Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to recordari,
Well stow the croze!
Didn't someone here also suggest this very thing at some point last year?Um, wow.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It plays pleasantly merry hell with your estimated travel times – we had a very nice day out last week in Onehunga. Best second-hand bookstore in town, DressMart and generally a rather nice part of town for aimless wandering and window shopping
I swung by Dressmart on my Boxing Day ride. Sheer bedlam.
The best part was working out why I kept seeing dudes parked up in orderly grids outside Glassons et al. I thought it was queues at first, but they were actually waiting outside while their wives and girlfriends swarmed over the sale bins. Because they sure as hell weren't going in.
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I think quite a few tourists didn't get the memo about Auckland emptying out: the CBD is full of people with backpacks looking for something to do.
I rode in and picked up my Public Enemy tickets. How long has the Edge box office also been a rather pretty cafe on Level 3?
Down on the waterfront, the ferries were full and a blustery breeze was blowing. There are some big yachts in at the Viaduct, American millionaires standing on the dock chatting, a hip-looking couple in their late 20s using a laptop on the deck of one of the boats.
The Viaduct Events Centre is looking quite impressive -- it's hard not to think about how it will all gear up for the RWC.
Also: why are there tram tracks exposed at the corner of Halsey and Gaunt Streets?
What on earth is happening to Jellicoe Street?
And why were six or eight cops on board a Korean fishing boat boat moored by the tank farm?
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Seems like this will affect the whole community. So sad.
Yeah, it will. Another friend's daughter was among his many friends at Western Springs.
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I only discovered this week that Mrs Sonia Pottinger, the great reggae producer, died in November, after some years suffering with Alzheimer's.
She worked out of Duke Reid's Treasure Isle studio, and produced many of the same artists, but I think her productions are sweeter than his -- and, indeed, sweeter than any other rocksteady there is.
It's also music perfect for summer. The excellent rocksteady blog You & me on a Jamboree has posted some of her albums as MP3s -- my all-time favourite is still the first collection I owned, Put On Your Best Dress - Sonia Pottinger's Rocksteady (1967-68). It has given me some magic hours.
The blog is associated with an outfit called Jurassic Sound System, who paid tribute to her passing at their shows in Mexico. Check out the crowd singing along to The Gaylads' 'It's Hard to Confess':
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to Peter Darlington,
One member of the whanau is looking for anything of a scifi, anime, manga or geek/tech stylee. Another is more into your mid century modern, scando design type hit. Me, I'll just be happy with a decent boozer or two :)
Oh, you know I think our families will have much to offer each other ;-)
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lilith __,
ETA: Gah, I wrote this while Russell was writing the post above. Sure makes the trivialities even more trivial.
Nah, don't feel bad. It's all in the mix.
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We're holidaying at home, because our newly-extended house is wonderful, and because making it that way has used up all our money.
I've been taking advantage of Auckland's relative emptiness to ride some different routes in the mornings: from the Chev to New North Road, Symonds Street, K Road, Ponsonby, Jervois, West End and back to the Chev has been brilliant with not-so-much traffic.
New Year's Eve was suitably bacchanalian, and I went for a trundle around the neighbourhood on the bike the next day. The reserves were full of family groups picnicking -- the large majority of them brown-skinned. White folks all away at the bach, presumably.
The youngest member of the family finds leaving the house for a trip traumatic -- it's more the leaving than the trip, and it's stressful all round -- but we got away to Hunua Falls one afternoon. I've never been there before, and we all enjoyed swimming in the pool beneath the falls. But man, I can see how there are drownings there.
And yesterday (after some more leaving trauma) I took the boys boogie-boarding at Muriwai, which was brilliant. Tomorrow evening, we're dining with friends and on Saturday I'm going to see Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet show. Soon, some old friends will be converging for the Big Day Out, where I have managed to buy East Lounge tickets. I'm re-reading the Maggie and Hopey stories from Love & Rockets. Today's ride beckons. Thinking: Westhaven, waterfront, up to Parnell past the rose gardens and down through the Domain. Things could be a lot worse than this.
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On another note, we’ve found the Cem Erbay story pretty distressing.
Cem and his mother, Sharon, lived a few doors down from us for a while and Cem and Jimmy went to school together even before that. I used to take him and my boys playing. We’d do time trials on bikes and scooters on the path through Meola Reserve.
He was a lovely kid; his natural exuberance carefully kept within bounds by Sharon. I know the diagnosis of his heart condition was hard for him – I’ve never met a more naturally athletic child – but he moved on. It just breaks my heart that Sharon should have done such a wonderful job of raising her only son into a young man only to have him taken away like this.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to slarty,
I think you may find someone does have an issue with it… a blind eye can only be turned for so long.
So what exactly does happen when the Hobbit law collides with the perspective of IRD? Has this happened yet?
If you can answer “yes” to most of the following questions, you are probably an employee.
Phew. I think I'm sweet.