On Sodcasting, or Why I Sometimes Want to Kill People

At least this guy probably knows by now 
that he's a dick.

Warning: grumpy old lady rant follows...

There aren't many things that make me furiously angry. If you know which your/you're to use, don't beat on animals, little kids or your significant other and refrain from being openly racist or xenophobic, I'm pretty much a harmless kitten. 

Today I decided to add another trigger to the kitty-with-claws list. Protect your puny adolescent balls, kids, if you're a fucking sodcaster.

Sodcasting (apparently derived from some amalgam of "podcasting" and "sod you") is the act of playing music through the speaker on a mobile phone in public, usually on public transport, and seems to have exploded in popularity on Christchurch buses over the past six months.

Basically it involves douchebag kids sauntering onto the bus, holding their phones and blasting unrecognisably tinny crap-rap at all and sundry for the duration of their journey. Requests to turn the volume down are usually ignored.

Research seems to agree that it's a territorial thing - pretty much the asshat teen's version of spraying the couch, peeing on a lamp-post or roaring and beating your chest. It's saying "this area is for me and others like me - anyone who doesn't like it doesn't belong." Others suggest that kids who engage in it lack empathy or social awareness.

Either way, they make my cellphone-smashing, selfish-idiot-punching finger itch. (Stop imagining what a one-finger punch would look like. It isn't pretty.)

So, since polite requests to cease and desist haven't proved effective, and physical assault is legally frowned upon, what can we actually do about this?

Well! I'm glad you asked. (Pretend you did.) I do have an idea.

One thing I've never witnessed is competing sodcasts. The sodcast seems to do its job - others feel powerless, and seethe silently. Only like-minded individuals sit near the sodcaster. But why? Isn't this like us saying "yes, I acknowledge that you own this space"? Screw that.

Perhaps, unless the offending sodcaster looks particularly stabby, we should whip out our phones (which are much nicer and louder, because we have brains and jobs) and broadcast our own brand of sodcasting. Some Spice Girls, perhaps? Aqua? Placido Domingo? For those with kids, The Wiggles? 

Even better - what if we crowdsourced lyrics for a song mocking sodcasting, recorded it (very badly - it should be annoying as all hell), and made it freely available for download so everyone who's sick of sodcasting could sodcast it in protest of sodcasting when sodcasting occurs?

Tell me what you think!

I dream of... WTF?

A baby llama. Just because.

Smoking friends! If you haven't tried Champix yet, do. Oh, it hasn't made me give up smoking - I'm still puffing away guiltily ("tomorrow, tomorrow" has become a kind of mantra for me) - but it gives you the most amazing dreams!

I've given up smoking before (more than once...) and the nicotine deprivation has always given me vivid dreams. But Champix is on a whole other level. 

I'd been warned that my dreams would be both vivid and scary. Both of these things have been borne out. But it's oh, so much fun! I'm loving waking each morning and thinking "nice one, imagination, HIGH FIVE!". Even those, ah, 'special' dreams are enhanced. Ladies, you know the ones I mean.

Sadly, I've not had any midget llamas yet, as I did last time I kicked the cancer sticks. But I have had strange, labyrinthine underground apartments, a terrifying dream seizure (which just happened to coincide with an actual earthquake), and an epic mystery involving a university, a helicopter crash, the Vice Chancellor, aliens, a bunch of lecturers and current crush as my crime-solving sidekick. The key to that one turned out to be a tiny ugly black kitten who I at first mistook for a dead bird in a spiderweb and then adopted, which turned out to have magical powers.

And then there was the time I went into Glassons looking for a costume base, and couldn't try on the dress because the changing rooms had been red-stickered for earthquake damage and cordoned off. I decided to go to another Glassons instead, and encountered CC outside in a black SUV, who offered me a ride to the mall. And before we'd even left the carpark,  he decided to call me a "hoary mole" and said he didn't want to ride with me - and stormed off. I got a bus instead. 

This randomness is a kick all of its own - I'm getting to the point where I can't wait to get to sleep, and can't stand to wake up...!

Be mine, be mine, tonight...

Oops. It appears I've forgotten to post for a very, very long time. If I have any subscribers left, hi! What have I been doing? Well, I tried to write a book and that didn't happen. I tried to write a new song and that didn't happen. I tried to keep my job, and that didn't happen - and then I tried to get a new one and that didn't happen either. I tried to have meaningful interactions with a male of the species and well... you can guess.

Following an unfortunate creepy stalking incident, I also deleted my NZDating profile. It's all fun and games until someone approaches you at the pub after recognising you, and won't take "fuck off, it's a joke profile" for an answer. So to those readers who followed me only for my (if I may say so) hilarious NZDating stories - sorry. The joke had run its course.

But while we're on the subject of relationships, I have been thinking about this subject a fair bit lately. A couple of weeks ago, on a cold and stormy night, I huddled under the heatpump with a blanket and my clichéd cat to watch the movie "He's Just Not That Into You". I'd seen bits of it years before on pay TV in a hotel room somewhere, but fell asleep before the end.

Everything they say makes sense  in theory. If a guy likes you, he'll ask for your number. If he doesn't, he won't. If he doesn't call you, he doesn't like you. Blah blah blah. The upshot of it is, we should just wait around for someone to like us enough to get our numbers and call us. If the girl does either of these things instead, she's needy and doomed to die alone, with her many cats eating her face.

All well and good - but is there a country in the world where it's still normal for guys to ask girls on dates? Or is it the domain of romantic comedies alone?

Case in point: me. Thirty-one, not entirely horrible to look at, I dress ok, have an alright job, can converse on current affairs with some competency and have been known at times to be funny. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been asked on a date, and still have enough fingers left over to open a beer. As for being asked for my number... well, I'm pretty sure that count currently stands at zero.

So it stands to reason that I can make eyes at the guy I'm currently drooling over as much as I like (knowing me, it's likely I appear rather more drunk or gassy than seductive) - it just isn't going to get me anywhere. And a male friend confirmed the other day "that's just not how it works anymore."

So, no matter how much it offends my inner romantic, it seems the 'kiwi way' is here to stay. You both get drunk at a party, one of you says "go home with me", and then if you don't hate each other in the morning, do it again. After a while one of you will either update your relationship status on facebook or start sleeping with other people. And that's pretty much it.

Sigh. I'm gonna need more cats...

Cruising in the red zone

Photo originally from stuff.co.nz

On Saturday I took a cruise through the red zone.

No, I didn't have some special dispensation to drive in like 89% of the population seem to; I got on the hot, overcrowded bus, listened to the safety message tell me for the eleventy billionth time that I might die, suffered through being elbowed by some lady trying to take a picture of her family group on the bus, and experienced the old high-school phenomenon of being the very last one anyone chose to sit next to until every other seat was filled. Even the one in the middle of the back seat where you couldn't possibly see anything.

Our bus was a chatty one. As we pulled away from the curb, "aaaaaaah"ing in unison when the air conditioning came on, you could easily have mistaken us for a field trip to an Inane Babblers Anonymous meeting. 

I settled into my seat, popped my sunnies on and prepared to be astonished by the sights of the CBD red zone.

I had a great view to my right. Unfortunately, everything to my left was designated out of bounds by Bus Etiquette. This is the phenomenon experienced when you try look past the person sitting next to you, and if they're not looking in the same direction as you are, it's like there's some invisible force field of politeness that compels you to immediately turn away. Much as I tried to fight it, it's impossible. 

The image of the ghostbusters, sitting on a bus together in full kit and crying "Don't cross the sight streams!" jumped into my mind. I nearly giggled but held it in, just in case they decided to kick me off the bus (or that last woman who had to sit next to me decided standing was preferable).

Most of the things I was seeing were sanitised and unemotive. Bare tracts of earth, piles of neatly broken-down rubble, orphaned high-rises standing like the token tall kids in the playground, lonely and conspicuous. PGC was the only site that affected me. But that could have been because the safety girl startled me by blaring out through the loudspeaker that we'd be stopping there a few minutes. 

At the site of CTV, the whole bus went silent for a moment, and then broke out in hushed whispers that carried further than outright shouting would have. Everyone had a story. The site was on my right, so I couldn't not look at it (the Bus Etiquette rule - the lady next to me was staring to her right, so I couldn't look anywhere else!). I think she thought I was tearing up. In fact, the sun was just burning through my sunnies. Any contemplation I might have done of the carnage and lives lost on that small square of land was made impossible by the ridiculousness of the situation.

In Victoria Square, half of the long-abandoned lanterns had disintegrated, their delicate red shells no more than confetti on the breeze. That simple sight brought home to me the passage of time since it all went wrong, better than a thousand empty sections could have done.

As we pulled back in at Cranmer Square, I realised at last that it's too late. Any grieving I once longed for has missed its chance to happen - like allowing a fallen child back on its horse only after the horse has died, and a crude wooden toy has been carved in its place. My passion for this broken city, like the broken city itself, has been swept unfeelingly aside by bureaucracy and risk management - like so much demolition dust.

Christmas? Again?

Bah humbug!

It's Christmas. Well, nearly. Ballantynes, the bridge of remembrance and the tacky wreath on my neighbour's door say it is. I think that means it's time to drag out my own, even tackier wreath, and throw up that prickly monstrosity in the corner that Shadow so loves to tip over every chance she gets. I'll wait 'til December this time, though. I learned my lesson last time!

It could be worse, I suppose; it could be New Years, and we all know how much I love those! Oh wait. That comes straight after. Dammnit!

Truth is, I love the build-up more than the event. I have one friend in particular who has her shopping pretty much done by September, hums Christmas carols at work, and does a "Christmas dance" at random moments of the day. I may laugh, but secretly I wish I had that Christmas spirit.

I, however, am that moron with the frazzled hair wandering around the malls on the 24th, my fists bunched, suffering a grand-mal attack of Mall Rage, whilst fruitlessly poking through piles of junk before giving up and buying everyone a bottle of wine off the top shelf at Pak 'N Save. Even the kids.

I wish I was good at Christmas, but I'm just not. I swear I should get special consideration for that. Know me before you judge me!

I do, however, love all the BBQs and getting drunk in the middle of the day. That I am good at. It seems my Christmas spirit comes mixed with tonic with a nice wedge of lime. 

Please, people, if you like me at all, leave comments with great gift ideas!

The Ending

The Dux

Yesterday, I was browsing in Borders with some friends of mine when we came upon a book full of photos of Christchurch. Not so unusual lately, I know, but this one was a little different - these photos were of Christchurch before. 

I've seen a lot of photos portraying devastation and woe over the past year. I've sought them out, almost hungered for them. Recently I saw an album of empty spaces where buildings used to be. And I still can't stop looking at amateur videos on YouTube from 'that day'. They bring me back to when it all happened. But it doesn't hurt, not really. Along my street, all I see is demolition. I walk to my gate and there is the Grand Chancellor, leaning, being slowly eaten from the other side. The thunk-and-tinkle of buildings coming down are sounds that have replaced the basslines and laughter of my central city neighbourhood. And that's all fine. I don't cry about it anymore.

These photos, though, of Christchurch unbroken - they hurt. They brought back souvlakis eaten in the square, drinks at Liquidity, the funny lamps and laughter of Fat Eddies, Poplar Lane, breakfasts at The Bog, bagels and coffee and impulse buying of cheap jewellery on Sunday mornings. I remember markets and Sunday pints of lager and lime at The Dux. I remember my birthday, so shortly before, and Cafe Valentino and over-exposed photos in the courtyard; wedges smothered in sour cream. 

All of these memories came flooding back, thinking about that photo book. I didn't know it then, but February was an ending. I thought I was writing my history anew. I remember saying, at my party, "I just know that this year is going to be the best of my life." We were all so full of hope, happy to be alive, glad for what we had, thankful for what we hadn't lost. I felt, that night, that my life was beginning a new phase. And I was right, but in the wrong way.

Thinking this, last night, I had also just finished a book series I loved, a TV show that kept me company through the dark days, and a faint hope for something I hadn't even articulated to myself. All was endings. And I am not good at those. 

But as the song says, "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." The pages of my life's future are still blank. Anything can be written there now - a new home, a new challenge - perhaps, in time, a new someone to write those pages by my side. And so I won't give up hope just yet. 

Goodbye, DTZ

Because I promised, I give you the photo series chronicling the demolition of the DTZ building. This is where I fled to buy cigarettes at dawn on the 4th of September (what a stupid day to have picked for giving up smoking!). And, of course, where I bought all my milk, eggs and bread. I do hope the lovely blonde lady I used to chat to who worked there is alright.

The view is from the Bridge of Remembrance - I've also taken the same series from the path along the river, so if anyone wishes to see those too, let me know in the comments. 

15th of July, 2011. The flag waves proudly.

20th of July, 2011

24th of July, 2011

25th of July, 2011. Nearly twisted my ankle a bunch of times in the snow.

28th of July, 2011

29th of July, 2011

31st of July, 2011

2nd of August, 2011

3rd of August, 2011

4th of August, 2011

6th of August, 2011. The flag looks sad now.

9th of August, 2011. Only scraps remain.