4 posts tagged “new zealand”
On every website I look at for Olympics news, there is invariably a medals table. And, except in one instance, the medals table looks how I expect it to look: in order of gold medals. So China is first. But this is the way that I have always seen the medals table represented!
The one exception is the NBC website (although I don't look at any other USA websites), which lists the medals in order of total won. Which, as of this writing, has the USA at the top. Back in the day, this would have annoyed me incredibly, and probably instigated a rant about US-centrism and blah blah to tedium. Now, it just makes me smile. Aw, America. You need to be first, don't you? It's been hard going the past few years, looking down the barrel of decreasing influence in the world, and obvious contempt for the fucking around in the Middle East. You need that little boost. I kind of want to give the US a hug now.
In other news, New Zealand is having a fucking awesome Olympics. Go Kiwi!
Last night ET the New Zealand cricket team won the deciding match of the Chappell-Hadlee trophy against Australia. Yes, yes Australia were resting a lot of players; I'm not going to go on about how we won. Just that it was such a fucking exciting game to watch.
Mr. gaspode and I had dinner reservations at 8.45 in SoHo, which enabled us to head down to Eight Mile Creek early and catch the last 20 overs of the Australia innings, despairing at the fact that they set a record for a one-day innings at Eden Park, and then head to L'ecole for 5 courses of French cooking and paired wines. We finished dinner and came back to the bar to watch the end of what we thought would be a blowout, another typical loss for the Black Caps. When we walked in, the score was around 130ish for 3 in the 23rd-ish over (lots of wine, can't really remember). Which actually is not too bad, but was way behind the required run rate. But then we had the fun of watch Ross Taylor compile his second one-day century, ably supported by Peter Fulton and then replaced by a fiery Craig McMillan, throwing his bat around like Eden Park was a backyard, only without the 6-and-out rule. The bar was slightly biased in favour of NZ, and the noise when the kiwis got a boundary or when the Australians made a mistake in the field was deafening. Awesome.
It was the second biggest winning total made by a chasing team. I don't know if anyone will ever best South Africa's defeat of Australia chasing 438, but we'll see.
If only the bar offered more NZ beers than the yucky Steinlager.
The Exponents at the Dux de Lux, Christchurch New Zealand, New Years Eve 1995-6
OK, this one is memorable for the occasion, moreso than the music. The Exponents are a New Zealand band that have been around in some shape or form since 1981. Their lead singer, Jordan Luck, is always shitfaced in the shows, and so are most of the crowd. The wiki link says that going to an Exponents concert has become a rite of passage for New Zealand youth, and I agree.
So here we are, New Years Eve. It was the summer (summer! remember, for you northerners) between my 3rd and 4th year of college, and it had been a tough year, so I decided to drop out for summer. No job, no obligations, no nothing. I spent a few weeks in Christchurch, staying with my friend Sez, at her parent's place. Sez grew up in Christchurch. She worked for a few hours a day; I lay in the sun, listening to Ween and drinking. Every other day we took in some cricket. We played a lot of pool and listened to the second Oasis album (I dunno, we were in college, OK?) We drank a lot of beer.
New Year's Eve rolls around and we decide to meet up with a bunch of Sez's high school friends at the Dux. Before we left for the bar, we drank an unhealthy amount of gin so Sez was out for the count before the band even came on. I was propped up by Sez's friends, all of us yelling along to the words for hours. It was one of those epic nights where everyone you meet is your friend and every song the band sings is the best one they've ever played.
The first of these songs, I'll Say Goodbye, is a staple at NZ parties. It's from the early 80s when the band was still known as the Dance Exponents. The second and third songs are from the early 90s when I was starting college.
(terrible quality, but it's the only one I can find on youtube)
Speights is the beer of my hometown, Dunedin. I grew up thinking that beer = Speights; I didn't understand that there were many many different varieties. I'm from the south of NZ, aka the "mainland", and while we're not all sheep farmers or cow cockies, this sort of advertising definitely appeals to most people down there. Me included, I gotta admit it.
There's a whole series of these "Southern man" commercials. They've been running for nearly 20 years - this is one of the earliest.
