Tuesday 27 May, 2003 at 3:44PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (6)

Yo. Yesterday was a holiday here in the US (Memorial Day) and the other Weasel managed to get Friday off as well, so it was a 4-day weekend for us together! The only setback was the weather - it was crap. I actually have no idea what Memorial Day is about, so I guess I'd better look it up.. ahh ok. It's observed on the last Monday of May each year, and is a day set aside in memory of the honoured dead US military, much like ANZAC day in New Zealand (no, I did not misspell honour, that is how it's spelt in NZ ..the US spell it as honor).

The original plan IceQueen came up with a week or two ago was to go have a picnic / barbeque with a few friends somewhere, but the weather kind of shot that idea down (also we don't have a barbeque, but that's not the point ..well, it would've been ..but whatever). Next plan was to head to the Bronx Zoo as I've never been there and apparently it's pretty major - a lot bigger than the one in Central Park obviously. Again the weather killed that idea, so yesterday we went to the Coney Island Aquarium which was real groovy (not our first visit there).

I think I mentioned the Central Park polar bears a while ago, well here's a photo of it swimming underwater. Shame there isn't a person there to give you an idea of just how huge this beast is, but believe me, it's butt alone is probably bigger than both of us put together. I'm not sure why I just singled out it's butt as a point of reference ..hrmm. That white plastic thing it is playing with is actually one of those big industrial-sized trash bins. Yeah, it's that big. I wonder if polar bears get depressed ..then they'd be bipolar bears. Bwahaha. Yeah ok, just shuddup and show the picture already, right?

Groovy huh? File size is pretty big ..too bad - it's a big bear. Anyway back to the Coney Island Aquarium. The dolphins weren't there! Shock horror! Maybe they were on holiday ..their tank had heaps of stingrays flying around it instead, which were pleasing enough to watch for a while. Amazing how they glide through the water so effortlessly. A few new areas have been added since our last visit, including a big area on jellyfish of all sorts. I don't like jellyfish much. I was stung by a highly poisonous bluebottle (jellyfish) while surfing on the Coromandel (NZ) years ago, which resulted in these welts across my foot that itched severely for about a week or three, but when you tried to scratch them they would hurt like hell. The scars were there for months. Actually I have a heap of sea stories I can tell over the nearly 30 years I've been surfing. I'll stick to the subject for now though.

Our regulars were there - our cousin the sea otter who still insists on licking his balls in public (although there only seemed to be the one otter there at the time). The fur seals have multiplied. There's one big momma seal and a bunch of little ones that are really cute. Ya just wanna grab 'em by the snout and go "cuuuuuuute!". The sharks were cruising around in slow circles as they do ..actually, more like 'slinking' around ..no, 'sitfing' is what they were doing, yeah, definitely sifting. Shady buggers ..got a few shark stories in my past too. Among the many other critters were the walrus family. I have a story about a walrus I met one day too. Really.

The walrus is another farking big beast - as big as a polar bear. The ones at the aquarium didn't have the two big tusks like the one I encountered in the wild, but they're a pretty formidable beastie regardless. Shame we didn't bring the camera because when we went underground to look through the glass wall at them underwater, two of them kept coming right up to the other side of the glass from me and checking me out, like less than a foot between us. The head of these beasts alone are about the same size as my torso. Yeah, that big.

I came across one when I was going for a surf at a primo spot called Murderers (Murdering Beach officially) which is a classic point break in the middle of nowhere, a bit of a drive out of Port Chalmers. Port Chalmers itself is a small coastal town a fair drive from the city of Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. Me and a mate (it was either Dave or Ben) were climbing over the boulders to get further out on the point, and as we climbed over one particularly big boulder (about 8 feet high) and jumped down the other side of it with our surfboards, there was a loud grunting kind of burp sound - and neither of us were responsible for the noise.

About 10 feet in front of us was this massive walrus with two big tusks. It 'stood' right up on it's tail and glared at as threateningly. This was scary. If this thing decided to go for us, we were definitely toast. It towered above us and everyone froze. The standoff had begun. It felt like 5 minutes but was probably only about 30 seconds before either us or the walrus made a move or a sound. The huge walrus made another grunt and then wobbled itself away from us and across the few feet of exposed rocks and slipped into the water. What an adrenalin rush! Once we got over the initial shock, we were buzzing. We could not believe how big this walrus was. Anyway we didn't see it again and went surfing. There were a few penguins swimming around in the surf that day too, I guess maybe that's what attracted the walrus.

Ok there's one of my stories, hope you enjoyed it. Happy birthday to the Lemur last Sunday too! Lemur has a bug and isn't feeling too well, so think positive anti-sick thoughts if you've read this far and help him get better. For those who don't know, The Lemur is IceQueen's Dad. Yeah, you heard me.

living on the edge ..of niagara falls

      Thursday 22 May, 2003 at 10:29PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (0)

While searching for an unrelated image, I stumbled across a photo from Redding.com - check it out.

I could not locate a related article, only the caption with the photo which read,

An unidentified man waits for help at the brink of the Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Wednesday, March 19, 2003. The man was pulled to safety by a helicopter but his condition is unknown.

What I want to know is, how the hell did he get there in the first place? He's right on the edge of a huge drop ..one very lucky person to get out of that in one piece. Bet he was completely shitting himself ..but wow, imagine the adrenalin rush! kewl. It would almost make it worth the risk.

fleet week in nyc and terror alert level rises

      Wednesday 21 May, 2003 at 4:48PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)

It's Fleet Week in NYC this week, which is basically a celebration of the US Armed Forces, which means a whole heap of US Navy ships are in port and there's military personel all over the place. I found this out in a rather disturbing way. Let me explain.

Yesterday, in response to an increased threat of terrorism, the Bush administration raised the national terror alert level to orange, its second highest level. General threats against cities on the East Coast, including New York, have been intercepted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NYPD intelligence detectives. As a result, security in the city is now as high as it was during the war in Iraq (not that I noticed any decrease in the interim). This in addition to today being the start of Fleet Week in NYC has got the authorities in a bit of a panic it seems.

A few hours ago I heard a series of what sounded like big explosions. I immediately thought "no way" and stuck my head out the window to see if I could spot anything going on that shouldn't. The explosions stopped after a minute or two, so I switched on NY1 to see if there was anything about it on the news yet ..that's when I discovered Fleet Week had started today. The 'explosions' were a 21 gun salute by howitzer-type guns (I don't know if they were howitzers, but they were big and loud) so that mystery was solved. Certainly startled me considering the alert level had just gone up less than 24 hours previously.

As I've mentioned in the past, there are police carrying semi-automatic rifles on the streets in NYC now, along with the National Guard wearing combat boots and full camouflage gear on patrol all over Manhattan. They're armed with fully automatic machine guns and looking pretty freaking scary. According to the news they seem to have seen the greatest increase today in their presense in the subway system ..I wonder what they're not telling us. hrmm. It still feels strange to me after living in New Zealand for so long where the police dont even carry sidearms. Actually check out these pics ..those cops are looking a bit S&M don't ya think?

hmm.. best I credit the sites these photos came from while I'm at it. The Fleet Week ship photo at the start of this post is from NY1.com. Of the photos to the right, the NYPD officers at Grand Central Station in Manhattan are pulled from FoxNews.com, and the National Guard dude is taken from the Sacramento Observer. Thanks.

matrix reloaded and the grim weapel

      Monday 19 May, 2003 at 2:19PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (2)

We had a pretty good weekend. Before I get into that, I better tell you why there's a picture of a Weasel dressed as The Grim Reaper recently. On that day in particular I was feeling pretty crap, to the point where the other Weasel (IceQueen) said my eyes looked dead. We started coming up with names, and then I accidentally said The Grim Weapel instead of the Grim Reaper ..shows how messed up my mind was, I was obviously thinking of a weasel at the time (not unusual). Anyway that set us both into fits of laughter as we imagined a little weasel walking up to someone and tapping them on the kneecap and saying in a little high pitched squeal, "Hey you! Yeah, you up there! I've come to take your soul. Lean over so I can hack at you with my sharp pointy scythe." ..the whole grim reaper thang loses its effect somewhat when it's cute and fuzzy and stands only a few inches tall. We decided to ..err ..actualize our visualizations, and there you have it: The Grim Weapel. Cute huh.

Back to the weekend. It was The Weasels Big Day Out yesterday (Sunday). It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot - tshirt and cargo trou type of weather. We headed to Central Park first and took a walk around while snapping copious amounts of photos. Weasels by a tree. Weasels on a rock. Weasels in front of a bridge. Weasels in front of a bush. Weasels weaseling. You get the idea. We headed to the zoo to see our otter cousins, but one was just chilling in the sun pretty much asleep and seeming a little down about something, the other otter we couldn't see anywhere. Maybe they had an argument? The polar bears were very kewl. One decided to take a swim while we viewed it through an underwater glass wall ..those bears are huge, I would not want to meet up with one in a dark alley ..not that you'd expect to find polar bears hanging out in dark alleys, but that's beside the point. Then again, this is New York, so it's not totally outside of the realms of possibility I suppose.

A bit of a walk around 5th Ave led us to the subway and a trip to downtown - Cortland St subway station. Yup, the one at the World Trade Towers site. I still get an uncomfortable feeling around there, and I'm not alone in that either. We headed a few blocks west and had dinner at Lilli's Noodle Shop and Grill. Sounds like some little greasy Chinese take out shop right? Well it ain't. It's actually a quite beautiful restaurant with a very oriental feel to it, and I don't mean red rice paper lanterns with tassels hanging all over the place. It was more of the light-stained wood, spacious, minimalist Japanese-type of thing. You could easily imagine the place being featured in an interior design magazine. The food was great and not overpriced as you would normally expect in Manhattan, the place was spotless (even the toilets were impressive) and I strongly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Manhattan. I'd maybe give it a 9 out of 10, which is about as high as I would ever go.

Our next mission was an evening movie. Have a guess what we saw ..of course: Matrix Reloaded. I have mixed feelings about the movie. The visual special effects and fight sequences were of course insanely superb. As with the original Matrix movie, these guys again raised the bar in that aspect. What really 'annoyed' me (if you can call it that) was the unexpected ending ..now I have to wait for Matrix Revolutions to come out to see what happens. I guess they're milking it for all they can. Expect it in about 6 months apparently.

There was of course the original Matrix crew dressed up like S&M Goths as usual (not that that's a bad thing), along with a number of new characters added in. The new characters could have been developed quite well, but for reasons unknown to me, just as you were getting familiar with them, they ceased to make any more appearances. Rather strange. There were a few parts such as the drunken dancing orgy scene in Zion that, although pretty kewl, seemed to drag on a bit and didn't quite make sense. I mean, if the last bastion of humanity had just been informed it has about 48 hours before suffering a major offensive from it's enemies, you'd think a big party would be the last thing they'd want to do, but they go for it anyway. Mr Smith is as kewl as ever, and the dreadlocked ethereal twins had some very kewl effects that reminded me of Predator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) ..but after seeming pretty much indestructible, all the sudden they were toast, and far too easily. Just didn't quite add up.

I think once I've seen Matrix Revolutions, Reloaded will fit more into place and seem a lot better as a part of a whole, rather than as it is at the moment - standing alone. If you're in no desperate rush to see it, I'd probably suggest waiting until the next one comes out and then watch them back-to-back. Of course seeing it on a big screen is a must. Thank you Weasling for a really good day *kiss*. Ok that's all for now, this post is getting too long.

executive producer means glorified telemarketer?

      Friday 16 May, 2003 at 7:47PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (6)

Well.. you can disregard the last few entries. Once I completed the 'training' I very quickly realized what the job really entailed, and I'm not particularly happy ..far from it in fact. Wanna know what an Executive Producer in the television industry apparently means? A fucking telemarketer. Yup, one of the most despised and shunned species in the entire known universe. I'm a freaking CEO level telemarketer with zero base salary, purely commission. The only difference is that I'm pissing off really important people (and their secretaries) instead of random people who just make the mistake of picking up their phone when it rings.

I let myself believe from the way the position was worded and presented to me that it was something totally different, but it's not, and I left a secure job to do it. I'm really really depressed, despondent, forlorn, despairing, dejected, disconsolate, dispirited, downcast, discouraged, disheartened and any other 'dis' word you can think of (interspersed with the occasional 'f' word). Generally I feel like a fucking idiot for getting all excited and leaving the NYPD thinking I had finally found the right job for me here in NYC. Confidence level has reached an all-time low. The thought of another sales job gives me the complete shits at the moment.

IceQueen is being supportive but fuck knows why, I sure as hell don't think I deserve it after spending this long in NYC getting messed about without being able to find a stable and 'normal' job that pays more than minimum wage. At least one person has faith in me, but I think the limits must be getting stretched pretty severely. I'm sorry Weasling.

Another 3000 laid off today from NY City and State jobs, on top of the rest of the multitudes that make up the usual daily increasing unemployment rate ..if this is paradise, I'll take the bag. Quite possibly I would have been laid off in staff cuts if I had stayed with the NYPD anyway.. can't win. I really have nothing else to say. I just wanna find a hole somewhere and crawl into it with my tail tucked between my legs.

Note: the company closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy shortly after I left - so there ya go, had I stayed longer, I would have been out of a job anyway, and not been paid for the work I did do.

the engineer and the manager

      Tuesday 6 May, 2003 at 2:52PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (3)

A man is floating around in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me. Can you help me? I promised my client that I would meet him half an hour ago, but I seem be lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says, "Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees W. longitude."

"Well thanks, I should've expected an answer like that," says the balloonist sarcastically, "you must be an engineer."

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist,"everything you have told me is probably technically correct, but I have no idea how to use your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man below says, "Ahh ..so you must be a manager."

"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man below, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

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