Last night I saw this dude on the telly called Romeo who was about 3ft high. It was pretty eye opening, the ironic thing is that Romeo was ripped! For such a little guy I was truly impressed. These salads I been makin' lately has got to a stage where I don't think I can improve them anymore... I reckon Romeo got ripped eating salads and stuff.

Fresh from the farm... This laddie has had prolly the best life a cockrel could have had. He's still around, but who knows for how long.

Was cycling across the bridge in the park and seen a duck. It seems quite happy, not sure what kind of duck, but someone will surely know.

Well this is interesting... I bought a pushbike from Kmart and noticed on the receipt an adjustment of 0.1c... In other words, they skinned me a cent while i wasn't looking. Piece of advice, if you ever buy anything from a KMART in a place called St Lukes shopping centre, Mount Eden Auckland, watch everything like a hawk ;) Stuff on the shelves is deceivingly placed with respect to pricing and sometimes you will see stuff on the shelf that you innocently purchase, only to get home and find bits missing and a sticker on the backside of the product that says that bits are missing and therefore the item should be reduced price... Make no mistake, they are educated thieves. I did note, that most of the staff there were not Kiwi or Mauri but from other countries, beware.

OK the other stuff is local pics of Auckland. A nice rugby pitch near here with a decent bikepath round it. The monuments are in that park too, one most notable for Keith Hay who was the mayor who died in 1997. I read his bio with much amazement, seems he never advanced his education to degree level, just simply left school at 6th grade to chap in fenceposts for a local judge, the rest is history... Here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Hay
There was other stones too, something about a guy who ran 12 miles in an hour and got a medal or something.

Well, after a lot of walking around, I was beginning to get pissed off, with how constraining it is, so basically bought a pushbike. This bike was from KMART and was $120 which I thought was pretty good, but you had to build it yourself... Had to get that helmet, really not a fan of those boring racer-boy lids that look like startreck material... Gonna use this.

Today, i went down to the shops and was thinking about a conversation that i had with a dude here. Since NZ is part of the commonwealth, it has all the bells & whistles of our advanced economic systems, per se, the commonly known levy, called Tax. From what I gather by reading various graphs and pie charts available on several websites, the Tax here is around 12.5%, but I don't know if this is correct. Basically I was informed that rates here are in general around $1500 all in, per year. Now, when you're working, your wages will likely be taxed too, but don't worry, this type of tax is know as jungle tax. The idea is that by taking some peanuts from the monkeys, the entire animal kingdom can live happily ever after.

After some quick negotiation with the landlady, I was provided with this device called an "insect bomb." Basically the idea is that you let it off, then vacate the room while the poison kills all insects. I think it has worked, but time will tell. While I had a spare few hours to use, I thought to perhaps go for a walk to the shop and purchase some nail sciccors, because the ones I had in my luggage were confiscated at customs in Australia in case I stabbed the captain to death while onboard. The crap they put you through... Anyways, sure the shop had 'em but they were like $7 and I felt that the pecuniary level was too high for such a readily available item and walked away. For now, a simple method of biting, and then filing the rough edges off, will have to do.
For the record, there was some amazing adverts at the local "foodstore." Some young lad seemed eager to get employment, with the bold statements "WILL DO ANYTHING FOR MONEY" slapped across one of them postcard sized labels in the display. It's refreshing to see, such willingness to re-enter the jobmarket. Quite impressing, I thought. There really wasn't any point taking photos at this stage, as frankly, it's nothing you ain't seem before. One thing I have really came to realise quickly, is that Auckland is not painting a true picture of what New Zealand is really about. Of course there are businesses here and all the multi-racial labour forces, but this is just business and that's the end of it. Soon, I am heading for Coromandel for a look, who knows, I may just disappear...

This time, I'm confident of finding a cure for schitzophrenia. By pure luck, I came across this in the shop. By administering a healthy dose of Manuka honey combined with (if you can get it) the prescence of Orgone accumulators, it is a surefire way to get rid of horrid thoughts. Manuka honey is recognised worldwide for it's medically awesome properties, esp. when treating exit wounds or stings. Don't expect immediate results though, like all medicines, it takes time to work properly.

OK, usually I don't have any problem with insects or crap, but the last few nights here I been itchin', like omfg itchin' bitchin'... First up, I thought it was my sleeping bag, that I may have been allergic to it or something, but noooo. When I awoke this morning, I found a red insect of some sort feeding on my arm!! :( It is like a tiny fly, or tick. Damn, I found it disgusting and was horrified. This type of stuff only happens when cleanliness goes downhill. The matress seems ok, but everything is a bit grotty and could do with a good clean. I have told the manager I want this sorted, literally I am scared to be in the room if i'm going to lose a pint of blood every day...
For the meantime I purchased insect spray and blasted everything and washed all the stuff again, but I don't think it's over cos I found another one this afternoon :( I really hope this guy gets the pro's in to deal with it and make sure it's done right, otherwise i'm outta here bro, literally, get some other sucker, lol.

Oooohh itchy :(

Well, couple of weeks back, I was fiddling round with Linux to see if it worked basically. I didn't install it or none of that silly crap but put it on a pendrive (actually a SD card in my case). The version is called Puppylinux and it works. The idea behind this, is that in a perfect world, you would be able to chuck the pendrive onto any computer like a mac or pc and boot linux from the pendrive. I haven't tried it on a mac and probably won't bother, but yes it works on pc. I even got the wirless crap working after several hours of cussing. The appeal of it is that the os isn't buried on a hd and is in solid state chip. Anyways after a few mins I wondered if there was any softs like fruityloops for music and there is this clone LMMS which is now ported to work on WinXP... So basically, If you bought and paid for FL on pc, yer an idiot!!! I has only had a few minutes working out this soft and it seems nae bad. Basically FL studio, proper legit free version. Gonna have to fiddle with this more, right up my street this.

Something, I've been into lately is losing weight... When in the UK I had a fantastic set of water weights shaped like dumbells and it cost £12 delivered from the net. Ironically the same weights out in Aus cost over $100...! Anyways one of the first things I did when off the plane was to buy a weight. I went to a shop called KMART and bought a set... When I got home, the bar was missing... !!@"@ sake I thought, I paid $45 for that and it wasn't right, damn the bit. Well after returning to the shop and some derogatory comments, I swapped 'em for this "Kettle-Bell" weight, AKA HYPER EXTENSION (Extensions of Hyper Activity;), no, really. Well, I guess it does the job. Anyone in the know can tell ya, to lose the beef, eat nuffin' but salads for a while and lift dumbells for at least 15mins daily. No kid, yar beef will drop at hell pace, but you gotta keep it up. I tend to try and aim for 15 pushups at least also when doing this jiggy stuff, it all helps. Cut to the chase, it's not dumbells nowadays, when you go to your gym or sports shop, just ask for a set of HYPER EXTENSIONS, they are bound to know what you mean...

Right. Interesting conversation with a local in this place about passports and visa shit. Apparently this guy lived 20 years in London and was originally born in NZ. After 20 years he tried to claim immigrant status and was knocked back. I was like wtf min?! You know, that's pretty ill. So anyways, we was talking about passport stuff and where it all originated from. It would appear that the very first travel documents were made by Muslims in order to pass from one town to another. They were very basic and basically a note that would be passed to the local brass when visiting a nearby town to let them know that they were cool. But... The passport that we know today, was properly introduced by King Henry the 5th of England, and from there it gets pretty dull.

Just a random I took from the bus. Auckland rains quite a lot, and then you get a very hot sunny day too ;) Overall, if you can hack the international atmosphere here, as in, a thriving Chinese & Pakistani community, yell probably be ait. Not to mention the Mauris & Kiwis, but they are almost a minority in this city, or if they are here, they must be hiding somewhere, lol. Nah seriously though, the Mauris I've met so far are decent and the Kiwis are genuinely good natured. I like.

Well, took this snap as one of the guys here is a diving dude. He came in with all this like what is called sea eggs and some lobsters. This things was still crawling around a bit. Now, I've had lobster before, and it tastes fantastic. If you like crab, yell love lobsters. You dip 'em in soy sauce and eat. The laddie who scooped this wicked catch did it using a snorkel. No fancy aqualung tanks or any that crap, just shallow water. I asked if he fancied aqualung stuff, but he reckoned there wouldn't be an airtank big enough for the amount of time he spends in the water (anything upto 8 hours at a time.) I was impressed with this.

...I managed to locate a place in an area called Mount Albert for $130 a week all in with internet. It is basically shared accomodation, but pretty good one and out of the ribs of the city with all the shops etc buses closeby. There is a landlady who is here all the time and genuinely seems a good person and that's what matters with these type of setups. OK, one thing, I left a jar of coffee out in the kitchen and within 3 hours it was nicked, but you know the score with these setups... It bears no reflection on the establishment, just that sometimes you'll get tarry fingered people. If only they knew that the jar was laced with a little something, i guess they may stop drinking my coffee in future, but who knows, lol ;)

Right then, after a night spent in that damn Quest apartment, I managed to score this decent accomodation using a website called wotif.com , basically they are like places that have been discounted for some reason or other and you may find a diamond like I did... This tower block is actually student accomodation for the Auckland uni students etc and I got a rate of $35 a night, which is peanuts compared to the night before of $150 in that crappy Quest apartments. Anyways, the thing about the student accomodation on Symonds Street is that there were no cons regarding about what it was etc. When I got there I bought a Cat 5 cable from the guy at reception and threw him $10 for 1gig of net. The rooms was good and had all the stuff. Everything you needed. Cooker, Microwave, bed (I slept in my coat and wasn't cold), fridge, shower, the works. Ok it wasn't exactly paradise, but the rate was good and the atmosphere in the building overall was pleasant. If you wanted to smoke, there was an official area outside, so all in all, you really couldn't grumble. There was a corner shop nearby, so getting grub wasn't a hassle neither. Now, one thing, basically the entire place was run and filled with Chinese people. I found that, there was a very easy going and pleasant vibe to this accomodation and would reccomend it highly compared to shared rooms in backpackers with old drunks or nutters. After a little negotiation, the manager was prepared to lease me a good room for $185 a week all in, and that is definatly a great deal, to be right in the guts of Auckland at that price, and pretty well looked after is diamond, but...

Listen, fool. Years ago, some guy had this idea about flying. Basically, it never got off the ground, ahahaha. Half a century passed and then, then the technology changed, and now it is real. $35K USD get you a Gen-4. Ok, it's not new, I think it came out around 2006, but sometimes, it's better to let technology like this "settle" for a few years if you know what i mean... I'm guessing, these are being bought now. My point was though, it has been done before, but not on a commercial level, so the original guys idea, eventually did take shape and in a much better way than he could have delivered at that point in time. Strange, but true :)
Surely you'll want to check their site. http://www.gen-corp.jp/ Of course, you might like to take a little course in mandarin before attempting to decipher this incredible inventions small print, but you'll get the idea.

Now something I love when it comes to food is Avacados. Just as I left Australia, I was kicking myself as it was coming to their summer where you can get them for basically nothing, but I hear you can get these quite good prices in NZ too, so i'm ready, fill me. The Avacado is a buttery type thing inside and is actually a fruit, but you could have fooled me. Anyways, the picture below with the plane is the first shimpent of airfreighted Avacados from the USA to Canada, prolly happened light-years ago, but there you go.

At this point, thought i'd just drop a shot of what you see when you fly a cessna. This plane is flying as you can see, but there are other things you can do, like landing, or fiddling with the buttons, it's good.

So yall, I was just doing what a ravy&piggy guy does and checking wiki out. This Auckland, well it has history too of course. Now, as it happens, the place was named after the baron called William Eden. Auckland was actually a younger son or some shit, cut to the chase, the guy was a UK dude. Anyways, if you look deeply at it, you'll see that there is a place called mount Eden which is named after this Eden family, ironically that's where i'm headed to soon, to check out a decent cheap pad. Bet Eden, never had to bother with backpakers and tourist visas when he was here. Ach... Suggest fill brain at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eden,_1st_Baron_Auckland

Here is the beach. It is pretty clean. There isn't really sand though, sort of rough stone, but in some ways it's good because sand always buggers up your toes.

As you can see, Auckland does shipping. There is a pretty big container yard here and you bet it's busy.

Well, I got sorta distracted from the GPS for a moment and went loco. After winding down this road into the unknowns of an industrial estate, I captured this rare image of a burned out cop car that had been placed ontop of a 20ft offshore container by forklift.

The next morning, I stopped at a shop for some crisps and stuff, but like, it is raining a bit here. The temp is fine compared to UK and the scenery for an International city type place is pretty good.

Basically, if you are stupid enough to spend $150+ a night you can have a view like this in one of the private Quest apartments in the city centre. I did, and one thing... Their internet don't work. Everywhere is supposed to be wireless nowadays and the deal with this room is that the wireless was all set up. B*s*a*** I hate being conned like that. Make note, Quest aparetments on Queen Street Auckland wireless internet don't work...

OK, right normally I don't run round photographing urinals, like some kind of pisshouse inspector, but after spending a night in the car, I was bursting... The first public toilets I came to was in an area called Blockhouse Bay. Just before I walked in, a grim faced Pakistani walked out of the bog... This is what I had to face. Well, never mind. Actually most of the toilets are OK, at least they got public toilets here, some places don't.

See like, when you get off the plane into a city, esp. at night. Just do yourself a favour and get a gps with the car. You'll still get lost, but at least you'll know exactly where you are lost... Auckland is nails to navigate even with the gps. Surely there's some kind of academic qualification you can obtain in these things.

Heyo, this is my sisters cat Simba. Often I'd spend most of the day sitting near it out in Townsville. Look at it's face, ahahaha.