago, the light fitting in the spare room started making sizzling noises and showering sparks! I removed the whole light fitting because it was a disaster waiting to happen. We put a lamp into the room, which doesn’t get used a whole lot, and since then the wires have just been sticking out of the ceiling without anything connected.

A few weeks ago we got a flatmate. So last weekend, before he moved in, I thought I should get a new light fitting for his room. After picking a stylish looking item (with a stylish 20% discount!) I set about installing it. I’m not an electrician but its only 3 wires right, so I thought I should at least have a go at doing it myself. I made sure the switch on the wall was off and began. I made the physical attachment to the ceiling and then started on the wires. There was a lot of stuff to squeeze into the little cup that fits against the celing. On the first attempt it ended up not fitting very nicely, so I decided to have another go. I had to remove the phase and neutral wires to re-arrange things, but I was able to leave the earth in place. I got it sorted but thought I should try it out before reconnecting the wires. I moved the cup up towards the ceiling and the next thing I knew there was a flash above me and a pop from the switch board in the hallway! I didn’t feel anything but the realisation came to me that somehow the wires were live. I checked the switch board and the other lights in the house and found that the light circuit fuse had blown. I wasn’t really sure what had happened. Obviously the phase wasn’t live cos the switch was off. Could you get current from neutral to earth? Did I know anything about electricity? Would i have to hand back my electrical engineering degree?

Anyway, with the fuse blown I figured I was safe to complete the job, which I did. I then went out ot get some fuse wire (old skool fuses bro!). When I got back I made sure the light switch for the new light was still off and then replaced the fuse. To my surprise, an eerie glow came from the spare room. I tried the switch only to find that it was actually fitted UPSIDEDOWN in the wall!!! So, up was infact ON not OFF!!!! So, I had been merrily handling live wires without a care in the world! I can’t believe I got away with this without even the slightest shock. Electrocution aside, if I’d gotten even a small shock it could easily have knocked me off the chair I was standing on, with a fine selection of gnarly landing zones such as an old clothes drier, my brothers guitar amp, the drum kit or a range of other pointy things below me.

Just another item to add to my list of “near misses” God has saved me from

Lesson learned: always remove the fuse when handling house wiring!

Ok, so I’m Coffee House with Webster the other night. It’s a warm evening and we’re sitting outside. The place is fairly busy, lots of people around.

The waitress comes over to us and asks if she can take our order. I ask for a hazelnut milkshake and a piece of citrus slice. She asks if I’d like yoghurt on the citrus slice. I say “Yes please”. Then she turns to Webster and asks what he’d like. He say’s “I’m gonna have something very similar. I’ll have a vanilla milkshake and a piece of citrus slice with yoghurt.” To which the waitress replies, in her wierd scottish/irish/southland/american accent “Ohhh, that’s cute”!!!!!! Webster and I exchange looks of horror as we realise the implication of her statement and I quickly respond “Um, no that’s not cute”. [JaseBase has a momentary flashback to role call in science class with Mr Boreboom in 4th form.] What is up with that?? Can’t two guys meet up at a cafe for a chat without people making all sorts of very incorrect assumptions about them? What is the world coming to? It’s not like we were ordering slices of quiche or open-topped sandwiches or anything!
Anyway, we had bit of a laugh about it. But the fun wasn’t over. A different waitress brought out our order and gave us really funny looks and had a bit of a smirk on her face. It seems there may have been a bit of dicussion going on in the kitchen.

And what does this mean for my prospects of meeting a nice girl? Are they all looking at me and saying “Forget about him, I saw him having coffee with a guy!” Agghh!

It was Waitangi Day on Tuesday. Almost everyone in my team at work was taking the Monday off too, so I thought I’d join in the fun and have a 3-day week. Much to everyone’s surprise the weather has been distinctly and appropriately summery lately. Monday and Tuesday were no exception. I can’t say I actually did very much but I did manage to go mountain biking both days. On monday my bro and I went out to Bottle Lake. We go there quite often, which is good because we’ve gotten to know the track well and that means you can just focus on going as fast possible and enjoying the turns and starwars-like sections with narrowly spaced trees.

On Tuesday (after a long period meditating on the treaty and its great significance to our day to day lives) we headed to the Port Hills. Its been a while since I last went there. Its just a bit more of a hassle to get there and you need more time cos the tracks are longer so we don’t get up there so often. There was a light breeze, which was nice for cooling you down on the long climb up Rapaki. I’m pleased to report that my uphilling has improved quite a lot. A credit to the gym program I’ve been on, I think. We went down Bowenvale, which I haven’t done for ages! The track has changed heaps due to erosion. In some places I reckon the track is a good 20cm lower than it used to be. This has exposed some pretty large rocks and turned it from a fairly smooth trail into a pretty technical one (well for me anyway). It was really good fun and I only walked a few sections.

Oh yeah, the other thing I did was more painting. Aside from a few touch ups in some places, I think I’m done. About time too! I started just after Christmas. Anyway, it looks good (i think). I’ll put some pictures up soon and you can see if you agree. It was all white before so this is quite an improvement.

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