vegas

in Las Vegas. I need coffee. There is free wireless in the airport.

nexthop

having been too lazy to book anything for south america, i have decided to head for Vegas for a few days (2006-02-28 .. 2006-02-04) to medidate in tranquil seclusion.

pancake day in Venice, CA

people i know from before are the king and queen of pancake day at venice beach (except they call it Mardis Gras here). They made me dress like a fool. I took lots of pictures. A parade at lunch time, then music in Vencice Bistro(?), then I hung out with a chick from Seattle for a bit, went to Kings Head still dressed like a tit, then ended up at the second music event of the scheduled programme, at 14 Below (which I'd never been to but I'd heard about because its where my friend met his fianceé). This latter place I was quite hammered and alternated between drunken dancing and sleeping on a stool. Unlike in Australia, they did not throw me out for sleeping on the stool, and unlike in Kyoto I did not keep falling over on the floor when snoozing. After that, walked round the westside awhile, ending up at 04h in Westwood where I lurked in various cafes eating sandwiches and drinking tea and coffee until I was extracted at 1015 by Mats and heading off for dimsum with #lug.

caching front end web server

I have set up a caching front end for my photo server. Use the same URLs as before but with photo-cnl.hawaga.org.uk instead of photo.hawaga.org.uk to hit the cache. Only took me half an hour. Should've done it a year ago.

postcard race

I wrote this drunk in scubar in early november. It arrived in LA 2 days after me.

not all the handwriting on the car is mine.

nj.us

most bizarre accent related question so far (from someone at ISI): "so, are you from New Jersey?"

diet

gotta change my diet... I've been living primarily on beef pies and kebabs since I reached Sydney in November; I think my insides must be all rotten out. tonight perhaps I will eat a vegetable of some kind.

photos from NZ

All of my (pretty much sorted by place but mostly not otherwise described) photos of NZ are online (stored on my slow slow webserver in an Undisclosed Residential Location).

Bread and Porridge

Off for breakfast this morning to Bread and porridge, my favourite breakfast cafe in LA (and perhaps in the whole world?) A big plate of Huevos Rancheros as always. Tasted just like I remember. Hurrah!

St.Etienne @Avalon @Hollywood/Vine

First evening in LA went to see St. Etienne playing at Avalon in Hollywood. Woo! It was a better concert than last time I saw them, in London. Not sure why. A slightly more intimate venue, perhaps so even though I was lazy and on the couches at the back of the auditorium, could still see pretty well. Also turns out Sasha was DJing there (in club attached to avalon?) that night too, but I only discovered that when I left the concert to discover block-long crowds of people queuing to get in.

On the way back, the bus stops had misinformation signs saying that the #20 MTA bus which used to be an all-nighter stopped running at 2220. It was 2250 when I (and Marcus who was with me) read the sign. grr. However a half-hours empirical measurement of the MTA service indicated that the sign was incorrected and so by 0030 the next day we had returned to West LA.

Good ole' crazy people on the bus - some dude was going on about the Laker's Game and did we see it? etc. He didn't really pick up on the fact that I didn't watch TV and also didn't live in the US. Oh well. He was friendly enough.

LA

made it to LA. The Department of Homeland Security let me in "just this one last time" on my greencard. frr.

dateline

will go across the dateline in a bit, and arrive a LAX sometime (i hope) around my second 11am Feb 18th of the year.

some pictures of me

here are a couple of pictures of me from yesterday. one at Damon's house in Auckland, one in minus 5 bar (attached to Ленин, a Russian themed bar where I had some tasty honey vodka...mmm).

auckland

got to auckland. there's people here! and crowds. that was a bit of a shock after wandering round small towns and villages for a few weeks.

this town smells of farts.

I'm in Rotorua. There's a lot of sulphur around. BuzzTroll would love it. Two nights I've been here and both of them I've ended up in some kind of spa splashing round in my undies with a bunch of people.
I was going to go zorbing today but I'm too lazy. Likewise for yesterday. Tomorrow I hope to work up enough effort to get out of bed and go to Auckland.

redemption hill

so here I am sitting in napier prison, and on TV (channel 2) pops up somem TV programme called 'Redemption Hill' about Young Offenders (whats your defence?) who have been locked up inside the prison as some kind of reality TV/lock up the bad kids series. kinda weird seeing exactly the place you are in on the TV; sorta like going to UCLA. Its a pretty funny programme -- something you might see on prime-time ITV. does at least explain wtf all these weird red lines painted all over the floor are. This was the premiere episode, so I wonder if there will be flocks of other tourists buzzing round tomorrow?

nail report

the nail that I stubbed on the way walking down the hill in Arthur's Pass has turned slowly over the past week or so a deep deep purple. Today, though its started turning red red wine red starting at the front. is this it healing or preparing to sever itself from its rightful corpus?

napier

staying in napier prison backpackers, in Napier.

alas, my mother misunderstood my text to mean that I was in HM Prison Napier, and thus expected a payout on the 'where will Ben be first arrested?' sweepstakes.

fun little hostel, if a little over the top sometimes with their prison theming (like going to a pirate restaurant and being told "ARRRRR!" all the time by the waiting staff)

I was going to look at some dolphins today, but they are busy until next Monday. Nevermind - apparently there are some more near Auckland.

I might also go for a bit of wine tasting - that was jolly good fun when I last did it in Napa Valley, and also the time before in the Yarra Valley.

tartan

all the schoolgirls in this city seem to wear tartan uniform dresses... crazy scottish.

dunedin

in dunedin. it looks scottish. only a day or so here, then flying to the north island on 8th feb - 10 days there to get from hastings to rotorua to auckland, then off over the date line for the first time, I think.

very hungover today, but vegemite on toast is helping to make me better. the vegemite is getting a big skanky though -- i've been carrying it since I was in 大阪/Osaka in June. perhaps I should finish it off tomorrow and switch to a new tub.

just for eric

I will re-enter the United States on the morning of Febuary 18th, at immigration post: LOS.

bungeeeeeeeee

bungy jump was fun and scary, though not quite as exhilarating as I'd expect. Still, a few seconds of "HOLYSHITTHERESTHEGROUNDIWONDERIFITWILLBEMYFRIEND" was not bad for NZD140.

oh no not again

In 'World bar' in Queenstown, felt some dude spill what I assumed was his drink over my hair and t-shirt. Upon turning around, alas, I discovered he was holding in his hands not an empty glass but instead the contents of his stomach.

coda to this, the Brazilians I was with tried to explain later on to the English boys I was also with, when the English boys wanted to move onto another bar but their cracked out English explanation of "he's washing his t-shirt" didn't sink in and they left me behind.

Luckily met up almost straight away with a couple of other boys I'd met previously in Christchurch and again last night and drank with them instead.

I'd not remembered them at first when I met them yesterday, which made me feel bad as it was only about a week ago that I was in Christchurch.

That memory loss was topped off later on in the evening when I was wandering the streets alone to get some grease on the way home - had a chat with a fire juggler for a few minutes, then less than 300 seconds later again encountered him in the chippie to be greeting with "oh its you again", to which I replied "who the fuck are you?"

I wonder if my brain is just full or I've developed some syncookie-style "forget everyone instantly the first time unless they claim to know me already" memory. hmm.