Nearly a month without a post huh? Too long. How you all been? No concept to this post, no jokes, no germany nostalgia, I’m not going to bore you about the weather, the fun of interviews, mock my long suffering girlfriend further, nope nothing but updates.

For starters I’m still alive (not to tempt fate), thanks for the inquiries on that. I’ve been trying to spend less time online the past month. Sort of a mini experiment on the ratio between internet usage and overall happiness. Now I’m working online again, I’ve come to realize that 10hrs of internet access a day is probably enough. So in the evenings sometimes I don’t even turn the laptop on when I get in from work. All without the help of 12 step programs, witch doctors, personality replacements, I’m just getting a bit bored of always being online. Instead I read. Like the smoker who replaces smoking nasty cigarettes to chewing 100 nicorette tablets instead, I’ve swapped reading on a screen to reading from paper. My average is about a book every 2/3 days now, and I’m loving my new hobby. To think I never used libraries before. All those years spent never reading. Even with my non-existant long-term memory would have accumulated at least 12 extra facts by now, which would make me 37% more interesting at dinner parties, if I could convince anyone to invite me to one. What a fool I was to neglect the written word for so long.

Anway I guess we should cover the basics:

Job - Awesome. A great company. Smallest I’ve ever worked for and it would be hard to imagine going big again. Loads of freedom and responsibility. Basically this site is mine and my collegue steffens to optimise - Thats 50% of my time, the other 50% is creating a future world beating web application called Virtual Mobile, which does exactly what it sounds like it would do. We get to pick everything from business model, branding, even the name. I get to write loads - all the site content, help files and do all the strategy stuff. It’s a really fun, challenging project and I have no idea which leper I kissed, or small boy I rescued from a well to have been given such a nice job.

Annett - Still here, starts a new job on Monday (the first proper one after a million false starts and short-term temps). She’s ill in bed, but happy enough when employed.

Life in Auckland - Boring! But perfectly pleasant. A bit like being a guest at a never ending wake for a person you didn’t know, but that aside it’s nice enough I guess. More importantly there are jobs here, and that side of things is good so I can overlook the dull city for now. You don’t come to NZ for Auckland, and in winter every city is shit, lets be honest.

Friends - We’re getting there.  It’s not easy to meet people here, especially interesting people. But we’re trying harder. Definitely work in progress, we have a social circle, but you’re not exactly so big you’re going to get out of breath running round it.

When are you leaving? - No idea, but no time soon.

What else have we been up to?

Well we did our first road trip to Taupo for Annetts birthday, I think maybe that deserves its own blog post. The film festival has been in town and its been fantastic. Not wanting to do things by halves, and excited by something I actually want to do in this city, I’ve spent $200 on tickets. I’ll see 6 movies this weekend alone, which will be 15 or so over the past two weeks.  Seen some great stuff especially

Dear Zachary - If this doesn’t break your heart, you’re already dead. Best Doc since Capturing the Friedmans

Elite Squad - When the Brazilians get is right, they really get it right. Awesome street cop movie in same league as City of God

The Counterfeiters & The Wave - Two of the very best came from those lovely germans. Both show fresh spins on a very worn out chapter of history.

I think we’re alone now - Mental illness and stalkers. Fascinating if not a little exploitative.

The song of the sparrows -  Lovely low key Iranian meldrama about the mishaps of a poor (in the financial sense) family.

And plenty more not worth writing up (including the Dark Knight which drowned under the hype for me,

SPOILERS COMING ONLY READ IF YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE ——>
and that two coins guy was just totally ridiculous. If you’re girlfriends killed and you’ve lost half your face “the only thing that makes sense” is therapy, facial re-constructive surgery, and alcoholism, not running a round finding bent cops and telling them some crap about how flipping a coin to decide if they should live or die is the only thing that makes sense. It makes absolutely no sense, just admit you’re not good with decisions.)

What else is there then? Hum, hum, erm, umm, arhhh. I guess nothing then.