French actor and musician, Charlotte Gainsbourg is almost exactly the same age as me, but way prettier. I like these existential lyrics too. Thanks Clare for the tip.

Crossfire: I think you're a good comedian; I think your lectures are boring.

vs

Jon: What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery.

vs

Crossfire: What's it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. Do you like lecture people like this?

I do think you're more fun on your show, just my opinion.

vs

Jon: You know what's interesting though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

Thanks Ezra for the link.

Very funny, thanks Grace.

The Centenial light bulb has been burning in Livermore, California since 1901. The bulb features a carbon filament which is the secret to its longevity.

This raises two thoughts:

1. They really don't build 'em like they used to.
2. How much less profit would light manufacturers make if bulbs didn't need replacing?

Regarding though #2, the pro-big business argument goes that companies aren't that conniving. The first one to invent the long-lasting light bulb would simply make it, market it, and steal market share — for a while.

The idea is that actually we consumers simply don't want long-lasting things. Well we do, but we also want cheap and fashionable. Your 5-year old cell phone may still make calls but it sure isn't fashionable.

In other news, Australia is banning incandescent bulbs within three years.

My friend Clare has posted some of her demo recordings at MySpace. They are very good.

Could this be the smartest cop show of all time? Or the demon spawn of Dr Who, The Bill, and The Matrix? Hmm dunno. Maybe; maybe not. However, the pilot was marvellous. A modern-day DCI (that's detective chief inspector) is hit by a car and knocked 33 years into the past, where he has to come to terms with the rough and ready policing of the 1970s, while wearing cool retro threads.

However, he is convinced that the world around him is merely the product of his imagination as he lies comatose in a 2006 hospital bed. At first, he resists this "unreal" world, but inevitably he is drawn in by the human drama unfolding around him, and encouraged by his understanding female sidekick and a very Matricesque philosopher bartender.

Good lines:

A man can only make up so much detail you know, so I'm gonna walk until I can't think up any more faces or streets.

and

This place is like Guantánamo Bay.

Give over. It's nothing like Spain.

Jory talks about her H-band (recently upgraded from B-friend) getting his hair cut recently after an adult life of long hair, just like me.

But I let the last decade just lay there, and then get swept up and thrown away.

The post and the comments get rather metaphysical, talking about growing up and letting go.

My personal theory was always that a shift to the internal landscape triggers a need for an external change as well. I don't know if there's anything to that theory, but the Iliad has Achilles cutting off his long hair and leaving it on his best friend's grave, so this is not a new phenomenon.

And it's interesting. I received one or two "oh you're finally acting like a grown up" comments. Sorry to disappoint. I'm still the same clumsy, immature jerk, and proud of it. People wanted to know why I did it. I don't have an answer. There's no particular reason for anything in life is there? Vote one for contingency.

Because of the sand you threw in my eyes
Carelessly
I am unable to gauge my reaction to your other news.
But tears of sadness have a different chemistry
So if you will give me a moment
To perform some analysis,
I will check the levels of
Adrenocorticotropic hormone
And get back to you
Soon.

I watch the wind move
through birch leaves,
the beach towel hanging to dry,
the grass and the tussock
and the ferns,
fingertips through hair.

I am a stick
not planted in the sand
but balanced on end
upright, unsteady
about to topple
with my thoughts only repeating
no no no no no no
as if that makes any difference
to anything.

I was stung by an ant at the weekend. It was the tiniest act of violence I've ever witnessed. I almost giggled. I was lying on the grass reading a book and I noticed a few winged ants there on the grass, then I noticed one or two weeds were thick with ants. Then I noticed something was being done to my elbow. It was rather cute really, the tiny black ant doubled over and teaching me for sticking my elbows where they don't belong by jabbing me with a homeopathic dose of formic acid. Nobody was harmed.

Apologies to Clare for stealing from an email.

Last weekend I was in the Buller. But the week before, I took a couple of days off work to head over to another part of the West Coast. To get into Griffin Creek, you must leave it behind and climb 800 metres over a hill before dropping back to the creekside. From here on up, the creek is genty flowing and isolated: ideal country for blue ducks. I saw at least five on the river, whistling and grunting, their calls high or low to defeat the water's white noise. The first pair I encountered actually came over to see me, not like tame city birds, not like wary rural birds, but like the innocent, unsuspecting species this beautiful land was once full of before the mammals came.

I picked out serpentine rocks from the the creekbed. Some other time I shall wander up to the old serpentine mine on the tops near Mount Griffin. This time though, I was staying with the valleys.

Griffin Creek Hut is a delight, deecorated with dried leaves and paintings, and featuring all manner of amenities such as oven mitts and star charts. As I walked in I noted fresh footprints in the riverbed. I noted the spacing and decided I was following two people. There at the hut were two packs, four boots, and no people. So I wandered down to the river for water, and simultaneously discovered both that the hut had an outdoor bath and the location of my anonymous companions.

Ezzie and Taz were very nice, and we followed each other out the next day. We talked about the route, about ducks, about kayaking, and about Christchurch. It is funny to meet nice people and then never see them again. I guess meeting people in huts is a little like picking up hitchhikers.

I said goodbye to those two over lunch and headed downriver. Soon after, I missed a turn and came upon the banks of the deep, swift blue Taipo River looking pretty and deadly. Naturally, the first think I did was photograph it, although swift and dangerous rivers never look much when they are frozen in time. I tried heading downstream for a minute or two but that clearly wasn't going to work due to the gorginess of the terrain. My heart beat a little harder and I wondered if I was going to die alone, oh my melodramatic little heart.

But then I pondered the map for a minute or two and noted braids upriver. Sure enough, I could cross the braids. Over the tamed river I started looking for the track marked on the map. I didn't need to look ard as it was a smooth and easy road leading through pretty forest over a little hill and out to the highway. My penance for missing a turn was an hour's walk and jog back along the highway to the car, waiting patiently there for me.

Winding back through Arthur's Pass, I had to keep stopping to admire the rata flowers, a reddish band across the hillsides. Occasional trees were ablaze a brilliant red. I arrived back in Chistchurch, hot, tired, scratched, and red, for fireworks and classical music in the park, secretly glad to be alive.

It's much shorter. Kate did it at Kinky Hair with the scissors. I can drive without getting hair in my eyes.

I am listening to the Veils, thinking about islands, thinking about quitting, thinking about running.

There I knew you once, didn't I
And the sound of your music traveled
To me from that orphan sky
And pulled 'til it all unravelled

Interesting anthropological experiment:

1. Walk around Christchurch wearing a tee shirt saying, "Tom is NOT my friend." Result? Nothing.
2. Walk around Westport wearing a tee shirt saying, "Tom is NOT my friend." Result? Everybody wants to know who Tom is. Gas station attendants, people sitting on the grass, people everywhere. I was sure to give each person who asked a different answer, since the actual answer is not very interesting.

I sure will be sticking with the straightforward tee shirts when visiting small towns in future. For example: "Hi, my name is Matthew" or "May I pat your dog?"

Last night Mike and I entered our first 5km run. I have only entered 10km and quarter marathons in the past. I thought this might be a little more fun as you get to run a little faster.

I managed a time of 21:47, which I'm happy with for now. I seem to have mastered the discovery of reserves of energy to sprint to the finish. I don't know what that says about my running — perhaps I'm only motivated when people are watching. It happened in the Buller too. It is a lot of fun to get together for some after work exercise with a crowd of people and have a timed run.

I picked up entry forms for two other series that are running simultaneously. There's one starting just near my house at the New Brighton Pier. It's called "Pier to Pier" which is a little odd as there's only one pier, and seems to be a joke about file sharing.

Much of my recent running has been fueled by Trace's friend Alex, who has been running a long time and knows about all the events. Of course events serve as a good incentive to keep training. Now I'm starting to find out about more events, as events are advertised at other events, and there really are a lot of them.

It's interesting how friends of friends can influence your life. Leaf on a stream, as my friend Sophie says.

A drinks station on the marathon.

Last weekend was the 25th Buller Marathon. I was part of a team of four who ran it as a relay. We did OK, getting 15th out of 38 mixed teams, but it's more about the participating than the times. The Buller Gorge is beautifully green and sinuous. The marathon leads down the river under the famous Hawk's Crag and through the streets of Westport.

Here is a 100-year-old photo of the crag. Nothing much has changed except there are now mirrors so you can see around the bends. The rock is "Hawk's Crag Breccia" which is contains uranium and is also found in Paparoa National Park. But here, I'm getting distracted. Back to the story.

I ran the final leg across the farmland and into town. Locals turn on their sprinklers and hoses, and crowds watch runners from the final turn at the post office run under the memorial gates and into the park. It's a lot of fun and I'll do it again next year, when I think I'll enter the half marathon. That's the event that you can "bullshit your way through" as an older marathon runner at the pub was telling me later in the evening (as opposed to a marathon where you actually have to train like 90km per week).

The whole town seemed to stop for the marathon. To stop and go down to the park. To stop, put on shirts saying, "I'm only here for Frankie," and go down to the park. Frankie Stevens was singing. There were hot dogs and chips and marquees and beer and whitebait sandwiches. It was Westport; it was glorious.

Thanks Trace, Ezra and Peter for being great running and travelling companions. I'm lucky.