Category: General

Cheese rules. Delicious cheese rules even more. Mercer Cheese have some seriously delicious cheese. Their extra aged gouda, for example, is absolutely devine. Many of their cheeses are award winners, to which the certificates which line their wills attest – gold medal after gold medal… Diluted only a little bit by the occasional silver or bronze medal.

The big problem with Mercer Cheese is that it is, in fact, in Mercer. Driving to Mercer just to get some cheese would be somewhat of a crazy mission, the cheese is great… But it’s Mercer, you’re practically in Huntly, which is practically in Hamilton, to which place no sane person should ever venture.

So the thing is, and here’s the rub, you need a place to go, which requires you to venture past Mercer, we chose National Park Township, and more specifically, Whakapapa ski field up Mt Ruapehu.

And I’ll tell you what, even without the cheese, it was a trip worth taking. What an awesome time, I forced my travelling companion (hot girl stayed in sunny Auckland) to rent Snowblades with me, and regret it I do not. It kicked ass.

Let me tell you – I haven’t skiied in maybe 3 or 4 years, I only snowboarded once day last season, but I did a whole day, including some challenging terrain, without a *SINGLE* bail. Not once did I fall over. Not once did I plant my face in the snow. I never slid out, never crashed into anyway, and never felt out of control at any point. Snowblades are truly fantastic, I found myself prepared to attempt terrain I never would have seriously considered on normal skiis. Next time I’m down, and after that experience it might not be too far away, I’ll be going with snowblades again, no question in my mind.

I’m amazed that more people haven’t ‘discovered’ snowblades, I heard a lot of people commenting on them when I was waiting for chair lifts, and a couple of people even stopped to chat with me on the slopes to find out more about them.

While we were down we also had a few nice drinks at Schnapps, including a truly delicious cocktail including a small bottle of Jagermeister, a can of redbull, and a splash of apple schnapps. Delicious. It’s a perfect combination of flavours, unfortunately the redbull component makes it dangerous to have as many as you might otherwise like (I like to be able to sleep when I want to, you see).

Good sleeping was to be had, as well, in the Ski Haus lodge, great fire pit in the lounge, too. and it was very nice for me, a touch of home even, to have a dog (Cinders) come over to my breakfast table and food beg (must have been able to smell the bacon, so I can’t blame her). Little cutie, lovely smile.

Anyway, I got 3 cheeses…

• Very aged gouda – once aged for several years, you see, the usually very mild gouda takes on a vastly more robust tangy flavour.
• Gouda flavoured with garlic & chives
• Gouda flavoured with cumin seed.

It’s all good.

Another thing, we (Hot & myself) went to the new Britomart transit hub yesterday, it isn’t finished, but what we could see was really pretty cool. It’s a huge space, fun rainbow lights on the walls, and awesome big skylights – including one which is in the middle of a fountain. When it’s all finished off it’ll be a very cool place.

I’ve heard that it’s the only underground train terminal in the world which is entirely service by diesel trains. This sounds like a bad idea to me, but perhaps it’s why they have such giant sized aircon towers.

We have a train station near our house (though far enough away to be inconvenient), I don’t work in the city, but Hot & I agree that having cool infrastructure might be what it took to get us on the trains.

If the trains were as cool as the new trains Virgin is putting into service in the UK, that would be a big bonus, they have cool laptop power points, quiet zones, bars, etc. Though even my laptop would last the 15 minute journey into the city without the use of a power point, so perhaps it’s a useless feature.

I don’t know if I mentioned it at the time, but a while ago I pretty much gave up softdrinks. I still have the occasional glass, for example if I’m at a party and not drinking alcamahol, but they don’t have any juice. Or if I’m at the movies and want a drink. But I certainly don’t do what I was doing, and drink a 2.25l bottle while sitting in my office.

Anyway, since then I think my body has been desperate to find new sources of sugar (in huge quantities, ie. what it was used to when I was drinking stupid amounts of vanilla coke, etc).

And I think it has found a good one thanks to little miss – lemon curd.

I remember being at camp, when I was about 11, watching kids butter their toast, then pour on a thick layer of white sugar, this is sort of like that, only lemon flavoured, and designed for spreading.

Maybe I should just go back to the L&P, Fanta, &c.

George has been a very busy boy.

Laugh your ass off. I did.

My painting stuff is coming along well, by the way, I’ve produced a few, with varying degrees of happiness at the results.

James reckons I’m better than most of the people on his course. I don’t know. I reckon I’ve moved from Intermediate school to somewhere around 5th form level, at this rate I’m going to be a nuovo padrone in no time at all.

I’m not even starting ‘Ceci n’est pas un Magritte.’ for a while, sketched it out, but ummm, I don’t want it to be completely cack-handed.

So at this stage I’m still just playing around. It’s great fun. Very therapeutic.

I’m very pleased with the names of my paintings so far:

1. Ninguno Elephants.
2. Buzzy Slug.
3. Maybe Dylan.
4. Grumbus.

Anyone who wants to see any of them can bloody well wait. I’m not sure I want to show them to people who might point and laugh, and that means all of you bastards.

People mostly suck, but I’m glad to be one.

Also, please fill out the restaurants thing.