First, both Sydney and Melbourne are gorgeous cities – although Sydney has a bit of a harder edge to it. If the last 5 years hadn’t happened, it wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d chose to study there instead of Auckland back in 2004;)

Fast Walking

One of the differences I noticed most compared to NZ is how quickly people walk, especially in Sydney – which I reckon is a sign of how things are faster-paced there. I thought I was quick, but was barely keeping up with the short girls in high heels!

Another anecdotal comparison: when comparing the speed of deli service at the most urban supermarkets in Sydney and Auckland on multiple occasions, the apathy of Auckland’s service is stark (and consistent.)

Prickiness

And while I liked the added intensity of daily life in OZ, the overall friendliness as compared to NZ is definitely lacking. I joked about this on my status message at the time by saying “Dave thinks the average Aussie is a much bigger prick than the average Kiwi, but nowhere near as big a prick as the average Yankee.”

So being American, Sydney felt much more like a big US city than Auckland does (which isn’t always a good thing.)

Quality Over Quantity

But despite my friendly jabs at Auckland, I always seem to like it more after being gone awhile, and this was no exception.

And when not on anthropology duty, I was really lucky to see several of my friends – Mitch, Julia, Paul, Maria, and Kai – and also meet some cool new people.

Although I’m not one to shy away from strange experiences in life, I take serious issue with this unwelcome guest outside my window. The finger’s motor echoes the sound of a meat grinder through my apartment 24/7 and seriously disrupts the comfort of my guests.

Also not being one to just go with the flow, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I simply climbed out my window and unplugged Santa’s nefarious finger. I had no idea what kind of madness would follow.

(In the photo above, my flat is the one closest to Santa’s belt, and my bedroom is directly behind his right elbow.)

After about two days of calm, all hell broke loose. It started with a cease and desist letter from my building manager simply stating “HEY GUYS. LEAVE SANTA ALONE. HE’S BEEN THERE LONGER THAN YOU.” Shortly after, everyone from my landlord to coworkers to friends of friends were pointing me in the direction of this fine piece of journalism by the New Zealand Herald:

Hunt for Scrooge who sabotaged Santa

Grinch-like neighbours are being blamed for bringing the famed Whitcoulls Santa to a grinding halt.

The finger-waving, winking St Nicholas that lords it over Queen St shoppers each  festive season has been frozen in action several times since he got on to his perch this year.

The article went on to incorrectly state the finger only operated between 8am and 6pm. This is now the case, but presumably only because I gave them crap. 

And by the way, I’m fully aware that dealing with Santa is part and parcel with living in this otherwise very cool building. That’s all fine and good, but anyone who bothers to check out Auckland Noise Control will know the law trumps any private contract.

And I got a nice big belly laugh from these final lines of the article:

Ebony Hallam said residents she knew liked having Santa there.

“For someone to do this [turn off the power] is actually quite hurtful.”

Another man described it as “a bit disturbing” that someone was unplugging Santa.

And once this article was published, some local radio stations apparently had a field day by filling their airtime with the Santa controversy. And local television news even ran a story. How sad.

So I have a couple of questions for the reporter of this story (Phoebe Falconer) or anyone else that cares to leave a comment:

1) Can we all agree this is a bullshit story to fill space in the media that would otherwise go to some other bullshit story? If anyone really gave a crap, the “hunt” may have included such tricky tactics like actually knocking on my door, or leaving a note in my mailbox asking for comment.

2) How was I actually “hurting” and “disturbing” anyone by unplugging Santa and reducing a blatantly unpleasant influence in society? The article itself acknowledges that Santa scares children. Common sense anyone?

3) Is this really the best use of our time? 

As you can see from the above screenshot, 11 of the 20 most recent status updates are related to New Zealand’s “national depression.”

Besides the fact that New Zealanders are unhealthily obsessed with really into their sport, I think this little experience is just another small example of how information these days is being spliced and diced, fragmented across an ever-growing number of channels, and increasingly likely to be delivered by digital word of mouth rather than “Big Media.”

Isn’t that just freakin’ cool? I think so!

But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of reason to hold onto the panzy ass image we’re all used to. Just take a look at this photo from the window of my flat where a bunch of police officers are protecting protestors who want better public transportation (I’ll ignore the irony that the photo also clearly shows construction work being done to… what do you know… improve public transportation.) Anyway, there are almost as many cops (the guys in the yellow jackets) as there are protestors – just the kind of hard core image we all expect to see.

So I was having dinner with my friend Priscilla at a Japanese restaurant last night, and realised that Asian restaurants are missing out on a huge opportunity. As with almost any non-Asians, both of us had pretty much no idea what all of the options were on the menu, and we ended up making a little game out of the experience of guessing what we were ordering.

So instead of keeping their customers in the dark, or futily trying to explain all of the options for their patrons, I think Asian restaurateurs should leverage this opportunity by providing an incentive for the customers to play such a game.

I think the best model would be to provide one free desert for each group table and letting the customers pick and mutually judge their own game – something like “Pick a random menu item, and whoever’s order turns out closest to their guess will get the desert.” A little card on the table could explain the incentive and provide game suggestions.

This would have a couple of positive effects: encouraging groups to patronize the restaurant, incentivizing the “losers” to buy their own deserts, creating a memorable and fun experience, and most importantly, creating repeat business in a highly competitive industry.

So would you play the Asian Mystery Menu game?

As reported by the New Zealand Herald:

Mr Cooke said the airport X-ray machine identified the possible explosive device yesterday in an incoming parcel.

“They placed this package into the explosives safe and called us this morning,” he said.

Defence Force bomb disposal personnel arrived this morning but initially had difficulty opening the safe, Mr Cooke said.

Inspector Matt Sillars of the police northern communications centre earlier said he believed the package was probably harmless.

He said: “You’ve got to bear in mind that it’s gone through 30,000 feet of air travel and has probably been kicked, dropped and whatever else.

“The chances of it being anything sinister are probably quite remote.”

Even though the package turned out to be harmless, Inspector Sillars was making quite a bold assumption here. Maybe someone should remind him that cell phones have been used to remotely detonate bombs, and sometimes really weird things happen and maybe a bomb could survive a trans-oceanic trip. Nevertheless, someone should really ask him what’s more important: the safety of Kiwi citizens or waiting ’til morning to check out bomb scares because it’s just too much of a hassle.

To be fair though, I can somewhat understand how a Kiwi would be more inclined to take such an action. This place is quite peaceful and chances of anything *bad* happening really are quite low. And let’s face it, people here can be quite apathetic. That being said, New Zealand isn’t the only country with such issues. America had a similar mindset, albeit with a much larger issue, prior to 9/11 and most Americans couldn’t have conceived of such an event happening even though terrorism has been around since the beginning of time. But still, I think a good rule of thumb for any country would be to immediately investigate any bomb scares, no matter what time of day it is.

My friend Susan, who is Taiwanese, really helped me realise this by telling me how she has been having difficulties socially assimilating into the New Zealand culture. I figured that if a person of university age was having that difficulty here in New Zealand, which is supposed to be a very socially tolerating culture, it couldn’t get any easier elsewhere in the world. I also had a date with a Korean girl a week or so after that happened and although I enjoyed myself, there just wasn’t a solid connection in thoughts and ideas.

When I describe these people as Taiwanese and Korean, I’m not talking about what they look like, where their parents are from, or even where they were born, but where they actually grew up and became cultured.

I was hoping to travel to India sometime this year to see a friend I worked with at my old telephone job, but I’m opting out of that partially because of the money, but even if I did have the money, India isn’t a place I could ever see myself living. If I’m going to plunk down a few grand at this point in time I want to go someplace I might want to immigrate to eventually. I’d rather spend that money on my trip back to the States where I hope to see New York, Las Vegas, and Seattle around New Years, or on a trip to Europe at some point in time. I’ll save the trips to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for when I have millions of dollars and just want to leave reality for a few weeks.

Something else that has caught my attention while cycling around Auckland is how the streets are in really good condition almost everywhere. More importantly though, there is no distinct trend for the location of roads that are slightly less than ideal. That’s more than can be said about the roadways in Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, the privilege of being able to drive, or in my case cycle, on smooth roads is reserved mostly for the people who live in areas that are generally more affluent, vote more regularly, and therefore have the attention of the local politicians. I thought about that every time I went for a cycle in Cincinnati and it would just piss me off that a situation like that could exist. The sad thing about it though is that the population (which I was certainly a part of) was just as much to blame as the politicians; it’s one big catch-22.

I never really pursued any type of activism in Cincinnati for, well, anything, because I never saw myself as having a long-term future there. I thought that might change once coming to New Zealand, but it hasn’t really. There isn’t any place that I see a long-term future for myself at the moment, so I don’t have much motivation for trying to make any dramatic changes in my environment. I know that might sound selfish, but it’s honest and I’d bet 95% of the people reading this think the same way. However, my definition of dramatic is probably larger than most peoples’. I have been pursuing some small changes in my immediate environment such as trying to get a change machine installed in my dorm. (The laundry machines only take dollar coins so people hoard them lake crazy or stress about finding them before they wash their clothes.) I also have a few other ideas if the change machine is successful, but they’re not as developed and I don’t want to raise the expectations by talking them up now.

When I started writing this, I thought I would stick to the public services topic, but once I start writing it’s not easy to stop. I should do it more often, I know, but I just dont have enough thoughts, or maybe just energy, to do this every day.

Although most people aren’t around, it doesn’t really bother me that much. I find that it’s much easier to get along with and socialise with the people remaining in the hall (which is only a handful on each floor.) I suppose that’s not surprising since I’ve always been better getting along in more personal situations than large group functions. It’s also an opportunity to get out and see what’s around more. I really want to find where the best thrift store is here in Auckland so I have more time to do things like that. Someone told me that thrift stores are called opshops here, supposedly because you have the opportunity to find a really good deal. As an aside, a question that I’ve gotten a lot from people here is whether or not schools in America are really like those portrayed in the movies with different groups of jocks, dorks, ‘popular kids,’ etc. I tell people that there certainly are schools like that and everyone seems to be perplexed as to how kids could be so segregated. Anyway, when I was coming back on the bus from Northland (where Kerikeri is) I met a traveler from Switzerland and her and I are probably going to meet up tomorrow or the day after to see some of the sights around Auckland. I have to keep reminding myself that there’s more to life here than just university stuff.

Another thing that I can keep myself occupied with is continuing to do some work for the firm I’m now working for in Arizona. I can’t remember off hand what I’ve written about that before, but as a refresher I’m doing research for an Internet firm my Cousin is the CFO for. It’s pretty sweet so far because it pays well, I have total discretion of my work environment and when I work, and I can obviously work from anywhere that has an Internet connection. I found out that the first project I did for them, which was to find the best online credit card gateway, was really helpful for them and my research lead them directly to the best solution. I hope that I can continue to do this for quite some time and that they come to rely on what I do.

To be perfectly honest with everyone, there are several things I wish I could write about on here more candidly, but I have to keep in mind that anyone could read this so I do keep some subjects off limits. I’ve found writing about things can be very helpful in clearing my head and I’d like to do it for some more personal things, but at the same time I don’t want to write something if I’m the only that will ever read it. Besides, I know that I can always call a friend or family member if I need to discuss something important, and it’s not like EVERYTHING has to be written down.