But did you see this! I have opinions on the NZ uniform. Most of the other ones made me sad for our ninja hiding in the shadows look. (Brazil and Lithuania were outstanding!)
bsky.app/profile/roby...
The NZ Winter Olympic uniform looks like it was inspired by ur uncle going to see the All Blacks x ur teen goth cousin
Black is a very subdued colour, so they've thrown in a little teal to break up the funeral monotone. I'm sure it's functional sportswear but it's not ✨stirring✨
I knew if I logged on to Bsky, there would be people in mourning over the end of FluTracking
Gasp! I have only just seen this and it is amazing. I need NZ to be part of it, like a hot farmer type fellow
Duolingo is getting interesting
My other David Lynch adjacent story - the time in 1997 when I saw an elderly couple at the Rialto ask for tickets to "Lost Horizon" (a 1937 Frank Capra film). Except it wasn't screening. They had mistaken Lost Highway for their classic fave. (The cinema worker didn't notice and sold them the tix! 😬)
It was very upsetting!
Then one morning I arrived at school and someone had written on the blackboard by the quad "TWIN PEAKS - WHO KILLED LAURA PALMER? IT WAS HER FATHER" 😭
In the early 90s, when Twin Peaks was screening in NZ, the series had already screened in the US, but the identity of Laura Palmer's killer was a closely kept secret in NZ. Lack of the internet meant it was very easy to keep that info from most NZers...
For the last week or so, whenever I go on TikTok I am mostly getting content from non-Americans which feels like a deliberate tweak so on the 19th I'm not alarmed by all the quirky Irishmen in my FYP
I’ve had a glimpse of what TikTok will be like if American users are blocked. I keep getting ads for a British micro series called Desired By My Unknown Husband. It involves one man who marries another man to please his grandmother, but neither of them know the identity of the other, drama ensues
The best songs by NZ artists in 2024 were:
"Girl, So Confusing featuring Lorde" by Charli XCX (not a NZer) and Lorde (from Devonport)
"APT" by Rosé (born in NZ) and Bruno Mars (not a NZer but born in Hawaii, so)
I got a Christmas card from the NZ Attitudes and Values Study (Auckland Uni). The card design is a surreal AI landscape with an aggressively large pohutukawa and an invasion of fur seals.
AI doesn’t apparently doesn’t know that pohutukawa grows in the north and fur seals are found in the south
This sounds so good and I absolutely want to try it!
The Spinoff have ranked the malls of Hamilton and they had the same ranking as mine! 💅
Though they included MADE as a mall but tbh I personally would not include that because it does not have an anchor tenant. (But that was not their criteria so)
thespinoff.co.nz/business/06-...
Spotify Wrapped is still fun but I liked it better before they laid off the genres guy and started making up genres like this. (RIP Escape Room)
I think a lot about the kind of fancy ads I used to get on Twitter - Apple, even a luxury car. Now it’s always weird stuff based on drop shipping
Oh nice! I even have one of his Little Sun lights
Right! New social media, new me! 🥰
I think a lot about the time in 2010 when everyone on NZ twitter was making fish puns and how none of those tweets would make any sense now
There's a thing that will import all ur old tweets to bluesky. But I'm like, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to preserve ur quirky toots from the before time? (All tweets from the 2010s should be DELETED with urgency)
The Spinoff is doing a series where they rank and review the malls of NZ cities. I don't know if they have any plans to do Hamilton, but if anyone is interested this is how it is:
1. Te Awa
2. Chartwell
3. Centre Place
4. Glenview
But secretly, Glenview is actually no.1
I’m sure I’ve been getting a few follows from colleagues of a lady in Australia who shares my name. She’s a scientist and so it’s all these academics who will not find what they’re looking for around here
It’s wild, they added a minor scene with a talking kangaroo, and changed the film title and trailer edit to make it seem like it was a family friendly film about a talking kangaroo, not a crime comedy
I went onto Facebook (lol) and it gave me a fun post by Hilary Barry (I don’t follow her) about having a bright green rental car. There were NO comments about the car being Brat and that is why the death of the monoculture is achingly real
And pls watch the video of Miss NZ presenting the costume. All the contestants get a rhyming couplet from the emcee, so hers is "This adaptive bird / Needs to be heard" 👍
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiVK...
The "national costume" section has moved well away from literal national costumes and is more like carnival outfits. NZ's costume understands the assignment. It's extravagant but also keeps the monochrome NZness. And tbh you can't go wrong with a native bird
Every time Miss Universe comes around, I'm always interested to see what Miss NZ wears (or if there even is a Miss NZ). This year NZ was represented by Filipino-NZer Victoria Vincent. Her costume is designed by a Filipino designer in collaboration with a Maori designer and represents a piwakawaka
I’m reading this book that’s a history of Hamilton City and I turn the page and suddenly it’s become a weird sci-fi story?
And yes, on 1 June 2026 I will be celebrating the centenary of this important event by driving a car up Mt Eden and leaving it parked with the handbrake off
