( Amelia Caitlyn McDermott, age 1 week. )

If you have a drink handy, please raise your glass and join me in welcoming my niece, Amelia Caitlyn McDermott, to the human raise.

If you do not have a drink handy, fuck off and get one. THEN please raise your glass and join me in welcoming my niece, Amelia Caitlyn McDermott, to the human race.

I'll try to get some photos sorted in the next week.

Here, my darlings, is a tale of fail so epic I can't possibly not share it!

OK, so, on Tuesday I made my first ever online visa order that wasn't a pizza. My old landline phone, which must have been fifteen to twenty years old, crapped out on me, so I ordered a new one from Dick Smith. It arrived yesterday, but I only had time to take it out of the box before I had to rush out again.

I went out and did some stuff involving, among other things, my first ever attempt at karaoke, something I swore I'd never do. The first song I sang was the Scotsman song, which wasn't on the list so I had to sing it without any backing music. Went down well, got a nice big cheer. I also got a fairly good response for my rendition of the King Herod Song from Jesus Christ Superstar. I tried to model my version on that of Rik Mayall. Buckets of fun, really it was!

Anyway, back to the phone. So, I got home rather tiddly and tried to set my sexy new phone up, and ran into trouble immediately - the power supply just would not fit into the phone base. I tried forcing it, but it was clearly the wrong size. Then I did something really fucking dumb - maybe the metal ring thingie on the plug is supposed to come off, thinks I, so I tried to take it off. With my teeth. While it was plugged in. The pain when my tongue touched it told me in no uncertain terms that this was a Really Really Bad Idea. By rights I should have Darwin'd myself out of the gene pool right then and there!

It was abundantly clear that the power supply was definitely the wrong one, so today I took it to Dick Smith and they replaced it for me. Got it home, the new one works grand, and all is well with the world.

About ten minutes ago, I was putting the cardboard box into my recycling bin and guess what fell out of it! Oh yes indeed, my sweethearts, it was the proper power supply for the phone. Oops.

One of two things happened here.

1: Somehow the box contained two power supplies, one ancient which I tried to use, plus the proper one which I didn't spot. That's what I'm hoping happened, because it makes me look less of a dickhead, but it's very unlikely.

2: This is far more likely - when my new phone arrived, I took all (OK, almost all) the bits and pieces out of the box and threw my old phone out immediately, except for the power supply which I missed. I got home drunk, saw all the bits and pieces on my floor, failed to notice that I was trying to use the old power supply, assumed that Dick Smith, and not I, had fucked up. My old phone must also have been a Uniden, but being fifteen to twenty years old, all brand identification was well and truly gone, hence my total failure to even think this was a possibility. And I couldn't check, because it had already been thrown out. And I don't mean into my bin where it could be retrieved, I mean GONE.

I have called Dick Smith, told them what the story is, they thanked me for my honesty, and I'll be taking the extra power supply back when I go into town this evening.

And that, my delights, is muppetry of which only a Pooky is capable.

Love yez all! :)

Immediately before the beginning, the Devil approached the throne of the Lord, and said unto him, "hey man, fancy a game of chess?" And the Lord replied unto the Devil, "Chess? Fuck that! I've thought of a much better game. Let there be light!"

Today is Ash Wednesday. That means I get to make my hilarious joke about how I'm giving up celibacy for Lent.

Well?

Laugh, you bastards, laugh!

John Key will be the new Prime Minister of New Zealand.  His National Party ended up winning 59 seats in Parliament, almost enough to govern alone.

Labour, under Helen Clark, got 43 seats.  Miss Clark conceded to Mr Key around 11:30pm, and at the same time announced she will be stepping down as Labour leader.

It is the end of an era, and no mistake.

I liked having Helen Clark as PM.

Still, on the bright side (for me, anyway) the Green Party got an extra two seats.

Also, Winston Peters' political career seems to be over. I remember him from the early 1990s. He was rather interesting back then, but in recent years he's just been a bit of a cunt.

Funniest thing about this election - the Family Party, which is the closest the Destiny Church has to a political wing at the moment, got less votes than the Bill & Ben Party. Anyone remember when Destiny Bishop Brian Tamaki gave his "prophetic utterance" coming from none other than God Himself that Destiny would be in control of New Zealand within five years? How long ago was that? Oh yeah, five years ago!

I love it when the clowns outdo the theocrats!

So, there it is. John Key will be our next Prime Minister.

Oh well.  Roll on 2011, I guess.

Make sure you vote tomorrow.

Love and cuddles,

Pooky

Good luck.

Love and cuddles,

Pooky

I think I'm going to move to Auckland for a while. Got some really good opportunities up this way. While I've been here I've done some work on a promotional video for MOTAT for which I've been decently paid (well, paid well as a session musician, hopefully there'll be some composition royalties or something to come, seeing as how I came up with some seriously good melodies here) and there's talk of a paid gig at the video launch. And to think I was only planning on crashing here for one night!

Not only that, but the busking here is really good! During the day, anyway. It's been shit at night. Although, now I come to think of it, that was the night the All Blacks got prison-showered in the Rugby World Cup...

All I need to do is find an affordable one bedroom flat or bedsit within half an hour's walk from Queen St and I'm grand!

Yes.

It's time for a change of scenery.

Now, I'd like you to meet Cantilena. She's Simon's other flatmate, but she hasn't featured in any photos yet because she was away until yesterday.

I get another cuddle! Woohooo!

possumlou

Took a lot of hassle, but I got to Simon's flat around midnight. I'm going to stay here again tonight and possibly tomorrow night as well, before continuing my pilgrimage to Cape Reinga. Because I have started to think of it as a pilgrimage.

Cash is starting to be a bijou worryette, but thankfully I have a musical instrument and am no stranger to busking. I'll be grand! I did some busking today with Josh, Simon's flatmate, and Mark, flatmate of Chloe, who's Simon's next door neighbour and girlfrend. Here's a photo taken by a random passer-by in Queen St:

I'm the one with the hat on, the gentleman with the accordion is Mark, and the blue shirted fellow is Josh.

First lift was with a guy named Dale. Cool guy. He's actually heading to Thames (see map in previous entry) but I decided to get him to drop me in Taupo because I needed a wee and some food and a smoke and a pint. I toyed with the idea of doing a little busking too, but time marches on...

I'm going to post some photos as soon as I've managed to get The Gimp installed on this computer. This should take about five minutes...

Almost all my photos were taken through the windscreen of a moving vehicle, and as a result, almost all of them are shit. But there are a few salvageable ones.

As soon as I've done this I'm going to press onward. I want to be in Auckland by nightfall.

( Right, here we are then... )

OK, so, I'm going to take a few more photos of Taupo, and then press onward. All the best to you all! :)

Well, I was worried about the weather, but not any more. Last night it was pissing down like nobody's business, but today there are blue skies and sunshine and suchlike carry-on.

Grand!

One hour before my camera batteries are charged, then I'm off.

Toodles! :)

Got word from young Simon yesterday, saying that there may still be complications with our little scheme for me to stay with him for a week while we do some recording for this project he's got going.

So, I've decided that tomorrow I'm either going to hitch-hike to Auckland, or I'm going to hitch-hike to Cape Reinga. Either way, I'm fuckin' hitching somewhere tomorrow.

I'm kinda hoping for the latter, to be honest. I've never been further north than Auckland.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I want to go to Cape Reinga. I've hitched the full length of the South Island (about 12 years ago) but not the North.

The distance from Wellington to Cape Reinga is almost 1100km, and on the One Thumb Express would probably take two days. Here's a map: