Last Week In Wellington

• Peter Jackson is off location-scouting new places around New Zealand to film The Hobbit movies.  That means all the actors are on sabbatical - if they're smart they've left the country - and I won't be coming across dwarves sitting at a waterfront cafe' or Gandalf collecting donations for charity.

Ian McKellen, raking in the dough at the cricket.

• These top-ten quotes from LOTR makes me excited for Peter to get filming again.

• It's nation-wide school holidays.  This means packs of bored teenagers are roving around the city looking for ways to be as obnoxious and true to the stereotypes as possible, making it impossible to walk anywhere around the CBD, especially during lunchtime.  Thus I've been bringing my lunch to work for the past week.  Bugger trying to wade my way through schoolkids just to get food.

• Maybe that's why Peter Jackson is exploring the remote places of the country now, to get away from those crazy kids? 

• The Antarctic has relocated to New Zealand, leaving snow over most of the country and blowing wind so frigid through all the cracks in our non-insulated houses that we've all collectively gotten hypothermia and lost feeling in our legs.  That must be why all the boys are running around in shorts and jandals now.  Frickin weirdos,

• It only spit a few flurries into Wellington, which is more than they've seen in years.  Why do I live in the only place in the whole damn country where it doesn't snow?!  I love snow!  I love rolling in snow.  I love eating (clean) snow.  I love it when the trees are all covered with snow.  I love it when the cats first see snow and freak out, then come running back inside because they don't understand why this white stuff is so cold and wet.  I love snowboarding.  I don't love falling on my butt repeatedly when snowboarding.  I love it when the world is white and sparkly.  I love it when everyone has to wear a bagillion layers just to go out to get the paper, because then we're fat and happy.  Therefore, I'm not happy that I live in a no-snow zone.  I cry.

Happy Feet was happy to meet me. 

• Happy Feet has gone for a swim now that it's cold enough.  I'm pretty sure that he is just about the smartest penguin EVAR, because he knew that the Antarctic was going to move here, and he left home early enough to find himself a flash home and an endless supply of high-quality salmon.   

• I have learned the art of only heating one room of your house at a time with an oil heater.  You spend most of your evening in the lounge where the TV is, right?  So as soon as you get home,  you shut the curtains, close the doors to the lounge and crank up the heater.  Then make something for dinner that requires as little time in the kitchen as possible, or pile on 3 layers of clothing, hat, scarf, and fingerless gloves and brave the cooking.  Once you have procured hot food, hoof it back to the lounge, top up with a few blankets and maybe a cat or two, and stay there til the shows are over and you're ready to head to bed.  Make a mad dash into your pajamas, wave the toothbrush in front of your face while simultaneously washing your face, heat up a hot water bottle or wheat pack, then (and this is the key) drag the oil heater into the bedroom and seal the door shut.  Shiver under the sheets until your finally warm up, or if you're lucky like me, you can snuggle up to your own personal heater (read: husband who runs a few degrees higher than normal humans).  Then finally, hope like hell that you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, because really at that point you are risking all kinds of unpleasant things like frostbite, hypothermia, and even death. 

That was last week.  Maybe this week I'll get around to actually posting something that I did for the purpose of blogginess?