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UPFM Spring Break META Review

Main Entry: meta
Part of Speech: adj
Definition: self-referential; referring to itself or its characteristics, esp. as a parody; about
Example: That book is so meta.
Etymology: meta ‘beyond’

As boldly promised on Friday here is my review of the final UPFM Spring Break for the year. After some careful social engineering we coerced my wife’s brother into conveying us safely to Spring Break. The weather had been a mixed bag earlier and it was with some relief that the sun surfaced and remained with us for the duration.

It is at this point(the second paragraph) I have quite a large confession to make. It appears the cooler climate, good music, familiar faces and BBQ sausages make gin and tonic far more potent than is healthy. My Vietnamese hat also seemed to enhance gin and tonic to ridiculous levels. Sadly I do not remember anything from about 2pm till 7pm. This where I have to add some serious meta to this review.

With careful considered questioning and invasive memory interrogation I have managed to put together a highlights reel which should contain enough mirth and information to tide you over until the next time I feel like venturing into public.

-The pool was fabulously warm. It was so warm I did not leave the pool until well after the music stopped. If you read my last point you will find this is a slight miss truth
-The surrounding pool rocks baffled the sound so sufficiently that I do not remember any of the music after I entered the pool.
-Vietnamese conical hats act as impressive buoyancy devices. The string attached round the hat helped me splutter to life when the water encroached on my breathing.
-There was a curiously strange Canadian who was playing shark with the good ladies of the pool. At some point I stood on him and then bemoaned large tracts of skin that had detached from my toes. I do not know if he was a close relation of a sucker fish, but I bet he feels like a sucker.
-At 4pm I attempted to reach out to another galaxy using the time honoured back on the ground limbs in the air method of intergalactic incommunicado. Someone recorded a movie of this and I shall upload it when I stop feeling so incredibly stupid.

In summary, it was a fantastic party and I would not have missed it for the world. Why is it then, that I feel like I missed it?

Additional Resources

http://www.upfm.dj

http://www.nzrave.com

Footnote: Some of the feedback attained from writing this article has been brain damaging. I have since found solace in the wise words of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

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A Twice Bitten Tongue is Half as Shy

It has been exactly one week since our return to New Zealand. The week has been an interesting one of celebrations, shivers, dogs, wind, rain, sun, grass, roadkill and accumulated things that make New Zealand uniquely New Zealand.

Yesterday I traipsed off merrily to a job interview which in itself was fine. On my drive back to our temporary residence I encountered a traffic snarl up of such a sufficient magnitude that I literally shuddered in my seat. I started to wish I was on a scooter, could yell farang and mount a handily exposed footpath all in quick succession. I then began pining for a sea of tuk tuks and was trying to imagine a ten tuk tuk pile up. Hopefully these thoughts will subside, I do not want to be dodging imaginary Elephant dung.

A returned traveler is constantly juggling stories and desperately trying to remember which stories have previously been told to whom and when. Traveling emboldens a person with the latent ability to segue from any topic in conversation back to accumulated traveling experiences. An added complication for me is having written regularly about our travels I feel at odds re reciting stories even though I do love the sound of my own voice. Hence it is sometimes wise to bite ones tongue and just let things seep out even it is just through your sun tan.

I would like to take a moment to comment positively on the reserve bank lowering the official cash interest rate in the week following my return to New Zealand. Petrol prices have also eased noticeably. It is small things like this that will make even more of the general population appreciative of my steady calming personality and the glittering trail of stardust which I leave in my wake.

Furthermore I would like to announce to the esteemed and earnest listeners of UPFM who are attending Spring Break this weekend I will be in the assembled crowd and answering questions about my travels. I shall also be distilling the experience for a wordy review at some point next week. Be wary and or strangely enamored by chaps wearing Vietnamese hats.

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A Tornado in the Sheets

Shame on you for coming here expecting a saucy sordid tale. I shall leave those to other lesser publications. This blog entry is about my mildly odd sleeping habits which now only seem more odd after spending a few months in beds of differing efficacy.

Let me describe my prerequisites for a good nights sleep and you can be the judge. Perhaps you are more odd. Please share with a comment or two. It could make me feel positively normal.

First things first. I must have something covering me whilst I am asleep. I require at least one layer of something to soothe my skin. During my wilder and considerably younger days at computer lan parties I have used curtains and floor liberated carpet to keep me warm and away from prying eyes.

To moderate my temperature I must have at least one foot exposed to the outside air. It does not matter if it is zero degrees Celsius or 35 degrees. To achieve this I must detach sheets, duvets and blankets from the bottom and my side of the bed.

After sleeping for an hour or so I start to rotate in an anticlockwise direction. This in turn removes the last vestiges of a made up bed and leaves my wife waking up shivering lying beside a slow moving tornado.

Short of strapping myself into a single bed I do not have a solution for this problem. Perhaps I am just a male.

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Dog Tale One

If I remember correctly Max was the first member of my Wife’s extended family who laid paws upon me. She is an Australian Kelpie so has the distinction of not only being incredibly smart but also has a slightly roguish personality. So roguish in fact to this day she still takes the opportunity to lay paws upon me and make me feel like one of the dogs at every opportunity.

Max announced the start of her interview today with a series of low throbbing growls. Her growls grew in volume and throatiness until she was allowed inside. After jumping about and racing around frantically she ensconced herself on a couch. At this point I felt it opportune to take a nice photo of Max.

Unfortunately dogs and Max in particular do not make for willing photo candidates. Max managed to evade most of my clumsy attempts to snap her.

After this photo she promptly fell asleep and our interview ended. She began to snore contentedly and I felt cheated but at least not dirty(her paws are clean).

I have since learned that Max acts as an exclusive dog hairstylist grooming the whiskers of an Australian terrier Sky that also makes k9heaven home. Max also is the informal boss of all the surrounding area, if you had not guessed so all ready.

Dogs, probably not the smartest thing to interview, but only if you are the interviewer.

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Back in the Future

Given the obvious time zone advantage New Zealand has, locating yourself here allows you to say you are living in the future. Whilst there is a distinct lack of robots, flying cars and a zero crime rate I am proud to write some things remain positively advanced after a stint in the SEA.

-Exposed telephone exchanges, power cabinets and haphazard wiring are strangely absent.
-The chewing gum wars of the early 90’s have left supermarket shelves with only 10 possible varieties.
-All doorways are made to accommodate people larger than 5ft tall.
-Impressive round the year climate control means spa pools are always usable even in summer.
-The same radiation enhancing atmosphere that I lambasted last week does make for some fabulously blue vistas.

photo taken from inside a spa pool upside down using my nose as a tripod

In fact it does seem to be getting warmer here or maybe I am just getting cooler.

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In the laps of the Dogs

Fond as I am of clever wordplay and other dashing habits never a truer title was typed at 1:30 in the morning. We have landed back in New Zealand and have struck down an anchor at the most salubrious K9 Heaven.

An exclusive lodging for our four legged friends, K9 Heaven offers dogs a fantastic retreat from the rigors of urban life and time out from over exuberant owners. It offers us a brief respite before finding employment, provisions, medical supplies, letters of marque and other such necessities for ocean going adventures with piracy on the rise.

For the foreseeable future I shall brandish and bandy my usual banter with insights into some of the resident and regular canines of heaven. It is a dogs life after all.

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An unconventional and somewhat lengthy iPhone Fix

Before we left New Zealand we purchased a first generation iPhone for my wife. It had a fair price of $100 New Zealand dollars but the process to get it working on a New Zealand network had stopped the WIFI component from working correctly. This was a pain as the data plans are quite steep and we had downgrade her account to a prepaid one for travel.

We soon learned that the iPhone had a temperamental battery and needed daily charging. International roaming stopped after we entered Laos and we left it off for a month or so. On returning to Thailand we found that the battery had started working again correctly. Imagine our surprise when turning the iPhone on here that the WIFI has returned from a lengthy absence.

There is a probably a scientific reason for the battery and WIFI learning to work again.

-I suspect the battery needed an extended off time to forget bad charging behavior.
-The changing of mobile networks multiple times seemed to reset the default WIFI settings.

A more abstract reason is,

-The battery needed to spend some time reconditioning itself in warmer temperatures
-The WIFI needed to scale numerous high Wats to increase its potency and remember its core function. Communicating on behalf of a higher being.

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Kia Ora New Zealand

Right. We fly back to New Zealand tonight. I have a list of demands for the good country of New Zealand to make my stay as enjoyable as my journeys through South East Asia.

-25-30 degree heat
-Sun that does not cause radiation sickness
-$10 hotels & guest houses
-Happy hours that last all day
-More monks
-More incense
-Countdown timers at traffic lights
-The immediate replacement of all Holden and Ford cars with scooters
-More repetition in language. Why say it once when you can say it twice? Same Same, Cheap Cheap, Slow Slow, Sweet Sweet.
-More jumbled up language
-More smiles
-The broadcasting of all local news in a language that I can not understand

That should do it for a couple of months. I will revise my demands after some time on the ground and my head out of the clouds.

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The First Elephant off the Rank

On Monday we took a one day excursion of the surrounds of Chiang Mai.

The day included,

-An Elephant trek
-A visit to a hill tribe village
-A walk and waterfall
-Lunch
-A bamboo raft ride

Unfortunately my digital camera capitulated during our Elephant trek. I have since revived it but since the Elephants were undoubtedly the highlight of the day my photos and video footage will only serve to punctuate the fun we had with them.

Our Elephant was the first one waiting in line to pick up passengers. Being somewhat naive in the ways of Elephants we thought our Elephant was a diligent and hard worker.

We soon learned that our Elephant was the hungriest and thirstiest Elephant of the herd. There were two banana stops on our ride. Our Elephant had an uncanny ability to gauge the exact amount of bananas we had left. She could also splash us with water when we did not supply with her with a steady stream of bananas. When we ran out of bananas she would start extorting bananas from other Elephants and passengers.

We learned an Asian Elephant requires about 250 kilos of vegetation and up to 60 gallons of water a day to keep on the road. However they make for an easy ride when they are not eating and are sure footed over a wide variety of terrain.

A nice touch was when we dismounted our Elephant and I lost my Vietnamese hat. It is a conical shape and landed point facing up. The following elephant was clever enough to pick it up by her trunk and pass it to me.

In closing, Elephants are a great way to see the jungle just remember to pack plenty of bananas and hold onto your hat.

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