Kiwification

My amazingly talented and loving wife made me an iPhone cake for my birthday .. see the photos here

Turns out we stumbled across our first truly disparate cultural experience: the game of 8-ball, or pool.

We played pool with some “mates” (kiwispeak for friends) at the Taradale Club last weekend. There was some initial confusion, as we claimed “stripes” as our balls, and they claimed “unders”.

“Under-what”, I asked?

“Stripes?”, they asked?

Cliff Curtis, the man who jets home to New Zealand from LA for 24 hours, and rubs shoulders with the likes of Bruce Willis, Johnny Depp, and Anthony Hopkins, would rather sacrifice making it “big-time” in Hollywood, than live outside of his native New Zealand.

Star of River Queen, Whale Rider, Sunshine, Die Hard 4, and a dozen other Hollywood blockbusters, Clive Curtis says he doesn’t want to be “pigeon-holed” into his typical bad-guy terrorist, drug-dealer, gangster role.

NZ Herald reports that Curtis is still paying off a mortgage in his home town of Rotorua. (Now that sounds a bit silly to me.. while choosing not to become a Hollywood “mega-star”, surely you make enough money to wipe out a mortgage?)

I borrowed a friend’s lawn mower over the weekend, to finally trim our increasingly shaggy lawn, but unfortunately, after 10 minutes the engine seized and died. (due to no fault of mine, I was relieved to discover)

My friend has since purchased another lawn mower to replace the dead one, but I’ve taken this as a sign that I need to buy my own lawn mower.

Considering that I want this investment into our garden beautification to last me years to come, I’ve been doing some thinking as to whether I want a traditional petrol mower, or a (battery powered) electric one.

A groundbreaking discovery! In New Zealand, you can pick and choose your power company, as well as the rate you pay!

Yesterday I received a letter in my postbox from “Contact Energy Limited”.

The letter basically said “Hello new occupant. Contact us within 7 days or we’ll shut your power off (for safety reasons).”

Confused, I questioned my local flock of Kiwis, who enlightened me to the fact that in New Zealand, there are MULTIPLE power companies who can supply you with electricity.

You have to wonder who came up with the official slogan “Wild At Heart”, for what is reputed to be one of the world’s toughest runways to land a plane on…

Kiwis will tell you a lot about the perils and thrills of landing at the Wellington airport.

Because of its short runway, and exposure to frequent winds, landings can be bumpy, hair-raising, and “exciting”…