Kicking the Hobbit

When I was eight my teacher Mr Wright gave me the Hobbit to read. I only got about half-way. I hardly recall any of the plot but I remember thinking runes were cool. The copy of the book was a fine physical specimen: at least A4 size with colourful pictures throughout.

Twenty-five years on, here I am in Hobbiton. The centre of Wellington has gone Hobbit crazy in the run-up to tomorrow's world première. On Sunday I went to the Hobbit market; the summery weather brought people out in droves. It was very well done, with bamboo poles and cloth bunting adding a certain authenticity, and great for kids.

I'm now on my last carton of soy milk: my dairy-free experiment is almost at an end. It hasn't made any difference; I'm still coughing up thick phlegm. But as I go back on the dairy, it's time to cut out something else.

I'm talking online poker. It's really started to take over again. I've been cooking meals while playing, which can't be clever. The money isn't really the problem, it's the time spent staring at a screen when I really could be doing something more constructive. I did quit once before: in the middle of last year I cashed out my bankroll, leaving behind just some tournament tickets. But I was back in no time. Before long I'd turned those tickets into cash and was grinding away again. This time I want to give up for good, or at least a very long time (I'm talking years), so all the cash, tickets and everything else must come out. I've got about US$4500 which will be useful money anyway. It will feel good to draw that line in the sand.

Last night I went to the autism group. It went reasonably well. A woman from WINZ came in to talk about plans to make it harder for people on the spectrum to claim sickness benefits. Those of us who weren't currently getting a benefit split off from the rest of the group; perhaps that made things easier as we were generally at the milder end of the spectrum. Tracy said she tried to be an extra in the Hobbit but was too tall (the first time in her life she'd been too tall for something). I'll be meeting Tracy for lunch on Thursday.

Bush walk and a sense of relief

I had quite a good weekend. On Saturday I went on a tramp: the Hemi Matenga bush walk near Waikanae. It took 3¼ hours and it was probably the most arduous trip I've been on since that infamous one in April. The wet weather certainly played its part; the trek up to the highest point was fairly gentle - unfortunately we couldn't see a thing from the lookout due to the rain - but the downward slope was steeper and I slipped a couple of times in the mud. Danielle had signed up for the trip but pulled out when she saw the weather forecast. That was a shame. She is a little unsteady on her feet when going downhill but she probably would have been OK with a pole. The bush was lush and green; the more seasoned trampers among us pointed out plants along the way, such as hen and chicken fern which develops baby ferns at the ends of its leaves.

When I got home after the tramp, I felt that pleasant feeling of accomplishment as well as that unpleasant feeling of being desperate for a pee. That evening I went round to my cousin's place to babysit while they went to see The Intouchables, but not much babysitting was necessary as the film was booked out so they came straight home.

Yesterday the depression group met up at Denny's on Willis Street. We had an interesting chat and all agreed that while public acceptance of depression has improved in recent years, people are far less accepting of social anxiety. The group also met on Wednesday for our regular catch-up on Cuba Street. Just like yesterday, six of us turned up on Wednesday including an older chap with big milky eyes who has bipolar disorder - it was good to see him for the first time in ages. They might be planning some activity along the lines of paintball, but hopefully less painful. A poker night has even been mentioned.

Royal eclipse

My stress levels are down a couple of notches from last week. I've had no work functions or quizzes to deal with. When I described the work quiz to someone, she said it sounded like Cranium on crack. I've never tried Cranium, or crack for that matter, but I know what she meant.

This morning's partial eclipse of the sun caused some excitement at work. I saw the half-obscured sun through sunglasses, and couldn't really see a lot on my computer screen for the next minute or two. In 1999 we had a total eclipse in the UK. It was at about 11am on a summer's day; people used pinhole projectors and various other contraptions to view the once-in-a-lifetime event. The most striking thing for me that day was the sudden drop in temperature.

The other major happening in Wellington today (two in one day, I know) was Charles and Camilla's visit. At lunchtime I managed to glimpse the couple from 100 metres away on the waterfront. There was some ceremony involving a haka, and two wakas were brought out: I hoped Charles might get in one.

I went to the autism group again on Monday. It went better this time, perhaps because the two new guys weren't in my group so there was less disruption.

Last night I saw Julie, as I usually do on a Tuesday. She isn't very good at the moment - she talks about ending her life - but last night she was a little perkier. I took over the film Wall-E which seemed to cheer her up a bit.

The latest government valuations in Wellington just came out. They're reviewed every three years. The GV of my flat is down $20,000 since I bought this place, presumably due to the earthquake business, though it's still $11,000 above what I paid for it. Here's an article in the Herald (that I happen to agree with) about Auckland's (unsustainably?) high house prices.

Glad to get shot of that week

It hasn't been an easy week. We had our work function on Wednesday. It was a well-organised event I must say, but for someone like me it was always going to be hard work. It always amazes me how much people get into that kind of thing. Why can't I be one of those people who can enjoy themselves? Life would be so much easier. I would much rather have stayed at home. I would even have preferred to stay on at work for an extra five hours: that kind of work would have been considerably easier than the work involved in attending an office do. What the hell is wrong with me?

We had the function to spend the prize money we'd been awarded for selling lots of stuff. We all had to dress up according to what team we were in (teams had been allocated beforehand). Luckily our team leader just bought a load of Zorro masks, hats and swords from the $2 shop, so I didn't have to think. The focal point of the evening was a quiz that took about three hours. In between rounds there were bits where you could sing and dance in front of everybody to win spot prizes and extra points for your team (which could lead to more prizes). At ten-ish the quiz was blissfully over (our team finished slap-bang in the middle so we didn't even win the booby prize) and although my colleagues would be going for hours, taking advantage of the free bar, I snuck out, knowing I wouldn't really be able to leave any other way. I'd left a bag at work so I stopped off there on the way home. One of the call centre guys was there, looking worse for wear, waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up. "I got kicked out for pissing on the balcony." That's what free booze does to people.

Wednesday night was a reminder that I will need to change jobs at some stage (next month we'll have the Christmas party - ugh). Unfortunately the job market isn't very good, and anyway just about any job which I'd need to apply for will have the same problem. On Wednesday I tried to follow the US election during work; that's not easy when I sit next to my boss. I was happy to see Obama re-elected, and Nate Silver's predictions all come to fruition (of course Silver never said that Romney wouldn't win - he just said it was unlikely). I hope Obama is able to make a positive change in the next four years without being hamstrung by his opposition in parliament.

Today I went paintballing out near Porirua with six others from the depression group. And I got shot. A lot. In just about every place imaginable. It was inside (not what I expected); we were split into two teams and joined by expert paintballers (the expertise of the bloke with the orange balls was made obvious just by looking at my clothes). I'll be nursing those bruises for the next few days. And some people from the group want to go again!

Tomorrow we've got the autism group. On Wednesday I had lunch with Tracy. We talked about the changes to the group in 2012 and we agreed that they haven't been for the better. The increased attendance (it's roughly doubled) has brought about some more complex dynamics; one or two of the new attendees make for a tense atmosphere. In 2011 the main purpose of the group, it seemed, was to enable people on the spectrum to meet up and have a chat in an environment where they felt at ease. Now the purpose seems to be "practice" for the real world. One of the faciliators is rather patronising and talks to us like a teacher might do in a classroom of ten-year-olds. Believe it or not, we've all survived in the real world, in our own ways, some of us for over thirty years! Many of us - heaven forbid - even have jobs! OK, we all find social situations hard, to a greater or lesser extent, but at this rate the autism group will become just as hard for us.

My cold, while still lurking under the surface (it never totally goes away) but it's much better now.

When will this end? Who nose

I'm still far from 100%. It feels like someone has shoved a pencil up my left nostril. It's not as bad as the acute attacks of excruciating sinus pain I had in 2008 but it still isn't much fun.

I've got that damn work function tomorrow. I'll see if I can sneak out early but I really wish I could avoid it altogether.

Some good news - my brother has been accepted into the NZ Army and will start in ten days. He'll initially be training in Waiouru but will be stationed in Burnham I imagine.

I'm hoping tomorrow's presidential election brings Obama four more years. Regarding Romney's chances, Nate Silver came up with this astute analogy: "All of this leaves Mr. Romney drawing to an inside straight. I hope you’ll excuse the cliche, but it’s appropriate here: in poker, making an inside straight requires you to catch one of 4 cards out of 48 remaining in the deck, the chances of which are about 8 percent. Those are now about Mr. Romney’s chances of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. As any poker player knows, those 8 percent chances do come up once in a while. If it happens this year, then a lot of polling firms will have to re-examine their assumptions — and we will have to re-examine ours about how trustworthy the polls are. But the odds are that Mr. Obama will win another term."

Cold spell

My cold has pretty much written off the weekend for me. Yesterday it tipped it down and blew a gale, and I didn't want to do anything even remotely active anyway, so it was the perfect day so sit on the sofa and lose money at online poker. Today was a little more productive - I hoovered my flat, went to the market, had a large soy flat white on Cuba Street, and worked on a puzzle. And played some more online poker, fortunately winning back most of what I lost yesterday.

I need to be much more assertive the next time I see the doctor. I mean I'm getting these colds all the bloody time. In fact it never goes away. It's always there, bubbling under the surface, ready to flare up every sixth or seventh week. I don't know what's causing it. My near-perpetual cold seemed to start in February, when I moved into the flat, but I don't know if that's just coincidence. I can't see any reason why it should be making me sick, but then again I can't see why it's a serious earthquake hazard (I expect the yellow sticker will be slapped on the building some time in December).

I'm not looking forward to the coming week at work. On Wednesday there's an after-work function which I'm now committed to attending. It'll be some kind of rah-rah-rah to do with the company; all I know is that simply won't want to know.

This coming Sunday the depression group are going paintballing; I've put my name down. I wish it was on Saturday instead but hey.

The presidential election is almost upon us. The media here keep telling us the race is "too close to call" or "neck and neck". Some commentators are implying Obama is about a 55/45 favourite, when objectively it's more like 80/20 in favour of Obama. He's not a shoo-in but I don't understand why the media outlets keep telling us it's a virtual flip of a coin when so much objective data is saying something quite different. When I think about it, it's amazing that Romney has any chance at all. If the election were held in France or Germany, or even New Zealand, he wouldn't get a look-in.

Dessert island

Only four people went on yesterday's tramp in the rain - the sensible ones (Danielle included) stayed away. We didn't get too wet and it was surprisingly warm as we walked from Willis St up to the Brooklyn wind turbine. There were lots of facts of figures on a board near the turbine which I found interesting. Coming down was quick. After three hours it was nice to get home and dry off having benefited from the exercise.

Tonight I attended the autism group with sixteen others. It was good to see Tracy who has recovered from her latest bout of illness. In an email prior to the meeting we were given two topics for discussion. The first of those asked which three items we would take if we were stranded on a "dessert island". Cream, a spoon and some scales? A dessert island sounds like a lot of fun, but with my dairy ban I'd find it quite challenging at the moment. The other topic was our most memorable travelling experience. We split up into two groups and spent half the time on each subject. We struggled a bit with the desert island topic but were more at ease when talking about our travels. I could have talked for hours on that subject, having been lucky enough to have had many memorable trips as a kid, but only had time to talk about my trip to and from New Zealand with my family in 1986-87. Things got rather tense on a couple of occasions at the group. One trait of autism is a lack of empathy and there was a distinct lack of it on show tonight.

One of the two TV monitors we have at work (the one that I can actually see from my desk) was unusually tuned to Sky Sport today. This morning they showed extended highlights of Chelsea's match with Manchester United (Man U won 3-2 as it happened). I was thinking how the Premier League is really just a series of exhibition matches. You see some incredibly skilful football played by some of the best players in the world, but the games are meaningless as the teams may as well be hand-picked. In the afternoon they showed live coverage of what turned out to be the deciding game of the hilariously-named World Series. Is American baseball just like professional football, in that the clubs (or franchises) with the most money can afford the best players and therefore win? Is the physical location of these teams as meaningless as in Premier League football? I'm guessing so but I really have no idea.

Don't have a cow, man

I've taken Mum's advice and given up dairy products for a month, starting today. Mum, who can be dangerous when she gets on the internet (remember a certain Wellington-based job she found for me?), stumbled upon a web page similar to this one which gave a list of symptoms (Simpsons?) of lactose intolerance: depression (check), skin problems (check), frequent cold or flu (check), sinus pain (check) and a few others that I could tick off. Giving up milk products isn't that easy. I've always been a reasonably big cheese eater, I normally have one yoghurt a day (sometimes two at weekends), I put milk on my cereal every morning and in each of my six or seven daily hot drinks, and I have the occasional dollop of cream or ice cream. Last night at Pak 'n' Save I got a bit confused: are eggs dairy products? I rationalised that I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a cow lay an egg, so in they went. It took me a while to find the soy milk, which I've already taken a liking to. It's very likely my experiment will make no difference, but there's a small chance that it could radically change my life for the better.

I took the crack-of-dawn (6:50) flight back from Timaru yesterday, in time for work (well actually I was a bit late). Apart from having to get up so damn early, it was a totally hassle-free experience. It was good to catch up with the family again. We all got on really well. I met my brother's fiancée for the first time; she's attractive, easy-going and highly intelligent (she appears to be blessed with a near-photographic memory). She's clued up when it comes to money and earns plenty of it. She's of mixed race: her mother's side of the family is a mystery to her but I'd guess it comes from India or thereabouts.

Mum and Dad worry about my brother, just like they do for me. At the moment he's jobless: he's still waiting for the army to get back to him. Unsurprisingly he's finding his driving ban to be a major pain in the butt. He's taken to cycling everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Being the super-fit bleep-test-winning guy he is, Geraldine to Ashburton is a nice easy jaunt.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday were very pleasant days but on Monday I woke up to an unseasonal flurry of snow. I didn't go very far while I was down there, but that was hardly the point. Hanging Rock, where I took this photo, was about the extent of my travels.

On Tuesday Mum and I went to Temuka and put some flowers on my grandparents' grave. While they lived to a combined 180, so many of the surrounding gravestones marked lives cut tragically short. There were several teenagers who died in road accidents, one of whom always sticks out. He died about five years ago; there are two pictures

inset into the stone, one of his face, the other showing an extremely tasteless two-fingered salute on the end of a tattooed arm. At least the empty beer cans are gone now. In late 2009 there was a spate of suicides. It's always interesting (if sobering) to visit the cemetery with Mum, who knows the stories behind the names.

In the last week or two, both Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong have featured prominently in the news. They have a surprising amount in common. I found this excellent post about Armstrong on the Guardian website. I particularly like the bit about the so-called American dream ("you have to be asleep to believe it").

Great news: Blogger now lets me add pictures again, and it no longer puts six blank lines after each paragraph, so it's actually better than it was before. Who would have thought it? I might not have to move to WordPress after all.

Catching up

It wasn't a bad week at work. We even had a 9km run (or walk as it was for me) on Tuesday afternoon as part of a fundraising event.

Wellington is bathed in sunshine right now. That's a bummer for me as I'm about a hop on a 19-seater plane to Timaru, although a quick glance at the weather map tells me it's much the same down there. Things are forecast to turn pear-shaped tomorrow.

It'll be good to catch up with my family again, in particular my brother who I last saw in May 2011, and to meet his fiancée for the first time. I'll be down there until Wednesday when I'll be catching a very early flight.

Puzzles, poker, parachutes and paintings

Nothing of note has happened since I last posted, so you might as well click the back button now.

After work today I finished off Puzzled, a book on cryptic crosswords by the Australian cruciverbalist David Astle that Tracy had lent me. I've dabbled in cryptic crosswords a bit myself (both solving and making them) and it was a very interesting read. He can't avoid seeing anagrams in everyday life, and to a lesser extent I suffer from the same affliction. I can't go past the Medusa bar (the one I didn't dare entre last week) without feeling "strangely amused". This isn't too far from the Tetris effect I suffer from when I see poker hands in car number plates. Putting the two together, if I got stuck behind a Honda Integra (granite, tearing, ingrate, Tangier, any others I've missed?) with 7432 on its number plate (that's the best draw in deuce-to-seven) then I'd really hope my insurance hadn't lapsed.

As for online poker, the less said about that the better. Over the last month my bankroll has been going in the same direction as the bloke who jumped from the edge of space this morning, and at about the same speed.

I was hoping to give the book back to Tracy at the autism group tonight but she didn't turn up - she wasn't well last week and presumably she still isn't now. The group wasn't too bad - better than last time because the two new guys weren't quite so disruptive, but I still miss last year's sessions with the smaller group and different facilitator.

On Friday I went to a watercolour exhibition with my cousin. It was a big event - several hundred attended including various dignitaries; you could hardly move. The quality of people's work varied enormously. A lot the time I'd be thinking, that's a bit like what my dad would have done, only he'd have done a much better job of the cows.

Saturday was a bit of a write-off weather wise for most of the country (my parents got over two inches of rain) but Sunday was sunny and I went for a short drive along the coast.

Next Saturday I'm heading down south for what will be a family reunion of sorts.

The height of class

Last Wednesday I attended the fortnightly depression meet-up. Only three of us showed up - the usual suspects: Martin, Giuseppe and me. With almost a foot separating the other two in height (Martin is 6' 5", Giuseppe 5' 6") and me being slap-bang in the middle, we could have re-enacted the "class" sketch by the Two Ronnies and John Cleese. Giuseppe had started taking weed as a stress-reliever. I only tried it a handful of times in 2001 when I lived in France. I must admit that I quite liked it. Some of the people I lived with were heavily into it though, not to mention stronger stuff that I wouldn't have touched with a barge pole.

The weather at the weekend was almost balmy, but blowing US$300 in two hours of online poker put a damper on things for me. On Sunday afternoon we had another depression meet-up, this time at the Southern Cross.

On Tuesday I'd planned to play a freeroll poker tournament at the Big Kumara in town. I turned up there, as did two older blokes, only to find it had closed its doors for good at the weekend. I then remembered Medusa had a tournament starting at the same time, but that place looked so dark and dingy that I didn't dare go in.

After work tomorrow I'm going to an art exhibition with my cousin.

Looking back...

October 1987. What a month. Although I was only 7½ at the time I remember it well. The Great Storm of '87 (famously unforecast by Michael Fish) ripped through Southern England, giving us a day off school. Our garden flooded; we had a canoe which my brother and I used to get about. My grandmother had flown from New Zealand to stay with us - she got sick and had to delay her flight home. She flew back to NZ on what must have been 19th November, the day after the King's Cross fire that killed 31 people; using the underground that day must have been a nightmare. October also saw a worldwide stock market crash that badly affected New Zealand where people had borrowed to invest in companies that had borrowed heavily themselves.

Twenty-five years on, nothing remotely as dramatic is happening. Work is still much the same. I still get pulled up for this, that or the other, and it doesn't make me feel any better about myself. Two weeks ago they started piping music through the loudspeakers; it's just a "classic hits" radio station that plays pop music from the eighties onwards. I wonder what happened in the mid-to-late nineties that caused virtually all mainstream pop music after that time to be complete and utter crap. They ran a bizarre raffle at work today. Tickets were $10 each (a bit steep for my liking) and there was just one monster prize up for grabs, which included a paid day of leave. I didn't quite see the logic of offering a prize with a salary-dependent cash value.

Last night I attended the autism group (along with 17 others) at its new location on Willis Street. I'm a fan of the move; the new place is close to both work and home. It's almost right beside where they have the Sunday market so it's very much on my beaten track, if not everyone else's. It's more spacious too so it'll give the ever-expanding group a chance to breathe. The session itself didn't go brilliantly last night though. A couple of new blokes (friends) have an axe to grind, a bee in their bonnet, and the facilitators do little to stop them.

On Saturday I went on a tramp - Cannon Point walkway in Upper Hutt. We had good weather and it wasn't too arduous. Only six of us did the trip including just one woman: an Austrian in her twenties who had piercing eyes that I found a little intimidating as she asked me difficult questions about my job.

My brother now wants to join the NZ Army. He had various tests and an interview last week. He did the infamous bleep test; apparently he outlasted everybody else by some distance (he would have thrashed me too). The maths test was a different matter - he's inherited his numberblindness from Dad - but after 13 years in the British army he should waltz in.

Yesterday they changed the code for getting into my apartment block. As the previous code was "press all the worn-off buttons in ascending order" that's no bad thing.