I’m stoked that this day Obama has made history. Along with the rest of the world, I’m sure, we at the office (my first tentative day back!) were refreshing msnbc.com every two minutes to watch the states change colour. It was fantastic, fantastic result, reading all the blog responses and viewing the photos where people have tears of joy was really amazing to watch.

It’s also pretty fantastic to think about how *quickly* attitudes have changed, in the last 50-60 years even! It was only 50 years ago that the Civil Rights Movement was started, and things like segregated public transport were just being outlawed, and now, a mere 50 years later an African American is president.

As McCain said in his gracious concession speech; “A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.”

A world and a few decades people, The Civil Rights Movement was less than a lifetime ago! I know, there is still racism and other problems out there, but if you can go from one extreme to president in less than a lifetime imagine what the attitudes in the next 50 years will be like!

Good job, America. :)

He has been pretty fantastic this week. Not only did he provide Tiki Tane‘s new album (buying it online to support New Zealand Music!) which has made life pass by much, MUCH quicker; but he has also dropped a shiny bottle of Frank on my desk: All New Sparkling Juicy Pear and Feijoa!

*wriggles* my two favourite flavours in one fantastic, bubbly drink. It’s almost silly that I am THIS excited about a bottle of bubbles… *grin*

Well, mostly horrible, anyway. I spent half of my long weekend in Ward 97 of Auckland Hospital. Before you panic, I was fine. They put a drip in my arm and administered potent antibiotics every 8 hours, and took my temperature every 4 hours. I felt a bit ill and when I went to see my doctor for what was meant to be a routine check (!) and I had a temperature over 28.5 and my doctor panicked a bit, and so off I went with what was supposedly a post-op infection.

The main problem was not the food, nor being interrupted or woken every few hours. It was not having to listen to the girl across the way weep because she was in so much pain after her surgery (something I’m grateful I didn’t have to have), nor was it being poked or prodded by needles that spilt my blood all over the bed like a fountain (see the fake-cheerful photo for the post ‘where’d all my blood just go?’ experience, above), or getting bruises because the blood pressure machine thought my arm was smaller than it was. The WORST part about spending my weekend in hospital was the sheer boredom. And I’d even come prepared.

I watched the new episodes of this weeks shows multiple times, and played the ALL games my laptop had to offer (which includes World of Goo and Civilisation: Beyond the Sword – games which passed many hours). I read the magazines on hand, wandered the halls when I thought I could get away with it, and spent a long time playing with the hydraulic bed. But after a while that gets old. Really really old.

Lucky I had my own personal superhero. The Boy came and suffered in boredom with me. And when he wasn’t around, The Fourth Quarter was. Without them, my stay would have been UNBEARABLE. So, on your next stay at hospital, forget your ipod and laptop, pack your PEOPLE! Perhaps I should publicly, to The Boy and The Fourth Quarter <3! Love you guys!

World Animal Day is celebrated on the 4th of October every year, originally used a way of highlighting the plight of endangered species it has since grown to encompass all kinds of animal life and is widely celebrated in countries throughout the world.

Boston.com has again rocked out a large selection of gorgeous, gorgeous animal photography for the occasion:

Sangworn, a mahout (elephant driver), stands with his 13 year old elephant, Bussaba, at his temporary camp September 26, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. While the elephant is a symbol of Thailand, it is a fairly common site to see the unemployed and homeless animals roaming the city streets begging for food. The tame elephants dodge the traffic as their mahouts sell sugar cane by the bag to tourists who then feed them. Thai officials frown upon the practice and have passed laws banning elephants from roadways but the mahouts still come risking fines in order to survive. Elephants have been big business for the country for centuries but now they are reduced to a major tourist attraction. Elephants are trained to paint, play musical instruments, and even kick soccer balls. Until Thailand banned logging in 1989, many Asian elephants were laborers working in the jungles. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Green Sea Turtles in the waters of Bora Bora, Tahiti are seen in this undated photograph from an exhibit titled “Irreplaceable: Wildlife in a Warming World,” recently shown at the Peerless building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. The exhibit showcased animals most threatened by global warming, such as green sea turtles. The gender of sea turtle eggs are determined by temperature, which means global warming would upset the natural gender balance (Photo by Michele Westmorland).

Narwhals seen along the floe edge in Arctic Bay, Canada. The whales are pushing under the ice to feed on cod. They come up in seal holes and rotten ice in order to catch a breath. This undated photo is part of an exhibit titled “Irreplaceable: Wildlife in a Warming World,” recently shown at the Peerless building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. (Paul Nicklen/National Geographic Image Collection)

Fantastic, right?

Consolidated Skateboards is all about Love. Loving your local skate shop, loving the skate industry and promoting the ‘damn the man’ attitude that comes with rocking your own style in your own way. It’s all about giving power to the little man. And it looks like they are jumping the battle into the snow industry just as Nike are dropping in on the scene.

As Hyperbeast said “Core snowboard brand, Rome SDS [Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate], has teamed up with Consolidated Skateboards to create a premium boot with a subversive agenda. Though the approach is playful, the issue is not to be taken lightly. Consolidated Skateboards first launched the Don’t Do It Army in 1997 to keep big sporting goods brands out of the skateboard industry, and now, together with Rome SDS, they are bringing the campaign into the snowboard arena. Taking Rome’s popular Libertine silhouette and incorporating their signature Banana logo, Don’t Do It slogan, and Drunk namesake, Consolidated looks to stir up a conversation about the big sporting goods company who recently made their debut in the snowboard scene.”

In truth, I think the boots are pretty sick, and I love that it’s in keeping with snowboarding’s history, and true rocking style.

As they said on the inside tag:
“We could argue all day long about where snowboarding came from: skateboarding, surfing or even skiing. But there’s one thing we all know: Snowboarding sure as hell didn’t come from baseball, basketball, football, jogging or golf. So if you let a jock ball-sport company just waltz in and take over this industry because they’ve got the big bucks, you’re helping to destroy its soul. If your favorite company gets brought out by some suit-and-tie who has never even stood on a board of any kind, and you’re still thinking about buying their products . . .

DON’T DO IT.”

Don’t destroy snowboarding’s soul, hey. Avoid the Nike bandwagon. The industry has enough of that crap already.

A couple posts back I mentioned the Zoom tours that Auckland Zoo offered. Well. As a part birthday celebration/part cheering-up adventure, The Fourth Quarter and I went on the African Zoom Tour, which involved feeding a Giraffe, a fantastic 49 year old Hippo named Snorkel, patting a TWO TONNE Rhino, and feeding two, quite large lions. LIONS!!

It was an amazing experience, and I was stoked to find out that at least half of the (hefty) ticket price was put towards conservation efforts to protect the wild brethren of those we got to meet.

I was blown away by the privilege of being so close to such fantastic animals. All of which had amazing personalities unique to themselves – that’s not something your often privy to when you visit the zoo. The Hippo, for example, was incredibly stubborn and toyed with us until bribes were offered. Once she was fed she offered her chin up for a rub! The Rhino was the same, once recovered from the shock of actually TOUCHING a Rhino, if you slapped him hard enough, he would lean into the wooden posts the same way a dog would lean into your legs if they enjoyed the contact.

The Lions were AMAZING, on learning the meat (delivered with tongs in case our fingers resembled meat) was all gone the second in command growled his displeasure. And it was such a FANTASTIC bass-y bellow!

But the best bit? The best bit was walking past the signs that said ‘Authorised Staff Only’, and getting to see the back end of the Zoo. How things were run, the pipes and little things that keep the Zoo turning. It made the Zoo alot more *real* for me, and I was just blown away by how much work and effort goes into providing the best possible life for these animals. How much effort goes into running a sustainable business – they aren’t connected to the mains, and collect their own water. They recycle approximately 85% of their waste, and are incredibly environmentally aware. Props to them, I say!

It was such an amazing day, well worth the price tag and an experience that I would recommend to anyone. It really was that fantastic!

Last week I faithfully accompanied The Square along to one of those random things that crop up. That week, it was fire play. With actual fire.

We went into one of the many inner city parks, where the slinky sounds of shapeshifter were rocking, and in the midst of a circle of rocks, people were playing with fire. Fire Staffs, Fire Poi, Fire Juggling Sticks, even a Fire Hula Hoop – it was pretty impressive.

I got to twirl the Third Quarters flaming staff, and a guy tried to teach me fire poi (without the flames, which is lucky cause I hit myself with them more than once).

Photographic proof that I twirled, and twirled, and twirled.

I was impressed with the atmosphere – everyone was there to have a good time, some people were rocking out with musical instruments (the Third Quarter brought her didjereedoo, which was a huge hit) and everyone was happy for everyone else to have a go. Multiple people tried to teach me how to be coordinated, which was extremely nice of them. It had a slightly hippy feel to it, but as the smell of weed wafted through the park I figured it was just another added bonus to the atmosphere. After all, you don’t often find the straight and narrow housewives twirling fire poi’s around, now do you?

This is JB, the fire twirling master extraordinaire, the Third Quarter, and me. Despite reeking of kerosene, and shivering in the cold, it was a completely awesome night :)

Last weekend, as part of a cheering-up exercise, the Fourth Quarter and I made a spontaneous trip out to the Auckland Zoo. I’d forgotten how much I like the zoo, delighting in the tigers with their big paws and lazy demeanor. We watched the otters scavenge for food (often using gravity to help them get the food down quickly). We saw the elephants, and a single (!) sad dejected monkey. We saw a hippo chomp his way through some hay, admired a giraffe’s long neck and the muscles it has to keep it’s long neck upright, and a single kiwi who looked a little bit mad. It was all very, very exciting.

What wasn’t so exciting though, were the signs that said ‘Keepers Only’. I did lots of peering to see what was behind them. Often it was nothing exciting, just the hidden parts that make the zoo go round. Pipes, cleaning equipment, etc etc. Still, it made me curious, and after some hunting on the web, I found this:

Auckland Zoo Zoom Tours.

ZOOOOM tours! Behind the scenes experiences! Meet the animals – and feed them! The Lions, and Hippos and Lemurs! Clean the Elephants, Hang with the tigers!

And best of all? Getting to go past the ‘Keepers Only’ signs.

I’m *ever* so excited :) Me and the Fourth Quarter have already booked our places in the next ‘African’ Tour. Can’t wait!