Wha -?

I was walking from the bus to class yesterday and this guy walked by me with a very familiar looking logo on his shirt. It looked a bit odd, though, and I didn't think anything of it until about 45 seconds later (after he'd passed me and crossed the street). He was wearing a Buffalo Sabres jersey! I was so annoyed at my delayed reaction (the same way I'll think of the perfect comeback line in the shower the next day). Maybe he'll wear it again and we'll pass each other again and I can stop and ask him about it. Yeah, right.

Claudine and Glenn

Here are some pictures of last weekend. We went to our friends' house for dinner and drinks. It was awesome. It was also awesome because they have heat -- ours won't be installed until June, and it's getting colder every morning. Thankfully Auckland only gets down to about 40 degrees F, but with no heat that's pretty freakin' cold. Claudine and Glenn's house was nice and cozy, and we ate a TON of food. Iain made cosmos -- yum.

Anniversary!

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary at our favorite all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place. We had a few Tiger beers, lots of food, then went home to watch the NBC line-up of '30 Rock' and 'The Office', thanks to Kate B and Tivo. Iain gave me a beautiful bouquet and we got a really nice card from his parents.

Why?!?

The city bus shelters are now plastered with the revolting movie poster for Adam Sandler's new movie - Zoltan or something? The posters feature a bearded Sandler doing a full split while wearing tight cut-off jean shorts. Gross.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA!

Iain takes precautions

After staining the deck and feeling crappy for about 5 days, Iain has now purchased the necessary equipment to handle toxic outdoor chemicals. I feel like I'm in a Pink Floyd video!

Tama plays with his foam ball

What the Heck America?

"What the Heck, America" is an actual show, hosted by a coked-up American guy who rambles on about politics, saying things like "I don't know what the deal is with Puerto Rico" and "They don't get to vote in Washington DC". I think he meant that DC doesn't get a primary, but who knows. Then he cut to really bad videos taken from YouTube - we weren't sure what the point of that was, but we turned it off after 15 horrendous minutes.

Dave Mihal

Here's a picture of my friend Dave, who I miss like hell.

A shoutout to Hannah!

This was on K Road in Auckland.

Melanie and Brian!

We had a fun time hanging out with these guys last week -- convos included cats versus kids, weddings, heating, Red Tettemer, roommates, parents, Philly, flight prices, Macs, working from home... and on and on. I don't think we said our goodbyes until past 1am which is ridiculously late for us. Good to see you guys!

We can all sleep tonight...

Iain finished the deck!

See riveting before and after shots!

We celebrated with dinner and drinks with our friends Claudine and Glen at our favorite Belgian place. Actually, the staining alone took almost three days and resulted in very mild poisoning because Iain forgot to wear a mask. The symptoms are similar to a hangover, which may explain why it wasn't detected earlier. Iain kept think he'd had too much beer.

Klass

It's been a rough two weeks, so no posts.

You know that scene in "Sixteen Candles" where a very young Joan Cusack plays the head-gear ridden teenager at the water fountain? It's a really random scene, but brilliantly done. She makes weird "uh huh" and "yep" sounds throughout, with musack playing behind. It's funny in the movie. Now imagine those sounds being made for THREE HOURS by the 40 year old German guy next to me.

As he tries to figure out code, he does things like snap his fingers in "ah-ha!" moments, make the gun sign with his hands, all the while making little mouth sounds of pleasure or confusion, depending on the situation.

I'm trying to find the humor in it, but of course I can't and instead sit there seething.

Yeah, I'm sure my classmates find me equally annoying since I'm always asking questions, and when the teacher asks,"So, who's code doesn't work?" I always raise my hand. But still...

I had a little chat after class with the Teenage Genius about our upcoming assignments. The teacher keeps threatening us with "the big assignment you'll only have 4 days to do" yet he provides no additional info. So I said to T.G., "Yeah, and that's on top of the design assignment we'll have. That's a lot!" He gave me a smug look then replied, "Well, not for me."

I can't wait for him to say something like that to his first boss. Let's hope that by then he's discovered deodorant.

The OTHER Deck in Iain's life

The following is verbatim:

Iain: "Well, my baby's all wrapped up for the night!"
Me: "Yeah, I'm glad to be home."
Iain: "I was talking about the deck."

For the last week, Iain's gone outside in the evening and covered the deck with a huge tarp to protect it from dew or night rain. Then in the morning, the tarp comes off so it can dry out in the sun.

To increase the amount of sunlight hitting Iain's baby, check out the pruning job.

All I have to say is, it had better be nice this weekend so Iain can get the deck stained already, or that tarp's gonna be a body bag!

Anniversary!

Our anniversary is May 27th, which is a Tuesday. Puke.

We discussed it. At length. I mean - for real - we talked about it for days. We weren't sure what to do. We checked out Cuisine.co.nz and Metro magazine's Top 50 Restaurants 2008 issue. This only added to the confusion because there are tons of amazing restaurants here, depending on what kind of celebration we wanted. We finally agreed on some key points:

1. celebrating on the actual day sucks because I have school the next day and Iain has work
2. celebrating the Saturday night before might've worked if we'd gotten on the ball sooner and made reservations in time
3. a quiet romantic meal on the weekend is nice but hanging out during the day when everyone else is at work is FUN

I have off next Monday and Tuesday, so Iain is going to take a vacation day. We're going to celebrate our anniversary a week early by taking the bus into town on Monday for drinks overlooking the harbor followed by a long, leisurely lunch in Herne Bay (a cool neighborhood next to Ponsonby - an even cooler neighborhood). I cannot wait.

We're going to a place called Andiamo (http://www.andiamo.co.nz). We had a drink at Andiamo back in 2005 when Iain brought me to New Zealand for the first time. We'd just come from dinner with our friend Toni and stopped in while walking back to our motel. I always thought it would be a neat idea to go back there - a "we've come full circle" sorta thing. I mentioned this to Iain ("Isn't that so cool? Don't you remember having a drink there??") who had no idea what I was referring to, but said, "I'll take your word for it..."

Here is a disgustingly cute picture of the cats, taken this morning.