Palmerston North - After Hours

I am not a socially comfortable person. Just thought I'd get that out of the way, in case that point was missed during the last post. But a slight un-adventrue from Friday makes up the basis of this post, so let's get started.

First a little background - Thursday and Saturday nights are (seemingly officially) the student nights in town, and students are ferried off in three specially charted buses at 10, to return several hours later in such a state that they don't even know which way is up. Probably not, but as someone trying to sleep when they get back, it certainly seems that way. Plus the state they leave the hallways in afterwards speak for themselves. Remember, this is at half past one in the morning.

Ever since I turned 18 (and even before then, but they were just repeat misunderstandings) I have been invited suggested to go out that night with a select group of people from my hall. I wouldn't say I was close friends with these people, but as they also live in Colombo Hall I see them most of the time and say hi.

A constant refusal is always the response from me, mainly because (and I covered this last time, too) I don't drink alcohol. Actually, let me rephrase that. I haven't drunk any alchol since the time last year when I fell out of a tree when I thought I was drunk from having four drops of alcohol the night before. Actually, have I told that story? Maybe I'll save that for later.

More to the point, I have never braved the streets of this inland city past 7 o'clock. So it was slightly unnerving when I missed the bus back from work on Friday night. At that time, the buses back to univeristy only occur once every hour, so unless I wanted to walk the 5-kilometer trek back to campus in less-than-ideal lighting conditions courtesy of a select few streetlamps I was waiting another 60 mintues. And here is what I learnt in those 60 minutes:

• The Plaza is not open late on Fridays.
• Taking your bank card and ID out of your wallet and putting them somewhere else is a good way to fool anyone that wants to steal your wallet.
• No-one wants to steal your wallet at quarter-past 7 in Palmerston North.
• There is, however, just as much traffic as during the day.
• There are at least two Burger Kings in the city centre, the one closer to the bus terminal is less obvious.
• The further one is about 10 minutes away, versus the possible 60 seconds in the other direction.
• The Chicken Tendercrisp combo costs $9.80.
• If you have an AA Rewards cards you can get it swiped and get 10% off the purchase.
• An EFTPOS transaction for $8.80 makes you look poor.
• A Chicken Tendercrisp combo is a satisfying substitute for dinner.
• The spicy version of said burger is more tangy than spicy.
• It is possible to have extra mayo on a burger.
• People stare at you when you're looking at the window watching the reflection of the television which is actually behind you.
• I can eat a meal slowly and pad out half an hour.
• At night, anyone casually walking behind you and not passing you can feel like a stalker.
• It is not pleasant walking behind someone with a lit cigarette in the hand that you are walking behind.
• If the matter arises, I can suddenly hold my breath for around 30 seconds.
• No one would steal a wallet when there are security cameras on every corner surrounding the Square.

...among other things.

So for those people asking me to explain 'being out at night', I was only out for an hour, between 7 and 8, and the only thing I did was not get drunk beyond belief, rather eat a burger and walk for about 20 minutes.

And in other news... the elusive cable that allows me to use my laptop as a TV screen for my PS2... has been bought and works! That's actually quite astounding actually, becuase my previous track record for electronic gagetry customisation has not been a very succesful one. More of a Murphy's law type thing going on.

Oh yes, and it still applies - turns out my PS2 has some sort of problem that only allows it to play the older PS1 games and not the PS2 disks. Hmm...

No matter, Steve here says he can take a look at it. And for anyone that doesn't understand the gamer culture, having someone look at your console and try to fix it is like sending your wife into surgery for... uh... something... that... requires... surgery...?

And here's the fabled and long-promised Day 14 comic #10. Idea courtesy of something Steve said this one time in Communications class. Going to get around to putting them all in one place eventually...

Now larger in size and on loose-leaf refill!

The Final Section

Today's website spotlight goes to TED. No, not short for a teddy-bear lover's club (although there probably does exist such an organisation), TED has some of the best seminars by the world's leading researchers and speakers... and the topics vary vastly, from origami to how 'acheivements' in gaming could be applied to real life in the future. There's definitely something here for everyone, so when you have the time (and the bandwidth to match), be sure to stop on by! Click here.