Shane

sexyboy

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:54:46 -0700

I'm bringing sexy back,
Them other fuckers don't know how to act.

DSCF8107

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:53:53 -0700

Europe part Toru: When in Rome...

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:59:29 -0700

We'd been in Italy hardly 20 minutes before I decided to assume a new persona as a street-fighting super hero. As we were carting our luggage along the train station - notoriously pick-pocket goldmines - a cry of "Stop! Thief!" was made by a man on the other side of the road, which seemed to prompt another man to break into a desperate sprint for freedom. My spider sense started tingling and as the man began hurtling in our direction, I felt an overwhelming urge to halt this apparent injustice. I didn't analyse the situation too much in depth, but I knew I didn't want to grab him or get too close to him in case he was going to pull some tricky knife shit. What I didn't figure was that, despite my spandex super-hero outfit, I hadn't really tested the effectiveness of my "Iron Arm of Justice" and so when I held out my arm to stop the bandit in his tracks, it apparently needed some fine-tuning (and perhaps some beefing up). My outstretched palm clashed with his chest and my dodgy shoulder popped out its socket, leaving me flailing about like a goon, while the crook continued on his hastened dash. I'm guessing it was to the nearest hospital to attend to the multiple broken bones inflicted by the indent of my handprint through his chest. After that exciting episode we checked in at our hostel and wandered around the streets of Rome which was filled with people for 'Bianco Notte' or 'White Nights'. The next day I checked out some ruins. As I wandered around ancient Rome, I tried to recall the significance of the artifacts to my high school Classical Studies, but all I could seem to remember was our hunch-backed teacher incessantly rubbing the television screen while he described to us graphic accounts of brutal homicide stories circulating in the media. There was a guy wandering around giving free tours and he managed to condense down the entire history of the Roman Empire to about 30 minutes. It is a bit taxing having to trek for most of the day around a decent portion of Rome but I'm guessing this family of lazy schmucks are probably only two vacations away from touring Athens on mobility scooters. Ever since the blockbuster 'Gladiator' came out, people have flocked to Rome to visit the set from the movie, colloquially known as 'The Colosseum' where renowned Pub-Fighter Russell Crowe once battled exotic animals as a slave. There was no fighting that day, but I still got the chills just thinking that I was in the very same arena that 'Rusty' once graced. Rather than palm my camera off to strangers to take my photo, I prefer taking photos of other peoples photos. Like these people who travel the world in search of their missing children. If you ever wondered before, you were right! Scouts ARE fags, the world over. The next day I hung out with the pope. He has a pretty sweet pad. We chilled for a while and I told him about how my Grandma thinks he's Dope as. They have a pretty sweet art collection there, right back to ancient Egypt. The Hole in this Mummy's right eye is stuffed with cotton where they pull out the BrrRRaaaAIiiNZ!!! with a hook. A common misconception people have about Greek Mythology is that rather than an intimidating bearded giant with a lightning rod, Zeus was actually just a pedestal fan, probably worshipped as the God of 'Cooling down a room when it gets too hot'. At St Paul's Basilica, where the pope does his sermons, he has lots of Swiss guards who are similar I think to court jesters, except that they don't have pointy hats and they're not funny. We headed up to Florence for a night, on the way to Venice. One thing Italians seem to have an odd fascination about is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I went to one museum that had all the machines that Leonardo invented, probably for just in case he ever lost his swords. Raphael done sum paintings at the pope's place, as did Michelangelo, on the ceiling (although he was the crazy party dude) I didn't see anything of Donatello, but then no one really liked him, he only had a shitty bandaged-up stick. Venice is a disorientating combination of endless alleyways and canals, like trying to find your way through 'The Labyrinth', minus David Bowie popping up all over the place to sing 'The Magic Dance'. Although this guy is pretty magic... San Marco is a big piazza with a giant church where tourists pay to pretend they are the pigeon lady from Home Alone II. Eating out in Venice is ridiculously expensive so I thought I'd get a quick snack here. I went and checked out the Guggenheim in Venice as well. It's Peggy Guggenheim's old house and although it's small, its setting next to the Grand Canal makes it a pretty cool place to see some artwork. She had this sculpture of a guy riding a horse in the front courtyard, with a detachable penis for whenever she had conservative guests coming. Oddly enough, the horses member never managed to find its way back to the sculpture, it would seem... The best way to enjoy Venice is by playing the random direction game and seeing where it takes you. On one occasion it took me to a clan of these guys (no it wasn't the Polyphonic Spree.) I think I'm going to become a Hare Krishna some day, it looks like way too much fun! Italy is filled with merchants trying to pawn off anything they can from 'Authentic Italian Leather" and flowers to tacky shit like Dancing Minnie and Mickey Mice and Plastercine-filled balloons shaped into boobies (Tee-hee-hee!!) for ridiculous sums of money to stupid tourists. Some people get overly-aggravated by their constant hassling, but I like to play them along, because as soon as you pay any interest, they'll stick to you like shit to a blanket if they think they have half a chance of selling you something. A fun game I liked to play was to see how far they would follow you as you walked away and they continued trying to bargain with you. This guy was trying to sell me flowers, I told him I didn't have a girlfriend to give them to but he guaranteed me they would get me laid. He tagged along for nearly half a mile and even asked at one point if we minded if he followed us, before he came to the end of his sales pitch and I congratulated him on his valiant effort. Later that night I asked a bartender to pour me a local beverage. Little did I know, the drink of choice for most Venetians is MOLTEN HOT LAVA!! Here are a few of the ridiculous amount of photos I took in Venice. Also a quick word of warning for Mike if he's ever planning an OE: Venice is probably not your ideal location. We stayed one night in Milan before flying out to Prague. Milan is shit. The End.

Europe (and Africa) part Rua: Rock over Gibraltar, Rock on Morocco

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:27:08 -0700

If you're going to visit another country, it's probably not the best idea to do it on a hangover, even more so if you haven't bothered finding out anything about the country before hand. If that country happens to be Morocco, and your point of entry is a notorious drug-trafficking port town, it would not be so difficult to find yourself, to put it bluntly, fucked. After far too many mojito's the night before, we decided to pop over the strait of Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco for the day, not really knowing what we'd find on the other side. It turns out 14 km's is a fucking long way when you're crossing continents. This was our first view of Africa when they finally let us off the boat after waiting half an hour at the dock. After passing through 'customs' (a couple of guys with pinned on ID tags checking passports) we were greeted by hundreds of hustlers hanging around the port asking if we needed taxis, hostels, tour guides and everything else under the sun. They would cling to you like glad-wrap as soon as you acknowledged them and you would spend the next five minutes trying to shake them off. We didn't have too many problems, but an English couple didn't handle it too well, when the guy started getting chatty with the hustler and the girl started screaming "Make him goooo Steven!! Tell him to go away right this instance!!" To say we were lost was the mother of all understatements and my reliance on Sue to interpret Spanish signs didn't count for squat when it came to interpreting Dukka-Dukka. In search of somewhere safe to eat and exchange our euros for dirhams, we wandered in the direction of what we thought was the city centre, and noticed some dodgy characters following us across the street where ever we went. I think we ended up walking in the opposite direction to the tourist centre, as the streets got shittier and more people started following us and gawking at my blonde Dutchie companions who stuck out like sore thumbs. We got a bit panicky and so we went somewhere to get a coffee and something to eat. What we hadn't quite figured out was that Sue sitting down with a bunch of men at a coffee table wouldn't go down too swimmingly, but we soon wised up when the waiter refused to speak to Sue and every mofo in the joint stared at her like she'd just killed their kittens. Some kids started hanging around yapping away at us, while we drunk delicious mint tea and ate olive bread. After a bit we chilled the fuck out and decided it wasn't so bad and started having a decent nosy around the place. We bought some cool stuff, in the markets. I got a hat and this amazing magical get up. Check it out! I can actually float in this shit! We thought we'd try some local cuisine but jazza chickened out on the BrAAiiiINNnnZZZZzz!!! McDonalds never looked so edible. Everyone knows a dirty McDonalds feed gives you the mad shits, so luckily we didn't venture there, because I'm assuming I'm extremely amateur at the art of hosing down my own ass. Everyone seems to blat around the streets on these little bikes, usually with four kids and a hooved farm animal of some sort hanging off the back. This guy must have been on the way to pick his up. I'm not quite sure what the deal with petrol stations is here, are the Moroccan's really that future-generation-conscious that they're already onto processing duck shit into bio-fuels? Morocco is under the rule of King Mohammed VI, and his presence is evident, big brother stylez, in every shop you go into. They like to switch between photos of him sitting on his throne or playing with his kids, to show he's a 'family man'. I tried not to poke too much fun at it, after witnessing the overblown public execution dished out to a guy who mis-spelt his name. King Mohammed VI is really great. I like him a lot. He is a really nice guy. Allah Akbar. We actually had a fun time in the end. We were just pussies to start with. At least we never woke up in a bathtub of ice minus kidneys. Jazza's gone a bit crazy since the trip however. Ever since he put these earrings on, he's convinced he's the genie from Aladdin. The End. We're flying to Rome tonight. I'm glad I now have some comfortable attire for the flight...

Europe part Tahi: The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:29:14 -0700

This was my first impression of Europe, in Munich airport: Clearly I'm fucking pumped about going to Germany now, but in the meantime, I'll have to settle for Espana. After having a crack at navigating my way through Spanish transport systems, I reached my final destination, somewhere in the middle of Valencia, having babbled the right phrases Sue had instructed me to use, like secret 'don't ask, don't tell' codes that somehow got you to where you had to be. Sue and Jazza's place is pretty awesome, in old skool V-town (I made that up, its quite clever, you take the first letter of a city, then hyphenate it with 'town' at the end), amongst lots of little bars that were littered with drunken Poms for Tomatina. One sloppy massive unit approached me on the street tapping at his hostel-tour arm band simply asking 'Home? Home?'. The funny thing in Spain is that you can tell people, "Go down that street, over the bridge, and then ask someone" I doubt he ever made it 'Home.'. One of the coolest playgrounds in the world is in Valencia, a giant Gulliver, with slides and climbing ropes all over him. I'm guessing Spanish OSH aren't quite such the fun-nazi's they are in New Zealand. Jazza and Sue showed me around the city for a while and we went out for some drinks later that night. I think the European culture has turned Jazza a bit fruity, evident in the trade of Jim 'Bean' for Agua de Valencia and his apparent enthusiasm towards men with beards. I noticed not so much interest was displayed towards Sue ... He has still maintained a high-degree of Loserism however. Infact, Spanish authorities have erected signs warning unsuspecting Spaniards about the biggest loser of them all, or 'El Doctoro Esselbrugge' as he is known here. The next day we descended upon Bunol, along with 39,997 others, for Tomatina, the world's biggest food-fight. Although, it wasn't so much a food fight as a shower, with squashed tomatoes flung from trucks maneuvering through the crowd, with a slightly unfair ratio of about 100 tomatoes splattered for every half piece tomato you could manage to scavenge and throw (which was near impossible to do with an arm leverage of about 2 degrees) Groups of Spaniards would crowd around a naïve clothed punter yelling 'Camiseta! Camiseta!' before ripping off their t-shirt and heaving it into the crowd. Needless to say the Dolce & Gabbana clad Italians were none too impressed with their designer t-shirts being transformed into tomato juice mops. It was a fun day, and afterwards, the streets turned into a party town, so we drunk and got sunburnt, while suckerz waited half a day for trains. The next morning we set off for Baaarcelona (what a beautiful horizon!) home of Modernism, the first Olympics I can remember and some crazy buildings that look to be straight out of a Tim Burton set. The Salvador Dali influence seems to have infiltrated into much of Barcelona's culture, with even drunken bums embracing surrealism to full extent. There are heaps of street performers, most of them do the over-done frozen statue thing, but some of them make squeaky noises like the rubber chickens people give to their dogs. There was one awesome guy, who was an amateur juggler, but I paid him to juggle over my head. He dropped them a few times, but I didn't care coz I was drunx. We vamos-ed before he tried bringing out the knives and firesticks. We went for a wander around Barcelona on the Gaudi trail, he's pretty much responsible for building half the town, from streetlights to mosaic garden bench seats, but as an architect he designed some of the coolest houses you could ever wish to live in. I bet that inside, you can probably walk up the walls and the ceilings if you felt like it. They were cool, but this is hands down the most awesome building in the world. Sagrada La Familia is a cathedral he spent most of his life designing, which began construction in 1882 and probably wont be finished by 2082. He even made sudoku puzzles on the wall, just in case Phill ever came to visit. A lot of people have tainted these historical artifacts by scribbling their names on the walls, and I was a little disappointed to find out Lucie had been here, just this year and done the same thing. Tsk tsk tsk... I noticed evidence of another familiar character who'd been to Barcelona, can you spot him? That night we went to a club called Razzmatazz where Ratatat was playing. It's this giant warehouse with tons of stairs leading to different bars with one giant one in the middle. Trying to bluff your way through simple situations in Spanish is hard enough, but becomes ridiculous when you're a bumbling drunk in a club full of Spaniards and you can't decipher an audible word anyhow. Perhaps that explains how a guy introduced me to his girlfriend who greeted me with two fingers pronged into my eyes. Gracias. The next day I went to the Museu D'art Contemporan Barcelona, which had an exhibition based around theatre. It had some crazy Spanish arthouse films playing, but I still think the best art in Barcelona is the street art. Spanish Grandma's are probably the coolest in the world, they're like tiny Thumbelinas scuttling about the streets, dishing out telling off's in gibberish to anything that moves faster than a snails pace. I'm thinking about turfing out my clothes and sticking one in my suitcase to take back to New Zealand as a pet. Who else wants one? I'll sell them off $350 a pop. We were pretty shattered after our stint in Barcelona, but we still managed to gather up the energy to check out a crazy nightclub that I'd heard about. Kubik is a temporary installation made up of massive water tank cubes with glowing lights that turn into a giant tetris game in sync with the music. We had a bit of a mission trying to find it amongst tons of bizarre constructions by the port that supposedly had something to do with the Olympics and were never used again. But when we finally did find it, it was pretty impressive. After Barcelona we hired a car and ventured around Spain, checking out some beaches and old castles in little towns. This has gone on far too long, so here a couple of photos of beaches and old castles. We also ended up in Morocco, but that story will have to wait till next time!

America Part Trece y Finale: In the desert you can't remember your name

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:31:28 -0700

I've been living in airport land the last few days, forced to converse in broken English with hilaaarious consequences, just like Tom Hanks! I have left the land of the free, which should technically make me a slave now. I don't know how I'll ever cope with these draconian Europeans and their anti-freedom policies... Airports can make you crazy, but probably not so much as the Californian desert which is where I spent some of my last few days in America. When I wasn't fending off bats on the freeway or indulging in chemical cocktails with my Samoan Lawyer, I was fiddling with my camera. Or maybe it was just the drugs? After a few days of that, I was finally liberated from my working duties, and headed up to San Fran for a couple of days before my flight left. I got a leeeetle bit drunk... The next day we went to Monterey, to check out some fish, in bowls, hanging out. I still think Kelly Tarltons is better, but they did have some cool Jellyfish. And Sea Otters are pretty rad. After spending about an hour there we had to get back to San Fran to catch the ferry to the Alcatraz night tour, which I had to book a month in advance. We didn't have much time to throw around and this wasn't helped by unwittingly taking the 'scenic' route back. Stuck in downtown traffic with 5 minutes till our bout departed, Nic had to run up to his office, print off tickets, then run down and jump out of the car in front of the pier and stall the boat while I found a park. I wedged the rental between two far-too-expensive-to-dream-of-ever-pranging cars and prayed not to get a ticket, then ran to the dock as they had closed the gates. We Nic used ~~our~~ his New Zealand charm to convince them to let us on board and we were on our way to prison. Unfortunately Sean Connery wasn't our tour guide, but luckily EVERYBODY else on board pretended to be ('Welcome to the rock! - You know it used to be a Shivil War Fortreshh') and OMG they all sounded EXACTLY like him! It was just like having him there! Thanks guys! I later found out that Motel 6 is actually based on Hotel Alcatraz suites, right down to the rust stained sinks. This is Alcatraz playground, where Al Capone and his cronies presumedly played tiggy. Later they threw me in prison, (for being un-american) but they were kind enough to lend me a set of headphones to kill the time some. This is the cell where errrm... Sean Connery dug himself out of prison with a schpoon. (There were no fire-walls unfortunately) We caught the ferry back and no parking ticket! Churr, San Fran! The next day I caught my ass a flight to Europe, for continued fun-times. Bye bye America, I had a fun in your crazy country. Thanks to everyone who showed me an awesome time and big ups to all the couches, beds, floors, hammocks and mattresses that let me rest my weary head. You took me into your bosom. I commend you. Gracias. And always remember: Support our troops. Never Forget... the events of September 11. Freedom isn't Free. Farming is a Freedom. Without Trucks... America Stops. God Bless the USA. Amen.

America part doce: Rock over London, Rock on Chicago

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:25:41 -0700

I went to Chicago on the weekend It was a rocking good time to the max It really whipped a horses ass I enjoyed myself a lot CHIIIIIIICAGO!!! CHIIIIIIICAGO!!! CHIIIIIIICAGO!! CHIIIIIIICAGO!!! I met up with a friend who had come to New Zealand about 10 months ago and was kind enough to show me around Chicago, while I annoyed her incessantly singing Wesley Willis songs. It was a cold and grey Chicago morn' when I arrived, but that didn't put off thousands of people turning up to the Chicago Air and Water show, so we ventured down to the lake to watch planes tear through the sky, ridiculously close to skyscrapers (somehow I figured the same event wouldn't fly in New York...) There was lots of Red, White and Blue and triumphant music with a super-enthusiastic announcer hollering "Gee Wow! Would you look at that! What a spectacular maneuver! These guys are protecting your freedom everyday!" Here is a Freedom montage (WARNING: All Americans may break down in tears): They even had flying tetris blocks! Later we went to the Museum of Contempary art. I had a bit of trouble parallel parking with a caravan on the back. They had cool stuff, like this thing. And this other thing you could climb in. I liked that the guy with has hands up, stopped brushing his beard with his toothbrush and put it in his mouth so he could pose as such for a photo from a stranger on a bus. Top Dog! This is where Jenny lives. It is actually rated the #1 house in Chicago! Later that evening we went to a fashion show I couldn't see anything, but - Stop! Move away from the cookie jar! Then we went and hung out on a school bus for special kids. But this one was different. In this bus, they let the special ones drive! I learnt a bit of flute as well, I was pretty good, but after that I had to play a 7 string Ibanez with over-drive distortion for 9 hours with no earplugs just to gain my testosterone back. We went to Rock 'n' Roll McDonalds, the biggest McDonalds in America apparently. It was shit, but Wesley Willis apparently had one of his drawings up on the wall. We never found it. Wesley Willis is awesome. As Am I... If you're selling sauce for expecting mothers, I don't think 'Prego' is the most enticing method of branding it. Later that night we celebrated Beth's 21st birthday. It was a tremendous occasion, but I still I didn't let her keep the glasses... In America you're lucky enough to be allowed to purchase an alcoholic drink, but only once you've got married and served three years in Iraq. Those are the rulez. We went to a barrrr to celebrate that fact. We biked there with Max, a professional cyclist who had recently come back from Tour de France. He did not win. When I was at the bar,we waited for a bit and then finally the mother-ship finally came to take us back to California. California Sux! (Except you San Francisco, you're alright)

America part once: Amish Paradise

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:21:21 -0700

My attempts to join an Amish family were dashed after some quick night-before research (apparently they don't have TV's OR drink beer, which makes Shane go something something... Plus they start work at 4:30 am and as the staff at BBC Technologies would know, I don't 'do' mornings too well...) However, I thought I might as well pop into an Amish town on my way to Michigan just to see what the haps was. Dutch-Pennsylvania is home to most of the Old Order Amish (the ones that are stuck waaaay back yonder, as opposed to the ones that decided to recognize the infernal invention of electricity) and I stumbled across one town called 'Intercourse' - a right old hoot in the Amish circles (They even have bumper stickers that say I HEART Intercourse! Haw Haw Haw...) Anyway it was a Sunday, so there wasn't much going on in Ye olde Intercourse. I'm guessing they were all suffering hangovers at home, watching sum DVD's and eatin pizza, after Jeremiah's raging barn-rave the night before. There were a few locals about, one was off on her Sunday Run I'm guessing. And some Triplet sisters! RrrrrreaowwwW!! It's also the only town with a population of less than 500 where you'll ever find a traffic jam on a Sunday morning. I did meet one Amish chap who was kind enough to pose for a photo. They also have stores where some of them sell their cutesy little nic-nacs like quilts and pottery. The xOLDxCOREx Amish don't like it though and label them quaint-sell-outs. I found this a bit odd though, I never realized Catholic priests were flogging their craftwork off here too...? I took that as a cue to leave, being not much older than a little boy, at least in terms of maturity. I drove for 12 hours through the rest of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Not much to speak of, except I liked this warning notice. I bet they had to pay Mr T a bundle to dress up as a cop and pity the fool. I didn't get to South Haven, Michigan till about 2 am, and ventured down to Lake Michigan. There were two people on the beach, I think they were bonking, and when the flash went off they scrambled for clothes and ran away. That's when I realized dammit, I should have been taking photos of THEM! Anyway, South Haven isn't all late-night exhibitionism, they have a lot of other cool stuff as well. Like Butch's place. He has forts and cannons and stuff. And the deer that like to frolic right next to our work. Lake Michigan is actually a very nice beach as well, it's just like a real one, infact even more convincing than the beaches at Atlantic City (which I think are actually just circuses that they later decided to put some water around) That's all I have on Michigan, as I can't nearly fit the Chronicles of Chicago on here as well! That might have to wait for tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this, just for funsies:

America part diez: Assorted East Coast-isms

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:28:36 -0700

As blueberry season has wound down, I've had a bit more time to check out fun stuff in and around New Jersey. More of the 'around' and a little less of the 'in', as New Jersey and 'Fun' have about as much in common as New Zealand does with 'Nice Weather' at the moment (Haaahaaa!). I think their commonalities start and end with 40 oz's and blowing money at Atlantic city, which tends to be less amusing unless it's blowing quarters back at you by the bagful. I spent two months in Hammonton without even flinching at the temptation of making the half hour trip to Vegas-by-the-sea, but eventually made it across with a guy from work for a wild night of debauchery. We ate pickles! The following pictures serve as pictorial reminders of why not to go to New Jersey under any circumstances, unless absolutely critical. New Jersey is however, home to one of my favourite billboards. There are a ton of them every 100 metres where ever you drive on the open road, mostly crappy reminders to get a prostate check or something (which reminds me, I need to get my prostate checked!) but this one took my fancy. I don't know what quite the deal is with handing over the keys of your conked-out old bomb to a middle-class five-year-old girl, but she seems to be pretty stoked now she can ditch mom and her booster seat and drive her buddies out to Chuck E. Cheese in her new ride, all by herself! Nice work! My friend Brett came down from Toronto and we checked out some festivals. First up was Rock The Bells, a hip-hop festival in New York headlined by Rage Against The Machine, Cypress Hill and Wu Tang Clan, which was pretty fun, but mostly consisted of everyone's favourite festival activity of waiting for lines. Queuing for buses, queuing for food, queuing for toilets, queuing for spots and even queuing up to find another queue to join. It poured down with rain most of the time too. But there were some awesome acts there, MF Doom, Mr Lif. and Living Legends were highlights for me. My camera ran out of batteries but I did get a few shots. The next weekend we went down to Baltimore and stole Kate's family while she was in Colorado and went to the Virgin Festival, something that intrigued me greatly (having come from Hamilton...) It turns out it was a music festival unfortunately, but it was still a lot of fun. Here we are having fun in ridiculous sunglasses. On the way I saw this years recipient of the 'Most awesome person in Baltimore' award. WTF Da Umbrella goez Up StoOpid! This lady thought she was awesome, but she was not. She just stood there like a goon while I took her photo. If you're going to dress up wacky for the day, at least act the part! After grabbing a bite from the Pork Pulling tent, we went and checked some bands. First off was Shout out out out out, a band from Canada who I think officially jumped the shark on the 'repeating-words-multiple-times' naming phase. But they were a very energetic act for 12 o'clock in the afternoon, so we granted them some lee-way there. Next we saw Cheap Trick. After they did the 'I want yoouuu, to want meeee' bit, we and the rest of the crowd spared them the embarrassment of having to pull out new material, so we let them collect their super-annuation check and bail. We went and grabbed some drinks and rested for a bit and this guy was sitting here with a colouring-in picture of a dragon with a pre-pubescent naked boy, so we got some felt-tip markers out and drew on him for a couple hours. We didn't do it very well as the only marker we had was black and I kept drawing over the lines when he got up and started wandering around. If you're looking for a fun activity for a rainy day, why not print off this page, grab some crayola's and go nuts on it? We went and checked out Amy Winehouse for a bit. The thing that struck me the most is how she's like a real life version of Marge Simpson. She's almost 90% hair! I think the backing band is really just there as a reference point to emphasise the fact. At the other stage, I was surprised to find Bobby Van Schie on stage. I waved at him (even though he specifically asks not to) and yelled his name, but he never acknowledged me. Later I found out it was the Swedish band, Peter, Bjorn and John! Here are some more photo's from the rest of the day. Ben Harper LCD Soundsystem TV on the Radio Modest Mouse (Johnny Marr!) Just before I left New Jersey, I went with some friends to check out Tokyo Police Club in Philadelphia, along with an awesome band called Vampire Weekend. Once again I am pulling that manic Antony-Dixon face, one of these days it'll just jump right out and cut someones arm off. I think it all boils down to my fear of taking earnest photos. This is a girl I threw a beer on. Whoops! And this is Tokyo Police Club, taking a poo on the stage. The next day I saw Crowded House and you didn't! HAHAHAHAHA. It's late and I should get some sleep! Next time, I join an Amish family, in Shane's adaptation of 'The Simple Life' Will I learn the true value of a hard days work, or I will coke it up with Lindsay and spend a few days in slammer? Stay Tuned!

America part nueve: TeH MEGABLOG!!!!1

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:23:02 -0700

Its been a long time between blogs, partly due to heat-induced laziness, but mostly because I've either been working or doing shit and very little in between. I think I'm in need of some more 'in between' bits as I've got sick the last couple of days. I think maybe my body is slightly retarded and thinks it's supposed to be Winter now and therefore get sick. Anyway, to make up for my dry spell, I've made a M3G4BL0G!!!!11!WTFZ!!!! wit PiX n V1DZ!! LOL!1 I don't think I can remember any order of events so this is probably just going to be a scattered transcript of verbal diarrhea, with some accompanying photos and videos. No photos of actual diarrhea however, but there is a plethora of websites already dedicated to that. Hit me up if you want linkzz. Anywho, I don't think I have touched on Philadelphia yet. Philly is about a half hour jaunt from where I am staying at the moment and it is a city that seems about 80% full of gay crack whores and 30% full of some very cool people. There is also a lot of history in Philadelphia, most of which I haven't checked out yet, although Byron keeps telling me to check out some famous Honey Bell they have there. Everyone keeps asking me if I've seen the Fresh Prince there yet and no I haven't, but HEY HEY HEY! - Look who I did stumble across... The 'Rocky Steps' are also in Philadelphia. I was a tad disappointed when I got there and they didn't have 'Eye of the Tiger' blasting over loud speakers on repeat, however it didn't stop this guy emulating Sly Stallone at least a good couple of dozen times while I was there. I'm sure it was just that it happened to be the most convenient place for him to exercise in all of Philadelphia. There is a statue of Rocky, ironically positioned at the BOTTOM of the steps. I swiftly took the opportunity of his egotistical stance to take a cheap shot at the nuts. They have a lot of statues in Philadelphia and at some point they must have gotten sick of old dudes on horses and decided to make up some interesting shit about their history, such as wizards and minotaurs that used to roam Ye Olde Philadelphia. I wrestled an alligator that was about to eat a naked guys foot! I've also got to check out some pretty rad shows in Philly and been to some pretty awesome venues as well. Like this one, the balcony at the top goes right around the top of the stage. This video is of an awesome band from Brooklyn, The National, who sound a bit like U2 if they didn't suck. Black Moth Super Rainbow is a crazy band from somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, they do this crazy electronic/psychedelic hybrid and play Richard Simmons video clips in the background. Polyphonic Spree were amazing as always. They started the show playing in military uniforms then finished and as everyone was shouting for an encore, they started walking in through the crowd dressed in robes. Then they did a cover of 'Lithium' which was a very bizarre moment, it was kinda as if you were at a school social all of a sudden, except the off-the-wall yet likeable music teacher makes an unannounced appearance on stage with the school orchestra. And also your school is a hippie cult. Anyway I got a video of it but some diva in the background either ruins it or makes it hilarious, which ever one you decide. Around the 4th of July this kind of preposterous nonsense goes on to remind the country's citizens that you're allowed to prance around in a flamboyantly camp fashion BUT ONLY if you're wearing the colour's of the nations flag. It's also a time to celebrate Team America's glorious victory in the War against Satan, by throwing knives at the nasty fucker. YAY NO MORE NASTY DEVIL! USA = #1! With the prospect of having to endure even more of this rubbish at Hammonton's 'Red, White and Blueberry' festival (and by this time the ironic novelty value had well worn off) I promptly fled to New York, where no one gives a fuck about anything but themselves - Just the way I like it. :) This person was breaking all the rules of 4th of July flamboyancy, but in hindsight, I think she might have just been a 5th generation 'Bearded Lady' from Coney Island. There was no excuse for this guy however... But this encouraged me to find my roots. I got a new do in Harlem, to reprazent my newly discovered heritage. I went to a lot of museums there, the MoMa, the museum of Natural History, The Guggenheim, they were all priddy gud... I thought I'd get a little twister action in here. Look at him! He could tear a man to pieces! But the most 'artistically respected' of New Yorks collection of museums, is definitely the Sex Museum. As a fan of art, I felt the need to culturally enrich myself by going along and stroking... my beard, in contemplation of the social and anthropological statements that the artists had meticulously constructed. Such as this piece of art, by Anon, titled 'Adult Babies' They also played some sort of short art-house film made by Paris Hilton. Who knew that apart from her stunning skills displayed in her roles as actress/musician/socialite, she is also a very talented artist! This here is the patent design for the worlds first mechanical 'vibrator', some sort of sculptural piece I presume. This installation was very interesting. I think it was designed to make trips to the dentist more fun. They also had a Playboy, in Braille, because blind people like to get off just like seeing people do. I learnt Braille just so I could read the stories! There is also some pretty awesome street art, especially around Brookyln. I got some picz of sum. I also saw the worlds most famous Ginat. She's a hundred years old and she ways over two hundred tonnes. This enormous woman will devour us all! New York is a pretty rad party town as well, I don't think there's ever nothing going on. These are some of my friends who are always fun to hang with when I'm there, even if its doing number puzzles in the middle of a party! Unfortunately my Argentinian colleague and partner in crime has been deported, but we had a pretty awesome night in Philly before he left. Alejo thought this guy was Mark Chapman, but come to think of it, the creepy guy on the left has the manic look of machete wielding Antony Dixon... Alejo won a spot-prize for his time at BBC Technologies. He'll go back to South America the proud owner of a BBC hat and a DPS/Mux board. Congratulations Alejo! That's enough drivel for now I think... But while we're on a roll, here is something taken the night before I left NZ. Till next time, look after yourself and one another.

America part ocho: Shane and the Giant Apple

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:13:28 -0700

After about a couple of days of hanging out in 'Dirty Jersey' I figured there wasn't much going on round here, so I thought I might as well check out the Big Apple for the weekend. It's kinda like that Giant Peach in the Roald Dahl book, except I didn't meet any guy called james, and instead of digging holes with dirty big centipedes, they have subways filled with dirty big rats. Coming up off the subway into the middle of Times Square was probably the most mind-blowing thing I've done since coming to this country. I don't think I've felt as small in all my life. Not that they are all giant people, there's just a shitload of them, consuming every step of the pavement and completely oblivious to anything that isn't serving their needs at that particular moment. At the time I thought I'd lost my camera, which was quite sucky at the time, so evidently there are no photos at this stage. I checked into possibly the scummiest hostel on planet earth, which if its features were broken down into the 40 bucks a night it costs, I think $39.95 of it would be attributed purely to it's proximity to Times Square (literally one street away). The other nickel had me sharing a shabby room with bed bugs and a group of crazy Russians. Fortunately only the bed bugs shared a mattress with me. The sign they had on the bathroom wall baffled me a bit. I didn't know quite what to make of it, so naturally I avoided littering the toilet and took a shit in the basin instead. Later in the night I went to a show that was part of the NYC popfest. Casiotone for the painfully alone, a Scottish band called Ballboy and some guy who seemed like the English version of Wayne Anderson played. It was nice and poppy like. I met some people who told me to go to an awesome café called teany. Apparently it was Moby's café. I usually try to avoid anything created by Moby, but I thought I'd check it out anyway. I should have trusted my instincts. A bunch of stuff happened while I had no camera, but I'm not very good at drawing (Adam may have established this by now) and writing about it gets tiresome, especially at a ratio of Picture : One thousand words. Luckily the next day I did find my camera (It WAS in my bag after all!) as I was going up a skyscraper. This is me next to one. Kat thinks I look like A German tourist. I went to a museum that had bodies in it. It was kind of a cross between a morgue and a taxidermist, if it were run half and half between the guy who made CSI and the guy who made the Saw movie franchise. There was lots of tricky stuff, like entire circulatory systems in glass tanks along with some pretty gross shit like tumors and blackened smokers lungs. I couldn't take photos in it, but this is the kind of stuff they had in there. Neat huh? Times Square is pretty crazy. There's cops on every corner and still this chaotic mess is going on! Absolutely Men'al. The characters in New York are pretty mint as well. I think this guy is stiff competition for the Victoria Park Markets 'I wriiite name on riiiice' lady. Not only does he write names - plural - on grains of rice, he draws a picture next to it AND strings it into a necklace for you! I'm a bit skeptical of what level of detail he can get with the crayola pens though. I still can't figure out what the point of this drivel is, but it looks like a cut-and-paste job from a thirteen year old's myspace profile. Is there a secret code only autistic kids can read in there? This guy was hustling for a window wash, he even said he'd shine the rims and shit. The other guy was getting fairly pissed off. I mentioned it looked pretty clean already. He just said "Can't a nigga earn a dollar? Sheeeyt!" It also looks like Dan's fan club extends past the female staff members and students of Waikato Uni Law School. In fact, here is the Vice-president of the New York Chapter. He's a little depressed because he's only VICE president. But easily the most impressive thing that tourists come to see in New York City is the much celebrated 'Cat and Dog on Wooden Table'. Aren't they wacky!? It's truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous! There is lots of random street art in New York. Especially in subways. I like it a lo'. It's a refreshing change to the sterile, predictable nature of a lot of places I've been to in America. I thought this was a pretty awesome ad as well On Monday I checked out Central Park and that's about the time I came to a startling realization. I was in New York. My parents are in New Zealand. I'm in New York... my parents are in New Zealand... ARRRRGHHH!!!!!!!! Later that day I made friends with a crazy pigeon lady and set up a flimsy series of traps to catch a duo of dim-witted criminals, with HILARIOUS CONSEQUENCES!! Then to top it off, I busted up a few ghosts hanging around the town with a few buddies and our supercharged vacuum cleaners. This place looks quite nice at this time of day, but by night there's some nasty spooks hanging about... I went to the art museum, it was far too big to check out in even a day, but they had a great Spanish exhibition with Salvador Dali, Picasso, Gaudi. This is a picture from outside, but I was too pussy to take photos inside. Later in the afternoon I went and checked out Brooklyn. I met some people and drank margarita's in the park. And then later, when it got dark, I went home. Ohhhh it's such a perfect day... etc. Yeah, so New York's pretty much been the highlight of my trip so far, and I only got to see about 10% of the stuff I want to see. There's still that Giant Green Lady Statue, The Guggenheim, King Kong Building and I still haven't found those twin towers you see in all the pictures. Someone said they tried to turn it into an airport but I can't remember seeing anything bout that?

America part siete: The Armpit of America

Wed, 30 May 2007 21:55:13 -0700

After Florida, I headed up the East Coast towards New Jersey, the 'Armpit of America' as they say. There was a lot of traveling to be done, about 1400 miles worth, so wacky adventures would surely ensue!!!!!!!1 My first WACKVENTURE!!!!1 was to Greenville, South Carolina, where I met Erin and Katherine who came to study in New Zealand last year. Their college is pretty much the rose gardens, but instead they thought it might be a swell idea to build a campus around. By the time I got there it was pretty dark so I didn't take any photographs. But I did take this photo while it was still lightish. It's nice. We went to some guy's 21st, it was a pretty low key deal being a Monday night during exam week, but he did get given a bottle of Malt Liquor, which is nasty stuff anyway but what's worse, it doesn't even get you drunk quickly, clearly the sole purpose of any cheap liquor. He looked a bit like Nick Kiely I thought. The next morning I left for North Carolina to visit one of our agents. I've driven past a lot of small towns since being in the States, and one mandatory feature it seems, is that any town worth its salt needs a giant phallic symbol. I don't quite know what they're practical purpose is, whether it's water storage, a missile silo, or whether they explode masses of splooge all over the towns people on the 4th of July, I'm yet to find out. Whatever it is, nothing can quite surpass this Town-Knob that politely reminds those travelling by, 'Don't fuck with Lumberton!' I also saw one of the best comebacks I've seen on my travels through the south, in a restroom, in some giant knob town in South Carolina. Someone had written with a fat vivid "KILL ANY NIGGER YOU SEE" then underneath it someone else had added "Your mama didn't". Those cheeky darkies! The agents in North Carolina ran a computer store out of a barn. It was pretty hi-tech stuff, I think they even had the interweb thing there. They didn't have wireless or usb drives though, but one of them knew a guy who did. One of the guys did have a pocket can-opener though, he gave it to me so I could open up a can when I's drivin in mah van. I told him it'd save me having to use my tooth next time. North Carolina is pretty awesome, you can literally pick up Duelling Banjo's on every station. I think my redneck hat goes down a treat down these ways. If they were ever going to make a sequel to Gummo, I think there are a lot of towns there that would be well up for it. I bet these kids were either off to shoot cats or to get pineapple milkshakes. You can tell you're leaving the south as the country radio stations start to drop off and the DJ's stop yelling 'Ged 'er done!' (Don't ask me what that's meant to mean). They'd pretty much disappeared by the time I got to Baltimore, where I met up with Kate, another American who had the misfortune of hanging with a bunch of Losers in New Zealand last year. We went and had lunch and then Kate went to work and I went and checked out a lake searching for squirrels. They're meant to be everywhere, but the little bastards won't come out unless you're not looking for them so I hung out by the lake for a bit. One thing I've noticed a bit is there is a crap load of middle to older aged guys who will take a girl to the lake or the beach or wherever and completely destroy their chances by trying to serenade them with their self-absorbed acoustic shite. Phill- please take heed of this, I'm guessing this guy is running out of lake-dates fast, and you are far too good looking to go to waste... When Kate finished work, we went out to this hip-hop show somewhere in downtown Baltimore. Some of it was pretty cool, but then there was a band that thought Fred Durst still mattered. Eww. Earlier that day Kate told me how she was super excited that fro's were making a comeback. I tried to take a photo of this guy's afro with out him noticing, but then he turned around, so I had to make up some story about why I was taking a photo of him. I told him that Kate was starting the National Movement for Fro Revivals and she is clearly uber-excited about it. There was this other guy who was sitting down under a spotlight next to the doorway, so to avoid having to make up a bullshit story about why I was taking a photo of him, I got Kate and her friend Katie to stand together like I was taking a photo of them. He looks like a regular chump here, but little did you know, he's actually been touched by an angel. I asked him to cure my leprosy, and he did! He didn't move from that seat the whole night. The next morning I finally saw a squirrel outside Kate's window. I obviously wasn't looking out for one. Can you see it ??! My final destination, New Jersey, was pretty much the low-light of the trip, primarily because it meant I had to do proper work again, but also because it's New Jersey. I've yet to figure why it's called the Garden State. It is close to New York and Philadelphia and Atlantic City is half an hour away too, so swings and roundabouts... I managed to make it to New York in the weekend, but this blog has become far too long and I'm drivelling as it is. That'll have to wait for another day. Tata, Shane

America part seis: Alligator Alley

Wed, 23 May 2007 16:05:09 -0700

I think I've done more stuff in the past four days than I have in the last four weeks, so I figure I better post a blog now before I forget half of it. It's a pretty whopper blog, so there are a lot of photos on here, because words are sucky (plus Jazza needs pictures so he can follow what's going on with all the letters.) Anyway, I got no sleep on the plane to Florida, because airlines keep seating me next to the fattest behemoth on the same flight. It's like they have to balance the average passenger weight out, otherwise the plane will spiral into a tail spin and we'll plummet to our deaths. Still, at least I'd be plummeting to death with the comfort of an arm rest. So once I arrived in Tampa, Aaron and I pretty much drove straight down to Miami, Party-town, FLA. We found a hostel on Miami Beach, then went for a stroll to grab a bite and have a nosey at some of the whack-jobs that crazy beach towns seem to offer. This guy was playing statue, but he wasn't very good. I think even Michael J Fox could do a better job than him. And I'm not too sure what this guy was all about, but his dog was pretty gay. I'm not too sure what Daniel Fairley's brother was doing there either. Actually, this was guy the only real whack-job. If God hates Miami Beach so much, then why did he make it such a nice place to go for a swim? Then I ate a swordfish. I thought I was eating something quite exotic 'til Aaron pointed out that it's actually just the same as Marlin in New Zealand. Later that night, we got drunk with Germans and Swiss people and went to da cluuuuuub, again (yeah I think I'm becoming a bit of a town slut.) This was different though, because the place was enormous and it was one of those upmarket ones where they have about twenty different bottles of cologne in the bathroom and a token black guy handing out towels. The drinks they mix here are far stronger than in New Zealand, and so I have been getting sloppy at a fast rate of knots. Observe: (That's not actually me, that is Aaron. Aaron just borrowed my shirt.) By about this point, I think I had reached a Jazza level of drunkenness (L-1 on the loser-scale), judging by the trademark 'upright limp-hand'. Fortunately, I can safely say the remainder of the evening did not involve any of the incriminating activities that Professor Esselbrugge is notorious for in such a state. I don't remember what this was about, but I bet at the time I found it funny as hell. The next day I went for my first swim in the Atlantic Ocean. It was pouring down, but the sea temperature was probably in the high 20's. It flooded the streets though, there were lots of blinged out cars driving in 2 feet of water, probably shorting out their neon-rims circuits. It cleared up though and we went back to Tampa through the everglades, which is pretty much a 40 mile wide swamp/river that is also known as Alligator Alley. There are about 1 million crocs living in there. We went on one of those airboat things with a propeller on the back, through the swamp in search of alligators. I look pretty special with cotton buds in my ears, but the boat gets very noisy. They have a lot cooler wildlife in the south, Flamingos, Otters, Turtles, Gators and now they have a heap of Giant Pythons because people think they are cool to have as pets, then when they get too big, they flush them down the toilet. This does however make for some pretty awesome showdowns, like this one about a year ago in the same place. There were hundreds of Alligators around though, but they're pretty chilled customers most the time. One amusing thing about the South is the amount of people who stop on any stretch of road at any point of time to go fishing. It don' madda dey jus' gon throw'em back in, dey jus' luuuuurve dem fishin'. Well that is about enough of a blog for now I think. Next. I my way up North, through the 'di-da-ling-di-da-ling-di-da-ling-ding-ding' parts of the South. Yeehawww!

America part cinco: Leaving Caleeforneea

Sat, 19 May 2007 00:21:35 -0700

I'm currently waiting at San Francisco Airport for my flight to Florida, finally! After two weeks of waiting around patiently to leave the toxic dust-bowl of Central California, I think I have got out just in time before I either went insane, died of lung cancer or became so fat I couldn't get out of there unless they busted down the wall of my motel room. Maybe that last one might have required a little more time, but it is true that I am packing a few more pounds after countless deep fried Burgers, with a side of deep fried starch covered in deep fried sauce. Evidently there is a severe lack of bell-shaped snacks about... I haven't updated this lately because a) I've mostly been in Bakersfield and b) I've been working more hours than the kid who stitched your Nike's. But I have done some fun stuff, like the time I got caught in a giant spiderweb. Alejo and I went to San Francisco the other weekend as well. It was mucho fun again. We went to the beach and stuff. Here is a picture of a guy at the Golden Gate bridge. And here is a picture of a guy and his wife at the Golden Gate bridge. I don't know them very well, but I think this is a very special moment, they're gonna cherish for the rest of their Golden years. Just like Troy and Bryan did back in '04. Someone else was a wee bit jealous of Troy though I think. The next weekend we stayed at some peoples beach house who we are doing a big install for. It was pretty cool, they had a power station on the beach. I thought that was a nice touch. We went out to some student town called San Luis Obispo, where Weird Al Yankovic is from. It's quite appropriate that Weird Al is from here, as it seems like the capital of 'White guys pretending to be black guys', except I don't think anyone told these guys it's supposed to be a parody. Here are some photos from da cluuuuuub. I'm going to Florida this weekend then taking a van up the East Coast to New Jersey. Hopefully I have a whole blog of hicks and alligators and hicks being eaten by alligators next week. In the meantime, here is a map I have made of the places I've been. I tried to make it kind of like an age of empires or warcraft map so the light area gets bigger the more you move. I think I need to explore more territory, else I'm gonna have Orcs caning my ass. That's all for now. By Shane.

America part quattro: Oregon!

Tue, 01 May 2007 02:39:34 -0700

Being stuck in a shitty desert for as long as we've been gets pretty suffocating at times, especially when breathing the air in Bakersfield is like smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds everyday. Which is quite ironic considering I've given up smoking since being here. Luckily I got a chance to give my lungs a break for a week and see a bit of greenery in Oregon. It was pretty much like driving through New Zealand for a while, except for hours on end. If Phill came, I think I'd have to confiscate his camera for the whole trip. When we got there, I went and checked out Portland for a while. I found some awesome music stores and ended up buying a Les Paul Custom. It's a friggen sweet guitar, but it was slightly tainted by the chump who sold it to me. When he found out I was from New Zealand he said "Nuuuw Zeee Laaand? - There's an Irish Pub just down the road!?" Hmm... Nice. Then he asked me if I knew a May-oww-rii guy called Tony who is now in Las Vegas. He wasn't sure on his last name though. They have lots of good beer in Portland too, which is good, because the rest of American beer taste like Farty Soap, except for 'Lite' beer, which tastes like watered down farty soap. Actually, I lie, I'd never drink Farty Soap lite. I can't remember other stuff I did in Oregon right now, I've just finished working 15 hrs (cue world's tiniest violin) and my brain has vanished, or maybe it's just carbon monoxide poisoning. But luckily I have some photographs I took on my Brownie Box We went to an aviation museum that had the 'Spruce Goose' in it. I've never watched The Aviator, as I don't watch 3 hour long movies starring Cate Blanchett as a rule. Apparently it's about a crazy guy who spent 70 million on making a big shitty wooden plane that flew for all of 60 seconds. Quite a few Americans seem to get a hard on over blowing a shitload of money on giant fuck ups, which probably explains the giant fuck up that is Irarrrq. Anyway, I was quite fond of the 'Spruce Moose'. This is the ACTUAL model that Mr Burns built in an episode of the simpsons. This is the worlds biggest American flag. The helicopter next to it is just there for perspective. They also had the world's largest dildo there. As you can see, there's not a hell of a lot of aviation going on here. I think it's just an excuse for dirty old men to play with some giant toys. They did have an I-Max theatre though. I tried to keep the glasses, but they grab them off you after each screening for 'SANITISATION!' Completely unrelated to aviation, Firefighters command a lot of respect in America, especially after 9/11. But not as much as a Firetrucks do... And definitely not as much as this guy. He can play guitar with a HOOK FOR A HAND! Well that's about my trip to Oregon, hopefully I can make it out of Bakersfield sometime soon, otherwise it might be a looooong time till I next have something interesting to write about.

America Part tres: Beer and Losing in Los Vegas

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:34:46 -0700

Las Vegas is a pretty fascinating town. It’s stuck in the middle of the desert, hundreds of miles from anything bigger than a blink, for the sole purpose of legal gambling and getting focccked up, an entire industry based around debauchery. It oozes about as much class and good taste as pus from a festering wound. But goddamn, it’s a fun weekend! At least I think it was from the various flashes I can remember from the night. Luckily for me however, we had our tee-totalling chaperone Dave Gilmour on hand to remember for us, and load the entire nights pictures and videos onto his computer before I had even contemplated waking up the next morning. Fortunately there is not a great deal of incriminating evidence that I saw anyhow. Getting there was a mission however. Our boss had fun torturing us with thumbscrews until about 3 pm when we finally got to leave the bright lights of Bakersfield behind us. About half way on the trip though, we had to deal with a pretty horrific accident. An SUV about 2 cars ahead of us blew a tyre and rolled about 15 times before finally stopping in a crushed up heap on the other side of the freeway. Fortunately both the people in the car were still alive, although seriously messed up. There were a few other people who pulled over to help, but generally Americans lived up to their reputation as a nation of retarded fatties by grinding traffic to a halt just to have a look out the window. Some people even hopped out to take snapshots of it to add to the family photo album. So after finding our apartment in the middle of Las Vegas, we had a few strong drinks and then hit the town. I was a leeetle bit drunk by that stage. I can’t remember much about what this guy was about, but he tried telling us he was playing ‘Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution’ on the harmonica. Apparently it was noise pollution, so Alejo did not give him a giant 100 dollar bill. Alejo is a very amusing character. He’s an argentinian dude who I have to spend 2 months with in New Jersey. He’s pretty much a ladies man after about half a beer. He darts around like a little fox terrier, humping the legs of giant Amazon women, but I think his Latino charm must need some fine tuning. He would have hit on about 200 woman that night, one a guy a with long hair he ‘mistook’ for a lady, and ended up coming home with zero. I think I was just content to prod this fat guy in the back though. I don’t remember too much of the night really, I spent all my money on drinks, threw my last 20 on a roulette table, won a bunch of money (I don’t really know how much) then lost my wallet about 10 minutes later. Fortunately in a more sober state, I had made a tactical decision to leave all but the cash I was going to blow and my ID in my room. The next morning we kind of bumbled around the city looking for stuff to do that wasn’t really gambling or drinking, but such a thing simply doesn’t exist in Las Vegas – even petrol stations have mini-casinos for those who can’t wait the 10 minute trip into town. I also thought five bucks was pretty expensive to take a dump as well, especially if it comes out as fireballs like picture suggests. I found a pretty awesome guitar shop, I almost came out with a 1920 gibson worth 1100 bucks, but my hungover brain was working overtime to tell me that was probably not a wise move. Just as well it did though, as I don’t think I’d want to be caught buying anything in the same store as this monstrosity (I imagine Chuganaut already has it on layby). Then we drove home, more of the same really. Anyway that was Las Vegas. Next week, Oregon!

America part dos: If you're going to San Francisco...

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:23:50 -0700

I think after spending a week in Bakersfield you lose all sense of rationality and pretty much at that point you have to remind yourself of the real world or you effectively become insane. And that’s pretty apparent judging by the amount of people who will buy a supersized 1/3 pounder combo and ‘balance’ it out by ordering a Diet Coke (albeit in a gallon-sized bucket). So given the necessity to get out of Central Valley in a hurry on Friday afternoon, I headed north through the haze and got into San Francisco late on Friday Night. I managed to get hold of Monkey’s brother Nic, who is playing rugby for the San Francisco Team. Once I got there I was pretty tired and so I piked it. That meant I could get up pretty early on Saturday, I got up at like 9 o’clock and by about 11 o’clock we met up with some of Nic’s rugby team to catch a ferry across the bay and have a few quiet beers. But since only the New Zealanders on his team showed up, plans changed a bit. Obviously their only purpose of the day was to ‘drink sum pusss’ which started with waterfalls in the Hard rock café and ended up with the token drunken haka much to the WTF?! of the local observers. I declined to participate, as I decided it wouldn’t do much for my ‘Mana’. After that excursion, we went to see a New Zealand band, Die! Die! Die! who was playing an early show in town. It was pretty awesome, then we found some berry cigars and massive pizza slices. Oh and I met this guy! He was after some money to get pussed too. Having drunk all day, I was well keen for a big night out, but thought “Well, I might just have a quick ‘power-nap’ before I go out”… …So Sunday morning rolled around and clearly San Francisco’s nightlife hadn’t waited for me. We rolled into town, checked out a cool record shop on Haight street (which is where the Goddamn Hippies! started hanging out in the 60’s). They have a bridge with golden gates in San Fran too, and people surf under it. R U Furreal?! Meaaaayn!! Later that night we had roast lamb for dinner at someone’s parents house, which is a rarity in America, pretty much the equivalent of Lobster for dinner in New Zealand. Then we went out to a part of the city called the mission, which would have been a lot cooler on Saturday night, had I not over-charged on my power nap. San Francisco is a very cool city, it’s a lot smaller then I thought but there’s so much going on I didn’t get to see much of it in the space of 3 days. But I did get to check out a lot of cool shit. Firetrucks are pretty awesome, they're so long to have someone driving the back of them, like this guy! They have seals hanging out around the bay too – I think your mum is the one on the right? Not all the animals have the freedom to loiter about at their leisure however. You sure as hell don’t see any dogs pedalling about. Apparently some old lady lives in this enormous house by herself. It’s like the size of the entire block almost. At the Giants ball game, you HAVE to make some noise. There are lots of liberal people here. They even let the gay people stay! But the whack-job who owns this joint doesn’t like it. He’s set up an office here, but he wasn’t there when I went to see him. He must have been at home, on his ranch, in Bakersfield, shaking his fist at the left wing loonies. Ahh yes, so back to Bakersfield it was. Not much happening here today. But yesterday I saw a gopher! Next week: Vegas baby!