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The following chart shows my laptop battery charge over exactly two weeks of standard use. One square is 14 hours. The flatter areas are when the laptop is asleep. Red, it's asleep unplugged in my desk drawer; blue, it's asleep plugged in on my desk (usually to recharge overnight).
Things have changed a lot from when all my useful work was done on my laptop.
And then, to cap it all off, there was a power cut in the middle of the movie. Although that was no one's fault and it was back on again pretty quickly.
1 In Kiwibank's defense, they did try to call me when they realised the mistake, but they don't have my work number. They were helpful and are sending me a new card in the mail. And fortunately I set up my new credit card with a PIN, so although I can't access cash, I can access credit.
Easy! Cook dinner... but make it last.
8.20 am
9.05 am
10.05 am
10.40 am
2.25 pm
3.55 pm
4.20 pm
In case you're wondering about the order, it's important to cook dessert first so that the kitchen gets warm from the oven being on. You need this in addition to, not instead of, ambient heating if you want bread to rise in winter.
Last week I got some good internet for the first time since September 2009.
It cost me $10.
I really need to find a place to live with good internet.
Because I prefer webmail to mail clients, I use Google Notifier on my Mac. Most of the time it's great, but sometimes... it just... gets... in the way.
It takes fricking ages for the notification to fade so that I can continue typing my Google search term. If I mouse to the corner too quickly in anticipation of continuing my search, the notifier thinks I'm mousing to its message, and makes the damn thing come back again. Then I have to wait longer. And there's no way to customise it to appear in the opposite corner.
Late in the evening of Tuesday 22 June, I filled out an online application for a Kiwibank credit card.
At the end of the application process I got "instantly approved" (I guess they run the provided income and liabilities data through a simple solvency check) and a message appeared asking me to verify my identity in person at a Kiwibank branch. In an ideal world this wouldn't be necessary, because I hold other accounts with Kiwibank, but I guess supplying credit requires an extra level of security. So I wrote down the application number and the names of the documents they asked for and resolved to take them into a branch as soon as I could find the time.
Wednesday 23 June was release day for the Balance of Payments. No macroeconomist had time for a long lunch, me included, so going to the bank had to wait.
During the afternoon of Wednesday 23 June I received a polite email from Kiwibank thanking me for my credit card application. They didn't include a reminder to take my documents to a branch, which was fine, cos it was well flagged in the online application form.
On Thursday 24 June I took a longish lunch (despite it being release day for GDP) and dropped my documents into the nearest Kiwibank branch. The nice lady at the counter thanked me and said she would send them off straight away.
During the afternoon of Thursday 24 June, someone from Kiwibank called my home number and freaked out my sister. On being told that I wasn't home, the caller initially refused to identify herself, demanded my cellphone number, then when my sister refused to give it to her she admitted to being from a bank, but wouldn't say which one or what the call was about. She left an instruction for me to call an 0800 number which turned out to be the number for the Kiwibank credit card application call centre.
After my sister passed the message on I called the number, spent 10 minutes on hold, then got through to someone who said "oh yes, we just want to remind you to take your documents into a branch..." I wasn't best pleased at spending time on hold to be reminded to do something I'd done several hours before, so I was rather sharp. After ending the call I wondered why on earth they hadn't sent me the reminder by email or even post.
On Friday, 25 June, I received an email from Kiwibank reminding me to take my documents into a branch.
On Sunday, 27 June, I received a letter from Kiwibank dated 25 June, reminding me to take my documents into a branch.
On Wednesday, 30 June, I reluctantly phoned Kiwibank again to find out how the application was going. This time I got through straight away and they told me they'd received my documents on Monday. My card had been dispatched.
When I arrived home this evening, my credit card was in the letterbox.
I really enjoyed reading Mother Tongue. Dating from 1990, 13 years ahead of Bryson's remarkable A Short History of Nearly Everything, this history of the English language shows off a formidable talent for non-fiction storytelling. From the very beginnings of an ancient language called Indo-European, right through to today's English with its illogical spelling and continual borrowing from other languages, Bryson traces out an intriguing story using a pleasant chatty style.
By liberally sprinkling factoids through the book, Bryson avoids any risk of his story growing dull. At the end of a passage on the Norman conquest, he drops in the interesting fact that George I of the eighteenth century spoke no English. After discussing at some length the creation of words by back-formation, he tells us of Robert Browning's horrible mistake regarding the word "twat". In the midst of a detailed chapter on dialects of English, he throws in a few jokes about "Strine", the dialect spoken across the Tasman. And so forth. It's a brilliant technique and it furnishes the reader with all sorts of useless information to bring out at parties.
Before reading Mother Tongue, I knew nothing at all about English history, how choking is fundamentally related to language, the trials of Japanese typists, or the difficulties of international branding. After reading it, I know a little something about each of these things, and many other subjects besides. For sheer density of information, Mother Tongue is an excellent book; for masterful handling of a truly fascinating story, it's amazing.
The amazing Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra have just announced this year's season of the Winter Workshops (PDF).
Doing a workshop was never in question. In just over six months of playing, I've only been to one formal lesson, and that one lesson probably trebled my range of skills. The opportunity to learn some more without the expense of private tuition is something I've been absolutely gasping for.
No, the question was which workshop to enrol for, as they're running two series this year - a beginner and an intermediate series. The beginner series sounds like it's for total beginners, starting out with how to tune a uke. It runs for five one-hour sessions. The intermediate series is closer to my level - it covers a few topics with which I'm already somewhat familiar (finger picking, bar chords) and a few I really want to learn about (triple strum, improvising). They plan to cover all this in only three one-hour sessions.
The pre-req for the intermediate workshop series is to "be able to play at least six chords (including E), and..." - but the rest doesn't matter, because I can't finger a fricking E chord to save my life. (I don't seriously believe that it's possible for normal human beings to finger an E chord. These people who can do it, they must sacrifice every night to the God of the E Chord or something.)
As I've never played in a group, have no musical background, have not been playing long, and don't quite meet the intermediate pre-reqs, I have therefore registered for the beginner workshop series, starting July 25. Five sessions rather than three means that much extra practice and time with other players. There's certain to be plenty there that I don't already know; hopefully the extreme basics won't take too long to cover. And maybe I can persuade one of the tutors to just show me that triple strum on the quiet.
Aside: my hobbies fund (which I may as well rename to "ukulele fund", cos that's all it gets used for) has never yet made it into the black since I started work.
Ten days ago my original, little, red, plastic ukulele turned six months old. To celebrate I got it out and played a few of the first tunes I learned on it (Pokarekare Ana, Hoki Mai, It's A Heartache). It was heavy, hard to balance in my hands, required tonnes of pressure on the strings to avoid buzzing, sounded muted and distorted, and went out of tune every few minutes. After briefly celebrating its birthday I was incredibly glad to return to my beautiful new Stagg concert.
I've had the Stagg for one month and five days now. It's wonderful to play a proper wooden instrument that has some sustain and resonates cleanly, with nice tight pegs so that tuning is more than just an exercise in frustration. It's wonderful to be able to balance its small weight with almost no tension in my fretting hand, and it's wonderful to have so much soundboard under my right forearm, so I can play standing up without the instrument slipping down my front all the time.
Notwithstanding all the wonderfulness, I have had to adapt to the larger concert instrument after learning for five months on a soprano. The adjustment has been trickier than I was expecting; the instrument isn't that much bigger, but surprisingly requires quite a bit more precision in chord fingering. The fretboard seems to be wider (I haven't actually compared them directly), and it's easier to just barely slip off the string and come up with a muted sound. The finer frets, as well as making it possible to use a lot less finger pressure, also demand more in terms of accurate finger placement. No longer can I just slug my finger in there anywhere between one fret and the next; it's got to be very close to halfway or I get that unholy buzzing sound.
The adjustment has been good for me, cos it's forced me to learn more precise habits. Things which are good for you... aren't always fun. I feel like I've achieved little in the past month; just this week I seem to be making progress again. My B♭ chord now comes out right more often than wrong, and I'm getting better at applying constant pressure throughout a bar rather than pre-emptively loosening my grip ahead of a chord change. (This isn't a problem when strumming because the Stagg has enough sustain to disguise the fact that I've effectively lifted my fingers. When fingerpicking, however, this habit is disastrous - you get awful muted notes at the end of each bar.)
I miss the soprano size in ways unrelated to the simple physical difficulty of the switch. The soprano uke is a gorgeous little instrument with its own unique sound, and I'd really like to own another at some point. (I mean, a proper wooden one. You know.) Also, sometimes it feels like the sound of my Stagg is almost too clean and bright - almost a little bit nasal. My next uke, I hope, will sound more round and mellow. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get this in a soprano.
Not that I have any intention of replacing my Stagg - no, not replacing... merely supplementing. Clearly I am already in the grip of Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome, a terrible affliction arising from the relative cheapness of quality ukes. A guitar collection is a vastly expensive and decadent thing to have; a uke collection, depending on composition, is probably worth roughly one nice guitar. Win!
This morning I got Let-Me-Google-That-For-You'd.
The existence of this tool has always pissed me right off, even before someone served me with it. I can't imagine a circumstance where you can use it without coming off as both unbearably smug, and also a bit of an idiot. I mean, can we just think about this for a second?
SCENE: Someone asks you a question that could be more easily answered using Google.
You have two options.
OPTION A. Say "that could be more easily answered using Google".
OPTION B. Go to lmgtfy.com. Compose a query which is simple enough that it brings home to the questioner how very stupid they are for not thinking of it themselves, while simultaneously being detailed enough that it will allow the question to be answered (for if the query does not come close to answering the question, you'll be the stupid one in all this). Press Search. Request a tinyurl. Press Go. Watch the animation to make sure it really does convey the full withering force of your contempt for the questioner. Check the results for question-answering ability. Revise as necessary. Paste the tinyurl into whatever medium the questioner is using. Compose a misleadingly helpful message to go around it. Send the fruits of your labours to your victim, and relax in the knowledge that they are receiving, loud and clear, the message you intend them to have.
I mean, come on, people.
On my Dashboard, I have a counter. Actually lots of counters, all different colours, timing such vital things as the weeks until the next public holiday and the days since my last haircut. But this post is about one in particular.
The one that this post is about looks like this:
Giving up was not that difficult. It was just after the end of university, so I wasn't in any kind of daily routine with coffee built in, which would have made it nearly impossible to give up. And I'd reached a stage where, after six years of constant abuse, my body wouldn't take it any more. Drinking coffee was no longer worth the pain.
So at first I didn't miss coffee at all. The withdrawal was brief and minor; being unemployed, I just slept through the few days when it was worst. I did, however, go through a period of grieving for the drug. I could no longer sleep as little as I liked and pull through the next day on a few lattes. Suddenly I had to play by the rules, as if I was normal or something. It was a shock.
As time went on the grief changed. As I adapted my lifestyle to getting enough sleep, I found that I didn't miss the drug that much any more. Instead, I missed the visceral experience of drinking coffee. I missed the taste, the smell, the texture, the way you twirl your spoon when folding coffee crystals into thick milk foam. I missed being able to order a rich hot drink not loaded up with sugar (for social reasons, I'd switched immediately to hot chocolate). At times it got so bad I would head to Kaffee Eis for coffee gelato just so I could imagine that the flavour represented the real thing.
More time has gone by, and the pang I feel when I smell a good robust coffee hasn't lessened. But now there's another element to it: I've become concerned for my identity. I'm a Wellingtonian through and through, and coffee makes Wellington what it is. I grew up drinking coffee here. I used to make a hobby of visiting different cafes to sample their coffee, and no day was complete without a cup from somewhere. Without coffee, how much of a Wellingtonian am I really?
For all of these reasons, I haven't been entirely coffee-free for those five months and two weeks. Sometimes, for a special treat, I'll stop somewhere I know I can trust, and order me a weak latte. It's got to be damn good to make up for the inevitable migraine-like sensations which follow, but for about an hour after imbibing it, I always feel so much happier.
To the thousands of Wellingtonians who still use coffee as a drug, who can knock back three lattes in a day and actually feel better for it, who treat coffee as a natural part of their daily lives: you have no idea how much I envy you.
Recently my alma mater stopped accepting enrolments for this year, whinging that the new government funding plan isn't generous enough for them to take on new students.
The headline to this story in the latest alumni email newsletter?
Victoria manages a surge of enrolment numbers
Against my will I've had to turn on comment moderation, because I keep getting unfilterable comment spam. It gets past the CAPTCHA, but is plainly not genuine. It's usually written in Chinese and contains two links to external sites. The username has no Blogger profile to block or complain about.
There are many more of these than genuine comments, so moderating the very occasional genuine comment will be less hassle than having to delete one of these from every single new post. Sorry.
After a fortnight of not buying lunch, I took my money in hand on Saturday and walked up to Alistair's to bring home my beautiful new ukulele (a Stagg concert UC60-S).
It is perfect in every string. It's so light that it seems to float in the hands. It needs only the softest touch to produce the sweetest sound. It resonates so clearly that it can even be loud if I want. The pegs are firm, but easy to turn. It stays in tune between one day and the next. Every time I play a pretty phrase, the sound is so clear and sweet it actually makes me go "d'awwww!".
I don't wanna go to work this week, I wanna sit at home and strum.
As it gets colder, getting out of bed gets harder. I got sick of constantly sleeping in, rushing around, and being late to work, so I decided to save time this morning by eating my breakfast at work.
I arrived before anyone else in the team. I switched on my computer and went to the kitchen to warm up the muffins I'd brought from home. I took them back to my desk, looked at my emails, took a bite of muffin... and then my boss arrived. Like all good bosses, he had something for me to do.
The next time I noticed my muffins it was 10am and they were cold.
There must be some effective strategy for saving time in the mornings, but I don't think that was it.
On Saturday I made a pilgrimage to Alistair's Music. The excuses were as follows:
Alistair answered the question about tuning with a barrage of technical information which wound up with "it's perfectly normal" (phew!). Then some other customers arrived, so he left me alone to play with the wooden ukes. 10 minutes later he came back, briefly considered the mellow little soprano I was picking, then seized from the shelf a long-necked concert which I had avoided because of its size.
"Try this," he said. "The longer scale means it will stay in better tune. It has a solid top and back, and..." but I missed the rest of the technical info, because by this time he had handed it to me and I was overcome with astonishment at how light it was. It felt like around half the weight of my three-quarters plastic Makala. It was even lighter than the little wee wooden soprano I'd been holding a minute earlier, which is odd, given how much bigger it was.
Ever the salesman (to say nothing of musician), Alistair left me alone again with this stranger. I looked it over. The frets were lower than I was used to, making it easier to finger with a light touch. The large size meant there was a lot more soundboard available to clasp under the elbow than in a soprano, so it was easier to play it standing up. I tucked it under my arm and began to play. Before long I was standing with my back to the rest of the shop, cradling the uke, in a state of total concentration. I strummed, I picked, I noodled, and then, just for fun, I broke into my favourite easy song - Cover of the Rolling Stone by Doctor Hook. (Three simple chords, but it lends itself to fancy rhythms.)
That little instrument rang like a bell. It resonated from stem to stern, under my elbow, into my fretting fingers and up my arm; it sang, it soared, it begged for more. When I picked up my Makala again for comparison it was like the difference between a gong and a ball of cotton wool. The Makala sounded muted and sad after the long-neck. I couldn't compare, I put the Makala away, and a minute later I had paid a 25% deposit and was out on the street trying to calculate just how quickly I could pay off the rest of that beautiful long-necked uke.
Despite this unexpected development, I didn't forget to ask for a pick before I left. Alistair gave it to me for free, and I'm using it to practise riffs on my Makala in a last-ditch effort to be worthy of my new uke before I bring it home.
Two pay cycles ago, I went to a new dentist and discovered I was going to have to pay a lot more for the better quality of care there. Better care is the reason I changed dentists, so I don't mind, but I had to rejig my budget. I took a little bit out of my clothing allowance to cover the higher dentist fee.
One pay cycle ago the ACC levy increase kicked in, making me worse off by $5 each pay. I had to rejig my budget again. This time I took a little bit out of my discretionary spending to cover the ACC levy.
This pay cycle the IRD has cancelled my independent earner tax credit, because they realised I didn't earn enough to qualify for it between starting work in January and the end of the tax year in April. My annual income, however, is within the qualifying band. They've caught up with me just in time to have paid me the tax credit for the entire period I wasn't eligible, and then cancelled it as soon as I become eligible (at the start of the new tax year).
Until I can screw up the courage to ring the godawful IRD call centre, this leaves me worse off by $20 each pay. I don't know where I'm going to take it from. I'll have to eat less or something.
Really good cocktails are hard to track down. On Friday night two of us went hunting at Sojourn bar in the James Cook hotel, on The Terrace.
First up was a Toblerone, comprised of creme de cacao, Frangelico, honey and cream. Although it sounds alarmingly sweet, the combination was very drinkable indeed. I could easily have knocked back a water glass full of this. Perhaps fortunately, I wasn't given the option, as it arrived in a cocktail glass.
While I drowned in chocolate, my companion sampled an Absolut Trouble, made of Grand Marnier, grenadine, some kind of citrus juice, and presumably Absolut vodka as well, all served in a highball glass. It was light, fruity and refreshing, and also eminently drinkable, but without much bite.
For the second round I played it safe and went with my old favourite, the Long Island Iced Tea. I've had plenty of good Long Islands at Sojourn before, so this one was doubly disappointing, with too much ice making it taste thin, and no sign of the complex confluence of diverse ingredients which makes a Long Island what it is.
Meantime my companion was winning this round with a strikingly desirable little thing called an After Dinner: Triple Sec, apricot brandy and lime juice in a cocktail glass. The first two ingredients gave me to think it would be sweet, but the lime juice definitely carried the day, turning a sticky concoction into a bitingly sour sip of wonderfulness. This one was the cocktail we'd been hunting for all night; we left it dead, and with its head we went galumphing to Mac's Brewery for dinner.
This film really fails to be anything, despite its ready-made subject matter: the young John Lennon's difficult relationships with his mother, who abandoned him, and his aunt, who brought him up. While attempting to engage with this somewhat challenging material, the film keeps throwing in lighter moments in the form of Lennon's developing musical ability and newfound rock'n'roll lifestyle. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the very young cast are clearly more comfortable with the rock'n'roll than the relationships. What results is a mishmash of a film, full of awkward foreshadowing, heavy-handed conveyance of emotion, and some rather good rock'n'roll.
The two main female characters are treated with irritating partisanship. At intervals the director intrudes to force on us the opinion that one or the other is the "bad guy", with no consistency or real justification. As we're dragged towards an overblown emotional climax followed by a sickly-sweet reconciliation, one can't help wishing that the cast would shut up and tell the story already.
Aside from being forced, the film manages to be technically inaccurate as well. We see the young Lennon overjoyed at the gift of a mouth organ, which we're given to understand is his first musical instrument. We're treated to a lovely montage of his discovery and gradual mastery of the banjo - an instrument with five strings. His relatively late arrival to music is demonstrated, and it's made clear that he, like everyone else, has to work hard to play well.
No sooner is this accomplished than it is all undermined. We see Lennon in a music store, picking up a six-string guitar apparently for the first time, and playing it effortlessly and well. Between one scene and the next he transforms from a normal boy taking delight in a new skill, to a genius who can convert banjo fingerings to guitar fingerings in an instant, notwithstanding the very different sizes and shapes of the two instruments. I lost faith in the film at this moment, and it never made any attempt to win me back.
It's a harmless piece of fluff, but it's doesn't go far enough in the directions of either seriousness or fun. Better left unseen.
