New Apple Keyboards
Yesterday I bought one of the new Apple keyboards. It is quite possibly the sexiest piece of technology I have ever owned. It is simply beautiful, and I want to marry it, in a way that only someone with objectophilia could understand.
Just look at this photo and tell me that isn’t stunning.
The first thing I did when I opened the box was type. I typed a 2,000-word email to my best friend. Type-type-type. That is all I want to do now. I feel that with even lower profile keys than the Macally IceKey keyboard I was replacing (leaky shampoo bottle water does not make keyboards do nice things) I can type as fast as the wind. Perhaps even faster than the speed of sound! My fingers are going to break the sound barrier! If you were sitting next to me right now, you would have seen that I typed these paragraphs in mere fractions of a second and was followed closely by a sonic boom.
If Apple were smart, they would market this keyboard as one that will make you, “REPLY TO ALL EMAILS THAT YOU PREVIOUSLY COULDN’T BE FUCKED REPLYING TO!” and, “FINISH ESSAYS IN RECORD SPEED!” and, “ENJOY SENDING BORING EMAILS TO WORKMATES!” Making tedious tasks enjoyable is a brilliant marketing ploy!
Now excuse me while I organise a civil union.
Best Animated GIF Ever 2
3 May 2008
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Made Me LOL

Auckland: Initial Observations
I have officially been a JAFA for precisely 16 days now. It’s starting to feel a bit more like I actually live here, instead of how it has been feeling which is that I am housesitting for someone with all my stuff and my cat, and that I am temping in someone else’s job. It’s quite an odd feeling really, and I feel like I am going to go “home” to Wellington any day now.
Things to note:
- Auckland is very muggy. I live no more than a 15-minute walk to my new job and start at 8:30am each day. For the first two weeks I would walk not entirely too strenuously because at 8:15am it already muggy and hot. I arrive at 8:27am, grab my water bottle and take some swigs of yesterday’s water, take it to the cooler to refill it, and then go to the bathroom to run my wrists under cold water and daub my forehead and upper lip with a paper towel. In 2002 I coined the phrase, “There’s a rivva in my boobies,” and sadly the rivva has returned.
- The coffee is terrible. I have not had a single good cup of coffee in Auckland. Everyone’s beans taste burned and bitter, and lattes arrive thin and watery, to the point I would consider going to Starbucks out of preference. That is deadly sin in Wellington, the land of delicious coffee.
- Everything is very far apart. No longer can I waltz down to the post office at lunch, or quickly grab some new stockings when the ones I’m wearing run, or wander around Farmers looking at cheap make-up and new hair straighteners. I don’t work in the city centre, rather in one of the closest suburbs which although very nice is overrun with stupidly expensive clothing boutiques and many cafés selling crappy coffee. And because Auckland is so large and sprawling, everywhere seems to be a destination shop. A 20-minute drive to Briscoes, a 25-minute drive in another direction to go to Freedom Furniture, and a short drive into town for a lot of other stores that you would want to shop at if it were not a requirement to try for a ridiculous amount of time to get a car park. Perhaps I will be needing a car after all, and my poor little Vespa will need to be sold. That is as yet undetermined.
- The shopping and eating choices are never-ending and fantastic. Being in a city that is 3.5-times the size of Wellington of course the shopping is going to be better. There are so many great little boutiques (that I can’t afford but can wish) and lots of stores Wellington just doesn’t have. There are loads of new restaurants to choose from, and a lot more delicious Asian foods to try which is a wonderful by-product of having a larger Asian population in the warmer north.
- The houses are way prettier. At least in the area I live in. In Wellington, the areas with the beautiful historic Victorian villas have had many demolished to make way for hideous townhouses and apartment blocks. Instead in Ponsonby and Grey Lynn, most of these are being restored to their former beauty. I love going for walks in my neighbourhood just so I can look at the houses and dream that one day I am going to win the lottery that I never enter so I can afford to own a home in a suburb such as thing. However, chances are that it will never happen.
So, I’m getting along alright up here. I miss my family and I miss Wellington (good days only), but I’m sure it won’t be too long before I start replying with “Grey Lynn” instead of “Wellington” when people ask me where I’m from.
I've Arrived
Two days of unpacking, more left to go. My room is all set up, my cat is out of the cattery, and my new job starts tomorrow. I am exhausted.
When Owning Shit Goes Wrong
I have been packing solidly for two days now, although I did do a bit three nights ago as well. So far I have packed 23 boxes, with an estimated 9 more to go. This does not include the rest of the stuff the movers will be picking up: 3-seater couch and ottoman, armchair, dining table and 4 chairs, 2 bookcases, rug, coffee table, desk, dressing table, queen bed frame and mattress, ironing board, 2 drying racks, 2 mirrors, and 4 deck chairs. That does also not include the rather large suitcase I am taking on the plane, my camera gear, and my cat. That is all entirely too much stuff for one person.
During my overseas travels I managed to keep my entire life’s possessions down to two suitcases. That was it. Every time I moved I sold or gave everything away. Now I’m a little older, less hesitant to move countries “permanently” at the drop of a hat, and less willing to give up the couch I love sitting on so much, the rug I searched all over town for, the white china dinner sets, the white towelling sets. I have become the narrator from Fight Club and all I need is a massive gas explosion to set me free from my life of material ownership.
But sans explosion, I am stuck here in my house, wrapping things in newspaper, washing dishes, clearing cupboards, and cursing having all the things I wished I had when I went flatting again with not much more than a suitcase of clothes two years ago. I have one day to finish. With all this work left, I might as well give up and go back to watching True Hollywood Stories for a little bit longer.
I Am Your New Bicycle
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