Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ

Actually I'm about 3000km from there, but same country, anyway.

10 Good Things about the US:

1. Wireless broadband in hotels - I can listen to George, bFM and Twisted (but not Radio NZ).
2. Dance record stores like these guys - open until 10pm allegedly. Yup - I know the market in AKL is probably too thin to justify opening late, but it would be good for those of us who have day jobs - e.g. everyone except Greg Churchill (I suspect).
3. Home Depot - every kind of home and garden tool you might want - and quality kit not 10c crap like the Warehouse.
4. American Beer - yes I am not kidding you - our friends here now produce some excellent brews - and quite a lot cheaper than NZ.
5. Being able to listen to the air traffic control on the inflight audio (on internal flights). Makes the flight much more interesting - also you know when and why you're running late (I guess). That's probably why Air NZ doesn't offer this!
6. It's summer!
7. Not being constrained by NZ court orders forbidding naming the drug case accused. All I can say is 'Pinetree' - really, who would have thought it.
8. People go to the pub on school nights - actually I'm not sure whether NZ has the same percentage of hardened drinkers who go boozing on a Monday as elsewhere, but our population is too small to make a quorum, or that our salary/beer price ratio is too low to make midweek drinking affordable so everyone gets pissed at home.
9. Most people seem to drive their automobiles like A-B machines rather than as in some sort of Kaikohe Demolition reenactment.
10. Only four more years of Bush!

And 10 less good things:

1. Absurd security at immigration. Particularly dumb is that when flying on Air NZ from AKL-LHR, you have to check into the USA. This is actually insecurity - if you are a dodgy character with no valid reason to enter the US, no cash, nowhere to stay, etc, you can front up with an onward ticket to London, get "admitted", wander off into LA, sell the ticket and become a wetback.
2. Having to queue for nearly an hour for car rental while people quibble over the kind of waivers and options they need, the agents try and upsell them, five types of id get checked and copied into the computer.
3. Getting a free *upgrade* to a full-size. There's one of me - why do I need a four door gas guzzler (GM product, natch) with such retro features as a pedal footbrake, three on the tree gearchange, bench front seats and doors that lock when you get in! Why can't they rent out Toyotas (actually seeing the price of USD23k I do see some logic).
4. American radio and TV - but at least I don't need to listen to the former much..
5. The power leads are subtly different and I forgot to get an adaptor *before* leaving Auckland.
6. Being in the back of nowhere with a choice of one pub.
7. I'm missing the skiing - just as it's turned good.
8. Too much beer, to much food, not enough exercise.
9. Four-way stops. Just *who* has right of way? Ok - it's first to arrive, first to go - like that'd work in NZ!
10. Four more years of Bush, then Arnie if they pass the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment.

Escaping the election

I'm off to the USA for the next two weeks. Yay! Yay!

Boondocks of freaking nowhere, however, but at least one can more or less guarantee that neither Don Brash or the regrettable Mr Peters will be on the telly.

Might post updates if I come across anything of interest..

Funding education

The removal of interest on student loans - as promised by Labour - would, I think, be a good thing. Former students won't be burdened by debt, new students won't be put off and the public purse will be more likely to collect on the principal of the loan, which we won't if people disappear overseas and never return.

How can education funding be improved for *new* students? I'd suggest the following:

- A two year, full time (48 week) standard degree. This would be able to cover the same ground academically as the current standard of three short years. It would cost roughly 80% of the fees for a three year degree. It would save students a lot of money in subsistence costs, due to only spending two years in college. It would also get people into the graduate workforce quicker, which would be good for the students *and* the overall economy.

- An entitlement for everyone to have the (cost) equivalent of five years post-18 training - this could be anything from a degree to subsidised workplace training.

- Every tertiary institution being required to move towards zero-fee courses. If Southland Tech can manage it, why can't others?

Gee! Mail!

I just signed up for a gmail account - to use for blog communication and so forth. Gmail is wierd - it's been on beta now for over a year - they must have ironed the technical bugs out.

But you have to jump through a small hoop to get an account - there's no "sign up here" page - instead, you need to go to something like http://www.bytetest.com/ and get an invite. Apparently, they used to be sought after and sold - now, people just donate unwanted invites to a pool.

Why is this? Possibly Google lose money on each account - 2G of disk space costs a few dollars a year to maintain and if gmail accounts are mostly secondary emails, then ad traffic might not be enough to cover this.

Ultimate geek toy

I got one of these for my birthday!

















It's a binary LED watch. You have to read it by pressing the button and then converting the led pattern from binary to decimal. Possibly the most outstandingly geeky device ever! Thank you sis!

Now, should I buy myself an Oakley Thump or wait for the next generation of MP3 player sunnies with built in WiFi?