Dunedin

Last weekend, I visited Dunedin. It's the closest city to Christchurch at 360 km. Wellington might be closer. It's 350 km to Picton, which takes you west of Wellington, but then there is a 5-hour ferry ride. I kept hearing about neat things that I could do in Dunedin and the pressure of the "To See" list finally overwhelmed me.

My travel companions were Mareike and Bhalchandra. Tops on my agenda were to tour the Speight's Brewery and to visit Larnach Castle. We left Saturday morning at 7:15. On route 1 that connects the cities, we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders. The boulders were almost spherical and the first photo is of me standing on one. I don't believe they know what geological process created them.


I was scheduled for the 2 pm tour at the brewery and we arrived in Dunedin with plenty of time. Mareike and Bhalchandra didn't have reservations, and we were lucky because a large group, who did have reservations, didn't show up. A brewery is fundamentally boring and Speight's was no exception. It was gravity driven meaning that you pour water in the top, on the roof, and beer comes out the bottom. It was closed for the weekend, so there was no action on the brewing floors. We didn't see the bottle machinery so we couldn't reenact the opening of Laverne and Shirley. The second photo is of our tour guide in front of a fermenting vat. However, the reason for a brewery tour is to taste their samples at the end. Of the cheap New Zealand brews, I like Speight's the best. There were six flavors for us to sample and the tour guide let us pour our own. We had little glasses, and I drank a circuit. A television in the tasting room looped through all the Southern Man commercials ever made. It's a well-known ad campaign in New Zealand with two stereotypical cowboys.

Saturday and Sunday night, we stayed at the Elm Lodge Backpackers on a hill overlooking the Octagon and the harbor. We had a private room with three beds. The hostel was clean, and the garden had a hot tub. On Saturday night, we visited the most popular student bar, the Captain Cook Tavern, but it was dead because it was spring break.

On Sunday, we puttered around the Otago Peninsula. Mareike wanted to see penguins. We learned that you wouldn't see them until later in the early evening. We walked around Larnach Castle. It wasn't as big as I imagined. I think the mansions in Newport, RI, are larger. The castle is one of the better-known haunted locations in New Zealand. I would've taken more photos, except there were numerous "DO NOT TAKE PHOTOS" signs posted throughout. The third photo is of ballroom that was supposed to be the most haunted part of the castle. As usual, I see nothing unusual.

The penguins were the highlight of the trip. We tried the free penguin viewing location first, but there were numerous sea lions lounging around the beach. We figured the penguins wouldn't be coming ashore that evening. We caught the 4:15 tour at Penguin Place, a habitat restoration on a farmer's land for the yellow-eyed penguin. They're traditionally antisocial, but one modeled for the last photo. You hiked through trenches to blinds to observe them come to shore after a day of fishing. We also saw blue penguins asleep in their shelters.

Sunday night we went to the observatory where the Dunedin Astronomical Society opened the observatory telescope for the public and set-up large homemade telescopes for viewing celestial objects. I learned how to find the South Pole in the heavens, saw the reddest star in the sky, and observed the moons of Jupiter.

On Monday, we drove through the Catlins. Lonely Planet called it a rain forest and it was too tame for my taste. There were lots of sheep pastures. I've regretted not visiting the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula when I lived in Seattle. So get out and see your local attractions.

Lost to That Good Team 10-3

We finished the season without a victory. I scored but didn't do much otherwise. Klaas played again and we only had five players. There are two games left, one friendly and the last is the battle for 5th place. I don't know which team we'll be playing.

I enjoyed the regular season and I believe that my teammates did too. I was in a little bit over my head but I think that I improved a lot.

Last night I played on the University B team. We lost 9 to 6. I had a very nice goal and should've taken things more seriously. I gently lofted my first shot over the net rather than firing hard. I didn't think that I could play goalie or score because I play in a higher league. One of the players liked goalie so I didn't play. Again, there were only 5 players. We had a high school player who was like a tank. You could throw the ball in his general area and he would get it and dribble down the side. With a minute left, one of our players stayed at the other end to cherry pick. I blocked the opponent's pass with my paddle while playing defense. One of our guys picked up the ball, passed to the tank, who passed to the cherry picker. The cherry picker almost missed the open net with his shot. It was the nicest goal of the season.

Breakfast in Christchurch

I've wanted to do this post for a while. I enjoy eating breakfast at diners and I believe it started with attending the Diner Tour run by the Cabin and Trail club at Dartmouth. In college, we'd eat a different diner in the Upper Valley each week. I've continued the tradition in Christchurch. Each weekend, I try a different restaurant but recently I've settled on a couple of places. Here are my rankings of breakfast in Christchurch.

1. Drexels – Their subtitle is "All American Breakfast" and it's the closest I've come to an American diner in New Zealand. It's even more American than the Denny franchises here. Their breakfast is the best. The waffles can't be beat and the sausages are closest to the American style. They are the only place that features filter coffee and they constantly refill your cup. The photo is of their exterior.
   
   
2. Megawatt Cafe – It has the largest selection of breakfast foods of any restaurant in Christchurch. I particularly like their German breakfast with a pretzel and spaetzel. I haven't braved the Japanese breakfast with teriyaki fish. I guess they cater to the international crowd being across the street from a large hostel. My first time the water that’s served in bottles was frozen. My other gripe is that they are closed on Sundays. They have a good mixed drink menu that I want to try during some happy hour.
   
   
3. C1 Espresso – Their food and coffee quality should qualify them for second best in Christchurch. However, I've had problems with the kitchen being closed or not working properly. Two times I've walked out without ordering. They have the hippest clientele. They serve the best breakfast burrito and it's vegetarian. Plus, they subscribe to cool magazines, and I get my monthly Wallpaper fix there.
   
   
4. Vivace Café – The coffee is the best. Vivace is a brand that served at many places around town and the roast is not as severe as Starbucks. They are the best at brewing this brand. They have the widest selection of espresso drinks. I like the corn fritters and the chocolate covered espresso beans that are served with the espresso drinks.
   
   
5. The Herb Centre Café – It doubles as an herb and vitamin store and it's the closest eatery to my apartment. The baristas are extremely friendly. I had pancakes with yogurt and honey that were very good. When the weather warms, I want to try their pasta with dried tomatoes and basil.
   
   
6. Mondo – Half of the eating area is in a furniture store. I had eggs benedict with smoked salmon.
   
   
7. The Globe Cafe – It's next door to Mondo and I might have confused the two names. It's busy and cosy.
   
   
8. The Bohemian Café – It's the second closest to my apartment. I had orange flavored French toast that was good. I also watched the quarterfinal of Germany versus Italy and the finals of the World Cup there.
   
   
9. Victoria's Cafe – It has the second largest variety of breakfast food. I had two massive sausages that weren't very good. It has a lot of kitschy items such as inflatable furniture and velvet wall hangings. I was the only one eating there and the sun shines brightly through the big windows making reading a chore.
   
   
10. Stir – It's not great but not bad. I had eggs benedict.
    
    
11. The Java Cafe – Again, it's mediocre. I had the Kiwi Big Breakfast, which is a standard breakfast item on most menus in Christchurch. It consists of eggs, toast, hash browns, bacon, and sausage. It's too much breakfast meat and I don't like the typical kiwi sausage. Also, the hash browns are like tater tots, which, again, is standard.
    
    
12. The Cathedral Cafe – I ate another Kiwi Big Breakfast here. The food is bland and they cater to the tourists. It's attached to the Cathedral.
    
    
13. The Honey Pot Cafe – This was my only truly awful breakfast experience. I had a Kiwi Big Breakfast and tasted like methane. They need to fix their stove. It's been recommended to me as a place to go. Maybe, I'll give it a second chance but probably not. There are too many other places to try.
    

Lost to Bottom's Up 6-2

I spent the last three days traveling to Dunedin and seeing the Otago Peninsula. There'll be more on that trip shortly. Last Tuesday, we continued our losing ways against Bottom's Up. A biomath student, Klaas, played his first game with us. I asked him to play, because we anticipated only 4 players showing up, and as predicted, there were five of us. He did well. He plays with a B grade team organized by the Canterbury Whitewater Canoe Club.

He reciprocated the invitation and I played on Wednesday in the pick-up game created by the University B team forfeiting. It's spring break at the University and all students who live in the dorms must clear out. I played against his team, The Unsubmersibles, with the riff-raff from the Inn Team. My pick-up team won 8-6. I was a little unfair to them because I played goalie the entire third period. The score was 8-6 at the start of the third and they didn't have the velocity or the accuracy in shooting to beat my paddle. The league rules are that A-side players shouldn't score or play goalie in B-side games. I also scored a goal. Hey, I was tired of losing and, as I've said earlier, I'm having athletic success in this sport. That is something I've seldom had before and I that entitles me to gloat a little.

Tonight is our final regular season game. Even if we don't win, we'll head to Chats to spend our trivia night winnings. Wish us luck.

Meggs Green Ginger Wine

I broke my rule that the wines I'd evaluate would be made in New Zealand. I was too intrigued with the bottle of Meggs Green Ginger Wine from NSW Australia to pass it up. My review of this wine is "Don't." It's syrupy sweet and I can't put my finger on what it tastes like, but it's familiar like a musty sweater. Bad Manischewitz comes to mind, but it doesn't have any grape flavor. Some mysteries are probably left mysteries. And don't even think of getting a hangover from this wine. You will hate it more than tequilla.

The photo is from the glass walkway connecting Ballentynes department store with the central bus terminal. I'm looking down Colombo St at the Banks Pennisula, the hills. I chose this shot because it's the closest I have to my new package store Vino Fino. I found the most interesting shops on Durham St, an Indian supermarket, a Christmas tree shop, and the wine shop. I haven't bought anything yet, but perused the selection on Friday afternoon while walking to the Rialto to watch "The Host." A large number of older clientele was shopping and I'm convinced it's the place to buy. They had a huge selection of Canterbury red wine.

Jon won my guess which movies I will see contest. He had an unfair advantage and went to see Thank You for Smoking at his suggestion. It's very good. He will get something "All Black."

Lost to The 7 Dwarves 11-2

My kayak polo team is defeated. We've lost the will the win. We only had 5 players on Tuesday night and we weren't into it. Our structure was terrible. I had a great assist on a pass to our interior player who pumped the ball into the net. Other than that, it was the same problems. We've no transition defense and are making sloppy passes.

Today, I went to a protest at the City Council building on Tuam St to save the Waimak river. The Waimak flows to the south of the city and it's a huge, branching beast. The plan is to divert almost all the flow for irrigation for farmers. The intent is to allow 10 cm of flow for paddlers. That will be a bony ride. Many paddlers attended but the protest was short and uninspired. It lasted 35 minutes. It appears that more political pressure is needed on the City Councilors to come forth with a plan that accommodates multiple uses of the river. How people will fish in 10 cm of water, I don't know.

The photo is of two players, Jean and Emily, on the University's women kayak polo team. I don't know who the woman is on the right except that she is a University student who came along with us.

Technorati Ranking

I looked at this blog's Technorati ranking for the first time. I'm ranked 1,621,369. Way to go you one million six hundred twenty thousand three hundred sixty eight blogs! I mean to keep a once-a-day publication schedule. I wonder if I can achieve the lowest rank of all blogs that keep a once-a-day publication schedule. It's time to update once a day.

Lost to Nemesis 12-4

Last Tuesday, we played our first kayak polo game in three weeks. We played the women's team and believed that we had a chance. They have one player on the "Paddleferns," New Zealand's national team. The World Cup of Kayak Polo was in Amsterdam last week. The New Zealand women came in second to Germany. The USA did poorly. The men came in last of 25 countries, the under 21s last of 15 teams, and the women 17th of 23 teams. I know a couple of the US women players and that's a tough result for them.

Back to us. Nemesis was missing their best player and their coach who throws the ball in for a quick fast break. Victory is a possibility. Unfortunately, their remaining players were more disciplined than we expected and we don't cover on the break. Bad transition defense kills us. There were lots of close in shots on their part. I let in two easy shots while playing net. I play net much better in the states. They must shoot better than we do. Then I took two ill-advised shots at the end.

Unlike most things in my life, I can clearly see what kind of player I want to be. I want to move my kayak like Putt my canoeing coach back in college, to have the court presence of Leonard, a player in Seattle, and stability skills of the secretary of the UKC at UW while I was there. The last always gave the counterintuitive advice that your head is the first thing in the water and the last out.

Now it's time for my dirty old man moment of the week. As I gathered my kayak and gear from the side of the pool, I noticed that one of our opponents was changing. She had a towel wrapped around her waist and wore a blouse. I fumbled around some more with the gear and looked up again. She had the towel in her hands and her underwear was bright red with the word FLIRT written in capital block letters across the rear. Oh well. I guess that kind of underwear is designed to be seen.

Mr Asia

Today's question is: Who is Mr Asia? I picked up a local bulletin titled "Deadline" from the Real Groovy record store this morning. A photo exhibition in Dunedin motivates a rambling article on the Moyle Muldoon affair from the 70s and 80s. The article is impossible follow, but I can glean that it's about heroin trafficking, members of parliament, and Radio Hauraki. I should have a clearer grasp of what happened once I read the Wikipedia article on the radio station. The most mysterious character is Mr Asia who reappears throughout the article. I have no idea who this refers to, but I like the nickname. The other alias I like is "The Bookie from Te Puke." I hope Te Puke rhymes with bookie but I think it rhymes with buka. It's another piece of history that I'll have to ask the New Zealanders about.

Google Ad

I am failing at getting the Google ad to link to a winemaker. Right now it's linking to a New Zealand hotel and rental car site which is better than the job site it was linking to last week.

Squawking Magpie

This week's wine was Squawking Magpie's pinot gris and it was very good. I saw an advertisement for a different variety of Squawking Magpie -- I believe their pinot noir -- which proclaimed it won a recent competition in New Zealand. The pinot gris tasted like cherries and was very dry. The winery is in Hawkes Bay and it's too bad that I won't return to the east coast of the north island.

NZ Film Festival (Part I)

I had a quiet weekend. August is dreary in Christchurch because it’s dark, cold, and damp. Plus, I purposely don’t ski or snowboard because I’d have to buy or rent equipment and pay for lift tickets, which are too expensive on my budget. I am saving for four big trips starting at the end of October.

The New Zealand Film Festival began last Thursday, August 3rd. It travels from city to city. I didn’t look at the other cities, but Christchurch has a very good line up. I settled on seeing six movies. The first three played on Saturday and Sunday. I saw Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, An Inconvenient Truth, and Shortbus. I haven’t been to a theater in a long time, and it was fun to go again. All three films were very good.

Block Party documents a concert that Chappelle hosts on a street in Brooklyn. It appeared to be close to where my friends Jon and Dara live. He spends a lot of money on the performers and keeps it secret from the media. Also, he invites many people from his hometown, Dayton, OH, to attend. I could tell the director wanted a dramatic arc from Daytonians. He interviewed many before the concert and only a couple afterward. Probably, most didn’t say anything interesting. Life doesn’t work as a dramatic arc which makes the good documentaries fascinating. The concert footage was great and Chappelle is a very nice person.

An Inconvenient Truth has Al Gore presenting the case for global warming. It centers on a slide show he gives while he tours. His presentation was straight out of an Edward Tufte textbook -- very convincing. I haven’t doubted global warming for a while, but his movie is a kick in the rear. One promising place to start is this article. Why couldn’t Al Gore be like he is in the movie during the 2000 presidential campaign? The answer is marketing. He would’ve been eaten alive by the Bush machine.

Finally, I saw Shortbus the same day I saw An Inconvenient Truth. I sent a list of all the films playing to my friend Chris who is the film critic at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Yes, I have my own personal hotline to Ebert and Roeper. His recommendation for this movie was the strongest even though he hasn’t seen it yet. It generated a lot of buzz at the Cannes Film Festival. I thank him for his recommendation, because it was a lot fun. A word of warning: It’s the most sexually explicit movie that I’ve seen. It portrayed sex and sexuality as fun whereas most other movies treat it as a downer. Granted some of the acts are questionable with the specter of HIV. What’s funny is this movie looked like it was shot in Jon and Dara’s neighborhood too. I’ll have to visit them when I return to the US.

To make the post unwieldy in length, here is the list of what’s playing during the festival. If you come closest to guessing which other three movies I’ll see, you’ll win a prize (something all black).

A Lion in the House
A Scanner Darkly
American Hardcore
An Inconvenient Truth
Animation for Kids
Animation Now! (2006)
Ans Westra: Private Journeys/Public Signposts
Ballets Russes
Black Gold
Black Sun
Brick
C.R.A.Z.Y.
China Blue
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party
Departure & Return
Drawing Restraint 9
Factotum
Fateless
Friends With Money
Heading South
His Big White Self
Homegrown: Love and Other Catastrophes
Homegrown: Works on Film
Homegrown: Works on Video
How Much Do You Love Me?
Into Great Silence
Jindabyne
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Keane
KZ
L'Enfer
Lonesome Jim
loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies
Matthew Barney: No Restraint
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
Mohammad Hossain's Intensive Care
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
No More Heroes
Offside
OilCrash - A Crude Awakening
Once in a Lifetime
Saratan
ScaredSacred
Shortbus
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Ten Canoes
Thank You For Smoking
The Aura
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
The Child
The Digital Space (2006)
The Heart of the Game
The Host
The Last Resort
The Method
The New World
The Passenger
The Road to Guantánamo
The Science of Sleep
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
The Valet
The Waimate Conspiracy
The White Masai
The White Planet
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Time & Tide
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Wah-Wah
Water
Waves
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Whole New Thing
49 Up
51 Birch Street

Chance News 19

As the email from Laurie Snell said this morning,

Chance News 19 is finished and available here: http://chance.dartmouth.edu/chancewiki/index.php/Chance_News_19.

Enjoy! (It's not as good as the last one.)

ArXiv Submission

I posted my first paper to the preprint service ArXiv. You can download the paper here. Many mathematicians use this site, and it's become something that if you understood all that mathematics on it then you would be a top notch mathematician. This is akin to R and top notch statisticians.

Posting to ArXiv is a real chore. Their documentation is poor and verges on nasty, and using TeXShop on my Mac wasn't helpful. If you need to use, TeXShop and submit a paper with figures to ArXiv, here are my hints:

• Save all your figures as both pdf and eps (Encapsulated PostScript). The Mac doesn't have a native PostScript driver and plays well only with pdf. Hence, TeXShop use a version of TeX call pdfTeX.
  
• ArXiv doesn't run pdfTeX so it won't compile your TeXShop paper with pdf figures. It won't accept anything in pdf that looks like it could be made with LaTeX and it might only compile TeX with eps figures, even though the online documentation says that it handles most figure formats. Also, ArXiv will try TeX before LaTeX, so if your paper won't compile, the first error message will read ``Undefined control sequence: \documentclass{article}." I almost blew a gasket on reading that error message.
  
• Even if you use the graphicx package, TeXShop won't recognize or handle .eps files.
  
• There is another version of LaTeX in your Terminal. Use this one and it will compile eps figures when you use the graphicx package. It's tedious to redo the formatting on the figures, and the only dvi reader you have is in TeXShop. You must keep reopening the dvi file manually.
  

My last gripe is about the Mac. I've enjoyed my PowerBook more than any pc I've owned, however using unux software on it through the Terminal or Fink feels like I'm using the 1998 copy of Redhat linux from Russia that I used on my computer in Los Angeles. It works, but a Commodore 64 was more comfortable to use. I will buy a cheap desktop and put Ubuntu on it when I return to the US.