In other news, the sky is blue

After extensive research, I've discovered that the effects of Jack Daniels in Australia are similar to the effects of Jack Daniels in the US.

Whew... glad I got that one cleared up.

You know the interesting thing about New Zealand? It's the little differences.

I’m sitting now in an airport in Christchurch, New Zealand on my way to Brisbane, Australia. I’m in one of the coolest airport bars I’ve ever been to. I’m sitting here sipping down a Speights Dark (Speights is an excellent New Zealand brewery) next to a wall of windows overlooking the runway, a forest, and the Southern Alps (the mountain range from Lord of the Rings). The plan right now is to knock down enough Speights to be able to wipe this flight from memory, but until then I figured I’d point out some of the good and some of the not so good of traveling to New Zealand for those not fortunate enough to have made the trip.

The good

• Lamb. Lamb is everywhere here and it’s good. One of the more interesting facts of New Zealand is that there are more sheep than people here. Ok, that’s not really that interesting, but still, the lamb is awesome. I’ve had so far, a braised lamb (with a red wine sauce, lentils, and truffle oil) so good I nearly lost all self control, a lamb pizza (with feta, rosemary, and potato), and lamb chips. That’s right, I had lamb flavored potato chips. Surprisingly enough, they actually tasted lamb like, and even more surprisingly, they did not suck. I did pass, however, on the lamb sandwich from Subway. You’ve got to have standards.
  
  
• The accent. No matter how much I hear it, it still sounds cool – especially when coming from kids. Although for some reason I feel like they’re faking it.
  
  
• The coffee. It’s a little known fact that coffee down under is quite fantastic. It’s made even better by the funny names. A “flat white” for example is basically a latte (although they also sell lattes at the same place… I can’t figure this one out). A “long black” (or the less adventurous may opt for the smaller “short black”) is like a double espresso pulled over hot water so it's a little diluted and has more volume. Three long blacks paired with six pints of Speights is the perfect cure for jet lag. Side effects may include excessive pissing and the misguided belief that you can do the accent.
  
  
• The scenery. Anyone who has seen Lord of the Rings can vouch for the beauty of New Zealand, but the thing that makes it cool is that since the south island is sparsely populated, it’s more like a natural place with pockets of civilization; unlike the US which is more like a big city with pockets of nature. Then again, as a Floridian, any time I see a mountain not named “Space”, “Big Thunder”, “Splash”, or “Trashmore” it feels really foreign.
  
  

The not so good

• Waking up and football has already started. I would have put this under “the good” if the Texans didn’t just get their asses handed to them by a team nearly chased from home by fires. What the fuck?! Was this a charitable donation?! “Hey, sorry about your house. Here’s a few interceptions to get you back on your feet.” Now to get through the rest of the day, I have to stay drunk for 15 hours instead of the usual 5 or 6. Wait a sec… I gain three hours in Brisbane… carry the one and... shit… another Speights please.
  
  
• Departure tax. This isn’t exactly exclusive to New Zealand, but I don’t understand why when you land they say you can only stay for three months, but they're going to charge you $25 to leave. What the hell do you want from me? I’m getting mixed signals here. Imagine if I did this at home. “Hey guys, why don’t you come over for a barbecue? You can only stay for a couple of hours and before you leave you have to give me a bottle of whiskey.” Hmm… maybe I should put this under “good”…
  
  
• Excessive coinage. This also applies to multiple countries. I’m not a fan of the $1 and $2 coins. You end up trying to buy a $10 sandwich with nothing but change otherwise you get this big bulge in your pocket and people start getting the wrong idea about you.

Well the battery’s dying on the laptop and the Speights is running low. Time to move on. If history’s any indication, I’ll post again from the next airport.

Note: During the writing of this entry, they had some horse racing on the TV. One of the bartenders was a partial owner of a horse that nearly won (and who apparently had never even been close before). They were all going nuts. It was pretty exciting and I found myself getting excited near the end even though I really couldn’t give a shit.

They also showed a dog race which was delayed because one of the dogs took a shit on the track. Ironically, they continued to play football in San Diego after the Texans did the same thing.

It's 5:00 somewhere

I'm sitting in the airport in Auckland, New Zealand awaiting my flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, when I realized a couple of travel points. First, at major international airports, there should be small gyms/showers. I would happily pay $20 right now to just ride a stationary bike and take a shower. That would be awesome.

Second, I'd like to compliment myself for being smart enough to date someone smart enough to stick a Tide pen in my carry on. I kick ass. Although, in fairness to me, they shouldn't serve anything with tomato sauce when you're going to be sitting in the middle seat of the middle section of a 747 for 12 hours and you have to stagger elbow motions with your neighbors. Especially when it tastes like red dog food with olives.

Anyway, this got me to thinking, why does airplane food consistently taste horrible? I mean I'm not looking for filet mignon, but preferably something that doesn't instantly invoke the gag reflex. The thing is, on most of my recent international flights, it's not that the food has been bland, but that it just tastes like ass. So it's not like they're cutting costs on ingredients here. I'd prefer bland.

Paired with the fact that they don't even serve food on most flights, I don't understand why they can't just put something simple together. It feels like they're trying to hard.

I think at least, they should provide everyone with a nice bottle of tabasco sauce to allow us passengers to cover up the crap. Then again, on a 12 hour flight, that may not be such a good idea...

Roads? Where we're going, there are no roads.

So now that this thing is on, I guess it's time to lay down a few ground rules. Really, I'm just trying to kill some time as I sit at LAX waiting to board a flight to New Zealand. Anyway, here's what I got right now.

1. There will be cursing on this blog. Sometimes, you just can't make the proper point without it. Perhaps some day when the children of the readers of this blog are old enough to understand what "shit" means, I might change this rule, but for now... fuck it.
   
   
2. I will do my very best to not use this as a forum to bitch about work or things of that nature. Occasionally, it may be unavoidable, but for now, I just want to have fun with this. I like my job, but let's face it, if I didn't need the money, I probably wouldn't keep doing it for fun. But I might keep the blog. See how that works?
   
   
3. I don't like politics and I don't like politicians. Let's keep them out of here. I think they're all a bunch of cheating, lying, shit eating dick heads (see what I mean about cursing? "cheating, lying, poop eating, peepee heads" doesn't quite get it done).
   
   
4. Play along! Jump on the comments and tell me if you agree, disagree, think you're funnier than me, or want to say something completely unrelated to my post. If I do this alone, then it's like arguing with myself, and it's that much more embarrassing if I lose.
   

Hello? Is this thing on?

Just like I think I was the last person in America to get a cell phone, I think I'm the last person to start a blog. It seems like everyone from the Presidential candidates to the guys in the nearby trailer park with the kiddie pool and Natty Light have a blog. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with all this stuff to say, and no one to listen. You think I could have figured this out earlier huh?

Well, here it is!

So... uh... how's it going?