I was had

I've been hectoring MrsPdubyah to trade-in her car for something newer, smaller, more economical. It's a long sales cycle.

There are a number of discrete stages.

• Suggestion.


• Pause for a few days, or more.


• Suggestion.


• Pause for a few days, or more.


• Look and point at cars.


• Pause for a few days, or more.


• Suggest again trading the old car for a new one


• Pause for a few days, or more.


• Whilst out doing things stop at a car yard and mooch about pointing at a cars.


• Ignore sales person


• Pause for a few days, or more.

Today however was a bit of  a breakthrough, there was agreement to at least go to look at a specific car model at a specific yard. Which we did.

It was then the wool was pulled over my eyes when MrsPdubyah says "Lets to to the car yard in Albany, then we can at least say that we've looked there and can cross it off" Since it was on the way home, or not to far out of the way of course I agreed. More in shock.

Oh yes, of course the specific car was available on the lot, and we went for a drive. "Oh I knew this was here, I looked it up the internet"

This isn't the first time that this has happened although in the past MrsPdubyah might have taken a test drive already. Seems not this time,

Then I get more questions about engine sizes of different versions of the model, and there again I was had when I was schooled in a number of features. Oh and further to that there are other car yards where similar models can be found, if I could see my way clear to chauffeur to and fro. Way to spend a Sunday.

So now it all depends on the trade-in value of the old jalopy as to whether we go any further.

Beer - #237 - Panhead - Days of Thunder

It's Thursday, a work day, and I'd put my empty bottle in the car hoping to fill it tomorrow. But being how as I'm easily lead I've stopped off at the Liquorland in Newmarket and picked up a litre of the Panhead Customs Days of Thunder, a US  style IPA with an ABV of 7.7%. A one litre bottle then is about 6.8 standard drink units in NZ (4.34 in the US, and 7.7 in the UK)

Brewed by Panhead Custom Ales in the style of  an India Pale Ale (IPA) and they're in Upper Hutt, New Zealand.

Possibly named after the 1990 race car movie starring Tom Cruise, or a type of engine.

It's much more yellow and pale in the real as opposed to the picture. Trust me .

Explosively hoppy aroma, nice pour but a little shy on the head, again the colour is much more pale, almost cloudy.

Brilliantly bitter, with grapefruits and citrus and a reasonable carry with this. Not so bitter that you frown but more one that introduces itself with a firm handshake, which is preferable.

Really very quaffable, the grassiness of the hops coming more to the fore, but not in that way that blunts your tongue and kills off your taste buds.

Drinking this I was reminded of this picture. Which I found to be very needful.

Started off life as a  Honda XL 600 Enduro.

As you can see had a bit of a make-over.

Nothing to do with beer, or panhead engines, which are a Harley Davidson thing but you knew that.

But nethertheless a bit needful.

Moving on. The pdubyah-o-meter says this is a cracking beer, and rates it well at 8 - very good, on the random scale of all things.

Nicely done, not too overboard, very bold, and you'd be surprised at the high ABV rating that seems to just pass you by. Thursday night sitting in the evening sun got a whole lot more pleasant.

 

The one with the online shopping

I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not an online shopper.

But truth is I'm never comfortable with the online shopping thing. Sure I've done it.

Locally we have Trademe, which is like eBay buy for New Zealanders.

I've brought from Amazon in the UK, a phone case for the daughter, that was about NZ$14.00.

I brought some vinyl music from http://www.wowhd.co.nz The Elbow Definitive Vinyl, a couple of hundred NZ$, nights of angst!

Recently I brought shoes from http://www.shoes4u.co.nz This was a real interesting experience and driven by the fact that my current  excercise (walking) shoes have after just under 200kms are showing wear and tear, and if nothing else is important it's looking good and having the good shoes on the feet.

I prefer Nike Free. I've been a big fan of them since forever. Having seen some in a sale recently at NZ$150 I was kind of tempted, they are around that price too in the Nike Outlet place.  So I had a google, and found two sites, and chose the Shoes4U one, for the simple reason that they took a credit card transaction, and not a paypal thing.

So I ordered a pair, all up in US$ 77.95 including the shipping. That was Thursday 31st January. Get home Monday and there is a card from the couriers saying go pick up a package. Which we thought was some university documents, because clearly something from Hong Kong isn't going to get to Auckland in 4 days?

And the credit card hadn't been debited yet.

Wrong. There they were. Delivered. The Credit card got debited that day, But that's the first time the things have arrived before the card has been charged.

The Shoes4u.co.nz website is maddeningly difficult to navigate to log-on, check the shipment, give feedback and all that but they have a benchmark in service.

So here I sit a bit of this and a bit of that. I feel like I scored a real bargain, shoes for under NZ$100 saving me at least $50 in the colour I want to, not the run-out colours maybe in your style or not.

I also feel that I've let the local shops down too, it doesn't feel right that you can the same shoes freighted in, and even if you add the GST part they work out NZ$35 dollars cheaper than on sale. They retail normally around $190-$200.

I'm all for buy local where I can, and where it makes sense.  I understand how the local retailers find the online shopping opportunities a real threat to them.

As it turns out I'm a bit of an online shopper and my purchases from overseas appear to be increasing, for someone that like to swap money for immediate possession of goods the online purchase always provides days of fret and worry. And one day I'll get an import bill of some kind where they ping me for tax or something, Inevitable really. I've no doubt that you could get totally carried away and spend heaps of money buying all sorts of things, but I'd steer clear of laptops and tablets for now, because I'm not prepared to gamble money on things that may break, as opposed to shoes, for instance. And my purchases might never get above the $100, because like gambling that might be all I'm prepared to lose in one transaction.

Bit of a mistake - Shopping at Farro

I don't know what came over me, but I went to Farro Fresh, for no reason other than that they do have the  Over the Moon – Triple Cream Brie that I'm a bit of a fan of. Why would you not be!

So MrsPdubyah and MissPdubyah were watching X-Factor on the Mysky and I decided that it would be better if I didn't.

Road Trip to  to Farro Fresh on Constellation Drive as my safe place.

Bit. Of. A. Mistake. Lot. Of.

I found the cheese, but I didn't buy it, because their Cheese-o-rorium has some Whitestone Lindis Pass Brie that took my eye instead. And of course having brought the Primo Sopresso Hot Salami I felt that I was on a bit of a roll.

But what put me off my stride straight away was the sign advertising "New Zealand Pineapples 2-for-$5" except they weren't' they were from the Philippines. I can let that slide, no one is really going to think that we've grown Pineapples in Winter right?

But having got my small stash of cheese and salami I decided a mooch about the aisles was a thing.

This is where is really started to go wrong.

My "twatdar" starts boinging like a grandfather clock stuck on 12. Mothers who indulge their little Deborah with a bottle of $14.50 rhubarb and lime cordial for instance, which was pretention enough. Then came Mr. and Mrs Mexico. With their shop assistant.

"We're from Mexico, and in Mexico..." ... "In Mexico shops like this"... "Mexican people like us, in Mexico".. and the poor store boy hadn't said a word yet. They brought some flour. I don't think you can get flour in Mexico. Don't really know, but "in Mexico I love to cook" people were happy.

The queue for the pretzel tasting. "Charlotte it's cheese and herbs" he said, having tasted a sugar cube chunk. Charlotte sets a low bar for enjoyment clearly.

There is much to admire about the produce at Farro, I'm not knocking the store, but the people that shop there are the sort that would rather shop online and have delivered rather than go to Foodtown let alone Pak n' Save.

It's the kind of toy shop for adults enthusiasm that annoys me " Darling it's organic butter!" I think missing the point about what "organic" means in it's real sense. I get that in a food sense it means "without chemicals". And it's like shooting fish in a barrel, $7.49 for 100grams of dried fruit in a foil packaging from a company that "loves food", for instance.

There is a plethora of things that you can't get in a supermarket and that's why I enjoy shopping at Farro. But I got to figure out the quite time when raised whispers to an enthralled partner are not de rigueur.

Oh and yes I brought some Quinoa, just like a child in a lolly shop with a gold coin, hook line and sinker...

Trying Teen Times - the grown up one

Eldest is suffering from boy. Being a boy. Being aimless, feckless and without any clear idea. It is a boy thing. I get that it's a boy thing and somewhere you find your own level, your own pace, and it all comes right. Mostly, in pdubyahworld anyway.

Eldest did a year of work, and the decided that University was a better bet, and that Geography and Philosophy would be his thing. I guess he wanted to both sit an ponder on a hill, and ponder about life and hill. Who knows.

Anyway a year on and that's not what we wanted to do at all. So we had the "chat". He was blabbing on about this and that and came up with the trusted "I don't have a plan"

I waved my arms around a bit, in the way that you do, and see in movies, and explained in a pained and hushed voice "Did you think that This house, the car I drive, the two children I have and the job that I've been in for 12 years was my plan?" I continued "That my son is not a plan it's actually a bit of a nightmare"

He's promised to see out university and get a real job. Although his idea of a job appears to want to be an "animator" which I hope is cartoons and not Dr.Frankenstein type stuff.

In an instant...

Way back when, before the internet and mobile phones we'd agree to meet somewhere and we did. The newspapers arrived with the news from far-flung places, with the best bits held for the Sunday papers. Junk mail didn't exist. There were weekly local newspapers. We all watched either the news at 5:45, 9pm or 10pm or all three. There was no 24 hour TV.

Fast forward a bit. Now we have everything in an instant."Social Media". For instance  we have Twitter, which is about as real-time as it gets without being there, sometimes it's accurate, sometimes not. If you've ever witnessed the rise and decline of a twitter meme you'll understand how fickle it is.

And we have deal-a-day websites, by the hundreds, imploring us to buy now, immediately, things we don't need at prices we can't ignore. We have deal a day advertising on twitter of course, and Facebook.

We can't just agree to meet somewhere, we have to text and call numerous times 'just in case' It's scary how frail we've become, how unsure it all is, how needy.

Facebook has given everyone access to our lives, out thoughts and deeds. And we accept it. FourSquare has given you the ability to let people know what cafe, shop, street, bar you are in all the time. It's "me" central!

But it can't carry on. This explosion of socializing on the internet is doomed at some point, where it becomes intrusive. And I mean intrusive to me - I don't really care that you're the mayor of the donut shop, I don't really want to see your party pictures on Facebook. There are bits of your life that I am interested in, just not some bits.

Twitter, Text, Facebook, et al, is where the wild west is. "Everyone" is trying to get a piece of the action, to make a buck, and to get you to spend a buck. At some point you just have to switch off and tune out.

Now I can't actually think of a service that I've used that has fallen into obscurity, other than the web hosting Geocities, other than that Bebo, and MySpace perhaps. So I can't see a tailspin for any of the services we use right now, or are familiar with, which are, to repeat them, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and Youtube. Even an aggregation of all these things into one super app isn't what is going to happen, because why? It'll be too cumbersome, too awkward, too heavy.

The thing that we overlook  with Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Youtube. Google+, Flikr, Wordpress, LinkedIn et al is that they are all "free" That's right we don't need to part with any cash of any kind to use them. Sure we have to have a device that can access them interactively, but they are free to use. And we accept that without question that we're giving up something for something. We just don't seem to care about what it is we're giving up, which in two words is privacy and ownership. Of our identity and our intellectual property.

Anything that rises will have to have some basics, speed, reach, ease and appeal. Anything that falls will have become bloated, tedious or have some cataclysm around it like bankruptcy, where users fall away like hair falling out never to return.

Waiting on a Macbook Air

I've talked myself into needing one. Just the entry-level one, despite them being 2 or 3 times more expensive than a notebook computer.

It's about weight, and in philipworld I'd use the Air to fabricate my blog, and things.

That there were a couple of 36 months interest free deals going on, and this is ike a red rag to a bull, at mearly a few dollars a month I could have the toy of the moment.

Except that they're not in stock, and I don't have one, and at the price they are I don't want to wait for one, I want instant gratification, I want it now, today, take home.

So I don't have one, but I did get a keyboard and a dock for the iPad, and today I'll get a magic mouse. perhaps.

After all I promised myself.

and then.............. I did some research, and whilst it's a ood plan, to use a mouse with an iPad it doesn't actually work. So to plan B then

Waiting on a Macbook Air

I've talked myself into needing one. Just the entry level one. Depsite them being 2 or 3 times more expensive than a notebook computer.

It's about weight, and in philipworld I'd use the Air to fabricate my blog, and things.

That there were a couple of 36 months interest free deals going on, and this is ike a red rag to a bull, at mearly a few dollars a month I could have the toy of the moment.

Except that they're not in stock, and I don't have one, and at the price they are I don't want to wait for one, I want instant gratification, I want it now, today, take home.

So I don't have one, but I did get a keyboard and a dock for the iPad, and today I'll get a magic mouse. perhaps.

After all I promised myself.