A Spa....???!

Yesterday I had my first cause to visit the fuse box. All in all a rather interesting experience. To the best of what I can understand, there are at least 3 fuses which don't appear to actually 'fuse' anything. The labels are also a little comical. "Heating" controls the lounge to several unlabelled fuses.

Perhaps the most mysterious of all was the fuse labelled "spa". It's vaguely possible that this is some sort of cryptic electrician shorthand for "spare". However, none of the other apparently spare fuses are labelled "spare", so I don't see why this one should get special treatment. Further, there was easily enough space to write the "r" and the "e", so why just leave it at "spa" if you meant spare. On the other hand, maybe I've been done out of a spa? And if so, where was it?

On a previous voyage to the ceiling space, I managed to find a power socket up there, which briefly had me wondering whether they'd once been hydroponic activities up there. Unfortunately, given that it was adjacent to the new bathroom extractor unit and other miscellaneous bits, it's more likely to have been put there by the electrician, so that he can have a light/plug in his drill up there....

The plot thickens...

A Scenic Detour...

After the a pretty nasty patch, the weather has niced up again, and we've been enjoying some more warm sunny days. And I do mention this a bit in defence of Dunedin.

Anyway, one of the actual reasons why I'm back on the weather/Dunedin, is that even though I've lived here for 9 years now, I still occasionally have new and magic and novel experiences, so I feel that there are things that I have yet to experience yet. On Tuesday, I'd been up in Roslyn at Rhubarb sampling some Huia product (and come on, it's not exactly like you need to follow the link to know what kind of "product" I'm referring to). Having finished up there about 8, I decided to walk home seeing as it was such a nice evening, and set off down Highgate. My original plan was to stick with Highgate the whole way, bash down the Bullock Track into the Woodhaugh Gardens, and then up into Opoho the usual ways. Well, not far along from Roslyn, I went down a side street, thinking it would merely take me down to Queen's Drive, and I'd wander down to George St that way. I did get to Queen's Drive eventually, but on the way I stumbled into what can only be described a small rent in the space-time continuum. Or so it seemed. It was like a whole mini-suburb, with contours that seemed like it should exist. Somehow fitting in to what seems when you look up from town like a fairly flat and featureless hill, was a very leafy gentrified area. I guess the crazy thing is that I used to know a girl who lived on one of the streets I was walking along, but that must have been near the bottom, and I'd never ventured further up. And even in all my driving and odd tiki-tours, I'd never come across this area before. Very cool.

Spurlock without the 'Tache

I can't guarantee it'll be quality television, but while watching a sport we shan't talk about that was being screened free-to-air on Prime for the last four days, I saw an ad for something interesting. Tomorrow, at 8:30pm, is Louis and the Nazis, with Louis Theroux. He's the son of some famous guy, Paul Theroux.

I've seen Louis before in his "weird weekends" series. Basically, he's a nice sort of nondescript guy, who spends a weekend hanging out with odd groups. Sort of participant-observer, but not too heavy on the participant. Like a less participating Morgan Spurlock, and mercifully, without the dodgy 'tache. So Louis's spent a weekend hanging out with swingers, or in the porn industy. Well, tomorrow night, Louis goes and spends some time with some neo-nazis etc. in America. It promises to be somewhat amusing, and will no doubt confirm my liberal prejudices against white extremicists. There's also an added level of squirm-humour that Louis is jewish.

Brutal

I've spent a fair bit of time attempting to explain the oddities of Dunedin weather to my international student flatmates over the years. Plus, it's occasionally pretty funny to watch the new fresher's discovering why Four Seasons in One Day was a) a New Zealand song and b) the video was filmed in Oamaru.

The weather was bobbing around the low 20s at lunchtime, with quite a warm wind. If you were to ask me, I'd probably label it a nor'wester, and if pressed, suggest that there might be a southerly on the way. It's also more than likely that I would have skulked here or here pretty recently. Fifth form geography also instilled this sort of cyclic nature. So anyway, check out these graphs. At 1:30, it's 21 degrees, sunny, and a bit windy. I saw the front coming (I was home for lunch, but had a ride back to work organised), and it looked pretty impressive. As you can see, in a matter of minutes, the wind had a sudden change of direction, the sky had clouded over, the temperature had dropped, and it was pissing down. Brutal, well brutal was that by 4pm the temperature had hit 5.3 degrees, plus there had been 17.5mm of rain. Five degrees. Mandy she's a bit chilly out there.



EDIT: Cool weather graphics courtesy of the Department of Physics' Energy Studies program.