It's a good thing that I've got Christmas covered for myself. Where would I get all of these cool things otherwise? Of course, my bank account has been taking the brunt of the damage. I'm sure it will need a bit of recovery time...

While I was in Hastings, we stopped off and visited a friend of Jo's. She happened to have a book kinda half hidden on a shelf in the living room. I saw enough to catch my attention. Furry Logic is a cute little pick-me-up book that looks at life and puts it into perspective, with the help of the animal kingdom. I grabbed a copy for myself later that afternoon, and I'm exceptionally glad I did. Jo and Sandy both kept mentioning friends of theirs who would love it, too.

I happened to be walking past Borders yesterday, and noticed that they, as with everyone else, was having a post-Christmas sale. Everything was 15% off the regular price. New to my bookshelf is The Art Of Looking Sideways. It bills itself as a primery for developing visual intelligence. I've only had a few glances inside so far, but I have a feeling that digging in will give me a continual feeling of "further down the rabbit hole".

The last new thing, and probably the greatest inner controversy of them all, is my shiny new leash. After just over 2 years in New Zealand, I buckled to the pressure and picked up a mobile phone. After looking at a huge range of new models, I settled on a Nokia 6100. It's the only phone that didn't make me want to kill all the people who are designing phone interfaces these days. I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet. It's been activated for about an hour now.

This counts as my first major slip from my goal of 10% increase in running distance per week. I think it's more of a case of bad planning than not being able to keep up with the pace, though. Yesterday, I went for a long-ish rollerblade ride through Mission Bay, so the thought of running for 45 minutes this morning wasn't overly appealing. I did, however, go for about 5 km (as opposed to 7.5). My pacing and balance was noticeably shoddy, so I called it off in favour of some shoulder work instead.

A slip like this is far from the end of the world. I kinda expected that something would happen over the Christmas break, and I've got a few weeks grace before City To Surf.

I probably won't be around much tomorrow. I'm heading down to Hastings to spend Christmas with Jo and her family. It should be fun. And I'm hoping the weather on the east coast is better than in Auckland.

After Matthew Good Band split up a few years ago, Matt kept going on his own. And so he should. He's a strong singer and a good musician. I happen to love his lyrics, too. Strange Days has to be some of my favourite lyrics, full stop.

As I was glancing through a music shop this afternoon, I ran across a copy of Avalanche at a decent price. I figured that it would be a safe buy, so off I went. I'm still on the first listen, but I've enjoyed what I've heard so far. Not surprisingly. Matt's style is easily digestible. I haven't had a chance to pay much attention to the lyrics yet. I'm imagining the magic will be hidden in there, for the most part.

A lot has happened in the past week, and I'm trying to separate thoughts enough that they make sense in seperate categories. For better or worse.

Candace was in Auckland over the weekend for a work presentation. When she found out she would be flying up, she made arrangements to spend the weekend with me. We had a great weekend, all told. We did heaps of little things, and had some great food along the way. There was a BBQ, a trip to the sky tower, a hail storm, some shopping, a bunch of art galleries, and a few hours of chocolate making and tasting.

And when the whole thing was over, I fell into a coma. I literally slept 10 hours sunday night, which is more than rare. It doesn't happen. I was definitely worse for all the sleep, too.

We learned a few things along the way. I can't remember what all of them are, but one of the important ones was this: Always keep your eyes open for what's in front of you. You may not be in a place that you expect to have what you need, but it might just be there anyway.

With Candace's trip to Auckland, she brought a painting that I had commissioned from her. A few months ago, I had given her a few photos that I had taken. At least one of the pictures had really good colours, and at least one of the pictures had a good skyline. In the end, she painted a wonderful composite of the images that I provided.

It's an entirely personal view of Christchurch. While the perspective does not actually exist, I can recognise the skyline as it was from my balcony, and the river from trips around Hagley park. The ducks weren't there in my pictures. She threw those in for free.

Some of her other works can be found here. They share very little resemblance to the painting in front of me, though. With permission and digital camera, I may add a link to the painting.

Over the same weekend, we were walking around the markets in Aotea Square. As we were passing a booth of paintings, I noticed that the painting that I was interested in was actually still there. I had looked and didn't see it the weekend before. I pointed it out to Candace and she seemed to like it. The lady working there told me that she was allowed to drop the price a bit. Instead of $380, I could have it for $320. I was definitely interested, and Candace was more than willing to give me permission.

So now I have two new paintings. Candace's is still waiting to be hung, which is waiting for me to get hooks to hang it with. The other one (I will try to track down the name of the artist) is already hanging upstairs.

Now that I think about all of this, I think it's time that I get some insurance for my flat and contents. While none of the pieces that I have are overly expensive individually, they are starting to add up. Combined with the personal value (three of the five pieces were done by friends), I think it's worth protecting.

Update

After talking to the lady that I bought the painting from, I've gotten permission to photograph it and put a couple images online. I'll have to borrow a digital camera sometime soon. In the meantime, you can find samples of the painter's work at StratasOils.

I came home from work today and was pleased to find that the RCMP didn't wait until the last possible moment to deliver my security clearance. With this magical piece of paper I can do two things:

• Extend my expiry date of my work visa from March 8th, 2005 until March 8th, 2007.
• Apply for residency.

They keep talking about giving 110% when doing whatever sport. I've also heard that you shouldn't increase your running distance by more than 10% in a week. Coincidence? Probably.

I'm currently running 6.1 km, as of this morning, and I'm feeling pretty good with it. I've got another one scheduled for later in the week, and hopefully I'll have no problems pushing that up to 6.7 km next week.

The grand goal is to be able to run 12 km by the time City To Surf comes around at the beginning of March. Here's hoping.

After worrying about how many people were going to be playing on our team tonight, the whole thing fell over. The other team didn't show up. From the sounds of it, there was a wedding that one of the players was involved in.

I guess that's forgiveable...

I recently had a structural malfunction with my heartrate monitor. I have a Polar M61, which features a new soft chest strap. Over the course of the last 8 months or so, some damage must have occured that caused an electrode from the strap to detach and stay connected to the opposite electrode on the transmitter.

I contacted the global support center first, given that I purchased the monitor in Canada, but live in New Zealand. I was referred to a local reseller/service agent (no website available). The response was fast and positive. I should be receiving a replacement strap in the post within a couple days. Of course, I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't have to replace it with a new and feature-packed S625X.

Service like that is rare, in my opinion, and should be celebrated.

Over the last few weeks, I've been taking a bit of time in the mornings to prepare a smoothie to take to work as part of my lunch. This usually contains yoghurt, fruit, some juice, a bit of soy milk, some Weetbix and sometimes a bit of protein powder. There is no set recipe for this, and every one tastes a bit different.

When I get around to drinking it, I'll evaluate how I think it tastes, much like any food that I prepare. What's different here is that I often get the notion of frequency components when I take the first taste. I'm sure this notion is very subjective, since the taste buds must act as some sort of filter. In a general sense, however, I think others might agree with my evaluation. Sometimes there will be a lack of body. Sometimes things taste a bit sharp or a bit flat.

With this in mind, I think a few generalisations could be made:

banana

low-mid frequency

honey

mid frequency

orange

mid-high frequency

lemon

high frequency

There is definitely a lot of room to play with this idea, and I'm sure the analogy will have several limitations, but it strikes me as an interesting perspective.

Apparently this is the second or third year that Auckland has hosted a carnival on K'Rd. I was pretty impressed. There was a lot of great music, featuring 2 samba bands that both kicked ass, a decent market street market and a cool little parade.

Easily, the highlight of the night for me was the samba bands. Lots of percussion and lots of energy. There was a fair bit of rain coming down, but it was pretty warm. The whole atmosphere just made me want to peel off my wet top and just keep dancing, but that was not to be. It's a family show, folks.

The parade was fun, but not nearly so interactive. A few fetishes managed to peek out amongst the background floats. A helluva lot better than the Christmas parade last weekend.

All told, the event was great. It brought together a great time and a bunch of great friends, battling against some crap weather. The fun won.

I stopped off at Real Groovy on my way back to the house after lunch today. I didn't really intend to buy anything, but that's often the case. I ended up with 3 new things to shuffle through the player.

In 2003, Amon Tobin recorded a live show in Melbourne. The world is a better place because of this. I've been blown away repeatedly over the course of the last hour or so that it's been playing. It shows off both talent and vision, and carries an energy that really draws you in. Recorded Live is a must have for everyone. Really.

A few years ago, back in Calgary, I ran across and album that made me dance. I was in Eau Claire market and I don't dance. It was pretty impressive. That was São Paulo Confessions. At the time, I didn't know that Suba had died right after the album was released. Time passed, and some of his mostly finished work came to light, combined with remakes and remixes of some old work. This is what Tributo has become. I had heard of the album before, being released in 2002, but I never ran into a copy. As I was listening at the store, I waffled a bit. Good moments, average moments and some great moments. Picking it up was a last minute decision. Since getting back, I've decided that it was probably a good one.

After the really infectious samba shows at the carnival last night, I was interested in grabbing a bit to explore. I had a hard time finding something that might be representative, and the jury is still out. What I ended up with was a compilation album. I'm hoping it's a decent cross-section of the genre, but I may never know. I have yet to get all the way through it, but the randomiser has pulled only average moments so far.

All told, I'm winning this round. I'm happier having them than not having them.

By some lack of forethought, I used all of my vegetable stock for the lamb stew-ish thing that I just put together. That left me with a limit of options for the couscous that I was planning to make with it. Using water wasn't the best of ideas, since I wanted something a bit more interesting. And interesting it was.

1/3 cup couscous
2 tbsp amaretto
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup almond slivers

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan.  When hot, add dry couscous and allow
to heat gently.  Add water and amaretto, allowing time to absorb and cook.  Just
before all the liquid is absorbed, add currants, pumpkin seeds and almonds.
Stir well, ensuring that couscous is not clumpy.

I'm more than happy with the result. The tomato-y stew-ish thing was well complimented.

I have to admit my disappointment. I was definitely hoping for a bigger turnout last night. We were 3 and a half players strong. Naomi (I'm sure her name used to be Nikola...) has blown out her knee, so she just stood in place and took what came directly to her. However, she didn't come on until the second game. If we started with her, we might have won the match. We ended up down by 2 or 3 points in the deciding set.

We'll be playing for 3rd and 4th next week. Hopefully we'll have a bigger turnout.

On the plus side, though, we were playing quite well together. Emma was hitting well, and I was setting to her a lot. I was given one really good set that I managed to turn into a surprisingly good hard angle spike. I was a bit proud of that one. And Naomi serves better than the rest of us combined.

Friday night volleyball at AUT is winding down for the season. Tonight is the semifinal round. We're playing the Monkeys Of Doom at 8:00. We've played them once before and lost. I think we're in better shape this time, though.