( ... still alive and blogging ... )

So, with a title like Snakes On A Plane, who would have expected there would be motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane? I joined the in crowd and saw the premiere of SoaP tonight at the Metreon in downtown San Francisco. The best part was the crowd counting down to the moment when the snakes first appeared, then throwing handfuls of plastic snakes up in the air. Best premiere since Star Trek: First Contact! (Yes, I'm a huge dork, but you knew that already.)

You should go see it because Samuel L. Jackson is a complete badass. If I found myself 30,000 feet in the sky surrounded by venomous snakes, he's the guy I would want handling the situation.

This post covers logistics from my recent trip to New Zealand, for posterity and in case any readers might be planning a trip. We mostly used the Lonely Planet guide to do our research, as well as lots of Web surfing. The Rough Guide was recommended as an alternative to LP by those we met.

Our vacation schedule worked out so we both had time off in the winter. We both love snowboarding and skiing (she's the skier) so a long ski trip would have been fun. But J has never been overseas, and she wanted to go somewhere warm, so we decided to go off to the antipodes.

First things first. Got J a passport and bought our nonstop tickets from San Francisco to Auckland on New Zealand Air. I highly recommend NZA. The cabins are spacious, the service first rate, and there was no shortage of food, snacks, or wine. They have a modern in-flight entertainment system with lots of good recent movies (some indie ones too). Thirteen hours is a long, long flight but NZA makes it about as comfortable as it can be.

Visitors from the United States can enter NZ with a tourist visa waiver; proof of return travel is required.

At the airport we bought prepaid SIM cards from Vodafone for my two unlocked GSM mobile phones. We didn't use them a lot, and have a lot of minutes left, but when we did they came in quite handy. (Anybody need sim cards for NZ? Email me.)

We decided not to get a car. I don't like driving to begin with, and I was even less willing to man the wheel since it meant driving on the left. Plus, we decided that a car is a hassle to park and refuel, and the driver has to worry about driving and can't enjoy the scenery. Instead we booked a Tranz Scenic rail pass, which includes ferry crossings to the South Island. The train was an enjoyable, relaxing way to travel, and we got to see a lot of the countryside. However, it tends to run very late - we were stuck at one station for over 2 hours! (Also, the food on board leaves a lot to be desired.) When we didn't take the train, we got around by a combination of tour buses, shuttles, taxis, and our own four feet.

Now, for our next trip to the South Island, we will probably get a car. It's just nice to have the flexibility to roam freely and not be tied to a train/shuttle/bus schedule. It also means a lot less hauling of luggage, which we were both tired of by the end. Just in case we got International Driver's Permits from AAA. (More on the luggage situation later.)

New Zealand welcomes tourists. Not only are the residents very friendly and helpful, but every city and town has a well staffed "iSite" tourist center. The center usually also serves as the bus station, and most have cafés and luggage lockers. The center staff will book accommodations and arrange shuttle transportation - crucial when you get dropped off the bus and realize you are miles from your lodging.

New Zealand food, particularly outside the major cities, derives its heritage from English food. Lots of sandwiches, tea, fish and chips, steaks, and beer. The food in the cities is much more diverse and interesting, with lots of good fresh seafood as well as Indian, Italian, and modern fusion offerings. All of the wine I had was excellent. I predominantly drank Chardonnay and Sauvingnon Blanc as my diet is heavy in seafood. New Zealand whites have rich, robust flavor that doesn't overwhelm the palate but instead rewards a second glass. New Zealand, being a former member of the Empire, serves tea everywhere, but espresso is the trendy drink.

The New Zealand doesn't stay up late, particularly in rural areas. We found this out the hard way when we arrived at one hotel late and couldn't get anything to eat past eight! We ended up ordering room service. If you like to keep a late schedule, keep this in mind.

Internet access generally wasn't a problem, except for the most remote areas. I used credit cards for most purchases, and for cash I converted travellers' checques at banks (there is a nominal fee). New Zealand isn't really that cheap. I would say prices were generally less than expensive parts of the United States, but only by about 30%. New Zealand economy (fueled by tourism) is growing rapidly and it's affected both exchange rates and prices.

The last item: luggage. I brought a small (35L) and large (50L) backpack. If I really needed to, I could wear both at the same time (one on the front), but it wasn't the most comfortable arrangement. J brought a backpack and a 25-inch rolling trolley from Hideo Wakamatsu. She bought it because it was pink and it was pretty. It was not cheap. If you are ever considering buying HW luggage, consider:

• The sides are soft ABS plastic that marks easily. The first time she took it on a trip it was abused by the baggage handlers and it ended up with big black streaks all over it.
• As we were leaving for the airport, the latch broke and we could not close the trolley. It is poorly designed and easily bent if you close the trolley while the latches are closed. In a panic we took the trolley to the store (fortunately nearby) and they swapped a new latch in.
• While we were in NZ, one of the four wheels jammed and broke its axle. J spent the rest of the trip rolling it upside down.

Suffice to say J is looking for new luggage.

Except for the trolley, we didn't run into any major difficulties during the trip. Surprising, perhaps, because we didn't invest that much time in advance planning. We had lodging and most of the major travel legs figured out, but the rest we made up as we went. If you want to go somewhere overseas where you'll get the maximum enjoyment for the minimum effort and stress, I would say it's hard to beat New Zealand.

Technorati Tags: newzealand, travel

I've finally stopped procrastinating and uploaded the pictures from my trip to New Zealand. I had a new camera so I was trigger happy; I've already made a pass or two to pick out the ones I liked, but apologies if there are just too many.

Suffice to say New Zealand is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It was pretty easy to take pictures that I'll enjoy for a long time. I'll follow up with a longer post on my travel experiences and some of the people we met there.

I used Apple's iWeb to generate these albums. It's not terribly impressive. It's very slow, can only handle 99 photos per album page, and the templates aren't really customizable. It generates pretty ugly HTML (probably non-validating) with a lot of inline Javascript and CSS, and absolutely positions everything. Oh well. If you have problems viewing the photos let me know and I'll find something better.

Technorati Tags: newzealand, photos, travel

Inspired by Larry Page's keynote address at CES, I've delved back into Google Video's user-uploaded videos and found a valuable repository of slack. Since Google Video doesn't really have a browse feature, you can search for random things or just keep clicking "Popular" until something good comes up. Here are some highlights:

• The Poop Today? video shown at CES. Oddly compelling.
• The Back Dormitory Boys doing As Long As You Love Me. Hey, they have their own website, too. This blog post has more of their videos.
• There is a subgenre of self-made or mashup videos of Madonna's Hung Up. Here's one, and another, or search for more.
• Priceless.
• Emily Fox setting the cup stacking world record.
• Barney vs. Tupac.
• Octopus eats shark.

It's the time of year to join together with friends and family and reflect on what's most important in our lives, that, of course, being football.

The NFL regular season is winding down, with the last week being all but meaningless now that the playoff matchups are set. Here are my picks.

AFC

Jacksonville at New England. New England by 7. New England has been the best team in the AFC down the stretch. Teams from Florida don't win at Foxboro in January, period.

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati. Pittsburgh by 3. They split in the regular season and I still don't believe Cincy is for real.

New England at Denver. New England by 3. An epic matchup between cold weather teams. I predict a 50% chance of snow and overtime.

Pittsburgh at Indianapolis. Indy by 7. Too many weapons for Pittsburgh to cope.

New England at Indianapolis. New England by 1. Peyton still can't win the big game. Tom and Adam can.

NFC

Carolina at New York Giants. Giants by 2. The Giants have played inconsistently this season but they will keep it together at home.

Washington at Tampa Bay. Tampa by 10. Yawn.

New York Giants at Seattle. Seattle by 7. The Giants played the 'Hawks to a draw last time (more or less). Seattle's fresh legs and home town verve will carry the day.

Tampa Bay at Chicago. Chicago by 7. Chicago is Urlacher's house. Also see comment above about teams from Florida. The only question: will Tampa score at all?

Chicago at Seattle. Seattle by 7. In Alexander we trust.

Super Bowl XL

New England vs. Seattle. Seattle by 1. My Boston friends will hate me, but this is the year that the torch is passed back to the NFC. It's up to Hasselback to prove he can lead his team to eternal glory.

Selected College Bowls

I am skipping all the "toilet" bowls featuring 6-5 teams. C'mon, a bowl game used to mean you finished well above .500. I'm also not putting a line on my bowl picks because the college game is too wacky to begin with.

Alamo Bowl - Michigan vs. Nebraska. Pick: Michigan. Michigan was overrated all season and finished below just ahead of Iowa (25) and Northwestern (unranked) in the Big Ten. But they are battle-tested from that competitive conference and will devour a flabby, pasty offering from the Big Twelve.

Holiday Bowl - Oregon vs. Oklahoma. Pick: Oregon. Oregon deserved a BCS bid and got screwed. They have something to prove, and Oklahoma will be the unfortunate victim of the Ducks' wroth.

Sun Bowl - Northwestern vs. UCLA. Pick: Northwestern. Brett Basanez is the most underrated passer in the college game. He has more YPG and the same completion percentage as Matt Leinart (and he's not surrounded by first round draft picks.) Moreover he can pull a victory out of places where the sun doesn't shine.

Fiesta Bowl - Ohio State vs. Notre Dame. Pick: Ohio State. This is the best matchup of the BCS. Ohio State is tough, tough, tough. Notre Dame will push them hard but fall short.

Sugar Bowl - West Virginia vs. Georgia. Pick: WV. Georgia isn't the same team without their starting QB.

Orange Bowl - Florida State vs. Penn State. Pick: Penn State. Somehow, the 'Noles backed into the BCS at 7-4. Despite their home field advantage, Joe will go old school on them and show them how things are done in the Big Ten.

Rose Bowl - Texas vs. USC. Pick: USC. This will hopefully be an entertaining game. When USC brings their A game, they score at will. Hard to beat that.

UPDATE: Fact checking shows that Michigan beat Northwestern and Iowa head-to-head so I guess you can't say they finished behind them in the Big Ten. But Michigan is still overrated.

Technorati Tags: football

I've finally got my Blogger Mobile moblog spiffed up and ready for public consumption. It has its own feed too, if you're into that sort of thing. It's been around for about a month, but it's now integrated with the main blog. The pic on the right should be my most recent snap (or at least if my Python skills hold up). There have been a few other design changes to the main blog while I am at it. Always a work in progress...