It’s present wrapping time!

The time has finally arrived! My brother is turning 21, and is one step closer to leaving home!! I’ll bet he’ll stay until he’s 30, the sly bastard!!! Except my brother is much more motivated than I’ll ever be, and will probably be off somewhere doing something important in nine years time.

Soon-to-be very important people are very hard to shop for. They’ve normally already saved for what they want and can’t think of anything else they might like (under $500) when you ask them. My carefully considered gift consists of I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert, America by the Daily Show peeps (my brother loves the shows, but will he love them in book form?) and 50c lolly bags (this is the best thing about my job). I feel like I should be buying him a stripper instead. It’d be worth it for the look on his face.

Anyway, I am quite amused that the wrapping paper I used states that it comes in either silver or classic cold. How on earth do people miss these things? However, this might finally be the stupid wrapping paper tidbit that will stop me from mentally connecting wrapping paper with my brother rapping. This is because I asked my brother at Christmas time whether he’d had to do a lot of wrapping at work, and I seriously thought I’d asked him whether he’d had to do a lot of rapping at work. Probably the only time I will ever say, “No! I didn’t mean that! … Oh wait, I did.”

I could never be a shop gift wrapper. I get ridiculously anal when I’m wrapping presents. The corners have to be flat and neat, the overlaps have to be perfect straight lines, and the ribbon has to be just so. I’d drive the customers mad. The problem I always have is that I cut the paper just that fraction of a centimetre too short … and then I have to decide between starting fresh or cutting a strip to cover the gap. And this decision is harder than it sounds.

I hope my brother appreciates the effort. He probably will. He’s one of those reealllly slow present openers who take the time to pick off every piece of tape and neatly fold the paper before moving on to the next present. I should be like that, really, but I use all my care in wrapping the presents and none whatsoever in opening them. So my brother will slowly open my carefully wrapped present, and - best case scenario - will gasp with joy, clap his hands in glee and exclaim, “you are the best sister in the whole wide world and I am going to buy your first house.” Or he’ll just say, “thanks, blister”, and start neatly folding the classic cold wrapping paper. I’d be happy with either reaction.

Cops with doughnuts

I was walking down Queen St today, and happened to notice two cops walking to their car with a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t really be funny, but it totally was. I do have to ask - what is with the cops and doughnuts association? I’ve never seen a cop eating one in my life! I wonder if police graduates decide that once they’re in uniform, doughnuts will always be off limits. Although I don’t know why they’d care. If you want a doughnut, you want a doughnut. Even if people do laugh heartily as you walk past clutching one in your hand.

I don’t really like doughnuts. Unless they’re homemade cinnamon ones. I like those.

An Auckland jaunt

I was slightly nervous about meeting someone from online for the first time, but Amanda and Rilla turned out to be awesome company. However, I’m sure if someone had transcribed our conversation, there would’ve definitely been some choice nervous ramblings from me. Also, quite a few mentions of boobs. And jelly wrestling.

The problem with Auckland (or you might say one of the problems if you happen to be from anywhere in NZ that isn’t Auckland) is it’s not really a tourist place. And most of the shops can also be found over in Aussieland. So we did a loop around the Queen St area to see what was out there that wasn’t Aussie or expensive.

Amanda and Rilla weren’t scary, but something that did frighten me #1:
A woman was walking up Queen St with her pants undone - or she might’ve been rezipping them. I don’t know. I didn’t particularly want to look. Ask Amanda. I’m disappointed the viking wasn’t there, or the intense Christian rapper guy. It seems whenever you want the crazy to appear, it never does.

Afterwards, we walked through Albert Park to the uni (to scope out the young’uns and score Amanda an Auckland Uni pen), browsed through Smith & Caughey’s (where they sell some hideous dresses for $800 reduced) and Atrium on Elliot (it has a lot of Asian shops), and then got some delicious lunch at Tony’s (where we got to see a video of Amanda’s death defying leap, and omg, it looked both awesome and scary).

Rilla had to go after lunch, so after saying goodbye, Amanda & I went back to Aotea Square and got a picture taken (after waiting for someone to walk past us to take the picture … you would think people would walk directly through the square, instead of walking all the way round). I think that picture will end up on my long list of “pictures that I would’ve done differently in hindsight”. I am just going to say I was staring into the sun and my eyes were watering and I take awful pictures in general. But I don’t think my eyes were closed!

Also, quick lesson in Aus vs. NZ:
Thongs (Aus) are called jandals in NZ, and thongs are another word for g-strings in NZ. You’d probably be considered a bit forward if you ask someone in Kiwiland to get your thongs for you.

Amanda didn’t mind tagging along with me to my uni (the building I use most is diagonally across from Aotea Sq) and waiting while I tried to find a computer to use that would allow me to get my feedback on something I did last year. Only the cool tourists check out the student life and uni buildings, dontcha know? Anyway, I found a computer & Amanda had a student magazine to read, but we didn’t count on…

Something that frightened both of us #1:
The computers in the digimed labs don’t just turn on, they TURN ON. I almost thought the computer was going to explode.

The AUT building was close to Amanda’s hostel, so I went for a quick visit, leading to…

Something that did frighten me #2:
The lift in Amanda’s hostel is evil. It drops down a few inches when it reaches the floor of your choice. No lift in the world should ever do that. However, scary lift aside, the rest of the hostel was A+.

Anyway, Amanda taught me there was more than one way to play Snap (and I re-read this in a different way whilst editing and just want to clarify that this other way of playing Snap does not involve taking off any clothes)!

It was a very unscary visit, but something that did frighten me #3:
After leaving the entertainment room, I completely missed the fact there was a step and ended up plunging down in a very graceful manner (not). Amanda found it very funny, and so did I. This is what I’m like all the time (I’m surprised my clumsiness didn’t reveal itself sooner). And then it was time to say goodbye.

Overall, I give the day two very enthusiastic thumbs up! Fine holiday fun!

And because I didn’t take a camera and have no pictures to brighten up this post, here’s a picture of the Skytower:

Tall.