If you chose option b, congratulations, you are Fergus Cleaver.

And then let’s say that you’re the marketing person who receives a one word reply. Do you
a) ignore it or
b) reply back thanking them for their professionalism, and cc it in to the marketing departments of all the other liquor companies in town?

If you chose option b, congratulations, you work for Tiger Beer.

I tried to tell her that I’d never even considered it, but when Jo makes “suggestions”, it’s very similar to the Mafia telling you what to do except with a “I mean, if you want to” tacked on at the end. So I managed to find myself a friend with a car and we went out on a Dog Out to do some Serious Investigative Journalism. Read on for the (SPOILER ALERT!) very boring results.

Our first stop was the bottom car park at Mount Eden, because it was 10pm by the time I had persuaded my driver friend to participate in my crazy scheme, and the Wellingtonista comments said that it closed at 11pm. We saw nothing and no one, but it was a nice spot for me to have a quick smoke in. I hope that’s not tapu. So instead, we set off down Mt Eden Road towards our next destination.

Onehunga went through a bit of a stage of being the hot place to buy houses, at least according to one Metro article one time or something but it is not a hot place for dogging. We went to the Orpheus Street Reserve, and there was a souped up car full of teenagers who were drinking RTDs, except for the driver, we’re assuming. They didn’t appear to be having sex, but beneath all those baggy hoodies, who could really tell?

We had planned to go to Murphys Bush Reserve but it looked too far away according to Google, so we hopped on the motorway and went to look for “auckland domain still has a gravel car park on the northern end, off the road that leads to the port motorway that can be good at times”. Honestly, by that stage I was far too stoned to navigate and was much keener to find a drive-through Wendy’s, so we returned to Mount Eden for salted goodness, went home, and downloaded some porn instead. Sorry Auckland, I will try to be a better journalist next time, I swear.

Vodafone is making it even easier for people to connect to the internet – wherever they are – with the launch of revamped mobile data pricing and a smart backend that reformats webpages for easy viewing on a mobile screen.

Now, for up to just $1 a day on the days you use it, casual users of the mobile internet can browse the world wide web easily and inexpensively… without committing to a fixed monthly data contract.

The new $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data.

And how do we know this is actually true? Because we’ve got a new Nokia 6121. And even more excitingly, we’ve got one to give away, so you can have a chance to find out for yourself too. Find out how after the jump.

We want to know how you would use your Nokia 6121 in Auckland. Post your answer in the comments section.

Your story could be as simple as:
“I want to be able to use Vodafone’s mobile internet to cheat when I’m doing the pub quiz up at Shadows”

or it could be wildly creative (and we encourage this!) like:

“As I was drinking at the King’s Arms one rainy Sunday, I noticed that my favourite musician was standing at the bar. Thanks to the gossip I read on the Aucklandista I knew he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, and I was hoping he was up for some consolation shagging. But how to get his attention? I’d tried talking to him before at the Rising Sun but he’d ignored me. Hmmm. A flash of inspiration hit me, and I pulled out my phone and quickly downloaded his latest single and set it as my ring tone. Desperate, I know, but his jeans were so tight I needed some way to get into them. A quick text to my friend had her call me when I was standing right next to him. I pretended to blush, as he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. A couple of Epic beers later, and we were on our way to his musty Grey Lynn basement for ‘band practice’…”

The judges will pick five of the best stories and draw the winner at random from those entries.

Here are the rules of the competition.

1. Your answer must include the name of the phone company, and some aspect of Auckland that makes it the awesome city that it is.
2. You must live in Auckland and have a Auckland postal address for us to send the phone to if you win. (Psst, check out the Wellingtonista if you’re not from around here)
3. The members of the Aucklandista and their partners (PAGS) are not eligible to enter, although we encourage them to tell us a story anyway.
4. You have from now until noon Wednesday August 27 to post your entry.
5. The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

let’s stop for a cone

Originally uploaded by solidstate_

Hello, Auckland. You seem nice, but you can take your bloody hand off my leg. Let’s talk instead – I mean, really talk, not just you nod and grunt over top of your boner (is he finished yet? should I go get my pants?). A word about you.

See, I’ve been giving this some thought, and this is what I came up with. It isn’t me. It’s you. Don’t take this the wrong way – I mean, I don’t want you to think that I’m claiming some sort of inherent perfection, just because I’m taller, smarter, more handsome and have better social skills. I’m just trying to clear the air.

And, I also don’t want you to think that just because I’m another economic migrant from the 0-4 who’s had it up to here (see where I’m gesturing?) with Wellington and it’s pomposity, that this is another compare and contrast where we realise that your city council hasn’t plunged fifty percent of its revenues into statues and paving stones, and that Peter Jackson bypassed your ass, and you suck. No, not at all. Au contraire! Not at all, really.

I have five questions. Riddle me these, and then we can all go home. Slowly.

one: how come, having spent ten bajillion dollars on a central city makeover, it still only looks like your designers had a spare eighty bucks and spent half an hour in Bunnings?

two: how come you hate pedestrians so much? Can’t cross the road without waiting for a long while, in a blitzkreig of rain, with nothing to cower under. If lucky, will skidd A-over-kite on one of those yellow things by the cross lights.

three: where are all your street signs?

four: what’s so nice about Parnell? It looks to me like Parnell is going out of its way not to have a personality.

five: a lot of animal statues. Are you primitive heathen spellcaster fetishists? That’s only incidentally sexy.

Look, don’t feel free to answer all at once. Because, I want you to know that there are things I love about Auckland. One, it doesn’t seem to give a fuck about the rest of the country, it just does its own thing. Two, people put road cones on horse statues, and, for that matter, road cones where ever they fucking please – I don’t know what makes all that so nice, but I don’t think it matters. Three, the food is great, and four…

Four is my favourite. Four is, inside an ugly duckling of a town, inside the Auckland that is “competing with Sydney and Brisbane and New York” according to the mayor, but isn’t actually in their league (“well, the shortlist is New York or Auckland…hmmm…”) is a beautiful town just waiting for a golden age. hey, Auckland, you’re pretty cute at the right angles. Sign me up.

(Psst, looks like TVNZ shot their load a little early…)

Devonport and Bayswater residents working in the CBD (or within striking distance of Britomart) have one of the loveliest commutes around – they get to take the ferry across the Waitemata harbor. It’s a very relaxing, urbane and zen way to get to work, which is lucky as the peninsula is a harder drive out of than a lake of chainsaws, the one road in and out is notoriously congested, even more so with the new cycle ways. Predictably, residents are queuing up to hand back their MBEs, claiming the lanes create traffic purgatory. I bike from the East Coast Bays to the Bayswater ferry a couple of times a week to get to work, so here’s a little tour from the velo-point of view.

Lake Road, between Esmonde and Hauraki Corner.

A horrible stretch of road. No bike ways here, but four lanes of impatient traffic with rough, bumpy tarmac. Frankly, this is a shit to cycle as there’s very little room for cars to pass, and it’s often congested, especially at the weekend for some reason.

The road works at the Lake Road / Esmonde Road intersection aren’t helping, in fairness. Their completion may be the key to making the whole thing tick. To me, this is one of the most dangerous and narrow stretches, and we could really use some bike lanes here!

BP Station, cnr Lake Road and Hororata Rd

This is better. Wide, single lane traffic that is rarely congested at the times I ride it (between 7 and half past).

There’s no parking on either side, which helps, as riding past parked cars with people potentially opening their doors in front of you is probably the biggest obstacle to keeping your nice helmet in one piece.

Lake Road, near Takapuna Grammar

This is the section that’s upsetting everyone. Cyclists look at this and think perfect, a nice wide street with plenty of room between you and the cars, while motorists look at it and think where did my lanes and parking go?

People that write letters to editors claim school children are in danger of being run down by impatient motorists (what, they weren’t impatient before?) running red lights at Takapuna Grammar’s crossing. This is people on bikes’ fault, apparently.

Belmont Shops

Lake Road’s cycle ways are like cats, they come and go as they please. In this busy section of dairies and pizza places with people coming, going and opening car doors like they’ve dropped their cigarette, you’re on your own.

Overall, I think Lake Road’s cycle ways are flawed. For motorists, there’s no bus alternative, and that may have been the spoonful of sugar to go with this medicine. For cyclists, it’s better than before, but the sections without lanes remain as dangerous as ever.

Forcing the lanes on resistant residents who have real trouble seeing last the hood ornament was always a flawed strategy – it’s got people talking, though, check out the Metro debate here (what about that picture!). It’s admirable to aim for an Amsterdam-style cycling paradise, but is it realistic? I’ve not seen any increase in bikes on the ferry since the lanes arrived, with about eight per crossing. It does rain a lot here, you know.

If you ever wondered what happened to the films on those clunky black tapes, and struggle finding them nowadays among 50 copies of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, you’re in luck. Turns out they’re all available on DVD in the Queen Street JB HiFi’s bargain bin for seven dollars each.

Today’s perusal uncovered sub-Top Gun flick Iron Eagle, featuring Louis Gosset and a kick arse Queen theme tune, Steve Martin’s The Jerk, which was technically made in 1979, but remains a stalwart of ’80s video shops nonetheless, David Cronenberg’s weird-ass Videodrome, which bought James Woods and Debbie Harry together at last, and, um, Streets of Fire. Ahem.

This bin is AMAZING, and if I’m heading past I have to cross the street for fear of enthusiastically emptying my wallet all over it. I picked up Friday the 13th and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes on one particularly vulnerable day – I blame the “I’m Cheap, Buy Me!” stickers. The stock seems to turn over fairly regularly, and is fully worth a trawl if your self-control is any better than mine.

It was so delicious, in fact, that when we were waiting the next day for our ride to our wine day out, we went back to thank him for his splendid advice. When we said that we’d buy more except that we were Matakana-bound, he gave us enthusiastic advice about which vineyards we should go to, and which ones were skippable. It was very obvious that they only stock wines that they drink and love. I was also impressed when he gave me his card so that I can email him to find out where I can buy that wine that I loved in Wellington, except that I’ve forgotten its name. Chances are Kevin would remember though. Artisan Wine Suppliers for the win! Such lovely friendly thoughtful service. We’re recommending it to everyone we know.

Like many Kiwis, my morbid fear of public transport was broken on my OE. What’s not to like? There’s reading time, no parking, and you can get home easily and cheaply when you’re drunk. Best of all you don’t have to battle Auckland’s motorways, where the most mild-mannered person goes through a werewolf-like transformation into a slavering, horn leaning cretin. It’s not nice.

So imagine my delight to discover there was actually a pretty decent bus service, thanks to the Park and Ride stations, and it was only going to get better with the Northern Busway, two gleaming lanes of new tarmac solely for buses. Perfect. The lanes were opened for testing in December, and all of a sudden it was only 15 minutes from Constellation drive to Britomart. Magic.

But, trust the Herald to stick a fly in the bus driver’s jam sandwich. On Monday, the FIRST DAY the new lanes opened, they set three reporters racing from Campbell’s Bay into town, and declared the car the winner. There’s two (main) reasons this test was flawed:

A. It’s school holidays. Instead of forcing children to walk to school barefoot through the frost like it was in my day, Auckland parents drive their kids to school every day in a Hummer. And you know what chaos loads of Hummers can bring, with Iraq being the prime example.

B. The two reporters travelling by bus were held up by a breakdown in the bus lane, while the reporter in the car breezed by in the inside lanes. No fair!

If this test was performed a dozen times, the park and ride bus would trounce the car by some distance – and it’s loads quicker the other way, when traffic can be pretty horrendous. To me, it’s kinda sneaky of the Herald to say cars are quicker.

In fairness, Errol Kiong who travelled by car had the good humour to write “I can’t help but feel I’ve helped doom the planet.”, while cumudeonly Campbell’s Bay resident John Roughan happily admitted he didn’t know where his local park and ride WAS, before signing off with “And do I miss the car really? Yes, I do.” Good on ya John, good luck with the gridlock and the Classic Hits breakfast crew, fella.

Admittedly, it’s sometimes fiddly to make connecting buses or trains, and when you mention it’s $4.30 each way, people say “well, I may as well bring my car!”, but I got to travel to work this morning with my girl, in great time, with a spectacular view of the harbour and city on a cloudless day on one side, and a clogged motorway full of stressed people sitting alone in their cars on the other. And I’ll be having a few beers after work tonight while John Roughan’s stuck on the bridge wishing he’d got around to fixing his aircon. To me, that’s a no-brainer.