– Roasting your own is a guaranteed way to drop the cost of your coffee way lower than $2.70 per day. Also, cutting milk would be a substantial saver… but then don’t go out and buy a machine that adds about 40c worth of electricity to the cost of a couple of cups.
Day two of our New Zealand adventure (we’re now on day three for those who came in late…) saw us hit the road in our Mitsubishi 4WD hire car. We travelled from Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass stopping for an unexplainable number of one lane bridges. Seriously. How hard is it to build a two lane bridge?
Driving out of Christchurch past a number of farms we were struck by New Zealand’s fencing method of choice – a large hedge. We’d noticed it from the air coming in. Every farm we went past had hedged boundaries. It looks cool from the air – but more impressive on land. Speculation as to why they’re there came up with a number of nefarious solutions – probably the pick of the bunch was that they were actually “smack farms” where parents could go to punish unruly progeny. Smacking is illegal in New Zealand.
The other thing I noticed (other than the rolling hills, mountains, creeks, lakes and valleys) was that New Zealand – or at least this stretch of road (and the stretch travelled today) has a lack of roadside advertising. There were no billboards. None. I wonder if this is a result of legislation – or just because there aren’t that many people interested in advertising. I suspect the former. Given tourism’s significant slice of the economic pie in New Zealand I suspect there are a number of “keep New Zealand beautiful” strategies – possibly including a ban on billboards. I’ll look that up later.
It was very cold yesterday – the car’s thermometer had the outdoor temperature hovering around the 10 degree mark – I don’t think that took wind chill factor into account. It was cold.
Coffee enroute came courtesy of a small cottage cafe called “Espress yourself” – I am of the opinion that there is a very limited number of coffee puns appropriate for cafes.
Espress Yourself - coffee in a cottage
The 50c piece is there for scaling purposes
Robyn scored the coffee here a 6/10 I think. She’s pretty fussy these days. We’ve had her doing video reviews at each stop – but she won’t let me post them online.
Today sees us in Hamner Springs – where the other four have taken a horse trek. While I, not relishing the thought of four days of post horse pain, have chosen to explore the little village – and here I sit, posting this. I should probably go collect the others now.
We’ve spent our first couple of days in New Zealand in and around the city known by airlines all over the globe as Chch. Actually that’s not true. By Australian standards we’ve been around it – but two hours travel in New Zealand is a relatively long distance. In the truest sense of the word. Relatively that is. Whether or not it’s the truest sense of the word distance is a subjective matter and for you, the reader, to decide.
Christ's church?
Christchurch is a city that resonates with me. Maybe it’s the name – which for a Christian is about as theologically “home” as I can be. It feels like Melbourne – or at the very least the block we’re staying in does. Other parts feel decidedly country townish. The fact that the sun doesn’t go down until 10pm makes the CBD feels a bit like a ghost town.
Christ's church? Even the pubs get on theme in Christchurch.
The surprisingly large number of cafes and restaurants are still closed for the Christmas period adds to that effect. But there are some nice bars, cafes and pubs within the immediate vicinity of our accommodation, and a nice creek/river/brook running through parks around the city centre making the city aspect altogether pleasing. Trams are another similarity with Melbourne. The restaurant tram would be an interesting experience I’m sure – but our desire to see New Zealand without breaking the bank meant tonight’s dinner at least was bolognese – with the ingredients picked up at the local “Pak’n’Save”… which is a grocery experience unrivalled by anything I’ve seen in Australia.
I mentioned the Honey Pot in my last post – but their open grill sandwhiches deserve another plug for outstanding flavour combinations, especially the homemade chutney.
The appropriately named "Joe Bloggs" - Chicken, bacon, brie, mayo and mushrooms
The coffee on the other hand – in this case a cappuccino – came garnished with so much chocolate powder Robyn suggested spooning it off to make hot chocolate back in our hotel room.
Robyn still scored this a generous 7/10
Last night’s dinner was at a Chinese restaurant with a generic, forgetable name. Having a Chinese speaker (or a learner) at the table with us was an advantage – the Chinese pages of the menu were designed to obfuscate dishes the owner felt westerners like us would not appreciate. The helpful waiter recommended the place up the road if we were on the lookout for authentic Chinese cuisine. But we stayed. The crispy duck was sensational – as duck is wont(on) to be. The Chinese beer – the Tsingtao – was also good.
Mother duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack" and one less little ducky came back
I told Robyn’s little sister that we’d book some haunted accommodation to really make her first (and mine) overseas jaunt extra dramatic. She’s a dramatic person. There’s a wind tunnel type effect creating ghost noises outside our room at Living Space – and we had to furnish the room with our own ghosts to complete the experience.
Who you going to call?
Today we made the trek to Arthur’s Pass – from the comfort of our car. I’ll have none of that stuff the kiwis call “tramping” on my holiday. I’ll have to write about that later – we’re off to Hamner Springs early on the morrow.
I think this might become a regular feature if I can find at least one YouTube (or other online video repository) video worth posting each week. The guy doing the kicking is the same guy in the Super Mario Kart Video I posted a couple of weeks ago. He’s obviously very talented – if this video is to be believed.
– Yeah. Cop that Starbucks drinkers.
How did they know I was coming?
Our New Zealand highlights are being shared via this picasa album. Enjoy. This post is sticky so will greet you at the top of the page each time you come here. There will no doubt be new stuff you haven’t seen below this post. Maybe. Enjoy.
So we’re in New Zealand. We being my wife, two sister-in-laws and brother-in-law-in-law. We arrived yesterday at 3.30pm here time (midday ours).
The cross cultural feel didn’t kick in until we left the airport. Everything looked the same – and having kiwis doing menial jobs for you is nothing out of the ordinary. That was a joke.
As we travelled to our salubrious digs in the Christchurch CBD in our hire car we all had a little giggle at the following ad:
“Million dollar beard sale for a limited time only.”
Everything but the beard was clearly understood. I know bagging out the accent is old hat – turns out it was a clearence sale for beds.
Our first stop was nextdoor to our 3 bedroom unit – in a funky refitted warehouse called Living Space – at an equally funky little cafe called The Honey Pot. They made very good sandwhiches and ok coffee. Robyn’s video review of the coffee will be posted at some stage when I complete a more comprehensive travel journal.
We trapsed through the streets of Christchurch until the wee hours of the morning – it was daylight until 10pm. I took close to 600 photos with our new camera. Taking photos is now too easy. Deleting unwanted ones is going to be a nightmare. Anyone fancy a slide night when we get back… No. I didn’t think so. We still have 12 more days to amass photos for your viewing pleasure. That’s a lot of photos.
– A bit of a different view of Bush’s presidency and intelligence.
– An interesting approach to online shopping – where two “experts” do all the leg work for you – but only on particular items in a fairly narrow field.
– Here’s another list – this time with video clips of the 50 best Movie special effects scenes.
– A list of lists from 2008. The end of the year makes a lot of bloggers list crazy – and this is a great one stop shop for time wasting. brbrAll the blogging tips sites I’ve ever read suggest lists are the best way to boost readership. This must be the uberlist…
– It seems like Real Life Superheroes are the new blogging black.
Thinks it spoils the magic when Kerry O’Keefe appears on TV.
– Why does anybody still use Internet Explorer? Other than having an office structure that prohibits breaking out and using one of the crisper, faster, and nicer browsers like Chrome or Firefox.
Spy vs Spy
This cartoon reminded me of a scene from NCIS the other night. It’s one of those TV shows I’ve probably under appreciated- the other being Bones. This post is largely about the things that I’ve been occupying my time with so far these holidays. I really like xkcd. I find their blend of stick figures and humour quite appealing.
I’ve been on holidays for a week now – or just over a week. My holidays thus far have consisted of time spent with family celebrating Christmas and having idiosyncratic family “moments” and the inevitable resolutions that follow. I’ve been filling the time reading books, and watching some cricket, and some Prison Break (series 3).
The cricket has been largely frustrating. Honestly, how our bowling attack seemingly duel handedly rested on the shoulders (how’s that for mixed metaphors) of Warne and McGrath for so long without our esteemed selectors doing any succession planning is beyond me. How can we be so devoid of bowling talent in a nation that prides itself on the depth of our domestic competition. I blame twenty20 or however they write the name of that abomination that causes desolation… anyway, I digress.
I’ve also managed to plow through a David Baldacci thriller. I don’t know about you – but I like my holiday reading to be pretty mindless. So “The Whole Truth” appealed to me much more than it did to the reviewer quoted on the Amazon page:
“Usually a sophisticated plotter, bestseller Baldacci (Absolute Power) offers a story line and villain on a par with an average James Bond film in what’s billed as his first international thriller. Nicholas Creel, the head of the Ares Corporation, a huge defense contractor, hires a perception management firm to start a second cold war by planting fake news stories on the Internet about Russian atrocities.”
Really it’s Wag the Dog for the Web 2.0 generation. Where once movie studios were used to create conflict for political gains – the protagonist in this novel employs blogs and youtube. I enjoyed it.
Not quite so mindless was the next holiday read – Final Theory. It’s like science fiction – only fiction about science, rather than the traditional sci-fi.
I find injustice in books slightly frustrating. When the central character is under unwarranted scrutiny or being mistreated by the “good guys” – the authorities. Which is what happens at the start Final Theory.
I watched the Get Smart movie last night for the first time. It was funny, and it’s the common thread that links the title with these other ramblings – other than the fact that they’re what I’ve been “spying” in the last few days. I enjoyed Get Smart.
I am in a little trouble though – I’m now almost at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the books I have to read during the holidays (and we’ve got a bit of flying and driving ahead of us with our New Zealand jaunt just around the corner). I walked around Angus and Robertson yesterday and was pretty uninspired. Any suggestions would be welcome.
– Otherwise known as harnessing jock power. I did see a Tourism Queensland newsletter a while back that profiled a couple of nightclubs that generated power through movement on a sensor laden dance floor. I’ll have to dig that up.
– So, if I ever want a political career does my history of trying to extort money from my friends serve me well or disqualify me? And what about my blog…
– Are there any useless sites you think I should know about? I do like useless sites. Especially awesome useless sites.
– Who’d have thought the internet would help people benefit from piracy… of the nautical kind… arrr.
– This would be useful if you were wanting to use the world map as wallpaper. As in wallpaper in your house – not the desktop background variety.
A couple of people have commented on my Facebook note regarding the hacker saga (it was imported from a post to my old blog – one of the ways I tried to get the word out regarding the hacker). Scams of this nature traditionally involve someone claiming to be in dire trouble – and asking for money to be transferred via Western Union. In this case the hacker also changed the access email address for my account to something quite bizarre and obviously not linked to me. This same process was carried out with another friend’s account a couple of weeks back – and the best way to get access to your account back, and the way I got my account back, is to notify Facebook immediately. The link is pretty hard to find – but it’s here in case you’ve come to this post via google looking for some sort of solution to your own Facebook hacking saga.
In my case the hacker was logged on at around 2am Australian time, claiming to be from England. It would appear that he had also hacked into the email account he was using to access my Facebook – but that’s pure speculation on my part. To my knowledge he spoke to two of my friends – who both took similar courses of action to verify that it was not me – one rang my mobile, the other tried to get in touch with my parents. Hackers are not smart. The basic premise of the hacker’s story was that I was in London and had been robbed at a hotel. I needed money. My friend Mark had seen me at a wedding three days before this conversation took place:
“1:34am Mark
when did you fly to London?
1:35am Nathan
4 days ago
1:41am Mark
did Robyn fly with you?
1:41am Nathan
yes
we are robbed together
1:41am Mark
you flew out on the 19th?
1:42am Nathan
cant remember the date
why are you asking?
1:42am Mark
why can’t you remember?
1:44am Mark
what day was it?
1:45am Mark
Nathan this isn’t like you what’s going on? when did you fly out of Townsville?
1:48am Mark
Hello Nathan? What’s happening? this isn’t like you what day did you fly out>
?
1:50am Nathan
i told you something
you didnt believe me
1:51am Nathan
what else do you want me to say???
1:52am Mark
you said you flew out 4 days ago, i can’t believe that becuase i saw you 3 days ago
i want to know what’s going on.
?
1:53am Nathan
it was 4 days ago
1:54am Mark
Friday, the 19th was 4 days ago, and I saw you at the Wedding on Saturday the 20th.”
Lesson one for would be Western Union scammers – make sure you don’t contradict someone when they tell you where they last saw you. Lesson one for potential victims – stick to your guns. The scammer then suggested Mark transfer money using his credit card and westernunion.com – when he was told Mark didn’t have a credit card he suggested he head to his nearest Western Union agent. No doubt unaware the Darling Downs (where Mark was staying) doesn’t think highly of 24 hour trading…
“2:12amMark
one problem mate. i don’t have a credit card
2:12amNathan
ok
then go and do it any agent close to you
2:15amNathan
have you gone?
2:15amMark
no i’m here
2:16amNathan
why?
how much can you loan me?
2:17amMark
how much do you need?
2:17amNathan
$800
how much can you afford?
2:18amMark
you need $800 cash?
2:19amNathan
aussie dollars is very loan in UK
2:20amNathan
low in UK
2:21amMark
right i understand
2:21amNathan
when are you going?”
Mark by this time had called me – and decided it was time to give the hacker a moral lesson. He didn’t like that much.
2:28amMark
why, well i’m interested, when did you got a new email address?
2:29amNathan
is that your business?
why would you need that to help me out in a situation like this
2:29amMark
and how’s the weather in Nigeria?
2:30amNathan
which Nigeria?
2:30amMark
and finally how can you ask for money from well meaning people?
2:30amNathan
you are nut
2:31amMark
i am nut
?
2:39amMark
does not appear so
2:39amNathan
sure
2:40amNathan
have a nice day
bye
bye
not to meet again
At this point I logged in to Robyn’s Facebook account to try to initiate dialogue with the hacker – he ended our Facebook friendship. But not our Facebook marriage. He also went very close to convincing friends of mine who were in England at the time to help – they offered to drive north to London to rescue me – which is nice. But all the hacker wanted was my money.
I was left with no access to my account, some confused friends, and an email address for the hacker. I decided to take matters into my own hands. The hacker’s email address was an address at verizonmail.com – which is a domain sold by mail.com. I sent them an email complaining about the misuse of that account.
Then I got in touch with the hacker.
Magor,
If that is your real name… I am willing to pay to get my account back under my control. Please forward your Western Union account details. I would be willing to pay $US250 to have my account returned.
I’m not advocating this sort of behaviour in normal circumstances – but this hacker already had my email address, and various other pieces of information from my account, so it was not a hard decision to make.
Lesson one for people with lax online security – you know how they say make your password hard to guess and don’t use the same password at multiple sites – this probably saved me losing access to my gmail – which thanks to its wonderful archiving system would have allowed the hacker access to my passwords for multiple accounts on multiple different sites.
I received a response to my generous offer…
“RICHARD Vincent is the name
Location is London,Uk”
I intended to use as much information I could get to try to get into this guy’s email address – his secret question was “pet name” – I would suggest never using an obvious answer to your secret questions (ie don’t use something people can find out by googling you). Anyway, I also tried a couple of sites that let you reverse search an email address – one of them suggested an IP address somewhere in the US – but I figure that was for the Mail.com servers.
I wanted as much information about the hacker as possible so I went fishing (or phishing… almost)…
“Australia has increased regulations for Western Union money transfers – to combat fraudulent transactions. I also need to verify your date of birth and occupation.“
His reply:
“august 6th 1976……
what should i make the password of the box??”
I wanted to stall him while I waited for Facebook to restore my account – or to get access to his email… which is probably not the most ethical way to go about it.
“Is this offer acceptable to you?
I don’t know how I can trust that you will in fact relinquish control of the account – how would you suggest proving that you can be trusted?”
That’s right hacker. Make me trust you. Someone who’s proven untrustworthy already.
So he responded with a little bit of pathos. A happy birthday to me. And a revelation that for him at least – it’s all about the money.
“so today is your birthday?
i can swear with my life that you will get the account back immediately you send me the money.Thats all i need.
am sorry for doing this,but i need the money.The choice is yours”
I decided to see just how dumb he was. If he reset the email address on my account I could have a password reset form emailed to myself… but this email bounced.
“I’m not sure the word of a hacker is worth much to me.
I think perhaps if you change the email address on my account back, send me an email notifying me of the change. When I see the email on the account has changed I will make payment and we can agree on a password for you to change it to.”
Poor Richard Vincent in London probably has no idea why his email address has been closed down. Or maybe it was just an account set up to swindle unwitting facebook friends out of their hard earned cash.
As I mentioned in an earlier post on this situation – there are lessons to be learned from this experience. Don’t make your password something stupidly obvious. Don’t make your secret questions easy to figure out. Don’t store passwords for every account you have in one email address. Don’t use the same password for more than one site. Change passwords regularly. And don’t expect $800 from your Facebook friends.