Since we started sleeping polyphasically, I've noticed the quality and nature of naps varies quite a bit. Most naps are just "standard" naps, but I get at least one of these naps each week or so:
8. The Paradox (AKA The Traitor, The Pan Galactic Gargle Nap)
Everything seemed to go so well. You lay down on schedule, fell asleep right away, and had a lovely dream involving cake, meadows and fluffy animals. Yet you wake up feeling like someone stuffed your head full of polystyrene and poured bleach in your eyes.
Luckily, the effect tends to fade away after a few minutes.
7. The Time Warp (AKA The Forgotten Oversleep, The WTF Nap)
Three hours have passed, both alarm clocks have been switched off, along with the light and the MP3 player. You may also have had a drink and been to the bathroom at some point. The last thing you remember is lying down.
6. The Newbie Nap (AKA Murphy's Nap, The Coffee Victim)
Your eyes refuse to stay open. Your body is exhausted. Your brain feels like it's been stuffed with cotton wool. You lie down expecting the best nap of your life.
Instead, you spend 20 minutes thinking about how badly you want to get to sleep. The ticking clock, humming refrigerator, faint noises from next door and blinking LED on the VCR also don't help.
5. The Phantom Nap (AKA The Non-Nap, The Wake)
You were awake when you lay down. You were awake when the alarm went off. You don't remember waking up. Did you sleep in between? No-one will ever know. Unless someone heard you snoring.
4. The Nap-22 (AKA The No-Win-Nap, The Nap-And-A-Half-Without-The-Nap)
You wake up feeling pretty good. Eyes open, head clear. But there's a problem. You still have half your time left. Do you get up, or go back to sleep?
If you get up you'll feel tired later. If you go back to sleep you'll feel tired when you wake up. You may as well just give up and sleep through to the next nap (not really).
3. The Micronap (AKA The Surprise, The iNap Nano)
Why did the hand of that clock jump forward two minutes?
2. The Snap (AKA The Epiphany, The Crystal Pillow)
You suddenly snap awake, with one minute left on the clock. You feel like your whole life has been a lead-up to this one moment of startling and unexpected clarity.
Work fast. You have about 5 minutes before you go back to normal.
1. The Chrono-Nap (AKA The Bullet-Time, The Saga)
You fall asleep almost immediately and have an incredibly long and detailed dream. You wake up what feels like hours later, cursing yourself for oversleeping, only to realize you've been asleep five minutes.
You resist the urge to call your monophasic friends and tell them how awesome polynapping is.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Sunday, August 05, 2007
LA, Hollywood and Disneyland!
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger.)
In the immortal words of Alex K on his own blog post about his trip to LA - "I won't go into too much detail, only as much as time permits." (I think he forgot that on blog posts, you do have a certain amount of creative licence...) So this is Tina, writing on Brendan's comp. As much as time permits (i.e. before bed-time.)
So. LA, Disneyland and Hollywood. Monique (a friend from NZ, who's been working in Alaska for two months and is now en-route to the UK via Holland) was staying with us for a week to help get over her horrible Alaskan experience, and kill time while she waited for her flight out. We decided on the spur of the moment to make a trip down to LA. The plan was to drive down early Saturday morning, spend half a day in Hollywood, and go to Disneyland the next day.
Driving down the coast, we decided, was the most scenic route, even though it would take an additional 2.5 hours. Driving back late on Sunday night, we would take the 5-hour, boring inland route. Brendan's Dad Wal had recommended Big Sur so we were really keen to see it.
The only flaw in this plan, was the fog. We drove down along the number 1 highway along the coast, through the Big Sur national park and almost all the way down without really seeing anything of the supposedly gorgeous scenery - it was too foggy. We were extremely disappointed.
This is at the start of Big Sur - peoples' private homes overlooking an incredible bay. On the right, there was a swimming pool cut into the hillside.
We made a bathroom stop at Hearst Castle - the home of famous newspaper tycoon Hearst and
the inspiration for Citizen Kane, widely agreed by most film critics (and this film student) one of the greatest movies of all time. You can only go into the building at the base of the hill - tourists are carted up the large hill some miles away by bus. Unfortunately, where you could normally see the castle, and I was hoping to show Monique at least a little bit of it, you could only see fog.
Big Sur would have also been impressive, if we'd managed to actually see anything! We did make one stop - we saw a glimpse of an amazing drop down the rugged cliffs to the ocean.
What we did see the one time we stopped, in Big Sur. Look how far down the sea is!
The most annoying thing, though for this part of the trip, was a certain motorist. The trip took far longer, at least an hour, because of this (-suppresses urge to use harsh names-) man. This guy drove a jeep with the boot loaded to the maximum - he most certainly had only his side mirrors. The road was narrow, winding and one-laned each way, with "No passing" lines in the middle. On the left was a cliff not unlike the Rimutaka hills; on the other, a steep drop down in the mist. Every so often, the road would narrow even more with the signs of a slip. So there was no chance of passing. And it was far too dangerous.
Look! There he is! Look how far we have to go still!
The road speed limit said, 30 mph. Which was probably the most appropriate. This man went 20 mph, and he braked - braked! - heavily on each and every corner so he was going 10 mph. Despite numerous passing lanes, one maybe every 200 metres, he never pulled into any such lane or even probably looked behind him using those mirrors for the entire 75 miles that we were on that stretch of road. It was extraordinarily frustrating, made worse by the fact that we didn't have a horn. (It needs to be fixed; after this, it will be.) Otherwise we would have tooted when he slowed down on every single corner! So we drove for 75 miles behind this extremely inconsiderate person at a pace far far below an appropriate speed, with about 6 cars behind us. On an otherwise deserted stretch of winding road.
Behind us, a nice black Ferarri (Brendan says it was; I don't know cars so you can look at the pic and judge for yourself) passed round all the other cars until it was just behind us. We could hear the driver honking his horn heaps, but the car in front never wavered. It was like the tortoise in the story, except that the reason the tortoise won the race was that he never let the hare pass. Brendan (who was driving) and I spent 75 miles muttering angrily - poor Monique. Finally the road straightened out and we and the Ferrari passed before the roaed again, leaving about now 10 wretched cars behind this driver. As Brendan pointed out, it wouldn't have been so bad if we were able to enjoy the view! (remember to click on the picture to see the car)
So eventually we arrived in Hollywood, and spent a while wandering around Hollywood Blvd being touristy. Which was lots of fun. Although it was not nearly as grimy as I expected from Alex's description, it was certainly pretty tacky and filled with tattoo parlours, of all things. I doubt any stars go there unless they have to for Oscar nights. I never realised that the stars went all along the street, not just at certain places, and that they charged each star or their estate / fans to put one in.
The view on either side of the street...
Monique and a man with parrots.. note the Paris Hilton lookalike in the background you have to give them tips to take pictures with you - oops! We totally didn't realise for a while... and we had no money.
Next to the Kodak Theatre - if you squint real hard, you can see the Hollywood sign right between the bottom bridge bit and the first flight of stairs...
Then we took a tour bus round all the Hollywood houses. This was well worth it, since we had no idea and wouldn't have known any of it. I enjoyed the celeb-stalking, and I think I saw a few people. (Also, they wave cos they want it to be a nice photo!) We went all along Mulholland Drive, through Bel Air and Beverley Hills, and along Sunset and Rodeo "Ro-day-o" Drives. My particular favourite house happens to be the new one that Elton John is building - it's shaped like a grand piano!
We stayed at a youth hostel in Fullerton, just 6 miles from Disneyland. It was set in a park at the end of a golf-course, and well hidden from the road. It felt a bit like being in the country, but we were in the middle of LA!! Brendan and I stayed up til about 3am talking to some guys from Canada and America, in true student-hostel style.
The next day we drove down to Disneyland, and parked our car in the mammoth car parks. Our parking level was named Daisy (2nd floor). Everyone had to wait for a little train-like series of golf carts to take us to the main park.
A big factor in Disneyland is that everything takes a lot of time waiting in lines.
Indiana Jones - Monique's favourite ride.
Brendan put his bag down in the front pocket of one of the rides, to keep it safe. He heard a chink but thought nothing of it until later. Until he opened his bag. Inside, a large can of drink had been broken by his keys, and the bag was waterproof. Everything was floating inside - video camera, cellphone, keys . Brendan tipped his bag upside down and tipped out the energy drink. He took out his cellphone, and washed it under a tap. It didn't work. The camera, luckily, did. The automatic lock/ unlock fobs on Brendan's keys, however, were both on continuously. This wasn't a pain until we tried to go back and have our midday nap in the car. Because the on signal was on continuously, the car refused to lock, clicking on and off with the lights flashing and the car not wanting to start as it usually does with our mysterious locking system. It made so much noise we couldn't sleep for ages.
The rides were fantastic. My favourite was the Pirates of the Carribean - automated mechanical people singing songs and doing various things. Brendan's favourite was the spaceship one, where you shot round and round on very tight turns to flashing lights. The Finding Nemo submarine ride was new, so we didn't get to go on that - the wait time went from 2 hours to 3 to "unknown". We decided not to waste too much time on waiting. The Fast Passes were also good - if you booked one with your ticket, you could come back in an hour or so and do the ride then. The only bad ride was a sort of Dodgem, where you had little go carts that only went one speed, "slow" around a track where you were stuck on a rail underneath so you couldn't actually race or even go near the other person. Very boring. Apart from that one, I really enjoyed the rides. Now we have to go back, to California World right next door.
I took anti-nausea pills, which were wonderful - motion-sickness ruined some of my trip to Rainbow's End a few years ago with Brendan! So I wasn't keen to repeat the experience. At one point, I felt myself feeling sick, and then the pills kicked in. I think I'll use them a lot from now on.
Eating vegetarian and healthy was a bit of a problem - you couldn't take your own food inside the park, but they had almost no vege options. And the high-end restaurant we looked at, considered macaroni cheese "vegetarian". For $20 even before tax and tip. Yuck. Macaroni and cheese is disgusting, especially the American version. It has no redeeming qualities of taste or nutrients at all - simply macaroni, and what passes for cheese here. (More like orange cheese sauce. Anyway...)
But the highlight of the whole thing had to be the fireworks. When you see the image of the castle on Disney films, with the fireworks behind, that's literally how it is! Amazing fireworks, with "shooting stars" and a flying "Tinkerbell" - it takes away all the cynicism you have.
The 5-hour drive home was disgusting. Brendan drove most of the way, since I couldn't sleep when it was my nap, and hence almost drove off the road for the hour I did drive. Brendan slapped my bare leg, hard, and I woke up. And pulled to the side of the the freeway. Immediately. We got home at 4am, glad to collapse into bed.
In the immortal words of Alex K on his own blog post about his trip to LA - "I won't go into too much detail, only as much as time permits." (I think he forgot that on blog posts, you do have a certain amount of creative licence...) So this is Tina, writing on Brendan's comp. As much as time permits (i.e. before bed-time.)
So. LA, Disneyland and Hollywood. Monique (a friend from NZ, who's been working in Alaska for two months and is now en-route to the UK via Holland) was staying with us for a week to help get over her horrible Alaskan experience, and kill time while she waited for her flight out. We decided on the spur of the moment to make a trip down to LA. The plan was to drive down early Saturday morning, spend half a day in Hollywood, and go to Disneyland the next day.
Driving down the coast, we decided, was the most scenic route, even though it would take an additional 2.5 hours. Driving back late on Sunday night, we would take the 5-hour, boring inland route. Brendan's Dad Wal had recommended Big Sur so we were really keen to see it.
The only flaw in this plan, was the fog. We drove down along the number 1 highway along the coast, through the Big Sur national park and almost all the way down without really seeing anything of the supposedly gorgeous scenery - it was too foggy. We were extremely disappointed.
This is at the start of Big Sur - peoples' private homes overlooking an incredible bay. On the right, there was a swimming pool cut into the hillside.We made a bathroom stop at Hearst Castle - the home of famous newspaper tycoon Hearst and
the inspiration for Citizen Kane, widely agreed by most film critics (and this film student) one of the greatest movies of all time. You can only go into the building at the base of the hill - tourists are carted up the large hill some miles away by bus. Unfortunately, where you could normally see the castle, and I was hoping to show Monique at least a little bit of it, you could only see fog.
Big Sur would have also been impressive, if we'd managed to actually see anything! We did make one stop - we saw a glimpse of an amazing drop down the rugged cliffs to the ocean.
What we did see the one time we stopped, in Big Sur. Look how far down the sea is!The most annoying thing, though for this part of the trip, was a certain motorist. The trip took far longer, at least an hour, because of this (-suppresses urge to use harsh names-) man. This guy drove a jeep with the boot loaded to the maximum - he most certainly had only his side mirrors. The road was narrow, winding and one-laned each way, with "No passing" lines in the middle. On the left was a cliff not unlike the Rimutaka hills; on the other, a steep drop down in the mist. Every so often, the road would narrow even more with the signs of a slip. So there was no chance of passing. And it was far too dangerous.
Look! There he is! Look how far we have to go still!The road speed limit said, 30 mph. Which was probably the most appropriate. This man went 20 mph, and he braked - braked! - heavily on each and every corner so he was going 10 mph. Despite numerous passing lanes, one maybe every 200 metres, he never pulled into any such lane or even probably looked behind him using those mirrors for the entire 75 miles that we were on that stretch of road. It was extraordinarily frustrating, made worse by the fact that we didn't have a horn. (It needs to be fixed; after this, it will be.) Otherwise we would have tooted when he slowed down on every single corner! So we drove for 75 miles behind this extremely inconsiderate person at a pace far far below an appropriate speed, with about 6 cars behind us. On an otherwise deserted stretch of winding road.
Behind us, a nice black Ferarri (Brendan says it was; I don't know cars so you can look at the pic and judge for yourself) passed round all the other cars until it was just behind us. We could hear the driver honking his horn heaps, but the car in front never wavered. It was like the tortoise in the story, except that the reason the tortoise won the race was that he never let the hare pass. Brendan (who was driving) and I spent 75 miles muttering angrily - poor Monique. Finally the road straightened out and we and the Ferrari passed before the roaed again, leaving about now 10 wretched cars behind this driver. As Brendan pointed out, it wouldn't have been so bad if we were able to enjoy the view! (remember to click on the picture to see the car)
So eventually we arrived in Hollywood, and spent a while wandering around Hollywood Blvd being touristy. Which was lots of fun. Although it was not nearly as grimy as I expected from Alex's description, it was certainly pretty tacky and filled with tattoo parlours, of all things. I doubt any stars go there unless they have to for Oscar nights. I never realised that the stars went all along the street, not just at certain places, and that they charged each star or their estate / fans to put one in.
The view on either side of the street...
Monique and a man with parrots.. note the Paris Hilton lookalike in the background you have to give them tips to take pictures with you - oops! We totally didn't realise for a while... and we had no money.
Next to the Kodak Theatre - if you squint real hard, you can see the Hollywood sign right between the bottom bridge bit and the first flight of stairs...
Then we took a tour bus round all the Hollywood houses. This was well worth it, since we had no idea and wouldn't have known any of it. I enjoyed the celeb-stalking, and I think I saw a few people. (Also, they wave cos they want it to be a nice photo!) We went all along Mulholland Drive, through Bel Air and Beverley Hills, and along Sunset and Rodeo "Ro-day-o" Drives. My particular favourite house happens to be the new one that Elton John is building - it's shaped like a grand piano!
We stayed at a youth hostel in Fullerton, just 6 miles from Disneyland. It was set in a park at the end of a golf-course, and well hidden from the road. It felt a bit like being in the country, but we were in the middle of LA!! Brendan and I stayed up til about 3am talking to some guys from Canada and America, in true student-hostel style.
The next day we drove down to Disneyland, and parked our car in the mammoth car parks. Our parking level was named Daisy (2nd floor). Everyone had to wait for a little train-like series of golf carts to take us to the main park.
A big factor in Disneyland is that everything takes a lot of time waiting in lines.
Indiana Jones - Monique's favourite ride.
Brendan put his bag down in the front pocket of one of the rides, to keep it safe. He heard a chink but thought nothing of it until later. Until he opened his bag. Inside, a large can of drink had been broken by his keys, and the bag was waterproof. Everything was floating inside - video camera, cellphone, keys . Brendan tipped his bag upside down and tipped out the energy drink. He took out his cellphone, and washed it under a tap. It didn't work. The camera, luckily, did. The automatic lock/ unlock fobs on Brendan's keys, however, were both on continuously. This wasn't a pain until we tried to go back and have our midday nap in the car. Because the on signal was on continuously, the car refused to lock, clicking on and off with the lights flashing and the car not wanting to start as it usually does with our mysterious locking system. It made so much noise we couldn't sleep for ages.
The rides were fantastic. My favourite was the Pirates of the Carribean - automated mechanical people singing songs and doing various things. Brendan's favourite was the spaceship one, where you shot round and round on very tight turns to flashing lights. The Finding Nemo submarine ride was new, so we didn't get to go on that - the wait time went from 2 hours to 3 to "unknown". We decided not to waste too much time on waiting. The Fast Passes were also good - if you booked one with your ticket, you could come back in an hour or so and do the ride then. The only bad ride was a sort of Dodgem, where you had little go carts that only went one speed, "slow" around a track where you were stuck on a rail underneath so you couldn't actually race or even go near the other person. Very boring. Apart from that one, I really enjoyed the rides. Now we have to go back, to California World right next door.
I took anti-nausea pills, which were wonderful - motion-sickness ruined some of my trip to Rainbow's End a few years ago with Brendan! So I wasn't keen to repeat the experience. At one point, I felt myself feeling sick, and then the pills kicked in. I think I'll use them a lot from now on.
Eating vegetarian and healthy was a bit of a problem - you couldn't take your own food inside the park, but they had almost no vege options. And the high-end restaurant we looked at, considered macaroni cheese "vegetarian". For $20 even before tax and tip. Yuck. Macaroni and cheese is disgusting, especially the American version. It has no redeeming qualities of taste or nutrients at all - simply macaroni, and what passes for cheese here. (More like orange cheese sauce. Anyway...)
But the highlight of the whole thing had to be the fireworks. When you see the image of the castle on Disney films, with the fireworks behind, that's literally how it is! Amazing fireworks, with "shooting stars" and a flying "Tinkerbell" - it takes away all the cynicism you have.
The 5-hour drive home was disgusting. Brendan drove most of the way, since I couldn't sleep when it was my nap, and hence almost drove off the road for the hour I did drive. Brendan slapped my bare leg, hard, and I woke up. And pulled to the side of the the freeway. Immediately. We got home at 4am, glad to collapse into bed.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Car troubles... again... oh car why do you do this to us?
On Monday I drove to Palo Alto for a business development seminar (on storytelling, yay! Soomething I love.) Then I drove down to the city before it, Mountain View (aka Home of Google) to pick up Amita so we could go shopping in San Fran. Only, as I approached the downtown area where we were to meet, the car seemed to be goign slower and slower. Looking down, I saw the "check engine" light on. Flooring the accelerator only yielded a crawl from the car, although there were lots of revs. I quickly found a place to pull over a couple of streets off the main one.
Burning my fingers opening the bonnet, I discovered the car had no oil. Strange, since we'd only put some in about two months before. So I called the AAA (AA in NZ) to come and tow me to the nearest service station. While I was waiting, I decided to try and find Anita since, as it turned out, I was exactly two blocks away from the station where she was waiting (sans cellphone). And only one block away, I discovered a tiny mechanic's. So we bought oil and trundled back to the car, again burning our fingers trying to open the bonnet.
With oil inside, I hoped the car troubles were over. Hmmm, no. Several phone calls later, we were heading down El Camino Real (historically the first road in the area and technically highway 82, but it's full of traffic lights) lookiing for a petrol station. Right next door was an In-and-Out burger place, which is both Anita's and my favourite takeaway burger place, so we had lunch. We decided to take the freeway home since the car refused to accelerate at any speed at all, and this way we could avoid traffic lights. It worked OK on the freeway - I got it to 70 mph no problem. We obviously had to cancel our trip, which I was disappointed about. They leave in about two weeks!!
We really don't want to have to find a new car, after all we just had some more work done on it recently!
So today I took the poor little car to the first garage down the road. He gave me a litany of problems with it, not least being a.) the fact that he couldn't work out why the "check engine" light was on, the most important thing but he didn't have the right diagnostic computer program so we needed to go next door; b.) apparently it has a bad exhaust problem and needs two new catalytic converters - one would cost $600 and the other would cost $250; c.) it's leaking oil and has already lost almost all of what we put in it two days ago(!); d.) the brakes need replacing soon (which we knew about) and e.) the CV joints are going (which we already know). Lastly, f.) our little boyracer friends have been busy in the car and it has the wrong spark plugs as well as a few other oddities thanks to them.
So at the garage next door, I discovered this "diagnostic" would cost $109. For it to be hooked up to a computer for a little bit. I was not impressed, and told them so. But I left it there, and two hours later we got a phone call: a wire had come undone from a sensor connected to the transmission, and it wasn't changing gears properly. (We'd noticed that when it did change gears, the entire car shook with a noticeably large bang.)
So overall, we still have a lot to do to the car, and it's going to be expensive. I much prefer being without one, they seem to eat money. But hopefully I can drive to San Fran in the next few days for an interview. (My recruiter forgot to tell me it was today! :( I guess it worked out better though since we couldn't have driven the car then anyway, and it's more like a 3-hour journey by various trains etc to the same place otherwise.)
Burning my fingers opening the bonnet, I discovered the car had no oil. Strange, since we'd only put some in about two months before. So I called the AAA (AA in NZ) to come and tow me to the nearest service station. While I was waiting, I decided to try and find Anita since, as it turned out, I was exactly two blocks away from the station where she was waiting (sans cellphone). And only one block away, I discovered a tiny mechanic's. So we bought oil and trundled back to the car, again burning our fingers trying to open the bonnet.
With oil inside, I hoped the car troubles were over. Hmmm, no. Several phone calls later, we were heading down El Camino Real (historically the first road in the area and technically highway 82, but it's full of traffic lights) lookiing for a petrol station. Right next door was an In-and-Out burger place, which is both Anita's and my favourite takeaway burger place, so we had lunch. We decided to take the freeway home since the car refused to accelerate at any speed at all, and this way we could avoid traffic lights. It worked OK on the freeway - I got it to 70 mph no problem. We obviously had to cancel our trip, which I was disappointed about. They leave in about two weeks!!
We really don't want to have to find a new car, after all we just had some more work done on it recently!
So today I took the poor little car to the first garage down the road. He gave me a litany of problems with it, not least being a.) the fact that he couldn't work out why the "check engine" light was on, the most important thing but he didn't have the right diagnostic computer program so we needed to go next door; b.) apparently it has a bad exhaust problem and needs two new catalytic converters - one would cost $600 and the other would cost $250; c.) it's leaking oil and has already lost almost all of what we put in it two days ago(!); d.) the brakes need replacing soon (which we knew about) and e.) the CV joints are going (which we already know). Lastly, f.) our little boyracer friends have been busy in the car and it has the wrong spark plugs as well as a few other oddities thanks to them.
So at the garage next door, I discovered this "diagnostic" would cost $109. For it to be hooked up to a computer for a little bit. I was not impressed, and told them so. But I left it there, and two hours later we got a phone call: a wire had come undone from a sensor connected to the transmission, and it wasn't changing gears properly. (We'd noticed that when it did change gears, the entire car shook with a noticeably large bang.)
So overall, we still have a lot to do to the car, and it's going to be expensive. I much prefer being without one, they seem to eat money. But hopefully I can drive to San Fran in the next few days for an interview. (My recruiter forgot to tell me it was today! :( I guess it worked out better though since we couldn't have driven the car then anyway, and it's more like a 3-hour journey by various trains etc to the same place otherwise.)
Take me out to the ball game....
Tuesday 24th July - my church was giving out a few tickets to a minor league baseball game, so we went with Emy whom I met at church.
The teams were the San Jose Giants vs. the Oaks - from somewhere like Fremont? The San Jose spectators weren't very nice to the opposing team, yelling out "miss the ball!" and other rude things. But I was assured by Emy that when they play at the Oaks' home base, they will get the same thing. Still... ah, boys....
Tina and Brendan with the SJ Giants mascot - the team are reserves for the SF GiantsThe first thing we noticed was the food! They sold the traditional peanuts and cotton candy etc etc in overpriced stalls under the seats. But they also had people come around and pass around menus, which you ordered off and then passed money from person to person down the row to the salesperson waiting patiently at the end of the aisle. I have no idea how they worked out who got what, or why people didn't hold on to the money. But the money was being very carefully watched. Emy told us half the people don't go for the dame, they go for the food. She ordered some pork chops covered in sauce - what must be the most messy meal ever!! She and Brendan were covered in sauce by the end.
There was also the beer batter. Brendan and I naturally assumed it was something that came on your fish and chips, but no. Far from it. The Beer Batter was actually a person. It was a member of the opposing team (the Oaks). When he batted, if he got "out" then a certain type of beer cost half price - people booed him all the time when he came up to bat to try and make him miss. Way to be supportive (or not), people! I felt sorry for him.
At the half-way point during the game, everyone did something I had seen in movies, but though it only happened in movies - all the Americans actually sang! "God Bless America", a very patriotic song, started blaring over the loudspeakers. Everyone stood up, opened their mouths, and sang. Then they sang, "Take me out to the ballgame". Seriously. I am not kidding. I thought it was so funny: I can't imagine Kiwis doing that. The national anthem is about as close as it gets, and that's done grudgingly.
Sometimes balls flew over the top of peoples' heads, and half the crowd tried to catch them. They often flew right over the top and landed on the roof! One batter in particular hit the ball three times, and each time the ball flew backwards to land on the roof right behind us. I was very disappointed.
The funniest thing was the little sub-games as the innings changed. These included things like having tug-of-war, little kids holding giant colanders over their heads and a guy trying to throw water bombs into the colanders (when they hit, they soaked the little kids!), and a nine-year-old dressed in adult-sized gear with a hockey stick trying to hit a ball into a goalpost guarded by a real ice-hockey player (on the grass of course) - he succeeded when the mascot tackled the hockey player to the ground!
So all in all it was a good night, topped off by the British guy and his American friend asking us as we left the carpark, "Do you call the back of the car the boot or the trunk?" We agreed "boot" 'cos we're Kiwis, and the British guy turned to his friend in triumph. And then, the American guy made a very funny analogy, but I can't remember it. Except it involved Elephants and trunks, and was hilarious. Ad the British guy countered with a shoes analogy, and I also can't remember that. Cos it was all a bit long ago now, so you'll have to take my word that it was funny. Sorry.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
4th of July - Independence Day! Part 1
4th of July, for all the hype, was surprisingly calm. Alex, Brendan and I drove up to San Francisco in his little red Mirage - all was quiet on the roads. Apparently everyone stays home and does BBQs. On the way there, I could hear an odd scraping, thumping sound, but we ignored it until we got to Anna's house in San Francisco. Upon inspection, it was a large piece of plastic mudguard that had come loose and caught on the road and scratched the tyre every so often.
First stop (after Anna's place in SF) was across the Oakland Bridge to the halfway point, Yerba Buena Island. Tacked on to it is man-made Treasure Island (find an aerial photo of it or click on the link above and you'll see why). We wandered around there for a while and took photos.
Here is one side of the island where we parked, and then the other directly opposite. Look, it's us and San Francisco!
It was quite cold and windy there on the beach. People were preparing for a concert next to a restaurant. An ex-naval base, a lot of people still lived there. It was very run-down (perhaps because of the salt water more than anything), and reminded me suddenly of Porirua. I love how they all sat on their chairs on stilts with beers in hand....
While getting something to eat later in a Berkeley Mexican taqueria, I spotted this car next to ours. Berkeley being the most quintessentially student town (the leaders in the Vietnam War protests). Note how the artist has taken a fresh fish, covered it in paint, and slapped it on all over the car. The figurine on the bonnet is an example of the artist knowingly re-appropriating and reinventing corporate brand to make a statement.
Berkeley Uni was quite nice, I liked it. Formal buildings mostly. I won't bore you with those. Here is our webshots album if you have a sudden rush of blood to the head. There was a cute squirrel that Brendan pretended to feed with a leaf - it was most disappointed.
look out for Part 2 (when I am less sleepy.)
First stop (after Anna's place in SF) was across the Oakland Bridge to the halfway point, Yerba Buena Island. Tacked on to it is man-made Treasure Island (find an aerial photo of it or click on the link above and you'll see why). We wandered around there for a while and took photos.
Here is one side of the island where we parked, and then the other directly opposite. Look, it's us and San Francisco!
It was quite cold and windy there on the beach. People were preparing for a concert next to a restaurant. An ex-naval base, a lot of people still lived there. It was very run-down (perhaps because of the salt water more than anything), and reminded me suddenly of Porirua. I love how they all sat on their chairs on stilts with beers in hand....
While getting something to eat later in a Berkeley Mexican taqueria, I spotted this car next to ours. Berkeley being the most quintessentially student town (the leaders in the Vietnam War protests). Note how the artist has taken a fresh fish, covered it in paint, and slapped it on all over the car. The figurine on the bonnet is an example of the artist knowingly re-appropriating and reinventing corporate brand to make a statement.
Berkeley Uni was quite nice, I liked it. Formal buildings mostly. I won't bore you with those. Here is our webshots album if you have a sudden rush of blood to the head. There was a cute squirrel that Brendan pretended to feed with a leaf - it was most disappointed.
look out for Part 2 (when I am less sleepy.)
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Harry Potter on the IMAX screen
A flower market just off Market StreetThe other day we got to see a special screening of the new Harry Potter movie which had just come out, courtesy of IBM. It was in San Francisco, at the IMAX theatre there which is the largest on the West coast of the US. And as a special treat, the last 20 minutes of the film were in 3D. So we put on our dorky glasses, which used polarized light to separate the images. It looked great - starting right at the point where Harry and friends go flying on the invisible horses to London.
Downtown San FranciscoIn front of the IMAX theatre, we got stalked by "bums" as Geoff calls them. The thing about the homeless people here, apart from the sheer volume, is that they're extremely persistent and will follow you around, after you've already said, "No".
Brendan in downtown Market StreetAfterwards, we spent a long time wandering around the downtown (Market Street), lower pier areas and the Embarcadero, all of which we hadn't explored yet.
Fountain at the Embarcadero Centre
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
They Might Be Giants... but they're smaller on stage
Recently San Jose had 4 concerts over the course of about a week, with heaps of local /international bands. However, the only band we recognised was They Might Be Giants (TMBG), from the "Day on the Meadow" show July 3rd. They sing the theme song to Malcolm in the Middle, "You're not the boss of me"... and for only $15 for a whole pile of bands, that's pretty much a steal here. So we went in time to see TMBG. They ere really great - they have a huge kid following, I think, and are very energetic. but their songs are very kooky and about things like the sun, dragons, different countries and things like that. Weird.
The band before them I am newly converted to, I think they're a local band from Chicago - they're called Madina Lake and here is their website. The lead singer and the other guy with blonde hair (and the black stripe) are identical twins.
Funny things seen:
The coffee girls gave out free coffees from little coffee-brewing packs on their backs. Novel. They also stood in front of us and danced to the music. (Brendan took enough photos at key points that we could make a little video of tehm dancing if we wanted.) The girl in the white top also danced and swayed a lot.
Signs: How many funny things can YOU spot?
The band before them I am newly converted to, I think they're a local band from Chicago - they're called Madina Lake and here is their website. The lead singer and the other guy with blonde hair (and the black stripe) are identical twins.
Funny things seen:
The coffee girls gave out free coffees from little coffee-brewing packs on their backs. Novel. They also stood in front of us and danced to the music. (Brendan took enough photos at key points that we could make a little video of tehm dancing if we wanted.) The girl in the white top also danced and swayed a lot.
Signs: How many funny things can YOU spot?
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