Sunday, September 27, 2009

Scattershooting

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Dirk Benedict. A few random thoughts, observations, and ponderings that were just rattling around upstairs:

-At the bar the other night, I saw a man who bore a striking resemblance to "The Most Interesting Man in the World" from the Dos Equis commercials. He was drinking an Amstel.

-For the most part, I thoroughly enjoy the Kiwi version of the English language. There are, however, two notable exceptions that I find incredibly annoying. They are:
1.) pronouncing the words known, mown, and grown with two syllables.
2.) using a "t" rather than "ed" for the past tense of certain words, i.e. spilt and learnt.

-Bazooka is such a fun word to say it's a shame one doesn't have more opportunity to drop it in normal conversation.

-As exciting as the courses entitled 'Agri-chemical Application Safety' and 'Agri-chemical Equipment Calibration' sound, I can assure you they are nothing of the sort.

-The book I just checked out from the library has an honest-to-goodness library card still attached to the inside of the back cover. You remember those, right? The librarians stamped it with one of those little dial-a-date stamps every time a reader checked it out. I found it fascinating to study the book's circulation. It got checked out two or three times a year, every year between 1978 and 1986. Then it apparently sat on the shelf untouched until 1992 when, all of a sudden, it resumed it's previous pace of two to three checkouts a year until 2002. At that point the date stamps disappeared altogether. I assume that's when the library abandoned the card system in favor of the present electronic one.

-Speaking of the library, when I first got my library card I had to pay a $40 bond that I was told would be returned to me if I stayed for six months. I forgot all about it until this Saturday, when the librarian told me the six months was up and I was due back my $40. SCORE!

-I had Rippon's '07 Riesling for the first time last week--liquid gold!
-When I learnt that the Jumbotron at the Cowboys' new stadium is seven stories high, I had to smile. That "television" is four stories taller than the tallest building in Wanaka. And the tallest building in Wanaka isn't even suspended 85 feet in the air.

-I wonder why nobody wanted to read Brave New World from 1987 to 1991.

-I love it when a plan comes together.

Cheers!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Hello stranger

As a few of my readers have recently pointed out to me, the blog entries have been fewer and farther between as of late. So I'd like to take this opportunity to explain myself.

See, what had happened was...

Actually nothing much really happened to cause the precipitous drop off in entries; and that's precisely the point: nothing much has really happened. At least nothing much worth blogging about. I think it was inevitable, really, that I got to this point. You see, after six months in this town, my life has shifted from more of a 'tourist' mode, where everything is new, exciting, and different to more of a 'local' mode, where everything is more routine, familiar, and comfortable. That's not a bad thing, mind you--I rather enjoy the laid-back little life I've carved out for myself here--it just doesn't make for very scintillating reading is all.

However, the hew and cry about my virtual blog abandonment (ablogdonment?) have served to remind me that, while a comfortable routine is nice, it's most important that I break out of it every so often and revert back to my touristy ways, even if only for good blog-fodder. So, dear readers--if there are any of you left out there, that is--I will make it my charge going forward not to get too comfortable in my routine.

Cheers!