February 1999

3 Feb

Black Tape for a Blue Girl CD Release party at Pandora's Box

This turned out to be a rather late night, quite unintentionally, as I left about 3:30am. The next few days turned out to be rather lacking in sleep-time.

4 Feb

Watched Pillow Book with Snow

I got to bed about 2:30 and was paged at 4:30 to deal with a problem that took 45 minutes to sort out. Needless to say, sleep was not very forthcoming after this.

5 Feb

Anime night at Grace's, folled by Lauren and Sherrod's Birthday Party at Lauren's house. I have to be at work at 7am tomorrow, but I still make an appearance and have a basically good time. I got home about 3:30am.

Sherrod, Brad and Lauren

6 Feb

At work at 7am for the conversion of our X.25 service from AT&T to TNS. This was a big day at work, with me leaving at 7pm to met my chiropractor, Jonathan, to watch (and explain) a game of rugby that was being played at Life University (the local Chiropractic school). The game was rather one-sided, with Life walking all over the team from Austin (45-8 was the final score). They were a very competent team. After the game, Jonathan and I went to a local bar for a couple of beers, before I headed back to my apartment.

Then, like the madman I am, I went off to the Vault. We left there at closing, and Lauren, Jesse, Russ and I went to Waffle House for a feed. By the time my head hit the pillow at 5:30am Sunday morning, I had managed to accumulate 10 hours sleep between since 7am Wednesday

6 Feb

Waitangi Day

With due respects to Lindsay (with whom the following emails were traded) and Russell Brown (he of the Hard News variety), here is a little bit about this day...

>>This was the day in 1840 that the English colonists "bought" sovereignty over the isles of Aotearoa with a couple of muskets, and blanket or three, and, oh yeah, the protection of the Crown.

> Funny how just about everyone's national holidays involve something like that, isn't it. Yeesh. Barbaric indeed. *snobby little sniff*

>Seriously, though... yeesh.

Speaking of barbaric, check this out. But before you do, here's some background

1. Russell Brown is a media commentator (and a technology reporter) in Auckland; he has a weekly segment on bFM (the University of Auckland student radio) in which he discusses the highs and lows of the week in politics and the media called Hard News. He is great.

2. Waitangi is a place in Northland where the treaty was signed/accepted. The first government in NZ was established across the harbour at a place called Russell. (Hey wow, there's lots of Russells in this story).

3. The Prime Minister of NZ is Jenny Shipley. She heads the National Party, who is narrowly in supremacy due to a coalition with NZ First (basically a breakaway populist party founded by a very cunning populist called WInston Peters) and ACT (a very right wing, conservative, free-market, but non-religious party). The major opposition party (Labour) is led by Helen Clark. Note that Labour, while historically left-wing, has more interest in the near-right.

4. A marae is a meeting place. Generally there is a lot of protocol involved in going to a marae for official meetings. Under less auspicious times, it is where the local maori meet and hang out. Note that it is a place of respect. The marae at Waitangi is especially so.

5. Maori have been protesting the treaty since the time they realised they were scammed. One bloke, in the 19th century, made a name for himself by repeatedly cutting down the flagpole erected at Waitangi. His name was Hone Heke.

So with that quick introduction, here's a snippet from Friday's Hard News with Russell Brown:

Shipley's skills will be sorely tested this weekend at Waitangi, where she has accepted Titewhai Harawira's kind offer to be her guide on the marae. In my opinion, Harawira's a nasty old witch who is out for nobody's agenda but her own. I certainly wouldn't be hitching the Prime Ministerial wagon to her, but it's not my call.

As it stands, both Shipley and Helen Clark are being welcomed onto the marae and it appears that both will speak. There will also be some protest action, and most of us will, as we do every year, try to get our heads around it all. I actually think the ceremony, the dissent and more general and multicultural events of a celebratory nature - like those around the country last year - can co-exist. Some people don't.

Act's Patricia Schnauer actually took the trouble to issue a press release to declare that she would be going fishing on Waitangi Day, because all this protest meant it couldn't be a day for all New Zealanders.

"Waitangi Day has unfortunately become associated with Maori protests," she whined. "Hardly something to rejoice about on a day which is supposed to focus on New Zealand's establishment as a nation."

Thanks for your contribution to the national dialogue, Patricia. She makes Pauline Hansen sound warm and giving doesn't she?

Schnauer might just want those pesky Maoris to shut up and do a poi dance, but some of us figure the protests are actually part of the establishment of New Zealand as a nation. And if there are still nation states in 100 years' time, it'll be them that are remembered and not her pathetic fishing trip.

7 Feb

Sleep...

10 Feb

A quietish night at Masquerade, yet it is closing time before I realise it. I really should stop doing this. Fortunately, I have arranged to have the next morning off.

11 Feb

Sleep in and then lunch with Lindsay at the Patti Hut, a Jamaican restaurant in the mall next to my apartment complex. What is the meal of the day? Goat stew. And it's not too bad, really; kind of like lamb.

12 Feb

Michael Rollins, Blu and I go to see Peter Schickele (also known as the man behind PDQ Bach) and the Lark Quartet at Spivey Hall. This is very entertaining, and afterwards, we go back to Michael's to to watch a Chinese action-comedy-adventure called "Mr Vampire." This was great.

13 Feb

Road Trip to New Orleans

In February of 1999, I went on a road trip with Brad, Jen, Jessie and Lauren to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Sometime soon I will fill this space with tales of drunken debauchery, but until then, you will just have to get by with a brief synopsis and photos...

On Saturday, Lauren, Jesse, Brad, Jen and I packed ourselves up and began a bit of a road trip. But first was the stocking up at Green's Package Store. From Atlanta, we headed southwest on Interstate-85. When we got to Montgomery, Alabama, we turned south on I-65. A little outside of Mobile, Al, we stopped at Waffle House for dinner. When we got to Mobile, we turned west onto I-10, which took us through the swamplands of south Mississippi and into Louisiana, and the destination of our road trip: New Orleans! Mardi Gras!

We arrived at about 10pm, but couldn't get to our hotel due to the parade that was currently making its way down Canal St. We finally parked and checked in around 11pm. A friend of Lauren's was also there (and two of her friends) and the eight of us piled into a two-bedrom hotel room - nice and cosy ;-)

After throwing our bags in the room and having a couple of drinks (we stockpiled in Atlanta) we got changed and headed into the French Quarter. Fortunately our hotel was placed strategically about five or six blocks from the edge of the quarter, and about seven or eight blocks from Rue Bourbon in particular. And was Bourbon St pumping - I think so! The place was packed. We eventually got to Decatur St and made our way past Cafe du Monde down to the Crystal, the New Orleans goth club. This was pretty good, and we threw back several more drinks.

And that was pretty much a fair description of our weekend - drinking at the hotel, going out in the evening into the Quarter and drinking more until the wee small hours. (Hmm, anyone would think I was an alcoholic...)

On Sunday Lauren and I got up earlier than the others and went for a daylit walk through the Quarter. We watched some parades on Canal and scored many beads. Bourbon St was busy at 2pm, although not as packed as the night before. We found a cafe on Rue Royale and had some breakfast (yummy cajun-spiced hash browns, scrambled eggs and orange juice). After walking around for a couple of hours we headed back towards the hotel.

This was about the time that the young women in the crowd were starting to bare their breasts for beads. Fair enough, we said (although the breasts in many cases were nothing particularly fantastic). Just after we crossed Bourbon, we headed down a side street and noticed a small crowd gathering around one of the residences. We looked up and there was a young lady in all her naked glory getting beads thrown up towards her. Needless to say most of the crowd were taking photos and videoing the moment.

We scored more beads on our way back and got back into the vodka (intermixed with shots of RUmple Mintz and Chartreuse and drinks made with Kahlua). And another evening of drunken merriment and beads scoring followed.

The following day we did some shopping and pretty much repeated the drunken aspects of the previous days. Lexie (Lauren's friend) and her friends began the drive back to New York (24 hours worth) along with a new boy they picked up along the way, so the room was reduced to more manageable numbers.

Monday night between jaunts to the Quarter, we stopped at the movies and watched "The Faculty". We pissed ourselves in laughter through the entire thing.

Fat Tuesday was a bit of a disappointment - the crowds seemed to have thinned somewhat, but the alcohol was still flowing :-)

We had some good food over the weekend - Cajun on Sunday, Greek on Monday, Italian on Tuesday, Cajun for lunch (Po' Boys) on Wednesday.

On Wednesday afternoon, we began the trek back to Atlanta. We got back at midnight, and (of course) went to Pandora's box for a couple of hours.

Road Trip Action

Doom Cookie Jen

Brad, Jesse, Lauren at the restaurant

Vlad Brad

Alcohol 101 - Drinking in the Hotel Room with Jessie

Alcohol 201 - Advanced Hotel Drinking Supplies

17 Feb

Return from New Orleans, covers night at Pandora's Box

20 Feb

Today I decided that this was the day that I would get my nipples pierced. I gave Bria a call and we headed over to Little Five Points to do the damage.

Afterwards we went to see Black Tape for a Blue Girl at Red Light Cafe. This is where I met Jenny. After the show, we met up again at the Vault.

21 Feb

Dinner Party @ Russ

23 Feb

Sushi with Jenny.

24 Feb

Pandora's Box's Second Annual Masquerade Ball, at Masquerade.