Hubris.co.nz

Hi, this is Kate Benton speaking. You know, like, that girl with that like, magazine and shit. You know it.

Anyway, today I am going to tell you a story about identity theft. Has that ever happened to you? Like, someone totally pretends that they’re you? Well tonight, it happened to me.

There’s this guy, and he’s like, crazy, and on his website he wrote:
“Oh yeh get rid of “Teen” orientated magazines too – Cleo, Cosmopoliton, TV Hits, Pulp, Girlfriend – They are all Criminal publications and MUST be banned – The magazines creators and journalists as well as the retailers MUST be destroyed in a massive firey purge while those caught in possession of such should be subjected to a beating, Criminal Record, jail time not exceeding 2 years and/or an unlimited fine and loss of civil and human rights for life. Such magazines shalt be chucked into a bonfire ala the infamous “Burning of the Books” – we need to get rid of “disruptive” influences of an american controlled media amongst our young people. ”

Now, if you’ve been paying close attention, or have ever looked at a masthead (and I don’t mean in pirate sense, arr) you might have gathered that actually, my name appears as editor on one of those fine publications, and if you have any kind of sense at all you’d realise that hey, Jo (as in like, Jo Hubris, as in your lord and master since you’re obviously a Hubrette to have gained this level of readingship) also writes for that magazine. So, obviously the idea of being burned in a massive purge doesn’t reaaaaaaaaally appeal. What DOES appeal, however (despite our series of misgivings and worrying about turning someone who seems postal into someone who acts postal) is prank calling people when we’ve had a glass or two. To this end, Joanna assumed my identity and made a phone call to a particular bogan in Upper Hutt.

This is how her script went. Sort of. It’s hard to pay attention when you’re dying to laugh and also have hit the wine:
“Hi, is * there please?”
Disgruntled sounding female: “I’ll just see if he’s around. *(extended name!”
Bogan: “Hello, this is * Last Name speaking”. Joanna tells me he sounded very curious and eager and confused all at the same time.
Joanna as KateB: “Hi, this is Kate Benton speaking. I edit * Magazine. One of my writers reads your website, and she told me you’d been saying you had some problems with the magazine?”
Bogan who actually talks very much like a bro:”Ï don’t have any problems with your magazine.”
JasK: “Well I was told that you’d said some things on your website like that you believed we should all be burned on a bonfire?”
Bogan: “Can I ask who told you?”
JasK: “It was one of my writers called Joanna McLeod”
Bogan: “Oh, she’s a friend of mine”- you should have seen Jo’s face at this point, I can’t believe she didn’t collapse laughing and give the whole game up. She is a true professional and I am going to give her a huge pay rise. Or at least, like, pay her. And go to her wedding when she marries Butch Vig.
Bogan: “well, we know each other on the internet”.
JasK: “right, well she saw it and was concerned”.
Bogan (very hastily): “I can take the website down if you like…”
JasK: “This isn’t a legal call, I’m just always interested in people’s opinions. I mean, I’ve been in this job for less than a year, so I’m always keen for feedback”.
Bogan: “Well I think my opinions are quite different from other people’s”.
JasK:”It’s just that I don’t really think of * as being that similar to Cleo or Cosmo. I mean, it’s not like we run 50 different sex positions every week. Our fashion isn’t just about people in mini skirts. So we’re interested in getting people’s opinions”.
Bogan: “I don’t want to be in a story.”
JasK: “That’s not what I had on my mind right now. I just don’t think you’re giving * a fair go. I mean, we write a lot of things that you might be interested in. I mean, I hear that you’re quite a heavy metal fan, we ran a story on Velvet Revolver last issue”.
Bogan: “I don’t really read magazines”.
JasK: “well I’m not really here to telemarket, I just thought that you had some things to say about the magazine, so I was interested to hear your opinions”.
Bogan: “I don’t want to be quoted”.
JasK: “That’s fair enough, I just thought if you had a problem you should talk to someone involved with the magazine. Thank you for your time.”
Bogan: “Okay, bye”.

We nearly died. Totally. Oh the hilarity. I haven’t laughed so hard over a prank call since Joanna told me just now that in Japan she and her friend used to call up random numbers and ask in their very limited language if the callees liked to eat shrimp. Genius.

So, my drinks last Friday after work started before 5pm. They gave me a bottle of red wine and a pair of toe socks with monkeys on them with speech bubbles saying “ask me if I care” and a Whitcholls voucher which I have now lost. The giant card said “we took a poll and 90% of us are going to miss you” which made me figuratively piss my panties. Dusty said he was unaware of any controversy before he bought it, which makes it even funnier. No one from upstairs that I didn’t like was present, so it was great. We ran out of booze and by that stage the prez was drunk so he was happy to authorise the accountant to put someone in a taxi to go and get more. Hurray! I had great chats to many people and I’m going to miss some of them quite a lot. How cool were those presents – and more importantly, how appropriate to me were they? SO GOOD. Around midnight though I realised that we’d left work and were now at someone’s house nearby and I thought it might be a wise idea if I went home. I don’t know why I had leaves in my handbag the next day though. Plus I didn’t get to have sex in my office before I left – but I still have the key….

Saturday I slept through – when I wasn’t puking in my wastepaper basket, that is.

Sunday I had brunch with Karen at the Brooklyn Bakery, and started writing my Butch Vig story, as well as watching a large chunk of Buffy 7.

Monday was my first proper day of unemployment, but I spent it finishing my Butch Vig piece (stupid working harder than I worked at work when I’m not working), and drooling over the box of Angel 5 that arrived, and crying at the last bits of Buffy 7. I also told a woman who rang me to ask if it was okay to check my references, and I told her that actually, I didn’t think I’d be a good fit for her organisation.

Today a package arrived from Ezibuy that for the first time is going to put Mary-Kate on equal footing with Ashley. She’s fucking stoked, let me tell you. And then I got a phone call from the woman I had my second interview with last Wednesday, and she offered me the position, and I accepted, and well, I’m quite excited really. Plus, 10k salary jump. Woo!

Apparently according to a certain forum’s certain-wind-me-up member, I have no right to be personally offended by alleged homophobia. Riiiight. Heather said yesterday (before that last post actually) “when you posted yesterday I had visions of you storming around the office with snakes waving around your scalp and laserbeams coming out your eyes. Actually, it wasn’t an unpleasant image.”

I am actually Medusa. Didn’t you realise? Oh no that’s right, you didn’t, and now you are stone. Ha ha, sucks to be you. I guess you’re not interviewing one of the most influential producers/now musicians of the late 20th century this afternoon – but if you do have any questions for me to pass along, please feel free to pop them on. Should I give you a clue who it is? Nevermind.

Hehehe. Fuck I’m hilarity. Yes, personified.

This past weekend was very cultured – there was Swan Lake by the Russian Imperial Ballet company, which was very grand and great, except that it had a happy ending (I know, right? Also: oh dear, did I really just say “I know, right?” ? I am totally turning into Lindsay Lohan. All hail the boobs), and then a surprise party for an ex workmate, who was apparently surprised although I got there late. A very scary woman who had been drunkenly grabbing everyone’s asses asked me out to the ballet and I declined. When she was like “ARE YOU TURNING ME DOWN?” I had to try to politely wrangle my way out of it.

On Saturday I did nothing much at all, which was great. Oh, I made corn & zuchini fritters based on a pikelet recipe and they were great. On Sunday morning Momma dyed my hair for me. I wanted the new bright bright red that Napro Live has, but in deference to the swag of job interviews that I have this week (well, two) and in anticipation of some more (although I hope not) I went with a dark brown which is actually a little more maroony than I first thought. Then we went to see Pegasus Moon which is a collaboration between the dance and the drama students at Toi Whakaarei that Brad was in. Since Toi is housed in the old show buildings, their theatre is a huge empty space, so when we first went in, it was so black apart from the lights on the bleachers that I had no idea about the depth of its space. I thought “this is just like in the House!” for a while, and then I stopped and contemplated how both Heather and EM raved at length about the book, and I loved it though it freaked me out too much, and then how both Karen and Brad were like “meh” when they read it. Nevermind. The dancers were all very attractive people, and I found myself doing a lot of oggling – just like at the ballet. I think I should get myself neutered.

Then last night Brad came around for dinner and the-week-before-last’s O.C and a recap of what i’d read on the televisionwithoutpity.com’s recap of last week’s episode which I’d neglected to tape, and then we watched Mean Girls with the commentary subtitled turned on. We made a tentative date for next week to watch another episode (since i’ll miss this week’s cos I’ll be at my GOODBYE DRINKS), and also Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Exciting! I can’t talk about Lindsay Lohan without expressing my appreciation of her boobs. It was choice.

And in an end of the day update: Joanna Vig has quite a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Lovely man. So quotable.

Don’t think I don’t see you all logging in every day waiting for me to come up with some new content, cos I do.

New content is hard to come by sometimes when your brain feels like slush because you’re so very very bored, and also somewhat stressed out about everything.

I have someone’s panties in my handbag but they’re not mine.

Quick, help me with a story I’m already supposed to have finished (sorry!) – top 20 moments in NZ music between now and last NZ Music Month? I need four more.

I dreamt this morning that I and a friend of mine had been making out – well, more sort of illicitly stroking each other almost platonically, and she’d been like “Well, should we make something out of this then?” and there was some sort of really annoying girl scout leader making us play stupid games when all I wanted to do was make out with my friend some more. I said that yes, maybe it was something, and she ran up and down the street telling everyone she was now a lesbian. Some woman made a homophobic comment, so Arnold Schwartzeneger leapt off a video box and shot her with a freeze ray, so Jean Claude Van Damme leapt off another video box and shot Arnie, and then Russell Crowe entered the fray. Then my alarm went off and for a minute after I woke up I was still all “yay, I wonder if I get to see my girlfriend today?” and then i felt weird.

Nevermind. Ignore that. Think about the two little kids at the bus stop this morning with their mothers (the kids must have been about two) who spotted each other. The little boy approached the girl, but because he was wearing his mother’s backpack, it was too heavy and it pulled him over onto his ass. When his mother tried taking it off him he cried, so she gave him a smaller side bag to hold. The girl grabbed her mother’s side bag and showed it off all proudly, because now she was just like him! Then they sat down together and she fed him Japanese crackers that he made a yucky face at. Aww true love! Why can’t it stay that easy when you’re older?

Stupid lack of having crushes on anyone except for the vaguest glimmer in one direction that’s a big no no no. Still it made me chuckle when I realised it existed.

Speaking of young boys, I emailed the guy that I threw up on last time I was in Auckland to see if he wanted to platonically hang out this weekend. I don’t even know if he has that email address anymore, but nevermind. I’m sure he’s not one to hold a grudge. It still made me feel really bad though. Nevermind.

Other things? Hmm yesterday I took a mental health day, but of course, Mental Health Days aren’t quite so healthy when Mum is home (I know right, how dare she be at home in her own house?) Back at work today there are SO MANY CHILDREN running around. Stupid <A HREF=”http://www.hubris.co.nz/entry.php?id=501090047&type=6″>loud</A> children who talked all the way through Julia Deans’s set before The Shins. The Shins were cool, but it was so goddam hot. Am I getting too old for big gigs? Surely not.

Auckland tomorrow! My day looks a little something like this
9.30am: Arrive, get picked up by Gemma, go for breakfast
11ish: Pop in and see KateB if she’s free
12.30pm: Haircut with Hayley
1.30pm: Lunch with a client
2.30pmish: check into hotel, meet Iva to go swimming at said hotel.
6pm: Meet Heather for dinner (mmmm food on sticks)
8pm: Meet Kateb for <I>Bugs Bunny on Broadway</I> and some kinda afterparty
Late: Maybe meet up with Heather and Paul after their gig?

Saturday:
……… hopefully something with Kyla and or Chelsea
5pm: The Zoo for Goodshirt and KateH
9pm: Out on The Town via a quick change at the hotel for KateM’s going away

Sunday:
10am: check out
10.30am brunch with Heather in Grey Lynn
12pm: KateH’s bbq

Is that enough detail for you to stalk me?
3pm: fly back to Welly

Dear Bra Makers of the world,

I am not ashamed of my breasts. Why the hell are you? Bras in my size with “minimizer” tags indeed. Why the fuck would i want to minimise them? I want to show them off! You can assist me with this by designing bras that
a) acknowledge that just because I’m big around the back does not mean that I need a cup size larger than my head
b) are made out of smooth material because hey, I like to wear fitted clothes and I don’t want that lumpy seamy lace look
c) and while we’re at it, how about a balconette bra that’s not a 10A? I’d like to be able to wear wide necked low cut things so I’d like straps that are wide-set. I’d like to be able to see my breasts all heaving like an 18th Century countess over the top of a half cup. Don’t try to fence me in, man.
d) in bright colours rather than “flesh” tones. Call that flesh? Of what – a corpse that’s been floating in sewage for six months?

Cheers. As you may be able to tell, I went shopping today, and broke one of my New Year’s resolutions for a black skirt from Zebrano, but it’s embroidered all over in white, and it has a white skirt underneath, and it was about $200 off cos it was on sale, and the woman knocked it down from $168 to $150 for me cos I said it was more than I’d intended to spend – which is true. Then once I finally managed to find it in Petone, I bought a Victorian blouse at The Carpenter’s Daughter which was $85 down from $145. It’s white with black pin stripes, and hooks all the way down the front, and black trim across the bodice and around the neckline. It goes perfectly with the skirt and will be what I am going to wear for my hot date on Friday. It’d be perfect if I had a heaving balconette bra – my Lindasy Lohan bra is too showy around the sides. Bah. I also got a pretty chocolate coloured sleeveless top with satin inserts for $20. Hooray! I went to the Dutch Shop for some cumin gouda and chocolate hail, and the women in there said that they knew Oma when I described her as being this tall {} and owl-like. Then I went to Kmart Plaza in Porirua for the underwear search (the balconette bra I did manage to find was pale pink mesh with green embroidery that showed through my shirt and made me look ridiculously grossly veined, and it was a size too small anyways). I also bought a beach bag for the Fiji preperation, and a green bandana cos I couldn’t find a hat. Right now I’m wearing the bandana and it goes really well with the mint green bedsheet that i’m wrapped in. Add in my naughty librarian glasses and it’s quite an outfit.

Holy fuck, I just realised that this entry makes me sound like the blog I hate most out of the whole NZ blog circuit. Whoops. Nevermind.

Also, have I mentioned lately how much I hate being referred to as a blogger? I’m a MOTHERFUCKING JOURNALIST. Oh yeah. Fuck that blogging shit.

Cheers.

PS: speaking of journalism, the new Pulp should be in stores now and you should go and buy yourselves a couple of copies. I have a big feature on Velvet Revolver and a profile of The Polyphonic Spree in there.

PPS: my profile didn’t mention what a grumpy man Tim DeLaughter was on the phone.

PPPS: Anyone seen Q with the “Best of 2004″ cd yet? Cos I crave it bad.

PPPPS: please update your profiles with your website addresses if you have them. Also, please like, become a Hubrette if you’re not already. Rock.

You could be forgiven if you think that all I ever do is eat, drink and post old things I wrote for Pulp. I do actually do other things though, really. I update my Xmas Wishlist, for starters. I’m not just all about the receiving though – hopefully five people around the country have already found packages in their letterboxes to say thank you for being the first five people to get themselves hubris-logins and give me their postal addresses.

Aside from that, well, I don’t really do much. I’ve been ridiculously teary lately, crying at coverage of the Unknown Warrior parade, crying at It’s a Wonderful Life, crying at Lost in Translation, crying at Gilmore Girls, even crying during five minutes viewing of ‘Extreme House Makeover’. Last night I blubbed cos I got mad at Sebastian and threw him out of the house cos he kept biting my toes and attacking me while I was trying to cook cow au vin (that sounds classier than ‘beef stew’ right?). I am Teh Blubberpuss right now. It’s fucking annoying cos I can’t sleep either. I’m totally due for a bleed and it’s just not arriving and I need it to give my fucking hormones a break. Bleh.

Hey, you all like dressing up in costumes that start with the letter ‘P’ and dancing to cheesy music, right? Well come to my building’s Xmas party with me on Saturday. It’ll be fun, I semi-promise! I have no one to go with, but I gots to go or the girl who makes my coffee everyday who is organising it will kick my ass. I figure we’ll come ot my office and have some drinks and get changed here and then head along and laugh ourselves silly. You know this sounds like a bit of you. Do it. Do it. Thanks.

Did I tell you about the quiz night I went to with my dad last week? I’m sure I didn’t. Oh how his workmate disliked me! It was terribly amusing. They asked us which country had the lowest smoking rates but the highest suicide rates and I declared immediately that it was Finland, but Daddy’s workmate was sure it was Sweden. I’d read articles about both countries recently and knew he was wrong, and in an attempt to further back up my point I said “dude,” (yes, I probably actually said ‘Dude’) “my ex went to record his depressing album there cos it’s so depressing”. Of course, said “ex” isn’t actually an ex as such, rather just someone that I slept with a couple of times whom I very much wish I could have got to know better but with the very small amount I know about him fancy him enough to wish that maybe he was my ex if you know what I mean, but I figured it was much quicker to just say ‘ex’. However, Mr. Grumpypants wasn’t having a bar of it, so I decided to let him have his answer as Sweden so I could just be smug when I was proved right and he wasn’t. I went on to further play up being the rebellious young person whilst sinking two jugs of beer to everyone else’s one single drink and so forth – if we’d won and been asked to select a charity to give some of the prize money to, I would have pushed for the pro Civil Unions group. My father was very amused, as was his female collegue, but the elder gentleman just looked put out. I don’t think I’ll be going again, cos their quiz is real hard.

In other news, I’m all confuzzled about when I’m going to Auckland now because I was supposed to go up from the 1st-4th of December and then again on the 16th for the Pulp Magazine Xmas party, but I just received word that the single hottest person on the face of the planet who is also a good friend of mine who I haven’t seen in a long time will be in Auck in the period in the middle, so I’m all errrg. I will still need (and WANT, may I stress) to be in Hamilton on the 4th of December, so I don’t know if maybe I should drive up to Hammy on the 3rd and then stay that week in Auck, but I think Anji was thinking of asking Mummy&Daddy if she could borrow the car for a couple of days then, so hmmmm. Plus there’s the whole matter of leaving my son behind, even though K&J did say that they could look after him, no worries. Perhaps I should stick to my original plan, but fly up on the 13th and stay til the 17th as well? I mean, I have plenty of leave. But that doesn’t give me a very large O window. Oh I am confused.

Oh look, now that I have handed in my behemouth (read: three times my usual word limit) article on my favourite band for Pulp (and I hope you’ve already gone out and bought the one with Zach Braff on the cover, cos it’s got about six things I wrote in it, and I’d really like you to, kthanx), I have some headspace to devote to my own website. Of course that doesn’t actually mean I have much to say, besides the usual rants and raves about being lonely.

I miss flatting with friends. My house is nice and all, but y’know, I just don’t get no hugs. And I really like hugs. I do get snuggles though from my very clever brave hunter who caught his first mouse yesterday and brought it inside to his food plate before I realised what was happening and threw it outside – where he proceeded to joyfully toss it up and down and around and around. How come killing things is so damn cute? And in other questions I want to know the answer to: which of you guys is it running Oh The Scandal? I’m recognising more than a few of those stories…

Last Saturday night I went to a party at Karen’s apartment. It was her flatmate’s masquerade 19th birthday, and as such, it was full of young gay boys and skinny fag hag girls who work in retail. I dressed up as a pirate – no one else did, which made me laugh. Needless to say the music was pretty
fucking hideous, but Karen and I just sat on the couch drinking bellinis and mocking so it was alright. Some of the people were lovely – I got accosted by a guy who works behind the MAC counter who told me to come in and get some decent brushes so that my eye makeup wouldn’t be so clumpy (I tried explaining that it was from the 100 yen store in Tokyo ten years ago), and also suggested I should start wearing individual false eyelashes – to which I replied that I don’t generally even comb my hair before I leave the house. Ahh well. He told me that I shook my booty much better than anyone else there – which is of course totally true.

In forty minutes or so we have work drinks to farewell Kristen. I’m anticipating not feeling very well tomorrow, as is generally the case after drinking at work. Speaking of work drinks, let me start another rant about how much I’m hating men lately. For starters, there’s all the stupid people on myspace.com who want to be my ‘friend’ without knowing anythign about me at all other than what was my favourite picture of my nipples. Then there’s the guy at Zebos last Sunday night, who looked like JeremE. Now, we were there for our work Xmas party, so it was pretty early, like 9pm or so, on a Sunday, let me remind you, so there was no real drunken-end-of-night excuse. Anyways, I went to the bar to get some more drinks and this guy started going “oh, vodka lime and soda, you have to be careful of that drink”. Now see, vls is a drink that I absolutely can’t get drunk on, so I’m like, you fucking pussy, and then he started going on about how I should try a rum, lime and soda, and so I was like “but rum comes back to get me the next day” and he was like “but it’s nice” and me being nice figured I’d just smile and nod and be friendly, so I was like “and I guess the good thing about drinking rum is that you get to pretend you’re a pirate” and he just gave me a totally blank look, so I was like right, doesn’t like pirates and there’s a cute lovely boy in the other room who I want to get back to, this guy isn’t going to get much more of my time of day. He asked how my night was going and I said we were having a work party for the magazine and he was like “oh you guys have been going for a couple of years now haven’t you?” and I was like “ummm, yeah, 73″ (although actually I think it’s 64) and he asked me what I did and I said I was the advertising manager and he was like “ooh you could make thousands of dollars” like seriously, and I was like “well it’s (such&such) media, so yes, I do literally make thousands of dollars – and that’s it” and then I couldn’t take it anymore so I left. Dick. Okay, so he was mostly harmless, but I’m just annoyed because why the fuck can’t someone decent take a shine to me for once? I have witty sparkling wit and charm to share. Y’know? Sheesh. All I’m asking for is a pash.

I’m on my way
From A U T to hamilton today
ahuh ahuh ahuh

Ahuh. Project reports were all proffesionally bound and handed in today. I am free. Life is good!

Hi Michael Shadbolt. I liked your set on Pulp last year.

Second night of the expo went much better than the first, because I was handing out name tags and was therefore able to grab people’s attention as they came in, and also because I was wearing my New Media Pants. So there. Some interesting oppotunities have arisen as a consequence, which i will get back to you on as more details surface. But for today, I’m going to Hammy to see Andeee and Amy and go to Shihad/Weta/Fur Patrol, wahoo! Suck though that Andee doesn’t have a ticket, but we might scrape a doorsale through. Hopefully. Either way though, it’ll still be fabo to see her and drink instant coffee and hope to bump into the old boys and stuff.

Tomorrow night I’m back to Auckland for Trudie’s 21st, maybe Kate Orange’s 21st and Justin’s farewell party, and then on sunday morning, I’m flying to welly for a week. I’m getting picked up at the airport and then it’s straight off to Oma’s house for lunch, wahoo. So yeah, busy busy. I guess i should go pack now, but that’s boring. All I’m taking to hammy is cheap wine and a change of clothing anyways.

Going out after the Expo was fun – hundreds of us at the London Bar. Clay was there with his tv buddies, so that was cool. Jodie was very sly, which impressed me. I had a conversation with Ben and Kyle about celebacy (I can’t even spell it) and romance as opposed to sex, and it amused me. Later at Macdonalds, Nick Jodie and I were talking about scoring tech people, and when I said I’d snogged a person from tech, Nick was very sure that I’d snogged Brad, which I haven’t, and I never ever will, because no, that’d be like ewww, snogging a brother. And we all know I’d never screw the crew (again). So that was disturbing. The fact that I only paid for one bottle of wine the entire night and yet got bollickingly drunk on drinks bought for me was not disturbing. And having six business cards when i got home was impressive, I thought.

Okay, really must go now, I guess. I like driving, but I don’t like driving in Hamilton – I always get lost. Still, needs must! xoxo “Maybe later – I’ve got creamy goodness in my mouth right now”

Thursday 28; January, 1999

gosh aren’t bus timetables fun?

See that? (<<<) THAT is South Auckland. That is where the buses that I ride end up. However, what you won’t see on that map (even if it wasn’t such bad resolution and around the wrong way) is my street, or my house. I know this, because I spent an awfully long time this afternoon (ie ten minutes) trying to figure out exactly which bus I had to take home. I mean, I remembered the number of the bus I took in, but I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and by the time I got to the map, I was a litttle bit tipsy, so it was all a bit confusing. But then I went to the bathroom, where I do all my best thinking, and figured out that my house was off the map, to the NORTH thank you very much. See, I have a complex now, because I’m the most judgemental person in the world, and I’d hate for people to think I lived in South Auckland. Or West Auckland. Or the North Shore. And too far east, just to round it all off nicely. Honestly I’m not a snob. No, reaallly I’m not.

Okay so anyways, on with the show. The landlord rang me out of bed at 9am, which pissed me off cos I couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards. Amazingly enough, I’d gone straight to sleep the night before – I’d thought I’d lie awake freaking out about every odd noise, but I guess Piha just wore me out.

Anyways, he finally came over and I pointed out the leaks and damp patches and he agreed to change the front locks – YAY. So hopefully that’ll happen soon. Layton also rang and said he’s moving in tomorrow, so I’m home alone again tonight (oh shit, you missed your collective chances, didn’t you?). Anyways, back to my story.

I took a bus into town today. How proud are you? I was pretty proud. I took it ALL the way too – down into the terminal. Fuck the bottom end of Queen Street sucks. The top end’s not all that shit hot either, but at least it’s not so sheepskinandpaua-ry. So yeah, I went to the bank (yay, my cheque finally cleared so I’m as rich as I should be) and cancelled my APs to Access Ezy – a storage unit place with a name after my own heart.

Then I bought a V and Pulp Magazine (the BEST read in town), and went and sat in Aotea Square for an hour, reading my little heart out and listening to the clatter of skateboards. It was nice there – it would have been better without the boppers though. Haven’t they got the whole of the shore to hang out on? Anyways, then I went and used the bathrooms in the Aotea Centre. Nice and clean, air conditioned, no one saying I can’t…. perfect.

Since it was by that time after 4pm, I went up to the London Bar, to meet up with assorted atmos/craccum people. I know people man! Hahahah, I’ll just revell in my moment of snobbery. Gareth, the exhalted editor of Craccum had been drinking 15% beer, and well – he was pretty slumped in his seat. The beer was FOUL too. Errrgh. So I sat back and watched enthralled as they talked about all this businessy stuff. I was so in awe, man. In Wellington, I listened intrigued to hours of hospitality talk. Up here, it’s hours of web design and advertising stuff. I love it. Very impressed with the proffesionalism of some of the people there…. and others were amusing. And two-for-one happy hour’s got to be a bonus.

I explained about the map before, so we won’t go there again. I got on the right bus eventually, after hiking up to Symonds Street. Then I got foodage from Wendys and came home. After Shortland Street (NO MACKENZIE NO!!! LET MINNIE KILL OSCAR!!!!) I rang Karen, to find out she was at Home, so I rang there and hung up so they’d have to call me back and pay for the call. I was still sorta drunk then (fuck I’m a cheap date) and I hadn’t talked to Karen in sooooooooo long that I just babbled my little head off, telling her filthy foul stories that had her in hysterics for ages. So that was cool, until she told me she wanted to hang up because I was just repeating myself. And even my own father didn’t want to talk to me. Shock horror! This is made for tv movie stuff, man. “Hyperactive Girl Cast Out By Family ” I had to spend the rest of the night on the net to make up for it. And now my back hurts cos there is no back to this chair. That’s probably something I should invest in. Or if someone wants to steal me one, that’d be cool too please.