The current state of the job market

I snapped this job ad (at least I think that's what it is) outside a shop selling Kiwiana in Queen Street. If this ad is anything to go by, I might struggle to find work when my temp job finishes. New Zealand has two official written languages, and this sure as hell ain't one of them. To add insult to injury, they put a bloody kiwi on it!

I played tennis tonight (it was club night). I found the whole experience painful and couldn't get home fast enough.

My depression has come back in the last few days. Any meaning, any certainty that we all need in our lives to stop us from going mad, has been missing from my life. At work on Friday they gave everyone who'd worked on the earthquake (including me) a free massage. Not a full body one by the way! I took up the offer but could have done with something longer and more vigorous. I should say that work has been the one thing keeping my head above water. Just.

I still go to the men's depression group once a fortnight. It's good for me (and everyone else there I'm sure). My only criticism is that Brendan tends to dominate proceedings; I emailed Andy today with a suggestion on how to stop him from taking over. In the second half of last week's session we watched a dreadful movie - that was fine by me because I was about to nod off.

I watched with disbelief on Friday night as a giant wall of water swept everything in its path, wiping whole towns off the map. Many thousands have lost their lives. It was some relief to see a scientist on TV tonight play down the risks of nuclear Armageddon. The earthquake registered a colossal nine but after the Christchurch event we can all get our heads around big earthquakes. The tsunami was mind-blowing stuff but we get warnings of tsunamis in New Zealand and know what they're about. Mention nukes though and you're entering a whole new sphere: Seriously Scary Shit.

I don't normally listen to National Radio but have done since the Christchurch quake. On the way back from tennis I heard this song (called Son Mystère and sung in French) by a band from Berlin called 17 Hippies. I presumed they were new but have actually been around since '95. Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5wMh2pVYHc

Natural disasters - will they ever end?

I'm just watching pictures of the tsunami resulting from the monster 8.9 earthquake that struck just off the north-east coast of Japan. Oh my. Japan's preparation for earthquakes is shit-hot, as are their building regulations, but when faced with a five-metre wall of water travelling at forty miles an hour, what can you do? Houses, cars, boats, a whole airport, all washed away.

I imagine the loss of life from the tsunami will have been far greater than from the earthquake itself, massive though it was. They've already had eight aftershocks at least as big as Christchurch's 6.3.

Seven and hell

My work days aren’t getting any more fulfilling; last Wednesday was a perfect example. My recollections of that day are already hazy – I’m really struggling with my short-term memory– so I’ll describe it now before it vanishes from my mind altogether. On my way to work I always listen to Radio Hauraki for some amusement ahead of another meaningless day in the office. This time I decide that if Rock the Casbah is playing when I start the engine, I’m staying at home. Dammit, it’s AC/DC. Hell’s Bells. Again. Now is it just me or has Hauraki suddenly become AC/DC FM? I get to work, sit down at my desk and realise how much I need to visit the dry cleaners. I’ve got this task which has a three-letter acronym and a 5pm deadline, but I’m clueless as to what I need to do. The previous week I produced some numbers but they were all wrong and I have to run those database queries again and I can’t even remember which database it was, let alone where on the system it was saved or what queries I ran, and I’m far too embarrassed to ask Brian again. It was bad enough the first time. A magnitude-eight earthquake has hit Samoa and a tsunami is rapidly heading our way. People are browsing Stuff or the Herald for the latest updates. The idea of being swept away by a gigantic wave suddenly seems quite appealing. Maybe I could pop out for an hour – nobody will notice – and watch proceedings from North Head. But I stay at my desk; from a New Zealand perspective the tsunami was quite an anticlimax. At around 3pm I get a sudden light bulb moment. It’s that database! Man, I’ve been racking my brains for six hours here. By the time I twig that the database output needs to go into the infamous reverse blackjack spreadsheet, it’s five o’clock. I stick around for another half-hour, because I’ll have some time to make up after seeing Andy tomorrow, but really I’m only there for show.

On Thursday Andy asked me how much, on a scale of nought to ten, I want to change jobs. I was getting pretty desperate by this stage so I scored it an eight. Friday was a better day, probably only because it was Friday. That night I had my best freeroll result yet, finishing 12th in a single draw tournament. In the end I was simply too tired to carry on, not that it mattered as the top 56 all got tickets to the next round. That’s the second time I’ve qualified in ten attempts at deuce-to-seven. My record in badugi is four out of ten.

Every time I step onto the tennis court I seem to find innovative ways to lose. Saturday was no different. In the men’s match we didn’t know what hit us. We lost the first nine games before salvaging some pride, eventually succumbing 6-0 6-3. But it was the mixed match where everything really kicked off. Down 4-6 2-4, I was playing abysmally and getting sensory overload from all the people and flying fuzzy yellow round objects. In contrast my partner was playing well and I was letting her down. Badly. I struck my head with the frame of my racket – just writing about that makes me wince. I didn’t want to hang around long on the court so I employed high-risk tactics, which to my surprise, paid off. Before long we’d reeled off four straight games to level the match, even breaking the opposing bloke’s seemingly impenetrable serve. We again found ourselves on the ropes in the third set, but again we fought back, and nudged in front for the first time at 6-5. At 30-all I retrieved a smash almost from the back fence. We won that point and surely that would be the killer blow. But no. Seven match points – seven! – came and went in that game. The ensuing tie-break, which we lost 7-3, had an air of inevitability about it. The only consolation is that, despite having so many match points, we were rarely ahead and never by much. Unlike Jana Novotna in this match at the French Open.

I spent a sizeable chunk of the weekend on my puzzles. There are so many things consider. Judging by the controversy that multiple-solution Sudoku puzzles generated in 2005, people like unique solutions. But how do I ensure my puzzles have a single solution? If I had the computer programming know-how it would be dead easy to do, but I don’t so I have to painstakingly go through all the logical steps by hand, and even then I can only be about 98% sure. Then there’s the presentation to think about. I had to change one of my font choices because the threes looked too much like eights. I’m sure that next time – if there is a next time – I’ll have all of this down to a fine art, and for all the hassle involved it sure beats being in the office.

Tomorrow night I’ll be seeing the psychologist and going to the men’s group shortly after. I think we’ve got some games of pool planned. Last time we watched the classic Kiwi film Goodbye Pork Pie from around the time I was born. Watching that movie gave me a sudden urge to buy a car from that era, probably a Datsun.