chimichangas
chimichangas is a great word
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May 2010 Archives
chimichangas is a great word
hot soup rises
heat rises yer ? so the hot soup's upstairs. simple
frypan frypan
you have to squint but this is a frypan frypan. so good they described it twice
closing down sale
just a sad old chair
both as unreal as each other
twice as unreal and a confused kezia
loaded bike
fully loaded
jelly strawb
sweets are lollies in the land of the kiwi
sticky rice
sticky rice stuck in a cup
blue milk
blue milk doesn't sound good. it sounds bad
we sell everyting (+ SPECIAL as a test)
look at these great signs. now look at them again in more detail in order
GST is like VAT - ie a sales tax. it would be great to go in to the shop and empty all the shelves in to a basket and see if you could really buy everything for $3 plus GST.
and look, you can save the 20 cents (about 10 pence) by buying 2 of everything (excluding other price umbrellas). but if you've already bought everything once, can you buy it again ?
but his is where it gets very exciting. They are selling SPECIAL $5 items as a test. not sure whether that's $5 with or without GST. But sorry, the $5 items do not apply 3 for $10.
cake
cake made by the biggest loser in wellington. to be compared with the biggest loser in auckland's cake when he gets round to making it
triffids in auckland town
look at this plant on the streets of auckland. wouldn't surprise me if this got up and walked off.
yes we are open (closed)
open and closed. perhaps it was too cold
positively
this is a poster on the wall in a hotel i stayed at recently. i found it a bit weird as she doesn't look very happy. perhaps that's her idea of a perfect weekend. misery.
champers
(with added strawberry juice)
interislander ferry
i flew to wellington and back this week
here's the wellington interislander ferry viewed from a plane. that bank of cloud was rolling out behind it along the sea in a weird creepy fog type way. nice
Tweet - real time funkypancake updates ! (#14590524933)
Thanking @korulounges for the last hour's excellent accommodation in auckland
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Power cut turned out to be our fuse box but only discovered on the way out of the house.
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Powercut so got washed dressed and packed suitcase by torch light. Then car broke so borrowed jane's. Good start to week.
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toadstool
these little chaps were delightful
i think they were attracted out in to the open by this red car.
words on the cross
we did some before and after cards at church last week and they were dangling on the cross this week. all good stuff.
steamy
it's starting to feel really cold here. in numerical terms it's not that cold (it was around 11 degrees C in our bedroom this morning) but it feels really cold as there's no where to warm up as everyone's houses are so chilly (including ours). shame really. ho hum
the phoenix foundation
i went to see the Phoenix Foundation on Friday evening with my lovely wife jane ? do you know them ? they are excellent.
luxury street meal
here are some cigars and a bottle of whisky on a wharf
beware of dogs
good generic advice
urban vacuum cleaner
poor thing
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there's a weather bomb on the way tonight apparently. just got the emergency sever warning emails from regional emergency management
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it's cold outside. and it's even colder inside. putting on a wooly hat to eat sunday lunch. then off to friends house for warmth
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"you can wear that had TO church, but not IN church" i am told. ho hum.
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just phoned UK mortgage company to get some info and got through straight away and got info i needed. hoorah for santander (unexpectedly)
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getting ready to go see the sold out (ticket wise) @phoenixfound hoorah!
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balanced meal
2 cans of coke and some sweet corn
(by the way, have you noticed i've tried to include my shoe in more of my photos ? how do you think that's working out?)
adjective english
'intensive fun effective' is not a sentence.
but that's obviously not the point of this place which will teach you to speak in disconnected adjectives.
fantastic.
go and bother our neighbours
don't bother me. ask next door if you've got any enquires. thank - u (no idea what the little monster thing is. i wonder if it's meant to be a four legged kiwi ?
loose dogs in a van
only in new zealand could you have untethered dogs balancing on the back of an open backed van driving through an industrial estate.
my favourite mannequin's latest costume change
here she is. my little beauty from the shopping maul. and her friend the head
delivery of a big pile of leaves
so this is how it works. the council bring round a big pile of dead leaves in a skip, and then they spread them round town (especially under trees). here we see a leaf drying machine which is 'bubbling' out old leaves like a washing machine full of fairy liquid
scratch graffiti
sometimes signs can make more of a statement if you remove parts of them
strange hair
one of the great things about estate agent boards outside houses for sales is the pictures of the real estate agents. this lady has particularly good hair which i think she might have converted in to a phone. or perhaps she's holding a grab to her face ?
skin off chicken
someone obviously decided that skin off chicken was no longer needed on a sign so they painted it
the smallest dog
look at this wee chap. he's tinsy
water for dogs
my colleague simon sent me this. he said there was no water. or dogs.
cockroaches and mosquitoes
two things i really don't like. and spiders. really fast running spiders which bite (in a non dangerous way). don't like them. at all.
robo toilets
one of our new hobbies is going round 'open houses' at the weekend to look at our neighbours house and not buy them. it's great when you find a house with a robo-toilet like this one.
drains to sydney harbour
this photo is from my trip to sydney last year. it's not a long drain pipe from new zealand, although i wouldn't put it past them.
kiwi metalica fans
here are some people queuing for metallica tickets. they look the sort
priceless ($6.90)
does it have a price or not ? and it looks like you can pay with a degreaser if you haven't got $6.90
large centipede
this small large centipede was in our house. apparently they bite. yuck.
fabulous selection of "boots"
why the "inverted commas" ? perhaps their foots are so loose they aren't actually shoes ?
very cool
it's all about the label
the pigeons fight back
please do not feed the pigeons
pencils and pencils
we had an excellent meeting at church last night. it was enhanced (at least for me) by the huge amount of pens and pencils in this chap's pocket.
lunch with buzz
i've got lots of chums in this new town and that's a great thing. here's buzz, my oldest (in terms of know-age) NZ chum.
i'm not sure who my eldest friend in NZ is. i'll have to think about that one.
10% for lady
i'm nor sure if they are actually selling mothers at this shop, and if so, that the discount only applies if you bought a lady mother (rather than a man one?). this was from auckland's notorious k-road so who knows !
closed - come back soon
this shop was closed but suggests you come back soon (with three exclamation marks). don't come back too soon though else it'll still be closed. in fact, better to come back tomorrow when it's open again
fruit juice and desk cleaner
the same but different
driver's leg
here's a nice example of kiwi drivers. i spotted this bare leg on the car window sill. as we passed in the bus i noticed it was the driver's ! that's the beauty of automatic cars of course.
auckland - funny old place
there's the international comedy festival on in Auckland and it's great. we took the kids to see the Mr Boon show on Saturday which was totally excellent and featured standup by Jared Christmas (seen above on the way to his own gig this evening)
and then this evening i saw the most excellent Al Pitcher who is also an observer of the mundane and a great noticer through the media of photography. he's also a fantastic stand up comedian.
i was pleased to see a number of photos taken in auckland which have also appeared here on funkypancake so we're tuned in to the same things.
If you are in Auckland for the next few days go and catch him before he exports himself. more details here
oh, and i had morning coffee with David Farrier this morning which was also very cool.
a jolly good day (despite me being rubbish at taking people photos in the dark)
we export overseas
of course exports will be overseas - new zealand is an island !
lovely long bay
this is still my favourite beach
not only does it look great on the sandy bits but the rocky bits are quite cool too
crazy paving ?
huntley and palmer
when the kids were younger we used to go in to Reading to the museum and look at all the Huntley and Palmer biscuit tins. i don't think i'd ever actually seen any live H&P biscuits though until we came here
short showers please
a short person not having a shower
kezia's sky tower picture
kezia spotted this so took the picture to share with you. good to see noticing is running in the family
missing cake
'sgone
glove
i know what you are thinking, there's not been too many gloves on the blog of late. there are a few about, but it's mostly shoes and jandals on the streets. london has its gloves. auckland has it jandals
sleeping rough under an umbrella
it's a street ambassador under an umbrella. much more waterproof than a cardboard box
misty bridge
new zealand has some of the coolest clouds, sometimes they even lower themselves down to near ground level
and sometimes they even eat the big bridge
suggestion box and bin combo
plenty of room for improvement
the lyrics on the street
rock my amadeus
street furniture
here's a rather comfy seat used by the local street dwellers near my office.
dog exclusion zone
two things here. very long tail on the dog, and a defined 10 metre exclusion zone of any playground. is this a worldwide restriction, in which case how come we've not seen more of these signs ?
i wonder if the tail is a 10metre 'yard stick' so you can measure how far away from any playground it is ?
home made no smoking sign
quality signage
trestle trolley park.
good words. good full stop. good underlining.
a kiwi cleaner
at last, a decent kiwi street cleaning device
swag bag
a nice bit of drawing on this sign. the money bag. the broken window. all good. except the crime of course.
newspapers only
there's some mysterious numbering going on here. if you can crack the code you can have a free newspaper
newspapers excepted
somehow i think this sign would work better in venn diagram form
old people love pie and tea
nice bit of targeted advertising here. a nice clean poster so that those who have trouble seeing can clearly read what the offer is without being distracted by the background.
but i do like the idea of tempting senior citizens in by giving them a free cup of tea with their pie.
the writing on the wall
lovely purple wall with a mysterious message on it.
we can do you hair today
we can do you hair today, but do we want to ?
we can do you hair today, but will we ?
we can do you hair today, but we're not going to
we can do you hair today, so there.
morning tea
this is a poison berry muffin according to the chap serving us. i went for the altogether more healthy option of chocolate muffin and cream
autumn - the leaves and telephone fall
it's autumn on this end of the planet which means leaves fall. and so do retro telephones it seems. it's always fun to see what you see on the residential streets of auckland.
camo bin
there's a bin in this picture disguised as a fern tree. can you spot it ?
here it is !
the sneaky long necked sheepy goat thing
the sneaky long necked sheepy goat thing sneaked on to the bus and ate the spare food. i was powerless to stop it because i had a camera in my hand.
deer post
it's time fences took back control and joined in the fun (rather than preventing the fun escaping). this one has made a good effort by wearing some comedy deer antlers
jigsaw friends
we had lovely friends round for tea last night. the grown ups spent most of the evening doing this devilish jigsaw whilst the various kids entertained themselves elsewhere. lovely.
i still don't think i quite 'get' jigsaws, although i threw myself in to the challenge on this one. it's just a broken picture. surely it would have been better not to cut it in to small pieces to begin with if you wanted to see the 'finished' version ?
march against mining
trying to start a revolution in downtown auckland yesterday (i blurred the sign slightly to hide the rude word)
there were plenty of media types about with cameras. jolly good.
rainbows
i discovered this weekend that light from rainbows is polarised. depending on which way up i held my head the rainbow below would grow in intensity or disappear completely. interesting hey ?
breath easy
we all know plants and trees are good as they give us oxygen
this tree has evolved to the point where it will not only give you oxygen but also a face mask to help you breath more clearly.
birthday cakes we write on free
cake i'm not sure if i'd buy them from here. sentence in the right direction i want a. i think
kidz in space
there's quite a lot of graffiti sprayed on to pavements in auckland. it gradually gets worn away and is quite nice actually. well done.
autumn
i'm pleased to say that leaves are falling off the trees making nice brown crunchy piles which seem to stay around longer here due to the lack of rain. hoorah.
DO NOT USE (please)
nice use of shouty capitals and a bracketed please.
queen of tarts
we saw alice in wonderland at the weekend and really enjoyed it.
flying molluscs
a seagull dropped this on me whilst i was sitting on a wooden pier thing.
bollard and crossing
bollards are less prevalent in new zealand which is interesting and i wonder whether that speaks of the kiwi rule abiding nature and/or general dislike of plastic cones ?
cicada
how can something so small make such a noise ?
hot water beach
a bizarre beach where you dig your own hot water pool at low tide and then sit in the sweltering hot waters naturally coming out of the ground under the sand.
we went there at christmas and i uploaded these photos to the blog in January. but some reason i didn't actually click to publish the pictures until now. sorry about that.
shops for everyone
we stayed a night in a place called whitianga over christmas
they have shops for everyone - the kids shop is next to a ladies' fashion shop next to a blokes shop.
pretty useless photos i'm afraid !
beware of da p
there's a big problem in new zealand with 'p' addicts. which i guess is what this sign is warning us about.
dog walking allowed on the queen's birthday
apologies if there's duplication here, getting a bit confused about what went on funkypancake and which one went on the other blog. but this sign seems to suggest you can walk your dog on the beach to celebrate the queen's birthday
dog with a strange body
there's something not quite right with this dog. especially round the lower tummy area. best not to ask too many questions.
and the chap above limping to the information kiosk could do with an extra arm
glove on the beach
note the bare feet rather than the work shoes of london-based glove spotting
anti puddle pictures
i loved the shape of this little dry bit on the pavement. it looks like so many different things all at the same time. if comments worked i'd ask you to suggest a few things. but they don't i'm afraid.
nz - our home
just over seven months and all still going well.
worn out technology
i like technology which wears out. although a security pin entry keyboard which wears like this reduces the security as you can at least work out which numbers are in the pin ...
lost unicorn
there's was a sign saying "found, rabbit" at the entrance to our street the other day. i'm convinced someone had found a wild rabbit by mistake, so i was going to put up my own sign saying "found, pukeko" (those funny little chicken like things which wander wild round here.
whilst on the way to a work meeting i saw this stuck on the wall outside a cafe. much better than anything i could have thought up.
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