Popbitch calls this the 'gayest album ever'. I don't think anything beats Brent's cousin David miming Dolly Parton songs, but this comes close.

Oh dear. Yes, I was one of those 'grave-looking' nurses yesterday...

Wacky, wacky wackiness. Alex, look: David Garza is playing here in Bic Runga's band, with Paul Kelly opening! Small musical world...

My crappy digital camera has been fixed. And look! Here's Ellie!

Oh, and here's something else that stuck with me: the Tuhourangi, who were in charge of guiding Victorian tourists to the Pink and White Terraces, used gold sovereigns as eyes in their carvings, rather than paua shell. That tribe raked it in!

It's so obvious. Why didn't anyone think of it before? Hell's Gate should have been in a Scorpions video, dammit! Rotorua is cool. Geysers! Steaming cliffs! Bubbling mud! Steaming *and* bubbling pools! More motels per square kilometre than anywhere else in New Zealand! St. Faith's Anglican Church at Ohinemutu Marae! (Well, that doesn't sound exciting until you see the inside, which is a bizarre combination of European and Maori design. Wooden pews and crosses combined with carving and flax panels, plus a sandblasted window depicting Jesus as a Maori warrior who appears to actually be walking on the waters of Lake Rotorua. And the surroundings gently steaming as heat escapes from the earth's core... wow.) Plus, I don't care how cheesy and touristy it is, Whakarewarewa is fantastic. They live there! They bathe in the pools! They cook food! They heat their houses! Although our guide told us their TVs only last two years because of the sulphurous atmosphere...

Yeah, Rolling Stone mostly sucks, but... heeheehee.

The husband is 32 today! Well done. We are also off to Rotorua to celebrate our anniversary tomorrow... bubbling mud update in a few days!

I ask you, what kind of Beatle dork am I??

The Last Waltz is so fantastic. The last time I saw it I was a mere slip of a gel (actually I've never been a mere slip of anything, but whatever) and I didn't really appreciate it, but we watched the reissued DVD last night and I am filled with warm fuzzy love for The Band, Ronnie Hawkins, Marty Scorsese, and Van Morrison's squat little kicks, among other things. A bit disturbing: keyboardist man whose name escapes me looks like Kelsey Grammer really let himself go!

So I was procrastinating by reading the Straight Dope message board, and someone brought up the worst show ever, which I'd completely forgotten about. Worse than Webster! Can you imagine?

OK, if there is not a career-retrospective Missy Elliott video-DVD thingy released in my lifetime, I'll know the world is irredeemably fucked up forever and ever. (Well, you know, if I was originally in doubt, there's the Holocaust, and stuff. But apart from that.) The video for 'Work It' is so... well, it's divine. That's all that can be said. My favourite moment of many is the confrontational little white b-girl in her pink shorts - the kid can *dance*!

Other discoveries of the day: free range eggs taste so much better than battery. And The Louvin Brothers are strangely comforting... the message is freaky, I disagree with it utterly, and yet... it's actually quite good.

Post-PMS shout-out to DJ Shadow: $53 is too fucking much for me, dude. The entire Big Day Out is only $95!

Hmph. I really want to see DJ Shadow. But I can't manage two tickets at $53 apiece... no no no...

In deep, gloomy, procrastinating depression. I am convinced that I can't do anything right. I have no discipline for schoolwork, housework, or paid employment. I have, at best, mediocre abilities, and am generally an embarrassment to all who know me. I will never amount to anything, despite being at an age when I should have amounted to more than half a something. And I'm ugly, too. (I should go and write angst-ridden poetry in a diary now about how awful third form is. Jesus, what am I, 14? I can't even be *depressed* like an adult.) (Just realised that I'm dissing myself for not being depressed *maturely* enough. Only I could manage this kind of immensely dorkish self-loathing.)

Of course, I feel like this approximately every 32 days, so it might be hormonal. Ya think?

Just came back from seeing our MP's secretary. She was very nice, but apparently no dice on the immigration expediting plan. Nine months is, according to her, optimistic since a lot of people can wait eighteen months. No teacher's college for Brent! One year!

I really hope they reinstate his visitor's permit...

Great. I rang the immigration department and Brent is now an overstayer! (Apparently being married to me and having a residency application pending is not good enough.) Yet another letter off in the post today begging them to reinstate his visa. *Then* I have to fill in *another* form asking for a temporary work permit, since the residency, according to the woman on the phone, will not be processed for *nine months* from the application date. Oh yay, this will all be sorted out in approximately June 2003 then. Good-o. So much for teacher's college in February. He might be too *old* to be a teacher at this rate...

(Added frustrating note: the work permit involves proving the veracity of our marriage again, with certificates and photos and stuff. But the immigration department already *has* all this stuff sitting in the permanent residency application file. I suppose it's far too difficult to open a folder and have a look at it...)

Oh look. Here is my ideal job. They are hiring writers and researchers right now. Bizarrely, I am qualified. But wait! It's in Wellington. Don't get me wrong. I like Wellington. A lot. It's a great city. It's prettier than Auckland. It's all cultural and stuff. But do I want to live there? What's the point of moving back home to look after my mother if I end up living 10 hours' drive away?

I probably won't get it anyway. But I might get a free trip to Wellington for the interview!

The newish Ash single, 'Envy', makes me feel like I'm sixteen again. I fucking love it. The video is great too. The NME says: 'pop so pukingly pure it makes you hallucinate thousands of fluffy puppies strewing a sunlit park with miles upon mile of powder-pink toilet tissue'. God, aren't the NME a bunch of wankers? :)

It occurs to me that I haven't given my puppy any public love, unlike some other folks in the blogging world. And if my digital camera hadn't crapped out, I would be sending you hither and yon to little links of pictorial canine joy right here. Ellie celebrated a milestone in her two and a half month life yesterday: her first real bone. She was so thrilled that I thought she would burst. Brent has likened her to 'a small struggling sausage' and I think he's right. Here is the cutest thing about her: her ears are supposed to stand up like a Staffy's, but they're longer than they're meant to be because of the Lab in her... so even when she's trying to look extra alert, they flop over... aaaaaahhhhh bless.