March Fest

Well I havent blogged in over a week because I have basically been out of town- spent two days at a vineyard in Martinborough and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday over in Nelson for March Fest.

March Fest is the annual celebration of the harvest of the Nelson hops and involved a tour around several micro-breweries and the main March Fest event at Founders Park on Saturday.

First up was the excellent little Lighthouse Brewery where master brewer and all around decent bloke, Dick, cracked us up with his yarns. While his Pilsener was a tad bitter for me, his 'Dick's Dark' ale was fantastic - strong coffee and chocolate hints... mmmm. This is us standing around at the Lighthouse drinking - its possibly the smallest commercial brewery in New Zealand!



Then it was on to Tasman Brewery, where I especially liked the Doppelbock and the Fern Dark, but what I really dug about Tasman is that they have set up three bars in Nelson all called the Sprig and Fern - one of which was located on the very suburban Milton St next to a dairy and fish and chip shop. They pride themselves on being a small community pub with no pokies or plasma screens - just really good beer. Check them out here - I got to thinking somewhere like Island Bay would be perfect.... hmmm....

The next morning we went out to NZ Hops - which smelt stunning, before heading to the Festival proper.





While at March Fest we checked out one of my favourite breweries - the organic, vegan friendly and now kosher Founders Brewery. I knew Founders was owned by the family of an old acquaintance, Matt, from university, but what I didnt know was that he is now brewing there and is actually behind their gold medal winning Fair Maiden Ale - and he is now going out with another friend of mine who I hadnt seen for five years. So it was basically one big catch up over a selection of Long Blacks (their very dark lager), Tall Blondes (gold lager) Generation Ale and their Marchfest brew - Fat Lip, which was an even darker ale. Good times!



You have to admire the purity of Founders - sixth generation brewers who have put their craft first despite the fact that they have forced themselves into having to be so inventive as there are only 4 organic types of hops in New Zealand and just as few types of malt.

Next day it was a tale of two breweries - the uber-flash, US owned, no expense spared (but a bit shit in terms of taste!) Golden Bear brewery - their kit is the first pic below - and later to the super relaxed, brewery in a shed with super friendly blue heelers, Townshend Brewery.





Wasn't a big fan of either on taste - but give me a Townshend any day!

After that we finished up at the Moutere Inn - who also claim to be NZ's oldest pub... which I always thought was the Thistle in Wellington - but oh well, they have better beer so I'll go with Moutere!



So all in all it was a great weekend of beer drinking organised by SOBA, the Society of Beer Advocates, who are trying to encourage people to be more discerning with their beer - you wouldnt drink cask wine, so why drink crap like Tui??

Sing when you're winning

Yesterday I spent the day down in Christchurch for work and last night I went out with my South Island colleagues for dinner and... karaoke. It's fair to say I'm quite the karaoke fan lol.

While I was initially outraged at the lack of Midnight Oil's Beds are Burning and ACDC's You Shook Me All Night Long I still pulled out a few stunners.

I kicked off with my hardcore Axel Rose impression with Sweet Child O Mine and followed that up with Oasis' Supersonic, Pearl Jam's Better Man, The Cranberries' Zombie, Radiohead's Creep, The Killers' Mr Brightside and The Knack's My Sharona.

Then it was time for the big guns - as always, I broke out a mean version of Elvis' Suspicious Minds then Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit before hitting the high notes with The Bee Gees' Night Fever.

I then closed out the evening by kicking ass with one of my colleagues with Rage Against the Machine's classic - Killing in the Name. Yeah there were a few dropped jaws when we got to the "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" part ROFL. The video below kind of replicates just how it went from my perspective. That's how we roll.

Pretty important

A clip below from Rachel Maddow's show the other night on torture that I think everyone should watch. Water-boarding is considered torture, Nazis were convicted at Nuremberg over it, and the Red Cross have confirmed that the Bush Administration were using that and other methods of torture.

Shouldn't we be angry that Bush and his minions have slunk away without having to confront this? While I'm all for moving on, torture is as serious as it gets when it comes to war crimes. Under the Geneva Convention the Red Cross have the power to judge whether torture has been carried out. So on that basis, surely now that they have confirmed torture took place at Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and other cloaked unconstitutional CIA prisons, someone actually needs to be held accountable.

If this was any African nation, Asian or eastern European country the public would demand justice and demand that those people who ordered it should stand trial for war crimes.

It is big time actually

My tickets to Steve Coogan's live show arrived today - YUS! I really hope they are selling his tie and blazer combo sets or his awesome black Castrol GTX that he wore to the funeral.

For anyone that doesn't remember Coogan - he was Alan Partridge the host of a military style quiz show on UK conquest, the host of Radio Norwich's 2am-6am slot and a failed BBC chat show host in the TV shows Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Coogan's Alan shows are totally in my top 5 and were groundbreaking for their time - he was doing awkward fly on the wall comedy way before Gervais.

There were so many classic Alan lines and I still pull some of them out every now and then - Cashback! Jurrasic Park! Kiss my face! Smell my cheese you mother! Wings - they're only the band the Beatles could have been.

Anyway, here is some classic Alan - when he realises his new best friend, kitchen designer Dan and his wife are 'sex people' (dont worry its safe for work).

Reprazent

So we're having a work team-building planning day/bollocks whatsit next week and we've been given a list of things they want us to do in advance.

We have to come up with three factoids about ourselves - one of which has to be untrue and people have to work out which is made up - hilarity ensues. I'm thinking of throwing in either pedo, general sex offender or amateur abortionist - you know, just to liven it up a bit.

We also have to take the album that we think best represents us. Naturally, I'm taking this far too seriously - working through all the options and thinking about the ramifications of any choice. Do you go for one of the top 5? or a classic album? Wacky? Offensive? Inappropriate?? Political? It's a tightrope!

The top 5 is currently (alphabetically by artist) - The White album, Nevermind, Definitely Maybe and OK Computer (the fifth spot is currently vacant). But like Voltron, the four permanent members of the top 5 can't really work alone - that could be perceived as picking 'a' favourite album... who knows what could happen if that were to occur??

But going classic is risky - is it something like The Doors self titled album? ACDC's Back in Black? REM? Or should I go 'worthy' with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On or Sgt Peppers? Maybe all cool and alternative with some Sufjan Stevens, Sonic Youth or Flaming Lips? Mysterious and moody with some Ryan Adams or Johnny Cash - the man comes around? Zany with Tenacious D? Just plain odd with John and Yoko's Two Virgins? Would people get the irony if I took some Phil Collins or NWA??

Argh who knows?? I have a week or so to work it out. Ideas appreciated.

Viral from that other company

Top of the Pops

My 175,132 steps for last week was enough to get me in the top 10 for the entire business - all 8000 staff!

I was worried there for a bit, the Taupo Ironman was on the weekend, as was the Auckland Round-the-Bays run, but in fact it actually got me to seventh place and if I had done it the week before I would have been fourth.

The blister the size of a 50c piece on the ball of my foot has probably put paid to a repeat effort this week but oh well.

Are you fun my wife?

Classic Harry Enfield scene

Queen Charlotte

Well I'm annoyed to say it, but I have the blisters to prove I walked 24kms of the Queen Charlotte track. In doing so, i racked up 41,000 steps for the day and a grand total of 175,000 for the week - another team record which should put me in the top 10 for the country based on the previous weeks (fingers crossed). Goes without saying that the beer at the Portage afterwards was out of this world.

So anyway, for your viewing pleasure - sights of the Sounds (love a good pun)

Elephants and Sundaes

I got my monthly update from Exodus gym today - all seems to be going well so far. It was just the month of February, so only covers my first two weeks but still made for hilarious reading.

It tells you how much you have lifted in total - 24,000kgs (obviously not at once) but they also translate that into an everyday object so apparently I have lifted the equivalent of 6.7 african elephants. I've also burned the equivalent calories of 10 chocolate ice cream sundaes... good to know I guess?

It is quite a cool system though. You have a pin/ID code that you log in at each machine, and it then tells you how many reps/sets you're supposed to do, at what weight and it also has your range of motion logged so you can't cheat and only do half a rep. You then get these updates emailed to you and the information is fed into the system for you and your trainer to check on.

So anyway thats enough of a plug for the gym.

Steps is still going well - Monday was 24,000, Tuesday 26,000 and Wednesday 24,000. Thursday is a bit down since I didnt get to do my lunchtime walk over Mt Vic and around Oriental Bay - but I should still make 20,000 all going well.

This week's total will get another boost too as I am now heading down to Marlborough Sounds... again, for a day trip with 3 other guys to walk a 23km section of Queen Charlotte track on Sunday. We're planning on starting at Camp Bay and walking to the Portage (to finish with a beer obviously).

Exciting huh?

Glory Days

Some people may be surprised to learn that before my current life I was a checkout chick at New World in Levin and tonight I got a chance to reminisce.

Thorndon New World have introduced self-checkout... uh checkouts and I love them. I've had some hate on for the Thorndon checkout staff for sometime - FFS No I dont want detergent packed with food!

It was like old times - the other shoppers were no doubt in awe of the master class of scanning that I was displaying.

In other news, (I know you're thinking about it) in week 2 of the 10,000 steps challenge I completed a total of 132,809 steps - yus! Number one for our team (Corporate Punishment) and most improved also with an increase of 25,000 steps. Our team is still kicking the asses of our arch rivals (the lawyers).