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On Green Tea

Two minutes ago I was sitting sipping on a cup of green tea. A curious brew, but one of the healthiest addictions I managed to acquire whilst traveling; green tea provides a few useful side effects including.

-Get caffeine without the coffee
-Weight loss
-Increased fat oxidization whilst exercising
-An increased need to tell the world about how wonderful green tea is(obviously)

Green tea unfortunately does take a bit of getting used to. I needed three months of careful tasting to gain an affinity towards it. My advice for potential green tea drinkers is to buy it by the bag in its loose form. It is easy enough to throw some in a cup and make up hot tinctures which could knock the pants of a well bearded druid.

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Joy

I know I scared away both my readership and myself yesterday by proclaiming a blog breather whilst I search for the job of jobs. However I thought I would take a quick break to toot my horn enthusiastically. My Litany of Scams article has been reworked and split into three parts to be syndicated on the ever wise and omnipotent Travelfish over the next three weeks.

A small but still significant victory, I can not remember the last time some of my writing was published without my sometimes over exuberant clicking finger. A cause for celebration to be sure. Today has gone down in history and it is not even lunchtime.

You can re read a litany of scams here on Travelfish.

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AFB

The pressing nature of finding employment is weighing heavily on my mind at the moment. I am actually finding writing here a wee bit hard. My horoscope gleefully informed me yesterday that this is my week of the year career wise.

As you move into one of your most important professional weeks of the year, you’re greeted by a sense of confidence that may seem to come from nowhere, especially if you’ve doubted yourself. With Mars, planet of passion, drive and ambition, due to leave your career sector in the weekend, this is your last week for giving your professional situation everything you’ve got. If there ever was a time you needed to believe in yourself, this is it.

So please excuse me whilst I focus……

This sh0uld be interesting.

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Spring Break Followup

Having had a bit of time free over the last couple of days I have completed my movie editing of the spring break archives. A triumph of technology and content. I think I have done an admirable job with the footage and main stars limited acting experience.

This movie has all the more impact if you were actually at the event. For obvious reasons I actually had to delay the release so it did not coincide with the U.S presidential election. Needless to say if you were there and I did not drool, stand on or otherwise annoy you consider yourself lucky. I would also like to apologize retroactively for any slights inflicted as they were unintended. Thankfully in what has become a reoccurring theme most of the physical damage was done to my feet.

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Timaru

Nestled gently between the two luminous breasts of Dunedin and Christchurch, Timaru serves up a saucy and sexy slice of provincial New Zealand. Requiring a sabbatical from the twelve tasks of job hunting in Auckland town. I headed South in search of ambrosia, lodgings and fresh spells for my book.

Timaru turns out to be a pretty good place to stay. The locals are laid back to the point of falling over. At least I imagine they are falling over because that is the only logical explanation for the curious lack of human beings. The local doozers have done an incredibly industrious job of creating the town and surrounding landscapes.

Earlier feeling suitably otherworldly. I scarfed up and dulled my glowing visage sufficiently to blend in with the pristine panorama and seek sustenance with our genial hosts. The air was both bracing and gently ex foliating. It appears to have cryogenic properties keeping the blood at safer temperatures and viscosities.

Dinner was a delight and at the end the master of our house informed the waiter that I would be taking away my coffee along with restaurant cup and saucer. This is par for the course in Timaru it appears. A truly magnanimous decision and one beguilingly befitting for an out of town wizard like me.

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SOGPS

Gather close for two sides of a story. A mild affliction that seems all the more valid after a few thousand kilometers. Perhaps you can empathize with me, perhaps you are a SOGPS.

Significant Other Global Positioning System or SOGPS is a curious transcendental state that afflicts me whenever I get in a car to drive anywhere with my significant other. A sometimes gentle, sometimes firm voice coerces me towards my destination. Soliciting advice on traffic conditions and alternate routes, it evens helps me to park.

Strangely enough when you are in a foreign country, driving on a scooter the SOGPS seems to go silent. In fact I thought my SOGPS was broken. Imagine my surprise upon entering a car after returning home my SOGPS awoke from its slumber. I cursed in several languages and even wondered out loud how things would be if our situations were reversed. My significant other took the bait. I smiled, content in my ability to remain silent even under torture. Sadly it was only a few minutes into our trip when I found myself giving the same infuriating advice. I am not sure what witchcraft exists in modern motor vehicles but it is surely illegal.

I can not see a way out, short of gagging the significant other whilst driving. I have given this some more thought and I am sure a straight jacket would also be needed to shut down dangerous hand signals. I then thought it is probably not wise to drive someone gagged and bound on the open road. But that is just me, it seemed to work OK for the Egyptian hearse drivers.

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Tomorrow we head South towards a large cold snap. It is my hope that this shock therapy will provide me with the impetus I am after. At the very least our SOGPS should be disabled in Timaru.

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Dear Universe

It has been a while since I wrote you last, in fact I do not think I have written to you at all. But to be fair, you have not written to me either. I thought it was high time we opened an honest channel for communication.

I have not asked for much during my time within you. I have been a grateful steward of my body and instance of this dimension. However I am becoming a bit bored with the intermission between chapters of the rather large adventure. Obviously I am in the commercial break and need to fund my next chapter but the very mechanics of finding suitable employment is a strange beast.

I actually gave this letter a bit of thought last Friday and returned home to a job email that sounded exciting and thought we had connected without recorded correspondence. Alas it appears you were teasing me. I can think of far worthier people for you to play with. May I suggest George Bush will be looking for a job soon and is far more deserving of pranks.

So universe. The planet is in your court. It is your turn to play a card. I await a sign, preferably not one like this.

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Found…

I learned during my first epoch what strange times I live in. What else could explain a bowling ball appearing in my underground thinking den ten years ago?

It was yesterday morning that I felt a large dose of deja vue. Please examine the following picture and join my confusion.

At first I thought aliens had left me with a super hero suit and fuel for saving the universe. Perhaps they have?

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Gainfully Unemployed

The relentless lobotomy that is being unemployed is wearing thin. For a day in the life of a non traveling freelance writer enjoy my diary of today.

5:15am Phone alarm awakes us from slumber.
5:20am Prepare daily vitamins and coffee.
5:30am Get in car to drive wife to temporary job.
5:31am Get in Father in laws car to move it because it is blocking our car.
5:33am Start driving car to town.
5:35am Wife starts complaining of a smell, could be dog shit.
5:36am I get out of car and preform a disparate shuffle to remove imagined dog shit from my shoes.
5:38am Wife remarks it may not have been dog shit and in fact my morning breath.
5:39am I muse quietly on how tender my ego is before 6 in the morning.
6:00am I drop my Wife off at her job.
6:30am I attend the gym. Gyms are a lot less fun when you left your portable sound system in Thailand
7:10am After a brief breakfast I start packing our stuff for a move to Albany.
7:15am Father in law comments on Max the dog greeting him with a fart this morning from her cage.
8:00am I apply for a couple of jobs. I wish to follow one up but the phone number is in Australia. I am not fond of calling Australians. They should call me.
10:00am I move all of our stuff bar some food to our new temporary residence in Albany.
11:00am I return to K9Heaven to be greeted as honey by father in law.
11:15am I begin to write furiously about what an obtuse day I have had so far.
11:30am I pimp my menial skills out to a good friend. He seems interested, perhaps even pity.
12:15pm I applied for another job and am feeling hungry. Who would have guessed not working is hard work?
12:22pm I have learned that someone has flagged my blog url as offensive or spam on facebook. Without right of reply or recourse I am suitably aggrieved and am dangerously frustrated.
12:45pm I make and eat a lunch which suits the occasion.

-Two slices of vogels bread toasted
-Tomato Relish
-200 grams of Tomato and Basil tuna (low fat)

1:15pm I make haste to the gym where Pete the trainer is going to attack a part of my body. Today it is the core…
1:30pm Had a great time, chatting, breathing deeply and laughing at the gym. My point of failure is when I start to laugh at myself. Thankfully Pete was forewarned and did not take this as an excuse to hurt me more. Core very sore. Pete runs an Awesome ab class and thinks I should join. Maybe he needs more laughs in his class?
2:25pm Decided to attack a pile of weeds obscuring the cobblestones of our new residence with a kitchen broom. The kitchen broom proved largely ineffectual but I made up for this with over zealous sweeping
2:30pm I am stuffed.
3:10pm I applied for a job as one of Santa’s helpers in the north pole. Unfortunately due to global warming and the economic crisis Santa has outsourced his factory to China and the salary is not very attractive. Dangnabbit!
3:45pm I receive an email from Australia informing me that other candidates were more suited to the job(They lied and I did not). The bright side is that it saved me a phone call.
3:55pm In a fit of cleanliness I tear apart several of my large storage boxes and find a couple of rainy day things that you put away for rainy days. Shame it is not raining.
4:35pm Received delivery of video footage from Spring Break. Now to further my movie ambitions.
5:06pm Movies are busily converting. I am astounded at the amount of mistakes I have made today in this blog. I am not very good at live blogging. Never book me for a funeral.
5:35pm Time to go and collect the Wife. Wait till she asks what I did today!
7:00pm After collecting my Wife and dinner. My Wife collapses in a fit reading my days antics. Not a bad day of no work!

More to come as it happens. Stay tuned.

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An Exercise in Futile Stupidity

What better way to blow off some steam than to wax lyrical about a multinational billing system that has gone to the dogs.

About a month before left New Zealand on the first chapter of the ratherlargeadventure experience we had various loose ends to tie off. One of these loose ends was a power bill. Being a fan of dealing with all customer service representatives in writing I elected to use email for correspondence.

-I arranged for a final reading
-Payed the final reading
-Asked for any further accounts to be sent by email

(I have records of all of these interactions because I use gmail and I never delete an email. There is no need)

At this juncture it is probably prudent on my behalf to explain I had been a happy customer for over 6 years at the very same power company and have never had a billing problem.

Anyway fast forward to our return to New Zealand. Whilst visiting our good friends Segway Phil & Katie we opened a very terse letter explaining that our account had been overdue for over a month and they would be passing our details onto a debt collection agency.

I immediately seized the moment and began a ping pong interaction with the company explaining that I never received a final email statement, am happy to pay the outstanding amount but would rather not deal with a debt collection agency.

The power company are still adamant that they sent an email account to me. This is where I put my size 11 feet firmly to the ground and asked for final email statement transcript & proof. This request was due fully received and allocated to the IT team. Being a somewhat passionate IT person I know that restoring backup from tapes can be a lengthy process. It should not however take over a week unless the record is not on the tape or the backup system is not working.

I sent a nice email explaining that it had been a week since this request. I have a feeling that you are not going to find a non existing email record and here are my credit card details so you can charge my account correctly and get the debt collectors out of the equation. I also mentioned that we are going to need to reconnect our power at some point(RATHER LARGE HINT).

But still bureaucracy prevails, the multinational is hell bent taking an untenable position. I wait a response with gritted teeth. I would say “you wouldn’t read about it” but you just did.

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