Rules of the Road

Where have we been? Not much exciting happening at home, just routine life that's not very interesting to report on... We bought some more stuff on Trademe: a desk and a bookshelf thingy and a simple desk chair, which means that we can tidy up the spare room a little. We just need a spare bed and we're pretty much done for furnishings. Some more of the usual screwdriver work in assembling everything... Also, must add that the 3-series is crap for trying to transport anything. The boot access and rear doors are so badly shaped that anything boxy generally won't fit. Fortunately the boxy stuff was flat packed this time. Dare I say it - the old VW Polo was actually good for something...

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So, in lieu of our life story, let me introduce you to the Road Rules in New Zealand:
Rule 1: Bigger is Better.
For example:

1. A truck has priority over a car.
2. A car has priority over a pedestrian.
3. A red Mercedes A Class pulling out from a side street has priority over a cyclist approaching at full speed, down hill in the rain.

Rule 2: You're A Pedestrian, You Don't Count.
Face it, if you were important, you could afford a car, and then I might give you some respect when turning into the street that you're crossing, you filthy peasant.

Rule 3: Turning.
3.1
A car turning left must give way to a car approaching from the opposite direction turning right into the same street.
3.1.1
Yes, this is true. Everyone recognises that it's this magical unique rule in NZ, but noone can explain why.
3.2
A car turning left does not have to give way to a car approaching from the opposite direction turning right into the same street, if said car is obstructed by a car travelling in a straight line.
3.2.1 Corollary to Rules 3.1 and 3.2:
If you're turning left, you must look to your right and behind you before deciding whether you can proceed. Fortunately you don't actually have to bother looking left (see Rule 2).
3.3
A car turning right into a side street must give way to a car turning right out of that side street.
3.4
Noone obeys Rule 3.3.
3.5
The centre painted lane or the bus lane is for pushing in from.

Rule 4: Smoke.
If your car isn't smoking, you must be looking after it too well. You should buy an old Magna, or a diesel, or a diesel Magna.

Rule 5: WOF.
5.1
So you've bought a nice new car, and it's in perfect condition? Well, we'll make you get a Warrant of Fitness (WOF, basically a roadworthy check, not a swear word) every year (or, if it's over 6 years old, twice a year), to make sure it's smoking just the right amount. Or still has 4 wheels. Or something. Doesn't seem to have any effect on the quality of cars on the road...
5.2
You can get a free tailpipe emissions test to check the actual filthy output of your rustbucket.
5.2.1
Even if your car is belching enough black clouds to make your eyes water, said emissions test can't actually be used as evidence to get your car legally removed from the road.

Rule 6: Jap Imports
6.1
The odder, the better. Face it, it's cheaper to buy another than repair, so you're not going to bother ever servicing it. So access to spare parts is an irellevance (though ironically, every garage has a fleet of loaner cars on hand, because they bought them just as cheaply too).
6.2
Your oddball car should have the oddest name badge possible. Bonus points for a Toyota Corolla II Super Windy G, an Emina (sounds as fun as an enema), or any Engrish on the stickers.

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Well, that should be enough to have you driving as badly as everyone else here. Glad to hear that you've had some rain back home, hopefully our garden is kicking on.

I won't be coming over for an extra week for work, so we'll only be around for one week (and even then probably fairly busy).

pull up a chair...

Another week down already? I hope the minutiae of our daily lives isn't too boring for you all...

As we've been pretty busy for a few weeks we decided it was time for a lazy weekend at home, watching a few videos. So it was perfect timing that the DVD/HD recorder that was a package deal with the TV we bought finally turned up on Friday afternoon. Luckily Jo was home early and could come to my work and pick it up in the car (bit hard to carry it on the bike!)

Lots of wiring, searching through menus and getting everything configured, adjusting the picture quality, and finally we slotted in "Cars" and sat down for the movie. A great movie, even if watched repeatedly, I love all the little esoteric details. The only drawback was that this is a movie which really needs a good audio system, and the tinny little speakers in the TV just don't cut it like my old subwoofer used to. Uh-oh, you can see where this is leading...



On Saturday we finally bought the dining chairs we had planned to (from a Balinese/SE Asian furniture shop just around the corner from us), so of course that night we ate dinner on the couch as usual. We have used them though, promise! :D Then we sat down for "Memoirs of a Geisha", which Jo thinks was pretty good, certainly not as bad as some people had led us to believe. I haven't read the book but I realise it's pretty hard to compress a massive tome into 2 hours, still it's well produced and filmed. Tonight we've got "The World's Fastest Indian" to watch, whilst simultaneously recording some TV shows. Pretty handy.


Today I found out that I might have an extended trip to Australia, work are considering sending me over the week before we have booked to come over anyway. Probably won't be around much though, the plan is to be up in Puckapunyal for a few days. We'll keep you posted on exactly when we'll be around and free.



Well, that's about us up to speed. Here's a picture of Jo's new style as promised, pretty cute isn't she?

cheers all, please remember to drop us a line!

The all new wife

First off, apologies that there's no photos to accompany this post - Jo refuses to let me use one until it's flattering. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Jo cut a long hairstyle short. The blonde is now gone, back to natural color, and the style is pretty short and funky. Promise photos soon!

We also had some socialising this weekend. Anne is another psychologist with ADHB (though works in a completely different department to Jo), and her partner Rob is a civil (boo!) engineer. We met them at the ADHB "new international staff" night in the first or second week after moving over, and as is usual when moving far from home, we latched onto a fellow Melbournian. At least Rob is English, so there's a bit of diversity, but it's taken this long to get around to catching up with them again.

We headed out for dinner at the Viaduct area at the bottom end of the city, which is (from what we saw on a wet evening without exploring very far) quite similar to the Docklands precinct in Melbourne. There's one of the old America's Cup boats on a stand in the forecourt (one of the really bloody big ones, I think the year that the Americans turned up in an even bigger catamaran...)

Can't remember the name of the restaurant we ate at, but their specialty is the hot plate meals, where you get your meat served on a superheated stone, so you can leave it on as short or long as you wish. I chose the tuna steak which was pretty good except that by the time I'd turned it over it was already as cooked as a good piece of tuna should be, and I had to whip it off the stone and find somewhere to put it on the edge of the plate. It still went down well with a couple of pints of beer though.

Speaking of food, there's some fantastic meat here (sorry vegetarians, might want to skip this paragraph). Even the cuts in the supermarket are two inches thick! Significantly, I haven't cooked a bad pork steak yet, normally the hardest meat I find to get right. Every time I've cooked one here, it comes out as soft and juicy as ever. Brilliant.

I also bought a line trimmer on the weekend for the lawn edges that the mower doesn't get in to. Cheap as hell, electric, and far too short for extended use, it's lucky that we don't have enough lawn for that to be a serious issue. It also only came with a very short length of line, which was barely enough to go once around the lawn before it ran out. I guess that's the cost of buying the cheapest thing in the store. (as an aside, it's in the news that Bunnings will start charging 10c for plastic bags. I wonder if I can manage to convince them to honour their "better the competitor's price by 10%" policy on the basis that Foodtown's price is exactly 0 cents...? Worth trying for a laugh anyway.)

well, that's enough from me, time for bed!
cheers all,
matt.