Posts by Russell Brown
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Southerly: That CERA Rumour, in reply to Lilith __,
Perhaps Auckland differs from Chch in that way? Here, some of the older suburbs are costly to live in, and some (like where I am) are really cheap. Character villas for everybody who wants them! Tumbledown turrets and tangled gardens optional!
30 years ago, drafty villas in inner suburbs could be had for a song. Ponsonby and Grey Lynn weren't exactly slums, but their demographics were very, very different. (Amazingly, Parnell had affordable homes near the job for the Pacific Islanders who came here to work the waterfront in the 50s.)
12 years ago, when we were in a position to buy, we were living in Grey Lynn (in a shitty weatherboard property attached to a shop) but couldn't afford to buy there -- the horse had bolted. But we were able to afford an ex-state house in Pt Chev, the other site of Western Springs. We certainly couldn't if we were in the same position today.
Onehunga was the other cluster of older villas, but I suspect there are very few bargains there now. There's still 50s and 60s houses in West Auckland -- including the likes of Cheryl's house in Outrageous Fortune and Mt Albert, but after that it's the sprawling Auckland outer suburbs.
OTOH, I mostly grew up in Christchurch's expanding northwestern suburbs, and that really wasn't a bad life.
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Hard News: Budget 2011: While you wait, in reply to Sacha,
And the second graph on this associated post is quite chilling.
Far out.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
No. Just as I wouldn’t really want to live anywhere that classes some drunk pissing in public (which we can all agree is gross and unsanitary) as sexual offending – especially if we ever end up with the kind of compulsory sex offender registration that makes Garth McVicar jizz in his pants.
I know of one case in America -- a friend of a friend -- where precisely that happened. Guy took a leak down an alley by a bar in a California town, got sprung, wound up on a 10-year sex offender register. Completely and utterly insane.
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Just getting it on the System ...
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Craig Young,
This is why I think P/crystal meth (as opposed to common or garden ‘speed’) is a particular problem.
My non-expert guess is that there are two issues that make this so:
1. Crystal methamphetamine versus other amphetamines, such as amphetamine sulphate. It seems to have a particular effect.
2. Means of administration. Inhaling methamphetamine vapour gives a big, immediate and repeatable rush. But the effects also last for eight hours or so, every repeat just loads in more to the bloodstream. People aren't trying to stay up for a week -- they're just trying to get another immediate rush. Staying awake for a week is kind of a side effect.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Rich Lock,
Hell, I consider anything I post on the internet as ‘released into the wild’. So go crazy, you crazy kids, with your twitter and your blogging and your hip hop and whatnot. Use and abuse it how you like.
I just tagged your house. Looks sweet, bro.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Andre Alessi,
I wonder if the problem with tinny houses isn’t really the drug-selling, but the people who tend to use tinny houses to buy drugs? As in, the problem behaviours aren’t so much that there’s drug purchasing going on, but that young larrikins are just obnoxious wherever they are, especially in numbers.
You may have a point. I once talked to a person who pretty much only dealt to people over 30 -- and preferably over 40 -- who were subjectively adjudged not to be idiots. They didn't need the grief of selling to anyone else.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to nzlemming,
You should write a soap: “Life, Death and the Chev” or, maybe “What’s the Point?”
But I'm too middle-class.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to bmk,
For example while I in theory have no problem with tinny houses, I can tell you it was very unpleasant for us when one set up next door to us.
Our experience was more in the "annoying" category, but yeah. Advice for young people who've just visited a tinny house:
1. Don't bloody skin up in the car outside the house.
2. Don't roar off and do a doughnut at the end of the cul de sac before departing.
The tinny house was, inevitably, busted.
The guy in the street who was making homebake heroin had a much better grip on being a reasonable neighbour. But he's dead now.
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Southerly: That CERA Rumour, in reply to James Butler,
How nice to see your opinion as an engineer so well served by your skill as a writer. The world would be better off if more people could do both.
Indeed. Although part of me regards the sheer breadth of Mr Haywood's skillset as bordering on the indecent.