Archive for March, 2001

Dam

Published
by
Robyn
on March 28, 2001
in Places
. 0 Comments
“So, how was your weekend, Robyn?”
“Oh, you know, the usual.”
“Did you get up to much?”
“Yeah, I spat in Auckland’s water supply.”

Scenic Drive is one of my favourite roads in the world. It runs along the top of the Waitakere Ranges (”only 25 minutes drive from downtown Auckland!”) and it’s surrounded by either lush green bush, or spectacular views. It is scenic, and is rightly named (unlike Seafield View Road, which I think should be investigated).

The many times I’ve driven along Scenic Drive I’d noticed a little gravel area with a sign announcing that Waitakere Dam was nearby. It intrigued me. I decided to investigate further.

There are many bush walks and tracks for trampers. I figured I should be well prepared. You know, sturdy hiking boots, global positioning device, scroggin. I ended up improvising with my running shoes, cellphone and a bag of fruit and nut mix.

Off I drove along scenic drive to the start of Waitakere Dam Walk. I was prepared to face the wild. I even had my Swiss Army Knife.

At this point it would be cool if I could go off onto a tale of my journey through the bush, of experiencing New Zealand as it was back in the pre-European days. But unfortunately I can’t. It was very post-European.

For a start, the track was tar-sealed. It acts as an access road for the maintenance contractors of Water Care. So instead of a wilderness walk, it felt like I was walking down the driveway of some billionaire’s country retreat.

I strolled downhill nibbling on my fruits and nuts. There were lots of trees. Cicadas clicked in the distance. Oh, yay!

Soon I came to the dam. I wasn’t really impressed by the dam. As far as dams go, it’s pretty small. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the Hoover Dam, or that big arse one under construction in China, but having seen the Karapiro dam, I thought it might be on par with that.

But the dam itself didn’t really seem very significant compared to the surrounding land. It was wonderful. Stuck in a valley between two bush covered hills. Trees and sunshine! I think now is the bit where I can say that words can not describe the incredible beauty and general choiceness of that area.

Even the long drop toilets were nice.

I walked around the side of the reservoir, then back across the top of the dam. I leaned over the side and had an overwhelming urge to spit in it. So I did. Twice. By now thousands of people have got my goobies!

Having experienced a large amount of scenic wonder, I made my way up to the top. As I was walking up a Water Care ute drove up behind me and the dude stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride. Nice girls don’t take rides from strange men. I told him I wanted to walk back up, and off he drove.

I made it back to the top into the air conditioned comfort of my automobile. It wasn’t quite the epic bush walk I was expecting, but there was some really beautiful scenery and it was really empowering spreading my girl germs to the people of Auckland.

Contact Lenses

Published
by
Robyn
on March 28, 2001
in Biography
. 0 Comments

I got contact lenses. I came home the day I’d got them and I excitedly told Xris, my flatmate at the time, that I had them. He said that once he’d had contact lenses, but had given up after about a year because in the end he just couldn’t be bothered wearing them anymore.

I remember at the time just laughing that comment off, thinking it would never happen to me. I was sure that after a year I’d still be wearing my contacts. Oh, how wrong I was.

I got contact lenses because I was sick of wearing glasses. At first wearing contacts was a novelty, but then I soon settled into a routine, and managed to get my lenses inserted in about five minutes, rather than the half hour I was originally talking.

It was great being able to see clearly without wearing glasses. I realised for the first time that there was a “Fight Club” poster on the other side of the floor where I used to work. Things were beautiful.

But there was a downside. After about eight hours of use my eyes would feel really tired, and a few times I had to leave social events early so I could go home and remove my $50-a-pair lenses. It also meant that things that would normally be spontaneous, like crashing on someone’s couch after a hard night, had to instead be carefully planned to incorporate contact lens care.

In the end I just couldn’t be bothered wearing them anymore. It was too much hassle mucking around with saline solutions, clensing stuff and the cost of it all.

So I went back to the optometrist and got a pair of glasses and some prescription sunglasses and have been happily wearing them since.

The one thing I have got out of my year as a contact lens wearer is the ability to completely suppress the reflex to madly blink when I put something in my eye. As a result, I can touch the lens of my eye with my finger. Neat party trick, huh?

Sometimes having perfect eyesight would be very handy, but I’m not about to go back to contacts (or get laser surgery) any time soon.

Kevin Smith

Published
by
Robyn
on March 28, 2001
in Film & TV
. 0 Comments

Kevin Smith made one good film. For argument’s sake, we shall call this film “ClerksMallRatsChasingAmyDogma” (CMRCAD). All his other films, namely “Clerks”, “Mall Rats”, “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma” are just rehashes of CMRCAD.

Kev’s first film, “Clerks”, took the CMRCAD formula and applied it to the generation X slacker comedy genre. Following in the footsteps of Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” (1991), “Clerks” was a look at the dissatisfaction of menial McJobs. It also featured Jay and Silent Bob and a guy with a goatee.

The next film in Smith’s oevre is Mall Rats (1995). This time the CMRCAD formula was transplanted to the traditional teen comedy. With plenty of lewd humour, “accidental” boobie shots and pop culture references, it received little critical acclaim, but that’s typical of its genre. It also featured Jay and Silent Bob and a guy with a goatee.

1997’s “Chasing Amy” was the CMRCAD formula used in a bittersweet romantic comedy. It told the tale of a man torn between a woman who was allegedly a lesbian but didn’t act like one, and his best friend. Critics liked it even though Ben Affleck furrowing his brow and being sensitive is no match for any John Cusack film. It also featured Jay and Silent Bob and a guy with a goatee.

Then, in 1999, came Dogma a film that applied the CMRCAD formula to a religious-themed comedy. For the first time in a Smith film, the main character was female. Dogma also featured the most violence in a film, making it slightly reminiscent of Scorcese and Coppola’s works merging violence and Catholic imagery. Alanis was God. It also featured Jay and Silent Bob and a guy with a goatee.

Then there’s a film in the works, “Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back” and from what I’ve read of it, it seems like one last giant purge of the whole Jay and Silent Bob thing. No doubt there’ll be a whole bunch of characters who are related to characters in previous films, references to “Star Wars” and other movies, a few hilarious catchphrases (”I’m not even supposed to be in this movie!”) and lots of comics, too. There will also be a guy with a goatee.

Some film makers stick to a genre and explore within that type, making lots of different films with different plots, characters, etc. Kevin Smith does it the other way around. He experiments with genres, but uses the same plot and same characters. Nothing ever changes, but often that’s what endears him to his fans, many of whom are guys with goatees.

Sarcasm

Published
by
Robyn
on March 28, 2001
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

In the midst of the mishmash of vowels and consonants that we call the English language, there are things called words. Words have meanings, and usually the meaning stay the same over the years. Except sometimes they change. Sometimes the meanings totally reverse!

Charming

You know what charming means. You know that someone who is charming is very delightful and pleasing. So how come when someone were to do something like demonstrate how they can fit a whole banana in their mouth and fill in any gaps with peanut butter that a typical reaction to that would be, “urgh, charming!” Seeing someone with a mouthful of semi-chewed banana and peanut butter is not charming. So why do we say it is?

Riveting

Something that is riveting is something that holds the attention. It engrosses, it fascinates. So why, after that really boring company meeting where that really boring manager droned on and on about his vision for the company and no one was really paying attention and instead day dreamed about the weekend, why was it described as “sooo riveting”?

Why? Because it’s supposedly sarcasm. When someone describes a gross-out situation as charming, they don’t really mean that they were charmed by it.

But it’s going beyond sarcasm. It’s got to the point where riveting means dull and boring and it seems odd to hear it used to describe something that’s engrossing, and charming has come to mean gross and ill-mannered and it’s strange hearing someone whose pleasant and polite described as charming. So when people actually use charming or riveting for their real, non-sarcastic meanings, it can be really confusing.

“That speech was totally riveting!”
“That bad, huh?”
“Er, no, it was great!”

“How’d your dinner with Dave go?”
“He was totally charming.”
“Urgh, all men are pigs.”

My point is (and I think I have one somewhere in here) that being too sarcastic doesn’t work and will just end in tears.

Teeth

Published
by
Robyn
on March 28, 2001
in Biography
. 0 Comments

I had something stuck between my teeth. While I was fiddling around with dental floss in front of the bathroom mirror, I noticed what appeared to be a hole in one of my molars. Uh oh. How long had it been since I last went to the dentist? Er… about three years. I quickly got the name of a good dentist and made and appointment.

Growing up in the small rural hamlet of Matangi meant that the water we drank came from a bore in the ground. Before y’all start getting images of wells or cranking pump handles, it was an electric pump and if you turned on any one of the taps in the house, water came out. The difference was that because this water came straight from an underground stream, it hadn’t been flurodated. So the dental nurse at my school recommended to my parents that they give me a fluoride tablet every day. I objected to these F Tabs and thought I was getting away without taking them, but it turns out my mother used to crush them up and mix them in with my milk.

I never used to brush my teeth, either. I’m not sure why. But I started when one day I visited the school dental nurse and got a filling.

Like a lot of schools, the dental clinic was affectionately known as the Murder House. This name goes back to the dental clinics of my parents’ generation’s childhood. Where the drills weren’t electric, but foot pedal powered, so if drill essentially only went as fast as the dental nurse was pedalling. If she got a bit tired, the drill would go slower. And back then dental nurses would grind down and fill the molars of everyone. Not because they were decayed, but as a preemptive measure, as someone had decided that molars were somehow imperfect and only modern dental technology could improve upon nature.

Fortunately by the time I got to school things had changed. Not only had electric drills been introduced to the dental clinic, but someone had realised that molars aren’t the cavity traps that they were previously thought to be. Fillings were only done when they were needed, and when they were done they didn’t hurt as much.

So off I went to the Murder House and I had a little bit of the side of a molar drilled away and filled with some amalgam. It wasn’t incredibly painful, but on the other hand, it wasn’t pleasant either. The dental nurse told me to relax, so I did and it wasn’t that bad.

After that I started brushing my teeth, but interestingly enough, after I started brushing I eventually ended up getting two further fillings. I eventually moved to the city (a whole 8 kilometres away) and could drink all the flurodated water I wanted. I was also seeing a proper, grown-up dentist by then, and he used to tell me that I had “disgustingly healthy teeth.”

My teeth were healthy, but my bottom jaw was crowded. I already had one tooth that was sticking out at the front, so my dentist pumped me full of novacaine and yanked it out. It’s such a cool feeling to have a tooth pulled out when you’re conscious. It make a sort of scraping, creaking noise. The best part was, I got to keep the teeth.

When I was 17 I had to have two of my back molars removed so make room for my wisdom teeth. I was totally knocked out for that. I would have much rather been conscious for that which, incidentally, is an option with today’s modern medical technology. There’s this anaesthetic that makes you not feel anything, but you remain conscious throughout the whole operation. That would rule.

I had kept up with the regular six-monthly checkups, and my teeth remained healthy. Then I moved up to Auckland and forgot to get a dentist. But the sight of a hole in one of my teeth was enough to remind me of the need for dental care.

So there I was, lying back in the chair, watching a tennis match on the TV up above the chair. The lower left side of my mouth, including the left side of my tongue and the left side of my lip were numb with novacaine. My dentist was packing the newly drilled hole with a compound named Fuji 9. His assistant was operating the sammy sucker. Another dentist was watching as my dentist explained the “unorthodox, but effective” technique he was using.

So now I have a new white filling, and one of my older amalgam fillings has been replaced with the white Fuji 9 stuff. My only minor complaint is that the filling white doesn’t match my teeth colour, but that’s another story for another time.