Sunday Stuff.

Hungover from the party the night before (I remember saying at some point "Man, I haven't been really pissed in ages!  I'm going to relaly try to get super-drunk tonight!".  Idiot.), I wasn't in the mood for smoking cigarettes, that's for damn sure.

Logan, Stephanie and I drove hither and thither because the day was lovely.  We spent time at Bunnings and the Warehouse, FYI.  We lunched at Island Bay with fish'n'chips, which is where and when I took this snap:

In the evening Steph and I were getting packed to drive to Wanganui and I couldn't find my cigarettes.  But I thought "Sod it."  I wasn't going to buy more.  This would mean that I was going to have a day without cigarettes and I liked the idea of that.  And this was the first day in a long time that I had not smoked a cigarette.  Stay tuned.  This is truly riveting stuff.

Ps.  Yes, second entry today.  I'm trying to catch up.  Tomorrow I will bring you Moonday and Chooseday.

Boots

Saturday was my first day of my holidays.

I went tramping-boot-shopping with Logan and I bought these tramping boots:

I won't say how much they were because I don't want to make my bank account cry.  Rest assured I will be trying to use them as much as possible this summer.

Here they are again, this time on my feet:

As soon as I got them I wanted to try them out so me and Logan went out and walked the Eastern Walkway which is at the south end of the Mirimar Peninsula.  You get awesome views like this and this.

After that I picked up my girlfriend Stephanie from the bus station and we went to John's party.  Here is a picture of John (taken by Claire Tane and used completely without permission) from that night:

This night was the last time I smoked a cigarette.

That's it, damnit.

I'm a teacher.  That's not what this is all about but it is something you need to know.  Background information.

This last Friday (December the 7th?) was my last day of teaching for the year.  I don't really "party" that hard when I'm in a school term because I find teaching so full on that I really need both days of the weekend to just chill out before another five-day onslaught.  However, I am now at the end of my first year of teaching and I have six weeks to chill out.  Basically, I want to really make the absolute most of those six weeks.  That's why I've decided to blog about the six weeks. So that I can remember what I actually did.  If I have to write about every day then I'll want to make every day interesting enough to write about.  That's my way of making my holidays fun.  But here's the twist: I'm also giving up smoking.

I'm giving up smoking.

I'm not sure if this has much meaning to many people but for me it's quite a big deal.  So what I'm really trying to do with this blog is to try and do interesting things every single day of my holiday SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO SMOKE.  Because smoking makes me do nothing.  Smoking cigarettes is stupid and pointless and I've decided that I no longer WANT to smoke cigarettes and that I no longer NEED to smoke cigarettes.  So here goes.

I don't know if I will be able to do this.  The only reason I've even been able to type this is because I haven't had a cigarette in 3 days and that's the longest i've been without a cigarette in years.  I'm still pretty nervous about the whole thing.

So anyway, this blog for the next 5 weeks will be devoted to all the things that are not smoking cigarettes.  It'll be everything that I have been doing and how healthy AND FIT I am feeling.  That's another thread that will be all through this blog as the summer progresses. My fitness.  In fact, I'm going to make a list:

- giving up smoking cigarettes
- partying a lot (without smoking cigarettes)
- getting a tan!
- Stephanie moving in.  (my girlfriend is moving in and I'll probably mention it)
- keeping fit  (and talking about my new tramping boots)
- the amazing places I am visiting
- walks that I am doing.
- any op-shopping that I manage to get done.
- maybe a little on any music stuff that I'm doing that I think is awesome.
- my facial hair (probably.  cos it's pretty awesome and experimental)

It's wednesday morning now.  But I have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to recap.  I will do this in the morning.  Right now, It's time for bed.   Sorry about the text-based entry.  It'll start getting more pictury from tomorrow.

xo Anthony

PS.  To you who are reading this, you are probably one of a very small amount of people who are reading this so any encouraging comments are very welcome.  Don't be shy!  Just a quick "you can do it"  would be enough.  Though there are points for originality.

Moving into my new room.

My nonsense gets printed for the first time.

A complete misunderstanding led to my nonsense-writing taking up a two-page spread at the start of last week's Canta magazine. And with this strange turn of events, the Weasel dances on to the printed page for the first time. Unfortunately I don't have a scanner so I can't scan the pages and post them up, but fortunately the Canta folk also put my nonsense up on their website. Here's the link to it.

http://canta.co.nz/letters/192/

Go in peace now.

Phone message

After 8 years or dormancy, it was time to get the old phone message back out of retirement. Couldn't find the original so I had to recreate it from memory. I think this was roughly it.

Phone message by user5836174

A rant about one of my favourite album covers.

Figure 8 was the first Elliott Smith album I ever listened to and I fell in love with it immediately. It's still my favourite of his albums and I've always thought that the album cover was one of the best. This is the album cover:

I was always intrigued by the swirl design in the background and, after a bit of internetting, I found out that the wall Elliott is standing in front of still exists and is located at 4334 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

Recently I was in the US and on my last day in LA I made my pilgrimage to see the wall and pay my respects.

I got there and this is what it looked like:

It's actually the wall of a independent "Audio, Video and Speaker Repair" shop called Solutions!.

I stood around for a while taking photos of the wall and me in front of it:

In the picture above you can see the McDonalds next door, the American flag and, if your eyes are good, the Hollywood sign on the hill. LA is an interesting place.

It was weird cos on my other pilgrimages to musically significant locations (see my Abbey Road post) there were loads of people hanging around and taking photos. But here at the "Elliott Smith Wall" it was just me. It was nice actually. People walking past must have wondered what the hell I was doing. Meh.

There was evidence all over the wall that a lot of people still visit the wall though. This was in the form of messages and lyrics such as these:

Anyway, so I'd been there for a while and then I was just about to make my way off when the door of the Solutions! opens and out comes a middle-aged man who asks me if I realised that the shop was open and if I'd like to come in. Surprised at this, I just kind of followed him in and admitted that I was really only there to look at the wall. He jokingly replied “What wall?”

Turns out that he, Stefan, this lovely, middle aged, Asian-American man who runs the store, is actually also the person who designed the wall! He told me that Elliott used to come in to the store to get things fixed. One day Elliott had come in and sheepishly asked Stefan if he could take a photo in front of the wall the cover of his new album. He also said that he remembers the day that Elliott’s music video for the song ‘Son of Sam’ was filmed – some of it being filmed outside the

store. In the music video, Elliott follows a red balloon that eventually leads him to a strange door - the door being the one in the wall of Solutions!. Stefan told me that the whole inside of the room behind the door had to be cleared out of the way so that the door could open. The doorway is never actually used regularly as behind it is a wall full of Stefan’s record collection. He said he clearly remembers the huge cooler of beer that the crew and Elliott had just outside to drink in between shooting.

I asked as humbly as I could if I could get a photo of Stefan in the shop but he politely declined saying that he wasn’t famous so doesn’t want a photo. Stefan took me around his shop and showed me what he did. He fixes Audio and video gear and speakers.

We talked about the wall itself and the graffiti that always covers up the design on the wall which he happily refered to as art. He said that he thinks it inevitable as people will always think that their art is better than the design so will put their “art” over the top. After having it repainted once/twice(?), he has decided that what he is going to do is cover the whole wall with a new design entirely made up of circuit boards. He said he would still incorporate the original design of the big “S” pattern. He chuckled as he thought of how Elliott called the album Figure 8 but actually the pattern is a big “S” for the start of the name of the shop (Solutions!). He laughed and said that Elliott must have been drunk. I could tell from the way Stefan talked about Elliott that he was quite fond of him. How could you not be, right? Elliott Smith! Sheesh!

So that was that.

So anyway, while I was in the U.S. I bought a copy of Figure 8 on vinyl...

...which I've been listening to as I've been writing this post. <3